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**notyoueither** · January 8, 2006, 19:10

Current Voting for Civ Leader:

Mansa Musa 21: Arrian 3, dejon 2, DeepO 1, Krill 3, Aro 2, Dominae 3, Theseus 3, Solomwi 2, asleepathewheel 1, vmxa1 1
Saladin 18: dejon 3, DeepO 3, Aro 3, Dominae 1, Theseus 1, Solomwi 3, NicodaMax 2, Blake 2
Qin Shi Huang 11: Arrian 2, Krill 2, Dominae 2, asleepathewheel 2, vmxa1 2, Blake 1
Montezuma 8: DeepO 2, Theseus 2, NicodaMax 1, vmxa1 3
Elizabeth 4: Arrian 1, asleepathewheel 3
Alexander 4: Solomwi 1, Blake 3
Asoka 4: dejon 1, NicodaMax 3
Isabella 2: Krill 1, Aro 1

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Arrian: 1. Mansa Musa, 2. Qin, 3. Elizabeth
dejon: 1) Saladin, 2) Mansa Musa, 3) Asoka
DeepO: 1. Saladin, 2. Montezuma, 3. Mansa Musa
Krill: 1. Mansa Musa, 2. Qin, 3. Izzy
Aro: 1. Saladin, 2. Mansa Musa, 3. Isabella
Dominae: 1. Mansa, 2. Qin, 3. Saladin
Theseus: 1. Mansa Musa, 2. Montezuma, 3. Saladin
Solomwi: 1. Saladin, 2. Mansa Musa, 3. Alexander
asleepathewheel: 1. Elizabeth, 2. Qin, 3. Mansa
NicodaMax: 1. Asoka, 2. Saladin, 3. Montezuma
vmxa1: 1. Montezuma, 2. Qin She Huang, 3. Mansa Musa
Blake: 1) Alexander, 2) Saladin, 3) Qin

**notyoueither** · January 8, 2006, 19:12

My general approach to a new game is leader more than civ. I find the traits are the largest factor in the game, followed by either starting techs and or UU (those are more map dependant).

Anybody have a good summary of the traits?

**notyoueither** · January 8, 2006, 21:01

Off the cuff.

I rate Financial, Industrious, and Philosophical as very important.

Financial: Extra cash helps in all situations. Probably the one trait that crosses value between SP and MP the most.

Industrious: Faster wonders can break a game open, if you get the tech soon enough. Grab a couple, like Oracle, Parthenon and Great Lib, and you are well on the way to leading for the rest.

Philosophical: Probably stronger in SP where you decide where and when to fight more often. However, a prophet sooner (constructing a Shrine which then pushes your religion and gives cash) or an artist to swamp a hostile civ can't hurt to have sooner. Then there are merchants grabbing massive cash, or adding critical food to key cities...

I don't normally pay a lot of attention to Aggressive, Creative, Expansive, or Spiritual. However...

Aggressive in a smaller MP situation could make or break an empire. Give me time to build and it won't matter too much, but will I have time and space to build?

Creative in the early MP, with peace, can help a lot in securing land and closing choke points. With peace... anyone fancy having the Horde for neighbours?

I don't often hit the healthy cap in SP, but there are maps where it happens. Not sure about this one.

Spiritual... the hidden war monger trait. Why? Heh. From war civic to peace civic to war to peace to war to peace... You have a lot of options in CIV. The civ that can max the civics for the changing situation is to be feared, if you knew what was good for you.

Organised... I don't rate it very highly at all. There are other solutions to cash shortages, so long as you plan for them, and we will plan for them. Right?

**Dominae** · January 9, 2006, 03:17

Montezuma is Aggressive/Spiritual (not Financial).

Qin will probably be many teams' top pick, for good reason. If we can snatch him, we should.

Alexander is a nice choice for giving us a bye to round two: Phalanx will ensure that we will not be rushed (I doubt many teams will be able to resist a Horse Archer rush). I would much rather be defending against Axemen than Horsemen.

Mansa Musa's another great choice in the "defense is the best offense" category. It's hard to get Skirmishers off a tile unless they want to leave.

Regarding the traits, Philosophical is a great way to surprise our opponents with unexpected plays. I'm sure we can bend this trait to our advantage, leaving the other teams scratching their heads and unable to anticipate our next move. We would, however, need to be left alone for a bit, which is perhaps wishful thinking.

Creative seems like a great way to piss off other teams. No one likes to have their territory encroached upon. It could be very valuable strategically, but at what cost diplomatically?

