Civ Unique Ability Elimination Thread

[lotrmith]

Australia - Land Down Under: 17
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 19
Greece - Plato's Republic: 19 = 18 + 1 Yes, I can name many policy cards that are better than, say, +2 adjacencies. How about every card that doubles adjacencies? How about +2 GPP cards at a time when the first GPPs only take a handful of turns to earn? How about extra builder charges? How about unit production bonuses or upgrade discounts? 15% wonder production? This gives you the flexibility to run those cards without making such tough choices because you have the extra, free Wild Card slot. From the beginning of the game, rather than in the Renaissance and at the opportunity cost of actually building the Forbidden City. Which, of course, Greece is also free to build, giving you a second extra Wild Card slot.
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 19
Kongo - Nkisi: 22
Maori - Mana: 24
Mongolia - Örtöö: 15
Russia - Mother Russia : 22
Scotland - Scottish Enlightenment: 15 = 18 - 3 It's overrated and not thematic.

 

[bbbt]

Australia - Land Down Under: 17
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 19
Greece - Plato's Republic: 19
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 16 = 19 - 3 Consistent but mainly kicks in mid to late game, limited by district caps. Would be more of a beast if Japan has Germany's extra district ability or such.
Kongo - Nkisi: 22
Maori - Mana: 24
Mongolia - Örtöö: 15
Russia - Mother Russia : 23=22+1 early pantheon guarantee with tundra and honestly that initial explosion of tiles is just so satisfying
Scotland - Scottish Enlightenment: 15

 

[DWilson]

Australia - Land Down Under: 17
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 19
Greece - Plato's Republic: 20 (19+1) This is the equivalent of one of the, if not the, best wonders in the game, and it's right away automatically, rather than halfway through the game.
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 13 (16-3) Good, but I have enjoyed the others here more.
Kongo - Nkisi: 22
Maori - Mana: 24
Mongolia - Örtöö: 15
Russia - Mother Russia : 23
Scotland - Scottish Enlightenment: 15

 

[Kmart_Elvis]

Australia - Land Down Under: 17
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 20 (19+1) 5 turn spaceports are hard to turn down. Plus an amazing ability for going super wide as district costs start scaling astronomically.
Greece - Plato's Republic: 20
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 13
Kongo - Nkisi: 22
Maori - Mana: 24
Mongolia - Örtöö: 15
Russia - Mother Russia : 23
Scotland - Scottish Enlightenment: 12 (15-3) The problem is the numbers aren't just high enough to really matter. If you got a city producing 30 science and 30 hammers, that's only an additional +3 science and +3 production when it's fully ecstatic. The only way to take advantage of this is to go super tall and try to generate as much science/production as possible but there's still only so much you can make. The GS points are pretty cool, but GE points not as much.

 

[civviefan]

Australia - Land Down Under: 17
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 20
Greece - Plato's Republic: 20+1=21
Sometimes genius is simplicity. Any other +1 would have been downvoted as boring wayyy back.
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 13
Kongo - Nkisi: 22
Maori - Mana: 24
Mongolia - Örtöö: 15
Russia - Mother Russia : 23-3=20 My least favorite of the ones remaining
Scotland - ScottishEnlightenment: 12

 

[Ceydezed]

Australia - Land Down Under: 17
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 20
Greece - Plato's Republic: 21
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 13
Kongo - Nkisi: 22
Maori - Mana: 25 = 24+1 - Not sure if it is the strongest, but definitely one of the most original, flavorful and interesting abilities.
Mongolia - Örtöö: 12 = 15-3 - Way too much domination / warmongering focused.
Russia - Mother Russia : 20
Scotland - ScottishEnlightenment: 12

 

[monstercat]

Australia - Land Down Under: 17
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 20
Greece - Plato's Republic: 22 (21 + 1) Maybe not the best, but it is very powerful in the early game, with lots of flexibility. Also helps with religion on higher difficulties, as you can run Revelation without rushing Political Philosophy.
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 13
Kongo - Nkisi: 22
Maori - Mana: 25
Mongolia - Örtöö: 12
Russia - Mother Russia : 17 (20 - 3) Probably the weakest left. Tundra tiles suck, this ability makes them ok. The Faith is nice, but gets less impactful later on in the game. Meanwhile, lack of Food really can hamper your cities. Land grab, is, once again nice, but if you're just grabbing Tundra tiles with this, it is weakened by the above.
Scotland - Scottish Enlightenment: 12

