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

[Esperr]

If were just talking about SP then Alex is definitely tier 1. A.I's are just so easy to roll. Unfortunatly in MP I don't think he will be that great, swordsman and horseman are at awkward points in the tree for MP.

edit:Cyrus as well. The ability is a joke. It reads :All your units have bonus movement all game. T98 continents(standard size and continents are how the game is "meant" to be played IMO) and ive already rolled 6 of the other civs. The random bonus trade route is dumb good to.

 

[esco_]

how do u kill 6 civs so fast? playing on immortal i struggle to take one within 60 turns and thats spamming warriors into immortals

 

[Chibisuke]

Its not as easy after the last 2 patches, on deity. I haven't destroyed a civ early on for a while now because they are too strong now with archers and getting up walls pretty early. Instead, I've focused on taking a couple cities and then do a peace deal where they give you tons of gold.

 

[Victoria]

standard size and continents are how the game is "meant" to be played IMO

Agree wholeheartedly, why small size is the default is a bit annoying

 

[Esperr]

how do u kill 6 civs so fast? playing on immortal i struggle to take one within 60 turns and thats spamming warriors into immortals

I ended up not even using immortals pretty much because they cannot capture citys, and archers were still better because of timing to zero out citys. The bonus movement is stupid is how, I would just surprise DOW another civ when the bonus was about to wear off, and I would never fully kill a civ whos capitol I had already taken so I could sue for peace and then use them later to keep the bonus movement going. I did it with a standard archer rush into neverending archer spam. Autocracy+reduce unit main+50% to ancient production into x bows and horseman for the last few. I think I built only two of my won citys and conquered the rest, on Deity the A.I has more starting settlers so they have more citys to take and you can build less yourself.

edit:Also you only have to take there capitol, its there strongest city early by miles. Once you sack it, they may as well be totally annihilated, except you randomly DOW them to keep the bonus movement train going.

Agree wholeheartedly, why small size is the default is a bit annoying

I use standard continents to guage and measure things because I think 8 civs is what the game is balanced around. Im not for sure though and I don't know if they have actually said it anywhere.

 

[Vidszhite]

Great assessment, OP. I think I mostly agree with it.

Regarding America, though, while I do think C tier is the right place currently, I do think Founding Fathers is underrated, and has the potential to make big plays. The one thing that's making Founding Fathers rather useless is the fact that Legacy Bonuses in general are rather useless, mostly because they don't build anywhere near fast enough even at double speed. There is one exception to this, however -- Oligarchy. Because of how America's bonus works, it truncates the number of turns until your next increment, so it's half rounded down. This means Oligarchy gives you a new percent every 2 turns instead of every 5, and that adds up fast. Thanks to this, you can end up with CRAZY exp bonuses late game if you went Oligarchy, and since Oligarchy helps you win your continent with its combat power bonus, you're really not sacrificing anything to get it. Unfortunately, this kinda shoehorns Teddy into Domination if you want to take advantage of Oligarchy, since none of the other bonuses really stack fast enough to matter.

However, given its potential, I think that if the devs ever decided to make the other Legacy bonuses not-awful, America would absolutely move up a tier as a result. Something to keep in mind.

Also, Teddy's home continent combat bonus isn't anywhere near as situational as you might think. It's very rare to be on a continent with no one else, and sometimes the whole landmass ends up being your home continent. Situational implies that it's only sometimes useful, but Teddy's home continent bonus is rarely not useful. Every unit is like his UU on his home continent. At the very least, he roflstomps defensive wars early game without having to tech rush anything, and can deal with barbs very flexibly.

 

[Ornen]

If were just talking about SP then Alex is definitely tier 1. A.I's are just so easy to roll. Unfortunatly in MP I don't think he will be that great, swordsman and horseman are at awkward points in the tree for MP.

edit:Cyrus as well. The ability is a joke. It reads :All your units have bonus movement all game. T98 continents(standard size and continents are how the game is "meant" to be played IMO) and ive already rolled 6 of the other civs. The random bonus trade route is dumb good to.

