Civs are ordered from strongest to weakest inside any tier.
S tier - Top tier civs, with great eco and/or military options, smooth transitions in every age and very few weaknesses and bad match-ups across the board (Chinese, Mayans, Burgundians, Aztecs, Franks, Vikings).
A tier - Great civs, with strong eco and/or military, separated by S-tier civs due to few awkward transitions or exploitable weaknesses (Lithuanians, Britons, Huns, Khmer, Malians, Slavs, Tatars, Celts, Mongols).
B tier - Good civs, with few strong power spikes available to somewhat keep up with higher tier civs, but that lack their flexibility/eco/power level or tend to have inconsistent match-ups (Japanese, Ethiopians, Berbers, Bulgarians, Saracens, Byzantines, Magyars, Vietnamese, Incas, Teutons, Italians, Indians, Malay).
C tier - Decent civs, that can be dangerous in the right situations, but tend to be unreliable, to suffer very exploitable weaknesses or simply struggle to keep up with stronger civs (Goths, Persians, Cumans, Koreans, Portuguese, Turks, Burmese, Spanish).
D tier - Bad civ(s), that canât keep up with the meta due to poor eco and military bonus (Sicilians).
Agree with the other poster. Britons are THE archer civ, eco bonus, best archers in game, easy boom with cheap TC⊠although on low levels they might be a bit less good depending on micro skills.
I would definitely swap Burmese into D tier and move Sicilians into C tier. Burmese are absolute hot garbage, due to even thumbring crossbow being extremely deadly against them.
I would bump Malay from B to A tier, because their faster age up bonus is an absolutely insane bonus, but itâs also one of those bonuses that donât matter on lower levels due to not having skill to take advantage of it.
I would move Incas from B to a weak C tier. Good early eco bonuses, but followed up with completely generic units and no long lasting eco bonus.
I would bump Italians down to C tier, they are a good civ, but Arabia 1v1 is not a place where they really shine. (easily outpaced by civs with strong early eco)
I would bump Indians down to C tier, great civ in hybrid maps and closed maps, Arabia 1v1 they donât really shine as much.
Iâd bump Vietnamese up to A tier, their options are extremely good against other archer civs, their bonus helps you with scouting the enemy for laming purposes, and the lategame composition of the civ is great, good siege, rattans, eelephants.
Iâd bump Aztecs from S tier to A tier. Strong early game, but awkward transitions needed from mid-game due to their arbs not scaling well into late game
What I donât like about Tier lists like those is that itâs not clearly specified who it is for. Only for you?
Example: Chinese are the strongest Arabia civ right now for the Top 10 best AoE2 Pro players (S-Tier+). But Chinese suck for people below 1000 1v1 ELO (D-Tier)
I donât see Britons as S-tier nowadays, due to drush FC being pretty punishable. I think Vikings have a slight edge over britons due to better feudal age eco and better castle age time potential. Of course this is a debatable point.
Japanese A-tier can be a thing, in fact I put them top of B-tier. I just think they fall off a little bit too hard after feudal and tend to be a mediocre civ if you fail to do the damage you need early on.
Burmese have actually the best eco among the C-tier civs, they have good potential in some stages of the game (early feudal, castle if you can transition into arambai, late game). Of course theyâre really awkward and they die vs archer civs. On the other hand, I donât see almost any potential for sicilians except with first crusade (that often comes too late to be useful).
Iâve played a lot with malay (apparently the games loves to random into them, at least for me), and as much as Iâd started loving their potential, expecially in castle age with eles + crossbows compositions, I think theyâre too punishable to be considered A-tier, expecially at the start of every age where you struggle to afford the power spikes you need.
Well eagle warriors are not a generic unit, thatâs basically what allows them to keep up with the meta. Plus they have good options to complement them well. You also might factor in their laming potential due to how boar spawn in regular arabia, a massive lamer (which Iâm not) might still rate incas even higher than me due to how likely it is to lame right now.
