Curious on people’s thoughts on the culture tiers, I made a tier list based on about 100 hours or so but it’s all vs ai. Meanwhile Russia, Spain, Norseman and the Goths honestly seem weak as hell to me. Here’s the tier list for anyone interested, curious what I’ve gotten right and what I’ve gotten very wrong. https://tiermaker.com/list/video-games/humankind---cultures-1082329/1595074

I haven't played enough to try them all, but definitely agree Egyptians are top tier.  Everyone puts the Zhou up there too but honestly I wouldn't put them that high personally, the science building is definitely phenomenal, especially since science is more difficult to come by early game, but their unit is just meh, especially considering it needs both horses and copper, and i find the Aesthete(sp?) stars harder to get than anything else early game, so I acquire a lot less fame than i would otherwise.  Again science is nice, but i feel like given the growth priority early game, all that advanced tech is just going to be wasted because you're not going to have much time to build any of the stuff it grants you until you get your pop and industry up, the best thing i could see coming from it, would be reaching war tactics before anyone else so you can reinforce and they cant.  Maybe i'm doing something wrong with them though.

Why bother with science when late game techs only take 4 turns to research even without building a single research district?

My absolute favorite is the Achaemenid Persians.  The Harappans are very good.  All the early production-focused ones are very good - Ancient Egyptians, Classical Maya, Medieval Khmer.  I like science ones late game because you can research multiple techs per turn and production will probably be good enough to keep up with the new technologies available to build - Industrial French, Contemporary Swedes.  On large maps, the influence-focused cultures get a lot better and would probably be in the top three of each era.  The Early Modern Mughals and the Contemporary Indians are very good on large maps.  I haven't played the small maps yet so I don't have thoughts on those.

Ermac218 wrote:

I haven't played enough to try them all, but definitely agree Egyptians are top tier.  Everyone puts the Zhou up there too but honestly I wouldn't put them that high personally, the science building is definitely phenomenal, especially since science is more difficult to come by early game, but their unit is just meh, especially considering it needs both horses and copper, and i find the Aesthete(sp?) stars harder to get than anything else early game, so I acquire a lot less fame than i would otherwise.  Again science is nice, but i feel like given the growth priority early game, all that advanced tech is just going to be wasted because you're not going to have much time to build any of the stuff it grants you until you get your pop and industry up, the best thing i could see coming from it, would be reaching war tactics before anyone else so you can reinforce and they cant.  Maybe i'm doing something wrong with them though.

Yeah I think Zhou is definitely worse then Egypt and Harapans but can be a really really strong start with enough nearby mountains. Unit is kind of a weak spot though so maybe more of an A or B tier then an S tier civ

canyonaz wrote:

My absolute favorite is the Achaemenid Persians.  The Harappans are very good.  All the early production-focused ones are very good - Ancient Egyptians, Classical Maya, Medieval Khmer.  I like science ones late game because you can research multiple techs per turn and production will probably be good enough to keep up with the new technologies available to build - Industrial French, Contemporary Swedes.  On large maps, the influence-focused cultures get a lot better and would probably be in the top three of each era.  The Early Modern Mughals and the Contemporary Indians are very good on large maps.  I haven't played the small maps yet so I don't have thoughts on those.

I find the aesthetic stars second hardest to get next to expansionist stars in most game so I maybe undervalue how strong some of them are, admittedly haven’t tried Egypt or India in contemporary era though so maybe they really cause you to spiral in that final stretch.

OPOB wrote:

Meanwhile Russia, Spain, Norseman and the Goths honestly seem weak as hell to me.

Spain can actually come in handy if you pick them after the Teutons. Gold and Science for Faith becomes pretty OP when you stack it up.

For ease of reading you should make sure the same era cultures are together per tier. You are never comparing Harappa to Khmer. They simply do not compete with each other. So make it easy to separate them and compare to what they actually compete with.

https://tiermaker.com/list/video-games/humankind---cultures-1082329/1595599

I gave a brief description of my thoughts for each tier instead of just a generic lettering. Is C what you consider the target strength for balance? Or is that B? For mine you don't have to wonder. 

The Huns and Mongols are kind of their own beast that is dramatically different from the rest. So I separated them. 

