[R&F] Power Ranking the Civs (Rise and Fall)

[Navelgazer]

If you ask me, anything I labeled t0/t1 are acutally civs I targeted for nerfs hopefully. (Sadly, they just nerf England.)

To be fair, Persia was also nerfed like crazy. (Edit: which was totally necessary, to be clear.)

 

[Pietato]

Also, please don't turn this into a "Buff England" thread; we have like 50 other threads for that.

k

 

[Archon_Wing]

Continuing the t1 civs

6. Nubia

Because War Carts weren't enough...

While I continued to question who thought war carts were an idea, it sememed like they wanted to outdo themselves or maybe they just wanted to sell the DLC to make money. In any case, it seemed like Nubia consisted of the rather unimaginative "hey, everyone needs to build districts and archers early on, let's make them even better!" The Pitali Archer might be no war cart, but then again, not that it matters to the opposition. Not only do you deal ranged death, the archer also has more movement, and simply runs circles around other archers. They can do crap like fire from hills and run away from the hill. This is a big edge over stuff like Eagle Warriors and War Carts, and the fact I have to say this is a problem. There's practically no stopping these things, and the AI stands little chance either.

To make matters worse, they have a production boost to ranged units, meaning that slingers are cheaper than scouts and they grow faster too with exp. Yea....

The district bonus is also quite decent and you can much more easily set up cities faster, though this isn't as big of a deal with Magnus running around and also as you climb up difficulties, captured cities tend to have districts in them anyways. Why this bonus is stronger while Egypt's is stuck to a river is beyond me though I guess the later can build wonders faster.... Meanwhile, the pyramid can boost it even higher. So Nubia doesn't need to be stuck to war either, though it seems like these bonuses tend to be either/or


The mine bonus is nice and helps you pay for your archer swarms. It's not that impressive, but I think that's more than enough.

7. Korea

You have reached the industrial era! Probably when everyone's still in medieval

Korea is probably the first of the mortal civs simply because they have no way to wtfpwn anyone early, and have to deal with Barbs and hostile neighbors like people that actually play the game. Of course, early is subjective and Korea will probably be seeing Hwachas "early" while people are stuck on Knights. The Seowon is cheap, available fast, and is by and far the best district in the game. It's pretty easy to float to Recorded History to get even more out of your Seowons. Seowon adjancency can be tricky due to it losing adjacency for adjacent districts, however the difference between a +3 and +4 is largely irrelevant and they can guarantee it. Plus extra science from mines and stuff.

If that wasn't enough, they also have extra culture and science from their governors. And the Hwacha can be useful for defense.

They're a really no-nonsense civ, but being science translates to an advantage everywhere, and thus excel in both cultural and science victories. Culture victories tend to need to reach techs like computers fast, and don't forget that reaching techs first means first dibs on wonders. Not that the hill bias wouldn't hurt-- that's probably a strength on its own. (Oh yea, also why Greece is good). But of course, science is still their main hat.

8. Scythia

That was a close fight. Not really

Possibly the OG of Civ 6 brokeness, Scythia has gotten some nerfs over the course of the game, but they're still going strong. The thing about Scythia is they just snowball every fight, and once that happens, the enemy is defeated and just heals your units. Roadbumps do nothing to Scythia.... you gotta finish them off, or you die. Their combat bonus to wounded units is very strong as long as you havve some ranged unit to open the fight with and they themselves don't have to do much damage.

They are dependent on horses, as the Saka Horse Archer really isn't that good, but they also have a friggen horse bias so that's rarely an issue. The bonus applies to all kinds of units anyways, so they're not stuck to horses either. An Archer rush works just as nicely and better than most not named Nubia.

The bonus also applies to religious units for some reason and with the Kurgan helping out a little in matters of faith makes Scythia also potent in Religious victories should they go that path. But in most cases, you're going to find the upper hand somewhere, and opportunities will present themselves all game long.

But at least Firaxis realizes how broken they are to a degree. That's probably why they introduced....

9. Mongolia

You can either refuse to trade with us and die, or you can trade with us and then die

Mongolia is a strange civ, since its conditional ability means a savvy player could stop them by declaring war on them first, but the AI does no such thing and that wouldn't be fun anyways. The result is pretty simple. You just settle near someone (easy with those spawns), target them with a trade route, and off you go. When you declare war on them, that route is cancelled and you can send a trader looking for another victim.

