Boes, Have you considered doing a meme game where you can only make tile improvements from city states? So you turn on all the tile only ones and see what you can make happen with that chaos? I think also civ specific improvements from whoever you roll should also be allowed.
Auckland is so good in naval games that it basically guarantees the win. I do agree that if you play more landlocked games it loses effectiveness, so A tier seems fair for it. I definitely wouldn't put it below that.
I'd argue Auckland is easily S-tier due to its unique characteristics that it can transform losing starting positions where everything is terrible into auto-wins. I don't think any other city state has the same ability to single-handedly guarantee a win. I think Auckland can be compared to Yerevan, in that it is situationally so extremely overpowered that it can guarantee you the win. I'd argue Auckland is able to do this much more convincingly than Yerevan, and can do this for essentially any win condition, and hence is quite a lot stronger than Yerevan.
I agree, when you're unable to use a leader/civ ability its awful just for the opportunity cost of it. When you aren't able to use Auckland it's fine, as you can just prioritise another city state. I don't know any other cs where I'd go to war over their liberation like Auckland when it's really cooking, when you can use it its just brilliant
Nihongs are ridiculously good. They have no strategic resource cost and scale with your encampment buildings which means they get their combat bonus before new units are unlocked. The barracks is unlocked at bronze working the swordsman is unlocked at iron working. That means you can have 40 strength Nihongs before you can have 35 strength swordsmens. You can also build the armory before you can unlock musketmen and build the military accedmy before you can build infantry.
But in that first scenario where is the faith income to buy them? By the time you've got maybe a couple of holy sites and relic for good measure, are you going to be able to faith buy Nihangs before the AI gets 45 strength MAA? And which domination civs have a naturally good envoy game for you to buy them whenever? Yeah Hungary, but there it's cheaper to just levy the units with them Later on, maybe if you can faith pillage, but I'd argue using that faith to buy great people is usually more consistent
Not to mention, this entire hypothetical scenario requires you to find, suze, and keep suzerain on them super early game. it’s cool when/if it works out but 99% of the time there’s other stuff I want to do with my faith
To try and play devil's advocate, that is true for many city states in the game, so that is not a massive point against it However, I do strongly agree with your opinion that yh, typically I have better uses for my faith (monumentality, apostles, great people, grand master's chapel, Valetta)
@@johnhawkins5314 oh for sure, but with Lahore and Nihangs, there’s a larger commitment/opportunity cost since not only do you need to invest in the city state, but you also need to be in a position where you’re at least partially going domination, rushing very specific techs, AND you’re spending one of your most precious resources (faith) on getting their max value, where a lot of other city states only have one specific opportunity cost, and not a bunch of intertwined ones like Lahore
@@johnhawkins5314 Getting the faith for a pre iron working nihong might be a bit tough unless your playing someone like mali that starts with bonus faith and can get an early pantheon that gives even more faith but you should easily get enough faith to buy them while they're still stronger then swordsmen. Also some people are cursed and never have strategic resources. Quill 18 never has iron.
This has gotten much better with each iteration. One innovation that Ursa Ryan introduced was splitting the tier list into situational and general categories. Compare Auckland (situationally great) to Ayutthaya (generally great). I can't verify this, but I think Hong Kong stacks with Yongle. (As if Yongle weren't already OP enough.) Yerevan is also broken with Convert Heathens. Being able to farm barb units is quite handy.
Agree with your S tier city states... maybe i´d add Akkad, as a fan of Dom games is one of my favorite city state. May i suggest your next tier list? Religious beliefs... or Unique units... or policy cards... or great peoples.
I think part of why percentage modifiers are so good in 6 is how rare they are. Most modifiers in 6 are flat (+1 science per library, +4 production to every city in 6 tiles) so when you can get some real good scaling, you gotta take it. Previous civ games had most of their modifiers as percentage-based and I'm still kinda sad they changed that.
