EDIt: I just noticed that Viper made a video about the same topic 5 days ago. I haven’t watched this video as of this writing yet though I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of my items overlap with his (and others not).
In the endless pursuit of perfect balancing, it is inevitable that as some civs rise others slowly fall behind due to lack of buffs for several patches in a row. If once civs like Burmese and Sicilians were considered among the worst, after last patch I think the list looks different.
This post is meant to highlight struggling civs atm, including some that are perhaps surprising. All of what I write here is my opinion and I mostly judge by Arabia 1v1 or simple hybrid maps like Nomad or Four Lakes (but mostly really Arabia). The list is also unordered and meant to mostly spark discussion and not provide an undeniable ranking of worst to least worst civ.
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Celts. Perhaps this is a shocker, and even though they have the best earlt game eco bonus, I rank them bottom 10, maybe bottom 5 atm.
Reasoning: wood is a nice resource but one that you use indirectly for booming (eg you must first make farms). While the wood bonus is a strong bonus, its effect is less immediate than, say, Slavs eco bonus that allows you to go Castle Age sooner. This bonus allows you to have 1-2 woodchoppers less in Feudal and drop buildings faster in Castle Age.
Their military bonus is nothing special, after counting Squires, Celts are overall only 5% faster than normal and considering that infantry isn’t the best in this game, it’s a cool combat bonus but not enough. Most importantly, their Castle Age sucks because you lack both Bloodlines and Thumb Ring and as such there is no easy unit to mass. You can do a Pike/Siege push, but generally to do that you must be ahead either in Castle Age timing or military. In Imp they get a bit better after you get Elite Woad Raider (must be elite to be good as the default variant is really lackluster) but nothing spectacular. Yes Hoang rush is strong with them but really it’s their only power strat and the reason is that Siege is easy to deal with in mid/late Castle Age, it’s only early Castle age that faster firerate is scary and relevant (eg to eat TC). -
Byzantines: again perhaps surprising, and though their combat bonus of cheaper counter units is really solid, they just feel like they have no offensive go-to option. All power units that you would like to do furthermore lack some options. Paladin lacks Bloodlines, Bombard Cannon lacks Siege Engineers, Champion lacks Blast Furnace etc. It can be a rly solid counter to some high tier civs in the right circumstances but more often than not you are stuck playing counter units with no eco bonus. With Byzantines, it can feel you are often stuck in a game of always reacting which can be detrimental as you never can truly capitalize on your counter units having dealt damage to what they are countering, unless you did something overwhelmingly good.
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Turks: even though their Light Cav flood is absolutely insane in early Castle Age and they shine on Arena, it’s another civ without eco bonus and with a very predictable opening that lacks options. Basically always you will see some Scouts into Light Cav/Knights or rarely Crossbow. Not being able to make Skirms especially kinda kills the civ on open maps. They are really good in Imp, but all other things equal, don’t have the means to get there with either units or some eco bonus.
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Spanish: this civ has now been bad for so long now that I hope everyone understands why it’s bad. In short: no eco bonus, no possibility to go Crossbows in Castle Age which basically forces you either into booming or Knight play. Their Imp is fairly good but again, no means to get there. Getting Conquistadors out with FC or regular builds is hit or miss and can backfire, Conquistador is all about mass and hitting early timing and vs the stronger civs this is generally hard to achieve.
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Saracens: in short, their eco bonus sucks and Camel as a main unit is not really a thing. +10 HP is also really mediocre of a bonus for a unit that is really only used vs Knight line and sometimes CA. They can play FU Crossbow/Arbalest, sure, but if you wanna go that route compare them to Japanese, which is also a lower tier civ (but not horrible) and you realize their Arbalest-based army composition is even worse than Japanese because at least Japanese can boom a bit better with cheaper eco buildings. They do have a wide tech tree at least with SO and Siege Engineers, FU Hussar and so on so for what it’s worth, they are probably at the bottom of the list of worst civs, ranking-wise, but they are still not a great civ.
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Italians: although they are rly good on water maps, on land they are probably bottom 5. No real eco bonus, awkward unit compositions and even though they have a wide tech tree, you are stuck playing fully generic stuff most of the time. Their UU is too niche to be relevant and their Market-related UT feels random and useless. Maybe if they had a UT where they can produce Genoese Crossbowman from Archery Range much like the Tarkan UT, I could remove them from this list. Really feels like a civ with no eco bonuses and no power at an age or stage in the game.
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Goths: they basically have same start of Mayans where they get +1 permanent Vill advantage at around ~20 pop (whenever opponent does Loom and u don’t have to). It’s nice but other than that you are stuck playing fully generic units with no eco bonus. I guess at least in Castle Age they gave FU Knights and in Imp they have a solid (but not unbeatable) flood of units, but the civ is too predictable and exploitable on top of lacking an eco bonus.
I might add 2-3 later. Just to be honest, I was tempted to put Teutons on this list also, but ended up not doing it because imo their farm bonus is good enough to offset their awkward Castle Age a bit. Though I definitely rate them bottom 10 on Arabia also.