Unique Ability Elimination Thread

[Princeofnigeria]

I wonder how the Netherlands got voted higher than England in the 'Civilization elimination thread' when everyone is loving everything that England has, while the Dutch are too situational. I think playing with the Dutch is more fun though.

The Sea beggar? Those things are BUTCHERS. I had a fleet of them up until the modern era, as I could just kill the enemy navy, use their own navay to soften up coastal cities, and then send in the beggars to get superplunder and kill the city. MUCH better than the ship of the line. And polders are really not that shabby either.

 

[SnowKomodo]

The Sea beggar? Those things are BUTCHERS. I had a fleet of them up until the modern era, as I could just kill the enemy navy, use their own navay to soften up coastal cities, and then send in the beggars to get superplunder and kill the city. MUCH better than the ship of the line. And polders are really not that shabby either.

Sea beggar ≠ much better than Ship of the line
Ship of the line ≠ much better than Sea beggar

At least in my book

 

[Lordleoz]

IMO
Range > Melee ------>Ship of the Line > Sea Beggar

 

[Cowhead]

Sacrificial Captives: 20
Phoenician Heritage: 14
Art of War: 19
Sun Never Sets: 21 (+1)
Hellenic League: 13
Great Andean Road: 27
Scholars of the Jade Hall: 21
Dutch East India Company: 4
Achaemenid Legacy: 24
The Glory of Rome: 7
Siberian Riches: 15
Nobel Prize: 21 (-3)

Sun Never Sets - Again Extra embarked/naval movement great for naval warfare, exploring, meeting CSs and Civs to trade with. Extra spy helps steal/protect techs.

Nobel Prize - Relies on making and keeping friends which is not my strongest ability. I like pissing people off . Plus is almost useless in Multiplayer.

 

[Jimjemael]

Sacrificial Captives: 20
Phoenician Heritage: 14
Art of War: 19
Sun Never Sets: 21
Hellenic League: 13
Great Andean Road: 28 (+1)
Scholars of the Jade Hall: 21
Dutch East India Company: 4
Achaemenid Legacy: 24
The Glory of Rome: 7
Siberian Riches: 15
Nobel Prize: 18 (-3)

Great Andean Road is firstly a load of fun to play but is also highly useful in warfare (ability to move and set up siege on hills). On top of that it can be used to deter players in MP as (correct me if I'm wrong) roads can be spammed all over the place (similar to civ4) meaning the attacker will face a whopping maintenance cost and hassle when the city is taken.

Nobel Prize is pretty overrated on these forums imo. It's certainly not a bad ability but civ is a game where one man wins. Gaining and more importantly maintaining friends can be very tricky and is set to become harder with the fall patch. On top of that the ability is rubbish in MP (for obvious reasons). Finally the ability to "cash in" your GPs with CSs is underrated but not by much, as it can distract from focus to churn out garbage GPs rather than focus on benefits for yourself.

 

[woodshadows]

Sacrificial Captives: 20
Phoenician Heritage: 11
Art of War: 19
Sun Never Sets: 21
Hellenic League: 14
Great Andean Road: 28
Scholars of the Jade Hall: 21
Dutch East India Company: 4
Achaemenid Legacy: 24
The Glory of Rome: 7
Siberian Riches: 15
Nobel Prize: 18

phoenician heritage - I hear a lot about 'free trade routes', great if you're playing archipelago map, not so 'free' if you're playing standard continents/pangaea/other land-based map. Is it free to skip roads altogether? I'd say that comes at a heavy price, I'd say the price is even higher by having a long stretched out coastal empire = less production than inland cities, not as easy to defend, no roads to move troops back and forth TO defend! Just doesn't make sense for this UA to be rated so high, it's really one of the worst ones. I also hear 'extra production', sure, you'll get a few sea resources near your coastal cities, this doesn't even come close to offsetting the production loss you will receive throughout the game by losing loads of tiles that otherwise would/could have been land tiles (if you hadn't built coastal), and doesn't even compare to something like Siberian riches or Scourge of God, both far better production bonuses.

