BNW Deity Tier List

As light cleric said, they get 2 social policies by the medieval era, which is pretty early. You can also build the UB after horseback riding ie: in the classical era. As for how good the UB is, you can usually get at least 1 pasture in a city, sometimes up to 4 if you're lucky. An extra 4 hammers and gold is nothing to sneeze at.

 

In the mid-tier, I think the Mongols are (sadly) the worst of the bunch. Yes, they're amazing in a specific period, but that's the thing - it's only that specific period on which they shine. Compare to the Zulu, who from the get go have that nifty maintainance reduction, a lovely set of Barracks and can in general monger war throughout the ages. If anything, I'd shift the two around.
Mongolia has some amazing synergy between its UA, the Khan and the Keshik, but after the Keshik is done ravaging the countryside...it's just bland.

 

I agree with all of the moves you made, and I hope you didn't feel badgered into splitting the tiers

- England: Seems like a solid move down. I think it's hard to place the purely military civ's, but the way I view war I'm not inclined to rate any of them above average. There's also a lot of difficulty in ranking each one against the others, since the result is just always the same. For example, I personally like Denmark quite a bit and find it very hard to ever be slowed down in war with them, but I definitely view the Keshik as the best military UU, and it's hard to argue Denmark as equal to Zulu now. Also, maybe the start bias is the only "bulider" factor for these? In that case, I like Mongolia's Plains bias the most for those prod-heavy starts, and the Coast bias of Japan, England, Ottoman, and Denmark is definitely a non-zero benefit to these civs.

- Germany, Huns: I agree with the moves up. Again though, this is a tough style of civ to deal with. These civs are ones that will be played warlike in nearly every game they're overtly chosen, while receiving some small builder benefit mostly related to war. In this category I'd put China, Assyria, and Japan along with Germany and Huns. Maybe England's extra spy and Zulu's reduced maintenance qualifies them as military-plus also instead of just military-only, while Arabia seems to lend to that style while having two benefits (Bazaar, DF) that are often enough to just carry them as a builder civ. Within the class of military-plus though, I definitely agree that China > all. The Paper Maker is awesome for keeping those units paid for, and is easily double the value of Germany's reduced maintenance. Then, I think Germany, Huns and Assyria are more or less on the same level, with Arabia being marginally above all three and less than China when considered as a military civ.

- Korea: It's hard to rank this civ against others of its tier, because it got both better and worse in BNW. Worse because there are fewer specialist slots available, especially in empires larger than 3-cities where Korea was outshining Babs in G&K. But it also got better due to Coastal bias getting better due to TR's, and the Lighthouse building getting better. You'll have better economy with Korea than Babs, and definitely Maya, and you'll usually have better Culture defense and a taller Capital. What you lack is the flexibility of these civs, and definitely less than Poland. I'd say that if I knew beforehand I'd be held to 3 or fewer cities, then I want Korea. Otherwise or if war is coming, I'd want one of the other 3. But definitely all in the same tier.

- Polynesia: I think relative to Brazil and France, this Civ gets short shrift. Their UI is definitely the best for long-game Culture output for policies, whether or not CV, just due to it being built so much earlier. I like Brazil of the three overall for CV due to the Golden Ages, but I think the Moai is the best and most versatile of the culture UI's. For some reason also, Polynesia's UI always gets analyzed in terms of what else could've been built on the tile, while none of the others do. Remember though, a tile improvement is +1 of an input as a standard baseline. The +2 improvements need Chemistry, Fertilizer, Economics, or at least Civil Service. Moai is potentially +2 from Construction on. That's hugely important for getting through enough of Exploration, Aesthetics, Rationalism, maybe Piety, and then the Ideology, all on time for Deity CV. That Culture output within a 3-4 city coastal empire is definitely worth an extra whole tree. Not to mention, coastal got a huge buff in BNW otherwise. I think it's just that a lot of players still avoid Coastal like the plague, and play Pangea most of the time besides. But really, it's hard reconcile why people are getting such good results out of Poland, when the main difference between it and any of the Culture civs for that matter, is nothing more than opportunity cost of how tiles are being worked. All get their extra policies rolling in at a more or less linear rate, and Polynesia is actually the most front-loaded of the 4, with the second-best start bias behind Poland. I'm still taking Poland instead for any non-Culture game, but I suppose I'm just echoing the idea of the OP that these culture UI's are more versatile and higher yield than they're typically analyzed.

