Civ Discussion - Aksum

[bengalryan9]

Hey all,

I seem to remember way back when Civ6 started their were threads discussing each of the different civs - their strengths and weaknesses, what makes them interesting, what could maybe use a little attention from the devs, and even interesting strategies to use when playing them. I thought it might be fun and interesting to start them back up now that we've had Civ7 for a few months (and it'd be nice to see something besides yet another thread about why Player X doesn't like the game).

Might as well start alphabetically in the antiquity era and start with Aksum:
Aksum's unique Civ Ability is Kingdom of Natural Wealth, which gives +2 gold on resources.
Aksum's unique military unit is the Dhow, a galley replacement that gets +4 combat strength on coasts and that has 1 charge to create a naval trade route.
Aksum's unique civilian unit is the Tankwa, a tradeship replacement that has +10 range and that cannot be pillaged.
Aksum's unique infrastructure is the Hawilt, which gives +2 gold and +1 culture for every adjacent Hawilt or Wonder
In terms of civics, Aksum has Periplus of the Erythraen Sea (extra resources in coastal settlements, and with Mastery gold on coastal quarters and the "Port of Nations" tradition), Momentum Adulitanum (which gives the "Thrones of My Father" tradition and allows altars and monuments to gain cultural adjacency from Hawilts), and Book of the Himyarites (which gives the "May This Please the People" tradition and allows the Dhow to ignore zones of control).
For their traditions, Port of Nations grants +2 culture and +2 gold for every active trade route, Thrones of My Father grants +15% gold in coastal cities, while May This Please the People grants +2 culture to resources on or adjacent to the coast.
Aksum also automatically unlocks the Songhai in the exploration age and gets a discount on building the Great Stele.

What are everybody's thoughts on the Aksumites? What do you like about them? What do you dislike about them? What leaders do you feel make for a good fit when playing them? What civs do you feel are good to transition to at the era change?

 

[bengalryan9]

As for my thoughts, I've played two games as the Aksumites - my very first game, and my most recent game. The first game I think you can mostly throw out as I was just looking to learn how the game works (and I picked them because they seemed fairly straightforward), but I was impressed with them in my most recent game.

First off, I think the Hawilt is very good. I had no trouble planning my city development around them and could easily get patches of them where their adjacencies with each other meant they were getting +3 or +4 culture for each of them. From there it's not very difficult to put your wonders and monuments close by, too, and now you're really pumping out culture. I guess one drawback is that the Aksumites being encouraged to settle the coast could give you less land to work with and build these on, but I still think they are very strong.

Second, I think the Aksum have some pretty good traditions that serve them well in their era and that remain useful in future eras. I am a particular fan of "May This Please the People". "Thrones of My Father" is also strong throughout the game. I find that Aksum produces a ton of culture and gold, and that mostly comes down to its traditions and Hawilts.

As far as weaknesses are concerned, I'm guessing most people would point to their unique units. The Dhow is strong but it comes at a time when navies are super important (though I've found them useful in dealing with aggressive city states spamming galleys). You also will always lose any you built at the era change. The trade charge is nice, I suppose, but TBH I forgot all about it in my current game. The extended trade range on the Tankwa is very nice early on and allows you to get early trade routes established you might not otherwise be able to, but that's probably situational. The fact it can't be pillaged is pointless as I've never seen traders get pillaged a single time.

My most recent game I played Hatsephut and I think she pairs really well with them (quicker wonders to boost your hawilts, extra culture from resources). I could also seem them pairing well with Augustus (buy monuments in towns and together with the hawilt and altars you could produce a lot of culture), Amina (extra resource slots to take advantage of all that trade), and Achaemenid Xerxes (who I chose in my first Aksum game as he is very trade focused).

Both games I played as Aksum I couldn't help but choose the Chola in exploration age... the Chola are beasts on the water and build upon Aksum's trade and coast based game well. Songhai would probably be a good bet as well if you've got the right type of terrain to take advantage of their UI.

