Civilization Balance

[WCH]

With the permission of the mods and the interest of the community, I'd like to start a poll of sorts, following the format of a similar poll run on a D&D character optimization board not to long ago to determine which classes people think are overpowered.

Way it works is simple: for each civilization, assign a number between 1 and 10, 1 being "totally weak and useless," 10 being "game-breakingly powerful." You don't need to submit a score for every Civ, just those you're familiar enough with to give what you consider an accurate ranking.

Once we have enough scores in, I can compile the numbers and play a few statistical games on them to see what they say.

List of civilizations for your convenience:
Amurites
Balseraphs
Bannor
Calabim
Clan of Embers
Doviello
Elohim
Grigori
Hippus
Illians
Infernal
Khazad
Kuriotates
Lanun
Ljosalfar
Luchuirp
Malakim
Mercurians
Sheaim
Sidar
Svartalfar

Sound good? Just copy-paste that list (or part of that list if you're not going to do them all, as I expect most won't -- goddamn that'd take a lot of playing time to become familiar enough with them all) and add a score from 1 to 10 for each. Decimals are fine; I'll track them up to hundredths (.01).

Btw -- referring specifically to single player, and under your control. That is, how strong have you found them when using them in SP?

 

[BeefontheBone]

Are you talking SP or MP (both would be difficult), in the hands of the player(s) or the AI?

 

[Ekolite]

I'd say single player, because FFH is designed mainly for SP.

 

[WCH]

Well I was thinking SP in the hands of the player. Either/both would be nice, but I understand that there are enough differences in play for that not to be possible. I'll edit it in.

 

[Ringtailed]

Another consideration, though, is choice of leader: for example, if I assign a rating to the Ljosalfar, am I evaluating them on the basis of Arendel, Thessa, or Amelanchier?

 

[WCH]

Based on whichever your favourite is. That is, if you play as this civilization, taking into account all aspects of selection, your play style, etc... how much ass can you expect to kick, relative to if you played as any other civilization?

 

[Ringtailed]

It's really hard to give them a numerical rating since it's largely dependent upon game settings and map type and skill level of the player. I'll *try* - note that the civs are evaluated based on a standard or large pangaea map, normal speed, low sea level, no advanced start, tribal villages off, no tech brokering, AI no building req., and either immortal or deity difficulty (my "default" settings):

Amurites: 8
Balseraphs: 9
Bannor: not sure
Calabim: 10
Clan of Embers: not sure
Doviello: 3
Elohim: 5
Grigori: 6
Hippus: 8.5
Illians: not really in yet
Infernal: 8
Khazad: not sure
Kuriotates: 1
Lanun (note: I play mostly land maps)
- Hannah: 7
- Falamar: 5.5
Ljosalfar: 8.5
Luchuirp: 9
Malakim: 5
Mercurians: 4
Sheaim: 10 (with current state of Pyre Zombies... probably 8 if they are nerfed)
Sidar: 7
Svartalfar: 9.5

Mercurians lost a LOT of points because of the difficulty involved in getting them into the game. Fanaticism + build a 600 hammer world wonder? Ouch. Calabim (and maybe Bannor too because of Crusade and world spell and their Hero... not sure) would be in a position to end the game around Fanaticism...

I haven't played Bannor, Clan, or Khazad enough lately to assign them a rating.

Edit: it's supposed to be 9.5, I used a - instead of a : for some reason.

 

[WCH]

With Svartalfar, is that a *hyphen* 9.5, or a *negative* 9.5? Just to clarify.

 

[PotatoOverdose]

Amurites: 6.5 (I don't see what so great about Amurites before they can gain Govannon)
Balseraphs: 9 (For single player, Loki is amazing. Free Cities, free and early mutation, nearly invulnerable scouting)
Bannor: 5.5
Calabim: 7 (Vampires are nice, but late)
Clan of Embers: 8 (Warrens=100% production bonus for units=awesome, especially with RoK)
Doviello: 1.5
Elohim: 5
Grigori: 6.5
Hippus: 8
Illians: N/A
Infernal (Not Sure)
Khazad: 7
Kuriotates: (Noy sure)
Lanun: 9/6 (9 being with access to medium to large quantities of water, otherwise 6)
Ljosalfar: 8
Luchuirp: 10 (Honestly, once you get wood golems with fireballs you've essentially won the game. This is broken since it is available so early. Not to mention the fact that their world spell gives them an amazing start and they get dwarven druids and dwarven shadows)
Malakim: 3
Mercurians: (Not Sure)
Sheaim: 8.3 (Pyre Zombies, while nice, have limited utility and are nowhere near as powerful as other early units, i.e. golems with fireballs, loki, etc.)
Sidar: 7
Svartalfar: 9

 

[Rod]

