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.

The French court is the envy of the world. In a beautiful backdrop, we attract diplomats from all over the world to discuss how we might bring about the future. Away from the main halls and feasts, we covertly discover all the secrets of our guests. We know where their weaknesses lie. We know where their treasures are. And if they step out of line for one moment, their riches shall be ours - the imperial guard shall see to it.


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.

France has a tier 3 start bias towards river tiles. This start bias may make it a bit easier to make use of Chateaux, but mostly it's useful for ensuring your capital has the maximum amount of housing possible.

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

• +1 level of diplomatic visibility to all met civilizations
  
• +1 Spy capacity at the Castles technology, and gain a free Spy
  
• All new Spies start at the Agent level with a free promotion (+1 level compared to normal)

Note: These bonuses are identical to Catherine de' Medici's regular abilities for those not using the Catherine de' Medici Persona Pack.

• Great Works, relics and artefacts under your control produce -1 loyalty in cities owned by other civs within 9 tiles.
  
  • This is counted from the city centre, not the tile the Great Work is situated in.
• If a city owned by another civ becomes a free city and Eleanor is placing loyalty pressure upon it, it immediately falls under Eleanor's control.
  
  • While this is supposed to apply only when Eleanor is applying the most loyalty pressure upon the city, it functions if any is being exerted upon it in what is most likely a bug.

• All luxury resource tiles adjacent to at least one Theatre Square district or Chateau yield +2 culture.
  
• Any city with a Theatre Square district has access to the unique Court Festival city project.
  
  • When completed, the Court Festival produces 50 culture and 50 tourism against all civs, both multiplied by the number of excess luxuries France has.
    
    • The tourism bonus applies even against civs you haven't met yet.
      
    • Luxuries that count include those you have traded for, but not the first copy of luxuries and not those that have been traded away.
  • The cost of the Court Festival project is 260% that of a standard district project, with a base cost of 65 instead of 25.
    
  • As with other district projects, the cost increases throughout the game, scaling with the proportion of the game's technologies or civics (whichever is higher) you have unlocked.

An industrial-era melee infantry unit which replaces the Line Infantry

*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.

**If you have no access to oil, you may continue to train Garde Impériale units even beyond researching Replaceable Parts.

• Costs 10 nitre, down from 20 (-50%).
  
• 70 strength, up from 65
  
• +10 strength on the continent containing your capital
  
• +10 Great General Points when it kills a unit

*The owner of the wonder does not matter.


*Tourism yields do 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.


Culture is clearly the strongest path to take. Double wonder tourism, an advantage to building wonders, tourism from Chateaux and additional tourism thanks to the appeal bonus of Chateaux (which can improve the yield of adjacent National Parks and Seaside Resorts) together makes France one of the most effective civs in the game at this route. Furthermore, Black Queen Catherine can use her extra Spy for Great Work heists, while Eleanor is naturally inclined towards accumulating large volumes of Great Works. Magnificence Catherine is even stronger than those two at cultural victories thanks to her unique tourism-granting city project.

All leaders can make a reasonable stab at diplomatic victory. The Statue of Liberty and Potala Pallace are key diplomatic wonders that benefit from France's wonder construction bonus, while France's high culture output helps with getting to key late-game civics like Global Warming Mitigation. Black Queen Catherine has the additional benefit for more, and promoted, Spies being able to perform the Fabricate Scandal mission in city-states to secure suzerain status. However, France's gold output isn't particularly strong which can be a problem for aid emergencies or buying diplomatic favours off other civs, and the incentive for direct warfare in the industrial era thanks to the powerful Garde Impériale unit could produce excessive grievances.

France certainly isn't bad at domination. Black Queen Catherines diplomatic visibility bonus means you'll almost always have a higher level of diplomatic visibility with your opponents than they have with you, securing you at least a +3 strength bonus. But Eleanor offers a unique approach to domination which can potentially be free from warfare via her significantly strengthened ability to flip cities!

Religion is generally the weakest victory path for France. The main advantages you have here are being able to build wonders like the Hagia Sophia faster, and - for Black Queen Catherine only, getting a strength bonus in theological combat thanks to the diplomatic visibility bonus.

