[NFP] Ranking Tier List(Picture Version)

[Lily_Lancer]

Ethiopia has a bug that increases its faith output to an incredible amount. It actually gets n^2(not n) faith for n resources of the same type in a city, making it very very strong.

Note, this ranking is due to my first impression, may change due to detailed analysis.

 

[The Highwayman]

I don't think Ethopia's trait is bugged. How it's worded: "Improved resources provide +1 Faith for each copy the city owns". Based upon my testing, if I have 3 improved copies of the same resource, each copy grants 3 faith per turn. Are you saying it grants more than this?

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Highly subjective list is highly subjective.

 

[pokiehl]

Ethiopia isn’t bugged, it’s working as described in The Highwayman’s post above.

 

[Vargas1]

Couple of questions that stand out to me initially:

• From your past posts, I gather you're big on early warfare. I assume that's what leads to your high ranking for Gaul and Egypt? Is there anything else in particular about Egypt's kit that you think makes them powerful? I've enjoyed playing with them but find them comparatively underpowered, in my view.
• Germany and Brazil seem very low. Both are all-around powerful - Germany with the Hansa, extra card slot, and ability to build extra districts (meaning more or less every city can have campus, hansa, and commercial hub without much trouble); Brazil with Sacred Path and Work Ethic becomes a faith and production power (and that's before even getting into the powerful late-game UU and the fairly good unique district project).
• Your C Tier is odd to me - I don't really see any way that civs like Georgia or Black Queen France are on the same level as Portugal, Vietnam, or Persia.

Edit: Hadn't seen before that your ranking is based solely on man-at-arms rush as described in your other post. That certainly explains Gaul and some of the other odd choices. Not much point in discussing the rankings then.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Couple of questions that stand out to me initially:

• From your past posts, I gather you're big on early warfare. I assume that's what leads to your high ranking for Gaul and Egypt? Is there anything else in particular about Egypt's kit that you think makes them powerful? I've enjoyed playing with them but find them comparatively underpowered, in my view.
• Germany and Brazil seem very low. Both are all-around powerful - Germany with the Hansa, extra card slot, and ability to build extra districts (meaning more or less every city can have campus, hansa, and commercial hub without much trouble); Brazil with Sacred Path and Work Ethic becomes a faith and production power (and that's before even getting into the powerful late-game UU and the fairly good unique district project).
• Your C Tier is odd to me - I don't really see any way that civs like Georgia or Black Queen France are on the same level as Portugal, Vietnam, or Persia.

Edit: Hadn't seen before that your ranking is based solely on man-at-arms rush as described in your other post. That certainly explains Gaul and some of the other odd choices. Not much point in discussing the rankings then.

Yes Black Queen France and Georgia are somehow better than Portugal, Vietnam or Persia. But their power difference is not worth a tier.

Why Man-at-arms?
They key point is that you begin to snowball at man-at-arms, with man-at-arms you suddenly grow from a small Civ of 4-5 cities to a giant with 20+ cities in a few turns, making all other progresses neglectable.
Yes there are other ways to achieve this such as Egyptian Chariot Archer or Indian Varu, but generally it is Man-at-arms.

 

[Aurelesk]

In Lily Lancer mindset, early warmongering is king. If you cannot survive the early game because your abilities are kicking in later, therefore the Civilization is bad for him. This is extremely simplified, and way more nuanced than this, but you have the gist of it. For example, good Science allows better units earlier, good Cultural / Production allows faster units production... and so on.

Black Queen France has extra diplomatic visibility that give her +3 CS against all her enemies. Tamar is incentive to build military in order to defeat enemies mindlessly. Even if both sides loses as much as they other, she can get pocket Faith from killing, meaning she will be a monster once she can buy military units with Faith, while having her city hard to have due to her Walls. I guess?
I guess Portugal need allies and water to have his Trade Route going, which I guess is too RNG for him, while Persia has "just" increased movement. I still find it odd to put Vietnam that low, when she has access to fearsome warmongering ability, fearsome cultural abilities, and some pocket Science output.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

In Lily Lancer mindset, early warmongering is king. If you cannot survive the early game because your abilities are kicking in later, therefore the Civilization is bad for him. This is extremely simplified, and way more nuanced than this, but you have the gist of it. For example, good Science allows better units earlier, good Cultural / Production allows faster units production... and so on.

