BNW Deity Tier List

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Inspired by NoobEmperor's noobie BNW tier list thread... I think it would be nice to start a thread on a Deity tier list for single player.

I've been working on one internally for a bit, based off of Sufficiency's G&K list, but taking into account the fact that most people don't just play endless Pangaea games. Also, since this is a single player tier list, and you can win with any civ, the ranking basically ranks how "easy"/"smooth" it is to win with each particular civ given a random start. Blatant exploits they'll probably fix in upcoming patches, etc are not taken into account.

Deity Tier List
For standard speed and settings: 8-players Fractal, Continents, Small Continents, and Earth. Assume no re-rolling starts, which means start bias and flexibility are taken into account.

^ = Potentially higher tier for Pangaea; lower tier for Archipelago. Generally, these civs are more powerful where there is more land, and less powerful where there is more ocean/coast. ^^ = At least two tiers higher for Pangaea; two tiers lower for Archipelago.
* = Potentially higher tier for Archipelago. Generally, these civs are more powerful where there is more ocean/coast. ** = At least two tiers higher for Archipelago.
" = Potentially lower tier for Pangaea and Archipelago. Generally, these civs are more powerful where there is both land and coast, and less powerful where there is an imbalance in either direction.

Note: This means the civs with a ^^ or ** may be significantly better than their peer civs if you select a synergistic map that is not land-water balanced. Further, civs with a ^^ may be significantly worse on water heavy maps. Civs with a " will always be worse without a land-water balanced map.
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Top Tier: these civs are so amazing that they can win almost any victory condition with almost any start.
= Babylon, Korea, Mayans, Poland.
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Upper Tier: these civs are great, they are guaranteed to have good starts and/or can salvage bad ones.
= Arabia^, Inca^, Austria, Celts, Ethiopia, Shoshone, Siam.
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Upper-Mid Tier: these civs are very good, they can be as good as upper tier civs under most circumstances.
= China^^, England*, Venice*, Brazil, Egypt, Persia, Rome, Morocco".
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Middle Tier: these civs are good, they have solid bonuses, or strong bonuses that are sometimes affected by factors outside of their control. They will often not perform at the level of upper tier civs.
= France^, Mongolia^^, Portugal*, Assyria, Aztec, Russia, Spain, Netherlands".
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Lower-Mid Tier: these civs are pretty good, they either have overall mediocre bonuses or ones which are strongly reliant on factors outside of their control. Rarely will they perform at the level of upper tier civs.
= Germany^, Huns^^, Zulu^^, Indonesia**, Greece, Sweden, Songhai".
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Lower Tier: these civs are decent, they have bonuses that are unspectacular, or extremely burdensome to manage. On average they still work well enough to be considered "balanced".
= Carthage*, Japan*, Ottoman*, Polynesia**, America, India.
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Bottom Tier: these civs are underpowered, they are rather challenging to play, require uncommon starts outside of their control, and have mediocre benefits even at their best. These civs should probably be buffed in future patches.
= Iroquois^, Byzantium, Denmark".

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Edit Log
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Let me know what you think! I would appreciate comments from those with experience with specific civs on Deity who think I'm way off. Will update the list if the community comes to a more or less consensus on a move!

edit: updated August 3, 2013. added a "high-mid" tier to move some of the best warmongers up, and to move up some civs with consensus as being better than other mid-tier civs (Inca, Shoshone, Siam). England is moved down, to be the same as a "top warmonger".

edit: updated August 4, 2013. moved Greece, Shoshone, Celts, Brazil up one each.

edit: updated August 28, 2013. moved Inca up one.

edit: updated October 17, 2013. moved Germany up one and added * to Japan to reflect fall patch changes.

