Top 10

[Gucumatz]

I see I misread the post. I thought it said who you think are the top civs.

Not who you enjoy to play as...

So without further ado, my top 5 to play as for me.

5. England - I like naval bonuses and battles. In multiplayer I like being able to rule the seas and manage the world through it. Longbow's being virtual artillery allows for me to grab some cities in multiplayer mid game as well. Seems to have an isolated start bias

4. Spain - I like in multiplayer being able to grab anything I want with a 500 gold find. Settling next to a wonder is gravvvy. Conquistadors are upgraded Mandelaku Cavalry and fun to use

3. Songhai - I like this as one of my favorite civs in vanilla. Being able to create a self sustaining war machine is fun. Take a city and even if losing gold you can keep trucking. Or use it to upgrade units. Mud Temples are beautiful as well for puppets to give culture without costs. Mandelaku Cavalry are just so powerful if you play vanilla games (which I have to sometimes in Multiplayer). Being able to outflank any city with them is amazing. If a city is almost entirely defended, Mandelakus can hit and run crushing cities.

2. Inca - Gold, Gold, Gold. IF you can't tell yet, I love being able to outflank people. I love being able to outpace and tactically outmaneuver people and that hill UA is just glorious. Allows for exploring early to grab ruins and to crush opponents in multiplayer. And being able to settle such production and food heavy cities where others can't is beautiful too. Gold, Production, and Tactically a brilliant Civ.

1. Denmark - I am something of a Blitzkrieger. My computer is mediocre, so in multiplayer I don't like having extended wars. So my style of war is 85% the time blitzing at the least defended angle or the worst time for my enemy. Being able to sail units onto land and attack the same turn is simply amazing. Or being able to pretend to have a city unguarded and then reveal a swarm of units on the oceans ready to pounce is just amazing. Berserkers and Norwegian Ski Infantry are among my favorite units too.

 

[Raiki]

You mean they walk the walk (at +1 movement) all the way to the satrap's court, right?

You're right. You got me.

~R~

 

[Sam Kwon]

1. France: All round good civ to play as, since it has a cultural and military edge.
2. Babylon: I thought it's UU and UB are really good for an early defensive civ and the UA is awesome too
3. Egypt: Spam wonders and them get Freedom LOL
4. Russia: The UA is amazing especially if you pick Autocracy them you can double the doubled! Say you have 4 Uranium, with Russia and Autrocracy you can have 16!
5. Korea: Awesome awesome awesome, although working out RA timings can be annoying...Still my favourite civ

 

[Rick80]

5 Egypt: I love play building wonders
4 Arabia: Commerce all time!
3 Korea: Better pacific civilization.
2 Babylon: I remember good match with Babylon
1 Rome: My preffered! Rome is always the best... I love the legions build roads.

 

[El Caballerion]

VANILLA w/ DLC

5. China: Best UU in the game and good UB.
4. Inca: Good balance and their unique UU is good for guerilla warfare in the beginning game.
3. Korea: Good Science game. You'll be pretty advanced toward end game.
2. Spain: Nothing can beat a lucky Spain start next to the Great Barrier Reef or Potosi.
1. Aztecs: Perhaps the best civ at playing both culturally and aggressively. A lot of fun. Good memories from playing random maps with them.

G&K (hypothesis)

5. Sweden- I'm a big softie pacifist player, and Sweden seems to fit that quite nicely.
4. Carthage- I love games where I'm tucked away on an island or with just 1 or 2 neighbors. Free harbors sounds nice to me.
3. Byzantine- Already looking forward to what looks like a fun religion game.
2. Ethiopia- Play small and big civs cant touch you.
1. Maya- Free Great People. Word. That be like bomb-bomb, ya feel me?

 

[ampmclock]

MAn people really like Aztecs

 

[Calouste]

MAn people really like Aztecs

Size 40+ capital rocks. Slaughtering your enemies to move faster through the Autocracy tree to slaughter them even better also rocks.

 

[Stormbolt]

5. Egypt
In my opinion, these guys don't get the credit they deserve. The early wonder bonus lets you start building up GE points early, which in turn allow you to build wonders that net you even more GEs, letting you build even more GE point-giving wonders, and so on. By the end of the game, I'm usually just putting down random manufactories because I've run out of stuff to build.

4. Babylon
I don't think I really need to elaborate on this one.

3. Japan
There's nothing quite like having a horde of zombies at your disposal.

2. Denmark
Denmark is all about the blitzkrieg. Nothing is a fun as rushing metal working, then sending a wave of berserkers after your enemies. When it finally looks like their era is over, a wave of newly promoted ski infantry sweeps across the map.

1. England
England's UA seems weak until you realize that they're the only civ that almost exclusively focuses on naval combat. With total dominance over the ocean and longbowmen to pick up the slack on the ground, England is in my opinion the single most underrated civ in the game. Plus, with the stronger emphasis on naval combat, an extra spy, and ranged units going into the modern era, they're going to be a beast in Gods and Kings. I liked England before they were cool. Just saying.

