Zigzagzigal’s Guides – Civ-specific tricks, secrets and clarifications (R&F) – Steam Solo (2024)

Overview

Every civ has interesting lesser-known tricks and features. This guide compiles them, so if you want to get more out of your favourite civ, or to find new reasons to play other civs, here’s a good place to start.

Introduction

Note: This guide requires the Rise and Fall expansion.

Content from DLC packs (Poland, Vikings, Australia, Persia/Macedon, Nubia, Khmer/Indonesia) is marked as such.

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 well-documented 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.

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.

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.

How to use this guide

This guide has a section for each Civ, divided into tricks, hidden features and clarifications.

Tricks are interesting and/or unusual things you can do with a civ’s uniques or starting bias.

Hidden features are unique features civs have which aren’t described or explained in-game – both positive and negative.

The clarifications section clears up features of civs sometimes (or often) believed to be true but aren’t, or those often not understood.

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:

• Online: Divide by 2
• Quick: Divide by 1.5
• Epic: Multiply by 1.5
• Marathon: Multiply by 3

Glossary

Terminology used in this guide and not in-game is explained here.

AoE (Area of Effect) – Describes bonuses or penalties that affect multiple tiles in a set radius. Positive examples include Factories and Stadiums (which by default offer production and happiness respectively 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.

Beelining – The strategy of 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 deviation (either a source of extra science/culture or access to something necessary for a eureka or inspiration boost.

CA (Civ Ability) – The unique ability of a civilization, shared by all its leaders. Unlike unique units, buildings, districts and improvements, civ abilites do not have to be built.

Compact empires – Civs with cities close together. This is useful if you want to make use of districts that gain adjacency bonuses from other districts, maximise the number of copies of the same district in the same area, or to maximise the potential of area-of-effect bonuses later in the game.

Dispersed empires – Civs with cities that are spread out. This is useful if you want to ensure cities have plenty of room for both districts and tile improvements. 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.

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.

LA (Leader Ability) – The unique ability of a specific leader, which like civ abilities do not have to be built. Usually but not always, they tend to be more specific in scope than civ abilities. Some leader abilities come with an associated unique unit on top of the standard one every civ has.

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.

Start bias – The kind of terrain, terrain feature or 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.

Complete information on start biases within the game can be found in the Civilizations.xml file (find the Civ 6 folder in Steam’s program files, then go through the Base, Assets, Gameplay and Data folders to find the file). DLC and Expansion civs have a similarly-named file in their corresponding folders. If a civilization is not listed as having a start bias there, it does not have one, even if you feel like you keep spawning in the same terrain when playing as that civ.

Super-uniques – Unique units that do not replace any others, and are hence particularly unique. Examples include India’s Varu and Mongolia’s Keshigs.

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.

UA (Unique Ability) – A collective name for leader abilities and civ abilities.

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.

UD (Unique District) – A special district which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal district and offers some unique advantages on top. In some cases, there may be minor disadvantages as well, but these are always outweighed by the positive features. All unique districts cost half as much to construct relative to the regular districts they replace.

UI (Unique Improvement) – A special improvement that can only be built by the Builders of a single civilization. Unlike unique buildings or districts, these do not replace a regular improvement. Some require a technology to unlock, and many have their yields improved with later technologies. “UI” always refers to unique improvements in my guides and not to “user interface” or “unique infrastructure”.

UU (Unique Unit) – A special unit that may only be built by a single civilization, and in some cases only when that civilization is led by a specific leader. These usually replace an existing unit and offer extra advantages (and occasionally minor disadvantages as well in exchange for bigger advantages).

Wide empires – Empires that emphasise expansion over city development, usually resulting in more, but smaller, cities.

Clarifying Start Biases

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.

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.

In addition to full civs, these (and only these) city-states have a start bias:

America

Tricks

Civilization Ability: Founding Fathers

• If you fall into a classical-era Dark Age, take the Oligarchy government, the Oligarchic Legacy card and Twilight Valour at once. Combined with Roosevelt’s home continent strength bonus, you can have Swordsmen attacking at 54 strength!

Theodore Roosevelt’s Leader Ability: Roosevelt Corollary

• 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 National Parks to boost their appeal and hence tourism.

