Top and Bottom Tier Civs

[documental]

China is one of the few civs (*cough carthage*) that heavily promotes an already extremely effective tactic. I don't think China's problem is it's mid-to-late game, which is what this nerf mostly targets. I think the true power of China is in how early they can start getting social policies. Having extra culture from turn 1 is an surprisingly potent bonus, and they are awarded even further when settling new cities at a point in the game where the extra culture from settling far outweighs the extra social policy cost associated with it. Ordinarily unless you rush monuments everywhere settling cities actually hurts you social policy wise, and even then there is still a good 10 turns where your city is doing absolutely nothing for you.

Strictly speaking their kit has far too much synergy with itself. Settle more cities and get more food and culture, get more culture and get more social policies, get more social policies get more food, culture and a much needed science boost, get more science and get more of everything else. Not to mention that their science building also gives culture, when it totally shouldn't. In fact I'd go so far as to say that culture and science should never coexist together on the same source.

Barring some early game culture rebalance or a reduction in power for social policies, the only thing to be done I think is either changes under which conditions this ability triggers, or preferably settling a new city does NOT give itself a culture bonus.

 

[dostillevi]

Regarding China, I'd be interested to see the bonus decay more. When I play China, I either push far down one side of the tech tree to intentionally advance eras early, which gives me a long period between decays, or I delay era advancement as long as possible. I think both strategies fit well with the image i have of China in this game, but the penalty for advancement is currently low enough that these strategies are probably less powerful than simply researching the techs I need.

Regarding Venice, I've found playing with the City States Evolved mod (allows city-states to settle one city per era) makes Venice much more viable since they can acquire more than one city when buying. As an additional buff, I'd suggest two things: Allow Venice to negotiate open-border treaties very early, or allow their naval and embarked units to pass through other territory freely, perhaps with a slight diplo penalty. Second, allow them to negotiate defensive pacts with great merchants. In addition to using great merchants to buy city states, they can be sent to a friendly civ and force an immediate defensive pact. This should be allowed at any point in the game, including prior to when defensive pacts are normally available.

 

[chicorbeef]

China is one of the few civs (*cough carthage*) that heavily promotes an already extremely effective tactic. I don't think China's problem is it's mid-to-late game, which is what this nerf mostly targets. I think the true power of China is in how early they can start getting social policies. Having extra culture from turn 1 is an surprisingly potent bonus, and they are awarded even further when settling new cities at a point in the game where the extra culture from settling far outweighs the extra social policy cost associated with it. Ordinarily unless you rush monuments everywhere settling cities actually hurts you social policy wise, and even then there is still a good 10 turns where your city is doing absolutely nothing for you.

Strictly speaking their kit has far too much synergy with itself. Settle more cities and get more food and culture, get more culture and get more social policies, get more social policies get more food, culture and a much needed science boost, get more science and get more of everything else. Not to mention that their science building also gives culture, when it totally shouldn't. In fact I'd go so far as to say that culture and science should never coexist together on the same source.

Barring some early game culture rebalance or a reduction in power for social policies, the only thing to be done I think is either changes under which conditions this ability triggers, or preferably settling a new city does NOT give itself a culture bonus.

It would also heavily nerf their Classical, which is still early game. The window for snowballing will be much smaller.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Besides China/Venice, which civs seem like "troublemakers"?

I think Poland is in a bad spot as well. I don't see a niche here, it's a civ that is as it is because it's as far as I remember designed to be a starting civ for newbies, uncomplicated and easy to play, but also flexible and forgiving.

With an extremely terrain-based mid-game UB that ranges from bad to good on what resources there are around you which means you restart in hopes for pasturables or play with a bad UB, a pretty underwhelming, late UU whose ability can easily backfire and get your Hussar killed, as well as a subpar UA that doesn't help where a new player would need help the most (early game), and is still far from the best mid-game and later, I'd say it fails at that. A newbie's going to get some pick-me-up early, and what this gives you is just a policy in classical era, which is a thing a civ with early +Culture UB/UA is probably going to get by this point, and the other things it gets are later. Too little help for a civ that expects the player to hold his own with what is very unimpressive before ideologies, and even afterwards is nothing all that special. It's no wonder AI Casimir "can't into" doing well, he has little to help him against an early onslaught and even later on, he's not going to be very shiny. Even if Poland does end up getting more policies in some cases in that late industrial/early modern era, it had far less for the rest of the time when it mattered, and it also had little help from the other two uniques (excluding RNG'd up Stable I guess).

I don't even think it's really such a flexible civ, Byzantium and Ethiopia have it beat easily here by being generally stable and more independent from RNG, with none of their uniques requiring a certain start to benefit from.

