I've read the current civ reviews and found them somewhat inadequate in many respects. They're also old and written by people who don't seem to come around these parts anymore (if they still play civ III). I especially don't like the tier system as it has gotten proposed by some of those reviews. As an example of how I might rate the tribes it would go something like
1. Portugal
2. Byzantines
3. Spain
4. Carthage
5. The Dutch
6. England
7. Scandinavia
8. Hittites
9. Korea
10. Greece
11. France
Portugal in the first tier??? And number one? What gives? Oh... that's how I might rate the tribes for a Demi-God or Deity 20k game where you get to pre-select your map type and opponents. And that indicates my biggest beef with the current civ reviews. They don't show enough understanding of the depth of this game. To that end I propose a series of at least more thorough civ reviews. For the moment at least, I'll forgo reviewing unique units and civ traits *in general*, as those seem somewhat well covered by the current civ reviews. Instead, I'll review each tribe by desired victory condition.
Now, I want *your* help in these reviews. The more I've played civ III, the more I've realized that I have *very* limited experience with the game. I don't rack this up to the fact that I tend to play a more "builder" style either. If you played a game at every difficulty level, on every map size, for every victory condition, with every tribe you would play over 8000 games. 31*5*8*7=8680 games total, which even if you played a game everyday (and no one does, can, or should do this) it would take you over 23 years to complete. So, we should all concede limited play experience with the game... and consequently much of our thoughts consist of theorizing about the game based on what we do know.
I'll start these reviews with a tribe lots of people seem to like: The Maya.
Histographic: Many players might put The Maya in a class all by themselves here, along with perhaps the Iroquois. The Javelin Thrower can get used to farm for more slaves to speed growth. The synergy between the industrious and agricultural traits allow for faster growth and more production earlier, meaning that you can take more territory earlier than with many other tribes, which helps to raise your score. On top of this, since you'll probably want all tiles irrigated and railroaded in the industrial milk phase of this game, you get more citizens into your cities faster. This helps to raise score faster and allows you to use civil engineers to build markets, hospitals, and maybe even courthouses and police stations in corrupt areas to raise happiness faster than with other tribes. They also start with Masonry, so they can build The Pyramids right away if you pop an SGL or want to build them by hand.
Conquest: Fast growth and production means more units earlier. So, the Maya can more quickly kill off AIs. With the Agricultural trait, the Maya can also more quickly plant cities to prevent having more cities which you need to kill. Faster workers implies faster roading for your army to get to the front. All around pretty good here, but tribes with UUs more suited to fast conquest probably will excel over them.
Domination: The agricultural trait can help with producing faster settlers or temples for cultural expansions via whipping. The industrious trait can also help for pumping out settlers or temples faster to acheive domination faster via forestry operation. Again, the Maya won't always work out the best choice here, but I suspect that at many levels they'll make a strong choice for a fairly fast domination victory.
Diplomatic: Fast workers and fast growth implies a decent amount of commerce for scientific research or buying technology as needed. Add on top of this that you can get an extra shield or two at size twelve for your cities via forestry planting in the middle ages, due to the agricultural trait, for Cope's, Newton's to accelerate your research and the Maya again seem like a strong choice. The industrious/agricultural trait combo also allows you to irrigate and railroad faster meaning any specialist farms you have can develop more quickly... so again fairly fast research. Libraries, universities, and research labs may not come at half price, but the growth rate of the Maya can partially compensate for this. The Maya usually won't rate as high as scientific tribes in this area though, since they don't have free techs. I don't know about how other AIs view the Maya... as I understand it there exists an inherent bias/agression level towards some tribes and away from some tribes.
Space: Much like diplomatic. But, perhaps more interestingly, with the Maya... if you haven't triggered a golden age with them in the late industrial age, Hoover's Dam will give you a late industrial or early modern golden age right when techs start to get the most expensive. So, in a hotly contested space race, the Maya can still compete even though the value of the agricultural and the industrious tribes may have seem to have dwindled by this point. One might use such a golden age to build research labs faster, or to nail all the modern wonders, snatch a nice tech lead (or remain at tech parity), and launch before any other AI knew what hit them... even for a beginner level player.
