Civ ranking thread

So I realize that there are already 2 fairly recent civ tier lists in this forum. However, this one is different because it is not based on the opinion of one person, but on the community as a whole. Your opinions that are expressed in this thread, rather than being simply accepted or rejected by the OP, will always count toward this tier list.

There are 5 tiers. Top tier, Upper tier, Mid tier, Lower tier, and Bottom tier. To contribute to the placement of the civilizations, simply state which civilizations you think belong in which tier. Being placed in the top tier by anyone gives a civ a score of +2, upper tier is +1, mid tier is +0, lower tier is -1, and bottom tier is -2. (Even though you can directly affect the rankings without justifications, feel free to discuss and debate the relative merits of the civs--after all, you may affect someone else's rating.) The ranking of a civ is based on its average score (so yes, giving a civ +0 will actually affect things!): an average of less than -1.5 is bottom tier, an average between -1.5 and -0.5 is lower tier, an average between -0.5 and 0.5 is mid tier, and average between 0.5 and 1.5 is upper tier, and an average greater than 1.5 is top tier.

You can format your rankings in any way you like, as long as it's clear where you're placing each civ. So if you're ranking a few civs, it's fine to say something like
Babylon: Top tier
or, if you're doing a lot in one post, you could just as well say
Top Tier:
Babylon, ...

You cannot vote for a civ more than once. (obviously) However, you can change your vote for a given civ--just make sure to say that you are changing your vote, and note what your previous rating was--that makes it easier to change.

You don't have to vote for every civ. If you want, you could only vote for one civ. Don't feel pressured to rate as many civs as you can, if you don't really know a civ, it's better to stay silent on it than just give it mid tier.

For those of you who are posting after this rule was implemented, please put the civs in alphabetical order within the tiers. It makes it much easier to enter the data.

If a ranking appears to be trolling the thread--that is, it deviates significantly from the average and is not supported by good reasoning, it will be investigated and potentially discounted.

I will update each civ's score frequently. I will not update the rankings as frequently, because that's a good deal harder to do. How frequently I do so will be determined by how much activity this thread gets, but the first time I will place the civs in tiers based on how you guys have rated them will be the end of the month. Until then, go ahead. Tell us how good or bad each civ is, and in a couple weeks you'll get a community created civ tier list.

Hall of Fame (Civ scores):





Civ tiers:

Top tier: These civs have excellent bonuses that are useful in all scenarios.

Upper tier: These civs are also very good, although their bonuses may be slightly weaker or luck dependent. They can perform as well as top tier civs in some circumstances.

Mid tier: These civs are solid and can generally perform well, although their bonuses tend to be mediocre or fairly situational.

Lower tier: These civs have weak bonuses and are often very situational. While they are still playable and balanced, they generally cannot hope to compete with the upper tiers.

Bottom tier: These civs are very weak and have near worthless or highly situational uniques. While they're still generally better than a generic civ, the difference often isn't very noticeable.

Changelog:

18 Oct - added a changelog; added descriptions for the tiers; made first entry in the Hall of Fame; clarified some instructions; added a rule where new entries are to be in alphabetical order.

How situational civs should be ranked ?

For example Babylon is top tier because it's killer at science and very good in every other. But for a pangea domination Mongols and Arabs are up there.

Being map dependent is definitely a negative. For example the Dutch with a good floodplains start can easily be top tier with Polders. But if you don't get a start like that, they become pretty mediocre. On the other hand civs like Babylon and Korea have amazing bonuses regardless of your starting luck.

In terms of map type--well, I've heard it said before that Pangaea is the most commonly played map type around here. I'd probably rank based on Continents, because it offers opportunities for both land and water based civs, but ultimately it's up to you. However, if a civ relies on having a certain map type to be good, that would dock marks from them in my books.

My 2p on this subject is that besides being difficulty, map, speed and other settings-dependent, rankings also depend on play style. I can clearly get a lot more out of Sweden than most people by the way I play, since most others think they are mediocre at best, whereas they are easily in my top 3 civs.

Plus, just having a vote doesn't make this list any more objective than the ones based on other people's opinions, sorry. It just means that rather than a single subjective person, the rankings are the based on a sum of subjectivities.

