New Tiers

[DemonMaster]

Sure, interesting, but it does not work like that

Culture is your defensive culture, so Montezuma would be in theory harder to conquer via Culture, however, their culture kills do not directly increase Tourism at all (I actually don't think their UA actually raises Tourism in anyway, unless they tweaked their UA).

But I can't help think of those tourists that do wants to come and look at the great Aztec culture? Tourists guide: "And to the right we can see a sacrifice of ten brave warriors"

 

[I_qua_I]

This thread is pointless at the moment. There are still too many unknowns. Even if we do still want to take a shot at it, however, our criteria for determining a civ's relative power level is wholly shaped by our experience with G&K. There is no telling, what with all the new features and changes, not just how different civs and strategies will be affected, but also how much weight we should grant certain things in determining relative strengths.

 

[Sam Kwon]

This thread is pointless at the moment. There are still too many unknowns. Even if we do still want to take a shot at it, however, our criteria for determining a civ's relative power level is wholly shaped by our experience with G&K. There is no telling, what with all the new features and changes, not just how different civs and strategies will be affected, but also how much weight we should grant certain things in determining relative strengths.

Again, it was meant to be more of a guess, based on what we do know, more than anything else.

 

[Ryoga]

But I can't help think of those tourists that do wants to come and look at the great Aztec culture? Tourists guide: "And to the right we can see a sacrifice of ten brave warriors"

You know... it might actually attract tourism. You'd think a decent human being would never like to see "human sacrifices", but I bet there's a lot of people out there that would gladly pay to watch that in a country where it's "legal".


See dark tourism, disaster tourism, war tourism, slum tourism, and more importantly: murder tourism.

 

[anandus]

Rome could use national trade routes to build the capital version of an improvement faster, and they wern't too shabby Before.

Indeed.
Plus iron at bronze working and cheaper iron working will also boost the not-so-shabby-before Romans

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Iron at Bronzeworking is nice for Russia too.

 

[Securion]

This thread is pointless at the moment. There are still too many unknowns. Even if we do still want to take a shot at it, however, our criteria for determining a civ's relative power level is wholly shaped by our experience with G&K. There is no telling, what with all the new features and changes, not just how different civs and strategies will be affected, but also how much weight we should grant certain things in determining relative strengths.

You should try YouTube one day.
Everything about BNW is known. You can even see the different Civs at play. MadDjinn himself have shown us early and late game strategies already, with Shoshone and Portugal.

We have all the facts.

Still, that doesn't mean we make the right judgment. Thats where opinion and play style comes in.

 

[Nicasen]

That depends on how the new trading works. From my understanding, you can't just trade for pure cash anymore. That means you'll have to trade for stuff that wouldn't help your strategy and affects the amount of money you could make.
Also, tiles around rivers have been updated to no longer provide coins. And let that just be the tiles where you find flooded plains or usually find marshes.

I'm getting worried that, without a small update on their UA, the Dutch would become far less powerful as they are now.

I'm concerned about them too. The real power of the Dutch imo was in their early game since they could sell off luxuries to fund settlers and rapidly expand while still maintaining positive happiness to grow out cities. Without that early game advantage it just seems like there's not much of a reason to play them over Arabia anymore, especially since they also got buffed.

 

[Ichabod]

I think several civs in BNW have the potential to be top tier. The only real loser I know of in the whole game, today, is Germany with India, Celts, the Dutch and America being a bit meh. I intend to make a minimalist mod after it comes out that improves these civs and increase the number of city states and natural wonders available on huge maps (the only mod I play with now is the Krakatoa mod that puts it within a few tiles of land instead of a one-tile useless wonder in the middle of the ocean).

Every other civ other than those is top-tier when used correctly. India might be Top-Tier if unhappiness has been strengthened to be a real penalty and internal food shipments to make a mega-city happen.

Germany's Landsknecht is very powerful, costing half the hammers of the base unit, without any kind of drawback. The dutch are extremely powerful for fast finish games, providing you cook the settings enough. I don't agree with putting them on the same basket as India (worst Civ in the game by far, in my opinion) and ranking them lower than civs like Russia, Japan, Iroquois (and many more).

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I'm concerned about them too. The real power of the Dutch imo was in their early game since they could sell off luxuries to fund settlers and rapidly expand while still maintaining positive happiness to grow out cities. Without that early game advantage it just seems like there's not much of a reason to play them over Arabia anymore, especially since they also got buffed.

2 facts and a possibility
1. You can trade for gold per turn
2. You can thade for lump sum gold with a DoF

If they no longer stopped you from trading away luxuries you are importing, that would be a major buff to the Dutch UA.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

If they no longer stopped you from trading away luxuries you are importing, that would be a major buff to the Dutch UA.

That's impossible with the way the trading system currently works, and from what we've seen of BNW through gameplay vids, it hasn't changed unfortunately.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Germany's Landsknecht is very powerful, costing half the hammers of the base unit, without any kind of drawback.

It was very powerful prior to G&K. The main point of Landsknechts is mass production. And you usually don't want to mass-produce something which upgrades to Lancers, Anti-tanks and Helicopters.

