Most Disliked Civ to Play

[danieladler]

Japan and Germany, two of the most hi tech and innovative countries of the IRL world doesnt get any recognition for this in the game. They deserve more exciting UA and UB in my oppinion. Apparently these are no favorites of the devs.

 

[ahawk]

Denmark is pretty bad:

Berserker is good, but not overly so. Worth building, but upgrading it doesn't allow it to keep the extra movement, so not stellar.

Norwegian Ski-Infantry, with the bonus on hills, is so-so, useful but not anything you'd bee-line.

The UA is miserable. Bonuses to embarked units are never good (part of what saves Songhai is that Amphibious also works for attacking across rivers), and free pillaging helps heal your units, true, but that's not an ability you game-plan around.

 

[Gothic_Empire]

Denmark is pretty bad:

Berserker is good, but not overly so. Worth building, but upgrading it doesn't allow it to keep the extra movement, so not stellar.

Norwegian Ski-Infantry, with the bonus on hills, is so-so, useful but not anything you'd bee-line.

The UA is miserable. Bonuses to embarked units are never good (part of what saves Songhai is that Amphibious also works for attacking across rivers), and free pillaging helps heal your units, true, but that's not an ability you game-plan around.

Bringing in siege units from the sea as Denmark means you can land, set up, and fire all in one move. It's situational, but OP with a watery map.

 

[seancolorado]

So I've sorta been tracking to see the most disliked civs:

1. Denmark

General reasoning: None of the Uniques are overly-weak, but altogether they are underwhelming

Possible Solution? Tweak the UA. Or buff the Berserker.

2. USA

General reasoning: Blandness was by far the most cited reason. (I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that the game is played by a lot of Americans so they want their 'home' civ to be a little more interesting)

Possible solution? Add significant late tourism boosts so America can pursue that as an option other than domination.

3. Germany

General reasoning: Genuine dislike for the UA mechanics.

Possible solution? Give Pathfinder-like option to say Yes or No to stealing barbarian instead of making it random, then on top of that give one free promotion upon capturing. Or else, throw in an industrial or science aspect to the UA to compliment the war-style while reflecting Germany's great and brilliant thinkers

4. Japan

General reasoning: Like America, bland. And very strong hatred for Zero UU.

Possible solution? Buff up Zero significantly. And throw in culture-isolationist aspect to UA, just like Ed and Dennis hinted at in their recent interview.

5. Indonesia

General reasoning: Too many random aspects. Lack of synergy. Just very messy, not fun to play.

Possible solution? Get rid of negative promotions for Kris (OR) As someone said before, make it so each promotion gives you a very strong positive modifier, but also a weak modifier but not weak enough to the point of frustration.

6. India

General reasoning: UA does not do justice to rich Indian culture

Possible solution? Revamp the UA. If devs want to keep unique Population aspect, then incorporate culture, faith or arts into it.

7. Spain

General reasoning? Have to get lucky to be the first to find a natural wonder.

Possible solution? There is none, that I can think of at least for such a specific UA that doesn't involve a complete overhaul. You either love them or hate them.

 

[seancolorado]

Interestingly enough Denmark was the clear cut least favorite

And India which had previously taken the title gets a little less hate than before. Hatred now more focused on their representation historically and not their mechanics

Indonesia is the only civ from BNW with a lot of hate

 

[Kizo]

(I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that the game is played by a lot of Americans so they want their 'home' civ to be a little more interesting)

That's a baseless assumption. No one has said anything about nationalist bias.

Possible solution? Buff up Zero significantly.

There's no fixing a useless unit. Don't alter the Zero, replace it entirely. Fighters are junk.

 

[seancolorado]

That's a baseless assumption. No one has said anything about nationalist bias.

Between all the passionate, persistant comments concerning America, I really truly feel there is a little bit of that going on somewhere

 

[Kizo]

Between all the passionate, persistant comments concerning America, I really truly feel there is a little bit of that going on somewhere

Have you considered that maybe America is just that terrible?

I can't speak for anyone else, of course, but as for my own persistent criticism of America, it's strictly from a gameplay perspective. Insinuating otherwise feels somewhat dismissive.

