Brontoforumus Archive
Game Boards => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: Rico on September 25, 2010, 02:07:06 AM
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It's pretty good! The UI is much cleaner and more helpful, a lot of the cruft is taken away, but it's still a very deep game. The new combat is much more strategic. I might describe the game as, "Someone described the Civilization series to a guy who had never played them and then that guy went out and developed Civilization V."
Mostly I just made this topic to share a small segment entitled, "What the fuck, Russia?"
(http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k212/lolpbaccount/Civ5/Civ5-1.jpg)
(http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k212/lolpbaccount/Civ5/Civ5-2.jpg)
(http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k212/lolpbaccount/Civ5/Civ5-3.jpg)
(http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k212/lolpbaccount/Civ5/Civ5-4.gif)
(http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k212/lolpbaccount/Civ5/Civ5-5.jpg)
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Started a game as Japan. I built my first two cities, then conquered america, then Germany, then France, then Songhai. I now have like 15 fucking cities, about half of which are puppet stats. I'm going for a Domination victory, but just having such a huge empire is so hard to manage in this game. It's starting to gel a little bit now that my happiness has leveled off and the puppet cities are actually producing some good research and culture. I did all this in the Renaissance, where the Japanese have Samurai, and basically just stomped through the pitiable attempts by my enemies to stop me, but now the age of the Samurai is over, and I still have three empires to conquer, all off continent. I think I'll spend the 1800s teching like crazy and building my armies, and then the 20th century will be the time of fire and tears.
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Feel free to disagree. This is all just my opinion.
Kazz's Civ V Tier List:
Pro Tier:
Catherine of Russia - "Strategic resources provide +1 production and Horse, Iron, and Uranium resources provide double quantity."
As though you weren't already grabbing all of those resources already. All those nice units that most people want to build as many as possible of? Well, you can have twice as many. Congratulations, you win. The Cossack is a fine unique, but the Krepost (replaces the Barracks) kicks fucking ass: it reduces the culture cost of buying new tiles by 50%. Meaning that her borders are going to fucking swell. She's unreal.
Alexander of Greece - "Your influence with City States degrades at half and recovers at double the normal rate."
City-States are a big deal this game. Staying friends with just one is an expensive proposition, so staying friends with several of them is almost out of the question for most Civs. Not for Alexander. He will have essentially double the little friends. And at a certain point, he can safely swap all of his cities to Production focus, since the food coming in from Maritime civs will be more than he could hope to make himself. Oh, and his unique units are straight upgrades of the Spearman and Horseman, giving him a better-than-decent chance of kicking your ass early.
Oda of Japan - "Units fight at full strength even when damaged."
How stupid-good is that. His ass-busted units are probably going to charge your city and push its shit in, no matter how hard you hit them first. It's such a cool and characteristic trait; I can completely imagine samurai on the attack despite having lost half their number and the rest of them being wounded. Anyway, Samurai aren't much stronger than Longswordmen but they do start with Shock I and make Great Generals spawn, which means you're almost always going to have a +25% to +45% combat bonus if you're at war in that era.
Ramesses II of Egypt - "+20% Production towards Wonder construction."
Hi, welcome to Civilization. Do you know how good Wonders are? They're good. They're extremely good. Any little boost toward getting them built helps, and +20% is not a little boost. At any rate, one fewer turn than the next guy is all you need to get a permanent boost to your civ. It will be very hard to compete with Egypt's wonder pile if he is not crushed early. Furthermore: the Burial Tomb gives both culture and happiness, making it kind of a mini-wonder that you can plop anywhere.
Wu Zetian of China - "Effectiveness and spawn rate of Great Generals increased."
Great People are cool and Great Generals are among the better ones, but I don't think this bonus is a huge deal. The best thing about China are its uniques, the Cho-No-Ku is an absolute rapist because it can fire TWICE IN ONE TURN, ARE YOU KIDDING, and the Paper Maker (which replaces the Library) gives the normal Library science bonus, but then gives you +4 gold too (+3 if you substract the Paper Maker's own maintenance cost). Most gold-boosting buildings give you a percentage increase, meaning that your city would have needed to already be a decent moneymaker, but the Paper Maker effectively gives you a free gold-producing tile.
Napoleon of France - "+2 culture per city before discovering Steam Power."