I still think that aztecs are very strong in most stages of the game despite the nerfs. Early eco is still very good despite the nerf, castle age potential for aggression is insane, imp is still good and I think underrated thanks to relic bonus (and considering that youâre quite likely to get them due to how good your castle age military is).
I think that their eco isnât strong enough to justify an A-tier. Even though theyâre kinda of an anti-archer civ, I donât see them having a clearly winning match-up against top tier archer civs bc they just can out-mass or out-tech Vietnamese in some stages of the game with earlier age up. Then, Vietnamese bonuses donât help too much vs cavalry and the civ quite suck vs mesos.
I can see the argument, Indians are very tricky to rate. In some situation/matchup they look like an S-tier civ due to how good and smooth their eco is, but sometimes they completely fall flat due to lack of knight line and arbalest. I kinda rated them based on my feelings.
I think that their age up bonus is quite underrated, when Iâve played them it really helped to keep the pace of most civilizations (except maybe few top tier ones). If I compare them with C-tier civs, I think they donât have their weaknesses.
Based on my experience of player (15xx) and watching tournaments.
Maybe itâs a personal thing, but I donât feel they have a great eco as a lot of people tend to think. Technically having TCs pumping out villagers faster looks great, in practice I feel it tends to put me in an awkward situation where I need to choose between keeping the TCs running and pumping out military, for a quite long time before the bonus pays off.
Theyâre also kind of a one trick pony civ, they lack bracer, infantry gold options and a viable UU, so youâve not unit you can base your composition on except paladins (which are hard to get there).
In general I donât like the civ and I rate them lower than any B tier cavalry civ, even though the civ is not utterly terrible or have many weak match-ups.
They canât really make a very good use it. Faster wood income for a civ with a joke archery range is⊠kind of an awkward bonus. The problem is that their weakness makes them very easy to counter. The civ needs a rework to be anything more than a bad joke atm.
If you are going for slow play, then just age up at the same time you would with any other civ. Now you will have more villagers and more resources. if you decide to actually age up fast, you need to pressure early (otherwise youâre just putting yourself behind). That is also why I said A tier BUT only at high ELO, because their bonus is not easy to make use of, kind of like the Chinese. Malay do also have a very wide tech tree, so you can employ pretty much any strategy you want
I agree, very strong civ. But not S tier strong. Iâd say they are pretty much S tier until imp. But then they are hard to use in imp (their Arbs donât scale, donât get halbs which hurts against Cav civs, monks donât scale as well due to numbers), and generally get overwhelmed if they donât manage to take a major advantage in castle age.
I would have rated them a strong B pre-nerf, with the feudal power spike, but theyâre pretty lackluster post-nerf. They have a wide tech tree and a lot of options, but donât really excel at anything. Which means disadvantage against any civ with any actual bonuses. (e.g. if you go Archers vs an Archer civ, youâre at a disadvantage due to being generic until you can transition to eagles)
Mine, Each civ are ranked in each tier list also, only based on my experience.
Sicilians are not that bad really , they can do a great full scout if not walled or a great forward skirm also, they also handle certain matchs ups very easily due to -50% less bonus damage (indians , byzantines, gothsâŠ)
Well I donât see their bonus as a wood bonus, you always want prioritize the wood upgrade, so burmese bonus usefulness is basically to save the resources needed to research it. Which is kinda nice, because if you play m@a into archers it allows to squeeze an extra m@a, go faster to place a range or place an extra farm, can help getting fletching earlier, ecc⊠And of course you donât forget about wood upgrades if theyâre free
I still see Malay as a very high risk â high reward civ. A big issue I have with them is that you basically canât open m@a, so if you want to play into archers in feudal youâre basically forced to drush into 27pop up or go straight archers after 23 pop up (or maybe 22 or 24). The point is that, if you age up later to get a normal time, the additional villagers you made didnât have time to pay off, while if you click up with conventional pop itâs gonna be even worse. In every case you wonât have the res you usually have when you reach the next age, which is less than ideal because itâs not easy to understand how to balance eco to offset this resourse shortfall, i think even pros can struggle doing that optimally. Then, the lack of +2 armor on cavalry hurts them aswell in my opinion.
