Suggestions for BNW noob

After playing vanilla for a while, I went ahead and installed all the DLC, including Gods and Kings and Brave New World.

I'm trying to decide what I want to do for my first game... which Civ I want to use, which victory condition I want to play for, how I want to get there. I'm planning to start on lower difficulty to get my legs under me while I figure out all the new mechanics (probably Prince). I am tempted to use Babylon because of the science bonuses. However, I would like to make good use of the religion mechanics since I have never played with a religion before. I like to use large maps and make a wide empire. Leaning towards pursuing diplomatic victory so I can get the most out of the World Congress changes.

What I'm looking for is suggestions on which Civ I might want to use, which religious beliefs I might want to go for, which social policies I might pursue and how wide to go if I want to pursue a diplomatic victory making heavy use of religion. Or if that sort of game is even very much fun.

I'm reading up as best I can on strategies using the new mechanics, but a lot of it is written for higher difficulty levels where you are more limited in your choices based on starting conditions and the actions of the other civs.

Basically, I want to have a really fun game while making use of as many of the new game mechanics in BNW as possible. Suggestions?

Babylon is a very strong civ; if you are going to play on a lower difficulty level, you might want to try a weaker civ. If you want to really explore religion, you could always go with Byzantium. As long as you get a start that will give you some kind of faith producing pantheon, you could open with piety, try to get three religious buildings (pagodas, mosques, and cathedrals or monasteries), then get sacred sites for your reformation. Go wide and spam religious buildings and try for an early culture win.

I think Byzantium is fairly weak on higher levels, but that is a viable and fun way to explore religion on a level like prince.

I will suggest Poland but play them you might any civ. That is, don’t try a Tradition/Liberty hybrid because you can because Poland. Try Liberty/Patronage/Whatever because you said you want to try a wide DiploVC.

Poland is nice because you turn over several extra SP -- and exploring the SP trees is of great interest. Poland is OP, but in a way that can be used to explored the game.

Religion is also of great interest, and will take several games to get through all the choices. At lower difficulty levels, you can play any civ and found, so no reason to use a religious civ. Byzantium is nice for the extra pick, but be forwarned that the extra pick just lists everything in one unsorted mess -- so that actually works against a beginner.

Arabs with desert start may be a good civ for both religion and gold. You have to choose the right pantheon for this (faith from desert) similarily Ethiopia is a great civ to play for religion if you get a good desert start. My favourite is the Maya for religion. I like building their little pyramids and it also make sense to play wide with them.

Spain can be really good to play if you happen to find one of the religious natural wonders near by. Then you pick the pantheon that gives faith from natural wonders and you rule religion and the game.

If you want to play wide, I'd advise a wide flavored civ like maya, celts, rome, carthage... Maya being the strongest of the lot. For VC probably scientific would be the best since you get to experience all the ages, but on prince I doubt you will notice how powerful ideologies actually are (because there is little to non tourism pressure).

My inclination is to not use a religiously themed Civ. The reason being the difficulty. I want to explore religion, but my impression is I can do that relatively easily on Prince with a Civ that can also give me the opportunity to explore some other areas with diplomacy and the new ideologies and tenets. Essentially, I don't have to play a religious Civ to test out the religion mechanic on lower difficulty. So I'm looking for a Civ that will be fun to play with the other mechanics in the meantime. On vanilla, I once had a blast murdering my way to a cultural victory as the Aztecs. Wouldn't try that on higher difficulty levels.

I would like to play a newer Civ. I'm also trying to evaluate the Civ specific units and buildings. I love the Wat, for example. It is a great building for almost any strategy. So many of the Civ-specific units are of questionable long-term usefulness. Some of the buildings are only situationally advantageous.

Has the change in mechanics made a diplomatic victory more satisfying? Totally underwhelming on lower levels. Just hoard gold and buy CS allies on last turn before UN completes.

