Civilization 6 Tier List 1.0

[CaiusDrewart]

Credere non possum barbaros vicit!

This means, "I am not able to believe he or she conquered the barbarians."

(Though a Roman probably wouldn't have used credere in this construction)

To way in on an actually Civ-related matter, I agree with the people saying that Rome's free trading posts and roads are not actually that good. Those are OK, but look much more impressive than they really are.

Rome's free monuments are every bit as impressive as they seem, though. Same for the legion. The bath isn't bad either. You don't build aqueducts that much, but half-price super-aqueducts are often worth it.

 

[lamaros]

Well, I gave Spain a red hot go. You can pretty much always force a Religion if you need, but it can cost you, so there's that. However he is so weak early game, and his abilities so contingent, than you never really get value.

 

[Qin Shi Hung]

Well, I gave Spain a red hot go. You can pretty much always force a Religion if you need, but it can cost you, so there's that. However he is so weak early game, and his abilities so contingent, than you never really get value.

How much is Spain's combat bonus against other religions?

A permanent combat bonus sounds nice.

 

[Gigaz]

Aztec is all-around excellence. The lux bonus and eagle warrior are both huge – it's surprisingly easy to bang up the AI while developing your cities as the Aztecs, which is especially good because early conquering is viable (and maybe the best strategy) even if you're not Aztecs. Amenity boost is great to help your sprawling empire, especially because amenities are such a limiting factor for midgame growth. District bonus would be mediocre on its own, but its easy to rack up excess workers as Aztec which you can then use to develop your cities.

I think people are significantly underrating the Aztec ability to turn worker charges into districts. Hansa may be 1/2 price, but Aztecs build all districts for the price of one (policy-enhanced) worker. That is just insanely powerful.

 

[Danzo_87]

As thing stands now, Peter's trade route ability sucks (no production = yuck), but their extra territory + lavra are strong enough to compensate for that though, you get extra area at the start, you can plan your district sprawl between cities far earlier than others who have to painstakingly buy tiles just to get to the coverage you get

 

[lamaros]

How much is Spain's combat bonus against other religions?

A permanent combat bonus sounds nice.

+4. It's not bad, but, it's also pretty much all they've got going for them, especially in the early to middle game.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

+4. It's not bad, but, it's also pretty much all they've got going for them, especially in the early to middle game.

I think I'd much rather have America's +5 own-continent combat bonus. The most active part of the game militarily is the first 60 turns or so, and that's when Spain's bonus is least likely to kick in (and America's is most likely). Plus of course America's bonus is just bigger.

I don't think anyone here has attempted to defend Norway. Is it universally agreed that they are a bottom-tier civ? (Here talking about a normal map, i.e., not island plates).

 

[Qin Shi Hung]

I think Norway might have potential for Norway to colonize all the unclaimed areas where no AI spawned.

I just found a large area like that, including an undiscovered city state, at turn 200 on a pangea map. Too late to colonize, I've already discovered rocketry, but Norway could claim that land in the beginning.

Of course, that doesn't help if your strategy is to simply conquer the world with horsemen.

 

[MrDoubleG]

I so far only finished one game. It was with Scythia and I won a religious victory in turn 197 on standard speed, small map. My swarm of Level 4 and up Horse Archers killed 3 of the 5 opponents. I was a bit lucky as the other 3 religions were all conquered and the leftover Teddy did not care about me swarming him with Apostles. But even if that had not worked as well as it did, upgrading the Horse Archer swarm into Level 4 and higher Field Cannons would have probably made easy game of America. So I agree, Scythia is a great early and mid game rush force that can win multiple victory types...

 

[TheXMassTeam]

If the tourism applies to the Chateaux as well, that would definitely make the improvement more significant than I first thought (as is, I do like it okay... But it's really impractical to find a place to put one down, and it comes far too late on the tech tree)

Hi,

The tourism gain from Châteaux is insignificant (the last château I got in my current game give me 391 tourism in whole game). So you need a lot of them in order to get large amount of tourism. But in fact you always have better things to build on top of them. So even if you build some you pretty fast replace them. They are more like culture place-holder while waiting for something.

 

[GT_OKEZ]

I can't defend Norway. The only abilities I like they have is no embarking costs, healing in neutral waters, and deep sea exploration before cartography. Clearly all of these are contingent on a map with a lot of sea you can use strategically. If Norway is stuck to play on land their best bet is to utilize the steeple church and push religion. The Beserker comes late and doesn't seem like a cost effective unit.

Norway's value goes up on a sea map but I still think Civs like England are way better.

 

[Roxlimn]

Spain's main ability - the ability you really want, is Treasure Fleets. The religious combat bonus is cute, but it doesn't work at the start of the game, and doesn't kick in against barbarians. Also doesn't work against any Civ you've converted into your own religion. So basically, if you're Spain, you want to find a new Continent ASAP and settle it. If you're starting on the border of a Continent split, you're golden - massive gold and production all game long from Trade Routes.

