Picking the right Civ!

[Sava]

I'm sure many players are starting to find what kind of Civs are best for their own type of play. Here are my thoughts. I listed the Civ bonuses in their order of importance.

1. Industrious - The most important bonus. You can build stuff faster. Workers work faster also.

I would strongly recommend picking any civ with this bonus. It also makes it easier to IFE http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=33292 .

2. Commercial - Less corruption overall (very helpful). Extra commerce in city squares.

A must for players who like to expand. The distance from the palace where corruption reaches 100% is longer for commercial Civ's. Courthouses also are more effective in these cities.

For players looking to expand and dominate the world, be France. They are the only Civ with those two characteristics. It might be tempting to pick a Militaristic or Scientific Civ for conquering the world, but in the long run, the extra commerce and less corruption are more helpful than the other bonuses.

If you hate being France, pick a Civ with Industrious and one of these other attributes.

3 (tie). Militaristic - Promotions are more frequent, military buildings cost less.

The promotion thing is the best part of this. Armies are unstoppable at full strength against single units. The reason I think that the Commerical attribute is better is because once you build a barracks, your units are already veterans, they only can be promoted to elite and then to leader. And the heroic epic gives enough of a bonus for non-militaristic Civs. If you use IFE http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=33292 then the bonus for military buildings is moot. Plus, using IFE is a great way to build armies (after you build Military Academy).

3 (tie). Religious - Religous improvements cost less. One turn of anarchy during revolutions.

This attribute is better for players going for the cultural victory. But the bonuses are nice. I suppose if you change governments a lot, this would be good. Overall, its a weak attribute.

4. Scientific - Free tech at beginning of era, science buildings cost less.

At first I thought this was a good attribute, but I realized that the bonuses from Commercial Civs made up for the science bonus. The free tech is nice, but I don't have any problems waiting an extra 6 or 7 turns for an advance at the beginning of an era. This attribute provides no advantage until you can build libraries. Don't pick this attribute, it's a waste.

5. Expansionistic. - Begins game with a scout, barbarians villages give more booty.

This is the most pathetic attribute. Again, I thought this would be a good one for me because I expand like crazy, but it doesn't provide any advantages in terms of building settlers. Also, the scout unit sucks ass. After about 20 turns, I just trade maps. I haven't been able to get more than 4 or 5 barbarian villages anyways. They usually give tech advances more often with Expansionistic Civs, but you are much better off with the Commercial attribute. Avoid this attribute at all costs.

Again, this is just my opinion on the importance of the Civ abilities, feel free to post your experiences and opinions. I'd like to hear other players' take on my strategies. If you are an expansionistic war monger like me, pick France. The combination of Industrious and Commercial abilities makes conquering the world a lot easier.

[Sikander]

In general I agree with your rankings, though I rank religious and scientific higher than industrious. I think commercial is definitely the most valuable of the traits. Who doesn't like that extra commerce, and how many people need extra help combatting corruption?

I have been playing India recently, and I like the religious attribute. Temples are dirt cheap, which means I can crank them out of new towns while I am waiting to grow to 3 population in the early game. This allows my towns to start spreading their borders very quickly, which is a great benefit in the land rush phase of the game. Later on, you get cathedrals which cost less than libraries. Getting these unhappiness alleviating buildings up is especially important at higher difficulty levels. Finally, the ability to switch governments without suffering prolonged periods of anarchy saves me 2-8 turns a game, which is substantial, and realisticly allows me the option to switch governments (say from Democracy to Communism for that big war) throughout the game.

Scientific is a similar benefit, in that it allows you a (later) advantage in building your science type buildings. This helps both science and culture, which is not a bad deal. Additionally you get an advance at the beginning of each epoch, which again is pretty sweet.

The only useful advantage to industrious is the faster workers, which is pretty good. The bonus shields come too late (cities and metropolis) to have a large impact. The rest are crap more or less in my builder's opinion.

[Diety]

Apparently Soul Assasin and I came to the same conclusion : France is the way to go in CIV III.
Too bad I don't like the French in real life (I'm flemish), but the picture of Jean d'Arc makes up for that.

BTW Anyone seen the movie "The Messenger" about the life of Jean d'Arc with the gorgeous Milla Jovovich in the title rol ? Once you've seen that movie all your real life reasons not to play the French disappear
But I'm getting off topic here

Anyway : industrial is important, both for the faster buildings AND the faster workers. These are the two best bonuses in the game and you get them both with one characteristic.
So industrial is way ahead of all the other bonuses.

For the second, there are two options.
- Commercial is very good for the corruption, although this is misunderstood by many players. Apparently it only affects the corruption made by the distance to the palace, not the corruption for alot of cities. The one extra commerce in the city square is usefull, but not that much.

