Civ Discussion - Exploration Age Summary/Tier Lists

[bengalryan9]

Hey all, I thought before we move on to discussing civs from the modern age we should put a bow on our conversations by giving a general overview of how we view the exploration age civs as a whole.

First, here are links to every thread we've had so far:
Abbasid
Bulgaria
Chola
Dai Viet
Hawai'i
Inca
Majapahit
Ming
Mongolia
Normans
Shawnee
Songhai
Spain
***I will try to go back and add links here as new civs are released and we discuss them as well.***

To close out our discussions, how would you rank the civs of the exploration age? Share your own personal tier list and let us know your thoughts on the matter. Keep in mind, this only has to be your opinion... you don't need to try to come up with what you think community consensus is. Feel free to rank them by effectiveness, personal preference, how much you actually want to play them, or whatever criteria you feel like.

For those unfamiliar with tier lists, they usually go something like this:
S tier - the best of the best... some times people view S tier as broken/in need of a nerf, but that tends to vary
A tier - very good, strong choice
B tier - above average, but probably have some weaknesses as well
C tier - average, can compete but can also struggle from game to game
D tier - below average, struggle to compete
F tier - the opposite of S tier, typically broken in the opposite direction and they probably are in need of buffs
***Not every tier needs to have civs in it... you may only use 3-4 tiers depending on how you look at things.***

 

[bengalryan9]

For me personally I think it'd look something like this:

S - Abbasid, Bulgaria, Dai Viet (though I'm basing that off of just one game)
A - Majapahit, Songhai, Spain, Mongolia
B - Chola, Inca, Ming, Normans, Shawnee (I'm ignoring the bugged culture)
C - Hawai'i

I feel like this age is pretty well balanced for the most part and doesn't have quite as much variance as the antiquity age does... the difference between, say, my A and C tiers here isn't as big and I certainly don't think Hawai'i is bad (though it might be nice for that nerf to go away now...).

 

[UWHabs]

If I base things on "which civs have I been able to use to run away with the game the best", mixed in a little with how much I like playing them, I would probably go:
S - Abbasid, Bulgaria, Majapahit, Songhai, Chola
A - Inca
B - Spain, Ming, Norman, Shawnee, Hawai'i
C - Mongolia
Not rated - Dai Viet

Abbasid's get crazy science, Bulgaria gets crazy production, Majapahit get crazy culture, Songhai get crazy gold, Chola are just super fun to destroy everyone with boats
I haven't tried Inca since their changes. When I did play them, I did find the old terrace farms so annoying that I actually modded them in my game to give less yields, but be placed on a mountain not next to another terrace farm, which in the end is probably more similar to how they changed them. I thought with that, they were a solid civ, never mind adding in the treasure convoys too, they might be S tier.
The others, I've complained a bit about the Mongols, having just played them, I think they are really weak. I actually modded them to give them a few more buffs - I added +4 influence per turn to captured towns, since their kit really revolves around capturing, those influence penalties got really strong. I also tried to also give them a free treasure convoy when they captured a settlement, but I couldn't get the code to work. I think with those 2 changes, they would probably go up to around the Inca zone, and obviously have the benefit that they change how you approach the game. I do think they are also lower because their traditions just don't carry forward as well to the new age - since the captured settlement flag resets, to make sure of their traditions you have to conquer a lot again in the modern age.

The other 5 in the B tier, I don't necessarily think I got a full grasp on them. Either i played them a lot before, or sometimes I was already in a good spot coming into the age so I didn't necessarily get full use from them. In no way do I think they are bad, but I feel like if I'm in an iffy spot, I could choose one of those top 5 civs and pretty much know I can make it through. But I'm a lot less confident on the others.

 

[Siptah]

I also think exploration is ok from the perspective of civ balance. In a way, all civs are S because you can break the age with every one of them. If I have to differentiate, my list is similar to the one above, with no single civ being in the lowest tiers.

S – Abbasid, Bulgaria
A – Spain, Normans, Mongolia, Shawnee, Songhai, Majapahit
B – Chola, Inca, Dai Viet, Hawai'i
C – Ming

 

[Leucarum]

As mentioned exploration is just a strange age at the moment. You're guaranteed 3/4 legacy paths, and only economic is RNG. It makes rating civs very tough. I don't think a traditional S-F rating works yet. So I went with:

Civs that might convince me to play part of exploration:
Songhai, Inca, Hawai'i, Shawnee

Civs I might enjoy if the age was fixed:
Abassid, Spain, Chola

Civs I have no interest in regardless:
Bulgaria, Mongolia, Majapahit, Dai Viet, Ming, Normans

Though i was almost tempted to put Normans in their own category of pure boredom.

 

[pjotroos]

S Tier
Abbasid, Bulgaria, Shawnee
Abbasid science yields are significantly above the rest, and continue beyong significantly above the rest in Modern. Bulgaria is production and growth monster if you leverage their pillaging. Shawnee are strong militarily, and bring influence discount into modern. What puts them in the S tier is (sadly) a bug with their improvement which generates infinite culture - but even if it ever gets fixed, they'd still belong firmly in A tier.

A Tier
Chola, Dai Viet, Inca, Mongolia, Songhai
Just to echo what others said, you can have a good exploration game with most of the civs, so what defines A Tier is whether the civs come with a fun spin, and whether their fun spin is flexible enough to have a variety of different games with them. Inca and Songhai get here thanks to the economy gimmick - it lets you complete that path, without forcing you to do something you wouldn't want. Mongolia is strong on any land, letting you ignore the distant lands without demanding that you do. The others are just very strong at what they do - navy, culture.

