Phoenician harbors give +50% production to Settlers (and naval units). i know you haven't played them, but if you are going to argue a civ it trash you should at least read the description...
Dido Terrible
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Phoenician harbors give +50% production to Settlers (and naval units). i know you haven't played them, but if you are going to argue a civ it trash you should at least read the description...
Kind of on the cusp of thread necromancy here, but it seems the argument was that because you had to unlock the tech to build harbors, this created inefficiency. In this assertion, Bronze Working and The Wheel are vital techs for settler generation (don't ask me why).
It's a classic dichotomy. People concerned with power rankings for the most part only consider civ's strong or top-tier if they help you play the game in what is accepted as the optimal way. So, if a civ is designed a civ in a way that takes players off the well-worn paths, it's going to have haters. Right now, coastal cities are considered sub-optimal, so Phoenicia has an uphill battle.
Not to mention bonus movespeed effectively amounts to even more bonus production relative to other civs.
Context is important and Phoenicia's essentially guaranteed Free Inquiry means that Harbors are better Campuses til the midgame unless you have godlike mountain ranges.
And again, the fact that people underestimate the impact of capital switching means that Phoenicia's uphill battle has more to do with peoples inability to grasp the impact of indirect bonuses.
Archon_Wing
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Well, that's what a power ranking is, not a ranking about what civ is more fun. If you start adding that in, then you're going to have a lot of subjective nonsense on top of things that are already subjective. I consider Nubia to be a really boring and badly designed civ--same with Macedon; just feels like they made them extra strong to make more money-- and can barely finish games with them, but I am not going to say they are anything but really good.
Now, what is true is that a power ranking for island maps for example would be different, and what happens is that people only play one map or settings and now that part-- there is no reason to argue that one set of settings is inherently better than another. But even in those cases, there should be a degree of logical consistency. That being said, there is some pretty bad reasoning in this thread.
One look at the title tells you that the issue isn't that a civ isn't top tier based on a very arbitrary set of settings (typically Pangaea around here), but blatant hyperbole.
For example, people generally grossly overestimate the (relative) impact of uniques on a civilization's trajectory. The main reason ancient era bonuses are so wildly popular is that they are the most visible in terms of proportional impact on a fresh game, but later era bonuses can be just as effective to your overall win condition.
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Right, all good and well, but I'm not talking about fun, I'm talking about directing contempt at a civ because it isn't handing you an easy button and acting like all civ's should be designed for early rushes like Nubia and Macedon. Phoenicia isn't an early-rush monster, but that's not the same thing as saying it sucks.
MarigoldRan
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Phoenicia is even worse than Mali. At least with Mali you're guaranteed religious settlements early.
Exactly how many civs is Phoenicia better than? I'd argue both China and Egypt are better than Phoenicia. The only civ that I can think that's worse is Georgia and Khmer, but those are considered the two worst civs in the game.
Exactly how many civs is Phoenicia better than? I'd argue both China and Egypt are better than Phoenicia. The only civ that I can think that's worse is Georgia and Khmer, but those are considered the two worst civs in the game.
You forgot Georgia...
But then again, I'd say Georgia's hill bias is far better than Phoenicea's (very strong) coastal bias. Even Khmer's river bias is somewhat useful and not detrimental...
So yes, all things considered, they are worse than Georgia...
If they had given Dido a lake bias instead (so that you still have space to build harbors without settling absolutely bad locations, she would be better but as things stand I have to say she's at the very bottom.
Archon_Wing
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But it is a fair analysis, as much as people may not like it. There's much evidence to show that rushes do matter a disproportionate amount given generic settings. The point of a tier list is about optimal play and by its nature very narrow.
I mean yes there are other factors besides rushes and I myself don't think Dido is anywhere near the worst. But you really have to counter those points with practical arguments. Terms like easy buttons are nice memes but they don't actually contribute anything.
It goes the other way around too, there are quite a few civs that are frequently touted as weak but I honestly think one has to be willfully blind and deliberately ignore some blatantly obvious facts. But I can say with utmost confidence that I can place together an argument as a rebuttal rather than debating about how to play the game. As in, I can just flat out say people are wrong. and not feel bad about it at all.
We don't know what settings OP plays on; but I'm not even sure who plays on Pangaea. That's a bit unfounded actually.
Yes, it is probably overestimated but it's not just because it's most visible. It's because of how snowballing works in general in strategy games. If you miss a settling spot by 2 turns because someone took it first, that's all it takes to for a massive setback.
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Sure. So can I.
Fact of the matter is, not sure where you've been, but I and others have pointed out practical applications for Phoenicia's suite. Contrary to what you're contending, practical arguments haven't proven effective because they bounce off of rigid assumptions that close minds to the notion that a civ can prove effective without conforming to accepted tropes about, say, what techs should always be bee-lined, what government you should always adopt, what policy cards you should always slot, what pantheon should always be taken, what governor should be your first draft, and son. So much for "fair analysis".
