Ranking All 22 AoE4 Civilizations from WORST to BEST

Most civilization tier lists you see are made by pro players analyzing the game at a tournament level. They assume perfect execution, perfect builds, and almost no mistakes. But, the reality is that 99% of us mortals play ranked ladder where mistakes happen constantly, builds get messy, and factors like civilization difficulty, ladder maps, and how forgiving a civ is to play actually matter a lot. So, today I'm ranking every civilization based on how strong they are when played by us regular dance in a 1v1 ranked ladder and land map setting. And don't worry, no pro players were harmed in the making of this video. Let's go.

So, we are going to start from the worst civ and we're going to work our way up to the top. So, let's start with the first one. So, Look like Okay, here's the thing. I think in my experience, Took Luck has one good way that it can work in land maps. This is for land maps. Obviously, Took Luck is the best civilization by far in water maps and hybrid maps. But, we're talking 1v1 land maps here. So, why is it the worst? It is the worst because this civilization requires so much food. Their units are so expensive. It has kind of a similar problem that OTD has where if you don't get like the economy doesn't feel that great in feudal age. We are in a meta right now which is extremely fast-paced. You are going to face a lot of French, a lot of Sengoku, a lot of Japanese, let's say for example. And even even the some of the lower tier list tier civs are also really good in feudal. So, people have already learned also to play against the healing elephant. And [music] yeah, I don't think that I think Took Luck needs like some kind of buff in the fortress department and in the economic economy department. Because the fortress seems like they are way too much of a an investment for so little that you get back. The only viable I think thing that you can do right now is just to play maybe 2 TC, make fortresses in your home, and just try to survive until the later stages of the game because if you get to Imperial with a good economy then you can spam really good units and then you can do something but getting there is a real issue. Even getting to feudal is a real issue. So for me to to black is going to be in the lower tier.

Now behind to black is going to be OTD. OTD I think the problem is that it's easy to counter. So what do you do against OTD? First you see what military buildings they are doing and you make counters to that and >> [music] >> because they have less units let's say they make Spearman. They are going to have like half the Spearman than any other civilization in the game >> [music] >> and then if you make counter units which are archers it is extremely easy to just target them because they are not going to be clumped up with other units like let's say Spearman or men at arms or Spearman or archers. It's going to be really easy to fight the OTD army. Similar to to black they require so much food man. If they can't get deer early or some kind of food they have to go into farms and if they have to go into farms they are already way behind. And like I said because their feudal army is not that good and it's so easy to counter you just stay in feudal as the opponent of feudal TD you stay in feudal you make counter units. If they try to go castle you deny gold and and just kill them. If they try to stay feudal you just make counter units and you kill them. And so OTD is good but only on certain maps. In the rest of the maps I think it's just bad. Like you can go for example to TC and place the second TC on on a deer and then you are fine because you you get food that way. But if you can't do that then you are just screwed. So OTD for me goes above to black I think but in the lower tier.

Okay next one is going to be the Mongols in the bottom of C tier. The problem with Mongols is their economy is not that great. So they rely on making damage and making the game ugly and making Spearman rushes and making Mangudai and whatever. And if you know the Mangudai right now is just dead man. The Mangudai doesn't do absolutely anything. So, what people used to do before is they made a few Mangudai, they gained map control that way with the Mangudai the Khan Hunter and the Khan, and then they worked in on their on their fast castle or on their economy while still doing a lot of pressure to the opponent. But, that is no longer an option. What people are doing right now is they're either going for cash plus archers in feudal, which is is decent, but with the economy that Khan has that that the Mongols have, everybody else is just going to outmass you outmass you. And what I've seen people starting to do right now is going for trade, which is good if you have a good map for it. Let Let's say for example, Rocky River, I don't know, or Golden Heights No, not Golden Heights. What What's it called? Well, it depends on the map, but if you can't have like a good trade post, you're you're just not going to be able to build up your your traders. And even if if you have a good map for it, like you still have to defend it, [music] and you cannot build walls. So, the economy with Mongols just feels really really bad. So, yeah, that's why they are here at the bottom of C tier. They have They have really good match-ups, though. They have some good match-ups. Let's say for example, against Sengoku, I think they can do a lot of damage because they are a really good Dark Age civilization, and they can do a lot of damage to Sengoku that way. So, they're really good Dark Age civilization. That is something that they have going for themselves, but a lot of people already know how to play against that, and a lot of civilizations can also go Dark Age and defend themselves. So, if you don't do anything on Dark Age or in feudal early, then you're just screwed.

Okay, let's go to the next one. HRE. Oh my god, how the strong have have fallen. HRE used to be over here, man. I don't know what happened. I'm actually not sure. Their economy in paper should be good, but it doesn't feel that way. And I think it's because of many different things. The first thing is that they benefit a lot from professional scouts, and professional scouts right now it's not that good. That is why their economy doesn't feel that great right now. The second thing I think I think why they're so bad right now they're they're actually they have been using tournaments but their win rates have been abysmal both in tournaments and in ladder. The second thing I think is why they're so bad is because of their units. Their units are so trash, man. The only good thing they have is the movement speed but if you see some of these other civilizations for example, we have Macedonian Dynasty who get free upgrades and stronger units without any costing increase. We have Ottomans which just have the best Sipahi, the best horseman in the game. They have Janissaries, they have Mamluks. They don't need to invest into that. They they just have them. Sengoku also they just have the best units in the game without making that much investment. For HRE if you want to have a decent knight, you first have to go with the mine work. That is one thing. Then you have to research barding armor or whatever it's called the upgrade that it gives you plus two armor and then you have a decent knight which doesn't have extra HP, doesn't have extra damage, doesn't have extra anything except just armor. That is just one example with the knight. You also have examples with the Men-at-Arms which you need like four different upgrades to make it good. And even then Men-at-Arms are not that good in this meta right now because knights are good, archers are good, crossbows are also good. So I don't know I I just feel like even though they have like a good economy, their units are just complete crap. So here's where I will put them. They're still pretty good on hybrid maps and water maps but on land maps they're just pretty bad.