 

[Bhawb]

I find Poland to consistently be average in my games. I rarely see them become huge runaways but they also rarely get demolished. I don't find them particularly weak to play either, pasture is a very common resource as long as you aren't stuck in jungle/tundra and free Horse means you have guaranteed Lancers.

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

Ethiopia, Russia, China, Tradition Morroco and Assyria are almost always on top although i have never played as Ethiopia myself and i don't really get why is sich bonus really good.
Siam, Roman empire, Rome, Celts, Denmark, Aztecs sometimes are runaways ahead of every one and othertimes they are close to someone like Shaka or Greece and get wiped out.
Austria is annoying ad hell to play against, seems like focusing on CS enough yields enough culture and tech to stay ahead of everyone.
Egypt, Arabia, France, polnysia and Sweeden are the definition of medicore in the hands of an AI although france is ridiculous in the hands of a human.
I disable venice since it always give another AI essentialy a space for two civs to expand into.

 

[Dolen]

. Civs that I don’t allow to be in game (because of them being way too powerful or simply crippling annoying)
- England
- The Huns
- Venice
- Austria
- Zulu
- Assyria
- Mongolia

. Very strong (especially when used by player so I don’t choose them) but allowed to be in game

- China (city spam)
- Russia (synergy with the border expansion pantheon)
- Arabia

. Weak civs I wish to be buffed in the future

- GERMANY (UA is pathetic, UB and UU comes too late)

 

[Viralvoid]

- GERMANY (UA is pathetic, UB and UU comes too late)

LOL.

 

[andersw]

. Civs that I don’t allow to be in game (because of them being way too powerful or simply crippling annoying)
- England
- The Huns
- Venice
- Austria
- Zulu
- Assyria
- Mongolia

. Very strong (especially when used by player so I don’t choose them) but allowed to be in game

- China (city spam)
- Russia (synergy with the border expansion pantheon)
- Arabia

. Weak civs I wish to be buffed in the future

- GERMANY (UA is pathetic, UB and UU comes too late)

Englands spying isnt the early game issue it used to be, they are fine.
Huns not a big problem.
Venice, yes I remove him too, if there was an option that Venice always comes with an extra civ it would be better, as is they leave too much room for others to grab.
Austria ... no problem.
Zulu, you can expect that spearman/horseman attack but I can usually deal with it ok, its no fun to get impiiiiid but he rarely does that well in science.
Assyria .. what?
Mongolia yes can be difficult to deal with, if I can sit back defend and get heavy skirmishers before him its most likely fine.

 

[Jarula]

Great idea for Germany... Give them the jaeger and a new UA/UB
UA Each great person Expended increases the generation of that great person by spawning a Great Person Birthplace building... +5% (IN THAT CITY Towards that SPECIFIC GREAT PERSON) +1GPP and +1 of their yield Each great person birthplace building provides a bonus of +1% combat strength -1% policy cost
+10% combat strength the turn a great person is born or a policy adopted.

UU Jaeger Rifleman with scouting promos.
Biergarten... Replacement for Garden no aqueduct req provides a %5 great person per friend and ally drops the base down to 10% and a science/Culture buff when great person expended but available earlier... better choice than hanse... this pays attention to the CULTURAL contributions of germany and synergizes with the proposed UA Very nicely...

Captures the spirit of Germany quite nicely...

Y not for Poland a simple addition of +1 movement for calvary...?

3/4 Slaganz and Teutonic Order...

To make France more even why not simply replace Chateu with Carnac Stones +3 Culture no bonus towards expansion +5% Culture +5% Great Person per theming bonus in City...

And for Spain maybe they are too conditional upon religion... maybe grant them something like A combat bonus towards other religions or on other continents... instead of the naval units thing...

 

[Dolen]

I love the country so I hope they will do something to buff my beloved Germany...

For Spain being too conditional upon religion, you can't underestimate the naval unit purchase UA, since capturing a city grants you tons of faith and you can use them to purchase lots of ships just in one turn.
So it is already quite good military wise IMAO.

 

[CrazyG]

I love the country so I hope they will do something to buff my beloved Germany..

?

Germany is very good

 

[crdvis16]

Yeah... Germany is consistently good.

 

[Jarula]

The way Germany plays ... Bleh... I like my idea better. They need city states... The more city states the better they play. My idea captures the spirit of Germany. The great land of philosophers scientists musicians etc... It captures more of the national culture.

Remember Germany under Otto even before that. No city states or less city states germany sucks... BAD. The current Germany UA UB only captures the spirit of the third Reich not the germany of the Holy roman empire or anything like that.

