BNW Deity Tier List

Indonesia The bonus resources are nice, but they are not a big deal. Any other civilization with a happiness building will easily be able to exceed that bonus. The Candi has a very situational bonus and is unilkely to give you a lot of additional faith, you are very dependent on the religious performance of your neighbors, therefore the bonus you receive from it is minimal.

Candi's can give you tons and tons of faith very effortlessly, you're guaranteed to get +4 faith out of them and if you have another neighbor with a religion it'll go up further to +6 on it's own. The only problem with them is that on deity you need to hope that the beliefs based on faith buying buildings / units.
 
IMHO, Poland, Venice and Shoshone are all in tier0 aka the god tier.

Venice was my first diety win and at that time I thought they were easy mode until I got my next win with Poland. Venice is only marginally hard when the CS are in really bad spots with no luxes or bad production but there's always 2-3 prime CS spots so it's not much to worry about.

Poland just cruises through those policies and gets you through rat faster than anyone if going for the science victory or aesth for a cultural. Either way you get amazing science and culture with Poland and you still get a very good UU. If you want to go the military route then put 2pts into honor for discipline, and get lucky with a religion(which can be a craptoss on diety) and can get Faith Healers and Defenders of the Faith then those hussar are fast, fricken bad ass beasts. In fact in one science victory with with Poland I was cruising midway until China decided to go apehorsehocky and take over half the continent and so I had to quickly change over to a military stategy. I let Wu come to me and it was so fun flanking the arty that were 3 hexes away, hitting them with two horses and running back to the city while the other hussar were healing and tag team wammo she got smacked so hard. She finally got tired of me and we made peace and oddly enough were best buddies through the rest of the game with open borders and defense pacts :)

Shoshone well geeze you get to pick and choose your start with cult, pop, tech and faith. You are almost assured a religion unless you have really bad luck. Another really strong military if you get discipline, Defenders of the Faith plus their UA.

Oh and Spain gets honorable mention for being the most fun roll-the-dice civ ever. Restart on small pangea maps, run around 5-6 turns and if no wonders then try again. I assure you it doesn't take long before you find 1-2 wonders. Somtimes they are right inside a CS doh or right next to another civ but I've had a many games where they were within 3-4 turns. OMG is it awwsome getting Lake Victoria and Mt. Sinai within your starting area lol. King Solomon's mines seems the hard one to get but probably for good reason since it is so OP with Spain. And of course the gold you get for discovering those wonders let's you get off to a rip roaring start.
 
Yeah I've done fairly well with them. Don't get me wrong, they're not top tier, but I don't think they're bottom any more. It's mainly about not going ott on cities or moai. Bear in mind that you don't need to work all your moai, and that going wide you can spend a few rubbish tiles which you wouldn't work anyway to get one or two good ones. You don't need to moai every single tile, and should still improve the lux''s and farm the wheat etc. ICS is dead for everyone from science, but wide is not; the science penalty is not that strong if you stay reasonable, and culture policies get a much bigger boost from Polynesia (relative to other wide civs) than they used to. When I've played, I've taken liberty (sometimes with tradition opener for borders), then mixed aesthetics with rationalism (which Polynesia does need).
Tbh, I haven't really found the need to get landmarks, as moai do a good job anyway, so the few that I did get out really benefitted from being super fast as they were being snapped up, so I focused on depriving the culture leader from what they had yet to get. You are right that they don't get there super early, but tech stealing and a little intelligence over where to steal is a great leveller :).
Lastly, you don't need to crazy on the moai super early; I spammed them near the end when I had lots of pop and was getting tourism, but for the majority of the game they were just in the prime spots.

PS. Not about their strength really as it's situational and a little role playey, but I found it really fun when warring to take workers with me to quickly get moai up on the edge of new puppets to attack the next city. I also found planning city placement very interesting and fun.

edit: Oh yeah, of the 4 games I played w Polyneisa I had 1 diplo win, 2 culture wins, and one loss. 75% for me feels about par for a middle tier civ on deity. There was 1 pangea, 1 continents (the loss), 1 continents plus and one small continents. All standard size and pace, all else standard except quick movement and fighting.

