Sneak Peek at Composite Victory Type Rankings - so far...

[lotrmith]

Multiplayer is fun but very imbalanced. You'll never win a DV or RV in a competent MP setting, for example.

The reason many of the strongest early warmongers are banned in many MP games is that they are the most likely to cause the most apparent snowballs, while eliminating or otherwise causing players to quit out, which itself is causes a quick snowball of everyone leaving at once.

 

[VanTao]

I absolutely agree that people should play Civ the way they want to.

With that said, when it comes to elimination threads, for me, I will try to vote based on whether I will win first as well as not be killed by an aggressive neighbor (be it a high level difficulty AI or a human player). This naturally means there will be “stronger civs” and “weaker civs”. Now, as many others have said, we all have our interpretations of “stronger” and “weaker”. Even using the framework of winning first, what I may view as a strong bonus that aids that (Rome’s free Monuments is my favorite example), another player may disagree.

I agree that people tend to remember their great games with “weaker” civs and forget that some of those great games may have been due to re-rolling to get the perfect setup for those weaker civs (apologize for making a blanket statement, simply trying to elaborate on a point). I admit that I’ve done this with civs that need certain conditions to be met in order to have a good game:
- Spain and England as their Costal start tends to but them in bad locations (Coastal civs in general), so I’ve constantly re-rolled to at least be adjacent to a River, re-rolling again as Spain if I end up not getting a Religion (which is hard on Deity) and re-rolling again as England if I am nowhere near other continents.
- Indonesia if I somehow don’t end up on the Coast (probably the only Coastal civ where I won’t re-roll if I am on the Coast but not also adjacent to a River) or can tell my immediate Coastal area will have a lack of Coastal resources to place Kampungs.
- Brazil if I ironically start too deep in Rainforest and means that I have to go for Bronze Working first, which increases early district costs and can screw up optimizing the district discount mechanism; etc. I actually think this makes Brazil the weakest of the civs that can take advantage of Work Ethic, but that’s a point I might make in another post.

I actually try to factor re-rolling in my own internal tier list I keep, with those who don’t have to re-roll often if at all due to the power and consistency of their (usually early) bonuses ranking higher. Yeah, that one Spain game was great and my Conquistadors could kill everything, but I had to re-roll to ensure that the stars aligned so that everything would be in place for me to get there. It also wasn’t a fast Domination victory, I would have won earlier with another Domination civ, before my bonuses with Spain could come into play. Thus, can you honestly say Spain should be have ended up at #30 (admittedly, not a great score anyway) while Scythia somehow ended up at #35, with Macedon barely ahead at #29?

Maybe this is why I value civs with early, consistent bonuses, particularly those that benefit combat / expansion. In high difficulty SP, they allow you to counter the advantages the AI gets. In MP, they put you at an advantage over your opponents who don’t have these early advantages, meaning you can snowball better and probably win first (because in MP, you can’t just take your time in getting to your preferred victory path like you can in SP).

In fact, this is why I like Rome so much. Though their bonuses can be argued to be boring, they will always get them save for the Legion (and pre-GS, you always could get the Legion, and the timing of this with Oligarchy due to Culture from free Monuments and Magnus chopping was OP). In terms of the argument that re-rollling = a loss, as Rome, I almost never re-roll. The free Monuments can salvage most crappy starts save for possibly being deep in Tundra / Snow (this is usually when I would re-roll in SP, and honestly, I would re-roll with most civs save for Russia or Canada). Free roads help with difficult terrain.

