What civ's/leader's uniques do you think have the best/worst synergy?

Not sure if you understand the ability here.
You get one apostle upon completion of a TS or Mbanza, and that apostle may or may not have any value to you.
Usually, they don't.

There is nothing synergistic at play here.

I guess maybe the "convert barbarians" ability that apostles can get, and the AI's love of spawning partisans? Is there a way to choose apostle abilities? I forget as I rarely play religion....
 
I guess maybe the "convert barbarians" ability that apostles can get, and the AI's love of spawning partisans? Is there a way to choose apostle abilities? I forget as I rarely play religion....

Only if you suzerain Yerevan, which is somewhat rare and in any case would be a rather questionable usage of envoys for Kongo (Kongo gets no envoy bonuses spart from +1 faith in capital), especially if Yerevan ends up becoming contested.

In most cases, free apostles does pretty much nothing for Kongo apart from some niche cases (you get martyr, you really need a chaplain for domination, or you need a particular religion's apostle to spread to own cities, but that is very unreliable).
 
Only if you suzerain Yerevan, which is somewhat rare and in any case would be a rather questionable usage of envoys for Kongo (Kongo gets no envoy bonuses spart from +1 faith in capital), especially if Yerevan ends up becoming contested.

In most cases, free apostles does pretty much nothing for Kongo apart from some niche cases (you get martyr, you really need a chaplain for domination, or you need a particular religion's apostle to spread to own cities, but that is very unreliable).

Yeah... I mean it doesn't seem like the best synergy ever. Martyr is at least somewhat useful given that Kongo can get all the yields from relics... Assuming they can get the slots...
 
Yeah... I mean it doesn't seem like the best synergy ever. Martyr is at least somewhat useful given that Kongo can get all the yields from relics... Assuming they can get the slots...
As far as I know they can only place them in their palace. Luckily their palace has four slots for any type of great work.
Still I think most of the time you only use the apostles to spread whatever religion is most beneficial to you, disregarding the apostle promotions.
 
As far as I know they can only place them in their palace. Luckily their palace has four slots for any type of great work.
Still I think most of the time you only use the apostles to spread whatever religion is most beneficial to you, disregarding the apostle promotions.

That's how I would use the free apostles as well, barring any Chaplain for domination or Martyr for the relic.

Speaking of relics, this mechanic for Kongo is kind of anti.synergistic as well.
Usually you will be lacking great work slots for two particular types of great works - relics and great works of music.
Slotting the great works of music is already rather difficult when going for a cultural victory as any civ, as you usually get your first Great Musicians long before you get any Broadcast Towers (which are the first reliable slots for this great work type, not counting Boilshoi Theatre or the Giovanni de Medici's bank slots).
This means you usually have to fill up the palace immediately, as they are the only remaining place to slot music.
And since Kongo gets an additional 50% increase in the rate of picking up Great Musicians... yeah, no, you're gonna be lacking hard on slots to have much space for relics as well.
There's also the issue of relics losing value the longer the game goes on, which is somewhat anti-synergistic.
Anyone who's ever picked up a random turn 5 relic from a hut knows how broken that is for Kongo, whereas a turn 120 relic (extra +2 food, +2 production, +4 gold) is very inconsequential, especially considering all the work (and luck) you need to have to get them in the first place.
 
I love Kongo - they were the first civ I played in Civ6 so for me they kind of are the first thing I think of with this edition - but time has not been kind to them.

Given how much more of a use there is for faith now compared to at the start of Civ, especially when it comes to winning a culture victory, Kongo has been slowly lowing synergy.
 
I like Kongo too even if they don't make religion. Any religion usage can be fine with Kongo particularly buildings.
 
