Civilization 6 Tier List 1.0

[LDiCesare]

Sumeria is definitely not 5th tier.
Epic Quests is worth much more than 4/10 because you'll clear way more barb outposts than anyone else.
War cart is 10/10. You can rush anyone and take out any civ before they can do anything to protect themselves. You get the +100% prod to heavy cavalry card to make them faster, too.
Ziggurat is so so.
Adventures of Enkidu is bad in SP. In MP it's your chance to have an ally instead of rushing him early on.
Overall, late game depends on early game. There is no penalty to a large empire, and Sumeria should be twice as large as their second neighbour because noone can prevent them from killing their first neighbour, since everyone else needs research to get decent units. Maybe Egypt could survive? Scythia definitely can't (saka archers come too late).

 

[mzprox]

This all depends on game style and chosen victory. My first and only game was with Russia on emperor. I expected them to be strong and I was not dissapointed. For my peaceful playstyle and usually prefered culture victory they were perfect. Free tiles saved me thousands of gold and the free great persons were great. REligion was easy to get and I generated tons of faith from the cheap lavras which were used to by the best great persons. In my game i had no tundra tiles and used only internal trades, and no cossacks at all... Russia is strong even without them

 

[GlobalTree]

Varu(indian unique unit) really needs to have more than 2 movement points,i think its the only unique unit with a con..?? otherwise its useless without its mobility

 

[CaiusDrewart]

I think I would put England 5th tier. They do have a unique district, which is very helpful, but everything else about the Civ is really lacking. And the Royal Navy Dockyard can't even be spammed easily since it requires coast. The free melee unit upon settling cities in new continents is trivial--it's situational, and units aren't that expensive right now. And obviously the Civ UA comes very late and isn't even that amazing.

Civ has always been about the early game. But I think this is more true than ever in Civ VI, since the AI and the barbarians come at you so hard in the first 50 turns, but then really peter out by the midgame. England is totally bereft here. I think France and Spain are the only other Civs without any reliable ancient or classical bonuses; I would put them all 5th tier.

 

[genyl]

Seeing Scythia in tier 3 kind of invalidates the list. Even without the sell exploit the saka rush is easy and effective to do. To avoid warmonger penalties you just sweep everybody in your continent. quite good fun

 

[Galbias]

I'm noticing that almost all unique improvements are rather unimpressive (except maybe the Stepwell, not sure about that one), and all unique districts are awesome? Anyone agree?

Yep, for sure. All of the UDs are 50% cheaper which is huge and don't add to district limit which is nice, in addition to some other bonus, and districts are something that you have to build. All of them come into play quite early as well.

Meanwhile, the UIs have an opportunity cost (you have to use a tile on them, use a builder charge to make them, and work that tile with a citizen). Most of them are +1-3 Faith/Culture/Science/Gold which isn't terribly amazing, especially with how important more production is (and Farms give you additional citizens/housing so you can work additional production tiles, so they're more directly useful). Stepwell is the exception as it's a +2 Food/+1 Housing (and potentially 1 Faith) in the right spots which is outright superior to a Farm until later, so they're actually pretty good.

 

[Exodite]

I want to take a moment and point out that while there's a lot of good debate regarding the internal ranking of various civilizations no one has argued against France being situated in the dung heap at the bottom, or even brought it up.

Poor France.

I loved France in Civ5, as a culture-inclined player in general and when the Chateau gave me an interesting logistical puzzle for city improvements.

Unfortunately vanilla Civ6 already offers plenty of that with districts and adjacency bonuses galore.

I actually find I like increased diplomatic visibility the most. Wonder-spamming isn't really an option anymore so the additional tourism is marginal at best and other bonuses come too late in the game to matter. The only situation I imagine France doing well is in the middle of rainforest with decent amounts of luxuries and rivers, as rainforest tiles can't generally be improved and presumably Chateaus could go on those without removing the rainforest?

