Civ 4 Tier List

And to top it off, it's a rather late UB, so therefore would rarely be decisive even if it was better.
 
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.

How does the Shale Plant provide fewer advantages than the standard one? It gives a 10% hammer bonus (unlike the Coal Power Plant), and allows guaranteed access to one of the most important hammer booster buildings in the late game. Additionally, you can optionally sell/trade off your coal and rid yourself of the extra health deficit that comes with it. I agree with TMIT about the Shale Plant being underrated (although it obviously isn't amazing).


On the OT. I think "very generally" most of the leaders are in roughly the right place, but it could be problematic receiving consistent feedback when people play on such a wide variety of levels and settings. How do you compare a leader that can nearly always survive difficult starts to a leader that can score heavier on an easy map (with the right resource)? I think Pacal and Mansa should rate higher than Mehmed for versatility, as both the former have more options for early defence and warfare. Holkans and Skirmishers make dependable (resourceless) choking units, and Skirmishers give significantly better practical chances of surviving an early DOW at Deity.

HC should be alone in the top tier due to being just good all around, and the obviously overpowered Quechua.

I agree that Charly should be bottom. Bad traits (at least Saladin has Spiritual), absolutely horrible start techs (forget founding the first religion at higher levels, use the beakers for valuable worker techs!), strange UU, and the UB just isn't good enough to save him.
 
How does the Shale Plant provide fewer advantages than the standard one? It gives a 10% hammer bonus (unlike the Coal Power Plant), and allows guaranteed access to one of the most important hammer booster buildings in the late game. Additionally, you can optionally sell/trade off your coal and rid yourself of the extra health deficit that comes with it. I agree with TMIT about the Shale Plant being underrated (although it obviously isn't amazing).


I gather that you are saying the Shale Plant gives a 10% bonus in addition to the 25% bonus that the Coal Plant gives. I misunderstood the bonus, thinking it was 10% instead of the 25%. So, if it is indeed a net of 35%, then I was wrong in stating it to be a real loser of a UB, due to my misunderstanding.

BTW, you may still want the coal in order to maximize the production bonus of the Ironworks.
 
I gather that you are saying the Shale Plant gives a 10% bonus in addition to the 25% bonus that the Coal Plant gives. I misunderstood the bonus, thinking it was 10% instead of the 25%. So, if it is indeed a net of 35%, then I was wrong in stating it to be a real loser of a UB, due to my misunderstanding.

Technically speaking the shale and coal plants enable power, and power gives a 50% bonus (+10% extra in the case of shale). Perhaps you also thought that factories give a 50% bonus with power instead of 25%, but this is in addition to (meaning +75% for factory+PP). So if you don't have coal you are losing a big 50% everywhere for a long time – unless you are the Japanese.

BTW, you may still want the coal in order to maximize the production bonus of the Ironworks.

Agreed, hence why I carefully chose the word "optionally" ;). The Ironworks city alone can be the most important source of hammers in a small empire. However, there are times when +2 health everywhere and coal trade (AI values coal very highly) could be worth considering.
 
I would put Julius Caesar at 3rd or 4th tier. The absence of Iron simply screws his game. Somehow I feel he is at par with Augustus Caesar.

Put Brennus one tier lower. His starting techs ensures a slow start. Added to the fact that Dun bonus applies only to archery and gunpowder units (guerrilla3 grenadiers if you reach that far, but why bother?).

Zara, I think, should be 1 tier higher. He has the most number of discounted buildings + Oromo
 
1. HC
2. Ghandi, Mansa, Darius, Hatti.
3-4. Everyone Else
5. No civ is THAT bad

I would bet that an analysis of first places in the HoF would reveal this to be an accurate distribution of leader representations.
 
I think the Noble level is too easy to show the real strength of the different leaders. I won Noble (vanilla) without having understood many important things about the game. OTOH I also think that one should not take only Deity/Immortal to measure the leader quality. Maybe some average from Prince or Monarch to Deity.

