Special Abilities for New Civs

But I want to know why everyone thinks Spain = Colonialism and ONLY Colonialism. Sure, that's about 1/3 of their history, but you know that another 1/3 of their history was based off fighting the Muslims in Spain? There's a reason Isabella's such a religious nut, you know!

But in Civ games, the popular conception of a civilization does play a significant role. For example, the real-life Egyptian War Chariots were just as good as any ancient Near Eastern war chariots, but since chariots are so vital to the image of the ancient Egyptian military, they are the obvious choice. Plus chariots were only used for half of Egyptian history anyways.

Of course, this isn't an absolute rule, though, so it wouldn't be too bad if once in a while a civ gets something everyone doesn't expect.

Spain is one of the civs who most easily are identified with colonialism, if only because they were the first to really take it seriously (the Portuguese too, to some extent, but they get pigeonholed as explorers rather than colonizers).
 
But in Civ games, the popular conception of a civilization does play a significant role. For example, the real-life Egyptian War Chariots were just as good as any ancient Near Eastern war chariots, but since chariots are so vital to the image of the ancient Egyptian military, they are the obvious choice. Plus chariots were only used for half of Egyptian history anyways.

Of course, this isn't an absolute rule, though, so it wouldn't be too bad if once in a while a civ gets something everyone doesn't expect.

Spain is one of the civs who most easily are identified with colonialism, if only because they were the first to really take it seriously (the Portuguese too, to some extent, but they get pigeonholed as explorers rather than colonizers).

[strikethrough]This is often true, but not always true. For example, I don't know of a single person who would think of Vietnam or Cambodia and say "elephants with ballistas on them!" However, I do know many people who would think of Spain and say "Conquistadors", so you are correct to an extent.[/strikethrough]

EDIT: How I missed the middle paragraph, I don't know...

I would like to see an aspect of Spain that focused on pre-1500's though... actually, what would be truly awesome would be abilities that changed over time. Of course, it will never happen, though it would be awesome.
 
Suppose that my naval units can destroy any units you bring near the cost, and shell your coastal cities down to the point where a single land units can conquer them.
You don't think that would be powerful?
Battleships can fire 3 tiles inland, and are invulnerable to any non-bombardment land units.
You still need a land unit to get there. That was my point: cities ( remember , this is a civilization game, and the word it self comes from the latin for city ) are on land and ships can't take them. I can have all the naval power in the world , but will continue laughing at me if I don't bring a warrior around. to step onto the city.


What are you talking about? The proposed mechanic specifically gave the civ gold whenever they discovered an ancient temple or natural feature.

Gold is valuable. Hence, you would have incentives to explore in order to get a bunch of free gold from that exploration phase, with which you could buy stuff domestically and go conquer your neighbors.
That is a one shot thing. And i was refering to the bonus to coastal and sea tiles buy, that is a far more consistent and important effect of his proposal.

Clearly IRL the incentives for exploration were commercial. But what is wrong with representing this in an abstract way? The Dutch and Portugese weren't big colonizers in the sense of exporting large populations like the French or English. They were traders. They bought stuff from coastal natives and shipped it back to Europe.
Why should you prevent them from gaining an advantage from discovered resources unless they build a city there?
The question is the exact oposite: why would you force them to actually have to settle somewhere to reap the benefits of getting there first, especially if the natives of the area are perfectly willing to trade their gold for our glass beads ? And obviously, even if you actually settle the area, you can only send the products home if you can establish a trade route to the cap, a thing that I assume will only be avaliable with Astro for overseas cities ( as always ), completely nullifying the effectiveness of getting there first. If you give me a UA of the coastal cities being able to ship in/out stuff from the cap before astro, that would be a far more solid bonus and more in line of what you propose , but that is not what was suggested.

Edit:
I would like to see an aspect of Spain that focused on pre-1500's though... actually, what would be truly awesome would be abilities that changed over time. Of course, it will never happen, though it would be awesome.
Given that there was no country called Spain before 1474, you would have very little to talk about :D
 
Wow. My idea is going to sound really cliched now :D.

Navigation School: Portuguese special ability, contact with all civilizations and city-states upon discovering astronomy.
 
Welcome to CivFanatics?

Hanseatic League fell apart before the Dutch became independent, and was mostly Denmark and other Baltic Countries. A better name would be something like East India Company.

How about a power increasing income for each luxury resource you have? Or a bonus trade routes for coastal cities.

I like the idea of El Dorado. Luxury resources aren't based on supply, though. Double effect might work but I don't know if that would be overpowered. A Reconquista-based ability would work as well.

