INDEX
Index ....................................................................... 2
Macedon ............................................................... 39
Introduction ............................................................. 3
Mali ........................................................................ 40
How to use this guide ............................................. 3
Māori ..................................................................... 42
Glossary .................................................................. 3
Mapuche ............................................................... 43
Clarifying Start Biases ............................................ 5
Maya...................................................................... 45
America (with Persona Packs)................................ 7
Mongolia ................................................................ 46
America (without Persona Packs) .......................... 8
Netherlands ........................................................... 47
Arabia ...................................................................... 9
Norway .................................................................. 48
Australia ................................................................ 10
Nubia ..................................................................... 49
Aztecs ................................................................... 12
Ottomans ............................................................... 50
Babylon ................................................................. 13
Persia .................................................................... 51
Brazil ..................................................................... 15
Phoenicia .............................................................. 52
Byzantium ............................................................. 16
Poland ................................................................... 54
Canada.................................................................. 17
Portugal ................................................................. 55
China ..................................................................... 18
Rome ..................................................................... 56
Cree ...................................................................... 19
Russia ................................................................... 57
Egypt ..................................................................... 20
Scotland ................................................................ 58
England ................................................................. 21
Scythia................................................................... 59
Ethiopia ................................................................. 23
Spain ..................................................................... 60
France ................................................................... 24
Sumeria ................................................................. 61
Gaul ....................................................................... 26
Sweden ................................................................. 62
Georgia ................................................................. 27
Vietnam ................................................................. 64
Germany ............................................................... 28
Zulus...................................................................... 65
Gran Colombia ...................................................... 29
Greece .................................................................. 30
Hungary................................................................. 31
Inca ....................................................................... 32
India ...................................................................... 33
Indonesia............................................................... 34
Japan .................................................................... 35
Khmer.................................................................... 36
Kongo .................................................................... 37
Korea..................................................................... 39
2
INTRODUCTION
HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE
This guide has a section for each Civ, divided into
tricks, hidden features and clarifications.
Following this guide requires the Gathering Storm
expansion.
Tricks are interesting and/or unusual things you can
do with a civ's uniques or starting bias.
It also assumes you have all other Civ 6 content, listed
below, though it is not necessary to have these to utilise the
key strategies of each civ.

Hidden features are unique features civs have which
aren't described or explained in-game - both positive
and negative.
Pre-Rise and Fall content packs



Vikings, Poland, Australia, Persia/Macedon,
Nubia, Khmer/Indonesia
Rise and Fall Expansion
New Frontier content packs

The clarifications section clears up features of civs
sometimes (or often) believed to be true but aren't, or
those often not understood.
Maya/Grand Colombia, Ethiopia,
Byzantium/Gauls, Babylon, Vietnam/Kublai
Khan, Portugal
Note that all costs (production, science, culture, gold,
etc.) mentioned within the guide assume a game
played on the normal speed settings. To modify these
values for other game speeds:
These content packs include exclusive civs, city-states,
districts, buildings, wonders, natural wonders, resources,




and a disaster, but not core game mechanics - all you need
is the base game and the Gathering Storm expansion for
those.
Online: Divide by 2
Quick: Divide by 1.5
Epic: Multiply by 1.5
Marathon: Multiply by 3
GLOSSARY
All of the game's civs come with unique advantages.
Some are obvious, like Russia's faith bonus making
them good at religion, but some are less welldocumented or lesser-known, like how many unique
strength bonuses extend to theological combat. Some
features can be unclear, such as which adjacency
bonuses can be stacked and which can't. And some
features have interesting applications or strategies
that aren't always well known.
Terminology used in this guide and not in-game is
explained here.
AoE (Area of Effect) - Bonuses or penalties that
affect multiple tiles in a set radius. Positive examples
include Factories (which offer production to cities
within a 6 tile radius unless they're within range of
another building of the same type) and a negative
example is nuclear weapons, which cause
devastation over a wide radius.
This guide is about compiling those little interesting
details about civs, free from the discussion of general
strategies. Find out more about your favourite civs, or
discover something about a civ you may have
previously written off.
Beelining - Obtaining a technology or civic quickly by
only researching it and its prerequisites. Some
deviation is allowed in the event that taking a
technology or civic off the main track provides some
kind of advantage that makes up for that (either a
source of extra science/culture or access to
something necessary for a eureka or inspiration
boost)
If you want to know more about certain civs, there's
links to full guides for every single one at the end of
this guide. They're generally intended for singleplayer
below deity difficulty.
3
resource a civilization is more likely to start near. This
is typically used for civilizations that have early
bonuses dependent on a particular terrain type. There
are five tiers of start bias; civs with a tier 1 start bias
are placed before civs of tier 2 and so on, increasing
their odds of receiving a favourable starting location.
CA (Civ Ability) - The unique ability of a civilization,
shared by all its leaders.
Compact empires - Civs with cities close together
(typically 3-4 tile gaps between city centres). This is
useful if you want to make use of districts that gain
adjacency bonuses from other districts, or to
maximise the potential of area-of-effect bonuses later
in the game.
Super-uniques - Unique units that do not replace any
others. Examples include India's Varu and Mongolia's
Keshigs.
Dispersed empires - Civs with cities that are spread
out (typically 5-6 tile gaps between city centres). Civs
with unique tile improvements generally favour a more
dispersed empire in order to make use of them, as do
civs focused on wonder construction.
Tall empires - Empires that emphasise city
development over expansion, usually resulting in
fewer, but bigger, cities.
Uniques - Collective name for civ abilities, leader
abilities, unique units, unique buildings, unique
districts and unique improvements.
GPP - Short for Great Person Points. Districts,
buildings and wonders generate these points and with
enough you can claim a Great Person of the
corresponding type.
UA (Unique Ability) - A collective name for leader
abilities and civ abilities.
GWAM - Collective name for Great Writers, Artists
and Musicians. All of them can produce Great Works
that offer tourism and culture, making them important
to anyone seeking a cultural victory.
UB (Unique Building) - A special building which may
only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization,
which replaces a normal building and offers a special
advantage on top.
LA (Leader Ability) - The unique ability of a specific
leader. Usually but not always, they tend to be more
specific in scope than civ abilities. Some leader
abilities come with an associated unique unit or
infrastucture.
UD (Unique District) - A special district which may
only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization,
which replaces a normal district, costs half as much to
build and offers some unique advantages on top.
UI (Unique Improvement) - A special improvement
that can only be built by the Builders of a single
civilization. "UI" always refers to unique improvements
in my guides and not to "user interface" or "unique
infrastructure".
Prebuilding - Training a unit with the intention of
upgrading it to a desired unit later. An example is
building Slingers and upgrading them once Archery is
unlocked.
Sniping - Targeting a specific city for capture directly,
ignoring other enemy cities along the way. Typically
used in the context of "capital sniping" - taking a civ's
original capital as quickly as possible to contribute
towards domination victory without leading to a
drawn-out war.
UU (Unique Unit) - A special unit that may only be
trained by a single civilization, and in some cases only
when that civilization is led by a specific leader.
Wide empires - Empires that emphasise expansion
over city development, usually resulting in more, but
smaller, cities.
Start bias - The kind of terrain, terrain feature or
4
CLARIFYING START BIASES
England
Coal (5)
A common area for confusion or incorrect
assumptions concerns start biases. There can often
be a tendency to assume that just because someone
tends to start near the same terrain when playing as a
civ, that means they must favour starting there. That's
not necessarily true - although some civs are more
likely to start near certain terrain or resource types,
that doesn't mean they all are.
Iron (5)
Ethiopia
Start Bias
America
None
Arabia
Australia
Desert Hills
(2)
Grassland
Hills (2)
Plains Hills
(2)
Tundra Hills
(2)
Start biases have tiers ranked from 1 (highest) to 5
(lowest). Civs (and city-states) are placed based on
this priority order. Civs with a tier 1 start bonus are
extremely likely (but not guaranteed) to start near the
particular terrain, while civs with a tier 5 start bias
have a slight edge over civs without that start bias.
Civ
Coast (3)
France
River (3)
Gaul
Copper (2)
Diamonds
(2)
Iron (2)
Jade (2)
Mercury (2)
Salt (2)
Silver (2)
Georgia
None
Germany
River (5)
Cattle (5)
Gran
Colombia
None
Horses (5)
Greece
None
Coast (2)
Sheep (5)
Aztecs
None
Babylon
River (3)
Brazil
Rainforest
(2)
Byzantium
None
Canada
Tundra (1)
Desert Hills
(3)
Grassland
Hills (3)
Plains Hills
(3)
Tundra Hills
(3)
Hungary
River (3)
Geothermal
Fissure (5)
Tundra Hills
(1)
Inca
Snow (5)
Snow Hills
(5)
Desert
Mountains
(2)
China
None
Cree
None
Grassland
Mountains
(2)
Egypt
Desert
Floodplain
(2)
Plains
Mountains
(2)
Grass
Floodplain
(2)
Snow
Mountains
(5)
Plains
Floodplain
(2)
Tundra
Mountains
(5)
India
River (5)
5
None
Indonesia
Coast (2)
Cotton (2)
Japan
Coast (3)
Dyes (2)
Khmer
River (3)
Incense (2)
Kongo
Woods (2)
Olives (2)
Rainforest
(2)
Silk (2)
Korea
Spices (2)
Desert Hills
(3)
Sugar (2)
Tea (2)
Grassland
Hills (3)
Tobacco (2)
Plains Hills
(3)
Wine (2)
Desert (3)
Tundra Hills
(3)
Macedon
None
Mali
Desert (1)
Desert Hills
(3)
Desert
Mountains
(3)
Desert Hills
(1)
Snow (3)
Aluminium
(5)
Snow Hills
(3)
Coal (5)
Snow
Mountains
(3)
Copper (5)
Diamonds
(5)
Tundra (3)
Iron (5)
Tundra Hills
(3)
Jade (5)
Tundra
Mountains
(3)
Mercury (5)
Nitre (5)
Salt (5)
Mongolia
Horses (2)
Silver (5)
Netherlands
River (2)
Māori
None*
Mapuche
Desert
Mountain (3)
Coast (4)
Norway
Woods (5)
Grassland
Mountain (3)
Maya
Coast (3)
Nubia
Desert (2)
Plains
Mountain (3)
Desert Hills
(2)
Tundra
Mountain (3)
Copper (5)
Diamonds
(5)
Grassland
(1)
Jade (5)
Grassland
Hills (1)
Mercury (5)
Plains (1)
Salt (5)
Plains Hills
(1)
Silver (5)
Citrus (2)
Aluminium
(5)
Coffee (2)
Coal (5)
Cocoa (2)
Iron (5)
6
AMERICA (WITH PERSONA PACKS)
Nitre (5)
Uranium (5)
Ottomans
Nitre (5)
Persia
None
Phoenicia
Coast (2)
Poland
None
Portugal
Coast (1)
Rome
None
Russia
Tundra (2)
Tundra Hills
(2)
Scotland
None
Scythia
Horses (2)
Grassland
(5)
Tricks
Plains (5)
Spain
Geothermal
Fissure (3)
Sumeria
River (3)
Sweden
None
Vietnam
Marsh (1)
Civilization Ability: Founding Fathers

Rainforest
(1)
The Potala Palace wonder gives America an extra
wildcard slot, essentially making it as powerful as
the Forbidden City.
Woods (1)
Zulus
None
Bull Moose Teddy's Leader Ability:
Antiquities and Parks
*The Māori do not have a start bias as such, but
Kupe's leader ability makes them start in ocean.


In addition to full civs, these (and only these) citystates have a start bias:
City-State
Start Bias
Mogadishu
Coast (1)
Nan Madol
Coast (1)
Nazca
Desert (1)
Rapa Nui
Coast (1)

Position Preserve districts two tiles away from
mountains for some excellent yields.
Settle next to mountain chains if possible as
mountains produce positive appeal and can be
incorporated in National Parks without taking tiles
you need for other purposes.
Plant forests adjacent to and in National Parks to
boost their appeal and hence tourism.
Rough Rider Teddy's Leader Ability:
Roosevelt Corollary
Volcano (1)

The strength bonus works offensively, so you can
use it to help with an early rush against another civ
on the same continent.
Clarifications
7

Bull Moose Teddy's Leader Ability:
Antiquities and Parks


The appeal bonus from having a National Park
present in a city only applies once; having a second
National Park won't make a +2 appeal bonus.
The appeal bonus from having a National
Park will affect mountain and natural wonder tiles,
which normally have a fixed amount of appeal
unaffected by adjacent tiles.
The tourism bonus stacks multiplicatively with other
tourism modifiers (so if a tile produces 10 tourism,
and you have both a trade route with a civ and the
Film Studio boost applies, you'll get 25 tourism
rather than 22.5)
AMERICA (WITHOUT PERSONA
PACKS)
Rough Rider Teddy's Leader Ability:
Roosevelt Corollary





The combat bonus is based on where combat is
taking place, so attacking a land unit on your
continent with a ranged naval unit will work, for
example. However, naval units when defending
cannot receive the +5 bonus as water tiles do not
count as being part of a continent.
The combat bonus does apply to theological
combat!
Amani (the Diplomat)'s +2 envoy boost when
present in a city-state is unaffected by trade.
If a city-state has a quest for you to send them a
trade route, doing so will always create two envoys
instead of one.
Sending your first envoy to a city-state that you
have sent a trade route to while you have the
Diplomatic League or Containment policy card
active will only grant three envoys, not four.
Tricks
Civilization Ability: Founding Fathers

The Potala Palace wonder gives America an extra
wildcard slot, essentially making it as powerful as
the Forbidden City.
Theodore Roosevelt's Leader Ability:
Roosevelt Corollary
Rough Rider Teddy's Unique Unit: Rough
Rider



The home-continent culture bonus from kills is
determined based on where the combat is taking
place. If a Rough Rider starts on your home
continent but is attacking a unit on a different
continent, you will not receive any culture.
The culture on kills is equal to 50% of the defeated
unit's melee strength, rounded down.


The strength bonus works offensively, so you can
use it to help with an early rush against another civ
on the same continent.
Settle next to mountain chains if possible as
mountains produce positive appeal and can be
incorporated in National Parks without taking tiles
you need for other purposes.
Plant forests adjacent to and in National Parks to
boost their appeal and hence tourism.
Clarifications
Unique Building: Film Studio
8
ARABIA
Theodore Roosevelt's Leader Ability:
Roosevelt Corollary




The combat bonus is based on where combat is
taking place, so attacking a land unit on your
continent with a ranged naval unit will work, for
example. However, naval units when defending
cannot receive the +5 bonus as water tiles do not
count as being part of a continent.
The combat bonus does apply to theological
combat!
The appeal bonus from having a National Park
present in a city only applies once; having a second
National Park won't make a +2 appeal bonus.
The appeal bonus from having a National
Park will affect mountain and natural wonder tiles,
which normally have a fixed amount of appeal
unaffected by adjacent tiles.
Tricks
Civilization Ability: The Last Prophet[/h2]
Theodore Roosevelt's Unique Unit:
Rough Rider



The home-continent culture bonus from kills is
determined based on where the combat is taking
place. If a Rough Rider starts on your home
continent but is attacking a unit on a different
continent, you will not receive any culture.
The culture on kills is equal to 50% of the defeated
unit's melee strength, rounded down.
Although you need a Holy Site or Stonehenge
to found a religion, you don't need to build
them - just capture one with a Mamluk and set
your free Great Prophet to relocate to the
captured city.
Unique Unit: Mamluk

Abu Al-Qasim Al-Zahrawi is a Great Scientist
arriving in the medieval era, which boosts the
heal rate of units on the same or adjacent tiles
by 20HP per turn. This goes brilliantly with
Mamluks' heal-every-turn attribute.
Unique Building: Film Studio

The tourism bonus stacks multiplicatively with other
tourism modifiers (so if a tile produces 10 tourism,
and you have both a trade route with a civ and the
Film Studio boost applies, you'll get 25 tourism
rather than 22.5)

If you have an Apostle with the Chaplain
promotion, they have the same effect. You
can then retire Abu Al-Qasim Al-Zahrawi for
an extra 5HP/turn healing.
Unique Building: Madrasa

9
Given Arabia's incentive to build both Holy
Sites and Campuses, you can get a lot out of
AUSTRALIA
the Monasticism Dark Age wildcard, which is
available in the classical or medieval era.
Hidden Features
Civilization Ability: The Last Prophet

If Arabia is in a game at the start, a Great
Prophet will always be reserved for them - even
if they're eliminated from the game!
Clarifications
Tricks
Civilization Ability: The Last Prophet


Civilization Ability: Land Down Under
You need Stonehenge or a Holy Site to found a
religion, regardless of how you receive a Great
Prophet.
The science bonus is applied at the empire,
rather than city, level and as such will not be
modified by city-specific bonuses or penalties
such as amenities.


