the best civs and why

[Aspon]

so thought I would run by who i think the best civs are and why i think so if anyone disagrees or thinks i overlooked someone please say but actually provide a reason otherwise theres no point.

here are my favourites in alphabetical order

ARABIA
very good for economy and the camel archer is a very nice unit to.

AZTECS
not much use for anything below emperor as the french will produce better culture at this point. However when you are playing on immortal+ they are phenomenal since the ai will produce lots of units and war you a lot which means huge amounts of culture and rapid social policies. Only for an expert player because there pretty much useless for any difficulty below emperor and usually only good for immortal plus, furthermore you need to get a lot of things right. in the hands of an expert a very good civ otherwise leave it be.

Babylon
very nice civ needs to be played right however two great scientists early on and then complete the great library and have three science academies on your land leads to a superb science head start. Great for any difficulty level, you might lose the race to the greta library on higher difficulties though, go straight for writing and build it straight away use the liberty track to get your second settler, (yes its a useless policy long term but the extra great person scientist isn't and the great library will pay for itself in 50 turns when you have a third academy.
CHINA
very good for war and fighting extra general effectiveness and the choku plus the paper maker makes for a very effective strat.

FRANCE
good for culture and the musket men replacement is very nice good for the lower difficulties however not as good as the aztecs if your playing immortal plus with lots of enemies around.

GREECE
city states are a huge influence and there unique ability for city states is huge. plus the companion Calvary having 20% more fighting power then usual horsemen is an excellent early unit.


other civs
India possibly but not great for war and on higher difficulties tends to be a lot of war

Persia look very nice but cannot comment as have not played them yet. intuitively though they def look like contenders.

iquqi (cant spell it) brilliant in the right starting conditions but needs very unique circumstances so meh.

Siamese pretty nice but prefer the greeks have a feeling that in the hands of an expert could potentially be good but haven't mastered them yet.

rejected civs and why
Germany barbarian advantage is kind of a gimmick not really that useful. there pikemen replacement and been able to produce a lot looks good but generally i like units which have more then 10 strength by this stage of the game, and there pretty much only good against horses. the panzer tank is very nice however by this stage of the game its almost decided anyway so not too great of a civ.

ottomans spanish and polynesians these shouldn't even need explaining if they do then i probably need to explain a lot more to you like how to play the game.

have not played as everyone but these seem the intuitive ones and the ones i have tried.

 

[Aspon]

note at other civs couldnt be bothered with alphabet anymore

 

[fmlizard2]

Don't discount Spain. I think their ceiling, given some luck, is higher than any other civ.

 

[Poomermon]

I think you got pretty much the top tier civs right. I would probably add Mongolia there though as keshiks are pretty overpowered and can dominate the battlefields for a very long time. Also I think Songhai and Denmark are pretty up there too.

Greece (and city states) on the other hand has been nerfed to oblivion imo. When the game first came out Alexander was pretty much the best leader hands down but now horsemen are way weaker and there are better ways to spend money than city states now. Greece is not a weak civ but not a top tier.

 

[ArcaneSeraph]

Inca are quite good too. Their starting bias makes your capital quite production heavy and in the right area, their tile improvement is absolutely amazing. The UA is quite decent too. Their UU is nothing but a liability though .

 

[qyll]

If I were playing for my life on a random map, I would have to go with Persia.

 

[Babri]

AZTECS
not much use for anything below emperor as the french will produce better culture at this point. However when you are playing on immortal+ they are phenomenal since the ai will produce lots of units and war you a lot which means huge amounts of culture and rapid social policies. Only for an expert player because there pretty much useless for any difficulty below emperor and usually only good for immortal plus, furthermore you need to get a lot of things right. in the hands of an expert a very good civ otherwise leave it be.

Really ? Their UB is the the best one after Bazar. Their UU is not bad either.

 

[Martin Alvito]

I'd argue that China and Greece have been nerfed to second tier status. They were easily the strongest civs in the initial release alongside Babylon. Songhai had their moment in the sun in .275 and .332, but the delay in getting Chivalry due to the RA nerf hurts.

