Civs from easiest to hardest

[Arathorn]

What civs are easiest/hardest to play? As far as I can determine, the key factors are civ-specific traits and Unique Units (UU). The manual claims that diplomacy is easier with culturally linked neighbors, but I'm not sure how large a role, if any, that plays, so I am ignoring it.

All of the following are based purely on my opinion. I’ve not played all the civs. I’m also assuming a high difficulty level (deity or maybe emperor). I'd be interested in hearing others' views.

Easiest:
Iroquois – Mounted Warriors are a dominant ancient age force and fully upgradeable all the way to cavalry (useful through most of the Industrial Age). Religious is an awesome trait with cheap temples and one-turn anarchy. Expansionist is marginally useful for early map-selling. The UU advantage is simply huge, though. Only "downsides" are an early GA (but that can lead to lots of early wonders and an early lead, which is never surrendered) and the need for horses for the UU.

Aztecs – Some would disagree but their UU is just so awesome. Early retreat, extremely cheap, lots of early leaders make these little guys way cool. Pillaging at speed. Add in militaristic and they promote and crank out leaders. Religious is almost too much to add. The lack of upgrade path for jaguar warriors and the incredibly early GA are the detriments.

Japanese – Samurai are both the best offensive and defensive unit for a reasonable period. They prevent retreat, defend as well as musketmen (their contemporaries), only cost 10 shields more, and attack well. Militaristic and religious (again) for leaders and some happy culture. Start with "The Wheel" so can see horses early. Downside is that you have to wait for Military Tradition to upgrade those horsemen you have running around.

Still Easy:
Egyptians – War Chariots are essentially horsemen without horseback riding. Very early move 2 with reasonable offense and upgrade directly to knights. Religious and industrious work well. Cheap culture/happiness and lots of improvements from fast workers. Downside is the very early GA and a struggle with mountainous/jungle-infested maps.

Zulu – Hate having your horsemen attacked after they do their stuff? Me, too. The answer is the Impi, who is able to keep up. Horsemen don't retreat from these guys, either. Upgradeable all the way to Mobile Infantry. They don't need a resource to build. Their Militaristic nature makes for veteran impi/horsemen hordes and early GLs. Expansionist helps them know where to attack and gives map selling options but is generally weak. Again, an early GA is the downside, as well as the generally weak expansionist trait. Also, culture can be a problem for the Zulus as everything is full price for them and they have no shield bonuses.

Persians – The highest offensive number before knights belongs to the immortal, Persia's UU. Still, I find I like legionaries better. I ranked Persia as 'easier' than Rome, though, for a number of reasons. One, Persia starts only one advance away from iron working, since it starts with bronze working. Industrious workers make getting a road to those enemies a lot easier. Scientific is nice, with both cheap libraries/universities and those three free scientific advances. Downside is that the UU can't retreat, leading to high casualties (although an ancient army of three immortals is pretty invincible). The UU also doesn't upgrade, leading to obsolescence problems.

About average:
Greeks – Hoplite is an awesome defensive unit up until riflemen (cost compare with musketmen and I know which I’d rather have). It upgrades all the way to mech infantry, too, which is nice. Commercial and scientific should lead to huge tech leads, but it doesn’t seem to any more than any other civilization. Starting on the road to the Great Library is nice, but science shouldn’t be the Greeks problem. Downside is no good offense, hoplites are too slow to really escort horsemen, and the early GA has very little going for it.

Chinese – Riders get an extra movement point. Since railroad is still quite a ways off, this gives significantly faster response to invasions and a faster invasion force. The ZOC is nice on paper but is less significant in practice. On the other hand, they fight like knights, I don’t think they can run from knights, and can’t be upgraded to. Industrious and militaristic make a nice combination, as wars run smoothly and infrastructure on the land is quickly and easily replaced. The GA is perfectly timed for all those nice Middle Age wonders (Sistine, Bach, even Leonardo and Sun Tzu). The inability to upgrade horsemen is a big problem, as are the long periods of anarchy. China is often at war and hence will occasionally lag technologically.

Babylonians – Bowmen are a combination spearman/archer. They are a nice shock troop in the ancient age, doing two roles, but their upgrade path stinks. They trigger an early GA which is probably not needed. On the other hand, the twin traits of scientific and religious make the Babylonians the undisputed culture king of Civ3. They have lots of cheap city improvements and should be good at cultural absorption and minimizing flips after conquest. The free tech can be very handy, too. The biggest downside is the adequate but horribly unupgradeable UU. Who needs longbowmen?