You heavily underestimate Mycenae. The Cyclopean is a maker's that is free place and gives 15 stability. Free place means it can be pure exploitation with no overlap plus you can set it up in a maker's focused section so adjacencies are better managed. Their unit is very oppressive in Ancient being able to hold the line against anything else and doesn't require strategic resources. These two things make the culture S tier but their trait isn't a dead pick either. Their units are created with +1 power from xp by default and the discount will add up to a lot of saved turns over the course of the game. 

The science is nice.  But the influence is what pumps them up.  You can spam outposts in the early game and just dominate. 

Ermac218 wrote:

I haven't played enough to try them all, but definitely agree Egyptians are top tier.  Everyone puts the Zhou up there too but honestly I wouldn't put them that high personally, the science building is definitely phenomenal, especially since science is more difficult to come by early game, but their unit is just meh, especially considering it needs both horses and copper, and i find the Aesthete(sp?) stars harder to get than anything else early game, so I acquire a lot less fame than i would otherwise.  Again science is nice, but i feel like given the growth priority early game, all that advanced tech is just going to be wasted because you're not going to have much time to build any of the stuff it grants you until you get your pop and industry up, the best thing i could see coming from it, would be reaching war tactics before anyone else so you can reinforce and they cant.  Maybe i'm doing something wrong with them though.

Agreed that Carthage is under repped here.  That harbor building is a production beast.  Also, maybe this is a bug, but you can build the generic harbor  after you switch to a different culture.  This allows two "harbor" districts.  Grab Dutch later and you just buy your way to easy victory.  

MagicCuboid wrote:

In a coastal game with a new world to explore, the Norse are beasts! I played Nubians (lots of gold, some production) -> Carthage (lots of production, some gold) -> Norse and, combined with the civic that lets you purchase land, I bought/conquered like 90% of the New World before anyone else even knew it was there. Their dock helped catch me up in population growth, too.

To colonize efficiently, I just built a castle near my nearest dock, trained cheap soldiers with the extra food I was pulling in, and Langskipped them over to the New World to settle, add conquer independent cities, and disband as population.

Promethian wrote:

For ease of reading you should make sure the same era cultures are together per tier. You are never comparing Harappa to Khmer. They simply do not compete with each other. So make it easy to separate them and compare to what they actually compete with.

https://tiermaker.com/list/video-games/humankind---cultures-1082329/1595599

I gave a brief description of my thoughts for each tier instead of just a generic lettering. Is C what you consider the target strength for balance? Or is that B? For mine you don't have to wonder. 

The Huns and Mongols are kind of their own beast that is dramatically different from the rest. So I separated them. 

You heavily underestimate Mycenae. The Cyclopean is a maker's that is free place and gives 15 stability. Free place means it can be pure exploitation with no overlap plus you can set it up in a maker's focused section so adjacencies are better managed. Their unit is very oppressive in Ancient being able to hold the line against anything else and doesn't require strategic resources. These two things make the culture S tier but their trait isn't a dead pick either. Their units are created with +1 power from xp by default and the discount will add up to a lot of saved turns over the course of the game. 

I agree that optimally you probably aren’t ever comparing the civs against ones from other eras, but I do find it fun to do so anyway. Trying to judge how good they are relatively to one another based on era was kinda interesting and led to me placing the earlier eras a bit higher then otherwise because of where they are in the game. Regardless here’s a more clear version of the tier list as you suggested, definitely was overlooking Mycenae, didn’t realize their build was a Fort, Makers District and Stability generator all in one (they are the only Ancient era civ I haven’t tried lol). Can’t help but feel like Edo Japan is just worse Ming in most scenarios, maybe sometimes you want the samurai more or you have enough mountains to make their building better, but comparatively it feels like Ming is just gonna get you further more often.

Updated a slightly more clear tier list https://tiermaker.com/list/video-games/humankind---cultures-1082329/1596579

SaltyD34th wrote:

Agreed that Carthage is under repped here.  That harbor building is a production beast.  Also, maybe this is a bug, but you can build the generic harbor  after you switch to a different culture.  This allows two "harbor" districts.  Grab Dutch later and you just buy your way to easy victory.  

MagicCuboid wrote:

In a coastal game with a new world to explore, the Norse are beasts! I played Nubians (lots of gold, some production) -> Carthage (lots of production, some gold) -> Norse and, combined with the civic that lets you purchase land, I bought/conquered like 90% of the New World before anyone else even knew it was there. Their dock helped catch me up in population growth, too.

