The quality of Civ 6 information online

[knighterrant81]

So, the quality of Civ 6 information online is...not good. This is a good site with lots of information, but other sites seem to have difficulty analyzing this game or knowing any high level theory. Perhaps the game is too complicated? I don't know.

Anyway, case in point.

https://www.fanbyte.com/guides/civ-6-guide-civilization-tier-list-november-2019/

I immediately stopped reading because the first Civ he lists in "Deity Tier" is....

....Japan.

....Because of Divine Wind.

....Specifically, the combat bonus from Divine Wind.

....Because, you know, naval Civs are uh, unstoppable in the early game.

This is, uh, not correct.

Japan is not a bad Civ, but definitely not the best Civ either, by a long shot. Divine Wind is a decent bonus because it gives you a production benefit to Districts. The combat bonus is difficult to make use of at best, and is probably Japan's least useful bonus. Naval units are fairly strong in the early game...until you try to, you know, TRY TO TAKE ANY LAND LOCKED CITY.

It has been fairly clear that coastal cities are weaker since vanilla because they have less room for districts and harbors can be built in land locked cities, allowing such cities to build navies while remaining unassailable by naval units. This in turn has made navies fairly weak because there is little coast to actually attack or defend. Yes, they have been buffed and coastal cities feel decent now. I'd argue they are still not quite as good as land locked cities.

Japan's UU is also not one of the best. Samurai are decent enough once you get them, but having to hard build them is a very large downside.

This is a regular experience reading information online about Civ 6.

 

[Ziad]

It always amuses me when people assume coastal cities are one tile islands.

 

[criZp]

No, it's very clear in the game that the ocean is generally good for not a whole lot, except as a buffer against enemies. Author of that article gotta be the biggest noob if he thinks an early navy is unstoppable when you can stop it just by settling 1 tile inland.

Anyway it's not that the game is too complex, but that most people seem to not really think a whole lot about what they do when they play, the implications of their actions, they sort of just do stuff. And that's okay, if they are still having fun then who cares. And if they make some noob tier list based on their own success vs low level AI, then again, who cares. If they have fun playing as a noob then it's not a problem with the game.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

I'd like to say after the buff on harbors coastal cities are actually much better than land-based cities now.

But, still, saying Japan as "Deity" level because of its coastal bonus is really funny. At least a handful of Civs are better than Japan in terms of naval combat. Isn't Indonesia Jong the best? Also Norway, England, Maori, Phoenicia, Netherlands and Brazil are eager to have a try.

 

[7daysofwar]

I read the article and my favourite part is this one quote "Oh! And Gilgamesh is in the Immortal tier basically because of how damn friendly he is." Because in a tierlist about who you are going to play it is about the friendliness of the AI. I don't think you should take this article seriously.

 

[Kwami]

I mean, I disagree with a lot of what's in the article, but why is this thread? Is there a point to it? If you don't think there's good information online, then write your own articles. I don't see the point in creating a thread just to pick on others.

Anyway, Japan isn't one of the best because of the combat bonus. It's one of the best because of the district cost discount and the increased adjacency bonuses. It's definitely a top-tier civ!

 

[BarbarianHunter]

"Japan gets bonuses for having units on coastal tiles. That means you should always look to settle near the ocean. An early-game navy is always nearly unstoppable."

This strikes me as Breaking Wind/Passing Gas. He seems to have taken the Divine Wind ability to a whole 'nother level!

 

[Mr. Shadows]

This (Civfanatics) is the place to go for quality discussion of Civ. I don't think there's any other English-speaking site that comes close. If someone disagrees please clue me in. Imho reddit isn't in the league.

 

[KayAU]

Apparently, Canada is now in the second highest tier, and Norway is in the very bottom tier, a full 3 tiers below the Khmer.

I mean, this is not surprising, really. I think the quality of information about any game from these types of sites varies a lot. Forums are where its at.

