Not surprised they all chose DLC civs, this should be interesting 
| Poll: Which DLC Civ is the Strongest? You do not have permission to vote in this poll. |
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| Persia | 3 | 20.00% | |
| Macedon | 2 | 13.33% | |
| Australia | 8 | 53.33% | |
| Poland | 2 | 13.33% | |
| Total | 15 vote(s) | 100% | |
| * You voted for this item. | [Show Results] |
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[NO PLAYERS] Which DLC Civ is Most OP? (PBEM6 Lurking Thread)
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I just briefly want to talk about the layer cake of bad faction design that is Macedon. Specifically their LA and UA (I think their UB and UUs are actually all pretty cool).
To World's End So, am I right to understand that you don't incur War Weariness period? That's actually pretty strong. Although, it feels so weird that you set up the entire game mechanic of war weariness and just say, "oh this civ, this one ignores it completely." This is one of their few abilities that has a use for your civ outside of conquering opposing cities though. As for all your units healing when you capture a city with a world wonder....  I can see you potentially getting a very slick play out of this. But man, so niche and so unlikely. It just feels like SP flavor. Hellenistic Fusion It's just basically Assyria's ability from Civ5 2.0. It's neat, really strong, but it's a 'win harder' button. Let's say your running away with things and conquering endless cities like Ichabod in PBEM3, then this doesn't help you win, it just helps you win harder. More than likely, you get no or marginal use of it. That fact that you basically already need to be winning to really utilize it means it is never going to have a large impact on the game. What they've essentially done is created a bimodal civ. Macedon either uses its UUs to conquer the world in a classical era rush (in which case, its unique abilities don't help it win, they help it win harder), or they don't and none of their kit gets put to use. If you fail the classical rush, the only really useful things here are Basilikoi and the 'No WW' benefit for a drawn out defensive war situation. There's just very little for you to fall back on. Moreover, the fact that it has a Swordsman AND a Horseman replacement is anti-synergistic as well. Each one requires a different policy card, so players are going to likely only prioritize one. In that regard, Hetairoi is the clear winner. Hypaspists are just a little too niche I think, and are just generally overshadowed by the strength of the Companion Cavalry. I just really hate civs like Macedon or Scythia that are essentially predicated on one trick, they're like the Rho Indi Syndicate in Eclipse or like old LeBlanc in League of Legends. They're fun to play, but they're annoying to play against and aren't good for game health.
I wish they had given Macedon some kind of peaceful ability, rather than making the whole civ dependent on winning an early rush and snowballing from there. I haven't given much thought to what an appropriate flavorful ability would be, but something like Alexander's city-state affinity could work, or the designers could draw inspiration from any of the post-Alexander Hellenistic empires.
Still, this game should be pretty explosive pretty quick. I think Macedon plays well to Archduke's strengths, and I'm interested to see what he manages with them.
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I voted Australia, obviously having more hammers without doing anything at all is OP as hell, both from the improvement and the DOW bonus.
Hounorable mention to Poland though, that Hussar is crazy strong when you unlock it, nothing counters it effectively before Cav in Industrial.
Quick initial thoughts:
Given TheArchduke's play style, he should do very well with Macedon and we will see him conquer his neighbor early. I voted for Persia and think they could play very well as a conqueror without occupation penalties and extra movement but not sure how well Alhambram will fair without the OP Russian Cossacks or if he starts next to TheArchduke. Australia is one of my favorite civs and if left alone in the beginning, could come out on top with its awesome bonuses to districts but might but might not be enough to over come Persia or Macedon in early war. I do love Poland's UU but am not sure how they will fair, given the competition. (November 17th, 2017, 11:12)Chevalier Mal Fet Wrote: I wish they had given Macedon some kind of peaceful ability, rather than making the whole civ dependent on winning an early rush and snowballing from there. I haven't given much thought to what an appropriate flavorful ability would be, but something like Alexander's city-state affinity could work, or the designers could draw inspiration from any of the post-Alexander Hellenistic empires. I totally agree with you, if ever there was a civ that catered to Archduke's strengths as a player this is it  No though, I don't know why they didn't go the Civ5 route of giving Alexander a CS-centric ability, my best guess is that they didn't want to mimic Pericles's ability too much. Still though, it's easy to imagine a better ability for them. Instead of Hellenistic Fusion, they get: Hellenic League +2 points towards Envoys each turn (Scales up with +1 per era) PLUS Receive 2 City-State quests per city-state at a time (can only complete one) OR City-State Quests Reset when you finish the previous one, not when you move to the next era. There, simple, flavorful, and it gives Macedon more to do in a game than conquer or the world or fail miserably. It also creates a meaningful level of interaction between Macedon and other civs besides war/notwar. It creates tension between civs like Macedon that want to get all the CS allies they can, and those who want to conquer them. It also creates another level of counter play versus Macedon. @Brick - If the mod happens, I strongly suggest replacing Macedon's Hellenic Fusion with something akin to this.