Humanism is way too late to get Chateaus though, and the fact they have no improvement path is also lackluster.

In general I get the impression that the game, and probably the developers, seems to vastly overrate culture/faith/gold/science bonuses in general. Production ruled over anything in Civ 5 and this seems equally true in Civ 6, followed by food simply because it's both a necessity as well as a way to grow your production in the long term. As production translates into culture/faith/gold/science the secondary yields just don't matter as much.

This is why a lot of the stuff pertaining to trade routes, especially international ones, are meaningless. Unless I really, really need that road (or quest Envoy) I'm never going to forego the production and food from internal trade routes for the secondary yield bonuses from international trade routes. They'd have to be something like 3-5 times higher for it to be a consideration.

I also believe this is part of the reason why unique districts rule. Like unique buildings, and opposed to unique tile improvements, there's no opportunity cost and the district adjacency bonuses are generally stronger. However, the fact that these build in half the time (ie. double production) is absolutely huge! And when they're available sooner, like the Mbanza for Kongo, they're outright amazing.

Why the rant then?

Well, with everyone getting some kind of unique infrastructure I think it's important to get to the bottom of the relative strengths of these. Getting them too late in the game is pretty much a deathblow to viability as the game is fundamentally about snowballing and unique tile improvements are only strong when you can place them on a decent base tile that can't support any other improvement. I'd never build a Chateau instead of a farm or mine, for example.

It's also worth driving home that anything that adds food or production onto things you were already going to build is amazing, and anything that replaces food and productions with secondary yields (culture/faith/gold/science) is generally going to be terrible.

The Hansa adding even more production and building twice as fast as the Industrial Zone? Awesome!

The Mbanza adding food and gold, as well as being available for construction earlier and building twice as fast as the Neighborhood? Awesome!

Replacing my 3-production mine, possibly screwing over my Industrial Zone adjacency bonuses, or 3-food/.5 housing farm with a Chateau for culture/gold? Yeah, not happening.

It's early days yet of course but I figure long-term it's important that the developers take a long, hard look at balancing the unique infrastructure of the various civilizations. Not saying everything has to be equally good, it's not the only bonus the civs get after all, but they should at a bare minimum be desirable and accessible in a relevant time frame.

 

[x2Madda]

I think the tier list is correct. Tiers are based on what is strongest, nothing else.
While 'strongest' is up for debate, what is not up for debate is that production is very important in civ6 and any civ that gets bonuses to production directly or the ability to rush districts or any combination thereof, is top tier.

Every other civ may as well be in the trash pile because they will be killed or out teched way too quickly to even matter.
The arguements against the tier list have so far been "this ability is cool or stronger than you say it is" for example War-Carts. Yes war carts might let you get an early rush but if that rush fails then what? Barb camp clearing duty for you, you lost your only wild card like Spain in civ5.

 

[isau]

I am not too sure about Scythia and Sumeria being high tier. In MP maybe. But the thing about is the AI is so incompetent at defending its cities you can build a team of Archers and just as easily take their cities. Basically like this:

- Open with Animal Husbandry (pre-req for Archery), build Slingers
- Research Archery halfway (all the way if you already proced the Eureka)
- Declare war, kill one unit with Slinger (barbarian will do), which completes Archery
- Upgrade all Slingers to Archers at cost of 30 gold each
- Clean house

There are zero worries about the AI retaliating because they won't use Warriors to attack a city center even if they have dozens of them. You don't have improvements yet so they have nothing to steal from you.

You can do all this and still keep the advantages of your civ, without having to be an "early warmonger" civ.

 

[criZp]

Varu(indian unique unit) really needs to have more than 2 movement points,i think its the only unique unit with a con..?? otherwise its useless without its mobility

With more movement it would be too easy to swarm the enemies and get huge OP combat boost from the special ability

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

How is the Film Studio rated so low? 100 percent Tourism is YUGE!

It's only good for 1 era, from a tech at the end of that era.

