This is my personal 10 that I believe need to be a little more compelling to be chosen as these can be considered cultures that don't add a lot of special gameplay and there are other cultures that do things better.

I think that soviets being so overpowered america should have something to balance them out just like it happened in history.

Phoenicias, this is probably the least compelling culture trait and it's such a slow start and dependant on water too much.

Hittites, I think choosing mycaneans is always better as they also come with 1 strenght. The unique unite is almost imposible to make. Districts is meh, 2 food and 2 production. Also not a garrison.

Assyrians. Their district needs to be a garrison.

Olmecs, I think they need a little something more as the gameplay feels stale. 

Goths.. they are really bad. More like a meme choice. They do have an awesome unique unite but so hard to get.

Mongols. I think the are too much like the hunt buy not worth the upgrade and the mongols were much scarier in history and larger.

The other 3 are just very extremely situational and other cultures do it better imo.

What do you think?

The Phoenicians and the Assyrians are my two preferred starting cultures so for me they are compelling choices. I'll quickly explain why I pick them.

For me why I think the Phoenicians are so strong is the Brieme, they are literally cogs which you only get two eras later. With the Brieme you can reach all the other civs right away which allows you to start trading. Thats a huge advantage.

If you setup next to another civ, Assyrians are a beast. You get the Assyrian raiders so early and they are really cheap so when I make a stack of them (I rush them with the civic that reduces unit industry cost) they are fighting against scouts or a lone warrior. Even if you don't take their capital, their ransack bonus and their affinity allows them to convert/destroy all the neighbour civ's outposts/ac, so that you can gobble them up later. For me the dunnu has a specific purpose of being forward built so to shave off one or two turns from the raider rush, I only build one usually if needed. 

Diegoyya wrote:

This is my personal 10 that I believe need to be a little more compelling to be chosen as these can be considered cultures that don't add a lot of special gameplay and there are other cultures that do things better.

I think that soviets being so overpowered america should have something to balance them out just like it happened in history.

Phoenicias, this is probably the least compelling culture trait and it's such a slow start and dependant on water too much.

Hittites, I think choosing mycaneans is always better as they also come with 1 strenght. The unique unite is almost imposible to make. Districts is meh, 2 food and 2 production. Also not a garrison.

Assyrians. Their district needs to be a garrison.

Olmecs, I think they need a little something more as the gameplay feels stale. 

Goths.. they are really bad. More like a meme choice. They do have an awesome unique unite but so hard to get.

Mongols. I think the are too much like the hunt buy not worth the upgrade and the mongols were much scarier in history and larger.

The other 3 are just very extremely situational and other cultures do it better imo.

What do you think?

Personally I like the ideas of having X cultures that are more appealing depending on other factors, like the case of the Phoenicians in which its an interesting choice if you have a lot of coastal waters or Harappans with the rivers.

I don't really think Poles need a buff, though I do think that their affinity is a bit of a mismatch (Agrarian would, imo, fit much more well to represent the era), but I would like for Barbican to count as Garrison for infrastructure purposes, because currently if I ever play them I build Barbicans only due to inner completionist. The LT is very ehhh, if at this point you need better fortified districts or struggle with stability, then you'd be much better with some of the FIMSI-boosting cultures of the era, because you need to catch up quick rather than try to patch up the sinking ship.

The Mongols are a tricky ones, they synergize real good with Huns (but going from Huns to Mongols is a bit of a shot in a foot, because that's two eras of stunted growth and you need to rely on AI to place their cities well), but they don't have their (Huns') advantage of not having to face a dedicated anticav. IMO, we'd need generic classical era spearmen and then balance both Nomads according to that, because they started out unstoppable and now are well into meh territory. But yeah, Mongols are poor man's Huns.

I do like Goths, but they're a bit situational. The Faith EQ means you can start popping grievances early, they're a bit like Aztecs, you need to prepare to play aggressively and try to off your opponents rather than surpass them and Religion is a nice tool to do so (as horrible as it sounds) and coming early there's less chances your potential targets were already converted.

Americans are plain weak and I don't even know where to start with fixing them. The only reason to choose Americans is that you've already built up a mighty empire and now you want to RP against your main challenger to the throne, who happens to be Soviets. In which case you'd do better offing them era earlier, because not killing Soviets before they build their factories up is just asking for a headache.

Daarkarr0w wrote:

Diegoyya wrote:

This is my personal 10 that I believe need to be a little more compelling to be chosen as these can be considered cultures that don't add a lot of special gameplay and there are other cultures that do things better.

