Following this guide requires the Gathering Storm expansion.

It also assumes you have all other Civ 6 content, listed below, though it is not necessary to have these to utilise the key strategies of each civ.

• Pre-Rise and Fall content packs
  
  • Vikings, Poland, Australia, Persia/Macedon, Nubia, Khmer/Indonesia
• Rise and Fall Expansion
  
• New Frontier content packs
  
  • Maya/Grand Colombia, Ethiopia, Byzantium/Gauls, Babylon, Vietnam/Kublai Khan, Portugal

These content packs include exclusive civs, city-states, districts, buildings, wonders, natural wonders, resources, and a disaster, but not core game mechanics - all you need is the base game and the Gathering Storm expansion for those.

I rule but a valley in the shadow of mountains. But as I embody Inti's will upon the earth, it falls to me to bring his enlightenment to the entire world. Can a mere kingdom emerge as the unifier of all that is known? To forge the greatest empire yet seen? No. It cannot. For we are no mere kingdom, but a divinely-led empire. We shall shake the foundations of the earth. We shall reshape time and space alike. Inti rises.


This guide is divided into multiple sections explaining how best to use and play against this specific civ.

• The Outline details the mechanics of how the civilization's unique features work and what their start bias is if they have one.
  
• The Victory Skew section describes to what extent the civ (and its individual leaders where applicable) is inclined towards particular victory routes. This is not a rating of its power, but an indicator of the most appropriate route to victory.
  
• Multiple sections for Uniques explain in detail how to use each special bonus of the civilization.
  
• Administration describes some of the most synergistic governments, government buildings, policy cards, age bonuses, pantheons, religious beliefs, wonders, city-states and Great People for the civ. Only the ones with the most synergy with the civ's uniques are mentioned - these are not necessarily the "best" choices when playing as the civ for a given victory route.
  
• Finally, the Counter-Strategies discusses how best to play against the civ, including a consideration of leader agendas if the civ is controlled by a computer.

Note that all costs (production, science, 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

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

AoE (Area of Effect) - Bonuses or penalties that affect multiple tiles in a set radius. Positive examples include Factories (which offer production to cities within a 6 tile radius unless they're within range of another building of the same type) and a negative example is nuclear weapons, which cause devastation over a wide radius.

Beelining - Obtaining a technology or civic quickly by only researching it and its prerequisites. Some deviation is allowed in the event that taking a technology or civic off the main track provides some kind of advantage that makes up for that (either a source of extra science/culture or access to something necessary for a eureka or inspiration boost)

CA (Civ Ability) - The unique ability of a civilization, shared by all its leaders.

Compact empires - Civs with cities close together (typically 3-4 tile gaps between city centres). This is useful if you want to make use of districts that gain adjacency bonuses from other districts, or to maximise the potential of area-of-effect bonuses later in the game.

Dispersed empires - Civs with cities that are spread out (typically 5-6 tile gaps between city centres). Civs with unique tile improvements generally favour a more dispersed empire in order to make use of them, as do civs focused on wonder construction.

GPP - Short for Great Person Points. Districts, buildings and wonders generate these points and with enough you can claim a Great Person of the corresponding type.

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. Usually but not always, they tend to be more specific in scope than civ abilities. Some leader abilities come with an associated unique unit or infrastucture.

Prebuilding - Training a unit with the intention of upgrading it to a desired unit later. An example is building Slingers and upgrading them once Archery is unlocked.

Sniping - Targeting a specific city for capture directly, ignoring other enemy cities along the way. Typically used in the context of "capital sniping" - taking a civ's original capital as quickly as possible to contribute towards domination victory without leading to a drawn-out war.

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.

Super-uniques - Unique units that do not replace any others. 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, costs half as much to build and offers some unique advantages on top.

UI (Unique Improvement) - A special improvement that can only be built by the Builders of a single civilization. "UI" always refers to unique improvements in my guides and not to "user interface" or "unique infrastructure".

UU (Unique Unit) - A special unit that may only be trained by a single civilization, and in some cases only when that civilization is led by a specific leader.

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

The Inca have a tier 2 start bias to desert, grass and plains mountains, and a tier 5 start bias for snow and tundra mountains. Considering all Incan uniques except for the Warak'aq depend on mountains, this is certainly a useful bias to have. That being said, this isn't a guarantee of a good mountain start - be sure to scout around for some mountain ranges if none are directly at your starting location!

• Mountains may be worked for 2 production, and +1 food per Terrace Farm adjacent to it.
  
  • The presence of a Ski Resort prevents you working mountains, though a Qhapaq Ñan improvement or mountain tunnel does not.
• Mountains yield an additional 1 production starting in the industrial game era.

• Domestic trade routes receive +1 food per mountain tile in the origin city.
  
  • You do not need to be working these tiles to receive the bonus.

A medieval-era reconaissance unit which replaces the Skirmisher

*Purchasing units with faith requires the Grand Master's Chapel government building, which requires either the medieval-era Divine Right or renaissance-era Exploration civics.

• Costs 165 production/660 gold/330 faith, up from 150/600/450 respectively (+10%)
  
• Costs 280 gold to upgrade to from a Scout, up from 250 (+12%)

• 40 ranged strength, up from 30
  
• No movement cost to attack.
  
• May attack a second time in a turn for no additional movement point cost.
  
• Costs 440 gold to upgrade to a Ranger, down from 470 (-6%)

*These bonuses conflict; receiving the maximum amount of food means receiving the minimum amount of production and vice versa.

**The housing yield does not require the improvement to be worked.


*This assumes you already have the enhancements of earlier eras.

**These bonuses conflict; receiving the maximum amount of food means receiving the minimum amount of production and vice versa.

***The housing yield does not require the improvement to be worked.

In this section, the civ is subjectively graded based on how much it leans towards a specific victory type - not how powerful it is. Scores of 3 or more mean the civ has at least a minor advantage towards the victory route.


The Incans are best at scientific victories, though they're pretty versatile on the whole and can effectively pursue any other victory type except diplomacy.

For a cultural game, the Inca can use their strong city growth and reasonable production to help with constructing wonders. Favouring mountains leads to Holy Sites with strong adjacency bonuses - the faith from which can be used to buy Naturalists or Rock Bands later on. Mountains also create good high-appeal spots for National Parks, though that means giving up good workable mountains and Terrace Farms. The Inca can also use Preserves to great effect to provide extra culture and faith, as mountain tiles are always considered breathtaking.

