BNW Deity Tier List

Fair enough, I'll move them up when I get back. Anyone against moving Greece up?

Celts may be moved down if people are against them being so high. They have a double early faith bonus in the uu and UA (not to mention that its a great barb hunting uu period, no need for archers), then in midgame, they get +3 happiness per city... Which is the largest happiness gain in the game besides India's ua. Putting this on hold for now.

The more I think about it, the more I want to move Ethiopia down. Their combat bonus is really not that great anymore, now that most civs won't expand past 4 cities...

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As far as Greece is concerned the debate wasn't centered on deity level play and appropriate tiers it was simply what's the most underrated civ. If you were going to do anything I'd drop Siam down a tier.

I'd agree that with the patch Ethopia could be dropped a tier.
 
But you also have to consider the civ as a quality pponent. Greece can be downright nasty.
 
still of the opinion that civs should be rated by victory type but the list looks pretty solid. surprised that Carthage is not mid tier with its bonus to income and solid UU for land AND sea
 
Really? I didn't think that was within the scope of what we were doing

I know, didn't mean to imply otherwise. I was just thinking of my (bad) experiences playing against Greece in several games and thought if they can be this relatively good against me (bonuses aside), imagine what a human player can do with them.
 
I don't understand why Greece, the Netherlands and Siam are so low when I would consider all 3 to be upper tier civs.

As netherlands you can get a buttload of extra happiness from 1:1 resource trades and gold trades for resources are that much more worthwile, the polder is arguably the best unique improvement in the game, with the only competition being the terrace farm, and they have an extremely good UU as well.

Greece can lever constant city state bonuses from almost all the city states all game long and absolutely destroy in growth, faith, culture and indirectly science output. Their companion cavalry is pretty good, and although there's not much to be said of the hoplite it makes for good barbarian busting if you upgrade a warrior, as well as the ability to more easily intimidate city states for gold early on (and then use your UA to recover diplomacy twice as fast).

And I always assumed that Siam was considered a top tier civ due to their massive early food and faith bonuses from city states that get them a great lead, a very strong UU and a decent UB, considering how mid game culture has been nerfed.
 
This whole list strikes me as a bit silly to be honest. Carthage, Iroquois, Polynesia, Indonesia, Sweden... All in the bottom two brackets. Meanwhile with the exception of Iroquois, these are a few of my most played civs in deity, Carthage and Indonesia being my absolute most favorites in the game. I'm not some superstar player either, so something isn't right here.
 
I know, didn't mean to imply otherwise. I was just thinking of my (bad) experiences playing against Greece in several games and thought if they can be this relatively good against me (bonuses aside), imagine what a human player can do with them.

Its because they do several things correctly; like working the CS Quests they always nail down allies early on and then use those to snowball other quests and to augment early wars. Other civs could do this but they'd rather demand tribute and not really use the CS to their advantage.
 
I feel like Sweden should be bumped up to middle tier if not upper tier - they have 1 decent and 1 extremely good UU and both come around the time you get Artillery which imo is the best moment to start going for domination. And their UA is simply amazing - in peace you can have a huge boost to GP generation without needing to settle on lakes or rivers, and during war you can gift excess generals/admirals to city states to keep your happiness up or just use them as proxies to wage war - my favourite tactic is to ally with a city state close to the runaway, DoW him, he'll take the city state and then everyone will hate him.
 
Moved Greece and Carthage up one. Moved Ethiopia down one.

Heavily considering:
Celts - down
Egypt - down
Siam - up

Other ongoing discussions:
Sweden
Netherlands
Rome
Morocco

still of the opinion that civs should be rated by victory type but the list looks pretty solid. surprised that Carthage is not mid tier with its bonus to income and solid UU for land AND sea

Done, enough people have mentioned Carthage. They have the " marker anyway, so there was their weird impression that they were the 2nd worst civ on the list after Denmark, which is not true. I think it's less confusing all around if they're up a tier to bring up the rear of the lower tier.

If this is not for the AI as well, then why is Egypt so high?

Good point. For some reason, I thought it had a desert start bias, but it doesn't... I mean, not really. It avoids jungle and forest, so Egypt has a 50% chance at a desert/tundra start (both work for them very well).