Hellenic League - city states on your side can make a game a breeze, even on the highest levels of play. start early fulfilling quests to get allied with one or two citystates close by, this will ensure you are safe from being rushed, as the game progresses, continue to perform quests, send a bit of gold over, go patronage, soon you'll have the entire map feeding you culture/food/UU's/faith/happiness. When I play a diplomatic civ like Greece I get to sell all of my luxuries, because there is just so much happiness coming into me that I'm always ahead in it - this gold helps buy even more city state influence, especially when timed correctly for when the city state gold gifts are more effective. I'm playing a game right now, not as Greece, but Sweden, earth map, tiny, 6 civs, Deity, I have all 8 city states on my side and have had them on my side through most of the game. My army is smallest but no one dares dow me because my city states and their massive armies would all take them out. I decided to dow Ethiopia, the strongest player on the continent and the mayhem that arose was beautiful, city states armed to the teeth charging in, attacking him on multiple fronts, as I come in with my small force of Caroleans and artillery and easily take a border city while his forces are distracted fending off city states. This is a huge bonus and yet on Deity or even Immortal it can often be almost impossible to keep more than a few city states on your side, AI unlimited-gold will always beat you, but with Alexander, or Sweden, or some powerful gold civs like Incas you can get the influence meter high enough with enough city states that the AI seems to leave them alone, about 120 infleunce seems to be the point at which they won't bother with coups or trying to steal them from you. Another bonus with Greece is, the synergy early game to fulfill the barbbusting quests for city states - since even unallied city states allow you to heal in their territory and since you'll often have your initial warrior changed into a hoplite, if you grab honour early you can very quickly take out barb camps, heal up in cs territory, move on to the next camp, which makes for loads of cs influence early, not to mention the gold and culture you gain from killing all those barb camps.

 

[maurcus]

Sacrificial Captives: 20
Phoenician Heritage: 11
Art of War: 19
Sun Never Sets: 21
Hellenic League: 14
Great Andean Road: 28
Scholars of the Jade Hall: 21
Dutch East India Company: 4
Achaemenid Legacy: 24
The Glory of Rome: 4 (-3)
Siberian Riches: 15
Nobel Prize: 19 (+1)

if you play your cards right then the nobel prize is one of the best GPerson UA

the glory of rome, sometimes useful sometimes not and anything that is situational in getting a good fresh city that produces 4 requires you to go order and liberty and restricts your freedom in policies.

 

[woodshadows]

Sacrificial Captives: 20
Phoenician Heritage: 14
Art of War: 19
Sun Never Sets: 21
Hellenic League: 13
Great Andean Road: 28 (+1)
Scholars of the Jade Hall: 21
Dutch East India Company: 4
Achaemenid Legacy: 24
The Glory of Rome: 7
Siberian Riches: 15
Nobel Prize: 18 (-3)

Great Andean Road is firstly a load of fun to play but is also highly useful in warfare (ability to move and set up siege on hills). On top of that it can be used to deter players in MP as (correct me if I'm wrong) roads can be spammed all over the place (similar to civ4) meaning the attacker will face a whopping maintenance cost and hassle when the city is taken.

Nobel Prize is pretty overrated on these forums imo. It's certainly not a bad ability but civ is a game where one man wins. Gaining and more importantly maintaining friends can be very tricky and is set to become harder with the fall patch. On top of that the ability is rubbish in MP (for obvious reasons). Finally the ability to "cash in" your GPs with CSs is underrated but not by much, as it can distract from focus to churn out garbage GPs rather than focus on benefits for yourself.

im surprised to hear people say the ability is rubbish in mp. if i were playing babylon, or china for instance, i'd gladly take the extra 10% gp production. but maybe mp players think differently about this and are more focused on depriving the swedish player of a benefit.

 

[Jimjemael]

im surprised to hear people say the ability is rubbish in mp. if i were playing babylon, or china for instance, i'd gladly take the extra 10% gp production. but maybe mp players think differently about this and are more focused on depriving the swedish player of a benefit.

