.

[Vincent55]

I could say pretty much any bonus is worthless cause I'd curb stomp on low difficulties without it. Not sure I understand your point.

My point is when you play at low level you get bonus to combat to everything, making specific combat bonus less impactful.

In the Spain First look video, for example, at 0:38, when discussing El Escorial bonus you can clearly see that this player was getting a +3 swords bonus due to difficulty which made his +4 swords bonus due to El Escorial less impactful than if he was playing at a higher difficulty. He was already getting into any fight with equivalent units with an edge.

If I'm going to get a +X swords to all my battles, I wouldn't value other specific combat bonuses as highly and would rather get another type of bonus.

OTOH if I have no bonus and any engagement with similar forces was a 50% affair, than of course I value these bonuses much more.

And just ask yourself; are you going to be happy to start on the same continent as America when you play multiplayer?

 

[indradiva]

Egypt
Egypt is a well-rounded civ with a Wonder focus, it has no real weaknesses. Good at any VC, but doesn’t excel at anyone. Still, it can be played universally, focusing either on Districts and trade, or on Wonders and Culture and even mixing the two play styles.
EGO:
Auto.: Very good and stacks with your bonus to Wonders.
Oli.: Is only interesting because XP bonus, since Maryannu don’t benefit from combat bonus. Maybe the least useful option.
CR: No big remarks here, except that Egypt can do well with any early Government and that with CR you can easily gain Great Generals, so it helps with conquest too.
VCs:
Dom.:3/5: Maryannu are powerful early-game unit, trade routes will bring you much gold for units and GGs, Sphinxes will do the same with Faith, so the only problem is that Maryannu will be quickly outdated, but otherwise there’s nothing to sniff at.
S.: 3/5: Due to Great Library trick you can get a boost to your Science and you can build quite a few Campuses with your ability, but in the late game you will meet with difficulties protecting yourself, but it is still a reasonable option.
C.:4/5: With your ability to build Wonders and extra Culture from Sphinxes you will have no difficulties winning culturally.
R.:5/5: You can very quickly get a Prophet with Stonehenge and with a lot of Faith from Sphinxes , you will be able to gain a lot of Missionaries and Apostles, so it may be even better than Culture Victory.
CAR: 3.75/5

England
Many of you underestimate England. This is because you don’t see that the real power of England is its free melee unit on a foreign continent and a synergy trick England can use. This trick is getting Civil Service civic and adopting the Retainers policy, that gives +1 Amenity to a city with a garrisoned unit. And you get that unit for free! For your newly settled cities it translates to +15% growth. Later on, when you get Exploration civic, you will gain the Colonial Offices policy that give another +15% growth to cities on foreign continents. I’m also pretty sure there are other policies related to foreign continents, especially the Colonialism civic looks very suspicious. The UD is also very good for building a trade empire, but you cannot build it everywhere, so it is not your main advantage.
EGO:
Auto: No, that’s simply not for you.
Oli: This is good if you want to go to war as soon as you get Retainers or even earlier if your neighbor is weak. But England isn’t a rush civ, so maybe it isn’t the best choice? On the other hand, XP bonus will be quite useful. Tough choice…
CR: It may be good initially, when you spread on your home continent and build up a base for your future invasion, its bonus may even stack with Retainers, especially useful on island and continents maps. Equally useful as Oligarchy.
MR: I mention it, because it’s the best option for England, but don’t beeline it, you’ll miss too much good stuff on the way.
VCs:
Dom.: 5/5: With your free army, lots of gold and Redcoats, domination is all way to go!
S: 3/5: With your gold you can buy many GSs and with your army you can defend yourself, so why not?
C: 4/5: England can be a powerful culture player with its UA later in the game.
R: 2/5: You have no extra faith source and I don’t see England as a religious civ.
CAR: 3.5/5
to be continued

 

[Krajzen]

I still think it is China. It has good bonuses to some of the most impactful parts of the game - tech progress, infrastructure, and wonder construction.
It is also almost the only civ with reliable science bonus, and has "mainstream" unique military unit that is always useful (ranged mid game unit, as opposed to naval units or lategame units that may or not be important to victory). The weakest part of it may be the great wall, depending on the extent of its bonuses.

Second place IMO goes to Scythia with its amazing military rush capabilities. Horse archer (all such units were stupidly good in civ5) they can build at double rate, and essentially universal damage bonus to troops and auto healing. Military nightmare. And they also get early bonus to religion with UI.

Honorary mentions go to Indian elephants (they may be stupidly strong when micromanaged) and Kongolese warriors (good look fighting them in forwst terrain while they are more numerous than your swordmen and their usual counter of ranged units is ineffective)

 

[Thormodr]

Too early to say. There are many details about the game that we don't know.

