Share your thoughts on each Civ Unique strengths
- Thread starter R3dKnight
- Start date
You're right; it doesn't scale. Someone earlier posted that it's a 50% commerce bonus, but I tested it and it's just a flat 1 gold/turn/trade route.
Cu Chulainn
The Unoriginal
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2004
- Messages
- 1,377
Iroquois: The fact that all three of their uniques require forests makes Iroquois possibly the most situational Civ ever. Their starting bias means they get at least decent foliage in most games, but every so often you start in the middle of a plain with nary a leaf in sight. It is worth noting that if you can manage an average of one forest/road between each city their UA is already better than Arabia until oil.
Russia: Highly mediocre UA would be vastly improved if a later patch does something I think the game needs anyway: More strategic resource tiles, but with lower yields such that there's the same (or less) overall quantity per map, just spread out a bit more. Even as is, when the only iron source for miles is a two yield, it's good to be Russia.
Russia: Highly mediocre UA would be vastly improved if a later patch does something I think the game needs anyway: More strategic resource tiles, but with lower yields such that there's the same (or less) overall quantity per map, just spread out a bit more. Even as is, when the only iron source for miles is a two yield, it's good to be Russia.
Eejit
Chieftain
Yeah Iroquois is very situational, but in my opinion that makes it more interesting than most of the other unique sets, even if it's often one of the less powerful.
JudgeDeath
Warlord
- Joined
- Nov 14, 2005
- Messages
- 191
I've only tried 3 so far:
Greece - easy win with the two UUs and several GGs and I got the 350BC achievement.
Songhai - went for early horsemen, then chivalry and upgraded them. Suddenly from being mediocre I was able to take out the strongest civ on my continent with ease.
France - perhaps I didn't play them right. The early culture push seems to get meh quite quickly, and the musketeers were out of date before they were built. Foreign Legion's OK, but too far down the line for me. I prefer early power.
Greece - easy win with the two UUs and several GGs and I got the 350BC achievement.
Songhai - went for early horsemen, then chivalry and upgraded them. Suddenly from being mediocre I was able to take out the strongest civ on my continent with ease.
France - perhaps I didn't play them right. The early culture push seems to get meh quite quickly, and the musketeers were out of date before they were built. Foreign Legion's OK, but too far down the line for me. I prefer early power.
Been playing on Monarch.
Tried Iroquoi, Arab, and China on the setting.
Iroquoi game stuck me in a continent with few rivers, no maritime city states, Ottomans to the left, and lots of Forests.
I found out to my dismay that the Iroquoi UA only kicks in when you're in friendly territory, so no scouting with it, and you can't establish Trade Routes with it early on because your culture doesn't span the distance between cities.
Without Rivers, without Maritimes, it took forever for my cities to grow. I resorted to farming bare grasslands and making up the difference with Granaries. Fortunately, the Longhouse proved very powerful. 1/2/2 and 1/3 tiles are very strong, especially in multiples. It blunted the lack of food by a great deal. Was still able to get Oracle and SH. With the resulting culture, was eventually able to cut roads, save on money, and be very mobile within my own territory.
With the Longhouses, the Iroquoi Warriors proved very easy to spam. It was so easy, I thought I was in Civ IV again and made like, 10, and found my bank going bye, bye. Targeted the Ottomans as a solution. Warriors in those numbers easily overran the AI, with neither Siege nor Archer support.
Lots of troops and fantastic production carries on into the latter ages.
Tried Arab. Won Science, but had choice of victory conditions available. I think I could've even swung cultural, and domination and diplo were definitely on the table. Camel Archers are brutally, brutally good. I crushed the English Longbowmen with those babies. 3 Movement, 15 range attack (better than the era-equivalent Crossbowman), 10 defense, and able to move before and/or after the attack!. This essentially means that Camel Archers are the ranged equivalent of Companion Cavalry. They can dart in, drop their ranged attack, and dart back without coming under City Bombardment.
If they're charged by melee, they have decent defense. If they survive, they can fire back, and still move 2 away behind your own melee. Generally, though, with 3 move, and 2 move every turn in any case, you shouldn't be getting caught by melee.
