Civ 5 GMR 16 Reject Earth Edition

[Illven]

So I'm going to give 48 hours for new sign ups.

While we wait, list your timezones please.

[Zevox]

Eastern US time here.

[Mx.Silver]

Oh, I get that. I'm familiar enough with competitive gaming from my experience with fighting games and Hearthstone to know how that tends to work. I'm just new enough to Civ 5 that I've never really seen any kind of tier listing for it, and while I was able to guess that Venice and Polynesia would probably be on there, I wasn't sure about any of the rest, and there's a couple I certainly wouldn't have guessed on there. Most notably Japan, which I would've guessed was actually fairly good.

Ah right.
Japan I imagine would be fairly low because they don't have much in the way of economic bonuses and neither of their unique units are particularly impressive. Their overall ability also isn't as strong in practice as it might look on paper.
Honestly, the thing I'm most surprised about is that Ilven didn't mention Denmark or America, as neither of them are better than most of the ones he listed and, in contrast to The Netherlands, France and especially Venice, are also widely agreed to be fairly underwhelming in single-player*.


*Should also be noted: most ranking of civs for single-player is done under the assumption that the games are played on Deity difficulty.

[The_Snark]

Japan I imagine would be fairly low because they don't have much in the way of economic bonuses and neither of their unique units are particularly impressive. Their overall ability also isn't as strong in practice as it might look on paper.

The unique ability seems really cool, but in practice I've never noticed wounded units being less effective; the interface doesn't display it, and it's apparently minor enough to overlook. The Zero's chief advantage over a regular Fighter is that it doesn't require oil, which is occasionally really useful but often not very relevant.

I wouldn't put America on a bottom list; it's definitely not top-tier, but its unique units are both pretty good, and I think the boost in sight range is a bit better than it's given credit for (it's not the kind of boost you notice in game, but it does help).

I'm a bit surprised to see Carthage on that list, but maybe I'm just remembering the pre-BNW days when they were the uncontested top tier. City connections became a lot less valuable with the introduction of trade routes... Still, getting them up and running right away is a nice boost to your early economy. The unique units, I could take or leave.

[Silverraptor]

I'm pacific standard time.

[The_Snark]

Oh, right - same here.

[Mx.Silver]

The unique ability seems really cool, but in practice I've never noticed wounded units being less effective; the interface doesn't display it, and it's apparently minor enough to overlook.

They are somewhat less effective, and it's generally there in the 'projected damage' part of the interface although not flagged-up as an explicit penalty (as in: a wounded unit will typically display a lower projected damage indicator than a full-strength one) but it's not huge.

I wouldn't put America on a bottom list; it's definitely not top-tier, but its unique units are both pretty good, and I think the boost in sight range is a bit better than it's given credit for (it's not the kind of boost you notice in game, but it does help).
I'm a bit surprised to see Carthage on that list, but maybe I'm just remembering the pre-BNW days when they were the uncontested top tier. City connections became a lot less valuable with the introduction of trade routes... Still, getting them up and running right away is a nice boost to your early economy. The unique units, I could take or leave.

Should probably have mentioned that I also haven't encountered a tier list, single or multi-player, that puts all the civs currently in discussion on the same tier. Illven's list seems to have amalgamated 'bottom tier' (which generally tends to be quite small) with some civs from the level immediately above that.
This isn't a huge thing in game terms, mind you. The actual difference between Civ Tiers is not all that large most of the time and, as mentioned previous, in the style of games seen on this forum it's largely eclipsed in impact by the other variables at work.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Generally speaking, Civ uniques aren't so much superpowers as they are directions on how to play the game. Now, some things are just generally OP as hell (Solidarity) and some things have ludicrous synergy with common strategies (Ingenuity for Great Scientist Spam, Longbowmen or Chu-ko-Nus for carpets-of-crossbows Domination), but in most cases, grand strategy and good micro are more important than uniques.

Now, Venice plays an entirely different game from everyone else and the Iroquois have a UB that's arguably worse than what it replaces, but other than that.

And I'm on US Central time, usually only available in the evenings or mornings.

[Shishnarfne]

US Central Time.

[Mx.Silver]

Eh, what the hell. I'll take the last slot since no one else has expressed interested. GMT+1 currently, on account of daylight savings.


I'll take Iroqouis, as I've yet to play a civ with 'American' city architecture in one of the forum games.

Which I think leaves Snark and Thirsting with their choice of Japan or The Ottomans (assuming Nerd-O-Rama is going ahead the Ankh-Morpork Venice plan, which he should because it is perfect).

