Civilization

[peter grimes]

Easy there, Union! I learned everything I know from those who came before me - like General_W's turn updates for MIA

We can really have some fun in these games, nerdy as we are

 

[Domino369]

I've never played with an expansive or financial civ :S
Also to add: we don't necessarily have to choose from those leaders. It's just based off of what traits we prefer. (sry, my vote is still with Churchill)

 

[peter grimes]

I was just reading Sisiutil's Leader Traits Guide, and I realized that thus far we've only been looking at one half of the equation. I feel really dense for not mentioning this earlier - especially since it seems so obvious now!

When considering what Leader we'd like to play, we are naturally led to consider what type of game we will be forced to play, given the leader's Traits, Unique Buildings, and Unique Units. If we want to have an easily rockin' economy, it seems a no-brainer to look for a Financial leader. More commerce = more science = faster techs = advantage. If we want a leg up in waging war, go for Aggressive and Charismatic. We'll be able to bring higher-promoted units against one of the other teams, tipping the odds in our favor. Seems pretty clear.

But we're not looking at the other side of the coin.

If we go Financial and Philosophical, and our neighbor is Aggressive and Charismatic, we'll be forced to eye them very warily. We will expect that our neighbors want to bring war against us, and because we aren't protective, we'll have a tough time fighting them off. In fact, we're going to be downright scared to death. Likely, we'll spend many more hammers on defensive units, at the expense of buildings that would leverage our traits: Libraries, Universities, Wonders, etc.

What has happened here? The Aggressive civ has forced the neighbor to play in a manner that undercuts his strengths. By choosing certain traits, the neighbor has forced us to play defensively, and therefore our potential strength is diminished.

The traits we choose will directly affect how our neighbors react to us. Likewise, the traits our neighbor opt for will determine, to a certain extent, the way we play our game.

So in considering the traits, perhaps it is too simplistic to simply say "What traits do we want?"

Maybe a better way to approach this is "What traits in our neighbor would we find so compelling as to make us change the way we play?" In this, there is power. If we choose to play as a leader that causes a neighbor to be wary, then we will have the advantage when it comes to negotiations. Imagine: A financial / spiritual civ in alliance with an aggressive / charismatic civ: One civ researches, the other defends and attacks! Brains and Braun

Obviously we can't know who we will be close to us, let alone what traits they'll have! But this other side of the coin is something we should certainly consider. If we're financial, and our neighbors are financial, we may lose an opportunity for a stronger position.

In fact, I no longer agree with my earlier ranking of traits

 

[Domino369]

Lol, a lil contradictory xD tho I am myself like that sometimes
As I have found in normal games, they go fast. So fast in fact that economies are extremely easy to build. Using financial may be nice, but I don't really see the benefits :S I tried to pair up the traits that I thought would be very beneficial, but more importantly, I want to choose a civ that has a definite advantage over the others at some point and I really see this in the British Civ (or more importantly Churchill) With them, we can not only get those 16 atk redcoats over the 14 atk riflemen, but we also get the Stock Exchange instead of banks which is 65% commerce instead of 50%. In a sence, it could be considered a supplement to the loss of the Financial trait. Also, if we become the dominating civ, we could be heavily self-dependent because of our versatility.
The way I see it is that the Financial and Expansive traits are heavily early game.
This is still open for discussion tho

 

[peter grimes]

When you say normal games go fast, are you referring to Game Speed = Normal?

For what it's worth, it's really important to understand how a game against 4 other human teams is going to play out - especially with the level of players that are around. Every little advantage will be leveraged to the fullest. There will be nothing 'fast' about this game, at least in a length-of-time sense.

However, when it comes down to it, traits are simply that: Advantages. Some of the traits are more powerful than others in a certain situation. But all of the traits are strong in some way. What we need to do is narrow down the list of possibilities and arrive at a combination of traits (and UUs and UBs) that we feel will give us the most overall advantage in the game.

Notice how I'm no longer advocating for any particular traits

I'm still reading up on stuff, since I've never played BtS

 

[Domino369]

Yes, I'm refering to gamespeed normal

 

[Rantamplanzzz]

Hi all,

unless we have a experienced player in multiplayer games (in wich case we should listen very carefully to what he has to say) i would say that we just choose a strategy and got for it.

¿it works? great

¿it doesnt? we learn for the next one.

And for explaining my choosing of traits:

I have chossed first financial, the reason is becouse financial is the most helpfull trait for waring at the start of the game, you cant sustain a decent army and be able to research anything without financial.

then agresive protective and imperialistics are the next 3 more usefull war traits.

