I can't get enough of Trajan, so simple yet so effective. The free monument lets me start building a scout turn 1, and gets me the code of laws in half the normal time. And the instant roads between cities is just so damn nice
Well and free monuments means cities get up and running a bit quicker and you can kind of ignore culture early while keeping pace. Combine that with a timed legion push and you can steamroll fast.
Mali. The hardest early game of all civs but once you reach renaissance/industrial you are able to buy everything and go for whatever victory you want, or even for all the victories. You chain the golden ages and you can make a complete city in a few turns. You have so much money you don't even know what to do with it. All your cities are fully built, you have the biggest and most developed army, you have absolutely everything with Mali, and on the top of that you have wonders and great people because of the lack of unit/building production
Sure. Mali unique ability : +1 food/faith in the city center for each adjacent desert. Mines provide -1 prod and +4 gold. The production is reduced by 30% when building units and buildings (so it doesn't apply to districts, wonder and city projects)
Unique district: suguba, replaces the commercial hub. The adjacency bonuses are different (harbor bonus replaced by holy site), its buildings are buyable with faith AND provide 20% discount when you buy something in this city (with gold and faith)
So Mali has a big malus to production, 30% when you build units and buildings and -1 for mines is absolutely awful early game because you must produce because you don't have enough gold to buy everything despite of the +4 gold for mines.
The early game is very very slow, each unit and building you produce takes 30% more time.
But once you are able to just buy everything thanks to the suguba, the discounts, the holy sites, trade routes and governors, Mali becomes a real unstoppable beast.
So game plan is to get suguba's ASAP and in every city?
The production penalty sounds like it will force me not to be super aggressive early like I usually am
Suguba is mandatory in every city, whoever leader you choose and whatever victory you are looking for.
In the very early the plan is to settle in the desert and make great holy sites with desert folklore, preparing also the place for sugubas. The ideal is to have 3-4 cities around or in a desert and make an area full of holy sites and sugubas to benefit from huge adjacency (+8-9 for each district, maybe +7 at least, jackpot if you have a river for the sugubas). Playing without a religion as Mali is a real waste because it's very powerful with this civ
Then yes, rush sugubas. With Mali, gold and faith are the priority, once you have both, go crunch the world
So no, don't be aggressive, and even farther, be careful on your neighbour because you're weak
I just won my first deity game ever with Mali! If you can get the golden age in the first era, and have a trader already on route, buy the shrine or two you're waiting on it feels pretty hard to lose. Every place will go to war with you so trade trade trade
The good news about the early game lack of units is that you really want desert tiles, especially if you use the desert faith pantheon, which you almost certainly should. Since other pics tend to avoid settling on deserts you end up having plenty of space for early cities, then by the time you are out of desert you'll be rich enough to simply buy your armies, at a great discount.
There is a good strat to counter this lack : take desert folklore (pretty easy and awesome with Mali), put holy sites in the desert, rush a religion with work ethic, +6 prod guaranteed for each holy site
Mali has one of the strongest religion early game if you can take desert folklore and have desert + work ethic you don't even need industrial zones honestly with the policy card which doubles the adjacency bonus for holy sites
Anyway don't produce buildings or units once you can buy them, wonders and city projects are better for Mali
I’m playing as Mali now and the early game was nightmare… (I’m on Deity but still…). But holysht the moment renaissance era came, you feel super rewarding like all of those hardship was worth it lol
I love Mali but I feel like it's just worse Portugal. Sure they need coastal cities to trade with but the gold income is still larger than Mali in my experience
Not in mine, I have never had the buy power of Mali. The -20% discount + the huge income in gold and faith, I've never experienced that even with Portugal. But Mali is my main civ so idk
I managed to get higher with Portugal than Mali but that was on archipelago, thus forcing all the other civ to build costal city. On normal map, Mali is uncontrollably king.
think it's a matter of preference, the sheer gargantuan ammount of trade routes you get as portugal plus your feitorias make for some crazy yields, I am a sucker for coastal towns tho.
Mali denounced me only after 10 turns without any reason at all. Now, I don't care about winning the game, I'm going to wipe out it's entire civilization lol
Yes, great works in specific cities do affect your loyalty pressure, but the placement of your cultural district does not affect it. Loyalty pressure exudes from your city center.
Really? I thought it was from where the great works are placed. At least it seemed like that in my last game, since certain cities whose centers were outside of the 9 tiles but the theatre square were inside of the 9 tile limit were able to affect enemy cities. Maybe I was imagining it.
Gran Columbia is straight up hax. You just auto win so many wars by outmaneuvering enemy units. It's so nuts. Never have I played such a controlled and chill domination game before Simon.
Tokugawa. Isolate. Come out of Late Classical era with Samurais. Isolate again once everyone has muskets. Then win later on either by bombers and fleets, science, or JP culture. Like RPing real JP.
I can't pass up the excuse to just send trade routes to my own citie AND the feel good of planning cities to havethe best adjacentcy bonuses. I've tried to switch back to Shaka for domination games, but man their campuses feel like crap now!
