BNW Deity Tier List

But Pathfinders cost so much more than scouts that you realistically won't be finding more ruins than average, in fact you'll probably find less. Faith ruin picks don't become available until after turn 20, which is usually when all the ruins have been found on an average map. America can build almost 3 scouts for the same cost of your second pathfinder, and with their extra sight, they can find ruins and CS much faster. With Shoshone, their scouting game is like building a second warrior to use for scouting. For that price, you better be able to pick your reward.

America has a similar ruin game to Shoshone because, while they might not be able to pick the ruin, they find way more of them, resulting in similar rewards to the Shoshone, on top of more gold. I might even argue that America is better than Shoshone once you actually pass the start, because the UUs are both fantastic, but Shoshone's UA is oh so satisfying, and strangely cathartic.



Anyone could make a Tradition start ridiculous. Tradition is the "safe" tree that pretty much all civs do well with, and Shoshone aren't particularly good at doing anything with Tradition that it doesn't do with anyone else. No, what makes the Shoshone great is their ability to make Tradition's border growth redundant, to make their Liberty start look like a Tradition start. Fast expand on ALL the luxes! Shoshone are wasting their potential by taking Tradition.

The border expansion UA is far more useful than anything the pathfinders do. I've built second pathfinders and never even found a ruin with it, so the ability to pick your reward is still highly luck based. They are fantastic Liberty users because their extra land more than makes up for the slower border growth, so you can settle farther from luxes and closer to the food/rivers/mountains, box the AI in to prevent them from claiming your other spots, improve luxes and resources faster with your extra worker, then be ready to defend when the inevitable war comes.

Also, if you're gunning for a faith ruin, why skip the monument? Monuments are very important, give you long-term culture, and if you take Tradition anyway, it gives you an Amphitheater. Better hammer and gold return. Faith ruins are no guarantee, since they only appear after turn 20. You're better off skipping the shrine until you GET a faith ruin, that way you don't waste time chasing a religion that might not happen.

I get what you're saying, but to me there's no comparison. 4 ruins with Shoshone > 8 ruins with America, because all 4 are game-changers. Getting your first policy 20 turns earlier? Reliably? Getting to 5 pop 15-20 turns earlier? Reliably? Getting a free tech reliably? Getting your choice of pantheons most of the time? Getting a composite bow 50 turns early?? Come on, how can you say that isn't uber??

Prior to the expansion, people would constantly argue that you should play with ruins turned off because lucky ruins = easy win. And they were right. Playing Shoshone just feels like easy mode, like I'm getting a 20 turn head start. Consistently. Every game. It turns Deity into Immortal. You can't change my mind on that because I know from many play throughs. I got bored of playing as the Shoshone because it was too easy. So, believe what you will. :D
 
I get what you're saying, but to me there's no comparison. 4 ruins with Shoshone > 8 ruins with America, because all 4 are game-changers. Getting your first policy 20 turns earlier? Reliably? Getting to 5 pop 15-20 turns earlier? Reliably? Getting a free tech reliably? Getting your choice of pantheons most of the time? Getting a composite bow 50 turns early?? Come on, how can you say that isn't uber??

Getting those things is good. Getting them all at once, even as Shoshone, is still close to impossible. My last Shoshone game, I got 2 culture huts, 1 tech that I was already 1 turn away from, 1 Cbow upgrade, and one faith hut before I ran out of huts. Second pathfinder didn't even find anything. I find it hard to believe anyone can have such phenomenal luck that they get all of those things reliably, and if you're not Shoshone, you can still get some of those things unless you have phenomenally -bad- luck.

Prior to the expansion, people would constantly argue that you should play with ruins turned off because lucky ruins = easy win. And they were right. Playing Shoshone just feels like easy mode, like I'm getting a 20 turn head start. Consistently. Every game. It turns Deity into Immortal. You can't change my mind on that because I know from many play throughs. I got bored of playing as the Shoshone because it was too easy. So, believe what you will. :D

Shoshone are quite good, but I won't call their pathfinder huts a 20-turn headstart, especially not if you compare them to Poland or Babylon.
 
They feel like a good 20-30 turn head start to me, but I've only tried them on Immortal. I'm sure it is less reliable on Deity, but still good. The difficulty of Deity is just surviving the first 150 turns, so if you can turn that into 120 instead just with an awesome start...

I like popping the food ruins when my capital hits size 4 and lack of granary/farms would normally slow growth, but Shoshone just keep on growing. Even when producing settlers.
 