Uh oh my god, this hurts my soul. Because I loved Lancaster. Lancaster Lancaster used to be here too, man. But they received nothing but nerfs since they were released. The problem right now is that they have nothing. Their economy feels bad. It feels good only on the first 10 minutes of the game and after that they are just bad because you have to uh keep remaking manners, and each manner you make it they actually do do not increase your economy that much. They just try to maintain the feudal age economy that you had before, but by then, people are already going into castle. They have some other ways to to catch up to your economy without having to invest into manners every time you want to move on onto another resource. And so, if you don't do anything on the first 10 minutes of the game, you are dead because your units are not that bad, but they are expensive as [ __ ] Geomancers are so expensive, and in feudal age they do not gain that much of an advantage, just some movement speed and plus one range, which is not that as good as the longbow, but they cost the same as a longbow, or I think more, I'm not sure. I think they cost the same. A similar thing happens with HRE, like if you want Geomancers to be good, you need to get to castle age first, and then you need to get the upgrade for the synchronized shot, which by then your opponent already has twice your economy, so it's way too late. The knights also used to be some of the best knights in the game, but they got nerfed, and also the lords are just way too easy to kill right now. Like you don't even need crossbows or anything. You just need decent mass of archers, and then you can just target them, and then your whole army loses 20% HP. So, I feel like they are decent everywhere, but they're not good anywhere, and their economy just needs like a above like I I know like manners have been getting nerfed since release, but they do need a buff right now. I I think they need like maybe a reduction on cost because at some point you need to make manners all over your base, right? So, you can get all of your villagers under the influence. But if you have to invest 325 resources every time you do that, then man, it just feels really bad. So, this is where I'm going to place the Lancaster. I haven't won a Lancaster game in a really long time, at least not that I remember. So, here's where I will put them.

Now, talking about how how the turntables how the tables turn, let's look at Roose. Roose, I will put at the bottom of B tier. And the bottom of B tier is because I think Roose has so many counters right now, man. Like even even here on the bottom of the of the tier list. Like let let's say what what counters Roose? Civilizations that have good archers and civilizations that have good knights. And we are in a knight meta right now. In a knight plus archer meta. So, Roose has so many counters, man. Even even civilizations that don't rely on knights, like Delhi for example, which are really good on feudal age and you need to stay on feudal against Delhi. This is a really impossible match up to win because Roose is extremely slow to set up their economy. Delhi is one of the best and the same happens with some of these other civilizations, like Ottoman and I was even I was even one of the worst match ups for Roose. So, there's so many bad match ups for Roose. And the pro scouts nerfs just made made it so the Roose economy doesn't feel that good anymore. Like you run out of food so fast. And the last thing that I think Roose is lacking right now is good units. Like the horse archer used to be so strong and now it feels like you need 50 of them to make it strong. But the problem with horse archers right now is not only that they deal less damage, it's that they're really bad at guiding heavy heavy units, heavy armored units, like knights. And so what happens is if you go pro scouts and then go into horse archers like we used to do before, people are just going to go fast castle behind you, spam a lot of knights when you only have like 10 or or yeah or 10 or so horse archers, they send 10 knights into your base and you just die because you don't have any way to kill them because the damage reduction for horse archers has been way too good. Way too too big of a blow for Roose. So, I have been experimenting a little bit with Roose trying to figure out how how to play it. 2 TC Kremlin feels all right, but you still have the problem of of their units not being that good. So, yeah, I feel like Roose needs a little bit of a buff on the unit department. I feel I feel the economy doesn't feel that that bad, but the units don't feel good right now. Let's say for example, the knight also, not only the horse archer, but the knight. What What does the Roose knight have in Castle Age? They have plus 25 HP and they can get the water monk buff uh if you are good with micro and you get the water monk into the front of your line, but let's not count that. Let's Let's just say they have plus 25 HP. What does some of these other like Is that good against some of these other new civilizations that we have like Sengoku, French, even Sushi because they have 20% HP uh attack speed. Camel lancers just uh freaking destroy knights. Like you can still play them, but the it's not a good uh trade. Mounted samurai just uh destroy them with the uh with the shield and the plus 10 damage that they have. Uh Macedonian dynasty have ridari. Uh these guys even knights templar have the knight the templar brother, which is extremely good. Sofa really good. Um so, yeah, Golden Horde also has extremely good heavy cavalry. So, Roose I feel like is being left behind and it needs updates because they used to be one of the best cavalry civilizations in the game and now it feels like they are like maybe numbers six, seven, or eight uh out of all of the civilizations that we have right now. So, yeah, uh I feel Roose this are a good place for Roose. Bottom of B tier.

