Special abilities

[Stalker0]

I don't really know how prevalent barbarian camps will be, but I honestly don't think their units will be that great. When I have the units to take down their warriors/archers, I won't want them.

I believe they have said barbarians will have tech levels similar to the most advanced civs, so there units sound really good.

 

[12agnar0k]

Barbarians consist of whatever the strongest civ's units are, so if someone has got riflemen and there is still neutral territory about, which btw is very possible, happiness limits really slows down expansion so it happens at a steady rate throughout the game rather than a quick dash at the begging, so you may be able to get free riflemen later on in the game as well as "just archers and warriors" at the begging. So the German ability while probably not the strongest, it isnt that bad.

As for Egypt, theirs is tailored to a cultural advantage.

 

[12agnar0k]

In short: bushido takes away the strength penalty while hurt, but the units still bleed and lose hitpoints like anybody. So you can soften them up with arches or artillery before you go in for the kill.

Or just kill them with the archers/artillery without resorting to facing them in melee where they prosper.

I recommend twice your normal amount of ranged units when attacking Japan. Unleash raining hell fire on these so called "immortals".

 

[Mercade]

Or just kill them with the archers/artillery without resorting to facing them in melee where they prosper.

I recommend twice your normal amount of ranged units when attacking Japan. Unleash raining hell fire on these so called "immortals".

I'm not sure if ranged combat can actually deliver the killing blow, but yeah. Same way you'd attack a city in Civ4. Pummel them with trebuchets until they all look like watermellons squashed by godzilla and scoop them up.

 

[Seek]

Barbarians consist of whatever the strongest civ's units are, so if someone has got riflemen and there is still neutral territory about, which btw is very possible, happiness limits really slows down expansion so it happens at a steady rate throughout the game rather than a quick dash at the begging, so you may be able to get free riflemen later on in the game as well as "just archers and warriors" at the begging. So the German ability while probably not the strongest, it isnt that bad.

Two words: Barb Farms!

 

[bjbrains]

I'm not sure if ranged combat can actually deliver the killing blow, but yeah. Same way you'd attack a city in Civ4. Pummel them with trebuchets until they all look like watermellons squashed by godzilla and scoop them up.

Ranged combat can definitely kill units (you can see it all the time in videos).

 

[12agnar0k]

No, you can't just leave a barb encampment to "farm it" for units, you have to annhiliate the encampment to get the unit, the opposite of "farming".

.....


Can ranged combat kill? Yes, we have seen boats getting killed by ranged combat, and i'm fairly sure I saw ranged death on land too.

 

[Seek]

No, you can't just leave a barb encampment to "farm it" for units, you have to annhiliate the encampment to get the unit, the opposite of "farming".

Yes, I understand that; my thought was leaving a tile or two within your empire with no units or cities nearby so as to allow encampments to spawn. This strategy would obviously depend on how frequently they would pop up of course, and if you have a set of tiles you do not want to work, but I could see this as a potentially viable strategy if playing Germany. We'll see.

 

[Zhahz]

This isn't much different from Civ IV where traits or UUs may not be fully useful depending no how you play out a game.

I like the more extensive variety since it offers more extreme ways to posture yourself for different strategies.

I don't play civ MP (and personally have no clue why civ even includes MP, it's so much more of a SP game) but I don't think you can judge how these traits will impact MP til you play it, because the huge shift away from stacks of doom and vastly more strategic combat is likely to radically alter how MP games play out.

I usually don't like to see water-oriented traits because navy is usually so weak in civ but with the 1UPT, need to defend borders and strategic points, ships having way more movement points, and so on, it could be much more attractive to control the water, invade via water, harass via water, and so on.

That said, we do not have enough information to truly evaluate these powers. Who, having not played Civ4, would have thought that the Incan Terrace was so awesome?

This.

I agree with this more than anything. I know there isn't much to do except speculate and postulate since we can't actually play the game and see how it really is, but it does seem a bit over the top to launch full scale discussions over a tooltip or tech tree entry. For all we know there could be huge chunks of critical information that have yet to be published that crush every piece of speculation raised so far.

 

[Thormodr]

Barb farms. Lol.

 

[12agnar0k]

Yes, I understand that; my thought was leaving a tile or two within your empire with no units or cities nearby so as to allow encampments to spawn. This strategy would obviously depend on how frequently they would pop up of course, and if you have a set of tiles you do not want to work, but I could see this as a potentially viable strategy if playing Germany. We'll see.

Ah okay, but still thats technically not farming, rather "barbarian watching" maybe. Making sure you have a fog of war area .

 

[Calouste]

Ah okay, but still thats technically not farming, rather "barbarian watching" maybe. Making sure you have a fog of war area .

I think Germany will be quite happy near a large swath of Tundra or Desert that no civ can afford to build viable cities in.

 

[12agnar0k]

I think they have made building on deserts or tundra more viable this time around.