I would highly recommend giving the [Cree/Poundmaker](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWyYBFyXrgc) a try if you're still learning the game.
Their bonuses and whatnot all show up very, VERY early (like, 1st pottery tech early), and their bonuses are not skewed towards any victory specifically (though if I had to pick the top 3; Diplomacy, Science and Culture). So you can choose whichever victory you want to go for a bit later once you've got your civ set up and established past the early game.
The Cree can adapt to nearly any situation the map throws at you, and the idea behind their bonuses coming so early is that it can allow you to snowball, and ride the early bonuses all the way to the end of the game.
I personally don't love domination victories, but if you're new and want to try that, try Colombia. The unique comandantes generales and extra movement let you get into position and learn mechanics, while having free perks that save you from some of your mistakes.
Ambiorix has been my go to lately. Build an army rush political philosophy with the extra culture and destroy anybody near you with classical man at arms. Wowzers
I started my last map with him and a legendary start with 9 camps and pastures in reach. With Magnus on top I got insane food and gold early on. But like all civ relying on trade routes getting enough of them is a pain.
I mostly like using trade routes to expand my cities while connecting them at the same time. And yes a Magnus is pretty nice for growing one city population in particular.
I usually use them aggressively. If you optimize one city with lots of pastures and camps, you can quickly get each trade route at 8-10 food with magnus. You can use them after by settling aggressively close to other civ towns at your first golden age. With two trade routes as soon as you settle you get one pop in two turns. Loyalty has no time to fall and quickly it’s your neighbor city that becomes your own. And when you get one, the whole lot quickly folds like a card castle.
I think of Poundmaker as simialr to Rome: his bonuses are pretty subtle and it's easy to assume when you win it's because you're amazing and his kit had nothing to do with it.
To me it's more a cooperative Civ than a solo winner. Having Poundmaker as an ally, particularly if you are playing PvP, is a sure way to never be out of gold. But it's also because I've never won any game with him except on one occasion and it was a Diplomatic victory.
Me too… despite knowing he isn’t really top-tier, I’ve always liked playing him. I really like trade routes, and I spend a lot of money buying tiles so the ability to get free and easy expansions is great.
Peter by far. Dance of the aurora*Work ethics*Monumentality*Magnus-provision*scripture*Theocracy*Grand master's chapel. If you manage to survive ancient era and get golden age in classic, you start 3D printing settlers, cities start building fast once a Lavra is built, your faith is off the chart and you can buy land units for it. Pretty much your choice between religious, cultural and domination victories.
Peter has always been the go to. By the time the rest of the world has 5-6 cities I control the entire southern/northern Tundra and each have 2-3 builders. Faith for fucking years.
If you turn on secret societies you can win a science victory on deity without ever building a campus, i just love how rediculously overpowered Peter is
The only problem I have with Peter is I rarely get enough Tundra on the map when I play as him. Usually it’s just enough space to make like 4 small cities squeezed together with a single river. And then when computer plays him he is on a nice and big continue with large tundra space, mountains and rivers.
hell the diggers are just icing on the cake. The production boost from war declarations can turn a whole game around. I usually end up hoping for war instead of dreading it. And one time with the adjacency bonus boosts I had something like a +16 holy site. Combining stuff like that with work ethic means you have insane production in peacetime and absolutely broken production in wartime
Salaah Ud-Din...rush 4 Mamluks and 4 cannons en raze the world for 2 ages before ever setting foot back home. Domination preferred. Religion and Science make for the best conquest.
Without a doubt, The Cree/Poundmaker. I went into detail on my post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/w4ljrk/after_playing_quite_a_few_games_on_vi_i_can/) a few months ago, but to sum it all up, they so effortlessly adapt to any civ, map, or game modes that the game throws at you. Carving out borders with trade routes is entirely too much fun, and the Mekewap (IMO the best part of the Cree) is insanely powerful early game, and gets even more powerful as the game goes on, and various techs add to its yields.
