Unique Ability Elimination Thread

[Snoopaloop]

Manifest Destiny: 16
Diplomatic Marriage: 11
Sacrificial Captives: 23
Ingenuity: 17
Phoenician Heritage: 27
Art of War: 22
Viking Fury: 9
Monument Builders: 21
Sun Never Sets: 27
Ancien Regime: 23
Hellenic League: 22
Great Andean Road: 26
Scholars of the Jade Hall: 21
The Long Count: 11
Dutch East India Company: 21
Achaemenid Legacy: 27
Wayfinding: 6
The Glory of Rome: 31
Siberian Riches: 18
Father Governs Children: 23
Seven Cities of Gold: 13
Nobel Prize: 20
River Warlord: 19

+1 Manifest Destiny: Whatever size map I am on, I always add a bunch of extra civs to the game. Land gets tighter, quicker so the reduced tile costs help to grab third string resources before they are settled. Then there's the +sight which comes in very handy when exploring (especially early) and during any war. Such a good bonus, that whenever I am not the Americans I miss it.

-2 Phoenician Heritage: On Pangaea the harbors are usually not much help to me, as I prefer to settle the more lush land. I only really need maybe one good naval city, and potentially some to grab sea luxuries. I'll usually need to road these for the movement/railroad benefits anyways. In these types of games I need maybe one harbor in the naval production city.

On continents, again. Just need that 1 great navy city (which gets a harbor) and maybe some small sea resource grab city (no harbor needed). The next harbor I would need is just one on the next continent I invade to connect trade routes.

Sure PH would give me free harbor in even my small resource grabbing cities, but they are not necessary for the role of that city. I don't care if it jumps the city in the middle of the tundra up 1 production on that crab tile.

 

[Seabastian Civ]

Manifest Destiny: 16
Diplomatic Marriage: 11
Sacrificial Captives: 23
Ingenuity: 17
Phoenician Heritage: 27
Art of War: 22
Viking Fury: 9
Monument Builders: 21
Sun Never Sets: 27
Ancien Regime: 23
Hellenic League: 22
Great Andean Road: 26
Scholars of the Jade Hall: 21
The Long Count: 11
Dutch East India Company: 21
Achaemenid Legacy: 28 (+1) Beastly. If Darius attacks you during a golden age, you're in trouble. If he has Chitzen Itza... good game.
Wayfinding: 6
The Glory of Rome: 29 (-2) 31 is too high. Played as Rome recently. Really helped build shrines to get a nice religion. Helped build universities for some science. Aside from that, nothing fantastic. A top 1/3 UA but shouldn't be so high this early.
Siberian Riches: 18
Father Governs Children: 23
Seven Cities of Gold: 13
Nobel Prize: 20
River Warlord: 19

 

[Crafty Bison]

Manifest Destiny: 16
Diplomatic Marriage: 11
Sacrificial Captives: 24
Ingenuity: 17
Phoenician Heritage: 27
Art of War: 22
Viking Fury: 9
Monument Builders: 21
Sun Never Sets: 27
Ancien Regime: 23
Hellenic League: 22
Great Andean Road: 26
Scholars of the Jade Hall: 21
The Long Count: 11
Dutch East India Company: 21
Achaemenid Legacy: 28
Wayfinding: 6
The Glory of Rome: 29
Siberian Riches: 18
Father Governs Children: 23
Seven Cities of Gold: 13
Nobel Prize: 20
River Warlord: 17

For today....
Aztecs: One of the only civs where I find deity OCC culture neither a huge challenge nor increadibly dull. It can add a beast load of culture, especially early on. Taking honour with culture vc is also really fun, and has good synergy with both UB and UU.
Songhai: The +50 gold from a barb camp is quite good..........what else was there? something about being embarked when you can now put units under ships, and something about attacking over rivers when ranged does it best then anyway? Yeah might sit this one out.

 

[Tabarnak]

Manifest Destiny: 16
Diplomatic Marriage: 11
Sacrificial Captives: 24
Ingenuity: 18
Phoenician Heritage: 27
Art of War: 22
Viking Fury: 9
Monument Builders: 21
Sun Never Sets: 27
Ancien Regime: 23
Hellenic League: 22
Great Andean Road: 26
Scholars of the Jade Hall: 21
The Long Count: 11
Dutch East India Company: 21
Achaemenid Legacy: 28
Wayfinding: 4
The Glory of Rome: 29
Siberian Riches: 18
Father Governs Children: 23
Seven Cities of Gold: 13
Nobel Prize: 20
River Warlord: 17

Ingenuity : Early science boost is good for every situations.

