Your best civilization

[jackelgull]

In your opinion what is the best civilization and why?

For me it is hands down the Hittites. I explain by comparing to a "neutral", a civilization with no starting techs or advantages of any kind.What I am looking at is how much of an advantage do these things give the Hittites over these "neutrals". The ratings wil be on a scale of one to five.
Okay then so

Starting techs: Stone tools and hunting. Having both of these techs unlock javeliners, meaning better early defense and that your immediate military needs are pretty well taken care of. Stone tools is good for jungle camps too, but really has few advantages other than that going for it. However, it does reveal stone which is useful for determining whether gunning for a certain wonder is worth it like Pyramids. Also it leads to the wheel which has wheelwrights, moderately useful buildings. Hunting is a weak food tech, but it does lead to AH an important strategic tech that doubles as a food tech and it does alert you to AH resources. Hunting also leads to slavery, once again a vital tech.
All in all I say this pair of starting techs are worth 4 points of advantage over neutrals. They in themselves are decent techs opening up a variety of good starting options for the Hittites, and they also lead to useful techs. Unfortunately they don't help much with religion and they aren't reliable for food.

Leader traits: Imperialistic and expansive, neither of which are extremely useful for early game. Imperialistic is not really an early game trait. In AND 2, good luck holding more than 3 cities in the ancient era. However, by classical age it helps you grab prime pieces of real estate and the expand to second ring is helpful in giving more freedom to settle. The bonus to great generals depends on war. It is not a really flexible thing. But it is a strong boost for war mongers and a good one. Great generals are massively useful. Expansive's 2 health is not that useful in ancient era when happiness is more pressing. After monarchy though, it becomes useful since the limiting factor for the capital will no longer be happiness but health, so 2 health= 2 food. Not a big boost, not even worth one pop but still there. As for the buildings boosted by these traits- imperialistic has one depending on a civic, not that big a boost. Expansive boosts aqueducts which are good for health pre-water treatment. Okay boost, though at least it is always useful. However, expansive also boosts docks and that line of buildings which is much more useful and raises that value of the trait. This means expansive really helps with commerce if you start on a coast, or have coastal cities. A bit situational sure, but the savings are large, and the building's benefit is big too.
Over the neutrals I'd put the benefit at 3.5 but since I hate fractions, I'll round up to 4.
UB: Iron Forge, when I first saw this I salivated. The forge is already useful as a hammer multiplier. Production is king after all. But a 10% boost to food on top of that? This starts strong and just keeps getting stronger as it boosts two of the most important yields in the game food and hammers. I know the food bonus requires iron, but iron is an important resource, and the boost is just too good so if you don't have a source then trade for one or go to war for one. The iron requirement limits the flexibility of the UB somewhat but the boost is strong enough to warrant a 5 over the neutral forge in my eyes.

UU. The Hittite chariot, by God what a good UU. No city malus. Ignores terrain cost. These guys are the terror of the ancient era and even past riders in the classical age which have 7 strength but the penalty to cities the chariot is superior. Until spearmen nothing can stand up to it, not really, and even by spearmen you should at least have a decent chance. Enjoy your little romp through the ancient era and become the destroyer of civilizations. It requires horses but so does the base unit that the neutral will use. In the end I give it a five over the neutral chariot.

Now synergy: The Hittites synergize very well. The chariots encourage waging early war and clearing out your immediate area, imperialistic means early war will net you great generals and the boost to settlers is good for back filling the area you've cleared. The UB means more food for your cities meaning larger more productive cities, while expansive helps keep those cities healthy. The bonus to docks and other buildings like it means that more cities equals more commerce in your coastal cities. The synergy is worth five points.

So all together the Hittites get 23 points of advantage over the neutrals.



Simply put, the Hittites have a greater potential to dominate at every aspect of the game than any other civilization. Not that it can't be done with another civ, just that the Hittite are all around better.
Anyone else want to share their thoughts?

