BNW Deity Tier List

adwcta said:

Also, is Shoshone really guaranteed religion on Deity? From just one ruins pop? If so, I'll move them up one. I had not thought they were guaranteed, just that they had a better shot than other non-faith civs. I assume you'll find at least one ruin after turn 20 (but unlikely to find 4 of them to get two faith boosts), but didn't realize that would guarantee you a religion on Deity. Let me know if this is true.

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They're guaranteed a pantheon...and almost guaranteed a quality pantheon. Great expanse making more tiles online upon foundation means any faith pantheon in the vicinity of capital can get worked starting on T20-T30.

You can also get a +60 ruin slightly later to help catch a religion earlier so they're like the 4th best civ to pick a religion. After Ethiopia, Maya, Celts. That's very, very strong. Better than just situational IMHO.

I'm biased since most of my Shoshone plays have been on the DF start I provided for the CV guide but great expanse+timely picking of growth ruins is also extremely strong an opener. It's one of the few civs you could realistically aim for NC followed by REX and still grab high quality tiles from the rex because the timely pop growth gives a lot of additional early beakers and hammers.

Deau said:

They're guaranteed a pantheon...and almost guaranteed a quality pantheon. Great expanse making more tiles online upon foundation means any faith pantheon in the vicinity of capital can get worked starting on T20-T30.

You can also get a +60 ruin slightly later to help catch a religion earlier so they're like the 4th best civ to pick a religion. After Ethiopia, Maya, Celts. That's very, very strong. Better than just situational IMHO.

I'm biased since most of my Shoshone plays have been on the DF start I provided for the CV guide but great expanse+timely picking of growth ruins is also extremely strong an opener. It's one of the few civs you could realistically aim for NC followed by REX and still grab high quality tiles from the rex because the timely pop growth gives a lot of additional early beakers and hammers.

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You guys have convinced me on Shoshone.

Also moved Greece up since there's like 4 people asking for it, although I've never had any issues holding all CSs with 2 patronage policies even without Greece's UA.... it's like the opposite of the early-faith civs. Both CS control and a Religion are very powerful in BNW, except one is still fairly hard to get while the other one you almost just stumble into with little effort.

Played a Brazil game over the weekend on Immortal. Deau, you should really cover them more in your culture guide. That UI+UA combo is insane. I had 750+ tourism pre-internet, pre-national visitor's center on the basis of world religion and a 10+ jungle city (not my capital, but I delayed everything just to put the NC and holy city there; popped GE for Eifel there as well). With Chitzen Itza and the Freedom tenant, I had a 100+turn golden age after I got hotels up (1 natural, 2x from aesthetics, generated 3 GAs during the run with the +50% bonus), which was far more time than I needed to finish the game. Also popped Taj Mahal with a GE during my first non-Liberty GE, and was familiar/popular with everyone by the end of that 30-turn carnival run. I did play them before on Deity, but I had gone tradition, couldn't build Chitzen Itza, and it was all downhill from there.

What's the % chance of getting Chitzen Itza on Deity if you go straight for it w/ the Liberty finisher GE? Mining, Bronze working and Calendar were my only techs not directly required for Civil Service. I've never bee-lined Civil Service before, I normally just write off all the Medieval wonders, so not sure how viable it is to get this if it's your only goal for the early game.

adwcta said:

You guys have convinced me on Shoshone.

Also moved Greece up since there's like 4 people asking for it, although I've never had any issues holding all CSs with 2 patronage policies even without Greece's UA.... it's like the opposite of the early-faith civs. Both CS control and a Religion are very powerful in BNW, except one is still fairly hard to get while the other one you almost just stumble into with little effort.