So in order to use it effectively, you have to beeline Radio from the late Industrial then restrain any Tech and Civics growth for as long as possible. And you should probably save up some Gold to buy them, because they take a while to build. It's an incredibly short duration of effectiveness.

 

[Lukasz81]

Just my 2c:
Sumeria is extremely powerful and very underrated here. I was very surprised when i first tried them how it all works (just didn't look like that on paper). You start from cart spam, you explore the world very fast with them, crushing any barbarians you see for goodie hut boosts - this leads to a situation where you get so many tech boosts from them that connected with ziggurat improvement you out tech everyone by far. Germany might build the industrial district fast but you are so much ahead of them, that you already got 3 when they invent it. The cities won't grow that big because of ziggurat spam but they will be science and culture powerhouses anyway. I also stumbled upon a situation where all those tech boots made me also a suzerein of many city states that i even didn't try to get, not too mention that with AI aggressive policy vs city states that led to me getting units to extreme amount of xp (maxed out all promotion trees for all units, don't really get how that share xp work, maybe its bugged). This was my only game so far on emperor difficulty that i stomped AI right from turn 0, built every wonder and did whatever i wanted with them - of course all this might be just lucky game but i am confident it is not the bottom tier.

England is interesting but i think in good spot on the tier list, although if you manage to reach a stage when you get the british museum - it's gg, once filled you are almost guaranteed cultural victory.

Aztec is a bit overrated at least to my experience. The only thing that they get going is the random chance to get a worker, that can be used to rush districts. You might get lucky but you might not. Rest of their bonuses is meh.

 

[Abraxis]

Maybe Egypt could survive

Doubt it, I love egypt and the maryannu, but they're very expensive and you'd really want to be prioritising other things on the tech tree.

Based on this logic...I would say that Japan is a very strong competitor...district adjacency bonuses rock, factory pumps out production, and half the cost on 3 districts. That's a sweet compromise. Include the increased CS for the entire game around the coast. Japan is my number one.

Electronics Factories pump out culture, you mean. Has no one read what the normal factory does? (∆ is +1 prod and +4 cult).

The adjacency to me seems over-rated. You want to be putting your cities near good spots for districts. These spots dictate where the districts go, and they reward you much more handsomely than the +0.5 adjacency bonus does. So while you are sitting there in your open fields clumping up your districts dreaming of the day you have finally built four of them next to eachother for a whopping +3 to each, I am laughing at you while playing any other civ having just put each next to a mountain range or wherever else it preferred to go for an immediate +3-5.
To me, this adjacency is only a consolation prize, it's there to ensure Japan never has nowhere to place a district if they roll a bad start, have poor expansion options, or really just want to be building cities in garbage territory. In my experience, (on standard continents map preferences) in practice, it's very rare that you don't have better options forcing you to space out your districts to take advantage of.

I think the only major bonus Japan has is being able to build Theatre Square and Religious Districts in half the time, these things are significant. And Samurai are pretty bad-ass, they crush units from their age, and compete with units from the next, while sparing you the need of nitre or iron. Plus they are super cool.
The other bonuses I would rate pretty low, and are more novelty, or there for flavour rather than function. Though I'm sure divine wind is nice on island plates, building maps around abilities doesn't make them good.

They're such a weird civ, I was very disappointed with how they played out compared to my pre-release expectations. Maybe I will come around to them eventually, they just seem super awkward and don't really fit into any strategy I can come up with that another civ doesn't do better. For now, If I want to spend less hammers on infrastructure, I'd prefer Egypt for everything else they offer.

 

[mehukatti]

Is Germany's Hansa really that much more production? According to civilopedia it doesn't get production bonus from mines. Hills seem quite abundant to me.

 

[Lyoncet]

Is Germany's Hansa really that much more production? According to civilopedia it doesn't get production bonus from mines. Hills seem quite abundant to me.

