Top 5 City States Opinion

When the game is missing any of the top 4 I find my game suffers.

1: Kumasi
2: Antananarivo
3: Valetta
4: Nazca
5: Kabul or Kandy

 

As England Nan Madol is always welcome... you may find others saying Auckland, Hong Kong, Zanzibar, Yerevan, Cardiff, Akkad ... there is quite a few that are useful.

 

Auckland is my favorite.

 

Any science city state is a high priority for me. Geneva in particular can be crazy.

 

This list will depend on what type of victory you're going for and what civ you are, but Auckland and Geneva will probably always be in the top 5.

Other ones that I often find myself going strongly for: Terevan, Valetta, Kandy, Brussels, Fez, Babylon, Brussels and anything with a unique improvement if I've got the terrain for it

 

1. Valetta
2. Antananarivo
3. Mohenjo Daro
4. Buenos Aires
5. Bologna


Situational runners up:

Brussels (15% to wonders is worth an economic card)
Kabul (double XP)
Nazca (deserts OP)


Geneva (if you're not warring)
Fez (if you're spreading religion)

 

If I have Auckland, Nan Madol, and Kumasi... I know it's going to be a good game.

 

I almost put Auckland on my list and I would if I was on a coastal heavy map with a heavy harbor Civ.

Nazca can either be the best CS or just blotto depending if you have desert or not, but the ability to add a bunch of quick faith early and being able to later make a pure desert city into a giant oasis even for a non-desert civ is amazing.

Antananarivo probably better than Kumasi in the end game as well if I am playing Russia or another great person churning Civ. I have never counted, but with Russia I must have around 50 great people maybe more at the end of the game.

Kumasi with it's gold and culture bonuses on trade routes makes it my priority and while I usually play a peaceful building game I will annihilate any Civ that conquers Kumasi (even Sweden and Canada).

 

I guess it's sort of victory dependent but in general, Auckland is so unbalancing for almost any map it's just insane. It allows you to effectively utilize the Liang Fishery, making those low grade 1 coasts into 3,1 minimum with a lighthouse early game (even better if you have liang in the city.) That's like an endless herd of cow pastures! Fisheries in general sit very precipitously on the edge of being too weak to spam or strong enough that you do spam them everywhere you can. There's always coast on continents or Pangaea to take advantage of.
If Kampungs are in play? GG. 4 production on all of them. It's over.

I know the science and culture CS are pretty strong meta wise just for the envoy bonuses.

It's good that they capped it at +30%, even though that is still too strong.

I consistently get the most excited for the commercial CS though. Just having more gold on hand is always useful- either you can accelerate what you're doing or you can focus more science/culture/whatever harder since you need fewer CH to get by right away. Muscat is very strong there since I always have CH in every land city; the rest are pretty meh except Zanzibar. Even Cahokia isn't as good as I thought it would be.

 

Kumasi is a better gold boost to trade routes than any of the commercial CSs.

 

I am assuming that the list should be based on both the generic yield bonus and the suzerain effect, but actually it makes comparison even more difficult as in that case all science / culture city states should be considered better than the industrial / military ones. However, for the sake of arguement, I will go with the flavor and focus on suzerain effects. In no particular order, my top 5 looks like this (peaceful player here):

Bologna (you can have Religious Settlements and Divine Spark at the same time!)
Geneva (if you don't war at all, it's extremely consistent)
Antananarivo (no matter what victory are you playing for, you will always get loads of GP, so why not have some free culture for that)
Auckland (free production, yay)
Kumasi (you can get insane trade yields before reaching Democracy)

Honorable mentions:
Akkad (convenient sieges are the best sieges)
Brussels (an extra policy card slot for the builder players)
Nan Madol (loads of effortless free culture)
Hongkong (nice boost for the lategame project spam)
Ngazargamu (cheap units for Eureka / war purposes)

 

Some that really stand out for me are:

• Auckland
• Valletta
• Yerevan
• Bologna
• Cardiff
  
• Nan Madol or Kumasi ... both of these can be situationally excellent. Kumasi can give great yields, but I tend to favor using my trade routes internally, so that's a downside.

 

As Kongo... Kandy by far...

For other civs, Antananarivo. I also have a soft spot for Cahokia. The housing and amenity and gold is just so convenient for a midgame empire.

