Civilization tier list

I still don't see how they are worse than Germany.

Germany on Marathon can create a huge army of barbs + free units on marathon are great, given the speed of building.

Otherwise, they're not as good. I also give the Panzer a better score than the LK, so that helps.

Note: the list was based upon best case (as defined in my list)

else, based upon worst case, there's a few worse than Russia.
 
What about Japan? Samurai are great, and the UA is also good for taking cities.

when you strip the UA away from Japan, the Samurai isn't that 'great'. Sure, it's a UU in the path that most normally go (unit wise) but it's no Berserker.

Ranged Attacks decimate japanese units and the UA barely helps against that. So it's 'ok' but that's it.

Japan is 100% focused for war, but lacks bonuses to everything else in the game that matters. Science is the core of the game due to all units, buildings, gold output, tile improvements, era bonuses, etc etc being tied to it.
 
This list is based upon the 'avg' scores, so it's a consistency score across situations list.

Top
Siam (+15.5)
Persia (+15)
Babylon (+15)
Arabia (+15)

Mid-High
Aztec (+14)
Songhai (+13)
Denmark (+13)
China (+13)
France (+13)

Mid
India (+12.5)
Japan (+12)
Russia (+12)
Rome (+12)
America (+12)
Mongolia (+11.5)
Inca (+11.5)

Mid-Low
Spain (+10.5)
Germany (+10.5)
Iroquois (+10.5)
Greece (+10)

Low
Ottomans (+9)
Polynesia (+8.5)

Can I get less situational bonuses?
Egypt (+7)
England (+7)
 
This list is based upon the 'avg' scores, so it's a consistency score across situations list.
...

that's funny. clearly your method for determining rank is lacking, given that babylon isn't top tier.
 
As I play only on Marathon, my view would be:

France +2 -> 10 (High-mid tier)

France (+9<->+7)
UA - +3 (not situational, good early-mid game, but has an end point)

I'd go +5 for E/M -> game is always over before Industrial Age



Babylon +1 -> 9.5 (High-mid tier)

Babylon (+11<->+6)
UA - +4 (useful all game, science bonus)

+5 here also, you get 6 science with Writing which is double of your 'current' research at the time (4pop+2lib)



Mongolia +3 -> 10.5 (Top tier)

Mongolia (+9<->+6)
UGP - +2 (great with the UU, keep up with the fast army)

+5 for Khan, he's so OP with March
 
that's funny. clearly your method for determining rank is lacking, given that babylon isn't top tier.

The only thing solid for Babylon is their UA. The UU is an 'ok' replacement, but nothing upgrades with it. (promotions)

The UB is fine as well, but I doubt it's overall usefulness given that I don't need walls all that often. ** this list is for SP, in MP the walls mean more.

It's plausible that I should count the UA as double, vs. the UU/UB/UT/UGP since those are mostly all game ones and the rest mostly have a limited shelf life. (aside from core UBs that are always made, even by puppets)

As I play only on Marathon, my view would be:

France +2 -> 10 (High-mid tier)



I'd go +5 for E/M -> game is always over before Industrial Age
That's a plausible boost, just for E/M, but it's likely only a +4 in that case. I'm reserving the +5's for the best.


Babylon +1 -> 9.5 (High-mid tier)

+5 here also, you get 6 science with Writing which is double of your 'current' research at the time (4pop+2lib)
It depends on usage, and as stated to vexing, I may need to give the UAs more weight vs. the rest.


Mongolia +3 -> 10.5 (Top tier)

+5 for Khan, he's so OP with March

The Khan is only as good as the units it's traveling with. It gets a bonus, but I'm not double counting the Keshiks being tied to them. I could be persuaded to boost it by 1 more. Merge the two numbers and you get the best combo for a UU. (Aside from Berserkers upgraded to Ski Infantry in their domains)

What drags the Mongols down is their UA. Unless you're really planning on killing all CSs in the game, it's useless.
 
I stopped playing Mongolia only because of Khan. Far too easy (boring).

