What is your favorite Civ to Play and how you play them?

[jlim201]

Although I have never finished a game with them, I like playing small continents naval domination with the Dutch. Once civs get battleships, I seem to lose the fun of of the Sea Beggars because Combustion seems to be one of the techs that dosen't seem all that great.

 

[xxblackdog]

I've only won with two so far: Catherine and Oda. And Oda's just so bad ass, I have to choose him. Who doesn't want to unify a continent with samurai warriors!

 

[Sturmgewher88mm]

Play as Germany. Delete your settler. Play as a barbarian.

 

[Loucypher]

For me, it's the Dutch. Huge cities + Lots of gold = DO WHAT YOU WANT.

 

[darren_malta]

I play with china , always try to go domination.And for me ,there is nothing more powerful then planting the great general , or using him for 30% extra bonus. And of course , after machinery you get , a double crossbow.

 

[neoaspilet11]

i play China since Civ3. civ5 chokunos are the best in bith defensive and offensive units in medieval and renaissance era.

 

[PhilBowles]

It's true, it can be a little situational. But the thing about Astronomy is what I mean. As with many civs, the early game can be tough, and Portugal is one that reaches its fullest potential starting around the Renaissance Era

shame about the city-states, though, as that wastes the Feitoria

What wasted it even more was that (a) of the available city states (still only four, and no one seems to have conquered any, plus no Austria in the game - I'm wondering if it's something with my map setting, which is either Shuffle or Random Map Type), two only had ivory and one had ivory + sugar, and (b) Venice eventually got round to finding city-states and annexed Kathmandu (ivory + sugar). I did have the chance to try the feitoria and it was very nice while it lasted. However not sure about needing a worker to build it - who explores with Workers? It took mine forever to reach Mogadishu. Really it should either be buildable by a scout, or by the Nau (kept on promotion) - in which case it would spawn on an adjacent land tile.

Portugal does seem to be extremely situational, though - it needs water, resource diversity both at home and among whichever CSes it finds, and access to city-states or AI cities with coasts close enough to trade with. And I'm not sure about the Nau experience bonus - even taking it to Thebes at the opposite end of a 12-civ map it netted me around 220 gold (for some reason taking it to Madrid much closer to home gives the same), which is not substantial for that point in the game (everything costs at least 660 gold) and not worth the travel time. I'm loving the way the civ is themed, but it doesn't seem particularly good - doubling the bonus of the trade element that contributes least to trade income is not solving any of my economic problems.

That's crazy unless Austria obviously. Sounds more like the CS count advanced setting is switched on.

Hmm, I'll check that but don't remember seeing an option for it - is it in advanced setup?

I'd actually quite like randomisable numbers of CSes rather than a fixed number per map type/size, but a fixed (small) number for all map types/sizes is far from ideal.

 

[pvtjava]

On Prince, I love to play as France and get all theming bonuses maxed out. I really like trying to time the wonders, eras, and Great Works to get the bonus at the earliest possible moment. For example, if you get your second Great Writer as soon as you enter an era***, you can usually trade your previous era GWoW for another and get the Great Library bonus and get your next two just in time for Globe Theatre by delaying next era a few turns if necessary. If you can get all GP generation bonuses, delay even may not necessary. Pop the second GA same era as first GA when you build Sistine Chapel.

*** Although this is possible with a Classical/Medieval combo, I have found it works best with a Medieval/Renaissance setup simply because the next two work better for Globe as Rennaissance for the tech path I use.

 

[kkapalk]

I, too, like China. Love the double crossbows and getting Great Generals so frequently. When a warring civ attacks and I have Cho-Ko Nu's I love getting the umpteen xp points.

 

[pvtjava]

Hmm, I'll check that but don't remember seeing an option for it - is it in advanced setup?

I'd actually quite like randomisable numbers of CSes rather than a fixed number per map type/size, but a fixed (small) number for all map types/sizes is far from ideal.

Yes, there is a slider for this at the top right-hand side of advanced setup.

 

[George Abitbol]

Mine has to be Japan post patch, I find them to be the most flexible so I can go for any VC.


I just wish there was something better than a zero

Never tried Japan post-patch yet, it was one of my favourite civ before. I think the Zero is fine, the no-oil side means that you can use this resource to build more battleship and become a naval power. With the new ocean start, it seems obvious to me.
I suppose you take God of the Seas as a pantheon?

