Which civs do you feel are best designed? (not who is strongest)

Brazil is also not particularly well designed. The UI is good, but promotes the opposite of the UA in providing defensive culture.
The culture from the UI will be turned into tourism by hotels and airports and then when turned into culture by those multiplied. Just for the data.
 
I agree with what some others have said that many of the original civs have lost some of their luster due to GNK and BNW, and the newer civs tend to be better designed from a gameplay standpoint. I think most of the early civs could use an overhaul to fit the expansions. Many of them also lack synergy (i.e. Egypt, India, America, etc.).
 
I like playing as the Netherlands because of the polder and 50% retention of happiness if the last of a luxury item is sold.
 
The culture from the UI will be turned into tourism by hotels and airports and then when turned into culture by those multiplied. Just for the data.

That's true, I had forgotten about that and it does weigh in favour of Brazil. I'm still on the fence because it comes so late in the game (especially airports) that it doesn't affect all that much until the last couple of golden age tourism blowouts.

I still feel like Brazil isn't all that 'interesting' as a civ design, as the UA forces you to go cultural victory and the other bonuses don't have any impact on that until way too late. I think if Brazil had some kind of early/mid religious UB that provided a mini version of the Sacred Sites reformation belief, it would be better designed and possibly promote more varied games as Brazil.
 
I find civs well designed that offer a unique and different playstyle but are not pidgeon-holed into doing the same thing every game - and are not too dependent on chance (assuming the map type is one with a balanced amount of water/land). Also, their UUs should feel impactful.

Good examples are:
- Iroquois
- Inca
- Moroccans
- Ethiopia
- Shoshone
- England

Not really the civs I play that often - mainly due to personal taste.
 
Spain and Inca came out together, and whoever dreamed them up really should get an ovation. I think the definition of a good design is that has an implicit (not explicit) strategy and personality. It doesn't just grant a bag of goodies with no strings attached.

I agree! :goodjob:Spain is one of the best CIVS out there because the gameplay can be drastically different every time. Settle next to Lake Victoria will great change the outcome of your game compared to settling next to KSM. It makes each game really fun and gives them character. When you play as a boring/passive civ like America per se, you're going to get the same game every single time.
 
England. Hands down. It is the single most perfect civ in the game.

I second this.

England is less of a Synergetic Civ, and more of a perfectly well rounded and flexible winning machine suitable for what ever victory seems appropriate by the near end of the game(though it becomes super easy to get a domination victory with them)

UA: Allows for quick exploration and eventually an expanded empire across the map, which means diverse luxury and strategic resources as well as key strategic real estate. The extra spy gives you a chance to beeline for your UU techs and catch up on the other techs quickly. If you are ahead in tech, you can use one for counterintelligence and others for diplomacy. I like this because I don't like to start playing a game with one Victory in mind. Victory eventually presents itself to England.

UUs: Allow for great defense or offense, depending in your needs. People like to bad mouth the Longbows because their range is dependant on the terrain. I say whatev. They rule at defending cities and are even better at taking them because they can fire from a safe distance. When Industrialization roles around, you can upgrade the Longbow into a double range Gatling gun. Then there's machine guns, then bazookas; all with more range than everyone else's similar units. I always spam Longbow as soon as I get them and find uses for them later. If nothing else, they work really well as homeland security.
The SoL rules. Nuff said. Get the range promotion as fast as you can and you have yet another long ranged unit that can attack from far enough away to avoid return fire. The UU lets you get your navy and embarked armies to whatever stretches of the world you may need to defend or capture.

I appreciate this admiration of civs that have a real strength for one victory type, but I personally find the most value in flexible civs. Other civs that I feel need to be recognized in this thread are America and the Shoshone. They are suitable to do anything. Peace.
 
I agree! :goodjob:Spain is one of the best CIVS out there because the gameplay can be drastically different every time. Settle next to Lake Victoria will great change the outcome of your game compared to settling next to KSM. It makes each game really fun and gives them character. When you play as a boring/passive civ like America per se, you're going to get the same game every single time.

I really enjoyed playing Spain. It was fun for me to try and take every single natural wonder, which meant conquering a couple of city-states, but it was great to create a wide empire geared toward a purpose other than warmongering. My only quip with them is the UUs coming around the same time, so I felt I didn't get much play with either of them. The conquistador settling ability is cool, but it comes so late that there's not much left to be settled unless you're playing a Terra map.

For best designed, I really enjoyed Portugal. It seems like the perfect trade empire, with unlimited happiness from Feitoria and Nau gives you that extra little incentive to get them out early a make some additional gold.
 
I don't think I agree with synergy being the main and only measure of a civ's design. It's a component, but not the only one.

I really like the civs that have a distinct personality and push you towards a behavior that makes the game more interesting, like the Aztec, Spain or Inca.

I also like civs that are flexible enough without lacking identity - Poland and Egypt come to mind.

And some civs are cool because they have one cool component and are rounded up with some less extraordinary components that are still useful and don't get in the way. The Shoshone and the Maya would be my examples here.

