On Towards the Stars: Governors Part 2
[This post is part of a larger strategy guide for Civilization 6]
Virtually every governor can be useful, regardless of which civ you're playing. But I definitely have a bias — there are some governors that I pick up within the first era of basically every game, and others that I grab only near the end when I have spare titles. And there are some governor promotion trees that I lean on more than others. Some brief thoughts on each governor, roughly ordered by how frequently and what order I pick them up.
Pingala
Pingala is my default first pick. His tier two promotion of +1 science per citizen in the city is insanely strong in the early game, allowing you to rapidly pick up military tech that can prevent an early game rush or infrastructure that can really start your ramp. Unfortunately, I think Pingala falls off as the game goes on — his tier 3/4 promotions are pretty weak by the time you get them (doubling adjacency of a campus will net like +6 science at best; relying on domestic trade routes for science prevents mid and late game international trade routes that are the cornerstone of an economy; games almost never end with an actual space race so much as global nuclear war). So even though I'll have him the longest he won't get many promotions.
Pingala is the centerpiece of a hard to pull off culture strategy that involves:
Getting the divine spark pantheon (+1 Great People points to certain districts)
Getting the Oracle wonder (districts provide +2 Great People points)
Using Pingala's tier 2 Great Person promotion (+100% Great People points in the city)
Together, a single district in the right city will provide a whopping +8 Great Person points. Because many culture games depend on great people generating great works, you can run away with the game very early if you successfully pull this off.
Generally, you keep Pingala in one city for the whole game.
Victor
I end up getting Victor in every game, and in maybe 10% of my games he's my first pick (when I'm either going to be very aggressive early or suspect I'll be attacked very early). Victor is incredible for any kind of war. His default ability is immediately useful, often buying just enough time to stop an early game rush from an aggressive neighbor. And I'll generally pick up garrison commander for his second promotion (+3 combat strength for units in the territory, +4 loyalty to cities within 9 tiles) — it is fantastic for an offensive war along a shared border, where your siege can hit enemy walls from within your own territory and where you might have trouble holding nearby captured cities (e.g. when you're pushing deep into an enemy empire). If I find myself in a mid or late game war, I will also grab Embrasure (city gains an additional ranged strike per turn), which is a fantastic late game defensive promotion that can effectively give you 4 shots (2 from city, 2 from encampment) of your strongest ranged unit.
I don't generally promote Victor beyond these three promotions.
Victor will tend to move to where the action is — always at the borders of your empire, wherever is most under threat or most ready to go to war.
Moksha
Moksha is much better in BBG than in base game. He's basically necessary for a culture victory or religious victory and is very powerful if you have the ability to generate faith. He's my first pick in maybe 5-10% of my games.
Unlike the other governors, Moksha has the best balance of usefulness throughout the game, and he's the first governor on this list that is worth promoting to tier 4. His base ability is fairly strong if you have a civic that you need to unlock or expect to get and spread a religion. And the +1 Culture per citizen ability goes toe to toe with Pingala as a very strong early game option. In the mid to late game, Moksha let's you turn faith into districts instantly. And by the end, he doubles your tourism output.
The biggest problem with Moksha is that he primarily benefits a civ that generates a lot of faith and culture — two resources that tend to be less important than, say, science or production. There are some games where I don't generate any faith at all beyond what's needed for a pantheon. And it's very difficult to win either culture or religion in a multiplayer game. As a result, I treat Moksha very bimodally. In some games he's my first pick and he's my most useful governor; in others, he's my last pick, taken for loyalty bonuses and not much else.
In a more religion-focused game, it can be a good idea to park Moksha on your Holy City and call it a day. But religion as a victory path generally sucks. Instead, if you have a lot of faith generation, you should move Moksha around to new cities that need districts. The ability to instantly buy a district can bring new cities online much faster than usual.
Magnus
I struggle a lot with Magnus. If I end up taking him in a game, it's almost always in the middle of the game. If I promote him he ends up with like two promotions. All in all, speaks to not being a super useful governor. But like, objectively, I think his late game promotions and even his tier 2 promotions are incredibly strong.
I think my issue with Magnus is that so many of his abilities aren't "free", but rather only kick in if you invest in additional infrastructure. And I almost never have enough of that infrastructure to make the bonus worthwhile at the time it comes in.
