POLL: strongest civ in civ5

[Jim Bro]

it's not a specific poll that aims to give a general idea about winning in the broad sense according to multiple difficulty levels. as we can see, 5 civs account for 54% of the votes so i guess i get the picture.

 

[Wyte_Majik]

RUSSIA! Lol cause im from there and yeah...

 

[jtb1127]

Oh Polynesia! Who is a good none-existent civilization?

 

[mbkkbm]

Japan all the way. Mix Bushido with Samurai and everyone wakes up without their cities.

 

[bryanw1995]

Japan is a great warmonger, but I prefer a mixed bonus civ that can do well in the early/mid warmongers stages but also thrive during consolidation/expansion/late game as well. Specific bonuses for civs like songhai (getting hugely nerfed btw in the next patch), siam, rome, greece, and china are more flexible imho.

 

[Steelyglint]

Japan all the way. Mix Bushido with Samurai and everyone wakes up without their cities.

I almost voted for Japan, but then I remembered the vast cities that I have as India and changed my vote.

UU and UB of India are ok at best but UA is superb. Great for me as I hate managing happiness an stuff.

 

[mbkkbm]

At least for me, Japan plays wonderfully. Take over some good cities near luxury resources and you're good. That solves happiness and protects your homeland in case of an invasion. And, if your foes last until endgame, simple control the air with the Zero and simply bomb the heck out of anyone.

 

[Phead128]

China has the excellent all-around package that I seek.

 

[pspboy7]

I don't play France or Persia much, but I would think they would be in the top tier easily. Babylon, Russia, and England are great too. I played Korea the other day and they look powerful, especially in terms of science and warfare. I hate picking the most powerful civ simply cause it depends on alot of factors, maps being the most obvious one. If i had to pick the strongest Civ, I would pick Greece, great early warfare capability, and the bonus CS influence is always powerful for any type of victory. Some may disagree, but that's my pick.

I love greece and Siam, going to war and having 8-9 city states for your opponents to worry about is not only hilarious, it's surprisingly effective.

Yep, me too, especially Siam, nasty with the elephants!

I never know what to do with GSs: Convert them into an academy or free tech?

I always have trouble with that question? Do I bulb, or do I academy. My answer is, I only bulb important leaps in technology when I need them, otherwise I academy around my capital (which is always my science city).

Another thing to consider is that RA no longer give free techs, they give science boosts (which still confound the heck out of me of what that means, but oh well hehe), so bulbing techs is now more viable than ever IMO.

i think ill play as siam next time lol. i realized that i'm always opting for food growth combined with a strong economy to sustain asap expansion. i rarely befriend a cultural or militaristic city-state so Siam is a good bet for me i think. culture and science can wait. they shouldn't be the focus because they come anyways...i'm not too fond of the rationalism tech tree. the free 2 techs look awesome but they come too late to really make a difference and the other things in that branch are garbage but maybe i'm wrong.

Yeah, I agree with that, rationalism is pretty lame. The top five policy trees are where it's at, the bottom five are optional IMO. Piety, Tradition, and Patronage are by far my most common choices of Policy trees. Honour is always a must when being a warmonger hehe. I've been playing with Patronage alot in my games lately.

 

[That nerdy kid]

yeah they talk about industrious america but no bonus to production??? i made a suggestion on a different thread about a new UA. it was called Armament of the Allies and doubled production during wartime

thats because now america has huge debt problems, imports everything except food, and has a government that is way to democratic. Democracy doesn't mean ruled by smart people. it means ruled by whoever can spew out the most propaganda and get the most votes.

 

[pspboy7]

Spain's UA is high variance, of that there is no doubt. It is arguably the most high variance of all the UAs or UUs. It has to be due to how powerful it is. Every time you play Spain there are at least 8 (?) El Dorado's on the map. On high levels the odds of you finding one first is still low due to how quickly the fog is gobbled up by assisted AIs.

Compare that to Rome's dependency on early iron to get use out of it's UUs and you'd have to say that Rome is subject to significantly less variance. In order for those units to be useless there needs to be no iron in your capital, none to settle, none to ally for and none to trade for. So Rome gets use out of those units in the majority of games where Spain gets no use out of it's UA in the majority of games, but makes up for this in the spectacular games when you have 1000 gold on turn 5. (Actually Spain still gets the small bonus help when finding a NW that's already been found, but this is neither here nor there, the main benefit of this UA is when you're first and it comes early)

But I take your point about luck playing a roll in every game, I just think that this applies doubly to Spain and more so to them than anyone else.

Actually, I was gonna mention Spain as a powerful Civ as well. Yes, their UA is definitely hit and miss sometimes, but their UU are awesome. Either you get lots of iron for tercios, or lots of horses for conquistadors, or sometimes lots of all for both. It's win win IMO. The last big loss I took was because of Spain, darn you Izzy hehe.

 

[pspboy7]

So I was peeking at the Steam statistics, and thought this was an interesting complementary metric - Leaders sorted by how many people have won the game with them (in descending order, * for DLC civs):

Washington
Caesar
Napoleon
Catherine
Ramesses
Oda
Bismarck
Alexander
Elizabeth
Gandhi
Wu Zetian
Harun Al-Rashid
Montezuma
Darius
Hiawatha
Ramkhamhaeng
Askia
Genghis *
Suleiman
Nebuchadnezzar *
Isabella *
Pachacuti *
Kamehameha *
Harald Bluetooth *

Of course this is in no way an accurate measure of civ strength (especially since the most-won difficulty level is Chieftain), but it's interesting to see the similarities and differences to the poll results here. I guess it's kind of obvious that America is at the top there, even though they're not really considered a top tier civ. Poor old Suleiman has the singular honour of being the only original leader who has won less than a DLC civ. And Siam and Persia are right near the bottom and China is in the bottom half, despite being generally considered the strongest civs.

It isn't about the most powerful civ then is it, it's about who you like to play as a general rule hehe.

 

[dexters]

Really difficult to answer without playing through all of them ,and I doubt everyone has.

I think there's definitely a top tier of Civs out there that have strong traits. But even that list will be skewed based on playstyle.

I personally really like Japan because of the mid-game flexibility it gives me with Samurai arriving at the right time for me to knock off a neighbour. There's no early game do or die wars, no economic hermiting only strats because the UU sucks with some of the other civs.

The Zero is a hit or miss, but airpower is also one of those flexible aspects of the game. It's not useful until it's useful, and it can turn the tide vis a vis the AI.

Obviously, Japan's limitations are iron and oil. So my Japanese playstyle is early expansion /peacemongering/opportunism coupled with a mid game war to secure my resources, usually using Samurais to get extra iron, luxuries, strategic locations and sometimes, grabbing coal and oil spots by slinging my samurais into rifles and infantry.


But that's really a personal choice.

For the AI, I have to say Haiwatha is their best Civ. AI always run away with them and an AI playing this Civ, whether they are a a runaway superpower or a stable 'decent' sized Civ will always be dangerous if they last to the modern era. And I think it partly has to do with the fact they have to do less tile improvements to reap the benefits.

 

[Germnoble]

Should we add Korea?

 

[apocalypse105]

Persia

 

[jtb1127]

Mods should add Korea.