The best we can hope for, really, is a set of separate rankings for each combination of map, speed, etc.

So you'd have a separate ranking for Deity, pangaea, standard, domination; and another for Emperor, small continents, quick, culture; to name just two examples.

Clearly, the very best civs are good across a broad range, but those people who (inexplicably to me) play on marathon and epic promise me that Songhai become god-tier, and the ratings might reflect that.

Until such a time as this idea of separate rankings is adopted (if ever), I vote for Poland 1, Sweden 2 and Persia 3, for domination, standard, pangaea, standard.

Acken said:

How situational civs should be ranked ?

For example Babylon is top tier because it's killer at science and very good in every other. But for a pangea domination Mongols and Arabs are up there.

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This will just make the poll more complicated. This is after all a survey and not a rigorous scientific study.

For maps, I would suggest rating the civs based on the average of Pangaea and Continents. For example if England is Upper at Continents and Lower at Pangaea then rate it at Mid.

Other map settings should all be set to Standard. No Strategic Resources and no Slow games.

Difficulty could be any. All difficulty level players should be welcome. The civ differences at different difficulties is quite small and will average out as more people take part in the survey. Multiplayer assessments are welcome too.

Here's my list, based on the following criteria:

1. All victory conditions are weighted equally
2. All difficulties are weighted equally
3. Faster is generally better

Top Tier: Aztec, Babylon, Inca, Korea, Poland
Upper Tier: Arabia, Egypt, Maya, Mongolia, Netherlands, Persia, Shoshone, Siam, Spain
Mid Tier: America, Austria, Celts, China, England, Ethiopia, Huns, Rome, Russia, Sweden, Zulu
Lower Tier: Assyria, Brazil, Byzantium, Germany, Greece, India, Morocco, Venice, Songhai
Bottom Tier: Carthage, Denmark, France, Indonesia, Iroquois, Japan, Ottomans, Polynesia, Portugal

Number of civs per tier here is 5, 9, 11, 9, 9

Here you go Based on emperor/immortal/deity pangaea mostly. I did not put any in the bottom tier since the distinction in my opinion is negligible. Also sometimes mid tier civs can go up/down 1 tier and vice versa.

Top tier:
Babylon, Korea, Maya, Poland, Inca

Upper tier:
Arabia, Ethiopia, Shoshone, Greece, Siam.

Mid tier:
Austria, Celts, China, England, Venice, Brazil, Egypt, Persia, Rome, Morocco, France, Mongolia, Portugal, Assyria, Aztec, Russia, Spain, Netherlands, Germany, Huns, Zulu, Sweden, Songhai.

Lower tier:
Indonesia, Carthage, Japan, Ottomans, Polynesia, America, India, Iroquois, Byzantium, Denmark.

Bottom tier:
None

And I shall begin. The rules of my rating system are:
Minimum of 8 civs in each category
Top tier: Bonuses are Consistent and Overpowered
Upper tier: Bonuses are (Inconsistent and Overpowered) or (Consistent and Strong)
Mid tier: Bonuses are (Inconsistent and Strong) or (Consistent and Average)
Lower tier: Bonuses are (Inconsistent and Average) or (Consistent and Weak)
Bottom tier: Bonuses are (Inconsistent and Weak)

My rankings are based on Deity/Standard/Pangaea (mostly) or Continents play.

Top tier: Babylon, Poland, Persia, Inca, Maya, Ethiopia, Korea (7 civs)

Upper tier: Egypt, England, Celts, China, Arabia, Shoshone, Huns, Zulu, Aztec, Greece, Spain (11 civs)

Mid tier: Songhai, Siam, Rome, America, Austria, Russia, Mongolia, Indonesia, Sweden, Portugal, Morocco (11 civs)

Lower tier: Assyria, Venice, Brazil, Netherlands, India, Polynesia, France, Germany (8 civs)

Bottom tier: Iroquois, Byzantium, Carthage, Japan, Denmark, Ottomans (6 civs)

Is this for Singleplayer, Multiplayer or both? Since some Civs just don't do as well in MP. For example Sweden: no one will do DoFs with you if you are playing Sweden so the GP bonus is wasted. (maybe a few will but people will be very careful about it)

Anyways here are a few civs I'll throw in.

