[NFP] City-States Elimination Thread

[TCBB]

This thread is moderator approved.

After two great threads on specific victory types (domination & religion), I thought it would be interesting to change track to a more general topic: City-States. They're one of my favourite aspects of Civ VI, a powerful mechanic that can completely alter your game and contribute to every win condition. So in this thread, we'll be answering the question: which City-State has the best suzerain bonus?

Previous New Frontier Elimination Threads:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/religious-victory-elimination-thread.659828/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/domination-victory-elimination-thread.658838/

Gathering Storm Elimination Threads:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...he-hands-of-the-ai-elimination-thread.656981/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/music-theme-elimination-thread.651945/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/diplomatic-victory-elimination-thread.650579/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-unique-ability-elimination-thread.648643/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/gathering-storm-leader-ability-elimination-thread.649233/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/unique-unit-elimination-thread.647892/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/science-victory-gs-elimination-thread.654506/

Pre-Gathering Storm Elimination Threads:

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civilization-ability-elimination-thread.639612/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/leader-ability-elimination-thread.637762/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/unique-unit-elimination-thread.631713/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/unique-infrastructure-elimination-thread.638688/


Rules:
- You may vote roughly every 24 hours. You add one point to one city-state and take away three points from another.
- Posts with missing upvote or downvote are skipped. Only voting posts are allowed in this thread.
- You must write a reason for each upvote and downvote.
- Voting several times for the same thing is allowed, but it is recommended that you spread your votes out.
- Delete the previous voters comments, and indicate your comments in some way (bold, italicize, color, something that will draw attention)
- We only vote basing on CURRENT iteration of city-states based on MOST RECENT PATCH. This particularly applies for city-states whose names or abilities have changed over the years through DLC/patches.

Feel free to rationalise your votes however you wish, but note that we are ONLY taking into account a city-state's suzerain bonus (i.e. the unique reward you receive for being their suzerain), and NOT their envoy bonuses (i.e. the generic rewards you receive for sending +1, +3, and +6 envoys). This was decided after an initial consultation.

Finally, there will obviously be a degree of subjectivity here. Some city-states are very powerful for one victory condition but useless for others; some offer more generalised bonuses that can contribute to all victory types. You are welcome to interpret 'the best' in whatever way you choose.

Final Rankings, Combined:
(City-states are sorted into roughly equal tiers according to when they were eliminated, as indicated in brackets. The distribution is not even, especially in A – C tiers, but the overall picture is nonetheless indicative of how powerful each city-state is)

S Tier:
1: Bologna (winner): the ultimate generalist city-state: you want to earn great people no matter what victory you pursue, and Bologna helps you earn those great people much faster – a triumph of versatility.
2: Yerevan (post #344): the ultimate specialist city-state: the ability to choose promotions for your apostles is unbelievably powerful for religion, especially in conjunction with Moksha's 'Patron Saint' promotion, with the result that a religious game with Yerevan can produce some of the fastest victories in all of Civ VI; plus, it can also contribute strongly to tourism victory if you go for a Martyr relic strategy, and getting to pick Debater on all your apostles is also useful for defending your religion even if you're not going for a religious victory.
3: Auckland (post #340): a simple explanation: production is king in 4X games, and Auckland provides extra production; and it's particularly useful after all the buffs to coastal cities over the years.
4: Zanzibar (post #335): immediately grants 12 amenities, which is far more than what the other amenity city-states can offer in the early game; this means you can afford to sell off your luxuries to the AI, as well as one copy of the cinnamon & cloves respectively, which can net you anywhere between 20~60 gold per turn – a huge increase for the early game; and later on, the extra amenities help keep your cities happy/ecstatic so you can enjoy an extra 5% or 10% to all your yields.
5: Cahokia (post #331): a universally beneficial tile improvement that can be used to enhance cities across your empire: all you need is one flat tile and one builder charge, and you immediately gain the powerful combination of housing & an amenity, and the effects get even better as the game progresses.
6: Antananarivo (post #323): a great bonus applicable to all victory types: rewards you with empire-wide culture just for earning great people, which you should be doing no matter what style you're playing, and in the late game it's not uncommon to hit the maximum +30% culture; however, in the early game it can take a while to earn enough great people for the yields to make a noticeable difference.

A Tier:
7: Nan Madol (post #308): a strong bonus that rewards you with culture just for developing coastal cities or lake cities – easily S tier on water maps; however, comes with downside that many districts receive little or no adjacency bonuses for being placed next to the coast.
8: Rapa Nui (post #304): it's easy to generate a lot of culture with Moai by placing them in triangles next to one another, especially next to the coast or volcanic soil, and they can also be spammed for tourism victory; but before you can place them you need to clear all adjacent woods & rainforests, which can require a significant investment into builder charges (particularly before Feudalism).
9: Kumasi (post #296): can grant a huge culture spike in the classical/medieval eras when you start getting traders online; only downside is that trade routes to city-states are weaker in general than internal routes or those to allies.
10: Geneva (post #290): powerful to earn extra science across your empire, and percentage-based boosts are particularly strong because they scale as the game progresses; however, all it takes is one trigger-happy AI to declare war on you or your ally, and Geneva's bonus is lost for at least 10 turns.
11: Caguana (post #287): Bateys are a very cost-effective means of boosting early culture: bonus resources are frequently found next to one another, meaning that you only need one builder charge to earn +3 culture on a single tile (rising to +5 with exploration); but this does come at the considerable cost of not harvesting those bonus resources.
12: Lahore (post #278): the Nihang is a very strong unit that can be purchased cheap and remains relevant throughout a domination game; however, it is tied to the encampment which tends to be a low-priority district; it requires you to go out of your way to secure a source of faith; and in general, its impact is less impressive because domination is already the easiest victory type.

