Fun/Broken Civ Map combos

[HadesScorn]

FfH is great and challenging. Of course, sometimes you just want to play a game that is for all intents and purposes a gimme. Examples:

Lanun - Hannah the Irin - Islands: Tons of commerce [for you], oodles of food and a map where the AI has no idea what to do early game.

Illians - Tropical ones, with lots of Jungles. Jungles are a great place for Illian cities, as Temples of the Hand turn them to Forests. They boost your production while causing other civs food shortages and health problems. [MagisterCultumm]

Elves - Arboria map option. Double movement and attack/defense bonus practically everywhere and the 2 move units that other civs are usually slowed to one move. Also there are deer everywhere for the ljosalfar horse archer UU. [Trieste]

Hippus - Great Plains. The plains really work for mounted units, and given the flat, tree less area's, usually with some cattle around, going AH first is actually a decent economical move, as well as a militaristic one. [Demus]

Kuriotates - OCC or No Settlers. [SanPelligrino / Lord Parkin]

Grigori- All religions disabled. Bring everyone to atheism, and prevent Dwarf/Runes and Elf/Fellowship combos. Also, you and the Illians will have the only priest units in the game.[Bringa]

Barbarian Trait - Huge map. For The Horde is pretty obvious when there are orcs scattered across several continents with goodies to explore (including continents that don't yet have any civ on them) and it's particularly good if the Illians cast Stasis so that you don't have to bother with maintenance. [Popejubal]

Anyone have other combos?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Illians and End of Winter are actually a pretty bad combo; with the temp terrains set, the snow created by your Temples of the Hand will revert to other less useful terrain.

The best maps for the Illians are Tropical ones, with lots of Jungles. Jungles are a great place for Illian cities, as Temples of the Hand turn them to Forests. They boost your production while causing other civs food shortages and health problems.

 

[Trieste]

The Arboria map option for elves. Double movement and attack/defense bonus practically everywhere and the 2 move units that other civs are usually slowed to one move. Also there are deer everywhere for the ljosalfar horse archer UU.

 

[HadesScorn]

Magister- a good point. Remind me, if you build the temples after terrain has settled, does it still decay?

Trieste- yeah, I ended up doing that back in .32 a LOT when I wanted a fast game. Back before chopping was moved to mining, it also gave you a huge advantage at powering out cottages before anyone else could generate significant commerce.

 

[Demus]

dwarves + highlands have the same effect .

great plains + hippus is nice as well, the plains really work for mounted units, and given the flat, tree less area's, usually with some cattle around, going AH first is actually a decent economical move, as well as a militaristic one.

 

[SanPellegrino]

OCC with Kuriotates - ok that is a no-brainer

 

[ChinaBlue]

Jungles are a great place for Illian cities, as Temples of the Hand turn them to Forests. They boost your production while causing other civs food shortages and health problems.

that should be included as a hint ingame. at least i was dumb enough not to know that

 

[phoulishwan]

that should be included as a hint ingame. at least i was dumb enough not to know that

Junlges are still not ideal for anyone to start in, the Illians are merely handicapped for less time, Temples of the Hand still require an expensive building to build, how many hammers can you find in the jungle even with hills? Jungles starts are merely slightly less painful for the Illians. That doesn't mean they are ideal for them. However as far as playing a game that's balanced in your favor, I'd agree the Illians can definately leverage a jungle start better than any other Civ in the long run, if everyone else is also stuck in the jungle than sure the Illians will come out on top.

Than again, I'll amend this by admitting I mostly play marathon games, and all those precious early turns are wasted in the jungle, when techs take 70ish turns and warriors would take 50 turns with just your cities 1 hammer.

 

[Lord Parkin]

OCC with Kuriotates - ok that is a no-brainer

Far better - No Settlers with Kuriotates.

 

[Fafnir13]

Any aggresive trait Civ on a Civ packed map. Rush to apprenticeship and start collecting free cities as the packed conditions prevent any sizable build-up.
I particularly enjoy this strat with Calabim's Alexis as her philosophical trait also means I'm getting my first holy city around turn 80. Helps support the conquest.

 

[zup]

Illians can do wonders on Boreal maps and so can elves. With blessing of Amathaon, it is also literally full of deer.

 

[Bringa]

Grigori with all religions disabled. Atheism ftw!

 

[Blackmantle]

Really! broken and worse than what Bringa mentioned if related:

Duel mapsize (script hardly matters here) with you playing any nonagnostic civ "vs." the Grigori under AI control and religious victory enabled.

