Which Civ are you playing right now?

[Zero]

After playing China/Iroquois/Aztecs to death, Ive been trying all sorts of civs lately. I was surprised to find that I really liked civs such as Russia, America and other civs that arent wuite as popular. I've also noticed they have their own unique advantages that I havent noticed before.

My recent games have all been arabs. They are extremly fun to play as after you get over the fact that they are iroquois with weaker riders. In fact theyre actually more than that. I found that I have been underestimating the -10 cost all this time. Upgrade to a horsemen to ansar is 20 gold cheaper than to knights in Regent, and building an ansar in 3 turns as opposed to 4 turns during your GA is pretty neat.

I found that the low defense isnt really a downside cause your ansars dont get attacked much due to increased manuverbility. Most likely you would counter attack most of the units before they even have a chance of approaching you and return right back into the stack of doom anyway. And I find that for once elite knight defending over veteran pikemen fiasco being resolved as a little postive side to actually lowering the defense.

[Nor Me]

Zulus. They're not the best civ but if you can use them to get a good enough start, you should be able to win easily. Two early traits and an early decent UU with a potential early GA sometimes work together. You can be too weighted for an early advantage but if you can manage not to waste it then you're fine.
In this game, I've managed to avoid the early GA. Taking an enemy capital with just two archers helped.

OTOH no-one should underestimate the Arabs. The Americans are definately in the top 4 civs possibly in the top 1.

[vulture]

I'm trying my first game as the Americans at the moment, and as others have noticed, they are a much stronger civ than you might expect, simply because they can lay claim to a lot of land very quickly. On Emperor I've managed to stay #1 in both territory and population for the whole ancient era (normally I manage #1 in territory, but much lower in population).

Having happy, peaceful civs like India, Greece and the Ottomans as neighbours helps of course.

[Arrian]

Currently playing Germany. I finished a game as Babylon and decided to stick with the Scientific trait, since it's been so long since I've used it*. Plus, I've never gotten to use Panzers. And hey, I'm supposedly this big warmonger, but I've never really played Germany (with the ignoble exception of any early minitourney on Emperor in which I was soundly trounced).

They aren't going to become one of my favorites, but I'm doing well. Early warfare (archers) netted me tons of slaves (5 settler teams whacked, 1 worker stolen, 2 more taken for peace) and 2 GLs (Pyramids, Great Library) and later (late ancient/early medieval) warfare netted me 4 more (Palace move, Army, Leos, Heroic Epic). Though I'm in a dominant position, making contact with the other continent has shown me that I do have actual competition over there (Egypt is pretty badass), which is good, since I actually want to use my Panzers. First, however, I have to wipe out Joany with my Cavalry (shouldn't be an issue, since she has pikes to try to stop them with) before she can make contact and tell the other civs what a jerk I've been.

-Arrian

* - It is still my opinion that Scientific isn't all that powerful, but it's really nice if you already have a lead... it extends that lead. I'm still using 1.14, btw.

[Dominae]

The Zulus rock until they get humiliated by the Americans (see Strat 4 PBEM, thread 2)...




Dominae

[Dominae]

Originally posted by vulture
I'm trying my first game as the Americans at the moment, and as others have noticed...

Blatant self-reference:

Civ-Specific Strategy: Americans




Dominae

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

I'm playing as the Arabs right now. A great civ! Good for REXing, expanding culture, and making war... good traits and UU for triggering a GA at a number of different times. I'm not sure how they'd fare at a higher level, but on regent they give you a lot of choices.

My only regret is that they're not commercial. I'd like to put those Ansars to real use but I started way up north and the rest of the continent seems so far away. Corruption will be an issue...

[Arrian]

Wow, Dominae, I forgot what a good thread that was (yeah, I just re-read the whole thing ). Even the two different threadjacks - both of which were my fault

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Arrian
Wow, Dominae, I forgot what a good thread that was (yeah, I just re-read the whole thing ). Even the two different threadjacks - both of which were my fault

Because of you and some PBEM games, I have a greater respect for Culture now...still not that great, but you did have an effect. And all this because of an Americans thread!


Dominae

[Arrian]

Sweet!

I don't build temples quite as aggressively as I used to, by the way. You made me stop and think about just automatically building them right away. Now, I think to myself "ok Rob, do you really need that temple now, or maybe a couple of extra warriors, then a settler, and THEN a temple?" Which way works best for the overall growth of my civ? The result has been that I still build the temples, and still build 'em early, but not quite as early as I once did.

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Arrian
I don't build temples quite as aggressively as I used to, by the way.

So we both "won" that argument. That is sweet.




Dominae

[Purple]

I have made it a point to play each civ until I win at least once. So far I've met that goal, with one exception. I'm currently playing the Vikings, and it finally looks like I will achieve a victory. To get to this point I had to abandon many, many games, when I was getting ground into the dust.

Maybe it's my playstyle, maybe it's the beserk UU, or maybe it's just the luck of the draw in terms of starting positions. At any rate, for me, the Vikings are the toughest civ to play.

[Arrian]

I still have never played as England, Russia, Zululand, Korea, Spain, Vikings, and the Arabs*

*I did have an abortive Arab game that was killed due to my comp crashing, and there was my (again, abortive) start go AU202.

Now that I'm on my way to a solid German win (UP, actually), I may actually go and play some of the civs I don't like, such as the English, just to do it. I did that with the Mongols, and things went pretty well (though I still don't like that trait combo, or the UU, to be honest).

-Arrian

[inca911]

Originally posted by Arrian
I don't build temples quite as aggressively as I used to, by the way. You made me stop and think about just automatically building them right away. Now, I think to myself "ok Rob, do you really need that temple now, or maybe a couple of extra warriors, then a settler, and THEN a temple?" The result has been that I still build the temples, and still build 'em early, but not quite as early as I once did.

-Arrian

Same here. Except that I will first rush a temple in a city if it's a border city. I want as much culture as possible to encourage an AI city to flip.

Right now, I'm finishing an Emperor game and the random civ selection gave me the Japanese on a small land mass Pangea. It's been a while since I played the Japanese, and Samurai are now overrunning the world. The Zulu were stupid enough to declare war early on (the AI saw it had more troops and attacked, too bad much of my smaller army were Swordsmen!). The Persians are the only ones left and the end is near since a horse raid pillaged their only link to Saltpeter. Arrian the Warmonger would be proud of the destruction the Japanese have caused....

[Jaybe]

I have been playing Random for several months, but have been playing Rome for the past couple games. I appreciate my Legions doing road projects, and keep a few even into modern times.

Legions (in my mod) can build roads & forts but the AI would probably not use those capabilities, so I might as well make use of them myself.