@@dmitriyk.2890 he's arguably even better if you go dom. You get easy alliances with him and that means one less civ you have to go and conquer, plus you occasionally get extra combat strength
***AUGUST 29TH EDIT*** : OK WELL THEY JUST RELEASED A PATCH I'M GOING TO THROW UP. They buffed Wu, Varang Harald, Abe and Caesar. Tbh nothing really changes except maybe Abe and Wu. The Wu buff literally puts her into C tier I think. Abe is still the same, however. --------- 2 THINGS: #1 IT'S FINALLY HERE. YES, I KNOW IT'S 4 HOURS LONG - it's because I wanted to go a little bit more in depth on the reasoning on why I put some Civs in specific tiers as opposed to others. Additionally, this is the last leader Tier List for Civ 6 - so why not go out with a bang. Enjoy, and see you in 4 hours. #2 FOR SOME REASON CHAPTERS ARENT LOADING SO HERE: 00:00:00 - INTRO 00:00:30 - PAUSE FOR INTRO TIMESTAMPS 00:00:36 - Ok, but who are you? 00:02:19 - Tier List Formula 00:05:08 - Power Creep In Civ 6 00:09:16 - Predictions 00:09:48 - EXPLAINING WHY ITS 4 HOURS LONG 00:10:27 - America: Bull Moose Teddy 00:12:32 - America: Rough Rider Teddy 00:15:13 - America: Abraham Lincoln 00:16:55 - Arabia: Saladin 00:20:11 - Arabia: Sultan Saladin 00:22:34 - Australia 00:26:05 - Aztec 00:29:05 - Babylon 00:33:59 - Byzantium: Theodora 00:38:49 - Byzantium: Basil II 00:42:17 - Brazil 00:44:18 - Canada 00:48:04 - China: Kublai Khan 00:51:18 - China: Wu Zetian 00:55:07 - China: Qin Shi Huang 00:58:45 - China: Qin (Unifier) 01:00:43 - China: Yongle 01:07:48 - Cree 01:11:18 - Egypt: Cleopatra 01:13:54 - Egypt: Ptol Cleopatra 01:17:59 - Egypt: Ramses 01:20:39 - England: Eleanor 01:24:02 - England: Victoria 01:26:13 - England: Age of Steam Victoria 01:33:30 - England: Elizabeth 01:37:29 - Ethiopia 01:40:35 - France: Black Queen Catherine 01:44:04 - France: Magnificent Catherine 01:46:19 - France: Eleanor 01:48:06 - Gaul 01:51:41 - Georgia 01:56:55 - Germany: Frederick 01:59:51 - Germany: Ludwig 02:04:44 - Gran Columbia 02:06:45 - Greece: Pericles 02:09:26 - Greece: Gorgo 02:12:09 - Hungary 02:16:53 - Inca 02:19:12 - India: Gandhi 02:23:32 - India: Chandragupta 02:25:01 - Indonesia 02:28:56 - Japan: Hojo 02:30:29 - Japan: Tokugawa 02:32:36 - Khmer 02:38:39 - Kongo: Mvemba 02:42:56 - Kongo: Ana 02:48:58 - Korea: Seondeok 02:50:43 - Korea: Sejong 02:55:54 - Macedon 02:58:58 - Mali: Mansa Musa 03:02:15 - Mali: Sundiata 03:03:30 - Maori 03:06:10 - Mapuche 03:09:30 - Maya 03:13:01 - Mongolia: Kublai Khan 03:14:36 - Mongolia: Genghis 03:16:02 - Netherlands 03:18:24 - Norway: Harald 03:21:20 - Norway: Varangian Harald 03:23:18 - Nubia 03:26:34 - Ottomans: Suleiman 03:30:31 - Ottomans: Magn Sulemain 03:32:24 - Persia: Cyrus 03:34:26 - Persia: Nader Shah 03:35:42 - Phoenicia 03:39:18 - Poland 03:41:46 - Portugal 03:44:38 - Rome: Trajan 03:46:40 - Rome: Julius 03:49:46 - Russia 03:55:27 - Scotland 03:57:54 - Scythia 03:59:57 - Spain 04:01:51 - Sumeria 04:07:22 - Sweden 04:09:50 - Vietnam 04:11:53 - Zulu 04:14:23 - FINAL 04:17:00 - CHANNEL UPDATE, CIV 6 BURNOUT 04:18:24 - END OF TIER LIST
This is the first video I've seen from you so my first impression is a four hour long tier list. But you know what? I'm into it. Have to watch it in 24 different sessions but it's good stuff. Great hustle and I love hearing the reasoning behind everything. Subscribed.
The problem with spies is that they tend to be either a catch-up mechanic or a defense from enemy spies. If you're good at the game, you don't need them at all to get ahead, and then you're only using them to stave off the AI from neutralizing Pingala in your capital for the 4th time. There needs to be more attention paid to spying mechanics in Civ 7.
The ONLY time spies were useful to me was when I needed to proteccc my precious gold. Was playing as Spain with a 🐐 start on continents edge and had all my traders in my capital. The ONLY useful mission is to get suzreins. But that takes FOREVER. Plus unreliable.
Dude you're kidding right? You can siphon their money, stop their rocket projects for science victory, steal their great works for culture victory and rise some barbarians from their settlements for domination victory. How is it weak exactly?
I really hope Civ 7 gets delayed and an emergency leader pack comes out that is just 5 different Gilgamesh variations. Just to see you have to rank 6 versions of Sumeria. I'll gladly wait an extra year just for one RUclips video.
English Eleanor of Acquitaine in C?!? Oh Boe. I think we need to come back over and teach you American's how to love again XD In all seriousness so much work on this list, fantastic effort! All the best!
@@RobinLSL Yeah Ursa is just simply right on this one. What does France even do? They get a UU that you won't use, one of the worst UI's, and a bonus to wonders that you don't really need. England in turn has an awesome ability that properly goes online at the same time with Eleanor's ability and helps her improve those flipped cities faster, and a great unique district. And a UU that you won't use.
Gilgamesh is so weird to me because my better question than why he's so underpowered is why he's a leader in the first place, for as much as we know he might not have even existed as a real person and feels so out of place he would make a better hero in heroes and legends frankly
@belhariry The devs are known to want to use different leaders in games and not just have the same leaders for every nation every game. It’s the reason why Trajan got the base game leader for Rome instead of Julius, and there are a few other civs that do this as well.
The only thing the tier list lack is some markers on how much better some civs are once there are more of one specific biome. Like lots of sea, lots of mountains, lots of desert, lots of tundra etc. So example Norway (konge) would be +2 on tier list on water maps and -2 on land maps. While Indonesia would have +1 on water maps and -1 on land maps. Something like that I recon. There are also a few ranks I disagree slightly with, but all in all I agree on most of them. Like 95%. I haven't watch the entire video yet though, but I will do eventually.
Yeah i think a lot of rankings that are disagreements really come down to play style, or just preferences to Civs. I know a few people who value high production more and it's super valid, especially when it comes to like Magnus chopping and the like~
Rough rider teddy is a prime example of a civ that peaks with gamemodes. He works so well with owls and barb clans. In a normal game on a continents map with 9 city states, he's definitely c tier.
One huge problem with Sultan Arabia in deity is that flanking and support bonuses don’t work on cities or ranged attacks. AI Melee/Calvary units are dumb as hell and not really a threat. Cities and ranged units inside them are what threaten you. Sultan Arabia does nothing against either of those threats.
Glad to see my man Poundmaker at least in B tier. I think a lot of people underestimate him in single player but not only is he incredibly fun, but also quite effective. His versatility can definitely be seen as a downside as he doesn’t have one super strong win condition, but it allows you to sim city a bit and still be very strong. Also if you happen to snag pyramids the game is already over.
i think i ranked him higher in previous tier lists but i believe B is probably the most accurate ranking for him. he's still in my top 5 fav civs to play but yeah i agree with you~
To me, Poundmaker's kit is too limited for B-tier. In my current Poundmaker game, I got a coastal start and it has been rough. I'm not in danger of losing but it has been slow going. Having no early war bonuses means being hemmed in for multiple eras. Having to spam builders to get the bonuses from the UIs is worse than bonuses that are automatic. To me C-tier is just right.
It's important to realize that a couple of settings can completely change a civ's placement. e.g., heavy rainfall or arboreal makes Brazil much better. Or, with the set of rules my friends and I use where we heavily limit desert, Mali actually becomes a lot better since the worst part of Mali is the desert start bias. I still strongly disagree with you about Mathias's placement (I think that his 50% river district bonus is good enough by itself to land him in B), but still, this was great, thanks for putting in the effort to make this!
I'm an admitted Gilgamesh enjoyer, so I'm a bit biased, but there are a couple of minor things I think you're overlooking: 1) the war carts function like uber scouts. You can use them to scout the map quickly and they don't die instantly because a barb looked at them funny like scouts do. 2) if you spam ziggurats, you can actually do well with early science. Is that enough to bump him out of F tier? I don't know. All I know is I enjoy playing as him and games are about fun so I"m happy, lol.
Yep, nearly all of the recon units are trash, but quasi-recon units like war carts are sorely underrated. Fast movement is so good for scouting because knowledge of the map is what lets you break games wide open. What's LA?
Don’t know if anyone actually gave you the pronunciation of Basil’s ability, but it is “Poor-fear-o-hen-eee-tos” (roughly). It means “born in the purple”, and was used to refer to children who were born while their father was still sitting emperor. Because emperors got to wear purple, imperial babies were “born in the puple”
I'm surprised spies don't have some abiliity "steal strategic resources" where you target the Encampments. Seems like such a no-brainer to me. I've watched this tier list several times through now (listened while working) and I've learnt so much from it. Your rankings are bang-on accurate as far as I can tell.
1:13:34 Would add here that while OG Cleoptra is only so-so in Single player she is excellent as support civ in Multiplayer. If coordinated properly her ability to buff and bankroll her allies is one of the best in the game right up there with Gilgabro.
My favorite thing about Ethiopia is that it taught me something new. Practically with all the other civ and leader abilities I understood the reference for them. I had no idea there are solid monolithic churches excavated out of stone, similar to some things I've seen in Jordan, Turkey, and Egypt. They are amazing and beautiful.
