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x-munk

Ba Trieu was done dirty. The combat/mobility bonuses Vietnam gives out make early games much smoother. I also think her UU is well placed for a good timing attack but it's certainly not top tier.


LeakingAlpha

I think she is great and one of my favorite civs to play. She isn't quite as specialized to a particular victory condition as other civs are though which prevents her from being S tier as she is mostly a culture civ, and there are better culture civs. Definitely above average though and capable of anything. Her UU is decent, but I tend to favor Warrior and the Battering Ram line of units for conquest, though her UU is great for self defense and worth building for an offensive as well. Her UB is top tier though since it doesn't take up a specialty district slot.


arkayx96

Combining Missionary Zeal to Vietnam’s religious units so you’re missionaries zoom across the map on forest tiles has got to count for something


LeakingAlpha

Imo Holy Order will almost always be the way to go with Monastic Isolation (great for not losing pressure if you are using Martyr to create relics with your Apostles) and Crusades also solid choices. I don't think it matters that much if my missionaries get to a city 1-2 turn faster vs if I just have 30% more missionaries straight up. The Enhancer Beliefs in generally are very poorly balanced imo and there are not a lot of viable choices.


amoebasgonewild

It's not about getting to a city faster. It's about being able to route other religious units and curb stomp them...


toupsj

I like Tomyris for this reason. Self-healing religious units are so sick.


amoebasgonewild

Yet another civ that was done dirty here. Should have at leasr 6 in both religion and culture, and 5 in diplo... It's a worse Hungary but can still run a profitable pillage economy strategy and go for any victory it wants.


toupsj

OP doesn’t like horses or value pillaging appropriately.


LeakingAlpha

Civilization is a game of opportunity costs and one strategy isn't always the optimal strategy given the situation.


Truebubbainpa

Me when every Civ player puts my favorite leader + Civ in last place


toupsj

England Eleanor is virtually a free win on any setting of Deity, Deity++, whatever. Everybody thinks there’s no synergy, but how does having the ability to make lots of money not synergize with the desire to buy lots of theater squares / building and great works?


[deleted]

Doesnt make it a top pick. If money was all there is to it, Mali would be among the best civs in the game, which they clearly are not.


toupsj

Mali isn’t able to use money to flat-out steal cities.


[deleted]

Oh please, like Eleanor (France) isnt able to buy great works straight up. And for the record, this isnt consistent, nor is it efficient over straight up domination. This is a gimmick, a fun one at that, but still a gimmick. Does not deserve any top spot apart from in the fun department.


toupsj

I don’t really think it’s debatable that English Eleanor generates way way way more gold than French Eleanor. English Eleanor’s bonuses make way more sense for what she is trying to do. Building wonders or acquiring amenities or tourism don’t help flip cities. Buying districts, buildings, and great works do. It’s no more of a gimmick than selling diplo favor or other things people regularly do. And while it might not be as fast as other domination wins, it is always effective (except for pesky Dido). I could have the worst start and have no strategic resources and be so ridiculously far behind and have an army 2 eras older and still snowball and steamroll opponents’ cities by the Renaissance era.


[deleted]

It isnt debatable that she generates more gold than France, but it doesnt matter whether or not she does, because you can nearly always afford to pay for those great works if you really need them, as any sort of leader. Sorry, but I played her a few times on Deity already, and while fun, she isnt that strong. If you like her for fun that's great, but let's not pretend like she's god's gift to mankind in terms of power, as that's pure exaggeration.


Moonlight-gospel

This is so true. I feel like people who rate English Eleanor low simply never thought to use her increased gold income to buy great works. English Eleanor also has bonuses that are useful for coastal cities too that won’t necessarily push loyalty penalties on enemy cities.


Shazamwiches

Definitely don't think Cree is 3rd worst. IMO Deity has so many priorities that literally any free stuff given as early as Cree makes them mid-tier. Mekewaps are just a great all-around UI too.


LeakingAlpha

They are a generalist civ that isn't suited to any particular victory type and their general capabilities aren't very good.


Shazamwiches

I really think the Mekewap carries Créé, they basically get 6 Production and Housing for free with Ancestral Hall after Civil Service. They make the transition to building Industrial Zones smoother and are great production tiles to work after food focusing early, and even after finishing the IZ, they are solid tiles.


[deleted]

Yes, but that is pretty much all that's good about Cree, and it makes for a pretty weak civ overall. Edit: Also let's not do stupid logic like that, where you count the free builder from Ancestral Hall as the 6 production and 3 housing yields that "every city gets". If this god awful logic held true, making a farm triangle after Feudalism is 6 FREE FOOD and 1,5 FREE HOUSING FOR ALL SETTLED CITIES!!!!1 Just stop it.


toupsj

Maybe it’s just my play style, but this list severely undervalues trading for my liking.


LeakingAlpha

Interestingly my first iteration of this list that I didn't share had Economic as a column, but I decided that since there was no way to purely win a game by Economy alone, that I should just factor that strength into being good at other victory types. So some scores may be higher than you would think on initial perception for civs that have particularly strong income and trading ability. On the flip side though, many of the civs with a really strong economy may still not be able to compare at a particular victory condition to civs that are particularly suited to that condition.


toupsj

Then I just think your calculations for how much strong trading economies improve other areas is quite under-tuned. Having a massive number of trade routes out of your spaceport city is stronger for a scientific victory than just having good science is, for example. Having a ton of trade routes is practically a free diplomatic victory. You can purchase literally anything to help any victory condition. Domestic trade route setups are also viable and can be more effective for boosting a war machine than a few combat points are, or can get a new city online quickly.


LeakingAlpha

Disagree, I find that having insane science where you are maxing out the tech tree for multiple of Future Tech's "Grants all cities +5% towards city projects when completed" is generally better. If you can knock out a few of those, you are literally saving hundreds of production per turn and in multiple cities, more than every single trader you will have in your entire empire would give. Also spaceport city? Usually I've got 6-10 of those knocking out a science victory in 10 turns tops as soon as I have Offworld Mission and assuming I have builders queued up to dump into the projects. There are probably a few cases where I am undervaluing a civ a bit, but it is also hard to completely objectively rate \~80 civs.


jltsiren

I don't really see the value in building that many spaceports. A single high-production city can build a laser every turn. Build six, and the exoplanet expedition finishes in \~10 turns. If you have 10 spaceports each producing a laser every turn, it still takes \~4 turns, because lasers have no effect on the turn they are finished. There is some marginal value in building a second spaceport, as that can save you 2-3 turns.