Played a Brazil game over the weekend on Immortal. Deau, you should really cover them more in your culture guide. That UI+UA combo is insane. I had 750+ tourism pre-internet, pre-national visitor's center on the basis of world religion and a 10+ jungle city (not my capital, but I delayed everything just to put the NC and holy city there; popped GE for Eifel there as well). With Chitzen Itza and the Freedom tenant, I had a 100+turn golden age after I got hotels up (1 natural, 2x from aesthetics, generated 3 GAs during the run with the +50% bonus), which was far more time than I needed to finish the game. Also popped Taj Mahal with a GE during my first non-Liberty GE, and was familiar/popular with everyone by the end of that 30-turn carnival run. I did play them before on Deity, but I had gone tradition, couldn't build Chitzen Itza, and it was all downhill from there.

What's the % chance of getting Chitzen Itza on Deity if you go straight for it w/ the Liberty finisher GE? Mining, Bronze working and Calendar were my only techs not directly required for Civil Service. I've never bee-lined Civil Service before, I normally just write off all the Medieval wonders, so not sure how viable it is to get this if it's your only goal for the early game.

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Personally I'd put Greece higher just because getting 3-4 times the bang per influence can get silly in the Ally department, but I'll just say: Try them, they used to be God Tier when the rush was also an option.

As for Chitchen Itza... Really low? Doesn't help that it's a medieval wonder so no help from Marble starts and it doesn't require Philosophy so NC will quite possibly be very late. Not impossible if you can get trade partners to get the science somehow maybe?

a List putting ethopia into same "tier" as Poland

adwcta said:

You guys have convinced me on Shoshone.

Also moved Greece up since there's like 4 people asking for it, although I've never had any issues holding all CSs with 2 patronage policies even without Greece's UA.... it's like the opposite of the early-faith civs. Both CS control and a Religion are very powerful in BNW, except one is still fairly hard to get while the other one you almost just stumble into with little effort.

Played a Brazil game over the weekend on Immortal. Deau, you should really cover them more in your culture guide. That UI+UA combo is insane. I had 750+ tourism pre-internet, pre-national visitor's center on the basis of world religion and a 10+ jungle city (not my capital, but I delayed everything just to put the NC and holy city there; popped GE for Eifel there as well). With Chitzen Itza and the Freedom tenant, I had a 100+turn golden age after I got hotels up (1 natural, 2x from aesthetics, generated 3 GAs during the run with the +50% bonus), which was far more time than I needed to finish the game. Also popped Taj Mahal with a GE during my first non-Liberty GE, and was familiar/popular with everyone by the end of that 30-turn carnival run. I did play them before on Deity, but I had gone tradition, couldn't build Chitzen Itza, and it was all downhill from there.

What's the % chance of getting Chitzen Itza on Deity if you go straight for it w/ the Liberty finisher GE? Mining, Bronze working and Calendar were my only techs not directly required for Civil Service. I've never bee-lined Civil Service before, I normally just write off all the Medieval wonders, so not sure how viable it is to get this if it's your only goal for the early game.

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On Deity, it's almost zero. AIs go hard for it and will have the wonder built by turn 75-80ish most games, which is by the time you'll be hitting Civil Service. Out of 10+ Brazil games I've played, I've got it once (coincidentally on DC27, with a 4x Salt start, a LOT of ruins and a turn 20-ish trade route from the closest AI. Definitely not average lol).

Brazil is good at what it does but isn't versatile enough to warrant being in a higher tier. Shoshone, though... the more I play with it the more awesome it looks.

tommynt said:

a List putting ethopia into same "tier" as Poland

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I agree with this, I think people are really overestimating the value of the extra policies in this thread. With culture generally easier to come by in BNW, I would put Poland in mid tier territory at best, considering their somewhat lackluster UU/UB.

I am not seeing the great value of Poland's UA as a lot of maps don't play isolationist, thus forcing to fill in more.

I am beginning to conclude that some games on Immortal, even with the top tier civs, can either play at King or at Deity+.

monkspider said:

I agree with this, I think people are really overestimating the value of the extra policies in this thread. With culture generally easier to come by in BNW, I would put Poland in mid tier territory at best, considering their somewhat lackluster UU/UB.

