Pinstar
Ringtailed Regent
I have to agree that the ottoman's ability is utter crap. However, I am going to, at least at first, wade into Civ V fresh with them as they are my civ of choice in IV and I have a bit of loyalty to them.
The best and worst abilities.
- Thread starter Saint Rising
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SirTurtle
Warlord
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2010
- Messages
- 126
Long-term strategy for Germany:
The Barbarian Preservation
This strategy only works when you start on a small to medium sized continent. The continent also needs to be relatively compact, not long and snaky. Also raging barbarians will be very helpful.
1. Honor is essential, so take this as your first SP.
2. Your initial goal is eliminate any other civ(s) that shares your continent. Hopefully you will be able to achieve this with a brute rush. If not, you'll have to abandon the barb preserve strategy. City States don't need to be eliminated unless they are in the core of your continent.
3. Settle your cities only on the coast on the edges of the continent.
4. The middle of the continent is now your barbarian preservation. You must keep this area in fog-of-war at all times, except when camp razing.
5. You will need to keep a small force of dedicated barb hunters stationed near your coastal cities. As soon as honor warns you that a camp has spawned, head to take it out with your barb hunters. (If the amount of XP awarded from barbs is capped, then it may be good to bring a few newbie units with your experienced barb hunters.) You'll gain gold, experience, and hopefully a free unit.
6. Use the extra units and other goodies to conquer the world!
P.S. Obviously I've never tried this strategy, so I don't know how well it works. But even if it's not really worthwhile, it should still be fun.
The Barbarian Preservation
This strategy only works when you start on a small to medium sized continent. The continent also needs to be relatively compact, not long and snaky. Also raging barbarians will be very helpful.
1. Honor is essential, so take this as your first SP.
2. Your initial goal is eliminate any other civ(s) that shares your continent. Hopefully you will be able to achieve this with a brute rush. If not, you'll have to abandon the barb preserve strategy. City States don't need to be eliminated unless they are in the core of your continent.
3. Settle your cities only on the coast on the edges of the continent.
4. The middle of the continent is now your barbarian preservation. You must keep this area in fog-of-war at all times, except when camp razing.
5. You will need to keep a small force of dedicated barb hunters stationed near your coastal cities. As soon as honor warns you that a camp has spawned, head to take it out with your barb hunters. (If the amount of XP awarded from barbs is capped, then it may be good to bring a few newbie units with your experienced barb hunters.) You'll gain gold, experience, and hopefully a free unit.
6. Use the extra units and other goodies to conquer the world!
P.S. Obviously I've never tried this strategy, so I don't know how well it works. But even if it's not really worthwhile, it should still be fun.
Silverwave
Warlord
I don't remember where I've seen someone talking about this, but French special ability isn't so great either.
+2 culture for each city per turn. That's pretty great, but then it's a limited boost, since you'll lose it when you get steam power. But the main reason why it isn't great it's because each city you found increase the cost of policies by 33%. If you make the count, the +2 per turn per city isn't giving you much of a boost (still is, but not as you'd think).
I'm not very appealed with any "temporary" abilities from French, German and Ottoman civilization. I prefer something that is benefical throughout all the game.
And yeah, japan's special ability IS awesome, though, we've seen it in the 2K livestream, you still have to stay competitive technologically wise. That bonus isn't getting you victory by itself.
P.S. To add to the crapyness of German's special ability, don't forget you have to pay the maintenance cost of those so called "free" units. And you have a unit cap too, which you might want to cap with the most powerfull units possible... that is, the extra gold you get from barb encampments isn't realistically enough to pay for upgrading the crappy brute unit.
+2 culture for each city per turn. That's pretty great, but then it's a limited boost, since you'll lose it when you get steam power. But the main reason why it isn't great it's because each city you found increase the cost of policies by 33%. If you make the count, the +2 per turn per city isn't giving you much of a boost (still is, but not as you'd think).
I'm not very appealed with any "temporary" abilities from French, German and Ottoman civilization. I prefer something that is benefical throughout all the game.
And yeah, japan's special ability IS awesome, though, we've seen it in the 2K livestream, you still have to stay competitive technologically wise. That bonus isn't getting you victory by itself.
P.S. To add to the crapyness of German's special ability, don't forget you have to pay the maintenance cost of those so called "free" units. And you have a unit cap too, which you might want to cap with the most powerfull units possible... that is, the extra gold you get from barb encampments isn't realistically enough to pay for upgrading the crappy brute unit.