I agree with your point about some of the new leader pass leaders being disappointing because they lack unique units. One thing that could be interesting to think about is if you could add unique units to some of those new leaders to make them better, what might they look like to work well with the leader’s bonuses?
I was about to be offended at Gilgamesh being in F tier but I forgot I play marathon mode. You can wipe out one to two civs with war carts before you even meet anyone else, so they're not mad. Slower expansion means perpetual barb camps to plunder because the map rarely gets fully settled.
Yeah that's very fair, there's quite a few different civs like gilga who benefit from slower game modes like Harald, Julius, etc! Plus we all know F stands for Friendship anyways
@@boesthius Yeah, his improvement is really good in Marathon too. You can basically skip campuses since districts take 50 billion turns to make and gold/faith rush workers. Pyramids and serfdom is such a fun combo
I know you’re getting out of the CIV game but I’ve got JUST ONE MORE tier idea: CPU guided CIVS. Which Deity AI civs always seem to do well? Who are doormats?
I reckon ones with simpler/more flexible bonuses will do better, though anytime Rome's been in my game they do fucking terribly (had a multiplayer game where Trajan only settled Rome and was being bullied into 0 health forever by one barbarian galley). The AI tends not to play into a Civ's strengths, it's not uncommon to see an AI poundmaker or gilgamesh do domination while Shaka and Alexander sit back doing nothing. Wish there was some sort of code that gently suggested AI push towards a certain victory type as a particular civ.
I'm Cambodian and I've loved Civ since I was a kid and when they announced the expansion for the Khmer I was so excited but I was worried they would be bad and after it came out I was like "Oh, okay." 😭
I feel like the reason we never got another Russian leader has to be because they realised that basically any other leader trait would make Russia's base kit insane.
I think Russia could do with a leader whose ability isn't just a total positive, but would change the way you play the civ. Similar to what Mvemba is, but not as awful. Someone like Ivan the Terrible could work for this, as I definitely see him as a leader that comes with a downside. And having the first Tzar could be interesting anyway. And before anyone says that a civ can't have a famously terrible leader, hear me out. First of all, the nickname "terrible" isn't supposed to mean awful, bad or evil, as it is supposed to convey a more archaic meaning of the word, which would nowadays be more akin to terrifying. However, Ivan was also somewhat terrible in his old days as his mental health kinda went down the drain. But many of the leaders in Civ are hardly angels, and for example Ludwig went a bit insane as well, though not in as violent way as Ivan.
@@wombat4191 I want Civ 7's leaders to have flaws as well as buffs. Right now only a few of them like Joao, Mbenga, Hammurabi, Kupe, and Abe (as flimsy as the plantation thing is) have them and I think they make the game more interesting.
@@wombat4191 Joseph Stalin: May use the Chistka Partiynykh Ryadov project in any city to gain 100% loyalty at the cost of 50% of the city's population upon completion.
Stalin: Gets the Purge project Purges give -1 population when finished, and +2 loyalty a turn while being done. If an unused great person is present in the city, there is a chance they might get lost. +1 wildcard policy slot if the government type is Communist.
You mentioned, a lot, that some gamemodes change placements, so i want to highlight two examples: Cleopatra and Jayavarman. Cleopatra's flood immunity becomes much more powerful with the Apocalypse gamemode enabled, because you're going to be getting floods more often, and they're going to always improve tiles. Jayavarman is already excellent, but with Secret Societies his power skyrockets due to Void Singers. Level 2 Voidsingers means that Aquaducts now add 1 Faith, and 0.2 Science, Gold, and Culture per pop in a city. This snowballs hard and fast.
Boes: I’m taking a break from CIV, I’m burnt out. Also Boes: Yeah I’m doing Qin all wonders build again, but H A R D E R In all seriousness, glad that you’re taking care of yourself
As an extremely new Civ player, I'm very grateful for content like this. Considering the complexity and depth in the game, I figured stuff like this certainly existed but i stayed away for a little bit so i could try to teach myself the basics. I'm still not ready for Deity, I'm not even ready for lower difficulties but I'm enjoying the learning experience. I haven't finished the video thus far, but i just wanted to make a point to state my appreciation for such informative content. After this, I'm going to look up something that breaks down the different stages in the game and city planning and how to balance what you need to focus on for your wincon and what is required to simply progress forward. I find myself getting rather overwhelmed with what to do and end up losing my focus once i get past a certain point. If anyone has any video suggestions, i would greatly appreciate it. Anyways, thank you again for the awesome content
I'm kinda new to the game and only played on immortal, but have a lot of experience in civ 4&5 (and a friend who is very good explained the build orders to me). I was looking around to see how well my impressions lined up with what the community thinks, and the only thing that really surprised me is how low people place the Cree. From my experience so far, this is the best (or second best after Tokugawa) "fair" civ. I find it almost impossible to have a bad game with them and not massively outtech/outculture immortal AI by medieval era, after which it's smooth sailing to space or tourism win. By your criteria (i love the concept btw): Early game - both uniques unlocked right away and combined with the beefed up scout it's impossible to miss the first golden age - beefed up scouts can deal with barbs nicely - early trader + tile unlock jumpstarts production - 2 good pantheons that AI doesn't seem to take ever Late game - doesn't have an insane late game unit/ability, but you are swimming in gold buying a district improvement every couple of turns and settling all over the place and tech super fast, so how bad can it be? - doesn't need food, so can just spam mines and unique improvement for massive production or use your tons of gold to upgrade units if you want to conquer Vesatility - needs camps/pastures, but only in one city (doesn't have to be the capitol!) - no bad start, no need for restarts or mods ever - can settle cities absolutely anywhere, you could settle in 100% desert/tundra as long as there are some hills to work - by mid game has good science, culture and production, so can go for any win con Dependencies - no major ones, doesn't need religion or specific wonders - best pantheon is almost always available and there is a backup just in case - needs first golden age, but it's super easy to get Synergies - this is the coolest part of this civ, everything it does synergises with everything else - civ ability jumpstarts the leader ability - the unique improvement complements the leader ability (basically a better mine) and is complemented by it (you are already settling for resources because you don't care about inner ring food/hammers) - the scout ensures you can get the only thing you need early (adjacency culture from com hubs golden age) and that you are not disturbed by barbs while setting up the main trade city - once the initial setup is done you can use the gold generated from the previous cities to jumpstart settling of the next ones (buying traders, markets and builders) and you can make a new city every 10-ish turns as long as your amenities allow it Focus - like I said before, everything in the kit is geared towards a singular focus of generating tons of food/hammers/gold from trade routes - but once this is set up, you can go wherever you want (except religious) So what am I missing here? How is this civ not infinitely better than Australia or Germans? I get that the broken civs like Yongle or Hamurabi are better, it was never a competition, but why isn't Cree considered one of the best non-broken civ and stuck in B-C tiers everywhere I look? Does diety AI expand so fast you never get 6+ cities without war?
It’s insane to put Mansa in D. If you worry that he could not found a religion, why are you so sure that Tamar can get Papal Primacy? More importantly, religion is not a must to Mail, faith is.
Yeah, religion doesn't matter that much. All that matters is getting the desert pantheon, and that's basically a guarantee with their early faith generation
Thank you for the content Boes, it couldn't have been an easy video to make, and I totally get why someone would get somewhat tired of any game, considering the passion and time you put into it! I really enjoy videos you put up, and I wish you a success in all your future goals! Edit: After watching the whole video I have two thoughts. 1) I want more 2) Those power creeps
Problem is if you are someone like the kongo that has a non coastal near the equator bias, chances are you start right in the center of the map surrounded by enemies. Plains civ's might start somewhere very flat with no woods, desert civ's might start in a huge desert, while canada + russia actually want a lot tundra. I think its hard to beat a grasslands coastal bias, then you are not central, and have plains below you / tundra above you.
I just won a 4 player deity continents and islands, random leader as Gilgamesh! This is big because I used no game modes which are honestly a handicap. After playing as Gilgamesh I realized how literally after my warcarts became obsolete how vanilla of a civ he is. I couldn't even get +5 alliance combat strength because I was in a domination mood. Every other civ in comparison now I'm like oh I get why potato likes pound maker. His economy scales with gold/food in the late game unlike any late game scaling with Gilgamesh.
Shocked. SHOCKED. To see Mvemba hanging on to his D tier rating. Wu and Qin may not be good.... but they have holy sites. It's the funniest thing that Mvemba is the only civ that can run Feed the Word, Work Ethic, and Choral Music in the same city, and they're absolutely useless.
??? No, you’re thinking of India, which does benefit. Mvemba gets all bonuses from his majority religion, mainly the founder belief(+resource per pop/city worshipping the religion) which does help him. India can run all of those in one city, and it’s overpowered if you can get it(doable by conquering people which those religions with chandragupta).
The only reason to play Sejong over Seondeok is if you want to play really wide Korea for some reason. But I have no idea how big an empire you would need to get comparable value from his leader ability.
@@remlapwastaken8857 True, but I don't think I have ever once caught an AI doing steal tech missions. They seem to have a bias for stealing funds, neutralizing governors, and recruiting partisans. I don't play multiplayer, but I'm pretty sure the spy meta there is to go after dams, industrial zones, and spaceports because those significantly slow down the player in multiplayer games.
You should try vampires with Dido. When you settle a new city, you can make it your capital and then send all the vampire castle yields to the new city. Just switch it to the next city as soon as it's founded.
