[R&F] Should be England be "Un-Nerfed"?

[acluewithout]

Given the other “Un-Nerf” England thread was closed, and given I still had some things to say about England which are not OT, I’ve posted here. I trust that’s okay.

For anyone playing along at home, here are a few more reasons to be cross about England.

England is the only civ with an ability in Vanilla which doesn’t carry over to R&F. England has extra trade routes via trade route stacking in Vanilla. But that ability doesn’t carry over to R&F - England can’t stack routes in R&F and it doesn’t get extra routes any other way. I can’t think of any other Civ that has this problem. The closest is America, which couldn’t carry across its founding fathers ability to R&F, but got an “equivalent” ability so it could (in principle) slot an extra legacy card. Given England got extra routes in Vanilla because they were too weak, you would think it fairly obvious that not giving them an equivalent in R&F would mean they would be very weak.

Pax B’s nerf in R&F (no melee units from conquering) has been carried back to Vanilla. As far as I can work out, England’s Pax B ability was changed in R&F because it was interacting badly with city flipping. If that’s right, then why on earth would it also be nerfed in Vanilla as well where that’s not an issue? So now you can’t even go back to Vanilla to play England as they were!?’

England is the only Civ that doesn’t (really) synergise with R&F. Lots of Civs have gotten “better” because of R&F. Take Spain for example. Spain got some direct buffs to its Missionary in R&F. But it’s had bigger buffs indirectly - making Religions easier to found (techincally that’s from a Vanilla patch), more uses for faith, loyalty from faith (which works very well with their unique unit). All these things help Spain. England doesn’t have “no” synergies..., it has some synergies with Reyna (Harbour / CH stack, although that only helps one city), and Dedications (that Golden Age age of steam thing), but they are very slight compared to synergies eg Spain, France and Germany have gotten.

If anyone else feels strongly about England’s various nerfs, I really would encourage you to post or upvote in Reddit/Civs current Civ of the Week, which this week is England. FXS might see it and might be encouraged to do something. Link here.

 

[Scaramanga]

Extra trade routes are converted into flat loyalty in R&F. The Dutch would need 4 trade routes to compete with that. I wouldn't settle a snowy continent just to get a melee unit unless I also had a shot at a new luxury or the research station wonder. The Sea Dog could potentially be used to harass would-be colonisers before you get your own settlers there. I don't play England much but can understand the downsizing feeling. An England rampaging around Pangea continents is out of the question though.

 

[acluewithout]

Downsizing is a good word.

I don’t agree England’s trade route stacking was “converted” into the RND’s loyalty bonus.

First, it’s not a like for like or equivalent swap. That’s why I gave America as an example. It’s Vanilla founding fathers power was replaced with something that was equivalent under R&F’s rule set. A loyalty boost isn’t equivalent to trade routes. Of course, what I’m saying hinges a bit on what we mean by “converted”. But my point is that England has a power in Vanilla that wasn’t replaced with an equivalent power in R&F.

Second, more importantly, I’m not sure the loyalty boost actually does replace the trade routes. Take Spain as an example. Spain, which is also geared to settling foreign continents, was given a new ability to help it settle foreign continents- ie loyalty from Missions. (Spain then got a further leg up by making Religion affect loyalty). This was necessary, as otherwise Spain would have been undermined by the new loyalty rules. I see England’s loyalty bonus the same way. It’s a new ability to counter the difficulty settling foreign continents. But that means it doesn’t replace England’s trade route stacking.

England got a negative (lose extra trade routes) (-1), got another negative (hurt more than others by loyalty)(-1), got a positive (loyalty from Dockyards)(+1), but is still a net loser (net -1). Actually, it’s even more of a net loser, because in addition to losing stacking it also lost the trade route from just having a harbour thus making its unique (the RND) less valuable (-1). So, really, England is down -2.

Which brings us to Pax B, which was nerfed (-1) and then “un-nerfed” in a way which isn’t at all useful (so, I guess, +0 or +0.2?). So, England is now an even bigger loser. Say, -3 or -2.8 internet points.

