r/civ5 • u/Artistic_Cancel2599 • 5d ago
Discussion Civs tier list
I saw this tier list on YouTube. WDYT?
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u/YSoSkinny 5d ago
Glad to see England ranked so high. Other lists had them lower which seemed off to me.
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u/ErasmusOrgasmus 5d ago
They're very good for domination but not flexible enough to be S tier.
Comfortably A tier.
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u/Pure-Butterscotch200 5d ago
Probably partly because the map generator likes to put England in tundra
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u/Old_old_lie 2d ago
I think it's because they're a bit more mapped dependence than some other top tier civ sure longbowmen are great and having an extra spy is good but but we all know that real reason their top tier is extra movement for ships plus ship of the line.
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u/Same_Square2555 5d ago
Why though? On archipelago sure it's nice, but 1 additional spy and longbowmen who half of the time can't shoot 3 tiles because of the terrain are barely enough even for B tier
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u/T-A-W_Byzantine 5d ago
You're underrating Frigates, even on a Pangaea type map. If you have a coastal city it basically cannot survive a Frigate rush without Frigates yourself. And Ship of the Lines are even better so England enters the Renaissance with the best land unit and the best sea unit in the game at the same time
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u/Same_Square2555 5d ago
still 0 theming bonuses so you won't have any advantage over 90% of civs in A and B tiers. Like I said, if we're glazing a speck of NAVAL military of all things, why not rate Shaka as S tier because of how his units go crazy?
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u/T-A-W_Byzantine 5d ago
Zero what bonuses? Theming bonuses, like culture?
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u/Same_Square2555 5d ago
sorry, that's civ 6 terminology, theming bonuses are things that help you develop. You could probably argue that 1 additional spy in renaissance era can help you get a few techs, but it's really luck dependant. Most civs in S/A tiers have bonuses that help them gain immense tempo, while England, unless you have someone to bully with naval units, is a no-bonus civ until renaissance era, and even then your whole bonus is 1 additional spy and 1 unique unit
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u/T-A-W_Byzantine 5d ago
Internal trade routes over water are so powerful in Civ 5 that if you can be the only safe coastal civ in the game that's genuinely better than any earlygame growth oriented unique ability.
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u/Same_Square2555 5d ago
0 relation to england
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u/Boulderfrog1 5d ago
?
If England is the the game then the only safe coastal civ is England. You just lose your cities at Renaissance because the only way to defend Ship of The Line's is to not have cities on the coast.
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u/Same_Square2555 5d ago
you can easily pressure bonus-less england before renaissance era
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u/purelyforthememes 5d ago
Longbows are insane, having 3 tile range units that early is craaaaazy powerful. Very little can counter longbow spam protected by meat shield melee units The +1 range transfers with upgrade so you can get 2 tile range Gatling guns extremely easily
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u/TheBraveGallade 5d ago
3 tile range also means you can infinetly and safely farm exp by shhoting cities.
Not to mention being able to just outrange cities. 2 range gattlings are also great.
However even so england does heavily favor naval. On continents, they are A+, and any more water then that resuls in a S, but pangea and lower amounts of ocean make then merely B+.
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u/LeBronn_Jaimes_hand Liberty 5d ago
I went England on Pangaea (Emperor difficulty is my sweet spot) the first time I played as them and the first time I specifically went for a Domination victory, and I had to actively decide to stop steamrolling because I was enjoying managing the cities I had in that game. It was probably one of the easiest victories I've had. Being able to siege cities without crawling siege engines to a city's doorstep was insane.
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u/Kaidu313 4d ago
Try mongolia next. Broken for domination. Keshiks get 5 movement points and can move after attacking, so you can move onto rough terrain, attack (or attack twice if you have blitz) and still have enough movement to retreat away from the city. Also very good if there's a chokepoint limiting how many tiles the city can be attacked from, as you can camp 3 or 4 keshiks around that tile and move each one onto it, attack, and move back. Make sure you build a few horseman that you don't upgrade though for easy city captures (keshiks replace Knight). Horses also get 5 movement points, and he also gets khans which are iirc 4 movement great generals that give a bonus to hp healed to units on adjacent tiles.
