What other civilizations do you guys like to play a lot? how are the native americans? I imagine they must be ridiculously difficult to play on monarch. I also thought egypt would be pretty fun, but havne't had the time to play them either.
I play World Map exclusively, so these answeres are limited to that scenario/leaders/starting positions.
I've never really played
Aztecs/Incans, they just have a very boring starting position and limits, and the lack of tech boost from neighbors makes them even more boring on Emperor since while you might be able to keep on par with your only rival, the Aztecs, you have to wait a lot longer than usual to get to "the good stuff". I think I might try one of these guys next though. I think it might be interesting to try, very boring early game, but the attempt to catch up to the Europeans and win might provide an excellent challenge. I think I might try Aztecs next, and try to see what the sacrificial civics are like... usually more trade orientated.
England was pretty fun. Your main rivals are either Scandinavia or the Netherlands (or god forbid, both). You have the Seafaring trait which gives +2 first strikes AND immune to first strikes, which makes your navy super powerful. Unfortunately, both of the above civs are near you and have the exact same bonus, so it just becomes a war of attrition. Even worse, the vikings start getting +1 movement on you due to their unique building. I managed to keep myself out of continental politics, got Christianity , and quickly spread it as fast as I could to the continent, deliberately leaving out MASSIVE netherlands to isolate them. (They had conquered Germany and Hungary by this point, and were constantly harassing France. "Unfortunately" (finger quotes) they still managed to destroy France while beating back the Romans on the eastern front, but then I conquered Amsterdam in a surprise attack while their army was distracted, at which point their empire basically fell apart and the Christian Alliance of England, Rome, Poland, Greece, Spain, and Russia devoured their empire. Now I am conquering America with the help of the Royal Marines. 14 power, 2 movement. Starts with Amphibious and Urban Combat II. 100% vs archery/melee units. Tribal Villages are now a mere bump in the road. Unless they are one of the ones the AI has suicided into a bajillion times and are at level 256 or something insane with every promotion possible, those are much harder and I have avoided them so I don't lose my elite troops until the final push.
The new civ
Transoxianan Empire is interesting. It has a somewhat poor start, but can try eliminating the Turks early on, and/or a massive push into Delhi past the barbarian city. The leader has the most efficient XP boost overall, with Militarism (+3 starting XP to everything), but also Charisma (-25% XP needed for promotion). The -50% GG occurrence within your borders is not a big drawback, because if you aren't invading your enemies, you are doing something wrong.
They also have a unique improvement that lets them make farms in deserts, meaning that suddenly a TON of completely useless land is perfectly usable to your empire. Really unique and interesting improvement that has a MASSIVE advantage compared to other unique improvements which are very limited in their deployment and usually just enhance an existing improvement (better quarry, better winery, etc). This lets you build farms where you can't build any kind of improvement usually.
But the
Mongols make the Transoxianans look wimpy in comparison, their +100% GG, +3 starting XP, and their "Drawback" of -25% culture rate means that these guys have plenty of elite troops, doctrines, traditions, and stack healers early on. (I don't know if anyone else uses this strategy, but DON'T use your GGs for just any tradition or special promotion. I often have 1-2 around just to follow my stacks into enemy territory so they can heal.)
These guys can easily take control of Asia, and with that taken over, you have plenty of resources and population/production to launch an invasion of the Indian subcontinent. I find that the one wonder I do try to get as the Mongols is the Great Wall, so you don't have to worry about the various barbarian cities pillaging your workers/land when it costs too much production for too little gain to remove them.
And of course, as I've mentioned before,
France. Absurd starting location lets you conquer most of Europe very quickly, the espionage bonus can get bonkers if you get the early espionage wonder, I actually used it to supplement some of my tech research, and if you are wondering how you can build wonders if you are such a warmongerer... you just eliminated half of the WW building civs after you conquer the Netherlands, Rome, Greece, and Germany.
Austronesia is also an "interesting" choice. I go for cultural victories with it, the AI lacks the ability to properly invade, and you know how to settle compared to the Austronesian AI which is sadly still pretty stupid. I don't know why, the South Chinese and Dravidians certainly know how to settle your islands if you wait too long to expand...
