What civilization do you think will be the most powerful?

[Thyrwyn]

All this irrelevant speculations are making my CivV itch get worst, and September is not getting closer...

I hear that. . .

 

[Schuesseled]

I think the German and Ottoman abilities won't be in the top list, I do think they're severely underrated because of how barbs worked in Civ 4- namely, they were out of date past the ancient era, and they spawned infrequently with careful unit placement. I think you'll see a lot more barbarian encampments/naval barbs in Civ 5, thus making those abilities more powerful. Don't also forget that naval units are more important, and units in general are much more expensive/individually important. Also, the Ottomans definitely have powerful UUs for waging sustained warfare, and we can't judge the German UUs since we don't know what they do.

On other civs:
I agree that Siam have extremely high levels of power with their City-state bonus- especially since they'll be able to earn culture without creating as many cities, which makes policies significantly harder to buy, while also making their cities more powerful through extra food.
The Aztecs have an economic bonus (culture is now definitely an resource on the level of science/gold) for waging war- what's not to like?
The Greeks definitely have a powerful ability for making friends with city states, along with a powerful early military to wage war against any other players. I like how the early military gives you the tools to secure your local city states' independence before you can create your 'Delian League' of allied city states.
Rome is overrated for a variety of reasons, that mainly have to do with the transition from Civ 4 to Civ 5. Since there are a lot more conditional buildings like the mills/stables, along with maintenence costs. Also note that you really need a high-hammer capital to make full use of this ability. Their UUs are also powerful, but they both rely on iron, which is definitely a limit on them.

I totall agree with what you said on the romans, for the roman ability to be perfect it would have to be a very high production city and meet all the criteria for building every building, which lets face it, will hardly ever happen.

 

[Celevin]

That is true, that why you need to... Guess what... Yes... Sisiutil, say it with me:
LEVERAGE the UA!

Somehow I recon that most of the time, if you'll pursue you UA you'll get the chance to use it and gain advantage from it. What if an allied city-state asks you to defend them from pesky corsairs? Even if you're landlocked you could consider building/conquering coastal city in order to fulfill the demands of said city-state, especially if having conquest of the world in mind.

And with barbs being definitely in game for a lot longer than in previous installments and also on-par with the most technologically advanced civilization in game you can do all sorts of tricks. For instance forfeit pursuing navy-based technology for a moment in order to go for something else, all the while converting (if we are to believe you don't need to win in order to convert the barb unit) pirate triremes and frigates that some other civ developed technologies for. It won't be the case on a Chieftain setting, but I can see it being a very cool option for higher difficulties

I think we can safely assume you need to win to convert. It doesn't make any sense, otherwise.

Honestly, it's cool and all. I might try it out to feel pirate-like. But isn't there too many variables? To use my ability, I need:
1) To have a good sea access
2) To have fogged, unsettled coast nearby to "farm" if I'm going to do this before astronomy

I'm not done. Now I need to benefit from it. The 25 gold is a fairly decent boost, but it needs the other ability to be used to shine. We need an enemy other than barbarians to use the stolen ships on. I agree if there are "barbarian destroyers" going around, this ability would be awesome, but there aren't always going to be things to go after the next coast up.

My other big problem is this and Germany's seem to go against the optimal strategy of purposely barbarian busting to save yourself the distraction. In Civ4, if I see good unsettled coast, I will probably want to settle there. Now if I'm playing the Ottomans or Germans, it appears for my ability to work, I need to sacrifice expansion and power, and vice-versa.

If the Ottomans are guaranteed to have a coastal capitol with lots of fog and if they do not need to bust in the name of expansion, then I agree their ability will be used. If the unit maintenance cap isn't hit easily and if they need to use their ships for war, I agree it will be very cool, and be a good mid-ranked civ ability. It's too many ifs for me, though, and sounds like it won't happen too often.

 

[Grimlin]

Does anyone know some details about the German UA? Are the extra units going to count against the supply limit? Is their nationality hidden after conversion, making them still appear as barbs?

When looking at the Roman UA and UUs, maybe I'm going to try them for the first time.

 

[LegioCorvus]

my analysis of traits(for higher difficulties)-(if civ5 is not drastically different from civ4)

Well, there's your first mistake.

my analysis of traits(for higher difficulties)-(if civ5 is not drastically different from civ4)

Aztec- moderate , main point of culture victory is avoiding war.
score- 2/5

france- very good trait, lesser need to buy tiles+faster expansion
score- 4/5

japan- definitely overpowered, they need to fix this with a patch
score- 6/5

ottomans- meh,naval unit? haven't they learned anything.nobody goes naval in a standard civ game
score-1/5

rome- arguably the best trait (not overpowered)
score-5/5

russia- very good trait,mainly because of larger quantities of resources
score-4/5

You making a few odd appraisals here, mostly from basing your judgments of these traits A) without actually having played the game, and B) based on your experiences with Civ4 rather than a game with obviously different attributes.

