Weakest Civ(NEW)

[GlobularFoody]

Just because you don't start near a natural wonder, doesn't mean you can use it. Conquer the city states that always have them, and the extra bonus you get for finding them first blows away a lot of other UA that other civs have. If I can rush buy 4-5 warriors and eliminate all my neighboring civs immediately, then what better UA can there be?

I have to agree that England is the weakest Civ, mainly because the naval AI is so ridicously bad you never even need to build ships to take advantage of the ship of the line.

 

[_hero_]

Just because you don't start near a natural wonder, doesn't mean you can use it. Conquer the city states that always have them, and the extra bonus you get for finding them first blows away a lot of other UA that other civs have. If I can rush buy 4-5 warriors and eliminate all my neighboring civs immediately, then what better UA can there be?

I have to agree that England is the weakest Civ, mainly because the naval AI is so ridicously bad you never even need to build ships to take advantage of the ship of the line.

England is a 1 trick pony. A full complement of longbowmen with a few melee units can conquer half the world. Otherwise, England is nearly useless.

 

[zephyrtr]

Spain's UUs are really good at least, but their UA is a total crap shoot. 20g off Cerro de Potosi, or a huge grabbag off Barrier Reef can be GREAT -- but oftentimes, half the Natural Wonders are either in the middle of the ocean or seized by a city-state. Spain wouldn't be so mediocre if they coded maps to place NWs in friendlier areas. Of course, Spain would still have to GET them, which is tough, too.

 

[seasnake]

Spain's UUs are really good at least, but their UA is a total crap shoot. 20g off Cerro de Potosi, or a huge grabbag off Barrier Reef can be GREAT -- but oftentimes, half the Natural Wonders are either in the middle of the ocean or seized by a city-state. Spain wouldn't be so mediocre if they coded maps to place NWs in friendlier areas. Of course, Spain would still have to GET them, which is tough, too.

Solution, conquer the city state. I wrote this earlier, don't pick Spain if you're not planning on fighting for key wonders or establishing cities on multiple continents. You pretty much have to do this if you want to be a great civ with them, but if you role play it by exploring and conquering choice sites then it is a ton of fun.

 

[The A.K.T]

Conqestadors better than mandukaly. try and island map and you will become rich!

 

[GlobularFoody]

Funny, I started a game as Spain and there wasn't a single natural wonder on my entire continent. The only thing that was there was the Great Barrier Reef on exact opposite side of the continent. Here I was thinking that they coded the game to have at least one wonder nearby for Spain to take advantage of.

 

[chazzycat]

Um, if you're spain and you have that little of the map revealed by the time you have three cities you deserve to lose. I see all kinds of fog that should be gone by now. That's like never cultivating a Cultured or Maritime city state ally as Siam and then saying Siam sucks.

Spain is excellent, if you build a bunch of scouts and go for optics and sign open borders, things like that so you find the Natural Wonders. Second, Spain is, by design, a multi-continent empire where you should be willing to explore, find other natural wonders and either settle (really easy with conquistadores) or attack the city state/empire that controls the wonder. It's the Spanish, they didn't arrive in the New World, see the riches of the natives and so "Oh shucks, they got here first, let's go home." Instead they said "Mine! Gimme!" and killed everyone who tried to stop them, and became the foremost power in the world for 200 years. You don't pick Spain to play nice in the Ren, but thanks to Conquistadors and Tercios you don't have to.

Meanwhile, you have 8 choice tiles in the game. Control krakatoa and that's 10 science per turn, only slight less effective than an academy which costs a GS AFTER filling out the entire Freedom tree. Fountain of Youth is 20 happiness, basically Notre Dame AND Eiffel Tower without the bonus for social policies. Barringer Crater is 6 science and four gold per turn in One city -- A free academy and customs house essentially. Oh, and if you even find two first (especially likely if you beeline Caravels and invest in getting them out there) that's 500 gold per. At minimum, it's a free one hundred gold for finding them at all, better than most ruins.

Great post. You have to make the UA work, it's not just handed to you (like some others).

 

[fmlizard2]

It takes a little luck, but Spain is all about exploration and early . You have to play them differently (2 scouts, early triremes and optics) but the potential is there for a buzzsaw.

In the average Spain game I play (one of my favorite civs) I find one NW in or reasonably close to my natural land area (not capital), and I am the first to find 1-2 more. That is 1000-1500 in the early game, plus 100 for the other 3-4, and +6 to boot. A man can do a lot of things with that much early cash. My favorite is to use the GL to slingshot to the Medieval Era way early and use the NW to buy cultural CSes, getting hugely outsized bonuses at about turn 50.

The tile bonuses are gravy, and substantially good gravy if you get one of the awesome ones like the reef, El Dorado, Cerro de Potosi, or FOY.

Spain is not the best civ, though it can be. It is my favorite one to play for fun because of how every game can unfold very differently.

 

[seasnake]

It takes a little luck, but Spain is all about exploration and early . You have to play them differently (2 scouts, early triremes and optics) but the potential is there for a buzzsaw.

In the average Spain game I play (one of my favorite civs) I find one NW in or reasonably close to my natural land area (not capital), and I am the first to find 1-2 more. That is 1000-1500 in the early game, plus 100 for the other 3-4, and +6 to boot. A man can do a lot of things with that much early cash. My favorite is to use the GL to slingshot to the Medieval Era way early and use the NW to buy cultural CSes, getting hugely outsized bonuses at about turn 50.

The tile bonuses are gravy, and substantially good gravy if you get one of the awesome ones like the reef, El Dorado, Cerro de Potosi, or FOY.

Spain is not the best civ, though it can be. It is my favorite one to play for fun because of how every game can unfold very differently.

Reef is amazing when you can get it. I love playing Spain because I love exploring, I always build a couple of scouts regardless of my civ choice, if I get even one free tech or one quick Natural Wonder than it pays itself off. Then in Ren make caravels a priority tech and explore.

 

[insaneweasel]

Spain is excellent, if you build a bunch of scouts and go for optics and sign open borders, things like that so you find the Natural Wonders.

Spain is the ultimate gambler civ. If you get a good wonder (like Cierro or El Dorado), it is awesome. Otherwise, it's fairly weak.

 

[fmlizard2]

Also, I'll confess to re-rolling as Spain sometimes after 20-30 turns if I get a really raw deal on NWs. That doesn't mean I endlessly re-roll hoping for the FOY 2 tiles from the capital, but if you get absolutely nothing and find nothing even close to your eventual territory, nothing is stopping you from starting over.