[GS] Power Ranking the Civs (Gathering Storm)

[IvoryPavane]

Any time I see these lists, I wonder if the devs are ever going to do a Civ pass and make a serious attempt to balance existing civs. I suspect not but I hope.

Oddly enough, even with Norwary's lackluster showing, I'd rather play it over Korea or Australia. Hell, I'd rather play most of the lower-ranked civs than the higher ones. The biggest problem with the high tier civs is that you pretty much know you will win if you play them, which renders them boring to play.

Probably not. I mean ultimately, ALL the Civs can do well, no matter what. And given the state of the AI, you can win on Deity with any Civ really. Plus, luck plays a decent role in the game as well. It would be disingenuous to say there isn’t an optimal way to play the game, but it’s not mandatory to follow it to win.

I think it’s generally impossible to create a completely objective tier list because Civs have a niche. Norway is going to be better than some Civs on a water heavy map. And it’s fine to balance on a small Pangea map, but those games are typically dull imo. I prefer shuffle!

Multiplayer is a different kettle of fish because some Civs are straight up better than others (Maori meet Canada, for example), but then the balancing can generally be left to the players there. (As an example, we each house ban certain Civs before we start a game. I often ban Australia because I hate its 100% production and I loathe Waltzing Matilda).

For me, I much much prefer well designed, cohesive Civs over “strong” ones. The poor Civ I always pick on is Korea. Is Korea strong? Yes! Is it well designed and interesting? Not in my opinion. It makes Kupe harder to dislike because he is faaaaaar too strong imo, but he is really interesting and unique.

Eleanor is a good example of where it’s done well. Is her LA strong? Situationally. Is it fun? Always!

 

[kb27787]

Has Norway EVER been functional? Lol.

Maybe I was undervaluing Moari... I may have to play another couple of games with them and re-evaluate them for my list. I put him where I did since he can't chop and like you said, can't block Great writers so considering I really like culture victories maybe I valued him less.

Rome and Arabia... I almost feel bad for these guys... Almost. Their rushes were incredibly strong especially in Rome's case. Thankfully for Rome they are still great at expanding quickly and in a game that favours playing wide that's still great for Rome. Arabia got the short end of the stick with the resource requirement. I did still keep them in my strong tier just because I thought having universities earlier and a guaranteed prophet was a great thing to have. Maybe this is a scenario where I am overvaluing them.

Russia can essentially breed Rock bands with the amount of faith generation they get. With earth goddess or dance of the aurora and the rightrpolicy cards you can pretty much buy a rock band every turn. It is so good!

Germany is set to become a powerhouse once again. They were so close to being god tier in my list. If the Hansa was a little sooner and the U boat wasn't mediocre and late they would instantly be god tier for me. Having an extra district is fantastic after all in a game designed around building cities and infrastructure.

I think I've already explained my opinion of Canada before... I was not impressed. They definetely need some improvements.

Interesting point about Egypt and the floodplains. Whilst yes, it's not amazing, they are in a better position then they have been.

Maybe I undervalued the Cree? I will have to investigate lol.

I think the only reason I put gorgo over Pericles was because of how effective early combat still is in the early game. Rushing your nearest neighbour and dealing with the inevitable barbarian problem (stupid barbarians...) Can ney a decent amount of culture whilst gaining territory. Would you mind explaining why you think Pericles is overtaking gorgo please?

Kupe's not THAT bad for culture victories... in my exp (and 99% of my games are peaceful CVs) he's not as consistently fast as Greece or Kongo (and I dare say late game flight tourism will lose out to Kongo's books in the long term in my exp... simply because Kongo gets so darned many) but if he manages to land on a nice patch of woods/rainforests he's going to have at least a sub-200 game every time. If you think Russia gets crazy faith I got new for you... Maori gets far more (tundra is limited, woods is not once you get conservation... and Kupe gets 2 faith/tile as opposed to Peter's 1), with a much more useful district (TS vs. HS) AND gets culture/tile to boot (for Peter to match that he'd have to get choral music and buy all those buildings) so you can reach cold war in no time.

