Civs that are weak in multiplayer but strong in single player?

[Artifex1]

I have a few that I am thinking of but want to see what others think, one in particular I feel is very strong single and weak multiplayer.

 

[isau]

IMO, Arabia.

 

[redwings1340]

England or any naval civ, because you can abuse naval warfare in single player, while it is relatively unimportant in MP.

 

[Victoria]

England or any naval civ, because you can abuse naval warfare in single player, while it is relatively unimportant in MP.

Gasp! If one plays a pangea then one is clearly choosing not to look at ones naval.
One would love to play against you on an island map with you ignoring that relatively unimportant set of units.

One has a max upgraded for city bombardment battleship armada awaiting to shell your cities form 4 tiles away with carrier strike force in tow and a marine tank to walk your dust into the rubble strewn streets!

 

[redwings1340]

One would love to play against you on an island map with you ignoring that relatively unimportant set of units.

I've never actually played multiplayer in VI, I've just blindly listened to Filthy's guide videos, lol. You have a point. Personally, I like playing continents on SP, I find that gives a good balance between naval and land based civs.

 

[Artifex1]

I was thinking France was a good single player civ but a bad multiplayer civ. What do you think?

 

[ScorpionTDC]

I was thinking France was a good single player civ but a bad multiplayer civ. What do you think?

It's slightly better than made out to be, and can pull a cultural victory extraordinarily early..... but the lack of any real early game bonuses makes it pretty difficult. For King it's still viable (Currently the difficulty I play since I like having room to experiment and not play 100% optimally), if a little more difficult. I think on deity-difficulty it could be excruciating though.

As for the question, Peter's leader ability would be significantly better on deity difficulty than in MP since a lot of that is spent catching up. I think Spain would also be more useful on low-mid difficulties due to just how much tie AI prioritizes and spreads religion. On deity, getting a religion would be a nightmare, though. Then England/Norway are better on Island maps, or even continent, than Pangea, but from what I hear, most multiplayer users are pretty exclusively pangea (and even more exclusively domination). I hear it so much it kinda puts me off from trying multiplayer out all that much even.

 

[Takfloyd]

Norway is another good one. Getting to an undiscovered continent first can be a huge bonus.

It's not a distinction between single player and multiplayer though - the distinction is between classic long-form games on big maps with no turn timers, and "competitive" games at online speed on small pangaea maps, where more subtle strategies, navies and later eras don't come into play as much.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

Russia and Arabia, as mentioned above, are good suggestions. Deity AIs are going to trigger Last Prophet earlier and maybe make Grand Embassy worthwhile some of the time.

But I think the clear winner here is the Aztecs. Your Eagle Warriors can just feast on hapless AI units and harvest tons and tons of builders. Against human players, trying that super-early aggression with a slow and expensive melee unit is going to be way more difficult and probably way less profitable.

 

[Onii-chan]

Arabia isn't bad in MP; rushing Mamluks that don't require iron in 3 techs is ridiculous


Well the obvious examples would be the naval civs like Norway and England since people only play pangaea in MP pretty much. France as well with how their diplomacy bonus works which is more useful vs the AI than vs other human players. I would also argue the Aztecs because they're stronger on slower game speeds since you can make more use of Eagle Warriors before they become obsolete (as you have more time to move around the map), and people only play on quick or online speeds in MP where this is much less effective. Aaaand also any civ aimed at Religious Victory since that is currently impossible in MP since you can just kill apostles with military units if need be, so Spain, India and Russia will also be better in SP because of that. Speaking of Russia, Peter's Grand Embassy bonus is obviously more aimed at high difficulty SP games (especially Deity) rather than MP. Also Kongo will be slightly better in SP because the AI will actually spread their religion regardless of who you're playing as, whereas in MP they can just ignore Kongo altogether

Sooo in summary I'd say

Better in SP/worse in MP:
Aztecs
England
France
India
Kongo
Norway
Russia
Spain

More or less the same in either:
America
Arabia
Brazil
China
Egypt
Germany
Greece (either leader)
Japan
Rome
Scythia
Sumeria


Can't really think of anything that'd be stronger in MP than in SP though