Strong & weak civs, I need help.

[Bitterman]

Spain has one of the best UU's in the game if you know how to pull the bonusses off and know how to found a religion (although this one may be tricky). Buffed Conquistadors are literally better than most infantry's, which are one era ahead and need sustained resources (oil) to stand.

On top of that you have the equivalent of the zulu's UA on sea, and honestly I don't know if there is any civ, naval or not, that can stop Armadas as early as with mercantilism. The idea is that you should use this two things (early fleets/armadas and Conquistadors) to settle and conquer coastal cities in other continents with your military superiority and then secure them with your misiones and good internal commerce. Then this cities should provide for good missionaries/apostle spawn points to expand your religion through that continent.

I mean the only real problem with them is founding a religion, the rest can be ridicously powerful if used well. They are not as straightforward as most civs though.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Lily_Lancer's point (as I understand it, at least) still stands: for the most part, what makes the difference between an overpowered or underpowered civ is the player.

The Point is that you have to play the civ in a way that maximize the strength of the civ, tier list are generally based upon the idea that you play each civ the same way, but in Norway case you have to play in a very different way to really take advantage of its advantages.

 

[Ticio]

I think some Civs aren't straightforward and maybe warrant more than a play-through to find an effective play style.

For instance, I keep being confused by the argument that Spain's abilities do not support one another. You can use Religion to support your Military and your Military to support your Religion. You can much more easily expand to different Continents and set a Religious base there, rather than needing to bring Apostles from the main continent all the time. The huge Faith income you get from Cities on different Continents means you'll have a never-ending stream of Military Units which you can use to overwhelm the Civs on the Continents you just landed in.

Small changes in how you approach the game can have great benefits. For instance, the Pantheon God of War (Bonus Faith equal to 50% of the strength of each enemy unit killed within 8 tiles of a Holy Site district you own) is pretty good with Spain as long as you take Grand Master's Chapel. You kill units which give you currency to buy more units, which you can spam anywhere, including newly founded Cities. Since you're never spending Gold on units, you'll have it available to spend on buildings, which is incredibly useful when you're spamming new Cities. This paired with Hic Sunt Dracones Golden Age is insane when playing as Spain in the Renaissance/Industrial Era.

Missions and raiding also let you safely de-prioritise Campuses. You'll still need a few, but you'll be alright as long as you keep with the middle of the pack. The Conquistador is so strong it allows you to fall behind in military tech. By the time you need to upgrade (and you'll have the Gold for it), you'll have a bunch of Promoted units which you can then turn to Armies (if you haven't yet by then).

Furthermore, because you'll be prioritising Naval Techs and Civics, you'll naturally find yourself in need of a Navy. You'll have a bunch of Naval Raiders and other Naval units which will beat anything the opponent can throw at you due to your early Armadas. Any enemy district along the Coast is free real estate for Spain. It's all yours.

The +1 Food / +1 Prod from trade routes is not minor. It may seem that way, but the way I see it you're kind of expected to play that with Magnus. It's very efficient since a single trade route will give you something like 6 Food / 5 Prod. Your cities on foreign continents take only a few turns to get to 9/10 population, making you essentially invulnerable to loyalty issues. All those Pops put a lot of passive Religious pressure as well of course.
---

When playing as Spain, try to ignore the fact that you're not leading in either Science or Culture. It's a misleading indicator. On a Standard map / Standard speed, you'll beat the opponent to a Religious/Military victory long before they can win a Science or Culture Victory.

The one disadvantage Spain has is that the game is no fun if you fail to earn a Prophet.

TLDR: Spain is a colossal Snowball on Continents maps (or any map script which results in landmasses isolated by Ocean tiles).


PS: All of this was written with Immortal difficulty in mind.

I really appretiate the tips for using this civ! they are quite interesting, but I'm affraid that I'm not good enough to play it as easy as you make it feel.

My main concern still persist. I'm not yet a good player, so what can be see as an easy thing for more experimented player is harder for me.