I tried them out, for 2 games on, Deity, Liberty start, got 7 cities by mid-game (played continents and there was actually a decent island nearby my start AND I had access to two coasts w/ a river/hill start and my next two expansions had mountains... so pretty good start for Poly. Delayed working anything below 3 culture, small definitely not anywhere near France/Brazil. I think I had 2 4-culture tiles, zero 5 culture tiles, and mostly 3 culture tiles elsewhere on my coastline.

France/Brazil are still significantly better. I think at this point the culture victory condition in BNW is too weak for Polynesia to be ranked higher, and Polynesia doesn't really have much going for it otherwise. The start is slightly better since you can embark, which lets you get past some obstacles and means you don't have to build any treimes. Moari warriors also upgrade well (unlike scouts) so there's that. But, the civ doesn't really come together. It's end-game still has less tourism than France/Brazil (depsite me working all available Moais), so the GMs aren't as powerful. Also generates less gold than either of those two civs.

It feels wildly outclassed by civs that try to do similar things, like comparing Denmark to Songhai (which, coincidentally are in the same tiers respectively).

I don't think they're getting moved up until/unless fall patch does something to make Deity culture victories easier. It's frankly the hardest victory condition for Deity in BNW.
 
Can anyone explain to me why Egypt are so highly rated? As far as I am aware, the UU is not brilliant? Ok it doesn't require horses and it's an archer with far more move speed but is it that good? Burial Tombs as well seem to be a double edged sword, they make you a very tempting target but does the AI realise that? I don't know whether it's sophisticated enough.

Finally their UA, I can appreciate the importance of this UA but I've often found that on higher difficulty levels that you're just not going to get some of the earlier wonders and when it comes to late game wonders, if you've played the science game well enough, you just have no competition at all. The best use of this UA I can think of is for the mid game wonders; Chichen Itza, Notre Dame etc since this tends to be where you catch up to the AI tech wise and you may need to compete with them.

Anyway, I'll stop blathering and let others explain, why are Egypt so good?
 
Can anyone explain to me why Egypt are so highly rated? As far as I am aware, the UU is not brilliant? Ok it doesn't require horses and it's an archer with far more move speed but is it that good? Burial Tombs as well seem to be a double edged sword, they make you a very tempting target but does the AI realise that? I don't know whether it's sophisticated enough.

Finally their UA, I can appreciate the importance of this UA but I've often found that on higher difficulty levels that you're just not going to get some of the earlier wonders and when it comes to late game wonders, if you've played the science game well enough, you just have no competition at all. The best use of this UA I can think of is for the mid game wonders; Chichen Itza, Notre Dame etc since this tends to be where you catch up to the AI tech wise and you may need to compete with them.

Anyway, I'll stop blathering and let others explain, why are Egypt so good?

There aren't a lot of really out-of-reach Wonders, even in Deity. I believe only Great Library is impossible, and some of the early "achievable" ones have far-reaching effects, like ToA. You also can't really get a Religion without a Wonder (barring extreme luck), so being able to get Stonehenge or Hagia Sofia is good.

You also get the bonus on National Wonders, something that you want on EVERY game.

To finish, free early Happiness is extremely powerful, giving you flexibility to either expand hard or go very tall earlier than your opponents.

I never attacked anybody with a Chariot Archer so I'm not sure about it. =p
 
There aren't a lot of really out-of-reach Wonders, even in Deity. I believe only Great Library is impossible, and some of the early "achievable" ones have far-reaching effects, like ToA. You also can't really get a Religion without a Wonder (barring extreme luck), so being able to get Stonehenge or Hagia Sofia is good.

You also get the bonus on National Wonders, something that you want on EVERY game.

To finish, free early Happiness is extremely powerful, giving you flexibility to either expand hard or go very tall earlier than your opponents.

I never attacked anybody with a Chariot Archer so I'm not sure about it. =p

I find pre renaissance wonders to be very rough to get and often rng more than anything. I have to agree on GL. It feels even harder to get now than it was in GnK for some reason...Similar to how Oracle is typically easy but if Mayans are on the map, they build it 35 turns earlier than my usual build time o.o

I have never come even remotely close to building Notre Dame but that may be more of a tech order issue.
 
