BNW Deity Tier List

I wonder about that too. Last night in my game, I watch my gold income go from +200 to +130 and then back up again - all from trades coming in. Sometimes I see 7 trades coming in and other times, none. I pretty much do the same thing as I re-evaluate where to send a ship when it comes time to renew. One of my primary decision points is whether to allow or not allow the two cultural runaways (Siam and Iroquois) bonuses for trade partners - comes a time that I would sacrifice 10 gpt and a science or two just to slow them down a bit.

Are the Iroquois that bad? I mean, nothing against them, but I played a game with them last night and... Well I thought the UA was for all forest tiles, not only from the tiles that they own, It took me like 20 turns to get a Internal Trade Route going, but the gold was good for sometime... And since I got stuck on my own continent, I couldn't use Mohawk Warrior, that sucked... And the Longhouse it was good, because it was a Arborea map, but It wasn't that big of a difference you know?
So how to bost them a lil bit?

Netherlands - what makes them mid-tier? Happiness? Polders?

I have been playing them a few games now and find them pretty bad actually. Maybe I'm unlucky with start locations because I rarely get any marches...

Lower or bottom in my book.

Gustavus Rex said:

Netherlands - what makes them mid-tier? Happiness? Polders?

I have been playing them a few games now and find them pretty bad actually. Maybe I'm unlucky with start locations because I rarely get any marches...

Lower or bottom in my book.

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You know it also works on Flood Plains, right? In which case Polders are far better.
Thing is, the Dutch can settle in areas the AI ignores (Marshes) or take prime desert real estate and make it even better then others would. Yes, you need a few marshes or flood plains, but there should be some on the average map. Just as how the Inca need their mountains (That said, Terrace farm IS better).
The UA is flexible, either you sacrifice a bit of early-game happiness for some GPT, thus kickstarting your economy, or you gain some happiness through the trades of your last lux for another one.
Then, they have the best Naval UU in the game. Yes, I consider it better then the Ship of the Line because Frigates are in their time frame amazing as it is. Sea Beggars, especially when backed up with some XP buildings, come out of the gate with some amazing promotions and are capable of tearing up entire navies even moreso then regular privateers.
All in all, they're not top tier, but they can grow massive cities, are more flexible early game then most others due to their UA, and on water-heavy maps, they're one of the few who can actually compete with the English.

DaNuke said:

Are the Iroquois that bad? I mean, nothing against them, but I played a game with them last night and... Well I thought the UA was for all forest tiles, not only from the tiles that they own, It took me like 20 turns to get a Internal Trade Route going, but the gold was good for sometime... And since I got stuck on my own continent, I couldn't use Mohawk Warrior, that sucked... And the Longhouse it was good, because it was a Arborea map, but It wasn't that big of a difference you know?
So how to bost them a lil bit?

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UB is more of a nerf than a buff actually (mind you, it allows you to replace your mines with lumber mills, giving you one extra food) but it lacks the production bonus.
UU is clearly worse than the jaguar (no movement bonus outside own territory)
UA is meh... saves you some gold but you need to get lucky a bit with streaks of forest/jungle.

They would only be good if you spawned with, say, 6 forest deer tiles.

I'm somewhat confused about the low ranking of Sweden...

I just played them for the first time in years on immortal and they were awesome. Other than choice of whether to go for cultural as my first GW came up, I was pretty much in a position to pick any type of victory I wanted throughout the whole game.

At the beginning of industrial I had a nice powerful well promoted army (the nearest military CS near me was giving out Keshiks ) and I wasnt even at Carolean stage. Anyone messing with me got destroyed. I was top science, had around 100 FPT, a ton of culture, am 100+ influence allies with 13/16 CS (I grabbed the Panzer donating military CS a bit later)....it was all a bit easy mode by then and I'm certainly not the best player around.

Can anyone explain why Sweden is so low? Not only are they fun but you can choose whatever VC you like as far as I can see.

Sweden has a few problems, really. They tend to have rocky starts due to the tundra bias (and Dance of the Aurora just isn't enough to make up for that), Caroleans are pretty awesome but they are infantry, which kind of lowers their value at that point in the game (Where Artillery is king). Haakapellita (Probably misspelled that) are Lancer replacements. Yeah they ferry Generals around fast, but combat-wise they're poor.
These things keep Sweden from being better. Yeah they're flexible, but also reliant on the city states around you. They can deploy a fully militaristic playstyle very well (Giving earned Generals to CS's), but that playstyle is nerfed in BNW. So...yeah they're not BAD, but not good either.

Hmmm maybe...

I dunno, maybe I got lucky in this game.

I met babylon pretty quickly and immediately nicked his worker. Then I just sat my warrior 3 hexes away from his cap so it couldnt bombard me and let his warriors bash against mine generating xp and GG points.

I opened tradition first then opened honor and grabbed the GG policy too before returning to tradition. I gave the GG to a religious CS which basically gave me a free religion. It didnt take long to generate another GG and I gave that to a cultural CS.