Saladin's Leader Ability: Righteousness of
the Faith


Your worship building is 90% cheaper for other
civs, but the 10% boosts to science, culture and
faith will not work for them.
The cost reduction for your own worship
buildings stacks additively with other cost
reductions. For example, taking the Theocracy
government will make your worship buildings
free to purchase.
The Eiffel Tower wonder will boost your entire
empire's appeal by 2, giving you considerably
better district yields.
An industrial, modern or atomic-era Golden Age
allows you to use the Heartbeat of Steam
dedication. It makes Campuses add production
equal to their science adjacency bonus. Given the
civ ability creates powerful Campuses and John
Curtin's Leader Ability doubles production, it's a
very powerful dedication to take.
John Curtin's Leader Ability: Citadel of
Civilization


10
Defensive buildings are not considered in combat
strength calculations, so constructing walls instead
of military units is a good way to appear weaker
than you really are, encouraging other civs to
declare war on you.
Initiating an emergency (such as by capturing a
city-state) is a particularly good way to encourage
other civs to declare war on you. Check which civs
have envoys present in the city-state before you
attack - those are the civs which will be allowed to
join the emergency.
Civilization Ability: Land Down Under
Unique Unit: Digger


Coastal Housing
Diggers have no oil cost, allowing Australia to
ignore the entire lower branch of the technology
tree as the Refining technology is unnecessary.
This allows Diggers to be unlocked considerably
earlier than generic Infantry.
Bonuses on foreign coasts make Diggers
particularly good at liberating city-states, which
often spawn next to the sea.

Pasture Culture Bomb
Unique Improvement: Outback Station


Because Outback Stations can be built on desert,
they work very well in conjunction with the Petra
wonder.


Civilization Ability: Land Down Under

District bonuses from high appeal count as
adjacency bonuses for the purpose of modifiers
such as policy card boosts.

With the Steam Power technology, all pastures
gain +1 production per adjacent Outback Station.
Civs other than Australia can benefit from this!
Pillagers of Outback Stations are healed 50 health.


Unique Unit: Digger

Only tiles that are within the workable range of
the tile's city will be granted (in other words, they
must be within a 3-tile radius from the city
centre).
This includes tiles from other civs, but will incur a
diplomatic penalty if you steal tiles off them this
way. Taking land from city-states has no penalty.
Tiles stolen containing non-unique tile
improvements will retain them.
Tiles containing completed districts, wonders or
national parks will not be stolen, but incomplete
ones will be, destroying them.
John Curtin's Leader Ability: Citadel of
Civilization
Unique Improvement: Outback Station

Culture bombs have the following rules:

Hidden Features

The housing offered separate from the housing
provided based on access to fresh water, and
stacks with it.

Unlike the Infantry units they replace, Diggers do
not contribute to carbon emissions due to them not
using oil resources.
Clarifications
11
Turns of increased production cannot accumulate;
liberating a city or being the target of a declaration
of war will reset the turns to 10 regardless of how
many turns of +100% production you have
remaining.
Being the target of a war declaration by a city-state
won't trigger the production bonus.
The production boost stacks additively with other
percentage bonuses, so a city with the Ruhr Valley
wonder will have a 120% production bonus, not
140%, for example.
AZTECS
Hidden Features
Montezuma's Leader Ability: Gifts for the
Tlatoani

The attack bonus affects religious units in
theological combat. On larger maps, this can give
the Aztecs a bigger theological strength bonus than
any other civ.
Unique Unit: Eagle Warrior

Tricks
Civilization Ability: Legend of the Five
Suns





If you use all but one Builder charge on other
things, you can rapidly rush a district by moving in
a succession of 1-charge Builders and using their
final charge.
You can switch production from a district to
something else before you end your turn and
switch back the following turn so you can use
Builder charges. This essentially allows you to build
two things at once.
Training Builders and then using their charges to
rush districts will be more efficient than directly
building districts if the former costs less than 60%
of the latter's price.
This ability works for all districts - including
Spaceports, which are otherwise extremely
expensive.
Clarifications
Civilization Ability: Legend of the Five
Suns



Unique Unit: Eagle Warrior

The probability of turning an enemy military unit
into a Builder depends on the strength difference
between the enemy unit and the Eagle Warrior.
Scouts for example have a very high chance of
being turned into Builders when defeated.
The higher cost of Eagle Warriors means they're
less expensive to upgrade to Swordsmen.

Because city strength is tied to your strongest unit,
and the Aztecs start with an Eagle Warrior, Aztec
cities will defend slightly better in the first few turns
relative to cities of other civs.
Modifiers to general production (e.g. the Ruhr
Valley wonder) and district production (e.g. the City
Patron Goddess pantheon) do increase the
contribution of Builder charges beyond 20% of a
district's cost.
You may only rush districts which are currently
being worked on by the city. It is possible to switch
production to the district, rush it, and switch back to
something else all in the same turn.
You cannot use Builder charges to rush the repairs
of a pillaged district.
If a Builder charge contributes more production
than is needed to complete a district, it overflows to
the next thing you build, avoiding any being
wasted.
Montezuma's Leader Ability: Gifts for the
Tlatoani
12

BABYLON
Special luxuries offered by Great Merchants
(Cosmetics from Helena Rubinstein, Jeans from
Levi Strauss, Perfume from Estee Lauder and Toys
from John Spilsbury) count for purposes of this
ability.
However, luxury resources from trading, city-states
under suzerainity and the suzerain bonuses of
Buenos Aires and Zanzibar do not provide a
strength bonus.
The number of types of luxuries found on each map
size, excluding the four special Great Merchant
luxuries, are as follows:








Duel: 6
Tiny: 10
Small: 15
Standard: 19
Large: 24
Huge: 28
Tricks
Civilization Ability: Enuma Anu Enlil
There are four unique luxury types on every
continent, plus a number of types of sea luxuries
found throughout the map (two on Duel/Tiny maps,
three on Small/Standard maps, four on Large/Huge
maps).


Unique Unit: Eagle Warrior

Researching Mining, killing three Barbarians and
building three mines will give you access to Men-atArms very early in the game.
Training a Slinger, killing a unit with it, upgrading to
an Archer and training two more will give you
access to Crossbowmen, Siege Towers and the
Kilwa Kisiwani wonder very early in the game.
You can research Industrialisation extremely
quickly by researching Mining, building three mines
and building two Industrial Zones, one of them with
a Workshop on top (the other Workshop is free).
You can then build Factories and Coal Power
Plants for a huge production advantage.

Enemy units which are captured and turned into
Builders will gain +1 charge if you control the
Pyramids wonder, but will not gain charges from
the Serfdom or Public Works policy cards.



13
If you build a Coal Power Plant, you'll skip to
Refining which unlocks Battleships and oil wells;
build an oil well and you'll unlock Plastics,
allowing you to train Spec Ops extremely early in
the game.
With the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus wonder, you
can retire Great Engineers a second time. Doing so
for Leonardo da Vinci, who arrives around the
renaissance game era, will allow you to get two
modern-era technologies for free granting you a
huge technological advantage.
The Kilwa Kisiwani wonder gives you empire-wide
science bonuses so long as you are suzerain of at
least two scientific city-states. This can help cancel
out Babylon's science penalty and make the civ
considerably more effective at scientific victories.
Hidden Features
Civilization Ability: Enuma Anu Enlil

The eureka boosts for Siege Tactics and
Replaceable Parts are mislabeled in-game. Siege
Tactics requires two Trebuchets to boost, while
Replaceable Parts requires three Line Infantry.
Clarifications
Civilization Ability: Enuma Anu Enlil

The 50% science penalty stacks additively with
other empire-wide science output modifiers. For
example, having the Communism government adds
a 10% bonus, which results in Babylon having 60%
of the base empire-wide science output.
You may directly research any technology you
have the direct prerequisites for by selecting the
technology on the science panel of the world
tracker. Selecting it on the technology tree will
instead start researching all its indirect
prerequisites.

Hammurabi's Leader Ability: Ninu Ilu
Sirum

The exact buildings you'll gain for free for your first
copy of a district are:

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
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Click on this image to see what research paths
Babylon can take with Eurekas alone.
14
Aerodrome - Hangar
Campus - Library
Commercial Hub - Market
Diplomatic Quarter - Consulate
Encampment - Barracks
Entertainment Complex - Arena
Harbour - Lighthouse
Holy Site - Shrine
Industrial Zone - Workshop
Preserve - Grove
Theatre Square - Amphitheatre
Water Park - Ferris Wheel


The districts that provide a free envoy when first
built are the Aqueduct, Canal, Dam, Government
Plaza, Neighbourhood and Spaceport.
BRAZIL
Look for lakes in the middle of large landmasses they're great places to place Copacabana districts
as the wide radius of their amenity-boosting
buildings mean just a single one can provide
amenities to a huge number of cities.
Hidden Features
Unique Unit: Minas Geraes


Tricks
Because the Minas Geraes arrives in the industrial
rather than modern era, its production is boosted
by the Press Gangs policy card (available at the
renaissance-era Exploration civic) rather than the
International Waters policy card (available at the
atomic-era Cold War civic).
The different era of the Minas Geraes relative to
regular Battleships means renaissance-era Great
Admirals can affect them, but modern-era ones
can't.
Civilization Ability: Amazon


Clarifications
Taking the Sacred Path pantheon allows you to
receive +2 faith for every rainforest tile adjacent to
a Holy Site - on a par with a natural wonder!
The atomic-era Biosphère wonder makes Brazilian
rainforests as effective as old-growth woods for
boosting tile appeal.
Civilization Ability: Amazon


Unique Unit: Minas Geraes


Assuming no promotions or other strength boosts
on either side, Minas Geraes units will destroy
naval units of earlier eras in a single hit most of the
time. As such, forming fleets with them is initially
unnecessary.
As city strength is tied to your strongest unit, your
cities will defend considerably more effectively
once your first Minas Geraes is built.
Brazilian Campuses only receive 1 science per
adjacent rainforest, not 3 science from every two as
you may expect.
The rainforest appeal bonus only applies to
rainforests owned by Brazil. Rainforests just
outside Brazilian territory will still generate -1
appeal to adjacent Brazilian tiles. Conversely,
rainforests owned by Brazil will generate +1 appeal
to adjacent tiles even if those tiles are owned by
other civs.
Pedro II's Leader Ability: Magnanimous

Unique District: Copacabana
15
The Great Person Points you gain after acquiring
one is equal to 20% of the person you just
acquired's cost - regardless of whether you used
patronage or not.
and armies to resist enemy attacks more
effectively.
Unique District: Street Carnival

When completed, the Carnival city project offers
the following Great Person Points:



Clarifications
Half as many Great Merchant Points as
Commercial Hub Investments
Half as many Great Engineer Points as Industrial
Zone Logistics
As many Great Writer, Artist and Musician Points
as a Theatre Square Festival
Civilization Ability: Taxis

Killing enemy units adds 250 points of pressure of
your own religion to cities within 10 tiles.
The religious pressure bonus for killing enemy units
does not stack with the Disciples promotion for
Warrior Monks.
The maximum strength bonus from this ability
scales with the number of religions in the game.
With default settings, this means the following map
sizes have the following potential strength bonuses:

BYZANTIUM

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

Duel: 6
Tiny: 9
Small: 12
Standard: 15
Large: 18
Huge: 21
Basil II's Unique Unit: Tagma

Tricks
Units may only receive a strength bonus from one
adjacent Tagma.
Unique District: Hippodrome

Unique District: Hippodrome
Once you have the Games and Recreation civic,
start building Hippodromes in as many cities as
possible, but with one turn of production remaining,
switch to something else. Then, when you have the
Divine Right civic, finish the production. This will
grant you a lot of Tagmata for free.

Basil II's Unique Unit: Tagma

Keep some Tagmata around after they obsolete so
they can provide their strength bonus to more
powerful units. Consider forming them into corps
16
The free heavy cavalry unit is whichever one you
can train that has the most strength. As such,
Modern Armour take priority over Tanks, then
Curiassiers, Tagmata and finally Heavy Chariots.
CANADA

The high sight of Mounties makes them excellent at
spying on enemy territory.
Clarifications
Civilization Ability: Four Faces of Peace

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
Tricks
Civilization Ability: Four Faces of Peace

Being immune to surprise wars means civs must
necessarily give you five turns warning before they
can declare war on you, as they must denounce
you first. The exceptions to this are if you're the
target of an emergency which involves warfare
(e.g. a city-state emergency) or if the other civ has
the To Arms! Golden Age dedication (available
from the industrial to information game eras).
Wilfrid Laurier's Leader Ability: The Last
Best West

Wilfrid Laurier's Leader Ability: The Last
Best West


As Canada can neither declare nor be the target of
surprise wars, if Canada requests another civ move
their troops from their border, or another civ
requests it from Canada, there is no option but to
make the promise.
You receive no additional diplomatic favour for
winning an emergency as the target.
You cannot receive fractions of points of diplomatic
favour, so therefore Canada's civ ability will only
take effect once you are generating at least 100
tourism.
Horse and aluminium resources do not appear on
tundra or snow, so Wilfrid Laurier's leader ability
will not help you generate more of them.
Furthermore, iron, nitre and coal can appear in
tundra but not snow.
Unique Unit: Mountie
By favouring settling non-tundra lands first, you can
pick them up later allowing you to have a bigger
and more prosperous empire than other civs which
won't bother settling such weak terrain.
Being able to place farms on tundra, as well as
receiving other tundra-based yield bonuses. allows
Canada to get much more out of the St. Basil's
Cathedral wonder's tundra yield bonuses than most
civs.

Unique Unit: Mountie
17
Using Mounties' National Park charges does not
consume the unit, unlike using the charge on a
Naturalist unit.
CHINA


Because the source of your Builders for rushing
wonders with doesn't matter, you can have your
entire empire contribute towards the construction of
a single wonder.
Canals provide +2 production to adjacent Industrial
Zones, so being able to construct them early can
provide a helpful little production boost.
Unique Unit: Crouching Tiger Cannon

City ranged strength is tied to the highest ranged
strength of any unit in your civ. As such, training
your first Crouching Tiger Cannon will provide all
your walled cities with a considerable boost to their
damage output.
Tricks
Unique Improvement: Great Wall
Kublai Khan's Leader Ability: Gerege


The minimum number of turns for a trade route to
complete is 21 turns in the ancient or classical
game era, 31 in the medieval or renaissance game
era, 41 in the industrial, modern or atomic game
eras, or 51 in the information or future game eras.
As such, completing a trading post in another civ
takes much longer later in the game and makes
receving a free eureka/inspiration harder.
Hidden Features
Unique Improvement: Great Wall
Qin Shi Huang's Leader Ability: The First
Emperor



Great Walls arrive earlier than other defensive
improvements, so they can provide a distinct
advantage against Barbarians and early-game
warmongers, particularly for ranged land units with
the Garrison promotion.

If you use all but one Builder charge on other
things, you can rapidly rush a wonder by moving in
a succession of 1-charge Builders and using their
final charge.
You can switch production from a wonder to
something else before you end your turn and
switch back the following turn so you can use
Builder charges. This essentially allows you to build
two things at once.
Training Builders and then using their charges to
rush wonders will be more efficient than directly
building wonders if the former costs less than 60%
of the latter's price.
Great Walls have a base pillage yield of 50 gold.
Clarifications
Civilization Ability: Dynastic Cycle

18
If you are researching ahead of the present game
era, technologies and civics cost more to research.
If you are researching behind the present game
era, they are cheaper. Eurekas and inspirations,
however, always provide a fixed amount of science
and culture respectively. As such, this ability can
only be described as offering a 50% boost rather
than 40% for technologies and civics of your
CREE
current game era.