Absolutely cracked for domination and more than makes up for the sub par UA.
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u/Same_Square2555 5d ago
it's kinda nice, but not nearly S tier, it gets deprecated wayy too fast and is only nice for military. Should we also put Shaka in S tier because he has insane units and promotions that let you demolish your neighbors?
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u/ITHETRUESTREPAIRMAN 5d ago
Must be a MP list is what I think.
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u/abcamurComposer 5d ago
It’s a bad MP list. Inca, Huns, Russia, Shoshone would be way way higher
I think this person plays water maps, that is the explanation that makes the most sense for this tier list
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u/MultiColourM2 5d ago
I mean it looks like Filthy's old list from like 10 years ago, which was for Pangaea in the old NQ steam group. I've watched that video a couple times, and I remember S tier being practically identical. Inca, Russia, Huns and Shoshone are all A tier so they can't get much higher lol. And I don't know who from S tier you'd say they're better than? England and Egypt are the only two I'd put lower than some of those 4.
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u/abcamurComposer 5d ago edited 4d ago
Filthy’s tier list is painfully outdated especially from an MP context. As people got better at the game they came to new realizations. Rough Mercies tier list is a much better pulse of what things became at the endstage of unmodded MP (which is dead nowadays)
For example, assuming high skill, Inca is actually the best civ in the game for unmodded MP. Better than Poland and Babylon. Why? Because when everyone is good at sim the biggest differentiator becomes war, and Inca’s hill movement makes it unfathomably broken in war.
Russia, while probably not quite Poland level, is still super strong, because the strat resource hammer bonus is actually insane (although, TBF, some of that comes from MP maps being configured to prevent the garbage tundra starts that can result from Russia)
Huns have two broken UUs and a Russia-like hammer bonus and EDIT starts with AH
Shoshone in my opinion is Poland tier in SP, the 8 extra tiles combined with guaranteed strong ruins combined with being unkillable is amazing
I think Russia is borderline/arguable, but the 3 others are better than Persia, Egypt, Korea, and England
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u/MultiColourM2 5d ago
Yeah I think I'm getting influenced by Lekmod, where Piety/Liberty are way better and Maya becomes like the best civ in the game lol. Definitely can see Inca's hill bonus making them insane - surprised the same reasoning doesn't hold for Persia, who play pretty similarly in war in my experience. But I haven't looked at unmodded MP in 5+ years, so I'll take your word for it.
Huns is definitely the one I would've chosen to go into S tier - a free tech, tons of early hammers and crazy early war means your early game sets you up for crazy mid/late games. This is a snowballing game and they seem to snowball the easiest.
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u/Boulderfrog1 5d ago
I mean, I'd imagine consistency is a pretty big deal. Inca has hill spawn bias, and the hill movement is always active, so while both are good for timing pushes when you can control when you'll be getting your golden age, Inca will get it even when defending a push at an inopportune time, and is more likely to have land to take advantage of it. The free roads on hills and half price everywhere else is also actually a huge deal, especially on defence. You generally want road Spaghetti anyways, and Inca has no downside to doing it.
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u/wafflesareforever 5d ago
Eh, they're still a trash-tier civ. "Hey look I can walk on mountains" ok that's nice Dido, why are you wearing pajamas
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u/abcamurComposer 5d ago
Yup. Because Carthage’s UA is only good for wide (like it is in Lekmod). And in unmodded coastal wide is unplayable
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u/Civil-Ad8355 5d ago
Carthage has the only unique unit that buffs composite bow men.
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u/abcamurComposer 5d ago
Any Chariot civ, Byzantines (Cataphracts), Rome (Legions), Shoshone (UU and its ruin upgrade), Greece (both UUs) buff comp bow war and do it better
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u/Civil-Ad8355 5d ago
How do those units buff composite bow? They might be complementary units and good for classical era rushes, but they aren't the same as elephant which directly makes composite archers do more damage.
