Best Civilization/Leader in CIVILIZATION V

[rjg85]

A lot of it depends on what size/type of empire you intend to build. France and China are the best for ICS and rapid expansion and Greece are awesome for conquest and CS bonuses.

If however you are going for a cultural victory or want to micromanage a small number of powerhouse cities then in my opinion Songhai is hands down the best choice. Make sure you have barbs on (maybe even raging barbs like I do) and adopt the first Honor policy asap: every cleared camp nets you 225 gold instead of 75. You have no idea how much this fuels development.

I played a One City Challenge with Songhai on a huge Earth map (King difficulty) and because of the barb gold was I able to buy every beneficial building as soon as they became available, pocket loads of city states, fund a large army for defence, and allow for the building of every single wonder from the classical age onwards in my one city. My city borders grew ridiculously quickly to the point where they capped at 5 tiles out from the city round about the Renaissance (disappointingly), but I extended them with great artists. It amused me that my one city was about as big as Australia.

In terms of unique stuff Songhai has a mosque that provides +5 culture with no maintenance (awesome in any game strategy) and a knight with a 30% city attack bonus (brutal).

By the time I reached Industrial era I had just conquered (razed) 30+ French cities with the largest in-game army. I was also the tech leader and population leader (yes that's right! one city yet the largest empire pop) in demographics. My deficit was something like -30 gold per turn but the overall total kept going up due to money from pillaging French cities and routine barb hunts (helped by the AI spamming of roads across the continent, which was now deserted after my systematic city-razing of AI's who dared declare war on me - ie all of them).

Songhai has over-powered gold bonuses in the extreme if you ask me, just depends on whether your play type fits their advantages. If you love the idea of having a massively developed powerhouse small empire rather than the generic Infinite City Sprawl empire that has all trading posts and no personality then there is no better choice than Songhai, so long as you religiously barb hunt.

[Guardian_PL]

Originally Posted by rjg85

A lot of it depends on what size/type of empire you intend to build. France and China are the best for ICS and rapid expansion and Greece are awesome for conquest and CS bonuses.

If however you are going for a cultural victory or want to micromanage a small number of powerhouse cities then in my opinion Songhai is hands down the best choice. Make sure you have barbs on (maybe even raging barbs like I do) and adopt the first Honor policy asap: every cleared camp nets you 225 gold instead of 75. You have no idea how much this fuels development.

I played a One City Challenge with Songhai on a huge Earth map (King difficulty) and because of the barb gold was I able to buy every beneficial building as soon as they became available, pocket loads of city states, fund a large army for defence, and allow for the building of every single wonder from the classical age onwards in my one city. My city borders grew ridiculously quickly to the point where they capped at 5 tiles out from the city round about the Renaissance (disappointingly), but I extended them with great artists. It amused me that my one city was about as big as Australia.

In terms of unique stuff Songhai has a mosque that provides +5 culture with no maintenance (awesome in any game strategy) and a knight with a 30% city attack bonus (brutal).

By the time I reached Industrial era I had just conquered (razed) 30+ French cities with the largest in-game army. I was also the tech leader and population leader (yes that's right! one city yet the largest empire pop) in demographics. My deficit was something like -30 gold per turn but the overall total kept going up due to money from pillaging French cities and routine barb hunts (helped by the AI spamming of roads across the continent, which was now deserted after my systematic city-razing of AI's who dared declare war on me - ie all of them).

Songhai has over-powered gold bonuses in the extreme if you ask me, just depends on whether your play type fits their advantages. If you love the idea of having a massively developed powerhouse small empire rather than the generic Infinite City Sprawl empire that has all trading posts and no personality then there is no better choice than Songhai, so long as you religiously barb hunt.

Wow, on which difficulty setting that is? It's 25==>75 for Songhai where I play, and I'm sure it's from Emperor+ Ah, just read that - it's on King. A LOT of difference between levels, I'd say too much :/

What I like in Songhai is like you rightly said a maintenance-less temple with 5/turn - if you have a lot of puppets, you can actually zoom in through the SP tree like there's no tomorrow.

[knugen]

Im pretty sure barb camps give 37 gold, not 25

[Guardian_PL]

Originally Posted by knugen

Im pretty sure barb camps give 37 gold, not 25

Epic speed? Marathon? For me it was always 25 on Normal

[knugen]

ahh I've only played epic

[eoc]

Originally Posted by Guardian_PL

Yeah, that very important thing is that civfanatics forum is full of well informed people and what he meant is that he still has a lot to learn

How +45% GGs&higher GGrate could be worse than +2/city is beyond me
.

