I found a gem from the past

[TheWilltoAct]

Your starting location + neighbors > civilization specific bonuses, imo.

 

[mariogreymist]

That's true enough. There are plenty of situations to not rush a neighbor (or take a whole continent) with immortals or prats. (or vultures or War Chariots for that matter, to include the other high-power early Uniques) And I have, on occasion, successfully taken whole continents with plain axes. But when starting location and neighbors have me at 50-50 thinking on a rush, being Rome, Persia, Egypt or Sumeria is a deciding factor.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

Well put.

 

[Xanikk999]

"The former USSR, the United States, China... these three countries have generally been the world leader of power at some point or another in the last two millennia,"

Wow...apparently their ignorance goes deeper than TBS gaming.

Well the statement really isn't entirely incorrect. China was technologically superior to the west before the dark ages and the early middle ages. It was also about as powerful as imperial Rome . In the mid 20th century, the United States and the USSR were the top dogs on the world power scale.

However i believe he knows the U.S and the USSR did not exist for two millennia. I mean nobody can be that ignorant.. right?

 

[swilhelm73]

Well, to be honest, I think that the Holy Roman empire is bad. Two weakest traits+crappy UU makes for some boring games. However, it does have a sweet UB and a skilled player can make it work (I wish I was one of them!)

If you play with unlimited leaders they can be pretty good. Yeah the UU is one of the weakest, but the UB is IMO the best in the game.

Note too their UU isn't worthless. It makes a good escort unit when you are brining up extra siege units to your SODs, and is reasonably good when you need to put together an anti-SOD force.

Of course if you are doing well in a war you won't fight many enemy macemen/pikeman and that is their benefit...

 

[swilhelm73]

Well the statement really isn't entirely incorrect. China was technologically superior to the west before the dark ages and the early middle ages. It was also about as powerful as imperial Rome . In the mid 20th century, the United States and the USSR were the top dogs on the world power scale.

However i believe he knows the U.S and the USSR did not exist for two millennia. I mean nobody can be that ignorant.. right?

Well, how can you leave out Imperial Spain, the Caliphate, the Ottoman Turks, the Mongols, the Victorian British, etc?

 

[insaneweasel]

If you play with unlimited leaders they can be pretty good. Yeah the UU is one of the weakest, but the UB is IMO the best in the game.

Honestly, what were they thinking? Protective and imperialist? They even hosed the latter trait-you need military science to get the academy That makes them useless for most of the game, except for a super medic here or there.

 

[(Pro)Peanut_P]

Honestly, what were they thinking? Protective and imperialist? They even hosed the latter trait-you need military science to get the academy That makes them useless for most of the game, except for a super medic here or there.

For MP games, such as CTONS (Always War,120 turn limit,Random Leader and Usually played on Inland Sea). PRO/IMP is not too bad. It gives a good chance for early expansion(with not so many worries on being rushed).Being that it is 120 turn limit, Points usually almost always decides the winner: Land and POP being the easiest way to gain points, rolling Holy Rome ain't so bad.

It really all depends on the type of game/map yo uare Playing.

Peanut.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

Honestly, what were they thinking? Protective and imperialist? They even hosed the latter trait-you need military science to get the academy That makes them useless for most of the game, except for a super medic here or there.

I didn't know there was a problem with settled GG's...? +2 Experience is fine, and it's the only way to get naval promotions until the drydock.

 

[Jerrymander]

You could always get naval promotions with naval warfare...

...except the AI is pants at it.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

You could always get naval promotions with naval warfare...

...except the AI is pants at it.

Lol, yup.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The Holy Roman UU is pretty good. Basically a maceman and pikeman in one unit. Seems pretty useful to me.

Until you run into archery units available sooner (xbow, longbow), where they are cost-ineffective to a wild degree, competent siege (where they are normal pikes), or gunpowder (where they lack the str of a mace and fight like a normal pike), you mean, all while losing out on the PRO bonuses available to longbows, xbows, and muskets in that timeframe. It's a very subpar UU.

Anyway, the IGN guide is terrible to a legendary degree and is indeed a good comedy read.

 

[Liquidated]

Poor burger king. You look at his UB and think corporate murder, too bad his traits and UU don't really help him get that far

Obviously no Happy Meal there!

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[bestrfcplayer]

Quote form the "Analisis of Portugal"

Portugal will make a lot of money; the problem comes in the form of not knowing what to do with it. Portugal will unfortunately have to react to rivals to figure out how to proceed. If rivals are aggressive, the money should be used for the military. If not, have the treasury focus on science or culture. You'll have to play the waiting game as Portugal, but don't wait too long. The longer you take to determine a strategy, the stronger the chance something is going to go wrong.

Epic Fail.

 

[Iapetus303]

How about this gem:

By the way, Great Prophets may be randomly born for you even when you didn't found a religion.

Yes, that's right. Great Prophets appear randomly.

...

I'll have to read the whole of this "guide". I'm generally pretty crap at CIV, so if I see him recomending any of my current strategies, I'll know where I'm going wrong

 

[insaneweasel]

Quote form the "Analisis of Portugal"



Epic Fail.

I love the idea of thinking of strategy by reading about a game and not playing it.

