Holy crap... is Germany OPed or what? :D

[Sascha77]

Started a new game as Frederick today - who, BTW is wearing highly anachronistic armor, but hey.. .

Following some of the advice I picked up on this forum, I went:

Capital: Holy site, campus, commercial, Hansa, theater district.

2nd city: Same, but with an encampment instead of the theater. My holy site there is +6 faith *and* +6 science, thanks to Hildegard von Bingen and the Desert Folklore-pantheon.

For my third city I declared a quick early war on England and stole her unescorted settler which she was going to use in the exact spot I wanted to put my next city.

Founded a fourth citiy, and both number 3 and 4 now have commercial hubs and Hansas - #4 also has a campus. There's a great +3 mountain tile nearby plus I picked up Isaac Newton, so the investment seemed well worth it. City number three is coastal and has a harbor plus the Great Lighthouse.

Just after I founded my fifth city, my nextdoor neighbor Vicky, who (despite my early war on her) was totally friendly up to that point decided she didn't like her boxed-in spot just west of my empire and brought a carpet of doom of archers, battering rams and chariots. I wasn't really prepared for war but I out-tech-ed her and thanks to my insane production everywhere, I quickly put out a few more units. Then I just let her come and annihilated her army with archers, walls and crossbows. Luckily my production is so high that I had built walls everywhere before the war started ... just to kill some time.. After her army was in shambles, I liberated Seoul from the silly English types, then ignored all her requests for peace-deals, went over to London and took it.

While this was going on, Kongo (my neighbor to the south-east) had hit his UU-period and wiped the floor with Gorgo (who is down to one or two cities now). I think all I need to do now is get my economy back on track (lost a few traders in the war and Vicky pillaged one of my commercial hubs), then upgrade to field-cannon and bombards and kick Kongo off the map. The only difficulty will probably be the terrain - as usual, Kongo is made up almost entirely of hills/rainforrest-tiles. But other than that, this game is nearly finished at this point.

Gotta say that none of the other leaders I've tried so far seem as strong as Frederick. While I did get a good map and a decent starting position (decent, not great), the Hansa/commercial-combo is insanely powerful. Once you get those districts up and running, it's very hard not to run away with the game..


S.

 

[Larsenex]

What size map and how many ai? I actually like Germany now over Rome. It is my 'go to' civ because of the ridiculous nature of the Hanse and the extra district you can have with Germany? I have play 3 full games out past turn 380 now and have had one of each type of victory condition except for a religious win.

Nice recap.

 

[Sascha77]

What size map and how many ai? I actually like Germany now over Rome. It is my 'go to' civ because of the ridiculous nature of the Hanse and the extra district you can have with Germany? I have play 3 full games out past turn 380 now and have had one of each type of victory condition except for a religious win.

Standard sized continents map and I'm playing on epic. Started with the standard number of civs, but we're down to six now. Total domination *might* be a bit tricky in this one. The next-strongest civ is Scythia and she must've taken two civs out of the game already. She's on the other continent which I only started exploring a few turns ago. So unless all the capitals she holds are coastal, domination will probably be pretty tedious.

And even though I already have both the domination and science achievements and would love to win my first cultural victory, I doubt it'll happen in this game.



S.

 

[Magil]

Germany is powerful because it gets an extra policy slot and the Industrial district is the best district, and Germany gets that for free (on top of another district without a population gate). While a Military policy slot isn't as strong as a Wildcard or Economic slot, there are still plenty of great military policies.

But yeah, a lot of Germany's strength is tied to the fact that Industrial Zones are so good.

 

[Larsenex]

Yea the game I just finished was domination on an enormous map (for 16 ai) continents. I was cleaning house on Ganhdi and Gilgamesh concurrently. I noticed that the last civ I needed was Egypt. So after about 7 turns of preparation and moving my nuclear sub as close as I can I got a tank army near her capital which was covered in infantry and bombards! I did a surprise war starting off with a standard nuke on her capital. I took out ALL of those units which allowed my tank to roll in and cut right to the domination movie. I did not however get the achievement which is odd so I am going to reload and see if I can get it.

