(yet another) comparison of the civs

[vulture]

I know this has been done to death before, but I'm going to do it anyway. I've written some notes on what I think the strengths and weaknesses of each of the 24 civs are, in varying degrees of detail, focussing mainly on the ancient era. This is in no way intended to be a definitive 'this is the final analysis' kind of think, just my own personal observations, which others may well disagree with. If I've maligned your favourite civ, well, you'll be able to live with it I'm sure

EDIT: Much of this isn't my own work, and comes from other threads and observations on this forum. None of it is credited anywhere of course But you don't have to be a genius to suspect that the Aztec stuff is pretty much based on the 'triple threat' thread, for instance...

[vulture]

America
Expansionist Industrious (Pottery and Masonry)
F15 8(4)/4/5 (2) (jet fighter)

Two traits that work well together for REXing, with the expansionist scouts enabling you to find good city sites early, and the industrious workers to get your cities up to potential quickly, not to mention connecting your new cities with roads. You can build granaries from the start, and using industrious workers to do some lumberjacking means you can actually finish a granary pretty early. A build order of (something like) scout, scout, granary, settler, plus suitable worker actions can get you a free settler from a hut (earlier that the AI can build its next city) and a 9 turn settler pump, and that on its own is enough to out expand the AI on emperor level. Being able to build the pyramids right away can be useful sometimes, but is a non-factor more often than not. The bad combination of starting techs means that you have to start researching a first-tier tech - preferably a useless one - and rely on trading masonry and getting techs from huts (easier as an expansionist civ of course) to establish yourself in the tech race. Can be a bit of a gamble, but you make up the ground later if you REXxed well. Being able to make contact with several civs before they contact each other can help you get good value for masonry. If you are playing on a large, underpopulated map, this is the best possible combination of civ traits. The poor UU is needed to stop this civ from being overpowering in that case.

Arabia
Expansionist Religious (Pottery and Ceremonial Burial)
Ansar 4/2/3 (knight) cost: 70->60

Not a combination of traits that work well together. Starting techs are nothing special either. You need luck from the expansionist trait to get you into a good early tech position. The early advantage of the religious trait, IMHO, is the ability to pop-rush temples easily. Even a very corrupt city can generate 1 shield and 2 food easily, and after ten turns, you hit size two and pop-rush the temple. Compared to what is needed for a 60 shield temple, this is (in effect) way better than half price. This gets you a cultural improvement in half the time it takes for a scientific civ (40 shields for a library, which comes later in the game)), and far, far earlier than for other civs. Plus you can do it from the start of the game. So you can culturally defend yourself pretty early. The downside for this civ is that if expansionist doesn't pay off early, you don't have much going for you until chivalry, and you'll probably be playing catch-up. The religious trait lets you start research mysticim immediately, although that is a favourite of the AI, so you probably won't get much milage out of it. The UU is pretty good, being a 3 move unit that is a bit cheaper, and can be used at the ideal time for a GA (namely, to get the early medieval wonders), but a good UU is needed to make up for the comparatively weak traits, so this is not a good civ for peace-niks.

Aztec
Militaristic Religiou (Warrior Code and Ceremonial Burial)
Jaguar Warrior 1/1/2 (warrior)

It shouldn't be news to anyone that this combination of traits complement each other nicely, allowing you to switch instantly between war and peace governments to get the best of both worlds. However the number of changes you make in the ancient era is pretty small. You start off with two pre-requisites for Monarchy, although warrior code is a tech you could easily get while researching mysticism and polytheism, so it's not much of an advantage. On the plus side, the Jaguar warrior gives you half the benefits of the expansionist trait. You get early exploration and contacts, and more goody huts than non-expansionist civs, although you don't get the 'only good results' benefit. The big, big downside is the horrendously early GA you are likely to get. The only real use for it is to pump out hordes of green monsters and swarm over a neighbouring civ or two - all your cities should be producing jags every 2 turns. Given the benefit of crushing a neigbour early, this can actually be quite a strong us for a GA, but not everyone likes it. You'll probably need to take down a civ or two early to get a good tech position, plus that way you're making the best use of the militaristic trait. If you don't make use of the Jag swarm, you're throwing away the one big advantag of the Aztecs.

