The Best Civilization

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by DaveMcW


The Romans are rather mismatched. They have:

Militaristic - Great for fighting early wars
Defensive UU - Great for avoiding early wars
Commercial - Great for squeezing more industrial age production out of your large empire

So while they have something for everyone, they don't match any specific playstyle. If I wanted a good all-around civ I'd pick something industrious.

What is Branwen?

Ever been at the receiving end of an AI Legionary onslaught? If you have been at one, then you will appreciate the offensive power of that little dude.


Branwen is a rather obscure NPC in a RPG game. This character is neither known for her power nor for her look.

[nbarclay]

My favorite for standard maps is Egypt. Its religious/industrious combination makes for excellent growth and early culture (growth being helped by not having to build as many workers and by being able to get starting tile improvements done more quickly), and if warmongering with its UU can be timed for right after a change of governments, its golden age can be thoroughly devastating to any opponent that doesn't have a 3-defense UU.

China's combination of industrious workers, cheap barracks, archers available from the beginning, and a good knight replacement UU can make for at least arguably the most powerful warmongering civ around. But I don't like wasting resources I could be using to build on early archer rushes if I don't have to, so I don't play them much.

Nathan

[Rufus T. Firefly]

So far (I've only been playing for a month or so), I have to go with the Persians. The same advantages as the Egyptians in terms of early growth and culture, plus a UU that completely rocks (it's one disadvantage being that it can't be upgraded). The Egyptians are pretty nice, though. As a builder, I want to like the Babylonians most of all, but their UU just sucks too much.

As for Branwen, she's the best cleric you meet before chapter 4, the first character you meet who can use Basillus' hammer, and kind of hot in a lesbian-ish Melissa-Etheridge-y way -- so back off!

[Datajack Franit]

and I was thinking about deleting that quote

Branwel rulz

[Datajack Franit]

Lord Merciless, you can actually use Branwen and play with her (Baldur's Gate of course)

[Shaka II]

Depends on many factors including style of play warmonger/builder, map size, difficulty level, etc.

Favorite warmonger/domination civs are Egyptians, Chinese, Japanese, Persians, Iroquois, Zulu and on a huge map Americans are surprisingly good. I think IIRC Aeson posted how to play Americans on huge map. My first and only Game on huge map with Americans, Industrious and Expansionist traits working great, still haven't got my golden age (AD1375). Maybe I'll use that leader that I have in storage to build Hoover and get my golden age.

My builder games usually have some early warmongering with builder/science/space victory. Favorites here are Babylonians, Persians, Egyptians.

[vulture]

I've been surprised recently at my lack of success with the Romans (to go to the anti-topic of this thread). Maybe the militaristic/ommercial traits will pay off in the long run, but they seem to be a bad match to me, at least for the early game. Bascially, since commercial doesn't really come into it's own until fairly late in the game, you are playing a civ with one trait: militaristic. You have to pay full price for cultural improvements (and full price temples hurt, especially in despotism) and you have slow workers. Everything is painful, apart from building barracks.

I've played quite a few emperor starts with the Romans, and have adopted a strategy of researching writing at the start. I can usually trade alphabet (starting tech) for a few techs, and writing for quite a lot more, enough to keep me up to date with everyone else with no problems. Then I go for literature and the great library.

I try to avoid getting iron working too early, because I want to get barracks up and running and amass veteran warriors for upgrades. Since I'm always researching expensive techs at 40 turns each, I'm raking in money (1200 gold when I finished the GL last time, with still 4 techs to go in the ancient era). One problem this causes is that I don't know where the iron is until rather too late, and am often stuck without it at the point at which I get IW. Another is that I have an unfortunate tendency to overexpand, and not start the great library pre-build early enough.

Part of my problem has also been a run of bad luck at getting leaders, which is pretty much the only thing the Romans have going for them in the ancient age. I HAVE A CIV WITH NO CIV ABILITIES!!!

I have to say that I also had less success than I'd been expecting playing as the Iriquois. Now perhaps this is just due to the fact that I've only played these civs on Emperor, not on lower levels, or perhaps I just have wholly the wrong mentality for the ancient era war-mongering (although my current Roman game is looking pretty good - mostly, I suspect, due to the settler from a goody hut). Civs I've done very well with (on the other hand) are the Japanese, Chinese, Aztecs, Persians and Egyptians. Despite what I just said, I find the Aztec Jag rush to be very powerful, and can do that quite happily - actually I think I'll start another thread for that).

