Civilization elimination thread

[theguy8882]

Babylon: I don't like the UA because is very situational and UU has a very short live

Situational? how!?

 

[Leviat]

It seems like people are using this "situational" insult for everything.

Downvote: The Iroquois. Longhouse is good, but Mohawk Warrior is too situational, and UA is just weak.

How is a swordsman that doesn't require iron "too situational" for you?

 

[Charlieguns]

Situational? how!?

An early small boost in science (with a scientist) is very situational. If you decide to focus on other things apart from science then it's an early advantage. But if you decide to focus on science from the beginning the great scientist will help you only when you discover writing, then you can forget about you UA.

 

[bcaiko]

America 4
Arabia 27
Aztecs 20
Babylon 20
Byzantium 20
Carthage 23
China 24
Denmark 8
Egypt 10 (-2)
England 18
Ethiopia 18
France 18
Greece 21
Inca 25
Iroquois 7
Japan 18 (+1)
Korea 22
Maya 27
Mongolia 12
Netherlands 20
Ottoman Empire 18
Persia 15
Roman Empire 21
Russia 20
Siam 20
Songhai 7
Sweden 15

Japan: Pound for pound, Japan will win a fight. They've been nerfed by the combat changes, but they're still good at what they do.

Egypt: Still don't think the wonder bonuses are worth it, given all Egypt's negatives. No Civ is *horrible* but Egypt doesn't stand up well against the rest.

On another note, though I didn't vote them up, The Iroquois should stick around. They're such an awesome production Civ.

 

[Leviat]

America 4
Arabia 27
Aztecs 20
Babylon 20
Byzantium 20
Carthage 23
China 24
Denmark 8
Egypt 10 (-2)
England 18
Ethiopia 18
France 18
Greece 21
Inca 25
Iroquois 8
Japan 18 (+1)
Korea 22
Maya 27
Mongolia 12
Netherlands 20
Ottoman Empire 18
Persia 15
Roman Empire 21
Russia 20
Siam 20
Songhai 5
Sweden 15

Iroquois aren't even my favorite civ, but I'll keep upvoting them to keep them alive becacuse in no way should they go out this early. What's not to like?
1.) Cheap, early trade routes nets you significantly more gold from trade routes than arabia early on. Think about it. It's nearly roadless trade routes, saving you ~4 gold/route, versus +1 gold/route for arabia.
2.) Ironless swordsman UU with a 33% bonus in forest/jungle. Get IW, get Math, get unlimited Mohawk Warriors and Catapults.
4.) Longhouse is a huge production boon. With the forest start bias, your first 3-4 cities will have plenty of forests. Lumber Mill + Longhouse and a simple forest gets a 1 food, 3 prod tile.

So plop down your first 3-4 cities, mass an army of Mohawks and Catapults, and go to town on your neighbors. Or stay small and use your production advantage to spam wonders and build infrastructure faster than any other civ. And don't sweat about protecting your lands; you've got units with a 33% forest bonus sitting in forest tiles.

Songhai: Gave them another try last night. Still not impressed. Bit of extra gold early is nice but still had a weaker start than Babylon, France, Dutch, etc... Was on a fairly small continent with only 1 other civ (Siam) and the extra gold from taking his towns was nice, but after that it was (obviously) useless. Mud Pyramid Mosque is a good building but I didn't find it the greatest complement to a quick strike.
All in all, the experience reinforced my belief that Songhai are just a little worse at everything than most civs.

 

[Monthar]

America 5
Arabia 27
Aztecs 20
Babylon 20
Byzantium 20
Carthage 23
China 24
Denmark 8
Egypt 8
England 18
Ethiopia 18
France 18
Greece 21
Inca 25
Iroquois 8
Japan 18
Korea 22
Maya 27
Mongolia 12
Netherlands 20
Ottoman Empire 18
Persia 15
Roman Empire 21
Russia 20
Siam 20
Songhai 5
Sweden 15

America - Very good UA, minutemen were great in vanilla and are even better in G&K and the B17 is stronger than regular bombers with half the evasion of the Stealth Bomber. All these points are consistently underrated.

