Tweak a Civ!

[Redaxe]

Another suggestion for tweaking the Persian UA would be to provide a free Golden Age when another Civs capital is captured (only attainable once per Civ). This is in addition to the current Persian UA.
Fits the Persian golden age with its history of imperialism, and rewards conquest.

 

[caketastydelish]

Another suggestion for tweaking the Persian UA would be to provide a free Golden Age when another Civs capital is captured (only attainable once per Civ). This is in addition to the current Persian UA.
Fits the Persian golden age with its history of imperialism, and rewards conquest.

I think Persia's UA should have squat to do with golden ages.

1. Because, as noted, tundra shouldn't be better (and for that reason the existing few tundra start biases function poorly).

Then they should still get a tundra bias, but another boost in some way to 'counterbalance' the crappiness of tundra. Replacing their UB with something more useful could be a start.

What next, suggesting tile output for snow tiles?

Actually, why not?

A promotion for an archer unit? Hardly much of a deterrent if you want to invade the Babylonian city - whatever you give it is unlikely to compare with the English or Chinese promotions kept on upgrade (and shouldn't, since it's an earlier unit and one in a civ that doesn't need these kinds of advantage).

Oh come on now, it all adds up. Perhaps if the Babylon archer (the bowman) got, say, two extra strike chances or whatever plus a random free promotion, they'd be pretty formidable. Especially in conjunction with the walls of Babylon. They'd be perfect for a tall empire.

I don't think any mechanics exist that allow the game to do that with other civs, only with city-states. UAs have to work within the existing mechanics.

Fair enough.

The civ is England, not Britain...

Navigation and Rifling are not among mutually-consistent paths for even late-Renaissance warmongering, but in general UUs in different eras are preferable to the alternative. A dual UU civ is intrinsically at a disadvantage compared with a civ with a UB or UI, because those civs have features that persist throughout the game once unlocked, as well as generally being more versatile insofar as they have utility beyond warfare.

You can counterbalance this by making the redcoat that much better, which wouldn't be that hard to do based on my description of what its ability would be.

Submarines aren't useful on a whole range of maps - you need to be playing something like archipelago or small continents for them to be reliably useful.

Fine, whatever.

Except that war in Civ has a single purpose: territorial conquest. You want to saddle Germany with two UUs that don't help in that regard, at the expense of a building that lets them produce units which can. Being able to go to war and kill all the other guy's units (as long as they obligingly jump into the water) is of little use if you can't then take the city.

But see, it's all interconnected, otherwise there wouldn't be any point to submarines period. They wipe out the opponents navy so your own battleships/destroyers can go without resistance.

You appeared to be arguing against the current UA on the basis that Iranians don't care about Persia's golden age - this seems analogous to the Italians arguing that Rome doesn't represent them because they don't associate themselves with that part of their history, hence the comparison. The point being that just because it's not something the area's current occupants identify with, that doesn't make it a poor representation.

I do associate with persian history, and that being said, this 'golden age' stuff is garbage.

In real life they were certainly warmongers, but a defining feature of Persian history (at least seen from outside) is that it's one of very few territories (along with such places as Ethiopia) whose borders have remained largely stable for most of its history; the assorted Persian empires weren't geographically much more extensive than Iran is today. For that reason a UA that explicitly rewards conquest seems to sit badly with them - stability and internal order is better reflected by happiness.

It rewards you for achieving that happiness, it doesn't help you get it to begin with. Most of their lands were conquered, not the original part of Persia, which honestly is not even all of modern Iran. Anyone can be stable at home, what made the Persians interesting is even their foes were (generally) content with their rule. The reason they stopped expanding is because they were simply overextended as it is, not because it would effect their 'happiness'.

In game terms, what represents extended periods of positive public order? A Golden Age (remember: Golden Age is the name of a mechanic, it's not a literal description of a country's historical 'golden age' - Brazil arguably has yet to have a golden age, but it still has a UA based around the GA mechanic). The satrap's court that for some reason you dislike explicitly represents the same thing in its name - a happiness-boosting building associated with an administrative official.

This could be made up with the UA I'm suggesting instead, and a Parthian archer would be better than a Satrap court.

 

[Arachnofiend]

Here's something I'd like to see with Rome:

Keep the Legion. Change UA to "All Roads Lead to Rome", which provides +2% production in the capital for every city connection (feel free to change the number around for balance). Replace the Ballista with a Forum, which is a Garden replacement that does not require a river and provides +1 happiness. This makes Rome closer to the real civilization: an extremely wide territory that existed almost entirely for the purpose of supporting an extremely tall capital.

 

[Silverman6083]

Persia: Satrap's Court should replace market. One, this would help early happiness and add incentive for using your immortals. Also The real "Persian" empire did not really have banks. The had treasuries & certainly weren't an empire in the renaissance, the Ottomans were.

 

[caketastydelish]

Here's something I'd like to see with Rome:

Keep the Legion. Change UA to "All Roads Lead to Rome", which provides +2% production in the capital for every city connection (feel free to change the number around for balance). Replace the Ballista with a Forum, which is a Garden replacement that does not require a river and provides +1 happiness. This makes Rome closer to the real civilization: an extremely wide territory that existed almost entirely for the purpose of supporting an extremely tall capital.