edit: updated January 9, 2014. made several changes to reflect incorporating Small Continents and Small Continents + into the maps. made changes to the definitions of the ^ and * symbols and the tiers. added the " symbol. removed "upper-mid" tier and renamed "lower-mid" tier to "middle tier" (this is why so many of the civs are moved "down"; most of this is just me breaking up the old "upper-mid" tier and splitting the old "lower-mid" tier so it wasn't just a jumbo of all the remaining civs). moved England, Celts and Indonesia up one. moved Mongolia, Zulu, Siam, France, Germany, Huns, America, Greece, India, Netherlands, Iroquois, Carthage and Byzantium down one. removed the * symbol from Spain, Portugal, Carthage, Songhai and Denmark. added " symbol to Denmark, Carthage, Songhai, Morocco.

edit: updated January 11, 2014. moved Ethiopia down one. moved Greece and Carthage up one each.

edit: updated January 13, 2014. moved Netherlands up one. added " to Netherlands. added * to Portugal.

edit: updated January 20, 2014. moved Songhai down one. moved Siam up one.

edit: updated January 30, 2014. moved Arabia down one. added ^ to Arabia.

edit: updated February 9, 2014. moved Persia up one.

edit: updated February 13, 2014. created one tier above mid tier and one tier below mid tier: "Upper-Mid Tier" and "Lower-Mid Tier". updated description of tiers. moved England, Egypt, Persia, Rome, Morocco down one to Upper-Mid Tier. moved Brazil up one to Upper-Mid Tier. moved France up two to Middle Tier. moved Greece and Zulu down one to Lower-Mid Tier. moved Germany, Huns, Sweden, Songhai up one to Lower-Mid Tier. Moved Polynesia up one to Lower Tier.

edit: updated February 15, 2014. updated description of symbols, adding the ^^ and ** symbols. moved Indonesia up one. added ^^ to Mongolia, Huns, and Zulu. added ** to Indonesia and Polynesia.

edit: updated February 22, 2014. updated description of symbols. moved China and Venice down one. added ^^ to China.

edit: updated March 4, 2014. changed Carthage from " to * to reflect the change in description of symbols.

edit: updated April 5, 2014. moved Ottoman down one.
 
What makes you place Rome in the same tier as China exactly? China's bonuses are vastly superior and they're much better at waging early wars. Rome is also very reliant on Iron which can be a bit of pain. Their UA is also vastly overrated since a % increase in hammers is often insignificant for a good portion of the game. I think that they're a strong civ but not one that should be sitting near the top.

I'm a little surprised to see Mongolia and even the Huns lower than England despite the fact that they're all civs that basically rely on UUs to conquer a nearby civ early on. If you're just playing tall and peaceful then they're all garbage and they're all (arguably) equally good at taking people out. I just don't understand how these kinds of civs could fall in to different tiers. They're the exact same civ in my eyes. I'm also not entirely sure if these civs should be put on the same tier as China. Would anyone pick Mongols or England over China in a vacuum? It's possible but I almost feel as though they're one notch below it.

Sometimes I wonder if Arabia is God tier or just very high tier. If you get a Desert start and get Folklore + (hopefully) Petra then the civ is God-realm. If you don't get a Desert start or miss out on your key "stuffs", which happens more frequently than people give credit for, they're only solid. My point is that they don't start the game with an automatic early game bonus like Poland, Bab, Maya, Ethiopia, etc. do. Those kinds of civs will be amazing 100% of the time because their bonuses are automatic. Arabia isn't guaranteed to be amazing on every map type and in every situation. I dunno, it's something worth discussing.

Poland is a tier 1 civ. There's no 2 ways about it. Even if their UU sucks and their UB is marginal at best their UA alone is insane.

Assyria seems God awful to me. Being a warmonger, especially an early one, seems horrible in BnW. The diplo hits are insanely severe and their UA is marginal at best. You can't end the game on turn 150 which is what you'd need for this kind of civ to be playable in my mind. While getting some extra XP for your units is fine I just don't think that it's especially relevant. Again, is the plan really to wage war with everyone? That's just such a weak plan in BnW in my experience (on Deity if that matters). I'd rate them very low.

