Best 7 civs to use on a huge map

[Cassius Critzer]

Based upon my testing since reinstalling Civ 2, the best civs to use for developing a world war scenario on a huge map, and thus developing infrastructure to sustain large numbers of military units is...

Either this for expansion into the Altantic and Pacific Theatre
Japan
Vikings
China
Romans
Aztecs
Zulu
Sioux

This configuration takes a minor rule change so that it is possible as that combination doesn't show in the vanilla game, but has to be configured. This methodology allows a robust base of operations.

The Japanese are initially stymied but can easily expand into the Pacific ( see WW2) and then as long as they don't take much more than Kamchatka and Siberia but rigorously terraform the jungle islands and the desert of Australia, then they can then branch to Hawaii and across the Bering into Alaska and Canada. This is tolerated until it's too late for China and the Sioux. Neither China nor the Sioux can prevent a WW2 type Japanese expansion because it would take a human player with a focused navy to stop the expansion and they are focused on their own expansion.

The Vikings can expand into Asia as long as they don't impotently rail against the Roman. They can of course defeat the Romans as they aren't as aggressive using default settings. Then they can expand into The NE territory of Canada.

The Romans can expand across their historical empire especially since unopposed by smart Vikings. They take over the Mediterranean since it's extremely valuable for trade. They can press into Africa later, and if they do then ultimately unleash the dogs of war upon Chinese expansion into India. By then China is a caught between Scylla and Charybdis (Rome and Japan and even the Vikings).

China peacefully takes over Southern Asia but has to be careful as the Zulu lust for the Middle East.

The Zulu have lots of time and no opposition in Africa but they have jungle and desert to deal with.

If the Aztecs press South not North, then the Sioux will mainly focus upon their starting capitol. But the Aztecs are truly fighting Mother Nature since dealing with jungle, desert, and mountains and a lousy start position too close to the Sioux.

The Sioux can rapidly push North and take over all of it, but with growing pains and tundra/glaciers.

Now the best in terms of fighting is different.
Persians
China
Mongols
Romans
Russia
Will expand and limit each others' expansion.
Zulu
Aztecs
Sioux or American
These three can get strong and can do tech trading and watch the other four battle it out. Then backstab each other and mop up the weakened victors in Europe and Asia.

It's unrealistic as so few civs are fighting, but I guess a.good designer could turn off goody huts, create fragile small defenseless cities, let the barbarians take them over, and then the seven civs would have to focus on defending initially and then consolidating power so then prey upon the weaker civs who have blundered.

History really only has three significant large empires: the Romans, the Spanish, and the Turks. It's improbable to actually have a global empire due the diversity of your subjects which makes it fragment back in the end.

The Romans in any case could be substituted with the Spanish and maybe with the French but either will likely have trouble with the other opponents. Carthage has a terrible start position with too many mountains but sometimes gets lucky and expands into Persia's sphere of influence. India has a bad start position if China is playing.

If you made it historically accurate, you could have no problem trouncing the Sioux and Aztecs, but that's no fun. A handful of conquistadors annhilated in Central and South America, and dominated the mestizos in South and the parts of the Western now USA.

Sumer was so advanced that it is a wonder they didn't dominate and totally change history.

 

[Cassius Critzer]

It is peculiar to play Civ 2 on a huge map with MGE. Since the limit on cities(up to 255) is still in place unlike ToT and the unofficial patch project (ToTPP), then based upon how you configure your up to seven opponents, you can create unusual scenarios.

In the above example, I was trying for balancing the civs strongly across all the continents. That way the indigenous peoples of Africa, South America, and North America had time to build up strength as they were so isolated from the battle ground hardscrabble situation of Europe and Asia.

Instead I tried
France
Persia
Mongols
China
Russia
Japan
Zulu

In that mix, then instead of of pressing against each other civ in a grindy sort of fashion, then colonization is more beneficial. It is similar to the colonization of the New World as the indigenous had the numbers but not the technology, and likely not the ruthlessness either, and thus they were overcome.

You see with so much competition, then it is nigh impossible to get a perfect city radii of 21 squares but typically have some overlap but trying to minimize that overlap. But in a game in which there is plenty of land but limited cities, then it makes sense to spread out optimally, though cognizant of the need for harbors and naval support, and thus the prime land for cities is in the New World.

Between the massive wealth Spain acquired and the new territories, this facilitated Spanish ambition to consolidate power to the degree that even the Pope was neutralized as excommunication was rather irrelevant when the papacy was kicked out by Spain.

This is the real problem with Civ 2 because it wasn't intended to be global with many civs,and this was continually rectified with the versions of Civ 3 such that seven civs became 16 and then 31.

On a side note, if the tech rate is set to 20 which is twice as long between discoveries, then the civs are hungrier to trade technology as there is a raison d'etre for such mutualism to benefit one's existence (and the recognition of the validity of diplomacy versus conquest and the soundness of allowing the existence of the trading partner).

By creating 12 little hamlets versus one lonely starting point, then the ai is forced to build infrastructure as it is limited with a realistic tech rate, but still has good cash flow to muster armies and navies and ultimately an air force.

So the map looks like seven clusters of 12 hamlets with bullying going on in the periphery, then probes, then clashes, then denial of resources, then negotiation, then tech trade, then resumption of caravans, rinse repeat.

Russia excels at picking off these hamlets. There are few that can oppose her and only by replicating the fertility of China is there an opposition to counterbalance such territory gain.

It is a far more complex enterprise to deal with all of that versus the brute force of crushing budding civilizations and by backstabbing and subterfuge. Try it.

