[NO PLAYERS] Which DLC Civ is Most OP? (PBEM6 Lurking Thread)

[Japper007]

I want to posit by the way, that Australia may not be as strong as everyone is saying. I may be biased though, because compared to the total game design disasters of Macedon and Persia, Australia seems a lot more coherent and balanced. 

So in general, I think some of the better designed civs are ones that encourage you to place your cities and districts in a unique manner. Germany, Japan, England, Russia, they're all civs that encourage flavorful city placement (other continents for England, tundra for Russia), or unique district setups to maximize output (clustered districts for Japan, Hansas + CH's for Germany). They've tried really hard to build on Civ5's more unique Civ bonuses with the UAs in this game, to varying degrees of success, but the ones that encourage you to use terrain or districts in a way others can't are by the far the best imho. 

So, in this regard, I think Australia is really great. Their whole kit is designed around allowing them to make use of terrain others would find marginal - in this case, desert/plains and coast. 


Making Plains/Desert More Useful
Outback Station.

The problem isn't Outback Stations on plains/desert tiles. It's outback stations on grass flatland tiles, which bump up to 3/1 (that's the yield of most bonus resources!) and possibly more as Pasture resources are also very common in flatland grass areas. 

I agree that civs that are able to make excellent use of marginal terrain (like Russia or Indonesia) are cool. The problem with Australia though, is that they also do better than everyone else in what is already good terrain to begin with, not just make garbage dirt competitive.

[Dp101]

Yeah, IMO the thing that makes Australia strong as a civ is the ability to get production out of literally any terrain. Instead of having to just spam farms across flatground, which just gives you food to get more pop to work, well, more farms, when playing as Australia you can both get more food and more production from that same terrain, almost catch up to the yields of farms with enough pastures around, and then just explode in production once you reach Steam Power. That point also isn't that theoretical given that you not only can get amazing campuses, but if anyone tries to kill you along the way, you just get to double all that outback station production and make an army out of nowhere. I'm really not sure what weaknesses they have in their loadout, they even have a half-decent unit to go conquering with later.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Really interested to see how this game shakes out. I expect both Archduke and Alhambram to war relatively early with a vulnerable neighbor to exploit their civ bonuses, while Emperor and suboptimal will want to build a bit first.

So it looks like suboptimal borders Archduke to his north and Alhambram to the west, while Emperor K is on the opposite side of the sea. This means the two warmonger civs are opposite each other, bordering the two 'peaceful' civs. Well, I think that's bad news for our imperial friend, since neither one of his neighbors will want to attack Australia if they can help it.

[Quagma Blast]

The dynamics of Australia's and Persia's war abilities, and the way they interact with the diplomacy, will be interesting. I think there is a good chance Poland and Macedon will both declare perma-war on Persia as soon as they meet just to deny the surprise war bonus. On the other hand, Australia would be quite happy to get an out-of-the-blue wardec. So Alhambram's always going to have this ace up his sleeve to get an instant movement boost, at the cost of granting Suboptimal a big whack of extra production. Still, he may judge it worthwhile if he can get a decisive advantage and conquer 3-4 cities with it. (Sure, you got double production for 10 turns... I'll get double production, culture, and science for the rest of the game!)
...but, the timer on Australia's production boost doesn't stack, it resets. So, if Archduke is canny, he can respond to a Persian wardec on Australia by ganging up, enabling him to attack Australian cities without granting any more production to Suboptimal.

Poland's an interesting civ that's easy to overlook, but I fear it will not shine in this environment. They don't have any single thing you can point to and say "that's crazy" like you can with Persia's Fall of Babylon or Nubia's Pitati Archers, they just have a bunch of solid benefits.

Golden Liberty has two components.
First is the military->wildcard slot conversion. This is strong early and falls off as the game progresses. In the ancient era, you of course get to do all the two-economic slot things you wish you could as anybody else - Urban Planning + God King, Urban Planning + Ilkum - as well as play Greece's "early Strategos/Revelation" card. Once you hit Political Philosophy or the 6-slot governments it begins to fall off - you can almost always find a military card or two you don't mind running. Mostly it gives you the ability to sit in Autocracy or Monarchy without feeling bad about your economy.
Second is the culture bombs on Encampments and Forts. This is probably the closest to "holy shit" in their kit, especially on a Pangaea, but the Encampments take full time to build so for quite a while it's very telegraphed and it can't steal tiles further away than their city can work. You do have to be careful about settling close to their cities, or letting them settle close to yours, but if you can hit the 7-tile sweet-spot, or even the 6-tile "sure you can have two of my third ring tiles, I was probably never going to get them anyway" spot, there's much less to worry about. It does get much scarier once Military Engineers come into play and Poland can settle and insta-bomb you, and if they ever capture and hold a city of yours it can start wreaking havok.

