Which tribe would you think hardest to win a space race game? I particularly want to know... which tribe you think would struggle the most with a space race game at upper levels like Deity and Sid? If I didn't list your tribe, please comment and type in such a tribe below.
Which tribe would you think hardest for a space race game?
- Thread starter Spoonwood
- Start date
sk8boardbob2
Warlord
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2005
- Messages
- 114
Let's see, Portugal has one of if not the worst UU in the game. Expansionist is almost all luck, does nothing on the highest levels and is useless after the AA. And it conflicts with Seafaring so depending on the map, one will be mostly useless unless you have a godly number of coastal cities.
darski
Regent in Training
TheOverseer714
Overseer
I voted Japan, because they are very slow out of the gate. Research is terrible, their traits have little value in a research game, and they just don't seem like a strong civ.
At Deity or Sid, I'd be playing on an archipelago map, so none of the seafaring tribes would be on my worst list. When picking for weak opponents, I usually put in the Mongols and the Zulu, along with the Americans. I haven't really played much with any of these, though, so I'm interested in hearing why people dislike certain tribes.
To clarify, one can still pop a settler on Deity with the expansionist trait as Oystein's article tells us (and I've done myself). One could also get tech(s). On Sid though one can only get maps, warriors, or gold (though you won't get barbies).
Thanks for the responses so far. Keep them coming!
Thanks for the responses so far. Keep them coming!
del62
Deity
On an archipelego the English with their trade would be ok,
I vote for Arabia, because both their traits (Religious/Expansionist) are nearly useless in a Deity/Sid research game.
My pick as the best civ would be Byzantium: they are scientific, start with Alphabet and their seafaring trait ensures good early research (so reaching Philosophy first may be possible on Deity) and early tech trading opportunities.
Lanzelot
My pick as the best civ would be Byzantium: they are scientific, start with Alphabet and their seafaring trait ensures good early research (so reaching Philosophy first may be possible on Deity) and early tech trading opportunities.
Lanzelot
timerover51
Deity
I would probably go with Portugal as well, unless you had a very favorable archipelago map with some good coastal city sites.
Optional
Deity
Ho wait, you're speaking before your turn here, I mean before you've done your homework properly.
First about that unit; kind of useless, I agree, but we're talking spaceship here, so we want science, and that Carrack happens to come about when you want be building a lot of universities, so that's a good Golden Age timing.
Then Expansionist; an undependable trait, some luck needed, but potentially great, also on higher levels. The biggest chance to score a free settler with a scout comes on Deity by the way, so it's not all misery with the goody huts on those tougher levels. But the important bit is the early contacts. Without early contacts the chance that the AI rushes ahead of you in science is considerable. Scouts or curraghs are really needed to get those early contacts; warriors are too slow on the higher levels.
You're starting with Pottery when you're Expansionist, and don't underestimate that early granery.
Expansionist doesn't give any added value after the AA, agreed, but other tribes might not even come out of the AA that well, and then even cheap libraries don't help anymore if you're Korea or Germany and already terribly behind.
Expansionist and Seafaring overlap each other somewhat, but I don't see a conflict. Seafaring is less strong on Pangaea, but there's no reason why a scout can't be usefull on Continents or Archipelago maps, provided there is some ground to cover. A small Archipelago would not be a wise choice, as you don't want to get stuck on a tiny island, no, but pick perhaps a 60% Archipelago or so, standard map, and you'll be mostly fine.
It's only on low levels where you can expect to roam a whole Pangaea and pick up techs everywhere due to goody huts, but on higher levels the AI will have cleaned those up very quickly, so Pangaea doesn't give you an extra advantage. The conflict between Expansionist and Seafaring would be on the lower levels, not the higher ones.
No Seafaring civ would be on my worst list for higher levels. England is even terribly underrated for spaceship, as Seafaring and Commercial are both good to have here.
Optional said:
I agree with the bit about the free settler. So, expansionist has potentially high value on a Deity map, sure. But, I disagree with the implication here that you need those early contacts. Believe it or not, the AI rushing ahead of you in tech even without the Great Libary may not slow down your finish date on Sid or Deity. In fact, them rushing ahead of you such that you have 4 techs while they have the whole ancient age, may actually speed up the time by which you can launch. And I don't necessarily mean having Pottery, Alphabet, Writing, and Literature only. I also disagree with what you said about warriors as too slow. Then again, an earlier contact via curraghs or scouts might get the AIs techs faster so they pick up the overall research pace that way. So, the overall tech pace picks up. Though, I guess that may make an expansionist tribe "better" in the sense of possibly launching faster instead of making them "easier" to launch with.
