Light_Spectrum wrote:

This strategy has a lot of weaknesses and only 1 advantage, you will be very behind cuz these cultures don't have eco bonuses at all.

Cyclopean fortress will cover all your industry and stability for the first 2 eras and you can go a food or science culture in Classical and Early Modern to make up for losses, You can also opt out for one of the military cultures for an economy one since army conscription civic gives -30% production cost reduction. This strategy is more versatile than you may think due to emblematic quarters and civics, especially when you get to germany and can buff up all your makers quarters even more and then soviets arms factory is broken right now with its +1 strength bonus to all units. Your extra combat strength on naval/air from germany will ensure that bombing everything into rubble is the pro strat until you become soviets and all your infantry become super soldiers that can take on battle tanks.

I agree that the Expansionist "Under One Banner" ability needs to be changed. It's almost impossible to pull off in its current state.

However, for the Hittites, I will say that the passive bonus of being able to just waltz into enemy territory is very beneficial to them. The ability to ransack outposts and administrative centers without ever declaring war is pretty solid! However, the Ancient era goes by so fast for anyone NOT at war that, as others have mentioned, an aggressive military punch tends to fall a little flat. 

For that reason, I think there should be more benefit to ransacking besides just gold and punishing a neighbor. Maybe influence? Science? Food? FAME?! Alternatively, maybe these added benefits to ransacking only apply to expansionist civs, giving them a reason to use that passive ability?

A possible fix for Egyptians and Harappans is applying their bonuses to specific tiles.

Egyptians +1 production on river tiles, which makes some sense historically since the Egyptian civilization was so closely tied to the Nile, or perhaps +1 production on stone fields instead, after all they were masters of building with stone. This would make Egyptians, like naval cultures or the Zhou, more of situational choice.

Harrappans +1 food on non-river food producing tiles. It synergizes with their district, described as fertilizing the land surrounding rivers, and it gives them the advantage of having better growth in areas without rivers.

After many more hours of single and multiplayer play, I would say that my opinion of the ancient civilizations has changed little.

The Babylonians are better than I thought. They are viable. They are still not as strong as the Egyptians and the Harapens in 90% of the situations, but that is due to the overpowered bonuses of those two.

The Assyrians and Hittites are never played in multiplayer. Never.

For the Hitties, I don't know what to do to change them. It depends on the game design Amplitude wants for them. A better economic bonus. Or a better military bonus. Be careful not to bet everything on military for a civ at the beginning of the party. The Mycenaeans are the most interesting as it has been said by me and others.

Suggestion about Assyrians garrison

For the Assyrians, I thought of a small buff (which is not enough to make them viable): you should make their fortification district usable beyond the ancient era. First of all, a garrison is very rarely needed in this era. It's afterwards that it can become useful.

And secondly, one fort per region is not enough. It would have to be possible to build this emblematic district in the outposts, in the eras after.

I suggest +1 constructive emblematic district per region in city or outpost, in each era. In the Middle Ages, the Assyrians would thus have three fortification districts per region, payable in influence.

This sounds "powerful"; but military districts are of no economic use. It would only serve to defend the many regions they are supposed to have taken on the map. It's a pretty easy bonus to implement it seems to me, and will be subtly useful for the players.

I agree that Harappans and Egyptians are too strong. Harappans legacy trait is more powerful than the feudalism bonus, on rivers they bascially start with irregation canals, their start with a stronger scout and their emblematic district is probably amongst the best of the era. Given how much influence population can give, harappans may be as good as olmecs in olmecs speciality while being better than olmecs in every other area. Their science ability may be as good as babylonians given they have more pops thus able to employ more scientists.

Egyptian start with lumber yard + stone work, giving them a huge advantage that snowball and not only that but they also get -10% district cost which scale very well with egyptians gameplan. Their emblematic unit and district is also very strong.

The legacy traits of these two cultures may be good even for much later eras, like medieval, that is how strong they are while others such as babylonians pretty much just get a token bonus that is not relevant beyond ancient era.

Consider that some of the ancient era civs should be stronger. That's to balance whether you want to stick around as a Neolithic tribe for longer or not. Those neolithic "gray goo" spawning mechanics are super good otherwise. It seems that starting as not-Egyptians / not-Harappans is hard to balance when you get started later and your only bonus is a couple extra scout units. But it's not so simple as "nerf Egyptians" since that has an impact on how the Neolithic is played.