Civs and Victory Types

[lamaros]

So, lets have a little discussion about the Civs and how their strengths might lend them to a specific victory type over others, though the strong ones are obviously able to do them all, and perhaps even better than those designed for a specific one.

Note: This is not a ranking at how good these civs are at getting a certain victory, just how much they lean towards that relative to other victory types.

I've organised them in groups of possible victory advantages, and then listed them in order as per how much they favour this relative to how they favour other options. I've put the civ in underline where I think this is their primary aim (can be more than one).

What stands out for me is how few civs seem set up to aim at a science victory, with really only Saladin, Qin Shi Huang, and Pedro II (not as much) specifically targeting it, and Germany just being in the group on the back of their industrial power and lack of specific focus.

Another thing is how few religious civs there are, with Spain mostly using religion to power domination, and Norway being a bit of an afterthought.

Meanwhile there are a lot of civs that have significant bonuses when targeting a cultural victory, which was a bit higher than I thought.

Religion Civs

Indian (Gandhi)
Arabian (Saladin)
Russian (Peter)
Japanese (Hojo Tokimune)
Spanish (Philip II)
Brazilian (Pedro II)
Norwegian (Harald Hardrada)

Culture Civs

French (Catherine de Medici)
Kongolese (Mvemba a Nzinga)
Greek (Pericles)
American (Teddy Roosevelt)
English (Victoria)
Egyptian (Cleopatra)
Brazilian (Pedro II)
Russian (Peter)
Chinese (Qin Shi Huang)
Japanese (Hojo Tokimune)
Greek (Gorgo)
Roman (Trajan)

Science Civs

Chinese (Qin Shi Huang)
Arabian (Saladin)
Brazilian (Pedro II)
German (Frederick Barbarossa)

Domination Civs

Scythian (Tomyris)
Aztec (Montezuma)
Sumerian (Gilgamesh)
Norwegian (Harald Hardrada)
Roman (Trajan)
Greek (Gorgo)
Spanish (Philip II)
Japanese (Hojo Tokimune)
German (Frederick Barbarossa)
Egyptian (Cleopatra)
English (Victoria)
Indian (Gandhi)
American (Teddy Roosevelt)

Summary

Scythian (Tomyris) - Domination
Aztec (Montezuma) - Domination
Sumerian (Gilgamesh) - Domination
Norwegian (Harald Hardrada) - Domination, Religion
Roman (Trajan) - Domination, Culture
Greek (Gorgo) - Domination, Culture
Spanish (Philip II) - Domination, Religion
Japanese (Hojo Tokimune) - Domination, Culture, Religion
German (Frederick Barbarossa) - Domination, Science

Chinese (Qin Shi Huang) - Science, Culture
Arabian (Saladin) - Science, Religion
Brazilian (Pedro II) - Science, Culture, Religion

French (Catherine de Medici) - Culture
Kongolese (Mvemba a Nzinga) - Culture
Greek (Pericles) - Culture
American (Teddy Roosevelt) - Culture, Domination
English (Victoria) - Culture, Domination
Egyptian (Cleopatra) - Culture, Domination
Russian (Peter) - Culture, Religion

Indian (Gandhi) - Religion, Domination

Thoughts of others?

 

[rpgalon]

Brazil is Religion too, the amount of faith you pump out from rainforest adjacency bonus and sacred path panteon with 100% adjacency bonus to holy site = +4 faith/rainforests tile.

I easily get holy sites with +16 to +24 faith yield from adjacency bonus. And this is without any building in the Holy Site.

 

[Pysethus]

Scythia is the best science civ right now until unit selling is balanced properly. Producing horsemen with +100% production civic and deleting them for gold is the most efficient way to use your production.

 

[Katakanja]

Whilst some of the civs certainly lean towards specific victory types, I'd actually say that in comparison to, say, civ V's leaders, this bunch are on the whole much more versatile. You've suggested Brazil is science or culture oriented, but as rpgalon pointed out, they can also be a faith powerhouse under the right circumstances. You've also listed Japan as favouring everything but the space victory, but personally that was the fist victory type I thought of going for when I played as them - they might not have a direct boost to science, but their industrial districts with electronics factories and the improved adjacency bonus were perfect for pumping out the spaceports and mars projects much faster than my first attempt at that victory type as England. As for Scythia, you have them down just for domination, but with their kurgans and a mountain start with plentiful faith, I went for a combination of domination and religious victory, and when it came down to taking the final capital, i could have just as easily sent in the apostles rather than my army to win.

Honestly, I feel like its much more a case of each leader offering different methods of approaching all the victory types, rather than them being focused on just one, and that ties back into Firaxis's goal of making adapting to the environment you find yourself in in any given game as important as the choices you make. Its also helped by how much overlap there is between all the different yields for each victory - for instance both science and hammers are important for space victory, hell hammers seem important for everything in civ 6 at the mo, and a strong culture output helps you pick up better governments and policies that will boost you towards whatever victory you like.

 

[lamaros]

This is true, but assuming the science to production ratio gets worked out some will lean some ways more than others.

I did have Japan down as science for a bit too, but it's more a product of their evenness, rather than their traits. Brazil is an oversight, it should probably be Religion too. For Scythia, is the Kurgan decent enough to really power a Religion victory, or does that fall more under the "you can win any method with anyone if you know how to play" method?

 

[Katakanja]

Well, it was more the combo of Kurgans and mountain adjacency bonuses for my holy sites that fuelled the faith side of things, so I more meant that as an example of unpredictable map conditions playing as large a role as any given civ's specialties.

I still stick to civ 6 leaders being designed for versatility, although, perhaps it would make more sense to think about the victory types themselves in different terms?

I mean, you could almost pair off the four victories - culture/science would be 'defensive' because they primarily involve you optimising the outputs of your own civilization, whereas domination/religion would be 'offensive' as they involve you directly influencing your opponents' civs with your units. Then, if we lump together your original list so that all the domination and faith civs are together, same with the culture and science civs, the two sides start to look about the same length, rather than having the small groups for science and religion that you pointed out.

 

[VTMatt]

This is true, but assuming the science to production ratio gets worked out some will lean some ways more than others.
I did have Japan down as science for a bit too, but it's more a product of their evenness, rather than their traits.

I agree. I feel the same about Germany and Rome too. Their high production and gold output respectively makes them feel pretty adaptable to any victory path, with the possible exception of religious.