noncognosco
Warlord
I am still working on playing through a game with each civ. Right now I am playing with Spain and finding it actually a lot of fun. I kind of assumed that Spain would be the worst of the DLC civs because nothing that they had really appealed to me and the UA seems so situational. But actually I think Spain has succeeded more than any other civ in the game at forcing me to play differently than I normally would, which is the most important indicator of a really good civ.
1. The gold bonus for finding Natural Wonders forces you to be an explorer. The incentive is so strong that my first three builds in this game were three scouts. I have never had more than one at a time before and normally only use that one until it gets killed by barbs.
2. The bonus for having Natural Wonders in your borders forces you to expand quickly to make sure you get that city site. Normally if I miss out on a good site I do not worry too much because I can always settle an equivalent site somewhere else and then later take the good site by conquest. But the Natural Wonders are so scarce that they are essentially irreplacable. I also tend not to expand before NC even after the last patch, but in my Spanish game I was up to 3 cities before Writing.
3. At least on a Terra map, which I used for maximum advantage of the UA, the key beeline is Astronomy. Cross the seas and find those remaining wonders before anyone else. Again, the UA forces you to explore and expand much more than I would normally do.
Another thing: the last patch really buffed Spain in a lot of indirect ways. The nerf to Longswords means that the Spanish UUs, which are both in about the same era as LS, become relatively stronger. Also, the reduced gold you now get from selling luxuries now means that Spain can easily become the richest civ in the early game and can leverage that early gold to great advantage (in my case I bought a worker before turn 5).
Final thought: The Inca were already one of my favorite civs so I am now ready to declare the Spain/Inca DLC to be by a wide margin the best so far.
Discuss.
1. The gold bonus for finding Natural Wonders forces you to be an explorer. The incentive is so strong that my first three builds in this game were three scouts. I have never had more than one at a time before and normally only use that one until it gets killed by barbs.
2. The bonus for having Natural Wonders in your borders forces you to expand quickly to make sure you get that city site. Normally if I miss out on a good site I do not worry too much because I can always settle an equivalent site somewhere else and then later take the good site by conquest. But the Natural Wonders are so scarce that they are essentially irreplacable. I also tend not to expand before NC even after the last patch, but in my Spanish game I was up to 3 cities before Writing.
3. At least on a Terra map, which I used for maximum advantage of the UA, the key beeline is Astronomy. Cross the seas and find those remaining wonders before anyone else. Again, the UA forces you to explore and expand much more than I would normally do.
Another thing: the last patch really buffed Spain in a lot of indirect ways. The nerf to Longswords means that the Spanish UUs, which are both in about the same era as LS, become relatively stronger. Also, the reduced gold you now get from selling luxuries now means that Spain can easily become the richest civ in the early game and can leverage that early gold to great advantage (in my case I bought a worker before turn 5).
Final thought: The Inca were already one of my favorite civs so I am now ready to declare the Spain/Inca DLC to be by a wide margin the best so far.
Discuss.
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