Best Designed Civ Elimination Thread

America - 0 -4 Not the worst civ here. But the synergy is terrible... Nothing connects well. The UA is great for assisting in siege, but the discount of tiles is something I rarely use. By the time I get to B17, the game is pretty much set to me. (And you're out!)
Arabia - 20
Assyria - 20
Austria - 18
Aztec - 20
Babylon - 12
Brazil - 16
Byzantium - 18
Carthage - 20
Celts -22
China - 22
Danes - 24
Dutch - 22
Egypt - 16
England - 20
Ethiopia - 20
France - 20
Germany - 22
Greece - 20
Huns - 20
Inca - 20
India - 20
Indonesia - 20
Iroquois - 20
Japan - 20
Korea - 20
Maya - 20
Mongols - 22
Morocco - 20
Ottoman - 20
Persia - 20
Poland - 20
Polynesia - 20
Portugal - 22
Rome - 20
Russia - 16 -
Shoshone - 20
Siam - 22
Songhai - 16
Spain - 20
Sweden - 20
Venice - 22
Zulu - 22 +2 Their UA, UU, and UB all tie well together. A civ clearly designed to gear towards one thing: victory through conquest.

Enrico Swagolo said:

But I'm not complaining about strength, but the design.

I'm really interested to know how putting both UU's of a civ in completely unfitting eras while having every element of the civ clashing with each other without any synergy to be seen anywhere a good design.


So... Could you please explain it to me? Like to a child, if you really must. I really want to find out what - in your opinion - is good design.

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Ok I will go with you on that. Some civ has to have a cataphract though as they were historically badasses and they changed the way horse fights went. They should probably replace knights though and be buffed. I didn't realize they replaced horsemen and I see your point.

I am surprised to see America voted off. America has one of the best synergies for expansion and warmongering. Extra sight for scouting for good land to expand to, cheap cost to purchase tiles. Extra sight also provides great tactical advantage in combat as you can pretty much toy around with AI. The mobility of minuteman synergizes with this approach. And finally bombers to finish everything off on late game. The idea behind this civ is great.

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Holy Wow, I inspired a new elimination thread. Well...

Arabia - 20
Assyria - 20
Austria - 18
Aztec - 20
Babylon - 9 - Kind of why I made my original comment. They are very good, but in a way which strikes me as bad design. The UB is a slightly better version of a building most breeze past, the UU basically meaningless, and the UA overpowered and passive. At best you get a turtling strategy of the most boring kind.
Brazil - 16
Byzantium - 18
Carthage - 20
Celts -22
China - 22
Danes - 24
Dutch - 22
Egypt - 16
England - 20
Ethiopia - 20
France - 20
Germany - 22
Greece - 20
Huns - 20
Inca - 20
India - 20
Indonesia - 20
Iroquois - 20
Japan - 21 - I just want to give them some love for the post-patch improvements. They are now decently powerful throughout all eras and play uniquely as a civ based on using sea resources.
Korea - 20
Maya - 20
Mongols - 22
Morocco - 20
Ottoman - 20
Persia - 20
Poland - 20
Polynesia - 20
Portugal - 22
Rome - 20
Russia - 16 -
Shoshone - 20
Siam - 22
Songhai - 16
Spain - 20
Sweden - 20
Venice - 22
Zulu - 22

Navelgazer said:

Holy Wow, I inspired a new elimination thread. Well...

Arabia - 20
Assyria - 20
Austria - 18
Aztec - 20
Babylon - 9 - Kind of why I made my original comment. They are very good, but in a way which strikes me as bad design. The UB is a slightly better version of a building most breeze past, the UU basically meaningless, and the UA overpowered and passive. At best you get a turtling strategy of the most boring kind.
Brazil - 16
Byzantium - 18
Carthage - 20
Celts -22
China - 22
Danes - 24
Dutch - 22
Egypt - 16
England - 20
Ethiopia - 20
France - 20
Germany - 22
Greece - 20
Huns - 20
Inca - 20
India - 20
Indonesia - 20
Iroquois - 20
Japan - 21 - I just want to give them some love for the post-patch improvements. They are now decently powerful throughout all eras and play uniquely as a civ based on using sea resources.
Korea - 20
Maya - 20
Mongols - 22
Morocco - 20
Ottoman - 20
Persia - 20
Poland - 20
Polynesia - 20
Portugal - 22
Rome - 20
Russia - 16 -
Shoshone - 20
Siam - 22
Songhai - 16
Spain - 20
Sweden - 20
Venice - 22
Zulu - 22