Will consider moving them down. But, we did have an entire discussion earlier in this thread on them, and I think people concluded that Egypt was fine as 2nd tier (the old second tier, so they would definitely qualify for the new larger 2nd tier) and I'm not sure the fall patch changed anything to make them worse. I've never been huge on them, but the +2 happiness functions as a better Netherlands UA, and the UA saves hammers on not only world wonders, but also national wonders, which are unaffected by Deity difficulty. There's a list earlier in this thread of the approximate difficulty in getting pre Renaissance wonders. Only 5-6 are locked out of most games.

Anyone else think they're too high?

This whole list strikes me as a bit silly to be honest. Carthage, Iroquois, Polynesia, Indonesia, Sweden... All in the bottom two brackets. Meanwhile with the exception of Iroquois, these are a few of my most played civs in deity, Carthage and Indonesia being my absolute most favorites in the game. I'm not some superstar player either, so something isn't right here.

I don't think your most played civs have much to do with which civs are best... not sure what the argument is here. Carthage is one of my most played civs too (in fact, only one of my most played civs are in the top two tiers). Doesn't mean it's a very good civ. All civs are viable in that you can win with any of them. It seems that you just have a personal preference for water-based civs.

I feel like Sweden should be bumped up to middle tier if not upper tier - they have 1 decent and 1 extremely good UU and both come around the time you get Artillery which imo is the best moment to start going for domination. And their UA is simply amazing - in peace you can have a huge boost to GP generation without needing to settle on lakes or rivers, and during war you can gift excess generals/admirals to city states to keep your happiness up or just use them as proxies to wage war - my favourite tactic is to ally with a city state close to the runaway, DoW him, he'll take the city state and then everyone will hate him.

Tundra start means you get to Artillery slower than everyone else. That's bad, right? It's especially bad when your UA requires you to work specialists, which require more population, which you have less of. If you play all starts with start bias and don't re-roll, Sweden has one of the worst starts in the game. If you don't play with start bias, or play only good starting positions, then Sweden is amazing. But, this list assumes all standard settings, no reroll. Sweden's ability to generate and then gift GGs in the early game (and all game long) is the only thing keeping it from bottom tier.

This is just my experience with Sweden (I've played 5 games with them on Immortal/Deity and haven't gotten them to work well in any of those games; and I'm pretty good at tundra starts, since Russia is my favorite civ). I'm convinced people who think Sweden is any good on Deity are not playing with start biases, or they re-roll mediocre/bad starts. Sweden in my experience is incredibly hit or miss.

You can't compare a Sweden diplo victory with another civ's culture/science/domination victory. Diplo has to be compared with Diplo. I think this is also why Greece is overrated. Sure, Greece's diplo victory is easier than Babs science victory. But a Babs diplo victory is even easier than a Greek diplo victory. Etc.
 
I don't think your most played civs have much to do with which civs are best... not sure what the argument is here. Carthage is one of my most played civs too (in fact, only one of my most played civs are in the top two tiers). Doesn't mean it's a very good civ. All civs are viable in that you can win with any of them. It seems that you just have a personal preference for water-based civs.

Well, I don't have time to play every Civ regularly. I've tried all of them, however. Some Civs I enjoy, joy here being a product of personal favour towards style/mechanics and competitive viability. Civs I find boring and impotent drop out of favour, no longer seeing play unless they're heavily reworked and warrant a revisit. Apply time, and that's a pretty solid environment of natural selection, my most played Civs, thus, being a function of both joy and viability. Given as how I mentioned Deity, it can be presumed I have several hundred hours with the game.
I imagine this represents the vast majority of Civ players' experience with the available civs. Variable time exposure for each, of course.
So, I'm a little confused as to how you could not have interpreted my statement that way, or seen much correlation between heavily played Civs, and their viability.

Am I imposing my preferences as finite law on everyone else here? No, though, given that seems to be the point of this thread, maybe I should be, and this is why you misunderstood.
In fact, I was trying to present the sum of 600+ hours of anecdotal evidence for your consideration, as I think that's rather valuable. The objective details being far too numerous and interconnected even before being multiplied by countless environmental settings for any reasonable person to ever claim to have accurately qualified each civ.

Whether my evidence indicates these civs should be higher, others should be lower, or the list is silly and shouldn't exist in the first place... well, that's for others to decide. I lean towards the latter, but in no way am I presuming to be an authority on the matter.
I'm just presenting my observations.

