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Norway- Gosh their long-ships are good and the raiding mechanic is powerful. Getting early deep sea sailing is just insane.
France as Eleanor- Honestly she's just so powerful (and kinda attractive Lol)
Zulu- Definitely amazing for domination
My favourite Civ is Phoenicia because I appreciate how everything in the kit works around the Cothon, I find that very elegant. And wide play is strong, and Miss Dido is the queen of wide (though I’m not sure she would invite that comparison)
I also have a soft spot for Georgia because I think Tamar is such a cool inclusion, their music is fantastic and legitimately soaring in atomic, and I love a plucky underdog Civ
Vanilla: Norway (previously England until they killed British Museums)
I enjoy early transoceanic voyaging and extra pillage yields
1st run DLCs: Persia
The Paradieza culture yields and crushing my first neighbor.
RNF: Mapuche
Chemamull culture.
GS: Canada
I'm the only person who thinks the Diplo victory is fun as is, but could be made harder. And once some blizzards lay down some fertility yields, the tundra isn't that bad.
NFP: TBD
I prefer the Maya over GC, but it's not really my playstyle. I'm sure something will come along that I like.
Vanilla: A tie between Norway and the Aztecs. I have a soft spot for the "meme Civs" in the game, such as Polynesia in Civ V, and Norway sort of fills that same niche for me. Plus, with all the buffs they're actually quite unique and fun to play, which makes my Norway dedication all the better. And the Aztecs, well they're just super strong, aggressive, yet versatile. My first Aztec win was actually a science victory, and one of my easier science wins overall. Just a great Civ.
First DLC run: Has to be Australia. If I'm being honest, not a lot of the first DLC wave Civs appeal to me all that much, except Australia, and it's largely in part because they're so OP. It's just inherently very funny to me seeing all these noteworthy historical Civilizations get absolutely creamed by a bunch of Aussies.
R&F: This is probably the hardest one for me, as a lot of the R&F Civs are really great from a design perspective (barring Mapuche and Georgia). It's ultimately a toss-up between Scotland and the Zulu, but I'm going to ultimately say the Zulu because Scotland have two really great bonuses that are fun to play around with, and two that just aren't super relevant. The Zulu on the other hand, they have a unique interaction with the corps/army system and the Impi is great fun to play around with.
GS: Definitely the Maori. I really like Hungary and Phoenicia too, but like I said, I really liked Polynesia in Civ V, and the Maori are simply a much better execution of that concept. They're so unique and play unlike anything else in the game, while still being plenty powerful. Maori games are always a treat.
NFP: Like Eagle Pursuit said, neither of these Civs I'm over the moon with, so I guess the answer is TBD. That said, I do think Gran Colombia are plenty fun, albeit that fun is sort of overshadowed by how OP they are. The Maya are just a bit too cumbersome to be really fun for me, even if I do admire their uniqueness. If they get buffed a little, I'll probably like them a lot more; but for now, they're just too awkward.
Inca, by far. I love their terrace farms, and how they make mountains actually workable. With the appeal pantheon you can have a thriving, faith-based economy, buying settlers, builders, and later also military units. You can be sure you will be getting Classical era Monumentality perks, since the Inca get most of their special era points in Ancient times. The cheap, early tunnels are awsome for quick travel around the map in eras that usually suffer from snail-speed of movement for all units. The whole package is just so neat!
Aztec
They have a unique playstyle and the civ bonuses really work well together. They also start strong, which is something I like in a civ. If I had to pick ONE civ this would probably be it.
Egypt
I already liked their production bonus for wonders/districts next to rivers. Now that I've broken into GS I love that they block flood damage. Another civ with a strong start.
Sumeria
Easily one of most well rounded civs. Gilgamesh's ability is underwhelming, but Ziggurats and War Carts are great. Again, strong start civ.
Poland
The Relic Bonus is really fun to exploit. Especially if your scout finds a relic early in the game. Their unique commercial district build (Sukiennice) is also quite powerful.
Eventhough the stars have to align for a perfect game with them Spain is my favorite civ.
Every time I read a topic which discusses weaknesses/challenges when playing Spain I always get seduced to start another game with them. Sidenote: I play on King difficulty so maybe this makes them more accessible as a go-to civ
Honorable mention goes to Trajan's Rome: such a 'smooth' civ to play and good recommendation for starting players.
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I love Freleanor so much that I keep starting new games as her instead of trying to play as Civs I haven't won as yet
The peaceful, cultural expansionist playstyle is just awesome and so much fun. Hate going to war? Want to acquire All The Cities anyway? Love playing culturally? Why would you play anyone else?
She even has my favourite music in the game... well, I suppose technically Catherine does too, but it goes with Eleanor's medieval vibe much better (and yes, I know a lot of it is a little too late for her but shh ).
Vanilla : Kongo, it's just satisfying watching your artifacts somehow feed your people and make them more productive
R+F : Mapuche, I feel like they are consistently underrated. Taking down anyone who hits a golden age is fun and chemamulls are a fun side gig
GS : Canada, perfect if you want a relaxing, sunday morning kind of game. Entertaining to build with. Would be nice if they had a small power bump though.