I think the list needs another tier or something. Shoshone isn't amazing but I would always pick them over say Assyria. They have 2 relevant early game bonuses and are nice and defensive. I think that they're vastly superior to say Songhai. Again, I think that you're missing a tier basically. Mongols are way better than say Russia (in my mind anyways) but I mean I wouldn't slam them over China. I think that you need a tier between 2 and 3 to throw all of the civs with good UUs (England, Mongols, Huns) and powerful early game bonuses (Shoshone, Spain).

I think that we have to place Spain a bit higher. Let's be honest here; the civ is OP more often than it isn't. If you ever get to a work a faith wonder or whatever then the game gets stupid. You can't make them top tier because there is luck involved but I mean realistically the civ is usually insane. I think that they have to be put in tier 2 or 3. Think about it like this if you want. You're told that you can play America or Spain. Who do you play? You obviously take Spain. Why? Even if they're not broken 100% of the time they're so good when you do find a natural wonder or two that you'd always risk having a "nothing" civ since if your gamble pays off then it'll pay off HARD.
 
I suppose this is posted for criticism; the only one that stands out to me is Rome. They've always been a solid Civ, but I'm not sure they deserve that high of a spot. A number of the mid-tier Civs easily match, if not out-right beat, Rome in overall usefulness.

I'd also move America down, especially if Ottomans are bottom-tier. Their +1 sight and cheap tile purchase (which I actually do use to grab key tiles from Deity AI's ridiculous city spamming) I'm not sure is enough to cover for yet another warrior-line UU and a late-game UU no one ever uses. Janissary are at least a good UU and their ship stealing ability is stupid powerful on the right map set-ups.
 
I'd also move America down, especially if Ottomans are bottom-tier. Their +1 sight and cheap tile purchase (which I actually do use to grab key tiles from Deity AI's ridiculous city spamming) I'm not sure is enough to cover for yet another warrior-line UU and a late-game UU no one ever uses. Janissary are at least a good UU and their ship stealing ability is stupid powerful on the right map set-ups.

Americans are underrated in my opinion. People grossly undervalue sight and map coverage in general. being able to uncover Pangea maps quickly and safely while finding a ton of ruins off of a double scout opener isn't terrible. Purchasing tiles may not feel special but it's another very important early game bonus if you want to secure key tiles and natural wonders. Given that they have a Bomber UU and given that Bombers are amazing I actually think that the civ is quite decent. Still, again, I want to stress that this is mostly because people don't accurately value early map sight in my mind. Meeting CSes, dodging barb camps, finding ruins and more is very important for Deity play.
 
I'm a little surprised to see Mongolia and even the Huns lower than England despite the fact that they're all civs that basically rely on UUs to conquer a nearby civ early on. If you're just playing tall and peaceful then they're all garbage and they're all (arguably) equally good at taking people out. I just don't understand how these kinds of civs could fall in to different tiers. They're the exact same civ in my eyes.

Arguably, England has a better time transitioning into other victory types because the extra spy is not a bad bonus. That's one more city-state, swifter steals to catch up on tech, etc. and is probably worth more than, say, +1 hammer per pasture.

On the other hand, the UUs that Huns and Mongolia get are more dominant in their era than LBs and arguably SotL (although the latter is obviously more map dependent). Though really, I agree that it doesn't feel like a particularly tight margin.

Also, having played Assyria (on Immortal, mind, not Deity), I think they're pretty solid. That UA is very, very good, and only gets better as the difficulty increases. I'm not sure where I'd put them (years of fighting games have pretty much soured me on tier lists), but they're certainly not near the bottom.
 
I'd probably put Inca up a tier; the terrace farms have a knack for turning a poor start into a godly one and the free roads are even better now that gold is so scarce in the early game. I consider them Top Tier in a Pangaea list but since you're taking water maps into account which are less likely to give you what you want as the Inca 2nd tier seems fair. Other than that I don't have any real objections to the list, very well done.