 

[Miravlix]

You seems to be settling cities very slow, what use is it to have one extra district if anyone else can have 10 more cities than you in the time it take you to expand?

 

[Roller123]

i like Russia more:
-easy to get religion
-map gen loves tundra for some reason (try smaller inland sea maps, like half the map is tundra/snow)
-so many culture great people it's even annoying
-gets more tiles on settling <-hugge, you start like already with a second ring, consequently city spam quickly covers massive territory

 

[Olleus]

Germany is even more OP due to the way that district costs are calculated

 

[Magil]

i like Russia more:
-easy to get religion
-map gen loves tundra for some reason (try smaller inland sea maps, like half the map is tundra/snow)
-so many culture great people it's even annoying
-gets more tiles on settling <-hugge, you start like already with a second ring, consequently city spam quickly covers massive territory

Russia is extremely powerful if you want to focus on faith generation and religion, but it seems a good number of players prefer to ignore that part of the game.

 

[Roxlimn]

I didn't find Germany to be especially strong. Hansa comes only after Apprenticeship, and even then gives only +4 production normally - you could get that from a hill tile or somesuch. You get a Military Policy in the early game but otherwise no help. I'm playing Brazil at the moment. The Rainforest Start is better in Civ 6 than in any previous - Rainforest Hill tiles are good tiles in the Ancient and Classical without need for improvement, and the thick rainforests provide a bulwark against invasion. Almost no Civ takes Sacred Path, so you take Sacred Path, and with Brazil's Amazon bonus, my first Holy Site had a +10 native adjacency bonus (boosted to +20 later). My first Campus had +5 adjacency, and the second +4. Monster faith and science from the get-go, and basically immune to barbarians and other Civs. I amused myself watching Frederick get swamped by the hordes. My first Commercial Hub got a +5 adjacency bonus, too. That Amazon is nuts out of the gate.

As the Eras unwind, Brazil can lose steam. That's where the Street Carnival comes in. With assured +2 Amenities in each city in an ungated District, you're basically getting either pops 7 and 9 free of charge in Amenities, or you're boosting your global output by 10%. There aren't a lot of city output modifiers in Civ, but that one exists.

Your main problem is really Housing, which is why I bought a Great Prophet from the insane faith generation (won't work on Deity - have to score Divine Spark to get a religion), and got Religious Communities, which gives me +1 housing each from Temple and Shrine. I use the Faith not to wage religious war, but to buy Great People - and Magnanimous means I get a 20% refund even if I buy from the last refund. It's all about the adjacencies, baby.

So Germany gets a Hansa half off that'll get +4 adjacency? To get a Campus for +3 Science? It's nice, but definitely not OP. You want OP, that's Scythia. Her Horsemen are insane even without quadruple production bonus.

 

[Magil]

The Hansa is powerful because it's half-price(ish), not because of its adjacency bonus. That's a significant amount of production you will save, since you should be building an industrial zone in every city anyway. And it doesn't count against your district limit besides that.

Much better than rain forest tiles that you should be chopping down as soon as you can anyway.

 

[Onii-chan]

Different civs are strong at different things. It can be hard to compare certain areas, but yeah Germany is definitely one of the better civs due to the crazy production overlap

I think my top 5 right now are Scythia, Sumeria, Russia, Rome and Germany

 

[Roller123]

the Hansa/commercial-combo is insanely powerful..

How is this powerful? That's +2hammers, and usually -2gold, because you want the commercial district near the rivers, cities and harbors, and the industrial zone near the border for future overlap, which is not the same place. I haven't found a good strategy yet to combine them.

Russia is extremely powerful if you want to focus on faith generation and religion, but it seems a good number of players prefer to ignore that part of the game.

dunno, extra tiles is REX dream, then you get to pick religion pretty much, pick defender of faith and units get +10 to combat strength, that's like defence invulnerability mode. and go spam cities. Playing Russia i kinda ignored the faith part yet to be honest, although it certainly is there.