I'm on my first Alex game, and it's just so smooth. You get two solid UUs, and substantial bonuses to two areas you'd normally lag at when going full conquest: tech and happiness. I'm not ready to make a definitive judgment here yet, but everything about Alex coheres really well in a way that makes extended conquests very smooth once you get momentum. Haven't tried Cyrus yet, but yeah, the movement bonus is nasty.

Great assessment, OP. I think I mostly agree with it.

Regarding America, though, while I do think C tier is the right place currently, I do think Founding Fathers is underrated, and has the potential to make big plays. The one thing that's making Founding Fathers rather useless is the fact that Legacy Bonuses in general are rather useless, mostly because they don't build anywhere near fast enough even at double speed. There is one exception to this, however -- Oligarchy. Because of how America's bonus works, it truncates the number of turns until your next increment, so it's half rounded down. This means Oligarchy gives you a new percent every 2 turns instead of every 5, and that adds up fast. Thanks to this, you can end up with CRAZY exp bonuses late game if you went Oligarchy, and since Oligarchy helps you win your continent with its combat power bonus, you're really not sacrificing anything to get it. Unfortunately, this kinda shoehorns Teddy into Domination if you want to take advantage of Oligarchy, since none of the other bonuses really stack fast enough to matter.

However, given its potential, I think that if the devs ever decided to make the other Legacy bonuses not-awful, America would absolutely move up a tier as a result. Something to keep in mind.

Also, Teddy's home continent combat bonus isn't anywhere near as situational as you might think. It's very rare to be on a continent with no one else, and sometimes the whole landmass ends up being your home continent. Situational implies that it's only sometimes useful, but Teddy's home continent bonus is rarely not useful. Every unit is like his UU on his home continent. At the very least, he roflstomps defensive wars early game without having to tech rush anything, and can deal with barbs very flexibly.

I don't consider the continent bonus that situational, it's their biggest bonus IMO. But it is a little limiting – you're going to spawn with someone on your continent, sure, but what if you also spawn with Montezuma right on the other side of the continent line? This is why I'd prefer "within ___ tiles of your capital" to a system based around completely arbitrary continent lines.

 

[MIS]

Ornen, when you do update the list, I suggest you make a rule that anyone who argues with the tier has to give a replacement. For example, let's say you put England in B. Instead of comments like "England should be in A" you should make people write "England should be in A, and is better than Rome that is already in A". Otherwise you get all this argument about borderline civs where people may argue with the threshold as much as anything else.

My 2c. Love the thread. Surprised you haven't come out with a draft list for discussion purposes, to be modified in a week or two.

 

[Jarms48]

England sure got a lot better this patch. Definitely A or high B now. England is now the only civ that can still get double trade routes from having both a harbour and commerce hub.

 

[Ornen]

My 2c. Love the thread. Surprised you haven't come out with a draft list for discussion purposes, to be modified in a week or two.

Tier changes I'm currently thinking about:
England up from C to B
Arabs up from B to A
Greece down from B to C
Poland down from B to C
Aztec down from A to B

It still feels too early to set down tiers for the new civs – if I added them now, I would probably add them all at the B Tier, which I'm not sure reflects them all that well. I'm hesitant to add any new civ at A tier, but my initial playthrough with Macedon is going so smoothly I might consider it.

I think arguing for civ __ over __ is more helpful than just saying "Move this civ up because I think they're strong", and that's definitely something anyone should consider when making the case for or against a given civ. Even better, compare it to a similar civ: I've seen a lot of people argue for Australia, for example, but no one comparing Australia to China to determine who really is the better civ for tech/development. You can even go a step further and crunch the numbers: how many extra beakers is China getting in the early game compared to Australia? How about later on? This happened a fair bit in adwcta's thread for BNW, and the math definitely shaped the thinking in that thread. It's how we discovered Russia received a better production bonus than Rome, for example.

Another interesting comparison would be Macedon against Aztec – both receive similar bonuses from conquest, especially around happiness/amenities, which enables them to keep conquering without suffering the ill effects.

