AOE3 Forums

i would say the 3 best would be

1: Persians, For great castles and castle upgrades and siege elephants

2: Mongols, For a quick rush economy and great mongol archers

3: Byzantines, For unique unit and offensive upgrades

Oddball the Angry:

As far as i could tell, the only really pathetically weak civ was the mayans. (No cav, bad unique unit)

They were not weak if used properly. Cheaper walls & long lasting resources made them defensive. And their archers were very very cheap if you remember & they moved at incredible speed.

Babri:

Oddball the Angry:

As far as i could tell, the only really pathetically weak civ was the mayans. (No cav, bad unique unit)

They were not weak if used properly. Cheaper walls & long lasting resources made them defensive. And their archers were very very cheap if you remember & they moved at incredible speed.

For turtlers they would have been fine, but i tend to be a more agressive player so mayan bonuses didn't help me.

Huns and Mongols for sure. they were they were good as if the game dragged on for ages Mongol light horse spam was awesome. however i never got the chance to play this game online, only LAN with my cousin. still though him and i taking on 6 AI computers was so bloody fun. i was always mongols and he brits :D

ohhhh and goths were sick. stay (sic)

only people who listen to truly good music will get that last saying, even they arn't a goth band but they are awesome metal :P

Stephennn

Spanish were probably the best civ in aoe2, and are the best civ in aoe3 vanilla. I feel the game is a little bias (racist?) towards Spanish

cheeesehat:

Spanish were probably the best civ in aoe2, and are the best civ in aoe3 vanilla. I feel the game is a little bias (racist?) towards Spanish

Certainly not racist!

sufjanfan:

The main problem with AoE2 is that the civs were too much alike. AoE3 has much more diverse civs, although less.

Same issue is with Rise of Nations but after all both RON & AOE2 got better score than AOE3 on most websites. 

AOE3 has quite a different feel from AOE2. In fact, i think each AOE series was fun in its own way. I liked the original AOE with its music backdrop, the greek hoplite/phalanxes.. AOE2 was great as well. I liked the defensibility of the TC in AOE2 compared to AOE3, which made it hard to rush. Now in AOE3, gotta deal with stuff like the jan rushes. The castles & towers were much stronger in AOE2 as well, so it was easier to play defensively. 

for AOE2, my fav civ would prob be goths (man@arm rush as well as the wonderful huskarl).

Favorite: Turks and Mamelukes

Worst: Spanish