Mansa musa is all about starting luck and praying you don't get rushed. He has one of the weakest starts in the game but often snowballs into the strongest civ. He's one of the most fun ways to play the game because his abilities force his play style. By mid/late game, you're buying everything with money, army, buildings, districts, etc
I know this is the final final final final tier list but if you decided to make some tier lists for individual game modes I think people would be interested. I know I would. “civilization tier list for secret societies” for example. that would be awesome
4 hour deep dive, there it is, well done, that is a great finisher! I find the "no Ship of the Line?" bit really relatable, especially because Frigates are excellent units to begin with and they were in Civ V, in which they were terrifying. I know you wanna give Civ a break, but if you ever do want to scratch that itch, I would recommend the 'Steel and Thunder unit expansion' mod. It gives all civs at least one additional unique unit. China gets Chu ko nus, India gets Sepoys, Babylon their Bowman,... and England gets the Longbowman and Ship of the Line. Tried it on a classic Vicky game and it was very satisfying. And oh: enable battle animations for the SotL, you won't be disappointed
Hi Boes. Thank you for this tier list; it’s incredibly detailed and well done, the entire four hours flew by. Really appreciate it, especially given your circumstances. I do have some disagreements here and there, but I agree for the most part. I would like to point out two of the major ones I personally disagree with. (I want to be nuanced with this but at the same time I don’t think should write an essay, so I’ll try to be brief). Before that, a bit of my background for reference; I have about 3.5k hours into this game, and I would say half of that is deity and the other half competitive multiplayer). I also did burn out with civ just before the leader pass, so I haven’t played as much since September 2022, but the past few weeks I’m kinda getting back into it. Anyways, here goes: Gaul: I understand the leader pass introduced powerhouses like Yongle and Age of Steam Vicky, but Gaul is incredibly broken, imo. His leader ability is actually insane with early game culture and for war. I personally think he is a contender for the strongest domination civ, alongside Babylon. Both can do the Man-At-Arms Rush reliably, which is an easy auto win on deity. Gaul does it a bit better thanks to his better early game (Gaesatae, and culture/land from units and mines) and his MAA are stronger due to his leader bonus, but Babylon is a bit more versatile and can snowball a bit harder. Either way, I’d put him as equal to Babylon. The major source of power creep imo is actually the Man-At-Arms(strongest unit in civ imo), and both Babylon and Gaul benefit greatly from it. I find Gaul a better domination civ than Colombia imo, so Gaul is at least high A tier if not S tier for me. Mvemba: we both think he’s bad, so it might be weird to say I disagree on this. But I honestly have no idea how he isn’t alone in F tier. Kongo under Mvemba is single handedly the worst civ, imo. I think his leader ability is the worse ability in all of civilization history. I would not only rather play a vanilla civ, I would rather play a civ that said “negative 5% to all yields”. No access to holy sites is a killer, as holy sites are arguably the strongest district. No religion is like added salt to the wound. The unique neighborhood is completely useless, imo, and is far and away the worst unique district. The unique unit is alright, and is the best bonus Kongo has imo. I find Nkisi to be irrelevant 85% of the time, because it relies on relics. Like, sure, it makes your relics better, but how can you get relics reliably? Kandy isn’t reliable cause you can’t guarantee it being in the game, tribal villages are RNG, waiting for a religion to be spread, then building your Theatre Square/useless unique district, then maybe getting the martyr promotion (or having Yerevan), and maybe getting to use Martyr is too slow and not reliable. Maybe I am underestimating the extra great people points, but Kongo deserves to be alone in F tier imo. All other civs at least have a positive bonus over a vanilla civ. Literally the best thing Mvemba has going for him is the rainforest start bias. When Nzinga was announced I thought “even if she has no ability, this is gonna be a huge buff to Kongo”, so I half expected her to just have a downside like “negative 5% to all yields” or “can’t build campuses” and she’d still be better than Mvemba. Speaking of Nzinga, I haven’t played her that much, but I’m still kinda surprised she’s almost S tier, I know an ability that basically says “+10% to all yields” (the downside usually isn’t relevant for a while) is strong, but I didn’t expect her to be ranked that highly. I do find her boring, though. A +10%, while strong, isn’t interesting imo. Final note: I also think culture is incredible, but I’m actually debating which is stronger: culture or faith. What do you think? I’m interested in what you have to say. Both are the top 2 yields in my opinion. Anyways, didn’t mean to ramble on. Thanks to anyone reading this, and am Interested in your thoughts.
Montezuma has a very good combat offensive strength bonus its 3 or 4 early game but as soon as you get to other continent by settle or conquest it ger completely crazy
Big differences between Arabia and Russia is that Madrasa is unlocked much earlier and inspiration is much easier to trigger. And +10% science and culture is huge in pursuing science victory, especially when void singer is deactivated.
I would like to see an alternate Australia because it feels like they could go a whole different direction with someone else but the problem is Australia has like... 0 historical leaders aside from john. Hope they do something with him in civ 7.
@@alfiehutchinson1030 Maybe builders getting extra charges (from his ACTU days) or extra movement speed on coastal raiders (Australia2 & Americas Cup).
Lijia with faith is weird. you do not accumulate faith until the turn after you start it up. When you stop the project, like you said, it still gives you the faith because it is kind of catching up from the first turn you are on the project.
IMO, when ranking civs, any one who has unique district should not be lower than B. If the UD is direct victory-related (campus, theatre, holy site), the civ is at least A. That’s a consistent and huge advantage. In that sense, Aztec should be S under whatever standards. 5 turns for any district is insane.
Love to see Tamar is B-tier Won some close games with her, she’d providing a challenge but still a good leader with unique abilities that i appreciate a lot
Its beyond idiotic for Boes to be putting hungary bellow tamar. Hungary is better in every single way if you play him with similar focus as her instead of full war. He can be suzerain of all the city states in his region by the time shes just getting religious units out. In culture victory he can suppress any competition by pillaging their culture sources and can build theater squares fast.
@@luisgutierrez8047 This. I can accept that Tamar is underrated, but it's hard to imagine a game where double suz bonuses are anywhere near worth the havoc that can be caused by cheaper levies and upgrades (with extra envoys, to boot).
Mali is able to spam setllers with monumentality like crazy, my personal A tier, You yourself said that monumentality is op strat in civ 6 and mali is hella good at it also religious settlement pantheon is the fastest in the game with them, easy second city, even more faith thanks to another city center bonus, easy monumentality in the next era, gg you have like 10 cities in no time A tier both of them
The games also about CHOPPING. Which desert doesn't have. Russia is god tier because he can chop a 6+ holy site the turn he settles. Mali has to buy his way into 2 forests.
Having recently played games with Tamar, Age of Steam Vicky, and Ptolemaic I feel vindicated. Thought they were all great, surprised that so many people say Georgia is terrible. She was so good at the envoy game, up there with the Kongo lady. Just go into monarchy and get those unique walls up for more influence points too
This. I just destroyed a game as Georgia/Tamar by going Monarchy and speeding to religious victory. Wonder rush and choose the religious tenet for wonders +4 faith. If you get a natural wonder even better.
On a TSL Huge map Sacred Path/Work Ethic Pedro is just absolutely insane, SSS. For those unaware, it's the easiest win, any wincon, even beyond Dance of the Aurora Pete, because you mostly spawn alone with the whole of South America to yourself. Your North American neighbor will have a very barren continent with deserts, tundra and plains, so it becomes unlikely that they actually become a threat should they manage to overcome the central american city state buffer (which is irl lore ironic). I had Monty spawn there once and he got owned by all the city states (Mitla, Mexico, Cahokia). Pedro's biggest menace is barbarians, so some 3-5 archers and you're safe all early and midgame to focus on economics. Spawning with Pantanal nearby means easy astrology and culture-religion rush, with some nearby faith luxury for easy pantheon rush. I always manage to get sacred path reliably and fully evangelize my beliefs first. The Amazon+Andes gives insane adjacencies and appeal for some sweet preserves and national parks play, the easy spam of perfect +24 holy sites (+work ethic) are absurd. Easy perfect campuses, commercial hubs and theater squares means you'll fly early on. The early 24 work ethic holy sites makes short work of wonder spamming. The secret sauce is the amazon fire loop that, if properly managed to avoid losing pops, can give +10 food/production tiles at least. Amazon cities are bizarrely good for the adjacencies. Mid to late game conquests are great with Pedro. Have a port+industrial zone+holy site city with Venetian Arsenal and spam Minas Geraes fleets and armadas, and then carriers for the bombers. Get a panama canal city and you can safely bombard everyone with MG's 3 range and early power comparable to units 2 eras beyond. Culture isn't a problem so you'll just have an easy, safe conquering of anything coastal as soon as you hit nationalism, and it only gets worse when bombers+carriers show up. On TSL, navies are busted and Pedro has, hands down, the best naval unit, and probably the best unique unit overall if it weren't for the fact that it's a naval one. Going Voidsingers further boosts the insanity. Big gold, science, culture, production, food. What else would you need? The cheap amenities districts are very welcome for the easy ecstatics, and the 20% gpps refund is also great. Not to forget, there's also an underwhelming Torres del Paine down south. Pedro is that great on TSL. Flawless, and everything is tuned to 11. It's almost unfun, but an easy deity win even going vanilla.
Finally got through this incredible video just in time for Firaxis to ruin your life lol. To be fair, I think Wu is the only one that goes up a tier with buffs and probably still just to C tier.
Gilgamesh and that one russian guy were the only ones i played up until i got the anthology pack. He can just take any cities up until round 25 give or take some rounds depending what ai you vs. it just gives you a crazy headstart. If you play diety though, yeah just don’t try it
Some times I ask myself a question: what if that map didnt have any hills? Babylon cannot rush man at arms, acropolys and seowon useless, menelick and gaul quites the game, you never had seen terracefarms. Or another question: map dosnt have any citystates? My boy Matias my girl Tamara going to cry, Pericles throws himself to the nearest sea, and only Frederick would say: i dont care
Hammurabi can circumvent the lack of hills by buying the right Great Scientist. Or ignore iron and win the early war with crossbows and horsemen. That's the thing about Babylon. There are like 7 broken strategies, not a single one.
Really great overview and good considerations. Not exactly agreeing on all points, but in general it is a great assessment. Couldn't figure out whether you pronounce Hardråde (Hardrawde, with the Å) correctly though (as you expressly wished to do), but if you go into Crusader Kings 3, I'm sure I get the chance to provide input on Scandinavian name pronounciations 😅
Black Queen Catherine is at least a B for domination win, even against the AI. She is all about the timing push with guard imperial and the spy games she can play can be more than just a diplomatic visiblity bonus, she can tear an opponent apart with spies breaking dams and neighbbourhoods and causing all sorts of chaos when you get a spy that is a governor hunter, that you go from city to city taking out. All the while she is pushing hard with the powerful army supported at home by the chateau's gold and culture. Going full war with Generals in the timign push is key, which requires a strong encampment/commercial or harbor/campus setup at home. Once she takes out 1 neighbbour and collects the needed experience for their army to progress the snowball and get highly promoted melee units upgraded into guards for the next push, the win is pretty much secured. Great domination civ!