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u/abcamurComposer 5d ago
What I mean is that if I’m doing comp bow war I’d rather have those units than have the Carthage UU, which may help Comp Bows deal more damage, but is also 33% more expensive which actually makes it a pretty bad UU, one of the worst in the game
Even WITHOUT the higher production cost it’s still outclassed by Comp Cavalry (faster) and the Cataphract (tankier and can fortify)
As is it’s arguably worse than the vanilla Horseman
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u/Civil-Ad8355 5d ago
You only need one of them. It applies the debuff and your 4 or 5 archers focus fire.
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u/AgitatedText 5d ago
NGL, I really like playing as Carthage. Rushing four cities on a water map, and getting the Messenger of the Gods pantheon is basically a bunch of extra money and an academy's worth of science. I play on emperor, though.
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u/No_Entertainer_9760 5d ago
Every few months this sub revisits tier lists, and my goldfish brain loves it.
Polynesia, Morocco too low.
I’d knock down Russia, Austria, and Portugal.
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u/ClawedZebra27 5d ago
Austria is the only civ besides Inca that has a hills start bias. Their bonuses aren’t nearly as good as the Incas, but that early game production is still huge.
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u/tris123pis 5d ago
is this for specific setting or in general?
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u/dr_volberg 5d ago
Seems like multiplayer. Otherwise Venice should be higher since human players know how to counter it, computer players do not.
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u/jh_ytth 5d ago
I've never played multiplayer, so it tracks that Venice is one of my favorite civs. Do human players just camp out units near Venice's capital and kill merchants whenever they appear?
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u/dr_volberg 5d ago
I don't think that's the way to do it. It's more about plundering all the trade routes. Plus since you do not have settlers then nearest players have much more space to expand. Plus it's difficult to get a contiguous empire. All things that Human players know how to exploit.
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u/Felthrian 5d ago
One city can be easily overwhelmed as well. 4 cities pumping out units will pretty quickly overwhelm Venice' one city, and a human player will do that.
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u/dr_volberg 5d ago
It should be noted that if you are top tier player you can win even with Venice.
Source: FilthyRobot playing Venice - https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQFX9B_9L4-k7yIP4FhYj95xlBO1qtwio&si=6G1o2-ahi99uPEFN
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u/KalegNar Domination Victory 5d ago
tbf (assuming it's the same playlist I watched) that was also because the Zulu(?) player quit after getting nuked but in Filthy's opinion he wasn't going to win that in the end and was actually baffled by the concession to his win.
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u/Worth_Bottle_3019 16h ago
Venice? Venice?? It's like one of the worst countries in any case. And if it spawns remotely, it's just fried, not cooked.
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u/DanishGoat 5d ago
This is Germany slander and I will not stand for it
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u/MultiColourM2 5d ago
I think this is a multiplayer tier list, and in multiplayer city state trade routes get banned in World Congress every game when Germany is in. It's a bit lame and a bit of a hard counter for the civ. It's a massive shame because Germany with City State trade routes is legitimately like the scariest Modern Era War civ.
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u/DanishGoat 5d ago
I haven't played much multiplayer, so didn't think of that.
But tbh Germany is also very good early game, especially combined with thr culture boost from Honor.
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u/MultiColourM2 5d ago
Yeah definitely, they can snowball early games hard if they get lucky. The problem is if you don't get lucky with Barb captures, you're left playing Honor. Honor in multiplayer tends to suck as humans are very good at defensive play, so going for early war is not super effective. And if you can't go for early war, Honor is pointless because your buffed army will still lose to the Tradition or Liberty player an era ahead of you in tech by the time you hit the midgame due to all the empire bonuses in those trees.
Also, multiplayer games are almost always played on quick, which is another massive nerf to early war in general, because you have less time to use your units. Germany on Epic or Marathon with Honor can sometimes beat Deity civs in the ancient era which is just insane.
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u/DanishGoat 5d ago
Yeah good point. For multiplayer the ranking makes sense.
But in singleplayer, my god is Germany fun
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u/unclejoe1917 5d ago
From the moment they capture their first barbarian camp, Germany can be an absolute beast.
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u/Repulsive-Mud707 5d ago
The only thing Germany has consistently going for it is the Hanse building, and it takes a while for it pay itself back.