That, or make Bastillas worthwhile. Your idea is good, and making Bastillas not suck could also be good. Same goes with Legions.

Persia: Satrap's Court should replace market. One, this would help early happiness and add incentive for using your immortals. Also The real "Persian" empire did not really have banks. The had treasuries & certainly weren't an empire in the renaissance, the Ottomans were.

Keep in mind Iranians Identify Parthians, Sassanids, etc all as 'Persian'. That said, I still agree.

 

[Arachnofiend]

The Legion is a great unit, it's just the mechanics of Civ V hinder it far too much. They're stronger than the Pikemen they're competing with but they're still on the other side of the tree away from Education and they're still limited in number by how much iron you happen to have. Mix in the fact that melee units of the era are completely outclassed by Composites and Crossbows and it's hard to justify them. Can't really fix the Legion without fixing the gameplay problems that plague it (in short, science being the key to everything forever, early war being strongly discouraged by the weak early game economy, and the general suckiness of melee units).

 

[caketastydelish]

The Legion is a great unit, it's just the mechanics of Civ V hinder it far too much. They're stronger than the Pikemen they're competing with but they're still on the other side of the tree away from Education and they're still limited in number by how much iron you happen to have. Mix in the fact that melee units of the era are completely outclassed by Composites and Crossbows and it's hard to justify them. Can't really fix the Legion without fixing the gameplay problems that plague it (in short, science being the key to everything forever, early war being strongly discouraged by the weak early game economy, and the general suckiness of melee units).

They'd have to at least not get outdated when they're upgraded to longswordsman and so forth to be decent. In other words they should still be able to construct forts and roads, and also replace increasing their base strength (which becomes irrelevant as soon as they're upgraded) with something else. Personally I'm a fan of giving them an increased strength when near a great general (more than a normal military unit gets).

 

[Galgus]

Spain

UA - Unchanged.

Tercio - Replaced. (Cool, but mechically boring.)

Mission - Replaces the Temple. +2 , +1 , +1 . Boosts religious pressure and cultural border growth from the city by 25%.

Conquistador - Now converts cities to the dominant religion of the city in which they were produced upon conquering them. Cities they found also start with that religion.

Polynesia

Moai - Now recieve +1 from each adjacent Moai and city you control, rather than only Moai's.

(No more frustration over weighing city placement vs Moais.)

 

[Galgus]

Polynesia:

UU unchanged. Moai give the same yield, but can be built in neutral territory as well. UA combat bonus for Moai is changed from +10% to +5% per moai (max 20%).

This serves the purpose of being able to stack extra moai on the edge of your territory, improving the adjacent moai inside. It also gives the possible benefit of aiding coastal attacks (as well as defence) if there's a fairly long term war going on near the sea somewhere.

I like this idea.

 

[Redaxe]

Spain

UA - Unchanged.

Tercio - Replaced. (Cool, but mechically boring.)

Mission - Replaces the Temple. +2 , +1 , +1 . Boosts religious pressure and cultural border growth from the city by 25%.

Conquistador - Now converts cities to the dominant religion of the city in which they were produced upon conquering them. Cities they found also start with that religion.

Polynesia

Moai - Now recieve +1 from each adjacent Moai and city you control, rather than only Moai's.

(No more frustration over weighing city placement vs Moais.)

I like your ideas regarding Spain, giving it a renaissance religious conversion theme. Also I really like the Mission building, that's something new I haven't seen suggested yet. Although I wonder if it would be better made into a 5th religious building as a follower belief but only adding pressure to its religion and not another religion that might happen to exist in the same city also.

 

[Galgus]

I like your ideas regarding Spain, giving it a renaissance religious conversion theme. Also I really like the Mission building, that's something new I haven't seen suggested yet. Although I wonder if it would be better made into a 5th religious building as a follower belief but only adding pressure to its religion and not another religion that might happen to exist in the same city also.

I could see that, since Spain had more big religious buildings than Missions.

Replacing Temples just seems a bit simpler for the idea, though.

I gave it the and yields because I think the missions were supposed to be somewhat self-sufficient.

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Anyway, Spain has had a hidden religious theme with how well they use the One With Nature from natural wonders pantheon, so I wanted to emphasize that.

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As far as adding it as follower belief, I think that kind of thing is best left to Enhancers.

 

[Arachnofiend]

If we're replacing Spain's Tercio, the unit could be modified into a generic pike n' shoot that serves as the anti-cavalry between pikes and anti-tank guns. Lancers could be repurposed into the cavalry between Knights and capital-c Cavalry (if a new Enlightenment Era were to be implemented between the Renaissance and Industrial Eras).

 

[Redaxe]

Well here's a thought, what if a 'Mission' building was unlocked by an enhancer belief. It would cost faith to buy, can be bought by a Civ that has at least 1 follower of that 'beliefs' religion. This is unique, every other building requires a majority of followers to buy a faith building.