Pericles is better than Gorgo now because early culture is not that hard to find with Pingala's new promotion. Used to be that you would languish for 70 turns before getting poly phi (and drama and poetry) because no CS around and you can only build monuments. Gorgo circumvented this nicely, but now her ability is no longer necessary. 5% culture per suzerainty is quite insane if enough CS stay alive in the game (and your UD gives 1 envoy too!)

Germany... well I dare say IZs still suck. Good thing that he has one free district slot but really Hansas still kinda suck because workshops suck... Moreover IZs come out so late in the game that I would rather lay down TS, CH and then campus/HS/ED to lock the cost in by that point.

Egypt's sphinx buff is quite noticeable now that they can be spammed endlessly. Late game quite good for culture victories and you generate faith to boot! Think of her as mini-Maori of sorts late game, without the insane production buffs. She is as good as Kupe with rock bands if you would care to spend the worker charges.

Cree is great because early housing is great (thanks to Pingala's promotions which give +yield/citizen). They can have a very tall capital early game with extra tiles to work thanks to their routes. I've played them once and I would say GS has buffed them somewhat.

Canada, yup... give them +1 food/tundra and they are instantly top-tier (if Firaxis would make my wish come true, reduce Mountie production cost too as they take forever to build without a card unlocked all the way back at ideology). As they are they are bottom tier.


My favorite civ: Kongo, so much stronger now in GS relative to other civs (although finish time will be later than RnF due to computers nerf and CV rework). Kongo's biggest problem was getting to drama and poetry in a timely manner before Greece and Russia snag all the early writers so they can snowball. Pingala solves this brilliantly and thanks to his start bias he is rarely lacking for food early. This means his culture accelerates faster so he gets Mt St Michel and St. Basil faster and hence much reduced chances of him missing these two key wonders. Relic tourism has not been changed much except for the fact that since he is not a religion founder but he can generate tons of apostles he will never get the -50% tourism malus for different religions from any civs. Moving the double tourism promotion from Reyna to Pingala makes Kongo extremely happy due to the sheer number of slots he has.

 

[Sagax]

Maori can compete with Greece and Kongo for CV because most of the time Pericles and Mvemba are eaten by Toas by Medieval And Kupe looooves those rainforests from Kongo.

 

[Archon_Wing]

..Until you hit Flight,

Well, that's exactly the problem.

it's not a matter of getting lots of tourism. Civs like Russia are much better at denying other civs writers, denying them early tourism and keeping overall domestic tourists low so you can win faster victories.

Now of course you can also keep domestic tourism low by killing the cultural leader, but if you do that, you might as well just go domination and use culture victory as a secondary victory if things get too boring.

Good thing that he has one free district slot but really Hansas still kinda suck because workshops suck..

Just don't build them then. A IZ with +20 production Hansa doesn't need a puny +2 production workshop anyways. And they're half off as well.

I would argue if you had a bunch of +10 hansas everywhere, that you don't even need a factory anyways except for power and that's just every 5-6 cities or so.

Has Norway EVER been functional? Lol.

In the past you could use his shipbuilding bonus to overflow into more useful things. Now that trick is gone, and he's kind of crap.

Maybe I undervalued the Cree? I will have to investigate lol.

Cree can reach pop 10 easily and you can have great science/culture with Pingala. His UU now has a decent promotion line and thus if you can get ambush on them, it's going to be devastating when you pillage the crap out of your enemies. And they were good to begin with.

I think the only reason I put gorgo over Pericles was because of how effective early combat still is in the early game. Rushing your nearest neighbour and dealing with the inevitable barbarian problem (stupid barbarians...) Can ney a decent amount of culture whilst gaining territory. Would you mind explaining why you think Pericles is overtaking gorgo please?

