Is Sweden too overpowering?

[Buccaneer]

Anyway, I just crushed Sweden recently, so I'm going to go with not overpowered.

Playing against a civ is not the same thing as playing as a civ. For example, I would love to go against the Mongols as they play them the way I do but that hasn't come close to happening yet. Besides, if playing against Sweden or Spain or Arabia or whomever becomes too tough (like Austria and sometimes Greece), then the chorus of overpoweredness will continue to rise and then the nerfs happen.

 

[Tabarnak]

All civs are overpowered...hmm wait...i mean the AI is underpowered.

MP? : Any early nice bonuses make a civ superior to another.

 

[eris]

The game Civilization is overpowered, beating all others in entertainment value, educational value, and overall return on investment. All you have to do is select a play style that suits your mood and suddenly you are happily griping on the forums. How anyone can be bothered to play such a overpowered game in the first place is beyond me.

 

[Crafty Bison]

Does anyone use Sweden a lot?
I'm just about to start my first game with them, and my first thoughts were to play huge pangea (scout scout start to meet civs), tall peaceful game with a specialist economy to make use of the friendship bonuses to GP generation, probably go cultural VC with cathedrals, gardens, freedom finisher, National Epic, leaning tower, all the normal culture WW's and loadsa landmarks and golden age culture bonuses. I'd probably open honour as OP suggests, then do tradition, piety (with GP holy sites), freedom, patronage and finish honour.
However, everyone's comments seem to suggest the gifting GP bonuses are the dominant part of the UA to the extent that warring for the GG's/GA's is enough to make up for the diplo hit. The double UU's seem to aid this as well.
Is this the case, or do you use both parts of the UA by letting neigbours DOW you and farm them for GG points while doing DOF's with more distant civs? Here the GG's would be put to good use on cultural CS's.
Does anyone think this is a bad plan? Should I be using the UA differently, running round crushing people for the GG's and going domination or diplo? Or even science?
I usually go domination with people like persia/england/denmark/arabia/mongolia/china/japan/songhai so I thought Sweden would be a nice change of pace civ. Looks like I might have to re-evaluate!

 

[Silverfuturist]

Here is a fun team combo - Mayans and Sweden. The extra great people (like admiral) that might not seem so hot for the Mayans can be gifted to Sweden, which has really good use for them!

 

[HelloGoodbye123]

tried my own strategy !
except my first tries couldnt find religious city state, every time i gave it to a mercantile, giving me 10 happiness, and a super early golden age.

I could expand and grow at free will, since happiness wasnt an issue !

then i did get a religious one, wasnt as exciting.. got an earlier religion, but not dramatically early, city states only give you 4 faith points, always thougt it was 12, but then realized thats in later eras..

 

[Human Crouton]

tried my own strategy !
except my first tries couldnt find religious city state, every time i gave it to a mercantile, giving me 10 happiness, and a super early golden age.

I could expand and grow at free will, since happiness wasnt an issue !

then i did get a religious one, wasnt as exciting.. got an earlier religion, but not dramatically early, city states only give you 4 faith points, always thougt it was 12, but then realized thats in later eras..

I tried your strategy as well, and also found religious city-states to be underwhelming.

So I tried with a cultural state in another game, and it was great. Culture from the city-state allowed me to finish the liberty policy tree quickly. Then I selected a GA as my GP, and sent him off to meet civs on another continent to make DoFs with.

 

[HelloGoodbye123]

In conclusion, sweden has potential !!

 

[kamex]

In conclusion, sweden has potential !!

Maybe its just me but i still can't see this. I still think its the worst of all UAs. GP are too valuable to just give away, esp in G+Ks due to ever increasing generation cost and 'free' GP increasing the costs. Just think of all the Freedom finisher GP tiles you could be missing out on.

As for the Honor general, I can't understand why anyone would take honor, then 'trade' the general for (any) CS ally, when you could use it to rush your nearest rival and begin going for domination - which of course is what you should go for, why else take honor?

 

[DutchJob]

OP what? i'm quite lost here <_<

But i've gone to the AI's Civfanatics forum once, they was making threads about how human's grey matter is really overpowered.

We need to be nerfed!

Line up for lobotomy please.

 

[Human Crouton]

Maybe its just me but i still can't see this. I still think its the worst of all UAs. GP are too valuable to just give away, esp in G+Ks due to ever increasing generation cost and 'free' GP increasing the costs. Just think of all the Freedom finisher GP tiles you could be missing out on.

