Civ 6 Deity Tier List –– discussing DLC civs now, R&F civs starting 2/19

[Arent11]

The +2 movement is insane. You can always surprise war people - e.g. a civ on the other end of the map, or a weakened civ, then make peace after ten turns. You can keep this up all game.

Won't you get huge problems with war weariness? I didn't try this yet, just asking whether this becomes an issue if you keep up war all the time?

Sumeria is considered top tier, largely because of its WarCart. A warrior with +2 movement is halfway there, and you have that bonus all game, together with the TR boost and UU.

Actually I like Sumeria because of its Ziggurats

 

[MIS]

Won't you get huge problems with war weariness? I didn't try this yet, just asking whether this becomes an issue if you keep up war all the time?

Declaring war doesn't directly lead to war weariness:

"There are many actions that will increase war weariness. These actions will also increase it in varying amounts depending on the severity of the action and also the modifiers as listed above. These are:

• Engaging another unit or city in combat. This is a basic increase to war weariness. It is applied regardless of whether you were the attacker or defender.
• Losing a unit in combat. You will gain more war weariness for losing a unit in combat than simply attacking or defending. This gain is applied for losing civilian units such as a Builder or Settler as well as combat units such as a Warrior and Archer.
• Firing a nuclear weapon or being the target of one will cause war weariness. Firing it will cause more than being the recipient and carries the most severe penalty in the game. Firing one on yourself, therefore being the aggressor and target, will cause you to gain weariness for being both.
• Having your tile improvements pillaged."

So fake wars don't give you war weariness. And you are making peace in each individual war every 10 turns.

 

[Arent11]

Declaring war doesn't directly lead to war weariness:

So fake wars don't give you war weariness. And you are making peace in each individual war every 10 turns.

Yes, but war weariness is reduced faster if you are at peace. If you are at war constantly, it only reduces slowly, even
if you don't fight.
I'm just asking whether this is noticable or can be ignored. I never tried to be constantly at war, I usually am
careful to have "pauses" in between.

 

[MIS]

Yes, but war weariness is reduced faster if you are at peace. If you are at war constantly, it only reduces slowly, even
if you don't fight.
I'm just asking whether this is noticable or can be ignored. I never tried to be constantly at war, I usually am
careful to have "pauses" in between.

I've never found it to be a problem

 

[Arent11]

I've never found it to be a problem

Thanks, have to try it myself.

 

[kb27787]

I don't put to much thought into tier lists, but I still think in SP hes probably A because the A.I just can't defend itself, even on Deity. Once you snowball with him its pretty hard to lose, even just knocking over your nearest neighbor is ussually lights out for the game. His UU are ok, but there still in a really awkward spot tech wise. Archer rush still seems to be king, by the time you get swordsman and horseman going humans are already at Xbow by the time you can get to them. Don't really know about A.I, I don't pay that much attention.

edit:I did try a game where I went archer rush into there swordsman but it just felt awkward and clunky and by the time there swordsmen got anywhere it was to late to matter. I need to try more games where I go straight for there UU to see if its fast enough.

horsemen are easier to get than swordsmen and crossbowmen... Do people forget that hetairoi upgrade to knights and not cavalry? forget the hypaspist, they suck compared to Roman legion. with Alex just mass horsemen and then go straight for chivalry... he's crazy strong for the first 120 or so turns. standard deity Pangaea is routinely cleared under 200 turns with him. he makes Persia look weak in comparison.

 

[Arent11]

horsemen are easier to get than swordsmen and crossbowmen... Do people forget that hetairoi upgrade to knights and not cavalry? forget the hypaspist, they suck compared to Roman legion. with Alex just mass horsemen and then go straight for chivalry... he's crazy strong for the first 120 or so turns. standard deity Pangaea is routinely cleared under 200 turns with him. he makes Persia look weak in comparison.

Are we speaking strictly about single player or also multiplayer?

Of course you are right, hetairoi are great, especially their upgrade path to knights. However, they are also quite expensive. If you compare it with good old scythia, +5 half cost horsemen, then they are toast.

