Civ 4 Tier List

[2manygentlemen]

Based on a combination of my experiences, along with general consensus and this leader guide on GameFaqs, I've made a tier chart of the 52 leaders based on how strong they are in general, and whether they're more well-rounded or specialized. Note that the well-rounded/specialized axis isn't terribly precise, as that was largely guessing on my part and there wasn't a huge amount of space to work with, so it's to be taken with a grain of salt. Also, in the top couple tiers, the well-rounded/specialized axis is relative to other leaders in the same tier. (Obviously the higher tier leaders are all generally better rounded than the lower tier leaders in general)



The tiers go as follows:

S Tier (Top row): Stand head and shoulders above the rest. Have great traits, as well as powerful uniques, some (Egypt, Rome, Incas, Persia) of which can break the game with a successful rush.

A Tier (2nd row): Not quite as strong as S tier, but still very good. They all have great trait combos and/or uniques that may also synergize well, too.

B Tier (3rd and 4th row): These leaders are good, but don't quite have the same potential that S and A tiers do. Some here do have a great base for one particular thing (say warmonging or wonderbuilding), but aren't very well-rounded, while others are but don't excel in any particular area. Some also have particularily poor uniques.

C Tier: These leaders are okay, but are set back somewhat by A. being too specialized towards warfare at the expense of other areas, B. having lacking uniques and/or C. having a trait combos that don't have much synergy

D (for Dice) Tier: These guys are very reliant on either warfare or religion/culture, to the point that their most optimal way to leverage their traits and/or uniques depends heavily on one area. If they're not able to take advantage of this, you're basically working on your own, without any benefits.

F Tier: These guys have very poor traits that don't combine to produce anything interesting at all. Though Charlemagne and Mao at least have interesting unique buildings and units, respectively, those aren't much consolation to make up for lacking trait combos. Sitting Bull doesn't have much to show for in uniques and his protective trait does little to help leverage the Philosophical trait.

With that said, the chart's all just my opinion/speculation. I'd love to hear what you agree and disagree with regarding my chart. Feel free to post your own views and ideas regarding who's the best or worst, perhaps even your own tier lists or charts.

 

[Windsor]

My first reaction is that Sitting Bull and the Chinese leaders are underrated. China starts with Agri+Mining, probably the best starting combo in the game and both offer 1 always-useful and strong trait.

Sitting Bull isn't only Philosophical, his UUs allows him to survive the harshest conditions. And starting with Agriculture is always great.

I also can't agree on the huge difference between the roman leaders and the ottoman leaders. Augustus and Suleiman is at least on par with Julius and Mehmed.

 

[elitetroops]

I agree with Windsor that the huge difference between the Roman leaders and the Ottoman leaders is strange. I like Sully more than Mehmed actually... Mehmed doesn't belong in top tier imo. Elisabeth and Gandhi should be up there though.

Overall I'd say that it seems you undervalue PHI and overvalue CRE a bit.

 

[Major Tom]

Surprised to see Charlemagne at the bottom. He is usually a dominant force in my games.

Also thinking american leaders is overrated. The have no useful UU or UB at all. They are usually killed or vassalized before modern era by other AIs due to bad peaceweight.

 

[elitetroops]

Rankings would of course depend on if you consider how strong they are for the human player or how the AI performs with the leaders. I assumed this was about the former case.

 

[Major Tom]

Ahh, OK. Isn't the list then dependant of level (HC a mile ahead of others on deity etc.).

 

[2manygentlemen]

This chart is, indeed, meant to show the leader's strength for a human player (in single player mode, as well). In terms of difficulty level, it's based on Noble difficulty, that difficulty being the most balanced difficulty and the one I myself am most familiar with.

I placed Augustus and Suleiman lower than their same-civ counterparts mainly because I felt their trait pairings are a good deal less powerful. (I just don't feel like either of their combos have much synergy to them; IMHO, there are simply other better companions to complement the Imp, Ind, and/or Phi traits). Thinking back, I do feel that Augustus could be higher on the basis of the sheer power of the Praetorians, but I'd still say that Julius's Organized is a better fit for Imperialistic.

As for my high placement of Roosevelt and Washington, it's on the basis of their trait combinations (Ind/Org and Cha/Exp), both of which I find to be strong, to the point of making them good leaders, IMHO, in spite of their lacklustre uniques.

Also, for the record, I favor the Financial and Organized traits as being the best in general, as I feel that their bonuses towards income are quite valuable and an asset that one will find useful in almost any game. In addition, I feel that Organized's bonuses towards courthouses, lighthouses, and factories are all very useful for getting one's infrastructure up, with all three being buildings I find myself building regularly. Expansive's another trait I feel to be quite strong, also due to its discounts on useful buildings and the ever-necessary worker units, which can help a great deal with getting one's early infrastructure into place.