Well, as I said before, you can get early culture with Pingala now and Pericles will beat out Gorgo over the long run because Gorgo's ability does not scale well with era. As a result, the time period where Gorgo is superior is lessened since we'll all be going through the civics tree faster. And because overall culture grows faster, that also means Pericles % boost scales better as well.

Also as the game goes on, war becomes more and more lacking in synergy with culture since you'll get denounced faster and thus harder to get open borders and crap.

 

[Jkchart]

So, I did a points system with all the civs I've actually finished a game with so far scoring them in 5 areas: the Unique Units, Unique Infrastructure, Civ UA, Leader UA, and overall Synergy that these components can bring. Each area had a possible max of 2 points, with 2 representing the component is a good asset to the civ, 1 meaning it is decent, but inconsistently good (i.e. not a game changer, but something that still is useful), and 0 meaning useless, liability, or completely unnoticeable. So far, I came up with the following from what I've finished, game-wise.

America: 8 Points. 1 for the Units. They're good units, just limited in utility, especially because they're so late. 2 for the Film Studio - I think this building is incredibly undervalued and is an absolute winner for a culture victory. 2 for the Civ UA, as of GS - the wildcards are incredibly useful, and the extra favor is pretty strong of a boost. 2 for the Leader UA, because it's great for dominating your home continent all game, and their national parks are incredibly powerful. I only gave a 1 for synergy because the civ is trying to be a weird dom/culture/diplo hybrid now, but only the culture parts really fuse well enough.
Arabia: Haven't played yet.
Australia: 10 Points. Let's be real here. There's nothing bad about Australia. It's the only civ that can really make consistent use of its triggerable ability, the Digger is the only truly great modern unique unit, outback stations are OP, and their coastal bonuses put similar terrain bonuses to shame. And somehow, it all works gloriously well as a generalist civ that can do basically anything it wants.
Aztec: I haven't played Aztec yet.
Brazil: Haven't finished a game yet, but their bonuses were...underwhelming to say the least. Will score properly when I get the full experience.
Canada: I'm DREADING the attempt.
China: 7 Points. Okay, so there's wonderful culture and science synergy in the whole civ. Their Civ UA is incredibly useful, as is the Leader UA. Extra builders, more wonders, powerful eurekas/inspirations are all wonderful! 2 points each in the abilities/synergy areas. Makes a really good civ in those areas. The Great Wall is kind of cool actually, not amazing, but does give a bit of synergy with the civ itself so I gave that 1 point. The Crouching Tiger...is kind of useless? I don't think I really got any utility out of it. It's just one of those units that is "there". Plus, I'll take 2 range crossbow any day over a 1 range crouching tiger. 0 points.
Cree: 8 Points. 2 points each for the Synergy, Leader UA, and the Mekewap. All of those together create a wonderful generalist/builder civilization that can pick and choose what they want to go for. Of all the strange victory combinaitons I got, I pulled a renaissance/industrial religious victory off with them. The Okitchitaw is a good unit, but not amazing, so I only gave it 1 point. I also like the Civ UA, but it's also not overwhelmingly grand, so just one point there. I love my traders claiming tiles though
Dutch: 6 Points. Why do we play the Dutch? Polders. And Grote Rivieren. Polders can be difficult to place sometimes, but they are a strong improvement when you get that great placement. Also, it's nice that they can now be built on submerged tiles! Grote Rivieren is a pretty powerful ability as well - you can create some great adjacency bonuses where other civs don't get any. 1 Point for the De Zeven Provincien - it's strong, but there are better UUs. I did get some good utility out of it though. 1 point for Synergy - there's some good generalist synergy here, but nothing to go crazy over. No points for Wilhelmina's bonus. It's barely noticeable in the grand scheme of things. I used it when I was desperate to keep a city's loyalty, but it's rare that you can't find a better way to boost loyalty. There are far better loyalty bonuses.