Finally, science makes a possible backup route. Black Queen Catherine's extra Spy gives you an edge at stealing eureka boosts, while faster construction of certain wonders like Oxford University under any leader can also contribute towards faster research.

France's leaders all offer a wonder-centric approach to a cultural victory, but with substantial differences in how exactly that plays out.

If you're new to France, Black Queen Catherine is the easiest leader to learn thanks to her better early-game and less mechanically complex bonuses - though that's not to say there's no depth for players to dive into. Indeed, the dark arts of subterfuge have a lot of potential for interesting unique gameplay...

There are two main parts to Black Queen Catherine's ability: the diplomatic visibility boost, and the spy bonuses.



Diplomatic visibility is a mechanic that allows you to learn more about what other civs are up to. At the start of each turn, you may get messages about other civs founding cities, starting construction on wonders and so forth.

On the diplomacy screen with another civ, use the "gossip" tab to recap what you found out within the last 10 turns. You can use this feature between your turns, so it gives you something to do while you wait.


Civs can have between 0 and 4 diplomatic visibility with each other. A civ with a higher level of diplomatic visibility in another than vice versa will receive a stacking +3 strength bonus against them per level of difference, which works for military and religious units alike. Black Queen Catherine's diplomatic visibility bonus means France will nearly always have a +3 strength boost over other full civs from the start of the game - quite useful for defending against early rushes, or even initiating one yourself.

In addition, the higher level of diplomatic visibility you have with another civ, the more information you'll find out about them. Unlike the strength bonus, the other civ's level of diplomatic visibility on you doesn't matter.

*Does not work against human players.


To gain diplomatic visibility, you can do the following to boost access to all civs:

• Have Black Queen Catherine's leader ability, giving you Limited access by default.
  
• Research the renaissance-era Printing technology.
  
• Use the modern-era Great Merchant Mary Katherine Goddard.

And the following works for the specific civ:

• Send a delegation (25 gold) or an embassy (50 gold, requires the Diplomatic Service civic).
  
• Send a trade route to the civ.
  
• Be the civ's ally (requires the medieval-era Civil Service civic)
  
• Send a Spy on a Listening Post mission to the civ. This provides +2 visibility rather than the usual 1 if they're at Special Agent status. This cannot be used on civs you're allied with.
  
• Mongolia's civ ability allows them to gain +1 diplomatic visibility with any civ they have a trading post present in.

Black Queen Catherine only needs a delegation with an AI civ to reveal their secret agenda for the rest of the game. Add a trade route and the Printing technology, and you can reach the highest level of access without too much trouble. If you manage to make use of Mary Katherine Goddard and/or a Special Agent-promoted Spy as well, you can get the maximum level of access even with civs that hate you - ideal for working out where spaceship parts are being built so you can disrupt them to buy time. It can also be useful in conjunction with Garde Impériale warfare - more on that in the relevant unique unit section.


This bonus takes some pressure off the early-game by providing a +3 strength bonus against most would-be invaders, and offers the potential for powerful strength bonuses to complement your Garde Impériale. It also helps you become more aware of competition in wonder races and for scientific victory, allowing you to respond accordingly in time.

I've just researched Castles, and now my espionage is second to none.

France's Garde Impériale UU encourages you to get to Military Science early (after finding nitre with Military Engineering), but thankfully both Castles and Printing are en route. Both come with their own wonders, and while Printing boosts your diplomatic visibility with all civs, Castles increases your Spy capacity by 1 and also gives you an Agent-level Spy for free.

Around that time, you should be able to pick up a tier 2 government on the technology tree. Monarchy is much faster to unlock, but Merchant Republic offers a better number of economic policy card slots to complement your cultural advantages. With a tier 2 government, you'll be able to build the Intelligence Agency, which grants another point of Spy capacity, a free Spy, and will make all your Spies more effective as if they were one level stronger.

Having early Spies means you can make life harder for other civs before they have a chance to adequately respond. What exactly you can do with the Spies will be covered later.

