.

[Japper007]

Brazil are the strongest, hands down. I'm glad there are no outright weak Civs, though. No Isabellae, Enricos or Bluetooths

I beg to differ:

Enrico has given me hands down my fastest diplo victories, he just buys up city states left and right with getting -on average- double the money of a regular civ (due to double trade routes). If he gets a few CS'ses with mountains and natural wonders and sends food routes he's even a contender in the Science game. Not weak at all.

Bluetooth may not look like much but anyone who's ever played MP knows there's nothing scarier than those berzerkers. They're fast, very tough for a unit unlocked at Metal Casting and can amphibious assault without breaking stride.

 

[Siptah]

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...

Thanks for your post!
I'm unsure about that part though. There seems to be a lot of confusion about what a legacy bonus is and if there are in fact 2 (one from the current government and one from past governments). Well, I'm not sure if there are really 2 or just the current one. We also don't know where the cap for the other legacy bonus is, if we believe that there is one. It might be lower.

 

[indradiva]

- 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.

Japan builds the Encampment, Holy and Theatrical for 1/2 price, it will be not that far ahead of Brazil

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.

The full bonus only lasts until you switch govs, the portion you get to keep is a rather small one, about 2-10% maybe, so it's not a gamebreaker.

 

[homan1983]

Tourism is pretty end game stuff

Yep, so we agree, I don't know why you bring it up.

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

The dockyard has 2 advantages:
1) +1 movement for naval
2) +2gold only if on other continent.

I never said they are irrelavent. I said they are minute flavour bonuses.

I.e. You will not make a strategy around fighting on coastal tiles as Japan. But if you have a choice of attacking a unit/city you may choose to move onto the coast to attack.

Similarly, as England you will not settle your 2nd or third city on another continent if its the other side of the world simply for +2gold and only if you have built a harbour. You will choose the best city location that is also defendable.

These are what I call flavour traits. They are small bonuses that give historical flavour to the civ without giving massive game-defining bonuses. It's a step in the right direction and much better than civ5 where civs like polynesia would be god-tier on island maps and useless on pangea.

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.

Firstly, as I mentioned before the +2gold is irrelavent because a) you won't be settling on other continents until later and b) the bonus itself is tiny.

Secondly, since you drew the German comparison, they also get a unique Industrial district. That district gets big production bonuses (next to resources and commercial districts on top of normal bonuses), can be build in all cities in your empire not just coastal, also costs half price, and also doesn't count towards the district limit. But on top of that, they ALSO get ANOTHER district above the limit.

Englands costal cities thus have a massive advantage over all civs including Germany.

Well that is supposed to be their only advantage, but even there the only difference I see is a +1 movement.

There are some differences:

1) It seems the Harbour comes earlier than the industrial district, so the English can use the royal navy dockyard bonuses (such as half price etc.) before the Germans can use theirs.

But even there, since Germany has a UA that gives +1 district, that already nullifies one of its advantages. And Germany also gets +1 military policy, which is even stronger earlier (since governments get less policy slots).

It all boils down to: Can the extra unique unit of England counterweight all the other bonuses other civs get.

And in this case, I hope I am proven wrong.

 

[homan1983]

- 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.
Japan builds the Encampment, Holy and Theatrical for 1/2 price, it will be not that far ahead of Brazil

Well I would call half price a BIG difference, its having double the number of those districts.
I am not saying they are better, they are just different but importantly: equally strong.

They start will less adjecency bonuses, but get more later on.

The full bonus only lasts until you switch govs, the portion you get to keep is a rather small one, about 2-10% maybe, so it's not a gamebreaker.

We are talking about the legacy bonuses. And here America will have double whatever other's would have had. So if others would get +5% to wonder building, America will have built up +10%.

As time goes on and you switch and hold onto more governments, you will have more and more legacy bonuses. All these different bonuses add up to one +15% that China or Egypt or France get, with the advantage that it's chosen as the game is played.

 

[Scaramanga]

Depends what you want to do. Germany for example looks best for an all-out world war on land and sea.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Yep, so we agree, I don't know why you bring it up.