Cheesy, but it works (on any difficulty if you haven't figured yourselves by now)...

 

[Demus]

OCC with Kuriotates - ok that is a no-brainer

i actually disagree with this one, i find both the khazad and the sidar better for OCC. sidar for obvious reasons, you should have your first great sage settled before turn 50. Khazad for an overflowing vault + dwarven forge. Remember, if your starting position is decent enough, you don't really need that 3rd ring untill midgame, so just make the CoTS a priority

 

[HadesScorn]

Blackmantle- good idea there. However, we're looking for specific "enabler" combos rather than disabler combos. What is good for a specific civ rather than a way to screw over a specific civ.

 

[Verily]

i actually disagree with this one, i find both the khazad and the sidar better for OCC. sidar for obvious reasons, you should have your first great sage settled before turn 50. Khazad for an overflowing vault + dwarven forge. Remember, if your starting position is decent enough, you don't really need that 3rd ring untill midgame, so just make the CoTS a priority

Kuriotates get other useful things, though, including Adaptive D), Enclaves (more distant now, alas), two very strong late-game heroes, and extra Happiness and Health from traits and UBs [Happiness only, plus the potential for gold boosts] to support that big city.

I'm not sure Sidar shades, at least, can compete with that. Maybe with doubled barbarians. Dwarven Vaults can compete, but they're not empirically better, and the Forge requires you have to have the proper resources nearby on an OCC, or you'll only be getting a 10% boost at most (and that's at the expense of the Unhealth from Mines of Gal-dur, which is a problem for a three-ring city with not many Health resources.)

 

[KingOfLands]

Kuriotates get other useful things, though, including Adaptive D), Enclaves (more distant now, alas), two very strong late-game heroes, and extra Happiness and Health from traits and UBs [Happiness only, plus the potential for gold boosts] to support that big city.

I'm not sure Sidar shades, at least, can compete with that. Maybe with doubled barbarians. Dwarven Vaults can compete, but they're not empirically better, and the Forge requires you have to have the proper resources nearby on an OCC, or you'll only be getting a 10% boost at most (and that's at the expense of the Unhealth from Mines of Gal-dur, which is a problem for a three-ring city with not many Health resources.)

Pack 3 great engineers into a city by turn 150 and you'll change your tune. The shades are just wicked if you can afford to lose the units in question.

 

[popejubal]

Sidar on smaller maps and Barbarian trait on larger maps.

A settled Great Person has an enormous impact on that city, but when you have 30 cities, it's not so significant. When every civ has just 3-4 cities, a few settled Great People has a much bigger impact with respect to your empire as a whole.

The Barbarian trait is pretty amazing when working with larger maps. For The Horde is pretty obvious when there are orcs scattered across several continents with goodies to explore (including continents that don't yet have any civ on them) and it's particularly good if the Illians cast Stasis so that you don't have to bother with maintenance.

Even without For the Horde, being able to let Great People or religious units wander back to your cities without fear of attack from barbarians is pretty nice. Animals are still scary, but you need a much smaller escort (or none at all for the religious units) to get that prized unit home. Being able to ignore Lizardmen and barbarian heroes spawning from lair exploration is even more significant in most games.


Cheap tip with For The Horde: send your empire into multiple turns of anarchy with civics changes after you cast For the Horde if you see that the maintenance is too great. 10 turns later, do it again and you'll be able to squeeze a lot more use out of those units. Don't forget that you can probably change religions a couple of times too.

 

[SanPellegrino]

i actually disagree with this one, i find both the khazad and the sidar better for OCC. sidar for obvious reasons, you should have your first great sage settled before turn 50. Khazad for an overflowing vault + dwarven forge. Remember, if your starting position is decent enough, you don't really need that 3rd ring untill midgame, so just make the CoTS a priority

ok, Sidar is also a good choice, but Khazad, I don't know, I still think that working nearly double the tiles in an OCC with Kuriotates is quite an advantage - for me CoTS is hard to come by, it is quite a way in the tech tree and I am usually busy building other stuff at that moment. Also I use the World Spell Legends on one of the first turns, so I can work tiles in the 3rd ring right from the start

 

[HadesScorn]

Some good debate here on OCC. I suppose the best way to playtest it would be for a multiplayer game, small map, OCC with ai controlled sidar, khazad and Kurio. The question is, does anyone have the patience to run several hundred games?