Sneak Peek at Composite Victory Type Rankings - so far...

kryat

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Now that we're on the last elimination thread, I thought I'd share the ranking based on an average of rankings. They are very likely to move as culture scores come in, so think of this as preliminary results, and maybe it's useful if you don't play culture.

Final rankings and actual averages, and pretty graphs will be revealed in a new thread once the culture thread closes.

Caveats: Lady Six Skies, Simon Bolivar, Magnificence Catherine, Bull Moose Teddy, and Menelik are unranked. For the average, I will count past Teddy Roosevelt as Rough Rider, since they're close enough in ability. Mvemba is not penalized for being unranked in religion.

1. Matthias
2. Hojo
3. John Curtain
4. Saladin
5. Kupe
6. Gorgo
7. Pericles
8. Gilgamesh
9. Peter
10. Amanitore
11. Pedro
12. Patchacuti
13. Trajan
14. Gitarja
15. Montezuma
16. Seondeok
17. Mansa Musa
18. Qin Shi Huang
19. Ghengis Khan
20. Cleopatra
21. Catherine (BQ)
22. Harald
23. Teddy Roosevelt
24. Chandragupta
25. Dido
26. Frederick
27. Cyrus
28. Tamar
29. Alexander
30. Philip
31. Jadwiga
32. Suleiman
33. Kristiana
34. Gandhi
35. Tomyris
36. Poundmaker
37. Victoria
38. Wilhelmina
39. Wilfred Laurier
40. Robert the Bruce
41. Lautaro
42. Eleanor (E)
43. Jayavaraman
44. Mvemba a Nzinga
45. Eleanor (F)
46. Shaka
 
Yikes, Shaka is at the bottom. Makes me think we should do a weighted-average, where you give more weight to their top-performing victory type and less to every subsequent one. Something like taking the inverted ranking of every finish as a point (so the #1 finish counts for 46 points), and multiplying that by 4 for top finish type, 3 for the next, then 2, then 1, and ignore the worst finish. Sum up the points and you get a ranking that acknowledges that it's probably better to be one of the best at one victory type and worst at the others than below average for everything. This also keeps it relatively fair for Kongo (their religious game would be ignored as would the worst placement of every other civ).
 
WOW!
I wouldn't have guessed how high some civs are and how poor others are.
I guess Canada isn't a garbage civ like most say.
 
It's funny how China ranked No.18. I took a look at the Domination elimination list and found China on No. 42. But people actually rate China No.4 for science victory (which I believe is still too low - the top 3 on that list is Korea, Australia and Inca, China is not worse than any of these. Admittedly, it's a little tricky to play China well...) -- But can't a huge science lead be converted to easy domination late game if the player wants to? Did that post banned this kind of reasoning? (Inca is rated No. 30 in that thread, which I also find weird, given that their UU is the powerful Warak'aq.)
 
Very very weird ranking. Cree, Persia, Gandhi, Fred so far behind. The thing is all these civs / leaders are well rounded and very flexible choices for any type of victory and are for sure stronger civs in general than Georgia, Mali, Egypt, Spain, America or Arabia, who occupy places far too high corresponding to their real strength.
I would also expect Peter higher, but realised that culture victory is ongoing, s that is why Russia is not in top5 yet.
 
WOW!
I wouldn't have guessed how high some civs are and how poor others are.
I guess Canada isn't a garbage civ like most say.

Just wait till the post culture victory list comes out :lol:

It's funny how China ranked No.18. I took a look at the Domination elimination list and found China on No. 42. But people actually rate China No.4 for science victory (which I believe is still too low - the top 3 on that list is Korea, Australia and Inca, China is not worse than any of these. Admittedly, it's a little tricky to play China well...) -- But can't a huge science lead be converted to easy domination late game if the player wants to? Did that post banned this kind of reasoning? (Inca is rated No. 30 in that thread, which I also find weird, given that their UU is the powerful Warak'aq.)
I’ll get into more detail once culture comes out, but from what I can tell, a Leader/Civ combination needs to be genuinely good (not just average) at everything to score highly. Many domination civs specialize purely in domination and suffer greatly for it. However, the top several in the domination thread ended up being combat bonuses over science bonuses. So many of the science focused ended up closer to the 25th-50th percentile.

China ranks low in domination because the crouching tiger is considered to be a very bad UU, but ranked high in science because of the eureka and worker bonuses, which are less directly impactful at translating into combat strength gains.


Very very weird ranking. Cree, Persia, Gandhi, Fred so far behind. The thing is all these civs / leaders are well rounded and very flexible choices for any type of victory and are for sure stronger civs in general than Georgia, Mali, Egypt, Spain, America or Arabia, who occupy places far too high corresponding to their real strength.

Gandhi, and Poundmaker are ranked in the middle because it’s better to be strong at a victory type than to be flexible enough to do okay at anything. Poundmaker specifically only really did well at diplomacy, and was ranked 3rd or 4th quartile in religion and domination. Gandhi is genuinely great at religion, but pretty bad at everything else. People didn’t count the Varu for much. Fred is low because he was last place in diplomatic. Persia will move up once culture is counted, I’m sure.

