Best War Civ for Seven Seas

[MarigoldRan]

Huge map. Standard settings.

My answer:

Not Aztec, Sumeria, or Nubia. They're still the best if some AI starts close to you. But there's so much land on the Seven Seas maps (more than Pangea) that 2/3's of the time you're off on your own, which negates their UUs. With the recent changes to battering rams, slamming melee or horse units into cities with medieval or renaissance walls isn't a good idea anymore

Consequently, the best war civs now are:

1. Inca. 2-shot 60 strength UU that shows up at machinery. They can wipe down walls with impunity at range.
2. Korea. Hwacha. Very easy to get to by the medieval era because of their super science growth. A dozen of them annihilate everything in their path pre-industrial era.

 

[Sostratus]

1. Inca. 2-shot 60 strength UU that shows up at machinery. They can wipe down walls with impunity at range.

For the extreme rough terrain i seem to keep encountering on 7Seas, I think one of the biggest Inca upsides would be the Qhapac Nan. Being able to teleport through mountain ranges like that is massive when you are faced with a slog through mountain passes or amphibious landings. I think if they have space, as you stipulated in your post, there are several booming civs that can go nuts. Korea obviously, Germany (if you know you don't have to fight to get 3-4 clusters of 3 cities out by middle ages, their midgame power level is egregious) and Japan for similar reasons (although their boom is slower.) Aussie's outback station is pretty far into the tree and on a huge map it's harder to exploit the +100% bonus.

Who's the meta uber culture pick? Greece? Kongo? Russia?

 

[MarigoldRan]

Gorgo. For how quickly you can get the early civics. And half cost theatres. Also strong if have to war early thx to resourceless swords (i.e hoplites).

 

[Sostratus]

Again, under the stipulation that you have some space to work with, Zulu might be particularly nasty if you can tech to mercenaries before the big fighting happens. Their early corps are almost effective as anyone else's army unit (+15 vs +17,) giving them a massive military production advantage (and the general ability to steamroll)

 

[MarigoldRan]

Walls.

 

[Sostratus]

But zulu can also make Bombard Corps to handle Renaissance walls. Otherwise, Medieval Walls or lesser have no chance against Impi Corps+Siege Tower

 

[kb27787]

Gorgo. For how quickly you can get the early civics. And half cost theatres. Also strong if have to war early thx to resourceless swords (i.e hoplites).

I'll go with Pericles in GS... Due to Pingala getting reworked I feel the culture from barb kills do not nearly matter as much. Moreover CS having walls helps immensely in terms of how many survive long into the endgame.

 

[MarigoldRan]

But zulu can also make Bombard Corps to handle Renaissance walls. Otherwise, Medieval Walls or lesser have no chance against Impi Corps+Siege Tower

Oh yeah. Forgot about that.

 

[steveg700]

More-or-less having this thread's topic in mind, I started a game with the Ottomans over the weekend. They aren't primed for early wars, so I figured I'd get to expand and then explode. They have their raiders in the water and janissaries on the land.

But I wound up pretty bored, mostly due to the map being a dull expanse with jammed up with redundant resources (cocoa, silk, & tea). It was hard to stay invested, even with me rolling Alexander's nearby capital in classical.

 

[MarigoldRan]

The problem is once you get through the early game in good shape, the AI's simply not challenging.

 

[steveg700]

Not too challenging in the early game either when you get right down to it. The war game is just not too satisfying. You have to self-impose restrictions on your options. Of course, the smaller the map, the fewer the civ's. Playing on a larger map allows for a greater chance that some AI civ will get to snowball. I would hope that military emergencies could stop me when I'm running away, but there are too few participants.