Worst neighbours

[Varvar]

I was playing my first map at immortal for the Greeks on great plains (pangea) large/epic/raging barbs, as I have cleared previous difficulties fairly easily.
I have played Civilizations before, but I am by no means a pro.

Being Greek I got Companion Cavalry fairly quickly, and went with Meritocracy/Freedom so I can ICS while my horses harass my neighbors. The problem though is choice - since I would only have a limited amount of time before my CC would become obsolete, and I had 9 civilization to clear (or at least cripple), I was generally going for the closest/highest score targets first.

Romans died first when Songhai invited me and the Mongols to swarm them so it was a no-brainer (I got the capital, and mongol took the last city). Then with no more offers I reduced the Chinese, Indians and Arabs to 1 city.

While that was going on Mongols overtook me in army (I had army lead at some point, but stopped building troops after 7 horseman and a couple early infantry) and REXed even harder than I did.

Figuring that I didn't want to find Genghis in the Middle Ages with his Khan (I also had an RA with him and he was my best trading partner), I attacked Songhai instead and conquered them quickly which is when Mongols attacked me and so far rolled over my distant puppets and city - states within 3-4 turns.

The point of this post is that Mongols turned out to be far more powerful than all the 5 civilizations I conquered combined (as they have like a dozen horseman who raped all my allies and healthy numbers of infantry), so in hindsight I should have wiped out the golden horde earlier.

Which civs should I rush first (given the choice) considering I usually go for the domination victory (or maybe spaceship for consolation)?

Sounds like most people hate Bismark/Alexander/Caesar... I definitely hate the Mongols now, and Gandhi would have probably been pretty safe lol...

Is there any order you would go in when rushing/puppetting - warmonger civs/ or closest civs/ or strongest army civ / tactical (horse strong civs need to die first in open terrain; sword strong in hard terrain)?


p.s. Is large map simply too large? I noticed that all the 'public' games take place on either standard or small, which I found odd since I loved playing Large/Huge maps in Civ3 and Civ4 - it felt so much more Epic and history like.

However playing this map, I am clearing territory far faster then I can fill it with cities. I end up taking over civilizations (that have 5-10 cities), and burning all but 1 or 2 of their cities to the ground (except capitol/wonder/luxuries), and I can't pump out settlers/coliseums nearly fast enough... So most of the map is a barren wasteland of city ruins...
And frankly neither I nor Genghis Khan have a good reason to go to war since we both have plenty of expansion room to last us to the 3000AD... We just like the mindless slaughter I guess.

 

[wurstburst]

I always go after Siam early if I see them nearby. They tend to become a runaway very quickly. And elephants are no fun if you go the horse route.

Given the choice of 2 nearby civs, I usually opt to go after the stronger one, if I think I can take them out. Odds are that they will continue to grow faster than the rest of the weaker civs, so you got to knock them down a peg while you still can.

As far as large maps go, that's not a problem. It is a bit of a challenge, though, because you can't get to all the civs before one starts to run away. So you can expect a mid-to-late game war against a big opponent. I'm playing a game on a huge/pangea/emperor map now and it was pretty tough in the mid-game. Empire spread out half-way across the world. Civs settling all over my trade routes and disrupting my gold. Multi-front wars. Good fun.

 

[stormerne]

I tend to go for them as I reach them. Bypassing neighbors wastes valuable turns, I find, especially at the highest two levels. I try and anticipate the "jet stream route" and follow that. However, on great plains you'll always have speed problems at the edges, especially the east. If you meet Hiawatha in the eastern forests you'll find that's a big problem!

That said, I'm wondering why you stopped at 7 CC. I keep on pumping them out and buying them as though my life depended on it, because it does. In the central open part of the plains, I aim to take out all cities of one civ in a single turn. But 7 CC might leave me thin elsewhere, and ideally I want to go in two directions around the map simultaneously, and three if I can.

If you are taking out an entire civ in 1-3 turns max, in two directions and traveling for say 4-5 turns between them on average, allowing for bad terrain, you could be done in 40 turns from the start of your onslaught. It doesn't work like that as you start as soon as you can, but buying with pillage cash means a second wave going in a different direction doesn't take long to start.

 

[Izmir Stinger]

She doesn't do the annoying crazy expansion thing, but Elizabeth is a mean CENSORED. We never get along.

 

[boehj]

Siam and England are very nice to get out of your way early. England ICS'd my ass last night and I had to go Diplo victory. There was no way I was going to wade thru' all those cities.