I really don’t understand why FXS have struggled to make England good. I think it may not have been that hard to make Pax B work in Pax B. Sure, they needed to lose trade route stacking, but something else could have been done with trade routes. And the loyalty issue could have been resolved in a less blunt way - maybe cities with RNDs get +1 loyalty for every international trade route to that city. As others have pointed out, there are no shortage of solutions for fixing England (although perhaps everyone has a different idea about what the right fix is).

Equally, if FXS felt they couldn’t make them work, then they should have re-worked England. There’s plenty of historical material to work with, but also plenty of material from previous games.

I think maybe modding is the only way forward now, but there are real limits to what you can do. I’ve been working on a mod giving England a extra trade route for each continent it has at least one RND, and that gives it back original flavour Pax B but with some sort of cap or cool down. But I can’t find a way to make either work. It’s hard for me to mod anything more than just flat bonuses, which is not what England needs.

 

[Scaramanga]

Downsizing is a good word.

I don’t agree England’s trade route stacking was “converted” into the RND’s loyalty bonus.

First, it’s not a like for like or equivalent swap. That’s why I gave America as an example. It’s Vanilla founding fathers power was replaced with something that was equivalent under R&F’s rule set. A loyalty boost isn’t equivalent to trade routes. Of course, what I’m saying hinges a bit on what we mean by “converted”. But my point is that England has a power in Vanilla that wasn’t replaced with an equivalent power in R&F.

Second, more importantly, I’m not sure the loyalty boost actually does replace the trade routes. Take Spain as an example. Spain, which is also geared to settling foreign continents, was given a new ability to help it settle foreign continents- ie loyalty from Missions. (Spain then got a further leg up by making Religion affect loyalty). This was necessary, as otherwise Spain would have been undermined by the new loyalty rules. I see England’s loyalty bonus the same way. It’s a new ability to counter the difficulty settling foreign continents. But that means it doesn’t replace England’s trade route stacking.

England got a negative (lose extra trade routes) (-1), got another negative (hurt more than others by loyalty)(-1), got a positive (loyalty from Dockyards)(+1), but is still a net loser (net -1). Actually, it’s even more of a net loser, because in addition to losing stacking it also lost the trade route from just having a harbour thus making its unique (the RND) less valuable (-1). So, really, England is down -2.

Which brings us to Pax B, which was nerfed (-1) and then “un-nerfed” in a way which isn’t at all useful (so, I guess, +0 or +0.2?). So, England is now an even bigger loser. Say, -3 or -2.8 internet points.

I really don’t understand why FXS have struggled to make England good. I think it may not have been that hard to make Pax B work in Pax B. Sure, they needed to lose trade route stacking, but something else could have been done with trade routes. And the loyalty issue could have been resolved in a less blunt way - maybe cities with RNDs get +1 loyalty for every international trade route to that city. As others have pointed out, there are no shortage of solutions for fixing England (although perhaps everyone has a different idea about what the right fix is).

Equally, if FXS felt they couldn’t make them work, then they re-worked England. There’s plenty of historical material to work with, but also plenty of material from previous games.

I think maybe modding is the only way forward now, but there are real limits to what you can do. I’ve been working on a mod giving England a extra trade route for each continent it has at least one RND, and that gives it back original flavour Pax B but with some sort of cap or cool down. But I can’t find a way to make either work. It’s hard for me to mod anything more than just flat bonuses, which is not what England needs.

I see trade routes as enhancing far-flung cities in the same way loyalty keeps them rooted in your empire. They also provide roads to keep them connected and cities with poor loyalty suffer yield penalties where trade routes would enhance them. Loyalty can be gained many ways but it's especially important to the English and Dutch playstyle for it to be connected with trade. The Royal Dockyard just bypasses the micro-managing of individual routes to keep farflung cities loyal and keeps things oriented to the sea (which I see the Dutch frigate doing as well).

 

[Flaxton]

Other issues with England

1. You can't upgrade to a Redcoat
2. The starting position always seems to be coast with no rivers and not much else, very slow start

Can we clarify:

1. Does the +1 from movement from RND still apply if you upgrade your unit?

Personally - I would have England get it's free unit when it hits max loyalty. Thus synergising with the dockyard and historically reflecting the fact that many international recruits into the British Army were volunteers (Irish, Scots, Welsh, Indian, Gurkas etc).

