[GS] Power Ranking the Civs (Gathering Storm)

[The googles do nothing]

Never too soon.. Here's the GS Power ranking thread. Does Wilfred Laurier replace Tamar? Does Hungary belong in god tier? Has Victoria Brexited the lowest rank? Here they are, in order of appearance:

Dido
Engleanor of Aquitaine
Frelenor of Aquitaine
Kristina
Kupe
Mansa Musa
Matthais Corvinus
Patchacuti
Suleman
Wilfred Laurier
Chandagupta
Genghis Khan
Lataro
Poundmaker
Robert the Bruce
Seondeok
Shaka
Tamar
Wilhelmina
Alexander
Amanatore
Catherine De Medici
Cleopatra
Cyrus
Fredrick Barbarossa
Gandhi
Gilgamesh
Gitarja
Gorgo
Harald Hardrada
Hojo Tokimune
Jadwiga
Jayavarman VII
John Curtin
Montezuma
Mvemba Nzinga
Pedro II
Pericles
Peter
Phillip II
Qin Shi Hang
Saladin
Teddy Roosevelt
Tomyris
Trajan
Victoria

 

[Navelgazer]

Curious to see how all this shakes out (I've started and played around a little with almost everyone but am still finishing my first full game with Mansa Musa, who is insanely powerful it seems. I have a feeling the general power level of this expansion is well above Vanilla and R+F.

 

[Sprenk]

Always so many caveats with such lists. Are we talking single or multi-player? What type of map (Peter on a cold map vs Peter on a hot, arid map)? What level of player knowledge? (Easy for starter players? Hard to master but powerful in the hands of a skilled player at Diety?) What preference for victory condition?

These lists can be fun, and have their place, I suppose. But they also make me cringe a bit--because some players will treat them as gospel and not as highly contingent personal preference.

 

[Navelgazer]

Oh for sure. (I tend to play King or Emperor, on islands, archipelago, or fractal maps myself. Lists that assume Diety and Pangea will not match my experience) But regardless they become a good discussion of synergies and strategies and how to deal with troublesome enemies etc.

 

[kb27787]

I only do peaceful cultural victories on deity mainly, but I've played almost all the new civs except Ottomans and completed wins with them. Here's my ranking...

Dido: D

Gov plaza being cheap helps other districts come up faster; unfortunately most of her abilities (such as moving the capital) are useless. Coastal cities suck in general (sea trade routes get a buff in GS however, your city does not HAVE to be coastal... all you need is the coast on the 3rd ring while your main city is inland with fresh water), but with things such as Cahokia mounds they can be OK. UD is relatively good (anything that provides a trade route for half price is not bad in my book). Ironically she plays better with an inland empire with lakes than with coastal empires. No early defense and UU is melee which means they get stuck moving on the coast due to ZoC from city center.

Elenor of Aquitaine: B
Frelenor of Aquitaine: A

As people have already noticed, she can conquer without conquering. This ability alone gives her at least a B. France seems to suit her ability a lot more than England; no bonuses early game so you really need that early culture to beeline drama and poetry for those early writers... and hope you manage to stay at peace. (just get them, slot +2 writer card, get a theatre square up quickly and put Pingala's double GPP promotion on, even if you don't have amphitheatres up yet... those 60 GPP writers are worth more their weight in gold). If attacked, she does not have Catherine's +3 thing, so she is just a Vanilla civ when it comes to early defense.


Kristina: A

UI alone would give her at least a B. The fact that it comes at an early civic (nationalism) means that the culture gets to kick in for that many turns. Nobel prize is useless as most likely you would end the game before the first competition is over anyway. UB and UA combos exceptionally well with Pingala (theming doubles not only tourism, but culture) so she speeds through the civic tree if you can get the great works early. Same playstyle with Eleanor. Downside is, no early defense.

Kupe: S

The broken civ right here. UB is S grade alone (faith combos exceptionally well with monumentality). UU is actually very good (40 with -5 for the opponent) and is upgradable and on a relatively early tech (iron working)--whose resource is revealed at an earlier tech (bronze working) so you've accumulated enough iron to upgrade once research is complete. That fact that they start with 2 culture (as opposed to 1.3 for others) means unless there are tile-faith civs such as Russia and Indonesia around, if you slot God king immediately you will get the pantheon first (earth goddess rather than harvest for these guys). Overpowered civ at the moment.


