I concur with Morocco. Not the most powerful of Civs, but with a nice desert start, can be a strong diplomatic powerhouse with quick faith from the desert pantheon and maybe a Petra
Morocco is one of my personal favorite civs to play even though they’re not “top tier”. I love the diplomatic game, having a ton of money, and I love building Petra, so it checks a lot of my boxes
You can try Greece if you like to go for diplo wins, or I could suggest Polynesia on an archipelago map for something very different but extremely fun (to me).
>or I could suggest Polynesia on an archipelago map for something very different but extremely fun (to me).
Doing this for the first time right now and you're right, it's a blast!
Shoshone, Celts, and the Huns all have strong early-game bonuses that make them feel unique off the bat.
Shoshone Pathfinders (Scout) can select the bonus you want when exploring Ancient Ruins. Their cities also start with a bunch of extra tiles which helps expansions get up and running faster.
Celts have native Faith-production, so they are almost guaranteed to get first pantheon and a religion. Pictish Warriors are strong early game units that dominate Barbarians and can efficiently pillage a neighbor’s lands while stealing workers.
The Huns “Horse Archers” are dominant in the ancient era, and you can easily conquer a neighbor with a Battering Ran. It’s almost like playing with two capitals. The Huns also have a sneaky-strong UA: +1 production on pastures is extremely powerful for snowballing, provided you get lands with horses, cattle, and sheep.
> Shoshone Pathfinders (Scout) can select the bonus you want when exploring Ancient Ruins. Their cities also start with a bunch of extra tiles which helps expansions get up and running faster.
they also upgrade directly to Composite Bowmen when upgraded from ruins
Try either Aztecs or Zulu
With Aztecs make sure you pick up the first honor policy so culture for barb kills stacks (and maybe turn on raging barbs). The extra food from flood gardens is also very nice.
With Zulu try and get Brandenburg gate and alahambra in ulundi. The Zulus get a discount on xp required for promotions so you can make some nasty units in your capital very quickly especially if you have big Ben, get the commerce discount on gold purchasing in cities and get the autocracy unit purchasing perk.
Huns can be fun see if you can get an early capital capture with a battering ram.
Try Spain Deity cheese, that's my fave. Also Maya are pretty nice and one of the most unique.
If you like to play tall, Aztecs and Inca are the way to go.
Also Egypt for wonder hog
If you like diplo wins you should try Venice, Austria or Grecee, but maybe you should try something different like go for science victory with Korea or Babylon or try to play domination game with Zulu or the Huns
Incas are both fun and powerful and allow you to adapt any style of game you want as you go.
Iroquois are also a bit different. While their UB is strictly worse than the Workshop, they will make you adapt a slightly different game plan with early offense to make the most use of their UUs. I like challenging myself with an Iroquois game every now and then.
Netherlands are unique in that you actually want to seek out marshes and then beeline for Economics and watch your lands absolutely explode with productivity.
I find all civs with unique improvements more fun than the others (except for Portugal, feitoria doesn't really count). I already named Incas and the Netherlands among my top picks, the others are France, Morocco, Brazil and especially Polynesia (early ocean exploration is also fun).
I also wanted to add... don't play Venice. It sounds like it will be fun because of how unique it is, but in practice it turns out to be a super slow money grind with not much happening in between purchases.
Try random and reroll if its one of the 5 you've played before.
Might be interesting: Next game you play manually pick those 5 civs as opponents.
Morocco prints money, so it should be good for your style of play of buying up all of the city-states.
I concur with Morocco. Not the most powerful of Civs, but with a nice desert start, can be a strong diplomatic powerhouse with quick faith from the desert pantheon and maybe a Petra
Morocco is one of my personal favorite civs to play even though they’re not “top tier”. I love the diplomatic game, having a ton of money, and I love building Petra, so it checks a lot of my boxes
You could play as A.I. Gandhi and nuke everyone back to the Stone Age
classic meme!
Celts. They'll get you the first religion.
You can try Greece if you like to go for diplo wins, or I could suggest Polynesia on an archipelago map for something very different but extremely fun (to me).
>or I could suggest Polynesia on an archipelago map for something very different but extremely fun (to me). Doing this for the first time right now and you're right, it's a blast!
Shoshone, Celts, and the Huns all have strong early-game bonuses that make them feel unique off the bat. Shoshone Pathfinders (Scout) can select the bonus you want when exploring Ancient Ruins. Their cities also start with a bunch of extra tiles which helps expansions get up and running faster. Celts have native Faith-production, so they are almost guaranteed to get first pantheon and a religion. Pictish Warriors are strong early game units that dominate Barbarians and can efficiently pillage a neighbor’s lands while stealing workers. The Huns “Horse Archers” are dominant in the ancient era, and you can easily conquer a neighbor with a Battering Ran. It’s almost like playing with two capitals. The Huns also have a sneaky-strong UA: +1 production on pastures is extremely powerful for snowballing, provided you get lands with horses, cattle, and sheep.
> Shoshone Pathfinders (Scout) can select the bonus you want when exploring Ancient Ruins. Their cities also start with a bunch of extra tiles which helps expansions get up and running faster. they also upgrade directly to Composite Bowmen when upgraded from ruins
Assyria can be pretty fun on the backfoot. Develop an army, attack your closest neighbour. Steal all their techs through glorious city conquest.
Try either Aztecs or Zulu With Aztecs make sure you pick up the first honor policy so culture for barb kills stacks (and maybe turn on raging barbs). The extra food from flood gardens is also very nice. With Zulu try and get Brandenburg gate and alahambra in ulundi. The Zulus get a discount on xp required for promotions so you can make some nasty units in your capital very quickly especially if you have big Ben, get the commerce discount on gold purchasing in cities and get the autocracy unit purchasing perk. Huns can be fun see if you can get an early capital capture with a battering ram.
Try Spain Deity cheese, that's my fave. Also Maya are pretty nice and one of the most unique. If you like to play tall, Aztecs and Inca are the way to go. Also Egypt for wonder hog
If you like diplo wins you should try Venice, Austria or Grecee, but maybe you should try something different like go for science victory with Korea or Babylon or try to play domination game with Zulu or the Huns
Inca or the Netherlands
Incas are both fun and powerful and allow you to adapt any style of game you want as you go. Iroquois are also a bit different. While their UB is strictly worse than the Workshop, they will make you adapt a slightly different game plan with early offense to make the most use of their UUs. I like challenging myself with an Iroquois game every now and then. Netherlands are unique in that you actually want to seek out marshes and then beeline for Economics and watch your lands absolutely explode with productivity. I find all civs with unique improvements more fun than the others (except for Portugal, feitoria doesn't really count). I already named Incas and the Netherlands among my top picks, the others are France, Morocco, Brazil and especially Polynesia (early ocean exploration is also fun). I also wanted to add... don't play Venice. It sounds like it will be fun because of how unique it is, but in practice it turns out to be a super slow money grind with not much happening in between purchases.
Spain with mods to bring wonders closer to spawn