What are the 3 'worst' Civs

woodshadows said:

I've tried Sweden a couple times and I guess I had some bad luck because I was just rushed constantly and only got one person to DOF with me. I'm not entirely sure how the GP increase works either, but if it's 10% increase to the GP points generated in a city, then I'm not sure it even applies in cities that are generating below a certain level of GP points, since there aren't decimals (I think).. so for instance if i have a city generating 3 GS points a turn, a 10% increase won't have any effect upon that, as it would produce a decimal, .30, which I presume wouldn't be rounded up to tack on another point. I could be wrong and perhaps the way it works is to decrease the 'cost' of great people in which case I would have to reconsider this civ and maybe give them another whirl.

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It works with decimals - Babylon still gets a bonus to its GS production when it's generating 1 GS point a turn from the GL, for example. Everything in Civ V (unlike, from recollection, previous Civ games) works in decimals, but you aren't always shown said decimals. If you tooltip the GP bar it will show you how many points you're making as a basic value, and then list additive bonuses (such as Empire bonus: 10% with one DoF).

I admit I'm assuming it works with all forms of GP production, rather than having tested it - in my game I missed getting a pantheon, let alone a religion, so can't test the Great Prophet production, nor do I know how to check if I'm getting the bonus on Great General generation.

Anvari said:

True but most players and AIs tend to improve every tile within workable range of a city. That means there is a good chance that you can fight in flat non forest/jungle-terrain.

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I've rarely seen that, and I only clear forest in hills (for mining) or farmland in specialised food cities myself.

I don't tend to suicide my own units but it happens often, that they are attacked multiple times in one turn. You can't rescue them all the time.

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That's true. It's not a useless ability, it's just that this is a rather limited benefit - and killing one or two extra AI units when yours are attacked is a very weak bonus compared with those available to other civs.

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PhilBowles said:

I've rarely seen that, and I only clear forest in hills (for mining) or farmland in specialised food cities myself.

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Well, most of the time its worth cutting down trees of plains because you don't get better yields. And who says no to a nice hammer bonus if you're trying to get an early wonder and need more hammers.

That's true. It's not a useless ability, it's just that this is a rather limited benefit - and killing one or two extra AI units when yours are attacked is a very weak bonus compared with those available to other civs.

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I don't think its the best ability but its way better then reduced culture and gold-cost of tiles and sight if you know how to play without it.

BTW: you can't count on the pure kills of the japanese units alone, esp. if you playing multiplayer. Most player think twice about attacking a low hp unit with their own melee unit because they can be so deadly.

Anvari said:

Well, most of the time its worth cutting down trees of plains because you don't get better yields.

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Surely the reverse is true? You don't get better yields from plains, so why chop down a forest which is useful defensively and can be used to build a lumber mill? You have no way of increasing the hammer production of a basic plains, and flat ground is not generally a useful terrain type to have in a city radius unless you need to farm it, since defensively you don't need the mobility and rough terrain hampers your enemies. So unless you have a pressing need for 20 hammers in a hurry, the forest should stay - and still comes with the opportunity cost of lost lumber mills in the later game.

There are no weak civs, just weak players.

Some civs have stuff, other civs doesn't have the "same" stuff.

NOW, go play a random game on Immortal.

Some Civs are stronger by their units or buildings, I don't deny that. But you can kill them all with you wits and cunning diplomacy. In the long run even a Settler-player today will be able to beat Immortal in the future, it's a learning curve.

India: UA cripples early game unless you settle slower than everybody else. UB is very lackluster. Just +2 culture and no gold until flight is lame, and who actually builds castles the minute they're unlocked? There are other important buildings at that point. The UU is alright.

Celts: Aside from getting religion early, there isn't much else to say about her. Also Pacal and Haile could do a better job than she does. The opera house replacement is nice but most people who isn't going for culture victory won't build it. The UU is good.

These are the two weakest ones I'd say. Don't really have a name for the third worst.

I think it's hard for me to say what Civs are the worst. All I'll say is that there are some Civs that if they don't have a favorable starting spot relevant to their UA, they wont be as effective compared to non situtational civs.

Denmark is bad because it's a really ugly color imo.

PhilBowles said:

It works with decimals - Babylon still gets a bonus to its GS production when it's generating 1 GS point a turn from the GL, for example. Everything in Civ V (unlike, from recollection, previous Civ games) works in decimals, but you aren't always shown said decimals. If you tooltip the GP bar it will show you how many points you're making as a basic value, and then list additive bonuses (such as Empire bonus: 10% with one DoF).

I admit I'm assuming it works with all forms of GP production, rather than having tested it - in my game I missed getting a pantheon, let alone a religion, so can't test the Great Prophet production, nor do I know how to check if I'm getting the bonus on Great General generation.

