[R&F] Criminally underrated

[acluewithout]

What do you think in Civ is underrated?

Things that are more powerful than people realise, or more fun. Things people should experiment with more.

My top 5:

- Aqueducts.

- Farms.

- Entertainment Complex (see post, although I’m still thinking about it).

- Harbours (or is everyone on board with these now?).

- Indistrial Zones (no, they’re terrible; but they are good fun).

Spearmen / anti-can were on my list, but the recent buff to them (agoge etc) and buff to medieval melee has actually crystalised for me how awful they are...

Walls, forts and monarchy still seem bad to me, but would love to hear a different view.

... and don’t say “England” unless you’re going to explain yourself... ;-)

 

[blackbutterfly]

Real maps. E.g: Scrambled maps in Civ V.

Scenarios. E.g: Into The Renaissance and Scramble For Africa in Civ V.

 

[sixty4half]

Pantheons - Earth Goddess

So many tiles are 2 or more Appeal it's ridiculous. It might not be as big of a front load of faith like Dance of Aurora or Desert Folklore, however, with those you'll only have a couple of cities in the tundra or desert. Every city will have at least a couple of Charming tiles if not a dozen or so. So I think it ends up being a bigger boost in the long run.

I haven't personally done the math on it, but it always gets me tons of free faith for working tiles I'm gonna work anyways.

Edit: Combine with Eiffel Tower and most of the tiles in all of your cities will provide +1 faith. It's almost like getting 1 faith per Population Point.

 

[Leyrann]

England.

Spoiler :

By Firaxis, that is. Largest empire the world has ever seen and we get this?

 

[kryat]

I think this post was to talk about things that are underrated, not underpowered.

My top 5:
-Wisselbanken
-Logistics
-Frigates
-Spies
-Levying city states

 

[Rosty K]

-Frigates

More like navy in general.

Though, there seem to be two kinds of Civ6 players: those who use the navy, and those who don't. Those who use do appreciate them frigates. And privateers. Not even speaking about Jongs

Speaking of which, coastal cities are quite underrated as well. In R&F (with more sea resources and reefs) they're not that bad even without Auckland + Nan Madol.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I think this post was to talk about things that are underrated, not underpowered.

My top 5:
-Wisselbanken
-Logistics
-Frigates
-Spies
-Levying city states

Wisselbanken is awesome. I think it is under the radar because of how CHs have kind of fallen out of favor. People should try a game with Poundmaker if they want to try this card.

 

[eleven11]

+1 for Spies. Critical to get them out early and upgraded quickly if playing peacefully. Use the 25% reduction in mission time policy.

 

[Sostratus]

My top 5:
-Wisselbanken
-Logistics

Logistics is just plain fun. Even builders get a huge benefit from it.

Wisselbanken and AoD are situationally OP cards. If you don't have an alliance, worthless. If you have an alliance, game-breakingly good. +4 yield! That's the isolationism dark age policy without the settler restriction- AND the other side gets +4 yield as well. Arsenal of Democracy takes things up to 11. I think they changed Ecommerce solely because of the fact that Alliance trade routes could become base yield +4 food / +9 prod / +10 gold monsters and there's just nothing you can do if the allies are neighbors. It's the best part of meeting Gilgamesh early on- perma ally him and just rake in the yields later. Plus there's other foreign trade routes benefits you can get too.

Do people use Mausoleum+Great Engineers much? Most games I try to get Mausoleum+James Watt+Nikola Tesla <3 . It's just so strong to get an extra activation on a lot of engineers, but those two especially. Joseph Paxton late game can also make you perma ecstatic everywhere if you have a well planned EC (usually your Colosseum city.) Other than Colosseum, and sometimes Temple of Artemis, it's about the only early wonder I really try for all the time.

 

[RealHuhn]

The district discount mechanism. Building districts for half the prize is awesome.

Probably under the radar because it's too nerdy for 98% of the player base.

