America's Minuteman is goldenĪmerica is the last vanilla civ to get a revision in the patch, and it's a minor one. I wouldn't mind if they also added bonus culture or faith when a Japanese unit dies. I had hoped that Japan would receive a faith and/or cultural buff, so I guess I'm happy with this change. I guess this represents how big of an impact fishing and sushi had on Japan's culture. In addition, Japan has a higher coastal bonus (they didn't have one to begin with?), and the Samurai can build Fishing Boats. The Japanese Bushido ability now includes bonus culture from Fishing Boats and Atolls.
Japan received the second most significant revision. And if Culture or Science is your preferred victory type, then the bonus production from the Hanse can be used to get a head start on building late-game science and cultural buildings, as well as for pumping out Archaeologists. The new focus on City State trade gives them good synergy with the Diplomatic victory.
It also makes Germany a very versatile civilization that excels in all victory types! They still have the "Furor Teutonicus" ability that gives them free units from Barbarian camps (although a boost to Germany's unit cap would have been nice) and the Panzer unique unit, so they have the military strategy covered for both early and late game. In any case, this is a strategically-significant building, and I like the options that it provides. The only downside is that you don't get science from trade routes with City States, so if Germany is behind technologically, they either have to rely completely on spies, or lose out on the bonus by sending their trade routes to technologically superior civilizations. This building gives Germany both an economic and a production flavor, and can be a huge boon to Germany's Renaissance and Industrial economy! In addition, it keeps gold from trade routes out of the hands of rival civilizations. City State trade routes were buffed anyway, and Germany has extra incentive to trade with CSs. The Hanse is a unique bank that gives German cities a 5% production boost for each trade route that Germany makes with a City State (regardless of which city the trade route originates from). In order to differentiate the two, The Landsknechts unique unit was replaced with a new unique building, the "Hanse". Both civs had a huge military flavor, discounts for unit maintenance, and a unique Pikeman replacement, and the Zulu had Germany beat on all accounts.
Germany was probably the civ that was in the most dire need of a facelift, since the Zulu left them completely in the dust. Germany goes economic ditches Landsknechts In addition, Japan has received a small (but significant) buff. Well, Germany has been given a major update, and America has received a small tweak in order to better differentiate them from the BNW successors. As I mentioned in my review, Germany and America seem to have been completely one-upped by the Zulu and Shoshone. Several of the vanilla civilizations received a major overhaul.
Well, Firaxis has released a major update to the game earlier this fall that addresses some of these complaints. I also complained about a few mechanical issues such as how the "warmonger" mechanic works and the value of trade routes. In my review of the Brave New World expansion for Civilization V, I expressed some disappointment that some of the legacy civilizations didn't receive significant updates.