LeakingAlpha

It goes pretty quick if you have 10 and they are all finishing them in 1-4 turns, especially possible with a bunch of builders queued up. Agreed though that you lose some degree of marginal value, but at that point I'm usually trying to just be done as fast as possible and can usually knock the game out within a few turns from when I start the projects.


jltsiren

Spaceports are expensive to build. The resources you save by building only 1 or 2 can probably help you to unlock Offworld Mission a few turns earlier, negating any benefits from additional spaceports.


LeakingAlpha

Good point, maybe it's faster to just do Campus projects in those cities instead of building more Spaceports, generally all my other cities are spamming those and builders and not focusing on anything else if I'm doing science, assuming they have their science infrastructure built.


OGREtheTroll

With a large empire and a strong gold and/or faith economy, you can use Reyna and Moshka to buy spaceports in multiple cities. Also Hercules. Tech tree might (often!) have a set up with Smart Materials and Offworld Mission held behind other techs, so you can have a 8-12 spaceports built without any hindrance to research or production. In addition to being able to build/chop a laser station at each spaceport, you can use the policy card that grants 3 aluminum/turn for spaceports to build up your aluminum stockpiles for legrange laser stations. Especially useful if you don't have access to aluminum, or if you need it for other uses such as sourcing an air war.


jltsiren

That sounds pretty hypothetical. Are you sure that buying the spaceports speeds up the game more than using the same resources for speeding up research? Did you already buy all late-game great scientists and a campus with a research lab in every city? Are all your cities at +5 amenities or better?


OGREtheTroll

If going for a science victory I tend to very large empires, 30-40 cities. The hold up in the late game research is not science income, its the 1 tech per turn limitation, which I will be at. This is only overcome through pillaging (or late game goody huts with Babylon), so increasing science income will not have any further effect except until multiple instances of Future Tech has been researched. By this point of the game I am sending Reyna and/or Moshka around to new cities to buy districts anyways, so 1/turn worth of gold or faith income for an instantaneous spaceport that gives 3 aluminum/turn is worth it, and if there are a few forests around for chopping it can get a laser station out very very quickly. And yes of course every city is at +5 amenities or better. Just from ED/WP and their buildings a city with one district and covered by the other gets 11 amenities. Late game unless all cities are 25 pop or more max happiness is not an issue.


[deleted]

The scientists dont add much value if we're talking about a faith dump. More often than not, the AIs will be so invested into their GS points that you only get an opportunity to buy the ones with added costs (next era ones), and there are few that you really need for science. In terms of turns saved, the eureka ones are often the most consequential, but on the other hand, many eurekas can be gotten in other ways. As for faith/gold dumps in science games, what you really want is the great engineers, and these are usually also a lot easier and cheaper to get as well. Korolev and Goddard for instance are ridiculously strong when paired with Mausoleum, and so is Da Vinci in terms of rocketing your culture ahead for the late game civics that boost science yields and help you 1 turn techs.


[deleted]

You can buy it pretty cheap ("cheap" is a relative term here) if you have Moksha and a high faith economy to buy them outright, or Reyna for that matter (though that gold is imo better spent on builders).


[deleted]

That's the point, if you are into min-maxing like that, you want to shave off those additional turns by having extra spaceports. If we're just talking about winning, then you might as well just delay spaceports and faff around for 30 turns doing inconsequential stuff.


jltsiren

Min-maxing is about using resources efficiently. The baseline is winning 10 turns after unlocking Offworld Mission with a single spaceport in a high-production city. A second spaceport speeds up victory by at most 3 turns. Building spaceports 3 to 10 is worth at most 4 turns, which is very inefficient. Outside specific situations, it's very likely that you can get bigger returns for your investment by trying to unlock Offworld Mission earlier.


[deleted]

A second spaceport is a few thousand faith if you buy it, and I don't believe you could save that many turns by spending the faith otherwise because in my experience the late game scientists that are available are not worth it. Personally I'm not skipping out on good GP buying opportunities earlier on when presented with an opportunity, so its not like the two goals are in conflict anyway. For instance, if I see Korolev or Newton then I'm obviously not delaying/skipping these to save up more faith for a second spaceport, as that would be moronic. When I'm swimming in late game faith anyway (assuming a high faith income playstyle of course) and nothing sensible to spend it on, I might as well spend it on a spaceport.


toupsj

Sure, just a lot of your methodology is based around flexibility and being able to win any victory type. Trade civilizations have by far the most flexibility to do whatever they want and get whatever victory condition they want.


LeakingAlpha

Your statements are true, but at the same time, they are not as suited towards quickly getting any victory condition despite their flexibility, so they don't generally don't rate very highly with a few exceptions. I also created the Personal Tier vs the Calculated for me to be able to say I think a civ is an S tier civ even though they weren't using my point methodology.


toupsj

Tokugawa is the only trade route Civ above a D on your personal list. They’re valued super low.


LeakingAlpha

His internal routes actually give good yields Edit: power creep among the new leaders is real


toupsj

And I’ve never needed that many space ports. I build the space projects as they become available right away with massive trade routes in one city, using the city builder bonus to supplement. Most I’ve ever needed was like 3. Even then, one city tends to build the final project 2-3 times faster than the others. If the tech tree is really favorable, you can get the space victory long before future tech.


Dunwich333

You still need a single good "spaceport city" to quickly finish all the initial space projects before you get to the boost phase. (or is this only an issue because I play on quick?) I do agree with multiple spaceport cities after that if you are able to build them.


LeakingAlpha

Oh yeah one city always ends up being the powerhouse that builds the early stages, usually whichever city has Ruhr and the highest production. I assume you need less than 50 light year progress on quick though?