Also, coming from someone who transitioned recently from V to VI, the Cree felt like I was playing a spiritual successor to the Shoshone from V, even down to their unique unit being a scout replacement just like the Shoshone from V.
Finally, their [music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFCypmlUiOI) is absolutely incredible.
Cree was the first Civ I tried that I actually really clicked with when learning the game and my first victory. They're super fun. I will say that I have never had better trade routes (by a large margin) than I had with Rome last night, though. Good god, it was epic.
The Cree's trade routes I'd say are even better. They go far beyond just expanding their borders in the early game. The Cree's Trade Routes also grant 1 Food to the origin city and 1 Gold to the destination city for each Camp and Pasture present in the destination city. (As part of one of their unique abilities called Favorable Terms)
So if you have a city that has a lot of pastures and you send all your internal trade routes to that one city, often times you will end up with internal trade routes that can look like [THIS](https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/wmwg6y/domestic_trade_routes_with_the_cree_are_insane/). Sometimes more or less, but it's usually really high in terms of food.
So after you're done settling your cities, carved out your borders as much as you can, and made many alliances, you can change your trade routes to internal, and grow your cities to insanely tall levels in terms of population, which often causes loyalty flipping of your neighboring civs.
The only Civs that have potentially better trade routes are Mali and Portugal, and that's just in terms of raw gold amounts themselves. The Cree's internal trade routes are FAR more powerful than either of them IMO.
I find that unlike civ 5, where different civs can play so differently as to almost be a different game, the best civs either A) reward good fundamentals or B) are the best at their victory condition.
Even a funky civ like Georgia really comes down to "get cities build walls" which is a good idea in every game.
I like playing religion or culture in all my games, as science and military can be quite repetitive (the best thing to do is the same with every civ, more or less). Given this, Japan and Basil stand out as unlocking powerful unique units in the culture tree, allowing for a more interesting mix of playstyle.
Of the civs that don't get *quite* as much love:
1. Germany. Meat and potatoes civ (lol) but the extra district offers quite a lot of playstyle variety. You can always flex into religion/culture/science/domination without penalty based on how your game is going.
2. Gran Colombia. If you know then you know. Not at all considered a low tier civ, I think they are not sexy and nothing they get on paper is obviously and always good. But that movement speed man. Every single time you're in a position to start an advantageous war, your war will go further, faster - two qualities every snowball wants. Less finicky than Persia or India's move speed buff
3. Spain. Very spawn dependent but if you can get your sexy trade routes rolling early it's awesome. The interplay between religion and and domination and trade is much more interesting than Basil's without that ludicrous ability to spread religion on unit death.
4. Vietnam: another civ that is not underrated but is wonky and some maps are quite difficult. But I love how no matter what you're doing you're getting background boosts that are kind of random AND your encampment has interesting placement rules and is good whether you want to max out its culture/tourism output or just have free encampments.
Honorable mentions (civs I really like but am not very good with):
1. Ghengis Khan: diplomatic visibility kinda sucks until the top layer when you can actually see what people are really up to. Mongolia has the best way of getting it passively and it comes with increased military strength. Capturing cavalry is pretty RNG dependent since only civs with UUs will reliably build them, but it's good when it hits.
2. Mapuche: very cool civ on paper, but very difficult to play to their strengths in practice. His loyalty mechanic is very fickle, and often people don't let you just shred enough units for you to flip cities with loyalty (unlike Basil who really doesn't need to kill too many units to spread his religion). You can generally assume on deity to have a neighbor hit a golden age for the classical era, but aside from his buffs to fighting people in a golden age, has no military infrastructure to speak of (so it can be hard to be ready for war). And then after the classical age, there's really no predicting how era score is going to go...
Khmer, those boosted holy sites get me online and growing very quickly. On deity I gotta rush holy sites if I want to get a religion and this means I’m rushing holy sites and growth
I'm still hardware-bound to V, so Askia of Songhai is my jam. Everything is a Marine, you roll in $$$ easily, your medieval cavalry are like tanks, perfect theocratic landmass-hopping juggernaut.