Appreciate the time it took to make this list! I haven't had the time to properly play every civ yet but I have played almost all of them at least once. My favorites and the ones I go back to most often are Peter, Ludwig, Tokugawa and Bull Moose Teddy.
I don’t know if anyone has said this already, but age of empire victorias ‘s free naval units aren’t necessarily melee. I was playing a game with her a few weeks ago and when I unlocked sea dogs building the dockyards started giving me those. I’m not sure if it also gives naval ranged but they can definitely also give naval raider units
Just wanted to drop a like, looks like you put a lot of thought and work into this. I was actually hoping for a bit more description of each civ/leader because I am still very new to the game and not familiar with any of them. (So maybe listening to this on my drive to and from work was possibly also a poor idea, haha.) It was cool to see how the pros view these things. So far, I mostly pick something that sounds interesting, and THEN the AI rolls one of the civs you rank really high. And then I get crushed like a bug. So right now I am using your tier list to remove leaders from my pool of potential enemies!
3:46:40 I read that Julius Caesar used to have an additional line in his skill before his release that adds "+1 Wildcard policy slot when you conquer another capital city" --- had that remained in addition to his current kit, how would you rank him higher? EDIT: Thanks, Boes! As of Aug 29 2023, there's a new update that may change this list again lol
Boes - you're incredible. Thanks a million for helping me enjoy the game so much more than I would have done otherwise. Your style is great. I personally feel Steam Vicky is better than Peter because every map script, and therefor every city you may found or capture, will have strategic resources. Her bonus is so reliable in way that tundra isn't. Also think something should be said for Pachacuti's ability to work preserve enhanced mountain tiles which can become pretty bonkers.
One more thing to add about Mapuche I noticed: if you want Chemamulls you have to be really careful where you chop woods, add mines, quarries, IZs. It made me feel like Magnus is not a good pick and ultimately like I must chop less.
Hey, great video. But I'm today years old when I realized that there are different narrations depending on what era you load the game into. I've had the game since release. I have almost 5000 hours into it and... I never noticed that until today.
Mbenza's neighbourhood can be built, because they do not remove a jungle beneath, so you use them to increase campus adjecency to +4 for rationalism card (2 Mbanzas on 2 jungle tiles adjecent to campus give both adjecency bonus, from jungle and from districts). Kongo is one of the civs to benefit from double rationalism bonus (from pop and adjecency). IMO enough to rise to C tier, but lower C ;) Old guy's apostles are for sacrifice to relics or to convert units for free - here is why Mbanzas are useful, to spawn rebels for free units
I mostly agree with your assessment of Ramses. That being said, him with Vizier Saladin and Theology is an absolute monster because Arabia's worship buildings just become entirely free. You can also stack him really well with industrial city states even if you don't suz them because the bonus production +Iteru +policy cards like Corvée can add another 30-50% on each production point, so that extra culture is coming far more consistently than you think. He still sits in C-Tier, but I think he straddles B-tier far more than you think
Mali in general is just so off, I've won a religious victory in like 120ish turns with Mansa Musa (and that's the most tedious and grindy victory condition honestly). You settle on the edge of desert, so you get both workable tiles and a good bonus. You can easily get +3 faith per turn turn 1 in your capital this way, meaning turn 9 pantheon at the latest, which is almost always desert folklore. You do have to sacrifice a bit to ensure that you get your religion, but once you do, the rest is honestly history. A slower start, but as long as you sacrifice a bit to ensure your religion, it's guaranteed even at deity.
A bit strange to hear about how bad Mvemba's district and unique unit are and then to hear Nzinga with the same district/unit and a relatively neutral leader ability get put in A tier. Granted it's much better than Mvemba's leader ability but putting her ahead of all those B tier Civs on Kongo's civ ability alone seems odd.
I also don't super mind the power creep to be honest, mostly because it's not like previous civs have gotten worse. You can still play old civs and have fun with them, but you can also play Yongle, be absolutely broken, and have a ton of fun. Even the bad ones like Unifier Qin, they have a unique ability that allows super interesting and unique strategies. Sure, it would probably be better on a different civ, but I'm ok with them adding more varieties of civs to the game. It probably screws with multiplayer a bit though where everyone is playing super meta strategies and has to play only the best civs if they want to win.
The thing that I find not so great about power creep is when the AI gets one of the new superpowers. Then I get steamrolled right into the ground, and it's time to start a new game.
Sad to see Norway go to C. I’m no pro player but even on prince difficulty I’m always lagging behind in science and culture even while utilizing the coastal raiding. However I always go dance of the aurora/work ethic/site adjacency bonus policies/crusade and get good production and to pump out berserkers and sail with my Viking longships and raid and destroy other civs pretty easily and I think it is one of the most fun and interesting ways to play. This is from a casual perspective I’m no pro player and the highest difficulty I’ve played is king lmao
Bull Moose is someone I can argue an A tier would be fair just because even if they screw you on land you can usually make good use by rushing bronze working and chopping all of your jungle and you also have Preserves, Theater Squares, Entertainment Complexes and Holy Sites to improve appeal as well! Granted all of that is pretty slow so I can definitely respect the B ranking. I'd probably argue Gran Columbia is S tier but yet again, I remember the +4 Llaneros and not wanting to upgrade them because they were literally better than helicopters lol! I didn't even realize Maya got that builder buff, I'd probably put them in B and maybe even A, gonna have to go play them! Amazing work man!
I like your point about how bad Mvemba is, even when you can spread religion with apostles from TSs and MBs most of the religious bonuses apply to holy sites lol
Doubly RNG-dependent. First your opponents have to spread useful religions to you (thanks for the warrior monks!). Second you have to get useful apostles (martyr or heathen). Buffs to relics are not good enough.
Are just gonna ignore how bs the thumbnail is? Ludwig and John Curtin in S; Abe, YONGLE, french Eleanor, Philip and Ba Trieu in A? Come on Boes. Also, I see literaly no comments so far that are being aggressive and saying "OH, how dare you say this, as So and So said this..."💀 nevertheless, love the content, and the in depth explanation is really nice and useful. Good job Boes
I’m new to civ and wanted to watch a vanilla China play thru and my RUclips is showing the most recent vid was 1 year ago. Idk what happened with RUclips but man am I frustrated. Mostly because this game isn’t dead and idk why the only videos that are showing for me are years old but I’m glad i ended up watching this to hear that you are gonna make a china playthru
I see Montezuma and it screams Domination not science . His unique building is to fight against war wariness and his main ability is the combat strength that begs you to take everything.
Mali is the type of civ you bust out the little mod to fix the game design issues that are just unacceptable and make the civ unenjoyable to play and therefore probably rarely played at all. Like you mention, the biggest issue with Mali is lack of production to build holysite and its infrastructure for a religion and therefore missing out on a religion and being unable to get going. The best solve for this IMO, is to use a mod that allows more religions per game to be founded. (many options, can also use religions expanded mod). This turns Mali into a slow building early civ that becomes a monster late, and reliably so since you can just slowly get to your religion without worry of missing out. Its the most fun way to play Mali the way it feels it was designed to be.
15:14 Abraham Lincoln 50% bonus to theater production. All entertainment bonuses 50% higher. 10% chance leader will die and the game auto-lose upon completion of a theater district.
![BLACK BAG - Official Trailer [HD] - Only in Theaters March 14](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Du0Xp8WX_7I/mqdefault.jpg)
![BLACK BAG - Official Trailer [HD] - Only in Theaters March 14](/img/tr.png)
Gilgamesh is in F tier, but he's a special case because his F stands for Friend, not Failure. Maybe a little bit failure.
Always good to have him as a friend (unless you are going dom). Not so much to play as him.
@@dmitriyk.2890 he's arguably even better if you go dom. You get easy alliances with him and that means one less civ you have to go and conquer, plus you occasionally get extra combat strength
Is this a troll in the community to confuse new pmayers or is Gilgamesh actually friendly? When I met him he declared war on me within 20 turns
@@justyourfriendlyneighborho903 tou need to befriending first turn after you meet him.
@@justyourfriendlyneighborho903 if you ask him to declare friendship on the turn you meet him, he will always say yes.
boes: i’m burnt out of civ
also boes: THIRD TIERLIST TIME WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
***AUGUST 29TH EDIT*** : OK WELL THEY JUST RELEASED A PATCH I'M GOING TO THROW UP. They buffed Wu, Varang Harald, Abe and Caesar. Tbh nothing really changes except maybe Abe and Wu. The Wu buff literally puts her into C tier I think. Abe is still the same, however.
---------
2 THINGS: #1 IT'S FINALLY HERE. YES, I KNOW IT'S 4 HOURS LONG - it's because I wanted to go a little bit more in depth on the reasoning on why I put some Civs in specific tiers as opposed to others. Additionally, this is the last leader Tier List for Civ 6 - so why not go out with a bang. Enjoy, and see you in 4 hours.
#2 FOR SOME REASON CHAPTERS ARENT LOADING SO HERE:
00:00:00 - INTRO
00:00:30 - PAUSE FOR INTRO TIMESTAMPS
00:00:36 - Ok, but who are you?