Amurites 6
Balseraphs (no idea)
Bannor 6
Calabim 9 (played them once with new rules and never touched them again, with AV way to overpowered)
Clan of Embers 4
Doviello 5
Elohim 5
Grigori 9 (adventurers and magic .. it is just no challenge)
Hippus 5
Illians3
Infernal 3 (They good look, even powerful on paper, but in reality they never pose any threat, they are merely a placeholder and you just level up your hero high enough to defeat Hyborem and gain his weapon)
Khazad 3 (in the hands of a player they are nice, but as AI they pose no threat)
Kuriotates 5
Lanun (no idea)
Ljosalfar 6 (sure they are powerful, but I believe still balanced, but I might be biased)
Luchuirp (No idea)
Malakim (no idea)
Mercurians 1 (they need aeons to enter the game and then they do ... nothing .. )
Sheaim 9 (the only challenge with Sheaim is economy as your Pyre Zombies can easily conquer the whole world but you cant feed the whole world .. )
Sidar (no idea)
Svartalfar 7.5 (hero is overpowered and there are no inbuilt weaknesses, it is like playing drow in NWN2 without XP-Mali)

 

[Zechnophobe]

Amurites - 5
Balseraphs - 7
Bannor - 5
Calabim - 7
Clan of Embers - 10
Doviello - 4
Elohim - 2
Grigori - 7
Hippus - 10
Illians - 3
Infernal - 2
Khazad - 3
Kuriotates - 2
Lanun - 8
Ljosalfar - 8
Luchuirp - 10
Malakim - 7
Mercurians - 4
Sheaim - 6
Sidar - 6
Svartalfar - 8

Top 3 Leaders:

Tasunke: Hands down the strongest leader. Amazingly consistent.

Sheelba: With wolf riders in their current form, she can just about rival Tasunke. Only loses because Tasunke doesn't get the science hit, so gets to Education earlier.

Beeri Bawl: The Prod-rush the Chirp use gets a lot of mileage out of his traits, and he can change civics very often early on to maximize his growth. (+1 turn after agriculture, +1 after Education, +1 after FoL, +1 after Hidden Paths...+ more if you got mysticism before Education, or whatever).

Favorite Factional Hero: Barnaxus. He's just cool. Pretty early, and can rather easily empower his entire army. Combine with the fact he can't be killed permanently, and you get a darn good all around hero. Calabim hero is a close second though .

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Based on SP, with a human using them

Amurites: 2. Nothing really going for them with the archmage nerfs, since Govanon's neutered. Poor traits, awful set of uniques... just bad.
Balseraphs: 7. Loki rocks, the best freaks become great swordsmen, the arena is basically a free happiness point that produces some good troops. You have to choose between either a mehish trait combo (Keelyn is basically a one trait leader, even if her trait is a good one) or a randomly changing one, though.
Bannor: 7. With nothing to do for economy early but build cottages, all civs should end up with quite a few towns, and the Bannor can do really deadly stuff with them. Cool unique civic, okay traits.
Calabim: 8. Above average in every way, with a weird way to raise crack troops, but not really outstanding in any way except their 100+ experience units.
Clan of Embers: 3. Bad at paying for their conquests. You won't always even have wolves for your goblins to turn into riders, and if you don't get them their military might isn't too great.
Doviello: 5. Similar to the above, except with a better world spell and some help with economy due to raiders. Mahala earns most of these points, Charadon is ass.
Elohim: 9 (unless you don't bother with map regeneration, deduct a couple points in that case). Get a map with the sun mirror or the remnants of patria within reasonable distance of your first settler, move to whichever of these landmarks you get, win. Monks rule, a fast medic unit that can actually fight out of a wet paper bag and they come with an important tech. Defender kind of sucks but creative is almost worth two average traits, balancing that out. Ethne was 10/10 when Corlindale was still badass. (Einion was never much but I'm mainly rating civs based on their best leader, bite me.)
Grigori: 2. No religions, almost no normal great people. These drawbacks are too harsh for any sort of bonus to make up for. Would rate them higher if magic was still great, but even then they weren't that good. Ind/Phi would rock in vanilla civ but not in FFH, there aren't enough worthwhile wonders in this mod for Ind to be anything but bottom tier.
Hippus: 9. With no Hippus to compete with you you're pretty much guaranteed to win the currency race even on the highest levels, and... yeah, you know the results. Great traits for both leaders.
Illians: Aren't even playable
Infernal: 3. Strong, but too late.
Khazad: 10. Kandros earns this rating. Best early rush, beating out even Tasunke. (Both are aggressive, Hills are more common than enemy roads early, Kandros has extra happiness and starts a step closer to mining/BW.) Much better economy due to financial, he can actually pay for an early conquered civ or two. Vault bonuses make him strong in the mid/late game. Was lower when the lack of mages/archmages actually mattered a lot, but now he doesn't care about that drawback very much. Arcturus if comparatively weak though.
Kuriotates: 2. They're, uh, really good for rushing Infernal Pact/Mercurian gate with a small, focused empire. Pity the rewards for those aren't better ad the Kuriotates suck at pretty much everything else. Lame traits, lame uniques.
Lanun: 7. Traits earn a lot of this, Hannah and Falamar both have excellent pairs. Pirate coves are also pretty good, especially if you start with the food to crank out lots of spare workers. Lacks a decent hero or normal UU/UB.
Ljosalfar: 7. The forest building ability is pretty overrated because you have to adopt weak-ass FoL to make the most of it. A strong early hero and a creative/spiritual leader get them this high anyway, despite the workspeed penalty.
Luchuirp: 9. Worldspell alone is worth 2 points, that thing is so badass. Golems are good because if you're using Barnaxus right, they come right out of the gate able to overpower their equaivalent units, no training needed.
Malakim: 6: Best trait combo, high-ranking world spell, but everything else kinda sucks.
Mercurians: 1: Infernals on tranquilizers. That's baaaaaad.
Sheaim: 7: A praetorian-level early UU will get you this high, even with everything else besides the spiritual trait being below average.
Sidar: 5. Waning's kinda useless, you want to USE those level 6 units. Bad traits, and slow start due to lack of early specialist slots in FFH. They get really impressive mid-lategame economies though.
Svartalfar: 6. Raider trait, Alazkan.