Romans – Legionaries can, indeed, rule the Ancient Age. At 3/3, they’re the best defenders around (until musketmen, who aren’t much better and a lot more expensive). They are slow on the attack and no better than swordsmen that way. They also have no upgrade path and require iron. Militaristic is nice for getting elite legionaries and leaders, but legionaries do die a lot more than fast units, since they can’t retreat. Commercial is rarely helpful. The Romans’ other downside is a huge difficulty building cultural improvements, as they have no extra shields and everything is full cost.

Getting Difficult:
Germans – Panzers are nice, the extra move and blitzkrieg ability make them terrors of the late industrial age. On the other hand, modern armor isn’t that far away, they still really struggle against mech infantry, tanks will still crush them, and panzers come too late in the game to really matter. By that point, a game is usually won or lost and panzers rarely make the difference. The GA really comes at a pretty inconvenient time, as few wonders still need to be built and war is a LONG process. Militaristic is OK, but it’s had to completely take advantage of early, when it’s most important. Scientific helps get to tanks a tiny bit faster, but it also serves to shorten the time until modern armor. A very late GA is probably not going to help, the extra movement point isn’t enough with RR everywhere, and a short period for a UU make the Germans kind of tough to win with.

Indians – War Elephants are nice if you have no iron or no horses, but if you’re in that situation, you probably have more problems than just getting knights will solve. Elephants crimp the upgrade path for horsemen, too, for little/no additional merit. At least the Indians are religious, which can solve a lot of problems. Commercial helps some with gold, which will be sorely needed. The GA comes at a great time, for building those Middle Ages wonders, but with no other helps, it’s a tough climb.

French – Musketeers are weird, in that their primarily ability is that you get to keep building a superior older unit (pikemen). For the same shield cost, two pikemen provide much better defense and can upgrade to two good units. Musketeers have better offense than musketmen but are still basically worthless, except to trigger a GA. The French GA is also in a pretty sweet spot for wonders and getting a lead on the AI. Industrious and commercial traits encourage the French to have big cities to get their bonuses. They can also afford a slightly larger empire, with the commercial trait. How they get that empire is a mystery to me.

Hardest:
English – Man-O-War is an updated frigate that has a little better attack/bombard values. They can sometimes sink ironclads, but the age of sail is so short. And Magnetism doesn’t lead to a particularly valuable GA, other than the fact that it comes late. If you need coal, you can leverage your GA into an attack, but that’s not terribly realistic. Expansionist and commercial the British may be, but that is hardly an advantage, as they have no culture benefits, no shield benefits, and a world map only has value so long.

Americans – The F-15 comes extremely late, is better at bombard only than a jet fighter (why not use a bomber?), and requires special resources. The very late GA is probably too little too late to save a player that’s behind and unnecessary for one that’s ahead (one could build the SS faster, I suppose, but tech is usually more important than shields. To get the late GA, you need to start a war and that’s a pain on tech.) Expansionist and industrious isn’t much better than the British situation. The industrious workers and shields help a little, but the poor UU is a lot to overcome. It breaks an upgrade path, too, to add insult.

Russians – The Cossack is the only UU I wish I could simply remove. It breaks the horsemen/knight upgrade path, which is horribly painful. It’s only marginally useful, as defense for a fast offensive unit usually is. You have to build all of them from the ground up, they’re barely better than cavalry, can’t upgrade, and put a GA in an odd time slot. NO THANKS! Add in questionable value in expansionist, and the scientific trait can’t bring them up. The main offensive thread is completely disrupted and knights hang around way too long. It’s a huge hurdle with no reward for leaping it.

Arathorn

[Arrian]

Well, the civs you (and others) will find easiest to play will generally be the ones that fit your playstyle.

For me, the easiest have been:

Babylonians
Egyptians
Iroquois
Persians

The hardest for me would probably be:

Zulu
Romans
Americans
English

Also, keep in mind that the type of map will also greatly influence this. A huge, pangea, low # of civs map will suddenly make the English a good civ to play. A small, 'pelago map would make playing them very challenging. I usually play on Normal/Continents, for the record.

