Hello, i have just finnished playing with each of the new civs in the expansion and would like to share my thoughts on the changes by recounting the games i played
the settings for each game where:
Immortal (7)
Quick
Pangaea
Small (6)
this is a fairly comfortable setting for me, it often throws up some exciting games and lets me experiment
celts
my first win of the expansion, i had started a quick warmup game with egypt but failed to found a religion in time and gone on to lose quickly.
i knocked the difficulty down to emperor for this one game with celts and i was quite happy to get a free religion from the celtic passive. ofcourse i didnt know what to do with it, i took mosques and anything that gave happiness then tried to rush the americans with the new composite bowman unit, the new ai will focus any mele units that threaten to take their cities and so i couldnt complete it cleanly.
definatly felt weak after making most of my pushes with crossbow men in vanillia civ but i was able to keep him on one city with early scouts and then strangle him to death. the pictish warrior didnt feature much in my game, i just made one to pillage. i didnt realise that its strength 11 with no bonus vrs mounted which makes it about as strong as a swordsman for less hammers, had i realised it was like an ainchent era mowhawk, i would have used them for a big 2 or 3 city rush.
after taking american land, i was faced with a narrow land bridge into terrotory belonging to the remaining 4 civs so i spent everything building up my religion and the rest of the game trying to force my religion on the unbelivers. having mosques, i had more faith that i could spend but 'religious texts' as an enhancer (+68% faster religion spread) when i was so far removed from the action felt kind of weak and i gave up in the atomic era, just killing everyone with atomic bomb/landship which seems almost as strong as abomb/tank was in vanillia.
the happiness from my religion supercharged my econemy despite all the time wasted building temples, the game felt extremly easy going into the late game as there was no happiness crash in late renassiance. i could keep up on tech basically through pure growth and didnt bother to farm great scientists
i did liberty, down to protectionism in commerce (overkill) and autocracy which i belive is still the strongest policy setup but it meant i didnt really have a useful great person to buy with faith, perhaps that 4th point in commerce would have been better spent in the first tier of rationalism to unlock great scientists
the UU and free pantheon definatly make the celts a power civ. with a forest start bias you will probably spawn near truffels or deer which means you can make use of one of the more powerful pantheon belifs, giving you extra food from camps which you can turn into hammers to fuel that powerful early game
austria
being a little disenchanted with religion, i decided to ignore it completley and just take an enemy holy city. ofcourse i discovered you cant inherit the founder benifits of another religion and so i was economically and scientiffically crippled the whole game
with this in mind i did a 3 city classical era combined arms rush on byzantium. having no iron requirement on catapults is a joy and made the fighting pretty easy.
sadly, the whole world turned agaisnt me, i had long borders with the egyptians and the celts but was able to hold them back using the liberty scientist to proc machinary and upgrade composite bowmen into crossbows while i make an attack on my eastern front against a weakened france, i took paris and left them with 2 citys buffering me from a very strong looking persia
the celts on my western front where extremly agressive with medeval units, forcing me to trade units along that border,meanwhile egypt teched to the industrial era and came at me with rifels, i couldnt really deal with the pressure until a scientist procced dynamite and from there i was able to clean up my side of the map. seems the AI still has no answer to artillary
darius was in the atomic era and i was worried about him just going directly for a space race but he decided instead to come at me, clearing up occupied france in terrifingly quick time and conquiring cities right up to my capital where i was able to hold with long culture boarders and citedels
this is where i really felt the pain of great war bombers, if your tech is slow then you really stand no chance of getting anti air out, i just had to soak up the dammage with cover promoted units in a citadel while i hard teched for ballistics and then just nuked him to death for a domination victory
i was so cash poor from constant war and not having a religion that diplomatic marriage didnt play much of a part in this game. eventually when i started making good monney it went to fuel the atomic crack habit, luckily they only cost 370g with commerce and autocracy. surprisingly easy considering the circumstances of the game, the new citadel culture bomb did all the heavy lifting for me
the contrast from not having a religion definatly turned my head and made me rethink its value, the hussar was useless as i was so far behind on tech but ive become a huge fan of caverly in this new expansion so i'd like to revisit the unit, still its a small perk over the default unit.
coffee shops may have helped me bulb to atomic bombs quicker, also you can build them on hills but i dont think its a big deal, austria felt like a generic civ
netherlands
having played two games using liberty rush, i decide to try my tradiotn strat with the dutch, after seeing alot of juicy tiles outside amsterdam, i built 3 cities and national colleage fully intending to tech for a while but persia to my west takes off like a rocket (el dorado) and maya on my northern border have an extremly powerful start too, founding a craizly early religion and then putting down four (?) monuments all in the medeval era. i dont even know how thats possible, one from liberty, one from their passive, one from specilists? darius turns his unstoppable warmachine on the mayans and i cant help myself, i grab the mayan capital full of juicy world wonders
i played this game without a religion also but stayed ontop of my infrastructure, my MFG and tech was decent all game but austria wasnt able to claim much land and ghandi was doing his 2 city culture strat which left america and persia to grow into monsterous super powers. i took delhi in the industrial era to prevent his culture win (4 policy trees complete, ouch!) and then decided to give the new naval warfare a go. i was too late to try the sea begger but a carrier/submarine/destroyer group cleared up austria pretty easily and then i just nuked america and persia into the ground to prevent their space programmes and claim a domination victory
the polder looks potentially good but i didnt get to build many. swamp is my favriot tile and so being able to get a good yield from it seems quite fun. as far as their passive trait goes, i cant see a good use for it. dutch seem like another generic civ for single player but i'd love to try a surprise sea begger attack in multi
carthage attempt 1 and 2
i lose a game as carthage, i found my cities on the coast to take advantage of the free harbours and then becaurse there is a huge swamp between me and england, i declare war so to be able to bleed them dry of units as they get stuck in the mud. ofcourse they just bring longbows and bombard my cities to low hp, i cant retaliate becaurse there are swamps in the way and my composite bowmen cant shoot their arrows far enough. still i think im pretty safe untill their super fast triremes zip down the coast and capture carthage. england too strong!
