CIV:BE Rising Tide Sponsor Tierlist

Just a simple sponsor tierlist. No BS.

About this guide

Well hello there dear reader! Thanks for checking out my guide, if you want to cut the crap you can simply scroll down immediately to read my tier list. If you however want to read my quick introduction and understand why I chose to rank the sponsors the way I did, continue reading here :)

In Civ V, the most comparable game to date for CIV:BE your Civs defined the way you play for you. While you still had the option to go for a culture victory with Babylon, it would have been a lot easier to simply go for the science victory instead in this example. With Beyond Earth, Firaxis went for a more general approach with the sponsors by forcing (almost) noone into a certain pattern, which leads to unpredictability and flexibility.

The game relies on you to make decisions on the fly, so adapting to the pace of the game is really important.
So a huge factor, besides the basic "3>2" comparisons between sponsor bonuses, is the amount of flexibility the sponsors provide.

Just to give you an example: Polystralia allows you to build a LOT more trade routes. Which sounds good on paper already is then even better when you think about the utility you get from having lots of cities with huge amound of production output: You can build more wonders/wonder quicker, you can instantly train a huge army or you could simply develop your cities to gain science or culture.

Just take this into consideration when reading this guide. Also, feel free to disagree with me and let me know in the comments what you think!

Tier 1

Pan Asian Cooperative (PAC)

The first Wonder in every city is free. +3/4/5 Diplomatic Capital from Wonders.

Even though most wonders have been hit really hard by the nerfhammer in 2014, most of them still have a atleast a niche place for them to exist. PAC basicly is the Ramses of Beyond Earth: The more wonders, the better. They also get some sweet bonus diplomatic capital from the wonders they built.

Polystralia

+2/3/3 Trade routes in the Capital and +1/1/2 Trade route everywhere else

If you miss Beyond Earths' release state, look no further. Polystralia favors a really expansive playstyle with lots of traderoutes. Just rush pioneering and enjoy all that mad skrilla you'll make without even trying. Try to get Warp Gates from the artifact system and you'll snowball the game from there.

Tier 2

Al Falah

City Developments increased by 50/60/70%.

Civilization has always been about snowballing and while Al Falah doesn't help you achieve that, her mid and lategame strengths are outright insane enough to let her slip into tier 2. By the time your cities are basicly iced out enough with buildings, you can simply start generating a metric ton of science or culture in the blink of an eye. Her ability won't help you getting a good start, but if you get to the midgame you're in a comfortable position.

ARC

Covert operations are 30/40/50% faster and require 1/1/2 less intrigue levels to begin.

As with Al Falah ARC truly starts shining in the midgame, when the Agents start to siphon a sh*tload of science and/or technologies. ARC also suffers from the same lack of snowballing that Al Falah has. Being really focused on spying, ARC has both serious up- and downsides. Spying get's exponentially better the longer the game goes on, because of all the massive upgrades. However, it's also fairly easy to counter for the enemy, by him stationing agents in his own cities.

People's African Union (PAU)

+10/15/25% Food in healthy cities and Specialists produce one/one/two extra of their yield.

PAU is really good at getting ahead of your competition in the early game. The bonus food while maintining a positive health favor a "tall" playstyle, so specialists actually come into play. These will also help you maintain a strong grip on the mid- to lategame.

Tier 3

North Sea Alliance

Aquatic cities have 50/60/70% more Strength and cost 50/60/70% less Production to move.
May make Planetfall at sea.

I can't wrap my head around the NSA. I really want to like them, but the lack of natural border expansion through culture really hurts their early game. Basicly everytime i try to make planetfall on water I come to the point where I think to myself "wow, this really sucks. I'd rather have my city on a continent than this." However, they really shine in the lategame because defending cities on water is rather easy compared to land.

INTEGR

Agreements cost 50/60/75% less Diplomatic Capital, and units and buildings cost 25/50/75% less to purchase.

INTEGR has simply said the most boring sponsor bonus one could imagine. The bonus is okay in all three stages of the game and only starts to shine when you can drop the ANGELs with the huge surplus of DC.

Chungsu

Begin with one Covert Agent and gain 10/15/30 Science per Agent rank when successfully performing an operation.
May make Planetfall at sea.

