Best civ for a new player?

[Caitlin From Pokemon]

Title. I've played a decent amount of civ 5, and a little bit of civ 6. I do want to play more civ, though, and would like to know who would be the best civ to start with in this game.

I generally prefer more diplomatic options, stuff like science or culture. I am interested in domination but I would like to start with a different victory option, as I think it would be easier for someone newer to the game.

[Traveler]

Kongo, you don't have to deal with the silly religion system. Otherwise they all play way to much alike.

[zxcvbob]

I think Rome is good to start with. No game-changing bonuses, but the free monument, trading post, and roads, and swordsmen that don't need iron are all nice perks. You can pursue any type of victory with Rome without learning too many bad habits.

[SamBC]

I agree that Rome is good. You get to play the full game, but you don't need to do anything special to play to Rome's strengths - relatively normal play will get you the benefit of their bonuses.

[大汉天子董卓]

If you did like collect wonder ,i suggest you choose China.

[schmonz]

Germany, Skyths or Gilgamesh. Those are good to start with.

[jonnin]

Gilgamesh is hands down one of the best. You can have science so high with ziggys and his starting unit is well able to handle barbarians in the early game on TOP of having high movement. All he lacks is faith, which isnt too hard to fix. I had him on the moon before 1000 AD. Tommy is also good, her starter healing ability helps with barbs and her crafted location is almost as good as GG. She is an excellent religious zealot build, and a solid combat build. All sides but GG are weak at science, so she can be average there. Aztecs free builders can pull your cities out of the stone age in a hurry if you have any luck (the one time you want to find a lot of barbs hunting you, let the scouts live). But I dunno if that is a good new guy strat; aztecs fail if you don't convert the early advantage to a working endgame.

Basically the theme with new players is probably going to be favoring early advantages NOW over late game stuff. New people don't know how to build a city correctly, and tend to lose early. An early advantage helps offset that.

Try GG first. Plant cities near rivers AND mountains. Prep to build ziggys & campus. Develop better units than the enemy quickly. You can now squash the opponent, head for sci victory, or build up for whatever else.

[Ranx]

Originally posted by Traveler:

Kongo, you don't have to deal with the silly religion system. Otherwise they all play way to much alike.

Amen! That's one of my biggest gripes about the game and one of the reasons I don't expect expansions or bug fixes to make the game right. If you play a game like Stars in Shadow the mechanics are such that every civilization you play feels very different, foreign, alien. They didn't need extreme mechanics for it. They just make each civilization get big advantages in certain types of research, in settling certain areas, and in developing certain military types.

A simplistic example might be the British getting 50% discounts on builds of harbors and lighthouses and all ships. Egyptians get 50% discount on anything built next to a river. The game currently has "boosts". But imagine if all civilizations got automatic boosts to different groups of technologies and not because of some accomplishment like "Boost if you have 3 musketmen". They'd behave and play very differently. To not follow the research paths of the automated boosts would be swimming against the current.

In Civ VI there is just a little of the advantage of territory and research type but not enough to make the various civilizations to feel very different or to force play in different directions.

[Traveler]

There are some mods that do that. The "Improved" series works that way if I understood it correctly.

[BLACKcOPstRIPPa]

Honestly I think almost any civ is good to start with. Just remember the 4x's
Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate

If you continually go through those, exploring whats areound you, expanding your empire exploiting the terrain and other nations, then exterminate anyone who tries to stop you (not always on purpose, a civilization can hinder you and not be an enemy fyi) you will grow stronger and stronger till eventually there is no stopping you.

There is a ton to learn, but over time you will pick up different things, a strong military so AI doesn't walk on you is main point number 1, from there experiment:)

[Lady Crimson (RIP)]

All play extreamely differently.. though.. I think Rome is one of the not so best ones.. an easy one to get good with is Russia though.. you just hide up in tundra.. so nothing is really bad.. and you just focus on holy districts.. getting religion with ease.

[Lady Crimson (RIP)]

Germany is also a solid one to pick, they're just generally better with a lot of things.

[jonnin]

Rome is solid. Those roads let you push settlers out farther faster and react to threats better. And one key thing ... the legion does not seem to take iron so you can build them without the resource. The free culture / monuments add up fast too. Its not the best, but its good.

[BLACKcOPstRIPPa]

Originally posted by Lady Crimson:

Germany is also a solid one to pick, they're just generally better with a lot of things.

Germany is also the civ with the special Industrial District, makes using them to mass produce things way easier later in game. When I random them I like to make the special projects more late game for the extra great person points to help with culture and other ones.
Played right you can Great Person half way decently.