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I think your numbers might be off- this thread is plus 2 minus 4, not plus 1 minus three. I point it out as there are odd numbers- something impossible given we started with and only used even numbers-, which may not be your fault, I only just noticed them. Still, I won't change them, as I don't know where or when the mistake was made.

Arabia - 20
Assyria - 20
Austria - 18
Aztec - 20
Babylon - 9
Brazil - 16
Byzantium - 18
Carthage - 20
Celts -22
China - 22
Danes - 24
Dutch - 22
Egypt - 16
England - 20
Ethiopia - 20
France - 20
Germany - 22
Greece - 20
Huns - 20
Inca - 20
India - 20
Indonesia - 16
Iroquois - 20
Japan - 21
Korea - 20
Maya - 20
Mongols - 22
Morocco - 20
Ottoman - 20
Persia - 20
Poland - 20
Polynesia - 20
Portugal - 22
Rome - 20
Russia - 16 -
Shoshone - 22
Siam - 22
Songhai - 16
Spain - 20
Sweden - 20
Venice - 22
Zulu - 22

Starting with the bad, Indonesia has to be one of the coolest setups of unique features, each that I find pretty awesome, but NONE of which work together intuitively. It's as if the devs have a couple of brilliant ideas left over, but only one civ slot left. It's a mess. A beautiful mess, but a mess none the less.

Next, the good. I love a lot of the civs setups. Look at Spain, Inca, Danes, and the Zulu (quick browse). All of them seem wonderfully done for various reasons. That said, it is my opinion that by a decent margin, the most beautiful is the Shoshone. Starts by giving you tools that encourage you to spread out and explore, providing an arguably weaker bonus than Spain's, but quite a bit more reliable one, and then it gives you another tool to go out and set up a stable empire in all the most ideal locations. All of this seems to be designed to give the Shoshone the best opening game. They go out, find the best places, get rewarded for doing so, settle them and receive a bonus which makes them more profitable quickly and easy to defend with more land, and thus better access to spread out tiles. Then, they're set to coast to a win, and given a unit that can help push off jealous attempts to take from the Shoshone later on if the enemy has closed the gap. (I can imagine the beauty of the Great Wall with the Shoshone too, with their larger land area). This civ seems to be built to take the lead quick, then hold it to the end.

I think your numbers might be off- this thread is plus 2 minus 4, not plus 1 minus three. I point it out as there are odd numbers- something impossible given we started with and only used even numbers-, which may not be your fault, I only just noticed them. Still, I won't change them, as I don't know where or when the mistake was made.

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My mistake. I assumed +1/-3. Here it is corrected (for my mistake, anyway.)

Arabia - 20
Assyria - 20
Austria - 18
Aztec - 20
Babylon - 8
Brazil - 16
Byzantium - 18
Carthage - 20
Celts -22
China - 22
Danes - 24
Dutch - 22
Egypt - 16
England - 20
Ethiopia - 20
France - 20
Germany - 22
Greece - 20
Huns - 20
Inca - 20
India - 20
Indonesia - 16
Iroquois - 20
Japan - 22
Korea - 20
Maya - 20
Mongols - 22
Morocco - 20
Ottoman - 20
Persia - 20
Poland - 20
Polynesia - 20
Portugal - 22
Rome - 20
Russia - 16 -
Shoshone - 22
Siam - 22
Songhai - 16
Spain - 20
Sweden - 20
Venice - 22
Zulu - 22

