Which Civs are considered bad?

[Mr. Stuffy]

I know that each leader has a different type of victory, area of excellence or playstyle that makes them unique.

Then there's the handful of leaders that have broken abilities such as abraham, Hojo, Fredrick and Basil II.

But I want to know which civs are comparably terrible with the majority of leaders.

[robert.steven.marshall]

Georgia

[Al Capwned]

Originally posted by robert.steven.marshall:

Georgia

For several years, the achievement to win a game as Georgia was my rarest achievement.
Like, it was let than 0.1% for a couple of years. It is still my rarest achievement at a whopping 0.6%

Idk, i don't think Tamar is that bad but I guess a lot of people don't like her that much. Not enough to win a game at least.

[colostmy4]

There are no really "bad" civs. It all depends on your playing style. I tend to have trouble playing the Mayan civilization. The penalty on cities beyond a certain distance of the capital just doesn't fit my playing style.

[robert.steven.marshall]

Originally posted by Al Capwned:

Originally posted by robert.steven.marshall:

Georgia

For several years, the achievement to win a game as Georgia was my rarest achievement.
Like, it was let than 0.1% for a couple of years. It is still my rarest achievement at a whopping 0.6%

Idk, i don't think Tamar is that bad but I guess a lot of people don't like her that much. Not enough to win a game at least.

I think most Civs have a pretty clear win condition in mind and Georgia just seems built to survive but not win. I think it's one of those Civs I'd have to drop a difficulty level to win. I guess you could go religion into culture? Relying on era score is not my thing either.

I'd probably add Poland and Persia as Civs I just don't think are good. There are other Civs that don't have a clear win condition but are very flexible and have generally positive bonuses or bonuses very specific to certain map types such as naval Civs.

[ppaladin123]

Georgia and Persia are definitely considered a bit mediocre. Scotland too..weak unique unit, very situational/hard to trigger leader ability, a unique improvement that is...fine (amazing music though).

I think some people would add Maya in. That 6 title limitation can be brutal (and compare to the newer Kongo leader) and leave you hobbled depending on your start location. And the observatory is fiddly and dependent on geting a bunch of good plantation titles. They can be very powerful but you'll probably find yourself rerolling a lot.

[Copernicus]

Originally posted by robert.steven.marshall:

Originally posted by Al Capwned:

For several years, the achievement to win a game as Georgia was my rarest achievement.
Like, it was let than 0.1% for a couple of years. It is still my rarest achievement at a whopping 0.6%

Idk, i don't think Tamar is that bad but I guess a lot of people don't like her that much. Not enough to win a game at least.

I think most Civs have a pretty clear win condition in mind and Georgia just seems built to survive but not win. I think it's one of those Civs I'd have to drop a difficulty level to win. I guess you could go religion into culture? Relying on era score is not my thing either.

Tamar is one of my favorites. :) Winning with her is extremely easy. Then again, it seems everyone else in the world thinks Domination is the one and only victory in the game...

(BTW, the Tamar achievement appears to be up at 1.5% now.)

[grognardgary]

Originally posted by robert.steven.marshall:

Originally posted by Al Capwned:

For several years, the achievement to win a game as Georgia was my rarest achievement.
Like, it was let than 0.1% for a couple of years. It is still my rarest achievement at a whopping 0.6%

Idk, i don't think Tamar is that bad but I guess a lot of people don't like her that much. Not enough to win a game at least.

I think most Civs have a pretty clear win condition in mind and Georgia just seems built to survive but not win. I think it's one of those Civs I'd have to drop a difficulty level to win. I guess you could go religion into culture? Relying on era score is not my thing either.

I'd probably add Poland and Persia as Civs I just don't think are good. There are other Civs that don't have a clear win condition but are very flexible and have generally positive bonuses or bonuses very specific to certain map types such as naval Civs.

Persia is an early game conquer monster, Those Immortals are easily the best of the early game swordsmen replacements.

[grognardgary]

The worst of the civs are simply the most limited in terms of victory options.

[robert.steven.marshall]

Originally posted by Copernicus:

Originally posted by robert.steven.marshall:

I think most Civs have a pretty clear win condition in mind and Georgia just seems built to survive but not win. I think it's one of those Civs I'd have to drop a difficulty level to win. I guess you could go religion into culture? Relying on era score is not my thing either.

Tamar is one of my favorites. :) Winning with her is extremely easy. Then again, it seems everyone else in the world thinks Domination is the one and only victory in the game...