As for the Honor general, I can't understand why anyone would take honor, then 'trade' the general for (any) CS ally, when you could use it to rush your nearest rival and begin going for domination - which of course is what you should go for, why else take honor?

Sweden's UA is pretty versatile, I think. There are two ways to play it, as I see things. Make friends with civs or make friends with city-states.

To make friends with civs, I play how I mentioned before. I'm not concerned with using my GG to conquer right away because he comes so early in the game. I think I can benefit much more from him if I get an extra 3 food in my capital so early in the game, or gain +6 culture. That completely outweighs a 15% percent combat bonus for my warriors and archers.

So it's worth it for me to go two deep in honor to get the GG, and then switch to liberty. It's not like I can't go back and finish up honor later. This way, I get my Great Admiral, and sail away to find new civs to be friends with and get my 10% GP bonus.

The other way would be to befriend city-states, and do what you suggested. Get your general, and start fighting. This will create more GGs, which you can then give to city-states. Having two UUs makes this tactic attractive.

The cool thing is that since the UUs are mid-game units, you can probably use both tactics, which is probably what I would have done had I continued that game.

 

[Liegence]

I play Sweden alot, I like their UA. It's good, not great. In my mind Sweden is a definite Diplomacy VC Civ that uses war as a means this end. Don't forget at the end of the game you can gift all those GG's and Admirals for a substantial election buff. Also use your UA to boost GS production to compete in the science game.

Stay peaceful in the early game but don't get caught up in the friend game early before you can reap the benefits. Sweden takes off just after Education when your Scientists are working the Universities and you've had ample time to identify who your perma friends will be. Make friends, get RAs and GS production boosts. Find who the world hates and DOW (or get DOW'd, preferably). You will garner nice green diplo buffs if your fending off the perceived badguys.

After education you should also be getting your UU's online - no need to wait until rifles to start as it's just a straight promo gives you march buff. Just grab heroic epic first then push them out en masse. These guys are great at, surprise, prolonged warfare which is Sweden's staple to generate more and more GG's. Also, always keep an eye out for Liberate opportunities which comes into play more often than not because the bad guy civs are always the ones knocking out other civs and CS's.

The endgame is to boost science to beeline the UN. If you take papal supremecy, have spread your religion, and taken the influence SP you'll have a nice baseline with your CS's, not to mention quests and the 90 influence per Great Person.

I love Sweden because they have a unique feel to them and they play to one of my fav VC's, and they do so by playing a leader with a general's war and diplomacy mindset.

 

[HelloGoodbye123]

I retried sweden a couple extra times, maybe religious city state is the best bet.
This is MP talk..

I beat byzantine to first religion despite stonehedge was built by byzantine...

i got the powerful beliefs

ceremonial burial
pagodas
cathedrals
religious texts

i made 4 starting good cities., as soon as i got 4 monuments I got the policy in tradition that gives you 4 free culture buildings, I got 4 amphitheaters... immiedietly put a specialist in each...

gave my 4 artists to 1 mercantile, 2 culture and 1 military....

I had practically 40 happiness excess with 10 cities and 5 city state allies..
making about 100 culture by turn 100..with already 2 branches pretty much complete(well liberty complete, most of tradition, and opener/great general from honor) ... while almost everyone barely had 1 branch complete! ..

everyone left, I made 10 more cities, and still had 10 happiness excess... cities converted and practically I was just unstoppable..... just make sure to protect your city state, dont want anyone to make you waste your time on policies for the great general

oh and remember try to be friends with everyone, so does artists come rolling in quickly !

 

[MkLh]

Useless? I just shared a tactic with you !
want another one?

Egypt, play it wide, not tall(because we all know all noobs play tall and steal all the wonders)(do not build the great library as well)

play a religious game, aim for +2 happiness from temples religious belief
Egypts temple replacement already does +2 happiness

Every city will cancel out its city unhappiness..

with liberty branch, get +1 happiness from cities connected to capital, and i promise you will have a very good game

not to mention, try to get pagodas, with already having temples everywhere, you will be having pagodas everywhere.. thats another +2 happiness and +2 faith on top of the already +2happy/+2faith from temples..

even if you already got 30 cities, making another one will out put more happiness than it costs to make, even with no luxuries.. ..
now apply luxuries? just dont come back telling ppl this is overpowering... its just an egyptian style no one plays, because they wont get to build their dear wonders....



hmmm?
explain

This was a very common strategy on the early days of Vanilla. "No one" plays like that anymore because ICS got nerfed. Those strategies just aren't more powerful than tall strategies anymore.