 

[UWHabs]

The real powers of Germany are basically that you get a cheap industrial zone that will pretty much always be a +4 adjacency bonus. So combined with running the +100% adjacency civic (which is easier to run with an extra policy card slot, even if it's just a military one), that means that every city gets a cheap 8 hammers to work with, which for a smaller city that would usually only run ~20 per turn, that's a huge production bonus. It essentially means that city in the corner of the continent that just has a few fish and cows can actually become a productive city, and will be able to actually build a factory/power plant to help your other cities.

And with the extra districts for each city (essentially 2 above the cap, meaning a size-4 city can build 4 districts), they're basically the perfect ICS civ. Just pack in cities as tight as possible, run a Hansa/CZ in each, and you have enough production from a small city to actually build stuff outside of your top couple cities.

 

[Roxlimn]

The Hansa is powerful because it's half-price(ish), not because of its adjacency bonus. That's a significant amount of production you will save, since you should be building an industrial zone in every city anyway. And it doesn't count against your district limit besides that.

Much better than rain forest tiles that you should be chopping down as soon as you can anyway.

Yeah. I think you need to play Brazil for a while first. Brazil gets Rainforest bias, and is it THICK, usually. That's a lot of chopping you can do to grow your cities. You're not prohibited from chopping them or anything. You can still do that. And the fact that it's all around you means you get to chop lots. But in the meantime, you get +2 food +2 cogs for free - no need to improve them for a while. Saves Builder charges for Eurekas and chopping.

Half price is nice, but it ain't everything. Japan gets three districts half-price. You EVENTUALLY build the Industrial Zone in every city after Industrialization. Which is in the mid game. Before that? Nah. You got better things to do. Like Commercial Hubs that actually get adjacency bonuses and Harbors for more Trade. With God of the Sea and a fair amount of Sea Resources, Elizabeth actually out-produces Frederick early, because she gets that half-price Harbor. Provided she can get all her cities in nice seaside areas? She gets double trade routes and all of them internal ones get +2 hammers. That's how you get production. Even with only half her cities seaside, she still gets 50% more routes than anyone else, AND all the internal routes are still hammer-heavy because you'll be aiming them all at London anyway. +6 hammers per route. Think about that.

Brazil really makes you think about the game differently. It's really worth it to try leveraging the strengths. With other Civs, you're okay with just Content Citizens. Why stop there? Street Carnival is ungated, half-price, and twice as good on top! So you're at least a universal +5% output better than everyone, with +10% growth. And since the only downside to new cities is Amenity cost, you can just ignore that more or less completely. ICS to the max, baby! With other civs, you can spam 1 or 2 size cities without affecting your Amenities. With Brazil, you can spam your Street Carnivals and get up to 6-size cities without any cost to your empire other than the Settler. And if that's not enough? Just make more. You can just straight up make Amenities in your core cities using production - the Carnival project allows you to do that.

 

[Magil]

Apprenticeship is an easy beeline with an easy-to-trigger Eureka. Yes, there is a short window where you can get Commercial Hubs/Harbors up before Industrial Zones, but it's just that--a short window. Japan's half-price districts are also strong, but they don't have the freedom of spamming them without population gating, and none of those three are as important or powerful as the IZ (or Commercial Hub or Harbor, for that matter)*. I don't underestimate the power of Brazil, it has some good things going for it, but on Germany's level? Nah. Not even close.

Oh, and by the way, Elizabeth isn't in the game. It's Victoria this time around.

*Minor exception--Encampments are important in competitive multiplayer, but that's a rarely-discussed topic around here.

 

[Ulthwithian]

Yeah, Japan's big issue is that it wants to spam districts like mad for Meiji [sic] Restoration, but all of their districts are population-gated.

Russia is indeed good for the Religious or Culture game, but then you have to play it. I'm normally a huge religion player, but in CiVI I'm getting away from it because of the incredible MIssionary/Apostle spam by the AI.

 

[Heklios]

Germany is broken for one simple reason :

Unique Replacement Districts cost half as much as the districts they replace and do not require population to be built.
(Source : http://civ6.gamepedia.com)

In essence what that means is that, at a given population count, a city with a Unique Replacement District (such as the German Hansa) will be able to build an additional district.