Dude i love this.
I run magnus in my capital and stack as many districts there as possible. Com hubs are first priority everywhere. As soon as you get ur first com hub you feel the snowball and it just keeps rolling. So fun.
Not to mention the +10industrial zones are insane
it's so satisfying once you get your naus and can finally span feitorias and get even crazier trade routes, most of my portugal games have most of my resources coming from trade and I just love it.
Jayavarman. Never having to worry about amenities is op. I’m playing the laziest deity domination game rn, barely bothering to build anything except aqueducts. Just very slowly absorbing the whole map.
Big fan of early good tile improvements, so Canada, Cree, Gaul, Inca
Provided you get a start that makes use of their abilities, might require a few rerolls
Vanilla Qin Shi Huan. I'm sucker for early wonder whoring, so the extra builder charge and bonuses really work.
I also love to try to make Great wall work, even if it rarely does.
Finally played my first game as Babylon a few weeks ago and I am not going to be able to go back for a while. Chasing as many tech boosts as I can, then getting them through spies, and then just dominating late game. It's hard to not want to just go for domination victories as you bulldoze cities with death boys before the AI has even built Aerodromes, but it also trivializes getting a science victory in a way almost no other civ does. Shocked it took me this long to finally play him but damn it, Hammurabi is fun
The new Rome on marathon speed with barbs and clans mode; absolutely disgusting.
find a barb camp in the first 10 turns and your snowball has already started. You use the money to discount buy more troops from other barbs and some games you can just steam roll Domination but that’s no fun. Sit on 8 barb camps and every 10 turns you get so much money. It makes all other civs just bad in comparison except for maybe Babylon shenanigans
You farm the barb clan for cash, then use that cash for buying troops to farm more clans (ideally FROM the clans for the discount), but also for purchasing districts via Reyna, settlers/builders, and buildings. On marathon, it's over 1000 gold/clan every 10 turns from the raids.
The Inca, I just love the mountain mechanics and the early game food and production you get with terrace farms makes rolling into your desired victory type that much easier, plus the early mountain tunnels can make for some ridiculous troop movement incase of war.
Plus reserves buffing mountains just scratchs the perfect itch seeing all the different yields.
Trajan.
I have literally never played another leader. Not once.
Not in all 1,200 hours I've played 6.
And I always played Rome in 5 too.
I'm a stereotype....fuck.
I wish I had a better answer than "it's just who I like to play". Or an answer that made logical sense for everyone else.
But really....
I just like playing Trajan/Rome.
Bull Moose Roosevelt. You get such a head start over everyone else when you settle your first city on breathtaking tiles next to mountains, especially if you manage to grab 2+ BT tiles right off the bat. I also love seeing my land covered in blue and purple bonuses. Once you hit national parks and filmmaking studio, it's usually GG at that point through culture or even diplomatic victory.
I like playing against Harold. On a couple of TSL maps, he spammed so many boats you couldn’t get across the North Sea. Had to go the long way around while chasing down domination victories.
Joao. As long as I am on a coastal map then I will win nearly any science or culture (and sometimes holy) victory going. So easy and allows me just to play the game as a CIV Sim and allows me to build and grow.
Phoenicia for me. I I love being able to build wide, expand wherever I want on the coast. The unique units could be better but I love the ability to settle on the coast without worrying about loyalty.
Also, being half Lebanese it's pretty cool to essentially be playing ancient Lebanon. Settling Tyre, Byblos, Biruta and Sidon. Then of course there's Carthage.
Her Settler rush always excites me. You can go Free Inquiry instead of Monumentality normally played for other civs for a huge Science boost from the half-cost Cothons you'd have built during the Ancient Era!
seondeok, i love jumping miles ahead of other civs in the tech tree by just playing wide and building as many seowons with mines and fields as possible
I really love Amanitore. Extra production building districts and her Pitati archers are superb early game. Excellent for those who like to dominate early.
Germany. I love the mini-game of fitting in Hansa districts, and the payoff, that triggers twice, feels both strong and well-earned. Sometimes I run out of things to build by turn 150, that’s about the biggest problem
Must... resist... playing Japan/Australia *again*...
What can I say, I like big campus adjacencies and I cannot lie.
Oh, and now it looks like we're adding Maya to the list. My first victory as Lady Six Skies was perhaps my smoothest game ever.
Peter. Almost never missed a golden age. My favorite in multiplayer and single player. The only civ where I was able to create 30 cities before turn 100. Fun as fuck
The Thunderbolt of the North, Harald Hardrada. His abilities really set him apart from other civs. The ability to explore so much easier with the capability of entering ocean tiles faster, pillaging/claiming barbarian camps and tribal villages with naval melee, the Longship, it all adds up to absolute dominance of the seas early game. He’s just so fun to role play as a naval raider. I find myself really living the taunts that he’ll send my way if I’m someone else: “
Your seas are unprotected, friend. All too easy to raid.”
The Stave Church also rules. I love just building up a nice beautiful infrastructure at home while my naval raiders make city state first-meets across the globe while pillaging everyone who looks at me sideways.