France tops a lot of other people's lists just because it makes cultural victory even easier. I'm unsure, really; +2 culture per city isn't a huge deal in my mind. But I can't really stick France in Mid Tier, either, because it gets such excellent gunpowder uniques, making it a mid-to-late-game force to be reckoned with. The Musketeer is 20 strength to the Musketman's 16, which is great, and the Foreign Legion (replacing Infantry) gets a +20% combat bonus OUTSIDE of your borders. A totally solid civ; France wins games, that's all there is to it.
Mid Tier:
Augustus Caesar of Rome - "+25% Production toward any building that exists in the Capital."
Why don't you just say "any building"? Cause if you're building it, Capital probably has it. Though you better hope (or make sure, if at all possible) your Capital is coastal or a lot of that bonus will be wasted. The Legion and the Ballista are decent uniques which thankfully share an era; too many civs have a unit in one era and a unit in the other.
George Washington of America - "+1 land unit sight. 25% discount when purchasing tiles."
The land unit sight bonus seems really good until you remember that, especially early on, there are always fucking trees in the way. The tile purchase discount is actually pretty good, I always find myself needing to buy a resource tile and saving a few bucks never hurts. America is best when it spams Minutemen, which have a nice movement bonus.
Askia of Songhai - "Receive triple gold from barbarian encampment and pillaging cities. Embarked units may defend themselves."
The gold bonus is far better than the bullshit bonuses given to Germany and Ottoman. Embarked units being able to defend themselves is also a big deal, as it makes a naval escort unnecessary (though still a good idea.) The Mandekalu Cavalry and the Mud Pyramid Mosque are both decent uniques.
Queen Elizabeth of England - "+2 naval unit movement."
The naval movement bonus is so good it's unfair, but it's so situational. You are basically forced to become a great naval power; what if you're on a pangaea, or the continents are enormous? You'd better hope the sea is really important. The Longbowman is a good unique, 3 range is a killer, and the Ship of the Line is easily the best naval unit for the cost.
Gandhi of India - "Unhappiness from number of cities is doubled, unhappiness from population is halved."
The normal unhappiness from number of cities is actually not that large, so this is more of a happiness bonus than anything, but with so many things giving you happiness if you need it, I'm not sure it's a good bonus. The best thing about India is easily the War Elephant. It replaces the anemic Chariot Archer, ranged strength 6 and combat strength 3. The Elephant has ranged strength 8 and combat strength 6, does not require horses, and doesn't have to stop if it enters woods or hills. It is a dominant early unit.
Harun al-Rashid of Arabia - "+1 gold from each Trade Route and Oil Resources provide double quantity."
Before I talk about the leader bonus, I should mention that the Bazaar provides an extra copy of each luxury resource near the city. Arabia is clearly intended to make money by trading with other civs, which is a cute idea, but do you really want to be giving away all those luxury resources and oil? I'd rather build a trillion tanks and keep the luxury junk to myself. A good civ to have as a patsy AI, a "meh" civ to play as. The Camel Archer (replacing the Knight), it should be noted, is an excellent unique.
Bismarck of the Germans - "Upon defeating a Barbarian unit inside an encampment, there is a 50% chance you earn 25 gold and they join your side."
What a stupid bonus. Historically, it makes sense, but good lord is this a chore. What you end up having to do, in my mind, is keeping a few nearby spots of land under fog of war, so that when late-game barbarians start spawning (Barbarian Riflemen, etc) you can go gamble on the chance to get free units. To keep itself out of shit-tier, Germany manages to have two good uniques: the Landsknecht is a Pikeman that costs as much as a Spearman (33 hammers), which is actually really cool, and the Panzer has 60 strength and 5 movement points to the Tank's 50 and 4.
Shit Tier:
Darius I of Persia - "Golden Ages last 50% longer. During a Golden Age, units gain +1 movement and +10% combat strength."
Eh. Persia is so close to being decent, but it doesn't work for me. The Golden Age bonus only gives you a bonus, yknow, during Golden Ages, so you'd better pop a lot of those. The Immortal doesn't strike me as a good Unique, just because it's a marginal improvement over an already marginal unit (the Spearman). Satrap's Court replaces the Bank and gives you a couple of Happiness, whoopee.
Montezuma I of the Aztec - "Gain Culture for the empire for each enemy unit killed."
Joke bonus. What strategy is that supposed to support, the cultural victory via constant warfare? Am I taking crazy pills? The Jaguar replaces the Warrior, yes, the very first unit. It heals 2 damage each time it kills a unit (how often will that be?) and it has a bonus fighting in Jungle only. The unique building Floating Gardens gives a bit of food, but is only even available if your City is built next to fresh water. Your strategy with this Civ, I imagine, should be to rush everybody at once and hope you can somehow kill every single other person on the map before they get ARCHERS.