Spies are expensive when first available (225 production, rising with every Spy you train - and keep in mind they can't be purchased!) While your biggest cities handle wonders, dedicate your mid-level cities to training Spies.

Aside from Black Queen Catherine's Spy at Castles, and the extra one from the Intelligence Agency Government Plaza building, your Spy capacity will increase further with the following civics and technologies:

• Diplomatic Service (Renaissance era civic - also needed for the useful Machiavellianism diplomatic policy card which lets you build Spies faster and makes their operations faster)
  
• Nationalism (Industrial era civic - also needed to form corps and offers the Grande Armee military policy card allowing you to train Garde Impériale units faster)
  
• Ideology (Modern era civic - a prerequisite of all modern-era governments)
  
• Computers (Atomic era technology - also boosts tourism by 25%)
  
• Cold War (Atomic era civic - unlocks Rock Bands; on the way to Social Media and the tourism boost from the Online Communities economic policy card)

You'll notice that all of these civics and technologies are useful in their own right, so you don't need to worry too much about optimising research paths with Spies in mind.


Spies can be assigned to protect districts in your own cities (counter-espionage) or sent to the cities of various civs in order to carry out missions. Spy missions take eight turns by default, but this can be lowered by two with either the Machiavellianism diplomatic policy card or the Linguist promotion. With both, missions take just four turns each. You can also half the duration of spy missions by being culturally dominant over another civ.

Here's a list of all possible missions:

Be careful how you use your Spies, as dead Spies cost a lot to replace. You can compromise between speed and safety when training Spies by using the Gain Sources mission followed by things like Siphon Funds, before switching to the more useful missions like Great Work Heist.

If a Spy is discovered during a mission, you have a choice of how they should escape:

• Foot - Takes four turns, but has the highest chance of avoiding being killed. This is usually your best option.
  
• Vehicle - Requires a Commercial Hub in the city. Takes three turns and has a reasonably low chance of being caught. If the Spy has the Ace Driver promotion, you should be able to reliably take this option.
  
• Boat - Requires a Harbour in the city. Usually too risky!
  
• Aeroplane - Requires an Aerodrome in the city. Takes just one turn but is practically a deathwish for inexperienced Spies. Of course, you could always use this if your Spy has a bad set of promotions and you don't mind too much if it gets killed.

If you succeed, the rewards are great. Aside from the direct rewards of the mission, Spies gain a level for every successful mission other than Gain Sources or Listening Post. At first, Spies start off at Recruit level, but can be promoted to Agent, Special Agent and finally Master (they cannot gain levels beyond that point). Black Queen Catherine makes France's Spies start immediately at Agent level. Every level gained makes Spies more effective at all missions, and each level up also offers a choice of three random promotions. A list of all of them follows.

With the future-era Cultural Hegemony civic, you can take the Non-State Actors wildcard. With it, whenever you choose a Spy promotion you may freely choose any of the ones the Spy doesn't already have. While you may not have a lot of time to make use of that, here's a few good promotion combinations to try out:

• Polygraph + Quartermaster + Surveillance: An excellent defensive combination that allows all your other Spies to push for offensive missions while this Spy stays at home.
  
• Disguise + Linguist + Rocket Scientist: Allows you to rapidly stamp out anyone chasing space race projects.

• Your diplomatic visibility bonus makes your units stronger hence cutting down the amount of defence you civ need early on.
  
• Maximise diplomatic visibility with delegations and, later in the game when you need the tourism bonus, trade routes.
  
• Use medium-sized cities to produce Spies while your biggest cities handle wonders.
  
• Great Work Heists and Steal Tech Boost are generally the best missions for your Spies. Fabricate Scandal is situationally very effective as well.

What if you could conquer the world without ever firing a shot?

Eleanor of Aquitaine offers the potential for rapid expansion purely through the power of Great Works. But she's a tough leader to learn with one of the weakest starts around, so beware!


