Transcription
Hello and welcome to my humble house of learning. Today I want to talk about tier lists. Um, I don't just want to talk about them. I also want to make some tier lists. But the main purpose of today's video is to talk about a different approach to tier lists and to actually compare civilizations in a little more standardized way. So, I'm really interested in in knowing what you think um about my approach and not just my results, but truly my approach and what you think I might have missed or um or what could help in thinking about the civilizations and how to compare them in the future.
So, before we get into the tier lists, what to expect from my tier lists. First of all, I don't want to make tier lists for the top 1%. I believe that players that are Conqueror 3 and Conquer 4 and above know why they pick any given CIV on any given map on the ladder, right? Um, they don't need tier lists. Um, kind of the ones who are making tier lists, right? Um, but for everyone else, I think tier lists make sense because it's a tool for learning and understanding how this game works and how civilizations work. So that's my goal here.
Second, I will always have five tiers. Um, there will be S tier, A tier, B tier, C tier, and D tier. I won't add any additional tiers because that would sort of compromise the comparability of um the tier lists and I don't want that. So I won't do that.
Third, there will be a normal distribution as much as possible which means that most entries will be between A and C tier with most entries being in B tier generally. And this is because if you have a tier list of 18 cives and there's 10 um cives in the S tier, like what does that mean? That that means nothing anymore. That that doesn't really tell you much about the balance of the game. Uh, but rather about the quality of the tier list in my opinion. Um, because then you could also just put them in B tier and like they're still the same, right? So the whole point being um I think normal distribution really shows the differences the best and that's what I'm aiming for. Um, and lastly I will have a standardized process of comparing civilizations and I'll show you that um right now. So let's go.
Uh, this is my scoring process. Um, I have devised three properties that I believe are the most important for any civilization um on the rank ladder. And each of these three properties is made up of three components. So there are nine components in general um or in total um and we'll talk about them. I'll I'll show you them now and then you can already think of other components that I might have missed or components that you might disagree with um so that we can talk about it in the comments.
Um, first I would argue is simplicity. So this I believe is very important for the ladder because you want to learn new on the ladder maybe and then you know the simpler the better. Um, you want to learn the game on the ladder as well. Understanding um hotkeys, understanding resource access, understanding unit micro and all those things. And the easier it is to play a civilization, uh, the better the civilization will perform on the latter. So the three components here being ease of execution, how easy is it to follow a build order with a civilization for instance, um, power of the army and plan, so meaning the identity of the civilization. I'll talk about uh, the three components for each property in more detail in a second. And then based on that you would get a simplicity score um for your civilization, Japan in this instance.
Then second property would be pressure. So how much pressure can a civilization um put you under? Basically how much can they exert? Um, this is um made up of the three components tempo, economy and control. Map control that is. And then third um I would say is versatility. So how versatile is your civilization? How many uh maps can be played? How safe is their base? And how many strategies can they play? Right? I'll talk about um these properties and components um in more detail in a second. And that would make three um scores for your civilization. And then that would end up in a final score and based on that final score, the civilization will be put in the final tier list that I'll show in the end.
All right. So, how does the scoring actually work then? Um, the property score is basically the component score times a factor. The component score is pretty much just ranked from S to D tier. S tier being five points and D tier being one point. And then the factors are the factors that I'll show you and or that I have showed you and then I'll show you again um in the order that I'm showing you. So um uh if we go over to the simplicity score in a second I'll show you what that means. Um, and then you end up with something like this where Japan I would argue has a simplicity um of A tier, versatility they're B tier, and in pressure they're C tier. Right?
So simplicity, ease of execution for me is the most important part of simplicity. So that's the highest factor and it basically consists of opening build orders, unit micro, resource requirements, by which I mean um how easy is it to access the resources you need at the time you need them, right? Um, it's harder to go for a more convoluted and and um and um more micro intensive um opening like the Ottomans have as compared to the French opening where you just rally and that's it, right? Um, also unit micro something like um having to micro an Imperial official for instance with Dushi and French and um China of course, rather than not having to do any of that with for instance French. Um, but also mid game macro. Um, how important is it to build your base in the correct way like with Abbasid 2TC or with um Byzantine um assistance? Um, and how easy is it to spend your resources um all the time, right? That is typically easier with civilizations that are very strong in feudal age um like Joan of Arc for instance. Um, and harder with civilizations that need to go castle age to really get their economy rolling or that have like very strange economy bonuses like Malians for instance.
