Civs from easiest to hardest

[sappling]

This article sucks. Totally wrong in some places and is all the writers opinion. I think the Indians are great and elephants are upgradeable to calvary. I also think the babylonians are easy to play.

 

[God]

He said it was his opinion. He didn't you have to play like that . India does suck IMO also. If you don't have iron by Chivalry you really shouldn't be playing at the level you're playing. There's usually enough iron lying around. Religious is nice trait but not needed. Commercial trait sucks.

After playing alot more civs, I think Americans are one of the best.

IMO the best few are: Egypt, Japan, America, and China. 3 of them industrious, 2 miltaristic, 2 religious. You get what type of games I like to play.

 

[Panzer Elite]

I don't agree with the Germans being one of the hardest. I do like tanks and everything and that is where I win so I like the panzer and it's 2 attacking movement my Blitzkrieg tactics take out the enmey fast.

 

[Barenziahlover]

Originally posted by Zouave
I thought so many of the unit values in Civ III to be dumb, non-historical, and lacking playabilty. Therefore, I made so many changes your comments are irrelevant to me.

Basically I did the following:

Tanks - no blitz.

Naval Units - only Battleships and Aegis have bombardment capability.

All naval units are 2-4 points stronger and faster.

Longbowmen are now civ specific - English. Which is historically accurate, as is their being 4.3.

Archers can be upgraded to pikemen.

Bombers have attack and defense values, and can move, otherwise they could never sink warships - which is STUPID.

War elelphants are now 4.1. Also accurate, historically.

Airlift function? Horse units, armor, and elephants should NEVER be airlifted. Leaders and cannon and artillery should.

Those are just some of the changes I made.

I also made longbowmen civ-specific for the Americans as the F-15 comes too late to make any difference.

I will agree with you about the Iroquois. I also like their colors.

BTW, check in Editor and make sure horsemen and Mounted Warriors have a ZOC. You can also make Cossacks upgradeable if you want.

I read than a historal roleplaying game that the ancient egyptian have than long bow like weapon which act like a long bow.

 

[Barenziahlover]

Early on I use the Editor tp created than super babylon culute with all six traits, stragic resoure at the highter level ans set to never to run out.

I add than few other thing to my Benazir Bhutto scen. which I donot rememony right now but will post latter.

 

[Barenziahlover]

I now rember I gave my Bablon all the ung militaly units also and delete it from the other civ.

 

[Sullla]

Has this thread been revived?

Arathorn's original comments make little sense now, since they were addressed for the 1.16f patch and not the 1.21f version. All upgrade paths are now available for UUs, which makes civs like China much more viable. I know that Arathorn also realizes that expansionist is a powerful trait in the right circumstances, not useless at all. A lot has changed since January in Civ3, to put it bluntly. These comments were also addressed for games on Deity, where you can ignore UUs that come after the middle ages, since the game will very likely be decided by that point.

If you are curious as to my thoughts, I will simply say that IMO Industrious is the most powerful civ trait, followed by Religious, Militaristic, Commercial, and Scientific in that order. Expansionist is of variable strength depending on the map: great on larger/pangea maps, poor on smaller/archipelago maps. Stick with the civs that have the better traits and you will enjoy more success.

 

[Marx]

Owk, I played only some Civlization III games. (Not enough time to play the game a lot (as I did with Civilization I and II)

And Normally I use:

Indians (In 50% of my games)
Romans (20%)
Greeks (20%)
And other (10%)

I saw expansionists as Useless Civs. Maybe I am wrong.

 

[Raven1er]

Originally posted by Marx
Owk, I played only some Civlization III games. (Not enough time to play the game a lot (as I did with Civilization I and II)

And Normally I use:

Indians (In 50% of my games)
Romans (20%)
Greeks (20%)
And other (10%)

I saw expansionists as Useless Civs. Maybe I am wrong.