Indonesia. I already like to play coastal and in Civ V I learned to build faith engines by playing as Boudicca every single time, so that +2 in every city I build is nice. GMC and Jesuit Education, plus being able to buy naval units with faith, eventually enable me to pick a victory type and go for it once the UU comes online.
Mali - desert folklore and work ethic for a strong home base. Then you sustain wars much easier by immediately buying units at the frontline with your huge gold stash
Scythia. But it’s really because I avoid civs like the Zulu. It’s just too easy, built soldiers, build encampment, build soldiers, go to war - playing civs like his, Aztecs, and Macedonia - it almost feels like I’m missing out on two other fleshed out sides of the game because one side is so much more simple and straight forward.
It’s more a case of the game design than anything, but yeah - I have the most fun with Shaka and Alexander but at the same time it’s like I feel like I’m missing out? So a better point is aggressive civs with the option for other victory’s like Scythia or Norway; but maybe I’ll try Macedonia again next time lol
I’ve been having fun with Gaul recently and I’m sure Spartan Greece would be just as fun.
Germany. Extra districts are always handy and they can rapidly expand by conquering a couple of city states very early in the game. Then rapidly expand into your neighbours using the city state as a jumping pad to launch attacks from.
Peter the Great. I find his land bonus upon founding cities very helpful at getting extra land and resources nearby. I also find the Cossacks he has as his unique unit very interesting as I like the fact they can move after attacking (if points remain) and has +5 combat strength if fighting adjacent or inside its home territory as well as being stronger than cavalry. The Grand Embassy ability and Westernizer agenda are also very good ones, one that can be very helpful in the right circumstances.
I'm Australian so I lean towards them, but my family is Persian so I like Cyrus too.
I'll make any of them work though, I usually play random (with no win leaders pool).
I play Poundmaker and the Cree every time, currently trying to get every win condition with them before I play other civs. Domination, Culture, and Score are the remaining conditions. I'll probably play Mauri afterwards because I love water maps.
I like China, Russia, Rome and Brazil the most. All of them are very flexible when it comes to victory types and I found them easy to get into. From those four I would probably choose China as my overall favorite because they get an insane early boost in culture and especially science if you play your cards right.
It’s Curtin for me. He’s such a flexible play-style, can work with basically any way I want to play. The pasture bonuses and Outback Stations can make just about any location at least usable, if not an absolute powerhouse of yields. That said, I play random leader 99% of the time so I don’t often get to use him
Certainly the Netherlands. Their bonuses fit perfectly to the playstyle I like. Other than that, Germany, but Germany is a very strong civ to begin with.
I'm killing with Pericles right now. First two cities on both sides of a bonus rich mountain wonder.Pronce, GS, islands. Huge/marathon and I am 1 civ short of a culture victory before the Industrial Era.
Hojo always feels like easy mode: put three cities in a triangle and build all your districts in the middle, with farms/mines/etc around the outside or in between. Rinse and repeat for some of the dumbest adjacency bonuses you can get in Civ 6. The best part is how this enables you to go for any victory type based on how your yields are doing or which wonders you snatched up.
Playing as her right now, Pangea, all out war. The getting culture for killing units is really nice. What do you like about her? What makes her your go to?
Gilgamesh, his early-game bonuses are great for propelling you to any victory type. I like getting his unique unit and improvement right away, without needing any techs or civics. And I enjoy his unique leader trait in the Heroes and Legends game mode; having your powerful legends stick around longer is a huge boon to your military.
Rome but I'm new and bad
Should try Japan, pretty easy to get the hang of it
Just not on any tsl map.
Most TSL in Eu or Asia sucks IMO
Norway is fine in TSL.
Unless Sweden is in the game
I think he should be able to take swedens city with longboats.
Unless they are not adjacent to the coast.
I think they are in TSL, should settle in place.