Mansa Musa: B

This guy is either a D or an A, depending on the start. Early game is a nightmare but if you survive with peace, you can buy all your settlers and everything else. If you get Petra the game is so much easier. Ironically you almost always want to be building wonders with these guys since the production penalty does not come into play here. Choice of first pantheon is also great (earth goddess again, as desert usually has very scarce harvestables). Downside is that some games you will die to AI rush without even a glimmer of a chance.


Matthais Corvinus: B

Solid production bonus (good thing is that it works for buildings in the districts as well--however you are quite limited in where you place your city center) and allows you to explore the whole map early with levied 4 move-units. This is a civ that can neglect military early as long as there is a usefully placed CS nearby. Otherwise bland and not much to say. Efficient, but not gamebreakingly so.


Patchacuti: A

Terrace farms available at the beginning means they have an amazing early game with lots of hammers, as plain hills which otherwise would slow your growth become mega food tiles next to mountains. Mountains are also great defensive terrain (you get your slingers/archers out very quickly with your production anyway). Ancestral hall a must for these guys. UU is a bit overkill (they die to horse barbs very easily, but do massive damage if they strike first). They grow cities fast and early game they will get districts much faster than Hungary above (Hungary will start to catch up when producing tier 2 and 3 buildings though). A great civ for early wondermongering as well since they have great production. Good civ, but not quite as broken as Maori.

Wilfred Laurier: D

With a strong tundra bias and no yield bonuses to help if you want to win with this guy it's either rerolling starts or moving your settler for a handful of turns... which means he is late to pantheon and everything. Admittedly UI is nice but can only be built on snow/tundra, unlike Sweden. UU is great not so much as for the combat (they are in the civics tree and cannot be upgraded into) as for the free national park. The thing that prevents me from giving this guy an E is that he does not have to worry about early attacks from AI (unless of course, you get denounced... which is still a real possibility) and that if you can hit modern era golden age you win the game (wish you were here doubling national park tourism... and this guy can spam national parks endlessly); more efficient civs though would've ended the game long before this becomes available.

 

[Vahnstad]

Always so many caveats with such lists. Are we talking single or multi-player? What type of map (Peter on a cold map vs Peter on a hot, arid map)? What level of player knowledge? (Easy for starter players? Hard to master but powerful in the hands of a skilled player at Diety?) What preference for victory condition?

These lists can be fun, and have their place, I suppose. But they also make me cringe a bit--because some players will treat them as gospel and not as highly contingent personal preference.

Would say obviously single player, mostly standard settings (continent, average map, average weather conditions). You could add in your description in what conditions a certain civ would be good or if the strength of the civ is map-dependant, like adding: "norway is good on water maps".

 

[BenitoChavez]

Only going to do the GS Civs since the other ones are the same or only had minor changes. I've played Kupe, Mansa Musa, Suleiman, Eleanor, and Patchacuti enough to have a decent idea of what they can do. The others I judge from what I've seen from livestreams.

S Tier (Why is this called S tier? Makes no sense to me.)
Matthais Corvinus - Levying super powered CS troops with free upgrades is super broke.

A Tier
Kupe - Can have S tier starts and can also lose before settling your first city. High variance but also high median.

B Tier
Mansa Musa - Weak early, good mid, super strong late.
Suleman - Pretty vanilla civ until you hit the Renaissance. Then he becomes an offensive juggernaut.
Kristina - Difficult to judge due to the disparity in difficulty of Cultural and Diplo victories. CV is easy though so I'll put her here.

C Tier
The Eleanors - Requires lots of work to get her leader ability to work but is quite powerful once it does.
Patchacuti - Terrace Farms are fun and all, but large pop cities aren't as good as a bunch of small cities.

D Tier
Wilfred Laurier - Pretty vanilla civ until you hit the Industrial era. Even then he only does alright.
Dido - Settler spam is difficult to do on higher difficulty and her other bonuses are very niche.

Georgia Tier
Tamar reigns alone.

 

[MarigoldRan]

S Tier: Maori, Inca. Two of the best UUs in the game. Very powerful economies that kick in early. Oh you think the Inca are only for tall economies? Then you haven't played them right.
The Incans are one of the most devastating warmongers in the game. They have an economy like the Cree, but with an Overpowered UU.

A Tier: Hungary. Levying CSes sounds great until you realize that at Deity the AI gets envoy bonuses, too, meaning they can cancel out your levy. Also, requires city states nearby to levy.

A Tier: Sulieman. One of the best archer rush civs thanks to their unique governor. Has an amazing UU that's super cheap and strong.

B Tier: Mansa Musa. If you can survive the early game, you're set.
If.

Everyone else: Meh.