Babylon and France are the best peaceful civs right now; Aztec and Mongolia are the best warmongers' civs. That isn't to say that you can't play Aztec peacefully or Babylon as a warmonger, but those civs come out at the top of the heap for those approaches irrespective of the settings.

Several other civs can be the best choice given appropriate game settings. Catherine shines on Deity for several reasons, Arabia is the clear-cut OCC winner, and Siam is still the civ to play if you're aiming for a Cultural win.

Really ? Their UB is the the best one after Bazar.

Really? The Wat clearly trumps the Floating Gardens, especially since you can use Legalism rather than to build them. Burial Tombs and Mud Pyramid Mosques are also strong due to Legalism and zero maintenance.

Floating Gardens are like Longhouses: situationally very good in the right city location, but otherwise not a huge improvement on the basic building. A city lacking Hills and Forests in quantity doesn't have much use for Floating Gardens.

 

[turtlefang]

Not sure I understand the comment regarding Floating Gardens needing hills and forest - if you have a river or lakes, the FGs is great.

As far as the Wat trumping the FG, its a matter of opinon - and I feel the FG are better than than both the Burial Tombs and Mud Pyramid Mosques. The extra growth just keeps on giving and allows some truly large cities. The Wat - maybe yes, maybe no. Depends on how I feel and the situation. Legalism not something I take very often so the "free" aspect of it doesn't come into play.

And with temples now generating some happiness in the Piety line plus gold, maintaince isn't as big an issue.

And Aztecs are fine below Immortal. But they do require a very different type of playing style. You can't sit still. You either have to attack barbs or someone else ALL the time to make sure of thier special skills. The one place they have great difficulties on - a very heavy water map.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Population is useless if you can't translate it into something.

If you don't have extra Hills/Forest tiles that you could not otherwise work, a Floating Gardens doesn't do you all that much good. At best you're getting two and a out of a Trading Post on grassland, which is pretty bad considering that you have to burn a point of to get it. Under those conditions, a FG is just a sink that you have to feed with and for happiness buildings and their maintenance.

By contrast, Burial Tombs and MPMs are good irrespective of the situation. Wats and Burial Tombs are definitely worth burning two SPs (Tradition -> Legalism) to get them for free; MPMs usually are worthwhile.

Aztecs are fine on any difficulty. The UA isn't as good on lower difficulties, but the UUs are juggernaut steamrollers.

 

[The A.K.T]

Incas and Denmark are very strong civs. Denmark on water maps is strong on both offensive and exploration. Inca is economic and organized.

 

[Optional]

Siamese pretty nice but prefer the greeks have a feeling that in the hands of an expert could potentially be good but haven't mastered them yet.

I have a hunch Siam is better than Greece. Influence with city states is often not so difficult to keep, and Siam gets a lot more out of them than Greece.
Naresuan Elephant is strong, Wat is useful, perhaps in some games indeed really strong.

 

[RealHuhn]

Population is useless if you can't translate it into something.
[...]

This statement is very questionable.

+1 population means much more than working +1 tile improvement.
I don't list all the advantages now because you know them exactly.

Of course it's necessary to stop growth sometimes or in other words, use the food for specialists/production etc. but with every population point gained, you can translate more food into "something". Without mentioning all the passive effects like increased science multiplied by universities etc.

I know you're talking about cities surrounded by grassland and nothing else but in reality, you shouldn't build a city there to begin with.

I have a hunch Siam is better than Greece. Influence with city states is often not so difficult to keep, and Siam gets a lot more out of them than Greece.
Naresuan Elephant is strong, Wat is useful, perhaps in some games indeed really strong.

With Greece an alliance with a city state lasts forever and costs almost no upkeep. That's why you have the money to buy even more city states and the patronage tree gets incredibly strong (more science, more happiness, more great people).
With Siam it's impossible to get as many city states in the same amount of time as with Greece.