00:02:19 - Tier List Formula
00:05:08 - Power Creep In Civ 6
00:09:16 - Predictions
00:09:48 - EXPLAINING WHY ITS 4 HOURS LONG
00:10:27 - America: Bull Moose Teddy
00:12:32 - America: Rough Rider Teddy
00:15:13 - America: Abraham Lincoln
00:16:55 - Arabia: Saladin
00:20:11 - Arabia: Sultan Saladin
00:22:34 - Australia
00:26:05 - Aztec
00:29:05 - Babylon
00:33:59 - Byzantium: Theodora
00:38:49 - Byzantium: Basil II
00:42:17 - Brazil
00:44:18 - Canada
00:48:04 - China: Kublai Khan
00:51:18 - China: Wu Zetian
00:55:07 - China: Qin Shi Huang
00:58:45 - China: Qin (Unifier)
01:00:43 - China: Yongle
01:07:48 - Cree
01:11:18 - Egypt: Cleopatra
01:13:54 - Egypt: Ptol Cleopatra
01:17:59 - Egypt: Ramses
01:20:39 - England: Eleanor
01:24:02 - England: Victoria
01:26:13 - England: Age of Steam Victoria
01:33:30 - England: Elizabeth
01:37:29 - Ethiopia
01:40:35 - France: Black Queen Catherine
01:44:04 - France: Magnificent Catherine
01:46:19 - France: Eleanor
01:48:06 - Gaul
01:51:41 - Georgia
01:56:55 - Germany: Frederick
01:59:51 - Germany: Ludwig
02:04:44 - Gran Columbia
02:06:45 - Greece: Pericles
02:09:26 - Greece: Gorgo
02:12:09 - Hungary
02:16:53 - Inca
02:19:12 - India: Gandhi
02:23:32 - India: Chandragupta
02:25:01 - Indonesia
02:28:56 - Japan: Hojo
02:30:29 - Japan: Tokugawa
02:32:36 - Khmer
02:38:39 - Kongo: Mvemba
02:42:56 - Kongo: Ana
02:48:58 - Korea: Seondeok
02:50:43 - Korea: Sejong
02:55:54 - Macedon
02:58:58 - Mali: Mansa Musa
03:02:15 - Mali: Sundiata
03:03:30 - Maori
03:06:10 - Mapuche
03:09:30 - Maya
03:13:01 - Mongolia: Kublai Khan
03:14:36 - Mongolia: Genghis
03:16:02 - Netherlands
03:18:24 - Norway: Harald
03:21:20 - Norway: Varangian Harald
03:23:18 - Nubia
03:26:34 - Ottomans: Suleiman
03:30:31 - Ottomans: Magn Sulemain
03:32:24 - Persia: Cyrus
03:34:26 - Persia: Nader Shah
03:35:42 - Phoenicia
03:39:18 - Poland
03:41:46 - Portugal
03:44:38 - Rome: Trajan
03:46:40 - Rome: Julius
03:49:46 - Russia
03:55:27 - Scotland
03:57:54 - Scythia
03:59:57 - Spain
04:01:51 - Sumeria
04:07:22 - Sweden
04:09:50 - Vietnam
04:11:53 - Zulu
04:14:23 - FINAL
04:17:00 - CHANNEL UPDATE, CIV 6 BURNOUT
04:18:24 - END OF TIER LIST
and 20 minutes 🅱👌👌💯
This is the first video I've seen from you so my first impression is a four hour long tier list.
But you know what? I'm into it. Have to watch it in 24 different sessions but it's good stuff. Great hustle and I love hearing the reasoning behind everything. Subscribed.
Nah, Julius can just print infinite money now and goes up a tier.
No Dido?
The problem with spies is that they tend to be either a catch-up mechanic or a defense from enemy spies. If you're good at the game, you don't need them at all to get ahead, and then you're only using them to stave off the AI from neutralizing Pingala in your capital for the 4th time. There needs to be more attention paid to spying mechanics in Civ 7.
agreed!
The ONLY time spies were useful to me was when I needed to proteccc my precious gold. Was playing as Spain with a 🐐 start on continents edge and had all my traders in my capital.
The ONLY useful mission is to get suzreins. But that takes FOREVER. Plus unreliable.
He doesn't know very much about spies
Spies are great for looting commercial hubs love a game with Mali in it.
Dude you're kidding right? You can siphon their money, stop their rocket projects for science victory, steal their great works for culture victory and rise some barbarians from their settlements for domination victory. How is it weak exactly?
I really hope Civ 7 gets delayed and an emergency leader pack comes out that is just 5 different Gilgamesh variations. Just to see you have to rank 6 versions of Sumeria. I'll gladly wait an extra year just for one RUclips video.
Ik things must be hard but this tier list is mighty appreciated. Take care of yourself boes.
English Eleanor of Acquitaine in C?!? Oh Boe. I think we need to come back over and teach you American's how to love again XD
In all seriousness so much work on this list, fantastic effort! All the best!
NOW I CAN FINALLY WATCH YOUR TIER LIST. I literally have been waiting until I finished mine hahahaha
I want you two to fight about the relative placements of French vs English Eleanor! (I'm with Ursa on that one, English is better)
@@RobinLSL Yeah Ursa is just simply right on this one. What does France even do? They get a UU that you won't use, one of the worst UI's, and a bonus to wonders that you don't really need. England in turn has an awesome ability that properly goes online at the same time with Eleanor's ability and helps her improve those flipped cities faster, and a great unique district. And a UU that you won't use.
Totally agree. Synergies with a f-tier ability is probably no better than getting a non-synergized b-tier one
@@ming-shuanchen6423 it does have synergy though
Boes: releases final final final 2023 tier list
Firaxis: Great, now let’s release some new buffs
Each Civ's music playing in the background was the best.
Thanks Boes!
i wasn't going to initially, but it only took like 10 minutes of extra editing time so i figured why not
Gilgamesh is so weird to me because my better question than why he's so underpowered is why he's a leader in the first place, for as much as we know he might not have even existed as a real person and feels so out of place he would make a better hero in heroes and legends frankly
It's probably a Jesus type of situation where he did exist, but all of what he did is pure myth and entirely unprovable.
Dido was always a myth btw. Not sure why they don’t just have Hannibal for Carthage like they did in civ iv. Numidean Cavalry was so fun
@belhariry The devs are known to want to use different leaders in games and not just have the same leaders for every nation every game. It’s the reason why Trajan got the base game leader for Rome instead of Julius, and there are a few other civs that do this as well.
The only thing the tier list lack is some markers on how much better some civs are once there are more of one specific biome. Like lots of sea, lots of mountains, lots of desert, lots of tundra etc.
So example Norway (konge) would be +2 on tier list on water maps and -2 on land maps. While Indonesia would have +1 on water maps and -1 on land maps. Something like that I recon.
There are also a few ranks I disagree slightly with, but all in all I agree on most of them. Like 95%. I haven't watch the entire video yet though, but I will do eventually.
Yeah i think a lot of rankings that are disagreements really come down to play style, or just preferences to Civs. I know a few people who value high production more and it's super valid, especially when it comes to like Magnus chopping and the like~
Rough rider teddy is a prime example of a civ that peaks with gamemodes. He works so well with owls and barb clans. In a normal game on a continents map with 9 city states, he's definitely c tier.
One huge problem with Sultan Arabia in deity is that flanking and support bonuses don’t work on cities or ranged attacks. AI Melee/Calvary units are dumb as hell and not really a threat. Cities and ranged units inside them are what threaten you. Sultan Arabia does nothing against either of those threats.
Yeah that's a great point as well that I should have brought up~
Glad to see my man Poundmaker at least in B tier. I think a lot of people underestimate him in single player but not only is he incredibly fun, but also quite effective. His versatility can definitely be seen as a downside as he doesn’t have one super strong win condition, but it allows you to sim city a bit and still be very strong. Also if you happen to snag pyramids the game is already over.
i think i ranked him higher in previous tier lists but i believe B is probably the most accurate ranking for him. he's still in my top 5 fav civs to play but yeah i agree with you~
To me, Poundmaker's kit is too limited for B-tier. In my current Poundmaker game, I got a coastal start and it has been rough. I'm not in danger of losing but it has been slow going. Having no early war bonuses means being hemmed in for multiple eras. Having to spam builders to get the bonuses from the UIs is worse than bonuses that are automatic. To me C-tier is just right.
It's important to realize that a couple of settings can completely change a civ's placement. e.g., heavy rainfall or arboreal makes Brazil much better. Or, with the set of rules my friends and I use where we heavily limit desert, Mali actually becomes a lot better since the worst part of Mali is the desert start bias. I still strongly disagree with you about Mathias's placement (I think that his 50% river district bonus is good enough by itself to land him in B), but still, this was great, thanks for putting in the effort to make this!
I'm an admitted Gilgamesh enjoyer, so I'm a bit biased, but there are a couple of minor things I think you're overlooking: 1) the war carts function like uber scouts. You can use them to scout the map quickly and they don't die instantly because a barb looked at them funny like scouts do. 2) if you spam ziggurats, you can actually do well with early science. Is that enough to bump him out of F tier? I don't know. All I know is I enjoy playing as him and games are about fun so I"m happy, lol.
But what can you do with LA?
Yep, nearly all of the recon units are trash, but quasi-recon units like war carts are sorely underrated. Fast movement is so good for scouting because knowledge of the map is what lets you break games wide open.
What's LA?
@@jyutzler LA is short for Leader Abilities, I'm guessing this includes civ ability in this context as well
Don’t know if anyone actually gave you the pronunciation of Basil’s ability, but it is “Poor-fear-o-hen-eee-tos” (roughly). It means “born in the purple”, and was used to refer to children who were born while their father was still sitting emperor. Because emperors got to wear purple, imperial babies were “born in the puple”
Thank you!!!! I'll work on that as I love to learn how diff languages are pronounced
I've only recently gotten civ 6 as my first civ game and have thoroughly enjoyed the game and your content.
Some time has past, what are your thoughts now?
I'm surprised spies don't have some abiliity "steal strategic resources" where you target the Encampments. Seems like such a no-brainer to me. I've watched this tier list several times through now (listened while working) and I've learnt so much from it. Your rankings are bang-on accurate as far as I can tell.
1:13:34 Would add here that while OG Cleoptra is only so-so in Single player she is excellent as support civ in Multiplayer. If coordinated properly her ability to buff and bankroll her allies is one of the best in the game right up there with Gilgabro.
My favorite thing about Ethiopia is that it taught me something new. Practically with all the other civ and leader abilities I understood the reference for them. I had no idea there are solid monolithic churches excavated out of stone, similar to some things I've seen in Jordan, Turkey, and Egypt. They are amazing and beautiful.
I agree with your point about some of the new leader pass leaders being disappointing because they lack unique units. One thing that could be interesting to think about is if you could add unique units to some of those new leaders to make them better, what might they look like to work well with the leader’s bonuses?
Yeah if unique units were added i.e. the chukonu for Wu or Ship of the Line/Longbowman for England some of these Civs would fair better
I was about to be offended at Gilgamesh being in F tier but I forgot I play marathon mode. You can wipe out one to two civs with war carts before you even meet anyone else, so they're not mad. Slower expansion means perpetual barb camps to plunder because the map rarely gets fully settled.
