Best unique ability?

[syllogism]

You are right and forbidden palace + policy drops it to 2 per city. It's rather strange because on the immortal game I just finished it was 1 per city somehow. What else could modify it?

 

[Antarion]

You assume that with a lot of farms its easy to grow past 15+ pop city without hospitals/med labs. It isn't. Growth isn't linear. You can get a city from 1 to 6 pop in the same time span it takes you to grow from 15 to 16, provided that both are generating the same surplus food. And since city states provide the same amount of food regardless of city size, a smaller city will undoubtedly have more surplus food. Theres a good chance a 1 pop city will hit 10 in the time it takes for a 15 pop to hit 16.

So, I can generate pop faster by conquering/building new cities compared to turning all the tiles into farms(and killing my economy at the same time). ...and happiness is still a joke.



I looked through the XML files. The only way India has a base 2 unhappiness per city is if you're playing a modded game... or you're playing on chieftan.

what did i assume? i never said dont conquer the world or settle new cities. but if you dont build farms at rivers to go fast beyond the breakpoint of ghandi (which is 4 pop to equal other civs, but better is 8 to equal ramses and dareious with their buildings) you wont profite from his skill. and dont attack cities which are smaller then 8 normally (half pop reduction after conquest).

thats how to play ghandi to benefit from his happiness skill. he is the only civ which only needs a colosseum to solve happiness in core cities in modern times and you can pass any SP which gives you happy faces...

this lead of course towards a much more peaceful style or else you handicap yourself if u play india. dont start the expansion to early...

 

[Roxlimn]

rune42:

I have observed that cities grow very quickly when they're small, but it's not true that smaller cities will have more surplus food than larger cities. It's only true that they will grow faster, because their food boxes are smaller.

City States provide the same amount of food to all cities, but larger cities can work more farm tiles while remaining profitable, they can build Granaries and Water Mills more quickly (if they don't already have them), so their food surplus is grossly larger in most cases.

It's not hard and it doesn't take that long to grow cities past size 15, provided that you have the food support - farms, Maritimes, Granaries, and Water Mills. I estimate the time would be from 7 to 15 turns per pop point past 15, depending. Certainly, if you did nothing but spam trade posts, 15 would be about the practical limit of growth using only Maritimes.

In similar manner, supported strongly by Maritimes, a small city past size 3 would have about 2 to 3 turns between pop growths, lengthening to about 4 or 5 at size 7 or so. This would indicate that allowing 1 pop per turn up to size 3, growing from size 1 to size 10 can be estimated to take about 24 turns or so, which is about 2 to three times the number of turns it takes to grow a size 15 to size 16 with good food support.

 

[gingerbill]

I think ghandi's ability is OP if anything , i love it .

I don't get why people say its only pays off late in the game . I find it pays off very quickly. You always have enough happy resources at the start to set up a few cities without much trouble and then when they grow and your troubles would begin normally it kicks in.

Think china is my favourite but its close.

 

[Guardian_PL]

I think ghandi's ability is OP if anything , i love it .

I don't get why people say its only pays off late in the game . I find it pays off very quickly. You always have enough happy resources at the start to set up a few cities without much trouble and then when they grow and your troubles would begin normally it kicks in.

Think china is my favourite but its close.

Yup, my thinking exactly

 

[Dudu42]

As far as CIV goes, I try to not stop and think too much about real history because it might lead to some really awkward conclusions, like for example where's Spain or why is Alexander representing a league of city states. ;-)

Well, Alexander unified these city states and brought glory to them.

What's REALLY historically ironic is that Sparta is under Alexander's order. (by the way, I agree that there's no greek empire without Sparta, one of the coolest cities).

There are some fun facts about Sparta. For example, look this excerpt form wikipedia:
"Thus, upon the conquest of Persia, Alexander the Great sent to Athens 300 suits of Persian armour with the following inscription 'Alexander, son of Philip, and all the Greeks except the Spartans, give these offerings taken from the foreigners who live in Asia'"

Also, his father, Philip II tried to bully Sparta. He said: "If I conquer Sparta, I'll burn it to ruins" or something like that.
The Spartian answer: "If..."

See now how ironic is Alexander, ruler of Sparta?


About the UAs, I just dont know what to say. Maybe the Super Chinese Generals rulling their Chu Ko Nus burning everything in their wake.

Worth mention the Greeks never dropping relations with Ciy States. In my current game, normal diff, Im ally with every city states. In fact, I allied myself with a militaristic one, Budapest. This city was the sole city state present in the Continent ruled by Romans (tiny map, 4 players and I conquered 2 of them). Everytime Budapest game me a unit, I gave that unit back. Then I started a war and Roman had a really hard time fighting this sole city... while I conquered every city left (4 until I saved and quit the game). Not to count all the food and culture bonus, I wonder how good they could be if I played with Siam. Me, Alexander, the ruler of Sparta

 

[edcrane]

As a player, Art of War is my favorite UA when I'm playing deity, especially if I draw Japan as one of the AI's, which makes ranged and one-hit melee kills incredibly important.