Pretty much... believe me I don't hate Sweden's UA it's just that civ is a pretty cut-throat game when it comes down to it and players quickly identify that Sweden is likely to benefit more from a DoF more than they are (due to the stacking nature). It's also important that with UAs such as Ingenuity you can't easily have your ability undermined, on the other hand Sweden can be kept at arms length and damaged by simply not DoFing them.

That said once Sweden is "taken out of the running" in MP e.g. weakened to a point that they can't easily win, then people are more relaxed in setting up DoFs and the ability serves in ensuring your survival as well as making it somewhat easier to bounce back.

 

[Princeofnigeria]

IMO
Range > Melee ------>Ship of the Line > Sea Beggar

While in most cases I agree that range is greater than melee, here we have this dilema: I have 3 fresh beggars, you have 3 fresh ships o line. Using your 3 ships, you can attack my coastal units, bombard my cities, and kill my sea beggars if you concentrate your fire and get first strike. Problem is, with my three Beggars I can attack and plunder coastal cities more efficiently, and if I concentrate my fire, I can take one of your Ships o line and do both, or use it as cannon fodder for my sea beggars to close the distance on your other ships. And lets say we have an alternate scenario. I at one point was playing netherlands and was doing rather well on my path to a cultural victory. Problem is, warmoungering Etheopia (who had killed off siam and monty by now, thus controling all africa and the lower western half of europe) felt this was less than sublime, as his tech victory wouldn't be done for another 70 turns. So, he sent a fleet of 3 battle ships, 3 destroyers, and 3 privateers (first time in any game of civ where I saw a fleet of ships and not lone caravels). To defend, All I had where 3 Beggars, 2 galleas, and a city. By the end of it, (10 turns later) he had no navy, I had 2 Beggars, 2 battleship, a privateer, and a destroyer. I used the beggars to quickly snatch up his privateers, which would draw there fire, and allow my beggars to close the distance. If you had 6 ships o line (I'm even giving you a numerical advantage) and even if you where a flawless tactician and won (much less likely now that you can't sack ships) you still would have ended this battle with (optimistically) 3 ships. And when the second etheopian invasion fleet arrived (3 battleships, 4 privateers, 1 destroyer) you would have started with 4 ships (I'm assuming you build a new one in this time), while I started with 7 ships. Overtime, the sea beggar proved to be far more efficient, as it didn't rely on doing more damage to te enemy, it gives more benifit to the player.

 

[Gucumatz]

Sacrificial Captives: 20
Phoenician Heritage: 11
Art of War: 19
Sun Never Sets: 21
Hellenic League: 14
Great Andean Road: 29 (+1) The Most fun, the most flexible, the most gold rich, the most consistent for warmongering unlike Archaemenid or Viking Fury for mobility, applies all game long - gives you an increased early edge (workers can improve hill tiles faster and move through them with ease and units can explore faster - getting an early upgraded composite bowmen upgrade can prevent extreme early rushes or give you the option for a super quick rush), it just gives you too many options, to not make it as #1.
Scholars of the Jade Hall: 21
Dutch East India Company: 4
Achaemenid Legacy: 24
The Glory of Rome: 4
Siberian Riches: 15
Nobel Prize: 16 (-3) I still think this is one of the most overrated UAs left. You can get early Declarations of Friendship started in mp too - the problem is that in MP it takes a longer while to get any true Great person focus up. If you grow too strong too quick - you will find less Decs of Friendship. If you aren't using your Great People to help you get ahead - Other humans will get ahead then on their own.

Sure you could take the Honor Path and gift a Great General - but thats limited in multiplayer. Would you give up tradition/Liberty focuses early on just to get 90-100 influence (10 from pledge) early on? The benefits of a strong start can't be underestimated. In singleplayer with easier competition it might make seem Sweden stronger in comparison - but in MP it gives little to no real advantage in my mind.