Regarding Persia.
I actually think this Civ is about 95% of the way to being a balanced civ. Satrapies are just really neat, and encourage a unique playstyle of emphasizing domestic trade routes throughout the game and building up a high quality road network.  Pairidaeza are cool. A tile improvement that produces gold and culture meshes well with Persia's general flavor, and I think anything that encourages smart district placement and forethought it a solid addition to the game. No complaints here. The Immortal might be a little too strong (30 Melee Strength and 25 Ranged Strength), but I'll hold off until I actually see it in action. It's a melee unit that overcomes the greatest weakness of melee units - being kited by archers. It is still vulnerable to cavalry however, and I like how unique it is, so I'll give it a pass. Then there is Fall of Babylon. +2 Movements for the first 10 turns after declaring a surprise war No penalties to yields in occupied cities The second part is interesting and strong, but I think okay. It's the +2 movement that is the issue. It's not that you can't counter this ability. As players have already pointed out, the optimal thing to do is just declare war on Persia before they can on you. However, the counter to that is for Persia to declare war on an unrelated third party to get the boost. The end result is likely going to be: everyone meets Persia, declares war on them, and stays at war for the rest of the game. Without constant fighting, WW won't accumulate, so the only downside will be the loss of a trade partner. The net effect is to reduce the ways in which the Persia player and others can interact. It's not fun for them, or anyone else. As strong as movement is in Civ6 MP, the issue here is not the movement in and of itself. The issue is that its linked to declaring a surprise war. In Civ5, Persia was one of the strongest civs, because they had a similar ability of extra combat movement. However, in that game it was linked to golden ages. Because there are not golden ages in this game, they decided to link it to declaring a Surprise War. What if we just brought golden ages back? Persia's unique thing would be the ability to burn Great People to start a golden age, a ten turn period when every gold producing tile produces one more gold, and during which all military units get +2 movement. They'll probably get 2-4 Great People each game, and it creates an interesting trade-off (Do I use this GP to war with my neighbor, or strengthen my economy in some way?). It creates counter-play for opponents (I'd better contest them for this GP so they don't get to start a GA and declare war on me). It means that they'll be able to utilize the bonus less often, and it will have to be carefully thought out and planned for. They might even just want to sit on a GP as a immediate shot in the arm if they get declared on and need to redeploy units quickly. As things stand though, the ability is likely going to create just plain weird play interactions when it could have been easily implemented in a more creative and balanced fashion.
November 19th, 2017, 14:43
(This post was last modified: November 20th, 2017, 00:41 by oledavy.)
