Discussion
Was waiting to see if somebody was going to post its tier list. Since nobody has, I decided to do it myself. If you disagree with the rank of any of the leaders, please share your opinion in the comments. All opinions are welcome and I'm open to debate.
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Some grade inflation up in this joint. Over 70% of the leaders are at least an A.
Most of them are fun so I guess it works
agree! Even more than 70%.
tbh most Civs are balanced. also, I can't understand the B tier at all! some of them are so good
Why is that surprising? Firaxis is terrible at gameplay balancing.
Uhhh, if most of the civs are in a smaller range of categories, that means the overall standard deviation is lower, and the game is statistically better balanced. You really be jumping straight for the devs throats before developing an understanding of what balance actually means. Next you'll be complaining about 'spaghetti code' and putting your shirts on inside-out.
Exactly, if most of the leaders can be considered good then that's incredibly good balancing. It's a sign of a flawed game when there's only a few choices that are worth playing.
If most choices are good and viable then that means that the balancing is good, it shows that the devs actually put time into making different civs viable rather than just having a few good ones and have the rest all be unviable.
Yeah, that's fair. You're probably right.
but in this case, "A" and "S" should be relative
you need to go back to school.
Agree. This is pretty much the only thing I find fault in, even if the list itself is surprisingly good. But I hate how tier lists just keep adding new tiers, as "S tier" is already an example of inflation. F is there to be used, as tiers have to be valued reliatively, and some leaders will always be at the bottom of the pole, thus deserving the F tier.
Well Nubia just blatantly isn't a bottom tier. The early power of Nubian Archers alone is enough to lift them out of it
It is probably the best earliest rush civ out there.
Well steady on now, Eagle Warriors still exist
Eagle warriors are nice. Too bad they cost too much gold/production and are melee so their movement is trash. Movement = ability to escape if injured. If your rival has bad terrain and gets walls/archers at a disadvantageous time a single unit list is a huge cost.
You can even hold off eagle warriors with regular warriors, because they are so much cheaper.
I tried them multiple times, just don’t stand close to Nubia. For me at least, on deity.
It's the pyramids that make Nubia though, the eagle warriors aren't pyramids.
But when I have enough early enemies for my eagle warriors my civ is the prettiest most manicured civ around, I'll stand by that!
Eagle warriors are crazy, but nubian archers are way better because of the range alone
They're not bottom tier, but not really. 3 movement archers still can't do shit against walls.
Ancient walls are crap. By the time they are up my archers have the incendiaries promotion, thanks to Nubia’s ability to earn promotions faster.
- Walls can be up on Deity before you even have an archer deployed.
- The promotion doesn't make up for the -17 CS penalty or let you do full damage with rams.
It may be because of my play stile. If I want domination, I only do domination, if I want other victory, I don't war at all. I should probably try an early conquest switch to science as Nubia to see if my opinion changes.
Otherwise, nubian pyramids are spawn dependent. And Archer production is mostly a war ability overwhelmed by most other war civs, like The Ottomans or Mongolia.
You’re underestimating how insane the promotion bonus is on ranged units, fully promoted ranged units are disgustingly strong and I can usually start getting one before the game is even in the Renaissance era. Nubia’s gameflow of building overpowered early game archers and maxing out their promotions on the first or second war creates a huge snowball effect. A flat 20% production to districts is already pretty massive as well so the Nubian pyramid bonus is kinda optional.
Nubia is easily one of the best civs, this is…a massive underestimation of her rush capabilities and chance to snowball
Lets get this straight. Civ6 is only a balanced game, SINPLY BECAUSE every nation has broken and overpowered benefits (babylon is an exception, he was far too rushed through development hell)
IMO Mathias should be in at least S tier if not straight into the broken. City states mostly just build units, Levying is already cheap, and his are faster and stronger. You can wipe out like 1-2 civs in the early game with very little luck and nothing they can do to stop you.
Oh yeah and the two UUs and civ ability are pretty excellent too.
Totally agree. I feel like the UUs are mostly irrelevant, but so many people sleep on both the leader and civ ability and their start bias. They’re one of the strongest civs in my opinion for both domination and science, yet I rarely see them near the top.
Came here to say this. Hungary are straight up top tier for me. I achieved my fastest deity domination victory with them - turn 151 on a standard seven seas map with 7 AI opponents. Crazy. All you need is gold, a bit of science and suzerainty of one city state. The rest is history.
