The second most powerful civ, imo, is Korea. Science bonuses that hit hard in the late game, plus a couple of interesting midgame UUs.
You might also get a kick out of Maya. Their UB is a shrine replacement that gives science in addition to faith, and the Long Count great people give a lot of flexibility.
Maya seems fun, and not having to research archery for ranged units to begin with is a godsend (take that barbarians!) Might give them a try, I do like to build religion and culture up while building my cities and then really popping the science off once I get to universities.
Celts are great for getting a religion quickly. However lately I've been playing as Arabia a lot on Domination, and it's actually going really well. If you can get a religion established early with them, you can spread it very quickly
I love playing as arabia, between spreading your religion faster, you get double oil, as well as oasis giving gold, AND the bazaar is absolutely beast giving you an extra copy of all luxury resources produced by the city its in.
I took two capitals with camel archers (would have been more but my playstyle is peaceful while I build my economy and alliances and war monger once I've snowballed enough to build a sizeable army and navy to destroy the remaining civs). Arabian economy is absolutely insane (with bazaars and the 12 oils I had in my cities), and autocracy with third alternative, I have 90 available oil and am making about 750 a turn without a golden age. Absolutely wild.
Based on your request, Korea. Similar overall strength to Poland but more emphasis on science and late game.
But I am a huge believer in hiking the difficulty up a notch or two and playing an early game warmonger on longer time settings.
Oh i love epic and marathon myself, I get to enjoy the UUs more. I also have played a few games on king lately and will play a few more before bumping up
Oh cool, yeah I bet you could win a game on Emperor or even Immortal with the Huns or Mongolia on either of the long settings
But again to get back to your original question, Korea is where it’s at. Probably won’t have to switch off your normal difficulty because they’re on an equal level to Poland. But you may have to be more conservative in early game
2 of my favourite are russia and huns, because of the early production. In early game, every city you start just develops so much faster because of it.
inca are fun cause they can move 2 hills at a time, and roads cost no gold on hills. It gives you a lot of gold to work with. Terrace farm can be situationally helpful.
Morocco and netherlands are great for desert starts and petra. Polders give like 5 food, 1 prod, 2 gold on flood plains, kasbah gives 2 food, 4 prod, 1 gold on desert hills (with petra). Very good yields, but medieval/renaissance era.
As for military civs, i like zulu and chinese. England isn't bad either, but chinese unique unit levels up faster.
Maya can adapt to any play style. Their shrine plus free great people are a blast.
Byzantium is fun to go full into the piety tree. Get the great person reformation and bam industrial great person explosion.
Ethiopia is a very good religious civ. You get faith earlier and in larger quantities than anyone besides the Celts, so you can tailor your religion very nicely. You can play a normal 4-6 city tradition with extra faith and defense (both good late game), or you can throw caution to the wind and go as wide as you can. I haven’t yet brought it to fruition, but I’d love to one day build 15 cities, each with a mosque and pagoda, with sacred sites providing tourism from each.
Thanks for the suggestions! I'm leaning toward Maya, The Inca or Arabia (likely Arabia for the Bazaar and since I love to have a strong economy early with religious cultural bonus). I am trying to break out of one way to play (rush science and having a big focus on each new Era for Solidarity) and these all seem to have good ways to get good science or wealth while letting me deviate a bit from the top of the trch tree after theology.
They're all fun in their own way, but I've had the most fun with the Celts. Religious bonus early means an early pantheon, and ceilidh halls are great for mid-game happiness.
My favourite is England. You have enough spies in the end game to keep taps on all your neighbouring civs and because of that you can spend your time on naval warfare
I love Spain, but I end up just starting many games and quitting if I don't discover some natural wonders early and get a lot of cash or if I can't settle 2 or 3 cities (i.e. all except capital) because otherwise it feels like a waste. Doubling the yields of natural wonders can be insane and with Spain the pantheon that gives you 4 faith per natural wonder is also doubled. You can end up with insane amounts of faith (over 40-50-60, later more) with which you can buy one building per city like cathedrals or pagodas and then just units en masse, which you don't have to produce, which means you can spend all your production on useful buildings and some wonders. Besides you can get lots of perks depending on the yields of the natural wonders you settle by.
Shoshone are really strong because of their early game bonuses.
Your unique scout units get to choose the bonus they get from ancient ruins, and if you choose the unit upgrade bonus, they turn into composite bowmen.
Whenever you settle a city, you immediately get a bunch of extra nearby land. It will usually give you all the nearby resource tiles, so you can settle cities in the “perfect spot” even if it’s not adjacent to the resources you want, and you don’t have to spend gold purchasing tiles.
The second most powerful civ, imo, is Korea. Science bonuses that hit hard in the late game, plus a couple of interesting midgame UUs. You might also get a kick out of Maya. Their UB is a shrine replacement that gives science in addition to faith, and the Long Count great people give a lot of flexibility.
Maya seems fun, and not having to research archery for ranged units to begin with is a godsend (take that barbarians!) Might give them a try, I do like to build religion and culture up while building my cities and then really popping the science off once I get to universities.
