[GS] Your Opinion: Worst Civ for each Victory type?

[DanaLea]

In your opinion, which civ(s) would be the worst one to chose if going for science? Culture? Diplomacy? Religion? Domination?

I think I want to try one of these "disastrous" combinations as a challenge of sorts. Ideas?

 

[Cerilis]

Kongo and religion victory.

Do I win?

 

[DanaLea]

I think that would be a bit more of a challenge than I like. LOL

 

[iammaxhailme]

I think there are plenty of civs that get absolutely no bonus towards certain victory types, so I'm sure this would be a many-way tie

 

[bengalryan9]

I think there are plenty of civs that get absolutely no bonus towards certain victory types, so I'm sure this would be a many-way tie

Some (NOT ME!) will tell you that doesn't even matter - just go out and conquer everything and you can win any victory type you want with ease. Haven't you heard about how good Mongolia is at diplomatic victory? All you have to do is conquer everything but one enemy city and it's a shoe-in.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Kongo also worst for diplo because no Mahobodhi. Small disadvantage but still one.

Canada for domination since no surprise wars or attacking city states.

 

[Leucarum]

Also playing against type can be a lot of fun...

 

[iammaxhailme]

Some (NOT ME!) will tell you that doesn't even matter - just go out and conquer everything and you can win any victory type you want with ease. Haven't you heard about how good Mongolia is at diplomatic victory? All you have to do is conquer everything but one enemy city and it's a shoe-in.

Yeah, I was kind of expecting to see some posts like this

Person 1: "The zulu are the worst at diplomatic victory!"

Person 2: "No, they're actually the best becuase they're good at conquering everyone except 1 player who won't be able to over-ride your votes"

Which is technically true, but a boring answer.

 

[enKage]

I'd say:
SV: Georgia
Domination: Khmer? Scotland? Rather Scotland
Diplo: Germany
Religious: Noone really is worse than others, noone gets penalty to faith generation and the weakest civs in game like Khmer or Georgia are good in RV. So who is left on low tier civs? I would point Scotland
Culture - as above, very city state dependent

 

[leandrombraz]

Kongo also worst for diplo because no Mahobodhi. Small disadvantage but still one.

Canada for domination since no surprise wars or attacking city states.

I made some mistakes in my last diplo game and I ended up without a religion. Let me tell you, it definitely isn't a small disadvantage. Guaranteeing early points is crucial, mostly wonder points, since you can get them reliably. Missing those two points can easily put you in a really bad position. It increases your reliance on luck considerably. In my game, I got a few unlucky congresses after I missed a religion and the whole thing just dragged. Those two points would have made a huge difference.

 

[Sostratus]

Diplo: Germany

I don't really go for diplo, and maybe the meta for diplo allows fast wins. In that case this wouldn't apply.
But, assuming you are marking them down because they love to pollute with industrialization- once you have global warming mitigation, you can simply conjure infinite diplo favor because every one of those projects gives you 50, you have tons of surplus production everywhere, and they build fast. I can pretty easily overcome the entire world's output and push the accumulated emissions back to zero all by myself with a peaceful empire, and then win all votes.

 

[Bangau]

Have a look at the 'elimination' threads. (Science thread is currently deciding the top 4...) You'll see which civs are considered the weakest at certain victory types and why so if you go to the first (few) page(s) of those threads.

 

[Disgustipated]

As mentioned, many civs are just blank civs, and not necessarily bad at a victory type. Germany was mentioned above, but I don't consider them bad. You don't have to conquer city states. And if you're talking about coal plants, running the CO2 project repeatedly with that high production could give you a diplomatic advantage. Zulu is worse at diplo than Germany imho.

Science: Georgia. At least warmonger civs can conquer, but a Civ focussed on defense and faith?
Culture: Scotland
Diplomatic: Zulu
Religion: Scotland
Domination: Georgia
Score: Georgia

I'm picking on Scotland because they really only have an advantage at one victory type and otherwise is just a blank vanilla civ, and no warmonger advantage.

 

[Backero]

In the game, where civs rather don;t have negative traits (except some like Kongo, Mali, Ottomans) the rating of the worst civ for X victory type should be affected by its biome script and general tier. Otherwise we would get many draws. So for example I would say that sea cics like Phoenicia should have pretty low rate of Sci/Reli victory due to smaller propability of having mountains around. But this is still quite minor factor.

 

[leandrombraz]

I don't really go for diplo, and maybe the meta for diplo allows fast wins. In that case this wouldn't apply.
But, assuming you are marking them down because they love to pollute with industrialization- once you have global warming mitigation, you can simply conjure infinite diplo favor because every one of those projects gives you 50, you have tons of surplus production everywhere, and they build fast. I can pretty easily overcome the entire world's output and push the accumulated emissions back to zero all by myself with a peaceful empire, and then win all votes.