Top Tier: Babylon, Korea, England, Inca, Poland
Upper Tier: Egypt, Maya, Russia, Ethiopia, Arabia, China, Mongolia
Mid Tier: Spain, Huns, Indonesia, Zulu, Shoshone, Rome, India
Lower Tier: Austria, Netherlands, Denmark
Bottom Tier: Venice, Iroquois

Didn't put all Civs here because it would take too much time and there are some that I'm not that familiar with playing.

I play same civs a lot. Not only good ones. I put one in each.

Top: Inca
Upper: Arabia
Mid: Sweden
Lower: Denmark
Bottom: Ottomans


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This should be based on Immortal and below. Deity is not the same game. The game itself behaves differently at Deity. Example tech pace is faster, there are more cities on the map etc. This favors certain civs and if a civ rates high there, it may not carry over to lower levels.

Consider England against three map types, Continents, Pangaea, Archipelago. I could argue that they have the best chance to win any map.

Xplore: Faster movement at sea.
Xpand: Faster movement at sea.
Xploit: 2 spies.
Xterminate: Land UU, Sea UU.

Top tier: Brazil, Carthage, Portugal

Upper tier: Aztec, Celts, England, Ethiopia, Greece, Huns, Iroquois, Maya, Poland, Rome, Sweden

Mid tier: America, Arabia, Assyria, Byzantium, China, Egypt, France, India, Mongolia, Morocco, Persia, Shoshone, Siam, Songhai, Venice, Zulu

Lower tier: Austria, Germany, Indonesia, Netherlands, Ottoman

Bottom tier: Japan, Russia, Spain

Did not include civs I don't have (aka, no DLC, only things you can buy in physical form). The list is alphabetical.

Response to things you don't agree with:

Brazil's ability to take over a game by becoming a cultural and economic powerhouse are that good. The AI has a hard time invading jungle (not that it's easy anyway) and the science/culture/gold from brazilwood camps on jungle, combined with the UA let them control the game.

Free harbors are that good. Carthage can take a few coastal cities in ideal spots and make them massive, due to the extra trade route range, and they get a UU to control the seas early, as well, neutralizing barbs. Saving those ultra valuable early worker turns by not building a road means a lot too.

Portugal is like Brazil, but with more cash and less culture. The world congress is their plaything.

Poland gets pulled down because for all its versatility, the UB is good, but not great, and the UU is a lancer, which takes it from awesome to average (were to to replace cavalry, it would likely move it up a spot alone). The UA is what gets them up there, but it's not good enough to move it up to the top for me.

America and China, to me, are pictures of "average." Arabia and Mongolia are with them there because there is no real plan B (Arabia can get some advantage from their Bazaar economically). Dominate with ranged knights or die trying. The Zulu have the same issues, they win or lose on war, without much to fall back on.

Japan gets so little. Were the AI better, it might get bumped up a spot, based on the Zero getting a use. The Samurai and Bushido just aren't enough to make up for it though, as they are ok and mediocre respectively.

In many ways, Russia's UA is an inferior Hun UA, and with a forgettable UB that won't even make it into most cities and UU that is hardly better than the original...

Spain is there because of the gamble. They are simply too dependent on finding a natural wonder.

Iroquois are upper tier. Their UB is almost always an improvement, and in their starting area, normally a MASSIVE one, and their UA saves worker turns early, and we already talked about worker turns. They're pretty darn close to top tier. I can't understand why people don't love them.

consentient said:

Plus, just having a vote doesn't make this list any more objective than the ones based on other people's opinions, sorry. It just means that rather than a single subjective person, the rankings are the based on a sum of subjectivities.

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While this is true, and I agree that there's no such thing as an objective tier list, the objective of this thread was that a sum of subjectives more closely approximates true objectivity. After all, better to represent the opinions of the community as a whole rather than the opinion of just one person.

I think that we can already foresee the grim fate of this crowd-sourced tier list. It fixes the "problem" of being based on the opinion of one expert, with the "solution" of weighting all opinions equally, regardless of experience or expertise. The SSB community had a fairly good method by which they created their tier lists, which was a hybrid of the two approaches. Their tier list was based on the average of several opinions, but you had to be recognized as an extremely strong tournament player to have a say.

Anyways, here is my $.02 to try and nudge the results in the right direction.