This might surprise This might be a little bit controversial, but I'm going to put English above Roose. Now, English versus Roose, that match up itself is not good for English, but I feel English against some of these other civilizations uh is really good. So, that's why I'm putting it here. So, I think 2 TC is starting to make a comeback and English is one of the best 2 TC civilizations in the game because you get a free a free knight on the feudal age. Uh you get amazing uh defensive bonuses. You get amazing farming bonuses. Also, I think the the ranked map pool that we have right now is really good for 2 TC. So, I feel like I'm I am not getting bad results with with English. Also, English is really good against some of these other of some of the top civilizations. Like, if you go 2 TC against Macedonian Dynasty, that is really good for you because you can build up your economy, you can then build crossbows to counter the Rittari, and if they don't do if they don't kill you on Castle Age, they will lose in Imperial, and English is one of the best Imperial Age civilizations in the game. I recently played somewhere around 15 straight games of English in the ranked ladder, and they don't feel that bad, to be honest. Like, if you can get to Castle Age with 2 TC White Tower and don't get enough damage done to you by then, then you are really good in a really good spot. So, I think English is starting to see a rise because of 2 TC. And yeah, here's where I'm going to put English.

Let's keep talking about English just one bit. So, I think why it is here and not higher is because we're still on a fast Castle meta, and fast Castle is really good against English. If you go fast Castle, let's say with Zheng He, you grab all the relics, you grab all the sacred sites. You are going to have much better economy than English for like 20 minutes. Like, English needs like 20 minutes at 2 TC to finally catch up with the economy of a Zheng He player at fast Castle with 1 TC. And even even then, I think it might not be better. But, the same can be said for Rus, for China, for let's say Byzantine. And then, what they do is just make trebuchets, start attacking your White Tower, make some towers there so you cannot push into them, and then it's really hard to to survive that. So, the reason why English cannot be higher is because we are in a fast Castle meta, and fast Castle meta is extremely good against English.

Okay, let's go for the next one. Abbasid, same reason. Abbasid 2 TC is not that bad anymore, in my opinion. I think if you don't do anything against Abbasid 2 TC, you are going to be in a lot of trouble because they have received a lot of buffs actually. I don't think people are aware that Aussie has has been receiving a couple of slight buffs here and there. And so, I don't think Aussie 2TC is that bad anymore. Also, Aussie is extremely dynamic and it is They have more than one strategy. Like let's say for example, English, most games you want to go to TC, but with Aussie you can play one TC being aggressive with it and being really really uh good. Like Aussie has some really good bonuses for staying on one TC and just being really aggressive. They have camel archers on feudal age, so they can deal with uh with knights and with men-at-arms. They have so many economic bonuses and so they can mass so many units in the feudal age at one TC. So, even though they're really good 2TC TC civilization, one TC they also feel really good. What else? Military wing Military wing I feel is it's starting to gain popularity once again and it delays a lot of the a lot of the civilizations that are on top right now. Like let's say for example, French and Sengoku uh that uh and also Japanese, military wing are is really good against those because they can pressure your gold. If you get tower rushed, let's say for example, versus some of the dark age civilizations, you can go military wing and and build a ram and be done with that. So, yeah, I think Aussie is not that bad right now.

Let's go with the next one. Joan of Arc, I'm going to put Joan of Arc here, which I am not sure about Joan of Arc because I have not played her that much, but they are really good because they have access to feudal age knights, similar to why French is good right now. Feudal age knights are or just royal knights in general are so [ __ ] good, man. Like if you make one mistake against feudal age knights and you get raided and you could lose like five villagers, let's say, then it's it might be over. Like if you if if if you don't do something after losing that many villagers and losing that many villagers against French and JD is really easy, then the game might be over right then and there. The problem with JD is that managing JD herself is really hard, at least in my experience. Also, as opposed to French, her economy is really bad. So, if you don't do damage early, you are going to suffer later because the economy for JD is not good. If you lose villagers as JD, you don't have the luxury of reproducing them faster like French does. So, if the opponent rates you in turn and you don't make any damage as JD, then you're just [ __ ] because your economy is going to be really, really bad. Also, I don't know if much people or I think people have forgotten how to play against JD. The way you play against JD is you just ignore her because you cannot feed her XP. Fast castle, let's say for example, is really good against JD because of this reason. You don't fight at all if you don't you just go fast castle and then with better units you can snipe her easily. You can fight against the real knights, etc. So, I think that's one of the good things that that might be going on for her. But, yeah, I can I I think I'm going to place it here. I I think she might be like bottom of A tier for some people, but I am not sure. I have not played her that much, only my experience playing against her. So, I think this is a good place for JD.

Now, next one. This is another civilization that I think has fallen off a little bit. Actually, dude, are they B tier? I think Sushi can go here. I am not sure. Let's Let's go with the next one first and then we will think about Sushi. Let's go with Knights Templar. I think Knights Templar can go on the top of B tier. Knights Templar has been gaining some popularity, especially with 2TC. And the good thing is that I think Knights Templar might be the best 2TC civilization right now. Oh, well, I I'm not sure if the best, but it's the safest because the 2TC for this civilization goes up like at 4:10, 4:15, which no civilization in the game can deny. There's no aggression in feudal that will be able to deny a Knights Templar 2TC. So, you can put it anywhere you want in the map. You can put it in a in a boar, in a deer pack if it's close enough. You can put it in your base, in a woodland, wherever you want because you will have the fastest TC in the game. I don't think their economy is that bad anymore. I have seen some really good one TC feudal aggression builds where they have so many units, man. And they are also pilgriming behind that. That Knights Templar have also gotten a lot of pilgrim buffs over time. And now they are really affordable because they cost wood instead of food. Like they cost more more wood than food now. So, because your wood economy is so good, you can get pilgrims really easily. So, I think Knights Templar can go here on the top of B tier. It is a really good civilization right now. I think for some people it might go here. I don't think we can go that far yet, but it is like maybe one or two slight buffs away from from going into the higher tiers. I think Knights Templar is really good right now. And so, we are going to put them at the top of B tier.