[thirsting]

Technical problems actually force me to bow out, so there's still room for new players.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Bear in mind I have no idea how to actually be competitive with Venice, so if I'm playing them it's entirely for the sake of jokes.

[The_Snark]

I'll take the Ottomans, then. Yarr.

[Illven]

Okay, do we want to start with an AI? Or seven players?

[Silverraptor]

AI sounds boring. Let me see if my friend Datsmore would be interested.

[Datsmore]

I am interested in joining. I'm happy with whatever civ I get stuck with.

[Illven]

And we have invite links!

http://multiplayerrobot.com/Game/Joi...3-26d0b5b22c9e
http://multiplayerrobot.com/Game/Joi...4-080fc72530ab
http://multiplayerrobot.com/Game/Joi...0-5891f78743dc
http://multiplayerrobot.com/Game/Joi...3-e4892d2e415d
http://multiplayerrobot.com/Game/Joi...2-01cbd1a8a256
http://multiplayerrobot.com/Game/Joi...7-1a7e5bfab1ab
http://multiplayerrobot.com/Game/Joi...b-f84ad05fcfe7

If you have not told me, your time zone, please do so.

[Nerd-o-rama]

I am interested in joining. I'm happy with whatever civ I get stuck with.

Want to engage in the ancient Japanese tradition of Janken to decide who gets Venice and who gets Japan? Or should I just accept my own stupid ideas and take Venice.

EDIT: eh, you already grabbed Japan. Alea iacta whatever.

[Zevox]

And we have invite links!

http://multiplayerrobot.com/Game/Joi...3-26d0b5b22c9e
http://multiplayerrobot.com/Game/Joi...4-080fc72530ab
http://multiplayerrobot.com/Game/Joi...0-5891f78743dc
http://multiplayerrobot.com/Game/Joi...3-e4892d2e415d
http://multiplayerrobot.com/Game/Joi...2-01cbd1a8a256
http://multiplayerrobot.com/Game/Joi...7-1a7e5bfab1ab
http://multiplayerrobot.com/Game/Joi...b-f84ad05fcfe7

If you have not told me, your time zone, please do so.

Uh, which link do we each use?

[Illven]

Uh, which link do we each use?

The first one that works.

[Illven]

And we have begun!

Turn timer is currently set to a day and a skip. You know my drill.

Spoiler: Spectator starting update

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.... No polders....

RNGJESUS. This is a decent capital spot, but why hast thou forsaken me!!!

[Zevox]

Hm, well, I'm pretty sure I know where I am even from what little I can see from my starting position.

Spoiler: Spectators, I guess.

Show

Assuming we have any.

I'm on the northern shores of South America. On the downside, I'm surrounded by jungles, two rivers, and some marshes, so developing early on will be slow as all hell. On the upside, I have no less than four spices just south of my city, plus some sugar to the west, and of course what jungle I don't cut down becomes science-generating later on, so that'll be nice eventually. For now though, I'm expecting to start out slower than my competition. Maybe I can get lucky and nobody else will be in South America, giving me the continent to myself, though. A guy can dream, right?

[Silverraptor]

Spoiler: Spectators

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I have no idea where I am. If I were to take the luxury resources as base value, I would assume somewhere in China. But I don't know where Tundra meets desert in such a short distance away from each other. The thing that is causing my heart to sink faster is that there is no ocean in sight. That's going to strip me of any advantage I might have been able to use as Polynesia.

[The_Snark]

Spoiler: Spectators

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My people! This is a rich and fertile land we find ourselves in. Even as we break ground, our advance party has discovered the burnt-out ruins of a native village, which we definitely did not destroy ourselves so that we could take their stuff. We plundered - er, we rescued the villagers' livestock... which had not yet wandered off, because, uh... because of their cunningly fenced pastures! Yes! It's a brilliant idea and we'll start building our own at once. (We'd use theirs, but some of our boys got a little carried away setting the fires.)

(... to make sure the ruins didn't collapse on someone. Very unsafe, leaving that sort of thing lying around.)



An architect working on the roof of the Great Hut Palace reports seeing more buildings just a few miles to the east. No signs of life yet. Apparently our neighbors are fleeing. We'll send some people over to check it out.



(The terrain itself is average, but I started within spitting distance of two ancient ruins - there's another on the right side of the screen there, just outside my borders. I've never seen that happen before. Coastal start, that's nice, I would feel pretty silly playing inland Ottomans. Location-wise, I'm guessing this is west Africa or southern Asia, but I don't know the scale of the stuff I'm looking at yet, which makes it hard to say anything more than "someplace equatorial.")

