Poll: What's the strongest Civ for humans in 5.0 alpha

[MIS]

L.Vern did an AI game analysis for 4.15.2 4UC here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/1000-ai-game-4-15-2-4uc-supply-rework-stats.692563/

I'm interested to know what you think would be the strongest civ for humans at deity. Continents, standard map size, everything default (so AR are on, tech trading allowed but no tech brokering, etc.). I grouped the bottom ten because I only get so many options, and they're the bottom 14 in L.Vern's test.

I'm asking because my goal is to win on deity with every civ in 4UC, eventually, and I want to start with the easiest! I'm not a great player, so will probably build up and/or lose a few times before eventually winning.

You can change votes over time, and the voting's anonymous, so everyone's going to be guessing. It's not we've all played all the Civs!

I understand some of the civs are currently bugged (including Carthage, Egypt). I would include the effects of these bugs in the poll.

2025-10-15: I picked Inca, largely because they did so well in the 1000 game A.I. analysis, and some of their UC, especially parking ranged on hills, the quilqa min-max with starvation, and the city placement and pata-pata, would make humans even better. I haven't finished a game with them, nor started with any other civ, so it's just a guess.

EDIT: If you vote for a civ from the grouped bottom 14, can you put which Civ in the comments?

 

[azum4roll]

Notable mention on Russia: Grapeshot is currently on Cossack, not Licorne. Cossacks probably shred through all units right now.

 

[Anarcomu]

Big mention for the Incan : as you said, they can park ranged units on mountains, but they also have a very, very strong early UU that have a range of 2. Regular slinger have a range of 1. You can definitely rush an opponent (at least on lower difficulty, might not work on Deity).

And the Aztecs have access to a resource-less UU until they reach industrial (Otomi-Jaguar). If you happen to fight and kill units constantly with them, you get tons of gold/faith that you can spend on units once you get Zealotry. Same as above, I never play Deity so I can't confirm if it works. Special note for the units : I try to rush Amphibious and Woodsman on my units, so they have a very good mobility through the map to clear camp/reach other players/actual fighting.

 

[redrum68]

Here is the VP 4.22 + 4UC modmod deity civ tier list that I created that is still probably still 80-90% accurate for 5.0. This assumes standard map types (pangaea, continents, fractal, communitas) and speed. Its focused primarily on consistently winning on deity with no restarts (Inca is an example of a civ with a very high ceiling but if they get a below average start location can struggle so they are rated a bit lower).

Broken - Civs that have mechanics that IMO are just broken OP and need to be adjusted. Brazil bandeirantes yields are way too high. Russia and Spain abuse the border blob. Dutch can get way too much culture/gold early game from their UA. Mongols double attack skirmishers + ordo.

 

[phantomaxl1207]

I would say top 3 are Songhai, Mongolia, Brazil
Being able to negate/ benefit from River movement will always be unfair
Mongolia gets a very good start from CS Tributes
Bandeirantes boost + low Unhappiness Carnival + Amazonas = powerful Industrial Era eco

 

[Anarcomu]

I'd like to know if others notice this, but on my games, WLTKDs do not wear off, aka they do not count down the remaining turns.
This means as Brazil, once a city get WLTKD, it will never be unhappy again.

 

[pochesun]

Here is the VP 4.22 + 4UC modmod deity civ tier list that I created that is still probably still 80-90% accurate for 5.0. This assumes standard map types (pangaea, continents, fractal, communitas) and speed. Its focused primarily on consistently winning on deity with no restarts (Inca is an example of a civ with a very high ceiling but if they get a below average start location can struggle so they are rated a bit lower).

Broken - Civs that have mechanics that IMO are just broken OP and need to be adjusted. Brazil bandeirantes yields are way too high. Russia and Spain abuse the border blob. Dutch can get way too much culture/gold early game from their UA. Mongols double attack skirmishers + ordo.
View attachment 745107

Man, having Celts at B and not least A is a crime There early authority game is one of the strongest.

 

[redrum68]

Man, having Celts at B and not least A is a crime There early authority game is one of the strongest.

Actually when I update this, they will probably go to broken category as they have a border growth pantheon that is quite strong so doing border blob similar to Russia/Spain is crazy strong.