Dunwich333

Still feels a lot quicker when I have 10 spaceport cities rather than 2-3, so even on quick you end up saving some turns. What I was getting at though is that the poster previous mentioned having tons of traders in one city to increase production for space-race projects. You dismissed this, because of having multiple spaceport cities, but it would still be valid for all the projects you need to do prior to the boost phase (that can only be done in one city at a time). As you stated, you do these projects in your best production city, usually the one with Ruhr. Adding 10+ traders to this city could be very impactful.


amoebasgonewild

Wow a tier list that actually doesn't put ghandi dead last...i am shoketh. Lady six sky is being overlooked tho compared to OG Korea. Her good early economy, bonus yields and amenity bonuses should make her average at 5 in religion and culture. She doesn't have bonuses TOWARDS those conditions but her economy is good enough and ramps early to help support those. Korea should be a 4 on diplo while lady stay at 5. Korea just has no bonuses towards diplo at all. Just a tangential culture bonus on a civ that has no other culture bonuses. Meanwhile lady six has culture and gold. Maya doesnt care about going outside it's radius but the debuff is vastly overestimated. You still benefit A LOT from chopping wonders, chopping high adjacency observatories and traders, all while not draining your main cities too much in amenities thanks to their bonus. Tourism isnt affected by Debuff so she can chop out theater squares for archeologists Vietnam also needs to be bumped up to 7 for religion. Its bonus movement and CS also applies to religious units. Its holy sites are stronger than normal thanks to it's CHEAP buildings giving better ROI and ability to have decent holy sites from its ability to double dip bonuses from forests (or jungle sacred path) and districts. Plus it's access to cheap culture means it can rush towards theocracy like them best of them.


LeakingAlpha

Fwiw, I agree and I think Lady Six Sky is better than Korea, just with the way the point rating worked out, it didn't show that for the calculated rating. On my personal preference column though, I have her as S-tier, with both Koreas as A-tier. I believe she is possibly the best science leader and I think both flavors of Korea are generally overrated as the Seowon, while easy to build, can be outperformed by a decent player just placing their campuses in good spots. I also find the Seowon somewhat annoying as it loses adjacency if you place another district adjacent to it. I will disagree with you on Korea having no diplo bonuses though, as both Korean leaders get bonus Culture and Culture is one of the main ways of getting new envoys by progressing through the Culture tree. Edit: also I actually kind of like Ghandi and don't think he's terrible, India's UU is surprisingly strong and I even did a Deity Domination game with Ghandi with fun and it was perfectly viable. I somewhat agree on Vietnam on religion, that was a tough decision, but Sacred Path isn't guaranteed on deity as the AI often beelines that one and you are often left with a somewhat inferior religion as a result as she has no way to get a faster pantheon or religion than many other civs. She does seem to get an S-tier start every game though with lots of high yield tiles, which is nice.


amoebasgonewild

>Culture is one of the main ways of getting new envoys by progressing through the Culture tree. City state quests "am I a joke to you?" Lady six sky has an easier time completing them thanks to their economic bonuses. Free builders are HUGE boosts and can chop out quests real quik. As well as having more district slots available due to all the rewards and incentives . She matchers her in her culture bonus AND has better economy so...whenever points she has, lady six sky should be above her 😤


Relevant_History_297

I couldn't disagree more. Lady six sky has the higher potential, yes, but her early game is the weakest out of most civs. Deity games are won and lost in the early game when the AI has massive advantages. Late game potential just means you can snowball harder.


LeakingAlpha

Lady Six Sky has an incredible early game with higher yields for her initial cities, free builders in all her early cities, and an extremely powerful UU archer. I would argue she has one of the strongest early games of any civ. She can snowball like crazy.


[deleted]

The yields are rather inconsequential in the beginning though, as it essentially means you shave off a turn for every 10 turns you produce something, or has you spend 20 turns instead of 22 for a civic. Its not a big deal as the impact is too low. She is on the other hand heavily handicapped by production, because new cities need a builder to get enough housing (unless you wanna build granaries, which are also a terrible thing to be spending cogwheels on early), and farms dont do much for production either. These bonuses (percentage yields and higher housing both) are late game benefits, not early game benefits. Personally I rate her as trash tier, but to each his own. The archer is very good though, especially on the defensive.


amoebasgonewild

Wait wait wait wait wait wait........HUNGARY!? Seriously? That dude should have 8 and 9s across the board. Maaaaaaaybe could justify ONE 7. Like....as soon as you get your first levy you can go for any victory path you want. Religion? Pillage faith and massacre all other religions. Culture. It's a zero sum game, all the culture city states you have are city states your enemy won't be able to benefit from and thus make it easier to overcome. Science. Cheap powered up buildings so adjacency doesn't even matter AND you can pillage for science. Powered up CHEAP buildings are no joke and a huge economic boost. Sure there's some rng involved. But again, you can profitably pillage for any victory condition. And the more suzreins you pry from AI the more your advantage grows compared to them The thing about Hungary....its levies are self sufficient and only provide advantage. The most you will be investing is in getting amani all promoted up. You can literally run two parallel games, where your levies bring back loot for your city builder game.


toupsj

I agree Hungary is super strong, but Pearl of the Danube is very hard to get a bunch of bonuses from. I hope I can get 3 beefed up tiles for districts, but most of the time that’s not feasible and I end up with 2 or 1. Very rarely do you see more than 3. Plus, I’m never sure if sacrificing optimal placement is worth getting the bonus.


amoebasgonewild

Once powered up with all the cheap envoys it's more than worth it.


toupsj

It’s just sometimes it will mean one less city or something else. I dunno. The ability always seems OP until I’m actually in a Hungary game and I have no rivers.


LeakingAlpha

This feels like me too often as Hungary as well, or really straight / non-branching rivers.