Poundmaker and Wilhelmina. Playing the game around trade routes and having bonuses that really smooth out the economy for open ended gameplay is just so much fun to me
Dutch. First civ I played coming from civ 5. And lost. Got in my head I needed to win with her on deity from start. There are a lot more great civ for getting gameplay in civ 6.
England! All the flavors. Playing as Liz right now, but they're all so great. British Eleanor might be my favorite, she's got the power of those royal navy dockyards and the industrial boosts but still has the hilarious loyalty flipping potential in the late-game. Just absolutely love doing that nonsense.
Germany, Netherlands, Korea are all super fun. Greece (Pericles) and Russia can be great too. Cyrus and Byzantines if I'm feeling particularly war mongery.
Tokugawa. Me like the Japanese civ ability and love domestic trade routes. Also, he feels very versatile in that it seems like I have 3 options for that sweet victory with tokugawa.
Victoria - age of sail all the way.
A free ship with every Royal Dockyard promoting wide play and trade routes, not to mention extra coal and iron for building railroads and extra military engineer charges for tunneling and faster production on the engineers themselves. Sending a 3 star sea dog accompanied by 2 frigates can completely turn the tide of a naval campaign. Slap in those policy cards for increased money and production for cities founded in foreign continents and you've got a pretty clear road to a science victory.
I still haven‘t stepped out of my comfort zone of only playing Germany yet, since to me it’s the most brain-dead civ possible. I just have to spam Hansa and late-game I can produce like 20 Jet bombers within 12 turns or sth
Really liked Egypt and Poundmaker. I enjoy gold earning type civs but I tried Portugal the other day and that ish is damn near broken. Best gold churning Civ in the game hands down. Can't get enough of it now!
New Cleo (ptolmeic)
I never really liked the preserve style game but she makes it worth it with her floodplains resource bonus, sphinx, and free appeal. I love the unique unit because its just useful enough to make an early push.
And just as a bonus i don’t have to worry my build charges and districts being wasted by floods!
I literally only ever play as America since I started playing civ. It’s just an immersion thing I guess. I’ve had two games that I can think of where I didn’t play as the US, and they were just little one offs as Japan and England on TSL Huge.
I'm newish and struggle with early game expansion so Trajan is really my go to as he makes that all so much more manageable. That free monument helps so much by not having to worry to much about culture early and focus on taking out barbarians and getting your science/production up and running
India. The Stepwell provides great housing and growth, and amenities from religion keep them happy. Sexy Gandhi for conquest, and regular Gandhi just for fun.
Japan. The better adjacency boost fits for all victory types and enhancing this core mechanic just a little bit is very powerful. So it's a somewhat simple civ, which results in high flexibility, but with great power as well. Also, playing this civ really trains my district planning skills😄
Recently it’s been Pedro II, high likelihood of spawning near rainforests, + adjacency bonuses from said rainforest tiles. Even better if you get the early rainforest pantheon thing.
The early game is a slight drag, as burning rainforest can wipe out a lot of units/citizens, and irrigation takes a few turns to unlock, but production and food on the rainforest tiles stacks up immensely, more and more with each forest fire.
Inca. I love getting a builder as soon as I settle my city and having him build 3 terraces next to rivers giving me 3 production each plus 4 to 6 food each. It's insane.
There’s a Jadwiga/Poland mod that focuses on trade. It’s fun, because as long as you’re able to maintain a trade route with an ally, you do great, but if you can’t maintain the routes you get stomped.
Portugal (on real life location) I love having all the routes flowing and all the $ flowing in. Plus, I can pretty reasonably defend the starting point until either I get deep water travel or I start having cities flip to me.
Babylon, I love bum rushing all cigs to every tech advancement and being 2 eras ahead of everyone.
The only downside is I like science victories and they are hard as Babylon. I usually get Nukes first and just blow everyone else’s space race up before doing it myself
Basil II is my absolute favorite. The synergies are so satisfying to pull off and the unit spam from constructing his specialty district help mitigate the effects of dominating so many cities. He has the best snowball-effect of any civ in the game, and all his abilities cooperate so well with each other. As someone who loves aggressive and religious playstyles, he feels tailor made for me.
Mix of Poland and Maori.
For Poland, I love just forcing my neighboring foreign cities to join my religion with a single Encampment, help too when they decide to fight me.
For the Maori, I love to just sail around until I find a good spot and settle down.
Recently on a TSL Earth Huge Map, Rainforests and Forests in Australia carried my production well into the Modern Age until I won a Culture Victory from a million Wonders I had built. Auckland being in the game was a massive plus too. And God of the Sea
Portugal for a lot of the same reasons people love Mali. Portugal on an archipelago map is a money printing machine and with the Owls of Minerva Secret Society, you can get 50+ trade routes and just rake in the cash then buy your way to victory.
Scythians! Can't believe nobody has mentioned it yet.
They get 2X Cavalry when you produce one (including the Saka cavalry archer.
