Civ power rankings 0.33d

Rankings are based on pangaea/fractal, single player, immortal difficulty, normal speed. Post your rankings (be sure to mention the settings you play on!)


BROKEN

Balseraphs - loki's stealing cities from third party wars is overpowered, Summoner trait puppets multiplying your mages' maelstrom/spectre/domination by 3 at no risk is even more ridiculous.

TOP TIER

Svartalfar - good economy, good military UB and traits, great hero
Luchuirp - turn 1 world spell head start, fireball golems of doom
Sheaim - (Tebryn) starts with death mana + arcane + summoner, can overwhelm the opponents with summons
Hippus - (Tasunke) best rush
Calabim - super units when vampires come online + the economic traits to get there

MID TIER

Kuriotates - best cultural/altar victory civ if you're good at diplomacy. Can be difficult to find 3 great city locations and balance military and infrastructure builds though.
Khazad - (Kandros) excellent traits, good early rush backed with financial for economy, but reliant on slow siege weapons in the midgame
Sidar - shading is nice but either you're doing it early (and sacrificing powerful early high promo units) or it takes a while to set up the infrastructure to produce the high XP bonuses
Clan - I only don't put them in top tier because getting wolf riders is a little luck based, but if they get them they're powerful and their military production is impressive.
Elohim - Tolerant gives them a few more options, moved up from bottom tier
Grigori - adventurers are still pretty strong, agnostic is still a pretty big penalty
Lanun - good economy, average military (the AI is so bad at naval warfare that their naval advantages don't matter)
Ljosalfar - good economy, good defence, generally poor military and hero
Malakim - tends to start with floodplains. Another civ with good economy but mediocre military.

LOW TIER

Amurites - the other Arcane leaders are generally better
Bannor - rather weak until they hit Crusade
Doviello - these guys are just a bad version of Clan

NOT RANKED

Infernal/Mercurians - because they show up late
Illians - who aren't finished

From the view of a human player? depends on the map size. on normal or smaller maps i finish the game with tasunke before the power of other civs starts to shine.

in general i agree with you.
Khazad are difficult to play in the early game because the treasury slows you a lot if you rush. In endgame they are way too clumsy, you can't play ffh with siege unless your opponent is a lot weaker. due to earth druids they remain in the mid tier.

Kuriotates are only good if you want to play builder style imo. I would rank them down unless clicking enter is your way of having fun.

Clan lacks too much science in the beginning. Double troops is fine but the economic base is not there. If they had a way to reduce unit costs i would give them a placing but right now i don't think they deserve their place among others.

Grigori are one of the civs i like, maybe because my second game with this mod was with them. Most of the time a few barbarians do the same for tasunke as the hero promotion for the first adventurer though. Their only real benefit is twincast archmages.

Lanun are still too weak imo. The pirate coves are great but they seriously lack production. If there was slavery like in vanilla i would play them even with their totally hampered start. seafaring civ not able to use water tiles in the beginning = all on the failboat. research fishing takes 30 turns, building workboats a few more - this is the time where the first stack could come calling with an aggressive neighbour.
Not on par with the rest.

Malakim can go down to the low tier.

I didn't really try to order the mid tier, I think they're all about equally viable.

with Khazad I mostly ignore the treasury, and with Clan I use Raider to pillage other civs for cash to maintain a high research rate, and Malakim are financial and usually start on floodplains and sand lions are decent (overall solid but not exciting).

Single player, immortal/deity, normal/quick. Map type and custom options are different practically every game, so I can't offer a constant setting there.

I'm doing this by leader, not by civ. Often a civ's leaders are just too different to lump them together under one rating.

They aren't ordered within the tiers, just stuffed in there in whatever order I thought of them.

10/10
Kandros Fir
Beeri Bawl

9/10
Keelyn
Ethne
Tasunke
Rhoanna

8/10
Pepentach
Garrim Gyr
Decius (Bannor)
Flauros

7/10
Arendel
Tebryn Arbandi
Os-Gabella
Faeryl
Hannah

6/10
Decius (Calabim)
Alexis
Einion
Capria
Varn Gosam

5/10
Arturus Thorne
Mahala
Falamar
Sandalphon
Sabathiel
Hyborem

4/10
Sheelba
Cardith Lorda
Amelanchier

3/10
Decius (Malakim)
Thessa
Jonas

2/10
Cassiel
Valledia
Charadon

1/10
Dain
Basium

uberfish said:

...Balseraphs ... Summoner trait puppets multiplying your mages' maelstrom/spectre/domination by 3 at no risk is even more ridiculous...