Now, let's go with let's go with Sushi. I think Sushi can go here, man. I think Sushi Uh, let's let's let's let's do this. Let's do this. I think Sushi Sushi has fallen off a lot. Sushi is a civilization that benefited a lot from professional scout. But, their economy is not that good because they first they start with one less villager. Second, they don't have access to the Imperial Academy like China does. So, you cannot build more Imperial officers unless you build them from TCs. So, if you want to do the standard build that they did before, you are going to have four less villagers than your opponent, much like KT does. And then your food is going to run out faster than before. And so, if you don't do any damage before that happens, then you're just screwed, man. Like then you have to go into granary transition. You have to maybe go for a second TC to make up for the villager losses and the Imperial officers. I feel like because we have so many Knights Templar right now that are that have better Knights like Macedonian Dynasty, Golden Horde, Sengoku, Japan, French, even [ __ ] Byzantines, man. Like Byzantines with Cataphracts are are going to be better than sushi knights. I think there's their knights used to be with some of the best because of the 20% attack speed buff, but right now they are not. They're just They're just like a slightly above average knights. Like let's say let's compare them to mounted samurai from Sengoku. Sengoku gets the 20% attack speed buff from the daimyo. Like you don't have to even research an upgrade or anything. You just make the daimyo and the daimyo makes all your units, not just knights, all your units, your archers, too, and your spearmen and and everything else, get that 20% attack speed buff and it even increases to 40% in in Imperial Age. So, yeah, I don't know. I I think sushi have fallen off because of the introduction of all of these new things and because of all of the nerfs that things around sushi have gotten. So, yeah, here's where I'm going to put sushi. Sugino eat archers? I don't think so. I think Sugino I think actually not having access to archers is also a disadvantage because Sugino don't deal damage to extra damage to spearmen. I think they also have less movement speed and less range. >> [music] >> And so, they have a similar issue to what longbows have in feudal age, which is they're extremely immobile and we are in a knight meta. So, having immobile infantry, let's say compared to the to the [ __ ] Japanese archers that have like 140 movement speed, Sugino I don't think are good, man. I I think they're way too easy to counter. They They can just play around them. They're really slow. They're really like if you make a bad fight, you lose all your Sugino. So, and they and they also cost gold, I think. Do they cost gold? I think they do. So, I think not having access to archers is also a disadvantage. It is not an advantage. The actual sushi cup of it's 15%. Oh, okay, that that is that is actually nice to know. I didn't know that. So, yeah, it's actually worse than the than the Sengoku one. So, yeah, really nice to know. So, yeah, for me sushi goes here. I don't think I can put it in A tier. Yeah, let's keep going.

Bottom of A tier, Let's go with Ayubids. Ayubids has a lot of advantages, but the advantages are only tied to the meta we are in. We are in a knight meta, and Ayubids has desert raiders and camel lancers, which are the best counters to to knights. However, their feudal age is extremely vulnerable, even though they have derbyshires. And even though there's the build that we have all seen at this point, the one where you age up with industry and then you abandon the gold and make all your production in the back. People have already figured out how to play against that. And what they do is just they just make a bunch of units in in feudal age. And if you try to go for an naked fast castle like that, you get [ __ ] You just get dove, and they just destroy all your production buildings and your industry wing then does nothing. So, I think Ayubids, even though they have the best units in the game right now to counter knights, they're they have a lot of weaknesses right now regarding feudal aggression. So, if people play against Ayubids like they did before, like they just go fast castle, they let you do what you want, you grab all five relics, then Ayubids is great. It is one of the best. I love playing Ayubids because of this. Um but right now, I feel like people are starting to catch up to that, and they play extremely aggressive on feudal, and they just [ __ ] you in the ass if you try to do that. So, right now, Ayubid players I think are starting to to go more towards playing in feudal age more, and then transitioning to fast castle slowly. But still, I feel they're really good because of the units they have access to. And because of the fact that dervish wing in feudal age is so so damn good, man. Like if you have good micro, you can heal all your units, and then you can get minimum of four relics once you get to fast castle. So, I think Ayubids is really good, but but yeah, the people are starting to learn how to play against them. Manjanik is also really strong. Like Manjanik, you know what's good about Manjanik? Is that it also enables counters to some of these other civilizations. like let's say for example, Malians. Malian is extremely good against Malians. Not only because it counters the infantry composition of Malians, but also because you can destroy a building so damn fast. Like a pit mine dies like in 2 seconds against I would. So, yeah. I would say it's really good. I like I would.

But, Delhi I think is better. Delhi is really good. Delhi has some of one of the best feudal age in the game. It is not the best by no means, but I think Delhi The problem with Delhi is that even though you always know how to how they are going to play, playing against them is still really really hard because you have to go for all the sacred sites. It interrupts your plan because you cannot go into fast castle. You cannot go into 2 DC. You have to play feudal age aggression. And if you don't, they're going to get all sacred sites. They're going to get a [ __ ] ton of gold. They're They're going to follow you to fast castle. And then they're going to get all of their upgrades and the elephants that are so so damn good. So, Delhi forces you to play into their game plan. But, I cannot place it higher because Delhi has really bad match-ups right now. French is a really nice counter to Delhi. I think I would say it's even can be Well, actually I'm not sure how this this match-up plays out because I would say it's have camel lancers camel raiders in feudal age and then they can go archers, but Delhi might have much better army production. I'm not sure how this one plays out. But, I think Delhi has a lot of bad match-ups because there are some other better feudal age aggression. And if you are not able to capture sacred sites, you can still play, but it's not going to be as good. And people can kill you in feudal if you are not careful. So, let's say for example, with Golden Horde which is a really good feudal age civilizations once they get going, they can fight pretty well against against gas raider spearman archer. So, yeah. I think as Delhi, you have a lot of advantages. And the good thing is that the opponent always has to play your game, which is why they're here at A tier.