I think that soviets being so overpowered america should have something to balance them out just like it happened in history.

Phoenicias, this is probably the least compelling culture trait and it's such a slow start and dependant on water too much.

Hittites, I think choosing mycaneans is always better as they also come with 1 strenght. The unique unite is almost imposible to make. Districts is meh, 2 food and 2 production. Also not a garrison.

Assyrians. Their district needs to be a garrison.

Olmecs, I think they need a little something more as the gameplay feels stale. 

Goths.. they are really bad. More like a meme choice. They do have an awesome unique unite but so hard to get.

Mongols. I think the are too much like the hunt buy not worth the upgrade and the mongols were much scarier in history and larger.

The other 3 are just very extremely situational and other cultures do it better imo.

What do you think?

Personally I like the ideas of having X cultures that are more appealing depending on other factors, like the case of the Phoenicians in which its an interesting choice if you have a lot of coastal waters or Harappans with the rivers.

I definitely agree about certain factors benefit some cultures over others. But for example, if we want to make a lot of gold, usually Nubians is better even on coast maps. 

Sorry but your list is mostly wrong. The only reasonable positions are America (but then most modern nations are meme-tier), Hittites (+1 combat strength is not worth the amount of tempo they're losing) and Ethiopians (already 2 industrial militarists in the game and Zulu & Germans are simply better).

Phoenician Biremes are very strong on a continental map - you're guaranteed to be the first to establish world-trading and you get the dibs on the new world. They're obviously awful on pangea and without new world, though, and they, as all merchants, scale better with bigger map size / more nations in the game. Past the discovery stage, Biremes are also very good at harvesting sea curiosities, especially once you build the LIghthouse. Lots of value there.

Assyrians are a foundation for pillaging warfare (them > goths > norsemen) which, tbh, is much more potent than your average early warfare. The latter suffers from the fact that your city limit is miniscule (outside of Persia) and you can't really conquer much. Proper pillaging, on the other hand, is not only self-sustaining, but has a much faster self-multipication than huns/mongols are supposed to have. Assyrians into Goths are so strong that it's obvious that you haven't really tried them before saying they're weak.

Olmecs are very strong. Aesthete is one of the strongest affinities, multiculturalism is OP. Just play with a mostly assimilated empire and you don't really need strong legacy or emblematics. Javelin throwers are kinda insane, though, and they last well into classic era.

Mongols are all about tempo & influence. They're only playable with Harappan start, though - in the early eras bodymass is the only way to produce lots of inlfluence. Otherwise, it's all about hitting enemies with Huns while they're still ancient and then finishing them with Mongols while they're mostly in classic. Having a stunted development doesn't even matter much as your game must be finished by the end of medieval.

Maasai are all right - lots of food production, science-indepent UU that can be rushed into and basically an extra, food-only hamlet. They're so much better than Hadeunossee that it's not even funny.

Poles are all right - their UU is insane and they're the military finisher for cavalry-based nations. Something like harappans > huns > teutons > poles for the utter mid-game cavalry stomping.

The really bad nations are, for example, babylonians. Scientific affinity is strong, sure, but it's strong when you have lots of gold & industry production to convert into science, and with babies you're having none of that. Their legacy is negligible, their emblematic is ultra-weaksauce, their UU is overspecialized and too expensive. If I'm going science I'm starting with Egypt any day, any night (given that those +1 industry everywhere is pretty much +1 science everywhere whenever I need them to be).

Nubia is awful. +5 gold per resource is actually a very small bonus, that's smth like a hundred of coins in the ancient-classical period - given how quickly gold does inflate that's totally nothing. Their emblematic is weaker than the egyptian pyramids and their archers are nice but, like all archers, they're turbo-squishy and not much can be done about that. Also, if we compare these two ancient rivals, for Egypt it's much better to produce their markabatas for they have the industry to do so. For nubia, ta-seti are two times cheaper but, because of the lack of industrial bonus, they're produced quite the same.

Zhou are just inferior Olmecs - aesthete is strong but the rest of their advantages is not very much needed for an aesthete culture. Say, their science bonus is pointless as Aesthetes are slow burners, they're not in the rush to change eras and so they'll hit the research cap anyways. And, once comes medieval, those extra research points won't scale and won't be much noticeable. Stability is very easy for aesthete to produce. And their UU is so difficult to produce that it doesn't really exist.

Mycenaenans are not so good, either. They're better than Hittites early on as Cyclopean Fortress gives them some economy, at the very least, but they're even more worthless in the long run - none of their bonuses actually matter.