Civilization tier list

[Cakes]

Hi, does anyone have a link to a tier list of the civs, at least the ancient era ones?

I'm personally finding egyptians to be super strong, and others like phoenicians to be super niche and weak overall. Maybe I'm not looking at these civs the right way and I'd like to see other people's perspectives on them and why they're strong/weak

Thank you

[(Rúna)]

I haven't seen a use for choosing Phoenicians yet. Their harbour district seems weak A.F, though I suppose you can always replace it later game, and the boat isn't very useful that early in the game because naval warfare isnt really a thing and neither are coastal cities. It's a wet scout limited to the coast essentially lol. Though I should give them a chance because there are probably benefits Im not seeing yet.

Egyptians are good. I love the Harrapens and building lots of farms and will often restart if I dont get them. Nubians are very cool, I rate them higher than Egyptians, currently. Olmec also very good. Playing a game currently where I started off with Zhou, and I think they are very underated. IF you have a map with mountains, you can get a fantastic research quarter immediately with them, which provides stability and also Zhou give you a game-long buff of +2 stability to every district you build. So great if you like building a lot!

Aksumites are great for classical with gold generation, and their unique swordsman doesnt require iron. Celts I like too, but I like the growth orientated civs, generally. Greeks are good for science, and with them you can easily research pass the era's tech section.

For medieval, Ghanaians pair very well with Aksumites, a natural next stage to wealth generation. It seems to me though that the Khmer is by far the best in that era though, if you are a communist city developer you'll be very happy with a well fed productive population with brilliant synergies between the farming and industry!

[NoWayi]

Originally posted by Mim:

Playing a game currently where I started off with Zhou, and I think they are very underated. IF you have a map with mountains, you can get a fantastic research quarter immediately with them, which provides stability and also Zhou give you a game-long buff of +2 stability to every district you build. So great if you like building a lot!

Yea i was thinking the same and directly settled close to mountains and rivers, and built districts to reach at least 3 mountain adjacency all the time, then i got into the issue that i was doing tech too fast lol, i mean i couldnt advance due to my stars not ready, i was hoping the science will carry over or something but it isnt, maybe there is a delicate balance with them i havent found yet :P if they would be science faction for sure top tier :P

[Beefers]

The thing about unique harbors, is they do not actually take up your harbor spot, so you can technically stack more then 1 harbor per city this way (up to like 4 harbors per territory I think? honestly have never counted the number of unique harbors out there), which can make for some very nice mid to late game synergies using the +yield on harbor techs and buildings.

But yeah, the Phoenician's are still a tough sell, hard to commit to the long game that early on without getting boxed out by stronger culture picks at that stage.

[Twelvefield]

I've had a good run with the Babylonians. The early science has me researching those starter techs pretty quickly: it's a strong start.

[ImBlackMagic]

Strats:
- production focus (any, maya, khmer, mughals, any, any), with this setup you will easily have over 1k production cities on the contemporary era
- niche water, also good for money (phoenicia, carthage, norsemen, dutch, siamese?, chinese?) you will get a lot of money by the contemporary era, it's very good on water maps where you only have 30% land

early science is very powerful, as you can focus on building makers quarters early on instead of research, so picking Babylonians and Zhou in ancient era is pretty powerful

I will probably play olmecs in ancient era next time, as i'm always short for influence early on, and the other cultures are not as much as a must pick as Khmer in the medieval era is (really, easy production bump)

EDIT:

I have a crazy faith strat in mind, where you get the Angkor wat and the machu pichu in the same city (food is not a problem anymore), and the faith per district wonder, pick any, goths, teutons (extra money and science from faith), spanish, russians, indians)

END EDIT

I will only go over the cultures i have played through

Ancient era is anyone's game
- early science (babylon or zhou with mountains) helps a lot, you don't need research quarters until medieval era if you pick one of them, otherwise you will need to rush them to tech faster. (zhou uu sucks tho)
- egiptians have the pyramids, but i find that they are not a broken civ, the uu is powerful tho
- harappans, you don't that much food, but if you pick them, then you really don't need to get any more food afterwards in the game
- Phoenicia, almost no point unless you want to farm the harbors to later have mad dutch EQ later and you're going for a money game

Classical era
- persians... no point skip, city cap is nice tho
- celts, no point, unless you get them and then you don't need to get food things anymore afterwards
- greeks, no point at this stage, as you have access to the research quarters... (better get industry and build some research instead)
- Carthage, only for the EQ harbor to get extra money with dutchs
- Maya is powerful, but not to the point of being broken

Medieval era
- Khmer is broken, no point in picking other thing, easily get over 700 prod by the end of the era (i usually go for 4 to 5 territories per city)
- Norsemen, only when you really want that naval movement and you're playing on a 30% land map, but still is not very good, the EQ harbor for the money with the dutch tho

Early modern era
- dutch, for the money game, and if you've picked the water civs before, very easy to get over 10k money per turn if you planned your cities properly
- ming, nice influence, otherwise skip
- mughals, strong contender, beast industrial capital, the EQ is nice enough

Industrial era
- Austro-Hungarians, need stability much? jokes aside, this is a super combo with the soviets afterwards, get your EQ everywhere, and then you can safely spam the soviet one without remorse in contemporary era for massive combat strength advantages, on older cities, easy +80 stability per EQ
- French, no need for more science, skip
- Germans, coking works need good city planning to place them, if you've picked industrial cultures before, no point in taking them anyway
- Italians, another stability producer that's not tied to EQ, also comboes with the soviets
- siamese, easier to get industry than germans, extra money on top to pay for your armies

Contemporary era
- Chinese, money game only
- Soviets, if you picked the austrians or the italians, get this for mad combat strength from EQ, easily get +20 combat strength on units
- Turks, EQ is broken, any tech will only take 1 turn after you put them on your science cities

[AmesNFire]

A good thing to consider is how specializing early on allows those early benefits to stack with similar late benefits.

