So which Civ can become the most powerful?

aprogressivist

Chieftain
Joined
Aug 15, 2009
Messages
62
I think, for me, it has to be Germany. Macroing the early game with Vassalage/Serfdom lets you expand into western Russia, where Faustindorf will form the backbone of your empire; Budapest is amazing too once it gets going; Danzig and Reval are relatively weak in terms of production, but are trading power houses; and once you get Rome under your belt, there's no holding you back.

Fight wars strategically with an eye on your Historical Goals, get Vassals for special Resources, and when Industrialization comes along, upgrade like a mofo and roll over them with your armies of super-advanced units.

I mean, some of the English cities are still being defended by longbowmen. (They've not been doing well this game.)

What about you? What do you think the overall most powerful Civ is?
 
ROME dagnabit.

Capture Greece, ignore or burn down Carthage, stay away from the middle east, and never settle any cities until after respective European spawns, where you nab Budapest, Kiev, and whatever other broken city you wish. Focus on tech and defense until the Europeans spawn, then laugh maniacally as they all vassal to you, or crush them with a couple of Legions before they get infrastructure. Then play god over the world as your stability mysteriously continues to go up, settling all over the land that the US will never have.

China is also pretty good, so long as you can keep up with the tech race in the industrial era.
Germany has the best immediate potential for expansion, but it never lasts. Though having bunch of panzers sitting in the capital waiting for collapse may work, it is really boring.
France can take advantage of Louisiana stability to go crazy.
England also has potential, but I have not played as them well enough ever.
Babylon, surprisingly, can do amazingly if you know what you are doing.
Persia can expand endlessly.
Arabia has a ridiculously good start.
Turkey can become the most powerful civ in a few turns.
But really, Rome is the best. -.- Nothing beats having a score over 3000, where the next 4 highest each only have 600 and are your vassals.
 
Babylon, surprisingly, can do amazingly if you know what you are doing.
So true... You can get such an amazing tech lead with them, just expand into Persia, and don't build/capture any cities that will flip to Arabia or Turkey. Build every wonder you can and use an exploit involving resettlement, viceroyality, and the Cristo Redentor to settle central Russia and get ridiculous produciton out of it. Although, you need to collapse and retake your cities at some point to get your economy out of the mud, but that is where the Babylonian UP comes into play. I have won a Babylonian domination victory on Viceroy, and am in the process of doing so on Monarch, see this post:http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10004316&postcount=39
 
Egypt
India
China
Babylon
Greece
Persia
Carthage
Rome
Japan
Ethiopia
Maya
Vikings
Arabia
Khmer
Spain
France
England
Germany
Russia
Dutch
Mali
Portugal
Inca
Mongols
Aztecs
Turkey
America

Cut Aztecs and Inca, because they are just booped.
Cut Mali, Ethiopia, Carthage, Egypt, and India because they can just not keep up with the competition.
Cut Khmer, Vikings, Maya, Portugal, and Dutch, because, while they may have the potential to become powerful, they are nothing close to powerhouses.

That Leaves:
China: By far one of the most powerful until the need to expand during the industrial era distabalizes it. However, the lead that it can have is amazing.
Babylon: While it can become a giga-power, it has far too many little things to worry about for it to be played optimumly, and luck is very important.
Greece: Has potential to out-tech everyone to a ridiculous extreme, but can not stay stable past the Renaissance.
Persia: It just keeps expanding forever, but it has tons to worry about.
Rome: The best in my opinion, if it survives the barbarians while keeping a tech lead, it
can be as powerful as China and as technological as Greece, while still being able to expand stably. Tons to worry about, but nothing that really poses a threat. More military is needed to keep the cities happy then to defend them.
Japan: Nothing to really worry about but the plague, amazing research, and what it lacks, it can take from China.
Arabia: Amazing start in 600, but almost as much to worry about as Babylon.
Spain: Can expand all over the wonderful land in America, but it can just not keep up with the rest of Europe tech-wise.
France: The tech leader of Europe for a while, and that is saying something. Has great potential to dominate North America and/or Europe if it chooses.
England: Ridiculous tech rate and territory to expand too, it is only limited by its inability to stably hold great land other than itself and N. America.
Germany: Probably the best production civ, with insane UP and UU, but stability can haunt you, even if pazers can recapture most of Europe in a few turns.
Russia: Endless territory to expand to, and can survive through Europe as well, but horrible foreign relations give you war when you least want it. As if it would make a difference with the winter and insane production.
Mongols: They can expand into China's amazing land, and all the way into Europe, but their starting units are not enough to make up for horrible stability. Or get past a well-defended city.
Turkey: Everything seems against it, but the only civ other than Rome that can stably get all of the great land in both Europe and the Middle East can become extremely powerful extremely quickly, and stay that way.
America: If only it spawned earlier... With a free continent with land as good as Europe to expand through, easily and stably, it is sadly gimped by its late start.

I would say that it depends mostly on stability potential, starting land and technologies, and potential to expand.

Generally speaking, if you can keep and hold Kiev with the civ, it will own. Denver and Chicago are nice too. All other really good cities have insane competition.