China is useful at diety based on the higher GP rate ,which means you have 3 - 4 more golden ages than others.
And the Printing press is also a good building for your early wars, you don't have enough money to support large army without liberary.

[rjg85]

In response to my Songhai post I was playing marathon (hence 75 gold per barb camp tripled to 225) - I love the trudge :P

[Guardian_PL]

Originally Posted by rjg85

In response to my Songhai post I was playing marathon (hence 75 gold per barb camp tripled to 225) - I love the trudge :P

Hehe, then Songhai on Marathon is a monster indeed, especially that you have plenty more time for new encampments to pop-up as well as to hunt them

[rjg85]

Originally Posted by Guardian_PL

Hehe, then Songhai on Marathon is a monster indeed, especially that you have plenty more time for new encampments to pop-up as well as to hunt them

Exactly , it also ensures that you have something to do while waiting for long build queues and techs so there's no just clicking next turn 20 times in a row. I almost forgot, Songhai embarked units can defend themselves aswell so I had an easy time exploring islands without galleys sinking my units; clearing out more barb camps and exploiting ancient ruins in places the AI didn't even know about without any real navy.

[need my speed]

Yeah, it should actually be less on Marathon in my opinion. More encampments and more money...

[Revoran]

Could this thread not have waited till tomorrow when everyone has the Mongols and Babylon?

[knugen]

I just played a game as bismarck (wich I lost) and his UA is also worthless. I managed to convert one spearman, out of 5-6 camps I raided. Civs are very unbalanced, its stupid if I have to set up a map just to fit the UA like raging barbs,

[Tutkarz]

I didnt do extensive calculations but how +5 gold or +5 culture building is better than free Egypt +2 happiness building? Having bigger city (or more of them) gives more than just flat +5 gold. And not to mention spamming almost every possible world wonder makes you pretty high score at the end. So i voted Egypt.

[Vordeo]

Originally Posted by knugen

I just played a game as bismarck (wich I lost) and his UA is also worthless. I managed to convert one spearman, out of 5-6 camps I raided. Civs are very unbalanced, its stupid if I have to set up a map just to fit the UA like raging barbs,

I'd put that down to bad luck. It's supposed to be a 50% chance.

[Vordeo]

Originally Posted by Tutkarz

I didnt do extensive calculations but how +5 gold or +5 culture building is better than free Egypt +2 happiness building? Having bigger city (or more of them) gives more than just flat +5 gold. And not to mention spamming almost every possible world wonder makes you pretty high score at the end. So i voted Egypt.

Burial Tomb is an excellent building, but that 5 gold per city per turn adds up and lets you do any number of things, including rush buying, city state bribing, upgrading troops, etc. In the end, gold is just a bit more useful than happiness imo.

[Tutkarz]

Originally Posted by Vordeo

Burial Tomb is an excellent building, but that 5 gold per city per turn adds up and lets you do any number of things, including rush buying, city state bribing, upgrading troops, etc. In the end, gold is just a bit more useful than happiness imo.

It really depends on situation but especially on large maps

2happy building gives you 1 one pop city near resource that can give you another +5happiness and for example +3 hammers/+7 gold not to mention science from pop

or

+2 pop in city that can be spend on 2x+4food (more specialists) or 2x+2food +2 gold from average ocean tile or 2x (1 food 1 hammer 3 gold) from trading post

so to me happiness if good used is better, and counts to golden ages if not used. Not to mention that my games (king level) seems much easier with Egypt.

And on top of that all, when you lack gold then you just spam trading posts, but when you lack happiness and own all happiness resources on the map, and buildings in cities then you cant do anything about it.

[boehj]

China are the perfect all-round package for me. Their UB is top tier.

France are in second place.

[elprofesor]

IMHO, the iroquois, thanks to starting bias.
You'll get loads of gold soon, since trading routes establish without you having to send workers to build roads, and don't need to pay their maintenance either.
The longhouse will give you tons of hammers too very early.
And your starting empire is virtually impossible to invade, since long range units can't attack across forest, and all melee units will be moving 1 hex per turn, while yours will be moving four.
Not to say that once you discover the railroad, all your cities will automatically get a 50% production bonus for free.

[Cordycep]

Russia because of the production bonus. Sucks if there aren't any horses around at first.

[Fanatic Zealot]

Please tell me that the people who voted for Ottomans were joking. Incas are the best overall but I voted for Greece for domination and diplomatic victories Siam for cultural victories and Rome for Science victories.