The toughest civ nations to play against

[GKShaman]

I just wanted to hear from the community.

Im thinking of starting a game on Immortal

I just wanted the nations the AI uses well/hard to play against. Only in 1 game out of 5 has Shaka not been a runaway for me.

I want a list of nations that makes the 4 victory conditions difficult (Ignoring Time).

So as follows

MILITARY
Shaka
Huns

DIPLOMATIC
Siam
Greece

SCIENTIFIC
Babylon
Korea

Cultural
France
India? Inca not sure.

Makes Religion a pain
Ethiopia
Maya

Honestly not sure where these nations fit but in my experience these nations do really well:

Poland

What nation am I missing?

 

[Byzantine Bomb]

Ethiopia, ugh. Their constant missionary and great prophet spawning into my territory always leads to me declaring war on them.

 

[northernscribe]

Celts are irritating because they get a pantheon five turns in; Egypt for wonder spamming, Russia/Poland/Iroquois for city spamming.

 

[Jon the Bastard]

Napoleon is a fickle, fickle little Frenchman.

Military:
Rome
Japan

Diplomatic:
Sweden
Morocco
Portugal

Cultural:
Siam
France

Science:
Korea
Babylon

Religion:
Celts
Ethiopia

Again, I would highlight Napoleon. For some reason, he's always a problem in my games. If he isn't a cultural powerhouse, he's forward settling and popping borders like a madman. Always a military threat in my games, too. He's a challenging AI all around, I think.

 

[xxblackdog]

"Military: Shaka"

I have come to learn that this is true!

 

[Talcove]

MILITARY
Zulu - Less maint cost, less exp to level up, super promotions, IMPI!!!
Mongolia - those Khans... Those KESHIKS!!!
Huns Only a threat if he starts near you. Once you're into the late classical or medieval era then you're home safe.

DIPLOMATIC
Siam - Not so much is the problem in it's UA, but in what it's UA causes this Civ to do, and it does it far too well. Also, HUGE JERKY WARMONGERER.
Greece - Greece + Patronage + Charitable Missions + Freedom/Autocracy = All of your city states belong to me.

SCIENTIFIC
Babylon - They're good when the player uses them, but the AI does NOT know how to use Great Scientists. 4/5 games Nebby just sits around with a city or two, waiting for someone better to come along and destroy him.
Korea
China - Never played an Earth map game with China in which they DIDN'T beat me to the spaceship. Screw them.

CULTURAL
France - If they even get ONE cultural wonder, watch out!
Brazil - EVERYONE wants to go to Carnival!

RELIGION
Ethiopia - IRL all of the missionaries go to Ethopia. In-game, Ethopia takes it's revenge with it's missionary army!
Maya - Separation of church and science? Not for the Maya!
Celts - Always taking the good pantheons at turn 5. >_<

ALL AROUND ANNOYING
Inca - Not impeded by hills? Check. Pay little to no maint for roads/railroads? Check. Potentially hanging-garden level hill farms? Check.
Austria/Venice - STOP EATING ALL OF MY ALLIES!
Iroquois - Chop down every tree, build every wonder.
Denmark - it annoys me just how much they FAAAAAAAIL!

 

[SemperFi2382]

MILITARY
N/A

DIPLOMATIC
Siam - Just a douche in every game I've played.
Greece - Always has a 1,000 delegates, and billions of influence points on any City-State.

SCIENTIFIC
N/A

CULTURAL
Egypt - My last 2 games they've been the runaway civ generating over 200+ Tourism before I even get out of the Modern Era.
Iroquois - Chop down every tree, build every wonder, spam GW and Artifacts.

RELIGION
Ethiopia - Missionary Spam!
Celts - Makes Ethiopia's Missionary Spam look tame sometimes.

ALL AROUND ANNOYING
Inca - Not impeded by hills? Check. Pay little to no maint for roads/railroads? Check. Potentially hanging-garden level hill farms? Check.
Austria/Venice - Like Greece, only harder to stamp out.

