Worst Gods and Kings ability

[andreas khan]

Netherland ability:
Retains 50% of the happiness benefits from a luxury resource if your last copy of it is traded away.

Worst abillity ever seen in a civ game?

 

[ampmclock]

That's to be decided, try playing with the Dutch in GK and see. Personally, I would agree, the Dutch ability DOES seem like the weakest of any and all civ abilities, that being said, they also might have the richest land by far due to the polders, and hopefully, Sea Beggars will be Sea Bastards and kick a lot of ass, hopefully.

I honestly put my money on Maya as being the civ that people are most dissapointed in when the game actually comes out. It's a good ability, for sure, but I think people will understand it's not as cheap as they think once they try playing with them.

 

[CleverFool]

While the Dutch UA may not be the greatest, I think that it does allow quite a benefit early game. Having the ability to trade away a Luxury resource while retaining much of the benefit can result in much more gold can result in a very early settler / worker to be purchased. Or you could do a 1:1 trade with an AI civ to gain a net + 2 happiness.

I might suggest that Austria's UA, Diplomatic Marriage, is nothing too special. Keep in mind that it will likely be much more difficult to make friends (let alone allies) with City States. While declaring war on too many can certainly cause difficulties, it is not too often that I really need a particular city state. Plus you're losing any benefit you would normally gain from being allied with a city state.

 

[ampmclock]

Cleverfool, that is true, but the way I've been envisioning their ability, you wouldn't buy out a CS unless you were, say, at war with someone who had a CS right next to them. You couldn't piss them off anymore, you're at war, and now they can't get benefits from the CS. It seems like a great one-two punch. I got troops at your front door and a city at your back.

I feel it's a good "in a pinch" ability.

 

[RockTheCazbah87]

Cleverfool, that is true, but the way I've been envisioning their ability, you wouldn't buy out a CS unless you were, say, at war with someone who had a CS right next to them. You couldn't piss them off anymore, you're at war, and now they can't get benefits from the CS. It seems like a great one-two punch. I got troops at your front door and a city at your back.

I feel it's a good "in a pinch" ability.

Now you say it, a lot of this will depend on how easy it is to "buy out" a city-state in G&K. With the advent of this new quest system and how much of an effect that will have, it may well depend on exactly how much needs to be spent economically/however else in order to apply said strategy.

Great shout though on the one-two punch. I feel Austria should be underestimated at the player's peril.

 

[CleverFool]

Cleverfool, that is true, but the way I've been envisioning their ability, you wouldn't buy out a CS unless you were, say, at war with someone who had a CS right next to them. You couldn't piss them off anymore, you're at war, and now they can't get benefits from the CS. It seems like a great one-two punch. I got troops at your front door and a city at your back.

I feel it's a good "in a pinch" ability.

Certainly possible. The ability would likely in part be constrained in part by one's imagination more than anything. I could also see it as a great place to stage an intercontinental invasion, as it would allow a great base to position troops and even build / purchase them as necessary. Ultimately it is the cost and ease of the ability will likely go a long ways towards its usefulness. If it is only a token cost once you are allied it could indeed be very strong. But if it costs 1,000-ish gold I'm just not sure how often one would really use it.

I suppose half the fun of waiting for the release is theorizing how useful / unhelpful the UA all are.

 

[thadian]

Netherlands doesn't suck, after paying tribute of a luxury they still get SOMETHING out of paying it.

Austria, i can see their ability is game breaking in the right situation, but i promise the city state on my southern border will NEVER become an austria city, and peace be kept. oh no, i will go to war, liberate it and sue for peace.

Celts will probably be the worst - faith from forests, give me a break. Iroquois already works on forests, we don't need to foresters. But i admit if they DO start with 3 forests, and have a river running through their region and at least one plains, grassland and hills - yes, then they will be the napoleon of religion.

 

[Securion]

I thought it was settled by now that the Swedish UA is the worst...?
10% more GPs? Wow! Not.

 

[Nithus]

My own opinion on Celtic UA is, that it is gonna be overpowered (snowball effect). Don't forget to build stonehenge for them.

