Lord Yanaek
Emperor
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2003
- Messages
- 1,501
I havn't seen a lot of threads on those guys (and ladies) here so i thought i would start one. I'm going to throw my thoughts about them but i also created this thread to discuss them and hopefully learn something. I know i'm not the best player around so i probably missed some things. I'm not the worst player either so i hope this can at least be useful to new players. I play exclusively SP so my ratings don't take MP into account.
So who's your favorite governor? Did anyone manage to get some crazy reward from one of them? Do you like to rotate them a lot or keep them in "their" city? Anything i totally missed in that attempt of an analyses?
- Victor the Castellan. C+
I give him a C+ because he might be situationally useful if you get double DoWed early and happen to have a governor promotion available. I wouldn't recruit him "just in case" thought as he's overall not very useful. He can be useful to recruit early if you plan to recruit all 7 just for the loyalty bonuses and expand a lot (thus creating a lot of animosity) and you have some militaristic neighbor you don't plan on conquering early. A lot of conditions.- Redoubt. (Default) +5 Str to a city to resist attacks is why i think he can be situationally useful.
- Garrison Commander (Left1) Eventually if you plan to move him around while you are on a conquest spree to help against the AIs counterattack, +5 Str might not sound like a lot but with the way combat is calculated in Civ6 it does count.
- Security Expert (Left 2) Reducing spy level is nice, except the cities where spies are likely to operate are probably not the ones you want Victor as governor.
- Defense Logistic (Right 1) I've rarely lost a city to a prolonged siege. Either they go out fast because the enemy has a lot of firepower or they can't put it under siege anyway.
- Embrasure (Right 2) A second city attack seems nice but you have invested 2 titles plus 1 to get Victor himself in order to turn a single one of your cities into some sort of super fortress that then enemy might not even attack. Maybe if you have a very strong enemy you don't plan to attack and the map gave you a nice bottleneck where you could put a city this could be useful but i don't see this happening a lot and even then you're probably better with other promotions that will help you get better units faster or maintain a larger army or otherwise help you be stronger to deal with that neighbor.
- Air Defense Initiative (Final) 3 titles + Victor to get there, now it will probably make your city a very strong against air units but i've yet to see the AI use those efficiently. Don't bother.
- Amani the Diplomat. B
OK. I gave her a B because i think she's not a bad governor, but not a very good one either and a rather awkward one anyway as some of her abilities will always be useless. AIs love to use her early but that's certainly not the governor i want as my first one.- Messenger (Default) Counts as 2 envoys if you send her to a City State. This is probably why the AI always take her early as they always try to get Suzerain of a CS somewhere. Early on being Suzerain or having 3 envoys isn't all that useful as you won't have enough cities to fully benefit from it with a few exceptions (such as Kabul for a domination game where funnily the Diplomat become really good). Once you have identified the CS you want to keep or have a lot of districts to boost and you have a good, stable empire she might be worth considering thought as those 2 envoys can really help you. Note that if you just take her for Messenger you're actually exchanging 1 somewhat rare governor title for 2 much more common envoys, i'm not sure the trade off is in your favor.
- Emissary (Left 1). Left is the "foreign" branch of Amani that's mostl useful if she's not in one of your cities and probably the less useless of the 2 if you plan to take her all the way to Puppeteer. That being said, i've never seen AI cities flip unless i've beaten the crap out of them already or they settled some stupid city far away from their territory. In both cases, Amani isn't needed. Maybe the -2 loyalty pressure can be used to delay AIs from settling an area you want that's near to a CS but even if it works (it would require testing) i wouldn't value this over a governor that actually allows me to settle there earlier.
- Affluence (Left 2). You get a copy of the CS Luxury resources. It actually works exactly like you are the Suzerain of that CS, you don't get a real copy that you could trade with other AIs which means it's only useful if you're not the Suzerain and if you sent Amani there you probably want to be Suzerain. That ability can still be temporarily useful until you get the next title and she gets Puppeteer.
- Prestige (Right 1). Right is a the domestic branch of Amani and the one you'll choose if you decide to keep her in your own cities and loose Messenger. +2 Loyalty can really help stabilize your cities in a large radius and might be useful if some nearby AI is exerting a lot of pressure or to stabilize during a Dark Age.
- Promoter (Right 2). +4 amenities is a pretty large boost but again if you keep her in your cities you loose Messenger.
- Puppeteer (Final). Amani's killer ability. Basically you choose a CS and put a big "this one is mine" board on it. Usually going from 8 to 16 envoys is enough to completely shut down any competition. If you really want to stay Suzerain of a CS this is the way to do it. In some games there's one such CS (Kabul in a Domination game, Yerevan for Religious) and that's when Amani really shines.