 

I don't consider bland a bad thing. Imagine that all your units had march from the get go. That's what the Mongols have. It's especially important for melee units, like the calvary and tanks the keshiks turn into.

The key is that this isn't Pangaea. I say this every other post, but people keep talking about Pangaea.

On Pangaea, fast works. Try playing the Mongols vs the Zulu, or Atilla on small continents. You'll see the difference between what works and what doesn't.

Especially for warmongers, bringing in Pangaea is like bringing in Archipelago. It doesn't matter if England is top tier there because they have the best ship UU, or that Ottoman is amazing because all their melee boats have prize ship (so you only have to build 2-3 of them all game and can kamikazes them into cities without fear.

Once you add balanced maps into the game, Early warmongers come into trouble with their speed not being fast enough to reach the runaway, and their land speed not being as useful because there's less land to cover.

Zulu and Huns and Persia can be top tier on Pangaea, and that's not inconsistent with this list. Let's talk about how these civs deal with water. It's not like Byz can't execute a CB rush that clears 1-2 civs with ease. What's Zulu's advantage? It's the same reason America, with their best melee and air UUs in the entire game, are only lower tier. Minutemen btw, also have movement bonus, as do Berserkers and the Denmark UA.

 

It's a misnomer that poly is the most front loaded... France is. Poly's benefits need multiple tiles to be in your cultural borders, and eats up a couple of tiles you won't be working to boot. Almost no Poly player recommends more than 1 moai worked pretty Renaissance (when France gets 3-4 good culture tiles per city). That's 4 tiles for 1 worked tile, and you need the workers for the job when you also need them for roads and you don't have liberty (or you do and you don't have tradition opener for tiles) and ahhhhhh.

I've played Poly many times since starting this list. They are not good. In practice, you can't get effective moais going until deep mid game earliest.

Also, when calculating values, I subtracted food for France and Poly per tile worked (2 after fertilizer), and I evened out the gold for trade posts with Brazil (Brazilwood campus are just super trade posts that are divorced from Rationalism/Commerce benefits). Poly falls behind France on culture + gold output overall. Chateaus are really really OP by itself, even if they didn't generate any tourism. They're balanced out by a meh UA and an un-upgradable UU.

 

You split the list for each map, it will then be much eaiser to se how you rank the civs then now and eaiser to discuse them.

Maybe a point system fits more then ranking acctually because with such a system you can eaiser take on random factors then a ranking system, both could be used toghter.

Matematics don't fit that well in a random enviroment of all or nothing, because you have a chance don't mean you will get that in any game at all.

 

Guarantee you that it'll have the opposite effect on both.

Despite the list clearly stating which maps are applicable, people still don't read and continue to talk about Pangaea like it's relevant on the tiers (again, I think for this 10th time this thread, it is only relevant for the ^ mark).

Giving people more stuff to read is a bad idea. It's also why I didn't post the math for the dozen resource civs I plotted out until now. More info is distracting.

Also, resource civs are as affected by #cities as warmongers are effected by terrain. With 20 cities, Rome is better than any civ in the game, hands down. (looking at you, people who play huge maps). With 8 cities, they're easily upper tier. With 4 cities, they're on the high side of mid-tier. With 20 cities, Greece is worse than Carthage. With 4 cities? It's only slightly worse than Rome.

How would you like to assign points to that? And VCs are very different too. Etc, etc.

 

I'd be really interested in discussing how the list would be affected by bumping up to a larger map. I suppose it would be more theoretical, as I am sure most of us have less experience on big maps. For the discussion, it would be cool to use your list as a reference. Would it be better to open another thread?