I would only want the double trade routes if they built in an 'automatically renew trade route' option

So much you could do with England; Industrial revolution, exporting wool & cloth, trade, laws, railways, culture etc. Elizabeth's power could be something like Reformation/Church of England: 'Create a new religion in all your cities when Reformed Church is researched' or re-choose your religious abilities again, including powers chosen by other religions.

And lastly - improve the damned White Cliffs of Dover, either add food or allow it to create general points, as it has been a form of fortress and symbolic of Britain for a couple of thousand years.

 

[acluewithout]

So, here’s a question. Was the original Pax B overpowered?

I don’t think so. But here’s what’s been bugging me. When FXSs nerfed England’s Pax B they described it as a bug fix. They then nerfed it in not only R&F but also Vanilla. Then when they “unerfed” it (in the worst way possible) they said it was because Victoria had been nerfed a little too hard. It all feels a bit like a balancing change, suggesting FXS thought it was too powerful.

(An aside: There’s obviously a conversation about whether FXS were being ... accurate ... maybe even truthful... when the described the correction as fixing a bug. Pax B was certainly described in Vanilla as both settling and capturing a city before the fix, so I can’t see it was truly a bug fix, but maybe it was a bug in some “we didn’t design it to work that way but hadn’t noticed our programmers and copy writers had implemented it that way andor on reflection Vicky’s ability meant England wasn’t being played the way we intended”. But let’s not get into that question about accuracy or truthfulness just for a minute.)

Thing is. Lots of Civs and mechanics still use the “on capturing a city” trigger - eg Macedonia and Alex, Zulus, Warlord Throne. Why nerf it for England. Was it because FXS thought it was overpowered? Was it?

Or was it because it didn’t fit how they wanted England played- settling cities rather than capturing them?

Or was it a concern about stacking it with warlords throne? (but then you can sort of also stack the exising ability with Ancestral Hall?)

I’m not being sarcastic. I’m genuinely perplexed.

I never thought Pax B was that powerful for England. It is very powerful once you get going - free Redcoats are lethal especially if you can form corps or armies. But you have to get there first, and England’s starts are usually very weak. And a free unit here or there by itself won’t let you overpower a sufficiently strong opponent - you still need some decent firepower to actually start your snowball.

I’m really stumped what the thinking on this ever was. It’s really quite ... odd.

But if it was about power level, perhaps there are better ways to nerf the ability. Maybe you only get a free unit when you capture or settle a city on a foreign continent and the city is also on the coast?

 

[Victoria]

So, here’s a question. Was the original Pax B overpowered?

If you go back to old threads and look at the enthusiastic English players it was rated at best as a B class civ.
As i argue now... when the AI is playing as Victoria they are a joke, an easy roll... in the old days you may bump into redcoat armies.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

If you go back to old threads and look at the enthusiastic English players it was rated at best as a B class civ.
As i argue now... when the AI is playing as Victoria they are a joke, an easy roll... in the old days you may bump into redcoat armies.

This is true re the waves of Redcoats in the past. Victoria on a roll looked dangerous (Victoria the AI, not Victoria the forum member ... well, maybe both).

I say looked rather than was due to the state of the AI's military capabilities, especially in those earlier days. I'd be much more concerned about those Redcoats in the hands of the AI now, but the likelihood of seeing them seems low.

 

[GT_OKEZ]

If you go back to old threads and look at the enthusiastic English players it was rated at best as a B class civ.
As i argue now... when the AI is playing as Victoria they are a joke, an easy roll... in the old days you may bump into redcoat armies.

To be fair virtually all the Civs are an easy roll on Deity AI. I just finished a game last night and the England AI was just awful. It focused on religion but had mediocre tech and I was able to roll Vicky fairly easily. She settled more cities inland even though she had a wide coast and even settled cities away from fresh water. Nearly all of them had Holy Sites and not much else. The AI algorithms are just not good.

When I'm playing Vicky I like her and if played right she's rather fun. The best is when I spawn on or near a continent split with a near by coast on the other continent.

 

[Victoria]

To be fair virtually all the Civs are an easy roll on Deity AI.