My idea makes Germany's focus great people something no other civ focuses on. It synergizes with it with the combat bonuses even capturing the essence of the Teutonic order. Makes Germany into a self styled internal development society. Pre WW2 captures exactly what it was. All this germany is is the Nazi Germany under a different name.

My UB Biergarten I pushed for in 3/4 uniques. It would actually work quite well.

The other idea for the UA would actually be the opposite give them a +20% combat bonus that drops off as the great people go up. Ie. Each one of this e buildings drop combat strength by 1% meaning late game they are no longer inclined to be warlike savages like they were against Rome. By modern era they should have had at least 20 great people... No combat bonus. But early game +20% that's megabeast captures the scariness of the furor Teutonic.

Think about the way practically all the great musicians many early scientists like Mendel etc... Came from Germany not to mention the engineers.

Goes with the philosophy of the German society historically. Think about NON Prussian Germany. The wonderful germany that brought us Marx Kant Hegel Nietzsche Rosa etc...

Yeah same thing could be said about Russia the wonderful society to bring about great heros like Lenin Stalin Kollonotai but also great writers like the best Dostoevsky Tolstoy Pushkin but with Russia though remember they didn't have their enlightenment till the USSR... Its not so much embedded.

And if you make those German great person birthplace buildings capturable it kind of keeps Germany Very defensive. Very internally focused. I'm not fetishizing crappy germany like the third Reich I'm talking about real germany like the beauty of the Rhineland Bavaria Saxony basically the germany of the Biergartens the great political thinkers that literally helped set the world in motion.

Same way my idea for France would be similar. Trying to capture the French and German spirit. Not individual markers.

Do you want the leader trait to be simply related to the leader or the national credo the national culture... If it is Bismarck then it should simply be social policies... I'm not talking germany of the fascist (insert profanity here) savages I'm talking the germany that had merits. That germany I proposed would be VERY exciting to play. With that germany the choice of ideologies would be non focus non slanted.

Your cities are getting +5% towards each specialist in that specific city for great person born there means you are going to defend your cities like a mofo.

The way Germany plays it's only good if there are city states. But remember Germany didn't remain city states they didn't even want to be fractured in such a way same way Italy didn't. This germany is specialist germany. Not based like Korea specialists but the germany that plopped down manufactribg everywhere the first country to industrialize the first factories the country that actually brought the industrial revolution.

Read the intro for germany notice all the talk about writers scientists yada yada why because there were a lot of them. The way Germany plays as it stands it's basically Siam... it basically whitewashes the aggression of the Templar and the prefuedal tribes. This one captures the change the growth of Germany into an actual nation.

UB Biergarten +10% +5% per ally friend or declaration of friendship and same for culture showcases germany the great interdependency of the holy Roman empire and even post that. Hanse is great in some ways but does it really capture the essence of that 1000 year cultural Renaissance? It doesn't even capture the innovation of German thinkers leaders etc... Its just a European Siam not the country that was so industrialized that literally in WW1 they took on France Germany AND Russia.

If anyone wants to code one with me the offers on the table.

UA birth of great people creates birthplaces
+5% towards that type in the city +2 of that yield +2 GPP and -1% of a +20% combat buff based on number you own.

UU Jaeger either scout with ability to choose combat promo shock and drill or the other way around

UB Biergarten replaces garden +10% towards great people instead of +25% +5% GP and +2% Culture for ally friendship or declaration
+5 culture and science SWA on gp expend

3/4 Slaganz and Teutonic order.

(Sounds fun 1 lua to code Jaegars would be a blast basically combat scouts) way better than panzer...

 

[gozar]

Funny, I have seen Poland runaway in each of the last 5 times consecutively (not counting games in which in never appeared). In 2 of those 5 games I was able to catch them (once as Morocco, once as Arabia). In my last game (Germany), Poland finished artistry before anyone else finished their first tree and was 12 techs ahead at some point. Even China never has starts like that in my games. I eventually closed the gap to 3 techs, but Poland had built almost all the culture wonders and was on pace to win a culture victory before I unlocked Panzers. Playing on Immortal.

Strongest AI civs for me: Poland, Ethiopia.

Dangerous: China, Greece, Russia, Assyria, Arabia, Morocco

Weakest: Netherlands, Germany, Denmark

AI has no idea how to play it: Venice

Incidentally, the civs that are strongest in the AI in my games are those are easiest to play. The second tier down tend to be stronger in human hands if you know how to take full advantage of the UA. Netherlands is also strong in human hands, especially with more players in the game, but the AI cannot seem to figure it out.