 

[Aspon]

several things here.

population is not useless for one libraries and public school plus been able to have specialists are all benefits of a high population. unless you build a city in crud land and then do nothing to improve the land population is very useful.

as for city state strat I hear you I usually always go for city states allies and manage it regardless, however you probably dont notice the full impact like having to top up city state influence when it is declining its often not so noticed but when you have 12 plus city state allies it gets expensive and greece drasticly reduces it. I often like to have as many city state allies as i possibly can since this provides a nice boost to science.

obviously you can adopt more city state allies if its cheaper which with greece it is. you reach a point in the game when your allied with every city state and at this point sure id take siam over greece but what you miss is you get there a lot quicker with greece then you do with siam.

I wouldn't rule Siam out but I wouldn't just brush greece aside like that.

next i did not play the game on original release so can't say what China and Greece were like originly but what second rate civs now? no way definitely not.

city states play a huge role and the greeks UA allow you much more allies def wouldn't knock that. furthermore i almost never fight an offensive war without a great general so china effectively have a 15% combat boost for me I def do not call that second rate.

as for the aztecs stuff well the ability is still good on any difficulty i guess but I find greece and china much more useful and relevant on the lower difficulty levels. Aztecs were useless to me when i was struggling on king.

on immortal/deity though they are like a god send I am a keen poker player and often find good strat is using other peoples tendancies against them. whats the common tendency of immortal/deity war mongering and lots of units. when you realise this it becomes clear why i like the aztecs in civ so much now.

on emperor or below id def go with china or greece and quite probably greece.

on the highest difficulties I would pick the aztecs.

I keep hearing the mongals mentioned whilst they have nice unique units I really don't think they compare to the UAs of China or Greece. or the culture jump of the aztecs on immortal plus.

 

[Valbuena]

it's iroquois not iquqi o.0 lol

 

[Aspon]

it's iroquois not iquqi o.0 lol

i cant spell but yeh that was mistype but its intended typing would have been spelt wrong anyway.

 

[ArcaneSeraph]

Any warmongering civ is quite good. I still think China is a top tier civ. Once you can take chu-ko-nus and a GG you've got the game in hand. The paper maker is still an excellent building too and it helps when you have lots of puppets.

About this population thing. It's about context and knowing how to win quickly. It becomes clearer why high population cities simply pale in comparison to size 7 or 8 cities once you do.

You see most people think that a game lasts almost the full 550 turns. In reality once you know what you are doing you can end a game usually between 200 - 250 turns. The latest patch slowed this down a little so those numbers may be a touch low. The first 100 or so turns are spent pre-renaissance. The last 100 - 150 are spent afterwards, obviously. Most of the buildings and wonders in the renaissance and afterwards are not necessary to win and will not pay for themselves before the game is over. There are a few exceptions (like the Factory, Solar Plant, or Nuclear Plant).

How do you achieve this? For all but 1 victory condition, the answer is GSes and RAs. To get GSes you need universities, which incidently is one of the most expensive buildings you actually need to build. To get RAs you need gold. Anything that does not produce gold or help generate another GS is useless to you. So temples, windmills, banks, stock exchanges, watermills, colloseums, theatres, museums, etc are all useless to you because they will either cost you gold or will not produce enough gold by the end of the game to sign an additional round of RAs. You also don't need specialists except for scientists so getting a big city to run them is not needed (unless you are aiming for cultural victory).

So you don't want to grow many of your cities any bigger than about size 7 or 8 because after that you need happy buildings which cost gold upkeep.

So basically you start. Expand to 4 cities or so. Build universities. Fill them with scientists. Get the PT and open rationalism. Sign RAs and generate GSes as quickly as you can. RA and bulb your way through Renaissance, Industrial, to Modern. Get the tech(s) you need for your win condition. Win. Babylon and France are probably the best for this kind of play. Siam or Polynesia are good for culture. Domination is anyone with a good early or gunpowder to rifling UU.

Of course you don't have to play this way and I suspect 90% of people do not but I don't like it... it's why I argued against RAs before this patch came out as they are very, very easy to abuse. Even GSes are too easy to abuse.