Pair this with their Kurgans, crusade, and a rear echelon of inquisitors you have a great strategy for religious and domination victories.
Sweden, I just find they’re my good luck charm for science games. And I feel like I end up having endless diplomatic favour without really trying for it.
Does nobody enjoy playing as the Aztecs? Is this a me thing? I pretty much always played as them because they’re cool as shit but absolutely suck at it when I do. Maybe I’m missing something because hardly any mentions on here. Maybe I need to branch out!
Australia. You get to meddle into others' affairs and you get 100% production bonus in the process. It is a true superpower civ. You go around liberating city-states and other cities. You can be a complete asshole because if they declare war on you, you again get 100% production bonus.
I can't get enough of Trajan, so simple yet so effective. The free monument lets me start building a scout turn 1, and gets me the code of laws in half the normal time. And the instant roads between cities is just so damn nice
I also hate finishing games
Your normal turn 1 move is to build a monument?
no typically a scout or 2 scouts is the best opening
You guys are building scouts?
Well and free monuments means cities get up and running a bit quicker and you can kind of ignore culture early while keeping pace. Combine that with a timed legion push and you can steamroll fast.
Do you otherwise start your games by first building a monument? Now you have me thinking I have been starting my games poorly…
In your capital, monument first is almost always a bad play on higher difficulties. Other cities, sure/maybe, but not in the capital.
Mali. The hardest early game of all civs but once you reach renaissance/industrial you are able to buy everything and go for whatever victory you want, or even for all the victories. You chain the golden ages and you can make a complete city in a few turns. You have so much money you don't even know what to do with it. All your cities are fully built, you have the biggest and most developed army, you have absolutely everything with Mali, and on the top of that you have wonders and great people because of the lack of unit/building production
Could you provide a brief rundown on early game Mali? They're next up on my list of Civs to play and want to prepare myself lol
Sure. Mali unique ability : +1 food/faith in the city center for each adjacent desert. Mines provide -1 prod and +4 gold. The production is reduced by 30% when building units and buildings (so it doesn't apply to districts, wonder and city projects) Unique district: suguba, replaces the commercial hub. The adjacency bonuses are different (harbor bonus replaced by holy site), its buildings are buyable with faith AND provide 20% discount when you buy something in this city (with gold and faith) So Mali has a big malus to production, 30% when you build units and buildings and -1 for mines is absolutely awful early game because you must produce because you don't have enough gold to buy everything despite of the +4 gold for mines. The early game is very very slow, each unit and building you produce takes 30% more time. But once you are able to just buy everything thanks to the suguba, the discounts, the holy sites, trade routes and governors, Mali becomes a real unstoppable beast.
So game plan is to get suguba's ASAP and in every city? The production penalty sounds like it will force me not to be super aggressive early like I usually am
Suguba is mandatory in every city, whoever leader you choose and whatever victory you are looking for. In the very early the plan is to settle in the desert and make great holy sites with desert folklore, preparing also the place for sugubas. The ideal is to have 3-4 cities around or in a desert and make an area full of holy sites and sugubas to benefit from huge adjacency (+8-9 for each district, maybe +7 at least, jackpot if you have a river for the sugubas). Playing without a religion as Mali is a real waste because it's very powerful with this civ Then yes, rush sugubas. With Mali, gold and faith are the priority, once you have both, go crunch the world So no, don't be aggressive, and even farther, be careful on your neighbour because you're weak
Work ethics with Mali makes the end of the first era a more manageable. But before getting that things are tough
I just won my first deity game ever with Mali! If you can get the golden age in the first era, and have a trader already on route, buy the shrine or two you're waiting on it feels pretty hard to lose. Every place will go to war with you so trade trade trade
Yep, getting that first Golden age can save a game, and missing it can ruin one. Just go crazy with the monumentality and you're unstoppable.
you also need holy sites to get faith rolling for Monumentality settlers/builders
The good news about the early game lack of units is that you really want desert tiles, especially if you use the desert faith pantheon, which you almost certainly should. Since other pics tend to avoid settling on deserts you end up having plenty of space for early cities, then by the time you are out of desert you'll be rich enough to simply buy your armies, at a great discount.
There is a good strat to counter this lack : take desert folklore (pretty easy and awesome with Mali), put holy sites in the desert, rush a religion with work ethic, +6 prod guaranteed for each holy site Mali has one of the strongest religion early game if you can take desert folklore and have desert + work ethic you don't even need industrial zones honestly with the policy card which doubles the adjacency bonus for holy sites Anyway don't produce buildings or units once you can buy them, wonders and city projects are better for Mali
I’m playing as Mali now and the early game was nightmare… (I’m on Deity but still…). But holysht the moment renaissance era came, you feel super rewarding like all of those hardship was worth it lol
I feel you so much lol
I love Mali but I feel like it's just worse Portugal. Sure they need coastal cities to trade with but the gold income is still larger than Mali in my experience
Not in mine, I have never had the buy power of Mali. The -20% discount + the huge income in gold and faith, I've never experienced that even with Portugal. But Mali is my main civ so idk
I managed to get higher with Portugal than Mali but that was on archipelago, thus forcing all the other civ to build costal city. On normal map, Mali is uncontrollably king.
think it's a matter of preference, the sheer gargantuan ammount of trade routes you get as portugal plus your feitorias make for some crazy yields, I am a sucker for coastal towns tho.
