Nerfing India by making it better? Do you mean buff?
Worst Civ in the Game??
- Thread starter Fluphen Azine
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Nerfing India by making it better? Do you mean buff?
caketastydelish
Deity
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Whatever term the kids are using these days.
Incorrect. Moving into forest tiles works just fine. Moving out of them is the buggy part.
I just don’t see it. Even with the longhouse bonus, it is still stronger to farm wet forests and to mine forested hills. Maybe after you have enough farms, one can leave several forests in place?
A 25% speed buff for worker actions is nice, but not game changing. The woodman's promotion on melee units (upgraded Mohawks) could be a more significant factor, I think, but even that is pretty weak.
I don’t this is a fair characterization at all. I have played them in forests (but not boreal maps per se) a few times, and I could not do anything special or unique with them, and I was trying. I think forested starts are strong for most civs though. Early chops are awesome.
Firstly, the Iroquois can get bonuses on their cities faster on forested maps than any other civ except maybe a lucky Incan start. The reason? Their workers don't end their turn in a forest tile. It IS game-changing in this respect as 10 forest tiles can mean the Iroquois save up to 10 turns of walking before they can improve on the next one. These turns saved can have an impact on your cities, and even your whole empire. I've made a couple of test runs with this before and I actually managed to get the Oxford University and, because of the latter's free tech that allowed me to buy a Renaissance tech, Rationalism faster with the Iroquois UA than without.
Additionally, the fact that they don't need roads for city connections mean they can get save a lot of gold from road maintenance. Connecting a city six tiles away from your capital with forests in-between mean 6 gold per turn saved. When that 6 gold adds up over time, it could mean you are able to buy a new unit or building, you have more gold to counter unit/building maintenance, you can buy city-state influence, etc. Do mind that you will still want to build (rail)roads for certain reasons, like the railroad's production bonus, but until that point, you are getting a lot of gold from just city connections.
Finally, with the Longhouse, forests for the Iroquois don't give you better food or better production per se, but they do give a good middle ground, being able to produce better than food-oriented cities or grow better than hill production-based ones. With ten forest tiles, an Iroquois city can support 5 more citizens (10 specialists with Freedom) that can be overall more productive (not just in hammers but in science, gold and culture) than a mining city. That, or it can build units and buildings faster than a lumber mill or farming city. Even the Incans cannot outproduce them with their normal workshop if they convert their hills into terrace farms. It's either that (being the middle ground), or you could even build trading posts or forts on your forest tiles. The Longhouse makes these tiles incredibly versatile.
The fact, however, is that they cannot do this without forest tiles, which is why they're low tier: they're too dependent on forest tiles to do anything, and the map generation except for Boreal and Arboreal maps isn't always covered with forest tiles. With them, on the other hand, they're actually very strong and should not be trifled with.
Edit: Additional note. Arguably, the most important thing about being able to move freely in forests is that you can also defend more easily in forests. When coupling the UA with the Mohawk Warriors, it makes things even more difficult for invaders to take an Iroquois city down. A forest tile already hampers vision, movement and range for non-artillery ranged units. In fact, ranged units are practically useless when every tile is a forest, unless they can manage to secure hill tiles. In the end, you cannot simply just try and take a well-placed Iroquois city to try and take them down, especially before Artillery is researched.
Acken
Deity
And it's not like they become incredible in these forest maps. At best they become average.
DScruggy729
Chieftain
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Completely agree that India should probably be one of the religious civs, India has the largest Hindu, Janist, Sikh, and Baha'is in the world. As well as the 3rd largest Muslim population, as well as Buddhism tracing it's roots there.
Proportionally India seems like it has a high population density, but it's still the seventh largest country in the world.
jlim201
King
India should be able to host two religions in a city, getting all bonuses from both, I think that would be good, and unique.
Also, merge Byzantium and the Celts abilities into the Celts, and give Byzantium some defensive stuff, like bonus City defense, units have bonuses when on defense etc.
Balance wise, Iroquois Longhouse needs to have everything a Workshop has, plus the forest bonuses to make it be "better". The UA bugs need to be fixed, then their a low tier civ, not horrible.
Venice, maybe make its trade routes harder to pillage (idk how this could be done), so it cant be insta-stopped in MP.
Also, merge Byzantium and the Celts abilities into the Celts, and give Byzantium some defensive stuff, like bonus City defense, units have bonuses when on defense etc.