Lithuanian Union does three religious things. Mostly it's a bit pointless, but there's one really nice trick in it that probably won't come into play in this game.
First, all relics generate +2 culture, +2 faith, +4 gold. This is nice if you can get a relic, but they're typically hard to come by. Pretty much it's goody huts (off here), Kandy (luck of the draw, both to get it and to suzerain it quickly), or Mont St. Michel/Yerevan and spam Apostles. But note that on that last one you still need to have your apostles die in religious combat, not get Condemn Heretic'd by a military unit. Very hard, unless someone else is actively playing the religious game.
Second, "Holy Sites have increased district adjacency bonuses". This wording is a bit unclear, so to put it another way, it's the same thing as Japan's Meiji Restoration, but only benefiting Holy Sites. This is pretty small, it probably works out to about +1 Faith per holy site, especially since you don't have Japan's cheap districts.
Third, if you steal a tile from someone else you convert their city. This is a minor benefit to the religion game, grabbing a few conversions on otherwise tough-to-crack nuts with production instead of faith. But the real beauty of this ability comes with the Crusade belief. +10 combat strength within the borders of any enemy city that follows your religion. The difficulty typically lies in actually being able to convert people, especially people with a religion of their own, which Lithuanian Union completely bypasses. This could be absolutely terrifying in the right circumstances. Sadly, Poland is unlikely to go on the offense in this environment.

The Sukiennice is a Market replacement. +4 Gold from internal trade routes that begin in this city, +2 production from external ones. Commercial Hubs go everywhere for the trade routes, so Sukis go everywhere eventually. This is a pretty solid economic benefit, like an early Triangular Trade that costs up-front production instead of a policy slot. Not a lot to say about it.

The Winged Hussar is an independent unique unit coming from the Mercenaries civic. 55 strength, can knock back when attacking, 250 production cost. Compare the Knight, which comes at 48 strength for 180p, but requires Iron and Horses. You can't upgrade into them, sometimes their knockback puts them in a bad tactical position, and there are definitely times when you'd prefer three knights to two hussars, but this is still a worthwhile unit that comes on a critical civic (half cost unit upgrades!).

[MJW (ya that one)]

diplo banned: Persia's ability is actually pretty bad because everyone will DoW you and that's the end of that.

diplo: Persia will be able to pick at least one ally and be able to sign peace with him and then DoW for the +2 movement. Not being able to trade luxes at the start and not being able to use the ability for final war hurts but it's still so broken that it doesn't matter. +2 movement for ten turns is even better than not having units magically teleport out after RoP breakage because Firaxis nuke roads to make attacks easier. It's also even better than on paper because everyone would want to be Persia's friend because the team with Persia always wins (I suspect that this would have happened with Statue of Zeus diplo was not banned before it was discovered how good it was). That's why I picked Persia over Australia.

Edit: If you don't count diplo like I do then there's still team games and SP.

[RefSteel]

I'm not entirely clear on some of these civs' mechanics. I assume that when you declare on a City State, it doesn't count as a Surprise War at least, but as Australia, can you declare on a civ that has suzerained a City State and get 10 turns of double production when the CS declares on you automatically? Or does it only apply to "real" civs? Similarly, if someone else conquers a CS near you, can you try to conquer it back, liberate it for a 20-turn boost, and then immediately turn around, declare war on it, and conquer it again for yourself?

[oledavy]

The problem isn't Outback Stations on plains/desert tiles. It's outback stations on grass flatland tiles, which bump up to 3/1 (that's the yield of most bonus resources!) and possibly more as Pasture resources are also very common in flatland grass areas. 

Point well taken, I'm perhaps exaggerating when I emphasize Australia's abilities making deserts/plains juicier. I will push back and say that Outback Stations are not available until Guilds though. For reference, I didn't finish Guilds until t134 in PBEM4 - and that was a fast-teching game. Now, we can knock off quite a few turns for a beeline, but that's still really late. I mean....