Criteria:

1. Consistency, i.e. can the civ win from any start, and how often can it hit it's projected speed targets, how dependent on map archtype is the civ, etc.

2. Speed. All WCs weighted equally, i.e. if CivA's best WC is CV and that is judged to be about as fast as CivB's best WC which is DV, then those two civs are scored the same in terms of speed.

3. Symmetric Distribution. Because.


Top (5): Poland, Inca, Korea, Babylon, Maya

Upper (10): Aztec, Arabia, Brazil, Huns, Mongols, Ethiopia, Celts, Siam, Shoshone, England

Middle (12): Egypt, Persia, Zulu, China, Portugal, Songhai, Sweden, Morocco, Austria, Rome, Dutch, Carthage

Lower (10): America, Russia, Assyria, Greece, Byzantines, Japan, Polynesia, Indonesia, France, Germany

Bottom (5): Venice, Denmark, Ottomans, Iroquois, India

Not Rated: Spain

59saintdane said:

If a ranking appears to be trolling the thread--that is, it deviates significantly from the average and is not supported by good reasoning, it will be investigated and potentially discounted.

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How are you going to inevestigate and enforce?

And already, there is disagreement on top civs. One person has Carthage as a top tier, and someone else as a bottom tier.

docbud said:

How are you going to inevestigate and enforce?

And already, there is disagreement on top civs. One person has Carthage as a top tier, and someone else as a bottom tier.

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There will definitely be personal preferences. Almost all civs can be top tier depending on how you play the game. The person who puts Carthage at top clearly plays a lot of water maps. His other ratings seems legit. 1 or 2 outliers are acceptable. It will balance out as more people take part in the survey.

docbud said:

How are you going to inevestigate and enforce?

And already, there is disagreement on top civs. One person has Carthage as a top tier, and someone else as a bottom tier.

Click to expand...

Well, if someone puts Poland at the bottom tier without explanation or says "babylon wurst civ because lol" that obviously wouldn't be counted as a legitimate vote. On the other hand, a vote like Rootfelleren's WOULD be accepted--because although his tier list ran contrary to what most other people believe, he supported it with good reasoning. If you can reasonably defend the positions that you've placed the civs in, I can accept that. That clause was just there to safeguard against the possibility that some random noob might come along and wildly skew the ratings just because they felt like trolling the thread.

Someone asked what about civs that are good situationally. IMO the "goodness" of a civ should specifically be how likely it is to win a deity game compared with a weak civ, with a minor value to how early it is likely to win. Based on that, my list:

Top (best to worst): Poland, Maya, Arabia, Ethiopia, Aztec, Inca

Mayans and Poland are great, not worth discussing really since everyone plays them and knows how great they are. I purposely avoid playing them because its too easy. Arabia has the potential to win the game earlier and more reliably than any other civ through a domination victory, and has strong mid to late game benefits as well. The camel archer is the best unit in the game, bar none. Aztec gets big bonuses to food and culture, plus a cool early unit that can be built instead of the scout and remain relevant for the entire game, while scouts get deleted at t100. Inca get a significant bonus to food and the hill movement bonus is so good. Ethiopia is the best religious civ and has an awesome UA that gets a lot of mileage in nearly any game.

Upper (no order): Babylon, Celts, Egypt, Rome, Shoshone, England, Germany, Morocco, Persia, Siam

I think that everyone puts Babylon in top-tier, but their bonus is single minded and carries heavy diminishing returns. Settling a GS on turn 20 or so is pretty great though. Celts has a bunch of subtle qualities and an awesome UB, but importantly, they all synergize very effectively and affect your game from the first turn. Egypt and Rome are under-rated as well, they both get great abilities for creating a wide civ with a strong capital, which is generally the type of empire that can most easily compete for any VC. Shoshone is the strong start civ and you can't go wrong with a strong start. England is like Arabia-light, great for an early domination victory, but particularly deadly on continents or archipelago. New and improved Germany is nearly top tier. The UA is extremely good on deity, free units early on are worth so so much, and the UB is flat out ridiculous. Morocco's UA is great and contributes to every VC, there's a hidden benefit in that the AI's bias toward trading with you if you're Morocco, meaning big science and gold boost throughout the early game. Persia is probably the best wide civ that isn't Ethiopia. Siam belongs flatly in upper-tier. Their bonuses are great but not overpowered. If all the civs were balanced to about Siam-level, the game would be a lot more interesting.