Of course, they do better with horses, and horse units were already too good to begin with. The chariot would gain +3 from Horse Lord and another +6 from visibility. It's very easy to rush a 37 strength unit so early (more so if you boost wheel), and that can stand up to enemy horsemen.... which may become your own very soon. If you manage to get to printing, then the carnage only gets worse. You could also decide to not war and enjoy your extended trade network too, but hey.

Mongolia can steal any cavalry unit, from Varu to tanks, so that just gives them tremendous value throughout the game.

Of course, they suck when lonely, being largely military focused so that does make them somewhat mortal in starts like those until they do find someone to invade.

10. Macedon.

What is this peace you speak of?

There's something very wrong when your civ's weakest ability is that it suffers no war weariness. Macedon is designed to start warring, and never really stop. I do think this ability is a bit overrated, since war weariness isn't really a thing early on anyways and you shouldn't be throwing away tons of units regardless. It's more of an insurance against wars that don't turn out the way you want, or unexpected ones being declared upon you. Also you might get those terrible starts without a luxury.

Of course, the devs took every effort to make sure you can war forever. Your units heal if there's a wonder in the city, so you can keep going. You gain boosts depending on the city's district, and this is what puts Macedon over the top. Normally, focusing on military would set you behind in tech, but not them. In fact, this bonus scales very well over time and you can still toss yourself through the tech tree at a rapid pace in case you wanted something other than a domination victory.

Their UB is alright early game, but hard building units gets weaker as the game goes along. Not a big deal though.

Oh yea, they have 2 UUs, so you don't have to worry about horses or iron anyways. Yea, you're going to war and like it.

The only weakness of Macedon is that like Mongolia they are a sad panda without war but otherwise they'll be at it for a long time. Oh, yea Hetaroi upgrade into knights (Poor, Poor, Egypt)

Next time we'll be going over some strong civs that are balanced much more sensibly.

 

[acluewithout]

This is the thing I always love about Civ tier lists; though I think we all have a common understanding of how the meta works, we each have differing opinions on how different Civs better capitalize on that framework. We generally agree on the the heavy hitters, but I always see a slightly different order or some Civs placed differently, and I think that's cool! Anyways, enough prattling; let's continue:

The Bottom Tiers (Cont.)


33. Khmer

The Khmer are almost good; they get off to a really strong start in terms of design with their UA and unique unit. Grand Barays is a really strong ability: the bonus faith is whatever, but a free amenity and bonus food for adjacent farms is quite helpful, and allows the Khmer to potentially experience megacity levels of growth. Not quite as much as a certain African Civ we’ll get to later, but it’s a strong start. Similarly, the Domrey can be devastating if deployed correctly. They’re terribly expensive, but you really only need one or two, and they can deal incredible damage to a city where there’s not much counter play in the Medieval Era, and Medieval Walls aren’t equipped to deal with this kind of damage.. However, the Domrey cannot be upgraded into a Bombard, and this is where things begin to get dicey for the Khmer.

The LA, in my opinion, is not good. Out of all the Culture Bomb-type unique abilities in the game, this one has to be the weakest. And while you might be tempted to look at the food and housing from Holy Sites here and think, “Wow, this will really let me grow my cities to a large size,” that’s unfortunately not the case. One single unit of housing a megacity does not make, and the fact that these bonuses are locked behind Holy Sites—the weakest districts in the game—makes trying to utilize these bonuses lead to restricting your cities from using other, more useful districts. Furthermore, all these bonuses can only be accessed by building your Holy Sites on rivers, which is not always a guarantee. And the Prasat is just… painfully lackluster. One extra relic slot, and the Martyr promotion for Missionaries is really underwhelming. Yes, there are some cute relic strategies you could employ for a religious or cultural victory, but these strategies can also be played by simply building Mont St. Michel, and aren’t strong enough to warrant this Civ having a Temple UI that doesn’t offer any other bonuses.

To summarize, the Khmer have a really nice design philosophy and potentially really good unique unit, but all their other bonuses just fall flat on their face, and leave us with a grossly disappointing Civ.


32. France

Discussing France in Rise & Fall is an interesting topic, because technically speaking, France received no direct buffs in the expansion. What did happen, however, is that game mechanics upon which the design of France is predicated were buffed, which in turn, makes France a bit stronger.