 

[ZeroSuitSenpai]

My personal opinion on the GS civs:

S Tier: Matthias .
A Tier: Kupe, Pachacuti, Kristina, Suleiman
B Tier: Musa, Dido, Eleanor (France)
C Tier: Eleanor (England), Wilfrid Laurier

 

[AmazonQueen]

A: Matthias, Kupe, Pachacuti
B: Suleiman, Kristina, Mansa
C: Eleanor (France), Dido
D: Canada
E: Eleanor (England)

Kupe would be S if it wasn't for that I've just forward settled Monty moment you can get.
Played Canada for a while this afternoon, not too bad but not very interesting.
Eleanor's ability doesn't seem very helpful for England who have a lot of other things they want to do rather than chase great works.

 

[ZeroSuitSenpai]

Eleanor's ability doesn't seem very helpful for England who have a lot of other things they want to do rather than chase great works.

I kind of agree. I do feel like there's some sort of grand Eleanor dream in doing a naval invasion on the other continent, and then using her Court of Love to slowly assimilate both continents in your game in the late game. But I haven't gotten this scenario to play out perfectly for me yet with her. France rarely having coastal starts is more useful for her ability.

 

[Pietato]

Kupe: S

The broken civ right here. UB is S grade alone (faith combos exceptionally well with monumentality). UU is actually very good (40 with -5 for the opponent) and is upgradable and on a relatively early tech (iron working)--whose resource is revealed at an earlier tech (bronze working) so you've accumulated enough iron to upgrade once research is complete. That fact that they start with 2 culture (as opposed to 1.3 for others) means unless there are tile-faith civs such as Russia and Indonesia around, if you slot God king immediately you will get the pantheon first (earth goddess rather than harvest for these guys). Overpowered civ at the moment.

The Toa does not require iron, can repair tiles, stacks with itself (the -5), and has no upkeep. Also it is unlocked with Construction (one tech later). Might be the strongest unit in the game.

 

[Chocolate Pi]

Georgia is considerably better now (but still pretty bottom of the barrel) now that city states matter more and their fancy walls give 8 faith and 6 tourism. (Upgrading them from "joke" to "dubious"--this has as much to do with walls in general having double HP now as the bonuses being decent.) They still suffer from being a civ who needs a religion but has no way to get one, while having only underwhelming bonuses gated at the mid-game. (Much like Spain and Norway--the other weakest civs.)


Canada is imo worse than Georgia, Spain, and Norway. You enjoy the game's worst starting positions, yet with even worse Tundra compensation than Russia. (Peter gets tiles for free, with free faith and prod. Poor William still has to pay half price for those crappy tiles, merely to enjoy the right to spend full price builder charges on the game's worst farms.) And while Russia has tools to secure a religion and thrive in a "coming from behind" position, Canada has... nothing but a bunch of niche late game perks. Hell, you don't even have Peter's new Blizzard immunity--your starting position will be routinely wrecked by Blizzards!

Your favor bonuses only kick in late game, and will pale in comparison to any civ who has been enjoying CS-related perks all game. (Nevermind the huge advantages that CSs give in every other category) Hockey Rinks come SUPER late, and require tundra and/or Stadiums. National Parks are niche to begin with, and a dead-end era-6 unique weaker-than-calvery-but-more-expensive unit with bonuses next to them is as corner-case as it gets.

Improved Emergency rewards typically only affect the 2nd or 3rd place rewards of certain emergencies! (And it's negligable--contrast with Kristina's GP boost) Doubled resources on Tundra is very random and will often amount to nothing. (Contrast with the resources other civs get from conquering whatever land they want.)

No Surprise War has minimal impact on balance (half the time rushers denounce me anyway), though it's a really cool gimmick; A+ design.

In sum, Canada has F-tier starting positions, zero early advantages what-so-ever, and a wide array of bonuses that are both late and negligable. After winning a slog of a game with them, in which it felt like I was playing a purely vanilla civ with a terrible starting position (that I re-rolled 10 times before giving up), I have no idea why I'd select them again.


Sweden, meanwhile, is a comparably designed/incentived late-game civ who seems solid mid-tier and quite fun. Optimizing her UI is fun and way more reasonable than "Mass Tundra + Stadiums"...

 

[Lily_Lancer]

I'll leave this thread until some exploits being fixed( or ensured that they'll never be fixed).

If those exploits not being fixed, there will be weird results on Civ Power Ranking (All usual bonuses become useless and Civs are actually ranked by how well they can pillage)

Moderator Action: Merged two threads on this topic --NZ

 

[Lord Lakely]

I've only played two: Sweden and Eleanor as England.