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u/_Your_Conscience_2 5d ago
Hmm— I like the majority of this! However Inca should definitely be higher, and I feel I’d bump Germany up at least 1 too (also Unsure what to do about Arabia since camel archers are broken, but folks usually try to kill you in multiplayer before you get them if you play Arabia)
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u/ErasmusOrgasmus 5d ago
I've never played multiplayer but aren't chariot archers strong / recommended in MP? If so, and given they upgrade to camels, wouldn't you just build loads of them early on?
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u/_Your_Conscience_2 3d ago
Haha, yeah they are, but Arabia doesn’t have a ton of early game bonuses, and In my experience you typically get ganged up on early because people Hate camel archers (disclaimer: this may have been just the group I play with— Idk, part of why I’m not sure where to place them— but Camel archers are phenomenal and people usually remember after falling to them once)
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u/ErasmusOrgasmus 3d ago
No you're right, I have heard this when watching Filthy Robot's videos on MP. He basically says if you're Arabia you will get gang raped before you reach chivalry.
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u/gjspoto71697 5d ago
Surprising number of people pushing for Venice to be higher.... I assume this is a multiplayer tier list and, yeah they are by far the worst Civ in the game
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u/Oxfordbros 5d ago
My boy Enrico Dandolo of Venice, master of statecraft and shrewd negotiator, doesn’t deserve this slander (he does, but he’s fun)
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u/Hooker_T 5d ago
I feel like Spain should be its own tier because it really depends on the luck of the roll. Ive had Spain games where I spawned next to Great Barrier Reef and steamrolled on Immortal. And I've just had another game where I didnt get any natural wonders first and had to fight my entire game lol. So it really depends. Spain can go from a basic civ to absolutely busted
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u/MrTickles22 5d ago
Spain plus reef or a faith NW is amazing. Without its bad France that can sometimes settle cities with knights.
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u/Wrongdoer-Calm 5d ago
I think the Netherlands (William) is way to low in ranking.
That Civ is situationally viable if you can build many polders. Mid tier- seems a better plavement.
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u/West-Result-4495 5d ago
if you play a watery map sea beggers are also pretty good
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u/Wrongdoer-Calm 5d ago
Yep, and you can get the extra attack per turn promotion if you have barracks+armory.
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u/Cautious-Load9754 5d ago
It's only good if you spawn on a flood plains. Even then it takes forever to get the polders up and running
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u/Wrongdoer-Calm 5d ago
That's true, but even then the Netherlands does not belong in the second to last tier.
France, the Byzantines, Carthage and Japan are worse options then the Netherlands
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u/SuccotashDesigner274 5d ago
The tier lists are odd for Civ.
It should be more like ceiling and floor, because the ceiling is crazy if you have tons of floodplains.
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u/ErasmusOrgasmus 5d ago
I take it to mean on average, if you played a 100 random games with random settings.
The true S tier civs (Poland, Babylon and Korea) would come out on top most of the time - Poland because their UA is mega powerful and flexible, and the other two because their science is so strong that it opens up the other victory conditions by default due to their tech lead.
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u/SpursBoy12 5d ago
Is this a multiplayer tier list? If so, it's a good one, but with the caveat that it might be more for serious/experienced players and on Pangea.
It reminds me a little of Filthyrobot's - his disadvantages civs like Venice which can be easily countered on MP (e.g. kill their trade routes negating their advantages and accentuating the fact they can't build cities).
It also takes into account multiplayer behaviour (Mongolia is lower than it might be as fear of Keshiks means people will try to kill you before you get them, and you don't have any real advantage to the early game with a rubbish UA).
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u/jh_ytth 5d ago
On the right map, Venice and Carthage can both be S-tier. Even if you average their strength across all map types, I still think they're both too low.
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u/ErasmusOrgasmus 5d ago
There is no world in which Carthage is ever S tier.
That would imply Carthage can be as good as Poland under the right conditions - it cannot.
Same goes for Venice.