First, now having a level of diplomatic visibility over your opponent gives you an additional 3 combat strength for each level over them you have. For France, this is a big deal, as France gets a free level of diplomatic visibility with every other Civ in the game, meaning that if you play your cards right, France has a + 3 combat bonus against opposing Civs at all times. Additionally, once you unlock spies, constructing a listening post gives you an additional level of visibility, which would boost this bonus up to + 6. France unlocks spies an era early than every other Civ in the game, which means that in the Medieval Era, you’re pretty much guaranteed to have two levels of visibility over an opponent with no checks or counters. This can give France a strong militaristic push in the Ancient/Classical Era, and an even stronger one in the Medieval Era, which is fairly substantial.

Secondly, spies now have a few more tools to play with. The removal of a governor is a cheeky bonus, but not a particularly strong one considering how long that bonus will be in play. Potentially uprooting City-State suzerainty, though, is a much stronger one. Even stronger is the potential to flip an opposing Civ’s city through the newly added loyalty mechanics. Both of these are available to France earlier in the game than any other Civ, which is incidentally, at a point in the game where opponents are more vulnerable to these tools. France is also more effective at these underhanded techniques for the entire game, given that each spy earns a free promotion. Any buff to spies is a buff to Catherine de Medici’s France, and spies are significantly better than they were in vanilla.

But again, the buffs to France aren’t technically French buffs; consequently, other aspects of the Civ that were underwhelming are still just as underwhelming. The unique unit is still quite lackluster, and the Château is still the worst unique improvement in the game. Grand Tour is still pretty good, and there are a few new wonders that France might be interested in building which the ability capitalizes on, but that—along the indirect buffs the Civ received—isn’t enough to save France from the bottom tier. It’s just enough to save them from being bottom three.


31. Norway

And now, at the top of the bottom of the barrel, we have Norway. “Wait, what?! Norway’s not bottom three?!” is what you might be thinking right now. “You must be crazy!” That might be true, but with taking into consideration buffs made to the Civ along with a reevaluation of some of Norway’s assets that I honestly think have been slept on, a strong case can be made to place Norway at this spot.

First, let’s address the buffs that Norway’s received over the past few patches. First up is that + 1 production bonus for every sea resource worked by a city. Now, I realize that the bonus is locked behind a holy site building, which is fairly limiting—like the Khmer, Norway has to build a weak district to access it. But production is arguably the most coveted yield in the current Civ VI meta, and coastal cities are particularly starved for it. Giving Norway an ability to garner production in situations where other Civs otherwise cannot makes them able to potentially out-produce their neighbors, especially if they found a city that has a high number of sea resources. On top of that, they get a 50% production bonus towards building naval units, getting extra mileage out of that extra production; factoring in the Viking Longship to the equation, and no Civ can even hope to compete with Norway in terms of early-game naval dominance. This means less than that wording would lead you to believe, since naval units are much less useful in Civ VI than they were in Civ V—especially since we’re making the assumption that an enemy Civ settles a lot of coastal cities early on—but it’s still a facet of the game that no Civ can hope to compete with Norway in that particular time frame.

Now, let’s talk about the Berserker: plain and simple, I think this was already one of the most underrated units in Civ VI. I don’t mean to imply that this unit was great by any stretch of the imagination, but they were far from useless. They essentially managed to function as cavalry with the added bonus of having access to the melee unit promotion tree. Yeah, they were liabilities on defense, but if you used them like cavalry (i.e. not frontliners) they could function as devastating hit & run units. And now they got buffed, making them even stronger on offense and less of a liability on defense; in other words, buffing their strengths while mitigating their weaknesses. With a noteworthy production cost decrease on top of that, these units can now be actually quite good. The only caveat is that you have to go through the useless Military Tactics tech to be unlocked, which is a major limiting factor on the unit. This makes them much less practical than on paper, but it’s still worth taking them at face value.

Beyond this, Norway is still Norway; they’re for the most part a one-trick-pony who’s single trick isn’t one that’s very impactful in the Civ VI metagame. However, they’re much better at their one trick than they used to be, and they have a little bit more utility than they used to, which I think warrants them a decent move up the tier list; just not enough to escape the bottom tiers.

