How did different sponsors work out for you ?

[Prophet Skeram]

I'm actually quite astouned not to see a thread like this anywhere (if there is, I apologize).

Which sponsors (Pan-Asian Cooperative, Polystralia etc.) did you try out, what settings (especially starting setups) did you use and how did you like the experience (compared to other sponsors and in general game flow terms) overall ?

I personally really liked PAC (Pan-Asian Cooperative) as a sponsor with an "build all the things" approach (which is also quite flavorful, imho), I chose to start with extra production in each city, an extra worker and an Tectonic Scanner.

I went down the Industry virtue tree first and it's actually really noticible how each new city can get their core buildings in only a few turns (without spending energy), how each worker can do a ton of improvements in no time and how wonders are easily squeezed in between your usual buildings and units. I loved it.

I also really enjoyed going wide with the KP (Kavithan Protectorate), starting with Artists, Retrograde Thrusters, Machinery and going down the Prosperity tree.

The KP are basically a balanced version of the Shoshone from CiV (who were grossly overpowered, imho, when I last played BNW a year ago) and their "land grabbing" ability really comes in handy.

I also finished games with Polystralia, Franco-Iberia and the Slavic Federation, but was actually not as impressed by them as I expected.

2 additional trade routes are very powerful, yes, but if you go wide, they don't matter quite as much as they did for Venice in CiV and they also add to the already heavy micro-management load later in the game.

Free techs are obviously amazing, but, playing at only Mercury level at that time, I didn't really find myself swinging the game too much in my favor that way, especially because the first free tech comes quite "late" and you only have limited control over when the free techs will arrive. Sure, you can and will plan ahead, but I still ended up feeling less impressed than I probably should have been.

The Slavs were also rather bland, imho. Yes, you can plan to slingshot ahead when you really want to and yes, you get an actual incentive to use more satelites, which is a good idea anyway, but it just didn't really stand out to me, maybe it just didn't "click" (yet), which also happened to me for a lot of Civs in CiV.

What are your experiences with different sponsors and starting setups ? I'd love to know (please refrain from bashing/praising Civ: BE as a whole, though, this thread is for talking about specific sponsors and your experiences with them).

 

[Soronery]

They are all the same. Except that the free tech ones are horribly broken because you can rush high end techs. None of them play any differently.

 

[aguliondew]

Its really the virtues that play differently. The unique abilities of each civ can be exploited. Brasilia is the civ I tend to have issues with when playing, tts because I focus the might virtues. So far my energy/culture focus games are the one were I am the most domination.

 

[Jacozilla]

I find two sponsors are my current favorites. I do agree that there is a LOT less "civ" unique traits and as ppl said more how you configure your game and affinity/tech path you take.

But, that said, I find at least a couple sponsors to be sort of unique and ones i like taking

1. PAC -
In CBE, the worker build time seems longer, or if not longer, maybe just less worker bonuses, I don't know. End of day, we use a lot more workers overall than in CiV. So i really like stacking the building quest bonuses and virtue bonuses for worker speed along with PAC sponsor 25% bonus.

2. Hutama
He starts with +2 TRs from capital. Enough said. We all know how powerful TRs are, and especially at early game how even a couple more TRs can help jump start your early expansion

The rest of the sponsor UA I'm not all that interested or care about. But if i had to pick a #3, I guess after the clear two winners (for me and my play style) above, I'd take the sponsor that has longer sat time (I know that kinda is not so good for miasma sats but that's a small trivial matter. The game until it is fixed has so much micromanagement hell, that the extra sat time would be my #3 pick at the moment for useful quality of life sponsor ability

 

[Serenum]

A single bonus is not enough to keep me interested, beside, except for ARC and maybe PAC, none of the bonuses promote a specific kind of long term strategy. They are just different kinds of buffs, but they feel really generic and so I don' think I can actually say that I have a favourite sponsor, because in the end they don't dictate how I play on their own.

 

[War_Pig]

True but I think this is for the better. It makes it so you are not cast into a play style just by picking a sponsor and leads to a much more open game plan.

 

[Serenum]

True but I think this is for the better. It makes it so you are not cast into a play style just by picking a sponsor and leads to a much more open game plan.

I disagree, being "cast into a playstyle" gave the various civs more of a personality and helped create some metagame in multiplayer. Beside, even with a more focused role all civs in Civ5 were able to pursue all victory condition. They simply had a direct or indirect bonus in regards to some of them.

For example I managed to win a Diplomatic victory with the Zulus, simply thanks to the social policy that made my influence to city states increase while I had a huge army.

 

[Roxlimn]

The Sponsor abilities are only one facet of your overall "Civ." Civ IV plays a mix and match with a bunch of different abilities for each leader, each mapping to a particular mix of traits. CivBE draws from that by literally allowing you to mix and match all your traits freely at the start of the game.

Moreover, many Civ V Civ traits are actually in the Virtues, so CivBE plays on that by saying that part of who you are is who you choose to be. Many CiV games in the late game can be samey regardless of which leader you choose. Flat-bonus leaders like Catherine and Attila definitely lose a lot of character as you go along, since most paths in CiV are limited.

In CivBE, the combination of Virtues you have determines the late game, and it's very difficult to have every single one. A Might game features high Affinity very fast, a plethora of off Affinity UUs (because you still gain off-UU Affinities faster), and tons of strategic resources. The bonuses you get from Alien hunting highly incentivizes Alien extermination well into the midgame. A Knowledge game is all about spamming the Academies fast and heavy for massive tech.