 

[catalin72]

It is peculiar to play Civ 2 on a huge map with MGE. Since the limit on cities(up to 255) is still in place unlike ToT and the unofficial patch project (ToTPP), then based upon how you configure your up to seven opponents, you can create unusual scenarios.

In the above example, I was trying for balancing the civs strongly across all the continents. That way the indigenous peoples of Africa, South America, and North America had time to build up strength as they were so isolated from the battle ground hardscrabble situation of Europe and Asia.

Instead I tried
France
Persia
Mongols
China
Russia
Japan
Zulu

In that mix, then instead of of pressing against each other civ in a grindy sort of fashion, then colonization is more beneficial. It is similar to the colonization of the New World as the indigenous had the numbers but not the technology, and likely not the ruthlessness either, and thus they were overcome.

You see with so much competition, then it is nigh impossible to get a perfect city radii of 21 squares but typically have some overlap but trying to minimize that overlap. But in a game in which there is plenty of land but limited cities, then it makes sense to spread out optimally, though cognizant of the need for harbors and naval support, and thus the prime land for cities is in the New World.

Between the massive wealth Spain acquired and the new territories, this facilitated Spanish ambition to consolidate power to the degree that even the Pope was neutralized as excommunication was rather irrelevant when the papacy was kicked out by Spain.

This is the real problem with Civ 2 because it wasn't intended to be global with many civs,and this was continually rectified with the versions of Civ 3 such that seven civs became 16 and then 31.

On a side note, if the tech rate is set to 20 which is twice as long between discoveries, then the civs are hungrier to trade technology as there is a raison d'etre for such mutualism to benefit one's existence (and the recognition of the validity of diplomacy versus conquest and the soundness of allowing the existence of the trading partner).

By creating 12 little hamlets versus one lonely starting point, then the ai is forced to build infrastructure as it is limited with a realistic tech rate, but still has good cash flow to muster armies and navies and ultimately an air force.

So the map looks like seven clusters of 12 hamlets with bullying going on in the periphery, then probes, then clashes, then denial of resources, then negotiation, then tech trade, then resumption of caravans, rinse repeat.

Russia excels at picking off these hamlets. There are few that can oppose her and only by replicating the fertility of China is there an opposition to counterbalance such territory gain.

It is a far more complex enterprise to deal with all of that versus the brute force of crushing budding civilizations and by backstabbing and subterfuge. Try it.

Useless tread like many others,troll style,what world war scenario,in what map,premade map Europe,premade World Map,huge world maps made by fans? In MGE + are already few scenarios with WW I and II(III ?),I don't saw Aztecs,Romans or other 'missing' civs..
Any map from these has HUTS,any serious Civ player knows that a single hut can change radically all game,why to make useless disscusions about 'good civs'? Traits of civilizations from Civ 2(expansive,aggresive++) are not like traits from Civ 3 or Civ 4,very important,with luck from few HUTS,few units, with bad starting initially land can conquer a civ with good land....

 

[Cassius Critzer]

It's useless to you, champ. Your faint vaguely acerbic retort fails as any veteran is not so easily set into confusion by a single random event. How amusing.

Reality check: there are no goodyhuts but intelligent planned ambushes, no cities from which years of research can be circumvented upon visiting. There are no indigenous people who in an instant gave up their autonomy to impotently cede their authority to strangers.

But your comment did tangentially divert me momentarily.

Try again...and at least be constructive in your criticism...if you possess that ability.

For anyone else who actually is interested, a further discussion on a planned goody hut versus a random event so that the encounter is meaningful in a military way.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/specifying-resources-and-goody-huts.626321/

 

[catalin72]

It's useless to you, champ. Your faint vaguely acerbic retort fails as any veteran is not so easily set into confusion by a single random event. How amusing.

Reality check: there are no goodyhuts but intelligent planned ambushes, no cities from which years of research can be circumvented upon visiting. There are no indigenous people who in an instant gave up their autonomy to impotently cede their authority to strangers.

But your comment did tangentially divert me momentarily.

Try again...and at least be constructive in your criticism...if you possess that ability.

For anyone else who actually is interested, a further discussion on a planned goody hut versus a random event so that the encounter is meaningful in a military way.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/specifying-resources-and-goody-huts.626321/

I can be constructive with real Civ players,sure,not with trolls).Who have time to read your threads with 'aberations',where you described for your neighborhood intention to play a map without huts? I prefer to play multiplayer or single Civ games in my free time.
Maybe you don't know,many new players or old players search here interesting things,to LEARN strategies,then try you to be 'constructive' with really useful posts,not to talk single.
Good luck!

 

[Cassius Critzer]

Personal attacks on my post or observations about my intentions meets the very definition of trolling, Ace. Try a pm instead of flaming.

On the other hand I'm hardly a troll since I've spent at least a hundred hours describing how to run MGE or ToT on the android. In my opinion, due to Dosbox and Wine and tablet computing and GoG then the new fanbase of the venerable Civ 2, in all its incarnations, will be these tablet folks. If they are like me, they even played Civ 2 religiously when it came out.

It is entirely plausible that poor understanding of a language leads to miscommunication..a phenomena well known in diplomacy and military matters.

Thanks for the laugh.

 

[catalin72]

I will not continue the game with the result='Moderator action',you finally found a listener,me.Search in old posts about Civ II on Android,I saw this maybe 3-4 years ago,you joined recently.If you are a Civ gamer playing 'religiously',you are my guest when you will have free time in multiplayer game(s),Civ 2,3 or 4,is very hard to find a partner really knowing the game.I have enough informations in my profile,can contact me in Steam or my network Hamachi.
Good luck!

 

[Cassius Critzer]

What an odd methodology which neither encourages new folks and hardly would result in finding a multiplayer to spend time with.

 

[McMonkey]