...and all of these Civs are a hoot to play.

Spain annoys me a little, because I have to found my Religion way earlier than makes sense for Spain historically. But you get over it, found your religion, and then they are actually very fun. It’s a pity navy isn’t more of a thing, but the war religion and trade is very enjoyable.

Norway rock. Seriously. The early exploring. Early settling. Or just go total rock and roll, and just befriend Gilgabro, and then just pillage everybody to their unending hatred.

And Khmer. Turns out High Pop cities and loyalty flipping is really fun. My only gripe with these guys is that you want all the beliefs, because so many of them synergise with Khmer.

Honestly. I love these power ranking threads. And @Archon_Wing and @Jewelrunna ’s write ups are great. But these threads have trouble addressing what is “fun” and can imply some Civs are better than others when they’re not really (if you factor in enjoyment factor).

I’d really like to do one of these based around fun. I think you’d find both the TOP and bottom of the lists filled with weak and strong civs. Georgia is both weak and boring. Norway is weak but fun. Alex and Gilgamesh are OP, but in a very fun way. America is strong but desperately dull.

 

[Navelgazer]

Honestly. I love these power ranking threads. And @Archon_Wing and @Jewelrunna ’s write ups are great. But these threads have trouble addressing what is “fun” and can imply some Civs are better than others when they’re not really (if you factor in enjoyment factor).

Seriously, acluewithout, start that thread and I'll happily contribute. Whether a Civ is fun is far more important to me than how powerful it is (In Civ V I would happily take Indonesia over Babylon 10 times out of 10) and that sounds like an interesting discussion.

 

[OmegaDestroyer]

Agreed 100%. Korea may be the Science King but I find it to be the most boring civ in the game.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Agreed 100%. Korea may be the Science King but I find it to be the most boring civ in the game.

It is because civs that are considered powerful tend to have easy to use passive abilities that help througth the game, especially early game, Obviously later era starts would greatly change the list if it is based on early unique units.

Pretty much all civs on the top of the list are pretty uninteresting to play as because either their strategy is simply to spam early game unique units and thus limit the strategy or they have pretty boring abilities or gameplan such as Korea who strategy is spam cities into spaming their unique campuses or Rome who are just spam cities.

However it don't really matter what civ you play as because you can win with them all on deity on the victory of your choice and the difference in difficulty is rather minimal.

 

[row2infinity]

I've had some amazing games as Mapuche. Yes their attack bonus is situational, but if you're playing on Immortal/Deity, then other civs will be incredibly likely to get into a golden age I've found. If you're playing on lower difficulties, then everything is just easier in general, so whatever haha. They should be higher imo.

 

[Navelgazer]

Mapuche are interesting. I think they definitely fit into the "not super powerful, but super-fun" distinction we're talking about above, just because their bonus can be tricky to time and use, and the Malón Raider is both late-coming and not as powerful as other late-arriving units/abilities are. And the Chemamull can crowd out spots you want for Seaside Resorts later on if you end up leaning into Culture Victory. (Can you replace a Chemamull with a Resort? I'm not sure I even tried.)

But for sure wrecking a Golden Age Civ is fun as hell, especially as they put up a fight and their cities lose that much more loyalty as a result.

 

[Jewelrunna]

A bit of delay due to class obligations, but I'm back to dig this thread back up from the dead! Now we can finally move onto:


The Low Tiers

30. Mapuche

Now, the Mapuche were a Civ that had me theorycrafting for quite a while; the specific niche that they fill has never been seen before in a Civ game, and that’s quite exciting! Ultimately though, we have to ask ourselves: how strong—or perhaps for fitting for this discussion—how frequently strong is the Mapuche niche? The answer: not all that much.

The Mapuche are designed to be a culture turtle that bites back, so first let’s look at the aspect of their design where the culture comes in, and that is the Chemamull—which also happens to be the best part of their design. Barring perhaps the pairidaeza, this is the strongest cultural tile improvement, and it’s straight up the best if you look at the potential yield itself. At bare minimum, you’re guaranteeing yourself three culture per turn—a lot in the early game—or six in the late game. This in turn can be translated into tourism once you research flight, giving the Mapuche a clear path to winning the game via a Cultural Victory. The placement restrictions can be a bit troublesome, but with effective planning this bonus can become a quite strong, if one dimensional asset to your Civ.