Aztecs - Culture works like a mixture of culture form Civ4 (expanding borders) and science, in that you can buy social policies with culture. It's almost like getting science with each kill. Also, we don't know the amount. I don't see how you can say France's UA is good and not this one, when they could be very similar.

France - Again, we don't know if +2 culture per turn is a little or a lot. I'd put this down as the peaceful version of the Aztec UA, except it goes away in the late game.

Japan - How do we know this is overpowered? We haven't played the game. From what we have heard, they've done extensive play testing on this game for balance. (Though, admittedly, this never quite works out 100% before being released to the public). In an early interview, they mentioned they had to reduce a Civ's UA from 'treating forests as roads' to just 'no movement penalty in forests' because it was too powerful. (What we now know is the Iroquois UA). If they reduced that, but didn't change this, I think it's somewhat safe to assume it's not overpowered.

Ottoman - There are... what?... 25 attributes/flavors that each Civ gets different values for, and two groups of flavors are Naval Warfare and Naval Recon. I think it's pretty safe to say that the naval portion of the game will not only be different, but much more used.

Rome - Could be powerful, except buildings have maintenance costs now, and your capitol may or may not have the resources to build every building you want. It seems like a highly dependent power, especially on whether Rome has high production and/or coastal access. I still think the Roman Civ will be one of the strongest (like always) but I think it will be because of the Legions' road making ability. There's no real calling it now, though.

Russia - I don't disagree with you on this one at all. I'm curious if it is as powerful as it seems on paper (on html?).

 

[Lyoncet]

In Civ4, if I see good unsettled coast, I will probably want to settle there. Now if I'm playing the Ottomans or Germans, it appears for my ability to work, I need to sacrifice expansion and power, and vice-versa.

This may or may not be a good strategy in CiV due to each new city founded increasing unhappiness across your entire empire. Previews suggest that mid-late-game expansion will be considerably slower.

 

[Venereus]

Yeah, expansion is now slower, so with the Ottomans my guess is that, instead of deliberately trying to keep nearby islands unsettled for barb farming, you'll inevitably leave alone those that are bad city locations, just like any other civ would. So, if you're close to the poles or near way too many islands, you're set, without altering the way you play much. Just make sure you have the navy to win over those barb vessels. In the end, it's as situational as pretty much all other UAs in CiV. This time adaptability is going to matter a lot.

 

[King Jason]

Rome - Could be powerful, except buildings have maintenance costs now, and your capitol may or may not have the resources to build every building you want. It seems like a highly dependent power, especially on whether Rome has high production and/or coastal access. I still think the Roman Civ will be one of the strongest (like always) but I think it will be because of the Legions' road making ability. There's no real calling it now, though.

I totall agree with what you said on the romans, for the roman ability to be perfect it would have to be a very high production city and meet all the criteria for building every building, which lets face it, will hardly ever happen.

I don't think this is the case at all. The Roman ability is essentially like Organize or Expansive traits from civ4. Considering the fact that there are always some buildings that are useful in damn near every city. That's what Rome's ability represents. It isn't supposed to be a production bonus to every building in all of your cities. It's that concept of "Well every city could use a courthouse" - So build one in rome first, and the rest of your empire benefits.

People get so caught up on specialization that they don't realize that every city will benefit from Happiness and Growth buildings.

Which effectively means Rome will have an easier time expanding and growing it's empire. Much like an Expansive/Organized leader would.

 

[LegioCorvus]

People get so caught up on specialization that they don't realize that every city will benefit from Happiness and Growth buildings.

Which effectively means Rome will have an easier time expanding and growing it's empire. Much like an Expansive/Organized leader would.

Buildings have maintenance now.

And with golden ages being acquired from the build-up of extra happiness, buildings are most likely designed to give excess happiness. So the question becomes whether it is worth it to spend extra gold each turn for extra happiness that would go towards a golden age. This same gold is also being used for the upkeep of buildings such as the courthouse you speak of, troops in the field, and even your roads.

Every city benefits from Happiness buildings in Civ4. Given that happiness is now civilization wide rather than local, I can't imagine this being an absolute truth in Civ5.

I'm not saying this will be a bad trait. Quite the contrary. I still think Rome will be one of the top dogs, but I also think that this trait is getting undue praise for being A+, whereas it may just as likely be a B+ ability.