Now, let's go with the next one, which is going to be Byzantines. I need you guys to remember that the way I am doing this tier list is is not for tournament play. This is for ladder, 1v1 ranked ladder on land maps. And [music] ladder has a few differences from tournament play. What is the difference? Is that first, you are not going to have 100% perfect execution on any of these civilizations. That is why China is not the best civilization in the game in ladder, right? Because people cannot execute execute it properly. Same goes for Byzantines, same goes for any of the other hard civs. So, playing defensive as Byzantines, I find it really really hard to do. And with so many good feudal age aggression civilizations right now in the game, and also fast castle, like if they they can do like a slight harassment feudal and then going to fast castle, that is some really good counters to Byzantines. However, if you are allowed to get five cisterns, if you protect them well, if you are allowed to later get go into castle age and spam longbows plus cataphracts, you are invincible. This civilization has so much economy, so many free units, so many upgrades, freaking towers with mangonels. So, if you let them get to that point, there is no civilization in the game that can Maybe well, okay, maybe Ottoman can play against that, but there's really you are god if you if you if you get to that point with Byzantines. The problem is that Byzantines has so many counters to their strategies right now. And so many it is so hard to play, man. I feel like I cannot place it higher than A-tier. Otherwise, it would have insane win rates right now. But if you are like a god at Byzantines, and you don't take damage, and you can get five cisterns every game without taking damage, then of course this goes here. But uh or maybe not as last, but it goes as tier. But for me, I think A-tier is a good place for Byzantines.

Let's go with the next one. Same thing. I This might be controversial, too, but I'm going to place China in A tier. And the reason is for the same thing that I just mentioned before. I am not going to assume that ladder players have 100% perfect execution of China. And China is one of the hardest civilizations in the game. And even then, I think China has received so many nerfs. They used to be here. They used to be here. But with the nerfs to professional scouts, their economy feels like you are God for the first 10 to 15 minutes of the game. I think 15 minutes is a good Yeah, 15 minutes. Let's say 15 minutes. More than an Outcaster, for sure. So, you are God for the first 15 minutes. But after that, you have to do a granary transition. >> [music] >> You have to get Barbican, which is also an investment, to get the granaries. Then you have to get all of the farms, which are not discounted like some of these other civilizations. And in that time, you are extremely vulnerable. So, if you don't make damage, or if you don't get 100% map control before you have to go into a granary transition, you can die pretty easily. And that always happens. Every time I play against China, I always think about this. Like at some point they're going to run out of wood, and at that point I'm going to run into their base and kill everything. And that is what always happens. But they are still some one of the best civilizations in the game, so I cannot place them lower than A tier. I think A tier is fine for them. They have the the freaking Imperial Academy is so strong, man. And also the the thing that gives you vision on their villagers in Castle Age, that thing is so underrated. Like you can They cannot escape. You have map hacks in game with with China with that landmark. So, I think China is still really good, but I cannot place it in A tier because they have a really good counter to their meta strategy, which everyone is going for, is pro scouts. And they have They They are one of the hardest civilizations in the game. Also, something else that I just thought about is that they have The their economy is their only good [music] thing, by the way. One of the only good things. Because their units have absolutely no no advantages I I unless you get into Imperial Age, but up until Castle Age, you just have regular knights, regular spearmen, regular archers, regular horsemen. You don't have any advantages on your military. So, you have to do damage with the civilization. If you don't, you're screwed. So, this is where I would put them. Uh well, actually they have Nest of Bees. That is true. Nest of Bees is good. But, like I said, they are not the easiest to micro. Even at my level, like in Conqueror 2, 3, even at my level, people don't know how to micro all of those units uh effectively. And they just end up losing stuff for free. So, I think China, in my book, goes here because of the difficulty it has.

The best A-tier civilization, in my opinion, is Malians. Malians feels so strong. And the only reason why they are not S-tier is because they have so many counters right now. So many counters, man. Like uh like they either have really good match-ups, or they have really bad match-ups. And any civilization that is that can pressure your pit mines on the Feudal Age uh can do a lot of damage. Like, for example, Knights Templar, I think is a really good counter to Malians because of the pressure they can deal in Dark Age and in the and in Feudal Age, even Mongols, even Lancaster, which are some of the worst civilizations in the game right now, even HRE, too. They can deal a lot of damage to Malians. The problem is that if you let Malians get their cow boom, their two pit mines, and go into fast castle, and you didn't deal damage to them by then, you are dead. You're [ __ ] dead, man. Even I was in Treaty, so I don't think I can compete against Malians uh cow boom. I'm saying that because I have actually played that match-up before. I played it uh pretty recently. The The guy went 3 TC against my just 1 TC cow boom, and uh yeah, I ended up winning that game as well. So, I do think Malians is one of the best civilizations in the game. They have really good units, really uh the best economy in the game, but they have a lot of counters. And something else uh is that they are map spawn dependent. The You are not going to have a same game if you get two front goals that if you get two back goals. So, for ranked ladder this is extremely important because it means you can if you play 100 games of Malians, maybe 50 of those games are going to be map bad map spawns and you are going to be at a disadvantage. So, if those things weren't in the game, I would for sure place Malian here or here. But, because all of those reasons, I will place Malians at the top of A tier. Also, it is one of hardest civilizations to play. Like, you have to play so defensive. You have to know how to counter the enemy units because you are a counter civilization. So, you have to be really mindful of your counters and what units to make. So, that is also another level of difficulty to this this civilization. And yeah, I think I think those are really really nice reasons for why we have a Malian at the top of A tier instead of S tier.