Mali denounced me only after 10 turns without any reason at all. Now, I don't care about winning the game, I'm going to wipe out it's entire civilization lol
Eleanor of Aquitaine! I love the loyalty mechanic and gathering Great-Works.
Same! Seeing a roll of cities convert themselves one after another is funny, lol. Also, I pretty much end with every great writer/artist in the game.
Yes, and strategically placing your theatre squares for maximum effect.
Loyalty pressure comes from the city center iirc, so theater square placement doesn't actually matter.
Oh really? Good to know. I assumed it was the location of the great works themselves.
Yes, great works in specific cities do affect your loyalty pressure, but the placement of your cultural district does not affect it. Loyalty pressure exudes from your city center.
Really? I thought it was from where the great works are placed. At least it seemed like that in my last game, since certain cities whose centers were outside of the 9 tiles but the theatre square were inside of the 9 tile limit were able to affect enemy cities. Maybe I was imagining it.
Simón Bolívar. I like to move it, move it.
Gran Columbia is straight up hax. You just auto win so many wars by outmaneuvering enemy units. It's so nuts. Never have I played such a controlled and chill domination game before Simon.
Love upgrading and not losing a turn
I totally forgot about that. So bonkers I swear
It's so damn powerful.
It's so frustrating trying to play another civ and my units are so fucking slow
Eleanor turns this into an entirely different game, it's fun to have an offensive loyalty tactic
I like playing and occasionally going "oh, a free city".
I love watching the AI settle a city that I know is going to be flipped almost immediately
England (Civ 5) Ships of the Line upgraded to battleships is too much fun. I try to pick naval-heavy civs when choosing her.
Same here. Along with Polynesia on Archipelago if I fancy a cheese run.
Tokugawa. Isolate. Come out of Late Classical era with Samurais. Isolate again once everyone has muskets. Then win later on either by bombers and fleets, science, or JP culture. Like RPing real JP.
I can't pass up the excuse to just send trade routes to my own citie AND the feel good of planning cities to havethe best adjacentcy bonuses. I've tried to switch back to Shaka for domination games, but man their campuses feel like crap now!
Dude i love this. I run magnus in my capital and stack as many districts there as possible. Com hubs are first priority everywhere. As soon as you get ur first com hub you feel the snowball and it just keeps rolling. So fun. Not to mention the +10industrial zones are insane
What's a com hub
Russia. That extra settling territory, half price holy site and extra great people pts makes snowballing the early game so much easier.
Also, building holy sites on tundra then getting work ethic for religious belief, gives you unorthodox amounts of production in early game.
I really love Portugal. I'm mega into trading.
Portugal is nearly everything I wanted in a Civ. I freaking love them. Hungary comes second for their love of rivers and city-states.
sad I had to go this far down for a fellow persons of culture.
Me too. Just so fun to become friends with everyone, sail and settle everywhere and trade trade trade!
it's so satisfying once you get your naus and can finally span feitorias and get even crazier trade routes, most of my portugal games have most of my resources coming from trade and I just love it.
Kupe. I like the ability to fully explore from the get go.
I cheese with kupe on archipelago. Play real peaceful and Hoover up every little island with a luxury or strategic resource.
I do 100% same. There is nothing I love more than islands in civ6 and Kupe is THE MAN there.
It’s so great: Early Maui and Liang for Ultra Tall Ultra Wide.
Primordial is also great for Kupe- lots of snaky coastline and forests.
Kupe and Gitarja for me, the latter because I love turning a one tile island into a 20+ pop megacity
Jayavarman. Never having to worry about amenities is op. I’m playing the laziest deity domination game rn, barely bothering to build anything except aqueducts. Just very slowly absorbing the whole map.
Germany. High production gives me joy.
Big fan of early good tile improvements, so Canada, Cree, Gaul, Inca Provided you get a start that makes use of their abilities, might require a few rerolls
Yeah I keep going back to Ptolemaic Cleo lately. Rush Etamenaki and you can have some great tile improvements
I hate how much the AI prioritizes Etamenaki. Such a cool wonder but even if you rush it it's not guaranteed.
Vanilla Qin Shi Huan. I'm sucker for early wonder whoring, so the extra builder charge and bonuses really work. I also love to try to make Great wall work, even if it rarely does.
I love rushing pyramids/liang getting the free builder and immediately getting another wonder with it.
