.

[Sufyan]

Isabellae, Enricos or Bluetooths

Blueteeth.

 

[skyclad]

From what Ive seen from lets-plays, Brazil seems by far the strongest. Getting +6 faith or science when others get +2 or 3... Sure in the late game you will have to remove it, and the bonuses will be small in comparison, but getting those boosts early seem so powerful.

 

[evanaurora]

No love for Teddy? Looks kind of bland but if that combat bonus on his own continent will stack with the early military policy against barbs, he can get off to a decent start. Maybe even take a city state or another civ's city, although I'm sure he'd hate himself in the morning with his agenda if it's on his continent.

hee, Teddy Roosevelt would be so pleased though.... wikipedia literally describes him as an "ardent imperialist." I mean, Central America.

I think he'll be generic but generically GOOD gameplay-wise- nothing distinct but making a lot of aspects of the game stronger.

Anyway I think that China's looking pretty insane even still. I intend to try out a heavy eureka-focused game first thing, just to see how feasible it is, and China will obviously be my go to. more science (and now culture) is just objectively good and borderline OP, if ANY principles from 5 still apply.

 

[Sansa_Stark]

Thing with China bonus is, that the faster you get through science/culture tree, the less likely you are to actually get eurekas/inspirations. You just don't have enough time to get them. I think it has solid potential to even out, I'd say that science bonus will in fact be much less than 10%.

Brazil on the other hand looks seriously brutal, esp. since rain forest tiles have very good yields themselves, so there is less incentive to remove them. However, I'd say it will still not be that easy/feasible to have that much +5 or tiles for districts available, unless you sacrifice many other things. We will see I guess

 

[CaiusDrewart]

On the theory that fast ranged units are ridiculously overpowered in 1UPT, I think Egypt's unique chariot archer will be excellent for early conquest. I wouldn't be surprised if that ended up being considered a top tier UU. The rest of the Civ seems less impressive to me though.

 

[Matthew.]

Brazil is the only one so far where I couldn't help but think "wow, this is going to be top tier". It isn't only for their bonuses, but they presumably have jungle start bias, which seems to be great for setting up early science adjacency bonuses. In other words, much how in Civ 5 desert start bias was great (desert folklore and petra), it seems Brazil is going to get similar godly set-ups.

Scythia is obviously OP on the military front, but meh. I mean Mongolia/Huns were just as ridiculous in Civ 5, but they were not often mentioned among the god-tier Civs other than clearing out fast pangaea domination.

I am a bit biased because I like production Civs, but I have a feeling Germany is going to end up strong in this game. We will need to see just how much impact the extra district early on has. I suspect they may be able to jump start their empire in a similar way as say Shoshone from Civ 5 (the ruins and extra tiles at start had a similar effect). Then once you reach mid-game, the Hanse kicks in and keeps the production rolling.

 

[Lord Lakely]

If Isabella finds a natural wonder or two first she's arguably the strongest Civ in the game though!

While it is true that Isabella CAN be good and my last game as her was a blast (I found Lake Victoria right next to Beijing and forward-settled it before Wu could get it). Every Civ in Civ 5 can be strong under the right circumstances, especially if you've got a good starting location. The thing is, is that her bonus is very situational and doesn't help you out if you roll a crappy starting location, which makes Spain a weak Civ imo. Venice too suffers from that problem, for obvious reasons.

No such problems with Civ 6 SO FAR, I guess. Germany and England are probably the weakest because they get no earlygame bonusses to carve out their empire, but both have good midgame bonuses to catch up, I think.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

Scythia is obviously OP on the military front, but meh. I mean Mongolia/Huns were just as ridiculous in Civ 5, but they were not often mentioned among the god-tier Civs other than clearing out fast pangaea domination.

I think part of the reason for this was that in Civ 5 early conquest wasn't really good for too much other than Domination. You'd end up with a lot of cities early, sure, but also unhappy and quite possibly with money and science problems. Not to mention every other AI in the game would hate you. So not exactly the ideal conditions to transition to non-Domination victory types.

If in Civ 6 the penalties for early aggression are much less, than the Scythians may be able to have a lot of success knocking out a civ or two with horse archers and then transitioning to whatever victory type they want. They may end up being more flexible and powerful than the Huns were.

 

[indradiva]

Yes, Brazil is strong, but it has no combat bonuses and no production bonuses. Given the increasing district costs, it will not develop as fast as you wish. Also it needs keep an eye on population growth. So even with start biases it's not going to be OP, though its one of the stronger civs so far.

 

[Sansa_Stark]

No such problems with Civ 6 SO FAR, I guess. Germany and England are probably the weakest because they get no earlygame bonusses to carve out their empire, but both have good midgame bonuses to catch up, I think.

How come Germany has no early game bonuses?

Germany looks like a top tier. They have 1 additional military policy through to WHOLE game, which means that unlike any other civ, you can use both military policies from the beginning (i.e. have better scouts = more goody huts, more envoys in CS, more eurekas). Once you gain more policies, you can keep combat bonus and take production bonus next to it.

Also, they have great and pretty early unique district. You just beeline to Hansa, build it in half the time in all cities, gain more production than anybody else, and spam more districts than anybody else - since you have better production and free district slot.