 

I'd say:
1. Bologna
2. Kumasi (although less now that trade routes to allies get such big bonuses, it's not as big a game breaker as it used to be)

After that, things get too murky depending on civ/terrain. If I have coastal areas, then Nan Madol or Auckland can be OP. A lot of the economic ones are pretty solid as well, and the UI for Cahokia or Nazca can definitely be big boosts. Muscat is great since I often have commerce hubs in every city, and the rest of the science ones are great at the very least because they're science bonuses, but some like Babylon can be even better if you have the great works to max them out.

And then if warring, I love having Kabul, since my troops can really quickly get to higher levels. If I discover them early for the free envoy, getting the +2 faith from any religious CS is nice to get a choice of pantheon, and if you actually run a religious game, there's a lot of strong ones there too.

I like how there's a good mix of them. Sometimes you just exit the game because you know it's over - getting Auckland and Nan Madol next to you on an island plates map you may as well start over. Other times it's annoying to find your perfect city-state on the other side of the map, with the AI already up to 12 envoys there. Then you gotta think how much effort it takes to try to steal it, vs sit back and focus on the ones nearby.

 

1. Kabul
2. Antanamarivo
3. Bologna
4. Hattusa
5. Auckland

There may be some I'm forgetting about.

 

In any game:

1. Auckland.
2. Valletta.
3. Bologna.
4. Brussels.
5. Antananarivo.

I also have a soft spot for Lisbon, perhaps mainly because I can then neglect keeping my traders safe overseas. Plus Nazca if I am near a desert and planning a big Petra city.

A lot of it is situational and based on the Civ. Sweden + Bologna + Divine Spark + Oracle + Pingala = Diplomatic Favour machine. Add Antananarivo to the mix with it's great people bonus and you can speed your way to a diplo victory.

I play peaceful so I find most of the military city states bonuses irrelevant but the +2 production towards units in the early game is pretty awesome since it applies to builders and settlers.

 

1. Geneva
2. Antananarivo
3. Bologna
4. Buenos Aires
5. Auckland

These are the most consistent bonuses I can get the most out of. Religious city states can be great with certain civs and play styles, but consistency is a very important aspect to me.

 

Just met Kumasi and so fabricated a Scandal.... Its not the CS's that are OP, it is the spies.
Before after

 

Hmm, my top 5 CSes (in no particular order) would be:
Zanzibar: Delicious unique luxes
Ngazargamu: The price reduction for buying land units and support units is pretty good, and very easy to scale.
Muscat: I'm going to want at least 1 trade route per city, and CHes are easier to get to than Harbors, so the likeliness of a city having a CH (and getting +1 lux from Muscat) is pretty good.
Kabul: Double EXP is great for building up a powerful army.
Buenos Aires: Did I mention I like luxuries? +1 lux per type of bonus resource will be handy.

I'm very much a warmonger when I play Civ6, but it's important to have a populace that's at least satisfied, even if they're not ecstatic, and luxes will be handy in softening war weariness. A civ that's super happy is still great to have outside of war as well, so I tend to feel very compelled to compete for CSes that give luxes.

Honorable mentions:
Jerusalem: When going for religious potency, having holy city pressure from each of my cities with holy sites will make it that much easier.
Akkad: I haven't used Akkad's suzerain bonus that often, but it looks good on paper.
Mexico City: Sadly I'm not a particularly disciplined builder, but I don't know how much I would want to depend on this bonus anyway. Usually when I plop an IZ or ED down, I don't necessarily have Mexico City in mind. Either the cities I need to cover are already covered by the initial placement, or I would have to keep an iron grip on Mexico City to maintain the supposed status quo of my civ layout, neither of which sounds great.
Valletta: Also haven't used Valletta's bonus that much. I do prioritize walls, especially for newly conquered cities, but I don't generate enough faith to consistently buy walls. I definitely need to be more mindful of this bonus though.
Brussels: Having an edge in the wonder race over other players is good to have.

I have to say, I feel rather ambivalent about the CSes that give unique improvements. There's already a lot of competition for available hexes with existing improvements and districts, so having to prioritize these other improvements (that I won't necessarily always have!) seems like a no go for me.

 

1. Babylon +2 science per great work is a big deal
2. Hattusa for resourfces
3. Kandy for free relics
4. Nan Madol for strong districts
5. Geneva