As such, the civ ability is better-described as
"Eurekas and inspirations offer 25% more
science and culture respectively than normal."
Kublai Khan's Leader Ability: Gerege



You can only receive the free eureka and
inspiration bonus once per full civ you send a route
to.
The random eureka and inspirations will favour
technologies and civics you are able to research
but lack the boosts for.
Trade routes must be completed to form a trading
post, so if your routes are pillaged before they can
be completed, you'll need to create them all over
again.
Tricks
Civilization Ability: Nîhithaw

Qin Shi Huang's Leader Ability: The First
Emperor
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
Modifiers to wonder production do enhance the
amount of production Builder charges contribute.
You may only rush wonders which are currently
being worked on by the city. It is possible to switch
production to the wonders, rush it, and switch back
to something else all in the same turn.
If a Builder charge contributes more production
than is needed to complete a district, it overflows to
the next thing you build, avoiding any being
wasted.
Despite arriving in the classical era,
you cannot rush the Machu Picchu wonder as its
location is always inaccessible to Builders.
Spacing your cities further apart (with a 5-6 tile gap
rather than 3-4 between each one) will help you
gain more tiles.
Allowing traders to be pillaged once they've
claimed all the tiles they can allows you to assign a
new route and therefore claim more tiles sooner,
though make sure the cost of the trader isn't higher
than the cost of simply purchasing those tiles.
Poundmaker's Leader Ability: Favourable
Terms

As soon as you have Cartography, send out a unit
overseas to explore, and try to ally with as many
civs you meet as you can. This will rapidly uncover
the remainder of the world's map for you!
Unique Unit: Okihtcitaw

19
Starting a war with a city-state allows you to train
Okihtcitaw far faster than you can when fighting
Barbarians, without the risk of a powerful counterattack that fighting with a full civ has. This will help
you get a unit to the powerful Ambush promotion,

which makes it stronger than Swordsmen or
Horsemen and ideal for invading a full civ with.
Look for confluences (where two rivers meet), or
where rivers branch off to maximise the number of
tiles this bonus applies to.
Hidden Features
Unique Improvement: Sphinx
Unique Unit: Okihtcitaw


The higher cost relative to regular Scouts makes
this unit slightly cheaper to upgrade.

Clarifications
Civilization Ability: Nîhithaw


You can claim water as well as land tiles with
traders.
Hidden Features
Unique Unit: Okihtcitaw

As both Egypt's unique unit and improvement arrive
in the ancient era, it's relatively easy to secure a
classical-era Golden Age with the era score they
provide.
If you can secure the Stonehenge wonder and
surround it with Sphinxes, you can have one of the
strongest religious starts of any civ, and could help
you secure an early victory. Of course, this is a
risky move to make.
Sphinxes can be constructed in flat desert land,
unlike most tile improvements, making them
especially strong in Petra cities.
Civilization Ability: Iteru
The free promotion level works as if the unit started
with 15XP. This means you won't be able to easily
get a second promotion off Barbarians.

EGYPT
Fertility bonuses from flooding is halved within
Egypt's territory as if a Dam is present on every
river.
Unique Improvement: Sphinx

Sphinxes have a base pillage yield of 25 faith.
Clarifications
Civilization Ability: Iteru

Tricks
Immunity to flood damage only applies within
Egyptian territory, so be careful leaving units out in
floodplain regions you don't own.
Cleopatra's Leader Ability:
Mediterranean's Bride
Civilization Ability: Iteru
20

Extra gold granted to trade routes from this ability
is not modified from the trade route crossing lakes,
seas, railroads and mountain tunnels.
more efficient than directly building them if the
former costs less than 80% of the latter's price.
Military Engineers are support units, unlike
Builders. It is possible to stack them both on the
same time, and use the Military Engineer to clear a
feature followed by using the Builder to place an
improvement, or vice versa.

Unique Improvement: Sphinx


Sphinxes only receive bonus faith from one
adjacent wonder; they won't get more if they're
adjacent to two or more wonders.
The owner of the wonder does not matter.
Eleanor of Aquitaine's Leader Ability:
Court of Love
ENGLAND

Build Art Museums in border cities as it is easier to
move Great Works of Art than it is to move
artefacts, allowing you to quickly move them in to
place extra loyalty pressure, and move them out
when that is no longer needed.
Pack your cities tightly together and grow them as
large as you can to maximise your loyalty pressure.
Rock Bands with the Indie promotion can take 40
loyalty off a rival city. Three Indie Rock Bands can
entirely remove a city's loyalty in a single turn if
they have sufficient venues to play at, allowing you
to flip even the most powerful cities to your control
so long as they're within 9 tiles of one of your own
cities.



Tricks
Civilization Ability: Workshop of the World
Victoria's Leader Ability: Pax Britannica
Military Engineers




The future-era Cultural Hegemony civic grants
you access to the Hallyu wildcard, allowing you
to choose any promotion for Rock Bands. This
allows you to reliably take the Indie promotion.
If you use all but one Military Engineer charge on
other things, you can rapidly rush an Aqueduct,
Dam, Canal or Flood Barrier by moving in a
succession of 1-charge Military Engineers and
using their final charge.
You can switch production from an Aqueduct, Dam,
Canal or Flood Barrier to something else before
you end your turn and switch back the following
turn so you can use Military Engineer charges. This
essentially allows you to build two things at once.
Training Military Engineers and then using their
charges to rush districts or Flood Barriers will be
With the Ancestral Hall Government Plaza building,
you'll get a Builder in all new cities. Add the
Serfdom economic policy card (requires the
medieval-era Feudalism civic) and they'll have five
charges. This allows you to chop down woods or
rainforest to rapidly build a Royal Navy Dockyard
for the second free unit, while still having charges
left to improve the city in other ways.
Victoria's Unique Unit: Redcoat
21

Military Science is a particularly easy technology to
beeline, which makes it easier to have a military
advantage over other civs.
Civilization Ability: Workshop of the World

The exact bonuses to powered buildings are as
follows:
Unique Unit: Sea Dog





Airport: +4 production
Broadcast Centre: +4 culture
Factory: +4 production to all cities within six tiles
unless they are already in range of this building
 Food Market: +4 food
 Research Lab: +4 science
 Shopping Mall: +4 gold
 Stock Exchange: +4 gold
 The bonus yields from Broadcast Centres,
Research Labs and Stock Exchanges can be
boosted with the appropriate policy cards.
Retiring the renaissance-era Great Admiral Francis
Drake allows you to receive a Sea Dog even
without the Mercantilism civic.
Because units are more likely to be captured if
they're weaker than the Sea Dog, forming fleets
and armadas is a good way to improve your odds
of capture.
Unique District: Royal Navy Dockyard


Take the Free Inquiry Golden Age dedication in the
classical or medieval era for masses of science
based on Royal Navy Dockyard adjacency
bonuses, boosted further with the Naval
Infrastructure economic policy card (requiring the
medieval-era Naval Tradition civic). This can
support a beeline to the MIlitary Science
technology for early Redcoats.
The extra Great Admiral Points allow you to fairly
reliably take both Santa Cruz and Yi Sun-Sin in the
renaissance era for an early Ironclad armada.
Remember they can only heal through pillaging and
promotions until you have access to coal
resources!
Eleanor of Aquitaine's Leader Ability:
Court of Love

Relics and artefacts count as Great Works for the
purposes of this ability.
The 9-tile area of effect for Great Works, relics and
artefacts is centred on the city centre, regardless of
the district or wonder the Great Works are stored
in.

Victoria's Leader Ability: Pax Britannica

Duel-sized maps only have a single continent by
default, so you will be unable to get the extra trade
route or free melee unit.
Cities may be founded, but not captured or
received in a deal to get a free melee infantry unit.
However, the free naval units can be generated in
any city which builds a Royal Navy Dockyard.
The free melee infantry unit will be the strongest
one you can currently train based on your
technology. Strategic resource requirements
do not matter! The same rules apply to the free
naval units.
Hidden Features

Eleanor of Aquitaine's Leader Ability:
Court of Love


If a city loses enough loyalty to become a free city,
if Eleanor is placing any loyalty pressure on the city
whatsoever, it will flip to her control - even if other
civs are placing more pressure on it.

Clarifications
22
There are three special cases where naval units
have the same strength: Sea Dogs take priority
over Frigates which take priority over Caravels,
ETHIOPIA
and Missile Cruisers take priority over Nuclear
Submarines.
 You can never receive Aircraft Carrier units from
this ability as they arrive on the same technology
as, and are weaker than, Destroyers.
 The free units will start will full health and can move
and fight immediately.
Victoria's Unique Unit: Redcoat


Duel-sized maps only have a single continent by
default, so you will be unable to use Redcoats'
foreign-continent strength bonus.
After disembarking, the Redcoat cannot have more
movement points remaining than its limit on land,
minus one.
Tricks
Civilization Ability: Aksumite Legacy
Unique Unit: Sea Dog



The chance of capturing an enemy naval unit
scales based on the strength difference between
the Sea Dog and the unit it defeats. Weaker units
are more likely to be captured.
Captured units will start at 25 health.

Unique District: Royal Navy Dockyard


The +2 gold bonus Royal Navy Dockyards get for
being on a continent other than the one containing
your capital counts as an adjacency bonus, and
can be modified accordingly.
The naval unit movement speed bonus is kept
when the unit is upgraded.
The bonus faith from each type of improved
resource in a city's limits is most effective when
used in a city with a lot of copies of a single type of
resource. As such, the strongest faith bonuses tend
to be seen on island cities or ones on a peninsula,
which can have a lot of fish or crabs resources in
range.
Governor Moskha (the Cardinal) with the Divine
Architect promotion allows you to purchase districts
with faith. For 600 gold and typically under 2000
faith, you can buy a Theatre Square, Amphitheatre,
Archaeological Museum and Archaeologist in a
new city.
Unique Unit: Oromo Cavalry


23
No unit is as mobile on hills as the Oromo Cavalry
for several eras, making hilly regions reliably good
escape routes.
You can station Oromo Cavalry units in neutral
territory between you and a potential enemy to see
if they're sending an army over to you thanks to
their extra sight, and their exceptional mobility
allows them to escape with ease.
FRANCE
Hidden Features
Unique Improvement: Rock-Hewn Church

The tourism yield the improvement generates with
the modern-era Flight technology includes any faith
added from the Earth Goddess or Fire Goddess
pantheons.
Clarifications
Civilization Ability: Aksumite Legacy

The bonus faith from each type of improved
resource in a city's limits is equal to the square of
the copies of that specific resource.
Tricks
Civilization Ability: Grand Tour


For example, a city with 3 improved wheat tiles
and 2 improved fish tiles will yield 9 faith for the
wheat, and 4 for the fish.
The bonus faith from improved resource tiles
applies even if the tiles are not worked.

Menelik II's Leader Ability: Council of
Ministers

Wonders provide more tourism the bigger the gap
between your current research era and the era the
wonder first becomes available. As such, once you
have Military Science for Garde Impériale units,
considering beelining Computers and then
Telecommunications to rapidly advance through
the eras and maximise your tourism output.
Black Queen Catherine's Leader Ability:
Catherine's Flying Squadron
The strength bonus for fighting on hills is
determined by the defending unit's location. For
example, an Ethiopian Battleship attacking a unit
on a hill will receive the bonus, but an Ethiopian
unit on a hill attacking an enemy unit on flat land
will not.



24
Having a higher level of diplomatic visibility in a civ
than vice versa grants you a +3 strength bonus per
level difference. Early in the game, this means you
have a reliable +3 strength bonus to counter wouldbe invaders.
Against computer opponents, you can reveal their
secret agenda with just a delegation. That level of
access also tells you when the civ has started
construction of a wonder.
With the future-era Cultural Hegemony civic, you
can take the Non-State Actors wildcard and choose
any promotion for your Spies. Polygraph,
Quartermaster and Surveillance is a highly potent
defensive combination, while Disguise, Linguist and
Rocket Scientist together is excellent for taking
down enemy Spaceports.
whatsoever, it will flip to her control - even if other
civs are placing more pressure on it.
Unique Improvement: Chateau
Eleanor of Aquitaine's Leader Ability:
Court of Love


Build Art Museums in border cities as it is easier to
move Great Works of Art than it is to move
artefacts, allowing you to quickly move them in to
place extra loyalty pressure, and move them out
when that is no longer needed.
Pack your cities tightly together and grow them as
large as you can to maximise your loyalty pressure.
Rock Bands with the Indie promotion can take 40
loyalty off a rival city. Three Indie Rock Bands can
entirely remove a city's loyalty in a single turn if
they have sufficient venues to play at, allowing you
to flip even the most powerful cities to your control
so long as they're within 9 tiles of one of your own
cities.



Chateaux have a base pillage yield of 25 faith.
Clarifications
Eleanor of Aquitaine's Leader Ability:
Court of Love

Relics and artefacts count as Great Works for the
purposes of this ability.
The 9-tile area of effect for Great Works, relics and
artefacts is centred on the city centre, regardless of
the district or wonder the Great Works are stored
in.

The future-era Cultural Hegemony civic grants
you access to the Hallyu wildcard, allowing you
to choose any promotion for Rock Bands. This
allows you to reliably take the Indie promotion.
Magnificence Catherine's Leader Ability:
Catherine’s Magnificences

When completed, the Court Festival produces 50
culture and 50 tourism against all civs, both
multiplied by the number of excess luxuries France
has.
Unique Unit: Garde Impériale

Military Science is a relatively easy technology to
beeline, which makes it easier to have a military
advantage over other civs.


The tourism bonus applies even against civs you
haven't met yet.
 Luxuries that count include those you have
traded for, but not the first copy of luxuries and
not those that have been traded away.
 The cost of the Court Festival project is 260% that
of a standard district project, with a base cost of 65
instead of 25.
Helpfully for Black Queen Catherine, the Printing
technology is on the way, which increases your
level of diplomatic visibility with all other civs.
Hidden Features

Eleanor of Aquitaine's Leader Ability:
Court of Love

If a city loses enough loyalty to become a free city,
if Eleanor is placing any loyalty pressure on the city
As with other district projects, the cost increases
throughout the game, scaling with the proportion
of the game's technologies or civics (whichever
is higher) you have unlocked.
Unique Unit: Garde Impériale
25


The unit always contributes +10 Great General
Points when it kills, whether attacking or defending.
Building your first Oppidum immediately grants you
the Iron Working technology, allowing you access
to Men-at-Arms much earlier than normal.
The strength of an Oppidum, like city centres and
Encampments, is tied to the strongest unit you
own. The ranged strength works similarly. Aircraft
are particularly strong in both respects, so training
one can make your cities considerably better at
defence.

Unique Improvement: Chateau

The owner of the adjacent wonders does not
matter.
GAUL
Hidden Features
Unique Unit: Gaesatae

Gaesatae units, unlike regular Warriors, obsolete at
Apprenticeship rather than Iron Working and
upgrade directly to Men-at-Arms instead of
Swordsmen.

This, combined with Gaesatae units' higher
production cost, make the Gaesatae to Man-atArms upgrade cost 50 gold cheaper than the
Warrior to Man-at-Arms upgrade.
Tricks
Unique District: Oppidum
Ambiorix's Leader Ability: King of the
Eburones




While you can't get culture by purchasing units, you
can still chop down woods and rainforests for a
quick burst of production to get the culture bonus
sooner.
You can boost your unit production with the envoy
bonuses from militaristic city-states, helping you to
get culture even faster.
If you want to easily maximise Ambiorix's strength
bonus, consider training a lot of cheap units like
Scouts. Position them at the back of your army so
they're unlikely to be attacked.
Enemies receive no yields when pillaging
Oppidums, instead of the science they would yield
for pillaging generic Industrial Zones.
Clarifications
Civilization Ability: Hallstat Culture


Unique District: Oppidum
26
While you cannot build speciality districts adjacent
to city centres, you can still place new cities
adjacent to existing speciality districts of other
cities, or keep the speciality districts of cities you
capture.
Although districts do not receive the usual +0.5
adjacency from other districts, special cases like
Theatre Squares receiving +2 culture from adjacent

Entertainment Complexes/Water Parks are still in
effect.
The mine culture bomb only grants unowned tiles
within a 3-tile radius from the city centre.