On Marathon you never ever reach Keshiks, Swords and Longswords wreck havoc (about 3 melee and 2 Khan)...
(Deity ofc)

Also, you are right about Otto, free units on Marathon are just silly.
You don't need to build anything...
 
The only thing solid for Babylon is their UA. The UU is an 'ok' replacement, but nothing upgrades with it. (promotions)

The UB is fine as well, but I doubt it's overall usefulness given that I don't need walls all that often. ** this list is for SP, in MP the walls mean more.

the babylon ua is ridiculously powerful. rifles turn 80 in standard, yes please. babylon always has such a tech advantage they can win any vc with ease. the wall upgrade can be useful given the new early ai dows. lastly if you get a couple lucky scout ruin upgrades, bowmen are great for dealing with barbs or early declarations.
 
While I had an easy time with them, so I can't argue, but how did the removal of the specialists from Libraries affect them?
 
vanjito's post made me realize something: 100% of civs who have "Otto" in them somewhere make up 100% of the civs who can capture barbarians. Coincidence? I suppose it's possible... :p


I'm pretty much on board with most of MadDjinn's rankings. I'd probably put in a +6 bracket for UAs since there's so much disparity between the strength of UAs based, among other things, on map type/size and game speed/rules, and there are some that on their own merits really propel a civ into the higher echelons (Babylon probably being the most notable).

The thing that really interests me is France's ranking. Many people put it in top tier, it usually does very well in "favorite civ" polls, and some people actually put it in its own "god tier" (along with, occasionally, Siam). But I've never found it that impressive, and I'd rank it pretty much where you did - right in the middle, maybe highish middle. Why? First, the UUs are pretty meh. The Musketeer is pretty much a moot point since you'll almost never have time to make more than a few Muskets or their UUs unless you're building them to get a great UU promotion and then upgrade them - which in this case you're not. Foreign Legions are great, especially since the promo carries over, but anything that pops at that point in the game is almost always a "win more" unit. So good, but in practice not overwhelming.

The one thing France really has going for it is Ancien Régime. But I think it's actually an overrated ability. It's like Civ V's version of Civ IV's Financial trait (except Financial doesn't stop working partway through industrial). It's easy to use; you don't have to alter your gameplay at all - it's just always going to be there, and its very noticeable. But I'd hazard a guess that the payoff, while good, isn't far and away greater than a lot of the others. Better than most, sure, but I think it's likely the visibility (it's fun to see those tiles pop, and that policy button popping up early sure is nice), and not the actual strength, that people are basing their judgments on.

It's like why people notice - and often get enraged over - gas prices, even if there are other costs of living or commodities that cost them much more or whose price has climbed quicker. Those things have a bigger effect on your pocketbook, but the price of your insurance or electric bill (for example) isn't plastered on signs that you see twenty times every day. Because you are constantly confronted with the effect, your mind inflates it. That, combined with the fact that you don't have to do anything in particular to leverage France's strengths (or strength, more accurately), and therefore you can just play it like generic civ X but better, probably pushes it up into many people's top tiers (and god tier) while in effect it is, in my opinion, just good.

(I should also note that of course versatility, meaning you can leverage your advantages towards just about any playstyle, is good, since it gives you the freedom to choose the options that will work out the best given circumstances beyond your control. But that's not sufficient to pull a civ on its own. If it were, the Iroquois would be god tier too.)

Anyways, that's going too far in depth to the topic to be not off track from the broader "which is best" thread, so sorry. I just thought it was kind of neat to see my opinion mirrored for the first time.
 
I'm also happy to see some discussion of UA/UU/UB duration and particularly implementation time.

Any unique "thing" that you get early in the game has an implicit multiplier. A "mild" advantage right out of the gate, and then kept, is in reality a "huge" advantage overall.

Example: Greek Hoplites don't qualify, they're early but their effective duration is too short.

UB's like the Satrap's Court are nice, but buildings with "milder"-seeming advantages like paper maker and krepost are actually better, because you can build them so much earlier.

Time is deceptively influential, nice to see that's recognized. (And related time-scale implications.)
 
This list is based upon the 'avg' scores, so it's a consistency score across situations list.