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I'm thinking that he meant the opposite

IronfighterXXX said:

I'm thinking that he meant the opposite

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Probably, but he's not alone in the sentiment, the new SP costs are fairly lenient. I put it in top tier just for the unique build order interactions, but I don't think it deserves a tier of it's own.

monkspider said:

I agree with this, I think people are really overestimating the value of the extra policies in this thread. With culture generally easier to come by in BNW, I would put Poland in mid tier territory at best, considering their somewhat lackluster UU/UB.

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I'm pretty sure Tommy meant the opposite. Poland is currently in a tier of it's own above everyone else excepted, maybe, mayans. Particularly with the "metrics" the OP mentioned to compare civs. It gives so much flexibility in the opener like mixing trad & liberty or getting consulates extremely early.

I don't put them in a tier of their own but I haven't played them so much either. They're definitely worth top tier though.

Yeah, I think Poland is one of the most solid all-around nations. You can do almost anything with them, and the starts they get are pretty good.

_megafone_ said:

On Deity, it's almost zero. AIs go hard for it and will have the wonder built by turn 75-80ish most games, which is by the time you'll be hitting Civil Service.

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I'll give it a shot next time, but that doesn't sound promising. Although, if it's "by the time", you should be ok w/ the liberty finisher GE (would be close). My build order is scout + monument to get the quicker liberty tree, and go for writers/amph asap for more culture, so tree will def be finished by turn 75.

I'm seeing less and less of a difference between Brazil and France. Even without Chitzen Itza and Taj (you can definitely get Taj on Deity every game if that's your target), you'll still have the late game endless GAs, which by definition will boost your tourism to be more than France's UA bonus. It's a worse start, but a better finish between the jungles and the more tourism, and for a culture victory now, it's all about the finish (late Renaissance+). UU is still very bad, since you can already get endless GAs (with two GAs conveniently located in the Aesthetics tree and the GA boosting great artist generation and culture output). It all very nicely synergizes with each other.

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As for Poland, you get to finish Tradition or Liberty some 20 turns faster. This alone makes their start almost as good as Shoshone's. Then, you get to finish your next tree 40 turns after, etc. Incredible amounts of flexibility and power here. The UB is also amazing, since at least half your cities will have a good # of pastures. Only slightly worse than paper maker imo. I think most people think they're one of the top 3 civs right now, rather than wanting to drop them lower. I think this one's here to stay.

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For Greece, you really have to look at opportunity cost, which in this case, is just gold. Compare with Rome's UA, which is a 25% savings cost on all buildings (potentially tens or hundreds of thousands, depending on how wide your empire ultimately is). How much gold savings does Greece's UA give over the course of the game? ~5/6 thousand? It's easy to count the power of CSs in Greece's UA, but Greece's UA isn't about increasing the power of CSs (see: Siam), it's about saving gold assuming you want control of all CSs. Add in two fairly meh UUs... it doesn't seem that compelling. (caveat: I have not played them in BNW yet). Either way, they're now moved up to be "balanced", but I feel uncomfortable moving them up again and putting them on the same level as Siam.

Brazil has a huge difference from France. One gets unplayable opening starts most of the time due to jungle bias, the other one doesn't. Don't give me that crap about how awesome jungles are later in the game, this is deity I need hammers NOW.

adwcta said:

I'll give it a shot next time, but that doesn't sound promising. Although, if it's "by the time", you should be ok w/ the liberty finisher GE (would be close). My build order is scout + monument to get the quicker liberty tree, and go for writers/amph asap for more culture, so tree will def be finished by turn 75.

I'm seeing less and less of a difference between Brazil and France. Even without Chitzen Itza and Taj (you can definitely get Taj on Deity every game if that's your target), you'll still have the late game endless GAs, which by definition will boost your tourism to be more than France's UA bonus. It's a worse start, but a better finish between the jungles and the more tourism, and for a culture victory now, it's all about the finish (late Renaissance+). UU is still very bad, since you can already get endless GAs (with two GAs conveniently located in the Aesthetics tree and the GA boosting great artist generation and culture output). It all very nicely synergizes with each other.

...