 

[Leucarum]

Aksum are my favourite civ which isn't at all what I expected at all at the outset of Civ7. I feel like they have a weaker power level than a lot of other civs during antiquity, but their traditions are really quite solid, Hawilti give you a bit leg up in culture and gold at the start of exploration, and a coastal bias is really good for era 2... So I kind of feel like they are one of the better civs for setting your empire up during the first age, even if they feel a bit underpowered during that age.

To add to the weaknesses highlighted though, they don't get any settlement limit increases on their civic tree, and have no innate happiness buffs, so they struggle to go wide. And the coastal bias means you'll have less tiles in those cities that you have to play tall in. On the other hand the rough terrain bias at least means you should combine good production and good food.

I am a big fan of Hatshepshut for setting up a Songhai transition. The trade focus pairs really well, and Aksumite traditions make up for Songhai's traditions being kind of... bad, but you need navigable rivers which Hattie gives you. I do think it's tough to beat Achaemenid Xerxes though, turbocharged Hawilti and extra trade is tough to beat.

Outside of Songhai, as was mentioned before Chola is a good way to double down on trade - but Hawai'i is my 2nd favourite - very fun if you want turbocharged culture output, and I think Ming is a surprisingly good fit - Aksum gives you solid traditions to slot from the outset, and you can carry on an UI focus with the wall.

I'm going to get an extra shoutout for the Chalcedony Seal. Extra culture and gold on your Hawilti is beyond brilliant.

PS: I don't know what the plural of Hawilt is so I am trying to manifest it into being Hawilti.

 

[phoenixician]

I think they're an excellent antiquity civ. The things about them that I found to be very strong are:
-Unique Improvements: available in first unique civic, cheap, built on flat tile, good yields that ramp up early. Remains to provide good culture even in Modern.
-Unique military unit: doubled as both merchant and naval combat military.
-Impactful traditions throughout all three ages.

My games with them have been accompanied with great to very strong culture output in the beginning (even in Modern) that helps unlock successor civs' unique civics and wonders. I do agree that they do have glaring weakness in not increasing settlement limit though. In general, military path is a bit rough for them due to settlement limit capped at 6 and lack of combat strength buff. I feel the successor civ unlock (Songhai) unlock is a bit mid for them unless you were able to settle on navigable rivers instead of coast; I personally like Spain as the successor as it doubles down on the coastal play and traditions.

As for leaders, I've found following leaders to be consistently good fit for them:
-Napoleon, Emperor: Strange it may sound, but I think he is situationally great with Aksum. He provides a means to get the Hawilt & Dhow ships spam going. Dhow can then be utilized for defense/coastal offense or trade routes with either city states or other civs (as long as they're not at war) while the Hawilts will carry the culture output and help pay off military expense. The problem is that this pair may not fare well in wars, so you may have to rely on military spamming with your strong gold output or play your diplomacy well.
-Xerxes, Achaemenid: I agree with above poster. Consistently strong choice. He doubles down on the Hawilt spamming and even improves it in the process. Aksum traditions augments his trading emphasis even further.
-Xerxes, King: Again, strange choice, but he covers Aksum weakness in military path and his gold bounty on conquest can help buy dhow for more trade routes and/or conquests.

Honorable mentions:
-Isabella: Situationally good. She enables Dhow spamming to either conquer coastal settlements or establishes trade routes
-Amina: Situationally good. Her gold bonus can help Hawilt spamming somewhat. Combat strength bonus is also situationally useful desert and plain tiles combat.

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

I really wish that ships carried over from Antiquity to Exploration. It would make the Dhow feel a whole lot better to use. I love almost everything about Aksum’s kit, but losing my navy at the arrival of the naval Age bites.

Edit: Antiquity ships persisting would also open up lots more design space for naval-focused Civs. They sort of missed their chance to give Carthage a unique ship (sad), but I’m certain there are future candidates that would really benefit from that (Austronesians, Minoans*, they could do Srivijaya as a predecessor to Majapahit and Chola if they wanted)

Plus, it makes for easier conversion upon Age transition. Imagine if your Antiquity ships got to turn into Byzantine Dromons! Additionally, keeping your navy would be a great boon to a merchant republic Civ (Venice, Genoa, Ragusa, take your pick) which I am almost certain will come eventually.