 

[RealHuhn]

This was a very common strategy on the early days of Vanilla. "No one" plays like that anymore because ICS got nerfed. Those strategies just aren't more powerful than tall strategies anymore.

More luxuries, mercantile city states, happiness beliefs and stronger city defense/composite bowmen severely buffed ICS again and made it a viable strategy. However, it's not overpowered like in vanilla and has its weaknesses.

Have you played G&K yet?

@topic: Fun tactic: Artist spam with cathedrals/amphitheatres/friendships for gifting to military CS -> upgrade military in renaissance -> steamroll everyone -> gift GGs for more alliances and choose victory path, either domination or diplomatic.

 

[VikingHaag]

what the heck this is awsome im going to play as Egypt my next game.

Thanks for all the tips I think your one of the best forum members.

Don't forget you could expand a bit later and finish honor first.
The why is easy: walls, castles and the other one give happiness. Apply Neuschwanstein castle in the mix with your super wide empire and swim in 200 happiness.

 

[HelloGoodbye123]

My average tall game consist of me having a 15% tech lead over others with the aztecs even making tripple the science than my own wide empires... I find it a little unfair.... Because the aztecs are probably the best science civ. They also have a jungle bias start, letting you settle a couple cities by jungle and having those universities act like academies, not to mention the jungle acts like the great wall, add in samurai, and upgrade those jaguars, and hopefully they have some rough promotions, and ppl trying to invade you will have a lot of trouble...

 

[Crafty Bison]

I play Sweden alot, I like their UA. It's good, not great. In my mind Sweden is a definite Diplomacy VC Civ that uses war as a means this end. Don't forget at the end of the game you can gift all those GG's and Admirals for a substantial election buff. Also use your UA to boost GS production to compete in the science game.

Stay peaceful in the early game but don't get caught up in the friend game early before you can reap the benefits. Sweden takes off just after Education when your Scientists are working the Universities and you've had ample time to identify who your perma friends will be. Make friends, get RAs and GS production boosts. Find who the world hates and DOW (or get DOW'd, preferably). You will garner nice green diplo buffs if your fending off the perceived badguys.

After education you should also be getting your UU's online - no need to wait until rifles to start as it's just a straight promo gives you march buff. Just grab heroic epic first then push them out en masse. These guys are great at, surprise, prolonged warfare which is Sweden's staple to generate more and more GG's. Also, always keep an eye out for Liberate opportunities which comes into play more often than not because the bad guy civs are always the ones knocking out other civs and CS's.

The endgame is to boost science to beeline the UN. If you take papal supremecy, have spread your religion, and taken the influence SP you'll have a nice baseline with your CS's, not to mention quests and the 90 influence per Great Person.

I love Sweden because they have a unique feel to them and they play to one of my fav VC's, and they do so by playing a leader with a general's war and diplomacy mindset.

Ok thanks fo the advice! sounds like a good way to get all of Swedens attributes working together. I've already started and I think I messed up diplo a little cos I wasn't careful about liking the peaceful guys and going after the ones eveyone hates - ah well, lives and learns - but there rest seems very doable. Will try out there rest of the strat, and hope to refine it next time

 

[Tachii]

Not sure where to ask this, but Sweden's UA doesn't apply to great prophets? I spawned a great prophet and didn't spread anything and it won't let me gift it. And I deliberately chose the Mesiah enhancer so I can get 1-2 more great prophets. :[

I did have like 5 friends in that game though, which was lolzy (8 civs), ignored the weakest and the strongest.

 

[HelloGoodbye123]

Not sure where to ask this, but Sweden's UA doesn't apply to great prophets? I spawned a great prophet and didn't spread anything and it won't let me gift it. And I deliberately chose the Mesiah enhancer so I can get 1-2 more great prophets. :[

I did have like 5 friends in that game though, which was lolzy (8 civs), ignored the weakest and the strongest.

yes you can gift great prophets, go to cs menu, click gift, then gift unit and choose the prophet!