How to play the game does then matter as more than a meme, because the assumptions about what makes a civ "suck" are predicated on dogmatic notions of how to play the game, and no traction seems possible until a wedge can driven into those biases.
MarigoldRan
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If Phoenicia is not "bad", then you're going to have to list civs worse than Phoenicia.
Georgia and Khmer and perhaps England or Spain come to mind. But those are considered the worst three or four in the game. Any others?
Georgia and Khmer and perhaps England or Spain come to mind. But those are considered the worst three or four in the game. Any others?
As I already replied earlier on this sentiment, if that is your frame of mind, then the onus is on you to establish what constitutes "better" or "worse".
Are you assuming, for instance, every game is played at deity level on a fractal map? Are civ's "better" or "worse" because you are trying to win the game in 100 turns at normal speed?
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MarigoldRan
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Is this one of those "everyone is a winner" arguments?
Well, every civ can win, because Civ is not a difficult game for most human players. Like I've pointed out before, carpenters and their tools.....
But putting that aside, if you are going treat "better" or "worse" as if they objective rather than subjective qualities, then some scoping for ranking seems to be warranted.
If I say things like "red is better than green, but not as good as yellow", then without me establishing what my criteria for such blanket statements--well, it just sounds like nonsense, doesn't it? And not just because we all know orange rules, let's be serious.
And saying "red is considered better than green" isn't a big improvement. Who is this considering arbiter who has been endowed with the authority to make such determinations? Is it some imagined consensus? Better to have you, the creator of the "civ sucks" threads actually establish what you standards are for quality.
But putting that aside, if you are going treat "better" or "worse" as if they objective rather than subjective qualities, then some scoping for ranking seems to be warranted.
If I say things like "red is better than green, but not as good as yellow", then without me establishing what my criteria for such blanket statements--well, it just sounds like nonsense, doesn't it? And not just because we all know orange rules, let's be serious.
And saying "red is considered better than green" isn't a big improvement. Who is this considering arbiter who has been endowed with the authority to make such determinations? Is it some imagined consensus? Better to have you, the creator of the "civ sucks" threads actually establish what you standards are for quality.
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MarigoldRan
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Wow. It is one of those "everyone is a winner" arguments. Look, people have tier lists and elimination games in this forum for a reason. I'm thinking of starting an elimination thread for which civilization stinks the most.
This exhibits a simplistic close-mindedness that characterizes most of your responses. You do so to side-step the ask placed on you to at some degree quantify "better" or "worse". Which gives the distinct impression that for all of your complaining, you haven't actually reasoned anything out. Rather, the impression is you rank based on arbitrary gut checks.
If you're going with lists, then that is jumping on a train of consensus opinion. That is to say, if most people are of the opinion that red is better, then there must be something to it. Of course, many of the people trashing civ's do so without playing them. They just look over their lists and snort their nose based on their own biases, or in some cases indoctrinated biases.
Let's say you load a few games and if your starting locations aren't good, you can decide without any actual veracity that the civ always has bad starting locations. If you get surprise-warred by Gilgamesh in a game, you can quickly arrive at the notion that the civ sucks because it has to defend against early rushes. You see Khmer appear at the bottom of a tier-list, you can conclude that it must be so because a civ that focuses on building aqueducts is terrible and nobody bothers with religious victories anyway.
If you start such a thread, are you going to actually establish some criteria to try to control such sloppiness?
MarigoldRan
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How about an elimination thread to see which civ sucks the most? This is probably the most "objective" way of doing it.
Archon_Wing
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This is a strategy game. Not all options are equal, and yes, that means some are worse than others. I think we've reached a point where no civ is that bad, but I also don't object to people claiming some civs or strategies are inferior to others. And yes, that means some beelines and governments are better. Yes, some beelines are not the best in some scenarios, but even in those cases there can be a right or wrong answer. For example, building a monument first is never an optimal move. However, that doesn't mean there aren't fringe maps where building a monument is actually a good idea. It's still not something you'll tell a new player to do, or one you'd tell when discussing optimal strategy. You should take Religious Settlements in 90%+ of cases; don't blame me-- blame Firaxis for bad balancing. I've tried to make a LOT of arguments about River Goddess, but at the end of the day, I will conclude Religious Settlements is going to be the default pick in most cases for players that want to optimize their play.
It is entirely possible that some people are just incapable of using a civ due to a certain mindset. There are quite a few civs which I don't think are weak, even though I can't get results for them. But there are also cases where a civ is just weak and no matter what you cannot squeeze the numbers out of that. Stuff like R&F England and release Canada are examples of hard to defend cases. Though ironically, MarigoldRan here, actually convinced me Canada is actually not as crap as I thought, heh. So much for a stringent meta, huh?
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