Hiawatha of the Iroquoi - "Units move through Forest and Jungle in friendly territory as if it is Road. These tiles can be used to establish trade routes."
The Iroquoi's bonuses are ALL based on Forest and Jungle tiles. The Mohawk Warrior (replacing Swordsman) gets a combat bonus in the woods and the Longhouse (which you get after Metal Casting??? Go figure) gives a +1 production for each worked Forest tile. So you can't clear your forest tiles. So you can't automate your workers, cause they'll clear your forest tiles (I hope they give you decent automation options like in the old games soon). Also, don't misread that leader bonus: Forest and Jungle are roads in FRIENDLY territory, not neutral. Sorry to dash your hopes of using Horsemen like uber-Scouts or something.
Ramkhamhaeng of Siam - "Food and Culture from friendly City-States increased by 50%."
Many of the civs in the Shit-Tier list shoehorn you into a strategy without giving you the tools to make them work. Alexander's City-State bonus is great because it actually makes it easier to have a lot of City-States on your side. Ramkhamhaeng's City-State bonus sucks because, while it gives you a substantial boost to the support that they give you, they are going to remain just as expensive to make nice with. City-States are powerful allies in number, but having just as many as the next guy doesn't constitute an "advantage." Siam's uniques aren't great; Naresuan's Elephant is slower than the Knight and has a bonus against Mounted, and the Wat is a University that gives 3 whole entire culture.
Suleiman of the Ottomans - "50% chance of converting a Barbarian naval unit to your side and earning 25 gold."
This bonus is dumbfounding. You have to understand that the Ottomans DOMINATED much of eastern Europe and the Mediterranean in the middle of the previous millenium. This bonus fails completely to reflect that. I don't even get how you're supposed to use it. Like, go back and read Russia's or Japan's, and then come back and read this one. Whatever; the Janissary (replacing Musketman) is actually a pretty dangerous motherfucker because it fully heals if it destroys an enemy unit (though I'd rather have Japan's bonus than a billion Janissaries). The Sipahi replaces the Lancer; he gets +1 sight and it can pillage for free. What fucking garbage.
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I've discussed this list with others and they all bitch that Darius is excellent and Siam is underrated. You decide.
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How do you guys think this one stacks up against the previous ones?
I've played 2, 3, & 4. 2 is easily my favourite, but I beat it so hard it's not really fun anyore. 3 isn't bad but MY GOD THAT CORRUPTION (though I only played vanilla... I understand you get JUST enough tools to sorta fix that with the expansions so that it's playable at least. The whole Civ 3 package is only $5 on Steam, so I might do that). 4 just seemed really cartoonish and simplified to me. Like, I know it's not if you actually look at the numbers, but it just really puts me off in so many little ways.
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I started Civ at Beyond The Sword, so my experience is limited, but I am good friends with a guy who can play on Diety level and win and will get his whole 10+ family in on Civ games (!) and he says that Civ4 was deplorable at launch, and Civ5 seems to follow the same trend that the game itself is kind of ehat launch and it's expected that an expansion will fix it.
That said, as someone relatively new to the series, I appreciate cutting out a lot of the needlessly complex stuff and making the UI look very pretty. I feel like I'm goofing off while working for Andrew Ryan.
After 2 failed games, I finally managed to win a Culture Victory as Ghandi with 3 or less cities. I more or less had to sacrfice everything, and halfway in the game, I stopped buying polices to wait until the Cristo Redentor wonder could be thrown up - I got lucky and a Great Engineer spawned within 2 turns of me being able to build it, so I threw it up, dumped the 18k culture, and rushed the Utopia Project. Made it with 17 turns to spare.
....It is a fun game. I'm going to work on being more aggressive, I had a severe problem in Civ4BTS where I'd always drastically underestimate what I needed for military and get stomped.
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Kazz: Golden Ages are just so good that an extra 50% length can really push you over the top in the era.
As far as Civ 5's quality, I've played a variety of different maps, numbers of opponents, and difficulties (fucking achievements why would you add achievements to an already time-sink gaming experience?) and haven't had any flaws really jump out at me except for the "AI can't manage a navy" but that's been a problem for years and years and years, so. The combat is markedly better, the separate gold/tech/culture resource management works very well and while gold is slightly undervalued the resources are pretty equal; I'm especially a fan of how it's probably not a good idea to just build every building in every city. Great Scientist slingshotting will probably be nerfed back to Civ4 style, but the game feels pretty well balanced. Small empires are now a fairly viable choice.
