Civ Unique Ability Elimination Thread

[Pure24]

Australia - Land Down Under: 18 (17 + 1). People seem to be forgetting that the appeal isn't the only bonus Australia has going for them. They also get +3 housing for settling on coast. This is huge, because you get even more housing than a standard river start. And it has a synergy with the other part of the ability, that you get titles by the coast, which have high appeal. So there's your adjacency bonuses right there.
And we haven't even gotten to the culture bomb, which is excellent; pastures are great for Outback Stations, so you'll probably have them around too. This is a really good ability, deserves this spot
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 15
Greece - Plato's Republic: 16. A response to @NullNullError, you want a Wildcard policy slot least? Is that even a thing? Every card slot you can want is a Wildcard slot. Plus, Greece's slot is ADDITIONAL, it doesn't convert any slot type like Poland. Given that Classical Republic gives you zero military slots, it means if you go for it you cannot slot any additional military cards with Poland, but can do that as Greece. Greece's ability is clearly the superior one, even adding the encamptment culture bomb into the equation
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 7 (10 - 3). Sorry Japan. I love this ability because my addiction to orderliness gives me noises in my ear every time I have odd-numbered districts next to each other. This solves the issue for me. Alas, it is nowhere near as good as Australia (e.g. a district with 2 districts adjacent as Australia gives it +4 adjacency while with Japan it is +2. Even with only charming appeal, Australia matches it at +2 for both). Furthermore, it requires building more and more districts for you to reap rewards that match/exceed Australia's meaning goodbye early-game bonuses. Oh, and Australia also gets more bonuses on top of it all
Kongo - Nkisi: 14
Maori - Mana: 19
Russia - Mother Russia: 10

 

[Krajzen]

Australia - Land Down Under: 18
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 15
Greece - Plato's Republic: 16
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 7
Kongo - Nkisi: 14 + 1 = 15
Maori - Mana: 19 - 3 = 16
Russia - Mother Russia: 10

On one hand I approve Maori unique gameplay and their UA is indeed very good. But I wouldn't call it the strongest one and I really dislike civs designed around a huge number of unconnected bonuses. And Mana has 7 separate effects!
- Two of them are significant downsides (cannot harvest, cannot great writers)
- Two mostly insignificant (fishing boat /1 food and culture bomb)
- Two useful only on water heavy maps
- One being essentially "worse lumbermills but instant"

Compare with Nkisi - it is universal, always useful in general and amazing for one victory type in particular and allows on crazy combos.

 

[Leucarum]

Australia - Land Down Under: 18
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 15
Greece - Plato's Republic: 16
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 8 (7+1) In the last elimination thread I pushed for Australia over Japan, I have learned since then how valuable consistency is and I think I was wrong before. This isn't isn't as shiny and flashy as other adjacency bonuses but it definitely gets the job done. Every. Damn. Time.
Kongo - Nkisi: 15
Maori - Mana: 16
Russia - Mother Russia: 7 (10-3) I'm not really sure where to downvote at this point. Russia's ability is a bit random and most of the tiles you get, you probably would get by the time you needed them for other civs anyway...

 

[Kwami]

Australia - Land Down Under: 18 - 3 = 15 (This ability only works where appeal is high, which makes it very map dependent. Encourages settling on the coast, which has many drawbacks (wasted tiles, hurricanes, Harbors being worse than Commercial Hubs, vulnerability to naval attacks). Overall, weaker than Japan's ability.)
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 15
Greece - Plato's Republic: 16
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 8 + 1 = 9 (Unlike Australia, this ability has low map dependency and always just works. Also, it works in deserts, tundra, jungles, and everywhere else that has low appeal.)
Kongo - Nkisi: 15
Maori - Mana: 16
Russia - Mother Russia: 7

 

[MarigoldRan]

Australia - 15+1=16 Much stronger than Japan's.
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 15
Greece - Plato's Republic: 16
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 9-3=6 No. This is just weak compared to the rest.
Kongo - Nkisi: 15
Maori - Mana: 16
Russia - Mother Russia: 7

 

[Architect]

Australia - Land Down Under: 13 (16 - 3) I do not see how @Pure24 claims are possible without incredible early game appeal. Not only is the term adjacency being misused it is just not true how this ability works. A triangle of +1 appeal generating districts (holy site, theater square, entertainment complex, canal, and dam) might raise the appeal of surrounding tiles to charming or breathtaking increasing the yields of the districts but it is far from consistent and other factors can reduce the appeal. The appeal mini-game is not well understood either so the use of this ability is hard. Also the IZ, Encampment, Aerodome, and Spaceport reduce appeal.
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 15
Greece - Plato's Republic: 16
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 7(6 + 1) A district triangle of a pop 4 city in any environment is +2 yield for any district with yields. Throw in a aqueduct and a pop 4 city in any environment has a +3 campus or theater square at size 4 without even trying for normal adjacency. Most of the time its way easier to get everything +3 or more.
Kongo - Nkisi: 15
Maori - Mana: 16
Russia - Mother Russia: 7