Clarifications

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.

Theodore Roosevelt’s Unique Unit: Rough Rider

• Like Roosevelt’s leader ability, 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.

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)

Arabia

Tricks

Civilization Ability: The Last Prophet

• 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 heals units on the same or adjacent tiles for 20HP per turn, which goes brilliantly with the ability of Mamluks to heal every turn.

Unique Building: Madrasa

• Given Arabia’s incentive to build both Holy Sites and Campuses, you can get a lot out of 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

Civilization Ability: The Last Prophet

• You need Stonehenge or a Holy Site to found a religion, regardless of how you receive a Great Prophet.

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.

Australia

Note: To play as Australia, you must have the Australia Civilization and Scenario Pack.

Tricks

Civilization Ability: Land Down Under

• The Eiffel Tower wonder will boost you entire empire’s appeal by 2, giving you considerably better district yields.
• An industrial or modern-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

• 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.

Unique Unit: Digger

• Bonuses on foreign coasts make Diggers particularly good at liberating city-states, which often spawn next to the sea.

Unique Improvement: Outback Station

• Because Outback Stations can be built on desert, they work very well in conjunction with the Petra wonder.

Hidden Features

Civilization Ability: Land Down Under

• District bonuses from high appeal count as adjacency bonuses for the purpose of modifiers such as policy card boosts.

Unique Improvement: Outback Station

• 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.

Clarifications

Civilization Ability: Land Down Under

Coastal Housing

• The housing offered separate from the housing provided based on access to fresh water, and stacks with it.

Pasture Culture Bomb

• 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.

John Curtin’s Leader Ability: Citadel of Civilization

• Turns of increased production cannot accumulate; liberating a city will reset the turns to 20 regardless of how many turns of double production you have remaining. If you have fewer than 10 turns of double production remaining, being the target of a declaration of war will reset it to 10
• 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

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.

Unique Unit: Eagle Warrior

• 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.

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

• 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.

Unique Building: Tlachtli

• More poorly-documented than hidden, but the Tlachtli UB is 10% cheaper to construct than the Arena it replaces (135 rather than 150 production)

Clarifications

Civilization Ability: Legend of the Five Suns

• 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

• 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: 27

  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). Huge is capped at 27 luxuries as there’s only that many in the entire game.

Unique Unit: Eagle Warrior

• 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.

Brazil

Tricks

Civilization Ability: Amazon

• 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!
• If possible, leave vertical diamonds of rainforests (1 on the top row, 2 in the middle row, 1 on the bottom) so you can place national parks there later, seeing as Brazil’s rainforests add appeal rather than lower it.

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.

Unique District: Copacabana

• 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.

Clarifications

Civilization Ability: Amazon

• Brazilian Campuses only receive 1 science per adjacent rainforest, not 3 science from every two as you may expect.

Pedro II’s Leader Ability: Magnanimous

• 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.

Unique Unit: Minas Geraes

• 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.

Unique District: Street Carnival

• When completed, the Carnival city project offers the following Great Person Points:
  • 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

Unique District: Copacabana

• You only gain era score for building your first Street Carnival or Copacabana, not both.

China

Tricks

Qin Shi Huang’s Leader Ability: The First Emperor

• 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.
• 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.

Unique Unit: Crouching Tiger Cannon

• City defence is tied to the strongest unit in your civ. Crouching Tiger Cannons are the strongest units China can train until the renaissance era, so your first one will make all your cities defend more effectively.

Unique Improvement: Great Wall

• Great Walls arrive earlier than other defensive improvements, so they can provide a distinct advantage against Barbarians and early-game warmongers.

Hidden Features

Unique Improvement: Great Wall

• Great Walls yield 50 gold when pillaged.

Clarifications

Civilization Ability: Dynastic Cycle

• 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 current game era.
  • As such, the civ ability is better-described as “Eurekas and inspirations offer 25% more science and culture respectively than normal.”

Qin Shi Huang’s Leader Ability: The First Emperor

• 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.

Cree

Tricks

Civilization Ability: Nîhithaw

• 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

• 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 counter-attack 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 Horsem*n and ideal for invading a full civ with.

Hidden Features

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 from traders.

