Do you play random civs?

[Ming]

I used to hate Shaka... but now after playing him in some MP games... he's not all that bad. His UB helps economy and can be built right away. An the movement factor of his UU makes for some fun early rushes. And even later, when these units are upgraded, they still retain a little of their original ability... it's just not wasted like some UU's.

[MikeH]

Most of the time random, to avoid getting stuck in a rut.

[Ming]

Agreed... In SP, I no longer take my "favorite" leaders. I know the strategies, and it's boring. I would much rather try a leader who isn't optimum for the games settings I'm using. It's more fun that way.

[wodan11]

Playing different leaders encourages you to play different ways. Some people always research the same techs, do the same things. Well, that's not always a good idea. You can play the same way with different leaders, but it will have a tendency to encourage variety rather than not.

[Ming]

If you try that in MP... you will usually get your head handed to you.

[Cort Haus]

Having started this thread as a practitioner of playing random Civs, my first random BTS leader, Zara, has been such great fun that I can see myself picking him a few times to see how far I can push his impressive abilities.

[Blaupanzer]

I do that with some leaders, trying different tech, gov, and military combinations to see what works best for the trait/civ combination. As noted earlier, Zara is a particularly strong leader. If I am going random and he comes up, I often restart. I know I can generally win with him; and I want to learn how to do that with other leaders.

[Krill]

I used to hate Shaka... but now after playing him in some MP games... he's not all that bad. His UB helps economy and can be built right away. An the movement factor of his UU makes for some fun early rushes. And even later, when these units are upgraded, they still retain a little of their original ability... it's just not wasted like some UU's.

If you try that in MP... you will usually get your head handed to you.

Shaka is awesome, quick worker out of the gate and agressive warriors for choking is just the beast you can really hope for, along with the easily slaveable granaries. Not invincible though.

I remember a game more than a year ago, one of RAHs saturday night games. He fluked out and got Shaka (and later on I found out copper in his cap). I got Asoka, and also fluked out with copper in my cap. Steal a worker, choke with warriors, road towards my capital with the stolen worker and road towards RAH with my other and axe rush him even though he was more than 15 tiles away. Just about managed to take him out, sweet rush.

Unfortunately I forgot to revolt to monarchy for 40 turns... Still, it shows the power of the correct opening strategy.