Which conquest is your favorite?

[Hooray]

Sengoku is my new favorite, but Middle Ages isn't too far behind.

Age of Discovery would probably be my first if it wasn't so easy if you're playing as a European civ.

 

[Vizurok]

My list:

1. WWII rules!!! Good units, great map, historical tech tree, and the best: THE MUSIC!!!
2. Medieval... Dividing the nations into very different trees is fantastic idea! But there is too much free space in the map: I hated the settler-spear pair marsching through my land to the Russian Plains... building a lot of corrupt cities there
And Hungary had Knights in the Medieval!!!
3.Rise of Rome... Nothing can stop the glorious Roman Legions!

I personally cant understand why is Sengoku so good. The only conquest I havent finished...

 

[Khazhad]

The Napoleonic Wars was my favourite. Something about leading a successful invasion of the British Isles. Also enjoyed becoming Shogun; a very gratifying experience.

 

[LouLong]

What would have been REALLY interesting would have been a combined poll, the other question being : what is your favorite era ?
Then if scores are higher for an era it means C3C failed to recreate it well. If the scores are higher for the conquest then it means Firaxis did a great (or better than average at least) job for this very conquest.

Just say that because most answers seem to deal with prefered eras. And Ybbor's remarks are very true about the separation between epic-like conquests and war-conquests which probably appeals to different players (hence the 9 conquests probably).

Personally I voted Middle-Ages. The first time I played it I thought it was tedious and gave up soon. Recently I played it completely as Lothair's Burgundy and won by sending three relics to Jerusalem before the game ended, earning me a splendid victory. But it is not because of that I enjoyed it. It is mostly because it has a high replayability, especially with the different flavor tech-trees and units meaning different areas, different gameplay.... I liked to see Viking colonizing the islands in the Med and fighting for them with the Byzantines, despite weak culture. I liked to have to negociate harshly to get ROP to Jerusalem with a huge SoD then realize Jerusalem is suffering from the plague, which made me wait outside the city until its defenses were pretty weak lol. I enjoyed the relic victory, allowing to represent the crusades. What I liked less was the traditional Eastwards settler diarrhea, the Danes sending waves of berserker-escorted settlers across land, the development of every area a la epic game and the Abbasids (busy with Byzantines) so easy to ROP abuse (albeit it was nice too lol).

So I guess you understood that for me replayability is important, different technics are a bonus, etc...
On the other hand I got disappointed by some where you feel too much like you are running against a clock instead of being allowed to develop a real strategy. On the other hand some seem too long and tedious like Fall of Rome. AoD is in-between : nice first 2 games then you get the "way" and it becomes too tedious. Rise of Rome was not my favorite by far but Craddle of civilization and WWII that I like for the more important era of chariots and for the new amphibious/airplane (rarely reach it in epic games) strategies are, especially WWII feeling like a race but I guess longer ones would have been difficult.

 

[GrandpaCat]

Rise of Rome, hands down.

 

[Herr_Doktor]

Sengoku definitely
I really enjoy the ninjas. The ability of having ground corsairs with a stealth ability really sticks to the idea of these silent, deadly assassins. The evolution of the lord is also quite enjoyable, but it becomes a bit excessive by the end. The only pb is that you don't really recognize the other tribes one another for they're colse and you can't see their faces. The flags really look alike, and you can't tell whom you're speaking to in diplomatic actions.
All the rest is great, units, map, buildings...

 

[0!0]

I like the ninjas in sword of the shogun

 

[BuddhaBubba]

i've completed mesoamerica and rise of rome so far ... i've tried playing ww2, sengoku, napoleon war ...

i'm currently playing mesopotamia

I voted for Rise of Rome as the best so far ... now I know what is was like to have such a huge empire!! I think WW2 will be my all-time fav. because of it's Axis and Allies flavor ... Anyone heard of a good ww2 scenario with the whole world map shown?