Destroying a Barbarian Encampment prior to the
renaissance game era offers +2 era score, and
an extra 1 if it's within six tiles of one of your
cities.
 Converting a city of another civ to your faith
while you're at war with them adds +3 era score.
 Earning a Great Person adds +1 era score,
increasing to +3 if you earned it via faith or gold
patronage in a way that represented more than
50% of the progress needed to unlock it.
 Each wonder built offers +3 era score, and an
extra 1 if it corresponds to the present game era
or later.
 Creating a national park adds +2 era score each
time.
 Avoid Normal Ages where possible. Dark Ages are
fine as you can follow them up with Heroic Ages,
which will produce so much era score that getting a
Golden Age immediately after will be easy.
Ambiorix's Leader Ability: King of the
Eburones

You do not receive culture when purchasing
military or support units; only when training them
with production.
Your melee infantry, anti-cavalry and land ranged
units receive +2 strength per adjacent military units,
regardless of which civ owns those adjacent units.

GEORGIA
Tamar's Leader Ability: Glory of the
World, Kingdom and Faith
Faith on Kills

You'll get more faith from fighting civs that favour
individual units over forming corps and armies. As
such, consider targeting civs with lower culture
outputs during the industrial and modern eras.
Tricks
Bonus Envoys
Civilization Ability: Strength in Unity


Go to the main guide under the civ ability section to
see a list of repeatable sources of era score. Some
particularly useful ones to remember are:


Cancelling another civ's levied units by equalling
or exceeding their envoys present in the
corresponding city-state grants +2 era score.
Dragging a city-state out of a war by equalling or
exceeding their suzerain's envoys grants +2 era
score.
Winning a city-state emergency as a coalition
member permanently gives you 1 gold per turn for
every envoy you have present at a city-state. Given
Tamar's huge potential to generate envoys,
participating in city-state emergencies can be a
great source of gold.
Unique Building: Tsikhe
27

Unique Building: Tsikhe
The industrial-era Urbanisation civic offers the
Military Research military policy card, which adds
+2 science for each Tsikhe you have. Most civs
rarely build Renaissance Walls, so won't get the
advantages you will out of this.
Furthermore, you can get an easy +2 diplomatic
favour per turn from Tsikhe buildings with the
Monarchy government or legacy card.


As with regular Renaissance Walls, you can no
longer build Tsikhe buildings once you have the
modern-era Steel technology. This makes it the
only unique building in the game to obsolete.
GERMANY
Clarifications
Civilization Ability: Strength in Unity

The bonus also extends to Heroic Ages, making it
very easy to produce large amounts of era score
during such ages.
Tamar's Leader Ability: Glory of the
World, Kingdom and Faith
Tricks
Faith on Kills

Frederick Barbarossa's Leader Ability:
Holy Roman Emperor
The faith you gain is based on the unit's melee
strength, so for example, Archers are worth 7.5
faith rather than 12.5.
You can gain faith by destroying embarked units.


The powerful strength bonus against city-state units
makes a war against one a good way of training up
your units. If you declare war in the ancient era,
you'll generate a minimal amount of grievances,
and you can just stay at war for the rest of the
game to train.
Bonus Envoys

The +1 envoy bonus for sending an envoy to a citystate following your religion:




Does not affect Amani (the Diplomat)'s +2 envoy
boost when present in a city-state.
Takes effect after the effect of the Religious
Unity founder belief, so it will always create two
envoys instead of one.
Will only grant three envoys, not four when used
in conjunction with the Diplomatic League or
Containment policy cards.

28
Scouts in particular benefit from this as they can
gain the Ambush promotion for 20 bonus points
of strength, and when upgraded to Rangers,
they'll be particularly strong for their era.
Taking over a city-state may trigger a city-state
emergency against you. If at least one civ joins in
against you, and you win (by holding the city for 30
turns), you'll receive +2 gold for all the trade routes
you have with city-states, in addition to a lump sum
of gold. Only civs with envoys present in the citystate are eligible to join against you, so consider
taking over city-states early on to limit the potential
threat of the coalition and win the potential
emergency more easily.
Unique Unit: U-Boat

Unique Unit: U-Boat

With the Observation promotion, U-Boats have a
sight of four. As they're invisible to most units, this
makes them exceptionally good at spying on other
civs or scanning oceans for incoming navies.
The strength bonus in ocean tiles is based upon
where the defending unit is located, and it works
defensively so long as the U-Boat is located on an
ocean tile.
GRAN COLOMBIA
Unique District: Hansa


Hansas receive +2 production for every adjacent
Commercial Hub. If you keep your cities close
together and build a zigzagging line of Commercial
Hubs, you'll end up with a lot of great spots to place
high-production Hansas.
Coal Power Plants produce production based on
their district's adjacency bonus, and combined with
the Craftsmen military policy card, Hansas can
produce an enormous amount of production.
Tricks
Hidden Features
Civilization Ability: Ejército Patriota
Unique Unit: U-Boat



The lower production cost of U-Boats make them
more expensive to upgrade, though cheaper to
upgrade into.
As U-Boats do not use oil unlike regular
Submarines, they do not contribute to carbon
dioxide emissions.

Clarifications
Hidden Features
Frederick Barbarossa's Leader Ability:
Holy Roman Emperor

Military units trained or purchased in a city with
Governor Victor (the Castellan) present with the
Embrasure promotion will receive a free promotion.
You can hold off from promoting them until they
take a little bit of damage for a free heal.
Free promotions saves time moving new Apostles
and Rock Bands to where they need to be - not just
military units!
Simón Bolívar's Unique Great Person:
Comandante General
You receive no strength bonus against levied citystate units. They have to be in direct control of a
city-state to count.

29
Unlike other Great People, you will not receive era
score for generating Comandante Generals.
However, you will receive +2 era score the first time

a Comandante General contributes to you killing an
enemy unit, much like Great Generals and
Admirals.
Santiago Mariño: +4 strength permanently to all
melee infantry and anti-cavalry units within two
tiles.
GREECE
Clarifications
Simón Bolívar's Leader Ability: Campaña
Admirable

The specific Comandante General you will receive
in each new game era is random, though you will
never receive the same one twice in a game.
Simón Bolívar's Unique Great Person:
Comandante General

The +5 strength bonus to land units within two tiles
stacks with the Great General strength bonus, and
unlike the latter is not tied to any specific era.
The retirement bonuses for Comandante Generals
are as follows:










Tricks
Civilization Ability: Plato's Republic

Antonio Jose de Sucre: Instantly creates the
strongest unit you can train. This unit receives a
free promotion. This unit requires no resource
maintenance.
Antonio Nariño: +1 trade route capacity and
receive a free trader in the nearest city.
Francisco de Paula Santander: Grants a
Governor title.
Gregor McGregor: Grants +1 promotion level to
a military land unit and gold equal to 50% of the
unit's purchase cost.
José Antonio Páez: All cavalry units within 2
tiles gain a permanent +4 strength bonus.
José Félix Ribas: Enemy units within 2 tiles lose
30HP
Manuel Piar: Permanent +7 strength to a land
military unit on this tile.
Mariano Montilla: Units within 2 tiles gain +4
strength permanently when attacking cities.
Rafael Urdaneta: All land combat units within 2
tiles regain all movement and attack capability,
as if they had just started a new turn.
As you have a wildcard policy slot from the start of
the game, it's possible to pick up the Revelation (+2
Great Prophet Points per turn) or Inspiration (+2
Great Scientist Points per turn) cards at Mysticism.
Any other civ except Poland would need to go to
Political Philosophy first, which takes much longer.
Gorgo's Leader Ability: Thermopylae


30
If you're aiming for a classical-era Dark Age (for the
Oligarchy/Twilight Valour combination), you'll want
to avoid getting era score from destroying
Barbarian encampments. As such, always bring a
ranged unit with you when killing Barbarians so you
can still get the culture from kills without eliminating
the encampment.
You'll get more culture from fighting civs that favour
individual units over forming corps and armies. As
such, consider targeting civs with lower culture
outputs during the industrial and modern eras.
Matthias Corvinus' Leader Ability: Raven
King
Hidden Features
Gorgo's Leader Ability: Thermopylae


Grievances Gorgo has with other civs decay twice
as fast, even when controlled by a human player.
This can make it harder to call emergencies against
other civs.
Pericles' Leader Ability: Surrounded by
Glory

To become suzerain over a city-state quickly, either
start the game by training Scouts so you can get
the first discovery envoy bonus, or research the
Mysticism civic for the bonus envoy. Then, recruit
Governor Amani (the Diplomat) and send her to a
city you have at least one envoy present at. Levy
the city-state's units as soon as possible and then
you can move out Amani while remaining suzerain.
Hidden Features
The culture bonus does not take effect until the turn
after gaining suzerain status in a city-state.
Matthias Corvinus' Leader Ability: Raven
King
Clarifications

Gorgo's Leader Ability: Thermopylae


The culture you gain is based on the unit's melee
strength, so for example, Archers are worth 7.5
culture rather than 12.5.
You can gain culture by destroying embarked units.
HUNGARY
Rounding in the calculation used to determine
strategic resource upgrade costs means you can
upgrade levied units to ones with strategic resource
maintenance even if you haven't discovered the
strategic resource. For example, you can upgrade
Line Infantry to Infantry without Refining. Don't
overdo this, however, as units that need a strategic
resource you have a deficit of will have a strength
penalty.
Matthias Corvinus' Unique Unit: Black
Army

As the Black Army unit costs 5 more production
than a generic Courser, upgrading a Horseman to a
Black Army unit costs 10 more gold.
Unique Unit: Huszár

As Huszárs cost 5 more production than generic
Cavalry, upgrading them to Helicopters costs 10
less gold.
Tricks
Clarifications
31
Matthias Corvinus' Leader Ability: Raven
King


prevents Barbarian Outposts spawning on those
tiles.
The reduced gold and strategic resource cost of
upgrading levied units stacks multiplicatively, not
additively, with appropriate policy cards, so
upgrading units will never be free.
Levied units cannot be formed into corps and
armies; this is still the case as Hungary.
Unique Unit: Warak'aq

As Warak'aq units attack twice per turn, they gain
twice as much experience. Use the Survey military
policy card on top to get to the powerful Ambush
promotion even sooner!
INCA
Clarifications
Civilization Ability: Mita

The presence of a Ski Resort prevents you working
mountains, though a Qhapaq Ñan improvement or
mountain tunnel does not.
Pachacuti's Leader Ability: Qhapaq Ñan

Tricks
Civilization Ability: Mita

Unique Unit: Warak'aq
As Mountain tiles always have at least 4 appeal, a
Preserve district can make adjacent mountain tiles
particularly lucrative to work.

Pachacuti's Unique Improvement:
Qhapaq Ñan


You do not need to be working mountain tiles to
receive the bonus food from trade routes; the tiles
only need to be in your city's limits.
As with Mountain Tunnels, it is possible to build
Qhapaq Ñan improvements in neutral territory. On
a long mountain range, you can create two Qhapaq
Ñan improvements on the opposite ends ahead of
time, allowing a Settler to quickly move into position
and establish a city.
In neutral territory. Qhapaq Ñan improvements
provide you with sight in adjacent tiles. This
32
Being able to attack twice is approximately
equivalent to a +18-20 strength bonus.
INDIA
Chandragupta Maurya's Leader Ability:
Arthashastra

The movement speed bonus is extremely effective
in conjunction with Varu - as they ignore zone of
control, you can easily surround enemy units with
them and use their high strength to eliminate them
with ease.
Unique Improvement: Stepwell

Tricks
Stepwells adjacent to farms produce a better food
output than farms until the Replaceable Parts
technology. As such, you should only really be
constructing farms to improve bonus resources
such as wheat, or to boost the yield of adjacent
Stepwells.
Civilization Ability: Dharma
Hidden Features
Missionary bonuses
Unique Unit: Varu

Indian Missionaries receive +2 spread-religion
charges - combined with the Exodus of the
Evangelists Golden Age dedication, you can rapidly
spread your religion before rival civs can afford an
adequate response.

Varu have a sight range of 3, 1 more than most
other land units. Placing a Varu unit on a hill is a
good way to spy on enemies, prevent Barbarian
Outposts from spawning or check on enemies
approaching.
Follower belief bonuses
Unique Improvement: Stepwell




This ability is easier to use if your cities are larger
and the cap on the number of religions in the game
is higher (by default, larger map sizes have more
religions).
The best way of getting a rival religion to your cities
is by sending a trade route to a city with it present.
It'll also help to spread your religion to them.
An alternative way to spread a little bit of a rival
faith in your land is to have one of your religious
units die in the area. Be sure to use all but one
spread religion charge first to minimise wasted
faith.
Pillagers of Stepwells are healed 50 health.
Clarifications
Civilization Ability: Dharma

33
The bonus to trade route religious pressure affects
both the city that sends the route, and the city that
receives it.
Chandragupta Maurya's Leader Ability:
Arthashastra


Civilization Ability: Great Nusantara

You need to either wait five turns after denouncing
a civ, or be the target of a denouncement in order
to use the War of Territorial Expansion casus belli.
The strength and movement speed bonus extends
to religious units.
Look out for reef tiles for the best Campus
adjacency bonuses.
Campuses, Holy Sites, Theatre Squares and
Industrial Zones adjacent to Harbours and Water
Parks will receive +1 adjacency from the respective
tiles (+0.5 from the district, +0.5 from the coast
terrain). That's a great combination for bumping up
your adjacency bonuses.

Gandhi's Leader Ability: Satyagraha

Your own civ counts for the purpose of the faith
bonus. If you've founded a religion and are at
peace, you're guaranteed at least a +5 faith bonus.
Unique Unit: Jong

Unique Unit: Varu


Jongs do not require nitre unlike regular Frigates,
and as such Indonesia can delay researching
Military Engineering.
Jongs can move formation units even if they have
no movement points remaining. By using multiple
Jongs, you can move an embarked unit or Great
Admiral across any length of sea in a single turn if
you have enough Jongs.

The strength penalty Varu make adjacent enemy
units suffer does not stack.
The strength penalty affects adjacent enemy naval
units - not just land units.

Unique Improvement: Stepwell

The adjacency bonuses Stepwells receive do not
stack.
This is particularly effective for getting Rock
Bands to distant civs later in the game.
Hidden Features
INDONESIA
Unique Improvement: Kampung

Kampungs gain +1 housing (for a total of 2) with
the renaissance-era Mass Production technology.
With the modern-era Flight technology, Kampungs
produce tourism equal to their food output, plus one
if the city has a Lighthouse.



In other words, add up the number of adjacent
Fishing Boats and add one for a Lighthouse to
get the tourism yield.
Pillagers of Kampungs are healed 50 health.
Clarifications
Tricks
34
JAPAN
Civilization Ability: Great Nusantara

The amenity bonus does not extend to Water
Parks.
Gitarja's Leader Ability: Exalted Goddess
of the Three Worlds
Purchasing naval units



All naval units may be purchased with faith,
including naval melee, ranged, raider and carrier
units.
Like other faith purchases, the cost of purchasing
Jongs can be reduced with the Theocracy
government.
As with gold purchasing, the Venetian Arsenal
wonder will not give you double quantities of faithpurchased naval units and there is no discount to
purchasing fleets/armadas in cities with Seaports.
Tricks
Civilization Ability: Meiji Restoration

Settling your cities close together makes it easier to
use this bonus. Place the districts that gain
adjacency bonuses in the middle of a group of
cities for strong yields.
Religious unit movement


Religious units always end up with fewer
movement points remaining after embarking or
disembarking regardless of whether or not their
maximum movement points changed in the
process.


Unique Unit: Jong

The different era of Jongs relative to regular
Frigates means classical-era Great Admirals can
affect them, but renaissance-era ones can't.