- Moksha the Cardinal. C- (A for Religious victory)
The Cardinal is unusual among governors as it's really only useful for a single VC. Never bother with him otherwise unless you just want the loyalty bonus or Social Policy effect in another city and you already have all others (including Victor).- Bishop (Default). Double pressure from your Holy City is nice but your HS is probably also your capital and you probably have better governors to put there. It can help spread your religion passively if you somehow manage to have your holy city be a mostly useless city for everything else.
- Grand Inquisitor (Left 1). Allows you to be much stronger in the territory of this city, which means enemy Apostles are much more likely to ignore yours and you'll have to try to catch them before they are out of the city territory with their 4 moves.
- Laying on Hands (Left 2). It will allow you to gain a turn or 2 when healing your Apostles/Inquisitors so they can get back slightly faster to fight again. Usually there's some delay between 2 apostles waves when you can easily rest.
- Divine Architect (Right 2). It will help you get your Holy Sites up and running faster. Not as fast as chopping with Magnus but still faster than with no bonus at all. Useful if you go for religious victory since you have to get him to his final ability.
- Citadel of God (Right 2). It's on the way to Patron Saint so you'll have to take this if you took Divine Architect. Pretty useless as you shouldn't suffer from passive pressure if you go for RV (and thus have a strong religion) and you shouldn't have Moksha othewise.
- Patron Saint (Final). The reason i give him A for religious victory. Double promotions means you'll get twice as many Apostles with the good promotions. With Yerevan around it can become quite crazy (Prosilitizer-Translator, yes please) but with Yerevan around i would make sure i can keep it by promoting Amani before promoting Moksha.
- Magnus the Steward. A+
Now we are talking. Magnus is usually the first governor i'll appoint and he often gets promoted before i take a second one. This guy has the potential to skyrocket your early game in most situations. I rarely promote him all the way to his final ability thought as i think his best abilities are all the early one.- Groundbreaker (Default). Chopping is already strong, with Magnus it becomes crazy. That ability alone makes Magnus worth recruiting and he gets it immediately. Obviously if you have neither forests nor stone around it won't be as great but it's pretty rare and even simply growing your cities when clearing marshes makes him worth recruiting (but probably not as the first governor in that case).
- Surplus Logistic (Left 1). All your empire will grow faster with that ability. This means more science, more culture, more citizens to work production tiles. The only negative part of that ability is you sort of have to keep Magnus in a single city rather than rotate him to use Groundbreaker in every newly settled one.
- Industrialist (Left 2). I've yet to see a city that will gain more than 2 cogs from this so i've yet to take that promotion. Maybe in some very specific situations/maps it might be worth it.
- Provision (Right 1). Faster production of IZ buildings is nice, no food lost when training settlers can be a game changer. If your capital has a lot of plains/hills, it will grow slowly but have great production. You don't want to loose precious population points when training settlers. With Ancestral Hall, Colonization and Groundbreaker you can easily get 4-5 settlers in the same amount of turns by chopping a few trees and when those settlers don't cost you a population point it really allows for a very fast expansion in late ancient/early classical. That ability won't be as great if your capital has tons of food and few production because you're likely to hit the housing soft-cap fast and loosing a pop or 2 won't slow down your growth much.
- Black Marketeer (Right 2). The idea of always being able to get the units you need even if you lack the required strategic resource (at the cost of a few titles) is nice, allowing you to have a more stable game that don't depend on luck with map generation. It does have a couple issues though that make this ability rather bad for me. First it only allows you to build the units, not upgrade which is usually what you want to do, second i havn't actually tested it but i would be surprised if those units could actually heal as you still lack the resource (which is apparent from the inability to upgrade). As a result you'll get some pretty useless non promoted units that can't heal.
- Vertical Integration. (Final) That ability basically brings back the ability we had at release to stack production from multiple IZs but for a single city. It can possibly create a very high production center but at the cost of taking some lackluster abilities and spamming IZs that will only really benefit one single city rather than build other districts or run projects. It looks impressive but i doubt it's really that great thought i expect some of the better players will find totally insane ways to benefit from it.
- Liang the Surveyor. B / A (map dependent)
A useful Governor that can ease your early game a lot, thought usually not as strong as Magnus. her default ability is nice, especially early but that's when i often want Magnus. On some maps where Magnus won't be that great she's probably the best first pick. She's likely to move around a lot rather than stay stationed in one city due to all her bonus production abilities.- Guildmaster (Default). +1 charge per builder is nice, especially early. Basically half of Feudalism or the same as Pyramids. This might make her a suitable alternative to Magnus when you don't have a lot of forests to chop and a very decent second pick in most games.