Military power I would argue is the second most important u component of simplicity. Um, and their unit strength is the most important, you know. Um, strong units like Elephants or of the Dragon, basically any units, right? But like mainly the Men-at-Arms are really really powerful and very hard to deal with, especially at the at the early stages of when they are available. Then unique units and counters are very important. Obviously, Ayubids are um very strong counters to civilizations that are typically um the strongest in feudal age for instance because they have such strong counter units in the Desert Raiders. Um, so that obviously helps their score there. And then the power spike. So the question of when do they um get to their most powerful units or their most powerful economy um and when is the civilization the strongest. And typically the earlier it is the better.
And lastly, game plan, meaning the civ's identity. How clear is it what you have to do with a civilization? I believe that it's pretty obvious what you're supposed to do with Delhi or Knights Templar, for instance, getting the sacred sites, getting access to them, holding them, very obvious. Um, whereas it's probably much harder to understand. Um, for something like China where it's like you can do anything but what is actually what's the what's your plan, what's your win condition, right? And then unique bonuses, the clearer they are, the easier to follow they are, the better.
Let's go through one last example so that everyone is on the same page here with Delhi. I would say the plan, the identity is S tier. It's very easy to understand what you're supposed to do. And um, you can you can do that in every game. The power is A tier. It's also quite good. They have quite a strong army. Um, it's stronger in castle age than it is in feudal age, which is maybe a little annoying for Delhi players because you have to get to castle age at some point to win probably. Um, but the hardest part about Delhi is actually executing all of that. It's quite easy to understand what you need to do. You have a pretty strong army once you get to that point, but getting to that point is the problem. Um, because you have to run out on the map, you have to um micro several different fights, you have to constantly scout, you know, deal with your scholars, heal with them, and even in the early game. Um, making sure that you're producing scholars consistently, that you are um putting them in the right buildings, and um that you're actually getting the right resources, spending the right resources once you get to the sacred sites, and actually spending the gold that you're getting. All of that requires some time to get used to, and is not the easiest in the world, right? So that's how I would rate Delhi in this um way.
So now let's look at the overall tier list for simplicity and this is where I ended up with. Um, again, you can absolutely um tell me if you disagree with um anything here. Um, again, I'm I'm more interested in the approach rather than the results. But if you have a result that you really disagree with, um, please let me know the result and why you disagree with it in terms of my approach. Um, so but I I would say that the simplest um civilizations to play are the ones that have really strong units pretty early on and um that have pretty strong power spikes as well and um um overall pretty simple to play with their build orders. And I would argue all of this is true for Order of the Dragon as well as French and Joan of Arc. Now, Order of the Dragon I would say um is the easiest to play um because they require less task rotation, meaning you have to spend your um resources in a slower way because your villagers produce slower. Um, you um your units produce slower, um, but they're more powerful obviously and you have a lot of bonuses as well for for your villagers and your economy. Um, this doesn't mean that it's the best civ to learn the game with or anything and it's also not the strongest civ and higher levels, but they are absolutely a very simple and very powerful civ to play um, especially anywhere below Diamond probably. Um, whereas civilizations like Malians, Mongols, and China are all quite difficult to play. Um, and therefore only in D tier because they don't have the same ease of execution. There's a lot of stuff you need to be doing early on. Then it's also much harder to spend all your resources properly and um there's a lot of micro you have to be doing, especially with Mongols and China early on. There's a lot of decisions you have to be making. So overall um much much harder to play.
Um, in C tier you have the cives that really need to think about base building a lot um and that have um or and or that have like later um timings power spikes, right? Abbasid and Byzantines both have power spikes that are in castle age. And even though Dushi can absolutely have a feudal age timing, um their um base building is still very important, their micro early is still very important and quite difficult to do, compared to the other ones. And um their transition is really difficult once they get to um castle age. So um and all of that compared to civilizations um that you have in A tier where you don't really have to think about base building almost at all, right? Compared. So yeah, that's where I ended up with. Again, let me know if you disagree with something or if you like or dislike the approach so far.
Um, I will now talk about pressure. Pressure again, the most important important the most important component um in my opinion is tempo. That is production speed. That is also unit mobility. So you know if you have strong cavalry units then that is worth more in terms of tempo than having strong um infantry units. Then there's denial and dive. So basically how easy is it to deny resources with the units that you have um or how easy is it to dive um the opponent's base. And in this regard, um obviously having high tempo in dark age is worth more than having um high tempo in feudal age, which is worth more than having high tempo in castle age and so on, right? Um, because that can snowball, right? Tempo can snowball. If you can kill a villager in dark age, that is worth more than killing it in feudal age. And that and again, so you get it.