Let's move on. I think the first S tier civilization that I missed Well, yeah, I missed one. Golden Horde it goes here. I missed one. Golden Horde goes behind China and Malians. I don't think Golden Horde is better. But, the good thing about Golden Horde is that people have already learned how to prepare themselves to the Dark Age civilization. Also, they got Mongol and Golden Horde got an Oovoo buff HP buff. Now, the spearman rush into Golden Horde and Mongol is not that good because you will be able to click your feudal age and still have enough time to build a tower and defend the Oovoo or just repair it. So, I think Golden Horde players have gotten really good lately. I think also the play style that Vortex has popularized recently where you just stay in feudal age and keep making units, keep making your army as big as possible. You make the farms which are some of the but I think I think they might be some of the best farms in the game, maybe behind English. But, they're so good. They're the Golden Horde farms. And you just have so many units in the feudal age And you get your economy economy set up, that you can even if the opponent goes for fast castle, you can just overrun their their gold, kick them out of the gold, kick them out of their of their food sources. Even if they go for castle age knights, you still have really good unit to counter that. A lot of cash eggs, a lot of what's what's their called? A Torgut Spearman. You have Karash that give you armor so you can dive more easily. They have so many tools, man. The only bad thing about Golden Horde is that they're really slow. They're really slow and so they're prone to take damage before they can get to that point. And also the fact that their age ups are really really slow. So you can die while going up to the castle age because like judging when to go for castle age is a really interesting skill that even I don't know how to do properly. But if you know how to do that properly, Golden Horde is one of the best civilizations in the game. So I cannot place them higher than that. I don't think they're better than China. I think China [ __ ] destroys Golden Horde. I think Malian is also pretty good against Golden Horde. But yeah, I think this is a good place. I I'm not sure maybe maybe they can go here. I think they I'm not sure where to put Golden Horde. Where if behind Byzantines or or this I I think they're pretty much equal in my opinion. If they I think Byzantines is really good against Golden Horde by the way. But I think as general in general as a civilization as a whole, I think Golden Horde might be here. But they're really close. They're really close by. I think they you can place them anywhere here. But yeah, I think that's where I would put them.

Okay, now we can go to the S tier. Bottom of S tier is going to be Japanese in my opinion. Japanese is a strange one because I feel they are they have they are the easiest civilization in the game. Some well, not not the easiest. But they are extremely easy to play. You don't have to worry about mills because you your houses are mills. So that is actually economic buff because you don't have to build mills. You just save 50 wood every time you were going to build a mill. You don't have to build blacksmiths. You that that is all That also means that you save 150 wood when going into the feudal age. What else? Their economy is just so easy. The core storehouse, it gives you free farms. So, you can start getting into farms really early. That means your berries and your sheep are going to run out slower. It means that you don't have to go out on the map until really late. And even then, your food is going to run really slowly. And your farms are also better because they get a buffed by the TC. So, the food economy for Japanese is extremely extremely good. For some reason, they don't have the best They They have really mediocre win rate in ladder. Which I am not sure why. I think the reason why is because they are really predictable. You know Japanese is going to go for dark age Spearman rush. They always do. It is the best Spearman rush in the game because of the barracks. Or maybe not the best, but it's one of the best. You always know they're they want to go for fast castle. So, they're really really predictable. The game plan against Japan is always the same. You either go to fast castle yourself and try to compete with the mounted samurai that way, or you make a big ass feudal age army and deny their gold, deny the monks that go out to the relics to get them. And just make Spearman and kill the mounted samurai. You You can kill mounted samurai with feudal age Spearman if you have enough of them. So, I think that's something that most people don't realize. Like if you stay in feudal age against Japan and try to deny the resources, you can do pretty good damage. But still, they're S-tier because they just have so many bonuses. They can go into fast castle every game. It doesn't matter against which civilization. Then it's it's a matter of how well the other civilization denies your your your gold and your resources once you get to fast castle. But you will not get denied of a fast castle as Japan. And once you get there, you have so many resources in your base that you can stay there for very long times. Mounted samurai are also [ __ ] insane. They have 30 melee damage once they get the matterman and the two or three melee upgrades, Or or 31, something like that. I don't remember correctly or maybe maybe just 30. Uh and they also have access to the Yumi. The Yumi Ashigaru is the best archer in the game in my opinion. Also available for Sengoku because right now the game

is knight based, fast castle based and mobility based. And that is basically all of the things that Japan has. Mobility with their archers, with their mounted samurai and the best fast castle or the safest fast castle in the game. So, I think Japan can go in the bottom of fast tier. Just in the bottom because of how predictable it is and how people already know how to play against them.

I think I'm I'm going to change my mind. I think Macedonian Dynasty is going to go in the bottom of fast tier instead. I don't think Macedonian Dynasty is better than Japan, but I will still say that they are one of the best civilizations in the game. Uh they have access to the Rittari, one of the best knights in the game. It is also faster for some reason. I don't know why it is faster than uh the standard knight, but it is faster. It has like 32 damage when it gets fully upgraded. And the Golden Horn Tower is the freaking best landmark in the game. You get immunity to raids in the area where you put it in. So, if you put it in a really good area, you are immune to raids. That thing [ __ ] destroys armored units and it destroys everything. And it also gives you somewhere around 200 resources per minute in in crossbows. So, you get just free crossbows for some reason. And you get free blacksmith upgrades and you can get up to Imperial Age upgrades in Castle Age. So, if you just stay Castle Age with this civilization, you get let's say 20% HP on your your knights, a lot of damage, then you get plus four range damage on your archers and crossbows. You get also plus 20% HP and plus four armor on crossbows if you get to that point. Um so, Macedonian Dynasty, even though they don't have economic economic bonuses, they They so many other bonuses. Like they have free units on the crossbows. They also have 20% discount on all of their units. Why? Because of the Barracks and War Camp, which uh Is it 20% or something like 16% 17% discount on all of your units because of the Barracks and War Camp, which reproduces units when you lose them. And it is just so easy to play. Like I I'm going to mention this again.