[Nerd-o-rama]

Spoiler: Initial spectator update

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Being an accounte of the arrival of oure people upon the Round Worlde

And lo, in the earliest days of the Earth, a bountiful land was given unto--

Oi!

Er, was given unto--

I say, question for you, your lordship!



It's right cold out here, it is! It's freezing, and there's no bloody food! Where are we, the Hub?

You are in a new world, a paradise of my creation

Pull the other one, it's got bells on. This place is miserable!

But I have given you Salt. Everyone knows Salt starts are OP.

Right then. Me and the boys are gazing at the ocean in a decidedly permanently frozen over state beyond this mountain pass here, and thinking "What possible good could come of that?" "How are we going to find assorted meat-like products to put in our sausages?" "Wherein are the foreigners going to come to sample said sausages, throw them up, and then get a nice dinner at a takeaway serving food from their homeland?" That sort of practical economic thing.

But...salt.



We're going to be off, then. Some local lads who fancy themselves Heroes are off climbing the unclimbable mountain, so I suppose we'll go explore the woods. Honestly, trying to set up a trade without a decent warm water port¹...never trust gods with gold, I say...oh, hey, venison. How's venison in sausages?

But...

As the monetarily-minded future residents of our great city left the Small God howling "but" into the wilderness, they looked around gravely. This was an inauspicious start to...whatever it is they were supposed to be doing here. Nonetheless, as the Principle of Sausages held among the minds of those early entrepeneurs, you can make almost anything at least look like a good idea...

¹Wow. This might have been an interesting start for warmongering or REXing, especially if I settled where my warrior is standing in the second screenshot, but those are the two things Venice is utterly incapable of (early game on the former, anyway). I'm not settling anywhere that doesn't have the potential for sea trade routes, so I'm kissing this tundra goodbye and trying to strike south and west for a coast. Unfortunately, I'm clearly at the very top of the map, which means Canada or Siberia or if I'm very, very lucky, Scandinavia.<sup>2

2</sup>That said, I'm having a bit of morning-after regret at seeing the sheer luxury variety I could have by settling nearby. Maybe I'll turn around. It's not like I'm doing this for anything but a series of obscure references, anyway.

[Datsmore]

Want to engage in the ancient Japanese tradition of Janken to decide who gets Venice and who gets Japan? Or should I just accept my own stupid ideas and take Venice.

EDIT: eh, you already grabbed Japan. Alea iacta whatever.

I try to not pass up chances to build Samurai.


Eastern UTC-5

[OrcusMcP]

Spoiler: Spectators

Show

I have no idea where I am. If I were to take the luxury resources as base value, I would assume somewhere in China. But I don't know where Tundra meets desert in such a short distance away from each other. The thing that is causing my heart to sink faster is that there is no ocean in sight. That's going to strip me of any advantage I might have been able to use as Polynesia.

Spoiler: Spectator response

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I think you're in Russia, north of the Caspian/Aral seas. That's usually the only spot on Earth maps where you see tundra and desert so close.

[Mx.Silver]

Spoiler: Spectators

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... and on the first dawn of Onondaga, the wise men did bring before Hiawatha and the chiefs a piece of hide, and upon the smooth side was marked in dyes and coloured clay pictures which represented the lands and waters of the world that surrounded them. Tadodaho did mutter under his breath that back in the days of his childhood the tribes were content with using their eyes and natural sense of direction and that such technology as this would make the people weak of mind and spirit, but at the loud sigh of Jigonhsasee he did fall silent once more.
Hiawatha then rose and commended the wise men upon this discovery, and did declare that all scouting parties should be taught this art, so that the world would be known to all The Haudenosaunee and their descendants.
So it was that maps came to the world.





(Hey, actual forests. Nice to see the notoriously wonky Earth starts are following proper start bias. Whether the city states have managed to avoid being stuck in locations the AI won't found cities in is another matter.
I'd be very surprised if this isn't the equivalent of North Europe.

As per usual, I'm open to any suggestions from spectators on which fictional religion to adapt, should I manage to get my foot in the door on the religion game, which is a possibility since I don't think any of the civs in game get any advantages on that front. So if you have any ideas let me know).

[Silverraptor]

Spoiler: Spectator response

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I think you're in Russia, north of the Caspian/Aral seas. That's usually the only spot on Earth maps where you see tundra and desert so close.

Spoiler: Spectator Response

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Well, lets hope there is ocean SOMEWHERE nearby! Otherwise this game will be for naught.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Relevant: Civilization Tier scientifically proven not to correlate to win ratio in multiplayer.

Caveats about sample sizes, etc., but still.