 

[Weraptor]

Australia - Land Down Under: 17
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 20
Greece - Plato's Republic: 22
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 13
Kongo - Nkisi: 22
Maori - Mana: 25
Mongolia - Örtöö: 9 (12-3) In MP, the trading post diplomatic visibility thingy can be easily countered by preemptively declaring war on them, making its bonus come into play with Printing, Spies and GP.
Russia - Mother Russia : 18 (17+1) Strong and so very satisfying.
Scotland - Scottish Enlightenment: 12

 

[Disgustipated]

Australia - Land Down Under: 17
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 20
Greece - Plato's Republic: 22
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 14 = 13 + 1 I was going to vote Greece thinking you can just slot in powerful adjacency cards, but then realized you can only slot in adjacency for 1 type of district (though Ideology you can do 2 2 district types), where as Japan's bonus applies to multiple districts. and I just finished a game with Japan, this ability is better than I remember. Maybe if you play ultra fast games this isn't as good, but even my relatively quick science victory this came in really handy. I was on island plates, but still had plenty of room for district clumps. I may have voted this down earlier, but I am not ready to see it go. It's not obvious how good it is until you play them. I'm of the belief now that Australia and Japan are better than the extra wildcard slot Greece has.
Kongo - Nkisi: 22
Maori - Mana: 25
Mongolia - Örtöö: 9
Russia - Mother Russia : 15 = 18 - 3 I find myself not liking Russia, and this ability does nothing to get me to like them more. Yeah you can save good money with this, it certainly is a top 10 ability. But money usually isn't that hard to come by.
Scotland - Scottish Enlightenment: 12

 

[Leucarum]

Australia - Land Down Under: 17
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 20
Greece - Plato's Republic: 22
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 15 (14+1) makes hitting policy card adjacency threshilds a cakewalk.
Kongo - Nkisi: 22
Maori - Mana: 25
Mongolia - Örtöö: 6 (9-3) it's getting tight now so I'll downvote this again. Not terrible but there is better.
Russia - Mother Russia : 15
Scotland - Scottish Enlightenment: 12

 

[NullNullError]

Australia - Land Down Under: 17
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 20
Greece - Plato's Republic: 19 (22-3) The remaining ability are all on the same level of strength. I think the main reason to currently downvote stuff is flavor. And having an additional wildcard policy slot is just so boring. It's flexible and really good at the start. But it also get worse and worse and almost completly disappears towards the end. Also having a free(the first) religion isn't as strong without the faith to back it up.
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 16 (15+1) This is a neat ability, the adjacency scales so well. It's completly map independent. Japan will always be good no matter the map or the playstyle you take. Also Flavorfull for an packed island state to force close settles to imitate it's original counterpart. It changes how you play the game while Greece is just a flat boring bonus.
Kongo - Nkisi: 22
Maori - Mana: 25
Mongolia - Örtöö: 6
Russia - Mother Russia : 15
Scotland - Scottish Enlightenment: 12

 

[Architect]

Australia - Land Down Under: 17
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 20
Greece - Plato's Republic: 19
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 17 (16 + 1) I read people's comments and know that you are not playing much GS and definitely don't understand how broken this ability is now. The GREEN districts are great now and they are even better for Japan. Green districts don't take up a district slot. Building industrial clusters with coal power plants makes for an amazing production and a real industrial era. The challenge for a builder is pulling that off and timing it with everything else. Its like a Knight rush for builders and Japan is the training wheels civ for this.
Kongo - Nkisi: 22
Maori - Mana: 22 (25 - 3) I think the civ ability separated from the other Maori abilities is not that great. First we slow you down by starting you in the middle of the ocean. Then we speed you up by making forests better and your amphitheater is amazing. Then we slow you back down by preventing you from getting GW and harvesting resources. Sure interesting and different but best civ ability? I've given up on way more Maori games than any other GS civ. Sure they were probably all winnable like every game but it didn't feel like it was going to be fun and powerful pulling it off.
Mongolia - Örtöö: 6
Russia - Mother Russia : 15
Scotland - Scottish Enlightenment: 12