That being said, there look to be quite a few strong Civs, which is encouraging.

 

[Atlas627]

Indradiva, I think you are underestimating Brazil and overestimating England.

Your argument that everyone else is overestimating Brazil is based on Brazil being good at science, but science is less important and Brazil actually needs culture for its other bonuses.

Well, Brazil is good at culture too. The UA applies to Campuses, Theater Squares, Commercial Hubs, Holy Sites, and Neighborhoods. Its flexible AND strong, starts working immediately, scales with number of cities for the most part, and scales with era (since we know adjacency bonuses get bigger). I still don't know why people think the UA only applies to science.

Your argument that everyone is underestimating England is that we aren't noticing nice synergy with the 1 Free Melee unit when founding a city on a foreign continent.

If you are founding a city on a foreign continent, you should probably have brought a unit with you to accompany the settler, so the garrison amenity synergy isn't anything special. If you are founding new cities on foreign continents, its either decently early in the game (in which case you haven't had time to get ahead in tech such that a free unit is great) or you're already so far ahead that the free unit is nothing in comparison (because you're expanding to foreign continents while the other Civs still haven't even filled in their own continents). Furthermore, units seem cheaper in 6 than in 5, so each individual unit has less value.

 

[stealth_nsk]

IWell, Brazil is good at culture too. The UA applies to Campuses, Theater Squares, Commercial Hubs, Holy Sites, and Neighborhoods. Its flexible AND strong, starts working immediately, scales with number of cities for the most part, and scales with era (since we know adjacency bonuses get bigger). I still don't know why people think the UA only applies to science.

Campus gives more bonuses as it stacks natural Campus rainforest bonus with Brazil bonus. For other districts, standard bonuses are not that fantastic. For example, for Holy Sites you could get the same standard bonuses from Mountains and major bonuses from Natural Wonders.

If you are founding a city on a foreign continent, you should probably have brought a unit with you to accompany the settler, so the garrison amenity synergy isn't anything special. If you are founding new cities on foreign continents, its either decently early in the game (in which case you haven't had time to get ahead in tech such that a free unit is great) or you're already so far ahead that the free unit is nothing in comparison (because you're expanding to foreign continents while the other Civs still haven't even filled in their own continents). Furthermore, units seem cheaper in 6 than in 5, so each individual unit has less value.

On both continents and pangea, each landmass has multiple continents on it, so settling on foreign continent is quite regular practice early in the game and gaining free melee unit is quite strong thing. Same goes for Military Dockyard on "foreign" continent - they could be built on the same landmass.

 

[elitetroops]

Are the unique tile improvement mechanics known already?

-Is it one Builder charge to build one?
-Can you build as many of them as you want, as long as it follows the already known placement rules (no sphinxes next to other sphinxes and so on)?
-As tile improvements, do they have to be worked to get the benefit, or are the benefits passive?

 

[stealth_nsk]

Are the unique tile improvement mechanics known already?

-Is it one Builder charge to build one?
-Can you build as many of them as you want, as long as it follows the already known placement rules (no sphinxes next to other sphinxes and so on)?
-As tile improvements, do they have to be worked to get the benefit, or are the benefits passive?

AFAIK:
1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. Yes, need to be worked.

 

[elitetroops]

AFAIK:
1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. Yes, need to be worked.

Ok, thanks! The effects can't all require that the tile is worked, though, or? For example the housing bonus from Stepwell should be passive, like normal farms, right?

The Great Wall looks really weak if the +1 gold yield requires the tile to be worked. I'm not too impressed by the +1 culture / +2 culture if built next to wonder / +1 gold if next to luxury of the Chateau either. It seems like there are better ways to utilize your riverside tiles than that. If those yields were passive, it would become decent. The more I think about it, the more it would make sense if all effects of unique tile improvements were passive. Or at least that would make them even somehow competitive with unique districts. Only the Stepwell food bonus could potentially be a bit overpowered if it's passive.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Ok, thanks! The effects can't all require that the tile is worked, though, or? For example the housing bonus from Stepwell should be passive, like normal farms, right?

This need checking, or course, but housing bonus could be the same as any other tile output.

The Great Wall looks really weak if the +1 gold yield requires the tile to be worked.

Great Wall gets more output later in the game. It's the best tile improvement in the game, which is compensated by requirement to build it on the border.

I'm not too impressed by the +1 culture / +2 culture if built next to wonder / +1 gold if next to luxury of the Chateau either.