Diplomacy is the weakest route for the Inca. The incentive to build Markets for trade routes can help you generate some gold you can in turn use to compete in aid emergencies or to buy diplomatic favours off other civs. The Qhapaq Ñan improvement can also increase gold from international trade routes. However, the mountain-centric approach of the Inca and incentive to trade internally encourages a more isolationist style of play.

As for domination, the key advantage is the potentially extremely powerful Warak'aq unit. Its per-turn damage output potential is over double that of a Crossbowman, and considerably higher than even that with the Ambush promotion. However, the Inca have relatively little to complement that strength aside from strategic applications of the Qhapaq Ñan improvement and production from working Terrace Farms.

Religion is a strong route to take due to the strong Incan incentive to settle near mountains, which also makes great spots for Holy Sites. The Earth Goddess pantheon is very good for the Inca as worked mountains produce +1 faith as well as the breathtaking tiles they produce. Similarly, Preserves are highly effective for the Inca, as usually unworkable mountain tiles (which are always considered to be breathtaking) will now offer a huge yield. The Qhapaq Ñan improvement can cut down travel times for religious units slightly.

Science is the most effective route for the Inca. Mountain settling makes for some great Campuses, while fast-growing cities can also accumulate a reasonable amount of science via Governor Pingala (the Educator) or just in general, considering every point of population in any city is worth 0.5 science. Large productive cities are also great for getting through space race projects at the end of the game.

The Incan Empire depends on mountains. Thankfully, the mechanics of the civ ability means it doesn't matter if you get access to huge clusters of mountains or just a few isolated ones - you can still get decent yields.

Early on in the game, you'll want to grab as many nearby mountain locations as you can, while ensuring you're still sufficently defended against would-be warmongers. Training a few Scouts can help you track down good city locations and can be upgraded to the Warak'aq UU later, though keep in mind they're pretty useless in defence. As such, consider training a few Slingers you can upgrade to Archers, or a small number of cavalry units.

The best city spots for the Inca have the potential for an Aqueduct improvement (a space between the city and at least one fresh water or mountain tile) along with high numbers of mountains within three tiles of the city centre and lots of hills adjacent to them. However, even if you just get a small number of mountains you can still surround them with Terrace Farms for a decent food yield on top of the default production. Consider removing some of the less valuable hilltop resources adjacent to mountains so you can fit in more Terrace Farms and get even better yields.

If you can secure the Earth Goddess pantheon, you'll get +1 faith on all your mountain tiles. That's because they're always considered Breathtaking. Similarly, Preserve districts can create considerable yields in adjacent mountains. Combined with the strong Holy Site yields from mountain adjacency, the Inca can have a strong religious start. Still, without any bonus to Great Prophet generation, and a dependency on obtaining the specific pantheon for maximum results, that can be tricky to achieve.

Once the world enters the industrial game era, your mountains will yield an extra 1 production when worked. If your research is particularly strong, that might happen late in the game where it has a relatively small impact, but extra production is still nice to have.


Settle mountains extensively and you'll get strong food and production yields, even in regions that for most civs would be lacking in tiles to work.

With no adjacent mountains, fresh water or Aqueducts, Terrace Farms are essentially like early hilltop farms - only without the increasing food yields that regular farms get later in the game. But with enough adjacent mountains, Terrace Farms become mighty improvements which allow your cities to have huge amounts of food and housing while still accessing the production of hills.

While the Incan civ ability is strongest for isolated mountains surrounded by hills, the Terrace Farm is the reverse - hills surrounded by mountains are the best tiles to use. Thanks to Pachacuti's Qhapaq Ñan improvement, you can even access hills completely surrounded by mountains for a theoretical +7 food yield - though this won't appear in most games and you'll typically be better off placing a Campus or Holy Site there. A city with lots of desert hills adjacent to mountains will be extremely strong in conjunction with the Petra wonder, but again that can be difficult to achieve.

A more reliable way of making the most out of your Terrace Farms is to make use of Aqueducts. Aqueducts come available at the classical-era Engineering technology, which is neatly on the way to Machinery for the Warak'aq UU. Terrace Farms adjacent to Aqueducts gain +2 production, which makes those specific tiles competitive with mines in production yield alone - never mind the food. While you can usually only boost one or two Terrace Farms per city with Aqueducts, an easy +2 production yield is still worth having relatively early in the game, and the sheer Incan food output means the extra housing will be needed sooner or later anyway.

Because Terrace Farms can't be built on flat land, any flat land you have adjacent to mountains is prime land for Campuses and/or Holy Sites. If you can secure the Machu Picchu wonder, you can also use those mountainside flat land tiles for powerful Theatre Squares, Commercial Hubs and Industrial Zones. Flat land not adjacent to mountains can be used for other districts, or you can plant woods on it with the modern-era Conservation civic and place lumber mills on top for some decent production yields.

Finally, even where you lack mountains whatsoever, Terrace Farms can still receive respectable yields in clusters of hills with the Feudalism civic, and a hill with a Terrace Farm becomes as good for adjacency as a mountain with the Replaceable Parts technology. Though the potential best yields of Terrace Farms never improve beyond the addition of Aqueducts in the classical era, their overall potential improves, and they still remain valuable improvements to work.

While Terrace Farms can offer large volumes of food, Pachacuti's leader ability has the potential to create truly massive cities - so long as your housing and amenities are up to the task.

Simply put, whenever you send an internal trade route, the city that sends it receives +1 bonus food for every mountain in the city's limits. You do not need to be working the mountains to get this bonus, and the number of mountains at the destination city doesn't matter either.


The need to obtain mountains can be tricky - you're gonna need some gold to buy those tiles. Thankfully, expanding your trade route capacity will mean building lots of Commercial Hubs and Markets, so gold won't be too hard to obtain - though be sure to set up Campuses first to really capitalise on the Incan mountain emphasis. It's also a good idea to restrict mountain tile purchasing to one city at first so you don't end up spending too much gold - you'll plenty available to upgrade Scouts to Warak'aq units.

Sending out multiple trade routes from one key city can result in some massive food yields. A city with 9 mountains will get at least 10 food from every internal trade route - you can see how a mountain-heavy city with just a few outward-going internal trade routes can quickly hit its housing cap. Remember to switch mountains to the ownership of the cities you want to send outward trade routes from to maximise the bonus.


