Most poorly designed Civ?

In almost every one of my games, Genghis Khan and Mongolia are the North Korea of the world. Everybody denounces them and it generally stems from how the AI reacts to civs attacking city-states.

That, and the fact they smell really bad.
 
The only poorly designed civ is the one that has a unique that actually disadvantages you. India take a bow.

Byzantium aren't designed all that great either, but at least they aren't disadvantaged by their UA, it's just luck dependent on how useful it actually is.
 
I've been a Polynesia apologist. I want to like them, but having tried multiple strategies, read quite a few threads, I still can't figure them out. I can win with them, but its hard to see how they come together.

Love the concept of the UA, but in practical terms I find it to be underwhelming. One of the few UA's thats usefulness expires, and it happens relatively early too.

Use the UA to find ruins : Best on islands. On most other maps its value is highly limited. On terra it takes so long to find the other continents its usually a barbarian haven. Makes it quite troublesome for the scout to survive. I rarely find the goody huts found beyond turn 60 or so to be too impactful. Not as chancy as Spains UA, but its in that category.

Use the UA to settle choice locations : On islands/archipalego you're not getting too much of a head start as you can usually jump from one to another with Optics, which the AI will prioritize. On Terra its a time equation. Finding the other landmass takes time. Getting your settler over to the continent in time is troublesome. You'll need a worker too. Will need military over there as well to fight the hordes of barbarians. And these needs to happen relatively quickly as the city needs time to grow before making an impact on your empire. Do this while still trying to fend off the other AI. Last Polynesia I even attempted just the cap on the starting continent. Better, but still fell behind.

Use the UA to snipe units from Ocean : Thats a lot of work to make the magic happen. This is like an added bonus, but not a prime feature of a UA.

Use the UA to find other trading partners and CS first : Helpful but it no way a game changing strategy.

So the UA amounts to a bunch of nickel and dime uses. Fell in love with it on paper, but it doesn't have enough substance in use.

What about the UU ? Completely ignorable. Anyone ever done a maori rush ? Right. That 10% boost is weak, and its a warrior, which means it will not last long. Not strong enough to stand up on its own. Which is fine, if the UA and UI had more oomph.

How about the UI ? Oy. The tradeoff is tough. Slow growth/production or more culture. Its also limited to coastal tiles which also restricts its use. With other UI you can't get enough of the improvements. More marshes please, more hills, more forrests/jungle please! Not so with the moai. Because of the coast limitation it doesn't even play nicely with the religious beliefs. The only UI that isn't an automatic build. Definitely the least used UI and maybe even weaker than standard improvements.

Yes, but its about SYNERGY man. How does the UA/UI/UU work together ? Poorly.

Oceanic travel gives no benefit to the UU. As much as I've tried I can't get it to work well with the UI. I've tried settling an unpopulated continent first and creating the worlds largest moai ring but that means many small cities. Setting aside the impracticability of it, is a couple of additional culture (small cities means you aren't working the rest of the tiles) really beneficial in this scenario ?

Oh, but you forget about the 10% combat bonus if within two tiles of a Moai. Stacked with the 10% of the UU and now you're talking! Right, can the moai travel with me ? Nope, have fun planning the enemy invasion around your moai. So they're not useful for being on the offensive, turtle up! With a UI that actually restricts growth and a UA that doesn't do anything for growth ? Tough sell.

Not only does it fail the secondary flexibility test, it fails the primary test of having no clear path to optimized use.

All that being said, I'm still sandboxing with them at the moment, maybe they'll be my favorite once I figure them out. But having to dig so hard for potentially so little speaks to the poor design of the Civs abilities.
 
The only poorly designed civ is the one that has a unique that actually disadvantages you. India take a bow.

Byzantium aren't designed all that great either, but at least they aren't disadvantaged by their UA, it's just luck dependent on how useful it actually is.

I'd rate Polynesia lower than both. As far as Byzantium vs India, I can appreciate India more.

While I find Indias UB and to a lesser extent their UU underwhelming, I dig their UA.

I can effectively grow tall. Largest and happiest cities I've ever had. So it does one thing really well.

Haven't been able to pull off wide and and massive yet (for various reasons the rolls just didn't pan out) but I thinks its doable. Not easy, but something I look forward to trying.

Byzantium on the other hand doesn't really excite at the moment.
 
That´s racist and very offending against the Mongolian people and their leader Genghis Khan in Civ V!

Supposedly Isabella only bathed twice in her lifetime, on her wedding day and coronation. Talk about smelly.
 
I don't think you're taking full advantage of Polynesia. Perhaps you're not building enough units in the early stages of the game? I tend to build three Maori from the get-go and rush buy more periodically. I also don't build shrines. On an island map, ruins and/or Religious CSs are almost guaranteed to get you a good pantheon without a shrine or SH. But to get the ruins, you need lots of early units. A high military value also allows you to repeatedly bully CSs for cash (no one will get upset when you bully a CS that they haven't met). Finally, the Maori + UA allow you to grab workers and pillage an early neighbor without much risk. This should be enough to get a nice peace deal and to cripple them for later wars.
 
That´s racist and very offending against the Mongolian people and their leader Genghis Khan in Civ V!

Not at all. Have you ever smelled anyone who's ridden several hundred miles on a sweaty horse in leather armor in the summertime without a bath in the past month or so? Or 100,000 of them packed closely together? I'll bet their victims could smell them coming long before they saw them, if the wind was blowing in their direction... :lol: And to be fair, I'm sure most travelling armies in days of yore smelled about the same under those conditions.
 
Perhaps you're not building enough units in the early stages of the game? I tend to build three Maori from the get-go and rush buy more periodically.

True. Most I've had together were 7 and that was pretty late as I had no iron.

I also don't build shrines. On an island map, ruins and/or Religious CSs are almost guaranteed to get you a good pantheon without a shrine or SH.

Nice, but I don't consider it compelling.

But to get the ruins, you need lots of early units. A high military value also allows you to repeatedly bully CSs for cash (no one will get upset when you bully a CS that they haven't met). Finally, the Maori + UA allow you to grab workers and pillage an early neighbor without much risk. This should be enough to get a nice peace deal and to cripple them for later wars.

I've got to say I hadn't even thought of using them as an early ninja warmonger!

Still seems a little weak. Applies only on islands/archipelago and I do wonder how long you can keep other AI in the dark. You can essentially do the same strategy with warriors, with diplo hits being the only difference. And how long does your window last ?

Since you've tried it, I'll ask you if you find this strategy that much more effective with Polynesia and if it offers an advantage similar to other UA's.
 
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