The best and worst abilities.

[Dark_Jedi06]

Am I the only one that finds it ironic that Washington's ability is best paired with Monarchy (total of -75% for tile purchase)?

"I did not fight against George III to become George I."

 

[Silverwave]

I find the arguing over the UAs funny, and I fell victim to it at one point as well. If social policies are dwarfing UAs, why so much debate that one civ will gain such a huge advantage? I feel that the UAs are mainly flavour, but don't actually offer that much change in power compared to policies, wonders, and everything else. The reason UAs are good is because you don't need to wait to get them, you have them from turn 1.

Wait. You do know we're arguing here only to pass time until release, right?

 

[generalwar]

Thats kind of the whole point.

You need to look at all the civs unique abilities - UA, UUs and UB before considering how good or bad they are.

Even then, I likely wont ever play Germany or Ottomans in Civ 5.

Agree. Looks like 2K was trying to make civ the most balanced strategy game and maybe they did. We'll see. BEcause every civ has or really good SA or UU's. Exactly 1 week away

 

[Mannu]

The Japanese ability doesn't sound that great, they're a pretty one-sided militaristic civ and the UA will be irrelevant so long as you can stay ahead of them tech-wise. I like the Russian Siberian Riches because you get a sustained bonus throughout the game with horses, iron and uranium.

I don't know, Greg was holding his own against French Riflemen in the streaming play session. This was on Immortal difficulty. It wasn't until Artillery and some unwise moves (to keep the action going) that he began to lose ground.

 

[Arkangelus]

An intersting side effect of the Russian one is that when it comes to the time for producing power for your cities, from what we've seen so far it looks like most are quite situational - requires a river for hydro plant, requires a desert for solar plant, etc. Russia has enough Uranium (potentially 12 from just ONE source) that they can just spam nuclear plants all over the place, and it was said in one of the articles that they dont melt down any more.

I do really like how Russia's traits combine, it seems to add a lot of flavour. The Krepost will result in expansion to sub-optimal tiles a lot faster, meaning Russia will be realistically big and empty, and the cheap Soviet-era nuclear plant knockoffs everywhere amuses me

 

[Psycedilla]

Looks like people forget that its not onlt the sp bonuses with france. you spend ALOT less gold on tile expansion, hell, if you dont build any culture building in secondary city's (i guess) they wont borderpop at all unless you buy some tiles. so its still basicly a free monument in each city for borderpop's sake. And when steam power comes around, you probably got the tiles you want, or atleast got culture up and runing and dont need the bonus after all.

and after, you UU comes and youll expand with the gun, not the pen.
France can get levraged on alot a was, because you basicly get sp progress and tiles for minimal effort, then you can focus on say, military/gold/science etcetc. Why is everyone hooked up in france beeing SP whores?

me are gonna probably gonna play france to soften the transition to ciV. It looks like if you do a small error with them, its not the end of the world

 

[Seven05]

So tell me, if you play as Germany and the host disables Barbarians, does that mean you're just out of luck and end up with no UA?

If you play on a map without water it sucks to be England, or a map with no City states as Greece, late era starts wreck France, etc. Don't balance for MP if it means breaking the game for everybody, let them make MP mods.

One of the neglected benefits of the Ottoman and German abilities might be the economic side effect: You earn money by defeating barbarians. Not much, but it is difficult yet to judge how 25 gold effect your economy. Plus, you could immediately disband your new conquered barbarian units getting you additional gold.

Yeah, if a single trade rout normally generates 1 gpt in the early game (above the cost of road maintenance) that 25g is like 25 extra turns from that early trade route.

More importantly, and seemingly completely overlooked, is the benefit of not having to produce those units. If I play as gemerany and capture three barb units that's three warriors that I don't have to build. Or, that's three warriors that my neighbors do have to build to keep up with me. That can add up to a lot of hammers over the course of the early game, hammers than can be used to build all sorts of stuff because they weren't used on military units. It will be quite possible to close the early game as Germany with a substantial advantage even without going for any kind of early rush.

For the Ottomans their ability has never been really explained, just that they have a chance to capture barb boats which may end up being stupidly easy with ranged attacks, or it may not involve combat at all.

Looks like people forget that its not onlt the sp bonuses with france. you spend ALOT less gold on tile expansion, hell, if you dont build any culture building in secondary city's (i guess) they wont borderpop at all unless you buy some tiles. so its still basicly a free monument in each city for borderpop's sake. And when steam power comes around, you probably got the tiles you want, or atleast got culture up and runing and dont need the bonus after all.

That will depends on how the culture expansion works. If the per tile 'cost' increases rapidly that extra 2 culture per turn won't mate much after the first few tiles. Late in the game you have no advantage there and from Grega example game it looks like their will be a lot of unowned tiles out there in the industrial era.

 

[rastak]

The strat guide mentions the Ottomans can capture Barb boats, get 25 gold then disband them for more gold.

 

[Silverwave]

And when steam power comes around, you probably got the tiles you want, or atleast got culture up and runing and dont need the bonus after all.

So, why didn't they let keep the bonus until end of game if it doesn't matter much (since SPs will have granted similar bonuses) ? I don't think it would have been too much, no? Maybe it would.

 

[Psycedilla]

That will depends on how the culture expansion works. If the per tile 'cost' increases rapidly that extra 2 culture per turn won't mate much after the first few tiles. Late in the game you have no advantage there and from Grega example game it looks like their will be a lot of unowned tiles out there in the industrial era.

True. I guess its either a fixed cost, since, after all, you only get 1 tile, instead of a increased cost. my guess its something aline with xp rates in civ iv. but maybe with a little more gentle slope. but then again, this is only theoricrafting.

Anyway, i think borderpops are acctualy a big part of france's UA