Middle (no order): America, Assyria, Austria, Brazil, China, Iroquois, Korea, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, Zulu

America is a fairly strong liberty domination civ. It's UA is subtle in strength but pays dividends from the first turn of the game until the last, which I think counts for a lot. It has the best melee unit in the game but no one cares about melee. Assyria in the hands of an expert may be even higher tier, but IMO it's UA takes a lot of skill and effort to get great value from, and siege towers aren't relevant for every long in deity. The UB is cool but not good. Austria's abilities are versatile to any victory condition and quite strong, but they suffer from not being in effect until very late in the game. Brazil is strong but again, nothing that helps it in the early to mid game, and some games just aren't that suited to a culture victory. China is a tough one, their UU is greatly over-rated and their UB is under rated. A library that gives net +2 gold is pretty awesome, and this is flat gold that is bonused by markets and such. I think the forest bias alone makes the Iroquois viable, they seem under-rated to me in general. Korea is overrated, they're IMO worse at science than Maya and Babylon, but also have worthless units and no early game benefit. If you manage to thrive in the early game, it will be strong later though. Portugal is meh but happiness is happiness, certainly puts them at least in this tier. The early game gold and hammer bonuses that Russia's UA gives benefit them significantly, and I think they're easy to underrate. I'll take others' word for it that Sweden is a good civ, it's hard to quantify the value of what they have to offer. Zulu are clearly at least average because if you played them like a generic civ, the XP bonus and lower maintenance would be worth a lot.

Lower (no order): Songhai, Mongols, France, Carthage, India, Greece, Huns, Indonesia, Polynesia, Spain

Songhai intrigues me, they have a great UB so I think that puts them at least in lower-tier. Mongols have a partially worthless UA, and the low combat strength of Keshiks puts a huge ticking clock on their relevancy. That said, when they own they own hard. France has exactly the same weaknesses as Brazil and Austria, only worse because the UA is not nearly as strong. Carthage is certainly lower tier if you averaged all the possible maps, they probably get a tier bump on a continents map, but I'm not even sure they deserve that much. India may be great, i probably just don't know how to play them. The inability to easily settle 3-4 cities early on seems to be pretty bad in a vacuum, but maybe the long term benefits make up for it. Greece has terrible UUs and a fairly lackluster UA. Maybe they deserve middle tier. Huns suck but free hammers in the early game are more potent than they seem, and the ability to war effectively very early on can have snowballing benefits if you're able to seize an opportunity that presents itself. Indonesia's UB is pretty great but the UA is just not easy to capitalize on. Polynesia has the same problems that Indonesia and other map-specific civs have. Spain is almost a generic civ, but I think you get enough benefit out of its UA that on average Spain gets significantly better starts than other civs.

Bottom (best to worst): Denmark, Venice, Japan, Dutch, Ottomans, Byzantium

Denmark is underrated, but barely makes bottom tier. A 3 move longswordsman that you get a tech earlier than normal is capable of swinging the game in your favor, its like an Impi Jr. Venice practically requires a continents map to be competitive. Japan sucks, I think Denmark's arguably better at warmongering. Dutch's characteristics are either too specific or too weak to affect the fate of a game. Ottoman is very nearly generic. Byzantium is probably the worst civ. It has terrible units and a terrible UA, in a game where you are rarely guaranteed to get a strong religion even if you wanted one.

Byzantium sucks on Deity, but they are really quite good on Emperor or below. The extra belief gives you a lot of flexibility and a boost regardless of what type of victory you're going for or your start. They are able to achieve the fastest CV out of anyone with an SS strategy, and Dromon is a damn good unit that upgrades into the Galleas/Frigate line which lets you get the naval conquest started early.

That deserves at least mid-tier IMO. Anyone rating them bottom tier is silly if your ratings encompass all difficulty levels.

Good point about the dromon being in the galleas line. As I stated I am basing my ratings on deity play so I don't think that changes my opinion of the civ enough to move them up a tier, but it certainly makes them better than some of the bottom tier civs I mentioned.