[metalhead]

Why wait to research Iron Working? Just because you know where the Iron is doesn't mean you have to hook it up. Your best bet with Rome is to go right for Iron Working so you can find out where the Iron is, and make sure to get it in a city's initial 9 tile radius. Keep pumping out warriors and barracks, and connecting all of your cities with roads. When you have your 30 warriors built, all you have to do is direct your worker to build a road on the Iron, upgrade, and stomp. Don't wait to research Iron Working, because the AI knows where the Iron is from the beginning of the game, and if you don't get it early enough, the AI will have claimed it already.

[Arrian]

My favorites are Egypt, Japan and China. I have a soft spot in my heart for the Babs, but rarely play them anymore. Occasionally I will play as Hiawatha, to feel the rush of the 3-1-2 wave of death.

Of the new civs, I like the Celts well enough and the Ottomans are ok, but most of them I don't think much of.

-Arrian

[joncnunn]

Best: Babylon. Scientific + Religious rules! Just build 1 or 2 Bow Men, keep them out of harms way until your ready to have your GA or else build the Great Libary and one of numerous Ancient and early Middle Age Religious Wonders.

Second Best: Egypt. Industrious + Religious! Build the WCs, but upgrade them to better units up to and including Calvary until you have your GA.

Third Best : Ottomans, Industrious & Scientific with an 8 Attack unit against the Riflemen. Useful until Infentry appear and excelent timing for a GA as well.

Fourth Best: Persia. Same excelent traight combos as the Ottomans, but with a less valuable UU. Yes, you can kill a lot with 4 Attack in the ancient era, but you may trigure your GA earlier than desired as well.

Fifth Best: China. Mostly for the Industrious, but in addition, the movement of 3 Rider is excelent for a Civ Killing UU, if you've turned culutre-relating starts OFF. (Otherwise your up against another Knight Replacement)

The next three are America, France, and Celts for the powerful Industrious traight.

(I'm not exactly faimilar with the other PTW civs traights, place them in the first category you see)

The next group of civs would be the other Religious + something else civ for the highly useful Religious traight.
(Japan, Irq., Aztecs, India)

The following group would be the remaining Scientfic + something else civ for the noteworthy Scienfic traight.
(Germany, Russia, Greece)

The next couple would be the the other Militerertic civs. (Zulu, Rome)

At the very bottom is England. Expansionist + Commerical + UU obsolete by the time built.

[self biased]

i second the vote for babylon.. although, the UU kinda sucks ass.

[Brizey]

Note: my comments are based on playing a warmongering style. Since the topic is "Best Civilization", I assume that the goal is to win the game with a high score, which means going out and kicking arse. If you are not playing to kick butt, then it is hard to argue that any civilization is "better" than another. BTW, I like to play a builder game occasionally--this is not an diatribe against builders.

I still don't see why everyone is so enamored with Religious. I'm a GL builder, so I usually just switch to Republic when I get from the GL and call it a day. If your empire doesn't fall apart when you switch to Communism, then you haven't conquered enough cities by the time you get it. And Democracy is too small of an increment. I only switch if playing a religious civ, and hardly notice the difference.

The cheap temples are nice, but a marketplace and 5 luxuries is better than a Cathedral. I'd rather have the cheap marketplace. Build Cathedrals with factories. This is a bit tougher on emperor.

I like commerical, militaristic, and industrious.

Commerical so that you can push a big empire in the Industrial age. The addition of the Stock Exchange further strengthened this trait.

Militaristic for the extra leaders and better ranked units. Plus cheap barracks. ST is only good for the armor age. Most of your knights and cavalry are upgraded horseman that were built before you had ST.

Industrious so that your captured workers are worth a poop, and so that you can use roads as an early war effort enhancer. I have noticed that in my industrious games, I get a much bigger jump when I switch to Republic, because my infrastructure is ahead. The early roads also help in the REX phase.

My style of play is the typical "Four by Two Rush". In other words, I attack two civilizations in each of the four fast moving unit eras (horseman, knights, cavalry, and tanks). My tank era tends to blend right into the modern armor era. I may also throw in a little oscillating war by attacking a previously weakened civ that has a tech I want.

What about Science? The best part is the cheap libraries if you need the culture. The extra techs can be bought several times over by a Commerical civ with lots of marketplaces. If you can build the Colossus and the GL on emperor, then my hat is off to you. But you will probably miss the horseman rush phase and get creamed in the Medieval era by a knight-based UU.