More thoughts to come at a later date...

**Krill** · January 9, 2006, 06:22

Do not underestimate the effect of Expansive. Lter on it means an extra 2 health, and that can make or break the late game.

We should not expect this game to be decided before cav

I would expect it to go the distance.

The cheap granaries and harbours are useful as well

One chop nets you that granary. You have to admit that it is good when you are trying to get your cities up and running. And you also start with Hunting, so you have a scout to start off with, so you can get some nice techs from huts. Like Bronze working, or iron working, or animal husbandry...

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Oh, and I am the person who had the horde for neighbours in the last game. What I can say is that if they are your allies, they will be your allies for a very long time, so long as you don't try to screw them over. If they want you dead on the other hand, they will come after you. If they are our neighbours, we will have to take the war to them, asap.

Personally, for MP, I prefer to go with either Mansa or Bismark.

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I'll weigh in more later, when I have time...

**Theseus** · January 9, 2006, 14:03

I'm an even bigger fan of Egypt than I was for Civ3.

**Dominae** · January 9, 2006, 16:03

Originally posted by Krill
Do not underestimate the effect of Expansive. Later on it means an extra 2 health, and that can make or break the late game.

I agree that Expansive is better than many seem to give it credit for, but let me play the devil's advocate for a second.

Happiness is not so easy to come across in MP. Fewer opponents will be willing trade their resources, and going for an early Religion is accepting a slow start. Hovering near our Happiness cap may spell disaster in case of war, as War Weariness is a definite issue in this game. It may well force us to build Theatres and Colosseums prematurely, which are good not but not great builds. Marketplaces are hit or miss.

All this means that I expect Happiness to be the limiting factor in our game, not Health. There will be stiff competition for Pyramids/Representation. The Expansive Health bonus may come in useful some cities, but most of the time will be doing nothing. Of course we might get lucky and get a Happiness-heavy resource distribution around our capital.

Super-fast Granaries are absolutely fab, no argument there. Harbors I'm not so sure. We would have to be trading with multiple large neighbors to make them really worthwhile, which is not easy as it sounds. We cannot expect the same return from Harbors as we do in SP. The Health bonus is, of course, nice, but again I predict Happiness to be our limiting factor.

Taking a look at the Expansive civs:

Isabella. As mentioned in a Strat forum thread, Conquistadors are pretty nuts, countering their own counter and benefitting from defensive bonuses (as opposed to most other fast units). Since she's Spiritual and starts with Mysticism we could reasonably go for an early Religion, which would help us exploit Expansive.

Victoria. Any Financial leader deserves a good look. Redcoats are pretty dominant, but come at a very awkward time in the tech tree for warfare.

Genghis Khan. A bit too predicatable for my tastes. I imagine the Horde will pick him or Kublai (probably Kublai), and I look forward to defending against their rush.

Bismarck. Nice synergy here between Forges and the Expansive bonus. He can whip an economy into shape quickly enough; other demogames have proven this to be a deciding factor. However his middle game is weak-ish, and it's long long way to Panzers.

Gotta go, more later...

**Krill** · January 9, 2006, 16:08

Truth be told, Creative is probably a good trait to pick, as it will allow us that free culture expansion, and the 20% defence bonus along with it.

Sure, it is a passive trait, but if we get (cheese)rushed, that extra defence is important. We don't have to rely on Obelisks to pop the borders, and anybody settling near us wil get swaped, unless they build Stonehenge in that city to culture bomb.

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Industrial becomes more important if we actually focus on wonders. Now, I know that we could well end up doing that, but it pails in comparrison to Financial. A tech lead can get you to extra turns required to build a wonder, along with all of the other benefits a tech lead gives.

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Do not, under any circumstances, underestimate the power of aggresive, in an aggressive persons hands. With a barracks you can build units with Shock, Cover, Medic, Amphibious...if we went with Aggessive, I would suggest we rush someone and then build up with more land. Parallel would be the ND sword ruh of Lux, I suppose...

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Carpe Jugulum. Lets grab this game by the throat.

**Krill** · January 9, 2006, 16:17

Sorry, just saw your post, Dom. Two civs were mised off your list as you had to leave, but here they are, with a few of my thoughts...

Cryrus is Exp/Cre, which does not a great combo. Not much to say, but Immortals can really eat up archers if you get a couple out early on. Not much staying power...