Black Queen France has extra diplomatic visibility that give her +3 CS against all her enemies. Tamar is incentive to build military in order to defeat enemies mindlessly. Even if both sides loses as much as they other, she can get pocket Faith from killing, meaning she will be a monster once she can buy military units with Faith, while having her city hard to have due to her Walls. I guess?
I guess Portugal need allies and water to have his Trade Route going, which I guess is too RNG for him, while Persia has "just" increased movement. I still find it odd to put Vietnam that low, when she has access to fearsome warmongering ability, fearsome cultural abilities, and some pocket Science output.

Tamar has a very good UU, a much better Man-at-arms. (Norway has a even better one.)

Also its early game faith bonus allows some chance for Religious settlement. That's all. No need for the religion envoy bonus or its funny wall.

Yes the boost of Tamar looks tiny for beginners, however they're on the "most useful" point, making them powerful in-game. (Like Arabia in vanilla version)

 

[Archon_Wing]

Hadn't seen before that your ranking is based solely on man-at-arms rush as described in your other post. That certainly explains Gaul and some of the other odd choices. Not much point in discussing the rankings then.

It really just shows what a terrible design Man@arms is.

They really messed the game up with that last patch.

 

[XVeris]

Why is there two British Eleanors in E tier? This list is confusing.

 

[Vargas1]

It really just shows what a terrible design Man@arms is.

They really messed the game up with that last patch.

I think Lily’s view that they are the only thing that matters is overly simplistic, but I do agree they are a poorly thought out addition. It’s way too easy to beeline apprenticeship (in fact, I’ll often do it even before unlocking swordsmen), which basically negates classical warfare - it’s all about the rush to men-at-arms.

 

[canadamufc]

Why is there two British Eleanors in E tier? This list is confusing.

Pretty sure it's just a mistake the person made when making the tier list. I assume Lily just means that English Eleanor is E tier.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Pretty sure it's just a mistake the person made when making the tier list. I assume Lily just means that English Eleanor is E tier.

Actually I mistaken the French one to be this. I was wondering "why there're so many Eleanors here.", and mistaken the English and the French one. Will fix on the next version.

It really just shows what a terrible design Man@arms is.

They really messed the game up with that last patch.

I don't think it is a terrible design. There has to be a "dominate unit" that overpowers others. And to play with man-at-arms, you need high skills. They're costly in both production and resource. You also need Oligarchy and Great General and also battering ram to support them. Also loyalty is a problem in Man-at-arm domination as the rebellion city will automatically generate 45-strength Man-at-arms instead of Warriors.

If whatsoever there'll be an overpowered unit, the unit being Man-at-arms is best for the game.

It needs perfect combination of Science, Culture, Resource, Production, Loyalty, Great People, Support Unit, and also Skill of Combat. You have to consider all of these.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Hadn't seen before that your ranking is based solely on man-at-arms rush as described in your other post. That certainly explains Gaul and some of the other odd choices. Not much point in discussing the rankings then.

Same reason why i didn't bother replying to the other thread. The guy likes a particular unit (that's fine), but then acts like it is the new main meta that he has now "solved" in a mathematical approach.

Just lol.

 

[The Highwayman]

What's the criteria for this list? Are all victory conditions considered for all Civs? Magnificent Catherine can win a culture before any of these others can win a domination - by a wide margin. Is she S tier in Culture and E tier in everything else, putting her in D tier?

Why is Lautaro so low? The Deity AI frequently gets Classical era golden ages, which means +10 Swordsmen rushes (so they're equal to M@A for everyone else). If you're fast enough, you can upgrade your swordsmen before the end of Classical and keep the good times rolling. It doesn't even matter if they don't get golden beyond Classical because of the snowball and the Malon Raider is so good as well. I don't believe Lautaro to be a C tier Domination Civ, at least not on Deity.