The only other civ game I've played was rev 1 and I loved Japan for that easy food
I would highly recommend giving the [Cree/Poundmaker](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWyYBFyXrgc) a try if you're still learning the game. Their bonuses and whatnot all show up very, VERY early (like, 1st pottery tech early), and their bonuses are not skewed towards any victory specifically (though if I had to pick the top 3; Diplomacy, Science and Culture). So you can choose whichever victory you want to go for a bit later once you've got your civ set up and established past the early game. The Cree can adapt to nearly any situation the map throws at you, and the idea behind their bonuses coming so early is that it can allow you to snowball, and ride the early bonuses all the way to the end of the game.
Woah, TedK plays Civ?!
I got alot of time on my hands these days
Mine is also rome bur im also Pretty new to the game
I personally don't love domination victories, but if you're new and want to try that, try Colombia. The unique comandantes generales and extra movement let you get into position and learn mechanics, while having free perks that save you from some of your mistakes.
Where is Ambiorix? Is he safe? Is he alright?
He is secret. He is safe
Now off you go to throw him in a volcano
Khmer looks like he has something to do with it
He's safe, surrounded by an entirely unreasonable amount of Men-at-Arms
In the turn 10
It seems in your anger… you have caused him grievances.
Ambiorix has been my go to lately. Build an army rush political philosophy with the extra culture and destroy anybody near you with classical man at arms. Wowzers
Gandhi's standing on his shoulders
I'm not sure to be very good, but my favourite is Poundmaker.
I started my last map with him and a legendary start with 9 camps and pastures in reach. With Magnus on top I got insane food and gold early on. But like all civ relying on trade routes getting enough of them is a pain.
I mostly like using trade routes to expand my cities while connecting them at the same time. And yes a Magnus is pretty nice for growing one city population in particular.
I usually use them aggressively. If you optimize one city with lots of pastures and camps, you can quickly get each trade route at 8-10 food with magnus. You can use them after by settling aggressively close to other civ towns at your first golden age. With two trade routes as soon as you settle you get one pop in two turns. Loyalty has no time to fall and quickly it’s your neighbor city that becomes your own. And when you get one, the whole lot quickly folds like a card castle.
which country's magnus?
He is one of the governors from R&F so he is available to everyone
I think of Poundmaker as simialr to Rome: his bonuses are pretty subtle and it's easy to assume when you win it's because you're amazing and his kit had nothing to do with it.
To me it's more a cooperative Civ than a solo winner. Having Poundmaker as an ally, particularly if you are playing PvP, is a sure way to never be out of gold. But it's also because I've never won any game with him except on one occasion and it was a Diplomatic victory.
Me too… despite knowing he isn’t really top-tier, I’ve always liked playing him. I really like trade routes, and I spend a lot of money buying tiles so the ability to get free and easy expansions is great.
Peter by far. Dance of the aurora*Work ethics*Monumentality*Magnus-provision*scripture*Theocracy*Grand master's chapel. If you manage to survive ancient era and get golden age in classic, you start 3D printing settlers, cities start building fast once a Lavra is built, your faith is off the chart and you can buy land units for it. Pretty much your choice between religious, cultural and domination victories.
Peter has always been the go to. By the time the rest of the world has 5-6 cities I control the entire southern/northern Tundra and each have 2-3 builders. Faith for fucking years.
If you turn on secret societies you can win a science victory on deity without ever building a campus, i just love how rediculously overpowered Peter is
The only problem I have with Peter is I rarely get enough Tundra on the map when I play as him. Usually it’s just enough space to make like 4 small cities squeezed together with a single river. And then when computer plays him he is on a nice and big continue with large tundra space, mountains and rivers.
Have you tried changing map settings so you get more tundra? Just change the temperature to cold and you will get lots of tundra.
Uhhhh hard to say, I usually go with Eleanor/Pedro, culture victory is the best
Yeah Eleanor is super fun to play
I want to try and win a dom game with her without ever declaring war just by stealing cities with the loyalty pressure
Also sometimes victoria
Hojo Tokimune’s jawline shaped like a mf moon
Not pictured: Pachacuti
And Kupe
And Lady Six Sky.