*yes I realize it would be weird to have Minoans coinciding with Classical Greece

 

[Navelgazer]

Aksum is also probably my favorite civ in the game, and definitely my go-to in Antiquity. They're not the strongest option, but they're probably the most reliable, if that makes sense? And they pair decently well with just about everybody (though particularly well with Amina, Hatshepsut, Isabella...)

Extra trade route range on the Tankwa is great, immunity from pillaging is a non-issue. The dhow is nice while it lasts, and the trade route action is neat, but a bit situational (since the Dhow needs open borders, while a normal merchant doesn't. Although I think maybe it didn't used to and they patched that because it was unintentional? I'm not sure.) But yeah, it sucks that you're always going to lose whatever navy you build in antiquity, and particularly here.

The Hawilt is great (I really need to remember to spam those more.) I have no idea what the consensus on Great Stele is, but I love it and try to get it in every game I play, so having a bonus to that is nice. And of course, the extra gold and resource slots are fantastic (and virtually guarantee you a Silk Roads win.) But the real story with Aksum is their Traditions, which are some of the best in Antiquity. The civ just sets you up so nicely for Songhai in Exploration, but if you didn't get enough Navigable Rivers, you can easily pivot towards Spain or Abbasid or whoever and still have a strong start between the traditions and the Hawilti.

So yeah, maybe not the highest ceiling of all the Antiquity civs (or, you know, definitely not. Maya's still around, and I recently learned how ridiculous Egypt can get if everything goes right, etc.) But maybe the highest floor? As long as you've got access to coast (which you're biased towards), you're gonna have a decent Antiquity age with Aksum.

 

[m_mus]

(Thank for giving us a topic to discuss besides the doom-and-gloom threads so dominant right now)

I really like Aksum as well - especially the Hawilt is a very useful improvement. So much so, that I plastered every available tile with it in my booming capital, which led to the painful situation in Exploration Age and Modernity of having to overbuild some of them. But well, this might be a symptom of suffering from success ...

 

[uppi]

I think I should try more Aksum. They are not the obvious choice for any leader, so I have kind of neglected them.

 

[disjointaccount]

I like Aksum. I'm partial to any civ that gives me early gold as I find its snowball potential works well with how I typically play. I tend to think of civs/leaders through the lens of a sort of "power budget" concept, where each civ has (or at least should have) around the same budget, but it can be allocated differently, ie. a very strong UU means unique buildings/improvements might be weaker (in practice, mileage varies lol). Aksum to me have a lot of their budget sunk into the gold on resources. Their uniques are perfectly serviceable, but there aren't any standouts amongst those parts of their kit. For me, its the tempo that gold gives you that can provide a really strong start. It drops off later in the age, but in the first 50 or so turns, the extra gold from a capital with a good few worked resource tiles can be a huge percentage increase, allowing you to get towns and other cities online much faster and therefore create your more permanent income streams more quickly.

I'm very guilty of sleeping on unique improvements but objectively the Hawilt is a pretty good one. Their UUs are probably the most underwhelming aspect of the kit for me. Naval units just don't really feel like they have a ton of value in Antiquity, and the civilian unit being something nice but ultimately not hugely impactful feels like a missed opportunity when it could have made up for what is (imo) a weaker unique military unit. Even if it's probably wiser to unlock the Stele through Writing, the production towards it is still nice; I quite like going for it first in games where I'm shooting for the 7 wonders. The Songhai unlock is also really nice and provides synergy for economically-focused playthroughs (especially given Songhai have one of the less consistent regular unlock conditions). I don't have any strong thoughts on the traditions. They provide decent boosts that synergise with the type of empire Aksum's start bias will likely led you have built, but they're nothing Earth-shattering. Just nice, reliable boons to your yields that you can slot in, which I think is a perfectly fine role for traditions to play.

