Zigzagzigal’s Guides – Civ Summaries (Vanilla) – Steam Solo (2024)

Start Bias

Floodplains (tier 2 – very likely)
Rivers (tier 5 – somewhat likely)

Uniques

Civilization Ability: Iteru

• May construct districts and wonders on floodplains tiles assuming the floodplain is the only feature preventing construction
• All districts and wonders construct 15% faster if positioned adjacent to a river

Cleopatra’s Leader Ability: Mediterranean’s Bride

• International trade routes from Egypt to another civ provide +4 gold each
• International trade routes from another civ to Egypt provide +2 gold for Egypt and +2 food for them

Unique Unit: Maryannu Chariot Archer (Ancient era, ranged, replaces Heavy Chariot)

• Costs 140 production/560 gold/280 faith, up from 65/260/130 respectively (+115%)
• 23 melee strength, down from 28
• 2 gold per turn maintenance cost, up from 1
• Unable to capture cities
• -17 strength vs. city defences
• Does not exert zone of control
• Classified as ranged rather than heavy cavalry, providing a different set of promotions and changing which default bonuses/penalties apply to it.
• Upgrades to Crossbowmen instead of Knights
• Obsoletes at Machinery instead of Stirrups (both medieval-era technologies)
• Has a ranged attack (33 strength, 2 range)
• No vulnerability to anti-mounted units (e.g. Spearmen)

Unique Improvement: Sphinx (Ancient era, requires Craftmanship civic)

• Must be constructed on a tile within your own lands without marsh, woods or rainforest and not adjacent to another Sphinx.
• +1 culture, +1 faith
• +1 appeal to adjacent tiles
• +2 faith if adjacent to a wonder (does not stack)
• Natural History civic: +1 culture
• Flight technology: Culture output added to tourism
• Pillage yield: 25 faith

Strategy

Egypt is best at cultural and religious victories.

The obvious thing to do is spam wonders early on, but Egypt’s start is trickier than that. Unless you can secure Stonehenge very early on and get a huge head start to your religion (which is often not possible on higher difficulties), you’ll need to ensure your civ is reasonably well-developed before you can start concerning yourself with wonders. Look for city locations with plenty of rivers which aren’t too close to each other so you have plenty of space for districts and wonders, and make use of internal trade routes, farms and mines to get them ready for wonder construction.

You might notice the mention of internal trade routes despite Cleopatra’s bonus only affecting external trade. Although +4 gold per external trade route is very nice to have around, wonders need all the production they can get. Instead, try to make use of the other half of Cleopatra’s leader ability, giving you gold for incoming international trade routes. Large cities are good at building wonders, will tend to have more districts and hence encourage other civs to trade with you, so ensuring you have enough food and housing in your cities will eventually reward you with more gold. Later on in the game, however, you’ll want to trade externally for the religious pressure or tourism bonus it offers you, so having a little extra cash around will be nice to have.

The Maryannu Chariot Archer is strong, but comes with an high production cost which can make it tricky to use. Still, a few of those complemented by Horsem*n can make for an effective early rush option if you’re that way inclined. Alternatively, you can keep a few around as a good defensive option.

Sphinxes are useful for both cultural and religious victories. At first, Sphinxes should generally only be constructed adjacent to wonders to ensure a decent yield, but later in the game, they can also offer a small source of tourism to complement tourism generated by wonders. They’re also one of the few tile improvements that can be constructed on desert tiles, making them ideal for spamming near a Petra city. Their appeal bonus means constructing some outside of city limits can still be useful for boosting the potential of Neighbourhoods, Seaside Resorts and National Parks.

*This feature is only available via a DLC pack.

Summary of key strengths

• General advantages to building districts rather than being pushed into a particular type
• Consistently effective wonder construction
• Good at both wonder-centric and terrain-centric approaches to cultural victory

England

Start Bias

Coastal (tier 3 – likely)

Uniques

Civilization Ability: British Museum

• Archaeological Museums built by England have six slots for Artefacts, up from three.
• Theming bonuses for Archaeological Museums require all six slots to be filled instead of needing three Artefacts of the same era from different civs.
  • The era or civ does not matter for England; the theming bonus is only achieved when all six slots are filled.
  • The theming bonus doubles the culture and tourism output of the Artefacts present in the Archaeological Museum, as usual.
• Archaeologists may excavate up to six artefacts, up from three
• Cities with an Archaeological Museum may build a second Archaeologist. The two archaeologists are still capped at a maximum of six excavations between them, and using up the last charge on one will remove them both from the game.
• All of these changes do not apply for Archaeological Museums originally built by other civilizations, and English Archaeological Museums keep their advantages even if other civs capture them.

Victoria’s Leader Ability: Pax Britannica

• Founding a city on a continent other than the one containing your capital grants you a free melee infantry unit.
  • This bonus does not function in duel-size maps as they only have one continent.
  • The free unit will be the strongest you can currently construct based on your technology and access to strategic resources.
  • The free unit will start will full health and can move and fight immediately.
  • Cities may be not be captured or received in a deal.
• Constructing a Royal Navy Dockyard in a city on a continent not containing your capital also grants you a free melee infantry unit.

Victoria’s Unique Unit: Redcoat (Industrial era, melee infantry, requires Military Science technology)

• Costs 340 production/1360 gold/680 faith
• Does not require resources to build
• Maintenance cost of 5
• Has 65 strength (10 more than a Musketman)
• Has 2 movement points
• +10 strength on a continent not containing your capital
• Disembarking costs just one movement point

Unique Unit: Sea Dog (Renaissance era, naval raider, replaces Privateer)

• Can capture non-Barbarian naval units when destroying them, if adjacent to them
  • The chance of this occuring 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 (Classical era, replaces Harbour)

• -50% production cost
• Provides 1 trade route capacity, regardless of the presence of a Commercial Hub
• Provides 2 gold per turn when constructed on a continent not containing your capital
  • Duel-size maps only have one continent so this bonus cannot be used there.
• 2 Great Admiral Points per turn, up from 1
• All naval units constructed in this city have +1 movement point

Strategy

England excels at domination but is good at cultural victories as well.

The Royal Navy Dockyard is the engine that drives the English economy. Settle cities on the mouth of a river, place a Royal Navy Dockyard adjacent to both the city and the other side of the river, then finally build a Commercial Hub on the other bank of the river. This triangle produces powerful adjacency bonuses and unlike other civs, increases your trade route capacity by two points instead of one. Whether you prefer internal or external trade, this will be a huge boost through the early eras of the game.

Keep a close eye on the continents lens. If it’s possible to settle on another continent early on, do so – you’ll get extra gold from Royal Navy Dockyards, a free melee unit (eventually two) and eventually your Redcoats will fight more effectively there. Be sure to scout the seas for continents that might be worth invading later, as well – the Royal Navy Dockyard’s speed bonus for naval units makes that job easier.

The main part of preparing for England’s uniques is research. Military Science is an easy technology to beeline, so do so! Don’t worry about the production cost – you can raze coastal cities and resettle them for cheap Redcoats. Just be careful not to research Replaceable Parts, as you’ll be getting free Infantry instead, which are actually worse when fighting in foreign continents. Meanwhile, Sea Dogs come at the Mercantilism civic. You will need to build some of those, and find a decent melee naval unit for getting the last hit on cities. Yi Sun-Sin is a renaissance-era Great Admiral who gives you a free Ironclad, and is ideal for the job.

Once your navy is ready, you can start picking off coastal cities on foreign continents. Razing and settling them will grant you Redcoats, which can start moving and fighting immediately. Spend some gold to obtain a Builder and cut some trees down so you can quickly get a Royal Navy Dockyard for a second Redcoat. Spend some gold to purchase siege support in your new cities and you’ll have a powerful fighting force much faster than most civs for a much lower cost.