Haven't used Longbowmen yet, but if they're like every other unit, they have a 2 tile sight range, which means that they can't use their Range special unless they have a sighter unit. This is how Camel Archer dominate them. They can always sight without giving up their virtual 3-range, and they can always easily fall back to a better location, or reposition to FF a Longbowman that's out of position. Needless to say, between the higher power, higher defense, and movement advantages, normal Ranged units don't even stand a chance.
Bazaar was outstanding for a non-warring strategy. Lots of luxuries to prop up weaker Civs, lots of trade bait for getting luxuries.
China's as awesome as usual.
Tried Iroquoi, Arab, and China on the setting.
Iroquoi game stuck me in a continent with few rivers, no maritime city states, Ottomans to the left, and lots of Forests.
I found out to my dismay that the Iroquoi UA only kicks in when you're in friendly territory, so no scouting with it, and you can't establish Trade Routes with it early on because your culture doesn't span the distance between cities.
Without Rivers, without Maritimes, it took forever for my cities to grow. I resorted to farming bare grasslands and making up the difference with Granaries. Fortunately, the Longhouse proved very powerful. 1/2/2 and 1/3 tiles are very strong, especially in multiples. It blunted the lack of food by a great deal. Was still able to get Oracle and SH. With the resulting culture, was eventually able to cut roads, save on money, and be very mobile within my own territory.
With the Longhouses, the Iroquoi Warriors proved very easy to spam. It was so easy, I thought I was in Civ IV again and made like, 10, and found my bank going bye, bye. Targeted the Ottomans as a solution. Warriors in those numbers easily overran the AI, with neither Siege nor Archer support.
Lots of troops and fantastic production carries on into the latter ages.
Tried Arab. Won Science, but had choice of victory conditions available. I think I could've even swung cultural, and domination and diplo were definitely on the table. Camel Archers are brutally, brutally good. I crushed the English Longbowmen with those babies. 3 Movement, 15 range attack (better than the era-equivalent Crossbowman), 10 defense, and able to move before and/or after the attack!. This essentially means that Camel Archers are the ranged equivalent of Companion Cavalry. They can dart in, drop their ranged attack, and dart back without coming under City Bombardment.
If they're charged by melee, they have decent defense. If they survive, they can fire back, and still move 2 away behind your own melee. Generally, though, with 3 move, and 2 move every turn in any case, you shouldn't be getting caught by melee.
Haven't used Longbowmen yet, but if they're like every other unit, they have a 2 tile sight range, which means that they can't use their Range special unless they have a sighter unit. This is how Camel Archer dominate them. They can always sight without giving up their virtual 3-range, and they can always easily fall back to a better location, or reposition to FF a Longbowman that's out of position. Needless to say, between the higher power, higher defense, and movement advantages, normal Ranged units don't even stand a chance.
Bazaar was outstanding for a non-warring strategy. Lots of luxuries to prop up weaker Civs, lots of trade bait for getting luxuries.
China's as awesome as usual.
sensual benny
Commander
The Iroquois seem to suck to me, their UA is next to useless (though I guess you do save on gold, making them as good or better than the Arabs on that front, as has been pointed out). Though it's annoying that the ability only works for forests within your control, which leaves you with the following options: Pay ~200 gold per tile that you need to complete the trade route, likely spending more than you'll ever save by not building the road, wait for your culture to spread to a tile that it likely doesn't prioritise at all, or build a road on the forest in between your cities anyway.
The Mohawk Warrior is sometimes a little bit useful (they get the bonus when attacking into forests at least, which is more than Civ 4's Jaguars ever got (right?)).
The Mohawk Warrior is sometimes a little bit useful (they get the bonus when attacking into forests at least, which is more than Civ 4's Jaguars ever got (right?)).
Ottoman game was awkward for me. Not a single galley came my way which kind of sucked (any tips for farming those?) - and having to research bottom part of the tree where both special units were kind of sucked for me forcing me to skip a bit on naval and commercial tech. Just like having to wait with army-building till Janissary.
Sipahis well compensated me for it though, they are absolutely amazing to boost your incomes, they can burn improvements on an insane rate. Question is does excellent mid-game cavalry is worth all other setbacks.
Sipahis well compensated me for it though, they are absolutely amazing to boost your incomes, they can burn improvements on an insane rate. Question is does excellent mid-game cavalry is worth all other setbacks.
