.

[stealth_nsk]

I think it's Brazil for me. Assuming the jungle start bias is going to get them a decent amount of jungle nearby, the bonus seem insane.

If you look at it closely, it's not that great.
- The jungle area is unlikely to support more than 2 cities on standard sized map.
- It's minor bonus, so for all districts except Campus, the same bonuses could be achieved with a lot of other sources - like other districts. Of course, Campuses get standard bonuses.
- Yes, you could get those bonuses early, but the only early districts are Campus and Holy Site.
- Unimproved Rainforests are not that great tiles to keep.

Overall Brazil could get solid early-game science boost from it's rainforest ability, but that's it. Don't see anything insane here.

 

[VicRatlhead5199]

Scythia if early conquest is really as good as it looks. Just brute force your way to snowball city. America and Aztecs right behind them. America's military bonus on own continent is being grossly underrated IMO.

Germany or Brazil for versatility though. They both have brilliant packages that will likely be good on any difficulty and any map as long as Brazil gets a good start bias.

I have a hard time picking civs with builder rush bonuses considering the increasing builder cost. Also wonder building bonuses just don't appeal to me when talking "god tier" since I still feel like wonders will be pretty competitive on upper difficulties. My mind could change on these once I get the game in my hands.

 

[Seek]

Not sure why many are calling Scythia one of the best, early rush civ is early rush civ, no reason to think they're all that much better than in previous iterations. I think Japan is being undersold - it's lack of terrain dependency means it's more flexible which means stronger in more starts.

@Stealthnsk - As of now, unimproved jungle tiles are better than improved tiles for the most part, and with Brazil's adjacency bonuses I don't think anyone will be chopping them until late game, if ever. Brazil wants to settle on the jungle edges to maximize its bonus so I expect typical jungle swaths may provide for more than just a couple cities typically.

My tiers:

1. Brazil, China, Japan, Germany
2. Aztec, Spain, America
3. France, England, Egypt, Scythia

It is nice to see that even "bottom tier" civs have great bonuses and are not boring.

 

[homan1983]

IF you gain an additional trade route PER Royal Dockyard, I think that can escalate to generating wealth or inner empire growth substantially. Not to mention money can be used to buy great people now.

The additional trade route is standard on all Harbours not just the English version. And their unique harbour district can only be built on coastal cities (water tiles in their border).
They also get pretty much no other bonus until museums.

Compare that to say Germany:

- Their hansa district can be built on all cities
- its unique boost +production next to resources and commercial districts is powerful
- they also get an extra district per civ
- they also get an extra military policy slot

Frankly the British bonus of +1movement (that's the unique bonus not the +1 trade route that everyone gets) is just like having a Great Lighthouse ie. 1 wonder.

Alahambra also gives the 1 extra military slot of Germany (and avail. at the start whereas you have to wait a long time and high build cost for Alahambra)
Then Germany also has their unique district, worth ~1 wonder and less situational than the English one.
And the extra district which again is worth ~1 wonder.


But to make matters worse, since cities are now built 2 tiles away from water and just place a harbour on a water tile, then the value of sea units goes down SIGNIFICANTLY. No longer can you leverage your navy to take cities, or help your land units fight. The enemy will just not come close to the coast.

 

[Monika TSarn]

If you look at it closely, it's not that great.
- The jungle area is unlikely to support more than 2 cities on standard sized map.
- It's minor bonus, so for all districts except Campus, the same bonuses could be achieved with a lot of other sources - like other districts. Of course, Campuses get standard bonuses.
- Yes, you could get those bonuses early, but the only early districts are Campus and Holy Site.
- Unimproved Rainforests are not that great tiles to keep.

Overall Brazil could get solid early-game science boost from it's rainforest ability, but that's it. Don't see anything insane here.

I always like to look at opportunities for synergy when judging bonuses. And for Brazil, it's really quite powerful: Get Sacred Path as a pantheon, and you get 2 faith per rain forest square.

Rain forest actually seems to be better in 6 then in 5, since all terrain features are simply a bonus now.
And you actually do not have to work the rain forest tiles to get the bonus !
As well, even if you don't have that many rain forest tiles, you can arrange several cities around them and build all their Holy Sites next to each other.

District bonuses are very different from tile bonuses in Civ 6.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I would not call England weak either, here are what they get:

*Their archaeological museums are basically twice as powerful as the other civs.
*Get a free unit for founding cities in most parts of the world.
*Get royal harbour which give extra gold then placed on a different continent (works well with free melee unit) and make their navy stronger then pretty much all other civs. As a unique district it is halv the price and don't count towards the district limit so on water england is very hard to match.
*Unique unit that is placed at a key point because there are no riflemen, I assume it is about 65 strength (musket is 55 and infantry is 70) and it get a bonus then fighting on different continents making it maybe stronger then infantry while being earlier at that while other civs still are on the musket.
*And if their navy was not strong enough allready they get a unique ship that capture enemy ships it kills making its navy even stronger as it sinks the enemy navy.