next i roll an archipeligo map to make use of the carthaginian unique trireme but i dont have any hammers on my island to build a navy and austria buys up all the city states shooting way into the lead, i give up in last place during the renassance. more on carthage later, i really enjoy them!
maya
so im ready to try a religious civ again and, inspired by the amazing start they had in my dutch game, i choose maya and thats when i realise how good their shrine is. double the faith of a normal shrine AND 2 science? crazy.. i do 4 city tradition using a blocking city to keep american growth down then build the shrines, i found the first religion and take all the happiness belifs using inherient preachers (100% further spread) as an enhancer instead of religious texts, ive noticed it spreads religion much much better in most games ive played and sure enough, it spread of its own accord to almost every city in the world. the terrain was quite restrictive so i went straight for a diplomatic victory, keeping india at war with japan to prevent their culture victory and then just defending my borders agaisnt the other civs.
easy fast painless win that showed me the power of a good religion, great people from the mayan passive helped me chain out alot of the normal wonders
the altasist was a surprisingly pleasent unit. i have a barbarian problem when i play tradition, i dont have enough hammers to squeeze out a peacekeeping force but having acess to cheap archers was ideal, they also held off a big american rush and then upgraded swiftly into composite bowmen becaurse tradition openings float alot of gold early on
i came away from this game with a huge regard for the mayans, an interesting sophisticated race with alot of unique options and a UU that might just keep them alive long enough to be execute strange stratages
ethiopia attempt 1
i get a fantastic start with ethiopia, a huge floodplane with some gold and silver hills, score! i decide to delay my expansions while i develop my capital. this will alow me to leaverage the 20% combat bonus from having less cities than my neighbors. i take the desert folklore pantheon belif which gives me and extra 8 faith from working all the floodplains and found a religion giving me another 20% combat bonus near freindly cities
i then realise that i cant expand becaurse byzantium has taken all the land around me. im stuck on 1 city and their religion is stronger so mine cant spread! it dosent matter, im going for a cultural victory anyway, with just a few units i defend wave after wave after wave of everyone declaring war on me every 10 turns, they want to exploit my weakness but im too tough of a nut to crack! hah surely i'll get this cultural victory! well byzantium swim a great prophet to my capital and delete all my followers. i cant buy an inquisitor or a great prohpet becaurse my city now follows confusionism.
i have to wait 30 turns for my city to gradually tip back to christianity. pity but not really a big deal. i make the mistake of buying a confusion missionary and then using him on my own city, argh! not a big deal, i should still be on for a culture win, ghandi does it all the time!
well during my mid renasanse, the americans popluate the entire map, capture about 10 cities and win a space race. at the time i have 2 social policy trees compoleted while america (on about 30 cities) have 4 and would have won a cultural victory aswell as a diplomatic victory in a few more turns
ethiopia attempt 2
im irritated with my slow demorolizing loss and decide to ignore the ethiopian racial passive, i get a horrible jungle river start with very few hammers so just decide to mass expand, i build 5 cities (in delicious turn about, one is right up against the byzantine capital, keeping them on 1 city all game) and build the unique monument in all of them. wow, ok this is an amazing building, all the benifit of the monument with 2 faith, twice as good as a shrine and becaurse i had so many cities, i has huge faith. the +1 culture from jungles was hugely powerful here as almost every city had jungle river tiles which became 2 food, 1 culture 3 gold, 2 science, 1 hammer in the late game
my religion spread to the entire world with unparralled virrulence (inherrent preachers), often converting enemy holy cities and the star player in this game was the founder beliff 'tithe' +1 gold for every 4 followers, i had more gold than i could possibly spend, almost 200 GPT towards the end of the game (just from tithe) making me vastly rich.
at no point during the game did any of the AI have more cities than me so i didnt get to use my passive but it didnt matter, with an extra 200gpt, i could just clear up the entire map with artillary and caverly. interestingly america ate the other half of the map AGAIN, i dont know why i keep getting put up against washington but in this game he conqured the egyptians, taking all their wonders and going up to a crazy number of cities. this time it didnt matter becaurse i was a mighty warrior
sooo.. what to say about ethopia? i think their the best religious civ becaurse the stele synergises quite nicely with liberty. the mayan strength seems a little more geared to tradition which is a weaker style and the celtic strength seems to be military.
opening directly with a monument alows you to get the early settler from collective rule, as you would with a sword rush but will also let you found the first or second pantheon and supercharge your early game. these guys are scary but im not terribly excited about their unique unit
the huns
these guys are amazing. i did a 2 city honour rush, using 2 battering rams and some warriors to capture seoul, korea. luckily they built the great libary which kept me in the game as i threw everything at the iroquois (with great wall) and just barley captured their capital before i ran out of steam.
by now i had a strong contingent of horse archers with 150% xp from policies they quickly got logistics and became as scary as mini keshiks, when the japanese (who colonized all the land that korea, iroquois and me where too busy to take) declared on me and started moving musketmen into my cities, these horse archers in combination with great wall did an amazing job holding the line. siam and the netherlands all dogpiled in on me and i had to defend all sides with units that where 3 eras behind. no problem. actually it was scary, i thoguht i'd lost, very fun.