Babylon
Scientific Religious (Bronze Working and Ceremonial Burial)
Bowman 2/2/1 (archer)

The ultimate culture whore combination. All good cultural buildings are half price. The main advantage of the bowman is that you don't need to use it most of the time, as you can use spearmen for defence, and should probably wait until swordsmen or horsemen before going on the attack. This lets you save the GA for a more useful time. You'll need to work hard to keep up in the tech race at the start though, and will probably lag behind until you can win a few wars and get libraries up and running in a republic. You don't really come into a good position until the late ancient / early medieval era. Although you can't build the UU from the start, it is one of the cheapest and most commonly available techs, so getting it is rarely a problem, and you really shouldn't want to use it at all, except for possible picking off a wounded longbow in the early medieval era to get your GA at a good time.

Carthage
Commercial Industrious (Alphabet and Masonry)
Numidian Mercenary 2/3/1 (spearman) cost: 20->30

Although commercial is meant to be more of a late game trait, it has one big early advantage - you start with the alphabet, and can immediately research writing. You can almost always get writing in 40 turns before the AI does, giving you guaranteed trade ability. Carthage though is a civ in which you may want to do things differently and go for mathematics, since you can research it from the start (France is the only other civ that can do this). The AI will often not go for maths early though, leaving a chance that you can get both writing and maths, giving you great trade potential. Writing leads you on to literature and the great library (and the option of early embassies and alliances). Plus you can use the pyramids as a prebuild if you are so inclined. Industriousness makes it easier to get big, well developed cities capable of serious wonder building. The Numidian mercenary is a great defender and capable of finishing off wounded attackers, enabling you do either do your building in peace (although they are expensive units to build in the ancient era 0 but they are viable at least until gunpowder, and possibly nationalism, depending on game circumstances), or to do some serious pillaging of your nearest rivals. So you end up with a good opening position, and strong mid game (thanks to industriousness) and an increasingly useful commercial trait towards the end of the game. The only weakness is that you don't control the timing of your GA as easily with a defensive UU, and have to get a tech before you can start building them. The trait combination is good for large empires in particular. The weak point of this civ is the middle ages, where it doesn't have a great deal going for it aside from the cash saved on upgrading to pikes, which can buy you a tech instead.

Celts
Militaristic Religious (Warrior Code and Ceremonial Burial)
Gallic Swordsman 3/2/2 (swordsman) cost:30->50

As before on the Mil/Rel combination. The dilemma facing the celts is trying to stay competitive in techs despite not having any good opening trades, and trying to store up enough cash (without getting pushed around) to upgrade all those veteran warriors to Gallic swordsmen. It's too easy to miss a trading window, and end up with no cash and no tradable techs. You have to keep a very close eye on what you neighbours are up to as the celts. The UU is great once you get it, and has a good shelf life, so you can avoid an early GA. Often you'll need to use the GA and lots of swordsmen to dig yourself out of the hole you are in, especially if you have lots of neighbours. But the only real way to play a Mil/Rel civ is as a warmonger, and gain your science through conquering neighbours for techs early on, and then having a large enough empire to keep up later in the game.

China
Militaristic Industrious (Warrior Code and Masonry)
Rider 4/3/3 (knight)

A pretty useful combination of traits, allowing you to build roads to you nearest convenient victim quickly, and then to crush them mercilessly. Archer rushes are more viable with China than other militaristic civs due to the road building abilities of the workers, and also due to being able to build barracks from the start of the game. Starting with masonry means that you have some starting trade leverage - you trade for a few techs with your nearest neighbours, and then go and beat one of them up. And being able to set up a good road network enables you to get away with a few fewer defenders, meaning more attackers. The Chinese rider is one of the best UUs in the game in all areas. On standard size maps, and aggresive opening, plus constructive use of riders, should give you the whole continent to yourself. Along with Germany and the Aztecs, this is the best civ for ultra-early war mongering. Also pretty good for war mongering through the middle ages as well, at which point the game should be in your pocket.

Egypt
Religious Industrious (Ceremonial Burial and Masonry)
War Chariot 2/1/2 (chariot)

An easy civ to play, since the traits are two that it is hard to misuse. They work together to some extent, since before a city gets developed by workers it can pop-rush a temple in ten turns, and hopefully by then you should have connected the city up and developed more of the terrain around it. It lets you claim territory quite quickly, which you can then go back and fill in with more cities to make use of the space. The war chariot is a pretty strong unit, but you have to use it early while it is still the best around. Plus you have to get the wheel before you can start on it. But for fairly early warmongering, this civ is pretty strong, and the UU is on the horse upgrade path, which is valuable. The civ is pretty versatile, with the traits both giving you some advantages in war, and also being good for builders, so you can play most styles fairly well as Egypt.