The Qhapaq Ñan improvement can complicate trade route pathing. Keep that in mind if there's Barbarians or enemy units in your land wanting to pillage everything in sight.


A tall city is an ideal target for Governor Pingala (the Educator) who, with a couple of promotions, can provide +1 science and +1 culture per point of population in the city, in addition to the 0.5 and 0.3 respectively all cities produce.

Huge cities also place more loyalty pressure on nearby rival civs - particularly if you're in a golden age. While the Inca may not be as effective at playing with loyalty pressure as, say, Phoenicia or either England or France led by Eleanor of Aquitaine, you may still be able to pick up a couple of extra cities here and there.

To maximise a city's housing yield early on, here's a few possible methods:

• Every Terrace Farm adds +1 .
  
• Regular farms, pastures, plantations and camps add +0.5 each.
  
• Granary buildings add +2
  
• Encampments with a Barracks or Stables add +1 .
  
• Aqueducts add +2 , or +3 if it's a coastal city without fresh water access, or +6 if it's an inland city without fresh water access. Aqueducts also boost the production yield of adjacent Terrace Farms, so they're worth building.
  
• Dams provide +3 .
  
• The River Goddess pantheon provides +2 in cities with riverside Holy Sites.
  
• The Insulae economic policy card (classical era, requires Games and Recreation) adds +1 for cities with 2+ districts.
  
• The Audience Chamber Government Plaza building (classical era, requires Political Philosophy) adds +3 housing to all cities with Governors.
  
• The Civil Prestige economic policy card (medieval era, requires Civil Service) adds +2 and +1 amenity in cities with Governors with 2+ promotions. This is ideal in conjunction with Governor Pingala.
  
• The Medina Quarter economic policy card (medieval era, requires Medieval Faires) adds +2 for cities with 3+ districts.

A reliable combination is a few regular farms and Terrace Farms, a Granary, an Aqueduct, the Insulae policy card, the Audience Chamber Government Plaza building and Civil Prestige for a decently large city without excessive trouble. But if you have a lot of spare production, consider building the Great Bath, Temple of Artemis or Hanging Gardens in a key mountain-heavy city, or Angkor Wat anywhere in your empire. All these wonders provide housing.

Come the industrial era, you'll be able to build Neighbourhoods for huge housing bonuses. It's not a bad idea to position these on flat land adjacent to mountains, as they receive higher housing for being on high-appeal tiles.

Once your city is as large as you need it to be, you can work more production tiles while maintaining food via internal trade routes, making your cities particularly productive.


The Incan civ ability, Pachacuti's Leader Ability and Terrace Farms together allow you to create huge, reasonably productive cities. With the renaissance-era Rationalism economic policy card, you'll be able to easily get huge science outputs from a large number of your cities, and the good production output will help with the space race in the late-game.

However, you're also going to want power, and that requires coal, oil or land for renewable energy. Either way, your mountain home may be insufficient to provide that alone. That's where the Warak'aq unit will come in handy...

Mountainous regions can be tough to navigate, but with the Qhapaq Ñan tile improvement, the Inca can have one of the best early transport networks in the game.


To understand the Qhapaq Ñan improvement, it's a good idea to first explain how mountain tunnels work, given they're functionally very similar.

Mountain tunnels can be built with the modern-era Chemistry technology by a Military Engineer. Military Engineers in turn can be trained or purchased in cities with an Encampment and Armoury building; the latter requiring the medieval-era Military Engineering technology. To create a mountain tunnel, move the Military Engineer adjacent to a mountain, click the "create mountain tunnel" button and click the adjacent mountain you wish to place the tunnel on. Unlike most improvements, mountain tunnels may be created in neutral territory. They even provide vision in its tile and adjacent ones for the civ that creates it! However, you can't place the improvements in lands of other civs, and if other civs take control of the tiles in neutral lands, they'll take over any mountain tunnels in the tiles.

With a mountain tunnel built, land units are able to pass through the mountain tile at a flat cost of two movement points. Units cannot stop on the tile - they must pass through it or not go through at all. Because it is impossible for land units to stay on mountain tunnels, they cannot be pillaged by conventional means - you'll need something like nuclear weapons to get rid of them.

If you place more than one mountain tunnel on the same mountain range (a continuous chain of mountains and/or volcanoes with no gaps) then the mountain tunnels act like portals to each other, assuming they're owned by the same civ. Not only can your land units pass through for two movement points, but they can move from one tile adjacent to a mountain tunnel to any other tile adjacent to any other mountain tunnel on the same range - still for two movement points!


In just a single turn, this Scout can cross the entire mountain range. But be warned - enemies can use the route as well!

Furthermore, melee land units are able to attack other units through a mountain tunnel if they are adjacent to another one on the same mountain range. This is helpful if you want to keep your melee unit on a safer side of the mountain range.

That's not all. Traders are also affected by mountain tunnels and may use them to travel long distances quickly (not to mention building roads to make the tunnels more accessible). More importantly, travelling through a mountain tunnel produces a large quantity of transportation efficiency, potentially as much as doubling the gold yield of international trade routes.


Mountain tunnels, and by extension the Qhapaq Ñan, offers 15 points worth of transportation efficiency for traders which pass through. To make sense of all that, let's take a step back and explain how transportation efficiency works.

International trade routes generate a basic gold yield based on the districts the destination city has, alongside other factors. If the trader on the route passes through at least one source of transportation efficiency, there'll be a proportional bonus to this gold yield, up to a possible 100% bonus. Note that not all sources of gold for trade routes are affected by transportation efficiency - notably unique bonuses (e.g. Spain's intercontinental trade) are excluded from the calculations.

The exact bonus from transportation efficiency depends on the ratio of transportation efficiency to the distance the trader takes to get between the origin and destination cities (including the two tiles the city centres are on). As some examples:

• If you have 6 points of transportation efficiency on a 24-tile trade route, it's a 1:4 ratio giving you a 25% gold bonus for the route.
  
• If you have 12 points of transportation efficiency on a 30-tile trade route, it's a 2:5 ratio giving you a 40% gold bonus for the route.

Note that the bonus is capped at 100%, so you won't get any extra gold for having more points of transportation efficency than the length of the route.

There's a few sources of transportation efficiency:

• Any tile containing water (lake, coast or ocean), a canal and/or a railroad grants +2 transportation efficiency when a trader passes through.
  
