0AD A24 Civilisations ranking

[Yekaterina]

 

In this analysis I will list out the strengths and weaknesses of each civilisation (based on my opinion). Each strength and weakness will be weighed and given a score. Each civ will have a total score for both Mainland and navy. However, this is only theoretical and things will vary in actual battles; with an appropriate strategy and adequate skills the lowest scoring civ has a significant chance of defeating the highest scoring civ. Skill and strategy matter more than which civ you play as! The weightings are based on my personal preference and I am open to suggestions. I am not taking team bonus into account yet.

 

Civilisation	Total score (Mainland)	Naval strength
Athens	1.5	3
Britons	2.5	1
Carthage	5.5	4
Gaul	2.5	1
Iberia (Lusitano)	3.5	2.5
Kush	5.5	1
Maurya	6	1
Macedon	2	1
Persia (Achaemenids)	4	2.5
Ptolemies (Egypt)	4	4
Romans (Generic)	2	3
Seleucid	4.5	3
Spartan	1	1

 

 

Mauryans:

Strengths:

Worker elephant helps with boom (+2)

Archer civ - spam infantry archers and spearmen to protect the archers. There is also a champion archer (maiden guard). By the way ‘Visha Kanya’ means poison girl, they were not soldiers but more assassins or espionage agents. (+2)

Asian elephants and archer elephant - new strategy. (+2)

Sword cav + champion sword-woman = good defence against siege (+2)

 

Weaknesses:

Poor quality houses - need designated house builders and worker elephants can no longer build. (-0.5)

Difficult to manage for new players - need to manoeuvre worker elephant. (-1)

Rubbish heroes (-0.5)

 

Kushites

 

Strengths:

Free Priest - can be used for scouting and healing wounded units in a rush - makes them better at rushing and better at defending against rushes. (+1.5)

Quite fast boom (+0.5)

Mercenary camps can be built in neutral territory - allows for sneaky strategies and diversification of army composition (+2)

Temple guards (champ swordmen) can be trained from temples - allows for spamming (+1)

Assyrian rams (does more damage than other rams) (+0.5)

Diverse infantry (+1)

 

Weaknesses:

African war elephant (+0.5)

Require a lot of metal if going for mercenaries or champ spam. (-1.5)

Not sure why there is a mercenary javelin camel that has the exact same combat stats as a regular javelin cav (0)

 

Achaemenid Persians:

 

Strengths

Kurush is a very good hero who can train immortals - use immortals as front line attack (+1)

Asian elephants (+1)

Diverse cavalry: Parthian archer cavalry combined with sword cav is strong. Also has 2 champion cavs. (+2.5)

Assyrian rams - more damage (+0.5)

Triremes can train marine cavalry (+1.5 navy)

Weaknesses:

Slow boom, vulnerable in early game (-1)

 

Carthage:

 

Strengths:

Still a very good naval force (+3 naval)

Good variety of siege: lithobolos, oxybeles, rams, elephant (+2)

Diverse army from embassies (now you can build 3 of them!). (+1.5)

Sacred band is very powerful (+1)

Strong wall (+0.5)

Spam archers and spears then outflank with melee cav. (+1)

 

Weaknesses:

African elephant (+0.5)

Needs metal for mercenaries (-2)

Slow boom (-1)

 

Ptolemies:

 

Strengths:

Cheap buildings - saves wood - faster boom. Compared to A23 they are more durable and can be built faster. (+3)

Extremely fast boom with slings and house spam (+1)

Archer camels + pikes in syntagma formation is strong once in substantial numbers. This does not require any metal! (+1)

Pikemen boosted by hero. Pikemen also rush resistant. (+1)

Diverse mercenary available (+1)

Diverse siege  (+1)

Overpowered in naval maps: lighthouse, Tessarakonteres, quinqueremes (+3 naval)

 

Weakness:

African elephants (+0.5)

Pikemen and mass camels are slow to manoeuvre. (-1)

Need designated house builders - slightly reduces workforce in early stage (-1)

Anti-ram depends on elephant and mercenaries (-1.5)

Dependency on mining (-1)

 

Seleucids:

Strengths:

Asian heavily armoured war elephants with Seleucus Nikator (elephant champ) (+2)

Decent siege (+0.5)

Strong melee spam (+1)

Mercenary swordsman runs  faster than average (+0.5)

Navy is still above average (+1.5 naval)

Rapid expansion (+1)

Strong cavalry: cataphract, Dahae horse archer, archer chariot (+1.5)

 

Weaknesses:

Mercenary archer + swords can only be trained from colony (-2)

 

Note that Seleucids need a lot of food.