Placing your Government Plaza in the middle of
a group of cities is particularly powerful, as all
districts adjacent to it will have at least a +2
adjacency bonus.
It's possible to get adjacency bonuses both from
districts and the terrain they're on. A Commercial
Hub surrounded by other districts and next to a
river gets an impressive +8 gold bonus!
Getting districts to 3+ adjacency (4+ for
Commercial Hubs and Harbours) for the first time
grants 3 era score. Japan's relative ease of
achieving this for a wide range of districts makes it
easy to secure an early Golden Age.
Take the Free Inquiry Golden Age dedication
where possible; your powerful Commercial Hubs
will make huge amounts of science!
Unique Building: Electronics Factory[/b2]
35



Electronics Factories are the only Unique Building
that can be pillaged by Spies, via their Sabotage
Production mission. As such, it's especially
important for Japan to keep a strong counter-spy
operation. The atomic-era Cryptography diplomatic
policy card (requiring the Cold War civic) will really
help.
Japan's incentive to keep cities close together
combined with the production bonus for this
building when powered and Governor Magnus (the
Steward)'s Vertical Integration policy means you
can support an extremely productive city later in the
game.
The culture bonus does not spread to other cities
within six tiles, unlike the production bonus.
KHMER
Clarifications
Hojo Tokimune's Leader Ability: Divine
Wind





Tricks
The strength bonus is applied based on where the
defending unit is at the start of combat.
While the bonus against units on land only applies
if they're on a tile adjacent to the sea, the bonus
against units in the sea works for any coastal
(shallow water) sea tile, regardless of how close it
is to land.
Units do receive a strength bonus in lake tiles,
but not in tiles adjacent to them unless the tile is
also adjacent to the coast.
The strength bonus does apply to religious units.
The strength bonus has no effect on air units.
Jayavarman VII's Leader Ability:
Monasteries of the King


Unique Unit: Domrey

Unique Unit: Samurai

Use the River Goddess pantheon for some easy
amenities considering this leader ability only
functions for Holy Sites on riverside tiles.
Take the Work Ethic follower belief for some
powerful production bonuses for Holy Sites, on top
of the faith and food.
Units usually lose strength when injured at a rate of
1 strength per 10% of health lost, rounded up. A
unit at 90-99 health will lose 1 strength, a unit at
80-89 health will lose 2, and so forth. As such, the
ability of Samurai to retain full damage even when
injured means up to a +10 strength advantage at 19 HP relative to if they didn't have that ability.
The greater mobility of Domreys relative to other
siege units makes them excellent counters to
enemy naval units.
Unique Building: Prasat

Unique Building: Electronics Factory
The founder beliefs Cross-Cultural Dialogue or
World Church nicely complement this building's
incentive for you to build huge cities.
Hidden Features
36
KONGO
Jayavarman VII's Leader Ability:
Monasteries of the King

The bonus housing for Holy Sites works even when
they're pillaged.
Clarifications
Civilization Ability: Grand Barays

Farms do not gain additional food from being
adjacent to two or more Aqueducts.
Tricks
Jayavarman VII's Leader Ability:
Monasteries of the King

Civilization Ability: Nkisi
Culture bombs have the following rules:





Only tiles that are within the workable range of
the tile's city will be granted (in other words, they
must be within a 3-tile radius from the city
centre).
This includes tiles from other civs, but will incur a
diplomatic penalty if you steal tiles off them this
way. Taking land from city-states has no penalty.
Tiles stolen containing non-unique tile
improvements will retain them.
Tiles containing completed districts, wonders or
national parks will not be stolen, but incomplete
ones will be, destroying them.






Unique Unit: Domrey

The easiest way to obtain relics is to have an
Apostle with the Martyr promotion die to a military
or religious unit. If you have the Mont St. Michel
wonder or are suzerain over Yerevan, you can
guarantee every new Apostle will have it.
You can obtain Great Works of Sculpture from the
following Great Artists:
Donatello (Renaissance era, 3 Sculptures)
Michelangelo (Renaissance era, 2 Sculptures)
Edmonia Lewis (Atomic era, 3 Sculptures)
Marie-Anne Collot (Atomic era, 3 Sculptures)
Once a type of Great Person is depleted, excess
Great Person Points are converted to faith. This is
particularly useful for Kongo as securing faith for
Rock Bands can be difficult, and with bonuses to
Great Artist, Musician and Merchant Points you can
therefore get extra faith here.
The Expert Crew promotion is useless to Domreys
as they have that ability intrinsically.
Mvemba a Nzinga's Leader Ability:
Religious Convert

37
As you can't build Holy Sites, you'll need to seek
out alternative sources of relic slots to make the
most of the food, production and gold bonuses on
offer. They are as follows:






Hidden Features
Kongo's Palace (5 slots, but can only be in the
capital)
The Apadana wonder (2 slots, but can only be
constructed in the capital)
The Mont St. Michel wonder (2 slots)
Giovanni de Medici, a renaissance-era Great
Merchant, creates a special Bank in one city (2
slots)
The St. Basil's Cathedral wonder (3 slots)
The National History Museum building (4 slots,
must be constructed in your Government Plaza)
Civilization Ability: Nkisi

Unique Unit: Ngao Mbeba

Unique Unit: Ngao Mbeba

With the Tortoise promotion, Ngao Mbebas have
58 strength when defending against ranged attacks
- better than a Musketman!



The more expensive production cost makes it more
expensive to upgrade Warriors to Ngao Mbeba
units relative to Swordsmen (150 gold, up from
110), while making it cheaper to upgrade Ngao
Mbeba units into Musketmen (110 gold, down from
150).
Clarifications
Unique District: Mbanza

Theming bonuses double the food, production and
gold bonuses for Great Works of Sculpture and
artefacts in addition to their usual effect of doubling
culture and tourism yields.
Mbanzas offer food without needing you needing to
dedicate citizens to working the tile. If you build
large quantities of Mbanzas, that can free up your
citizens to work more mines instead of farms for a
better production output.
Mbanzas are susceptible to the Recruit Partisans
Spy mission, which spawns Barbarians in your
territory. To counter this, keep a few Apostles with
the Heathen Conversion promotion stationed in the
city centres of your most important and most
vulnerable cities, allowing you to flip them to your
side granting you a free military in the process!
The Public Transportation economic policy card
(Industrial era, requires Urbanisation) means the
appeal of your Mbanzas can be worth looking at
later in the game. With it, Breathtaking Mbanzas
are worth 6 food, 5 gold and 2 production each.
With the modern-era Conservation civic, you may
use Builder charges to plant new woods, allowing
you to build Mbanzas on most land tiles. Woods
produce positive appeal, so it may be a good idea
to chop down rainforests and replace them with
woods later in the game to maximise your National
Park and Seaside Resort yields.
Civilization Ability: Nkisi


The extra Great Work slots that Kongo's Palace
has may hold any kind of Great Work, including
relics and artefacts.
The bonus to Great Person Points does not apply
to points received from completing district projects.
Mvemba a Nzinga's Leader Ability:
Religious Convert



38
Building Stonehenge will not grant you a Great
Prophet. Sorry.
Holy Sites you capture from other civs will be
destroyed, freeing up the tile and the district
capacity in the process.
Thanks to being unable to construct Holy Sites, the
Great Scientist Hildegard of Bingen cannot be
activated. As such, you should choose to pass if
you have the option to recruit her.
KOREA


MACEDON
Tricks
Tricks
Unique District: Seowon
Alexander's Unique Unit: Hetairoi

Building your first Seowon will usually generate 7
era score (4 from the district, 3 from having a
Campus of 3+ adjacency). This makes it very easy
to enter a classical-era Golden Age.
However, entering a classical or medieval era Dark
Age is very lucrative as the Monasticism wildcard
can offer a huge 75% science bonus in cities with a
Holy Site.
Unique Building: Basilikoi Paides

Hidden Features
Civilization Ability: Three Kingdoms


You will receive extra science for mines, and extra
food for farms adjacent to the Campuses of other
civs - not just your own Seowons.
Unique Unit: Hwacha

You can get Great General Points fighting
Barbarians. For that reason, it's a good idea to train
some Hetairoi before Hypaspists, so you can get
some extra Great General Points before starting a
war.

Relative to regular Field Cannons, Hwacha are less
expensive to upgrade to (150 gold, down from 310,
or -52%), but more expensive to upgrade (590
gold, up from 430, or +37%).
While you can't get science by purchasing units,
you can still chop down woods and rainforests for a
quick burst of production to get the science bonus
sooner.
If you want to maximise your science output, settle
either on the sea or close enough that your city can
support a Harbour, take a policy card that boosts
naval unit production and keep building naval units.
Policy cards that boost naval unit production offer a
+100% boost rather than the +50% for land or air
units.
Furthermore, you can boost your unit production
with the envoy bonuses from militaristic city-states,
helping you to get science even faster.
Hidden Features
39

Alexander's Leader Ability: To the World's
End

Grievances Alexander has with other civs decay
twice as fast, even when controlled by a human
player. This can make it harder to call emergencies
against other civs.


Unique Unit: Hypaspist


Upgrading a Warrior to a Hypaspist costs 130 gold,
up from 110 needed for other civs to upgrade
Warriors to generic Swordsmen.
Hypaspists cost 130 gold to upgrade to a Man-atArms; generic Swordsmen cost 150 gold each to
upgrade.
Unique Unit: Hypaspist

Clarifications
Civilization Ability: Hellenistic Fusion

The strength bonus for having an adjacent Great
General (or one sharing the same tile) does not
stack if the unit is next to two or more (but it will still
stack with the strength bonuses the Great Generals
offer)
You can get the +5 strength bonus from being
adjacent to a Great General or sharing its tile
regardless of the Great General's era.
The free promotion works as if the unit got enough
experience for the first promotion; subsequent ones
are not any cheaper than they would be for other
units.
How the support bonus works in a nutshell: units
gain +2 defensive strength for every adjacent other
unit you control, for Hypaspists, they provide +3
each instead.
Unique Building: Basilikoi Paides

The free eurekas and inspirations skew towards
technologies and civics you can research before
filling out the rest of the respective trees. In other
words, you should expect to get the boosts that
save you the least amount of science or culture
first.

You will gain science from training any kind of
military or support unit in the city - not just the ones
that are offered an experience boost from this
building.
You will not gain science from units which are
purchased in the city, whether through gold or faith.
MALI
Alexander's Leader Ability: To the World's
End


The immunity to war weariness overrides Gandhi's
leader ability, so you still won't suffer any war
weariness against him.
All of Alexander's units heal when you capture a
city containing a world wonder, regardless of where
they are actually located in the world.
Alexander's Unique Unit: Hetairoi

The unit always contributes +5 Great General
Points when it kills, whether attacking or defending.
Tricks
40
Civilization Ability: Songs of the Jeli

Unique Unit: Mandekalu Cavalry

Malian mines have less production, but lumber
mills do not. As such, if you want a highlyproductive city, look out for wooded regions.
Mali does not have a penalty to city project or
wonder production, so these can be efficient uses
of your production later in the game.

Even after more powerful units come available, you
can place Mandekalu Cavalry in city centres and
Encampment districts to keep nearby land-based
trade routes safe with minimal risk to the units.
Hidden Features
Mansa Musa's Leader Ability: Sahel
Merchants

Unique District: Suguba

Take advantage of your incentive to settle deserts
with the Desert Folklore pantheon, and you can
create powerful Holy Sites.


Add the Work Ethic follower belief on top so
those Holy Sites can generate a good production
yield and make up for one of Mali's weaknesses.
Clarifications
Unique District: Suguba




Buildings in this district have unique graphics to
match the district's aesthetics.
After applying the discount, the cost of purchasing
things will always be rounded to a multiple of 5 gold
or faith.
Civilization Ability: Songs of the Jeli
A decent way to boost Suguba adjacency is to build
them in a zigzag around a river, and then place
Holy Sites either side. However, if you have the
Desert Folklore pantheon and have a river near a
desert available, you may want to make a different
formation to account for both districts' yields.
With a classical or especially medieval-era Golden
Age, the Free Inquiry dedication becomes very
powerful for Mali due to the large adjacency
bonuses of Suguba districts being added to
science.
Use Governors Reyna (the Financier) with the
Contractor promotion, and/or Governor Moksha
(the Cardinal) with the Divine Architect promotion
so you can buy a Suguba district in new cities, and
then use the purchase cost discount to rapidly
develop it.
The militaristic city-state Ngazargamu cuts the gold
cost of purchasing land units by up to 60% in a city
with a Military Academy building. Add this district
and the Democracy government for a total 95%
reduction to land unit purchase costs.

The cost of faith-purchasing Markets, Banks and
Stock Exchanges can be modified by things that
affect faith purchase costs, such as the Theocracy
government.
Mansa Musa's Leader Ability: Sahel
Merchants

The extra trade route gold from this ability
is not affected by the trade route crossing lakes,
seas, railroads and mountain tunnels.
Unique District: Suguba

41
The reduction to gold and faith purchases stacks
additively with other cost-reducing bonuses, such
as the Theocracy and Democracy governments.
MĀORI
defensive advantage - try it with land ranged units
with the Garrison promotion!
Hidden Features
Civilization Ability: Mana

Barbarians are able to build units based on the
technologies of full civs. As such, the presence of
the Māori in the game will cause Barbarian
Quadriremes to appear earlier than usual, as the
Māori start with Shipbuilding.
Great Writer Points generated by the Māori are
converted into faith as if there were no Great
Writers left to recruit.

Tricks
Civilization Ability: Mana

Kupe's Leader Ability: Kupe's Voyage

Turtle luxuries are always found on reef tiles,
meaning they can benefit both from the +1 food
from the Māori civ ability and the +1 culture/faith
from Maraes. Look out for them!
If Kupe is present in a game, other civs will be
allocated starting positions as if there is one fewer
civ in the game.

Kupe's Leader Ability: Kupe's Voyage


Make your Settler and Warrior move parallel to
each other, a small number of tiles apart. This
allows you to uncover lots of tiles at the start of the
game, while still being able to defend your Settler if
need be.
On map types such as Terra, where a continent is
free from other civs until they unlock the ability to
cross oceans, the Māori can spend turns relocating
there for a safe, war-free start.
Unique Unit: Toa


Unique Improvement: Pā

Normally, the world's land is divided into sections
equal to the number of civs in the game, and
each civ is allocated a spot in each section. This
allows them to be moderately well-distributed
throughout the map. The Māori, however, do not
have an allocated chunk of land and hence often
has to settle cities close to other civs.

Governor Moksha (the Cardinal) with the Laying On
Of Hands promotion makes all units within his city's
limits heal to full health when they stop to heal.
However, if a Pā is within his city's limits, units only
need to end their turn on the tile to heal to full
health. This can provide you with a significant
42
Toa cost 170 gold to upgrade to from a Warrior, up
from the usual 110
Toa with a build charge remaining may repair
pillaged tile improvements in friendly or neutral
lands. This is very useful for cleaning up after a
war.
Toa may use their build charge to clear woods,
rainforests or resources with, as an alternative to
constructing a Pā.



