Recommended Civ/Leader for multi-player?

The Massacrerer

Chieftain
Joined
Dec 12, 2009
Messages
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Can anyone recommend a few leaders that would be best suited for multi-player (and why)? :confused:

On the flip-side, are there any to avoid (and why)?

Haven't had much luck with Ethiopia...:sad:
 
All civs with a strong UA, UB and/or UU from the medieval era or lower will have a slight advantage over the rest.

But it's often your land and the strategy behind that land(and your neigbors) that will let you survive until the end or not.

Personnal bests :

Maya
Spain
Babylon
Inca
China

Water maps :

England
Carthage
Byzantium

Some great overall civs(with special strategies) :

Germany
Mongolia
Arabia
 
1.Montezuma
2.Montezuma
3.Montezuma

Wars feed his culture a lot, if there are no wars he can sit back and outtech, outeco anybody with his crazy population.:cry:
 
Personnal bests :
Spain


Some great overall civs(with special strategies) :
Germany
I understand why with the other Civs you mentioned, but why on both of these Civs?
 
I understand why with the other Civs you mentioned, but why on both of these Civs?

It wasn't my list of civs, but I think I can guess an answer about why them:

Spain: Although it requires luck, their UA is insanely powerful, especially in the hands of a Human who can abuse it more. Also the Terrico (sp?) UU is pretty good. Finding an early natural wonder is likely to put you leaps and bounds ahead ofthe other humans if you can take proper advantage of it. And Sid help your human foes if you get something especially silly like starting your capital next to the barrier reef :p

Germany: Their spammable Landsknechts and lower maintainace costs are a bigger advantage against humans than against the AIs, because the humans your fighting can't spam units like the AI, so its much easier to achieve a crushing numerical supiriority against a human. You also have the potential to pull off a nice rush with converted barbarians

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My own opinion is that the celts would be fantastic. Nearly garunteed first pantheon, and early (if not also first) religion. Plus the Pictish warrior UU is fanastic, you can get some ridiculous strength with just a few promotions thanks to the foreign lands bonus
 
It wasn't my list of civs, but I think I can guess an answer about why them:

Spain: Although it requires luck, their UA is insanely powerful, especially in the hands of a Human who can abuse it more. Also the Terrico (sp?) UU is pretty good. Finding an early natural wonder is likely to put you leaps and bounds ahead ofthe other humans if you can take proper advantage of it. And Sid help your human foes if you get something especially silly like starting your capital next to the barrier reef :p

Germany: Their spammable Landsknechts and lower maintainace costs are a bigger advantage against humans than against the AIs, because the humans your fighting can't spam units like the AI, so its much easier to achieve a crushing numerical supiriority against a human. You also have the potential to pull off a nice rush with converted barbarians

Exactly :goodjob:

France is great too. Fast Liberty or Tradition finisher is always strong.
 
Thanks for the tips!

Never thought of Spain as having an edge, but I suppose I have never fully explored their UA. I'll have to try what you suggested.

I suppose, if done right, nearly any Civ could be lethal...
 
Except India, India will always suck :P
 
India is more tricky. If you want to start with 3 cities you need 3 luxuries hooked very soon to let these cities grow in time to match best productive civs. What is nice is that you don't need construction so rapidly. With the Wheel you can build elephants and tech toward other peaceful techs earlier or even go for iron working earlier too.
 
India is more tricky. If you want to start with 3 cities you need 3 luxuries hooked very soon to let these cities grow in time to match best productive civs. What is nice is that you don't need construction so rapidly. With the Wheel you can build elephants and tech toward other peaceful techs earlier or even go for iron working earlier too.

Makes sense, and seems like another good strategy. Seems like I've got a lot to learn about MP!
 
If you're looking for some fairly free wins I highly recommend Mongolia. Their UU is completely busted and with fast fingers, shift moving (if it's allowed obviously) and a good computer you can literally stomp out a metric ton of free wins with shoot and scoot Keshik micro. People with worse connections than you will literally crumble before you and you can easily take entire civs out with marginal loses. Given the rate at which Keshiks earn exp and given that you can't focus science nearly as hard as you can vs computers you can usually muster up an army of Marching (i.e heal every turn) Keshiks before people can hit things like Artillery that can actually handle them. Muskets are quite powerless in my experience and even Rifles are far from threatening if your army is upgraded enough.

