Best civilization awards

I know this is a question that has been asked before, but I want this to be a more objective survey. So I am proposing to break down the question of best civilizations into categories and since their has been some confusion, human, standard settings, civ leader pair and any speed, simply specify which speed you are voting for.-
--------------------------------------------------————------------------------------------------------------
Who is the most consistent? Which civ can perform well under the widest variety of circumstances?
America:1
Russia:1
Egypt:1
--------————––----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Who is the fastest? Which civ can establish themselves in a good position the quickest?
Portugal: 1
Inca-1
China:2
----------------------------------------------------------------————–---------------------------------------
Who has the best economy? Which civ has the highest potential for a good healthy economy (meaning positive or zero cashflow while maintaining a decent amount of science and good production)?
Mali: 1
English:1
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Who is the best warmonger? (Which civ is the best at war?)
Zulu:1
Indians: 2
------------------------------------------———————--------------------------------------------------------
These are all the questions for the best civilization. The way I want this survey to work is this- Every civ that gets nominated for one of these titles gets a point. You can nominate a civ for more than one title. I will add up all the points in each category and give a civ a ranking according to each category based on the number of votes in got in that category. then the civ that got the most votes overall will be .


And finally here is the fluke category
Who is the most niche? Which civilization performs well only under a narrow range of conditions?
America:1
Japan:2

My answers to some of these... the first three have more to do with the leader than the civ:

jackelgull said:

Who is the fastest? Which civ can establish themselves in a good position the quickest?

Click to expand...

Portuguese under Joao. He's the king of REXing, the REX rex.

Who has the best economy?

Click to expand...

I'd say Mansa, they didn't call him the richest man in history for no reason.

Who is the best warmonger? (Which civ is the best at war?)

Click to expand...

Shaka. How every continent is not currently living under some form of Zulu domination is beyond me.

And finally here is the fluke category
Who is the most niche? Which civilization performs well only under a narrow range of conditions?

Click to expand...

'MURKA! 'CUZ 'MURKA HAS TO WIN SOMETHING!!!

(The narrow range of conditions include Modern and Future starts.)

Wait... are we talking civs or leaders? Standard settings? I'm going with standard settings so civ/leader are intertwined. Are we talking human player or AI?

Human
Fastest: Huayana Capac of Inca - Quechuas, 2 granaries, FIN for easily funded expansion, IND for fast marble wonders and early fail gold.

Best economy: Elizabeth - do I need to explain? Fast GP and lots of

Best war monger: Gandhi - yeah, I said it... Gandhi. Spiritual for those quick changes to Nationhood/Slavery/Theocracy and back to Bureau/Caste/Philo. Don't forget his ability to forgo early cottages and focus on whipping/production thanks to PHI. Fast workers mean fast chopping. No loss of turn when going into forest. The UB? Meh, but helps with WW so there you go!

Most niche: Tokugawa of Japan - not much explanation here. Without war, he's fairly useless. UU and UB? Meh and bleh. Certainly fun to try and win culture with him, though .

AI
Fastest setup: Catherine of Russia - It's hard to beat a high level AI to good spots if they get an extra boost to settlers (in addition to their difficulty handicap) AND culture press. Cathy is usually a fairly strong civ in my games. I rarely see her get boxed in or fall behind in early tech race. (runner up is Justinian as he is rarely small or backwards)

Best economy: Mansa of Mali - Let's face it, this guy techs like a beast and will still trade techs with his worst enemy! If he isn't stopped, he WILL launch a space ship or win culture faster than you can say Skirmisher! Speaking of Skirmishers, there will be no early rushing on this tech whore.

Best warmonger: Hands down it's Shaka - It is truly rare that he isn't rolling over some AI if I'm not unlucky enough to land next him as a starting position. If so, I'd better become the world's premier warmonger or get run over by this guy.

Niche: Dunno what the AI considers a 'niche' situation . Tokugawa would be my pick.

Sorry, I should be more specific- human player standard settings, and yes this taking in account a civilization and its leader.

Yeah..AI vs. Human makes a huge difference

Actually, I would not say America is niche at all. In fact, the Civ is probably the most generic and flexible of the bunch, especially Washington with his traits. I consider Wash the best "training" leader. Roos and Linc are strong leaders for Human.

I agree with Blitz...both Indian leaders are strong warmongers for Human.

I like China for Human fast starts. Starting techs make a huge difference in this case and they have the best. French are strong too.

Fast starts for AI pretty much goes to any IMP leader, but Justy and Cathy should rank high.

Shaka and Nappy for warmongers among AI

Good point lymond, guess I took traits into consideration for every country except my own

I haven't rolled Napoleon in a game in months. Seriously, I don't think I've seen him for my last few dozen games. I think I'll manually add him in on my next map just so I can see him in action.

jackelgull said:

Who is the most consistent? Which civ can perform well under the widest variety of circumstances?
America:1
...
And finally here is the fluke category
Who is the most niche? Which civilization performs well only under a narrow range of conditions?
America:1

Click to expand...

America performs well under the widest variety of circumstances, but only well under a narrow range of conditions?

Lol. He's just listing # of votes and for which civ. jackelgull had voted for America as a niche civ but lymond had voted for America as performing well under a wide variety of circumstances.

I tend to agree with lymond in that America's leaders have generally good traits for a diversity of map types and situations. But as a Civ, America's uniques are pretty weak and come too late to work in games that aren't late era starts or really late war finishes. Although, having Agri as a starting tech usually makes me smile. But fishing is meh and doesn't allow for GS Engineering bulb strat.

Thanks blitzkrieg1980 for clearing that up; I thought the numbers were jackelgull's rankings.

Yeah, maybe a better format could've been used. IIRC, you can use html tables. Let's see how this looks:

EDIT: Tried using HTML tables, but it doesn't work like that with vBulletin. The table option is just a table with multiple rows/single column. Regular html markup for tables doesn't work either

Let me clarify, it was Mulatto maker who voted in America for inconsistent- I have yet to vote.

What format would be the clearest?

Nah. It's fine the way it is. Well, maybe separate the categories with a horizontal line and make the text for the category larger? Just easier to read that way, maybe.

Who is the most consistent? Which civ can perform well under the widest variety of circumstances?
Peter or Fredrick

Who is the fastest?
Chinese leaders

in fluke category
Who is the most niche?
Toku (no economic traits, late UB)

Which civilization performs well only under a narrow range of conditions?
Saladin (try it under the Industrial advanced start )

Which civilization is challenging to play with due to starting techs/traits/lousy UU and UB?
Boudica (I will say all of the factors mentioned except her Charismatic trait)

Worst unrestricted leader (Sid is not counted ok?)
Toku of the Celts (no economic traits/poorer starting traits/subpar UU and UB)

FYI there should be 2 for Tokugawa under the "niche" section. Chalk me up for Hatshepsut for most diverse.