Wayfinding : Doesn't help me much. A trireme can do the job most of the time.

 

[Snoopaloop]

Wayfinding : Doesn't help me much. A trireme can do the job most of the time.

Can your trireme grow legs and grab that ancient ruin on the small island surrounded by deep ocean?

I agree with your downvote though, Wayfinding is no where the strongest. Though I find the point of it is that a trireme can't do the job of instant ocean navigating. Meeting the other continent of AI's and city states so early can have a big "opportunity" boost. Potentially finding a city state, which maybe you can ally early through random quests, or meeting a friendly civ that has extra resources or you can possibly sign RA's with before AI's on your continent interfere.

It's all opportunity though, and I would concur with you when you say "most of the time" the UA doesn't help; especially on land heavy maps.

 

[Tabarnak]

Can your trireme grow legs and grab that ancient ruin on the small island surrounded by deep ocean?

I agree with your downvote though, Wayfinding is no where the strongest.

Yeah it's just that the advantage of getting a ruin or 2 in first place or contacting 2-3 more AIs will most of the time not let you get enough bonuses. I already told that it's an ok UA for large islands mainly because the only way to contact a civ is to reach Astronomy excepted for low sea level. But...that's all

You need quite a lot of spare luxs to make extra contacts viable.

 

[Lordleoz]

-2 Phoenician Heritage: On Pangaea the harbors are usually not much help to me, as I prefer to settle the more lush land. I only really need maybe one good naval city, and potentially some to grab sea luxuries. I'll usually need to road these for the movement/railroad benefits anyways. In these types of games I need maybe one harbor in the naval production city.

On continents, again. Just need that 1 great navy city (which gets a harbor) and maybe some small sea resource grab city (no harbor needed). The next harbor I would need is just one on the next continent I invade to connect trade routes.

Sure PH would give me free harbor in even my small resource grabbing cities, but they are not necessary for the role of that city. I don't care if it jumps the city in the middle of the tundra up 1 production on that crab tile.

I agree with that. The use of PH is very limited and it's not a game changing ability, except in Archipelago maps. Getting free trade routes is nice and overall, it should be at top 1/4 but it is now overrated, I think.

Manifest Destiny: 16
Diplomatic Marriage: 11
Sacrificial Captives: 24
Ingenuity: 18
Phoenician Heritage: 25
Art of War: 22
Viking Fury: 9
Monument Builders: 21
Sun Never Sets: 27
Ancien Regime: 23
Hellenic League: 22
Great Andean Road: 26
Scholars of the Jade Hall: 21
The Long Count: 11
Dutch East India Company: 21
Achaemenid Legacy: 28
Wayfinding: 4
The Glory of Rome: 29
Siberian Riches: 18
Father Governs Children: 23
Seven Cities of Gold: 14
Nobel Prize: 20
River Warlord: 17

Seven Cities of Gold: This UA doesn't deserve so much hate. First, it's fun. Second, if you are not lucky enough to start near a natural wonder, you can still find them and build colonies near natural wonders.

Phoenician Heritage: As reason stated above.

 

[theguy8882]

Manifest Destiny: 16
Diplomatic Marriage: 11
Sacrificial Captives: 24
Ingenuity: 18
Phoenician Heritage: 25
Art of War: 22
Viking Fury: 9
Monument Builders: 21
Sun Never Sets: 27
Ancien Regime: 23
Hellenic League: 22
Great Andean Road: 26
Scholars of the Jade Hall: 21
The Long Count: 11
Dutch East India Company: 21
Achaemenid Legacy: 28
Wayfinding: 2
The Glory of Rome: 29
Siberian Riches: 18
Father Governs Children: 24
Seven Cities of Gold: 14
Nobel Prize: 20
River Warlord: 17

As I've previously stated I think that wayfinding provides small bonuses that aren't enough to make it good

You can grow your cities (especially your capital) to high sizes and generate tons of culture and faith.

