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Byzantium: two classical-era military units which rarely get used and no bonuses to faith generation. On higher difficulties if you get beat out to religion, you are practically playing with zero bonuses.
Carthage: Again, two classical-era military units which rarely get used. The free harbor bonus can be nice, but that is all the Civ really has going for it. Mountain passing is a gimmick and not really used...
Iroquois: Contrary to popular belief, the longhouse can be worth, but it is map dependent. If you don't have a good forest location start, you actually lose production compared to a workshop. Swordsmen rarely get used, thus Mohawk rarely gets used. The no-iron requirement is pointless if you still need the iron to upgrade to longswords. City connection without roads is good against early raging barbarian spam, but not really used after that. In other words if you have a perfect forest start they can at best be "meh, just okay". Anything less than that and it gets bad.
Japan: Not that great. Zero is worthless, culture on fishing boats is kind of meh. Samurai are okay-ish with Bushido and double cover right out of the gate but... out of all the longsword/musket replacement Civs, I find this to be the weakest. Danes get sexy 3 movement longswords extremely early, France's culture is more reliable compared to fishing boats, 'Murica's bonuses tend to be overall more useful, etc.
Greece: Kind of mixed on this one. Again, two classical-era military units which rarely get used. Though the city-state decay bonus is rather good, it is difficult for me to place a lot of weight on it. City-state bonuses aren't particularly hard to keep and it doesn't really matter if you have 400 rep or 200 rep, an alliance is an alliance. In other words if you have the same number of alliances as a non-Greece Civ, Greece isn't really gaining any bonus over anything.
There is an obvious theme here. It is difficult to war early on in the classical era and profit. And if you do, you want useful units like horse archers and battering rams, not triremes.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=271978016
I think Iroqouis would be a good play now..
Carthage: Still gets free harbours, and now 50% reduced naval maintenance cost. I decided to leave the UA passing through mountains in tact. With Dido's high naval flavour this will benefit Carthage nicely.
Iroquois: Simple mod from Krajzen's; the longhouse is now +5 production and then all the extra production from trees. Makes this UB really shine. The AI seems to shine with this civ and now with a less useless UB that's all I felt needed to be done here.
Byzantium: Byzantium Palace now grants +3 faith. Free Great Prophet appears at Theology.
Japan: I incorporated Homusubi's Japanese enhanced, with a minor change. The Dojo still gives +15% XP to Navy. Japan was a naval powerhouse in the 20th century and it seemed wrong to just totally take away from that. Dojo also gives +2 culture. I really like this mod and think it is a beautiful change to Japan. Big props to the author. Unlike Japan enhanced, Samurai remain at 21 strength.
Anyway, the first 3 civs you listed are indeed among the worst, no doubt; but Portugal, France and Indonesia are all worse civs than Japan.
Venice is a special case, but it is undoubtledly A LOT worse than Greece. Also, India.
Carthage
Brazil
France
Japan
Greece was far better in vanilla where you didn't have spies and easy-to-complete CS quests. Cavalry was far better, even classical-era horsemen. Greece used to be a rather good Civ, but it hasn't aged well at all.
About the only benefit to playing Greece at all is a measley amount of extra culture or faith when you tick a CS over early but don't have the gold income to keep it. Greece allows for the bonus to last a tad bit longer. at that stage in the game. But hell, talk about niche. That is like talking about Spain and starting near a natural wonder... great when it happens, but nobody rates Spain as anything but "situational". Sure, when all the stars align maybe you complete the perfect number of CS quests at the perfect time to secure a bunch of CS alliances earlier than you normally would... or maybe you don't. And if you don't, welp, you are a classical-era Civ with ♥♥♥♥ UU's and no other bonuses.
Seriously, why is France bad??? they get triple theming bonus when stacked with Aesthetics....., TRIPLE is a lot.... they just gotta hustle for the Great Work Slot wonders and make sure they are in the capital.... they are BAD AT EVERYTHING save Culture, is that what you mean?
This translates to not very much in reality, as much as it may seem on paper. Chateuxs amount to a bit more tourism in the very late game, but you could've used farms to grow your cities bigger from way earlier on and thus, reach the key techs faster. The cap bionus is really nothing to write home about, I have played a lot of CVs and France is not stronger in regards to getting faster CVs.
ua is wonky, though it saves a little money and time building city connections early on.
underwhelming and then you have to move tile by tile later or it will take you 3 turns to go to a city that would take you 1 turn with proper rails.
mohawk warrior, i mean its ok for defense if peopel come attack you while you sit in a forest. you don't need iron is the special .. but i rarely have played a game where i don't have enugh iron to make the few swordsmen i need, or you can just trade any civ a lux for 45 turns for 5 more iron..
i think on a packed map it would be better to take someone out early but give me a battering ram anyday
.
building is meh though i had a good layout and made better use of it than most would be able to on your average game(as in, one you don't restart 10 times like i do lol).
You must have me confused with someone else.
