Most poorly designed Civ?

siredgar

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What Civ do you think is the most poorly designed?

In my opinion, it is the Huns. They are overpowered in the beginning with their UU, the Battery Ram. And WHY OH WHY do they have to copy names of other cities?!! This is so annoying that I never put them in my game.

I am playing a European map and need a Civ to bother the Russians because they are left alone to expand as much as they want without hassle. But I don't want to put in the Huns as they overbear the Russians and build cities like Antium, Orleans, and Munich. Couldn't they have just taken Hungarian city names?

Such a ridiculous Civ!
 
Huns and Hungarians aren't same people. ("Hungary" word comes from Turkish word On-Ogur meaning "ten" Ogurs) Hungarians arrived modern day Hungary in 9th century with other Turks. but, you are right, borrowing City names from other in-game Civs sucks.
 
India. They have a mediocre UU, a poor UB, and a UA that doesn't really provide a significant advantage. In fact, their UA is a disadvantage in a number of circumstances.
 
India is the worst now after G&K.

The Huns never had their own cities, they took them from other civs so they don't have their own unique names for their cities. Not having them in your games because of this seems rather lame to me...
 
India. They have a mediocre UU, a poor UB, and a UA that doesn't really provide a significant advantage. In fact, their UA is a disadvantage in a number of circumstances.

I think you are wrong about the War Elephant considering how OP cbows are, this units is an earlier replacement for them.
 
India. They have a mediocre UU, a poor UB, and a UA that doesn't really provide a significant advantage. In fact, their UA is a disadvantage in a number of circumstances.

Have to agree with this. Nothing stands out as being a huge benefit from them, and since happiness is pretty much a non-issue with G&K (if you've figured out how to play the game), their UA is pretty worthless.
 
India. They have a mediocre UU, a poor UB, and a UA that doesn't really provide a significant advantage. In fact, their UA is a disadvantage in a number of circumstances.

Agreed. Their UA actually makes the early game harder which is totally counter-productive. And I almost never build walls anyways, which makes their UB uninteresting.
 
I can't agree with India. The topic is poorly designed Civ. Back when there were no CB's, happiness was harder to get, and global/local didn't exist, India wasn't as bad.

Same thing happened to Greece, IMO. With the addition of more CS quests and spies, their UA is now weak. Their UU's are basic vanilla boring higher combat strength and that is it. Which is fine, except they got creative with G&K and many of the early UU's outshine them, like battering rams or picts. I'm shocked that more people don't mention Greece as needing some buffs.

Both Civs could use an overhaul to catch up with how the game has progressed.

As for poorly designed Civs, I'll throw out Byzantium. Contrary to what some believe, it is possible to get a religion more often than not all the way up to Immortal, but I do agree with the complaints that two classic era UU's and pushing religion is a bit much. I don't think all parts of a Civ must work together, but in this situation, there is just too much in a short amount of time.

Compare to Ottomans, who have a UA that doesn't mix with UU's, however since the UA isn't tied to using it right at the same time of the UU's, Ottomans are more than capable of using all aspects in a single game much easier than Byzantium can.
 
Same thing happened to Greece, IMO. With the addition of more CS quests and spies, their UA is now weak.

On the contrary. I played a Greece game just the other day, and I can tell for a fact that having a dozen or more CS's that eat out of your hand and cost zero expensive influence to keep up (once converted to your religion and you have the appropriate SP's in Patronage), life is pretty dang easy. Still a better UA than 75% of them.
 
That's one thing that I love about this game. You will never get everybody to agree of which civ is the worst (or the best) because there are so many different ways to do well (or fail).
 
To me, the worst designed is possibly Babylon:

In vanilla, the UU is tolerable, but in G&K the UU is obsoleted quickly (even on Marathon, CBows appear much too soon, depending on how you tech). This problem is compounded by the fact that the UA gives you extra science. Thus, Bowmen go obsolete probably at the fastest rate of all units in the game. Really, this isn't so much a design flaw as a failure to re-design the UU for G&K. Again, in vanilla, Bowmen have some purpose. But in G&K, they really should have been given a promotion that carries over as they upgrade since they can be upgraded so quickly.

