Swapping traits for Germany and Russia

[hugo]

Something I've found: usually in my games Germany and Russia usually end up as backward civs that get eaten alive by the AI or myself. However, in the editor one day I switched Germany to Expansionist/Scientific and Russia to Militaristic/Scientific. Since then, in all my games involving them those civs have grown to be major world players. It seems to me that the AI can play each Civ better in those configurations than in the original... any thoughts/comments?

Hugo

 

[Allemand]

How many games have you played since doing this? And when do they start becoming strong in the games?

 

[hugo]

About 6 games. They usually start to become strong in the Middle Ages - not even enough time for them to start using their UUs. Up until this point they are competitive, but afterwards they start to pull away from the pack - unless the Americans got lucky early on. Obviously I can't draw any concrete conclusions yet, it just seems strange that they always used to fail miserably and now they don't.

 

[Allemand]

I would wait awhile before drawing any conclusions. I've found that starting position is the most important factor, and they may have gotten better terrain to work with in your more recent games. Anyhow, there must be some logical explanation.

 

[DiamondzAndGunz]

Any civ can be good or bad, depending on the start position. I've had games where Rome takes up half the map, but also games where it ends up building only one or two cities. The same goes for any other civ. Switching the attribues doesn't really solve anything, I believe. You should probably play a few more games with them, hopefully they'll have better luck. Germany can become a really powerful civ, given enough time... and enough Panzers .

 

[Pembroke]

Did you also adjust the initial free techs and units and the "unit buildable by these civs" settings? Or do you now have a militaristic and scientific Russia who still can build scouts?

 

[Allemand]

Yeah, that would be interesting. Just call them "military scouts."

 

[hugo]

The ability to build scouts was also reversed. Everything else remained the same - UU, preferred units/improvements, shunned/preferred government etc. It may have been luck of the draw in starting location, but it seemed to me that Germany and Russia *never* prospered before now. I'd never seen them grow that strong before a stronger AI would beat them up - or I'd do it myself.

 

[West German]

To be historically accurate, the Germans would have to be militarisic(World Wars) and scientific(V-bomb project, atomic bomb research)

 

[Amask]

I've had a game where the Zulu were the most powerful, the most culturally developed, and the most advanced. And it is having such usually successful civs as Babylon, Persia, France around them. Hence, I think it totally depends on the starting location.