[Vanilla] Best DLC civ

[WDVINCO]

So I've been looking at Civ6 at the Steam store, and a few of the DLCs have "overwhelmingly negative" reviews.

So far, I've only played as Alexander and John Curtin, the later I did very well with.

I've made polls on civs from Rise & Fall and Gathering Storm, now I wanna know who's the best DLC to play as.

 

[Ondolindë]

This one is hard. I love the Aztecs with how powerful and versatile they are. I have enjoyed Persia tremendously just because they have a UU that can cause some serious damage, plus their UI is just loads of fun to watch and to have around strategically placed throughout your cities. But I believe Nubia takes the cake, maybe by a small margin or maybe not, because of how early and how powerful is their UU, and how fun it is to play near deserts with Amanitore and their UI. You can go whichever way you want I think. So much fun. Looking forward to playing all these three after finishing with my ranked list of civs in GS.

 

[Sostratus]

3 groups:
Nubia: the bonuses to ranged units and the brute power of the Pitati Archer UU just make it irresistible for competitive domination. The district building boost is also quite potent, so they have so versatility. A lot of MP players considered them to be very very strong.

Australia: they just get such a cheese ability with their production bonus, and the other boosts to district yield for appeal and the outback station make them a super economic civ. 100% bonus production for 10-20 turns is just overwhelming. And the outback station is game breaking if things go that long. In SP, it's probably the best UI, and I would rank it above the terrace farm if we just look at the improvements alone. They used to have the best raw production economy by a nice margin, although with GS, the Inca and Germany (coal plants) are up there too.

Aztecs: where nubia has early game power, the aztecs probably have the most all game power of basically any civ. The combat bonus + district rush is a big part of this: if you can expand to a second continent, you can have +8 CS from luxes. It just snowballs from there. I would argue the district rush ability is also top tier because it lets you transfer production at a better than 1:1 ratio between cities if you have liang, pyramids, or serfdom.

You can see the theme. Strong war ability + strong economic ability = extremely flexible power.

 

[Morningcalm]

They are all really powerful, but Australia is arguably the most flexible. Persia gets some great war and culture bonuses and they are nice. Nubia is arguably one of the strongest early game civs due to pitati archer spam domination strategies. Aztecs, meanwhile, have a mighty combat bonus that can extend throughout the entire game.

 

[Sostratus]

Aztecs, meanwhile, have a mighty combat bonus that can extend throughout the entire game.

It's funny; the Aztec and Nubian economic abilities both boost districts. No one ever compares them on that (although I think Aztec wins it easily.)

 

[Morningcalm]

It's funny; the Aztec and Nubian economic abilities both boost districts. No one ever compares them on that (although I think Aztec wins it easily.)

Between the two I prefer the Aztec boost as it's most flexible. The Nubia district boost relies too much on Nubian pyramids (which require flood plains or desert) to be reliable IMO, even if a 20% boost without the pyramid isn't bad (and makes it comparable to Japan's bonus).

 

[iammaxhailme]

I prefer builder civs to war civs, so I voted for Australia. Nubia is mostly war-based but can be quite effective at building as well

 

[Sostratus]

The civs that got the most votes of the polls were Incas and Germany, respectively.

As I mentioned in the other thread, Germany has extremely high potential if you learn how to play them. You aren't locked into a needing a decent start and you can leverage the district cost mechanic in your favor. (Districts get more expensive as you research more techs and civics, up to 10x more at the end of the game. But, if you place a district down, even if you don't build it and work on something else, its cost is locked in. Germany's extra district ability means they can place two districts down the turn they found the city.) Coincidentally the same district layout strategy to make Germany work also applies to Mali so there's some transferable value there at least.