EDIT: Just realized there are two more pages of the thread... oops.
 
You still need a land unit to get there. That was my point: cities ( remember , this is a civilization game, and the word it self comes from the latin for city ) are on land and ships can't take them. I can have all the naval power in the world , but will continue laughing at me if I don't bring a warrior around. to step onto the city.
So what? So bring a warrior.
How does this make naval power unimportant, which was your point?

No-one is ever going to build "just" a navy, but that doesn't mean that naval-oriented UUs and abilities are inherently weak. They were in Civ4, but in Civ4 navies couldn't affect land wars at all. This is no longer true.

That is a one shot thing.
You mean, like a UU/UB, or like Germany's or Ottoman's unique abilities (that function only during the early game) or the American UA (which is not useful late-game when all the tiles are occupied) or the Russian UA (iron is useless late game), or the French UA (which expires with Steam Engine)

The question is the exact oposite: why would you force them to actually have to settle somewhere to reap the benefits of getting there first,
?
An ability that gives you gold just for discovering native villages/natural features first DOESN'T force you to actually settle somewhere to reap the benefits of getting there first. It just gives you instant gold from exploration.
What are you talking about, mate?
What's wrong with having a UA ability that is focused on one particular era?
 
So what? So bring a warrior.
How does this make naval power unimportant, which was your point?

No-one is ever going to build "just" a navy, but that doesn't mean that naval-oriented UUs and abilities are inherently weak. They were in Civ4, but in Civ4 navies couldn't affect land wars at all. This is no longer true.
My point is ... talk slowly ... that naval units can't take cities. In the time period we are suposedly talking it ( just to not let this to go to galleys and battleships ) was perfectly feasible for ship crews to take a city and/or defend against land attack by their own means ( and in fact it happened a lot of times ). Without it you will never be able to make something like the portuguese empire on the East, because it was basically a fleet with some ground support points and where the fleet crews did both land and sea wars :D

You mean, like a UU/UB, or like Germany's or Ottoman's unique abilities (that function only during the early game) or the American UA (which is not useful late-game when all the tiles are occupied) or the Russian UA (iron is useless late game), or the French UA (which expires with Steam Engine)
Did you heard me saying that any of those were good or well balanced?

An ability that gives you gold just for discovering native villages/natural features first DOESN'T force you to actually settle somewhere to reap the benefits of getting there first. It just gives you instant gold from exploration.
What are you talking about, mate?
What's wrong with having a UA ability that is focused on one particular era?
I don't have anything against a UA that is focused in a particular time ... and in fact I would love to see from where you took that, especially when I propose as UA a thing that will become useless after Astronomy ;) I am against pretending that hunting for goodie huts and natural wonders is a good tactic of managing a empire in a 4X game, regardless of how much bonus you put in it ( unless the bonuses are so big that this becomes a quest game for the Portuguese instead of a 4X ), and ( secondarily ) , I don't think that it would fit minimally the actual History. Little gameplay bonus, no realism one ...
 
I Think the UA could have something to do with Henry the Navigator.

A UU could be the Cavaleiros Peao
 
My list consists of every civ that's already made it into an official civilization game. There are some duplicate mentions and/or ideas from the thread already, with the inclusion of my own personal changes. Some things constitute a "lack of better idea" and were simply taken from civ4. "+unspecified bonus" is added when I either can't think of something, or think something else could be added to the initial idea.. especially in the case of UUs since there are unit traits we're unaware of. Some UUs seem like simple upgrades to units, while others have unit interesting abilities, like the Ottoman UUs.

The biggest focus is on the Special abilities.

Mongolia
UU: Keshik - Replace Chariot ~ I'm liking the fire-on-the-move idea.
UB: Ger - Replaces stable ~ A better stable in whatever manner.
UA: The Golden Horde ~ Conquered cities suffer reduced (or no) happiness penalty. [Imo, it isn't how fast Mongolia can acquire an empire, it's the size of it that counts. Since the main limiter in growth via conquest appears to be the increased unhappiness from conquests, I'd say lessening or removing that for the mongols would allow them to go to war and take land earlier and more often than most civs]

Zulu
UU: Assegai/Iklwa Warrior ~ Replace Archer, give it 6 str and remove w/e other negatives are associated with ranged units. So it's an ranged unit that can function equally as well as a warrior in melee.
UB: Ikhanda ~ replace barracks, unspecified bonus.
UA: Impondo Zekomo ~ +15% combat for units that stand next to another friendly unit

