Dave Leads the Thousand Nations of the Persian Empire

[oledavy]

Our Arrows Will Blot Out The Sun!

[oledavy]

That's enough 300 references for one day....onto the game.

Like most people, I was ecstatic at the release of Civilization 5, having played the series religiously since my father gave me a copy of Civilization III for my 12th birthday. I bought Civ5 the day it came out for Mac, and played it non-stop during my 2010-2011 Christmas Break. However, I slowly began to realize that something just wasn't quite right. I won my first immortal difficulty game on my fourth playthrough, while it months of playing Civ4 to achieve the same result. The game just wasn't as challenging or deep as Civilization 4. Like the proper sucker I am, I bought all the DLC and picked it up again after every patch; but went away each time disappointed. The last time I played Civ5 was in September, after the July patch finally made it to Mac. About that time, I was getting really involved with Civ4 MP on RB and stopped playing Civ5 altogether.

All that being said - and I feel bad saying this on RB - I actually like Civ5.

While it's certainly not as good a it's predecessor, I think the game does have redeeming qualities. I especially liked the introduction of social policies and city-states. Imho, the main problems all stem from an AI that can't handle 1upt, conducts insane diplomacy, and is terribly exploitable. This game should be able to prove me right or wrong on that count.

I don't know how much I will be able to update for this game, I have so many things pulling at my time, but I'll try my best to do something. I might adopt SleepingMoogle's picture only approach, or Plako's minimalist updating style.

[oledavy]

For the sake of those who never even bought Civ5, I'm going to try my best and explain everything in this thread. So, without further ado....

[SIZE="3"]Why Persia?[/SIZE]

Persia has always been one of my favorite civilizations to play in Civ5, and with France and the DLC civs off the table, it was the best available (though some might argue Siam). So, let's look what makes Persia so good:

Persian Unique Ability
Achaemenid Legacy - Golden Ages last +50% longer, units receive a +1 movement bonus and +10% strength bonus.

Persian Unique Unit
Immortal - Spearman replacement with +1 strength and heals twice as fast.

Persian Unique Building
Satraps Court - Bank replacement with +2 happy.

Persia's real strength lies in its UA. In Civ5, golden ages are weaker than Civ4. GA's still give +1 gold on tiles that already produce at least 1 gold, but the +1 hammer bonus is replacement by a +20% hammer modifier in each city (which is weaker ). Furthermore, there is no GPP production bonus. They don't allow anarchy free civics changes either, but you probably won't be facing anarchy in Civ5 with the Social Policy system.

While Golden ages got weaker, they're significantly easier to start. There are four ways to get golden ages in Civ5:

- Accumulate enough surplus happiness to trigger one.
- The Taj Mahal
- Certain Social Policies start golden ages of varying length.
- Great People*

[SIZE="1"]*This is the biggest difference. In Civ4 it took 1 GP to start your first golden age, 2 GP to start your second, and so on. In Civ5, it only takes one each time. Your first GP golden age will last 10 turns, your second 7turns, and your third 4 turns, with 3 turns being the minimum. With Persia's modifier already in place, a 3-turn great person golden age rounds up to become a 5-turn golden age (Rounds up). Lastly, Great Generals can start golden ages, which means you can effectively fund your conquests with the GGs you spawn.[/SIZE]

Not only are golden ages easier to start, but it's easy to get modifiers on them. The Chichen Itza - the worst WW in Civ4 - is the best in Civ5; providing +4 happy and +50% golden age length. The Freedom Finisher grants an additional +50% golden age length.

Potentially, Persia can reach [SIZE="3"]+150%[/SIZE] in golden age modifiers, which means late game great people are worth eight turns of golden age each, five more than the base. Golden Ages in Civ5 are all about accumulating gold, and with all these modifiers in place, I will be rolling in money. Additionally, the unit buffs during golden ages, especially the +1 movement, are huge. Needless to way, I'm going to try and do all my fighting during golden ages.

Satraps Courts are nice, though nothing to write home about. You can think of them as Civ4's Mausoleums. Immortals are one of the best rushing units in the game, and since their double healing promotion carries over to upgraded units, they provide benefits long after the age of spears. That being said, I don't plan on going to war in this game for a long time, so my Immortals probably won't see much use beyond barb killing and serving as a deterrent to those who would oppose me.