When I did my multiplayer games with Spain, the main problem was to get to new continents (depending on lot on luck). Of course, my competitors knew that it was my civ bonus so they didn't allow it.
In this particular game, the strongest civ was a friend of mine using England.

He got faster to the new continents thanks to 50% in ports and 20% on Industrial zones.
He just spammed setlers and put them into the frontiers preventing me to take firm postion on new continents (or forcing me to the bad sports like desserts and horsehockey tiles). Of course other players were colonizing too.

My strategy was then clear, to conquer these cities.

By the time I was able to spam conquistadors with the chappel building, he had reached tanks ... (he did Port> IZ> Science).
I was trying to gain enough faith, science, culture and gold to form an army and armadas but the civ is just too slow. I was doom since the begining.

It is true that the map was heavy on water tiles, but he was better than me on navy too with the seadogs (England so I cannot complain, it worked as intended). So he was the one going full privateers and don't allowing me to get close to the sea.

I tried to spam Missions in some cities, as I managed to put some on other continent, and then went to unlock theocracy. It took me forever to unlock the armadas civic, so he was the one dominating the seas.

I had to choose to make troops on land or sea, but couldn't have both. Of course, and playing againts england, I went for conquistador spam.

My point is that Spain is very slow getting his bonuses, and when he reach them they are not good enough to compensate the delay. I can assure you I tried everything with my horde of conquistadors and missionaries, but he was already too strong.

He got first into the new continents and he was stronger until I could reach the real good thing that Spain can offer (conquistadors). Without the new continents, l could do little because what other tools I had to conquer his cities in other continents?
He had more traders and seems that his cities got enourmous quite fast and I doubt mine would have gotten this huge a lot faster...
I assume he managed it because of the trade to cities were he spamed ports with 50%, IZ with 20% and science disctrics (really fast thanks to IZ). And he was in all his cities, my cities started to get better when I managed to grab terrain on other continents, but where bad spots.

I was behind on science, so I was no able to get the conquistador early enough to make the difference, and that because I needed money to mantain them, but also faith to make the units that would help them, and all of that sacrificing my civic tree forcing me to ignore the armadas ability and taking theocracy quite late.

When I say that their bonuses do not synergize well is becasue of that. For me is difficult to gain access fast enough to conquistadors but also to produce enough faith to purchase them with chappel, but also to purchase religious units, and produce enough money to mantain the army and the disctricts (+ buildings), and all that ignoring culture to be able to focus on these more importants things!
And all that without saying that you have to make builders and colonists and ignoring wonders.
Because is wonderful when you have a golden age to take monumentalist, but that is far of garanteed...

Bad civ early game > you cannot compete for the continents > no continents > no bonuses > you cannot cach up on your strong era (renaissance) > your super conquistador cannot change anything.

I know that I'm yet green, but I had other games with the same people and I won them with germany or Japan, and they won other games with germany, Russia, etc. but never was a game so umbalanced as when one of us used Spain

Both games were almost decided as soon we reached medieval era.

 

[AntSou]

When I did my multiplayer games with Spain, the main problem was to get to new continents (depending on lot on luck). Of course, my competitors knew that it was my civ bonus so they didn't allow it.
In this particular game, the strongest civ was a friend of mine using England.

My opinion is only in regards to single player though. Keep in mind there's only ever a few spots in a multiplayer game and nearly 50 playable leaders in the game. I'm of the opinion that as long as a Civ isn't incredibly broken, whether positively or negatively, and it's fun to play with, then I don't care much how it fares in multiplayer.

You also have to remember that the reliability of a Civ is affected by factors determined at game setup. Map Type and Terrain factors are obvious, but Game Speed and Map Size are fairly determinant as well.