I agree that Rome would really kick a**...

 

pretty sure that i know what I talk about...

How does the like 3-4 "free techs" Korea gets corelate to a whole policy branch from Poland, a autowin uu from Arab (who needs arties when he got camels???), and the huge early boosts babylon and maya get?
All what Korea does is slightly teching faster - shaves off like 5t from a vanilla civ science win or 5 turn faster arties - so what?

And well as said a list not considering map type and winning type is pointless - still when tqalking about just winning in some way Korea gives like nothing as it gives so little in hard situations. Not saying its vanilla but just not great (apart "perfect" games).

Celts get usually 1 free early faith per turn, how does that corelate to a free ring of tiles from shoshone and the hut boni???

The math on russia selling deals and production boni is amazing, sooooo much better as rome boni fe

And venice i d not even consider great on continent map, its a very good archi map IF U DONT GET DOWED Its pretty much autoloss starting close to a agressive civ attacking u with ships turn 50 (have had that happen ...) how can a civ which kind of autoloses by getting dowed be a top tier civ?

 

Sure, go for it! I am not planning to expand this discussion to cover different map sizes, map speeds, or other settings. I've played exactly one huge map game, and it was such a chore! I do enjoy large and small maps though.

I might do a pangaea consideration and give double ^s to mongols, zulu and atilla, and double ** to Indonesia and Poly. Would that be a good idea?

 

Better than splitting things up or adding caveats for map type, I would be to make two entirely different tier systems, one for military and one for builder.

From a use perspective, I think most players approaching Deity will decide what kind of game they want, then pick a civ. Other players just want to make sure they're getting one of the most powerful civs. Virtually no one is wondering whether a warmonger opening offered by one civ can be parlayed into a builder middle-game that's stronger than such and such builder civ's options. That cross-comparison is a black hole. It invites pet civs and strategy debates, where ultimately playing a single player TBS is a non-competitive activity where you just do what you want.

From the perspective of practicality then also, it's easier to shift through the discussion. The asterisk's might seem clunky to some. And most of the map-type variability besides has to do with whether such and such military civ can clear the continent, and at what reliability. Whether Ottomans can do anything on a Pangea map, and so forth. Who would legitimately open Pangea and pick Ottoman in the first place? But for all the builder civ's, the bonuses are either not map-type dependent at all, or the civ receives the appropriate start bias, like Polynesia or Iroquois.


>>>>>

On France v Polynesia, I'm sure the 3 Gold of the post-Flight Chateau is no small benefit, and the 3 Culture Chateau at 3 per city will probably out-do a Polynesian city by game's end. But within the new BNW Continents script, I've had no problem getting +6 to +8 Culture from tiles in 3 cities by about T100 as Poly. And that's with planting cities on the coast and interrupting the line. Four tiles are easy to work in a size 8-10 city, and honestly the Happy, etc. from Policies are better for growth than the +1 food or any other option for that non-bonus tile.

That's really the touchpoint. If you think Culture is better at that stage you'll work that tile, and if you don't you won't. I don't see how any player is not working Moai's ASAP. Whatever guide is out there, maybe I'm even playing sub-optimally I don't know, but I find Piety an undeniably huge benefit as a second tree with CV, and that means a hybridized opening where you are chasing down your Growth/Happy policies along with one of the two work-able Reformations - Sacred Sites and Glory of God. Poly can do that, if desired. With France, it's just not available early. To beeline Chivalry after Edu, what's the cost and do you even get there in time to pick a Reformation when half the AI's open Piety? How many Chateau per city in the first place? How's your Worker budget enough even then to get them up quickly, considering your cities are full and ready to work the tiles otherwise?

Even non-Piety France probably still competes with the Piety CV civs, by design, and maybe even surpasses them, but I just find the possibility to be both a Religious CV civ and a Tourism UI civ hard to lose with, at least. If a civ's only going to get credit if it's the best, I prefer Maya for CV overall, but since I'm not playing them every game, I don't see how it's fair to make the assumption that any given civ just won't use their UI/UA when it's available.

