Best Civs for the long late-game

[YetiHunter84]

Currently playing my first deity game. Arabs, standard, pangaea. Sejong got a ridiculous sub-200 SV, but I was having so much fun fighting my way to domination of my quarter of the continent that I decided to play on. This, plus that reddit thread about the thousand-year Civ 2 game, got me thinking: What civs, religions, wonders or other strategies give an advantage that endures into the long endgame?

Science doesn't matter; everyone's at future tech.

Culture doesn't matter; policies are filled out or mostly so.

Faith might matter - depending on your religion and its spread

Great people are way too expensive by this time, too.

Production? Everything's probably been built. No civs get a general production bonus anyway.

UUs? None of them are available into the future era, and no matter how careful you are eventually someone's going to nuke your carefully preserved battalion of jaguar-mech-infantry and make you cry.

Gold is pretty much the only thing that stays useful indefinitely, but even then, why rush-buy when you have dozens of cities cranking out a unit every couple of turns?

So which civs actually have an enduring and endgame-useful UA? My list:

Arabia - extra gold from trade routes does add up after a while! Double oil equates to double navy during endgame (only units not obsolete in info. era that still use oil I think??)
Songhai - Triple gold from pillaging - does anyone know if this scales with AI wealth? - plus amphib promotion for land units endures into Info. Era
Huns for quick razing
Bismark - 25% cheaper (ie bigger) army
Russia - double nukes
Ethiopia - AI colonises desert islands therefore will definitely have more cities than you until you've broken through
Japan - obviously
Inca - city-takers aren't slowed by hills, therefore almost always take cities from five tiles away.
Ottomans - only civ who can build ship capturers into info. era

Looking through that list, the only one that strikes me as seriously OP is Russia. Nukes and GDRs are basically the only thing that can seriously break a stalemate, and Russia gets double.

Does anyone else play like this? And what do you think are the best setups for long lategame?

 

[T-hawk]

China, the GG bonus never goes stale. I'd probably take this if I ever did such a game.

England on a water map.

India if you really want to go crazy, since there's ultimately a limit on happiness per city from buildings, beliefs, and policies. Only India can grow an enormous number of cities all beyond size 30.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Currently playing my first deity game. Arabs, standard, pangaea. Sejong got a ridiculous sub-200 SV

Quick speed? If it's standard, do you care to post a save?

 

[YetiHunter84]

View attachment Harun al-Rashid_0230 AD-1600.Civ5Mod (had to change filetype to get it to attach)

My apologies, it was actually T230. I haven't played the game in a few days - maybe it just felt that quick because I got out-teched so hard. I initially tried a Tradition 4 cities opening, but was forced to neglect infrastructure for a long time to deal with a two front war from Austria and America.

 

[The Pilgrim]

230 makes a lot more sense but still very early.
Isn't this lovely?

Spoiler :

I don't play like this, but if you really like late eras, you may try modern/atomic era starts. The good part is you won't lag two eras behind AI tech wise and everything will come down to strategic resources, uranium in particular.

Btw, you don't need to change file type. .Civ5Save files should work.

 

[YetiHunter84]

.Civ5Save files are apparently limited to 2MB, and this one was 2.4 (gotta love lategame).

Those graphs are insane. Korea just ran away so hard. Sure, he had a corner of the continent to himself, but Atilla took about half a dozen cities of his in Medieval or sometime around then, and he still came back. That demographics feature is something I've never used before, but certainly will from now on.

I'm now at turn 260 or so, have just upgraded GWBs to bombers and finally kicked Isabella off the continent, and I blessedly have 36 aluminium and 16 uranium (with another 4 two tiles inside Sejong's borders). My spies tell me Sejong is still on full research production, despite surely being at Future Tech by now. Strategy now I guess is to quietly work towards SBs while finishing off what Russia started with Pacachuti to the south, then get to work on Russia. Hopefully Sejong stays uselessly on research.

 

[Matthew.]

Russia and Bismark were good choices. Unit maintenance gets very expensive, so Bismark's UA is saving a huge amount of gold. There will also be a crap ton of units on the map, so the UA would go further than in a regular Civ game.

Russia is obvious. Double Uranium.

 

[kirbdog]

Looking through that list, the only one that strikes me as seriously OP is Russia. Nukes and GDRs are basically the only thing that can seriously break a stalemate, and Russia gets double.