 

[woodshadows]

Manifest Destiny: 16
Diplomatic Marriage: 11
Sacrificial Captives: 24
Ingenuity: 18
Phoenician Heritage: 25
Art of War: 22
Viking Fury: 9
Monument Builders: 21
Sun Never Sets: 27
Ancien Regime: 23
Hellenic League: 22
Great Andean Road: 26
Scholars of the Jade Hall: 21
The Long Count: 9
Dutch East India Company: 21
Achaemenid Legacy: 28
Wayfinding: 2
The Glory of Rome: 29
Siberian Riches: 18
Father Governs Children: 24
Seven Cities of Gold: 14
Nobel Prize: 20
River Warlord: 18


the long count - no flavour imo, not much of a bonus considering the 'free great people' aren't really free after all, meaning lots of junk you don't want.

river warlord on the other hand - early gold is great for expansion/military/citystate influence, whatever you want. the super buffed up promos for embarkation are great if you need to rush across a large ocean and are outmatched on navy and the marine promo on every unit is my favourite, stand behind a river and hit the enemy at full strength as they hit back at a weakened attack, or attack from the coast all over.

 

[Skibbi]

Manifest Destiny: 16
Diplomatic Marriage: 11
Sacrificial Captives: 24
Ingenuity: 18
Phoenician Heritage: 25
Art of War: 22
Viking Fury: 9
Monument Builders: 21
Sun Never Sets: 27
Ancien Regime: 23
Hellenic League: 22
Great Andean Road: 26
Scholars of the Jade Hall: 21
The Long Count: 9
Dutch East India Company: 21
Achaemenid Legacy: 29 In my long multiplayer duel, this ability allowed my friend to withstand my mechanised invasion with rifles!
Wayfinding: 0 Sorry, wayfinding, but you have extremely limited usefullness especially since amphibious attacks past an ocean before astronomy is going to be costly anyway! Especially with not tririeme escorts!
The Glory of Rome: 29
Siberian Riches: 18
Father Governs Children: 24
Seven Cities of Gold: 14
Nobel Prize: 20
River Warlord: 18

 

[Mesix]

Manifest Destiny: 16
Diplomatic Marriage: 11
Sacrificial Captives: 24
Ingenuity: 18
Phoenician Heritage: 25
Art of War: 22
Viking Fury: 9
Monument Builders: 21
Sun Never Sets: 27
Ancien Regime: 23
Hellenic League: 22
Great Andean Road: 26
Scholars of the Jade Hall: 21
The Long Count: 10 (+1)
Dutch East India Company: 21
Achaemenid Legacy: 29
The Glory of Rome: 27 (-2)
Siberian Riches: 18
Father Governs Children: 24
Seven Cities of Gold: 14
Nobel Prize: 20
River Warlord: 18

Today I'm going to add a point to the Long Count. This is a good UA, because it promotes a different play style. You must beeline Theology to get the most out of it. You do not need to run specialists to get great people. You also get the benefit of choosing great people. There is the downside that you only get one of each great person type, and the "free" great people increase the cost of naturally grown ones, but that is part of how this UA promotes a different play style.

The Glory of Rome is an okay UA, but it is certainly not one of the best in the game. There are so many better ones on this list, and Glory of Rome is currently overrated.

 

[Skibbi]

It appears wayfinding took the bullet for long count!

 

[smallfish]

Manifest Destiny: 16
Diplomatic Marriage: 9 (-2)
Sacrificial Captives: 24
Ingenuity: 18
Phoenician Heritage: 25
Art of War: 22
Viking Fury: 9
Monument Builders: 21
Sun Never Sets: 27
Ancien Regime: 23
Hellenic League: 22
Great Andean Road: 26
Scholars of the Jade Hall: 21
The Long Count: 10
Dutch East India Company: 21
Achaemenid Legacy: 30 (+1)
The Glory of Rome: 27
Siberian Riches: 18
Father Governs Children: 24
Seven Cities of Gold: 14
Nobel Prize: 20
River Warlord: 18


Kinda hard having to choose which UA to downvote... all of them have their uses, but I figure between Long Count randomness and Austrian Marriage OP, I'll go with the OP one.


As for Persian Golden Ages, it is an extremely powerful UA. I'll show you an example of an AI runaway using it against another AI runaway with nukes. Actually, that other runaway had all the uranium on the continent, and her UA was based majorly on extra quantities of uranium. She was also a pretty big power, having conquered another civ in the early game (Arabia)

Spoiler :

I remembered she even nuked him repeatedly.

