Best (Starting) Civilization in Age of Empires Mobile

The very first decision in Age of Empires Mobile is what civilization you will start plaiyng with – and this decision will cost you a lot to revoke or lay the ground what you will use for a while and how fast you progress.

Long story short, there is no useless civilization – but, some are better for spenders or F2P players. Some work better with your playstyle or allow faster progress early.

We have below a good wrap-up of the civilizations that hopefully help you pick the one that fits you the best in Age of Empires Mobile.

Also, please check out our hero tier list here and our hero pairing guide here for a good info where to start with them.

What Civilization Should You Pick in Age of Empires Mobile?

So, let’s go through all of them to see which ones are good choices for you.

Japanese Civilization

Actually a really good pick for starting for multiple reason. You have the attack bonus gainst tribes, which are important early on and you very likely will focus on swordsmen as well early on (F2P or spender), so that bonus is also nice. I believe for many players a good pick to start playing Age of Empires Mobile with. Let’s have a deeper look into the traits:

• Swordsmen Defense: really good since you will likely focus on swordsmen armies early. as F2P you get good heroes for that and as VIP4 you get Minamoto who is also really good. You will make good use of this bonus.
• Attack Bonus Against Player Citadels: unless you are the 0.1% whale on your server this is not having an effect and if you are you already run them over. This has no effect for the mayority of players, espcially since the troop losses are so steep in Age of Empires Mobile when hitting other player citadels that this is nothing to do early in the game
• Attack Against Tribes Bonus: another great bonus since tribes will be your bread and butter early on and the bonus here pays of really well, too.

Chinese Civilization

A solid pick primarily for the higher Village capacity and just that. This is a solid boost for pretty much everything you do early on. The other bonus from are not really making any difference. Here’s a deeper look into the traits:

• Archers Defense: it’s likely you won’t use archers that early so this is not that much of a bonus early on.
• Villagers Capacity: extremely helpful, espcially in the beginning to multitask more, also since stuff is quicker early. The biggest bonus picking the Chinese Civilization in Age of EMpires Mobile
• Walls Durability: you can ignore that, it has literally no effect for you. Not early, not later.

Byzantines Civilization

Cool for the swordsmen bonus (we discussed that with the Japanese already). But the siege bonus is quite pointless and doesn’t really make a difference and the strone gathering speed, well, is alright but also you probably won’t really feel a difference here at the end of the day. If you, for whatever reason, don’t want to pick the Japanese, this can be an alternative but I’d pick the Japanese anyday as starter civilization. Let’s take a closer look:

• Swordsmen Defense: really good since you will likely focus on swordsmen armies early. as F2P you get good heroes for that and as VIP4 you get Minamoto who is also really good. You will make good use of this bonus.
• All Unit Siege Damage: Siege Damage is when there are no troops left and you destroy a structure. You have won at this point already and unless we’re talking about the 1% situations when the 5 minutes bonus here matters, this can be ignored
• Stone Gathering Speed: will not make a huge difference but also not hurting. Some more stones. Okay, why not but nothing that makes or breaks this civilization

Egyptian Civilization

An interesting pick that will pay off since the additional load capacity always comes in handy and the unit loss, well, it happens and you can save yourself some troops. A solid pick, for sure.

Korean Civilization

Not too bad overall but again, you most likely won’t get hit too much if you are in a decent alliance and your server establishes some rules. But starting out things can be messy on some ervers so this is not the worst idea to have but I’d pick something like Japanese over them.

Romans Civilization

Actually not the perfect starting civilization since the healing bonus doesn’t help too much since you can split the healing of troops and then ask for alliance help you you almost never have a long healing queue unless you have it overnight and then the bonus won’t do anything either. The pikeman defense is nice, but as starter marches you more likely have swordsmen and the villagers boost is a great boost but more for later-game than early game.

• Pikemen Defense: you will probably not use pikemen that early in the game in Age of Empires Mobile so this is not having much of an effect for you
• Healing Speed: is theoretically a good thing but since you can do your healing in smaller batches and ask alliance help each time you also can practically insta-heal while you’re online. And if you heal the full batch you normally do that during offline sessions. So, onless the devs patch that little sneak-hole with the batch healing out, this is not that great. If they do, well then Romans are a lot more interesting
• Villagers Boost to Buildings Production: is an amazing later-game bonus. Along with the healing. Romans are a great civ to pick later but not neccessarily as early-game civilization in Age of Empires Mobile.

French Civilization

Honestly the gathering defense is not that great as it won’t change the outcome if someone hunts you down + you unlikely will use cavalry early and most players don’t ever use the resource exchange so that bonus is also quite useless:

• Cavalry Defense: cavalry defense is cool, but starters who run cavalry are mostly going to be whales hunting down players so this is not interesting for most players
• Resource Exchange: is not that great as you will unlikely exchange resources much or even at all. I played most of the beta and never really used the exchange
• Gathering Defense: well, if someone hunts down your gathering troops, they normally either get you with their first hit or they reinforce to get you with the next one so this small bonus will not change the outcome of the situation

British Civilization

The defense bonus for your citadel sounds good but in reality you don’t make much use of it since you mostly get smashed so badly that the 10% won’t help you. and overall the bonus is not that great to start out:

• Archers Defense: as mentioned earlier, you unlikely will run archers that soon so this bonus will not help you too much
• Citadel Defense: you normally get steamrolled when attacked so heavily, like 10+ citatel levels outnumbered or 5x the troops needed that this is not affecting enough to make it something to consider
• Mill Prodution: is nice and alright but also with the marketplace and everything else not that great. Even if you would have a ton of extra resources of one kind, changing it takes a percentage out of it so there is not much to gain from it

Conclusion

I hope this helps you and also, please don#t forget, it’s a game so you can also choose the one that you aestheically like the most and have fun with Age of Empires Mobile 😉