What is the most underwelming Civ?

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I say Bannor, at least in the hands of the AI. which is also bad with dwarves, kurios, sheaim and lanun ( because the AI sucks at naval strategy ). malakim and doviello often get screwed by crappy starting position as well. illians too, but that won't be a problem in 0.34

 

[Caradoc]

Hey now! I've played all 20 (and the FFs as well) multiple times. Not all to the finish, but enough to know what they are about. However, "power" is a vague concept and there's always a way to get an edge. Lately, I've come to think that it is the leaders (and to a lesser extent the worldspells) that really make the difference.

 

[KillerClowns]

As sorry as I feel for the Bannor and Amurites, the Doviello seem to have gotten the worst of it.

 

[xsansara]

So much Bannor bashing?

I actually like them a lot. They have their one special ability and if you can get it through in time, you can easily win the game domination wise. Just kill everyone else with your hordes of Demagogs. Or on a larger map use your greatly expanded empire to just steam-roll everyone else.

A very straight-forward game. Almost relaxing.

I voted for Malakim, because I just can't make sense of how I am supposed to play them. Their specials seem kind of scattered and don't have too much synergy. You can Chalid Astrakein everyone, but then you don't really need the priests. Your own hero lies on melee line. sand lions on magic line. They get +10 WW like a builder/defender, but don't have any builder specials.

Personally, I would like to see them trade route based, with boni for merchants, basically peaceful, but with a powerful hero somewhere and some diplo options like maybe entering both over- and undercouncil. That would be unique and demand an interesting playing style.

 

[orangelex44]

Malakim + Altar is a nice strategy; armies of rampaging Priests are very fun.

As for the Bannor: I do like them, very much. I just think that Crusade is prohibitively expensive and thus, unusable until the point where victory is pretty much assured anyway. Also, as the Bannor stand now, they're kind of a "one and done" civ - IMHO, they lack that special "something" that makes them replayable. You try them once, you play it out, and then you move on to a more interesting and engaging civ. What makes this worse is that their lore is so cool; you read it and you think "Awesome!", then you play them and they're.... flat, blah, eh, whatever. They're not WICKED COOL like most of the other civs.

Basically, all I think is required is a little rework of Crusade to make it more accessable, and a UU or two that give some flavor. I mean, the freaking Sidar got a cool new unit to play with in .34 for no reason, and they were plenty fun to play with to start! Why can't the Bannor get a little of that love?

 

[Ahriman]

Doviello, Bannor, Amurites.

 

[azzedar]

beside the fact that i don't like the "different civs have different strength a different time of the game"-answer that is oftenly given when talking about imbalance (perfect aim for a pc game: all civs can be escpecially good/escpecially worse in special things at late/early/mid-game in different ways, but will always be, theoretically, equal in strength overall at one time- but civIV has killed that thing already in the main game anyway by not giving unique units for all eras) i agree that a single autorun game hasn't much informative value. it's like rolling a 100-side-dice one time and maintaining the number resulting would be written on all the other sides, too. but as you already have indicated by yourself it's a really interesting statistic.

what would really interest me as well (unfortunely i'm too stupid to know how to do something like this =P ) was to see what comes out when running maybe 20-40 games. the average value of the races' scores would be really interesting. but maybe the opinions of all players who vote give a nearly-true-value of that too, what is a poll much other than a statistic giving an average value. i don't think that most of the people haven't played long enough to give a based opinion on the question.

btw: i never had a game where a race that was significantly weaker than all the others climbed up the highscores throughout the game. having power means maintaining power most of the time. altough i had several games where a high scored race got pwned by allied lower ones, but when the war ended the hierachy of the weaker ones mostly remained the same
but i normally play on standart or smaller maps filled with as much as civs as possible (i love overcrowded maps too! ) i don't know if it is different on huge maps

"my" most underwhelming civs:
-sidar: too less unique features to interest me
-doviello: same reaons others mentioned
-amurites: i repeat myself, but i still don't like a civ whose only special feature relies on one unit. may it be as strong as you want. (and i don't think a complete army casting haste (1 adept does the same) or armies of skeletons(endgame: huray, 4str units :x ... i'm sure the mithril weapon phalanx guy finds that really amusing)

 

[Annex]

As for the Bannor: I do like them, very much. I just think that Crusade is prohibitively expensive and thus, unusable until the point where victory is pretty much assured anyway. Also, as the Bannor stand now, they're kind of a "one and done" civ - IMHO, they lack that special "something" that makes them replayable. You try them once, you play it out, and then you move on to a more interesting and engaging civ. What makes this worse is that their lore is so cool; you read it and you think "Awesome!", then you play them and they're.... flat, blah, eh, whatever. They're not WICKED COOL like most of the other civs.

Basically, all I think is required is a little rework of Crusade to make it more accessable, and a UU or two that give some flavor. I mean, the freaking Sidar got a cool new unit to play with in .34 for no reason, and they were plenty fun to play with to start! Why can't the Bannor get a little of that love?

Listen to this man please! This is exactly how I feel, couldnt have said it better myself.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I mean, the freaking Sidar got a cool new unit to play with in .34 for no reason, and they were plenty fun to play with to start! Why can't the Bannor get a little of that love?

The Sidar were owed that unit since the last unit design contest, some time around last December, actually.