my econemy was purely running on the gold bonus from killing units with the honour social policies, my tech was basically stagnent but the spies came through for me and i was able to steal chemistry with espionage and then... threw mass great generals at japan, the culture bomb with the citadel in combination with great wall was enough to slowley creep into the japanese teritory and use their roads to horse archer everything up.
permanant war with the lesser civs crippled their development and made me rich, once i took kyoto i mannaged to grab the last two capitals before the japanese completed the reconquest of their cities. ropeadope TKO
so the battering ram is possibly imbalanced, this is exactly the kind of unit i like, it offers you a different playstyle and forces your oponents to play differently against you. razing cities in half the time is actually pretty useful becaurse if your waging this kind of ainchent/classical war then you have zaro happiness and you need to delete cities as you move forwards to prevent yourself taking the combat penalty from being livid
+1 production from pastures is exactly what i like about russia and so to get the same bonus with amazing UU's can only be good. if there IS a movement away from swordsman rushing in multiplayer (becaurse of the addition of composite bowmen) then these guys must be the new power civ
sweden
reading about the swedish in the civilopedia (aside from taking half an hour) was pretty uninspiring. i dont think much of their UU's and i thoguht their passive was a bit pointless, so when it came time to play them i just did a standard agressive liberty opener, pushing cities up against the danish and the english.
after the frustration of fighting longbows a few weeks before, i knew i had to take london before they hit medeval so i didnt waste any time in bankrupting myself building the trans sweden road network and throwing 4 capaults at london, i forget the reason but the english didnt have many units and i was able to just able to capture their capital with a horseman as the last of my army fell apart. theres something a bit broken in the english AI, they dont build up very quickly, usualy one of the weakest races and there seems to be that early classical era hole in their military production
denmark had no such problem building cities or units and i lost my buffering city on the danish border (malmo? ^^) lukily my next city in was in an invincible location, protected by a lake and the gold from sacking london was enough to upgrade to some archers and hold off the onslaught, the danish eventually fell to my mix of classical units and i had united my half of the world under the yellow and blue, the other 3 civs had been teching behind an isthmus blocked by city states
i had 3 times as much land as korea who where on more points than me and their lead was streaching, they eventually conqured the inca making them hot favriots to win, the terrain made it basically impossible for me to make any more progress with force so i pretty much gave up and started teching, quickly counting up the turns, i figured i coudlnt get back in the game before a korean science victory.
this is when i realised how good the swedish passive is, all those great generals i had earned bought me the alegiance of almost every city state on the map (90 influence which buys you ally for about 20 turns)
i had killed 2 civs before they founded a religion so i got the last one with the help of a religious CS and suddenly my ecoenmy was flying, i didnt bother to carefully mannage great scientist production, any merchants built went straight into buying favour with city states and suddenly i was in the atomic era, the plan was to land atomic bombs on korea to slow them down but i was teching so fast that suddenly the hubble telescope was availible, i built it and the 2 scientists basically won the space race for me, i couldnt belive it.
hubble really turns the tide in a space race. i was shocked, up until it finnished i was resigned to losing in about 10 turns with no way of altering the outcome of the game.
i wholey credit the city states for getting me back in that game, religious CS unlocked the happiness cap and maritine CS let me grow into it, i only had 6 cities spread out over a huge area so they grew enormous and i could build space ship parts in 2 or 3 turns.
my policy choice was all over the place, i went to collective rule in liberty, as you do. then i took 4 points in honour becaurse i was trapped in classical for so long. then a few points in rationalism becaurse i was teching hard, some points in order for the science and then 1 in commerce to unlock faith merchants. i dont have much use for lancers or rifels so i cant speak to the swedish UU's but its gloooorious to have something to do with all those spare generals if you dont need to culture bomb, truely a unique civ!
byzantium
my start with byzantium was so strong that i had to open tradition to grow into all my juicy land, considering i was doing a tradition opener i should maybe have done a stonehenge opening, i think building an early shrine is a bit stupid so theres only a few efficent ways to gurantee a religion.
it didnt matter becaurse i found a religious city state and spend my first 250g to be friends, just to make sure i founded a religion. the production in constantinople was so high that it was almost a none-game. i took 2 iroquois cities just to make sure they where too crippled to hurt me and then greece (run away leaders) moved their entire army down to invade rome and i snuck some trebuchets up to the greek border and stole athens quickly while they where out of position.
the byzantine horseman was my star player here, i love this unit.. basically a 3 move swordsman, i could zone out out enemy knights by fortifying on rough terrain and create a kill zone around my trebs (very unusual for me to go physics before machinary but i saw that athens was vulnerable)
with greece and iroquois crippled, egypt had a non-start trapped behind a mouintian range and siam stuck on a peninsular, rome became a super power. the interesting part of this game was that the romans massivly out religioned me, they spawned in the middle of the action with a natural wonder that grants faith and used the religious texts belif.