Lacking Black Queen Catherine's diplomatic visibility (and therefore strength) bonus, Eleanor has nothing to help her get through the earliest turns of the game. As such, it's a good idea to take a bare-bones approach to early gameplay. Focus on expansion, with Monuments, Campuses and an appropriate number of defensive units (Archers are always decent early on). The more cities you have, generally, the better. Packing cities close together will allow you to maximise your loyalty pressure later (this contrasts from both personas of Catherine de' Medici, who generally prefers spacing cities apart).

While a religion could be useful for Eleanor for its influence on loyalty and the potential for Cathedrals' Great Work slot, you usually can't afford to spend production and district capacity on Holy Sites so early in the game.

Though it may be tempting to beeline the Drama and Poetry civic and start building up Theatre Squares sooner, going to Political Philosophy first instead allows you to get your first real government and construct the Ancestral Hall building to help with further expansion. With Political Philosophy done, now go to Drama and Poetry and start getting those Theatre Squares and Amphitheatres built.

If you can control it, falling into an early Dark Age isn't a bad idea. Not only will it let you use the powerful Monasticism card for a huge science boost, but it'll also lower the threshold for future Golden Ages. Golden Ages boost your loyalty pressure - more details on that later.

When you're done with settling new cities, you can prepare a couple of stronger cities for wonder construction while the rest work on Theatre Squares or Campus buildings. If they still have free district capacity, Holy Sites and their buildings will be useful as well. Try to maximise your culture output - there's a bunch of important civics which make Eleanor much stronger if she can get to them sooner.


Eleanor's distinct gameplay begins around the time of the Humanism civic. Aside from unlocking the Chateau improvement, it also unlocks Art and Archaeological Museums. These are important as they greatly expand the Great Work capacity in your border cities.

The choice of Art or Archaeological Museums in any specific city for Eleanor depends on a few factors:


You can simplify this to "core cities should have Archaeological Museums and border cities should have Art Museums" as a general rule if you want to save time on decision-making.

A city with a full Amphitheatre and a full Museum will have 5 Great Works - or in other words, the city will produce -5 loyalty in any rival city within 9 tiles.

When a city runs out of loyalty, and it's within 9 tiles of one of your cities, it'll immediately come under your control with the options to keep or raze it. Usually you should keep every city you can, as they can become bases for future loyalty pressure once they have a developed Theatre Square in place. You can speed up this process by using Governor Reyna (the Financier) to purchase Theatre Squares with gold, then purchasing subsequent buildings.

So, that's the basic usage of Eleanor's leader ability - develop your Theatre Squares and fill them with Great Works, and the negative loyalty pressures will become overwhelming and start flipping enemy cities.

But there's a lot, lot more to learn if you really want to understand how to make the most of this leader ability. The rest of this ability section contains the following subsections to detail this all:

• Manipulating Loyalty - This sub-section helps you work out how to maximise your loyalty pressure over other cities in the times before Rock Bands enter the game.
  
• Maximising your Great Works - This sub-section discusses maximising your Great Work capacity to increase the amount of loyalty pressure you place on other civs via Eleanor's leader ability.
  
• The Power of Rock - How Rock Bands make Eleanor's ability much stronger and much easier to use. Keep your culture output high so you can unlock them (at the atomic-era Cold War civic) sooner!
  
• Summary - Ties everything together.

To gain the most out of Eleanor's leader ability in the mid-game, you'll need to understand the details of the loyalty mechanic. Until you have access to Rock Bands (more on them later), you'll only be able to flip cities that are losing more loyalty than they're gaining. As such, it's important to know how cities both gain and lose loyalty.


Use the loyalty map lens to work out precisely how much loyalty cities are gaining or losing per turn. Cities that are only gaining a little per turn are vulnerable!


This is the biggest influence on loyalty, with up to a 20 loyalty per turn gain or loss! The calculation is a bit complicated, so let's break it down.

Firstly, the domestic pressure is a score determined by the presence of nearby citizens of the same civ. To get the number, first work out the contribution of every city of the same civ within 9 tiles, including the affected city itself. This number is 10, subtract the number of tiles away the city is, then multiplied by the population of this city, multiplied by 2 if it's currently running the Bread and Circuses city project, then multiplied by 0.5 if the civ's in a Dark Age, 1 for a Normal Age and 1.5 for a Golden or Heroic Age. Finally, if the capital city is within 9 tiles, apply its pressure again as if it was in a Normal Age but not running Bread and Circuses. Sum up this total, and you've got the domestic pressure!