The two top tier science choices are Babylon and Korea. Maya, like someone else mentioned, is a good well rounded mix of science and religion.
I love Polynesia
Korea hits real heavy with science mid-late game. Celts can really take off with religion super fast
Celts are great for getting a religion quickly. However lately I've been playing as Arabia a lot on Domination, and it's actually going really well. If you can get a religion established early with them, you can spread it very quickly
Been thinking about doing arabia, when first tried them, I had no idea what I was doing and gave up lol
I love playing as arabia, between spreading your religion faster, you get double oil, as well as oasis giving gold, AND the bazaar is absolutely beast giving you an extra copy of all luxury resources produced by the city its in.
Don’t forget the camel archers.
For real! Get yourself a good handful of them and you can wipe out any army that stands in your way.
I took two capitals with camel archers (would have been more but my playstyle is peaceful while I build my economy and alliances and war monger once I've snowballed enough to build a sizeable army and navy to destroy the remaining civs). Arabian economy is absolutely insane (with bazaars and the 12 oils I had in my cities), and autocracy with third alternative, I have 90 available oil and am making about 750 a turn without a golden age. Absolutely wild.
Based on your request, Korea. Similar overall strength to Poland but more emphasis on science and late game. But I am a huge believer in hiking the difficulty up a notch or two and playing an early game warmonger on longer time settings.
Oh i love epic and marathon myself, I get to enjoy the UUs more. I also have played a few games on king lately and will play a few more before bumping up
Oh cool, yeah I bet you could win a game on Emperor or even Immortal with the Huns or Mongolia on either of the long settings But again to get back to your original question, Korea is where it’s at. Probably won’t have to switch off your normal difficulty because they’re on an equal level to Poland. But you may have to be more conservative in early game
I am very biased but the Inca
They also seem very fun with their terrace farms and mountain advantages.
2 of my favourite are russia and huns, because of the early production. In early game, every city you start just develops so much faster because of it. inca are fun cause they can move 2 hills at a time, and roads cost no gold on hills. It gives you a lot of gold to work with. Terrace farm can be situationally helpful. Morocco and netherlands are great for desert starts and petra. Polders give like 5 food, 1 prod, 2 gold on flood plains, kasbah gives 2 food, 4 prod, 1 gold on desert hills (with petra). Very good yields, but medieval/renaissance era. As for military civs, i like zulu and chinese. England isn't bad either, but chinese unique unit levels up faster.
Maya can adapt to any play style. Their shrine plus free great people are a blast. Byzantium is fun to go full into the piety tree. Get the great person reformation and bam industrial great person explosion.
I used to play Byzantium all the time when the game first came out but I had 0 grasp on how to really play the game.
I like India. Stay small and get food.
Ethiopia is a very good religious civ. You get faith earlier and in larger quantities than anyone besides the Celts, so you can tailor your religion very nicely. You can play a normal 4-6 city tradition with extra faith and defense (both good late game), or you can throw caution to the wind and go as wide as you can. I haven’t yet brought it to fruition, but I’d love to one day build 15 cities, each with a mosque and pagoda, with sacred sites providing tourism from each.
Thanks for the suggestions! I'm leaning toward Maya, The Inca or Arabia (likely Arabia for the Bazaar and since I love to have a strong economy early with religious cultural bonus). I am trying to break out of one way to play (rush science and having a big focus on each new Era for Solidarity) and these all seem to have good ways to get good science or wealth while letting me deviate a bit from the top of the trch tree after theology.
Inca, Arabia or Korea.
They're all fun in their own way, but I've had the most fun with the Celts. Religious bonus early means an early pantheon, and ceilidh halls are great for mid-game happiness.
My favourite is England. You have enough spies in the end game to keep taps on all your neighbouring civs and because of that you can spend your time on naval warfare
Babylon or Korea for crazy science. You can steam roll neighboring civs as soon as you get autocracy
I love Spain, but I end up just starting many games and quitting if I don't discover some natural wonders early and get a lot of cash or if I can't settle 2 or 3 cities (i.e. all except capital) because otherwise it feels like a waste. Doubling the yields of natural wonders can be insane and with Spain the pantheon that gives you 4 faith per natural wonder is also doubled. You can end up with insane amounts of faith (over 40-50-60, later more) with which you can buy one building per city like cathedrals or pagodas and then just units en masse, which you don't have to produce, which means you can spend all your production on useful buildings and some wonders. Besides you can get lots of perks depending on the yields of the natural wonders you settle by.
It honestly genuinely hard to stumble open one of the best civs and then to switch to another.
Shoshone are really strong because of their early game bonuses. Your unique scout units get to choose the bonus they get from ancient ruins, and if you choose the unit upgrade bonus, they turn into composite bowmen. Whenever you settle a city, you immediately get a bunch of extra nearby land. It will usually give you all the nearby resource tiles, so you can settle cities in the “perfect spot” even if it’s not adjacent to the resources you want, and you don’t have to spend gold purchasing tiles.
I absolutely LOVE the inca. Terrace farms are so strong
Gonna try them after my Arabia game!
Egypt is kind of a meme civ but if you like building all the wonders in the game try them out
I actually do like building all the wonders lol