Civilization elimination thread

America 15
Arabia 22
Austria 10
Aztec 25
Babylon 22
Byzantium 23
Carthage 20
Celts 20
China 22
Denmark 11
Egypt 15
England 17
Ethiopia 18
France 22
Germany 5
Greece 22
Huns 20
Inca 25
Iroquois 18
Japan 20
Korea 18
Maya 25
Mongolia 19
The Netherlands 19
Ottoman Empire 19
Persia 23
Polynesia 10
Roman Empire 20
Russia 20
Siam 19
Songhai 16
Spain 14
Sweden 22

Arabia: I just love their UA. I try to expand as much as possible ASAP, while trying to remain as defensive as possible and the trade routes bonus allows me to keep up with the various expenses/unhappiness - this also (most of the times) assures me to have a good percentage of the civ-wide oil resources. Camel Archers are also okay as UU, not the best but surely one of the more useful ones.

Ethiopia: I would never be able to use their UA because of my play-stile (see above), that's why weakest civ for me.
 
yeah, on an easy difficulty (prince), i bought a militaristic CS that was right behind Askia's capitol and just using his 5 units took it. it was fun, but felt like it was on god-mode. i could have made it worse by gifting 3-4 of my own units for more influence and instant travel time and then marrying them. it felt like i was clipping through walls with a rocket launcher, haha.

the nerf im hoping will be on the AI use at higher levels, but im also curious about the abusiveness of them in mulitplayer. maybe a player nerf is in order too, or a simple limit on the number of CSs you can marry.


I think an increasing cost could help and not place a hard limit. Maybe double the cost of each after the first or something. Also, make them stay capitals for "liberation" purposes.
 
-2 for Songhai because they are bad all around, seriously I can think of something good to say for every other civ except them

Umm....? Songhai are a top tier civ by any measure, and G&K has only improved their UA. I haven't played any civ that can generate gold as well as the Songhai, and gold can be ploughed into pretty much everything. The Mandelaku is underwhelming, but a maintenance-free, culture-generating temple is nothing to sniff at. They're very hit-and-miss with the AI, and weak more often than not in my experience, but they're a fantastic, versatile player civ.

Bazaar is great in single-player games, but Arabia has nothing at all going for it in multiplayer (as humans don't do lux-for-gold trades), and since personally I avoid using gold-for-lux trades in single-player because it makes gameplay too easy for essentially no effort, Arabia holds little appeal for me there either. A selling point that's wholly dependent on badly-programmed AI just doesn't thrill me.
 
I think an increasing cost could help and not place a hard limit. Maybe double the cost of each after the first or something. Also, make them stay capitals for "liberation" purposes.

maybe for each CS married it would increase the number required to be allies by 20. it wont change resting points or bonus %'s you get from wonders/social policies but instead of being allies at 60, for each CS married it now becomes allies at 80 and after a 2nd one it becomes 100, etc.
 
Bazaar is great in single-player games, but Arabia has nothing at all going for it in multiplayer (as humans don't do lux-for-gold trades), and since personally I avoid using gold-for-lux trades in single-player because it makes gameplay too easy for essentially no effort, Arabia holds little appeal for me there either. A selling point that's wholly dependent on badly-programmed AI just doesn't thrill me.


I feel the same way after playing the Dutch.. I was hoping they'd be a toned down version of Arabia.. but not really, same old lux-for-gold trick, basically fund your entire early expansion with no real thought/effort/creativity. I like a UA or UB that makes me work for my victory, with these two civs all you're doing is pressing 'trade' 'trade' over and over to get gold which you then throw at whatever you want/need at any one time, being the most versatile of all forms of 'value' in the game.
 
America 15
Arabia 22
Austria 10
Aztec 25
Babylon 22
Byzantium 23
Carthage 20
Celts 20
China 22
Denmark 11
Egypt 15
England 17
Ethiopia 18
France 22
Germany 5
Greece 23
Huns 20
Inca 25
Iroquois 16
Japan 20
Korea 18
Maya 25
Mongolia 19
The Netherlands 19
Ottoman Empire 19
Persia 23
Polynesia 10
Roman Empire 20
Russia 20
Siam 19
Songhai 16
Spain 14
Sweden 22

Greece: Their UA is even more powerful now that holding city states is harder. I like to go down the patronage tree early for a big CS bonus advantage. Even if spies come later and destabilize this advantage, the early game advantage is huge. Plus, their bonus to early game army ensures strength in the key era.

Iroquois: Their UA is too situational. I know other people like this, but I've never gotten it to work. The UU is OK but I can't see a great use for it now.
 
I'm also looking forward to the downfall of Austria! I have a feeling that a nerf is on the way. Buying 10,000 gold worth of goodies for 500 gold is too much (well placed city: 3,400; five decent units: 3,300; several decent buildings: 3,300), particularly now that all of the missions can easily push you to alliance-level relations without breaking a sweat.

However it does cause quite a bit of unhappiness, so I don't see any problem here.
 