 

[Archon_Wing]

The quality of info on the internet, not just Civ 6, is indeed questionable. A lot of people tend to talk and not be able to back it up. They're literally making crap up. However, don't meme on people's blogs especially when they can't respond and it's just a difference of opinion. It's kinda like throwing rocks from glass houses-- there's plenty of lacking posts here too. Now, if it's one of those "game guides" from magazines, those are inherently for meme value.

Speaking of making crap up, I think Divine Wind is actually really powerful. Japan is way overrated though.

 

[Sostratus]

So, the quality of Civ 6 information online is...not good. This is a good site with lots of information, but other sites seem to have difficulty analyzing this game or knowing any high level theory. Perhaps the game is too complicated? I don't know.

This is a regular experience reading information online about Civ 6.

A lot of people stop at "I did this, and I did well, so I think this is good" (A very human intuition, by the way!) Nothing wrong with that.
But there's still the question of "I did this, could I have done it better? What is the best way to do it?" The key is when someone recognizes whether or not they have done this second step, which is where the author of that list went awry.

Not everyone finds endless analysis fun. But Civfanatics seem to, and that's how I end up spending hours in paint making graphics to post in my signature, instead of just, you know, playing the game...

 

[knighterrant81]

I mean, I disagree with a lot of what's in the article, but why is this thread? Is there a point to it? If you don't think there's good information online, then write your own articles. I don't see the point in creating a thread just to pick on others.

Anyway, Japan isn't one of the best because of the combat bonus. It's one of the best because of the district cost discount and the increased adjacency bonuses. It's definitely a top-tier civ!

I just get frustrated when I open up any article about a game I like and immediately regret it. It makes me sad for the players who don't know any better and are reading this stuff.

Japan is pretty good. But is it better than most Civs? Better than Australia? Nubia? Korea?

I'd like to say after the buff on harbors coastal cities are actually much better than land-based cities now.

Could you elaborate on this? My feeling is that they are indeed better than before, but I'm not sure they are worth favoring over land based cities. Reefs giving Science adjacency is nice, but having much less space for districts still hurts a bit, even if you only plan to place one or two districts in the city. I'd love to hear why you think the opposite.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Could you elaborate on this? My feeling is that they are indeed better than before, but I'm not sure they are worth favoring over land based cities. Reefs giving Science adjacency is nice, but having much less space for districts still hurts a bit, even if you only plan to place one or two districts in the city. I'd love to hear why you think the opposite.

1:Harbors have really good yields, free inquiry and naval tradition gives them science and gold. Lighthouse also provide a lot of housing. If you don't have much faith and have to choose free inquiry for golden age bonus, then harbor adj bonus are often +3 or +4 sometimes even +5, and doubles at naval tradition, making them +6,+8 or even +10 science. While commercial hub only have +2 or maybe +3.

2: Sea trade routes yield 2x gold than land trade routes. So the yield of these trade routes can easily become 20~30 gold in early game. For late game maybe as much as 50 gold.

For land trade routes only if you cover every tile the trade route passes with railroad you can achieve same amount of gold. But sea counts as automatic railroads.

3: Natural disasters are less likely to hurt Harbors. For land districts, especially commercial hubs which need river, they're likely to be flooded. Yes building a dam will save you from being flooded but a dam costs too much.

4: Naval units are really good at capturing cities, If there is at least some coastal cities of other Civs on map, naval units are much better investment than land units in taking down cities and enlarge your empire.

 

[Pietato]

1:Harbors have really good yields, free inquiry and naval tradition gives them science and gold. Lighthouse also provide a lot of housing. If you don't have much faith and have to choose free inquiry for golden age bonus, then harbor adj bonus are often +3 or +4 sometimes even +5, and doubles at naval tradition, making them +6,+8 or even +10 science. While commercial hub only have +2 or maybe +3.

2: Sea trade routes yield 2x gold than land trade routes. So the yield of these trade routes can easily become 20~30 gold in early game. For late game maybe as much as 50 gold.