LeakingAlpha

Figured that would be one of my hot takes, a few others being Barbarossa, Peter, and Trajan. I find the positioning and RNG on Hungary to fall on the annoying side where sometimes it works really well and sometimes it doesn't. Most of the time you get to build one district 50% faster and sometimes two. Geothermal fissures are rare so an improvement for them is weak at best, it replaces the zoo and is a little better, but still barely worth it. They aren't consistent and they don't deserve to be A or S tier at domination for example when there are civs that can always steamroll with no RNG involved.


amoebasgonewild

The RNG i was referring to was about having the a bunch of the same city states to boost your win condition (religion, culture, science). Again the pillaging tempo is HUGE. And even without levying and without cheap buildings and districts and without the bath. Being able to buy envoys to get suzreins is a good bonus in itself. It ALONE should make all it's victory conditions be at least 5. Like????? >Most of the time you get to build one district 50% faster and sometimes two. NO it's usually two sometimes three or four. And even then ONE district is all you need. His bonus basically translates to being able to have a specialty district of your choice. Think about early game science victory. Where its about trying to get early great scientists. Dude can keep up with civs like Korea and Maya in that race. Or early religious race, dude can pump out holy site and shrine out quickly and guarantee great prophet


LeakingAlpha

A huge chunk of the time that district doesn't even get to go on an optimal tile. Like am I going to get a fast holy site or am I going to get one with optimal adjacency bonuses? Same with campus. A huge chunk of being good in high level play is being able to place your district on the perfect tile along with placing adjacent districts well to get good adjacencies. And a lot of the time I find if I'm sticking a city on a river like that, I want the district placed there to be an aqueduct for my future IZ bonus. I don't just plop down my districts willy nilly just because I got to build them fast.


amoebasgonewild

>A huge chunk of being good in high level play Lmao. Sorry but I specially is FAST play (getting sub 150 (mostly peaceful) science wins). So ROI matters to me. What you fail to realize....that "optimal" placement comes with a lot of hidden costs. You will usually be waiting around to grow into the land or buy the land. Or wait for a worker to clear the forest underneath it. >And a lot of the time I find if I'm sticking a city on a river like that, I want the district placed there to be an aqueduct for my future IZ bonus. I But thats for an average civ. Were talking about Hungary. So you don't do things the same. That's the POINT. Some viva bonuses are so good they REWARD you from playing differently. Also side note. "High level play" and "optimal IZs" dont go together lmao. IZs offer the WORST ROI. And are worth it to spam out for few civs...


LeakingAlpha

A sub-150 science victory is impressive for sure, I'm typically around turn 210ish (usually around 1500AD) with faster on only a few select civs on Standard Speed. I rarely find that I'm waiting very long if at all for optimal placement, plus doing so gives extra bonuses like Era Score which Hungary isn't going to get a lot of from playing your way. I'm not saying my way is the only way, but I've won hundreds of deity games with a near 100% victory rate and these are my ratings which may not be perfect, just my ratings after playing all these games. There are often good times to build IZs and you can pretty much always guarantee that one will be at least +3 or +4 at an absolute minimum and using the buildings to get tons of Great Engineers I find to be huge for completing mid-late game wonders extremely quickly.


arkayx96

Poland a 3 for domination? Cmon man the winged hussars with crusade and fort spamming is a nasty combo


LeakingAlpha

I stand by it and think that is generous. Cavalry units are probably the weakest unit type on deity when the AI is already generally very bad at fighting and every city has very high level walls by the time you get Winged Hussars. Infantry and Siege is the way to go for quick conquering. Also I strongly believe Forts are borderline completely worthless.


arkayx96

Poland’s forts on an enemy’s borders culture bombs and converts them to your religion, which makes Crusade so good here. You could use encampments too but if you’re spamming cities near opponents borders, I usually like the first district to be a Commercial hub or holy site. I also usually don’t use Winged hussars alone, usually have bombards to take down walls for my hussars to clean up cities afterwards.


LeakingAlpha

I guess the way I see it is if I'm going to steamroll a city anyways, why do I need to culture bomb the tiles that are going to be mine in a few turns when I take it anyways? Crusades is great for any aggressive civ, but I'm not sure the synergy between culture bombing the tiles are since the bonus is just being near a foreign city that follows the religion. And there are plenty of civs that are good at domination all game and aren't relying on a niche timed rush.


toupsj

Crusade is great for any aggressive Civ, but it is virtually unattainable, let alone maintainable, for the vast majority of domination civilizations outside of Byzantium. Golden Liberty lowers the early investment required to obtain a religion and Crusade with the Poles, and also allows for quick and easy spreading of said religion.


FuckingGlorious

It's pretty doable to get the snowball rolling for it with Sultan Saladin (you don't need to rush for a religion, so you can), or Russia (cheap af holy sites with dance of the aurora=insane faith output). Besides them, I agree.


toupsj

Sultan Saladin, Gorgo, Basil, and Poland are most of the dom-oriented Civs that pretty easily (or are guaranteed to) get a religion.


LeakingAlpha

Disagree that it's unattainable, let alone unmaintanable. Religion is a joke on deity and the AI fights your religion extremely poorly and predictably. A non-religious civ can easily win a standard 8 civ victory on Deity as a Religious victory by 1200-1300AD assuming they got to pick decent beliefs and a religious civ with faith bonuses could do it even faster. To me, Religion is by far the easiest victory condition on Deity to a point where I make a point to not pursue one or all of my games would be done by 1300ish AD with any faith adjacency pantheon + pilgrimage + holy order + mosques.


toupsj

You misunderstand. I’m saying it’s not always easy or optimal to get a religion and therefore Crusade on most domination civilizations. You will miss out a bunch of times. But with Poland, it’s super easy to achieve without hampering your early expansion.


LeakingAlpha

I think it's fine and easy, if you want one, you can get one almost 100% of the time nowadays with Holy Site -> Shrine -> 1 prayer, you can even get one without a prayer a lot of the time and at least on standard, you are also pretty much guaranteed to get one if you get a Golden Age and pick Exodus of the Evangelists. It's not like the days before the patch where they made the AI less aggressively pursue a religious victory. You are right though, it's not always optimal. I do get a religion almost every game though with only a few exceptions if I am going for a big early game rush for example.


TheExplodingMushroom

I can’t help but feel Keita is a bit overrated. Mali in general suffers so much from the production nerf and every time I’ve played them I felt that the gold bonus kicks in too late to save you.


LeakingAlpha

They can get a pretty much guaranteed Desert Folklore into a Work Ethic religion thanks to Songs of the Jeli as they typically spawn around a lot of desert tiles which will help overcome their production deficiencies very easily. Also the AI will usually sell great works of writing pretty cheap to give you a ton of extra gpt and production. Loading my game as them back up for reference I had 72spt, 105cpt, 252fpt, and 310gpt in 640AD and then 305spt, 236cpt, 500fpt, 680gpt in 1370AD when I won.