I don't think Germany is bad for diplomatic, since you can avoid spamming coal plants everywhere and just benefit from the Hansa's adjacency. You can afford to get some coal plants without CO2 getting out of control. Germany is far from top tier but also far from being the worst. With that said, even though Carbon recapture is a powerful source of favors, it doesn't make up for the favors you lose earlier if you let CO2 get out of control. Pre modern era favors are way more valuable than post modern favors, since it can be used to guarantee pre modern congress points, which are crucial in a diplo victory. Carbon recapture is more of a plan C, for when your victory already dragged because you lost too many pre modern points, and because you didn't get aid requests to offset your losses, forcing you to rely on winning the diplo vote, so your victory doesn't drag even further. The favors you get between each pre modern congress are crucial to get a smooth diplo win, so you can invest heavily in resolutions that you can't predict with accuracy.

 

[Zdarg]

So for example I would say that sea cics like Phoenicia should have pretty low rate of Sci/Reli victory due to smaller propability of having mountains around.

Now they has reefs instead.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Have a look at the 'elimination' threads. (Science thread is currently deciding the top 4...) You'll see which civs are considered the weakest at certain victory types and why so if you go to the first (few) page(s) of those threads.

Those threads would be the worst place to learn as it is more of a popularity contest. I mean it is fun but one can't really say there is quality discussion there and it is suspect that people have played the civs that they voted for/against or even if they've actually done a science victory in GS. In addition stuff gets downvoted because it is "too popular" which in all fairness is the point of an elimination thread. But it runs counter to people looking for improvement.

I made some mistakes in my last diplo game and I ended up without a religion. Let me tell you, it definitely isn't a small disadvantage. Guaranteeing early points is crucial, mostly wonder points, since you can get them reliably. Missing those two points can easily put you in a really bad position. It increases your reliance on luck considerably. In my game, I got a few unlucky congresses after I missed a religion and the whole thing just dragged. Those two points would have made a huge difference.

I also suppose founding a religion can make it easier to war. You can declare holy wars and also people will generate grievances for trying to convert you.

 

[Bangau]

Those threads would be the worst place to learn as it is more of a popularity contest.

I disagree. Sure, a few people vote for their 'favorites', but I see a lot of proper arguments upvoting and downvoting civs.

 

[Archon_Wing]

I disagree. Sure, a few people vote for their 'favorites', but I see a lot of proper arguments upvoting and downvoting civs.

There's also a lot of bad ones. For example, I recall numerous posts that say religious civs are bad for a diplomatic victory because they cause grievances even though founding a religion doesn't force you to spread it everywhere. If you're not going for a religious victory, it may not be a good idea anyways because other civs can benefit from having your religion.

Or a civ would go another victory (even though it may be better at the topic's victory anyways). It is disingenuous, because you can make any civ look bad by playing it as stupidly as possible. It is also part of the nature of the game that one downplays stuff for civs that one wants to downvote.

Yes that happens everywhere but a new player would struggle to filter these things out.

 

[enKage]

I don't really go for diplo, and maybe the meta for diplo allows fast wins. In that case this wouldn't apply.
But, assuming you are marking them down because they love to pollute with industrialization- once you have global warming mitigation, you can simply conjure infinite diplo favor because every one of those projects gives you 50, you have tons of surplus production everywhere, and they build fast. I can pretty easily overcome the entire world's output and push the accumulated emissions back to zero all by myself with a peaceful empire, and then win all votes.

You're wrong, pollution is not a problem. I should have given reasoning before.
There are two ways of gaining diplo victory:
- military path, eliminating most of the civs, so civs with strong unit / strong bonus to ammenity-loyality / strenght are good. Zulu with early corps/armies and bonus loyality is a MONSTER diplociv.
- peacefull path, when you need either:
a) source of raw diplofavors (America, Sweden)
b) cash cash cash and even more (Mali, Cree, England, Persia etc)
c) city states as allies (Greece, Hungary, Georgia)
or any combination of it.

Germany gets no bonus to any of it. Its UU is nonexisting. Military card gives some flexibility in units production, but sincerely not gamebreaking and not making them better at war than most civs at any stage.
What Germany gets instead is very strong combat bonus vs city states, it is a sin not using it, German uniques wants you to eliminate important factor of DV. And unlike killing whole civs, grevviances from attacking / killing city states are harder to cancel, so no DF from CS, harder DF from alliances and so on

What I want to explain is that if you want to play Germany in a way they are designed, you are in bad posyion for DV. You can still do well not killing CS, but why not use the 2nd best german uniques?