I do value Creative fairly highly, as I find that not having to invest time into monuments to get the borders growing in new cities means an getting an earlier start on building granaries and other buildings. In addition, I feel it can synergize very well with almost any other trait. Conversely, I feel that there are a number of traits that don't do much to help you leverage the Philosophical trait (Agg, Imp, Cha, and Pro). I also feel that Creative is less effected by the land you're given to work with than Philosophical in the early game. That said, I do feel that Philosophical is a good trait and can do wonders given that it's leveraged well and has another trait can can help you do so.

One other thing I feel I should mention is that this tier list also tries to consider the leaders' unique units and buildings, particularly if I find them to be strong and/or synergize well with their leaders' traits.

That said, my chart is influenced by my personal preferences and I'm sure one's views may vary greatly from my own.

 

[elitetroops]

The value of PHI goes up a lot on higher levels where bulbing often is very important to keep up in the tech race. Also, a bulb on noble is usually worth only the immediate beakers you get from it, while a bulb on higher levels is worth a lot more when you take tech trading into account. I'd disagree about CHA not helping you leverage PHI. More happy = more specialists.

On the highest levels Sitting Bull is actually a very strong leader. Apart from the strong PHI trait, his UU provides resource free barb defense that mostly doesn't require any detour from your preferred early tech path. His UB also has nice synergy with the PRO trait to keep you safe from war mongering neighbors.

Sully I like more than Mehmed because he can get his UU a lot faster. And Jans vs. archers is fun!

Creative is a nice trait indeed, but if you need a monument before building a granary then the problem is mostly not your traits, it's the settling location.

 

[el toro loco]

one of my biggest pet peeves is researching copper, animal husbandry, and iron only to get none of them close to your start. for this reason alone sitting bull should be higher on the list. it is so nice just to know you will be getting dog soldiers and be able to plan accordingly. since you are describing this as noble settings, you should be able to do a dog soldier rush and wipe out whatever continent your own for early victory. or at least take out the closest 3-5 civs.

 

[TheSunIsDark]

So the difference between organized and industrious (Julius and Augustus) is 4 tiers? Something's wrong here...

 

[Kallikrates]

Augustus should be higher and further to the right (if only for Praets he is clearly better than Bismarck), Sitting Bull should at least switch with Saladin. What's so great about Brennus?
(PHI > protective and SB has good and map-independent synergy of UU, UB and PRO trait, whereas Saladin has none of these).

I have not played all leaders frequently enough on BtS, but I think, both mongol leaders should be higher. Keshik rush can be very powerful, at least up to Emperor.

 

[2manygentlemen]

I've gone ahead and made an improved chart taking account of feedback I've recieved hear, as well as the Civ subreddit. I thank you for your input; it's always welcome.



The tiers go SS (I felt these four leaders were especially powerful), S, A, B, C, D, and Charlie.

SS through A are high tier, B and C are mid tier, and D and below are low tier.

 

[el toro loco]

on your new chart:

i don't think ragnar should be that low. he is financial and a good warmonger with agressive/berserker. if he is on a water map, ragnar is especially effective with fishing start, trading post, great light house, and colossus taking advantage of financial.

 

[TheSunIsDark]

Genghis and Boudicca shouldn't really be that low, their traits have good synergy and their UUs and UBs aren't terrible. Charlemagne doesn't really deserve to be in a tier all on his own, he does have the Rathaus which is almost broken...

 

[elmurcis]

So just move all leaders above middle line and everybody happy because any leader in hands of human can be strong... Toku including that will get strongest rifles of the field..

 

[pandamancer]

I would suggest you clarify the "more specialized" part. Do you mean they rely on a single type of economy? They perform better on certain maps? They rely on single strategy to win?

Also, kindly consider the starting traits of each leader.

 

[qazq2]

I would switch Saladin and Charlemagne, at least Charlie's imperialistic has some synergy with the Rathaus. Protective as always is useless (unless you are Churchill). Aside from that my only complaint is that Lincoln is not in the top two. He is the only leader I have managed to get an immortal victory on, has great trait synergy, well rounded, good starting techs, and a great warmonger. The only problem is his uniques are useless on higher difficulties (when the game ends in the renaissance who needs a late-modern UU/UB)

 

[TheSunIsDark]

Charlemagne should be higher and also further to the left, his UB and Imperialistic are only good for REXing and warring. Pretty good at that though.