Next, the foreign pressure is a score determined by the presence of nearby citizens of other civs, except for city-states and free cities. Again, each foreign city contributes pressure equal to (10-distance)*population mutliplied by 0.5 for a Dark Age, 1 for a Normal Age and 1.5 for a Golden or Heroic Age doubled if the city's running Bread and Circuses, and capitals apply their loyalty pressure a second time as if it was in a Normal Age but not running Bread and Circuses. Sum up this total, and you've got the foreign pressure.

Finally, subtract the foreign pressure from the domestic pressure and divide this number by 0.5 plus whichever pressure number is smaller. Then multiply the result by 10.

It's far too much work to expect you to endlessly keep track of the fluctuations of this number, but here's a few things that can help you maximise your foreign pressure on other cities:

• Keep your cities tightly packed so more of them can apply pressure onto the cities of other civs. If your cities are closer to your rival, they'll put even more pressure on them.
  
• Make sure your border cities have plenty of food, housing and amenities so they can grow and exert more pressure. Internal trade routes are a good source of food if necessary, and packing your cities together means that buildings like Zoos can easily provide a lot of amenities.
  
• Try to maintain a Golden Age for as long as you possibly can. That's not as hard as it sounds as every wonder you build is worth at least 3 era score, and every city flipped is worth 2.
  
• The Bread and Circuses project can be useful if nearby cities are only gaining a little positive loyalty per turn, but remember it uses precious production you may want for other things.

The presence of a Governor in a city adds +8 loyalty per turn - even before they've finished establishing themselves. Civs with the Audience Chamber government building will suffer -2 loyalty in cities without Governors, so the presence of a Governor in such civs' cities is essentially a +10 boost. Civs using the diplomatic policy card Praetorium (classical era, requires Recorded History) will get another +2 boost from Governors, and up to +6 with the information-era Communications Office card (requires Social Media).

Governor Victor (the Castellan) with the Garrison Commander promotion not only applies +8 loyalty to his city, but +4 loyalty to all other cities of the same civ within 9 tiles once he's established. How do you counter that? With a bit of espionage!

If you have at least one level of diplomatic visibility with a civ (see Black Queen Catherine's section for more details) you can see if another civ's city contains a Governor. With level two visibility, you can see the specific Governor and hence work out precisely where Victor is. With a Spy, you can use the Neutralise Governor mission to remove him from the city for 6 turns, and he won't be able to use his area-of-effect bonus for 9 turns.

You can also use the Forment Unrest mission to remove 15 loyalty from the city, plus 5 per Spy level (up to a maximum of -30). This is good for speeding up city flips where a city is losing only a small amount of loyalty per turn.

There's one governor particularly useful to you: Governor Amani (the Diplomat). When she has the Prestige promotion, she makes other civs' cities within 9 tiles lose 2 loyalty per turn!


Cities with a surplus or deficit of amenities can gain or lose a little loyalty. It works as follows:

• Deficit of 3 amenities or more: -6 loyalty
  
• Deficit of 1 or 2 amenities: -3 loyalty
  
• Surplus of 1 or 2 amenities: +3 loyalty
  
• Surplus of 3 amenities or more: +6 loyalty

There's a few ways you can target a civ's amenities without starting a war. Using a Spy to breach a civ's Dams directly costs them amenities before they can repair it, and could also pillage any Entertainment Complexes and luxury improvements on the nearby floodplain. Refusing to trade luxuries to a civ will also avoid granting them extra amenities. Building certain amenity-granting wonders (e.g. Colosseum, Alhambra) before the other civ can ensures they won't get the bonus.

• If the civ has founded a religion, but it's different to the majority religion in the city: -3 loyalty
  
• If the civ has founded a religion and it's the majority in the city: +3 loyalty

It's simple enough - religious civs don't want their cities following other faiths or else they'll lose loyalty.