So England is one of the strongest culture civs due to the museum bonus, one of the strongest land based civs with its unique unit placed in a very good spot, one of the strongest economical civs due to its ridiculous naval advantages and one of the strongest expansionst as they get military units for settling cities allowing them to skip on military buildup and focus on settlers.

 

[Martinus]

I love how this time there are a lot of powerful, tier 1 civs with many flexible possible strategies for them ^^ Ed Beach is doing a superb game design job, as usual!

As for the civs:

God tier: China, Scythia, Brazil
Potential God tier: Germany, Aztecs
Awesome tier: Spain, Japan, England, Egypt
Good enough tier: America, France

We're having a very good civ tier distribution so far ^^

Also, I would like to point out that people are really underselling America, me thinks. Have you looked at goverment legacy bonuses? They are really, really powerful, and America's UA downright DOUBLES them since the very beggining of the game (X2 to their adquisition speed).

Just to clarify, America's UA does not double the legacy bonuses, just their acquisition speed, as far as we know.

So, for America, for example, the Great People generation from Classical Republic is still capped at 15% - but America gets to the full bonus in half the time needed by other civs - so it can switch faster to another government. I still think it is good, though, but more situational, as it doesn't really help you if you want to stay in the current government longer.

 

[Martinus]

By the way, I love that there are so many differences on opinion - which means none of the civs is really OP.

My only concern is that noone has so far argued for Egypt, and it is my favourite Civ in real world, and wanted to play it.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Then it is time for me to look up egypt bonuses

*Egypt can build wonders and districts on floodplain, it also get a production bonus then it build wonders and districts on rivers.
*Each trade route egypt makes to another civ is worth +4 gold and all trade routes egypt receives is worth +2 gold while other civs get +2 food.
*An mobile archer unit which comes very useful in the early game as barbarins can be a huge problem if you wish to expand.
*An unique improvement that give both culture and faith both are rare resources.

Egypt is a very strong all around civ. It can produce massive amounts of faith thanks to the sphinx and a massive amounts of gold thanks to its trade route bonus. This mean egypt can purchase alot of great people or make its religion the dominate one. Later on I assume that Egypt thanks to all its culture can dominate tourism, it will also likely be ahead of all the other civs in the civics tree giving it great advantages.

The early mobile ranged unit will allow egypt an easy time to fight barbarians which make it easy for egypt to expand, they may also use it to raid other civs.

Egypt can trade river tiles for a production bonus then it comes to wonders and district, over a game the bonus could amount to thousands of production, wonders boost both the sphinx and culture districts making the very cultural strong egypt even stronger but sphinx are great even without wonders. It is worth to mention that river tiles are not as great to work now as they have been in previous game. I don't know if the floodplain bonus just mean egypt can build wonders on floodplain or that it mean egypt can build all wonders no matter their requirement on floodplains so egypt can for example build stonehenge without stone.

 

[Acken]

Not sure why many are calling Scythia one of the best, early rush civ is early rush civ, no reason to think they're all that much better than in previous iterations.

Mostly because it is a stronger rushing civ than any released. Because Attila is a grea5 civ5 civ. And because civ6 seems to reward conquest in terms of econ.

 

[Acken]

By the way, I love that there are so many differences on opinion - which means none of the civs is really OP.

My only concern is that noone has so far argued for Egypt, and it is my favourite Civ in real world, and wanted to play it.

Well its only guesses for now. Some civ will be better than others once we get a few games under our belt.

 

[Siptah]

Egypt can trade river tiles for a production bonus then it comes to wonders and district, over a game the bonus could amount to thousands of production, wonders boost both the sphinx and culture districts making the very cultural strong egypt even stronger but sphinx are great even without wonders. It is worth to mention that river tiles are not as great to work now as they have been in previous game. I don't know if the floodplain bonus just mean egypt can build wonders on floodplain or that it mean egypt can build all wonders no matter their requirement on floodplains so egypt can for example build stonehenge without stone.

We have no idea how large that production bonus is, right? Edit: it's only 15%
We also don't know how much bonus the sphinx adjacent to wonders get?

Your last assumption would be incredibly strong (given floodplains are as common as before).
Edit: "Flood plains do not block placement of districts and wonders." It seems the floodplains thing relates more to districts than wonders. Other civs can't build districts on floodplains, Egypt can. For wonders, I guess it only applies for wonders that need desert. It's not "flood plains allow" but "flood plains do not block."