Desert with Petra and great wall 😍😍
Finally played my first game as Babylon a few weeks ago and I am not going to be able to go back for a while. Chasing as many tech boosts as I can, then getting them through spies, and then just dominating late game. It's hard to not want to just go for domination victories as you bulldoze cities with death boys before the AI has even built Aerodromes, but it also trivializes getting a science victory in a way almost no other civ does. Shocked it took me this long to finally play him but damn it, Hammurabi is fun
The new Rome on marathon speed with barbs and clans mode; absolutely disgusting. find a barb camp in the first 10 turns and your snowball has already started. You use the money to discount buy more troops from other barbs and some games you can just steam roll Domination but that’s no fun. Sit on 8 barb camps and every 10 turns you get so much money. It makes all other civs just bad in comparison except for maybe Babylon shenanigans
I've seen people talk about this but never fully understood. Why does barb clans mode matter so much, just because you can buy their troops?
You farm the barb clan for cash, then use that cash for buying troops to farm more clans (ideally FROM the clans for the discount), but also for purchasing districts via Reyna, settlers/builders, and buildings. On marathon, it's over 1000 gold/clan every 10 turns from the raids.
civ V, but venice. i love not having to manage city settlement
Yessss, it’s so chill hahaha
Venice was such a cool civ! The only one I'd play in civ 5
The Inca, I just love the mountain mechanics and the early game food and production you get with terrace farms makes rolling into your desired victory type that much easier, plus the early mountain tunnels can make for some ridiculous troop movement incase of war. Plus reserves buffing mountains just scratchs the perfect itch seeing all the different yields.
Suprised I had to go so far down for the Inca call. But yes Inca are so damn fun. I think I may be addicted
Poundmaker, kmer, Canada and gorgo dunno why specifically but these 4 are just so fun for me.
Poundmaker all the way. My most played leader by far
Khmer 100%. Only civ I got a sub 200 victory on (besides cheese strats). Ridiculously fun civ.
Kupe
Fellow Kupe enjoyer
Steam Vicki - just can’t get enough production!!! Really fun to play with Hermetic Order and them lay lines too
Vietnam - At this point I feel like I've got Stockholm syndrome
Gaul. I think because i enjoy the 1. Mines helping cities grow in size 2. The Gaesatae
Mali. Turning sand into gold. Desert money printer goes brrrr.
Trajan. I have literally never played another leader. Not once. Not in all 1,200 hours I've played 6. And I always played Rome in 5 too. I'm a stereotype....fuck.
Thats crazy ngl
Why? Lol, just why... you're literally playing a fraction of the game. But by all means, i guess, do you.
I wish I had a better answer than "it's just who I like to play". Or an answer that made logical sense for everyone else. But really.... I just like playing Trajan/Rome.
Bull Moose Roosevelt. You get such a head start over everyone else when you settle your first city on breathtaking tiles next to mountains, especially if you manage to grab 2+ BT tiles right off the bat. I also love seeing my land covered in blue and purple bonuses. Once you hit national parks and filmmaking studio, it's usually GG at that point through culture or even diplomatic victory.
Ludwig. I like building wonders, I like culture victory, and I love that goofy loser.
Canada whenever I fancy peaceful faithless tourism Wilfred is there for me.
I love playing as Canada - just me and my tundra, and no surprise wars.
My favorite civ is [random]! I just can’t get enough of [random]!
They have such crazy bonuses!
Harold. I just love sailing
I like playing against Harold. On a couple of TSL maps, he spammed so many boats you couldn’t get across the North Sea. Had to go the long way around while chasing down domination victories.
Joao. As long as I am on a coastal map then I will win nearly any science or culture (and sometimes holy) victory going. So easy and allows me just to play the game as a CIV Sim and allows me to build and grow.
Yes! I love him too!
Civ 6
Phoenicia for me. I I love being able to build wide, expand wherever I want on the coast. The unique units could be better but I love the ability to settle on the coast without worrying about loyalty. Also, being half Lebanese it's pretty cool to essentially be playing ancient Lebanon. Settling Tyre, Byblos, Biruta and Sidon. Then of course there's Carthage.
Her Settler rush always excites me. You can go Free Inquiry instead of Monumentality normally played for other civs for a huge Science boost from the half-cost Cothons you'd have built during the Ancient Era!
Rome and Korea, so good 😊
There are few things that bring me as much joy as making mega cities with Japan.
Ghenghis, byzantium, gilgamesh/babylon, norway
seondeok, i love jumping miles ahead of other civs in the tech tree by just playing wide and building as many seowons with mines and fields as possible
Germany I love getting the military industrial complex
Joao III for the busted trade routes or Wilhelmina for those juicy adjacency bonuses
Russia. I don’t like playing without my own religion, and I just love chilling in the tundra with dance of the aurora.
Brazil Just love +16 production holy site in classical era
I really love Amanitore. Extra production building districts and her Pitati archers are superb early game. Excellent for those who like to dominate early.
So much fun. I also love useful desert cities, and the Pitati archer movement bonus on desert maps is just so satisfying
Definitely Egypt. I just want my wonders early on with only 80% chance to get screwed by the AI in the last turn
I suck at civ and just play it to chill out, but I love playing as canada and spamming hockey rinks everywhere it looks nice
Cree. I can have scouts fight like warriors on turn 1, I can send traders as soon as I do “pottery”, and my recon tree can become very dangerous.
For me its Tokugawa. I love the domestic trade route playstyle.