Because you can not just ignore the endgame and we do not know how the endgame will play out in civilization VI. Being able to produce good amount of tourism can be very important in civilization VI if only just for survival. Also I assume that the artifact produce more then just tourism such as culture.

The dockyard has 2 advantages:
1) +1 movement for naval
2) +2gold only if on other continent.

You missed two and these may be the most important advantages of the dockyard:
1) Cost the half to build
2) Don't count against the district limit

Similarly, as England you will not settle your 2nd or third city on another continent if its the other side of the world simply for +2gold and only if you have built a harbour. You will choose the best city location that is also defendable.

I have seen screenshot that show a civilization that start at the border of two continents and each city England found on a foregine continent will give one free melee unit so it is not just about +2 gold from the dockyard.

I have not looked into how much of an improvement Hansa is over industrial district.

But on top of that, they ALSO get ANOTHER district above the limit.

Yes but they need to build it and districts get more expensive the more you have and while Germany build districts England build settlers as England is designed to found a massive amount of cities that maybe don't have many more districts then the royal dockyard.

The Harbour (and Royal dockyard) provide a trade route so if England found 20 coastal cities and build 20 royal dockyard they can operate 20 trade routes and you also need dockyards to build ships if your city center is not located next to coast.

Now you may say that Germany can also found a massive amount of cities but England get a free military unit for each city founded on a different continent and they can have their docks up much quicker then Germany also founding alot of cities is in some way counterproductive because each city you found make the districts more expensive making it harder and harder for Germany to take advantage of its +1 district ability.

England and Germany is designed for completely different playstyles. England is all about creating a massive continental spawing empire which most cities maybe only have the dock, commerical hub and maybe a theater district while Germanys playstyle is to found a smaler but much more developed empire. England large empire will give them a massive amount of trade routes which will bring in them massive amount of resources and they will have a large population who will bring in good amount of culture and science.

 

[apocalypse105]

China strongest civ more schience from eureka is huge

 

[ehecatzin]

I think the districts bonus put Japan up at the top, and even harder nut to crack if they stay close to the coast.

China also seems like a very solid choice, wonder rushing and better eurekas should keep you ahead of the curve.

Aztecs look pretty solid as well, taking advantage of the early game bully CS and gain luxuries to feed the warmachine.

Spain looks like a monster mid game, has a bit of everything, faith, science, stronger early fleets, and convert on capture.

Lastly Germany, earlier districts extra dmg vs CS and extra military card means Germanys early game will be all about rapid development to take out any juicy CS nerby, then build The Hansa everywhere. They do seem to follow a similar style of play to the Aztecs early on.

 

[VicRatlhead5199]

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.

Because there seems to no negative side to going wide but settlers do scale in cost. Scythia has the unit that was basically op in V and they can produce them twice as fast. Their UI will make going wide religious fairly effortless. Add in the fact that you can go to war a little more freely in the early game and Tomyris starts to look pretty good.

It'd be understandable to not see them as god tier if you don't warmonger much though. I guess my "God Tier"="who I can win the easiest with." Do you define it differently?

 

[ImperialChaos]

China. I love my wonders.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

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.

In Civ IV the Civs that could do the best early rushes (Inca, Egypt, Rome in that order) were usually considered the strongest, as early rushes were highly profitable but highly dangerous enterprises. Not so in Civ V when rushes weren't so rewarding, and every Civ could pretty easily pull one off anyway even without a UU. I'm guessing Civ VI will be closer to Civ V in this regard, but we don't know yet.

I agree with the people saying that the Civs appear to be better balanced this time around. There's no equivalent of, say, the vanilla Civ V Ottomans, whose UA, I recall, was a 50% chance of capturing a defeated barbarian naval unit. Ouch. Everyone's got multiple significant bonuses. With that said, I'm pretty confident Britain is going to land on the weaker end of the spectrum, because their bonuses are going to come too late in the game. That applies also to America, but to a lesser extent.

 

[Slayan]

I'm thinking overall the Civs are well balanced with France being the weakest

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Britain is going to land on the weaker end of the spectrum, because their bonuses are going to come too late in the game.

