What's the strongest UP? The weakest? Could somebody rank them in order?

The weakest, in the long term, I find to be Egypt's. While it gives a large benefit right off the bat, if not going for the UHV and continuing your game, the advantage quickly dissipates. Though if you don't like mercenaries, Carthage's is worthless.

For the strongest, I don't know. Too many good ones. ANd i have little experiance with most civs.

Germany Russia USA and France. Greece too in early times

There are no such things as the weakest or the strongest UP.
It always depends on your playing style.

This really depends on what you're playing for. As pointed out, the value of Egypt's UP really depends on how long you plan on playing before winning. Its great for the UHV, its not so great for a space race victory.

Overall, I have to rank India #1 regardless. Like spiritual, in the hands of a skilled player the ability to always have the right civics is extremely powerful. In fact, India's gets more powerful if you *don't* go fo the UHV. And switching civics/religion for diplomacy bonuses is fun and easy, and you can change them again a mere 4 turns later. There is no UP more versatile.

I'd probably class Arabia as #2. I can't emphasize enough how powerful it is - it provides enough culture production to make conquest easier, its 2 free buildings which really help with happiness, and possibly cash/tech if you get the spiral miniaret and/or university of sankore. If you manage to grab the Sistine Chapel and the AP, you've also got +4 hammes and +10 culture on top of what they're already providing. Free. Amazing.

Babylon's UP would be great if it didn't belong to a civ that gets nailed for expanding much at all.

For their UHVs, Carthage and Egypt have amazing UPs. Carthage's is especially good as it allows you to build infrastructure instead of military. And I don't normally use mercenaries, but with Carthage i use almost nothing but. Similarly, Greece has an amazing UP for their UHV, the difference being that you can probably turn its effects into enough longterm benefit as to make the UP worthwhile even for a long game (even after its expired, you'll still have the effect of all those GPs). In fact, Greece is one of my favorite civs to play in Rhye's.

In many cases, the UP is just well-suited for accomplishing the UHV. It may still be useful for a long game, but it seems to exist to facilitate the UHV. For example, Persia's. That +2 stability bonus really helps getting 8% of the world without collapsing. Even more notably, Ethiopia. Immunity to World Congress requests makes achieving your UHV far more plausible, and this hardly seems that amazing for a non-UHV game.

I have less experience with more modern civs. France's strikes me as especially useful, given how annoying the computer is in Rhye's with relations. (notably, sharing a religion seems to have been nerfed for diplo-bonuses, and having a "heathen" religion applies a much larger penalty than it did before.) Germany's strikes me as crazy-powerful for lategame, but is totally irrelevant until then.

So, I can't give a complete breakdown, but I doubt playing more civs will change my mind on which ones are in the top 2. Civs i've played (* = UHV win):

India*
China*
Egypt*
Babylon*
Greece*
Rome*
Carthage*
Persia*
Ethiopia*
Maya*
Arabia*
Vikings (see Ragnar cries like a little girl)
Khmer (Got bored with 30% buddhism)
Dutch (in progress)
Mongols (when req. 12% land area - collapsed at ~10%).
USA (off by 1 turn from UHV)

The Turkish UP but all are strong depending on the situation i guess.

In terms of UHv's, the only one I ever try to win, the Portugese is very sucky. I really don't care about +1 sight, even with the UHV, which is easy. The strongest is hands down India. In RFC, I bareley switch civics, for fear of collapsing, with India, I run rampage.

I still dont have BtS (Saving my money for RAM after discovering 1GIG is a minimum to play this mod properly) so a can only comment on the Warlords civs...

In order from best to worst.

1.Arabia
2.India
3.Germany or maybe Turkey or maybe Greece or mayb- No I give up...

I've actually learned to love the mongolian unique power - it really facilitated my conquest of Japan when I razed kyoto and then got tokyo and the city south of kyoto for free. Pretty sweet.

I like protective ones like wang kon on deity level. Keshiks die when they attacked my longbowmen. Hehehe........ look at them die! The massacre!!!

Sorry but if you say UP, I say that turkey is my fav.

Turkey's UP is literally the only UP that's a real pain in the %#$% if you're against Turkey, or even beside it. I actually view that one as the most powerful. It can make Arabia's culture bonus from its free buildings irrelevant.

BTW, does Russia's UP work right and is it effective?
I have never played as them, and only fought one war with them, and all I did was capture Berlin only staying in their territory for one turn. Yet my units took no damage (I then promptly gave Berlin to the Romans, my only friends, to remove my only border with Rome). This is in Warlords, an older version, I believe the last one before BTS was released.