Can anyone explain to me why Egypt are so highly rated? As far as I am aware, the UU is not brilliant? Ok it doesn't require horses and it's an archer with far more move speed but is it that good? Burial Tombs as well seem to be a double edged sword, they make you a very tempting target but does the AI realise that? I don't know whether it's sophisticated enough.

Finally their UA, I can appreciate the importance of this UA but I've often found that on higher difficulty levels that you're just not going to get some of the earlier wonders and when it comes to late game wonders, if you've played the science game well enough, you just have no competition at all. The best use of this UA I can think of is for the mid game wonders; Chichen Itza, Notre Dame etc since this tends to be where you catch up to the AI tech wise and you may need to compete with them.

Anyway, I'll stop blathering and let others explain, why are Egypt so good?

Happiness is the hardest to achieve in the early game. They have the single best happiness UB in that it comes in both on the regular early game tech path and very early in the game allowing more growth. It's also the main source of ICS although ICS is kinda dead so that isn't too relevant a metric.

I don't find them awesome either as nothing in their book fits my playstyle but I can see the value
 
I find pre renaissance wonders to be very rough to get and often rng more than anything. I have to agree on GL. It feels even harder to get now than it was in GnK for some reason...Similar to how Oracle is typically easy but if Mayans are on the map, they build it 35 turns earlier than my usual build time o.o

I have never come even remotely close to building Notre Dame but that may be more of a tech order issue.

Quick pre-Renaissance Wonder shortlist, divided by how hard they are to get on Deity from my experience:

-Medium: ToA, Mausoleum, Hagia Sofia, Pyramids, Macchu Picchu, Oracle, Lighthouse*
-Hard: Stonehenge, Borobodur, Petra, Colossus*
-Very Hard: Hanging Gardens, Terracotta Army, Chichen Itza, Parthenon
-Impossible: Great Library, Alhambra, Notre Dame

Those on "medium" you will get if you go straight to it close to 100% of the time. On "hard" you will get them more often than not, "very hard" you usually will lose them but might get there. *s are impossible on water maps.

From Renaissance forward, if you played the game right you can usually get every Wonder you really want. Some of the earlier ones you might miss depending on the civs in your game, but if you do straight beelines you usually can hit them all (not all at the same time, obviously... unless you are Egypt heheh)
 
Quick pre-Renaissance Wonder shortlist, divided by how hard they are to get on Deity from my experience:

-Medium: ToA, Mausoleum, Hagia Sofia, Pyramids, Macchu Picchu, Oracle, Lighthouse*
-Hard: Stonehenge, Borobodur, Petra, Colossus*
-Very Hard: Hanging Gardens, Terracotta Army, Chichen Itza, Parthenon
-Impossible: Great Library, Alhambra, Notre Dame

Those on "medium" you will get if you go straight to it close to 100% of the time. On "hard" you will get them more often than not, "very hard" you usually will lose them but might get there. *s are impossible on water maps.

Nice list. On Immortal, I would alter as such (excepting for the DLC Wonders, which I have no experience with):
-Easy: Pyramids, Oracle
-Hard: move up Hagia.
 
I just played around with Netherlands and I must say I think they should be moved up at least one, possibly 2 tiers. The mix of UI/Start bias is really powerful as it allows you to delay early expansion to get a much better capital out.

The UI is a monster. It actually indirectly boosts the bonus the civ receives from golden ages much more than it did in GnK now that riverside tiles no longer have a baseline 1gpt and it provides extremely powerful tiles for the midgame and on. The bonus extra happiness from UA is particularly nice in the early game.
 
Ok I am now again getting back to Incans need to receive a boost to 2nd best tier. Particularly with the idea of making the most out of average/bad starts. For a start to be bad for Inca, you have to be terribly badlucky.

Look at this image - Another civ with a similar start would've had to play 2, maybe 3 city trad and forced itself to forward settle where Adwa is before Ethiopia claimed the spot as well as to settle Tiwanaku on the gold to claim and work the wonder.