B Tier:
13: Valletta (post #260): a useful and flexible bonus that allows you to spend faith to enhance your cities; however, there are a lot of other important things to spend faith on, plus it doesn't really tie into any one win condition.
14: Kabul (post #253): extra experience allows your units to heal twice as often and reach powerful tier 4 promotions twice as fast; but it's not going to win you domination victory by itself.
15: Brussels (post #235): building faster wonders can be beneficial for all victory types, and it stacks well with Autocracy or policy cards like Corvée; but on Deity you're only likely to build a handful of wonders, so it's less impactful than other options.
16: Buenos Aires (post #220): a solid way to top up your amenities, since bonus resources are found everywhere; however, it only makes bonus resources provide 1 amenity per type, which is far less than the 4 amenities provided by a normal luxury resource (or the 12 provided by Zanzibar), meaning that it can only go so far in improving your empire's happiness.
17: La Venta (post #209): Colossal Heads provide a strong means of generating faith and can be spammed for tourism victory; but for best yields you need to preserve woods & rainforest at the expense of chopping.
18: Granada (post #195): Alcazars grant a solid boost to culture & science; but to generate best yields you need high appeal tiles, which can sometimes be in short supply.

C Tier:
19: Akkad (post #180): a strong early-game counter to walls, though it declines in usefulness as siege units come to the fore.
20: Babylon (post #178): an effective means to catch up in science when playing a culture-heavy Civ, but little relevance if you're not earning great writers.
21: Ngazargamu (post #175): situationally powerful for purchasing units in domination games, but limited utility beyond that.
22: Hunza (post #170): much better than the similar bonuses provided by Antioch or Bandar Brunei, but still has only a limited impact; gold is one of the easiest yields to come by.
23: Taruga (post #159): theoretically, can grant +35% science in a city; but most of the time, will only grant 5% or 10% if lucky – nice yields, but not incredible.
24: Hong Kong (post #149): situationally effective in grabbing specific great people or rushing the space race; but district projects are largely irrelevant for the majority of the game.
25: Kandy (post #147): free relics are always powerful, as is extra faith; but receiving those relics is very dependent on RNG, luck, and timing.
26: Hattusa (post #145): situationally helpful in the early game if you have no iron, horses, or niter; but contributes nothing if you already have at least one copy of the strategic resource.
27: Nazca (post #140): a fun tile improvement to play around with, especially in combination with Petra; however, it can only be built on desert, it kills a tile, and the yields don't become useful until the medieval/renaissance era.

D Tier:
28: Fez (post #129): can generate a lot of science in religious games, but only if you manage to grab their suzerainty early.
29: Vatican City (post #125): situationally very effective in converting cities near your empire, but those tend to be easiest to convert anyway.
30: Muscat (post #121): can grant a lot of amenities by the end of the game; but has very little impact at the beginning when you only have one or two commercial hubs.
31: Antioch (post #119): an extra +2 or +3 gold per trade route is nice, but still underwhelming.
32: Mitla (post #103): +15% growth modifier is not very helpful as population is usually constrained by housing caps, not growth, plus it only applies to campus cities.

E Tier:
33: Jerusalem (post #82): passive pressure is underwhelming, and only affects cities near your empire.
34: Singapore (post #76): production boost is localised and underwhelming; Wisselbanken but worse.
35: Armagh (post #65): the Monastery's housing is fine, but the faith and healing bonuses are minimal; a poor use of a tile.
36: Bandar Brunei (post #62): requires micro-managing of trade routes for very little pay-off.
37: Mohenjo-Daro (post #52): extra housing can be useful, but fresh water is not hard to find; and if you're relying on M.-D. for housing but lose the suzerainty, your cities immediately become untenable.
38: Mexico City (post #49): a late game bonus that won't make much difference to your empire, as it's easy to get cities within 6 tiles of an industrial zone.
39: Cardiff (post #44): bonus only comes into effect in the late game and only applies to harbor cities, and power is not a hard resource to come by.

F Tier:
40: Vilnius (post #32): in order to function, requires high adjacency theatre squares and high level alliances, both of which are uncommon.
41: Preslav (post #22): the extra loyalty will only be relevant in rare situations, and is too low to make a difference anyway.
42: Lisbon (post #17): a low-impact bonus that only sporadically comes into effect.