i was off to one side with inherant preachers, i used the byzantine bonus belif to take a 2nd religion enhancer which was 'holy order' (missionaries and inquisitors cost 30% less faith) the roman religion was so powerfully established that it had spread to half my cities but i was able to use the (very cheap) missionaries to claw back a religious foothold and establish my own shinto across my empire
it was my first time in a closley fought faith battle with the AI and it was surprsingly fun! the rewards from having a well spread religion are very real and significant, my investment in faith was never excessive, just diverting a few hundred gold occasioanlly to buying some vatican favour or building a temple in useless cities, really it seems just to be a question of delaying pagodas for inquisitors and making smart use of great prophets
the last interesting thing is that the byzantine trireme has a ranged attack, i had the chance to build some just to protect my costal assets from all the hostile city states going bathorsehocky crazy on naval production and the dromon is a pleasure to use, it also upgrades along a different line, into galleas and frigate instead of caravel and ironclad. this is potentially amazing becaurse if you have a massivly upgraded ship thats been firing all game, you want it to be a 3 range frigate/ 4 range battleship instead of another destoryer with fractionally more mele strength
one of my favriot civs of this expansion and a really fun game, even thou it was on the easy side
carthage attempt 3
i just finnished playing this game today and really, its the reason i wanted to write this review, becaurse its one of the closest games ive played and really showed me some of the strengths of the new expansion
ive had my eye on carthage since i saw the new civs becaurse i think they offer something unique; that is you cant be a naval power unless you have a costal bias and you cant be any kind of power at all if you do have a costal bias becaurse costal starts suck. they dont have enough production and building work boats puts you so far behind the curve that you may aswell ignore the water and rush inland
carthage changes that by giving you free hammers and trade routs on the coast which gives you the chance to be a naval power from the start of the game, opening up pre industrial naval units. i play pangaea (and someitmes fractal) and think that naval power is really strong, even for these big land blobs
i spawned in the jungle with some whales off the coast and decided to play tradition so that i could work all that jungle with the +1 culture pantheon belif, i quickly pushed a second city along the coast to work an amazing 4 fish location, these where my two main production cities and they could both make boats.
frustratingly the americans spawned directly to my north, AGAIN! i quickly push a 3rd city right up agaisnt washingtons boarders but before i can properly defend it, the americans come at me with about 10 units, i blow 600g on walls, they take my 3rd city and bust my 2nd city down to 20% hp before i turn the tide of battle using the oligarchy social policy and some composite archers
its a draining fight for both of us, the battleground is flat open desert so we both lose alot of units and have to keep rebuilding. i would usually use horsemen to fight this kind of war but its gives me an opportunity to try the forest elephants and they plesantly over perform in the pitched battle before screening my catapults nicely and alowing me to conqure washington
america has mass expanded so it takes me another 30 turns to clean him up. neither of us are able to found a religion, worryingly, china's taoism spreads to my cities and their enhancer belif is 'just war' (20% combat bonus for china near my cities of their religion) i make an effort to spread the mayan religion, to counter this bonus but am ultimatly unsucessful
across the rest of the world, sweden had a non-start which alowed france to spiral dangerously out of control, conquering the mayans. china are between me and the french, everyone declares war on me but i hold china off with mouintians and citadels, france cant project power to my side of the map, yet. theres no way i can make any progress on land but i have some galleiess defending my sea resources and taking pot shots at the chinese units
i turn my back on land tech, go for navigation, upgrade the gallies to frigates, build some privateers and take a chineese costal city, wow, that was easy. they take it right back and we trade the city back and fourth until they run out of units from frigate fire, i land some muskets and eventually own the whole of the chinese coast. i had basically given up on winning the game after i had killed america becaurse the french where running away with the tech but they dont seem to care about building wonders and i mannage grab two amazing wonders
star player for this game was the lourve. i normally dont rate this wonder at all but since gods and kings, only great artists can start golden ages making it more valuable than the taj mahal. the golden ages where worth about 2000 gold, one social policy and 2 turns of production. considering i had no religion and no happiness, this was my only way to generate a gold surpless which alowed me to upgrade my ironclads and privateers into destroyers
the second star player was ofcourse the brandenberg gate, this has always been my favriot wonder becaurse it lets you get a 3rd promotion on your units, thats +1 range for naval units or air repair for aeroplanes
im massivly concious that im going to lose a space race any turn now so i sell china her citys back and launch the worlds biggest navy at france in one last hail mary. i despratly want to land a nuke on paris but atomic fission is so far away.
paris isant vulnerable but im able to capture a few of their cities then trade them back and fourth while depleating the french army.
when i tried ANY KIND of naval play in vanillia civ against a powerful computer, (http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/1162/continents.jpg quick reminder) boats within vision of the enemy coast would instantly melt to a volly of guided missile fire but france didnt build a single one. infact they where polite enough not to use their nuclear missiles on me (france had enough gold to buy perhaps 20 guided missiles and instantly secure their coastline)
once i killed their contingent of destroyers lurking off the french coast, they where unable to build ships becaurse their coastal cities are so badly dammaged from being captured. their only defence was a huge airforce which melted to interception (40) destroyers and mobile rocket atriliry that seems to trade unfavourably with my battleships/biplanes
heaivly promoted biplanes with air repair, evasion and logistics where able to operate even though france was heavily infested with mobile SAMs. my tech was too stagnant to reach atomic bombs but i was happy to discover that that not every problem in civ has to be solved with a nuclear winter
bringing the war into the french heartland halted production on their space ship, they have 1 piece left to build and didnt bother to finnish it for a good 30 turns while i flooded a stream of units to try and make landfall.
i just barely mannaged to sneak an infantry to capture paris while it was 0 hp from bombardment, taking the win by meeting the victory conditions of domination, as france owned stockholm and the mayan capital
i went down to merchant navy in commerce as well as capturing the great lighthouse (my second favriot wonder, shame it usually sucks) which was a decision that badly cost me in happiness but gave me a big edge in the close ironclad/privatteer ship stealing battles. not worth it on balance, i think
great admirals where a surprisingly handy unit, when you throw your mele ships into a city they take about 50% dammage so an admiral can give you an extra strong attack with them, im sure the heal won me cities that i would not have other wise captured. admirals spawn as frequently as generals, i probably had 6 of them over the course of the game so using the heal didnt feel like a waste at all
ive made alot of naval attacks in vanillia civ, both in single and multiplayer but it usually involves landing artillary sneakly behind their lines using one or two boats to spot for you, naval power seems much more viable in gods and kings
the unique cathaginian trireme was useless as i was forced into a land war for the first 80 turns. moving on mouintians was useless even though i did alot of fighting next to mouintians
tl;dr = i won with naval power from a position where no other strat could have worked
the settings for each game where:
Immortal (7)
Quick
Pangaea
Small (6)
this is a fairly comfortable setting for me, it often throws up some exciting games and lets me experiment
celts
my first win of the expansion, i had started a quick warmup game with egypt but failed to found a religion in time and gone on to lose quickly.