Unique Unit: Okihtcitaw

• 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

Tricks

Civilization Ability: Iteru

• Look for confluences (where two rivers meet), or where rivers branch off to maximise the number of tiles this bonus applies to.

Unique Improvement: Sphinx

• 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.

Hidden Features

Unique Improvement: Sphinx

• Sphinxes yield 25 faith when pillaged.

Clarifications

Unique Unit: Maryannu Chariot Archer

• Because Maryannu Chariot Archers are classed as ranged land units, they will be constructed faster with the Agoge policy card – not Manoeuvre, which boosts the production for regular Heavy Chariots.

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.

England

Tricks

Victoria’s Leader Ability: Pax Britannica

• 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.
• Hold off researching Replaceable Parts so you can continue to get Redcoats from new cities.

Victoria’s Unique Unit: Redcoat

• Military Science is a particularly easy technology to beeline, which makes it easier to have a military advantage over other civs.

Unique Unit: Sea Dog

• 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. With the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus wonder (requires the Persia and Macedon Civilization and Scenario Pack) you can get two. Remember they can only heal through pillaging and promotions until you have access to coal resources!

Hidden Features

Civilization Ability: British Museum

• English Archaeological Museums can only be themed by filling all six slots.
• Capturing Archaeological Museums from other civs will give you the regular version, with just three slots and the regular theming bonus requirement.
• When other civs capture English Archaeological Museums, they will not revert back to a regular one; they will still have six slots and be themed by filling them all.
• Archaeologists will last until you fill their Archaeological Museum with artefacts. As such, one Archaeologist from an English-built Archaeological Museum can excavate up to six artefacts.

Clarifications

Victoria’s Leader Ability: Pax Britannica

• Cities may be founded, but not captured or received in a deal to get a free melee infantry unit.
• The free unit will be the strongest melee infantry unit you can currently train based on your technology. Strategic resource requirements do not matter!
• The free unit will start will full health and can move and fight immediately.

Victoria’s Unique Unit: Redcoat

• After disembarking, the Redcoat cannot have more movement points remaining than its limit on land, minus one.

Unique Unit: Sea Dog

• Sea Dogs can only capture enemy naval units if they are adjacent to them when destroying them.
• 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.

France

Tricks

Civilization Ability: Grand Tour

• 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 either Telecommunications or Robotics to rapidly advance through the eras and maximise your tourism output.

Catherine de Medici’s Leader Ability: Catherine’s Flying Squadron

• 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 would-be 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.

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.
  • Neatly, the Printing technology is on the way, which increases your level of diplomatic visibility with all other civs.

Hidden Features

Unique Improvement: Chateau

• Chateaux yield 25 faith when pillaged.

Clarifications

Unique Unit: Garde Impériale

• The unit always contributes +10 Great General Points when it kills, whether attacking or defending.

Unique Improvement: Chateau

• Chateaux only receive bonus culture 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.
• Although Chateaux can technically be constructed on flat desert tiles, in practice all flat desert tiles adjacent to a river automatically have floodplains present, which block the improvement from being built. You can still build a Chateau on desert hills adjacent to a river, however.

Georgia

Tricks

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.
  • 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.

Tamar’s Leader Ability: Glory of the World, Kingdom and Faith

• 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 unrivalled potential to generate envoys, participating in city-state emergencies can be a great source of gold.

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.

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

• The +1 envoy bonus for sending an envoy to a city-state 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.

Germany

Tricks

Frederick Barbarossa’s Leader Ability: Holy Roman Emperor

• 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 won’t get any warmonger penalties, and you can just stay at war for the rest of the game to train.
  • 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 triggers 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 city-state 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

• 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.

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.

Hidden Features

Unique District: Hansa

• The following aren’t strictly hidden but aren’t well-advertised:
  • Hansas don’t provide a production bonus from adjacent mines and quarries, unlike regular Industrial Zones.

Unique Unit: U-Boat

• The lower production cost of U-Boats make them more expensive to upgrade, though cheaper to upgrade into.

Clarifications

Frederick Barbarossa’s Leader Ability: Holy Roman Emperor

• You receive no strength bonus against levied city-state units. They have to be in direct control of a city-state to count.

Unique Unit: U-Boat

• 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.