Optional said:
I would counter this by saying that on a pangea Deity or Sid you can probably research Pottery yourself as your first researched tech without necessarily slowing down the overall tech pace at all. Nor would that necessarily make it harder to launch. In fact, it might make things easier. I know that may sound strange, and I probably wouldn't have believed even a week ago, but now I do.
Optional said:
True, but the free tech each era can help a good bit.
That's all a really minor disagreement of your response though Optional. I agree with you that Portugal certainly doesn't necessarily come as the hardest to play nor the worst in terms of research potential. Having the extra commerce comes as significant enough in itself to beat out Arabia, the Zulu, Japan, the Mongols. The coastal capital may seem to decrease optimal placement for corruption on a pangea map, but one can always swap one's palace to a more central location. And starting with Alphabet in a lot of cases will make a spaceship launch easier... as well as more quickly achieved. So, no Seafaring tribe should end up at the bottom in my mind also, even Portugal on a Sid pangea map.
Funny though they have the most votes so far.
Maybe I should post another poll with only The Zulu, the Mongols, the Arabs, and the Japanese as choices. From what I recall my pangea Deity games have usually had the Byzantines as having a good amount of gpt compared to most of the other tribes in the game, and Chamnix has had similar experiences in fast research games (all scientific opponent)... which seems to imply that under equivalent conditions the Byzantines can outresearch other scientific tribes, which in turn implies the Seafaring trait as one of the strong research traits. I probably will do such a poll, unless someone can convince me that the Seafaring trait as significantly weaker than I currently think. Good point about not everyone potentially having "done their homework properly".
To make my purpose clear, with this poll or the next one I want to establish "the" most difficult tribe for winning a high-level spaceship victory... or at least get a tribe that's *almost* at the bottom of the list. Then I'll turn around and play a standard Sid pangea 60% map with Sumeria, the Ottomans, Persia, the Byzantines, Babylon, Germany, and Greece or Korea as my opponents and launch the spaceship.
I voted the Zulu. I think TheOverseer714 had a good point about Japan as pretty weak research-wise, but I kind of think that the shorter period of anarchy outweighs benefits of expansionist on Sid. Given a free settler on Deity, given a free settler that probably outweighs the benefit of a shorter anarchy. But, Japan might still end up ahead of a mil/exp tribe, because they uniquely start with The Wheel, and the AI doesn't usually seem to research it right away. So, there's more trading opportunities, plus all the benefits that come with seeing a resource earlier and possibly having the ability to trade that resource earlier. I picked the Zulu over the Mongols, because I think Keshiks better for a GA and for potentially capturing more territory than Impis.
Good points from Optional and Spoonwood. I agree with Optional, that any seafaring civ (including Portugal) would not be that bad: I played a Demigod game a while ago, and the early research power of a seafaring civ is incredible, if you have a few early coastal towns on rivers! Also the three-movement currraghs will give you many contacts (sometimes even all contacts) very fast on any kind of map! (Unless it's a very strange Pangea, where many civs are way inside the landmass with no access to the coast...)
Therefore I conclude that Portugal isn't as bad as the current vote indicates
I stay with my pick of Arabia. Admittedly it has a good UU, but I think that won't help much for a space game?! In a space game you want to get a decently sized empire quickly (for that the Ansar comes too late -- horsemen and swordsmen will do this for you in the AA) and afterwards you want to keep the other AIs intact, so they can help you with the research, right? So the only purpose of the UU in a space race is to trigger your GA. And for that the Carrack is as good as the Ansar... (And it doesn't even require an optional tech...)
Lanzelot
Therefore I conclude that Portugal isn't as bad as the current vote indicates
I stay with my pick of Arabia. Admittedly it has a good UU, but I think that won't help much for a space game?! In a space game you want to get a decently sized empire quickly (for that the Ansar comes too late -- horsemen and swordsmen will do this for you in the AA) and afterwards you want to keep the other AIs intact, so they can help you with the research, right? So the only purpose of the UU in a space race is to trigger your GA. And for that the Carrack is as good as the Ansar... (And it doesn't even require an optional tech...)Lanzelot
Optional
Deity
Spoonwood, you seem to be wavering slightly between different versions of your own question.
I did not read it as: 'What is the worst civ to pick if you want to record a fast date for Spaceship on the higher levels?'
I read it as: 'Given a representative amount of tries, which civ would record the most fails for Spaceship on the higher levels?'
I don't even play at the 2 topmost levels, I would simply lose lots of times, so to begin with I would want to survive. Being behind in tech is something I really want to avoid, just looking at the common problem at the tougher levels: the AI boxing you in early, putting culture pressure on the few towns that are yours, coming with demands, and after a few demands, an outright war declaration. Then my game is in trouble. If this happens end AA I would rather be Portugal or Zulu then Germany or Korea, as then I probably will know some folks that can help me out for a tech that I know, while the advantages of Germany or Korea might come too late to save me. Well, Korea at least starts with Alphabet, I could be okay there, but Germany I would see as a real challenge, I would probably abandon more games playing them.