Agree, I simply think that itâs very likely for them to get that damage needed in castle age.
I donât think that trying to match opponent strategies is the way theyâre supposed to play. Even post nerf they have solid bonuses for aggressive strategies in feudal or drushing, then transition to eagle in early castle age or going crossbow if you manage to mass them in feudal.
Agreed. I think it is maybe playstyle preference differences between us. I love all ins and yolo kind of styles. most of my games are 1 tc plays
Yeah, but nothing special, itâs worse than e.g. Lithuanians. So really no specific reason to pick this civ, and I think a donât pick this civ just isnât worth a âBâ.
Iâm surprised nobody else considers Berbers to be S-tier, their feudal play is fine, faster villagers helps out a lot in a ton of little ways, but the main one is making enemy M@A play way worse for getting returns on that investment.
Their feudal is good, helped by faster vills they farm well. They donât blow you away in Feudal, but when they hit castle age the powerspike from cheap stable production can be lethal really easily. Theyâve got the faster vills to help get you through the early ages cleanly and with less losses, and once Berbers are castle they have the initiative.
Well their feudal archers are fine, you just need to trade them before mid castle age and prepare some transition behind.
I think youâre overestimating a lot their feudal tbh. Faster walking villagers are almost irrelevant on collection rate, and while the bonus can help saving 1-2 villagers here and there, it doesnât avoid the idle time or getting pushed off by resources (which is the realistic goal to archieve when you go for a m@a rush).
About knight rush, no doubt that itâs strong. But other civs can archieve similar results while being more overall flexible thanks to their eco bonuses, such as Franks, Burgundians, Khmer, Huns, Slavs. Thatâs why I consider Berbers to be B tier while I put those civs higher on the list.
Berbers can (at a rate no other civ can compare) trounce all those knight civs you offered as being better (since none of them have Camels) whilst also fielding one of the best knight rushes in the game. Nope. Good luck next time.
Not even debating this. Youâre wrong. Thereâs a long list of civs that positively hate the Berbers and the Berbers themselves are incredibly good by their own merits.
No, Iâm not. Iâm properly evaluating the effect that the extra movement speed has on how much resource youâre willing and expecting to spend as a Berber player vs. any other civ to parry very early feudal aggression such as M@A which is dependent on civ.
Not needing to commit a drush to parry a drush is a bonus of itself against an enemy, and that helps with Feudal in the case where you can choose to avoid it. Iâm not counting the resource collection bonus at all, except markedly for food, and the real potential of avoiding damage on luring villagers and leaving weak eco targets. Those two things together means theyâre just fine in feudal. Iâd say about average.
In Castle age thereâs no average. Berber castle age is so good, oftentimes they decide to win in castle age and they can win with brute force early before the enemy can boom or as a late sting as the opponent tries to push Imp and everywhere in between.
Maybe you donât care for my opinion. So maybe, then, youâll care for the opinion of TheViper, who specifically said he picked Berbers as a counterpick to the Mayans in G1 of Hidden Cup IV to punish defensive play. Clearly they have unique strength in that regard or else Viper wouldnât have picked it.
Forcing berbers into mixing camels means being half the way to deal with them. Camels donât destroy buildings fast, donât kill villager fast, if berbers mix camels they slow down their push and give more time to switching into pikes.
You never need to commit to a drush or m@a to parry opponentâs one, every civ have more efficient ways to deal with them.
The fact that viper picked them as counterpick shows exactly what berbers are: an average/good civ you can get with low priority in drafts to counter certain playstyles and civs. In fact he picked them as his last civs in a draft with 20 civs involved, why none of the two players picked berbers before if theyâre top tier?
