Civilization Thread!

[Benji]

Ethiopia may have been the most boring victory ever. Won by culture, but dang it took aaaaages to take down France, even with spamming Great Musicians. Spent the entire game paranoid about a Polish invasion that never happened because we were neighbours and kept swapping the strongest army.

[stokeriño]

So when I left my American game last night it was about 1900 and I had essentially got bored, so was lining up troops to invade the Ottomans (waiting a few more turns until I could get Landships). It's the standard USA gameplan: "Nothing else to do, where are some muslims I can shoot?"

[Benji]

That's hardly fair, 'MURICA likes to kill brown or red people, regardless of religion.

Also, someone posted a really fun challenge on r/civ:

Terra map. Don't settle that first city, and try to avoid meeting any Old World Civs or CS's. Make a beeline for the New World. You should try to settle around turn 20, and you can either lower your normal difficulty level by one to compensate or accept the challenge of starting behind the curve. You'll find isolation is both a curse and a blessing, but settling the New World at your leisure and covering it in delicious Moai is pretty sweet.

The alternative, optimal way to use this option is by settling your first city in the Old World, but settling at most one other city there and generally being a good neighbor. You can expand massively in the New World without compromising friendships with your neighbors.

Think I may try that one tonight and pop down difficulty one level to make it a bit easier, that or keep the difficulty and see if I can still win as a test to see if I should finally jump to King. Might be good for the Radio Free Europe achievement (adopt the Freedom Ideology and fill 10 Broadcast Towers with Great Works).

[stokeriño]

Been a while since I played a Terra map. Is a settler actually capable of reaching the New World? I presume it shouldn't be able to embark, let alone cross oceans.

Or alternatively, surely you can't research the tech(s) to let you do that without settling that first city? I'm not sure I entirely understand what they're suggesting we do.

[Benji]

Polynesia's special ability is to be able to cross ocean tiles even without the tech, kind of helps if I mentioned that in the original post >_>

[stokeriño]

[Mick]

Ethiopia may have been the most boring victory ever. Won by culture, but dang it took aaaaages to take down France, even with spamming Great Musicians. Spent the entire game paranoid about a Polish invasion that never happened because we were neighbours and kept swapping the strongest army.

Ethiopia is one of those civs I just cannot get in to, in spite of having a nice UB that's fucking free with Tradition, and a UA designed to make sure nobody will screw with you. I may give them a shot though, just to do it.

[Benji]

Ethiopia may have been the most boring victory ever. Won by culture, but dang it took aaaaages to take down France, even with spamming Great Musicians. Spent the entire game paranoid about a Polish invasion that never happened because we were neighbours and kept swapping the strongest army.

Ethiopia is one of those civs I just cannot get in to, in spite of having a nice UB that's fucking free with Tradition, and a UA designed to make sure nobody will screw with you. I may give them a shot though, just to do it.

They're not particularly bad, but they're just really boring and defensive minded, which isn't the game I like to play.

[Sousa]

Mehel Safari starts with Drill I. I love when units start with Drill-line promotions. Build a Barracks/Armory/maybe Brandenberg Gate, get Military Tradition from Honor, and rush straight to (OH YES) Logistics for two attacks per turn.

Did I mention I fucking love Logistics and I love any unit that makes getting to Logistics easier? That's why Atilla's Horse Archers are so great, too.

Yes Spirit of Adwa kind of sucks and you won't reasonably be using that "combat bonus near the capital" thing but who cares when you're eventually going to have Infantry that attack twice?

[Mick]

Well, last night I laughed as the First Armored Comanche Division tore up The Huns. They were pretty badass. Before I did my military build up for the Comanche Riders, I had every city build up to an Armory, and then had the capital do Heroic Epic. Those were some bad ass units.

[Sousa]

I'm going to tear it up with Ethiopia tonight just to show you all!

[Mick]

We're not questioning their strengths or weaknesses, they're just a boring ass civilization to play, Sousa

[Sousa]

I'LL SHOW YOU BORING-ASS

The method I will probably use to play with them (Tradition opening -> Legalism -> Honor -> Monarchy -> Piety to Reformation [Religious Fervor] -> Landed Elite -> Warrior Code -> Military Tradition -> BUILD TONS OF FAITH BUILDINGS AND THEN SIT ON HANDS UNTIL MEHEL SAFARI) will be pretty boring. ass.

[Mick]

I'LL SHOW YOU BORING-ASS

The method I will probably use to play with them (Tradition opening -> Legalism -> Honor -> Monarchy -> Piety to Reformation [Religious Fervor] -> Landed Elite -> Warrior Code -> Military Tradition -> BUILD TONS OF FAITH BUILDINGS AND THEN SIT ON HANDS UNTIL MEHEL SAFARI)

will be pretty boring. ass.

http://youtu.be/KVaPb24VJWo?t=1m27s

[Benji]

Holy shitballs, Atilla + Raging Barbs is way too fun. Sweden and Egypt down on a huge map within the first forty turns.

[Mick]

Attila is awesome if you're going into crazy bastard Warmonger mode, especially if you can get the Battering Rams rolled out early. I had one game where I didn't even settle a city, it was a small island with just me, two city states, and directly to my north, within spitting distance was Pocatello. My warrior hit an upgrade on the very first goody-hut.

"Hi Pocatello!"
"Bye Pocatello".

I think took out the two city-states, and I was amused to see a Spanish Tireme show up. Which meant I could reach Spain just with embarkation. Spain fell . At that point I had to explore the rest of the world, but there was no realistic challenge.

[Benji]

I put it on huge partly for the achievement, thinking I'll get a science victory once I've cleared some early enemies, but at this rate all other Civs will fall by domination despite the amount of them >_>

[Mick]

Warmongering in this game is like meth. Once you start, you can't stop until you're dead .

[Sousa]

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Getting Ethiopia to the point where they're not boring is really boring.

The late-game war is going to be fun. It's Pangaea, and I'm now on a continent with only three opponents: Gandhi (nearest neighbor, GON DIE), Attila (took Siam's capital, GON DIE), and Alex (took Harald's capital, GON DIE). So Attila and Alex took massive amounts of cities but aren't really anywhere close to me. I settled three and might grab a fourth, but I'm not incredibly motivated since all three of my cities are already pretty great, with lots of food/production potential (even the crappy desert city has the Petra and is therefore great).

Also I am never putting off Landed Elite and Monarchy this long again. Jesus. I miss cities just ROCKETING to high population.

[Benji]

See? Boring Ethiopia is boring! It's no more fun than any other late game Civ, and it's not got an interesting start even with the Stele.