Arabia - 20
Assyria - 20
Austria - 18
Aztec - 20
Babylon - 8
Brazil - 16
Byzantium - 18
Carthage - 20
Celts -22
China - 22
Danes - 24-4=20, good civ for warmongering, but that's pretty much it, the Vikings were also traders, yet this is not really reflected in the design
Dutch - 22
Egypt - 16
England - 20
Ethiopia - 20
France - 20
Germany - 22
Greece - 20
Huns - 20
Inca - 20
India - 20
Indonesia - 16
Iroquois - 20
Japan - 22
Korea - 20
Maya - 20
Mongols - 22
Morocco - 20
Ottoman - 20
Persia - 20
Poland - 20+2=22, it's UA is flexible and can be used for a range of victories, plus the Ducal Stable and Winged Hussar work together well
Polynesia - 20
Portugal - 22
Rome - 20
Russia - 16 -
Shoshone - 22
Siam - 22
Songhai - 16
Spain - 20
Sweden - 20
Venice - 22
Zulu - 22

The thing is are we judging design based on how well civilizations achieve victory based on their abilities or how fun they are to play? It's sort of the same issue as the previous thread.

Arabia - 20
Assyria - 20
Austria - 18
Aztec - 20
Babylon - 8
Brazil - 16
Byzantium - 18
Carthage - 20
Celts -22
China - 22
Danes - 16
Dutch - 22
Egypt - 16
England - 20
Ethiopia - 20
France - 20
Germany - 22
Greece - 20
Huns - 20
Inca - 20
India - 20
Indonesia - 18
Iroquois - 20
Japan - 22
Korea - 20
Maya - 20
Mongols - 22
Morocco - 20
Ottoman - 20
Persia - 20
Poland - 20
Polynesia - 20
Portugal - 22
Rome - 20
Russia - 16 -
Shoshone - 22
Siam - 22
Songhai - 16
Spain - 20
Sweden - 20
Venice - 22
Zulu - 22

Indonesia I feel while not quite as focused as some civs has an interesting potential strategy to sort of become a trade hub. Theoretically the extra luxury will increase the likelihood of receiving a trade route and since trade routes spread faith your city will get followers of different religions giving you more faith from the candi. The only out of place thing I feel is the kris swordsman, I personally would have given them a Junk(however you spell that) that would help them protect their naval trade routes since settling on another landmass is so encouraged.

The Danes while I agree its totally awesome having longships and sailing down the coast and raiding from an immersive standpoint are imbalanced because of their reliance on this strategy. Amphibious assaults are such a PITA in this game that the idea always scares me away from playing them. I feel they should have gotten something to help boost another part of their game instead of being pure domination. Although I do think the ski infantry are good they kind detract from the civ because they feel so off the viking theme.

Arabia - 20
Assyria - 20
Austria - 18
Aztec - 20
Babylon - 8
Brazil - 16
Byzantium - 18
Carthage - 20
Celts -22
China - 22
Danes - 16
Dutch - 22
Egypt - 16
England - 20
Ethiopia - 20
France - 20
Germany - 22
Greece - 20
Huns - 22 - a well-rounded and historically accurate design for a warmongering nomad civ.
Inca - 20
India - 20
Indonesia - 18
Iroquois - 20
Japan - 22
Korea - 20
Maya - 20
Mongols - 22
Morocco - 20
Ottoman - 20
Persia - 20
Poland - 20
Polynesia - 20
Portugal - 22
Rome - 20
Russia - 12 - the UA forces you into aggressive expansion but UU and UB make it clumsy. Also I`m surprised UA gives no bonuses for furs which historically were an integral part of the "Siberian Riches". The tundra bias is a disgusting stereotype - none of the major Russian cities are located in this climate zone, and gameplay-wise this bias is quite a disadvantage.
Shoshone - 22
Siam - 22
Songhai - 16
Spain - 20
Sweden - 20
Venice - 22
Zulu - 22

Kallowe said:

The thing is are we judging design based on how well civilizations achieve victory based on their abilities or how fun they are to play? It's sort of the same issue as the previous thread.

