Civs from easiest to hardest

[Arrian]

Originally posted by 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

Much of this has changed. The UU upgrade has been fixed, I have come to see certain UUs as much more important than my original post indicates, and most importantly, my playstyle has evolved.

Egypt is my overall favorite civ, and probably the easiest to play. They are extremely flexible: you can build and warmonger.

Persia remains strong because of their industriousness and their powerful UU.

The Iroquois have at least 1 strong trait (rel) and possibly two if playing on the right map settings, plus what is probably the best UU in the game (one could argue for the Rider).

China and Japan are each excellent warmonger civs that have militaristic + a strong trait, and a mobile medieval UU. Solid. Honorable mention goes to the Mean Green Machine (Aztecs), though GA timing issues can make them more difficult for some.

The Babs have a weak, poorly timed UU (though that can be a blessing in disguise) and are not industrious, but they do get a TON of building discounts.

The French are pretty solid, and I think they are easier to play than Carthage, because Carthage has a very problematic 30-shield ancient age UU. That requires some fancy footwork.

The Ottomans are probably tougher to play than Persia, because you cannot rely on Immortals to give you an advantage early on, but later you get these crazy SOBs with a revolver in each hand who mow down musketmen like grass (I recently took 4 cities with Sipahi before losing a single unit, they were all size 7 or bigger, had musketmen, and 1 or 2 were on hills. The total campaign, in which I took more than 20 cities, cost me 5-10 Sipahi).

Basically, I think that any civ that has at least one of the top 2 traits (which IMO are Religious and Industrious) and either a good 2nd trait OR a powerful or well-timed UU qualifies as relatively easy to play. Egypt wins by virtue of having both top traits and a very effective, if not powerful, UU.

-Arrian

[Zero]

Notice how your choice of Hard to play civs have Trait of (something) + Expansionistic. Most people prefer expansionistic with either Militaristic or religious. Com+exp, Sci+exp and Ind+exp is certainly a unique combination. I dont know how to play english and Russians well as of now, but Americans certainly can be played very well with their industrial and expansionistic trait. Their UU, isnt too good comes it comes much too late, but when ur in modern age, it is kinda nifty to have F-15 over jet fighter... I admit its not as good as any other UU, but its not terrible either.

[Zero]

and analysis of ur "getting difficult" civs.

Germans are excellent rushers. Even tho you are far from obtaining ur UU, you immediately start out with archers and spearmen at your disposal. This allows some quick conquering your neighbors while some civs didnt even have chance to build spearmen. Mil trait is always good for warmongering and sci is a little icing for whenever you reach an era, you can immediately go for feudalism, nationalism or other early era military techs. Getting panzer when tank warfare rolls in is also another nice icing on the cake. Getting a GA (if you havent) and popping out panzers like a popcorn machine is even better.

Indians are great in that their knights dont rely on resource. this is downplayed alot. I know that if you have the resource its not much of a deal, but there comes a time when you play many times, your face with not having a horse (or iron but this is lesser occurance to me). Especially when map generates resources as being grouped and one civ has like 90% of that resource on that map on his territory. Indians are also great peaceful civ, they have rel and comm. They can generate alot of income from less corruption and strengthen their cultures fast. com/rel is a nice combo, which is why i like the spanish. They are certainly a civ worth a try.

French musketeer is quite debateably the worst UU. IMO, musketeer is worse than F-15. (I use the F-15) They are UU of an already useless and wasteful unit and the bonous doesn't even help the original unit. But they are com/ind trait. I would play them much like I would with America and Germany, pretend that I dont have a UU. Now with PTW, if you dont like France, you can give carthage a try, but if someone took Carthage and i wanted Com/Ind, I wouldnt be too afraid of choosing france. I would mentally think of it as Carthage minus numidian.

[Zero]

To add lil more to "average" civs to make them sound better

Chinese rider move of three is awesome actually. Conside that you can enter an enemy territory of city influencing cultural radius of 2 tiles in one turn and to attack, it doesnt give enemy much time to retaliate using offensive units sentried in the city. You already stated how good mil/ind is so i wont go into it... except front line worker + 3 move unit = godly reinforcement.