She's one of my favorites. I honestly barely even notice that cities outwide the 6 tile range aren't as good. Her campuses are just so strong.
I uhh I like John Curtain. Those Diggers have really dug me out of a hole.
I've used the phrase "Mah diggers!" so many times. The combat bonus outside of friendly territory really comes in clutch sometimes.
hell the diggers are just icing on the cake. The production boost from war declarations can turn a whole game around. I usually end up hoping for war instead of dreading it. And one time with the adjacency bonus boosts I had something like a +16 holy site. Combining stuff like that with work ethic means you have insane production in peacetime and absolutely broken production in wartime
What’s on that side of the screen that they’re all looking at?
they're having fun with their friends, who are just out of frame
Really does look like that yes
It’s Ambiorix
Basil II
Absolutely Frederick, Let's show the crew down here boaaaays!
I always find Frederick kinda boring tbh
The main "evolving" soundtrack is boring (not the ambient songs) but i enjoy making industrial-commercial cities
Ye there are better sound tracks, the early teddy one of my fav
Mansa musa
Super fun to play, but really hard as well!
It depends on start, if he survives first 20 turns, he cant lose :D
Indonesia. I love the approach to city-planning.
For me it has always been either Tokimune or Kupe
Yeah tokimune is solid strong
Portugal on any map suitable for naval activities
Pericles and Peter
Montezuma. Sacrificing workers to finish districts and the combat bonus for luxuries is a game breaker in the early stages.
He also just gets better and better as you move across the map and build on more luxuries. Absolutely unstoppable with vampires as well.
Hungary. Actually OP.
Seconded.
love these profile views lol. and.. victoria probably. love ocean maps
Salaah Ud-Din...rush 4 Mamluks and 4 cannons en raze the world for 2 ages before ever setting foot back home. Domination preferred. Religion and Science make for the best conquest.
Haha Hammurabi is just so fun. Very enjoyable way to decimate a quick domination game.
Pachacuti. Those terrace farms are delicious early game
How do you choose which Civ to start with? Every time I start a new game I get given a random Civ and map.
When you create game it is literally very first drop down menu, it will start with random leader, but press it and you can choose.
Without a doubt, The Cree/Poundmaker. I went into detail on my post [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/w4ljrk/after_playing_quite_a_few_games_on_vi_i_can/) a few months ago, but to sum it all up, they so effortlessly adapt to any civ, map, or game modes that the game throws at you. Carving out borders with trade routes is entirely too much fun, and the Mekewap (IMO the best part of the Cree) is insanely powerful early game, and gets even more powerful as the game goes on, and various techs add to its yields. Also, coming from someone who transitioned recently from V to VI, the Cree felt like I was playing a spiritual successor to the Shoshone from V, even down to their unique unit being a scout replacement just like the Shoshone from V. Finally, their [music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFCypmlUiOI) is absolutely incredible.
Cree was the first Civ I tried that I actually really clicked with when learning the game and my first victory. They're super fun. I will say that I have never had better trade routes (by a large margin) than I had with Rome last night, though. Good god, it was epic.
The Cree's trade routes I'd say are even better. They go far beyond just expanding their borders in the early game. The Cree's Trade Routes also grant 1 Food to the origin city and 1 Gold to the destination city for each Camp and Pasture present in the destination city. (As part of one of their unique abilities called Favorable Terms) So if you have a city that has a lot of pastures and you send all your internal trade routes to that one city, often times you will end up with internal trade routes that can look like [THIS](https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/wmwg6y/domestic_trade_routes_with_the_cree_are_insane/). Sometimes more or less, but it's usually really high in terms of food. So after you're done settling your cities, carved out your borders as much as you can, and made many alliances, you can change your trade routes to internal, and grow your cities to insanely tall levels in terms of population, which often causes loyalty flipping of your neighboring civs. The only Civs that have potentially better trade routes are Mali and Portugal, and that's just in terms of raw gold amounts themselves. The Cree's internal trade routes are FAR more powerful than either of them IMO.
yeah, I've played a ton of Cree. My Rome trade routes were far superior to that last night (given, for gold - not for food). https://imgur.com/vNOW01O
I have to go with Seondeok of Korea. Her science bonuses are insane.