Chungsu is basicly ARC, just worse. The early game bonus is sweet, but in the spying game they simply get outclassed by ARC later on in the game. My advice would be to NOT focus on spying but simply use it as a tool to snowball science in the early game and hope for a good midgame.

Kavathian Protectorate

Cities require 30/40/50% less Culture or Energy to expand tiles.

With Diplomatic Capital being useable to buy buildings and units energy got an indirect value nerf, while still remaining a fairly easy to gather ressource. The point im trying to make is: Simply buying land is usually more efficient, faster and with the overflow of energy not even a huge loss in the midgame. If you however are not interested in spending energy on tiles, the culture buildings are usually in awkward locations on the techweb and should usually only be the secondary gain you want from the technology. Overall a mediocre sponsor at best.

Tier 4

Brasilia

War Score points increased by 30/40/50% and +1/2/3 Diplomatic Capital from every unit killed in combat.

Warscore is an intresting and rewarding system IF(!) you manage to outright destroy your opponents to get "free" techs from them. However with Rising Tide, Brasilia lost the damagebonus they used to have. Simply said: Brasilia has a goal, yet lost the tools to accomplish said goal. The DC bonus for killing units is also laughable and shouldn't be the thing you're looking for. In their current state their outright terrible.

Slavic Federation

Orbital units require 1/1/2 less Strategic resource and start with 4/6/6 free titanium, geothermal and petroleum resources.

At the point where orbital units come into play, you usually have enough petroleum and titanium around to not give a ♥♥♥♥ about them anymore. You also get some free ressources, which is neat for building some wonders but since you don't get the yield per round for actually owning a geothermal/petroleum/titanium tile it's also useless. They simply get outmatched by most of the other sponsors.

Franco-Iberia

Free Virtue for every 10/9/8 Virtues earned normally through Culture.

While Franco-Iberia technically got buffed through Rising Tide, they still manage to claim the last spot on this list. Because there is no culture victory like in Civ V and most virtues are simply not worth the effort they're by far the worst sponsor in beyond earth.

Balance Suggestions

I don't know if anyone at Firaxis will ever read this, or if any modder actually takes this into consideration to create a balance mod/patch for Beyond Earth. Take note, that I took Tier 2 as the powerlevel of where I want to see most sponsors balanced around.


Pan Asian Cooperative

PAC will fall into and out of the meta depending on how good (or bad) the wonders are. The thing that makes them shine on the higher end of the tierlist is that even a city with a population of one builds any wonder instantly. If Firaxis wants PAC as the wonderwh0res they are, give them a big multiplier on production to balance them out in. I'm talking like a 100% production boost for the first one, 50% for the second one and 20% for every wonder after that. The bonus diplomatic capital is fine as it is.

Polystralia

Polystralias dominance is also pretty tied into the fact that internal traderoutes are outright awesome. To balance the fact that this is a trade-heavy sponsor with the OPness of internal traderoude yields, I'd recommend tuning the bonus traderoutes to 1/1/2 in the capital and 0/1/1 for every other city.

North Sea Alliance

I think their current bonus is in a good spot, but I'd like to see the NSA being able to acquire tiles with culture on sea, atleast with their capital (Deep Castle). This would define them as an acquatic sponsor and make it actually a viable option to planetfall on water for them!

INTEGR

So, Lena is supposed to be that diplomatic mastermind, but because there is no diplomatic win like in Civ V we have to improvise and improve how she works. My suggestion would be to remove the reduced cost for buying stuff with diplomatic capital and instead give her either the ability to have more active agreements OR(!) make her that iron willed negotiator and let her get agreements for one... i dunno, point on the "how much i like these guys" scale more. Say you're playing as INTEGR and start an agreement with some other civ and you're neutral with them, now INTEGR get's a bonus as if they'd cooperate. If they're already cooperating, then she gets the allied yields and so on.

Kavathian Protectorate

The thing about KP is that the sponsorbonus points them in no direction. Imagine it like this: You're playing the original Legend of Zelda, and that guy in the cave doesn't say "It's dangerous to go alone, take this" to give you a sword, but instead gives you a banana and says "Times are rough, go figure this out for yourself." This is because land-grabbing is pretty useless because resources are overflowing with Rising Tide. So, to buff her would mean that she'd get a lil bonus on top. I'd say that increasing the bonus of the inhabitants of your spacecraft would work great, because she has such devoted followers. Basicly, instead of getting 2 production per city from picking engineers in the beginning, you now get 3.