Excuse me, Lahore in F? Nihangs have much more potential than you make them seem to have IMO, and I will state why: 1. While they do cost faith, they are much cheaper than the equivalent melee units they would replace. Faith is pretty easy to build up through pillaging. 2. They have often higher base strength than the basic equivalent unit (Warrior, Swordsman and Line Infantry). +5 is nothing to scoff at when comnbined with other bonusses. 3. They require zero strategic recources, which means that you can use those for things like Knights or, even better, Siege equipment like Bombards and Artillery 4. They have a fixed maintenance of 2 Gold, which makes them easy to mass in mid-game 5. Unlike Warrior Monks, they benefit from both exp bonusses from encampment buildings and Great Generals. 6. They upgrade automatically when you build the next tier Encampment building once, no Gold cost or upgrade action required, and no need for things like Professional Army to do it more efficiently. I would not use them as my core army, but they are an excellent auxilliary force since you can just pillage a ton of Faith first and then turn that into a wave of fresh, low cost troops that are far easier to keep up to date. They will eventually drop off as an offensive force, but they still have a pretty big window of opportunity. And while an Encampment as a requirement is early investment, it's always good to have at least one in order to train military engineers anyway, so it's not THAT big of an investment. Anyway, rant over, good vid, but I had to step in for ma boi Lahore
Bro, imagine you had a Zulu game with Industrial Nihang armies. 92 base combat strength up to 102? Sheesh! Man that would be fun one-shoting everything.
Given how powerful faith can be in a game I would think Valletta punches well above its weight class as a civ6 city state. Its a great way to colonize a new island or continent from turn you settle it Monument, Granary, Watermill, Walls and a defending unit with grand magisters temple all in the same turn its founded is pretty dope.
Including a description of the bonus on screen when you talk about a city state would be so helpful, I don't remember most of the bonuses of the top of my head and it would be nice to read what it does while you talk about it.
Boes: I have an amenity bias Also Boes: Cahokia is B-tier The first Cahokia Mound in a city gives that city +1 amenity, +1 from the second Mound after Natural History. and +2 Housing after Cultural Heritage. They are absolutely busted
I think Cahokia should be A, you can eventually get +2 amenities and housing for every city in your empire without having to work them plus you can stack them in petra flat desert. You have to be really starved for land to not have a use for the mounds. 2 Builders and 6 tiles with cahokia is at least as good as Zanzibar.
yeah, 1 Amenity and 1 housing from a tile you don't have to work is pretty nice, and the thing is you can even plan your city building around Cahokia mounds a bit so they get that extra food. 1 Food and 3 gold on a tile improvement is nothing to sneeze at, especially when 2 of those tile improvements can invalidate the need for housing and amenity districts.
I can't wait for Boes to make a new city-state tier list and put Lahore in the S tier because they are a unit that is generated with only 200 faith (Effectively 100 production), which can be gathered through pillaging (and has a promotion that gives it faith based on 50% of the enemy combat strength), and a line infantry (which is functionally the tech equivalent at max ) has 5 less attack, requires no upgrade cost, and costs 360 production. Its Kasumi all over again
You're sleeping on Vatican City, it's incredible for Crusade. (Which is perfectly on theme.) Retire an old general/admiral or two and convert an entire front! It's especially funny with GWAMs, since you can drop multiple charges with a single great person in quick succession. Especially if it's in a theater square you just captured, you can just... move all the existing great works out.
Vatican City works well with generals, admirals, wandering scientists/merchants (use on a non-local tile), and a few odd engineers. It helps to fix your religion early, can decimate an opponent's religion when used offensively, and the AI doesn't regard it the same way as a missionary/Apostle being used in their territory. PLUS, that doesn't change how you'll use the Great People, mostly. In cultural games (or with GWAM-heavy civs), it wrecks religious civs. It's high C/low B.
I learned first hand how good multipliers are with the new Victoria Age of Steam leader. Had a terrible start on deity and thought the game would go nowhere. Fast forward to basically every one of my cities having +200 production my strongest having 500 and I wasn't even really planning it too hard. The extra production you get from industrial zones is just god tier. I could easily have gotten 1000+ in retrospect. And Hong Kong basically gave me an instant science victory once I had the necessary techs unlocked.
I'd rate Kabul way higher, yes you have to be initiating the battle but Akkad is literally the same way because you can't attack walls without initiating. There are some really strong unit promotions in this game and promotions also heal your units which is huge. You can stack it with the exp bonuses from encampment buildings and get super highly promoted units. I'd also have Akkad higher since taking cities is how you win a domination game but Kabul would be at least B tier, probably low A
I am from Kazakhstan and I want cities from my country be in game as cs. Almaty was in civ5 you know. I can create a mod to add it in civ6 but what suzerein bonus should it have..
I agree with you mostly, although i do value Cardiff a little more than you do. If nothing else, it allows you to get earlier power in your harbor cities. I also might put Chinguetti into S tier. You can easily get 2 to 3 hundred faith just from trade routes and faith has a lot of value in multiple victory types. I agree on Kandy as well. One other possible negative to Kandy, you need to have a space to put the relic! Can't say how many times I have found a natural wonder and lost the relic because I didn't have a temple ready yet. Also, if you use Suze'ing to supplement your exploration, you can't even control when you discover the wonder.
