Tachii
Procrastinator
I removed G&K, then only got BNW. :<
I'm not convinced their designed victory condition is diplomatic. Rather, they're supposed to use city-states to achieve a different victory condition. Becoming friends with cultural city-states and building the Wat does work together. Their UU isn't inherently better for their strategy, but it's quite a good unit, so I can't complain. Rather than being poorly designed, I'd argue the problem with Siam is just that it's not designed for the new cultural victory. Instead, it's designed for the old one. Still, social policies are always good.
Rome is good, the UU and the legions building ability as well as Romes UA all makes perfect sense. In cotrast, the celts, who I like a lot, are a mishmash between dffrent eras and cultures. Germany as well would have been better off as either "Teutons" with the UA and some earlier units/buildings or as a modern "Germany" with production/great people focus.
Other well designed civs:
Egypt
Carthage
Babylon
Assyria
Portugal
Greece
Denmark: What is the point of this civ? They have oneof the richest histories of any still existing nation and this is what you come up with? Should have naval (longships?) or trade (sound toll?) or bonus to administer conquered holdings (danelaw?) or extort (danegeld?) ability and, as they also represents norway, maybe a bonus to exploration/archaology (legacy of Amundsen, buld archeologist at reduced cost?). Ski infantry is silly and immersion breaking when you fight them in the desert. Berzerkers should be a swordman upgrade.
1)Iroquois
2)Arabia
3)Inca
4)Brazil
5)France
6)England
7)Mongols
Not neccesarily the best but very good synergy. And some of these show exactly what blend the dev team wanted.
I have got to disagree with you on this one. Spain is a "dice-roll" civ, but only if you look at it without any imagination. 95% of the time as spain, you will have a natural wonder in reach if you really stretch to get it.
If you get it and can secure it, this can give you a big leg up. The fun part is how you work to exploit Spain's UA. If you choose not to go for it straight up and build up a strong core first, then you have a strong musketeer and knight to help conquer it later.
The knight can even found one of your own cities after you raze their's if the spot is awkward for acquiring the NW.
Even Spain's AI is geared towards this, being an aggressive neighbour more often than not in the hopes that she can conquer some good NW's.
No mention of Venice?
Good design is not about synergy of abilities, it's about orginilatiy or just general use of interesting ways to play. Venice is defo up there for me then, always fun.
"A Natural Wonder" could, however, be anything from Lake Victoria or Fountain of Youth to Grand Mesa. If it's Mt. Sinai, you have your strategy pre-dictated as heavy religion; most other NWs are of more general utility and can support varied strategies. Other UAs that depend on environmental features, such as Siam's, aren't going to constrain your strategic options so heavily based on what you happen to roll in a given session.
Which is again in large part going to be dictated by what that Wonder is. If it's Lake Victoria or a religion Natural Wonder, you'll want it ASAP - usually this will also be the case for King Solomon's Mines. El Dorado (if you don't discover it first), Fountain of Youth, Cerro de Potosi and a few others can wait. Krakatoa can wait to be colonised, but you don't want to leave it where it can fall into someone else's hands and give them its bonus for X turns until you can capture it.
So you're arguing they are a bad design because they play differently every time? To me personally, that is a good thing.
I don't see the wonder draw as a particularly "luck" based thing. Yes it's random, but it's not particularly lucky to get one over the other, they all help and therefore all prove your UA useful, removing the luck from the equation.
Additionally, if you get Mt Sinai, i would actually say that opens up your game hugely rather than dictating it. You don't need to focus on religion early game then, and have free reign to specialize your empire.
I like Civs where everything seems to work together. Then again, it doesn't always work. Indonesia's Candi and UA should work together, but it sometimes just seems like three different things that don't go well together
Sweeden always throws me for a loop. I look at the AI.. ok if I have lots of civs on the map I can get lots of great people and.. wait throw them at city states? and then two UUs so am I combat now? Won't that make my great people stop coming in when I lack friends? I don't know where to go with sweeden.
Sweeden always throws me for a loop. I look at the AI.. ok if I have lots of civs on the map I can get lots of great people and.. wait throw them at city states? and then two UUs so am I combat now? Won't that make my great people stop coming in when I lack friends? I don't know where to go with sweeden.