Using Sea Dogs to capture naval units and the raze-and-resettle method of obtaining Redcoats gives England a lot more spare production than most warmongering civs. That allows you to make great use of the British Museum civ ability. Build lots of Archaeological Museums and enjoy double the capacity for artefacts with a much easier to achieve theming bonus. While you can build two Archaeologists per Archaeological Museum as England, it’s usually better to just have one as it’ll still last until the museum is full.

*This feature is only available via a DLC pack.

Summary of key strengths

• Unrivalled ability to produce trade routes
• Strong naval presence, especially in the renaissance era
• Can wage war without needing much production

France

Start Bias

Rivers (tier 3 – likely)

Uniques

Civilization Ability: Grand Tour

• Double tourism from world wonders
• +20% production towards medieval, renaissance and industrial-era wonders

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

• +1 level of diplomatic visibility to all met civilizations
• +1 Spy capacity at the Castles technology and a free Spy unit
• All recruited Spies are one level higher

Unique Unit: Garde Impériale (Industrial era, melee infantry, requires Military Science technology)

• Costs 340 production/1360 gold/680 faith
• Has 65 strength (10 more than a Musketman)
• Has 2 movement points
• Maintenance cost of 5
• +10 strength on the continent containing your capital
• Gains +10 Great General Points when it kills a unit

Unique Improvement: Chateau (Renaissance era, requires Humanism civic)

• Must be constructed on a riverside tile within your own lands without woods, rainforest, marsh or floodplains.
• +2 culture
• +1 appeal to adjacent tiles
• +2 culture if adjacent to a wonder (does not stack)
• +1 gold if adjacent to a luxury resource (does not stack)
• Flight technology: Culture output added to tourism
• Pillage yield: 25 culture

Strategy

France is by far most effective at cultural victories.

The key objectives of a French game are simple – get as many wonders as possible, and through them gain as much tourism as possible. Unlike China and Egypt, the other major wonder-builders, France doesn’t have a demanding start to get through so use that time to expand your empire. Space your cities apart so there’s more space for wonders and farms to grow the cities with. Look out for rivers as your Chateaux will need them later.

Once you have the Apprenticeship technology (which unlocks Industrial Zones), it’s a good idea to beeline Military Science (useful technologies like Castles and Printing are on the way). The sooner you can get Garde Impériale units, the more powerful they’ll be. Once they’re unlocked, focus on getting a decent-sized force built along with some siege support. Yes, that means putting off wonder construction, but you can get back to that later. The force will be able to sweep across your home continent and crucially take wonders off your neighbours. The amount of tourism wonders generate is based on the difference between the era they first come available and the current era – so consider beelining Robotics or Telecommunications once Military Science is done in order to bring yourself into the information era quickly and maximise tourism.

Capturing wonders not only gives you tourism at the expense of other civs, but it also helpfully spreads your wonders out throughout your empire so you can make use of more Chateaux. Avoid working Chateaux which are not adjacent to wonders until you have the Flight technology, when they start adding to tourism.

France also comes with advantages to espionage. Once you have the Printing technology, you’ll know when any met civ in the game has started construction on a wonder, allowing you to react accordingly to ensure you take it. The Printing technology, a delegation or embassy at a civ and a trade route is all you need to reach the maximum level of diplomatic access, which tells you exactly when the other civ is building nukes or starting projects (such as those needed for scientific victory). Furthermore, an extra Spy can be amazing for setting back other civs without going to war, or stealing Great Works. Knowing when another civ is starting work on missions to Mars and having the Spies to disrupt it can save you from defeat.

*This feature is only available via a DLC pack.

Summary of key strengths

• Less demanding start than other wonder-centric civs
• Strong tourism output
• Good defence (both military and espionage) in the second half of the game
• Espionage advantages make France unusually effective against scientific civs

Germany

Start Bias

None.

Uniques

Civilization Ability: Free Imperial Cities

• The district limit in all cities is increased by 1.

Frederick Barbarossa’s Leader Ability: Holy Roman Emperor

• All governments receive an extra military policy card slot.
• All military units have a +7 strength bonus against city-states and their units.

Unique Unit: U-Boat (Modern era, naval raider, replaces Submarine)

• More expensive to upgrade to a Nuclear Submarine
• Cheaper to upgrade from a Privateer
• Costs 430 production or 1720 gold, down from 480 production or 1920 gold.
• 3 sight, up from 2.
• +10 strength and ranged strength when fighting in ocean tiles, based on where the defending unit is located

Unique District: Hansa (Medieval era, replaces Industrial Zone)

• Does not provide a production bonus from adjacent mines and quarries
• -50% production cost
• +2 production per adjacent Commercial Hub district
• +1 production per adjacent bonus, luxury or strategic resource, or antiquity site
• Does not reduce appeal in adjacent tiles

Strategy

Germany is best at scientific and domination victories.

Germany’s one of the best civs around at city development, but you can really make use of your strength bonus against city-states for some early expansion as well. An extra military policy card may appear to be a bonus intended for a war-heavy game – it can be, but you can also use it to cover a weakness in some of the more peaceful governments like Classical Republic.

Settle your cities close together so you can cluster lots of Commercial Hubs and Hansas and receive huge adjacency bonuses. A good arrangement is to make a zigzag of Commercial Hubs and place Hansas either side of it. All that production will be great for filling up Germany’s increased district capacity, chasing up eureka boosts and building military units. The one problem is that Hansas are vulnerable to Spies, so make sure you either use the right policy cards or have Spies on counterspy operations ready.

U-Boats are a bit of a niche unit as UUs go, but they still perform admirably in the role of intercepting enemy fleets before they can reach your shores. With an extended sight range, you can keep a lot of ocean visible ensuring you know exactly what their attack angle will be.

*This feature is only available via a DLC pack.

Summary of key strengths

• Reasonable early expansion potential via bonuses against city-states
• Powerful production; among the game’s best
• Great at city development and can make effective cities even with low food or housing

Greece

Start Bias

Desert Hills
Grassland Hills
Plains Hills
Tundra Hills

All biases are tier 3, making it likely you’ll get at least one of these.

Uniques

Civilization Ability: Plato’s Republic

• All governments receive an extra wildcard policy card slot.

Gorgo’s Leader Ability: Thermopylae

• Killing military units provides culture equal to 50% of their melee strength.

Pericles’ Leader Ability: Surrounded by Glory

• National culture output increased by 5% per city-state under suzerainty
  • This does not take effect until the turn after gaining suzerain status in a city-state.
  • This is applied only at the national level, so it affects civic gain and domestic tourist accumulation, but does not affect city tile accumulation nor tourism from terrain after the Flight technology.

Unique Unit: Hoplite (Ancient era, anti-cavalry, replaces Spearman)

• +10 strength when adjacent to another Hoplite

Unique District: Acropolis (Classical era, replaces Theatre Square)

• Must be constructed on a hill tile
• -50% production cost
• 1 culture per adjacent district, up from 1 culture per two adjacent districts
• 1 additional culture from adjacent city centres
• Receive +1 envoy when the district is complete

Strategy

Greece as a whole favours cultural victories. Gorgo has a little bit less emphasis on them than Pericles but is good at domination as well.

An early wildcard slot offers a lot of flexibility, especially early in the game. If you like, you can take the Mysticism civic and pick up Inspiration for early Great Scientist Points. Later on, the Monarchy government becomes much easier to use, letting you really make use of the defensive building production and influence gain bonuses – both of which go well with the Acropolis district.

The Hoplite unique unit offers a good amount of strength at a low cost. Two adjacent to each other have almost as much strength as a Swordsman, and can stand up to even Knights reasonably effectively. Gorgo can take them on the offensive to pick off some cities and kill units for culture, while Pericles might want to show a bit more restraint. Gorgo’s warfare can get her to a classical-era government much sooner than most civs can manage – take Oligarchy and you’ll make Hoplites even stronger.