(BTW, the Tamar achievement appears to be up at 1.5% now.)

How do you win with Tamar? What difficulty do you play on?

[Copernicus]

Originally posted by grognardgary:

The worst of the civs are simply the most limited in terms of victory options.

Which civs have limited victory options? (Other than maybe Mvemba a Nzinga's Kongo.)

[Copernicus]

Originally posted by robert.steven.marshall:

Originally posted by Copernicus:

Tamar is one of my favorites. :) Winning with her is extremely easy. Then again, it seems everyone else in the world thinks Domination is the one and only victory in the game...

(BTW, the Tamar achievement appears to be up at 1.5% now.)

How do you win with Tamar? What difficulty do you play on?

I mostly play on Deity these days, though I haven't played Tamar recently (I'm trying to finish some of the leaders I've skipped in the past).

With Tamar, it's all about chaining together the Golden Ages. Settle cities right up next to your neighbors, fortify them to the hilt, and then farm Era score any way you can. If your neighbors attack, they'll wipe themselves out against your walls. But you won't have to lift a finger as Golden Age after Golden Age saps the loyalty of anyone nearby you, causing their cities to flip to your side. (And you'll have lots of options for whichever victory condition you want to achieve by using those Golden Age bonuses.)

[grognardgary]

Well lets look at georgia shall we? The write up, at the very least, suggests that Georgia is very dependent on religion for a victory. Note that is likely why Georgia has so few victories, A good chunk of the player base would be quite happy if the religion victory type went completely away. Persia is a pretty much a one trick pony as well. But their trick, conquest, is vastly more popular among the fan base than Georgia's religion trick. Rome with Trajan is a multitasker that can do almost any victory type you want.

[Copernicus]

Originally posted by grognardgary:

Well lets look at georgia shall we? The write up, at the very least, suggests that Georgia is very dependent on religion for a victory. Note that is likely why Georgia has so few victories, A good chunk of the player base would be quite happy if the religion victory type went completely away. Persia is a pretty much a one trick pony as well. But their trick, conquest, is vastly more popular among the fan base than Georgia's religion trick. Rome with Trajan is a multitasker that can do almost any victory type you want.

Yeah, I've gotta admit, I've never liked going for Religion with Georgia. If I'm going for Religion, I kind of want to concentrate on building holy sites and spamming apostles around the world as early as possible. But Georgia's abilities are so well-suited for going tall and investing in infrastructure (especially wonders to generate more era score), it's kind of a waste to go for religion at all. A Culture Victory is much more enjoyable with Tamar.

[ppaladin123]

I like the way Ursa Ryan (youtuber) ranks civs: he considers how powerful their abilities are and how situational they are in triggering. So for example, Australia is extremely powerful if you have or can generate high-appeal tiles and have a hostile neighbor. But if you are sitting in marshes next to Scythia and Sumeria (the ultimate best buddy neighbors) their stand-out abilities do not come into play. Contrast that with something like the Netherlands which has abilities that are pretty good, nothing too special, but pretty much always on.

There are brokenly powerful civs like Japan, Germany, China under Yongle that are "generally excellent." And there are some "generlaly good/generally very good" civs and then "situaitonally excellent (like Portugal on island maps) or situationally very good" The worst are "situationally good" because honestly any civ can win any victory type (except original Kongo) with smart play. There really are no "bad" civs in that sense.

[grognardgary]

Originally posted by Copernicus:

Originally posted by grognardgary:

Well lets look at georgia shall we? The write up, at the very least, suggests that Georgia is very dependent on religion for a victory. Note that is likely why Georgia has so few victories, A good chunk of the player base would be quite happy if the religion victory type went completely away. Persia is a pretty much a one trick pony as well. But their trick, conquest, is vastly more popular among the fan base than Georgia's religion trick. Rome with Trajan is a multitasker that can do almost any victory type you want.

Yeah, I've gotta admit, I've never liked going for Religion with Georgia. If I'm going for Religion, I kind of want to concentrate on building holy sites and spamming apostles around the world as early as possible. But Georgia's abilities are so well-suited for going tall and investing in infrastructure (especially wonders to generate more era score), it's kind of a waste to go for religion at all. A Culture Victory is much more enjoyable with Tamar.

I always felt like religion culture and science have massive tie ins such that going for one can help with the others and picks from the religion founding screen can really give you a leg up for the other two. But then I tend to play wide because I always have from the first civ I ever played.