Cultural 20k: The Maya don't generally seem to get selected here... partially because they don't have as great a probability of early SGLs as scientific tribes do. Nor will they necessarily start on a coast for The Colossus. But, agricultural implies faster growth, so more shields earlier means an earlier lock up on anicent age wonders. This means more culture earlier, and faster towards the 1000 year bonus for cultural buildings. The Maya also start with The Pyramids which makes for a nice early wonder, or a nice pre-build on another wonder. On top of this, the agricultural trait can give you an extra shield or two at size 12, when you'll build most of the wonders anyways. And you can develop your 20k site faster due to industrious workers, as well as develop commerce to keep research as high as you want it, or to get more cash to cash-rush in your wonders.
Cultural 100k: Perhaps nothing can compensate for cheap buildings in a 100k, save for the Temple of Artemis. Still, the Maya can probably do fairly well here, even though they probably won't fair as the best. The agricultural trait implies faster growth, meaning you can whip in your cultural improvements faster. Settler factories also come as easier to set up. The Maya can also build The Pyramids from the get go to pick up on expansion. You can also develop your tiles faster via the industrious trait, which means easier settler factories, worker pumps, and faster growth for whipping out cultural improvements. At higher levels, where you might need to bash the AI before concentrating too much on culture (I haven't done this), the Maya's traits probably make for a rather good combo, as their traits help you to warmonger more easily. Then, those same traits allow you to switch more easily to culture building via faster growth. Then, the population can re-grow faster. Since at higher levels you'll easily have engineering at this time, the industrious workers can get used to plant, chop, and then re-irrigate or re-mine tiles faster than non-industrious tribes to raise production. Here, since you'll probably have an ICS spacing, forestry doesn't work as powerfully in a histographic game where you might have an OCP spacing. But, still.. with so many towns that means massive corruption, so faster forestry wherever you can get it certainly will help.
In general... and as quite a contentious statement perhaps... the Maya may only work out as the best tribe at a given level for a histographic victory (players who like the Iroquois or other tribes may warmly dispute this). However, I would expect they come out on the high end for many victory conditions at many levels, were we to take the time and rank each tribe for each victory condition at each level.
1. Portugal
2. Byzantines
3. Spain
4. Carthage
5. The Dutch
6. England
7. Scandinavia
8. Hittites
9. Korea
10. Greece
11. France
Portugal in the first tier??? And number one? What gives? Oh... that's how I might rate the tribes for a Demi-God or Deity 20k game where you get to pre-select your map type and opponents. And that indicates my biggest beef with the current civ reviews. They don't show enough understanding of the depth of this game. To that end I propose a series of at least more thorough civ reviews. For the moment at least, I'll forgo reviewing unique units and civ traits *in general*, as those seem somewhat well covered by the current civ reviews. Instead, I'll review each tribe by desired victory condition.
Now, I want *your* help in these reviews. The more I've played civ III, the more I've realized that I have *very* limited experience with the game. I don't rack this up to the fact that I tend to play a more "builder" style either. If you played a game at every difficulty level, on every map size, for every victory condition, with every tribe you would play over 8000 games. 31*5*8*7=8680 games total, which even if you played a game everyday (and no one does, can, or should do this) it would take you over 23 years to complete. So, we should all concede limited play experience with the game... and consequently much of our thoughts consist of theorizing about the game based on what we do know.
I'll start these reviews with a tribe lots of people seem to like: The Maya.
Histographic: Many players might put The Maya in a class all by themselves here, along with perhaps the Iroquois. The Javelin Thrower can get used to farm for more slaves to speed growth. The synergy between the industrious and agricultural traits allow for faster growth and more production earlier, meaning that you can take more territory earlier than with many other tribes, which helps to raise your score. On top of this, since you'll probably want all tiles irrigated and railroaded in the industrial milk phase of this game, you get more citizens into your cities faster. This helps to raise score faster and allows you to use civil engineers to build markets, hospitals, and maybe even courthouses and police stations in corrupt areas to raise happiness faster than with other tribes. They also start with Masonry, so they can build The Pyramids right away if you pop an SGL or want to build them by hand.