Russia's UP works fine in BTS. It was very helpful in my game as the Vikings and Germans were constantly declaring war on me but their troops would take an aweful lot of damage before they ever started wearing down by city defense bonus. Hit someone with colateral damage to really amplify the effect:king:

BTW, does Russia's UP work right and is it effective?
I have never played as them, and only fought one war with them, and all I did was capture Berlin only staying in their territory for one turn. Yet my units took no damage (I then promptly gave Berlin to the Romans, my only friends, to remove my only border with Rome). This is in Warlords, an older version, I believe the last one before BTS was released.
General winter is of course only in effect in russia and not around Berlin :)

Germany one of the stongers? Yeah, really. Plague eats the obsolete units, and when you discover industrialism you have got not so many upgrades more to do before UHV...
There is no such thing as a strongest UP, since every UP is tuned with the historical victory and the situation of the civ, with some exceptions (India, Babylon, for eg)

Unfortunately, Carthage's UP is useless to me until the game stops crashing when I mouseover the merc button.

So far, I've liked the Mayans the most (of the ones I've played). Can catch up to the Europeans early, and actually overtake them until the Renaissance.

isn't there a keyboard shortcut for the mercenaries menu?

General winter is of course only in effect in russia and not around Berlinp
Unfortunately when everybody hates me, congresses give my territory away like crazy (lost 5 cities in one: Tenochtitlan, Malaqah, Berlin, Paris, and something in East Africa). And I assume you took the inferance that Berlin was Russian at the time.

So was that just a joke, or did I mis-interpret the power, and is based on a map area rather than cultural borders?

I haven't heard about the keyboard shortcut, or I'd use it. I did win UHV with Carthage, I just have never been able to buy a mercenary (useful when defending as Vikings or Mali).

So was that just a joke, or did I mis-interpret the power, and is based on a map area rather than cultural borders?

Its based on map area. It's in effect within russian cultural borders from the historical russian european belongings to the coast of the pacific. Pretty much the area of the USSR.

Unfortunately when everybody hates me, congresses give my territory away like crazy (lost 5 cities in one: Tenochtitlan, Malaqah, Berlin, Paris, and something in East Africa). And I assume you took the inferance that Berlin was Russian at the time.

So was that just a joke, or did I mis-interpret the power, and is based on a map area rather than cultural borders?

You can't capture cities in Africa and claim a Russian winter there!

I haven't heard about the keyboard shortcut, or I'd use it. I did win UHV with Carthage, I just have never been able to buy a mercenary (useful when defending as Vikings or Mali).


ain't it ALT+M ?

it indeed is

You can't capture cities in Africa and claim a Russian winter there!
I thought it was weird, but never thought that it might be restricted.

Well, I guess wasted a lot of time taking Berlin then, wanting to take it spending just one turn in Russian territory.

Like I said, never fought a battle inside Russia (against the Russians) my Roman Praetorians killed Germans in Russia when I was bored waiting for Roman UHV to kick in (had Great Wall and gave North Africa to Egypt once uhv part triggered and I whipped all the populations down for praets), resulting in an impenetrable fortress nation in Italy and it got quite boring having 3 cities and nothing to worry about.

Alt + M, huh.......

ain't it ALT+M ?


It is. Thank you very much. I only started plying RFC with BTS, though it seemed like a cool mod when reading about it. Now I can't play anything else. Thanks, Rhye.

Mercenaries are real nice, if you have the money.

for me the most powerful in general are definitely Turkish and Indian, with Greek's close by. Many UPs are powerful mainly if you want to achieve that specific Civ's UHV. I find the Babylonian UP cool but a bit useless to this extent and to its gameplay in general, since playing a conquest game with Babylon would not be the smartest thing to do, unless you are a Stability guru.

I just played as Greece invading Russia fortheir southern lands. I forgot about the UP completly and it sucked. Luckily they had archers and I had muskets so the playing field was even. It's actually a very hard power to go up against.

I just played as Greece invading Russia fortheir southern lands. I forgot about the UP completly and it sucked. Luckily they had archers and I had muskets so the playing field was even. It's actually a very hard power to go up against.

Incremental conquest, overwhelming numbers, and strong culture are key to invading russia. Basically, only attack cities near the border, attack with a large stack to minimize the turns needed to take it (if you're sitting next to the city for more than a turn, you're doing something wrong), and quickly build/whip library/temple/shrine/etc... to push back their cultural borders for the next wave of attacks. Otherwise yes, the Russian winter will totally own you. As Germany I never went in with stacks smaller than 15 units. They didn't give me many problems, and by the time I was on the second line of cities, knocking out one of them was enough to collapse them (yay, no more winter).

Actually the Russian UP is pretty cool if you are Russia. It basically means you cannot be conquered because the AI never sends big enough stacks when invading. I played Russia 3 times, and never lost a city because of this UP. Without it I would have.

Ryry

Russia huh................. I'd say Ottoman!