Weakest UA? Not sure, but everything points to the Netherlands. Another candidate is Austria, but we will see.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I think people need to remember we don't know if the 10% stacks.. it might be a one off, or in case of multiple DoFs it would be 10%+10%+10% etc.

But I can't help but say Sweden purely because their ability doesn't work in Multiplayer games, unless you play with the AI, Sweden's ability half-working unless they bring in the ability to make doF into MP games.

 

[Nyanko]

I think Swedens UA is underpowered, but potentially very good.
I think the Netherlands is the weakest of all the UA's though. Thats not to say its bad, just to say its not as good as the others, including Sweden

 

[Loucypher]

I'd say Sweden, unless they rework the DoF's a bit and make them worth more the effort. If they don't, then even if they stack it's not that great, really.

 

[chazzycat]

i think the dutch & swedes will be pretty solid.

Cleverfool has described the dutch situation it pretty well - they will have a nice advantage in early expansion with that extra happy. this is a pretty critical stage of the game with the potential to snowball, so it shouldn't be written off.

About Sweden, DOF are required for RAs now, so they are definitely worth the effort. 10% alone would kinda suck, but I am assuming it stacks with each DOF, and in that case, Sweden would be top tier science civ IMO.

I am more worried about Ethiopia...defending a tall empire isn't a huge challenge as is. I guess you can use their UA offensively until the AI is down to their last cities, but that seems weird. Without any advantages that actually speed up VC, and being best suited for culture, it will be tough to keep other AI from getting nukes/spaceships

 

[theguy8882]

I don't think any of the Unique abilities are bad, I think every civ is good in it's on right. But out of all of them I think the celts are the weakest. I just feel that even if it means getting religion easily, it doesn't really make you stronger then anyone else with religion. And since you can't improve the tiles it seems like it could be a real nuisance if you want production.

 

[MaximusK]

I really believe it will depend upon your particular game setup.

CARTHAGE: Play a 5 billion year old lakes map and you won't find Carthage very useful, except maybe the elephants.

MAYA: I am curious how long it will take to research theology. How many GP can the Maya get before 1850 or so? If you have the ability to choose the GP, we could see the earliest sci victory with this civ.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Shouldn't Long Count Calendar go until 2012?

 

[GenjiKhan]

I am more worried about Ethiopia...defending a tall empire isn't a huge challenge as is. I guess you can use their UA offensively until the AI is down to their last cities, but that seems weird. Without any advantages that actually speed up VC, and being best suited for culture, it will be tough to keep other AI from getting nukes/spaceships

Considering that building a wall is necessary to repel an early rush from your closest neighbor,the Ethiopia's UA might help the player to avoid building walls for a long time or preventing the player from adopting defensive Pantheons without threating their existance .

 

[Fluxx]

This has been discussed before but the UA really isnt as bad as it might seem at first glance. Early game on a pangaea/terra map this pretty much means you get 270 gold or 2 happyness extra for each 'unique' luxury resource.
The only civ who has happyness bonus as an UA is India, and it is pretty much considered to be the best UA In the game.

Sure there are moments where the dutch UA is quite useless, then again I once had a game where I was the Siamese and only found 2 city states of which both were militaristic until the late rennaissance era.

Some people say this is just a worse form of the Arabian UB, but are forgetting that it requires you to tech to currency AND build it in the relevant cities.
Time will tell, but together with the glimpse we got from the dutch UB, I can imagine them growing quite rapidly horizontally to 4 cities, and then having a vertical 'babyboom' to rush to education.

If we have learned anything from the civilization games over the years, it is that early game advantages are often the best because they give the snowball effect.

 

[RealHuhn]

Netherland ability:
Retains 50% of the happiness benefits from a luxury resource if your last copy of it is traded away.

Worst abillity ever seen in a civ game?

I hope you only talk about multiplayer because in singleplayer on higher difficulties, the UA grants you either tons of gold or happiness.

Potentially one of the best UAs for the early game. And I'm dead serious.

 

[Camikaze]

As I've argued elsewhere, Netherlands UA will not be weak.

Sweden on the other hand...

Ethiopia doesn't strike me as that great, either. It's of course largely dependent on play style, but I don't often find myself defending, or fighting against civs with more cities.