England
Commercial Expansionist (Alphabet and Pottery)
Man-o-War 3(3)/2/4 (2) (frigate)

Not really sure what to make of this combination. To get any use from the Man-o-War means playing on archipelago maps, boosted by the fact that you start only two techs away from map-making and the great lighthouse. So you might think that this is a good archipelago civ. But the expansionist trait gets better the more land you have accessible to your scouts from the start, and archipelagos dilute the effect the commercial trait (on an archipelago, a greater portion of the corruption is distance corruption, unaffected by the commerical corruption bonus, while on pangeas a greater portion is OCN corruption, which is what is reduced bythe commercial trait). The result is that the benefits of the traits run in opposite directions, leaving you with no clear bonus, and possibly the worst UU in the game. But then, I've never really played the English, so I may be overlooking something.

France
Commercial Industrious (Alphabet and Masonry)
Musketeer 3/4/1 (musketman)

Pretty similar to Carthage, but with a mid-medieval rather than early ancient UU. Not quite as powerful at the start as Carthage, but still has the strong trading potential which just gets stronger as the game goes on. Although France will get less benefit from its UU than Carthage does, it offsets that with a later GA in all likelihood. Still a strong civ.

Germany
Militaristic Scientific (Warrior Code and Bronze Working)
Panzer 16/8/3 (tank)

A combination of traits that go together surprisingly well, at least in the early game. Why? Because from the outset you can build spearmen and archers, which can go wondering in pairs, and give you earlier rush possibilities than any other civ, except maybe the mil/ind civs. Researching iron working straight away will probably give you swordsmen earlier than almost anyone else too. As long as you have nearby neighbours, you can do a lot of damage. You remain pretty well balanced through the whole game, with the new techs each era. The panzer is great, although it usually just means you finish up an already-won game more easily.

Greece
Commercial Scientific (Alphabet and Bronze Working)
Hoplite 1/3/1 (spearman)

A reasonable combination, but not a brilliant one. The early advantages are being able to build hoplites immediately, and the trade possibilities of bronze working, and especially alphabet (and, as usual, writing). But don't go too wild about the hoplites. They can give you an unwanted early GA, and they're not nearly as invincible as you might want to belive, especially when you can only build regular ones for some time. By the industrial era though, this trait combo can do very well, and generally gets stronger as the game goes on. Having alphabet to start lets you get to those cheap libraries more quickly, just try not to be left behind at the end of the ancient era.

[vulture]

India
Commercial Religious (Alphabet and Ceremonial Burial)
War Elephant 4/3/2 (knight)

The religious trait can let you claim territory more quickly, and the commercial trait can let you make better use of it by getting more cities in without increasing corruption too much, but this isn't a great set of traits. You really need to be a good builder and trader with this civ, because it is always going to be at the back of the class in terms of war-mongering ability. The UU is essentially useless - unless you've not expanded at all and so have no resources. It can give a nicely timed GA though. But definitely one of the weaker civs.

Iroquois
Expansionist Religious (Pottery and Ceremonial Burial)
Mounted Warrior 3/1/2 (horseman)

Very much like the Arabs, but with an earlier UU. While the traits should help you claim territory quite quickly, the expansionist trait is always a little hit or miss. The mounted warrior is very good on paper, but in my experience, the combination of traits means that often you're not in a position to make best use of it. Perhaps I'm mis-playing the Iroquois, but they don't seem to be as good as you might think. The Arabs, having their UU come later, seem to be better prepared to take advantage of it.

Japan
Militaristic Religious (The Wheel and Ceremonial Burial)
Samurai 4/4/2 (knight)

Another Mil/Rel civ. The one early advantage of the Japanese is being the only civ to start with the wheel, and the ability to see horses. But its not a very long lasting advantage, so use it for what it's worth. If you do get horses early, chariots work well with warriors for scouting, with the warriors handling the rough terrain while the chariots take the flats. The downside of Japan is being the only militaristic civ that doesn't start off with the ability to build archers and barracks. This limits your early rushing potential. Japan isn't that strong at the start of the game, so you have to go out and crush heads quite a lot.

