Civilization Rankings! Part Five: RESULTS!

wigwam said:

Seriously? Please read my post again. Or just read this part, I guess, if you can't be bothered with the whole thing:

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You noted two things that was largely not discussed ;

ie: it was not claimed Mowhawks were awesome early game conquerors which underpinned the recommendation of the Iroquois; it's simply a resource less swordsman; and furthermore the Longhouse is a powered up Workshop; which with a forest start; should always be awesome with an extra hammer from every worked logging camp. You should also be working quite a few forest tiles on almost any Civ you play; having those camps give extra production before prod. multipliers are applied is always going to be better than situational UI improvements. The Iroquois starting near large patches of forests means their UB power is multiplied; and you're always going to find more forest tiles the marshes for Polders or hills next to mountains for terrace farms accross all manner of games (non baked maps). This goes back to their flexibility and ability to adapt; The Vast majority of your cities will have forests near them on standard setting, that can't be said for most other Civ with a UB/UI that is terrain dependent EVEN with starting bias. You'll just come accross more forests, inside your core, outside your core, everywhere.

You also overstate pikeman's usefulness; Swords still give you the city raider upgrades and as a stock melee unit with an upgrade path to the modern era they should be the core of melee force; I build swords to upgrade up the chain and will always build swords in any civ played; I throw in Pikes for combined arms; so either way, the Mohawks are going to get built. The fact that I don't have to worry about iron early is a bonus.


i Also want to respond to a point you made earlier that I skipped over; SINCE its somewhat relevant to the above discussion

If you're willing to reroll repeatedly, you might eventually get a nice start with lots of forest and a sprinkling of jungle. If you're not cheesing it, though, you're much more likely to get a "forest start" that involves three or four forest tiles around your capital and very few (or none) near other good city sites. The Inca are good even if you never have a single mountain in your territory. The Iroquois are worse than a civ with no uniques if you don't have enough forests, thanks to the Longhouse.

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This applies to any Civ though; Lots of people mindlessly reroll for the perfect start with wheat,cows,horses and lots of luxes. I advise against rerollingl its a terrible crutch, I take the starts I get, and generally the Iroquois is flexible; it can work with Jungle only or even no forest starts ; it will mean a harder game, but chances are you'll get a mix of two and forests are far too common that your longhouses will be useful in almost every city. Also from experience, Incas are far more vulnerable to a poor start that completely negates its UI/UA than the Iroquois UB/UA; a point I've repeatedly made.



Finally,
Let's also note my commentary was based on Iroquois economic power which is the same reason the AI performs well with them , and UA/UB giving it a great flexibility with its starting bias, The Iroquois in short is a strong civ because its more than than individual sum of its parts; I'm not really sure what you're arguing exactly. Is your contention is deserves its low ranking in the people's choice award? (if so you haven't proven it) or that my advocacy of the Iroquois as a strong Civ is wrong; Again you haven't proved it.

You seem rather entrenched ; but i can't figure out why

That longhouse is so overrated it's not even funny...

generally the Iroquois is flexible; it can work with Jungle only or even no forest starts ; it will mean a harder game

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Every civ is flexible. Every civ can win from any start. The Iroquois, in a start with only jungle or otherwise without forests, can win, but that doesn't mean they aren't in the worst possible position any civ can be in. Their UU is weak, their UA is weak, and their UB, as I have explained several times now, is a liability: it is usually worse than having no UB at all.

Well, I've got time to kill. Might as well take on the top 10 Civs and see which ones could do with changes like I did with the bottom 10. Probably many of these ideas aren't great, and it's much harder to suggest how to weaken a Civ than to strengthen it.

Arabia

Arabia always had its strong UB, but now its UA has been uplifted somewhat in strength - together with its strong UU, we've got problems. Problem is, I can't think of how to tweak the Civ substantially without wrecking a core bonus.

