I agree with the sentiment that banning 19 civs is a bit much, though to Archduke's list if there was one I'd add it'd be Babylon.
In terms of finalizing a ban list or figuring out the best way to adjust balance between the civs it may very take a few games to see where things get out of hand. In some cases on paper a civ might look problematic but isn't, while in others it might not look too bad on paper and then someone comes along and completely breaks things (*cough*Alhambram*cough*Hungary*).
Babylon has to be on any reasonable banned list. The kinds of complete insanity you can pull off with them is unstoppable in the hands of a good player with a plan.
What actually is the Vietnamese strength bonus when fighting on features? Their kit looks pretty reasonable at a glance, but if that's +10 or something in the ballpark, then lol no.
Other:
-Venetian Arsenal
-Religious Settlements Pantheon
-Nan Madol
-No pillaging City-State tiles except for farms and fishing boats. (Pillage-farming)
-Work Ethic (ether this or Khmer)
Banned on random map and for duel: Sumer (war cart too strong if not given enough time)
Banned on non-worldbuilder maps: Maori (starts on ocean)
---
I agree with thrawn and maya is too much with free builder.
Work ethic would now cause Khmer to be banned.
Maya should get around 4 builders or so. Even if it increases the "builder cost count" thing it's still worth 3 or so and not getting it at the start lowers it to 2. 2 workers=1 settler. So this is a "free" religious settlements pantheon on top of an OKAY civ. That's why it got on my banhammer.
Other:
-Venetian Arsenal
-Religious Settlements Pantheon
-Nan Madol
-No pillaging City-State tiles except for farms and fishing boats.
-Work Ethic
-Using Shift-Enter to force end-turn (you can use this to bank production for a turn).
Banned on random map and for duel: Sumer
Banned on non-worldbuilder maps: Maori
---
The list is getting pretty long.
Edit: Not worth own post but Shift-Enter has been patched. ):
Other:
-Venetian Arsenal
-Religious Settlements Pantheon
-Nan Madol
-No pillaging City-State tiles except for farms and fishing boats.
-Work Ethic
-Using DoF/Peace Treaties to blockade people with multiple units. *new*
-Making tactical DoW. *new*
Banned on random map and for duel: Sumer
Banned on non-worldbuilder maps: Maori
---
I feel that people would always want to ban tactical DoWs, so I'm changing my list to reflect that. If they go Austrila is fine. If you trust the tactical DoW you also trust people not to blockade with multiple units because it's even more obvious. It's not as OP as other stuff on this list but it's dumb and shouldn't be in the game; like Maori & Sumer.
I also read someone whining in their thread about cutting off resources, by queuing units you don't intend to finsh, to gain access to cheaper units and then upgrading them. But that's dumb because limestone wall-production overflow was much worse, because it gave you so much more, and also not intended. 2 gold is about equal to one hammer.
I wonder how a Hungry, Colombia, Scythia, Babylon and Maya OP civ PBEM would go. Sumer is only OP on unedited maps where you can spawn super-close or duels. Babylon takes a little bit to get going because they are science civ. Maya isn't science but they are a "development" civ that are also a bit slow. I think that Colombia is best because stacking is really bad on the logarithmic scale that Civ6 uses for combat. But a real game would be determined on who gets the first kill on another civ because you get to steal ALL their production once you kill them due to no corruption system in this game. The three attacking civs would be about equal in a real game.
Babylon and Sumeria are broken mostly because of unstoppable early rushes, although at least for Sumeria that rushing ability is obsolete when their unit is and the rest of their kit is pretty bleh. I don't think they would be very fun additions even to an "OP civ" game.
The rest of these civs just have absurdly strong but smoother bonuses that can kinda counter each other enough to be entertaining. Maya seems the weakest, probably, but their military advantage being defensively oriented does help them here.
Well it looks like Civ6 won't get updates so here's the final list:
mjw's list
Always banned:
Civs:
-Hungry
-Colombia
-Scythia
-Babylon
-Maya
Other:
-Venetian Arsenal
-Religious Settlements Pantheon
-Nan Madol
-Pillaging City-State tiles except for farms and fishing boats.
-Work Ethic
-Using DoF/Peace Treaties to blockade people with multiple units.
-Making tactical DoW.
Banned on random map and for duel: Sumer
Banned on non-worldbuilder maps: Maori
Teamer Bans:
-Using world congress to break DoF, via the victim's teammate.
