Best civ advantages--POLL REVISED

[GodKing]

Only voted for one, as I didn’t bother reading first….. Bad Boy.

1) Agg, for obvious reasons
2) Industrious. I like being able to build things fast, and, I don’t need to keep nearly as many workers around, so the unit support goes to military instead.
3) This one is hard. Commercial, Seafaring or Religious.

Commercial & Seafaring provide lots of extra gold, which translates into power. Religious is more important the higher level you are playing, particularly emperor and above. Keeping your people happy and working cheaply is nice, and the fast changes of government are not to be sneered at either. On lower difficulty levels, where happiness is not so much of a concern, I would replace Religious with Scientific, to get cheap libraries for cultural borders and keeping ahead in science.

Militaristic is nice, but it just doesn’t float my boat.

Expansionistic is useful only in the very early game, and then on specific land types as well. As I usually play with random maps, the luck factor is just too great a risk for me. Of course, as I usually play with a random civ as well…

[joncnunn]

In my current game as the Hitties [exp + com], I got 2 free settlers!, with them in very strategic areas. Yes, it secured having a 3rd unique luxary, horses, and planting of more than my share of the map. Americans actually stole a city site from me via a Galley 2 turns before my settler reached it. (Low priority spot), but I had two warriors next to it and Lincoln caved when I demanded he turn over that city to me. (I had a large military realtive to Lincoln also thanks to the large number of cities founded)

Never built a Carrugh, only coastal city for a long time was too busy as a settler pump [Flood Plains + Wheat! next to it; no granery needed to pump], and several of the other coastal cities had too low shield production to be good for building a 2 MP naval unit on what was obviously Pangena by the time I had Alphabet. Evenually got around to building a Galley once new settlers no longer needed.

Uh, no I didn't reach all players by turn 40, took until about turn 50 to get the last one on the landmass. (Extreme far side of the landmass.) One civ actually started outside the landmass, but managed to form a one city colony on the main land around turn 70.

Discovery of Printing Press revealed that most civs hadn't made contact with that interloper [not suprizing], but also the SE extreme most civs on Pangena did not make contact with the Americans next to me. (I fire sold all these contacts to get something out of it.)

Originally posted by Krill
God, no, definatley in that order. Agr FIRST, THEN Exp, and thirdly Com.

Actually, I do think that Sea is a powerful trait, but it isn't (/Edit: IMHO) as powerful as Exp since you don't:
[list=1][*] Start with a curragh,
[*] You can't pop huts and not get barbs, and settlers are a bit rarer A turn two free settler, which can be used to become a worker/settler pump? Game breaking, they only two words that can be used to describe it... Agr is not as powerful as Exp in this case
[*] Every one can build curraghs as soon as they hae a coastal city, and that could be as early as a second city by turn 17, (OK, they would need alpha as wel). No one can build a two move land unit intil they have horses hooked up. Sometimes you won't ever get horses.
[*] Exp civs can now the layout of the entire continent (minus about 20 tules of FoW) by turn forty, and should have met all the other AI. Sea civs can only know the shape of the continent, and won't have met all the other civs. This means that you would be fueling the civs that you would have met, and the other, inland AI would be an untapped market.[/list=1]



The advatages of Sea over Exp are:[list=1][*] You start with Alpha instead of pottery (more useful when trading to the AI and it is easier to complete philo first, since it costs less to research pottery than alpha),
[*] That extra movement point will never be lost. OK, it might become negligable when you have destroyers and battleships, but it is always there.
[*] Cheap habours are helpful, since it costs less to rush them in the crappy production cities that coastal cities are...[/list=1]

(I'm starting to run out of reasons here)

[joncnunn]

The AI is extremely slow poping huts, even with playing an expanionist civ, it seems to wait for their expanding culture to pop them if not extremely close to their starting location.

Originally posted by punkbass2000
I don't pop many huts if I'm not Expansionist anyway. The odds are not in my favour and the AI has so many free units that it tends to grab most of them anyway.

[joncnunn]

Expanionstic is very useful when playing a random map because it will tell you what settings were used much earlier than playing a non-Expansionstic one.

Searfaring is also very useful on random maps for the same reason.

My prefered method of play is random civ on a random map.

Originally posted by GodKing

As I usually play with random maps, the luck factor is just too great a risk for me. Of course, as I usually play with a random civ as well…

[Mace]

I voted Ag, Commercial, and Seaf.

I like the traits that can help you REX, and that have advantages the whole game.

I like Rel, but I don't think Rel is top tier because:
1) on higher diffs, you won't get a cultural win anyway
2) 6-18 turns not spent in anarchy does not equal the 400+ turns of bonus that Ag, Comm, Ind, or Seaf get you.

[joncnunn]

Well, Agr only gives 400+ turns bonus if there's a fresh water source nearby to plant a city in.