Some of my top generalist synergistic civs:
  • Cree/Khmer - both have uniques working together towards growth, with Cree also boosting exploration and Khmer boosting faith. Neither UU is particularly connected but both are decent-good for their time, but the real synergy is in building large, productive cities.
  • Aztec - strong early UU (made stronger with luxuries) that makes builders which in turn lead to growth. Everything works together nicely to get a strong snowball going early.
  • Germany - extra district slot means you can build hansa/CH in nearly every city, then still have space for whatever victory path you want (campuses/theatre squares/holy sites). Plus great production for projects later in the game. Extra military slot combines perfectly for much of the mid-game with Craftsmen policy card. The UU is bad and the bonus strength against city-states doesn't necessarily fit (though can be useful for early growth) but overall a great setup for packed, productive cities.
  • Hungarian - super fun and powerful - just need to keep up your early gold (which quickly produced commercial hubs and buildings can help with) and you can suzerain most city-states and use them to expand as you wish. UUs fit if you angle for early growth through war and then settling more into a diplomatic path with civs you meet later on.
  • Arabia - faith/science work together in civ ability (lets you focus early on campuses and expansion while guaranteeing religion, plus a modest science bonus for spreading faith), leader ability (pick a good worship building and it boosts everything), and UB (direct bonuses to both). UU comes around at the perfect time for latter early-game expansion, which can give you a solid base to pursue religion or science the rest of the way. Only issue for science victory is they have no bonuses above a vanilla civ to production ultimately.
  • Indonesia - want viable, productive cities on small pieces of land with abilities that can get you to religious, science, or culture victories? Plus a UU that could singlehandedly take you towards a domination victory? Who doesn't! Of course, you need the right map for it...
And top specialist/"unique" synergistic civs:
  • Byzantine - takes some doing to plan everything out correctly (and keep up in the early game), but once you do, it's a cakewalk to domination or religious victory.
  • Maori - totally different way to play the game (including the start), and if you find some good patches with natural rainforest/woods you can really rocket down the culture tree. Once you get to conservation you're really rolling - planting +5 production trees everywhere that also give culture/faith/tourism means you can put a viable city pretty much anywhere other than pure desert or snow, plus the tremendous faith generation lets you build lots of national parks which hitch up well with all the trees. Adding preserves to the game gave them a huge late game benefit also.
  • Ottoman - literally everything they have works towards early, sustained conquering. My personal favorite domination civ (though I don't think objectively the #1 strongest).
  • Zulu - speaking of powerful domination civs, if you survive the early game they are unstoppable from Medieval through Modern (until the rest of the world catches up with their corps/armies). So long as you move quickly to mercenaries, and keep up with science (not hard to do when the AI always builds campuses), they will just tear through other troops.
And as a bonus entry, some of what I see as the least synergistic civs:
  • England (Victoria, specifically, as I've never tried Eleanor) - one of my favorite civs to play as, but their bonuses are all over the place - incentives to rush both the top and bottom of the tech trees, fast and good harbor districts but then boosts IZ buildings, strong late-game UUs but for a civ that probably needs early war to be highly successful, military engineer bonuses that are good but don't quite match up directly with other bonuses. Ultimately, I think they can be strong for a science victory after early conquering, or an Industrial/Modern-era domination game, but it doesn't really all come together to push in any one direction.
  • Poland - another one that has fun bonuses, but not ones that really tie together - instead it's a quasi-religious quasi-medieval-domination civ with some trade tossed in the mix.
  • America (RR Teddy) - another of my personal favorites, but has bonuses towards the opposite goals of domination and diplomacy, while also have a very powerful late-game UB towards culture.
  • Scottish - woof. I've had a few science victories with them because the civ ability is legitimately fun, but all of their other uniques are bottom-tier. The biggest missed opportunity in the final patch in my opinion.
 
A few people are naming Scotland here which I think is interesting...

They are undeniably weak - maybe in the running for weakest Civ now - but all their weak abilities are pretty synergistic I'd say.

The golf courses give amenities, which would help their enlightemnent, which ties into production that they can get late game boosts to via declaring targeted wars...

Admittedly all of those abilities are so underpowered that in practice it doesn't matter how synergistic they are... but they seem pretty synergistic to me.
 
A few people are naming Scotland here which I think is interesting...

They are undeniably weak - maybe in the running for weakest Civ now - but all their weak abilities are pretty synergistic I'd say.

The golf courses give amenities, which would help their enlightemnent, which ties into production that they can get late game boosts to via declaring targeted wars...