Economy is the next most important thing because a high early income is just incredible at um, basically, you know, um, getting out a lot of units um, and having a lot of options um, and putting pressure on the opponent because if you have a high early income and your income is also flexible, meaning you know, you have bonuses that give you just a high income in general and you're not, you know, forced or um highly incentivized to get one specific resource that your opponent can deny. Um, then you are always fine, right? You can always put out some pressure. You can always go for some units and that is very, very valuable. Um, return on investment also really important in terms of economy. Meaning if you have to go for um an investment for instance, um, a cattle ranch or a military school or a manor, how quickly does it pay you back? How how quickly do you actually get the benefit for that? That also helps you to put out pressure obviously. Um, because either your opponent has to attack you quicker or um you are able to attack your opponent quicker as well.
Lastly, map control, meaning how easy is it for you to stay on the map and uh defend places on the map? Um, how much vision do you have? Um, you know, more scouts, more outposts, um, larger um line of sight, all of those things. And then timing of defenses, meaning um, how early does it make sense for you to build outposts, for instance, thinking of the Mongols here, obviously, but also um, how early can you get landmarks that are defensive and that control parts of the map.
So with that um I ended up with this tier list. Now um in my opinion HRE are the best in terms of pressure, even better than Mongols because they just have a much better economy, right? That that I think is the big deal here. It's very hard to pressure HRE, but HRE can absolutely pressure you very early on, even in dark age. Um, whereas with Malians um on the other side, you pretty much can't do anything early on and you are almost always the one getting pressured um simply because you just don't have a lot of options um of of actually pressuring your opponent very well. Um, and so in A tier you generally have um civilizations that have either um pretty quick um map control. Russ have several scouts obviously, English and House of Lancaster have great landmarks that give them a lot of pressure. Mongols obviously have the tower rush, whereas in C tier you have civilizations that take a little while longer to um really get going or like um Japanese and Knights Templar are that kind of even though they have options of of attacking early even in dark age, kind of need to fall back to either defend their stuff or to really get to their strong point in in the case of the Japanese who don't really have the best feudal economy but rather a great castle economy. So um that is why they're lower on the pressure tier list.
Lastly, we have versatility. Now for versatility, the most important part for me in my in my opinion is safety. Um, because if you have all the resources available, if you have a high sphere of influence, for instance, due to your um landmarks, power of defenses, right? A Barbaican, a Lancaster Castle, these kinds of things really make it much easier um to get a good economy on every map basically. Um, you know, to to be played everywhere. Um, but also something like an Akam chapel for instance is really, really good um because it um increases your stream of influence and your economic strength strength obviously. Um, but yeah, safety most important.
Then you have map variety. So how many maps can the civilization play well? There obviously land maps meaning rush maps, open maps and closed maps. Rush maps, something like Cliffside for instance, where the distance between the two players is very low. Open maps like Dry Arabia, and then closed maps like for instance Hill and Dale, where more booming civilizations um are stronger and where you can just wall yourself in and um yeah, and that's that. Then you have hybrid maps and border maps. If you can be played on all of these, um your civ is very, very versatile obviously.
And lastly, strategic options. Um, I don't think they are very important on um the ladder in general because you can just do your thing and and you can choose which civ you want to play on which map. So it's not that important how many um options your civ has. But it's still it still helps because if your opponent has to scout you more and has to figure out and has to waste time trying to figure out what you're doing, then that's obviously valuable. Dark rush, feudal age push, feudal age boom. So like something like the cow boom, then or like the the um Byzantine um boom as well, the basically Olive Growth boom. Then you have 2TC boom and fast castle, right? Those are the strategic options that I looked at and then you end up with something like this in my opinion.