Babylonians UU aint too good IMO. They are balanced and I will use them, but if I were to go for playing balanced unit, I'd rather choose Romans or Japan. Japan gets its lot later though, and Romans need iron and is later than bowman... Sounds like I'm bashing babs now What im trying to get to is that Babs are more valauable for attaining cultural victory more than anything else. They are the only sci/rel civ. They are Ideal for going that route. Most improvement that generate cultures are either scientific or religious improvement.
Still no resource for UU is critical here, and makes good rush since normally if you paired 7 archers and 3 spearmen for example, you would only have 7 attacks and if seventh attack didnt capture the city, with Babs you ave 3 more tries.

Romans deserve to be in easiest list. Their UU is great and has a very long lifespan (all the way to riflemen). With ptw fixing swordmen deadend issue, its even better, although using swordmen as MP inside core empire for those gov with MP ability is still a better idea. Mil/Com is an excellent combo. You can really balloon up your military and still recieve sizable income early on.

Greeks - Even scientific civs need to build GL. ancient era is when you get least benefit of sci trait. If you beeline to literature, get Great library, slide to 100% tax and ride out the ancient techs slowly while saving money and building up libraries slowly, you can really get your sci going at medieval era. Theres always early GA problem, but so does aztecs, and they are the best civ IMO. Sci/Com is a great combo. Often maintaining good tech research and getting sizable income is hard to come by.

[Zero]

Originally posted by 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!

Ive been hammering that point for months now and I am not sure I am the first, (surely many people recognize this). Only problem is the GA issue for them but Barbs dont trigger GA and if you're a good diplomat, you can avoid warfare until it is necessary. By then you're like to have 8 - 9 JWs from all that exploring and iron wokring ready to go. and Wham! you can prohibit AIs from trigger GA by upgrading them to elite swordsmen!

When you wanna trigger a GA, it may be annoying but its not impossible. You can trigger GA in industrial time with JWs, its tedious to set up a calvary and prepare 4-5 JWs and some artillery, but its very possible. I trigger most of my GA thru wonders (which comes too early for most civ with wonders)anyway so its not huge problem for me.

PTW has to fix the cant build UUs any more thing. I like to build my UUs for all the eras... especially JWs. vanilla civ had this feature but it didnt make it to PTW...

[Arrian]

Wham! you can prohibit AIs from trigger GA by upgrading them to elite swordsmen!

I assume you mean veteran swordsmen. Elite units are demoted to vets when they are upgraded.

-Arrian

[lateralis]

I tend to rank the egyptians as the easiest civ to play as the combo of cheap happiness improvements, no anarchy, and fast workers, to me, makes it so easy to get a leg up early and then just ride it out. I have only ever used war chariots to trigger golden ages long after their usefull life. I usually only build one or two and keep them around to take down a badly wounded archer or longbowman.

and about the americans being a difficult civ, I won 2 of my first few regent games (on my way up the difficulty ladder) wth america. Maybe I just get lucky with them, but I've found them realtively easy to play.

the hardest I've played so far is england. The only reason I'm even playing them is that they were chosen for the mac GOTM this month as a training game. "How to win a military victory with two shty civ traits." we're playing on monarch (which I tend to do pretty well on) and boy am I getting a run for my money. Man-o-wars are good for one thing only, generating a GA. And that still took three of them to take down an ironclad.

anyhow, my 2 cents.

lateralis

[Brizey]

Once again, the best thing about the Musketeer is the timing of the GA. The extra income allows you to beeline for miltrad.

[joncnunn]

If your less interested in the UU, Babylon is even easier because of the half price scientific improvements and 3 free techs. Actually, the best use of Eqypt's WC is to keep on building them long after their no longer state of the art and upgrade them to state of the art up until you have your GA.

I had a fairly easy time as the Americans in one of my early games as well.

England is the worst civ. As far as having your GA though, there's much better ways to go about it as Enlgand than the obsolete by the time it's built Man of War.

There are 3 Great Wonders that by themselves trigure your GA as England, the Collosus, the Great Light House, and Magellain, which the last coming at an excelent time. Also, the pair of Adam Smith + Copercus would also trigure your GA if you want to build more useful wonders while triguring the GA.