 

[leo.]

ok, why not Hard to give Illians a vote, since they're not finished yet, same with Mercurians and Infernals, because their power is unpredictable. Put in a 5 if you want. And of course, all depends on map, religion etc.

Amurites 10
Balseraphs 8
Bannor 7
Calabim 7
Clan of Embers 2
Doviello 3
Elohim 6
Grigori 3
Hippus 5
Illians
Infernal
Khazad 2
Kuriotates 6
Lanun 6
Ljosalfar 8
Luchuirp 9
Malakim 5
Mercurians
Sheaim 5
Sidar 4
Svartalfar 9

 

[Basil II]

Elohim: 9 (unless you're a fag who doesn't bother with map regeneration).


What the hell is that supposed to mean? Anyone who doesn't play the same way you do is a fag?

 

[ophite]

Also, WTF are you doing using 'fag' as an insult?

-- ACS

 

[Ringtailed]

word choice aside, I'd personally consider regenerating the map to achieve a particular result to be cheating (exceptions for unreasonably bad starts like the infamous trees-and-no-resources). Might as well just save time and open up WB and give yourself the desired resources/features.

edit: to regenerate a map: as soon as you enter the game, open up menu (press ESC), select "Regenerate Map." Has to be done on the initial turn IIRC.

edit2: I just started a game of FFH and found that I can't regenerate the map, so I guess I am wrong. That *used* to be how you did it though.

 

[Wyrmhero]

How do you even regenerate a map?

 

[[NWO]_Valis]

But remember that you lose your initial super-settlers with additional mobility and sight then. It also does not randomise your civilisation that you play if you want to play random but not that one that was chose for you this time.

 

[PotatoOverdose]

Elohim: 9 (unless you're a fag who doesn't bother with map regeneration). Get a map with the sun mirror or the remnants of patria within reasonable distance of your first settler, move to whichever of these landmarks you get, win.

Yea seriously, what the hell? Regenerating a map is considered by most players to be a form of cheating in the entire Civ game franchise and all of its constituent mods and mod mods. Any respectable player will tell you this in the standard BTS threads or any other threads. And there really is no difference between regenerating and using worldbuilder to give yourself an awesome start. In one case you click 'regenerate' until you get the exact start you want, in the other you click 'enter worldbuilder' to get the start you want. I mean, using those tactics, you can give yourself an awesome advantage with any civ. Ordinarily I wouldn't insult someone for doing or saying something I disagree with, but you sir epitomize the term 'ass hole' for referring to the majority of the community at large as 'fags' for not prescribing to a strategy that is putatively regarded as cheating by most. Furthermore, the term 'fag' is derogative term applied to people that prescribe to a certain lifestyle. Incidentally, the vast majority of said individuals that I have met have more civility then you do. In short: you disgust me.

BTW if the moderators feel they need to remove this response to a clearly derogatory post, I fully understand and hope that they remove the original post that acted as flame bait for a number of community members including myself.

 

[Slvynn]

Most powerfull in MP (normal, playable MP settings, PvE or PVP):

Svalt
Lanun (Most powerfull combo with FoL coastal Guardian of Nature coves SE, with druids-healers and arches, alot of food , alot of mood, alot of money and beakers, OO works well too , but for smaller maps)
Hippus
Bannor (who give em low rating undestimating themm you should try to .... tons of demagogs, bless, morale, CR3 palladins)
Calabim (no comments)
Balseraphs (Perp FoL druid army rule with Yvain and Blitzing Kithra)
Luch (very strong race)

Above Average to Average:
Kurio (depends on settings alot)
Sheaim
Amurites
Elves
Sidar


Mediocre to Bad
Khazad (no mages and no hi limit happiness extensions absense = suck , also favor religion disiples are worst diciples in game)
Grigori (Arches are weak, even if they are heroes, no religion = bad)
Malakim (Empy with extra sun node, thats it)
Elohim (I_have_my_sanctuaryy)
Doviello (Quechua rush, no buildings, no science, ******)


We find most valid and balanced MP PvP settings are No Settlers, 3 cities ancient advanced start , max cicites = 5 in game. Ragin Barbs, abd all stuff needed for PvP MP - no tech trading, no vassal, no events etc...