For instance, Loyalty pressure drop from distance to a city is the same regardless of Map Size, as far as I'm aware (10% less pressure per tile away). So even if you attempt to keep all other things relative between a Tiny map and a Standard map, settling on a new continent in a tiny map at online speed will likely still result in higher foreign loyalty pressure than if you were playing on a Standard map with more Civs and at Standard Speed. The amount of tiles, amount of Civs, cost of units, etc, changes if you're playing a different Map Size at a different Game Speed, but the loyalty decay is unaltered. This means that when you first land on a new Continent as Spain in a tiny map, more likely than not there's an enemy city right there.

On the other hand, consider how England may have blocked you from expanding. Unit movement is another thing that doesn't scale with Map Size, so a player can have a handful of naval units stationed around an area and be only a couple of turns away from any place on the map. On a standard map England would have to spread its navy thin to effectively control everything.

Another glaring issue is that the amount of Continents (as in Continents seen by the Continent lens, not "Continent" as in landmass) changes according to map size. There's 2 on a tiny map, 3 on small and 4 on Standard. So, playing as Spain on a Tiny/Small map, you have much less leeway to screw up. This stacks with the issue previously mentioned. It only takes one effective player to block you from accessing the remaining one or two continents. This is much harder to achieve on a Standard map.

These are just some things that immediately pop to my mind when considering multiplayer games with faster games and smaller maps.

 

[Bitterman]

Bad civ early game > you cannot compete for the continents > no continents > no bonuses > you cannot cach up on your strong era (renaissance) > your super conquistador cannot change anything.

Spain has exactly the same bonuses England has in the early game: none. The only thing going for him is double iron mine output but that was irrelevant here I guess.

Again, if you rushed mercantilism and got armadas in time seadogs wouldn't have been a problem. Nothing can resist that at its peak, not even UU's like the Seadog. Also Consquistadors come with Gunpowder, which is way earlier than the english Redcoats. England will be better as the time passes though, so quickness is key.

In all regards, keep in mind that England precisely is a strong opponent for Spain since both compete for the exact same thing until the end of mid-game, settling continents.

 

[Drivingrevilo]

Spain has exactly the same bonuses England has in the early game: none.

I think that unfair on the Royal Navy Dockyard. If you rush Astrology & Celestial Navigation, you can have a RND in your first three cities by turn 60. Thatsa a lotta extra gold for the early game - gold that can be used to pursue whatever victory type you want. Spain, on the other hand, doesn’t get their first proper bonus until much, much later.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Spain trade route bonus can be gotten early on and is maybe at times more powerful than Royal dockyards also the combat strength from different religion is also something that can be accessed early and if you base things on history you more conquer stuff on other continents rather than sending settlers.

Spain don't need to found a religion, they just need a religion for some of their bonuses and Argubly Spain is a civ that can quickly change their religion with the inquestors so they can get the combat strength against civs that followed the religion you previously followed. They are basically a pure domination civ, not a religious civ other than the fact they use religion towards their domnation goal and in fact spreading your religion to other civs may actually work against you since you lose out on the combat bonus and possibly the religious war casus belli.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I don't think so. They're faster. With Norway it is guaranteed to run at 300+ science and culture per turn (from domestic output and pillage) at T100 standard speed, and the time of SV is around T160-170 in the previous gathering storm. (I haven't tested since the recent update, but I believe it shall still be around T170)

Well, I don't believe it's impossible, especially if you play bigger than standard, but I would definitely like to see a Norway t170 SV. If you have 6 or 7 simultaneous wars, maybe Norway could be the fastest science Civ in the game. But then you're building a lot of army, and lot a lot of Campi Next time you play a Norway SV why not share it on the forum, I'd love to read about it. I've always enjoyed your posts & strategies and I'm open for new things. I still think it's really hard to pull off, producing that many units and getting all your cities online.

 

[Ticio]

Spain has exactly the same bonuses England has in the early game: none. The only thing going for him is double iron mine output but that was irrelevant here I guess.

Again, if you rushed mercantilism and got armadas in time seadogs wouldn't have been a problem. Nothing can resist that at its peak, not even UU's like the Seadog. Also Consquistadors come with Gunpowder, which is way earlier than the english Redcoats. England will be better as the time passes though, so quickness is key.