While you'll generally want to save up faith for Rock Bands later on, it still might be worth buying a few Apostles early on in the hopes of the Martyr promotion (which grants you a relic if the unit dies in theological combat). You can use all but one religious charge on converting rival border cities to the wrong faith, and then use the units in theological combat to either weaken their faith, or in another civ's lands as a sacrifice for relics.

• If the city is occupied and doesn't have a garrisoned unit, it suffers -5 loyalty per turn.
  
• Cities with garrisoned units gain +2 loyalty/turn with the Limitanei military policy card (ancient era, requires Early Empire) or +4 loyalty/turn with Martial Law (wildcard, modern era, requires Totalitarianism and the Fascism government).
  
• Cities lose loyalty the more grievances the founder of the city has with its conquerer.
  
• Starving cities lose 4 loyalty per turn.

Newly-captured cities tend to struggle with loyalty, so if two rival civs are fighting each other near your lands, you might have a great opportunity!

• The Colosseum wonder provides +2 loyalty to all cities within six tiles.
  
• The Statue of Liberty wonder makes all owned cities within six tiles always at 100 loyalty.

The Colosseum wonder offers amenities as well as direct loyalty, so it can make city flipping in its area a fair bit tougher, if still generally manageable. But the Statue of Liberty's bonus is quite a pain - you'll have to capture the city directly if you want to flip nearby cities. Either build it yourself or use Garde Impériale to take it!

Cultural alliances prevent each civ being able to exert loyalty pressure on each other. While at first glance that implies Eleanor should never make a cultural alliance with a neighbouring civ, there is a niche occasion you may find that useful. You can settle extra cities right next to the allied civ, build up Theatre Squares and move in Great Works ready to add extra pressure once the alliance ends.


The Migration Treaty decision in the World Congress can boost a civ's loyalty by 5 while reducing their population growth by 20%, or reduce their loyalty by 5 while increasing their population growth by 20%. Vote for the latter to happen to a neighbour to help flip their cities.

• Cities with Monuments gain +1 loyalty/turn
  
• Cities with Government Plazas gain +8 loyalty/turn.
  
• The renaissance-era Colonial Offices diplomatic policy card (requires Exploration) offers +3 loyalty in cities not in the civ's capital's continent.
  
• Civs suzerain over Preslav gain +2 loyalty per Encampment building they have.
  
• If a civ fails as a member of a nuclear emergency, their cities will exert 1 less loyalty in pressure.

On the whole, these elements are fairly easy to ignore. Colonial Offices tends to only be used by civs when setting up new colonies and they'll soon switch to something else. Government Plazas are often built in a civ's capital or in a nearby city - usually the last parts of a civ's empire you'll be flipping anyway.

• England: +4 loyalty in cities on foreign continents with Royal Navy Dockyards.
  
• Netherlands: +1 loyalty in cities per trade route they're sending out.
  
• Ottomans: If Governor Ibrahim (the Grand Vizier) is present in your capital, you cannot exert loyalty pressure on the Ottomans. Furthermore, cities owned but not founded by the Ottomans have +4 loyalty and an amenity on top.
  
• Persia: +5 loyalty in occupied cities with a garrisoned unit.
  
• Phoenicia: Coastal cities on their capital's continent never lose loyalty.
  
• Spain: +2 loyalty in cities on foreign continents with at least one Mission adjacent to the city centre.
  
• Zulus: +3 loyalty in cities with a garrisoned unit, rising to +5 if it's a corps or army.

The Netherlands and Spain have tiny loyalty bonuses which are seldom a problem. Persia's is only useful if they're currently at war.

The Ottomans and Phoenicia will be particularly troublesome neighbours - you may have to start a war with them.

The rest of the civs' loyalty bonuses can be significant enough to notably slow down your loyalty pressure - consider pressuring other civs' loyalty first before switching to them if possible.