I guess in the end I don't think maxing out culture is all that important in a warmonger game.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by Datajack Franit
Lord Merciless, you can actually use Branwen and play with her (Baldur's Gate of course)

Of course I know. My parties generally have her.

It's nice to know another BG fan here. Have you played its sequals?

[Brizey]

Oh, and one more thing. Now that archers can be upgraded to Berserks, the Scandavians can be way tough on an arch map. Beeline to Invention, pre-build Leonardos and upgrade 20-30 archers to Berserks (you did save up that gold, right?). Load them onto 10-15 tiremes you built and go conquer 10-15 coastal cities. Then regroup, upgrade to caravels, and conquer another 10 to 15 or so with the 30-40 Berzerks you now have with your GA. They kick rear all the way to Nationalism. After you conquer all of a civ's coastal cities, make a SOD, then hammer that inland capital with SC or ST.

You can even use them as a defensive unit. In the Caravel age, boats are skewed towards defense. So load a few Caravels with Berzerks and patrol your coast. You can hammer landing parties. Because caravels defend at two, and no boats attack at two until Frigates, they survive most attacks.

The downside is the expansionist trait on an arch map, but three or four leaders makes up for it.

[joncnunn]

My highest scoring game (raw) was Babylon. Culture is a factor in addition to territory, and I was able to build quite a lot of culutre from the quick culture builds while still having the well timed Chivary rush vs Knights & MusketMen to clear out my starting contienant.

There's no traight that makes market places cheaper to build. If there were, I'd vote for that tech in a heart beat as the best traight, but for some reason Civ III designeers merely increased the OCN number for Commerical civs (plus the bonus of all of 1 gold for each Metroplex)

On Emperor level, I don't consider it a choice between Market Places & Catherdrials for cities growing past 6. BOTH are needed. (Either to maintiang order if you don't get enough luxaries, or else for WLTPD to increase producation when the luxarires + Market Place is sufficent to maintaign order.

Industrious is probably the single most powerful traight/

All Comercial has done for empires is boost the OCN 25%, so your empire can be all of 25% bigger before the outermost city is totally corrupt. A much larger increase (say a 100% increase) would be needed to make it worth while.

In my last game as China, which is miliateous, I produced a large # of Elite MA, but never did get a GL the entire game even during the large stacks of Elite MA against the AI. I found the half cost Harbors useful though given that most of my cities were coastal.

I find that I don't need the Great Libary to keep up with techs on Emperor level. I just research at 1 beaker a turn, and pay the AI in GPT until I have the FP. (Much cheaper than actually researching on Emperor level, and until the FP is built, a lot of cash needed for science is being wasted.) A bonus is when the AI isn't going at the max rate and you to get to sell Monarchy which only cost you 40 beakers to reserach for all the techs the AI has. (And should the AI make the mistake of decalaring war, I don't have to pay my debt and get to keep my reptuation intact.) I build the Colosus to increase my cash flow for the buying of more techs.

Originally posted by Brizey
The cheap temples are nice, but a marketplace and 5 luxuries is better than a Cathedral. I'd rather have the cheap marketplace. Build Cathedrals with factories. This is a bit tougher on emperor.

I like commerical, militaristic, and industrious.

Commerical so that you can push a big empire in the Industrial age. The addition of the Stock Exchange further strengthened this trait.

Militaristic for the extra leaders and better ranked units. Plus cheap barracks. ST is only good for the armor age. Most of your knights and cavalry are upgraded horseman that were built before you had ST.

Industrious so that your captured workers are worth a poop, and so that you can use roads as an early war effort enhancer. I have noticed that in my industrious games, I get a much bigger jump when I switch to Republic, because my infrastructure is ahead. The early roads also help in the REX phase.

My style of play is the typical "Four by Two Rush". In other words, I attack two civilizations in each of the four fast moving unit eras (horseman, knights, cavalry, and tanks). My tank era tends to blend right into the modern armor era. I may also throw in a little oscillating war by attacking a previously weakened civ that has a tech I want.

What about Science? The best part is the cheap libraries if you need the culture. The extra techs can be bought several times over by a Commerical civ with lots of marketplaces. If you can build the Colossus and the GL on emperor, then my hat is off to you. But you will probably miss the horseman rush phase and get creamed in the Medieval era by a knight-based UU.

I guess in the end I don't think maxing out culture is all that important in a warmonger game.