 

[Babri]

Really? The Wat clearly trumps the Floating Gardens, especially since you can use Legalism rather than to build them. Burial Tombs and Mud Pyramid Mosques are also strong due to Legalism and zero maintenance.

Floating Gardens are like Longhouses: situationally very good in the right city location, but otherwise not a huge improvement on the basic building. A city lacking Hills and Forests in quantity doesn't have much use for Floating Gardens.

I think you forgot that Floating Gardens also provides 15%. You better check the civilopedia.

 

[Babri]

Population is useless if you can't translate it into something.

If you don't have extra Hills/Forest tiles that you could not otherwise work, a Floating Gardens doesn't do you all that much good. At best you're getting two and a out of a Trading Post on grassland, which is pretty bad considering that you have to burn a point of to get it. Under those conditions, a FG is just a sink that you have to feed with and for happiness buildings and their maintenance.

By contrast, Burial Tombs and MPMs are good irrespective of the situation. Wats and Burial Tombs are definitely worth burning two SPs (Tradition -> Legalism) to get them for free; MPMs usually are worthwhile.

I don't get it. Are we really playing the same game . If you have extra you can assign specialists or you can work tiles. If you want to stop growth, then assign more specialists or work pure hammer tiles etc. Also happiness is not a problem if you play right. In my last game I had about 12 cites, all huge in size. Some of them had 20+ & I had 40+ without even building many Colosseums & theaters. The difficulty was Prince

 

[starrywisdom]

I don't get it. Are we really playing the same game . If you have extra you can assign specialists or you can work tiles. If you want to stop growth, then assign more specialists or work pure hammer tiles etc. Also happiness is not a problem if you play right. In my last game I had about 12 cites, all huge in size. Some of them had 20+ & I had 40+ without even building many Colosseums & theaters. The difficulty was Prince

Usually when talking about any form of strategy many of us we'll be using deity not prince. Just FYI. Happiness is not a problem on any difficulty BUT deity.

AZTECS
not much use for anything below emperor as the french will produce better culture at this point. However when you are playing on immortal+ they are phenomenal since the ai will produce lots of units and war you a lot which means huge amounts of culture and rapid social policies. Only for an expert player because there pretty much useless for any difficulty below emperor and usually only good for immortal plus, furthermore you need to get a lot of things right. in the hands of an expert a very good civ otherwise leave it be.

Honestly I disagree with the whole through process you have here. Aztecs are quite easy to use, and you can easily use it on lower difficulties(huge civs) with great success.

Babylon
very nice civ needs to be played right however two great scientists early on and then complete the great library and have three science academies on your land leads to a superb science head start. Great for any difficulty level, you might lose the race to the greta library on higher difficulties though, go straight for writing and build it straight away use the liberty track to get your second settler, (yes its a useless policy long term but the extra great person scientist isn't and the great library will pay for itself in 50 turns when you have a third academy.

Babylon is really one of the 'easier' civs to play as you can 'cruise control' to a science victory without much effort. Especially if you read the 'general strategy' for them.

FRANCE
good for culture and the musket men replacement is very nice good for the lower difficulties however not as good as the aztecs if your playing immortal plus with lots of enemies around.

I think you are grossly underestimating how immensely useful 2 culture a turn in the 'early game' actually is.

GREECE
city states are a huge influence and there unique ability for city states is huge.

Actually their UA is quite useless on higher difficulties due to how quick CS' get wiped off the planet, lol.

India possibly but not great for war and on higher difficulties tends to be a lot of war

1. India with the current courthouses make for one of the absolute best large city games on ANY difficulty.
2. You can easily go through a deity game without warring for an extended period

Germany barbarian advantage is kind of a gimmick not really that useful

I think you don't fully understand how quickly a domination victory can be won with Germany and RBarbs.

ottomans spanish and polynesians these shouldn't even need explaining if they do then i probably need to explain a lot more to you like how to play the game.

/sigh