@Matthew: Don't disrespect Minutemen. They come just as melee units start to be truly useful and move like Scouts. I think of them as the fourth best non-siege melee UU behind the Impi, Carolean, and Janissary. B-52's are arguably more useful now since you're more likely to be warring in the late game.
 
While I still agree with Korea, Babylon and the Mayans (can do some funny things with the Mayans), not sure what I think of the rest of your list.

Huns to me are still in the almost hilariously broken, not because of the rams, they kinda suck, but because horse archers are still fairly awesome.

Shoshone has been kinda surprising to me, save me a ton of gold landgrabbing and build orders flow and are incredibly reliable. Granted I've only messed with them in one Immortal game (played a few Immortals to warm up to the new mechanics), but I was generally impressed.

Ethiopia is kinda dull other than having an easy religion, but they can be good to hit runaways I guess.

Siam to me has been top tier since they fixed the whole AIs being able to long range bully your friends due to wars. 2 Patronage policies and you are golden.

Carthage should probably be in the conditional ones since they do fairly well on water maps, but they also do fine on Fractal.

Not quite sure what to think of Brazil, but bottom tier I think is a bit harsh considering Tourism is useful in all win conditions.

Oh and Sweden... My favorite warmonger civ... =( Why so much hate? The rifles are nice, but what I really like is to donate duplicates of generals and admirals to get easy allies. On standard settings as long as you don't eliminate off the planet multiple civs you'll even have DOFs to get other GPs out faster.
 
Americans are underrated in my opinion. People grossly undervalue sight and map coverage in general. being able to uncover Pangea maps quickly and safely while finding a ton of ruins off of a double scout opener isn't terrible. Purchasing tiles may not feel special but it's another very important early game bonus if you want to secure key tiles and natural wonders. Given that they have a Bomber UU and given that Bombers are amazing I actually think that the civ is quite decent. Still, again, I want to stress that this is mostly because people don't accurately value early map sight in my mind. Meeting CSes, dodging barb camps, finding ruins and more is very important for Deity play.

Oh I agree they are underrated, but they still don't have much that puts them over the Ottomans. At the end of the day, they have a warrior-line UU and while bombers are great, the B-17 doesn't really change game-play like a Keshik would. A bomber stack is a bomber stack.

Or put it this way: The OP has America on the same tier as Shoshone. A Civ that doesn't even need to purchase additional tiles, and has a much better advantage over early-game ruins than a +1 sight American scout. A Shoshone bomber stack will work more or less just as well as an American bomber stack, yet Shoshone get a combat bonus with everything inside their own borders.

I agree America is often underrated, but being underrated doesn't mean they are a mid-tier Civ.
 
Oh and Sweden... My favorite warmonger civ... =( Why so much hate? The rifles are nice, but what I really like is to donate duplicates of generals and admirals to get easy allies. On standard settings as long as you don't eliminate off the planet multiple civs you'll even have DOFs to get other GPs out faster.

Oh so that's how you play sweden, haha :D Thanks for the tip! Sounds like a lot of fun, I'm gonna have to try it myself.
 
So I've got to ask, what's so good about arabia? I've tried them out several times on emperor and never had much success.
 
Shoshone is great for Liberty -> short REX -> Composite Bowmen attack on the nearest Civ. Personally I think they deserve better than mid tier.
 
So I've got to ask, what's so good about arabia? I've tried them out several times on emperor and never had much success.

Basically, there's just nothing bad about them. Camel Archers are one of the best UUs in the game, the Bazaar is worth a decent amount of gpt through extra lux trades and even gives you a little from tiles, and oil is arguably the most important strategic in the game now that so much combat takes place in the modern era.

Desert start can also be very strong, but as noted above, it can hurt you if you're not able to get Desert Folklore or if you have bad desert tiles (i.e. more plain desert, fewer hills and flood plains).
 
Inspired by NoobEmperor's noobie BNW tier list thread... I think it would be nice to start a thread on a Deity tier list for single player.