Of course there's a lot more they can do with expansions, but the base product is very solid and gives them a great foundation for actually expanding the game without really having to worry about using one just to "fix" the existing game (See: Multiple expansions to try and make Civ4 combat not the worst thing ever).
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The ability of a Great Scientist to just give you whatever Tech you want is insane and has been the reason each time by the endgame I'm 1-2 eras ahead of the AI.
Also I swear that Research Agreements are less random than they claim, I've always seemed to get the most expensive tech from it that I had access to at the time.
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I haven't had it work THAT well on Prince and above. Warlord and under, it's very satisfying to be taunted by the AI, get warred on, then upgrade all your shitty ancient units to modern and watch that begging peace trade roll in.
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The Sipahi replaces the Lancer; he gets +1 sight and it can pillage for free. What fucking garbage.
Is pillaging the same as in Civ 4, because if so, that's kind of good for simply kicking somebody's Civ down the efficiency stairs.
Achievements
SOLD.
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I've been doing Warlord and below to get a feel for the game, and been doing middling sizes - the biggest I had was 6 Empires, 8 City States, and I all but neglected the city-states that weren't cultural.
Also yes, Doom, achievements. There's even one for a Civ beating you to a wonder 10 times.
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I actually got that one for beating other civs to a wonder 10 times. Bug? Perhaps, but I'll take it. Anyway, I love this game so much I want to fuck it. There are flaws, but they're much less glaring than in previous Civ launches. A slight addendum to Kazz's tier list, when you're thinking about unique units, when you choose to upgrade a unique unit into the next tier where it is not so unique it keeps its unique trait. For instance, I conquered my whole continent with Samurai, which have the unique perk of double combat EXP values toward Great Generals. I then upgraded them to Riflemen, and they still had the trait, along with all the the other promotions they had earned through conquest. By the way, upgrading is not totally viable rather than almost impossible, because Gold is a discreet resource from Science and Culture, meaning you're never pouring it directly into either, which was always most of your GDP if you wanted to stay ahead. Now upgrading units, or buying buildings/units that you need quickly is a completely viable thing to do regularly.
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Is pillaging the same as in Civ 4, because if so, that's kind of good for simply kicking somebody's Civ down the efficiency stairs.
It's actually a little better because of some changes to roads. Roads have a pretty large maintenance cost so you pretty much only have one route between cities, but in exchange the benefit of connecting cities is much higher. Taking out a tile of that chain can be pretty crippling and is much more time-effective than pillaging tile improvements.
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I'm tantalizingly close to a Domination victory in my Japan game. I've conquered all but two of the original 7 (not including myself of course) civs, and now it's just a matter of finishing the job. Elizabeth has been insufferably smug because her army is "better" than mine, but she just has tons of low tech units that I could walk through, wheras as al-Rashid is mad at me because I am a mean man who uses violence to solve his problems. I'm really looking forward to completing what I have dubbed The Land of the Never Setting Sun.
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Wish I'd known that attacking city-states could make other city-states HATE FOREVER.
Hey Kazz, where in your tiers list would you put Special-Edition-only civ, Babylon? They get +2 Combat and +2 Ranged Combat on their Archers, and their Walls cost 80 instead of 100, add 7.5 City Defense instead of 5, and boost the bombard damage of their city. The Leader special is a free Great Scientist when you research Writing and double the Great Scientist points.
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God tier for space race victory, otherwise decent for keeping ahead in tech.
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Golden Ages are wonderful with the right city setup, and it IS possible to pop a lot of them, but it's not something you can do on a consistent basis. If you have a lot of things for Golden Age to double the output of, Darius will be powerful.
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Domination Victory achieved. Take that, everyone. By the end of the game I had like 30 cities, and the whole habitable map was white with my cultural boundaries. Glorious.
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white with my cultural boundaries.
Racist.
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Back off. I was Japan. Their borders are white with red cities.
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I'm being told that building and disbanding workers gives a 28% return on production to gold, with that ratio improviing if +Land Unit buildings apply to them. Whereas building Wealth is just a 10% return.