I thought the same thing at first, but I quickly changed my mind after playing as Germany. Consider: it's a free district (doesn't count towards your cap) at half the production cost, so those are huge advantages to begin with. Add to that the +3 adjacency bonus for a Commerce Hub on top of resource and district adjacency bonuses and you'd be hard-pressed to find an Industrial Zone that couldn't be outproduced by a Hansa. I can usually place a Hansa next to two resources and a Commerce Hub without sacrificing on the latter's river adjacency bonus, so you're already starting out at +5 there, with 3 more adjacent slots.

Especially given that, as far as I can tell, you get +3 adjacency bonus per Commercial Hub. Meaning if you properly place hubs from two different cities, you can start out with a +6 bonus plus whatever you can get from the last 4 adjacent tiles. That's enormous!

 

[Acrtic]

Kongo's Nkisi is far better than 5/10. Granted the bonus to Relics etc isn't that great unless you get a Relic from a goody hut, because Statues come pretty late. But you get double Great WAM points, so you'll have them coming out of the wazoo, specially Writers. And you get double Great Merchant points, and they are a lot more useful than in Civ5. Plenty of trade routes and Envoys. And the doubling works with the Great Person policies as well, and the one for Great Merchants becomes available at Guilds, same civic as the Mbanza. Verrrryyy convenient.

Agreed. Also, if you are lucky enough to find a relic in a goody hut, it's absolutely massive. +2 food, +2 production, +4 culture, + 4 gold in the early going is incredbile. I also trade for my enemies relics as soon as I am able to

 

[mehukatti]

Especially given that, as far as I can tell, you get +3 adjacency bonus per Commercial Hub. Meaning if you properly place hubs from two different cities, you can start out with a +6 bonus plus whatever you can get from the last 4 adjacent tiles. That's enormous!

Okay that's very nice., However isn't the bonus just +2? That's what civilopedia says.

 

[Ornen]

Aztec is a bit overrated at least to my experience. The only thing that they get going is the random chance to get a worker, that can be used to rush districts. You might get lucky but you might not. Rest of their bonuses is meh.

There's a lot you're missing out about the Aztecs. "The only thing they get is a random chance for a worker" completely leaves out the 50% extra for all luxuries. Combined with the UB, they have the best amenity bonuses in the game. So far for me, amenities have been the #1 factor limiting growth, and it's especially relevant if you go wide, which seems the way to go in Civ 6.

From there, you're severely underrating their other bonuses. Rushing your neighbor is much more viable early than in Civ 5, and is a great way to nab early territory as any civ. Aztecs get the eagle warrior, which enables them to go after their neighbors faster and harder than nearly any other civ. You get the free worker roughly half the time when you get a kill -- not a bad chance, and it's not really a chance at all when you score 10-20 kills and land 5-10 free workers early on. With Aztecs, you should be taking multiple cities early on, stealing settlers to fill in the gaps, and getting loads of builders to develop your rapidly growing empire. From there, you transition into the midgame and your cities can keep growing because 50% more luxuries.

So yeah, you get a little more than a chance for an extra worker. Aztecs get loads of bonuses, all of which are cohesive and very powerful altogether.

 

[topresch]

I started my first game as Sumeria and see now that they actually are upper middle to top tier, with the Cart and that amazoid barbarian feature, which basically provides as many goodie huts as one wants. However, the Scythians are way OP, even on higher difficulties, with the double units (with unit maintenance civic) and the healing when killing aspect all of their units have. They handily defeat everyone up to Immortal almost before Medieval times. In one way, this is quite cool, as they - or the Central Asian horse archer nomads - actually were way overpowered compared to the civilizations surrounding them (listen to the Hardcore History episodes on them). But in a game, it definitely unbalance the whole thing.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I doubt Germany is the best civ, it don't look impressive. Yes it get Hansa but whatever then aztec can rush all districts at a cost of a single worker. Germany basically get no unique unit, rather average early game and probably rather average the whole game along.

Not great at culture
Not great at religion
Not great at military
Not best at science

No way it is the best civ.