 

[GhostSalsa]

Yeah Babylon has only ever been a science leader in one game with him.

Military hmm... Zulu yes, but Japan and France are also potential pains if you are near them, because on Immortal the AI gets access to steel/gunpowder very quickly even with zero science focus. They've actually dragged down some of my Immortal games into losses (fighting them makes you fall behind the not-them civs in tech), so I guess that's saying something.

Huns sort of, but the nice thing about battering ram is you know it's coming so just go meet it in the field and DOW first.

So much of the other stuff is just random.

Everyone makes religion a pain right now thanks to AI loving piety. I've been out-religioned as Ethiopia with Desert Faith - by the Iroquois. But Gajah should get a mention what with frequent Desert starts and the Candi.

Russia is one of my most consistent threats right now - wide focus with a love of mines and Order.

 

[Krajzen]

Why has nobody mentioned Germany? Maybe this is not the most powerful nation (however Hanse improved it significantly) but Bismarck is EXTREMELY dangerous leader, at least in my games o_o

Also, Catherine loves creating strong empires with powerful industry
Shaka is Adolf Hitler of this game
Gustaw Adolf, well, I am afraid of him This guy can be calm for the first half of the game and suddenly he conquers half of the world

 

[bbbt]

That list would be for human players. i.e. Babylon doesn't do anything AI-wise. Catherine would be a better choice - she actually has a higher science and space-ship rating, and tends to create a number of cities (which helps the AI). The Iroquois are also strong in that regard.

 

[Jacozilla]

Perhaps not difficult per se, and not a victory condition but I really detest religious spammer civs.

Whichever victory condition I'm going for, religious zealots just annoy me no end.

So my only category for toughest civs are those annoying jerky jerks - the crusader fanatics:
Ethiopia
Celts
Whichever civ got desert folklore on decent desert lands
Random civ that went piety and wonder whored all the fpt wonders

Whenever I see a missionary or GP get even near my borders, I can't help it and just go all holy war on them, even if it means breaking dof to backstab them. Inevitably I'm always pulled into wars this way.

 

[Yzman]

I think you are thinking about this topic wrong. Just because a civ is better at a certain victory type does not mean they make that victory type harder for you.

For example, I would say that Shaka makes the other victory types harder because he forces you to focus more on military, when you may prefer focusing on something else.

To that same token, a civ good at cultural victory will probably make your military victory harder because while you are focusing on military and destroying everyone else, they are dominating everyone in culture and they may win the game before you can finish your domination.

 

[GKShaman]

I was a bit confused on how to really communicate this thread. I've tried some games already (only first 90 turns.)

My results

Brazil and France really make culture difficult

Pacal and Ethiopia make a powerful religion hard

and MAN Greece and Siam make having a city state friend hard.

Austria and Venice make having city states hard

and well Shaka is Shaka.

 

[KmDubya]

Challenging would be a large block of coalition types with high warmonger hatred. A lone madman like Attila is easy to handle. A group of friends who chain denounce and chain DOW you when you defend yourself can ruin you. Worse case a weasel like Washington is friends with the cool kids and aggressively forward settles you after you make a declaration of friendship with him. If you fight they all will back him not you, if you don't you get boxed in and stunted.

Someone with high warmonger tolerance is easy to get along with and makes a good friend, the low tolerance guys are just waiting to backstab denounce you at the first chance.

Austria and Greece both do a good job of being aggressive and also grab a lot of CS allies. they also both like friends when they start a war.

Venice is limited to three or four citystate acquisitions and their empire is spread out and hard to defend. Austria is like the Borg.

 

[GoStu]

And the awards go to:

WAR:
Shaka of the Zulus! For outstanding achievements in the fields of building ridiculously large armies, and objecting to every city as being in his land, Shaka is the hands down most dangerous warmonger. Bonus points for outright cheating with impi ranged attacks.

Runner up is Ghengis Khan of the Mongols. You'd do better if you stopped killing city states, but otherwise pretty scary.

