Best early-game civ

[toll_booth]

What's the best civ in the early game for (1) creating strong rushes (2) while not falling way behind in the tech race (3) on the Lakes map?

[Shadowcrow]

Darius with Immortals or Hyuana with his warrior thingamajigs IMO.

[Airey]

1. Immortals + Praets
2. see point 1
3. see point 1

(expand by war)

[CossackProblem]

Incans, Capac.

[Ai Shizuka]

Huayna, both persian leaders, both egyptian leaders, Gilga.

[PhroX]

Incans, no question about it. Quecha are so ridiculously unbalanced even without the Terrace and Capac's FIN trait.

[Valynor]

It depends on the level you play.
Monarch+ Inca. Quechua are great against archers.

For a not so early rush, praetorians and Keshiks, but I rarely play romans and mongols.

EDIT I did not read number 2, maybe Keshiks are out

[JonathanStrange]

I'll recommend a civ I actually play alot: Romans -- you can rush with Praetorians (though probably not as early the Incans), maintain a tech lead, and Lake maps have enough land that the Romans can do their thing quite well the entire game.

[popejubal]

Originally Posted by JonathanStrange

I'll recommend a civ I actually play alot: Romans -- you can rush with Praetorians (though probably not as early the Incans), maintain a tech lead, and Lake maps have enough land that the Romans can do their thing quite well the entire game.

I'm playing an Earth 18 game right now and I can give one additional benefit to the Romans. They don't "rush" in the same way as Quecha/Axes/Chariots rush because you have to research all the way up through Iron Working to get them into production. This isn't such a bad thing, though, because you cans till reliably take cities without too much resistance and the cities you get are much higher quality. You might happen to take a Buddhism/Hinduism holy city with Quecha or Axes, but you're certainly not going to get a pre-built shrine in the city from an AI donated Great Priest. The AI just won't have enough time to get that Great Priest before they lose the city.

With Praetorians, on the other hand, you have a decent shot of leaving the civ alone until they build the shrine (or settle a different Great Person that their Wonder granted them). I left France alone in the Earth 18 game and I grabbed the Temple of Artemis, the Great Wall, Stonehenge and a settled Great Merchant. That's certainly an extreme case and his cultural bonus was significant, so I lost more Praetorians than I normally would. After 2 dead CRI Praetorians plus 5 victorious CRII/III Praetorians that had some prior XP from Berlin and Athens, I picked up an amazing city that came with some very tasty goodies even aside from the amazing land tiles.

...just be sure to not crash your economy too hard with the maintenance from captured cities.

(and yes, I know that Earth 18 is an unbalanced map that plays several difficulty levels lower than the one chosen, but I think my point still stands on "real" maps.)

[babybluepants]

Obviously Huayna, except that below Monarch on epic or marathon, Quechua are almost too quick. On normal and quick they work fine. If you're lucky enough to have horses nearby, Hatsepshut is pretty amazing right off the bat. You only need to research animal husbandry to get going. Any aggressive leader is good below Monarch, too.

These are all very quick. Depending on the level of difficulty and the intent of your game, you wanna make sure you get some value through conquest. With Quechua it's sometimes good to just sit and wait 'till your target farms a corn at least.

[budweiser]

Sumeria

10 char

[toll_booth]

Huayna, hmm. I rarely play as an Industrious civ; this should be interesting.

[petey]

Rome.

Just go BW -> IW -> win.

[Zack]

Originally Posted by toll_booth

What's the best civ in the early game for (1) creating strong rushes (2) while not falling way behind in the tech race (3) on the Lakes map?

Huayna Capac of Inca, like most other people have said. Quechua rush is awesome!

[InFlux5]

Originally Posted by petey

Rome.

Just go BW -> IW -> win.

Unless you have no iron.

[Ormur]

Yes, Inca. Build Quechuas, destroy neighbor, build wonders, settle cities, win the game.

[toll_booth]

OK, I tried out HC. Let me put it this way, I set a personal record for earliest time to wipe out another civ. Poor Caesar and his two warriors in one city didn't stand a chance.

I'm about 2/3 of the way through the match and am in a knife fight with Louis XIV. I kind of like this Industrious trait; having cheap forges is like having slightly cheaper everything, in the early stages of a city!

[JujuLautre]

Originally Posted by toll_booth

OK, I tried out HC. Let me put it this way, I set a personal record for earliest time to wipe out another civ. Poor Caesar and his two warriors in one city didn't stand a chance.

I'm about 2/3 of the way through the match and am in a knife fight with Louis XIV. I kind of like this Industrious trait; having cheap forges is like having slightly cheaper everything, in the early stages of a city!

Warriors? Does that mean you play below monarch?

If that's the case, any leader with the agressive trait would have done the trick. Quechuas are awesome if your rival has archers quickly, otherwise they're not much better than agressive warriors for warrior-rushing.

[toll_booth]

Yeah, I'm still trying to make the jump up to Monarch (from Noble). I've got the tech thing going fine, but I'm still trying to figure out how to dominate militarily since I got BtS a few months ago. Wars were quite easy by comparison in vanilla Civ.

[Jamuka]

Hatty, gilgamesh, HC, either persian. Forget rome.