Yep. Get the envoy giving governor as your first and you can get suzerainty by like turn 15
Huszar uu is underrated. I'm playing as Matthias and his huszar get +3 for every alliance. I have 4 alliances which is +12 combined with extra +5 from military alliance that's like +17.
Yeah and the Black Army really makes up for where the Huszar doesn't. You're going a more peaceful game and are using your large army to complete emergencies? Huszars get crazy strong from all your alliances. You're going full dom. and have a bunch of levied units running around? Well now your Black Armies are supercharged and can kill anything.
Seriously. On my first attempt at a diety quick domination win on a 6-player Pangaea, I got the V screen on turn 93. With a luckier start and more practice, sub 80 seems like a real possibility.
For similar reasons, Tomyris is also underrated so long as SS is turned on (her vamps are incredible and can take over late game, late being like turn 60). I've also gotten a 93 turn win with her.
Mathias is one of my favorites leader, but what keeps him from S tier is the fact that you will need a lot of gold to levy the city states. Hungary's Pearl of Danube does help with that, but I don't think he is as straightforward as Suleiman or Genghis
It obviously depends on what you're basing the rankings on, but he's one of a few contenders for fastest turn wins in both science and domination, so pretty busted for that at least
My fastest win was in a Mathias game for quite some time, about by turn 130, on emperor. But he was surpassed by my turn 103 win as Mongolia Kublai on deity.
Honestly, there are so many people saying Mathias should be higher, that my next game will be as him.
The thing is gold is easy to get. Especially when the war machine starts rolling, you can start pillaging to supplement your gold income.
The first levy might be a little harder to get, but overall I think you are right. I should definitely try Mathias again
also consider foreign ministry for 50% cost reduction. In the early game warriors, archers, etc are cheap. Especially with the "quick deals" mod you should be easily able to afford levying. The foreign ministry becomes useful, once you upgrade some of your levied units, because that otherwise increases the price considerably. Also: No reason to be too careful with levied units, the city states make enough of them and this keeps the individual amounts you pay lower. If you need more units, just levy from another one. More envoys that way too.
As others have said, pillaging things like mines early will get you the levy gold super quickly. Later (read: as soon as someone you aren't currently annihilating reaches the Medieval Era) you can just sell the Diplomatic Favor you get from all your subordinate city-states for mounds of gold. And while pillaging and selling stuff you don't need might be advanced strats that new players won't abuse... They really shouldn't be, because both actions are extremely powerful.
Stop exaggerating please. Mathias is meh at best, for several reasons. Levying is as RNG as it gets, because it depends on you:A) actually getting to suzerain a city stateB) That city state being relatively close to the enemyC) That city state having a good amount of units, and the right typeD) Not losing suzerainty at a bad time
Mathias isnt remotely close to OP as something like Theodora etc., so lets stop pretending like he is "broken". He isnt, he's just good under very specific circumstances, which are largely out of your control. That alone puts him at best in the middle of the pack, but more often than not closer to the bottom half. That, and the fact that you only have one viable path where he really excels (domination through levying), where his other routes to victory are nothing extraordinary.
I am not exaggerating and am sorry if it came off that way.
I also disagree with pretty much everything you are saying.
A) Getting suzerainty is quite easy. Go first governor Reyna, get literally a single envoy either by meeting them first (easy, but somewhat RNG I agree), or completing a city state quest often easy early game. In all the Hungary games, I've played I've never had an issue getting suzerainty of multiple city states very early. Keeping suzerainty is quite easy because every levy gives you two envoys. This pairs nicely with Reyna where you get a single envoy, put her in, now you have 3, levy, now you have 5, move Reyna to a new city state, and you still have 3 and are suzerain.
B) Honestly the city state doesn't even have to be close to the enemy because your levied units have +2 movement. Like you might be waiting 5 turns to walk the units across your entire empire to attack a city on the "wrong" side of you from the city state.
C) Having a good amount of units is true, but again I've never had a problem with city states not having enough units. Hell, city states have a very limited amount of non-units they can build since they are restricted to only one district type. Often I find they have a stronger military than some civs. Being the right type doesn't really matter because of the +5 combat strength. Even if they only build cavalry units, you could still pick off newly settled cities that don't have walls while you build a few siege units yourself.
