In your opinion, which civs have the best flavor? "Flavor" is dictated by the synergy of civilization's UA/UB/UU/UI, start bias, and preferred victory type, on any kind of map that adds to the civ's strength. Bonus point if the civ's unique traits allow players to benefit from playing a non-standard setups (such as tradition opener to fast NC) in higher level difficulty. For example, honor opening as The Huns for early war domination, or Sacred Site with Byzantium.
First and foremost, I'm an immortal player, so I'll rank my favorites based on this difficulty. Certain strategies, like Sacred Site, will not be as viable in Deity.
Flavorful and effective:
Venice - one city. commerce becomes extra powerful. buy city-states. though might not be the most fun to play as all the time (settling new cities is fun and challenging), gotta give it to Venice for being very unique.
Arabia - UA allows Arabia to spread home city's religion by double. this allows for your game to revolve around commerce and piety. can play peaceful but be aggressive with religion spreading - I even use missionaries and great prophets to convert other holy cities to Arabia's own religion. pissing people off with the spread of your religion? send them enough caravans and trade off luxury from bazaar to subside war incentives. in case war breaks out, camel archer, a very strong UU, comes live around the same time as religious expansion.
Flavorful but not as effective or as flavorful:
Polynesia - good civ on small continents, small islands and other water-based maps. ability to embark and sail through the oceans can potentially be very advantageous: finding ruins, city-states, other civs, natural wonders and prime city settling spots. Moais, in my opinion, isn't the best UI, but if lucky with coastal positioning of land, can be quite powerful and flavorful to commit.
Spain - not as flavorful as some other civs since finding natural wonders and have them be in good spots highly depend on luck. however, that feeling of discovering a good NW and the challenge of rushing a settler to secure the spot make it flavorful to me. conquistador is also an interesting unit that can serve many purposes.
Aztec - while Attila and Shaka might be more effective for domination, Montezuma's unique mix of culture/domination makes it flavorful. constant warring not only gains your units experience, but also adds to culture. jaguar is a great strategic UU. floating garden good too.
Shoshone - is effective but not as flavorful. pathfinder's ability to choose options out of ruins is very strong. but the flavor of Shoshone, for me, stems from Great Expanse UA. additional territory upon settling makes one want to open liberty instead of tradition. on any map with room to expand, Shoshone is fun to play since you can soak up tiles fast.
Assyria - siege tower coupled with UA to gain technology upon conquering a city makes Assyria flavorful. personally I don't find Assyria that effective in immortal since it's rather hard to maintain early war fares. however, Assyrian science/domination, like Aztec's culture/domination, is quite unique thus flavorful. royal library is hard to implement though.
Celts - pictish warriors to me are very flavorful, but too short-lived to be effective. upgrading pictish warriors, while keeping foreign territory bonus and no movement cost to pillage, loses its most flavorful aspect - gaining faith per kill. still, druidic lore is a good UA that guarantees you top choice for pantheon. settling new cities while considering forests for faith can be a minor, but fun element of game play.
Byzantium - extra belief creates many options for style of plays. can however fall behind on faith generation, thus not the most effective civ for what it's supposed to be.
Have yet to play / play enough to make judgement:
Austria, Germany, Persia, Indonesia, India, Mongolia, Sweden, Denmark, Portugal, The Ottomans
First and foremost, I'm an immortal player, so I'll rank my favorites based on this difficulty. Certain strategies, like Sacred Site, will not be as viable in Deity.
Flavorful and effective:
Venice - one city. commerce becomes extra powerful. buy city-states. though might not be the most fun to play as all the time (settling new cities is fun and challenging), gotta give it to Venice for being very unique.
Arabia - UA allows Arabia to spread home city's religion by double. this allows for your game to revolve around commerce and piety. can play peaceful but be aggressive with religion spreading - I even use missionaries and great prophets to convert other holy cities to Arabia's own religion. pissing people off with the spread of your religion? send them enough caravans and trade off luxury from bazaar to subside war incentives. in case war breaks out, camel archer, a very strong UU, comes live around the same time as religious expansion.
Flavorful but not as effective or as flavorful:
Polynesia - good civ on small continents, small islands and other water-based maps. ability to embark and sail through the oceans can potentially be very advantageous: finding ruins, city-states, other civs, natural wonders and prime city settling spots. Moais, in my opinion, isn't the best UI, but if lucky with coastal positioning of land, can be quite powerful and flavorful to commit.
Spain - not as flavorful as some other civs since finding natural wonders and have them be in good spots highly depend on luck. however, that feeling of discovering a good NW and the challenge of rushing a settler to secure the spot make it flavorful to me. conquistador is also an interesting unit that can serve many purposes.
Aztec - while Attila and Shaka might be more effective for domination, Montezuma's unique mix of culture/domination makes it flavorful. constant warring not only gains your units experience, but also adds to culture. jaguar is a great strategic UU. floating garden good too.
Shoshone - is effective but not as flavorful. pathfinder's ability to choose options out of ruins is very strong. but the flavor of Shoshone, for me, stems from Great Expanse UA. additional territory upon settling makes one want to open liberty instead of tradition. on any map with room to expand, Shoshone is fun to play since you can soak up tiles fast.
Assyria - siege tower coupled with UA to gain technology upon conquering a city makes Assyria flavorful. personally I don't find Assyria that effective in immortal since it's rather hard to maintain early war fares. however, Assyrian science/domination, like Aztec's culture/domination, is quite unique thus flavorful. royal library is hard to implement though.
Celts - pictish warriors to me are very flavorful, but too short-lived to be effective. upgrading pictish warriors, while keeping foreign territory bonus and no movement cost to pillage, loses its most flavorful aspect - gaining faith per kill. still, druidic lore is a good UA that guarantees you top choice for pantheon. settling new cities while considering forests for faith can be a minor, but fun element of game play.
Byzantium - extra belief creates many options for style of plays. can however fall behind on faith generation, thus not the most effective civ for what it's supposed to be.
Have yet to play / play enough to make judgement:
Austria, Germany, Persia, Indonesia, India, Mongolia, Sweden, Denmark, Portugal, The Ottomans