BNW Deity Tier List

Even with Piety, on Deity Theodora is quite unlikely to get a religion. On maps with no faith pantheon Theodora's UA is useless and that's more than 50% of maps.

Zeth said:

getting Pagodas+Mosques+Cathedrals, then finishing the Piety tree to get Sacred Sites reformation belief.

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That is one gimmicky way to win one VC type at middling difficultly levels. Totally OT for a Deity tier list where OP states criteria is all VC across a range of common map types.

Read it again, beetle. It says easy to win. The criteria for each band actually contradicts this, but I have to go with the criteria for the overall list, which must have been made first. Which is why I keep telling these detractors that any civ with strong DomV advantages cannot be below average tier. You are right about SS on Deity though.

Stuff it, I'm gonna make my own Tier list thread.

consentient said:

Stuff it, I'm gonna make my own Tier list thread.

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Looking forward to it!

consentient said:

Stuff it, I'm gonna make my own Tier list thread.

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Oh I definitely can't wait to see it

Spain - potential to be so OP. Started immortal game and found 3 natural wonders in the first 25 turns (first to discover as well), bought settlers and workers early and founded two of those wonders (other was in City states but was the weakest of the 3). Lake Victoria +12 food with tons of flood plains and some flood plains wheat near by is insane. First time I ever snow balled this hard, way ahead of the AIs. Other wonder was Mt. Kailash

Lord Alexander said:

Spain - potential to be so OP. Started immortal game and found 3 natural wonders in the first 25 turns (first to discover as well), bought settlers and workers early and founded two of those wonders (other was in City states but was the weakest of the 3). Lake Victoria +12 food with tons of flood plains and some flood plains wheat near by is insane. First time I ever snow balled this hard, way ahead of the AIs. Other wonder was Mt. Kailash

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Save file?

Lord Alexander said:

Spain - potential to be so OP. Started immortal game and found 3 natural wonders in the first 25 turns (first to discover as well), bought settlers and workers early and founded two of those wonders (other was in City states but was the weakest of the 3). Lake Victoria +12 food with tons of flood plains and some flood plains wheat near by is insane. First time I ever snow balled this hard, way ahead of the AIs. Other wonder was Mt. Kailash

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The keyword is potential, IF you get a good NW that is worth settling and won't require you to (a) steal it from a CS or (b) settle your second city thirty tiles away (I did that once for Solomon's mine... Fun game...).

Outside of my last Emperor game as Spain (where I basically ran over the AI thanks to El Dorado and the GBR), I rarely see a NW close to me and usually, when I do, it's something terrible like the Grand Mesa, the Barringer Crater, Old Faithful or a completely unworkable Krakatoa. If you don't get a good NW, then you're basically playing crippled.

I'm surprised to see this debate still going on, hahaha.

Spain is on the Middle Tier on this list and I think that's as good a place as any. Their UA really defies placement in tier lists because it's so luck-based. I'm sure most of us have some anecdote about one Spain game where they got an amazing natural wonder like GBR, Uluru, or Lake Victoria (lake VICTORY, right?) but it's almost impossible to quantify.

There's fewer natural wonders than there are players on your standard map and the deity AI starts with more units (including Scouts). Therefore I'm going to assume that it's less than 50% of the time that you find a NW first. As to being able to settle said wonder, that's a total mystery. City-states seem to love occupying them, and it might be something like Old Faithful or Barringer Crater which aren't really worth settling that often. Mount Sinai is also bad for being in the middle of flat desert - settling it might consist of one dude living on the mountain for ages.

Without the total unknown factor of natural wonders and settling them/seeing them first, you can count on some modest happiness bonuses from the ones you do find and a little bit of gold. The Tercio and the Conquistador are neat units but they're not going to have large impacts on Diety. Spain has little power for warmongering beyond a vanilla Civ.

Summary: I'd get behind the idea of just taking them off the list entirely. Alternately, they sort of meet the definition of mid tier: their bonuses can be solid and they can perform with the best, but there's factors way outside their control.

consentient said:

Byzantium are really not very good at Deity difficulty, especially since the last patch, because the UA is completely useless unless you can found a religion, which is not always possible. If, in the future, the developers patch it so Byzantium have some advantage which helps them found a religion, such as starting with a pantheon belief, then they would for sure be upper-mid tier, but they are kinda like Spain: all or nothing.

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I know this post is several months old, but I think starting with a pantheon would be bad. You need to scout the surrounding area for 10ish turns or so to know what pantheon you would want. There are times playing the Celts when I wish I could delay my pantheon choice because turn 5 is too early to know what the best choice is.

I think having Byzantium get +1 faith in the capital city in addition to their current UA would be good, and maybe make them a decent religious civ.

Or, how about they start with Holy Warriors belief regardless of the presence of a religion

GerrardCapashen said:

I know this post is several months old, but I think starting with a pantheon would be bad. You need to scout the surrounding area for 10ish turns or so to know what pantheon you would want. There are times playing the Celts when I wish I could delay my pantheon choice because turn 5 is too early to know what the best choice is.

I think having Byzantium get +1 faith in the capital city in addition to their current UA would be good, and maybe make them a decent religious civ.