Admittedly all of those abilities are so underpowered that in practice it doesn't matter how synergistic they are... but they seem pretty synergistic to me.

The gold course and Scottish Enlightenment do tie together, so I guess that is synergistic (although the golf course comes too late and provides too little to be particularly helpful). I don't consider the war declaration boost to synergize since pretty much all of their other abilities (and even their leader agenda) involve not going to war, and because it's so difficult to execute that it can't really be a part of any meaningful strategy (it's more just a lucky bonus if you can get it).
 
The gold course and Scottish Enlightenment do tie together, so I guess that is synergistic (although the golf course comes too late and provides too little to be particularly helpful). I don't consider the war declaration boost to synergize since pretty much all of their other abilities (and even their leader agenda) involve not going to war, and because it's so difficult to execute that it can't really be a part of any meaningful strategy (it's more just a lucky bonus if you can get it).

That's fair. And if this was a post about the weakest or strongest civ I think I wouldn't do more than nod at Scotland's place at the bottom...Underpowered and situational are definitely words I'd use to describe them, but I think there's definitely civs with less synergy...
 
Interesting to see Arabia to come up as a good civ, I wouldn't say they are bad but I always find it awkward sort of needing to build everything at the same time. Like Madrassas and Mamluks come at basically the same time, while you are also expected to pump some of your resources into shrines/temples.

I really struggle with Brazil.
20% refund on great people leans slightly towards cultural victory (3 types of cultural great people)
Rainforests +1 appeal instead of -1 (I assume this is meant to be for national parks). Good for preserves regardless.
+1 adjacency from rainforests for commercial hubs, campuses, theatre squares and holy sites (This discourages rainforest NP's, as it encourages you to build districts right next to rainforest).
Naval UU (The worst synergy for a UU in the game ? Worse than U-boats since at least sea resources count for Hansa placement)
Street Carnival in theory helps with the GP refund.

6 district types have bonuses associated with them, but there's no extra housing (Just what you get from preserves).
You are kind of meant to be generalist GP civ, but then basically any other civ with some speciality will get more than you, so it kind of just falls flat.
 
Naval UU (The worst synergy for a UU in the game ? Worse than U-boats since at least sea resources count for Hansa placement)
Street Carnival in theory helps with the GP refund.
Well at least they also get a unique Water Park as well, making it to where you at least want to possibly have cities near the coast midgame.
 
Interesting to see Arabia to come up as a good civ, I wouldn't say they are bad but I always find it awkward sort of needing to build everything at the same time. Like Madrassas and Mamluks come at basically the same time, while you are also expected to pump some of your resources into shrines/temples.

I think Arabia has good synergy because while those things might come around at the same time, other than Mamluks there is no push to necessarily get everything up at once. If you focus on building Madrassas, that can help with your faith generation, so you can wait a bit on shrines/temples in every city. If you want to focus on pumping faith, you can still keep up in science by spreading your religion. And the free GP cannot be overstated - unlike any other civ, you have all the freedom in the world to focus on expansion and/or early campuses and/or early units (including chariots that can be upgraded to Mamluks) without worrying that you will miss out on a religion.


I really struggle with Brazil.
20% refund on great people leans slightly towards cultural victory (3 types of cultural great people)
Rainforests +1 appeal instead of -1 (I assume this is meant to be for national parks). Good for preserves regardless.
+1 adjacency from rainforests for commercial hubs, campuses, theatre squares and holy sites (This discourages rainforest NP's, as it encourages you to build districts right next to rainforest).
Naval UU (The worst synergy for a UU in the game ? Worse than U-boats since at least sea resources count for Hansa placement)
Street Carnival in theory helps with the GP refund.

6 district types have bonuses associated with them, but there's no extra housing (Just what you get from preserves).
You are kind of meant to be generalist GP civ, but then basically any other civ with some speciality will get more than you, so it kind of just falls flat.

For me, Brazil is just passable unless you get the Sacred Path pantheon, in which case they become just silly powerful with Work Ethic. Not at all difficult to get +16 or higher holy sites in multiple cities once you run the 100% adjacency card, and having that converted into production with Work Ethic means you can easily go after any victory condition from early in the game (not to mention having stupid amounts of faith for monumentality, NPs, or even buying GP, which is further aided by the bonus GP points).
 