 

[Aeon221]

I played all the scenarios on Emperor +

I would say that they are all ok, but my computer loves to crash and die while I play them (soooooo annnoying, I was playing RoR and kicking Carthaginian A$$ and it just died; the best part is how it also deletes all saves when it does that! SWEET! ;()

I really did not like the Middle Ages one. I love that period of history, but it struck me as both extremely limited in historical scope and rather unfairly biased. Besides that, I really thought the spies were just stupid. They are so bloody worthless, and it just bugs me how ugly a unit they are. I played as several of the civs, but could not shake the feeling of loathing.

Mesopotamia was fun as the Phonecians, but only cuz I love naval combat; galley naval warfare was intense LOL. The best thing about that scenario was how important it was to have island bases to wage effective war against the computer's miniscule navy.

WW2 was def my favorite, mostly becuz I am a naval psycho. I am incredibly bugged by how bad the CPU is with naval combat. It takes all the fun out of the game for me. I mean, who cares about the stupid tanks when there are all these sweet aircraft carriers and cruisers and battleships...
The scenario is good, but the absolutely pathetic ease with which a human can smash the computer navies is ridiculous. The Japanese navy tried to flee back to Japan after a halfa$$ attempt on Hawaii. I was able to blast them back into the stone age before they were anywhere near their homeland.

As Japan, I bombed Pearl Harbor, and then pulled back. When they came up to chase me, I bombed all their unsupported ships, and wiped out the rest in a mopping up action. It got depressing, so I turned it off.

FoR was boring. You cannot play as the Romans, and the barbarians are set up in a strange and non-historical way. I think that they had a different team for each scenario, and the group for FoR was on crack or something, cuz it was just bad. The only other real civ in there was the Sassanids (or whatever they get called). And they were dumb, because historically they do not do what I did with them (which is conquer all).

Age of Discovery was ridiculously easy. The CPU never tries to fight you, and even if it does its ridiculously small navy cannot do anything. Even though I loved its emphasis on the navy, again the computer was incredibly weak on that sector. Plus, sin of sins, they helped the darn natives gain tech. I was swimming in gold, so I paid them to all kill each other and then wiped out everyone who was boring (read France haha). I played as Portugal, England, and the Dutch, as well as a MP game as the Incas.

RoR is very good. I liked the Romans, but pulled a Civ2 CTP and played as the Greeks and Persians too. For some strange reason, it seems that the CPU just does not use the hoplites right. I was able to smash the persians back by two cities within a few turns without reinforcements. The computer (while I was playin as Rome) never actually took any cities. It ticked me off, because I wanted to slaughter Alexander at the height of his power. Historically, the whole thing was a load of horse manure. Also, the legion upgrade names were pathetically uncreative. It would have been very simple: Early Republic Legionary, Late Rebuplic Legionary, Imperial Legionary. Duh, everyone knows that. (ok, maybe only people who write thirty page papers on Roman military tactics and logisitics, but still...)

Mesoamerica was cool in that it was different. I wish there were events; it would have been cool to have had to respond to an invasion by Spanish Conquistadors (the real kind, not the cruddy ones the Civ ppl gave them. Those things are ridiculously bad. How are the spanish supposed to conquer barbarians with them, let alone other countries?!?!). Instead, I played burn and enslave my fellow man until I got depressed and quit.

Sengoku was a let down. I absolutely love everything Samurai. Musashi is my hero/idol, and the Book of Five Rings my favorite book. When I saw that it was basically a randmap/japan mod you cannot believe my anger. I waited for months for this awesome Japan scenario, and then THIS obscenity appears??

Ridiculous. It was still a fun game (liked the leader upgrade), but it was basically japan flavored standard. Nothing special, nothing kewl. Did not even come close to the better scenarios, like WW2 and RoR.

Finally, the Napoleonic wars. Do not even bother playing as Russia. By the time you modernize the place and start pumping out soldiers, the game ends. Playing as France is wayyy too easy. You can turn all the computer players against one another, and then wipe them out one by one with your uuber strong army power.