Final Rankings, Sorted by City-State Type:
(Overall rankings indicated in brackets)

Cultural City-States:
1: Antananarivo (6th).
2: Nan Madol (7th).
3: Rapa Nui (8th).
4: Kumasi: (9th).
5: Caguana (11th).
6: Mohenjo-Daro (37th).
7: Vilnius (40th).

Industrial City-States:
1: Zanzibar (4th).
2: Brussels (15th).
3: Buenos Aires (16th).
4: Hong Kong (24th).
5: Singapore (34th).
6: Mexico City (38th).
7: Cardiff (39th).

Militaristic City-States:
1: Lahore (12th).
2: Valletta: (13th).
3: Kabul (14th).
4: Granada (18th).
5: Akkad (19th).
6: Ngazargamu (21st).
7: Preslav (41st).

Religious City-States:
1: Yerevan (2nd).
2: La Venta (17th).
3: Kandy (25th).
4: Nazca (27th).
5: Vatican City (29th).
6: Jerusalem (33rd).
7: Armagh (35th).

Scientific City-States:
1. Bologna (1st).
2: Geneva (10th).
3: Babylon (20th).
4: Taruga (23rd).
5: Hattusa (26th).
6: Fez (28th).
7: Mitla (32nd).

Trade City-States:
1: Zanzibar (4th).
2: Cahokia (5th).
3: Hunza (22nd).
4: Muscat (30th).
5: Antioch (31st).
6: Bandar Brunei (36th).
7: Lisbon (42nd).

 

[TCBB]

For easy reference, here is a list of all 42 city-states with their unique suzerain bonuses.

Cultural City-States

· Antananarivo: extra 2% culture with every Great Person ever earned (up to maximum 30%).

· Caguana: your builders can construct the Batey improvement (provides +1 culture; also provides an additional +1 culture for every adjacent bonus resource or Entertainment Complex, increasing to +2 culture with Exploration; provides tourism after researching Flight; cannot be built next to another Batey).

· Kumasi: your trade routes to any city-state provide +2 culture and +1 gold for every speciality district in the origin city.

· Mohenjo Daro: your cities have full Housing from water, as if they were next to a river.

· Nan Madol: your districts and wonders on or next to coast or lake tiles provide +2 culture.

· Rapa Nui: your builders can construct the Moai improvement (provides +1 culture; also provides an additional +1 culture for every 2 adjacent Moai, increasing to +1 for every adjacent Moai upon reaching Medieval Faires; also grants +2 culture if on or adjacent to a volcanic soil tile, and +1 culture if adjacent to a coast or lake tile; provides additional culture and tourism as you advance through the Civics and Technology tree; cannot be placed adjacent to woods or rainforests).

· Vilnius: for your highest active alliance level, all your Theatre Square districts receive +50% adjacency bonus.


Industrial City-States

· Auckland: shallow water tiles worked by citizens provide +1 production, and an additional +1 production when you reach the Industrial Era.

· Buenos Aires: your bonus resources behave like luxury resources, providing +1 Amenity per type.

· Brussels: your cities receive +15% production towards wonders.

· Cardiff: your cities receive +2 power for every Harbor building.

· Hong Kong: your cities receive +20% production towards city projects.

· Mexico City: regional effects from your Industrial Zone and Entertainment districts reach 3 tiles farther.

· Singapore: your cities receive +2 production for each foreign civilization they have a trade route to.


Militaristic City-States

· Akkad: melee and anti-cavalry units’ attacks do full damage to city walls.

· Granada: your builders can construct the Alcazar improvement (provides +2 culture, as well as science equal to 50% of the tile’s appeal; occupying units also receive +4 defense strength and automatically gain 2 turns of fortification; cannot be built next to another Alcazar).

· Kabul: your units receive double experience from battles they initiate.

· Lahore: you can purchase the Nihang unique unit with faith.

· Ngazargamu: land combat or support units are 20% cheaper to purchase with gold or faith for each Encampment district building in that city.

· Preslav: your cities receive +2 loyalty per turn for each Encampment district building.

· Valletta: you can purchase City Center buildings and Encampment district buildings with faith. Cost of purchasing Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance Walls is reduced, but they can only be bought with faith.


Religious City-States

· Armagh: your builders can construct the Monastery improvement (provides +2 faith, plus an additional +1 faith for every 2 adjacent districts; also provides +1 Housing, increasing to +2 with Colonialism, and provides +15 healing per turn for friendly religious units; cannot be built next to another Monastery).

· Jerusalem: your cities with Holy Sites exert pressure as if they were Holy Cities (4x religious pressure in all cities within 10 tiles).

· Kandy: receive a Relic every time you discover a new natural wonder, and earn +50% faith from all Relics.

· La Venta: your builders can make the Colossal Head improvement (provides +2 faith; also provides an additional +1 faith for every 2 adjacent rainforests or 2 adjacent woods, changing to +1 faith for every adjacent rainforest or wood upon reaching Humanism; provides tourism after researching Flight).