  • Routes also receive +1 gold on top for every Canal tile they pass through.
• Traders receive +15 transport efficiency for passing through a mountain tunnel or Qhapaq Ñan.

A route that's mostly on water or on railroads will easily receive the full boost, but early-game land-based empires might struggle to maximise their international trade route potential. For the Inca, the Qhapaq Ñan offers an effective option - though it comes at the cost of the powerful food-boosting internal trade routes.

While largely identical to the late-game mountain tunnel, there's three key distinctions the Qhapaq Ñan improvement has:

• It grants +4 era score the first time you build it, like with Terrace Farms.
  
• Qhapaq Ñan improvements are built with Builder charges rather than Military Engineer charges, which are significantly cheaper.
  
• And most importantly, it's unlocked early in the ancient era rather than late in the modern era. This allows a lot of functionality that other civs simply don't have.

The rest of this section will detail how the Qhapaq Ñan's distinctions can aid the Incan game in a variety of ways off-limits to other civs.


How you use the Qhapaq Ñan partially depends on what kind of mountains you have access to:

• Long Ranges - Placing the improvement on both ends of the range can help you save a lot of time navigating it - which is particularly useful once you have more Settlers. Also consider putting extra Qhapaq Ñan improvements in the middle of the range - more on how to do that effectively later.
  
• Shorter Ranges - Placing the improvement at both ends of the range can be a good time-saver.
  
• Huge Clusters - Place the improvement at key points you want to settle to save time getting Settlers around later. Just beware of how many angles Barbarians and other invaders could come in via the Qhapaq Ñan improvements - don't surround the mountain range with the improvements if you're unlikely to settle spots on the far end!
  
• Tiny Clusters - Build the Qhapaq Ñan if you really need the shortcut, but otherwise save your Builder charges for later.

Essentially, your aim is one of time-saving, without wasting too many precious Builder charges. After all, you need them for Terrace Farms, improving resources, building mines and even regular farms.

Never place a Qhapaq Ñan improvement adjacent to a city centre unless all other Qhapaq Ñan entry points in the mountain range are securely under your control. This is because melee units can attack through Qhapaq Ñan improvements - having a city centre adjacent to such an improvement means that enemy melee units can attack that city without ever needing to be in range of your ranged attacks. If they have a lot of points of entry to the network, they could attack your city enough times in a single turn to take it down before you even have a chance to respond.


Early on, you'll mostly want to use the Qhapaq Ñan improvement to save time navigating your empire or reaching future city spots faster. But once you have more Builders at the ready, you can try using the Qhapaq Ñan in other ways.

Let's show an example of a mountain range you control, and discuss how you can use Qhapaq Ñan improvements effectively.



Resist the temptation to just blanket the entire range with Qhapaq Ñan improvements. It'll use up far too many Builder charges and prevent you building ski resorts there later. Instead, pick locations carefully. You'll want spots that are close to cities (to save time getting units between them), but favour your defences over potential enemy attackers. But you'll also want to keep an eye on the overall accessibility of the Qhapaq Ñan network for potential enemies. Too many easy points of entry can cause you a lot of trouble!

Spot A is a good entry point to the Qhapaq Ñan network for the nearby city, even if passing through the tile doesn't save much time. But it could become quite a liability if there's a good access point for another civ elsewhere in the range (e.g. point D).

Spots B, D and F are great on the offensive. Through various entry points in the Qhapaq Ñan network, you could end up with a lot of your units quickly on the rival's side of the mountain, making the city a lot more vulnerable than it would be to other civs. However, if you're on the defensive, those points create a lot of entry points for enemy units to the rest of the network, so be careful!

Spots C and E are generally bad. Although they create a lot of entry points for your network, you can use alternatives that are more sheltered from your rival, like spot I. The high number of exit points might make your lands more vulnerable to invasion.

Spots G and K offer reasonable entry and exit points to the Qhapaq Ñan network without being too exposed to rivals. They can handle good amounts of traffic which is great for peace and war alike.

Spot H is a good point of entry to the network from your weak city, and importantly also helps you defend it if need be in conjunction with other good entry spots like A and I.

Spot I is an excellent entrance to the network for the central city. Because you have a lot of nearby cities, it's a relatively easy point to defend if enemy units exit through it.

Spot J is an alright entry point to the Qhapaq Ñan network, though it also provides a powerful exit point for enemies if they find a way in your network - K is probably a better option.

Spot L is similar to K - it's just as accessible and leaves a similar level of vulnerability to rivals. However, it has one great advantage - it's a bit closer to the north-east corner of this area, making it a good exit point for any units that need to go beyond this region.

Ultimately, the best spots to build Qhapaq Ñan improvements on in this range are probably A, H, I and L, with spot D developed if you want to attack the enemy city or send religious units there. Once you have control of the entire area, positioning of Qhapaq Ñan improvements no longer matters so much as the vulnerabilities in the network are removed.


I've placed Qhapaq Ñan improvements at the northern end of this mountain chain and just north-west of the volcano (where the text box is covering it up). These spots are akin to spots A and D in the diagram - an effective relatively sheltered entry point, and an exit spot I can get a lot of units through. This lets me bypass crossing the Wallaqa Mayu in turn letting me flank the Macedonian capital more effectively.


The Qhapaq Ñan improvement provides you with visibility in its tile and adjacent ones. This means you can place a single copy of the improvement on a foreign mountain range (or even a single mountain) to ensure you always know what's going on there - though be sure you're not giving the other civs a huge mobility advantage in the process.

As Qhapaq Ñan improvements boost the gold yield of trade routes going through it, it could potentially make international trade more lucrative early on - though the power of Pachacuti's leader ability largely discourages that. Instead, you should probably get gold from building Commercial Hubs and Markets.

Finally, as a niche usage, the Qhapaq Ñan improvement can let you access tiles surrounded by mountains, which would otherwise be inaccessible until late in the game. Terrace Farms on such tiles are very powerful. Settling cities may be tempting as well, especially considering the food yields they'd generate with Pachacuti's leader ability.


The Qhapaq Ñan improvement is a big time-saver in a mountain-heavy empire, helping you move units around with ease or even make attacks on fellow mountain-dwellers more effective. But position those improvements carefully - on large mountain ranges, poor placement could be a liability letting other civs more easily invade your lands!

The Warak'aq is the ultimate glass cannon. That is to say, while its defence is severely lacking, its damage output is immense thanks to its ability to attack twice in a turn. Together with some melee units (such as Horsemen or Swordsmen), you can rapidly bring down enemy cities - great if you need to secure more mountain lands.


