Sid Meier’s Civilization VI continues to be my favorite casual game to play when I have a few minutes to kill and don’t need to focus. No, I’m not making the jump to Civilization VII yet. I’d rather wait until more DLC is out and the price drops because it always seems to take some time before the developers make the game into something complex enough for me to find engaging. I started with Civ V and found the game far more compelling when I enabled the DLCs for it, and the same thing is true with Civ VI. After I enabled the DLCs that added Governors, Loyalty, Disasters, and the various other small mechanics, I became much more interested in playing a game to its completion. Not to mention, the various visual mods I use streamlined the experience to make it even more fun for me.

Since the last Civ VI article I wrote listing my favorite leaders, I have beaten the game on Deity difficulty several more times with new leaders and map formats, as well as started dozens more games with leaders I have never tried before. While I am not going to update my top 10 favorites—even though the rankings in my mind have definitely changed—I figured I would continue to add to my list of favorites and extrapolate on their abilities. All of these leaders and their benefits I’ll be discussing are from version 1.0.12.x and with the latest DLC enabled.

10. Pericles I Greece

Gorgo is still my favorite of the two Greek leaders, but the powers of Greece still translate just fine with Pericles. In fact, when you look at the summary of his skills, it’s very brief to the point that it just has a single line: “+5% Culture per city-state you are Suzerain of.” This, coupled with the already powerful benefits of Greece with the Hoplites, the unique Acropolis district that provides an Envoy when completed, and the additional wildcard policy slot, make Pericles an impressive leader when going for a cultural victory.

The Hoplites and their combat bonuses make them an extremely strong ancient era unit that you can use to claim territory early in the game, which I did in my most recent Deity playthrough of a Large Mediterranean map. Even though wiping out another player in a cultural playthrough is not ideal or optimal for tourism, it certainly doesn’t slow Pericles down much if you are able to build more and more Acropolis districts and expand. Not to mention, if you manage to acquire the Kilwa Kisiwani wonder on a map with at least two cultural city-states, it only adds to Pericles’s specific culture bonuses. In fact, in the last game I played with Pericles, I was making more than 6,000 Culture per turn by turn 250, and if I lost Suzerainty of one city state, it would drop by approximately 1,000 points. Tell me he’s not a strong leader with stats like that.

9. Nader Shah | Persia

Nader Shah is built around a strong military and has multiple safeguards to ensure that once you get the snowball rolling, there is an avalanche of destruction ahead for your enemies. He gets access to the Persian unit, the Immortal, which is an extremely effective close and long-range unit that is capable of taking cities quickly. He gets access to the Pairidaeza, which makes up for the military focus by boosting gold and culture in your empire. Nader Shah’s unique leader bonuses are what make him such an impressive military leader, though. His additional boosts to trade routes make it easy for conquered cities to integrate into your empire and add a great deal of gold and faith to the additional culture that Persia gains from conquered cities.

The bonus damage gained when attacking full-health units, however, is the key trait that I like. It ensures your military is especially effective at weakening opponents and their military forces. As a result, you’ll lose fewer units in combat and end up with more strong units with multiple promotions. This means that even when the technology upgrades finally make the Immortals obsolete, you’ll have stronger individual units than most other players on the map.

8. Cleopatra (Ptolemaic) | Egypt

There’s another civilization that does well on floodplains on this list that is far stronger, but I had an immense amount of fun with the Ptolemaic Cleopatra, nonetheless. She still gets access to Egypt’s bonuses that grant +15% Production towards districts and wonders built next to a river, which is always a fun time for me because I enjoy wonder building. In addition, districts, improvements, and units are immune to damage from floods, making the civilization very resilient to one of the worst environments on a Civ VI map.

Cleopatra’s Ptolemaic bonuses, however, are what make her really special. They transform the floodplains from being nearly worthless tiles to incredibly strong tiles. Floodplains in Cleopatra’s empire gain food and culture bonuses per turn and also gain appeal when they would normally be extremely unappealing tiles. This allows you more opportunities to use Preserve districts as well as use the benefits of the Egyptian improvement, the Sphinx, to boost your culture and faith bonuses. The proper placement of Sphynx improvements and Cleopatra’s bonuses to appeal also give a lot more opportunity to create national parks than you would in other empires that have many floodplain tiles.