Sweden is definitely A tier. Settled 10 cities on a large map, allied everyone, won an effortless Culture victory. Rock Bands take away the need to fight stronger culture opponents. I was swimming in Diplomatic Favor too, so I could easily buy other civ's Great Works as well. Excellent Civ imo.

Engleanor I am putting in the D tier because Court of Love is way too passive. It's near impossible to take advantage of, even in an aggro warmonger game all it does is flip a few crappy, low pop cities. Peaceful flippping is near-impossible. I am playing pangaea large, so cities are placed far from one another, meaning heR bonus is less impactful than it normally would have been.

Ps: i am swimming in GWAMs, (and I'm min-maxing the art) it's a shock i'm not getting more out of her ability as is. I would have already won Culture by now but I switched off all victory types except Dom and Score, so...

Poor Victoria is still F tier though . But at least she can upgrade to D tier on water maps now

 

[Arent11]

I'm having fun with Scythia. With coursers, guaranteed horses & the already mentioned strength of pillaging they are top notch.

I also experimented a little with Norway, coastal pillaging and hit and run pillaging, but the effect is limited.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I only do peaceful cultural victories on deity mainly, but I've played almost all the new civs except Ottomans and completed wins with them. Here's my ranking...

Dido: D

Gov plaza being cheap helps other districts come up faster; unfortunately most of her abilities (such as moving the capital) are useless. Coastal cities suck in general (sea trade routes get a buff in GS however, your city does not HAVE to be coastal... all you need is the coast on the 3rd ring while your main city is inland with fresh water), but with things such as Cahokia mounds they can be OK. UD is relatively good (anything that provides a trade route for half price is not bad in my book). Ironically she plays better with an inland empire with lakes than with coastal empires. No early defense and UU is melee which means they get stuck moving on the coast due to ZoC from city center.

Elenor of Aquitaine: B
Frelenor of Aquitaine: A

As people have already noticed, she can conquer without conquering. This ability alone gives her at least a B. France seems to suit her ability a lot more than England; no bonuses early game so you really need that early culture to beeline drama and poetry for those early writers... and hope you manage to stay at peace. (just get them, slot +2 writer card, get a theatre square up quickly and put Pingala's double GPP promotion on, even if you don't have amphitheatres up yet... those 60 GPP writers are worth more their weight in gold). If attacked, she does not have Catherine's +3 thing, so she is just a Vanilla civ when it comes to early defense.


Kristina: A

UI alone would give her at least a B. The fact that it comes at an early civic (nationalism) means that the culture gets to kick in for that many turns. Nobel prize is useless as most likely you would end the game before the first competition is over anyway. UB and UA combos exceptionally well with Pingala (theming doubles not only tourism, but culture) so she speeds through the civic tree if you can get the great works early. Same playstyle with Eleanor. Downside is, no early defense.

Kupe: S

The broken civ right here. UB is S grade alone (faith combos exceptionally well with monumentality). UU is actually very good (40 with -5 for the opponent) and is upgradable and on a relatively early tech (iron working)--whose resource is revealed at an earlier tech (bronze working) so you've accumulated enough iron to upgrade once research is complete. That fact that they start with 2 culture (as opposed to 1.3 for others) means unless there are tile-faith civs such as Russia and Indonesia around, if you slot God king immediately you will get the pantheon first (earth goddess rather than harvest for these guys). Overpowered civ at the moment.


Mansa Musa: B

This guy is either a D or an A, depending on the start. Early game is a nightmare but if you survive with peace, you can buy all your settlers and everything else. If you get Petra the game is so much easier. Ironically you almost always want to be building wonders with these guys since the production penalty does not come into play here. Choice of first pantheon is also great (earth goddess again, as desert usually has very scarce harvestables). Downside is that some games you will die to AI rush without even a glimmer of a chance.


Matthais Corvinus: B

Solid production bonus (good thing is that it works for buildings in the districts as well--however you are quite limited in where you place your city center) and allows you to explore the whole map early with levied 4 move-units. This is a civ that can neglect military early as long as there is a usefully placed CS nearby. Otherwise bland and not much to say. Efficient, but not gamebreakingly so.


Patchacuti: A

Terrace farms available at the beginning means they have an amazing early game with lots of hammers, as plain hills which otherwise would slow your growth become mega food tiles next to mountains. Mountains are also great defensive terrain (you get your slingers/archers out very quickly with your production anyway). Ancestral hall a must for these guys. UU is a bit overkill (they die to horse barbs very easily, but do massive damage if they strike first). They grow cities fast and early game they will get districts much faster than Hungary above (Hungary will start to catch up when producing tier 2 and 3 buildings though). A great civ for early wondermongering as well since they have great production. Good civ, but not quite as broken as Maori.