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I love Moai as an idea, but I remain to be convinced how effective they are and their need for long chains of land exhibits tension with the types of small-island maps that are most useful for the Polynesia UA. Try the Polynesia scenario, for example; aside from Australia and New Zealand there's hardly anywhere on the map that you can have more than two Moai adjacent to each other.

Just to get this out of the way.

You can settle everywhere you want, so try to settle near or at the coast with a peninsula nearby.

What do I mean with peninsula? Something like this: O = ocean tile; X = land tile
(I know this isn't completely accurrate because the game uses hexagons but you get the idea.)

OOOXXXX
OOOXXXXXXX
OOOOXXXOOO
OOOOXXXOOOOO
OOOOOXOOOOOO

Almost every map type has similar patches of land. Build Moais on the red Xs and the cyan tile. Notice that the cyan tile is adjacent to 5 red tiles and the cyan Moai will give you 6 culture per turn!!!! That's almost as good as a landmark. Both red tiles on the left/right also produce 4 culture per turn. And there you have it: A city with 6+4+4=14 culture per turn (plus buildings) very early in the game!
The trick is: DON'T build moais on every coastal tile. Your cities need good tiles for growth and food as well! Only spam Moais at this type of peninsula when you can at least get a tile with 4 culture per turn (= better than an artist specialist slot and with the additional tile yields).

Also what many people don't know. Polynesian triremes can enter ocean tiles as well. With 4 movement points and better sight, you can find good city locations on nearby continents extremely fast.
 
What kind of victory/empire management strategies do you take as William? The UA seems ideal for a Tradition opener, the Polder suggests going with gold strategies and Commerce , (which doesn't necessarily mesh well with a Tradition start since you want lots of gold generating cities, different luxuries. The other thing about city raiding with the Sea Beggar is it trashes your diplomacy, which a gold-focused civ is going to favor for victory types.

That UA screams early REX because you can trade away all your luxuries maintaining half the happiness from them so you can get a few additional cities out to pick up other luxuries to trade. If you only trade them for cash you can quickly buy settlers and workers to get your empire up and running a lot faster.

I go with Liberty (complete), Commerce (complete, but right side first), Rationalism (at least to the trade post booster) and Order (to the factory booster) then if I can I try to complete Rationalism then Order. With this set-up and lots of trade posts each trade post is worth 3 gold, 1 science and whatever the base tile is. I'll trade post every tile that doesn't have a resource on it with the exception of river and polder tiles as I need the extra food from those to grow the cities once the REXing is done.

Unless you're very lucky you won't have a game where you can stay peaceful with every civ so there's going to be at least 1 civ that you won't have to worry about diplomacy with. Also, if you do have that peaceful game you won't be capturing any enemy ships anyway, so that argument becomes a non-issue.
 
America 15
Arabia 22
Austria 10
Aztec 25
Babylon 22
Byzantium 23
Carthage 20
Celts 20
China 22
Denmark 11
Egypt 15
England 17
Ethiopia 18
France 22
Germany 6
Greece 23
Huns 20
Inca 25
Iroquois 16
Japan 20
Korea 18
Maya 25
Mongolia 19
The Netherlands 17
Ottoman Empire 19
Persia 23
Polynesia 10
Roman Empire 20
Russia 20
Siam 19
Songhai 16
Spain 14
Sweden 22

Germans : Hmm...weird that some players don't like them. Pikemen are stronger and they are pretty good for an initial and very large rush. You can build a dozen of landsneckts pretty fast with a Civil Service beeline(CI ftw). Yeah their upgrade path suck but it's not that bad when they are so cheap. With all the land you gonna get you will hit almost every ressources needed. Mix them with CBs and you have a pretty strong classical/medieval warmonger civ. Stronger ressourceless units than swordmen with the cost of a spearman? Anytime.

Netherlands : Well the UA is very average. UUs aren't that great and their starting bias suck until polders. The worst new G&K civ.
 
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I love Moai as an idea, but I remain to be convinced how effective they are and their need for long chains of land exhibits tension with the types of small-island maps that are most useful for the Polynesia UA. Try the Polynesia scenario, for example; aside from Australia and New Zealand there's hardly anywhere on the map that you can have more than two Moai adjacent to each other.
I haven't tried the scenario. But the ability is incredibly useful on many maps types. Even a pangea map when you think about it - loooong coastline. A couple of long chains of Moai will pump out the culture in a big way. Plus, isn't there another bonus they give to the tile?


Played against Polynesia (AI) recently and ran across musketeers with the fear ability, so it's presumably intended to carry over.
Admittedly, I am probably mistaken. But I triple-checked my upgraded units and they didn't have the promotion. So I don't know what happened.
 
America 15
Germans : Hmm...weird that some players don't like them. Pikemen are stronger and they are pretty good for an initial and very large rush. You can build a dozen of landsneckts pretty fast with a Civil Service beeline(CI ftw). Yeah their upgrade path suck but it's not that bad when they are so cheap. With all the land you gonna get you will hit almost every ressources needed. Mix them with CBs and you have a pretty strong classical/medieval warmonger civ. Stronger ressourceless units than swordmen with the cost of a spearman? Anytime.