For example, due to the CV elimination thread, I played a fast CV last week as Rome to make sure I wasn’t misremembering the civic timing / pacing that Rome tends to get. For this game, almost every tile within 8-10 tiles of my Capital was a hill or mountain (despite having world age at standard). Though this obviously meant I would have great production (and adjacency) later, for most civs (even Colombia), this means moving your units take twice as long within those 8-10 tiles, slowing the founding of cities with settlers, the setting up of improvements with builders, moving your military, etc. However, with Rome, though this did slow the founding of my second city, once I had the free road, it greatly aided in speeding up the movement of my future settlers (which compounded with the free roads from each of those cities). Though Drama & Poetry for TS came it at turn 42 instead of a little over 35 as a result, I got Political Philosophy at Turn 51, which was pretty on par if maybe a couple of turns slower. With most other civs, the halving of my movement due to all the hills would have probably slowed me down much, much more. Again, the better production and adjacency would arguably make up for it later, but Rome’s consistent, always present in 100% of games free roads allowed me to take advantage of these sooner.

 

[ShimmerGloom]

- Brazil if I ironically start too deep in Rainforest and means that I have to go for Bronze Working first, which increases early district costs and can screw up optimizing the district discount mechanism; etc. I actually think this makes Brazil the weakest of the civs that can take advantage of Work Ethic, but that’s a point I might make in another post.
.

I know this is going off topic, but I'd appreciate it if you could explain a bit about how you play the early game.
I usually try to get bronze working quickly (normally when I get the boost), to discover where there's Iron. What tech path do you usually take?

 

[VanTao]

No problem, glad you asked. I am very aware that I write long posts, so I actually do try to edit down the points I’m trying to make, if you can believe it.

The timing of Bronze Working for Brazil was specifically within the context of a fast CV (or even fast SV), which is what I normally pursue as Brazil (and I believe most players do, with SV thrown into the mix, sometimes RV if you want to be a masochist). Arguably, getting Bronze Working is not a strong priority for a fast CV (or SV), particularly at the opportunity cost of affecting the district discount mechanism. It can wait until you’ve settled most of your cities (and hopefully captured a few as well), locked in the price of your other districts, and are ready to go for Printing to boost your Tourism from GWoW.

When going Domination, I get Bronze Working much earlier, usually the fourth or fifth tech I research. As Rome, it is often the second or third tech I get. Knowing where Iron is and hopefully being able to get it is too important in Domination overall and particularly as Rome. I don’t care about district costs as much, since I will be capturing most of the districts I need.

For fast CV, in terms of districts, I either try to quickly get TS first (particularly with civs that have early Culture yields that allow me to do this, like Rome or Gorgo, sometimes Pericles and Japan) or Campus first (I do this with most other civs that don’t have inherent Culture bonuses or where I didn’t meet a Culture CS early), prioritizing the civics and techs accordingly. I make sure to avoid finishing the tech / civic for other districts that I don’t need currently. If I go Campus first, depending on the number of cities I can settle or capture, I try to build 3-5 of them before I reach TS, trying to complete at least 2 before doing so so that the district discount mechanism kicks in. It helps if I do capture a city if they already built a Campus for me.

Because Brazil often times has to go for Bronze Working earlier than most other civs would in fast CV to take advantage of those admittedly good adjacencies, they normally can’t get as many discounted districts. Additionally, getting Bronze Workng adds to your total researched techs in thee early game, increasing the cost of future districts.

While following the above in terms of tech / civic priority for my districts, I try to get Craftsmanship and Early Empire as soon as possible. I try to avoid State Workforce as much as possible due to the fact it gives you the Gov Plaza as a district. With Rome, thanks to how good my early Culture yields are, I can actually avoid Craftsmanship until I get TS, with no meaningful impact to my production of military units. This will mean your TS will be cheaper.

Particularly if aiming for building TS first, since I won’t be building districts, I run Agoge and Colonization at the same time, forgoing Urban Planning, and build only military (usually in my newer cities) and settlers (usually in my capital, maybe my second city). This is particularly powerful as Rome and normally Gorgo, due to the fact that you breeze through the civics.

If going for Campus first, it’s a little trickier. I still try to get Agoge and Colonization. I still use Colonization for my 3rd maybe even 4th settler. However, unlike with TS first, where I can still use it definitely for my 4th, 5th, and maybe even 6th settler, once I’m ready to build Campuses en masse, I usually switch Urban Planning back in. I will rely on my army to hopefully capture 1-2 additional cities.