As for Poland, you get to finish Tradition or Liberty some 20 turns faster. This alone makes their start almost as good as Shoshone's. Then, you get to finish your next tree 40 turns after, etc. Incredible amounts of flexibility and power here. The UB is also amazing, since at least half your cities will have a good # of pastures. Only slightly worse than paper maker imo. I think most people think they're one of the top 3 civs right now, rather than wanting to drop them lower. I think this one's here to stay.

...

For Greece, you really have to look at opportunity cost, which in this case, is just gold. Compare with Rome's UA, which is a 25% savings cost on all buildings (potentially tens or hundreds of thousands, depending on how wide your empire ultimately is). How much gold savings does Greece's UA give over the course of the game? ~5/6 thousand? It's easy to count the power of CSs in Greece's UA, but Greece's UA isn't about increasing the power of CSs (see: Siam), it's about saving gold assuming you want control of all CSs. Add in two fairly meh UUs... it doesn't seem that compelling. (caveat: I have not played them in BNW yet). Either way, they're now moved up to be "balanced", but I feel uncomfortable moving them up again and putting them on the same level as Siam.

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Fragamemnon said:

Brazil has a huge difference from France. One gets unplayable opening starts most of the time due to jungle bias, the other one doesn't. Don't give me that crap about how awesome jungles are later in the game, this is deity I need hammers NOW.

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Taj is nearly useless for Brazil. It comes in so early in the game that it is merely just a +50% increase to GAMW for 8 turns (or is taj baseline 10-12?). I don't consider CI to be game breaking for them either. You only need 1 late game golden age through which you spend all your faith on great musicians. I mean sure, it will help you slightly if there are more than one culture runaways and your game extend far beyond Internet.

I would much rather delay liberty and get a better wonder with the GE as well as better timing on rationalism. Or hit tradition instead of liberty if the only reason to go liberty was for CI...

As for jungle start bias, I agree with Fragamemnon. Jungle start is a huge cripple on deity and late game jungles aren't nearly as strong as people think they are. They cripple growth so much in the early/mid game that you really can't spare working many of them. Plus a capital in jungle start is basically synonymous to saying you won't get any hard built wonders.

Deau said:

Taj is nearly useless for Brazil. It comes in so early in the game that it is merely just a +50% increase to GAMW for 8 turns (or is taj baseline 10-12?). I don't consider CI to be game breaking for them either. You only need 1 late game golden age through which you spend all your faith on great musicians. I mean sure, it will help you slightly if there are more than one culture runaways and your game extend far beyond Internet.

I would much rather delay liberty and get a better wonder with the GE as well as better timing on rationalism. Or hit tradition instead of liberty if the only reason to go liberty was for CI...

As for jungle start bias, I agree with Fragamemnon. Jungle start is a huge cripple on deity and late game jungles aren't nearly as strong as people think they are. They cripple growth so much in the early/mid game that you really can't spare working many of them. Plus a capital in jungle start is basically synonymous to saying you won't get any hard built wonders.

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Taj base is 10-12, I got 16 with CI. The point of the early GA is not just for tourism (which, at ~50 tourism is not shabby for mid-game), it's to generate GWAMs faster, get a Rome-esq bonus to production, and because you have brazilwood camps set up at this point, it's a ton of extra gold (this is the time you can solidify your hold on all CS-es w/ Patronage partially finished and convince the AIs to send all their caravans to you Morocco style). Although, without CI, everything gets cut by 33%, so not sure if TM's still worth it. For Brazil, GA is not just for an end-game GM generation. Since you get Internet bonus during the GA, it's a way to easily get 50-60 turns of Internet (even without CI, just the freedom tenant) between hotels/airports and internet, which is great, because it usually takes less than 50 turns of internet to end the game. For Brazil, the Internet is a backup option (it's also relatively less powerful, since it's additive to Brazil's UA instead of multiplicative), not a necessity, which is not true for any other civ on Deity.