SirTurtle
Warlord
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2010
- Messages
- 126
Yeah, you're probably right. I've was just trying to think of ways to get the most out of Germany's UA, since so many are saying it sucks.
Another idea for the Germans: use a map script like Civ IV's Earth2. Get to the New World first and have lots of fun clearing it of high-tech barbs.
Silverwave
Warlord
Wait, we weren't saying German's ability sucks (well, maybe some are, not me). It's still a nice ability. It's just that compared to the ability of other civs, it seems a bit underpowered.
And for those saying "yeah, but they got Panzer" well, yeah, it's 1 move faster and friggin' 10 more strenght than Armor, but we don't know how much cost a Tank, while Panzer cost MORE than the modern armor, which is Str of 80 !!
obsolete
Deity
It seems to me Industrious went from a top tier trait to the bottom of the barrel. We went from 50% discount down to only 20%. And they even removed the half-price forges.
There's certainly a lot of other amazing traits out there, so why would anyone want this one beats me.
Sorry guys, but I'm not going to continue the old Industrious Deity series for Civ5. If someone else wants to take over go ahead. I'd much rather go with Japan or someone else.
There's certainly a lot of other amazing traits out there, so why would anyone want this one beats me.
Sorry guys, but I'm not going to continue the old Industrious Deity series for Civ5. If someone else wants to take over go ahead. I'd much rather go with Japan or someone else.
Silverwave
Warlord
Hey, BTW. I may be out of subject but : I was just looking at Jaguar units. Well, those are nice, but what about you don't start in a tropical continent and there's no jungles around your civ. Guess yout unit becomes pretty useless?
SirTurtle
Warlord
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2010
- Messages
- 126
Start bias should help.
I think you are looking at this a bit wrong.
There is no more 'industrious' trait or any other in Civ 5, and every civ is unique.
Having said that, Ramesses is the only leader that gets a bonus to wonder production, so that 20% boost is an advantage that only he has. In Civ 4, you could play an indusrious civ, but anyone else could be industrious too and also compete with you for wonders. However, if you play ramesses correctly, you will always be able to get some wonders completed before anyone else can.
Silverwave
Warlord
What you mean? Computer will try to make you start around jungles if you play Aztec? If so, I guess it will be the same for English (near ocean), etc ? That would be nice.
Screw preserving the barbarians. Just use them for a rush on a neighbor. If you fight 10 barb units early on, that's about 5 free units you'll get, plus 125 gold which you can use to buy more units. That means you can put together an early attacking army a lot faster than any other civ.
Silverwave
Warlord
Not really. You don't get free units for killing barbarians. You get those for clearing barbarian encampments. There's not as much encampments than barbarian units.
Silverwave
Warlord
Isn't this option for "civilisation behavior"?
EDIT : Scratch that, there's a "random personalities" in the options
That's sweet then!
CrimsonEdge
Warlord
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2006
- Messages
- 256
I think everyone is underestimating the German ability.
Clear a barbarian encampment you get the XP for the kills and a chance to get a new unit.
You then take that and attack somebody, or expand rapidly.
Clear a barbarian encampment you get the XP for the kills and a chance to get a new unit.
You then take that and attack somebody, or expand rapidly.
In theory the French seem like one of the strongest civ abilities. People are failing to realize that Social Policies are powerful enough to dwarf most civ specific abilities and this is where the French shine. They'll get there policies twice as fast at the very beginning, which has too many rippling effects to discuss.
Timing is uncertain, but something like the following for single-player games:
Tradition
Tradition is best for small empires, with many Policies that improve the Capital City. Adopting Tradition will immediately provide a bonus of +2 Food per turn in the Capital.
* Aristocracy: +33% production bonus for Wonders.
For first policy Paris gets +2 food, increasing growth, and more importantly allowing you to work higher production tiles without stunting the cities growth.Additionally, quicker growth equals more science output in Civ5.
Take Aristocracy as ur 2nd policy.
When starting the game build scout, then worker(rush with gold when possible); research Pottery, then Calendar. Upon 2nd policy, build Stonehenge(only cost 80 hammers with bonus!). Note: Better wonder production than Egyptians until they catch up in policy path should they go that way.
