TSL for BNW- Most fun civs to play and play with?

Hey all,

Long time reader of civ fanatic and first time poster! I have been a huge civ fan since Civ 2, and Civ 5 with BNW seems to really really be awesome.

More than anything I love scenarios and TSL maps, but there don't seem to be many discussions about playing on them. I get that its not fun for some people knowing where everyone is, but for me its just the reason to play.

Some topic question ideas:

What speed do you play? (I hate seeing it go to AD before anything has even happened, anyone know how to slow down time without slowing down game play?)

What civs do you like to be? (No fun to be stuck playing far away from the action!)

What civs do you like to play with? Almost as important, packing europe, balanced around the world, modern civs? ancient civs?

Anything else?


Since its my first post, HUGE thanks to everyone behind this site and all the mods and scenarios over the years on every version, you guys are great and for everyone that tells you that, there at least 1,000,000 more of us that just soak up your work without ever coming on your radar.

Firstly, welcome to CivFanatics!
Secondly, "oddly enough", I've been playing almost exclusively TSL maps of late. So this discussion is conveniently timed!
1) I play pretty much exclusively on Marathon. You simply can't play something as epic as a Huge Earth TSL map on a slower speed (though Epic might be okay. Might.) I also play on Prince or King to keep from having to struggle uphill against super-cheaty AIs.
2) I like playing as just about any Civ, though my favorites are Spain, Arabia, Egypt, Brazil, and the Shoshone. I've found Brazil and the Shoshone are the best if you want a peaceful game, while the others are good if you want a more, ahem, "interesting" time.
3) I try to balance the world; my current map has (deep breath): The Iroquois, the Shoshone, the Aztecs, the Maya, the Inca, Brazil, Siam, China, Mongolia, India, Arabia, the Huns, Russia, Sweden, Poland, England, Carthage, Egypt, Ethiopia, the Zulu, the Songhai, and myself (as Spain). Yes, with 22 Civs it can get a tad laggy, but who cares?
As you may have guessed, I love TSL maps. I personally really like knowing where the majority of things are, but every time I play I still enjoy exploring the world, seeing how Civs have expanded, and finding Natural Wonders in their proper (and workable!) places. Playing big maps also leads to more interesting interaction between Civs (especially once Ideologies come onto the world stage; I also play with Putmalk's Civ IV Diplomatic Features mod, which I feel greatly improves interaction with the AI), and I have to acknowledge that sending archaeologists halfway around the world to fetch artifacts is very, very fun.

I usually manually select the civs I'm playing against, usually dropping out a big chunk of the western European civs because otherwise it gets too crowded. Usually I'll end up leaving in Portugal or Spain to cover the Iberian peninsula, Netherlands / France / Germany to cover the center, England / Celts to cover the UK, and Poland or Austria to cover the Eastern section. I pretty much always leave in the East Asian, Central Asian, and African civs as well as Rome, Sweden, and Russia. For the Americas I like to leave them empty just because I like seeing everyone race to setup colonies and makes for a more exciting midgame than leaving in the native civs.

As for civs to play as I really enjoy playing as the Byzantines. Their UA is normally on the weak side but becomes incredibly strong on such large maps and with so many civs since relatively fewer civs can actually found a religion. You can go down the piety tree without actually feeling like your screwing yourself over like you normally do by foregoing tradition / liberty because focusing on religion can bring in huge benefits. You also end up being cramped for land but have 2 powerful early UUs which sets you up to go on an early warpath to get enough land.

GREAT Thread!! I've finally come out of my lurking shadows to bump this thread!

I play Civ almost exclusively for the role playing aspect more then the victory aspect and like to see scenarios like the most ELITE force of Impi complete with the Wonder upgrades as well as there unique Barracks upgrade and a upgrade from Kilimanjaro. Or a force of mounted units from Songhai with at least 4 upgrades. Its fun stuff

So naturally I eat up the TSL Maps. And I too hate the the epic speed because it slows down building so much that making a large ROME like force is stupid and impractical. I once came upon ONE mod that allows you to slow down time but not building but it had a bug that allowed you to indefinitely upgrade units against barbarians and when you can spend 200 years fighting barbs with your original Scarcher it gets to be OP.

As far as who I like playing with. I love role playing as Askia, the West African Power who tries to resist eventual colonization from Europe. Or as Ethiopia. Because straddling the East African Coast and the Arabian Peninsula can be an outstanding seat of power and you sit literally in the middle of the world so spreading your religion can be alot of fun. I also like playing as the Iroquois with no America and see if I can fight off Montezuma for North America.

I would like to know if there are anymore MODS for changing the pace of the game without slowing down the standard speed of actually building units to allow for epic UU filled battles with other armies.