I'm not saying that they're a fun civ to play but I mean I'd argue that they're quite overpowered. Your closest neighbour can do whatever he/she wants but I mean they're going to die a horrible death unless something miraculous happens and you can usually take out another to snowball the game out of control.

To give you an idea, you can basically do nothing but expand on Horses, mass Companion Cavalry and a few Horsemen (to hunt down Comp Bows) and save your gold for Chivalry and which point you can mass upgrade into Keshiks. Just go Writing early on for Libraries but don't bother rushing Education when you can just kill the 2 closest people to regain the tech loss with rushing Chivalry. There's almost no way to defend against mass Keshiks after all.

If you're looking for something less linear, Mayans are amazing. Their UB is solid and their UU is decent given that everyone kinda needs to rush Comp Bows. The ability to put off Archery for as long as possible isn't bad. You also get a "free" religion either first or second so you'll either get Religious Texts or Itinerant Preachers which is essential. Civs that don't get either of those are kinda effed. Their UA is obviously amazing since you generally don't see many MP games end with actual science victories and such. No, you don't earn many GSes, but I mean I've basically never seen a MP end "peacefully" like that. Basically Mayans get a ton of free early advantages and MP is all about the early game anyways so they're also fairly overpowered in my opinion. You won't beat a Korean player to a Science win but that's not really a concern to begin with.
 
I awlays rush a mongolian or arabian empire with CBs or crossbowmen before they do.

Standard CB rush : Turn 45. Fast rush : Turn 40. Very(and lucky) rush : Turn 35. For an average of 5 or 6 CBs.

For pure crossbowmen rushes try to aim the turn 75. If you step another rush from an initial CB rush you should aim 85.

But...if by any chance you have a serious and solid tech rate i suggest to rush artillery and cavalry units for the turn 115-120(yes it's doable without a single wonder and with any civs...don't ask me how it's a secret).
 
Thanks for the tips, Tich & Tabernak.

I actually did play one game against my friend and 2 A.I.'s...and yes, I crushed them. To be honest, I really felt a bit bad, as they truly stood no chance against my 3 Keshiks & Khan GG.

The key was getting the Keshiks built up early enough by attacking some C-S's prior to attacking the actual Civs, and eventually my friend. Of course, by that time I had 2 Frigates that could shoot long range, so...

I suppose, being a defensive player by nature, I don't always visualize an aggressive win while picking my Civ for MP.

That being said, I don't even seem to have a solid defensive strategy. On a couple of games, I was able to hold my ground for a long time, but could not advance at all as I had no way of expanding.
 
I awlays rush a mongolian or arabian empire with CBs or crossbowmen before they do.

Yeah but they're also building units and Horsemen and Horsemen are very, very good at thwarting CB rushes. If you're not building Spearmen (virtually no one does) then archer-based armies armies should struggle immensely against you.

But...if by any chance you have a serious and solid tech rate i suggest to rush artillery and cavalry units for the turn 115-120(yes it's doable without a single wonder and with any civs...don't ask me how it's a secret).

I've seen some NQ guys do something similar to this but I think that 115 is a bit of an exaggeration. I'd still like to know what they do though lol.
 
Yeah but they're also building units and Horsemen and Horsemen are very, very good at thwarting CB rushes. If you're not building Spearmen (virtually no one does) then archer-based armies armies should struggle immensely against you.

Hard to build more than 1 horseman before the turn 40. You need the tech and rarely you will need horses so rapidly, even for a chivalry rush where you can wait for the turn 60 before building it. The only real counter to a CB rush is...CBs(or some special early UUs). Most of the time people will rush after the turn 50. Way too long to make a good use of it. You better build the NC and rush with crossbowmen instead if you rush that late.

I've seen some NQ guys do something similar to this but I think that 115 is a bit of an exaggeration. I'd still like to know what they do though lol.