- Infrastructure (Left 1). Nice production boost for those important CC buildings (Monument, Granary). Rotate her a lot if you goes left side. It won't allow you to get "instant cities" like Magnus' Groundbreaker but will work even if you have nothing to chop.
- Zone Commisionner (Left 2). Now you can keep her in the city after you're done with CC and start planting districts. Too bad she can't be in multiple cities at the same time.
- Aquaculture (Right 1). On some water heavy maps this will allow you to have better coastal cities. The improvements stay when she moves to another city so again, rotate her.
- Amusement (Right 2). Bonus to a district you'll built only a couple of times probably makes this her least useful ability.
- Parks and Recreation (Final). Golf courses for everyone ... sort of. Having played with Scotland i can tell you an improvement that provides +1 Amenity really helps you keep everyone happy. I've yet to understand how the appeal bonus works. Not bad if you took her there but probably not enough to justify taking the previous abilities unless you actually used them.
- Pingala the Educator. B+ / A (based on how you play and your victory condition)
This guy will benefit big cities the most and so based on whether you play tall/wide/hybrid he will be more or less useful but he's never useless and that's already something great.- Librarian (Default). 10% boost to science and culture will scale with city size and the amount of the specific buildings you have. %-based bonuses are rare in Civ6 and that's one of the reasons why growing tall cities was rarely beneficial in Vanilla. With the Educator around you can once again benefit from large cities with high science/culture outputs. That ability tends to make him a stationary governor that will stay in your best city (often your capital) for most of the game which doesn't play well with some of his abilities thought.
- Connoisseur (Left1). Bonus to buildings production doesn't play too well with with Librarian.
- Researcher (Right 1). Bonus to buildings production doesn't play too well with with Librarian.
- Grants (Middle). Double GP points once again calls for keeping him in your best city with the most districts and hopefully the Oracle. You can really get a lot of points from such a combination and compete with civilizations that have much more cities than you.
- Arms Race Proponent (Left 2). Now you can turn the nice science/culture guy into a nuclear beast. Might be useful if you didn't catch up to some runaway civ with lots of cities despite his previous bonuses and want to nuke them back to the dark age but usually not the ability you want.
- Space Initiative (Right 2). A nice boost towards Science Victory if you don't think you can get the GSs to snipe it in 4 turns. Those are harder to get now that late game GP cost so much gold so this might make that ability worth considering. Hard build the first projects with Pingala while you research later techs and then chop the last ones with Magnus. Not as efficient but much more reliable than the GP strategy.
- Reyna the Financier. B+ / A
Another very good Governor, Reyna has a number of abilities that will make her always useful no matter your victory condition, thought she might be even better in the correct circumstances.- Land Acquisition (Default). It's hard to measure how useful that ability is. A few extra tiles are never a bad thing but the different isn't as obvious as going Traditions in Civ 5. Probably not the most useful default ability so Reyna is never my first pick.
- Harbormaster (Left 1). Double adjacency bonus to harbor/commercial hub will give you more gold early but will also combo nicely with some later buildings, policies or dedications to provide even more bonuses. Overall a solid ability even thought it will originally be only a few more coins.
- Foreign Exchange (Right 1). This ability can be a killer or a useless waste of a title and unfortunately largely out of your control. If your civilization is in the middle of the Pangaea you might get a lot of trade routes and plenty of money but AIs might just as well totally ignore you. You'll want a very attractive city if you want to benefit from it which means stationing Reyna in one of your best and largest cities.
- Tax Collector (Middle). This one is easy and can give you some nice coins if you can grow a large city.
- Contractor (Left 2). Being able to buy districts with gold is incredible if you have a lot of gold. It allows you to get new cities up and running in no time or quickly get some of those costly late game districts. Since you'll move her to new cities to fully benefit from that ability you'll lose some gold production but you should be able to get her back in position quickly and those new cities will become productive in no time.
- Curator (Right 2). Double tourism from great works can be a huge boost if you have a couple wonders to store more of those in the city. Once again this means you need a strong, tall city to fully benefit from that ability.
So who's your favorite governor? Did anyone manage to get some crazy reward from one of them? Do you like to rotate them a lot or keep them in "their" city? Anything i totally missed in that attempt of an analyses?
It does not even need to use the overflow mechanic, as you only build ships.