I am all about getting a city every 10-15 turns for the first 80 Turns or so (and doing this at 1.5x to maybe even 2x the rate with Rome and Gorgo, where you are relying on your normally larger / stronger armies to capture those additional cities ... I’m definitely not hard building 10+ settlers, haha). I know some people like to wait for Ancestral Hall or Classical Age Monumentality before going on a settler spree after your 4th or 5th city, often times waiting for Provisions Magnus as well. For a fast CV, this might take a little too long. Particularly, if you delay your cities, you can’t lock in district prices as effectively. Rome is a potential exception to this due to getting to Political Philosophy so quickly. This is why I think Rome is so good (and why it kills me when some people view the free Monuments as “oh, it’s only a little extra Culture”, haha).

Admittedly, I am probably min-maxing more than most players like. However, the way I play civ, I see my previous win times as a metric that I try to beat or at least stay consistent with.

 

[ShimmerGloom]

No problem, glad you asked. I am very aware that I write long posts, so I actually do try to edit down the points I’m trying to make, if you can believe it.

The timing of Bronze Working for Brazil was specifically within the context of a fast CV (or even fast SV), which is what I normally pursue as Brazil (and I believe most players do, with SV thrown into the mix, sometimes RV if you want to be a masochist). Arguably, getting Bronze Working is not a strong priority for a fast CV (or SV), particularly at the opportunity cost of affecting the district discount mechanism. It can wait until you’ve settled most of your cities (and hopefully captured a few as well), locked in the price of your other districts, and are ready to go for Printing to boost your Tourism from GWoW.

When going Domination, I get Bronze Working much earlier, usually the fourth or fifth tech I research. As Rome, it is often the second or third tech I get. Knowing where Iron is and hopefully being able to get it is too important in Domination overall and particularly as Rome. I don’t care about district costs as much, since I will be capturing most of the districts I need.

For fast CV, in terms of districts, I either try to quickly get TS first (particularly with civs that have early Culture yields that allow me to do this, like Rome or Gorgo, sometimes Pericles and Japan) or Campus first (I do this with most other civs that don’t have inherent Culture bonuses or where I didn’t meet a Culture CS early), prioritizing the civics and techs accordingly. I make sure to avoid finishing the tech / civic for other districts that I don’t need currently. If I go Campus first, depending on the number of cities I can settle or capture, I try to build 3-5 of them before I reach TS, trying to complete at least 2 before doing so so that the district discount mechanism kicks in. It helps if I do capture a city if they already built a Campus for me.

Because Brazil often times has to go for Bronze Working earlier than most other civs would in fast CV to take advantage of those admittedly good adjacencies, they normally can’t get as many discounted districts. Additionally, getting Bronze Workng adds to your total researched techs in thee early game, increasing the cost of future districts.

While following the above in terms of tech / civic priority for my districts, I try to get Craftsmanship and Early Empire as soon as possible. I try to avoid State Workforce as much as possible due to the fact it gives you the Gov Plaza as a district. With Rome, thanks to how good my early Culture yields are, I can actually avoid Craftsmanship until I get TS, with no meaningful impact to my production of military units. This will mean your TS will be cheaper.

Particularly if aiming for building TS first, since I won’t be building districts, I run Agoge and Colonization at the same time, forgoing Urban Planning, and build only military (usually in my newer cities) and settlers (usually in my capital, maybe my second city). This is particularly powerful as Rome and normally Gorgo, due to the fact that you breeze through the civics.

If going for Campus first, it’s a little trickier. I still try to get Agoge and Colonization. I still use Colonization for my 3rd maybe even 4th settler. However, unlike with TS first, where I can still use it definitely for my 4th, 5th, and maybe even 6th settler, once I’m ready to build Campuses en masse, I usually switch Urban Planning back in. I will rely on my army to hopefully capture 1-2 additional cities.