The earliest you can realistically wage war in BNW on Deity is in the Medieval era. Assyria is therefore in a fantastic position, because their siege tower is good until the Renaissance, and boosts the attack power of any of their other units that are in range, which includes Longswords -- and on Deity, you can get Steel fairly early on in the Medieval era, when most other AIs are still using pikemen, as long as you bolt down the warmonger path after getting your NC up. Since towers count as melee units, they also get the Discipline boost from Honor.
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Furthermore, Assyria doesn't have to build amphitheaters until much later on, because the royal library has a GW slot, which you want to fill early because it gives units exp. Thanks to their free tech on conquest, they can wage war without falling behind, and without ruining their culture.

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IMO, Japan does deserve to move up a tier. Their old UA still makes Siege units quite potent, and also means that Bombers never lose power as they lose HP, and their new one gives them extra early game culture, as well as late game Tourism. They are effectively the new old France, with other perks. Samurai being able to build fishing boats as a 1 turn worker action is insanely useful if you get into a war, since it saves MANY turns or loads of gold building work boats yourself. I kept a samurai all the way to the endgame because of it. Zeroes not requiring oil means you don't have to choose between defense and offense late-game, you can have as many as your GPT and city limits allow. They are easily balanced-tier material now. IMO, they're probably even better than Germany, as I have yet to win with Germany, but have had much success with Japan.

All makes sense to me. I've also heard a lot of other good stuff about Japan on Deity post-patch. Considering moving Japan and Assyria both up one if I hear more good reviews. Moving Assyria, of course, would put them on the same tier as Mongolia, Zulu and England (for now at least). Something to chew on.
 
Assyria and Rome should be t1.

Assy can close the gaps in techs very quickly if you spam 3-4 towers early. Grab 3-4 crappy cities and get techs.
Also they get almost a lvl 4 upgrade for new units due to Royal Lib.

Rome, well, Ballista+Legion make early conquest a piece of cake, and building stuff faster is great.
No need to rely on iron at all. Some games I don't even build Legions, Ballistas alone are great.

I agree with the rest of the list :)

Btw I wonder why Legions don't have a double attack since they used to throw Pilums before entering melee.
Pretty much all Legionaries had at least 2 Pilums to toss before battle, makes me sad to see this applied to Zulu -_- We invented this tactic long before Zulus!

I agree totally with you...!!!

And I hope that the next patch will give this bonus to the Legions...
I think also that Ballistas can be exchanged with a UB: The Forum (instead of market) with a cultural bonus - The roman culture (and laws... the base of western civilization still now...) was teached to all people in this manner...
 
Huns need to be in a higher tier. They're my favorite, and they are extremely effective (+1 prod per pasture, extra tech, and horse archers are the keys. battering rams are only good from upgraded warrior to tribute CSs)
 
Assyria and Rome should be t1.

Assy can close the gaps in techs very quickly if you spam 3-4 towers early. Grab 3-4 crappy cities and get techs.
Also they get almost a lvl 4 upgrade for new units due to Royal Lib.

Rome, well, Ballista+Legion make early conquest a piece of cake, and building stuff faster is great.
No need to rely on iron at all. Some games I don't even build Legions, Ballistas alone are great.

I agree with the rest of the list :)

Btw I wonder why Legions don't have a double attack since they used to throw Pilums before entering melee.
Pretty much all Legionaries had at least 2 Pilums to toss before battle, makes me sad to see this applied to Zulu -_- We invented this tactic long before Zulus!

I will go with pillum on defence and zulu spear throw on offence. Makes both units pretty unique in its way.

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Added Small Continents to the tier list, which moved many things around. I then removed a tier (there would have been only 3 civs left in that tier) and split the "balanced" tier up into two: one for the balanced civs that can achieve greatness, and one for those are really pretty meh.

Things I did which are probably controversial, and I'll move around as needed:
- When the old upper-mid tier broke, I moved Siam down and Celts up, by my own judgment. I also moved England up and Mongolia/Zulu down, but due to the Small Continents addition, those changes should not be controversial.
- I effectively moved the old bottom tier civs up to join the old lower-tier because all three were helped greatly by the addition of Small Continents. I also lifted up the 2 candidates from the old lower-tier helped the most by Small Continents: Japan, Ottoman. While these changes are not controversial, I did also move Sweden up that half-step as well, even though Small Continent isn't particularly good or bad for Sweden, reflecting a lot of the back and forth discussion we had earlier in the thread.
- When the old lower-mid tier broke, I moved things up and down by my own discretion. Notably, I interpreted Greece to be one of the lesser civs in that tier, so they were moved down. Since Greece was just moved up recently, I thought this may be the most controversial move.
- Effectively moved Indonesia up 1.5 for both the inclusion of Small Continents and the patch giving them a Candi in every city. Since they go wide, and mostly in areas without rivers, this is not a small change. I think this is justified, but it is a hefty leap.

Also, new discussion rule! it is human nature to promote things we feel are unjustly slighted, but that results in meaningless inflation of rankings, when everyone promotes their pet civs... so, the new rule is: For each civ you propose to move up, Please also propose two civs to move down! (no explanation needed for the civs to move down)

What'd you all think about the changes?
 