 

Hang on, I wasn't talking about Pangea. I never play that, I prefer Continents, Small Continents+ and Scrambled Earth. I think Pangea even favors the Mongols over the Zulus because in the period that their units rule the field, they can cover far more land in Pangea then on any other map.

Zulus, however, have their bonus working for much longer, which to me means more warmonger-flexibility, less tied to a specific period (Though, of course, they're far better around Impitime) leading to, IMO, a more well-rounded, less explosive but far more consistent warmonger. That is the point I was making.

 

Another thing about the Polynesia UI is cultural border expansion. When you open Honor (and to a lesser extent Piety) you tend to have to buy tiles. If you beeline construction in order to CB rush, you unlock early maoi as well, and since Honor has drastically less cultural border expansion than Tradition and Liberty, and overall terrible culture/turn without garrisons, a few maoi can really make a difference. Plus, for warmongering, you aren't wanting to grow your cities as big, so a hill maoi starts to be a pretty appealing tile to work.

Any civ that can burn through Honor quickly and get to the juicy gold/kill is going to find honor much easier to live with. Polynesia is one of those civs, even though the bonus comes later (t55ish) it still helps. Not as much as say Montezuma or Poland, but still.

 

What is a good civ for someone may be a bad civ for others, if you're considering situational play. This is not what the tier list is about, the way I understood it.

For example: when you talk about Venice's problems with warmongers, for example, it makes no sense to me; I usually play very careful peaceful games, and it is VERY rare to be put in a map where I am attacked by whoever (in the Brazil DC I posted some months ago, for example, I was in a corner with Shaka as my lone neighbor and I managed to not get attacked by him the entire game). On the other hand, I'm terrible at warfare, so I failed hard at a different challenge posted, where you were the Zulus on an awesome start with freaking Great Barrier Reef, and I couldn't manage to kill a poor Dutch AI with Impis vs Pikemen. That doesn't mean anything as a comparison point between Zulus or Brazil; it's just how my personal playstyle and skills work.

The whole point of the tier list is comparing how each civ's unique resources bonuses/savings relate to each other, putting everything on a scale, and grading them up. One criticism I can understand is if you disagree with how military boni are graded (from a glance, it does indeed appear that the more militaristic civs are being a bit undervalued); in theory, you could make a mathematical model where you correlate their hammer costs and the relative efficiency upgrade - how faster they kill stuff and take cities, thus turning those spent hammers into tile yields - they represent over units of the same era, but this would be far beyond my mathematical skills. If you think you can do it any better than adwcta and get to different results, I'll be glad to hear you out.

You can put *any* civ's bonus on this perspective, where you weigh the actual yield benefits, the timing of when it kicks, and how it "snowballs" over the course of a whole game. Korea and Babs' bonuses are not just "free techs"; you get science techs earlier, thus bumping beakers earlier through eras, thus reaching ages earlier, thus teching other stuff even more early, and so forth. Korea's bonus doesn't kick in early, but when it does, it pushes you far higher on bpt than pretty much anyone else (including the other science powerhouse, Babylon), and so over the course of a "regular" 250-300 turn Deity game it is a comparable bonus resource-wise to Babs. Of course, if you're an Attila freak and finishes all your games by turn 150 you couldn't care less about it, but this isn't something that can be compared and graded on a tier list.

The tier system doesn't regard playstyles and situational play when grading, because that is simply impossible. This is a sort of argument a lot of people are making in this thread, but it simply doesn't hold up, because it misses the whole point of the tier list.

 

actually its other way round your argument go around fully peaceful §perfect§ game situations and science win.

I just dont see how koera d be better at "snowballing" compared to a civ like russia or shoshones - maybe not even compared to spain or persia. And compared to Poland or Maya???

korea suckz at snowballing thats why i downgrade it. Korea gets good in late midgame when other civs are far ahead of it allready ...