Meanwhile, Georgia, Spain, Egypt, Mali, and America are ranked higher than conventional wisdom because they mostly tend to be at least second quartile or better in most categories, though many of them will likely go down once culture is taken into account. Arabia is genuinely good. They were a top quartile in 2 categories, and top half in all so far. They’ll likely go down with culture though.
 
I guess it's the versatile civs at the top and the specialists at the bottom? Given that I'm not surprised Shaka currently looks like he's on the bottom...

@kryat - if you compiled the rankings would you mind sharing them? Could be useful if anyone else wants to play with them?
 
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Very very weird ranking. Cree, Persia, Gandhi, Fred so far behind. The thing is all these civs / leaders are well rounded and very flexible choices for any type of victory and are for sure stronger civs in general than Georgia, Mali, Egypt, Spain, America or Arabia, who occupy places far too high corresponding to their real strength.
I would also expect Peter higher, but realised that culture victory is ongoing, s that is why Russia is not in top5 yet.
Tricky to rank...

I'd say after Culture, someone run a "Best Overall" elimination and let everyone really vote how they feel :lol:
 
Okay, I went ahead and did what I suggested above, in terms of creating a weighted average. Here's the full results with total points in spreadsheet form. There were a fair amount of ties. The weighted rankings are:

1 Matthias Corvinus/Hungary
2 Hojo Tokimune/Japan
3 Saladin/Arabia
4 Gilgamesh/Sumeria
4 John Curtin/Australia
6 Genghis Khan/Mongolia
7 Peter/Russia
8 Pericles/Greece
8 Seondeok/Korea
10 Alexander/Macedon
11 Gorgo/Greece
12 Pachacuti/Inca
13 Mansa Musa/Mali
14 Kupe/Maori
15 Qin Shi Huang/China
16 Pedro/Brazil
16 Tamar/Georgia
18 Montezuma/Aztec
18 Trajan/Rome
20 Amanitore/Nubia
21 Chandragupta/India
22 Frederick/Germany
23 Teddy Roosevelt/America
24 Cleopatra/Egypt
25 Kristina/Sweden
26 Wilhelmina/Netherlands
27 Suleiman/Ottomans
28 Dido/Phoenicia
28 Gitarja/Indonesia
30 Cyrus/Persia
31 Jadwiga/Poland
32 Catherine/France
33 Harald Hardrada/Norway
33 Tomyris/Scythia
35 Poundmaker/Cree
35 Robert the Bruce/Scotland
37 Philip/Spain
37 Victoria/England
39 Gandhi/India
40 Jayavarman/Khmer
41 Wilfrid Laurier/Canada
42 Shaka/Zulu
43 Lautaro/Mapuche
44 Eleanor/England
45 Eleanor/France
46 Mvemba a Nzinga/Kongo

Overall, it doesn't shake up the results too much, relative to a simple average. At least Zulu gets bumped up from the bottom. To my eyes, Arabia, Georgia, Sumeria, America, and Inca are too high and Zulu, Nubia, Cree, and Ottomans are too low, but everyone's opinion is going to vary based on playstyle.

China and Persia are also low but I suspect the cultural thread will change that. I'd also guess that Hungary gets dislodged from the top spot in favor of Japan after accounting for culture and that Russia and Pericles Greece make it into the top 5.
 
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My OCD demands that you decrease the rank of any civ that follows a tie by 1. IE Genghis is #6 because he follows a tie for #4.
Okay, edited as such. The other option would be to break the ties based on the top finish across any victory type.
 
FWIW, last year, I compiled the elimination thread scores for Rise and Fall. It's based on civ ability, leader ability, unique infrastructure, and unique unit.

It's based on Rise and Fall, obviously, since this was all finished a month before Gathering Storm. But it's pretty interesting to see how civs have gone up and down in power ranking. Fun Fact: Georgia finished in the last 5 in all four categories... They used to be that bad.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/elimination-thread-results.641059/#post-15340319
 
Some names that jump out to me as being underrated overall: Harald, Alexander, and Poundmaker. Alex is way higher on Jesse's weighted list, though. In the end it's just a fun little list made from some fun little game threads that I suspect someone will take way too seriously before this thread is done.

China ranks low in domination because the crouching tiger is considered to be a very bad UU, but ranked high in science because of the eureka and worker bonuses, which are less directly impactful at translating into combat strength gains.

I don't think it's just a weak UU that kept him low. It's not that China can't do domination - anyone in the game can - but with China you're basically ignoring one of their best bonuses (being able to rush ancient and classic era wonders) if you decide to go to war early. You have to basically ignore what they're best at to pursue domination.
 
