[GS] Most OP Civ for GS

[MarigoldRan]

I vote Inca.

Massive production boots. Awesome farms, Every bonus useful. Economic bonuses kick in from the very beginning. Devastating UU.

Their start bias will guarantee plenty of mountains and hills, which is arguably the best start (mountains provide science, hills provide production and food for the incans, and mountains protect you).

 

[AmazonQueen]

You missed Canada off the list and I was so (not) going to vote for them.
I really don't know.
Maori have some great abilities but could have a really unlucky start and do awful.
Mali and Phoenicia both need some setting up to use well but could get a bit of a steamroller going
I think Hungary have some strong abilities and won't require too much adaption from current playstyle to do well. I'd vote for them but you missed them off the list too.

 

[MarigoldRan]

That is until you look at mountain tiles that produce 3 food and 6 production.

 

[AmazonQueen]

That is until you look at mountain tiles that produce 3 food and 6 production.

I can see Inca being powerful for domination with unit spam or culture with wonder spam.

 

[Furycrab]

I want to see Mali in action. The early game could be a little bit weird, but once you get the district discounts and some other purchase bonuses going, feel like they could be busted.

 

[SahintheFalcon]

Mali - Overpowered (and potentially banned in my matches). The Russia of Gathering Storm. Slow start, but incredible economy once it gets up to speed.

Ottoman - Balanced. The Spain of Gathering Storm. Slow start with some good but difficulty-to-apply renaissance era bonuses. Too many random bonuses that require a huge amount of work to get in sync.

Inca - Balanced. Another Russia-like nation, but with far weaker bonuses and only comes into full strength in the late game.

Maori - Uncertain. Balance completely depends on whether the devs will give you an "obvious" location to settle.

Sweden - Weak. Slow and nearly defenseless with hardly any economic or military bonuses. Not much better than Georgia.

Phoenicia - Balanced. Like Indonesia and other seafaring nations, will be great on water maps, but less so on land maps. Unlike Indonesia, however, some of its better bonuses can still be applicable on Pangaea.

Canada - Troll (and likely banned in any of my matches). Basically their 1 ability is to physically block other nations early on with 10 warriors and annoy them.

Hungary - Overpowered (and likely banned in any of my matches). The Nubia of Gathering Storm with additional late-game bonuses. 'Nuff said.

 

[MarigoldRan]

No, Inca is Germany, but with an awesome UU and a guaranteed good start location (hills and mountains).

Mountains are Incan Hansas. Build 3 terraces with the first builder, and buy a mountain tile and you've got a 3 food, 6 production tile by the time you get Craftsmen, which is completely ridiculous.

Then mass scouts (very easy to do) and rush Terracotta and win when you get Machinery and kill everything with your 60 strength, 3 move, hill movement, multishot Medieval Slingers .

 

[Hans Castorp]

Can we have the option of voting that none of them are OP? They all seem to sit fairly comfortably in the spectrum of ok through to pretty good...

 

[MarigoldRan]

Inca is by far the best of the lot. They're like the Cree, but with a better UU.

 

[Victoria]

No idea what OP means. For me it means who gets ahead at the start. What map, what victory, what difficulty? SP/MP .... too many variables.

Hungary for me purely for levied states. I have been playing a gold game and levying city states and it is just so OP because the AI cannot deal with units. Amani and one envoy early makes you a powerhouse being able to pick and choose. If course of higher levels it may be trickier. I have 0 idea why people do not levy CS more often, it is just so strong. look 160 gold early may buy you a warrior... 200 gold will give you maybe 4 warriors and an archer in a strategic flank position. With Hungary they are +2 MP +5 in combat with free upgrades... and you can use them for 30 turns. Jesus wept.

Mali is scary, not sure how much people appreciate gold...but faith as well. These guys are strong but also they are strangely similar to the maori. Both have a purchasing power beyond the norm. And purchasing is more powerful than building IMO. Not sure why some people do not get this. It is not magnus that changed the game ... it is monumentality. Maori can pretty much guarantee this.

Maori is just so strong if you get a good start, and you should be able to. If they are against you for a CV it will be time to build a navy and waste them... I wonder what happens to a Marae (pronounced ma rye) when you conquer it (and you are not Maori yourself)

Inca with the new Pingala I will just have to see, so many new civs get such a culture boost early I can see these civs getting knights 10 turns earlier and just skipping foot armies. Suprise! ... knights through a mountain on T70 ... ugh.

Phoenecia... too much reliance on their harbour and it is still down a dead leaf node... try them and you will see what I mean, you have issues rushing harbours.

Sweden is subtly strong for a fast culture victory by the looks of things but otherwise meh.

Canada is rubbish apart from its favours and its peaceful behavior. The fact that the spoils go to the victor in this game means they are rubbis. but good point on them trolling in an MP game.

Ottomans are too late for me and that great bonus just against cities is a fail. Taking cities has never been an issue, getting your strong units online has always been the beeline. This will always be the case while there are ram in play unchanged. The Corsair is interesting but it is a water tech that takes a while to get at the expense of ... the death of your empire.

 

[Karmah]

Mali - Overpowered (and potentially banned in my matches). The Russia of Gathering Storm. Slow start, but incredible economy once it gets up to speed.

Ottoman - Balanced. The Spain of Gathering Storm. Slow start with some good but difficulty-to-apply renaissance era bonuses. Too many random bonuses that require a huge amount of work to get in sync.