It didn't help. Darius was in GA and with Mech Inf, overran Russia before long

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

 

[woodshadows]

Yeah, 10% combat bonus is pretty OP (re: Darius)... or maybe the AI is using the extra movement to good effect..

 

[Gucumatz]

Its more so the movement in my opinion. Its why we have also seen the Danish AI also been able to go runaway occasionally when it uses its UA movement bonuses

 

[Crafty Bison]

Its more so the movement in my opinion. Its why we have also seen the Danish AI also been able to go runaway occasionally when it uses its UA movement bonuses

Ya, persians have my abs fav UA, and it's cos of the movement more than anything else. Any culture vc should be doing a poor mans Persia, but no-one else puts 5 movement on all mounted, 3 movement on all siege, and even 3 movement on all workers (which really, really adds up). Super strong.

 

[Petiscator]

Manifest Destiny: 14
Diplomatic Marriage: 11
Sacrificial Captives: 24
Ingenuity: 18
Phoenician Heritage: 25
Art of War: 22
Viking Fury: 9
Monument Builders: 21
Sun Never Sets: 27
Ancien Regime: 23
Hellenic League: 22
Great Andean Road: 26
Scholars of the Jade Hall: 21
The Long Count: 10
Dutch East India Company: 21
Achaemenid Legacy: 29
The Glory of Rome: 27
Siberian Riches: 18
Father Governs Children: 24
Seven Cities of Gold: 14
Nobel Prize: 21
River Warlord: 18

Nobel Prize: I stated the same reason on last post, get some friends, warry the others, generate a huge bunch of GP, gift the useless/Great Prophets that already spreaded religion 3 times to the city states you want = easy Diplo win that might turn into militaristic.

Manifest Destiny: extra sight is nice, but the tile discounts are not so great. I only buy tiles 3-4 times in a game, so I can't find much use for this. It would be better if it affected cultural costs too, but, right now, buying cheap tiles is "meh" for me, compared to the other abilities.

 

[El Caballerion]

Can we increase to -3 downvotes? Otherwise, this is gonna take forever...

 

[SnowKomodo]

Manifest Destiny: 14
Diplomatic Marriage: 11
Sacrificial Captives: 24
Ingenuity: 18
Phoenician Heritage: 25
Art of War: 22
Viking Fury: 9
Monument Builders: 21
Sun Never Sets: 25
Ancien Regime: 23
Hellenic League: 22
Great Andean Road: 26
Scholars of the Jade Hall: 22
The Long Count: 10
Dutch East India Company: 21
Achaemenid Legacy: 29
The Glory of Rome: 27
Siberian Riches: 18
Father Governs Children: 24
Seven Cities of Gold: 14
Nobel Prize: 21
River Warlord: 18

Sun Never Sets: Extra movement is always nice but even on archipelago maps I've never had a problem conquering cities with the default movement. I much prefer extra sight from either Polynesia or The Great Lighthouse over movement. Can't speak highly of the espionage system so can't care much for extra spy.

Scholars of the Jade Hall: Never had a bad game with them. It could be luck. It could be science. Nope, it's just the science.

 

[Crafty Bison]

Manifest Destiny: 14
Diplomatic Marriage: 11
Sacrificial Captives: 24
Ingenuity: 18
Phoenician Heritage: 25
Art of War: 22
Viking Fury: 9
Monument Builders: 21
Sun Never Sets: 25
Ancien Regime: 23
Hellenic League: 20
Great Andean Road: 26
Scholars of the Jade Hall: 23
The Long Count: 10
Dutch East India Company: 21
Achaemenid Legacy: 29
The Glory of Rome: 27
Siberian Riches: 18
Father Governs Children: 24
Seven Cities of Gold: 14
Nobel Prize: 21
River Warlord: 18

Greece: Don't like this after GnK - More doable missions make CS's easeir to hold onto as a normal civ, and if I'm going diplo I want the extra buying power of Sweden, or even from the gold civs like arabia/persia, or even netherlands.

Korea: Might not be insanely extciting, but does aid a slight tayloring or your civ, and I'm not sure many would argue with its straight up power. Korea isn't considered great cos of the turtle ship, and it can't all be on the hwacha. It's broken for a start.