The only stuff that comes late with England is the museum bonus and maybe the unique units. The key is to play each civ to their strength. England for example is all about expanding, if you try to build impressive cities with England you are likely playing the civ wrong because its strengths comes then expanding.

If we look at England, what do we see? We see that the civ get one free melee unit thenever it found a city on a different continent (it is important to know what a continent mean in civilization VI). How do we take advantage of that bonus, simple we build settlers and expand our empire on different continents and use the free military to secure more land to expand on.

Then we have the royal dockyard, this district provide one trade route (trade routes work somewhat similar to beyond earth), it give two gold if on a different continent and little other stuff. How do we take advantage of this district, simple we expand because each city near the coast can build one of these which are half priced compared to normal docks. Each city you build can thus give access to one trade route for a cheap price and it is even better if built on a different continent which is already the target of England due to free melee unit.

At military science we get the redcoat. Riflemen no longer exist so at that point the other civs are probably using the musketmen. I don't know how strong the redcoat is but consider that the France unique unit Garde de Impérial have 65 strength +10 strength if on its continent and give great general points thenever its kills units. Musketmen have 55 strength and infantry have 70 so if Redcoat are around 65 strength they can be very though for the enemy and remeber that each city England found on a different continent give a free melee unit and think about how much gold England can get from all trade routes, at the point England reach Redcoat it will be a military monster who will consume civ after civ, yes England is a very very military focused civ, this civilization don't have much reason for peace other then maybe trade with somebody.

England have another unique the seabegger, given that England already is likely to outproduce all other civs then it comes to navy because of all dockyards it can have, this just make one of the strongest seapower even stronger, I would use this advantage to attack other civs sea power, pillage their harbour and shut down their naval trade routes and access to oversea land masses, yes warmonger but England strongest gameplay is as a warmonger. If you dominate the seas you will likely have huge advantage, you can strike the civs without risk of them retaliate.

Even the museum bonus is military focused because the more land you control the more archaeological sites you likely have access to. This bonus allow a England who have not focused much at all for wonder to become a very strong tourism and cultural civ and by the point the bonus is unlocked is around the time you should be looking for tourism.

England is basically a 100% focused warmonger because the whole civs is about expanding and map domination, it is not a civ ment to build up peaceful and it is not a civ ment to build great cities. This is a civ ment to wage war, trade and expansion.

 

[Lord Lakely]

I beg to differ:

Enrico has given me hands down my fastest diplo victories, he just buys up city states left and right with getting -on average- double the money of a regular civ (due to double trade routes). If he gets a few CS'ses with mountains and natural wonders and sends food routes he's even a contender in the Science game. Not weak at all.

Bluetooth may not look like much but anyone who's ever played MP knows there's nothing scarier than those berzerkers. They're fast, very tough for a unit unlocked at Metal Casting and can amphibious assault without breaking stride.

I've had amazing games as Denmark and Venice too, but they don't measure up to the rest for me. Venice, while not as bad people claim it is, is difficult to pull off if you have a low production capital or have faraway neighbours who turtle up and don't expand near you. My most ridic culture victory was as them though: I had over 2K tourism per turn when i won it.

Denmark... eh. My current game (Emperor/Huge/Small Continents) is as them and is going well, but I conquered my wonderspamming neighbour Songhai before i even finished Metal Casting. Berserkers would have only sped it up by a couple of turns, nothing more. One good UU does not make the civilization good by itself, unless the UU itself is completely broken (see: Assyria) or the Civ has two strong UUs which unlock around the same time (see: Rome, Sweden)

And I think that's why Venice, Denmark and Spain are among the weakest Civ 5 civilizations. Their bonuses are limited, situational and make them not versatile. They're obviously not the only weaker Civs (oh, hai there, INDIA), but they stand out as the worst to me because of that. (I will note though that Venice is, despite their shortcomings, one of the more fun Civs to play and one of my favourites in the game.)

Back on topic, there's no such problem in Civ6 so far. Every civ has useful bonuses (the only questionable one so far is Barbarossa's leader bonus) at first glance and there are no stand-out weak links. Those that appear weak-ish (France, England, America) have bonuses which don't *jump* at you because they're passive but i'm confident they can make it work.