Acropoles encourage you to settle next to hill tiles if possible, as building one next to a city centre produces enough culture for them basically to act as a second Monument. Coupled with either leader’s abilities, Greece can end up with one of the game’s best culture outputs – perfect for getting through the civics tree.

Every Acropolis you construct gives you an envoy, which is fine for Gorgo but great for Pericles. The more city-states you’re suzerain over, the greater your culture output. Although Gorgo has a better up-front culture output, Pericles will overtake her later in the game. That makes getting to late-arriving tourism boosts much easier.

*This feature is only available via a DLC pack.

Summary of key strengths

• Strong early-game thanks to the immediate wildcard policy card
• Very high culture output
• Strong city-state envoy gain

India

Start Bias

None.

Uniques

Civilization Ability: Dharma

• May use the follower beliefs of all religions present in a city, regardless of the religion’s founder.

Gandhi’s Leader Ability: Satyagraha

• Gain +5 faith for every civ that has been met, has founded a religion and is at peace.
  • This includes India themselves, so having a religion and being at peace guarantees a +5 faith bonus.
• Civs fighting against India suffer double war weariness

Unique Unit: Varu (Classical era, heavy cavalry, requires Horseback Riding technology)

• Classed as heavy cavalry, unlike Horsem*n which arrive at the same technology
• 40 strength, 4 higher than Horsem*n but 8 lower than Knights
• Only two movement points, two less than Horsem*n or Knights
• Sight range of 3 (most land units have a sight of 2)
• Reduces the strength of adjacent enemy units by 5
  • This stacks with other Varu. An enemy unit completely surrounded with Varu will have a -30 strength penalty!
  • This does not function against cities and encampment districts.
• Costs 120 production, 50% more than Horsem*n at 80.
• Maintenance cost of 3, 50% more than Horsem*n at 2.

Unique Improvement: Stepwell (Ancient era, requires Irrigation technology)

• Must be constructed on flat land in your territory and not next to another Stepwell
• +1 food and +1 housing
• +1 food if adjacent to a farm
• +1 faith if adjacent to a Holy Site
• Feudalism civic: +1 faith
• Sanitation technology: +1 housing
• Professional Sports civic: +1 food
• Pillage yield: Pillager healed to full health

Strategy

India is best at religious victories.

The Stepwell improvement gets India off to a great start. So long as they’re adjacent to a farm, they offer double the yield that a farm does until the medieval era, really helping your cities to grow. You’ll need some early Holy Sites to secure a religion, seeing as India lacks a direct advantage to Great Prophet Point accumulation, but thankfully it’ll only make Stepwells even better by adding faith. The modern-era Replaceable Parts technology will make farms produce more food than Stepwells, but Sanitation’s bonus to housing makes them offer far more housing than any other tile improvement in the game, helping you support huge cities.

Huge cities will find it easier to use India’s civ ability, which lets you use the follower beliefs of all religions present in a city no matter how few people follow it. If your religion is strong, try sending trade routes to cities with rival religions to get a little pressure for them in your own cities. If your religion is weak or you lack one, your land might end up a religious battleground, providing you with plenty of bonuses.

Gandhi’s leader ability provides a good sum of faith if the game’s pretty peaceful, especially earlier in the game and on larger map sizes. It also doubles war weariness for any civ that tries to stop your faith bonus by declaring war on you, which gives you an advantage in a long, drawn-out war. The powerful Varu UU also helps you defend, especially if you can surround an enemy with them.

*This feature is only available via a DLC pack.

Summary of key strengths

• Can grow cities quickly very early in the game thanks to Stepwells
• Good defence, especially in the classical and medieval eras
• Reasonably strong faith output without having particularly difficult requirements attached

Indonesia

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

Start Bias

Coastal (tier 2 – very likely)

Uniques

Civilization Ability: Great Nusantara

• Campuses, Holy Sites, Theatre Squares and Industrial Zones gain +1 of their respective adjacency yield per two adjacent coast or lake tiles.
• Entertainment Complexes adjacent to coast or lakes provide 2 amenities rather than the usual 1.

Gitarja’s Leader Ability: Exalted Goddess of the Three Worlds

• City centres adjacent to lake or coast tiles gain +2 faith.
• Naval melee, ranged, raider and carrier units may be purchased with faith
  • Like other faith purchases, these costs 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.
• Embarking and disembarking religious units costs just one movement point
  • 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 (Medieval era, ranged naval, replaces Frigate)

• Unlocked with the medieval-era Mercenaries civic instead of the renaissance-era Square Rigging technology
  • This means the unit has no policy card that can boost its production, unlike regular Frigates
  • This also makes renaissance-era Great Admirals ineffective for them, but classical-era Great Admirals will boost their speed and strength.
• Costs 300 production, 1200 gold and 600 faith, up from 280, 1120 and 560 respectively.
• More expensive to upgrade to from a Quadrireme
• 5 movement points, up from 4
• +5 strength when in formation
• Formation units inherit the Jong’s movement speed
  • To use this ability, move the Jong, not the unit it’s in formation with.
  • This works even if the formation unit has no remaining movement points.
  • This cannot be used to boost the movement speed of embarked religious units.
• Cheaper to upgrade

Unique Improvement: Kampung (Classical era, requires Shipbuilding technology)

• Must be constructed on a owned coast or lake tile adjacent to a water resource
• 1 production, 1 housing
• +1 food per adjacent fishing boats improvement
• Mass Production technology: +1 housing
• Civil Engineering civic: +1 production
• Flight technology: Food yield added to tourism, plus one if the city has a Lighthouse.
• Pillage yield: Pillager healed to full health

Strategy

Indonesia is best at domination victories, but can do well at culture and religion as well.

Indonesia is all about building a maritime empire. Look out for spots near plenty of sea resources, and you’ll be rewarded later with some very powerful cities. Early in the game, coastal settling can secure you one of the first pantheons – the God of the Sea pantheon is a good choice for getting your production off to a good start. You’ll also get adjacency bonuses from coast and lake tiles for a variety of districts – this won’t give you amazing yields, but it’ll enable you to get reasonable bonuses without having to seek more inland city spots.

Kampungs are what make Indonesia’s cities amazing. These improvements offer a huge amount of food and housing, as well as some production. On top of that, it’ll free up a lot of land tiles so you can fill out your expanded district limit more easily, and as you’ll be working a lot of coast or lake tiles, you’ll be earning quite a bit of gold on the side. The only downsides are that pillagers (such as Barbarian naval units) can be tricky to kill, and that your cities can struggle to secure enough amenities to fill their huge size.

Get some Holy Sites together before Jongs come available, and you’ll be able to buy a powerful navy. Jongs are strong enough to be useful for quite some time, and their ability to let formation movements move faster than their normal speed limit makes transporting armies overseas much quicker. Jongs and Caravels can take coastal cities, and you can then detach and disembark your formation units to help secure them.

If domination isn’t for you, Indonesia has alternative options. Religious units can disembark and embark quickly, which saves a little time in the religious game, while Kampungs can offer tourism with the flight technology to help towards cultural victory.

*This feature is only available via a DLC pack other than Indonesia’s.

Summary of key strengths

• Usually first to a pantheon
• Can raise armed forces quickly thanks to a good gold output and the ability to purchase naval units with faith
• Can support massive cities even on small landmasses
• Good mid-game naval warfare potential

Japan

Start Bias

None.

Uniques

Civilization Ability: Meiji Restoration

• Campus, Commercial Hub, Harbour, Holy Site, Industrial Zone and Theatre Square districts receive +1 of their respective yields for every adjacent district, instead of for every two.
  • This is separate to the +2 gold Commercial Hubs get from being adjacent to Harbours; that bonus is unaffected.