 

[Leucarum]

If the statement had just been "racing men-at-arms is the best way to start a snowball for most civs since the last patch. So the civs who do best at it, or have an innate alternative approach are best overall..." Then I suspect the response would have been "sure, that's very likely true."

Maybe just leave it at that, rather than a convoluted assignment of points designed to provoke drama...Or maybe not, the forum has been quiet of late and this will spice things up for a little while. We need the elimination threads back to properly channel such drama methinks...

 

[Aurelesk]

Well, Men-At-Arms are dominating. They are not necessarily overpowered by themselves, even if they are probably too convenient to unlock (there is no detour at getting Apprenticeship). Should they be at another Tech? This should prevent the Gallic Men-At-Arms rush (it feels like an exploit).

They are dominating mostly because non-cavalry units were underwhelming for a long time. The game needed to balance it by preventing cavalry units to enjoy Battering Rams, and giving +4 CS to non-cavalry melee units with Oligarchy. With those modifiers, Men-At-Arms ends up quite impossible to manage: Knight are way harder to get for example (11 Techs) and will be made quite ineffective if Walls are set (even with some Catapults which need to unlock the Technology), while the Melee route is effective starting with the Swordsmen rush. There is no such thing as a effective Heavy Chariot rush that I could witness.


I will add a controversial thing to the mix: the CS of units jumps too much between eras. +10 CS is basically +50% damage dealt and +50% more bulky, giving Science too much an advantage. But the biggest jump for me is between the Ancient and Classical era. Maybe the Ancient units should all get +3 to 5 CS in order to prevent some Horsemen / Swordsmen rush to be too powerful.

 

[UWHabs]

Well, Men-At-Arms are dominating. They are not necessarily overpowered by themselves, even if they are probably too convenient to unlock (there is no detour at getting Apprenticeship). Should they be at another Tech? This should prevent the Gallic Men-At-Arms rush (it feels like an exploit).

They are dominating mostly because non-cavalry units were underwhelming for a long time. The game needed to balance it by preventing cavalry units to enjoy Battering Rams, and giving +4 CS to non-cavalry melee units with Oligarchy. With those modifiers, Men-At-Arms ends up quite impossible to manage: Knight are way harder to get for example (11 Techs) and will be made quite ineffective if Walls are set (even with some Catapults which need to unlock the Technology), while the Melee route is effective starting with the Swordsmen rush. There is no such thing as a effective Heavy Chariot rush that I could witness.


I will add a controversial thing to the mix: the CS of units jumps too much between eras. +10 CS is basically +50% damage dealt and +50% more bulky, giving Science too much an advantage. But the biggest jump for me is between the Ancient and Classical era. Maybe the Ancient units should all get +3 to 5 CS in order to prevent some Horsemen / Swordsmen rush to be too powerful.

Playing with tech shuffle does impact things. My last couple of games it's felt like Apprenticeship has always been at the end of the era, and while that feels worse for the mine bonus + IZ unlocking, it does place the units more appropriately I think.

For the rest, I think a lot of the problems in the traditional tech tree happen because you can beeline. Assuming you still stop off to pick up campuses and archers and stuff, it only takes about 8 techs to unlock swords, or you can easily get horsemen running around similarly if not a bit earlier. That, plus the similar beelines towards the medieval units for a Man at Arms rush do make things a little too easy at times. Again, if you're not running shuffle mode, Man At Arms doesn't really have any "expensive" techs to unlock it, whereas if you were planning other medieval rushes like crossbows or Knights, you either need to hard research techs like Engineering, or build Walls, or move along the culture tree to give you your Feudalism boost.

I do think things change around to have less meta play if you are playing with tech shuffle on. Because every now and then you end up in a case where you need to research literally every ancient era tech before you can unlock any classical era one. Or you end up with weird situations like horsemen end up on a leaf tech past shipbuilding, so sometimes if I don't have horses around, I find myself halfway through the medieval before I remember that I skipped researching it.

 

[Pietato]

There is not supposed to be a dominating unit on the ground until Giant Death Robots. If there is one before that, and it is not a unique unit with a timing window, then the game is broken.