Which opponents do you pick?

[pholtz]

I actually prefer to play against random leaders. For me it's more fun, but one of the reasons I don't score so well. But... occasionally I might pick the leaders, so I would like to know which opponents you pick for different types of wins?

 

[FeiLing]

Harun (Arabia) is a popular victim, as he doesn't have early special units and usually spawns in a desert (=no forests/hills). So in a duel domination time rush he's definitely a solid choice.

That's pretty much what you want for domination and you can easily figure out what slows your war train down: Celts, Iroquois, Inca, Aztec (all with awful/defensive terrain/starting locations), Ethiopia, Maya, Japan, Polynesia, China (all due to leader/civ abilities giving early combat advantages). So you wanna avoid all of those.

For other victory conditions it pretty much doesn't matter with a few exceptions like:
Austria and Mongols might screw up Diplomatic Victories. Egypt is bad when you want to do a culture victory as they always might be able to beat you to some wonders, especially when they also got marble. And I like to pick Persia, Spain and the Songhai because they potentially have a lot of cash which allows for more trading/research agreements.

 

[vexing]

for non domination victories i generally pick opponents with lowest wonder lust.
it is difficulty dependent, on lower difficulties i'll gladly pick france, mongolia or russia who have super high expansion focus, but on immortal or deity you generally don't want to deal with that.

 

[Genghis.Khan]

Ghandi is a Great victim for Domination.

And of course tall civs for time domination VCs

 

[FeiLing]

Ghandi is a Great victim for Domination.

And of course talk civs for time domination VCs

Gandhi has the advantage of hardly expanding, however he has his stupid elephants that are a nuisance as well as a unique/improved castle (including flavor to actually build it) - so in the end I wouldn't call him an advantage choice for that purpose. He also likes to build wonders... so he's probably never a really good choice.

 

[Genghis.Khan]

Well, I never played an HOF Game without Ghandi... He never has a decent military...
However I only submitted a few games and I only have a Silver Medal at HOF so I guess you can't call me an "experienced player"

 

[ArguCa]

if you want challenge pick Mongolia, because they may conquer your ally city-states and Austria annexing your ally CS by marriage. I played against Mongolians in my last game they attacked one of my ally CS but saved my ally

also Kelts founding religion faster than others, Romans getting strong military quickly, you may pick them.

anyway, I usually play against random leaders.

 

[kirbdog]

Polynesia is great in a non-domination victory for non-pangea-type maps because you can get an earlier DOF with him for an earlier research agreement. Sweden is great because his DOF gives you 10% faster great person production.

 

[HideInLight]

For non-dominations I pretty much always pick Sweden for +10% GP generation bonus if friends.

Then it depends, on sea-heavy map I usually pick Kamehameha because they are likely to meet you earlier than other civs.

Otherwise I just pick civs that have some non-dessert bias to make it a little more likely I will roll a good dessert start (Russia, Aztec, India, Netherlands + all the ocean bias civs). And also civs that are likely to have more cash (Persia, Askia, Arabia - in a non start bias game only). I also almost always avoid civs that have an early faith advantage (Celts, Ethiopia). And on higher difficulty levels, I avoid civs with high expansion and warmongering focus (Russia, Mongolia, Greece, France, ...). And usually I avoid Egypt too because of wonder building focus.

 

[dinanipedro]

And usually I avoid Egypt too because of wonder building focus.

Some games I'll purposley include egypt for this reason then capture his capital to get the wonder benefits, at least the ones I skipped/missed.