 

[Human Crouton]

5. America: I feel the need to always expand early with this civ, and I love that challenge. I can expand much faster with less military units in the early game because the +1 sight gives me a huge tactical advantage along with barbarian camp spawnbusting. That sight advantage is so much better than it looks on paper. Not to mention that it gives a slight advantage when deciding where to place your capital.

4. Egypt: Pump out Great Engineers almost constantly. Wonders and GEs form an endless cycle. This is a production civ, not a wonder civ.

3. England: See below

2. Denmark: Berserkers are amazing. Jumping off a boat and pillaging things is so much fun.

1. Mongols: With Keshiks you have no excuse to not be invincible on flat stretches of land. And you can easily take a neighboring city-state at the start of the game for an added boost. I love the Mongols. I can't wait to kill The Huns with them.

1. England
England's UA seems weak until you realize that they're the only civ that almost exclusively focuses on naval combat. With total dominance over the ocean and longbowmen to pick up the slack on the ground, England is in my opinion the single most underrated civ in the game. Plus, with the stronger emphasis on naval combat, an extra spy, and ranged units going into the modern era, they're going to be a beast in Gods and Kings. I liked England before they were cool. Just saying.

One of my most fun games ever was with England on continents. Great Lighthouse, plus that one policy in commerce gives my ships +4 movement. My ship of the lines were easily helping me to create and defend colonies.

Two turns to cross an entire ocean, and get into strategic position: Can't beat that.

 

[aceflamingo23]

1. the egyptians because they be epic beast at creating stuff.

2. the americans because they got good airplanes.

3. the ruskies because they got good resources.

4. the mexicans because they kill everyone.

5. the japanese because they got good stuff.

 

[thadian]

1. Korea for their scientific power. Moreso with the UB - Compendium mod.

2. Inca for terraces! Those pinch point, mountainblob areas finally become useful.

3. Polynesia for immediate embarkation/w ocean crossing. I will have ONE capital in the old world and settle the new world before anyone else knows it exists.

4. Monty is great for clearing out barbs and trekking the jungles and...

5. Iroquois have great production capacity and a pretty nice UU, the Mohawk Warrior.

Rather than a "building" i like options. Inca lets you navigate mountain areas - Polynesia lets you navigate oceans and even on continents lets you meet all the city states early. Iroquois and Aztec are good in the trees. Some people think they are only situational. I disagree, these "situations" occur quite a bit.

City spots that are normally bad become good to this civ, or at least acceptable. Ive never complained by using Inca and finding 6 iron by a bunch of inland mountains and hills but no river or grasslands nearby.

 

[JanghanHong]

4. the mexicans because they kill everyone.

...The Aztecs? Come to think of it, Mexico gets Aztecs AND the Maya, they will probably never get the post-colonial empire representing them.

 

[ahawk]

5. Egypt (Faster wonders, UB gives extra happiness)

4. Persia (Golden Age's enhanced, UB gives extra happiness)

3. Aztecs (Farm barbs for culture, UB greatly speeds population growth)

2. Germany (Landsknechts greatly speed military build-up, farm barbs for gold and warriors)

1. Russia (ever seen a Manufactory -- the Great Engineer improvement -- on an Iron source controlled by Russia? ever seen multiple such things in the vicinity of a single Russian city? The production is just unbelievable. And oh yeah, Cossacks are decent, especially if ugraded into tanks)

 

[Mustakrakish]

The 5th iteration of civ isn't really that deep for me to pick them much according to abilities, so...

5. Gonna be Byzantium. For that heavy religious game.
4. Gonna be Celts. Will be quite easy to focus on all the other things except religion while still getting all the benefits of it. Contrary to obvious use for Celts, I'm not gonna focus on religion with them.
3. Gonna be Sweden. Wanted them for a long time now.
2. Vikings. Coz Vikings rule.
1. Rome. Coz Rome. Nuff said.

 

[andreas khan]

With GK only a week away, holy , I felt like writing a top 5 favorite Civs to play as. Feel free to write your own!

5. Japan. They aren't my favorite Civ to play as because of a UU that basically sucks, and not to mention they're probably looked at the biggest "n00b cannon" to play as. But what can I say? Nothing feels better than growing an army of 10 Samurais, and waving around your superior strength to strike terror in the hearts of multiplayer gamers. It's just so much fun being that guy...But there may be one better. We'll get to that.

4. Arabia. More recently started getting into them, but it's been a blast. I love being the guy with all the gold, ruling the world through market. When Arabia has an army big enough to scare off the war mongerers, and enough money to fund both them and their opposing sides, playing as Harun can feel like a boss. It's luxurious and camel filled, Arabia is simply, the .