Egypt: 6 Points. 2 Points for Iteru, because that itself was always quite useful. 1 point for everything else. The Maryannu is strong, but I don't find it amazing. The Sphinx is decent, but again, there are better culture/faith improvements/strategies. The Leader UA is nice, but again...not anywhere near the top of the game. There's some good culture game synergy here, but Egypt is kind of all over the place as well.
English/Eleanor: 6 Points. Don't get me wrong. I love playing Eleanor - her ability takes some set up, but when it gets going, it's too much fun. She gets 2 points for court of love. 2 Points as well for the RNDY. I think, personally, it is an underrated UI as it does a good job making coastal cities viable, and gets lots of gold. This also helps with the 1 point of synergy, since I think the RNDY's gold is excellentl, plus since there are still continents with long land connections, it can help hold flipped cities. Not the MOST synergy, but there are some good strats to be found hidden in this design, IMO. 1 point for the Civ UA - WOTW isn't something to go crazy over, but I found it marginally useful. It's certainly not TERRIBLE, but the underlying systems really need a buff to make this power as strong as they probably intended. 0 points for the Sea Dog. Another case of a unit that is just "there". Why do we have this? Jeez.
English/Victoria: I didn't finish my R/F game with them, so I won't score them until I play GS with her. But GOD was I underwhelmed. I'm not really looking forward to another game.
French/Catherine: 7 Points. Great culture game synergy - cheaper mid game wonders are always amazing. Some really good backdoor domination synergy too. Overall, I really like Catherine's France for all of her abilities. 2 Points each for the abilities and the synergy. 1 Point for the Garde Imperiale. It's a GREAT unit, limited by its availability and the fact that it is hard built. Wish it just replaced the Musketman. 0 Points for the Chateau. I built a couple, and I think I placed other things over most of them that were more useful. Underwhelming improvement, to say the least.
French/Eleanor: Gonna have to see what I can pull off here.
Georgia: I tried to do a Georgia game before GS came out...I'll try again but I won't be happy about it.
Germans: 8 Points. The Hansa is why I play this civ. The extra district in every city is awesome. There's great builder/generalist synergy here, and particularly great production possibilities for a science victory. Definitely one of my best games. Only 1 Point for the Leader UA: i like the extra military policy (extra policies are useful), but I don't care for the CS conquering bonus. Only 1 point for the U-Boat. That might be a tad generous, but I think they're a decent unit overall. Better than the Sea Dog at least...
Greek/Gorgo: 9 Points. The Hoplite is a tad underwhelming, but good for early game culture grabs with the rest of Gorgo's abilities. Just one point there. Two points for everything else. All the other stuff about Gorgo just works super well. The Acropolis is amazing. Culture from kills is great. Great synergy. Extra wildcard is really nice.
Greek/Pericles: Haven't tried him yet, but almost positive if I gave Gorgo a 9, he's around there too.
Hungarian: In progress. I'm pretty sure he's getting a high score here.
Incan: 9 Points. Only 1 for Mit'a because it's more nice flavor than anything else and makes a normally totally useless tile kind of nice. Otherwise, the Waraq'aq is great, Qhapaq Nan is awesome, Terrace farm and synergy are all wonderful. Had a blast with this one - one of my new favorites.
Indian/Chandragupta: Have yet to try.
Indian/Gandhi: Played around a bit with them in vanilla but need to try the current version.
Indonesian: Played around a bit after they came out, but kind of difficult to set up right. Will try again.
Japanese: Never finished a game with them yet; need to try again.
Khmer: 7 Points. There is some honestly great food and faith synergy for this civ. I love Grand Barays - I think it is much better than people give it credit for. Also, gimme my suicide missionaries! Prasats are a great upgrade for the temple. Domrey gets 1 point - nice unit, kind of out of place in the grand scheme of the whole civ. And as much as I like the food/faith synergy of the civ...Monasteries of the King is abysmal. It's definitely the weakest part of the civ. Plays in a bit with the rest of the civ, but isn't super useful.
Kongolese: Haven't tried yet.