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Finally got this, thanks Steammas. Incredible game, it's like Civ 4 but they took out some of the extra bits but in exchange they made the combat incredibly good woah what. More strategy and less "Cheating Computer has 30 units and didn't bankrupt their tech development because they Cheat."
Also Kazz rereading your list I gotta tell you, Wu Zetian is INCREDIBLE because if you have light defense forces and one of your asshole neighbors goes LET'S FIGHT, you'll get a Great General really fast(or you already have one sitting in a city, waiting.) Run over to the contest border and drop a citadel.
England went from contesting me for our shared continent to giving me all their gold and never raising a finger in my direction for the rest of the game as I just chain-culture bomb'd her because I didn't feel like using the artists for anything else. The Citadel is fucking God King of Border Defense. You better be at the aircraft era or you ain't getting in there.
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am i the only one that goes into HOLY FUCK KILL IT mode when you realize that asshole montezuma is around?
that fucker ALWAYS TRIES TO INVADE ME (and keeps running into rifle/cannon fire with his comically techtreed up army, whoops)
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I have not noticed unusual aggression from Montezuma at all.
Rather, from anyone who becomes your "neighbor." No joke. If your borders touch, you're going to fucking war in the future. Also all unclaimed land on the entire continent mass is their future property and they'll get madder and madder as you make new cities, so. It's basically Civ 4 Religion.
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I have not noticed unusual aggression from Montezuma at all.
he attacks me when he is BEYOND outclassed tech wise (DURR I WILL THROW MY HORSEMEN AT THESE TANKS, OH GOD THERE IS SOME SORT OF GIANT METAL SEA MONSTER EXPLODING MY CAPITAL FOR SOME REASON)
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Has Civilization ever been particularly noteworthy for AI quality?
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Considering the extraordinary difficulty of keeping a meaningful number of human players in one spot for the length of the average civ game, we're lucky it's as good as it is.
But like most AIs, you notice exploitable or cautionary patterns. Nobody has ever rushed me with ridiculously out-teched units, but they've certainly declared inevitable war on me for the crime of being with 5 squares of "their" land, as my borders grew enough to touch their own.
And in Civ 4, well, do you have any religion at all? Congratulations, every other Civ with a different religion in the world will hate you in increasing factors over time. Better rush Free Religion or forgo all the early religion bonuses. And good news, the AI is wildly biased against being asked to change religion. Fortunately, not from doing so naturally if you missionary every single city they have.
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One of my favourite tactics in Civ4 was to rush the Apostolic Palace, and any other wonder that gave me Great Prophet points. Get a prophet, construct the holy building in my city, and then pump out missionaries for that religion. I would get an increasing assload of money, and gradually everyone in the world would fall under my religion, save for those who started on other continents.
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Started picking up and playing this again. A few small annoyances:
-Why is multiplayer still slow as shit after a whole year of being released
-We lost a game that we had worked on for something like 8 total hours because the turn wouldn't roll over after we loaded
-Other players must also own the DLC in order for you to use the DLC. The content is literally not on their HDD until they purchase it. Wtf.
-Holy fuck I am bad at this what is even going on
Maybe I should just get Civ 4 instead. (http://store.steampowered.com/sub/4323/)
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Multiplayer is barely slower than single player in turn processing time, you're just dumb and other people have slow computers.
also I know it was kind of a joke but any problem you have with civ 5 is worse in civ 4 and then it has its own problems. you can start by taking roughly half of the information 5's UI gives you, take it out of all display and documentation, and have it still affect the game.
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Civ Expansion pack! (http://www.2kgames.com/blog/civilization-v-expansion-pack-announced)
But we'll still probably have to deal with the DLC bullshit.
Religion. That's right; quite possibly the most requested major addition to the game is coming in the Gods & Kings expansion. Using the new "Faith" resource, you'll be able to found your own religion and grow it from a simple Pantheon of the Gods to a world-spanning fully-customized religion.
Oh boy, here we go.
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NICE
My people will worship The Funk.
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If you thought Civ5 was offensive before. Lets hope when they say fully customized, they do mean that you can name it anything. It may just mean perks and bonuses, but one can hope.
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I can't wait for the Jesus DLC.
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Oh shit. Kotaku has screenshots. Gamespot has details. (http://asia.gamespot.com/sid-meiers-civilization-v-gods-and-kings/previews/gods-and-kings-brings-big-changes-to-civilization-v-6350514/)
Religion:
(http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/images/9/2012/02/b3347b98b6d162aa7f47f4f155f7ecde.jpg)
Espionage:
(http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/images/9/2012/02/47211b5983250e7cd50dc35618e3a685.jpg)
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Well that's another 300 hours of my life.