I've been working on one internally for a bit, based off of Sufficiency's G&K list, but taking into account the fact that most people don't just play endless Pangaea games. Also, since this is a single player tier list, and you can win with any civ, the ranking basically ranks how "easy"/"smooth" it is to win with each particular civ given a random start. Blatant exploits they'll probably fix in upcoming patches, etc (such as Siam's Wat/University bug) are not taken into account.

Deity Tier List for standard speed and settings: 8-players Continents, Continents Plus, Fractal, and Earth. Assume no re-rolling starts, which means start bias is taken into account.

* = Lower tier(s) for Pangaea / Pangaea Plus, higher tier(s) for Archipelago / Large Islands / Small Continents
^ = Lower tier(s) for Archipelago / Large Islands / Small Continents, higher tier(s) for Pangaea / Pangaea Plus

Note: This means the civs with a * or ^ may be significantly better than their peer civs if you select a synergistic map that is not water-land balanced.


Top Tier: these civs are so good that they can win almost any victory condition with almost any start.
Ethiopia, Mayans, Arabia, Korea, Babylon, Poland.
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2nd Tier: these civs are very good, but a clear step below the top tier.
China^, England*, Venice*, Austria, Egypt, Rome, Morocco.
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Mid Tier: these civs are decent, they represent "balanced" civs.
Mongolia^, Huns^, Inca^, Zulu^, France^, Songhai*, Spain*, Portugal*, Netherlands, Russia, Siam, Aztec, Persia, Shoshone, India, America, the Celts, Assyria.
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Bottom Tier: these civs are underpowered compared to most civs, but still workable.
Germany^, Iroquois^, the Ottoman*, Carthage*, Sweden, Greece, Japan, Byzantium, Brazil.
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* Tier: these civs are pretty bad on balanced maps, and require specific maps to work.
Denmark*, Indonesia*, Polynesia*


Currently considering:


- Moving Morocco to Mid Tier. The desert start is a bit too good. It's the only reason they're up that high. Between Desert Folklore, being safe on at least one side in early game, Petra, and the UI turning Morocco into the automatic #1 destination for all AI civs (something like +200 gpt in late game). It really didn't matter that the UA was difficult to consistently use efficiently and provided only "good" not "great" returns at best. But, I keep hearing bad things about them on the forums. Was my experience atypical? Based on my experience, I was ready to deem them top tier, but I guess it's possible to miss Petra (hasn't happened to me yet though in BNW 7/7 now).

Morocco should remain to the good tier for deity. The UA means receiving most trade routes from all close neighbor in the very early game effectively providing more BPT from incoming trade routes (aka 0 effort) than pop/library/nc would do. It is extremely potent to guarantee or almost a tech parity in late medieval/early renaissance. Even Korea doesn't provide that.

Shoshone should be moved to GOD TIER. Their early game benefit is better than that of Babylon. Great Expanse is so under rated yet it guarantees that you will be able to work all of your best tiles within 3 ring in the very early game in EACH city. This will often compound to a free settler or 2 free worker from gold savings. It also means all luxuries are available to improve from the get go helping alleviate happiness breaks. Last but not least, their UU provides so much control over the opener like you can select +1 pop immediately after reaching pop 4 so that you have 5 hills to work while hard building those settlers, you can chose 20 faith on T20 which nearly guarantees a solid pantheon and free techs after pottery are now guaranteed to be useful since sailing provides an extra trade route unlike in GnK. The other thread has them low as well and seriously, full control over your opener is just too good esp @ higher difficulty level.

Inca should be moved to at least 2nd tier and likely top tier. Outstanding start bias. Best UI In the game (can settle cities almost anywhere and still get both sick growth and sick production - and it kicks in early enough). Best defensive bias/UA the tile movement and it actually also applies offensively. But yeah the start bias+UI combo gives them at least 2nd tier. They're the most reliable OCC civ because of the bias and the need for hills/some mountain in an OCC game.

Netherlands should also be moved up a bit for deity. UA/UI combo in a similar fashion to that of Pachacuti allows far more early & mid game growth. The only downside is a start with just too much "marsh" tiles but it is quite easy to get flood plains start with them.