I am all about getting a city every 10-15 turns for the first 80 Turns or so (and doing this at 1.5x to maybe even 2x the rate with Rome and Gorgo, where you are relying on your normally larger / stronger armies to capture those additional cities ... I’m definitely not hard building 10+ settlers, haha). I know some people like to wait for Ancestral Hall or Classical Age Monumentality before going on a settler spree after your 4th or 5th city, often times waiting for Provisions Magnus as well. For a fast CV, this might take a little too long. Particularly, if you delay your cities, you can’t lock in district prices as effectively. Rome is a potential exception to this due to getting to Political Philosophy so quickly. This is why I think Rome is so good (and why it kills me when some people view the free Monuments as “oh, it’s only a little extra Culture”, haha).

Admittedly, I am probably min-maxing more than most players like. However, the way I play civ, I see my previous win times as a metric that I try to beat or at least stay consistent with.

Thanks for the detailed reply! I never really used the district discount mechanic, but I'll try thinking about it more now.

 

[bengalryan9]

Well good, sir, I did say "most", not "all".

But, safe to say that if one simply asks the average poster on this forum on the strongest civ (period) then among the generalist civs, I dare say Aztecs and Nubia (whose district-oriented bonuses and UUs are good at all victory conditions) come to mind. These are the civs which people seem to complain that they are broken and banned in MP.
The fact that a niche generalist civ like Hungary (who isn't even that good since CS die so easily on higher difficulties and the AI gets tons of envoys) gets the top position simply means that the elimination thread results are somehow out of sync with reality.

Pitati archers are awesome and IIRC we voted them as the best UU in the game (which is NOT factored into the rankings in this thread). I think Amanitore did pretty well in the domination thread as well. I've never been particularly impressed with the rest of their stuff outside of the ranged bonuses, though... Nubian pyramids aren't anything special and their are other leaders with better bonuses to districts IMO. I'm sure Nubia can do fine in culture and science... if you start out playing a domination-based game early, which is what their biggest strength actually is and where we gave them the most credit.

Aztec are a civ that I feel falls off in strength as you raise the difficulty level. Eagle Warriors are really good (and, again, this was reflected in the UU thread where they were given a lot of respect) and their ability to capture builders can be game changing early on... BUT on deity they're basically more expensive warriors with a +1 CS bonus over the AI, which is a lot harder to leverage. Using builder charges on districts is nice and generally keeps them in the conversation of most victory condition elimination threads, but that's not enough to compete with the heavy hitters in the different categories. They're really good all-rounders and that's what makes them strong, even though that's not necessarily reflected in the rankings.

I've never been a huge Hungary defender personally but I think you're selling them short. I might've agreed with you a few patches ago when you'd be lucky to see 1-2 city states standing by the end of a game, but these days I find that city states don't get conquered as much (and yes, I play and win on deity). I don't find it particularly hard to suzerain the majority of the city states with any civ I play (the AI may get a lot of envoys, but it's terrible at actually *using* them in my experience), and that would be even easier to do as Hungary. I think they're pretty strong TBH.

 

[CrabHelmet]

@VanTao I feel like half the differences you describe arise from the SP/MP distinction. On Deity SP, Eagle Warriors barely have an advantage against AI Warriors, then the Aztecs run out of steam. They're pretty meh. Meanwhile, against human players in MP, even good ones, they're terrifying. Nubia has a similar problem. All of the Deity AI's advantages are front loaded, and it's just much harder to go toe-to-toe with them in the first 30 turns than it is t30-60. I find I have best luck against them by rushing Horsemen and Swordsmen, because then you can have a Great General which humans just understand how to use much better and that really levels the playing field. Before then progress is just tough and so I really don't rate Ancient era UUs - it's actually an enormous compliment to Nubia that I actually do think the Pitati are good even on Deity. If I am doing an extremely early war, rather than *better* units, I need *more* units, because the AI gets so many free Warriors. This makes Hungary really good - one City-State quest and Armani and you have a big old army ready to lay down the law and take your nearest neighbour. While by mid-game many CS are gone, Hungary has better early conquest options against Deity AI than either Aztecs or Nubia IMO, whereas in MP against humans it's a more close-run thing (although actually I do still think Hungary is good even in MP, Black Army squadrons supported by a Great General are *ludicrous* - 63 CS will one-shot most units human players have access to at the time).