The Conquistador is fairly buff. With a Religious unit linked to it, it gets an unconditional +10 combat strength. You don't need to be anywhere special, you just need to have Missionaries or Apostles - even ones that have 1 charge left will do nicely. This equates to about an era-difference in Strength (minus the Era bonus). The extra charge on Inquisitors means you should launch an Inquisition, and then use Inquisitors more or less normally, saving the last charge for pairing up, though of course, you could just use them normally - the added flexibility is great.

 

[Hannibal XIII]

Still playing my long Marathon game as Russia, which I love. I'm ahead in science and culture, so the LUA is useless (hoping they get a second leader pronto, probably Cathy but I'll always want Stalin back), but by god the Mother Russia and Lavra stuff is so, so useful. I'm swimming in faith and almost never have to buy tiles because I start with so many anyway.

 

[Timally]

Spain's main ability - the ability you really want, is Treasure Fleets. The religious combat bonus is cute, but it doesn't work at the start of the game, and doesn't kick in against barbarians. Also doesn't work against any Civ you've converted into your own religion. So basically, if you're Spain, you want to find a new Continent ASAP and settle it. If you're starting on the border of a Continent split, you're golden - massive gold and production all game long from Trade Routes.

The Conquistador is fairly buff. With a Religious unit linked to it, it gets an unconditional +10 combat strength. You don't need to be anywhere special, you just need to have Missionaries or Apostles - even ones that have 1 charge left will do nicely. This equates to about an era-difference in Strength (minus the Era bonus). The extra charge on Inquisitors means you should launch an Inquisition, and then use Inquisitors more or less normally, saving the last charge for pairing up, though of course, you could just use them normally - the added flexibility is great.

There's a medic promotion for an apostle which would make an interesting conquistador partner

 

[CaiusDrewart]

Tried a game as France on Immortal. After a quick early conquest of my neighbor I expanded to 10 cities and settled down for peaceful Culture Victory, which I achieved T252.

I was fairly unimpressed by what France had to offer. There is zero help of any kind until the Medieval Era, which is pretty bad.

The extra diplomatic visibility was pretty negligible. Spies are crazy expensive (especially if you try to build them early on). They're also very slow and a surefire way to piss every AI off, so I didn't bother too much with them.

The doubled Tourism from wonders is OK. At the end of the game I had 12 wonders and the UA was giving me an additional 136 Tourism per turn. That's not nothing, but I was getting 1030 tourism overall, so it wasn't that much of a gamechanger. It was way less than my seaside resorts were generating.

The +20% production to Medieval/Renaissance/Industrial wonders is OK. The Ruhr Valley is Industrial and a really nice wonder to get. The Forbidden City (Renaissance Era) is another good one. But unfortunately, the two most important tourism wonders (Eiffel Tower and Cristo Redentor) are both Modern Era, so France gets no bonus there. It's kind of silly that France doesn't get any help building the Eiffel Tower.

I'm sure the Imperial Guarde is decent, but I just don't think late UUs are really that significant.

I'm comfortable leaving France at bottom tier, just above Spain and Norway.

 

[Furycrab]

The middle and top choices/choice I'm not really surprised... but the horsehocky tier ones I find a little funny.

Sumeria War-carts are insane. Basically get to Military Tradition and you decide the early game. It's all the good stuff from the Heavy Chariots, but no downside to being weak to spears so they can clear barb camps like no ones business. If that wasn't enough, you almost never get into awkward spots where you need a particular Eureka since you get so many good hut effects that are bound to give you the ones you are struggling to finish.

America can carve out it's own continent very easily with the +5 combat. Founding Fathers isn't very flashy, but going into end game with double the legacy bonuses can result in some pretty disgusting stuff. My favorite is probably getting Oligarchy early and going into mid game with stuff like ranged units that promote in 2 shots.

To me, the only civs I don't really like is Norway... Because it needs a water map. France, because the leader doesn't speak Fren... because it's a little too late game focused for my taste. Oh and Spain, mostly because I don't like the theme of actively hunting a second continent which ironically feels a bit like the stupidity of actively hunting natural wonders in 5.

 

[captainpandabear]

How am I the only one who notices how powerful the Legion is? Keep in mind the selling thing Scythia can do is going to be nerfed, but the chop-spam the Legion can do? Unlikely to be touched. The ability to cranky out a tremendous early army that can clear paths and speed production of other units as well as buildings? That's hard to top. The other bonuses are nice too, of course, but it seems to me the Legion is being underrated in this thread.

 

[lamaros]

Rome is high in almost everyone's list, I don't think they're underrated.

 

[isau]

The thing about France is the Guard Imperiale gets a +10 combat bonus on your home continent on top of already having +10 bonus damage compared to the Musketman. So basically, during the period where that is France's active unit, their home continent is a terror zone to be on. I believe the GI can kill a standard unpromoted Musketman in close to 1 hit.

Same for Victoria and her Redcoats (literally the inverse unit of Guard Imperiale, with bonuses on other continents).

 

[Xypherenc]

I think France was designed with diplomatic victory in mind, which was scrapped due to the dev not satisfied with it. Poor them.

Gilgamesh should be higher, reasons as everybody said.