Egypt - I don't like chariots because of these terrain penalties, so this UU isn't as good as it could be. Even with marble and the pantheon that boosts early wonder production, the AI will still beat you to the early wonders at the higher difficulty levels.

 

[Genghis.Khan]

Arabia 27
Aztecs 20
Babylon 20
Byzantium 20
Carthage 23
China 24
Denmark 6 (-2)
Egypt 8
England 18
Ethiopia 18
France 18
Greece 21
Inca 25
Iroquois 8
Japan 18
korea 23 (+1)
Maya 27
Mongolia 12
Netherlands 20
Ottoman Empire 18
Persia 15
Roman Empire 21
Russia 20
Siam 20
Songhai 5
Sweden 15

 

[Monthar]

Post #367 missed America in an apparent copy-paste goof.

America 5
Arabia 27
Aztecs 20
Babylon 20
Byzantium 20
Carthage 23
China 24
Denmark 6
Egypt 8
England 18
Ethiopia 18
France 18
Greece 21
Inca 25
Iroquois 8
Japan 18
korea 23
Maya 27
Mongolia 12
Netherlands 20
Ottoman Empire 18
Persia 15
Roman Empire 21
Russia 20
Siam 20
Songhai 5
Sweden 15

 

[Dogmouth]

You're right, I should. But all of my least favourite Civs have been voted out already, except the Songhai, and I didn't want to downvote them twice in quick succession.

Recommend me a good map set-up for the Iroquois and I'll give them a go. I take it Arborea is a given...

Actually, you don't need Arborea. A straight fractal, pangaea or continents will put you smack in the middle of a large forest in 9/10 games due to their starting bias. The beauty of the Iroqouis is that everything you need to get rolling fits together perfectly. Mohawks and longhouses are part of the same tech line, and you don't need to waste time or effort settling in a new location or using a worker to get iron. Simply research IW, start building Mohawks as soon as your done, and research Metal Casting while your Mohawks smash warriors and spearman. Not only can you build Mohawks quickly, but they'll be sprinting out of your cities due to your UA and start bias.

Edit: I should have added that you don't even need to hard build the Mohawks. Simply upgrade your warriors. The Iroquois' effectiveness comes from the fact that it's extremely easy to get them up and running quickly.

 

[GhostSalsa]

America 3
Arabia 27
Aztecs 20
Babylon 20
Byzantium 20
Carthage 23
China 24
Denmark 6
Egypt 8
England 18
Ethiopia 18
France 18
Greece 21
Inca 25
Iroquois 8
Japan 18
Korea 23
Maya 27
Mongolia 12
Netherlands 20
Ottoman Empire 18
Persia 15
Roman Empire 21
Russia 20
Siam 20
Songhai 6
Sweden 15

This is a hard vote.

I'm plus-sing Songhai because aside from being a strong civ to play, he has the best AI personality balance of any civ. He is the only civ that you can friend in 3000BC, conquer two of your other neighbors, and stay a friend with. The dude is loyal and even-headed.

Eliminating him from the roster means he can't be around to relieve the excruciating stupidity of the other AI personality balances.

American I am minusing again, for the same reason as before. But I feel a little guilty now. Not that Washington is a good AI to work with. He's absolutely the worst. Just that it's hilarious to imitate his Bill Clinton first. "I trust you are a friend to libertybibertybiberty", "Okie dokie" [after he says "very well"]. I would miss that. A bit.

 

[PhilBowles]

That one trick is the most important trick in the game though. You need for any and all strategies, victories, and game situations. There is no situation where you would have too much . More is always better, and Babylon does it better than anyone else.

Are you going for a Cultural victory? Having access to Amphitheaters, Opera Houses, Museums, and Broadcast Towers earlier is better. Getting technologies for wonders before your opponents helps too.

Are you going for a Domination victory? Getting Longswords, Riflemen, etc. quicker than your enemy is the best way to go.

Are you going for a Science victory? Want to build the UN for a Diplomatic Victory? Getting the requisite technologies is the name of the game for either one.

To me, every other civ in the game has a UA with is situational. Babylon is the only civ with a truly universal UA.