Same for persia. Of course +2 movement is ridiculous & should be nerfed a little. However, if enemy units are simply better than yours, you might run into problems. Furthermore, a human enemy will simply declare war on you & never make peace with you to deny you the possibility to backstab him. In multiplayer, persias ability might very well be a disadvantage. Immortals are good, but expensive as well. Additional gold is great in the long run.

 

[Ornen]

Yeah, I still need to give Persia a shot. I've been in a less conquest-y mood lately, so I still haven't given them a real try. But I think both them and Macedon start at A Tier.

Lately I've been playing games with Australia and Kongo. And I'm still not completely sold on either of them. Australia's +1/+3 bonuses from appeal are nice, but not game changing for me. They're strongest earlier in the game, but you have to commit to building them over settlers/builders/military. The production bonus is awesome, but inconsistent – I'm around turn 90 now and still no one has DOW'd me, sadly. The coast housing bonus is also nice but not game changing, especially since I've usually found amenities more limiting than housing anyway. We'll see how my game goes from here, but I'm tempted to start Australia at the C tier. So far I prefer China and Arabia's science bonuses to Australia's.

As for Kongo, they're strong and have tons of potential, but are marred by a tendency to start in jungles, which take a lot more effort to clear before you can really improve your tiles. Production is still vital in this game, and I don't think that start tendency can be ignored. Not sure whether or not I'd move them down to C tier, though, especially since their bonuses are so strong.

Also thinking about moving Aztec down to B, Poland down to C, England up to B. Maybe Greece and/or Germany down to C as well

 

[kb27787]

Are we speaking strictly about single player or also multiplayer?

Of course you are right, hetairoi are great, especially their upgrade path to knights. However, they are also quite expensive. If you compare it with good old scythia, +5 half cost horsemen, then they are toast.

Same for persia. Of course +2 movement is ridiculous & should be nerfed a little. However, if enemy units are simply better than yours, you might run into problems. Furthermore, a human enemy will simply declare war on you & never make peace with you to deny you the possibility to backstab him. In multiplayer, persias ability might very well be a disadvantage. Immortals are good, but expensive as well. Additional gold is great in the long run.

Yeah if Scythia gets two tiles of horses then they have a much stronger horsemen rush... Yet for all that they grow obsolete quickly once you face crossbowmen and knights. Macedon needs no horses at all... and I personally like not having to deal with horse barbs by not starting with horses at all if I'm lucky with my start. Problem with immortals is that promotions don't give them +12 like archers hence they do really poorly against even horsemen let alone knights. Simply not enough firepower to justify using them instead of archers.

 

[Ornen]

Scythia has less ability to keep fighting into the midgame –– that's one of the nice things about Alexander. Science boost + war weariness boost means he can keep up science while cranking out units, and doesn't have to worry about amenities quite as much as other civs.

 

[Arent11]

Scythia has less ability to keep fighting into the midgame –– that's one of the nice things about Alexander. Science boost + war weariness boost means he can keep up science while cranking out units, and doesn't have to worry about amenities quite as much as other civs.

Scythia usually hasn't units to upgrade to knights, that's true. However, even without their 2 for 1 light cavalry ability, they still have +5, healing units. Their knights are simply better. Furthermore, macedonia can not pre build cavalry.

Basically, macedonia needs to focus on encampments to get great generals/a war advantage/science from basilikoi. In the case of scythia you can potentially just ignore great generals & focus on campus spam. I'm not sure whether they are meant to be played like that, but their immediate war advantages certainly make that a possibility.

At least in single player, I don't know whether scythia can hold against knights + 1-2 great generals from a human player.

 

[kb27787]

Scythia usually hasn't units to upgrade to knights, that's true. However, even without their 2 for 1 light cavalry ability, they still have +5, healing units. Their knights are simply better. Furthermore, macedonia can not pre build cavalry.

Basically, macedonia needs to focus on encampments to get great generals/a war advantage/science from basilikoi. In the case of scythia you can potentially just ignore great generals & focus on campus spam. I'm not sure whether they are meant to be played like that, but their immediate war advantages certainly make that a possibility.

At least in single player, I don't know whether scythia can hold against knights + 1-2 great generals from a human player.