Originally posted by lateralis
I tend to rank the egyptians as the easiest civ to play as the combo of cheap happiness improvements, no anarchy, and fast workers, to me, makes it so easy to get a leg up early and then just ride it out. I have only ever used war chariots to trigger golden ages long after their usefull life. I usually only build one or two and keep them around to take down a badly wounded archer or longbowman.

and about the americans being a difficult civ, I won 2 of my first few regent games (on my way up the difficulty ladder) wth america. Maybe I just get lucky with them, but I've found them realtively easy to play.

the hardest I've played so far is england. The only reason I'm even playing them is that they were chosen for the mac GOTM this month as a training game. "How to win a military victory with two shty civ traits." we're playing on monarch (which I tend to do pretty well on) and boy am I getting a run for my money. Man-o-wars are good for one thing only, generating a GA. And that still took three of them to take down an ironclad.

anyhow, my 2 cents.

lateralis

[Dominae]

Some comments on the "ease" of play:

1. Traits

Industrious is the "easiest" trait; you can be a beginner at the game and you'll benefit from it almost just as much as a veteran ("almost" because beginners usually won't think to build military road networks, etc.). Religious is the next easiest, because dealing with unhappiness is relatively simple when Temples and Cathedrals cost half as much. Also, the 1-turn Anarchy means that you can jump from one government to the next, without much planning. No comment about Scientific and Militaristic and Commercial (although Commercial is slightly easier if you're not experienced with Palace-jumping, FP placement, etc.). Expansionist is most difficult to play well, meaning that the difference between a veteran Expansionist player and a novice one is huge. In addition to effective Scouting (see Aeson's excellent thread), there's the option of going for a Granary early on, not to mention effective city placement with most of map revealed. Each of these is not easy for the novice player.

2. UUs

As I mentioned in another thread, Jags and Impi are "clearly" powerful units, but most players do not use them effectively. You need to adjust your strategy quite drastically to make the best use of them, which is far from easy. Managing an early GA (highly recommended with the Aztecs, Babs or Zulus) is also a difficult skill.

The UUs that are simply better in the stats that the standard versions are typically used for are the easiest to use (confusing sentence, I know). Mounted Warrios, Immortals, Panzers and Hoplites are considered great units, I think, because they are easy to use and their benefits are very "tangible".

The UUs that alter a standard unit's secondary stats (Musketeer, Legion, Samurai) are also relatively easy to use because they are better, but still not significantly altered.

The new UUs from PTW are all quite interesting, since they combine many tweaks to the standard units. I would say all of them are quite hard to use (anyone dominated with Conquistadors lately!?!).

3. Civs

Obviously the combination of an easy UU with easy traits makes for an easy civ to play. The Egyptians are thus naturally at the top of the list, since the only thing remotely "difficult" about them is the possibility of an early GA.

Militaristic and Expansionsist civs (Mongols, Zulus and Vikings) are, IMO, the most difficult, since they require pure aggression, while most Civ players like to stop and build periodically. The Zulus, with a difficult UU to boot, is probably the toughest civ to play.

The "crappy" civs (England, Korea, Spain) are difficult because they combine no "easy" traits with bad UUs.


Dominae

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by Arathorn

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

Have to disagree with you regarding the Russians. The Cossack is a terribly powerful unit if one beelines to Military Tradition. The cossack will end up fighting either musketmen or other cavalry (or worse) and either option it can handle quite well. Also having your GA kick off right in time to get Copernicus, Newtons, Bach's and Shakspeares is nice. And facing a virtual wall of cossacks is no picnic either.

[Konquest02]

Originally posted by Dominae

The "crappy" civs (England, Korea, Spain) are difficult because they combine no "easy" traits with bad UUs.

Dominae

I actually like playing a game with the crappy civs once in a while as they offer a totally different challenge as one is usually faced.

In civ3, the English and the Indians are the 2 civs I take when wanting for a challenge. They are not easy to play but they are quite fun...

--Kon--

[Arrian]

The "worst" civs in my book:

England*
Korea
Greece
Russia*
Zulu*
Mongols*
Vikings*
Germany
Rome

* - expansionist is a wildcard, and can be quite powerful depending on map settings.

-Arrian

[Brizey]

Arrian:

Now that Archers can be upgraded to Berzerks, the Scandies are much improved. You do one early archer rush (or an ultra-early then early), then one long sustained campaign with Berzerks. If you can pre-build Leos and beeline for invention, and save up a few thousand gold, watch out world. You hit the near continents on Galleys, and the far continents once you get Astronomy. I recently played a game where I was still using up my leftover Berzerks with Galleys against rifleman. The losses were attrocious, but I was getting ready for the infantry-tank era anyway.