I did not read it as: 'What is the worst civ to pick if you want to record a fast date for Spaceship on the higher levels?'
I read it as: 'Given a representative amount of tries, which civ would record the most fails for Spaceship on the higher levels?'
I don't even play at the 2 topmost levels, I would simply lose lots of times, so to begin with I would want to survive. Being behind in tech is something I really want to avoid, just looking at the common problem at the tougher levels: the AI boxing you in early, putting culture pressure on the few towns that are yours, coming with demands, and after a few demands, an outright war declaration. Then my game is in trouble. If this happens end AA I would rather be Portugal or Zulu then Germany or Korea, as then I probably will know some folks that can help me out for a tech that I know, while the advantages of Germany or Korea might come too late to save me. Well, Korea at least starts with Alphabet, I could be okay there, but Germany I would see as a real challenge, I would probably abandon more games playing them.
I usually see the AI getting The Wheel pretty early, whether through self research or goody huts I don't know, but it's a first tier tech, so known quickly. Trading horses early would be difficult. Can you spare the workers to make routes to 2 horse resources and also one to your neigbour, only in the hope they're gonna lack horses? Using workers to improve towns seems the safer investment, giving less chance having them destroyed by barbs as well. I think you're overestimating the advantages of starting with The Wheel.
Any civ that places a town on a river early - not the capital - gets two commerce in the centre tile. Seafaring would get one extra, but the Despotism penalty takes that away. The Seafaring capital does get one extra on other capitals, I'm not sure by which mechanism, but that extra tile makes a difference.
Fugitive Sisyphus
Escape Artist
Voted Zulu. Militaristic is the one trait that does the least for an early space victory and expansionist is map and level dependent. For a space victory you might want to burn your golden age for infrastructure (libraries, markets, universities) which means an ancient age UU is undesirable. Not that the Zulu UU is very useful anyway. Ironically if the Zulu weren't expansionist their UU would be considered much better because it could be used for exploration and have a good chance at defending/promoting against barbs.
Optional
Deity
Yeah, I sometimes say the Aztecs have 3 traits: Agri and Militaristic, but also Expansionist because of the Jaguar. Very strong.
Zulu need to get up Bronze Working to build their Impi, so they would still be a slow substitute for scouts, for my liking too slow on the higher levels.
Yes, that's true. However, "early" does not necessarily mean "Despotism". In that particular game I was lucky, got the "slingshot" and became a Republic before 1250BC. That was still "early", and then the seafaring trait really made a difference...!
But even in Despotism, if you manage to get all of your first 6-7 towns either on coast or on river, you'll have a significant advantage over non-seafaring civs.
Well, during Despotism the extra coin for the river is dropped in the capital as well. The capital gets 4 commerce in Despotism, independent of whether it is on a river or not! (Non-seafaring civs get 4 if on a river and 3 if not.) We discovered this recently in COTM61 (Deity, Scandinavia). See the final spoiler, in particular this post: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=8269590#post8269590
Lanzelot
Lanzelot said:
That's certainly one way to go, and sure enough it can work well enough. But, I doubt that as a strategy that would work well on Deity or Sid all that often.
Optional said:
Interesting interpretation. I didn't mean that, though maybe I communicated poorly, and possibly that's a better question to ask.
Optional said:
Thing is I didn't mean to imply the advantages of trading horses away to the AIs. On the contrary, I meant the research advantage of having the ability to trade for an extra horse of the AIs earlier at Deity or Sid (where the AIs have extra workers). This wouldn't work out as a research advantage in an XOTM competition, but *might* with skillful use of what I call Moonsinger's Green Rule:
HoF Rulebook Green section said:
darski
Regent in Training
Therefore I conclude that Portugal isn't as bad as the current vote indicates
Lanzelot
Just wondering if you have ever played as Portugal?
I did a series of games where I played every Civ (warlord) and Portugal is the only Civ that I will never play again. if it weren't a matter of honour I would not have completed a game with them at all.
I suppose that Darski doesn't read my comments, but I feel like writing this anyways. It looks she's assumed that whoever thinks that Portugal doesn't end in the bottom hasn't played with them. That doesn't hold, as I have played with them, and I've played with them at Demi-God and Deity before (you can find various notes on these games around if you look). Her reference to her set of games with every tribe I highly suspect didn't go above Monarch, as she's constantly referred to herself as a Warlord player who's played Regent occasionally. So, I don't see her experience with her set of games with every tribe as all that relevant.
