Is Sweden OP?

Halcyan2 said:

But that's not that hard at the end of the game.

In lots of my non-Sweden games, I'm already allied with all the city states by the end anyway, with plenty of gold. That's how end games often turn up if you are comfortably ahead and aren't playing to beat a particular time.

I *am* impressed to see pre-patch Denmark doing so well. Harald doesn't do too well in most games!

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Thats the right view. If you can achieve similar results (games effectively over) with other Civs on the same map, its not OP.

And wow to Denmark. Smallfish has a thread going in the stories forum with Denmark doing quite well under AI control. May have to re-think my "Denmark is weakest" assumptions!

budweiser said:

I'll do another 50 turns and let you know if anyone wins. I dont have a sense that anyone would. Maybe Maya, I'm not sure what they are up to over there.

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certainly no Dom wins until they take your capital but usually I see culture or diplo wins post-350 on emperor, sometimes science but the ai is really bad about building ship parts quickly. when you see the 4th part go it is still another 10-20 turns before they finish it.

Hammer Rabbi said:

certainly no Dom wins until they take your capital but usually I see culture or diplo wins post-350 on emperor, sometimes science but the ai is really bad about building ship parts quickly. when you see the 4th part go it is still another 10-20 turns before they finish it.

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Diplo is a no-go for them. Their only chance is science or culture.

I'm pretty sure that since 2 civs are gone, the dynamic is broken and none will win. But we shall see. You all can keep rooting for Harold , I will report back later.

The game ended on turn 351 after I finished researching the entire tech tree and built the UN. It was rather uneventful, but tensions were running high along the Chinese border with Budapest.

Hammer Rabbi said:

by turn 100 no DoW's, Spain doesnt covet your land and isn't angry at you settling near her, you didnt build one combat unit other than triremes for exploration for the first 100 turns and you got a religion early when only 3 were possible to found. those things struck me as wacky but im no where near your skill level or play experience so my understanding of the game allows for wacky interpretations, haha.

You did get Petra with your Liberty GE in a turn later than when I see them on deity but you did only have 6 civs opponents (but it was 2 more than standard). I think if the game had 8 on a larger map it might have played differently, wonder-wise. I usually play 8civ/16CS settings. And Ive never seen deity players choose to build a wonder when they could have units because they know they get some refund back if they get beat to it. That is something i need to consider when i choose what to build. It was a great tip for me to think about. Also, it has been a long time since I played an Earth map and I forgot how little terrain there actually is. I thought more dow's would happen since expansion was at a minimum with crowded civs.

Im only through 3 parts of your LP and I will try to finish it a bit later. I was linked part 9 and saw t340+ and was surprised that a VC hadn't happened yet. I went to start at part 1 to see what I was missing. I will probably sub to your youtube channel. your games play much faster than some others and you give commentary. It felt like I blinked and it went from t20 to t50 in maybe 5 minutes, haha. Nice videos.

edit: your join date says Oct 2012. you just now joined this month? wow, i thought you had been a memeber already, haha. thanks for replying to my comments here.

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Hi!

ok, I'll explain some of Your points precisly (why something has happened and why not), as some of the things may not be obvious or I might not have said that in the video.

1. By turn 100 no DoW's - with such a remote starting location I knew there will be no DoW's anytime soon, also Spain is peaceful most of the time (at least when You spawn more than 10 tiles away). Therefore no units, but wonders. If I had spawned at a different location my opener would be adjusted to the situation.
2. My second city had such a position, that not building Petra there could have cost me the game (it gave an enormous bonus, and it was my only strong naval city - I knew that I'd need a navy later). Spending Great Engineer for that was a necessity.
3. I use only smaller maps, as my laptop is too weak to record on larger, but I add players to make the game more interesting (the AI has less space to settle, therefore is more aggresive)
4. Religion was a lucky draw as I didn't plan to get one, but got 8 faith from a CS right in the beginning and was able to adopt a faith generating pantheon very early.
5. Concerning the 340+ and no victory - I've posted it already, but here's the information again. You can take two approaches when going for Deity victory - either You go for the victory asap, or You delay the victory for others. I usually take the second option, as on Deity it is a more flexible one. Also the second option is better on smaller maps, as the most important thing in the first one is larger number of RAs and on smaller maps You won't have as many friends to sign them with.
Things to consider on the delaying victory strategy - harass the AI constantly, DON'T sign research agreements (as the AI's are usually way more advanced than You and gets more from the RA. Only when You are able to sign multiple RAs at once it makes sense, but on smaller maps You usually have only 1 or 2 AI's to sign them with). Also I rather spend money on CS than on RA - stealing CS from an AI gives You the tech boost from Scholaristicism and takes it away from the AI, also not signing RA keeps the AI in the dark for way longer + the harassing part disables the RA signing.