Yeah, IMO the thing that makes Australia strong as a civ is the ability to get production out of literally any terrain. Instead of having to just spam farms across flatground, which just gives you food to get more pop to work, well, more farms, when playing as Australia you can both get more food and more production from that same terrain, almost catch up to the yields of farms with enough pastures around, and then just explode in production once you reach Steam Power. 

...I didn't get Steam Power in PBEM4 until t141, and that was with a DEEP beeline. On non-water heavy maps, the tech is almost worthless, and I don't think even Australia would want to prioritize it that hard. For reference, I don't think anybody researched the tech in PBEM2. 

The issue is that these games are ending in the t170-t190 range (in the case of PBEM2 and PBEM4). That's not enough of a window to make good on a UI that comes at Guilds. Moreover, I feel like on Inland Sea and Pangaea maps, we're far more likely to see games like PBEM3 that are won with a classical era rush, rather than games that go to the industrial/modern eras.

We shall see though! I genuinely have no experience playing Australia and am really curious to see how they fare in an MP environment. I just would argue that the time frame for Outback Station makes it not as good as both of you are arguing. 

Moreover, note that suboptimal doesn't have any pasture resources near his capital at all. That's not too unusual. I doubt we'll see anyone get beyond 3-6 into their empire in the first 100 turns or so. 

Also, example of the opportunity cost of Land Down Under at play. 



The moment he chops even ONE of those forests adjacent to either breathtaking tile, it goes down to Charming. 
Yeah, if he builds a campus there and leaves those forests up he gets +4 in adjacency bonuses. But, at the cost of never chopping any of those forests...? Eesh. 

[oledavy]

The dynamics of Australia's and Persia's war abilities, and the way they interact with the diplomacy, will be interesting. I think there is a good chance Poland and Macedon will both declare perma-war on Persia as soon as they meet just to deny the surprise war bonus. On the other hand, Australia would be quite happy to get an out-of-the-blue wardec. So Alhambram's always going to have this ace up his sleeve to get an instant movement boost, at the cost of granting Suboptimal a big whack of extra production. Still, he may judge it worthwhile if he can get a decisive advantage and conquer 3-4 cities with it. (Sure, you got double production for 10 turns... I'll get double production, culture, and science for the rest of the game!)
...but, the timer on Australia's production boost doesn't stack, it resets. So, if Archduke is canny, he can respond to a Persian wardec on Australia by ganging up, enabling him to attack Australian cities without granting any more production to Suboptimal.

Poland's an interesting civ that's easy to overlook, but I fear it will not shine in this environment. They don't have any single thing you can point to and say "that's crazy" like you can with Persia's Fall of Babylon or Nubia's Pitati Archers, they just have a bunch of solid benefits.

Golden Liberty has two components.
First is the military->wildcard slot conversion. This is strong early and falls off as the game progresses. In the ancient era, you of course get to do all the two-economic slot things you wish you could as anybody else - Urban Planning + God King, Urban Planning + Ilkum - as well as play Greece's "early Strategos/Revelation" card. Once you hit Political Philosophy or the 6-slot governments it begins to fall off - you can almost always find a military card or two you don't mind running. Mostly it gives you the ability to sit in Autocracy or Monarchy without feeling  bad about your economy.
Second is the culture bombs on Encampments and Forts. This is probably the closest to "holy shit" in their kit, especially on a Pangaea, but the Encampments take full time to build so for quite a while it's very telegraphed and it can't steal tiles further away than their city can work. You do have to be careful about settling close to their cities, or letting them settle close to yours, but if you can hit the 7-tile sweet-spot, or even the 6-tile "sure you can have two of my third ring tiles, I was probably never going to get them anyway" spot, there's much less to worry about. It does get much scarier once Military Engineers come into play and Poland can settle and insta-bomb you, and if they ever capture and hold a city of yours it can start wreaking havok.

