I'm mulling over some changes to the list, and might have an update ready soon. Big question: do we really think Germany and Greece are a sizable step above the other civs, or are they roughly par with other strong civs such as Rome and Sumeria? I'm thinking about moving four civs up into the A tier for now
I'd like to revive the China discussion a bit. I definitely second them deserving to move up a tier. Their builder bonus is REALLY, REALLY strong in the early game. A very strong point that often gets overlooked (until you play them) is how amazing its synergy with the Pyramids is. You basically get to build the Pyramids (one of the better wonders in the whole game IMO) for the cost of one builder charge. It costs 6 charges (1 1/2 builders for China) to rush the Pyramids to 90% but as soon as you finish it you get a free 5-charge builder. So you just built a very strong wonder for, basically, 1 builder charge and your already strong builders get 5 charges all game. Take the +2 charge policy and you have 7-charge builders, that is a LOT of saved production over the course of a game and lets you improve your cities and bring them "online" VERY quickly. It gets even stronger if you nab a good Petra location. Drop a city, rush the Pyramids, then use your free builder to rush Petra. China can settle Petra cities in locations most civs can't because they won't grow fast enough to complete it before the AI does. I settled a Petra city that was 100% surrounded by desert hills with a bunch of mountains for a good Campus site and exactly TWO flatland tiles in its entire radius. That city was an absolute production *MONSTER* by the end game with all the Petra hills mined, Industrial district up, etc. This is just one example of how you can leverage the builder + early wonder boost super powerfully. I've also heard people talk about rushing the Great Library to get an automatic 60% boost (thanks to China's other trait) on every single early game tech which frees you up early game to do whatever you want instead of diverting resources to chase tech boosts. China's super builders and wonder boost can be leveraged in a lot of really strong ways.
I also feel like the Crouching Tiger is really underrated. China's traits make them heavily suited to a turtle up and Sim-City style of play. Crouching Tigers + Great Wall gives you a titanium shell on your turtle. Great Wall bonuses basically erase the melee disadvantage of ranged units and Crouching Tigers hit REALLY hard. So you slam your melee units into a Crouching Tiger on a wall, do minimal damage, and then when they fire back it HURTS. Next turn you either back your unit off (assuming it survived the return fire at all) or make a suicide charge. A small group of Crouching Tigers and Crossbowmen on a stretch of Great Wall tiles can hold the line pretty much indefinitely against a much larger army in the early game. The Crossbowmen soften up units as they move in and take out enemy ranged units, the Crouching Tigers demolish anything that gets close.
Sounds like a strong strategy, you think it normally takes like 4-6 biulder charges to get a wonder up? Re the crouching tiger, you can build them and crossbows? So far, I'm more convinced in offense than defense with C6.
Which is why you're underrating it.
Bear in mind, I would currently rate it more powerful/snowbally to progress through the culture tree at a faster rate than everyone else - than it is to progress through the tech tree at a faster rate than everyone else. Governments and policy cards make your empire just that much efficient.
Forget relics - Kongo has the capacity to spam writers infinitely better than anyone else; 1 writer requires two cities to be utilized. Kongo can fit 2.5 writers in 1 city. That's 5 cities-worth of writer slots.
If you get lucky with a relic, great. But come Drama and Poetry, there is no civ in this game that will be able to match Kongo's culture output. Even greece who can get their theaters on quicker won't have anywhere to put their writers - a very common problem.
You can deprive every other civ from writers and force them to pay for theirs. The amount of times I've sold great works for enormous sums - thus taking up enemy writing slots and pushing me ahead even further. Use the gold to buy builders, entire buildings, whatever.
All the while, you're still beating your opponents to feudalism, the t2 governments, and of course to guilds, where your district comes online. which translates to the ability to settle anywhere irregardless of water access so long as you have a forest/jungle or two.
To say nothing of the fact that they get Swordsman that don't require iron, can travel across the map faster than regular swordsman, and are strong against ranged attacks. Their UU is quite good - and early.