 

[Arraz]

Australia - Land Down Under: 13
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 12 (15-3) Downvoted, not because of its weakness but because of how boring it is. This ability, to be used properly requires you to switch the prod of a city every single turn and use a single builder charge at a time. It's okay when you have 10 cities but if you re an expansionist (and the Aztecs are good at that...), micromanaging 20 cities like that becomes a chore that makes the game ridiculously boring.
Greece - Plato's Republic: 16
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 7
Kongo - Nkisi: 15
Maori - Mana: 16
Russia - Mother Russia: 8 (7+1) . 1 faith/1prod per tundra tile makes tundra a viable place to settle on. With this ability, the early faith generation is extremely high. And again, settling in a land no one wants makes for an easy expansion and enables you to avoid conflicts.

 

[Troy Bruckner]

Australia - Land Down Under: 13
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 12
Greece - Plato's Republic: 16
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 8 (7+1) A juggernaut of adjacency bonuses.
Kongo - Nkisi: 12 (15-3) It feels like other people are being coerced to make a mediocre ability win. If this ability was as good as the other voters are saying then Kongo should be S tier. They are C maybe B- at the most.
Maori - Mana: 16
Russia - Mother Russia: 8

 

[kb27787]

Australia - Land Down Under: 13
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 12
Greece - Plato's Republic: 16
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 5 (8-3) If you want mediocrity, this ability is exactly that. Not bad, but not gamebreakingly good. Bushido is the main selling point of the civ (reduced district cost to take advantage of district discounts) not Meiji restoration.
Kongo - Nkisi: 13 (12+1) And who exactly says Kongo is C or B-.... (depends who you ask; ask the Chinese for example and they will report that some of the fastest culture wins are with Kongo). When it comes to tier lists, people who vote tend to value military bonuses (and yet when we get down to a thread like this, military is simply too boring). One thing with Kongo was that public transport card was useless to them (and public transport + Eiffel was the meta for a long time); this is apparently no longer relevant. Another thing is that tier lists take the civ as a whole whereas we are only looking at civ UA here. I would put Seowon and Acropolis above the Mbanza (as the Mbanza stands by itself) but Nkisi certainly is stronger than 3 Kingdoms for example,
Maori - Mana: 16
Russia - Mother Russia: 8

 

[BarbarianHunter]

Australia - Land Down Under: 10 (13-3) --- There are allot of breathtaking tiles out there, you just need to find, then acquire them. The process of acquisition (aka warring) is just a tad bit too tedious post cav nerf.
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 12
Greece - Plato's Republic: 16
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 6 (5+1) --- Nice mellow "tallesque" builder ability with allot of consistency.
Kongo - Nkisi: 13
Maori - Mana: 16
Russia - Mother Russia: 8

 

[_Calyx]

Australia - Land Down Under: 10
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 12
Greece - Plato's Republic: 16
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 7 (6+1) I can never tell how strong this is while playing, but I do love building nicely compact cities and it is incredibly consistent across maps.
Kongo - Nkisi: 10 (13-3) I've never liked Kongo, and with this ability in particular I feel it is really strong if you find an early relic (even better if you find Kandy) and otherwise not great. It probably deserves to be here primarily for the great person points, but now its time to go.
Maori - Mana: 16
Russia - Mother Russia: 8

 

[Kimiimaro]

Australia - Land Down Under: 10
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 12
Greece - Plato's Republic: 16-3=13 - Look, I know that policies can be strong if done right. But for me, it's not fun to micromanage them, and I usually manage to fill the policies I need anyway, leaving only the worse and less needed cards to fill additional policy slots. I consider the free Wildcard a nice perk, but no, I wouldn't swap it for great people factory+multifunctional theater squares, superdistricts+ considerably more living space+culture bombs...
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 7
Kongo - Nkisi: 10
Maori - Mana: 16
Russia - Mother Russia: 8+1=9 - ...or useful Tundra, resistence to one of the worst disasters, also using the said disaster against the enemy, and more than twice as much tiles with each new city. This ability alone makes Russia great, the others turn it into a tough beast.

