My test report on several civs in normal map

[Seidrik_The_Gray]

1st: In the hands of an able human, any of these civs can rise to greatness, however, there are a few that really do dominate the mod. These are who I call the "big 3." Namely, these are Egypt, Rome, and Greece, in no particular order.

Whom ever was responsible for remapping the Egyptian Nile region is a genius! (LOL)

In my hands, I blew past the AI as the Egyptians...at least in the early game. Rome and Greece were catching up, and I'd have to eventually leave my ancestral homelands and wage war...

As Carthage...this is strategy meistro's challenge; a game of patience and careful planning. In the hands of a human, Carthage really can become a dominant sea power, pushing back Rome and Greece. Unfortunately, you will be at war with Rome and Greece and Egypt at one time or another and sometimes against two of these powers at the same time. It's no easy feat.

As the Hittites...oh, this was a blast! Pushing the Lydians back, then rolling to the South and East and then consolidating for a push against Egypt.

As the Phoenicians...another hard challenge, at war almost the entire time. With the med like an anvil, you have no choice but to wage war, first against the Hittites, then the Egyptians, and then the Babylonians...it's a battle for breathing room.

I should also add that every one of the civs I played needed a two worker start.

I didn't test Rome and Greece, because I'm sure they do well. The AI does well with them, actually building empires. The Illyrians and Dacians bare the brunt of their expansions. (See note about Carthage, where I was constantly fighting naval wars with Rome and Greece!)

I didn't try one of the "Minor Civs" as they aren't so appealing, however, I think the Tartessians, Lydians, and Scythians might prove interesting.

I didn't try Babylon, because I have more fun beating them up

The new AI tweaks are awesome!

Babylon usually falls to the combined efforts of the Egyptians, Hittites, and Kolchis.

I have no complaints really. Looks finished to me. I do think that the Phoenecians are a little under-powered, especially under AI control, but that is the only constructive criticism I have.

On to the Huge map now.

[Seven05]

The Hittites are indeed a fun civ to play as, nobody around them is a real threat alone but if they unite it can get messy. The Lydians are a good challenge, everything about their start is mediocre and the effort required to expand through the Hittites can be daunting.

The Phoenicians are fodder, for lack of a better word. Unfortunately the AI tries to settle to far away from Tyre and the lack of any really strong city locations near Tyre cripples them.

Glad the new AI is working out

[Jet]

Originally Posted by Seven05

The Lydians are a good challenge, everything about their start is mediocre and the effort required to expand through the Hittites can be daunting.

Whatchootalkinbout, Willis??!! Move the settler one tile south and it's madness! Massive food, massive production with Productive, massive commerce with Financial. On Monarch/Marathon, by 98 AD Sardeis had built eight world wonders and was generating 46 beakers per turn at 10% science. And Aristocracy was 34 turns away! Granted, I had to restart many times (with different random seeds) to refine the opening, and I used smithy engineer cheese, and it was with 1.93, when hoplites were stronger compared to javelineers. But I wouldn't say the Lydian start is harder than the others. I'd say it's on the easy side: the water borders provide protection, and there are grasslands, food resources, forests, and plains hills. It's centrally located for convenient world domination. And Kroisos has great traits, good starting techs, and a solid early UU.

The only thing I don't like so much about the Lydian start is that Lydia is famous for gold in the Pactolus River. So I think it would be cool to change things around so that there's a gold tile there. Sure, there's the Riches of Kroisos, but, y'know... he might not get that.

In that 98 AD game, I researched Fishing, then Copper Working. Built a settler first and put Miletos 1 SW of the deer. Once Sardeis and Miletos were hooked up with seafood and a cemetary in Miletos, built a smithy in Sardeis for engineer cheese and then hoplite-rushed Hittites and Phoenicia, eliminating both. Kept only Hattusas. Sealed off Turkey; used engineer cheese and semi-beeline to BW to get Sphinx and Colossus. High food combined with the Productive trait and plains/resource hills near Sardeis enabled it to alternate between running commerce and building wonders.

[Seven05]

Lucky you, when I played as the Lydians I had early war with the Greeks followed by the Hittites. I also had another human player in the game playing as the Romans so I had a benchmark to show me that even though I was doing better than the AI he was doing far better than I was (and taking a lot of the wonders, I did get "my" riches though).

The improved Javelines cut my hoplites down to size quickly, I was unable to take a city with my normal stacks. The lack of a free starting promotion was rough as well. I did eventually expand to encompass almost everything from Egypt to the Ukraine, eliminating or effectively eliminating the Hittites, Phonecians, Kolchis and Babylonians by about 300AD. Had I been playing as the Hittites, Romans or Mycenaen I would have been twice that size. So yeah, mediocre, could be worse and certainly could be better.

[Jet]

Originally Posted by Seven05

Had I been playing as the Hittites, Romans or Mycenaen I would have been twice that size.

That's interesting, would you say that's mainly because of who the Hittites have around to fight? Or the three-man chariot, or...? I never thought their starting terrain was that great on the normal map, although the wheat tile in 1.94 makes it much better.

[Seven05]

I can roll all over the middle east with the Hittities, I think the biggest advantage is that they have much higher production potential earlier than the Lydians, making them easy, more potential land than the Phoenicians (who also tend to end up at war with Egypt) and overall better units. The free Combat I for spearmen makes them better than the Ionian Hoplites of Lydia (despite them being 25% stronger) since you can defeat hoplites with the pinch promotion, javelineers with the cover promotion and have generally better stacks with the addition of a Medic I unit. All of this is possible with a single promotion where any of your neighbors need two.

