Civ Choice

[Aidun]

I've been reading a review and I can't believe how different the game seems, compared to vanilla civ4, with whih I'm familiar (I haven't bought Warlords). So I'll have to get it.

That said, I like the Byzantines and if the Mongols haven't changed much, I think I can go with Kublai Khan. In any case I like a civ with which to conquer.

I have mostly forgotten what Expansionist, Imperialist and Agressive mean. In Vanilla Civ 4 I liked the English a lot.

Perhaps you can help me a bit until I have the time and money to get used to BtS.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Strictly off top of my head.

Expansionist

+ health in cities, cheaper granaries, cheaper something else IIRC as well, but forgetting.


Imperialist
Cheaper settlers, forgetting rest.

Agressive

Free combat I on footsoldiers, cheaper barracks.

Charismatic:
Units need less xp to get promotions, monuments give +1 happy, forgetting rest. (free +1 happy in all cities?)

Protective:
Free drill and city defender upgrades to ranged units, forgetting rest.

[Krill]

[q=Uno]Expansionist

+ health in cities, cheaper granaries, cheaper something else IIRC as well, but forgetting.[/q]

+2 health in cities, half price granaries (and harbours iirc), +25% to hammers when building workers (can slave it out 2 turns earlier). Uber trait if we want to grow and then kill someone

[q=UnO]Imperialist
Cheaper settlers, forgetting rest.[/q]

+50% hammers when building settlers, +100% to great general emergence Not a particulary brilliant trait, as workers are much more important to improve a city you already have than building a city that streches your defenses in the early game.

Charismatic:
Units need less xp to get promotions, monuments give +1 happy, forgetting rest. (free +1 happy in all cities?)

Something like that.

Exp/Cre is pretty much one of the best trait combos in MP right now. The UB gives +1 food and the UU is an elepahnt that attacks mounted units first on attack brokenly powerful

Agg/Cre is just warmonger traits UU and UB aren't particulary brilliant though.

[notyoueither]

My preference would be to play a civ that gives a better shot at winning. I'm sorry, but the amount of time invested in these things does not lend itself to random, for me.

I could be content with ruling out the ones that would cripple us in MP. and picking lots from the rest. After all, there's a certain amount of chance in the map generator, and you're never enitrely sure.

[Locutus]

So if I read this right we have 3 people in favour of random civs (Uno, HT and me), 3 who prefer picking a specific one that gives us the best chance to win (Krill, Aidun, nye). I guess we need more of the team to chime in on this one

If we do go for a specific one (or randomly pick from a short list), I say let's take one that was introduced in BtS, this is the BtS DG after all and we have several members who seem to have little or no experience with it. Of those, the Khmer are definitely among my favourites too (then again, my favourites tend to be based on what I invested the most time in as far as coming up with the UU, UB and city list, rather than what has the best traits and such )

[Aidun]

Not necessarily a new civ but at least one that brings something new. An older civ with new characteristics is equally ok for me.

I'm ok with making a short list of say 3 civs and then doing the random choice. Seems like a nice compromise to me.

But I am in a high need to go for some winning for a time. And I want a civ that is able to do some proper fighting but has a good production as well. Afterall in Civ, many wars are not won on the battlefield, but through a superior economy.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Unfortunately, the longer I play CIV, the more I think "superior economy" is largely based on who gets the better terrain.

Or more appropriately, the person playing adjusting their economy to fit the terrain they get. (specialist economy vs standard economy, horizontal vs vertical growth, whip or not, etc)

[Krill]

Actually that's true, and has been the bane of many a game of mine (well, in MP anyway, when you can't afford to not get an army...)

I think picking 5-6 civs that would be good to play with and than randomising it would be fine. But we don't have any point choosing those civs until we know the map, but we should atleast start discussing which civs people would like to see in the pot and why.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Yes, lacking hammers in MP can be a real short game.

As I said, I'ld like to see anyone new.

I keep seeing Khmer listed. It fits my preference of being a new civ just fine.

[Aidun]

Perhaps those of you more familiar with BTS could make that selection? At this point, I can't give more imput than what I've provided until now as a result of lacking knowledge.

[Solomwi]

Keep in mind that the following is from a primarily SP player trying to look at it from an MP perspective.

The drawback to the Khmer is that their brokenly powerful UU requires ivory. Get ivory, though, and it's like a shutdown cornerback, taking away an entire facet of the opponent's game. Aside from the ivory dependence, I like them a lot. Both UU and UB come early enough to matter, and I'll defer to Krill on the traits.

Kublai seems to me to bring quite a bit to the table, as well, and horses are more reliable than ivory. He's the same as he was in Warlords, though.

Pericles is new and Cre, and the Phalanx has been changed to an axeman with +100% defense against chariots, but I don't know how valuable Phi is in MP.