D) Losing suzerainity is honestly *great* as Mathias. Your only restriction on turning gold into envoys by levying is the timer on levied units. Further, since you are turning gold into envoys, all the envoys you generate naturally can just sit in a big pile waiting for someone to try and take your suzerainty. Alright so they take your suzerainity, often by like 1 point. So you dump two envoys in, now you are suzerain again and up 1 envoy, then you levy those suckers again. Boom now you're 3 envoys ahead. And if they want to overtake you again, they have to invest 4 whole envoys, but you only need to invest 2. This is a war of attrition that over civs just can't win.
Also, the alternate victory path. Sure, domination through levied units is the obvious path. But they also have unparalleled diplomatic favor generation because you can reasonably be suzerain of 90% of the city states, if not every single one. Building like two wonders (out of Potala Palace, Mahabodi Temple, and the Statue of Liberty) and having all this favor means you can very reasonably go for a strong Diplomatic Victory. Additionally, you can play pretty peacefully, only using your crazy military to 1) not die, which is often a problem for diplo civs, and 2) complete emergencies. This also sits as a nice back-up in case you don't have a good setup early game to get your crazy domination machine early; if all of this RNG doesn't work out, you just go this diplomatic victory route.
This still doesnt beat the proper OP civs for domination, like Basil's Byzantium. Yes +2 movement is fantastic, but does it beat having Heavy Chariots getting 41 combat strength in the early Classical era, and mowing down walls without having to rely on melee units, battering rams and catapults? No, absolutely not. That setup doesnt rely on RNG, because you can guarantee a religion on Deity (especially with Taxis) with the correct setup, at which point you can immediately start to steamroll your neighbours without them being able to do anything about it. So let's not even pretend that they are in the same league of being able to set up an early domination snowball.
The reason I'm being harsh here is that people tend to love to tout their favourite civ, and put on the rose tinted glasses to exaggerate their power, which doesn't help their case. In this other thread, a guy is hell bent on claiming that Victoria is the best civ in the game, because "early production from strategic resources is better than any other resource in the game, and this snowballs harder than any other civ", yadda yadda.
OG Harald should be higher. His raiding yields are super good. Just focus on your economy and get all of your early science and culture from raiding. You can easily get super far ahead on both trees without building a single campus or theatre square.
His stave church is also a pseudo Auckland (everybody loves Auckland) and if you combine it with God of the Sea and even Auckland itself, you get the strongest coastal tiles in the game.
OG Harald is actually a really effective Religious leader, oddly enough. Mostly because Stave Churches are so damn good, you're already pumping a lot of Faith so... why not?
I hear this in an Irish accent.....
OG Harald is really strong, but pretty much map dependent. If you play as him in a land map, you will depend on your land melee units, wich he doesn't have as many strengths as his naval melee (Berserkers are cool and so, but not so reliable).
Stave churches are really cool, but also kinda of land dependent. Got 2 or 3 woods? 3 or 4 adjacency. Got 6 woods? 18 adjacency.
In an water map, Harald is for sure an S tier. Overall, he is high B
How are Berserkers unreliable? Their worst trait is having 43 combat strength on melee defense (compared to a Man at Arms having 45). They get the full 48 strength against ranged attacks, and punch harder than Musketmen when attacking anything. They're also fast enough to move onto an enemy farm and pillage it in one turn when in opposing territory (which is where you want to be at all times anyway) so taking a little extra damage on the warpath isn't such a big deal.
I didn't know the debuff only applied to melee attacks. In that case, they are stronger than I remembered.
It's a relatively recent change (might've started with GS) but yeah, they don't get absolutely shredded by crossbows and walls now.
In your defense, Berserkers are probably the unit that has undergone the most change since their release.
By that logic, Portugal should be lower since they're almost useless on a land map.
It is very difficult to rank Portugal, because they are very map dependent, but, when played on the right map, they become the best civ in the game, even better than Babylon. That's why I put them on low S tier.
I always feel like naval games are super tedious though
You just have to get the ball rolling early and transition into an aircraft carrier + a few tanks in the endgame. I've had early 200 standard dom wins like this without even trying to go fast (you wind up just sniping the last few capitals without taking much territory).
Bro I took over two civs in the late ancient era with just three longsgips on a small continents map, became so easy after that. Underrated for sure.
