Old civs in new circumstances - your experiences with pre-BNW civs in BNW

Hi everyone.

I would like to ask those of you who have already played some pre-BNW civs in BNW: how do they fare? What has changed for you?

I have only played the new civs since the release but I would like to go back to the old ones and I am wondering if you have found any new and interesting strategies for them.

Who would be worth trying? Where are there new play styles emerging?

Please only post if you've actually tried the civ in BNW.

I played the Maya and got along fine on Emperor - took some GWAMs from Long Count bonuses. Not bad!

My current game, Byzantium is rolling over all of us!! She had her religion up and enhanced before 3 pantheons were found!! I cannot even get a headway on converting her lands or any near her!! She also went with a full peity start, I am going to give that a whirl once I tire of the greatness of Morroco. I think her religion with the peity tree is not going to be able to be beaten. Certianly not with a human running the show.

Iroquois. I love playing them, when things go right. Otherwise they still feel very unsatisfying.

seancolorado said:

Iroquois. I love playing them, when things go right. Otherwise they still feel very unsatisfying.

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What do you mean by things going right?

I played as Rome on king and the ability to send hammers to Rome after workshop really helped a lot, partly with wonders (which is not spesiffic to Rome) but also with industrialization, to build that first factory/public school/museum in Rome and then build them at a discount in all other cities.

I also made a religion warmonger run as Egypt and it went real well. Bonus discount (with piety) temples really helped. I tested the Jesuit Education reformation belief (had enough military) and could buy 11 public schools the turn I reached scientiffic theory. Was good to counteract the disadvantage of having many cities.

It was the AI, but I was really surprised by the Maya in my one game (probably shouldn't have been). They stayed small but totally dominated with religion and the tourism wonders. I'm finding it pretty difficult to get established with a religion, so I'm sure it's partially something I'm doing wrong.

I started a game as Germany and they still felt very lackluster. I had a large military but was mostly out produced and out tech'd. This might have been a poor build order on my part, but I'm usually in the top 3 Civs. Maybe others have had another experience with Germany.

JtW said:

What do you mean by things going right?

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When you have a favorable map start with enough forest

Played Siam and couldn't muster up enough cash early game to influence the cs's to reap the benefits.

But early piety meant that I could go tradition opener, followed by full piety and take the reformation +30% influence with money gifts to cs's. Then the free culture buildings SP in Tradition that spawned 4x Wat's a few turns after I researched Education. Went from 8th in literacy to 1st in a few turns.

So pros and cons I guess for Siam.

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Played Sweden on a huge pangea map with 22 civs on diety, on turn 180 I have 15 friends (150% more GP generation, my 3 cities each generate around 22 great scientist points, more DoF's means Sweden is a lot better then they used to be (in a crowded world at least).

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Played Arabia in a mp game, decided to skip religion because my only neighbor on my continent built stonehenge. I wasn't the only one skipping religion so I ended up foundin one for myself after I researched theology and got a GE soon after, so I rushed a wonder to get a GP, built the one that gave me 3 missionaries and the caravan trade routes crushed the opposing religion of my neighbor.

Played as the inca, who have only grown in Power. The lack of early gold makes the road benefit kick in earlier and mean a lot more. I utterly crushed the AI, and was well on my way to an Incan tech victory when all of the sudden... I GOT BORED! Yeah, everyone was my friend, the WC was wrapped around my finger, and my ship was still many turns from being complete.
Currently in a game as washington and having a blast! The extra sight and tile buying means more in the classical era due to the lack of money and culture. I was able to get 3 natural wonders into the borders of my 4 homeland cities and have won a defensive war (the first war declared ON ME in 5 games, which I still find ridiculous). The year is 1520, and my minutemen have just escorted my 5th city to the new world. Now they are rapidly and egficiently exploring the continent, hoping to meet the remaining 2 sides and found the WC. The Americans shall conquer through the art of culture, finding long lost relics in far away lands, generating tourism from our many natural wonders, and using our artists and writers to encapsulate the imagination of the world. I think America has indeed grown stronger.

The celts have got better, what with the purge to happiness that the expansion seems to have, and the reformation belief that gives tourism for faith built buildings (along with the policy discount for such buildings). Currently I have 48 tourism and we're barely into the rennaissance; I also am managing 7 cities with few happiness difficulties, mostly by getting both the cathedral and the pagoda. This is only on King, but I am still suprised that I got the religion out so quickly (admittedly at the cost of science and some arguably more useful policies).

I loaded up as Catherine for a MP game.

She's still amazing.

I played Siam much as I always did (diplomatically), though on Emperor rather than my usual Immortal - they have very strong cultural defence, deal better than many civs with happiness issues, and fit well into the new gameplay using my existing diplo strategy. I always loved playing them, and playing them now I enjoy it even more. That was the single longest game I played in BNW, and I was extremely annoyed to lose at the last minute to Egypt stealing one of my CSes (the UN was founded late, so this was the final chance for a leader election, in 2045).

Played Siam and couldn't muster up enough cash early game to influence the cs's to reap the benefits.

