Does African Union Suck?

TL;DR

Does African Union suck, at least relative to Kavithan Protectorate?

LONG VERSION

I just got horribly crushed in a game (1v1). It was actually against an inexperienced player (a friend) who just bought the game. He only played once before - against the AI.

He selected KP. I wanted to try something different so I selected African Union. The game wasn't remotely close from the mid-point on.

I'm trying to figure out why I lost so horribly. It isn't that he's some strategic or tactical genius (not saying he's dumb by any means, but he played about average for a guy who doesn't know how to play the game). It wasn't that I played terribly or made a bunch of dumb mistakes. It was something else, I just don't know what.

My first strong suspicion is that African Union sucks, certainly at least relative to the KP. This is my first go to theory.

My second theory is that he may have had an excellent starting position and access to good lands, where as I had a crappy starting position and access to sh!t.

Anyway, does AU suck?

Thanks.

 

AU is largely considered to be a very powerful faction. Artist colonists plus free old earth relics would cause their borders to expand nearly as fast if not faster than KP early on. Increased growth means more pop which really drives yields of every type.

 

African Union is by most considered to be the best sponsor in the game. For single player at least. I think it's the same for multiplayer though.

So no, African Union doesn't suck, you just got beaten by a newbie. Loser. (Just taunting. )

 

Yeah it can really depend on the type of map and starting position too, as well as how you played the early game. Did you expand aggressively? What virtues did you pick? Did he spam Academies while you did not? Lots of other factors are in play.

 

Nothing about this particular game made any kind of sense to me.

Did I expand aggressively? Well, as aggressively as I could without seriously impacting my health. Yet he expanded more aggressively yet at the same time kept higher health (yes, I researched health techs, and built health buildings non-stop).

I picked farmers or extra food or whatever it was in my initial loadout, went down the green virtue path (prosperity?) that gives you growth and what not, and also researched a lot of farming upgrades (ended up being a purity player). Yet his cities had much more population than mine. Hell, the cities he planted at mid-game ended up outstripping my capital in growth. Yet in loading up the end game, I see he went almost nothing but military virtues. In other words, on paper I had everything as far as growth is concerned going for me, yet he killed me in growth.

I could keep going on and on with the analysis. None of it makes sense to me. I had seriously concluded that AU must be sh!t, but if you guys say they're great, I guess I'll have to chalk it up to bad starting position and bad lands, or figure out some other explanation.

 

African Union is considered to be the best civ and OP. The game is pretty luck based in its current state so it's very possible that some one can gain huge advantages without doing anything exceptional.

Getting 80 hammer excavations early, getting titanium for hammers, getting free affinity. This stuff makes a huge difference and comes down to luck mainly.

If he got titanium and you didn't that's a huge difference in production.

 

How did he win?
Food is not really the most important. You need to focus on science.
You do need to go for the affinity points and you need to get there first

I think picking artisans to start is the best choice to get as much culture as possible.

And I always pick the AU They are the best

 

Also, Industry is generally better than Prosperity. And Might can actually lead to somewhat decent victory times, too, as it gives you affinity bonuses. It's not at all comparable to Industry as your main tree, but that could be part of the explanation why he won before you - he just needed less affinity techs.

 

I had a debate not long ago about who can expand better, the KP or AU, and though I find them pretty similar, have to give the AU the upper hand. This is mainly due to the free relic in every city that they built, which combined with artists can match KP's expansion.
As for your game, unless you buff your culture output, I don't see how you can expand faster than the KP, and if what you're saying is true, you invested too much in food and less in culture, so the KP had their outposts turn quicker to cities that in turn expanded much faster than yours, and that combined with the extra points in affinity provided by the might virtue, gave him the upper hand both in military and infrastructure.
At least that's my read on it.

 

Why is it important to expand?
If there are really good tiles you can buy a couple if you need to

 

BE is a mass expand game. To be competitive in MP you really want to start off by laying down 4 - 5 cities as soon as possible and get trade routes up.