Thirty Berzerks against spearman, pikeman, and an occasional musketman with no chance of retaliation is a serious force.

I believe the Scandies were made expansionist to purposely weaken them on arch. maps where the Berzerk is by far the most unbalanced unit in the game. I was shocked when they added the archer to Berzerk upgrade-I though the omission was intentional.

-Brizey

[Arrian]

Hmm... Ok, I'll grant you that a 6/2/1 amphibious unit is pretty powerful, so maybe the Vikings should come off my list.

But I'd still trade it for a 4/3/3 unit + industrious instead of expansiontist.

-Arrian

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Dominae
The new UUs from PTW are all quite interesting, since they combine many tweaks to the standard units. I would say all of them are quite hard to use ...

Please don't tell me you're having problems with the Gallic Swordsmen? Or the Viking Beserk? These units border on insane for the extra power they provide.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Stuie
Please don't tell me you're having problems with the Gallic Swordsmen? Or the Viking Beserk? These units border on insane for the extra power they provide.

Let me clarify: I don't think those units are difficult to use if you have them available (although the Berserk does require some naval coordination); I think it's difficult to efficiently produce them in mass quantities, like you would any stock Civ3 UU. The Warrior->Gallic upgrade is very expensive, meaning you really need to plan your money situation very carefully. Similarly for Archer->Berzerk. Sure, once they're in play, their stats speak for themselves, but that's only half the story (woo-hoo, 3 metaphors in one sentence!).


Dominae

[joncnunn]

An easier to afford UU for the time that's very powerful in Civ III:PTW is the Ottoman's 8-3-3 replacement for Calvary. By then the extra gold to upgrade from Knights shouldn't matter as much.

I'd strongly sugest building the Baracks before the Warriors for Celts / Archers for Vickies. It cost the same to upgrade a Vet Archer into a Vet Berzerker as it does upgrading a Reg Archer into a Reg Berzerker.

[djafrot]

Just got PTW today and played as the Celts.

Man, that swordsman of theirs ROCKS (although he sounds like he's puking half the time). I'm at the front in no time... although with that new medieval infantry the "shelf life" is pretty bad. Why an extra point of attack is supposed to be an advancement over a movement point is beyond me.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Dominae

I think it's difficult to efficiently produce them in mass quantities, like you would any stock Civ3 UU.

I see your point. First time I saw the price tag on a Gallic Swordsman my jaw dropped. But I was able to adjust my production and start churning them out at a pretty good clip. Still, I'm playing the Romans right now, and the Legionaires are coming fast and furiously. Sure I don't get the extra movement, but then again I'm defending better against horseman counter attacks.

On topic: hardest Civ I've played so far is the Ottomans... go figure. I've started three or four games with them, and every time I've gotten crushed before I can even get anywheres near Military Tradition. I want to play with the Sipahi!!! I found using the Celts and Carthaginians to be relatively easy. Still haven't tried the other five new ones. Found myself pining for some Roman exploits........

[Brizey]

To play the Scandies, you MUST pre-build Leo's and grab it when you get invention. It can make a difference of 1000+ gold at a time when that is a lot of dough. And don't forget to build you fleet.

Also you may want to just do some rampant destruction and raze a few cities you can't hold. You can destroy defenders faster than you can hold the cities when attacking a civ with no iron or no Fuedalism. Your big enemy is knights. When attacking a civ with knights, I hide out on my boats and try to pick them off when the AI is dumb enough to leave them in a coastal city or along the coast.

If anything, they make for a very different type of game in the early middle period, which is fun.

[Zero]

Originally posted by Arrian
The "worst" civs in my book:

England*
Korea
Greece
Russia*
Zulu*
Mongols*
Vikings*
Germany
Rome

* - expansionist is a wildcard, and can be quite powerful depending on map settings.

-Arrian

First off, IMO is that expansionistic isnt a "wildcard" as most people put it. Sure the strength of the trait may change, but its never to a point where its a weak trait IMO. Besides, all traits are map dependent...

Germany is a great early conquest civ. They can immediately go for Iron working while they can immediately warmonger with archers and spearmen.