Otherwise it doesn't take affect until the earliest of:

1. Leaving Depotism
2. Reaching Construction
3. [much, much, less] reaching desert + getting an irrigation chain to it.

Commerialism doesn't really start to pay until you your first city reaches size 7. Without fresh water nearby, this is considerly delayed as well waiting for Aquaducts

Yes, Industrious lasts the whole game. They'll be plenty of work for the faster workers while waiting for the first size 7 city for extra shields.

Yes, Seafaring lasts the whole game as well, starts with a coastal city for the commerce.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by joncnunn
Well, Agr only gives 400+ turns bonus if there's a fresh water source nearby to plant a city in.

Uncorrupted, large bonus. Even if delayed, it's game breaking anyway.

[Yosho]

My favorate is religious, mostly because that's the only way I've really been able to get democracy and such to pay for itself; on the harder settings, I'm almost never able to create a situation where it's worthwhile to go democracy, while with a religious government it's practical to switch back and forth, giving a huge long-term bonus to commerce. It's a minor point, but I'll also mention that cheaper early temples are a nice bonus.

[Commy]

I played a game as the Babylonians last night, and I was able to have cathedrals in all my cities before most civs were in the middle ages. I didn't think religious was that powerful, but now I would change my vote if I could...

[vmxa1]

I really doubt that the price a cath is of much of a factor. They come at a point where you are getting stronger.

The price of a temple may be a factor, since you will need to get one in front line cities and probably be force to rush them from time to time. You are never forced to rush a cath.

So if that is the reason you hang your hat on to elevate Religious, I say that is not a good one.

[joncnunn]

I'm actually on a map on my pbem game where being agrictural isn't game breaking, nor is even getting the SGL on the first tech discovered.

It's, really, really awful : "Horrid Start for Incas". It's a good size land mass to have for oneself, only it's Greenland! (2/3rds is Tundra!) The only fresh water is one fresh water lake in the tundra, no irrigation chain possible with any city planting scheme near there.

Bascially the Pryamids is enough to keep me in the game. Partly by spoiling it for everyone else, so it can't be built on a more useful landmass.

Originally posted by Modo44

Uncorrupted, large bonus. Even if delayed, it's game breaking anyway.

[Kuciwalker]

Seafaring: I love arch maps, and the cheap harbors + extra movement are wonderful. Plus, I love the Byzantines and their Dromons

Religious: I cannot stand anarchy. I hate it. And I think I've grown dependent on the cheap temples - I rarely play a non-Religious civ, and when I do the time to build a temple always makes me do a double-take.

Scientific: Especially good if I'm NOT religious, because the Libraries are oh-so-wonderful for building culture. I can't stand to have unexpanded cities. And I'm a bit superstitious about SGL's

[Modo44]

Originally posted by joncnunn
I'm actually on a map on my pbem game where being agrictural isn't game breaking, nor is even getting the SGL on the first tech discovered.

It's, really, really awful : "Horrid Start for Incas". It's a good size land mass to have for oneself, only it's Greenland! (2/3rds is Tundra!) The only fresh water is one fresh water lake in the tundra, no irrigation chain possible with any city planting scheme near there.

Bascially the Pryamids is enough to keep me in the game. Partly by spoiling it for everyone else, so it can't be built on a more useful landmass.

Yes, I know that thread. A heavy ICS on that tundra would bring you many, many unit-producing cities. 3 Forest tiles worked instead of 2 makes a huge difference, don't you think? I would think Feudalism. Anyway, once you are out of Despotism, you get that bonus everywhere. Pyramids or not, it's powerful.

And by "game breaking" one could mean a bonus allowing you to stay in the game, when the start is very bad. The Agricultural trait could be just that in the game you described. IMO it's the only trait that makes Tundra without bonus food at least halfway useful.

[joncnunn]

I tend to reserve "game breaking" as a bonus that turns a normal start into a heavilly favorite to win situation.

Well, I don't need to make a decision between Feudalism and Republic yet; (Monarchy is certinatly out of the question.) It's now 3450 BC and I'm still researching the Alphabet in order to build a Curagh to check to see if there is a nearby landmass. There's a handful of tiles unexplored on the starting landmass, rapidlly decreasing; mostly initally bypassed areas.

Yes, there's enough forest in most areas even with ICS for there to be 3 forest tiles adviable for each city before Enginnering.

Have I mentioned I've yet to find a goody hut? Guess the Mayas are screwed over for their UU. (No goody huts => No barbs)

Originally posted by Modo44

Yes, I know that thread. A heavy ICS on that tundra would bring you many, many unit-producing cities. 3 Forest tiles worked instead of 2 makes a huge difference, don't you think? I would think Feudalism. Anyway, once you are out of Despotism, you get that bonus everywhere. Pyramids or not, it's powerful.

And by "game breaking" one could mean a bonus allowing you to stay in the game, when the start is very bad. The Agricultural trait could be just that in the game you described. IMO it's the only trait that makes Tundra without bonus food at least halfway useful.

[conmcb25]

Agriculture

Population = Power

I believe thats a NYE quote