And if you are talking Deity, Deity AI's get pikes out before you are realistically going to get any horsemen or many hoplites on the field. Greece's UU's are obsolete before they can even be used. And no, you aren't using spears and horsemen over comp bows on Deity.
No, Greece isn't the worse Civ in the game but I'd take well over 2/3'rds of the other Civs in its place. If you don't want to rank it on the bottom 5, okay, but you are going to have a difficult time arguing they are anywhere in the top half which is bloated with actual good Civs.
Edit: I should probably state that I warmonger a lot, and those games makes getting CS alliances easy compared to peaceful games. For the third time: It doesn't matter how much rep you have with a CS, an alliance is an alliance. I could play Greece and have 400 rep with a CS, or I could play an actual good Civ with 200 rep, still have the alliance, and actual good bonuses on my Civ.
I have used comp bows and horsemen on Deity and, well, if I have a UU that is stronger, faster and with GG I horsemen... all the more reason to use them! I mean, crossbows and knights are the way to go in Medieval but you get these guys much earlier on than knights, so it's a pretty sweet deal in my book. What I mean in regards to Hoplites is that you can in many, many games (I'm sure this has happened to youi) get a spearman out of an ruin super, super early, so whether it's for defense, offense (surviving more City attacks and whatnot), or tributing (no as relevant on Deity, but still), Hoplites aren't the worst, you know.
Byzantium: The extra belief for Byzantium is fantastic. Getting two pantheon beliefs can be incredibly useful. Grab one that gives faith from tiles and another that gives culture, and hoo boy. However... Byzantium really needs a unique building. Badly. It can't generate faith very fast - other civs are likely to beat you to choosing what beliefs you can get. Neither of its UUs come at a time when war is very feasible, especially when it's not meant to be played as a warlike civ. You might use them for defense for a little while. Or maybe if they had bonuses that remained when they were upgraded, like the Jaguar or Maori Warrior, they'd be worth building. But ultimately, you end up playing a civ that has no UA or UUs.
The Ottomans: Kind of a weird one. I'll give them this much - Janisaries are a very good unit. That's basically it for them, though. (I don't care how fast a Sipahi can move. Lancers are garbage and unique lancers are still garbage.) It's strange. They have two land UUs and a UA that centers around naval domination. In theory this should make them well-rounded, but it just doesn't seem to complement itself well. Either a game will be based on naval warfare and you get to use the UA without any special naval units, or you have a land map and your UA is useless. As a general rule, I don't like civs that have no unique buildings and a UA that's only useful for war. For instance, at least Songhai can make tons of early cash by hunting barbarians. And Germany's another two-UU military UA civ (I play G&K, I think that changes in BNW), but for them it synergizes extremely well. They're land-focused.
The Iroquois: They've got a good early-game start with quick exploration and free roads, but holy crap the longhouse. Workshops are so important. By losing the percentage, the losses scale worse as the game continues. Also, Mohawk Warriors are very good units, but it's too early to wage wars of conquest with them, and longswordmen guarantee you will need that iron. The fact that they keep their promotions does make them worth spamming for later, granted... but I cannot get over the longhouse. Why would you do that. (I may be injecting my own playstyle a bit too hard here - I'm inclined to chop most forests. Wonder rushing and city growth. So I don't get much benefit by the time I'm done.)
Carthage: Free harbors is pretty nice on an archipelago or fractal map, but that's all they they've got going for them. Two very early game UUs - the quinquereme is worse than useless, nobody naval battles at that stage and at least dromons can hit land units, and the elephant just doesn't come at a good time. If it were a Knight replacement, it would have more potential.
Sweden: I love playing with Sweden in the game, but playing as them? Neither of their UUs are anything special. March is nice. That's it. I could get March on a unit off the bat with Alhambra and Brandenburg in one city, which I often do. And it is an extremely rare situation where I'd ever want to gift a Great Person instead of using it - maybe spare admirals, or generals when there's no territory I want to steal. Fast great general movement? Mongolia does it better and without any situational requirement. Since making friends with multiple AIs is near impossible by the time the bonuses could ever meaningfully kick in (Nx10% is not much to 2 per turn, and you're not going to get more than 10% by the time you're at 20), it mostly comes off as playing a civ without a UA.
I should probably toss Denmark an honorable mention, but I've already got my five.
Edit: Regarding Greece - I think they're a pretty great civ for one specific reason; it's possible to get zero influence decay with them. Just make sure to found a religion (maintaining it won't be a problem if you have a religious city-state nearby.) Combine that with Patronage and all of the city states in your immediate area (if you're slow with religion) or on your continent (if you're proactive) will never lose influence with you until spies come into play. That's incredibly powerful; it's the only civ that can sit back and ignore the effort that comes with maintaining city-state alliances. And during the medieval/renaissance era, when you'll have gotten the requirements for no decay - the gold you'd have to spend on forming and maintaining alliances is a significant amount. Not having to pay those fees, and casually wrangling every city-state around you with a few barb camps and wonders, is more than enough to make up for the two early and non-upgrading UUs.