My personal ranking of all civs + small civ overviews for them

Hello everyone, this is my first post on this subreddit, i hope you will find it interesting.

As you can probably guess by the title of the post, i am going to rank all 31 civs.

My ranking is devided into 4 tiers

1. Very good. Civs 1-10

2. Good. Civs 11-20

3. Average. Civs 21-27

4. Bad. Civs 28-31.

In this post i wil talk about civs 1-5. So, lets start.

Tier: very good.

Number one. Byzantines. A very good defensive and all-round civ thar has an answer to EVERYTHING. Byz have very good civ bonuses, average infantry with amazing halbs, good archery range with solid arbs, amazing cheap skirms and average cavalry archers, good handcannons, good cavalry with unfortunate lack of bloodlines, but with super cheap cameles, a little weak but still capable paladins and hussars, top tier navy with the best fire ships in the game, amazing monks, meh siege, best defences, very solid economy due to having all eco upgrades, cheaper units and imperial age. Cataphracs are BEASTS, they have no real counter and very solid stats make them worth their huge price. Byzantines have pretty good but not amazing unique techs too, increasing the range of fire ships is cool, better cataphracts are welcome. Their ONLY downside is lacking bloodlines and siege engineers. What else could you ask from an amazing civ with no real weakness?

Number two. Spanish.

Just like Byzantines, a very good well-rounded civ with good defences. They have the best team bonus in the entire game, average civ bonuses, good infantry, probably the second best handcannons in the game, somewhat underrated archers (their archers can defeat frank crossbows, crossbows of some other civs due to having all archer grades), good skirms, pretty good cav archers, great hussars and paladins, second best monks, top tier navy, very good defences, ok economy due to the best traiding, bad otherwise. Conquistadors and missionaries are very good support units for your army, for filling different niches to be precise. Unque techs are amazing. I consider supremacy kinda op, considering it turns your villagers into very capable infantry, plus you should have around 40 vills when you reaserch this, so you already have a sizeable army. Inquisition is quite good too, letting your monks take 1 less second to convert units and 7 less seconds to convert buildings.

Number three. Japanese.

An infantry civ that is not that single minded in their army compostion as you can expect. Have the best early eco civ bonus, debatably the best infantry in the game, very good archery range, meh cavalry, very good monks, good siege with amazing trebuchets, have probably the second or third best navy, on par with malay and italians but inferior to vikings and portugese, solid defences, a VERY good early economy due to fishing ships being very good and mills, lumber camps and mining camps being cheaper, though lacking a few important eco upgrades later in the game hurts. Samurai are a good alternative to already the best champions in the game. You should use them if your enemy heavily relies on his unique units. Otherwise it is up to you which unit to choose, as their differences in stats and cost are minimal. Their unique techs are decent, nothing really interesting to talk about though. Yasama is pretty good, while kataparuto is very situational.

Number four. Indians.

A pretty unuque civ in my opinion due to their unusual love for camles. Their fishing bonus is dependant on the map, but if you have the chance to use it, it is a very good eco bonus. Cheaper villagers are VERY helpful in early game and somewhat help to spend less resources if you have to repopulate your base after you have been raided in the late game. Armor bonus for camels is quite good, considering camels will likely be the back bone of your army. They have pretty good infantry, very good archers with arbalests, skirms, cav archers with parthian tactics and top tier hancanonns, their lack of cavalry is compensated for the best camels in the game with the addition of imperial camels, surprisingly effective units, they also have hussars which is nice, their siege is pretty good, as well as their monks. Their defences are left to be desired, their economy is one of the best in all stages of the game. Their elephant archers are not that great, though a little underrated, they are quite good agains archers and buildings. Their unique techs are very good. Sultans is probably the best eco tech in the game, making your gold income so much better, it is also a very diverse bonus, making not only vills, but mining camps and trade much better. Their 1 range increase for handcannons certainly makes the guys with guns top tier.

Number five. Berbers.

A pretty good cavalry civ with some versatility. Their bonuses are not immideately noticed, bit their usefulness can be truly big in long game. 10% speed increase for villis and ships is very nice, making your economy slightly better and imporving escaping fights you cannot win. 20% cheaper cavalry units bonus is easily one of the best in the game, saving you potentially hundreds of resources just by producing cavalry - the main unit type of your army. Their infantry is pretty good, lacking halberdier is unfortunate, but you have camels, so do not be too sad, Jimmy. Their arechery range is pretty good too, having good skirms, handcannons, though lacking arbalest and parthian tactics is not so great. Their cavalry is top tier, only being behind persians. Cheaper camels, hussars, cavaliers are a force to be reckoned with. Even the lack of paladin is minor because you can effectivly outproduce enemy paladins with cavaleirs. Their siege is quite good, and their navy is very good, though not top tier, their monks are very formidable, only lacking block printing, thier defences are average and economy is amazing if you go cavalry all the way, lacking two-man saw is not a big deal in late game. Having amazing unique units is probably the main strengh of berbers, making them so high on my list. Genitours are basically skirms on horses. They are the best units agains archers except huskarls in my opinion. Camel archers are the best anti cav archer units, but also can be decent against infantry and archers. Their unique techs re also good. Maghrabi makes camels regenerate, which makes your hit and run tactics with them very effiecient. Kasbah is a very team oriented bonus, but even in a 1vs1 game it can give benifits. Making castles work 25% faster is no joke.

So that is about it for this post.

Next time i will talk about my favourite civs 6-10.

And here is an idea: You can try to guess which civ is gonna be in my next post. Right answer - 1 free karma for you.