Greece

Tricks

Civilization Ability: Plato’s Republic

• 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.
• Getting into a classical-era Dark Age offers a great military opportunity for Greece – you can take the Oligarchy government, Oligarchic Legacy and Twilight Valour for a combined +13 attack bonus for melee infantry, anti-cavalry and naval melee units. It’s particularly good in conjunction with Hoplites.

Gorgo’s Leader Ability: Thermopylae

• If you’re aiming for a classical-era Dark Age (for the Oligarchic Legacy/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.

Hidden Features

Pericles’ Leader Ability: Surrounded by Glory

• The culture bonus does not take effect until the turn after gaining suzerain status in a city-state.

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.

India

Tricks

Civilization Ability: Dharma

• 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.

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, stack strength penalties and eliminate them with ease.

Unique Improvement: Stepwell

• Stepwells adjacent to farms produce a superior yield to 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.

Hidden Features

Unique Unit: Varu

• 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 Encampments from spawning or check of enemies approaching.

Unique Improvement: Stepwell

• Pillagers of Stepwells are healed 50 health.

Clarifications

Chandragupta Maurya’s Leader Ability: Arthashastra

• 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.

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: Varu

• The strength penalty Varu offer stacks, so long as it doesn’t reduce a unit below 0 strength. Completely surrounding a unit with Varu will make it 30 points weaker!
• The strength penalty affects adjacent enemy naval units – not just land units.

Unique Improvement: Stepwell

• The adjacency bonuses Stepwells receive do not stack.

Indonesia

Note: To play as Indonesia, you must have the Khmer and Indonesia Civilization and Scenario Pack.

Tricks

Civilization Ability: Great Nusantara

• 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.

Unique Unit: Jong

• 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.

Hidden Features

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

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 faith-purchased naval units and there is no discount to purchasing fleets/armadas in cities with Seaports.

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

• Because Jongs arrive in the medieval rather than renaissance era, no policy card can boost their production.
• The different era of Jongs relative to regular Frigates means classical-era Great Admirals can affect them, but renaissance-era ones can’t.

Japan

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.
  • 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

• 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 and Governor Magnus (the Steward)’s Vertical Integration policy means you can support an extremely productive city later in the game.

Clarifications

Hojo Tokimune’s Leader Ability: Divine Wind

• 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.

Unique Unit: Samurai

• 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 1-9 HP relative to if they didn’t have that ability.

Unique Building: Electronics Factory

• The culture bonus does not spread to other cities within six tiles, unlike the production bonus.

Khmer

Note: To play as the Khmer, you must have the Khmer and Indonesia Civilization and Scenario Pack.

Tricks

Jayavarman VII’s Leader Ability: Monasteries of the King

• Use the River Goddess pantheon for some easy amenities considering this leader ability only functions for Holy Sites on riverside tiles.

Unique Building: Prasat

• Use all but one spread-religion charge with your Missionaries before sacrificing them in theological combat for relics in order to make the most out of them.
• The Reliquaries follower belief makes relics three tiles as powerful. Combined with this UB making relic collection easy, you can potentially win an early cultural victory.
  • The St. Basil’s Cathedral wonder doubles religious tourism, including that from relics, but only in its city.
  • Civs that research the renaissance-era Enlightenment civic will resist 50% of your religious tourism unless you build the Cristo Redentor wonder (modern era, requires the Mass Media civic), making it an important wonder to preserve your advantage.
• The Monastic Isolation enhancer belief ensures the Missionaries you sacrifice for relics won’t hurt your religious spread.
• Struggling to get anyone to kill your Missionaries? You can try triggering a religious emergency by converting a holy city of another religion, then surround it with your own Missionaries so opposing religious units can’t unconvert the city without fighting through your Missionaries. Just be careful the civ doesn’t declare war on you, as condemned religious units won’t create relics.

Hidden Features

Jayavarman VII’s Leader Ability: Monasteries of the King

• The bonus food and housing for Holy Sites works even when they’re pillaged.

Unique Building: Prasat

• The bonus also appears to work on Gurus.

Clarifications

Civilization Ability: Grand Barays

• Farms do not gain additional food from being adjacent to two or more Aqueducts.