I agree with Puhi's suggestion. Byzantium is great for exploring the religious dimensions of the game, especially since, being on Prince, you shouldn't have any problem founding a religion so long as you try. Byzantium's weakness is they have no bonuses to founding a religion, but they get a strong one once they do. At higher difficulties, that weakness is killer. At Prince, since it sounds like you played higher than Prince on Vanilla CiV, it shouldn't be a problem.

My first game with G&K was as Byzantium, and I took both Itinerant Preachers and Religious Texts. That combination will make your religion spread so fast that somebody will propose your religion as the World Religion in the World Congress for you. (Proposing it yourself comes with a huge diplomatic penalty.) That would be a big step towards a diplomatic victory using religion. Since you want a wide empire, that combination of enhancer beliefs (which only Byzantium can do) will ensure that all of your cities are believers.

If you do a wide religion game, then going Liberty + Piety with Sacred Sites as your Reformation belief will be an automatic cultural victory strategy. Especially as Byzantium, if you take, say, Pagodas + Mosques + Monasteries. (But then you can't get both Itinerant Preachers and Religious Texts). Since you want a diplomatic victory first, Charitable Missions makes the most sense as your Reformation belief, but To the Glory of God is more fun, I think.

As for the other new game mechanics (trade routes, ideology / tourism, and World Congress), you'll get to explore those anyway. I think the most fun civ to explore the tourism mechanic is Brazil. For trade routes, probably Venice, but Morocco and Portugal also have good trade route bonuses. The best World Congress civ is probably Greece because they can hold onto their CS allies for such a long time.

Babylon, Poland, and Arabia are all VERY strong civs. I recommend you save those for when you advance to the higher difficulties.

I think the most interesting feature of BNW is Tourism, so I suggest exploring a culture game. Faith (and religion, to a lesser extent) is an important part of most CV strategies so it'll be a good way to experience that, too. The Maya are extremely strong at this type of game but Ethiopia is good, too.

SoonerJBD said:

Has the change in mechanics made a diplomatic victory more satisfying? Totally underwhelming on lower levels. Just hoard gold and buy CS allies on last turn before UN completes.

Click to expand...

I think most people do not think diplomatic victory is very satisfying. It seems to be too easy some times. And you are right - hoard and buy. The AI does very little to counter your attempt to rule them.

All the new civs were fun to play IMO. Venice is the one that is radically different and also the one very suited for a diplomatic victory.
The one I would not pick for a diplomatic victory is the Zulus

Ethiopia is the civ with the strongest building of the BNW civs I think. Poland as well but they are so strong because of their ability as well. I agree with playing them when you want to move up difficulties

Indonesia can be fun to play both to try to take advantage of their religious advantage and to use the crazy swordmen. But maybe not start with them until you have tried the religious mechanic with someone else.

I went ahead and started a game, going with Maya for the early faith and science bonuses from the Pyramid. Ended up alone on a smaller continent, which may hurt more than help in the long run. I beelined for Theology so I could start getting their bonus, and wow! Holy cow with the Mayan Great People. I'm swimming in them. Almost seems like a game-breaking ability. Or maybe I'm just used to higher difficulty. Poland's extra policies also look really strong. Really loving some of the new Civs.

Some of the new wonders also look ridiculously OP. I wanted to try out Terracotta Army, so I left some obsolete units around. Now I have this giant army and no one to unleash it on other than barbarians. That wonder seems like a Domination cheat code. I didn't even bother building all the units I could since I had no use for them. You could end up with a dozen extra units, easy.

Maya are a great choice! They are one of the best civs in the game also, but having so many great persons is definitely a great way to explore the new mechanics. Obviously you can have a religion if you want it (more from the Pyramid than from the Long Count... but I guess you could use the UA for a Great Prophet too). Since you have no competition on your island, you can let your religion spread passively, and then later use your Long Count great prophet to establish a foothold for your religion on another continent.

What order of great persons did you use? I would start with the scientist (plant that academy ASAP), then maybe the great admiral in your case, because the admiral can cross the oceans even before you get caravels.

