[GS] List Some Civs that I have trouble playing with

[Lily_Lancer]

I often find myself cannot play some good Civs as good as many people say they are. So I need some advice.

Let's take some standard Civs, Indonesia, Rome and Mongolia.

1: Japan, many people regard Japan as a good Civ, honestly speaking, I enjoy Samurais on MP games, or even on PVE I can also go for a good Samurai rush, timing at ~T45.

However, I don't find Meiji Restoration very useful, when I play Japan I always tech much slower than when I play Indonesia or Rome or Mongolia. Anyone gives some advice on this?

2: Scotland. Again many people regard its bonus as good bonus, however I myself just cannot maintain a high happiness until very late in game , without sacrificing empire growth. Colosseum is important however it is also very hard to compete if I don't wanna slow down my development too much. Is there anyone that can develop Scotland as fast as Indonesia, Rome or Mongolia?

3: Chandragupta. I just find this one is not as good as Gandhi when doing my favorite War Elephant Rush. Yes the speed and strength bonus is significant however the condition is not very easy to meet. Also the timing of Chandra UA does not synergize well with Gandhi's.

To sum up, I don't think Chandra is as good in war as Gandhi. (Gandhi do have a lot of extra faith bonus) Anyone gives some advice on how to play?

 

[Tech Osen]

I think the issue with Meiji Restoration is that it gets better the bigger your cities are. If you don't like going tall then maybe go compact so districts from different cities can boost eachother?

 

[kryat]

The reasons you are finding the mentioned civs powerful is because they are great at conquest and conquest is almost always the fastest path to any victory type, especially on deity. Trajan, Gitarja, and Ghengis are not good at producing science. They are good at stealing every one else’s production through war.

Scotland is best played as a metered empire, meaning that you should meter your growth so that happiness does not become a problem. Limiting city size to 10, and not conquering neighbors is the most efficient way to play in this manner. Aiming for Oracle, Bologna suzerain, and divine spark are also key, then also getting coliseum (as you mention), lots of entertainment districts, and trading to acquire more luxuries. Only add new cities (by settling) if you can afford it in the amenity budget. Happiness in excess of ecstatic is happiness that could be going to another city. And don’t declare war unless it is to liberate, and even then, declare peace as soon as possible. War weariness drags happiness down, killing the bonus.

 

[enKage]

I totally agree with Scotland, highly overrated and very easy in MP to make it a vanilla civ, jut by causing war weaaeiness. No bias means very dependent on map condtions and they often do not favor until you regenarate a lot. Very strong in specific conditions, but you must restart until you find them.
Also agree with Gandhi - Chandy, I much prefer Gandhi as bonus faith means easier Dharma via ammenity spread.

But do not agree on Japan. We do agree possibly that district discount is strong. If you have more discounted, that is even better.

Basically what you've wrote I have with most of the civs, simply I got used to Cree so much, that I never build farms and mines unless resource and when playing most civs I have problems with reaching even 10 pop. I need some 1 game of rehab before I play civ with no growth/housing bonus, just to relearn city planning with farm triangles in mind

 

[Archon_Wing]

Japan is a paperly good civ because they need many districts. If growth is poor they kinda suck.

But culture victories are good for them? Both culture and faith. Coastal combat is good for them.

Scotland is a meme and I have seen zero proof of any claim about them. % based is not meaningful for most of the game because we are mostly flat yields.

But I thought you shouldn't overgrow? Maybe not everyone constantly warmonger?

 

[Victoria]

Japan GOTM81 SV on deity. Give it a go. Reefs helped them a lot.
Your Scottish comments sound rhetorical. Of course you have to sacrifice something to gain something else. Have you tried it? I have, still not the best but you have to at least try variation.
And Chandra does not.feels as good as Ghandhi.. 100% agree. It is sort of like else are good enough

 

[Sostratus]

Scotland is a meme and I have seen zero proof of any claim about them.

