Civilization 6 Tier List 1.0

I'd wait on the first balance patch and more people chiming in still.
I would not wait. Better to discuss now, so maybe some of that information will reach devs eventually and the first patch will fix more than less.
 
All right, unless people are opposed to it, I'll have an initial list up later today when I get home from work.
 
Would people be interested in an ongoing Tier List in the vein of adwcta's thread for BNW? So far, the OP in this thread hasn't been updated at all. It's not a bad list, but we're already seeing a growing consensus to the contrary on Sumeria (which OP classified as '**** tier') and I expect to see more differences emerge as we play and discuss more.

I'd be open to hosting it, and would continually edit it as discussions continue, people go over different arguments regarding the civs, and patches/updates come out. As it is, without a solid reference point, this thread is already becoming a disorganized discussion of why different civs are strong or weak. I'd be happy to draft an OP and maintain a thread for this.

I'm all for it.
But please consider continents or fractal as a base line for map scripts. Lists and discussions that are catered to Pangea are just worthless imo, only useful to the quite prominent CIV5 crowd who thought that it's the only worthwhile map script to discuss and play on (while in reality, it's just an overly simplistic way to play because it eliminates whole parts of the game like renaissance exploration or the struggle to organize an attack onto a different land mass).

Oh, and give England the place it deserves.;) I've seen nothing but positive feedback about them in this thread. Unique spam-able district, insane museums, very good abilities and UUs for late game expansion and grabbing seaside resorts.
Probably not highest top-tier because harbors can be situational but still, you can always have 2-3 coastal cities, a lot more after second expansion wave later.

I also feel like it should be based on SP, not MP.
 
I'm all for it.
But please consider continents or fractal as a base line for map scripts. Lists and discussions that are catered to Pangea are just worthless imo, only useful to the quite prominent CIV5 crowd who thought that it's the only worthwhile map script to discuss and play on (while in reality, it's just an overly simplistic way to play because it eliminates whole parts of the game like renaissance exploration or the struggle to organize an attack onto a different land mass).

But, Pangaea is by far the most popular map type for multi-player games...

I also feel like it should be based on SP, not MP.

Oh. Why not include both, though? MP is pretty popular, too.
 
But, Pangaea is by far the most popular map type for multi-player games...



Oh. Why not include both, though? MP is pretty popular, too.

Because that's exactly why. Balance in MP is an entirely different story. Civs with early game boosts and focus on the very specific gameplay on pangea makes criteria very different compared to SP. You can do two separate lists of course and compare them. Should be a fun discussion.

I didn't mean to bash the MP crowd, of course ^^
 
Because that's exactly why. Balance in MP is an entirely different story. Civs with early game boosts and focus on the very specific gameplay on pangea makes criteria very different compared to SP. You can do two separate lists of course and compare them. Should be a fun discussion.

I didn't mean to bash the MP crowd, of course ^^

Two lists is OK, but ignoring MP isn't. I would actually argue that the relative power of each civilization is more important in MP than it is in SP.
 
The list will be geared to deity-level SP. We'll be ranking based on all core map types, and eventually I might add markers to distinguish which civs do better on Pangaea or Islands maps.
 
I'm all for it.
But please consider continents or fractal as a base line for map scripts. Lists and discussions that are catered to Pangea are just worthless imo, only useful to the quite prominent CIV5 crowd who thought that it's the only worthwhile map script to discuss and play on (while in reality, it's just an overly simplistic way to play because it eliminates whole parts of the game like renaissance exploration or the struggle to organize an attack onto a different land mass).

Oh, and give England the place it deserves.;) I've seen nothing but positive feedback about them in this thread. Unique spam-able district, insane museums, very good abilities and UUs for late game expansion and grabbing seaside resorts.
Probably not highest top-tier because harbors can be situational but still, you can always have 2-3 coastal cities, a lot more after second expansion wave later.

I also feel like it should be based on SP, not MP.
i'm not a part of any "crowd" but one-continent maps are in my opinion by far the best to play, not because they are the best but because these additional parts of the game introduce hurdles the AI can't overcome and aren't really relevant long term anyway. I played a continent map, cleared one for myself and it was a straight and boring path to victory, same in civ5. I don't think the choice of a civ would even matter then, other than for the first 100 turns where you essentially are playing on Pangea.
 
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I'm joining a bandwagon here.

Civ games arepretty much decided by how solid you build the foundations of your empire on Ancient and Classic eras. I mean, Prince difficulty you play as you want, but as soon as Emperor difficulty is on, I can't win unless I get a hold on the continent very early. You just can't keep up with AI's bonuses, so you better conquer the cities they built so fast, as well as the Wonders they so carefully built in them for you.

Which is why I place a lot of value on early loaded Civs.