Hojo Tokimune’s Leader Ability: Divine Wind

• All military land and naval units gain +5 strength in land tiles adjacent to the sea and coastal (shallow water) tiles
  • This bonus is applied based on where the defending unit is at the start of combat.
  • Lake tiles are treated as land tiles for the purpose of determining where the bonus does and does not apply.
  • This bonus has no effect on air units.
• -50% production cost for Encampment, Holy Site and Theatre Square districts

Unique Unit: Samurai (Medieval era, melee infantry, requires Military Tactics technology)

• Costs 160 production/640 gold/320 faith
• Does not require resources to build
• Maintenance cost of 3
• Has 48 strength, 12 more than classical-era Swordsmen and 7 less than renaissance-era Musketmen
• Has 2 movement points
• Does not lose strength when injured

Unique Building: Electronics Factory (Industrial era, requires Industrial Zone district with Workshop, replaces Factory)

• 4 production, up from 3 to cities within six tiles, unless they are already in range of an Electronics Factory
• Provides 4 culture with the modern-era Electricity technology
  • Unlike the production bonus, this does not extend to all cities within a six-tile radius.

Strategy

Japan is best at domination victories, but can have a reasonable stab at other routes as well.

Japan’s the perfect example of a civ which favours settling cities close together. Districts gain better adjacency bonuses when next to other districts, which allows you a method of getting strong yields without needing to rely on getting good terrain. Cluster your adjacency-gaining districts in the middle of a group of cities for the maximum effect. Late in the game, Electronics Factories capitalise on the clustering of your cities by offering a good production bonus to multiple ones at a time, though beware of enemy Spies that might want to sabotage them.

Hojo Tokimune’s leader bonus makes defending your coasts easy, but you can also use it to make more effective amphibious invasions or even to attack coastal cities from the land. If you can secure control of an entire landmass, you will be incredibly hard to attack.

Samurai also are great for going on the warpath. With the Oligarchy government, they’re stronger than Knights, and combined with Siege Towers they can rip apart city defences quickly. By retaining their full strength when injured, they’re particularly resilient in combat and will serve you well until renaissance-era units become commonplace.

*This feature is only available via a DLC pack.

Summary of key strengths

• Strong defence against naval civs
• Decent medieval-era warfare potential
• Good district yields without needing much land

Khmer

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

Start Bias

Rivers (tier 3 – likely)

Uniques

Civilization Ability: Grand Barays

• All Aqueducts offer +3 faith and +1 amenity in addition to their normal yields
• Farms adjacent to Aqueducts gain an additional +2 food

Jayavarman VII’s Leader Ability: Monasteries of the King

• Constructing a Holy Site district causes a culture bomb, granting you all surrounding tiles.
  • 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.
• Holy Sites adjacent to rivers provide +2 food and +1 housing, even when pillaged

Unique Unit: Domrey (Medieval era, siege, requires Military Engineering technology)

• Costs 220 production/880 gold/440 faith
• Maintenance cost of 3.
• Has 33 strength, exactly half way between a Catapult (23) and Bombard (43)
• Has 45 bombard strength, exactly half way between a Catapult (35) and Bombard (55)
• 2 movement points
• 2 attack range
• Imposes zone of control, unlike other siege units
• May attack after moving for just 1 movement point
  • This bonus functions identically to the Expert Crew promotion, making that promotion useless to Domreys.

Unique Building: Prasat (Classical era, requires Holy Site district with a Shrine, replaces Temple)

• 2 relic slots, up from 1
• All Missionaries and Gurus trained in this city have the Martyr promotion, granting you a relic if they are killed in theological combat, unless all 24 relics in the game have been claimed already.

Strategy

The Khmer are best at cultural and religious victories, and their strengths at both are closely intertwined.

Getting an early religion is much less of a hassle thanks to the bonus to food and housing from Holy Sites. With the additional food and amenity from Aqueducts as well, you can produce some good-sized cities fairly early on, though getting the full potential out of these abilities requires rather tricky city and district placement. Fairly rapid early expansion to take riverside city spots is a good idea, and it’ll also help maximise your Great Prophet Points generation.

Founding a religion reasonably early is important for the Khmer in order to take the powerful Reliquaries founder belief, which triples the faith and tourism output of relics. The Prasat UB makes obtaining relics very easy – simply spam Missionaries and send them to the lands of a religious rival, and wait for their Inquisitors or Apostles to arrive to kill them. If your rivals get wise to that and refuse to kill your religious units, you can simply use your bonus Aqueduct faith and high number of Holy Sites to help push for a religious victory.

Domreys are the odd one out among Khmer uniques, but they’re still very useful. Being able to fire after attacking makes them exceptionally good at tearing down enemy city defences. Bring along some Knights as well, and you should be able to take down a religious or cultural rival. Just be warned that they’re not particuarly strong against other units, making them fairly weak in defence.

*This feature is only available via a DLC pack other than the one required to play as the Khmer.

Summary of key strengths

• Closely intertwined cultural and religious strengths provide a lot of flexibility
• Can win cultural victories considerably earlier than most civs
• Strong food output leading to strong city growth
• Domreys are extremely good at taking down city defences

Kongo

Start Bias

Rainforest (tier 2 – very likely)
Woods (tier 2 – very likely)

Uniques

Civilization Ability: Nkisi

• The Palace has five slots for any kind of Great Work (including relics and artefacts), up from one.
• Every relic, artefact and Great Work of Sculpture adds 2 food, 2 production and 4 gold to the city that contains it in addition to normal yields.
  • These yields are doubled if part of a theming bonus.
• +50% Great Artist, Merchant, Musician and Writer Points.
  • This does not apply to Great Person Points received from completing district projects.

Mvemba a Nzinga’s Leader Ability: Religious Convert

• Cannot build Holy Sites
  • Capturing a city containing one will remove it entirely, freeing up a district slot as well as its tile. Stonehenge, however, will not be destroyed.
• Cannot found a religion
• If at least half of the cities in Kongo follow the same religion, receive its founder and enhancer bonuses
• Receive a free Apostle of the corresponding city’s religion when a Theatre Square or Mbanza is built.

Unique Unit: Ngao Mbeba (Classical era, melee infantry, replaces Swordsman)

• Costs 110 production, 440 gold or 220 faith, up from 90, 360 and 180 respectively (+22%)
• Costs 110 gold, up from 80, to upgrade to from a Warrior (+38%)
• 35 strength, down from 36
• No resource requirement
• +10 strength when defending against ranged attacks
• Woods and rainforest tiles do not block sight or slow movement
• Less expensive to upgrade to a Musketman

Unique District: Mbanza (Medieval era, replaces Neighbourhood)

• Must be constructed on a woods or rainforest tile
  • The tile retains many of the features of woods/rainforest tiles, including the defensive bonus, appeal bonuses/penalties and adjacency bonuses.
• Always provides 5 housing, regardless of appeal, instead of ranging from 2 to 6.
• Available with the medieval-era Guilds civic, instead of the industrial-era Urbanisation civic.
• -50% production cost
• +4 gold
• +2 food

Strategy

Kongo is by far most effective at cultural victories. Mvemba a Nzinga’s Leader Ability makes religious victory impossible.

An unusual and complex civ, Kongo sacrifices the religious game but is among the best civs in the game for maximising tourism yields. Before all that, however, it’s good to consider their early-arriving Swordsman UU, the Ngao Mbeba. Though weaker and more expensive than the unit it replaces, it’s mobile and incredibly good at resisting Archer attacks. As such, it can be a good early-rushing unit to take out a neighbour’s capital. Alternatively, just use it defensively to protect your forested cities from Barbarians and aggressive civs.

Build plenty of Theatre Squares, and you can enjoy a steady flow of GWAMs and a good amount of tourism. Build Commercial Hubs rather than Harbours for trade route capacity, and you’ll get plenty of Great Merchants as well. Quite a lot of Great Merchants offer tourism bonuses, especially later in the game.