In the end, the test for how well designed a civ is should be how enjoyable to play it is and how much do you want to replay the game with it. The civs I mentioned above are the ones that I've found so far to be excellent fun, but there may be others, since I haven't played them all.
 
I think you are overlooking India. Yes, it can use a growth bonus, but the UA is designed for a tall empire. I played it yesterday (prince, standard diff), had tones of happiness (around 100 at the end) so had golden ages left and right. I think it is a very good civ for a non aggressive play (esp. science and cultural).

btw, after reading this thread, tried the shoshons, got stuck on a small continent :) bad luck for the first try with them... only 3 cities and 4-5 ruins till the ability to cross ocean tiles
 
btw, after reading this thread, tried the shoshons, got stuck on a small continent :) bad luck for the first try with them... only 3 cities and 4-5 ruins till the ability to cross ocean tiles

Yes, that can happen with the Shoshone, admittedly. They are not exactly predictable.
 
England is certainly well balanced and allows for flexible gameplay, but I would like to see a nod to the Industrial Revolution which is nowhere to be found. Instead it's a tongue-in-cheek James Bond bonus that is rather uninteresting.

Pretty sure it's a reference to this guy, not Bond. Otherwise, you'd figure the extra spy would show up in the Atomic era.
 
I think people who are coming in to tell someone they are wrong or state things as hard rules should remember that while there are some definite things in bad design a large part of great design is going to go to personal preference.

I can feel Brazil is well designed because I like synergy. PhilBowles, you can feel they are bad design. And it's all personal preference at that point in the thought process.

This isn't a conflict over design philosophy - no one's disputing that synergy is an important feature of good design. Or that Brazil has synergy. What I am saying is that Brazil's synergy is lazily-executed, and that synergy itself isn't sufficient in the face of other weaknesses in the civ's design (particularly that a "late-game civ" that gives you very little in most game stages has an inherent tension with Civ game design as a whole).

As for synergy, take the two following examples that achieve something similar:

Persia: A UA based on golden ages. A UB that increases happiness - which means quicker golden ages - at the same time as it provides a % bonus to city gold generation (gold generation that is improved during a golden age). It's a late-Medieval era building, and as a building remains in play for the entire game. As an additional touch their Immortal, one of the best if not the best early-game UU as it is, benefits from the UA. On reflection, Persia is one of the best designs in this regard.

Brazil: A UA based on golden ages. A UU that generates "GA points" from combat. Aside from being an uninspired design, this relies on actually fighting with the unit when nothing else about Brazil favours warfare. The UU is quite long-lived, but is still a UU and is very late game. Where Persia builds a bank (which it's going to want anyway, whatever its strategy) and gets on with things, Brazil is forced to build/upgrade units in the late game at exactly the time when it wants to be focusing on hotels etc. (but it probably won't be because it has to go down the wrong tech path to get the Pracina). The Brazilwood Camp is a better fit, but only has synergy in the late game (when it's not really any better than the Moai) while restricting to building near jungle tiles to maximise its utility, a tile type with poor resource output that's going to limit growth and development early in the game if you focus on settling jungles. If you don't, you don't get many camps.

Sweeden always throws me for a loop. I look at the AI.. ok if I have lots of civs on the map I can get lots of great people and.. wait throw them at city states? and then two UUs so am I combat now? Won't that make my great people stop coming in when I lack friends? I don't know where to go with sweeden.

Sweden has flexibility - nothing forces you to use both elements of the UA (any more than you have to use one of each type of CS to use Siam's), or to give the GPs you generate to CSes because you can. It's a civ that gives you tools that will vary with context. The suggested approach to increase GP generation through warfare is indeed one way to play Sweden, but because their UUs are rather late there's not a lot of synergy between the UUs and this approach beyond the simple fact that the Carolean, when you do get it, happens to be a very good UU. Bear in mind the Patronage tree - you can ally CSes with GPs, who will then give you GPs as a result of the Patronage finisher, who you can gift to get more CS allies, and more GPs, and...
 
Persia: A UA based on golden ages. A UB that increases happiness - which means quicker golden ages - at the same time as it provides a % bonus to city gold generation (gold generation that is improved during a golden age). It's a late-Medieval era building, and as a building remains in play for the entire game. As an additional touch their Immortal, one of the best if not the best early-game UU as it is, benefits from the UA. On reflection, Persia is one of the best designs in this regard.

I had forgotten Persia. Yes, it's a great civ. It has an interesting, but not overdone synergy between elements and promotes a fun play style.
 
Apart from the civs which have abilities that really suit the nation (not the leader), I really like any UA that requires some work.

I don't quite like Poland's UA for this reason. Just seems sort of cheap. You don't have to do anything different in order to get the bonus.

I think Sweden as a whole is probably the best designed. Very imaginative and it requires you to alter your play style to reap the rewards.

Byzantium would almost qualify, but the dromon doesn't fit in. When you are Theo, you are fighting for religion, not classical-era naval warfare.
 
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