I'm assuming favorite here means in general terms, as there are some civs I like a lot despite not liking their UHVs much. But oh boy, do I have many! And to be fair, it kind of tends to vary from time to time, but I would say my most played civs are America, France, Germany, Rome, Egypt, China and Japan.
America
+Huge, productive land to settle and develop
+Mostly fun UHV (only dislike the Caribbean island hopping part)
+Fun as a "free play" civ, lots of things you can do from warring to building and teching
France
+Relevant civ for a very long time
+Fun but challenging UHV, good match of building, conquering and settling
+Lots of nice Wonders to build
Germany
+Fun civ to start in the middle of a chaotic Europe
+Many rivals makes engaging gameplay, world wars make very interesting gameplay as Germany
+Huge potential for growth
Rome
+Iconic civ, I've always loved learning about Roman history
+UHV is very challenging, but well designed imo as it encourages playing it historically
+Fun civ to play "past their date", one of my favorite Rome games was when I crushed most European civs which resulted in a "medieval Roman Europe". I grew very big controlling almost all of Europe and settling most of New World by myself, then I switched to Argentina when they spawned and a few turns later the whole empire collapsed and respawned all the euro civs! It was pretty cool!
Egypt
+As Rome, very iconic civ
+Cool Wonders
+Challenging gameplay, lots of enemies (Greek, Roman and Arabian invasions)
China
+Once again, an old civ with rich history
+Gameplay is pretty long and engaging if you consider the UHV
+Very eventful game all the way, Mongol invasions make an exciting part, I like the preparation for their invasion
Japan
+Start out small but has huge potential
+Love the varietas delectat art for Japanese units
+Fun civ to do ahistorical playthroughs like colonizing New World, I like how the Zaibatsu building compliments smaller island cities, gives nice boost to your commerce
My list of perennial favourites in no particular order with some downsides too! I'm not biased!
Byzantium 600 AD
+I love a good alt hist and what is better than making the ERE a modern superpower.
+got the full strategic spread. Iron, horse, oil, aluminium, and uranium in easy access and decent production cities to exploit them.
+Egypt and Iraq are well within your reach and having both well developed makes you *the superpower*.
+Orthodoxy has some pretty good wonders for surviving *coughkremlincough* and economy (monolithic church)
-You have to run the gauntlet of repeated losses to Arab, Turkic, Mongol and Ottoman rises before you can reliably strike back.
-Outside of Russia literally everyone hates you, unless you play suck up and give into any demands besides conversions and liberally gift tech and cash.
-most useless UP in the game. Save 5000 gold by 1000AD? Oh and your UP spends it to bribe barbarians you can otherwise easily deal with by defending your cities properly.
China 3000 BC
+Luoyang is the most utterly broken city I've ever had the joy of founding
+Your initial economy and tech as a breeze with calendar and the Chinese ub
+Quite literally the best core territory in the game.
+Confucian wonders make the flood of barbarians manageable
- Early barbs are are a constant nuisance
-No really, screw Tibetan swordsman, its easier to deal with the Mongols...
Rome 3000 BC
+The OG, the icon, the legend.
+Probably the best uu and up for quick expansion (and stable) via conquest
+the premier Alt hist civ, Save her. Save Rome!
+if you save her you have basically won! ROMA INVICTA
+amazing pagan wonders then the choice of Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant giving you access to a huge range of wonders that you will have little to no rivals for.
-if you thought the byzantine gauntlet was bad...
-yes it makes you boring an uninspired
Polynesia 3000 BC
+The most unique civ in the entire game
+UHV and URV are ludicrously easy
+no need to worry about barbarians or invasions from other civs
-Economy? Reserch? What are you talking about?
-90% of of gameplay is "Press enter to end turn".
Colombia 1700 AD
+Live Bolivars dream
+Unfortunately placed "sugar" resources
+easy oil
-Pablo Escobar isn't a leader head, sadly
-lack of aluminium
Brazil 1700 AD
+UP that makes Americas mouth water. The Pedrodollar wins!
+Strong green econ with itaipu dam and nature reserves
+Only SA civ with both oil and aluminium, jet fighter goes shwoooo.
-Good luck getting Wembley before the British.
-Start is fairly lacklustre, you gotta act fast to nab key wonders like statue of liberty to catch up.