Some names that jump out to me as being underrated overall: Harald, Alexander, and Poundmaker. Alex is way higher on Jesse's weighted list, though. In the end it's just a fun little list made from some fun little game threads that I suspect someone will take way too seriously before this thread is done.



I don't think it's just a weak UU that kept him low. It's not that China can't do domination - anyone in the game can - but with China you're basically ignoring one of their best bonuses (being able to rush ancient and classic era wonders) if you decide to go to war early. You have to basically ignore what they're best at to pursue domination.
I think for a lot of people, domination (and by that hand, science since stronger science = stronger units) is what "wins the game" in the most practical and contextual sense, and so Civs that are extremely versatile like China rank lower than some domination centric and even some one-trick-science ponies (Korea).
 
I think aggregating the statistics masks some subtleties. I think my statistics is abit rusty, forgot some of the non-parametric stuff, but is averaging the ranks the best way to think about overall effectiveness?
 
I honestly don't think the list is that terrible - Matthias Corvinus, Tokimune, Saladin, Gilgamesh, Curtin, Genghis, Peter and Pericles is not at all a bad idea of the best 8 Civs, only really missing Alexander (and obviously now Magnificent Catherine and Simon). Insofar as there is a problem, I think that the original Domination elimination thread was not always as pro-Science as it should have been, and equally the Religious elimination thread ignored how much aggressive conquest can support an RV. The result is that generally I think good Science civs and to a lesser extent strong Dom civs are perhaps a little lower than they should be, which explains why Alex and Shaka are struggling when they shouldn't be.
 
I honestly don't think the list is that terrible - Matthias Corvinus, Tokimune, Saladin, Gilgamesh, Curtin, Genghis, Peter and Pericles is not at all a bad idea of the best 8 Civs, only really missing Alexander (and obviously now Magnificent Catherine and Simon). Insofar as there is a problem, I think that the original Domination elimination thread was not always as pro-Science as it should have been, and equally the Religious elimination thread ignored how much aggressive conquest can support an RV. The result is that generally I think good Science civs and to a lesser extent strong Dom civs are perhaps a little lower than they should be, which explains why Alex and Shaka are struggling when they shouldn't be.

TBH, I'm not sure I even think Shaka is being underrated even taking domination into account. His power spike is awesome but it comes so much later than pretty much every other warmonger (who either get combat strength bonuses or UU earlier than Shaka does... and sometimes both) that I think he's even a step behind in that area. And he has pretty much nothing else going for him, because he's a one trick pony as far as design is concerned.
 
TBH, I'm not sure I even think Shaka is being underrated even taking domination into account. His power spike is awesome but it comes so much later than pretty much every other warmonger (who either get combat strength bonuses or UU earlier than Shaka does... and sometimes both) that I think he's even a step behind in that area. And he has pretty much nothing else going for him, because he's a one trick pony as far as design is concerned.

I think the list overprioritises generalism a bit as well. I agree Shaka isn't the best of the warmongers, but the warmonger thread already told you that. But given he is still a very good warmonger... does the fact he's bad at e.g. Diplomatic Victories even mean anything? I'm literally never going to pursue a Diplomatic Victory as Shaka anyway, because obviously I'm going to play to his strengths. Civs which have a wide variety of potential win conditions they're good at do have a bit more flexibility, but I have to admit, I normally have my desired win condition in mind within 20 turns at the absolute latest (and that's still unusually late).

Ranking the civs by the highest rank they achieved in any elimination thread might make more sense.
 
I had 5 minutes to spare so I did this... It will be more informative once we have culture done as well, but (based on the scores from @kryat ) the plot below is a quick and dirty way to visualize which civs scored most similarly to one another (closer civs are more similar).

Without culture in there is definitely some weirdness. Mvemba clusters up with the warmongers and Kristina is defined by her diplomacy. Shaka has busily constructed his own fortress of solitude atop mount warmonger.

Peter and Teddy are unexpected neighbours... But they actually had pretty similar scores except for religion which Peter aced. Apparantley that wasn't enough to override the rest.

Spoiler PCA :


115682211_2515506525426787_3672854904917763618_n.png


Principal components analysis, euclidian distance, Top 2 components plotted. Only civs with all categories rated are in the plot. Colours indicate some dirty k means clustering.

 
I had 5 minutes to spare so I did this... It will be more informative once we have culture done as well, but (based on the scores from @kryat ) the plot below is a quick and dirty way to visualize which civs scored most similarly to one another (closer civs are more similar).

Without culture in there is definitely some weirdness. Mvemba clusters up with the warmongers and Kristina is defined by her diplomacy. Shaka has busily constructed his own fortress of solitude atop mount warmonger.

Peter and Teddy are unexpected neighbours... But they actually had pretty similar scores except for religion which Peter aced. Apparantley that wasn't enough to override the rest.

Spoiler PCA :


View attachment 564428

Principal components analysis, euclidian distance, Top 2 components plotted. Only civs with all categories rated are in the plot. Colours indicate some dirty k means clustering.

I love some PCA. This is a great graph
 
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