Koreans: 8 Points. The Hwacha is a good defensive unit, but it's drawbacks keep it from being great. Also, Hwarang only gets 1 because it's kind of hit or miss sometimes. You can get some really good governors with lots of science/culture, but only in a few cities for most of the game. Not always easy to take advantage of. I think that Three Kingdoms is highly useful in tandem with the Seowon, and there is great synergy in the civ for a good science game (also culture). 2 points in each of those categories.
Macedonian: 10 Points. I hate admitting this, but Macedon is easily one of the best civs in the game. I think the Basilikoi Pades is the "weakest" part, but it's still REALLY good because it encourages your science growth and military expansion so well. Their units are pretty dang good, and those abilities are just OP.
Mali: I have yet to play but they're next on my list.
Maori: I have yet to play, but they are after Mali.
Mapuche: Haven't tried, but I'm curious since I like fighting them (they can bring somewhat of a challenge to conquer/war against).
Mongolian: 10 Points. There is nothing bad about Mongolia. Nothing. And it all works together better than just about any other civ in the game. They get bonuses to the best classes of combat units, as well as that fantastic doubling of diplo visibility combat bonus. This actually ended up being my best game, pleasantly surprising me. And because they can take what they need so well, they can do just about anything, too.
Norwegian: I tried playing them awhile back before any of the "buffs", but was not impressed. Will need to try again.
Nubian: 10 Points. I've loved few civs as much as this one. A builder civ that is just as dangerous in war as any warmonger civ. Extra boosts from mines. Cheap ranged units. Pitati Archers. Nubian Pyramids take some tricks but you can get some great yields from them. Cheap districts. Yes please.
Ottomans: Have yet to try.
Persians: Played around with them for a bit but didn't get a good game really going.
Phoenicians: 9 Points. I give the Bireme 1 point. It's not the greatest thing ever, but the trader protection is awesome early game. Otherwise, I had a lot of fun with Dido. Cothons are magical. Their settler spam and ability to claim any (coastal) territory and resources they want are awesome. Extra trade routes? Great. I'm a fan of cheaper government plaza stuff too. Fantastically done.
Polish: Haven't got a good game going with them yet.
Romans: Played around a bit once - need to do a full game, but I liked what I saw.
Russians: 9 Points. Grand Embassy isn't terribly grand, but it really helps early/mid game when focusing on religion so you don't stay too far behind. Otherwise, Russia is brilliantly designed. Great religion/culture games, good domination (or even just defensive) potential thanks to the Cossack. Lavras are fantastic.
Scottish: 7 Points. I love Scotland. But Bannockburn is just non-existent because of difficult requirements (0 points). It's a non-factor. Highlanders are okay as defensive units, but not anything screaming to be built (1 point). There is a GREAT science game with Scotland. Also, your cities are permanently overflowing with happiness (you work a bit for it, but golf courses can go a long way). MORE great Engineers and Scientists? Absolutely!
Scythians: I hear they're amazing - played around a bit, but need to give a serious game.
Spanish: 6 Points. I might be being generous here. But the conquistador is worth 2 points to me. Does it require micro/setup? Yes. But these bad boys were game changers in my wars. Incredibly powerful. Otherwise, everything else is just inconsistent. Mission is okay, but really moreso on foreign continents which can be trickier to set up. Abilities are fine, nothing to scream over (I like trade route bonuses though). Some imperfect synergy for religion and domination.
Sumerians: 8 Points (maybe 9). Lots of people list Sumeria as God-Tier. Which I understand. They're great. But the Leader Ability is kinda crap? Maybe it's not as bad as I think, but I didn't really find it super useful so i didn't give it any points...I could see giving it a 1 though with the new pillage buffs. But everything else IS God-Tier. The War Cart alone is enough to make me afraid. Ziggurats are a great improvement. I think that Epic Quest is awesome - extra goody huts where no one else can get them AND cheap levied units (which can get otherwise expensive). Great science/culture/dom synergy.
Swedish - 9 Points. The Carolean is good, but a tad underwhelming. Everything else synergizes perfectly for diplomatic or culture victories. OAM is OP. Nobel Prize is OP. Queen's Bibliotheque is lovely. Automatic theming is awesome. Loved my Kristina game.
Zulu - Haven't tried but i really don't like being their neighbors!