Hetairoi generally can earn you the first great general just by killing stuff... (12 kills) unless you have an AI that focuses on mass encampments as their first district. I find Macedon's unique building to be very underwhelming... The science boost is tiny. Just get your campuses and encampments from conquered cities instead while you focus on CD for upkeep money.

 

[Arent11]

Hetairoi generally can earn you the first great general just by killing stuff... (12 kills) unless you have an AI that focuses on mass encampments as their first district. I find Macedon's unique building to be very underwhelming... The science boost is tiny. Just get your campuses and encampments from conquered cities instead while you focus on CD for upkeep money.

Well, if you do build lots of units you can get science out of it. But the eurekas from conquest are better. Problem is that you ususally don't build such masses & then you need to build the encampment/basilikoi first, while you could already crank out units & take cities.

 

[Esperr]

horsemen are easier to get than swordsmen and crossbowmen... Do people forget that hetairoi upgrade to knights and not cavalry? forget the hypaspist, they suck compared to Roman legion. with Alex just mass horsemen and then go straight for chivalry... he's crazy strong for the first 120 or so turns. standard deity Pangaea is routinely cleared under 200 turns with him. he makes Persia look weak in comparison.

Ive found horseman are ok, and knights are just to slow. Horse rushing might work on one neighbor but it can feel pretty glass cannon. Im talking about MP of course.

 

[Obi_Ganj_Kenobi]

So with the release of the latest patch, has anyone had time to play with the affected civs?

Played a few opening turns with Egypt, and their chariot archers are definitely a bit more rushable. I conquered a neighbor civ handily with them. Before the patch, chariot archers were the UU I desperately wanted to enjoy, but they were simply to costly to really be decisive in early wars.

Also, what about Pericles? Extra envoys seems to feed directly into his UA, however his 5% bonus culture still seems so insignificant to me.

France now seems to have at least one worthwhile bonus I guess, especially if the AI is now actually using spies.

Spain, sadly, doesn't seem better in any way, shape or form.

Kongo definitely needed a nerd to it's double GWAM's, and aren't any worse off otherwise.

Lastly, Norway now gets extra production from coastal resources, which seems like it could be a decent improvement for them, in addition to better naval production.

 

[stinkubus]

Norway + God of the Sea pantheon seems like it could be interesting now. I actually enjoy playing coastal starts as they offer a challenge and the builder in me enjoys getting the infrastructure up to make coastal cities prosperous and productive, but they still have one fatal flaw and that's the need to waste a bunch of cogs on static naval defense to keep barb caravels at bay. Getting your harbors pillaged is a major PIA.

 

[Obi_Ganj_Kenobi]

@stinkubus Yeah I feel like harbors would be a lot better off if they had their own defenses like encampments do. This would make coastal cities a lot less vulnerable to both Barb's and players.

 

[Ornen]

^ That's a lot of static defense for cities that are hard to take already.... A city with 3 defense districts (city, encampment, harbor) would be a huge pain in the ass to take unless you were a tech level above. Maybe if harbors could only attack on water – and encampments could only attack on land? That would make sense to me, but I'm still not sure the harbor needs defenses. If you want those, you can always build an encampment on the water, or just build ships.

As for Norway, they're better, but this is still a lackluster boost for them. It relies on a t2 building on a district that's of limited use on Deity unless you're playing a civ that can consistently land a religion. Norway can't. I wish the devs would just give them the a water production boost straight up instead of tying it to the stave church, a UB that doesn't make a lot of sense at higher difficulties.

I'm interested to see what others' experiences with Egypt are. I'm glad the chariot archer got a boost, even though their other abilities still feel underwhelming to me.

I think Kongo might fall to C tier with this patch. Their GP ability before was OP, now it feels balanced. But they're still forced into a lot of jungle starts, and their other bonuses don't quite make up for it.

