Most/Least Popular Civs to Play (based on steam achievements)

[bbbt]

I was looking at the CIV 6 achievements stats, and realized I could approximate who the most/least popular Civs were by their winning achievement percentages (I'm aware this is not a perfect science, so to speak, especially with such small differences in percentages).

For the curious:

8.4% Win a regular game as Trajan
5.4% Win a regular game as Frederick Barbarossa
5.2% Win a regular game as Qin Shi Huang
5.1% Win a regular game as Theodore Roosevelt
4.5% Win a regular game as Hojo Tokimune
4.3% Win a regular game as Peter the Great
3.8% Win a regular game as Catherine De Medici
3.5% Win a regular game as Tomyris
3.5% Win a regular game as Cleopatra
3.3% Win a regular game as Victoria
3.2% Win a regular game as Gilgamesh
3.0% Win a regular game as Mvemba a Nzinga
2.8% Win a regular game as Gorgo
2.7% Win a regular game as Saladin
2.6% Win a regular game as Pericles
2.3% Win a regular game as Montezuma
2.2% Win a regular game as Gandhi
2.1% Win a regular game as Harald Hardrada
2.0% Win a regular game as Pedro II
1.7% Win a regular game as Phillip II

Rome by a mile basically (and poor Phillip clearly the most disliked). Some things are a surprise though - the Greek leaders are lower than I'd expect (maybe because there are two?) and De Medici is higher than I'd expect.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

Yeah, I'm guessing Gorgo/Pericles split the plays of people who wanted to play as Greece. And after a game with one of the two, people probably wanted to try a totally new Civ next.

Not surprised to see Philip II and Harald near the bottom, even below the Aztec Civ which not everyone has. Even though both designs are flavorful and good for roleplaying, people don't like playing weak Civs.

 

[Siptah]

I'm really not sure what this statistic really says.
It's not about how much the civs are played, but how many people won a game with this civ. That's something different. Especially since you can't see it if people played twice with the same civ. Rome was the most popular civ for 'my first game will be with', and I guess most players finish their first game and afterwards they often retire before playing it out.
But to be honest the really interesting thing when looking at the steam achievements is this:
'win a game on settler or higher' - 34 %
That tells you that 66 percent of the players that bought civvi are not even in the 'won with which civ' statistic. May this be because of offline play or maybe because a lot of players never finish their games.

 

[Takfloyd]

You are failing to take into account that the civs with the largest win percentage coincide with the strongest civs and vice versa.

These statistics have more credence as a tier list than a popularity list.

 

[nzcamel]

Yes...and no. I don't think anyone thinks America is one of the strong Civ's; whereas Arabia is considered a pretty good civ.

 

[Onii-chan]

Many people like to play their own civs just for fun. So of course America will be high even though it's a weak civ simply because there are tons of Americans playing Civ 6 compared to other countries. Same reason pretty much all the top played civs are relatively big, first world countries today. Rome probably has an edge because it's also one of the most classic civs and notorious empires in human history, on top of actually having really cool abilities in the game. Tomyris is probably the real pattern breaker up there, but that's probably more because it's a brand new civ for veterans of the franchise so they want to try it out for variety's sake (also it's probably the strongest civ in the game and the poll only reflects how many people have won a game with each civ, so stronger civs will have an advantage from that too)

But yes I'm pretty sure Greece would be a lot higher if people weren't split up between its two leaders. You'll be less motivated to play the second one once you've already won with the first due to how similar they are

 

[youngsteve]

Yeah, I'm guessing Gorgo/Pericles split the plays of people who wanted to play as Greece. And after a game with one of the two, people probably wanted to try a totally new Civ next.

Not surprised to see Philip II and Harald near the bottom, even below the Aztec Civ which not everyone has. Even though both designs are flavorful and good for roleplaying, people don't like playing weak Civs.

If as everyone is saying the game is very easy as the AI is not good, surely they would be the obvious choices to play.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

You are failing to take into account that the civs with the largest win percentage coincide with the strongest civs and vice versa.

These statistics have more credence as a tier list than a popularity list.

You're right that it's possible these numbers reflect which Civs people are winning games with, not which Civs people are playing. It must be a bit of both, I guess, but I feel pretty confident it's moreso the latter. This is because the vast majority of Civ players are playing on a low difficulty level and are not playing optimally at all nor seeking too. For these people--who again, are the bulk of the Civ playerbase--I seriously doubt the choice of Civ makes a big difference to win percentage.

Actually, as I think about it, I kind of take back my comment that people are avoiding Philip and Harald because they're so weak. Veteran players might (those two are not frequently mentioned on this forum as favorite Civs to play), but I don't think casual Civers would know or care. Maybe it's because those Civs seem so specialized? Almost every bonus Philip gets is religion-oriented and almost every bonus Harald gets is navy-oriented. That might turn off some casual players (as well as veteran ones, for that matter.)

 

[Victoria]

One hase played the bottom of the list more than the top with the exception of China as one prefers the underdog. One can win with anything and it feels better for me to do it with Pedro than Fred ( that sounds bad)

No statistic is perfect but his will be one of the more accurate ones out there and shows real choice as opposed to what is "best"

 

[Tech Osen]

I had one of my funnest and easiest wins with Philip. Though that conversion thingie with the Conquistadors seems pretty pointless, the extra strenght with a faith unit is decent.

 

[danhynes]

I think a lot of people played with their home country first if it was available. I did. Also I think there is somewhat of a correlation to strong/weak civs, but if people were playing normal difficulty it shouldn't matter much. Also Scythia would be ranked much higher if it was based upon op.good civs as they are easily in the top 3.

 

[liv]

I think America is also the most popular win with civ in Civ5

 

[Cymsdale]

Trajan can give you a one turn victory. I wonder how many achieved a win with him that way.

 

[Onii-chan]

Trajan can give you a one turn victory. I wonder how many achieved a win with him that way.

I don't think many people know that you can do that, or at least think of it (let alone actually care about doing it)

 

[johnny_rudeboy]

Huh? How?

Not sure but I guess since he starts with a monument when he settled his city his score is above the others. And if you set the game to only be 1 turn, you win. Never tried it but I reckon that´s how they do it.

 

[Cymsdale]

Not sure but I guess since he starts with a monument when he settled his city his score is above the others. And if you set the game to only be 1 turn, you win. Never tried it but I reckon that´s how they do it.

Yup, exactly. Easy deity achievement if you feel like watering down their value.