[GS] Power Ranking the Civs (Gathering Storm)

[IvoryPavane]

It's interesting that the Cree where one of the better economic civs before, because of trade routes/mekewap, and then they make the Inca, who also have a recon UU, a UI that also allows food/production tiles (though mekewap is more consistent) and a food from trade routes ability. Maybe they just like that setup over at FXS.


+50% on something like commercial hubs alone is a great ability, but it applies to the buildings too, which are more expensive than districts normally. Thermal baths are very good with their extra amenity and +2 production aura. They really are not a pure warmonger civ.




I strongly agree. People often get in the mindset that Civ is the Beat Up Deity AI Simulator, and discount that in MP, the power level questions really get exposed. What better way to test balance than give comparable players equal gameplay bonuses and let them choose civs? I also think the devs need to organize more "dev clashes" or whatever Ed and Carl did, but with more people involved. I think Stellaris does this and it does lead to rapid turnaround on "overpowered" stuff since, no one likes losing to their coworker when he keeps pitati rushing you every week. The water cooler trash talk is a powerful motivator.
If you really balanced the civs, units, buildings, etc, I think it would make the game better overall, and it would let issues around the fundamental game design and AI be separately handled. (Not that I advocated perfect starcraft level balance. Just bring some of the big outliers a little more towards the middle.)

My friends and I did something similar by sitting down and thinking about the Civs from a multiplayer perspective. We’ve all “mained” a GS Civs and then compare our notes after the game. It’s pretty fun!

But it does change the game exponentially and changes the outlook. Like The Inca’s UU is very very strong in the AI, but it’s pretty easy to deal with if they go on the offensive. Whereas their turtle ability is very strong.

And equally so, I’ve been surprised to the reaction to Phonecia as being considered overall weak, whereas my experience with them has been very different (not to brag but Dido is winning most of her matches haha!), and I think it’s because her abilities are much more efficient against other humans than against the AI- perhaps? Or maybe I just have a groove with her. She’s currently house banned so I’m giving Kristina and Wilfred a roll over the weekend, so I’ll report my findings!

But to my original point, the ranking of a Civ needs to have fairly solid context behind it. I’m not sure the game needs to be balanced around multiplayer persay, but I do think it’s very odd that the very subtle power of Canada was released in the same expansion of the very overt power of the Maori...

 

[Pietato]

AI Tamar does fairly well in my games. I'm not sure why since they build so many holy sites.

She builds a lot of walls.

I really would like to see hockey rinks buildable in more terrain types say when electricity tech comes on line. We do have a hockey team you know...

Ice hockey, you mean.

 

[Onii-chan]

Well I took my time but I've finally played a full game with every new leader from GS now (including Eleanor for both England and France) and I'd intentionally decided to wait with commenting in this thread until I'd done so. So I guess I can just give my general thoughts

So in my opinion from best to worst are:

1. Kupe - Maori
The one game I played as Maori was perhaps the most dominant victory I've ever had in a civ game. Really this is just a myriad of crazy bonuses. Being unable to harvest or get great writers doesn't really matter, nor do their crazy starting location really become a huge problem, however they just have so many abilities that they just end up being able to do almost anything and they'll be amazing at it. Very fun civ but quite overpowered

2. Mansa Musa - Mali
The only problem with Mali is that they are quite susceptible to being killed by an AI warrior rush or similar as they have almost nothing going for them in the early game, although they will have a lot of early population from a desert start so Pingala's promotions will be a huge boost to them. But in any case Mali is a ticking time bomb as once the gold starts rolling in it never ever stops and you can just buy your way to basically anything. I found that you do a lot of wonder spamming as Mali since the production penalty doesn't affect wonders, and then mostly get districts with Reyna instead

3. Matthias Corvinus - Hungary
Hungary is a bit luck-based since their usefulness depends a lot on where the city states end up being located, but if you get any stragetically well-positioned ones then their levy ability is just absurdly strong for conquering your neighbours. It's the only civ I've ever felt it worthwhile getting the Foreign Ministry building in the Government Plaza with. Also they are effectively the only civ that can buy city state envoys for gold like you could in civ 6 so they are actually surprisingly good for diplomatic victory as well

4. Pachacuti - Inca
Largely map-dependant as you are only as good as the amount of mountains you get. But if you tinker with the game setup in your favour then they are absurdly strong, especially on high disaster settings since terrace farms on volcanic soil are just ridiculous. Also their unique unit can be quite crazy strong if you want to go on the offensive with it