Lithuanian Union does three religious things. Mostly it's a bit pointless, but there's one really nice trick in it that probably won't come into play in this game.
First, all relics generate +2 culture, +2 faith, +4 gold. This is nice if you can get a relic, but they're typically hard to come by. Pretty much it's goody huts (off here), Kandy (luck of the draw, both to get it and to suzerain it quickly), or Mont St. Michel/Yerevan and spam Apostles. But note that on that last one you still need to have your apostles die in religious combat, not get Condemn Heretic'd by a military unit. Very hard, unless someone else is actively playing the religious game.
Second, "Holy Sites have increased district adjacency bonuses". This wording is a bit unclear, so to put it another way, it's the same thing as Japan's Meiji Restoration, but only benefiting Holy Sites. This is pretty small, it probably works out to about +1 Faith per holy site, especially since you don't have Japan's cheap districts.
Third, if you steal a tile from someone else you convert their city. This is a minor benefit to the religion game, grabbing a few conversions on otherwise tough-to-crack nuts with production instead of faith. But the real beauty of this ability comes with the Crusade belief. +10 combat strength within the borders of any enemy city that follows your religion. The difficulty typically lies in actually being able to convert people, especially people with a religion of their own, which Lithuanian Union completely bypasses. This could be absolutely terrifying in the right circumstances. Sadly, Poland is unlikely to go on the offense in this environment.

The Sukiennice is a Market replacement. +4 Gold from internal trade routes that begin in this city, +2 production from external ones. Commercial Hubs go everywhere for the trade routes, so Sukis go everywhere eventually. This is a pretty solid economic benefit, like an early Triangular Trade that costs up-front production instead of a policy slot. Not a lot to say about it.

The Winged Hussar is an independent unique unit coming from the Mercenaries civic. 55 strength, can knock back when attacking, 250 production cost. Compare the Knight, which comes at 48 strength for 180p, but requires Iron and Horses. You can't upgrade into them, sometimes their knockback puts them in a bad tactical position, and there are definitely times when you'd prefer three knights to two hussars, but this is still a worthwhile unit that comes on a critical civic (half cost unit upgrades!).

You beat me to discussing Poland! I'm so glad you did though, I didn't even think of the Crusade synergy 

I really don't know what they were going for with Poland though. It seems like a grab bag of mediocre to good abilities without much synergy. Every aspect of Lithuanian Union seems underwhelming. Double standard adjacency bonuses on HS's? pffft. Not even worth writing home about. 

The power spike seems to be hitting Military Engineering and using MEs to run amok building forts and grabbing tiles. This is still slightly hamstrung by the general weakness of MEs (they really need to be cheaper, have a policy card that boosts their production, or have more charges), but feels pretty strong still. I can see a Polish player becoming really annoying with this really fast. 

Since you can't upgrade into Winged Hussars, that does make them quite a bit weaker than they might have been. But, I would be remiss if I didn't emphasize just how huge and game-changing a 55 strength mounted unit at Mercenaries is. That is damn near unstoppable on the medieval battlefield. 3-4 of those could flatten an empire. I don't think it would necessarily be a bad idea to beeline mercenaries, save up forest chops, and bang out a few of them ASAP then go on a killing spree. I don't know how you get them out in a decent time frame without chopping/harvesting though. The production card for them is under Monarchy, which is on the opposite side of the tree from Mercenaries. 

Golden Liberty's slot conversion makes it worthless for Poland to run Classical Republic, but actually bearable to run Autocracy. I hope you aren't emphasizing districts early   I think it actually makes Autocracy basically the one right choice for Poland to maximize its usefulness. 

I would be remiss if I didn't say that Sukiennice is my favorite UB in the game. It sounds so fun, and introduces some great choices into the game (Do I run this TR from a new city that really needs the extra hammers or food, or increase my net profit by running from my established city with a Sukiennice?). Realistically, you're not building many of these, but it doesn't mean they aren't really useful. I can totally see someone leaning hard on trade routes as Poland and trying to maximize their income through Traders. 

I definitely think Poland is the worst (possibly barring the feast or famine Macedonians) of the civs here. Lots of interesting yet unrelated abilities that combine together to produce a whole that is less than the sum of its parts. I daresay Poland might be somewhat in line with the power level of the base game civs.

[oledavy]

You can see the borders for a militaristic or industrial city-state peeking out of the fog. Fog-gazing, still a thing in Civ 6

Also, he should definitely not plant on that forested hill. Waste of a forest and doesn't leverage the pasture culture bombs well. He should plant on that plains hill 2 NE of it. Gets Jade in the second ring for the likely first or second expand. Buy or culturally acquire the horses, then use a builder to pasture both ponies. There will still be a fresh water location to settle along the inland river to the northeast.

[shallow_thought]

Absolutely nothing personal against Suboptimal, but after only a handful of games of Civ VI SP I have granted Australia a permanent first to die status. Simply because of that bloody music . (Probably made worse because I have to play on duel/tiny maps until I can save up for a new computer).

OK, so you can turn that off, but the orange colour is vile too.