Poland

The UA's quite clearly the offending party here. A simple move would be to not take effect upon entering the Classical era (and maybe the Medieval era too) so people don't rush through both Tradition and Liberty for an ultra-start. An alternative is that upon entering an era, you get an amount of culture for Social Policies (no effect on tourism defence) that's a fixed proportion of the cost at the time, so you wouldn't get two in quick succession.

The Zulus

The Zulus have probably the most synergy out of any warmongerer, but that comes at the cost of a fair amount late-game weakness, so we've got to be careful not to nerf them too much. The Impi ranged attack might need weakening a little, or maybe the extra movement speed from the Buffalo line of promotions could be moved to the second promotion instead of the first (so new units can still start with it, but it makes the Zulus a little less flexible in combat.)

The Maya

The Maya have suffered already from the tech cost for founding new cities and the addition of GWAMs meaning they can't complete their GP cycle (meaning no more getting two Great Engineers.) Getting Piety at the start helps, but methinks we need to wait and see with the Mayans before we begin anything drastic.

The Inca

I love playing as the Incans, but I accept they're a bit too strong (except their UU.) A simple adjustment could be to reduce the amount of food from Terrace farms (maybe +1 food from every adjacent mountain as now, but not counting the first adjacent mountain?)

Korea

I'm thinking maybe the tech boost for completing science buildings in the capital shouldn't be affected by Research Agreement bonuses. Otherwise, it's difficult to make changes that won't wreck Korea.

Ethiopia

The Stele is the problem here, seeing as Ethiopia was supposed to be a tall-building Civ. One possibilty could be to put up its production cost, but that's not really a great idea for an early-game building. Another could be for 1 faith point to be gained immediately, but the second to require a city of a certain size or bigger (so if you're building tall, you'll make that easily, but if you're building wide, you won't have as much faith.)

The Shoshone

This can be fairly easily tweaked. The inital tiles you get from founding a city could be made to put up the culture costs of succeeding tiles (so you don't expand borders excessively rapidly.) Alternatively, or perhaps additionally, the number of extra tiles you get could be bumped down slightly.

China

China is difficult to balance, but I feel like a change to the Paper Maker is probably what's needed. Maybe just scale the gold, so it doesn't immediately provide 2 gold, but it will do eventually.

Babylon

Babylon's problem is that they can get a tech advantage very early on, and end up incredibly hard to take out. A simple possibility is to move that free Great Scientist to a slightly later technology, like Philosophy. Babylon's UU and UB seem pretty much fine as they are.

wigwam said:

Every civ is flexible. Every civ can win from any start. The Iroquois, in a start with only jungle or otherwise without forests, can win, but that doesn't mean they aren't in the worst possible position any civ can be in. Their UU is weak, their UA is weak, and their UB, as I have explained several times now, is a liability: it is usually worse than having no UB at all.

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Sure, and I encourage people to explore that flexibility by NOT rerolling for the perfect start; but some Civs are more flexible than others.

UU is not weak by a long shot; I'm not sure how you arrived at this; UA is 'decent' ; not strong; and UB is 'decent'; but where Iroqouis makes up for their mediocrity (on paper) is longhouses enhances production to logging camps- which is a forest improvement. Forests are quite common and easy to settle around/in

That alone makes their UB much much more flexible than any other UI from several of the other Civs; and unlike other UBs with a flat bonus or a % bonus; the Iroqouis UB's power actually scales with the # of forests with log camps you're working, which makes it exponential more powerful when paired with their starting bias, and the common nature of forests in the game.

Similarly, their UA can take advantage of fairly common tracks of forest and is again enhanced by their starting bias; Put together; that mediocre looking civ becomes a flexible and powerful civ to play.

Rather than continuing to talk in circles, I encourage you to put a good faith effort into playing the Iroquois over a number of games on fair settings and on a difficulty you enjoy. Put logging camps on the forests, and trading post the jungles. And enjoy the game!