5. Eleanor of Aquitaine - France
First of all, I absolutely love this game design. The snowball effect once it starts rolling is so satisfying for someone that doesn't normally enjoy playing domination style gameplay, and being able to flip cities one at a time peacefully is a ton of fun. It's also quite efficient and culturally it's a strong civ in general

6. Kristina - Sweden
Sweden has a pretty massive power spike. For half the game they have basically nothing going for them and then once you get open air museums you will literally double your culture output and then shortly thereafter your tourism will start going up exponentially as well. Also a bit of a ticking time bomb in that sense; eventually a culture victory is almost inevitable

7. Dido - Phoenicia
Okay so the whole loyalty mechanic and capital swapping idea is very hard to make use of in practice. There are so few and specific situations where one would actually need to do that. The most useful aspect of Phoenicia is rather the Cothon for how easy it is to spam trade routes and settlers, which are always useful for any type of strategy. Most of their bonuses are too gimmicky to be useful however

8. Suleiman - Ottomans
Honestly I found the Ottomans to be a bit meh. The unique governor is honestly quite useless in my opinion, at least compared to some of the regular ones which you'd rather spend your governor promotions on. The other bonuses are all pretty whatever, except for the Janissary which is very cheap to build and thus quite useful, as well as the no population loss on city capture, which is quite powerful if you intend to keep conquering stuff. Not a bad civ I guess but it just feels like an inferior one to some other domination civs that are designed for doing about the same thing

9. Eleanor of Aquitaine - England
I don't really understand why you would ever want to play Eleanor as England over France. Not only is there much less synergy with the abilities, but England's new abilities are just kind of... bad in general. Workshop of the World is basically irrelevant so the only thing worthwhile about them is the Royal Navy Dockyard, which is not bad of course but I'd rather just have the Grand Tour bonus from France

10. Wilfrid Laurier - Canada
Well there's not much to say other than that Canada is absolute trash. Being able to build farms in tundra is cute, but it doesn't change the fact that tundra sucks so why would I even bother? I guess being unable to be rushed in the ancient era since no one can declare surprise wars on them is nice but that's about it. If you really want to go for a diplomatic victory then sure there are some bonuses for that, but really it's not even a big amount of extra diplomatic favor that they receive in practice. They really don't have anything going for them at all

 

[IvoryPavane]

In terms of Dido, there are a lot of gimmicks with loyalty and capital swapping, but I disagree that there are few situations. You will benefit from it in every single game.

At the bare minimum, you can settle your contintent freely with multiple cities and then give them all 25% gold, 10% production and 15% growth. (And more, should you build Casa). And that is very easy to achieve.

But I’m going to stop fighting the good fight with Phonecia because I’m now 26/35 wins with her in my multiplayer group, and it’s her general low standing that is keeping them from house banning her every game . (That is saved for Maori)

After 35 MP games, I’ve reassessed my own original thoughts and I’ve placed Mali last. Against humans, he just cannot survive his early game, even on the luckiest of starts, unless he has a very benevolent neighbour. (And given his strength once he gets going, it would be madness to show him mercy haha)

 

[Weraptor]

My experience so far:
1. Maori - the most powerful civ that isn't absolutely schemed towards domination in my book
2. Hungary - a bit situational, but highly synergistic, can hybridize domination and diplomacy
3. Sweden - counterable in the early game but their power spike is the craziest one i've seen
4. Ottomans - catapult rush isn't as bad as I thought, then you easily snowball
5. Phoenicia - surprisingly powerful if there's room to settle, sciencey generalist
6. Egypt - Egypt is really good in GS, there's a lot of buffs - a) iteru change is amazing, b) alliance points are actually useful, c) further buffs to international trade routes, d) shinxes can be placed next to one another
7. Mali - I'm aware of the free unit exploit but I haven't accounted it for this rating, you do get a lot of gold and faith in exchange for an absolutely terrible early game
8. Inca - maybe I wasn't lucky with my starting location and their UU, but they haven't impressed me all that much
9. Canada - ... yeah

 

[Disgustipated]

played a full game with every new leader from GS now (including Eleanor for both England and France

I probably should have waited until I played both Eleanors before commenting earlier because...