I think you place too much emphasis on UU's. Frankly, I couldn't care less about what a civ's UU is. It's all about the civ attributes. So the Babylonian bowmen suck - I don't care, the attributes (rel/sci) are awesome.

The Russians, I think, get screwed because of the way the upgrade path works... you cannot upgrade to a UU. Therefore, they must build all of their Cossacks from scratch... and since horse units do not upgrade beyond Cavalry/Cossacks, it's a "dead end" unit. Now, take the Egyptians. Their UU is at the beginning of the upgrade path, so they can build some w.chariots and later upgrade them... all the way to Cavalry.

-Arrian

[Ironikinit]

I generally agree with the original post. The UU is important, esp. early UU's. They give a strategic advantage, they can also initiate a golden age.

One thing I disagreed with was the idea that late UU's dictate poorly timed golden ages. Typically, if a player wants to have a golden age triggered by say, the Panzer, he or she would have to avoid certain wonders that would cause the GA. In the case of the Germans, building Sun Tzu and (I believe) Newton's will cause a GA. Any militaristic and scientific wonders.

Good post, tho.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Ironikinit
One thing I disagreed with was the idea that late UU's dictate poorly timed golden ages. Typically, if a player wants to have a golden age triggered by say, the Panzer, he or she would have to avoid certain wonders that would cause the GA. In the case of the Germans, building Sun Tzu and (I believe) Newton's will cause a GA. Any militaristic and scientific wonders.

I played with (my) Germans a couple of times and never had a GA in the Panzer time. I avoid to build Sun Tsu's, for what?, most of my cities already have barracks, they are half-price anyway and there are more valuable (crucial) wonders like the Sistine etc. I build an ancient or medieval scientific wonder and trigger my GA with Universal suffrage. That gives a GA in due time, I often manage to rush Hoover with it. A late industrial GA would produce more pollution than benefit and I am a peaceful builder anyway and there is not guarantee to get in a war in my Panzer time, so I could lose my GA at all if I would not manage to get it earlier.

As for the original post, I also think that it treats the UU's too important. The civ's special abilities (traits) are much more significant.

[Ironikinit]

I'm not certain that the GA produces more pollution, but I'll try to watch for it sometime, if I ever have another industrialized GA.

As to the question "for what?"

Why, I want to have a Panzer triggered GA so that I can mobilize my economy and crank out Panzers like no other. It really is amazing how much one can conquer, but you need to be on a big continent.

The Germans lend themselves to a specific strategy that I like to use with them. Building Universal Sufferage is unimportant because I switch them to Communism before the final war.

Maybe I'll write up the strat sometime. It worked very well.

[Harovan]

You are also right. There is probably neither a best and worst, nor an easiest and hardest civilization, but only one that fits best to the player's approach to the game (builder/warmonger/etc.).

I consider the Universal suffrage absolutely necessary, because I never start a large territorial aggression. If I ever start a war, it's mostly for a resource and I try to make it as short and as local as possible. The suffrage helps to keep hold of my citizens, as I mostly avoid to leave democracy once I am in it. Germany is not religious and frequent changes of government are a pain in the butt.

[Ironikinit]

Well, I go from despotism to republic to communism. That saves having to research democracy... I believe printing press also becomes unimportant.

Excellent point about Sun Tzu being a bit useless for militaristic civs in many situations, Sir.

[Aeson]

I think the Civs that combine the Religious attribute along with an effective early UU are the easiest to play. The other attributes all have situations where they are valuable, but Religious is the one that helps in the most situations. Having a good UU just allows for more options. Both Arrian (top 3) and Arathorn's (top 4) lists have Religious Civs at the top. The Religious Civs that suffer are the Japanese and Indians, but only if you like to use a lot of early Horsemen. Having to wait for Calvary to upgrade more than offsets the value of their UU.

Easiest -

Iroquois - best UU and religious.
Egyptians - good early UU, religious.
Persians - great early UU, though suffers from lack of movement and upgrading.
Greeks - hoplites are a great safety net, and very powerful in offensives if used right.

Situationally Powerful -

Zulus - large+ maps where conquest is the goal.
Aztecs - Jag's are somewhat hard to figure out, but very powerful.
Babylonians - best pure builder option.
Germans - powerful late game military.