For land trade routes only if you cover every tile the trade route passes with railroad you can achieve same amount of gold. But sea counts as automatic railroads.

3: Natural disasters are less likely to hurt Harbors. For land districts, especially commercial hubs which need river, they're likely to be flooded. Yes building a dam will save you from being flooded but a dam costs too much.

4: Naval units are really good at capturing cities, If there is at least some coastal cities of other Civs on map, naval units are much better investment than land units in taking down cities and enlarge your empire.

1. Opening with Free Inquiry is nearly always worse than going Monumentality. This means Free Inquiry is used for your Medieval golden age, and you will have Guilds by then, to double Commerical Hub adjacencies. Harbours generally get better adjacencies now, though.

2. This only means you need to build a few coastal trade cities, or quickly get a trading post in a single one.

3. This is the opposite of reality. Sea improvements cannot be repaired and are just removed, and Hurricanes are the most devastating of natural disasters. Coastal cities also gain far less increased yields. As for floodplains...yes, they mostly suck. But you can avoid building on them or speed a dam/industrial zone for when you do.

4. This is valid, as long as loyalty and distance are fine.

Overall, I would say that inland cities are still slightly better than coastal cities, unless Auckland and Nan Madol are in the game. With these two (and Cardiff), coastal civs dominate inland civs.

 

[montalaar]

coastal cities are really good now. especially as indonesia with coastal district bonuses and kampungs, jong. and england victoria, with her cheap and productive harbors. nowadays i try to settle so i can access to build harbor and if it comes to this later water parks.

japan is not bad, nothing stellar too. but if your starting position is that you will have some amount of coastal cities, these indeed fall very quick to even galleys. and enemy can not do much about it. try map with shallow waters and many coastal cities, you can conquer them far faster than any land rush could.

tiers and lists. it is more like curiosity to me than anything else. many people go for quickest victories, but i am interesting in building empires half of the time and that changes beneficial factors of civs quite a bit.

 

[knighterrant81]

1. Opening with Free Inquiry is nearly always worse than going Monumentality. This means Free Inquiry is used for your Medieval golden age, and you will have Guilds by then, to double Commerical Hub adjacencies. Harbours generally get better adjacencies now, though.

I'm still convinced that getting a religion or building Holy Sites just slows you down. So yeah, if you have faith a Monumentality golden age is great...but you have to balance that on how much you had to delay key builds to develop a faith economy. Monumentality might make up for that by getting cities out more quickly than a regular build can, but I don't particularly like planning my whole game around getting a Golden Age.

 

[Kwami]

I just get frustrated when I open up any article about a game I like and immediately regret it. It makes me sad for the players who don't know any better and are reading this stuff.

So you have to create a whole thread crapping on someone's article? Why not just write to the author? This thread seems mean spirited.

Japan is pretty good. But is it better than most Civs? Better than Australia? Nubia? Korea?

Japan is easily one of the best in the game.

 

[NukeAJS]

Japan is easily one of the best in the game.

Agreed. Japan is one of the best all-around civs. It's pretty difficult to NOT use their bonuses on any size, on any map. Their bonuses are fairly easy to use too. Sure, you can plan out the perfect district placements, but that's usually not going to deviate too much from what you would normally do.

 

[Victoria]

This thread seems mean spirited.

It seems borne out of frustration. The amount of Wiki that is incorrect, the amount of civ guides that give you some very odd approaches. The online streamers, thank god we have some decent ones now because when you see ones advertising a new release by people that understand only the basics of the game.

One of the good things about VI in my opinion is the choice, the meta path is not clear cut. Therefore the level of skill is a little higher to do a good job rather than just publish an article. If an article puts Tomyris down as a top tier civ for warLord level it is the misinformation aspect that becomes quite frustrating.

 

[Haig]

Well this civilopedia has in depth analyzes and strategies for every civ, unit, wonder etc.

https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Civilizations_(Civ6)