 

[enKage]

Australia - Land Down Under: 10
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 9 (12-3) I don't want to downvote Australia again, and among the rest this is the least impactful. Early districts are cheap anyway and sometimes using build charge on tile improvement is better. You cannot rely to have endless builders from eagle warriors.And later... Reyna comes into play. Sincerely Hungary is much strnger and has been aliminated, England is stronger too in this aspects, as most usage of speeding up districts is dams/aqueducts early/middle game.
Greece - Plato's Republic: 13
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 7
Kongo - Nkisi: 10
Maori - Mana: 16
Russia - Mother Russia: 10 (9+1) Tundra blah blah tundra blah blah. Of course it is nice to get more yields from it, but what really matters is the ability to settle plainhill/luxury and not to lose good tiles to work. having luxury from turn 0/1 or more hammers on city tile from turn 0/1 kills everything here. Not that other civs can't settle plainhill/luxury, but often (or usually) have to sacrifice growth+prod tile. Russia is the only civ totally independent from map generator because of this ability.
It saves hundreds of money (not buying tiles), gives hundreds of additional money (selling luxury), speeds up firdt settler/builders. Great



About Greece, from downvote reasoning

I know that policies can be strong if done right. But for me, it's not fun to micromanage them,

It is an absurd....
If you have one more policy card it automatically means, you micromanage them less.
So you should rather upvote Greece strongly

 

[KayAU]

Australia - Land Down Under: 11 (10 + 1) I don't think I have upvoted this one yet, and I feel it deserves it. The housing bonus and culture bomb are pretty good, but the bonus yields to districts is probably the most impactful, especially in the earlier parts of the game.
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 6 (9 - 3) As stated before, this ability was probably better before you had governors which could buy districts outright. Early game districts are not that expensive,
Greece - Plato's Republic: 13
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 7
Kongo - Nkisi: 10
Maori - Mana: 16
Russia - Mother Russia: 10

 

[oSiyeza]

Australia - Land Down Under: 11
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 6
Greece - Plato's Republic: 13
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 8 =7 +1

Simply the best implementation in the game of a characteristic of a real Civilization. It feels like Japan should. Really powerful too.

Kongo - Nkisi: 10
Maori - Mana: 13 = 16 -3

Is not bad, I just think is not as interesting to deserve the highest score.

Russia - Mother Russia: 10

 

[DWilson]

Australia - Land Down Under: 8 (11-3) This ability is good, but for me it is less good than some of these others, like the Aztec bonus.
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 7 (6+1) I am shocked to see the quick downfall of this ability as well. In my experience, this is my favorite ability, and I would say it's the best of the infrastructure/civ-builder focused abilities. I vote now to give it one extra touch of life.
Greece - Plato's Republic: 13
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 8
Kongo - Nkisi: 10
Maori - Mana: 13
Russia - Mother Russia: 10

 

[Goodenuf]

Australia - Land Down Under: 5 (8-3) Still a fun ability, but too situational compared to the rest of the group. Every other Civ listed has features that work on most map types and different styles.
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 7
Greece - Plato's Republic: 13
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 8
Kongo - Nkisi: 10
Maori - Mana: 14 (13+1) Honestly, if I were to pick any one of the remaining Civs here, I'd have the most fun playing Maori. Every game is a blast. and seemingly every game is different. That's saying something.
Russia - Mother Russia: 10

 

[lotrmith]

Australia - Land Down Under: 5
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 7
Greece - Plato's Republic: 13
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 8
Kongo - Nkisi: 10


Maori - Mana: 15 (14+1) This wins just for flavor. The rest of the rather strong components are just icing on the cake.


Russia - Mother Russia: 7 = 10 - 3 What good is grabbing extra land when you don't have the population to work it? Doubly so when that extra land is 1 food 1 prod 1 faith tundra. You can't eat faith. You can't build food. Unless you hamstring yourself by using your valuable early production on granaries and shrines and following with a Feed the World religion. Being forced to play suboptimal isn't my idea of a good ability. This was far worse before Monumentality became a thing, and it still means playing from behind and hoping you can slingshot later.

 

[Victoria]

Australia - Land Down Under: 2 (5-3) I started another game and got the Dead Sea next to me! Yessss+3 Campus... but 100 turns on it is a +4 Campus where in my other games they are all +4 by this stage, sure I could have got it higher but why spend the extra effort for this. Pastures are map dependant, I got none.
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 7
Greece - Plato's Republic: 13
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 8
Kongo - Nkisi: 10
Maori - Mana: 16 (15+1) the most fun for me by far, no idea why people think these many abilities are not good and just suggest they are not using that advantage. Marae get so much culture so early that they work well with an SV or Dom also, great writers risk an accidental tourism win. you want culture but not a CV, maoris are well placed. They are in fact great for a dipv because of Marae’s as you get the envoys faster with no global warming. All those trees give ok adjacency for campus and holy site also.
Russia - Mother Russia: 7

 

[OmegaDestroyer]

Australia - Land Down Under: 0 (2-3) ELIMINATED. G'bye, Mate. It's certainly a strong ability but not nearly as useful as the others.
Aztec - Legend of the Five Suns: 7
Greece - Plato's Republic: 14 (13+1) The free wild policy slot alone makes the ability shine and gives you a lot of freedom in how to build your civilization.
Japan - Meiji Restoration: 8
Kongo - Nkisi: 10
Maori - Mana: 16
Russia - Mother Russia: 7