 

[Grapa]

I always get rid of France and the Iroquious. Always overexpanding.

 

[elthrasher]

Got to take out China. Even if Wu is behind with few cities, +45% double-attack ranged combat. Bah. That'll eat up your riflemen if you aren't careful.

In general, though, whoever doesn't get enough attention from you is going to get a little out of control. The Iroquois in particular are bad about this, I think, but any civ on Immortal or Deity has the potential to be far more powerful than you are, even if you've already killed half your rivals and taken their cities. It's good in a way because you wouldn't want the game to be over with no challenges when your early rush works out (now just go through the motions for the rest of the eight hour game). On the downside, a peaceful Pangaea just isn't going to happen for you very often if you prefer the builder style.

 

[bryanw1995]

alex is very hard in the early game, I've taken him out before only to have the others dogpile b/c my military was depleted. mongols obviously b/c they will spam 5 movement horsemen and keshiks at you like mad. siam is always tough, he actually uses his UA to gather CS allies, and his elephants are terrors vs mounted. rome is generally tough early as well, and songhai's knights are tough if they can get to your cities. All of those civs might not be quite as tough post-patch with the horseman nerfs however.

 

[Paeanblack]

If Hiawatha is in the game, I'd much rather be next to him than far away. In my experience, he repeatedly launches the earliest spaceship on Deity of any of the AIs...well ahead of Gandhi. I've seen complete Apollo on turn 243 and launch on 259.

The Great Warpath seems to be one of the best traits for the AI, since the units don't get clogged up so badly. He doesn't wardec very often and goes for lots of research agreements. Trying to sic one of his neighbors on him just leads to their army getting annihilated in the forest, where he can move just fine and they can't. I've also found it extremely expensive to get him to declare on anyone else.

If Hiawatha has a good buffer civ between you and him, he can pose a serious challenge.

 

[Mzrokks]

She doesn't do the annoying crazy expansion thing, but Elizabeth is a mean CENSORED. We never get along.

She doesn't do crazy expansion?

You were saying?

 

[Yzman]

What civ are you in that game? Either way, it looks like England conquered quite a few nations...

 

[juckie]

What civ are you in that game? Either way, it looks like England conquered quite a few nations...

He's Egypt. That's the only live Civ, of which he has full sight.

England rolled either high on expansion, or conquer
Or are you playing random personalities?

 

[stormerne]

According to Jaroth's spreadsheet, Betty only gets a 6 for expansion. This compares to Greece, Rome, Russia, Aztec, France, Japan, Ottoman and Mongol who get 8 and America who gets 7. It's possible that other factors affect it and it's possible .621 changed things, but those are the figures for .20 + Babylon + Mongolia.

 

[Nunya]

Leader flavors are not set in stone. That spreadsheet has basic values but in specific games the flavors differ by up to 2 points. So Elizabeth might have a 6 in expansion on average, but in individual games she might have it as low as 4 or as high as 8.

 

[qyll]

Siam - Annoying as hell once he gets his UU. He also expands like kudzu.

England - Longbowmen. Oh. my. god.

Bismarck - Just really annoying. I've never had good relations with him ever.

 

[Arsenic Steel]

Damn near all of the AI leaders are two-face megalomanics to me, except Caesar. For the sake of naming a few the ones I will wipe out ASAP are Washington and Ghandi.
Washington because I don't know why he goes hostile so I just cut to the chase before he DOWs.
Ghandi because he hates people who are in war regardless of the reason...needless to say there is no way for me to not get into wars in civV so I stomp him before he flips out.

 

[Soronery]

I hate getting stuck next to Alexander because it is difficult to take him out early.

 

[bryanw1995]

haha, I like civs with low warmonger hate. I'm on a large pangea right now, ghandi and catherine are toast but the other 7 ai's all dow'd me...except napoleon. He thinks I'm just a nice guy, he still calls me "friend" and everything

 

[Tabarnak]

Worst neighbors : humans. Sometimes it's like playing superdeity lol

But for single player i usually get troubles with Montezuma and Alexander. Monty seem to unitspam a bit more and Alex because of his super units.

 

[Mzrokks]

He's Egypt. That's the only live Civ, of which he has full sight.

England rolled either high on expansion, or conquer
Or are you playing random personalities?

Yes, I was Egypt.
There was no random personalities setting though. Elizabeth conquered Rammy (Yes, just one nation!) and she was about to crush me before I won a space victory. She was very militaristic and expansive throughout - she conquered most of the city states!