BNW Deity Tier List

[Light Cleric]

Except that the only way you get to enjoy Byzantium's UA is to found a religion and often religions are gone at t60 unless you hit a Faith CS first and another soon after otherwise you'll get packed so far back that you'll need 30 or 35 faith for a pantheon. if you are only generating +1faith perturn and then at turn +35 you get a pantheon that gives you +4 faith from the start you'll be at 200 faith which doesn't even guarantee a religion at turn 75. Although I just played a deity game where it was all warmongers and I stumbled into a religion at turn100. I probably should have planted that guy because my neighor enhanced to Jesuit Education .

This is an issue with the current AI flavors imo; as Ninaroku has detailed in other threads the AIs go into Piety far far too often(Why the hell is psychotic AI Monty opening Piety?????) This makes it very difficult for the human player to get a religion while simultaneously making the AI do somewhat sub-optimal things(a Piety opener isn't that great for the AI). And even if a Piety opener were viable for the human player, the AI places a very heavy emphasis on Jesuit Education, which is imo the only Reformation belief that's worth a crap on Deity. Additionally, the AI religions begin spreading very early and are very potent. This makes it very, very difficult to capitalize on the Byzantine UA in most games, even though if she actually gets a religion + a strong faith engine a two-Enhancer religion can do quite well in spreading against the AI's influence.

 

[Browd]

Yeah, the Piety flavoring is pretty unbalanced. In my current game (Deity China), 5 of the 7 AI civs went Piety from the get-go. That's expected from someone like the Mayans, but the others made me laugh (Babylon? Really?).

Oh, and those pious Mayans? They skipped Piety and went full Tradition into Aesthetics (but they did build HS and Borobudur). Portugal took 4 policies in Piety before bailing out to Tradition when the Mayans and the other 4 Piety civs won the religion race.

Needless to say, someone enhanced by turn 50 or so, locking me out of a pantheon, but that's OK (particularly since I never bothered building a shrine).

 

[Justice1337]

The problem is a combination of AI flavor, and the fact that it gets tons and tons of free Culture for some reason. If it were just free SP's, that's one thing, but in my current game I'm looking at a 7-8 cities, warmonger Pachuti who's on 3000 Culture around Turn 90, according to the Influence by Player pane. And he's not even on Acoustics yet. If I were getting 3000 culture by Turn 90, I would probably have Piety opened by Turn 50 three out of four games as well.


And for Byzantium, even aside from the patent inconsistency of founding, the UA is not that powerful anyway. Any civ with a Faith bonus can forego a Faith generating Pantheon and get a substantive one like Messenger of the Gods, Oral Tradition, Fertility Rites, etc. That's basically getting an extra belief, since those are at least on an equal level with Followers. Double-Founder can be strong, but most of them are spread-contingent, which is a bad idea on Deity. Double-Enhancer is generally spread related as well. So essentially you are getting an extra Follower, the best use of which is double Building into Sacred Sites, and that's just not very strong in relation to other CV civs. They also have terrible UU's. Cataphract is non-upgradable melee (yawn), and I'd rather have Polynesia's Galleass than the Dromon.


Speaking of which, I do like Venice a lot. If there's any consideration for ease of play, they should get some. They basically keep you from playing any complicated, easily-bungled strategy, and reward you for it with a heap of Gold. There is definitely no room for them to move up though. I already see Austria as at least one maybe two tiers above them for a very similar ability.



On Polynesia's change, I'm not the most experienced with Archipelago, but it doesn't occur to me to pursue that map setting in search of a stronger game. Their UI (the whole draw) depends on you being able to expand to at least 4 cities, and then also hit above-average Growth/Production sites going INLAND with that first wave. Strategies on Archipelago seem mostly pointed at Capitals as do-everything cities, while Polynesia wants to use its premium Capital site mostly for Culture and Tourism. The Moai Capital often has Fish as bonus Food tiles, which are production-dependent on a production-poor site. It also has roughly half the chance of River Farms, little chance of a Mountain. Maybe that all changes so all CIv's suffer from those things on Archipelago, but what doesn't change is Polynesia's tendency to go with Culture improvements over Food improvements on land. So, it's not a good Science city on a map setting where you'd better have a Science Capital. So as I see it, they want more land to use for Growth/Science, not less.

 

[Thorak]

Regarding Byzantine sacred rites:
For it to work I suggest you open up tradition opener, grab 2 slots in piety (building temple/shrines in half time and +1 faith from temple/shrine) and build a settler in your cap at size 4 or so (turn 20-25) and quickly get a shrine in both cities. Then get to philosophy and build oracle as quickly as possible while gunning for sacred rites and also build a temple in both cities. Try to rush buy a settler/build another one soon afterwards. After that go to monarchy.