 

[Skritt]

I really like being flexible and not tied to one VC, so it's Persia for me. You can go either super tall and have your golden ages last forever (my longest golden age was something absurd like 130 turns in a row), or have a wide puppet empire as most puppets will prioritize Satrap's Court. And any way you decide to play the Immortals you built early game will protect your kingdom for pretty much the whole game.

Honorable mentions go to Poland and Indonesia.

 

[Osama Bin Davis]

Never tried Japan post-patch yet, it was one of my favourite civ before. I think the Zero is fine, the no-oil side means that you can use this resource to build more battleship and become a naval power. With the new ocean start, it seems obvious to me.
I suppose you take God of the Seas as a pantheon?

I never thought of it like that, I guess at the difficulties I usually play on (Prince and King) the air power is fairly redundant. To me anyway!

God of the Seas can be awesome with the Japs, though the coastal bias is not always a good thing. I have had some of the worst starts of any civ with the Japs. Not much fun being the Japs with not a single sea resource on a whole 3 city island!

 

[vivalamexico]

And I'm not sure about the Nau experience bonus - even taking it to Thebes at the opposite end of a 12-civ map it netted me around 220 gold (for some reason taking it to Madrid much closer to home gives the same), which is not substantial for that point in the game (everything costs at least 660 gold) and not worth the travel time. I'm loving the way the civ is themed, but it doesn't seem particularly good - doubling the bonus of the trade element that contributes least to trade income is not solving any of my economic problems.

Wierd, I'm sure I got more than that. i'll check it out again
Feitoria can give you leverage in the trade game. ==diplo victory if you do it right

 

[PhilBowles]

Wierd, I'm sure I got more than that. i'll check it out again
Feitoria can give you leverage in the trade game. ==diplo victory if you do it right

But diplo victory isn't hard to win anyway and gold spam is a suboptimal way to do it; but above all Portugal just doesn't give you that much gold. Okay, the UA bonus will mount up over a long game (it averages 2-3 gold per trade route, double or triple Morocco's bonus), but that's pretty much your limit. The feitoria is cute, but in practice Indonesia sets up shop with multiple resources (that it can guarantee will be different from one another) much earlier, and without having to send a worker to the other end of the map. And the Nau gives a minor one-time boost that might at best cover most of the cost of an Industrial-era research agreement (which was in fact what I used it for).

 

[HanNorwood]

I'm surprised that no one has said Korea yet. I play the game by spamming wonders, which makes them good. If you head straight for Stonehenge as Korea, you can get the wonder and a religion quickly, with the science boost. That allows you to get ahead and build more wonders, and more science boost. While doing that build farms all over and make the most out of their science bonus with population. On Diety difficulty, I have never lost a game as Korea.

 

[Thunda]

I never thought of it like that, I guess at the difficulties I usually play on (Prince and King) the air power is fairly redundant. To me anyway!

God of the Seas can be awesome with the Japs, though the coastal bias is not always a good thing. I have had some of the worst starts of any civ with the Japs. Not much fun being the Japs with not a single sea resource on a whole 3 city island!

I think my next game I will try rolling a legendary Japan map with at least 4 sea resources and get god of the seas...sounds fun

 

[PhilBowles]

I never thought of it like that, I guess at the difficulties I usually play on (Prince and King) the air power is fairly redundant. To me anyway!

Yes, the AI really scales up its use of aircraft at higher difficulties, and fighters are the best way to deal with that (though it seems to have curtailed its weird obsession with bombing everyone with triplanes post-patch, so you may not see much benefit from the Zero's dogfighting bonus). They have fixed AA guns somewhat (either by bug or oversight, in the past the AA fire wouldn't trigger if the SAM itself was the target of air attack, so you could easily just wipe them out), but the AA weapons still aren't useful for anything except anti-air and have a bad promotion path; Fighters (not triplanes) and Jet Fighters are capable of attacking units usefully if you don't need them to intercept.

 

[Doctor Doom]

Does anyone else think that Japan's New UA is like France's old ua if you place your cities correctly?

 

[PhilBowles]

Yes, there is a slider for this at the top right-hand side of advanced setup.

Still not seeing it, I'm afraid. This is the advanced setup screen I see, with nothing above the map selection options and no sliders:

Spoiler :