Anyway I wanted talk a bit about civics and balance of thereof or rather current lack of it.
So government civics, here main problems are republic and elective. Republic has same problem as city states of previous versions, it is a lifestyle choice not civic. If you will adopt it you will probably construct entire economy around it and never change it, +1
effect is that powerful. I in previous posts expressed my doubts about utility of egalitarianism, to late to make impact on SE. Perhaps republic could be such early SE civic? Say +2
per specialist, or if that's to powerful +1
, high upkeep and hurry units with gold.
Elective is interesting civic with new git update, but what it represent exactly? Currently it's most fitting for mongols I guess, large amount of quickly conquered territory and not enough time to improve it. But I dislike such narrow civic witch appeal only to one or two civs. I already proposed solution of making it no distance maintenance and low upkeep, this way it will be useful for much wider range of civs.
In legitimacy civics, main troublemakers are still meritocracy and centralism. Nobody answered why centralism witch already have opportunity cost needs number of cities maintenance penalty. Meritocracy lost
from windmill and watermill and gained ribbon effect of
from rice paddy... why? This solves nothing in struggle of this civic to find its niche. I repeat my suggestion of making this civic GP/GG one, +50%GPP and GGP coupled with medium/high upkeep should fix its problems. Oh if we are complaining about this category then I guess I can also propose change to Ideology, removal of 50%GGP and making
bonus affect both villages and towns would be OK I guess.
Society civics are mostly OK, but some small changes here also are warranted. Manorialism changes are good, but wouldn't be simpler to make worker production double speed? Caste system suffers from same problems as elective, only Indians/Khmer perhaps Thai will use it. That's pretty narrow range for high price of civic slot. More universal would be IMHO double worker work rate and perhaps +1
from citizen? Final problem is egalitarianism very late and only+2
and doubling specialists slots? Not convinced of utility. Also if proposed change to republic will be implemented this civic will need something else. Since it's last civic in this category effect should be powerful, you know current republic effect of +1
from specialists would fit here or older effect of citizenship +1
per specialist. Specialist slot doubling stays as it is.
In economy column recent changes made regulated trade competitive. Redistribution bonuses are no longer bad for medium upkeep, but still this civic -25% trade route yield make it meh at best. What if this civic was changed to something like citizenship? I mean double production speed for "food buildings" granary, smokehouse and harbour plus some secondary effect.
Religion civics are good, balanced and interesting. No changes needed here.
Territory, recent changes made it much better category. Conquest penalty isn't one because who in their mind would use CE in current git build? Seriously making this civic +2XP for units for high upkeep wouldn't break game. Tributaries are very strong now, low upkeep and +2
per vassal city? Definitely will use that. Isolationism was finally made playable, although its effect of increased stability for only core cities should be made universal for territory stability calculations, perhaps there would be some small incentive for not expanding... Colonialism was crazy powerful even for civs that shouldn't use it. Play as India, conquer whole subcontinent, adopt it, profit! Despite not having single colony. So recent changes are much needed. Multiateralims is much better now, still +100% yield for defensive partners is meh, but removal
unit penalty does wonders for this civic.
About ribbons, they are effect that have minimal to no impact on gameplay, for example vassalage and nationhood bonus for forts, meritocracy bonus to rice paddies etc. They are here I guess to make civic looks as it is doing something, while effect being mostly useless.
So I think this is all for now, in future some thoughts about units, buildings and overall tall vs wide empire building strategies.