I don't really understand why you would ever want to play Eleanor as England over France

My Eleanor England game went so much better than my Eleanor France game. Sure, map played a part, my France game had too many mountains, but mountains really shouldn't inhibit loyalty flipping. Having fast RND's and getting a great gold income going helped immensely. Rush buying things in gold was great from an opportunity cost perspective. I will say the RND was the only thing going for me. Not sure if +2 for powered tier 3 buildings even affected broadcast centers , I forgot to check, probably just +2 culture. I struggled to flip anything in my France game, where my England game I was flipping cities left and righf. Building wonders as France doesn't really help flip cities unless they are wonders with great work slots. You lose the spy bonus of Catherine which would have helped steal great works. Even with my many coastal cities as England I was able to get the ball rolling. I believe it only took 1 interior city to get the ball rolling.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Eleanor of England is better, because France doesn't actually have good abilities before medival (it mostly comes from Catherine). I mean faster producing wonders is good, but not exactly something that can carry a game.

I think the real question is Eleanor vs Victoria.

 

[Sagax]

Freleanor vs Engleanor depends heavily on the map and circumstances, IMO. Freleanor dominates better on your home landmass, while anything remote is better handled by Engleanor. As Freleanor, you don't have to research and invest into Harbors at all if you're not close to the coast. A mix of Theatre Square + Commercial Hub or Theatre Square + Campus, and you are good (throw in a Holy Site if the pop allows that).

For example, in my Freleanor game I was limited to 5 own cities, and blocked in all directions by the south pole, Nubia, America, and Engleanor. Each of those civs had capitals within 9 tiles from most of my cities. The moment I got St. Michel and Hermitage, it was game over for them - Teddy lost his capital, London is the only city now bordering with my lands, and Nubia is only saved by a CS between us. I could have continued the snowball, but I won CV with all that tourism. I highly doubt that Engleanor would have handled this scenario any better.

 

[Kmart_Elvis]

I probably should have waited until I played both Eleanors before commenting earlier because...



My Eleanor England game went so much better than my Eleanor France game. Sure, map played a part, my France game had too many mountains, but mountains really shouldn't inhibit loyalty flipping. Having fast RND's and getting a great gold income going helped immensely. Rush buying things in gold was great from an opportunity cost perspective. I will say the RND was the only thing going for me. Not sure if +2 for powered tier 3 buildings even affected broadcast centers , I forgot to check, probably just +2 culture. I struggled to flip anything in my France game, where my England game I was flipping cities left and righf. Building wonders as France doesn't really help flip cities unless they are wonders with great work slots. You lose the spy bonus of Catherine which would have helped steal great works. Even with my many coastal cities as England I was able to get the ball rolling. I believe it only took 1 interior city to get the ball rolling.

I'm currently playing Engleanor and she's better than I expected. It really is better to have RDNY than Chataeux. The money stream is nice; easily allows Reyna for theatre districts to pop up instantly on your frontier, and then you can gold buy your amphitheatre/art museum/broadcast center. My BCs are getting extra culture from WOTW by being powered. And I've been able to buy great works from other civs by selling iron/coal/favor/little bit of gold. I'm now finishing up the game with indie rock hallyu bands.

France does have the wonder bonus, but that's mostly limited to your core cities. I think England is written off by a lot of people, but I'm having a lot of fun with them.

 

[Leucarum]

I'm currently playing Engleanor and she's better than I expected. It really is better to have RDNY than Chataeux. The money stream is nice; easily allows Reyna for theatre districts to pop up instantly on your frontier, and then you can gold buy your amphitheatre/art museum/broadcast center. My BCs are getting extra culture from being powered. And I've been able to buy great works from other civs by selling iron/coal/favor/little bit of gold. I'm now finishing up the game with indie rock hallyu bands.

France does have the wonder bonus, but that's mostly limited to your core cities. I think England is written off by a lot of people, but I'm having a lot of fun with them.

Likewise, I think I changed my mind about Englaenor after playing a game taking some advice from others on how she synergized. The amount of cash you can easily make from dockyards is very useful in making sure your frontline cities are equipped to leverage her ability.

It didn't hurt that in that game I ended up isolated on a long peninsula despite the map being pangaea. Frelaenor would have struggled to build wonders where they mattered and since all combat happened off my own continent the garde imperiale wouldn't have helped either... Amusingly in that game, only one city state survived the AIpocalypse - fortunately it was antananarivo...