Caesar is Exp/Org, and is, well Caesar. Speaks for itself. Beeline to IW, hope like hell you have iron, build Preats to go with allready built axes (if you have Cu), kill someone. And it pretty much is "Kill someone", 'cos not much stands up to Praets...

**Dominae** · January 9, 2006, 20:29

To me, Civ4's Caesar/Praetorians is similar Xerxes/Immortals from C3C: a civ that it utterly defined by its UU. Although it makes little sense to compare two games, I personally feel Xerxes' traits were better in PTW/C3C than Caesar's are in Civ4.

Praetorians are great, but they can be countered by intelligent opponents - just like we did with Civ3's Immortals against Vox. Axemen, particularly Aggressive Axemen, are a Hammer-efficient counter.

As I mentioned in some Strat forum thread, the problem with Organized is that requires successful (let's assume "military") expansion. Combined with a very strong UU this would make our game plan very predictable; without a Praetorian rush, what good is Rome?

If, for example, another civ puts an early choke on us, we would have a real tough time competing in the long run. Things have to "go right" for Rome to be good, and they may not.

That said, it's a strong choice; we could do much worse. I'm sure more than one team will put Caesar as their top choice.

**Cort Haus** · January 9, 2006, 20:37

Some thoughts (for and against) one of my favourite SP civs - the Mali.

I think Mansa Musa is a very flexible leader. OK, I don't know MP at all, but it seems that if I wanted to rush a neighbour, I wouldn't choose the guy with the Skirms. FIN is widely considered the best civic, and SPI opens up the kind of strategic flexibility that people like us should relish.

We can't base our decision on being alone on an island with the Horde any more than we can predict anything about the map, but even if we we're, would it be wise for one of those two civs to crush the other before contact was made with the outside?

Is FIN+Cottages weaker in MP? Do humans do a better job at pillage-wars? If so, PHI+farming may be better. Farms can be quickly replaced, towns cannot.

Also, might SPI be nerfed by the UN in the late-game if a non-SPI civ controlled it.

**Dominae** · January 9, 2006, 20:43

Theseus - nice to hear you're playing, I thought you had disappeared from the world of civ!

I have to admit, your support of Hatshepsut took me by surprise. Taking "the Culture civ" is an interesting metagame choice.

I would like to point out, though, that Egypt's UU is not exactly my favorite. Spearmen is too effective a counter.

To make the War Chariots shine, we would have to really rush (build 0-1 Settlers, research Animal Husbandry, hope to have Horses), which unfortuantely is not really synergistic with Egypt's trait strengths: rapid expansion to maximize Creative, and a Religion to maximize Spiritual.

I have played Egypt a lot, and it seems that the War Chariot "window" is very small. If your target does not have Copper, it does get a lot better. During this time, Egypt can do a lot of other things. So one way of playing Egypt is to aim to maximize its traits, while keeping War Chariots as an alternative if the right situation arises.

Looking at it this way, are Egypt's traits any good? Yes, in a sense. We could surprise the opposition by founding a bunch of Religions and completely dominating them culturally. This could hamper their economy and really scare some less experienced teams. It would be a lot of fun for us, but would also, unfortunately, make enemies out of our neighbors.

Problem is, later on in the game Egypt's traits really begin to decline; she has no staying power. That's what worries me the most.

**Cort Haus** · January 9, 2006, 20:47

Originally posted by Dominae
As I mentioned in some Strat forum thread, the problem with Organized is that requires successful (let's assume "military") expansion. Combined with a very strong UU this would make our game plan very predictable; without a Praetorian rush, what good is Rome?

If, for example, another civ puts an early choke on us, we would have a real tough time competing in the long run. Things have to "go right" for Rome to be good, and they may not.

That said, it's a strong choice; we could do much worse. I'm sure more than one team will put Caesar as their top choice.

I was about to try and say something like this. Org requires SIZE to shine, and we can't be sure that'll be an possibility. It certainly channels us, as does the AGG trait, IMO, into predictable priorities.

**Dominae** · January 9, 2006, 20:53

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Is FIN+Cottages weaker in MP? Do humans do a better job at pillage-wars? If so, PHI+farming may be better. Farms can be quickly replaced, towns cannot.

Even playing a Philosophical civ, a fair number of Cottages is essential; the "Cottages or Farms?" question makes sense on a city-by-city basis, not empire-wide. It's true that we may build more Farms if we select a Philosophical civ, but we would still have plenty of Cottages for our enemies to pillage.

I like Mr. Musa too, although I wish he started with Mysticism.

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