B Tier
Ming, Majapahit, Normans, Spain
Those are all still solid, and thematically strong, but I feel there's only one correct way to play them. I do enjoy the great wall minigame the most, so I'd probably put Ming front of the pack, but they're all perfectly fine.

D Tier
Hawai'i
A very fun civ on release which has been nerfed into oblivion. Food on culture buildings is very bland, can't-feel-it bonus. The unique improvement is fine, but setup-heavy, and rewards expanding in-land, rather than out to the coast. Neither of their units does anything interesting. All that leaves you with is culture on water tiles - and at just 1 culture each it really doesn't pay back for committing to expand into the low production, low gold, build-limiting terrain, which does nothing to help their unique improvement. If I want culture from my terrain, even as Hawai'i I'd still prefer to settle tundra woods than the coast. And if I want to expand into coast, I'd rather go Majapahit and get a couple of coastal cities instead, or go Chola and grow the fleet. There's never a good reason to play Hawai'i.

 

[stealth_nsk]

S Tier
Songhai
The amount of gold they produce and their reliable treasure fleets make it easy to get a lead to me.

A Tier
Abbasid, Bulgaria, Hawai'i, Inca, Majapahit
I'm more peaceful player at the moment, so Bulgaria is A to me. Others have strong bonuses I really like using.

B Tier
Normans, Shawnee, Spain
All of them have nice bonuses, just not as good as the ones above.

C Tier
Chola, Dai Viet, Mongolia
I haven't felt their power yet to the maximum, but I think they're fine

D Tier
Ming
Not a fan of anything about them. Penalty to science is bad, Great Wall is weird, traders used for building roads instead of trading don't fit my playstyle much.

 

[Siptah]

traders used for building roads instead of trading don't fit my playstyle much.

I think the Mandarin is a contender for both strangest and weakest unique unit.

 

[A_Most_Foolish_Fool]

So, for this tier list I am looking at single player games on deity with no mementos. For additional context that is especially relevant to exploration, I am not a big believer in following legacy paths for the sake of following legacy paths and so the ability to complete legacy paths is only a plus on this tier list if it provides modern age bonuses that help to secure a modern age victory more quickly. Also, this tier list is roughly ordered (with the acknowledgment that even my meager few hundred hours of play time is a tiny and statistically insignificant sample size given how vast Civ VII is). Anyway, on to the tier list!

S Tier:

• Ming: The Ming are the rare well-balanced civ that feel genuinely helpful regardless of what victory path you pursue. The Xunleichong are spammable powerhouses. 50% Science in the Capital is a significant exploration boost that more than makes up for the malus. The traditions and Great Wall are genuinely helpful boosts for modern. This civ does not have the focused highs of other civs, but genuinely does everything solidly well to set you up for any victory path (that said just because the civ is flexible doesn’t mean that you are as free to be flexible when playing them and it is important to know what you are targeting as you enter the age).

• Bulgaria: Everyone else has already said what needs to be said here, but an incredible military civ that provides a lot of food and a lot of production.

• Abbasids: Again this civ is well known. Its biggest flaw is that it is fairly weak militarily. As more work is done on improving the AI, I think this civ may feel weaker and weaker due to how susceptible it is to pressure.

• Chola: Kalams and Ottrus allow you to take any coastal city without having to unreasonably invest in that conquest, which makes them such a surprisingly safe option given that you often don’t know what the best use for them will be when you select them. The rest of the civ is solid as well, but Kalams being absurdly powerful with Ottru are why they are as high as they are.

A Tier:

• Mongolia: +4 Settlement limit to go along with the most consistently powerful military option. There isn’t much here aside from bonuses for conquest, but you don’t really need much else.

• Dai Viet: Has felt quite strong in my first couple of games with them. A flat +3 Combat Strength (the vast majority of your wars in this age are going to be formal) is a really nice bonus. The Voi Chien themselves are also quite strong and you will also get a lot of Culture and a good amount of Gold and Food.

• Inca: If you have enough mountains in your territory, you will have a ton of food, gold, and production that can be broadly applicable.

B Tier:

• Songhai: Gold in of itself can’t help win you games without decent culture and science yields. Granted, it is a lot of Gold, but this civ has felt weaker relatively for me.
• Majapahit: Honestly am probably underrating them a bit as I haven’t picked this civ as much.

C Tier:

• Hawai’i: The act of picking Hawai’i is one that comes with inherent risk as there aren’t many scenarios where you look at your antiquity age territory and think that this is a perfect Hawai’i game. That makes Hawai’i a risk-reward pick based off of how the distant lands will play out and the nerfs mean that the rewards for taking that risk still feel a bit lacking. This is a civ that is also likely to get worse if/when the AI improves since Hawai’i doesn’t really have a way of defending against the Chola Kalams and Ottru, but is also particularly vulnerable to them due to geography.

Not ranked:

• Norman: Probably in A or B, but don’t have enough recent games with them to feel at all confident.

• Shawnee: Currently S tier, but am unsure where they fall when the bugs inevitably are fixed.

• Spain: I am leaning towards C tier above Hawai’i because they have a bit of the same risk-reward dynamic and I am not sure that the reward is sufficient for the risk you take in choosing them over other options. Haven't played enough of this civ to feel confident in placing it though.