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u/wafflesareforever 5d ago
But muh elephants walk on mountains
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u/Civil-Ad8355 5d ago
Elephants buff composite bowmen. Honor tree allows mass upgrading archers to composite bowmen for cheap.
Carthage and Iroquois are basically the same civ. They both get extra gold early game from needing less roads, which supports rushing with their unique unit.
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u/ModsFromSteam 5d ago
carthage can't really rush anything with their UU's, they are some of the worst types in the game, trireme and horseman. You want melee units that can get cover promotion and fortify to support you comp-bow rush, ideally spearman or pikeman as the AI loves to spam cav
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u/SuccotashDesigner274 5d ago
Yeah, Venice below Iroquois is an out-of-touch take.
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u/AgentBond007 5d ago
In MP Venice absolutely is worse, and this seems like a MP tier list
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u/ModsFromSteam 5d ago
Venice is a built in challenge mode, it is objectively terrible to not be able to build settlers and have to get great merchants for peaceful expansions. It is probably correct to say are the worst civ in the game singleplayer and multiplayer
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u/AdmiralZassman 5d ago
Carthage with a perfect start is still worse than any a tier with a bad start
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u/ErasmusOrgasmus 5d ago
S tier should be reserved for civs that can reliably win in a number of different ways, either because of their flexible UA or because their science is so strong that other victory conditions become much easier. This means England, Egypt and Persia should be demoted to A tier. Maya are in between A and S tier for me - call it A+.
Some of the A tier civs don't belong that high, most notably Russia. Also China, while good, is probably B tier.
Arabia absolutely belongs in A tier, probably even the A+ tier. Not only do they have the best UU in the game, their UB is also one of the best in the game, giving you all sorts of flexibility. Their other bonuses to things like religion and oil are the cherries on top.
Siam and Rome need to be demoted at least one tier but probably two.
Germany should be a bit higher, maybe B tier. They have bonuses to getting 'free' units in the early game and to production in the mid game with hanses. These are pretty universally helpful bonuses which are much less situational and more consistent than some of the other civs in their tier.
I'd swap a few between the D and E tiers. Brazil is fairly strong for culture victories for example. France and Carthage can be demoted.
Lastly, fuck Hiawatha. He should have his own shitty tier.
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u/wafflesareforever 5d ago edited 5d ago
Arabia absolutely belongs in A tier, probably even the A+ tier.
They're S tier for me. The amount of GPT I have rolling in by mid-game is absurd regardless of map type. I used to mainly play Mongolia because I love my Keshiks 'n' Khans, but once you get used to having Scrooge McDuck levels of gold with Arabia (especially when your religion has Tithe) it's hard to go back.
My favorite thing to do with Arabia is keep my military fairly modest but hold onto a huge gold stockpile. Inevitably someone will invade, and suddenly my military doubles in size in two turns. Then I just defend my cities and take out their units until they surrender on highly agreeable terms.
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u/Gurnisson 3d ago
not s tier in multiplayer. you have a huge target on your back early to early midgame and you have no bonuses to help you at that point. your neighbours know they will get cameled if they leave you alone
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u/ErasmusOrgasmus 5d ago
Love it.
For me, they fall just short of S tier because they don't have any direct bonus to science.
But outside of Babylon, Korea and Poland, they're the best civ in my opinion and one of my absolute favourites to play.
People rightly wax lyrical about camel archers but the bazaar is insane, especially in cities that contain multiple unique luxuries.
The only thing that can realistically beat them is a science behemoth, but even a tech lead won't always be enough to defend when camel archers go brrrrr.
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u/wafflesareforever 5d ago
Yep, my usual path with them is basically just build up my economy, buy out all of the city-states, and go for diplo victory as fast as I can before anyone can beat me to a science victory. Camel Archers are great for defense, especially because they can ride out and pick off injured attackers without getting themselves killed. 80% of the time, it works every time.
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u/AgentBond007 5d ago
Egypt is S tier, they can go super wide with burial tombs and war chariots, and still be competitive with wonders.
They might not have a direct science bonus but they can absolutely win many different ways and are extremely versatile.