For leaders, I think Amina, money Xerxes (both of whom I can vouch for from experience as synergising well), and Hatshepsut with her recent culture-on-resources rework are the picks that jump out to me. I think a big part of why I like Aksum though is that gold production is a fairly generalist trait, and so they can be made to work quite well with more or less anyone.

 

[Navelgazer]

Bengalryan9: I hope you continue creating these threads - they're going to be great for me to figure out how to get the most out of civs I generally pass on, I think.

 

[Krikkit1]

For more of these threads a good resource is
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/detailed-civ-and-leader-comparison-charts.694208/

It doesn't have some of the balance update info yet, but it is really good for getting an overview & comparison

 

[Leucarum]

I realised I did forget one thing about Aksum, their soundtrack is OP.

 

[Goodenuf]

Aksum->Chola/Hawai'i on archipelago maps are great! I would agree though that losing your navy at transition to Exploration is a serious drag; not just for Aksum but any civ with a decent navy, which would be typical for archipelago. I'm hoping that this gets address in a future patch (i.e. at least keep some of the navy...)

 

[Navelgazer]

I would agree though that losing your navy at transition to Exploration is a serious drag; not just for Aksum but any civ with a decent navy, which would be typical for archipelago. I'm hoping that this gets address in a future patch (i.e. at least keep some of the navy...)

Ideas to Fix This:
• Add "continues over to Exploration Era" to the Dhow's description (not great, doesn't help Carthage.)
• Have Periplus of the Erythraean Sea grant a single Antiquity-era Fleet Commander. (Only fixes it for Aksum, but you could presumably do something similar for Carthage, at least.)
• Add a wonder that creates a single Antiquity-era Fleet Commander. (Only one civ gets it, obviously, but it probably wouldn't be a super competitive wonder, and it also helps with how near-impossible it is to get the 7 Wonders win nowadays.)
• Create a specific quarter by placing a Fishing Quay and Lighthouse in the same quarter, each of which can preserve one naval unit (This might be my favorite of these ideas, honestly. I want quarter bonuses for specific adjacencies beyond civ-specific unique quarters. And for Carthage, the Punic Port could get this ability instead.)
• Have a late-era tech (Navigation II, probably) unlock an Antiquity-era Fleet Commander (Honestly I don't love this. I think it makes sense that these show up in Exploration, and any that arrive in Antiquity should be civ-specific or else specifically worked-for à la a Wonder as mentioned above.)
• Have an early perk on the Expansionist Attribute Tree that lets you maintain your navy (I don't love this for a few reasons - it's clunky for one, and also Aksum isn't an Expansionist civ anyway, so it'd be trickier for them to score it in Antiquity, etc. But it makes some sense.)

I'm sure there are other ways to handle this that I'm not thinking of right now, beyond just "Everyone keeps their navy," which I don't like at all. Treasure Fleets is enough of a crapshoot right now without every Exploration Era starting with Isabella sending 16 waiting cogs off to distant lands on Turn 1. But the game ideally should reward naval specialization in Antiquity to some degree.

 

[ehecatzin]

Aksum has never quite catched my eye, but I might give it a try with Xerxes, sounds interesting

 

[Krikkit1]

Ideas to Fix This:
• Add "continues over to Exploration Era" to the Dhow's description (not great, doesn't help Carthage.)
• Have Periplus of the Erythraean Sea grant a single Antiquity-era Fleet Commander. (Only fixes it for Aksum, but you could presumably do something similar for Carthage, at least.)
• Add a wonder that creates a single Antiquity-era Fleet Commander. (Only one civ gets it, obviously, but it probably wouldn't be a super competitive wonder, and it also helps with how near-impossible it is to get the 7 Wonders win nowadays.)
• Create a specific quarter by placing a Fishing Quay and Lighthouse in the same quarter, each of which can preserve one naval unit (This might be my favorite of these ideas, honestly. I want quarter bonuses for specific adjacencies beyond civ-specific unique quarters. And for Carthage, the Punic Port could get this ability instead.)
• Have a late-era tech (Navigation II, probably) unlock an Antiquity-era Fleet Commander (Honestly I don't love this. I think it makes sense that these show up in Exploration, and any that arrive in Antiquity should be civ-specific or else specifically worked-for à la a Wonder as mentioned above.)
• Have an early perk on the Expansionist Attribute Tree that lets you maintain your navy (I don't love this for a few reasons - it's clunky for one, and also Aksum isn't an Expansionist civ anyway, so it'd be trickier for them to score it in Antiquity, etc. But it makes some sense.)