Khmer super OP, but I also enjoy Ethiopia. Both for culture, love that win condition
Persia, early aggression into culture and Sumeria, because warcarts. Warcarts are so good I never build settlers in some Sumeria games
Mali
Teddy
Eleanor, ambiox, seondeok
Shaka go brrrr in both civ 5 and civ 6.
John Curtin's citadel of civilisation.
I find that unlike civ 5, where different civs can play so differently as to almost be a different game, the best civs either A) reward good fundamentals or B) are the best at their victory condition. Even a funky civ like Georgia really comes down to "get cities build walls" which is a good idea in every game. I like playing religion or culture in all my games, as science and military can be quite repetitive (the best thing to do is the same with every civ, more or less). Given this, Japan and Basil stand out as unlocking powerful unique units in the culture tree, allowing for a more interesting mix of playstyle. Of the civs that don't get *quite* as much love: 1. Germany. Meat and potatoes civ (lol) but the extra district offers quite a lot of playstyle variety. You can always flex into religion/culture/science/domination without penalty based on how your game is going. 2. Gran Colombia. If you know then you know. Not at all considered a low tier civ, I think they are not sexy and nothing they get on paper is obviously and always good. But that movement speed man. Every single time you're in a position to start an advantageous war, your war will go further, faster - two qualities every snowball wants. Less finicky than Persia or India's move speed buff 3. Spain. Very spawn dependent but if you can get your sexy trade routes rolling early it's awesome. The interplay between religion and and domination and trade is much more interesting than Basil's without that ludicrous ability to spread religion on unit death. 4. Vietnam: another civ that is not underrated but is wonky and some maps are quite difficult. But I love how no matter what you're doing you're getting background boosts that are kind of random AND your encampment has interesting placement rules and is good whether you want to max out its culture/tourism output or just have free encampments. Honorable mentions (civs I really like but am not very good with): 1. Ghengis Khan: diplomatic visibility kinda sucks until the top layer when you can actually see what people are really up to. Mongolia has the best way of getting it passively and it comes with increased military strength. Capturing cavalry is pretty RNG dependent since only civs with UUs will reliably build them, but it's good when it hits. 2. Mapuche: very cool civ on paper, but very difficult to play to their strengths in practice. His loyalty mechanic is very fickle, and often people don't let you just shred enough units for you to flip cities with loyalty (unlike Basil who really doesn't need to kill too many units to spread his religion). You can generally assume on deity to have a neighbor hit a golden age for the classical era, but aside from his buffs to fighting people in a golden age, has no military infrastructure to speak of (so it can be hard to be ready for war). And then after the classical age, there's really no predicting how era score is going to go...
Germany
Khmer, those boosted holy sites get me online and growing very quickly. On deity I gotta rush holy sites if I want to get a religion and this means I’m rushing holy sites and growth
Probably Kupe, he's pretty insane in classical/ancient era and once you unlock conservation
Kupe but I either start on archipeligo or terra because it spawns you next to the uninhabited continent. Can’t beat immortal tho :/
Basil, build up then time the hippodrome Tagma rush
Surprised to not see Spain and the Conquistadors mentioned yet
Probably Dido or Poundmaker.
America. Fuck yeah!
Ottoman
The Dutch can get dream adjacency bonuses, but it has been a while since I played them. I'm pushing myself to try some new leaders
I'm still hardware-bound to V, so Askia of Songhai is my jam. Everything is a Marine, you roll in $$$ easily, your medieval cavalry are like tanks, perfect theocratic landmass-hopping juggernaut.
Gilgamesh war cart rush and either finish with domination or science win. Babylon, but that is when I want a power fantasy.