 

[homan1983]

*Their archaeological museums are basically twice as powerful as the other civs.
*Get a free unit for founding cities in most parts of the world.
*Get royal harbour which give extra gold then placed on a different continent (works well with free melee unit) and make their navy stronger then pretty much all other civs. As a unique district it is halv the price and don't count towards the district limit so on water england is very hard to match.
*Unique unit that is placed at a key point because there are no riflemen, I assume it is about 65 strength (musket is 55 and infantry is 70) and it get a bonus then fighting on different continents making it maybe stronger then infantry while being earlier at that while other civs still are on the musket.
*And if their navy was not strong enough allready they get a unique ship that capture enemy ships it kills making its navy even stronger as it sinks the enemy navy.

So England is one of the strongest culture civs due to the museum bonus, one of the strongest land based civs with its unique unit placed in a very good spot, one of the strongest economical civs due to its ridiculous naval advantages and one of the strongest expansionst as they get military units for settling cities allowing them to skip on military buildup and focus on settlers.

Their museum bonus comes in the end game. It's been shown time and again in competitive games that early bonus is far more important and valuable.

Their free unit, wasn't mentioned in their first look vid. My guess is they added it later when they realized England is on the weak side.

Get royal harbour which give extra gold then placed on a different continent

This is mostly irrelavent, this is a flavour bonus, similar to german +bonus vs city states and japan bonus on coastal tile fighting or french extra gossip. The bonus is small (equivalent to 1 hammer) and its only on cities on other continents THAT ALSO ARE COASTAL.

As a unique district it is halv the price and don't count towards the district limit

So are all unique districts. For example the German unique district is also half price, and also doesn't count towards the limit. But you know what?

- The Hanse can be build in all cities not just coastal
- It's bonuses don't rely on being on a different continent
- It gives a production bonus which imo is more all-around useful than +1 movement.

But they also get +1 district per city (for total +2) and they get 1 free military policy.

It's a shame that the already coastal requiring English also have another condition set to their trait.

making it maybe stronger then infantry

It won't be stronger than infantry. If it's like the french unique it will get +10combat boost.


Really it comes down to this:

- Does the fact that the Harbour district come sooner than the Industrial district make up for it's weakness. (As I mentioned, earlier bonuses should be weaker because they are more valuable).

- Is the bonus to Museums big enough to make up for lack of other bonuses. e.g. How limiting is that artifact space, and the archeologist limit.

Time will tell, but I hope they take a second look at the English, of all the civs it "looks" the weakest and least exciting at the moment.

 

[homan1983]

Just to clarify, America's UA does not double the legacy bonuses, just their acquisition speed, as far as we know.

Yes but it will mean by the time you switch, your legacy bonus should be double other's civs. It's actually a deceptively strong and very flexible UA that seems to be undervalued by people here.

 

[Ikael]

Germany has lots of potential. I don't know why people keep forgetting that they have 1 extra district per city since the beggining of the game. That is quite the game changer, for it means that Germany can start producing their very first district since turn zero without needing to wait for the minimum popullation requirements and thus, allowing for some very early specialization. Sounds a really powerful unique.

Just to clarify, America's UA does not double the legacy bonuses, just their acquisition speed, as far as we know.

So, for America, for example, the Great People generation from Classical Republic is still capped at 15% - but America gets to the full bonus in half the time needed by other civs - so it can switch faster to another government. I still think it is good, though, but more situational, as it doesn't really help you if you want to stay in the current government longer.

Is there a maximum cap for legacy bonuses? Where was that stated? I thought that said legacy bonuses would keep increasing (almost) undefinitely. If it is maxed out at +15%, "founding fathers" would become indeed an extremely weak UA they should at least allow it to cap at +30%

 

[stealth_nsk]

Is there a maximum cap for legacy bonuses? Where was that stated? I thought that said legacy bonuses would keep increasing (almost) undefinitely. If it is maxed out at +15%, "founding fathers" would become indeed an extremely weak UA

It looks like one of the strongest to me even in this case.

 

[indradiva]

AFAIK, legacy bonuses are not capped and even if they are, the cap is far higher than 15%. By the way, how do you know how high Brazil's adjacency bonuses are? Arioch's site claims it's +1 for Holy, Campus, Theatre and Commercial, you say it's minor for everything but Campus. Have I missed something?