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Um... actually, you're right that the Maelstroms and Domination are multiplied by three. But spectres and other summons are multiplied by nine. (Three puppets, three summons per puppet.)
Being able to fit a stack of doom in a single ship is pretty damn nice.
Especially when that Stack of Doom is made of... I think they were 16 Sun III summons. (5 sources of sun mana FTW.)
Yeah, I had great fun with Keelyn. Didn't even bother with the infamous Harlequin to Druid upgrade. But I smell a nerf ball heading her way...

slowcar said:

research fishing takes 30 turns, building workboats a few more - this is the time where the first stack could come calling with an aggressive neighbour.

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I don't see how that's any different from researching agriculture, building a worker, and getting rolled by the aggressive neighbor.

ShadowDrgn said:

I don't see how that's any different from researching agriculture, building a worker, and getting rolled by the aggressive neighbor.

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I agree. Lanun have a much more consistent economy than anyone else, and grow fast. Pirate coves now produce 2 production, you can get out a pair without hampering growth, and give slightly more econ.

I think the Lanun are a really tech based civ. Because you are fast out the door with tech, you need to go towards things like Mining fairly early.

And really, they don't get LESS production than normal, they just get such good stuff from the ocean, that people sometimes gimp themselves by not making sure a forest or three are near there starting location (Or hills, or whatever).

I think Uberfish got them all correct, though I generally wouldn't bother rating the belseraphs, since they do in fact seem a bit defunct now. Doviello and Bannor bring up the rear, perhaps with the exclusion of the sheaim as quite top tier. I don't think they quite deserve it, since they don't have the early speed boost most other top tier civ's have.

I haven't played so much as play-tested a scenario I've been working on during the holidays. But most of my games I've gone with Dain of the Amurites and done a fair decent job.
I particularly enjoy the Firebow. Its a great defensive unit with capable offensive/bombard capabilities. Build a few in your cities and as the enemy marches forth (unless he is a raider) you bombard him with fireballs until he reaches your gates. By then he is weakened enough that instead of smashing into you like a tidal wave against an old dock, it more resembles a petered-out boat wake lapping up against the sandy shore.
So for me, the Amurites are a strong civ because they suited my style of play.

Lately though, play-testing using only the AI to fight itself I have noticed
a) starting location will severely strengthen or weaken any civ.
b) the AI never uses it's full advantage, so exploitation of strengths is typically a human endeavor.
i) because of this, AI-controlled civs will always rank below a human-controlled civ.
ii) in the right hands, even Doviello can stomp on Perpentach and his Puppets.

Careful guys, I don't want you to talk Kael into taking away ALL of the Balseraph toys.

Frankly, the Balseraphs and the Luchiurp are my models for what every civilization should look like: unique tactics at every level; genuinely competitive options on most branches of the tech tree; unique playstyle; ability to do things that no other civilization can do. I'd throw the Ljosalfar and Svartalfar in that category, too, except that they don't really have enough unique units to really make every branch of the tech tree an interesting option.

Balseraphs were top tier before 0.33!

slowcar said:

Lanun are still too weak imo. The pirate coves are great but they seriously lack production. If there was slavery like in vanilla i would play them even with their totally hampered start. seafaring civ not able to use water tiles in the beginning = all on the failboat. research fishing takes 30 turns, building workboats a few more - this is the time where the first stack could come calling with an aggressive neighbour.

Click to expand...

Um. Lanun can start out with warrior/warrior/warrior and have a defender stack as large as the stack that's going to show up. There's no way a warrior rush is going to be seriously outbuilding the Lanun, that early in the game; Lanun only starts to seriously fall behind around turn 100: even if the hypothetical rush-civ starts with Crafting, Mining is the same number of beakers as Fishing.

As Hannah, your start is critical. You want to prioritize good early production over almost anything else: if you can start on a grassland hill next to water, with a forested hill in your fat cross, you win the game. No other leader can tech as fast as you, and if you weren't greedy for water resources in your first city, you can have at least one high-production centerspitting out raider/bronze Drown very early in the game.