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We are judging based off of how well designed a civ is, which means what civs add a lot to the game, and what civs don't. So instead of pure power, we're voting off of things like creativity, synnergy, funness, and things like that. You should vote down civs that you think do not add much to the game overall, and vote up civs that you think are fun, creative, and well designed.

Put another way, if suddenly we could only have 10 civs in the game, what civs would you want in there, and which civs would you not mind not being there anymore? What civs should the developers of Civ VI try to emulate while creating the next generation of civ?

Arabia - 20
Assyria - 22 The UA is really cool and encourages a very unique play-style with a lot of domination and taking cities. Suddenly I want the enemy other civs in the game to settle lots of small juicy techs cities near my borders. Bring on the expansionist Hiawatha! The siege tower supports this play-style well and is fun to play with, and also is unique (uniqueness is good) as one of the two melee siege UUs. The royal library is kind of cool too, as suddenly going for a bit of early culture can help your war effort. It's too bad that playing this civ effectively will ruin your relations with everyone forever, but that's ok.
Austria - 18
Aztec - 20
Babylon - 8
Brazil - 16
Byzantium - 18
Carthage - 20
Celts -22
China - 22
Danes - 16
Dutch - 22
Egypt - 16
England - 20
Ethiopia - 20
France - 20
Germany - 22
Greece - 16 I like the UA, but it's still pretty passive. The UUs are too early and really aren't all that unique. This is another civ that puts all its UU eggs in a classical/ancient basket, and other than the great general promotion, doesn't get anything upon upping any UU. These UUs also do very little to help out the UA. A better design would have been a slightly weaker UA, but with having UUs that helped out the UA a bit more.
Huns - 22
Inca - 20
India - 20
Indonesia - 18
Iroquois - 20
Japan - 22
Korea - 20
Maya - 20
Mongols - 22
Morocco - 20
Ottoman - 20
Persia - 20
Poland - 20
Polynesia - 20
Portugal - 22
Rome - 20
Russia - 12
Shoshone - 22
Siam - 22
Songhai - 16
Spain - 20
Sweden - 20
Venice - 22
Zulu - 22

Arabia - 20
Assyria - 22
Austria - 18
Aztec - 20
Babylon - 8
Brazil - 16+2=18, Carnival might be stereotypical, but it works for the game, Brazilwood camp and Pracinhas all have in getting you a cultural victory, sure its only really suited for one kind of victory but the elements all work well together
Byzantium - 18
Carthage - 20
Celts -22
China - 22
Danes - 16
Dutch - 22
Egypt - 16
England - 20
Ethiopia - 20
France - 20
Germany - 22
Greece - 16
Huns - 22
Inca - 20
India - 20
Indonesia - 18
Iroquois - 20
Japan - 22
Korea - 20
Maya - 20
Mongols - 22
Morocco - 20
Ottoman - 20
Persia - 20
Poland - 20
Polynesia - 20
Portugal - 22
Rome - 20
Russia - 12
Shoshone - 22
Siam - 22
Songhai - 16
Spain - 20-4=16, the UA can be OP depending on if you find a natural wonder and settle there, but I don't think Spain historically was like this, they got their wealth and power by taking over other civs, I rarely use the conquistador to found new cities, and Tercio is decent I guess, I admit, most of my games as Spain have been lackluster
Sweden - 20
Venice - 22
Zulu - 22

Guandao said:

Spain - 20-4=16, the UA can be OP depending on if you find a natural wonder and settle there, but I don't think Spain historically was like this, they got their wealth and power by taking over other civs, I rarely use the conquistador to found new cities, and Tercio is decent I guess, I admit, most of my games as Spain have been lackluster

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Yeah, Spain historically didn't peacefully settle near Natural Wonders; they killed the natives who happened to be living near those Natural Wonders and stole their land. However, that's reflected in the Conquistador and the Tercio - those are two very, very powerful units that should be used to capture cities. Remember, the Conquistador can not only settle new cities but also lacks the -33% combat penalty vs. cities that a normal knight has, while the Tercio is stronger than the standard Musketman.