Aside from the early Academy, Babylon's UA takes work to use effectively - sure, you're always going to be generating Great Scientists to some degree, so you can play by just playing as you normally would and getting a 50% bonus, but then there are many civs that just give you free bonuses for doing what you do anyway (including Korea). By that measure any civ has the flexibility to go for any victory type. But Babylon needs to focus on science and nothing but science to work to best effect - if you're just playing the same strategy with Babylon you'd play with Korea or the Maya, you're getting inferior GSes due to the lack of Babylonian beaker-boosters, albeit more of them, and those civs will overtake you.

And if you're only focusing on the free academy part of the UA, Babylon just looks like a less flexible version of the Maya with fewer GPs, a shorter-lived UU and no Pyramids, and only a slight speed bump.

This is why I downvoted Korea - just because of this poorly thought out loop. To use specialists, you must waste precious tiles which can be worked (if at this point your tiles are poor, means you don't have enough workers or you settled in a bad area). By using specialists you must lose some Food/Gold/Hammers tiles - which makes you produce and grow a bit slowly. This is bad because from rapid grow come more beakers!!!

There is one more very bad thing to it - the first 2 specialists you can allocate are in the Market and Amphitheater. This means you will start getting GA and GM points, and those 2 aren't the best GP openers.

Both points suggest you aren't using specialists effectively. Culture generation early is important - amphitheaters should usually be using specialists ASAP; they don't have to stay in the same building in the long run. And once you get to universities (which have 2 scientist slots compared with the 1 slot every other contemporary specialist building has), it becomes easy to manage specialists so that you can get the specialist bonuses without ever getting enough 'unwanted' GP points to produce GPs you don't want - since every GS makes that GA harder to reach, and GS points will accumulate more rapidly than GA points.

As for the tile production, a Korean non-scientist specialist, without the Rationalism specialist boost, produces as much science as 1 pop with a library, and does so all the time the city would otherwise be growing without adding a pop point. And usually you won't want to use specialists to replace workers on food tiles if you have a city focused on specialist production. Specialists can freely be reassigned to tiles for hammers or gold if needed, but your average specialist city wants food buildings, specialist buildings, and not much else.

 

[theguy8882]

An early small boost in science (with a scientist) is very situational. If you decide to focus on other things apart from science then it's an early advantage. But if you decide to focus on science from the beginning the great scientist will help you only when you discover writing, then you can forget about you UA.

That's ridiculous. How can a boost to great scientists be unhelpful in winning a science victory?

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

An early small boost in science (with a scientist) is very situational. If you decide to focus on other things apart from science then it's an early advantage. But if you decide to focus on science from the beginning the great scientist will help you only when you discover writing, then you can forget about you UA.

actually, its very situational when it ISN'T useful and that argument is quite hard to make. pottery to writing is a good start for any civ and flat-out awesome for Babylon. Settling that GS on easier difficulties is situational as by the time you get to research agreements you are probably a whole era ahead of most if not all of the other civs making the cost to fund them more expensive (combined with poorer civs because the difficulty is easier). on harder difficulties (Emperor+) there is really no reason at all not to go for the settled GS immediately, even if you have no plantation luxes around you. that GS rapidly speeds up the turns to archery for defense or mining/animal husbandry for the resources around you.

the ONLY time it is less useful is on the easier difficulties. their 50% GS bonus is always good. there is no reason to "forget" about it, even in a cultural VC.

 

[mintcandy]

GhostSalsa's votes

America 3
Arabia 27
Aztecs 20
Babylon 20
Byzantium 20
Carthage 23
China 24
Denmark 6
Egypt 8
England 18
Ethiopia 18
France 18
Greece 21
Inca 25
Iroquois 8
Japan 18
Korea 23
Maya 27
Mongolia 12
Netherlands 20
Ottoman Empire 18
Persia 15 - 2 = 13
Roman Empire 21
Russia 20 + 1 = 21
Siam 20
Songhai 6
Sweden 15

I really don't like upvoting or downvoting for the same civilization more than once...it seems more than a little vindictive.

This vote was a bit harder for me.

The downvote was surprising to me, because I actually like Persia's UU and UA. However, as a warmonger, I don't tend to have that many Golden Ages on the difficulty settings I play at, which effectively nullifies Persia's UA. Sorry, Darius.