The others all can be played, but basically without the bonus that a UU should bring. The English and Americans UU's are almost worthless other than triggering a golden age. French and Roman UU's have the wrong bonus for their main use. Japanese, Indians, Chinese, and Russians all have UU's that block Horse units upgrade paths, which can be very frustrating.

[Ironikinit]

I know a lot of people favor the Romans, although I myself like the Persian UU better.

The Japanese horseman block doesn't have to be a major problem. Simply use swordsmen for the early war, or skip the war altogether. The samurai is a very good unit. 4/4/2 ADM is good for starters, add to it that they only require iron and do not suffer the penalty mounted units face when attacking pikemen and you have possibly the best UU in the game.

I know from your posts, if I'm not mistaken, that you favor a lot of horsemen in the early game, Aeson. Some adjustments to your style might make playing the Japanese fun. Maybe not as much fun as I have with them, but less frustrating, anyway.

[muppet]

I'm not certain that the GA produces more pollution...

The GA should not cause more pollution based on the pollution model that is described for this game. Pollution points are unrelated to shield production but are assigned according to population and infrastructure:

1 per pop over 12,
x per city improvement, EX 2 for factory, 1 for Airport (IIRC)

I don't recall how the recycling plant and mass transit reduce these pollution points.

[Ironikinit]

Excellent, thank you, muppet, I didn't know that. Makes sense though, given results. I'll take a look next time I play.

[Harovan]

I may be wrong (and probably am), but I always had the opinion that my pollution was growing significantly after building factories. But that may be subjective, because I mostly build hospitals after factories and the increased pollution could also be pop based.

Anyway, when I reach the Panzer time, I don't need a GA to pump out Panzers quickly, as most of my "1st class" cities (next to Palace/FP) make Panzers in at most 2 turns without having a GA, simply by mining+RR+factory+powerplant/Hoover.

[Arrian]

I have a *really* strong dislike for pollution. The best way I've found to combat it is to wait until I have mass transits (ecology) before building hospitals. Yeah, that means waiting an entire Age before growing my cities beyong size 12. I know that. But population pollution is way worse than industrial pollution, unless you build coal plants everywhere (I've never built one). Size 12 cities with Factories + Hoover provide more than enough production.

By the way, Aeson's point about Religious civs with good UU's is well put. Religious, IMHO, is the best trait overall, and it sure makes a number of things easier. Having a strong UU can definitely help you out as well. Therefore, I suppose the Iroquois are the overall "easiest" civ to play, particularly if you play on large/huge maps.

UU's are clearly useful and can be quite powerful. I was just saying that I don't consider them as important as the civ traits. Well, I suppose the Mounted Warrior is an exception, but if the Iroquois weren't religious... I don't know. Keep in mind, provided that you play with the cultural grouping turned on, that certain civs with potentially powerful UU's will start near civs with UU's in the same timeperiod. Yeah, Japan, that means you.

-Arrian

[Arathorn]

It seems that the general consensus is that my list isn't too bad....

I did consider a lot of civ traits in addition to the UU. I just start my analysis with the UU. For instance, I think Legionaries are superior to Immortals but I ranked Persia as "easier" to play, in general, because of civ traits.

I should definitely have mentioned board type, as it does play a huge role. Huge pangea map with few opponents make expansionist civs much more attractive. I was rating "ease" based on playing: emperor/deity level, standard size map, 8 civs, everything else random (the way I like to play). Thus, I rated based off of that set-up. Others would obviously be different.

I should probably also note that I'm very much a go-with-the-flow player. I rarely decide "how" I'm going to win until I see my set-up and my neighbors. Yes, I did one OCC (not deity) for culture, but I usually "play by the seat of my pants". If I see an opportunity, I'll try to exploit it. If I need to build infastructure, I do that. If I think I can take out an opponent (because of UU or weakness or lack of strategic resource), I'll generally do it pretty much immediately. I'll do the oscillating approach if it looks called-for. I'll turtle if I think I need to. I look for general flexibility and strength.

I can't seem to ever survive an actual builder game (especially on deity), so that's why I rated Babylonians as medium-difficulty. It's definitely quite possible this is a style-of-play issue and that a lot of others find Babylonians relatively easy to play.

As for timing of GAs, the point that "very late" GAs are rarely that late due to Wonder builds, you are absolutely correct. The ability to "time" your own GA is possibly a plus, but you really don't have complete control over it, as you have to build a wonder in a certain time period. It's definitely something I need to consider.

