What is the most underwelming Civ?
- Thread starter civ_king
- Start date
i voted doviello. i know it may be a little cliche to pick on them but i would really like to see them improved. I know there were some ideas around about making them more nomadic or mobile settlements. something to show they arent a less-cool version of the illians.
Sifaus
Adramelech
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2007
- Messages
- 259
Yeah, i voted doviello too because of same reason.
Kael
Deity
The problem with this poll is that the amount of people that have played all 20 civs for a full game recently is a tiny percentage (if any at all). So no one is able to judge which civ is the least powerful.
Instead you get people that vote for the civ that appeals to them the least. Which in a forum full of FfH fans means those that are the most like normal Civ4 civs.
That doesnt mean that civ feedback isnt good (and why we have this forum), just that I dont know that this poll is particurly valuable.
If we want to test equal power its easy for me to laod numerous random games and tlet the AI play all teams for 300 turns or so and see where they are in the power ranking. The Doviello do really well in those tests.
Instead you get people that vote for the civ that appeals to them the least. Which in a forum full of FfH fans means those that are the most like normal Civ4 civs.
That doesnt mean that civ feedback isnt good (and why we have this forum), just that I dont know that this poll is particurly valuable.
If we want to test equal power its easy for me to laod numerous random games and tlet the AI play all teams for 300 turns or so and see where they are in the power ranking. The Doviello do really well in those tests.
Kael
Deity
Yeah there are definitly some civs that are more AI friendly.
orangelex44
Partisan
Howsabout the Bannor? It seems that they're weak with the AI and weak when I play them.... and as much as an desparate, losing battle against evil might be lore-appropriate for them, I'd like to have as good a chance of victory with them as any other civ.
I try to play with a different civ every game, and my last game with the Bannor (four or five games ago) was the first I'd lost in a while - I've played as the Calabim, Kuriotates, Merciurians, Sidar, and Lanun as well in the recent future, and won with all of them. That seems like a pretty eclectic mix, making the Bannor game somewhat of an abberation.
P.S., those are all with my "default" settings - Monarch, Pangea/Lakes, Large, two or three extra civs, random enemy selection, one allowed restart for a nasty location.
I try to play with a different civ every game, and my last game with the Bannor (four or five games ago) was the first I'd lost in a while - I've played as the Calabim, Kuriotates, Merciurians, Sidar, and Lanun as well in the recent future, and won with all of them. That seems like a pretty eclectic mix, making the Bannor game somewhat of an abberation.
P.S., those are all with my "default" settings - Monarch, Pangea/Lakes, Large, two or three extra civs, random enemy selection, one allowed restart for a nasty location.
Avahz Darkwood
Emperor
Mind you my vote for the Doviello is based on the Erabus map script. I would also note them Stumpies (dwarfs) end up cannon fodder on this map. On non-flavor maps they do fine...
Nikis-Knight
Deity
Yeah, map scrpit has a big effect, I suspect. Kael likes the Erebus script, I'm not really fond of it myself (maybe I need to give it another try, though). But I bet there's a lot of differences between that and Pangea, or either of those and continents.
edit: Also, I think a better time for this would be in 3 weeks or so, after lots of people have been able to play the Illians and seen the Doviello changes.
edit: Also, I think a better time for this would be in 3 weeks or so, after lots of people have been able to play the Illians and seen the Doviello changes.
Zechnophobe
Strategy Lich
That's not a fair comparison of course, because AI's can't use civ's all that well.
I think really the question asked at the top of this thread is really 'what is the least compelling' civ. For those of us who don't play simply based off of the lore of a civ, we are attracted to the cool unique elements of each civ. OOh, golems! Ooh, vampires!
When we ask this question, even someone who has never played the bannor, may have done so not having anything to do with how strong they are, but because they simply aren't a compelling civ that seems like it would be fun to play.
I think .34 Doviello for instance, are a lot more compelling than they were previously, because they seem to have a bit more unifying of a game plan there. It may still not be great, but it's better. The Bannor though, still don't have anything that makes me want to play them.
That's my opinion though, which may be int he minority, hence why a poll such as this is still a good metric for compulsion.
Kael
Deity
Thats fair zechno, I agree that the question in this poll is really "what civ appeals to me least" just as you said. But honestly Im not that interested in that question either. Because I dont want every civ to appeal to every player.
