After having a few days to play BNW, what is your favorite new civ?

[BluegrassGeek]

I'll let you know after I finish my first game. Darn work + travel.

 

[digrosz]

Played all the new and revamped civs - still I feel nothing comes close to the Inca. With the Inca, I can dominate every map and difficulty (except Deity lol) and neither of the new civs have make me feel that way. Shoshone is pretty neat though, same for Portugal

 

[InDubioProReo]

Poland is amazing.

 

[BarrenEarth]

Isn't this thread a bit premature? So far the only BNW civ I've completed a game with is Indonesia (played another game afterwards, but as Siam). Now on Assyria - early days yet, just used the siege tower and UA for the first time. Not a fan of the Royal Library due to the preparation needed (Drama & Poetry early, specialists for GW production, and a mediocre boost when you pull it off). Assyria might even benefit from going for culture victory, since now that can reward warmongering (capture key Wonders, remove civs to reduce the number you need influence over, I even found that, contrary to my first experience, you can sometimes plunder Great Works), but the UU and UA seem to shine too early for that.

I liked Indonesia a lot, but found it if anything somewhat too easy: I get a UA that gives me extra happiness and regular gold boosts simultaneously while giving me cities with a trade advantage and - incidentally - letting me productively settle areas like small islands adjacent to Krakatoa. Negative promotions on Kris Swordsmen seem very rare (I've had one - Enemy Blade - in two games with maybe 6-8 KS units between them), and the positive ones make them among the best units in the game now that they're mostly going to be fighting other Swordsmen (AI tends to go down this tech path now) and keep the promotion on upgrade. Add the candi, when you can pull it off, and you get a huge boost to faith production in a game where later-game faith is now highly relevant.

I was expecting a niche or difficult-to-use civ, with its elements that seem somewhat disparate, instead I seem to have found a "jack of all trades, master of most" civ.

Hey now, it has been 5 days since release... If you don't have at least 12 games in, increased blood pressure, disenfranchised children and a Divorce yet then you are behind the game

 

[eewallace]

Hey now, it has been 5 days since release... If you don't have at least 12 games in, increased blood pressure, disenfranchised children and a Divorce yet then you are behind the game

Yep, blood pressure, check, disenfranchized children, check. Also junk food wrappers and a very messy house.

But on the bright side, I've kicked ass as both the Shoshone (cultural) and Morocco (diplomacy)!!! Only question is what next, Portugal or Brazil???

 

[Nickel_lion]

THIS is why I love to play with Brazil. I loved me some Brazil from the VERY first moment I knew they would be a playable civ in Civ V.

Brazil for me. The Brazilwood camp has very good yields and works great with the sacred path pantheon, you just need to find a few production tiles to balance it out. The Carnival UA is also fantastic because it doubles your actual tourism instead of your tourism modifier like the International Games and so if you time it right you can spawn a Great Musician with double the strength it normally would have. In my game with them I managed to get most of the great slot wonders and was influential with all other civs but Rome who I was still only familiar with. I popped Carnival, spawned a musician with just shy of 8k strength (regular tourism was in the upper 300s during the atomic era still), and instantly shot up to influential with them to win the game.

My second option is Poland, of course...

 

[goodolarchie]

If you haven't tried the culture victory yet, I highly recommend Brazil, it's pretty fun. That said, I don't think I'll play as them, or go for a culture victory for a long, long time. The last 100 turns was a grueling artifact, religion whoring, musician bombing slugfest.

 

[Nickel_lion]

You gotta love this:

Hey now, it has been 5 days since release... If you don't have at least 12 games in, increased blood pressure, disenfranchised children and a Divorce yet then you are behind the game

And DAMN, it's true...

(I haven't gotten a divorce yet, for the records )

 

[seancolorado]

So much for fan favorite Zulus

 

[PhilBowles]

So much for fan favorite Zulus

They were always a fan favourite to play against rather than to play. General feeling seems to be that they're very well-implemented for that role in BNW.