So I still do not understand how there can be such a big difference between e.g. Julius and Augustus, because this boils down to comparing ORG and IND, granted that ORG is better, because it helps with finance/research independently of winning condition etc. But is it really so much better? IND is, I think stronger on intermediate levels, because you will probably beat the AI to any wonder you really want (while you won't on the two highest and you could do it without IND on Noble or below. I ragequit "lonely Augustus" several times on IMM, because I couldn't get the wonders I needed (Pyramids)... )

As the costs reduced by ORG are not such a big deal below monarch, I also think ORG is slightly more important for higher levels (I certainly didn't appreciate EXP and ORG myself while playing noble or prince) I'd also say that there is a some better synergy of the IND trait and the Forum for culture games (or specialist economies in general) and the cheap forges can help with military conquest as well. So I wouldn't really put Julius and Augustus more then one tier apart.
 
I think Boudica is underrated. I find her an awesome leader, playing mainly at Monarch level with K-mod. Charismatic + Aggressive means you can churn out hugely promoted units that mow down the competition.

With K-mod the Dun gives +1 XP, so with a Dun and Barracks your units start with 4 XP, which is enough for 2 promotions (given she's Charismatic). And being aggressive, they already have Combat I, so you can produce Combat III melee units (also with Guerilla I!) right off the bat!

Being Charismatic, it's wise to build Stonehenge, to get the extra :) from monuments. This makes it likely you'll pop a Great Prophet, which you can use to lightbulb Theology. You soon get your first Great General, which gives you another +2 XP in your military city, so your units start with 8 XP, which is good for 3 promotions. Start pumping out Combat I + Geurilla I + City Raider III Gallic Warriors, and the enemy archers don't stand a chance.

Starting with Combat I, and being Charismatic, also makes it MUCH easier to obtain the fabled Medic III + Woodsman III great healer general (heals +50% per turn). You only need 6 promotions instead of the normal 7, which is just 28 XP for a Charismatic leader... 20 of which will come from attaching the GG to the unit. This means your stack can heal quickly while attacking a besieged city, and set off for the next one in no time...
 
Starting with Combat I, and being Charismatic, also makes it MUCH easier to obtain the fabled Medic III + Woodsman III great healer general (heals +50% per turn). You only need 6 promotions instead of the normal 7, which is just 28 XP for a Charismatic leader... 20 of which will come from attaching the GG to the unit. This means your stack can heal quickly while attacking a besieged city, and set off for the next one in no time...

The Jaguar is better. Starting with Woodsman I and Combat I means just five promotions and 24XP. Of course, it's only one unit, while the Dun and AGG/CHM can be used post-Masonry on all Melee and Gunpowder units.
 
So I still do not understand how there can be such a big difference between e.g. Julius and Augustus, because this boils down to comparing ORG and IND, granted that ORG is better, because it helps with finance/research independently of winning condition etc. But is it really so much better? IND is, I think stronger on intermediate levels, because you will probably beat the AI to any wonder you really want (while you won't on the two highest and you could do it without IND on Noble or below. I ragequit "lonely Augustus" several times on IMM, because I couldn't get the wonders I needed (Pyramids)... )

IND is significantly better than ORG. IND is generally considered the best trait or on the level with FIN / PHI. The people who rate ORG highly generally play giant marathon space race corp games, or haven't mastered lowering maintenance costs. If this was on S&T instead of Gen Dsn you'd see a lot more people agree with this, and underrating IND and overrating ORG seems one of the major stories of this tier list.

Regardless both Augustus and Julius are easily top tier leaders because praetorians are pretty much autowin. Super strong early game and strong mid game, and Auggie has IND to boot. The only civs arguably better are HC, MM and the Egyptians. Be wary about basing overall leader strength on HoF popularity. HoF records are for earliest win, so you're going to get leaders with early aggressive UUs. It doesn't necessarily say anything about consistency.
 