 

[kamikazees]

Sacrificial Captives: 20
Phoenician Heritage: 8
Art of War: 20
Sun Never Sets: 21
Hellenic League: 14
Great Andean Road: 29
Scholars of the Jade Hall: 21
Dutch East India Company: 4
Achaemenid Legacy: 24
The Glory of Rome: 4
Siberian Riches: 15
Nobel Prize: 16

Phoenician Heritage: Rushing a bunch of coastal cities can work if you have sea resources, but the lack of roads will really kill you. Then if you build roads you're wasting a huge part of the UA...

Art of War: Confucious says, "All things being equal, China will kill you."

 

[Rooftrellen]

Sacrificial Captives: 20
Phoenician Heritage: 9
Art of War: 20
Sun Never Sets: 21
Hellenic League: 14
Great Andean Road: 26
Scholars of the Jade Hall: 21
Dutch East India Company: 4
Achaemenid Legacy: 24
The Glory of Rome: 4
Siberian Riches: 15
Nobel Prize: 16

With the two UA's I started voing for down, and with now -3, I think I'll make my loop 3 UA's I dislike, as to not eliminate them on my own, but I'm starting with the Great Andean Road. Though you're likely to start in an area with hills, they are fairly rare, making both the movement speed across them and the free roads on top of them less useful. What's more is that unlike the other Great road ability (Great Warpath), you are required to actually build the roads, taking worker turns. It's a good ability, but this is the top 12, and already better UA's have fallen by the wayside. No need for another to take a fall.

For the talk of long coastal empires, I just don't get it. Does Spain settle every city near a natural wonder? Does Russia never go for a lux? No, nor should Carthage always settle coastal cities. Ok, let's not talk about gold for a moment, which is the most obvious advantage. Carthage gets harbors for free. That means all those coastal resources get 1 more hammer, so it's free production. Carthage gets early science by not having to research Optics or Compass for harbors, and with a coastal start bias, that's useful trade routes or not. Carthage gets more production early, with the ability to find hammers off the coast. It can lead to more influence early, if a CS near a 2nd or 3rd city asks for a trade route to your capital early game.

That's all besides the free trade routes between coastal cities, which is a big boost unless a DoW catches you off guard (but that's quite rare) or you finish the game before railroads (not common for me, but I know results may vary).

 

[woodshadows]

While in most cases I agree that range is greater than melee, here we have this dilema: I have 3 fresh beggars, you have 3 fresh ships o line. Using your 3 ships, you can attack my coastal units, bombard my cities, and kill my sea beggars if you concentrate your fire and get first strike. Problem is, with my three Beggars I can attack and plunder coastal cities more efficiently, and if I concentrate my fire, I can take one of your Ships o line and do both, or use it as cannon fodder for my sea beggars to close the distance on your other ships. And lets say we have an alternate scenario. I at one point was playing netherlands and was doing rather well on my path to a cultural victory. Problem is, warmoungering Etheopia (who had killed off siam and monty by now, thus controling all africa and the lower western half of europe) felt this was less than sublime, as his tech victory wouldn't be done for another 70 turns. So, he sent a fleet of 3 battle ships, 3 destroyers, and 3 privateers (first time in any game of civ where I saw a fleet of ships and not lone caravels). To defend, All I had where 3 Beggars, 2 galleas, and a city. By the end of it, (10 turns later) he had no navy, I had 2 Beggars, 2 battleship, a privateer, and a destroyer. I used the beggars to quickly snatch up his privateers, which would draw there fire, and allow my beggars to close the distance. If you had 6 ships o line (I'm even giving you a numerical advantage) and even if you where a flawless tactician and won (much less likely now that you can't sack ships) you still would have ended this battle with (optimistically) 3 ships. And when the second etheopian invasion fleet arrived (3 battleships, 4 privateers, 1 destroyer) you would have started with 4 ships (I'm assuming you build a new one in this time), while I started with 7 ships. Overtime, the sea beggar proved to be far more efficient, as it didn't rely on doing more damage to te enemy, it gives more benifit to the player.

anytime ive tried sea beggars in raiding cities the damage it does is very minimal and since i can't withdraw after attacking and there's often just three hexes max to attack a coastal city from, there's only so much damage they can do to a city, the gold is negligible and by attacking a city with a melee ship you leave a weakened ship sitting in front of a city to be fired at by all the ranged units including the city. give me ship of the line any day, higher survivability and eventually getting +1 range or double attack.

to the latter part of what you said - the ship of the line player would just bring along at least one privateer to steal ships.. which really the netherlands player should be doing too, having some frigates to soften up the enemy ships before grabbing them.