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Civ Expansion pack! (http://www.2kgames.com/blog/civilization-v-expansion-pack-announced)
But we'll still probably have to deal with the DLC bullshit.
Religion. That's right; quite possibly the most requested major addition to the game is coming in the Gods & Kings expansion. Using the new "Faith" resource, you'll be able to found your own religion and grow it from a simple Pantheon of the Gods to a world-spanning fully-customized religion.
Oh boy, here we go.
waiting for screenshots of someone winning the game with atheism as their custom religion, completely unaware of the incredible irony of their statement.
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Feel free to disagree. This is all just my opinion.
Kazz's Civ V Tier List:
Pro Tier:
Catherine of Russia - "Strategic resources provide +1 production and Horse, Iron, and Uranium resources provide double quantity."
As though you weren't already grabbing all of those resources already. All those nice units that most people want to build as many as possible of? Well, you can have twice as many. Congratulations, you win. The Cossack is a fine unique, but the Krepost (replaces the Barracks) kicks fucking ass: it reduces the culture cost of buying new tiles by 50%. Meaning that her borders are going to fucking swell. She's unreal.
Alexander of Greece - "Your influence with City States degrades at half and recovers at double the normal rate."
City-States are a big deal this game. Staying friends with just one is an expensive proposition, so staying friends with several of them is almost out of the question for most Civs. Not for Alexander. He will have essentially double the little friends. And at a certain point, he can safely swap all of his cities to Production focus, since the food coming in from Maritime civs will be more than he could hope to make himself. Oh, and his unique units are straight upgrades of the Spearman and Horseman, giving him a better-than-decent chance of kicking your ass early.
Oda of Japan - "Units fight at full strength even when damaged."
How stupid-good is that. His ass-busted units are probably going to charge your city and push its shit in, no matter how hard you hit them first. It's such a cool and characteristic trait; I can completely imagine samurai on the attack despite having lost half their number and the rest of them being wounded. Anyway, Samurai aren't much stronger than Longswordmen but they do start with Shock I and make Great Generals spawn, which means you're almost always going to have a +25% to +45% combat bonus if you're at war in that era.
Ramesses II of Egypt - "+20% Production towards Wonder construction."
Hi, welcome to Civilization. Do you know how good Wonders are? They're good. They're extremely good. Any little boost toward getting them built helps, and +20% is not a little boost. At any rate, one fewer turn than the next guy is all you need to get a permanent boost to your civ. It will be very hard to compete with Egypt's wonder pile if he is not crushed early. Furthermore: the Burial Tomb gives both culture and happiness, making it kind of a mini-wonder that you can plop anywhere.
Wu Zetian of China - "Effectiveness and spawn rate of Great Generals increased."
Great People are cool and Great Generals are among the better ones, but I don't think this bonus is a huge deal. The best thing about China are its uniques, the Cho-No-Ku is an absolute rapist because it can fire TWICE IN ONE TURN, ARE YOU KIDDING, and the Paper Maker (which replaces the Library) gives the normal Library science bonus, but then gives you +4 gold too (+3 if you substract the Paper Maker's own maintenance cost). Most gold-boosting buildings give you a percentage increase, meaning that your city would have needed to already be a decent moneymaker, but the Paper Maker effectively gives you a free gold-producing tile.
Napoleon of France - "+2 culture per city before discovering Steam Power."
France tops a lot of other people's lists just because it makes cultural victory even easier. I'm unsure, really; +2 culture per city isn't a huge deal in my mind. But I can't really stick France in Mid Tier, either, because it gets such excellent gunpowder uniques, making it a mid-to-late-game force to be reckoned with. The Musketeer is 20 strength to the Musketman's 16, which is great, and the Foreign Legion (replacing Infantry) gets a +20% combat bonus OUTSIDE of your borders. A totally solid civ; France wins games, that's all there is to it.
Mid Tier:
Augustus Caesar of Rome - "+25% Production toward any building that exists in the Capital."
Why don't you just say "any building"? Cause if you're building it, Capital probably has it. Though you better hope (or make sure, if at all possible) your Capital is coastal or a lot of that bonus will be wasted. The Legion and the Ballista are decent uniques which thankfully share an era; too many civs have a unit in one era and a unit in the other.
George Washington of America - "+1 land unit sight. 25% discount when purchasing tiles."
