tier list

[fatgirl2009]

Is the a Tier list of the best and worst civilizations based on leaders UB, UU, and strategies?

I know it all depends on map enemies etc....

 

[Shurdus]

That is acually asking for a lot, since I would not even know how to make such a list to begin with...

In general, strong leaders include the Romans, Egyptians, Mansa Musa, that Financial/Organised persian guy, the Ottomans, the financial english leaders and Zara Yaqob.

Weak in general is any protective leader for protective being a meagre trait, aggresive leaders for the exact same reason, and an honorable crappy mention to Saladin.

Hope this helps, and remember, any leader can shine if played really well.

 

[JoeMacUnGee]

That is acually asking for a lot, since I would not even know how to make such a list to begin with...

In general, strong leaders include the Romans, Egyptians, Mansa Musa, that Financial/Organised persian guy, the Ottomans, the financial english leaders and Zara Yaqob.

Weak in general is any protective leader for protective being a meagre trait, aggresive leaders for the exact same reason, and an honorable crappy mention to Saladin.

Hope this helps, and remember, any leader can shine if played really well.

I disagree on protective. Sitting Bull in particular is a VERY tough out. With Totems and protective as well as barracks, good luck early rushing those archers.

 

[Shurdus]

Argh, forum ate my post!

 

[Shurdus]

I disagree on protective. Sitting Bull in particular is a VERY tough out. With Totems and protective as well as barracks, good luck early rushing those archers.

Sitting Bull can be amazing for precisely that reason. Spawning next to an aggresive leader like Shaka with SB can really dampen the impact from the AI SoD when it comes. However, spawn next to a peaeful leader and the protective trait is crap.

Like I said, any leader can shine in the right circumstances, but I would rate protective as not being all that useful. Something like financial, creative, organised or philosophical is useful every game. Protective is situational.

 

[JoeMacUnGee]

Sitting Bull can be amazing for precisely that reason. Spawning next to an aggresive leader like Shaka with SB can really dampen the impact from the AI SoD when it comes. However, spawn next to a peaeful leader and the protective trait is crap.

Like I said, any leader can shine in the right circumstances, but I would rate protective as not being all that useful. Something like financial, creative, organised or philosophical is useful every game. Protective is situational.

One of my favorite SB tactics is to roll our a stack of Drill/Shock archers to meet an AI stack, an having a second stack of dog warriors waiting to follow up. Even the worst AI offenders whimper in the face of that.

 

[BobDole]

I disagree on protective. Sitting Bull in particular is a VERY tough out. With Totems and protective as well as barracks, good luck early rushing those archers.

Sure, it's really annoying to take cities against a protective leader, but you can just pillage everything they have while their defenders hang out in their city. Same goes for you, if the AI or opposing player is smart they'll just pillage your city into irrelevance while your archers cower in the city.

Anyway, no civ is so atrocious that they can't have success. You can most certainly win with any civ. With that being said, some are clearly better than others (look at Shurdus' post). If you're starting off, any Financial civ is good (cottage spam + financial = lots of money) and Rome is regarded as an easy-to-use civ since Praetorians can pretty much wreck everything in their path for quite some time. I'd use one of the easier civs to get a hang of things and then feel free to try out others.

 

[Gwynnja]

It seems to me that under control of a decent player, any leader's traits, UU, and UB can be leveraged. Controlled by the AI, creative leaders seem to have an edge.

 

[lymond]

It seems to me that under control of a decent player, any leader's traits, UU, and UB can be leveraged. Controlled by the AI, creative leaders seem to have an edge.

^^^^^this...and imperialistic, plus Mansa

 

[JoeMacUnGee]

^^^^^this...and imperialistic, plus Mansa

Musa is ridiculous under AI control.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I disagree on protective. Sitting Bull in particular is a VERY tough out. With Totems and protective as well as barracks, good luck early rushing those archers.

Funny that for all of the cow's bonuses, the Mali are by far the better anti-rush civ, not to mention offensive choking civ.

Actually Mali are candidates for "best civ overall" and are good in pretty much every situation. Top flight UU, OK UB, good traits.

 

[Calouste]

Sure, it's really annoying to take cities against a protective leader, but you can just pillage everything they have while their defenders hang out in their city. Same goes for you, if the AI or opposing player is smart they'll just pillage your city into irrelevance while your archers cower in the city.

<snip>

You can still build Axemen as a Protective leader, is doesn't force you to build only Archers.