Not only that, but capital would've finished the game with 5-8 less pop because the start was really not so growth friendly and tiwanaku would've capped around 12 pop.

This civ is outstanding. Had there been single tiles to access west/nw alcoves, I would've played 7-city trad and grown all 7 cities easily to pop 18-20 by T225-T250. Plus, the hills movement and free roads/railroads is very underestimated in how much early game GPT it provides. For the record, Corihuayrachina was settled around T140 and actually covered about all of its own infrastructure (no wasted gold) as well as provided enough growth and hammers to hard build Cristo Redentor


Spoiler :
 
Just curious, is there a similar list for G&K? I feel so noob still playing that and not BNW but im still new to it, and still trying to get my at least 1 deity win before moving on :(
 
Is it the bonus against Civs with more cities that makes Ethiopia a top tier Deity choice? I'm not a deity player so I'm curious as to why it's rated in high
 
Is it the bonus against Civs with more cities that makes Ethiopia a top tier Deity choice? I'm not a deity player so I'm curious as to why it's rated in high

Top-shelf UB. 8 free :c5faith: per turn in a four-city Tradition game is hot. The Stele is either the #2 or #3 UB. It's clearly behind the Pyramid, but I tend to think it's better than the Bazaar unless you're playing OCC.

Your intuition is spot-on, though; Ethiopia's clearly the weakest of the civs listed in the top tier. Arabia is just all-around solid with an excellent UB, UA and UU, and the other four are the :c5science: civs. With Poland that's non-obvious, but the extra policies ultimately translate into growing faster than other civs and ripping through Rationalism.
 
Bottom Tier: these civs are pretty bad on balanced maps, and require specific maps to work.

Indonesia*

this civ is bellow middle tier on a pangea map ...The infantry line special promotions are ridiculous ... And even on pangea you will eventually find the 3 tiny or not so tiny islands to get access to your SIX (3 doubled) free luxuries on top of whatever luxuries // strategics (iron/oil/aluminium/uranium)//natural wonders those cities get ...

Maybe you've read the UA wrong - you don't have to build your first 3 cities on different islands (that would be terrible as it would require optics before settling) .. Play expand/normally .. You will need to scout the shores early (trireme) and later oceans(caravel) to find out the best places for those special cities ...

UB 4+ FPT on river cities is workable - but it usually comes into play a bit too late to make a difference in the establishing religion phase ..
 
Would the list look similar for g&k? (of course minus the civs that are only BNW) or did the reworking to some of the UAs such as arabia and trade caravans bump them up a tier?
 
Would the list look similar for g&k? (of course minus the civs that are only BNW) or did the reworking to some of the UAs such as arabia and trade caravans bump them up a tier?

Somewhat similar but this is quite subjective even with the input of so many players. To round groups a bit I'd say Inca up a notch, India down a notch, Netherlands up a notch as my personal interpretation of a GnK similar ladder.
 
Top-shelf UB. 8 free :c5faith: per turn in a four-city Tradition game is hot. The Stele is either the #2 or #3 UB. It's clearly behind the Pyramid, but I tend to think it's better than the Bazaar unless you're playing OCC.

Your intuition is spot-on, though; Ethiopia's clearly the weakest of the civs listed in the top tier. Arabia is just all-around solid with an excellent UB, UA and UU, and the other four are the :c5science: civs. With Poland that's non-obvious, but the extra policies ultimately translate into growing faster than other civs and ripping through Rationalism.

I tend to consider the Steele to be better than the Pyramids in that I can fully skip an early game building from my early game rotation. With the need to hard build settlers nowadays it feels even stronger to that extent and trade routes BPT seem to reduce the impact of the pyramid slightly in proportion to GnK. All this and the fact that it means the faith kicks in 10-40 turns earlier on cities 2-4 from trad opener as opposed to hard building pyramids.

I already preferred Steele in GnK purely for that I would almost never build shrines in regular strategies so I'd always feel like I was missing hammers in the early game as Mayans back then.

That's my main motive for considering Ethiopia a top tier civ.
 
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