Which civs change the way you play the most?

[Minor Annoyance]

I don't mean just your individual play style I mean the game in general.
The two that come to mind for me are Polynesia and Spain, if on a island or terra map. Polynesia lets you break a basic rule of the game so that is a clear 'game changer', and conquistadors give Spain a mass producible combat-settler.
I'm trying to think of what civs I should play before Beyond Earth is out and I don't feel like going back to Civ5 anymore.
So which ones provide the most varied experience from normal?

 

[Uzael36]

Venice is definitely game changing. You can only have 1 city, but you can puppet city states with your merchants for added help and caravan/cargo ships. You get twice the trade routes as well.

 

[Tavenier]

Germany. Also one of my favourite Civs to play. I seek out and destroy way more barbarian camps then usual. And with those early armies that creates, I seek out other Civs to attack. Not to conquer their cities, but to capture workers or slow them down by pillaging. I usually do that to Civs who always tend to get aggressive, like Aztecs or Greeks. Or even the tech Civs, like Korea and Babylon.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

Venice is definitely game changing. You can only have 1 city, but you can puppet city states with your merchants for added help and caravan/cargo ships. You get twice the trade routes as well.

I forgot about Venice. Probably because it was the most obvious so I was only thinking about what else to add the the list and the first one.

 

[danaphanous]

Incans are game-changing in the way you place cities. Because of their unique tile improvement, it is actually BETTER to go find crappy hill/mountain zones and settle them. Your roads are free on them too so it brings back road-spam. I slap them on every hill for the extra mobility...makes you hell to take over with the hill defense bonuses hehe.

 

[reddishrecue]

Doesn't apply. .. i usually play the same way with civilizations. There are a few exceptions. ...
Egypt has monument builders which allows the building of wonders for traditional social policies for example.
The huns have horse archers which can rank up quick but become knights.... logistics don't work with knights...

 

[Humantorch]

England... I always end up with a fleet of 100 ships that roam the seas, taking cities in 1 turn. The great lighthouse and exploration tree makes their movement bonus crazy.

 

[Mozzington]

Second England...same.

 

[Sagax]

Since Venice is too obvious...

Zulu.
Forget about the balanced army composition, Impi spam all the way!

 

[Slotharoo]

I would actually say Poland on this one. The free policies allow you to put your focus somewhere else besides culture, so you don't have to constantly work those specialists unlike other civs.


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[Natan35]

1. Shoshone. I simply saw the AI playing with them and did the same,which is rushing wonders
2. Zulu, they're army is simply OP

 

[Vitruvius]

Assyria. My tech path is completely different.

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[tetley]

Venice is clear #1 most different, but lots of othrers are very different. Shoshone, Mongols, Sweden, Greece, Maya, Huns, Spain, Babylon....

I think I have to go with Spain #2.

 

[Krajzen]

Venice is clear #1 most different, but lots of othrers are very different. Shoshone

1) Build city as with each other civ
2) Wow more tiles
3) Get ruin as with each other civ
4) Wow I can choose bonus
5) Almost verything else is usual

Nice and useful stuff but I wouldn't really call it such revolutionary

Greece

1) Ally city states
2) ...

Babylon

1) Make Academy from this scientist
2) Scientific Victory like with each other civ


IMHO The Most Unique Civs:

Maya - early Pyramid spam + this ingenious and interesting ability

Inca - completely altered city development

Venice - obvious reasons

Zulu - with Zulu you do exactly opposite stuff to Usual Strategy: spam melee infantry and kill everyone regardless of everything

Mongolia - same thing with Keshiks

Arabia - less militaristic but Camel Archers allow on unique warfare + double range and pressure caravans offer interesting choices + more copies of all luxuries via Bazaar!

Huns - even more extreme than Zulu: you should literally do nothing but kill everyone since first 0 (and it is lot of fun)

Indonesia - people say it is weak but personally I waaay prefer all these unique bonuses to extremely boring Babylon one - trick pony (writing -> academy -> science lol)

Austria - I don't know why it is displiked, it has its own unique interesting feature.

Sweden - completely alters diplomacy

Poland - free policies stuff is simple but offers much depth in strategic choices, also Winged Hussars offer completely unique type of military domination

Assyria - who cares about science, let's conquer cities

Polynesia - thalassocracy

Persia - you actually have to care about your Golden Ages and timing

Aztec - Trait and Jaguars completely change early game. Many interesting strategic choices.

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Most boring, passive civs:
- Ethiopia, you build faith monuments, get easy early religion, sit and defend with boring defensive bonus and unit
- China, you do exactly the same things as with every civ - just better
- Babylon -> free science, that's all
- Greece -> yeah it's so fascinating and engaging, I lose CS influence slower. Yawn.
- Russia -> more numbers
- America -> fast scouting, cheap tiles.

 

[reddishrecue]

If I was Mongolia i would conquer city states since that's what makes Mongolia unique for example. If i was Byzantium, I would try to make faith and find a religion if possible. Missing out on unique attributes shouldn't be something to worry about.

 

[Loucypher]

Netherlands - You are the only one who wants to actively settle around marshes.

 

[poekie70]

The netherlands, you trade your last luxury, something you usually don,t do and their UA makes the commerce social policy tree even more interesting because of protectionism

 

[reddishrecue]

Yeah right. You get that extra happiness from trading off a luxury you no longer have.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

Germany. Also one of my favourite Civs to play. I seek out and destroy way more barbarian camps then usual. And with those early armies that creates, I seek out other Civs to attack. Not to conquer their cities, but to capture workers or slow them down by pillaging. I usually do that to Civs who always tend to get aggressive, like Aztecs or Greeks. Or even the tech Civs, like Korea and Babylon.

I had a good time as Germany recently. I wanted to try a autocracy diplomatic victory. With a free army I built more wonders than I usually would, and my cities were better developed, due to not needing to build units. My area had mountains around it making moving outside or in difficult and on the other side were the Shoshone and Ethiopia. I specifically picked some defensive civs so I couldn't just run over them. So instead of conquering I built up my cities and strong-armed city states into free workers and money and later with gunboat diplomacy I had units stationed everywhere to make sure everyone votes the right way.

They only disappointing was that with the free army and the terrain mostly cutting me off from attack it was a little too easy. I wish I had tried a higher difficulty but usually I don't do well above king, and I wouldn't have known ahead of time how well it would have gone.
Oh, I was also using a balancing mod that, among other things, increased Germany's ability to 100% conversion and 100 gold, and with raging barbarians it was really stacked in my favor.

 

[xenocidal angel]

Going with Venice, just because just about ever other race you keep pop a few cities of earlier to build up a quick Army. Yet with Venice only allowing you to have one city I find it a lot harder to field a fast military early being I find myself focused more on culture and buying tiles as oppose to military units.