Balance wise, Iroquois Longhouse needs to have everything a Workshop has, plus the forest bonuses to make it be "better". The UA bugs need to be fixed, then their a low tier civ, not horrible.
Venice, maybe make its trade routes harder to pillage (idk how this could be done), so it cant be insta-stopped in MP.
caketastydelish
Deity
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That's honestly not a bad idea at all. And then forget about having the "tall" bonus entirely. Plenty of civs have the same size (in real life) as India without that silly UA.
That would definitely be a good idea. That would make the Celts a little bit above average but not so overpowered it's embarrassing.
Their capital city should get an automatic defense bonus from the start of the game, "Theodosian Walls" making Constantinople an incredibly tough nut to crack. They should also get a gold revenue bonus considering how much they had. Perhaps the rest of their cities should get a small defensive bonus somehow or another, but not as much as Constantinople would. Constantinople should be an exceptionally hard city to penetrate. Perhaps as an added effect if someone captures it they get triple gold for doing so, similar to the side effect of the Egyptian Burial tomb.
Personally one random thing I think they could do is give their spies a bonus against other civs much more advanced (perhaps at least one complete era above them or something). They certainly adopted horses and gunpowder, etc from the americans and brits. Perhaps this ability would only be allowed when they declare war on you. With the DoW you (with you playing as Iroquois) your spies can steal technology from them twice as fast or something. Everybody in multiplayer would see it coming, but at least it would force them to waste their spies in defense protecting their own cities from you and you could only bluff you're stealing meanwhile your spies are elsewhere so it's still a net positive for the Iroquois player.
Simple, replace great galleass with a trade boat (forget what they're called) with much more actual defense so it can't be one hit killed.
Navelgazer
King
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This is making me think of a lot of ideas, caketastydelish.
1. I think Celts, as a combined Celtic/Byzantine UA, with the Celt's current UU and UB, would work well. It'd be very, very powerful, of course, especially on higher levels. Would it be more OP than Poland, is the question. Essentially a guaranteed religion, with an extra tenet, even on Deity, would be game-changing, but maybe Poland needs some Civs that can challenge it for "God-Mode" status.
2. What to do with Byzantium, then? As I've said, I'm frustrated by their complete lack of Medieval flavor, but that's not a mechanical problem so much. How's about-
UA: When Capturing a City, Gain that City's Pantheon Belief in Byzantium's Capital.
The Dromon is already a beast of a UU, and the Cataphract could come into some use here as well. Really demand early conquest from Byzantium to set them up for a strong-as-hell Medieval game.
3. Carthage. I don't think Venice needs any changes, basically it is what it is in all of its hypercube-y weirdness. But I think one update to Carthage's UA could make a lot of difference, namely, keep everything they've got, but add that:
Pillaging another Civilization's trade-route to Carthage counts as an act of war against Carthage.
...with whatever scripting would be necessary to make the AI understand that trade routes to Carthage are thus more secure and worthwhile.
4. India. I don't know. I think the two-religions thing could both be possibly OP but also is just kind of weird for them. It's kind of celebrating religious strife in a place still suffering from it. I don't really have a better idea, though perhaps being able to faith-buy population in a city could work.
5. Iroquois. My concept for them wouldn't make them top-tier, but would at least help what we're working with, which would be, first of all, add to the UA:
Forest tiles may be improved without chopping the forest.
And add to the Mohawk Warrior:
May plant forests in unforested tiles.
I don't know how well that fits the actual Iroquois civilization, but it would at least allow them to do something interesting and unique here.
1. I think Celts, as a combined Celtic/Byzantine UA, with the Celt's current UU and UB, would work well. It'd be very, very powerful, of course, especially on higher levels. Would it be more OP than Poland, is the question. Essentially a guaranteed religion, with an extra tenet, even on Deity, would be game-changing, but maybe Poland needs some Civs that can challenge it for "God-Mode" status.
2. What to do with Byzantium, then? As I've said, I'm frustrated by their complete lack of Medieval flavor, but that's not a mechanical problem so much. How's about-
UA: When Capturing a City, Gain that City's Pantheon Belief in Byzantium's Capital.
The Dromon is already a beast of a UU, and the Cataphract could come into some use here as well. Really demand early conquest from Byzantium to set them up for a strong-as-hell Medieval game.
3. Carthage. I don't think Venice needs any changes, basically it is what it is in all of its hypercube-y weirdness. But I think one update to Carthage's UA could make a lot of difference, namely, keep everything they've got, but add that:
Pillaging another Civilization's trade-route to Carthage counts as an act of war against Carthage.