i knocked the difficulty down to emperor for this one game with celts and i was quite happy to get a free religion from the celtic passive. ofcourse i didnt know what to do with it, i took mosques and anything that gave happiness then tried to rush the americans with the new composite bowman unit, the new ai will focus any mele units that threaten to take their cities and so i couldnt complete it cleanly.
definatly felt weak after making most of my pushes with crossbow men in vanillia civ but i was able to keep him on one city with early scouts and then strangle him to death. the pictish warrior didnt feature much in my game, i just made one to pillage. i didnt realise that its strength 11 with no bonus vrs mounted which makes it about as strong as a swordsman for less hammers, had i realised it was like an ainchent era mowhawk, i would have used them for a big 2 or 3 city rush.
after taking american land, i was faced with a narrow land bridge into terrotory belonging to the remaining 4 civs so i spent everything building up my religion and the rest of the game trying to force my religion on the unbelivers. having mosques, i had more faith that i could spend but 'religious texts' as an enhancer (+68% faster religion spread) when i was so far removed from the action felt kind of weak and i gave up in the atomic era, just killing everyone with atomic bomb/landship which seems almost as strong as abomb/tank was in vanillia.
the happiness from my religion supercharged my econemy despite all the time wasted building temples, the game felt extremly easy going into the late game as there was no happiness crash in late renassiance. i could keep up on tech basically through pure growth and didnt bother to farm great scientists
i did liberty, down to protectionism in commerce (overkill) and autocracy which i belive is still the strongest policy setup but it meant i didnt really have a useful great person to buy with faith, perhaps that 4th point in commerce would have been better spent in the first tier of rationalism to unlock great scientists
the UU and free pantheon definatly make the celts a power civ. with a forest start bias you will probably spawn near truffels or deer which means you can make use of one of the more powerful pantheon belifs, giving you extra food from camps which you can turn into hammers to fuel that powerful early game
austria
being a little disenchanted with religion, i decided to ignore it completley and just take an enemy holy city. ofcourse i discovered you cant inherit the founder benifits of another religion and so i was economically and scientiffically crippled the whole game
with this in mind i did a 3 city classical era combined arms rush on byzantium. having no iron requirement on catapults is a joy and made the fighting pretty easy.
sadly, the whole world turned agaisnt me, i had long borders with the egyptians and the celts but was able to hold them back using the liberty scientist to proc machinary and upgrade composite bowmen into crossbows while i make an attack on my eastern front against a weakened france, i took paris and left them with 2 citys buffering me from a very strong looking persia
the celts on my western front where extremly agressive with medeval units, forcing me to trade units along that border,meanwhile egypt teched to the industrial era and came at me with rifels, i couldnt really deal with the pressure until a scientist procced dynamite and from there i was able to clean up my side of the map. seems the AI still has no answer to artillary
darius was in the atomic era and i was worried about him just going directly for a space race but he decided instead to come at me, clearing up occupied france in terrifingly quick time and conquiring cities right up to my capital where i was able to hold with long culture boarders and citedels
this is where i really felt the pain of great war bombers, if your tech is slow then you really stand no chance of getting anti air out, i just had to soak up the dammage with cover promoted units in a citadel while i hard teched for ballistics and then just nuked him to death for a domination victory
i was so cash poor from constant war and not having a religion that diplomatic marriage didnt play much of a part in this game. eventually when i started making good monney it went to fuel the atomic crack habit, luckily they only cost 370g with commerce and autocracy. surprisingly easy considering the circumstances of the game, the new citadel culture bomb did all the heavy lifting for me
the contrast from not having a religion definatly turned my head and made me rethink its value, the hussar was useless as i was so far behind on tech but ive become a huge fan of caverly in this new expansion so i'd like to revisit the unit, still its a small perk over the default unit.
coffee shops may have helped me bulb to atomic bombs quicker, also you can build them on hills but i dont think its a big deal, austria felt like a generic civ
netherlands
having played two games using liberty rush, i decide to try my tradiotn strat with the dutch, after seeing alot of juicy tiles outside amsterdam, i built 3 cities and national colleage fully intending to tech for a while but persia to my west takes off like a rocket (el dorado) and maya on my northern border have an extremly powerful start too, founding a craizly early religion and then putting down four (?) monuments all in the medeval era. i dont even know how thats possible, one from liberty, one from their passive, one from specilists? darius turns his unstoppable warmachine on the mayans and i cant help myself, i grab the mayan capital full of juicy world wonders
i played this game without a religion also but stayed ontop of my infrastructure, my MFG and tech was decent all game but austria wasnt able to claim much land and ghandi was doing his 2 city culture strat which left america and persia to grow into monsterous super powers. i took delhi in the industrial era to prevent his culture win (4 policy trees complete, ouch!) and then decided to give the new naval warfare a go. i was too late to try the sea begger but a carrier/submarine/destroyer group cleared up austria pretty easily and then i just nuked america and persia into the ground to prevent their space programmes and claim a domination victory
the polder looks potentially good but i didnt get to build many. swamp is my favriot tile and so being able to get a good yield from it seems quite fun. as far as their passive trait goes, i cant see a good use for it. dutch seem like another generic civ for single player but i'd love to try a surprise sea begger attack in multi
carthage attempt 1 and 2
i lose a game as carthage, i found my cities on the coast to take advantage of the free harbours and then becaurse there is a huge swamp between me and england, i declare war so to be able to bleed them dry of units as they get stuck in the mud. ofcourse they just bring longbows and bombard my cities to low hp, i cant retaliate becaurse there are swamps in the way and my composite bowmen cant shoot their arrows far enough. still i think im pretty safe untill their super fast triremes zip down the coast and capture carthage. england too strong!