Jayavarman VII’s Leader Ability: Monasteries of the King

• 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.
• The Burial Grounds enhancer belief is useless to the Khmer as a consequence of having the ability inherently.

Unique Unit: Domrey

• The Expert Crew promotion is useless to Domreys as they have that ability inherently.

Unique Building: Prasat

• You will no longer receive relics from Prasat-boosted Missionaries once all the relics in the game have been exhausted. There are 24 in total.

Kongo

Tricks

Civilization Ability: Nkisi

• 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)

Mvemba a Nzinga’s Leader Ability: Religious Convert

• 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:
  • 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)

Unique Unit: Ngao Mbeba

• With the Tortoise promotion, Ngao Mbebas have 55 strength when defending against ranged attacks – on a par with a Musketman!

Unique District: Mbanza

• 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!
• 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.
• As you don’t need to worry about appeal for Neighbourhoods, you can free up more high-appeal tiles for better National Parks and Seaside Resorts.

Hidden Features

Civilization Ability: Nkisi

• 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.

Unique Unit: Ngao Mbeba

• The more expensive production cost makes it more expensive to upgrade Warriors to Ngao Mbeba units relative to Swordsmen, while making it cheaper to upgrade Ngao Mbeba units into Musketmen.

Clarifications

Civilization Ability: Nkisi

• The extra Great Work slots that Kongo’s Palace has may hold any kind of Great Work.
• The bonus to Great Person Points does not apply to points received from completing district projects.

Mvemba a Nzinga’s Leader Ability: Religious Convert

• 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

Tricks

Unique District: Seowon

• 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.

Hidden Features

Civilization Ability: Three Kingdoms

• This bonus also works for mines and farms adjacent to the Campuses of other civs.

Unique Unit: Hwacha

• Relative to regular Field Cannons, Hwacha are less expensive to upgrade to, but more expensive to upgrade.

Macedon

Note: To play as Macedon, you must have the Persia and Macedon Civilization and Scenario Pack.

Tricks

Alexander’s Unique Unit: Hetairoi

• 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.

Unique Building: Basilikoi Paides

• 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

Alexander’s Unique Unit: Hetairoi

• The higher cost of these units relative to Horsem*n makes them cheaper to upgrade.

Unique Unit: Hypaspist

• The higher cost of these units relative to Swordsmen makes them more expensive to upgrade to, but cheaper to upgrade.

Clarifications

Civilization Ability: Hellenistic Fusion

• 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.

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.
• 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.

Unique Unit: Hypaspist

• 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

• 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.

Mapuche

Tricks

Civilization Ability: Toqui

• 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 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.

Lautaro’s Leader Ability: Swift Hawk

• Killing just three units within the range of a city 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.

Unique Improvement: Chemamull

• 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.

Hidden Features

Civilization Ability: Toqui

• The strength bonus works for theological combat.

Lautaro’s Leader Ability: Swift Hawk

• The loyalty penalty also applies when killing religious units via theological combat.

Unique Improvement: Chemamull

• Chemamull yield 25 faith when pillaged.

Clarifications

Civilization Ability: Toqui

• The strength bonus 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.

Lautaro’s Leader Ability: Swift Hawk

• 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.

Unique Improvement: Chemamull

• Chemamull 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).

Mongolia

Tricks

Civilization Ability: Örtöö

• 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.

Unique Unit: Keshig

• 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.

Hidden Features

Civilization Ability: Örtöö

• Strength bonuses from diplomatic visibility extend to theological combat.

Clarifications

Genghis Khan’s Leader Ability: Mongol Horde

• The bonuses extend to the unique Keshig unit, but not captured Saka Horse Archers.
  • 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 and Scythia’s Saka Horse Archers, but not Egypt’s Maryannu Chariot Archers.

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:
  • 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.

Unique Building: Ordu

• Keshig units benefit from the building’s movement speed bonus.
• The movement speed bonus is kept by units when they’re upgraded.

Netherlands

Tricks

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.

Unique Improvement: Polder

• Polders are most lucrative 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.

Hidden Features

Unique Improvement: Polder

• Polders yield 25 faith when pillaged. Yes, faith.

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:
  • 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.