Stonehenge
Technology: Calendar
Cost: 120
+8 Culture, +1 Great Engineer Points
With only 1 city, and Stonehenge, France should rocket to 3rd Social policy, and choose:
Liberty
Liberty is best for civilizations which desire rapid expansion. Adopting Liberty will speed up the training of Settlers by 50%. This branch cannot be active at the same time as Autocracy.
With the bonus you start building ur settlers at half price.
Continue building settlers until happiness starts to go negative for your difficulty setting.
If closing in on 4th policy hold off settling a city for a turn or three.
Found cities, build granary, then temple, then library, then circus(if uve got horses)or Colosseum(if u have tech).
Choose Piety as 4th policy.
Piety
Unlocks at Classical Era.
Piety increases the Happiness of empires, and allows their Culture to flourish. Adopting Piety immediately increases the Happiness in the empire by 2. This branch cannot be active at the same time as Rationalism.
Continue filling in Peity tree for foreseeable future until you hopefully get to:
Free Religion: 2 Free Cultural Policies. (requires Mandate of Heaven)
Which is at the end of the Piety tree.
Build Oracle to get Free Religion sooner! Remember to build temples in all new cities.
Oracle
Cost: 150(just 100 for you!)
+1 Culture, +1 Great Scientist Points; Awards a free Social Policy when completed.
Ideally, the scenario above can be accomplished before you get access to Gunpowder(Musketeers, the French UU).
This means the French will need perhaps 9 social policies following the above plan. Which in order, to recap:
Tradition: Plus 2 extra food in capital.
Aristocracy: Plus 33% wonder production.
Liberty: Plus 50% settler production.
Piety: Increases the Happiness in the empire by 2
Mandate of Heaven: 50% of excess Happiness added each turn to the amount of Culture that may be spent on Policies.
Organized Religion: Amount of Happiness required to start a Golden Age reduced by 25%.
Reformation: The empire immediately enters a 6-turn Golden Age. (requires Organized Religion)
Theocracy: -20% Unhappiness from population in non-captured cities. (requires Organized Religion)
Free Religion: 2 Free Cultural Policies. (requires Mandate of Heaven)
Timing will need to be tested to see how long this will take, but it seems highly probably the French can accomplish this before Gunpowder, especially with help of Stonehenge and Oracle, which are absolutely necessary.
Use 2 free cultural policies from Free Religion to boost you down the Honor policy tree:
Honor
Honor improves the effectiveness of one's army in a variety of ways. Adopting Honor gives a +25% combat bonus VS Barbarians and notifications will be provided when new Barbarian Camps spawn in revealed territory.
* Warrior Code: Great General appears outside the Capital.
* Discipline: +15% Combat Strength bonus from an adjacent friendly unit.
At this point you can be a man, and storm the gates of your enemies
, as you will have hopefully out tech-ed your adversaries with your rapid population explosion.
Or you can be a pansy, and continue cultural building, finishing off the 4 policy trees you already have started, and then taking Patronage or Commerce as ur 5th tree, so you can start Utopia Project, you dirty tree hugger!
Now tell me the French ability sucks...
Timing is uncertain, but something like the following for single-player games:
Tradition
Tradition is best for small empires, with many Policies that improve the Capital City. Adopting Tradition will immediately provide a bonus of +2 Food per turn in the Capital.
* Aristocracy: +33% production bonus for Wonders.
For first policy Paris gets +2 food, increasing growth, and more importantly allowing you to work higher production tiles without stunting the cities growth.Additionally, quicker growth equals more science output in Civ5.
Take Aristocracy as ur 2nd policy.
When starting the game build scout, then worker(rush with gold when possible); research Pottery, then Calendar. Upon 2nd policy, build Stonehenge(only cost 80 hammers with bonus!). Note: Better wonder production than Egyptians until they catch up in policy path should they go that way.
Stonehenge
Technology: Calendar
Cost: 120
+8 Culture, +1 Great Engineer Points
With only 1 city, and Stonehenge, France should rocket to 3rd Social policy, and choose:
Liberty
Liberty is best for civilizations which desire rapid expansion. Adopting Liberty will speed up the training of Settlers by 50%. This branch cannot be active at the same time as Autocracy.
With the bonus you start building ur settlers at half price.
Continue building settlers until happiness starts to go negative for your difficulty setting.
If closing in on 4th policy hold off settling a city for a turn or three.
