Best of the 6 abilities?

The same thing can happen with Comercial. This one
isn't excatly usefull if you are surrounded by aggresive
opponents like the Zulu or Germans.

I agree with what Sam is alluding to with the differences in map size and types. Depending on the map you choose to play, different styles may better benefit your game.

A large or huge map - but with continents or pangea - could actually benefit an expansionist civ quite a bit. Less so, likely with a military civ who would likely do better on smallish continental maps. Conversely, island maps may benefit the commercial, religious or scientific better than the others.

It certainly gets you thinking...

I thought that a nice ability to add to an expansionistic civ would be to give sea-going vessels one of the "Lighthouse" effects. Either give galleys a smaller chance to be lost at sea or an extra move or something on that order. This could lead to early contact with other civs and give your expansionistic nation early dibs on new tech and allow you to broker between nations for a while. The scout is nice, and I understand that one can still build one if it gets hit by a barb early, but it's just not enough to have me consider these civs very often

To my mind the 4 strong civ abilities all have a long term approach

Commercial : reduced corruption helps a big empire. Big empires always win. (by big I mean haveing many tiles worked on by population ). If I have a bigger ecomony than you I can outmatch you in whatever field you wish to compete. I can research faster, or be rich and buy friends, or pump out and maintain a bigger military.

Scientific. The free advance can either boost you up to access to a new wonder ahead of the opposition so you get a building headstart, or be sold for favours. Shames its random.
Cheap science buildings can help a lot to get the libraries but after that you should be big enough to build city improvements at a decent pace anyway. Can help an ancinet military agressive stragety as you already have bronze working and can research iron quicky to get swordsman early. (NB Greeks get hoplite straight out of the box , and Persians get immortals unnervingly early if they mean it ).

Industrious. Extra city shields is a nice little boost in ancient times but really we are talking about the workers here. This is powerful and stays that way through out the game. Masonry gives you a shot a pyrimids staight away.... free granary is VERy handy, also might trigger your golden age early without a draining war.

Religious - Nice early boost as you can get temples early. This is a good approach for large cities and empite and goes well with commercial for a peacful cultural / economic approach. Also you get a head start towards monarchy with ceremonial burial.
Vaery powerful in the mid / late game is you go aggressive as the Democracy / communism instant government switch gives you a peacetime wartime economic gearshift.

The weaker ones :

Expansionist.
Its a gamble. You can get a flying start, but it can all dissapear very early. Your flying start has got to give you enough momentum to stay the rest of the game as your advantage is worth nothing once you have explored your local landmass. hint : switch barbarians off, and have pangea continent, preferably on a n emptier than average map.
Suggested tweaks (any or all of ) : Settlers and scouts need no maintainance. Settlers cost less shields. City centre produces more food. get 2 scouts. scouts have defence of ADM 012, so they get to survive an attack and withdraw.

Military. 1. Barracks are cheap anyway, once beyond ancient times who cares. 2. Promotions..... to get enough fron this ability your ancient times approach must go something like this :
found an early city or three with big production from 3-4 tiles. Build barracks, build strongest military units available. These cities do not participate in the expnasion of your civ in any other way. No wonders , no settlers , no culture , not too big a population. Find oppents, attack oppenents, get leader , make army attack opponents, build heroic epic (probably in one of the production heavy cities). Keep attacking opponent (its hard to keep it up by this time unless you are winning the war, you might be onto your second oppenent by now ). Get more leaders , hurry wonders big time. Then you settle down with a lot of territory and a fistful of wonders and buld a regular economy. It help if you can find a neigbor to have the occasional border dispute with to make more leaders without any real drain, but you have to trust them to want peace when you've had enough.

It's all a bit risky really. If you pick on the wrong gorilla early then they either criplle you for all eternity, or you grind out a stalemate and wish you had another civ advantage instead. If you're going to do this I recomment the a civ which gets a good unique unti early in ancient times. Persians are one tech advance from the immortals !
suggested tweaks (any or all of ) . Cities can support more units without costs in early governments. Less war weariness in democracies and republics (every citizen's a samurai so they approve of your wars... right ? )

Just my thoughts.....

hmmmm, very interesting thread, and lots of good insights, i think i will switch from Russians to Persians in my next game to see how it goes....