>> [music] >> This is a ladder tier list, not a tournament tier list. So, I value the ease of play really highly. This is why some of the best civilizations That that is actually something worth of discussing because the easier civilizations should be the weakest, right? But Japan is easy. Macedonian Dynasty is really easy. And they're really strong. Like they should they should not be that strong, but whatever, they're they are here because of all of those reasons. He's Macedonian Dynasty is at the bottom because they have received a lot of nerfs recently. So, their military don't feel as good as before, but they're still really good. And also, if the match gets to Imperial Age, they start to fall off really quickly because they don't have a university. They already have the blacksmith. So, and also getting into those later Imperial Age silver upgrades, nobody does that. It is impossible to get that amount of silver. So, Macedonian Dynasty after some point, like 25 or 30 minutes, they start to fall off really really rapidly. So, I'm going to place them here.

Not sure if Macedonian Dynasty is better than Mali. I think I think it is. I Maybe the match-up is not good, but I think Macedonian Dynasty plays better into some of the into most other civilizations than Mali does. I don't think Macedonian Dynasty has as many counters as Mali does. So, even though Mali may be like a in general a better civilization, Mali has way too many counters, man. So, I can't I I don't think they're they're better in ladder than Macedonian Dynasty. Even though they're both good, man.

What makes Macedonian Dynasty really easy? Uh you don't have to worry about uh upgrades. Macedonian Dynasty does not have any upgrades. Their macro is just standard macro. Uh you don't have to worry about, let's say, Imperial Officers like uh like China, about cows like Malians, about uh freaking I don't know, resources and and farms like Golden Horde, about cisterns like Byzantines. You don't have to worry about any of that. You just make freaking units, you upgrade them, and you beat your opponent with your better units. And that's it. And you also get a defensive landmark in the in the Castle Age. Uh so that makes your defense even easier. So yeah, I just think Macedonian Dynasty has so many things that makes it easy. And yep, that's why they're here.

The next one. This one might be controversial to some people. But I'm going to play I'm going to put Ottoman here and French here. Mm. I am not sure. Where do we put French and Ottoman? No, I'm going to put uh French here and Ottoman here. Ottoman has Mm. No, I'm going to put Ottoman here. Okay. Let Let's talk about Ottoman first and then we'll talk about French.

So Ottoman has the best units in the game to counter the current meta. What does that mean? We are in a knight meta, as we have talked about many times. And what does uh Ottoman have access to? They have access to first the Sipahi, which is the best cavalry unit in the game. Uh it is It It can It is a horseman that is strong enough to compete with knights. Just think about that. It is [ __ ] insane. It is the best raider in the game. Like if you get raided by a Sipahi and you don't garrison in time, they activate fortitude and all your villagers are dead in less than a second. They have Mekters. They have They have 10 sheep under their base if they want to go for that that vizier point. So they don't have to go out on the map. Uh they have Imams in Feudal Age that uh as we know, healing in Feudal Age is extremely good. They have uh what else? They have Janissaries. Janissaries is the best counter to the knight in this game. So, all of these guys that are extremely good at making knights are going to get countered by Janissaries. What else? The military schools are so good. They produce so many free units, man. Like if you get to Castle Age and you have three military schools, and you can get even four with uh with the vizier point, they start producing so many units. And even even if your economy is crap, you can still keep producing units, which is insane. Um so, you have to deal a lot of damage to Ottoman if you want to kill them. I think the way to kill them is just to constantly raid, and maybe make a timing once they get to fast Castle and before they can get so many good units. They also get free siege. Like, dude, they get so many things. And right now, because professional scouts is nerfed, feudal age aggression is not as fast as before, and they can survive up to the point where they can get all of those things. So, I think Ottoman is so good, man. It They get so many things. It's Maybe it's not as easy to play as these other three civilizations, but it is not hard, either. And yeah, I just feel Ottomans is so good.

Now, let's talk about French. French is the easiest civilization in the game. I 100% stand by that. It is the easiest one. There's no discussion, even easier than English. Why is it easier than English? Because you make You always go for the exact same plan. You go into Feudal Age. You make knights. You get absolute map control of of the Feudal Age knights that you have, and you can go into the deer, you can go into the boar, you can go into all of the resources of the map. All you need to do is maybe place a few towers here and there to defend yourself from raids, and you are going to have absolute map control. Your economy's not that bad. You always are going to be making more villagers than your opponent. So, if you lose some villagers, let's say, it is not that bad because you can make them faster. If they lose villagers, they're going to get further and further away from you, even at one TC. And you don't really have to do that much damage these days. Like you don't have to raid at 5 minutes. You just have to have a really big mass of knights, go around your opponent's base, deny them of resources. You don't have to even kill villagers. Just stick stick to your knights denying resources. Behind that you get all of the resources on the map. You can go into fast castle whenever you want because because your opponent will not know when you're when you stop making knights or archers or whatever. And it is the easiest civilization in the game. You don't have to worry about your villagers. You don't have to worry about anything. You can just focus on microing your knights and your army as well as you can and that will make your army trades much much better than most of these other civilizations. The bad thing about French is that it does have a lot of counters. And dark age rushes can be really really annoying. Let's like let's say for example Ottoman can [ __ ] destroy French because of Janissaries and and Sipahis. Montezuma I can compete really well against against these guys. And also they get the the crossbows on horses which are really good against knights. Malians [ __ ] [ __ ] on French. If they well actually if if they know how to play like this a hard match up for French but French can do a lot of raiding here that can work. But in general I think is is is better for Malian. Ayyubids is also really good into my into French. So even though it is the easiest civilization in the game and it gets a lot of bonuses, I still think it has a lot of bad match ups and this is why I think I I am even thinking of placing them here. Yeah, I think now that I think of it more, they do have a lot of bad match ups. So yeah, let let's place them behind Japan I think. Yeah, I think that's good. I think that's good.