 

[Princeofnigeria]

anytime ive tried sea beggars in raiding cities the damage it does is very minimal and since i can't withdraw after attacking and there's often just three hexes max to attack a coastal city from, there's only so much damage they can do to a city, the gold is negligible and by attacking a city with a melee ship you leave a weakened ship sitting in front of a city to be fired at by all the ranged units including the city. give me ship of the line any day, higher survivability and eventually getting +1 range or double attack.

to the latter part of what you said - the ship of the line player would just bring along at least one privateer to steal ships.. which really the netherlands player should be doing too, having some frigates to soften up the enemy ships before grabbing them.

Indubitably. I agree that meleeing a city isn't a wise attack IN AND OF ITSELF unless its a very weak city. However, killing off your enemies navy and using It to Bash there cities, then send in a few beggars in for plunder and to raze the city then (against a human) retreat, lick your wounds, and come back for the next city. If there is none, you win! (against an AI) retreat and lick your wounds. Then (because there dumb) attack the 1 pop city they just refounded for easy XP and plunder. (this is how I razed 8 of washingtons coastal cities in a single game, no relation to my previous example)

 

[Petiscator]

Sacrificial Captives: 20
Phoenician Heritage: 9
Art of War: 20
Sun Never Sets: 21
Hellenic League: 14
Great Andean Road: 26
Scholars of the Jade Hall: 21
Dutch East India Company: 4
Achaemenid Legacy: 24
The Glory of Rome: 1
Siberian Riches: 15
Nobel Prize: 17

The Glory of Rome: nice production bonus, but there is a problem for me: 1, most of my just-settled cities have something like 1 production, and, while it helps developing them, there is not so much diferece between 1.25 and 1; 2, you have to build those buildings in your capital already, thus making you ignore some nice wonders. Buying buildings might be an ok strategy, but then you are avoiding settler/worker. With liberty it is good, but not as good as the other UAs left

Nobel Prize: I'm right sure I'm not overrating it. People are putting the focus on the 10% per friendship, when the 90 influence is what rocks. 10% per friendship might be not so good in multiplayer and will depend on the AIs and map, for sure, but, on SP, it is impossible to find 0 friends (without warring). The bonuses are there to help you by early to mid game with some specialists, if you plan on warring. By the time you start warring, you lose your friendships and then the bonus, but you will be generating a load of GGs and GAs, so you'll get some great benefits from there. On multi, the bonus per friendship might not even apear, but it is only the icing on the cake. BTW, there are few peaceful games on multiplayer, most of them are for Science/Domination, so on Science they will need friendships for RAs and for Domination you will be generating a lot of GGs and GAs to get even more CSs alliances and go for diplo. Any merchants or prophets you get are meant to be burnt, in GPs case, after spreading the religion. So, Sweden is pretty versatile and I don't even think it is limitting: you can go for a peaceful game with a lot of friends, a religious game or a psycho game and still be allied with many, many CSs (and getting their awesome bonuses). What's not to love?

 

[Seabastian Civ]

Sacrificial Captives: 20
Phoenician Heritage: 9
Art of War: 20
Sun Never Sets: 18 (-3) It is the best naval UA. Time for the land-based UAs to take center stage.
Hellenic League: 14
Great Andean Road: 26
Scholars of the Jade Hall: 21
Dutch East India Company: 4
Achaemenid Legacy: 25 (+1) Natural Golden Ages don't always line up with conquests, its true. But no other civ can stash great artists until they are in a war, then pop them to deliver the coup de grâce. Get cathedrals for an even greater GA generation. Plus one movement for 15 turns is almost unfair.
The Glory of Rome: 1
Siberian Riches: 15
Nobel Prize: 17

 

[Petiscator]

Seabastian: I haven't thought of doing the GAs stash with Persia - might be because, despite I love this civ, I don't play them much because I end up not having a clue about what to do. Nice idea with the catedral, I might try it out today!