In all regards, keep in mind that England precisely is a strong opponent for Spain since both compete for the exact same thing until the end of mid-game, settling continents.

I'm not so sure about that, technically yes, but in my game I wanted to rush for a religion to take choral music. It was a risky move, but has Spain I wanted it to be sure to have the +4 against my friend and to have a good civic tree. I failed...

He spammed the 50% ports, and with the trade lines got ships and colonists faster. He explored for the best spots and everytime he got to a new continent > new dockyards > more trade lines and troops for free > got all buildings with gold (even monuments).

He snowballed quite fast and was able to produce units faster that me.

Is true that I didn't rushed for armadas tech, but I though that battle for the seas was already over and I decided to put all the Production and faith to make an army of conquistadors so I rushed missions and theocracy instead.

And I don't like to do armadas until I have the Seaport, I see doing it before as not very efficient because of the waste of production... Except if I manage to have the Venitian Arsenal (I think is one of the best wonder for Spain).

And you are totally correct that England is the counter to Spain! as it should be, but I don't think that spain is a counter to anything... at the end all the games that we did with Spain ended in failure for Spain not mattering the enemy civ (it's true that they are consuidered strong ones, as Japan, germany, Hungary...)

But at the end I just main england myself, Spain is too dificult to use, too many variables out of my hand and the bonus do not worth the efforts. (I think my new favourite is Hungary, super strong and best music in the game )

 

[Ticio]

I Bring news!!

I have created a map just to check what is more powerful, +1 food/prod or a 50% discount in whatever thing.

I did it with England and Spain, as we are having the discussion with them.

The capital is in a tile sourrounded by land and with no ressources (but hills) and the second city in a flat tile AND in another continent.

None of them have ressources improved and have just 1 of population.

I'm not very good at this kind of analyses so I'm sure I'm forgeting a lot of things, variables and possibilities.
Feel free to comment your opinions and your criticisms, as will, surely, improve the data.
I'm runing other scenarios, so somethings not present here may be already tested!


We have to point some things before we conclude anything:

1) that the spanish bonus is usefull for any kind of production, not only districts. That gives it a lot of versatility.

2) the % discount is just for 1 district (not always, as england has 20% on IZ too).

3) As time passes, the Spanish bonus get less and less useful but the % discount gets better and better. So we have to assume the gap will increase as the game progresses.

4) A faster disctrict also means a faster bonus to internal trade. For example, the "4 turns "advantage that england has, will allow it to have a +1 production during these 4 turns. Closing the gap with the spanish bonus until spain make another disctrict.
(Germany would have the best of these bonuses as he can build a +1 district).

5) This is an ideal map.

In game, you will have access to the 50% as soon as you can produce the disctrict and to the +1 food/prod as soon as you build a city on another continent and you have the trade going.

I would put here a little advatage to the 50% as is difficult to the spanish to get soon to a new continent (depending on luck and map design).

6) The more the Spanish are late to a new continent, the less impact the bonus will do.


Conclusions:

I was a little surprised by the results as I though that Spain would do better, having the cities with little production.
I assumed that in conditions with no production, spanish bonus is better (50% of 0 is worst that 10% of 1), so lower the production imput a city has, better the spanish bonus and worst the 50% discount.

it seems to be like that in other scenarios I'm creating. But again, as soon as you produce more production, the bonus become less useful and the % discount become stronger.

What is true, is that the spanish bonus is better if you want to do other things apart this specefic construction. That help them getting faster to production of whatever they want in comparison with generic civs but slower than espetialized civs.

Seems to be the "core idea" behind Spain; they have their bonuses dispersed in all directions but they have a bonus that allows them to get faster to all these bonus.

In theory I find that way of playing a civ just fantastic. Really, now that I have understood better I will play with them again because this style is just too fun. But I find a big problem with it.

They will always be worst than spetialiced civs, what makes absolute sense

religious = Russia/India > Spain
Economic = England/Mali > Spain
etc

To counter that, Spain has a bonus that help it to be "versatile",so "against Russia? go for domination" "agaisnt england? go for religious" etc.