· Nazca: your builders can make the Nazca Lines improvement (provides +1 faith to adjacent tiles, plus an additional +1 faith to adjacent tiles with a resource; also provides +1 food to adjacent desert or desert hills tiles upon reaching Civil Service, and +1 production to adjacent flat tiles upon reaching Mass Production; grants +1 appeal; must be built on a flat desert tile, and tiles with a Nazca Line cannot be worked).

· Vatican City: when you activate a Great Person, they spread 400 religious pressure of your founded (or majority) religion to cities within 10 tiles.

· Yerevan: your Apostle units can choose from any possible promotion.


Scientific City-States

· Babylon: +2 science from each Great Work of Writing, and +1 science from each Relic or Artifact.

· Bologna: your districts with a building provide +1 Great Person point of their type.

· Fez: when you use a unit to convert a city for the first time, gain 20 science per population of that city.

· Geneva: +15% science in all cities whenever you are not at war with any civilization.

· Hattusa: provides you with 2 per turn of each strategic resource you have revealed but do not own.

· Mitla: city growth is 15% higher in cities with a Campus district.

· Taruga: +5% science in each city for each different strategic resource in that city.


Trade City-States

· Antioch: your trade routes to foreign cities earn +1 gold for each luxury resource at the destination.

· Bandar Brunei: your trading posts in foreign cities provide +1 gold to your trade routes passing through or going to that city.

· Cahokia: your builders can now make the Cahokia Mounds improvement (provides +3 gold and +1 Housing, as well as +1 Amenity from the first Cahokia Mound in the city; provides an additional +1 Amenity from the second Cahokia Mound in the city upon reaching Natural History, as well as an additional +1 Housing upon reaching Cultural Heritage; also provides +1 food for every 2 adjacent districts upon reaching Feudalism, changing to +1 food for every adjacent district upon reaching Replaceable Parts; cannot be built next to another Cahokia Mound).

· Hunza: receive +1 gold for every 5 tiles a trade route travels.

· Lisbon: your trader units are immune to being plundered on water tiles.

· Muscat: receive +1 Amenity in cities with a Commercial Hub district.

· Zanzibar: receive the Cinnamon and Cloves luxury resources. These cannot be earned any other way, and provide +6 Amenities each.

 

[TCBB]

And I'll kick things off:

Akkad [15]
Amsterdam [15]
Antananarivo [16] (15+1) In my mind, an easy S Tier city state. Culture is always useful no matter what victory type you pursue, and you should be earning great people in all game styles. Can benefit domination victory as much as it does culture victory.
Antioch [15]
Armagh [15]
Auckland [15]
Babylon [15]
Bandar Brunei [15]
Bologna [15]
Buenos Aires [15]
Brussels [15]
Caguana [15]
Cahokia [15]
Cardiff [15]
Fez [15]
Geneva [15]
Granada [15]
Hattusa [15]
Hong Kong [12] (15-3) There were a couple of contenders for first downvote. Preslav and Lisbon spring to mind, but Hong Kong stands out for me. The only use case I can see is if you're rushing space projects at the end of the game – but that's very, very late for a bonus to come into effect, plus you've probably got a tonne of production anyway by that point.
Hunza [15]
Jerusalem [15]
Kabul [15]
Kandy [15]
Kumasi [15]
La Venta [15]
Lahore [15]
Lisbon [15]
Mexico City [15]
Mitla [15]
Muscat [15]
Nan Madol [15]
Nazca [15]
Ngazargamu [15]
Preslav [15]
Rapa Nui [15]
Singapore [15]
Taruga [15]
Valletta [15]
Vatican City [15]
Vilnius [15]
Yerevan [15]
Zanzibar [15]

 

[AvianBritish]

Akkad [15]
Amsterdam [15]
Antananarivo [16]
Antioch [15]
Armagh [15]
Auckland [16] (15+1) I always have a costal empire; so +2 production to more than 50% of my tiles is very powerful for me!
Babylon [15]
Bandar Brunei [15]
Bologna [15]
Buenos Aires [15]
Brussels [15]
Caguana [15]
Cahokia [15]
Cardiff [15]
Fez [15]
Geneva [15]
Granada [15]
Hattusa [15]
Hong Kong [12]
Hunza [15]
Jerusalem [15]
Kabul [15]
Kandy [15]
Kumasi [15]
La Venta [15]
Lahore [15]
Lisbon [15]
Mexico City [15]
Mitla [15]
Muscat [15]
Nan Madol [15]
Nazca [15]
Ngazargamu [15]
Preslav [15]
Rapa Nui [15]
Singapore [15]
Taruga [15]
Valletta [15]
Vatican City [15]
Vilnius [12] (15-3) I have never noticed this ability working. I normally have aliances and theatre squares, but never feel like I get much culture out of this.
Yerevan [15]
Zanzibar [15]

 

[enKage]