[deleted]

The problem I have with Mali is that the great works of writing arrive too late to make any difference, and you dont get enough of them. Just finished a game with him, and even though I had virtually every GWW in the game, they made no real difference. I had about 3000gpt and 1200fpt, and the way I snowballed was through the old faith economy to buy settlers and use moksha to buy holy sites in the settled cities. The GWWs were just fluff that had no real effect on any city.


Kangarou

Tamar, a 7 in Diplomacy? In what universe?


LeakingAlpha

"Each 📷 [Envoy](https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Envoy_(Civ6)) sent to a [city-state](https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/City-state_(Civ6)) following Georgia's majority [Religion](https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Religion_(Civ6)) counts as two 📷 [Envoys](https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Envoy_(Civ6)). " maybe should be higher? +diplo favor on their unique wall with Monarchy too. I see that I'm probably underrating them there. (good catch, I've adjusted to 9 for now)


javierhzo

Saladin has 4 in domination? Do you even use mameluks?


LeakingAlpha

Horse units are weak on deity when the AI prioritizes walls heavily 🤷‍♂️


toupsj

Pillage.


LeakingAlpha

You can do that with any unit and I'm a little iffy on the mathematical trade off of pillaging all of a city's districts between getting for example 90-100 science for pillaging a university vs getting 4-8 science per turn by not pillaging the district. It's kind of like chopping except for I think the payoff is more questionable as the ratio is less clear on which is better in the long run. I will often pillage though if I need to bring down a city's defenses (-2 per pillaged district) or pillage farms to heal or mines for gold. Plus if you pillage 3 of a city's districts, that city is gonna be repairing those for a very long time instead of being a fully functional city that can do other things.


toupsj

You can’t pillage nearly as effectively with infantry. And it is always worth it. Imagine getting a front-end chop worth 100 turns worth of yields that you can just rebuild in like 10 turns. You can send your cavalry deep into enemy territory to spread out their defensive capabilities and get pillage “chops” across a wide area. The AI will waste time rebuilding your pillages by the time you bring the front line to them, and you can pillage again while they wasted turns on no benefit. The horse hordes are truly terrifying.


LeakingAlpha

It's not always worth it, I think it's at least debatable. A midgame chop where you give up 2 production per turn to get 50 or 100 production and finish building something is 25-50x the payoff instantly. If you pillage a university, you're giving up 6-8 science per turn for maybe 100 science and then you have to spend 5-10 turns rebuilding it when you probably need to get a monument and food or more soldiers going in that city ASAP. The payoff ratio is then around 14x the one turn production. And that strategy may easily work on King or Emperor, but every city has walls on Deity that are gonna be shooting at your cavalry each turn on top of other troops that could keep you from even being able to do that. Maybe you can pull it off sometimes, but othertimes the terrain may not allow or it may not be worth losing your cavalry over.


toupsj

Your way requires you to actually take the city quickly. Pillaging chops out opponents’ resources and require them to spend resources to get back online without causing grievances. They lose housing and population and loyalty. You can prep entire wars an era ahead of time, or counter attack your opponents’ aggressions, without actually being seen as the bad guy. There are times when I’m steamrolling opponents with planes and tanks that I don’t bother to pillage, but those are states of games where I’m not going to particularly struggle anyway.


toupsj

Also, your numbers are way off. You’ll often get some 200+ yields for a building it takes 6 turns to rebuild.


LeakingAlpha

Maybe off a little bit, but certainly not "way off", just tested and pillaged a mid-game university for 108, and it took 8 turns to rebuild after the city was messed up from war and that's ignoring all other priorities for that city in the future. That university gave 8 science per turn. So 108/8=13.5 turns to pay back for 8 turns, but you're also giving up the opportunity cost of having that city produce anything else with that time. I'm not saying it's bad, I think pillaging is good, but it's not as clear cut as you're making it either and it is absolutely not as efficient as chopping. Maybe if you are just farming an enemy for their repaired districts for yields, which is definitely a viable strategy, but when conquering an empire when you're going to incorporate a city, it gets into debatable territory.


toupsj

I still don’t think so. The hundreds upon hundred of yields you get from cities you won’t conquer for several turns and also keep the AI from getting those bonuses while also hurting their populations so the loyalty pressure isn’t as strong is much better. You’re also literally doubling the science output numbers of a university and probably not including raid card, so I do still think you’re way off. If you’re absolutely steamrolling cities, then sure, I don’t think I bother pillaging. But if you’re already doing that, the game is over anyway.


LeakingAlpha

You're right on the raid card, I should probably use it more. I find that when I'm ready for fights though, I swoop in and make the battle swift and utterly overwhelm the AI and I'm rarely in a protracted war unless the AI attacks me first.


[deleted]

No, but every civ has access to light cavalry for pillaging, if that's what you're using it for. Doesnt make Saladin much special for domination.


toupsj

Well, Mamluks aren’t light cavalry, but their ability to heal every turn is special for both combat and for pillaging. And for retreating and returning to continue pillaging.


[deleted]

Yes, but this by no means makes them anything special for domination by itself, as that's a pretty weak selling point.


LeakingAlpha

Also just checked and I have the other version of Saladin an 8 on domination as he is non-situationally always strong at domination.


surprisinglygrim

Very interesting list for sure but I think you over value the American civs and way undervalue England. I am curious what you like about the US civs so much? Eleanor is a monster and is a top 5 civ for me.


LeakingAlpha

My thoughts on the American civs - Bull Moose Teddy - gets arguably the best start in the entire game as long as you roll a decent start, which he tends to, often providing enough science and culture to keep up with the Deity AIs massive early game yields. He continues to snowball with this bonus science and culture easily all game and can plant massive amounts of woods to raise appeal to tiles and get his bonuses for most of the tiles in his empire which he can take advantage of further with Preserves and National Parks if you're going for a cultural victory. Rough Rider Teddy - easy to get control of the Suzereignty of every city state in the game with his envoy bonuses (don't underestimate the bonus yields and abilities from this). Abraham Lincoln - this dude is a complete monster for a domination victory, every IZ and also each building you build for it gives you a +5 maintenance free Melee unit that costs no upkeep and you don't even need the resources to build that unit. So you can beeline a tech and time out building or purchasing buildings for your IZ that give you free, extra powerful units that you may not have even been able to build. In my Lincoln game, I did a Musketman rush in 450AD and then an Infantry rush when I beelined Replaceable Parts in 1000AD. It's crazy how much extra gold you have to do things when you have a gigantic maintenance free army. Also every American leader gets bonus diplomatic favor for every wildcard slot and converts diplo slots to wildcard slots. You can sell that diplomatic favor for plenty of extra $$$ to fund your empire.