Warak'aq units are unlocked at the medieval-era Machinery technology. Though an easy technology to beeline, it's a good idea to work towards Currency first before Machinery. That way, you have time to build up Campuses and Commercial Hubs - the latter of which will help you afford the high cost of upgrading Scouts to Warak'aq units. If you want to found a religion, you'll also want Astrology early on for Holy Sites.

As you work your way to Machinery, it's a good idea to train up a small number of Scouts by fighting enemy Barbarian Scouts, Slingers and/or Warriors. The Discipline policy card will help a lot. Barbarians only grant full experience to units that haven't already unlocked a promotion yet, so bring your promoted Scouts back home for upgrading later. Most Scouts should be granted the Alpine rather than Ranger promotion as you'll most likely be fighting more in hilly/mountainous terrain than forested lands, though it's good to have a bit of a mixture.

It's also a good idea to research Engineering prior to Iron Working on your way to Machinery so you have time to build up Aqueducts in key cities. Aqueducts provide extra production to adjacent Terrace Farms, and you'll want all the production you can get to help with training Warak'aq units - especially seeing as there's no policy card to help you train them faster.

Bring along a Swordsman or Horseman or two as well with your Warak'aq units. Warak'aq units are extremely vulnerable in defence and can't capture cities, while Horsemen and Swordsmen can handle both those roles reasonably effectively.


Warak'aq units only have as much melee strength as Warriors despite arriving in the medieval era, making them pretty hopeless at defending themselves - at least, at first. If you can get them to the Ambush promotion, they're up to a respectable 40 strength defending - and a massive 60 strength attacking!

As such, when starting a war with Warak'aq units, your first aim will be to get at least a couple of units to the Ambush promotion without them dying along the way. Thankfully, there's two things that will speed up that journey - the ability to attack twice in a turn also allows you to get two lots of experience in a turn, and the Survey military policy card allows them to gain experience at a doubled rate on top.

Where possible, try to isolate enemy units so you can rapidly pick them off with Warak'aq units, or else ensure your units are on defensive terrain when attacking so counter-attacks aren't too risky for them. The very high damage output your units have usually means you can kill off isolated units before they have an opportunity to retaliate, but you might struggle against a large force. Using mountain chokepoints to your advantage (or even making your own with the Qhapaq Ñan improvement) will really help.


The first promotion any recon unit can get is either Ranger or Alpine. Ranger allows faster movement through woods or rainforest, while Alpine allows faster movement through hills. Which is most useful to you will vary depending on the terrain you find yourself in, but Alpine is generally the more useful of the two for the Inca most of the time. Either way, the boost to mobility will really help keep your Warak'aq units safe. They'll be able to retreat through their favoured rough terrain faster than enemy units can keep up, or alternatively move onto their favoured rough terrain and fire twice in the same turn so they can deal lots of damage while still having sufficient defence to survive a counter-attack.

The second promotion should always be Guerilla, as it's the prerequisite for Ambush. It allows your Warak'aq units to move after attacking. This means you can move in, attack twice, move out, and use a unit that defends better like a Horseman, Courser or Knight in its place.

Finally, Ambush unlocks the full awesome power of the Warak'aq unit. At 40 melee strength, it's still vulnerable to counter-attacks from Knights or Crossbowmen, but not quite so much. More importantly, with 60 ranged strength and the ability to attack twice, it can deal damage rivalling late-game units.

The Warak'aq unit is the only unit in the game that can attack twice in a turn without promotions, and the only one at all which has no movement cost for its second attack. This allows you to deal immense damage, and with the Guerilla promotion, still safely retreat, covering the unit's biggest downside.

But we've discussed enough about how to play it safe when working your way to the Ambush promotion - what about the unit's firepower? It's more than double that of a Crossbowman, even before Ambush! That's because injured units lose strength, so the second hit by a Warak'aq will typically deal even more damage than the first attack.

Here's a table showing you the strength advantage of Warak'aq units, how much damage you can expect to deal with two consecutive attacks on an enemy unit starting at full health, and what strength advantage that'd be equivalent to with a unit with only one attack.


Now isn't that terrifying for your enemies to fight against? Even when fighting against relatively strong foes, you can still deal heavy amounts of damage to them as if you had the stronger unit. A Warak'aq unit with the Ambush promotion can take out a pre-renaissance unit in a single turn.

To put this in other words, the double-attack capability of the Warak'aq makes them about as strong offensively as a Ranger despite arriving two and a half eras sooner. Warak'aq units with the Ambush promotion rival or even exceed the damage output of Machine Guns! A unit that arrives four eras later! Ouch.

Still, for all that firepower, Warak'aq units even with the Ambush promotion will struggle to survive once Field Cannons, Cuirassiers and Cavalry enter the battlefield. All three can attack Warak'aq units without making retaliation possible and have enough strength to quickly finish them off. While you can form corps for extra strength, so can your enemies - so consider upgrading your Warak'aq units to Rangers as soon as you can once the game enters industrial-era warfare. They deal about the same amount of damage despite only having one attack, and will defend a lot more effectively.

• Use the Survey military policy card to train up Warak'aq units faster.
  
• Until you reach the Ambush promotion, play it safe and ensure either you can eliminate enemy units before they have a chance to retaliate, retreat out of harm's way after attacking, or end your turn on defensive terrain.
  
• Accompany your Warak'aq units with cavalry or melee infantry units to defend against attacks and get the last hit on cities.

Note that the Administration sections strictly cover the options that have particularly good synergy with the civ's uniques. These are not necessarily the best choices, but rather options you should consider more than usual if playing this civ relative to others.



Both Classical Republic and Autocracy have their merits. Classical Republic offers a housing and amenity boost that really helps with supporting your growing cities, but Autocracy's wonder-construction boost helps you put those strong cities to good use.

The Audience Chamber offers a good housing boost for your biggest cities, though watch out for the loyalty penalty when you're off on Warak'aq conquests.


Monarchy has niche usage if you're desperate for housing, is quick to research and has a reasonable array of policy cards. Merchant Republic's versatility makes it good too. For a religious game, take Theocracy.

Build the Intelligence Agency for the extra Spy, so you have one extra counter-Spy for protecting your precious Campuses, Industrial Zones and Spaceports.


Communism's science bonus makes it ideal to begin with - add the production bonus scaling to population and you've got a government that suits the Inca extremely well.