You will most likely only get 2 religious building but getting something like +1 food from temple/shrine or +1/2 happiness from temple/shrine also is a huge boost.

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Regarding Venice:
Comparing them with Austria I don't really consider fair. Austria is for me on the same lvl as Korea, Babylon, Poland, Maya and Arabia (these are the 6 civs I would put in top tier).

Venice is however REALLY easy to play if you are used to tradition play. If you really want to squeeze out every bit of efficiency out of them you might want to do some warmongering though. They have troubles generating scientists as their puppets will generate great merchants instead. All in all I would say Venice is a really strong civ though, it's hard to manage trade routes during wartime as the AI will likely plunder them.

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Reagrding Polynesia:
I started a game as them yesterday gunning for science. Capital next to a mountain and only built 1 other city. Managed to steal astronomy from Korea at turn 105-110 or so (don't remember exactly) so renaissance era turn 105-110 and an observatory up in my cap 4 turns later (built it in 4 turns so no need to rushbuy it). Currently I have captured 2 ottoman cities with my galleas army and currently up to 9 galleasses going for Petra city in a few turns. I will report how the game ends but I would say it has potential. I underestimated how much these ruins does. 60-80 culture, a free pantheon, 3-4 pop, 2 free scout archers and so on. Not to mention 3 free workers from the AI/city states and a lot of free gold from discovery of city states (I was first for most of them giving me 30 gold instead of 15 as in my calculation).

I do beleive Polynesia might work as a science civ on archipelago, but I might need some more practice with them to execute this galleas rush effectively while still maintaining research. Also, if I get a map where I can place more than 1 good city near my cap would also make life easier...

 

[Resipsa]

Regarding Byzantine sacred rites:
For it to work I suggest you open up tradition opener, grab 2 slots in piety (building temple/shrines in half time and +1 faith from temple/shrine) and build a settler in your cap at size 4 or so (turn 20-25) and quickly get a shrine in both cities. Then get to philosophy and build oracle as quickly as possible while gunning for sacred rites and also build a temple in both cities. Try to rush buy a settler/build another one soon afterwards. After that go to monarchy.

You will most likely only get 2 religious building but getting something like +1 food from temple/shrine or +1/2 happiness from temple/shrine also is a huge boost.

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The problem with this is that you'll be the 4th or 5th to enhance. Why open Tradition when its not going to help you get to the reformation belief or is it? I think in most situations the Tradition Opener helps you get the next three Social POlicies but hurts you thereafter. Yes, I realize it helps with border growth

 

[Thorak]

The problem with this is that you'll be the 4th or 5th to enhance. Why open Tradition when its not going to help you get to the reformation belief or is it? I think in most situations the Tradition Opener helps you get the next three Social POlicies but hurts you thereafter. Yes, I realize it helps with border growth

You only need 4 more policies if you go oracle. You might be a few turns behind if you only went piety straight away, but your cap will be stronger as you will have bigger borders or you will have saved gold to be able to rushbuy a settler earlier, and you will be 1 step closer towards monarchy.

Thing is, as Byzantine you don't need to do a quick enhance, you will get 2 buildings once you found a religion if available. Your enhance belief can be something else and you will still be in ok shape. I am not saying the tactic above is fullproof, but you will have a rather good chance to get a religion that way and sacred rites. I would say Byzantine might be the best civ to actually go if you want to pursue the sacred rights victory as you only need to found a religion to get 2 buildings while everyone else must enhance it while there are still 2 buildings available which is much harder even if you get faith for free like celts/ethiopia.

To be honest though, I never got the sacred rites strategy to really work on diety but I haven't given it a lot of tries and I THINK it is possible to get it working with Byzantine.

Now on to continue my Polynesia game!

 

[Resipsa]

Opening Tradition you'll need 6 Social Policies to get a Reformation. If you get the Oracle you'll only need 5 so you still get there slower going tradition opener. I don't care about border growth in your cities, they are all going to be 3-4 population anyway. I also don't build the Oracle as your hammers are better spent on settlers at that point. The best civ IMO to do SS CV is Ethiopia Monuments produce faith athe worst part about Ethopia is that your have to enhance quickly to get a second religious building. I've done it on Immortal where I've chopped forest to get SH. That let me enhance my religion quickly and I got lucky and the first two civs to get their reformation took Jesuit and GttG.

 

[Thorak]

I have had problems getting 2 buildings as Ethiopia. Border growth is still important to get resources to trade away to be able to buy settlers. I feel that having your cap at 3-4 pop seems like a mistake as the oracle really is key in securing the sacred rites. You might want to gamble and go on without it but if the AI takes rites you will have to restart and with oracle you have a chance to be first to the policy.