I agree with your analysis. Oil (Arabia) and Uranium (Russia) are both good, but Uranium is better. Since religion can matter, Byzantines have that advantage (Just War / Defender of the Faith / Faith Healers / etc). As mentioned, Japan, China, and Ethiopia all have useful war bonuses. Finally, on a island map, Denmark has the advantage, having not only increased speed (like England) but also movement after disembarking.

I disagree with anyone arguing for economic or happiness bonuses, because once all buildings are built, these are fairly equal and ludicrously good for all civs. But, I would say "whoever has the Statue of Liberty" has a big advantage production-wise. Likewise, "whoever has Statue of Zeus / Alhambra / Brandenburg Gate / Himeji's" for military bonuses.

Also, it isn't true that no Civ has a general production bonus. Austria gets 5% with the coffee house.

Does anyone else play like this? And what do you think are the best setups for long lategame?

No, I don't play the game after a winner has been had, although I have played a time victory a couple times.

 

[The Pilgrim]

.Civ5Save files are apparently limited to 2MB, and this one was 2.4 (gotta love lategame).

Oh, I see. Large map size also increases the size of the file and the quota is based on standard, I guess.

Those graphs are insane. Korea just ran away so hard. Sure, he had a corner of the continent to himself, but Atilla took about half a dozen cities of his in Medieval or sometime around then, and he still came back. That demographics feature is something I've never used before, but certainly will from now on.

The graphs are freakish. 4.5k bpt is beyond anything I've ever seen. Signing RA's with Sejong and selling him cities obviously didn't help, although the difference was probably marginal. The only thing you could have done to counter him earlier was pumping some serious beakers yourself and beating him into oblivion before he filled Rationalism.

 

[Primadog]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned America, who has the only UU available at end-game - B17. More importantly, the UU comes with free Siege I and Evasion. Post-patch, the B17 is the only way to build logistics-stealth bombers (if you have all the XP buildings plus BG).

 

[YetiHunter84]

Signing RA's with Sejong and selling him cities obviously didn't help, although the difference was probably marginal. The only thing you could have done to counter him earlier was pumping some serious beakers yourself and beating him into oblivion before he filled Rationalism.

I knew it was just going to feed the runaway, but by the time I had finished with America and Austria he was too powerful to touch. I needed the beakers so I could take on Isabella.

B17 is awesome - worst case you get logistics after your first couple of battles. But they do go obselete. Extra sight is pretty cool though - I think a level 2 upgrade for a modern armour can give you a 5-movement, 4 sight spotter - best scout in the game! Useful for deep penetration in the same turn (since it takes your rebased fighters a turn to set up recon)

 

[The Pilgrim]

B17 is awesome - worst case you get logistics after your first couple of battles. But they do go obselete

SB's?

 

[YetiHunter84]

No free siege and evasion for SBs built from scratch though

 

[The Pilgrim]

No free siege and evasion for SBs built from scratch though

Air repair is good enough. But I meant B17 upgraded to SB's.

 

[Primadog]

SB's?

B17 does not go obsolete, since Stealth Bomber requires a different resource. The idea is to purposely build B17 for the free Siege I and Evasion, promote Siege II, Siege III, and logistics, then upgrade to SB.

Edit: I made a couple mistakes - Panzer and Zero also don't go obsolete, with Zero keeping its free Intercept I ability when upgraded. However, Panzer doesn't retain its +1 movement bonus (according to this chart). Still, America's ability to build logistics-SB is probably the only game changer when talking about end-game warfare.

 

[YetiHunter84]

You can build B17 after future tech?? I am so making my next game a modern start BG rush with Washington!

 

[sufficiency]

Pick Russia and build GDR for Mother Russia!

 

[YetiHunter84]

Only one way to settle this. World War III multiplayer duel, anyone?

 

[The Pilgrim]

B17 does not go obsolete, since Stealth Bomber requires a different resource. The idea is to purposely build B17 for the free Siege I and Evasion, promote Siege II, Siege III, and logistics, then upgrade to SB.

I know. I assumed the OP meant B17 get obsolete power-wise, which is unimaginable when we're taking about something that can be upgraded to beasty SB's.

You can build B17 after future tech?? I am so making my next game a modern start BG rush with Washington!

A) You can. B) It doesn't even matter, since the latest you can start is Information Era and you have plenty of time to build all bombers you'll ever need before Stealth.

 

[kirbdog]

The nice thing about nukes is that they are single-use, so you get your uranium back and build another one. With planes you want to keep them around forever. With that in mind, and because bombers can be built forever, I like Arabia (more oil) and America as strong contenders in this shootout.