The Three-man Chariot is a tough unit and great for breaking up enemy stacks but I seldom build more than a handfull of them. The single best part, Iron Swordsmen. Once you get to your swordsmen you're like a little Roman Empire. The extra strength lets them crush your neighbors' axemen and javelineers with ease, once they have City Raider II or III nothing can stop them. Despite coming somewhat late I can normally use the Iron Swordsmen to wipe out the Babylonians and Kolchis simultaneously (having taken out Lydia and Phoenicia earlier) and shift those armies on towards the Egyptians and Scythians.

For an even bigger advantage aiming for the Irragation and Crop Rotation techs will push you over the top easily, you have so many cities surrouded by plains that will grow substantially with these two techs. They are far better for the Hittites than they are for someone like Rome of Greece.

In my current game (epic/normal map) I conquered Phoenicia (in concert with their war with Egypt) around 1300BC and then Lydia around 1000BC. Lydia had a lot of hoplites but I had barracks and more Javelineers. I think the war with Phoenicia lasted 10 turns and the war with Lydia wasn't much longer.

I'm somewhere around 200AD now and have nearly eliminated both the Kolchis and Babylonians and I'm also at war with the Egyptians but I'm not seriously engaged down there, mostly I'm just pillaging their lands and destroying their navy (and all of their chariots they keep trying to land near Tyre). The Kolchis have one city which will take me about 4 turns to reach and capture, I have two worthless desert cities in Babylonian land to raze and Ur to conquer. I recently convinced the Cathagians to go to war with Egypt and I have open boards with the Dacians (pleased), Mycenaens (friendly) and good trade deals with both of them and Carthage. I'm collecting a nice tribute from the Scythians (GPT, 8 or 9 I think) and as my replacement spearmen move into my new Kolchis (Kolchian?) cities my swordsmen move up to the Scythian border, I think I have 4 stacks of 6 (fire catapults & swordsmen) ready right now. By the time my Babylonian army reaches Egypt they should be upgraded to Infantry. I expect to have close to 50% of the world by 400AD

I think that about sums it up. I think I do slightly better with the Hittites than I do with the Mycenaens but slightly worse than with the Romans. I have built the wonders I feel are important for my strategy (Sphynx, Riches of Kroissos) and skipped the rest, instead using any other great engineers for tech rushing. I have been getting an insane number of great merchants and I can run comfortably at 70% research and -150 (roughly) gold per turn. Gold from conquest alone has almost been able to keep up with my deficit.

Overall I'd say the strength of the Hittites is the high production capability (essential for warmongering) even with lower populations and their proximity to weak neighbors.

[Seidrik_The_Gray]

Hittites...the AI doesn't know how to use them. If you try to play the Hittites for early settler expansion (as the AI does) then you're hozed.

However, if you concentrate on improving the land around your start, and then settlers, you do much better. After a few cities, you really do need to switch into war mode, and start smacking your neighbors into submission. If you wait, they will be too strong.

I have yet to see the AI, even with the better map in 1.94, actually play the Hittites correctly. They almost always end up as a minor power, and in a couple games, the Lydians have even wiped them out.

As for the Phoenecians...I've figured them out now, and can confidently become a military power in the region...until the late game, where I face UUs from the Hittites, Kolchis and Lydians...so, you just have to whipe them out while not leaving your back door open for the Egyptians, lol!

[Kidinnu]

I found Iberia much more interesting than Tartessos on the normal map: you have javelins, they don't. As Iberia you can rush Tartessos, then put a city at each end of the Pyrenees and even a novice player can fort up strongly enough to hold off Caesar while you thoroughly exploit a nice, compact empire. Mass troops to march into Gaul, or put a colony down in North Africa and start rolling up Carthage sometime when they're busy with other wars.

On the huge map, Tartessos isn't there; if you want to javelin-rush the AI, you're stuck marching all the way to Rome.

[Seidrik_The_Gray]

Kidinnu, what you state is true, and I've done it myself. The AI doesn't recognize the value of such choke points. When I play rome, I lock out the AI in a similar manner, using the alps.

In the normal map, you can certainly rush a few civs with javilins. In the Huge map, it's a bit harder.

I still think the Normal map is more fun than the Huge map.

[Kidinnu]

I spent 10 hours on a Huge map yesterday, and the AIs struggled to do anything. The computer really couldn't seem to handle the size of the map, and after glancing through the XML files for a while I guess it'll need some work in the SDK. From discussion elsewhere I thought there was a thread about huge maps, but I haven't found it yet. The AI was way behind in tech, but when I got alphabet most of them had been running considerable gold surpluses. And just for the ahistorical results department, it was really weird cruising a bireme past Italy and realizing that Rome had been wiped out before I'd had a chance to meet them.

TAM Normal is fun enough, but the setting just seems to cry out for a Huge, Slow pace.

[Hypnotoad]

Hmm, I have a game on immortal playing as the Nubians on the huge map and Rome is doing well. In fact, I wouldn 't say the AI was struggling to get things done. Greece, Rome and Phonecia all have good empires (not quite as good as mine... but hey).

What sort of problems are you finding the AI having? I guess it doesn't seem super aggressive -- only Babylon has been eliminated by an AI -- but there are still a fair number of wars.

[Chode]

My scorelist was pretty wierd.

Me (Rome): 3500
Phoenica:3300
Viriato: 2000
Everybody else: under 2000

Phoenicia wasn't that big either. They just seemed to have really good quality cities, and some of them were all around the place. I think they had a city in Crete, Baelaric Isles, and the eastern coast of the red sea.

This was on a huge marathon map.