It is interesting to think about what these abilities do for your opponents as well as you. For a player, I would have to say:
1 and 2: Scientific and Religious- take your pick, the science bonus is huge, the one turn government switch is also crucial, and both of these have enough important buildings associated with them to make a difference.
3 and 4: Industrious and Militaristic- before I played an industrious civ, I was like "what the hell is going on with these slack workers?". What a relief to play Egypt and get the two turn pollution clean up, immediate late game roads, etc.
5 and 6: Commercial and Expansionist- Commercial seems to not make a whit of difference. It would have been nice to have cheaper markets and banks. It would be nice to have significant reduction of corruption. Expansionist, as everyone seems to know, is the worst. Every time I've played them, I have not seen significant hut action, and scouts are obsolete very early. That being said, it seems to me, the English, Iroqouis, and other expansionists, when I play against them, show up all over the place early on. England is also technically the fastest way to get triremes, and I spread out early and fast with them to several islands. However, I was forced to trade away my gains as the game went on and I was not getting the faster temples, barracks, or libraries of the top three.

Hi all,

I'd like to agree that Religion is probably the best of the abilities, both for the immediately available temples and the Statue of Liberty effect. After that...

Militaristic is a lot hotter than it sounds! True the industrious workers do jobs fast....maybe the speed of three foreign workers captured during a nice campaign Workers who don't have to be paid....

Then of course there's the leader thing, giving mil civs the best shot at wonders. The best part is leaders can be banked, just like caravans were....a leader earned in ancient times can be saved for your favorite wonder just to ensure you get it! Like Hoover. Or Leo. Whatever you like

Of course, I haven't tried all the civs yet. But the Japanese (Rel + Mil) have overperformed for me.

Agni

Obviously the level of difficulty, map style and size, and your strategy are VERY important to determining which are the best. However there are ways to look at them and compare them just straight out.

All I'm concerned with is Emporer and Deity as the other levels are way too easy. It seems that the best or possibly only strat that works well on both of these is an immediate military rush. So in that context what are best?

Military - With a military civ last game after defeating 3 opponents of 6 I only had gotten 1 Great Leader. That is after taking over ~25 cities (I destroyed some so not exactly sure). I'm sure that is below average, but I would have rather had anything else.

Religious - If I had been religious I would have gotten 6 more turns of shield production, science, etc when I went from Depotism to Democracy. 6 turns would have been 1 and a half techs for me at the end of the game. It would also give you the ability to switch governments during an end game war that your democracy doesn't want to put up with. It isn't worth switching out and back with democracy as you lose so many turns of research and building. Also remember that emporer and deity have less initial content citizens than the other levels making temples necessary at lower populations. Every city needs attitude help (unless you are a depotism population rusher)

Science - 3 bonus techs puts you about 1.5 ahead of religious. Faster science buildings is nice, but not nearly as nice as religious buildings as every city doesn't NEED the science buildings. In many conquered cities the only reason to build them will be for culture, depending on the map size.

Industrious - The slight production boost may not be noticeable but then again it may be the edge in finishing a wonder 1-2 turns before another civ. I think the biggest advantage to Industrial civs is that they can get a road to a neighbor faster in the early game so that you can conquer neighboring cities faster. The difference between getting units from your closest city to theirs and attacking in 2 turns instead of 4-6 is huge. The goal in the early game is to secure your continent as fast as possible.

Commercial - I'd love to see the difference in corruption that commercial makes. Maybe set up some scenarios to test it, but just in thinking about it. If cities with 6 population produce an extra commerce and with 12 2 extra commerce AND you add to that a reduction in corruption of 5 percent so that a 20 commerce city within your manageable corruption gets one more commerce then you are talking about 3 extra trade per city. How does 3 extra commerce per city that this effects over the entire length of the game compare to the amount of commerce you save during quick government changes with religion or compared to the extra 3 techs from science. Intuitively it would seem to me that commercial doesn't have as noticeable of an impact as religious but it may have a bigger magnitude in a space race type game. 30 extra gold and science per turn can be pretty huge.

Expansionist - The best thing about expansionist is being able to find your opponents and find a site to build your second city quicker. I go for a 2 city military rush and early scouting is very important. Also the granary is wonderful for depotism population rushing as you can pump units about twice as fast.


I think in considering everything that religious with commercial will probably end up being the best combination in impact unless I find military to actually give more Great Leaders than nonmilitary (with the French I get more in 1 game, 4, than in 2 games with military civs, 3). However I still think I prefer the Aztecs (military + religious) since they have the best special unit by far. What is better than an immediately useable, mobile unit, that costs 10 shields to build? Iroquois with the mounted warrior and the Indians are probably 2nd and third on the list from what I see.

Again this is only in emporer and deity games and using the only strategy that I have found successful, a two city early unit rush on a normal sized continents map.

Eliezar

Right, my 2c. (Euro)

Top: SCIENTIFIC. Second: RELIGIOUS. Third: INDUSTRIOUS.
Best Combo: Scientific and Industrious.

