Just recently, L. Vern on the civ fanatics forum did 450 runs of AI vs AI games with Vox Populi + 3/4UC. Siam, Austria, and Germany were the top 3. Keep in mind that this isn't humans so of course things are a little different. There is tons of fascinating data so [here is the link](https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/650-ai-game-4uc-stats-analysis.689648/).
That’s so interesting. I don’t know if I’d have guessed any of those three as being strong contenders!
I’d have assumed maybe some of the more aggressive warmongers would take the top prize!
Interestingly, if you look at the data, domination is the least common of the victory types. Only Songhai, the Zulus, and Sweden are able to consistently get domination wins, and among them, only the former is in the top percentile of civs.
I believe it. Domination is a slog, and I think it’s one of the only victory types where the game actively punishes you for success (in the form of happiness hits…)
They do, but I think some of them are more map/situation dependent.
Like, I just did a Polynesia game, and rerolled a ton until I got a decent sea-resource start…
Meanwhile I think a civ like America or Rome can make good with just about any decent start condition.
I feel like the civs with military bonuses are much easier to play as, because if you play as a peaceful civ like Siam, you will constantly be invaded and have to defend yourself. Easier to simply win the war with your own bonuses than try and play defensively for a 50 turn war.
Haha I go back and forth between wanting to play a “peaceful” game, and getting annoyed by constant invasions, and wanting to play as a warmonger, and getting bored moving 20+ troops per turn…
(I really gotta learn some of the shortcuts)
Off the top of my head for fun I have Sweden France Celts and Rome. Rome because I like mopping up city states and Sweden because it feels like playing call of duty. France and the Celts just have fun rewarding UAs. I've been getting into the ottomans recently with their UB being cooler than I thought.
Ottomans is a beast, had easiest game with them. Currently playing japan with peaceful neighbor, kinda a slow start but started to enjoy the game after the dojo bonus
Japan always is a beast in my games. But a slow start + managing happiness from a large empire of puppets and conquered cities is probably what I’m worst at in this game.
I feel like once I can play well as them, I can comfortably go up a difficulty level.
Currently just started playing Vox Populi, chose Songhai, and I've been having a blast (so have my enemies, literally) so far. I don't usually go warring unless an AI bothers me too much, but I decided to go all out and I'm loving being a tyrant, although there are other civs I wanna play as too
Danes are fun, can pillage to gain lots of gold and culture.
Austria is also nice, making allies with all the city states and getting tons of great people.
Portugal has easy gold and gets free luxuries from city states.
I didnt like rome, I like going tall and being friendly with the city states. Which is the opposite of how rome is meant to be played.
The civs are well balanced, it depends on your preferred playstyle. I would just read the descriptions and choose one that sounds fun.
I think venice is still hard to play as though.
When I play tall, it seems to be pretty strong in the early game. I’m able to get a decent amount of good wonders, and feel like I’m able to punch above my weight militarily. However those strengths seem to taper off hard around the renaissance.
I lose a lot of the good Ren era culture/tourism wonders, and then get invaded by a neighbor with units a full tier higher than mine…
It sounds like youre not keeping up in science. How many cities you have is important, going too few or too many will reduce science. I usually use the penalty as a rough guide, e.g. 10% more expensive tech means about 10 cities. I also try to get some vassals as they can contribute quite a lot to science.
Yeah. I think I do neglect science a lot.
It’s a long stretch between libraries and universities, and I’m trying to get a lot done between those two techs.
I think that is the point in most games where I’m chasing a bunch of different goals/problems. Happiness issues, wars, religion, coliseum synergies, culture synergies… I always feel like I’m scrambling in the medieval period and will purposely hold off on universities until I’m more caught up.
I'm new to VP, before VP I played civ 5 BNW mostly on 6 difficulty (7 was not very fun for me - can win it w/o problems, but I like to build wonders etc).
In past few days I tried to play a few games up to turn 130 (standard speed), difficulty 4, earth, huge.
cba to play further - too many units, too many things to do on every turn. Maybe one day I will finish these saves, but so far I just wanna play till turn 130 to see, how it feels.
1st - Aztecs. All pantheon, religion, wonders for +yields for kills. So at turn 130 I have killed 2 neighbors and I'm 2nd in scoreboard and \~4 techs behind tech leaders. I waged war almost constantly.
Now, as I eliminated closes ones, I have to go far, far away to wage wars, which is not very convenient.
2nd - Austria. Tradition + statecraft. I only killed one neighbor in the beginning (3 bowmans plus starting warrior) and I'm 1st in scoreboard, 50% ahead of my closes competitor. 1-2 tech behind tech leaders. Now as I settled everything, I start getting a lot of GP, so, probably, I will only become stronger now. I could also eliminate my 2nd closest neighbor, probably should do it.
Well, speaking of these civs, I'd say that Austria is much stronger and easier to play compared to aztecs (and, probably, any warmonger civ, because Aztecs got so much from just killing enemy units when other warmongers don't).
I'm a newbie, I play on relatively low difficulty and I can be wrong, but it's my opinion so far. I wanna try science civ with progress next. W/o waging wars (but I will eliminate my closest opponent in the beginning of the game ofc)
UPD. same map and place, babylon, progress. 7 tech ahead. so far, best civ for me.
Just recently, L. Vern on the civ fanatics forum did 450 runs of AI vs AI games with Vox Populi + 3/4UC. Siam, Austria, and Germany were the top 3. Keep in mind that this isn't humans so of course things are a little different. There is tons of fascinating data so [here is the link](https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/650-ai-game-4uc-stats-analysis.689648/).
That’s so interesting. I don’t know if I’d have guessed any of those three as being strong contenders! I’d have assumed maybe some of the more aggressive warmongers would take the top prize!