I played Zulu for the first time last night, got some early knight corps and thought faceroll.... then slipped into a golden age 2 turns before I met Mapuche knights with +10 for Crusade and freaked. Sure they are now dead purely because my 4 corps and general outplayed their 6 knights but its about faceroll.
Victoria is faceroll, Mapuche when you are golden ... is not. Yes you win ... but its actually fun to have a challenge.
I only played Zulu because I never had before
Playing Vicky now is not fun.... spinning down the RNDY route on Deity puts you well behind with no Pax to look forward to... and I have played certainly mor ethan 100 games with her and only had continent splits 4 times.

 

[GT_OKEZ]

I played Zulu for the first time last night, got some early knight corps and thought faceroll.... then slipped into a golden age 2 turns before I met Mapuche knights with +10 for Crusade and freaked. Sure they are now dead purely because my 4 corps and general outplayed their 6 knights but its about faceroll.
Victoria is faceroll, Mapuche when you are golden ... is not. Yes you win ... but its actually fun to have a challenge.
I only played Zulu because I never had before
Playing Vicky now is not fun.... spinning down the RNDY route on Deity puts you well behind with no Pax to look forward to... and I have played certainly mor ethan 100 games with her and only had continent splits 4 times.

Yeah Mapuche is a little challenging with their bonus. Or any Civ with DoF and that puts a promoted Victor in their city. But even with those bonuses the AI is just so bad at making smart choices in combat. Point is its still too easy. I've gotten lucky and had many of my games with her continent split. But i haven't played 100 games with her. I get annoyed when the AI goes for a victory type that isn't suited for the Civ like religion with England. IMO England is still powerful, maybe not top tier but still pretty good. The museum is nice especially if you suzy Babylon.

 

[Victoria]

The museum is nice especially if you suzy Babylon.

Museums are quite late in the game.
I have no idea how you can compare a civ with lategame units like sea dog, redcoat and museum and an RNDY that is a Huge pain to get to with no CS support and loss of any chance of district discounts early and say she is pretty good.
Can you state more that 2-3 civs she is better than? I have trouble naming more than 1-2, pretty good means at least better than half.
.... and they really need to buff the US a bit while they are about it.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

An aside: There’s obviously a conversation about whether FXS were being ... accurate ... maybe even truthful... when the described the correction as fixing a bug. Pax B was certainly described in Vanilla as both settling and capturing a city before the fix

I forget what the original text was, but after reading this recall that I didn't think it was strange to get units on city conquest. Did it actually say that you got redcoats for conquering cities?

If the text said this, Firaxis claiming this was a bug is overtly disingenuous, at best. Regardless, I don't think they actually know what balance looks like and just felt like arbitrarily hammering England. Nobody in their right mind would peg England as materially stronger than Rome/Scythia/Mongolia/Arabia/etc, even pre-nerf. Few would even put them on equal footing.

Maybe the best explanation is that someone felt like being petty after England was a strong pick for both Civ 4 and 5, but that's still not a good one .

 

[acluewithout]

If you go back to old threads and look at the enthusiastic English players it was rated at best as a B class civ.
As i argue now... when the AI is playing as Victoria they are a joke, an easy roll... in the old days you may bump into redcoat armies.

Sorry Victoria, I'm probably being thick, but I don't quite understand what you're saying.

I do remember old threads talking about all the free units and snowball being op, particularly in mp, which sort of prompted my question. And maybe it's hard to separate one ability from the entire civ.

But my gut feeling was that Pax B on higher difficulties is not really as powerful as all that. Strong, but no Aztec (for example). You still need a fairly powerful force to take cities and it only really snowballs when you do. I think the AI being a little tougher now, Pax B would certainly not be OP. And even less op when you consider Englands other tame bonuses.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Sorry Victoria, I'm probably being thick, but I don't quite understand what you're saying.

I do remember old threads talking about all the free units and snowball being op, particularly in mp, which sort of prompted my question. And maybe it's hard to separate one ability from the entire civ.

But my gut feeling was that Pax B on higher difficulties is not really as powerful as all that. Strong, but no Aztec (for example). You still need a fairly powerful force to take cities and it only really snowballs when you do. I think the AI being a little tougher now, Pax B would certainly not be OP. And even less op when you consider Englands other tame bonuses.

If she's calling it a B class civilization in vanilla, she's certainly not alleging it as a top tier choice. Even then.

