Gods and Kings
- Thread starter cybran
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I'll go over my brief experience with the new civs...
MAYA - Awkward UA...spawning great people sounds great, but the Mayan Great People reset your normal GP timer, so it's not as good as it sounds, and can force you into a sprint for Theology as well, possibly messing up your early game if you need a different tech more. Their UB (the Pyramid) is AMAZING though, and getting an early/cheap archer is also very useful.
CARTHAGE - I'm not a fan of their UU's, and their ability to walk over mountains is gimmicky and largely pointless. However, starting with a harbor is huge. On a fish heavy start site they can be extraordinarily fast starters. Free trade routes with coastal cities to start is also a good money maker. That free harbor is huge.
HUNS - Extra production from pastures and starting with animal husbandry is another great way to get off to a sprinting start, and their UU's are very interesting. Cities are a LOT stronger now, so having the Ram is great for early warmongers, and the Horse Archer is a good replacement for the (largely useless) chariot archer. They kind of run out of steam in the middle ages though.
AUSTRIA - City State focused ability, so I've not messed with them. I've heard they can get completely out of hand on higher difficulty levels if the AI has them due to bottomless gold, they just buy the city states up like crazy.
CELTS - A great go-to religion if you want a fast faith start. They can generate large amounts of faith quicker than any other Civilization, meaning you're likely to be first past the post on both Pantheon and Religion, giving you access to your pick of the best benefits and the best chance of spreading it. As religion peters off in the modern era, so too do the Celts.
BYZANTINES - Trade the Celts fast religion for the strongest religion in the game. If you can use Stonehenge/huts to get a religion out quickly, you'll have a dominant religion loaded with bonuses. Decent UU. Strong classical/medieval civ.
ETHIOPIA - I've not tried them yet. I hear they're a good turtling civ.
NETHERLANDS - Seem built for a flood plains start but I keep getting them in Tundra, where they kind of stink. I need more time to experiment with these guys.
SWEDEN - Weird, awful abilities. They seem terrible on paper.
MOST POWERFUL NEW CIV -
CONQUEST - Huns
CULTURE - Ethiopia
DIPLOMACY - Austria
SCIENCE - Maya
And it's not a victory type, but religion = Celts or Byzantines.
MAYA - Awkward UA...spawning great people sounds great, but the Mayan Great People reset your normal GP timer, so it's not as good as it sounds, and can force you into a sprint for Theology as well, possibly messing up your early game if you need a different tech more. Their UB (the Pyramid) is AMAZING though, and getting an early/cheap archer is also very useful.
CARTHAGE - I'm not a fan of their UU's, and their ability to walk over mountains is gimmicky and largely pointless. However, starting with a harbor is huge. On a fish heavy start site they can be extraordinarily fast starters. Free trade routes with coastal cities to start is also a good money maker. That free harbor is huge.
HUNS - Extra production from pastures and starting with animal husbandry is another great way to get off to a sprinting start, and their UU's are very interesting. Cities are a LOT stronger now, so having the Ram is great for early warmongers, and the Horse Archer is a good replacement for the (largely useless) chariot archer. They kind of run out of steam in the middle ages though.
AUSTRIA - City State focused ability, so I've not messed with them. I've heard they can get completely out of hand on higher difficulty levels if the AI has them due to bottomless gold, they just buy the city states up like crazy.
CELTS - A great go-to religion if you want a fast faith start. They can generate large amounts of faith quicker than any other Civilization, meaning you're likely to be first past the post on both Pantheon and Religion, giving you access to your pick of the best benefits and the best chance of spreading it. As religion peters off in the modern era, so too do the Celts.
BYZANTINES - Trade the Celts fast religion for the strongest religion in the game. If you can use Stonehenge/huts to get a religion out quickly, you'll have a dominant religion loaded with bonuses. Decent UU. Strong classical/medieval civ.
ETHIOPIA - I've not tried them yet. I hear they're a good turtling civ.
NETHERLANDS - Seem built for a flood plains start but I keep getting them in Tundra, where they kind of stink. I need more time to experiment with these guys.
SWEDEN - Weird, awful abilities. They seem terrible on paper.
MOST POWERFUL NEW CIV -
CONQUEST - Huns
CULTURE - Ethiopia
DIPLOMACY - Austria
SCIENCE - Maya
And it's not a victory type, but religion = Celts or Byzantines.
Well Guppy has pretty much said it all here. All I can add is that is...
Ethiopa has a bug (at least I hope it's a bug) where not only does their UU strengh rise as they get closer to the capital but also decreases as they get further away. Combined with their UA it makes Ethiopa a Civ who are at their best when they are failing.
Netherlands is also bugged as it's start bias is grassland, not swamp or coast as you would expect.
Sweden... I just don't understand.
Scenerio wise I've only tried out the holy city one and I didn't like it. I played as Byzantium and I was expecting it to be survival scenerio, but there was nothing around me, no one attacking, nothing but empty land. It seemed odd that this was supposed to be the final days of the Roman empire and Rome wasn't even on the map. I quit and restarted it as England, where I proceeded to play a peaceful, turn skipping game for 100 turns or so before getting bored and quitting.