Found cities, build granary, then temple, then library, then circus(if uve got horses)or Colosseum(if u have tech).
Choose Piety as 4th policy.
Piety
Unlocks at Classical Era.
Piety increases the Happiness of empires, and allows their Culture to flourish. Adopting Piety immediately increases the Happiness in the empire by 2. This branch cannot be active at the same time as Rationalism.
Continue filling in Peity tree for foreseeable future until you hopefully get to:
Free Religion: 2 Free Cultural Policies. (requires Mandate of Heaven)
Which is at the end of the Piety tree.
Build Oracle to get Free Religion sooner! Remember to build temples in all new cities.
Oracle
Cost: 150(just 100 for you!)
+1 Culture, +1 Great Scientist Points; Awards a free Social Policy when completed.
Ideally, the scenario above can be accomplished before you get access to Gunpowder(Musketeers, the French UU).
This means the French will need perhaps 9 social policies following the above plan. Which in order, to recap:
Tradition: Plus 2 extra food in capital.
Aristocracy: Plus 33% wonder production.
Liberty: Plus 50% settler production.
Piety: Increases the Happiness in the empire by 2
Mandate of Heaven: 50% of excess Happiness added each turn to the amount of Culture that may be spent on Policies.
Organized Religion: Amount of Happiness required to start a Golden Age reduced by 25%.
Reformation: The empire immediately enters a 6-turn Golden Age. (requires Organized Religion)
Theocracy: -20% Unhappiness from population in non-captured cities. (requires Organized Religion)
Free Religion: 2 Free Cultural Policies. (requires Mandate of Heaven)
Timing will need to be tested to see how long this will take, but it seems highly probably the French can accomplish this before Gunpowder, especially with help of Stonehenge and Oracle, which are absolutely necessary.
Use 2 free cultural policies from Free Religion to boost you down the Honor policy tree:
Honor
Honor improves the effectiveness of one's army in a variety of ways. Adopting Honor gives a +25% combat bonus VS Barbarians and notifications will be provided when new Barbarian Camps spawn in revealed territory.
* Warrior Code: Great General appears outside the Capital.
* Discipline: +15% Combat Strength bonus from an adjacent friendly unit.
At this point you can be a man, and storm the gates of your enemies
, as you will have hopefully out tech-ed your adversaries with your rapid population explosion.Or you can be a pansy, and continue cultural building, finishing off the 4 policy trees you already have started, and then taking Patronage or Commerce as ur 5th tree, so you can start Utopia Project, you dirty tree hugger!
Now tell me the French ability sucks...
The french ability also ends long before the game is over. In small empires its effect will be so small that it'll be hard to notice (+2 culture per city per turn, right? So thats 10 extra culture per turn with a 5 city empire...whoa! *yawn* Build a single wonder and you're right up there with any other civ too).
Both the german and the french abilities give an advantage in the early game, which is the critical phase for every civ. IMO that makes both abilities rather good.
Now the Ottoman one I don't know. You won't be building (usually) a lot of ships early on. And we don't know if there'll be lots of barb ships in the medieval or later times. So I'd really rate this ability low.
Both the german and the french abilities give an advantage in the early game, which is the critical phase for every civ. IMO that makes both abilities rather good.
Now the Ottoman one I don't know. You won't be building (usually) a lot of ships early on. And we don't know if there'll be lots of barb ships in the medieval or later times. So I'd really rate this ability low.
Zhahz
PC Gamer
I don't personally care for the german ability but it seems like it could lead to early rush potential and with the right kind of start, could be nasty. Some think early rush is gonna be much harder in Civ 5 (I think so) but the Germans might be able to pull it off.
Dunno about that, in the 2K demo he plays what, about 35 turns and finds 5ish (some via event that he never gets to) with suboptimal exploration (he was explaining a lot more than playing well). One thing that stood out in the first demo is that barbarians are out almost immediately along with encampments. I would guess expansion will be slightly slower so that means there could be a lot of "fog" (revealed but not visible) territory and we don't know how fast barb encampments pop.
It could almost be like FfH where exploration quickly gets to be dangerous and fatal. Extra freebie units would be helpful for that. (potential side bonus)
I really would've liked to see more of the early game demo for a variety of reasons, including seeing more of how exploration plays out.
Anyways.