Civs i normally use:
Aztecs-50%
Persia-20%
Babylon-25%
Iroqouis-5%

The reason i like the aztecs are because they are the best civ when going in early war. but the jag warrior isnt really reliable, it just gives an extra movement point-(which is useful to me) and looks nicer but heh, Aztecs + Militaristic +Religious !!!!!!! currently im in a peace-war game with a demo. government. I have over 40+ cities plus all the wonders + extreme culture and histograph plus i annihalated all the civs, plus i got all techs,luxeries and resources, all in a HUGE NETWORK and its only like what.....1500 ad?

Mid wars with the aztecs are good if you combine with Communism. If you want peaceful+wars, honestly, go with Democracy. But if your gunna have a war in Democracy, be sure powerful or have built Universal Suffrage wonder because the disorder is a hassle.

Persia&Babylon- Mostly because of their scientific traits. It really gives them the edge. Plus the UU for Babylon. thats pretty good. @Babylon- science plus peace&culture-

Iroqouis- I DESPISE HIAWATHA!! their UU unit is not worth waiting some time, and their expanionist trait is a major loss. at least add commercial!! but the religious trait is half good- Anarchy...either ways i only used the Iroqouis 1 time and im never using it again until they mod it....or i mod it

 

[Arathorn]

I should point out that Sullla is very right -- this list was compiled pre-1.17 and is tragically out-of-date. I was working on getting enough of a feel in 1.21 to build up a new list, but now that work is all out the window, because of the new benefit given to commercial civs.

Regardless, the civs are a lot closer in "playability" than they used to be. America is still the roughest to play with on deity, however.

Arathorn

 

[sunround]

I disagree about russian cossack.
I played for Russia many times and more than any other civ and found cossacks nice and powerfull for attack, even without patch allowing upgrade knights. Especially, if rivals have cavalry.

Before patch has arrived, I used both - knights and cossacks.
I build some cossacks from ground and move them to first attack line. Knigths are on the second line.
move cossacks to attack cities. They more easy wining against mushketmen and pikemen and also protects. After knights finishing works dealing with spearmen and may be sometimes with pikemen.

Later I used such strategy if I don't have enough gold for upgrade all of knights, I upgrade some of knights for improving attack power.

Only one disadvantage - need to wait for military tradition before getting in the serious conflicts, because on the stage of knights a little hard be enemy against japan samurays or chinese riders.
But appearing of cossacks opens roads to easy wars and world control, and I use this chance before motorized transportation will come.

 

[troytheface]

through much play on monarch and emperor, large map, with the latest patch, i say easiest civs in order are
Babylon
Greece
Egypt
Best UU's are
Samarii
Bowman
Immortal
Based on color...
Red Civs
Green Civs
Purple Civs

 

[patmcq]

Honestly, any civ can be the "easiest" civ if you alter your playing style to leverage the benefits that civ has. Granted, some of the UU's are definetly better than others, but each civ is geared towards certain styles of play. For example, the way I have the most success with the Babylonians is to literally build as many cities as I can fit in my territory and pop-rush culture improvements under despotism. I don't have to care about corruption since the only thing I'm really using is food, and it takes less citizens to build those temples and libraries. Since none of my cities get large at all and I stay in despotism until I'm done pop-rushing temples, libraries, cathedrals and universities in all of my cities, unhappiness isn't much of an issue. With 100+ cities producing decent culture, victory is virtually guaranteed. This strategy would be worthless, however, with the French, who are geared towards a more spread-out empire of metropolises under democracy producing my spaceship at light speed. And neither of these strategies would work with the Iroquois, who are more geared towards early and frequent conquest. Each civ is designed to be played a certain way, and with the right strategy, can easily dominate the game.

 

[schadenfreude]

All I know is that I have not won with the Russians, the Zulu or the Germans at any leval. I am playing on deity now. I think I could set up a scenario in which I could win with any of these guys, but I am trying for "natural" wins, everything random except my selection of civ. I am still appearently lacking in skill (and possibly patience).

 

[Greyhawk1]

I got my highest ever score playing the Celts . I'm working on playing all the civs and so far I've done the French, English, Celts, Persians and the Ottomans (my current game).

Cant say any have been harder than any other mainly due to the random/random/random/raging/large map setting that I use. You can start absolutely anywhere and its this that makes a game hard/easy I've found as I refuse to restart

Persians start with 99% Jungle island was easily my hardest game. I was still clearing Jungle right up to the late Industrial

 

[Arrian]

To me "easy" civs are civs whose traits complement each other well and/or have powerful UUs. Obviously, civs that have traits I think are "stronger" than others get an advantage too, but that is heavily dependent on playstyle, map type, and level of play.

Based on that, here are the civs I think are "easiest" to play (in SP), in no particular order:

Babylon
Egypt
Japan (and to a slightly lesser extent, the Celts & Aztecs, but I feel their UUs present added challenges)
China
Persia (Ottomans too, but you have to survive longer to get that powerful UU. Oh, my, is it powerful, though!)
Iroquois

runners up for the list: France, Carthage, America.

Having said that, my favorite civs are:

Egypt
Japan
China

and lately... Rome

-Arrian

 

[pheezer]

I've always been a huge fan of the Germans. They're great for Huge map games. The scientific bonus helps you be one of the first to get to the tanks, and the Panzer will really turn the tables late game. Especially on a huge map, pick a war with a tiny country (always at least one...) and mobilize the economy, have every single city pump out panzers for a couple rounds, end your war, back to regularly scheduled programming, but now you've got one of the most powerful armies around by default, and it's time to take the number one spot.

 

[alamo]

The ranking of cives should go along the lines of better trait/uu combinations, played to their strengths.

The expansionist trait is generally a looser - if you don't get at least 5 techs from GHs then probably not as valuable as any other trait.

These useless UU's are a major loosers - ManOWar, F-15.

These non-specialist UU's are loosers - musketeer, numidean.

These barely noticable UU's are next - Panzer gets +1 move in modern age (when everyone has RR), Cossak gets +1 defense (as if 4 that much better than 3 against Cav).

I'm trying to play russians now and the pitifully slow workers are a real pain. I'm waiting to see if Cossaks can save the day - no real war yet, building a bunch of knights to upgrade. Pangea map - so plenty of room to run. We will see how far they go.

 

[pheezer]

Originally posted by alamo
Panzer gets +1 move in modern age (when everyone has RR)

See, the thing is, enemy RR's don't help you. You can pull up to their border cities and usually be able to strike on any given turn, so long as they're only at city radius of 2 (or 3 if the terrain is just right), and most of the time, border towns are. That's really useful.

And as a side comment, Industrious is really, really, really nice. I forgot to mention that earlier. I loooooove Industrious, I almost forgot how much I missed it after a couple of non-Industrious tries.

 

[Civilized_JL]

I believe the timing of the golden age has been discounted in this discussion.

I like large maps, where my Russian Cossacks often face enemy Cavalry in the field, far ahead of supporting defensive forces. The (admittedly small) defensive advantage means my forces can live to fight another day in many cases. Especially if one sticks to the mountains or hills as one should....

I also like conquest. Dimplomacy, cultural and space ship wins are just boring to me. (I play Monarch level usually, but Emperor is pretty much the same, in my view.)

But most important... The golden age can be delayed until it is most useful. A good city base, with a good government (republic or democracy) seems better than Despotism for the accrued benefits of the golden age.

Win with a Cossack just before your core cities are going to start factories. Golden age.... all core cities get factories in short order. You can get Suffrage, then ToE, then Hoover (or whatever industrial age wonders you might prefer - these seem key to me for my conquest style). Your advantage in tech is assured from here on in. You get tanks first... no cavalry against infantry...

Defensive UUs seem much less useful to me. Just finished the 4-4 tourney game (Greeks/Cultural win) where the *&^% Persians triggered my golden age in 3200 BC - useless.

My opinion only... I welcome the views of others....