I think I finally have a favorite CIV...

[El Caballerion]

Spain is either top tier or bottom tier depending on your map/luck. Hitting El Dorado first is basically an I win button in the beginning of the game.

I guess El Dorado is good if you're playing on Standard speed. 1000 gold on marathon (bc the gold rewards don't get larger with longer game times) is ok but not great.

 

[Tachii]

Finding any natural wonder first will guarantee a good game; considering a free settler in the first 50 turns is pretty much like starting with Collective Rule.

Only case I see Spain as bottom tier is not discovering a single natural wonder (not even getting the +100 gold) for the first 50 turns or so. And that, dare I say, rarely ever happen. Unless you're not making any scouts in the first 10 turns.

 

[Resipsa]

I guess El Dorado is good if you're playing on Standard speed. 1000 gold on marathon (bc the gold rewards don't get larger with longer game times) is ok but not great.

How much does a settler cost on Marathon?

 

[El Caballerion]

Finding any natural wonder first will guarantee a good game; considering a free settler in the first 50 turns is pretty much like starting with Collective Rule.

Just consider that if you play on Marathon and you discover any NW first (besides El Dorado), you'll still get 500 even though rushing a settler costs over 1100 gold. Hence, its not as powerful on longer speed settings.

 

[headcase]

Yeah, Spain's pretty good. The only problem is city-states seem to start next to natural wonders a lot.

Would be a shame if they lost it to a great general

 

[The QC]

If Indonesia isn't a bottom tier civ on balanced maps what civilizations do you place below Indonesia, someone has to be the worst civ?

I don't understand your use of the word "balanced". In my understanding, a balanced map would be Continents and on that map you always are able to use the Indonesian UA, which is quite strong. You also have space to use the very strong unique unit.

Bottom tier for me would be Russia, Denmark, America, India. Some people disagree, though, and I don't think it's really possible to find a consensus on this. But none of them has advantages that compare to those of Indonesia.