In my experience so far with Kongo (although not at deity), the trick is to spam Commercial Districts and Theatre Squares for the GPP and postpone other districts. If you have good production in your capital, the Oracle is nuts, no one is going to beat 6 GPP/turn early game. Once you have your Palace filled with Great Works, you fly through the Medieval and Renaissance civics, most of which have very convenient boosters.
Also, Great Merchants + fast civics + early t1-t2 governments means you will have a lot of envoys, so your districts produce more, and you can levy an army in case someone attacks you in the middle of the game before you hit Civil Engineering and Nationalism. Fast civics also means you'll have spies before other civs and more of them.
I think they're a strong civ, this is maybe just a weird start for them. If I only I could trade this and my England start I played recently...
More England reviews....tried the 'bottom tree Redcoat beeline into snowball' thing I mentioned earlier. It's pretty crazy once it gets going. Identify a weak backwards civ on another continent to start the snowball, send over a couple redcoats with some Sea Dogs (beeline means no frigates) and start generating an army out of nothing. The bonus redcoat on city capture can move immediately as well, hastening the blitz.
I don't think this changes their tier because "Industrial Age conquest" is not exactly a high tier trait, no matter how well they do it. Also the 'beeline' really isn't one, because you have to get Cartography from the top of the tree, I got Apprenticeship because delaying industrial zone placement for that long is awful, and I got Math as well because not having the +1 sea movement is painful. And I got Stirrups for the Mil Science boost. It would be significantly faster if you were on a large landmass with multiple 'continents' so you can skip Math/Shipbuilding/Cartography.
EDIT: Thinking about it, this blitz could be further improved by just building a good navy and prepping them at a weak city while Mil Science is about to pop. Boom instant redcoat already in conquest position. But anyways this is not the 'England strats thread' so I'll shut up about them
Industrial age conquest probably works better as an endpoint than a start point... I think at that point you have to give up on being friends and push for the win. England definitely has a lot of options, and I think they're a strong c andidate to move up.
Please list him anyway. Or don't differentiate the leaders if both are on the same tier anyway. Maybe write "Greece (both leaders)" or something. That way, people won't mistake him you leaving out Pericles despite the fact that he's in the base game.
*sigh*
The fact that there's a bit of discussion everywhere in this thread makes it hard to track why America is put in such a place. He appears in three pages in addition to all the other discussion I am not interested in. This is just gonna get worse as time progresses because sooner or later, there may be more pages to look at. Let's not even get to the fact that it was a weekday and I may not have time to check the thread just finding the little bits of discussion.
Just so you know, instead of prompting a user to read the thread, giving out a short summary would have been nice. Too late now, though. It's finally the weekend and I finally have time to read the entire thread. Thanks for nothing, I guess.
Let's be clear:
I don't owe you anything. The thread was three pages long when you came in, and it's just as much effort for you to read it as it is for me to rehash the same damn stuff we've already talked about. "Why isn't America bottom tier like in some other list" is the perfect example of a supremely low effort comment. If you came in with some insight as to why America was better or worse than we'd been over, I'd have more to say to you. If you come in and ask me about something we've already talked about, I'm going to tell you to read what's already been said. Not very complicated. As the thread goes on, I'll add a page-by-page index, but you shouldn't need that to see the US discussion we had in the first three pages.
Regarding the leaders, this has been discussed as well. Civ 5 finished with 43 civs and I fully expect Civ 6 to end up with 60+ leaders. Listing one leader is much more clear, especially when the differences between them are fairly marginal. People won't mistake anything if they just read the opening post. Apparently I can't make people do that, but at least it's a clear indicator that someone has not put the minimal investment into the discussion.
If you want to contribute to the discussion, we're happy to have you. As it is, you've been coming in here, adding nothing, asking people to rehash what's already been said, calling me out and critiquing the way I'm running the thread. Thanks for nothing? That means a lot man. You are welcome for nothing.
. Seriously though, any start that's not totally isolated from the opposition spells death for your nearest neighbor courtesy of War Carts. In all my games thus far, there's been a neighbor almost right on top of me.
