I find it's quite a general civ and hence adaptable, where others can be highly specialized and this vulnerable in some situations and godly in others.
The top 10% is more a guideline. Any civ can have a good/bad go at things.
The one civ i really rate above all others is China, because it is so hard to mess up with it. Amazing defensive capabilities, easy early gold combined with incentive to boost science quick and more great generals. It is a perfect civ for beginners and can take advantage most situations
That doesn't mean it is better than the others of course; it has benefits that, in my opinion, make it harder to lose. Of course, not losing doesn't mean winning.
At the end of the day i've gotta give Firaxis some damn good credit for making the civs so hard to distinguish between in terms of raw ability.
If anyone is interest in creating an ACCURATE top 10% list, then what would be a good idea is logging all the games you play (to a finishing point, ie win screen or lose screen) and recording the end result (win or lose), turn (and speed) and score (and difficulty). Still hard to compare, but clearly those with lower average end scores, higher average turns, and a greater percentage of losses on a given speed and difficulty will be the bottom end and vica versa
Morocco isn't the best diplomatic civ at all if you ask me. They make a bit more money but Venice and Portugal make even more, and good old Greece/Siam/Sweden all have their own ways to benefit more from patronage.
).
The embarkation bonus is personally my favorite part of their uniques. But would you rather have a crossbow that can disembark for free, or a crossbow that can move onto a hill and shoot on the same turn? They're both situational as they rely on terrain, but I'd wager that a hill is more common when attacking a city than a coastal tile is(that doesn't leave you wide open to the enemy). Or perhaps a SoTL with an additional 2 movement(and workers with 4 movement on the water
AND they can embark some fast workers. And those workers might disembark, go up on a hill and improve on the same turn or earlier than England I agree, though, that the Danes require some water. BUT, you can also use the lakes, and most of the map types have at least some lakes (except Skirmish, I guess). I agree that they are more situational than the Incas (but IMO, they are just as "situational" as England, still both of them do nicely even on Pangaea). Also, because of the Danish fast units, they can get on tiles with forest and hills for the 25%? defensive bonus too. All in all, I'm also biased because I love playing the Danes! It just makes combat easier and cooler! If I have the opportunity to embark and disembark some units, I'll use it for the giant extra movement. One of the best things to do is getting a Berserker to disembark on enemy territory, move half of their available movement into the enemy's lands while pillaging and go back to the water by another route, pillaging other tiles. They are just so fun and can be very useful Well, the Danes might use their Crossbows with 4-5 movement to go up on that hill and shoot
Also, remember when the disembarked units ignored ZOC? That was insane. It was before the fall patch, though, so those units wouldn't get the 25HP from Pillaging.
. If you are Denmark, they have 3 . This apply to all units. So, there are some techs (like Astronomy and Steam Power) that increase the embarked movement by 1 , so if we're talking about a post-Astronomy Crossbowman, it has 4 when embarked. I think you could enhance that with the Great Lighthouse, but I'm not 100% sure its bonuses apply to embarked units, so let's ignore it. . So, our Crossbowman (let's say it was adjacent to a coastal tile) pays the movement and now has 3 to use wherever he disembarked into. With 3 movement, you can go up on a hill and still shoot. That's what I meant, it was quite confusing, I bet. Sorry Optics + 1 Viking Fury + 1 Astronomy + 1 Steam Power + 1 GL +1 Policy = 7 by the industrial era. 5 if the GL and policy doesn't apply. Very powerful. Specially with N. Ski Infantry with double speed on hills. Imagine that with the Mt. Kilimanjaro! 
by the Industrial can get to 7. It'd be awesome. Still, they're better than most people give credit for. Haven't played them post BNW yet, and they're not part of the 10% top tier, but they aren't bad eitherOh, it is situational. I'd be scared of a Berserker+Trebuchet rush if I had some cities near the coast. Still, the UA is great for Archi maps when you are invading or even colonizing, your workers can improve things quite fast. I know Denmark isn't OP, but it makes moving by water so much better than going by land! In my last Danish game, I basically spent the whole game moving units by the coast. Tasty ability. This conversation made me want to play a game as them right now
You don't neeeed a hill, though. Could use Jungle or Forests, could use none. This UA makes for creative rushes. I'm very fond of using lakes too! I won't argue that it makes the civ OP by the late medieval-early renaissance era, because it doesn't, but it aids your civ on a very positive way. Also, check my last post - I edited to clarify some things. I'll see if the bonus
) were also talked about because of how weak or inconsistent they were compared to the norm. The same thing happened with UU's. Since Denmark's UU's aren't spectacular(nor it's UA), there weren't many discussions about them.
