For Spain, I have some mixed feelings about it:
- Earlier Fleets and Armadas are not that great if you can't produce them directly with the Seaport (so Fleets/Armadas are 200%/300% cost instead of 150%/225%), because Armadas feel as twice as powerful than the regular unit but at thrice the cost doing it manually. You end up just to form Armadas around the highly promoted, if you did have done some naval warfare previously. But I am not a great at war: I may underestimate the power of early Armadas: feel free to argue the point and teach me more.
- Continental system is an hasardous system. Having a civilization hoping for a foreign land be nearby is dubious. You either find it early enough and colonise it to enjoy the better internal trade / better mission (a spammable up to 4 Faith/Science, 2 Loyalty, 1 Food/Production improvement on foreign continent), or you miss to do that.
- The Mission is unlocked at Exploration which is a late Renaissance leaf civic. If Spain is supposed to be a religious imperialist, isn't Theocracy better with faith cost reduction and additionnal straight? Plus, Merchant Republic is neither a Trade governement, nor an Exploration governement but more a "city betterment" governement (I don't feel "city betterment" is the best word to describe it, but I came out to not find a fitting word. I really need to improve my vocabulary in english).
- You can't do a formation with a religious unit anymore: using the Conquistador fully, even if very effective, is kind of a pain. I am not against for some quality of life improvement!
- Spain has no bonus toward founding its own religion. It should have something: the leader bonus and the unique unit is around this theme.
If I have to modify the Spanish, I think I will give different bonus between home continent and the foreign continent so you will be happy in both case scenario and don't feel to bad if you can only settle a single continent. I will also make them able to build Fleets and Armadas at the start without the Seaport, give rhe Mission some home bonus, and that's probably it. For example:
Treasure Fleet: (
Spanish ability)
+50% Production toward Harbor, and +2 Gold when built on your home continent. May form Fleets and Armadas with Mercantilism, instead of Nationalism and Mobilization, and may produce them without the Seaport building. Trade Routes between cities on different continents gain +1 Food and +1 Production for domestic Trade Routes, and +6 Gold for international Trade Routes.
Mission: (Spanish infrastructure)
Unlocked at Theology
• 2 Faith
• 1 Science for every adjacent Campus and Holy Site.
• 1 Science (home continent) or +2 Loyalty (foreign continent) if built next to a City Center.
• 2 Faith, 1 Food and 1 Production (foreign continent) (requires Exploration).
• 2 Science (requires Cultural Heritage)
El Escorial: (
Philip II bonus)
+50% Production toward Holy Site Prayers project, which triple the religious pressure while doing it instead of doubling it. All units receive +4 Combat Strength against civilizations following a different Religion. Inquisitors have one extra use of their Remove Heresy ability. Inquisitors eliminate 100% presence of other Religions.
Optional: You can know do a formation with a Religious unit.
For France, I don't where to start. Basicly, the civilization bonuses are rather weak but with fun leaders:
•
Grand Tour: the bonus Production is kind of weak. It works for half the wonders available (including: the governement wonders, Kilwa, Ruhr, Oxford), but do not include the "late-game" wonders like the Eiffel Tower (isn't that ironic?). Since the last wonders are in the Atomic era, which is 7th era out of 9 (so not that late-game anymore), why not letting France have the bonus for all the wonder starting the medieval era? (it is just 7 extra wonders). Furthermore, most wonders are Production-traps, meaning you better use the production for something else, even if you get double Tourism from it. Maybe Tourism from wonders should be reworked too, so it will be a real new path to achieve Tourism victory. Or change the ability to make wonder more valuable (increase the yields in the city?).
•
Château: This is a special case. The Culture yield is great, spammable, abusable and all... But you need a river, and those rivers are valuable. You are going to settle on it, put a Commercial Hub on it, and more district around to enjoy adjacencies, put Aqueduc / Dam on it... ending by not having enough place to put Château. Plus: it is highly dependant on adjacent wonders. Like the Mission, it is unlocked way too late, and should be available earlier (like: Castle technolgy but with lesser yield, that it will recover at Humanism). I think the Château needs to change for a some sort of less powerful cultural Mekewap: a some sort of Housing, Food/Gold and Culture improvement, while not having bonus from adjacent wonders anymore. Also: we should be able to build it next to luxury ressource.
•
Garde Impériale: The unit is not bad, but out of the path. I am assuming the developpers are going to balance the units and give them trait to make them more typical. For me, I guess the Melee units line will have 1 unit per era, and we will get the Rifleman, so the Garde Impériale will be a replacement and in the Melee line, so the problem fixes itself (the real problem is the upgrading cost of obsolete unit is too cheap, and become way too cheaper with the 50% card).
I am also guessing Anti-cavalry unit having an anti-pillage anti-plunder aura for defense purposes (like Bireme / Mandekalu), and probably get 2 turns of defense instantly / better healing of some sort for example. I am also "expecting" the heavy cavalry to need 2 different sorts of strategic ressource to justify their excess power.
•
Leaders: Catherine ability is really powerful as a catch-up mechanic and preventing the enemies to win the game. Stealing the great work of cultural, catching by stealing eureka and sabotage the rocket, instantly have +9 CS with listening post, siphoning all the gold... And it is a lot of fun. Eleonor is weaker in comparaison because it need a lot of set-up or being extremely lucky to make use of her ability, but sure it is fun to peacefully annex a whole country.
So France probably need a better ability and the Château to be more flexible / reworked into a new purpose.
I find some of you ideas for Spain very very interestng. The changes for the missions are perfect!