Arathorn

[Willem]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
I may be wrong (and probably am), but I always had the opinion that my pollution was growing significantly after building factories. But that may be subjective, because I mostly build hospitals after factories and the increased pollution could also be pop based.

Anyway, when I reach the Panzer time, I don't need a GA to pump out Panzers quickly, as most of my "1st class" cities (next to Palace/FP) make Panzers in at most 2 turns without having a GA, simply by mining+RR+factory+powerplant/Hoover.

Factories have a pollution value of 2. So you are right.

[Blitzer]

Guess I'll toss in my two cents...


The Civs I have the most success with (standard maps, 8 civs, random terrain) have been the Persians and the Babylonians. My top ten list is a mass of red and green with a splash of yellow for
Egyptians.

I am an early builder/late conquerer, so these infrastructure civs suit my style very well. My first main war is generally not until knights are showing up. For early minor conquests I am on record stating my preference for swordsmen over horsemen. Yes I know I am alone here, but I just don't understand the facination with retreat on 2/1 units... Becomes unbelievably powerful on knights, and it's wonderful on Impi and JW's, but I find I lose almost as many horsemen to 1hp spearmen than I do to a losing 3 or 4 power attacker. As for the non-upgradability of swordsmen, I find they are usually all dead long before they outlive their welcome. The AI makes liberal use of longbowmen late into the game, and a swordsman can take down even a fortified longbowman in mountains with reletive ease.

Since my early game is mostly spent building Pyramids and if possible collosus... I don't find these ancient era UU's to be critical at all in my winning of the game. They are nice, but 4 swordsmen do just as well as three Immortals, and it takes just as long to pop rush a war chariot as it does a horseman.

The traits of Industrious, Religious, and Scientific are exceptional for the hybrid builder/warmonger. I will not build military units if at ALL possible unless I have built all the cultural upgrades I can in that city. All military units are if at all possible built veteran. These three civs are exceptional as they allow me to build my infrastructure to my heart's content while still having time for the excessive wonder building and at times neglect of my military.

I've played all civs now (except the French, pink sucks), and for my playstyle these three are head and shoulders above the rest. For players who can stand passing on early wonders and seek to conquer the contient before 500ad, I can see how UU's can be a great boon... but to the builder they tend to be a nice bonus, but in no way critical to success.

This list from builder perspective only


Top Three

1) Persians
2) Babylonians
3) Egyptians

The Dregs

1) English
2) Zulu
3) Romans

[Nakar Gabab]

Sun Tzu's is so very NOT worthless. Generally, I won't build it myself either (unless it's just going to be TOO easy), but once it's built I *will* capture it. The thing puts a barracks in ANY city, including a just-captured one... huge for keeping cavalry momentum going, and providing a cheap and health-friendly stopover for a leader making his way back to my wonder city/cities. Even for a militaristic civ - and perhaps especially, since those extra promotions mean extra HP to heal.

[Harovan]

Good point for someone who goes for conquest, but not my play style.

If I'm enforced to go to war in the late game (AI's pissed because I'm too strong or similar), I usually don't capture cities, but raze and (if I need the place) rebuild. It's nice to have a free barracks in new cities, but barracks cost me only 40 shields and even if I rush them without having started to build (1:8) they cost me 320 gold. That doesn't really hurt one who makes 1,000/turn and stacked up 20,000.

I would not mind to add a "moral" factor and a larger cultural penalty for city razing. Somebody said, there is a penalty, but I haven't seen it yet. Razing a 35 city should bring your culture to zero! Starving captured cities by making citizens specialists (i.e. not caused by pillaged improvements etc.) should also been punished. Pillaging itself should be punished culturally. As long as I am not penaltized, I'll continue to raze.

[Dimension]

Originally posted by Arrian
UU's are clearly useful and can be quite powerful. I was just saying that I don't consider them as important as the civ traits.

I also think that Religious is by far the best trait. I used to always play the Egyptians, but I'm trying to start playing non-Industrious civs ... which is a little hard to justify, as much as the fast workers help early infrastructure. Playing very aggressively and replacing all my workers with slave labor as early as possible is about the only excuse I can come up with not to play Industrious.

You do certainly have to look at traits before you look at UU's, because the traits are much more important, but often what makes a civ good is the way your strategy adapts to make the best use of their traits and UU.

