Here's a crazy thought, Play Venice, but max out the number of city states on a standard map and keep the same number of civs. After all, the more CS's you have the more cities Venice can buy.
Happiness isn't the only limiter to expansion, some have reported running short on money, perhaps starting in Medieval times this is less of an issue. In my next game I plan to play as another old favourite, Arabia, and earn the big bucks.
I had few problems with happiness until late in the game when a rival ideology was way more popular than mine causing disatisfaction in my empire, I also was always cashflow positive but I didn't expand like mad.
Civs that make lots of money through trade seem more desireable post BNW, you can always buy happiness.
Egypt gives you two happy (Burial Tombs) very quickly in newly settled cities, and Celts give you three happy (Ceilidh Halls) a little bit later. So those two civs makes sure you can keep building cities even though you might not have that many good spots (no unique luxes).
Rome is an obvious one, since you can quickly get new cities up and running, but can run into happiness problems early (you need good spots).
Ethiopia is built for rapid expansion (in contrary to their UA and what people might think) since they WILL get a religion to offset a lot of the unhappiness that comes from expanding. Just pick happiness boosting Pantheon and Believes and you can keep expanding in absurdum.
Maya is also nice since rapid expansion with them will give you a nice science boost. Use them a little bit like the Ethiopians and get a religion going to offset the unhappiness.
I think the above five are the best ones.
This one is more situational, but the Dutch could be a good pick. Trading your luxuries for a friends luxury will net you 2 happiness if it is your last of that type. So you can expand a bit fromt hat happiness. Also, depending on where you are located, you could pump out lots of polders and dominate the gold game. Since you are starting medieval, you'll at least reach the polders quickly.
Thanks for writing-in, Tyrvos.
What do you mean by trading in the last of that type. If I trade my last, say, silk with someone, don't I lose the happiness garnered from that item? By my trading that last one with another Civ for their luxury item, haven't I just done nothing to gain or lose a luxury happiness point or two? I must have misunderstood you.
Regards,
Marc
Thank you, JtW. I still don't get it. If I trade away a luxury resource, I retain the +2 happiness. Then, why can't I simply break the system by merely giving away, then receiving back, then giving away, then receiving back the same luxury resource over and over with a Coop buddy? Do you see what I mean? I could have sworn I'd seen a similar flaw in G&K: You pillage an enemy's hex, gain the gold, then, you have your worker fix the hex, then you pillage the enemy's hex again, gain more gold; rinse and repeat infinitely. I was doing that for a bit, until I got bored with that cheap way of bringing in some extra dough
Marc
Here's a crazy thought, Play Venice, but max out the number of city states on a standard map and keep the same number of civs. After all, the more CS's you have the more cities Venice can buy.
Venice requires you roll an amazing starting position. If your capital sucks you are going to lose. That being said they are biased to start in prime coastal locations so you should never need to make more than a couple games for a desirable map. Outside of that try not buying the city states right away. You want to be reeling in boatloads of gold before you start expanding. This necessitates you have many trading partners, the local AI civs will not be enough for your doubled route capacity forcing you to trade with CS's as well. Once your making a few hundred gold every turn and have 20k in the bank, feel free to buy them up because now you can actually use them to purchase an army anywhere you like. In the meantime you ought to be making enough $$ already to ally yourself with the CS's for resources.