Best defencive civ

[JanghanHong]

Korea, they named their ship the Turtle ship because of subtlety.

 

[ssnitrousoxide]

Definitely Ethiopia, Sefaris can defeat great war infantries, allowing you to defend yourself even you lag heavily behind in science.

In late game the mechanized infantries (upgraded from Sefaris) can crush GDRs with proper bonuses. IIRC a vet. mech. inf. can get a maximum bonus of ~400% in an ideal defensive position.

 

[Slowpoked]

babylon has Walls of Babylon and Bowmen with 9 ranged strength. it was purely designed for early defense. since GnK came out and ranged units are better for offense it has changed a little but still it's purely defensive for very early aggression, imo.

I think Babylon's UB and UU come into play too early for them to be of real use, defensively. They'll definitely stop an early rush, but once you hit CBs they're of little consequence.

 

[kirbdog]

too early for them to be of real use

They'll definitely stop an early rush

Contradiction, IMO, and the real use is skipping Construction on the way to Education.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

I think Babylon's UB and UU come into play too early for them to be of real use, defensively. They'll definitely stop an early rush, but once you hit CBs they're of little consequence.

but that's all you needed them for--to stop that early rush. (and the wall bonus is nice even though walls are largely unnecessary even at deity.) no civ has a Comp bow UU and it's still the standard for higher difficulties on how to survive the early wars.

regarding the OP, the best civ for defending and never declare wars with is still Babylon because you can reach tech parity and then superiority much earlier than any other civ (korea is better mid-late game but Babs gets to Ren/Ind quicker). It means you have pikes and xbows very early to counter their swords/LS or knights.

tech advantage is still the best defense, imo. it's also the best offense, best culture advantage, etc. it rules the game even more than gold does.

 

[GWashington]

I think America would work okay, since you have a sight bonus. So just set a few units outside your territory (preferably on hills) and you can watch for invaders. America also have a good air defense system late game.

 

[Crafty Bison]

If you're just being defensive (btw why? start a couple of wars/retaliate with carefully selected opponents and see what they can do for you) then I'll assume you're going tall.

I'd reccomend:
Ethiopia (obviously the UA is strong), Incas (mountain start bias and strong terrain UA benefit + UI making the cities big and therefore strong. Great tech too), Persians (Great great war benefits in a GA, even for defence. Suited to going tall too), Babylon (early tech advantage makes the best armies for attack or defence, UB adds a little too), Korea(tech. It comes a little later but UU's are designed purely for D and should see you through).

Worth a mention:
Austria (Buy out CS units when required), Iroqouis (Hide behind terrain), Polynesia (moai on waterworlds),

Not:
China, America or England. If you're just going to defend, picking any of these will just waste their unique benfits. They're domination civs, through and through.

Edit: Oh yeah, I also kinda like Siam for this (maybe in the 'worth a mention' section). They're a strong tall civ that will make very big cities, and the UU is very strong on D.

 

[Ninakoru]

England is pretty annoying with ships of the line parked in cities and 3-range CWM. Sometimes are hard to beat on the medieval era.

 

[daikon]

Far from the best defensive civ, but I feel Sweden are worth mentioning. It's dependent on the map, but having a city state near your borders to throw great people at is kinda nice. Caroleans aren't bad either.

 

[LoneRebel]

Worth mentioning here that China's UU is better on defense than on offense, because while it can attack twice in one turn, it also only has two movement points anyway. Meaning that if you use them offensively you will often only be able to shoot once. Using all its movement to shoot twice will sometimes lead to it getting killed. This is the reason why I consider the Logistics upgrade to be far more useful on Camel Archers and Keshiks (and ships, of course).

Nevertheless, as an earlier post pointed out, they are geared towards domination and if you play defensively you're sort of wasting their ability - BUT. Great Generals can still be earned on defense, after all. And the Paper Maker gives them something that isn't entirely militaristic.