I haven't been able to get sacred rites working for deity anyway but Byzantine was the easiest to get 2 buildings + sacred rites with by building oracle. Taking trad starter might not be optimal and I guess it might depend on the starting location and your plan.

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Anyway, update of my Polynesia archipelago game. I am now up to 6 cities, one of them having Petra. I founded world council at turn 127 and I am now in modern era at turn 158 generating 509 science per turn. This is actually one turn quicker than my previous game as Austria which I ended at turn 241, perhaps this one will be quicker? Anyway, my galleas fleet is now obsolete and I will have to upgrade to frigates if I want to capture more cities. Not sure if I want to do that though, but time will tell.

I feel if I would try Polynesia archipelago again doing science I would build more cities early even if they were far away from my cap. Also, I think liberty might be better playing this way.

But we'll see what turn I finish at...

 

[Justice1337]

This is supposed to be for Deity, guys.

There's a whole ton of gimmicky, impossible stuff in this analysis. You can't guarantee first Reformation on Deity, so any Reformation-specific strats are out. A measly 2-4 Tourism per city, per turn is not at all effective on Deity either. You'd probably have to go conquer more land, then spam out cities at minimum distance. Deity CV is about Musician spam. You can't guarantee Oracle or any early era Wonder either, no matter how quickly you beeline Philo. And Petra? I have no idea how a player would build any Classical Wonder in a non-Capital city on Deity, much less Petra. I guess you conquered it? So, Polynesia is good because you can conquer a Petra capital?

I do think Polynesia's Galleass is a good unit, but really only on some settings.

Anyway, I've basically given up on discussing Polynesia. Rankings are going to be meaningless unless you assign each civ its optimal strategy, but what's optimal for Poly is too specific for this thread. It's all subjective otherwise, the same way anything outside of T250 Science win is subjective in its worth. It's always open to the criticism that something else is better. So, Maya, Korea, Babs on one tier, any Growth/Happy on another tier, then every other civ on a "worthless" tier? Sounds about right.

 

[adwcta]

You forgot early faith, and gold.

But really, some things you can make mathematical statements about. Like Rome > Russia > Greece/Carthage. That will never change, and is not subjective.

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[Thorak]

This is supposed to be for Deity, guys.

There's a whole ton of gimmicky, impossible stuff in this analysis. You can't guarantee first Reformation on Deity, so any Reformation-specific strats are out. A measly 2-4 Tourism per city, per turn is not at all effective on Deity either. You'd probably have to go conquer more land, then spam out cities at minimum distance. Deity CV is about Musician spam. You can't guarantee Oracle or any early era Wonder either, no matter how quickly you beeline Philo. And Petra? I have no idea how a player would build any Classical Wonder in a non-Capital city on Deity, much less Petra. I guess you conquered it? So, Polynesia is good because you can conquer a Petra capital?

I do think Polynesia's Galleass is a good unit, but really only on some settings.

Anyway, I've basically given up on discussing Polynesia. Rankings are going to be meaningless unless you assign each civ its optimal strategy, but what's optimal for Poly is too specific for this thread. It's all subjective otherwise, the same way anything outside of T250 Science win is subjective in its worth. It's always open to the criticism that something else is better. So, Maya, Korea, Babs on one tier, any Growth/Happy on another tier, then every other civ on a "worthless" tier? Sounds about right.

Have you ever tried what you are talking about? It seems like you are talking out of the blue...

I have had 100% success in getting oracle my latest games, so getting oracle on deity is certainly not hard at all. Have you ever tried getting oracle on deity? Petra on the other hand is tough to get without nerfing yourself unless playing Babylon I assume. That one will have to be conquered.

If you get oracle and go straight into piety, and ally some cultural CS state along the way, you have a good chance to get a reformation belief. However, usually the AI picks buying research buildings as first choice which gives more time. And you get 4 tourism/city before modifiers. Have you ever tried a sacred rites strategy? I can tell you it has potential to work even on diety. Especially if you do a bit of a conquer spree as well.

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Polynesia is not good because I captured a Petra city. Polynesia is good because I did a galleas rush while at the same time having a quicker science path than both my Korea pangea and Austria pangea science game which were both peaceful games. And I don't even consider my game to be flawless as I only built 2 starting cities since I only had 1 suitable spot to settle within 30 squares (I guess I should have picked an ok spot to settle though would have been better than nothing).

As I see it, you won't pick Polynesia unless your map is designed for it. All maps which includes islands I would probably pick Polynesia for any victory I was gunning for, these includes the maps: archipelago, small islands, large island and possibly small continents. I bet if you picked non-continents/pangea map type and any victory condition, I would do my fastest win with Polynesia.