The land unit sight bonus seems really good until you remember that, especially early on, there are always fucking trees in the way. The tile purchase discount is actually pretty good, I always find myself needing to buy a resource tile and saving a few bucks never hurts. America is best when it spams Minutemen, which have a nice movement bonus.
Askia of Songhai - "Receive triple gold from barbarian encampment and pillaging cities. Embarked units may defend themselves."
The gold bonus is far better than the bullshit bonuses given to Germany and Ottoman. Embarked units being able to defend themselves is also a big deal, as it makes a naval escort unnecessary (though still a good idea.) The Mandekalu Cavalry and the Mud Pyramid Mosque are both decent uniques.
Queen Elizabeth of England - "+2 naval unit movement."
The naval movement bonus is so good it's unfair, but it's so situational. You are basically forced to become a great naval power; what if you're on a pangaea, or the continents are enormous? You'd better hope the sea is really important. The Longbowman is a good unique, 3 range is a killer, and the Ship of the Line is easily the best naval unit for the cost.
Gandhi of India - "Unhappiness from number of cities is doubled, unhappiness from population is halved."
The normal unhappiness from number of cities is actually not that large, so this is more of a happiness bonus than anything, but with so many things giving you happiness if you need it, I'm not sure it's a good bonus. The best thing about India is easily the War Elephant. It replaces the anemic Chariot Archer, ranged strength 6 and combat strength 3. The Elephant has ranged strength 8 and combat strength 6, does not require horses, and doesn't have to stop if it enters woods or hills. It is a dominant early unit.
Harun al-Rashid of Arabia - "+1 gold from each Trade Route and Oil Resources provide double quantity."
Before I talk about the leader bonus, I should mention that the Bazaar provides an extra copy of each luxury resource near the city. Arabia is clearly intended to make money by trading with other civs, which is a cute idea, but do you really want to be giving away all those luxury resources and oil? I'd rather build a trillion tanks and keep the luxury junk to myself. A good civ to have as a patsy AI, a "meh" civ to play as. The Camel Archer (replacing the Knight), it should be noted, is an excellent unique.
Bismarck of the Germans - "Upon defeating a Barbarian unit inside an encampment, there is a 50% chance you earn 25 gold and they join your side."
What a stupid bonus. Historically, it makes sense, but good lord is this a chore. What you end up having to do, in my mind, is keeping a few nearby spots of land under fog of war, so that when late-game barbarians start spawning (Barbarian Riflemen, etc) you can go gamble on the chance to get free units. To keep itself out of shit-tier, Germany manages to have two good uniques: the Landsknecht is a Pikeman that costs as much as a Spearman (33 hammers), which is actually really cool, and the Panzer has 60 strength and 5 movement points to the Tank's 50 and 4.
Shit Tier:
Darius I of Persia - "Golden Ages last 50% longer. During a Golden Age, units gain +1 movement and +10% combat strength."
Eh. Persia is so close to being decent, but it doesn't work for me. The Golden Age bonus only gives you a bonus, yknow, during Golden Ages, so you'd better pop a lot of those. The Immortal doesn't strike me as a good Unique, just because it's a marginal improvement over an already marginal unit (the Spearman). Satrap's Court replaces the Bank and gives you a couple of Happiness, whoopee.
Montezuma I of the Aztec - "Gain Culture for the empire for each enemy unit killed."
Joke bonus. What strategy is that supposed to support, the cultural victory via constant warfare? Am I taking crazy pills? The Jaguar replaces the Warrior, yes, the very first unit. It heals 2 damage each time it kills a unit (how often will that be?) and it has a bonus fighting in Jungle only. The unique building Floating Gardens gives a bit of food, but is only even available if your City is built next to fresh water. Your strategy with this Civ, I imagine, should be to rush everybody at once and hope you can somehow kill every single other person on the map before they get ARCHERS.
Hiawatha of the Iroquoi - "Units move through Forest and Jungle in friendly territory as if it is Road. These tiles can be used to establish trade routes."
The Iroquoi's bonuses are ALL based on Forest and Jungle tiles. The Mohawk Warrior (replacing Swordsman) gets a combat bonus in the woods and the Longhouse (which you get after Metal Casting??? Go figure) gives a +1 production for each worked Forest tile. So you can't clear your forest tiles. So you can't automate your workers, cause they'll clear your forest tiles (I hope they give you decent automation options like in the old games soon). Also, don't misread that leader bonus: Forest and Jungle are roads in FRIENDLY territory, not neutral. Sorry to dash your hopes of using Horsemen like uber-Scouts or something.
