4v4 Civ Tier List

[Harris]

S Tier

French:
+ Best knights in the game that come early allow French to put pressure throughout the game, stay mobile and quickly react to the events on the battlefield
+ Can make great use of trading with Chamber of Commerce. Trading is bonkers on 4v4 maps, a route from one end of the map to another can yield well over 400 gold. French get 30% more and can also trade for any resource of their choose, which is especially valuable late game, allowing them to get stone indefinitely
+ Solid general purpose economy allows French great flexibility with their playstyle
+ Reign supreme on water maps (even though the coming patch will change that and nobody plays water maps anyway)
- Knights hinge on terrain to be effective, they struggle on choke point maps and in heavily fortified locations, where their speed advantage is nullified
- Relying on traders for economy means they are a weakness and need to be protected at all times

A Tier

English:
+ Can use longbowmen and m@a early to put pressure on the enemy to great effect
+ Exceptionally good protection from early raiding and rushing due to a combination of stronger TCs, vills bows and Network of Castles
+ Consistent and reliable economy that doesn't hinge on map control, with indefinite gold income late game
+ With Network of Castles giving up to 50% attack rate to any unit from longbows to springalds to ships English are very flexible in terms of their roster
- Overreliant on longbowmen that scale poorly into late game, when everyone will be fielding knights and siege engines
- Trivial late-game military (notably siege) outside of Network of Citadels

Chinese:
+ Very strong imperial units like bombards and grenadiers ensure dominance in late game
+ Faster walls building greatly helps to establish a defensible position and secure map control
+ With walls that can go up to 9.1k hp Chinese are exceptionally suited for turtling and wonder victories
+ Can raid with fire lancers to great effect
+ With many landmarks Chinese are hard to eliminate, especially if those are scattered throughout the map
- Weak early game with lack of decent units
- Tends to be the priority target for a rush to deny the late game power spike

B Tier

Mongols:
+ With cavalry focus and Yam speed boost they are very mobile and can react to general situation quickly, whether it be helping your teammate defend, or exploiting an opening to rush an enemy
+ Their traders are cheaper, build quicker, move faster and bring additional resources. Need to build outposts to hasten traders also helps establishing a defensive line to keep them protected
+ Hard to eliminate as they can just pack up and relocate behind their teammate's fortified lines
- People tend to wall the map hard, preventing Mongols from doing any raiding
- With no ability to build walls nor keeps, their defenses are very weak and wonder is out of question

Rus:
+ Early knights and mounted monks allow Rus a great deal of mobility and map control
+ Late game boni to various siege engines
+ Bounty and Golden Gate guarantees a solid early economy
- Streltsy are too vulnerable to siege and cavalry to be a great late game unit
- The need to spread out means Rus are prone to being raided
- With no ability to build stone walls, their defensive capability is limited

C Tier

Delhi:
+ Can build defenses with infantry
+ Can get 25% off all stone costs (so 600 stone keeps and 2250 stone wonder) however at the exclusion of many useful upgrades
+ Can capture sacred sites early, enabling early sacred victory
+ Elephants are strong defensively
+ Longer games ensure Delhi have time to make use of their technology
- Weak offensively
- Low flexibility
- Elephants are slow, leaving Delhi unable to react to changing situation

Abbasids:
+ Anti-cavalry focus helps dealing with cavalry users
+ Solid economy with cheaper vills and boni to trading
+ Can build siege engines with infantry, which enables early ram pushes with the help of teammates
- Are only good at one thing
- No particular strengths late game
- Weak to being eliminated due to having only one landmark that needs to be close to the starting TC

D Tier

HRE:
+ Prelates ensure solid early economy
+ Strong gold generation with Regnitz
+ Strong m@a
- Viability hinges on relic control
- Overreliant on infantry, making them less mobile and less able to react to the events on the map
- The need to build prelates from TC ensures HRE will always be behind on vills late game
- While they have a number of boni useful for turtling/wonder, those are either situational or require a lot of planning to get value from

[Heimdall313]

Re: Streltsy: you have Springald lol, you do not move Streltsy without them.

[Harris]

Originally posted by Heimdall313:

Springald

I feel they are a castle meta than anything, because castle is when the majority of competetive games really happen (and end). 4v4 are more about imperial where springalds lose to bombards and culverins to the point they are barely built.

Another problem with springalds is that you must either spam them or don't bother with them at all, as they're only good in numbers. This limits both your army strength and your mobility, as you're unable to neither cover several locations at once nor relocate quickly if need be.