Hungary is Pretty Awesome

[MarigoldRan]

The +2 envoys upon levying city state makes a big difference. It means AI can't flip city state easily after levy.

It also means +2 envoys with a little bit of gold, even if you aren't interested in their troops. This is like Greek UB level of goodness.

 

[Weraptor]

Yep. I love to play them diplomatically and love their music.

 

[Deadly Dog]

I've tried them a few times, picking up Amani ASAP then suzing and levying cheapest CS I have an envoy with. Then make some gold back from barbs and goody huts. Or rush an opponent. But move Amani again soon as I have the gold and another CS with an early envoy. Only thing is suddenly I'm moving over a dozen units a turn and its still the ancient era. And I'm dubious that Matthias is good for warmongering - really seems he's more about a small tight empire that punches above its weight, and is respected for it, internationally. It would be perilous to rely, in my mind, on more than one levied CS for warmongering, as you have to allocate envoys to keep your army you can't bank them just to take Suzerainship back.

I haven't had enought interest to take them past the medieval yet.

 

[steveg700]

They're one of those civ's that would do fine with alternate leader with a completely different focus. Perhaps they'll get one.

 

[DogeEnricoDandolo]

They're one of those civ's that would do fine with alternate leader with a completely different focus. Perhaps they'll get one.

Very true, Hungary's civ ability can be very flexible, but unfortunately since they are a civ from an expansion, I don't think firaxis would make an alt leader for them

 

[Sostratus]

love their music.

The Hungary theme is the true civ ability!

The stuff about river districts and OP levy units is just extra flavor.
Although stacking Raven king with the Foreign Ministry plaza building is very fun. +9 strength to levy troops and half cost levies. It's usually cheap enough to just perma levy past mid game, keep the soldiers fully upgraded and generate the free envoys every 30 turns.

 

[Kwami]

Are you going to make a topic for every leader with you opinion and then argue until the thread gets locked? Because you've already made a lot of those threads...

Anyway, all of the war-focused bits are kind of meh. But the easy envoys and cheaper buildings are nice. And the music.

But not the colors, though. Ew.

 

[Buthera]

I had no expectations for them before GS dropped but they've become my favourite civ in the game. Armani hopping and getting swordsmen for next to nothing while that jaunty music plays is the closest Civ VI gets to pure joy.

 

[kaspergm]

And I'm dubious that Matthias is good for warmongering - really seems he's more about a small tight empire that punches above its weight, and is respected for it, internationally. It would be perilous to rely, in my mind, on more than one levied CS for warmongering, as you have to allocate envoys to keep your army you can't bank them just to take Suzerainship back.

I think your assessment is wrong. I think the general consensus is that Hungary are - still after their nerf - a great civ for warmongering. I've only played them once, and after founding three cities and building one swordsman, I managed to levy another 4 swordsmen from a nearby citystate and gobble up the entire 7-city Spanish empire before the end of classical era. Was I lucky? To some extent; Spain didn't have access to Iron, which definitely helped, but from what I've seen, pulling this kind of tricks with Mathias is not unusual.

 

[Deadly Dog]

I think your assessment is wrong. I think the general consensus is that Hungary are - still after their nerf - a great civ for warmongering. I've only played them once, and after founding three cities and building one swordsman, I managed to levy another 4 swordsmen from a nearby citystate and gobble up the entire 7-city Spanish empire before the end of classical era. Was I lucky? To some extent; Spain didn't have access to Iron, which definitely helped, but from what I've seen, pulling this kind of tricks with Mathias is not unusual.

Fair enough. I mean, obviously a cheap and fast army is going to open up opportunities for conquest. Problems I saw when I hit medieval era though were that my cities and infrastructure had nothing to do with expansion and conquests - encampments being inherently excluded from the civ bonus - so it was all based on getting gold for levying and upgrading, and just building a few archers and light cav. Seems vulnerable, going on a domination run when my combat bonuses are based on friendships and alliances, and my melee units could all disappear as I rack up grievances. But maybe it's easier than I thought to prevent AI from taking suze from you?

My general strategy when I played Hungary, going in, was to take out a close neighbor early as possible, then play nice and use levied units to liberate CS's and help weaker civs. The thought being that conquered cities were never going to be placed to benefit from Pearl of the Danube, and I should instead focus on a diplomatic victory. I should've chose a better map though, Seven Seas turned out to be just like Inland sea, way too spread out for my tastes. And am I right that military emergencies don't award Diplomatic Victory Points? That soured me on my strategy.

 

[vladisimo]

Are you going to make a topic for every leader with you opinion and then argue until the thread gets locked? Because you've already made a lot of those threads...