Cut Babylon, Spain, and Mongols, as they just barely made the previous cut.
China
Greece
Persia
Rome
Japan
Arabia
France
England
Germany
Russia
Turkey
America

"Powerful Civs"
Ancient: Get an dearly wonder and tech lead, must be able to compete with the ridiculous list of techs that the classical civs spawn with.
Classical: Must beat out the other classical civs, and survive the barbarian invasions, while meeting Arabia's great tech start. Spam wonders.
Medieval: Tech to certain techs quickly, nab much of Europe.
Renaissance: Beeline to get the conquerors even, Liberalism, and Astronomy to start out colonization.
Industrial: Keep up with lightening expansion and teching without becoming unstable. This is where most older civs decline.
Modern: You should be by far the most powerful by now. Crush all those that oppose you, and reclaim your empire from civil war in a few turns if you have to. Choose your victory.

Classical
China
Greece
Persia
Rome
Japan

Medieval
Arabia
France
England
Germany
Russia

Later
Turkey
America

While the medieval and later civs may be able to establish themselves, and become superpowers, they can never make up for the lead that the classical civs could have had before they were born.
While the classical civs may have an advantage over the medieval and later civs to begin with, they can not keep up with the continuous expansion of them far into modern times.
Humorously, Arabia practically counts as an older civ by this definition. :lol:

My opinion:
Rome
[a mess of indecisiveness]

tl;dr
Is it better to have a lead and hold it, or continuously grow? Well, Rome can do both, so yeah.
 
well, i would say Germany. they have a very strong production and the best land in the world. and can expand and become a continental european empire while keeping massive stability.
youre in a perfect position to advance to all sides while keeping spamming units in Frankfurt (think of a super city!).
at the start, settle Posen (1E of starting pos) if youre playing vanilla,Frankfurt will flip to you, your first super city. (in DoC you have Wien first)
send all your troops to Venice, burn it when you can. (i myself don't like that city, not good enough)
i guess now you have two settlers, send both east, one to the baltic, and near to Kiev (that isn't stronger than Frankfurt btw, but still one of the stronger). wait russia spawn, after 1 turn you settle both cities. (german kiev = faustindorf) (about the baltic city i always settle a riverside city that has horses and some other resources, but is landlocked, anyway, its strong enough)
send your troops to Rome and wait until the French weaken the city, then strike and capture it.
now you have like... 3 or 4 super cities, you can build up a strong infrastructure in time to start caring about Russia, if they are friendly to you, allow them to live for some more time and go to Greece and Constantinople (very strong cities!)
conquer the cities and then prepare to France.
now you should have units both in italy border with France and the frankfurt border, send your troops to paris, and the italian army to marseilles, with enough siege units you will destroy the defences easily enough, then after capturing these two cities the french are no problem anymore, just continue to roll over them and destroy the bastards.
i always do something like that and end up stronger than any civ, my latest game i have a stronger army than the stronger civs combined, still they sometimes want to suicide (hum...Frenchies, Louis...), anyway, with germany playing the right cards you should become entire Continental Europe,and you can still expand in Siberia and Asia...
Germany is just too strong, if they ended up with Chicago and Denver the game would end, they would be unstoppable. Winburg in south africa is also a option, after all, you should end up in a war with england... and *important* don't forget to destroy the dutch as soon as they spawn, trade what you can with them and pwn them back in your fair rule!

-----------

so my rank is :
1. Germany
2. England (you have Winburg in south africa! and a bunch of nice cities around canada, australia and India. Egypt is also money-maker)
3. France (Chicago and Denver are both yellow in your stability map! by settling Chicago, Denver and New Orleans you ensure that USA will spawn and won't expand west nicely and will become your vassal whiout war if you want. and you still have Frankfort near you...if you can play diplomacy right you can collapse Germany AND Russia)
4. Rome (yes you have a very strong territory, still you cities in the new world or a very powerful stability. you can become very strong, but still the above powers can be much stronger even if romes survives and continues strong as ever)
5. USA (Chicago and Denver are the way, settle them both at start, New Orleans is also a good city(Chicago and Denver to USA = Kiev to Russia)
6. Russia (you can become uber-strong, but you have germany to worry about while you expand east and finds problems with the Japanese in the end)
 
rome, germany, turkey, america. probably in that order. with proper micromanagement you can essentially rule the world with no major hiccups as anyone, though. it might take a few centuries with the weaker civs, but still doable.

screw the sensible approach though. if you truly want to FEEL powerful, do the following:

1) choose germany
2) build up a decent empire and wait for 1940 or so
3) click on every city, add 10 panzers to the queue, move all military units to your various borders, go down the list of civs and wardec everyone including your allies
4) throw each and every prong of your divided and overextended army into heavily fortified cities without bothering to siege at all.
5) conquer or raze 90% of the eurasian landmass, even as your economy grinds deep into the red and your stability hits -70.
6) collapse and repeat ;)
 
rome, germany, turkey, america. probably in that order. with proper micromanagement you can essentially rule the world with no major hiccups as anyone, though. it might take a few centuries with the weaker civs, but still doable.

screw the sensible approach though. if you truly want to FEEL powerful, do the following:

1) choose germany
2) build up a decent empire and wait for 1940 or so
3) click on every city, add 10 panzers to the queue, move all military units to your various borders, go down the list of civs and wardec everyone including your allies
4) throw each and every prong of your divided and overextended army into heavily fortified cities without bothering to siege at all.
5) conquer or raze 90% of the eurasian landmass, even as your economy grinds deep into the red and your stability hits -70.
6) collapse and repeat ;)

:lol:
 
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