Best Civilization/Leader in CIVILIZATION V (October 2010)

Best Civ

  • America

    Votes: 37 4.2%
  • Arabia

    Votes: 59 6.7%
  • Aztec

    Votes: 26 3.0%
  • China

    Votes: 138 15.7%
  • Egypt

    Votes: 42 4.8%
  • England

    Votes: 47 5.4%
  • France

    Votes: 81 9.2%
  • Germany

    Votes: 41 4.7%
  • Greece

    Votes: 76 8.7%
  • India

    Votes: 21 2.4%
  • Iroquois

    Votes: 22 2.5%
  • Japan

    Votes: 36 4.1%
  • Ottoman

    Votes: 22 2.5%
  • Persia

    Votes: 57 6.5%
  • Rome

    Votes: 55 6.3%
  • Russia

    Votes: 59 6.7%
  • Siam

    Votes: 30 3.4%
  • Songhai

    Votes: 28 3.2%

  • Total voters
    877
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England suck unless you are a warmonger and only want to easily go ahead and kill all incoming units with your longbows.

*snore*

England can be a very interesting civ to use. Longbows are not only great medieval UU, but also carry promotion when they are upgraded. 2 range machine guns are insane. Also, the ship of the line is incredibly strong if you attack from sea. It's both cheaper, faster (due to sun never sets) and stronger than frigates. Thanks to the ocean starting bias, it's not difficult to build numerous ship of the line and wipe out all coastal civilizations if you'd love to. :mad: Sun never sets greatly improves the maneuverability of your ships and makes sea invasion much faster. And the free spy allows you to maintain a good relationship with CS.
 
disagree with quite a bit in this thread-

Rome and Greece - both civs have 2 unique units that are available during the same era, and all four UUs do not have advantages that upgrade... Well, I believe the ComCav's GG bonus upgrades, but it's real advantage is the 5 movement points. With either of these civs, you'd better gain a substantial advantage before chivalry, otherwise you're playing a vanilla civ with just their UA's (although both UAs are above average.)

France - I'm torn on this one. I do currently have my second best score using France (1670 AD space race), and actual gameplay shows them to be very good. But on paper, a side-by-side comparison with Songhai shows that they're just not as good as the Songhai, and I wouldn't say that Askia is necessarily the best civ:

France: +2 culture/city
Songhai: +2culture and +2 gold (in saved maintenance)/city. The unique building gives +2 culture. so as long as you build it in every city (and why wouldn't you, it's maintenance free), you get the same bonus as the French. The French advantage is earlier access, and the Songhai advantage is +2 gold in saved maintenance, so the Songhai UB basically cancels out the French UA

I'd take MandyCavs over Musketeers (or Foreign Legions)

So what's left? Foreign Legions, a UU that comes after the game has pretty much been decided, or a.) extra gold from encampments, catapulting your start, b.) extra gold from cities, leading to major developments after your first (and subsequent) conquests c.) land units that can survive when embarked, and d.) the ability to ignore rivers on attack but still gain their bonus on defense.

China and Persia... OK, agree. They're both grade A civs. But there's one civ that outshines both, IMO. Before I say who, let me say why- Regardless of what victory condition you aim for, gaining technology and gaining social policies are two of the strongest paints on your palette. -technology is gained from beakers, and beakers are based on population. Faster pop growth leads to faster acquisition of technology, and there's only one civ that has a population growth bonus... Which happens to be the same civ that has one of the best culture bonuses... the Aztecs. And to further push them ahead, the UU has 3 bonus attributes all of which upgrade, so upgraded jaguars make for better swords, muskets, infantry
 
disagree with quite a bit in this thread-

Rome and Greece - both civs have 2 unique units that are available during the same era, and all four UUs do not have advantages that upgrade... Well, I believe the ComCav's GG bonus upgrades, but it's real advantage is the 5 movement points. With either of these civs, you'd better gain a substantial advantage before chivalry, otherwise you're playing a vanilla civ with just their UA's (although both UAs are above average.)

France - I'm torn on this one. I do currently have my second best score using France (1670 AD space race), and actual gameplay shows them to be very good. But on paper, a side-by-side comparison with Songhai shows that they're just not as good as the Songhai, and I wouldn't say that Askia is necessarily the best civ:

France: +2 culture/city
Songhai: +2culture and +2 gold (in saved maintenance)/city. The unique building gives +2 culture. so as long as you build it in every city (and why wouldn't you, it's maintenance free), you get the same bonus as the French. The French advantage is earlier access, and the Songhai advantage is +2 gold in saved maintenance, so the Songhai UB basically cancels out the French UA

I'd take MandyCavs over Musketeers (or Foreign Legions)

So what's left? Foreign Legions, a UU that comes after the game has pretty much been decided, or a.) extra gold from encampments, catapulting your start, b.) extra gold from cities, leading to major developments after your first (and subsequent) conquests c.) land units that can survive when embarked, and d.) the ability to ignore rivers on attack but still gain their bonus on defense.