- Religious is the one and only option for the cultural victory, although I highly doubt that this kind of victory is possible on higher difficulty levels.
Seal the borders with culture in the land-rush phase ? Sorry, but by the time your border towns have 10 turn temples, the damn AI has already planted a new city between them...
This make people happier in a cheaper way, that's true. But what good are happy people when they're corrupt ? Who needs a 12-size city without production or scince ? It looks nice, but it doesn't add anything useful. Except culture ofcours.
If you wanne go for culture, this is the way. Else stay away from this.

The others are sdimply not as good as these two, IMHO.

- Militaristic : more promotions ??? Who needs promotions with barracks ? The one or two extra leaders you're gonne get are cool ofcours, but not that great...
- Scientific : science buildings cost a less ? And how many science buildings you're gonne use in the entire game ? 50 ? And you're giving less corruption away for that ? Forget about this thing...

The rest is not even worth the time to type about it

Anyway : the French are the way to go on higher difficulty levels. See the cute Jean d'Arc as a bonus

[Kissinger]

Yeah the french are good but I just can't bring myself to be them

I like the romans. The legionary really allows you to dominate an early war and you get commercial bonuses.

[Sava]

Originally posted by Sikander
In general I agree with your rankings, though I rank religious and scientific higher than industrious. I think commercial is definitely the most valuable of the traits. Who doesn't like that extra commerce, and how many people need extra help combatting corruption?

I have been playing India recently, and I like the religious attribute. Temples are dirt cheap, which means I can crank them out of new towns while I am waiting to grow to 3 population in the early game. This allows my towns to start spreading their borders very quickly, which is a great benefit in the land rush phase of the game. Later on, you get cathedrals which cost less than libraries. Getting these unhappiness alleviating buildings up is especially important at higher difficulty levels. Finally, the ability to switch governments without suffering prolonged periods of anarchy saves me 2-8 turns a game, which is substantial, and realisticly allows me the option to switch governments (say from Democracy to Communism for that big war) throughout the game.

Scientific is a similar benefit, in that it allows you a (later) advantage in building your science type buildings. This helps both science and culture, which is not a bad deal. Additionally you get an advance at the beginning of each epoch, which again is pretty sweet.

The only useful advantage to industrious is the faster workers, which is pretty good. The bonus shields come too late (cities and metropolis) to have a large impact. The rest are crap more or less in my builder's opinion.

I agree that if you are going for a cultural victory, religious would be better, but for the sake of massing military units (conquering the world), industrious is better. Read my thread on IFE. The faster workers really help out with that. http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=33292

IFE basically adds 10-20 shields per turn to any city. And it isn't affected by corruption.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

5. Expansionistic. - Begins game with a scout, barbarians villages give more booty.

This is the most pathetic attribute. Again, I thought this would be a good one for me because I expand like crazy, but it doesn't provide any advantages in terms of building settlers. Also, the scout unit sucks ass. After about 20 turns, I just trade maps. I haven't been able to get more than 4 or 5 barbarian villages anyways. They usually give tech advances more often with Expansionistic Civs, but you are much better off with the Commercial attribute. Avoid this attribute at all costs.

In the long run, Expansionist sux. But in the short run, I think that it is excellent. When REX-ing, the scout lets you scout out future city sites, so your worker can immediatly build a road there to speed up your settler. RES-ing requires the knoweldge of future city sites and the ability to speed your settlers there early.

I don't like to exchange maps with other civs, becuase then they are more likely to send in settlers and settle in some crappy spot 2 tiles away from your capital. I wait till all my ciites have a radius or 2 borders, and then trade, so I can boot out the trespassers.

For me, Industrious/Expansionist is the way to go.

[HalfLotus]

I really like religious. Seems that in the industrial/moderns ages, I swicth to and from demo. when I fight wars.
The free scientific tech always ends up being a tech from the previous age that I didnt want anyway (amphibious warfare anyone?)
As far as starting with scouts, I feel like my first couple of warriors do plenty of scouting for me, and they can take out barbarians. I'm not going to scout for cities VERY far from my capitol because of corruption.

[monkspider]

Expansionist isn't bad at all IMHO, it gives you a huge advantage during those crucial first few turns. An advantage that will pay great dividends for the rest of the game.

[cavebear]

So far, I really appreciate having an industrious people, though I haven't decided which other characteristic I prefer with industriousness. The Chinese seem a good choice, and I like the Romans, too. Haven't tried Americans or French yet.

"Industrious" should not be overlooked. Those Workers can really irrigate and build roads quickly, and the return for connecting your cities and developing the city-squares is considerable!