But early piety meant that I could go tradition opener, followed by full piety and take the reformation +30% influence with money gifts to cs's. Then the free culture buildings SP in Tradition that spawned 4x Wat's a few turns after I researched Education. Went from 8th in literacy to 1st in a few turns.

So pros and cons I guess for Siam.

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Not really cons - you shouldn't need to rely on gold to gain CSes in the early game (and usually not in the late game, when spies do the work for you and you have high base resting influence from Patronage, protection, and the CS Enhancer belief), when they mostly give out 'destroy encampment' quests or 'connect resource' quests where the resource is in a settlable spot or easily-tradeable with a nearby civ. Since the value of gold gifts goes down over time, I try to avoid using them at all where quests are available, in case I need them to buy influence when a CS runs out of quests. Plus, in the early game you want that extra gold for libraries and/or settlers and workers, or on hand to buy units as needed if you face aggression.

The Wat exploit has been there since the start. A new one apparently is the ability to buy universities (not Wats) with Jesuit Education so you can have both in a city, however I didn't use this and wouldn't had I known about it at the time (I went with Heathen Conversion).

I played as the Huns tonight. I expected to struggle with early warfare due to the lack of gold, but I managed to get a small army capable of conquering Portugal, the Inca and Polynesia. I paid for it mostly with the gold the Mausoleum provided to my 2 stone resources. Demanding tribute from CS and razing cities while waiting for my caravans pulled me through. I had no issues with happiness at all, strangely.

All went better than expected, but the Huns themselves haven't really changed at all. They get Animal Husbandry immediately so in theory you could set up trade routes from the get-go, but caravans are too expensive that early to be viable.

Played a game as Japan. Built up 6 cities real nicely and got a booming economy. The trade routes provided plenty of money, so I mass produced Samurai with barracks and armory. Unleashed those units on my neighbors, had enough money to keep upgrading them over and over. So essentially I had a elite army with tons of promotions, and thanks to the UA they hardly got hurt. Japan is a lot more fun for me now

Just finished a roughly 9-hour game as Aztecs:

International Trade Routes can move food from the outlying cities to the capitol, helping to really get the benefit of Floating Gardens, while the routes can move production from the capitol to outlying cities to help them get their own Floating Gardens up.

Aztec UA is now an even bigger boost than before, if you can believe that. Since 4 free cultural buildings is now not as much culture as before, the Tradition SP for them is not quite enough to really get your culture, so the UA is even better because of that. Moreover, barbs seem more common!

And the Jaguar is a great unit to start with, as it gets Woodsman to help it explore, which is more important than ever given that you need trade-routes to other civs and CSes... no more isolationist/warmonger success. Gotta find CSes now, at least, to trade with, and the starting Jaguar helps that a lot.


My verdict for Aztecs is that they were a top-tier civ before, but in BNW I'd maybe even bump them up to a Top-3 civ in the entire game.

I've played a few games as Carthage, as they used to be my favorite. They're still good, but the change to the harbor takes away their early production boost from sea resources which invalidates those early wonder rushes that used to be possible on ~immortal.

They've essentially been changed from a maritime builder civ to a maritime trade civ, which works, and free harbors are still awesome, it's just... I miss that production.

If you can get a religion though, their naval trade range means you can seed it in almost any and every coastal city you can see, which is good... if you're into that sorta thing... so far religion seems like it's not worth the effort on 22civ immortal in BNW though. If you don't go the religion rout there's not much you can do with these free harbors other than save some money on road maintenance, connect cities to your capital, and trade with people a bit further, all just culminating into giving you more money. So while still good, it's just a little more straightforward then the production harbors.

ahawk said:

Just finished a roughly 9-hour game as Aztecs:

International Trade Routes can move food from the outlying cities to the capitol, helping to really get the benefit of Floating Gardens, while the routes can move production from the capitol to outlying cities to help them get their own Floating Gardens up.

Aztec UA is now an even bigger boost than before, if you can believe that. Since 4 free cultural buildings is now not as much culture as before, the Tradition SP for them is not quite enough to really get your culture, so the UA is even better because of that. Moreover, barbs seem more common!

And the Jaguar is a great unit to start with, as it gets Woodsman to help it explore, which is more important than ever given that you need trade-routes to other civs and CSes... no more isolationist/warmonger success. Gotta find CSes now, at least, to trade with, and the starting Jaguar helps that a lot.


My verdict for Aztecs is that they were a top-tier civ before, but in BNW I'd maybe even bump them up to a Top-3 civ in the entire game.

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QFT. Jaguars thrive in the new barbarian-heavy world. The UA is better because culture is harder to get. Also, IDK if you've noticed but I've rolled a few starts as Aztec since BNW and noticed that I get way more multi-tile lakes, which are just awesome with floating gardens.

I've only done two Pre-BNW civs so far since the expansion.

Carthage: Really liking the changes to harbor. It allows strong early trade routes, with your UU ship becoming really handy in protecting the early routes.

Denmark: Nothing really changed directly, except the naval trade routes do help with money. I guess knowing where iron is is also good, was able to secure 15 iron before getting to steel because of it. Had a swarm of berserkers raining down on those poor Zulu.