That thread was Vanilla or GnK where Camels were much worse than they are now..
Well one thing is for sure, both of you have more war experience then I do! The only person I've ever completed conquest with is Zulu. I've done early rushes, I've crushed neighbors with Jag rushes, and taken cities, but full-out world conquest I rarely pursue. Sounds fun the way you guys talk about it...I may try it more often!
Anyway, regardless of which UU is better in the above discussion, what would be the list of top-tier 5 warmongers in both of you guys' opinions? I assume all of them need to have a decent midgame UU to work well on Deity and helpful UA is not bad either. Where do you rank the Zulu? I found their 50% xp increase to be insane. I had so many imp with all buffalo promos, blitz AND march that upgraded straight to rifles as I took the last few capitals. I remember taking out infantry with those rifles no problem due to all the flanking bonuses and double attacks, and even new ones got there quickly. How powerful would you rank the Japananese Bushido ability? Seems like it could really turn the tide at points, there are many situations where I was about to take a city and the damage on units made me miss it by a turn and lose a guy or two. But maybe I just don't build enough units to cycle in and out.
So a list purely based on warmongering ability then? I reckon for Pangea?
My top 5 picks would probably be something like this:
1. Huns
2. China
3. Mongols
4. Zulu
5. Arabia
HM: Persia, Inca, England
Huns are probably uncontested. They easily top every chart when it comes to victory times. Horse Archers not needing Horses and Rams being ressource free means they can perform very well even without any strategic ressources or a bad start location. Probably the easiest pick of them all.
Picking China over Mongols was hard, because in my opinion Mongols will almost always get better finishing times if everything goes right. But clearly if you are lacking horses or if the game goes on beyond Industrial the Mongols fall off very hard so I think China is just a little better. The additional strength bonus from GG is huge.
Mongols are probably no surprise either. They have the second highest cleaning potential, if you start with Horses and little jungle/mountain/hill terrain for your opponents it is feasible to clean maps at around T150 or T160, but that's already a lot of "ifs". Mongols have a lot over Arabs in terms of warfare: Khan healing your blocker units is very strong, Khan being able to GG bomb easier is useful, the additional movement for Horsemen, Knights and Cav is a neat feature.
Zulu were also very tough. I almost put them over the Mongols, not because of the Impi but because Zulu get real fast Logistics on Crossbows and get more use out of Barracks/Armory than any other Civ does. The maintenance reduction is also huge, as is the flanking bonus, ranged damage reduction and movement from Ikanda. People tend to forget that Swords and Longswords also get those promotions.
Arabia is my last pick. This was an easy one. Generally you have only 2 useful bonuses for warmongering: The Camel Archer and additional Oil in the lategame. If you do everything right the game should never last beyond Artillery, so the Oil is a very insignificant bonus. The Bazaar is way less useful for domination games since you mostly only get 3gpt per lux. The trade route buffs are marginal at best.
If the HM aren't obvious enough:
Persia not for the Immortal but for the +1 movement which is incredible for Siege/stepping onto hills/jungle/forest and shooting.
Inca for the reduced road maintenance which can easily accumulate to 50gpt or something ridic like that in the lategame. Faster movement on hills is insanely good throughout the game. Slinger is meh at best, sometimes worse than an actual archer..
England only for the Longbow since we are talking Pangea. You
can use Frigates on Pangea and esp. on Oval, but I think Xbow might still be faster.
As for Bushido, it's really bad sadly. The way it works is that once a unit is down to 1% it does 50% less damage, not 99%. So really Bushido is a meager boost most of the time, much like that Autocracy tenet.
I don't know if this is 100% it so please correct me if I'm wrong. I read this on here, too, I always thought Bushido was really strong