SoonerJBD said:

Some of the new wonders also look ridiculously OP. I wanted to try out Terracotta Army, so I left some obsolete units around. Now I have this giant army and no one to unleash it on other than barbarians. That wonder seems like a Domination cheat code. I didn't even bother building all the units I could since I had no use for them. You could end up with a dozen extra units, easy.

Click to expand...

I bet most people never build the Terracotta because if you wanted those units it would faster to build them rather than the wonder (You only get one unit for each kind of unit you have). On higher levels you will not build any of the early wonders probably as the AI is too fast unless you can use a Great Engineer.

With the Maya I try to go with Piety and get to the Reformation.

Well, the Long Count kicked in on the exact same turn I got my Great Person for finishing the Liberty tree. So I used the Liberty GP on an engineer and completed my National College, and I took the Scientist on Long Count and set up an Academy. Picked up another Engineer on my second Long Count and rushed a Great Mosque of Djenne. By the time the third one popped, I'd already developed my second Prophet and enhanced my religion, so I made a holy site. I got theology so fast, I'm easily going to get through the whole list and start over. I'm so far ahead on science, I'm probably going to get Leaning Tower of Pisa and Porcelain Tower. I got my religion up so fast that there is only one other one out there, and I've been able to send over missionaries from Borobodur to get majority religion status in two other Civ capitals right after we made contact.

Honestly, the problem I'm having at the moment is I don't have enough cultural buildings to make proper use of the Great Artists, Writers and Musicians I'm going to have to spawn. How much am I going to need to focus on tourism to spread my religion? It seems like all these massive bonuses from the wonders and Great Prophets should do most of the work for me. I took Religious texts.

I was really torn on which beliefs to select. I took the growth ones, for the most part, since growth helps so much with science.

I'm not sure how much of the speed here is because of the difficulty level and not having to fret over happiness and such (although I got some great luxury tiles, too), and how much of it is because of the other mechanics.

The strongest religious choices are the buildings - especially pagodas and mosques

You can use your artists to create golden ages and your writers to make culture.

sounds like you should play on a harder difficulty next

liv said:

I bet most people never build the Terracotta because if you wanted those units it would faster to build them rather than the wonder (You only get one unit for each kind of unit you have). On higher levels you will not build any of the early wonders probably as the AI is too fast unless you can use a Great Engineer.

With the Maya I try to go with Piety and get to the Reformation.

Click to expand...

Perhaps this would be true on higher difficulties. Through some combination of early tech lead and none of the AI bothering to build it, I got it completed in Medieval Era and got 10 units out it, almost tripling the production of what I put into it. But even if you got it done right after getting composite bowmen and swordsmen, you'd get your production back just from those two units, an archer, a warrior and a scout. If you have some mix of an early civ specific unit or spearman or a mounted archer or catapult or managed to get a horseman up, you are still getting a decent return on your investment, especially that early in the game.

Cost of the Terracotta Army: 250.

Cost of units I got from it: 731
Atlatlist: 26
Archer (provided from militaristic CS): 40
Warrior: 40
Scout: 25
Composite bowman: 75
Swordsman: 75
Crossbowman: 120
Longswordsman: 120
Pikeman (CS provided): 90
Knight: 120

liv said:

The strongest religious choices are the buildings - especially pagodas and mosques

You can use your artists to create golden ages and your writers to make culture.

sounds like you should play on a harder difficulty next

Click to expand...

I took mosques.

Yes, I need to step up difficulty. I wanted the ability to play casually while trying out the new mechanics, but I think the fact that I got my own decent sized continent to myself (can't remember ever getting that on a large map) really made it easier, too. No worries about war or pissing off a neighbor with expansion plans. You get so used to micro-managing at higher levels that stepping it down is almost a shock to the system.