Not exagerated when you really know what to do. I'm not talking about 2 or 3 units either. I'm talking about 5 or 6 of each kind.

I will record a game someday(my playtime rarely concurs with NQ games) and maybe this set-up will be recorded. Tradition is better than Liberty for this approach. You need large and high populated cities to reach that level.
 
Hard to build more than 1 horseman before the turn 40. You need the tech and rarely you will need horses so rapidly, even for a chivalry rush where you can wait for the turn 60 before building it. The only real counter to a CB rush is...CBs(or some special early UUs). Most of the time people will rush after the turn 50. Way too long to make a good use of it. You better build the NC and rush with crossbowmen instead if you rush that late.

I don't agree that the only way to defend against CBs is with CBs. Unless we're talking about extreme proximity with open-ish terrain it's always going to take time to pull off these kinds of early rushes. CBs don't appear next to your opponent's base upgraded and ready to go. Are we assuming that you can trade with AIs too? I feel like what you're proposing just doesn't happen in an average game. Getting 6 CBs by turn 35 attacking an opposing city? That just doesn't sound probable. The thing about Mongols is that you get to sit back and turtle up until Chivalry while massing units. You get the advantage of having a lot of sight, a low reinforce distance and plenty of units to brawl with. People who rush CBs are much more inclined to pick on the people building wonders and expanding in my experience. They just plain have less stuff. I'm just not getting why it would be so easy to slam your units into the guy who's also just building units (including Horsemen).

(NOTE: I do want to stress that I agree that CBs are likely needed if you're within 7-10 tiles of one another with open-ish terrain between you.)

With respect to not getting Horseback Riding early on, I just plain don't understand why you wouldn't. Every single person in the world masses Archers/CBs/Xbows. When you have a UU that crushes people and when it upgrades from the stone-nut counter to the unit that every single person is going to build 100% of the time... well, why wouldn't you strongly consider it at the very least? I get it; Horsemen suck at taking cities. That's not an issue. Keshiks will make that a breeze later on with a bit of support from some Scouts/Horsemen. All you have to is crank out units and survive/trade as best you can.

What you're proposing sounds like king making to me. You're basically going all-in against an opponent who is going to be massing units 100% of the time. I can't imagine that taking him out is really as easy as you make it out to be. In my mind this would likely result in a loss for both of you as you both crash units into each other and fall behind in every meaningful measure. You would be aggressing into someone with plenty of ranged units who is always building more of them and who is likely starting production on the hard counter to your army. Like, I agree that he probably doesn't have more than 1 Horseman when you start your rush but he can easily be building more while you're moving out. It'll take you time to get into position and that type of thing shouldn't go unnoticed. I don't think that unlikely at all to have say 3 Horsemen fighting before everything is said and done. CBs are good but they don't move that far and they can't take cities that fast.

Like, I want to stress that you don't have to take people out early on when you're playing as the Mongols. It doesn't matter if your Horse-based units can't take cities. That's not your goal. Your only goal is to stockpile gold and mass an army (which is contradictory but hey, that's life) while (usually) grabbing a quick expansion via Liberty. As long as you can hit Chivalry with some amount of Horse units and some amount of gold it should be incredibly easy to rampage your way through a solid chunk of people.

Not exagerated when you really know what to do. I'm not talking about 2 or 3 units either. I'm talking about 5 or 6 of each kind.

I will record a game someday(my playtime rarely concurs with NQ games) and maybe this set-up will be recorded. Tradition is better than Liberty for this approach. You need large and high populated cities to reach that level.

I say this with complete sincerity; I would very much like to see that. I'm extremely curious as to how some of the NQ people hit Artillery so quickly without being at the bottom of production/military demographics and such. I'm always afraid to tech quickly with a weak army because strong players checking the demographic screens constantly will make swift work of you if you do. So yeah, I'd really like to see how you go about this while still staying safe.
 
I'm talking about NQ settings. CS, barbs, etc. No AI.
 
Discussin civs? Really?
Every civ can build CB and Xbows and that kinda enough.

Land and neightbour actions are 100x more important as civ, not to speak of skill which is like 1000x as important as civ.
 
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