Going tall like in Civ 5 is not the best strategy in this game. Being negative in health is still not that big a deal and you can overcome negative health later by spamming biowells.

You can easily grow 2 or 3 cities to size 10 for the 2nd trade route while having 6 cities.

More cities = more science, production, energy etc.. More = Better

 

I agree with you CM
But I think vahout was talking about grabbing tiles with your cities

 

It's not only that. KP can have their cities set up from outposts way faster than any other faction.
Others can use virtues and trade to close the gap, but so can the KP to stay ahead.

 

I still do not understand why grabbing tiles is such an advantage.
I can see that faster outpost growth may be helpful. But I do not think it can outcount getting a free OER? It is good to send workers with your colonists so that you can get some production tiles developed for your outpost so it can quickly build health buildings I think so I am not in a rush to see the cities come especially in the beginning when health is tough

 

KP has their outposts earlier (all but the first one that is, if the "traditional" Artists-Free-Settler strategy is used - I still think the new Pioneers are stronger though), but they still lack behind as they need to build the monument, which Africa doesn't. Overall, Africa just outshines KP in every aspect of the game but long-term tile grabbing - which is not as important if one plays with academies only.

 

Well, the KP outpost becomes a city much quicker. This means that it will starting being useful, generating science, culture and producing things quicker as well as grow to size two quicker. It's possible that the KP outpost could be more than half done with an OER by the time the african city is finally up and giving you one for free.

This can balance it out a bit. And the KP city wasn't just making an OER it was generating science and energy as well as growing while the African city was a useless outpost still.

 

Keep in mind the changes of the new patch, specifically the trade route nerf.

1) Trade routes are limited to one per city in the early game. KP has a large advantage in that it doesn't suck up all of your trade routes early on trading with outposts to get them to grow faster. Production-wise, the free old earth relic doesn't make up for this.

2) Gold is more essential for buying things with fewer trade routes (which was the easiest way to get a bunch of food and production).

3) Africa's +10% growth bonus matters less with less food from trade routes.

4) Early wonders are less viable. Africa's strong early game was always suited towards building an early wonder or two. This is irrelevant now.

 

How much quicker? 7 turns? Is that going to make up for it
It takes 40 hammers to build an OER?

I do not see why? I never saw AU as a wonder builder

Should it not matter more? The 10% was never for the food you got from trade (I believe)

 

African Union does not use trade routes for outposts either (except for the first one). It just gets their cities ~5-6 turns later each but then don't have to spend 40 Production on that Relic and get a ton of free culture (if you build the Depot first) or a bit of free culture and a ton of additional food/production (if you build the relic first) in exchange of the food they lose in those 5-6 turns.

So? KP does not have any gold bonuses other than maybe "getting that tile with a Strategic Resource on it a turn earlier while the outpost grows".

Unless I'm completely wrong here the food from trade routes does not count towards any growth bonuses but is instead added after that. So with less population added from trade routes the 10% food (not growth) has become a bit more important in theory. Not that it matters though, as there's just no way to be in positive health in the phase of the game where that food would be useful. The only reason why people pick AU is the free relic in each city.

It has always been irrelevant unless you wanted to go for purity + superfarms. Doesn't change anything about the general strength of AU in any more generic strategy.

But if anything, then KP has gained strength from (once again 8)) the Pioneer Loadout. That may actually be something to play around with - as the slow outpost growth that AU gets when ignoring the free settler (and thus the outpost growth speed) creates quite a harsh production bottleneck around turn ~70-80 or so. KP MIGHT be able to fill that phase of the game better by having bigger cities.

 

A few more things. He brought architects with his loadout, and he didn't even start with the pioneering technology, which I consider to be a mistake.

I thought everyone would say AU sucks (in polls on steam and what not they were the least played faction). So... I guess I don't know what happened. I'd say that maybe I'm just a sucky player, except that he spent most turns of the game asking me how does this work, or how does he do such-and-such, so he should have been suckier.

Can someone point me to strats on how to play the factions (KP, AU, etc)? Which ones are popular and why? Etc?

Thanks for all the feedback and help.