 

[homan1983]

As for the civs:

God tier: China, Scythia, Brazil
Potential God tier: Germany, Aztecs
Awesome tier: Spain, Japan, England, Egypt
Good enough tier: America, France

I think so far with the exception of England they're all pretty well balanced. For example:

- Egypt gets a bonus at ALL periods of the game to wonders. Unlike china who is only early or france who is mid. Also their chariot archers are FASTER, STRONGER and RANGED and they're available almost at the start. They are incredibly powerful and deceptive. I think you'll find then near Aztec/Scythia tier in early military (unless it gets nerfed). They also get the sphynx for early culture and faith and their trade routes are both better and more attractive to others.

Imagine Egypt as a Scythia that gives up some of it's military for a LOT of other bonuses.

- Japan:
It's been shown that japan also gets 1/2 price campuse(science), holy site(faith) and culture districts. So they will be building a lot of districts.
Now consider that when they place districts next to eachother, it's like the brazillian rainforrest. So when they get 3-4 districts next to eachother (note: it seems that districts from other cities count so you can place 2 cities close and put their districts adjecent to eachother) it's like having rainforrests next to ever one of their districts.
Sure Brazil will start stronger, but Japan will catch up quickly, with more campuses and then get ahead. More importantly: Japan doesn't only get that bonus on cities next to rainforrest. It will get this bonus in all cities.

- Spain

(it's actually the civ's that has made people most excited) nuff said. Although consider that unlike other civs that get bonus combat ONLY on their continent, or only for 1 unit in the game, spain gets +combat to ALL units in ALL era's against people not following your religion.
Mixed with their entire range of other bonuses, ranging from unique buildings to unique units that also act as a unique ability and bonus to trade and naval, I think they're god tier.

- America

I think they're very much udervalued:

The bonus home continent combat means that a scout can fight par with a barbarian warrior (if you have the +5combat policy). And your actual military will destroy enemy barbs.
You can use that to expand quicker.
From there you can capture the person who starts on your home continent (I think Ed Beach said its 2 civs per continent roughtly), or you can defend yourself against countries like Scythia whose bonus will only last a short time.

Then there is the legacy bonus: we know that the gov. bonuses are huge, you have +15% wonder production which is pretty much egypt/china/france but for all eras, you have +4 combat bonus similar to having a unique unit on every unit.
So imagine keeping twice as much of that bonus than anyone else. It's both powerful and flexible. One game you can be China, the next you can be the Aztecs etc...

 

[homan1983]

By the way, how do you know how high Brazil's adjacency bonuses are?

Brazil was the most played civ when the youtuber's released the vid. Unless it changes its +1 per rainforest to certain districts (including holy and campus).

I can't remember which ones it was exactly, but I remember noting specifically that the industrial zone wasn't include (bonus production).

My guess is most of the specialty focus districts except industrial get their bonuses.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Their museum bonus comes in the end game.

Tourism is pretty end game stuff and the museum comes around the time in which you probably won't expand more, at least not peacefully and one advantage with museum over for example France wonder bonus is that museums are something you can think about in the end game allowing you a very free early and mid game, also thanks to Englands advantages then it comes to expanding they will likely have alot of archaeological sites in their own territory and can very well steal those inside other civs borders.

This is mostly irrelavent, this is a flavour bonus, similar to german +bonus vs city states and japan bonus on coastal tile fighting or french extra gossip. The bonus is small (equivalent to 1 hammer) and its only on cities on other continents THAT ALSO ARE COASTAL.

Non of the bonuses you mention are irrelevant and the royal dockyard have several advantages over the harbour.

Royal dockyard is priced at half, don't count against district limit, give +2 gold if on a different continent (about 75% of a standard map) and, +1 move to naval unit and all the stuff the normal dockyard give. All other civs including Germany have to build an inferior dock for twice the price which count against the district limit. Englands costal cities thus have a massive advantage over all civs including Germany.

It won't be stronger than infantry. If it's like the french unique it will get +10combat boost.

Garde Imperiale have 65 strength (musket have 55 and infantry have 70), get +10 strength if on France home continent and get great general points on killing enemies. Redcoat come around the same time as Garde Imperiale so we can assume a strength range in the 60 + a bonus for being on different continents and thats while the other civs still have to use muskets. You compare England with Germany but fail to mention that Germany's single unique unit comes way later then both of Englands unique units and I have a hard time to think that Germany's military policy can make up for it because all other civs are just gona pick the best military policies they can anyway. England also get one melee unit for each city they found on an foreign continent.

England second unique unit should make it very strong on the seas which may mean that england can cut of other civs oversea trade routes putting england way ahead.

So while Germany may be more suited to build efficient cities, Englands ability is about building a very large empire focusing on founding alot of cities, controlling the seas and wage war against other civilizations at the era of the redcoat and sea begger. And then it can go cultural and grab all artifacts thanks to its powerful museums. Germany and England have very different playstyles.