OnceAKing said:

I would like to know if there are anymore MODS for changing the pace of the game without slowing down the standard speed of actually building units to allow for epic UU filled battles with other armies.

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I haven't done any modding in Civ5 (yet), but I made a mod with what you are asking for in Civ4. It really wasn't that hard to do. Check the modders forums and maybe ask if somebody could whip one up. Shouldn't take more than an hour to do.

Rathelon said:

I haven't done any modding in Civ5 (yet), but I made a mod with what you are asking for in Civ4. It really wasn't that hard to do. Check the modders forums and maybe ask if somebody could whip one up. Shouldn't take more than an hour to do.

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thanks for the suggestion I'll check on it later.

Which TSL maps work in BNW?

OnceAKing said:

I would like to know if there are anymore MODS for changing the pace of the game without slowing down the standard speed of actually building units to allow for epic UU filled battles with other armies.

Click to expand...

Extended Eras mod.

Hey there, I'm new here to.

Speed: I prefer epic pace. I'm never in a rush to reach the modern units, although lately I'm starting to enjoy modern warfare a lot. There's this thing about parking nuclear boom thingies next to your neighbour civ .

I enjoy playing from a role playing POV. Of course you play to win, but I never roll back when I miss a wonder, or loose cities etc.

For some reason I pick Austria a lot. The ability to marriage a city state is so neat I miss it a lot when playing other nations.

I've never played scenarios. Does it differ a lot from regular games? It seems so limited no?

My favourite is definitely Maya as all unique items it provides are very useful for both SV and CV:

1) Upgraded Shrine
2) Archer without need for Archery, that can easily replace the need of scout.
3) Free great persons according to your current needs.

Yes! The RPG aspect is exactly the point. I've been playing morrocco...I don't even want to dominate, I just want to exist in that world and watch it play out.

Another question, maybe for the more advanced users of TSL maps.

I'm really tempted by Gedemon's historical start date mod, but does it just make everything too silly by giving some civs a huge advantage (even with the catch-up logic).

Also, do you guys think the whole world is a good idea? I love the post about leaving the new world blank (although having a few natives can still work considering the overcrowding of Europe). I'm thinking of just doing the Europe/Med next if for no other reason than playability. The GIANT map gets really really laggy even on my computer which is pretty powerful.

started game as Venice today. Hard in the beginning with everyone surrounds you. I had to declare war on Greece early to control the Adriatic sea for naval trade routes later.

Tinker said:

Extended Eras mod.

Click to expand...

Isn't that the mod with the bug that makes it so you indefinitely get XP against barbs? Or maybe thats the TSL i'm using....

It is tough dealing with the Europ and MidEast overcrowding. But I guess there is a fertile crescent for a reason...

My toughest thing has been starting out as Mongolia and then trying to take my Army ALL the way across the steps of Asia and through all the forest to get to them.

I typically have to take out Korea or China with Chariots, Dip down to Siam and then make my way to Persia or India. And then hopefully by then I have a high powered team of Keshiks. But by then its a race to avoid missing their Era by the time I get to Europe. I've yet to make it all the way to Europe without getting bored to tears by the isolation of Asia.

OnceAKing said:

Isn't that the mod with the bug that makes it so you indefinitely get XP against barbs? Or maybe thats the TSL i'm using....

It is tough dealing with the Europ and MidEast overcrowding. But I guess there is a fertile crescent for a reason...

My toughest thing has been starting out as Mongolia and then trying to take my Army ALL the way across the steps of Asia and through all the forest to get to them.

I typically have to take out Korea or China with Chariots, Dip down to Siam and then make my way to Persia or India. And then hopefully by then I have a high powered team of Keshiks. But by then its a race to avoid missing their Era by the time I get to Europe. I've yet to make it all the way to Europe without getting bored to tears by the isolation of Asia.

Click to expand...

Are you playing with Attila in the game? He's still pretty far away but his his capital is in a nice central location which can give you a base of operations to starting pushing into either the middle east or western Europe.

Glassmage said:

started game as Venice today. Hard in the beginning with everyone surrounds you. I had to declare war on Greece early to control the Adriatic sea for naval trade routes later.

Spoiler :

Click to expand...

What mod is this? Can you give me a link

Brazil and Venice are insanely fun civs to play as.

I enjoy playing as America and China, and back before Brazil, the Inca were (and still are) incredible.

For europe I go as rome, greece or England. In africa/middle east I sometimes play Songhai and arabia.

I also customized a TSL map to make Venice start in Australia. I didn't play as them but the result was incredible.

Venice had the largest science output in the medieval era and had annexed ALL the city states on the Swahili Coast, and had practically wiped out the Zulu's except from one city, nobamba, which was landlocked within the venetian-south african kingdom.

I like playing as USA as its fun roleplaying taking down the other north Americans and then
spaming cities everywhere.