Gilgamesh deserves his own tier above Hamurabad and Lwig. We all know in our hearts Gilgachad is the best leader
"The true leader tier list are the friends we made along the way"
Gilgamesh (probably)
The worst part about playing gilg, is none of the ai can be gilg 😔
Hot take: I think this is a fine tier list. It’s not perfect, but that’s an impossible task because this is highly subjective stuff with a game that has a myriad of difficulties, maps, and win conditions. I’ve seen people here say “well in multiplayer games” or “well if you turn off culture victory” or go to bat for some of the most map dependent civs in the game. That’s fine, but you’re narrowing the scope of a tier list that the OP didn’t.
So while so many people are listing things wrong, I might point out things I agree with.
The broken tier: almost all of these civs feel generally the strongest in the game. Khmer is my favorite civ, so his placement is objectively correct :). I would push for Vicky (AoS) here, and it’s not unreasonable to think a few others could bump up here (Columbia) but I think are a better fit in S tier.
S tier: I think almost any civ you would consider bumping to S+ is here, so that’s good! I think some of the best civs for focusing one victory type and dominating at it are here too. I think there are probably ~5 civs that probably belong another tier (or two) down, and that’s probably my biggest critique of this whole list. A couple head scratchers there for sure, and if you made me choose something wrong with this tier list is that there are civs that just don’t belong this high no matter how you look at it.
A tier: this is a good tier list of generalist civs. Sure Hungary could be higher. Some people really go to bat for Mansa Musa. Spain on some maps (there it is again) is S+. But I don’t think too many of these should really be higher. Some (maybe a bunch) could be lower, especially on a more spread out list.
B tier: this is a good tier. It contains many of the OG civs that haven’t gotten love as the power creep of the last 5+ years has set in. Sure there may be civs you love here (Gitarja) but they’re in the right ballpark.
C tier: no one likes to see their favorite civs down here and I see that in the comments. But some belong here for sure. I think Cleo’s abilities should bump it up, but almost every game over ever played with her has gone disastrously bad so I like it. I think Rough Rider could be a bit higher but not much. I love the Tamar mains who ride or die with her but I’m a certified Hater.
Nubia seems to be one that struck a nerve, and I hear that as she was also one of the civs I won first at on several difficulties. I actually came to defend this low placement but as I looked at her abilities (ranged units are great offense or defense) and start biases (tier 5 towards the best end game strategics), I actually agree this is too low. Her district bonuses are generalist and help throughout the game, her archers allow for the all powerful early war that transitions into a sim city game. So ok.
All together, I don’t think it would hurt if people occasionally said nice try and said what they agreed with about a list, rather than instantly pick out 1 or 2 issues with a massive, highly subjective opinion piece.
Thank you! It's really good to see someone like you, while most people is taking the worse part of the list. Overall, I agree some civs should be a little higher (looking at you, Mathias) or lower. But hey, nobody is perfect. Again, thanks.
Yeah totally agree. I've seen a lot of tier lists, this is the one that feels closest to "right" to me. Some are all over the place, and while Civ power is certainly subjective to play style, there are definitely some concrete ways that some Civs are better than others, and I think the list nails it pretty well.
I agree with many people here on Nubia, I think Nubia likely belongs in A. I disagree that Mathias belongs higher. He's certainly good, but not broken, I think A is the right spot. I also thing Maya belongs likely in S - the free builders are just SO good. They're somewhat spawn-dependent, yes, but if they get a decent placement they're almost impossible to catch. And as far as spawn-dependency, Portugal is up in S-tier and are also a VERY spawn-dependent CIV.
There are several others I would move up or down 1 spot, but I think those are the only two I would move more than 1 place. Overall a really good effort, I think the best tier list I've seen.
Dumb way to set up tiers for civ. Ranking should reflect if they're narrowly powerful or generally good imo
Agree with you, I even thought on making the tiers as consistently excelent/good/decent and occasionally excelent/good/decent, but most of the tier lists you see here on Reddit and on Youtube have this S/A/B/C format
Honestly, screw the "traditional" tier list which I always found stupid as it the typical school grades of F > A get abolished and suddenly you get S, SS, God Tier/Broken, etc. and no one fails. It's a bit counterproductive when the point of the list is to rank leaders, and I honestly think that your original idea of "Consistently Excellent", "Situationally Amazing", etc would be a lot more useful because Canada and Russia shine on cold maps, but not so much on naval or hot maps. Some civs are better coastal, some are better on a new age/apocalypse map, etc. Some are extremely starting dependent like the Mayans.