Vikings 600 AD
+Core has access to the full strategic set of resources
+Early game has you running rampant around Europe, pillaging
+Strong position to found Protestantism
-+?Late game gets very cramped as your stuck between Prussia, Russia, and Britain. Unless you go full Gustavus Adolphus...
-no real option to stay pagan. Odin weeps!
Congo 600 AD
+Only real SSA civ. Mali doesn't count!
+Your UP gives you access to otherwise useless land so go ham
+You can make a killing off the slave trade
+Uranium and oil are not hard to get.
-Where is Playable Swahili and Zimbabwe? its fun conquering them but I wanna play em!
-Ethiopia too!
Egypt I feel like is practically the tutorial civilization with how easy the UHV is but there's something I really like about trying to see how far you can take a civ from 3000BC and stay competitive with all the emerging powers. I think Egypt is most interesting for this, it's a small but rich core and you'll have to fight off waves of threats but there's only one really bad spawn flip with the Arabs and there are lots of options for how you can take things. I've played as coptics or a sultanate, sometimes a colonizing trade republic, sometimes I'll gobble up the bones of Rome to make a new mediterranean empire.
Spain is also a personal favorite, things get very cramped in Iberia but it keeps things interesting. I love the European colonial game, I like England too but barring Viking invasions they're a little too safe on their little island. I also love religious UHVs, purging heresies and converting heathens by diplomacy or by sword.
Vikings rock too, their sack bonus is crazy on developed cities and encourages a rampaging conquest where you don't conquer to hold land but just to loot and force nations into subjugation and tribute - the true barbarian way!
I liked playing for Mali. Captured all of Africa + Yerushalayim and nearby islands. Won the space race. But I cheated a little: the cities of Timbuktu and Wagadugu were founded by me as an Egyptian. This gave a significant impetus to the growth of civilization. It was interesting!
my favs:
1. Prussia AD 1700. Its scenario gives a perfect flow between war and peace. Rush with initial units - Farm - Rush France with 1 st UU - Farm - Rush Russia with 2nd UU - Victory before collapse
2. China BC3000. Possibly the longest scenario ( is it?) Needs huge amount of micro-management and good amount of luck. Also playing China will let you experience solid 'falls of civs' which you won't experience by playing most of the other civs. Aside from it being already the longest, the last UHV being somewhat catching up the world again near 2000 ( and better with inevitably self destroy again as we are seeing today) would be sweet.
3. France AD 600: similar to Prussia but starts/ends earlier, involves oversea expansion tasks ( which imho isnt really fun. To achieve the 40% lands, you are just not motivated to seize other civ's colony rather than create some underdeveloped midwest huge new cities that never exist in history either)
1) Prussia 1700 AD. Perfect balance between expanding upwards and sideways. I love colonizing southern Africa and going to war with whoever I feel like in Europe. I love giving Berlin every tile it can access and having most of my great people join the city and building a bunch of wonders makes it incredibly powerful later on. Conquering most of Europe and forming an alliance with Russia and America is fun too. Also a wonderful nation to run Egalitarianism and Central Planning on with so many specialists we get basically in all cities.
2) Portugal 600 AD. Fantastic colonial expansion capacity, limited military conflicts if you stay on Spain's good side. I love building a huge overseas empire from one city. Can even keep Brazil all the way to the end if stability is good. My favourite colonial nation by far.
3) Brazil 1700 AD. Lots of land and resources, can have a huge core population which makes it possible to conquer all of South America to build a superstate rivalling Russia and America. Great production too, can build a bunch of wonders. One of my favourite ways to play it is to sign a defensive pact with America right away and then dragging them into epic world wars against basically the entire old world.
4) Russia 1700 AD. There's few things as satisfying as taking an economically crippled country and in the course of a couple of centuries turning it into the greatest powerhouse in the world. Also extra points for having ridiculous production capacity which means lots of nukes and going crazy with them.
5) Tamils 3000 BC. The only old civilization I like to play into the modern era. Carefully placing cities in your core and allocating maximum resources to them gives you a pretty impressive core population which can offset expansion even with not many historical areas. My favourite is sticking mostly to the coasts and colonizing and conquering most of the coast from Mozambique to Java.
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god damn the Tibetan barbarians
