Which civ rules the high seas?

[grommit5]

Picking from the poll I'd have to take Portugal, But I'd rather have Roosevelt.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Out of that list, vikings.

It is incredibly difficult to defend against pure amphibious attacks threatening multiple cities. If playing oneself, countering someone who has good amphibious attackers and faster ships is a nightmare. A couple coastal cities burned later, you're toast.

Dutch are a CLOSE #2. The UB is as overrated as ever, but speeding to astro opens up the UU, which while often overshadowed can absolutely dominate other galleons and open a can of blockade. A dedicated astro bulb can employ this tactic early and that can be vicious. The game might be decided by which of these 2 establishes astro first.

Carthage is #3 on that list. They are better economically than the other 2, but not by enough to overcome the strong uniques.

Aztec belong on that list before portugal due to the absurd production advantage from the UB. Ironically portugal is probably just as good for land expansion as water expansion. Carrack attack would not catch me off guard playing myself (or anyone competent), and the Portuguese UB is AWFUL.

 

[kochman]

Yeah sure, fishing is exactly the what helps to build the big thing.
Also as we know archipelago starts usually w/ a lot of forests to chop.

If you are going to be so sarcastic, at least you could make sense with it...
1) You said none of them can build the GLH quickly... but, they can, because they have fishing, which is a pre-req for sailing, which is the pre-req for the GLH.
2) If you have the required tech to build a wonder before other civs (see #1), that is an edge, and helps you to build it quickly in comparison to other civs. No?
3) You are the one who said archipelago... it doesn't have to be an archipelago map that we are discussing. Regardless, there are certainly still forests on archipelagos, definitely enough to speed up a GLH, so that statement was kind of pointless.
Thanks for playing!

 

[kochman]

bear in mind that 4 gold per coast is ALMOST as good as a town would be at that point... but worse. so you're still better off working land tiles. I don't know how you can "use the sea to dominate". All cities are on land, so that's what matters.

Comparing land tiles and sea tiles is really irrelevant. You are going to have some cities that have water tiles, on most maps... so getting something extra out of them is awesome. You can still work your land tiles too... its not like I am saying to only work sea tiles here... of course you work your land tiles, that's obvious. There are obviously cases where this can be really helpful, like what I just explained above.

 

[bestsss]

as the titles says:

>>Which civ wins in an archipelago?
(by Kochman)

 

[kochman]

as the titles says:

>>Which civ wins in an archipelago?
(by Kochman)

True, I forgot my own words, I mispoke... that's really a side point though.
Doesn't matter though as my point was still correct, because there are generally enough forests in a BFC to speed up the building of the GLH in a meaningful way... even on an archipelago.

Anyhow, I went ahead and edited the title, because I don't want to limit us to one map type in retrospect.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

bear in mind that 4 gold per coast is ALMOST as good as a town would be at that point... but worse. so you're still better off working land tiles. I don't know how you can "use the sea to dominate". All cities are on land, so that's what matters.

If it's a multiplayer game you can play as the vikings, beeline astronomy, and hit them with berzerkers when they're not prepared yet. That's a fun gambit, but I don't think it would work well against the AI (it builds too many longbows).

Towns are markedly better than that crap UB by then.

The reason colossus is a good wonder is that it comes *early*. Colossus coast is better than grassland cottages unless they're riverside (it literally takes > 100 turns for a non-riverside cottage to catch colossus coast in total commerce output). By the time the crappy portuguese UB comes into play, we're not far from options like democracy, workshops that are actually good, and bio farms if one can spread irrigation.

It's kind of funny that people rate the dike so highly and not this though. They are quite similar in that they are marginally useful UB's in the mid game. The dutch UU however is no joke. A resourceless 6 str water unit that can be had long before anybody can touch frigate can really ruin somebody's day. If I were fighting a viking player I'd try to kill his navy/blockade so he couldn't pull the "ring around the razing" technique on me instead. The astro race becomes very, very important.

Incidentally, IMO it's not that bad to build colossus even if heading towards astro ASAP, if you have copper. It's a reasonably cheap wonder and it can get you to a critical tech sooner.