Gilgamesh has a decent UU (Vulture: str 6 axeman, but only +25% vs. melee) and UB (Ziggurat: courthouse available with Priesthood), generally speaking, and is Cre. His second trait is Pro, which ordinarily doesn't excite me, but may be more valuable in MP.

Joao's traits might be useful (Exp/Imp), but the UU (Carrack: caravel with 2 unconstrained cargo spaces) and UB (Feitoria: customs house (+100% commerce from intercontinental foreign routes) that gives +1 commerce to water tiles) require coastal access and don't show up terribly early.

Pacal piques my interest a bit, starting with mysticism in case we wanted to go for an early religion, and being Exp/Fin (is there any kind of rule/gentleman's agreement about Fin civs?). His UU is a resourceless spearman, though, and if the map's balanced, having metal shouldn't be a problem. His UB is a colosseum with 2 extra happy faces. Strong effect, but how often do colosseums get built in MP?

Darius is an economic powerhouse, in SP at least, with Fin/Org, and has the ever popular Immortal at his disposal.

Zara Yaqob starts with hunting and mining, has what should be a nice trait combo Cre/Org, and has an early UB (Stele: monument with +25% culture). His UU (Oromo: musketman with 1 first strike, starts with Drill I & II, immune to first strikes) doesn't come until gunpowder, though.

Stalin is Agg/Ind, and I think everybody is already familiar with the Cossack and Research Institute from earlier versions.

Same with Lincoln (Phi/Cha). I like the Cha trait, but suspect that it's somewhat less useful in MP, at least on the top end of the XP scale, since units probably don't live as long as in SP. The UU/UB are extremely late, though.

I have no idea how Sitting Bull's traits (Pro/Phi) play in MP, but his UU (Dog Soldier: str 4 axeman, resouceless, +100% vs. melee) and UB (Totem pole: monument, +3 xp for archery units) are interesting. The UB in particular meshes nicely with Pro for CGIIIDI (or, obviously, CGIDIII, etc.) archers out of the box with barracks and totem pole, but again, I'll defer to the more experienced MP players on the value of that.

[AndiD]

Just a few cents from my very limited Civ4 experience. I did one game with Pacal already and the Colosseum quelled any war weariness I had from an early-midgame attack on Monty next door. Exp/Fin was extremely powerful overall. (++ Health und ++ Happy => more growth, more whipping, more war)

And Sitting Bull seems to scream Specialist Economy all over the place (in SP, in MP maybe not ^^) and is the only (?) Civ allowing CGIII without an Oracle-Feudalism slingshot.

Darius is a candidate for one of my next games.

[Krill]

Traits are always better to judge a civ on than UU (at least the resource requiring UUs) because you always have the traits, whereas you may lack the resource. Even judging on that criteria, Khmer are awesome, with the 2 best traits in the game, the UU is just a bonus tbh.

The Mayans are nice, only problem is the lack of Cre (cheap libraries to some extent offset lack of Fin). The resourceless spear does mean they aren't going to get chariot rushed, which is definately nice.

Charismatic is actually a really useful trait due to the extra happiness, especially due to the lowering of the happy caps in BtS. The only reason I wouldn't pick a charismtic civ is because while they are pretty much all nice civs none of them are powerhouse civs (unless you do succede in rushing with one of them, then a couple are spectacular, but I'd never pick a civ purely on their ability to rush, which is why I wouldn't pick Zulu, but I would pick Hatsheput.)

Sitting bull is definately the one civ above all I wouldn't pick. Sure you get a nice resourceless strength 4 axe, that can't kill anything on attack apart from warriors. Normal axes can be used to kill archers if you get choked but you can't get odds with dog soldiers. And the traits are crap. Roosevelt is better IMO.

[Solomwi]

Yeah, that kind of morphed from "leaders I might want us to play" into just throwing the new leaders out there for those unfamiliar with them about midway through, so don't take any of it as more than idle thought. I agree fully on weighting the traits heavier than UU/UB, and would be more than happy with the Khmer. If the map is balanced, even the ivory requirement won't be near the concern it might in a random game.

I hadn't thought about fighting off a choke (part of that SP thing), so that leaves the only thing SB brings to the table as a Donegeal in every city. Meh.

[OliverFA]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
Charismatic:
Units need less xp to get promotions, monuments give +1 happy, forgetting rest. (free +1 happy in all cities?)

IMHO sooner or later we will have to fight a war or wars against someone. Charismatic trait will help us taking better profit from those wars. Very often a unit with higher promotion level is the difference between winning or losing a battle. We want our armies to be far more effective.

Ad for the second trait, the other important pilar of a winning civilization is a healthy economy. So Financial/Organized is the way to go. That way we will have a good trait for war and a good trait for peace.