@Sooner, that's maybe a best-case scenario for the net production gained from the Terracotta Army, but in most cases:
- The second archer you got from a CS in addition to your Atlatlist was luck that can't be strategically repeated.
- At that stage in the game, I don't get why you'd want a second scout. (Keeping one scout that got its vision promotion can be useful for the rest of the game, but the second un-upgradable, un-promoted scout will just get immediately disbanded for a few coins.
- The Crossbows, Longswords, and Knight (and arguably the Pikeman and Swordsman) are all well past Construction in the Tech tree. Sure, if you're still able to build Terracotta in the late medieval era, it might be worth it. But generally, if you build it during its own era, you won't get those. Certainly if/when you go up in difficulty, the Terracotta Army will not be available when you have Longswordsmen.
- If you remove the Atlatlist, Scout, and medieval units from your list, then you'd only be getting 230 hammers worth of units for a 250 hammer wonder. Maybe you could throw in a chariot and a horseman just to get your production's worth, but it's hardly worth the risk of putting in 230 hammers of work on it only to have it stolen from you on the last turn or two. It is a fun wonder to build if you get it, but strategically it makes more sense just to build the units one-by-one.

That being said, Terracotta Army at Prince, when you build it late enough to get medieval units, can be viable and fun. But as others have noted, it sounds like you can graduate up to King now. I did the same thing of going down a difficulty level or two when I got BNW, but I moved back up once I won my first game easily as Brazil. Good luck and enjoy your success as the Maya!

fyar said:

@Sooner, that's maybe a best-case scenario for the net production gained from the Terracotta Army, but in most cases:
- The second archer you got from a CS in addition to your Atlatlist was luck that can't be strategically repeated.
- At that stage in the game, I don't get why you'd want a second scout. (Keeping one scout that got its vision promotion can be useful for the rest of the game, but the second un-upgradable, un-promoted scout will just get immediately disbanded for a few coins.
- The Crossbows, Longswords, and Knight (and arguably the Pikeman and Swordsman) are all well past Construction in the Tech tree. Sure, if you're still able to build Terracotta in the late medieval era, it might be worth it. But generally, if you build it during its own era, you won't get those. Certainly if/when you go up in difficulty, the Terracotta Army will not be available when you have Longswordsmen.
- If you remove the Atlatlist, Scout, and medieval units from your list, then you'd only be getting 230 hammers worth of units for a 250 hammer wonder. Maybe you could throw in a chariot and a horseman just to get your production's worth, but it's hardly worth the risk of putting in 230 hammers of work on it only to have it stolen from you on the last turn or two. It is a fun wonder to build if you get it, but strategically it makes more sense just to build the units one-by-one.

That being said, Terracotta Army at Prince, when you build it late enough to get medieval units, can be viable and fun. But as others have noted, it sounds like you can graduate up to King now. I did the same thing of going down a difficulty level or two when I got BNW, but I moved back up once I won my first game easily as Brazil. Good luck and enjoy your success as the Maya!

Click to expand...

That's the trade-off with giving yourself an easier time to learn the mechanics. It's hard to know for sure what will translate when you go back up to higher difficulty. I can't imagine Terracotta Army will ever be something I would build on higher difficulty unless I had a specific circumstance in a heavy warfare game where I ended up with a bunch of different units and the time to get it done for some of the medieval units. I went with Freedom in this game and took Volunteer Army at some point (another thing I'd never do on higher difficulty as I would need the happiness boosts from other tenets). So now I also have six maintenance free foreign legions running around. I've never had an Army this size when I wasn't going pure domination. It's kind of ridiculous.

My general impressions with most of the new mechanics are pretty positive. The World Congress is great. It makes diplomacy a lot more interesting and really deepens the advantages of trying to make alliances with other Civs to protect your mutual interests. I like the new ideologies as well.

Religion seems kind of a mixed bag. There are some obvious bonuses, but I'm not seeing many circumstances where I would really want to spend the required resources to obtain a dominant world religion. The local bonuses are nice, I'm just not seeing much benefit to investing in all the buildings and wonders you would need to extend your religion to the majority of other civs.

The cultural changes are also interesting. I like the way great works are applied, and tourism is an interesting mechanic. I'm guessing it is not going to be easy on higher levels to actually achieve a cultural victory. Or at least not as easy as it would be to win a domination or technology victory.