Pair this with the fact that it gets one more additional district than the maximum count on top of that (therefore a total of 2 additional districts), and you get a broken Civilazition.

Now yes, I know, I know. Let's all be cheerful and thankful for the great game we got, let's hold hands and let's all be happy bunnies.
But seriously, has anyone at the office even played the game or did they go straight from brainstorm to release ?

Hold on, hold on.
Let's give them a free policy card too.

 

[Roxlimn]

LOL. Right. Victoria.

Eh. I'm not sure that "it's not even close." It's pretty close. Otherwise Brazil would be unplayable, yeah?

It's not just that you get the Hansa early. You have to get use out of them. After Apprenticeship and saccing your Commercial Hub's +gold adjacency bonus you get +4 Production. How is that OP? Brazil gets +10 Faith right out from Astrology and making a Holy Site. It kicks in right at the start. To get full value out of half-pricing your IZ everywhere for a modest production boost, you have to make it to Industrialization where you really spam that sucker. That's mid-game. Not exactly easy to get to.

And if you want easy adjacencies, why not Japan? Japan doesn't only have three easy Districts, it gets double adjacency from Districts. A Diamond formation of Commercial Hubs and Hansas gets +4 cogs per Hansa bonus, but you're probably saccing your Hub adjacencies to do that at least occasionally. You get +1 Gold for District adjacencies. Using the same setup, Japan gets +3 cogs per Industrial Zone, but also gets +2 gold per Commerical Hub and you get a diamond setup that's going to be ready to triangle for +4 adjacencies on three Districts heading into more bonuses. And it can do that with any District, without sacrificing normal Industrial Zone adjacencies.

So really, it's not the Hansa. It's essentially the more or less removed district gating. With two free Districts per city, Germany's strength is essentially removal of District gating - and the Hansa is actually a limitation, because one of the free Districts must be an Industrial Zone.

By themselves, Japan's half-price Districts don't seem very exciting, but they scale better and more with City State bonuses and Suzerain bonuses. Germany's Hansas benefit from Industrial City States, but they largely only benefit building city projects, which promotes less unit creation, which can leave you vulnerable. With Carthage in game? Japan is a powerhouse - double Trade Routes AND invulnerable positions with half-price Encampments all around. And they get hammer bonuses for making troops. This benefit comes out the gate. You meet Carthage FIRST? and get Suzerain before turn 70? That's strong. None of the Industrial City States are that powerful, saving Toronto, which requires you to have Factories.

It's not just Carthage either. Valleta also plays into Japan's game, allowing Japan to use their powerful Faith generation to buy City Center buildings and Encampment buildings. Easy Housing? Easy Hammers? Lots to like. Yerevan? Lots of faith leading into a broken Religion game. Easy Religious Vic. Kabul? Double XP. You'll get double shooting Archers super easy and then it's game over. Lots of outs.

Germany's game doesn't improve or leverage as dramatically with City State Suzerain adds. This is actually fairly normal. Brazil doesn't benefit as much. But Japan does. It's because of their weird half-pricing and adjacency incentives. Even the Theater half-price is pretty interesting because with Cultural City States on your dirt you can leverage it to scale up Civics into early advanced Governments.

 

[Ulthwithian]

I think you're missing stuff, Rox.

Japan simply cannot make full use of its UAs unless it can make Farms and more or less nothing else. Particularly if you're looking at the timeframe before the IZ starts dominating everything. Given that a Japan that tries to make the most of its bonuses will not have high production, that makes the IZ even more important to them.

How big are your cities, that you can make good use of Meiji Restoration, Divine Wind (District Edition), and have a meaningful production value in your cities? If you have a lot of Mines, then you simply won't have the Housing to build more Districts. If you have a lot of Districts and Farms, you won't have the Production to do much with your cities before the Hansa overwhelms you.

Also, CS strategies rely on more random factors than others: specifically, that these CSs actually exist in your game. And, of course, that they survive. Whether this added randomness actually impacts your game more than the terrain is an open question, but still, there you are.