Alternatively, rush for currency and fill your army with mercenaries. Late game, tech for Guilds and get all your production from specialists.

-- ACS

Balseraphs were top tier before 0.33!

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Puppets weren't really intended to "fix" the Balseraphs... they sounded cool and were put in. Loki and Puppets will hopefully have the power lowered without taking out the fun toys.

How about capping the number of puppets at one per caster?
So any given mage can only have one puppet active at a time.

And tie it to a specific caster; each caster can only have one puppet active is different from you can only have as many puppets as casters. So you can't just build adepts so that your archmages can summon multiple puppets.
This would reduce the worst of the abuse while still making them useful.

Or to weaken them even further; the original spellcaster cannot cast any spells as long as it has an active puppet. The puppet is just an extension of the original spellcasters will. In order to make the puppet do anything (in particular cast any spells) the original spellcaster has to concentrate fully. Because its not really the puppet casting the spell; its still the original spellcaster, its just that he is using a remote control focus rather than his own body.

Alot has been said about bringing down the higher tiers, but here's something to bring up the lower tier Amurites: Give Govannon to them earlier and make him upgradable, like the heroes in Age of Ice. That would allow them to have a stronger early game, while still allowing them the fun end of game tools that allow them to survive.

Switchblock said:

Alot has been said about bringing down the higher tiers, but here's something to bring up the lower tier Amurites: Give Govannon to them earlier and make him upgradable, like the heroes in Age of Ice. That would allow them to have a stronger early game, while still allowing them the fun end of game tools that allow them to survive.

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Hmm, something like Govanonn the Wander becoming Govononn the Archmage could work. 'Course, those name might be too long, but I like the idea.

I would prefer that methods used to increase the power of factions be done so in a way that the AI can take advantage of. I seriously doubt that the AI will ever make effective use of a single hero particularly with unusual abilities like Govannon, so I would prefer alternative means of increasing their power; give more of their lower tier units a free spell.

So maybe Axemen can cast Dance of Blades (one of the worst spells in the game - maybe if it were 1 free First Strike instead of a First Strike chance, or if it was stackable with multiple castings), Hunters can cast Treetop Defence (another weak spell), Horse Archers or Knights can cast Haste (high tier, since Haste kicks ass), archers can cast inspiration, etc.

ophite said:

As Hannah, your start is critical. You want to prioritize good early production over almost anything else: if you can start on a grassland hill next to water, with a forested hill in your fat cross, you win the game.
-- ACS

Click to expand...

You do mean Plains Hill, for 2/2/1 city tile, right?

Ahriman said:

I would prefer that methods used to increase the power of factions be done so in a way that the AI can take advantage of. I seriously doubt that the AI will ever make effective use of a single hero particularly with unusual abilities like Govannon, so I would prefer alternative means of increasing their power; give more of their lower tier units a free spell.

So maybe Axemen can cast Dance of Blades (one of the worst spells in the game - maybe if it were 1 free First Strike instead of a First Strike chance, or if it was stackable with multiple castings), Hunters can cast Treetop Defence (another weak spell), Horse Archers or Knights can cast Haste (high tier, since Haste kicks ass), archers can cast inspiration, etc.

Click to expand...

I like this idea of extending the firebow concept. It's less micromanagement intensive than Govannon is.

uberfish said:

Rankings are based on pangaea/fractal, single player, immortal difficulty, normal speed. Post your rankings (be sure to mention the settings you play on!)

Click to expand...

I play about 50/50 Emperor/Immortal, Fractal, normal speed, no hell terrain. I can't rank all the civs because I haven't played them all yet, but I'll rank the ones I have familiarity with (and which leader I've used). I'm sure my rankings are geared towards my playstyle. I don't really rush, and I tend to wait until I have my favorite goodies before going to war.

TOP TIER
Calabim (Flauros)
Lurchip (Beeir Brawl)
Ljosalfar (Arendal Phaedra)

MID TIER
Grigori (Cassiel)
Amurites (Dain)
Sheaim (Os-Gabella)
Khazad (Kandros Fir)
Kuriotates (Cardith Lorda)

LOW TIER
Malakim (Varn Gosam)
Bannor (Capria)
Sidar (Sandalphon)
Lanun (Falamar)

Darrell