As I stated in other threads, I personally see the problems with Spain on 2 levels.
1) Their continental Bonuses are essential for them. No new continent = Vanilla civ.
For example, England is an industrial and economic Civ. You have very fun bonuses pointed to this direction. They are also a colonial CIV, so they have bonuses that HELP them (more troops and more traders). They cannot reach new continents? they lost these extra stuff, but they will do well.
Spain NEEDS to get to other continents to get their principal bonuses. Is not extra stuff, is necessary stuff to win. That means that they will not have them until they reach another continent, but they will have a very hard time reaching them in time because the other civs have already there bonuses.
So, weak because not in new continent > not in new continent because they are weak > remain weak beacuse not in new contient... Is a circle hard to brake.
2) Their bonuses force them to be strong in every direction, but they do not have the tools to do it.
- Need faith for religion and to merge apostles with conquistadors (Misionaries get always killed when invading foreign land)
- Need commercial Hubs/ports to have traders for intrcontinental yields
- Need science to stay militarly capable
- Need a lot of culture to reach Missions/armadas/Theocracy, all of them in different pathways...
Going for one of the above, ends up sacrificing one of the others. Meaning they lose one, or more, of their bonuses.
IMPROVEMENTS:
In my opinion they could choose one path out of 2 to improve Spain:
1) Make them have an easier acces to their bonus on other continents and in general, or just give them bonuses from the start to religion and other stuff.
I find this one a little boring, but just because it would make them very similar to other Civs in the game and I really love civs with different playstyles.
2) Let them as they are but with more rewards for the accomplishement on going to new continents.
Number 2 is my personal favorite! You let them struggle at the start, and make going to a new continent a difficult task, but if they succeed you give them a good compensation!
Pretty much as I see the history of colonial Spain in real life. Hard and costly endeavour (as they were the first and basicly they did it as a medieval civ) but the rewards were insane. High risk/High profit.
For this to happend I think the principal change would need to be on "Treasure Fleet (TF)" bonus.
Actual problem with TF
Right now I think it is just too weak. As I post in another thread, at the end Germany has a better "Treasure fleet" than Spain herself...
Germany (ALL cities): Adjacency bonus CH/IZ more yields from trade > More traders > 1 more district > More yields when trading AND better original cities during the process.
Spain (ONLY other continents): If you manage to go very early to new continents = +1 food/prod. > faster growth and construction > become less and lesss noticeable as everything become more expensive > more difficult to get new cities as game advance (something already difficult at the start for the lack of bonuses)
I do not know the numbers exactly, but what is better?
50% on a district all the time
1+ food/production all the time? (imagning you have it from the start)
I imagine that the 50%, at the start of the game may be not as good, as 50% of 10 production is 5. But when you have to pay 1000, 50% = 500 production
The +1 production at the start may be better, beacuse you will fullfil the production before, but as the game progres the bonus gets weaker and weaker as a +1 to reach 1000 is not so much.
Like with policy cards, the first that gives you +1 production in all cities IS HUGE, but after sometime you need the +X% policies to win, as the other turn obsolete pretty early.
Possible improvements.
I think, again, 2 ways are possible.
1) To give "TF" something like the colonial policy cards so, when trading with an intercontinental city the bonus are % based.
Something like X% on building disctricts and Wonders if you are trading with a different continent.
OR a X% on production, science, faith, gold and growth. A 5% or something to not to make it OP.
And no giving them extra things for international trade or just a 15% gold in this city, but you lose all the others.
It would also represent the fact that they used forced labor (production %), Build a lot of Universities on their colonies (science %), churches (faith %), extracted gold and silver (gold%), and assimilated the indigenous population (Growth%).
OR
2) Make "TF" bonuses like the "alliances" cards policies, but for internal trade.
To mantain the +1 food/production but make it stronger, so it takes more time getting too weak.
Something like: +1 food/production for BOTH cities if they are trading through diferent continents.
And, maybe, add more yields if these trade routes goes through more continents.
Like you have City A, B and C, all of them on different continents.
trade routes:
A > B = +1 yields
B > C = +1 yields
A > B > C = +2 Yields
A > B > C > D (in a fourth continent) = +3 yields for A
Make sacking spanish traders 50% rewarding for other civs or so, so the enemies would prioritize them and if succed they will cripled Spain (then, early armadas bonus would be very appealing)
That would help making TF not lose efficiency as the game progresses, becasue as the game advance the reach of your trades routes would get better and you will unlock this "intercontinental trade" later in the game and also with careful positioning of the cities (not and easy thing anyways).
That would also replicate something historical like the "manila Galleon"; trading from Asia > America > Europe > Africa AND viceversa = super Hight profits
but also the problem with piracy preventing them to become too powerfull.
So like in real life = Spanish getting too strong? > attack trade lines > you higly weaken them + you become rich > you get stronger and stronger at spanish expenses!
Conclusion:
The idea behind the changes would be, "okay, you are getting a hard time reaching other continents,but if you manage to do so, you will have a very good compensation. The more you invest in these cities, the more profit you get, so take care of them and the traders that allow it."
Apart of that, your idea about missions and theocracy is imperative.
And I really like the faith project too! quite unique and fitting Spain (of course the changes should have a malus, to avoid them being super strong).
What do you think about these changes for Treasure fleet? I really think that any of them could give Spain a very unique way to play. Very rewarding if you manage to survive and success against the odds.
In addition, I think they are easy changes to apply, not changing at all the spirit of the civ nor the original concept/idea behind Spain's bonuses.