Norway

Tricks

Harald Hardrada’s Leader Ability: Thunderbolt of the North

• Seaside Resorts have to be built adjacent to the coast, so they can always be subject to a coastal raid. They yield 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

• 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 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

• 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

• 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.

Clarifications

Civilization Ability: Knarr

• 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

• 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.

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

• 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.

Nubia

Note: To play as Nubia, you must have the Nubia Civilization and Scenario Pack.

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

• 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.

Hidden Features

Unique Unit: Pítati Archer

• The higher cost of these units relative to Archers makes them more expensive to upgrade to (60 gold), but cheaper to upgrade (170 gold).

Unique Improvement: Nubian Pyramid

• Nubian Pyramids yield 25 faith when pillaged.

Clarifications

Civilization Ability: Ta-Seti

• 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.

Persia

Note: To play as Persia, you must have the Persia and Macedon Civilization and Scenario Pack.

Tricks

Civilization Ability: Satrapies

• 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

• 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.

Unique Improvement: Pairidaeza

• Pairidaezas provide 2 appeal and as such are the most effective improvements in the game for boosting it. Because you can’t build them next to each other, fill the gap with Holy Sites, Theatre Squares, woods or city parks to maximise your tile appeal.

Hidden Features

Unique Unit: Immortal

• When using their ranged attack, Immortals have -17 strength 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).
• As Immortals are more expensive than the Swordsmen they replace, they are more expensive to upgrade into from Warriors, but less expensive to upgrade to Musketmen.

Unique Improvement: Pairidaeza

• Pairidaezas provide a yield of 25 faith when pillaged.

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%)

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.
• 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:
  • They use melee infantry rather than ranged land unit promotions, and upgrade to Musketmen rather than Crossbowmen.
  • A +10 strength bonus against anti-cavalry units such as Spearmen
  • They can benefit from Oligarchy’s +4 strength bonus, and the other +4 from the Oligarchic Legacy wildcard.
  • They impose zone of control
  • They have the option for a melee attack as well as their ranged attack.

Poland

Note: To play as Poland, you must have the Poland Civilization and Scenario Pack.

Tricks

Civilization Ability: Golden Liberty

• 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.

Jadwiga’s Leader Ability: Lithuanian Union

• 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 Burial Grounds enhancer belief, or 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

• The knockback ability works even for amphibious (embarked vs. land) attacks.
• Winged Hussars oddly obsolete at Rifling, even though Knights, which are weaker, don’t obsolete until Combustion.
• As Winged Hussars are more expensive than Knights, they may be upgraded to Tanks for a lower cost.

Clarifications

Civilization Ability: Golden Liberty

• 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.

Jadwiga’s Leader Ability: Lithuanian Union

• The faith bonus is boosted by the Reliquaries belief.

Unique Unit: Winged Hussar

• Units knockbacked 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.

Rome

Tricks

Unique Unit: Legion

• Legions with the Oligarchy government and Battlecry promotion will kill unpromoted enemy Warriors and Archers in a single hit most of the time. With the Oligarchic Legacy wildcard on top, Warriors will only rarely survive one attack.

Hidden Features

Unique Unit: Legion

• As Legions are more expensive than the Swordsmen they replace, they are more expensive to upgrade to from a Warrior, but cheaper to upgrade to a Musketman.
• 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.

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:
  • 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. You will not receive any more free buildings relative to other civs otherwise.

Unique Improvement: Roman Fort

• 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.

Russia

Tricks

Civilization Ability: Mother Russia

• 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)!

Peter’s Leader Ability: The Grand Embassy

• 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).
  • 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

• 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 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.

Hidden Features

Unique Unit: Cossack

• The mildly higher cost of Cossacks relative to normal Cavalry makes them slightly more expensive to upgrade to from a Horseman, but slightly cheaper to upgrade.

Clarifications

Civilization Ability: Mother Russia

• Founded cities start with eight additional tiles.
• The free tiles are the same as the first eight 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

• 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.

Unique Unit: Cossack

• 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

• The bonuses to Great Writer, Artist and Musician Points are not boosted by bonuses such as the Stockholm city-state or the Oracle wonder.
• Gaining territory from expended Great People works as follows:
  • You will gain 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

Tricks

Robert the Bruce’s Leader Ability: Bannockburn

• 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.