Yeah that's very fair, there's quite a few different civs like gilga who benefit from slower game modes like Harald, Julius, etc!
Plus we all know F stands for Friendship anyways
@@boesthius Yeah, his improvement is really good in Marathon too. You can basically skip campuses since districts take 50 billion turns to make and gold/faith rush workers. Pyramids and serfdom is such a fun combo
Really appreciate you making this video given how things have been lately for you. Looking forward to watching ❤
I know you’re getting out of the CIV game but I’ve got JUST ONE MORE tier idea: CPU guided CIVS. Which Deity AI civs always seem to do well? Who are doormats?
Love this idea!
I reckon ones with simpler/more flexible bonuses will do better, though anytime Rome's been in my game they do fucking terribly (had a multiplayer game where Trajan only settled Rome and was being bullied into 0 health forever by one barbarian galley). The AI tends not to play into a Civ's strengths, it's not uncommon to see an AI poundmaker or gilgamesh do domination while Shaka and Alexander sit back doing nothing. Wish there was some sort of code that gently suggested AI push towards a certain victory type as a particular civ.
I'm Cambodian and I've loved Civ since I was a kid and when they announced the expansion for the Khmer I was so excited but I was worried they would be bad and after it came out I was like "Oh, okay." 😭
I feel like the reason we never got another Russian leader has to be because they realised that basically any other leader trait would make Russia's base kit insane.
The ability could be: holy site has +1 housing and it would be a HUGE boost
I think Russia could do with a leader whose ability isn't just a total positive, but would change the way you play the civ. Similar to what Mvemba is, but not as awful. Someone like Ivan the Terrible could work for this, as I definitely see him as a leader that comes with a downside. And having the first Tzar could be interesting anyway.
And before anyone says that a civ can't have a famously terrible leader, hear me out. First of all, the nickname "terrible" isn't supposed to mean awful, bad or evil, as it is supposed to convey a more archaic meaning of the word, which would nowadays be more akin to terrifying. However, Ivan was also somewhat terrible in his old days as his mental health kinda went down the drain. But many of the leaders in Civ are hardly angels, and for example Ludwig went a bit insane as well, though not in as violent way as Ivan.
@@wombat4191 I want Civ 7's leaders to have flaws as well as buffs. Right now only a few of them like Joao, Mbenga, Hammurabi, Kupe, and Abe (as flimsy as the plantation thing is) have them and I think they make the game more interesting.
@@wombat4191 Joseph Stalin: May use the Chistka Partiynykh Ryadov project in any city to gain 100% loyalty at the cost of 50% of the city's population upon completion.
Stalin: Gets the Purge project Purges give -1 population when finished, and +2 loyalty a turn while being done. If an unused great person is present in the city, there is a chance they might get lost. +1 wildcard policy slot if the government type is Communist.
Firaxis absolutely trolling with buffs out of nowhere
You mentioned, a lot, that some gamemodes change placements, so i want to highlight two examples: Cleopatra and Jayavarman. Cleopatra's flood immunity becomes much more powerful with the Apocalypse gamemode enabled, because you're going to be getting floods more often, and they're going to always improve tiles. Jayavarman is already excellent, but with Secret Societies his power skyrockets due to Void Singers. Level 2 Voidsingers means that Aquaducts now add 1 Faith, and 0.2 Science, Gold, and Culture per pop in a city. This snowballs hard and fast.
Mali is also very busted on corporations game more
Putting Gaul and Georgia on the same tier is despicable
Boes: I’m taking a break from CIV, I’m burnt out.
Also Boes: Yeah I’m doing Qin all wonders build again, but H A R D E R
In all seriousness, glad that you’re taking care of yourself
As an extremely new Civ player, I'm very grateful for content like this. Considering the complexity and depth in the game, I figured stuff like this certainly existed but i stayed away for a little bit so i could try to teach myself the basics. I'm still not ready for Deity, I'm not even ready for lower difficulties but I'm enjoying the learning experience. I haven't finished the video thus far, but i just wanted to make a point to state my appreciation for such informative content. After this, I'm going to look up something that breaks down the different stages in the game and city planning and how to balance what you need to focus on for your wincon and what is required to simply progress forward. I find myself getting rather overwhelmed with what to do and end up losing my focus once i get past a certain point. If anyone has any video suggestions, i would greatly appreciate it. Anyways, thank you again for the awesome content
I'm kinda new to the game and only played on immortal, but have a lot of experience in civ 4&5 (and a friend who is very good explained the build orders to me). I was looking around to see how well my impressions lined up with what the community thinks, and the only thing that really surprised me is how low people place the Cree. From my experience so far, this is the best (or second best after Tokugawa) "fair" civ. I find it almost impossible to have a bad game with them and not massively outtech/outculture immortal AI by medieval era, after which it's smooth sailing to space or tourism win. By your criteria (i love the concept btw):
Early game
- both uniques unlocked right away and combined with the beefed up scout it's impossible to miss the first golden age
- beefed up scouts can deal with barbs nicely
- early trader + tile unlock jumpstarts production
- 2 good pantheons that AI doesn't seem to take ever
Late game
- doesn't have an insane late game unit/ability, but you are swimming in gold buying a district improvement every couple of turns and settling all over the place and tech super fast, so how bad can it be?
- doesn't need food, so can just spam mines and unique improvement for massive production or use your tons of gold to upgrade units if you want to conquer
Vesatility
- needs camps/pastures, but only in one city (doesn't have to be the capitol!)
- no bad start, no need for restarts or mods ever
- can settle cities absolutely anywhere, you could settle in 100% desert/tundra as long as there are some hills to work
- by mid game has good science, culture and production, so can go for any win con
Dependencies
- no major ones, doesn't need religion or specific wonders
- best pantheon is almost always available and there is a backup just in case
- needs first golden age, but it's super easy to get
Synergies
- this is the coolest part of this civ, everything it does synergises with everything else
- civ ability jumpstarts the leader ability
- the unique improvement complements the leader ability (basically a better mine) and is complemented by it (you are already settling for resources because you don't care about inner ring food/hammers)
- the scout ensures you can get the only thing you need early (adjacency culture from com hubs golden age) and that you are not disturbed by barbs while setting up the main trade city
- once the initial setup is done you can use the gold generated from the previous cities to jumpstart settling of the next ones (buying traders, markets and builders) and you can make a new city every 10-ish turns as long as your amenities allow it
Focus
- like I said before, everything in the kit is geared towards a singular focus of generating tons of food/hammers/gold from trade routes
- but once this is set up, you can go wherever you want (except religious)
So what am I missing here? How is this civ not infinitely better than Australia or Germans? I get that the broken civs like Yongle or Hamurabi are better, it was never a competition, but why isn't Cree considered one of the best non-broken civ and stuck in B-C tiers everywhere I look? Does diety AI expand so fast you never get 6+ cities without war?
It’s insane to put Mansa in D. If you worry that he could not found a religion, why are you so sure that Tamar can get Papal Primacy? More importantly, religion is not a must to Mail, faith is.
Yeah, religion doesn't matter that much. All that matters is getting the desert pantheon, and that's basically a guarantee with their early faith generation
I enjoy your tiers because it helps me play with leaders I normally wouldn’t consider! Ofc, I can only play on emperor 😅 love your vids brother!
Thank you for the content Boes, it couldn't have been an easy video to make, and I totally get why someone would get somewhat tired of any game, considering the passion and time you put into it! I really enjoy videos you put up, and I wish you a success in all your future goals!
Edit: After watching the whole video I have two thoughts.
1) I want more
2) Those power creeps
Problem is if you are someone like the kongo that has a non coastal near the equator bias, chances are you start right in the center of the map surrounded by enemies. Plains civ's might start somewhere very flat with no woods, desert civ's might start in a huge desert, while canada + russia actually want a lot tundra. I think its hard to beat a grasslands coastal bias, then you are not central, and have plains below you / tundra above you.
I just won a 4 player deity continents and islands, random leader as Gilgamesh! This is big because I used no game modes which are honestly a handicap. After playing as Gilgamesh I realized how literally after my warcarts became obsolete how vanilla of a civ he is. I couldn't even get +5 alliance combat strength because I was in a domination mood. Every other civ in comparison now I'm like oh I get why potato likes pound maker. His economy scales with gold/food in the late game unlike any late game scaling with Gilgamesh.
Shocked. SHOCKED. To see Mvemba hanging on to his D tier rating. Wu and Qin may not be good.... but they have holy sites. It's the funniest thing that Mvemba is the only civ that can run Feed the Word, Work Ethic, and Choral Music in the same city, and they're absolutely useless.
??? No, you’re thinking of India, which does benefit. Mvemba gets all bonuses from his majority religion, mainly the founder belief(+resource per pop/city worshipping the religion) which does help him. India can run all of those in one city, and it’s overpowered if you can get it(doable by conquering people which those religions with chandragupta).
You right I mixed the two up. Mvemba just sucks lol.@@georgezhang1573
The only reason to play Sejong over Seondeok is if you want to play really wide Korea for some reason. But I have no idea how big an empire you would need to get comparable value from his leader ability.
Also due to Seowons being gimped placed next to other districts, it makes them really vulnerable to spies.
@@remlapwastaken8857 True, but I don't think I have ever once caught an AI doing steal tech missions. They seem to have a bias for stealing funds, neutralizing governors, and recruiting partisans. I don't play multiplayer, but I'm pretty sure the spy meta there is to go after dams, industrial zones, and spaceports because those significantly slow down the player in multiplayer games.
You should try vampires with Dido. When you settle a new city, you can make it your capital and then send all the vampire castle yields to the new city. Just switch it to the next city as soon as it's founded.
holy shit thats an incredible idea
Mansa musa is all about starting luck and praying you don't get rushed. He has one of the weakest starts in the game but often snowballs into the strongest civ.
He's one of the most fun ways to play the game because his abilities force his play style.
By mid/late game, you're buying everything with money, army, buildings, districts, etc
I know this is the final final final final tier list but if you decided to make some tier lists for individual game modes I think people would be interested. I know I would. “civilization tier list for secret societies” for example. that would be awesome
4 hour deep dive, there it is, well done, that is a great finisher!