Anyway, all of the war-focused bits are kind of meh. But the easy envoys and cheaper buildings are nice. And the music.

But not the colors, though. Ew.

To me they have by far the best and most badass color scheme. They re just badass in general and have amazing music.

 

[Pietato]

I've tried them a few times, picking up Amani ASAP then suzing and levying cheapest CS I have an envoy with. Then make some gold back from barbs and goody huts. Or rush an opponent. But move Amani again soon as I have the gold and another CS with an early envoy. Only thing is suddenly I'm moving over a dozen units a turn and its still the ancient era. And I'm dubious that Matthias is good for warmongering - really seems he's more about a small tight empire that punches above its weight, and is respected for it, internationally. It would be perilous to rely, in my mind, on more than one levied CS for warmongering, as you have to allocate envoys to keep your army you can't bank them just to take Suzerainship back.

I haven't had enought interest to take them past the medieval yet.

Probably the strongest warmonger on the larger maps.

 

[Gibsie]

My last game was with Hungary and it was a foregone conclusion by the Renaissance. I kept playing for a bit, funniest thing was levying musketmen and the upgrade discount meant all the infantry I suddenly received were weaker than the musketmen because I hadn't unlocked the oil tech yet...

I also couldn't quite figure it out, if Hungary places a district across a river but more than one tile away, does it get the production boost?

 

[Sostratus]

I also couldn't quite figure it out, if Hungary places a district across a river but more than one tile away, does it get the production boost?

No, it has to be directly touching the city center.
This makes settling river bends very very handy...

Although you probably shouldn't ruin great city placement just to take advantage of the bonus on an extra tile. The key perk is that it applies to districts and buildings. A single building is often more expensive that the district it's in!

I think the general consensus is that Hungary are - still after their nerf - a great civ for warmongering.

Probably the strongest warmonger on the larger maps.

As you both remark to @Deadly Dog there is a very good reason Hungary was nerfed. Does Hungary always get a great map? No. But the issue is that the original raven king had no counterplay.
Imagine a mirror map. Hungary copies your moves exactly. But, if you haven't suze'd or conquered every CS within reach by the time you tech iron working, hungary could get 3 envoys in one of them (as simple as meet first/quest+amani,) levy, and suddenly have an army of three or four 41, 4 swordsmen before you've even built an iron mine. PLUS they still have been mirroring your military with their own regular army. By making it cost something, it prevented the cheesiest version of this strat by forcing hungary to at least have some iron, or later strategics, which gives you a chance to deny them.

If there's anything one should pick up from gilgamesh and nubia's places at the top of every ranking, it's that it's always better to have your cities+someone else's than just yours. Pearl of the Danube or not- you don't need to use all your bonuses to play the meta effectively.

 

[Bangau]

Hungary is an amazing warmonger for sure. Look at the recent GOTM with them, I believe someone got a sub 100 turns victory. I tried a 'capitals only deity domination challenge' with them the other week on a small pangea map (you can only build one city and have to raze all but the capital cities that you capture). Won it on turn 144. It was definitely one of the most fluent domination games I have ever played. In my book they are one of the best, maybe even the best, warmongerer. (Off course... as with everything in CIV 'it depends': if you have little city states on a archipelago map Hungary would struggle a lot more...)

 

[Palo]

The one time I played Hungary was an archipelago map and it was still the easiest diety win I've had. I built three cities on my island, met a CS, built a couple galleys for the ship building inspiration which I focused and the steamroll was on. Things did get slowed a bit breaking the first two Civs I conquered because they each had lots of galleys blocking and slowing down my sea invasions but it was still ridiculously easy and never in doubt. It was a post nerf game, too.

 

[steveg700]

They certainly make for a very belligerent neighbor. Blondie DOW'ed me in ancient, classical, and medieval, barely pausing for his 10-turn peace treaty to expire.

He made a pretty decent attack the last go 'round too. Made sure to have two of his black armies together, supported by a couple knights and four catapults.

When I fast-tracked pikes, he finally got the point. We became the closest of allies over time.

 

[MarigoldRan]

Are you going to make a topic for every leader with you opinion and then argue until the thread gets locked? Because you've already made a lot of those threads...

.

Don't encourage me

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I just finished my first Hungary game--was surprised how good the "buildings across a river" aspect of the ability was.

 

[steveg700]

Yep, like I said, pretty flexible.

Imagine a leader whose goals weren't oriented around war, but culture or science. Be pretty easy to plant a leader like Rudolf II with his "Cabinet of Curiosities" and have a Hungary that plays quite differently.

Civ VI does best when it offers civ's with a broad unique ability provided tighter focus through the leader ability. We got that with Greece, not so much with Elanor.