Brasilia

Ha, this one's easy! Remove the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ 1/2/3 DC per unit kill and give them a good combat bonus instead, say 10/15/20% and you'll have a heavy warfare sponsor that uses raw power to get what he wants.

Slavic Federation

Okay, SF is suffering from the lack of worthwhile and affordable satellites. Give them a bunch of orbital units without the need to research them [Solar Collector, Misama Repulsor, you get the deal] and let them get +1/2/3 more of any geothermal, titanium or petrolium they have improved.

Franco-Iberia

This might be a bit overtuned, but double the synergyboni for her while maintaning the scalable free virtues. This should give FI the flexibility it needs.

[[JdG] Pejman]

Slavic federation is good for 1 thing though : land seeding (basically when playing them i rush weather/orbital fabricator, then i just spam them everywhere i am planing to set a city, rather fun having a city with 5 xenomass 3 petroleum 2 firaxite and 3 floatstone spots)

[Georgestephenson]

Nice guide, very useful for beginners like me.

[Notorious MAX]

Polystralia is propably the most broken sponsor right now. Try playing hime with a wide approach (8-10 cities) with domestic traderoutes. Now you'll only need the bonus for national-traderoutes from the industry tree and the easily obtainable warp spires and you're outscaling everyone in the game by any stretch of the imagination. Try it, then feel free to comment and let me know how it went :)

[Notorious MAX]

The next point I want to touch on is the espionage itself. Countering enemy spies is rather easy by simply stationing your own spies in your city to go for counter-intelligence. Wonders like the Human Hive or... oh jeez I forgot what it's called. The wonder that reduces intrigue by 1 per turn in every city. With little to no micro-management at all you'll be able to hardcounter ARC players.
Note that this example is a PvP situation, so if you're not lucky and get ahead through other means, you'll be playing catchup to everyone else for the rest of the game.

Chungsu on ther other hand has that early technologic snowball potential I've been talking about, yet still doesn't manage to impress me in ther later stages of the game. As soon as ARC can go nuts with their spies, chungsu starts to lose relevance if he didn't get a huge kickstart to his gameplan.

[Notorious MAX]

First of all, let me say that basicly ALL tier lists ever made were, are and always will be not entirely objective. I tried being as transparent as possible for my reasoning why I think sponsors are ranked they way they are.

Now let's dive into your comment: You're saying that ARC is tier 1, so the creme de la creme of sponsors in rising tide. While that may be your subjective interpretation of the game, it is not mine and I'm going to try to expand on my already established argument: Civilization has always been a game about snowballing ahead of your enemies to gain the upper hand through technology, battlefield supremacy, diplomacy or culture. Now let's take a look at ARC: They gain a awesome buff to their mid- and lategame via the espionage system, however their early game is still fairly mediocre, vulnerable or weak.

[Calandra]

Actually i think that ARC is definitely Tier 1 or even higher ;) If you go straight forward to espionage you gain a huge bonus to whatever you want: science, units, diplomatic capital, yes even cities....
If you know how to play /exploit chungsu, it's also TIER 1. The matter of fact that you gain science evertime you establish network is a huge advantage. More research = more affinity = victory in any way.
Panasia and Polystralia is (since the nerf on Traderoutes) is in my opinion only Tier 2. Panasia stands or falls with the effectivness of the wonders.

[Notorious MAX]

As a mater of fact, Hutama doesn't gain any gold for domestic trade routes. He get's huge bonuses to production and food (which are "harder" to come by than energy or DC). It's kind funny, because that guy is supposed to represent a capitalist incarnate yet everyone plays him like a communist. :)

[Morwo]

Before i read this guide i was playing Integr. 3nd Civ yet i played in RT. in late game when i got 3/3 in my basic diplo. i can buy things very easily for a 75% discount the replenish rate of that currency seems better then the energy gain of hutama in compared 8 citys. for me its not borinng to have a 2nd currency to buy things easily.

[Notorious MAX]

Means that you'll build the first wonder in a city in one turn, regardless of how much production the city has

[LunaticOnTheGrass]

I'm confused; what does the PAC's unique ability mean by "free" wonder. As in, it builds instantly?