Strongest civ so far?

[Olleus]

What civ do people think is strongest with the information we have so far?

My instinct is to say China. Getting 60% from Eureka moments and inspirations rather than 50% is world changing. It means that the time taken to research those techs and civics goes down by 20%. From what we've seen over half the techs and civics have eureka and inspirations available, and the vast majority seem rather easy to get, especially if you pick the right path.

From this, I would guess that China could make its way down the trees about 10% faster than a normal civ. That is a continuous 10% bonus to science and culture. Even without anything else, that's probably enough to make it one of the best civs.

Having 4 rather than 3 charges for builders is also good. This is a unit that you use continuously through out the game, any improvement to it accumulates very well. At first this might look like a 25% discount for builders (need 3 rather than 4 for 12 chargers) but in fact it's much better than that. The cost of builders increases for each one you've already built, so needing fewer builders saves you production twice!

Being able to hurry early wonders is a boost, but nothing to write home about. Would probably only use it a couple of times per game.

I know nothing about the crouching tiger, but that doesn't matter. With a ~10% bonus to science and culture, and a >25% to builders, China is already by far the strongest civ. Slowly but continuously building an advantage over its rivals.

 

[Siptah]

I'm ambiguous as of now.
To me, Germany and Brazil sound strongest. But we'll have to see how it is in the final game. The yields for Brazil might change, the free district might not be as good as it sounds.
Also, afaik we have no numbers for the bonuses of Egypt, right? How much faster are wonders and districts build along rivers? How much more gold does Egypt get from trade routes?
But China looks good, too. So many options...
As of the information that I have right now and if I have to decide between Germany and Brazil, I'd probably take Brazil.

Edit: can you add a poll after creating the thread?

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

It is very hard to say:

Scythia is probably the best bet in a 1 vs 1 situation as it can use its early game advantages to found an large empire while raiding the other civ and then just brute force throught the rest of the game for victory.

Aztec become stronger the larger its empire get, being able to rush the expensive districts that come with a large empire is huge and the combat bonus can reach ridiculous levels.

 

[Acken]

So far scythia has imo the strongest military capacity in the early ages by a mile. The double production, mounted range uu and better cavalry would make attila and genghis of civ5 both proud.

Either Im missing something really important but she is clearly geared to be your new go to fast domination civ.

Whether or not shes good at anything else will depend on how well conquest are rewarded. If aquiring extra cities is a strong boost to your economy then I think she can be among the top civs. This is something that wasnt very well rewarded in civ5 but civ6 seems to make it a lot more profitable to conquer some land. Add that despite its penalties the current fastest deity sciencr victory is with attila and imo that civ has a lot more potential to be an outlier than the other ones ive seen.

 

[spfun]

Brazil in a heavy jungle start, great yields and snowballing effect.

Scythia for Warmongering seems quite strong.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

You don't need to conquer cities as Schythia because early game is about keeping barbarians way from your settlers and raiding other civs and cav is the optimal unit for both tasks.

 

[redwings1340]

Scythia seems the best to me so far, but not by much. If they can strike at civs that are still having trouble with barbarians early, they can get a large empire really fast. The other civs all look pretty good though.

 

[Gangrin]

Brazil i think. Those insane bonuses snowball really quickly

 

[Sonmi]

Not France.

I personally believe it's either going to be China or Scythia. China snowballs like crazy while Scythia seems absolutely unstoppable early game.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

France look very strong as well. Double tourism, extra production towards mid game wonders, extra spy (which seems to be very powerful in civilization VI), a unique unit that is really strong on its home continent and strong otherwise and a unique improvement that produce both gold and culture both are rare resources.

 

[indradiva]

I don't think there's the strongest civ. All civs so far seem to be pretty well balanced, all have their strengths and weaknesses, no one is OP. For example, Brazil has snowballing and Great People, but is a little bit weak in military strength, same for China. Scythia has strong early miltary, but is weak in science, etc. As for my favourite civ so far, it is still Japan, I love their adjacency bonuses and their leaders UA is flexible, though somewhat limited, it's probably going to be my first civ to try out

 

[kaspergm]

Brazil in the builds we've seen look crazy snowball with just a decent jungle start from my impressions.

 

[RohirrimElf]

Whatever civ is the most flexible will be the strongest for me. Just fits my playstyle. Always liked mid-game civs. As i tend to be an expanding peaceloving builder early game. And start conquering with longswordsman and musketeers once i run out of space.

I would go with Brazil or France for now.

 

[gfeier]

No love for Teddy? Looks kind of bland but if that combat bonus on his own continent will stack with the early military policy against barbs, he can get off to a decent start. Maybe even take a city state or another civ's city, although I'm sure he'd hate himself in the morning with his agenda if it's on his continent.

 

[DJ_Tanner]

I love the releases so far the civs look to actually be different this time around. Before there was just this hint of power here and there, but this game it feels like they gave everyone some OPness. So vying for power will be so much more dynamic.

But right now I'm most excited about the religious civs (since that got such a big overhaul) so Spain is my number 1 at the moment, but we will see. (There is never gonna be a reason to reroll a random start anymore!)

 

[Sonmi]

France look very strong as well. Double tourism, extra production towards mid game wonders, extra spy (which seems to be very powerful in civilization VI), a unique unit that is really strong on its home continent and strong otherwise and a unique improvement that produce both gold and culture both are rare resources.

By the time you get to mid-game, you'll already have had been surpassed by all the other crazy Civs though.

A +20% prod on mid-game Wonders won't matter when both China and Brazil will have had the opportunity to build them way before you do.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Brazil are the strongest, hands down. I'm glad there are no outright weak Civs, though. No Isabellae, Enricos or Bluetooths

 

[DeutschDachs]

Brazil are the strongest, hands down. I'm glad there are no outright weak Civs, though. No Isabellae, Enricos or Bluetooths

If Isabella finds a natural wonder or two first she's arguably the strongest Civ in the game though!

 

[Stringer1313]

I love that there seems to be little consensus on this thus far. (Except that America might seem underpowered.) I like the kind of Starcraft-direction the devs are taking this, in making every civ "overpowered" in their own unique way. Strongly prefer that over lame +1s and +2s.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

An interesting question. It's hard to know the relative value of bonuses at this stage. I'd guess Science is a bit less important than Civ V (because half the techs are spun off into the Culture tree), while Culture and Faith are more important (because of the Culture tree and Religious Victory). I'd guess Science is probably still #1 though.

I'd say Brazil. The bonuses look really crazy. It's kind of a boom/bust Civ in the mold of Civ V Spain, because it's so dependent on the right terrain. I'd assume, though, that with start biases Brazil will start in the jungle more often than not.

China also looks strong, because Eurekas don't look very hard to get at all. That's a big discount on an awful lot of techs. I'm a little dubious about the Great Wall, but the builder and wonder part look good.

A third strong civ is Scythia--they remind me of Civ V Huns. I imagine Horse Archers will be equally devastating this time around. The Scythians have an advantage over the Huns, however, because it looks like Civ VI will not penalize early aggression nearly so much.

As for Civs that look particularly weak, America is an easy choice. Really late uniques, as always, so those probably won't help too much in many games. I'm not sure Government Legacy bonuses are important enough to compensate for that. Britain's UA also strikes me as potentially quite weak, but we need to wait and hear more about the archaeological system before we know for sure.