 

[acluewithout]

I should probably have said my "top 5" for today.

Vote for Wissen-thingy and Logistics.

Are Frigates "underrated "? Nevermind: I agree they're just awesome. Frigates are so awesome they actually make all the unique Frigates feel less fun.

Are Spies underrated? Nevermind: also awesome. I remember sounding off a million years ago about how you couldn't really lean into spies and were too tied to the civics tree. The spy building in the government plaza does such a good job of fixing that. And then RnF has improved them so much besides - love the combat bonus from spies and printing. So cool.

Actually, you can add to my top five (for tomorrow):

- Printing.

- Levy city states (which people have mentioned).

- Unqiue tile improvements from City States (so useless; but so fun).

 

[eleven11]

Grenada got blasted in the CS elimination thread. I agree that it's not the most useful CS but that's really due to the strength of the other CS class types. I probably wouldn't pursue suzerainship too much with Grenada but sometimes it just falls to me on the cheap.

For culture games where I also go wide I want population control so I don't hit amenity issues. Grenada's Alacazar improvement can give me that population control with a +2 culture bonus. Just 1 in new periphery cities in the early game can help a lot in pushing through the civics tree and speeding up border expansion. Sometimes I will spam them late in the game and switch the smaller cities over to culture focus for a decent boost.

Again, not an efficient use of envoys but sometimes CS quests or emergencies align and you find yourself suze of Grenada.

 

[UWHabs]

I should probably have said my "top 5" for today.

Vote for Wissen-thingy and Logistics.

Are Frigates "underrated "? Nevermind: I agree they're just awesome. Frigates are so awesome they actually make all the unique Frigates feel less fun.

Are Spies underrated? Nevermind: also awesome. I remember sounding off a million years ago about how you couldn't really lean into spies and were too tied to the civics tree. The spy building in the government plaza does such a good job of fixing that. And then RnF has improved them so much besides - love the combat bonus from spies and printing. So cool.

Actually, you can add to my top five (for tomorrow):

- Printing.

- Levy city states (which people have mentioned).

- Unqiue tile improvements from City States (so useless; but so fun).

Wisselbanken (that's the trade routes to allies card?) is awesome. Especially if you also have other bonuses to trade routes, I've had some pretty insane ones. I think it was with the later ally trade route card, I was getting like +4 food, +5 production, +30 gold, and a handful of faith/culture from trade routes to my allies cities. Although I do wonder what it did for them, me sending like 15 trade routes to their city each giving it +4 food and +4 production...

Frigates and navy definitely pack a punch. Battleships especially. Having boosted range and super power if you get them early, they eat through the AI like swiss cheese. That's why I feel like Brazil is underrated - to get a battleship power an era early is basically like telling the AI "GG, thanks for coming".

Spies are pretty great too. My last 2 games I've gotten them promoted to steal money. You can easily grab 500-1000 gold every 4 turns in a nice neighbouring commerce hub, with 90%+ success rate. And that's with only 1 spy.

And with the tile improvements, I did have a good game recently where I made great use of Colossal heads. I basically blanketed my tundra with them, and since that land was usable as Russia, I actually got something out of it. Similarly if you have a Petra city, if you can cover it in unique improvements, that helps so much on those tiles if you have flat desert tiles.

I'll also upvote farms. They may not actually be great, but the satisfaction of a solid farming triangle/diamond/etc is just so beautiful. Or when you get like a marsh/rice tile that you can cover with farms, there's just something sexy about having a 10 or 11 food tile.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Do people not value logistics as a high tier option? If not then yes it's underrated. I'd imagine the builder move boost is good for peace players as a military slot, but at this stage of the game you have great general + supply convoy + logistics to push even 2 move stuff to 5 speed, at a stage of the game where roads are finally meaningful. You will almost always have this bonus active in practice, so it functions close to a global +1 move speed. Promoted infantry have 6 speed! Even machine guns are decent with so much movement, able to move in --> shoot --> move out when promoted to power through tricky spots or sure-kill something.