And so much for Assyria. Granted I'm not a particularly good warmonger, and I rolled a map which was ALL forest and jungle which doesn't help early aggression (Huns would have fared worse). But I couldn't take cities quickly enough for the bonus tech to compensate for falling behind in science production, and that Royal Library bonus seems to be there only to allow you to get 3 full promotions on training once you reach Military Academy.

Having lost my army to Austrian crossbow spam (not getting a free tech when given Salzburg as a peace deal was annoying), I wasn't in a position to retake Nineveh from Shaka, and lost the rest of my army when I tried.

Gold to buy units was a limitation, but I generally had fairly good gpt until I lost Nineveh, my gold city (there's a trade route at Engineering which helps warmongers a lot). The thing that crippled me was unhappiness - I was having to stall my advance long enough to build Courthouses (couldn't afford to buy any) and spare cash ended up going to bribe Antwerp. Again the map counted against me - lots of citrus but very few luxes in the landscape generally, and those I conquered mostly the same as in my own territory. No one wanted my spare citrus except Shaka, so that obviously hit hard when he declared war. I ended with most of Assur's surroundings pillaged by rebel pikemen.

No doubt I'll try them again at some stage, but so far of the two civs I've tried Assyria is my least favourite.

 

[Rozsudek]

Venice, because who doesn't like having 100k Gold with 800 GPT?

 

[Teholb]

I like playing as Morroco. I haven't really explored many of them yet, though, to be honest. The way people describe Portugal's playstyle makes me want to try it out . . .

 

[Aaron90495]

Venice, because who doesn't like having 100k Gold with 800 GPT?

I'm not denying Venice is powerful, but it can also be quite boring to play, which bothers me. Just sit in a corner, swim in gold, generate merchants, and win. Meh.

 

[IkM]

I tried Shoshone, Venice and Morocco. Shoshone and Morocco are my favourites. voted Shoshone, btw.

 

[VainoValkea]

I still have to try Venice but Morocco has been nice to play with. Their bonus is most powerful early in the game but nevertheless it's nice to have a civ focused on trading without having their options limited as much as Venice.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Venice.

And Venice.

And Ecinev. Nah, it's just Venice backwards. So fun. So much money (late game). After Commerce finisher, you can just send MoV to get enough gold to raise an entire army...

The second place goes to Poland, which is imho the most overpowered civ in the game (I'm saying it being polish). So many free policies, and there's many policies stronger than many civs UAs. Ducal Stables are insane. Hussars are great and the only not-too-op thing.

 

[Bad Wolf]

This is a wee bit premature I think... I've only played far enough with one civ (Portugal) to really know what they play like. I'm really enjoying them though - they're a money-making machine.

 

[PhilBowles]

In the middle of a Morocco game at the moment, and finding it somewhat dull. Partly I suspect this is because the game decided to stick me in tundra with no desert anywhere to be seen, but overall it plays like a "normal" civ just with more gold, and (the player's fault rather than Morocco's) I've become very reluctant to declare war. I had a strong advantage over Songhai but the window of opportunity was lost because they were the only civ I could trade with at that point, and I was making a lot of money (okay, that's specific to this map).

The need to form trade routes with multiple civs to get the bonus is something I find somewhat restrictive in practice, as well.

 

[knighterrant81]

The Zulus are awesome. 3 move-Spearmen with increased offense and defense, that get upgraded to Impi. You can completely ignore Iron for awhile (although a few Ikhanda Warrior/Swordsmen to upgrade to Ikhanda Muskets is nice to make the gap between Impi and Riflemen - you did know that Impi upgrade to riflemen, yes?).

Rush a few civs early, build whatever you want later.

 

[Bagi]

I've only played with 3 of them because I keep starting games as Indonesia.

So many random elements to the civ (do you find any good islands? do your swordsmen become useless or flat out amazing?) but I guess thats just what makes them so much fun. Plus, the music is amazing and Gajah Mada is a badass.