Which new Civs have you already played?

[JtW]

Before the BNW release, there were all these threads where we said whom we would play first, etc. I know how my reality differed from expectations: my first game was the Zulu, whom I'd thought I would never have played. Then I was exited by Venice only to quit my game with them after a few turns because I got bored.

I am interested how this shapes up and which Civs are really the most popular so far.

So: which of the new Civs have you already played? How have you found them? Did you have fun? Let's count the "new France" in.

I've aleady completed my games with the Zulu (Time Victory) and with Poland (Culture Victory), both great fun. I have played with Morocco until year 1850, had fun but got bored because of my total domination. I am in the middle of two fun games: with Brazil and with Portugal.

I started games with Indonesia, Venice and the Shoshone, but got bored quickly.

Finally: I am still to play Assyria (they don't really interest me much) and new France (will definitely give them a shot).

So: post your experiences or participate in the poll.

 

[CornPlanter]

Morocco. On my epic quest to get the Petra on Immortal I have played them around 7 times. I finally succeeded yesterday, thanks to OmniPotent42 pointing out just how much you need to sacrifice to have a shot at it.

Didn't try anything else yet. I am not easily hyped by anything new and I still like many old civs a lot (Ottomans, Mayans, England, Aztec, list goes on) are more interesting to me than Venice, Zulu, Brazil, Indonesia, Poland.

 

[JtW]

I can see that Poland and the Shoshone are your favorites so far (9 votes each). I suppose it has to do with their pretty universal abilities: you can use them for any kind of strategy.

 

[Merciorum]

Ack, I forgot to vote for France! France are good. The Chateau is awesome.

 

[seancolorado]

In this order:
Indonesia, Shoshone, Brazil, Zulu

All very fun civs. 4/4 in my book in terms of gameplay mechanics, looking forward to the last 5 (+France)

 

[CreamofJustice]

So far I've only finished a game as Morocco, which I had a lot of fun with, and I'm currently playing as Venice which I'm loving. And next I'll be playing as Brazil.

 

[IkM]

Tried Shoshone, Morocco and Venice so far, but didn't finish any of them yet.

 

[JtW]

Another thing I notice is that the devs seem to have done a good job with the new Civs: very few "NOT FUN" choices...

 

[Securion]

Have played all of them on Deity now, and Poland really shines if you know how to handle the Social Policies for best effect. Easily a "pro" civ and I rate it Tier 1.
Assyria is as all other middle eastern civs insanely overpowered (God Tier), and not very fun to play since there is no way anyone can stand against you. You know you will win the moment you press Play.
Shoshone is fun, but not very good... You think they would snowball a lot but the effect really isn't that big.
Venice was extremely boring, but I know a lot of people that love them (wifes new favourite).
Brazil and France are powerful if you like Culture. I liked both of them. Felt balanced.

 

[darden]

really enjoyed Poland and Shoshone.

Venice just wasn't for me. I found them pretty boring, and having to defend cities all over the map was annoying. would be marginally better if you could control Merchant of Venice generation and direct the production of puppet cities. may try them again on a smaller map.

played Brazil twice and lost both, but I couldn't decide if it was because their UA is nonexistent until mid/late game or just bad luck.

 

[livsbrand]

Honestly I think I'll like all of them in the right circumstances, but I wouldn't have much fun in an isolated start as Assyria for instance. I've fired up games with all but Indonesia but I'm not one to complete all games I play. My favorites are Poland and Morocco. I like Venice and Brazil too.

 

[budweiser]

I have complete games as Venice and Morocco. I did a freedom and order cultural as Morocco this weekend, I am working on an Autocracy cultural now as them.

 

[joncnunn]

I'm still in the middle of my 1st BNW game. (I'm in modern era; the World Council is still in Industrial era)

 

[PhilBowles]

Indonesia

I've played multiple times. I find them fun, but a little too strong in that I don't have much trouble winning with them on Emperor (although I've only just gone back to my pre-BNW difficulty, Immortal, and not with Indonesia).


Morocco

While Morocco looks strong on paper, and my experience in practice is that they're somewhat less so (highly dependent on early placement with multiple accessible trading partners, a desert UI with no desert start bias, and little to no evidence from my experience that AI civs preferentially trade with them with the gold bonus), I do enjoy playing them somewhat. When you get the right start, that early culture can even be meaningful although it invites comparisons with "Old France" and comes up short in that comparison; what it's not going to do is make you a difficult conquest for culture victory. Unfortunately my last - and most advanced - Morocco game suffered an apparently irretrievable crash, with the game crashing at the same point regardless of which saved game I start from (unless I go more than a couple back, but I'm not inclined to replay that much of the same game).