If a Toa unit does this, but carries out no other
actions in its turn, it may still heal as if it hasn't
moved.
Upgrading a Toa to a Man-at-Arms costs 90 gold,
down from 150.
Unique Unit: Toa

Unique Improvement: Pā

The strength penalty to adjacent units:



When built in neutral territory, this improvement
provides sight for the civ that built it in its own and
adjacent tiles.
Does not stack with other Toa.
Does function on enemy adjacent naval units.
Does not function against cities and
encampment districts.
Unique Building: Marae
Clarifications

Start Bias

The Māori are still able to clear woods, rainforest
and marshland.
The Māori have no start bias in the traditional
sense; instead, the Māori starting location is
handled by Kupe's Leader Ability.
Features that are granted additional culture and
faith are woods, rainforest, marsh, oasis, floodplain,
reef, geothermal fissure, volcanic soil and passable
natural wonder tiles.
MAPUCHE
Civilization Ability: Mana

Starting with Shipbuilding immediately gives the
Māori 2 era score at the start of the game.
The embarked unit strength bonus does not affect
amphibious attacks (attacks made onto land while
the unit is embarked).
Culture bombs, such as the ones initiated by Māori
fishing boats, have the following rules:



Only tiles that are within the workable range of
the tile's city will be granted (in other words, they
must be within a 3-tile radius from the city
centre).
 This includes tiles from other civs, but will incur a
diplomatic penalty if you steal tiles off them this
way. Taking land from city-states has no penalty.
 Tiles stolen containing non-unique tile
improvements will retain them.
 Tiles containing completed districts, wonders or
national parks will not be stolen, but incomplete
ones will be, destroying them.
 As the Māori cannot harvest resources, they cannot
place districts on resource tiles.
Tricks
Lautaro's Leader Ability: Swift Hawk
Bonus vs. Golden Ages

43
Some useful things to remember to help you
predict when civs are going to enter Golden Ages:


Civs with both a unique unit and unique
infrastructure arriving in the ancient era are very
likely to enter a classical-era Golden Age
(examples include Babylon, Cree, Egypt, Nubia
and Sumeria).
 Civs that enter Dark Ages are more likely to end
up in a Golden Age in the future. The more Dark
Ages, the more likely.
 Civs that focus around constructing wonders are
likely to enter Golden Ages multiple times, as
wonder construction is one of the best ways of
gaining era score. China, Egypt and France are
notable examples of such civs.
 Later in the game, you can combine Debaterpromoted Apostles and Indie-promoted Rock
Bands to rapidly lower a rival city's loyalty. The
Apostle can kill enemy religious units and lower the
city's loyalty, ready for the Rock Bands to finish the
city off with rock concerts.

Unique Improvement: Chemamull

Chemamull have a base pillage yield of 25 faith.
Clarifications
Civilization Ability: Toqui

Draining enemy loyalty on kills

The strength bonus against civs in Golden Ages
works for theological combat.
The loyalty penalty also applies when killing
religious units via theological combat.

Killing just three units within the range of a city (or
two if the civ's in a Golden Age) will drop it below
50 loyalty, applying a 75% penalty to all yields in
the city. Until the city's loyalty recovers, it won't be
much of a threat to you.
The area-of-effect loyalty bonuses or penalties
added by Mapuche Governors require the
Governors to be fully established to take effect,
unlike the regular loyalty bonus for a specific city
for placing a Governor there. As such, the
Mapuche should consider moving Governor Victor
(the Castellan) first, as he takes only three turns to
establish in a city.
The loyalty bonuses or penalties added by
Mapuche Governors do not stack if a city is in
range of multiple Mapuche Governors, though it
can still stack with Governor Victor's Garrison
Commander, or overnor Amani's Emissary
promotion.
Unique Improvement: Chemamull
Lautaro's Leader Ability: Swift Hawk


City Parks cannot be placed adjacent to each
other, and provide +2 appeal to adjacent tiles. Fill
an area with them, with a tile gap between each
one, and fill those gaps with Chemamull. That will
produce at least 4 culture per Chemamull, and 4
tourism each later on!
Given than Chemamull yields scale to tile appeal,
the Eiffel Tower is an ideal wonder to build or
capture.
Bonus vs. Golden Ages


Hidden Features
The strength bonus against civs in Golden Ages
functions against enemy units and cities alike.
Unlike most unique strength bonuses, the bonus
against civs in Golden Ages extends to your cities
bombarding enemy units.
Draining enemy loyalty on kills
Lautaro's Leader Ability: Swift Hawk

44
This attribute does not function against free cities.



The loyalty penalty when killing enemy units will
apply based on where your unit is at the end of
combat.
This loyalty penalty works when killing a unit while
defending, as well as when killing during an attack.
The loyalty penalty does not apply when capturing
civilian units without killing them.
Unique Unit: Malón Raider

The Depredation promotion does not stack the
cheap pillage ability for Malón Raiders, making it
useless for them.
This chart shows the optimum placement for cities to
maximise the number you can boost from this leader
ability.
Unique Improvement: Chemamull

Chemamull culture yields are always rounded down
from 75% of the tile's appeal (for example, if a tile
has 9 appeal, 75% is 6.75, which is rounded down
to 6).

MAYA

To maximise your chance of an optimum starting
location, consider exploring with your starting
Warrior one tile at a time, and marking any coast
tiles you find with map pins. Move against the flow
of rivers to move away from the sea. Still, you
should generally aim to found your capital in 5 turns
or less; and this method can take considerably
longer.
Your capital will be the ideal location for Governor
Magnus (the Steward) with the Vertical Integration
promotion.
Unique District: Observatory

Tricks
Lady Six Sky's Leader Ability: Ix Mutal
Ajaw
Districts cannot be placed adjacent to the city
centres of cities you own. However, you can place
a district adjacent to where a future city will be,
then settle that city. This is useful if an ideal
Observatory location is next to an ideal future city
spot.
Clarifications
Civilization Ability: Mayab
45


Aqueducts always provide 4 housing to Mayan
cities.
Cities founded directly on a luxury tile does not gain
bonus amenities; only those next to them.
on the civ you're sending a trade route to will
cancel that route and return the trader to you.
Unique Unit: Keshig

Lady Six Sky's Leader Ability: Ix Mutal
Ajaw

Keshigs can move formation units even if they have
no movement points remaining. By using multiple
Keshigs, you can move an formation unit across
any length of land or sea in a single turn if you have
enough of them.
The strength bonus to units within six tiles of your
capital is based on where your unit is when combat
is initiated.
MONGOLIA
Hidden Features
Civilization Ability: Örtöö

Strength bonuses from diplomatic visibility extend
to theological combat.
Clarifications
Genghis Khan's Leader Ability: Mongol
Horde

Tricks

Civilization Ability: Örtöö

The bonuses extend to the unique Keshig unit.

Send a trade route to a distant city of a civ, so you
won't capture it (and lose your strength advantage
from the diplomatic visibility via the trading post)
until you've already fought the bulk of a war against
them.


Keshigs do not need to be adjacent to a cavalry
unit when defeating them in order to capture
them.
The weaker the defeated cavalry unit is, the more
likely they are to be captured.
Captured units start with 25 health and their moves
depleted for the turn.
Eligible units to be captured include unique light
and heavy cavalry units, Egypt's Maryannu Chariot
Archers, Mongolia's Keshigs and Scythia's Saka
Horse Archers.
Kublai Khan's Leader Ability: Gerege

Kublai Khan's Leader Ability: Gerege
You can maximise the number of early free
eurekas and inspirations by letting Barbarians
pillage your trade routes as soon as you set them
off, freeing trade route capacity to create a trade
route to a different civ. Alternatively, declaring war

46
You can only receive the free eureka and
inspiration bonus once per full civ you send a route
to.

The random eureka and inspirations will favour
technologies and civics you are able to research
but lack the boosts for.
Civilization Ability: Grote Rivieren

Follow a river upstream, and you'll often find its
source to be among mountains. That makes an
ideal spot for Campuses.
Aqueducts and Dams are both typically placed next
to rivers, and provide +2 adjacency to Industrial
Zones. That can lead to some powerful Industrial
Zones!
Unique Unit: Keshig


Keshigs use ranged land promotions, but are
vulnerable to anti-cavalry units, ignore zone of
control and may benefit from Genghis Khan's
leader ability and the Ordu building as if they were
classed as heavy or light cavalry.
The formation bonus works as follows:





Unique Improvement: Polder

Units affected include attached civilian units
(such as Great Generals) and support units
(such as Siege Towers) but not religious units.
To use this ability, move the Keshig, not the unit
it's in formation with.
This works even if the formation unit has no
remaining movement points.
This works even if the units are embarked.
Polders are often powerful on multi-tile lakes due to
how easy it is to place other Polders adjacent to
them, and due to the potential of the Huey Teocalli
wonder to boost their yields further. Remember that
Lighthouses and Seaports boost lake as well as
coast yields.
If the Auckland city-state is in your game, be sure
to attempt to get suzerain status over them for a +1
production bonus to all coast and lake tiles (and
hence all Polders), rising to +2 later in the game.

Unique Building: Ordu


Hidden Features
Keshig units benefit from the building's movement
speed bonus.
The movement speed bonus is kept by units when
they're upgraded.
Unique Improvement: Polder
NETHERLANDS

Polders have a base yield of 25 faith when pillaged.
Clarifications
Civilization Ability: Grote Rivieren

The adjacency bonuses do not stack if multiple
river sections are adjacent to the districts, much
like Commercial Hub river adjacency.
Culture bombs have the following rules:


Tricks
47
Only tiles that are within the workable range of
the tile's city will be granted (in other words, they
must be within a 3-tile radius from the city
centre).

This includes tiles from other civs, but will incur a
diplomatic penalty if you steal tiles off them this
way. Taking land from city-states has no penalty.
 Tiles stolen containing non-unique tile
improvements will retain them.
 Tiles containing completed districts, wonders or
national parks will not be stolen, but incomplete
ones will be, destroying them.
 The +50% production bonus for Dams and Flood
Barriers also affects the production contributed by
Military Engineer charges.

game era (including via coastal raids) grants +1
each time. Together, this makes it rather easy for
Norway to achieve a classical-era Golden Age.
Viking Longships have high strength and speed at
a low cost, making them exceptionally good rushing
units on water-heavy maps.
Unique Building: Stave Church

NORWAY

Take the God of the Sea pantheon and you'll have
an impressive +2 production bonus on all tiles
improved with fishing boats.
Using the Dance of the Aurora pantheon, a Holy
Site surrounded by tundra woods, the medieval
Great Scientist Hildegard of Bingen and the
Scripture economic policy card, you could generate
up to +30 science per turn from a single Holy Site.
Hidden Features
Unique Unit: Berserker

Tricks
Harald Hardrada's Leader Ability:
Thunderbolt of the North

Clarifications
Civilization Ability: Knarr
Seaside Resorts have to be built adjacent to the
coast, so they can always be subject to a coastal
raid. They have a base yield of 100 gold per pillage
- twice as good as pastures, camps or Commercial
Hubs. Furthermore, pillaging them is a great way to
reduce the target civ's tourism output.


Harald Hardrada's Unique Unit: Viking
Longship

The strength bonus and penalty for attacking and
defending respectively works when the unit is
embarked, as does the movement bonus for
starting in enemy territory.
Building the first naval unit in the world creates +3
era score, and creating your first Viking Longship
creates +4. Clearing tribal villages in the ancient
The Auxiliary Ships promotion is less useful for
Norway as Norway's naval melee units can already
heal in neutral seas, but it's not useless as it still
enables healing in enemy seas.
Land units always end up with fewer movement
points remaining after embarking or disembarking
regardless of whether or not their maximum
movement points changed in the process.
Harald Hardrada's Leader Ability:
Thunderbolt of the North
48

NUBIA
Coastal raids cannot be carried out if the unit is on
a lake tile or a city centre.
Like regular pillaging, coastal raids use up three
movement points.
Coastal raids can be carried out on the following
tiles:



A tribal village without another unit present (this
clears the village and gives you its reward)
 An empty Barbarian Encampment (this clears
the encampment and gives you gold)
 A tile improvement or district (not a Harbour or
Encampment) owned by a civ or city-state you're
at war with which does not have a military unit
present and has not already been fully pillaged
(this gives you yields based on the district type)
 An enemy civilian unit without any military unit
escorting it (most civilians are captured and
converted to your side, but Great People are
returned to an enemy city instead.
 The science yield from pillaging mines is equal to
30% of the gold yield.
 The culture yield from pillaging camps, pastures,
plantations and quarries is equal to 60% of the faith
yield, not including additional faith from pillages via
the Grand Master's Chapel building.
Tricks
Unique Unit: Pítati Archer

An extra movement point allows you to retreat into
hills, woods or rainforest and attack in the same
turn, allowing you to deal damage without putting
the unit at risk of counter-attack from slower units.
Unique Improvement: Nubian Pyramid
Harald Hardrada's Unique Unit: Viking
Longship


You can only use the movement speed bonus in
coastal tiles if the unit starts its turn in one. Starting
on a city centre tile does not count.

Unique Unit: Berserker


Nubian Pyramids are one of the only improvements
that can be constructed on flat desert land, making
Petra an especially powerful wonder.
Having both a unique unit and improvement arrive
in the ancient era makes it quite easy for Nubia to
reliably secure a classical-era Golden Age.
Unique Improvement: Nubian Pyramid
You can only use the movement speed bonus in
enemy territory if the unit starts its turn in it.
If you capture the territory, Berserkers starting in
that captured land will still have 2 extra movement
points until the end of the turn.


49
If you have the Lady of the Reeds and Marshes
pantheon, then a city-centre adjacent desert
floodplain with a Nubian Pyramid is worth an
impressive 5 food, 2 production and 2 faith!
If Nazca is present in your game, try to become
suzerain over them. Nazca Lines complement
Nubian Pyramids very effectively.
Suleiman's Leader Ability: Grand Vizier
Hidden Features

Unique Unit: Pítati Archer

The higher cost of these units relative to Archers
makes them more expensive to upgrade to (80
gold, up from 60), but cheaper to upgrade (230
gold, down from 250).


Unique Improvement: Nubian Pyramid

Nubian Pyramids have a base pillage yield of 25
faith.
Clarifications
Suleiman's Unique Unit: Janissary

Civilization Ability: Ta-Seti



As the Ottomans have access to an extra
Governor, the Casa de Contratación wonder's
effect can extend to an extra city.
In a typical domination game, getting the Serasker
promotion before you start warfare is very
important; the later promotions less so - as such,
consider investing in some other Governors at that
point.
If Governor Ibrahim has the Grand Vizier
promotion, you can immediately move it into the
capital of a civ after declaring peace with them,
stopping the cities you just captured from suffering
as much loyalty pressure.
The production bonus for ranged land units only
works for the Archer to Machine Gun line of units.
Resources that gain from the +2 gold bonus are:
amber, copper, diamonds, jade, mercury, salt and
silver.
Resources that gain from the +1 production bonus
are: iron, nitre, coal, aluminum and uranium.
Janissary armies trained at a city with a Military
Academy are 16% cheaper than an Infantry unit
and are 2 points stronger (plus the free promotion)
and have no resource maintenance, at the cost of
twice as much gold maintenance. As such, training
Janissaries can be a great option even into the
modern era if you lack oil.
Unique Unit: Barbary Corsair
OTTOMANS

Barbary Corsair units at full health can typically kill
Galleys in one hit. Quadriremes can be destroyed
in one hit about half the time, and will require a
second hit the rest of the time.
Hidden Features
Suleiman's Leader Ability: Grand Vizier


Tricks
50
As a unique Governor, Ibrahim cannot be targeted
by the World Congress resolution Governance
Doctrine.
Hidden features for Governor Ibrahim (the Grand
Vizier)'s promotions:

Head Falconer: Strength bonus extends to
theological combat
Admirals can affect them, but renaissance-era ones
can't.
PERSIA
Suleiman's Unique Unit: Janissary

Janissaries cost less than the preceding unit, the
Man-at-Arms. Due to the way the unit upgrade
formula works, it will still cost 10 gold to upgrade
Men-at-Arms to Janissaries (rather than 0), down
from the usual cost of 150 gold to upgrade Men-atArms to Janissaries.


Directly upgrading Swordsmen to Janissaries
costs 70 gold, down from 310. This saves 240
gold, compared to the 140 gold saving from
upgrading Men-at-Arms to Janissaries, so this
can often be preferable!
Upgrading Janissaries to Line Infantry costs 490
gold, up from 250.
Tricks
Civilization Ability: Satrapies
Clarifications

Suleiman's Leader Ability: Grand Vizier

Hidden features for Governor Ibrahim (the Grand
Vizier)'s promotions:

Pasha: If stationed in another civ's city, they will
receive the +20% unit production bonus.
Industrial roads (which Persia will get during the
classical era onwards) offer a 25% reduction to
movement costs. Usually, this would not make a
difference to slower units, but Cyrus' movement
speed bonus following the declaration of a surprise
war allows units with a base movement of 2 to
move five tiles per turn through industrial roads.
Unique Unit: Immortal
Suleiman's Unique Unit: Janissary



Upgrading a unit to a Janissary will circumvent the
usual 1 population cost for training a Janissary in a
founded city, as well as the requirement to train
them in cities of at least size 2.
Upgrading a unit to a Janissary will provide it with
enough experience for its next promotion.