Another big issue of contention with Civ Tier lists are "difficulty" (generally if they work on Deity they work on everything), and more importantly, multiplayer vs. single-player use. Portugal is incredible in single-player, but will get absolutely obliterated in multiplayer games. Something to take into account. Otherwise, overall I think you got most of the list right with a few minor tweaks.
And there are many game speeds, game modes, mods, playstyles etc.
Some new to game likely has completely opposite list as someone who has thousands of hours in game.
Civ tier lists are like political views. There are as many as there are players. None is absolutely correct, but none is wrong neither.
You Gilgabroke my heart
He is surely S tier on the best friends tier list
Rough Rider Teddy is S tier. Yongle is broken tier. John Curtin is broken tier. Steam Victoria is broken+ tier, she needs her own damn tier she's so insanely broken. Monty and Shaka are probably B tier. Hungary is S tier. Abe Lincoln is B tier. Poundmaker is S tier. Those were the ones that jumped out at me.
Rough Rider Teddy gets +5 CS to all of his units as long as they are on his land. If you are Teddy's neighbor, you are going to die. He retains Film Studio and high DF output for transitioning out of pure domination, as once he has taken over his continent, he will have plenty of wonders and great works to leverage with Film Studios. You are not going to get to attack Teddy's continent because Mustangs exist.
Yongle is the most powerful tall leader/civ, yet isn't punished for going wide, either. He usually wants to focus on pumping a few cities very quickly, but he can play wide as well. Being able to seamlessly turn hammers into whatever resources he needs at the time is insane, particularly with the rates he gets to do it at. Getting passive boosts to science and culture at 10+ pop is hilariously broken. With his ability to pump food, getting 10 pop is trivial.
If you are John Curtin, you cannot be attacked and you get free district adjacency that makes Hojo jealous. You're free to eat up all the coastline you want, because no one is going to want to give you DOUBLED PRODUCTION for 10 turns to take a 1 pop city. With that much bonus production you can just pump out an army and just go take the city back plus a few of theirs. Against the very dumb AI, you can strategically piss them off to keep riding the Production bonuses for dozens of turns. Against players... well, John Curtin gets banned in any game with competent players.
Steam Vicky really shouldn't need explanation by this point. Free Ruhr Valleys for all her shit is insane. Production is the most important yield in the game and she gets tons of it with zero effort. The +2 production on strategics is arguably the most broken part. The second you get horses and iron online, your cities are going to enjoy a huge spike in production from the free +2 those tiles get.
Monty and Shaka are pretty much one-trick ponies and with not a lot going for them. Encampments are pretty weak in the default game and Monty has zero infrastructure assistance other than decapitating slaves to make things build slightly faster. Pretty much all of the one-trick warmongers are straight B tier material.
Hungary is an example of how to do warmongers right. Levying city states allows them to very quickly ramp up military production, but they have substantial bonuses to infrastructure as well, so they aren't entirely reliant on domination to win. If you can't kill the CSes before Hungary
enslavesbefriends them, you're in for a rough time.Abe is the worst American leader by a fucking mile. He doesn't get Casino Teddy's absurd ancient era culture and science gains to catapult ahead, he doesn't get Rough Rider's "this is my continent, get the fuck off it" bonuses. He wants to build IZs but compared to pretty much every other "Production civ," he doesn't really get much out of building them. Free units, sure, but in several cases it's cheaper to just build the damn units instead of the buildings, and the free units are Melee units, the second-worst type of unit. Also, you still have to pay gold upkeep on them. Moreover, Abe has a very awkward position where his earliest aggression timing is medieval era, but if he pumps out a bunch of IZs for a Man at Arms rush, he won't have the gold to sustain it because if you rushed Apprenticeship, you certainly don't have established Commercial Hubs and trade routes running. Delaying the rush to a later era makes Melee units more and more weak. Moreover, the bonus +5 CS is for that specific unit only, so if that unit dies, that bonus is lost entirely. He's in B tier along with all of the other one-trick warmongers.
Poundmaker is an extremely strong generalist civ. Free territory for moving traders around, plus a powerful UI with Mekewaps. His Recon units are as strong as Warriors and if he can find a convenient City-State, he can rapidly get them to that magical rank 3 upgrade with the 2x XP Recon card. Now he has 40 CS scouts running around by Classical era, have fun dealing with that. One of the most deadly ancient era neighbors to have, and with the superb infrastructure bonuses to easily transition out of fighting and into building as the legions of spec ops scouts start to taper off in effectiveness. Easily in my top 3 favorite civs. Good music, too.