As for the jungle start, you can compensate with bought tiles, liberty tree instead of tradition, teching bottom instead of top post-universities, working only GE specialists (and GWAMs of course), etc. Also for consideration, Brazil lets you effectively use jungle tiles in early Renaissance (as opposed to regular civs, which can't use them effectively before 3 policies into rationalism + economics), and that marks an earlier turning point for the jungle start than other civs, so their experience is less applicable.

As long as you go Liberty over Tradition, save Aesthetics for late-game, and don't try to hard-build any wonders in your capital, I don't see Brazil as being less powerful for the culture/diplo victory, and it's more forgiving for Deity since it never requires you to be the first to any tech or to out-compete the AI for several wonders (assuming CI is not possible, I wouldn't target any wonders pre-modern, unless an opportunity falls to me).

edit: did a quick run last night trying to get CI on Deity as Brazil. AI got it on turn 75. I think it's possible though. I didn't get my second trade route up quick enough (since I foolishly spent gold on something I shouldn't have), and was only ~5 turns behind. It does require a good amount of luck in terms of starting location and I'd estimate it at ~15%-25% chance doable on a random start, and you can pretty much figure out whether you'll have a good shot at getting it by turn 40, so it doesn't ruin your start even if you don't get it. If the start allows for it, I'd hold off on Bronze working.

_megafone_ said:

3) Netherlands is worse than every civilization you've placed on the bottom tier. They have a situational UU, a hard to utilize tile improvement (as their grass starting bias usually don't give you a lot of tiles where you can place Polders), and the UA got severely gimped by the early lack of gold + lump sum selling restrictions. They're just an awful civ now, with nothing that stands out for them on any kind of map whatsoever.

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The Dutch have one of the easiest to utilize tile improvements. No one expands to Marsh tiles until there is pretty much nothing else to pick. Certainly in the Middle Ages almost all Marsh will still be unclaimed. But for the Dutch a Marsh is as good as a bonus resource, and you can settle a city nearby and just buy those tiles on the cheap once you have Guilds. Grass starting bias is also the best in the game. You get your usual luxuries and typically get 2-3 Cows/Stone thrown in extra.

"these civs are so good that they can win almost any victory condition with almost any start."
Really? Almost any start? I can't believe this.

FrostK said:

"these civs are so good that they can win almost any victory condition with almost any start."
Really? Almost any start? I can't believe this.

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Yup almost any start. I am not the best player, by a longshot. I don't re-roll, and haven't lost a Deity game with any of those civs (except Maya, whom I have yet to win on Deity at actually) this year (small sample size alert, ~10). Although, I guess it's not any victory condition... I haven't tried domination with any of those civs yet.

Especially on BNW, how hard is it really to go 3/4 cities tall, eventually overtake the AI in science, have just enough CSs so no one wins a diplo victory, and not make anyone mad enough to DoW you until late game, when you have a tech edge? Now, add a science or religious bonus to your civ or a desert start, just to put the nail in the coffin.

Science victory is ranked higher, because it doesn't rely on your situation. As long as you stay alive (not hard w/ tech edge), stay happy (not hard when going tall), nothing really screws with you much. Diplo is probably second, because in rare situations, an AI may decide to invest 500+ influence into a couple of CSs for no good reason, or the Mongols could take out 6 of them, etc. Culture and Conquest are much more situational, which is why even though the AI sucks at military, the best pure military civ (Mongols) is only ranked tier 3, and the best tourism-focused civ (France/Brazil) is ranked tier 4 (compared to both science civs Korea/Babs ranked tier 1, and the best diplo civs, Morocco/Venice, ranked tier 2).

FrostK said:

"these civs are so good that they can win almost any victory condition with almost any start."
Really? Almost any start? I can't believe this.

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Roll a start you feel can't be won, with one of those civs, and post it in the deity challenge.

BBMorti said:

Roll a start you feel can't be won, with one of those civs, and post it in the deity challenge.

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Haha, you know, I think even if they used Denmark on a Pangaea map in a tundra/jungle start w/ no rivers, hills, or mountains.... a good # of people would be able to beat it.