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Hmm, not sure how this works now - in my current game it does seem to work in decimals of 50%, but nothing else; I can have 12 GS points being generated 1 turn, and 13 the next, for instance. Although even with 50% bonus from DoFs I seem to be accumulating Great People very slowly. It's not a fair test of Sweden, though - I'm doing especially badly in this game, and slow teching has cost me early specialist slots to fill. I also just accepted a war dec offer which inadvertently seems to have turned all the neighbouring city-states against me; I already lost Sigtuna to Prague (Celtic ally) in one war (who burned it), now Budapest is closing on Uppsala.

Mango Elephant said:

Denmark is bad because it's a really ugly color imo.

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Nah, the Maya are the worst by that standard. The Inca are pretty bad too.

Mango Elephant said:

Denmark is bad because it's a really ugly color imo.

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Agreed! Ugly colours can totally ruin a civ's fun-factor

PhilBowles said:

Nah, the Maya are the worst by that standard. The Inca are pretty bad too.

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I agree Maya is pretty bad (though not as bad as Denmark, imo) but Inca has amazing colors! Or not amazing but acceptable.

Siam and Persia both have bad colors imo because red never goes with yellow. It reminds me too much of McDonald's.

Denmark's color is fine. In fact the translucent tint for cDenmark city badges is totally rocking some nostalgic seventies decor.

Babylon and some others are annoying because they mess up replay maps (look like water).

Austria is the only color I would complain about though. Instantly makes my tongue spaz out.

A lot of people are defending America. I can't agree. You can say the sight and tile discount has utility but the point is what you're missing -- and the best bonus of other Civs all pretty much tower over that.

And it isn't like Denmark's UA which encourages ingenuity and tactile, theme-based play (pillaging and hit-and-run; I frakking love Denmark) -- America's UA is just passive and tacked-on.

Even if you supplement it with sight promotions -- well, doesn't help in forest. And if I am worried about spotting invaders in flatland all I need is a horseman that I take the effort to move two tiles every turn. There. Instant America UA. To say that some players just don't know how to use America -- well, I say that some players don't know how to move a horse unit two tiles forward and back.

I would also vote Byzantium for having two early-game bonuses but that are on different tech pathing, which means you can't really leverage both for full effect. In Emperor if I am going to found a religion I usually have to delay sailing and horseys in favor of early-as-possible calander and theology. Both her UA and unique unit set are great but they are in tension. I would probably use her units more than her UA.

Edit: oh, I guess I should make it three. I will add Austria. Austria is very very strong but also boring to play. I'm more interested in Austria as an opponent. I've not finished my Austria games because they are basically won at the first $500 you can spare for marriage. Boring boring borig. I very much like the coffeehouse though (improves windmill by not being situational; also, is a coffeehouse).

In conclusion I voted: America, Byzantium, Austria.

Suleiman and Catherine are pretty horrid colours also.

In most games I use diplomacy very effectively, playing factions off against one another, keeping everyone mediocre while slowly building up my own power. With Sweden I find myself making declarations of friendship more readily in order to get the bonus and not willing to lose friendships which would lose me the bonus. Maybe my own problem, but if I'm going to play a unique civ I want to make the most of their unique ability, having the unique ability so tied into diplomacy tho can really skew your normal gameplay in bad ways. Do you make a friendship pact with weak Gandhi? He's the only one willing to give it to you, so you go for it, you want the bonus, but under normal circumstances you wouldn't because you'd realize that he would make a much better first victim of your conquest. Situations like this arise and you either practice poor diplomacy in order to get your UA bonus or you go through loads of turns of gameplay without getting anything out of your UA bonus in order to practice sound diplomacy. The Carolean seems like a great unit as I love March, but it comes so late and the time I have rifles I'm usually busting out artillery soon after which do most of the work for me anyhow.

I never played Polynesia but based on everyone saying they are one of the worst, I gave them a try, it was one of the most fun games I've played, but I also did extremely poorly, mostly my own fault tho, I had a very poor plan going in, taking honour tree, overestimating the UU the plan was to generate loads of culture/gold/citystate influence while simultaneously exploring the world.. unfortunately these guys are no jaguars and attacking barb camps just slowed me down too much. I also didn't understand how the UI worked until halfway through the game, didn't realize I had to line them all to get the max benefit, tho I'm still undecided about how good it is, considering there were a bunch of lux resources on the coast and I had to decide to either put a UI overtop, or get the happiness/trade gold from the lux.

Polynesia is a reversey civ. weak on standard time, hugely OP on marathon.

On marathon you can find all the ruins, finish the map and befriend the second continent by 500BC or so. The ladt point is the best: you are leveraging trade to the max.

The warrior's fear promo makes a big difference vs barbs on marathon, since you can heal without wasting 1000 years, and barbs are still primative as you finish the map. I played on marathon+raging and still was set. Thus your lone warrior is a scout who is clearing encampments for money and long-distance CS friendships.

A weird civ, to be sure. I mostly wish you could put farms on statue tiles instead of losing out on food.

Ethiopia has the worst colors. Seriously.

woodshadows said:

Suleiman and Catherine are pretty horrid colours also.