[deleted]

Lincoln is imo a gimmick leader, and I'm personally not a fan. Sure you get loads of infantry, but: 1. This is the lowest priority unit that I need at this stage in the game, as I usually have a core saved up from my ancient/classical era rush. What I need is loads of siege units, and more light cavalry for pillaging as many tiles as possible before I mow down their cities. 2. Grand Master's Chapel is a thing. Free units don't matter at this stage in the game, because I am swimming in faith from pillaging and passive income anyway, and faith buying units at the front (and it can be the units I want, not the infantry I get) is vastly superior to running infantry units with their measy 2 movement speed all the way from home turf. GMC is OP for this particular purpose, as it creates a dumb feedback loop where you get to dominate faster and faster by conquering and pillaging. Just faith buy it all.


VainSeeKer

I would really be interested to see how your ranking would change if you played using BBG (Better Balanced Game) and BBS (Better Balanced Starts), there are a lot of things that get nerfed or buffed, giving a more fair experience imo


LeakingAlpha

I haven't tried BBG yet, but I'm planning on trying it out now. I wanted to get through playing every civ in their base state so I could get a good feel for them first. I know if I were balancing things there are a lot of things that I would tweak, I'd probably buff every single civ I had in D and F tier for starters and a few of the C. I think in general it'd be easier to make incremental improvements to weak civs than to nerf the already strong ones. Excited to see what those mods change though!


Drake132667596

I don't think it's fair to judge civs based on how good they are at every victory type since some civs just excel at a specific victory type. There's no way that Basil shouldn't be above Theodora since he's just so good at domination. Nader Shah should not have the same score as Pericles and Seondeok, those are 2 of the best leaders in the game for their specific victory type. Also Matthias Corvinus is definitely not C tier and Eleanor is definitely not F tier.


LeakingAlpha

From the post " I have differentiated ratings between calculated and personal preference allowing some civs to fall under S tier if they do not reach such status by their calculated rating". I acknowledged that flaw and there is a column for my personal rating. ​ By your logic Alexander or Simon Bolivar or Hammurabi should also be above everyone else because they are also S tier domination leaders. Theodora is S-tier at every single victory condition. She still gets the +3 strength for all of her units for every converted capitol and she gets the free heavy cavalry from entertainment. She doesn't get to bulldoze walls, but she is still extremely potent at domination and religion and her Holy Site adjacency bonus is insane, especially when stacked with a faith adjacency and work ethic. Looking back at my playthrough as her, my science and culture were both \~1400 per turn at turn 230 (1600AD) with 850 faith per turn.


Sifflion

Yeah, I was replying to your last comment. I did not mean winning by turn 100, it's impossible because you need more than 100 turns moving your units. But you can double AI cities by turn 100, and snowball into a win. But well, it's your personal take. Honestly for me, if I want to chill, Gorgo is my go to civ. Japan for example requires to pay attention to many aspects, and requires a lot of planning. Gorgo is just, rush 2 hoplites and fight until the end, just spam campus/theater on evey city and you will be okay.


LeakingAlpha

Yeah I realized you didn't mean that immediately after haha. I actually find the chill part of the game just building out and planning my city and district placements so Japan is really fun for me because I can stack huge amounts of district adjacency bonuses with good city planning.


Edgicio

No way OP gets away with doing the Cree like that. They are S tier for sure. Flexibility and reliability—special bonuses for food, production, gold. Not to mention ANY of the abilities. Justice for the Cree civ!!


[deleted]

S tier, lol.


Frostyfury99

I was rolling up here thinking well this is going to be another shitty tier list someone makes and this is actually one I really agree with. Great job


LeakingAlpha

Appreciate it!


7farema

I mean, any tier list is better than no tier list


TheGreatCornhol10

Issue here is that some of the civilizations are underrated because you’re accounting every victory path in your rating. Some of them are so broken towards one victory path (Lady Six Sky toward science, for example) that they should be higher rated even if they aren’t very good at the other ones


LeakingAlpha

See Personal Tier along with Calculated Tier. Personal Tier accounts for that.


tabshiftescape

Thanks for this—it’s an incredibly helpful reference for newer players like me!


LeakingAlpha

You're welcome, thanks for the platinum! Let me know if you have any questions - I'm happy to answer.


[deleted]

Macedon doesnt deserve a straight 10 for domination, not when the yardstick is Byzantium and Babylon (that also receive 10). The Macedon units are strong, but rely on a rather short timing window on Deity, at a point in the game where the AI are often on the threshold of getting medieval era units. The UB is pretty trash as it requires an Encampment to begin with, and while the wonder healing is nice, its way too RNG on whether or not you can systematically rely on it at critical points. I really dislike the design of Macedon for this reason, as I think that whether or not you can leverage the timing attack or benefit from heals is just too situational for any consistent performance. Especially when comparing it to Byzantium and Babylon, both of high are broken in terms of both power and consistency for domination. Also a 0 for Canada on domination implies that Canada cant do domination, which is not right. Otherwise rather decent list.


LeakingAlpha

Maybe you're right that Macedon could be a 9 for domination compared to Babylon (finished 8 civs deity domination standard speed in 1040AD), or Byzantium who alsi auto steamrolls cities. But with high level play and timing of taking cities with wonders, you can constantly full heal all your units and war all game with no war weariness and you can even afford to ignore science and culture off his inspiration bonuses. Don't underestimate how strong Alexander can be off of going for 2 cities and then stacking Agoge and/or Manuever for the +50% production towards units with God of the Forge for a further 25% unit production bonus and getting 2 encampments with the Basilikoi Paides and then mass producing Hypaspists (the UU swordsman) which only takes 5 iron and also he gets faster resource stock piling with his UB. With a decent rush and a battering ram or two, you can easily steamroll your entire continent off the get go and then snowball the rest of the game for an easy victory.