 

[Troy Bruckner]

Australia - Land Down Under: 17
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 20
Greece - Plato's Republic: 20 (19+1) Much better than Kongo.
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 17
Kongo - Nkisi: 19 (22-3) I guess everybody missed or didn't care about my sarcasm in my last vote. Kongo is not a S or A tier Civ and this doesn't belong in the top 25, but here it is, The bonuses come too late. By the time you have good bonuses (unless you luck into Kandy, get suzerainity on her AND you haven't explored most of the map) you will be only playing catch up because the actual good Civs would have been at a high level of culture for 1000 years longer.
Maori - Mana: 22
Mongolia - Örtöö: 6
Russia - Mother Russia : 15
Scotland - Scottish Enlightenment: 12 I want to vote this down, It doesn't belong in the top 10, but Kongo is awful and I can only vote one thing down per day.

Moderator Action: Removed comment concerning real life as it has no place in this discussion. leif
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[kb27787]

Australia - Land Down Under: 17
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 21 (20 + 1) Aside from Nkisi, this is the only other UA that significantly changes how you normally play such that you can plan a whole nother strat based on it. The other civs just have vanilla bonuses...
Greece - Plato's Republic: 20
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 17
Kongo - Nkisi: 19
Maori - Mana: 19 (22 - 3) This ability does not deserve to top the list either... turns stones and cows and wheat/rice into just awful tiles and I find myself wasting gold on tile purchases to place my districts. Extra production on unimproved woods/rainforest is nice, but ultimately apprenticeship mines are better. Worst thing is that you simply cannot burst-chop a wonder with stone/deer + Magnus.
Mongolia - Örtöö: 6
Russia - Mother Russia : 15
Scotland - Scottish Enlightenment: 12

@Troy Bruckner... I'm going to go with the "they don't care" option. You seem to not realize that +50% GPP from all sources (yes, this will multiply GPP card bonuses, Bologna's bonuses, and Oracle's, as well as Danxia's merchant points) is part of the civ UA as well (and really, that is the main selling part). Drama and Poetry as well as Currency come before Apprenticeship so their bonuses are simply not late compared to Scotland's IZ boost for example.
I wouldn't call Monarchy (for Mt. St. Michel) late either, considering the complaints about global warming and power and AI not using planes we read on this forum. It is not as if the posters here are post sub t150 deity victories on standard speed on a regular basis.

 

[BenitoChavez]

Australia - Land Down Under: 17
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 21
Greece - Plato's Republic: 20
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 17
Kongo - Nkisi: 16 = 19 - 3. I had upvoted this, but at this point something has got to go. The relic/sculpture/artifact bonuses usually starts to really come online later in the game. Later than any of the other remaining abilities. Also, the GWAM points sort of conflicts with Kongo's leader bonus/apostles on building theater squares. You want to get apostles for the potential relics so you want to build your theater squares later after your cities have been converted. But you also want to get your theater squares up early so you can get more great people sooner.
Maori - Mana: 19
Mongolia - Örtöö: 7 = 6 + 1. It will take at least 1 more downvote to eliminate this! +6 combat strength for your entire army & religious units is insane. I guess people don't warmonger much, but I do.
Russia - Mother Russia : 15
Scotland - Scottish Enlightenment: 12

 

[Lord Lakely]

Australia - Land Down Under: 17
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 21
Greece - Plato's Republic: 17 (20 - 3) - B O R I N G
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 17
Kongo - Nkisi: 16
Maori - Mana: 20 (19 +1) the absolute opposite of boring.
Mongolia - Örtöö: 7
Russia - Mother Russia : 15
Scotland - Scottish Enlightenment: 12

 

[Victoria]