i know this is all totally subjective (and I'll update as I go), but that's how I've been doing it in my nifty chart.

 

[Leucarum]

I did get around to playing hungary finally. On lower difficulties I am sure the levying would be really good. But when the AI only leaves 2 city states alive their ability loses most of its punch. I ended up levying just to keep my envoys up in both... Between them they had 3 units in total, (presumably thanks to conflict with the AI?)

Pearl of the danube however was supremely useful. Getting most of your buildings and districts half price... I'll take that! This is the ability I would play Hungary around personally...

I feel like a lot of the civs in this expansion vary in power with difficulty. Musa's vulnerability to an early rush and Mathias losing all his city states are the two most obvious.

 

[Troy Bruckner]

Of the newest Civs (playing on Pangea Map on Epic or Marathon speed):
Top Domination : Hungary, Beeline for iron Working and use start passing the governor that gives you 2 delegates around and chain levy troops.
Top Cultural: I hate to say it, but Frealenor. Build Apadana and temples and stack as many relics as you can get along with the religious perc that triples your relic bonuses. all that early tourism will overwhelm the other Civs.
Top diplomatic : Hungary. Even if you don't go for a Domination win you can be suzerain over most if not every CS by the end of Classic Era.
Top Religious: I don't really play religion victory games, but there is a way to use all of Hungary's domination of the City States to really pump his religion that I think would dominate.
Second best new Civ overall: Mansa Musa.

On a side note: Nobody really mentions Indonesia much, but this Civ is a lot better since the new expansion from how trade routes are calculated. I think it's the best island hopping Civ now by far.

 

[Arilian]

If you play hungary you need to go to war and free those CSs. Preferably with other CSs levied units.

 

[Leucarum]

If you play hungary you need to go to war and free those CSs. Preferably with other CSs levied units.

Sure, and I'm not saying they are a weak civ. On lower difficulties levying is a reliable strategy.

On higher difficulties it becomes far more situational. Did the right city states survive? Can I reach the ones I want to liberate quickly? They are still a strong civ (I really loved pearl of the danube as an ability though its also map dependent), but they don't seem anything like as nuts as the maori.

 

[Arilian]

I played 3 Hungary games in deity.
in 2 The captured some city states, but it was easy to free them with the levied units from the third. This made them my ally to. (Unfortunately they did not build military units for a long time after liberated - so you have to keep attention and use levy for 1 unit for the emissaries...)
They do try to take the suzerainity away so you have to have 2 envoys spare + amani for another 2.

The captured CS have no walls, and ususally not protected very well.

 

[knighterrant81]

If you play hungary you need to go to war and free those CSs. Preferably with other CSs levied units.

I just don't find levying to be that big of a deal (at Emperor). It's nice in the early-to-mid-game, but I don't think I'd give up a Hungary game because I didn't have a ton of neighboring CS's. Just go horses. All hail the Horseman.

 

[kb27787]

Well, that's exactly the problem.

it's not a matter of getting lots of tourism. Civs like Russia are much better at denying other civs writers, denying them early tourism and keeping overall domestic tourists low so you can win faster victories.

Now of course you can also keep domestic tourism low by killing the cultural leader, but if you do that, you might as well just go domination and use culture victory as a secondary victory if things get too boring.



Just don't build them then. A IZ with +20 production Hansa doesn't need a puny +2 production workshop anyways. And they're half off as well.