Last but not least, as a player that plays mostly peaceful games, I'm really torn for Siam. I tend to consider them as good as 2nd tier civs you've listed but rarely pick them because I don't like their start bias and the need tweak my SP approach for the free Wats.
 
Great feedback so far, but seemingly little agreement on who gets moved up or down so far, still with more voices there will probably be more agreement. I'm not terribly committed to 90% of the list, so I think my only bias is that a couple of bad games may sour me on a civ when they're actually quite good.

Arabia - Tich, Arabia has a desert start bias, so you will always start next to the desert. That's why they're top tier. I agree that they're not top tier if you re-roll starts to get a desert with other civs. On a 8-player game, you'll have at most one other civ competing with you for desert folklore, so your chances of getting it with just a shrine and exploration (faith-CSs) is still very high. And of course, you would bee-line Petra, which you can get almost 100% of the time.

America/Ottoman - America's UA, I think is significantly better with BNW (try it if you haven't yet). With Tradition + caravans, you boost your growth to very quickly surpass the # of useful tiles you would normally acquire, even in high culture games. And, since there's no more diplo hit for buying tiles, buying tiles is now actually very useful in the mid-game. This makes America's UA comparable to Ottoman's UA in terms of gold until late-game, when America gets a very very good UU. Minutemen are also not that much worse than Janissary. Having played both on Fractal maps in BNW on Deity, where I engaged in mid-game and late game land/sea mixed warfare, I actually felt that America was more powerful than Ottoman on balanced maps. I agree that America's one of the weakest in the Mid-tier, but I do think it's definitively stronger than those in the Bottom-tier. Willing to move Ottoman up if there's consensus though.

Mongolia/Huns/England/Zulu - I'm throwing all these together in one discussion as "era-military". I was very conflicted about where Mongolia and Huns go. The problem with the Huns is that they can't finish off the world in the ancient/classical era (and certainly not on a balanced map), and so they'll need to regroup afterwards, with very few benefits in war after that. They're also in such early wars that the diplo hit from the rest of the world is insurmountable so there're full game penalties. I think BNW's trade route system really hurts them here. On the other hand, England and the Mongols have period dominance at a stage where you can actually have allies, and trading partners, so you can maintain your pressure for longer, and you can win the game in that era if you're good. I had given England preference because they had a balanced land-sea attack between longbows and SoLs, and can handle balanced maps (which usually have iso-civs, good amount of coast and the need to move an army/navy across the water at some point) much better than the Mongols. Let me know if we think England and Mongols are actually equally powerful and flexible, and I'll bump up the Mongols or England down. Let's hear more on this. Also, where do the Huns and Zulu fit here?

Sweden - Furycrab, have you played Sweden on BNW? I think the new tundra start really hurts them, since they can't use specialists and grow at the same time. Is their CS mechanic really better than, say Greece's? Let me know if you have, and your thoughts on it. If anyone else has played Sweden in BNW and think they're better than the civs on the bottom tier, please chime in!

Assyria - So far, looks like it's in the mid-tier. Let's hear some comparisons to Germany/Japan or Mongolia/England, or Zulu. I suspect they may be very powerful on Deity, since you can catch up in tech pretty quick to the AI after making a composite bow army w/ siege towers. However, once you're caught up, you still have no actual military advantages... which make them seem less powerful than Mongolia/England/Zulu. Let's add them to the "warmongers" ranking discussion.

Rome - I'm standing by this one for now. Has anyone tried them on BNW? It's a much better start. You also get iron now and CSs get iron earlier, so you can grab a CS even if you don't have it. This is one of the most improved civs, so let me know if you've tried it in BNW and are still unimpressed. Instead of gold buying buildings in cities, you can buy them in your capital, freeing up many hammers for caravans, army, etc. Food routes can also get your other cities up quick so they become self-sufficient even at mid-late game very quickly. Synergizes well with a wide-culture/science game or domination game. Very flexible. Very safe.