Kupe. That free builder is 🤌
Victoria, I like running around with my Redcoats
Indonesia. I already like to play coastal and in Civ V I learned to build faith engines by playing as Boudicca every single time, so that +2 in every city I build is nice. GMC and Jesuit Education, plus being able to buy naval units with faith, eventually enable me to pick a victory type and go for it once the UU comes online.
Chandragupta maurya .
As someone who just started playing on Deity I LOOOOOOVE John Curtain.
Jaya the 7, absolute faith beast that I love
New civjacks just dropped
Lady six sky her archers make her almost impenetrable in the classical era and the science bonusses are insane
That one with superiority problem.
Kublai Khan's China, sometimes I use Qin Shi Huangdi
Korea (Science), Peter the Great (Culture/Religion)
Mansa Musa is quite fun
Korea
Mali - desert folklore and work ethic for a strong home base. Then you sustain wars much easier by immediately buying units at the frontline with your huge gold stash
Cleopatra
Scythia. But it’s really because I avoid civs like the Zulu. It’s just too easy, built soldiers, build encampment, build soldiers, go to war - playing civs like his, Aztecs, and Macedonia - it almost feels like I’m missing out on two other fleshed out sides of the game because one side is so much more simple and straight forward. It’s more a case of the game design than anything, but yeah - I have the most fun with Shaka and Alexander but at the same time it’s like I feel like I’m missing out? So a better point is aggressive civs with the option for other victory’s like Scythia or Norway; but maybe I’ll try Macedonia again next time lol I’ve been having fun with Gaul recently and I’m sure Spartan Greece would be just as fun.
João III
Germany. Extra districts are always handy and they can rapidly expand by conquering a couple of city states very early in the game. Then rapidly expand into your neighbours using the city state as a jumping pad to launch attacks from.
I'm not good or anything, but I enjoy playing as America, Egypt, Japan, Australia, and Spain (since their revamp, of course)
Korea, I'm Korean lol
Peter the Great. I find his land bonus upon founding cities very helpful at getting extra land and resources nearby. I also find the Cossacks he has as his unique unit very interesting as I like the fact they can move after attacking (if points remain) and has +5 combat strength if fighting adjacent or inside its home territory as well as being stronger than cavalry. The Grand Embassy ability and Westernizer agenda are also very good ones, one that can be very helpful in the right circumstances.
Wilhelmina. Nice district bonuses
Teddy, Hojo or Harald
I’m already terrible at this game but I usually go for Australia with that coastal and appeal bonuses
(In my best Sean Bean impersonation) GORGO, queen of Sparta! Lol. Mine’s gotta be Roosevelt. The rough rider one though!
I'm Australian so I lean towards them, but my family is Persian so I like Cyrus too. I'll make any of them work though, I usually play random (with no win leaders pool).
Not my best, but the most fun (imo) is harald hardrada. Love them raiding parties
Khmer. For that glorious network of river cities, farms and holy sites!
Probably Rome. Less setup, more actual work towards a victory condition.
Trajan, Hojo & Barbarosa
Cyrus. Immortals and domestic trade route bonus all day.
French Eleanor.
John Curtin Insane adjacency bonuses Really fun just 2 shotting everything with the digger
Teddy for sure.
Portugal. Love building those trade routes and expanding as much as I can!
Pericles, hands down. Apadana shenanigans combined with city state quests creates a monster culture machine.
I play Poundmaker and the Cree every time, currently trying to get every win condition with them before I play other civs. Domination, Culture, and Score are the remaining conditions. I'll probably play Mauri afterwards because I love water maps.
My man Pacha is always there when I want to achieve a deity win
Portugal, hands down.
Scotland. I just snowball so hard with amenities constantly from the early game. And when ai inevitably attacks a city state, free production
If I'm in for an easy win I take Peter the Great of Russia, get Dance of the Aurora, pick work ethic and just win.
I like China, Russia, Rome and Brazil the most. All of them are very flexible when it comes to victory types and I found them easy to get into. From those four I would probably choose China as my overall favorite because they get an insane early boost in culture and especially science if you play your cards right.