Australia - Land Down Under: 17
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 18 (21-3) - building spaceports it is very useful but of all the times I have played Aztecs I have perhaps finished 2 other districts. 5 builder charges vs 1-2 chops for anything else. And that’s it, no other ability...late game pure science. Nice but not naughty nice. More boring than +1 wildcard.
Greece - Plato's Republic: 17
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 17
Kongo - Nkisi: 16
Maori - Mana: 21 (20+1) so many toys in this box and not dull toys if you use them right. +2 MP over water is not just for fighting fast, exploring with a builder, getting that settler there twice as fast. Someone said they were at a disadvantage early...starting at 2 pop + builder with 2 science and culture until they do so makes up... and the whole argument is moot because they were bringing up leader abilities. This stone and wheat stuff is rubbish, quarry and farm them, you do not need to leave every tile untouched at all. Starting with +1 forests and jungle with a fast growing pop is strong enough to more than make up for it. A Marae makes more culture than a GW and you do not even have to earn it, strait there after building along with faith. Useful for any victory. Do not spam them everywhere but just in a couple of dense areas is great. But the ability of starting with shipbuilding alone is huge in so many ways. All units straight into water with +4 MP, fighting units can retreat to water, you can siege water cities immediately but a killer is quads can be built immediately and with that extra production and the 100% navy card you just win at sea.
Mongolia - Örtöö: 7
Russia - Mother Russia : 15
Scotland - Scottish Enlightenment: 12

 

[DWilson]

Australia - Land Down Under: 17
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 18
Greece - Plato's Republic: 17
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 17
Kongo - Nkisi: 16
Maori - Mana: 21
Mongolia - Örtöö: 8 (7+1) I think, given the relative strength of a strategy focused on military expansion, it does not make sense for the only remaining military focused ability to go now.
Russia - Mother Russia : 12 (15-3) I think this is probably one of, if not the, weakest remaining bonus. Very fun, but I like these others more.
Scotland - Scottish Enlightenment: 12

 

[Icicle]

Australia - Land Down Under: 17
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 18
Greece - Plato's Republic: 18 (17+1) Start game with a free Forbidden Palace? Yes please.
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 17
Kongo - Nkisi: 16
Maori - Mana: 21
Mongolia - Örtöö: 8
Russia - Mother Russia : 12
Scotland - Scottish Enlightenment: 9 (12-3) This is a very good ability, but we're at the stage where very good isn't good enough to stick around.

 

[enKage]

Australia - Land Down Under: 14 (17-3) I can't believe Australia and Scotland reached top 10.
1) This is very map dependent. I started 10 random standard games up to settling 3 expansions to see its potential. I hade once potential for +3 appeal yields in capitol and 4-5 times in expansions. Unless you play tectonic islands, it simply doesn't work! To get that nice spot for first campus you need mountain range near cost and no marches, no jungle. Be sincere, how many regenerating maps you do before you start a game as Australia? And you think on multiplayer you will be allowed to do this? I know having +7 campus is exiting but c'mon.... how many will you get?
2) yes, you can still place a lot +1 districts, but when I have a choice between + adjecency from features and + from appeal, I will always choose adjecency, because it can be doubled.
3) on high difficulties and standard maps you don't have the comfort to choose a place where you settle, except maybe 2-3 first expansions. This forces you not to take care about appeal, but take whatever is possible, putting cities quite close to others. And that means district adjecencies, so Japan eats all Australia for breakfast
4) Someone wrote tyou can rise appeal by using Liang. But forgot to mention Liang is the worst governor and only opener is worth taking, sometimes in very specific volcano map one more ability.But going to weak parks only to rise yield that cannot be doubled by cards? crazy! Also if you are at Eiffel stage, additional yiields from appeal are meaningless.
5) Just beneath this unexpected and strange appeal nirvana is pastre culture bomb and + housing, which are in fact better part of Australian ability, but noone cares.
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 18
Greece - Plato's Republic: 18
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 17
Kongo - Nkisi: 16
Maori - Mana: 21
Mongolia - Örtöö: 9 (8+1) I believe top3 should be Russia, Greece and mongolia, and Mngolia deserves the most help now. Someone told, there is no piont of this ability because AI is weak in defence and war at all. Actually AI is even weaker in the aspect of generating yields, so thinking this way, all other abilities left except Russia, Greece and Aztecs are even more useless, but are still on the table wih quite high score. The AI is so weak at managing yields, that science leader is usually Gilgamesh because of ziggurats. So let us skip AI and look at the game played against non artificial intelligence. You need that bonus against human player and human player can do absolutely nothing to prevent you from getting this.
Russia - Mother Russia : 12
Scotland - Scottish Enlightenment: 9