Hidden Features
Unique Unit: Barbary Corsair

The first line of promotions Immortals have
generally has a more immediate impact than the
first line of Archer promotions, so despite their
higher cost they can still perform more effectively.
Unlike Archers, Immortals can benefit from Great
Generals for additional strength and movement
speed, giving them a notable advantage.
The different era of Barbary Corsairs relative to
regular Privateers means classical-era Great
Unique Unit: Immortal
51


When using their ranged attack, Immortals have 17 strength vs. city defences, have a 50% rather
than 85% penalty vs. city defences, and the
bonuses of Battering Rams and Siege Towers will
not take effect.
However, this does not affect other inherent
features of Swordsmen (see the clarification
section).
Upgrading a Warrior to an Immortal costs 130 gold,
up from 110
Upgrading an Immortal to a Man-at-Arms costs 130
gold, down from 150



The loyalty bonus adds +5 on top of the regular +5
for having a garrisoned unit in an occupied city.
Unique Unit: Immortal

Despite having a ranged attack, Immortals still
have these distinctions relative to Archers:


Unique Improvement: Pairidaeza




Pairidaezas provide a base yield of 25 faith when
pillaged.
They use melee infantry rather than ranged land
unit promotions, and upgrade to Musketmen
rather than Crossbowmen.
A +5 strength bonus against anti-cavalry units
such as Spearmen
They can benefit from Oligarchy or Oligarchic
Legacy's +4 strength bonus.
They impose zone of control
They have the option for a melee attack as well
as their ranged attack.
PHOENICIA
Clarifications
Civilization Ability: Satrapies

The bonus to roads works as follows:




Only roads within your territory are affected.
Ones your Traders build outside your territory
will still be of the normal era.
In the ancient era, your Traders will make
classical roads in your lands (forming bridges
over rivers)
In the classical era, your Traders will make
industrial roads in your lands (reducing
movement costs by 25%)
In the industrial era, your Traders will make
modern roads in your lands (reducing movement
costs by 50%)
Tricks
Civilization Ability: Mediterranean
Colonies
Cyrus' Leader Ability: Fall of Babylon




The movement bonus does not take effect until the
turn after you declare war.
The movement speed bonus applies to all units including civilian and religious units.
Occupied cities grow at the rate of regular cities.
52
Settling a city close to an enemy's capital awards
some era score and can be a great launchpad for a
future invasion. Normally, loyalty pressures would
make that unfeasible, but this civ ability makes it
viable for Phoenicia.



Clarifications
Embarked Settlers move faster than Barbarian
Galleys and have enough sight to see them
coming, so you can leave them unescorted prior to
the renaissance era.
Embarked Settlers with at least two movement
points remaining can disembark and settle a city
immediately, allowing them to avoid being captured
by land-based Barbarians or enemy units.
Embark a Settler and attach a naval unit to it for
defence. You can then take it to the edge of rival
territory and spy on that civ even without open
borders.
Civilization Ability: Mediterranean
Colonies

Coastal cities on your capital's continent that you
have captured, received in a deal, flipped with
loyalty or are only adjacent to a lake and not a
coast will not be affected by the loyalty bonus of
this civ ability.
Dido's Leader Ability: Founder of
Carthage
Dido's Leader Ability: Founder of
Carthage


Moving your capital to another continent allows
your old cities to benefit from the Hic Sunt Draconis
Golden Age dedication, Casa de Contratación and
Torre de Belém wonders, and the Colonial Offices
and Colonial Taxes policy cards. The last of these
can result in a considerable edge to gold and
production!
The Move Capital project works as follows:

A city completing the project becomes your new
original capital, and your old original capital is
treated as an ordinary city. The Palace transfers,
as does city-state bonuses, appropriate policy
cards, and so forth.

The only exception is the Casa de
Contratación wonder, which considers your
"home continent" to be whichever continent
had your capital on at time of construction or
capture.
 To win a domination victory, a rival civ will
have to capture this city instead of the first city
Phoenicia founded.
 The Move Capital project always costs four times
as much as regular district projects, and
accordingly increases in cost over the course of
the game.
 The Move Capital project can be rushed with the
use of Builder charges if Phoenicia has the
Royal Society building in their Government Plaza
district. The Builder will need to move to the
Cothon district to add production.
Unique Unit: Bireme


Consider holding off training your first Bireme and
building your first Cothon until the classical game
era to maximise your chances of a classical-era
Dark Age and then a medieval-era Heroic Age.
That allows you to have the very powerful Free
Inquiry dedication at the most impactful time.
Even after Biremes obsolete, you can use their
ability to protect embarked traders from being
pillaged by stationing them in your coastal cities,
keeping them safe from harm.
Hidden Features
Unique District: Cothon

Buildings in this district have unique graphics.
53
POLAND
the renaissance-era Great Engineer Mimar Sinan
for alternative sources of culture bombs.
Unique Unit: Winged Hussar

Winged Hussars ignore zone of control, like all
cavalry units. This allows you to slip behind an
enemy unit and use the knockback to drag it
towards your other units.
Hidden Features
Unique Unit: Winged Hussar
Tricks

Civilization Ability: Golden Liberty

The knockback ability works even for amphibious
(embarked vs. land) attacks.
As Winged Hussars arrive in the renaissance era,
unlike regular Cuirassiers, they can benefit from
medieval-era Great Generals though cannot benefit
from industrial-era ones.

As you have a wildcard policy slot from the start of
the game, it's possible to pick up the Revelation (+2
Great Prophet Points per turn) or Inspiration (+2
Great Scientist Points per turn) cards at Mysticism.
Any other civ except Greece would need to go to
Political Philosophy first.
Clarifications
Civilization Ability: Golden Liberty
Jadwiga's Leader Ability: Lithuanian
Union


Culture bombs have the following rules:

The easiest way to obtain relics is to have an
Apostle with the Martyr promotion die to a military
or religious unit. If you have the Mont St. Michel
wonder or are suzerain over Yerevan, you can
guarantee every new Apostle will have it.
Culture bombing converts a city to your religion.
This is very powerful in conjunction with the
Crusade belief, as you can convert cities from a
safe distance while at war with the civ, then exploit
the +10 strength bonus.






Converting a city you're at war with also grants
you +3 era score every single time, making this
an excellent way of securing Golden Ages.
You can use the Preserve district, Border Control
Treaty resolution, Warrior Monks follower belief, or
Only tiles that are within the workable range of
the tile's city will be granted (in other words, they
must be within a 3-tile radius from the city
centre).
This includes tiles from other civs, but will incur a
diplomatic penalty if you steal tiles off them this
way. Taking land from city-states has no penalty.
Tiles stolen containing non-unique tile
improvements will retain them.
Tiles containing completed districts, wonders or
national parks will not be stolen, but incomplete
ones will be, destroying them.
Jadwiga's Leader Ability: Lithuanian
Union
54


The faith bonus is boosted by the Reliquaries belief
but not the Kandy city-state.
Unique Unit: Winged Hussar


Units knocked back into coastal tiles will embark if
the unit's owner has the Shipbuilding technology.
Otherwise, they will be unable to retreat and take
extra damage.

PORTUGAL
Barbarian Outposts don't spawn in areas that are
within sight of any civ. With just a small number of
units, you can provide sight to all the land near your
own territory, preventing Barbarians from
spawning.
You can use the extended sight range to spy on
other civs even without open borders - rather useful
if you want to know what units they've been
training.
Units with an attack range of 3 (such as
Battleships) won't require another unit to provide
line-of-sight.
Unique Unit: Nau

If you can secure the medieval-era Great Admiral
Leif Erikson, a Nau with the Rutter promotion has a
massive sight radius of 6, unrivalled until the atomic
era.
Unique Improvement: Feitoria


Tricks
Civilization Ability: Casa da India


If you want to take an unconventional route to
maximising trade route gold, conquer city-states to
initiate City-State Emergencies against you, as
winning one as the target gives you a permanent
+2 gold for every trade route sent to city-states,
increased to +3 when playing as Portugal.
Hidden Features
João III's Leader Ability: Porta do Cerco

Unless you're at war with a city-state, you can
always place Feitorias in their territory.
You can get open borders with another civ by being
a common member of betrayal, city-state, military
or nuclear emergency - useful if the conventional
method isn't working and there's no good citystates to build Feitorias in.
Struggling to find a good city to build Feitorias in?
Try settling your own sacrificial city at an optimum
location, purchase lots of coast/lake tiles in
advance, and allow the city to run out of loyalty or
gift it to another civ. Then, you can build your
Feitorias for some excellent trade route yields.
It's a good idea to train a Scout before anything
else, as their high mobility combined with your
bonus to sight will make it considerably easier to
find tribal villages and city-states before anyone
else.
Unique Unit: Nau

55
If the unit has at least one build charge remaining,
it may repair improvements and clear nuclear
fallout.
ROME
Unique Improvement: Feitoria

Feitorias do not yield anything to pillagers.
Clarifications
Civilization Ability: Casa da India

Normally, water-based trade routes have a range of
30 tiles, which can be reset if the trade route
intercepts a trading post along the way. Portugal's
50% increased trade range makes that 45 tiles.
Tricks
Unique Unit: Nau

Unique Unit: Legion
Upgrading a Galley to a Nau will provide you with
enough experience for its next promotion.

Unique Improvement: Feitoria

You can only build Feitorias in civs you have open
borders with. You cannot build them in the territory
of civs you are at war with.
Hidden Features
Unique Unit: Legion
Unique Building: Navigation School


Legions with the Oligarchy government and
Battlecry promotion will kill unpromoted enemy
Warriors and Archers in a single hit most of the
time.

You do not need to work coastal/lake tiles to
receive extra science; only have it in the city's
territory.
The extra science from coastal/lake tiles is not
considered adjacency nor a direct building yield,
and hence cannot be boosted by policy cards.



56
As Legions are more expensive than the
Swordsmen they replace, they are more expensive
to upgrade to from a Warrior (150 instead of 110
gold), but cheaper to upgrade to a Man-at-Arms
(110 instead of 150 gold).
Legions with a build charge remaining may repair
pillaged tile improvements in friendly or neutral
lands. This is very useful for cleaning up after a
war.
Legions may use their build charge to clear woods,
rainforests or resources with, as an alternative to
constructing a Roman Fort or road.
If you do not use up a Legion's build charge, it will
be retained when you upgrade the unit.
RUSSIA
Clarifications
Civilization Ability: All Roads Lead to
Rome

By default, the trade route range on land is 15 tiles.
As such, cities founded or captured within 15
passable land tiles of your capital or a city
connected to it will receive a free road connecting
it.
Trajan's Leader Ability: Trajan's Column

The free building cities receive depends on your
game's starting era:





Tricks
In ancient or classical era starts, the free building
will be a Monument.
In medieval era starts, the free building will be a
Granary.
In renaissance or industrial era starts, the free
building will be a Water Mill for cities adjacent to
a river, or Medieval Walls otherwise.
In modern or atomic era starts, the free building
will be a Water Mill for cities adjacent to a river,
or a Sewer otherwise.
In information era starts, the free building will be
a Water Mill for cities adjacent to a river, or a
Flood Barrier in a non-riverside coastal city.
Cities on neither a river nor a coast will not
receive any free buildings.
Civilization Ability: Mother Russia

Peter's Leader Ability: The Grand
Embassy

Unique Improvement: Roman Fort

The St. Basil's Cathedral wonder adds +1 food, +1
production and +1 culture to all tundra tiles worked
by its city. This works really well in conjunction with
Russia's ability - especially if there's a lot of
riverside tundra woods (for lumber mills) or tundra
hills (for mines)!
Because this ability scales based on the number of
technologies or civics other civs have that you
don't, it's a good idea to avoid cheap technologies
and civics you don't necessarily need (e.g. Naval
Tradition, Military Tactics).

Roman Forts are functionally identical to regular
Forts, except for the following differences:

Roman Forts are constructed by Legions, not
Military Engineers
 Roman Forts have no technology requirement
(other than Iron Working for Legions)
 Building Roman Forts will not trigger the eureka
for the Ballistics technology.
 Building your first Roman Fort does not create era
score.
It also makes the ability ideal for beelining - you
can spend your science/culture on a small
number of expensive technologies/civics,
knowing you will get a science/culture boost to
help you with the rest later.
Unique District: Lavra

57
Use Russia's tundra advantages and this district
together with the Dance of the Aurora pantheon for


massive faith bonuses, especially if the district is
also surrounded by unimproved woods tiles.
Lavras containing worship buildings are one of the
only early sources of Great Musician Points,
meaning you're likely to have a significant
advantage over most other civs to accumulating the
first few.
The strength bonus in friendly lands applies based
on where the Cossack is at the start of combat,
unlike most bonuses which are determined based
on the location of the defending unit.
The ability to move after attacking also allows the
unit to pillage or apply promotions.

Unique District: Lavra
Hidden Features

Gaining territory from expended Great People
works as follows:
Unique Unit: Cossack


The mildly higher cost of Cossacks relative to
normal Cavalry makes them slightly more
expensive to upgrade to from a Courser (290 gold
instead of 270), but slightly cheaper to upgrade
(530 gold instead of 550).


You will gain a tile which would have been the
next to be acquired by culture.
You will not gain a tile if all tiles within a five-tile
radius of the city centre are already owned by
you.
Great People with multiple charges add one tile
per charge.
SCOTLAND
Clarifications
Civilization Ability: Mother Russia



Founded cities start with five additional tiles.
The free tiles are the same as the first five that
would be acquired by culture, so resources
(especially strategic resources) are favoured.
The free tiles do not increase the cost of future
tiles.
Peter's Leader Ability: The Grand
Embassy



Tricks
Trade routes grant you +1 science per three
technologies the other civ is ahead by overall, and
+1 culture per three technologies the other civ is
ahead by overall.
You can get bonus culture or science by trading
with city-states as well as full civs.
Trade routes from other civs to Russia will not grant
you science or culture.
Robert the Bruce's Leader Ability:
Bannockburn

Unique Unit: Cossack
58
The moment the bonuses for declaring a War of
Liberation wear off is the moment you are able to
call for peace. It's a good idea to always start Wars
of Liberation with the aim of capturing at least one
enemy city - that way, you have enough leverage to

sue for peace immediately once the bonus wears
off.

The hill/wood strength bonus is applied based on
where the defending unit is located.
The hill/wood bonus does not stack for forested hill
tiles; it will just be a +5 strength boost, not +10.
Unique Unit: Highlander


SCYTHIA
To get Highlanders closer to the powerful Ambush
promotion, try declaring war on a city-state and
fighting their units with Skirmishers, which you can
later upgrade to Highlanders.
Highlander units are extremely vulnerable in
defence in the open without the Ambush promotion.
To get around that problem, get your Builders to
grow new woods for them to defend in.
Hidden Features
Unique Improvement: Golf Course

Tricks
You do not need to work the tile to receive the
amenity bonus, or the tourism with Flight, or the
housing with Globalisation. This is true for all tile
improvements which offer housing, amenities or
tourism.
Tomyris' Leader Ability: Killer of Cyrus

Clarifications

Civilization Ability: Scottish Enlightenment

Happy cities are those with 3 or 4 surplus
amenities. Ecstatic cities have 5 or more surplus
amenities.
Healing on kills allows you to make riskier moves
than normal. Healing 30 health reduces the
strength penalty from having an injured unit by 3,
helping it to last through the next round of combat.
Try to hit full-health enemies with ranged attacks
first, before you finish them off with melee. That
way, your melee units won't take as much damage
from combat.
Unique Improvement: Kurgan

Robert the Bruce's Leader Ability:
Bannockburn

Declaring a second War of Liberation while already
benefitting from the +100% production/+2 speed
bonus merely resets the 10 turns; it does not stack
the bonus.
The good faith output of this improvement,
combined with its early arrival for bonus era score,
makes it easy for you to make use of the
Monumentality Golden Age dedication in the
classical era.
Hidden Features
Unique Unit: Highlander
Unique Improvement: Kurgan
59

Tricks
Kurgans have a base yield of 25 faith to pillagers.
Start Bias
Clarifications

Civilization Ability: People of the Steppe

If a city has an Encampment district and both the
city centre and Encampment are free from units,
when acquiring a Saka Horse Archer or light
cavalry unit, one will be placed on the Encampment
tile and one on the city centre tile.