 

[orangelex44]

And? The Bannor can still use something cool like that.

 

[Psycho_Ivan]

I was thinking about the Bannor, and I noticed something.. Even though the Demagogues are a style of conscripted unit, they require you to have a lot of cottages, something you may not desire to do. So how about making other forms of conscription for the Bannor?

Few possibilities on how to implement this;

Give them the ability to create a single group of units in cities. Not sure how that would work, or what sort of units they would be to begin with. There would have to be some advantages to just building units straight of course, and they would have to be weaker to match the whole idea of conscription. Maybe these groups could be cheaper to supply as well, if the person doesn't have Crusade yet? Or to make Crusade even more effective?

Make some of the abilities of the Bannor a tad more universal, and have multiple ways to recruit units. If you do this and made it so that there World Spell wasn't the only way they could make an amazing amount of units, maybe players wouldn't have to rely so heavily on a single strategy.

Sorry if some of this seems sort of spotty... Was trying to put together a coherent post and kept going back. What I'm trying to get at though is that the Bannor need more than just one way to gather together an army, something that is good enough to at least work to save them from annihilation at the hands of 'stronger' foes and to give them more variety... While still trying to achieve the same end goal.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

And? The Bannor can still use something cool like that.

And that was a reason.

 

[onedreamer]

Mercurians are definitely the weakest played by the AI, and played as a human they are also sub par IMHO.
Amurites are the second weakest played by the AI, but in human hands they are ok.

 

[orangelex44]

And that was a reason.

Touche.

That doesn't invalidate my point, though: the Bannor as the are just seem a little.... flat. It's not that they aren't fun to play as, it's that they don't really make the player go through this thought process;

"Hey, that was a great game. Maybe I'll be these guys again in the next one... I mean, I really wanted to try this new and ridiculous strategy using the (insert UU here), combined with this (insert special civ mechanic here), because I really think I'd (insert form of world domination here) with it. Let's ROCK!!"....

Which is definately something I've done/do with most of the other civs. Now, I don't know what, exactly, you call the special something that makes a player want to try new things - It's something that I've rarely seen in a professional game, much less a mod - but when every other civ in the game basically has it (the possible exception being the oft-lamented Doviello) , it really drags the Bannor down IMHO. Now, Kael said the Bannor weren't "flashy", but I don't think this is the same thing exactly. I wouldn't call the Grigori "flashy", since they're basically a normal Civ civ with an extra Great Person type, but they definately have that something extra that makes a person want to try them out, again and again.

And honestly, I normally wouldn't care that much. There are 20 other civs in the game, and if one of them isn't as engaging to play, skip them and try another. The reason I do care is that the Bannor have such an awesome lore and backstory - you read it and get pumped up for these guys, then when you actually play as them.... Sadly, the cool lore serves only to exacerbate the issue.

So there's my argument to taking a second look-see on the Bannor; not with the aim of remaking them entirely but just to try and find something that puts them on the level with the other civs in "wow" factor. Unfortunately, I don't really have a great idea to do that - if I were an expert modmaker, my name would be hanging in Kael's signature - but the FFH team managed to do it with the Elohim, and seem to be trying to do it with the Doviello. Why not one more time?

 

[Darksaber1]

The malakim offten do badly for, me, but in my current (.34, Erebus) they are doing all right.
Elohim often are upper-middle, but in this game they got in an early war with the Clan, and are just holding their own.
The Hannah was wiped out by Valleda by turn 300, and Tasunke was trapped between mountains and the sea, no way out.
Any Pery is alive because he died turn 50, but I worldbuildered him a setttler and two warriors because I felt sorry for him.

 

[zbelg]

There is way too much Doviello hate on these forums. The ultra agressive early style they're built for is a lot of fun and can't be pulled off with most other civs, being able to pick the AI off like flies before anyone can even develop is a great feeling. Why does nobody seem to like them?

That being said, I'm not a fan of the Sidar.

 

[xsansara]

I second zbelg. Doviello rock. I love it when you have to conquer cities just to pay the bills

 

[MightyM]

Mercurians are definitely the weakest played by the AI, and played as a human they are also sub par IMHO.

They fare quite good with the "AI no level requirements" option. When I saw them last time they had some strength 14 units right away. Then they made the mistake and attacked me .

 

[orangelex44]

Mercurians are definitely the weakest played by the AI, and played as a human they are also sub par IMHO.

The Mercurians are awesome to play. They have all the fun of getting free units (like the Infernal) without the headaches of limited population. Now, I'll admit they're not always fun (they're very map-dependable, you need a lot of civs playing), but if conditions are right they're one of the strongest civs IMHO. You just need a good start with your initial civ; you want a few techs other than a straight Merc. Gate rush, a strongish empire that will guard your home city while the Angels build up, wars with several other empires to get those Angels, and a nice capitol location. If those conditions are satisfied, a Mercurian victory is pretty easy.


Hordes of Angels + uber-cool upgraded Angels + no worry about military, EVER + combat the forces of Evil, Neutral, and whoever's in the way really + SMASH SMASH SMASH = great civ.



As for the AI, it sucks.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

What made the mercurians suck balls before Ice was the fact that their team could barely tech at all, meaning you'd never see anything past the basic angels. With that problem fixed, the Mercurians are a lot more viable to switch to.