Wow, thanks for all the replies! Sorry, I don't have time to comment on each suggestion, so I'll just pick some.
dragodon64 said:
Russia: -50% Settler build cost and distance maintenance cost
Oh yeah, I didn't think about decreasing settler costs. That's a good idea actually. Added.
dragodon64 said:
Netherlands: +2

per coastal city
I was actually thinking +100% trade route yield for colonial (not on the same continent as the capital) cities, or something like that. Thoughts?
dragodon64 said:
India: +1

per non-state religion in city
Good idea, added.
dragodon64 said:
Japan: -10% tech cost for each civ that knows the tech, up to 50%
Ooo, I really like the idea, but 10% is terribly high. I'll set it to 5% for now, and after I get a playtest going, we'll see if that needs tweaking.
dragodon64 said:
I really like a lot of your ideas. I do think that Babylon and Native America have powers that are too strong, tho. Maybe -50% and only +1

.
Thanks.

And yeah, I wasn't sure about the Native American one, I wanted input. Changed both.
Chiyu said:
I think this is a brilliant idea! But if you remove the traits completely, how will there be any distinction between several leaders of one civ?
Thank you!

To answer your question, there won't be. It will be purely cosmetic, just like in RFC. I may tweak each civ's power for each leader in the future, but that's thinking too far ahead I think.
Chiyu said:
Since I'm a historian myself, I'll try to come up with some suggestions provided with historical arguments for the ones for which you don't have anything yet

...
Awesome! I could use a historian for this.
Chiyu said:
Byzantium
There are a several ways to go with Byzantium. First, the Byzantine emperors perceived themselves as Roman emperors and the concept of "empire" was still very strong. Secondly, they were very orthodox Christians, so you could have something related to that. Thirdly, the Byzantine emperors often tried to reconquer lost territory (Justinian for instance reconquered parts of Italy). They really tried hard to restore the territory and glory of the Roman Empire. So maybe you could give them an attack bonus for attacking cities that were once theirs? I don't know if that's possible, but it surely would be original

.
I like that last idea (and yes, it's possible). I don't know how I'd balance that... Any ideas?
Chiyu said:
Celts
The Celts are quite difficult since we barely know anything about them. Most of the information we have comes from a Roman (and thus biased) point of view. They also wrote about celtic druids. Perhaps you could do something with druidism/animism (the belief that all entities, including plants, rocks etc. have a soul). For instance, forests granting extra production or happiness to your cities.
Yeah, I left it blank because I couldn't find any useful historical information on them. But I like the forest idea. Perhaps all forests and jungles +1 happiness? Or +0.5 happiness or something to that effect.
Chiyu said:
Ethiopia
Well, this was one of the few parts of Africa not colonized in the 20th century (Italian occupation doesn't count)... And according to the Civilopedia entry, the muslims frequently tried to spread their religion in Ethiopia, but kept failing until the 16th century as well. So I'd suggest giving them units with better city defense. Although that isn't really very original.. Maybe we could give every city +X% defense for every X% culture or something?
Or perhaps double city defense from culture? (The number can be tweaked, I just need a general idea. Same applies to all of these.)
Chiyu said:
Holy Roman Empire
Since the HRE was not a centralized state but mostly a collection of various states over which the emperor had only nominal control, it should be something related to vassalage. How about making all vassals stronger - to symbolize their individual vitality and strength while officially being part of an 'empire'

- much in the way like tsentom's Topkapi Palace wonder does?
What do you mean by "stronger"? I'll take a look at that Topkapi Palace later to see what you're talking about. I like the idea, but then what do you suggest for the Aztecs and Ottoman Empire? Because they both, at this point, are likely going to have vassal-related powers, and I don't want to many of the same thing.
Chiyu said:
Maya
I don't know too much about the Mayans, but perhaps you could take an idea from the MesoAmerica mod that came with BtS? Some examples from that mod are the ability ability to capture units in combat instead of killing them and the ability to sacrifice units for a culture or happiness bonus.
Well, to be honest I don't really want to add features to the game, I just want to enhance a certain feature for each civ in the game. I don't want to add something new just for use by that one civilization. Does that make sense? It's just a lot of needless work. But I will take a look at the mod.
Chiyu said:
Netherlands
Obviously something involving water or with being a very early republic. Maybe giving them the power to have all early ships being able to enter the ocean, at the risk of sinking, like Civ3 ships. This might be a bit overpowered in maps with a lot of water though. Otherwise, maybe we could have them start with having the Representation civic available?
I was thinking extra trade route yield for colonial cities. Did the Dutch have a lot of colonies historically? Or should I rather do something related to ships?
Chiyu said:
PS: I strongly recommend you to keep Greece's bonus related to culture or great people. Some of them may have been great fighters (the Spartan way of life and the Theban innovations for the phalanx), but that's not what they were remembered for during the centuries to follow. During the entire history of the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages, the corpus of Greek texts kept having a huge influence. Up until the Enlightment (18th century) we could say that (in western civilization, of course): "Culture = Greco-Roman thought + Christianity". Trust me on this one

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Haha alright, I'll take your word for it. I'll probably just leave it as +100% Great People birth rate, as lame as that is. Or maybe something along the lines of +2 GPP in every city, but I don't know how balanced that would be.
Once again, thank you everyone for the ideas!