Now, the moment you have been waiting for which I think any everybody already knew about this >> [laughter] >> is that Sengoku is the best civilization in the game in my opinion. I think I think nothing is is close to Sengoku men. Like, uh they get everything. They get the best Dark Age economy in the game, the best Feudal Age economy in the game. Mhm, maybe not the best Castle Age economy in the game, but at one TC they can make so many units and so much stuff and get so much gold. And even if you prevent the gold, like if you tower rush the gold, let's say for example, you can go to the stone and you can sell the stone because the stone sells at a higher rate than all of the other resources. So, you actually start with two golds at your base. So, even even Dark Age rushes and Feudal Age rushes, I don't think they work that well against Sengoku. The only thing that I think works well against Sengoku is really fast Feudal Age aggression and uh denying the uh the the Jatai's, the the merchants on the on the boars and on the deers. And even if you deny that, let's say, okay, I have a a Jatai on a deer pack, I just pull it back, it's still giving you resources. It's still giving you 20 resources per minute. Even though it's not as good as having them outside, uh you can still just send them back and they're still giving you resources. You can have uh I think four of them in Feudal Age, which is insane. Um and they are so tanky. Killing these things is so hard, man. Like, even if you get gold or with five horses and they start attacking it the Jatai at all at the same time, they take so long to kill it. Uh the good thing is that you can surround the Jatai's, right? Uh that is a a good way to kill them. But, by then the your Sengoku, if he is smart, they will be making units in Feudal Age and they will be defending their Jatai's. And if you don't make any damage in the Feudal Age, you are going to have a really bad time because their economy is just going to ramp up and keep ramping up. And yeah, it's just going to be extremely good. They have access to the best knight in the game. I think it's better than Rattan Archer, 100%. Uh in Castle Age, fully upgraded they have um the shield that the mounted samurai get. They have 10% extra HP, which is the same that Rus gets. So, it has Rus level of HP. They have one extra damage from the blacksmith. They have 15% extra attack speed, so they have the same as Sushi. So, if you keep counting, they have the Japanese upgrade, the Sushi upgrade, the Ruth's upgrade. What else? They are faster, too. They They have I think 180 180 movement speed, something like that, when you get the the upgrade from the daimyo state. So, they are the fastest knight in the game, also. They're really good at raining, and they also heal if you go for the Ryokan. If you go for the Shinobi, they also deal more damage of the Shinobi grenade debuff. So, either either landmark is good, and they will they will provide even more bonuses to the mounted samurai. They are just [ __ ] insane, man. They have everything. They don't have any any weaknesses, I don't think. I I think some of the best ways to play against Sengoku is just dark age some kind of dark age shenanigans into full feudal age aggression, and try to to just [ __ ] kill them with Yolo or something. I'm not sure, but I just feel like Sengoku has everything. They also have access to the best archer in the game, which I think is better than the Japanese archer, because you don't have to depend of on on producing bannermen. They just get plus one damage for free. So, they are just produced Oh, they they're also produced faster, because the daimyo increases the production speed of all your military buildings around it. So, they are produced faster than the Japan archer rangers. They are really cheap. They get amazing economy. They have everything, dude. They They just have everything, and yeah, I don't know. I I don't know. This thing needs a nerf. Like maybe a Jatai nerf, maybe a a mounted samurai nerf. Their mounted samurai are so stacked, man. They They need something nerfed. Yeah, I think a mounted samurai and a Jatai nerf is what they need. That is what I would think they need to get nerfed, because I don't think there's a single civilization out of these that can compete. Like Ottoman is really good against them, because they have access to Janissaries and Sipahis. So, they can [ __ ] on on archers, and they can [ __ ] on on knights, but even then it's not as easy because the Sengoku gather rate economy is just going to be way way better than the Ottoman player. Like I just played one game right now and yeah, we won that. So yeah, I think these are the reasons why Sengoku is the best in the game. I really don't know how how we can play against this thing to be sure. What else? Did I miss something? Oh, the best landmarks in the game. Yeah, for sure. The The sake brewery is is insane. Like it gives you so much gold, man. Like it's so much gold. And yeah, the real can is really good. It used to be really bad, but they it got buffed. The shino is a really good. The vision that that landmark gives you is also really good. The only thing that I can think of is that they start to fall off in the Imperial Age because they don't have food upgrades. So their food economy is actually not that good once they reach Imperial Age. So they start to fall off, but even then like in Castle Age they are going to do damage to you in some way, shape, or form. So yeah, this is why I think Sengoku is the best.

All right, I think that's my tier list. If you like it, good. If you don't, then yeah, I don't know what to say. And yeah, I think that's pretty much it.