Sumeria is all about conquering you neightbours with warcarts. I honestly don't see any other strategy with them.
Aztecs are less frontloaded than Sumeria but still very frontloaded. Span Eagle warrior, conquer your neightbour, get workers from their fallen soldiers, build your empire. Use captured workers to rush districts that otherwise you would leave for later like Campus and Holy Site (getting a Religion too).

Those 2 above are probably the best at conquering early, which assures you will have a strong empire early. Below are some that are pretty good at it too, even though they might not excel at doing so like the previous 2.

Greeks, mostly Gorgo, have their hoplites. Make a solid army of 4+ hoplites and conquer your neightbour while getting a lot of culture meanwhile.
Romans need to rush their Legion since they are, indeed, strong. When Legionnaires aren't conquering your neightbours, their are harvesting woods and jungles, rushing your empire (even if you are building another Legion).
Scythia, even non exploit, is really good at conquering early and overall a solid Civ. Their UU don't take long to research and, although they are weaker than Cleopatra's chariot, you get 2 for 1. Same for every light cavarly.
Talking about Cleopatra, I consider her, and Egypt, a good option as well. Certainly worse than the ones I mentioned earlier, but good nonetheless.

Now, all those guys are good at maps that allow them to start near someone to begin with. Island map might benefit civs like England and Germany more. In fact, the reason Germany is so good has more to do with how all those production bonuses allow them to catch up with the powered up AI in higher difficulties.
 
I went ahead and posted the new thread in the Strategy & Tips Forum. While I can see it fitting on either side, the General forum can get a bit busy and cluttered at times (now is one of those times), and I'd rather keep the discussion in the somewhat slower, more strategy-focused forum.
 
Hm. I don't know about MP and I don't know about SP. In fact, I'm not entirely sure there's a point to ranking the Civs in terms of "power." It would, if the AI were any good, but that's never going to happen, and MP balance is nice, but a 4X game without broken abilities just isn't very fun. There are a number of those and they're less interesting. Balanced, though.

What I mean is that it's a presumption that the game is more difficult when you increase the difficulty option. It probably is for newbs, but for vets, it just means that you have to find some exploit that allows you to take advantage of the AI's bonuses. Sometimes that's war. Sometimes that's insane trade deals. In both of these options, you're really making the AI build cities and Wonders for you with all its bonuses, and then taking them all by making relatively cheaper units and going to war. Not exactly "harder." Harder if you commit to never doing deals or conquering any foreign city - that's a real challenge. But as soon as you're conquering, you're just using Deity AI build bonuses for yourself.

I say this because ranking the Civs based only on Deity difficulty doesn't really say anything about how that Civ plays natively. It says that that Civ leverages Deity bonuses well. So if you made a theoretical Civ whose only Leader UA was "gets the Difficulty Bonus of any AI Civ they meet," then THAT Civ would be the best at Deity, which totally illustrates the point.

Anywho, I just played Sumeria, and it's fantastic! The War Carts are nice, of course, but the best part is that you get to go Barbarian Hunting for goody hut bonuses all game long (don't put it on Deity, so you get unsettled places until the end). The second best part is that I get ZERO Warmonger Penalties for declaring war on any Civ that's at war with my Friends or Allies, and ZERO Warmonger Penalties for declaring Protectorate War. Hah!
 
Tier 5 – **** tier
• France as Catherine de' Medici

1. Grand tour (4/10)
2. Catherine’s Flying Squadron (3/10)
3. Garde Impenale (5/10)
4. Chateau (2/10)

Tried France in my last game. Online, Emperor, Pangea, no cheats used (like selling units).

I think France is very underrated. The point is to play defensively from the beggining, stand early aggression, get solid economy.
Than focus on Castles tech to get your first spy and start stealing techs from other civ.
Than focus on getting Garde Impenale. In his era, this unit is really OP: 65 default strength + 10 on his continent + promotions + generals (quick from Garde's special ability) + possible unit grouping with nationalism = nearly 100 strength units, which can deal even with infantry. Its possible to take cities on your continent with it without artillery and go wide conquest.

In my game I wiped out 2 neighbor civs (germany & america) in 1 war by 16 turns, took 5 cities.

Got spies working relatively early - got 3-4 techs for free.

Grand tour is useful too, especially if you stack great wonder construction bonuses. Go autocracy to gain +% to GW contstuction, take policy for +15%. Get up to 40-50% to middle ages - industrial wonder constructions.
Get Forbidden Palace, as it gives you so important policy slots.

Ok, Chateau is completely useless, didn't find situation when it was worth to build it. :)

So my rating is

• France as Catherine de' Medici
1. Grand tour (7/10)
2. Catherine’s Flying Squadron (6/10)
3. Garde Impenale (8/10)
4. Chateau (2/10)

Between good and great tear.
 