I know it sounds like I'm being down on the expansion, but there are things that I do like about it. Religion, while not being an essential componant for victory is a nice bit of flavor. The changes to the tech tree are great and it flows much better now. The way research agreements are handled now is much better and so are great people.
Ethiopa has a bug (at least I hope it's a bug) where not only does their UU strengh rise as they get closer to the capital but also decreases as they get further away. Combined with their UA it makes Ethiopa a Civ who are at their best when they are failing.
Netherlands is also bugged as it's start bias is grassland, not swamp or coast as you would expect.
Sweden... I just don't understand.
Scenerio wise I've only tried out the holy city one and I didn't like it. I played as Byzantium and I was expecting it to be survival scenerio, but there was nothing around me, no one attacking, nothing but empty land. It seemed odd that this was supposed to be the final days of the Roman empire and Rome wasn't even on the map. I quit and restarted it as England, where I proceeded to play a peaceful, turn skipping game for 100 turns or so before getting bored and quitting.
I know it sounds like I'm being down on the expansion, but there are things that I do like about it. Religion, while not being an essential componant for victory is a nice bit of flavor. The changes to the tech tree are great and it flows much better now. The way research agreements are handled now is much better and so are great people.
BloatedGuppy said:
This is a pretty good breakdown, just wanted to add my 2 cents on a few.
MAYA - If you do race to Theology, which isn't too hard with the extra science, you can use that first free great person to get a prophet quickly. I've been able to consistently get the first religion in the world with this.
HUNS - The archer is pretty awesome, doesn't even require horses which I found strange. The ram is effective if you get it to your opponent quickly, but even with that ranged damage protection they seem to die very quickly. Loss of spearmen make having Iron for swordsman or teching to pikeman quickly a major priority. When the ram is MOST effectively, the only ground units you're gonna have around are probably gonna be warriors, this makes the huns a bit weak IMO. The ram needs a little buff when it comes to absorbing ranged damage, they typically will die in 2 turns worth of city+archer fire, even when healing, I feel thats a bit wrong.
AUSTRIA - Probably my favorite new Civ so far. I think they make an amazing conquest Civ as opposed to a diplomacy Civ. Buying the CS doesn't help you diplomatically, but it can be a major factor in allowing a foothold near enemy land in a continents map for a save harbor for invading forces.
I wish they made Religion a win condition. Having your religion be the WORLD religion would be a cool way to win the game. Right now religion is kinda bland and doesn't seem to add much to the game. Its even more annoying since you basically can never give the computer open boarders or they'll mass convert all your cities to their religion...annoying.
Good point on both the Maya Prophet rush and the fact Austrians aren't really diplomats at all, I went full retard on that one.Zenn3k said:
Religion seems to be primarily an early game consideration. A fast spreading, potent religion can give you a serious slingshot by pumping you full of happiness or gold, or allowing the purchase of units or great people via prodigious amounts of incoming faith. That's interesting about the open borders mind you...I never allow open borders as I like using cultural borders to block the AI from prime expansion spots.
A more arrow-proof ram would be completely OP, alas. They do so much damage all you'd need is a couple of rams and you could mow down every city you came against. This way you at least need to support them a bit.
Well, selling open borders to AI on the other side of the world was a pretty common strategy, now you basically cannot ever do it or you suddenly find a Prophet in your lands converting your people (hide yo' kids, hide yo' wife)BloatedGuppy said:
You kinda need to support them anyway, since they can't fight back against other melee units, they only have 1 purpose, which is to take down cities. You pretty much need at least 2-3 to do the job per city, because 1 simply won't live to do the job, it would probably be OP a little, but I was still bummed when I saw the CPU do 70+ damage in 1 turn to one of them.
Oh, BTW - Sweden is the culture Civ you're looking for, that extra influence with great merchants makes taking every CS in the game cake. The "friends bonus" (sorry, I dunno the UU and UA terms of what is what) seems fine, the CPU is a bit more interested in being friends anyway it seems than in vanilla.
Don't they share the bonus with their friend? It seems like a weird bonus in that respect.Zenn3k said:
Any strategy that revolves around Great Merchants of all things is a bizarre strategy.
Sure, but their friend only gets 10% bonus to great people generation, whereas Sweden gets that 10% for every one of their friends, which can amount to between 30% to 110% depending on game size. I reckon that Sweden could probably become a late game culture or science power house by virtue of being everyone's friend and consistently pumping out either artists or scienstists. That, plus the ability to trade off unwanted or unneeded great people to city states for instant alliances sets you up for a late game push.BloatedGuppy said:
True, but then again, the other player gets a bonus when it comes to Research Agreements too, so its par for the course.BloatedGuppy said:
Well, it makes sense if you think about it.
Great Artists = Culture Victory
Great Scientists = Science Victory
Great General/Admiral = Domination Victory
Great Merchant = Diplomatic Victory
I always used them for this purpose anyway myself, they are just gold making machines and CS takers to me. Sweden just gets a little MORE benefit out of them, allowing less gold to need to be spent on the CS, or making it easier to spend on hostile CSs.
Ahhhhh...the bonus is CUMULATIVE for Sweden. That makes a LOT more sense! Thank you!Gethsemani said: