Easiest / Hardest Civs to play

[Jabie]

Simple question. Which civs would you regard as good ones for beginners and which ones would you avoid beginners to steer clear of.

I'd go for Hippus, Dovellio and Grigori as beginner Civs.

For trickiest to get the hang of:

Khazad - Economy is crucial.
Kuriotates - Three Cities Only!
Sidar - When to wane?

 

[Sporkbomb]

Noobs should steer clear of Sheaim and other Arcane based civs until they get a hang of the magic system. Bannor is pretty straightforward to start with and the Lanun are great if you prefer water based maps. My first game was with the Elohim and I did pretty well until the AC got really high and I wasn't prepared for the Horsemen and other nasties that came my way, but that was my fault, not the civ's fault.

 

[Blackmantle]

Ljosalfar, Grigori, Bannor, Elhoim, Hippus and to a lesser degree the Clan are good for starters i think for various reasons and playstyles.

(I for one whouldn't advise new players i show the game to try the Doviello early.
Despite their "simpleness" they are rather geared towards / play good at a playstyle not often leveraged well by players new to a game (timed effective military charges right at the start with the right balance found between having enough troops to finish off the nearest rival and attacking early enough to not face to too much a defense.). And getting ones butt handed is not exatly a nice expierience for starters. Whereas a very short game on a duel-size map where you beat the tar out of the opposition won't really grant much insight.
Also there is no huge development you can look forward to while exploring the game.

Rather i would pull out that civ if i see that said player has grasped the basic and calls for some bloody conflict. Soon quite graphic thanks to the newest advance in combat animations. )

The Illians, Sheaim, Luichirp, Infernal and Mercurians i think are really complicated and shouldn't be touched imo until at least the basics of the Mod have been grasped.
The Balseraph might still fall into that category, but should do fine even if you don't use all the mechanics. Still not easy since you are bound to hit something strange along nearly any line you tech down but that can also be helpful to someone who already grasped the basics and is hungry for strange new and unusual things to dig into + if you mastered them you are ready for the hard civs.

The rest i think are more in the middle and better explored if the very basics have been covered / learned.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

When a newbie asks for help choosing a civ the first step is to grill him about his preferred playstyle in strategy games. Seriously, no good advice can be given without that information. There IS no blanket "most newbie friendly civ" because all players are different, even at the noob level.

 

[CCA]

Khazaads are probably the best to play as a beginner. Once you get a hang of the economy, the rest should be reasonably easy..

 

[cabbagemeister]

I dunno, even as an experienced player I had a difficult time the first time I tried Khazad. I still don't know how you play them if you don't go get RoK ASAP, which is a strategy that may be beyond a new player.

 

[lordrune]

I always play a builder style - so the Doviello aren't a great choice for players like me.

Generally the civs I'd recommend are the ones which don't have specific limitations to offset their advantages. So Hippus are good. Bannor too and (I think) Lanun.

 

[Bitwise]

The Elohim, Lanun, Bannor and Malakim (except on Erebus) are probably the ones who are least reliant on special mechanics. I'd say the Ljolsalfar are a good choice for people who like builder civs since they have an easy to understand mechanic that is pretty cool.

 

[Earthling]

I think most of the above are pretty good - elohim, elves (ljosalfar), bannor is decent, lanun good on water maps. I'd say the Kuriotates aren't so bad either (I played my first game as them). Basically, if you just read the civ description, you figure out to spread out your cities, and then they are completely vanilla - also getting the adaptive trait is nice. For warmongering hipppus is a good start I'd think, clan is good if you want to be evil.

The most important thing, by far, though, is deciding how you are actually going to win! The tech tree is monstrous to new players, and the victory conditions may seem impossible (500 turns into the game you can't just switch and get the altar, for instance). My experience in my first game was getting through the whole tech tree, finding nothing to do, and then defaulting to culture.

So my recommendation is for a new player to choose a good civ, not dependent on magic, and go for a peaceful vic (you won't escape war anyway , against barbs at the least). If you play smaller maps you could choose a civ for an easy conquest/dom vic too, but then you won't get as much feel of the game at first I'd think. But I'd recommend staying away from esus, OO, and definitely AV with Hyborem and hell terrain - too many confusing aspects for a new player, while the good religions are relatively simpler.

 

[hegemonkhan]

jsut like to point out there's two different questions to this (the thread's topic. the original poster didn't clarify which he ment or if he ment both):

1. for new players

2. for playing (non-new players)

they use different metrics.

a new player's "easy" civ is one that BOTH is strong in terms of playing (able to dominate the game and other civs easy) but also a conventional civ (aka no "weird" ffh2 features of the civ that would/could confuse a new player, for example the vault mechanic for the khazad. while the khazad is a very very strong civ, it's vault mechanic could be very confusing for a new player)

for a non-new player it is simply in terms of game and playing. which civs are easier to dominate the game and other civs with.
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P.S.

also, if u don't mind reading poorly written and crammed together chunks of info, than take a look at this thread, i'm slowly working on:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=308987

(plugging or self-advertising your own thread-guide-work is good )

 

[mathkim]

Khazaads are probably the best to play as a beginner. Once you get a hang of the economy, the rest should be reasonably easy..

What's the benefit they have with wealthy economy? Just want to know..

 

[hegemonkhan]

their vault mechanic

they get more bonuses to ALL their cities with more gold in supply and penalties with less gold in supply.

(400 gold per city nets u the max vault bonus, at least this used to be right. not sure about now)

so if u have 1 city (capitol) u only need 400 gold stored up for the max bonus. if u have 3 cities, u'd need to have 1,200 gold stored up for max bonuses.

i'm not exactly sure what the bonuses and penalties are (it's been awhile since i played the khazad and i certainly, with my bad memory, wouldn't be able to remember it all even if i had), but they can get like +happines, +% production bonus, etc....for ALL their cities...

too little gold in storage and u can get penalties like -unhappiness, etc... to ALL of your cities

 

[Go Boks]

500 gold per city is the max bonus IIRC. Couple that with Drawven smithies and access to all three metals, and you've got hammers coming out of your ears.

 

[lordrune]

IIRC one of the Khazad leaders has financial as well.
Bit munchkiny if you can build them up.

Ljosalfar are in a similar category - get ancient forests everywhere over your choice of improvement, and you have a huge economic powerhouse. They have limitations though - no siege capacity (other than fireballs/3 stooges/etc) - and the workers are slow.

 

[Sephi]

easy: Flauros. On maps with a lot of water Hannah.
difficult: luichirp, sheaim

 

[PotatoOverdose]

easy: Grigori, played my first ffh game as 'em. You get powerful units early that stay (relatively) powerful throughout the game, and you don't have to do anything to get them. Still one of my favorite civs (though not in my top 3). They're also more newbie friendly in that you can disregard an entire tech path (religions) making them slightly less complicated than other civs.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Grigori aren't bad, but they don't teach the player about religions (Which might be a benefit to the experience actually).

I'd pick a civ like the Hippus. The hippus get all of their advantages without any real knowledge of complex game concepts. They can adopt and succeed with most religions, and have two leaders that allow obvious game play (Tasunke is the warmonger, Rhoanna the builder).


Hardest would probably be the Kuriotates. While they are strong, they require a lot of different thinking, and grasp of a good many game concepts. Since they are forced to play builder style (For the most part) they don't allow a wide vareity of noobs to play them. And also they have some very severe drawbacks that a new player will not know how to use. Maybe if said noob were a real veteren of One City Challenges, but even then...

 

[hegemonkhan]

500 gold per city is the max bonus IIRC. Couple that with Drawven smithies and access to all three metals, and you've got hammers coming out of your ears.

u could very well be right, the 400 gold came from long long ago versions of FFH2, and much has changed since then.
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my personal recommendation for a civ for a new player: elohim

as to powerful play-wise civs/leaders, there's a few well-known and popular ones. i'm too lazy to try to name them and everyone else can do that for me anyways.

 

[Jabie]

jsut like to point out there's two different questions to this (the thread's topic. the original poster didn't clarify which he ment or if he ment both):

1. for new players

2. for playing (non-new players)

For new players. I've no idea whether or not it is possible, but having a mouse-over on each of the civs at the civ selection screen with "Recommended for Novices" and "Recommended for Veterans" would make the game more user-friendly to new players, which is an area in which FfH needs polish. (See also my Hints thread in this forum and my difficulty / time thread in the scenaros forum)

 

[hegemonkhan]

the problem with that, it's really subjugative (can't spell). better jsut to come on here (this site) and read people's opinions and decide which u agree with most.

this (this site and our opinions) are a better "platform" than trying to do the same thing in the tiny space on the game selection/setting up screeen......(u already can't see all the leaders' traits...which annoys me, since i don't have every leader and all their traits memorized....)