The Royal Society is an ideal complement, allowing you to use Builders to rush space race projects.


Synthetic Technocracy provides you with much-needed power to help with Terrestrial Laser Station projects, as well as a production bonus towards them.



Caravansaries (Economic, requires Foreign Trade) - Upgrading Scouts to Warak'aq units is expensive, so why not exploit your civ's push towards trade routes with some extra cash?

Discipline (Military, requires Code of Laws) - Because the Ambush promotion is so critical to the Warak'aq unit, it helps to get a head start by training Scouts to their first promotion. With this policy card and Survey on top, you can effectively kill Barbarians for experience.

Ilkum (Economic, requires Craftsmanship) - The Inca need a lot of Builders - especially considering they're the only civ in the game with two unique improvements.

Land Surveyors (Economic, requires Early Empire) - Mountain tiles are typically low-priority to be accumulated via culture, so you may need to purchase quite a few. This policy will help there.

Survey (Military, requires Code of Laws) - A must-have once you have some Warak'aq units, and useful for training Scouts before then. +100% experience will half the combat needed to reach that all-important Ambush promotion - and considering Warak'aq units get two loads of experience every turn, you could achieve that very quickly.


Insulae (Economic, requires Games and Recreation) - As strong as the food situation is for the Inca, housing can pose quite a challenge.

Natural Philosophy (Economic, requires Recorded History) - A mountain focus gives the Inca strong Campuses, so why not build on that advantage?

Scripture (Economic, requires Theology) - Holy Sites benefit from the mountain-rich Inca lands, and this policy card will make them grant even more faith.


Civil Prestige (Economic, requires Civil Service) - A good housing boost to a small number of important cities.

Medina Quarter (Economic, requires Medieval Faires) - Bonus housing to help your cities grow.

Professional Army (Military, requires Mercenaries) - The Scout to Warak'aq promotion is expensive; this policy card helps relieve that burden.

Retainers (Military, requires Civil Service) - Big cities can struggle with amenity shortages, and if you're not at war, this is a great way to use a military card slot productively.

Serfdom (Economic, requires Feudalism) - Helps you get more out of your Builders and ensure your huge cities can work plenty of good tiles.


Liberalism (Economic, requires The Enlightenment) - Some extra amenities.

Logistics (Military, requires Mercantilism) - Rather useful if you have well-established Qhapaq Ñan networks, as units can cross through them and still have movement to spare.

Rationalism (Economic, requires The Enlightenment) - Mountain-settling gives you strong Campus adjacency, while three out of five Incan uniques aid with city growth. This makes it easy to take full advantage of this policy card.

Simultaneum (Economic, requires Reformed Church) - Great if you want even stronger Holy Sites.

Triangular Trade (Economic, requires Mercantilism) - Even more gold from your trade routes.


Public Works (Economic, requires Civil Engineering) - Makes Builders both faster to train and provide more build charges - excellent for getting both your unique improvements built.


Collectivisation (Economic, Communism only, requires Class Struggle) - Make your domestic trade routes even more lucrative! With lots of mountains and districts, you could be generating as much as +15 food per trade route from certain cities.

Five Year Plan (Economic, requires Ideology) - Doubles Campus adjacency as well as that of Industrial Zones.


Ecommerce (Economic, requires Globalisation) - You can get a good bonus to production and gold to your trade routes - ideal for building up Spaceports or space race projects.

Only bonuses with notable synergy with the civ's uniques are covered here.

Isolationism (Dark Age, Classical to Industrial eras) - Once you're done with settling cities and have moved onto Warak'aq conquests, this policy card can make your already strong internal trade routes even better.

Monasticism (Dark Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - Mountain-heavy settling creates good locations for both Holy Sites and Campuses alike. Though building up Holy Sites for this policy's science boost uses up precious district capacity, the huge food advantages the Inca have should cover up that problem soon enough.

Monumentality (Golden Age, Classical to Renaissance eras) - Cheap faith-purchased Settlers, Builders and Traders can save a lot of precious production while you develop your empire. Considering how mountain-settling gives you access to powerful Holy Sites and you'll need a lot of Builders for your fast-growing cities and two unique improvements, this is an ideal dedication to pick up.

Reform the Coinage (Dedication, Renaissance to Modern eras) - Your incentive to create a lot of trade routes naturally makes this dedication a good source of era score.

Heartbeat of Steam (Golden Age, Industrial to Atomic eras) - Your powerful Campuses now become a powerful source of production - great for building up a power infrastructure ahead of space race projects.


How you should vote in the World Congress will often be specific to your game - if you have a strong rival, for example, it might be better to vote to hurt them than to help yourself. Furthermore, there may be general bonuses to your chosen victory route or gameplay which are more relevant than ones that have stronger synergy with civ-specific bonuses. Otherwise, here's a list of key relevant votes that have high relevance for this civ relative to other civs.

Border Control Treaty - Effect A (New districts built by this player act as Culture bombs) on yourself.

Mountain tiles are low-priority to accumulate by culture, but culture bombing can be a good way to work around that.

Luxury Policy - Effect A (Duplicates of the chosen Luxury resource grant duplicate Amenities) on a luxury you own the most copies of.

The Inca favour large cities but lack bonuses to amenities, so this is a good stopgap measure.

Military Advisory - Effect A (Units of the chosen promotion class gain +5 Combat Strength.) on recon units.

Recon units are seldom used in direct combat, so voting to boost their strength gives your Warak'aq units a big advantage that most other civs don't get.

Trade Policy - Effect A: (Trade Routes sent to the chosen player provide +4 Gold to the sender. The chosen player receives +1 trade route capacity) on yourself

An extra domestic trade route can mean a lot more food in one city.

City Patron Goddess - A fine choice if you want Campuses quickly in new cities near mountains.

Earth Goddess - Mountain areas are high in appeal, allowing this pantheon to create a lot of faith. But if that wasn't enough, mountains themselves gain +1 faith as they're considered breathtaking by default! An excellent choice for the Inca.

Fertility Rites - Speeds up your fast city growth even further, and with the free Builder, you can make use of your unique improvements sooner.

Fire Goddess - Terrace Farms may be built on volcanic soil tiles, and the +2 faith bonus on offer makes them particularly lucrative tiles to improve.

Religious Settlements - Faster border expansion is a great help in fast-growing cities. A free Settler saves you a point of population loss.