 

[Schuesseled]

I don't think this is the case at all. The Roman ability is essentially like Organize or Expansive traits from civ4. Considering the fact that there are always some buildings that are useful in damn near every city. That's what Rome's ability represents. It isn't supposed to be a production bonus to every building in all of your cities. It's that concept of "Well every city could use a courthouse" - So build one in rome first, and the rest of your empire benefits.

People get so caught up on specialization that they don't realize that every city will benefit from Happiness and Growth buildings.

Which effectively means Rome will have an easier time expanding and growing it's empire. Much like an Expansive/Organized leader would.

once again a lot, and i mean a lot, of buildings are conditional, for example the circus is a happiness building and its only available in cities with horses or ivory nearby, how many cities will have that. The roman ability is mainly for building un-conditional buildings, which isn't every happiness building, its jsut the basic buildings barracks, courthouse, granary, colluseum etc.

 

[12agnar0k]

Lol that someone rated Japan as "will need a patch to fix it, 6/5" and Russia as "could be powerful 4/5"
All I can say is, would you like to have a game, you can play as Japan, and I will play as Russia.

Russia has the most powerful UA, expecially in terms of military power, although you will need to get the same number if not more iron&horses than your enemy.
As for UU's we don't know them all yet, and Japan is far from having the best UU's. I don't think we know what Russia's are yet. But its the UA that will allow Russia to dominate in every game she plays.

 

[Lyoncet]

Lol that someone rated Japan as "will need a patch to fix it, 6/5" and Russia as "could be powerful 4/5"
All I can say is, would you like to have a game, you can play as Japan, and I will play as Russia.

Russia has the most powerful UA, expecially in terms of military power, although you will need to get the same number if not more iron&horses than your enemy.
As for UU's we don't know them all yet, and Japan is far from having the best UU's. I don't think we know what Russia's are yet. But its the UA that will allow Russia to dominate in every game she plays.

Way too early to call that one. Since we don't know how large armies will be ("smaller than CIV" doesn't cut it) we don't really know how much difference that extra iron et al. is going to make since we don't have really any idea of the ratio of resourced to non-resourced units is going to be. The extra hammer is nice, but certainly not overwhelming.

Plus we don't know exactly how Bushido Code is going to work either since as far as I know we don't know how unit strength will deteriorate with unit health. While I get that the point of this thread is speculation, I think that "Russia has the most powerful UA" is jumping the gun by quite a length.

 

[12agnar0k]

Way too early to call that one. Since we don't know how large armies will be ("smaller than CIV" doesn't cut it) we don't really know how much difference that extra iron et al. is going to make since we don't have really any idea of the ratio of resourced to non-resourced units is going to be. The extra hammer is nice, but certainly not overwhelming.

Plus we don't know exactly how Bushido Code is going to work either since as far as I know we don't know how unit strength will deteriorate with unit health. While I get that the point of this thread is speculation, I think that "Russia has the most powerful UA" is jumping the gun by quite a length.

Not at all, I have done my calculations.

 

[Venereus]

Not at all, I have done my calculations.

Just...LOL

 

[12agnar0k]

Wasn't supposed to be a joke, but thanks all the same.

 

[Venereus]

You gotta be kidding. Why would you have run calculations without reliable data? What's the point of using inaccurate assumptions to get misleading results?

 

[Schuesseled]

because they can be misprepresented as factual information, you can get your wage and walk before anyone notices.

 

[Me,myself,and,I]

Math is Fun!

Since EACH happiness building will provide a bonus empire wide, we can assume that Rome's ability will be powerful. Besides, can you say library spam?

 

[12agnar0k]

Not unless you are physcic, I do my calculations in my head, and not by "assumptions" either but on the factual data we have already collected on the game.

 

[Lyoncet]

Not unless you are physcic, I do my calculations in my head, and not by "assumptions" either but on the factual data we have already collected on the game.

Factual data like…

How many hammers per turn a decent hammer city will produce?
How much gold it takes to produce one hammer when rush-buying?
How much an army will cost in maintenance?
How an army affects your population? (We know it does, just not how.)
To synthesize the four above, how large of an army you can field as a function of empire size?
How many resource-dependent units you can field compared to non-resource-dependent units?
How many resources you're even likely to have?
How large your empire will be?
How garrisoned units affect city strength?
How powerful citadels are?
How strength degrades with unit health?
How strength and health will effect the outcome of a battle?
How bombardment damage works?
How combat modifiers apply and stack? (Actually think we may know this one, but I'm not sure on that.)
What all the promotions do?



I'm sitting here drinking water. If you turn it into wine before I'm done with it, I'll believe you can run meaningful calculations without any of these data, without making any assumptions, and "in your head." I really don't see how anyone can take you seriously when you make claims like that and then say you won't show your work because you did it all mentally.