The upvote was similarly surprising to me, considering that I don't often play Civ V as Catherine. I will admit that more than a little bit of the upvote is due to how much I wuved Catherine in Civ IV vanilla, but I've also been running into critical shortages of precious Iron in my recent forays as a warmonger...something that Catherine's UA will help address.

 

[DGDobrev]

Both points suggest you aren't using specialists effectively. Culture generation early is important - amphitheaters should usually be using specialists ASAP; they don't have to stay in the same building in the long run. And once you get to universities (which have 2 scientist slots compared with the 1 slot every other contemporary specialist building has), it becomes easy to manage specialists so that you can get the specialist bonuses without ever getting enough 'unwanted' GP points to produce GPs you don't want - since every GS makes that GA harder to reach, and GS points will accumulate more rapidly than GA points.

As for the tile production, a Korean non-scientist specialist, without the Rationalism specialist boost, produces as much science as 1 pop with a library, and does so all the time the city would otherwise be growing without adding a pop point. And usually you won't want to use specialists to replace workers on food tiles if you have a city focused on specialist production. Specialists can freely be reassigned to tiles for hammers or gold if needed, but your average specialist city wants food buildings, specialist buildings, and not much else.

I would love to debate this with you, but it seems we are playing under different game conditions. On Deity or Deity OCC the AI plays so aggressively, that you will find yourself surrounded from 2-3 directions (they get free 2nd settler) and you will barely have some place for a second city. To boot, AI Cities grow almost twice as fast as you do. Since you won't be able to build wonders, as AI steals them all from you (sometimes even being Rammesses with Marble, Monuments of the Gods pantheon and Aristocracy isn't freaking enough), I do not see much reason in planting GM's and GA's to get a few points out of them - it slows your other GP creation. Another problem is that you will never be able to win with a cultural victory, as the AI would have launched into space already - that usually happens around T280, sometimes even sooner, like between T250-T260. Even though I thoroughly agree that Korea would stay on par tech-wise for cultural victory, to accumulate culture for Utopia you would need 300 turns at least.

I am sorry I am keeping that incessant Deity and OCC talk going around, but this is how I judge a civ. If they can't beat the highest level, then it's missing something.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

America 1
Arabia 27
Aztecs 20
Babylon 21
Byzantium 20
Carthage 23
China 24
Denmark 6
Egypt 8
England 18
Ethiopia 18
France 18
Greece 21
Inca 25
Iroquois 8
Japan 18
Korea 23
Maya 27
Mongolia 12
Netherlands 20
Ottoman Empire 18
Persia 13
Roman Empire 21
Russia 21
Siam 20
Songhai 6
Sweden 15

Babylon's bowman are less valuable now but walls are more valuable now. On Immortal+ i find them necessary and quite awesome.

Sadly, the only reason Ive played America was to buy as many tiles as I can to get the achievement. Minutemen are nice but B17 are late enough that Ive never actually built one (because I dont finish the tile-buying games). +1 sight is very useful but not enough for an upvote.

 

[mintcandy]

Sadly, the only reason Ive played America was to buy as many tiles as I can to get the achievement. Minutemen are nice but B17 are late enough that Ive never actually built one (because I dont finish the tile-buying games).

Hahaha. Me too!

 

[OmniPotent42]

America 1
Arabia 27
Aztecs 20
Babylon 21
Byzantium 20
Carthage 23
China 24
Denmark 6
Egypt 8
England 18
Ethiopia 18
France 18
Greece 21
Inca 25
Iroquois 8
Japan 18
Korea 23
Maya 27
Mongolia 12
Netherlands 20
Ottoman Empire 18
Persia 14
Roman Empire 21
Russia 21
Siam 20
Songhai 6
Sweden 13

Persia is awesome!
I'm in a game right now with them, and even though I've only had one golden age their Immortals are great for early defense/barb hunting, much better than hoplites, anyway. Persia is a nicely rounded civ, because unless you capture and annex cities from the very start, Persia will guarantee you at least 1 golden age, and in the late game you will for sure have at least 2. Combine that with Chichen Itza and Freedom Finisher and you're looking at some golden times.
Combine that with the +1 movement and 10% combat strength during golden ages and you might be able to outdo China.