 

Iberians:

Strengths:

Very strong defence, needless to say (+3)

Strong melee infantry (+1)

Fire javelin cav is strong against siege and buildings (+1.5)

Fire ship is extremely irritating to opponents (+1.5 naval)

 

Weakness:

Slow boom (-1)

No long range units - weak against archers protected by fort or pikes in field combat (-1)

 

 

Athens:

Strengths:

Decent siege (+1)

Sword cav brutality (+0.5)

Scythian archers = 2 regular archers combined. Also gym allows champion spam (+1)

Significant naval bonuses (+2 naval)

 

Weakness:

Requires a lot of mining - soldiers are working on mines instead of fighting (-1)

 

Britons:

Strengths:

Celtic brutality. Sword cav + spam slings/spears (+1.5)

Buildings cost only wood - saves stone (+1)

Free war dog (+1)

 

Weaknesses:

Lack of diversity (-0.5)

Removed bonus - slower boom

Poor quality buildings (-0.5)

 

Gauls:

Same as Britons except no free war dog

Naked fanatics not very useful because requires phase 2

 

Macedon:

Full range of siege (+1)

Champion crossbowmen are cheap, mobile options waiting to be developed

Now has sword champ - has anti siege

Companion cavalry and champion spears are decent (+1)

 

Weaknesses:

Mercenary

Siege workshop does not stand out

 

 

Romans:

Still good siege options (+1)

Hit and run cav (consular bodyguards effectively counter archers) (+1)

Nerfed entrenched camp but can still sneak attack (+0.5)

Good at defending

Superior rams (+0.5)

Navy is still strong (+2 navy)

 

Weakness:

No long range units (-1)

 

Spartan:

Strength:

Strong infantry, especially hoplites and Skiritai  (+3)

 

Weakness:

Weak cavalry (-0.5)

Extreme reliance on metal (-1)

No long range unit, but can counter with spearmen meat shield and champion hoplite (-0.5)

 

[Yekaterina]

weirdJokes has proposed that I increase the score of Romans and Spartans:

Romans are well rounded and easy to play. Their sword infantry and consular bodyguards are also very effective. 

Spartan Skiritai are now able to gather resources and attack has increased slightly, so they should get credit on that. 

What do you think?

[Alar1k]

3 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

weirdJokes has proposed that I increase the score of Romans and Spartans:

Romans are well rounded and easy to play. Their sword infantry and consular bodyguards are also very effective. 

Spartan Skiritai are now able to gather resources and attack has increased slightly, so they should get credit on that. 

What do you think?

Skiritai could gather resources in a23 as well - idk spartans don't have -10%pop so that's good but i don't know, now that archers can kill boldshooters there is not much to help spartans out in later stages of the game, rome can still besige with millitary camp and garrison siege engens there so it still has potential you just have to drag the siege all the way down to the millitary camp which is not that ideal, also romans have better heroes to counter ranged attacks

 

[Grapjas]

11 hours ago, Alar1k said:

Skiritai could gather resources in a23 as well

very inefficiently though.

[alre]

and this is not even counting maurya and persian population cap bonus.

[Yekaterina]

Some recent TGs have led me to re-evaluate some civs.

Most people think that archers are OP, therefore they tend to choose archer civs. This makes anything which can effectively counter archers also very strong (by reverse psychology). 

• Pikemen + skirmisher can counter archers. 60 pikemen vs 60 archers: all archers die and 35 pikemen survive. 30 pikemen + 30 skirmishers vs 60 archers: all skirmishers survive, 13 pikemen survive. 
• Siege towers wipe out archers

Hence, civs with access to siege towers and pikemen are also strong civs. These are: Ptolemies, Seleucids, Macedonians, Kushites. Ptolemies and Kushites rely on mercenary skirmishers but Kushites can replace the infantry role with cavalry and Ptolemies can use slingers or camels instead. Since Kushites also have access to archers this can catch the enemy out by surprise, in addition, Kushites have the potential of playing many surprising strategies, which makes them particularly strong and versatile. 

Ptolemies are very easy to boom with and the eco advantage is not negligible, therefore they should be a top tier civ as well. 

Macedonians are not weak be any means because they also have siege towers and the Rhomphaiaphoros for anti-siege. Just because the siege workshop isn't unique anymore doesn't make Macedon any weaker. Due to the high proportion of siege weapons the Macedonians have low food demand, which means being able to delete more farming women and making more soldiers in late game. (6 fields is enough for Macedon whereas Ptolemies need more than 11). Macedonians can also pull out unexpected strategies which is also devastating to the enemy. Their pikemen can quite easily counter Mauryan archers and skirmishers can take down incoming elephants. 

Seleucids can combine archer cavalry, siege towers and elephants in a deadly attack. Use siege tower to take out enemy archers/skirmishers, archer cavalry to snipe melee units and defend your towers, then crush the buildings with Asian elephants boosted by Seleucus Nikator. 

 

Romans: consular bodyguards OP. They are also able to defend against any attacks. 

[Lion.Kanzen]

13 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

Macedonians are not weak be any means because they also have siege towers and the Rhomphaiaphoros for anti-siege. Just because the siege workshop isn't unique anymore doesn't make Macedon any weaker. Due to the high proportion of siege weapons the Macedonians have low food demand, which means being able to delete more farming women and making more soldiers in late game. (6 fields is enough for Macedon whereas Ptolemies need more than 11). Macedonians can also pull out unexpected strategies which is also devastating to the enemy. Their pikemen can quite easily counter Mauryan archers and skirmishers can take down incoming elephants.

We need have to give to them a technical and scientific boost for workshop. Even more siege power.

[Yekaterina]

@Lion.Kanzen yes that would be great. I would love to see a strong Macedon as it had been.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

6 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

@Lion.Kanzen yes that would be great. I would love to see a strong Macedon as it had been.

Check out what DE does with the Macedonian barracks and Stables. You can upgrade them to Royal Barracks and Royal Stables, which allows you to train Elite citizen-soldiers and Champions.