Hello. I'm going to tell you what I think about the different civilizations of the ancient era. I would like to know your enlightened opinions. The goal is that this feedback will be useful to our developer friends, to balance all this.  :)

The weak civilisations

Assyrians: A pure warrior civ. No economic bonus. Assyrians are only good if you start close to a rival civ.

The marauder is not very powerful, and what he brings in terms of plunder is not worth his investment.

The average civilisations

Babylonians: An interesting and balanced civ. Playing a science civ is not very useful, as you absolutely need to produce the buildings and districts, which will help to go faster in research. But still, the civ is good in principle.

Their unit is useful and defensive.

Hittites: Another specialized civ. Compared to an economic bonus, I much prefer to play Egyptian or Harapeans, as the productivity bonuses outweigh the light military bonuses of this faction. This is a shame. But the idea is good. Spawning units in any nearby outpost is a nice little bonus.

Their cavalry unit is powerful and requires two strategic resources. It is not capable of attacking districts, so it will be useless for conquering a city. This is so, but it makes this civ not as strong for aggression, as one might think. They are good at taking over administrative centers.

Mycenians: For me, this is the best-designed military civ at the moment. Because their military bonus is coupled with an economic bonus, which is their ability to build a fort that exploits industry. Their passive bonus is very clearly useful throughout the game.

This faction is for me much better than the Assyrians and Hittites at the moment, again, because of the presence of a useful specialized district, which those factions do not have.

Their military unit is useful and can take cities, which is what a rush is all about.

Olmecs: I find the Olmecs flat. Banal. They are good enough to produce farms, and that's it. Nothing is exciting about them.

Their military unit is interesting if you anticipate fighting in the forest.

Phoenicians: A civ specialized for coastal maps clearly. Not much to say about them.

No opinion on their unique naval unit.

Zhous: A lousy civ if you have no mountains, great if you have a lot of them. It's a bit too binary a design, but why not. It's good to have very situational factions. If we have mountains, you'll go to the classic era very quickly.

Their heavy cavalry unit is unique and effective. I didn't understand how the stability works. Is it related to the overall stability of the civilization, or the city that produced it? I don't know.

Nubians: Good districts, good little economic bonuses to lay the foundation for a merchant, or a gold producer civ. This faction is balanced.

Their archer unit is very useful and efficient, and more able to take districts than a big Hittite or Zhou cavalry unit.

The overpowered civilisations

Egyptians: Everything is powerful with them. Their industrial bonus is universally useful, whether you play warmonger, economic, and applies to all ages. It is far too powerful. District cost reduction is the same: universally useful. Their district is perfectly useful too, in all situations.

This civ is very unbalanced. It is the best to take in almost every situation.

We need to remove the industrial bonus, and find something else. It could be a bonus to building wonders, or an industrial bonus only in desert environments, I don't know.

The Egyptian unit is also powerful and very useful. A fast archer, on a tank, that moves at will like a Mongolian unit.

Harapeans: They are as powerful as the Egyptians. A bonus in food universally, and the whole game, useful. A river bonus is also useful, if you start near a river. A district obviously useful. 

It's a bit the same problem as the Egyptians. Bonuses useful immediately, useful later, and an equally useful district. 

I agree that some civs need to be more powerful because it pushes you to rush the next eras, but the bonuses of this faction go too far.

Their faster scout unit is always useful, in any game you are sure to have it.

Agreed that Harappans and Egyptians just seem the obvious first picks.

Not mine, but I'd like to share: 

https://old.reddit.com/r/humankind/comments/p7x4zh/very_underrated_culture_the_myceneans/

Been trying to use Myceneans when I can (usually the AI grabs it before me). Agree with /u/seacow1g, they are a great culture to play with.

EDIT: I believe nerfing the Myceneans  would be bad, you have to still "work" to make it work.  Buff the other civs up to make them more fun.

I disagree with Assyrian being weak,

Their legacy trait isnt weak, bonus movement is nice to grab

Their EQ is good, you can build it in outpost, and as they give influence(especially combined ith liberty) they allow to grab a good amount of land quickly while having some fortification and unit span point once attached that can spawn raiders 

Their raiders are nice as they are relatively cheap and a good unit at the start of the era (you can build them very soon), they cant take cities as Cavalry and can be beaten easily by further units but they can qucikly move around to reinforce when needed and have the upper hand on roaming ennemies

Olmecs used to be strong but now they arnt that good, they dont produce that muc hinfluence and javeliners having direct fire make them hard to use without exposing them to a one shot

Hitties looks like they could steal the LT unit redution part of mycenean but i havent played them yet

I largely agree with the post, although I have to say, I think the ancient era is actually reasonably well balanced compared to some of the game's other eras (particularly Industrial and Contemporary) even if it could use some tweaks. Egyptians and Harappans are the clear stand-outs but otherwise, most of the cultures honestly feel fairly close together for me.