And a very important thing to remember - Deity AI always goes for Diplomatic Victory first (even when having the Apollo Program built) and has crap load of gold to get all the CS then. So this is the victory type You need to protect yourself against in the first place.

And considering the last paragraph I'm also gonna put a point to the actual thread - is Sweden OP. Definitely not. The picture which was taken on Emperor doesn't say much. On Emperor You should have such an advantage in all categories (being ahead in tech by 20+, controlling all of the world with military + all CS without giving them great people, generating a lot more culture and a lot more gold then the AI's). It is just too easy to say, that the Swedish bonus is OP. Check out my game on Deity and then You'll see how much effort is costs to go for a Diplomatic Victory on Deity. If I only generated great people throughout the game to gift them before the vote I would probably get like 2 or 3 CS that way (that is in the situation when there would be any CS left). That's not OP at all.

Finally - I was reading civfanatics forums for quite a while (definitely a couple of years now), but signed in recently as there were threads specifically concerning my let's plays with question I wanted to answer.

its funny ive been telling ppl how good swiss are when they where makeing "swiss sux" threads.
but they are definatly not overpowerd .

Sidor1982 said:

Hi!


3. I use only smaller maps, as my laptop is too weak to record on larger, but I add players to make the game more interesting (the AI has less space to settle, therefore is more aggresive)

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I've watched a lot of your vids and think you're a great player, however I think it's fair to mention that playing with more AI's than recommended will generally make the game easier (under most circumstances). You are correct in saying the AI will be more aggressive with less space, as in they will focus more on military when they have no room to peacefully expand. However - given that the AI doesn't seem to particularly suffer in expanding, by limiting their expansion it means they end up with just a handful of cities - which doesn't allow them the same production ability. Basically, by crowding them onto a map you are limiting them in taking full advantage of their production bonuses. I've played tiny earth map with recommended or with 6 (like you did), the difference is enormous, with recommended players the AI expands into behemoths, very quickly, which then gives them the production might to tech ahead and outproduce you in military units, it allows them to use the snowball effect, where crowding them onto a map limits how many cities they can build, which limits their production/science power for the duration of the game. Anyways, again not to detract from your victory or to imply that you intentionally do it to make the game easier, but it should be said.

woodshadows said:

I've watched a lot of your vids and think you're a great player, however I think it's fair to mention that playing with more AI's than recommended will generally make the game easier (under most circumstances). You are correct in saying the AI will be more aggressive with less space, as in they will focus more on military when they have no room to peacefully expand. However - given that the AI doesn't seem to particularly suffer in expanding, by limiting their expansion it means they end up with just a handful of cities - which doesn't allow them the same production ability. Basically, by crowding them onto a map you are limiting them in taking full advantage of their production bonuses. I've played tiny earth map with recommended or with 6 (like you did), the difference is enormous, with recommended players the AI expands into behemoths, very quickly, which then gives them the production might to tech ahead and outproduce you in military units, it allows them to use the snowball effect, where crowding them onto a map limits how many cities they can build, which limits their production/science power for the duration of the game. Anyways, again not to detract from your victory or to imply that you intentionally do it to make the game easier, but it should be said.

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Well, Your points are correct up to some point. Let's take my game as the Dutch, where I added 2 AI's on duel large islands map and therefore got an opponent on my island like 7-8 tiles away from my capitol instead of having the whole island to myself. That's not easier.

Sidor1982 said:

Well, Your points are correct up to some point. Let's take my game as the Dutch, where I added 2 AI's on duel large islands map and therefore got an opponent on my island like 7-8 tiles away from my capitol instead of having the whole island to myself. That's not easier.

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maybe, i haven't seen that video, i would have thought that starting isolated on an island and the AI's starting isolated on islands would actually favour the AI more than you. one AI beside you can be pretty easily fended off, especially if that AI only has room to expand to one or two additional cities - meaning you'll never get the carpets of death you'd otherwise see. also, the human player has all of their advantage in military tactics, this is the human opportunity to come ahead, so i would have thought that starting beside one AI on an island would provide a nice opportunity to take that AI out of the game, doubling room for yourself, while the other AIs remain squished together on the other island(s).