The UB is a joke. Depending on how things go, I sometimes don't build walls at all. Even if I build them, the Walls of Babylon add a tiny bonus to city-bombard damage (which is possibly an okay bonus if you picked the pantheon for city-bombard damage being increased by 30% or whatever, but the AI tends to pick that belief very quickly for some reason, and other beliefs are probably more worth-while in the early game). And the boost to city health (a little more than a standard wall), is more of the same.

Only the UA is really all that valuable, but it's incredibly passive. Basically, I plant that first free GS, then I try to maybe build Leaning Tower and National Monument (or whatever it's called) and get GSes to burn down the line to bulb techs. That's it. The decision-making with the UA is very, very basic.

Babylon being a DLC is even more of a design flaw. Korea is far, far better in terms of having effective defensive UU's, and the boosts for specialists, for finishing science wonders/buildings in the capitol, and for planted Great People are possibly just as good as Babylon's super-early GS if you can go tall quickly enough. Babylon should have been part of the initial launch, and then Korea could be the DLC that basically out-shines them and encourages customers to plop down more money. Why Bablyon was also a DLC is beyond me.

I really vote for Babylon. Between them and India, it's close, but India was there at launch, has uniques that aren't obsolete immediately (the UB gives gold once you go way, way down the tech line to get Flight), and has a UA that really makes you have to calculate how to get a lot of food to use it well (which sometimes takes a little luck and/or rerolling). Babylon's UA is powerful but boring, and fades away later in the game, and the UB and UU are absolute afterthoughts almost every single game as them. And Babylon, from a design standpoint, competes directly with another DLC, Korea, and really fails to offer something different enough or good enough to justify getting both DLCs except to have all content available to play with. If I was on a budget, and/or was less of a fan of the game, I'd probably not have gotten Babylon at all.
 
If you want to make good use of Babylon's UU, try going for Education before Construction.

I don't think any civ status as DLC or non-DLC should be held against them. The entire game, with all DLC, can be bought for less than $20 when on sale.
 
India, from a design point of view, is fine. Yes it's a bit weak on higher difficulties, but it does provide an interesting perk that is very strong if can you get your empire up and running.

The worst civ designed is really Spain. Isabella the RNG queen is arguably the worst civ designed.
 
The worst civ designed is really Spain. Isabella the RNG queen is arguably the worst civ designed.

Maybe, but that depends on what they were designed to do. Spain was specifically designed to be a civ reliant on exploration, expansion, and luck. They reflect this very well. India was designed to be a civ reliant on high population and tall cities with a culture focus, but they don't do any better at that than any other civ. Sometimes they are outright worse. Spain, on the other hand, at least benefits hugely when they do hit the natural wonder jackpot. Spain also has solid UUs. This makes them acceptable when they don't get lucky and incredibly good when they do.
 
Well all ancient era UUs are obsolete really fast so I don't really hold babylon's against them. Their ability is pretty cool to me actually, can double your research at writing sometimes.
 
The ancient UU problem is sorta like England's UA issue: it all depends on what map you're playing. If you're on a tiny Pangaea with all your opponents, then it makes a lot more sense to build up an early defense and military. Marathon players still have a large land buffer that can outlast the classical era.
 
India, from a design point of view, is fine. Yes it's a bit weak on higher difficulties, but it does provide an interesting perk that is very strong if can you get your empire up and running.

The worst civ designed is really Spain. Isabella the RNG queen is arguably the worst civ designed.

No, because Conquistadors.
 
I'm not a fan of walls, but Babylon's UU allows for delaying Construction if I'm not planning an attack right away or not under immediate threat. The UB is annoyingly strong in AI hands, although it hasn't, in my limited experience, made Babylon a particularly strong AI civ. I'm a fan of the UA. Babylon is one of my favorites, actually.

I like Spain's units but not her ability. I'm going to explore anyway, it comes down to luck whether or not a natural wonder is near. I've tried Spain a couple times and ended up rerolling more than usual, and I already reroll too often.

I'm not sure if I'd call Polynesia badly designed, but it does badly in AI hands, even on suitable maps. When the Polynesian AI doesn't provoke the others into wiping it off the map, the UA annoys me as all the island ruins will be gone and island city states will have been discovered, providing a disincentive to exploration. Apparently it's supposed to be a cultural civ, but the UB is map dependent and fiddly. The UU suffers from the early UU problem but is weaker than most UU except en masse. It doesn't help that Kamehameha looks like a surfing banana. On second thought, yeah, Polynesia is poorly designed IMO.
 
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