At the end, Spain will lose against these "specialized civs" in their domaines as espected, BUT also to the other "versatiles" civs that can make production costs drop (germany, england, japan, etc.)

Why?

As explained in other threads, Spain bonuses are too circumstantial. In the Scenario that I did, the situation was perfect. Spain had the second city on another continent from turn 1, but we cannot count on this to be a secure thing in other games.
In fact, having no Start Bias to continents splits make them loose a lot of turns until they reach the requirements for the bonus.

So at the end they cannot compete against versatile civs nor especialized civs, and they depend on luck to be on the top.
And even with all the luck in the world, the bonus of +1 F/P is average as shown.

So you have the perfect storm for them:

-They reach the bonus later that other civs (difficulty reaching new continents) > As time goes on, the bonus gets less powerfull (the bonus that you, already, are not geting soon).

You make a Civ, that tends to stagnate at the start of the game, to stagnate more and more as the game goes on. Making them be a "versatile" civ the other way arround:

Japan or Germany are versatile as they can reach whatever they want with lower effort but they are supposed to be worst that an spetialized civ on their spetialization.
Spain is Versatile as it cannot achieve anything in time. It's versatile, but not enough to be competitive agains anyone (I'm dramatizing a little ).


Proposal:


I think that the bonuses based on % are far better, as they are activated as soon as you have the technology and they become more important as game progresses. So i would suggest to check on the Civs that have bonuses like the spanish one (+1 to something) add see if can be improved.

I really don't know other civs now that have this kind of bonuses but I will check out of curiosity.

For Spain, the new perspective I gained for them is a good thing, as now I understand them better I really like the idea behind them, relatively unique and fun.

But I'm sticking even more to the suggestion I did in other thread to how to improve the CIV (only by tweaking a little the Treasure Fleet bonus), as I'm convinced that is what makes Spain not very competitive.



P.S: The Files are in spanish (I¡m too lazy to change the game )

when the title says:

"sin comercio" = Without trade route

and

"Con comercio" = With trade route

Spoiler :

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I'm not really sure what you are talking about, Spain is a civ very much focused on domination, +4 combat strength from religion, conquistadors and continent bonuses. I think the mistake people make with spain is to assume it is a religious civ that should spread religion but that is actually contraproductive other than in very specific cases, since Spain combat bonus is based on the fact that other civs follow a different religion.

Its continent bonus can be gotten by conquest, no need to found cities and you get gold from international Continental trade routes with foreign cities. Ability to make fleets and armadas is also a pure domination bonus and somewhat make up for Spains relative lackluster Culture output.

I think the idea that ability to produce faith = religious civ is something that need to be scrapped. Faith have many uses beyond just religion and having mechanics tied to religion don't make the civ a religious civ in the meaning it should spread its religion, like Arabia. Also keep in mind that Spain actually have quite decent ability to produce science, not just faith from its missions..

if we should classify Spain, I think it would be as a mid game conqueror (like Ottomans) with a stronger than average focus on the navy and as a civ who use religion to facilitate its conquest (like Mongols use trade and espionage). Its economy is stronger dependent on an intercontiental empire with missions and trade routes.

 

[Ticio]

I'm not really sure what you are talking about, Spain is a civ very much focused on domination, +4 combat strength from religion, conquistadors and continent bonuses.

Sorry, at the end of the post I lose track of what I was wanting to say and is hard to understand. I want to edit it after I finish making lunch.

Basically:

Spain has his bonuses scattered through differents places.

You need a lot of ressources to reach them

The Developoers seems to have made one of the bonus (+1 Food/production) in a way that helps Spain reaching all these places where the bonus are (you get +1 production for holysites but also for builders, or wonders).

Other civs have a more focused bonus to somethig in particular. For example 50% on a district. That allows them to reach their bonuses on these "Spetialities" , like the lavdra for Russia to get religious victory.

I find this pretty clever.