Would the below be a good split of the Mid-Teir?

High Tier: these civs are very good, but a clear step below the top tier.
China^, Venice*, Austria, Egypt, Morocco.
--------------------------
High Mid Tier: these civs are good, they are generally able to complete one or two specific victory conditions on the level of higher tier-ed civs.
Inca^, Mongolia^, Huns^, Zulu^, England*, Rome, Siam
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Low Mid Tier: these civs are decent, they represent "balanced" civs. they do many things decently but unspectacularly.
France^, Songhai*, Spain*, Portugal*, Netherlands, Russia, Aztec, Persia, Shoshone, India, America, the Celts, Assyria.

Considering:
- Moving Shoshone up. Imo their first 150 turns are not as good as Rome's, and Rome obviously far surpasses them after turn 150... the early land grab is just not as important in BNW compared to G&K... but Shoshone is getting a lot of love. Also, the early ruins are hit or miss after the first couple. You can't predict when/if you get them, so it's less control over your start than it seems. See below for explanation of the "amazing game" bias for good but not great civs.
- Moving Spain up. I think when we're looking at "lower" ranked civs, we all tend to think of those times where these civs have worked out great for us. For Spain, those times can be amazing. But, on average, Spain's gold bonus is not amazing. You'll be the first to find on average, 2 natural wonders in the early game, with 50% chance one of them hasn't been found by another civ yet. The total bonus happiness is very little, although helpful in the early game. With the reduced push for early settlers, I think on your average random play-through, Spain is quite ordinary. I gave them a water edge for the conquistador (settler w/o fear of barbs and doesn't stop growth), which is even more important now that it's beneficial for wide culture games to settle near landmarks in the middle of nowhere.
- Moving France up. Haven't played them on BNW yet. Is their tall-culture victory on Deity still that powerful? You'll miss several of the wonders on Deity with theming bonuses in the Renaissance, since you just can't catch up that quickly everywhere on the tech tree without being Korea/Babs. In other words, what's easier, France winning culture or Mongolia winning domination?
- Moving Celts up. Sufficiency had them as 2nd tier for G&K. I thought that was for one reason only, early faith. Now, there are other ways to get early faith, and you can no longer amass an army of the UU due to gold concerns (especially since missionaries have upkeep too). UUs are still good to get some early faith fighting barbarians, and they upgrade well, but overall I think they suffered a good bit in the G&K conversion. Played an immortal game as Celts and was not that impressed with their start. But, maybe others had different experiences? Now that I'm splitting up Mid-tier it feels rude to drop the Celts 2 whole tiers from G&K to BNW.
 
So I've got to ask, what's so good about arabia? I've tried them out several times on emperor and never had much success.

1. They get Artillery at Chivalry.

2. Free Caravansery in every city.

3. Desert Bias (Desert Folkore & Petra)

4. Bazaar gives them a Dutch+ ability.
 
Oh I agree they are underrated, but they still don't have much that puts them over the Ottomans. At the end of the day, they have a warrior-line UU and while bombers are great, the B-17 doesn't really change game-play like a Keshik would. A bomber stack is a bomber stack.

Or put it this way: The OP has America on the same tier as Shoshone. A Civ that doesn't even need to purchase additional tiles, and has a much better advantage over early-game ruins than a +1 sight American scout. A Shoshone bomber stack will work more or less just as well as an American bomber stack, yet Shoshone get a combat bonus with everything inside their own borders.

I agree America is often underrated, but being underrated doesn't mean they are a mid-tier Civ.

Says a lot about the current balance of the Civs. You compare them to about as even as the Ottomans and they too are very underrated.

Personally on that list as I mentioned I'd put Shoshone higher, but I also don't really have a tier list so much as a few civs I consider premium tier because they excel on science, a few I put low unless there is a decent amount of water, and 2-3 I just dislike playing, and Japan.

Also... While Germany is up for a rework, it's not bad right now, just completely uninspiring.
 
