Morocco or Portugal

[Ealdwulf]

So I've been playing the hell out of BNW. I really dig it.

So far I've found all the civs fairly interesting with exception of Assyria and Indonesia (that might just be they're not my play style).

That said, my favorite thus far has to go to Venice, Portugal and Morocco.

I'm playing a game as Morocco right now and their UA seems quite strong if you have enough trading partners (diversity).

Whereas Portugal seems to be based upon resource diversity - I like them both but in my Morocco game I've got desert folklore and holy warriors and I'm just cranking out soldiers to protect my trade, it's damn fun.

Portugal seems more geared towards Exploration whereas Morocco more so commerce Social Trees.

Who do you guys think is the better overall civ? Or do you think they're just different?

 

[MantaRevan]

Probably Portugal. Morocco kinda depends on having non-hills, non-flood plains desert in their empire in order to make optimal use of the kasbah. The Berber cavalry is okay, but it's basically map dependent because it's only better than cavalry in the desert. And Morocco's UA gives them gold, but it also gives their rivals gold, while Portugal can just get extra gold. I can't say factually, that that is what it would seem like to me. I've only played as Morocco so far.

 

[Ealdwulf]

Definitely valid points for sure.

I haven't gotten to the Berber Cavalry but they seem decent. I've just tried to grab as much desert as possible.

I can't decide if morocco is better as a Tradition civ or a Liberty Civ. The Desert Folklore really helped me out - got religion first even without Stonehenge.

Can the Portuguese UB be built onto of a City State's existing improvement?

 

[SammyKhalifa]

casbah on a desert hill is pretty hot though (pun intended).

 

[MantaRevan]

I went Liberty and that was fine and good, but neither of them really scream "Morocco!!" one way or another. I'd just go with what you feel like is right situationally.

EDIT: YES. Desert Folklore is amazing for Morocco.

 

[Ealdwulf]

casbah on a desert hill is pretty hot though (pun intended).

Yea - I kind of like them just due to the fact that the desert area is a crap place for most civs to do combat and expand in, however Morocco excels in this area allowing them to grab up unwanted terrain - and actually turn a profit doing it.

The kasbah seems to make this terrain not only defensible but also useful for the nearby cities.

 

[loserforsale]

The +2 gold for trade route owners is actually a buff to Morocco. It encourages other civs to send their trade routes to Morocco, thus giving Morocco more gold and culture. Portugal provides no incentive for their rivals to play nice and send along trade routes.

 

[RedRover57]

I went Liberty with Morocco, but only because I had a lot of room to expand. I was on a standard Pangaea (Emperor difficulty) and I only had Venice to my west (far NW). My capital was on the southern coast and I expanded north to cut off the rest of the AI from my side of the map. This left me the entire west to expand later since Venice is limited to the one city. Liberty helped with the fast early expansion (4 cities by T75 and then NC prior to expanding west), but gold and happiness were in short supply at times. City #2 in an amazing Petra spot, and Machu Picchu in my capital (I didn't have time for Pyramids due to the fast expansion early). Desert Folklore meant a fast religion that dominated the map (Tithe, Pagodas, +1 happiness per shrine in city with 3 followers, Itinerant Preachers).

The funniest part about this game was that I expanded early toward my E-NE neighbors (Austria and Babylon) and they never complained. In fact I eventually got DoF's with them both. But Venice was cranky from the start. After settling city #2 Venice started coveting my land even though I was 8 tiles from them. After city #3, which was also 8 tiles from Venice and behind a mountain range, they asked me to not settle near them! This is really bizarre since they can't expand anyway and I wasn't overlapping on any tiles that they could work. Of course I told them I would settle where I please since I wanted to eventually fill up the western land all around them. They remained cranky and kept complaining when I settled new cities around them, but I was able to get some good trade routes with them anyway.

 

[MantaRevan]

I got Soma Tablets for Everyone(100+ ) with liberty Morocco on King. Happy shouldn't be a problem. Maybe I need to move up to Emperor, but I think BNW has made the game unusually easy...