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Hi guys, new member here. I'm not sure if anyone has posted this yet but I'll go ahead anyways.

As Germany, if you found your cities rather close together you can stack your Hansas and commercial districts together for added adjacency bonuses.

Notice how I placed my Hansa between Magdeburg, Berlin and Mainz. Magdeburg's Hansa had 3 adjacent CD's and ended up with 18 production.
Of course Aachen still took the cake with over 150 hammers(Ruhr Valley of course) by victory at turn 317. But Magdeburg still had nearly 130 hammers.

Out of each of the civs I've tried I havent been able to even come close to the kind of production that Germany can turn out. Even Japans Electronics Factory cant compete. Production is so important in this game I'd say they're easily the strongest civ in the game right now.

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Err, when folks are talking about Archer spam in the context of Scythia's ranking, is that supposed to be a ding against their placing? Because I'm pretty sure Scythia has the best Archer spam out of all civs currently. What other civ would like to take their chances of Archer spam against Scythia's vampiric Archer spam?
 
Err, when folks are talking about Archer spam in the context of Scythia's ranking, is that supposed to be a ding against their placing? Because I'm pretty sure Scythia has the best Archer spam out of all civs currently. What other civ would like to take their chances of Archer spam against Scythia's vampiric Archer spam?
That also goes for apostle spam. Scythia is the best civ in religious combat due to the bonus against wounded units and apostles heal when killing a unit. Makes them way too powerful in the hands of the player.
 
I would rate Sumeria very high, perhaps at the very top.

* The War-cart is really powerful, mobile, hard to counter, and available right at the start. It will give you the ability to take over nearby rival capitals in the ancient era, before there are warmonger penalties.
* The bonus experience from allies is not fantastic, but more useful than you might think, as you seem to get experience for AI fighting barbarians.
* Unique tile improvements are generally not great, but the Ziggurat can at least provide you with some early culture at a time when culture is sparse.
* The goodie hut rewards from clearing barbarian encampments is incredible: In Civ 6 there will usually be large unsettled areas throughout the entire game, especially in the tundra. These areas will spawn barbarians, providing you with a fantastic source of eurekas/inspirations, free traders and other bonuses throughout the entire game. Yes, you can actually get a tech boost for Rocketry from clearing an encampment.

All of the bonuses will benefit you right from the start of the game, which is when bonuses have the largest impact. Having an advantage in the ancient era is better than having one in the industrial era.
 
That also goes for apostle spam. Scythia is the best civ in religious combat due to the bonus against wounded units and apostles heal when killing a unit. Makes them way too powerful in the hands of the player.

Yep--Scythia is way better at religious combat even than Spain, which is hilarious, because that's like Spain's entire shtick.
 
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Yep--Scythia is way better at religious combat even than Spain, which is hilarious, because that's like Spain's entire shtick.
In general the fact that regular combat bonuses affect theological combat as well is just plain dumb. That should definitely be patched. Same way Japan's apostles are stronger on the coast and certain military policies like Wars of Religion apply to them as well. I can buy Spain's ability as that feels kind of intentional (though it should probably be rephrased if so), but everything else should be removed
 
Hi guys, new member here. I'm not sure if anyone has posted this yet but I'll go ahead anyways.

As Germany, if you found your cities rather close together you can stack your Hansas and commercial districts together for added adjacency bonuses.

Notice how I placed my Hansa between Magdeburg, Berlin and Mainz. Magdeburg's Hansa had 3 adjacent CD's and ended up with 18 production.
Of course Aachen still took the cake with over 150 hammers(Ruhr Valley of course) by victory at turn 317. But Magdeburg still had nearly 130 hammers.

Out of each of the civs I've tried I havent been able to even come close to the kind of production that Germany can turn out. Even Japans Electronics Factory cant compete. Production is so important in this game I'd say they're easily the strongest civ in the game right now.

If you have Toronto in your game, bonuses can get even more ridiculous. I just finished my game as Japan and had Toronto next to me to increase the factory reach. I had one city that was getting +46 from electronics factories (I hadn't finished a few power plants when the game ended, so was only getting I think +34 from power plants). I was at over 150 production, and that's not even abusing trade routes as I think it only had 1 or 2 coming from it. I started Ruhr Valley near the end of the game and it was supposed to take 8 turns. I did sneak in a few tiny last minute cities, but it's pretty impressive to have a size-1 city and build industrial zone/workshop/electronics factory I believe in under 10 turns combined just due to factory overlap. Japan doesn't quite get the same bonus that the Hansa does, but it's still really easy to throw the IZ in a triangle and be getting +4 or +5 from adjacencies.
 
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