I also did quests like usual and got some free units and food out of them.

Once I hit medieval I opened the CS tree and headed to the science for CS production policy which kept me up nicely on science.

I built all the guilds and just gave the GPs to whichever CS was most useful at the time. At one point I had met and allied all CS's on my continent and had 6 GPs waiting until we hit astronomy and could meet the others. I settled GS's and gave away all the others.

I had pretty much 4-5 friends for the whole game which made generating all the GPs easy.

I didn't give a monkeys about the Hakkamawhatsit as I was getting much more useful UUs from the military CS.

I dunno, I just found it easy and versatile to do basically what I wanted at most points in the game rather than having to choose and focus on one thing like I do with most other civs.

It gets dropped hard based on it's starting tundra bias. You didn't have a tundra start on this one but they are out there

Ahh fair enough - I just restart tundra starts so I guess I have ignored that part!

Can someone pls explain to me why ethiopia is so good? I get that early game faith is good, but honestly thats the only thing that looks good. Their UA is unexciting and their UU replaces riflemen, which are subpar to artillery when it comes to defense. and starting with drill 1 is okay its not that good. Comparing them to Arabia and the Shoshone seems unrealistic to me

ThePanda42 said:

Can someone pls explain to me why ethiopia is so good? I get that early game faith is good, but honestly thats the only thing that looks good. Their UA is unexciting and their UU replaces riflemen, which are subpar to artillery when it comes to defense. and starting with drill 1 is okay its not that good. Comparing them to Arabia and the Shoshone seems unrealistic to me

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It's actually that basically guaranteed religion. It's super strong. And it's a lot of faith that stacks quickly. 2fpt from turn 30 and then 6 or so from 60-100 while others have maybe 2. Is huge

ThePanda42 said:

Can someone pls explain to me why ethiopia is so good? I get that early game faith is good, but honestly thats the only thing that looks good. Their UA is unexciting and their UU replaces riflemen, which are subpar to artillery when it comes to defense. and starting with drill 1 is okay its not that good. Comparing them to Arabia and the Shoshone seems unrealistic to me

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-Guaranteed Religion
-Big Early Game Defense when you are at your most vulnerable

Shoshone belongs in top tier. Pathfinders mean that you usually get 5 pop on t30 and pump out a settler in 8 turns. Also, the increased land is VERY powerful - it allows you to steal others' territory, gives you many more tiles to work, and luxes/happiness early on. Basically: for each city you found you get 500 gold worth of free tiles, which is basically a free natural wonder from Spain (except for EACH CITY). Guaranteed culture/faith ruins are always good - you can skip the shrine. Comp bows + defense bonus makes every warmonger think twice.

Undefeatable said:

Shoshone belongs in top tier. Pathfinders mean that you usually get 5 pop on t30 and pump out a settler in 8 turns. Also, the increased land is VERY powerful - it allows you to steal others' territory, gives you many more tiles to work, and luxes/happiness early on. Basically: for each city you found you get 500 gold worth of free tiles, which is basically a free natural wonder from Spain (except for EACH CITY). Guaranteed culture/faith ruins are always good - you can skip the shrine. Comp bows + defense bonus makes every warmonger think twice.

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Shoshone is annoying and threatening to immediate neighbors but lacks a sustained bonus to compete with the big guys in late game.

Shoshone are pretty mediocre on water maps, so they're not top tier.

I can't believe there is a disagreement about whether Shoshone is top tier. Fast starts are incredibly important and the Shoshone allow for the fastest start around.

I grant that they are definitely mid-tier for island starts but it seems to me the default around here is Pangea-ish settings or continents.

Yep, Shoshone are fine on the list where they are. But I'd question whether Austria and Celts belong to the same tier. I guess you would have to play more games to understand that. A few games that I played as either Austria or Celts were not so convincing.

The rest of the mid upper tier list looks more or less fine. I can't comment much on the rest of the lower tier list as you would have to play much more games to feel the real civs advantages Except maybe Greece up 1 tier (at least on Pangaea) since CS influence advantage is very important in the game.

Maybe add ^ to shoshone? if you play them right like undefeatable said, pumping out 2/3 settlers in 7/8 turns each is insane, and then the extra land gets you all your luxes and strategics faster, and you can sell them to the AI to pump out 6/7/8 workers fast to get your farms up, which generally puts u out of reach. Thats in my not-very-good-player opinion.

Resipsa said:

-Guaranteed Religion
-Big Early Game Defense when you are at your most vulnerable

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this. Ethiopia can turtle like no other. If you can snag defender of the faith which you'll be able to 9/10 because of the early +fpt from UB then you get the UU the multipliers stack up and make it almost impossible for anyone to kill your units. UU is 30% at cap + 20% UA + 20% defender of faith. Even if UU is at an expo city I think you still get 15% bonus instead of 30% IIRC.