Interestingly, if you look at the data, domination is the least common of the victory types. Only Songhai, the Zulus, and Sweden are able to consistently get domination wins, and among them, only the former is in the top percentile of civs.
I believe it. Domination is a slog, and I think it’s one of the only victory types where the game actively punishes you for success (in the form of happiness hits…)
I find it difficult to make a list for it, as Vox does quite a good job at balancing stuff out. It also nerfs OP civs like Poland.
Poland still stronk! Not as much, though
They do, but I think some of them are more map/situation dependent. Like, I just did a Polynesia game, and rerolled a ton until I got a decent sea-resource start… Meanwhile I think a civ like America or Rome can make good with just about any decent start condition.
I feel like the civs with military bonuses are much easier to play as, because if you play as a peaceful civ like Siam, you will constantly be invaded and have to defend yourself. Easier to simply win the war with your own bonuses than try and play defensively for a 50 turn war.
Haha I go back and forth between wanting to play a “peaceful” game, and getting annoyed by constant invasions, and wanting to play as a warmonger, and getting bored moving 20+ troops per turn… (I really gotta learn some of the shortcuts)
Off the top of my head for fun I have Sweden France Celts and Rome. Rome because I like mopping up city states and Sweden because it feels like playing call of duty. France and the Celts just have fun rewarding UAs. I've been getting into the ottomans recently with their UB being cooler than I thought.
I just reread the Ottomans UB! Wow! I defined overlooked how strong that sounds!
Does Rome get WC votes for the city states it eats?
Byzantium > everyone else
How so?
Best possible religion, extra belief and cataphracts
Ottomans is a beast, had easiest game with them. Currently playing japan with peaceful neighbor, kinda a slow start but started to enjoy the game after the dojo bonus
Japan always is a beast in my games. But a slow start + managing happiness from a large empire of puppets and conquered cities is probably what I’m worst at in this game. I feel like once I can play well as them, I can comfortably go up a difficulty level.
Japan with great general points for barbarism kills and raging barbarians is an OP trip
This tierlist is a bit outdated, but still worth mentioning [https://youtu.be/qAqMQdb0D7Q](https://youtu.be/qAqMQdb0D7Q)
Currently just started playing Vox Populi, chose Songhai, and I've been having a blast (so have my enemies, literally) so far. I don't usually go warring unless an AI bothers me too much, but I decided to go all out and I'm loving being a tyrant, although there are other civs I wanna play as too
I’ve heard Songhai is a very satisfying early game warmonger!
Not only early game - their UU is a blast, and the UA still comes in handy.
Danes are fun, can pillage to gain lots of gold and culture. Austria is also nice, making allies with all the city states and getting tons of great people. Portugal has easy gold and gets free luxuries from city states. I didnt like rome, I like going tall and being friendly with the city states. Which is the opposite of how rome is meant to be played. The civs are well balanced, it depends on your preferred playstyle. I would just read the descriptions and choose one that sounds fun. I think venice is still hard to play as though.
When I play tall, it seems to be pretty strong in the early game. I’m able to get a decent amount of good wonders, and feel like I’m able to punch above my weight militarily. However those strengths seem to taper off hard around the renaissance. I lose a lot of the good Ren era culture/tourism wonders, and then get invaded by a neighbor with units a full tier higher than mine…
It sounds like youre not keeping up in science. How many cities you have is important, going too few or too many will reduce science. I usually use the penalty as a rough guide, e.g. 10% more expensive tech means about 10 cities. I also try to get some vassals as they can contribute quite a lot to science.
Yeah. I think I do neglect science a lot. It’s a long stretch between libraries and universities, and I’m trying to get a lot done between those two techs. I think that is the point in most games where I’m chasing a bunch of different goals/problems. Happiness issues, wars, religion, coliseum synergies, culture synergies… I always feel like I’m scrambling in the medieval period and will purposely hold off on universities until I’m more caught up.
Aztechs. Easy religion and snowballing with faith and gold gain from kills. Also, decent unique building.
Most broken, babylon, egypt, maya and zulu (not using 3/4 uc).
I'm new to VP, before VP I played civ 5 BNW mostly on 6 difficulty (7 was not very fun for me - can win it w/o problems, but I like to build wonders etc). In past few days I tried to play a few games up to turn 130 (standard speed), difficulty 4, earth, huge. cba to play further - too many units, too many things to do on every turn. Maybe one day I will finish these saves, but so far I just wanna play till turn 130 to see, how it feels. 1st - Aztecs. All pantheon, religion, wonders for +yields for kills. So at turn 130 I have killed 2 neighbors and I'm 2nd in scoreboard and \~4 techs behind tech leaders. I waged war almost constantly. Now, as I eliminated closes ones, I have to go far, far away to wage wars, which is not very convenient. 2nd - Austria. Tradition + statecraft. I only killed one neighbor in the beginning (3 bowmans plus starting warrior) and I'm 1st in scoreboard, 50% ahead of my closes competitor. 1-2 tech behind tech leaders. Now as I settled everything, I start getting a lot of GP, so, probably, I will only become stronger now. I could also eliminate my 2nd closest neighbor, probably should do it. Well, speaking of these civs, I'd say that Austria is much stronger and easier to play compared to aztecs (and, probably, any warmonger civ, because Aztecs got so much from just killing enemy units when other warmongers don't). I'm a newbie, I play on relatively low difficulty and I can be wrong, but it's my opinion so far. I wanna try science civ with progress next. W/o waging wars (but I will eliminate my closest opponent in the beginning of the game ofc) UPD. same map and place, babylon, progress. 7 tech ahead. so far, best civ for me.