Team games

How often do people play on team games?

My friends and I usually get together a few times a week and play co-op against the AI (mainly because they don't want to take a chance of going up against me. heh). I've noticed that the team games seem to have some serious and far reaching effects to the play of the game, and it makes for some intresting variations to how effective some civs are to play.

For example, specilization is very easy when there are multiple people on the same team, working together to help each other. As such, a civilization like Babylon or Korea are incredibly good choices for one of the team members. Tech's seem to take longer to obtain (to make up for multiple people sharing techs) so having one person get all the science wonders while others concentrate on their own specialties, insures that the overall tech rating is high enough that the other two don't need to worry about anything but libraries and the occasional university until they get themselves set up.

Some civ's have some bonuses which - by themselves - are just minor effects, such as getting animal husbandry with the Huns. However, being a militaristic civilization is a valid speciality (you don't like me? say hello to my little friend and his ponies!), and getting a free tech right off of the bat FOR EVERY CIV ON THE TEAM, is quite a bit more useful then it is in single player.

A few civs, like Polynesia and Netherlands have some great synergy for team play. In Poly's case, being able to explore early helps reveal the map for not only you, but your team as well, while also letting your troops get to your allies on continent maps. Netherlands on the other hand, with it's ability to keep some happieness even when sharing luxuries, can freely share his spoils with his allies, letting them have free happiness while keeping himself at a high level. And BOTH of these allies have special tile improvements, improvements which do not have to be placed in only your territory. Have a Indian player going culture focus? Send one of your polynesian workers over to his coastline and make some maoi statues. Is Egypt situated on a desert river? Send in your Netherland workers to make him some polders.

Finally, some civ's have abilities that, at least partially, allow their entire team to benifit from their unique ability. Austrians can buy out city states rather then attacking them and taking them over. Found a city state with a conveniently located Natural Wonder nearby? Let Spain trade you some money, buy out the city state, and gift it to her for increased bonuses. Speaking of Spain, their ability to get money whenever you find a Natural wonder applies to EACH memeber of the team; If your Aztec scout finds the fountain of youth, EVERYONE shares the 500 gold bonus. Yes, sharing the cash means that Spain dosen't get 500 gold per NW, but 250, or even 166, is a lot better then 100 because you found it second. And if the Natural Wonder is too far away from Spain, (and if the ally is willing), they can build a city there and gift it to Spain who gets more use out of it. (This is especially useful with the faith wonders. Build a city, gather enough faith to get your religion, and then gift it to your Spanish ally who will get double the use out of it.).

Anyone else have some useful synergies for team play?

I think you touched on some good points, especially with the Netherlands and sharing/trading lux to help keep the team happy. Sending workers to do improvements on your teammates land is a good suggestion.

One other thing to note is, you have to be careful fighting on your teammates land if you have a GG. If you drop a citadel it will steal their land and make it your land. This could be helpful if you wanted to acquire land adjacent to a teammate but can be very detrimental if you end up stealing is production or farms.

Another thing to note is, if you build the Great Wall for example, every teammate gets to benefit from it. This is ridiculously OP'd and I would recommend trying to get it every time.

I actually havn't ever played a co-op, nor any type of multiplayer in Civ5. Partially cause I don't have many friends that play it, but I think mostly it's cause I like to play long, few hour or more sessions and don't want to wait for others lol.

Had another one the other night. Although they are troublesome units, Turtle Ships allow for some insane synergies.

I was playing a small island map with my friend playing Suliman. While he went forth with his naval superiority, beating the living heck out of everything he came across while slowly picking apart the enemies costal cities with a combo of basic ships and land units, i concentrated on building up my cities. Even at end game his science rate sucked, not reaching 100 science per turn until around 1500. However with me as his R&D department (over 500 per turn) he quickly starting blasting away with compass and eventually navagation units. The only civ he didn't kill off was the Iraquoi, which was close to me. Desptie having no military and no navy, i took over the entire Irq civilization with 5 turtle ships and an admeral.

The total and utter domination of a highly expansionist and military civilization (at least in this game) with FIVE UNITS made me start thinking of how to use this in other games, and how the turtle ship (assuming it can even GET to the allies) could be even more deadly in the hands of another player.

Japan: no contest. Assuming they can get access to a turtle ship, and then get that unit to an enemy, their ability to fight at full power with every attack will make taking cities child's play.
Suliman: No huge benifts, but they can have a large naval force for little cost, and being able to capture enemy ships with any unit will make turtle ships DEVISTATING to an enemy navy.
England: An obvious benifit, extra movement will let them get into place more quickly, and move around fast enough to make lightning strikes (although they will still suffer manuverability compared to other english units).
Polynesia: OMG. Turtle ships with the ability to enter deep water? Game over. I would literally set aside a section of land for my ally to place a city, just so i can ship turtle ships to him, and let him send a fleet of them towards every enemy in the game.

Edit: turns out you cannot give turtle ships to poly in order to get them to go into deep ocean. It seems that poly ships start out without the "cannot enter deep ocean" debuff, while everyone else does have it. Since the debuff dosent go away, poly gets no benifits from it.

Sinergy in a team game makes the game more fun. Because is fun to test the diferente possibilities.
I'm glad teamwork become usefull in civilization.

IF u go extreme, u can get 3-4 on a team, and each one specify in something; science, gold, military...
usually u cant do this as a single civ, cause u will fall behind in everything else, but this way, u kinda would be part of a greater united civ, which u are in team games, and it just might prove efficient!

I enjoy playing team games as well, but I find that technology is researched too quickly and units phase out really fast.

Is there a way to increase beaker costs in MP? Editing some sort of configuration file?