 

[S0crates]

snip

I have never personally played the Hittites but I always noticed that if they were one of the AI Civs in any of my games, especially with Supiluliuma as leader, they were always one of the best performing Civs, and were incredibly expansive, to the point which I started suspecting something might be broken or unbalanced with that leaders AI in terms of expansion, they would have maybe twice as many cities as the next highest Civ in some games and always quite ahead in tech, and playing against other pretty expansionary AIs, I guess your analysis would provide an explanation of why that Civ seems slightly OP

 

[Noyyau]

Anything that helps you in the early game is much more valuable than anything that comes in the medieval era or later, when you should already be in a decent position.
Something that is always useful is even better.

I present to you: the Charismatic trait.

+1 per city.
+1 from a few cheap buildings along the eras.
-25% exp needed to gain promotions.
(anything else the trait has is irrelevant)

The higher the difficulty you're playing at, the more useful this trait is. In fact, at lower difficulties you don't need this trait, as you can easily get tons of happiness, and you can overwhelm the AI with sheer numbers.

But on Deity? Until the medieval era (and even later sometimes), every happy face counts. One extra population is that one extra mine you can work to get one less turn on a build, or one extra specialist you can run, maybe allowing you to spend that extra 5% on research.
The AI has so many bonuses over you, that you need to squeeze every drop from your assets.

Which brings me to the xp bonus. Obviously it is much more helpful if you're a warmonger, but honestly, on higher difficulties, you pretty much have to be. Especially if your world gets crowded pretty fast (raging barbarians + barb civs + start with minors). And you're even rewarded with some upon city conquest.

You will have less units than the AI, so they need to be better than their AI counterparts. Which means you need to keep your units alive, gaining xp and getting promotions that will make them harder to kill, and better at killing.
Needing less xp will also allow your new units to better benefit from your settled generals, so that with just 5 of them (and a Barracks, and/or an appropriate civic) you can turn out 13xp units from the gate, giving you 4 promotions at start. That's the complete City Raider line. Or Combat 1-3 and March. Or the complete Drill line. Or the complete City Garrison line and an extra promotion as a bonus.
Normally, you'd need 17xp, and that's seven generals plus a Barracks. The higher you go, the better it is.
And that's something that will always be active and helpful, as you'll be making units and fighting with them through the whole game. And by the Industrial era, you'll be turning out 8-promotion (49xp) new units easily. That's City Raider 1-4, Combat 1-3 and March. Put this on a Marine, and you have a coastal city killer (Of course they still do need bombardment support, and a Medic unit to take advantage of March, but we're not discussing that here).
Normally, you need 50xp just to get to the 7th promotion.

This is a trait that benefits the human player more than it benefits an ai, especially at higher difficulties.


Sorry, you were asking about Civilizations.
My answer is: make a cross research between Charismatic leaders, whatever second trait you prefer, and their civs with their UU and UB (write them down somewhere to compare them, it's easier than using only the civilopedia).
Depending on your playstyle or what you want to try in a given game, different combinations will serve you better.

Of the stock civs, I remember I quite liked the Persians, a very good UU though they did need Horses for it (that is a big uncertainty, Horses are rare and you are not guaranteed to find some close enough in the early eras, especially if the UU is early).

The English are also nice, though both UU and UB come quite late. They are quite strong in their own right, but you still need to survive until you get them...
Churchill's Protective is much better now in AND2 than it ever was in BtS, though it is still a trait more useful for the AI than for a human player in my opinion.

Same with the Dutch. I once loved the Dutch, the East Indiaman is a combination Frigate and Galleon and the Dike is the best building ever (especially on water heavy maps). Even the leaders are either Cha/Pro or Fin/Cre, so with at least one pretty strong trait each.
However: both UU and UB come too late to save you from rampaging barbarian archers or aggressive neighbours with too many catapults and axemen on their hands.