I had one game where I wished I had Preslav. I wasn't really going for domination, but my neighbor wouldn't peace me and kept attacking, so I got annoyed and made a minimal attack force. I couldn't get through the terrain as it had mountain/lake choke points and difficult terrain, and he was higher tech than me by a bit. But his back cities were on the coast, and I had some leftover frigates. Those ripped through his three back cities, which all had encampments with armories. Loyalty was a problem for a little bit, had to plug in a couple of cards to give me time to capture the rest of his cities that I couldn't get to with my navy. So yeah, having Preslav would have saved me a couple card slots... for like 10 turns.... in one game out of hundreds... Yup, F tier. Just maaaaybe not so bad it's off the tier list?
If you settle on a strategic ressource you never improved, you still get Hattusa's bonus so you can have an income of +5 towards that strategic ressource quite easily
big agree on the percentage modifier point, was playing some casual multiplayer with friends and got so much culture everyone else’s graph looked like a flat line after the victory by combining percentage bonuses.
I think bologna works pretty good with domination, as it scales by how many districts you have, and on a dom game you'll have a lot of them, if nothing else it can help you pivot into another victory type later.
One build that I think fez really fits into is crusade. In pure faith games civ doesnt really incentivize spreading your religion abroad because the founder beliefs are all...not good. But if youre in a faith dom game, the extra science is pretty substantial and can help you hit a good unit or upgrade timing. Midgame science isnt about the science victory, its about hitting a timing on a crucial tech. Also sad about alcazars because I do like appeal games ... but I get it if theyre not strong. At least you can do sphinx alcazars with ptolemaic cleo 😅
Armagh d tier sadge :( Monasteries gives 2 housing when you reach mid game and it can be built on hills where the Cahokia Mounds and Mahaviharas couldn't. It has no business being in the same tier as Alcazars and Trading Domes.
@@boesthius Screenshotted in case it is needed. You are now mortally bound to this contract. Your soul will be released when either the challenge is completed or Civ VII releases
Only thing I'd note is maybe adding an asterisk to some city states depending on what game mode(s) you're playing with. I feel like Valetta moves up a tier easily when old god obelisks are factored in, and doesn't hong kong help with recruiting/discovering heroes? Maybe even Preslav can be useful during dramatic ages (though I doubt it)
i've used Yerevan for stacking culture and science through all my science/culture victories.. cross culture (+1 science for every 4 followers) or world church (+1 culture for each 4 followers) combine that with Yerevan and you'll get at least +100 extra science or cutlery (depending on your religion) 😊
Tried playing as Basil in a sensible spawn. Yet always get bitch slapped by the barbs. Except for a particular spawn where Akkad was the first CS I've met, and I was the first to meet them in the game. Although I have like 2 horses somewhere in the east, my melee and Herc carried me all of the way until I got my Tagmas. Then I went warmongering like a madman.
Some statistics for CS types as a whole: Militaristic ends up in low C-high D, with a 2.625 overall Religious and Industrial are solid Bees, sharing an average of 4 Mercantile get a high C, scoring 3.285 Cultural are a high B and Scientific a low B, with 4.25 and 3.75 respectivelly If only Preslav gets a buff where fully loyal cities get something like 7% in all yields, then Militaristic would be around 3.2-3.4, making for a generally balanced distribution. Or you know, while you're at it buff NIhangs too, given Lahore's exceptional fighting game scene.
I am confused when boes is talking about Akkad he mentions doing a lot of damage with a battering ram but I thought the whole point of Akkad was to not need a battering ram
If you ever do this again, for the love of all that is good and holy put a screenshot of the city's suzerain effects on the right side of the screen while you're talking about each one
I agree with most of what you've put and your reasoning is thorough and well thought out. I would disagree with Vatican City only because I've managed to save my religion with their religion spread on many occasions. Especially when it comes to coastal games and Admirals if you build harbors early enough. Just chuck a bunch in the direction you're attacking, boom, boom, boom and all of a sudden crusade it for an easy win.
Why are Johannesburg and Brussels in the same Tier? Next time you get Johannesburg, check your production from resources. I've been checking consistently ever since you rated them low in your last tier list, and on average, they add about 10% production. Slightly less in the late game as you get massive production from industrial zones and trade routes, but the early game is more important anyway. It's significantly more for brand new cities that have nothing to their name besides a new builder. Hey! all of a sudden, they have acceptable production with Johannesburg and can make their first district in much less time (or the first building if you're chopping it out anyway). Brussels though? 15% for only wonders? What percentage of your production are you putting towards wonders? Maybe 20% tops? Johannesburg is consistently game changing for every single civilization and every single victory type, easiest S tier out there.