I would argue if you had a bunch of +10 hansas everywhere, that you don't even need a factory anyways except for power and that's just every 5-6 cities or so.



In the past you could use his shipbuilding bonus to overflow into more useful things. Now that trick is gone, and he's kind of crap.



Cree can reach pop 10 easily and you can have great science/culture with Pingala. His UU now has a decent promotion line and thus if you can get ambush on them, it's going to be devastating when you pillage the crap out of your enemies. And they were good to begin with.



Well, as I said before, you can get early culture with Pingala now and Pericles will beat out Gorgo over the long run because Gorgo's ability does not scale well with era. As a result, the time period where Gorgo is superior is lessened since we'll all be going through the civics tree faster. And because overall culture grows faster, that also means Pericles % boost scales better as well.

Also as the game goes on, war becomes more and more lacking in synergy with culture since you'll get denounced faster and thus harder to get open borders and crap.

Denying books is one thing but some civs have tile-based culture which makes them culture generators regardless (Persia, France, and Maori in particular but also any civ with alcazars)

The only reason I would build IZs is the GE points for the wonder production GEs... Without buildings each naked IZ generates a single puny point. In that regard, Scotland is far better than the Germans.

 

[Leucarum]

My favorite civ: Kongo, so much stronger now in GS relative to other civs (although finish time will be later than RnF due to computers nerf and CV rework). Kongo's biggest problem was getting to drama and poetry in a timely manner before Greece and Russia snag all the early writers so they can snowball. Pingala solves this brilliantly and thanks to his start bias he is rarely lacking for food early. This means his culture accelerates faster so he gets Mt St Michel and St. Basil faster and hence much reduced chances of him missing these two key wonders. Relic tourism has not been changed much except for the fact that since he is not a religion founder but he can generate tons of apostles he will never get the -50% tourism malus for different religions from any civs. Moving the double tourism promotion from Reyna to Pingala makes Kongo extremely happy due to the sheer number of slots he has.

As the first leader I played in civ6 Mvemba has a special place in my nostalgia zone. I'm kinda happy that he may be a little better now and I think I'll fire him up next with this post in mind.

I played 3 Hungary games in deity.
in 2 The captured some city states, but it was easy to free them with the levied units from the third. This made them my ally to. (Unfortunately they did not build military units for a long time after liberated - so you have to keep attention and use levy for 1 unit for the emissaries...)
They do try to take the suzerainity away so you have to have 2 envoys spare + amani for another 2.

The captured CS have no walls, and ususally not protected very well.

I was impressed with Hungary when I played them, which is nice as I wasn't a fan at reveal. I guess my point was that while a player jumps through several hoops were in order to levy units from previously captured city states, pearl of the danube is the silent MVP in the background, shaving off turns of construction left, right and center. I can also think of quite a few maps where RNG meant I bodyblocked the AI from city states (often more than one since the map gen seems to cluster them), on those maps I imagine Hungary would be as insane on deity as elsewhere...

 

[Archon_Wing]

The only reason I would build IZs is the GE points for the wonder production GEs.

Well, the problem with standard IZs is that their adjancency bonuses are inflexible and weak. Hansa adjacency is much easier to get. Unless you don't build commercial hubs; then I sorta get that.

But my point is that Hansas are good, and the industrial buildings are irrelevant to whether it is good or not. It's almost free anyways.

 

[kb27787]

Well, the problem with standard IZs is that their adjancency bonuses are inflexible and weak. Hansa adjacency is much easier to get. Unless you don't build commercial hubs; then I sorta get that.

But my point is that Hansas are good, and the industrial buildings are irrelevant to whether it is good or not. It's almost free anyways.