I like the vanilla Civs. Rome is my favorite, but Sumeria, Russia and Japan are up there. I like Greece, too. From the new ones.. I like Maori a lot, but honestly don't care for most of the new civs.
Vanilla: Japan -- The most solid of the old civs imho
DLCs: Persia -- The OG blitzkrieg civ with a satisfying UI enabling CV
R&F: Georgia (say what you will) -- I just have a thing for Georgian culture
GS: Sweden -- Love their unique quest of settling all terrain and auto-theming
NFP: Grand Colombia (so far) -- Going back to inferior movement feels so bad now lol
Terrace farms just completely change the play style so radically, and I live playing around with improvements and districts.
This also maps to the Dutch & their polders and river bonus. Although I swear, my RNG is cursed- play Dutch, get stuck on a crappy crag or rock with straight coast line. Roll another Civ? Start with a field of lakes perfect for poldering. Every time!
I really enjoy Aussie outback station shenanigans, and kampung madness.
My affection for Germany is self explanatory; it’s just so satisfying to plan out a bunch of cities with 10+ adjacency on their Hansas.
Starting on a nice, wide double floodplain that lets me slot 2 dams, no blocking terrain... the dream! If I could set “infinite repeat on this project” I would happily cover the world in industrialized sprawl.
If I could only play one civ for the rest of Civ6's existance, it would be Egypt.
More faith, culture, appeal (Earth Godess!), gold, very underrated UU, cheaper districts/wonders, faster alliances, more early era score and flood immunity (less randomness). So many creative strategies work well with Egypt because whatever you neglect can be bought with faith and gold instead. Feels like playing on a lower difficulty level.
Australia gets my vote for best civ, as ever since that civ joined the game, I have played almost every game as Australia. I am only now finally giving another civ (the Cree) a try.
I enjoy getting the 100% production bonus when the AI declares war on me, or I liberate a city. The outback station is also a useful thing to have as well, because of the production bonus. If you combine this with Meeting house and Worth Ethic, then Australia can have very good production going in all cities.
Another really useful trick as Australia, is to have Macedon as your neighbor, since Alexander loves to declare early surprise wars on his neighbors. If Macedon declares an early surprise war, then you get the 100% production bonus for 10 turns, helping with early production and expansion. This can come in really handy, when you are trying to rush settlers, an early religion or even a world wonder.
I don't place much emphasis on religious victory, but I always try to rush and get the first or 2nd religion, so I can have a chance at getting Meeting House and Work Ethic, to boost my production.
Germany for muh production, Cree for shared visibility which is very nice, Inca for mountain gimmicks, and Norway for pillage trolling and chill music. Russia is pretty nice too, would be better if religion-stuff was more fun.
Some of my favorites: Norway, Canada, Netherlands, and India (as Chandragupta).
Norway just has a really fun play style that also happens to be very powerful. Using pillaging to push your way through the tech and civic trees is a blast and longships have a huge effective window.
Canada is the ideal builder civ - no need to worry about war declarations, and if you play to maximize their advantages you'll have to carefully plan things out to get the most appeal.
The Netherlands just make it really easy to get good adjacency bonuses and I really like their UU. Polders are cool too, but I have bad luck with the map generator so don't get much use from them.
For Chandy, I think Dharma is really underrated and it can be a lot of fun getting some crazy holy sites out of it. Chandy has the great territorial war ability which allows you to go offensive as needed.
I'm really hoping the Dutch get an alternate leader as part of NFP, because a Dutch leader with something better than Radio Oranje would be awesome.
Russia's my all-time favorite. I love being able to make tundra viable; it opens up a lot of map which is otherwise ignored. Every city starts with so many tiles, so you have flexibility on where to settle, like being able to settle on a river but still reach a resource that's a bit away. Lavras are just straight up OP... They're your ticket to an easy religious victory or a means to steal all the GWAMs. Cossacks are versatile on defense and offense, and probably the best pillaging unit in the game. Peter's ability definitely pales to the rest of their kit, but it's great for higher difficulties, particularly Deity, where you are going to be behind in science and culture for the first half of the game, so you might as well get some bonuses from that.
Religious and domination are the most enjoyable victories with them. Religious is usually a slog and so tedious, but with Russia you're generating so much faith and so fast, you're able to overwhelm the world with your one true religion. Domination is different than just invading your neighbor in the classical. You build up your infrastructure, get Theocracy and Grandmaster's Chapel, then unleash on the world with your Cossacks (who come online at the same time as Corps). Pillage, pillage, pillage... Then make more Cossacks with that faith. You take over the map like a virus.
I quite like Norway - I was quite surprised to see a fair few supporters of Norway in the post above this.
I also have to agree that French Eleanor is pretty awesome for a sprawling civ whixh is the style I tend to favour.
I have been addicted to extra worker charges since 21 October 2016.
I also prefer civs with simple design/abilities; rather than someone like England (for example).
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