A few others:

• Corps/armies - These + promotions beat units a full era in front straight up, and absolutely massacre same era or earlier (often 1 shot). I've seen many comments where posters don't use them, which only makes sense if you're not fighting at all.
• Navy - Navy is map dependent, but when it's viable to use at all it's pretty darned strong. Fusing boats is just as good as land units btw.
• Ancient walls - SP only but the AI's complete ineptitude with siege makes a walled city nearly impervious in practice, especially on city state/joint war ally flanks. Pretty good deal to shut down potentially a dozen units for a while on a front.
• America - Most times in SP you are going to win if you live in the early goings. Flat +5 on all units for defense and quite possibly for first 1-2 offensive moves is a major boost. That + extra wildcard slot over diplo overpowers the nigh-useless UU stuff and makes this a pretty consistent civ.

 

[Ferocitus]

England.

Spoiler :

By Firaxis, that is. Largest empire the world has ever seen and we get this?

You are supposed to make it one to stand the test of time. It's not a given.

 

[Archon_Wing]

France's extra spy I think has always been underrated.

 

[Forster]

You are supposed to make it one to stand the test of time. It's not a given.

You are being facetious, right? How many of the civs are still here and considered world powers. None from the ancient era. Many classical era countries are still here, if that is what you mean by stand the test of time. So how does Sumeria or Rome stand the test of time and not England because it is no longer the most powerful country in the world? Doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Ferocitus]

You are being facetious, right?

No. Dead serious.

How many of the civs are still here and considered world powers. None from the ancient era. Many classical era countries are still here, if that is what you mean by stand the test of time. So how does Sumeria or Rome stand the test of time and not England because it is no longer the most powerful country in the world? Doesn't make sense to me.

You, as the player, are supposed to make the civ one that will stand the test
of time. It is not a given that your civ will necessarily be great at any stage of
the game.

What those civs were, or are now in reality, means nothing in the game, except
as a rough example of what they could become.

Did you expect England to be more powerful in the game because they were an
actual world power for a few centuries from about 1500 onwards?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It's reasonable to want unique stuff to a civ to be consistently beneficial. I don't see a need to base it on comparative IRL power, but that's not really the problem for England in the game. Civs with unique stuff that doesn't get used wind up not being very interesting compared to a generic choice.

 

[Ferocitus]

Grenada got blasted in the CS elimination thread. I agree that it's not the most useful CS but that's really due to the strength of the other CS class types. I probably wouldn't pursue suzerainship too much with Grenada but sometimes it just falls to me on the cheap.

For culture games where I also go wide I want population control so I don't hit amenity issues. Grenada's Alacazar improvement can give me that population control with a +2 culture bonus. Just 1 in new periphery cities in the early game can help a lot in pushing through the civics tree and speeding up border expansion. Sometimes I will spam them late in the game and switch the smaller cities over to culture focus for a decent boost.

Again, not an efficient use of envoys but sometimes CS quests or emergencies align and you find yourself suze of Grenada.

So much depends on the number of civs you play against, the pace, and the
number of CS. The way you like to play, your interaction with CS, and ones
that you want control over, is unlikely to have much in common with other
people who prefer other styles. And there are literally hundreds of thousands
of variations, without mods. You can assume that all the preferences people
spruik for should be considered as relative to "standard" maps against a
"standard" number of other civs, but that represents a very small fraction of
what people actually play most of the time. GOTM excluded, of course.

IMO, the best CS are the ones that give you some reasonable benefit and that
you can hide from discovery by other civs for a long time to avoid an envoy
war. But that's with 24 civs and 37 CS on very large maps at marathon pace.
Don't get me wrong, I love hearing what others like in their games and how they
play, but it has no real effect on my games, just as my style and preferences
only have potential relevance to a tiny sliver of the total player base.

TL;DR - I like Grenada when it spawns close to me and I can keep it hidden
from other civs.