The Mission would provide +1 food, + 1 production, + 1 faith, + 15% border growth and +25% religious pressure for that religion.
Also every 3 Mission buildings that exist in foreign civs cities provides +1 tourism to the religions Holy City. The main downside is it costs faith to buy a Mission whereas other enhancer beliefs are free but the upside is that other Civs would have the incentive to use this belief as they get some benefit from it so it helps spread the religion further. And the more Missions that exist across the World provides additional tourism to the Religions Holy City so it sortof works like a mini founder belief.
Also this building won't work with Sacred Sites as its not really a building of religious/spiritual significance

 

[isau]

A specific change that would do wonders for every civ is to lower the damage melee units take for attacking another unit, including attacking cities. Right now they basically pay for their actions with their own HP, which negates whatever extra sturdiness they are supposed to have. Meanwhile archers and ranged ships reign supreme because they can attack without taking damage.

That's not a civ-specific change but it would fix a lot of issues with custom melee units in general.

 

[Galgus]

If we're replacing Spain's Tercio, the unit could be modified into a generic pike n' shoot that serves as the anti-cavalry between pikes and anti-tank guns. Lancers could be repurposed into the cavalry between Knights and capital-c Cavalry (if a new Enlightenment Era were to be implemented between the Renaissance and Industrial Eras).

That would be good for the game, I think.

Well here's a thought, what if a 'Mission' building was unlocked by an enhancer belief. It would cost faith to buy, can be bought by a Civ that has at least 1 follower of that 'beliefs' religion. This is unique, every other building requires a majority of followers to buy a faith building.

The Mission would provide +1 food, + 1 production, + 1 faith, + 15% border growth and +25% religious pressure for that religion.
Also every 3 Mission buildings that exist in foreign civs cities provides +1 tourism to the religions Holy City. The main downside is it costs faith to buy a Mission whereas other enhancer beliefs are free but the upside is that other Civs would have the incentive to use this belief as they get some benefit from it so it helps spread the religion further. And the more Missions that exist across the World provides additional tourism to the Religions Holy City so it sortof works like a mini founder belief.
Also this building won't work with Sacred Sites as its not really a building of religious/spiritual significance

I could see it happening, but I'd enjoy it more as a Spanish UB given its ties to history and how it would help their religion focus.

Honestly, if I had my way enhancer beliefs would be removed and the only way to improve the spread of religion would be the Piety tree.

 

[Redaxe]

I think Enhancer beliefs are ok, It gives you plenty of customisation in choosing how to spread your religion; by war, missionaries, prophets or pressure whereas the Civ 5 policy tree system doesn't allow for a lot of flexibility as is.
Thing is religious beliefs function for the entire religion whereas social policys function at the state level.
That said I do think Piety should boost some beliefs. One suggestion is to remove 1 faith and 1 happiness from the 4 follower buildings and require that to be unlocked in the Piety tree. The idea is that Piety is your state becoming a religious state so you should get more benefit from religious buildings then say a Tradition or Liberty player.

Back on topic, I would tweak Denmark and give Beserkers the ability to cross oceans once compass is researched. I would also give them protection from attacks when embarked

 

[Silverman6083]

Keep in mind Iranians Identify Parthians, Sassanids, etc all as 'Persian'. That said, I still agree.

Well to be fair, the entire civ seems to be Ancient(Pre Roman Empire) Persian oriented, so that's where my thought process was.

 

[Brettapod]

Polynesia
UA: gains +1 gold for Sea Resources, Moai gain +2 culture if built next to a city

Denmark
UA: gains +15 health for pillaging (bringing the total up to 40). Norwegian ski infantry gain +10% combat bonus if within two tiles of snow, tundra, or hill while not being on one of these tiles

America
UA: gains +20(?)% culture for five turns after founding a new city

Arabia
Bazaar: Can only gain double quantity for each luxury resource once. For example, if a city had two improved sources of incense, the first source would provide two copies while all additional sources would only provide one. All oil sources receive double quantity

Carthage
UA: Units only take 25 damage if they end their turn on a mountain in friendly territory

Byzantium
UA: gains Great Person tile improvements provide +2 faith

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

The problem with Zero is that the air combat mechanics are twisted. -All- of the available fighter planes in range should bear on defending a target from a bomber mission. The scales are supposed to favour a minuscule investment in fighters so as to make bomber fleets unviable except when you have actually obtained air superiority. That's realist and also better gameplay. I know there's some tough problems to be solved to make the turn-based situation work, but solve them.

I would tweak the Dromon by making the trireme also available to Byzantium. Denying Byzantium the melee ship pre-Astronomy does anything but grant them naval power.
I would tweak Camel Archers by changing the combat rules to make the combat strength factor more for ships resisting non-ship attacks, because archers fighting off Frigates is ridiculous.

 

[EnterGodMode]

Byzantium:
UA: added: Great Prophets costs 10% (15%) less

UU: Cataphract - Earns faith for every enemy killed (half of the combat strenght)



Greece:

UU: Comanion Cavalry - removed
Added: UB - Agora - Replaces Garden
+25% Great Person generation; +2 culture for every specialist worked by the city