Now while Lautaro and the Mapuche have one clearly strong unique in their toolkit, the rest of their abilities are either much less consistent or fairly inconsequential in general. Their strongest ability outside of the Chemamull is their UA: the extra experience is certainly nice to have and is fairly easy to obtain, and ten extra combat strength is an incredible amount to gain. The caveat is that in order to obtain that bonus damage, you have to go to war with someone in a Golden Age; something that can’t be necessarily premediated as easily as “I want to invade my neighbor”; it’s an asset that must be left up to chance, and can’t be totally relied upon. Lautaro’s own ability that causes cities to lose loyalty when units are killed or tiles are pillaged nearby is fairly gimmicky, and oftentimes the loyalty lost isn’t impactful enough to actually causes cities to flip—I found this ability hard to use effectively in a practical scenario. And even if you get the city to flip, it doesn’t amount to all that much—you’ll still have to conquer the now free city if you want to integrate it into your empire. The Malón Raider is a perfectly fine, if fairly uninspiring unique unit. Getting access to a strong cavalry unit in an era where others don’t have access to one gives them a nice militaristic edge in the Renaissance Era, and the decrease cost to pillaging tiles synergizes pretty nicely. Unfortunately, they upgrade into Helicopters, not Cavalry, and cannot also be upgraded into themselves from Horsemen; so if you invest the production into building these units, prepare for them to be outpaced in one Era.

Mapuche are a Civ that seems to be built around to disrupting other Civs and raining on their Golden Age parades; if you try to take advantage of this cultural turtle, you’ll get bitten back really hard. However, simply disrupting other Civs doesn’t help you win the game in and of itself, so the only bonus that actually helps them in that regard is their unique improvement. The Mapuche do fill an incredibly unique niche in Civ, which makes them somewhat hard to rank. However, I find them to be outclassed by other Civs in the game, so I think this place is fairly suiting.


29. Brazil

As far as revisions to base game Civs go, Brazil came out of the expansion fairly unchanged. In fact, you might could argue that Brazil got somewhat nerfed by the changes to certain Great People (such as the changes made to Adam Smith). Beyond that, there’s not too much else to discuss about Brazil that already hasn’t been covered. They’re versatile without necessarily excelling at any one thing in particular. They have access to arguably the best unique naval unit in the game, but it comes in the early stages of the late-game, which limits the mileage gained from it. And they’re not likely to be strapped for amenities if you use your Carnival districts properly; and they, combined with Pedro’s ability, can net you Great People that you might be particularly coveting. One aspect of the Carnival district that might be worth mentioning, is that having access to the Carnival Project prohibits you from using the Bread and Circus project to potentially flip neighboring cities that are aggressively-forward settled. This a give-and-take sort of bonus for Brazil, and it’s hard to say whether they miss out or gain from this change. Oh, and it’s probably worth mentioning that Brazil’s rainforest start-bias can be a bit of a liability. While the tile yields might not be that bad overall, they can be difficult to improve and oftentimes you won’t be able to build early districts until you research Bronze Working; this can drastically delay your first districts compared to other starts. Overall though, there’s not too much else to add about Brazil in R&F: they’re a jack of all trades, but a master of none.


28. India (Gandhi)

Not much changed for India in Rise & Fall—barring the addition of a swole, mustachioed expansionist, but we’ll get to him—and Gandhi remains largely the same leader that he was in the base game. He wants to play passive, grow large cities, accrue faith, and nuke people. Ok, that last bit is just AI Gandhi, to be fair. However, Gandhi hasn’t changed all that much. I’ll comment more on the Varu when we get to his warmonger counterpart, but the Stepwell is a fairly decent unique improvement, if not amazing. It will let you get large cities that grow a good amount, but not to Kongo or Khmer levels of big. Gandhi’s faith output can be pretty good, but it’s largely up to whether or not the AI is at war if he can capitalize on it—something beyond the player’s control in most circumstances. One important thing to note about Gandhi that isn’t really new, but something that I didn’t take much notice of in the first tier list is his war weariness penalty. This war weariness actually adds up quite a significant bit, and is either very penalizing to those who attack Gandhi, or can be quite crippling should Gandhi decide to expand. Oh, and the Civ’s unique ability leaves quite a bit to be desired; if you’re playing a religious game, you’re probably not going to have a religiously diverse population in your cities. Even if you do, you might end up with bonuses that either scale with population—which would be weak in this context—or are just not beneficial for you, hurting this ability’s consistency. In most circumstances Gandhi’s just going to amass faith, and spread religion around; fairly one dimensional while often being subject to the choices of AI/player opponents.