Some additional observations:

Assyrians: I think the Assyrians actually have the potential to be quite good but I need to know more about how civics unlock. The thing is, what makes the Assyrians unique is that you can buy their EQ for influence in any outpost - combine that with the Liberty ideology axis and you can theoretically make a huge amount of influence from them. The Phoenicians have a similar benefit. In order to push the Liberty axis all the way to the end, though, you need to unlock both the Leadership and Army Composition civics and get an event that allows you to move towards liberty - currently I don't know what the criteria are to do these things. If you could unlock both civics fast, get the +4 inf on EQ and spam them everywhere, they could combine well with the raiders and the movement bonus to get map dominance early and with military power backing it.

Phoenicians: Ringo from the discord showcased a very powerful Phoenicians strategy which worked similarly to Assyrians. In this case, they obviously synergise well with having a lot of coast - build loads of outposts and put Havens in all of them. Generate a huge amount of money and influence fast which gives you quick era stars on top of other benefits. I need to play around with this more to know how a) good and b) consistent it is, though. A naval EU is borderline useless in the ancient era in my opinion, but I can see a vague possibility that that could change as the meta evolves.

EDIT: On the subject of the EU, the biggest problem is that it only buffs combat strength and not movement. Why would you ever bother fighting with a naval unit at this stage of the game? However, Pentekonters are already VERY useful for early scouting. You can find islands, the new world, even players on other continents to trade with. Give the Bireme an extra movement point and it becomes a very interesting unit with real applications.

Babylonians: Non-scientist cultures require 4/7/10 techs for their science era stars respectively. Babylonians, as a scientist affinity, require 6/10/16 (iirc). This is enough to make them bottom-tier, for me, and a generally pretty awful culture that I won't pick. Their bonuses just aren't powerful enough to make up for it. I like the defensive potential of their EU, but the legacy trait is quite slow and scales poorly, and the EQ - which DOES scale well, is too slow to provide good bonuses at the time you need them and you simply don't have time to build it most of the time compared to other important early game builds. Take away the nerf to era stars (maybe alter the way Collective Minds works instead, as a way of balancing Scientists) and Babylon become mid-tier.

Olmecs: I've expressed my opinion a few times now that the Olmecs are highly underrated by many many players. The reason for this is that optimal early game strategy revolves around building a lot of outposts in territories with luxuries and strategics, getting the extractors up and selling them to the AI (without MP experience I'd need to know how prevalent trading is in the MP meta). The Olmecs then benefit heavily from this because they get +1 influence in outposts, as well as just attached territories. Asides from that, influence is an extremely important and valuable resource at this stage of the game and the ability to produce more of it is hugely beneficial anyway. Having said that, their EU sucks and they are maybe slightly boring.

Zhou: Zhou are easily as good as, if not better than, Egyptians and Harappans when the game situation allows. This is an important point. If you happen to get a couple of nice big mountain surrounds with 3+ mountains that can be built right next to a main plaza/administrative center you get the unique benefit of being able to tech with no pops assigned to science, while quickly earning tech era stars that allow you to hit Classical Era at lightning speed (turn 28 for me, on normal speed, in my last game). I think the Zhou are a good example of fun culture design that actually change the playstyle in an interesting way. Should point out that the LT is pretty garbage, though. If you're trading luxuries properly you will never be short on stability - I think stability in general is a feature that needs addressing.

Stealthkibbler wrote:

Go Mycenaeans(-20% unit industry Cost) into Aztecs(-20% unit industry Cost)  Into Germans(-20% unit industry Cost)  Into Soviets(-20% unit industry Cost)

then build barracks(-10% unit Industry cost) and Tourney fields(-15% unit industry cost) in your cities, this alone should show you true balance.

This strategy has a lot of weaknesses and only 1 advantage, you will be very behind cuz these cultures don't have eco bonuses at all.

danza4x wrote:
Assyrians: I think the Assyrians actually have the potential to be quite good but I need to know more about how civics unlock. The thing is, what makes the Assyrians unique is that you can buy their EQ for influence in any outpost - combine that with the Liberty ideology axis and you can theoretically make a huge amount of influence from them. The Phoenicians have a similar benefit. In order to push the Liberty axis all the way to the end, though, you need to unlock both the Leadership and Army Composition civics and get an event that allows you to move towards liberty - currently I don't know what the criteria are to do these things. If you could unlock both civics fast, get the +4 inf on EQ and spam them everywhere, they could combine well with the raiders and the movement bonus to get map dominance early and with military power backing it.

This is interesting strategy, but as I remember EQ costs 16 influence (on fast speed) or 32 (on normal speed) and gives only +2 without scaling, so I doubt if it's efficient enough

The strength of Egyptians or Harapeans is that they are both pretty universal and less situational compared to other cultures, cuz food and industry are most important in early game.

Fun fact: Harappans are the only agrarian culture when agriculture was the main revolution. In terms of gameplay, having 2 merchant cultures for 1 agrarian to start with, when gold is almost pointless, is a bit weird.

Harappans are insane if you have a lot of rivers. The conversion of neolithic units into an early EU army + their agrarian power to "leech" population is a nightmare for neighbors. With so many population, they can produce a lot of everything fast.

Production is always good too. So egyptians are an obvious good pick in whatever the conditions are.

I hope we will have more culture choice in the future :

1) to have more than 10 players on huge(st) maps ;

2) to reduce the penalty for last pickers (having no choice at all is really hurting).