next i roll an archipeligo map to make use of the carthaginian unique trireme but i dont have any hammers on my island to build a navy and austria buys up all the city states shooting way into the lead, i give up in last place during the renassance. more on carthage later, i really enjoy them!
maya
so im ready to try a religious civ again and, inspired by the amazing start they had in my dutch game, i choose maya and thats when i realise how good their shrine is. double the faith of a normal shrine AND 2 science? crazy.. i do 4 city tradition using a blocking city to keep american growth down then build the shrines, i found the first religion and take all the happiness belifs using inherient preachers (100% further spread) as an enhancer instead of religious texts, ive noticed it spreads religion much much better in most games ive played and sure enough, it spread of its own accord to almost every city in the world. the terrain was quite restrictive so i went straight for a diplomatic victory, keeping india at war with japan to prevent their culture victory and then just defending my borders agaisnt the other civs.
easy fast painless win that showed me the power of a good religion, great people from the mayan passive helped me chain out alot of the normal wonders
the altasist was a surprisingly pleasent unit. i have a barbarian problem when i play tradition, i dont have enough hammers to squeeze out a peacekeeping force but having acess to cheap archers was ideal, they also held off a big american rush and then upgraded swiftly into composite bowmen becaurse tradition openings float alot of gold early on
i came away from this game with a huge regard for the mayans, an interesting sophisticated race with alot of unique options and a UU that might just keep them alive long enough to be execute strange stratages
ethiopia attempt 1
i get a fantastic start with ethiopia, a huge floodplane with some gold and silver hills, score! i decide to delay my expansions while i develop my capital. this will alow me to leaverage the 20% combat bonus from having less cities than my neighbors. i take the desert folklore pantheon belif which gives me and extra 8 faith from working all the floodplains and found a religion giving me another 20% combat bonus near freindly cities
i then realise that i cant expand becaurse byzantium has taken all the land around me. im stuck on 1 city and their religion is stronger so mine cant spread! it dosent matter, im going for a cultural victory anyway, with just a few units i defend wave after wave after wave of everyone declaring war on me every 10 turns, they want to exploit my weakness but im too tough of a nut to crack! hah surely i'll get this cultural victory! well byzantium swim a great prophet to my capital and delete all my followers. i cant buy an inquisitor or a great prohpet becaurse my city now follows confusionism.
i have to wait 30 turns for my city to gradually tip back to christianity. pity but not really a big deal. i make the mistake of buying a confusion missionary and then using him on my own city, argh! not a big deal, i should still be on for a culture win, ghandi does it all the time!
well during my mid renasanse, the americans popluate the entire map, capture about 10 cities and win a space race. at the time i have 2 social policy trees compoleted while america (on about 30 cities) have 4 and would have won a cultural victory aswell as a diplomatic victory in a few more turns
ethiopia attempt 2
im irritated with my slow demorolizing loss and decide to ignore the ethiopian racial passive, i get a horrible jungle river start with very few hammers so just decide to mass expand, i build 5 cities (in delicious turn about, one is right up against the byzantine capital, keeping them on 1 city all game) and build the unique monument in all of them. wow, ok this is an amazing building, all the benifit of the monument with 2 faith, twice as good as a shrine and becaurse i had so many cities, i has huge faith. the +1 culture from jungles was hugely powerful here as almost every city had jungle river tiles which became 2 food, 1 culture 3 gold, 2 science, 1 hammer in the late game
my religion spread to the entire world with unparralled virrulence (inherrent preachers), often converting enemy holy cities and the star player in this game was the founder beliff 'tithe' +1 gold for every 4 followers, i had more gold than i could possibly spend, almost 200 GPT towards the end of the game (just from tithe) making me vastly rich.
at no point during the game did any of the AI have more cities than me so i didnt get to use my passive but it didnt matter, with an extra 200gpt, i could just clear up the entire map with artillary and caverly. interestingly america ate the other half of the map AGAIN, i dont know why i keep getting put up against washington but in this game he conqured the egyptians, taking all their wonders and going up to a crazy number of cities. this time it didnt matter becaurse i was a mighty warrior
sooo.. what to say about ethopia? i think their the best religious civ becaurse the stele synergises quite nicely with liberty. the mayan strength seems a little more geared to tradition which is a weaker style and the celtic strength seems to be military.
opening directly with a monument alows you to get the early settler from collective rule, as you would with a sword rush but will also let you found the first or second pantheon and supercharge your early game. these guys are scary but im not terribly excited about their unique unit
the huns
these guys are amazing. i did a 2 city honour rush, using 2 battering rams and some warriors to capture seoul, korea. luckily they built the great libary which kept me in the game as i threw everything at the iroquois (with great wall) and just barley captured their capital before i ran out of steam.
by now i had a strong contingent of horse archers with 150% xp from policies they quickly got logistics and became as scary as mini keshiks, when the japanese (who colonized all the land that korea, iroquois and me where too busy to take) declared on me and started moving musketmen into my cities, these horse archers in combination with great wall did an amazing job holding the line. siam and the netherlands all dogpiled in on me and i had to defend all sides with units that where 3 eras behind. no problem. actually it was scary, i thoguht i'd lost, very fun.
my econemy was purely running on the gold bonus from killing units with the honour social policies, my tech was basically stagnent but the spies came through for me and i was able to steal chemistry with espionage and then... threw mass great generals at japan, the culture bomb with the citadel in combination with great wall was enough to slowley creep into the japanese teritory and use their roads to horse archer everything up.