So far, getting a city to size 5 using the best resource squares, then keeping the city turning out a settler every out settlers each time it gets to 5 again, is working well.

I have a suspicion that in a month or two, there are only going to be 3 or 4 generally-prefferred civs.

[Master Marcus]

I definitely agree the 2 most important attributes are Industrious and Commercial - so aside the French , you are O.K. also if picking any other civ having one of those 2. The less important is Expansionist; but as for the others: Religious, Scientific, Militaristic they are equally good depending of your gameplay style. A warmonger should consider Militaristic of course - but is this really useful at bringing more Leaders ?? I liked playing the Scientific Greeks - that extra free tech you earn gives you an edge at trading some techs for a fair amount of gold enough to rushbuild, thus compensating for the attributes you don't have. I like Religious even if I don't want a cultural victory: no extended anarchy. ( despotism to Monarchy, Monarchy to Republic, Republic to Democracy: let's suppose you make "only" 3 Gov changes in the game, that means you save at least 15-20 turns of productivity - enough difference at a higher difficulty level for building an additional wonder, etc...).

Overall, the civs attributes doesn't really change the gameplay - the map size+ number of civs have much more impact.

[Sava]

Originally posted by monkspider
Expansionist isn't bad at all IMHO, it gives you a huge advantage during those crucial first few turns. An advantage that will pay great dividends for the rest of the game.

All Expansionist does is give the scout unit and give bonuses for barbarian villages. A free tech in the beginning of the game isn't as good as having extra commerce and less corruption. And the scout unit isn't a huge advantage. Sure, its nice to explore quickly, but it doesn't effect how fast my next city is built.

[Growler]

For players looking to expand and dominate the world, be France. They are the only Civ with those two characteristics. It might be tempting to pick a Militaristic or Scientific Civ for conquering the world, but in the long run, the extra commerce and less corruption are more helpful than the other bonuses.

I prefer to be the Germans (Militaristic, Scientific), and then conquer France. I keep the captured French workers segregated from the rest of my population, and make good use of them.

[monkspider]

Originally posted by SoulAssassin


All Expansionist does is give the scout unit and give bonuses for barbarian villages. A free tech in the beginning of the game isn't as good as having extra commerce and less corruption. And the scout unit isn't a huge advantage. Sure, its nice to explore quickly, but it doesn't effect how fast my next city is built.

Actually you'd be surprised how many free Cities you get with Expansionist civs and their enhanced goodie huts.

[aziyan]

Hi
I think expansionalist is very good in huge map. I played in huge map at the level below deity (i guess emperor bu tnot sure) and use four scouts to find out the huts. At around 1600 BC, I finish all the possible sciences in ancient era without trading any with other civs. Also by this way, I can able to build nearly all the important wonders in the ancient era for me (great library, pyamids, hanging garden, sun tzu's academy) since the time other civs can find the advance I already started the wonders.
I prefer playing with Iroquis(religious, expansionalist) because of the cheaper temples and no lost during the change of goverments. Since I only build 25-30 cities, palace and forbidden city can solve my corruption problems. I expand like an elipse and have my capital and forbidden place in the centers which solve all the corruption problems. I think militaristic and industrious civs are the worst. Worker bonus is very useful but since I build workers in every city in the beginning it is not useful for me at all. Also The cities with 12 population cannot grow anymore ( Finding hospital takes hell lot of time) so I built a lot of workers to do all the jobs.

[Xin Yu]

Some math:

Scientific civ: starts with Bronze working, value = 3, can build Colossus. Greek can build Hoplite at start.
Industrious civ: starts with Masonry(walls, palace), value = 4, can build Pyramids.
Commercial civ: starts with Alphabet, value=5.
Expansionest civ: starts with Pottery (grannary), value=2.
Militaristic civ type 1 (Japan only): starts with Wheel (special resource horse), value=4.
Militaristic civ type II: starts with Warrior code, value=3.
Religious civ: starts with Ceremonial burial (temple), value=2.

Value = research cost and negotiating value when trading techs.

Obviously the civ with industrious+commecial has the highest starting value (4+5). Furthermore, Industrious allows building a wonder as well. However, since you almost always use the first 32 turns for your first tech, a 3+4 or 3+5 is not that bad, either. For example, a scientific+industrious civ can build both wonders at the beginning, and can set alphabet to be the first tech to research so it won't be bad.

Expansionist, although only has a starting value of 2, can research Map making as its first tech, thus grab a value=12 tech in 32 turns. If your expansionist civ can contact other civs quickly, then your value 12 tech is going to worth a lot in trading. (Edit: I was wrong. Map making requires other prerequisites. Thus, expansionist was not good).

Religious seems to be the worst.