IND is significantly better than ORG. IND is generally considered the best trait or on the level with FIN / PHI. The people who rate ORG highly generally play giant marathon space race corp games, or haven't mastered lowering maintenance costs. If this was on S&T instead of Gen Dsn you'd see a lot more people agree with this, and underrating IND and overrating ORG seems one of the major stories of this tier list.

It's really interesting to see how organized have dropped in popularity the last few years. ORG used to be valued a lot higher and IND didn't get anywhere near the same as it does today.

IND is a very strange trait since its power heavily relies on exploiting failgold (which do make it a rather difficult trait to leverage).
 
Just remember that ORG is a warmonger/REXer trait and IND is a peacemonger trait. ORG synergises with both the UU AND the second trait, and IND synergises with the UB. Trait synergy is as important, if not more important, than the individual traits.
 
o.k., failgold is IMO a broken exploit (especially in the combo with wonder resources/IND), unfortunately apparently necessary to beat the highest levels. (I think one should get some consolation prize for missing a wonder, but it should be a *consolation* prize, like half (or some other percentage) the hammers in gold or half the hammers to use for some other building/wonder/unit)

I think the cheap forges are hard to underestimate, whereas cheap courthouses are nice and cheap lighthouses situational. And unless one has plenty of forests, IND can be quite important on levels from like Emperor and Immortal to get the wonders one really wants with a decent chance of success.

I never play huge/marathon, but I believe the strength of both traits hardly shows on lower levels, where maintenance is not such a big deal and one can beat the AI to almost any wonder anyway, if one really wants them. (I definitely had acquired a wonderwhoring tendeny before advancing to monarch.)
 
I'm not sure if this has already been mentioned, but the second tier chart lacks Gilgamesh.

I'd be ready to argue that Tokugawa is as useless as Charlemagne. They both have one great unique (Rathaus and Samurai) and one "useless" one (Shale plant and Landsknetch). The only thing that makes Tokugawa slightly better is his better starting technologies, but his traits give even less economical benefits than Charlemagnes. At least Charles can still expand quick without crashing his economy. Even better if he manages to oracle CoL.
 
@Windsor, it's not that surprising considering my own evolution of understanding the game (which I suspect is similar to many ppl's).
1. Build all the infrastructure, specializing on grocers, banks, and markets, I mean it says +gold ! And of course, build all the wonders!
2. Realize the difference between gold, beakers and commerce and that aforementioned buildings actually stink. Also notice that maintenance is actually what hurts the economy, and learn that courthouses are important! Realize most wonders aren't worth it.
3. Realize that most infrastructure, CHs included, are wasteful. AI limits expansion, and learn to build cities close together. Start to whip frequently keeping pop size small as well. Build wealth when not building units -- but wait, failgold even better!

At the same time I started off playing marathon games, played mostly peacefully, and settled for any victory I wanted, usually in the 20th century. Gradually I bumped the game speed up, became more of a war monger, and now focus on pangea and occasionally fractal maps.

TLDR: Beginner players like IND>ORG. Intermediate players like ORG>IND. Advanced players like IND>ORG.
This is still somewhat settings dependent though, and if you prefer giant maps and corp space races, that's fine too :cool:


@Sunisdark

ORG is nice to have when you conquer a couple of AIs early, sure. But if you conquer a couple of AIs early the game should already be decided. I would rather consider them both economy traits vs war traits, but of course you need both an economy and a military regardless, which is why I'm not sure that I would consider 2 war monger traits better than 1 war monger and 1 peacemonger trait. IND is nice for heavy war games first b.c of cheap forges. But also in a rough war game you're not going to want to make big infrastructure investments or 100 cottages. Failgold is a nice way to throw a few extra hammers directly at the economy.