I consider Polynesia to be the single top tier for all archipelago type maps, that's a majority of the maps. If you choose to play Huns at large islands or Polynesia at pangea you picked the wrong civ.

The funny thing about that t250 science win: I am currently the only player who submitted a HoF game with a science win on diety quicker than t250. I want you to try to make a science win on one of the above archipelago type maps using any civ other than Polynesia and HoF rules. Not saying it is impossible, but it sure will be a rough ride.

 

[tommynt]

I have had 100% success in getting oracle my latest games

maya builds oracle between turn 40-60 usually, pretty much allways before I even think about starting it.
For some others it on their list too.

Sure if u play archi map with military civs as opponents things change ..

 

[adwcta]

Agree about oracle.

I've done tradition Korea 240 on a large islands map, standard settings no worker steal or any other grey area practices. I was in a tundra too (and someone beat me to the pantheon, so no religion). No river/mountain in capital. 100% peaceful.

Not quite archepelego, but I can't imagine it's that different.

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[Light Cleric]

I dunno, the Oracle does not seem as consistently available as it once was on Deity. It is still readily available on a majority of maps, but it is no longer the guarantee it once was, where seemingly the only way to lose it was for the Maya to be in the game(who love to build it and do so by like turn 60).

lol i got ninja'd twice

 

[Justice1337]

Have you ever tried what you are talking about? It seems like you are talking out of the blue...

I have had 100% success in getting oracle my latest games, so getting oracle on deity is certainly not hard at all. Have you ever tried getting oracle on deity? Petra on the other hand is tough to get without nerfing yourself unless playing Babylon I assume. That one will have to be conquered.

If you get oracle and go straight into piety, and ally some cultural CS state along the way, you have a good chance to get a reformation belief. However, usually the AI picks buying research buildings as first choice which gives more time. And you get 4 tourism/city before modifiers. Have you ever tried a sacred rites strategy? I can tell you it has potential to work even on diety. Especially if you do a bit of a conquer spree as well.

Well, when I said "impossible", what I meant was impossible to guarantee every game. Which seems in line with what you're saying.

Say you try an opener reliant on Oracle. What do you do on those games, whether it's 90% of games of 10% of games, where you are beaten to it? Reroll? That torpedoes the strategy on consistency, and this tier list is about consistent victory, not speed of victory or ease of victory.

So if I said that I'd never built the Oracle on Deity or gotten the Reformation of my choice, I'd be lying. But you cannot say a civ is good because of what it can do with Oracle and such and such Reformation. That's the definition of an inconsistent civ, which gets a downgrade.

And as for power of the Double-Bulding/Sacred Sites strategy, again, consistency outweighs speed. So it's possible that's the fastest way to CV, given unlimited rerolls. But you can't rely on that strategy. That's the definition of a gimmick. In 90% of all other games where you either can't enable double-building or can't spam out 20 cities, your Tourism on those last Civ's to buy your blue jeans relies much more on your Musician's generated, not whether you've got an extra 2-4 base Tourism per city. Consistent Culture Victory is a capital-centered, great-people strategy. Sacred Sites does not boost that style, and it's not even the best Reformation for that style. That honor would go to To the Glory of God.

 

[hai 1]

I just lost the Oracle on t74 to Ramesses D:

 

[tommynt]

dont think a deity SS strategy is worth discussing.
Before that I d like see a ss/save of a deity game where it got actually done.

Pls go on to next topic meanwhile.

Moderator Action: It is not your place to control what happens in a thread. If you wish to add to the discussion, that is great. This does not do that so it is inappropriate.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

Killing every civ is 1000% more reliable to win.

 

[Resipsa]

dont think a deity SS strategy is worth discussing.
Before that I d like see a ss/save of a deity game where it got actually done.

Pls go on to next topic meanwhile.

Killing every civ is 1000% more reliable to win.

Who made you arbiter of what gets discussed? Frankly you think this thread is stupid and for apes or some type of primate because it doesn't tier based on victory conditions. If its so dumb why do you keep posting in the thread? Jesus Christ, I get tried of your posts.

Moderator Action: Please report posts that you have problems with and let staff handle it. This post simply feeds the troll.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[hai 1]

Idk, discussing Diety SS CV does seem like a waste of time in this thread which values consistency so much.

 

[Vitruvius]

I dunno, the Oracle does not seem as consistently available as it once was on Deity. It is still readily available on a majority of maps, but it is no longer the guarantee it once was, where seemingly the only way to lose it was for the Maya to be in the game(who love to build it and do so by like turn 60).

lol i got ninja'd twice

How to ninja the AI trying to ninja your wonder:
Only switch to production focus 2-3 turns before completing so you will complete in only 1 turn.

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