So, how is Germany among the weakest?

 

[MALCIV6]

I have to admit I'm a little disappointed with the England Civ.

The Royal Dockyard - I mean it would be good if harbours didn't establish a trade route already. Sure an additional trade route is good however I'm not sure to how much of a bonus that will be considering China/Germany have huge perks.

Would have been good for them to get a better navy related bonus like having a Venetian Arsenal 'ask' perk in one city etc. Maybe even have the Sherman tank as well for example. Just appears to me they have been short changed in comparison to the others.

 

[nitedemon]

Well I think everybody picks on Teddy right now is because the legacy bonus mechanism is still not well understood. That might actually turn out to be Murica's biggest bonus. You never know.

I love that there seems to be little consensus on this thus far. (Except that America might seem underpowered.) I like the kind of Starcraft-direction the devs are taking this, in making every civ "overpowered" in their own unique way. Strongly prefer that over lame +1s and +2s.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

I have to admit I'm a little disappointed with the England Civ.

The Royal Dockyard - I mean it would be good if harbours didn't establish a trade route already. Sure an additional trade route is good however I'm not sure to how much of a bonus that will be considering China/Germany have huge perks.

Would have been good for them to get a better navy related bonus like having a Venetian Arsenal 'ask' perk in one city etc. Maybe even have the Sherman tank as well for example. Just appears to me they have been short changed in comparison to the others.

Britain are literally the strongest civ for the culture victory right now, they'll do fine, and you can keep playing with your pointy sticks

 

[MALCIV6]

Britain are literally the strongest civ for the culture victory right now, they'll do fine, and you can keep playing with your pointy sticks

Haha I actually laughed out loud at that. Well done Sir.

 

[Haggbart]

Brazil, China and Scythia are my top 3 picks right now.

But all the civs so far look great, and I think my first game will be with random leader!

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

I don't think we know enough about the mechanics yet to be sure.

That being said; America looks again the weakest/ most generic in Vanilla. Which is fine with me, I never play them since about Civ 3.

hashtag#boring

 

[Abraxis]

I have to admit I'm a little disappointed with the England Civ.

The Royal Dockyard - I mean it would be good if harbours didn't establish a trade route already. Sure an additional trade route is good however I'm not sure to how much of a bonus that will be considering China/Germany have huge perks.

Would have been good for them to get a better navy related bonus like having a Venetian Arsenal 'ask' perk in one city etc. Maybe even have the Sherman tank as well for example. Just appears to me they have been short changed in comparison to the others.

This was my impression too, but I have to wonder if this may betray a little bit of how trade routes work. I absolutely agree 1 extra trade route doesn't sound great, unless trade routes are calculated in such a way that the value of each route is dependent on the amount of trade happening in the city. If this were the case, just that one extra trade route would make England coastal cities enherently superior trade hubs where all the best routes would go because all the best routes go there.

 

[Zaarin]

Britain are literally the strongest civ for the culture victory right now, they'll do fine, and you can keep playing with your pointy sticks

France's tourism bonus, Brazil's carnivals and great person bonuses, and Egypt's and China's wonders beg to differ. Even Spain could be a contender, if instead of religious victory Spain uses its psycho religious bonuses to boost culture (my usual strategy in Civ5).

As for who is strongest, I feel like every civ is a pretty strong contender, though in comparison to the others England seems a bit weak. If I had to pick the top tier civs, though, China, Brazil, and Spain seem to have a little extra edge.

 

[Joketa]

How come Germany has no early game bonuses?

Germany looks like a top tier. They have 1 additional military policy through to WHOLE game, which means that unlike any other civ, you can use both military policies from the beginning (i.e. have better scouts = more goody huts, more envoys in CS, more eurekas). Once you gain more policies, you can keep combat bonus and take production bonus next to it.

Also, they have great and pretty early unique district. You just beeline to Hansa, build it in half the time in all cities, gain more production than anybody else, and spam more districts than anybody else - since you have better production and free district slot.

So, how is Germany among the weakest?

Germany looks really strong. I don't plan to use them, but they impress me as possibly the strongest overall civ so far. An extra military card is huge from beginning to end. So is the extra district. You'll always potentially be a district ahead in all your cities. By the mid-game you should also be a production powerhouse. The city state bonus should not be knocked either. Even if you never attack a city state, you'll have great defense against the ones that attack you - even under suzerain control. It's a very flexible Civ, and its bonuses are ones the AI uses very well. I expect Germany to be a runaway civ in far too many games.

 

[Amrunril]

China's UA definitely sounds like the sort of thing that could be massively overpowered. That said, we don't have a firm enough sense of game flow to have any sense of how it compares to the science and culture Brazil, Germany and Japan can get from their district bonuses. We also know next to nothing about how tourism works, which makes France, England and the US impossible to evaluate. For that matter, we know only a bit more about religion and amenities, so ditto Spain and the Aztecs. And a strong military, which Scythia seems ideal for, always has potential.

So really we have no idea at this point. You can't evaluate civ balance outside the context of overall game balance, and we still know next to nothing about that. China's UA does sends up massive red flags based on a Civ V mindset, but there's still potential for anyone, everyone or no one to be overpowered.