7. Nzinga Mbande | Kongo

Nzinga Mbande’s leader-ability is relatively straightforward on its own and would be enough to make her a mid-level leader with some level of flexibility. It’s the fact that it’s coupled with the Kongo civilization bonuses from great works that push her over the edge into the realm of one of the stronger leaders that are fun to play. Though cities on another continent receive -15% to all yields, which limits your ability to expand beyond the borders of your capital’s continent, the +10% to all yields on the same continent as a capital more than make up for it. Kongo’s bonus gold, food, production, and faith from great works with this extra 10% helps Nzinga Mbande’s cities on her home continent balloon quickly. The Mbanza unique neighborhood also only further adds to the civilization’s ability to grow rapidly and add to your yields. In addition, the Ngao Mbeba is an impressive swordsman-level unit that can help you out with any significant conflicts in the early game.

6. Tokugawa | Japan

Tokugawa provides a surprisingly unique experience for Civilization VI on high difficulties as he starts out strong, somewhat balances out or struggles a little in the mid-game, and then gets strong in the late game when Flight unlocks his tourism abilities. He has the adjacency benefits of Japan, which makes planning your empire a lot easier than others because you can just throw your districts all over the place and gain more bonuses. He also gets the Medieval-era unit, the samurai, to make up for any mid-game military challenges.

What makes Tokugawa stand out is his internal trade routes. Getting as many trade routes up and running early helps boost your science and culture while focusing on any military engagements you have currently going on. Since high-difficulty AI leaders tend to dislike you immediately in the early portions of the game, being able to trade internally and benefit from those trade routes as much as you do helps keep Tokugawa from crumbling under any external pressures.

5. Menelik II | Ethiopia

“Receive Science and Culture equal to 15% of your Faith generation in cities founded on Hills.” Need I say more? If you just focus purely on faith output in the early game, you will boost yourself enough to keep up with other civs on Deity difficulty without much trouble. When you consider that Ethiopia has abilities and improvements that focus specifically on Faith, Menelik II probably requires the least amount of thought when it comes to forming a strategy.

With the ability to gain faith through trade routes, through the Rock-Hewn Church unique improvement, and improved resource tiles, it should be pretty obvious what the strategy should be with Menelik II: just generate as much faith as possible and ride your way to victory. If you aren’t convinced that Menelik II has what it takes to dominate a game, just consider the fact that when I beat the game with him, I had so much faith output that I decided to go the less logical route with him and opted for a Science victory. I was still miles ahead of the AI when the game ended.

4. Pachacuti | Inca

Pachacuti was one of my favorite leaders from Civilization V, and he continues to be one of my favorites in VI, even though he plays completely differently. There’s still a focus on hill improvements, however, the Inca are given a few extra benefits that make them extremely fun on Highland maps or in areas with lots of hills. Their Terrace Farms give plenty of adjacency bonuses to each other as well as aqueducts and mountains, which massively boost city growth and productivity. These farms make the Inca an incredibly strong civilization out of the gate that could grow and build a strong military very quickly. The additional era score you can generate from building the Inca’s unique improvements and military units make it easier to achieve golden ages as well.

Where I find the most fun with Pachacuti, however, is with his passive bonuses. His unique bonuses around production gained from impassible mountain tiles make him an ideal leader to utilize districts like the Preserve to gain bonuses from unimproved tiles. Since mountain tiles often add to the appeal of tiles, fully upgraded Preserve districts blow up the Inca’s culture, faith, science, and production output. Preserve games can be tricky and require a fair amount of planning, but they can be extremely rewarding when done right. It’s part of what I enjoy with Theodore Roosevelt’s bonuses, and it certainly is what I recommend for Pchacuti.

3. Jayavarman VII | Khmer

Jayavarman VII is probably the most powerful in this list despite only being ranked number three in my preferred leaders list. It’s not abundantly clear how strong he is at a glance when you’re looking at his bonuses. However, when I finally played him for myself, I could see why he’s such a beast.

He’s a faith-based leader, which already gives him a significant advantage over other leaders when you consider how strong faith is in Civilization VI. The bonuses provided by his unique building, the Prasat, guarantees significant faith income and tourism in the late game. However, it’s his food/housing bonuses and extremely mobile siege units that put him over the top into being a very flexible leader who can easily change his win conditions on a whim.