Korea
Commercial Scientific (Alphabet and Bronze Working)
Hwach'a 0(12)/0/1 (1) (cannon)

Like Greece, but without the benefits of the hoplite. Can be a great trading civ in the industrial era, but that is about the only strong point. Definitely a building and trading kind of civ. The Hwach'a comes at a time when cavalry rule. They are never going to keep up with the battle, so are only really useful as defensive units, where the extra bombard strength doesn't make a huge amount of difference. The time you really need good bombardment is the infantry era, when the Hwach'a is superceeded by artillery.

Mongol
Militaristic Expansionist (Warrior Code and Pottery)
Keshik 4/2/2** (knight) cost: 70->60

This can be a very strong early combination, but is the ultimate lottery mixture of traits. Aside from early archer rushes, the benefits of the militaristic civs are getting more (and earlier) elites, and more (and earlier) leaders as a consequence. And due to the small odds of getting a leader, the number you get can vary greatly. Expansionist is a random trait too. With bad luck, the mongols may as well have no civ traits. With good luck they get early wonders, early settlers and a free tech lead. The expansionist trait does let you find your victims early, and figure out which is the best to go after, much like for the Aztecs. Given average luck with the RNG, you can do pretty well in the ancient era and the have an early medieval GA. The starting techs are the worst for trading, so without some benefit from huts you could get into trouble. The Keshik is a decent unit. But you really need to use the ancient era and GA to put you in a game winning position, because you get weaker compared to the other civs as time goes by. By the early industrial era, you competitors all have industrious workers building railroads and cleaning pollution, the free scientific tech (quick access to riflemen pre PtW-1.21), the extra financial power of commercial, and/or the religious ability to change governments as needed, while you are left with easier promotions for your cavalry in an age where they find it increasingly hard to win battles. Dominate early, or die.

Ottoman
Scientific Industrious (Bronze Working and Masonry)
Sipahi 8/3/3 (cavalry) cost: 80->100

Industrious is always a great trait, giving you great ability to make cities useful early on. Starting with bronze working and masonry, you have the ability to build 2 wonders, and research the top branch of the ancient era tree ahead of anyone else. Sensible use of industrious workers should have you with working libraries before almost anyone else and you can then make good ground on research in the early middle ages. And then at the end you get the very impressive Sipahi, which you can use to cheerfully terrorise your neighbours. This civ develops nicely as the game progresses, with good trading abilities, good defense if necessary (walls and spearmen from the start) and the ability to keep at the front of the pack in the tech race.

Persia
Scientific Industrious (Bronze Working and Masonry)
Immortals 4/2/1 (swordsman)

Persia is very similar to the Ottomans, with the difference of having its good attacking UU in the ancient era. You start only one tech away, so can have the immortals running around from very early on, and you can still make use of them even when there are musketmen on the scene. This gives you good options with the timing of your GA, so you can go for early power if you want, by wiping out a neighbour, or do your fighting with horse units and save the GA for when you get to republic. Stronger than the Ottomans when it counts the most - early in the game.

Rome
Militaristic Commercial (Warrior Code and Alphabet)
Legion 3/3/1 (swordsman)

These traits go well together, combining the military muscle to capture large territories with the commercial ability to get better revenue from larger empires. Plus a UU that doesn't come too early, but is strong when it does arrive. Legions are good at generating leaders, as their extra defence gives them more promotions, giving you a good store of elite units. Plus, as always, starting with alphabet gives you a chance to get a foot in the trading world, and warrior code gives you the option of an early archer rush if circumstances dictate. The overall package gives you a civ that can carve out a nice empire in the ancient era, and make it pay well in later eras.

Of course, if you are playing with 4 civs on a huge map, it will be the middle ages before any of your legions reach the nearest town.

Russia
Expansionist Scientific (Pottery and Bronze Working)
Cossack 6/4/3 (cavalry)

Basically, not as good as the Ottomans. UU comes at the same time, but is worse. Have the expansionist trait instead of the industrious trait, which is a downgrade in my book. Expansionist and scientific don't do much to help each other, and the starting techs are nothing special. As with any expansionist civ, a few good huts can set you up for life, but this is one of the weaker trait combinations, coupled with a UU which really isn't any different to normal cavalry, in practical terms.