What i have learned from civ is that war is the most dangerous weapon you can handle (more than research) -->any army with enough catapults and decent upgrades can beat any other army with only one generation od technology difference.

For this aseveration keep in mind that a catapult, even damaged deals 30 damage to a stack of units, way much more than any other unit until you discover modern tanks.

I have learnt that war si the only way (or at least the easiest) to win a game in inmortal/deity dificult (yeah ima war leader ).

Anyway since we are ateam ill support any strategy that we chosse to follow.

My sugestion is:

Chosse how we want to win --> ¿diplomatic?¿cultural?¿domination?¿military?¿space?

Then chosse how we want to play --> ¿war?¿peace?¿diplomacy with a war empire?¿aliance with research empire?¿wonders (keep in mind we are only 5 players, we are going to have meny chances of building wonders)?¿a lot of city expansion?

Then chosse best leader suited for that.

In my opinioin chossing wich traits we want in the elader wont work, becouse each of us are chossing their traits for different reasons, i chossed them for waring, someone for researching and other people for diplomacy or expansion, best chances is that the mix will suit nothing.

Only my opinion anyway ill acept wathever we chosse (method of chossing the stretegy/leader and ingame playin) and do my best for helping.

my 2 cents

 

[Hummel]

This is a mulitplayer-game. All multiplayer-games and DGs I played were won by military-victory or space-races (rare victory with the apostolic palace as a lucky punch). And the winner was in most times the tech-leader. To become the tech-leader there are two key-strategies. Fast (peaceful) expansion and an expanding economy. So don't underrate the trait 'expansive' - this is a catpult at the beginning.

 

[peter grimes]

Like Hummel said, the previous MTDGs were all won by militaristic methods. The exception, the first cIV MTDG, was won Diplomatically. Epsilon had eliminated 2 teams from the game, and was pummelling a 4th. All the teams agreed that we wanted to see the game through to the end, but not have the game take another several months just so that Epsilon could achieve the Domination limit or Conquest. So we all agreed to vote for Epsilon in the UN.

So yes, it is true that warmongering must be a consideration. Even if we don't want to go on a war of conquest, causing a neighbor to think we want a war of conquest could be just as beneficial.


So how to proceed? Perhaps we should all list our top 4 leaders, and then we'll see which leader is most popular?

If we were to determine a leader by victory condition, then I would be inclined to go with a Space Race. It suits my builder's temperament

 

[DaveShack]

The settings for trading / brokering make a huge difference. If trading is off, then financial becomes even more important.

Map settings can also be important, if it's a water map and we want a strong navy. The Dutch and Portugese have naval UUs which give ocean travel at an earlier tech.

Also to consider: duplicate leaders are allowed, and it's also possible to turn on unrestricted leaders and play mismatched leaders and civs.

 

[JoeyDawt]

well we should find out if unrestricted leaders has been turned on or off seeing as everyone seems to agree that we want the british civ if for nothing else their redcoats and their mid-game strength, also another thing I was considering was a multiplayer game with some of the people here on the team to test each other out and see how quickly I get killed off just a thought I haven`t played multiplayer before

 

[Sullla]

JoeyDawt, from the Game Settings thread:

Assume that any setting not listed here will be turned off for the game. Thus you won't see "No City Razing" or "Always War/Peace" or anything like that.

You can infer from this that "Unrestricted Leaders" will not be turned on for this game. Only the default leaders and civs.

 

[HUSch]

My vote is for industrious leader, i`m looking most to Huayna, the worst of him is the UU, but with terrace a very good building and the cheap forge; he has some good points.

 

[peter grimes]

I'll be revising my wish list later on today...

I'm focusing more on the UBs now, trying to learn the advantages of each.

 

[peter grimes]

Alrighty. I've spent some more time going over the options, and I've also read up a bit on some of the game mechanics that I'm not familiar with.

One of the things that really stood out was that Courthouses grant espionage benefits. So I took a look at all the civs that offer Unique Buildings that are modified courthouses:

Aztecs Montezuma = Aggressive/Spiritual, Mysticism & Hunting, Jaguar (sword), Altar (court)

HRE Charlemagne = Imperial/Protect, Myst & Hunt, Landsknecht (pike), rathaus

Sumer Gilgamesh = Creat/Protect, Wheel & Agric, Vulture (axeman), ziggurat

The Lansknecht is a really powerful unit - 6 , +100% against both mounted AND melee
However, the rathaus costs the same to build as a regular courthouse - 120 , whereas the ziggurat only costs 90
Sadly, the protective trait means that nobody would really want to mess with us anyway, so we'd have to go looking for trouble to take advantage of them

Of this list, I'd go with Sumeria. Creative is a huge benefit in the early game, and their axemen are beefier against melee units: attacking at 8 instead of 7.5. In this case, we're safer later in the game because of the protective. But I'm still not convinced that protective is useful in MP.