I have an example in my recent earth tiny map deity 6 player game. I spawned in russia, haile selassie was in egypt, rome was in china, incas in myanmar.. then washington in north america, theodora in south america. what happened in this game was, hailee expanded to just three cities, africa was full of city states, so he didn't have anywhere else to expand to, meanwhile i had loads of room in russia/europe, so managed 4 cities, rome managed just two cities, incas four cities.. dont know about theodora or washington, but their scores are close to my own. i havent built national college or gone science heavy - yet im tech leader. most of the wonders haven't even been built and im slowly building the pyramids, hanging gardens and great library in the AD's to make city states happy. I havent had to build much of an army because the armys the AI is fielding are pretty tiny and if I focus my troops I can effectively hold them back with ease. Basically I'm snowballing, using better military tactics and probably better decisions about what to build/where to build cities, etc. The AI, unable to build more cities, isn't able to take advantage of their production bonuses as much.

compare this with an earth map, tiny, standard number of players on deity - the AI expands like crazy, they out tech me, they send wave after wave of advanced units at me, which i struggle to fight off because they never stop coming and keep becoming more and more advanced than my own. the only way to survive that sort of scenario is to use very specialised plans, or very strong civs - hold out for a keshik or chokonu rush, use well-timed teching to get a military advantage, etc. i really find playing deity with ai's crowded a bit makes it feel a lot more like playing immortal.. or maybe a midway between immortal and deity.

iconocast said:

its funny ive been telling ppl how good swiss are when they where makeing "swiss sux" threads.
but they are definatly not overpowerd .

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I agree. The Swiss civilisation in Civ 5 is certainly not overpowered.

Gort said:

I agree. The Swiss civilisation in Civ 5 is certainly not overpowered.

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Oh, I guess I would agree, but they have their advantages. Their UA (Swiss Banking - 50% more gold from markets and banks) is really useful, and their UB (Chocolate Factory) is a real happiness engine, but their UU (Swiss Guards) is, at best, only a slight improvement over pikemen. So, on balance, although they are often overlooked, I would put them in the middle of the pack.

Browd said:

Oh, I guess I would agree, but they have their advantages. Their UA (Swiss Banking - 50% more gold from markets and banks) is really useful, and their UB (Chocolate Factory) is a real happiness engine, but their UU (Swiss Guards) is, at best, only a slight improvement over pikemen. So, on balance, although they are often overlooked, I would put them in the middle of the pack.

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I dunno. Swiss Banking really got nerfed in the patch.

woodshadows said:

maybe, i haven't seen that video, i would have thought that starting isolated on an island and the AI's starting isolated on islands would actually favour the AI more than you. one AI beside you can be pretty easily fended off, especially if that AI only has room to expand to one or two additional cities - meaning you'll never get the carpets of death you'd otherwise see. also, the human player has all of their advantage in military tactics, this is the human opportunity to come ahead, so i would have thought that starting beside one AI on an island would provide a nice opportunity to take that AI out of the game, doubling room for yourself, while the other AIs remain squished together on the other island(s).

I have an example in my recent earth tiny map deity 6 player game. I spawned in russia, haile selassie was in egypt, rome was in china, incas in myanmar.. then washington in north america, theodora in south america. what happened in this game was, hailee expanded to just three cities, africa was full of city states, so he didn't have anywhere else to expand to, meanwhile i had loads of room in russia/europe, so managed 4 cities, rome managed just two cities, incas four cities.. dont know about theodora or washington, but their scores are close to my own. i havent built national college or gone science heavy - yet im tech leader. most of the wonders haven't even been built and im slowly building the pyramids, hanging gardens and great library in the AD's to make city states happy. I havent had to build much of an army because the armys the AI is fielding are pretty tiny and if I focus my troops I can effectively hold them back with ease. Basically I'm snowballing, using better military tactics and probably better decisions about what to build/where to build cities, etc. The AI, unable to build more cities, isn't able to take advantage of their production bonuses as much.

compare this with an earth map, tiny, standard number of players on deity - the AI expands like crazy, they out tech me, they send wave after wave of advanced units at me, which i struggle to fight off because they never stop coming and keep becoming more and more advanced than my own. the only way to survive that sort of scenario is to use very specialised plans, or very strong civs - hold out for a keshik or chokonu rush, use well-timed teching to get a military advantage, etc. i really find playing deity with ai's crowded a bit makes it feel a lot more like playing immortal.. or maybe a midway between immortal and deity.

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Hi! You've mentioned some points, so I'm gonna respond to one after another:

1. Having an island to yourself and having a opponent on the island is a huge difference, as when having none You can expand easily, don't need to focus on early military and can only go for naval units instead on naval/melee/siege. I get the point, that a human player can outmaneuver AI and it's the main advantage, but if You don't have any opponent then instead of producing units to outmaneuver them You simply tech up and get an advantage. That's easier.