I find the "no Ship of the Line?" bit really relatable, especially because Frigates are excellent units to begin with and they were in Civ V, in which they were terrifying.
I know you wanna give Civ a break, but if you ever do want to scratch that itch, I would recommend the 'Steel and Thunder unit expansion' mod. It gives all civs at least one additional unique unit. China gets Chu ko nus, India gets Sepoys, Babylon their Bowman,... and England gets the Longbowman and Ship of the Line. Tried it on a classic Vicky game and it was very satisfying. And oh: enable battle animations for the SotL, you won't be disappointed
Hi Boes. Thank you for this tier list; it’s incredibly detailed and well done, the entire four hours flew by. Really appreciate it, especially given your circumstances. I do have some disagreements here and there, but I agree for the most part. I would like to point out two of the major ones I personally disagree with.
(I want to be nuanced with this but at the same time I don’t think should write an essay, so I’ll try to be brief).
Before that, a bit of my background for reference; I have about 3.5k hours into this game, and I would say half of that is deity and the other half competitive multiplayer). I also did burn out with civ just before the leader pass, so I haven’t played as much since September 2022, but the past few weeks I’m kinda getting back into it. Anyways, here goes:
Gaul: I understand the leader pass introduced powerhouses like Yongle and Age of Steam Vicky, but Gaul is incredibly broken, imo. His leader ability is actually insane with early game culture and for war. I personally think he is a contender for the strongest domination civ, alongside Babylon. Both can do the Man-At-Arms Rush reliably, which is an easy auto win on deity. Gaul does it a bit better thanks to his better early game (Gaesatae, and culture/land from units and mines) and his MAA are stronger due to his leader bonus, but Babylon is a bit more versatile and can snowball a bit harder. Either way, I’d put him as equal to Babylon. The major source of power creep imo is actually the Man-At-Arms(strongest unit in civ imo), and both Babylon and Gaul benefit greatly from it. I find Gaul a better domination civ than Colombia imo, so Gaul is at least high A tier if not S tier for me.
Mvemba: we both think he’s bad, so it might be weird to say I disagree on this. But I honestly have no idea how he isn’t alone in F tier. Kongo under Mvemba is single handedly the worst civ, imo. I think his leader ability is the worse ability in all of civilization history. I would not only rather play a vanilla civ, I would rather play a civ that said “negative 5% to all yields”. No access to holy sites is a killer, as holy sites are arguably the strongest district. No religion is like added salt to the wound. The unique neighborhood is completely useless, imo, and is far and away the worst unique district. The unique unit is alright, and is the best bonus Kongo has imo. I find Nkisi to be irrelevant 85% of the time, because it relies on relics. Like, sure, it makes your relics better, but how can you get relics reliably? Kandy isn’t reliable cause you can’t guarantee it being in the game, tribal villages are RNG, waiting for a religion to be spread, then building your Theatre Square/useless unique district, then maybe getting the martyr promotion (or having Yerevan), and maybe getting to use Martyr is too slow and not reliable. Maybe I am underestimating the extra great people points, but Kongo deserves to be alone in F tier imo. All other civs at least have a positive bonus over a vanilla civ. Literally the best thing Mvemba has going for him is the rainforest start bias. When Nzinga was announced I thought “even if she has no ability, this is gonna be a huge buff to Kongo”, so I half expected her to just have a downside like “negative 5% to all yields” or “can’t build campuses” and she’d still be better than Mvemba.
Speaking of Nzinga, I haven’t played her that much, but I’m still kinda surprised she’s almost S tier, I know an ability that basically says “+10% to all yields” (the downside usually isn’t relevant for a while) is strong, but I didn’t expect her to be ranked that highly. I do find her boring, though. A +10%, while strong, isn’t interesting imo.
Final note: I also think culture is incredible, but I’m actually debating which is stronger: culture or faith. What do you think? I’m interested in what you have to say. Both are the top 2 yields in my opinion. Anyways, didn’t mean to ramble on. Thanks to anyone reading this, and am
Interested in your thoughts.
Montezuma has a very good combat offensive strength bonus its 3 or 4 early game but as soon as you get to other continent by settle or conquest it ger completely crazy
YO BOES WAKE UP, NEW UPDATE DROPPED, WE NEED NEW TIER LIST
The much awaited tier list! You did it Boes! Thanks for the content and looking forward to where your channel goes next!
Final Tier List; two weeks later Civ gets a balance patch lol.
Caesar seems really strong after the patch.
Hope you consider doing the tier list by desired victory type in the future.
Big differences between Arabia and Russia is that Madrasa is unlocked much earlier and inspiration is much easier to trigger. And +10% science and culture is huge in pursuing science victory, especially when void singer is deactivated.
I would like to see an alternate Australia because it feels like they could go a whole different direction with someone else but the problem is Australia has like... 0 historical leaders aside from john. Hope they do something with him in civ 7.
Bob Hawke, drinking beer for victory.
Lol I’ve never seen Australia get into wars.
Arrrrrrrhhhhh, Bob was a legend. Easily as important in Oz history as Curtin.
@@JohnnoBogan what would be his leader ability then?
@@alfiehutchinson1030 Maybe builders getting extra charges (from his ACTU days) or extra movement speed on coastal raiders (Australia2 & Americas Cup).
see you again in civ7 boes, thank you for giving us so much content ;3
Lijia with faith is weird. you do not accumulate faith until the turn after you start it up. When you stop the project, like you said, it still gives you the faith because it is kind of catching up from the first turn you are on the project.
IMO, when ranking civs, any one who has unique district should not be lower than B. If the UD is direct victory-related (campus, theatre, holy site), the civ is at least A. That’s a consistent and huge advantage.
In that sense, Aztec should be S under whatever standards. 5 turns for any district is insane.
Yess another tierlist love these videos
Love to see Tamar is B-tier
Won some close games with her, she’d providing a challenge but still a good leader with unique abilities that i appreciate a lot
Its beyond idiotic for Boes to be putting hungary bellow tamar. Hungary is better in every single way if you play him with similar focus as her instead of full war.
He can be suzerain of all the city states in his region by the time shes just getting religious units out.
In culture victory he can suppress any competition by pillaging their culture sources and can build theater squares fast.
@@luisgutierrez8047 This. I can accept that Tamar is underrated, but it's hard to imagine a game where double suz bonuses are anywhere near worth the havoc that can be caused by cheaper levies and upgrades (with extra envoys, to boot).
Mali is able to spam setllers with monumentality like crazy, my personal A tier,
You yourself said that monumentality is op strat in civ 6 and mali is hella good at it
also religious settlement pantheon is the fastest in the game with them, easy second city, even more faith thanks to another city center bonus, easy monumentality in the next era, gg you have like 10 cities in no time
A tier both of them
The games also about CHOPPING. Which desert doesn't have. Russia is god tier because he can chop a 6+ holy site the turn he settles. Mali has to buy his way into 2 forests.
@@luisgutierrez8047 idk man I don't play on "only desert map" and I can have forest here and there in my Mali empire
@@mrbullmrbull but again. Having to spend gold to buy tiles and taking one more chop all adds up.
IMHO requiring a good spawn automatically puts you no higher than C-tier.
@@jyutzler I respect your opinion but mine is different
Civs like this always have spawn bias, so you shouldn't be worried about bad luck
Having recently played games with Tamar, Age of Steam Vicky, and Ptolemaic I feel vindicated. Thought they were all great, surprised that so many people say Georgia is terrible. She was so good at the envoy game, up there with the Kongo lady. Just go into monarchy and get those unique walls up for more influence points too
This. I just destroyed a game as Georgia/Tamar by going Monarchy and speeding to religious victory. Wonder rush and choose the religious tenet for wonders +4 faith. If you get a natural wonder even better.
On a TSL Huge map Sacred Path/Work Ethic Pedro is just absolutely insane, SSS.
For those unaware, it's the easiest win, any wincon, even beyond Dance of the Aurora Pete, because you mostly spawn alone with the whole of South America to yourself. Your North American neighbor will have a very barren continent with deserts, tundra and plains, so it becomes unlikely that they actually become a threat should they manage to overcome the central american city state buffer (which is irl lore ironic). I had Monty spawn there once and he got owned by all the city states (Mitla, Mexico, Cahokia). Pedro's biggest menace is barbarians, so some 3-5 archers and you're safe all early and midgame to focus on economics.
Spawning with Pantanal nearby means easy astrology and culture-religion rush, with some nearby faith luxury for easy pantheon rush. I always manage to get sacred path reliably and fully evangelize my beliefs first.
The Amazon+Andes gives insane adjacencies and appeal for some sweet preserves and national parks play, the easy spam of perfect +24 holy sites (+work ethic) are absurd. Easy perfect campuses, commercial hubs and theater squares means you'll fly early on. The early 24 work ethic holy sites makes short work of wonder spamming.
The secret sauce is the amazon fire loop that, if properly managed to avoid losing pops, can give +10 food/production tiles at least. Amazon cities are bizarrely good for the adjacencies.
Mid to late game conquests are great with Pedro. Have a port+industrial zone+holy site city with Venetian Arsenal and spam Minas Geraes fleets and armadas, and then carriers for the bombers. Get a panama canal city and you can safely bombard everyone with MG's 3 range and early power comparable to units 2 eras beyond. Culture isn't a problem so you'll just have an easy, safe conquering of anything coastal as soon as you hit nationalism, and it only gets worse when bombers+carriers show up. On TSL, navies are busted and Pedro has, hands down, the best naval unit, and probably the best unique unit overall if it weren't for the fact that it's a naval one.
Going Voidsingers further boosts the insanity. Big gold, science, culture, production, food. What else would you need? The cheap amenities districts are very welcome for the easy ecstatics, and the 20% gpps refund is also great. Not to forget, there's also an underwhelming Torres del Paine down south.
Pedro is that great on TSL. Flawless, and everything is tuned to 11. It's almost unfun, but an easy deity win even going vanilla.
Thank you for making this. I appreciate the time and effort. Cheers my man!
Finally got through this incredible video just in time for Firaxis to ruin your life lol. To be fair, I think Wu is the only one that goes up a tier with buffs and probably still just to C tier.