Early Honor SPs for extra oomph and locating camps with 4-5 throw away barb units and maybe a couple early archers could probably take out some cities. The extra gold would help pay for it all til you scrap it or catch up on infrastructure. With all the early priorities and stuff, AIs could be a little slower putting out a 2nd city and wouldn't likely have a lot of defense nor defense city structures either way.
Now let's say it's continents or something like that where there's only 2-3 major powers, one of them being german. If those other majors only have 1-2 lightly defended cities that early and the german has 2-4x as many units anyone else via freebies...could be interesting in a violent way.
Take out the others early and either raze or puppet them and you end up with a nice chunk of land all to yourself to develop at your leisure. There's a lot to be said for having a continent all to yourself early on. Probably wouldn't hurt to have a few puppet capitals adding to your resources early, since capitals tend to be juicy city plots. Annex later once you build infrastructure.
So, I'd say there's potential for the right player. Doubt it's me but it seems somewhat viable. But, maybe I just talked myself into trying it...shoot...is it tuesday yet?
I tend to prefer abilities that are more generic and lasting and less gimmick oriented. There are several that fit my style.
I wouldn't say Japan's ability is the most powerful. Powerful for sure, especially for a warmonger, but fighting at full health is only so valuable if you're out teched, grossly out numbered, or have nobody around to fight.
Lastly - I like how the UAs are setup overal - lots of variety. SPs will be a big part of user-defined customization but the UAs will add some nice flavor and direction.
Dunno about that, in the 2K demo he plays what, about 35 turns and finds 5ish (some via event that he never gets to) with suboptimal exploration (he was explaining a lot more than playing well). One thing that stood out in the first demo is that barbarians are out almost immediately along with encampments. I would guess expansion will be slightly slower so that means there could be a lot of "fog" (revealed but not visible) territory and we don't know how fast barb encampments pop.
It could almost be like FfH where exploration quickly gets to be dangerous and fatal. Extra freebie units would be helpful for that. (potential side bonus)
I really would've liked to see more of the early game demo for a variety of reasons, including seeing more of how exploration plays out.
Anyways.
Early Honor SPs for extra oomph and locating camps with 4-5 throw away barb units and maybe a couple early archers could probably take out some cities. The extra gold would help pay for it all til you scrap it or catch up on infrastructure. With all the early priorities and stuff, AIs could be a little slower putting out a 2nd city and wouldn't likely have a lot of defense nor defense city structures either way.
Now let's say it's continents or something like that where there's only 2-3 major powers, one of them being german. If those other majors only have 1-2 lightly defended cities that early and the german has 2-4x as many units anyone else via freebies...could be interesting in a violent way.
Take out the others early and either raze or puppet them and you end up with a nice chunk of land all to yourself to develop at your leisure. There's a lot to be said for having a continent all to yourself early on. Probably wouldn't hurt to have a few puppet capitals adding to your resources early, since capitals tend to be juicy city plots. Annex later once you build infrastructure.
So, I'd say there's potential for the right player. Doubt it's me but it seems somewhat viable. But, maybe I just talked myself into trying it...shoot...is it tuesday yet?
I tend to prefer abilities that are more generic and lasting and less gimmick oriented. There are several that fit my style.
I wouldn't say Japan's ability is the most powerful. Powerful for sure, especially for a warmonger, but fighting at full health is only so valuable if you're out teched, grossly out numbered, or have nobody around to fight.
Lastly - I like how the UAs are setup overal - lots of variety. SPs will be a big part of user-defined customization but the UAs will add some nice flavor and direction.
I think people would better understand the French ability if you rephrased it:
French get a 100% boost towards getting Social policies for the first 50 turns of the game. After that the boost will obviously degrade at variable rates.
Other civs have to tech all the way to Philosophy, and then build a temple before they can raise their culture.
And nearly all Civ games will be essentially won or lost before you get out of the Medieval Era, so expiring with Steam Power is irrelevant. On higher lvls its typically won or lost by the end of the Classical Era, truth be told.
French get a 100% boost towards getting Social policies for the first 50 turns of the game. After that the boost will obviously degrade at variable rates.
Other civs have to tech all the way to Philosophy, and then build a temple before they can raise their culture.
And nearly all Civ games will be essentially won or lost before you get out of the Medieval Era, so expiring with Steam Power is irrelevant. On higher lvls its typically won or lost by the end of the Classical Era, truth be told.
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