Top
Siam (+15.5)
Persia (+15)
Babylon (+15)
Arabia (+15)

Mid-High
Aztec (+14)
Songhai (+13)
Denmark (+13)
China (+13)
France (+13)

Mid
India (+12.5)
Japan (+12)
Russia (+12)
Rome (+12)
America (+12)
Mongolia (+11.5)
Inca (+11.5)

Mid-Low
Spain (+10.5)
Germany (+10.5)
Iroquois (+10.5)
Greece (+10)

Low
Ottomans (+9)
Polynesia (+8.5)

Can I get less situational bonuses?
Egypt (+7)
England (+7)

I've adjusted the list (and the 'best case' list) based upon a new 10 point scale for the UAs.

did minor adjustments based upon comments for the UUs.

Keep in mind that this is averaged across situations. Some of the civs are ranked much higher if they are in specific settings, and some are basically a non-civ in the wrong settings.

For the new UA scale point system:

If it worked all game and you didn't have to use it to get it, it's +5.
If it was a double bonus, it got +2.
Science and gold related got a small bump.
Usefulness of the bonus gained a +1.

If you had to use it situationally, it had a 2nd number for when that situation rarely (or never depending on settings used) happened.

Ie, Greece and Siam both have CS bonuses. If you don't ally with CSs, you might as well not have a UA. So, to augment that, I assumed minimal usage vs. none. Though, since they're CS related, it's a bonus that could be taken away from you by removal of the CSs during the game. Siam's bonus is better than Greeces bonus, as you can always find something to do for a specific CS that takes less gold to perform. So getting ++ output is > than lasting longer as an ally. (eventually every civ can hang on to many CSs at the same time without worry)

Slightly different, but more appropriate, if the map you chose negates the bonus (highlands/pangea for English somewhat negates the thought of building ships/embarking to use the UA) it got 0, or minimal if there might be a small chance of something still being able to use it. (Denmarks bonus works in lakes as well, and those exist even on maps without massive water)

The two barb bonuses got differing results. The Ottomans got a + for only having to get close to the ship to convert it (vs. the Germans having to kill the unit in the camp) but lost points for the facts that a) barb ships are worse than normal versions and b) ship upgrade costs. (on standard, frigate->Destroyer is in the order of 600+ g) Not to mention: if not on a water map... At least the Germans can find barb camps anywhere.
 
all in all that's a pretty reasonable list.
it'd simplify things if we assume standard speed, continents.

a couple critiques:
you're clearly an egypt hater; their ub is better than satrap's court given the ease with which they're gotten (via legalism and still cheap to build otherwise).
also their ua helps with the national epics. nc a few turns earlier is nice... not game breaking but it helps. the list seems geared toward deity play which is maybe okay, but on easier levels hard building wonders works and makes the ua a little better.

personally i'd give zero a zero, but maybe others have games go to the point of air warfare. regardless i can never imagine zeros causing some extreme advantage, and they come so late that their usefulness is very limited; on the other hand i'd put samurai as a 4 (on speeds other than quick), they get to march or blitz at least twice as fast via the initial shock promotion. if you have barracks + armory, they start at shock 3 and only need 30 more exp instead of the 70 a regular ls needs.

i don't know about the unique unit rankings in general though:
it looks like you have

5
keshik
berserker

4
war elephant
janissary
camel archer
cho-ko-nu & companion cavalary on epic/marathon

3
a bunch


i'd bump samurai and jaguar up to 4, drop down camel archer.
i also dislike the 4 for cc on epic/marathon; they lose bonus strength/movement on upgrade, and most early unique unit can be leveraged on marathon for easy wars including immortals, hoplites, legion... hell, even chariot archers.
 
Maybe it's been patched out since I played, but I believe Golden Ages are only 20 turns in Marathon, while any way to get them is three times as expensive. This makes Persia considerably weaker on Marathon than other settings.
 
all in all that's a pretty reasonable list.
it'd simplify things if we assume standard speed, continents.