Gilgamesh and that one russian guy were the only ones i played up until i got the anthology pack. He can just take any cities up until round 25 give or take some rounds depending what ai you vs. it just gives you a crazy headstart. If you play diety though, yeah just don’t try it
Some times I ask myself a question: what if that map didnt have any hills?
Babylon cannot rush man at arms, acropolys and seowon useless, menelick and gaul quites the game, you never had seen terracefarms.
Or another question: map dosnt have any citystates?
My boy Matias my girl Tamara going to cry, Pericles throws himself to the nearest sea, and only Frederick would say: i dont care
Hammurabi can circumvent the lack of hills by buying the right Great Scientist. Or ignore iron and win the early war with crossbows and horsemen. That's the thing about Babylon. There are like 7 broken strategies, not a single one.
Kupe: meh
I loved playing Qin China. He’s the only guy who helps me survive in Zombies mode
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Looking forward to your new stuff!
Really great overview and good considerations. Not exactly agreeing on all points, but in general it is a great assessment.
Couldn't figure out whether you pronounce Hardråde (Hardrawde, with the Å) correctly though (as you expressly wished to do), but if you go into Crusader Kings 3, I'm sure I get the chance to provide input on Scandinavian name pronounciations 😅
Black Queen Catherine is at least a B for domination win, even against the AI. She is all about the timing push with guard imperial and the spy games she can play can be more than just a diplomatic visiblity bonus, she can tear an opponent apart with spies breaking dams and neighbbourhoods and causing all sorts of chaos when you get a spy that is a governor hunter, that you go from city to city taking out. All the while she is pushing hard with the powerful army supported at home by the chateau's gold and culture. Going full war with Generals in the timign push is key, which requires a strong encampment/commercial or harbor/campus setup at home. Once she takes out 1 neighbbour and collects the needed experience for their army to progress the snowball and get highly promoted melee units upgraded into guards for the next push, the win is pretty much secured. Great domination civ!
Appreciate the time it took to make this list! I haven't had the time to properly play every civ yet but I have played almost all of them at least once. My favorites and the ones I go back to most often are Peter, Ludwig, Tokugawa and Bull Moose Teddy.
I don’t know if anyone has said this already, but age of empire victorias ‘s free naval units aren’t necessarily melee. I was playing a game with her a few weeks ago and when I unlocked sea dogs building the dockyards started giving me those. I’m not sure if it also gives naval ranged but they can definitely also give naval raider units
It's just the strongest naval unit, so it could be frigates or battleships or whatever
Just wanted to drop a like, looks like you put a lot of thought and work into this. I was actually hoping for a bit more description of each civ/leader because I am still very new to the game and not familiar with any of them. (So maybe listening to this on my drive to and from work was possibly also a poor idea, haha.) It was cool to see how the pros view these things. So far, I mostly pick something that sounds interesting, and THEN the AI rolls one of the civs you rank really high. And then I get crushed like a bug. So right now I am using your tier list to remove leaders from my pool of potential enemies!
You can also go work Ethic with Khmer and get an easy science victory too.
3:46:40 I read that Julius Caesar used to have an additional line in his skill before his release that adds "+1 Wildcard policy slot when you conquer another capital city" --- had that remained in addition to his current kit, how would you rank him higher?
EDIT: Thanks, Boes! As of Aug 29 2023, there's a new update that may change this list again lol
yes absolutely, maybe not like incredibly higher but definitely slightly
4 M****FING HOURS!!! Thats what I call in depth holy moly!
I guess the launch time for the next 2 weeks in planned out now lol
Boes - you're incredible. Thanks a million for helping me enjoy the game so much more than I would have done otherwise. Your style is great.
I personally feel Steam Vicky is better than Peter because every map script, and therefor every city you may found or capture, will have strategic resources. Her bonus is so reliable in way that tundra isn't.
Also think something should be said for Pachacuti's ability to work preserve enhanced mountain tiles which can become pretty bonkers.
One more thing to add about Mapuche I noticed: if you want Chemamulls you have to be really careful where you chop woods, add mines, quarries, IZs. It made me feel like Magnus is not a good pick and ultimately like I must chop less.
Hey, great video. But I'm today years old when I realized that there are different narrations depending on what era you load the game into. I've had the game since release. I have almost 5000 hours into it and... I never noticed that until today.
Love you boes!!! Really wanna see what kind of content you're preparing for us
Mbenza's neighbourhood can be built, because they do not remove a jungle beneath, so you use them to increase campus adjecency to +4 for rationalism card (2 Mbanzas on 2 jungle tiles adjecent to campus give both adjecency bonus, from jungle and from districts). Kongo is one of the civs to benefit from double rationalism bonus (from pop and adjecency). IMO enough to rise to C tier, but lower C ;) Old guy's apostles are for sacrifice to relics or to convert units for free - here is why Mbanzas are useful, to spawn rebels for free units
I mostly agree with your assessment of Ramses. That being said, him with Vizier Saladin and Theology is an absolute monster because Arabia's worship buildings just become entirely free. You can also stack him really well with industrial city states even if you don't suz them because the bonus production +Iteru +policy cards like Corvée can add another 30-50% on each production point, so that extra culture is coming far more consistently than you think.
He still sits in C-Tier, but I think he straddles B-tier far more than you think
New drinking game - take a shot every time boes says power creep, but do it from the parking lot of an emergency room.
I wish I could give a 4 hour video more than one like to compensate you for the effort. Loved the video, thanks!
Wonderful chat at the start!
Mali in general is just so off, I've won a religious victory in like 120ish turns with Mansa Musa (and that's the most tedious and grindy victory condition honestly). You settle on the edge of desert, so you get both workable tiles and a good bonus. You can easily get +3 faith per turn turn 1 in your capital this way, meaning turn 9 pantheon at the latest, which is almost always desert folklore. You do have to sacrifice a bit to ensure that you get your religion, but once you do, the rest is honestly history. A slower start, but as long as you sacrifice a bit to ensure your religion, it's guaranteed even at deity.
A bit strange to hear about how bad Mvemba's district and unique unit are and then to hear Nzinga with the same district/unit and a relatively neutral leader ability get put in A tier. Granted it's much better than Mvemba's leader ability but putting her ahead of all those B tier Civs on Kongo's civ ability alone seems odd.
I've yet to have a game where Tomyris or Vietnam declined my friendship when met. Vietnam usually also accepts later even when unfriendly.
Conversely, I've also had Vietnam refuse friendship when friendly. A backstab usually comes the next couple of turns.
I also don't super mind the power creep to be honest, mostly because it's not like previous civs have gotten worse. You can still play old civs and have fun with them, but you can also play Yongle, be absolutely broken, and have a ton of fun. Even the bad ones like Unifier Qin, they have a unique ability that allows super interesting and unique strategies. Sure, it would probably be better on a different civ, but I'm ok with them adding more varieties of civs to the game. It probably screws with multiplayer a bit though where everyone is playing super meta strategies and has to play only the best civs if they want to win.
The thing that I find not so great about power creep is when the AI gets one of the new superpowers. Then I get steamrolled right into the ground, and it's time to start a new game.
Sad to see Norway go to C. I’m no pro player but even on prince difficulty I’m always lagging behind in science and culture even while utilizing the coastal raiding. However I always go dance of the aurora/work ethic/site adjacency bonus policies/crusade and get good production and to pump out berserkers and sail with my Viking longships and raid and destroy other civs pretty easily and I think it is one of the most fun and interesting ways to play. This is from a casual perspective I’m no pro player and the highest difficulty I’ve played is king lmao
Bull Moose is someone I can argue an A tier would be fair just because even if they screw you on land you can usually make good use by rushing bronze working and chopping all of your jungle and you also have Preserves, Theater Squares, Entertainment Complexes and Holy Sites to improve appeal as well! Granted all of that is pretty slow so I can definitely respect the B ranking. I'd probably argue Gran Columbia is S tier but yet again, I remember the +4 Llaneros and not wanting to upgrade them because they were literally better than helicopters lol! I didn't even realize Maya got that builder buff, I'd probably put them in B and maybe even A, gonna have to go play them! Amazing work man!
I like your point about how bad Mvemba is, even when you can spread religion with apostles from TSs and MBs most of the religious bonuses apply to holy sites lol
Doubly RNG-dependent. First your opponents have to spread useful religions to you (thanks for the warrior monks!). Second you have to get useful apostles (martyr or heathen). Buffs to relics are not good enough.
Are just gonna ignore how bs the thumbnail is? Ludwig and John Curtin in S; Abe, YONGLE, french Eleanor, Philip and Ba Trieu in A? Come on Boes.
Also, I see literaly no comments so far that are being aggressive and saying "OH, how dare you say this, as So and So said this..."💀
nevertheless, love the content, and the in depth explanation is really nice and useful. Good job Boes
I’m new to civ and wanted to watch a vanilla China play thru and my RUclips is showing the most recent vid was 1 year ago. Idk what happened with RUclips but man am I frustrated. Mostly because this game isn’t dead and idk why the only videos that are showing for me are years old but I’m glad i ended up watching this to hear that you are gonna make a china playthru
I see Montezuma and it screams Domination not science . His unique building is to fight against war wariness and his main ability is the combat strength that begs you to take everything.
Amazing job bro. Thank you so much.
If unifier China could convert city state units instead it would be op
Mali is the type of civ you bust out the little mod to fix the game design issues that are just unacceptable and make the civ unenjoyable to play and therefore probably rarely played at all. Like you mention, the biggest issue with Mali is lack of production to build holysite and its infrastructure for a religion and therefore missing out on a religion and being unable to get going. The best solve for this IMO, is to use a mod that allows more religions per game to be founded. (many options, can also use religions expanded mod). This turns Mali into a slow building early civ that becomes a monster late, and reliably so since you can just slowly get to your religion without worry of missing out. Its the most fun way to play Mali the way it feels it was designed to be.
Gutaria + Nan Madol was one of the best combinations i expirienced in civ 6
15:14 Abraham Lincoln
50% bonus to theater production. All entertainment bonuses 50% higher. 10% chance leader will die and the game auto-lose upon completion of a theater district.
1:11:39 you can see the moment where his heart rips in two trying not to say it
omg leaders got updated POOR BOES
It's only wu zetian, abe, new harald, and julius that got buffs but ABE BUFFS???? oml