The Romans are a very powerful civ for warmongering as well, the Pretorian is one of the best UUs in the game (though it really should be renamed to Legion): getting March and even Tactics for free! You'll want to spam these even if you don't need them, just for those free promotions, and probably delay the tech that obsoletes them as much as possible.
The Forum is a really useful money multiplier for when it comes around.

But let's not forget the Celts, another civ that is better here in AND2 than in BtS. Despite their pretty useless UB, their UU (coupled with Boudica's Charismatic) might make the difference in the Classical era. You might not notice it at first, but that Gallic Warrior has 1-3 first strikes, quite an unusal thing in a melee unit, and they work wonders against defending archery units (which will be their most common enemy when attacking cities) as they will cancel out the archers' own free strikes. The +25% hills attack is situational, the ai likes to build cities on hills but that really depends on the terrain. Granted, in one game in which the area I was fighting in was 75% hills, that came in handy.

PS Yeah, the Hittites, I remember fighting them in my first story. Scary stuff, though we fought long after our UUs had been obsoleted. They did expand to fill their own continent, though, all on their own.

 

[jackelgull]

I agree with your assessment of charismatic. One of my biggest regrets is that the Hittites aren't Charismatic/Imperialistic. Expansive isn't a bad trait, but with Charismatic, the Hittites would have 5 points over neutrals instead of 3.5 rounded up.

In fact, I recently started a game with unrestricted leaders and chose Cyrus as the unrestricted leader for the Hittites.

This is why i believe the knowing where stone is so powerful- it allows you to know how much of a shot you've got at the Pyramids. With the Pyramids, every city you've got starts with at least one happiness, 2 if you've got warrior code.

 

[Noyyau]

Unrestricted Leaders allows for so much mayhem!

I agree that Charismatic/Imperialistic is a really strong combo for warfare. Put that on the Hittites, and they do become overpowered

Stone generally is quite important in the Ancient and Classical eras. Apart from the wonders it speeds up, stone (also obsidian and marble) allow you to build the Stoneworker's Hut, which is a really big production bonus in the beginning.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Well, I usually play with Cathy of Russia and I think she's powerful enough although I have no time now for such an in-depth analysis.

 

[Samson]

My current favourate is Pacal of the Maya, but from your analysis I shall have to have a go with the Hittites. +10% food is massive.

Pacal has:

Agricultural: Food is power.
Financial: Best trait from BtS. I think it is much weaker now, but is it still good?
Ball court: 1 extra happiness per 7 pop. Once you cities get big this is a lot of happiness.
Hokan (sp?): Early unit that can dominate any civ without axemen. Nothing else from the ancient era will stand up to them.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Lol, looks good that everyone thinks to have a strong leader. It means that the game is well balanced if not everyone agrees there's a best leader. I think I recall someone told me that Mansa Musa was the strongest if I'm not mistaken. I agree he's strong enough but people playing with different strategies can prevail with any leader, I think. That's another reason why I would like to make MP work.

 

[Noyyau]

Different combinations of traits, units and buildings are better suited to different playing styles, there is no "one true superior" to everything else.

 

[os79]

Different combinations of traits, units and buildings are better suited to different playing styles, there is no "one true superior" to everything else.

True for human players. It's AI I'm thinking about here. If it can be feasible with its strategy, then it's ok. Unfortunately, this one just follow code written. So my question is: do the code understand how to win?

 

[KaiserTom]

Pacal of the Maya

Hell yeah, my only gripe is agricultural is pretty useless when the entire map is devoid of rivers and freshwater (that'll teach me to roll a rocky climate with totestra) until biology since you can't build a single farm to actually get that bonus food.

His only rival IMO is Mansa Musa, you have both Financial AND Scientific, not to mention a UB replacement to the forge that gives a 15% bonus to commerce on top of everything else, almost guaranteeing you an edge in tech throughout the entire game, allowing you to grab any wonder you want. And for the short amount of time in the beginning of the game that he is actually vulnerable he gets his UU which replaces the archer with an extra strength point and an extra strike chance, which means his cities become fortresses.