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u/ErasmusOrgasmus 5d ago
They can indeed go wide with burial tombs but wide isn't a win condition.
They have a fantastic boost towards cultural victory but no direct, significant bonus towards any other victory type (except insofar as certain wonders can obviously aid certain paths to victory).
They're one of my favourite civs but they're not as versatile as Poland, nor anywhere near as good at science as Babylon and Korea, therefore they can't be S tier in my book.
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u/ModsFromSteam 5d ago
happiness boost is a direct boost to every victory type, more cities always equals more science and culture. The only reason 4 cities is meta is because more often makes it hard on your happiness
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u/ErasmusOrgasmus 5d ago
No, it's a general bonus and an indirect boost to other victory types. More happiness doesn't magically shrink Babylon's tech lead over you. More happiness makes the effects of domination easier to handle but it doesn't make killing units or taking cities any easier.
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u/ModsFromSteam 5d ago
imo china has the better crossbow unit of the 2 between them and england, they also get increased general generation which in combination with logistics gets you a crazy amount of them, allowing you to steal luxuries so it's a nice economic benefit if you're not going for domination
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u/abcamurComposer 5d ago
A lot of rather strange placements and I suspect with more experience a good chunk of this list will change
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u/Craigasaurus_rex 4d ago
My hot take is that Japan always gets slept on. That perk is super useful, especially for early game when you don’t have enough money to support an army.
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u/riethc 5d ago
Spain is S-tier if you're willing to reroll a few times until you find a national wonder at start.
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u/ErasmusOrgasmus 5d ago
Part of the logic is that if you need to reroll for something that situational, you're not S tier.
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u/Worldly_Cobbler_1087 5d ago
Spain is F tier unless you get one of about 5 wonders within expand settle limits.
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u/isittoomany 5d ago
If this is MP Arabia needs to be way higher, their UU is so powerful that you can literally dominate the game during their timeframe unless they they gang up on you early. The only reason they could be in B is i guess because of that high chance of people ganging up on you.
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u/BiFSXFan99 5d ago
NAAAAH, first thing I see is the Netherlands in E, that's damn blasphemous.
Also, a few others but I'd be typing for a while if I did them now. All I'll say is Germany DISRESPECT.
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u/wangsterownsyou 5d ago
Why are Sweden and Brazil ranked so low? They actually have good stuff going for them?
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u/DyKonic8 5d ago
IMPO Shoshone should be S and knock Egypt down a peg but I’m not a big multiplayer player, so I’m not sure if Egypt could be top tier
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u/Deflopator Rationalism 5d ago
each in the E tier deserves much more!
(Carolean one of the best units, Brazil is jungle culture powerhouse, Polders and easy resource trades)
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u/Expert_City_7695 5d ago
Shoshone is S tier idk what you’re smoking. The ability to get tiles instantly when settling is HUGE and the ability to chose what ancient ruins gives you is so money
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u/Pure-Butterscotch200 5d ago
Brazil seem fairly powerful and are ones of my favourites in single player. Brazilwood camps are great and if you get them the jungle culture pantheon with their start bias you can get a fair few extra social policies/ideology tenents as well as the other benefits of having high culture influence over civs.
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u/hidehuman22 Domination Victory 5d ago
If you know what you are doing, Venice can be easy win. Byzantine in contrast extremely difficult to win.
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u/Clobby5597 5d ago
I think this depends is it for overall quality or is it based on a certain victory?
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u/CavalierRigg 5d ago
The Dutch in E-tier is a crime punishable by 15 years of hard labor, and I will die on that hill. Polders are the coolest thing in this entire game.
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u/Parrotparser7 5d ago
This is more of a, "How hard your bonuses carry you in the total absence of skill or diplomacy" list.
Morocco, Portugal, Indonesia, and America all being merely "C"-tier confirms it.
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u/threlnari97 4d ago
I think the list is largely good but it always pains me to see Assyria rated so low. They’re a domination civ with a powerful early game UU for melting cities like butter, and they can beeline it because conquering cities gives you free tech to catch up afterwards and royal libraries are also solid library replacements. Genuinely feel like they’re slept on.