2. Concerning Your game on earth map. Well, there are always some games, where the AI is peaceful even on deity. The main difference when playing with standard players and adding players is the "covet your lands" modyfier. If despite that You don't get a DoW faster then a situation can occur where the game is easier. You haven't described Your strategy for the game, but if for example You've made a declaration of friendship with Rome early and didn't bother other AI's (for example by expanding rapidly), then I can imagine You won't get any war at all the whole game (all the AI's in the game exept Rome are peaceful ones - and America is too far away to cause trouble). Or You'll get a DoW, but the AI is not going to send any reasonable forces - also happens with the peaceful AI's.

3. A standard gameplay on map with more opponents looks like this - You'll get an DoW with overwhelming forces of early units (on turn 20 - 30). The difference in expansion You've described is that the AI instead of expanding to 4 - 5 cities and then going on You with army of more advanced units, now sends the less advanced units. However You get them at Your doorstep way earlier, when You have like 1 or 2 archers and cities without walls. You can decide by Yourself whether it's easier to defend with 2 archers against swordsmen + catapults or with 5 - 6 crossbowmen with fortyfied cities against longswordsmen, muskets and trebuchets.

That is the difference on stadard deity games. Deity games without DoW declared with crap load of enemy units are not standard, however they happen.

4. My Sweden game is actually not so of a good example to show how the game is more difficult as I got a very remote starting location. If I had spawned instead of Babylon in Myanmar, while having Gengis, Alexander and Hiawatha as my neighbours, then You'd see it.
However we could imagine what would happen if I didn't take the additional 2 players. Based on the spawning locations I would be in America with Gengis, Alex and Babylon on their spots. Then instead of conquering Spain I would settle South America, send my initial Frigates to conquer Gengis and get experience that way. Right after that I would upgrade them to Battleships and conquer Alex. I would have won the game like 50 turns faster, probably going for Babylonian capitol instead of going for diplomatic victory.

3. A standard gameplay on map with more opponents looks like this - You'll get an DoW with overwhelming forces of early units (on turn 20 - 30). The difference in expansion You've described is that the AI instead of expanding to 4 - 5 cities and then going on You with army of more advanced units, now sends the less advanced units. However You get them at Your doorstep way earlier, when You have like 1 or 2 archers and cities without walls. You can decide by Yourself whether it's easier to defend with 2 archers against swordsmen + catapults or with 5 - 6 crossbowmen with fortyfied cities against longswordsmen, muskets and trebuchets.

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actually its usually best to dow a close warmonger civ yourself as just waiting for them to - they ll think they fight a defense war and keep units home rather then send 20 anyoing units into your land.

tommynt said:

actually its usually best to dow a close warmonger civ yourself as just waiting for them to - they ll think they fight a defense war and keep units home rather then send 20 anyoing units into your land.

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That and if you DoW before they mass their units they'll trickle in so you can pick them off easily but if you wait for them to DoW you they'll send their troops in en masse and can overwhelm you. As long as you've denounced them and a couple other civs have denounced them you normally won't get hit with that warmonger tag.

tommynt said:

actually its usually best to dow a close warmonger civ yourself as just waiting for them to - they ll think they fight a defense war and keep units home rather then send 20 anyoing units into your land.

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Ok, try to DoW a deity AI with 2 archers on turn 20 when they have 20 times the army You have and huge disproportion of production capacities, cause that's the situation I'm describing.

Browd said:

Oh, I guess I would agree, but they have their advantages. Their UA (Swiss Banking - 50% more gold from markets and banks) is really useful, and their UB (Chocolate Factory) is a real happiness engine, but their UU (Swiss Guards) is, at best, only a slight improvement over pikemen. So, on balance, although they are often overlooked, I would put them in the middle of the pack.

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Being Swiss, I loled

Sidor1982 said:

Hi! You've mentioned some points, so I'm gonna respond to one after another:

1. Having an island to yourself and having a opponent on the island is a huge difference, as when having none You can expand easily, don't need to focus on early military and can only go for naval units instead on naval/melee/siege. I get the point, that a human player can outmaneuver AI and it's the main advantage, but if You don't have any opponent then instead of producing units to outmaneuver them You simply tech up and get an advantage. That's easier.

2. Concerning Your game on earth map. Well, there are always some games, where the AI is peaceful even on deity. The main difference when playing with standard players and adding players is the "covet your lands" modyfier. If despite that You don't get a DoW faster then a situation can occur where the game is easier. You haven't described Your strategy for the game, but if for example You've made a declaration of friendship with Rome early and didn't bother other AI's (for example by expanding rapidly), then I can imagine You won't get any war at all the whole game (all the AI's in the game exept Rome are peaceful ones - and America is too far away to cause trouble). Or You'll get a DoW, but the AI is not going to send any reasonable forces - also happens with the peaceful AI's.