Netherlands : Well the UA is very average. UUs aren't that great and their starting bias suck until polders. The worst new G&K civ.

i think people dont like playing against Germany more than playing as them. and Netherlands is the worst of GnK, imo, but still decent. The Beggar is okay but the Polder if nothing else makes the map really pretty. sucks that it has to be on a marsh though.
 
I haven't tried the scenario. But the ability is incredibly useful on many maps types. Even a pangea map when you think about it - loooong coastline. A couple of long chains of Moai will pump out the culture in a big way. Plus, isn't there another bonus they give to the tile?

Again, long chains of Moai aren't optimal!!!! What you want is a cluster of Moais at a peninsula (see a few posts above .... #108).

And yes, you get a combat bonus of 10% near them or something similar.
 
Again, long chains of Moai aren't optimal!!!! What you want is a cluster of Moais at a peninsula (see a few posts above .... #108).

And yes, you get a combat bonus of 10% near them or something similar.

I saw that, but I'm just pointing out how they can still be useful in many other map types and in situations where you can't get an optimum peninsula.

Don't you also get additional gold too? Thanks for the reminder about the combat bonus, I totally forgot that one.

i think people dont like playing against Germany more than playing as them. and Netherlands is the worst of GnK, imo, but still decent.
For me personally, going up against Germany is challenging and fun. Being Germany is kind of meh. They aren't bad, just meh.

The Beggar is okay but the Polder if nothing else makes the map really pretty. sucks that it has to be on a marsh though.
The Polder is pretty awesome. But it does suck about the marsh and (I think) flood plains only aspect of it.
 
I think an increasing cost could help and not place a hard limit. Maybe double the cost of each after the first or something. Also, make them stay capitals for "liberation" purposes.

Even an increase of 50-100 per marriage would be fine. On a standard sized map and default settings there are 16 CS's. At an increase of just 50 gold per marriage that would make it cost 1250 to marry the last CS. At an increase of 100 per marriage the 16th marriage would cost 2000. If each marriage cost 500 more than the previous the 16th would cost 8000. Where as doubling it each time would kick the cost to more than 16 million for the 16th marriage, which I think is probably going a bit too far.
 
Wait, have you played Songhai? Mud Pyramid mosques are really good, and the money from pillaging barb camps can easily put you in a position to outright purchase a worker or even a settler in early turns. War Canoe and Amphibeous are really sweet bonuses to go with this already well-rounded civ. IMO, Songhai is top tier.

Edit: I forgot the city slaying Mandelaku -- yet another reason why Songhai is really good.

I can do what you did as well. I have no idea which difficulty you play, but I am talking immortal+.

The real question here is - have you played them? Or have you played the game at all for that matter or is this just some random theorycrafting.

How many barbs camps can you clear in a single standard game. Yeah, that is right -
about 4-5(maybe 6-7 if you spawned near the ice zones), congratz you just generated 250-300 gold more than the other civs. Oh wait, someone spawned with a extra nearby luxury to sell. They just caught up to you. And it actually took time and effort to move your small army to clear the camps, so you are pretty much worse off.

And that is their ultimate ability. It is so irrelevant and weak, it is not even funny. Not even going to comment on the whole "embarked units can defend themselves better", it is just embarrassing.

And now the unit:

The Mandekalu is without doubt the worst of the knight-type unique units. Keshiks, Camel Archers, Conquistadors, Elephants... it is not even close. It is just a normal knight with no penalty when attacking cities. Who cares... pikes still rip them apart.

Building:

I am not going to say Mud pyramid mosque is bad. It's a free temple and it gives +2 culture. It is a nice small bonus, but nothing else. Culture does not scale well with number of cities. The policy costs go way higher for each new city settled than the +2 bonus culture you can get from that building. So even though it gives some extra culture, it is not relevant for a culture win. It is simply not a building that you can build a strategy around. As a counter example I will give you unique buildings like - paper makers, mayan pyramids, stelles, burial tombs - the more you have of them the better off you are, with absolutely no downsides.

Songhai = top-tier civ, give me a break...
 
Remember that you get that cash when you pillage an opponent's city as well. That can mean several hundred gold on occasion.

I've found that the extra gold from the camps is actually pretty useful because it comes at the right time. You're acting as if you weren't Songhai you wouldn't be interest in blowing up camps--you won't be "worse off" unless you were planning on not building any early units. Or that the Songhai player hasn't also "spawned with a nearby luxury to sell." I've found that the ability normally allows me to build that first settler several turns earlier than I normally would, which can be big.
 
No need to get upset about it. I've had a number of really good games with Songhai on emperor and immortal. All of them were pre G&K, so I confess that times have changed, but the +gold from barb camps remains the same. The 300 gold you describe is early game gold. It comes at precisely the right time to help you buy an early settler. In fact, if you're making 10 gold a turn in the early turns, +300 is a pretty substantial chunk of turns. This isn't theorycrafting (although the theory is also fine ;)). I and other have used this early gold to buy settlers and workers. The strategy works quite nicely.
 
Songhai + barb camps = much faster purchase of early game building or unit.
Songhai + city = just buy the courthouse and keep up the offensive.
 
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