Spain's tier 3 geothermal fissure start bias is
incredibly powerful - it increases your chance of
starting near a mountain range for incredible
Campus science or Holy Site faith, and usually
places you on a continental boundary you can use
for Spain's foreign-continent-based bonuses.
Strong Campuses and your incentive to build Holy
Sites to found a religion makes it a good idea to go
for a classical or medieval-era Dark Age for the
Monasticism wildcard.
Tomyris' Leader Ability: Killer of Cyrus


Unique Unit: Conquistador
These bonuses apply to religious as well as military
units.
Your units will heal from scoring kills in defence.

Unique Unit: Saka Horse Archer


Saka Horse Archers are classified as ranged units,
not cavalry. As such, they benefit from Barracks
and the Agoge policy card, not Stables and
Manoeuvre.
Unlike other ranged units, Saka Horse Archers
ignore zone of control and have a vulnerability to
anti-cavalry units.
Keep some Conquistador armies around late in the
game so you can still instantly convert cities you
capture. Remember the Conquistadors only have
to be adjacent to the city; they don't need to directly
take it.
Unique District: Mission

SPAIN
Beelining Cultural Heritage isn't a bad idea if you
want a really strong science boost sooner. It's
relatively easy to beeline and Spain's early-arriving
armadas means you can put off Mobilisation for
longer.
Hidden Features
Civilization Ability: Treasure Fleets

The free Builder from this civ ability can be earned
by capturing a city on a foreign continent; not just
founding it.
Unique Unit: Conquistador
60

SUMERIA
The higher cost of Conquistadors relative to regular
Musketmen make them more expensive to upgrade
to from Men-at-Arms (190 gold, down from 170),
but cheaper to upgrade (230 gold, down from 250).
Unique Improvement: Mission

Missions have a base yield of 25 faith to pillagers.
Clarifications
Civilization Ability: Treasure Fleets

Tricks
The free Builder from this civ ability stacks with the
free Builders from the Ancestral Hall Government
Plaza building.
Civilization Ability: Epic Quest

Philip II's Leader Ability: El Escorial



The strength bonus works for military and religious
units alike.
Civs with no majority religion do not count as
having a separate religion for the purpose of the
strength bonus, so if you have a majority religion
and they don't, you won't get a +5 strength bonus.
City ranged attacks are not affected by the strength
bonus.
Gilgamesh's Leader Ability: Adventures
with Enkidu

Unique Unit: Conquistador


If you want to found a pantheon quickly, keep in
mind you can't get faith from tribal village/Barbarian
Outpost rewards until turn 20.

Conquistadors will convert a city they capture (or
another unit of yours captures while the
Conquistador is adjacent to the city) to your
majority religion, which won't necessarily be the
religion you founded. As such, be aware of the
state of your religion within your own lands!
When Conquistadors capture a city not already
following your religion, you'll trigger the historic
moment for converting a city while at war, gaining
the +3 era score bonus in the process.
If you can't find any other full civs interested in a
war, become suzerain over a city-state near to your
enemy's land instead so you can still share
pillaging/experience yields. Just be careful not to
levy the city-state's units, or you'll lose out on that.
Form a military alliance and you'll have a massive
+10 strength bonus when at war with a common
foe. If you can't get a joint war going, try joining an
emergency or declaring war on a civ your ally is
already at war with.
Hidden Features
Unique Unit: War-Cart

61
Because War-Carts are cheaper than Heavy
Chariots, they are more expensive to upgrade to

Knights (240 gold, up from 220). This is the only
downside War-Carts have relative to Heavy
Chariots.

Unique Improvement: Ziggurat

Ziggurats have a base yield of 50 gold to pillagers.

Clarifications
Gilgamesh's Leader Ability: Adventures
with Enkidu


Sharing pillaging rewards and experience does not
apply when fighting Barbarians.
Units you have levied from city-states are
considered to belong to you for the purpose of
sharing pillage rewards and experience.
Eligible wonders for this ability are: Apadana, Great
Library, Mont St. Michel, St. Basil's Cathedral,
Bolshoi Theatre, Hermitage, Oxford University,
Broadway, Sydney Opera House
With the Reliquaries follower belief, and Mont St.
Michel and St. Basil's Cathedral in the same city
(preferably your capital so you can add the
Apadana as well), you can fill every relic slot in the
city for a huge tourism yield.
A city with a Government Plaza can reliably host a
total of 10 themable Great Works of Writing, Art
and Music - add Governor Pingala (the Educator)
with the Curator promotion for +100% tourism, and
try and stack as many themable wonders as you
can on top.
Unique Unit: Carolean

SWEDEN
To maximise your Carolean's movement points
(and hence their maximum attack bonus), bring a
medieval or renaissance-era Great General, use
the Redeploy promotion and adopt the Logistics
policy card.
Clarifications
Civilization Ability: Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize scored competitions are as
follows:
Competitions
Score Sources
Gold Tier Reward
(First place)
Tricks
Silver Tier Reward
(Top 25%)
Bronze Tier Reward
Kristina's Leader Ability: Minerva of the
North

(Next 25%)
Nobel Peace Prize
Eligible buildings for this ability are: Art Museum,
Archaeological Museum, National History Museum,
Queen's Bibliotheque
62

1 point per diplomatic favour earned


1 diplomatic victory point
1 Great Musician

1 Great Scientist


1 Great Engineer
1 Great Artist

1 Great Artist
game where Sweden is present tends to result in
some default scored competitions appearing later
in the game than normal.
Kristina's Leader Ability: Minerva of the
North
Nobel Prize in Literature




1 point per Great Artist Point earned
1 point per Great Musician Point earned
1 point per Great Writer Point earned


Rock Bands are 20% cheaper to purchase
+50 album sales for Rock Bands

+75 album sales for Rock Bands

+25 album sales for Rock Bands


Nobel Prize in Physics



1 point per Great Engineer Point earned
1 point per Great Merchant Point earned
1 point per Great Scientist Point earned

1 free random technology boost (favours
technologies that can be researched over those
which can't yet)
Cities with Universities gain +1 strategic resource
from all improved strategic resource tiles



1 free random technology boost
Cities with Research Labs gain +1 strategic
resource from all improved strategic resource tiles

1 free random technology boost
Theming bonuses include faith for relics, culture for
other Great Works (including artefacts), science for
Great Works of Writing, relics and artefacts
boosted by the city-state Babylon, and tourism for
all.
The tourism boost stacks additively with other
bonuses to Great Work yields. For example,
themed relics with the Reliquaries belief will
generate 400% of their base tourism.
However, the other yield boosts
stack multiplicatively with other modifiers. For
example, themed relics with the Reliquaries belief
will generate 600% of their base faith.
Unique Unit: Carolean


The attack bonus based on remaining movement
points considers fractions - for example, if the
Carolean had 2.7 movement points remaining, they
would receive a +8 strength bonus. This applies
typically when you're travelling along industrial or
modern roads.
Expanding the movement points of a Carolean (for
example, via a medieval or renaissance-era Great
General) will increase the maximum possible attack
bonus.
Unique Improvement: Open Air Museum
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The Nobel Prize scored competitions function the
same way as regular scored competitions in that
they must be approved at a regular World
Congress session, initiating a 30-turn competition
to score the most points for bonuses at the end.
There cannot be more than one scored competition
to be voted on in the same session. As such, a
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Uniquely among unique improvements, Open Air
Museums do not require the modern-era Flight
technology to start generating tourism.
The maximum yield of an Open Air Museum is +10
culture and tourism, from having cities present on
desert, grassland, plains, tundra and snow. Flat
and hills variants of terrain count as the same type
of terrain for this purpose.
VIETNAM
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Unique Unit: Voi Chiến
Tricks
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Civilization Ability: Nine Dragon River
Delta
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You can place a Campus adjacent to districts on
rainforest for as good adjacency bonuses as you'd
receive from mountains.
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Once you have the Medieval Faires civic, plant
woods on the border of a rival civ and they'll find it
considerably harder to invade you.
Take the Missionary Zeal enhancer belief and your
religious units can easily find their way back to
woods/rainforest/marsh tiles for a movement speed
boost the next turn.
With the renaissance-era Mercantilism civic, you
can take the Logistics military policy card to grant
your units another +1 movement in friendly territory
- giving you potentially a massive +3 movement
point advantage! This allows your own anti-cavalry
to keep up with enemy cavalry, for example.
Moving after attacking allows you to move within
range of an enemy walled city, hit it, and retreat in
the same turn, ensuring you can't be hit by the
city's ranged attack.
Hidden Features
Unique Unit: Voi Chiến
With the Sacred Path pantheon, you can do
something similar with Holy Sites for +1.5 faith
per adjacent rainforest district.
Once you are able to plant woods, you can cut
them and replant them for production while
retaining the tile, at the cost of some appeal later in
the game. This is ideal for areas where appeal
does not matter.
Early planting of woods, combined with the ability
to place Preserves on woods tiles, makes it
significantly easier to get adjacent tiles to
Breathtaking appeal to make the most of the Grove
building's yields.
By placing a Entertainment Complex, Holy Site,
Preserve or Theatre Square district on old-growth
woods, you can provide +3 appeal to adjacent tiles,
better than other civs can manage.
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This unit can attack for no movement point cost,
though it cannot attack if it is out of movement
points.
Because Voi Chiến units cost more than the
Crossbowmen they replace, upgrading Archers to
them costs 290 gold, up from 250 (+16%).
Upgrading Voi Chiến units to Field Cannons costs
270 gold, down from 310 (-13%).
Unique District: Thành
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Unlike other districts, Thành districts only receive
adjacency bonuses from districts you own yourself.
Clarifications
Bà Triệu's Leader Ability: Drive Out the
Aggressors
64
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Civilization Ability: Nine Dragon River
Delta
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Pen, Brush and Voice (Golden Age, Classical
to Medieval eras) - All cities gain +1 culture
per speciality district.
 Reform the Coinage (Golden Age,
Renaissance to Modern eras) - Gain +3 gold
per speciality district at the destination from
international trade routes.
 Religious Beliefs
Building speciality districts on woods, rainforest or
marsh does not remove the feature, unlike when
playing as other civs.

This also allows you to place districts on woods
without Mining, on rainforest without Bronze
Working, and marsh without Irrigation.
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Zen Meditation (Follower) - +1 Amenity in
cities with 2 specialty districts
City-States

Kumasi (Cultural) - Your trade routes to any
city-state provide +2 culture and +1 gold for
every speciality district in the origin city.
Great People
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Bà Triệu's Leader Ability: Drive Out the
Aggressors

This ability functions for land military, support,
civilian and religious units, but not to naval, air or
Giant Death Robot units.
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Unique District: Thành

Raja Todar Mal (Great Merchant) - Your trade
routes to your own cities gain +0.5 gold for
each specialty district at the destination.
ZULUS
As the Thành district is not considered a speciality
district, the following mechanics do not function for
the district unlike regular Encampments:
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Governments
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Digital Democracy (Tier Four): +2 culture per
speciality district
Policy Cards

Insulae (Economic, requires Games and
Recreation) - +1 housing in all cities with at
least 2 specialty districts.
 Medina Quarter (Economic, requires Medieval
Faires) - +2 housing in all cities with at least 3
specialty districts.
 Liberalism (Economic, requires The
Enlightenment) - +1 amenity in all cities with at
least 2 specialty districts.
 Age Bonuses

Tricks
Shaka's Leader Ability: Amabutho

Monumentality (Dedication, Classical to
Renaissance eras) - 1 era score per new
speciality district
65
Shaka's leader ability isn't just useful for Impi - his
Knight corps have a massive 63 strength making
them able to handle pretty much any kind of unit for
a long time.
Unique District: Ikanda
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Compilation Guides

A fully-developed Ikanda generates as much gold
as it costs in maintenance, though the gold
generated can be affected by amenities, city loyalty
and other modifiers.
For units with melee attacks, do not create armies
with them - making corps has the same 25%
discount, and you can make the corps into armies
via the civ ability.
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Individual Civilization Guides
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Hidden Features
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Unique Unit: Impi
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Upgrading Spearmen to Impi costs 130 gold, down
from 240 (-46%)
Upgrading Impi to Pike and Shot units costs 260
gold, up from 150 (+73%)
Clarifications
Civilization Ability: Isibongo

You can also upgrade naval melee units to fleets,
and fleets to armadas via the ability - though you'll
need the industrial-era Nationalism and the
modern-era Mobilisation civics respectively.
Unique District: Ikanda


Civ summaries (Start here for an introduction for all
civs)
Civ-specific tricks, secrets and clarifications (Ideal
for more experienced players)
You still need the medieval-era Mercenaries civic to
create corps, and the Industrial-era Nationalism
civic to create armies.
The 25% discount to corps and armies does not
stack with the discount from Military Academies.
Other Guides
If you like these guides and want to send a tip, you
can click here![ko-fi.com]
Gathering Storm
66
America - with persona packs*
(Cultural/Diplomatic/Domination/Scientific)
America - without persona packs*
(Cultural/Diplomatic/Domination)
Arabia (Religious/Scientific)
Australia (Domination/Scientific)
Aztecs (Domination)
Babylon (Cultural/Domination/Scientific)
Brazil (Cultural/Domination/Religious/Scientific)
Byzantium (Domination/Religious)
Canada (Cultural/Diplomatic)
China (Cultural/Scientific)
Cree (Diplomatic)
Egypt (Cultural/Diplomatic/Religious)
England (Cultural/Domination/Scientific)
Ethiopia (Cultural/Religious)
France* (Cultural/Domination)
Gaul (Domination)
Georgia (Diplomatic/Religious)
Germany (Domination/Scientific)
Gran Colombia (Domination)
Greece (Cultural/Diplomatic/Domination)
Hungary (Diplomatic/Domination)
Inca (Religious/Scientific)
India (Domination/Religious)
Indonesia (Cultural/Domination/Religious/Scientific)
Japan (All)
Khmer (Cultural/Religious)
Kongo (Cultural)
Korea (Scientific)
Macedon (Domination/Scientific)
Mali (Diplomatic/Religious)
Māori (Cultural/Religious)
Mapuche (Cultural/Domination)
Maya (Scientific)
Mongolia (Domination)
Netherlands (Scientific)
Norway (Domination)
Nubia (Domination)
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Ottomans (Domination)
Persia (Cultural/Domination)
Phoenicia (Domination)
Poland (Cultural/Domination/Religious)
Portugal (Diplomatic/Scientific)
Rome (Domination)
Russia (Cultural/Religious)
Scotland (Scientific)
Scythia (Domination/Religious)
Spain (Domination/Religious/Scientific)
Sumeria (Diplomatic/Domination/Scientific)
Sweden (Cultural/Diplomatic)
Vietnam (Cultural/Domination)
Zulus (Domination)
*The Teddy Roosevelt Persona Pack splits Roosevelt's
leader ability in two, meaning the game with it is
substantially different from without - hence two different
versions of the America guide.
The guide to France does not have two different versions
because the Catherine de' Medici Persona Pack only adds
an extra optional leader ability and does not change the
existing gameplay - as such the guide is perfectly usable by
players without it. "Black Queen Catherine" with the
Persona Pack is identical to Catherine de' Medici without it.
Rise and Fall
These guides are for those with the Rise and Fall
expansion, but not Gathering Storm. They are no
longer updated and have not been kept up to date
with patches released since Gathering Storm. To look
at them, click here to open the Rise and Fall Civ
Summaries guide. The "Other Guides" section of
every Rise and Fall guide has links to every other
Rise and Fall guide.
Vanilla
The Vanilla guides are for those without the Rise and
Fall or Gathering Storm expansions. These guides are
no longer updated and have not been kept up to date
with patches released since Rise and Fall. To look at
them, click here to open the Vanilla Civ Summaries
guide. The "Other Guides" section of every Vanilla
guide has links to every other Vanilla guide.
67