In addition, none of the civs that have jazzy courthouses start with Mining, which I think is the most important starting tech. The sooner we can get Bronze Working, the sooner we can start whipping!

This led me to consider the civs that start with Mining. Boy, there were a lot of them!
13, in fact - with a total of 21 leaders

So I narrowed the field by selecting Financial, Expansive, Spiritual, Charismatic, and Imperialistic, and Organized - the top contenders from our earlier poll. Results:
Hannibal Carthage: Financial/Charismatic, Fishing & Mining
Asoka India: Organized/Spiritual, Mining & Mysticism
Mansa Musa Mali: Financial/Spiritual, Mining & Wheel
Pacal II Mayan: Expansive /Financial, Mining & Mysticism

Carthage has the jazzy harbor, and great UU.
Asoka has the fast worker and jazzy jail
Mansa has the skirmisher and jazzy forge (a great UB, btw)
Pacal II has the Holkan (spear) and jazzy coliseum.

I guess the problem that I have with the Protective trait is that it's only good if someone comes after us. But wouldn't we rather be the team leading the attack, rather than the team absorbing it?? So Aggressive or Charismatic would make more sense.

The one civ that I keep coming back to hasn't made any of these lists yet. The Vikings. They are a rock solid choice: Financial and Aggressive, the UB is a lighthouse, the unit is a maceman with amphibious attack. If we don't have a watery world - we don't completely lose out on the UU's strengths like we would if we were Dutch or Portuguese.

Actually, the weakness of both Carthage and Vikings is the Unique Building: a harbor for Hannibal, and a lighthouse for Ragnar. But if there's no coast, we can't build the buildings, and Carthage's extra happy face gets wasted. That's a big setback. At least if we go with a Jazzy Courthouse, the building will certainly get built.

I'd really like to hear some arguments against Carthage or Vikings, and please offer up other ideas (with your line of reasoning) for leaders I haven't considered, or even one I have considered and ruled out. I feel like we're not making much progress on this - and it's the most important decision we have to make right now

 

[DaveShack]

Someone has a UB with +2 and +2 . Don't remember which one it is...

I had always discounted the benefits of growing population fast and large, but it's really paying off in the current pitboss I'm playing in. Something with a guaranteed bump to the cap would be big, in case we're resource starved.

Also it's helpful to get an early religion, for the gold once the shrine is built and for the boosts. So starting with Mysticism can be good in some cases.

 

[peter grimes]

OK, I tracked down the +2 & +2 building: The Ottoman's Hammam, which replaces the Aqueduct, for the same cost.

I also plugged in Mining and Mysticism into the calculator, sorting by Financial:
Wang Kon Korea: Financial/Protective, Mining & Mysticism
UB: university that gives +35%, UU: catapult w/ +50% anit-melee
Pacal II Mayan: Expansive/Financial, Mining & Mysticism
UB: colosseum w/ +3, UU: resourceless Spear immune to 1st strikes

Pacal keeps popping up in these analyses...

 

[Domino369]

I don't really like aggressive civs, mainly cuz it's only a +10% atk bonus they get (combat I). I'm still with Churchill because the Protective trait is not only useful for defending old cities, but also newly captured cities. Not to mention that the Drill promotions eventually lead to blitz promotion (tho alot more usefull on marathon because you can't build a million units as fast as you can in Normal, at least until late game)

Also, the Redcoat is a 14 atk with a 25% atk vs gunpowder units. Grenadiers, their worst enemy lol, have 12 atk with a 50% against riflemen. It would be a 17.5 atk to 18 atk respectively. Thus, especially while defending because of the automatic City Garrison bonus, they easily gain the upper hand. They already have a bonus vs horse-back units so they can be an unstoppable force in the mid-late game.

My vote is still with Churchill, as with the vikings, they get easily countered by Longbowmen and Crossbowmen.

Pacal becomes obsolete too fast...
Also, Catapults/Trebuchets/etc... have a limited amount of damage they can inflict (unless this is just in RoM) so they can't kill.

 

[Tinkerbell]

I often play random, so I have to determain a strategie depending on who I get. Usually fun, sometimes disappointing and in a rare occation an unexpected new game.

So random would be fine with me, of any other (which will be random to me).

 

[Unionfield]

I often play random, so I have to determain a strategie depending on who I get. Usually fun, sometimes disappointing and in a rare occation an unexpected new game.

So random would be fine with me, of any other (which will be random to me).

We can't go with random, we have to pick a leader.