Greece might hold up at B for now. I've been on the fence between B/C for a while, but they got a nice little boost this patch. Not sure why they're buffing Greece when there are much worse civs out there, but I don't make the rules. Missed your Aztec/Arab thoughts a couple months ago @ShinigamiKenji, but I tend to agree with you on Aztec and have made the case for them repeatedly. But it's a case people tend to disagree with me on, and I do find their early game to be trickier than many of the other civs that get early boosts. The case for Arabia is that they have some of the best bonuses to science and religion alongside one of the best UUs in the game. Their early game isn't up to the A tier civ's bonuses, but they have a very flexible set of bonuses that makes them very, very good at multiple playstyles in the midgame.

What are everyone's thoughts on Ethiopia? They feel like a very solid B to start with, but I could be convinced of an A (seems like many of the new civs lean strong). The archer & district production bonus results in a very smooth early game –– you get the best archer rush out of anyone while saving on loads of production. Not to mention the prod/gold bonus on mine resources. The UI is very situational, but they feel surprisingly strong overall.

Planning an update to the list soon. Here's the changes I'm considering:
Add Persia at A
Add Macedon at A
Add Ethiopia at B
Add Australia at C
England up from C to B
Poland down from B to C
Kongo down from B to C
Germany down from B to C

 

[Obi_Ganj_Kenobi]

Why should Germany be bumped down?

Also, played a couple more starts with Egypt and in my opinion, the buff to their UU really doesn't make up for what they lack in other areas. Not a bad unit by any means, but being late ancient era means too much investment in a unit that goes obsolete quickly and can't utilize a great general. And at this point, it's got too much competition from other excellent classical era UU like the Immortal and Alexander's.

For Norway: I completely forgot the stave church was a temple replacement rather than a shrine. Idk why they even bothered buffing them, by the time temples come around the few extra hammers you may or may not get are fairly insignificant.

 

[kb27787]

^ That's a lot of static defense for cities that are hard to take already.... A city with 3 defense districts (city, encampment, harbor) would be a huge pain in the ass to take unless you were a tech level above. Maybe if harbors could only attack on water – and encampments could only attack on land? That would make sense to me, but I'm still not sure the harbor needs defenses. If you want those, you can always build an encampment on the water, or just build ships.

As for Norway, they're better, but this is still a lackluster boost for them. It relies on a t2 building on a district that's of limited use on Deity unless you're playing a civ that can consistently land a religion. Norway can't. I wish the devs would just give them the a water production boost straight up instead of tying it to the stave church, a UB that doesn't make a lot of sense at higher difficulties.

I'm interested to see what others' experiences with Egypt are. I'm glad the chariot archer got a boost, even though their other abilities still feel underwhelming to me.

I think Kongo might fall to C tier with this patch. Their GP ability before was OP, now it feels balanced. But they're still forced into a lot of jungle starts, and their other bonuses don't quite make up for it.

Greece might hold up at B for now. I've been on the fence between B/C for a while, but they got a nice little boost this patch. Not sure why they're buffing Greece when there are much worse civs out there, but I don't make the rules. Missed your Aztec/Arab thoughts a couple months ago @ShinigamiKenji, but I tend to agree with you on Aztec and have made the case for them repeatedly. But it's a case people tend to disagree with me on, and I do find their early game to be trickier than many of the other civs that get early boosts. The case for Arabia is that they have some of the best bonuses to science and religion alongside one of the best UUs in the game. Their early game isn't up to the A tier civ's bonuses, but they have a very flexible set of bonuses that makes them very, very good at multiple playstyles in the midgame.

What are everyone's thoughts on Ethiopia? They feel like a very solid B to start with, but I could be convinced of an A (seems like many of the new civs lean strong). The archer & district production bonus results in a very smooth early game –– you get the best archer rush out of anyone while saving on loads of production. Not to mention the prod/gold bonus on mine resources. The UI is very situational, but they feel surprisingly strong overall.

Planning an update to the list soon. Here's the changes I'm considering:
Add Persia at A
Add Macedon at A
Add Ethiopia at B
Add Australia at C
England up from C to B
Poland down from B to C
Kongo down from B to C
Germany down from B to C

Australia at C?????
Why? If there's a game that I cannot afford to lose at all costs, I'd play them. Very low chance to die from early DoW.
AI Civs love taking CS so actually their double production lasts very long because you've no shortage of CS to liberate... just time them every 20 turns, and by that time you've managed to crush all opposition. At least they are B...