Into the medieval era, Kongo’s Mbanzas arrive giving you vast amounts of housing two eras before other civs. Build Mbanzas in large quantities, and you can get plenty of food and gold without needing to spare any citizens (unlike tile improvements offering the same yields). Although the restriction to woods and rainforests can sometimes be a problem, the modern-era Conservation civic lets you plant woods allowing you to place Mbanzas nearly everywhere another civ can build Neighbourhoods. Because tile appeal is irrelevant for Mbanzas, you’re able to free up high-appeal spots for National Parks and Seaside Resorts, and get even more tourism.

While Mbanzas offer you lots of housing, Kongo’s bonus food to Great Works of Sculpture, relics and artefacts helps you to grow your cities to fill that capacity. Meanwhile, the production is great for building wonders and the gold will help you develop Theatre Squares. Great Works of Sculpture can be obtained by Great Artists and artefacts via Archaeologists, but relics can be quite a challenge. Getting the Mont St. Michel wonder will really help, as Mvemba a Nzinga’s Leader Ability makes obtaining Apostles easy and as Kongo can’t found a religion they won’t get as much out of their other uses.

*This feature is only available via a DLC pack.

Summary of key strengths

• Very strong at cultural victory
• Great at growing huge cities
• Decent at early rushes
• Strong gold output

Macedon

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

Start Bias

None.

Uniques

Civilization Ability: Hellenistic Fusion

• When capturing a city, receive a eureka per Encampment or Campus district present, and an inspiration per Holy Site or Theatre Square district.
  • Eurekas and inspirations skew towards technologies and civics you can research before filling out the rest of the respective trees.

Alexander’s Leader Ability: To the World’s End

• Never suffer war weariness.
• Capturing a city with a world wonder causes all of Macedon’s units, regardless of location, to heal to full health.

Alexander’s Unique Unit: Hetairoi (Classical era, heavy cavalry, replaces Horseman)

• Costs 100 production/400 gold/200 faith, up from 80/320/160 respectively (+25%)
• Classified as heavy cavalry rather than light cavalry, providing a different set of promotions.
• Upgrades to Knights instead of Cavalry
• Obsoletes at Stirrups instead of Military Science
• Does not require horse resources
• +5 Strength if adjacent to or sharing a tile with a Great General
  • The era of the Great General does not matter.
  • This strength bonus does not stack if the unit is adjacent to multiple Great Generals
• +5 Great General Points when it kills a unit
• Starts with +1 promotion level (keeps on upgrade)

Unique Unit: Hypaspist (Classical era, melee infantry, replaces Swordsman)

• Costs 100 production/400 gold/200 faith, up from 90/360/180 respectively (+11%)
• Costs 100 gold to upgrade into from a Warrior, up from 80 (+25%)
• Does not require iron resources
• +5 strength when attacking city centres and other districts
• Receives 50% more support bonus
• Cheaper to upgrade

Unique Building: Basilikoi Paides (Ancient era, requires Encampment district, replaces Barracks)

• Experience bonus also applies to the Hetairoi unit
• When a military or support unit is trained in this city, gain science equal to 25% of its production cost.
  • You do not receive science if the unit is purchased.

Strategy

Macedon is best at domination and, to a lesser extent, scientific victories.

Starting in the classical era, Macedon can engage in constant warfare thanks to Alexander’s ability to ignore war weariness and the civ ability’s free eurekas and inspirations, ensuring you don’t fall behind on research as you emphasise warfare. But before that, you’ll want to get the Basilikoi Paides UB ready. Beelining Bronze Working from the start of the game isn’t a bad idea. The building gets you science from every unit you train, in addition to the usual Barracks benefits, and provides considerably more science than you’d gain from using the Campus Research Grants project.

Hetairoi should generally be trained before Hypaspists so you have a bit of time to fight Barbarians for Great General Points. With a classical-era Great General, Hetairoi are nearly as strong as Knights, and even more so in certain situations when you take into account their free promotion. They’re excellent at killing enemy units but can take on city defences if need be.

Hypaspists are excellent at tearing down city defences, especially when combined with the Great General Hetairoi helped you get. Their support bonus will also help your army defend more effectively so long as you keep the units close together.

*This feature is only available via a DLC pack other than Macedon’s.

Summary of key strengths

• Very strong classical-era warfare
• Can withstand non-stop warfare
• Strong science output

Norway

Start Bias

Coastal (tier 3 – likely)
Woods (tier 5 – somewhat likely)

Uniques

Civilization Ability: Knarr

• May cross ocean tiles with the classical-era Shipbuilding technology instead of the renaissance-era Cartography technology.
• Naval melee units may heal 10 health per turn in neutral territory even without the Auxiliary Ships promotion
• Embarking and disembarking land units costs just one movement point
  • 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

• All melee naval units can perform coastal raids, an ability otherwise restricted to naval raider units.
• +50% production bonus when constructing naval melee units.

Harald Hardrada’s Unique Unit: Viking Longship (Ancient era, naval melee, replaces Galley)

• 30 strength, up from 25.
• +1 movement point if starting on a coast tile

Unique Unit: Berserker (Medieval era, melee infantry, requires Military Tactics)

• Costs 160 production/640 gold/320 faith
• Does not require resources to build
• Maintenance cost of 3
• Has 40 strength, 4 more than classical-era Swordsmen and 10 less than renaissance-era Musketmen
• -5 strength when defending
• +10 strength when attacking
• Has 2 movement points
• +2 movement points when starting a turn in enemy territory
  • If you capture the territory, Berserkers starting in that captured land will still have 2 extra movement points until the end of the turn.
• -1 movement point cost to pillage

Unique Building: Stave Church (Classical era, requires Holy Site district with a Shrine, replaces Temple)

• +1 faith per adjacent woods tile
  • This particular bonus works even if the woods are improved, unlike the normal Holy Site adjacency bonus.
  • This stacks with the standard +1 faith per two adjacent unimproved woods tiles.
• All tiles containing coastal resources within the city limits provide +1 production.

Strategy

Norway is best at domination victories.

Viking Longships are the terror of the seas early in the game. You can build them very cheaply, they’re strong and they’re fast. Build a few for early exploration, as they can clear coastal tribal villages and Barbarian Encampments, but you can also pick off cities that are too exposed to the coast, or declare war to pillage their coastal improvements. If they get injured, withdraw to neutral territory and you’re able to heal up.

Stave Churches can help make coastal areas significantly more productive. If you need a use for the faith and can’t manage a religion of your own, consider using the Theocracy government. If you can, exploit Norway’s early ocean-crossing and good exploration potential via the Viking Longship to scout out some unenlightened heathens you can easily convert. Even if you’re not after a religious victory, beliefs like Tithe can ensure a steady income to support your military, while ones like Crusade makes the civs easy targets later.

In the medieval era, Berserkers arrive to tell your foes they don’t just need to watch out on the seas, but on land as well. Berserkers in enemy land have the speed of Knights and with Oligarchy, notably better attack power. Their cheap pillage means you can pillage and fight in the same turn, which aids in minimising the damage they take. Bring along a couple of Siege Towers so you can tear down city defences.

*This feature is only available via a DLC pack.

Summary of key strengths

• Huge naval power, especially early in the game
• Good land-based combat as well in the medieval era, ensuring foes are weak from multiple angles
• Most effective pillager in the game
• Reasonable coastal production

Nubia

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

Start Bias

Desert (tier 1 – extremely likely)
Desert Hills (tier 1 – extremely likely)

Additionally, Nubia has tier 5 start biases for all of the following resources, giving you a good chance of starting near one:

Aluminium
Coal
Copper
Diamonds
Iron
Jade
Mercury
Nitre
Salt
Silver
Uranium

Civilization Ability: Ta-Seti

• +50% production when constructing ranged land units
• Land ranged units receive 50% more experience from combat
• Mines over bonus resources (copper) or luxury resources (diamonds, gypsum, jade, mercury, salt, silver) provide +2 gold
• Mines over strategic resources (iron, nitre, coal, aluminum, uranium) provide +1 production

Amanitore’s Leader Ability: Kandake of Meroë

• All districts can be constructed 20% faster, or 40% faster if the city has a Nubian Pyramid adjacent to the city centre.