Carthage
UU: Numidian Cavalry ~ replaces horsemen, 6 movement + other unspecified bonus
UB: Cothon ~ Replaces Harbor, Increased trade route yield
UA: Mercenary States ~ All City-states occasionally gift military units and/or City-state allies reduce the support cost of units [Something to the effect of City-states contributing to the players military, to signify that most of the Carthaginian military was mercenary based]

Celts
UU: Gaellic Warrior ~ Resourceless Swordman + other unspecified bonus
UB: Dun ~ Replaces wall, unspecified bonus
UA: Celtic Expansion [?] ~ +25% Settler production, some form of population growth bonus (be it percentage based, or +X food in all cities)

Sioux
UU: Dog Warrior ~ Replaces Warrior, 3 movement +unspecified bonus
UB: Totem ~ Replaces Monument, +unspecified bonus (something cultural)
UA: Seven Council Fires ~ City-State Allies grant +3 Happiness bonus per ally

Viking
UU: Drakkar ~ Replaces Trireme, +1 movement, Lower build cost
UU: Berserker ~ Replace Longswordman, Pillaging does not consume movement points, +unspecified bonus
UA: [River warlord is perfect here...] Gain gold when killing enemy units, Units suffer no penalty for amphibious assaults.

Spain
UU: Conquistador ~ Replace Lancer, +1 Vision, No attack penalty in forests/jungles
UB: Spanish Mission ~ Replaces Monastery, +2 culture per turn for gold and silver as well. (Possibly reduces unhappiness from occupied cities too)
UA: Siglo de Oro ~ Culture output is increased substantially (33%-50%) during a golden age (possible additional unspecified bonus)

Byzantium
UU: Cataphract ~ Replaces Knight, unspecified bonus
UB: Guild ~ Replace Market ~ Nearby Silk/Dye (others?) produce +2 gold
UA: City of Kings ~ Capital city generates no unhappiness (Hello globe theatre), Cities connected to capital generate +1 happiness.

Hittites
UU: Hattic Chariot ~ Replaces Horseman, unspecified bonus
UB: Replace Courthouse ~ unspecified bonus [Hittites are thought to have had the first constitutional monarchy, and while I didn't reflect this in the UA, I'd like to reflect it in the UB, at least]
UA: The Old Kingdom ~ May construct Iron-based units without having access to Iron, maintanence penalty remains the same.

Incans
UU: Inti Warrior ~ +unspecified bonus.
UB: Terrace ~ Replaces Granary, hills produce +1 food.
UA: The Royal Road ~ Roads Do not cost maintenance.

Mayans
UU: Holkan ~ Replaces Spearman, Defensive bonus against ranged bombardment in all terrains.
UB: Ball Court ~ Replace Colliseum, +unspecified bonus
UA: Mayan Calender ~ All cities produce +2 science per turn


I have nine civilizations left to do.
 
Carthage
UU: Numidian Cavalry ~ replaces horsemen, 6 movement + other unspecified bonus
UB: Cothon ~ Replaces Harbor, Increased trade route yield
UA: Mercenary States ~ All City-states occasionally gift military units and/or City-state allies reduce the support cost of units [Something to the effect of City-states contributing to the players military, to signify that most of the Carthaginian military was mercenary based]

Maybe; all city-state cities and population counts towards supply

Hittites
UU: Hattic Chariot ~ Replaces Horseman, unspecified bonus
UB: Replace Courthouse ~ unspecified bonus [Hittites are thought to have had the first constitutional monarchy, and while I didn't reflect this in the UA, I'd like to reflect it in the UB, at least]
UA: The Old Kingdom ~ May construct Iron-based units without having access to Iron, maintanence penalty remains the same.

Don't understand the why of this UA...

Incans
UU: Inti Warrior ~ +unspecified bonus.
UB: Terrace ~ Replaces Granary, hills produce +1 food.
UA: The Royal Road ~ Roads Do not cost maintenance and produce greater trade yields.

That is A LOT of gold...
 
Maybe; all city-state cities and population counts towards supply



Don't understand the why of this UA...



That is A LOT of gold...

The Old Kingdom UA kind of came together loosely, The hittites were some of the earliest users of Iron in general, albeit maintaining a bronze army. They were one of the precursor iron-age civs. I began trying to think of a way to incorporate that emphasis and I began to run with the thought of getting iron units sooner. Which then evolved into not necessarily needing iron for your army, but it's cost would naturally be more significant than any other civ's army if you had no iron.

The other option I had in mind was to emphasis their governmental structure, but I decided to go with a military oriented UA, because, quite frankly, I think the idea is a cool one.


As for the inca, you're right. I'd remove the increase to the trade yield and just keep the ability at No road maintanence. Railroads, by the way, would still cost gold.