That gives you a paradox which is the only thing keeping the Egyptians from being hands-down the best civ. Your UU is a Horsemen without Horseback Riding, but if you make use of it, you get a Despotism GA. I don't put much importance on perfectly timed GA's, but getting it under Despotism is a complete waste. There's so much potential science and production that you lose that it cancels out a large part of the benefit of being Religious. That is, you don't have several turns of lost productivity from anarchy, but you also miss out on 20 turns of increased productivity. Really, the only way around this is to not play very aggressively, using your UU as an explorer (and stealing the occasional worker with it) until you can upgrade it.

The Aztecs also have a UU which greatly affects your strategy. If you make proper use of it, you not only have a Religious/Militaristic civ, but a civ with some Expansionist/Industrious benefits as well. The Jaguar Warrior is essentially a scout that can attack. It has the same cost & movement as a scout, but sometimes you get Barbarians from huts. The Jaguar Warrior can retreat, though, and the Barbarians will quickly make him elite. I have found that the best thing to do is not attack with the Jaguar Warriors, but just use them to scout and take workers, which makes them last a lot longer, and doesn't trigger your GA. Just scout around your neighbors for a bit, find a close one with some workers, build Barracks/Archers (which, being militaristic, you have the tech to build immediately), and take their workers with the UU the same turn you attack their cities with Archers. Or, you can spend more time scouting and just wait till you have Horsemen to get mean, but I personally don't like waiting, because you really start to notice how lethargic your non-Industrious workers are. Being extremely aggressive also makes the best use of any Militaristic civ. As the Aztecs, I've gotten enough leaders to build an army, make the Heroic Epic, and rush two wonders while still in BC. I'm not saying the Aztecs are as good as being Religious/Industrious/Militaristic/Expansionist, but they do get most of the benefit of Expansionist, and can more quickly make Industrious obsolete through slave labor.

I don't think UU's are too important, but the really early pre-Horseback Riding ones (Aztecs/Egypt/Greece/Zululand -- Babylonian Bowmen are pretty lame) have potential to significantly change your strategy. If used right, you can get benefits that rival those of the civ traits.

[dadacp]

On Monarch level, I'm a builder. I like the French for the Industrious quick start and the Commercial anti-corruption benefit, plus the nicely timed Golden Age. I wouldn't fight until running out of space, so early military units don't mean much.

On Diety level, I have to fight all the time. I prefer the Germans for the spearman/archer forces right from the start, or the Chinese, because they're Militaristic and Industrious.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph

Starving captured cities by making citizens specialists (i.e. not caused by pillaged improvements etc.) should also been punished. Pillaging itself should be punished culturally. As long as I am not penaltized, I'll continue to raze.

No, no, no, that would make it nearly impossible to get rid of those ridiculous cities the AI builds on useless terrain. In both Civ I & II, I usually ended up starving most of the enemy cities I captured since so often I felt their position to be worthless, or it didn't fit it in with the structure of my main empire. About the only ones I ever kept were those that had Wonders, and even then it had to be a good one. I am extremely fussy about my city locations, and being penalized for getting rid of one would really hamper my style. Frankly, I'm glad to have the Raze option, though I'm thinking it might be to easy doing it that way. However, I am at a loss for ideas as to restrictions.

As for pillaging, that's just a normal part of war, why should a player be penalized? If you're cutting off the road that leads to his only Iron supply, that's just being smart. And there shouldn't be any penalties for that.

[Zaphod]

This is a very interesting thread; kudos to everyone who has contributed.

I agree with the builders that the Egyptians and Bablyonians seem the easiest to play, although I have had some success with the Japanese and Iroquois. I'm playing a game with the Indians at the moment, and am doing pretty well. The non-religious civs are a real trial for me; I hate unhappy people and I change governments quite alot (especially in the modern era, democracy to communism for every war). Spending six turns in anarchy between governments can be a real drag on one's progress!

I was curious, Sir Ralf, about your economic strategy. If you would be willing to divulge some of your secrets, I would be very interested in learning how you generate 1,000 gold/turn. I usually trim my tax rate to the bare minimum to cover expenses, so that I can maximize research. Perhaps there are viable alternatives to this strategy?