The dutch are extremely powerful for fast finish games, providing you cook the settings enough. I don't agree with putting them on the same basket as India (worst Civ in the game by far, in my opinion) and ranking them lower than civs like Russia, Japan, Iroquois (and many more).

We don't consider cooking settings as it could made any civ much weaker or much stronger. Balanced setup is Standard size, Standard map, Continents/Hemispheres, default number of civs and city-states, default options, all victories in.

And even with altered settings, Dutch don't shine too much as they completely out of focus. Their UU, UI and UA all relate to different things. While each of them isn't bad and the overall civ is stronger than many vanilla civs, Dutch aren't that fun.

 

[Securion]

My prediction:
Still the best; Babylon, Persia and Arabia.
Still the worst; America, Germany and Danish.

We will see a few weeks after BNW if I change my mind.

 

[MadDjinn]

You should try YouTube one day.
Everything about BNW is known. You can even see the different Civs at play. MadDjinn himself have shown us early and late game strategies already, with Shoshone and Portugal.

We have all the facts.

Still, that doesn't mean we make the right judgment. Thats where opinion and play style comes in.

actually... you're still missing some pieces of the puzzle

 

[Zet]

So what, if any, are the changes to the Dutch UA?

 

[Securion]

actually... you're still missing some pieces of the puzzle

Pieces big enough to make one civ immensely better than the rest? I think not. Unless you're thinking "Rome" right now...? But yea, we know about "abusive" strategies while playing Rome...
But then again, im not going to argue with Mr Frankenstein. I hope you will get a BNW LP out ASAP after release to show us all those changes you couldn't tell us about!

 

[Nicasen]

So what, if any, are the changes to the Dutch UA?

The UA is still the exact same but the game mechanics have changed so that other civs will have less gold to trade early on and will pay with gpt rather than lump sums. Before you could just sell off your nearby luxuries for an easy 240 gold to fund settlers and you had more leeway with happiness for rapid expansion and population growth. I'm not the greatest player in the world so take this with a grain of salt, but now that the early game bonus isn't as strong it seems like Arabia is a better option since in the mid game the bazaar outshines the Dutch UA.

 

[Ichabod]

It was very powerful prior to G&K. The main point of Landsknechts is mass production. And you usually don't want to mass-produce something which upgrades to Lancers, Anti-tanks and Helicopters.

Well, they can still give you an advantage on the field in their era with way less cost. But I admit I was thinking about MP - without having really tested it to see if they'd work, mind you, so it's pure theorycraft.

We don't consider cooking settings as it could made any civ much weaker or much stronger. Balanced setup is Standard size, Standard map, Continents/Hemispheres, default number of civs and city-states, default options, all victories in.

And even with altered settings, Dutch don't shine too much as they completely out of focus. Their UU, UI and UA all relate to different things. While each of them isn't bad and the overall civ is stronger than many vanilla civs, Dutch aren't that fun.

I agree regarding cooked settings not being a way to evaluate a Civ's strenght. I mentioned the dutch because they are able to compete for high scores/fastest wins between all civs and all cooked settings - Dutch on arid maps are incredibly scary. (http://dos486.com/civ4/civ5gkdutch/ - this is a pretty good read displaying this particular point, if you are interested). So, I don't agree with the dutch being out of focus.

But of course, if we are taking fun into account, then the discussion changes completely. I totally agree the Dutch are boring. Give me military civs before them everytime.

 

[Tyrvos]

And even with altered settings, Dutch don't shine too much as they completely out of focus. Their UU, UI and UA all relate to different things. While each of them isn't bad and the overall civ is stronger than many vanilla civs, Dutch aren't that fun.

They aren't out of focus. With the new trade route mechanic, the Sea Beggar will be more relevant, it will be great at defending naval trade routes. Their UI, though situational, is very powerful for boosting gold and city size. They are an economically focused team.

Fun is too subjective, because in G&K they were the most fun for me. My concern is the affect of less early game gold on their ability to trade for their UA, and the fact they had a historic naval trade focus yet no change of their UA to reflect that.

 

[ABPoobah]

Seeing this question made me wonder if there was an old (G&K) tier list out there somewhere, though I couldn't find one with a quick search. It'd be useful to know what are widely regarded as the strongest civs.

Based on my still very limited experience compared with the rest of the board (I'm still working on winning my first Diety game, and getting better at reliably winning on Immortal) I would agree that Polynesia seem like they'll be even stronger than they already are on maps with any amount of water. I also agree with the comments that Byzantium will be much better at reliably being able to use their unique bonus since Piety will help them actually manage to found a religion, and dominating religiously is now even stronger with tourism and reformation beliefs.

I'm very eager to play as the Shoshone. I feel like they could be really up there in terms of strength because of their ability to get pretty much as much as possible out of any given start, what with starting with a scout and the ruins benefit picking ability to smooth out the RNG on goody huts and allow for some really powerful selections, depending on how things play out.

I think Dido got a quite a bit of a nerf with the changes to harbours / lighthouses (lighthouses get the +1 hammer from sea resources harbours used to have, and harbours are now just a buff to the distance of your sea trade routes, which makes them much less useful early). That's quite a lot of extra early production ahead of what anyone else with a similar start could get lost in one fell swoop.