Also, water has nothing to do with it.
 
I've never been huge on them, but the +2 happiness functions as a better Netherlands UA

Just nitpicking here, the Dutch UA is much more flexible then "Flat +2 happiness bonus". While it's a lot harder to get those quick lump sums for an early settler which worked in GK, you still can use the Dutch UA to have a stronger economy then others without your happiness suffering nearly as much, which one should definitely consider. The UA works both ways there.
I'd move the Dutch up simply because they're pretty versatile due to having so much money. They also have this interesting quirk of being able to settle cities in areas other civs might not nearly be as interested in due to high Marsh abundance. While Flood Plains Polders are definitely better then Marsh Polders, they're still not to be underestimated. They still slow down opponents, give them a combat penalty, and add a lot of food and some hammers to the empire as well.
The Sea beggar's 3 starting promotions make it the ultimate in naval city capture technology. Sure, it on its own cannot match the English higher-speed navy or the Ottoman's low-cost all-pirates navy, but it certainly gives the Dutch a leg up on many other civs with naval ambitions.
Finally, the start bias of the Dutch is simply put good. While you do run a risk of getting a production-starved Amsterdam, you're very likely going to get a lot of food in at least, as well as good shots at coastal locations.
All in all, the Dutch aren't a god-tier civ by any stretch of the imagination, but pound-for-pound they're surely more flexible/powerful then civs like America or Carthage. I'd say they're middle tier, with an annotation that they are somewhat worse on Pangea then they are on proper continents maps.
 
I say Sweden should move up. My last game I had +50% GP generation for most of the game. That's even better than Babylon as it applies to more than just GS.
 
It's not a bonus that you can rely on getting though. You're generally going to get 1-2 allies at best, especially since Sweden is heavily flavored towards warfare. They're really good but I absolutely agree with adwtca's assessment that the tundra bias is a huge nerf.
 
Sweden being more north than Denmark should never have had a greener starting bias if Denmark has to deal with the thundra bias, as if that civ haven't enough to deal with. historically Denmark should have salt bias, tbh, that might help them a bit in-game, too. :D
 
Well, I don't have time to play every Civ regularly. I've tried all of them, however. Some Civs I enjoy, joy here being a product of personal favour towards style/mechanics and competitive viability. Civs I find boring and impotent drop out of favour, no longer seeing play unless they're heavily reworked and warrant a revisit. Apply time, and that's a pretty solid environment of natural selection, my most played Civs, thus, being a function of both joy and viability. Given as how I mentioned Deity, it can be presumed I have several hundred hours with the game.
I imagine this represents the vast majority of Civ players' experience with the available civs. Variable time exposure for each, of course.
So, I'm a little confused as to how you could not have interpreted my statement that way, or seen much correlation between heavily played Civs, and their viability.

I'm just presenting my observations.

Sorry if my tone came off dismissive. I meant it in a more aspy kind of way. What players like to play as really is irrelevant for this list (not just you).

Like you said, you don't play civs that are boring (much like I imagine you don't play difficulties that are boring, like Emperor). I wasn't trying to say your experience is not valuable... you were just not presenting a reason that these civs you play often were actually good/powerful, instead of just fun or challenging. I don't want to give any consideration for a civ being more interesting or fun to play. The fact that your "I like to play these civs!" list had a strong naval bias led me to (I think reasonably) presume that your preference for what types of games are interesting/fun was a part of the reason you play the civs you do most often (which is totally understandable, and like I said, I do the same, and I think most people reasonably tend to play civs they like and that are fun, not civs that are the most powerful). But, this list is only meant to take into account the % chance to win a random game on a random start.