In most games I use diplomacy very effectively, playing factions off against one another, keeping everyone mediocre while slowly building up my own power. With Sweden I find myself making declarations of friendship more readily in order to get the bonus and not willing to lose friendships which would lose me the bonus. Maybe my own problem, but if I'm going to play a unique civ I want to make the most of their unique ability, having the unique ability so tied into diplomacy tho can really skew your normal gameplay in bad ways.

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Surely this is much like saying that Siam is bad because the UA is so dependent on making friends with city-states, and if you don't normally play that way you have to "skew your gameplay"? Particularly if you go in with the mindset that you have to make friends with as many CSes of the right types as possible because that maximises the bonus. Sweden's the same - if on an average map I'll sustain DoFs with half the civs for much of the game, I get a 30%+ Great Person production bonus for doing what I'd already be doing anyway.

Do you make a friendship pact with weak Gandhi? He's the only one willing to give it to you, so you go for it, you want the bonus, but under normal circumstances you wouldn't because you'd realize that he would make a much better first victim of your conquest.

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Sweden probably isn't a civ you'd choose if you go for domination games (this, in fact, is why the ability - while good for a civ - is an appallingly bad choice for a civ led by Gustavus Adolphus. I've mentioned before that Sweden feels like a civ added so the leader could be used; the actual civ itself seems something of an afterthought). I actively prefer games in which all or most factions survive, because it keeps everyone else engaged and results in multi-way diplomacy throughout the game. Also, if I can make friends with everyone while they're busy killing everybody else, I'm the only one raking in their votes in the UN. I also liberate civs where possible for much the same reason.

Dreadnought said:

Ethiopia has the worst colors. Seriously.

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I always see their units as barbarians.

PhilBowles said:

Sweden probably isn't a civ you'd choose if you go for domination games (this, in fact, is why the ability - while good for a civ - is an appallingly bad choice for a civ led by Gustavus Adolphus.

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Not really. A domination game means a surplus of GGs you can donate to CS. The 10% GP isn't that important when Caroleans is so good for the domination game. By no means is he the best at domination, but it's a viable option to go for if the context is right.

PhilBowles said:

Surely this is much like saying that Siam is bad because the UA is so dependent on making friends with city-states, and if you don't normally play that way you have to "skew your gameplay"? Particularly if you go in with the mindset that you have to make friends with as many CSes of the right types as possible because that maximises the bonus. Sweden's the same - if on an average map I'll sustain DoFs with half the civs for much of the game, I get a 30%+ Great Person production bonus for doing what I'd already be doing anyway.

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I'd say diplomacy with other civs on higher difficulties is far more important than city-state relations, where I can often on Immortal or Deity completely ignore actively doing anything with city-states if I ignored diplomacy I would quickly be crushed by multiple enemies or run-away civs. In games where you end up with many friendships as a by-product of practising diplomacy it's a great ability, but in a game where you end up with only a couple friendship pacts, 20% doesn't seem that great personally and I'd be tempted to make poor decisions in making more friendship pacts just to increase that percentage.

Ugh. Ethiopia's color is the worst. Russia, India, Maya, Korea and Siam are also hidious IMHO

woodshadows said:

I'd say diplomacy with other civs on higher difficulties is far more important than city-state relations, where I can often on Immortal or Deity completely ignore actively doing anything with city-states if I ignored diplomacy I would quickly be crushed by multiple enemies or run-away civs. In games where you end up with many friendships as a by-product of practising diplomacy it's a great ability, but in a game where you end up with only a couple friendship pacts, 20% doesn't seem that great personally and I'd be tempted to make poor decisions in making more friendship pacts just to increase that percentage.

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Again, I'd look at it in relation to Babylon - they get 50% production of one type of GP. Aside from one free GP, that's their entire UA. If you're getting 20% production across all types (except possibly Prophets, Generals and Admirals), and that's arguably the lesser part of the UA, that's still far from being among the weakest UAs in the game. And my trick to surviving Immortal is to avoid wars through DoFs, and targeting denunciations at common enemies (preferably common enemies closer to my AI friends than to me, so I don't need to become actively involved in the conflict).

I also find city-state relations critical - if I pledge to protect to get decent resting influence (and perma-friendship with the Patronage policy, which us obviously strong for Siam), I end up getting pulled into wars with bullies. If I don't I need to get involved in the quests. I also learned the peril of not checking current CS relations - somehow England stole my ally Antwerp immediately before I declared war on her, and was already allied with Budapest; I exited the game last night with Hungarian forces surrounding Uppsala. Previously the low-tech Celts had launched an ineffectual war against me - however their ally Prague, with state-of-the-art tech and close to my second city, captured and burned the city while my army was dealing with the Celts. As for CS bonuses themselves, I prefer to be friends with militaristic CSes early in the game so that I don't need to focus on unit production of my own (granted when I play Siam I don't get my UA benefits for doing so, but then this is just an example of the sort of play you warn against with Sweden - making bad calls just to maximise the UA. Siam isn't bad if I make a mistake by funneling early influence into cultural city states and suffer militarily as a result, the player is)