Find a coastal barb encampment and farm it: kill any barbs within (with archers/triremes) but don't take the encampment itself. Eventually they'll spawn galleys, keep taking those.
On that note, I'm playing an archipelago map with Aztecs, and while I still think the culture you get per kill needs to be scaled up, their UA certainly makes barb farming more rewarding, especially as moving units overseas to actually take the barb encampments is too risky.
The Aztec ability is one of the most fun, but it absolutely blows. Think of how many units you would have to kill to match France. I've had empires with France with 20+ cities easily. If I were basing civs on their UAs alone, the Aztecs would be near the bottom. The thing that's propping them up is they have one of the best UUs in the game, probably tied with Companion Cavalry and Immortals.
China is disgustingly powerful. I think Japan is still second best in terms of military might. The General strength bonus is really overpowered. It's almost like their ground forces are one tier ahead of their equal tech opponent.
If you manage to get a slight tech advantage in units like Rifleman vs Muskets, consider the game is over since General amplify their power by 40%, allowing to ignore 33% very unhappy reduction!
If you manage to get a slight tech advantage in units like Rifleman vs Muskets, consider the game is over since General amplify their power by 40%, allowing to ignore 33% very unhappy reduction!
Sadly it isn't that good. It gives 15% boost to surplus food only. If your city produces 30 food and it eats 20 you get 10 surplus normally but with Floating Garden it is 11.5.
themaelstorm
Chieftain
- Joined
- Nov 22, 2009
- Messages
- 37
I'm not playing at higher difficulties, so that's my disclaimer.
Egypt:
UU:Having horse-free chariot archers is a boon with the "limited horse" system esp if they aren't close to you.
UB: I love this building. I try to squeeze as many as I can as long as the city has decent production that it doesn't delay too much. It's maintaince free, gives culture, gives happiness!
UT: I know wonders aren't too popular right now but with UT and the related policy, wonders don't take -that- long in good production cities. I'm not sure how policy, egyptian UT and marble actually "stack" though? Do any of them overlap?
I'm going to try a game with france. I'm planning early expansion then warmongering after getting some tech. (start aggression after pumping musketeers I guess) It looks quite good with the culture bonus getting you the "cheaper" policies fast and the infantry UU just seems to synergize with this "later warmonger".
Egypt:
UU:Having horse-free chariot archers is a boon with the "limited horse" system esp if they aren't close to you.
UB: I love this building. I try to squeeze as many as I can as long as the city has decent production that it doesn't delay too much. It's maintaince free, gives culture, gives happiness!
UT: I know wonders aren't too popular right now but with UT and the related policy, wonders don't take -that- long in good production cities. I'm not sure how policy, egyptian UT and marble actually "stack" though? Do any of them overlap?
I'm going to try a game with france. I'm planning early expansion then warmongering after getting some tech. (start aggression after pumping musketeers I guess) It looks quite good with the culture bonus getting you the "cheaper" policies fast and the infantry UU just seems to synergize with this "later warmonger".
Thats false, but I understand why you'd think so.
The game displays a base surplus of +9, but if you look carefully at the math, its actually +3.
45 base total, population consumes 42.
45*1.15 - 42 = +9.75
So i'm gaining +6.75 extra food from the UB, the equivelent of 3 worked farm tiles.
Scorched_Earth
Chieftain
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2010
- Messages
- 3
For cultural victories I love Siam and going patronage, actually I've found that going patronage/allying most city states sets you up for any victory type you want.
I love Japan's bushido for domination victories, though any will really do if you go horsemen early.
My next game I'm gonna try to do a more balanced approach, no saving up culture for late policies, no one tree teching for a big lead. It seems to me that once you get a tech lead in anything or if you have most city states allied it's easy mode. I might make it harder by using England or Russia I think they have the weaker abilities.
I love Japan's bushido for domination victories, though any will really do if you go horsemen early.
My next game I'm gonna try to do a more balanced approach, no saving up culture for late policies, no one tree teching for a big lead. It seems to me that once you get a tech lead in anything or if you have most city states allied it's easy mode. I might make it harder by using England or Russia I think they have the weaker abilities.
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