My favorite civ: Polynesia (and it's not only their theme music)

[Janne]

I played a few games with Polynesia now and I really like playing them. First off, the music! It's just awesome to listen to the Hawaiian tunes the whole time, it's like a little holiday...

Second, if you play continents, like I do, they are just superior as you can locate all the Civs on the map very early and sign RAs with everybody which gives you a great boost in tech.

Several other players are trying using their UA with a settler on the other continents which I haven't done yet which seems a promising strategy for future wars...

The Maui improvement is also a great means to boost your culture and finance later...

What are your experiences? And in general what are the Civs you prefer to play and why?

 

[Deau]

My favorite games were with China although not always succesful. As much as "going with a strategy and sticking to it" is the best way to win the game, I really enjoy daring emperor/immortal fractal maps with no set strategy.

The one game I refer to, my share of fractal was similar to a small continent with only one neighbor civ and 3 CSs on my starting continent. My map had a decent start for a science victory attempt but I was scared at lacking RA partners early in the game and ending up way behind once I would discover the other continent(s). Played a chu-ko-nu rush to takeover my whole small continent to buffer my Beakers, abused chu-ko-nu's double attacks for 1dmg per hit on the last besieged ottoman city to boost GG spawn(for later Golden ages). After that early rush, I went back to a science victory attempt as I had no coastal cities (other than puppets which I didn't feel like annexing just yet)

Going back to China, their UB is pretty cool for small early warfares because of the early gold boost from puppets. It is also very easy to abuse CKN+GG double spawn even in "almost completely war-free games". You can just get 2 melee with medic and 2 CKNs and go pick on a nearby CS for ages to spawn GGs. You can then freely trigger golden ages right after getting solid specific techs to boost production etc.

Regardless though I love most civs...and for the ones I don't, it's probably because I have not yet found a good synergy which their UT/UB/UU can provide :s.

On a side note, if you really like Polynesia, you should try that magic trick I mentioned to someone else on your emperor-domination thread . Play Terra map (2 huge continents - all civs start on the bigger) sail accross with your settler and settle on the smaller but still huge continent alone. It's basically like you played an Earth map but spawned alone on america. Sure you start the game a bunch of turns later but it gives you so much land to explore and REX

 

[Janne]

I never played China...don't know why...I played Greece when I started on the low difficult level, Aztecs and Germany on the mid difficult levels, France, Babylon, Incas on emperor lev...and now I discovered Polynesia...

I will at one point do the terra thing but for now I stick with continent, small map...

 

[slobberinbear]

The Polynesians are versatile and interesting. They are great fun to REX and explore with ... may I humbly suggest you try the Kamehameha Challenge game on this forum for some fun ...

 

[Janne]

... may I humbly suggest you try the Kamehameha Challenge game on this forum for some fun ...

you may..and I take the challenge...just loaded the starting map and was shocked how long everything takes on normal speed...I'm so used to quick...and I have to change my just new found strategy due to annex/razing...well, that should be fun...btw ho many people completed it and with what kind of victories if I may ask...

 

[tedoll78]

Whenever I play a game, I tend to pick them as an opponent just for the musical accompaniment alone. So good..

Also - and this may seem cheesy - I like seeing the Maoi statues on the map. A bit of welcome landscape variety.

 

[Hawaiian]

I love the Polynesians! Um, it's also partly because Kamehameha is my ancestor. hehe

 

[eric_]

Polynesia and Inca are my favorite at the moment. LOVE the Moai and the constant influx of culture enabling the SPs to keep rolling in even if you have a rather large empire.

 

[qyll]

I just finished a game with Kamehameha. Moais are awesome.

I'm also partial towards Rome. Pop some iron and it's game over.

 

[Brutus2]

I'm playing Polynesia in my current game and I love having explored the world and found all ruins/ natural wonders before other civs can even build one caravel.

However... I'm just not seeing the agrument for using Moai. +1 culture? How is that better than putting down a farm or trading post? I know you get more for having a few next to each other but again I can't see any reason why that would be better than mutiple trading posts, farms or maybe lumbermills.

Please help me understand why this would be better than using other imrovements unless you are going for culture victory and really want to squeeze out every bit of culture you can. Since the UA is all about exploring and finding great locations to settle before others can get there it seems unlikely that you would play this civ for a culture win.

 

[iggymnrr]

However... I'm just not seeing the agrument for using Moai. +1 culture? How is that better than putting down a farm or trading post? I know you get more for having a few next to each other but again I can't see any reason why that would be better than mutiple trading posts, farms or maybe lumbermills.

They work better in groups. 1 moai with, say, 3 next to it is worth 4 cpt. A person doesn't have to work all of them, just the more valuable one.

 

[Brutus2]

They work better in groups. 1 moai with, say, 3 next to it is worth 4 cpt. A person doesn't have to work all of them, just the more valuable one.

Right, so you are taking up 4 tiles to get 4 culture. There are much better ways to improve 4 tiles.

 

[slobberinbear]

Right, so you are taking up 4 tiles to get 4 culture. There are much better ways to improve 4 tiles.

You are incorrect.

Moai culture stacks with adjacent statues. If you have four tiles in a diamond pattern with Moais, you end up with 14 culture from 4 tiles, plus the food/hammer output for the base tile. When you learn flight, the statues also give a gold output.

Consider that for the investment of some worker turns and the Construction tech, just with a (fairly common) triangle-shaped Moai pattern you can get 9 culture .. that's the eqiuvalent of a Monument, Temple, and Opera House. And it stacks with that building-generated culture too.

Sure, it's a trade-off. You won't grow or produce as fast. But a high cultural output like this can give you 50-100% more policies than normal for a large empire. See the Kamehameha Challenge thread if you want proof of this ... on Emperor, I had about 13 settled/annexed cities and finished a science victory with around 18 policies.

It also makes pure "culture cities" potentially viable on a water map. If you drop a settler and three workers on an island and crank out three moai statues right away, the +7-9 culture you get right away should be a net increase to your policy accumulation rate, especially early on and with Representation ...