Totally understand not doing it this way but...Potato's "by victory condition" system makes more sense. Also, the "fun" vs. "pure power" factor. Akkad is crappy for anything but pure domination, hugely powerful and somewhat fun. Fez is not great for anything but Religious Victories, is pretty meh overall but a lot of fun. That said, it'd be a nice 6 hour video to do all of that with all of the extra civs and extra city states.
Average warrior monks fan: (Georgia) Average nihang enjoyer: not Boes 😠 I should say, that in my 1000 hours of playing, just once Lahore has been close and early enough in the game and I was playing Mansa Musa. I conquered my dear neighbour Persia before it managed to researche Swordsmen. They are cool. You have to challenge yourself and win domination using nihangs only. Spoiler: it will be times easier than by warrior monks
You ranked Auckland down because situational, but rank Yerevan upthere when its only good for religious victory which is one of the least used.. This hurt, yeah Yerevan is pretty good but Auckland below A makes 0 sense...
Ok, it may not be the BEST City State, but my favourite will ALWAYS be Valletta... Being able to pollute the world and pray in flood barriers is amazing
Great mod. Been playing with it for months and still finding new City-States. I had no idea there was one that gave Food adjacency to Holy Sites, just like Jayavarman
tbh, I just prefer to mess around with Civ 6 using the in-game map editor mod and build one, singular, perfectly-optimized, highly-aesthetic city and see how I can stack up to other civs. Favorite so far was playing France using Alcazar, Chateaus, and City parks with Golden Gate Bridge to get stupid yields. Alcazar is pretty potent if the city is attractive, as it happens. Also taught me something about how stupidly hard it is to get a culture victory as a 1-city player. (also, Vesuvius really is a Faustian bargain with 1-city lmfao) So naturally, I'm Granada biased. Can't use most of the other improvement city-states because the improvements just don't jive with the aesthetic. Tsk tsk tsk. Civ 6 is kinda hard to enjoy, to me, when playing it normally. The AI is too easy to bully and too inept at war. Unless you play in some memey way, the game is a stomp usually. For reference, I usually play between King or Immortal.
If you're using Liang anyways Vesuvius shouldn't be that much of a problem, should it? Reinforced Materials solves that issue. Of course if you want to win a culture victory with only 1 City you'd get Pingala for the 25% Tourism boost on your Great Works which conflicts with the City Park aesthetic plan.
@@nigerianprinceajani In retrospect, if I'd taken the Casa de Contaraction, I could've probably switched to PIngala for his later tourism bonus much sooner (although the wonder is useless, it still provides buffs for culture/chateaus), but owing to how many points you have to invest into Liang to get everything I wanted, it took me until around near modern to make that switch. That's true about Reinforced Materials, although you're still going to have several dozens of turns until you get there where Vesuvius will be erupting without any means of self-defense. I simply got unlucky with two classical-era cataclysmic eruptions.
So recently, I was suzerian of Vatican City. I had managed to have a tier 2 alliance with my neighbor. I began converting their cities with great people and poof, no more alliance. Vatican City can be dangerous to have. Also, I would put Anshan higher and La Venta lower.
Basically if you want to play around Kandy you should stop exploring the second you meet them, not even till you suz them, but until you have relic slots for them... Which needless to say is a pretty garbage playstyle.
1:01:02 So, your trade route cannot be plundered on water, not because Mogadishu is protecting you, it because the Somalian pirates just rob others? The joke is subtle here.😂
Nihangs are 99% of the time complete dogshit, but that 1% of the time (Mid game Mali, Theocracy, rushed Military Science, suz of both Lahore and Ngazargamu, max level Encampment in a city with a Suguba) is very fun
Hopefully this comment isn't too late: 1. thank you for the tier list, always an entertaining way to pass the day when i should be working... 2. Any thought on creating a pantheon or, even better, religious beliefs tier list. I haven't seen a belief tier list anywhere and I have been mulling over rankings, but would like a professionals takes 3. I always love your tier lists, cause they're usually close to normal distribution. However, this one seems a bit right tailed, I think that you may be rating a few of the city-states higher than they should actually be.
yeah it was very hard not to rate this very hard to the right because a lot of city states are just good in general, i think just maybe bumping a few points off of like the lower a-tier CS would have helped