 

[VanTao]

Multiplayer is fun but very imbalanced. You'll never win a DV or RV in a competent MP setting, for example.

The reason many of the strongest early warmongers are banned in many MP games is that they are the most likely to cause the most apparent snowballs, while eliminating or otherwise causing players to quit out, which itself is causes a quick snowball of everyone leaving at once.

This is why, in my opinion, the weighing of the compiled elimination thread results should be:
Domination - 40%
Culture - 20%
Science - 20%
Religion - 10%
Diplomacy - 10%

I recognize that a large percentage of players, probably an overwhelming majority, do not play MP. However, in my opinion, MP arguably serves as a generally good stand-in for how civs perform against each other when on equal starting conditions (i.e. - not going against the advantages the AI has on higher difficulties in SP) with the express goal of trying to win first, though of course, there will always be some exceptions and nuances to this. All else being equal, human players will normally try to use the advantages of their civ to out-optimize, out-perform, and out-compete their opponents to ultimately win first. Even when evaluated against the admittedly different conditions of SP, I would argue how a civ performs in MP is a generally good indicator of how it will perform in (higher difficulty) SP, though not necessarily in a 1-to-1 correlation.

Does this mean that advantages to combat and early bonuses are weighed more than late game game bonuses? Unfortunately, yes, depending on your view on how the game should be played.

As an example, yes, Georgia will almost always win a Diplo victory over Scythia if Scythia (for some reason) is going for its own Diplo victory. However, Scythia probably won’t be going for a Diplo victory, and if playing to its strengths, on average, will win a Domination victory faster. If trying to put them in a tier list, I would argue that Scythia is overall “stronger” / “better” than Georgia, unlike Scythia’s #35 ranking vs Georgia’s #28 when doing a simple average of the elimination thread results (in my internal tier list, Scythia is many spots higher, at a middle-to-lower A Tier position).

Furthermore, even Zulu, who tend to have a slower Domination victory time compared to early Domination civs due to Zulu’s bonuses coming in a lot later, will probably still win before Georgia can achieve a Diplo victory.

Does this take away from the fact that in SP, if I play Georgia, I will tend to have easier time at a Diplo victory? No, it doesn’t. However, in my opinion, this does mean that Diplo tends to be a slower victory path, all else being equaled, when compared to the times you can normally achieve when going other paths with other civs. Also, like I said in a previous post, unless I am completely off base, you will never win a Diplo victory in MP, if all players are trying to win the game. This should factor in some way when evaluating tier lists, even if just a little.

(Knowing that others have mentioned that Diplomacy can be won more quickly than it used to be, as I promised in an earlier post, I am actually playing a Diplo game as Georgia right now, with my next planned game being Canada, to see if I can get it faster than I normally have in the in the past. Though I still think it will be a 200+ Turn game, depending on how it goes, I may reevaluate my views on Diplo victory, though I probably will still keep my weighings of the victory paths unchanged.)

 

[bengalryan9]

This is why, in my opinion, the weighing of the compiled elimination thread results should be:
Domination - 40%
Culture - 20%
Science - 20%
Religion - 10%
Diplomacy - 10%

I definitely get what you are saying, but here's my thought process - domination is widely regarded as the easiest way to win the game. The AI stinks at war and is pretty bad at defending itself. I don't think we should weigh domination so heavily because of that.