 

[PhilBowles]

31. Norway

Beyond this, Norway is still Norway; they’re for the most part a one-trick-pony who’s single trick isn’t one that’s very impactful in the Civ VI metagame. However, they’re much better at their one trick than they used to be, and they have a little bit more utility than they used to, which I think warrants them a decent move up the tier list; just not enough to escape the bottom tiers.

I've started a new session as Norway, and rolled an excellent map for them and a lot of coastal opposing cities, and this summary misses one thing that seems to hamper them: loyalty makes it harder to usefully keep any cities you forward settle or capture from an opponent who's far enough away for naval power to matter. So you can go around annoying people but not much more.

I liked Denmark a lot in Civ VI and think Norway is a bit of a failure at emulating the same playstyle. Pillaging and not keeping captured cities may be somewhat realistic, but it doesn't really translate well to a Civ game. Demmark managed a coastal raider civ that actually played with the core game a bit better.

 

[Steamboat Willem]

I labeled Sumeria and Aztec God tier, mostly because I think they're basically immune to most bad starts (probably 95%).

Isolated starts are a problem for both.

 

[Jewelrunna]

I've started a new session as Norway, and rolled an excellent map for them and a lot of coastal opposing cities, and this summary misses one thing that seems to hamper them: loyalty makes it harder to usefully keep any cities you forward settle or capture from an opponent who's far enough away for naval power to matter. So you can go around annoying people but not much more.

I liked Denmark a lot in Civ VI and think Norway is a bit of a failure at emulating the same playstyle. Pillaging and not keeping captured cities may be somewhat realistic, but it doesn't really translate well to a Civ game. Demmark managed a coastal raider civ that actually played with the core game a bit better.

Yes, this is a good point; however, I think that this is less something that plagues Norway in particular, and is simply a fact of R&F's design. Every Civ suffers from this problem, and while it might be more apparent when playing Norway, loyalty pressure can really slow down the Domination grind to a complete halt. It's one of the elements of R&F that sounds great on paper, but really doesn't translate to the game in a fun way. It's just annoying. Norway, being a naval Civ however, suffers from this problem more, I agree. There will be some other naval-oriented Civs further down the line, however, that suffer from this just as much but I rank higher.

Anyways, only two entries for now so we can round out the low-tiers. Let's get onto:

The Low Tiers (Cont.)

27. Egypt

In this revised version of our tier list, Egypt has moved quite a bit down in my tier list, as I quite overrated their uniques the first time around. However, I disagree with the conceit that Egypt belongs in the bottom tier. While they are underwhelming, I think it’s important to note that each of Egypt’s uniques, while not incredible, have some redeeming qualities. Can I say the same about the Khmer, Georgia, and England? Not really. So let’s break down exactly why.

First, let’s talk about Iteru. Yeah, this is easily the worst of the wonder-spamming abilities, only working in a specific context, and even then, 15% isn’t amazing; especially considering how vital territory on the river can be. But even then, 15% off of production costs on important districts and wonders is still pretty helpful—districts are essential to getting any city into working condition, and this bonus will go a ways towards “operational” status; the numbers could certainly use some tweaking, but it’s something. Plus, Iteru is the only wonder-spamming bonus that lasts for the entire game, and that has to be worth something. Similarly, I think the Sphinx gets a bit of a bad rap; yeah the yields aren’t amazing, but they’re pretty freely placeable as far as UI’s go, and if you get the bonus faith from wonder adjacency—great! You can use that for a variety of purposes, from just spreading religion to helping secure great people. Don’t laugh off the appeal bonus either, as that can be really helpful for Culture Victories.