I feel like Nubia is at least A tier with their infrastructure and insane Archers, same with any Egypt, but I'm not as familiar with those civs.
Yeah I don’t get nubia. Archers are early and often are my most used unit in deity before tanks are researched. Them being more powerful and quicker to pump out is OP for early war. Plus it’s really simple to throw a pyramid next to each capital and brrr that production.
Idk any civ that bonus’ help to survive dessert or tundra are pretty good, cause they’re way less restricted on where they can make cities thrive.
I feel like Rough Rider Teddy wants to do everything but can't do nothing. +5 CS in your continent gears him towards domination, but as soon as you leave your continent, you become a generic civ. Film studios are great, but they only work against civilizations in the modern era, making it only useful if you are struggling to catch tourists from a really high culture civ, like Russia. The only thing he does well is diplomatic victory, getting lots of diplo favor and double envoys in city states you have a trade route to can be strong, but a bit situational, since you won't be able to trade with all of them.
Yongle is incredibly strong, but I don't think he is broken. If you want to be running his projects, you won't be able to build settlers, districts, or builders. Still, the amount of yields he can get from it makes him S, but not broken, in my opinion.
Curtin is not broken because his abilities are a bit situational. If you spawn with no mountains at all, you will want to place your campus on the coast and get a +3, which is very strong, but not as strong as Korea's Seowon. The 100% Production when being attacked is really strong, specially on deity, but the production when liberating a city is more situational.
The reason I put Steam Victoria in S instead of broken is because Workshop of the World is such a late game ability, but with your argument, she could actually be on broken.
Monty and Shaka are on the S tier for the same reason as Korea: they only do one thing, but they do it incredibly well. Monty's Eagle Warriors are one of the strongest unique units in the game. Just build 5 or 6 of them and kill your neighbour while getting all your production back as builders. Shaka' Impis, as the Eagle Warrior are extremely strong and cheap. Just spam some Impi corps, get some siege units and stomp your enemies.
There are so many people talking about Hungary that I'm actually accepting I was wrong about him 😅. Guess I will need to play another game as Mathias to remember his abilities in play.
I consider Abe a domination leader instead of a production one. The best time to strike as Abe is when you unlock Musketmans. Build some industrial zones, prebuild some workshops and stomp anyone ahead of you with your resorce-free and +5 CS melee units. His units will need help from bombards to breake enemies walls, but since your muskets won't cost any niter, you will be able to use all of it on bombards.
Never used Poundmaker's scouts as offensive units, I should certainly try it. Otherwise, his city-building bonus are weaker than Pachacuti's, and that's mostly why I put him in A tier (should be a little higher inside the tier, I admit that)
Nubia is very situational. Got small pockets of desert? Excelent, found a city adjacent to it and put a pyramid there. Got no desert at all? No pyramids. Lots of desert? Lots of pyramids, but mediocre land. Pitati Archers can be a really strong early war unit, but as soon as they upgrade, they lose 2 movement and become defensive units.
All I said about nubian Archers are also true to Egypt's chariot archers, but Egypts floodplain start bias makes production a very scarce resource.
This guy Civs! Nice write up
Does John Curtains ability scale to different game speeds? If I go marathon is it a longer time period of production bonus?
I played a lot on Epic and I'm pretty sure it doesn't. But this ability is strongest vs Players, where you basically never play below standard speed. Against AI the appeal bonus for his districts makes him incredibly already, which especially on slower speeds will really pay off big time.
Victoria being the best civ in the game, right. Production is very good, but it's not that good that an early +2 or +4 is going to completely break the game in ways that no other civ stands even close to compete. At this point you are just massively exaggerating to the point where it becomes dumb.
Important thing to note: What is the benchmark here? Contenents with default settings? Ideal map? Shuffle? Got Lakes special desert only map? This can highly influence the ratings.
If its ideal environment, Brazil is hilariously broken as a Work Ethic civ since with Sacred Paths you can make Rainforests give Natural Wonder adjacency to holy sites.
If not enjoy spamming restart until your "Rainforest Spawn Bias" finally gives you more than 3 rainforest tiles.
It don't have a specific map, but civs that do really well on certain maps, and really bad on other are a bit lower. Best example is Portugal. On an archipelago map? Broken tier. On a pangea map? C tier. Overall, low S tier
Joao arguably belongs in the very top tier, or maybe make an even higher tier for just Pete Lud and Ham