Rome also. The Legion's life expectancy lasts until riflemen. (well as a defense unit at leas)

Korea's trait is pretty good. And Hwacha is downright the greatest UU, too bad it cant trigger GA, its biggest weakness.

Vikings. Even if they aren't amphibious. I'd say the UU is a great deal. Especially with the recent fix.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Adding my voice to those defending the Americans - I can't stop using them. Industrious is brilliant, and expansionistic pays off on large or huge maps (which I play exclusively). And the whole point behind them being even better than these two traits is not so much getting their UU, but in that you DON'T get it until so late. With a builder attitude (which I continue whilst at war) which certainly suits the industrious trait, a GA you can time perfectly is gold. Without the temptation of building the UU anytime before modernity (or the necessity of building it), you can use Wonders to time your GA whenever you want.

Some may see that this is exactly the utility of the UU, you can trigger the GA anytime with it, I have found that some UUs replace units that are absolutely crucial in the game, and since you have to build them, you have less control over your GA when sparked off by one involved in combat. There is less the compunction to build Wonders that accidentally spark off your GA, especially as the Americans. With a GA timed to perfection, the boost is IMO going to determine who wins and loses in a well-balanced game, and can turn around many bad situations.

[Mad Bomber]

MrWhere:

Couldn't agree with you more regarding the Americans, they are great for Huge map play in SP. When do you time your GA? I try to time it to happen 1 turn after switching to Monarchy. I like it early to help boost the REX phase, the most important phase of the game.

[vulture]

Originally posted by Stuie
On topic: hardest Civ I've played so far is the Ottomans... go figure. I've started three or four games with them, and every time I've gotten crushed before I can even get anywheres near Military Tradition. I want to play with the Sipahi!!!

Being new to PtW I'm still on my first game with it, but am playing as the Ottomans, and I find them a pretty good civ. Even if you don't make it as far as military tradition, the industrious/scientific combination is a good one, and the starting techs let you research the currency branch early and trade for the other techs (on emperor). The UU is great once you get there of course - you really can't go wrong with cavalry with an attack of 8...

[MrWhereItsAt]

MadBomber, don't EVER tell the Civ3 Democracy game group, but I am hoping to actually finish my first game of Civ3 EVER. I have had the game since December '01...

I just haven't had the patience to so far, so this is my first major attempt. I am timing the GA to just after developing Knights, so I can rush through those late medieval advance and get to Industrial earlier. That is an option here because of a single front for my war machine and great use of Industrious earlier on in some very high trade cities. I would ideally time it to after I became established as a Republic - either the Pyramids or Great Wall and Copernicus' or Magellan's would be my choice of triggers. This way I know it won't be wasted due to Republican unhappiness, and I can use it to fasttrack my cities towards having all they need to be most effective in Republic.

Of course I haven't thought things through thoroughly, and I guess I am a newconer to this part of the game, so things could fall apart, but with 7 lux (6 of them mine), a GA and the only one with Knights, I don't think such a thing will happen for a while.

[Arrian]

but with 7 lux (6 of them mine)...

You've won.

Anyway, a good wonder combo for the Americans is the Colossus & the Hanging Gardens (fits with Mad Bomber's Monarchy GA). Another would be Hanging Gardens + Copernicus. Excellent for MWIA's want of a GA with Knights.

-Arrian

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
MadBomber, don't EVER tell the Civ3 Democracy game group, but I am hoping to actually finish my first game of Civ3 EVER. I have had the game since December '01...

I know that feeling, I myself have several unfinished games to my credit with CIv 3, which will probably never be finished. Some that I have played in excess of 3 months. Arrian is right, you are on your way to your first win, if you can tough it out and play it through. A midieval GA is good, but I prefer to out expand everyone and insure my eventual dominance through production.

[badman]

I've played some awesome games with the Greeks, the combination of scientific and commercial is pretty strong imho

the Americans and the Egypts are my favourite civs, followed by the Arabs.

The ones I don't like are:

Russia
Zulu
Mongols
Vikings
Romans

[joncnunn]

I always build the Colosus in my games; but the AI always beats me to the Pyraimds.

So, as America, if I manage to beat out the AI to either the Hanging Gardens or the Great Wall, my GA would start then.

Or if a neighboring country builds an Industrial wonder and I end up capturing it, my GA will be trigured when I build my next wonder.

Otherwise, my GA will be when I build the Hoover Dam.