My biggest problem with many of the conquests was the settlers. The cities ended up in strange and worthless places simply because the computer feels this inane urge to settle everything. EVERYTHING. It is like sticking an OCD guy in a room and then flinging dirt into it and handing him a toothbrush. That is really a generic complaint.



Ok, this was a long rant. I actually did enjoy most of the Conquests (hard to pick it up, but true) which is why I finished them all, and played some multiple times. WW2 was my favorite because it was the most accurate, the most creative, and involved the most naval combat. Playing as China gives you a good feel for how it must have felt to be Chiang Kai-sheck (sorry for the spell hell). My only real problem: where is Mao??? Gimme MAO!

I would really like to see some of you pros get to work on making these scenarios into everything they should be!

 

[Aeon221]

WOAH!

WAYYYY longer than I though!

SORRY!

 

[Tavenier]

Mesoamerica.
Because I like the small conquests which only take an hour or two. I believe that was the initial intention for the conquests, to make a civ game which could be played in a short period of time, unlike an epic game which takes the better part of a day.

 

[HalfBadger]

I've only played, rise of rome, Mesopotamia and Sengoku, I liked Sengoku the best.

the WWII, doesn't interest me that much, but I might try it out, I seem to be more interested int he oens where you get to build an empire rather than have one built for you.

Maybe thats why I'm currently really intot he epic games, trying out the various civs, but I thought Sengoku was cool, because the units were so unique and I have a soft spot for Ninjas, when they are done right, which they were.

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

My fav is the WWII scenario, as I love fighting with modern weapons.

 

[Nocturno]

Rise of Rome and Napoleonic Europe for me.. Grand fun.

 

[Gumby78]

Middle-Ages and WWII.

 

[Longasc]

After finally playing it, Sengoku rates now among my favorites besides RoR.

 

[DemonMaster]

I would have liked the Mesopotamian conquest but on my first try I played Egypt and I probably could go to bed and win, it was to easy.

Medieval is the best by far when you understand how to play each country, because each culture group and nation is rather unique and therefore it's never the same, just switch civ.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

(Didn't vote again, btw).
Just want to point out (espacially to the scenario designers, and to everyone who wants to know what Conquest is worth to be played next) that the rating system is misleading in what conquests are actually good. For example, if there would be one Conquest EVERYONE would consider second-best, it would end up dead last in the ranking, despite being highly popular. That said, here's my complete list.

A:
1) Middle Ages
2) FoR
3) Mesopotamia - the 3 scenarios I really liked

B:
4) RoR - great Scenario, but nothing that wasn't already availble in ptw - see the TAM Mod
5) Napoleonic - Great for some nations (especially Russia), boring for others (Ottomans)
6) WW2 - good Conquest, just suffering from the known AI incompetence in modern warfare (Artillery, Air Raids, Naval combat). for the designer, guess there was no way to do a better job. Now, if I would play MP...

C:
7) Sengoku - Yamabushis, HN bug. Guess it would be a great, epic conquest, but those 2 seemingly minor problems totally killed the fun for me. Will mod it and retry.
8) AoD - Well, a Conquest you win at first try without looking at the techtree etc before in less than 4h at Emperor level isn't exactly challenging - the AI simply doesn't do well with the shipments. Well, I could try it with one of the American Civs, but...

E:
9) Mesoamerica. I'm really a history freak, but throughout the entire history of mankind, no topic is less appealing to me than native American cultures. Just a question of personnel preferences. And, this Conquest has serious level balance problems - as long as you have any chance to build a few Wonders in your Capitol (in other words, Demigod), victory is sure. No wonders - no chance. And the Civs simply start too far away to make any other victory condition viable, especially since conquest/ unit kill gives no VPs (IMHO the biggest design flaw).

My prefered era in the 'epic' game? Cav/ Rifleman/ Cannon age.

 

[whitecow]

Well I haven't played every Conquest, but I liked the WWII one and the shougon (I think thats how you spell it).


I'm more of a warmonger so I like any challange involving combat

 

[Comrade Pedro]

I vote in Napoleonic Wars, i love that scenario.
It has almost a permanent struggle against numerous countries.