Yeah, but then we'd go back and look at the OPs list... which generated a lot of disagreement due to game speed, etc etc. Fortunately, (or not) different civs are better than others on different 'normal' game settings. Rome is so much stronger when in a marathon game. Polynesia rocks on archi/small continents games. So to have them listed as 'bad' in general, isn't really showing that they can be really really good.

a couple critiques:
you're clearly an egypt hater; their ub is better than satrap's court given the ease with which they're gotten (via legalism and still cheap to build otherwise).
also their ua helps with the national epics. nc a few turns earlier is nice... not game breaking but it helps. the list seems geared toward deity play which is maybe okay, but on easier levels hard building wonders works and makes the ua a little better.

It's not that I hate on egypt. Maybe I should bump them a little since national wonders do get boosted, and with not changing their start location bias, they seem to get marble a lot.

though, I disagree that the Egypt UB is better than the Satrap's court. A bank that gives +2 happy is better than a temple that gives happy. They might be a bit even there, but gold > culture; unless in a culture game.

Yeah, this is more about upper levels than lower. But on Settler, all civs are OP when compared to the AI. ;) Some civs do shine a bit more on the lower levels, such as Egypt with the wonder building; since they'll actually get a shot at that. Also, they'd be ok for that in MP games since you would be the one with the wonder building advantage. (as opposed to the built in AI advantage)

But another turn based upon diff. level would be a bit much IMO.

personally i'd give zero a zero, but maybe others have games go to the point of air warfare. regardless i can never imagine zeros causing some extreme advantage, and they come so late that their usefulness is very limited; on the other hand i'd put samurai as a 4 (on speeds other than quick), they get to march or blitz at least twice as fast via the initial shock promotion. if you have barracks + armory, they start at shock 3 and only need 30 more exp instead of the 70 a regular ls needs.

The zero isn't horrible. I somewhat needed to look at what the unit replaces, and in this case, it's 'ok'. Samurai... they're 'ok'. One promotion start = 15 XP and that's if you don't want it on rough terrain. (the bonus is still good there anyways, since you would negate the -10% on flatlands) They really shine with the UA, but I don't want to double count the UA with the UU.

i don't know about the unique unit rankings in general though:
it looks like you have

5
keshik
berserker

4
war elephant
janissary
camel archer
cho-ko-nu & companion cavalary on epic/marathon

3
a bunch


i'd bump samurai and jaguar up to 4, drop down camel archer.
i also dislike the 4 for cc on epic/marathon; they lose bonus strength/movement on upgrade, and most early unique unit can be leveraged on marathon for easy wars including immortals, hoplites, legion... hell, even chariot archers.

The UU rankings could use some tweaking. I mostly went with (very rough):

start at 3 (of 5; basically, 'ok' replacement of the base unit and has a promotion)
upgrades to opposite type (ranged <-> melee) -1
has no promotion that carries on upgrade -1 (or promotion is useless on upgrade - LBs)
utility by game speed (+/-) (includes how fast it can be obsoleted due to teching)
promotes to another bonus +1
utility regardless of game speed through another era (or 2) +2
must be built outside of ancient/classical era upgrade paths -1 (looking at Lancers and musketmen for this; air units don't count)
Synergy with some other civ specific trait (+/-)
Super Unit bonus +x (Janissary has one, some units have multiple good boni)
Utility of the promotion +/- (based upon upgrades and/or game changing effects)

I tried to only include modifier numbers for game speed if it really mattered on slowing the tech tree down. Ie, Ballista are great when you know that Physics is 60+ turns away; not so good when it's only 10-20 turns away.

effectively, a unit should be at 0 only if it's a) useless anyways, b) not really better than the base unit or c) unlikely to every be used due to being in the wrong place on the tech tree.
 
Samurai... they're 'ok'. One promotion start = 15 XP and that's if you don't want it on rough terrain.

you're looking at the wrong end. one promotion start = 40 exp if your final goal is march, one promotion start = 50 exp if your goal is march+blitz. it only takes 100 earned exp to get samurai to march+blitz, which is easily doable on even standard speed, vs 150 for a regular longsword. plus they have higher survivability due to the promotion.
 
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