[barefootbadass]

Early UUs can make a big difference if you have an aggresive style of play. The biggest benefits are ones that help you with resource problems, and by making a unit that normally isn't very usable much more usable. Some UUs actually really hurt though, because of the upgrade paths they disrupt.

As far as civ traits go my favorites are religious and industrious, I usually play a civ with at least one of these.

Useful UUs-
Jag Warrior very powerful conquering, a major boon if you don't have horses.

Impi- same, but even more powerful in conjuction with horses, no retreat for mobile types.

War chariot-3 for 2 horseman . . . if you don't have jungles and mountains in the way

Immortals- They rock, don't be fooled by the fact that legions slightly beat them one on one.

Legions- A strange beast, good defenders, but not really worth using for that since they are not upgradeable. Attacking they are no better than swordsmen which is why I like Immortals.

[frankdog]

I have noticed that in the few games I have played, whenever the AI has had a French civ, it has done really well. The Industrious and Commercial traits seem to be an excellent combination. Their UU is useless. Perhaps this is to make up for the strong traits.

On the other end of the scale, the English and American Civs rarely make it out to the middle ages in games I've played.

[Lewsir]

This is a great thread but I have a feeling it's a bit out of date - maybe opinions would be different now than back in January, after the patches and with PTW? One thing I know has changed is the upgradability of some UUs. I'm not sure what else has changed that would signficiantly alter the ranking of CIVs in terms of "easier/harder" but I'd be interested in hearing about this.

[joncnunn]

For one thing, up until the time that Eqypt gets a GA, they can keep on building War Chariots and upgrading them to the most modern unit in the upgrade path. (This also avoids the early GA problem if they also skip the Pyraimds.)

I also think the orginal poster was a war mongler, I found Babylon to be the easist civ to play. (As a builder)

And the Americans certinately aren't in the hardest category of civs to play if you play them like a builder and not a war mongler.

The Civs that should be played most like a builder during the Ancient Era if possible:

1. England
2. America
3. Ottoman
4. Russia
5. Korea

The Civ that should be played most like a war mongler during the Anicent Era:

1. Aztecs. (Aztec Warrior Rush ASAP before defensive units arrive! Second round of fighting via upgrading them to Swordmen.)

2. Zulus. (Discover Bronze Working ASAP, then use Impi Rush ASAP! Second round fighting using Zulus+ Horsemen.)

3. Irqouis. (Research Horse Back riding ASAP, pre build Mounted Warriors as Chariots, then upgrade and Mounted Warrior Rush.)

4. Romans. (Discover Iron Working ASAP, build lots of warriors and upgrade to Legions, and Legion rush.)

5. Celts. (Same as Romans, except you don't need as many Gallic Warriors which is a good thing because they cost more.)

[GusSmed]

Originally posted by joncnunn
1. Aztecs. (Aztec Warrior Rush ASAP before defensive units arrive! Second round of fighting via upgrading them to Swordmen.)

Don't do such a horrible thing to your wonderful Jaguars. I recently played an Aztec game at Emperor, and I cleaned out my home continent with them. It wouldn't have worked half as well if I'd slowed them down with those expensive iron swords.

Aztecs are great as long as they don't run up against the Zulu.

- Gus

[djafrot]

I have to agree on those Aztecs. Someone earlier said they have the expansionist abilities without the characteristic, and they're dead on. Yeah, you get the occasional barbarian, but they're usually more of a boon (pushing up your experience) than a problem. And the tech's... I swear in one game (on a big map) I got twelve of 'em. Having the huge number of units flying around scares the living crap out of your neighbours, and for some reason they seem to really fight well despite the 1:1 rating.

PLUS with the Azzies you get militaristic bonuses to experiences AND cheap religious stuff.

I used to play with the Persians because of the UU's and the good characteristics, but now those Immortals are slow as mud. Takes WAY too long to get to the front, and for the same cost I can have 3 JW's. No contest!

[Tattila the Hun]

Ever considered creating a real killer civ? By tweaking their abilities, giving them max free tech at the start, giving them a better unit for every age, and perhaps even a unresearchable tech, giving somekind of utopia government, with minimal corruption and loads of free units? For the ultimate challenge!

[Lord Merciless]

I find Romans, Chinese, Persians, Egyptians, and Japanese are the easiest ones to play from the original civs.

Among the new ones, I think Celts and Ottomans are pretty good.