Akkad [15]
Amsterdam [15]
Antananarivo [16]
Antioch [15]
Armagh [15]
Auckland [16]
Babylon [15]
Bandar Brunei [12] 15-3 usually 1-2 more gold late game from international trade route? This is a joke city state. Preslav at least can give you some more turns to progres with conquest without leaving free cities
Bologna [15]
Buenos Aires [15]
Brussels [15]
Caguana [15]
Cahokia [15]
Cardiff [15]
Fez [15]
Geneva [15]
Granada [15]
Hattusa [15]
Hong Kong [12]
Hunza [15]
Jerusalem [15]
Kabul [15]
Kandy [15]
Kumasi [15]
La Venta [16] 15+1 S tier city state. La Venta alone wins tourism victory as any civ. Massive torism from heads + massive faith from heads to buy rockbands / parks
Lahore [15]
Lisbon [15]
Mexico City [15]
Mitla [15]
Muscat [15]
Nan Madol [15]
Nazca [15]
Ngazargamu [15]
Preslav [15]
Rapa Nui [15]
Singapore [15]
Taruga [15]
Valletta [15]
Vatican City [15]
Vilnius [12]
Yerevan [15]
Zanzibar [15]

 

[Solver]

So in my mind, suzerainty bonuses are very dependent on which victory condition you want, and I'll be voting, at least initially, based on how good a CS is assuming you're going for the corresponding victory.

Akkad [15]
Amsterdam [15]
Antananarivo [16]
Antioch [15]
Armagh [15]
Auckland [16]
Babylon [15]
Bandar Brunei [12]
Bologna [15]
Buenos Aires [15]
Brussels [15]
Caguana [15]
Cahokia [15]
Cardiff [15]
Fez [15]
Geneva [15]
Granada [15]
Hattusa [15]
Hong Kong [12]
Hunza [15]
Jerusalem [15]
Kabul [15]
Kandy [15]
Kumasi [15]
La Venta [16]
Lahore [15]
Lisbon [15]
Mexico City [15]
Mitla [15]
Muscat [15]
Nan Madol [15]
Nazca [15]
Ngazargamu [15]
Preslav [12] (15 - 3) A worthy candidate for my first downvote. Preslav gives you +2 to +6 loyalty in cities with Encampment buildings. Loyalty in your own cities just isn't a problem. This could occasionally be useful for early-game conquest, when holding on to cities might be hard for loyalty reasons... but at that stage, captured cities won't have Barracks either. It's very rare for the bonus to come into play.
Rapa Nui [15]
Singapore [15]
Taruga [15]
Valletta [15]
Vatican City [15]
Vilnius [12]
Yerevan [16] (15 + 1) If going for the religious victory, there's nothing as important as Apostles, and Yerevan's bonus is unbeatable. Your pick of Proselytizers that easily convert large enemy cities, Debaters that beat enemy Apostles and Translators to convert smaller cities.
Zanzibar [15]

 

[JhGf_123]

Good idea, I learned a lot from the religious thread and this one should touch on even more aspects of the game. But correct me if I'm wrong, shouldn't Amsterdam be removed from this? It became Antioch when Netherlands were introduced. So someone else is missing, right?

EDIT: deleted Amsterdam and added Mohenjo Daro.

Akkad [15]
Antananarivo [16]
Antioch [15]
Armagh [15]
Auckland [16]
Babylon [15]
Bandar Brunei [12]
Bologna [15]
Buenos Aires [15]
Brussels [15]
Caguana [15]
Cahokia [15]
Cardiff [15]
Fez [15]
Geneva [15]
Granada [15]
Hattusa [15]
Hong Kong [12]
Hunza [15]
Jerusalem [15]
Kabul [15]
Kandy [15]
Kumasi [15]
La Venta [16]
Lahore [15]
Lisbon [15]
Mexico City [15]
Mohenjo Daro [15]
Mitla [15]
Muscat [15]
Nan Madol [15]
Nazca [15]
Ngazargamu [15]
Preslav [9] (12-3) Totally agree on Preslav. A garbage bonus that I've never, ever seen affect my game.
Rapa Nui [15]
Singapore [15]
Taruga [15]
Valletta [15]
Vatican City [15]
Vilnius [12]
Yerevan [16]
Zanzibar [16] (15+1) was gonna do Yerevan in the spirit of our recent religion thread, but Solver just did that so I'll move down one to Zanzibar. I always make sure to suzerain Zanzibar no matter what victory type I'm doing. Amenities are just great for your empire overall. They keep your citizens happy during domination games, they give you extra yields during other types. And if you manage to grab Zanzibar in the early game, that means you can afford to sell all your other luxuries to the AI for a lot of money. This can make a huge difference for your early income.

 

[TCBB]

YUP, MY BAD.

Just did a quick run over, it was Mohenjo Daro missing. CivFandom annoyingly included the old city-states on the list, and Amsterdam must have slipped in!