I'm surprised that he didn't say something like "Financial is the weakest trait. One extra gold on a few tiles isn't that much. You want hammers and food, as they provide citizens, which work tiles and make your empire strong."

Of course, he did research 5/7 of the world religions, and built a freaking stele in his capital!

 

[Jerrymander]

One extra gold on a few tiles isn't that much, and you do want hammers and food, as they provide citizens, which work tiles and make your empire strong.

That being said, one extra gold on a few tiles isn't that much, but it's enough to make a stellar difference.

 

[LateGameWarMong]

In other words, it wouldn't take too much extra skill for a player to play a leaderless nation with no unique unit/building and random starting techs. It'd hurt, sure, but it's not like you absolutely must have those extra bits to run an effective civilization.

Yea... I made a mod for that...
But I also went the other way too - making a civ where instead of the leader having no traits, the leader had *every* trait.
Instead of having no UU, every unit was a UU (or at least, every unit that there was a UU for)
Instead of having no UB, every building was a UB (note to those that love die Rathäuser, combine it with an Ikhanda, and OMFG city maintenance and corporate maintenance are cheap))
So when moving up a difficulty, I'd initially play my super-civ, or on the "easy enough" difficulty, move to the traitless & UU/UBless civ, before moving up.

A note on the Rathaus: -75 maintenance doesn't seem much better than the ikhanda, which when combined with a courthouse, gives you -70 maintenance, and is available much earlier.
Maybe I'm not playing optimally, but most of my cities get barracks fairly soon.
But then again, paying 30% vs 25% maintenance is paying 20% more maintenance...

Also, on the holy roman UU: I suppose having a good anti melee means you can take fewer crossbow with you... but as far as anti melee units go, the crossbow is still better, because it is not a melee unit itself.
Macemen: 8 +50%vs melee means a strength of 12 vs the landsknecht, but 8 vs crossbows
Landsknecht: 6+ 100% vs melee means a strength of 12 vs Macemen
- Macemen vs landknecht are roughly equal, but the mace's higher base strength means if it has combat (or shock) promotions, it will have a better chance at winning.
Meanwhile, the crossbow still beats any melee unit.
I suppose landknecht could be used to kill enemy pikemen, for experience, once your macemen and crossbows take out the anti-melee units.

As to Praetorians: they are über-powered.
I modded them down to a strength of 7, and gave them march and city garrison promotions... I liked the result.

For under powered UUs, I often gave them a free promotion, and maybe lowered their bonus a corresponding amount if it was now too powerful (for example the landsknecht I gave a free shock promotion, bringing its melee bonus to +125%, and considered lowering the total bonus to 100% - 75% + 25% from shock), so even if they weren't that useful, they were at least useful longer.

Btw, vs the computer, does anyone actually find panzers useful?
I basically only use tanks for city raiding, where enemy tanks are screwed if they are defending.
marines are much better at defending, as they get defensive bonuses, so it seems the +vs armored is not useful for offense, nor defense.
I rarely encounter tank on tank combat with an AI, outside cities.

 

[Iapetus303]

I've found a few other wacky comments and advice:

On Religion:

Finally, note that you can declare no state religion. That doesn't mean it makes religion illegal, just that there is no "official" religion for your country. (This is like how, up until 2006, the United States had no "official" language. Congress passed a law to make English the official language, although that didn't exactly change anyone's daily life.)

Not technically wrong, but wouldn't a simpler comparison to have been "This is like how the United States had no official religion".

On Arabia:

Unique Unit and Building Impact: Nothing. The former simply can withdraw from combat..."
(No mention of not needing any strategic resources)

On Slavery:

The only real benefit is the ability to sacrifice your people to finish a building, which is not a recommended strategy. It feels strange to me that this wouldn't have some sort of negative on your population's morale; in strict game terms, this is better than Tribalism because the former at least gives you an added option for the same price.

On Resources:

Strictly speaking, you probably can get away with not worrying about luxury resources.

On Siege Units:

Say a Catapult rolls up on my Berserker and Pikeman, who are in the same tile. The Catapult can issue the "Bombard" tactic, which strikes both the Berserker and Pikeman. This reduces both their base strength scores

(Note: he's talking about units in the field, not about reducing a city's defence bonus).



And just for the lulz: here are all of his comments regarding specialists:


Arabia:
Unique Unit and Building Impact: Nothing. ... the latter allows more specialist citizens in a city. Not that great.


Egypt:
The Obelisk can create specialist citizens while the Monument can't, but specialist citizens are overrated.

Germany:

The Assembly Plant allows more specialists, whoopdie-do.

Representation:
I still firmly believe that specialists are overrated, but I with enough, I suppose it would make significant impact to your technology push.

Mercantilism
In game terms, you get free specialists at the cost of additional money. Unless you're on islands and unable to visit other civilizations until late, even Decentralization is better.



As for the game he played, he made a lot of careless mistakes, but the one thing that struck me as unbelieveably stupid was switching from to Vasslage after his big war ended

 

[TheMulattoMaker]

Yea... I made a mod for that...
But I also went the other way too - making a civ where instead of the leader having no traits, the leader had *every* trait.

Are these mods available for public consumption? I'd love to play them...