 

[Nuclear Empire]

I personally like Germany I play a lot of domination but still they are not bad as you think

Like let´s say that like to civilizations hate tihink your weak and such then when you get landsknect you have the most inportant unit of your army to defend yourself and UA could be changed but it heps you buils an army to defend or help allies with,protect cities and cities states too even if UA is militaristic who plays a game where you did not need a army to defend your civ (settler and chieftain don´t count) you will need an army to defend and at the end you may be able to stop a civ from winning a victory like science,culture,diplomatic and even domination (if you are fast enough) and I do not see any rule saying that germany is cannot do a science victory or culture or even diplomaticand even if only military appears in UA the UUs thats my opinion on germany

But I really hate Venice its like saying: "I want Luxembourg in the game" except you can get lots of gold but I like at least expand 3 cities and even ethiopia when I played with them they at least need 3 cities and when invaded you can like destroy that civ with your UU when in borders and near the capitol but venice only gets one city and doens´t help with defending destroyd venice twice and the first I made loads of musketman and killed venice and russia and venice I only needed atleast 3 musketmans to kill it the next one I observed if he would build units and nothing like only workers and scouts and it was set to prince difficulty and nothing not even a warrior and it was nuclear age it only hepls in trade which does not help you with diplomatic or culture victory

 

[livsbrand]

Cash doesn't help for diplo win eh?

 

[Falconiano]

Between all the passionate, persistant comments concerning America, I really truly feel there is a little bit of that going on somewhere

Agreed completely.
America is a good civ, Americans just want it to be OP or something.
Afterall I want Rome and Venice to be OP too admittedly.


On topic, anything too RNG-dependant is reroll for me.
Spain, Germany, etc.
Denmark makes me want to alt+f4.

 

[Crafty Bison]

Agreed completely.
America is a good civ, Americans just want it to be OP or something.
Afterall I want Rome and Venice to be OP too admittedly.


On topic, anything too RNG-dependant is reroll for me.
Spain, Germany, etc.
Denmark makes me want to alt+f4.

Ya there's a little of that going on. There are more interesting civ's to play, but as this thread shows, there are even more boring ones too.
I for one am actually very happy with my country, England, even though it's not routinely considered 'top tier' (ugh, I hate that phrase). It's mostly because it's a naval UA and UU, which is something that represents how the English feel about their nation very well, and that there are no Redcoats. Seriously, I only actually heard of Redcoats when I played CIV for the first time, and then shortly after when I found the daily show on the internet. SoTL's and Longbows (even if they should be Welsh really) are way cooler .
For my two pennies, top of the list has to be Japan, closely followed by India. So much rich culture from both civs, and so much opportunity lost .

 

[Falconiano]

Ya there's a little of that going on. There are more interesting civ's to play, but as this thread shows, there are even more boring ones too.
I for one am actually very happy with my country, England, even though it's not routinely considered 'top tier' (ugh, I hate that phrase). It's mostly because it's a naval UA and UU, which is something that represents how the English feel about their nation very well, and that there are no Redcoats. Seriously, I only actually heard of Redcoats when I played CIV for the first time, and then shortly after when I found the daily show on the internet. SoTL's and Longbows (even if they should be Welsh really) are way cooler .
For my two pennies, top of the list has to be Japan, closely followed by India. So much rich culture from both civs, and so much opportunity lost .

England is top tier to me.
+1 spy for more techs or diplomats (your call), SoTL dominate and lvl easy, LBs retain +1 range when upgrading which means 2range Gats.

Plus you never hear "Wood you bee interested, IN a trade agreement, with EEEEngland?" noisy talk because you ARE England. That's a relief.

 

[Crafty Bison]

England is top tier to me.
+1 spy for more techs or diplomats (your call), SoTL dominate and lvl easy, LBs retain +1 range when upgrading which means 2range Gats.

Plus you never hear "Wood you bee interested, IN a trade agreement, with EEEEngland?" noisy talk because you ARE England. That's a relief.

Ya I think they're strong too, but the forums seem to not have them up there with the likes of Babylon, Korea, Arabia etc., which seem to be held in very high esteem. However, I'd still have the same opinion and be very happy even without the extra spy that got buffed in.
P.S ya Betty is annoying, I'd have preferred Vicky, or maybe a non-monarch like Lawrence of Arabia/Nelson/Wellington would be cool. Anyway, minor issues for me, I'd be fine keeping them for every civ after this one if I could.