CULTURE:
Napoleon of France! Those chateaus really spit out so much culture it's hard to out tourism him, then they provide tourism, then they provide defensive bonuses when I try to kill him. Add in a good military and a penchant for culture Wonders and Napoleon is a nuisance.

Runner up is Pedro of Brazil. You'd be more dangerous if you could overcome that jungle start. Normally I meet you when you're dying if warmonger invasion

SCIENCE:
Sejong of Korea. I can barely keep up, and if I try to invade early you've got a nasty rocket surprise. Later, you're probably ahead in tech.

Runner up is Wu Zutein of China. Strong science flavor and kicks ass. Dangerous.

DIPLOMACY:
Award cancelled due to lack of nominees. Nobody ever threatens diplomatically. I've never had huge problems with city states as long as I have some gold, spies, and my empire can win the odd contest.

RELIGION:
I don't know where you get the faith for all those prophets, Haile, but they're currently Holy Sites thanks to barbarians. Also, when you say you'll stop prophet-bombing me and then don't, you get promoted to #1 on the murder list. Yes, I always have a murder list. You top it a lot.

ALL AROUND ANNOYANCE:
Ramkhamhaeng of Siam! You are always #1 on my kill list, if only to shut you up.
Runner up to Hiawatha for uglying up the landscape with silly numbers of cities and responding to invasions with waves of settlers. Possibly, he thinks that he can found cities faster than I can raze them. This is almost true.

 

[jlim201]

War- Japan- Constantly declares war on you and kills a lot of units. The good thing is, he dosent like attacking cities.

Spain- Why do you not want to make peace?

Culture- No one is really a threat, but I find Babylon gets in the way of culture victory a lot. He gets an early science boost, so he builds a lot of early wonders, giving him more culture early game which is hard to overcome to win.

Diplo- Greece- It is already kind of obvious. Large military, lots of allies which pester you with units.

Religion- Ethiopia/Maya- When they get missionaries, they WILL spam the globe with them, unsuccessfully. The Celts may get a pantheon early, but they are not annoying about it.

Science- No one really.

All Around- Babylon, once again. Good at everything because of the early headstart and spams cities.

 

[seanflokstra7]

Before I start, I don't have BNW. I play G&K, but no BNW. There won't be any BNW civs

WAR: France. Napo, why are you friendly to me all the time, but then you attack me.

Science: Never have problems with science

Diplo: KAMEHAMEHA! I hate him. Every CS is his, and he's too friendly, so I don't want to kill him, he looks so sad when he dies

Culture: Napoleon, why?

All around: Alex. DOW me? Check. Pissed when I kill a CS, EVEN IF IT ISN'T HIS ALLY OR HE ISN'T PROTECTING IT
Austria. Every CS ally, dead. Diplomatic marriage

 

[georgie]

One that no one has mentioned yet that I always hate especially during the Renaissance is Elizabeth's England.
Those Longbows are the absolute worst when you are trying to make an assault on her empire. I have been stalled from domination many times due to those longbows.

 

[ixias]

I find Hiawatha, Shaka, Casimir, and Alex to be the most effective/challenging opponents. Wu has the science flavor to be a threat, but usually stays small and gets conquered later game.

Pachacuti usually is a strong contender and does well throughout the game. I've actually had Bismark and William doing well lately. Persia can also be a threat sometimes.

England and Siam are usually pretty strong AI, but their nasty attitudes have everyone hating them.

The Mongols and Huns seem scary on paper, but I usually don't have problems with then. Once you have Composite Bowmen, Attila is pretty much nullified. Mongolia is fine as long as you give him a target. I've actually been very good friends with Genghis in most of my games because he has a high loyalty rating.

 

[joshua43214]

ummm,
In vanilla and G&K, Catherine and Siam are the two hardest civs to beat. Both get wide puppet empire and then rocket right trough the info era and win science victories. Cathy is still strong in BNW, but she really shined in the older versions