 

[xDaunt]

Macedon is easily A tier, and you should consider creating a special S tier for it. Through continual war, Macedon can effortlessly keep up with, and get ahead of, other civs in both the science and culture tech races. All you need to do is a variation of the standard two city hypaspist rush (swordsmen) to get the ball rolling. Rush an encampment and the unique barracks in Pella, prioritize iron working and masonry, and go to work on your first neighbor by turns 50-60. Have a couple warriors ready for immediate upgrades. Your first target should easily fall, and you likely will bag one or two more civs before your hypaspists run out of steam and you have to wait for musketmen. Just keep upgrading your original hypaspist army and you'll have level 4 infantry/mech infantry to finish everyone off.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

Why would Arabia be moved up? And Aztecs moved down?

I think the 3 of them should stay where they are. Aztecs are still really powerful, and I can't see how Arabia would take its place. Maybe Macedon, but not Arabia.
Arabia's bonuses can be solid, but their UU, a bonus to amenities and to units' strength (in all eras and places, to boot) and the ability to rush districts set them quite apart from B tier.

If we consider the C tier as the average civ, I think Poland, Greece and Germany might be on tier C.

• Poland needs quite the set-up for a smooth victory: a religion for RV (which can be quite hard to get in Deity), or either Theocracy and a sizeable amount of faith, or strong production/gold for Hussars.
• Greece can rush through the civic tree and use an additional policy but gets few other benefits (one can even argue that Acropolis is actually a downgrade from the original Theatre Square).
• Germany gets an extra district slot and an IZ on steroids. But you don't need that many districts to win anyway, and most of the time a 7-pop city will suffice (which isn't that hard to get). Hansa gets a better adjacency bonus, but I don't believe it pays off as much as other UDs.

England may deserve a place in the B tier now. The Harbour got a good buff, but England get them for half the cost, an extra gold bonus and a trade route. The latest patch was really kind to them. And their UU is finally working! I think they probably don't have what it takes for A tier, though. As an expansionist civ, they can't compete yet with the likes of Rome and Aztecs, since they get good infrastructure bonuses that England still lack. But surely they should fare better than France or India now (and arguably, better than Poland or Germany).

 

[Esperr]

Macedon is easily A tier, and you should consider creating a special S tier for it. Through continual war, Macedon can effortlessly keep up with, and get ahead of, other civs in both the science and culture tech races. All you need to do is a variation of the standard two city hypaspist rush (swordsmen) to get the ball rolling. Rush an encampment and the unique barracks in Pella, prioritize iron working and masonry, and go to work on your first neighbor by turns 50-60. Have a couple warriors ready for immediate upgrades. Your first target should easily fall, and you likely will bag one or two more civs before your hypaspists run out of steam and you have to wait for musketmen. Just keep upgrading your original hypaspist army and you'll have level 4 infantry/mech infantry to finish everyone off.

The issue with Macedon is that if you brick off early you now have a civ with zero abilitys. This is why Alex is basically useless in MP, nobody is going to let you run them over. Sure if you get the momentum going he is great, but if you don't start with anybody to kill or there to far away and wall/archer up before you can get to them, your civ does nothing.

 

[Chibisuke]

The issue with Macedon is that if you brick off early you now have a civ with zero abilitys. This is why Alex is basically useless in MP, nobody is going to let you run them over. Sure if you get the momentum going he is great, but if you don't start with anybody to kill or there to far away and wall/archer up before you can get to them, your civ does nothing.

This is a good point. I just played my first game with Alex, and it is a lot of fun. Once I started conquering cities, I was getting tons and tons of boosts. It was a bit crazy. Also, the fact that his unique units are swordsmen and horsemen replacements gives you pretty amazing early game strength that probably rivals Sumeria.

However, if I didn't have anyone nearby to conquer, he would probably suck big time. At least Sumeria still gets Ziggaraut and boosts from barb camps. That being said, I think it's unlikely that you will get NO use out of your UUs. Usually, even if you start somewhat isolated, by the time you have swordsmen, someone would be within range. However, if they are toward the edge of your range, it could still make him kinda meh.