Instead I like polls that ask what peoples favorite civs are. Then see what civs turn up the least frequently, those are the ones Im interested in fixing.
It seems liek "what civ to you like the most"/"what civ do you like the least" would turn up the same results. But they are actually very different. Some civs appeal to small base of people that really like them. Im perfectly cool with keeping those (the kuriotates and khazad are examples). It doesnt matter to me if 80% of the other people dont like playing as them. But if we have civs that arent on anybodys favorite lists, then thats a huge problem.
To answer the relative power question I ran a test game and tracked the scores. The game specifics were:
Large map
18 civs (i wanted the map to be full to limit barbarian randomness and truely force the ais into conflict with each other)
Aggressive Ai
Pangaea map (a good mix of terrain types and a lot of neighboring civs to force conflict)
The results:
Specifics of the underachievers:
Cassiel- Died on turn 15 to the barbs, that happens sometimes
Tasunke- Started strong but early aggression earned him to many enemies who tore him apart
Hannah- Completly landlocked she was handicapped form the begining, have to compare this with other results to see if there is a trend
Ethne- Interesting result here, the elohim ai arent strong aggressors and tolerant doesnt help them if they arent aggressing, have to play mroe games to see how they work out
Faeryl- Involved in more wars than probably any civ, Faeryl's was doing well throughout until finally catching the bad end of a battle with the Calabim. Despite not finishing Faeryl did exactly what she was supposed to and put out a strong showing in this game
Decius- Very weak performance for the Malakim. Have to see if this is a trend. Decius eventually vassaled to Alexis (see I told you he was Malakim/Calabim)
Dain- Also vassalized to Alexis, Dain is held down by being forced into Alexis's various wars. I think I disable vassals int eh next test.
Charadon- Very middle of the road performance here. Nothing great, nothign horrible. Charadon did start one of the first wars and was the aggressor in a lot of battles, just as you'd expect.
Kandros- Kandros was handicapped by the game settings. The Khazad are the slowest to creates settlers and on a map this crowded it meant that they lost out on the land battle early on.
What does it mean?
Nothing much. But running a few samples for this sort of data with different starting positions could show some interesting trends around relative civ strength and the ai's ability to play these civs.
But its interesting to consider. And it takes us out of the anecdotal discussions that dont give us much to go on. I think someone posted here yesterday that we'd nerfed the calabim into uselessness. More analytical information is better.
Instead I like polls that ask what peoples favorite civs are. Then see what civs turn up the least frequently, those are the ones Im interested in fixing.
It seems liek "what civ to you like the most"/"what civ do you like the least" would turn up the same results. But they are actually very different. Some civs appeal to small base of people that really like them. Im perfectly cool with keeping those (the kuriotates and khazad are examples). It doesnt matter to me if 80% of the other people dont like playing as them. But if we have civs that arent on anybodys favorite lists, then thats a huge problem.
To answer the relative power question I ran a test game and tracked the scores. The game specifics were:
Large map
18 civs (i wanted the map to be full to limit barbarian randomness and truely force the ais into conflict with each other)
Aggressive Ai
Pangaea map (a good mix of terrain types and a lot of neighboring civs to force conflict)
The results:
Specifics of the underachievers:
Cassiel- Died on turn 15 to the barbs, that happens sometimes
Tasunke- Started strong but early aggression earned him to many enemies who tore him apart
Hannah- Completly landlocked she was handicapped form the begining, have to compare this with other results to see if there is a trend
Ethne- Interesting result here, the elohim ai arent strong aggressors and tolerant doesnt help them if they arent aggressing, have to play mroe games to see how they work out
Faeryl- Involved in more wars than probably any civ, Faeryl's was doing well throughout until finally catching the bad end of a battle with the Calabim. Despite not finishing Faeryl did exactly what she was supposed to and put out a strong showing in this game
Decius- Very weak performance for the Malakim. Have to see if this is a trend. Decius eventually vassaled to Alexis (see I told you he was Malakim/Calabim)
Dain- Also vassalized to Alexis, Dain is held down by being forced into Alexis's various wars. I think I disable vassals int eh next test.
Charadon- Very middle of the road performance here. Nothing great, nothign horrible. Charadon did start one of the first wars and was the aggressor in a lot of battles, just as you'd expect.