To colonize efficiently, I just built a castle near my nearest dock, trained cheap soldiers with the extra food I was pulling in, and Langskipped them over to the New World to settle, add conquer independent cities, and disband as population.

The ability to buy harbor unique district with influence pumps up every civ that can do it for me so much. Saves you on production and in some cases can really start you spiraling ahead

Gaspi2 wrote:
I personaly disagree with some:

Aksumites EQ is prolly the strongest money maker district in game (especially on huge maps where there a lot of territories). Territory that counts towards Aksumites doesn't need to be yours, it just needs to follow your religion. My last game I ended as chinese (with teutons) and 1 Aksumites EQ provided with 60 money per turn since teuton's EQ were painting map with my religion. to get the same amount on V.O.C warehouse you need to adj. it to 3 harbor like districts. Not to mention their unit is incredibly cheap. I would move these to S tier definetly.

For Teutons it's basicaly 1 research and money PER pop since their EQ makes faith on roller-coaster. If you can secure Anghor Wat as Teuton city that has it need no farmers or farming quarters for the rest of the game. If you managed to merge all cities under the city A.W. is in it's great. Had 25 territory city in that game and A.W. was making 10 000 food on it's own and city had 0 farming quarters and 0 farmer jobs. I would move these up a rank since they are also very situational.

Next Mughal also should be moved rank up to S. 1st their building provides 3 industry for every worker. There is this civic in game called Child Labour, which doubles your worker slots per maker's quarters. This can make 1 mughal EQ to make even like 200 industry with not that much effort in late game, if city has 3-4 of them, then you can spit out units one after another.

second is their 2% produciton on capital, but if handled right oh gosh. Like with aksumites, territory under your own influence doesn't need to be yours, it has to be only under your unfluence. that means territories in other player's empires count as well. If you go influence heavy (like taking Italians - which provides 1 unfluence per trade and researcher - again 4 teatres = 4 influence per trader. 10 theatres = 10 influence per trader) and paint the map, production skyrockets.

Ghanians should be IMO switched with English. I don't have that much experience with English but Ghanian are trade heavy. Their EQ doesn't say on city/on quarter that is part of the trade route. it says 1 gold per number trade routes generaly. you get 7 of these, you get 7 gold per trade route. trade route is route that either other empire makes with you OR you buy something (yours count, too). + if you buy luxury resource their ability auto grant you 5 gold on top of that. Nubian's ability works only for extractors you own. This one is universal. might seem weak on paper, but if you buy 50 resources from others it soars up high.

I think I might under value faith in general in this game. While obviously some of the tenets and what not are good, as well as A.W, anything that’s faith based I usually do discount a little just because I’d rather get some other bonus. I have had some success with the Teutons, so I could see them going up a tier, I’m always a little hesitant to raise culture who I’m not convinced can get their preferred stars quickly though and expansionist stars seem like the hardest or least common stars I get. Aksumite are probably a big overlook though I didn’t really think about how much that could snowball after building a few if you’re winning the culture game, and Ghanaian might be better then I think but I quite like the English where they are at. The Longbowmen are such an upgrade from crossbowman, and having a stability building which gives food and can spawn units is real helpful both for offense and defense.

The English are well placed on a high but not the highest tier. 

Their trait is just simply good because of the way food works. On your average city you can basically support attached territories-1 more pops due to the trait. Note I only say good, not great, not strong. Just good. 

The Stronghold is good for the same reasons the Cyclopean Fortress is good. Its a Farmer's that you can free place. I am a bit baffled by it being weaker than the Cyclopean overall. In general as the ages advance the cultures get stronger. Hence why the contemporaries have some of the best bonuses. This is why the English do not get in the top tier and I would be willing to listen to them being brought down from the 2nd best tier.

However their unit is so absurdly good its hard to bring them down. A lot of people don't realize just how restrictive line of sight is. Our first ranged unit is the archer which can indirect fire. The thing is there are very few units that can indirect fire. Crossbow is actually a downgrade for Archer unless you are ready to play movement games to let them get LoS without exposing them to melee. Longbow is one of the few indirect fire sources at medieval level units.