Ramkhamhaeng of Siam - "Food and Culture from friendly City-States increased by 50%."
Many of the civs in the Shit-Tier list shoehorn you into a strategy without giving you the tools to make them work. Alexander's City-State bonus is great because it actually makes it easier to have a lot of City-States on your side. Ramkhamhaeng's City-State bonus sucks because, while it gives you a substantial boost to the support that they give you, they are going to remain just as expensive to make nice with. City-States are powerful allies in number, but having just as many as the next guy doesn't constitute an "advantage." Siam's uniques aren't great; Naresuan's Elephant is slower than the Knight and has a bonus against Mounted, and the Wat is a University that gives 3 whole entire culture.
Suleiman of the Ottomans - "50% chance of converting a Barbarian naval unit to your side and earning 25 gold."
This bonus is dumbfounding. You have to understand that the Ottomans DOMINATED much of eastern Europe and the Mediterranean in the middle of the previous millenium. This bonus fails completely to reflect that. I don't even get how you're supposed to use it. Like, go back and read Russia's or Japan's, and then come back and read this one. Whatever; the Janissary (replacing Musketman) is actually a pretty dangerous motherfucker because it fully heals if it destroys an enemy unit (though I'd rather have Japan's bonus than a billion Janissaries). The Sipahi replaces the Lancer; he gets +1 sight and it can pillage for free. What fucking garbage.
Both Starr and I finally picked this up pretty recently during the 75% off sale. Got game of the year edition, so I have most (but not all, I think?) of the DLC. I want to putter around in single-player for a while.
Any chance of an update to the above list? Any recommendations for good social policy combos or early ball-busting strategies?
Generally I lean towards tech victories in Civ games, but sometimes conquer everything (with a very occasional cultural victory). I like being way ahead of everybody scientifically and focusing on quality (better units, fully upgraded tiles & cities). I do like having some empire-space though and generally wind up conquering my starting continent. So, a pretty fucking conventional strategy, really.
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If you got the version with all the DLC Civs, Korea is god tier for Tech.
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What about Nebuchadnezzar II?
Hmmm... It appears that the Game of the year edition does not come with the Koreans. >:(
EDIT: In fact, that is the ONLY DLC it doesn't come with. :P
EDIT2: Blah blah blah Never mind, finally found Sejong's bonuses. That sounds really nice, but it looks like the business plan here is to nickel-and-dime people to death with the DLC ($5 to add one new Civ? Joke's on me...), so I think I'll wait for the inevitable price drop or bundle.
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TO EVERYONE HAVING PROBLEMS WITH SLOWDOWN LATEGAME:
You know those fancy dancy moving avatars whenever you chat with other countries? When the AI talks to itself, it renders those.
That's right, when AI Washington is talking to AI Nobunaga about how hard they want to stab you in the back, the computer is going through all the motions to fully render that shit, and then immediately discards this.
So basically in late game it tries to do this 12 times at once and whoop, crash.
Turn down this feature to where it's just talking heads and you'll notice less crashes and less slowdown.
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Both Starr and I finally picked this up pretty recently during the 75% off sale. Got game of the year edition, so I have most (but not all, I think?) of the DLC. I want to putter around in single-player for a while.
Any chance of an update to the above list? Any recommendations for good social policy combos or early ball-busting strategies?
Generally I lean towards tech victories in Civ games, but sometimes conquer everything (with a very occasional cultural victory). I like being way ahead of everybody scientifically and focusing on quality (better units, fully upgraded tiles & cities). I do like having some empire-space though and generally wind up conquering my starting continent. So, a pretty fucking conventional strategy, really.
If you use the pretty excellent City State Diplomacy Mod (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=392543), Alexander is the best leader in the game by such a wide degree it's ridiculous. Somebody declares war on you? Just have a token defense to wall them off while your eleven best friends beat the ever loving shit out of him. Also as you make new friends and get new food/tech/culture bonuses and start doubling them with the Diplomacy tree, you will easily get a thousand point lead.
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Hey, that looks pretty awe... wait, can't use mods in multiplayer at all!
Also my Internet needs to get hooked up already I am in game withdrawal twitches all over. Yes, ALL OVER.
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"Oh look, it's 7 am. FUCK. I knew buying this was a bad idea."
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You knew you were playing Civ.