Pingala gives you +1 science per citizen; from the time when you get the promotion through to the rest of the game you get that bonus without doing anything else. And it's immediately super strong!
Whereas even Magnus's most basic ability requires at least a builder before it's useful. I don't really have spare builders to chop things until the classical era.
I think Magnus synergizes well with civs that use a lot of domestic trade routes or strategies that revolve around creating one super city with massive production. The latter is particularly useful in the late game, so I'll sometimes promote him to tier 4 then. But overall, even though Magnus has good promotions, I personally struggle with timing them and getting a lot of value out of him as a result.
One small note: Magnus can be very valuable when trying to rush a wonder. If you know that a game changing wonder is coming up, it can be worthwhile to prebuild builders and slot Magnus in the city where you want the wonder to go so you can take the most advantage of chops. As a result, I tend to move Magnus when I need a wonder, and then in the late game leave him parked in my biggest city.
EDIT: I’ve since played a few more games explicitly trying to open with Magnus. I think Magnus can actually be very strong as an opening governor if you try to get him to his tier 2 promotion, which will give all trade routes going to his city +2 food/production. A lot of my analysis above still stands — to make this effective, you need to spam Commercial Hubs and trade routes. Still, this investment in production/food is very powerful in the early game. See here for more.
Amani
We're starting to get to the weaker governors.
I basically only ever take Amani early if I need a suzerain. I pretty rarely need to be a suzerain. I probably will pick Amani first if I'm playing Hungary, or maybe if I'm about to get a golden age where I can spend a lot of faith on settlers but I'm not quite there yet. So like 1% of games. Most games I'll take Amani near the middle of the game, when I need the governor boost to shore up loyalty in some city.
Amani's BBG rework makes her play like a less war focused Victor. Like Victor, she has bonuses to adjacent city loyalty, can prevent sieges, and impacts strategic accumulation. When paired with Victor for an offensive war, you can basically guarantee that you won't have loyalty issues.
Unlike Victor, Amani can be placed in city states. This means you can leverage her bonuses in unexpected places. If an enemy is trying to take out one of your city states — or even a neutral one that you don't want them to have — you can use Amani to prevent a siege. In the early game, that can be enough to fully stop a civ taking a city state.
All that said, it's tempting to think that because Victor is strong, Amani is also strong. But in practice, governor titles are a zero sum game — Amani's abilities aren't that strong compared to other governor abilities, and if I really do need a war focused governor I'd just take Victor.
When I do have Amani, she spends most of the game holding onto a key city state. Sometimes she gets pulled back to the main empire to provide loyalty bonuses.
Reyna
I only ever take Reyna as a late game pick. I may promote her to tier 4 if there's a good synergy, but it's rare. She's my last governor pick in 50% of the games where I chose all governors.
If Pingala is all about science, Moksha about culture and faith, and Magnus about production and food, then Reyna is all about coin. Unfortunately, coin is comparably weak to everything else. Generally speaking, one production is worth 4 coin (there are some caveats — gold can be spent anywhere and is instant, production is invested over time in one place, but still). So one way to read Reyna's base ability is "1 production per foreign trade route passing through the city". That's…pretty bad. It's only one production, and it's fully dependent on actions outside of your control.
In general, I think Reyna's abilities all suffer from this conversion rate problem, which in turn makes her abilities pound for pound weaker than her peers.
That said, the tier 4 promotions are fantastic. If you are a gold based civ, like Mali or Portugal, your biggest issue is district production cost. Reyna's final promotions make that disappear by letting you instantly create districts. And then she gives a 50% discount for all building purchases. So, even though it's rare, I will sometimes promote Reyna to tier 4 to unlock that crazy spend.
When I do have a tier 4 Reyna, I'll move her around for the same reasons as Moksha — buying districts is much faster than building them in weaker cities.
Liang
Idk I feel like I basically never take Liang.
The improvements to builders is reasonably strong but I never feel an urgent need to take it. Maybe if I'm playing China? Some of her other promotions seem really geography specific (and therefore subject to rng). If I have a lot of floodplains, maybe I'll pick her up?
I can imagine Liang being situationally very strong. If you are blessed with many flood plains, have the Lady of the Reeds and Marshes patheon, and have Etemenanki, you can really create a mega city.
But somehow I don't feel compelled to pick her up most games. Maybe I'm just missing something. 🤷♂️