Unique Unit: Pítati Archer (Ancient era, ranged land, replaces Archer)

• Costs 70 production, 280 gold or 140 faith, up from 60, 240 and 120 respectively (+17%)
• More expensive to upgrade to from a Slinger
• 17 melee strength, up from 15
• 30 ranged strength, up from 25
• 3 movement points, up from 2
• Cheaper to upgrade to a Crossbowman

Unique Improvement: Nubian Pyramid (Ancient era, requires Masonry technology)

• Must be constructed on desert, desert hills or floodplains in your own territory
• +1 faith
• +1 food if a city centre is adjacent
• +1 faith per adjacent Holy Site
• +1 science per adjacent Campus
• +1 culture per adjacent Theatre Square
• +1 gold per adjacent Harbour or Commercial Hub
• +1 production per adjacent Industrial Zone
• Fight technology: Culture output added to tourism
• Pillage yield: 25 faith

Strategy

Nubia is best at domination victories.

The Pítati Archer is an incredibly effective early rushing unit. It’s fairly powerful, fairly fast and fairly affordable thanks to Amanitore’s Leader Ability. Bring along a Scout or Warrior to get the last hit on the cities you attack, and you should be able to secure yourself a good early empire.

You should consider founding cities as well as conquering them. To reach Nubia’s full potential, you’ll want to look for resources you can mine as well as floodplains – though settling a city next to an isolated desert tile can work well too. Nubia’s bonuses to mines on bonus or luxury resources offers enough gold to make supporting your early army easy, while the bonuses to strategic resources will help to make your cities more productive later in the game.

Nubian Pyramids have fairly strict placement requirements, but one next to a city centre will both provide equivalent food to a farm early in the game, some faith and a great district production bonus. Their other yields work much like getting bonus district adjacency, only on the tile improvement rather than the district itself. The science from Campuses and culture from Theatre Squares are particularly worth looking out for. Keep in mind there’s no need to completely surround Nubian Pyramids with districts – while you might make a strong yield on that one tile, the districts may have had better yields if clustered together.

*This feature is only available via a DLC pack other than Nubia’s.

Summary of key strengths

• Powerful early warfare
• Rapid district construction makes developing new cities much easier
• Can make more effective use of desert than most civs

Persia

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

Start Bias

None.

Uniques

Civilization Ability: Satrapies

• Gain +1 trade route capacity with the classical-era Political Philosophy civic
• Internal trade routes are worth an additional 2 gold and 1 culture
• Roads constructed in your territory are one tier more advanced than normal (classical roads in the ancient era, etc.)
  • Roads constructed by you outside your own territory are unaffected.

Cyrus’ Leader Ability: Fall of Babylon

• Declaring a surprise war has reduced warmonger and war weariness penalties, as if it was a formal war
• All units gain +2 movement for the first 10 turns after declaring a surprise war
• Occupied cities have no penalties to growth and yields

Unique Unit: Immortal (Classical era, melee infantry, replaces Swordsman)

• Costs 100 production/400 gold/200 faith, up from 90/360/180 respectively (+11%)
• Costs 100 gold to upgrade into from a Warrior, up from 80 (+25%)
• Does not require iron resources
• 30 strength, down from 36
• Has an optional ranged attack (25 strength, 2 range)
  • Ranged attack does not benefit from Battering Rams or Siege Towers
  • Ranged attack has -17 strength vs. city defences
• Cheaper to upgrade

Unique Improvement: Pairidaeza (Ancient era, requires Early Empire civic)

• Must be constructed on a featureless desert, desert hills, grassland, grassland hills, plains or plains hills tile within your own territory
• +2 gold, +1 culture
• +2 appeal to adjacent tiles
• +1 culture per adjacent Holy Site or Theatre Square
• +1 gold per adjacent Commercial Hub or City Centre
• Diplomatic Service civic: +1 culture
• Flight technology: Culture output added to tourism
• Pillage yield: 25 culture

Strategy

Persia is best at domination and cultural victories.

The early parts of Persia’s game should focus on preparing for war. Settling a second city early and getting Monuments up will help you get to Oligarchy faster, which will be really useful as Immortals are the only unit with a ranged attack which gains from it. Immortals also have strong defence relative to Archers, a bonus against anti-mounted units like Spearmen, imposes Zone of Control, can benefit from Great Generals and still has the option to take cities!

Bring a force of Immortals together and declare a surprise war against a neighbour. Surprise wars will be a huge boost to your army’s mobility for ten turns, which both helps with surrounding enemy cities and reinforcing the front lines. As Persia gets industrial roads in the classical era, reinforcement can be even faster.

Worried about an early war focus coming at the cost of economic development? Persia has a couple of bonuses to help with that. Firstly, you’ll get an extra trade route at Political Philosophy, and secondly, the cities you occupy will produce and grow as effectively as ones you founded yourself. Stronger captured cities can be ready to start building wonders while you’re still at war!

The Pairidaeza improvement offers another direction for Persia. Although you can build them in the ancient era, it’s usually best to wait a bit so you can start exploiting district adjacency bonuses for them. Providing more appeal than anything else you can construct with a Builder, Pairidaezas are excellent for boosting the housing of your Neighbourhoods and tourism from National Parks and Seaside Resorts. While you can’t construct them next to each other, you can fill gaps with second-growth woods, Theatre Squares or Holy Sites to maximise appeal.

*This feature is only available via a DLC pack other than Persia’s.

Summary of key strengths

• Effective early warfare
• Rapid results from warmongering – fast movement means it takes fewer turns until you’ll start capturing cities, while no occupation yield penalties means you can use those captured cities sooner.
• Good at terrain-based cultural victory

Poland

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

Start Bias

None.

Civilization Ability: Golden Liberty

• One military policy card slot is converted into a wildcard slot, assuming your government contains at least one.
• Constructing an Encampment district or a fort improvement within your own territory causes a culture bomb, granting you all surrounding tiles.
  • 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

• Holy Sites receive +1 faith per adjacent district, instead of from every two
• Relics provide +4 gold, +2 faith and +2 culture each in addition to their usual yield of 4 faith and 8 tourism.
  • These added bonuses are not affected by modifiers to relic yields.
• If you take land off another civ’s city via a culture bomb, it converts to your religion.

Unique Unit: Winged Hussar (Medieval era, heavy cavalry, requires Mercenaries civic)

• Costs 250 production/1000 gold/500 faith, 39% more than Knights at 180 production/720 gold/360 respectively
• Does not require resources to build
• Maintenance cost of 3
• Has 55 strength, 7 more than Knights
• Has 4 movement points
• When attacking, if the defending unit deals less damage than the Winged Hussar it retreats one tile either directly or diagonally backwards and the Winged Hussar advances into the space. If the unit can’t manage that, it takes extra damage.
  • This ability works even for amphibious (embarked vs. land) attacks.

Unique Building: Sukiennice (Classical era, requires Commercial Hub, replaces Market)

• Internal (domestic) trade routes from this city provide +4 gold each
• International trade routes from this city provide +2 production each

Strategy

Poland can perform well at religious, domination and cultural victories alike.

Either way, founding a religion is important. An early wildcard slot means you can pick up Mysticism’s Revelation policy card before anyone else but Greece, which will really help with ensuring you can found a religion of your own. The Divine Spark pantheon will also help if you can get it. The Crusade and Reliquaries beliefs are very powerful for Poland – I’ll explain why later.

The Sukiennice UB lets you compromise between the yields of internal and international trade. Internal trade offers gold, which is good for supporting the Winged Hussar UU with. International trade offers production. If you’re emphasising relics to go for a cultural victory, you can trade externally for the tourism bonuses without having to sacrifice production for constructing wonders with. If you’re after a religious victory, external trade routes can help you impose additional religious pressure on another civ. Although those routes won’t offer you food, the fact you can get strong Holy Site bonuses without mountains allows you to settle in more open areas that are good for farms without sacrificing faith.