 

[Ximixanga]

There aren't any civs I particularly dislike playing as, but I know that I'm going to feel a little stifled if I play as India.

India's UA dissuades early rapid expansion. As an expansionist and imperialistic type of player, this limits how quickly I can claim land for myself, especially if I'm playing on a smaller map with more civs than what is standard. I get a bit hot under the collar if I can't have more than 4-5 cities and usually other civs will settle much more land in the time that it becomes viable for India to do same.

I also don't really care too much for civs that have a completely luck-based ability like Spain's UA. It can be either very strong or not very useful, but it's all dependent on finding a random thing on the map. You may not be able to get them until satellites unless you are very adamant about getting open borders. Even so, it's likely that another civ will beat you to discovering them anyway, especially on other continents.

On the subject of America's UA...

Admittedly, America's UA is somewhat bland, but I don't think they're a bad because of it. +1 sight on land and reduced tile purchasing is a bit boring, but it isn't useless. I rarely purchase land unless I need to grab something immediately and knowing that I can do it at a reduced cost is nice. I actually find America to be quite flexible in how it can approach victory because its UA doesn't give you any particular advantage anywhere and can therefore do anything they want, just not any better than civs with specialized UAs and great UUs.

Simply put, America is for players that don't have a specific victory approach but have a specific need of land acquisition. The Shoshone have definitely put their abilities into question however. America may need a buff or some slight change to make them more competitive now, but it's not entirely necessary in my opinion.

 

[seancolorado]

Have you considered that maybe America is just that terrible?

I can't speak for anyone else, of course, but as for my own persistent criticism of America, it's strictly from a gameplay perspective. Insinuating otherwise feels somewhat dismissive.

America can be both terrible and a subject of passion for American players. Having one doesn't exclude the other or diminish the other. Look, I don't even see what the problem is with that if it's indeed true. It just seems like a logical assumption when you consider that equally boring civs beyond perhaps Japan have not received the America treatment round these forums

 

[rattlejaw]

So, I'm just gonna lay this out here: Indonesia is fun. It's not a great civ. It's not even really a good civ. But messing with trade routes so that you can get massive faith generation, scouting out colonies, making sense of how your kris swordsmen have upgraded and should be used ... all of that is fun. It's good to cook the map a bit to make sure there's at least some room to use the UA (I played them on an Earth map, for instance), but if you can, they're one of the most interesting and flavourful (no pun intended) civs around.

 

[Merciorum]

Having never really played Japan to the late game, what exactly is wrong with the Zero? A bonus against fighters is surely fairly useful.

 

[Arachnofiend]

Have you considered that maybe America is just that terrible?

I can't speak for anyone else, of course, but as for my own persistent criticism of America, it's strictly from a gameplay perspective. Insinuating otherwise feels somewhat dismissive.

America isn't that terrible though. I can take the bland argument, and I feel it's a missed opportunity for the one civ who has had a real life culture victory (the "cultural defeat" message the AI sends you is a blatant reference to Coca-colonization even) to not have any tourism bonuses but they are a pretty solid civ in terms of strength. They're certainly no Denmark.

Having never really played Japan to the late game, what exactly is wrong with the Zero? A bonus against fighters is surely fairly useful.

The reason is that you should never be playing Japan that late in the game. Since they're a pure warmonger civ the game should be long over before you even get to Zeroes; really, giving America and Japan UA's that encourage some peaceful play so you have a reason to save your conquest for later eras would go a long way to making the B-52 and Zero more useful.

 

[Tiggurix]

So, I'm just gonna lay this out here: Indonesia is fun. It's not a great civ. It's not even really a good civ. But messing with trade routes so that you can get massive faith generation, scouting out colonies, making sense of how your kris swordsmen have upgraded and should be used ... all of that is fun. It's good to cook the map a bit to make sure there's at least some room to use the UA (I played them on an Earth map, for instance), but if you can, they're one of the most interesting and flavourful (no pun intended) civs around.

Yeah, I agree, Indonesia seems like a pretty fun civ to play, even though I haven't really tried them out yet. I am particularly excited at trying out the Kris Swordsman, which is why I abandoned a recent game I started as them, because I got one of those "no iron" starts.