 

[Karmah]

That is really the worst aspect of BE for me. The leaders haven't enough defining aspect for the player to choose from. In game , the RP and personalities are ok , so you get a feel of them as AI. But the unique traits just suck , they realllly ought to put traits + 2 other thing as in CiV in order to get some interresting picks and some balance (hard to balance something unidimensional) .

 

[Prophet Skeram]

Well, I kind of disagree. Franco-Iberia played a lot different for me from PAC or the KP.

Also: Please give some actual examples how you liked the different sponsors and what starting setups you went with. This thread isn't meant to be about "are the sponsors diverse enough ?" (although I can see why that is worth discussing).

 

[liv]

I like to also try to immerse myself and play to the unique advantages of the choice.
The game I am playing now is ARC. It did not influence my starting choices much -I usually go terrain, pioneering, artists, tectonic scanners but I rushed to get spies and are using them to create as much intrigue as possible and stealing tecs and flipping a few capitals over.

I have also played Franco-Iberia just to try to get free techs from virtues and time these right. It is hard to get high culture in the game early. If I manage to get to planet carvers early I consider that a win. This feature will likely be nerfed with the patch as it is an exploit but it was fun to try to do a couple of times before that.

 

[Monado]

They are all the same. Except that the free tech ones are horribly broken because you can rush high end techs. None of them play any differently.

My thoughts exactly.

 

[Soronery]

True but I think this is for the better. It makes it so you are not cast into a play style just by picking a sponsor and leads to a much more open game plan.

No. It doesn't make it better. It makes it worse because the civs aren't any different. There are no more civ unique strategies anymore.

 

[Agent327]

The Sponsor abilities are only one facet of your overall "Civ." Civ IV plays a mix and match with a bunch of different abilities for each leader, each mapping to a particular mix of traits. CivBE draws from that by literally allowing you to mix and match all your traits freely at the start of the game.

So, basically, they're all interchangeable. Unlike Civ IV. Or CiV, for that matter. Or SMAC. Or...

 

[GeoModder]

No. It doesn't make it better. It makes it worse because the civs aren't any different. There are no more civ unique strategies anymore.

In a way that's up to the player by picking colonists, ship, -and/or cargo choices that stack with your sponsor ability.
True, not all the sponsor abilities can easily be stacked, but most fit well.

 

[Soronery]

In a way that's up to the player by picking colonists, ship, -and/or cargo choices that stack with your sponsor ability.
True, not all the sponsor abilities can easily be stacked, but most fit well.

Okay. The purpose of the starting sponsor/abilities is the same purpose as the civ choice. That purpose is to create varied gameplay. BE fails miserably at this.
If I pick Montezuma I will play way differently than if I pick Ghandi or Korea. The only variation is the 3 affinities. But those don't create as much variation as leaders do.

 

[Manannan]

They are all the same. Except that the free tech ones are horribly broken because you can rush high end techs. None of them play any differently.

This. I feel like there are only 2 sponsors in the game: "oh look a free tech" sponsor, and "oh look no free tech" sponsor. I know they were trying to make it feel like there were more distinct options with cargo and colonist options, but I think saying that backfired horribly and now they just have a whole lot of bland on their hands is an understatement.

Thankfully there are mods to remedy this blunder. Yaaaay space venice (edit: well, yaay colonialist legacies mods to be a little more serious).

 

[Roxlimn]

So, basically, they're all interchangeable. Unlike Civ IV. Or CiV, for that matter. Or SMAC. Or...

They're interchangeable in the manner that "Financial" Civs in CiV 4 are interchangeable. The trait incentivizes play a specific way, but all Civs with the trait basically exhibit similarities.

Kavitha Thakur's land grabbing ability is remarkable. With that ability, you can settle 2 or 3 tiles apart from any useful resource and still be assured of naturally getting it quickly. Polystralia's early trade advantage speaks for itself. ARC facilitates quick coups. I was able to take capitals with ARC using spies. Other Civs would have it significantly harder.

The other half (actually there's a lot of Start Options) is the Colonist Type. Artists play like CiV France before BNW. Refugees play kind of like a non-sucky India. Scientists play like auto-Messenger Of the Gods.

All the Start Options combine to give you a distinct feel of game. It's purposefully not all lumped into the Sponsor alone, and it's actually very much like Civ IV to me.

Here's an example:

Kavithan Protectorate + Refugees grabs tiles fast and then fills it out with Population fast to work the tiles. It's all about grabbing land and then working it.

Kavithan Protectorate + Artists is all about grabbing a lot of land super-fast and then playing the Virtue game. On Prosperity, you can settle fast while keeping Healthy and just straight up squeeze out the AI from any land through tile claim.

Neither of these types of play would be easy to get with, say, African Union, Brasilia, or ARC. They just wouldn't have the same land-grab ability.

 

[JokerJace]

I agree that the small number of factions and their similarity is one of the worst aspects of the game. Had a thread about that more than 5 months ago and back then not many of you seemed to agree. So here's my satisfaction. But seriously... how could they think that reducing factions and UA impact at the same time would be a good idea...

 

[Manannan]

I agree that the small number of factions and their similarity is one of the worst aspects of the game. Had a thread about that more than 5 months ago and back then not many of you seemed to agree. So here's my satisfaction. But seriously... how could they think that reducing factions and UA impact at the same time would be a good idea...

I'm sure it's related to the reason they thought copy-pasting the boring dialogue from CiV into BE instead of, y'know, putting effort into giving leaders personality was a good idea too.