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 disaster of Macedon, 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 Land Down Under: Pastures Trigger a Culture Bomb Outback Station. Making Coast More Useful Land Down Under: +3 Housing in Coastal Cities, Yields from Campuses, CH's, HS's, TD's are +1 on charming tiles and +3 on breathtaking tiles. Digger. So, I don't like how overboard they went on giving every new civ a tile-stealing ability. However, I really like Australia's being triggered by pastures. First off, despite their ability to steal tiles from enemies, I think of this, Poland, and Khmer's abilities more as economic than aggressive. They're a way to efficiently get a bunch more tiles into your city radius without buying them, and introduce another factor in thinking about where you put districts (Do I put this HS where it has a better adjacency bonus, or where it brings those truffles into my borders). While they're likely to be used to steal tiles from a neighbor occasionally, especially on Pangaea maps, I see them more being used for grabbing unclaimed tiles. Australia's is unique in that instead of asking you to consider where to put the district after founding the city, you need to consider where you put the city relative to the pasturable resources. I think this is pretty cool actually, a given empire will probably have 3-5 pasture resources in this, so Australia will accumulate a large livestock inland empire that they can augment with Outback stations. I think those are pretty marginal by the way, and not really worth talking about, but flavorful nonetheless. With so much else good in their kit, it's good that Australia has a lackluster UI and UU. As far as making coast more useful, the extra housing is really strong, but feels very in line with a lot of other abilities. With the exception of souped up campuses next to mountain ranges, the main benefit of Land Down Under's district yield bonus is going to be on coastal tiles. The idea here clearly is settle coastal cities, and use those coastal tiles for districts. The best thing here is the campuses, and I expect to see Australia as the game's premier early science civ. However, a couple reasons this may not be as strong as you think: 1. Breathtaking tiles are not that common, you can find them to be sure, but they're not handed out like candy. 2. The biggest issue with coastal cities is the lack of land tiles, look at some of my PBEM4 cities, like Io. Every tile you district is usually one you take away from a citizen. You get a powerful district, but instead of working a 1/4 mine that citizen is now working a 1/0/1 coastal tile. Planting these super awesome districts is often going to lower the production of coastal cities, the yield they most lack. Moreover, despite the changes in the last patch, you're still not going to have a ton of districts, especially early, unless you're Japan or you have a UD. So, benefits will be further limited by that. My point being, despite how strong their districts look on the box, I think that contrary to many other civ's abilities, there is a more pronounced opportunity cost with utilizing Land Down Under. You get great coastal cities with strong districts, but at the end of the day they're still coastal cities. What will break the game is when Australia starts next to a mountain range and gets a 4 mountain adjacency campus for 7 science early  So, let's talk about possibly the worst-named ability in Civ6 yet. Citadel of Civilization - +100% Production if declared war on in the last 10 turns, or if a city has been liberated in the last 20 turns. I like what they're trying to do here, and I think there are some potentially interesting aspects of this UA, but I think in general its the worst designed aspect of their kit. So, obviously you don't want to get into a war with Australia you can't win. They're going to be very strong builders and tempting to DoW on, but you don't want to declare on them unless you think you can basically take them out of the running in a single go. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as it doesn't make them invincible, and encourages other players to play around it. A well-executed short campaign (think Archduke vs. Singaboy in PBEM4 or me vs Archduke [The third time] in PBEM2), will be over before the production bonus will have been of much use. This ability doesn't help you in the event of a short decisive war, so it doesn't mean you can skimp on military, but it does discourage your opponents from waging limited or flippant wars with you. I don't think this is bad per se. Moreover, that city liberation aspect is really intriguing. This makes occupied cities a HUGE point of strategic interest for Australia. Think, for example, if I had had this ability in PBEM4. Suddenly, the cities of western Norway become critical targets I can use to boost my economy, and I would have likely liberated them to Japper007 instead of capturing them. I really like this because it introduces another level of consideration to the playing field - Do I want to keep this cities I captured from Persia next to Australia, or am I just giving them an easy way to proc their ability? This changes the stakes in wars for Australia, and gives them a different point of focus than just "take an opponent's capital, etc." I also do love how this synergizes with the relatively meh Digger. So, needless to say, I think both these scenarios are kind of neat, and introduce some interesting ways of thinking about the game. The potential problem here is cheese. Suppose there is a civ who is out of the game, but is friendly with Australia and wants to help them win. They just declare war on Australia, make peace, and do it again ad nauseum. No diplo doesn't even completely eliminate the risk of this happening, as there will always be civs going into the late game who stand little chance of winning and just might want to play spoiler. I'm also not entirely sure why they didn't make it +100% on military units, as that would be more in line with the flavor they are going for, and wouldn't open up the economic growth cheese potential to the same degree that the ability currently does. I don't have a good fix for this situation. I think Citadel of Civilization is fine in theory, but is going to break down a bit versus human players. Overall, I really like how flavorful and coherent Australia's kit is. It gives Australia a unique way to interact with the map and a variety of ways to approach the game. Especially compared to other DLC civs, I think Australia is well-rounded. I just feel like in general with these DLC civs, they packed a little too much into each ability, and that for the base game civs to be on the same tier, many of them need slight buffs. Moreover, until changes are made, Citadel of Civilization could give us some problems in MP. |