Even the civs that get huge bonuses towards domination - Mongolia, Zulu, etc - those are great and all, but it's not like I can march towards a domination victory easily enough with any civ in the game, including Canada if I really wanted to.

Now granted, again, multiplayer is an entirely different can of worms and those bonuses to war and combat probably go a lot farther there. As someone who almost exclusively plays single player (which I'd assume is the case for most civ players), they just don't mean as much.

 

[VanTao]

@CrabHelmet , I absolutely agree with you that in general having more units is better than a single / handful of slightly stronger unit(s) in Deity SP. That is why, as I have always seemed to plug in most of my posts since I’ve stopped lurking, I think Rome is still so deceptively strong and a low S Tier (my own ranking) / high A Tier civ, not a B or even C Tier civ that some players seemed to gut-react place them in when they got nerfed over a year ago with the Iron requirement. I guess I’m hoping enough people read will read my posts to be persuaded that Rome is still a great civ and not just a slightly above average, generalist civ.

Rome’s ability to get to Agoge so quickly, even without the Inspiration boost, and the fact they can use the potential Gold / turns saved from not buying / building a Monument means that I normally have an army 2x to 3x larger than I would as another civ on the same turn. It also helps I’ll be getting the Oligarchy CS boost as well really early, normally 25-30 Turns before I would as a normal civ.

Yes, they are mainly warriors and slingers / archers until I can upgrade to Legions (admittedly, if I have Iron, I’m still a little bitter about this ... Rome gets nerfed, but not Sumeria or Russia?). However, this is normally enough to be on par with Deity AI and probably even take a city or two before I go on my real conquering spree if I am going Domination once I get Legions (or Horsemen, depending on the game). Also, I am generally happy with conquering 1-2 cities if going fast CV or SV, though I probably will still try to capture maybe a few more cities depending on the timing of Legions (making sure to not outright eliminate a civ if going fast CV). Usually, the early availability of Iron will influence whether I switch from a Domination to a CV or SV game, though if going for a true fast CV or SV, I will have skipped Bronze Working for later to optimize the district discount mechanism.

Regarding your comment about Aztec Eagle Warriors, I do agree they are not the steamrollers on Deity SP like they are on lower difficulties or MP. However, I still think Aztecs should rank really high because the early combat advantage of Eagle Warriors, even if weaker on Deity, help you survive if not beat the AI to capture 1-2 early cities, more so that other civs without early advantages. They also continue being strong late in the game with the Luxuries CS bonus and the fact that applying builder charges to districts is still one of the best production bonuses in the game.

Also, yeah, Hungary is OP and a solid S Tier civ. They deserve their top ranking on the average compiled elimination thread results, even with all the flaws of that list.

 

[lotrmith]

This is why, in my opinion, the weighing of the compiled elimination thread results should be:
Domination - 40%
Culture - 20%
Science - 20%
Religion - 10%
Diplomacy - 10%

I recognize that a large percentage of players, probably an overwhelming majority, do not play MP. However, in my opinion, MP arguably serves as a generally good stand-in for how civs perform against each other when on equal starting conditions (i.e. - not going against the advantages the AI has on higher difficulties in SP) with the express goal of trying to win first, though of course, there will always be some exceptions and nuances to this. All else being equal, human players will normally try to use the advantages of their civ to out-optimize, out-perform, and out-compete their opponents to ultimately win first. Even when evaluated against the admittedly different conditions of SP, I would argue how a civ performs in MP is a generally good indicator of how it will perform in (higher difficulty) SP, though not necessarily in a 1-to-1 correlation.

Does this mean that advantages to combat and early bonuses are weighed more than late game game bonuses? Unfortunately, yes, depending on your view on how the game should be played.

As an example, yes, Georgia will almost always win a Diplo victory over Scythia if Scythia (for some reason) is going for its own Diplo victory. However, Scythia probably won’t be going for a Diplo victory, and if playing to its strengths, on average, will win a Domination victory faster. If trying to put them in a tier list, I would argue that Scythia is overall “stronger” / “better” than Georgia, unlike Scythia’s #35 ranking vs Georgia’s #28 when doing a simple average of the elimination thread results (in my internal tier list, Scythia is many spots higher, at a middle-to-lower A Tier position).