 

[woodshadows]

For the talk of long coastal empires, I just don't get it. Does Spain settle every city near a natural wonder? Does Russia never go for a lux? No, nor should Carthage always settle coastal cities. Ok, let's not talk about gold for a moment, which is the most obvious advantage. Carthage gets harbors for free. That means all those coastal resources get 1 more hammer, so it's free production. Carthage gets early science by not having to research Optics or Compass for harbors, and with a coastal start bias, that's useful trade routes or not. Carthage gets more production early, with the ability to find hammers off the coast. It can lead to more influence early, if a CS near a 2nd or 3rd city asks for a trade route to your capital early game.

That's all besides the free trade routes between coastal cities, which is a big boost unless a DoW catches you off guard (but that's quite rare) or you finish the game before railroads (not common for me, but I know results may vary).

sure, you might not 'settle every city coastal', but if you want to make full use of the UA you'll probably want to. I'm sure if Spain could, they would settle every city near a natural wonder, problem is it's much harder to do than to place every city on the coast. One hammer on a couple of fish isn't really that great.. considering to have a coastal city you are foregoing having about 3/4 of your tiles that could instead be mines/pastures/iron/lumbermills/etc which will be granting you far greater production. I wouldn't call it 'free science' for skipping learning some techs in favour of others, except in the case of an archipelago map in which everyone is more or less obligated to get harbours in their cities, on most maps though I rarely find a need for harbours, except later game when I expand overseas. Sorry, it's really not a very good UA, except for an island map.. also for everyone saying that it has natural synergy with messenger of the gods, i would personally say it makes more sense to get the god of the seas (or whatever it's called), to actually make those fish tiles half-decent with an extra hammer to them to pair with the harbour hammer bonus. Messenger of the gods is good for anyone who is going for a wide empire, building some road traderoutes takes very little time or effort so I see no inherent advantage for carthage here in choosing this one.

 

[woodshadows]

Nobel Prize: I'm right sure I'm not overrating it. People are putting the focus on the 10% per friendship, when the 90 influence is what rocks. 10% per friendship might be not so good in multiplayer and will depend on the AIs and map, for sure, but, on SP, it is impossible to find 0 friends (without warring). The bonuses are there to help you by early to mid game with some specialists, if you plan on warring. By the time you start warring, you lose your friendships and then the bonus, but you will be generating a load of GGs and GAs, so you'll get some great benefits from there. On multi, the bonus per friendship might not even apear, but it is only the icing on the cake. BTW, there are few peaceful games on multiplayer, most of them are for Science/Domination, so on Science they will need friendships for RAs and for Domination you will be generating a lot of GGs and GAs to get even more CSs alliances and go for diplo. Any merchants or prophets you get are meant to be burnt, in GPs case, after spreading the religion. So, Sweden is pretty versatile and I don't even think it is limitting: you can go for a peaceful game with a lot of friends, a religious game or a psycho game and still be allied with many, many CSs (and getting their awesome bonuses). What's not to love?

I agree 100%, it's the 90 influence which is the bread and butter of this UA. The friendship great person generation bonus is really just an extra, which will sometimes be very powerful, other times nonexistent. 90 influence with a city state is huge, especially when you can grab a great general extremely early in the game. 90 influence is equivalent to about 1250 gold (IIRC), which no one can really compete with early game to throw at a citystate. As the game progresses you'll almost always end up with mediocre great people, prophets, admirals, generals, artists, merchants, even scientists late game I always gift, the only great person I don't generally gift are early great scientists (prefer building academies) and usually engineers because I like free wonders. Generally as Sweden you can spend the early game turtling, gaining massive city state influence and then by the time you get rifling go on a stomp fest with caroleans, hakkapeliittas, artillery and city state allies.