-Trading cities to non-team members expect for peace.
-Team members may trade cities that got captured when they get eligible. You have until the end of your next turn to do it.
-Losing settlers to barbs to get around the city-gift rule.
Explanations:
The Civs
Most of the Civs are uber-tier rush civs. Babylon is actually a God-tier science civ but would play like an uber-rush civ because you want to win as quickly as possible. Sumer's war cart obsoletes so fast that it's only really bad on gimmick maps we don't care about. Uber-tier rush civs are very bad in civ6 because of its expansion-limiting system rewarding conquest a lot. You also have enough time to dogpile civs that don't rely on rushing, so you have counterplay to everyone else.
This leaves only Maori and Maya. Maori ruins non-worldbuilder maps. Maya was a good civ until they added the free worker. This bonus IMHO is about equal to a free settler at the start of the game and that's even better than Religious Settlements because you get it at the start of the game, it doesn't inflate the price of settlers and you get an extra belief for not having to pick Religious Settlements.
Next on the chopping block is Khmer. They would be too much if Work Ethic was still in the game. Being OP isn't that big of a deal if you can react to it because of the dogpiles. Rushing on the start blocks that, which is why my banned lists punishes them so much. The only other civs are Maya for free settler and Maori because of map LOL.
CMF says he thinks my banned list bans too many things but I don't see where I could cut anything for civs.
Teamers
City-gifting=bad. This is my rule to get around it. Civ6 not using maintenance is really bad too because you get situations where a crappy civ wants to feed a good Civ cites. The end of your next turn rule is so you don't have to do annoying amenities math. Again, I don't see what I could cut here.
The other rule is just fixing an oversite by Firaxis.
Others
-Venetian Arsenal (too much expect for a land-only map and it doesn't make sense to unban it for a gimmick map)
-Religious Settlements Pantheon (too much)
-Nan Madol (too much. You could kill, or take control of it yourself, it but it's the only city-state like this so it would distort the game around it without anyone doing anything. At least for civs you have to pick them! It also could spawn in a location where only one player could reach it so you would have to kill the player to stop it.)
-Pillaging City-State tiles except for farms and fishing boats. (Pillage-farming would give way too much without a rule. I don't think the issue is abusing city-states: it's the repair-function not costing anything. If you think the problem is the city-state the "unless you intend to capture" rule is better. I disagree because you are supposed to abuse city-states. Free cities because you have to build a military anyway is already pretty bad.)
-Work Ethic (this is just a little too much. What makes it easy for me is that it would cause a Russia/Khmer ban because they are great civs and would get this for free, because they are the only civs that build holy sites, as this is the best belief by far.)
-Using DoF/Peace Treaties to blockade people with multiple units. (This is dumb and shouldn't be in the game. Make different civs be able to share the same Hex Firaxis! If you trust no tactical DoW, you trust people with this. You can deny guilt with a single unit.)
-Making tactical DoW. (I don't like this rule because I don't trust people to act in good faith. I would remove this and blockades and then add Australia instead. Australia would be too much without this because you really want to block other players from conquest in civ6.)
I don't see anything that could get cut expect for Work Ethic and multi-unit blockades. I feel that Work Ethic just gets over the finish line and blockades don't fit in if you trust people with DoWs. The only other thing that you would want changing is the pillage-farming rule, if you want to count that: only 3/18 or 1/6 is questionable.
Stuff not Banned
-We could discuss civs forever and as I said before Khmer would be next up.
-City-occupation causes much sadness. I cannot think of anything clever through.
-DoF first-strike rule. Not needed because you can just hide in your territory and rely on them getting kicked out when they DoW. You might have to give a city or two for naval warfare but unless they kill your navy the occupation penalty would give it back unless it's a crappy broader city.
-The only other thing that still comes to mind, that was thought of me or anyone else, was Woden's complaint about queuing up units you don't intend to finish to get access to lower-tier units. You can then delete the queue to be able to upgrade them. I really don't get this because limestone-wall overflow gave so much more stuff, extremely similar and no-one complained. Maybe because production was so crappy at that time? Not good enough through...
Around half the banned list is caused by TOO MUCH!!! Even higher if you count "Teamers" as a single rule because it's all city-gifting expect for rule that really doesn't count because it's just an obvious oversite by Firaxis.
Edit: Added spoiler because it was getting too long.
