What are the MOST OVERPOWERED CIVS conditions?

[Sheershaw]

England on island maps.

 

[Calouste]

Spain next to Uluru. You have a Pantheon in 1 turn, pick One with Nature and you have a religion 10 turns later, all while working a 4 tile. Then you can start spamming cities with Pagodas.

 

[Thuellai]

Spain next to Uluru. You have a Pantheon in 1 turn, pick One with Nature and you have a religion 10 turns later, all while working a 4 tile. Then you can start spamming cities with Pagodas.

Let's face it. Spain next to ANY natural wonder.

Krakatoa? Ten beakers. Put an observatory up!

Cerro de Potosi? Rake in dem dubloons.

Lake Victoria? That city has a one-way ticket to Tall Town.

Also, Kamehameha on a Terra.

You have a whole continent to yourself, screw those other guys.

 

[rodrigoq]

I found shoshone with a desert start can be a very easy way to get a fast religion and completely dominate religiously before most civs even found a pantheon. Picking bonus faith from ruins can be awesome, especially if you don't have many neighbors, and deserts seem to have more ruins than other areas.

 

[DerCivMeister]

Spain next to El Dorado. You find that first, and that's 1,000 gold or 2 settlers automatically.

Polynesia, tiny islands, water level high.

Austria, dual size map, maximum city states possible…

 

[gamella]

before BNW spain, 2-3 turns to reach barrier reef in range tile. Spexially having desert hills around.

after BNW same plus Lake Victoria (12 food!!!) or Salomon mine (12 hammers!!!)

Any of them are massive.

I've played a game (having tweaked number of natural wonders to appear on map) where i was able to plant a city on all three natural wonders....

 

[Lochlann]

I'm pretty sure that you can't get techs from later eras than ancient from ruins.

I've definitely gotten a few Classical-era techs from ruins. On either Prince, King, or Emperor, can't remember.

 

[Mrdarklight]

If you want to restart the game 500 times to start next to El Dorado as Spain, feel free.

 

[Mrdarklight]

Spain next to El Dorado. You find that first, and that's 1,000 gold or 2 settlers automatically.

Polynesia, tiny islands, water level high.

Austria, dual size map, maximum city states possible…

Why would Polynesia be good with no room to build the Maoi?

When I play Poly I always go large islands.

 

[Bei1052]

Spain next to Uluru. You have a Pantheon in 1 turn, pick One with Nature and you have a religion 10 turns later, all while working a 4 tile. Then you can start spamming cities with Pagodas.

Funny thing. In my current Spain game I settled next to Uluru (and lake Victoria) and took the "one with nature pantheon". Broken, to say the least.

 

[Setis]

Funny thing. In my current Spain game I settled next to Uluru (and lake Victoria) and took the "one with nature pantheon". Broken, to say the least.

I did something similar, and topped it off with Sacred Sites, Pagodas, Cathedrals, and a wide empire. Culture victory in the early 1800s

 

[DerCivMeister]

Why would Polynesia be good with no room to build the Maoi?

When I play Poly I always go large islands.

Well, if I'm going for a cultural victory, then of course I would want more coastline to build moais. Polynesia was actually the first civ I won a BNW culture victory with, even after playing Brazil. But, if I'm looking for a fun game to screw the AI, I go tiny islands water level high, because the AI cannot leave their incredibly cramped island until the classical era, and they won't have much chance to settle new cities until astronomy. Meanwhile, I'm ICSing, taking all of the ruins, you know…

 

[CooRo]

Venice on One-City Challenge with Max CS
*Evil Grin*

 

[Loucypher]

Netherlands on Sandstorm. You see some cute workeable Flood Plains giving you 4 food. I see polders, polders everywhere, as far as the eye can see...

 

[Talcove]

Brazil on the Amazon and Amazon Plus map type. They're an absolute power house there, while the other civs are just stuck in the gutter.

 

[Kordanor]

Austria, dual size map, maximum city states possible…

You don't need maximum City states. I would even argue on the contrary. If you only have like 10 city states it's better for austria.
You don't need to put any point into the city state tree and can buy them all, making any perk from other civs regarding city states useless.
Wait to buy the first city state until it has size 10 and lots of military units. As in BNW under normal circumstances no wars happen in the first half of the game you basically never need to build units. Instead you pay 700g now and then to buy a 10-20 pop city with like 10 up to date units.

 

[simonthesinner]

OP Civs on more regular starts

Songhai on any start where you have some decent distance to your neighbours and can honour-hit those barbarians. upkepfree temples with a side of culture to boot. Having Egypt as a neighbour doesn't hurt either.

Rome with four or so coastal cities. 25% off every building for the rest of the game. National wonders galore.

Egypt almost anywhere. Wonderwhoring and upeep-free temples

Mayans almost anywhere.

Russia almost everywhere.

Under special conditions, such as Spain starting near the gret barrier reef, other civs can surpass these civs but these are the powerhouses

 

[Kordanor]

@Simonthesinner

Do you really think Egypt is overpowered?
Maybe they are on lower difficulties but on Immortal or Deity you can only build like one or two wonders in the acnient/classical era anyways, you almost have to beeline them cause otherwise the risk is too high that another civ finishes it before you do (and with that you lost like 10 turns and are already far behind).
Wonders in later eras however are mostly done with ingeneurs anyways, so not a big boost here from Egypt.

Don't think that the Mayans or Russia are overpowered either.
Russia was before because you could sell all your strategic ressources for tons of money giving you an insane boost, but that doesn't work anymore.

The mayans get a great personality. But unless babylon they don't profit from it in the very early game. And because they can only chose each personality only once they keep being balanced.

I think most of the civs you mention actually only make good use of their bonus but arent overpwoered.

 

[Loucypher]

The mayans get a great personality. But unless babylon they don't profit from it in the very early game. And because they can only chose each personality only once they keep being balanced.

The Mayans have a higher faith output then most civs and a higher science output early on then any other civ (only rivalled by Korea and Babylon a bit later). Sorry, but they're definitely top of the tree.

 

[Kordanor]

While I forgot about the Pyramids when I wrote my earlier post, I still would not consider them overpowered.
They are one of the better civs of course (as is Rome) but I would not call them broken as some other civs are (mostly underpowered ones, or luck/conditional based ones though).