 

[2manygentlemen]

on your new chart:

i don't think ragnar should be that low. he is financial and a good warmonger with agressive/berserker. if he is on a water map, ragnar is especially effective with fishing start, trading post, great light house, and colossus taking advantage of financial.

I thought that I had perhaps overrated him in the first chart, but on reconsideration, he could go back up a tier.

Genghis and Boudicca shouldn't really be that low, their traits have good synergy and their UUs and UBs aren't terrible. Charlemagne doesn't really deserve to be in a tier all on his own, he does have the Rathaus which is almost broken...

It's definitely true that their traits have very good synergy for warmonging, with their uniques also working toward that direction. I just feel that their lack of economic/infrastructure traits give them military strength at the expense of everything else.

In contrast, I feel Napoleon, Caesar, Shaka, are stronger choices, due to their having traits that A. can actually be leveraged should you find yourself being unable to take advantage of war, and B. are great if you do war, because they'll allow for better maintenance of your newly-acquired cities. I'd also vouch this for Monty's and Brennus's Spiritual trait, as it allows for great flexibility in your use of civics (which can pay off a great deal if you try to get the most out of them though lots of switching, particularly on Normal or faster) and the bonuses for temples never hurt.

That said, I'll probably consider raising Genghis, based on the sheer strength that lies in a successful Keshik rush, though I prefer Kublai.

I would suggest you clarify the "more specialized" part. Do you mean they rely on a single type of economy? They perform better on certain maps? They rely on single strategy to win?

Also, kindly consider the starting traits of each leader.

"More Specialized" can mean any of those things; they're all factors which have lead me to put leaders towards that side of the chart. For example, the warmongers are towards "more specialized" because the best way to leverage their traits/units is through playing aggressively. If you're not, you're probably missing out on being able to make the most of them. Also on this side are leaders who are really oriented towards peaceful building and going for cultural and/or science victories, like Louis, Pericles, Qin, Wang, Saladin, and Sitting Bull. Meanwhile, Joao and Ragnar rely very heavily on ocean-oriented maps to fully leverage their uniques, while having traits that skew towards pretty specific things (Rapid expansion and warmonging, respectively). (One could argue that this is also the case for Willem, due to his uniques, but I feel that his trait combo is very versatile and allows for you to go in many directions through its great benefits to the economy, research, and culture.) Qin's a great example of a leader who can benefit from a very specific strategy, that being the military strategy of bee-lining to machinery (through leveraging his Industrial trait) and proceeding to reap the rewards of his Cho-Ko-Nus. It has good potential, but requires a specific path to follow and may or may not be viable from game to game.

I would switch Saladin and Charlemagne, at least Charlie's imperialistic has some synergy with the Rathaus. Protective as always is useless (unless you are Churchill). Aside from that my only complaint is that Lincoln is not in the top two. He is the only leader I have managed to get an immortal victory on, has great trait synergy, well rounded, good starting techs, and a great warmonger. The only problem is his uniques are useless on higher difficulties (when the game ends in the renaissance who needs a late-modern UU/UB)

I actually feel that Saladin's not completely bad; his starting with spiritualism and having the spiritual trait means that founding a religion and leveraging it for science/military/culture throughout the game is feasible. That said, if you can't do so, you have very little to work with. I agree that he's one of the weakest leaders, but I'm not sure if I'd consider him worse than Mao and Tokugawa, though.

As for Lincoln, do you mean he should be in one of the top two tiers or do you mean he's one of the top two leaders, period? I, personally, wouldn't put him up with Darius and Mansa, but I'll look into raising him. (I've never really played Lincoln, so it's very useful to hear from an actual Lincoln player)

Charlemagne should be higher and also further to the left, his UB and Imperialistic are only good for REXing and warring. Pretty good at that though.

I see that there's definitely strong support to raise Charlemagne, and thinking about how his UB can be such an asset for what he is good for, I'll bump him up some. I still feel that he's one of the weaker leaders, but I can see why he'd be better than Tokugawa, who gets no economic aid at all from his traits OR UB and Mao, who can't take advantage of the wonder-building and Cho-Ko-Nu beelining that Qin's Industrious trait lets him do.


That all said, I thank you all for your input; it's always valued.

I'll keep it all in mind when I continue to revise the chart. (I'll make sure to not forget Gilgamesh again.) Until then, feel free to keep on providing feedback on what you feel is right or needs to be fixed.

 

[s.bernbaum]

I'm currently playing my first game as Tokugawa. (I play random leaders and he has just never come up before.) If his UB is not the worst there is, it has got to be one of the contenders. A building with fewer benefits than the standard one and no advantages, other than not needing the most common resource on the map, is a real stinker.