Kandros- Kandros was handicapped by the game settings. The Khazad are the slowest to creates settlers and on a map this crowded it meant that they lost out on the land battle early on.
What does it mean?
Nothing much. But running a few samples for this sort of data with different starting positions could show some interesting trends around relative civ strength and the ai's ability to play these civs.
But its interesting to consider. And it takes us out of the anecdotal discussions that dont give us much to go on. I think someone posted here yesterday that we'd nerfed the calabim into uselessness. More analytical information is better.
orangelex44
Partisan
What an odd game..... The 'Chirp are up there, so are the Sheiam - that's kind of odd, in my experience. Clan are good, Calabim are good - those happen a lot. Sabathiel had a moster performance, compared to most of my games; so did Kandros. Arendel, Sandalphon, and Keelyn did a little weaker than normal. Dain's on the bottom: normal. Ethne on the bottom: decidedly not normal, the Elohim are very often at or near the top in my games.
All in all, a couple surprises, but pretty much on the level with most of my experience - barring those wierd things that happen every game, like Cassiel getting whacked and Hannah being sea-starved. Also, I don't generally have every civ playing at once, so that skews things a little.
All in all, a couple surprises, but pretty much on the level with most of my experience - barring those wierd things that happen every game, like Cassiel getting whacked and Hannah being sea-starved. Also, I don't generally have every civ playing at once, so that skews things a little.
Nikis-Knight
Deity
I very much recomment increasing vasselization threshold. I see capitulation rather soon by and large. I don't know exactly what it is based on, but I would guess that it should require and additional 25% discrepency in power ranking.
I don't like the suggestion to just turn it off, because it very much helps speed domination victories, but ai's as is have too little will power.
Really, if this is intentional I think it should be changed. Because empty vaults just give the dwarves a net zero, after considering their free gold, and if they aren't at their happy cap, saving gold isn't a huge bonus for awhile. Not compared to losing a prime city location. Once they have 3 or 4 cities, then they can consider slowing expansion, in my experience, but they shouldn't start slower than everyone else.
loffenx
Warlord
- Joined
- May 6, 2008
- Messages
- 267
Interesting, I've pondered over Kandros and the Khazad and others slow expansion in the past, often they've remained very small even though more or less isolated, which have led to their eventual occupation/vassalization/extermination. As Nikis-Knight suggested limiting early expansion might do more damage than good, even considering their Vault-benefits. That's what my experience with the Khazad AI would suggest, atleast.
Zechnophobe
Strategy Lich
Consider, however, that with a large enough poll, we can determine how large of an audience considers, or in this case, doesn't consider an interest in a civ.
This poll does have the problem of only allowing one selection. I'll put up another that I think is more indicative in a second.
Psycho_Ivan
Warlord
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2008
- Messages
- 218
This thread is a GOOD read. 
Can't figure out who I'd bar out as my least favorite Civ-- Hard to select someone. Each team has there merits, even if some of them don't appeal to me.
Overall, I'd have to say it would be... The Luchuirp. Despite my love for the Khazad, I can hardly use the Luchuirp, though this goes to show how different the two Dwarven factions truly are!
Though I'm not choosing them for being underpowered, rather because I can't get a handle on how to play them.
Can't figure out who I'd bar out as my least favorite Civ-- Hard to select someone. Each team has there merits, even if some of them don't appeal to me.
Overall, I'd have to say it would be... The Luchuirp. Despite my love for the Khazad, I can hardly use the Luchuirp, though this goes to show how different the two Dwarven factions truly are!
Though I'm not choosing them for being underpowered, rather because I can't get a handle on how to play them.
Monkeyfinger
Deity
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2006
- Messages
- 2,002
Most boring: Amurites
Weakest right now: Mercurians
Weakest after .34 changes: Amurites
The last bit is speculation. The big change to the mercurians might help less than I'm predicting... though I doubt it.
Weakest right now: Mercurians
Weakest after .34 changes: Amurites
The last bit is speculation. The big change to the mercurians might help less than I'm predicting... though I doubt it.
WTH... Amurites the weakest??? Govannon is easily the most useful unit in the game. Entire army can cast haste and you think they're weaker than, say, the Malakim?