 

[Scaramanga]

But if it was about power level, perhaps there are better ways to nerf the ability. Maybe you only get a free unit when you capture or settle a city on a foreign continent and the city is also on the coast?

That is the same as capturing the city and building a dockyard for the free unit. Maybe a little worse since you don't have to be right on the coast to build the district.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I forget what the original text was, but after reading this recall that I didn't think it was strange to get units on city conquest. Did it actually say that you got redcoats for conquering cities?

If the text said this, Firaxis claiming this was a bug is overtly disingenuous, at best. Regardless, I don't think they actually know what balance looks like and just felt like arbitrarily hammering England. Nobody in their right mind would peg England as materially stronger than Rome/Scythia/Mongolia/Arabia/etc, even pre-nerf. Few would even put them on equal footing.

Maybe the best explanation is that someone felt like being petty after England was a strong pick for both Civ 4 and 5, but that's still not a good one .

My personal conspiracy theory is it's subterfuge by the Scots-loving developer who got the Bruce into the game.

 

[acluewithout]

Thanks. And sorry if my questions or point aren't clear. I'm slighlty thinking out loud, which is always a bad idea.

I get Victoria is saying England weren't seen as top tier - just wasn't clear if she was saying they were tier b or people thought they were tier b but were actually worse than that. Also not sure Victoria was meaning England overall or Pax B specifically.

Also, and perhaps this is where I'm being confusing, but I'm really only thinking about the strength of Pax B, not the strength of the overall civ (although maybe that doesn't make sense to separate them like that).

When I've played England, where Pax B did sometimes seem crazy powerful was when you had Redcoats, could form armies, and your opponent has some low pop cities. You could buy a red coat, conquer easily, combine into a two star unit, and suddenly you were unstoppable and only got more unstoppable - you keep getting redcoats and keep combining them into armies...

...but, that didn't happen every game! Lots of things have to go right (or actually, wrong, because seriously why are you still capturing cities at that point in the game) and even then, I don't see that's more potent than Nubia Archers or Aztec warriors, or Aztec luxe bonus, and those come earlier.

Anyway. The reason I was wondering about limiting it to coastal cities was that, if the (purported) problem is snowballing, then rather than outright remove the ability, perhaps it just could have been capped in some way. So, only coastal cities (not going to be too many of those).

I also do find it really weird the "bonus on capture city" mechanic has actually expanded in RnF, but got nerfed for England. That, the whole calling it a bug, the bizarre un-nerfing, it's just weird.

My best guess is that different people being involved at different points with no overall sense of how the game works. RnF feels like it was developed by a completely different group of people than Vanilla and who - I'm sure not acting in bad faith - had no real grasp of how the base game worked.

 

[Archon_Wing]

I do remember old threads talking about all the free units

Probably the same group that thinks England is still OP because if you spawn on a map with 20 +6 harbor locations you'll have.... a lot of gold while excluding the fact that it would the strength of the spawn, not of the civ.

But then again I also hear Ruhr Valley is one of the best wonders of the game even though there's no concrete justification whatsoever for it besides some vague assumption of "more production"

 

[Victoria]

I get Victoria is saying England weren't seen as top tier - just wasn't clear if she was saying they were tier b or people thought they were tier b but were actually worse than that. Also not sure Victoria was meaning England overall or Pax B specifically.

I can drag up the deity tier list thread... but its one loong read now.... I think it was last accurately updated before R&F where England was tier C I think. It has flitted between B & C but mainly been C. I have always talked about England meaning overall but talk mainly about Pax because if you spent 10 hours reading that thread its all I have ever said made England interesting, the rest was waffle. Everyone goes on about the bleeding RNDY but for a start you can only build it on water. What people forget to mention is they further nerfed England by moving the trade route to the lighthouse. So many nerfs. The whole RNDY for science thing in R&F was probably designed as an England buff but the morons forgot how hard it is to get to RNDY in the first place, that you need a classic golden and so many other things in place for it to be any good... gah!

I also hear Ruhr Valley is one of the best wonders of the game

pffft! Threads have proven it not to be so and its lack of build in GOTM is the real proof.
The thing is its one of those wonders that if you tried to buff it, it could get nasty good.