I think he has to start tier B. If his non-war abilities were more balanced, then I think he would deserve tier A, but as is I don't think he is versatile enough for it.

 

[Esperr]

This is a good point. I just played my first game with Alex, and it is a lot of fun. Once I started conquering cities, I was getting tons and tons of boosts. It was a bit crazy. Also, the fact that his unique units are swordsmen and horsemen replacements gives you pretty amazing early game strength that probably rivals Sumeria.

However, if I didn't have anyone nearby to conquer, he would probably suck big time. At least Sumeria still gets Ziggaraut and boosts from barb camps. That being said, I think it's unlikely that you will get NO use out of your UUs. Usually, even if you start somewhat isolated, by the time you have swordsmen, someone would be within range. However, if they are toward the edge of your range, it could still make him kinda meh.

I think he has to start tier B. If his non-war abilities were more balanced, then I think he would deserve tier A, but as is I don't think he is versatile enough for it.

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.

 

[Calyxx]

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.

Maybe try mixing in more warriors with the initial archer push?

While Alexander is no doubt a lot of fun to play, I think Persia is much stronger. Amazing conquest throughout the game with the bonus movement after a surprise war, plus immense culture and gold potential. I especially like their bonus to trade routes, since they were going to be using them anyway.

 

[Ornen]

Any more thoughts on these two? I still haven't played Persia yet, I've been waiting on the next round of civs to come out before diving back in. But I guess that round's further off than it may have seemed when they first announced em. What are everyone's thoughts on Persia and Macedon now that they've been out a couple months?

I will say that isolated starts are less common than they might seem... I tested this out a while back with 10 maps, 8 civs each. Only 1 truly isolated start, 10 semi-isolated (only one neighbor with land access). So that's a 14% chance, but very little chance there that you're truly isolated. So I don't think the chance of isolated starts hurts war civs that bad, honestly.

 

[The Highwayman]

I think Macedon and Persia belong in A tier. Claiming land early is the most important part of the game, and these two civs excel at that. Most other things snowball from there.

Alex's horse rush is just nasty--it's like a Knight rush in the Classical era if (when) you acquire the first Great General. No need for the annoying strategic resource requirement. Every conquered city leads you further down the Tech and Civic trees. Your desired victory condition dictates when you stop pummeling the opposition.

I almost always declare surprise war, and the little red frowny faces in the upper right corner usually reflect that. +2 movement for 10 turns is so good, so get out there and meet people so this mechanic can be abused all game long. Occupied cities actually being useful is nice too. *Good* buffs to internal trade routes (sorry Spain, you lose again) and a Unique Tile Improvement that I actually want to build? I'll take it. A relevant UU rounds out an excellent set of bonuses.

 

[A+ombomb]

Persia is one of the best civs in the game, bar none - at least from the perspective of mp, where amassing units is very important. The critical reason is their unique structure. This gains a gold bonus even from unfinished commercials and culture from unfinished theatre/holy, ala the hansa adjacency, but builds instantly.

Even for single player, I'd imagine having the obscene amounts of gold can't be a bad thing.

The extra movement for settlers and workers in the early game also radically amplifies build up speed.

 

[MIS]

I wrote in another thread - IMHO, Persia are God Tier, in a different bucket to everyone else:

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. It even helps your builders, settlers, scouts etc. Completely insane.

The internal trade route boost is very nice since you want mostly internal routes. The UU is above average (though not top tier IMHO).

I don't really like any tile improvements currently - they were much stronger in CivV. Now you have competition for space and builder charges. Better than nothing, but I'd rather have a UU.

I only play Deity. It makes stealing settlers at the beginning much easier. And later wars are largely about timing and concentrating fire. +2 movement is awesome. For instance, your archer can move on a hill or across a river and shoot on the same turn. You can achieve times with Cyrus you couldn't get close to with anyone else.

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.

I would put Macedonia as top tier, but I think Cyrus are in a different bracket than anyone else.