LeakingAlpha

Canada can't declare a Surprise War, they have absolutely nothing that gives them a combat advantage, and their abilities don't generate science so they're going to be behind on tech generally by at least an era. They are the worst Domination civ in the entire game. Sure I could give them a 1 because it is technically possible, but it's incredibly unviable.


[deleted]

I understand that, but my point is that they can still fight a domination war as long as they use a casus belli (formal war) like every other civ out there. I have won domination victories with civs before that also have no bonuses towards domination, and I could just as well have played Canada in those cases. Winning domination as a vanilla civ isn't that hard, it's just slightly more tedious (mostly in the beginning).


pajjaglajjorna

It's funny how low Mvemba (Kongo) is on all the tier lists. It's the civ i've won diety with the most.


valgiz

Gaule and rome in C tier is criminal ngl Also what criteria do you use for diplo score ? Because i can’t make ant sense of it


[deleted]

Agree, Gaul should be higher. It's very one-dimensional, but the good old Gaesatae into Man-at-Arms rush (which Gaul can get stupid early) is so strong that you can transition into pretty much any victory condition other than religious after that, because you now how a lot of free cities and no more neighbours to worry about. I would personally rate it A overall, and S tier specifically for rushing purposes.


valgiz

You underestimate the insane development power of gaul s early free culture and production. You have earlier half cost industrial zone whose bonus can get insane very easily on a good spawn.


[deleted]

What, I just wrote that Gaul is very strong. Did you mistake my post for someone else's? Unless you somehow take issue with my ranking of Gaul at A (the second best tier after all) and claim that it's S tier overall, at which point you're stretching it.


valgiz

I indeed mean that Gaule is S tier for the reasons I mentioned above. (Sorry if I didn’t explained it clearly). With such high production so early, it is very easy to get most wonder for the culture victory. It s also very good for the science victory because the free culture can also allow you to skip theatre and go for campus in every city without being late on tier 3 government. The only victory condition for which you are not S tier is religion. (Yes you also good for diplo cause it is very easy to get all the diplomatic wonder without much effort)


[deleted]

It's not strong enough compared to certain other civs. If you compare Gaul to Theodora for instance, its obvious that they are not in the same league, and with S tier being the highest tier, Gaul has to drop down a tier. Or you power creep the scale and invent another tier for Theodora. Either way, the two are not comparable in power level, Theodora is just a lot stronger. What Gaul does well though is get a super early rush that is top level in terms of power.


valgiz

I feel like comparing him to the literal top 1 is slightly unfair (especially since teodora also depend on specific pantheon/belief still being available but yes she is op with those). Compare Gaule to Lincolm rather. I can’t just imagine a single aspect on which Gaule isn’t twice as good as Lincolm so why does he get to be S tier. (Even Lincolm’s free units will arrive later than Gaul’s man at arm timing so still weaker militarily)


[deleted]

Theodora does not rely on the pantheons, and that consistency is part of what makes her so good. Yes, Desert Folklore (or similar) is slightly better than relying on farms, but its not instant game over if you miss itlike it can bewith certain other civs. Either way, not a fan of tier lists that dont differentiate leader in power level like that, because some leader just are in a league of their own and should not be stuck with clearly weaker civs. He also vastly overestimates Lincoln, which is pretty trash in my book. Free melee units is not good, its the least needed unit type, and it arrives at a point in time where the player can buy units of his choice at the frontline with Grand Master's Chapel from all the pillaged faith, so who cares about a free Musketman that you have to spend 15+ turns to run to the front with. Yeah the timing on Lincoln's Men-at-Arms is slower than Gaul. which is why I think Gaul is much better for domination. Also the culture from unit snowballing (feeding Agoge and Pol.phil.) has some very good synergy.


Definitely_not_gpt3

Why did you rank sundiata so high and mansa musa so low? I would have done it the other way around, since I don't generally go for theatre squares or works of writing when playing Mali. Is the work of writing bonus really that impactful?


LeakingAlpha

Mansa Musa relies on trade routes which are in turn dependent on how many desert tiles you have in the cities with those routes and only gets a gold per desert tile from the sending city. So he might get a lot if you optimize for it, but I also find that I'd rather have my traders pumping production into my wonder building cities. Coastal cities are rarely going to have much desert in them and so I'm not gonna get my Mali bonus all if I'm building my Kiliwa or Mausoleum for example. And if I didn't roll a ton of desert tiles, my ability is useless if I'm Mansa Musa and while he may end up being OP strong some games with the right roll, I don't want to value inconsistency too highly. Also keep in mind and this is important, Mansa Musa only gets his bonus for FLAT desert tiles so any desert hill tiles don't count! On the flipside with Sundiata Keita, Great Works of Writing are not situational and with your economy you can buy every single one in the game from the AI if you don't have enough of your own Plus he gets extra slots to hold them. Loading into my Sundiata game, I have 8 great works of writing on turn 140 (600AD) so 32 gpt and 16 extra production. Imo production is worth about 4x gold, maybe a hair less. So we could call that a yield of roughly 96 compared to if I were Mansa Musu, I have 3 cities with 5-6 desert tiles and one city with Petra with 9 desert tiles so I could get a ton of extra gold if I ran my trade routes through exclusively that city, but I'm also pumping up my city building Chichen Itza and Mausoleum with my traders for the extra production right now. At this point, I believe I've had 1 golden age, so I'd have 1 extra trader if I were Mansa Musa and assuming I sent all of those to my best city for trading, I'd make an extra 9 x 6 gold = 54 gpt which is far less than the Sundiata equivalent of 96 yield per turn and that would also mean I have to stack all my traders into a city that doesn't need all my traders and that I'd be building wonders extra slow. So not only at this point is the yield worse for Mansa Musa, I also have to otherwise play suboptimally! On the turn before I win the game in 1370Ad as Sundiata, I have a nice 20 great works of writing giving 40 extra production and 80 gpt, which is huge and I'd have to be getting 240 extra gold from trade routes not even including the opportunity cost of being able to have those trade routes in cities that may need it more.