For example: Carthage vs Rome. I love Carthage and its land-sea balanced playstyle, but its bonus can be broken down into a minor military bonus (mountains, which Carthage does not have a start bias for being near), two early game UUs that are helpful for early game wars and barb clearing, but ultimately not game-changing, and the big one: Free Harbors. Free harbors can be broken down into a hammer bonus and a gold savings bonus per city: 120 hammers + 3gpt (gpt in savings, so cannot be modified by any +% gold modifiers or GA), with some bonus +gpt for the few turns it would take to hard-build the harbor. The city also must be built on the coast (which is not always possible, and if you are playing aggressively, only 50% of AI cities on these maps at most will be coastal). This is clearly not an above-average civ, compare to Rome's +25% production UA for all cities, which would surpass the hammer bonus by the 6th building built, and after that it's all bonus hammers (not to mention you get to decide which buildings to build and when, instead of always harbor first), this is especially apparent on your first two non-capital cities (any city that ends up building almost all available buildings will end the game saving some ~2000 hammers each), which if you value gold to hammers 1 to 1, Rome far surpasses Carthage's total bonus. Carthage also gets Harbors before compass, so there's a +2 gold bonus and +50% distance on your trade routes between teching cargo ships and teching harbor (usually 3 trade routes for an average of 35 turns each, for a cumulative bonus of +200 gold). Of course, this is situational, and you lose out on the extra gold/science!! for getting the earlier and quicker caravan first (the difference will be some ~10 turns min in the very beginning). If you use a caravan, then 2 cargo ships, as is probably the better strategy, you're down to +~120 gold). And of course, you'll have to defend your trade routes from barbs with a ship or two near home which you wouldn't have to build otherwise, which is a min -1gpt of upkeep, for a total gold gain of less than 50gold max. Whew, my point is. Carthage's bonus "feels" powerful (zomg, free Harbors everywhere!!!!!), but it's really not powerful at all compared to other UAs, unless you were on an Islands map where you would expand onto a different landmass before teching to Harbors (but this list is not about Island maps).

Whew.

Anyway, I prefer to back up my feelings with numbers and analytics. I agree with you that Carthage is wayyy more fun to play as than Rome. But, it is also a far less powerful civ. I'm not going to post the whole thing here, but Carthage's total bonus value is smaller than Rome's going similarly wide (or tall for that matter), even on an Islands map and factoring in city connection gold on a 1 gold to 1 hammer ratio.

Is Carthage viable? Sure. Is it anywhere near on par with Rome? Nope. That's what the tiers are for. It's not meant to tell people what civ they should play as or what civ they'll have the most fun with... it's meant to give people a rough sense of how challenging it is to play as each civ at the Deity level.
 
All in all, the Dutch aren't a god-tier civ by any stretch of the imagination, but pound-for-pound they're surely more flexible/powerful then civs like America or Carthage. I'd say they're middle tier, with an annotation that they are somewhat worse on Pangea then they are on proper continents maps.

Hmm... the problem I always run into with the Dutch, is that you generally start somewhere with one type of luxury (like 8 copies of it in your expansion area), and a couple of other more unique luxuries. It's actually difficult to consistently trade away your last copy of your primary luxury (especially once tensions get high, and you're literally forced to trade it for 4gpt) throughout the game. Not usually an issue in the early game, but by mid-game, it gets complicated.

Also, what starts out as a +happiness gain in the early game if you have trade partners, quickly becomes a -happiness UA by mid-game, when the AI doesn't have enough luxuries to trade you and you start needing the happiness just to keep growing. I do like the grass start bias (it's really one of the best ones for the capital + tradition). But, without India's UA, the Dutch start running into actual happiness problems by mid-game going 4-city tradition, which makes it even harder to continue using their UA. Do you do 3-city instead like India until Ideologies? Do you run Patronage and keep two CS mercantile allies? Exploration? 4-city Netherlands is actually rather tough to keep up with.

I consider Netherlands toward the top of the tier, but not on par with the higher tier. Compare with Aztec's or Siam's growth bonus for examples of higher tier civs. Or, think of Russia UA is effectively a trading UA that gets an average some 45 x 5 = 225 gold per 30 turns (or 300 gold if you use the 2gpt per 1 resource trick/exploit) resource per city from its UA in the early game (horses and iron), without having to lose 2 happiness... and it only gets better as the game goes on instead of worse, and there's a hammer bonus, which is very nice for early game. On the other hand, despite a better start, I don't think Netherlands is ultimately significantly better than even India (same grass start). The two civs you used for comparison were America, a military civ (difficult to compare, since they are a mid-late game military civ), and Carthage, probably the weakest civ in the tier, very recently moved up from bottom tier. If you instead compared with the other non-military civs in the tier (France, Indonesia, India), Netherlands would look more at home.
 
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