Why Science?
1. Free Tech at every Age. It isn't random, it's the first one you select. This is a big advantage in Science races and kicks the pants off 'no anarchy' - you should really have no more than 1 or 2 anarchy in a game.
2. Reduced build cost for Science improvements. This is more unique than Religious improvements; you can't raise science by getting luxury goods, there are no civ-wide Science wonders, no-one ever uses Taxmen. Sci buildings are as good culturally as Rel. Is it my imagination, or do buildings in your ability gain extra culture faster?
3. Golden Age potential from Great Library. A vital wonder even if you never use it, to stop those cringeworthy fools taking your valuable tech the minute you sell it.

Why Industrious to go with it?
While Religion has the edge on culturific buildings, the worker advantage is very, very useful, as are the extra shields. Religious is too similar to Science to make a good partner. Furthermore, you have the advantage of access to Pyramids (a Golden Age trigger) in turn 1.

So civ choice: #1 Persians; #2Egyptians; #3 Babylonians

I think map type has a lot to do with your choice as well. Think about the added advantage that industrious gets on a wet world with all those jungles. You'll save 12 turns on each square v. your opponents.

I think expansionism's chief ability is pottery from the start. This leads into the rush build in a big way. A way past this is to play a race that will start close to an expansionistic AI. Then you can trade for pottery.

As a combination, your workers can build rodes to your already mapped out city sites further speading your expansion. Using the Americans I was able to out-expand the AI on Monarch level. Of course corruption becomes an issue...

1. Free Tech at every Age. It isn't random, it's the first one you select. This is a big advantage in Science races and kicks the pants off 'no anarchy' - you should really have no more than 1 or 2 anarchy in a game.

Click to expand...

2 anarchies = about 8 lost turns compared to a religious civ = 2 lost tech
advances. This can get worse if you loose buildings to anarchy. Science
is useless in the early land grab unlike religious, industrial and expansionistic.

Originally posted by Thunderfire


2 anarchies = about 8 lost turns compared to a religious civ = 2 lost tech
advances. This can get worse if you loose buildings to anarchy. Science
is useless in the early land grab unlike religious, industrial and expansionistic.

Click to expand...

Good point...religious helps with Temples (earliest cultural buildings). You get 3 tech from being Scientific, one at each new Age; you can get away with one revolution (to Republic of course) losing 4 turns. Furthemore, Science civs start with Bronze Working, putting them only 1 place away from iron, which is utterly vital to wars.

I still think that the Wonders point is important; it's relatively easier to get happy people than to increase your science rate, because of luxury goods.

Expansionist doesn't help that much with land grabs, because territory's determined by borders, not what you can see. Scouts are also a bit weak and prone to death by barbarians.

Originally posted by chrisk01_uk
revolution (to Republic of course) losing 4 turns. Furthemore, Science civs start with Bronze Working, putting them only 1 place away from iron, which is utterly vital to wars.

Expansionist doesn't help that much with land grabs, because territory's determined by borders, not what you can see. Scouts are also a bit weak and prone to death by barbarians.

Click to expand...

Having an iron source is often a problem. Expansionist helps you to locate
one and you can find civs close to you faster. One revolution is not an
option if you want to play peacefull because Democracy outclasses Republic.
Despotism -> Communisim/Democracy is the only option if you want to have
only one revolution. Graneries and temples are more vital to early wars.

2 anarchies = about 8 lost turns compared to a religious civ = 2 lost tech
advances. This can get worse if you loose buildings to anarchy. Science
is useless in the early land grab unlike religious, industrial and expansionistic.

Click to expand...

This isn't right when you are using a peaceful strategy. The 4~8 turns you lose in the Ancient Era (switch to Republic/Monarchy) and the 4~8 turns you lose in the Middle Ages (switch to Democracy) isn't the same as losing 8~16 turns in the Modern Age. Techs are not coming at 1/4 turns in AE, and generally aren't coming 1/4 in the Middle Ages either. At the absolute worst, you're losing about 1/2 tech in AE and 1 tech in the Middle Ages, but you are in the stage of the game where a slight slip compared to only religious civs is inconsequiential. If for some reason a religious nations gets its hands on a tech a few turns before you, you can still trade for it. You're not at the point where being 8 turns behind on the tech race means that, a) They will have tanks before you, b) they will finish the SS before you, c) they will get the UN before you.

If you are playing a strict military strategy the anarchy turns can hurt more in lost production. But they will rarely hurt in tech dominance.

Malys if you fall behind 4 turns in ancient and 4 more in industrial age then when you get to the modern era you are in fact 8 turns behind and in the modern era 8 turns is good for 2 science discoveries. The civ abilities are definitely not equal though. Religion is better than any two of the others. And as far as peaceful strategies go, when someone proves they can win on deity with a peaceful strategy then it will be something to consider. Right now the ONLY strategy on deity is all out war at least until you have an advantage.

Eliezar