Free cities are created when a city runs out of loyalty and isn't within 9 tiles of one of Eleanor's cities, or if Eleanor decides not to accept a city flipping to her. They can suffer loyalty pressure, and if they run out of loyalty, they'll join whichever civ was exerting the most pressure onto them. However, they have a +10 loyalty/turn bonus to make that task harder.

City-states have a +20 loyalty/turn bonus by default, which usually means they can't be flipped - but for Eleanor they can be. This can be a problem if you're trying to keep their bonuses, but at least it means no other civ can have them either.


With everything explained, let's make a simple list of things you should do to maximise your loyalty pressure over other civs:

• Keep your cities close together and ensure they can grow large.
  
• Try to maintain a Golden Age.
  
• Use Spies to remove Governors in neighbouring border cities.
  
• Avoid trading luxuries to neighbouring civs.
  
• If a neighbour founded a religion, covert their border cities to a different religion if you can spare the faith.
  
• Build the Statue of Liberty so other civs can't take it.
  
• Don't enter cultural alliances with your neighbours unless you want to settle more cities near them.
  
• Vote for the migration treaty to take loyalty away from an neighbouring civ.

And obviously, you'll want a lot of Great Works to use with Eleanor's leader ability, so let's look into that in more detail...


Earlier, I mentioned a simple combination for getting lots of Great Work capacity easily: An Amphitheatre and a Museum. But obviously, there's plenty of other ways of getting Great Works and Great Work capacity!

Theatre Squares can have up to 6 slots in all: Two Writing slots from the Amphitheatre, three Art or artefact slots from Museums, and one Music slot from Broadcast Centres.

Holy Sites have 1 relic slot if they have a Temple present. Relics are typically obtained from Apostles with the Martyr promotion dying in theological combat. That requires a faith investment you might want to save for Rock Bands. Holy Sites can also have a slot for a Great Work of Religious Art with a Cathedral present (the city must follow a religion with the Cathedrals worship belief to be able to build it). These slots can be tricky to use well, but are decent backup options if you can't use Rock Bands for whatever reason.

Any given city could have up to 8 Great Work slots in total, though 6-7 is more realistic most of the time. Be sure to purchase buildings with Great Work slots in border cities so you can move Great Works in and keep pressuring rivals!

Otherwise, all sources of Great Works are limited to individual cities. These include:

• Palace (located in your capital) - 1 slot for any Great Work
  
• Apadana wonder (classical era, Political Philosophy civic) - 2 slots for any Great Work
  
• Great Library wonder (classical era, Recorded History civic) - 2 slots for Great Writing
  
• Mont St. Michel wonder (medieval era, Divine Right civic) - 2 slots for relics
  
• Bank building, boosted by the renaissance-era Great Merchant Giovanni de Medici - 2 slots for any Great Work
  
• St. Basil's Cathedral wonder (renaissance era, Reformed Church civic) - 3 slots for relics
  
• Bolshoi Theatre wonder (industrial era, Opera and Ballet civic) - 1 slot for Great Writing, 1 slot for Great Music
  
• Hermitage wonder (industrial era, Natural History civic) - 4 slots for Great Art
  
• Broadway wonder (modern era, Mass Media civic) - 1 slot for Great Writing, 2 slots for Great Music
  
• National History Museum (requires any modern-era government unlocked, built in Government Plaza) - 4 slots for any Great Work
  
• Sydney Opera House wonder (atomic era, Cultural Heritage civic) - 3 slots for Great Music

On the whole, you won't be able to have these present in border cities where they'd have the most impact - unless you take them off other players. You see, if you flip a city to your control, you keep their Great Works intact. As such, if you flip a major city of a wonder-builder, the rest of their empire will soon follow. How is that done? Through the power of rock.

Time to conquer the world with indie K-Pop!

Developing your Theatre Squares will not only grant you Great Work slots, but also a lot of culture. You'll want to generate a lot throughout the game, as the sooner you can get to the atomic-era Cold War civic the better. The Cold War civic allows you to purchase Rock Bands using faith, which are an excellent source of tourism but more importantly could be a means of removing a lot of loyalty from rival cities.