And a good civ SHOULD be able to deal in some way with getting dowed, and not loose everything it does in a single attack. Even in superpeaceful bnw dows DO happen out of blue - sometimes civs got so much idle units sitting around that they just dow.

 

I'm not sure I agree with this fully. Civs like France, for example, get tile bonuses that rely on having land vs water, and they're better off expanding into land with a port or two than have 4 coastal cities. Inca has a military advantage on land, but also a builder advantage with more places for terrace farms. It's more for warmongers, but there are enough examples for builders that it's a consideration.

Also, I think plenty of people take over a couple of cities/civs on their way to a spaceship or CV, or even just to wipe out Greece for those CS. Are those warmongers or builder play styles? The game is flexible enough to allow for both. Atilla's main strategy on non-pangaea maps is built on it. I often start liberty with the aim of playing peaceful, but if I can't keep a neighbor from taking my land, I'll capture his settlers or take/raze a couple of his cities. Is that warmongering? I tend to think of it was building. But, military bonuses, say timed with Persia's first GA, would be very helpful. There are only a handful of overt warmongers in this game.

Sorry about the Pangaea thing, I'm confusing users and comments.

What's the Zulu's range? They pretty much have no combat bonus by long swords / muskets (just a movement bonus) and can't compete at all with rifles. They're also melee units, which are meh in this game.

What bonus are you talking about? IMO, the Zulu's period of domination is not any longer than the Mongol's, and it comes earlier. Having played the Zulu, I personally think America's minutemen are much better for warfare. With scouting bonus, they have 4 free promotions (including movement bonus and infrastructure bonus), all of which carry forward. Then, bombers come and you can clean up whatever's left. No time pressure at all. Just a little boring the first hundred fifty turns.

 

Yeah, I do tend to agree. It's all about the snowball effect. Ancient/classical bonuses to growth/tech/economy/production are so powerful. It's hard to quantify the value of Shoshone's UA/UU but I consider it the "Easy-Mode" civ, because all math aside, The Shoshone are just awesome. And Russia's UA wouldn't be as awesome if the AI were coded to round down, not up, on their trading deals... but they're not... so it's awesome. All that early gold is insanely valuable.

However, I do think Korea gets early game advantages: Building Library + NC gives the equivalent of bulbing an early GS. I think that's significant. Clearly not as significant as planting an academy on turn 22 though. /shrug

 

The Ikanda promotions carry over when you upgrade to a gunpowder unit (you just can't hard build said gunpowder unit and get the bonuses). The Zulu also get 25% faster promotions on all units.

I wouldn't say that that puts them over the Minutemen these are the freaking Minutemen but it's not like the Zulu vanish entirely after Longswords.

 

Given these two points, the clarifications made regarding map types, and the Huns being moved up to the new tier between lower and mid, I feel comfortable with the Huns placement. For me, the Huns must only feel so strong on continents (one of my first diety wins was with Attilla on continents, and I have only played Civ 5 with BNW... warmongering was stronger in G&K, right?), and even small continents, because I am inept at CB rushes. I can never make them work without severely setting my infrastructure back. With the Huns, conquering early is effortless even for me. And even in taking a continent, as Justice pointed out, it is ambiguous whether you have given yourself any better of an advantage than you would have by playing peaceful with a builder civ. If better players than me are able to consistently secure continents with CB rushes as civs with non-warmonger benefits, then I absolutely see how the Huns would only be considered top tier on Pangaea.

Anyway, if I make a thread for discussing differences on larger maps, do you mind if I utilize your list, adwcta (I'll give credit of course)? The intention would be to use it as a reference to point out the places where changes would be glaringly necessary (as in the aforementioned case of Rome). I do not think there would be much value in debating each and every civs spot. That's what this awesome thread is for. Rather, it would be useful just to discuss which civs really benefit from or struggle with the differences a larger map entails.

 

Absolutely, go for it hai. As you can probably tell, it's a lot as it is to wrangle the different play styles in this complex game here without adding map size into consideration. I'll pitch in with any math I'm doing for this thread that can be easily extrapolated on your thread.