I was curious about what was better, the +X production or the -X% cost and, therefore, did this scenario to check it.

And I did the post with my conclusions to see what you guys thoug!

(When I said Spain was versatile, I wanted to say that the bonus of Treasure fleet allowed them a bonus to reach all the things they need to get their bonuses.

For example, they need culture, science and gold AND they have a bonus that allow them to build all these type of districts faster than a vanilla Civ).

The only thing that I would change is that the bonus is a little weak, but I find the idea behind of the civ just perfect.


I hope I could do my point clearer, and sorry for the confusion!

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Spain has his bonuses scattered through differents places.

That is something I would disagree with. I think the issue is just looking at the bonuses, not looking at how they mix together as the whole package known as Spain.

 

[AntSou]

I think the mistake people make with spain is to assume it is a religious civ that should spread religion but that is actually contraproductive

In-game description:

"The Spanish are best suited for a Religious Victory, though the right selection of religious beliefs and policies can make it easy for them to win a Domination Victory as well."

So at best you'd have to argue the devs failed in their attempt to design the civ this way. But they haven't.

I don't understand your need to turn it into absolutes.

1. Conquering Cities with Conquistadors converts Cities to your Religion;

2. Inquisitors.

It is one of the most efficient Civs to work towards a Religious victory.

@Ticio

I have to say I disagree with quite a bit of what you wrote, but I appreciate the effort you went through, especially with setting up a scenario for analysis.

 

[Ticio]

In-game description:

"The Spanish are best suited for a Religious Victory, though the right selection of religious beliefs and policies can make it easy for them to win a Domination Victory as well."

So at best you'd have to argue the devs failed in their attempt to design the civ this way. But they haven't.

I don't understand your need to turn it into absolutes.

1. Conquering Cities with Conquistadors converts Cities to your Religion;

2. Inquisitors.

It is one of the most efficient Civs to work towards a Religious victory.

I think he says that becasue you lose the +4 dmg against civ with other religions.

I think too that spain is one of the strongest Civs for a religious victory, as you can try to convert other civs and if they try to prevent it will be crushed with the bonus.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

1. Conquering Cities with Conquistadors converts Cities to your Religion;

Only help towards religious victory if you give the city back to the civ you took it from.

2. Inquisitors.

You can only use them against cities you Control so you need to give the city back after the war.

So yes you can use its abilities to facilitate a religious victory but it would basically just be a variation of conquest victory in which you avoid annexing cities.

I think he says that becasue you lose the +4 dmg against civ with other religions.

Yes and the fact they have a combat bonus is a sign towards a warmonger/domination civ.​

 

[Ticio]

@Ticio

I have to say I disagree with quite a bit of what you wrote, but I appreciate the effort you went through, especially with setting up a scenario for analysis.

Oh

I can understand that!

Could I ask if you disagree with a particular point or with all the argument in general?


I must admit that after the analysis, I consider Spain stronger that I thought but just needing a tiny improvement on Treasure fleet.

The same as for the Vikings, after reading all points of views, a lot of them made me rethink his strength!

 

[Bitterman]

The spanish commerce bonus is indeed worse than its english counterpart, but I think this is by design. This bonuses were not meant to compete the way you did in your test.

As you noted, the english bonus is better over time and is overall better than the spanish. But the spanish one should indeed only be used when you first settle a city in other continent and not for much. +1 production/+1 food in a 1 pop city is better than 0 of whatever. Also you can, for say, make 3 o 4 trade routes and not only one. +4 production/+4 food is very powerful for new cities.

I'm not saying that Spain is a good civ to be completely clear. They are not among the best, but they are far from bad in my opinion. Their weakness is more the difficulty to figure out how to play a solid game with their bonuses than the bonuses per se.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I'm not sure about comparing spain and England, they do share some similarties such as bonuses from different continents, some naval bonuses and focus on a domination gameplan but there are many differences as well between the two civs.

 

[Alashiya]

the Tamar Tier - Georgia was one of the funniest things I've ever read on here