Furthermore, even Zulu, who tend to have a slower Domination victory time compared to early Domination civs due to Zulu’s bonuses coming in a lot later, will probably still win before Georgia can achieve a Diplo victory.

Does this take away from the fact that in SP, if I play Georgia, I will tend to have easier time at a Diplo victory? No, it doesn’t. However, in my opinion, this does mean that Diplo tends to be a slower victory path, all else being equaled, when compared to the times you can normally achieve when going other paths with other civs. Also, like I said in a previous post, unless I am completely off base, you will never win a Diplo victory in MP, if all players are trying to win the game. This should factor in some way when evaluating tier lists, even if just a little.

(Knowing that others have mentioned that Diplomacy can be won more quickly than it used to be, as I promised in an earlier post, I am actually playing a Diplo game as Georgia right now, with my next planned game being Canada, to see if I can get it faster than I normally have in the in the past. Though I still think it will be a 200+ Turn game, depending on how it goes, I may reevaluate my views on Diplo victory, though I probably will still keep my weighings of the victory paths unchanged.)

Yeah but assuming a competent Georgia player, they get early walls up and Scythia grinds to a halt unless Georgia is one of the final Civs left and Scythia had a huge snowball. Else, no more domination. In fact, for real domination against players of equal competence, you can leverage a very, very early advantage (ie nubia or Sumeria) but typically only for a couple quick city captures. Then you run into a neighbor who has teched past you and stops your early units in their tracks either with walls or crossbows or something. You have to shift your domination into a different victory condition because someone else will likely beat you to a science or culture win before you can finish a Domination one.

 

[CrabHelmet]

My experience of MP is that with about 5 players and up, 80% of victories are Science victories. Domination is too hard when lagging players can bandwagon the leader. Religious and Diplomatic are categorically impossible. Culture is very rare. However, being good at military is still great because getting other people's cities is the most efficient way to get science for you and to deny them science.

 

[bengalryan9]

Eagle Warriors, even if weaker on Deity, help you survive if not beat the AI to capture 1-2 early cities

Do they, though? They're essentially warriors with +1 CS that cost a lot more at a time when you need to crank out a lot of units quickly.

 

[VanTao]

@lotrmith , absolutely valid point. However, from my experience in MP, and admittedly I play with a core group of friends (so we’re probably reinforcing our own play styles and biases) and only occasionally “true” MP online, if everyone is thinking of trying to defeat their neighbor before they get defeated, normally none of us have a huge tech lead over the others (and hopefully, I’m the one with the tech lead by pillaging and / or capturing districts), though it can happen, I am not denying that. However, we’re normally too busy building units. Also, we all have other obligations in life, so we try to play the game fairly quickly, which is why we tend towards Domination. I’ve always tried to preface that my comments are based off my experiences and biases.

I do agree that normally in MP I am going for two victory paths at the same time, and it is usually Domination and SV. If I can truly snowball ahead, which in this context means most importantly not losing any units as well as get some useful pillages or districts, then I can probably win a Domination victory as my other opponents have hopefully lost more units relative to me. Even if I have to switch to SV, I’ll still probably be ahead enough that I can begin trying to out pace my friend’s SV. Of course, sometimes the gains from warring aren’t enough, and I admit I’ve lost several games to a SV where a friend managed to boom while still having a good enough army on his border to discourage attacks.

Though I am a big fan of fast CV, because you are warring all the time and some players may be defeated, it is slowed down a lot compared to SP and another player will win Domination or SV first (in SP, I would argue it still tends to be faster than SV).