Conquest: Fast growth and production means more units earlier. So, the Maya can more quickly kill off AIs. With the Agricultural trait, the Maya can also more quickly plant cities to prevent having more cities which you need to kill. Faster workers implies faster roading for your army to get to the front. All around pretty good here, but tribes with UUs more suited to fast conquest probably will excel over them.
Domination: The agricultural trait can help with producing faster settlers or temples for cultural expansions via whipping. The industrious trait can also help for pumping out settlers or temples faster to acheive domination faster via forestry operation. Again, the Maya won't always work out the best choice here, but I suspect that at many levels they'll make a strong choice for a fairly fast domination victory.
Diplomatic: Fast workers and fast growth implies a decent amount of commerce for scientific research or buying technology as needed. Add on top of this that you can get an extra shield or two at size twelve for your cities via forestry planting in the middle ages, due to the agricultural trait, for Cope's, Newton's to accelerate your research and the Maya again seem like a strong choice. The industrious/agricultural trait combo also allows you to irrigate and railroad faster meaning any specialist farms you have can develop more quickly... so again fairly fast research. Libraries, universities, and research labs may not come at half price, but the growth rate of the Maya can partially compensate for this. The Maya usually won't rate as high as scientific tribes in this area though, since they don't have free techs. I don't know about how other AIs view the Maya... as I understand it there exists an inherent bias/agression level towards some tribes and away from some tribes.
Space: Much like diplomatic. But, perhaps more interestingly, with the Maya... if you haven't triggered a golden age with them in the late industrial age, Hoover's Dam will give you a late industrial or early modern golden age right when techs start to get the most expensive. So, in a hotly contested space race, the Maya can still compete even though the value of the agricultural and the industrious tribes may have seem to have dwindled by this point. One might use such a golden age to build research labs faster, or to nail all the modern wonders, snatch a nice tech lead (or remain at tech parity), and launch before any other AI knew what hit them... even for a beginner level player.
Cultural 20k: The Maya don't generally seem to get selected here... partially because they don't have as great a probability of early SGLs as scientific tribes do. Nor will they necessarily start on a coast for The Colossus. But, agricultural implies faster growth, so more shields earlier means an earlier lock up on anicent age wonders. This means more culture earlier, and faster towards the 1000 year bonus for cultural buildings. The Maya also start with The Pyramids which makes for a nice early wonder, or a nice pre-build on another wonder. On top of this, the agricultural trait can give you an extra shield or two at size 12, when you'll build most of the wonders anyways. And you can develop your 20k site faster due to industrious workers, as well as develop commerce to keep research as high as you want it, or to get more cash to cash-rush in your wonders.
Cultural 100k: Perhaps nothing can compensate for cheap buildings in a 100k, save for the Temple of Artemis. Still, the Maya can probably do fairly well here, even though they probably won't fair as the best. The agricultural trait implies faster growth, meaning you can whip in your cultural improvements faster. Settler factories also come as easier to set up. The Maya can also build The Pyramids from the get go to pick up on expansion. You can also develop your tiles faster via the industrious trait, which means easier settler factories, worker pumps, and faster growth for whipping out cultural improvements. At higher levels, where you might need to bash the AI before concentrating too much on culture (I haven't done this), the Maya's traits probably make for a rather good combo, as their traits help you to warmonger more easily. Then, those same traits allow you to switch more easily to culture building via faster growth. Then, the population can re-grow faster. Since at higher levels you'll easily have engineering at this time, the industrious workers can get used to plant, chop, and then re-irrigate or re-mine tiles faster than non-industrious tribes to raise production. Here, since you'll probably have an ICS spacing, forestry doesn't work as powerfully in a histographic game where you might have an OCP spacing. But, still.. with so many towns that means massive corruption, so faster forestry wherever you can get it certainly will help.
In general... and as quite a contentious statement perhaps... the Maya may only work out as the best tribe at a given level for a histographic victory (players who like the Iroquois or other tribes may warmly dispute this). However, I would expect they come out on the high end for many victory conditions at many levels, were we to take the time and rank each tribe for each victory condition at each level.
