Hi guys,

I'm new to RAND as I just picked up BTS. I've played the previous Civs so I am not a complete noob but still a bit out of practice.

I've beaten a scenario in Monarch but that is about as high as I've been able to hang, emporer has whooped me hard.

I started a couple of games with the Mayans on Monarch and I was able to do Calendar but not complete the wonder in time. Seems very difficult.

I was wondering if you guys could suggest a middle of the road in terms of difficulty faction for me to try playing? The Mayans sounded very fun/cool but almost seem to be one of the more difficult civs in RAND. Is this true?

Thanks

try the Carthaginians, but please don't call them a "faction" ;)

you might want to try RFC classic first tbh. The UHV (Unique Historical Victory) unique powers and such are more balanced based on starting location and era, etc. For example Germany has it way too easy in RAND I feel compared to the much more crowded Europe in RFC.

However to answer your question, Germany (yea I said too easy, but still fun! :) ) is a great civ to really build an empire with. I've gotten some amazing starts with a capital that has 3 cows, coal, oil, and another food resource (usually pig or bananas) with lots of ripe Roman/Spanish/French lands to conquer. Watch out for Russia though cuz they spawn soon and sometimes right on top of your 2nd and 3rd cities thus flipping to their control.

Well I haven't even played all the civs yet but Japan tends to spawn in a nice location; a relatively isolated peninsula or island with room for two good cities (although as you'll see from some of the threads here not always). And Persia is good because you start with enough immortals to go crush the early civ of your choice, and Asia is pretty much yours for the taking until the Mongols or Khmer spawn if indeed they do.

you might want to try RFC classic first tbh. The UHV (Unique Historical Victory) unique powers and such are more balanced based on starting location and era, etc. For example Germany has it way too easy in RAND I feel compared to the much more crowded Europe in RFC.

However to answer your question, Germany (yea I said too easy, but still fun! :) ) is a great civ to really build an empire with. I've gotten some amazing starts with a capital that has 3 cows, coal, oil, and another food resource (usually pig or bananas) with lots of ripe Roman/Spanish/French lands to conquer. Watch out for Russia though cuz they spawn soon and sometimes right on top of your 2nd and 3rd cities thus flipping to their control.


how can I play RFC classic? Is it in BtS? or something else?

I meant the regular Earth scenario RFC (the parent to this forum).

Since you said you just picked up BTS it's probably worth it to run a game or two with a civ that you might like in the Earth scenario to get a feel for how the stability, plague, and other systems work on a familiar setting.

in my opinion, you should so as Popov said. Pick someone you are already comfortable with, and just do a few games to adjust to the differences.

Good luck, RFC is very fun, and RAND is also good.

None. The first version is too rough for anyone but diehard RFC fans.

thanks for the replys all!! I just wanted to apologize as I just realized the difference between RAND and RFC. I got the acronymns mixed up. I have not played RAND, I was actually playing RFC so I posted this in the wrong sub forum.

Perhaps a kind mod could move this to the RFC forum or I could just repost there. :)

None. The first version is too rough for anyone but diehard RFC fans.

So true. RAND has me crying into my cornflakes in teers of both utter joy and total complete frustration every morning.

And Persia is good because you start with enough immortals to go crush the early civ of your choice, and Asia is pretty much yours for the taking until the Mongols or Khmer spawn if indeed they do.

Really?? As Persians you mostly spawn in the middle of a desert, with only a 2 city small egypt next to you. And building 1 settler takes nearly until the Arabs come ....

I've only played a couple of times so maybe I just got lucky. I was in the middle of a desert yes but it could support at least one decent city from flood plains and resources and I was able to run my immortals over to China and take their one good city. Then since neither Arabia or Khmer spawned I just picked the good spots in Asia until the Mongols spawned and I kind of lost interest :P