 

[Leucarum]

Akkad [15]
Antananarivo [16]
Antioch [15]
Armagh [15]
Auckland [16]
Babylon [15]
Bandar Brunei [12]
Bologna [15]
Buenos Aires [15]
Brussels [15]
Caguana [15]
Cahokia [15]
Cardiff [15]
Fez [15]
Geneva [15]
Granada [15]
Hattusa [15]
Hong Kong [12]
Hunza [15]
Jerusalem [15]
Kabul [15]
Kandy [16] (15+1) Power level is almost certainly fine but what I like is that it is one of the city states which opens up an entirely new option for how you play the game. It's the sort of city state I want to meet early and then rub my hands with glee that the RNG gods just gave me the option of an entirely new strategic patb to follow.
Kumasi [15]
La Venta [16]
Lahore [15]
Lisbon [12] (15-3) It's quite a situational bonus which won't even come into play on a lot of maps
Mexico City [15]
Mohenjo Daro [15]
Mitla [15]
Muscat [15]
Nan Madol [15]
Nazca [15]
Ngazargamu [15]
Preslav [9]
Rapa Nui [15]
Singapore [15]
Taruga [15]
Valletta [15]
Vatican City [15]
Vilnius [12]
Yerevan [16]
Zanzibar [16]

 

[Drivingrevilo]

It's late for me in my time zone, but I'll get a vote in now and return to a more normal time slot tomorrow.

Akkad [15]
Antananarivo [16]
Antioch [15]
Armagh [15]
Auckland [16]
Babylon [15]
Bandar Brunei [12]
Bologna [15]
Buenos Aires [15]
Brussels [15]
Caguana [15]
Cahokia [15]
Cardiff [15]
Fez [15]
Geneva [15]
Granada [15]
Hattusa [15]
Hong Kong [12]
Hunza [15]
Jerusalem [15]
Kabul [15]
Kandy [16]
Kumasi [15]
La Venta [16]
Lahore [15]
Lisbon [9] (12-3) Lisbon is also my first choice for elimination. I can probably count on one hand the number of times the AI has successfully pillaged my water trade routes. If land routes were added to the bonus too, then fine, this might actually be a useful suzerainty. But the AI doesn't build a big enough navy as it stands, let alone knows how to hunt out and pillage your traders.
Mexico City [15]
Mohenjo Daro [15]
Mitla [15]
Muscat [15]
Nan Madol [15]
Nazca [15]
Ngazargamu [15]
Preslav [9]
Rapa Nui [15]
Singapore [15]
Taruga [15]
Valletta [16] (15+1) If you have any sort of faith income at all, then Valletta is great. Turning faith into granaries & monuments lets new cities become instantly useful; turning faith into walls is great for early defence and terrific for late-game tourism pushes; buying encampment buildings can also be situationally nice for domination. But the real jewel in the crown is the ability to purchase flood barriers. It's low-key broken on water maps. The conversion between production cost and faith cost seems so out of whack: a flood barrier that takes 40 or 50 turns to hard build will only take a few turns worth of faith to buy.
Vatican City [15]
Vilnius [12]
Yerevan [16]
Zanzibar [16]

 

[JesseS]

Akkad [15]
Antananarivo [16]
Antioch [15]
Armagh [15]
Auckland [16]
Babylon [15]
Bandar Brunei [9](12-3) You'd have to micromanage your trade routes pretty heavily to even get +5-10 gold per turn in the late game. This ability is just not worth trying to use.
Bologna [15]
Buenos Aires [15]
Brussels [15]
Caguana [15]
Cahokia [15]
Cardiff [15]
Fez [15]
Geneva [15]
Granada [15]
Hattusa [15]
Hong Kong [12]
Hunza [15]
Jerusalem [15]
Kabul [15]
Kandy [16]
Kumasi [15]
La Venta [16]
Lahore [15]
Lisbon [9] Lisbon is better than Preslav and Bandar Brunei at the least. Naval barbs are a real threat to water-based trade routes.
Mexico City [15]
Mitla [15]
Muscat [15]
Nan Madol [15]
Nazca [15]
Ngazargamu [15]
Preslav [9]
Rapa Nui [16](15+1) Moais are pretty amazing. A triangle of them provides 3 culture on each tile by the mid-game, without accounting for any volcanic soil (+2) or coastal/lake (+1) boosts. If you surround 1 tile entirely in moai, you get +7 culture on the central moai and +4 culture on the peripheral ones. They're easy to place too--just chop down your forests and jungles and harvest your resources.
Singapore [15]
Taruga [15]
Valletta [16]
Vatican City [15]
Vilnius [12]
Yerevan [16]
Zanzibar [16]

 

[fy00sh]

Akkad [15]
Antananarivo [16]
Antioch [15]
Armagh [15]
Auckland [16]
Babylon [15]
Bandar Brunei [9]
Bologna [15]
Buenos Aires [15]
Brussels [15]
Caguana [15]
Cahokia [15]
Cardiff [15]
Fez [15]
Geneva [15]
Granada [15]
Hattusa [15]
Hong Kong [12]
Hunza [15]
Jerusalem [15]
Kabul [15]
Kandy [16]
Kumasi [15]
La Venta [16]
Lahore [15]
Lisbon [6] (9-3) I have absolutely never even seen this ability get used, and even if it did get used it'd make very little impact.
Mexico City [15]
Mohenjo Daro [15]
Mitla [15]
Muscat [15]
Nan Madol [15]
Nazca [15]
Ngazargamu [15]
Preslav [9]
Rapa Nui [16]
Singapore [15]
Taruga [15]
Valletta [16]
Vatican City [16] (15+1) Very powerful for spreading your own religion, esp when used with admirals and generals which can be activated abroad, and also very good defensively to prevent another civ running away with a religious victory even when you dont found a religion yourself. Just won a Kongo game a few days ago that I very likely wouldve lost if I couldn't use the Vatican's bonus to keep my neighbor's religion alive against Nubia's apostle spam
Vilnius [12]
Yerevan [16]
Zanzibar [16]