 

[AsparustheSaiyan]

Here's a first draft of a tier list I just made. Please bear in mind I am far from the most experienced player. Pretty much a noob actually. I have only just moved up to king difficulty and I have tried to incorporate what I have read on this forum and what I've discussed with others into my decision making.

So... Please go easy on me lol.

Edit: I forget to mention this list is for single player.

 

[Tyroq]

Here's a first draft of a tier list I just made. Please bear in mind I am far from the most experienced player. Pretty much a noob actually. I have only just moved up to king difficulty and I have tried to incorporate what I have read on this forum and what I've discussed with others into my decision making...

Very cool. But Maori definitely need to be in God tier. They're the most OP civ since Gilgamesh. Also... Scotland below Japan? That's curious. Why? And Australia in God tier? Tell me more.

 

[kaltorak]

And Australia in God tier?

I like australia quite a lot. It's not hard to find breathtaking tiles for big district bonuses. Housing is always nice. And I waste less resources on military for possible wars, since I get such a high boost for producing them if I get a war declaration. The improvement is also nice, they make already good food+production tiles even better.

That said, my love for it is also bc I like generalist civs. Civs with no specific focus whcih let me play however I want each game, and australia works very good for that.

 

[Sagax]

Very cool. But Maori definitely need to be in God tier. They're the most OP civ since Gilgamesh. Also... Scotland below Japan? That's curious. Why? And Australia in God tier? Tell me more.

Not sure if God tier, but their UA is not to be ignored. Also, some players manage to consistently trigger their LUA.

 

[bonafide11]

I think the Ottoman are a bit underrated. I find they have a lot of good bonuses for rapid conquest. However, their unique governor is somewhat of a paradox. I like the production bonus on units and I like how you can move him quicker, but the bonuses in foreign Civs doesn't really come in handy very often. You'll likely be at war much of the game with Civs who he'd be useful for, so you can't put him in their capitals since you're at war with them. So the loyalty part doesn't really come in handy much.

And the other problem is it's hard to take advantage of many of his bonuses at the same time. I prefer to have governors where I can use their bonuses together in my cities. Not "Well, I could put him in my city for a military bonus, or I could put him in a rival city to reduce grievances, or I could put him in an ally city to increase leveling rate" (I don't really even understand what that last one means). However, overall they are very strong, so I guess a mediocre governor is okay.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I think the Ottoman are a bit underrated. I find they have a lot of good bonuses for rapid conquest. However, their unique governor is somewhat of a paradox. I like the production bonus on units and I like how you can move him quicker, but the bonuses in foreign Civs doesn't really come in handy very often. You'll likely be at war much of the game with Civs who he'd be useful for, so you can't put him in their capitals since you're at war with them. So the loyalty part doesn't really come in handy much.

And the other problem is it's hard to take advantage of many of his bonuses at the same time. I prefer to have governors where I can use their bonuses together in my cities. Not "Well, I could put him in my city for a military bonus, or I could put him in a rival city to reduce grievances, or I could put him in an ally city to increase leveling rate" (I don't really even understand what that last one means). However, overall they are very strong, so I guess a mediocre governor is okay.

It's the alliance leveling rate. He helps make your alliances reach higher levels faster.

 

[AsparustheSaiyan]

Very cool. But Maori definitely need to be in God tier. They're the most OP civ since Gilgamesh. Also... Scotland below Japan? That's curious. Why? And Australia in God tier? Tell me more.

My only issue with the Maori is their start. Whilst insanely fun I've found sometimes you can be sandwiched in-between city states and depending on the map generation and difficulty and that can really be a problem. Though their UU is fantastic and their abilities are great and I can see the argument for God tier. Just not for me yet, but I can be persuaded otherwise.

I honestly think Japan is vastly underrated. +50% production towards holy sites, encampments and theatre squares saves a lot of production a lot of production. In a good game Japan has a decent shot at a prophet, the first writer and a stronger military earlier than most. Whilst these districts are just regular holy sites, theatre and encampments the fact that Japan gets all three 50% off is huge to me. It saves a lot of time. Their district adjacency bonus' are great too. You can create some powerhouse cities by clustering all their districts together. The samurai is fantastic too and comes at a point in thetgame when you should have the resource for them. The reason they aren't god tier for me is because outside of the 50% off for these districts they aren't anything special, you still need the population to put the districts down too.