 

[Viralvoid]

I saw a Venice AI runaway (last month) after playing for almost 4 years, which is very rare based on my experience.
I have no idea which AI Civ I can consider weak because I just differentiate them on how often that AI became a runaway, in that, I never underestimated an AI Civ (except Venice and India, lol).

Most AI Civ can do that, even those "Weak Tier" everyone is referring to, but I can't deny that some AI really is strong especially China, Ethiopia and Carthage. Most Civ with an easy to execute UA is strong, I'm just curious why India can't do that. India has a very passive UA, but It is rare for them to become a superpower. Is it a proof that food/growth is a weak yield? idk tho. Compared to civs that focuses on yields such as culture/science, India is really behind imo.

 

[Dolen]

I guess India suffers on higher difficulties for their inability to build missionaries against other AI, because others can spam them.

 

[Bhawb]

I'm just curious why India can't do that. India has a very passive UA, but It is rare for them to become a superpower. Is it a proof that food/growth is a weak yield? idk tho. Compared to civs that focuses on yields such as culture/science, India is really behind imo.

Passive UA != UA that is easy for AI to use. India has a very specific early game plan that they need to execute or they can't make proper use of their UA/UB. That isn't to say India is hard to play, but you need to think ahead in the early game to make sure you don't end up stuck with a mediocre religion and the difference between getting Hanging Gardens as India vs not is a huge deal.

OTOH, Ethiopia, Carthage, China - these civs can reach close to their full potential just by playing the game normally.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Passive UA != UA that is easy for AI to use. India has a very specific early game plan that they need to execute or they can't make proper use of their UA/UB. That isn't to say India is hard to play, but you need to think ahead in the early game to make sure you don't end up stuck with a mediocre religion and the difference between getting Hanging Gardens as India vs not is a huge deal.

OTOH, Ethiopia, Carthage, China - these civs can reach close to their full potential just by playing the game normally.

Its my observation too, that civs with a very generic UA, which hits central aspects of the game, are in most cases performing better, than those, which need a specific way to play to get a benefit.

Especially China, Ethiopia or Korea. Every civ will try to settle many cities or get as many GW as possible, so the UA of China gets triggered, no matter what. If an AI and a human with the same skill level and same circumstances would play China, both would end with a very very similar result. Same with Korea and Ethiopia. Founding a religion or using a lot of specialists is one of the basic mechanics in the game. Not founding a religion with Ethiopia or not using specialists in whole game is only possible, if you effectively decide against it, which is very unlikely.

To india:
In my current game, India managed to get an early lead in wonders and wasn't doing that bad, but was falling back in the mid of the game. They've founded only 4 cities on a space, other AI civs would have settled 6. I could have accepted that, if Ghandi would have focused on growth, but their cities weren't bigger than other cities. Overall, India ist mostly performing only mediocre or below.
The major problem is, the UA is only increasing the excess food, growth, but not the base food. And there will be some point in the game, we're you have to stop growing, cause your UA didn't help you with fighting the unhappiness by your big population. And if you stop, you remove one big part of your UA. What remains, is the increased religious pressure and - 35% cost of prophets. And this isn't really enough to compete with such UA like Ottomans, Morocco, China.

Poland:
Also only mediocre in most cases. Only bonus till mid medieval is +1 social policy. The UB may be nice in some circumstances, but nothing game changing, and the UU comes to late.

 

[Borussia]

The way Germany plays ... Bleh... I like my idea better. They need city states... The more city states the better they play. My idea captures the spirit of Germany. The great land of philosophers scientists musicians etc... It captures more of the national culture.

Remember Germany under Otto even before that. No city states or less city states germany sucks... BAD. The current Germany UA UB only captures the spirit of the third Reich not the germany of the Holy roman empire or anything like that.

My idea makes Germany's focus great people something no other civ focuses on. It synergizes with it with the combat bonuses even capturing the essence of the Teutonic order. Makes Germany into a self styled internal development society. Pre WW2 captures exactly what it was. All this germany is is the Nazi Germany under a different Name.
[…]

Have you ever been to Germany?
Your ideas do not represent Germany at all.
Gernany in the game does not represent the spirit of Nazi Germany at all. UA for Nazi Germany had to be "Volksgemeinschaft".
Biergarten are mostly irrelevant in most of Germany except Bavaria.
Jäger (as a industrial+ unit) are and were irrelevant because that is the name for troops specialized in fighting in mountains. Germany has few real mountains so they never had or needed lots of those.
Panzer / Tiger tanks are the iconic unit of the time when the german army was the strongest of the world so this is the only unit that makes sense as an UU.