Assyria - So far, looks like it's in the mid-tier. Let's hear some comparisons to Germany/Japan or Mongolia/England, or Zulu.

Germany/Japan don't rate. Assyria is clearly better.

Mongolia/England is a more difficult comparison.

Benefits to Assyria:

- Royal Library is a place for writing before you can afford amphitheatres, but this isn't always super-relevant. I don't think you even can get great works through conquest if the building housing them doesn't survive, so obviously you'll get a converted Royal Library or Amphi in whatever you take over. +10xp isn't a gamebreaker by any stretch, but it does put units within 5xp of a 3rd promotion before Autocracy if you've built the three XP buildings. Not bad, not incredible.

- UA is just fantastic. It requires some massaging to be used to its fullest (along the lines of spies--you don't want to steal crap you can research in 2 turns), because the tech is random and not chosen.

- Siege Towers have a slightly longer lifespan than you might think. I was able to research into Mathematics/Construction and get a suitable army built and set things up for Philosophy to be a possible steal before they got outdated.

- Assyria is better than other early warmongers at transitioning into a diplomatic (Gunboat) or scientific victory. It looks like they should be in a position to transition into Culture, but IME, it's very difficult to transition into Culture. That seems to be a plan you need to commit to and pursue all game long.

Drawbacks:

- Early warmonger penalties can hound you all game long. Easier with continents, because you can take out your neighbours before meeting most of the rest.

- Early economy can be painful. Playing on one or two settled cities and then puppets can be a strong start once you hit Guilds, but before then, money can be extremely tight. You need to be very careful about what you build, you may need to work gold tiles now and again, and you need that pillage cash.

- UU's usefulness runs up early, and past that, the only real warlike benefit you have is +10xp (okay, not great) and of course the tech theft--but that relies you to win first. However, with good use of tech steals from conquest and spying, it's reasonably likely that you can be one of the first civs into Autocracy, at which point everything makes sense.

Can't compare to Zulu, as I haven't played them yet.

I think they're a bit poor to very good, depending on map. They're considerably better Huns, with all that entails. Heavy water maps are just brutal because Siege Towers are such an important thing, and starts that are too far from possible enemies can be very disadvantageous.
 
So I've got to ask, what's so good about arabia? I've tried them out several times on emperor and never had much success.

They're probably the only civ with all 3 unique traits being very powerful although not necessarily overly synergetic. Historically(since vanilla), the UB alone provided so much gold esp in adhoc lump sums, that they could rush more workers/settlers/universities & other tech buildings or, again, an adhoc war funded from completing 2-3 markets at the right time.

After they buffed their UU to the level of Keshiks, they became top tier. You can use the UU to offset a bad start on peaceful, defend against a painful neighbor like its a joke for nearly until artillery or even initiate a domination with them and probably take 2-4 civs before they become obsolete on a standard map.
 
Shoshone should be moved to GOD TIER.

They aren't that good. Definitely tier 2, borderline tier 1 given the no-reroll stipulation. Double :c5culture: ruins going straight down the left side of Liberty is hot. Add in a couple of early CBs, some :c5citizen: ruins and a :c5faith: ruin if you're lucky and you're looking at a solid opening. That said, the other top tier civs get substantial benefits throughout the entire game in addition to an accelerated start.

Agree with various others that Inca is tier 2, and that Rome belongs down a notch. Not sure how to handle Spain either. I'd tend to list them in tier 2 myself.

Poland belongs in its own tier. Getting an extra tree of SPs is just absurd.

- Are any of the G&K top tier civs significantly worse than in G&K? I haven't played any besides Korea and Arabia. They're still as amazing as you'd expect.

They all pretty much got buffed, relative to other civs. Ethiopia's better now that coastal starts aren't so bad, the :c5science: civs (Babs, Korea, Maya) all got relatively better now that :c5science: is very hard to come by early on, Arabia got a massive buff because the extended trade routes more or less guarantee a trade partner, and Poland is completely broken.
 
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