 

[Thibix Magnus]

Actually when I update this, they will probably go to broken category as they have a border growth pantheon that is quite strong so doing border blob similar to Russia/Spain is crazy strong.

why are all border growth strats broken right now? has baseline border growth become faster in this alpha version?

 

[Lifeordeath]

why are all border growth strats broken right now? has baseline border growth become faster in this alpha version?

If I had to guess, a somewhat recent patch, I think one of the 4.2 patches made it so you still gain bonuses from border growth when a city can't actually gain a new tile, meaning it doesn't fall off late game and just keeps scaling even more with the amount of cities you have. I'm not exactly a meta expert though so someone can feel free to correct/elaborate for me

 

[redrum68]

why are all border growth strats broken right now? has baseline border growth become faster in this alpha version?

No, it was already broken OP in 4.22. The issue is sovereignty makes border growth scaling very flat so anything that scales on border yields gives quite a lot as the number of cities and culture ramp up. The details can be found here where it shows how much the exponent is decreased: https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...roposal-workshop.683872/page-35#post-16830658

 

[HeroOfTheSword]

I reckon England could be a real beast in 5.0, finally having a UA that isn't tied to the espionage system. Delighted to see the iconic redcoat included too. I haven't played 5.0 yet but when I do soon it will be with them.

 

[redrum68]

I reckon England could be a real beast in 5.0, finally having a UA that isn't tied to the espionage system. Delighted to see the iconic redcoat included too. I haven't played 5.0 yet but when I do soon it will be with them.

Losing longbows is a huge nerf to England as they were a top 5 UU.

 

[Psilonemo]

Inca just takes off like a rocket, reliably so after midgame. With so much food and production I can pursue any victory type, and even if I am behind in tech and being invaded, I can keep spamming units like crazy. I just need to survive till I get my hill farms out.

 

[youngsteve]

I would say top 3 are Songhai, Mongolia, Brazil
Being able to negate/ benefit from River movement will always be unfair
Mongolia gets a very good start from CS Tributes
Bandeirantes boost + low Unhappiness Carnival + Amazonas = powerful Industrial Era eco

Are you talking about A1 or player. The reason I ask is according to L Verns analysis (link in first post) Mongolia was only above Venice in worst performing civs in his random tests. In fairness they were for a previous version, but suggest not much has really changed.

 

[Lifeordeath]

Are you talking about A1 or player. The reason I ask is according to L Verns analysis (link in first post) Mongolia was only above Venice in worst performing civs in his random tests. In fairness they were for a previous version, but suggest not much has really changed.

I think for the AI at least back then if not still currently there isn't a mounted ranged bias, so they're bad at building them which is Mongolia's whole identity, and even if they did the AI isn't great at using the extra movement of mounted ranged and of Ordos.

 

[FinMc]

Losing longbows is a huge nerf to England as they were a top 5 UU.

Longbows were ridiculous

I'm honestly not even sure what Id say are better than them

 

[burticus]

I've always liked Polynesia or Babylon. I almost never go full warmonger. Just leave me alone to do what I want and I'm cool

Moderator Action: Edited for language. - Recursive

 

[andersw]

I've always liked Polynesia or Babylon. I almost never go full warmonger. Just leave me alone to do what I want and I'm cool

I tried a bit of babylon (and voted for it) and its still top tier, now I dont play diety but early uu, walls and the amount of early great science tiles you get are all strong.

 

[Voremonger]

Any civ is broken for humans if you just click RESTART GAME 100 times and farm ranged XP until you can get the Range Promotion, after that the game becomes way easier. For my games I intentionally do not pick it because it in my opinion results in boring optimal strategies where melee units are more or less a meme other than as meat shields. There are other, less egregious cheese tricks like going wide and keeping e.g. Korea as an ally for as long as possible: you will have plenty of Gold to purchase technologies from your ally once they research Scientific Theory for you and it doesn't really matter that your techs have become more expensive.

why are all border growth strats broken right now? has baseline border growth become faster in this alpha version?

There is currently a bug that causes WLTKD to never end. Fealty doubles Border Growth during WLTKD so that may be the reason.