Assyria

I'm not sure if my poor experience with Assyria is a consequence of changes to warmongering rather than the civ, but I've been unsuccessful with them and, moreover, unsuccessful in a way that doesn't lead to an interesting challenge. Few of the changes in G&K and none in BNW strongly favour warmongering, so playing a warmonger feels a lot like playing vanilla - which, compared with the game with both expansions, comes up short.

Venice

I share the OP's experience. I raced ahead so fast in an Emperor game that I just got bored and left it by around 1200 AD, with leads both in score and in most demographics (and rapidly catching up in the remaining demographics).

Morocco. On my epic quest to get the Petra on Immortal I have played them around 7 times. I finally succeeded yesterday, thanks to OmniPotent42 pointing out just how much you need to sacrifice to have a shot at it.

I'll have to look up that advice. I rushed Currency in my last game (Morocco, Immortal), the first where I'd got a desert start with the civ, deviating only to take Writing, and Petra was completed a tech before I reached Currency, let alone started building it.

Didn't try anything else yet. I am not easily hyped by anything new and I still like many old civs a lot (Ottomans, Mayans, England, Aztec, list goes on) are more interesting to me than Venice, Zulu, Brazil, Indonesia, Poland.

I have to say my longest, and most enjoyable, BNW game was with Siam, my pre-BNW favourite.

 

[Monado]

I've got a win with all the new civs so far (standard size/speed). I enjoyed all of them except Venice.

I despise the Venice gameplay mechanics. I start a game, explore to find that my second city would have had King Solomon's mine, 2 salt, 2 fish, been on a river and next to a mountain. It could have been a wonder powerhouse early, but instead it was merely Rome's sixth city/eventually just a puppet.

 

[JtW]

I've got a win with all the new civs so far (standard size/speed). I enjoyed all of them except Venice.

I despise the Venice gameplay mechanics. I start a game, explore to find that my second city would have had King Solomon's mine, 2 salt, 2 fish, been on a river and next to a mountain. It could have been a wonder powerhouse early, but instead it was merely Rome's sixth city/eventually just a puppet.

Yeah, that's what irked me, too. I started a game as Venice, looked at all the beautiful land I cannot settle, and rage quit...

 

[Wuddel]

I'll have to look up that advice. I rushed Currency in my last game (Morocco, Immortal), the first where I'd got a desert start with the civ, deviating only to take Writing, and Petra was completed a tech before I reached Currency, let alone started building it.

I would be interested in his tips. Actually I often get it. It is dependant on having hills and maybe forests though. Take Tradition of course and the wonder bonus, research writing. Build monument, shrine, Library. Steal a worker from a CS. Actually I often gotten the double wammy of Hanging Gardens + Petra. Marble helps too. Actually it seems to be often better to build Hanging Gardens first and improve the marble before going Petra, since you can work those hills easier.

you want to use all your gold to buy production tiles (hills) and manually control the worker, so he does not unnecessarily run around, but plan his moves and consecutively improve adjacent tiles with mines first (That's why hanging gardens actually might be usefull.)

 

[TomKQT]

I'm picking them by alphabetical order, as they appear in the list (While ignoring those older ones of course).
Now I'm close to finishing Space victory with Poland, that means I've already played Assyria and Morocco (it sorts it by the leader name, not civ name).

I personaly don't think that a particular civ with its bonuses changes the game SO much to be able to say that I did or didn't enjoy a game because I played it as Poland or Assyria or whatever. It's more like a combination of the map, enemies, whole situation etc etc etc.

 

[Wuddel]

I find Assyria quite bland. You kill a city or two, and then you are stuck with a warmonger penalty and a few towers that will take forever to take a range promotion when upgraded to trebs.

Shoshone are just a normal civ which a bunch of extra tiles. Boooooriiiinnnnngg....

Shaka, seems cool. The Impi is strong and fast range 3 catapults seem tempting but I am still not much of an early warmonger.

All others are really good!

 

[neev]

My favourite so far are the Shoshone. The Pathfinder especially can be an extremely useful unit, at least up to Emperor. The Shoshone are great if you want to go up a level (or two).

I like Portugal and Poland a lot as well.