I'm sure there are other ways to handle this that I'm not thinking of right now, beyond just "Everyone keeps their navy," which I don't like at all. Treasure Fleets is enough of a crapshoot right now without every Exploration Era starting with Isabella sending 16 waiting cogs off to distant lands on Turn 1. But the game ideally should reward naval specialization in Antiquity to some degree.

Another idea would be...
Better preserve all the units.
All ?non siege? units on age Transition become "Ceremonial"...
They are 5 Combat Strength less than the level 0
They don't benefit from Commanders
They don't give Commanders exp
They heal 5 hp less per turn (minimum 0)
They can't upgrade (except for a fixed number [6 or 9]* of Free Ceremonial ->Regular upgrades you get..only in your settlements... if the Free upgrades is > than your number of units you get Free units)
They can be "cashed in" for a culture?happy?gold bonus in one of your settlements

That way you carry over 6-9 units of the type you want... you want 6 Ships to carry over, that's fine, but you might lose some settlements to barbs/those that kept more

*maybe +1 or 2 per Commander

 

[Leucarum]

What about 1 ship per lighthouse? Means only cities carry ships over so it's a small number. And the ships spawn at the lighthouses.

 

[bengalryan9]

Bengalryan9: I hope you continue creating these threads - they're going to be great for me to figure out how to get the most out of civs I generally pass on, I think.

I thought I'd try one a week, but maybe that will be too slow a pace? Let me know what you think. Glad people are enjoying and participating!

 

[Kurtbob]

Axum with Xerxes, transitioning into Songhai, guarantees high gold/culture with happy trade neighbors. You don't have to go wide or go to war, just spam your Hawilt and traders and you can make every settlement a city with the gold you are raking in.

If you are lucky, having a settlement in the vicinity of the Grand Canyon means your Hawilt also get science.

There is additional synergy for your Hawilt when building Petra and Serpent Mound. When playing Axum, go phallic or go home (notice all the happy neighbors)

Spoiler :

 

[Sostratus]

Strictly because of how unique improvements work in 7, Aksum has some juice behind them if you get cooperative terrain. But any civ with a unique improvement can be really strong if you use either xerxes' memento, xerxes himself, or both.

One of my "gripes" about gold civs is that gold is very plentiful in civ7, just like civ6. So those bonuses to trade routes and extra gold on resources just leaves them fairly middle of the road. Ever since 2016 I've longed for the balancing of Civ5 BNW where gold was scarce and precious and gold bonuses were very impactful. This is because under those conditions, a gold bonus meant substantially more leeway in purchasing things vs the generic civ that might be running only a very small income most of the time. Currently, we all purchase stuff frequently, and gold civs do it slightly more often - which can be impactful, but doesn't feel as weighty. Similarly, trade doesn't scale all that well, so Aksum's otherwise good bonuses here can't be pushed as far as bonuses on things like districts.

And Aksum doesn't get any settlement cap bonuses in its civics. In its current form, +settlement cap is a really strong trait that, imo, isn't compensated for by other benefits in most civic trees.

I do not think Aksum is bad at all - again, you can really push Hawilts (or capture them from your neighbor, the AI loves these things ) into the exploration age to leverage crazy yields, like kurtbob is showing. I just don't find the rest of their kit to be really differentiating how I play. (Not that that is a grave sin; not every civ needs to be radical.)