River Goddess - While riverside spots tend to not have the best faith yields for Holy Sites, +2 housing and +2 amenities really helps grow your cities. The increased population will typically expand your district capacity enough to make up for having to use one on a Holy Site early on.


You can have one founder, one follower, one enhancer and one worship belief.

Cross-Cultural Dialogue (Founder) - Use your strong city growth to generate lots of bonus science.

Jesuit Education (Follower) - Use your strong Holy Sites to develop your strong Campuses, and enjoy an incredible science output!

Stupa (Worship) - An amenity to help with your huge cities.

Warrior Monks (Follower) - Warrior Monks are great complements to Warak'aq units, seeing as they're both comparatively mobile, both scale effectively in strength, and Warrior Monks can capture cities unlike Warak'aq units. Furthermore, the culture-bomb functionality is useful if you need to accumulate a lot of mountain tiles quickly.

Work Ethic (Follower) - Mountain-adjacent Holy Sites can get a decent production bonus via this belief.

World Church (Founder) - Use your strong cities for bonus culture.

Zen Meditation (Follower) - Yet more amenities.


Buenos Aires (Industrial) - A small source of bonus amenities to help you support your large cities.

Geneva (Scientific) - Warak'aq wars aside, the Inca generally pursue an isolationist strategy minimising the use of warfare. This means you can easily get a strong science boost out of Geneva.

Kabul (Militaristic) - Warak'aq units already gain experience faster than any others, but getting to the Ambush promotion quickly is still of vital importance. As such, Kabul's experience boost is very welcome.

Mitla (Scientific) - You'll want Campuses in basically all your cities anyway, so it's easy to get the city growth bonus Mitla offers. It builds on the existing Incan food advantages.

Mohenjo Daro (Cultural) - A good city-state to grab early on while you're still settling new cities. You can settle cities a tile away from a mountain or fresh water and build an Aqueduct later, while still having enough housing to see a decent amount of city growth in the mean-time.

Muscat (Trade) - A helpful source of amenities to help support your large cities.

Nalanda (Scientific) - Mountainous regions are good for Campuses and Holy Sites alike, both of which enhance the unique Mahavihara improvement.

Valletta (Militaristic) - Being able to faith-purchase Granaries, Sewers, Barracks and Stables helps you grow new cities.

Wolin (Militaristic) - Warak'aq can now secure you Great Generals by themselves, without you needing to build Encampments.

Zanzibar (Trade) - More amenities.

Great Bath (Ancient era, Pottery technology) - Though this wonder comes so early it's extremely competitive, the housing and amenity bonuses are great if you want to develop a strong early city.

Hanging Gardens (Ancient era, Irrigation technology) - Helps your cities grow to their full potential sooner, and the city you build this wonder in gets some bonus housing on top.

Pyramids (Ancient era, Masonry technology) - A great help when you're putting together your unique improvements.

Temple of Artemis (Ancient era, Archery technology) - Excellent for growing a large city early on thanks to the substantial housing and amenity bonuses.

Colosseum (Classical era, Games and Recreation civic) - Amenities for all cities in range, helping you grow your empire further.

Colossus (Classical era, Shipbuilding technology) - Probably a wonder to capture rather than build given the Inca tend to favour inland rather than coastal cities. Still, +1 trade route capacity is very helpful given the strong internal trade yields you have access to.

Machu Picchu (Classical era, Engineering technology) - Flat mountainside tiles aren't just great spots for Campuses and Holy Sites - you can also place strong Commercial Hubs, Theatre Squares and Industrial Zones there!

Petra (Classical era, Mathematics technology) - A mountainous desert city can become especially strong. Though Petra doesn't boost desert mountain yields, it nonetheless can create some great Terrace Farm spots.

Terracotta Army (Classical era, Construction technology) - Particularly helpful for getting Warak'aq units towards the Ambush promotion.

Angkor Wat (Medieval era, Medieval Faires civic) - Your entire empire will become more populous, and have the housing to support that. Your already big cities can become even bigger.

Huey Teocalli (Medieval era, Military Tactics technology) - If you're short on amenities, Huey Teocalli the highest amenity-boosting potential of any wonder of its era.

University of Sankore (Medieval era, Education technology) - Boosts trade route yields further, allowing you to get some bonus faith and science from internal trade.

Great Zimbabwe (Renaissance era, Banking technology) - An excellent boost to gold from your trade routes.

Estádio do Maracanã (Atomic era, Professional Sports civic) - Amenities to help with managing your huge cities.


Great Generals and Admirals are only mentioned if their retirement bonuses have specific synergy with the civ; not merely for providing a strength bonus to a unique unit.


Zhang Qian (Great Merchant) - Extra trade route capacity.


El Cid (Great General) - Make sure you have a spare classical or medieval-era Great General if you wish to use El Cid's strength bonus as +5 strength and +1 movement for a lot of units is better than +10 strength on just one. Anyway, retiring El Cid allows you to create a Warak'aq corps for an impressive 50 ranged strength (70 with Ambush). With two attacks and Ambush, the unit's damage output can rival atomic and information-era units!

Hildegard of Bingen (Great Scientist) - A strong mountainside Holy Site can add science, building on your strong mountainside Campuses.

Ibn Fadlan (Great Merchant) - Extra trade route capacity.

Marco Polo (Great Merchant) - More trade route capacity.

Zheng He (Great Admiral) - More trade route capacity.


Galileo Galilei (Great Scientist) - With a lot of mountains around, you should be able to get a lot of science from this Great Scientist.

Ibn Khaldun (Great Scientist) - Helps you grow a city taller with +2 housing and +1 amenity in a Campus district.

Raja Todar Mal (Great Merchant) - Makes internal trade a source of gold.


Joesph Paxton (Great Engineer) - Boosts the effectiveness of an Entertainment Complex, maximising the amenities you receive from it.

John Spilsbury (Great Merchant) - The first of four Great People offering special luxuries and hence bonus amenities.


John Rockefeller (Great Merchant) - Extra gold for trade routes.


Helena Rubenstein (Great Merchant) - Another unique luxury.

Jane Drew (Great Engineer) - Housing and amenities to help you grow a city further.

John Roebling (Great Engineer) - More housing and amenities.

Levi Strauss (Great Merchant) - Another unique luxury.

Melitta Bentz (Great Merchant) - More trade route capacity.


Estée Lauder (Great Merchant) - The final Great Merchant offering a unique luxury.