I have two main problems with Robert the Bruce. The first one is the highlander... I just don't like it. I barely build rangers as is and Its combat bonus is terrain dependant too. My second problem is his leader ability. It requires someone to have taken another city in order to be activated and any ability that I as the player don't have control over I rank a little bit lower.

I was torn with Australia between bottom of the god tier or top of the strong tier. When I was deciding god tier I decided that the civs that go there have to be either extremely strong in one area i.e. science in Korea's case and early war for Sumeria and Nubia, extremely versatile and have great bonus' to achieving multiple victory types. I.e. Russia and Aztecs OR be great at something that no other civ can do. With Australia it's a combination of the fact they can settle along the coast better than any civ, despite the risk of flooding, the production spike from being declared war on OR liberating a city (kind of like Roberts but better.) and the culture bombs you can get from pastures. Australia is more of a reactive civ than anything else. But with bonus' to culture, science and a strong military unit i just felt like they belonged in God tier.

 

[IvoryPavane]

From a multiplayer perspective, I hate Australia the most because his 100% production ability has very little counterplay. So he can be as obnoxious as he likes and then when you go for him, pump out an archer every turn. It means you have to commit all your resources to take them out.

Which I do. Because I can’t permit Waltzing Matilda to be in my music list.

 

[Tyroq]

Very detailed explanations. Thank you.

My only issue with the Maori is their start. Whilst insanely fun I've found sometimes you can be sandwiched in-between city states and depending on the map generation and difficulty and that can really be a problem. Though their UU is fantastic and their abilities are great and I can see the argument for God tier. Just not for me yet, but I can be persuaded otherwise.

Maori flourish better on maps other than Pangea, it's true. But their flexible start is definitely not to be underrated. Perhaps the most OP part of that is your ability to meet many city states before anyone else, especially on maps with more water. Because of this you're likely to have that free envoy in a lot of places giving you stackable bonuses to production, culture, science, and faith (increasing your chances of having an early pantheon of your choice). In my Maori game I ended up making first contact with 5 city states in the ancient era, making my capital much stronger. The inability to harvest resources can be annoying as it will limit district and wonder replacement. Those can now not be placed on any tile with a resource on it. So that's yuck. But the culture bonuses you can get from the UB will make it so you can fly through the civics tree much faster and have a good shot at culture victory. As for military, don't forget that those Toa -5 combat bonuses STACK. Unless they patch it, you can bring down an enemy unit's strength quite a bit by surrounding it with Toa before making the kill. And they don't require iron or any gold maintenance. Plus instant-build defensive fortifcation gives them quite a boost on defense.

I honestly think Japan is vastly underrated...

Maybe so. It's been a while since I played them. Back in vanilla I think. I might have to give them another shot. I wasn't really impressed back then.

I have two main problems with Robert the Bruce. The first one is the highlander... I just don't like it. I barely build rangers as is and Its combat bonus is terrain dependant too. My second problem is his leader ability. It requires someone to have taken another city in order to be activated and any ability that I as the player don't have control over I rank a little bit lower.

Yeah, highlander is ok, but it's not the reason to play Scotland. The Scottish Enlightenment is not to be underestimated. Keep your cities ecstatic and that 10% boost to science and production, plus great people points is superb! Couple that with wonders to increase your GP points and you're golden.

I was torn with Australia between bottom of the god tier or top of the strong tier..... With Australia it's a combination of the fact they can settle along the coast better than any civ, despite the risk of flooding, the production spike from being declared war on OR liberating a city (kind of like Roberts but better.) and the culture bombs you can get from pastures. Australia is more of a reactive civ than anything else. But with bonus' to culture, science and a strong military unit i just felt like they belonged in God tier.

I understand what you're saying. But for the same reason as your problem with Robert the Bruce, I don't like civs that are just reactive so much. Australia has to be the victim to get some of its bonuses. God tier seems like it ought to be reserved for only civs with pure proactive abilities, like Sumeria's rolling barb camp farming. That's so OP through the entire game.

Anyway, thanks for your thoughts!

 

[OmegaDestroyer]

The Ottomans are pretty powerful when their abilities come online. The Grand Bombard makes tearing down defenses even easier and the corsairs are the best raiders in the game. Being able to tear down a district in one turn for 0 movement is bananas.