Um, so I believe that Mongols, Delhi, and Abbasid are the least versatile mainly because they really just want to do one thing every time. They want to get sacred sites or they want to get trade. And um, they don't have a lot of options on a lot of maps. Um, they um are quite, you know, easy to to figure out. Now obviously Knights Templar could be a little higher if you value water maps higher because obviously they can be played on water maps. I pretty much ignored water maps for the most part. I I rated them very lowly because on the ladder you will very rarely play water anyway. On the other hand, China has so much they can do. Um, and I think Order of the Dragon and House of Lancaster might be a little surprising to see all the way up here, but they have a lot of safety. Um, and therefore they can be played on a lot of different um maps and you can sort of make them work. Um, even on rush maps, right? They can play feudal, they can play castle age, they can play 2TC, it's all possible. So um, yeah, they are quite versatile if you think about it, even though you'll probably only see one thing from them most of the time. They could be playing much much more than that. So yeah, that's that's where I end up with. Typically um C tier cives are sort of limited by the maps. They want to either play on rush maps like French and Joan of Arc or play on more closed maps like Malians and Byzantines. Um, and they yeah, just simply don't have have all the options that that the other cives have whereas A tier cives like Russ and um HRE have just so many more options. English rate this high because of their safety.
So to review and again um tell you that I really would appreciate feedback on this. Did you like the approach? Are there any components that I am missing um that would make these tier lists and this discussion much more interesting and much more accurate? Then let me know because I think we can actually um really develop a language here of how to compare civilizations and what is actually important when talking about civilizations and talking about the ladder. Um, if you like the way um I have been approaching this, I'm just going to leave you the information of how you can um get some coaching or if you just want to talk with me or with other people about Age of Empires 4, there's a Discord server as well.
And now, finally, let's talk about the ranked ladder overall tier list. So, you might be surprised to see Order of the Dragon right at the top at the S tier, but before I can talk about them, let me first talk about the D and C tier cives for a second. Um, so Malians, right? I don't think they're actually a bad civ by any means. I think they are quite powerful in the right hands, and I think that at the higher levels, they are quite strong. However, um, they are hard to play. Um, and their economy is very weird and very unusual and they're not the most defensible civ, but they need to boom. So, there's a lot of trouble with them, especially um trying to learn the game with them. And to be honest, everyone below pretty much Conqueror 3 needs to learn the game um before learning a civ if that makes any sense. So, uh, they are not the best civ to play on the ladder. That is all this is to say. If you love Malians, and I actually like Malians, then you can absolutely play them. Um, and you can have a lot of fun with them and then you will learn the game with them and it will be fine. However, um, especially if you are sort of below Gold rank, um, I think Malians are probably the worst civ to choose. Um, and you should look at this tier list and the simplicity tier list especially to find um the civilizations that might suit you better. However, I will also say that Order of the Dragon might not be the best civ to learn the game with. Just, you know, not, you know, they are in S tier, but they're not the best civ to learn the game with. I think they are probably a much easier time for you early on. Um, but they are also not that great of a civ in the higher tiers and you will run into a lot of trouble the higher you climb because you will just get outproduced and then there will be so many units raiding you and it will be very hard for you to defend because you have so few units, right? So this is about how much success you can expect to get in sort of a relatively short amount of time. Um, and again, this is also true for all the C tiers. The C tiers are hard to play. You will have a steep learning curve and it will take you a long time. I would argue probably if you've never touched them and you have not played many RTS games before, more than 50 games to even like get comfortable with the mechanics of the civ and not to mess up your build order, um, not to build the wrong units and so on and so forth. Um, because all of these C tier civs really require a lot of base building, a lot of micro, a lot of attention to detail. That civilizations in A tier just simply do not require. Right? These civil civilizations are much simpler, much more straightforward. Um, you don't have to micro as much early on. You have better economy um or at least economy that is um more straightforward and therefore um you will have more success quicker. And that is one of the biggest um factors when it comes to um power on the ladder, right? Simplicity as I said I believe is the most important factor.
Then you have pressure. How much pressure can a civilization put out? And I would argue that Mongols and Dushi in C tier can put out quite a lot of pressure and do have pretty good economies, especially once they get rolling. But they don't have the same versatility or simplicity as the A tiers tend to have. So that's why I came up with this conclusion. And again um for players in Platinum, high Platinum, Diamond um and above um it probably makes more sense to look closely more closely at the pressure and versatility tier lists to u find um civilizations that might um be interesting for them. Whereas um if you're in Gold and below um look more closely at the simplicity tier lists. That is how I would encourage you to look at these tier lists and to think about these tier lists. And um I hope there were some interesting thoughts here for you and some interesting findings maybe as well. And again I can only repeat myself here. Let me know what you thought of this. Um, does this make any sense to you? Do you think I chose the right components to talk about and compare the cives with? That's what I will leave you with. Um, so I hope you learned something and class dismissed.