Spain
Commercial Religious (Alphabet and Ceremonial Burial)
Conquistador 3/2/2* (explorer) cost: 20->70

A civ with fairly subtle benefits. The only strengths at the start is the alphabet, as always with commercial civs, and the very early pop-rushed temples. The commercial trait and short anarchys give you a slight advantage towards the end of the era, although not one you are likely to notice the benefits of immediately. The conquistador at first glance appears pretty useless - 3 attack and 2 defense at a time when cavalry and musketmen in cities are the norm. 6 moves in enemy territory is very nice, but using conquistadors against cities is going to be a bit like attacking hoplites with jaguar warriors - it can be done if you have enough of them, but with the cost of the conquistador being only 10 less than cavalry, cavalry are far, far more efficient for taking towns. What conquistadors excell at is pillaging resources, capturing (and disbanding) workers, destroying roads for moving troops around, destroying mines etc. They don't attack the cities, they just destory your opponents ability to fight, although it may be quite some time before the benefits show through (and again, the benefits are hard to see - how do you see the 10 cavalry that are not attacking you because they haven't been finished yet, due to pillaged mines?). Used creatively they can be quite powerful.

Viking
Militaristic Expansionist (Warrior Code and Pottery)
Beserk 6*/2/1 (longbow) cost: 40->70

As with the Mongols, this is a lottery civ. How well you do will depend a lot on what luck you get with early leaders and huts. And as before, on the guaranteed side, you do get to find your opponents quickly to get into the trade arena, and judge who is vulnerable to an archer rush. The beserk makes the vikings a big threat to everyone for the whole medieval period, although they have to be used carefully so as not to leave them open to counterattacks. The addition of the beserk makes this the best of the mil/exp civs. The hidden cost for beserks is that you also need 1 galley for every 2 beserks, and possibly a harbour somewhere to give you veteran galleys. Plus you need galleys to carry off the spoils of war (slaves from sacked cities) or defensive pikemen to cover the beserks in their new home, plus empty galleys for defense to stop your beserk-laden ships from being sunk. With all the extra costs, you are never going to have a huge number of beserks, but they are effective enough that you don't need a huge number, so producing enough to fill your galleys should be quite easy.

Zulu
Militaristic Expansionist (Warrior Code and Pottery)
Impi 1/2/2 (spearman)

The last mil/exp civ has the main weakness of having the impi as its UU. The benefits of the impi are being able to get them to where they are needed quickly, and to use them as raiders to pillage AI territory. One for one, they are slightly worse at defending towns that normal spearmen, because horsemen don't retreat from them. This means they suffer slightly higher losses, although at the benefit of faster attrition of attacking forces. As with the hoplite, there isn't much you can do to avoid having a very early GA forced upon you. The abilities of the impi clash slightly with those of the scout, meaning that the Zulu get less benefit from their UU than most other civs. And, as always for mil/exp, the starting techs are bad for trading, meaning that you really need to get something from huts if you want to be able to get into the tech market The weakest of the mil/exp civs, they can fade very fast once the ancient era is half-way through.

[Arrian]

Minor quibble:

The downside of Japan is being the only militaristic civ that doesn't start off with the ability to build archers and barracks. This limits your early rushing potential. Japan isn't that strong at the start of the game, so you have to go out and crush heads quite a lot.

Japan can build barracks at the start. Though it would make sense to tie barracks to Warrior Code, it actually isn't. So Japan starts w/o archers, but with barracks. No matter, just plan for an early sword rush instead of an archer rush. Or start building chariots. Lots of 'em.

Anyway, 'tis a good analysis of the civs, IMO. I agree

-Arrian

[vulture]

I thought that barracks came with masonry, which isn't one of the Japanese starting techs. They can only build chariots and temples due to their starting techs, IIRC.

[Arrian]

Really? I've never noticed that. Masonry, huh? Are you sure?

-Arrian

[vulture]

Have a look at this picture of the tech tree, and the only barracks-like thing in the shot is under masonry. Don't have civ3 to hand to check out at the moment though.

[Arrian]

The three things shown for masonry are (left to right) the Palace, City Walls, and the Pyramids.

-Arrian

[CerberusIV]

Everyone can build barracks regardless of starting techs.

Any civ can build settlers, workers, warriors and barracks from 4000BC. Anything else is linked to techs.

[Arrian]

That's what I thought.

-Arrian

[vulture]

My bad - I always forget that you need masonry to build the palace for some reason, so just assumed that the unknown blob was barracks. Time to do a little judicious editing...

[Don Giovanni]

It's a palace (and walls beside it).