Which Civ is Best for an Archipelago Map?

[Tephros]

Aside from whoever builds the GLH, it seems four civs in particular have advantages on archipelago maps: Carthage, Vikings, Netherlands, Portugal. I was wondering which you consider best or which in what situations within the framework of archipelago maps.

Edit: Now if only I can learn to spell Archipelago...

 

[PureE]

I think the Viking's free Navigation I promotion is really, really good. You'll explore that much faster and can race anyone. Also, no one will ever catch you when you're doing hit and run on their resources.

 

[Bostock]

Roosevelt - Starts with Fishing. Ind to snag you the Great Lighthouse, Org for cheap normal lighthouses and courthouses (to fight the distance maintenance on your scattered empire). Cheap forges for all that seafood-whipping. Navy Seals will rock on the ocean if things go that far.

Mehmed. Yes, Mehmed. Cheap workers help snag TGL. Four! of the five most common startup builds for new cities are discounted: Granary, Lighthouse, Harbor (TGL...), and Courthouse! Only Forge is missing from the list.

 

[Tephros]

Roosevelt - Starts with Fishing. Ind to snag you the Great Lighthouse, Org for cheap normal lighthouses and courthouses (to fight the distance maintenance on your scattered empire). Cheap forges for all that seafood-whipping. Navy Seals will rock on the ocean if things go that far.

Mehmed. Yes, Mehmed. Cheap workers help snag TGL. Four! of the five most common startup builds for new cities are discounted: Granary, Lighthouse, Harbor (TGL...), and Courthouse! Only Forge is missing from the list.

Yeah... pretty hard to turn down financial on an archipelago map though. Starting with fishing certainly helps to get an early boost to commerce and food and America does have that. I don't typically use marines/SEALs as I attack with CR gunpowder. The Viking UU can be upgraded to CR amphibious rifles . One benefit I can see to being industrious is that you might be able to snag both GLH and oracle for metalcasting, thus having a way to more efficiently swat those pesky barb galleys.

 

[Bostock]

Yes, Financial is a good trait for archipelago (although outside of coastal seafood, your happy cap will probably limit you mainly to better tiles than 2-3-0 until Hereditary Rule... that is, even on archipelago your cities will probably often each have 3 or 4 tiles better than 2-3-0, and above that you'll be stopped by the cap).

Aggressive is a bit harder to apply than usual.

But Org really shines on archipelago as well due to the distances and the lighthouses.

 

[TM Moot]

Willem for me. FIN speaks for itself and CRE is great grab those BFC seafoods asap. The UU and UB come into they own obviously.

 

[Joshua368]

Yes, Mehmed is extremely good for archipelago maps, even without financial. Cheap lighthouses and harbors, hooray!

Of those I went with Vikings though, as amphibious warfare is extremely potent at dominating AIs and he makes it really easy.

 

[Supr49er]

I still like Willem on water maps.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Carthage.

Starts with mining and fishing...

Extra trade routes early with the UB, a strong UU, and arguably two of the best traits for any map type, let alone archipelago.

 

[sesh]

Willem for me. With water maps, production tends to hit a wall by the industrial stage. My cities just don't have enough shields to build those late stage units and buildings. Being able to put a dike in every city is a huge boost.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Willem for me. With water maps, production tends to hit a wall by the industrial stage. My cities just don't have enough shields to build those late stage units and buildings. Being able to put a dike in every city is a huge boost.

I hate the dike orgy right now. Hate it.

Carthage wins this. Like willem, the leader is financial and starts with fishing, making coastal seafood stronger. We get great starting techs as mining is probably the best one, and compliments fishing nicely on water maps (insta BW frequently).

From there, we get a pre-monarchy +2 which goes even further to lift early game research. A semi-early cothon makes trade routes start to look like villages, and gives us an extra one. He just keeps getting stronger.

So now, we're back to which is better: CHA vs CRE and Cothon vs Dike. Cothon and CHA, please. CRE is good for earlier academy, but less useful than normal in water maps because the need for blocking is reduced. The and warmonger power from CHA is still helpful.