permanant war with the lesser civs crippled their development and made me rich, once i took kyoto i mannaged to grab the last two capitals before the japanese completed the reconquest of their cities. ropeadope TKO
so the battering ram is possibly imbalanced, this is exactly the kind of unit i like, it offers you a different playstyle and forces your oponents to play differently against you. razing cities in half the time is actually pretty useful becaurse if your waging this kind of ainchent/classical war then you have zaro happiness and you need to delete cities as you move forwards to prevent yourself taking the combat penalty from being livid
+1 production from pastures is exactly what i like about russia and so to get the same bonus with amazing UU's can only be good. if there IS a movement away from swordsman rushing in multiplayer (becaurse of the addition of composite bowmen) then these guys must be the new power civ
sweden
reading about the swedish in the civilopedia (aside from taking half an hour) was pretty uninspiring. i dont think much of their UU's and i thoguht their passive was a bit pointless, so when it came time to play them i just did a standard agressive liberty opener, pushing cities up against the danish and the english.
after the frustration of fighting longbows a few weeks before, i knew i had to take london before they hit medeval so i didnt waste any time in bankrupting myself building the trans sweden road network and throwing 4 capaults at london, i forget the reason but the english didnt have many units and i was able to just able to capture their capital with a horseman as the last of my army fell apart. theres something a bit broken in the english AI, they dont build up very quickly, usualy one of the weakest races and there seems to be that early classical era hole in their military production
denmark had no such problem building cities or units and i lost my buffering city on the danish border (malmo? ^^) lukily my next city in was in an invincible location, protected by a lake and the gold from sacking london was enough to upgrade to some archers and hold off the onslaught, the danish eventually fell to my mix of classical units and i had united my half of the world under the yellow and blue, the other 3 civs had been teching behind an isthmus blocked by city states
i had 3 times as much land as korea who where on more points than me and their lead was streaching, they eventually conqured the inca making them hot favriots to win, the terrain made it basically impossible for me to make any more progress with force so i pretty much gave up and started teching, quickly counting up the turns, i figured i coudlnt get back in the game before a korean science victory.
this is when i realised how good the swedish passive is, all those great generals i had earned bought me the alegiance of almost every city state on the map (90 influence which buys you ally for about 20 turns)
i had killed 2 civs before they founded a religion so i got the last one with the help of a religious CS and suddenly my ecoenmy was flying, i didnt bother to carefully mannage great scientist production, any merchants built went straight into buying favour with city states and suddenly i was in the atomic era, the plan was to land atomic bombs on korea to slow them down but i was teching so fast that suddenly the hubble telescope was availible, i built it and the 2 scientists basically won the space race for me, i couldnt belive it.
hubble really turns the tide in a space race. i was shocked, up until it finnished i was resigned to losing in about 10 turns with no way of altering the outcome of the game.
i wholey credit the city states for getting me back in that game, religious CS unlocked the happiness cap and maritine CS let me grow into it, i only had 6 cities spread out over a huge area so they grew enormous and i could build space ship parts in 2 or 3 turns.
my policy choice was all over the place, i went to collective rule in liberty, as you do. then i took 4 points in honour becaurse i was trapped in classical for so long. then a few points in rationalism becaurse i was teching hard, some points in order for the science and then 1 in commerce to unlock faith merchants. i dont have much use for lancers or rifels so i cant speak to the swedish UU's but its gloooorious to have something to do with all those spare generals if you dont need to culture bomb, truely a unique civ!
byzantium
my start with byzantium was so strong that i had to open tradition to grow into all my juicy land, considering i was doing a tradition opener i should maybe have done a stonehenge opening, i think building an early shrine is a bit stupid so theres only a few efficent ways to gurantee a religion.
it didnt matter becaurse i found a religious city state and spend my first 250g to be friends, just to make sure i founded a religion. the production in constantinople was so high that it was almost a none-game. i took 2 iroquois cities just to make sure they where too crippled to hurt me and then greece (run away leaders) moved their entire army down to invade rome and i snuck some trebuchets up to the greek border and stole athens quickly while they where out of position.
the byzantine horseman was my star player here, i love this unit.. basically a 3 move swordsman, i could zone out out enemy knights by fortifying on rough terrain and create a kill zone around my trebs (very unusual for me to go physics before machinary but i saw that athens was vulnerable)
with greece and iroquois crippled, egypt had a non-start trapped behind a mouintian range and siam stuck on a peninsular, rome became a super power. the interesting part of this game was that the romans massivly out religioned me, they spawned in the middle of the action with a natural wonder that grants faith and used the religious texts belif.
