I finished a R&F England game after release, and I’m of the opinion that they’re for sure one of the bottom tier Civs after the expansion reworked them. Heck, with this particular change to Pax Britannica, they might just be the worst Civ in the game. Let’s break down why.
British Museum is pretty good, but the fact it only applies to Archeological Museums is a bit underwhelming. The free double themeing garners quite a bit of tourism, but it’s not necessarily as good a late game culture boost as America has, or being a consistently strong culture boost all game like Greece, Kongo, or Egypt. It’s just ok.
England’s unique units are kind of underwhelming. For the archetypical Naval Civ, the Sea Dog isn’t all that powerful. It’s no more stronger than the regular Privateer, and it’s unique ability only works some of the time. The Redcoat is strong, but it’s severely limited by its production; it’s a huge investment to build these things before just upgrading them into infantry anyways. However, there is - or at least was - a way around that limitation, but I’ll get into that later. Overall, the unique units available to England leave a lot to be desired, and don’t make them strong enough by their own merits (like Sumeria, Nubia, and the Aztec).
The RND was the main draw to play England, and it largely still is. A half-cost harbor is a useful bonus, and it still is. The major appeal, however, of the district was that it gave you a trade route while also receiving the trade route from the commercial hub in the same city. This gave England the unique niche of possessing a huge trade network, which could garner you a wide assortment of yields, depending on your trade route focus. That, however, is now gone due to the RND’s rework. It still gives you the same adjacency bonus from settling on a different continent, but it now also gives bonus loyalty. This isn’t very useful. The RND (and consequentially, the loyalty) aren’t going to be built quickly enough in a newly settled city that will gave loyalty pressure on it to be useful. And the bonuses for settling on another continent aren’t all that useful, since Civ as a game does not lend itself very well towards colonization. The crazy yields that you can get via the Free Inquiry golden age dedication are worth mentioning, as I have seen some wild science & production bonuses. However, it’s also worth mentioning that every Civ can make use of this strat, and the extra boost England gets out of it only happens some of the time, and it requires you to force it in an unconventional game style. So the RND went from one of the coolest unique districts to essentially a glorified half-cost harbor, which is disappointing to say the least.
England did have an interesting late-game expansionist twist, and that was through Pax Britannica. Thanks to the settling and conquest of other cities, England received a free Melee unit. This includes the Redcoat, so England could start warmongering after researching military science and receive free Redcoats, snowballing into an unstoppable force for the era. However, thanks to a nerf (I am aware that Firaxis flagged it as a bugfix, but the original wording was for settling or conquering, so I consider it a nerf), England no longer receives the bonus from conquering cities. So this not only removes the second of England’s three compelling uniques (the last remaining being British Museum), and now leaves Pax Britannica as a mediocre ability that doesn’t really work within the context of Civ, but also removes a lot of the utility of the Redcoat. So this one nerf actually hurts England quite a bit.
So, where does this leave England now? In my opinion, in quite a rough space. In vanilla, England was by no means a great Civ, but they were solidly mid-tier. They held a lot of unique niches that no other Civ did, and while they weren’t game breaking like Sumeria, they were strong and fun to play with. Now, those niches are either gone, or are transformed into new niches that are weak and don’t necessarily work within Civ as a game. England in their current state are a bottom-tier Civ, and worst yet, they’re very boring to play.
So how do we fix this? Well for one, you could give Pax Britannica back the bonus for conquering cities. I also wouldn’t change British Museum & the Redcoat, as those uniques are fine. (Well, I mean you could change British Museum to a stronger and maybe more “English” bonus, but for simplicity’s sake let’s leave the uniques that are fine alone. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.) I would personally rework the RND, as its current bonuses are just not that useful. You could give it back it’s extra trade route, give it some special adjacency bonus for being next to a city center (beyond what already exists), or something, because it just simply isn’t good enough now. I might also change the Sea Dog, because it and the movement speed from the RND just isn’t enough to sell England as a dominating naval force. You could remove it and replace it with a Ship of the Line as a unique frigate, to dominate the seas (yes, there are plenty of unique frigates, but the SotL could definitely distinguish itself amongst the others). This would also open up the Sea Dog as a unique for Elizabeth I, should she be added as a unique leader later on.
Anyways, sorry for the rant/blog, I’m just disappointed in how hard England’s been nerfed for no reason other than to orient it towards a game that doesn’t really work all that well.