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What I meant was that they had a 'UA pantheon' which gave them +X in their city, so we're on the same wavelength. +1 isn't going to cut it, though, not on Deity. I recommend +3 at least.

stormtrooper412 said:

Or, how about they start with Holy Warriors belief regardless of the presence of a religion?

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I don't like the flavour. Historically, the Byzantines had slowed down the conquest of the previous 'Western' Roman Empire.

How about, x% of generated faith is converted to culture?

I think the UA is great and flavoursome but just needs help on Deity to get there. Another option would be "Once two religions have been founded, if you haven't founded one, you can found one". Byzantium was at the crossroads of two different cultures and religions, so I get where the UA is coming from, and like it, but on Deity you're just so unlikely to get there. I played a game recently where everything was gone by T48. +X faith in the capital or another pantheon-like effect would be a great boost. If there is going to be a Civ whose flavour should be religious, it should be almost guaranteed a religion, otehrwise its pointless. Too bad that Piety didn't get enough of a boost in the last patch, and too bad that the AI thinks it's the bestthingever, and 5/7 AIs are picking it in many games. Too bad that Firaxis couldn't find a way to improve the tree and NOT have the AI spam it.

I agree with this list accept I recon Aztecs Persia and Egypt should move up having won the game with all civs also Venice should be deity IMO there a filthy civ

I am getting back into playing Civ 5 after a long hiatus and I stumbled upon a reddit post that linked to this article. The last time I played was during the release of Gods and Kings so I thought playing a strong Civ would help ease the transition back. I generally agree with this tier list, but I had some questions.

Of the top tier:
Babylon, Korea, Mayans, Poland

Both Mayans and Poland make sense to me, and they would be in my top tier too. I'm not sure if Korea would be, but I see the potential for winning a late game space race.

But why is Babylon included? Why aren't the Celts and Rome included?

If you haven't played BNW then it's not surprising you're a bit off the mark

Babylon are very good because they get a free GS which allows for super fast tech growth, allowing the human player to reach key techs like Education or Machinery, super fast.

Celts are no good on Deity because nowadays the 5 religions disappear really fast and forests are not enough to get enough faith to found a religion.

Rome aren't much good because their benefits are conducive to wide play, which is penalised in BNW by a tech penalty.

If you want to check out another, very different BNW Deity tier list, feel free to check out mine:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=544761

consentient said:

If you haven't played BNW then it's not surprising you're a bit off the mark

Babylon are very good because they get a free GS which allows for super fast tech growth, allowing the human player to reach key techs like Education or Machinery, super fast.

Celts are no good on Deity because nowadays the 5 religions disappear really fast and forests are not enough to get enough faith to found a religion.

Rome aren't much good because their benefits are conducive to wide play, which is penalised in BNW by a tech penalty.

If you want to check out another, very different BNW Deity tier list, feel free to check out mine:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=544761

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Back when I played Civ 5 I generally played on King difficulty, so I could see how it would be different for Deity. I also played before BNW, but I've now purchased it because I heard how good it was. I'm pretty sure I beat Civ 5 on Immortal once with a lot of save re-loading but I haven't tried again. I beat the four other Civs on the highest difficulty level, but in each of them I was using exploits. Civ I you can beat by spamming Chariots, Civ II you can beat by rapidly expanding and using Caravans to amass wonders, Civ III used to have an exploitable bug that gave you double resources for sacrificing population, Civ IV you used to be able to steal workers and chop forests. I don't think I would have been able to beat any of them on the highest difficulty without exploits.

I couldn't find any easy exploits in Civ V outside of the AI being atrocious at war, but there are so many penalties on having a large empire in Civ V I'm not sure taking enemy cities helps.

So you're saying that even playing the Celts and founding your first two cities next to 3 forests isn't enough to get one of the five religions? That's pretty harsh. Getting an early religion without slowing down your expansion is the main reason I thought Boudica would be in the top tier. Rome just seems solid all around, when I played them their bonus was pretty close to +25% production for all buildings outside the capital. I'm primarily a builder in Civ games so that seemed very good.

celts with forests = almost guaranteed FIRST pantheon pick. Problem is when the dirt around you doesn't offer +faith pantheon.

Still, capital shrine + godking + 3 forest in capital and extra faith from expansions is (most of the time) enough to grab a religion even on deity even when dirt doesn't provide faith besides forests. They can also milk some extra bits with spear-men offing barbs.

They are much better situated in this regard compared to Byzantium .. Miles better ..

DarkSchneider said:

Back when I played Civ 5 I generally played on King difficulty, so I could see how it would be different for Deity.

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Yeah, this is a Deity tier list, so a few different things going on. Rome are sweet on Prince, I know.

Deity is very doable, even without exploits. There are tons of strategy tips here to help you!

So you're saying that even playing the Celts and founding your first two cities next to 3 forests isn't enough to get one of the five religions? That's pretty harsh.

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No, I'm saying that often there aren't 2 decent city spots with 3 forests.

peddroelm said:

celts with forests = almost guaranteed FIRST pantheon pick. Problem is when the dirt around you doesn't offer +faith pantheon.

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Which is most of the time. I've done my own studies and seen that forests are further away in general from quarries, salt, and other goodies, than open terrain is.

Still, capital shrine + godking + 3 forest in capital and extra faith from expansions is (most of the time) enough to grab a religion

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Not in my experience, but oh well.

They are of course better than Byzantium. Pretty hard not to be