 

[Lord Lakely]

I'm thinking overall the Civs are well balanced with France being the weakest

I don't know about that. France are really adept at the wonder spamming game with their Civ ability, and are much better at that than China, who only get boosts for early-game wonders WITHOUT the extra tourism boost France are getting. Plus, France get bonus culture from their Châteaux, which will help their defensive tourism quite a bit (assuming this mechanic is still the same as in Civ5)

Plus they get a defensive UU who generates great generals AND are able to steal techs faster (and dig into the gooey espionage pie which hopefully doesn't suck this game), so you can be sure they'll be able to defend themselves quite well when our Mandarin friend finally, inevitably DOW's them for stealing all those wonders from under his double chin [shi huang].

 

[isau]

Denmark... eh. My current game (Emperor/Huge/Small Continents) is as them and is going well, but I conquered my wonderspamming neighbour Songhai before i even finished Metal Casting. Berserkers would have only sped it up by a couple of turns, nothing more. One good UU does not make the civilization good by itself, unless the UU itself is completely broken (see: Assyria) or the Civ has two strong UUs which unlock around the same time (see: Rome, Sweden)

FWIW Denmark is actually hilariously powerful if you're willing to abuse Workers repairing improvements in foreign territory. Denmark can pillage without expending movement points, so with a small army of Workers popping repairs every turn (you might need Liberty + Pyramids for this) you basically become unkillable.

 

[Acken]

And I think that's why Venice, Denmark and Spain are among the weakest Civ 5 civilizations. Their bonuses are limited, situational and make them not versatile. They're obviously not the only weaker Civs (oh, hai there, INDIA), but they stand out as the worst to me because of that. (I will note though that Venice is, despite their shortcomings, one of the more fun Civs to play and one of my favourites in the game.)

At least spain can give you hof breaking records for HoF games in science victories.

Neither venice nor denmark come close in any victory type in terms of potential.

 

[Abraxis]

I don't know about that. France are really adept at the wonder spamming game with their Civ ability, and are much better at that than China, who only get boosts for early-game wonders WITHOUT the extra tourism boost France are getting. Plus, France get bonus culture from their Châteaux, which will help their defensive tourism quite a bit (assuming this mechanic is still the same as in Civ5)

Plus they get a defensive UU who generates great generals AND are able to steal techs faster (and dig into the gooey espionage pie which hopefully doesn't suck this game), so you can be sure they'll be able to defend themselves quite well when our Mandarin friend finally, inevitably DOW's them for stealing all those wonders from under his double chin [shi huang].

I don't know about the value of a mid game wonder bonus. A bonus to early wonders is great because everyone starts at relative parity, you know a bonus means any wonder is yours, guaraneteed. By mid game disparity is creeping in and that jerk on the other side of the world may be completing wonders before you've even researched the tech. Alternatively, you've remained competitive without any bonuses, limiting the value of bonuses since clearly competition is not that stiff.

I think Egypt looks like the most underrated civ right now from all I've read around here. Wonder bonus all game, easy early religion, gold from attracting all the best trade routes, sure their UU doesn't seem like anything special, but who cares, you can pretty much do whatever you want and be ahead of the pack right from the start.

 

[homan1983]

each city you found make the districts more expensive

No it doesn't. Only districts increaase price of previous district, and if I saw correctly, I think they only increase the price of that district.

The only stuff that comes late with England is the museum bonus and maybe the unique units

Then that just leaves them a unique district that provides a simple bonus of +1movement. Compare this to other civs.

You missed two and these may be the most important advantages of the dockyard:
1) Cost the half to build
2) Don't count against the district limit

Obviously you didn't read on:

Secondly, since you drew the German comparison, they also get a unique Industrial district. That district gets big production bonuses (next to resources and commercial districts on top of normal bonuses), can be build in all cities in your empire not just coastal, also costs half price, and also doesn't count towards the district limit. But on top of that, they ALSO get ANOTHER district above the limit.

I feel like you're arguing for the sake of arguing. And I hope I'm wrong about England being a weaker civ.