Inca - Balanced. Another Russia-like nation, but with far weaker bonuses and only comes into full strength in the late game.

Maori - Uncertain. Balance completely depends on whether the devs will give you an "obvious" location to settle.

Sweden - Weak. Slow and nearly defenseless with hardly any economic or military bonuses. Not much better than Georgia.

Phoenicia - Balanced. Like Indonesia and other seafaring nations, will be great on water maps, but less so on land maps. Unlike Indonesia, however, some of its better bonuses can still be applicable on Pangaea.

Canada - Troll (and likely banned in any of my matches). Basically their 1 ability is to physically block other nations early on with 10 warriors and annoy them.

Hungary - Overpowered (and likely banned in any of my matches). The Nubia of Gathering Storm with additional late-game bonuses. 'Nuff said.

Is the game oujt yet ? what did I miss ?

 

[MarigoldRan]

Not Knights. Slingers! Those double shot, super-fast promoting slingers! (40 strength! Goes up to 60 strength! 3 moves! Faster hill movement! Upgrades from super cheap scouts!).

They're better than Knights. Come earlier, too. We're looking at a T60 Incan Slinger Rush.

Once they're promoted, they're like Hwachas but shoot twice, are more mobile and come earlier.

Furthermore, Inca has awesome production bonuses AND Machinery is much easier to get then Stirrups.

The Warakaq (Incan UU) is literally the unit of DOOM. Incans are most definitely not balanced. Have you ever considered what would happen to balance if you gave a Civ a double shot cheap, upgradeable, 3-move Hwacha upon Machinery (that can teleport through mountains)?

This unit by itself is enough to break the game. Add in the Incan early econ bonuses and whoo wee.

 

[PhilBowles]

My impressions remain that the Ottomans and Mali are the strongest of the new civs - ultimately Mali may be the strongest but I went with the Ottomans. Powerful for domination in the mid-game with very relevant bonuses to siege power and production early (supported by Ibrahim's first two abilities) that can get them overrunning cities at the start, to let them expand early and then build towards any victory if they don't want to go all-in on domination.

 

[Ziad]

I think Maori has the highest initial potential but has the highest variance in performance. Their game can go either really well or really badly.

Inca and Mali will have the most consistent performance IF they get the right map. The terrain will offer them a lot of scalar advantages that they can use to snowball from there.

Phoenicia requires more setup but has the highest snowball potential. They aren't even map dependent as you don't even need a naval empire for most of these bonuses as you technically only need 1 city with a Cothon if you must, although having more is obviously better. Continents and loyalty are universal concepts.

Phoenicia's biggest strengths aren't immediately obvious. Between early settling bonuses along with loyalty in the new map generatio, easy classical/medieval golden ages, naval dominance, and hilarious colonial policy card strategies they have a lot of hidden power. Having up to +40% more gold, 25% more production, and +15% faith in all your core cities with just one wonder and one policy card beats most UAs.

If I had to choose one, I'd vote Phoenicia. They'll probably see nerfs. Probably that instant healing. That or the cards.

 

[Victoria]

What really annoys me about this thread is the continual bias for Nubia. Why cannot there be an Aztecs are still the best civ in the game?
Or even more importantly "the player is the best in the game regardless of civ".
I am really loving the idea of some of these new civs, they bring new flavour... Best to play is definitely not producing 1000 potato shooters then saying to yourself "I am the best". It is about enjoying yourself. I will certainly be doing that with the majority of the new civs.
Levying an early CS to get 4MP 25 strength units is something I am looking forward to... Shaka beware... I am coming at you with 41 strength 4 MP swordsmen.

 

[Red_warning]

Kinda hard to comment because none of us really know how valid a diplomacy run is.

 

[Xandinho]

I voted in the Ottomans, because domination almost always generates a snowball. And the Ottomans are really strong to dominate and keep the cities dominated.

I'm really surprised to see Sweden so far behind. The Open-Air Museum and Kristina's themed bonus are incredibly strong for cultural victory. The extra points of great engineers and scientists from factories and universities are reasonably good for scientific victory. And the Diplomatic favor of recruiting great people can be a great help to Sweden in the world congress.

 

[Siptah]

Mali & Maori seem very strong, but this may be somewhat situational and only in the hands of the player. Potentially OP if you get past the early game well.

Ottomans & Hungary will be good as AI and player-controlled. Hungary might get boring to play because it is immune to many military threats early on.

The others are good when played strongly (as every other civ).

Subject to change after playing of course.

 

[Ziad]

I voted in the Ottomans, because domination almost always generates a snowball. And the Ottomans are really strong to dominate and keep the cities dominated.

I'm really surprised to see Sweden so far behind. The Open-Air Museum and Kristina's themed bonus are incredibly strong for cultural victory. The extra points of great engineers and scientists from factories and universities are reasonably good for scientific victory. And the Diplomatic favor of recruiting great people can be a great help to Sweden in the world congress.

Sweden is indeed the most inherently powerful of the bunch in Culture Victories (although Canada doesn't lag that far behind). Both also do well in diplomacy.

 

[Victoria]

Sweden is indeed the most inherently powerful of the bunch in Culture Victories

I used to think that after I saw their stats, then I saw the maori playthrough... OM...G, who cares about the Oracle.
However... I was wrong about the Incans, I have not seen a play though of them.. is there an English version of them that is watchable?