The cothon blows out the dike. There are soooooooooo many ways to get a hold of dike-like production outputs before levees are even available. Let's review:

- Drydocks city with a couple hills or caste/chemistry/guild workshops. Just 1-2 of these cities can easily build your entire navy.
- Drafting
- Upgrading units (note: this makes ragnar very strong. CR II amphibious rifles are absolutely ridiculous and on this kind of map nearly made me pick Ragnar)
- The whip. Biology farms + whipping (with kremlin this roasts even mines and workshops alive) can put out a lot of troops quickly.
- A heroic epic city (which hannibal unlocks more quickly).

Willem (and all of these leaders, and some not listed like roosevelt) are quite strong in archipelago but hannibal is #1. The cothon is really strong...stronger than the dike easily as if you build it in say 8 cities by 500 AD (which is slow) you're looking at 100's and 100's of commerce, if not 1000's. If you want to match the dike output, just put all that through gold multipliers and chain upgrade , but it's more versatile than that.

Edit: Izzy has a lot of potential for this too...

 

[Mattzc7]

I voted portugal because of the ability to expand super fast , with Imperialistic-Expansive, plus a carrack that can ship a settler. The Feitoria (sp?) is also much more useful, as most cities will be on the coast, so they can all get plus 100% on foreign trade routes (which you should have lots of).

I also voted them because they're my favourite civ for no particular reason.

 

[Iranon]

Willem. Although I'm even less fond of CRE for water maps, the Dike is a definite game-breaker here.

Hannibal is a close second, and considerably stronger in the crucial early game... but doesn't have the same 'oops, I win' attached.

 

[Anexus]

I was thinking the vikings because of the UU. Depends how you want to play I suppose. The UB is pretty nice as it comes early and the Nav 1 promotion is helpful, albeit not as strong as the Cothon, which is also early. His UU though starts with amphibious, and you can really use that to your advantage against the AI. The numidian cavalry is probably the least useful UU of the strong water civs.

I'm not sure if promoted units keep amphibious, but if so that makes the Vikings even better militarily when you can use a frigate/galleon navy so you can bombard and attack with your amphibious troops in the same turn.

Combined with aggressive/barracks you can get nice promotions for your berserkers right out the gate. Ragnar is also financial, a boon on water maps.

I'd say the only advantage the Dutch have over vikings on a water map is the East Indiamen. Dike is great, but as debated over in the Best UB thread, it comes way too late. And I have to agree Carthage is stronger as well since it has an even better financial footing, but the Dutch definitely surpasses Carthage endgame with the superior UU, and the Dike is probably more helpful endgame than the extra cash. But Carthage's advantage is boosting early game.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Voted Vikings.
I think Hannibal is stronger, but playing Ragnar is just plain fun.
Financial on watery maps is very strong. Amph berserkers upgraded to rifles and infantry are amazing. And his fleet is under steroids with UB+circumnavigation bonus.

You can have *shock* useful ironclads with Ragnar

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Hmmm, the more I think about it, the more I lean toward Ragnar over even Hannibal. Yes, the promoted berserkers keep amphibious as rifles or grenadiers (or infantry/mech if they live through their rifling phase). Ragnar's early game isn't exactly bad on archipelago, and now that I think about it, to put it in Iranon's terms, amphibious CR II rifles have a pretty strong "oops, I win" factor.

 

[azzaman333]

Carthage just edges out the Vikings.

 

[Kiwi Tyrant]

Carthage just edges out the Vikings.

Gone for Hannibal by a whisker. Agree with all the stuff already mentioned, but feel being an 'archipelago' map (not a pure 'islands' map) that the Carthage early UU could often snuff out any of the other contender's if they start relatively close; especially as this landmass is often joined. They just offer that early springboard potential I like.
Pure islands is another matter; I'd have to go with the Viking's.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I'm a Hannibal fan as well. Ragnar I like better on continents maps however.

 

[Rusty Edge]

Hannibal is my favorite Civ to play as or against, and he's capable of multiple victory types. He's the best all-around .

I voted Ragnar because when all of the cities are on the coast, the Berserkers beat the longbows, The upgraded amphibious CR Grenadiers & rifles will put away any Civs that are left. The wealthy Cartheginians, the populous Portugeese, the mighty Dutch , and the Americans will be assimilated.