I saw that there was a lot of debate on a thread about how to nerf the Harappans over whether the Harappans were stronger than your average culture, so I thought it would be nice to make a poll to have a feel over what the community thinks are the most overpowered cultures in ancient. Presonally I think the Mycenaenas might be too strong and Phoenicians quite weak. The Olmecs and the Assyrians might use some help too. Please share your in-depth thoughts if you feel like it!

CoconutTank wrote:

I pick Assyrians about 70% of the time, and Zhou about 20% of the time, depending on if I want to go for a strong offensive or to try being more peaceful. It also helps that the AI basically never picks those 2 cultures, so I don't have to worry about that as much.

I just really like how much more stuff I can do with +1 move on land units, and being able to fast build Dunnus with Influence via outposts is also quite nice. And while it's not big numbers, Dunnus being a source of Influence early on is quite welcome, along with being a land spawn.

With Zhou, their Confucian School and bonus stability per district helps with district spam if I want to focus on building up. The Zhànche is ok but it's not the reason I would pick them.

My vote was for Myceneans tho; enough starting bonus XP to give +1 str to any new unit from then on; Promachois are available very early, are excellent fighters, and don't require strategics; and Cyclopean Fortresses provide Industry and count as Maker's Quarters, while also being unrestricted in placement and giving stability instead of taking it away.

I don't think the Assyrians are particularly bad, but it is strange that the dunnu doesn't provide stability and on top of that it doesn't benefit from garrison infrastructure. Zhou are good but a bit dependant on finding mountains.

roger212 wrote:

CoconutTank wrote:

I pick Assyrians about 70% of the time, and Zhou about 20% of the time, depending on if I want to go for a strong offensive or to try being more peaceful. It also helps that the AI basically never picks those 2 cultures, so I don't have to worry about that as much.

I just really like how much more stuff I can do with +1 move on land units, and being able to fast build Dunnus with Influence via outposts is also quite nice. And while it's not big numbers, Dunnus being a source of Influence early on is quite welcome, along with being a land spawn.

With Zhou, their Confucian School and bonus stability per district helps with district spam if I want to focus on building up. The Zhànche is ok but it's not the reason I would pick them.

My vote was for Myceneans tho; enough starting bonus XP to give +1 str to any new unit from then on; Promachois are available very early, are excellent fighters, and don't require strategics; and Cyclopean Fortresses provide Industry and count as Maker's Quarters, while also being unrestricted in placement and giving stability instead of taking it away.

I don't think the Assyrians are particularly bad, but it is strange that the dunnu doesn't provide stability and on top of that it doesn't benefit from garrison infrastructure. Zhou are good but a bit dependant on finding mountains.

Aye, I hope my post didn't seem to downplay the Assyrians by any means, they're quite awesome and fun for my preferred playstyle, which is why I pick them so often \o/ and yeah I was quite surprised to learn that Dunnus don't also count as Garrisons, which made me sad when going from Assyrians into Goths :(

And yeah with Zhou, if I don't find any good mountain clusters they're not particularly great, though having an early-ish Research Quarter that gives stability isn't so bad. If the area around me is basically flat though, then agreed that Babylonians is probably a much better choice for going hard into tech and building.

Hahah I don't think the Assyrians are bad either, it's just that they are not as competitive as other cultures, same with the Olmecs. The only truly bad culture now I would say is the Phoenicians but even then there are ways to make them work. And agree with what you said on the Babylonians, they are my personal fave!

None.
There's cultures that feel just right - Egyptians and Mycenaeans. There's Babylon, Hittites and Harappans a step below that and then there's everyone else feeling mediocre-to-bad.
Harappans would be able to rival the big boys if pop buyout was brought back to being usable.
But if I had to pick the current strongest overall ancient culture I'd say Egypt hands down, it has the best boom, amazing UU, a great legacy. It serves as a great foundation for any strategy further down the road.
Still I'd prefer the current balance problem to be solved with buffs rather than nerfs. The nerf bat has crushed more than enough fun bits from the betas already.

Need to fix and balance all general mechanics before re-evaluating cultures.

However, Harappans and Egyptians have obviously very strong and universal bonuses. 

The question for me is how to make those bonuses more specific to avoid the no brainer pick, and to add immersion (bland flat generic powers are bad for that).

many dislike the early seafaring ones, but early colonialism and exploration is a great way to expand more peacefully.

It depends on the world map settings, but generally, claiming 1 whole new world almost completely before anyone else pretty much triples your empire size, and all the (traded) resources allow to maintain very large cities.

The phoenicians ar egreat for coastal and I don't believe their havens count as a harbor. So you can make a haven and a harbor. As I took over a territory already with a haven and was also able to make a harbor. So if you ahve multiple coasts you could probably get a lot of food from that plus making multiple market district bonuses. But as I haven't played as them I don't know if you can make both a harbor amd a haven with them.

I tend to pick Zhou a lot, but I think it's just because I like going for fringe-case mountain adjancency bonuses on the confucian school. I think the +stability will actually set you up quite well in comparison to the other bonuses - how well you do with stability is very situational at the moment, considering whether you have access to luxury resources. I think the issue with the bonus is that a stability bonus isn't going to help you the same turn you pick them, or even the same era, so it doesn't jumpstart your economic game (the science might if you have a specific plan). Harappans and Egyptians are both great for getting you going as soon as possible.