Now we, unfortunately, have to get to the stuff that’s less good, and even then, I have some positive things to say about them. Mediterranean’s Bride does benefit your opponents, which isn’t great. However, this bonus does incentivize Civs to send trade routes to you, which benefits you by giving you a little bonus gold. Similarly, getting extra gold for every trade route you send out is pretty helpful as well; between these two aspects, you can get some pretty decent gold flow as Egypt. The alliances aspect of this ability also serves to make these trade routes even better. Yes, this all comes with the caveat that you use international trade routes in a game where the meta is heavily internal trade route-oriented; however, this makes international trade routes worthwhile, and you shouldn’t undersell how useful gold can be. Now for the most maligned aspect of Egypt, the Maryannu Chariot Archer. Let’s get the obvious out of the way: yes, you lose out on the Heavy Chariot, which is the best unit in the ancient era for taking cities; yes, these units are ridiculously expensive to build (almost twice the cost of a normal Chariot!); yes, it sucks that they upgrade to Crossbowmen, not Knights. However, it is important to note that these units are ridiculously strong for what they are. Their ranged combat strength is the highest combat strength in the ancient era, only rivaled by Greek Hoplites when their +10 bonus is active. They are also absurdly fast for the era as well. These monsters can lay waste to entire armies and even put a massive hole in the defenses of cities. They require you to alter your build order (don’t spam archers) and may not always be practical, but the sheer strength you get when you actually can use them places them well above the worst unique units in the game.

Overall, I think Egypt get a bad rep. Yeah, they aren’t the greatest Civ—hence their placement down here—but I think they do have some strengths that are worth a second look, and well above bottom tier.

26. India (Chandragupta)

And here’s our first alternate leader, the Indian male model Chandragupta! We’ve already talked about the stepwell and Dharma before, so we won’t spend too much time here on those abilities; however, it is worth noting that because Chandragupta has a domination-oriented game he will likely get more mileage out of Dharma since he’ll be incorporating new religions into his empire via conquest. Arthashastra can be a quite helpful unique ability, albeit one that lacks consistency. You don’t get to use it if you’re not fairly close to an opponent, but if you are Chandragupta can steamroll his neighbors. Speaking of steamrollers, we have the Varu. While these units are fairly mediocre in the hands of Gandhi, these units are much better when playing Chandragupta. Thanks to the bonus movement speed and damage, these bad boys become the strongest unit in the classical era, and almost no army can stand up to them thanks to that minus-damage debuff. However, these units are a massive production sink if you want to use them, which places an artificial cap on how many you can actually use; that said, a 45 combat strength/4 movement speed classical era unit (almost as strong as knights!) is to be feared. That said, most of these bonuses lose effectiveness once you get to the later stages of domination, when you’re conquering those last few Civs a good distance from you; however, Chandragupta’s early game expansion can be totally overpowering in the right circumstances, and does admittedly become quite strong on a Pangaea map.

...and all of these Civs are a hoot to play.

Spain annoys me a little, because I have to found my Religion way earlier than makes sense for Spain historically. But you get over it, found your religion, and then they are actually very fun. It’s a pity navy isn’t more of a thing, but the war religion and trade is very enjoyable.

Norway rock. Seriously. The early exploring. Early settling. Or just go total rock and roll, and just befriend Gilgabro, and then just pillage everybody to their unending hatred.

And Khmer. Turns out High Pop cities and loyalty flipping is really fun. My only gripe with these guys is that you want all the beliefs, because so many of them synergise with Khmer.

Honestly. I love these power ranking threads. And @Archon_Wing and @Jewelrunna ’s write ups are great. But these threads have trouble addressing what is “fun” and can imply some Civs are better than others when they’re not really (if you factor in enjoyment factor).

I’d really like to do one of these based around fun. I think you’d find both the TOP and bottom of the lists filled with weak and strong civs. Georgia is both weak and boring. Norway is weak but fun. Alex and Gilgamesh are OP, but in a very fun way. America is strong but desperately dull.

I also agree with this sentiment completely! Norway, despite being weak, is actually one of my favorite Civs to play. I might enjoy some of the stronger Civs more than Norway, if by virtue of the fact that I feel like the game is actually working in my favor, but Norway has a unique design that's fun to see play out. The same thing goes for the Mapuche as well. Spain can even be quite fun once you get everything working in your favor. I always like these power ranking threads though, because it really gets me thinking about the game's design and meta, and how if we were to make some of the "less good" Civs better, how would you go about it? It's just a lengthy thought experiment that I get some pleasure out of.

 

[nzcamel]

Isolated starts are a problem for both.

