The best Civ 5 civ is....

[VilePilot]

Now excuse me while I listen to my cool island breeze soundtrack and build workers instead of stealing them from CS.


Look what we have here, oliver cromwell himself.


I also lied about another thing, don't beeline for theology if you need to research something other than calender to connect luxury resources.

 

[VilePilot]

Basically this is all setting up building a bunch of archers and rushing the hell out of the nearest civs. Money should be spent very minimally on one or two culture CS, at which point all funds should be spent on rush buying more archers and occasionally knights to take cities.


Or rush buying an amphitheater once you hit the medeivel era.

 

[VilePilot]

I would actually spent all intial funds on producing cutlure in order to get aesthetics and to fill out the honor tree asap. Filling out the honor tree is the best thing you can do in this game at the deity level.


Maori statues also help a bit with the initial culture push.... I want to even say priority is maxing cultural output and then maxing out military production, or maybe it's the other way around.

 

[VilePilot]

I chose to rush culture instead of composite bowmen, and now I get aesthetics on turn 99 and on turn 128 I get friendly status with 16 CS.

 

[VilePilot]

I could have also upgraded my archer army into composite bowmen, but I am not being attacked so I spent 500g on +7 culture from prague which allows me to race towards completion of the honor branch.


I also made a mistake early in that I took the general instead of discipline, which will slow down my progression towards professional army, but I don't think I made a game breaking mistake.


I am also building the heroic epic. After that, straight military and culture production.

 

[VilePilot]

It's 2 composite bowmen for a heroic epic which is going to serve me for the rest of the game.

 

[VilePilot]

I think military tradition is far more important than professional army. Professional army is just money essentially and happiness over ICS.

 

[VilePilot]

I leave 2 scouts to mop up, and send the rest back towards the capital for the invasion of the huns.

 

[VilePilot]

Now beeline towards machinery and nothing but archers after the heroic epic. I may have to disband some of the scouts.

 

[VilePilot]

After the honor branch, beeline towards protectionism. I think I can maintain a positive happiness balance.

 

[VilePilot]

My influence with Prague should run out around turn 130 at which all funds will be spent towards upgrading my army and attacking atilla.


Sadly all scouts have been lost. I need the funds.

 

[VilePilot]

I've also started spying on atilla, which means I only chance damaging political relations with him.

 

[VilePilot]

I don't care what anyone says, im not waiting. Time to attack atilla with my composite bows. Screw culture.

 

[guinsoo]

You're drunk, VilePilot. Go home.

 

[VilePilot]

I could cheat a bit with espionage, but there is no point considering I have no money for army upgrades. They are just harassing atilla right now waiting for tech and money to be upgraded into crossbowmen, and then supported by waves of more crossbowmen.

 

[VilePilot]

You're drunk, VilePilot. Go home.

Well, I know when I'm not wanted. Great community here. Have a nice day everyone top of the mornin' to all of ya!

 

[Homusubi]

Back on topic. I'd say that the best civ was Korea, with Maya coming in a close second. You might not realise this, but on some maps, Korea can push for "science-based domination" (that is to say, having a better equipped army than everyone else) if pure science doesn't work out. Ditto Maya, that Pyramid helps a ton. Both of them are also advantaged by having all their bonuses around the same area of the tech tree (mid-Pottery-based) without having to go into iron working etc. until very late on.

 

[Zodan_Mir]

Played Arabia for the first time this weekend. Two words sum up my experience: God Mode. Their UA isn't that great (trade route and oil boost), but their other two Uniques are over-the-top-ridiculous. Camel Archers are crazy in the medieval era (arguably the era in which early aggressive expansion is decided), and the Bazaar is just stupidly OP. Two of every luxury connected to my cities? Really?

Not only do you have the ability to obliterate anyone in the medieval era, but you have the gold to maintain a huge army (thanks to resource trading). With religion you can ICS without even trying, while also building a huge infrastructure with all that gold. Easiest game I've ever played. I am first in everything (science, culture, food, gold, etc.). Domination, diplomatic, and science victories are all easily achieved. Culture, too, I imagine, if you pick your policies/build accordingly from the beginning. Definitely a god tier civ.

If population and science are the backbone of advancement, then gold is the juice you use to speed everything up or fill in the gaps where needed. When you have all three in absurd abundance, how can you possibly lose?

 

[_megafone_]

OP is a hilarious troll.

That out of the way, my $0,02 starting with Arachnofiend's tier list (shouldn't we open an actual non-troll topic to establish those tiers? ):

- Korea is definitely "god tier", and most probably Babylon as well: science bonuses are incredibly powerful in this game, as they can help win any sort of VC in any map. Ethiopia is simply overpowered, as anyone who ever played on Deity knows. I don't think the Incas are THAT incredible, since they're map-dependant in a sort of way the aforementioned 3 are not.

- Positions in the two middle tiers are basically interchangeable, and so I think they should be just a single "middle" tier. Most of them being good or not comes down to personal preferences and playing style; for example, I suck hard at playing military-minded civs so I think something like Mongolia is terribly bad in my hands. Tiers should be divided in simply "overpowered", "underpowered", and everything else.

- I think the Celts belong in the "underpowered" tier, as basically everything they have going gets quickly outclassed by most other civs. I strongly dislike America too - good scouting and a bunch of barb fights with your scouts can emulate their UA with any civ.

- Some civs, like OP's Polynesia, are incredible on water maps but awful elsewhere, so I'll get those in a separate tier. Some of the so-called "water civs" are awful even there, like Denmark; others aren't bad at regular maps, like Carthage or England, so those belong in the middle tier.

So, my 4 tiers:

God tier - Ethiopia, Korea, Mayans, Babylon
Water tier - Polynesia, Ottomans
Trash tier - India, Denmark, Greece, Songhai, Egypt, America, Celts
Middle tier - Everything else =P

You could rank the middle tier civs between themselves but that'd be nitpicking IMO.

 

[IkM]

Arabian UA isn't so great but their UU and UB just fantastic. Huns probably best faction for domination victory. Persians my other favourite faction, best for cultural victory.

others;
Babylon
Mayans
Korea
Ottomans etc.