Both seven cities of gold and conquistidor reflect the spanish civilization very well. Although i would prefer a ship over tercio to reflect spanish naval power.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

Arabia - 20
Assyria - 22
Austria - 18
Aztec - 20
Babylon - 8
Brazil - 18
Byzantium - 18
Carthage - 20
Celts -22
China - 22
Danes - 16
Dutch - 22
Egypt - 16
England - 20
Ethiopia - 20
France - 20
Germany - 22
Greece - 16
Huns - 22
Inca - 20
India - 20
Indonesia - 14
Iroquois - 20
Japan - 22
Korea - 20
Maya - 20
Mongols - 22
Morocco - 20
Ottoman - 20
Persia - 20
Poland - 20
Polynesia - 20
Portugal - 22
Rome - 20
Russia - 14
Shoshone - 22
Siam - 22
Songhai - 16
Spain - 16
Sweden - 20
Venice - 22
Zulu - 22

Russia - I have to disagree on the downvotes, in my opinion, Russia was extremely well designed. First, you have a pretty good UA: double Horses and Iron, that early in the game, means more gold from trade. Also, when you trade your strategics, you lose 0 . On top of that, you have extra early , which is awesome for whatever you're doing. Lastly, you have Uranium, which means double nukes or nuclear plants, if you prefer. Things tend to go down around production here, but having extra resources to trade is great for early development. Around this, you build a solid base. Then, we have the Cossack. There's a big synergy here, actually. The double horses. That means double Cossacks. Those are some great units for late game wars, and it gets even better: if you went autocracy, you'll probably have Lighting Warfare, so your tanks have steroids - and the Cossacks upgrade to Landships that upgrande into tanks! In the end, there's the Krepost. I admit it, it isn't a good UB. But there's also synergy with the UA: you will acquire the land with strategics earlier in the game (or it will be cheaper). This means earlier access to Iron, for example, which means earlier +1 and more resources to trade. Sorry for the wall of text, I just love this civ's inner synergy

Indonesia - Don't get me wrong, I love playing as Indonesia, but they are very random. The UA is great, but doesn't have a lot of synergy with the UU or the UB. The UU is actually cool, even though it requires iron and is melee, I loved the concept, but... around this time, you'd want to prepare for a religion or for colonizing. Then, there's the UB, which can lead to tons of faith, but... I can't really see the synergy here. If someone found a way to make these pieces of the puzzle connect, can you please tell me? I'd love to understand Indonesia so I can play even more as them.

DWilson said:

Starting with the bad, Indonesia has to be one of the coolest setups of unique features, each that I find pretty awesome, but NONE of which work together intuitively. It's as if the devs have a couple of brilliant ideas left over, but only one civ slot left. It's a mess. A beautiful mess, but a mess none the less.

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Petiscator said:

Indonesia - Don't get me wrong, I love playing as Indonesia, but they are very random. The UA is great, but doesn't have a lot of synergy with the UU or the UB. The UU is actually cool, even though it requires iron and is melee, I loved the concept, but... around this time, you'd want to prepare for a religion or for colonizing. Then, there's the UB, which can lead to tons of faith, but... I can't really see the synergy here. If someone found a way to make these pieces of the puzzle connect, can you please tell me? I'd love to understand Indonesia so I can play even more as them.

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The whole theme of Indonesia is diversity to reflect the challenges the nation has faced for having a consistently wide range of religions and cultures under their flag throughout history. The national motto is, literally, Unity in Diversity.
If their abilities had complete cohesion it would be the antithesis of what they're designed to be. It is meant to feel as though you're trying to channel un-related stregnths into a singular national purpose. I suggest you people read the Civilopedia about them before downvoting further, or possibly even retracting downvotes to them on this basis. Heck, or even take the downvotes as upvotes since apparently at least two people have just unwittingly spoken to how aptly they fit their purpose.