So, here's the plan:

- Find a river to settle on.
- Play a 'wide empire' game.
- Beeline Civil Service.
- Play nice with everyone.
- Head down the Liberty Tree.
- Build the Chichen Itza.
- Parley the Liberty free GP into a Great Engineer.
- Rush the Hagia Sophia.
- Parley the Hagia Sophia free GP into a Great Engineer.
- Rush the Porcelain Tower.
- Open up the Freedom Tree.
- Start chaining together uber-long golden ages.
- Sign as many Research Agreements as possible with all my gold (since I played nice with everyone).
- Buy up all the city-states (open up Patronage?).
- Pop out GS's to beeline Dynamite.
- Bulb Dynamite.
- Build shit tons of artillery.
- Kill everyone.

Basically the idea is to parley all the gold from my uber-long golden ages into a tech lead, then win a domination victory. Will it play out that nicely? Probably not. Will it be a fun ride? Most definitely

Here's a good article on Persia written by MadDjinn for the CFC Civ5 War Academy: Civilization Guide: Persia

[oledavy]

[SIZE="3"]My Opponents[/SIZE]

I'm going to spare my four opponents my usual player analysis. One, because I don't know how their Civ4 play-styles will translate into Civ5, and two, because I know almost nothing about Mist and fire&ice.

Note to Self: Work a Robert Frost joke into the Denouncement Thread at some point.

However, I will briefly analyze their picks:

Pick Stength:

1. Persia - OleDavy
2. Iroquois - Mist
3. Aztecs - Seven
4. America - fire&ice
5. England - Yuris

Notably Absent: Siam, Greece

Persia - OleDavy
Best pick, hands down.

Iroquois - Mist
Properly played, one of the better civs in the game. The Mohawk Warrior rush has become a staple of Civ5 muliplayer. The typical strategy involves building a lot of warriors, upgrading them into Mohawks, and ruining someone's day. Will need to watch for that to be in the cards here. Their UA and the Loghouse both can translate into a powerful mid and late game economy if played correctly. Is Mist good enough to capitalize on this? I don't know.

Aztecs - Seven
One of my favorite civs to play as just for just how fun it is The Aztec UA and UU should give Seven a very strong opening and allow him to polish off the Honor Tree in short order. Floating Gardens provide a nice long-term bonus. However, his problem will come in translating his early game advantages into long-term strength. While you can abuse the AI with the Aztec UA in single player, it will be significantly harder to do so in this environment, and Seven probably won't get as much mileage out of the Aztecs as he needs to win.

America - fire&ice
Poor choice. America has been the butt of all Civ5 jokes since the game was released, and while it got slightly better with the July patch, it's not enough to make it a worthwhile pick while there were still much better civs on the table. Minutemen are decent units, and B-17s are solid, but probably won't come into play. However, the UA is so meh, it's advantages so negligible compared to others. I don't see any reason why you would choose America with the second pick.

England - Yuris
Not going to sugarcoat it, this pick sucks, massively. Did Yuris not get the memo that we're playing on a pangaea? The only redeeming quality of England in this setting is the longbow; which is a strong UU, but does little to make up for how godawful this pick is. Even Ottomans would be better, their UA is equally bad, but at least you get an OMFGHAX UU. Longbows are powerful, but since they lack indirect fire, can rarely make full use of their increased range.

I also just cannot understand why nobody chose Greece or Siam. Both possess really powerful UAs and strong UUs, and have been staples of "best civ" lists for awhile. Even playing against human opponents, buying up city-states is a very solid strategy. Were they to ignore that, Hoplites, Companion Cavalry, Wats, and Naresuan's Elephants are some of the best UUs/UBs in the game. Doesn't make sense to me.

[oledavy]

[SIZE="3"]Turn 0[/SIZE]



Great capitol here, stone works and civil service will be huge. Big debate was between moving 1W beside the mountain to open up the observatory at a later date or SIP, eventually decided upon the latter.



Need a naming theme.

[Gaspar]

Need a naming theme.

Unpopular things? Things which only you like?

[TheArchduke]

- Bulb Dynamite.
- Build shit tons of artillery.
- Kill everyone.

Basically the idea is to parley all the gold from my uber-long golden ages into a tech lead, then win a domination victory. Will it play out that nicely? Probably not. Will it be a fun ride? Most definitely

Sounds like a plan, good luck I will lurk and follow.

Naming theme wise. Well you want to go down the golden age route, so how about:

Auropolis (City of Gold)

[oledavy]

Unpopular things? Things which only you like?

Gaspar, charming as ever.

Why don't you go update your PBEM29 thread so I actually have something to lurk

Auropolis (City of Gold)

Sounds like a good name to me

[oledavy]

[SIZE="3"]Turn 1[/SIZE]

Moved warrior, ended turn.



Of note: Seven settled this turn, and Yuris is on the coast (which is to be expected given England's start bias)

[Gaspar]

Gaspar, charming as ever.

Your words hurt me.