Greece should be moved up two tiers. Their UA absolutely dominates on Deity, especially in the hands of the AI.

Rome should be moved down. No idea why they are so high.

Celts...why are they so high?
 
Oh, sad to see Carthage so low. Of course, I'm no deity player so I don't really have the vote. I really like Carthage gameplay (settling cities on coasts, trying to get a Machu Picchu for even better city connections, delving into Exploration for great naval bonuses) and I have the nostalgia after learning about their history. Do you have any idea how could Carthage be buffed?

The uniques aren't very unique (yeah it sounds silly xD), Quinquereme is good, very useful because of the increased speed and power and it's cheap, but it's so... generic. Doesn't get anything unique to it. Elephants have the scary promotion which doesn't go any further and the great generals which are nice and synergistic with the UA... But there are two other elephant units already, and are they really necessary? Especially in BNW, where early war is just bad, and it's a mounted melee unit slower than horseman (so less pillaging) and with a penalty for attacking cities, so we are stuck with standard CBow + catapult warfare. Quinqueremes also can't take cities, because there are usually only one or two tiles from which they can attack. Impossible to do anything without the support from land or ranged ships, and the Galleases don't come before Compass. And of course we should forget that early warfare is horrible in BNW.

Would a naval UB be good for them? I know that their harbor can already count as an UB (0 hammer, 0 maintenance, though the rest of their UA is not particularly strong. Mountain movement rarely comes up), but an economic building (since Carthage was an economic powerhouse) focused on naval strength could be great. What jumps into mind would be the Cothon introduced in Civ 4, but since Harbors are free I would replace Seaports with it and make it available at Compass. There are a lot of possible things it could do. It could increase the experience of naval units, it could transfer the hammer and gold it adds to sea resources to all sea tiles (making them actually useful... Though it might be too strong), it could somehow increase the number of trade routes available (like... 1 additional trade route every two Cothons? Or every three? 10 cities would translate to 5 trade routes, which seems quite strong and gives the incentive to go wide) or increase the gold from city connections... All options are reasonable I think, some stronger than others. The question remains though - should the quinquereme be replaced? Or the elephant? Or maybe the current uniques should be buffed in some way?
 
I think Greece should move up a tier to be on par with Siam. They are pretty much the same thing, although some may prefer one over the other.

Why Egypt so high? I would move it down. Whats the use of the UA in a deity game?

Morocco could use a downgrade as well.

And yes, whats so great about Celts?

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Ok I have sort of a noob question

Why is Ethiopia so high? They're UU is meh... They're UA is completely surpassed by the Shoshone... They're UB is really great but is that the single reason why they're god tier? I personally prefer the pyramid over the Steele even if it comes later.
 
Ok I have sort of a noob question

Why is Ethiopia so high? They're UU is meh... They're UA is completely surpassed by the Shoshone... They're UB is really great but is that the single reason why they're god tier? I personally prefer the pyramid over the Steele even if it comes later.

Noob too, but with tradition it's free + 2 faith with tradition, early pantheon, 4th to 5th religion surely. Not sure but you can go for ICSsacred rites too. At least many faith is GP after Industrialization.
Good start make an easy victory.
In deity AI start with 2 cities and, except Venise, have more cities than you.
 
Thank you for adding Small Continents, which is what I play (albeit with Low Seas) - that produces snaky continents with fat parts that are not very productive. I don't know to what degree it is more difficult than other maps but some of the typical strategies just do not work as well with it. But I still choose it whenever I get around to playing because it reminds me of Civ2 maps and I find Pangaea boring and I've done Continents enough times to be tired of that.
 
Is Sweden really a low tier? I think the diplo benefits is pretty awesome. Focus on patronage, gold and great persons. Find all city states asap an make em happy. My first Deity victory was a diplo with them. Took me a lot less effort then say science with Babylon.
 
Please remember that these are random starts, on deity, where you can't get religion without an early faith bonus, desert, or to a lesser extent, tundra. So, desert start bias for Egypt and Morocco almost guarantee a good start, even without petra. They are also good close to the top of the mid tier civs otherwise. Also, Celts and Ethiopia for even earlier faith, so your guaranteed even a good pantheon.

I could move Greece up, but please don't confuse their bonus with Siam's. Their only similarity is that you want to use the Patronage tree. Greece saves you gold. Siam's bonus is food, culture and faith. Siam's bonus is much better, which is what makes it hard to put them on the same tier. Also, this tier list is for players, Greece's good AI should not be a consideration at all.

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there has been heated arguments in then forum about Greece vs Siam. I think its dead even between people who think Greece is better and those who think Siam is better.

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