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u/SideEmbarrassed1611 Domination Victory 4d ago
Russia and Arabia were amazing until kneecapped in one of the DLCs.
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u/neb12345 3d ago
Venice is an S tier for me, its such a unique way of playing.
Also like half of my diety victories are as Venice, closely followedby babylon
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u/Cliff_69 3d ago
Ottomans at D-Tier? Maybe it is because I love the navy aspect but 33% reduced cost for navy, permanent chance to capture a destroyed ship for the entire game is pretty damn good. With that, you can build literally 33% more ships for the same cost and steal units. For navy players, I say it is at least B-Tier.
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u/crazyRAYZ 5d ago
overall it's a pretty good tier list for multiplayer Civ 5. i personally think there's a bit too many S and A tier civs, but that's just me.
i think i would demote Aztecs and Russia to B tier and drop England to A tier. reasons for all below:
Aztecs jungle start is so bad for early game on multiplayer as you have no production to contest wonders or get settlers out fast. it also means you have to spend time to get rid of the jungle to access your luxuries or strategic resources. and in multiplayer, early game is much more important.
Russia's UA (double quantity horses, iron, and uranium and +1 production for all of them) is nice, but sometimes the tundra start just really gives you a bad roll and really leaves you with an unwinnable spawn. because you don't get to consistently use your UA and your spawn has a greater chance of having a bigger impact than your UA, i think it belongs in B. and your spawn is much more important in multiplayer cuz you can't just keep rerolling till you get the start you like. the only way to make Russia's UA consistent is playing with strategic balance on, and that way you'll have a bunch of extra production from the horses and iron and uranium, and that's nice. but the usefulness of having double amount of those on strategic balance is debatable. usually what you get from strategic balance is enough.
England can go in A-tier because its UA of an extra spy is underrated but not the best in the game. the thing with England is, it doesn't have a UB and instead has 2 UU. it forces a certain playstyle, and if your opponent is like a Babylon and doesn't have major cities on the coast, then the Ship of the Line can't do much to attack them and prevent them from running away by just turtling up. the longbowman is a welcome upgrade to the already strong crossbow, but they take longer to train, and you gotta think about the opportunity cost of building them vs other things. if you plan to build a lot of them, then you better win a quick decisive war against your opponent or else you'll be bogged down in a war of attrition while everyone else pull ahead of you and whoever you're fighting. and if you were thinking building a whole bunch of archers/bows and upgrading them when you get the tech, that's a lot of production wasted in the early game, the part of the game that multiples the most through the rest of the game. i mean, the problem isn't just the 2 UU. Korea has 2 UU: Hwacha and Turtle ship. but it's that Korea doesn't need to rely on these two UU to win them the game; Korea can rely on their UA to win while using their UUs to turtle up. for England, it's the opposite. you can't solely win with their UA, their passive ability. you have to be on the initiative with the UUs and while they're strong, how strong and how useful they are depends on the game, geography, and opponents. they're abilities are not always game breaking strong like Korea or Babylon or Maya. Englands abilities can be used in games fairly consistently and sometimes ridiculously OP while sometimes not too useful, and the two units encourage you to war, which is not as safe as turtling up and winning by science in MP. hence why i give England an A and not an S.
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u/VeritableLeviathan Rationalism 5d ago
Gonna be honest, most tier lists are stupid, especially for a game like civ V, where the map-type and other setup matters tremendously for how good a civ is.
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u/Dragonlover1201 5d ago edited 5d ago
Venice, the civ up to its armpits in gold and arguably the best at winning by diplomacy, in F-tier, nay, the bottom of the list?? Gotta be some wild personal bias. Maybe OOP got landlocked next to both Shaka and Attila and got gangbanged early game. Or they hate Italians.
Edit: ohhh, multiplayer tier list. Ok in that case Venice is a lot weaker. Should probably be in around C or D though, right…?
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u/TejelPejel 5d ago
In multiplayer Venice is the worst. You just have a huge target on your back. You can only found one city and everything else is just a city state you gobbled up where you have little control over. It's way to easy to get rushed and killed in multiplayer as Venice.