 

[NihilZero]

You can still build Axemen as a Protective leader, is doesn't force you to build only Archers.

Unless you're Sitting Bull, when your axemen are completely lacking in offensive, city-taking potential.

 

[Metzi]

The list​

(1st) Darius/Hyuna Capac.
(Middle) The rest.
(Last) Saladin.​

That being said, you can with every leader.
Also being said, you can lose with every leader.
So I believe coming up with a rational list would be about as usefull as the Popes' testical area.

 

[shyuhe]

Tier1 - civs with good early UUs: Egyptians, Persians, HC, Pacal, Indians, Gilgamesh, Romans.
Tier 2 - mostly everyone else.
Tier 3 - mostly protective civs (except maybe Wang who's tier 2).

 

[Calouste]

Unless you're Sitting Bull, when your axemen are completely lacking in offensive, city-taking potential.

Yes, but Dog Warriors are pretty good in taking out pillagers that BobDole stated were the main problem for Protective leaders. And they are of course resourceless.

 

[Absolute Zero]

Yes, but Dog Warriors are pretty good in taking out pillagers that BobDole stated were the main problem for Protective leaders. And they are of course resourceless.

Yes, but any non-Protective civ could take out pillagers just as easily. The only difference between Protective and non-Protective defense is that Protective has better city defenders. BobDole was pointing out that this difference does not matter because having better city defenders is not much of an advantage.

I hope this doesn't turn into another debate about Protective's strength...

Re: the OP, when evaluating a civ, I think: Traits > UU > starting techs > UB. Traits are most important, but a strong UU can make up for weaker traits. (So, for example, I think Rome is better than Carthage, despite its leaders having worse traits, because its UU is much better.)

My list would go something like:

Tier 1 (Excellent)
-Egypt
-England
-Inca
-Mali
-Mongolia
-Ottomans
-Persia
-Rome

Tier 2 (Good)
-Aztec
-Byzantium
-Carthage
-Netherlands
-Ethiopia
-France
-Greece
-India
-Maya
-Spain
-Sumeria
-Vikings
-Zulu

Tier 3 (Medium)
-America
-Babylon
-Celts
-China
-Germany
-Khmer
-Korea
-Russia

Tier 4 (Bad)
-Arabia
-Holy Roman Empire
-Japan
-Native Americans
-Portugal

But of course, like others have said, it's completely possible to do well with any leader, and "bad" is used relatively here.

 

[obsolete]

Sitting Bull in particular is a VERY tough out.

SB is possibly the most under-rated leader. Your issue about the protective + combo with UB is just one reason why. On the other side of the coin, most amateurs haven't migrated past cottages yet, so they wouldn't know what to do with the philo trait if you smacked them over the head with it.

So now, to expect the average player to know how to properly take advantage of BOTH SB's traits, which are the most least under-stood by the average player, is asking too much. Which will most likely cause SB to still remain the most under-rated leader for a very, very, very long time. Probably forever I guess.

 

[Tatran]

India should be in the tier 1 list.
Byzantium in the tier 3 or 4 list, because of their weird UB. (no artists slots and no from dye)

 

[Gwynnja]

Yes, but any non-Protective civ could take out pillagers just as easily. The only difference between Protective and non-Protective defense is that Protective has better city defenders. BobDole was pointing out that this difference does not matter because having better city defenders is not much of an advantage.

I hope this doesn't turn into another debate about Protective's strength...

Re: the OP, when evaluating a civ, I think: Traits > UU > starting techs > UB. Traits are most important, but a strong UU can make up for weaker traits. (So, for example, I think Rome is better than Carthage, despite its leaders having worse traits, because its UU is much better.)

My list would go something like:

Tier 1 (Excellent)
-Egypt
-England
-Inca
-Mali
-Mongolia
-Ottomans
-Persia
-Rome

Tier 2 (Good)
-Aztec
-Byzantium
-Carthage
-Netherlands
-Ethiopia
-France
-Greece
-India
-Maya
-Spain
-Sumeria
-Vikings
-Zulu

Tier 3 (Medium)
-America
-Babylon
-Celts
-China
-Germany
-Khmer
-Korea
-Russia

Tier 4 (Bad)
-Arabia
-Holy Roman Empire
-Japan
-Native Americans
-Portugal

But of course, like others have said, it's completely possible to do well with any leader, and "bad" is used relatively here.

You say that traits are the most important piece when evaluating a civilization, but civilizations don't have traits, leaders do.