Abraxis said:

The whole theme of Indonesia is diversity to reflect the challenges the nation has faced for having a consistently wide range of religions and cultures under their flag throughout history. The national motto is, literally, Unity in Diversity.
If their abilities had complete cohesion it would be the antithesis of what they're designed to be. It is meant to feel as though you're trying to channel un-related stregnths into a singular national purpose. I suggest you people read the Civilopedia about them before downvoting further, or possibly even retracting downvotes to them on this basis. Heck, or even take the downvotes as upvotes since apparently at least two people completely agree they've fit their purpose precisely.

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You can't retract downvotes in this thread, but if you disagree with what people have said, feel free to upvote and make an argument. If people agree with you, they will upvote Indonesia in the future. That's why I made the upvotes +2 this thread, so that they would have more power.

I think Indonesia could be better designed, as they don't really get the Unity part of diversity. The Kris swordsman is a cool experiment, but the negative promotion was a bad idea, and the lack of planning you can do around these isn't the best. Perhaps a better design would be to give them a choice of three different promotions upon training or after their first battle (that would work well with swordsmen that have the other promotions) if you want to go for the diversity effect.

I like the Candi, and the diversity of religions effect is a good one. I suppose you can say this synnergises with the UA, as you can place your cities in places that will naturally be religious hubs, but placing these cities is hard enough already without worrying about another thing. I suppose they will be costal cities though, and maybe you can control trade routes to get maximum benefit from this.

All in all though, I think Indonesia should be three things that look separate at first, but can actually achieve unity. Having diversity isn't enough. They need unity too, and Indonesia doesn't get a coherent strategy around their uniques.

There is no unity in their diversity because they're opposites -.- If you put unity into it, it's no longer diverse.

If their unique features did have cohesion, the flavour would be in what those features yielded when combined, as is the case with all the other civs. The only way to create a true sense of diversity in this format is to create uniques that don't coordinate into something greater. If it were the case, tell me, how would that would be different from every other civ built around 3 uniques that produce a pertinent flavour when consumed as a whole?

The flavour is in the fact that the uniques are separate, but you are still a single nation.

This is three kinds of sushi on the same plate. Not soup with three ingredients.

And for that matter

Arabia - 20
Assyria - 22
Austria - 18
Aztec - 20
Babylon - 8
Brazil - 18
Byzantium - 14
Carthage - 20
Celts -22
China - 22
Danes - 16
Dutch - 22
Egypt - 16
England - 20
Ethiopia - 20
France - 20
Germany - 22
Greece - 16
Huns - 22
Inca - 20
India - 20
Indonesia - 16
Iroquois - 20
Japan - 22
Korea - 20
Maya - 20
Mongols - 22
Morocco - 20
Ottoman - 20
Persia - 20
Poland - 20
Polynesia - 20
Portugal - 22
Rome - 20
Russia - 14
Shoshone - 22
Siam - 22
Songhai - 16
Spain - 16
Sweden - 20
Venice - 22
Zulu - 22

Byzantium: Downvoted because they have no way to actually get the religion for which they have the UA. At immortal 22 civs, this literally means they have no UA in the player's hands, in my opinion that completely breaks them.

Indonesia: Listed above

I'm not convinced. I understand the diversity idea, but, in my opinion, a good design means that the civilization has at least some synergy. Take the case of Brazil, for example. Their UI helps you get tourism, that is doubled with the UA, which is helped to be achieved by the UU. Or Assyria, whose UA and UU are greatly tied together and are also backed up by a UB on the same side of the coin. Then, there are cases like Byzantium, whose UA is very disconected from the UUs, or Indonesia, whose 3 bonuses point to different sides. They might be powerful bonuses, but the fact that they are so isolated means to me their design is not good. I wish there was a way to make the UA, UU and UB work together, but that's very hard. I understand the thing about diversity, but it just seems like a sack of three fat bonuses. Far from an optimal design.