...with whatever scripting would be necessary to make the AI understand that trade routes to Carthage are thus more secure and worthwhile.
4. India. I don't know. I think the two-religions thing could both be possibly OP but also is just kind of weird for them. It's kind of celebrating religious strife in a place still suffering from it. I don't really have a better idea, though perhaps being able to faith-buy population in a city could work.
5. Iroquois. My concept for them wouldn't make them top-tier, but would at least help what we're working with, which would be, first of all, add to the UA:
Forest tiles may be improved without chopping the forest.
And add to the Mohawk Warrior:
May plant forests in unforested tiles.
I don't know how well that fits the actual Iroquois civilization, but it would at least allow them to do something interesting and unique here.
orasis
Prince
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- Nov 17, 2006
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Egypt : The chariot archer is not powerful enough to do anything in the early game as an offensive unit and is totally worthless as a defensive unit. It also sucks as a barbarian 'hunting' unit because so many barb camps spawn in rough territory and this automatically ends their turn, which ends up giving most barbs the first strike. The UB is meh, it's flexible... almost too flexible in that if you don't have a long term strategy in mind it can become more of a liability rather than an asset in the later game.
Byzantine : You get an extra religious belief. So what? To add to the insult you end up with two weak UU's the Cataphract and the Dromon. Just bad, bland and boring.
Spain : This one is sort of the luck of the draw. It can be amazing if you get the right start, if not... you're always playing a game of catch up.
Byzantine : You get an extra religious belief. So what? To add to the insult you end up with two weak UU's the Cataphract and the Dromon. Just bad, bland and boring.
Spain : This one is sort of the luck of the draw. It can be amazing if you get the right start, if not... you're always playing a game of catch up.
chuckh89
Prince
You are so wrong my friend, most Gauntlet medalists (Except, maybe Deity) use Chariot Archers when they are Warmongering,....And "War Chariots" don't even need Horses (and have 5 movement). I will say,...you need to get them out early. If you gain "Mobility" as your fourth promotion, you can move after you shoot. So, they are essentially like a "Camel Archers" little brother!
tribefaninnc
Chieftain
Wow, that was a name I did not expect to see in this thread. I thought everybody liked to wonder spam.
Even if you're not wonderspamming, Egypt is pretty decent. First, it is second only to Rome when it comes down to getting National Wonders up and running. Second, it saves 3 mantainance per city and will be one of the first to Grand Temple for a massive Faith boost. Third, it has a pretty decent unit that can be pretty good defensive or offensive.
Egypt is pretty sweet.
Egypt is pretty sweet.
DScruggy729
Chieftain
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Too flexible? It's effectively a Colosseum that provides +2 faith, sure you have to build a Shrine, but that extra faith is at least useful. And I don't particularly find Chariot Archers that fun to use, but you can make them work. And who doesn't love wonder spamming? Egypt is one of the best civs in the game IMO. Not god Babylon-Korea-Poland level, but they're good.
Mudrac
Orc Warchief
I think Iroquois are the worst Civ, pretty much the only of all 43 Civs I consider bad. Of course in terms of singleplayer, not multiplayer (You can see Filthy's Tier list for that). And in terms of singleplayer a difficulty up to Emperor level, counting Emperor as well, not Immortal and Diety they require a more refined style of play (Deity more so than Immortal), so some of the Civs have bonuses more fitted for Diety than others. But even then...
All other Civs have some bonus, as tiny as it is, it gives them bonus to at least some sort of victory in the end. Of course just as said some Civs are very well specialized towards some Victory Conditions, more so than others. But even Civs perceived as relatively weak have some bonus at least.
The Iroquois just, their bonuses are bad. Their UA doesn't work the way it should, aside from being situational, why don't forests upgrade as Roads. Bridges after Engineering and that they start counting as Railroads after a Railroad Technology. Why hasn't this still been patched is really odd to me. Their UU is ok, more or less, at least they don't require Iron and have a nice Forest/Jungle Bonus, but they still become obsolete very quickly, and still need Iron to upgrade (considering that you want to save the bonus). And Longhouse is a bad UB. It is supposed to be a Workshop with a nice bonus, not a Workshop that loses +10% Production bonus, and has a bonus that can be very situational. You end up with a city with no forest, and bam... you get a pretty useless building that only adds +2 Production.