Wilfred Laurier: D

With a strong tundra bias and no yield bonuses to help if you want to win with this guy it's either rerolling starts or moving your settler for a handful of turns... which means he is late to pantheon and everything. Admittedly UI is nice but can only be built on snow/tundra, unlike Sweden. UU is great not so much as for the combat (they are in the civics tree and cannot be upgraded into) as for the free national park. The thing that prevents me from giving this guy an E is that he does not have to worry about early attacks from AI (unless of course, you get denounced... which is still a real possibility) and that if you can hit modern era golden age you win the game (wish you were here doubling national park tourism... and this guy can spam national parks endlessly); more efficient civs though would've ended the game long before this becomes available.

I just want to point out that your comments on the Toa are incorrect. They are at construction not iron working. And they do not require iron.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Holy crap, Canada is bad and they should feel bad for designing it as such..I thought Georgia was an attempt to create the most useless civ ever, but here we are. Maybe I've just been getting these terrible spawns with them.

Mali is good, despite their awful start. It's probably a good idea to buy something early.

Sweden is decently balanced, even if they have a weak start. You drown in favor if you focus great people.

 

[Jewelrunna]

Personal early impressions:

S-Tier:
Hungary - Pearl of the Danube is insane, envoys are easy to acquire, easy expansion, Thermal Baths are neat.
Inca - Crazy production and growth, and Mita means that making mega cities actually means something. Waka’s are ridiculous.

A-Tier:
Maori - If I were calculating this score based solely on their uniques, they’d be S-tier free. However, it’s important to remember that games with the Maori don’t account for them during map generation, meaning that they’ll be more likely to fight for their position than others. If they get the ball rolling though, they’re S-tier for sure, but I think they find some difficulty early on. I might bump them up later though.
Mali - They have easily the toughest start on this list, so that originally made me think they’d be D-tier. However, after watching Potato McWhiskey’s playthrough, I’ve concluded that they’re SS-tier once they’re all set up; the gold generation is simply ridiculous and they get more out of gold than other Civs. Still, the start is rough outside of a more or less guaranteed first pantheon, so I think A-tier is a fair spot.

B-Tier;
Sweden - Kristina takes a decent amount of time to come online, but once their uniques kick in their culture and tourism gain is insane. The Nobel Prizes are also nice to play around with, considering Sweden’s diplo favor gain. All around solid.

C-Tier:
Ottomans - To me, the Ottomans’ abilities simply kick in way too late to be exceedingly good, and trying to invest points in Ibrahim night punish you more than the use you get out of him. However, getting to conquer full pop cities and getting extra strategic resources is really powerful. Janissaries are insane, but you have to have already conquered cities to really use them (or upgrade, but that’s not that helpful if you need to spam them on short notice).
Dido - To me, Dido is a one trick pony, where that one trick is actually useful. The trick I’m referring to is Settler spamming; they can get a high amount of Settlers out there real quick, which speeds up your early game quite a bit. Everything else outside of the district production is gimmicky, and even that isn’t as good as the Aztecs or Nubia or Hungary.

D-Tier
Eleanor (France & England) - Expanding through Great Works is a neat gimmick, but at the end of the day it is just a gimmick. Plus, I think I’d rather play as the original leaders over Eleanor; I prefer Victoria’s access to Redcoats and Catherine’s +3 combat strength.
Canada - I’m pretty sure that Canada is the new worst Civ in the game—yes, even considering Georgia. Canada’s niches are just so specific and situational, and they’re simply outclassed by other Civs in those niches. Russia and the Cree are better boarder expansionists. Russia is a better tundra Civ. Sweden and America are better late game culture/diplomacy Civs. Simply put, Canada is weak at what they do, and what they’re geared towards is incredibly specific at the same time. For most of the game, you’re essentially playing a blank slate.

 

[Foulweather]

Only played Hungary so far. On single player, if you can find some good city states early, you’re golden. I was able to rush for swordsmen, levy two city states, and conquer two civs quite easily. I didn’t think much of Pearl of the Danube: Hated how it seemed to restrict where I put my cities.

However I think there’d be a weakness in multiplayer. Once Hungary levies a city state or two for a war and peels off their units, the city states become ripe for the picking by someone else looking to neutralize Hungary’s city state abilities. Take away that and Hungary has to take time and effort to rebuild envoys with someone else. The AI isn’t good enough to target Hungary’s city states when they’re away at war, but we sure are.