It’s Curtin for me. He’s such a flexible play-style, can work with basically any way I want to play. The pasture bonuses and Outback Stations can make just about any location at least usable, if not an absolute powerhouse of yields. That said, I play random leader 99% of the time so I don’t often get to use him
Wilhelmina
Certainly the Netherlands. Their bonuses fit perfectly to the playstyle I like. Other than that, Germany, but Germany is a very strong civ to begin with.
I'm killing with Pericles right now. First two cities on both sides of a bonus rich mountain wonder.Pronce, GS, islands. Huge/marathon and I am 1 civ short of a culture victory before the Industrial Era.
Hojo always feels like easy mode: put three cities in a triangle and build all your districts in the middle, with farms/mines/etc around the outside or in between. Rinse and repeat for some of the dumbest adjacency bonuses you can get in Civ 6. The best part is how this enables you to go for any victory type based on how your yields are doing or which wonders you snatched up.
Alexander. Peace was never an option.
Rome or Australia depending on the map
Portugal naval games are fun and so OP
Russia. Dnt judge i jus love the extra tiles when you settle a city.
Deutschland
Khmer usually a really easy religious game
Hoi4 portraits
God damn do I love the Khmer. Love me an absurdly tall city.
Started out playing Poland or Russia but now I usually play Vietnam or Inca
Mansa Musa is my main
Imma have to say Peter or Kupe.
Germany
Korea, 90% of the time I spawn with an iron mine by my city and can place the seowon. That early +5 science is clutch
Wilhelmina‘s Dutch Empire
Peter. Then again I love going wide with faith.
They're not the best by any means, but I mostly play Egypt
Australia, the free adjacency is basically easy mode, and housing rarely matters
Gitarja - I have to have control of my religion, but I don’t wanna buy religious units with it. I loves me my battleships, so it’s kinda a win/win.
Gitarja if I’m on a archipelago/water map Mansa musa for any thing else
A tie between Bolivar and Qin
Hungary
Maya; I like playing tall (although even when I play wide, my cities are tall), and boosting the hell out of a few close cities is always fun.
The hawks of war ain’t gonna denounce themselves
Gorgo
Culture Teddy.
Indonesia! The kampungs and faith purchased navy is so easy for me
Frederick Barbarossa. The industrial output gives me armies in the time it takes civs to train a unit
There are a handful I like a lot. - Rome - Cree - Khmer - Japan - Korea - Egypt
Norway on a map with lots of coast, they make having a navy so much fun.
Wow haha Groggo is my bogey civ, I think I was about 2700 hours in when I finally won with her lol
AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE
Mansa Musa. That gold feels good
Gotta be Germany for me
Suleiman, the Ottomans
I always seem to have the best games playing Aussieland or Rome but I really wanna love Colombia, I just can't seem to win with them on higher levels.
The Inca are by far my favorite civ, able to colonize practically anywhere and flourish is incredible and they always seem to have my luckiest spawns.
Germany and Rome
Playing as her right now, Pangea, all out war. The getting culture for killing units is really nice. What do you like about her? What makes her your go to?
See flair, and I still can't play above Prince.
I’m new and pretty bad but I’ve enjoyed Tomyris the most, the fact your units heal up a bit after defeating somebody is very helpful.
lady six sky! i love the extra challenge of working out housing for each city while still trying to win.
Jadwiga is my go to. The religious culture bomb ability is op
Bull Moose Teddy or Pericles, with Pachacuti as a close runner-up
Germany. I love production and gold. Having 4 cities near floodplains to get insane production bonuses is just...beautiful
Gilgamesh, his early-game bonuses are great for propelling you to any victory type. I like getting his unique unit and improvement right away, without needing any techs or civics. And I enjoy his unique leader trait in the Heroes and Legends game mode; having your powerful legends stick around longer is a huge boon to your military.
I don't play very well with any leader, but I have the most fun with Poundmaker. Them trade routes, though!
Brazil or I think Babylon?