Scotland weak? A civ which can easily be running a +10% flat boost to science and production for the majority of the game? No way. I also think that Brazil is being underrated here; their ability to get high adjacency districts, while boring, is very powerful. Ever time I play Brazil I end up absolutely destoying the AI beause I zoom through the civics tree so quickly. Plus they're actually pretty good at Science too, due to good adjacency campuses, and they make good use of the Zoo (which IMO should come a bit earlier, but still). Not saying they're the best, of course, but it's a viable strat. I do agree that Scotland and Brazil both have pretty bad synergy with their unique unit, though, especially Brazil. A ranged conquest-based very lategame naval unit doesn't really have any business in a civ clearly aimed at culture with a minor in science/religion. Although naval UUs are just bad in general. I think the U-Boat is also pretty bad (mostly for being so late) but it makes a little sense, at least.

I agree that English Eleanor may be stronger than French Eleanor (even though her ability suits France a lot more), but I think that's more due to the Chateau just being weak and half-priced Harbors (and thus easier access to trade routes) is just so incredibly strong, and would be for any leader.
 
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Scotland weak? A civ which can easily be running a +10% flat boost to science and production for the majority of the game? No way.
Scottish Enlightenment is great as well as golf courses, to an extent. But I agree with others that the other bonuses, the Highlander unit and Bannockburn, are basically non-existent in most games.
 
I guess the problem is that for wide empires the enlightenment becomes difficult to sustain... And since wide is just better in every way than tall in Civ6, Scotland effectively loses its best ability if you play optimally...

If you aren't playing to optimize every last detail though Scotland can get quite a lot of mileage out of it which is... ironic? An ability which is better if you play sub-optimally?

I find they are a lot of fun to play because of that, but yeah I don't think they are a contender for the crown...

This thread is making me think we should try and do a final round of elimination games...
 
How has no one said Portugal yet?

More trade routes+super high yield trade routes...but they have to be on the coast...ok so you settle coastal and then get a building that gives you science for having coastal tiles in your empire. And with reefs giving the +2 science, it may even be better to make coastal campuses already which is decent synergy albeit minor. And then the Nau get's effectively +1 sight (UA) AND +1 movement (From the free promotion) which helps you find more great islands/ coastal spots to build more cities to generate more insanely huge trade routes with lighthouses+markets.

Oh yet and they have an extra UB that allow you to add production and gold to your Tis??? Broken civ that flows together so well. Admittedly it is less fun on pangea (Or very unlucky continents) maps...but still it's just glorious.
 
I agree that English Eleanor may be stronger than French Eleanor (even though her ability suits France a lot more), but I think that's more due to the Chateau just being weak and half-priced Harbors (and thus easier access to trade routes) is just so incredibly strong, and would be for any leader.

Lol so you're just saying that France and England just aren't good civs? Cause IMO they just never scaled well...England got some help in GS but even that was "meh". France has just never been improved since vanilla basically and it shows in the power rankings of all civs.

But I do agree that England is definitely better than France due to that harbor lol
 
How has no one said Portugal yet?

More trade routes+super high yield trade routes...but they have to be on the coast...ok so you settle coastal and then get a building that gives you science for having coastal tiles in your empire. And with reefs giving the +2 science, it may even be better to make coastal campuses already which is decent synergy albeit minor. And then the Nau get's effectively +1 sight (UA) AND +1 movement (From the free promotion) which helps you find more great islands/ coastal spots to build more cities to generate more insanely huge trade routes with lighthouses+markets.

Oh yet and they have an extra UB that allow you to add production and gold to your Tis??? Broken civ that flows together so well. Admittedly it is less fun on pangea (Or very unlucky continents) maps...but still it's just glorious.
I really agree with coastal universities next to reefs. Throughout the expansions universities can be built next to reefs since they were improved throughout the New Frontier Pass months, even though I don't remember exactly when but once again, coastal universities are awesome.
 
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