Iroquois definitely need a rework. Some other Civs as well, need a small buff here and there. I still don't get it why Firaxis only reworked France, Germany and made some minor additions to Japan and Arabia. They should have buffed some other Civs as well and made them more oriented to something else as well. Such as some Faith bonus to India, their UA in Vanilla was ok before they introduced religion. That's just one Civ a have an idea for and there are definitely many others as well. But, I suppose it is the way it is.
All other Civs have some bonus, as tiny as it is, it gives them bonus to at least some sort of victory in the end. Of course just as said some Civs are very well specialized towards some Victory Conditions, more so than others. But even Civs perceived as relatively weak have some bonus at least.
The Iroquois just, their bonuses are bad. Their UA doesn't work the way it should, aside from being situational, why don't forests upgrade as Roads. Bridges after Engineering and that they start counting as Railroads after a Railroad Technology. Why hasn't this still been patched is really odd to me. Their UU is ok, more or less, at least they don't require Iron and have a nice Forest/Jungle Bonus, but they still become obsolete very quickly, and still need Iron to upgrade (considering that you want to save the bonus). And Longhouse is a bad UB. It is supposed to be a Workshop with a nice bonus, not a Workshop that loses +10% Production bonus, and has a bonus that can be very situational. You end up with a city with no forest, and bam... you get a pretty useless building that only adds +2 Production.
Iroquois definitely need a rework. Some other Civs as well, need a small buff here and there. I still don't get it why Firaxis only reworked France, Germany and made some minor additions to Japan and Arabia. They should have buffed some other Civs as well and made them more oriented to something else as well. Such as some Faith bonus to India, their UA in Vanilla was ok before they introduced religion. That's just one Civ a have an idea for and there are definitely many others as well. But, I suppose it is the way it is.
TheologiaCrucis
Warlord
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Egypt is a great synergy civ. There's more to them than just the Wonder bonus. The Wonder bonus itself stacks with other producton modifiers from beliefs and buildings. But the main reason I like playing as Egypt is their UB. Burial tombs just rock, and they sync well with several pantheon/religion bonuses that I otherwise would probably not take. +2 temple happiness from religious community buffs temples to +4 happiness temples. Or if you're going for culture, the +2 culture/temple belief is good, as you will be building temples in every city as Egypt.
Egypt's temples make going down the Piety tree worth it. Just the Piety opener itself for Egypt is great. Founding a new city and immediately building shrine temple and getting a cheap +4 happiness back? Heck yes. If you go liberty (which I really recommend for Egypt, HINT: The PYRAMIDS) that's +5 happiness for each city you found with roads. If you have the SACRED WATERS pantheon, and manage to found every city on a river, that's +6 HAPPINESS FOR EVERY CITY.
Egypt can go wide or tall. They are good for domination as well. Happiness is the main problem for domination. If you are lucky, a city will already have a burial tomb when you capture it. That is incredibly helpful.
Any way, that was a bit off-topic as this thread is supposed to be about the worst civs, not the best.
The one I can never get working is Siam. Yeah, it is good when RNGesus smiles upon you, but the UU is meh and the UB as well. Not gonna complain whether they're good or not, they're just boring as hell and can't turn a bad game into a good game.
Siam is too much of a gamble for me to get them working properly.
Siam is too much of a gamble for me to get them working properly.
caketastydelish
Deity
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You can call them "boring" they certainly aren't a bad civ. Although getting Patronage is a must for obvious reasons. A university with +3 culture may be "boring" but certainly not useless.
And their UU is awesome because it takes forever for them to die (as long as they're still in the medieval era)
I'm not sure I would call Iroquois the worst in the game. As someone else pointed out in multiplayer Venice is probably the worst because by sniping their trade boats you've effectively rendered them useless. Then in single player Iroquois aren't that terrible (although still one of the worst) because of the fact that the AI isn't smart enough to chop those forests just to pwn you.
The Iroquois have at least some situational advantage. Calling them the worst in the game means you're calling them worse than India and Denmark, and that's pushing it. Their UU at least doesn't require iron in a time where Iron is valuable, and since you got a bias towards forest you're probably going to make at least *some* use of your UA, although it's still one of the worst in the game. India is awful because if you insist on going tall you're better off with any other of the 'tall' civs in the game, especially Ethiopia.
Denmark is bad because any of the other "ocean" civs are at least as good as them. Norweigan Ski Infantry is arguably the worst UU in the entire game because it's so situational, and unless you're playing an islands kind of map Denmark's UA may not even get used much.
Iroquois at least are one of the top civs of the classical era (although gradually suck more and more after that) where as India and Denmark are not particularly good any stage of the game.
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