 

[bengalryan9]

Akkad [15]
Antananarivo [16]
Antioch [15]
Armagh [15]
Auckland [16]
Babylon [15]
Bandar Brunei [9]
Bologna [15]
Buenos Aires [15]
Brussels [15]
Caguana [15] I got to play with Caguana a little bit once and it seemed pretty good to me... curious what others think.
Cahokia [15]
Cardiff [15]
Fez [15] Never seems to show up in games where I could actually get use out of it, lol.
Geneva [15]
Granada [15]
Hattusa [15]
Hong Kong [12]
Hunza [15]
Jerusalem [15]
Kabul [15]
Kandy [16]
Kumasi [16] (15+1) Just finished a game with Kumasi... pulling in 9 culture per trading route seems pretty good to me.
La Venta [16]
Lahore [15]
Lisbon [6]
Mexico City [15]
Mitla [15]
Muscat [15]
Nan Madol [15]
Nazca [15]
Ngazargamu [15]
Preslav [9]
Rapa Nui [16]
Singapore [15]
Taruga [15]
Valletta [16]
Vatican City [16]
Vilnius [9] (12-3) The bonus is poorly worded and hard to notice IMO. Maybe it's way better than I realize, but it sure could be made a lot more clear if it was.
Yerevan [16]
Zanzibar [16]

 

[Chefofrats]

Akkad [15]
Antananarivo [17] (16+1) - absolutely fantastic! I appreciate Antananarivo the most when it's absent from a game and suddenly my culture output is nowhere close to where it would be with this city. It lets me build less Theatre Squares, allowing for all those hammers to be spent elsewhere.
Antioch [15]
Armagh [15]
Auckland [16]
Babylon [15]
Bandar Brunei [9]
Bologna [15]
Buenos Aires [15]
Brussels [15]
Caguana [15]
Cahokia [15]
Cardiff [15]
Fez [15]
Geneva [15]
Granada [15]
Hattusa [15]
Hong Kong [12]
Hunza [15]
Jerusalem [15]
Kabul [15]
Kandy [16]
Kumasi [16]
La Venta [16]
Lahore [15]
Lisbon [3] (6-3) - Almost completely immaterial in practice.
Mexico City [15]
Mohenjo Daro [15]
Mitla [15]
Muscat [15]
Nan Madol [15]
Nazca [15]
Ngazargamu [15]
Preslav [9]
Rapa Nui [16]
Singapore [15]
Taruga [15]
Valletta [16]
Vatican City [16]
Vilnius [9]
Yerevan [16]
Zanzibar [16]

 

[lotrmith]

Akkad [15]
Antananarivo [17]
Antioch [15]
Armagh [15]
Auckland [16]
Babylon [15]
Bandar Brunei [9]
Bologna [15]
Buenos Aires [15]
Brussels [15]
Caguana [15]
Cahokia [15]
Cardiff [15]
Fez [15]
Geneva [15]
Granada [15]
Hattusa [15]
Hong Kong [13] 12 + 1 Hong Kong makes a huge difference in competitive science win times, as well as any time you run a project to capture a great person. It deserves *at least* a mid-tier placement.
Hunza [15]
Jerusalem [15]
Kabul [15]
Kandy [16]
Kumasi [15]
La Venta [16]
Lahore [15]
Lisbon [3]
Mexico City [15]
Mohenjo Daro [15]
Mitla [15]
Muscat [15]
Nan Madol [15]
Nazca [15]
Ngazargamu [12] 15 - 3 Dogpiling on the ones already seems pointless so I'll go here. Not only do lots of players and lots of Civs not build many encampments, but buying units is also rare and when it does happen, it happens on front lines of wars so is dependent on cities you capture having encampments with buildings already in them.
Preslav [9]
Rapa Nui [16]
Singapore [15]
Taruga [15]
Valletta [16]
Vatican City [16]
Vilnius [12]
Yerevan [16]
Zanzibar [16]

 

[bbbt]

Akkad [15]
Antananarivo [17]
Antioch [15]
Armagh [15]
Auckland [16]
Babylon [15]
Bandar Brunei [9]
Bologna [15]
Buenos Aires [15]
Brussels [15]
Caguana [15]
Cahokia [15]
Cardiff [15]
Fez [15]
Geneva [15]
Granada [15]
Hattusa [15]
Hong Kong [13]
Hunza [15]
Jerusalem [15]
Kabul [15]
Kandy [16]
Kumasi [16] 15+1 - Another CS you can generate ridiculous amounts of culture with, stacking the trade routes from your most developed city.
La Venta [16]
Lahore [15]
Lisbon [3]
Mexico City [12] 15 - 3 A pretty useless suzerainship since they nerfed the factory cross over yield ages ago.
Mohenjo Daro [15]
Mitla [15]
Muscat [15]
Nan Madol [15]
Nazca [15]
Ngazargamu [12]
Preslav [9]
Rapa Nui [16]
Singapore [15]
Taruga [15]
Valletta [16]
Vatican City [16]
Vilnius [12]
Yerevan [16]
Zanzibar [16]