People really overestimate that ability, and it drives me nuts. Like, if the ability was to double the benefits of amenities boosts entirely (thus applying to the pop growth, gold, culture, etc modifier) then we might be talking.
Like, +10%/ for 10 ecstatic cities is comparing having 10 cities with +3 amenities vs 12 cities at +0. (Because ecstatic itself carries a +10% non food yield modifier.) It's a lot easier and cheaper to push out 2 settler than maintain the entertainment complexes and arenas needed to keep a serious number of cities at that level. (You need to come up with Thirty extra amenities.) The +1 GPP is a nice early bonus under the right circumstances but falls off fast as it approaches +25% by end game. Compare to Kongo just getting handed +50% or pedro getting cheaper GPs all the time. I'd rather just have a civ that can put down more districts faster, though.

Japan is a really nice civ, but the fundamental flaw is the time it takes to bring them online. I know that if I play well, for example, i can produce a better japanese empire than a German one in the end. It'll have higher overall adjacenies, etc. But, I can step up Germany waaaay faster thanks to front loaded IZ bonus and the free district slot. If samurai could be upgraded into, totally different civ.

 

[Bangau]

Japan GOTM81 SV on deity.

@whacker had this amazing turn 181 SV win with Japan, and after that @DanQuayle even did a more amazing turn 174 SV. They both described how they did it, and I learned a lot from loading in their save games (they is so much more to learn about this game is what I learned mostly...). Play the GOTM, it's a really fun map. And compare how you used Japan's abilities versus how they did it.

2: Scotland. Again many people regard its bonus as good bonus

I think Scotland's bonus IS a good bonus for general gameplay, for many players their bonuses give a boost to the finishing times for a SV. I do think, @Lily_Lancer , you are one of those players that have developed strategies to beat the game on a level most people cannot do. (Some of your posts from last year clearly showed so.) On the level you are used to playing, Scottish bonuses are fine, but probably do not have a great impact anymore.

The people I mentioned for the GOTM finish times could probably land a sub 200 SV with any civ on almost any map, so maybe for them Japan's or Scotland's bonuses aren't super useful either. But people who have SV victory times of between 250 and 350 will notice the difference I think (me, I'm a turn 200 to 250 SV type of player, hoping to learn how to get sub 200, decent, not great ).

 

[Civ Chemist]

I think for peaceful science victories, Japan is definitely top 5 (if not top 3). A big part of it is the half price holy sites/theater squares and of course meiji restoration. High early faith economy into 3x monumentality is the way to go. With choral music you can keep up in culture and can spam campuses as your second district. Then as a 3rd a mixture of commercial hubs/harbors, theater squares and a few industrial zones to power research labs.

As for Chandragupta I think he is one of the most underrated domination civs. Everyone praises Persia for the +2 movement for surprise wars, but Chandras territorial war gives an additional +5 CS and is just better once you have unlocked it. Just make sure you leave a civ with 2 bad cities, so you can cycle war of territorial expansion with different civs for the rest of the game. He might not be as quick as Matthias, Genghis or Shaka but I still got a T125 domination victory (deity, pangea, standard size and speed) last time I played him and that was with Lautaro having Malon Raiders around T90-95 who could 2-shot my muskets and a 90 CS capital.

 

[lotrmith]

Being as the single best thing you can do for any victory type as any Civ is aggressively expand (so long as it's successful), or course Scotland's abilities are second rate. You have to sacrifice your expansion to keep cities carefully managed and war weariness limited or eliminated (ie you have to manage city size and happiness more than any other civ).

People rate Scotland IMO higher than they should because either they don't like aggressive expansion (or undervalue it) or aren't successful at it and therefore prefer to manage a smaller empire or are forced to do so anyways and have an easier time getting that bonus.... but in evaluating Scotland it's important to consider that their 10% boost to an empire of a certain size is only better than empires that are less than 10% larger than Scotland. In many cases this is a difference of less than 1 city (like if Scotland has 10 cities all with a 10% boost, on average that's not any different than any other empire of 11 cities without any boosts)... now consider that Scotland has the 10% boost while all the other civs have some other ability in its place, so a full 10% boost across 10 Scottish cities is probably worth less than 11 cities in any other Civ that has some other ability working for them.


Also I just don't care for Japan as much as some... it takes a lot of careful planning and most of all LUCK in map generation for their district adjacency bonuses to work. Like for most civs what's a great campus location? 4 or even 5 mountains. That's 4 or 5 fewer tiles to play with for other district adjacencies... so that ability is wasted much of the time when Japan has the same access to mountains that other civs might.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

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