Alright, a bit of a late night update, but I wanted to crank this one out. I have to get done with these before Gathering Storm is out, right? Anyways, we're finishing up...
The Good Tier
16. Indonesia
One common trend you might have noticed in this ranking is that coastal/navy oriented Civs typically are not among the stronger Civs in the roster. Coastal-starting Civs are penalized by that start, simply because they will be lacking a lot of workable/developable tiles and typically have less production than inland Civs. Sure, you can get pretty nice gold and food influxes once you have all your harbor buildings and tile improvements up and running, but you’d be much better off just settling inland. However, Indonesia bucks this trend by making coastal tiles better and giving extra bonuses for settling on the coast.
First off, their Civ ability grants them a minor adjacency bonus for every district barring harbors, encampments, and commercial hubs, and one extra amenity from entertainment centers if they are built on the coast. This can grant you some pretty nice adjacencies (typically you’ll get a plus one yield from every coastal tile, or more if the district is placed on a peninsula) on top of those you’ll likely get from placing districts adjacent to each other. You’ll naturally settle districts on the coast due to your start bias, so these are pretty easy to come by bonuses that are helpful, but typically are not game-breaking. The other reason you’re likely to settle near the coast is because of Gitarja’s unique ability, which grants you an additional +2 faith per turn for every city center on the coast. Given your start bias, you’re almost always going to get the +2 faith per turn, which means that in most games Indonesia is almost guaranteed to have access to the first pantheon in the game. Not only will you get extra era score as a consequence, but you’ll have first pickings for beliefs, which can get you the illusive Earth Goddess pantheon. Indonesia can also faith purchase naval units, which can be amazing; naval units’ production costs can be severely limiting, so being able to faith-purchase them can lead to a strong naval domination push.
The reason why this naval push is so great with Indonesia is largely due to the Jong. I know I’ve previously gone on record saying that Brazil has the best unique naval unit, but since Indonesia’s release they’ve had them beat. First off, it’s a unique frigate that comes an era early; frigates are very scary units, and getting access to them a whole era earlier than normal is absolutely terrifying. Not only that, but they are faster frigates that are stronger if in formation with another unit—a very easy +5 combat strength to obtain. Along with Japan and Norway, Indonesia are a strong candidate for the best naval Civ in the game thanks to this unit alone—however, being able to faith buy them might be the factor that pushes them over the edge. What also pushes them over the edge is the Kampung, which is a top-tier unique improvement. Remember how I said that Indonesia make coastal tiles better? This is how they do it. Bonus food, production, and housing are given to the city that works these improvements, all of which are things that coastal cities are often strapped for. Indonesia effectively solve the coastal city problem—that being that these cities are lesser than their inland counterparts—as soon as they unlock the Kampung. What’s also amazing about the Kampung is that is grants tourism after you research flight based on your food yield, making this the only unique improvement in the game that gives tourism without having culture yields. The Kampung is probably Indonesia’s strongest asset, due to the fact that it allows Indonesia to thrive in situations where other cities might be more mediocre.
Indonesia is a very solid Civ, but I hesitate to call them anything more than solid. They’re pretty good at domination, religious, and culture victories but they’re not amazing at any of those in particular. Naval domination is somewhat weak in Civ VI’s meta, their faith yield is good, but not amazing outside of getting that first pantheon, and their culture game is largely dependent on Kampung placement—which again, is good, but not overwhelmingly awesome. They’re sort of in the same boat as the Cree, being a jack of all trades Civ that doesn’t have too many bonuses that strongly push them towards a victory type; however, Indonesia has more things than the Cree that directly help them win the game, which gives them their spot here.
15. Mongolia
Lucky me, I get to keep this Mongolia entry fairly short, because they are a fairly straightforward, if unique Civ; there’s not too much that isn’t self-explanatory. They get extra combat strength from diplomatic visibility, and get trading posts immediately which grant them extra diplomatic visibility. They get stronger cavalry and can capture other Civs’ cavalry. Their cavalry is faster. And they get a very fast, very dangerous unique ranged Cavalry unit that can run tandem with the Knight while also escorting support units (four movement Battering Ram anyone?). The focus of Mongolia is abundantly clear: sweep over the enemy with the most lethal and quick cavalry pushes in the game. And they are very, very good at that; once the Genghis train gets-a-rolling, not much is going to be able to stop them.