 

[GreenofKnight45]

Akkad [15]
Antananarivo [17]
Antioch [15]
Armagh [15]
Auckland [16]
Babylon [15]
Bandar Brunei [9]
Bologna [15]
Buenos Aires [15]
Brussels [15]
Caguana [15]
Cahokia [15]
Cardiff [15]
Fez [15]
Geneva [15]
Granada [15]
Hattusa [15]
Hong Kong [13]
Hunza [15]
Jerusalem [15]
Kabul [15]
Kandy [16]
Kumasi [16]
La Venta [16]
Lahore [15]
Lisbon [0] (Eliminated, 3-3) Making traders immune to plundering is always a meme ability, not usually worth the envoys.
Mexico City [12]
Mohenjo Daro [15]
Mitla [15]
Muscat [15]
Nan Madol [15]
Nazca [15]
Ngazargamu [12]
Preslav [9]
Rapa Nui [16]
Singapore [15]
Taruga [15]
Valletta [16]
Vatican City [16]
Vilnius [12]
Yerevan [16]
Zanzibar [17] (16 +1) +6 Amenities can be really powerful, you can basically live off them for several eras, I always try to get them, especially since I usually play taller than not.

 

[Francel]

Akkad [15]
Antananarivo [17]
Antioch [15]
Armagh [15]
Auckland [16]
Babylon [15]
Bandar Brunei [9]
Bologna [15]
Buenos Aires [15]
Brussels [15]
Caguana [15]
Cahokia [15]
Cardiff [15]
Fez [15]
Geneva [15]
Granada [15]
Hattusa [15]
Hong Kong [13]
Hunza [15]
Jerusalem [15]
Kabul [15]
Kandy [16]
Kumasi [16]
La Venta [16]
Lahore [15]
Mexico City [12]
Mohenjo Daro [15]
Mitla [15]
Muscat [15]
Nan Madol [15]
Nazca [15]
Ngazargamu [12]
Preslav [6] (9-3) - This one is a blank for me. I can't think of many situations in which +2 to +6 loyalty will be useful. Either I can fix a loyalty situation on my own with monument/governor/policy, or the city has too much disloyalty that a little bit extra won't matter much (ie captured city).
Rapa Nui [16]
Singapore [15]
Taruga [15]
Valletta [16]
Vatican City [16]
Vilnius [12]
Yerevan [17] (16+1) - Yerevan is an absolute game changer for religious victory. When I buy an apostle, it seems like most of the available promotions aren't especially useful - heathen conversion, chaplain, indulgence vendor; debater is often my favorite but this can be quite rare in my experience; the absolute best scenario for converting other civs to your religions is using Yerevan and patron saint Moshka, allowing your apostles to have both proselytzer and translator promotions - triple strength in other civs plus removing 75% of existing religion. This is excellent for converting even large AI cities quickly.
Zanzibar [17]

 

[bengalryan9]

@lotrmith appears to have copy/pasted the wrong post. My upvote up Kumasi and downvote of Vilnius seems to have disappeared.

 

[Kmart_Elvis]

Akkad [15]
Antananarivo [17]
Antioch [15]
Armagh [15]
Auckland [16]
Babylon [15]
Bandar Brunei [9]
Bologna [15]
Buenos Aires [15]
Brussels [15]
Caguana [15]
Cahokia [15]
Cardiff [15]
Fez [16] (15+1) This can be Godlike when going for an RV. If I'm going RV, I'm converting as many cities as I can and I ignore campuses more than I do with any other victory type. This gives a good chunk of free science on top of something you'll be doing anyways. It's a great way to make up for science deficiencies. Plus I love suddenly discovering a tech I just started researching just by converting a well populated city.
Geneva [15]
Granada [15]
Hattusa [15]
Hong Kong [13]
Hunza [15]
Jerusalem [15]
Kabul [15]
Kandy [16]
Kumasi [17]
La Venta [16]
Lahore [15]
Mexico City [12]
Mohenjo Daro [12] (15-3) It seems rather pointless to me since I don't ever settle in places without fresh water. There's also the risk of losing suzeranity which can screw up your dry cities. Solution: Just settle on water like a normal person and just forget this "bonus".
Mitla [15]
Muscat [15]
Nan Madol [15]
Nazca [15]
Ngazargamu [12]
Preslav [6]
Rapa Nui [16]
Singapore [15]
Taruga [15]
Valletta [16]
Vatican City [16]
Vilnius [9]
Yerevan [17]
Zanzibar [17]

Edit: @bengalryan9 I fixed the scores in my post