They have such good all round bonuses (esp the Aztecs) that, no, isolated starts aren't a problem. It does take them down a peg...but that just puts them on par with the best of the rest!

 

[Archon_Wing]

Isolated starts are a problem for both.

Sumeria has the barb farm for boosts ability and Ziggurats. Aztec still has superior luxury management and faster district building.

These abilities alone are equal or better than most civs and would certainly outperform them given the same isolated start.

 

[bbbt]

With the current 'capture your neighbor' meta, isolated starts are worse all around.

I'd say the Aztecs could actually do an isolated start better than most civs with their builders making districts UA. That essentially translates to being able to buy districts (via buying builders) with gold, faith in a golden age, getting 30% toward districts with a policy card, 25% off with liang/Pyramids etc.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I’d really like to do one of these based around fun. I think you’d find both the TOP and bottom of the lists filled with weak and strong civs. Georgia is both weak and boring. Norway is weak but fun. Alex and Gilgamesh are OP, but in a very fun way. America is strong but desperately dull.

Great idea, especially for people like me who aren't really very good at the game so couldn't give two hoots about the meta.

Norway are my personal favourites, it's just great fun to cruise around with longboats causing havoc in the early game and picking up loads of goody huts. Aztec and Mapuche are fun too, and I like the Netherlands purely because I enjoy settling in places where I can get lots of pretty polders.

 

[PhilBowles]

Yes, this is a good point; however, I think that this is less something that plagues Norway in particular, and is simply a fact of R&F's design. Every Civ suffers from this problem, and while it might be more apparent when playing Norway, loyalty pressure can really slow down the Domination grind to a complete halt. It's one of the elements of R&F that sounds great on paper, but really doesn't translate to the game in a fun way. It's just annoying. Norway, being a naval Civ however, suffers from this problem more, I agree. There will be some other naval-oriented Civs further down the line, however, that suffer from this just as much but I rank higher.

The reason I bring it up for Norway specifically is that they're a naval domination civ, which is an unusual combination for Civ VI. Their focus is entirely on attacking coastal cities, the very thing that has been hamstrung, and secondarily on settling overseas - and their ability to traverse ocean tiles only makes them better at the latter than anyone else if those are at a distance from their home territory. I can't think of a naval civ that it's likely to hurt more. The other 'naval' civs mostly just get yield bonuses for being on the coast - at worst they just have a ship UU that isn't much use, but most of their other benefits apply (i.e. Indonesia, Netherlands). The English are hampered the most other than Norway but don't technically have to settle overseas or far from their other settlements, since other 'continents' can be on the mainland - and England's woes are well-documented in any case.

 

[Jewelrunna]

The reason I bring it up for Norway specifically is that they're a naval domination civ, which is an unusual combination for Civ VI. Their focus is entirely on attacking coastal cities, the very thing that has been hamstrung, and secondarily on settling overseas - and their ability to traverse ocean tiles only makes them better at the latter than anyone else if those are at a distance from their home territory. I can't think of a naval civ that it's likely to hurt more. The other 'naval' civs mostly just get yield bonuses for being on the coast - at worst they just have a ship UU that isn't much use, but most of their other benefits apply (i.e. Indonesia, Netherlands). The English are hampered the most other than Norway but don't technically have to settle overseas or far from their other settlements, since other 'continents' can be on the mainland - and England's woes are well-documented in any case.

Yes, this is all true, but there are some counterpoints you can make. One is that Norway has options to wage war beyond just a navy (Berserkers, again, are pretty underrated) and even if they cannot take the city, they gain much more out of simply pillaging the countryside, so you won't feel too bad. Also, Norway's naval push comes in the early game, when loyalty pressure won't be as overwhelming. Simply getting a monument up or stationing a governor in the city can stabilize the loyalty until you burst off the coast with your land army to take the inner cities. So while this is certainly a problem Norway runs into, it's not insurmountable, and I think they're still better than the Civs the preceded them.

 

[TheDouche]

@Jewelrunna I like reading your posts, it looks like you've put some thought into it. I think you are greatly underestimating though the impact of +3 to all units in ancient era. Also, 15% for the best wonders in the game is sooo fun. Getting that Ruhr makes my juices flow. France is waay higher in strength, and top in fun.

All the hot gossip makes me feel like the civ version of Little Finger when I'm playin with my girl cathy.