I think everyone overrates synergy a great deal. Case and point: Lizzy. Has PHI and FIN. Great traits, but horrible anti-synergy there. I mean FIN tells you to build cottages and banks, PHI tells you to run specialists and build UNIs. And yet no one seems upset that Lizzy is ranked highly here, (and it's certainly not bc of uniques :rolleyes:)

@Learner I think Shale Plant is one of the better UBs, even though it's so late. Not saying Toku shouldn't be near the bottom. Worst part about being Toku is it means the AI can't be Toku! and there is no leader more dependably backward by gunpowder.
 
o.k., failgold is IMO a broken exploit (especially in the combo with wonder resources/IND), unfortunately apparently necessary to beat the highest levels.

Uh sorry, but seriously?
With Quechs, War chariots, Praets, Immortals, Elephants, GLH, bulb rushes, begging 1g for peace and AIs in general doing silly things..putting hammers into wonders that show in your possible build list = broken exploit?
 
Maybe "broken exploit" was to strong. I agree that begging one gold for peace is certainly worse. One can debate about the strong UUs.
(I also somewhat dislike that the best play is to bee-line certain techs, I think some techs should have more prerequisites, but bulbing is IMO sufficiently restricted and I like the great persons idea in general)

But my main problem with "building" wealth/science and fail gold on purpose is that it goes against one general principle I liked about civ from CIV I > 20 years ago through the series: You can't just manipulate some sliders, but you have to build certain buildings to get decent science/gold/production.
It is very odd when it is often much better to skip buildings and just "build gold". At the very least there should be more preconditions (i.e. a city should have to have at least one science building to "build" science") and/or penalties (like only half of the hammers turned into gold/science). I believe in CIV IV vanilla there was such a penalty. Similarly with wonders. It would be unfair not to get anything for a failed wonder, but there should be a penalty to make fail gold not a viable strategy for getting gold, but a little consolation for the missed wonder.

I also dislike whipping and chopping for similar reasons. Whipping is way to powerful and should have severe downsides or it shouldn't be possible to combine it with other powerful civics or other restrictions.

Chopping is not the way forestry works and makes the game even more map-dependent. At the very least there should be danger of erosion or whatever and the lumbermill should be more powerful so one would save some forests.
(One other core principle of Civ is that advanced techs should give you better improvements. Mills suck before replaceable parts and are really good only with state property, so why make them available with machinery?)
But I would prefer that forests would work like in Civ II when they could be chopped if one needed a farm there rather then production, but would not give a one time production bonus.

Anyway, that's just me. Of course I whip and chop as well. And it may be crazy to expect "realism" just for some features when all the others are hardly more realistic
 
Well.. with Elizabeth you want 1 or 2 specialists farms and 15-20 commerce cities... so nothing wrong with that anti-synergy :) Get early scientists, build academies in cottaged cities and fly in techs.. (propably best civ for isolated starts.. also because UU is excellent for late rushes)
 
Uh sorry, but seriously?
With Quechs, War chariots, Praets, Immortals, Elephants, GLH, bulb rushes, begging 1g for peace and AIs in general doing silly things..putting hammers into wonders that show in your possible build list = broken exploit?
It is qualitatively quite different. Swordsmen combat units. Building Praetorians is just really good way to combat units.

Bulbs give you technology. Farming GP is just a really good way to get technologies.

Stonehenge gives you culture and gives you monuments in your cities. Building Stonehenge is just a really good way to get :gold:.

One of these is not like the other.

Even ignoring the apparent intent of fail-gold, the effect simply feels really out-of-place.
 
As for the discussion about wonder fail gold I have an idea. While there is nothing that can be done about the current game, I believe future Civ games might change how failed wonders work. When an Ai civ or MP rival beats you to a wonder it doesn't just vanish" poof" it's gone, you get gold. Instead the partially completed wonder project remains in the city building it. The game calculates how far along the project was 1/4, 1/2, 3/4-then your Civ attains a failed building project wonder with bonuses based on how completed it was. Your Civ keeps it partially built wonders, whatever benefit the true wonder gave vanishes, while you get something in return. A boost to that cities gold or culture. Even though the wonder wasn't completed you get some recognition for working on it. By the end of a game your nation could be littered with the remains of failed wonders, each giving you civ some benefit.
 
Top Bottom