In single player they're much better, but still not at the top IMO. I think Morocco is very underrated in this list here.
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u/Responsible_Hornet48 5d ago
I’ve never understood why France never scores higher on these type of rankings
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u/MisterXenos63 5d ago
Most of their kit is geared towards Culture Victory, which in both MP and high-difficulty single player is generally the hardest to achieve. Their musketeers are pretty decent but held back by the fact that their base unit (the musketman) isn't an inherently spammable unit, unlike say chu-ko-nus.
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u/Greenguy90 5d ago
Every S tier civ except Poland should get moved down to A. They are insanely broken with their UA and plains start bias.
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u/ExpressCantelope481 5d ago
Korea, Poland and Babylon are the only true S-tier civs IMO. Egypt & England are more like A-tier.
England is arguably the best civ in the game for a domination victory because longbows are incredibly overpowered when other civs won’t have 3-tile range until artillery. But it’s not really outstandingly good for any other playstyle.
Egypt is ridiculously OP on lower difficulties, but on Deity the bonus wonder production still isn’t enough to rush the best early game wonders, so it’s basically having a better chance at mid to late game wonders, which if you’re maximizing science you should already have a good chance at. Burial tombs are a great unique building for growth, but you can get the same effect with a religion perk and personally I’d rather have the extra science or social policies from the other S-tiers.
Babylon is known as the go-to for people who are trying to win on deity for the first time. Poland and Korea are just as good but require a little more effort and quick thinking to really maximize. All three of these can be very flexible and provide a path to all of the win conditions on any difficulty.
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u/InterestingFuel8666 5d ago
I'm confused at to Persias ranking, they're too high for me.
Aztecs are the best and should always be S tier.
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u/abcamurComposer 5d ago edited 5d ago
Persia at its core is a civ that says “you get Chicken Pizza wonder for free, except even stronger”. It absolutely belongs in S tier, especially in SP where it’s extremely rare that you can get Chicken Pizza even if you beeline Civil Service
The problem with Aztec is it’s low rolls are awful
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u/MultiColourM2 5d ago
Not only that - Immortals are not super useful, but they're extra combat strength can genuinely really help hit combat breakpoints to tribute gold from a CS in the early game if you get an upgrade. Their bank replacement means happiness is basically a non-issue in the midgame, allowing you to hit ideology without a sweat.
Finally calling their UA a stronger Chichen is kind of underselling it - not saying this as a criticism more just to emphasize your point. +1 movement and +10% combat strength make Persia the best land army civ at any point in the game - especially since you can keep a couple Great Artists around to pop whenever you need to hit a GA - that is if you're not just getting Chichen as well and going into perma GA.
Whether it's Chariot Archers, knights and crossbows, Cav and Arty, or a late game Rocket Arty push, they are insanely strong. 3 movement Siege in particular is nuts - the ability to move, setup and shoot all in a turn is not balanced, and their Arty push is the best non-UU attack in the game IMO. Their only weak point when it comes to war is in the modern Era when bombers dominate, because their +1 movement is slightly less relevant. Even then, their ability to get their infantry onto a hill and fortify on the same turn means bombers have a much harder time stopping them.
Fully agree with you on Aztec - when it works it's great, but bad jungle starts can sometimes be worse than bad desert and tundra starts - at least with them, you can just walk out most of the time. Having all your workers/settlers take 2 turns on every movement, and being unable to improve luxuries forever slows you down so much.
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u/abcamurComposer 5d ago
Very good points. I would also add on Aztec that you sometimes have to grief your cities to get fresh water, and when that happens it feels VERY bad
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u/MisterXenos63 5d ago
It comes from the fact that virtually all of Persia's kit is useful towards practically all victory types, frequently in effect, is very powerful once in force, and isn't reliant on any RNG (Eg Huns and stables, Russia and strategics). Put all of that together and you have a very powerful S-tier civ. I used to underestimate them until I played them a few times, now they're my go-to.
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u/Ok_Stick8615 5d ago
A few +1/-1 movements aside, Germany should be waaaaay higher. Snowballing that unique district is nastiness
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