The food bonuses may not sound like much, but it’s actually Jayavarman VII’s greatest asset. It not only makes it incredibly easy to grow the population of your cities quickly, thus boosting your science and culture faster than other civs. It also allows you to focus more on other yields without being concerned about food, as well as construct your buildings, districts, and military quickly. Add on the fact that if you use the River Goddess pantheon belief that gives you +2 Amenities for Holy Sites constructed next to rivers (which you should already be doing as the Khmer due to their unique adjacency benefits), your cities will be even more productive with happy citizens. Even in floodplain regions, which can often cripple other civilizations, the Khmer remain incredibly strong. Used optimally, the Khmer can take an early lead in the game and overtake the rest of the world with ease.

2. Ambiorix | Gaul

I love a production-focused civilization—it’s part of why I love both the German leaders for their Hunzas. I could include a production-focused civ that I haven’t already included, like Abraham Lincoln—since he has similar benefits to Basil II—or Victoria (Age of Steam), as both are production powerhouses. However, I like Ambiorix a little more due to a more specific design for the empire in how you’re expected to play.

Not only do the Gauls have their own unique production district like Germany, but that district can have walls like an Encampment. In addition, mine improvements do two things: they culture bomb and add +1 culture per turn to your civilization. This means you can expand your cities extremely quickly in the early game and stay on par with the AI with culture. Since the Oppidum district becomes available earlier than the normal Industrial Zone district does in the science tree, you can also become a far more productive civilization in the Classical era than most other civilizations, even on Deity difficulty. Where this civ gets tricky is that none of the specialist districts can be built next to a city center, and the Oppidum district does not gain the usual adjacency bonuses from other districts. This means your focus should be more on capitalizing the production and adjacency bonuses from your mine/quarry improvements and less on other districts like faith or science districts.

Add on the fact that the Gauls get access to their unique (and extremely strong) military unit immediately in the Ancient era, the Gaestatae, which replaces the warrior unit. Beginning the game with a unique unit often gives leaders a strong start and a significant potential advantage. Note also that you gain culture whenever you create a non-civilian unit. Note also that your military units gain +2 combat strength for each adjacent military unit (regardless of whether that unit is friendly, neutral, or hostile). Those are a lot of details and bonuses to consider, but you should be able to guess what your strategy is with Ambiorix: Zerg Rush! In other words—for those who haven’t played Starcraft—strike fast and hard with a horde of units before your opponents have time to build up their defenses. I have not always had much success with Ambiorix—try playing a “True Start Europe” game with him—but I love his strategy as a challenge to go up against the AI in small maps to see if I can survive and conquer the rest.

1. Sundiata Keita | Mali

I like all the leaders that get bonuses from being in harsh environments like the desert or tundra, but Sundiata Keita might be my favorite. Sundiata Keita gets the immense benefits from the Mali abilities in getting more food, gold, faith, and production in their city centers based on the number of adjacent desert tiles. This skill allows the Mali to hit the ground running at the start of the game. Founding your civilization surrounded by desert makes your capital an immediate hub of power, growth, and faith, immediately assuring you access to better pantheon choices. The Mali civilizations also get access to the unique Commercial district, the Suguba, which benefits greatly from being adjacent to Holy Site districts. Add on the +1 adjacency bonus for desert tiles to Holy Sites pantheon belief, you quickly gain a ton of money and faith in your civilization. Faith, by the way, can be used to purchase buildings in your Sugubas as well.

What sets Sundeita Keita apart from his Mali counterpart, Mansa Munsa, is that he gets to benefit even more directly from these faith and currency bonuses, which makes his empire extremely productive and can help circumvent the production weakness the Mali face. Sundiata Keita’s unique leader-ability is focused on gaining great people for 20% less money and using the great works created by those people to generate production and even more gold. This essentially means that the more money and faith you have, the more money and production you can bring to each city. Since the Suguba has extra great writing slots, you are encouraged to have as many great works of writing in each city as possible. This allows you to ignore the production buildings and districts and to focus on Theater Squares and Sugubas for the great works of writing and on Holy Sites with high adjacency. It’s easy to end up with a bountiful treasury that allows you to buy all the great works of writing off of other leaders in your game as well. If you get a good start to your game with Sundeita Keita, you should be able to take advantage of the Monumentality Golden Age bonuses to purchase countless settlers and builders with your faith and gold to rapidly expand your empire.

Civilizations that are able to generate gold and faith quickly, as I’ve mentioned before, are incredibly strong due to their flexibility and ability to pivot to different victory conditions. It’s arguable that Sundeita Keita is not the strongest leader in this list, but he was one that I found to be the most fun recently.

Any leaders that I’ve neglected to mention in my lists that you love and think I should try next? Let me know in the comments!

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