Harappans blend well with the Celts and English because they all focus on Agrarian is a good example. Phoenicans or Nubians blend well with the Dutch due to all three focusing on money.

[Batailleuse]

Originally posted by Mim:

I haven't seen a use for choosing Phoenicians yet. Their harbour district seems weak A.F, though I suppose you can always replace it later game, and the boat isn't very useful that early in the game because naval warfare isnt really a thing and neither are coastal cities. It's a wet scout limited to the coast essentially lol. Though I should give them a chance because there are probably benefits Im not seeing yet.

weak .. well yes and no.

the thing is

1- it counts as a harbour for all intent and bonuses related to harbour upgrades.
2- it counts as a farm and a market district as well.
3- since its a harbour, you can insta buy it with influence in non linked territories.
4- unless you have very high science its also making gold much earlier than any faction can.
5- since you are making gold earlier, you also work towards the gold era star faster
6- since stated in 2, it mean that it produces will improve with time and techs, giving you more gold/food and jobs over time.
7- since its a Merchant faction you can also insta buy some Luxuries/strategic building instantly with their perks.
8- since its an insta buy, that means you don't need to "waste" time building the specials buildings like any other faction (lets say 5-10 turn saved per city and territory), you just buy it for like 150-200 Influence.
9- tied to 8, since you can insta buy them in TERRITORIES, that means you will have more overall unique buildings than any other faction when you combine territories, since every other faction NEED the territories to be linked to build any special buildings in them.

since you can buyout them, and there is an era star for building district, you can basically instant get era stars in that era.

On its own it may seems weak, but their building actually get better and better with time, also doing the Phoenicians(+2 gold per trader) > Carthaginians(25% reduction to EVERY buyout) > Norsemen (naval more powerful) combo gives you the insta buyout for habrour style buildings in the first 3 era, making basically 2-3 stars in those 3 eras almost free.

25% buyout is huge on its own as it count for gold or influence buyout, so you tend to save a lot of money/influence overall and hence instabuy more often, progressing faster, and the gold the Phoenician building is making now is even more useful.

i think its a lot of thing people don't realize what make the harbor faction actually bonkers OP on the long term.

you have overall more Unique Buildings layed out per era than any other faction.
you don't need the territories to be linked which saves TONS of influence early to actually insta buy stuff, pick wonders or pop more territories instead of linking ♥♥♥♥ just to be able to actually build your Unique buildings.

you can slowly link territories after era 2 or 3, with already 2-3 unique buildings suddenly giving HUGE boosts to your economy.

if you happen to pick a div later giving you Influence per unique buildings then you also have huge boost to influence later on.

[(Rúna)]

Originally posted by Batailleuse:

Originally posted by Mim:

I haven't seen a use for choosing Phoenicians yet. Their harbour district seems weak A.F, though I suppose you can always replace it later game, and the boat isn't very useful that early in the game because naval warfare isnt really a thing and neither are coastal cities. It's a wet scout limited to the coast essentially lol. Though I should give them a chance because there are probably benefits Im not seeing yet.

weak .. well yes and no.

the thing is

1- it counts as a harbour for all intent and bonuses related to harbour upgrades.
2- it counts as a farm and a market district as well.
3- since its a harbour, you can insta buy it with influence in non linked territories.
4- unless you have very high science its also making gold much earlier than any faction can.
5- since you are making gold earlier, you also work towards the gold era star faster
6- since stated in 2, it mean that it produces will improve with time and techs, giving you more gold/food and jobs over time.
7- since its a Merchant faction you can also insta buy some Luxuries/strategic building instantly with their perks.
8- since its an insta buy, that means you don't need to "waste" time building the specials buildings like any other faction (lets say 5-10 turn saved per city and territory), you just buy it for like 150-200 Influence.
9- tied to 8, since you can insta buy them in TERRITORIES, that means you will have more overall unique buildings than any other faction when you combine territories, since every other faction NEED the territories to be linked to build any special buildings in them.

since you can buyout them, and there is an era star for building district, you can basically instant get era stars in that era.

On its own it may seems weak, but their building actually get better and better with time, also doing the Phoenicians(+2 gold per trader) > Carthaginians(25% reduction to EVERY buyout) > Norsemen (naval more powerful) combo gives you the insta buyout for habrour style buildings in the first 3 era, making basically 2-3 stars in those 3 eras almost free.

25% buyout is huge on its own as it count for gold or influence buyout, so you tend to save a lot of money/influence overall and hence instabuy more often, progressing faster, and the gold the Phoenician building is making now is even more useful.

i think its a lot of thing people don't realize what make the harbor faction actually bonkers OP on the long term.

you have overall more Unique Buildings layed out per era than any other faction.
you don't need the territories to be linked which saves TONS of influence early to actually insta buy stuff, pick wonders or pop more territories instead of linking ♥♥♥♥ just to be able to actually build your Unique buildings.

you can slowly link territories after era 2 or 3, with already 2-3 unique buildings suddenly giving HUGE boosts to your economy.

if you happen to pick a div later giving you Influence per unique buildings then you also have huge boost to influence later on.

Ha! I very much agree with most of that - it's exactly what I've been doing for the last unknown amount of hours of playing! Check out my thread !

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1124300/discussions/0/3043858334658398669/