Expand rapidly early on and build plenty of Monuments, and you should be able to get Winged Hussars reasonably quickly. They’re basically super-Knights, making a unit that’s already strong even better – though that comes at a higher production cost. The knockback function can help you to break an enemy’s lines, or deal extra damage to enemy units with strong support bonuses. You can even run around an enemy unit and use the knockback to drag the enemy towards you.

Once you have the renaissance-era Siege Tactics technology, your Military Engineers can construct forts. You can use this to steal land from enemy cities and convert them, even at war! While you can use this to destroy wonders currently under construction, or take resources off another civ, it becomes incredibly powerful in conjunction with the Crusade belief. Suddenly, you’ve got a +10 strength advantage around that city, making it easy to take down.

Meanwhile, Poland’s relics provide extra gold, faith and culture, making the Reliquaries belief useful (though it doesn’t actually boost the unique faith bonus offered by Poland, your incentive to have lots of relics makes this a great belief to have around). If you can be suzerain over Yerevan or if you can build the Mont St. Michel wonder, you can have plenty of martyr Apostles you can sacrifice for relics. Be sure to use all but one of their spread religion charges first, and consider also taking the Monastic Isolation belief so sacrificing them won’t hurt your religious spread as much. Relics are a great source of early tourism, but Poland also has another advantage to cultural victory – the Monarchy government is easier to use for them than most civs, allowing them to exploit the faster construction of defensive buildings. With the Conservation civic, all defensive buildings offer tourism.

*This feature is only available via a DLC pack other than Poland’s.

Summary of key strengths

• Flexibility – Effective at three different victory routes and can fairly easily switch between them
• Strong medieval-era warfare
• Can steal land off other civs
• Can convert enemy cities in war without having to capture them first

Rome

Start Bias

None.

Uniques

Civilization Ability: All Roads Lead to Rome

• All owned cities start with a Trading Post, removing the usual requirement to complete a trade route to the city first.
• Founding or capturing cities within trading range of your capital automatically generates a road to it.

Trajan’s Leader Ability: Trajan’s Column

• All founded cities receive a free building when founded.
  • 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 Unit: Legion (Classical era, melee infantry, replaces Swordsman)

• Costs 110 production/440 gold/220 faith, up from 90/360/180 respectively (+22%)
• Costs 110 gold, up from 80, to upgrade to from a Warrior (+38%)
• No resource requirement
• 40 strength, up from 36
• Less expensive to upgrade to a Musketman
• Has one charge to build a Roman Fort or clear woods/rainforests with (keeps on upgrade)
  • Unlike Military Engineers, using up this charge will not expend the unit, but it will disable the ability to remove or repair tile improvements
• May remove tile improvements in owned lands
• May repair tile improvements in owned or neutral lands
  • This depletes the unit’s moves for the turn but does not stop it from healing if it hasn’t performed any other actions that turn.

Unique Improvement: Roman Fort Classical era, requires Iron Working technology)

• Must be constructed by Legions on any flat or hilly land tile without woods, rainforest or flood plains, in owned or neutral territory.
• Occupying unit automatically gains 2 turns of fortification and 4 defensive strength

Unique District: Bath (Classical era, replaces Aqueduct)

• -50% production cost
• +2 housing
• +1 amenity

Strategy

Rome is most effective at domination victories.

You can get to Iron Working pretty quickly if you kill a few Barbarians for the Bronze Working eureka and settle an extra city near iron for the Iron Working one. Build a few Warriors beforehand and you can immediately upgrade them to Legions. Meanwhile, free Monuments in every city gives you a considerable boost to culture which helps you get to Oligarchy and its lovely +4 strength bonus for melee units sooner.

Against opponents without walled cities, a small force of Legions can tear them to pieces, especially once you have Oligarchy. Walled cities can be handled with Battering Rams or Siege Towers. Resist the temptation to use up all the build charges Legions have – so long as they have a charge remaining they can also repair improvements, which helps you redevelop a captured city much faster. Automatic roads to captured cities makes reinforcement faster.

Beyond that point, Rome’s bonuses are mostly general ones which aren’t especially tied to a particular victory route. Baths help you to grow larger cities and are very cheap to build, while the trade bonuses of Rome’s civ ability basically means your trade routes – including internal ones – will be worth a little more gold.

*This feature is only available via a DLC pack.

Summary of key strengths

• Powerful early warfare
• Decent recovery after wars
• Strong early city development

Russia

Start Bias

Tundra (tier 3 – likely)
Tundra hills (tier 3 – likely)

Uniques

Civilization Ability: Mother Russia

• Founded cities receive 8 additional tiles.
  • These tiles are typically those which would have been favoured by the city gaining those tiles via culture (strategic resources are strongly favoured)
  • These tiles do not increase the culture or gold cost of future tiles.
• All tundra tiles provide +1 production and +1 faith on top of their normal yields.

Peter’s Leader Ability: The Grand Embassy

• All trade routes sent by Russia to another civ grant Russia +1 science for every three technologies the other civ is ahead by overall, and +1 culture for every three civics they are ahead by overall.
  • This does not affect trade routes from other civs to Russia.

Unique Unit: Cossack (Industrial era, light cavalry, replaces Cavalry)

• Does not require horse resources
• 67 strength, up from 62
• +5 strength in or adjacent to friendly lands
  • This bonus is based on where the Cossack is at the start of the fight.
• May move after attacking
  • This also allows use of pillaging and applying promotions.

Unique District: Lavra (Ancient era, replaces Holy Site)

• -50% production cost
• 2 Great Prophet Points per turn, up from 1
• +1 Great Writer Point
• +1 Great Artist Point
• +1 Great Musician Point
• Expending a Great Person in this city adds a free tile
  • This will give you the tile which would have been the next to be acquired by culture.
  • This does not work 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

Strategy

Russia is best at religious victories and also performs well at cultural victories.

A game as Russia typically starts in a tundra region. While a bad start for most civs, tundra for Russia is as good as plains, plus a faith bonus. While you can’t farm tundra, thankfully Russia also gets more tiles in every founded city so you can usually reach grassland or plains tiles for farmland. Expand quickly early on and you can seize lots of land to help with maximising your faith output.

Lavras make securing a religion easy. They’re cheap and offer twice as many Great Prophet Points. Use the Dance of the Aurora pantheon in combination with Lavras surrounded by tundra forests and your faith output will be incredibly strong, making an early religious victory more than just a possibility. If for whatever reason you can’t go for a religious victory, you may use the extra GWAM points and faith for some GWAM patronage.

International trade routes are good for gold and spreading your religion, but their lack of food or production can often be a pain when you’re trying to develop your empire. Thankfully, Peter’s leader ability can help you catch up with some culture and science.

Cossacks are great defensive units and aren’t bad offensively, either, considering Military Science is a relatively easy technology to beeline. The Theocracy government can turn your huge faith output into a huge army. If a foe is hard to convert, consider taking cities by force, converting them and handing them back in the peace deal. That way, you can force your way to a religious victory.

*This feature is only available via a DLC pack.

Summary of key strengths

• Can effectively settle in terrain other civs consider marginal
• Mighty early religious power
• Great at grabbing land
• Some flexibility regarding victory path

Scythia

Start Bias

Horses (tier 2 – very likely)
Grassland (tier 5 – somewhat likely)
Plains (tier 5 – somewhat likely)

Uniques

Civilization Ability: People of the Steppe

• Every time you produce a Saka Horse Archer, Horseman, Cavalry or Helicopter, receive two copies of the unit instead of one.
• If the city has an Encampment district and both the City Centre and Encampment are free from units, one will be placed on the Encampment tile and one on the City Centre tile.

