There are some good tweaks there and a couple of very useful UI things that should have been in since the beginning (e.g. selecting units from the army overview), and hopefully the tactical AI changes will help. You can never really tell until you try them out. It’s mostly minor changes, though – I’m more interested in the unrevealed “Part 2” of the patch, with another balance pass and the mysterious new feature.
On an unrelated note, has anyone found an insightful comparison of the different civs and their units/abilities? I looked on CivFanatics and didn’t see anything, although there’s probably one buried pages deep in the forum somewhere. What civs do you guys think are great, or lame? After a couple hundred hours with the game usually with randomly-assigned civs, here are my votes for top 3, and worst:
#3: Persia. I didn’t expect these guys to be that good. Their spearman replacement is just OK. But their bank replacement is really nice, granting +2 happiness. In my view, any building that covers two important areas is a huge benefit, and this one gives a substantial bonus to both gold (like any bank) and happiness. It’s a no-brainer to put one in pretty much every city. Not having to worry very much about happiness is a huge benefit in this game. If you have a lot of cities (I usually do) you can almost get by on your banks and luxuries alone. Even better, though, the happy bonus perfectly synergizes with Persia’s special ability, which is awesome golden ages: +50% length, and units get a combat and move bonus while in a GA. This ability is huge. You can spend a healthy portion of your game-time in a golden age if you try, especially since you’re getting an extra +2 happy per city. Triggering one when a war starts makes you deadly, with everyone getting the combat bonus and being able to move extra-far (it’s especially great for siege units – move into position, set up, and fire all in one turn! Missile units also become much better). It’s also nice in the early happiness GA that everyone gets, for fast exploration.
#2: China. This civ has three great bonuses. Their civ ability is more-frequent generals that give +35% combat instead of +25%, which is really useful whether you’re playing offensively or defensively. Their crossbowman replacement has the awesome ability of firing twice per turn, which not only does lots of damage but generates lots of XP (and is amazing on defense). Lastly, and best-ly, their library replacement generates 2 gold. That is huge. Tech is massively important in every game no matter what sort of victory you’re pursuing, and you should be building a library in every city (for the National College wonder if nothing else). Having a building that you need anyway give a substantial gold bonus, especially so early in the game, is a big advantage. You can basically not worry about money if you’re playing China, especially if you have a lot of cities.
#1: Babylon. My favorite civ. Their walls replacement is nice enough that it’s worth building in every city sooner or later (I usually skip walls). Their archer replacement is great because it doesn’t have to be screened by infantry, a nice bonus in the early game. Their unique ability, though, is killer: faster great scientists, and a free GS when you discover writing. This is a huge, huge tech bonus, enough to keep you ahead or at least on parity even on higher levels of difficulty. If you are building science-related wonders and buildings (I always do), you’ll be churning out great scientists with reckless abandon. Babylon is tailor-made for a science victory, but the tech bonus makes any victory a lot easier.
Worst: Aztecs. They get a warrior replacement that is fairly useless (the only upside is his healing ability if you manage to upgrade him to a useful unit later in the game), and a water mill replacement that is also pretty useless unless your city is near a lake. (Unlike other map-dependent abilities, though, lakes are pretty rare.) Their unique ability adds culture whenever you kill an enemy unit, which is not bad except that the amount of culture is mediocre. Unless you are slaughtering massive numbers of enemy units it’s not going to make any appreciable difference in your game – and slaughtering massive numbers of enemy units is often not really an option until much later in the game. If you live that long. Overall, this civ brings almost nothing to the table.
