Presenting my first civ concept here, a completely unnecessary addition of yet another European people, the Scots! I made this into a mod and used it to play through the Robert the Bruce custom campaign, and they were amazing fun and (I think) fairly well balanced.
This is intended to be part of a split of the Celts civilisation into several medieval Celtic states, the others being the Welsh, Irish and Bretons, with more historically-inspired features. Keep an eye open for more of them in the next few days/weeks.
The Scots - Infantry Civilisation
Pikemen and Halberdiers +1 range
University, Mill, Mining Camp and Lumber Camp technologies research instantly
Houses build 100% faster
Militia-line units move 10% faster starting in the Feudal Age
Team Bonus: Infantry deal +2 damage to stone walls and towers
Unique Unit - Knycht
Scottish unique pike-armed nobleman with good armour. Attacks at range. Strong vs. Infantry.
CA Unique Technology - Claymore
Militia-line units gains a charged attack (Similar to Coustillier, charge damage is equal to 150% of their base attack value and recovers in 20 seconds)
IA Unique Technology - Mons Meg
Bombard Cannons +50% hitpoints
Tech tree (Missing technologies)
Barracks
Eagles
Archery Range
Arbalester
Elephant Archer
Stable
Bloodlines
Regional Units
Blacksmith
Ring Archer Armour
Blast Furnace
Siege
Siege Ram
Heavy Scorpion
University/Castle
Heated Shot
Siege Engineers
Sappers
Dock
Shipwright
Dry Dock
Heavy Demo Ship
Monastery
Redemption
Atonement
Block Printing
Illumination
Eco
Crop Rotation
Historical/Design notes
The core infantry combat bonuses reflect on the one hand the Scottish use of long spears in defensive schiltrom formations and on the other the more aggressive highland combat style which eventually evolved into the fearsome “highland charge” of the early modern period. Their long range pikemen and unique Knycht can form a strong defensive position resistant to all melee troops, while being vulnerable to archers. While playing the Robert the Bruce campaign against mostly Briton opponents, I did find myself struggling against their archers at times, which felt fitting both historically and balance-wise
There are a lot of old and prestigious universities in Scotland, so a university bonus had to be included, and the instant technology bonus is very powerful. The ability to instantly research the usually lengthy ballistics and chemistry techs might be too much, but the instant economic techs are fairly low impact, I think.
Faster building houses references the expansion of Scottish cities during the medieval period, and it also helps to defend against rushes and smooth out Dark Age builds, especially if you’re like me and keep housing yourself.
Not at all balanced. This is incredibly broken. Not needing to wait for any of those techs come in? That’s way way way too strong. Lets say that in a game, you want to research Horse Collar, Heavy Plow, Double Bit Axe, Bow Saw, Gold Mining, Ballistics, Chemistry, and maybe Masonry or Treadmill Crane, depending on what you’re doing. Those techs have a combined research time of 6 minutes and 15 seconds. That’s a massive advantage over your enemies. This is just not balanced unfortunately.
Don’t care about so much.
Kind of close to Celts.
Seems pretty niche.
Anyway, I just wanted to rant about the instant techs, so that’s all from me.
Maybe, but only in the same way as Malian infantry step on Huskarl’s toes. The timing and role of the Kamayuk is very different to pikemen or halbs.
I’m willing to accept this, but I think for some of the techs you mentioned (lumber camp and mining camp) you might be overestimating the impact. Getting those techs instantly instead of waiting amounts to a small handful of extra resources in total. For Ballistics and Chemistry, you could be right. Getting gunpowder out immediately is very strong, but Turks already do that cheaper and they have a stronger gold eco behind it. If it turned out too strong after testing I’d be willing to make some changes.
Sorry, I should have mentioned it, this is supposed to be part of a Dynasties of India-style splintering of the Celts into multiple civs, so in the world where the Scots existed the Celts wouldn’t be around.
It’s probably most impactful with the farms one (out of the resource camps), because you can get the extra food on the farm, and you don’t have to wait for the tech to come in, meaning you save more wood per farm earlier, or can even start farming sooner if you usually wait for the tech. So sure, it’s a small thing, but it can be part of a snowball.
I’ll be honest, I’m not really interested in splitting the Celts. I get that they are kind of ahistorical and stuff (based on Caesar’s Celts more than later ones), but compared to India, they really don’t merit a split. Honestly, (don’t take this literally, I don’t want any Euro splits), but the Italian split people sometimes suggest seems more justifiable than splitting Celts. Also, if you’re splitting them, what would the other branch(s) be?
This is true, their farms might be a bit too strong, even without Crop Rotation. I think of it as similar to the Burgundian earlier techs bonus in effect, and probably about comparable in strength.
I’m not seriously suggesting a Celts split, it’s just that British history is my thing so I have far more fun thinking about various British civs than the Chinese, Slavic or Italian split civ crafters usually come up with. Currently the Celts would become the Scots, Irish, Welsh and Bretons. Irish and Welsh would be archer-focused civs with a strong late- and early-game respectively, Bretons are all about the horse.
Nobody researches them one after other . So that’s the max possible time (even that’s not the max as there will be idle time in between). So by every logic your calculations is wrong.
For those that can be researched in parallel, the benefit is also gained in parallel. For example, suppose I research Double-Bit Axe (25 seconds) and Gold Mining (30 seconds) simultaneously. If I get them instantly, I gain 25 seconds of my Villagers chopping wood faster and 30 seconds of my Villagers mining gold faster. The benefit there isn’t that you free up your drop-off buildings to research other things, so @TheConqueror753’s calculation is the relevant one.
(Of course, for the University techs, you can’t research them in parallel unless you build more than one university.)
And points for doing something beyond making a civ post.
Seems fine, an oft-suggested bonus for either Scots or Swiss.
Don’t agree with this at all as far as eco. The eco boost of getting camp/mill technology techs instantly is fairly minor. A relevant comparison is with Burgundians, who will usually get these techs not seconds, but minutes before their opponents due to being able to research them an age earlier, and at a discount. As far as Uni techs, I don’t know that it’s broken (although it may be). My gripe is more with regards to insta Chemistry being too similar to other civs that can get it fairly quickly (Turks, Burgundians, Malians), and ballistics, which is quite strong if you can get it instantly (and having both means they’ll probably play as an archer civ, whatever the design intent was for them). I’d consider removing the bonus from Universities. Possibly would be okay for monasteries, especially if they have an iffy tech tree.
It’s an okay eco bonus, but much weaker than the Burgundian one. Regarding farms, it’s still weaker than Frank, Polish, Khmer and Slav farm bonuses, and of a much more limited duration.