Tomyris’ Leader Ability: Killer of Cyrus

• All military and religious units gain +5 strength when attacking units on less than full health
• All military and religious units heal 30 HP when they kill a unit

Unique Unit: Saka Horse Archer (Classical era, ranged land, requires Horseback Riding technology)

• Costs 100 production/400 gold/200 faith
• Maintenance cost of 2
• 15 strength
• 25 ranged strength
• 4 movement points
• 1 range
• Ignores zone of control

Unique Improvement: Kurgan (Ancient era, requires Animal Husbandry technology)

• Must be constructed on a flat featureless tile within your own territory.
• +1 faith, +1 gold
• +1 faith per adjacent pasture
• Guilds civic: +1 gold
• Capitalism civic: +1 gold
• Pillage yield: 25 faith

Strategy

Scythia is best at domination victories and is decent at religious ones as well.

Scythia’s civ ability along with Saka Horse Archers and a good force of Horsem*n make Scythia a terrifying threat in the classical era. Saka Horse Archers aren’t stronger than Archers, and have a shorter range, but are slightly more cost-effective, faster, and can ignore zone of control. This makes them good at chasing down and killing enemy units. Double quantities of Horsem*n, meanwhile, makes overwhelming your enemies easy. Promoted enough, Horsem*n and other light cavalry are very good pillagers, so war can be profitable even if you don’t win much land.

To make matters worse for your enemies, Tomyris also makes your units stronger against wounded units and heal every time they score a kill. Hit enemies with a ranged attack first, and finish them off with your Horsem*n so you can exploit the strength bonus versus wounded units more effectively. Health on kills allows you to make some riskier moves than usual as your units have a better chance of surviving the counter-attack.

Away from the battlefield, Scythia’s Kurgans offer a small, but respectable source of faith to help get your religion off the ground (assuming you managed to found one) as well as some gold to support your huge army with. Tomyris’ leader ability works for theological combat, so use all but one charge on your Apostles and have fun killing enemy religious units. Remember you can retreat them to your own Holy Sites to heal if need be. Don’t want to play the religious game? Use the Theocracy government to buy some Cavalry with faith later on.

*This feature is only available via a DLC pack.

Summary of key strengths

• Overwhelming classical era force
• Tomyris’ leader ability makes aggressive tactics less risky
• Good at theological combat

Spain

Start Bias

Coastal (tier 3 – likely)

Uniques

Civilization Ability: Treasure Fleets

• Trade routes between cities on different continents create additional yields:
  • International trade routes provide +6 gold
  • Domestic trade routes provide +1 food and +1 production
• Can form fleets and armadas with the renaissance-era Mercantilism civic instead of needing the industrial-era Nationalism or modern-era Mobilisation civics.

Philip II’s Leader Ability: El Escorial

• All military and religious units gain +4 strength against units and cities of civilizations which have a different majority religion to you
  • The state of having no majority religion does not count as a separate religion for this purpose.
  • Attacks made by your cities are not affected.
• Inquisitors receive an additional charge for their Remove Heresy ability (4 instead of 3)

Unique Unit: Conquistador (Renaissance era, melee infantry, replaces Musketman)

• Costs 250 production, 1000 gold or 500 faith, up from 240, 960 and 480 respectively (+4%)
• More expensive to upgrade to from a Swordsman
• No resource requirement
• +10 strength if a Missionary, Inquisitor or Apostle occupies the same tile
• Converts captured cities to the majority religion in your empire if this unit either gets the last hit on the city or is adjacent to the city when it is captured.
• Less expensive to upgrade

Unique Improvement: Mission (Renaissance era, requires Exploration civic)

• Must be constructed on a featureless land tile within your own territory
• +2 faith
• +2 faith if on a continent not containing your capital
• +2 science if adjacent to a Campus district
• Cultural Heritage civic: +2 science.
• Pillage yield: 25 faith

Strategy

Spain is most effective at religious and domination victories, and is surprisingly effective at science as well.

The advantages of Spain take a while to kick in, so use the first couple of eras to expand, get some Holy Sites, found a religion and get some Harbours for trade route capacity. Trading across continents can offer a strong amount of gold early on as well as the standard religious pressure, or food and production once you’ve begun to settle beyond your home continent, making maximising your trade route capacity important.

In the renaissance era, things get really interesting. Take a force of Conquistadors along with religious units to a different continent with a different religion, and enjoy a massive +14 strength boost over regular Musketmen, along with instant conversions of their cities once captured. Keep a hold of the good cities so you can spam Missions there for a huge amount of faith and a good load of science as well. Weaker cities may be handed back if you want to make religious victory a little easier.

From here, the choice is yours. Emphasise Conquistador warfare towards a domination victory (keep some around even after they obsolete as they can still convert cities if adjacent to them when they’re captured), use the huge faith output and theological combat bonus towards a religious victory or beeline Cultural Heritage and enjoy a huge boost to science.

*This feature is only available via a DLC pack.

Summary of key strengths

• Intercontinental trade bonus makes setting up colonies easier
• Powerful renaissance-era warfare
• Very strong faith output from the renaissance era onwards
• Strong science output late in the game

Sumeria

Start Bias

Rivers (tier 3 – likely)

Uniques

Civilization Ability: Epic Quest

• Destroying a Barbarian Encampment grants rewards as if you visited a tribal village, in addition to the usual rewards.

Gilgamesh’s Leader Ability: Adventures with Enkidu

• When at war with a common enemy, Sumeria shares pillage rewards and combat experience with the closest unit of the other civ within five tiles.
  • This does not apply when fighting Barbarians.
  • Units you have levied from city-states are considered to belong to you for this purpose.
• Any civ at war with an ally may be targeted for a declaration of war without warmonger penalties
• -50% cost to levy City-State military units

Unique Unit: War-Cart (Ancient era, heavy cavalry, unlocked from start)

Compared to the Heavy Chariot:

• Slightly more expensive to upgrade to a Knight
• Available from the start rather than requiring the ancient-era Wheel technology.
• Costs 55 production, 220 gold or 110 faith, down from 65, 260 or 130 respectively (-15%)
• No maintenance cost
• 30 strength, up from 28.
• 3 movement points, up from 2.
• No vulnerability to anti-mounted units.

Unique Improvement: Ziggurat (Ancient era, unlocked from start)

• Must be constructed flat featureless land within your own territory
• +2 science
• +1 culture if adjacent to a river
• Natural History civic: +1 culture
• Flight technology: Culture output added to tourism
• Pillage yield: 25 science

Strategy

Sumeria is best at domination and scientific victories.

Right from the start of the game Sumeria can start training War-Carts. They’re stronger and faster than Heavy Chariots, available earlier for a lower cost and are even immune to the anti-mounted bonuses Spearmen and Pikemen have. A quick force of them can take down a neighbouring civ or two before they’ve even had time to prepare.

That’s not all. War-Carts are amazing at exploration, and can track down ancient ruins rather well. Even with all the ancient ruins on your landmass discovered, you can carry on getting the bonuses by fighting Barbarians. Clear their encampments quickly so more can spawn, seeing as there’s a limit to how many Barbarian Encampments can be present in the game at once. It’s hard to play around the bonuses as they’re random ones from a list, but expect to get plenty of gold from destroying Barbarian Encampments.

Fighting alongside another can get you more experience and pillaging yields than normal. While you could spend the game fighting alongside a friend to share in the rewards, you can also jump on a civ that’s already heavily under attack, get a load of city-states to join you in a war or even just constantly switch sides so you’re always fighting alongside another civ.

Finally, Ziggurats offer lots of science early in the game as well as a bit of culture. Don’t work too many at once – it’ll set back your city growth and production if you do so – but you can enjoy a fast enough science rate to make the upgrade from War-Carts to Knights fairly seamless.

*This feature is only available via a DLC pack.

Summary of key strengths

• Very strong warfare at the start of the game
• Decent exploration early in the game
• Good early science output

Other Guides

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Compilation Guides

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

Individual Civ Guides

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