3. Korea. C'mon, you know you love it. They're more OP than the andy griffith show. Korea is the annoyed, brainy on the street who laughs at your feeble attempts to keep up with his tech. Yes, they're probably only so good because it came out when Civ 5 was released in Korea, but who cares. It's still great to play a DLC game online and dominate through a few well placed research agreements.

2. Persia. I love Darius and his smug ways. I think that the most satisfying moment in any civ game was realizing I was going to be a in Golden Age for the rest of the game, no problem. My units ripped across the French country side while my capital city busted out yet another great artist to be thrown into the golden age fire.

1. Mongolia. Before I learned how to structure a city, or learn how to make a civ with a prosperous economy, and fast, I learned how to take down empires with my mongol horde. It's an incredible thing, not only having an incredible buff to my military through Great Khans and their manuverability, but learning how to ROCK it. Hands down, every multiplayer game I played this past year, if I played Mongolia I was at the very least, a quite annoying opponent. Maybe not the world devestating force I wish to be, hey, I'm not so great at this game, but AT LEAST I was a major factor in all diplomatic decisions: If Greece attacks Germany, just HOW will that impact Mongolia's feelings? How long do I have before the Keshiks come my way?

As Mongolia, I never care for diplomacy. I let the world know right away, you are not my friend, and I will hurt you. I understand, now, that's not the greatest way to win, but it was often times the most FUN way.

I love mongolia too. I tryed for fun last time to befriend one civ a counqere the rest who was on my continent. I actully kept him as a friend the rest of the game without him backstabbing me.

 

[The A.K.T]

3. Polynesia for immediate embarkation/w ocean crossing. I will have ONE capital in the old world and settle the new world before anyone else knows it exists.

QUOTE]

yeah tryed that a few times. Hard to start those 10 rounds after everybody else. But its fun!

 

[ampmclock]

I love the Mongols. I can't wait to kill The Huns with them.

Hahaha, hear hear. I'm gonna have a four way battle, Denmark, The Huns, Mongolia and Japan when I get GK, and of course play as the Mongols, and kill the rest!!

 

[Muskie]

Since I returned to playing the game from a six month hiatus I have seven Civs which I prefer above the alsorans, but I also think with some time to digest G&K some other favourites may appear. I prefer to peacefully build and I play on slightly smaller maps due to computer speed. I'm not sure I've ranked them perfectly:

7) Rome, Greece gets my vote as most challenging AI, and historically Rome trumps Greece. Rome has two Unique Units and I prefer Civs which have a Unique Building to build. Rome's special ability is peaceful builder friendly, but Rome has an Achilles heal, Iron dependency. Building roads with Legionnaires is also fun.

6) Incas, the most recent addition to my top tier. They have a Unique Tile Improvement and for peaceful builders these can be really leveraged. Some think Slingers suck, but if you're planning on defending and not going for an aggressive start, Archery is the way to go. What the Inca do really well is farm. Maybe on some Utopian planet the Aztecs or Siam can produce more food, but on randomly generated worlds with hills and mountains, the Incas can outfarm most opponents.

5) Polynesia also has a Unique Tile Improvement and a not terribly powerful Unique Unit. Their strength is their Unique Ability. Maybe if you always play Pangaea maps it is less useful, but I seem to get a lot of random island starts. Polynesia basically starts with Optics, this makes them excellent scouts, treasure hunters, you can use waterways to outflank early on, and best of all you can find good city sites and reach them quicker. They also can boost Culture and $ with stone idols, but I think their maneuverability is their strongest asset.

4) Babylon was a favourite in previous additions and I like it better than Korea because they get their Unique stuff earlier. Maybe in a perfect world Korea can out research anybody, but how many games to you have to restart before you get that perfect world? Babylon can set up fortified cities and defend them well. Babylon can also go for Cultural victories almost as well as Science one in my experience.

3) Greece might be the best Civ, pound for pound, in peace time, in war time, but they are not the funnest. They have two Unique Units, one is defensive, one is offensive. They can fight and win early wars. They are not dependent on Iron and in peace time they are good at manipulating City States. Greece is one of the Civs the AI does best with, this isn't an accident.

2) Arabia is probably the funnest Civ. I like trading. So extra luxury resources and oil to trade is great. Arabia is versatile, you can go for Diplomatic, Cultural, even Scientific victories. The Camel Archer is no slouch, but it needs to be boosted or accompanied by infantry to take cities. Arabia is fun and versatile and can excel in a variety of situations.

1) China gets my vote as best Civ because it has super, duper archers (crossbowmen), combined with extra great generals which enables a tactician to defeat a numerically superior force. China also has boosted libraries. So they are capable of perusing peaceful avenues towards victory. If I had to win a game of Civ V against a cranked AI, China would be my choice.

Playing for fun, against potentially real people, I'd go Arabia, but I mostly play against the AI, and against the AI I think China has a high win percentage and is capable of winning most any way. I like versatility in a civilization.