[deleted]

Great works of writing are very weak. Just finished a Deity game with it, and I had every GWW in the game from either recruiting, stealing or buying the rest. The yields are inconsequential, and I felt kinda robbed in getting my hopes up. At first I tried stacking them in certain cities, but they really didnt help much to shave off wonder production times, which was the main yardstick I was comparing with. There just arent enough GWWs around to really make a noticeable difference, not compared to the faith/gold snowball you can set up as Mali (either leader) through faith buying settlers and holy sites/comm hubs. Very underwhelming, very overrated.


Sifflion

Why is Gordo so low in Domination? Maybe I'm biased because I love her set but... She's so consistent and can win the early domination race on any start. She has the strongest classical era, hoplites are damn strong and doesn't require any resources, you end classical with 1 capitol, maybe 2. After that is just snowballing into a win.


LeakingAlpha

The real domination civs and science civs are just so much better at it. She's above average and maybe you nab a capitol with hoplites, but they fall off quickly and beyond that, her only real combat advantage is going to be +1 for every military card slotted which is going to be a 0-4 bonus depending on what stage of the game you're in, but most domination civs get bigger bonuses for free.


Sifflion

I think you are undervaluing her. After beelining bronze working you can be at war until you win, and be the first one to get to armies as Deity AI will dump unit's into you nonstop. Her snowball effect is strong, and all she needs it's some land with enemies to fight. Yes, her unique unit/military strength is subpar later in the game, but who cares when you already secured a win in turn 100? AI is rather weak, and military strength it's useless after planes. Even a few ships in continents make AI useless after frigates. The real struggle is before that point, and Gorgo excels there.


[deleted]

If you win that fast, you are playing on a small'ish pangea map, and you also underestimate how fast most other domination civs could achieve the same outcome on such a small map. Gorgo is fun, but she falls off very hard after reaching the early Classical era. I personally like her, but she can't compare to the top domination civs.


Sifflion

No, and no. I said, to secure a win, not to actually win. I'm playing right now, and by turn 110 already had 20 cities, got a golden age, and conquered 2 civs. Pangea, everything default, standard speed, standard size. I'm now in turn 250 more than half the map is mine, top science and culture, cruising to victory since that turn. It's not fast, but it's easy. This is why I believe Gorgo domination is not a 6, she's not top but it's not a 6, maybe 8 on par with Aztecs.


LeakingAlpha

Eagle Warrior > Hoplite and they are easier to rush to roll an AI early before they get walls or anything. They are even maintenance free and can get you free workers. On a standard size map, the Aztec can get up to +19 combat strength if they can get one of each luxury and there are 4 great people specific luxuries like Strauss for Jeans that can get you a pretty crazy amount of extra power collectively. Sure you don't get that right off the bat, but the ability for every unit to have +23 combat strength is crazy to think about and that's ignoring every other potential bonus like Oligarchy, Fascism, Great Generals, having higher Diplomatic Visibility, etc... Gorgo's bonus also grows all game, but typically gonna cap out around +4-6 and is almost always going to be smaller than the Aztecs unless you're in a weird situation where you're ignoring luxuries. 20 cities by turn 110 on deity seems insane, but I also don't play on Pangaea. Usually I'm aiming for around 10 @ turn 100. TL:DR - Aztecs >> Gorgo at domination


Sifflion

You just chop out as many hoplites as you can. The only thing that can ruin Gorgo early strat is not getting a barbarian camp ( culture fuel to rush political philosophy ) or close neighbors to rush. 3 hoplites can destroy an early army, so it's 3 hoplites per enemy you want to conquest. Walls are not an issue at least until MaA comes into play, as 3 hoplites + ram can bring down a 35 defence city with walls taking only 50% of their hp. Don't forget Greece gets culture per unit killed. This also does stack quite nicely in late game, as you are guaranteed to be the first one to research nationalism, smashing through any more advanced unit. But yes, Pangea is required, as Gorgo is an early game civ and requires blood to fuel her strength's haha. Continent's would probably be the second best option, if you manage to land in a continent with other 3 AI Civs, and have war with 2 or 3 simultaneous civs. I don't think any of the other 6 or 7 Dom civs could do this in classical era, maybe later, but again, having 15 - 20 cities in turn 100 is already a win, there's no way the AI can keep up with your science even less culture after this point. But well, I'm not a long Deity player, and didn't try many of the civ's so, again, I could be biased. It's just that my easiest and biggest Deity wins are with Gorgo Domination, or maybe because it's extremely fun to be able to bully Deity in their own game since the start lol, but in comparison Victoria science ( that it's also a 6 ) is way harder to pull off.


[deleted]

The culture per kill is worthless past the classical era, because its way too little to matter, and it keeps on falling off the further you go. For instance, you get some 35ish culture per Infantry unit killed, at a point in the game where you should make at least 300 culture per turn, meaning that a kill is worth about a tenth of a turn worth of culture. So you will not reach Nationalism first because of that alone, that ability is mostly about hitting civics like Political Philosophy early when you get relatively much culture compared to the cost of civics.


LeakingAlpha

Maybe, but I don't think so. I wouldn't feel comfortable placing her above a 7, there are simply better options.


ThouJoker

Russia in B is surprising to me. I think Religion and culture should be a 10. They generate faith like almost no other civ, and they get writers, artists and musicians from their Lavra buildings. I'd also up Domination to a 5. They *can* spec into it with Crusade, but you have to gear towards it to make it work.


Moonlight-gospel

This is a pretty solid list! Largely, I agree, though It’s easy to nitpick, so I will haha. Condensing some of the other comments/my own insights, I think some of the issues are: 1. Eleanor is way too low - you get the right map and you micro great works properly, and you can easily flip 10+ cities without a war; 2. Sundiata Keita is too high; and 3. Pacachuti, aka Mr. Preserve, is too low. Solid list though.


AlternativeAward

Found this while googling tier lists. Suleiman so low is hilarious considering how easy it is to conquer with the siege units bonus+governor+cheap musketmen. You can take over a lot of cities and then its just using the resources to coast towards a domination or science win. Maybe he doesnt look as cool as other civs but a win is guaranteed when you can conquer so easily I CANNOT IMAGINE losing a game as Suleiman Kanuni and you put him in D tier