However, their overwhelming strength is also a bit of a limiting factor. While they’re great at domination, they’re only good at domination. All of their bonuses focus almost entirely on bolstering their militaristic strengths, and only one of those bonuses applies to units other than cavalry. Now Civ VI currently operates within a cavalry-centric meta, so this is actually a good thing for Mongolia. If the dominant strategy is to spam cavalry, a Civ that out-spams others with even better cavalry is a good thing. The major issue that Mongolia run into is a timing thing. Most domination Civs can have a very strong early game push, and that’s not to say that Mongolia does not have this; Chariots with +3 extra combat strength are no joke. However, they won’t really hit their stride until Ordus are built and they unlock Horsemen; even then, their full strength won’t be realized until they reach the Medieval Era, upon which you deathball into anything within reaching distance with your Knights and Keshigs. But you want to meet these criteria before you really start conquering everything in sight, compared to the pushes of some other Civs further down the line (Persia, Sumeria, Nubia, Aztec, Macedon, Scythia to name a few) it’s not a strong. And Mongolia doesn’t have too much to do while they bide their time if they do find themselves in a disadvantageous position before their uniques start kicking into full gear. Again, once the Genghis train gets going, there’s few domination Civs in the game that can hope to compete with him, but the fact that it can take you a while to get to that point takes him down a peg.
14. Scotland
Scotland, my personal favorite Civ in the game, is a very interesting one to examine because of the disparity between their uniques. They have two of the most powerful and helpful bonuses in the entire game that possess an amazing deal of synergy between them, but they also have two bonuses that are so inconsequential that you’re really never going to see put into use. Despite this, those two amazing bonuses are so good and fit so well into the Civ VI meta that they alone catapult Scotland near the top of the good tier, and if all their bonuses were this good, they’d be god tier, free.
Let’s get the lame out of the way first here. Bannockburn, just looking at what bonuses you get from it, seems amazing. +100% production and two movement to all units sounds amazing at first glance, and yes, that is amazing—in terms of raw bonuses, this is one of the best casus belli abilities in the game. However, that last little bit is the problem: the casus belli. You’ll have to find yourself in a situation where one of your allies loses their cities and be in a position to retaliate, making this leader ability extremely situational. Also seemingly absent from any game, the Highlander is a headscratcher of a unit. Have you ever built a ranger? Ever? If the answer to that question is a resounding “no,” then you can probably see the problem with the Highlander. Looking at the unit’s actual stats, sure, they’re decent. The problem is that you’re going to have to dump production into a unit tree that largely outstays its welcome past the Ancient Era, so it’s largely not worth the investment.
So you might look at these two unique and think, “huh, these seem pretty mediocre, why should I look at Scotland?” And then you see Scottish Enlightenment. Remember how I’ve repeatedly said that the most important resources in Civ VI are production and science? Scotland gets a percentage based increase to those yields in cities that have happiness. Percentage based increases in Civ VI are rare, but the ones that do exist can really catapult your yields forward. And Scotland has them for the two most valuable yields you could hope to acquire. Not only that, but they get Great Engineer and Scientist points under the same conditions as well. And these yields are doubled if the city has three or more amenities. Hopefully by now I shouldn’t need to explain why this ability is particularly good within the Civ VI meta, but being able to out-tech and out-produce your neighbors is so, so, so strong. There is even an argument to be made about Scotland being superior at actually winning the Science Victory than the almighty Korea, thanks to that production boost. What’s more is that that Scottish Enlightenment synergizes brilliantly with the Golf Course. Gold, appeal, and culture are all well and good, and adding four pips to a tile is definitely nothing to scoff at. But the real kicker is that Scotland has a unique tile improvement that gives them an amenity in essentially every city, nearly guaranteeing that every city will be at least happy, if not ecstatic. On its own, the Gold Course is a solid improvement, if not amazing, but its synergy with the Scottish Enlightenment is so well-designed that it makes a beast of a science civ. Oh, and the appeal and culture make it decent for culture victories too, but nothing to write home about.