As I mentioned in my first post when I suggested weighings, I have no objection of taking 10% from Domination and spreading it between CV and SV and thus have it be 30% Dom, 25% CV, 25% SV, with RV and DV at 10% each. Even making all three of these 30% and RV and DV 5% is reasonable for me personally, though maybe slightly short-changing RV if you are trying to holistically factor in both SP and MP considerations.

However, as I also mentioned, the 40% for Domination was also meant to represent that civs with early advantages to combat tend to be able to snowball easier and thus be able to pivot more easily to another victory path, like CV or SV. Of course, one can make the counter argument with Culture and Science (“these yields help you to potentially snowball to pivot to another victory path”). I simply feel combat as more important, since it can defend against an attack from the AI in SP and another player in MP and allow you to potentially expand more quickly.

 

[Leucarum]

How about a multiplayer elimination thread? It seems like maybe some of these debates are difficult to resolve with weighting schemes.

I guess the problem would be that lots of people barely if ever play multiplayer... And if they do there are a variety of styles. I started to play it during lockdown with a group of local friends, but depending on player skill levels we've variably played free for alls, team games and teaching games of humans vs AI.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Do they, though? They're essentially warriors with +1 CS that cost a lot more at a time when you need to crank out a lot of units quickly.

They have 28 combat strength, not 21. Because most starts have a luxury, it's typically 29.

 

[bengalryan9]

They have 28 combat strength, not 21. Because most starts have a luxury, it's typically 29.

Ok, so I messed up. I knew EWs were 28, but for some reason I thought the deity combat bonus was +7. It's +4 at the start... which completes disappears when they get to oligarchy before you.

You're still paying 25 more production for +4 combat strength on deity. You won't get the extra combat strength from luxuries until you research irrigation (usually) and pop out a builder somehow, and by then you're probably dealing with more than just AI warriors.

 

[monikernemo]

You're still paying 25 more production for +4 combat strength on deity. You won't get the extra combat strength from luxuries until you research irrigation (usually) and pop out a builder somehow, and by then you're probably dealing with more than just AI warriors.

Settle on lux, builder into monument first to get agoge before you pump out EWs. With agoge EWs are same cost as warriors. First research should be mining or animal husbandry so your builder can improve minable luxes or camps.

As you capture more cities, you turn more units into builders and in theory you should have more luxes.

 

[bengalryan9]

Settle on lux

If the map generator cooperates and puts one where you can still get freshwater, sure.

With agoge EWs are same cost as warriors.

They're the same price with agoge as warriors without agoge.

I'm not saying Eagle Warriors aren't good - they are. All I'm saying is that how good they are falls off a bit as you raise the difficulty level. While this is true with all UUs to an extent (a deity AI always gets that combat bonus after all), at least with most UUs you can get to them in a timely enough manner that you can maximize their advantage. Considering you get EWs right at the beginning of the game where everyone is on even ground tech wise I think they get impacted the most by that +4 deity bonus.

Personally I'd rather have quantity of units over quality of units early on. Your mileage may vary. I'd probably like them more if I had better luck getting their builder capture ability to actually kick in, too. Oh well.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Ok, so I messed up. I knew EWs were 28, but for some reason I thought the deity combat bonus was +7. It's +4 at the start... which completes disappears when they get to oligarchy before you.

You're still paying 25 more production for +4 combat strength on deity. You won't get the extra combat strength from luxuries until you research irrigation (usually) and pop out a builder somehow, and by then you're probably dealing with more than just AI warriors.

I don't get this. You're taking 4 strength off from eagle warriors because of the Deity bonus, but doesn't the same bonus apply if you fight with your own warriors? Yes, if the AI gets Oligarchy before you, you will have the same strength, but if you didn't have eagle warriors, you're fighting them with 20 strength warriors! (eg -8).

I would argue 40 vs 65 is sorta irrelevant, since regular warriors would be completely useless anyways! You might as well be fighting them with scouts. (btw, EW vs warrior is only a slightly better matchup for the warrior as warrior vs scout is for the scout.)