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

[acluewithout]

Victoria has pointed out - and I agree - there are just so many ways to fix England and everyone sees it differently (I hope I got that right). So, I’m going to try not adding more to all the various ideas floating about. I just want them not to s*ck.

But unique districts. They’re funny, aren’t they? Districts are generally about adjacencies, which is tied to Ed’s vision of everyone playing the map. Because of this, all the unique districts aren’t just more powerful versions of districts, instead they change how adjacencies and placement work to create new ways of using the map. (Although, that view gets a little involved for some districts like the Mbaza- ask me another time.)

Habours are double or triple map based - First, because they’re the only district that has a placement restriction ie coasts (other than the encampment and I guess the aqueduct, but they don’t have yields). Second, becuase the Shipyard flips the adjacency from gold to gold + production.

That second thing is very cool. Fun things happen if you get the hammers for fish pantheon, or double harbour adjacency cards, or build a commercial hub harbour city centre triangle and start running great merchant projects.

The RND changes adjacency in a fairly blunt way. You just get +2 if it’s on a foreign continent. So, no real magic placing them, but maybe that’s okay because Harbours are inherently very adjacency-ish / puzzle like. But it produces some odd results, like how with shipyards your overseas RND have more production than harbours in your home continent (although, maybe that is sort of okay historically).

I dunno about RND and loyalty. I thought England’s loyalty should be something to do with Pax B, because Victoria was all about the expansion. But one of the things about real RNDs were that so many were based abroad. So, you sort of do need to tie loyalty to the harbour. The current approach is just like the gold adjacency - you get more on foreign continents. Bit boring though.

It might be cool if RNDs provided loyalty based on their gold adjacency - that would open up some interesting positioning games and fun with adjacency cards. But I don’t know how that would work without being OP. Maybe loyalty = gold adjacency - 2? And or a hard cap of +6?

 

[Ferocitus]

That's a pretty big assumption and nothing supports this inference.



England can settle on another continent in the ancient era, so I have no idea what that's on about.

Yes, but it is also difficult to do that very early unless there are continents
close to the original start. Without shipbuilding it is not always possible to
get to those continents in the ancient era.

Remember too, that we have to play against England as well, so the re-balancing
has to take that into account. A lot of what is proposed for their unnerf seems
to be from the pov of playing as England.

Of course I accept that Firaxis will buff England as they are acutely aware of
the distress it has caused some players, and they'd also know that dozens, if
not more, people abandoned Civ for other strategy games and never returned.

To restore the previous fun had from playing England they definitely should
tweak England a little - make Sea-dogs and Royal Docks 5% cheaper to acquire and
maybe buff the melee unit received on new settlements. Maybe even start it
fortified to simulate their steely resolve to remain on the new continent.
With the fun element restored I'm sure England will be a delight to play, and
play against. Buffing too much runs the risk of encouraging fans of other civs
to agitate for their favourites to be buffed in response to England's, if they
saw it as unfair.

 

[Scaramanga]

@acluewithout Unique districts of any type could provide adjacency boosts faster to the all-important Campuses and Theater districts by their half-off cost and no population requirement. Also Free Inquiry in a golden age does a hub or harbour good.

 

[acluewithout]

Unique districts require pop and have for quite a while. Victoria has some posts about using free inquiry - it's hard to line up.

 

[Scaramanga]

Unique districts require pop and have for quite a while. Victoria has some posts about using free inquiry - it's hard to line up.

Oh ok I thought it was just the Hansa that ditched the pop deal. Still, it's half price harbours for England to get more adjacency.

 

[Ferocitus]

Royal Navy dockyards needs more than +4 loyalty. If you settle next to an established civ, you'll never get the dockyards up in time anyways. Even if you do, +4 probably isn't going to do anything. I really think any extra loyalty needs to be attached to their UA so that it becomes effective immediately after settling. If done this way, +4 loyalty could matter quite a bit especially because a single landmass might have multiple continents. This would allow England to settle places that would be unavailable to other civs, especially in the early game.

The dockyards ought to have something different. I think all naval units start with their first promotion would be nice and it would fit with both the theme of England and its history.

That's far too much. (Lysefjord is often close to their start, so that could
mean their ships get 2 promotions very quickly.)

England aren't the weakest civ, so there's no reason to make them more powerful
than others. So many of the proposals here are trying to do just that while
claiming that it's just to make England more fun.

Give them a choice of a melee or ranged unit. That way players will feel like
they have a choice in how they settle. Some units might be better for defending
the new city, others for attacking the locals if that seems a better course of
action, given the situation, terrain, other nearby civs etc. More choice, more
fun, but no significant increase in power.