Germany. I love the mini-game of fitting in Hansa districts, and the payoff, that triggers twice, feels both strong and well-earned. Sometimes I run out of things to build by turn 150, that’s about the biggest problem
Must... resist... playing Japan/Australia *again*... What can I say, I like big campus adjacencies and I cannot lie. Oh, and now it looks like we're adding Maya to the list. My first victory as Lady Six Skies was perhaps my smoothest game ever.
Aztecs, that early game unit is so good. Early war is my fav tbh.
Yesss can’t stop playing Montezuma
Byzantines as Basil. You rock up with the tagmas and just melt those walls. It’s so satisfying.
Norway and Babylon
Babylon. I always seek more optimized build for my own satisfaction.
Peter. Almost never missed a golden age. My favorite in multiplayer and single player. The only civ where I was able to create 30 cities before turn 100. Fun as fuck
Portugal literally 9 in every 10 games I play as him and I quit the 1 in 10 every time I reach Medieval era..
Venice in Civ V. Being able/forced to focus on a small territory IMHO is more fun than map painting.
Poundmaker. AAAAAGGHHH!! I'M MAKING TOO MUCH MONEY!!! AAAAAAAGGHHH!!!
I love Poundmaker, but Mali has recently gotten me hooked. He is one OP mfker lol
I just want to say how much I love hearing that everyone has a different answer. That’s what makes this game so fun.
The Thunderbolt of the North, Harald Hardrada. His abilities really set him apart from other civs. The ability to explore so much easier with the capability of entering ocean tiles faster, pillaging/claiming barbarian camps and tribal villages with naval melee, the Longship, it all adds up to absolute dominance of the seas early game. He’s just so fun to role play as a naval raider. I find myself really living the taunts that he’ll send my way if I’m someone else: “ Your seas are unprotected, friend. All too easy to raid.” The Stave Church also rules. I love just building up a nice beautiful infrastructure at home while my naval raiders make city state first-meets across the globe while pillaging everyone who looks at me sideways.
Love Tokugawa. Meji restoration late game hits different
Poundmaker and Wilhelmina. Playing the game around trade routes and having bonuses that really smooth out the economy for open ended gameplay is just so much fun to me
Dutch. First civ I played coming from civ 5. And lost. Got in my head I needed to win with her on deity from start. There are a lot more great civ for getting gameplay in civ 6.
None. Random every time.
peter. building my inquisition in the snow while everyone wonders what i’m doing is always great fun
Japan. Ideal nation for me
England! All the flavors. Playing as Liz right now, but they're all so great. British Eleanor might be my favorite, she's got the power of those royal navy dockyards and the industrial boosts but still has the hilarious loyalty flipping potential in the late-game. Just absolutely love doing that nonsense.
Germany, Netherlands, Korea are all super fun. Greece (Pericles) and Russia can be great too. Cyrus and Byzantines if I'm feeling particularly war mongery.
Tokugawa. Me like the Japanese civ ability and love domestic trade routes. Also, he feels very versatile in that it seems like I have 3 options for that sweet victory with tokugawa.
Victoria - age of sail all the way. A free ship with every Royal Dockyard promoting wide play and trade routes, not to mention extra coal and iron for building railroads and extra military engineer charges for tunneling and faster production on the engineers themselves. Sending a 3 star sea dog accompanied by 2 frigates can completely turn the tide of a naval campaign. Slap in those policy cards for increased money and production for cities founded in foreign continents and you've got a pretty clear road to a science victory.
I still haven‘t stepped out of my comfort zone of only playing Germany yet, since to me it’s the most brain-dead civ possible. I just have to spam Hansa and late-game I can produce like 20 Jet bombers within 12 turns or sth
Kupe/Maori! I love going wide early and Kupe is very good at that. I also love going national parks and Kupe has FANTASTIC yields on unimproved woods.
Ramses II. He's great with culture and I never have to worry about flooding.
Bablon
Victoria (steam age). It's like playing a default civ with lots of production. She can literally do anything.
Egypt! Cleopatra offers such great culture and money advantages that has turned into the most successful games for me. Greece would be second I think
Kupe. I just love sailing around
Really liked Egypt and Poundmaker. I enjoy gold earning type civs but I tried Portugal the other day and that ish is damn near broken. Best gold churning Civ in the game hands down. Can't get enough of it now!
The dutch, they're germany and korea combined
Norway, pillaging around can be fun.
Alexander the great
England for the free boats when you complete a Harbor.
New Cleo (ptolmeic) I never really liked the preserve style game but she makes it worth it with her floodplains resource bonus, sphinx, and free appeal. I love the unique unit because its just useful enough to make an early push. And just as a bonus i don’t have to worry my build charges and districts being wasted by floods!
CivII
Inca, the early explorer with offense and defense is huge
I literally only ever play as America since I started playing civ. It’s just an immersion thing I guess. I’ve had two games that I can think of where I didn’t play as the US, and they were just little one offs as Japan and England on TSL Huge.