I remember that thing got +2 from each CH... but if I recall correctly the bonus from mines is taken away in exchange, no? (I dare say getting +6 on hansa was quite difficult the only times I played Germany on Vanilla) Sure, triangle with city center and CH will net you +3 but I don't think it is necessarily any stronger than a well-placed IZ by other civs (hills tend to cluster by nature anyway; if you take the trouble you can get +6 IZ with any other civ but with Germany it's quite difficult!)... I always understood that the main selling point as them being half priced rather than them being production powerhouses... (the +15 hansa thing in the other thread is probably not doable in practice... you'd be blocked by luxuries/strategics most likely and that also means you've settle some pretty crappy non-freshwater cities to be able to surround that one hansa)

Incidentally I love CHs... trade routes are the most wonderful things in the game with Wisselbanken and reform the coinage (and democracy later) such that as a production-district is concerned the CH ultimately outperforms the IZ if your progress in the civics tree is fast (which just underscores how bad IZs are)

 

[Archon_Wing]

I remember that thing got +2 from each CH... but if I recall correctly the bonus from mines is taken away in exchange, no? (I dare say getting +6 on hansa was quite difficult the only times I played Germany on Vanilla) Sure, triangle with city center and CH will net you +3 but I don't think it is necessarily any stronger than a well-placed IZ by other civs (hills tend to cluster by nature anyway; if you take the trouble you can get +6 IZ with any other civ but with Germany it's quite difficult!)...

The bonus from mines is really bad because it limits your placement and not always possible. Some cities don't have many hills.

It's not difficult at all to place hansas because all you need to do is place the cities close together and simply place all the hubs and hansas together. You can do this with basically any terrain layout and the game favors ICS anyways.

+6-8 Hansas base is pretty average for a hansa. Also remember that they keep the +1 for every 2 adjacenct district. So 2 commercial hubs next to a hansa is already +5.

 

[Disgustipated]

I remember that thing got +2 from each CH... but if I recall correctly the bonus from mines is taken away in exchange, no? (I dare say getting +6 on hansa was quite difficult the only times I played Germany on Vanilla) Sure, triangle with city center and CH will net you +3 but I don't think it is necessarily any stronger than a well-placed IZ by other civs (hills tend to cluster by nature anyway; if you take the trouble you can get +6 IZ with any other civ but with Germany it's quite difficult!)... I always understood that the main selling point as them being half priced rather than them being production powerhouses... (the +15 hansa thing in the other thread is probably not doable in practice... you'd be blocked by luxuries/strategics most likely and that also means you've settle some pretty crappy non-freshwater cities to be able to surround that one hansa)

If you are willing to place your cities close together getting a +15 is possible. Though I needed a couple restarts to ensure mountains and resources weren't in the way. Turns into +30 with the card, and the coal plant adds another +15 I believe (don't think it was 30, but I'd have to check). Just surround 1 IZ with 6 commercial hubs, which requires a ring of 6 cities of course. I can't remember what the last +3 came from, Just know it was base +15 and +30 with the card. edit: the last +3 came from being adjacent to 6 districts.

In some ways it can be easier to plan with Germany, but sometimes luxury and strategic resources get in the way. My issues with IZ's with regular civs is the best adjacency almost never coincides with being able to hit the most cities. I usually only average +3 with regular civs.

edit: just checked. It was +30 from the Hansa and +36 from the coal plant, so the card does affect that. The factory was +43. The workshop comes in at an amazing +2. Which one of these buildings is crap.

 

[Victoria]

Although the Spartan has long been considered superior,

by the wrong people.... it has always been the other way. That Suze bonus just keeps growing with Peri. The death culture is overrated.
How can anyone not put Genghis as S tier?

 

[Archon_Wing]

by the wrong people.... it has always been the other way. That Suze bonus just keeps growing with Peri. The death culture is overrated.
How can anyone not put Genghis as S tier?

If you leave Genghis on a lonely island, he would be sad tier.

 

[Weraptor]

Genghis is good, but since GS came out, Shaka is the obvious S tier. Super spammable Impis.