The Inca can grow massive cities in the mountains and keep those lands reasonably well-defended. But this dependence on mountains makes them vulnerable if they can't track down good mountain-heavy sites.


You can stop this ability as well as Pachacuti's leader ability and the strongest potential of Terrace Farms by ensuring you secure mountain spots before the Inca can. Mountainous regions are fairly easy to defend, though don't be complacent - the massive damage output of Warak'aq units can cause you trouble later if your defences are inadequate.

If you can't stop the Inca reaching a mountain range, another option is to try and take the Earth Goddess pantheon before they do, as it'll deny them a strong potential source of faith. If you can't do that either, don't despair - you can simply pillage the Terrace Farms around the Incan mountains to weaken their yields.


For this ability to reach its full potential, the Inca typically need to dedicate gold to buying mountain tiles, while trading internally. This can stretch Incan gold supplies early on - targeting their Commercial Hubs can be rather effective as a result.

Because the Inca will be largely trading internally, their Traders will largely be closely packed and easy to pillage. The Qhapaq Ñan improvement furthermore may funnel their Traders into specific routes.


You can't pillage Qhapaq Ñan improvements by conventional means, but you can make use of them for yourself, unlike other unique improvements.

One way is to flip the ownership of Qhapaq Ñan improvements. If they're in neutral territory, you can purchase the tile they're on to put them under your control. If they're in Inca territory, you might be able to flip them to your control via culture bombers. Qhapaq Ñan improvements under your control don't connect to those under Inca control, so they won't be able to use them to flank you.

Even Qhapaq Ñan improvements under Inca control can be useful to you. Melee units can attack through the improvements without having to go through. That's particularly useful against ranged units like the Warak'aq, as they won't be able to retaliate. In peace-time, your traders can benefit from extra gold from international trade routes that go through Qhapaq Ñan improvements.

Having two unique improvements means Pachacuti's Inca will need to invest heavily into Builders. Denying them the Pyramids wonder ensures they have less production to spare.


Pachacuti strongly favours settling near mountains, and likes other civs that don't. He dislikes other civs that settle near mountains.

The strategy of weakening the Inca by taking their mountain spots will cause them to dislike you, but thankfully (aside from the mighty Warak'aq) the Inca have relatively few military or diplomatic tools to hurt you with in response. As such, it can be worth taking that risk.

Still, if you really, really want to befriend the Inca, you can try using natural wonders instead of mountains for strong Holy Sites, and rainforests instead of mountains for better Campuses.


The Warak'aq is the ultimate glass cannon. Its firepower is extremely high for its age, but its defence is very low. Remember that it also has good mobility - with just one promotion it can move through hills or woodlands faster than cavalry units.

It should go without saying you need to pick off Warak'aq units before they can reach the Ambush promotion, and as a general rule you should try and kill them before they can attack whatsoever. Even a Warak'aq unit on 1 HP will deal significantly more damage than a full-strength Crossbowman.

So, faced with all this, what are your options? Knights are good in open terrain - they can move faster than Warak'aq units there, and with 50 strength they can sometimes kill Warak'aq units in one hit. With the Barding promotion, they can survive attacks from a couple of Warak'aq units in a single turn, giving them the opportunity to retreat. If you lack iron, Coursers with the Coursers promotion can be alright, but aren't as effective at defending and can be rapidly killed if faced with a large force.

Swordsmen can be useful in defence, but lack the movement speed to chase down Warak'aq units. Their lower cost and access to both the Battlecry and Tortoise promotions makes them a good stopgap measure if you don't have Knights yet.


While it's tempting to just think of Terrace Farms as purely useful for city growth, remember that the hills they are built atop offer production. This means Incan cities can be quite productive early in the game and competitive for wonder-construction. That being said, the Inca lack early advantages to gold generation meaning that production advantage won't necessarily be converted into a large military one. As such, Incan cities can make lucrative targets for conquest once they've built a few wonders and once Warak'aq units lose their edge.

As with other unique improvements, Terrace Farms may be pillaged. At 50 health per pillage, they can help you in your campaigns against the Inca.

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• Civ summaries (Start here for an introduction for all civs)
  
• Civ-specific tricks, secrets and clarifications (Ideal for more experienced players)

• America - no additional content* (Cultural/Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• America - all additional content* (Cultural/Diplomatic/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Arabia (Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Australia (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Aztecs (Domination)
  
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• Byzantium (Domination/Religious)
  
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• France (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Gaul (Domination)
  
• Georgia (Diplomatic/Religious)
  
• Germany (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Gran Colombia (Domination)
  
• Greece (Cultural/Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Hungary (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Inca (Religious/Scientific)
  
• India (Domination/Religious)
  
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• Japan (All)
  
• Khmer (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Kongo (Cultural)
  
• Korea (Scientific)
  
• Macedon (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Mali (Diplomatic/Religious)
  
• Māori (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Mapuche (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Maya (Scientific)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Netherlands (Scientific)
  
• Norway (Domination)
  
• Nubia (Domination)
  
• Ottomans (Domination)
  
• Persia (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Phoenicia (Domination)
  
• Poland (Cultural/Domination/Religious)
  
• Portugal (Diplomatic/Scientific)
  
• Rome (Domination)
  
• Russia (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Scotland (Scientific)
  
• Scythia (Domination/Religious)
  
• Spain (Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Sumeria (Diplomatic/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Sweden (Cultural/Diplomatic)
  
• Vietnam (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Zulus (Domination)

*The Teddy Roosevelt Persona Pack splits Roosevelt's leader ability in two, meaning the game with it is substantially different from without - hence two different versions of the America guide. Lincoln was added later and is only covered in the latter guide.

Other civs with alternative leader personas are not split because the extra personas added in later content do not change the existing gameplay - as such the guides are perfectly usable by players without them.

These guides are for those with the Rise and Fall expansion, but not Gathering Storm. They are no longer updated and have not been kept up to date with patches released since Gathering Storm. To look at them, click here to open the Rise and Fall Civ Summaries guide. The "Other Guides" section of every Rise and Fall guide has links to every other Rise and Fall guide.


The Vanilla guides are for those without the Rise and Fall or Gathering Storm expansions. These guides are no longer updated and have not been kept up to date with patches released since Rise and Fall. To look at them, click here to open the Vanilla Civ Summaries guide. The "Other Guides" section of every Vanilla guide has links to every other Vanilla guide.