Also I like your Idea for Carthage.
 
The Old Kingdom UA kind of came together loosely, The hittites were some of the earliest users of Iron in general, albeit maintaining a bronze army. They were one of the precursor iron-age civs. I began trying to think of a way to incorporate that emphasis and I began to run with the thought of getting iron units sooner. Which then evolved into not necessarily needing iron for your army, but it's cost would naturally be more significant than any other civ's army if you had no iron.

The other option I had in mind was to emphasis their governmental structure, but I decided to go with a military oriented UA, because, quite frankly, I think the idea is a cool one.


As for the inca, you're right. I'd remove the increase to the trade yield and just keep the ability at No road maintanence. Railroads, by the way, would still cost gold.

Also I like your Idea for Carthage.

Thanks for the quick summary. I'd probably mix the UA with a powerful swordman replacement then - with the iron requirement still in place. Depending on how severe the lack-of-resouce penalty is I'd probably reduce that (or at least make it gold only; not strength) as well.
 
You still need a land unit to get there. That was my point: cities are on land and ships can't take them. I can have all the naval power in the world , but will continue laughing at me if I don't bring a warrior around. to step onto the city.

What are you basing this statement on? I have seen no such statement from any source, in video's we have seen ships attacking cities, but they never tried to attack them to 0 hp, so who's to say a ship won't conquer a city if it shoots it to 0 hp. I'm not saying this will be the case. It probably won't be the case, but we have no proof to state as such.
 
Carthage
UU: Numidian Cavalry ~ replaces horsemen, 6 movement + other unspecified bonus
UB: Cothon ~ Replaces Harbor, Increased trade route yield
UA: Mercenary States ~ All City-states occasionally gift military units and/or City-state allies reduce the support cost of units [Something to the effect of City-states contributing to the players military, to signify that most of the Carthaginian military was mercenary based]
I'm loving that UA.
 
The Armada (at least the one from 1588, the most famous one) wasn't exactly a resounding success. Spain wasn't really considered a naval power compared to England or the Netherlands either. El Dorado sounds like a good idea though, although probably only a gold bonus, not a production bonus.

Son, at XVI century spain was the mightiest power at Land and Sea :king:. The sun started going down slowy :scan: for spain empire exactly at 1588 when they lost their masive army.
 
First of all, thanks a lot for the commentary, even the critics ^^ I would really love to make a mod adding civs whenever Civ V comes out, but rather do it in cooperation with people from the actual added civs so it can have a true historic flavour. That being said, there are some things I would like to answer:

I don't see how this is flavorful. The defining feature of Tercios is that they are a mixed sword/arquebus/pike formation. So, if they're a musket replacement, give them a bonus vs cavalry. I'd be inclined to make them a pikemen UU, rather than a musket one. And it doesn't make sense for a densely packed infantry formation to be less vulnerable to bombardment.

Thing is, Tercios were used intensively during city sieges all over Europe. I wanted to give them some useful anti - city skill other than a generic +25% strenght against cities. Also, It is hard to choose which unit they would replace since they were a strange hybrid of Pikemen and Musket. Another different possiblity would be to make them a Pikemen with a +50% bonus against infantry units: most garrisoned units inside a city tend to be infantry, and Tercios had usually the upper hand against other infantry formations of its time like Pikemen due to their extensive use of the arquebus.

Very weak. A regular granary gives +2 food free. How about instead of the +2 food, it gives a +1 food bonus to hill tiles in the city radius?

I agree, it is a weak UB and I simply think that your suggestion is better :)


Heavens, what is the fixation with giving naval stuff to the portuguese ? Civ games are games where land is power and the sea only is there to make space ( and I'm pretty sure that Civ V will not be as diferent as that in this ), so giving Naval stuff to a civ is actually handicapping it compared with civs that get land related bonuses.

My idea is to make sea relevant by giving it bonuses via special buildings / abilities. Also, It maddens me how horsehockey the sea is on every single civ game when compared to its vital importance during history and how utterly butt-f*cked landlocked civs are on the real life :mad:

Getting to place earlier gives little revenue by it self, especially if you can't simply buy stuff in one side and sell in other ( we can't in Civ V AFAIK ). That makes your UU little more than useless if you can't get connect conquered/settled cities to your cap, a thing that normally is done with Astronomy. We don't need a Civ V carrack, thank you.
The combination of the Nao with the special ability does give your extra revenue by getting to the place earlier. Also, you seem to forget that this civ introduces natural wonders as an extra reward for exploration, so the Nao also helps to provide with extra culture and happiness. Not to mention to be able to crush any enemy fleet 2 techs before the rivals can get even with you, which is a really nice thing to do. However, being conscious that having a naval UU sucks bollocks, I tried to compensate by the UB and SA, which I need to comment:

The UB is ok, if you change the name ... there isn't a single feitoria in Portugal and in fact they weren't meant to be in Portuguese cities You could also give XP instead of prod.... or even make it able to link to the capital even before aastro in case of offshore cities ( that would even give the benefit to making the UU you proposed somewhat more useful )
Ok, that was a miscalculation of mine: the idea was, precisely, to be able to colonize oversea lands earlier than other civs so you can start getting the benefits of the UB as soon as possible, I thought that harbours arrived with Optics too.

The SA : well, it is also very sea based to be useful Given that portuguese actually were more based in strong points ( bought/extorted to the local peoples ) scattered along the shoresd than actually colonizing remote stuff, maybe some kind of bonus in adquiring land would be more in hand.

Ok, this is a result of my poor English: when I said that the SA helped to buy sea and coastatal tiles I meant: sea tiles and land coastatal lines. That's it, the Portuguese will be able to aquire the coastline resources faster than any other region, a la spice route.

So, in short:

Refitted Portugal:

UU - Nao, replaces caravel. +1 aditional vision, it requires Optics instead of astronomy
UB - Feitoria. Replaces harbour. Requires Optics instead of astronomy, overseas trade routes generates +2 production
Special ability -Herois do mar ;) Portuguese recieve a gold bonus for discovering natural wonders and ruins. Coastatal land and sea tiles cost a 75% less


-You can't make cities in the sea ( ok, very futurish )
-Naval units can't take cities in land ( very , very realistical )

... It is a land centered game. It is just a matter of degree. Also, he proposed UU will not be able to capture cities or improve land, and that is another nail in the coffin as well

Support from naval units made Civilization Revolution navies relevant again, so I don't think that it is too far fetched to think that bombardement will do the trick again for the Civ V vessels, specially considering that you can kill land units with boats. Still, the real problem of sea on civilization is that:
1- Sea tiles suuuuuucks bollocks and give almost no resources when compared to land ones
2- No realistic trade route system = sea loosing almost all its purpouse. From a geostrategic point of view, the sea is a gigantic transportation network for goods and humans.

I will comment about the Netherlands latter. In short, I really, really liked the effects of its SA, but I agree that it makes little sense from an historical POW.
 
I really like Ikael for Spain, even the name of their UA, I mean its even on their flag.

Im suggesting something a little bit diferent than King Jason

Mayans

Leader: Pacal II
UU: Holkan ~ Replaces Spearman, Defensive bonus against ranged bombardment in all terrains.
UB: Ball Court ~ Replace Colliseum, +culture bonus
UA: Mayapan League ~ City states give 40% more gifts

The idea behind Mayapan league is that Mayans were never a united nation, instead were formed by city states (kinda like the Greeks), they formed alliance all the time, the most famous of these being the Mayapan league (Mayapan,Chichen Itza,Uxmal) that happened during their second golden age.

so the idea playing Mayan is that it wont be as easy to keep your city states happy as with the greeks but you will get better bonus out of them.
 
And don't even get me started about the Americans...

But I want to know why everyone thinks Spain = Colonialism and ONLY Colonialism. Sure, that's about 1/3 of their history, but you know that another 1/3 of their history was based off fighting the Muslims in Spain? There's a reason Isabella's such a religious nut, you know!

So, I propose this:

Reconquista - Units gain a 25%-50% (haven't decided) bonus when fighting... someone in particular.

So it wasn't a thought-out idea. In fact, I gave it five seconds. But I'm sure that someone could improve this...:mischief:

Simple.... Reconquista: half unhappiness from annexed cities (fits with conquering the Arabs and the Americas)

Think it fits better with the Spanish than the Mongols... the Mongols basically turned all their conquests into Puppet States
 
Simple.... Reconquista: half unhappiness from annexed cities (fits with conquering the Arabs and the Americas).

Well, it seems like an ability like that based of the Reconquista should affect recaptured cities, not annexed ones. Certainly the name and actual ability don't have to fit perfectly, but I just don't like Reconquista-based abilities just because they'd tend towards recapturing and defending cities more than far more useful offensive abilities.

Plus, Siglo de Oro would be an excellent choice if people wanted to remind the players that there's notable periods in Spanish history that didn't involve colonialism and the Inquisition. Even if both of those things did take place during said Siglo. Which was actually way more than just a siglo.

Eh, just wrote myself into a corner there. :shifty:
 
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