i was off to one side with inherant preachers, i used the byzantine bonus belif to take a 2nd religion enhancer which was 'holy order' (missionaries and inquisitors cost 30% less faith) the roman religion was so powerfully established that it had spread to half my cities but i was able to use the (very cheap) missionaries to claw back a religious foothold and establish my own shinto across my empire
it was my first time in a closley fought faith battle with the AI and it was surprsingly fun! the rewards from having a well spread religion are very real and significant, my investment in faith was never excessive, just diverting a few hundred gold occasioanlly to buying some vatican favour or building a temple in useless cities, really it seems just to be a question of delaying pagodas for inquisitors and making smart use of great prophets
the last interesting thing is that the byzantine trireme has a ranged attack, i had the chance to build some just to protect my costal assets from all the hostile city states going bathorsehocky crazy on naval production and the dromon is a pleasure to use, it also upgrades along a different line, into galleas and frigate instead of caravel and ironclad. this is potentially amazing becaurse if you have a massivly upgraded ship thats been firing all game, you want it to be a 3 range frigate/ 4 range battleship instead of another destoryer with fractionally more mele strength
one of my favriot civs of this expansion and a really fun game, even thou it was on the easy side
carthage attempt 3
i just finnished playing this game today and really, its the reason i wanted to write this review, becaurse its one of the closest games ive played and really showed me some of the strengths of the new expansion
ive had my eye on carthage since i saw the new civs becaurse i think they offer something unique; that is you cant be a naval power unless you have a costal bias and you cant be any kind of power at all if you do have a costal bias becaurse costal starts suck. they dont have enough production and building work boats puts you so far behind the curve that you may aswell ignore the water and rush inland
carthage changes that by giving you free hammers and trade routs on the coast which gives you the chance to be a naval power from the start of the game, opening up pre industrial naval units. i play pangaea (and someitmes fractal) and think that naval power is really strong, even for these big land blobs
i spawned in the jungle with some whales off the coast and decided to play tradition so that i could work all that jungle with the +1 culture pantheon belif, i quickly pushed a second city along the coast to work an amazing 4 fish location, these where my two main production cities and they could both make boats.
frustratingly the americans spawned directly to my north, AGAIN! i quickly push a 3rd city right up agaisnt washingtons boarders but before i can properly defend it, the americans come at me with about 10 units, i blow 600g on walls, they take my 3rd city and bust my 2nd city down to 20% hp before i turn the tide of battle using the oligarchy social policy and some composite archers
its a draining fight for both of us, the battleground is flat open desert so we both lose alot of units and have to keep rebuilding. i would usually use horsemen to fight this kind of war but its gives me an opportunity to try the forest elephants and they plesantly over perform in the pitched battle before screening my catapults nicely and alowing me to conqure washington
america has mass expanded so it takes me another 30 turns to clean him up. neither of us are able to found a religion, worryingly, china's taoism spreads to my cities and their enhancer belif is 'just war' (20% combat bonus for china near my cities of their religion) i make an effort to spread the mayan religion, to counter this bonus but am ultimatly unsucessful
across the rest of the world, sweden had a non-start which alowed france to spiral dangerously out of control, conquering the mayans. china are between me and the french, everyone declares war on me but i hold china off with mouintians and citadels, france cant project power to my side of the map, yet. theres no way i can make any progress on land but i have some galleiess defending my sea resources and taking pot shots at the chinese units
i turn my back on land tech, go for navigation, upgrade the gallies to frigates, build some privateers and take a chineese costal city, wow, that was easy. they take it right back and we trade the city back and fourth until they run out of units from frigate fire, i land some muskets and eventually own the whole of the chinese coast. i had basically given up on winning the game after i had killed america becaurse the french where running away with the tech but they dont seem to care about building wonders and i mannage grab two amazing wonders
star player for this game was the lourve. i normally dont rate this wonder at all but since gods and kings, only great artists can start golden ages making it more valuable than the taj mahal. the golden ages where worth about 2000 gold, one social policy and 2 turns of production. considering i had no religion and no happiness, this was my only way to generate a gold surpless which alowed me to upgrade my ironclads and privateers into destroyers
the second star player was ofcourse the brandenberg gate, this has always been my favriot wonder becaurse it lets you get a 3rd promotion on your units, thats +1 range for naval units or air repair for aeroplanes
im massivly concious that im going to lose a space race any turn now so i sell china her citys back and launch the worlds biggest navy at france in one last hail mary. i despratly want to land a nuke on paris but atomic fission is so far away.
paris isant vulnerable but im able to capture a few of their cities then trade them back and fourth while depleating the french army.
when i tried ANY KIND of naval play in vanillia civ against a powerful computer, (http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/1162/continents.jpg quick reminder) boats within vision of the enemy coast would instantly melt to a volly of guided missile fire but france didnt build a single one. infact they where polite enough not to use their nuclear missiles on me (france had enough gold to buy perhaps 20 guided missiles and instantly secure their coastline)
once i killed their contingent of destroyers lurking off the french coast, they where unable to build ships becaurse their coastal cities are so badly dammaged from being captured. their only defence was a huge airforce which melted to interception (40) destroyers and mobile rocket atriliry that seems to trade unfavourably with my battleships/biplanes
heaivly promoted biplanes with air repair, evasion and logistics where able to operate even though france was heavily infested with mobile SAMs. my tech was too stagnant to reach atomic bombs but i was happy to discover that that not every problem in civ has to be solved with a nuclear winter
bringing the war into the french heartland halted production on their space ship, they have 1 piece left to build and didnt bother to finnish it for a good 30 turns while i flooded a stream of units to try and make landfall.
i just barely mannaged to sneak an infantry to capture paris while it was 0 hp from bombardment, taking the win by meeting the victory conditions of domination, as france owned stockholm and the mayan capital
i went down to merchant navy in commerce as well as capturing the great lighthouse (my second favriot wonder, shame it usually sucks) which was a decision that badly cost me in happiness but gave me a big edge in the close ironclad/privatteer ship stealing battles. not worth it on balance, i think
great admirals where a surprisingly handy unit, when you throw your mele ships into a city they take about 50% dammage so an admiral can give you an extra strong attack with them, im sure the heal won me cities that i would not have other wise captured. admirals spawn as frequently as generals, i probably had 6 of them over the course of the game so using the heal didnt feel like a waste at all
ive made alot of naval attacks in vanillia civ, both in single and multiplayer but it usually involves landing artillary sneakly behind their lines using one or two boats to spot for you, naval power seems much more viable in gods and kings
the unique cathaginian trireme was useless as i was forced into a land war for the first 80 turns. moving on mouintians was useless even though i did alot of fighting next to mouintians
tl;dr = i won with naval power from a position where no other strat could have worked