The basic improvements produce "core" yields - food, production and housing. Gold comes from improvement on resources - Camp, Plantation, Fishing Boat (later in game). Unique improvements produce advanced ones - culture, faith or science, plus gold from regular tiles. That's not a small thing.

 

[elitetroops]

Great Wall gets more output later in the game. It's the best tile improvement in the game, which is compensated by requirement to build it on the border.

What makes it the best tile improvement in the game?

I'd have to see some real numbers for output to tell anything for sure, but it looks pretty weak to me. Civilization Analyst says "It provides defense and gold in the early game, and culture and tourism in the later game." I don't know what this info is based on, but let's assume it's true.

If the early game gains are small, like one gold/tile, this would be very weak even if the benefit is passive. To build it, you need a tile to build it on. If you ever purchase a tile to build it, it takes a lot of turns to pay back the gold invested. You also waste Builders to get it up. You might think it would be good if you have 10-15 tiles of great wall producing 10-15 gpt passively, but that's still not that strong. Compare to Germany who could use their free military policy for Conscription without any investment at all, which could easily save you the same amount of gold. If the passive yields were greater than 1 gold, this could change, but I still don't see it becoming overpowered.

If the +gold requires the tile to be worked, then in the early game it would pretty much always be worse than working an actual improved tile. Even if it gets some nice bonuses for culture and tourism in the late game, I much prefer early gains over late gains. Those workers you use to buil TGW could for example be used to rush some wonders with immediate effects instead.

 

[stealth_nsk]

What makes it the best tile improvement in the game?

Right from the start Great Wall equals Fort + Camp. It gets additional output of culture and tourism later in the game. And it have bonuses to most (if not all) of these parameters from:
- Adjacent Great Wall tiles.
- Hills if built on them.

 

[BoGo]

Sorry but I can't see the usefulness to choose to build great wall on Hills instead of mines renouncing to the prod. bonus so useful at the beginning of the game

 

[stealth_nsk]

Sorry but I can't see the usefulness to choose to build great wall on Hills instead of mines renouncing to the prod. bonus so useful at the beginning of the game

Let's say you can build 1 improvement and 1 district. You want production and gold. The combination of Mine + Commercial District will give you way less of everything compared to Great Wall + Industrial district.

Surely, if you desperately need production at the start of the game and it's the only hill you have, mine is better.

 

[BoGo]

Let's say you can build 1 improvement and 1 district. You want production and gold. The combination of Mine + Commercial District will give you way less of everything compared to Great Wall + Industrial district.

Surely, if you desperately need production at the start of the game and it's the only hill you have, mine is better.

You are starting from the assumption that you can have all the districts that you want just from the beginning of the game but you can have let's say commercial hub only after descovering a particular civic (can't remeber which one).

Another thing: I suppose some city population must be allocated to a particular tile to make it "active": At the beginning you have only 1-3 pop and you are supposed to use the for grown and production (imho) rathar than gold

 

[stealth_nsk]

You are starting from the assumption that you can have all the districts that you want just from the beginning of the game but you can have let's say commercial hub only after descovering a particular civic (can't remeber which one).

No, I'm based on assumption you need different kinds of output. If you compare production only, 0 production from Great Wall is less than 1 (or 2) production from mine. But if you compare all outputs, Great wall which could have around +3-4 of Gold AND Culture AND Tourism, plus fortification bonus is a way better.

 

[BoGo]

AhOk...good point

Is Great Wall avaible without any pre-requisite?

 

[stealth_nsk]

AhOk...good point

Is Great Wall avaible without any pre-requisite?

We don't know, but quite early. It comes to full bonuses later, though.

 

[elitetroops]

Right from the start Great Wall equals Fort + Camp.

Not really. A camp would normally be built on a resource with greater base yields. It's the greater base yields that make them worth working. Adding some +gold to a standard grassland tile does not make that worth working above other tiles you would have available. The fort bonus I don't care much about. I prefer to keep the fighting outside my borders.

In the China FL video the +gold remains static for the first 4 GW parts they build, at the 5th it goes up with about 5 gpt instantly when it's built, the 6th boosts it up one gpt more. I don't know if anything can be deduced from this, those videos are clearly not from actual gameplay situations. And in other videos it seems the numbers in the upper left corner don't update instantly to reflect changes.

I'm still thinking the +gold from GW must be static. Otherwise it wouldn't make sense building it at all.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I'm still thinking the +gold from GW must be static. Otherwise it wouldn't make sense building it at all.

As I understand, it's something like this:
+1 Gold base output.
+1 Gold if built on hill.
+1 Gold for each adjacent Great Wall tile.
Culture equal to Gold output after discovering X tech (civic).
Tourism equal to Gold output after discovering Y tech (civic).
Combat bonus.