I have this idea where the 3 vills card is removed and we replace it with some “2 villagers + something”.
It’s something akin to what the devs did to USA, as Immigrant cardsa and Hausa/Ethiopia ( which have 2 vills+ “something”). The goal is providing more diversity, turning Exploration Age more dynamic without making the civs unbalanced by:
- Killing off the eternal “3 vills card”,
- Reviewing/reworking a bunch of useless Age I cards by merging them with vills.
- Players could choose over half a dozen initial options depending on the match up, deck, opening, strategy and map.
- It’s got the perks of potentially making unused Commerce Age’s politicians more desirable and it’s as effective as creating new opening cards like Greenwich or Consulate+ trickle.
Examples:
- 2 villagers + 100 coin: good for a market opening or if you are dutch or german
- 2 villagers + 100 food: would be popular
- 2 villagers + Livestock Pen wagon: for maps with cattle or to be used with the Naturalist
- 2 villagers + markets have slightly better rate: it nerfs and merges the Advanced Market card¹
- 2 villagers + you can train cows and cattle fatten slightly faster: It merges the Ranching card and a (nerfed) Stockyard card²
- 1 Villager + native techs cost no coin: It merges “Native Lore”
- 2 Vills + “Mills and Estates are stronger and slightly cheaper”: It nerfs and merges “Advanced Mills” and "Advanced Estates"³
The equivalent would also be adapted to Germany and France:
- 1 Settle Wagon + 1 vills
- 1 Settle Wagon + 100 coin
- 1 Courer de Bois + Courer des Bois do more damage to guardians (it merges NorthWest Passage)
- 2 Courer des Bois + wood last longer and it’s chopped slightly faster (it nerfs and merges “SawMills” )