Conversely Bushido is probably the best UA for the AI because of the its production advantage and ineptitude with respect to tactics--its best bet is to simply overwhelm the player with force and Bushido accomplishes this better than any other UA.

 

[Lanstro]

In my current Immortal game, Mother Russia has actually been surprisingly useful. Not as good as the top ones like Art of War, of course, but much better than it looks on paper.

The extra hammer is useful because hammers are pretty sparse in the early game. More importantly, double the horse/iron to sell to other civs is huge for your early game economy (though selling resources at high difficulties is so powerful it's arguably an exploit). Off my deposit of 6 (or rather, 2 times 6) horses, I was able to build 3 horsemen and sell the rest for 500+ gold.

Ran into a bug where my sold iron just kind of permanently disappeared, but that's a separate issue...

 

[Lyoncet]

More importantly, double the horse/iron to sell to other civs is huge for your early game economy (though selling resources at high difficulties is so powerful it's arguably an exploit).

This is probably the best part of Russia (although Krepost is pretty good too). Or at least, it will be until either Firaxis or a modder decides to give the AI the ability to discern whether or not they actually need every horse they're offered for the entire game.

 

[vendur]

China has borderline overpowered UA, borderline overpowered UB, and a borderline overpowered UU.

Quite the combo. I'm not quite sure if I'd say her UA is the best, however. Definitely top 3.

 

[Guardian_PL]

In my current Immortal game, Mother Russia has actually been surprisingly useful. Not as good as the top ones like Art of War, of course, but much better than it looks on paper.

The extra hammer is useful because hammers are pretty sparse in the early game. More importantly, double the horse/iron to sell to other civs is huge for your early game economy (though selling resources at high difficulties is so powerful it's arguably an exploit). Off my deposit of 6 (or rather, 2 times 6) horses, I was able to build 3 horsemen and sell the rest for 500+ gold.

Ran into a bug where my sold iron just kind of permanently disappeared, but that's a separate issue...

Yeah, once the trading bugs will be ironed out (vanishing trade resources, and multiplying resources, AI always buying them for a lot of gold) I might be interested in playing as Russia, for now I'd like to avoid the exploits ^^

 

[Rathelon]

My current game is with Russia, and they are pretty good. Siberian Riches is nice; during a golden age you have hammers galore, and I'm currently sitting with 70+ iron and 65 or so horses. I like the Krepost (barracks that lowers culture tile cost, for those who dont know), and I build it in every city. I could build a massive army of Cossacks with all my horses, but I dont know how they're any better than regular cavalry, so I just have a few as scouts. I have infantry and artillery anyway for my regular army. One of my cossacks did hit an ancient ruin on a far flung island just recently and turned into a tank - which is cool because I dont have that tech yet.

I took China out early in the BC era, followed by Songhai. Then found Germany on the far corner of my land mass and took him out with rifles and cannons. Currently own my continent, and I've found England, Ottomans, and Siam on another continent. Had a brief war with Siam because he had a frigate near my continent (dont even think about it, buddy). Sunk his frigate and went hunting for more of his ships. I had 2 caravels and 3 frigates, and I had seen one of his caravels killing pirates near an island, but couldnt find it. Right after he asked me for peace I finally found his navy of 1 more frigate and 3 caravels, but they were on the other side of his continent than where I thought they were. France was also recently wiped out - but I had never contacted him - just saw the message that he was conquered (probably by England or Ottomans because that's where the most fog is).

 

[CornPlanter]

I can't believe so many people rated China above Persia.

 

[Supr49er]

For most of my games, Greece.
For MP Archipelago games, England.

 

[Kaxeon]

I can't believe so many people rated China above Persia.

20% increased combat strength for all units is absolutely insane. When the buggy golden ages are fixed, Persia will be nothing more than average.

 

[Guardian_PL]

20% increased combat strength for all units is absolutely insane. When the buggy golden ages are fixed, Persia will be nothing more than average.

This, well said.

 

[troytheface]

Fact- Site

Fact- tile purchase

Fact- Precognition

Fact- Manifest Destiny

the evidence is clear- Washington's unique ability is the superior

 

[Aoxomoxoa]

Here's a plug for Songhai's 'River Warlord'. I was playing a large map where my capitol was a couple squares north of a large mountain range that separated a thin coastal area with a couple of peninsulas each holding a C/S.

A superb coast based production city site with 3 fish, 3 furs, 2 deer, a 4 horse and silver along with a few more hills and a short river became my 2nd city. Access to this had 3 choke points with at least 3 or more hex single line rows the entrance to each 'pass' was 10-18 hexes away.

The result of this was I ended up with a lot of barb camp spawns there... I mean a ton. No raging barbs or anything the camps just spawned regularly in a couple of dark corners off in those paths.

I kept a scarcher (scout hut upgraded to archer) just hanging around and I would estimate between these and the couple of other camps that would spawn off at the other borders of my growing empire resulted in about 50gpt in income.

This was a marathon game but I would estimate i would loot 2-4 camps every 10 turns at 220 something a camp.