A couple of thoughts about UAs:
Balance is about more than just the UA, it's about the combination of all of a civ's unique stuff. Having better great generals doesn't make China a military-oriented civ; the Paper Maker is arguably stronger than Art of War. Besides, a military UA doesn't necessarily make a civ a warmonger. Every civ is going to fight barbs; on higher difficulty levels, odds are good you'll go to war even if you're playing for a peaceful win. An ability like Furor Teutonicus, Bushido, or Art of War will help you even if you never attack an enemy city (the German UA, boring though it is, will help you maintain a large military as a deterrent, and might keep you out of a war entirely).
I'd say the Mongols, the Huns, and Denmark are probably the truest warmongers, and that seems appropriate to me.
So, the changes. I fall into the camp that says a UA should encourage the player to play in a particular way, ideally one that suits the flavor of the civ, and ideally one that's more engaging than just spamming out one of type of unit. By those criteria, I think the worst offenders (of the vanilla civs) are Arabia, Egypt, Germany, and Russia. I guess I'm in good company on the first threeseems like everybody agrees Arabia and Egypt would really suit some of the new mechanics, and most of us think Germany deserves something better (not the autobahn, guysthe autobahn is just a highway).
Russia's UA is even more boring than Germany's, though. It doesn't change the way Russia plays at all, and it doesn't even make sense. Russia has access to all those real-life Siberian riches because they claimed half of Asia for their territory, whereas the in-game UA lets you camp out on one source of Horses and call it a day, expansion-wise. Not sure what I'd change it tosomething to do with forest and tundra? Some kind of "never fight a land war in Asia" thing? Enemy units start taking X damage per turn if they're Y hexes deep into Russian territory?
India's been discussed quite a bitfor my money, it's not so terrible gameplay-wise, but it's kind of racist and completely ahistorical. India's a huge country with a zillion cities, and it's still actually one of the least urbanized major nations in the world. Somebody had the idea of giving them some kind of faith-based bonus for settling along rivers, which I really like. I think pantheon-related bonuses would be very frustrating for the player; the religion system in Civ V (in contrast to Civ IV) really doesn't encourage multiple religions per city and the weakest ones are always getting pushed out. Food during golden ages is cool, but potential starvation afterwards would also be frustrating.
Rome's a hot topic tooI actually like it. It's very fitting, historically, and although it's true that it discourages the player from building units or wonders in Rome, that's kind of fitting too. How many of Civ's "wonders of the world" can you see in Rome? They were practical people, more concerned with infrastructure than with magnificent monuments (that said, it's about time the Pantheon gets its due in a Civ game).
I like the new French UA, but I actually think Ancien Régime was pretty cool. Anybody else think it might show up again, perhaps in a slightly modified form, with one of the new civs?
America's fine, I think; I like the way they managed to express Manifest Destiny in gameplay terms. If it were changed, though, something immigration-themed could be coolperhaps American cities could steal population for unhappy civs following an opposing ideology? Anything strictly ideology-related probably comes too late to make a big impact, though.
Nobody's mentioned it yet, or at least not that I've noticed, but Greece might be due for an overhaul. Hellenic League is pretty good on paper, but in practice, with CS relations working the way they do, I don't find it very usefulit's very, very easy to maintain CS alliances. Maybe there are more changes forthcoming in that department? If not, Greece needs a little love. Some civ (doesn't have to be Greece) could get the flip-side of Siam's UAa mercantile and militaristic CS bonus. Tradable copies of resources, extra XP for military units? Naval units from a militaristic CS?
The Iroquois were pretty good pre-G&Kgreat UU, weak but flavorful UAbut now that Pikemen have kind of taken the shine off the Mohawk Warrior, I think Great Warpath needs a buff. No idea what it should be, though. Woodsman promotions, maybe.
I have the sneaking suspicion, since BNW doesn't include G&K or any of the DLC (as far as I know), that only vanilla civs are getting reworked (hell, maybe it's only France). I'd love to be wrong, though. It's hard to imagine that they wouldn't rethink Polynesia, actually, with the new World Congress and all. I'd love to see the Mongols reworkedin the rare event that I feel the need to attack a CS, I don't need a huge combat bonus to pull it offbut I don't expect they'll go there. Likewise with G&K; I don't like the Huns and I agree that Ethiopia is overpowered, but I wouldn't expect changes to either of those. Carthage might need a second look depending on how Harbors interact with the new trade routes.
Montezuma gains culture for killing other units, Oda would receive culture when a unit of his dies - they're kinda the exact opposite of each other...
culture when one of your military units dies.