Unique Unit: Highlander

• 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

• You do not need to work the tile to receive the amenity bonus.

Clarifications

Civilization Ability: Scottish Enlightenment

• Happy cities are those with 1 or 2 surplus amenities. Ecstatic cities have 3 or more surplus amenities.

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.

Unique Unit: Highlander

• 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.

Scythia

Tricks

Tomyris’ Leader Ability: Killer of Cyrus

• 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

• 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 Improvement: Kurgan

• Kurgans yield 25 faith to pillagers.

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.

Tomyris’ Leader Ability: Killer of Cyrus

• 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.

Spain

Tricks

Philip II’s Leader Ability: El Escorial

• A good strategy for getting through Spain’s tricky game is to expand quickly while building Holy Sites, go into a classical-era Dark Age with the Monasticism wildcard, build up Harbours or Commercial Hubs, and enter a medieval-era Heroic Age with the Free Inquiry dedication. That allows you to get a good science output despite not building Campuses. By the time Free Inquiry expires, you’ll be able to settle on new continents, build Campuses and set up Missions for science.

Unique Unit: Conquistador

• 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

• Send your Conquistadors to take land in continents other than the one your capital is in at first, so you can get lots of high-yield Missions sooner.
• 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

Unique Unit: Conquistador

• The higher cost of Conquistadors relative to regular Musketmen make them more expensive to upgrade to from Swordsmen, but cheaper to upgrade.

Unique Improvement: Mission

• Missions yield 25 faith to pillagers.

Clarifications

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 +4 strength bonus.
• City ranged attacks are not affected by the strength bonus.

Unique Unit: Conquistador

• 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.

Sumeria

Tricks

Civilization Ability: Epic Quest

• If you want to found a pantheon quickly, keep in mind you can’t get faith from ancient ruins/Barbarian Encampment rewards until turn 20.

Gilgamesh’s Leader Ability: Adventures with Enkidu

• 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.

Hidden Features

Unique Unit: War-Cart

• Because War-Carts are cheaper than Heavy Chariots, they are more expensive to upgrade to Knights. This is the only downside War-Carts have relative to Heavy Chariots.

Unique Improvement: Ziggurat

• Ziggurats yield 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.

Zulus

Tricks

Shaka’s Leader Ability: Amabutho

• 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

• 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.

Clarifications

Civilization Ability: Isibongo

• You can also upgrade naval 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

• 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

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Rise and Fall

These guides are for those with the Rise and Fall expansion, but not Gathering Storm.

Compilation Guides

• Civ-specific tricks, secrets and clarifications
• Civ summaries

Individual Civilization Guides

• America (Cultural/Domination)
• Arabia (Religious/Scientific)
• Australia (Scientific)
• Aztecs (Domination)
• Brazil (All)
• China (Cultural/Scientific)
• Cree (Cultural/Domination/Scientific)
• Egypt (Cultural/Religious)
• England (Cultural/Domination)
• France (Cultural)
• Georgia (Religious)
• Germany (Domination/Scientific)
• Greece (Cultural/Domination)
• India (Domination/Religious)
• Indonesia (Cultural/Domination/Religious)
• Japan (All)
• Khmer (Cultural/Religious)
• Kongo (Cultural)
• Korea (Scientific)
• Macedon (Domination/Scientific)
• Mapuche (Cultural/Domination)
• Mongolia (Domination)
• Netherlands (Domination/Scientific)
• Norway (Domination)
• Nubia (Domination)
• Persia (Cultural/Domination)
• Poland (Cultural/Domination/Religious)
• Rome (Domination)
• Russia (Cultural/Religious)
• Scotland (Scientific)
• Scythia (Domination/Religious)
• Spain (Domination/Religious/Scientific)
• Sumeria (Domination/Scientific)
• Zulus (Domination)

Vanilla

The Vanilla guides are for those without the Rise and Fall or Gathering Storm expansions. These guides are no longer updated. You can find these by scrolling to the top of this page, clicking “Zigzagzigal’s Guides” and looking near the end of the list of guides. The “Other Guides” section of every Vanilla guide has links to every other Vanilla guide.