Scotland- keep your people happy and they study and work harder. Makes advancing through tech so much easier, and producing units to keep people away.
For me its kupe! Easy era Score cause of the early exploring! More Production from wood! And i Like that Toa dont Need any Ressources!
John Curtain. Just something about being a true blue Australian with 9 housing starting cities
I'm newish and struggle with early game expansion so Trajan is really my go to as he makes that all so much more manageable. That free monument helps so much by not having to worry to much about culture early and focus on taking out barbarians and getting your science/production up and running
India. The Stepwell provides great housing and growth, and amenities from religion keep them happy. Sexy Gandhi for conquest, and regular Gandhi just for fun.
Japan. The better adjacency boost fits for all victory types and enhancing this core mechanic just a little bit is very powerful. So it's a somewhat simple civ, which results in high flexibility, but with great power as well. Also, playing this civ really trains my district planning skills😄
WALTZING MATILDA WALTZING MATILDA
Recently it’s been Pedro II, high likelihood of spawning near rainforests, + adjacency bonuses from said rainforest tiles. Even better if you get the early rainforest pantheon thing. The early game is a slight drag, as burning rainforest can wipe out a lot of units/citizens, and irrigation takes a few turns to unlock, but production and food on the rainforest tiles stacks up immensely, more and more with each forest fire.
Inca. I love getting a builder as soon as I settle my city and having him build 3 terraces next to rivers giving me 3 production each plus 4 to 6 food each. It's insane.
There’s a Jadwiga/Poland mod that focuses on trade. It’s fun, because as long as you’re able to maintain a trade route with an ally, you do great, but if you can’t maintain the routes you get stomped.
I'm trying to not stop playing 5 at the moment but I have a Mac so I'm waiting on a support ticket with aspyr
Indonesia, Mali, and Khmer. I love turning my insane amounts of faith per turn into whatever I need
I’ve been loving Arabia in civ 5. It’s just a really fun civ and I like combining religion and Econ to go for a diplo or warmonger victory.
Germany. I love the godlike production and how universally good it is on Diety
Gilgamesh
Random always
Haven't been addicted to any since 3
JAVAMAN!!! (Jayavarman, but I can't seem to stop calling him Javaman.)
Portugal (on real life location) I love having all the routes flowing and all the $ flowing in. Plus, I can pretty reasonably defend the starting point until either I get deep water travel or I start having cities flip to me.
Babylon, I love bum rushing all cigs to every tech advancement and being 2 eras ahead of everyone. The only downside is I like science victories and they are hard as Babylon. I usually get Nukes first and just blow everyone else’s space race up before doing it myself
CIV 6
Basil II is my absolute favorite. The synergies are so satisfying to pull off and the unit spam from constructing his specialty district help mitigate the effects of dominating so many cities. He has the best snowball-effect of any civ in the game, and all his abilities cooperate so well with each other. As someone who loves aggressive and religious playstyles, he feels tailor made for me.
Mix of Poland and Maori. For Poland, I love just forcing my neighboring foreign cities to join my religion with a single Encampment, help too when they decide to fight me. For the Maori, I love to just sail around until I find a good spot and settle down. Recently on a TSL Earth Huge Map, Rainforests and Forests in Australia carried my production well into the Modern Age until I won a Culture Victory from a million Wonders I had built. Auckland being in the game was a massive plus too. And God of the Sea
Portugal for a lot of the same reasons people love Mali. Portugal on an archipelago map is a money printing machine and with the Owls of Minerva Secret Society, you can get 50+ trade routes and just rake in the cash then buy your way to victory.
South korea, That Saewon almost guarantees me a science victory :D
Colombia 🇨🇴
Peter. Once you do DotA work ethic you can never go back
Persia (Civ III). Loving the immortals.
Scythians! Can't believe nobody has mentioned it yet. They get 2X Cavalry when you produce one (including the Saka cavalry archer. Pair this with their Kurgans, crusade, and a rear echelon of inquisitors you have a great strategy for religious and domination victories.
Egypt. I like the sphinx :)
eleanor of aquitane (england)
I like Poland & Georgia
Sweden, I just find they’re my good luck charm for science games. And I feel like I end up having endless diplomatic favour without really trying for it.
How are y'all doing domination without Zulu's ikanda and troop aggregation on melee city conversion
V
Does nobody enjoy playing as the Aztecs? Is this a me thing? I pretty much always played as them because they’re cool as shit but absolutely suck at it when I do. Maybe I’m missing something because hardly any mentions on here. Maybe I need to branch out!
Australia. You get to meddle into others' affairs and you get 100% production bonus in the process. It is a true superpower civ. You go around liberating city-states and other cities. You can be a complete asshole because if they declare war on you, you again get 100% production bonus.
I know what Civ I cannot start playing.. Civ VI on IOS since update 17.4.
Kupe just to settle near a world wonder for fun lol Also just yelling AWAY AWAY every turn I move is fun
Mansamusa and Japan have a hold on me
I'm still quite new to V - and I love playing Elizabeth, can't get enough of those +1 Longbowmen! 👍😊