Firaxis saw the Mega-Chads that are the Scottish and feared their power, so they crippled the Scots with two abilities that, realistically, you’re never going to see use. Robert the Bruce does not care about this limitation, as they have a Civ Ability that you honestly could not ask to fit Civ VI’s framework better than it currently does. They might have a slightly slow start due to the fact that those percentage yields aren’t going to have a major impact early on, but once you get some decent science going, you’re going to see some serious stuff come out of Auld Reekie. And their national animal is the unicorn. How are you going to beat that?
13. Zulu
So here we have another one-dimensional warmongering Civ, so you’re probably wondering what distinguishes the Zulu to be two places ahead of Mongolia. Well, it comes down to three main factors: they have things to do before they go on their domination push, their domination push is easier to execute than other Civs, and their domination push is stronger than any other Civ in the game, barring perhaps a select few.
Ok, so I might be exaggerating on how much the Zulu have access to besides warmongering, but the Ikanda does open up some interesting possibilities. A half-cost encampment is great, because you’re investing less time in building a district that isn’t high on your list of priorities (compared to campuses and commercial hubs, that is). Less time actually building your Ikanda means you can start building those buildings inside it faster, which means you get more production for more stuff. The additional housing is a small addition, but it’s nice to have; you get a smidgen more room for growth (+3 housing from all the buildings and district as opposed to just +2) which allows you to work more stuff, in turn building more stuff. So the Zulu has more things in which they can set up while waiting for the correct timings.
One of the things that I dislike about R&F is how annoying it has made going for a domination victory. While going for this victory condition, you’re going to be bending over backwards trying to hold onto newly conquered cities thanks to loyalty pressure, and if you’re not equipped to deal with it, you’re going to have a bad time. Shaka, fortunately, makes this easier. Getting +3 (or more likely +5 for reasons that will become apparent later) offsets the loyalty penalty to the point that once you install a governor as well, you likely will not see any issues with the city flipping. This might seem small, but it’s a quality of life change that is very nice for the Zulu player.
Of course, you know why the Zulu are here, and that is because of how ruthlessly, and I mean ruthlessly strong their armies are. First off, corps and armies are amazingly strong in Civ VI. To a novice player, this might not seem apparent, but if you understand how damage is calculated (based on difference between combat strength, not raw values) then you begin to see why they are very worth the combat investment. Shaka, however, gets better corps and armies. First off, Shaka unlocks corps through Mercenaries—in the Medieval Era. Do you know when everyone else gets them? At Nationalism—in the Industrial Era. Shaka’s corps are going to be completely unchallenged for a whopping two eras, making them absolutely terrifying to wage war against. They instead unlock armies at Nationalism, an era before normal; this is still great, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not as overwhelmingly amazing as when you unlock corps. And if that wasn’t enough, their armies and corps are even better than everyone else’s—a whole +5 combat strength stronger. Remember when I made a big deal out of America’s similar combat strength bonus? Shaka gets that on an already unchallengeable unit all of the time. Oh, and did I mention that he gets them for free? Because he does—when he conquers a city. Kind of like how Victoria was able to steamroll based on earning Redcoats, Shaka does this by upgrading his units, avoiding the production sink of having to raw-build corps. This is indescribably useful for reasons that should be immediately apparent, but in case I have to spell it out: your likely already strong military force gets invincibly strong just by playing the game properly. The Impi, on the other hand, are eh. The less than half cost from normal pikemen is great, as is the flanking bonus, and the extra XP is nice to have as well. Unfortunately, they are pikemen replacements; unit trees you don’t want to build, on a tech that you don’t want to research. The Impi do, however, get a ton of bonuses and a lower investment cost, so if a leader is going to want to build pikemen, it would be Shaka. You’re still likely better off building knights though, outside of earning era score.
So if the Zulu are so terrifying, why aren’t they in the great tier? Well, it’s mainly because the true strength of the Zulu doesn’t show up until the Medieval Era. At that point, you become a god amongst men, but you’re stuck either waging war without any real bonuses or playing sim-city to keep up until then. And also like Mongolia, they are incredibly one-dimensional. As Shaka, you’re going to go for domination without any real recourse, because you don’t have anything that helps you in other categories. But with that said, once the push does come, it is unstoppable. The Zulu will sweep across your lands without warning, and will leave no survivors. He is Shaka the unshakeable.