Sweden...just doesn't sync with any play style I know of. I guess you could war so much that you spawn tons of GG's that you can gift to city-states, but that's just too different from my normal play style. Sweden's UA also scales better on larger maps because of more potential allies, making me feel sad on smaller map sizes knowing I'll only get one friend out of the whole map. The UU's although are better, come around later than America's UU's.

 

[PhilBowles]

I would love to debate this with you, but it seems we are playing under different game conditions. On Deity or Deity OCC the AI plays so aggressively, that you will find yourself surrounded from 2-3 directions (they get free 2nd settler) and you will barely have some place for a second city.

I usually play on Immortal and only just played my first Deity game. I got 5 cities with no trouble (including prime sites with Old Faithful and GBR), and despite having three warmonger neighbours - Songhai, Aztecs and Ottomans - it was 1,000 AD before I had a war declared against me rather than vice versa. I happened to be playing Rome, but there was nothing in the set-up that I'm unfamiliar with from Immortal or that would obviously put Korea at a disadvantage.

To boot, AI Cities grow almost twice as fast as you do. Since you won't be able to build wonders, as AI steals them all from you (sometimes even being Rammesses with Marble, Monuments of the Gods pantheon and Aristocracy isn't freaking enough), I do not see much reason in planting GM's and GA's to get a few points out of them - it slows your other GP creation.

You missed what I was saying. You don't produce GAs or GMs unless you want them, you use the specialists to produce culture (in the case of artist specialists). You never need to accumulate enough points to produce any GP if you don't want to - even a temporary Korean specialist puts out a science boost you won't get from other civs. The point of specialists isn't to generate GPs, it's to produce extra science, culture, hammers etc. Hence managing them to ensure you minimise the 'undesired' GPs you produce while maximising the benefits from the specialists.

Another problem is that you will never be able to win with a cultural victory, as the AI would have launched into space already - that usually happens around T280,

Not relevant. Culture isn't only relevant for culture victory - if you go for a science victory, producing too little culture to complete Rationalism will screw you over, to take just one example. Using artists (not Great Artists) gets you quick policies while they're still cheap, putting you in a better position to grab the policies you need later in the game and complete the key trees for your victory condition.

I am sorry I am keeping that incessant Deity and OCC talk going around, but this is how I judge a civ. If they can't beat the highest level, then it's missing something.

OCC is irrelevant. It's one particular type of strategy, and as I noted in a past post it's pointless to participate in a 'which civ?' thread with the mentality that they must just suit one specific cookie-cutter strategy, since by design different civs favour different strategies. My experience so far with the two highest levels, where the received wisdom is that increasingly restrictive playstyles are required to succeed, suggests that this is probably an artefact of the way people have learned to beat these levels rather than anything else. Beating Deity is a reasonable condition to set, but I know for a fact that Korea can do this reliably if it survives any early rush (one of my friends did so just a few days ago).

Your argument in favour of Babylon as a better science civ than Korea per se is purely circular if you set the premise that the civ has to be specialised for OCC, and then point out (correctly) that Babylon is a better OCC science civ than Korea or the Maya. No one would dispute the latter premise, but it doesn't follow that because it's a better OCC civ it's a better civ given realistic play requirements.

 

[on7green]

America 1
Arabia 28 (+1)
Aztecs 20
Babylon 21
Byzantium 20
Carthage 23
China 24
Denmark 6
Egypt 8
England 18
Ethiopia 18
France 16 (-2)
Greece 21
Inca 25
Iroquois 8
Japan 18
Korea 23
Maya 27
Mongolia 12
Netherlands 20
Ottoman Empire 18
Persia 14
Roman Empire 21
Russia 21
Siam 20
Songhai 6
Sweden 13

Plus 1 for Arabia. Firaxis made this a civilization whose UA, UB and UU are all in line with a great desert trading civilization. With standard luxes and a bazaar. Did I mention gold? And more gold from trade network? And Petra wonder? All of that with camel archers perfectly built for desert defense. Expand and become rich beyond your dreams.

Minus 1 for Nappy. I never ever trust him. Signs a RA and then DOW next turn? Then a Peace Treaty as soon as his little war turns sour followed up by all friendly again? A bipolar dude. Hate it when he shows up next door.