China and Persia... OK, agree. They're both grade A civs. But there's one civ that outshines both, IMO. Before I say who, let me say why- Regardless of what victory condition you aim for, gaining technology and gaining social policies are two of the strongest paints on your palette. -technology is gained from beakers, and beakers are based on population. Faster pop growth leads to faster acquisition of technology, and there's only one civ that has a population growth bonus... Which happens to be the same civ that has one of the best culture bonuses... the Aztecs. And to further push them ahead, the UU has 3 bonus attributes all of which upgrade, so upgraded jaguars make for better swords, muskets, infantry

You can't really compare a UB and a UA. UB's have to be...built. They take the hammers of a city, and they may take other buildings beforehand. France could go aggressive and not even want/need to take philosophy early, but they get the extra culture regardless, and they don't pay for it any more than Songhai, and, in fact, they pay less.

When you were building up, I thought for sure you were going to say Siam, with extra growth AND culture from CS's. Gandhi also carries an indirect grown bonus with him, due to his UA and the Indian UB has extra culture. The Aztecs are certainly a strong civ, though, and I might say the most interesting to play, given they tend toward a tall military civ.
 
China does not play well as an AI for me usually, except this current game. They are slow to expand, but if given the room they do quite well.
 
Sun never sets greatly improves the maneuverability of your ships and makes sea invasion much faster. And the free spy allows you to maintain a good relationship with CS.
The +2 naval unit can make it alot faster at getting to were you need to fight and prepare faster. The extra spy is just bacon on the table (you get the point, it's great!)
 
I have to say, I really like Japan. The Samurai owns the medieval era, and even smacks around musketmen fairly well. I haven't done a whole lot with the zero, to be honest, as I tend to maintain the bare minimum fighters and focus on bombers. I don't ever fight a defensive war past the reniassance...

Thier UA is absolutely amazing. I tend to be a bit of a warmongerer, and go for mostly science/domination victories. Bushido allows me to have a ridiculously experienced army; I've had 10+ mechanized infantry with march and blitz before. That is unstoppable. Japan tends to play the best for my. Just my opinion, though.
 
The best civ is definitely the Iroquois! Just play on the Arborea map on Pangaea and you have MASSIVE forests to expand through...never have to spend a dime on roads, so you can buy off CS for a diplo victory or purchase units to defend your massive empire or purchase science building for space win. The UB is amazingly overpowered if in the right spot and in Arborea there are lots...you can build almost as many wonders as Egypt :eek: ! The UU can pretty much cream any unit on offense or defense in the first 100 turns. Try it and you can win pretty quickly and convincingly too!
 
The best civ is definitely the Iroquois! Just play on the Arborea map on Pangaea and you have MASSIVE forests to expand through...never have to spend a dime on roads, so you can buy off CS for a diplo victory or purchase units to defend your massive empire or purchase science building for space win. The UB is amazingly overpowered if in the right spot and in Arborea there are lots...you can build almost as many wonders as Egypt :eek: ! The UU can pretty much cream any unit on offense or defense in the first 100 turns. Try it and you can win pretty quickly and convincingly too!

But they're so weak on Tiny Islands, I'd rather take Carthage any day!
 
I really like Wu Zetian but I don't honestly think China is the best. They might be the best for domination victory
Mayans seems really strong to me but i never played them. I like Japan, Korea and Austria
 
Roman empire hands down yes the legions are situational because of Iron but otherwise awesome for G&K it would be Rome's successor Byzantium.
 
I think China is the "best" Civ. They have a great UB that comes early and is put in every city, a UU that allows for a good mid games attack on neighbours, and a UA that, while nothing too special, is useful throughout the game.

But I would probably call Arabia my "favourite." They have a unique play style (as one of the few real money based civs), and still have a strong UU. Plus their UB is probably the best in the game.
 
Huns are my favourite but they are't on the list. I also like Ottoman's UA.
 
I really like Aztecs, China, France, Rome, and Russia if I had to go back and play them as vanilla civs.

Rome got seriously nerfed in G&K by the nerfing of swordsmen and swordsmen UUs, but before that the Legion was a monster and the UA is very useful to help with new cities.

Russia's production bonuses and double strategic resources is very nice, and double uranium is very helpful if you make it that far, while double horses is great.

China has a gold-producing early UB, a great UU, and a UA that means GGs are very useful.

Aztecs have a culture boosting UA, a food boosting UB, and a UU that makes it easy to kill early barbs.

France has possibly the best UU in vanilla (prior to the UU being move to GWI in G&K), and has a second earlier UU that is good, too, while the UA boosts culture for a good while.
 
Korea is best. I can push for hammers in each city and still make beakers. They have crazy UU, with it i can snipe every enemy unit, and second UU make costal cities so easy to take.
 
China is probably best from an objective point of view. My favorites to play, though, are Inca (potentially huge production and growth, with minimal costs) and Polynesia. I never win as Poly, but I always have fun. :)
 
Rome got seriously nerfed in G&K by the nerfing of swordsmen and swordsmen UUs, but before that the Legion was a monster and the UA is very useful to help with new cities.

The Legion might not be as good as they once were but I think that they are still a pretty solid UU? They happen to have one more attack point than the Pikemen that you'd be using if you weren't Rome. It's kind of funny that they come too late to dominate the Classical Era like they should but they now serve a purpose as the best thing in the Medieval Era. And, unlike Pikemen, their upgrade path is great!
 
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