3. A standard gameplay on map with more opponents looks like this - You'll get an DoW with overwhelming forces of early units (on turn 20 - 30). The difference in expansion You've described is that the AI instead of expanding to 4 - 5 cities and then going on You with army of more advanced units, now sends the less advanced units. However You get them at Your doorstep way earlier, when You have like 1 or 2 archers and cities without walls. You can decide by Yourself whether it's easier to defend with 2 archers against swordsmen + catapults or with 5 - 6 crossbowmen with fortyfied cities against longswordsmen, muskets and trebuchets.

That is the difference on stadard deity games. Deity games without DoW declared with crap load of enemy units are not standard, however they happen.

4. My Sweden game is actually not so of a good example to show how the game is more difficult as I got a very remote starting location. If I had spawned instead of Babylon in Myanmar, while having Gengis, Alexander and Hiawatha as my neighbours, then You'd see it.
However we could imagine what would happen if I didn't take the additional 2 players. Based on the spawning locations I would be in America with Gengis, Alex and Babylon on their spots. Then instead of conquering Spain I would settle South America, send my initial Frigates to conquer Gengis and get experience that way. Right after that I would upgrade them to Battleships and conquer Alex. I would have won the game like 50 turns faster, probably going for Babylonian capitol instead of going for diplomatic victory.

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in response:

1) This I guess depends upon the idea that if hypothetically you and one AI were given identical islands and civ choices which were identical that you could out-tech the AI under peaceful conditions. I can't do this myself, but I haven't learned all of the tricks either at this stage, so maybe it is possible in which case your point makes sense. For myself on Deity I find war my only opportunity to come ahead of the AI, because generally it feels like the only area in which I can outsmart the AI to make up for the huge bonuses the AI is granted.

2) I think for your sweden game specifically what I noticed was that you were granted north america all to yourself, a huge landmass with very nice land, Isabella was stuck in jungle/mountain south america, which really limited her strength and the other four AIs were crowded onto Africa-Eurasia. Imagine if you had not added those two extra players, and instead of four AI's in Africa-Eurasia, there were only 2. Imagine an AI owning all of Eurasia and the other owning all of Africa - both would be incredibly strong. As it stood, you had an entire continent to yourself and the other AI's didn't have the same amount of room to expand and plus were locked in wars with one another. Even better, as you were closest to weak Isabella, you had a great opportunity to take her out and gain even more strength. I think if you replaid that game and removed the two extra AIs, even with the optimal north america start, you'd find it much more challenging.

3) "You can decide by Yourself whether it's easier to defend with 2 archers against swordsmen + catapults or with 5 - 6 crossbowmen with fortyfied cities against longswordsmen, muskets and trebuchets." On deity I rarely find the AI to be bringing swordsmen + catapults in their first wave, generally I find they bring archers, warriors spears, maybe the odd chariot. I find this pretty easy to defend against with a couple archers and if I have a very warmongering AI beside me I'll go down honour and get the free GG and build a strategically placed citadel immediately which completely messes up the AI. I think though, as long as you manage to survive that early rush, the game looks considerably easier from there on out - because the AI won't have three times the cities as you to produce the same waves of attacks and the same tech pace.

4) I don't know the standard spawning rules for that map, are you saying that removing players would remove a south american spawned AI? I would have thought the south american spawn would remain and the two additional AI's would be removed from eurasia/africa. In any case, I agree that game was very fortuitous for where you spawned. I would love to see you play the game with standard players though, even with the North America start, just to get an idea of how you would confront things.

On 4 player earth map the most common spawning option is 1 player in north america and 3 in eurasia. Very often all 4 players are in eurasia and on extreme occasions 3 are in eurasia and 1 in south america. There's no option to spawn in NA and SA when not adding additional players - just FYI

In my previous game as the Dutch I had somewhat of a game You'd like to see. I can recommend it.

Sidor1982 said:

On 4 player earth map the most common spawning option is 1 player in north america and 3 in eurasia. Very often all 4 players are in eurasia and on extreme occasions 3 are in eurasia and 1 in south america. There's no option to spawn in NA and SA when not adding additional players - just FYI

In my previous game as the Dutch I had somewhat of a game You'd like to see. I can recommend it.

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Oh I didn't realize that, that cuts my argument a bit then. I'll check out the dutch video when I have some time.