When you purchase a Rock Band, you have a choice of one promotion out of a possible three - much like when you create Apostles or Spies. Here's what they are:


Notice the Indie promotion's effect? -40 loyalty is just under half the maximum loyalty a city can have. If you can make three Indie performances in the same city in the same turn, or three to four in succession, you can make almost any city in the game run out of loyalty. And thanks to Eleanor's leader ability, so long as that city's within 9 tiles of one of yours, flip right to your control.

But there's a catch - Rock Bands don't always let you pick the Indie promotion, so you'll need to do a few more performances with the hope you'll be able to choose it when they may next choose a promotion. Rock Bands can have a maximum of three promotions.

So, which promotions should you pick? If you can't choose Indie the first time, I'd recommend choosing a promotion that boosts the band's ability to perform on certain tiles. That way, they have a much reduced chance of disbanding after their first performance. If the second promotion isn't Indie, or the band already has Indie and is seeking another promotion, I'd recommend Surf Band, Space Rock or Music Festival, as it increases their variety of possible venues making it easier to hit certain cities with multiple loyalty-draining performances.

A band with only the Indie promotion will disband half the time they perform, so consider holding back from using them until you have a third unit with their promotion. That way, you can perform three times in the same city in the same turn, draining the city's loyalty down to 0. The city will then flip to your control the next turn thanks to Eleanor's ability.


I've just grabbed China's capital, despite them being a more advanced civ than me.

Flipping cities can grant you a lot of tourism via stolen wonders and Great Works, and lots of faith via stolen Holy Sites meaning the increasing cost of Rock Bands needn't slow you down. But make sure your culture output stays high, as there's a very late-in-the-game bonus you won't want to do without...

The future era civic Cultural Hegemony brings with it the Hallyu wildcard, which allows you to choose from any promotion when you buy a new Rock Band or promote an existing one - so long as the unit doesn't already have that promotion. This means all your Rock Bands can reliably have the Indie promotion and cause havoc on your rivals!

Resist the temptation to give all your Rock Bands the Indie promotion right away, unless another civ is close to winning and you need to stop them quickly. Giving Rock Bands a performance-boosting promotion like Album Cover Art first will help them earn promotions and reduce the chance of them disbanding when they perform, saving you a lot of faith in the long-run. Then you can give them the Indie promotion. Again, something like Surf Band which allows them to perform at more venues is a good third choice.

Other civs may well get wise to what you're doing, and use the Music Censorship diplomatic policy card (atomic era, requires Space Race). It prevents you sending Rock Bands into their territory, at the cost of 1 amenity in all their cities of size 10 or higher. Losing amenities may mean their cities lose a bit of loyalty per turn as well, so you can just switch to other means of placing loyalty pressure on the other civs. If there's still relics to create, consider spending faith on a few Apostles you can promote with Martyr.

Ultimately, Eleanor of Aquitaine offers the strongest end-game expansion potential of any leader in the game - all without causing diplomatic penalties. Still, under France she usually ends up with a cultural rather than domination victory.

• Eleanor's lack of early bonuses means you should focus on expansion, science and culture early on
  
• Build Theatre Squares in all your cities.
  
• Once you have Museums, aim to maximise your loyalty pressure on other civs with the following:
  
  • Keep your cities close together and ensure they can grow large.
    
  • Try to maintain a Golden Age.
    
  • Use Spies to remove Governors in neighbouring border cities.
    
  • Avoid trading luxuries to neighbouring civs.
    
  • If a neighbour founded a religion, covert their border cities to a different religion if you can spare the faith.
    
  • Build the Statue of Liberty so other civs can't take it.
    
  • Don't enter cultural alliances with your neighbours unless you want to settle more cities near them.
    
  • Vote for the migration treaty to take loyalty away from an neighbouring civ.
• Keep your culture output high so you can unlock Rock Bands and the Hallyu wildcard quickly.
  
• Use the Indie promotion on Rock Bands to rapidly flip rival cities.

Magnificience Catherine has a similarly weak start to Eleanor of Aquitaine, and has an inferior conquest potential relative to the other French leaders, but comes with an even stronger tourism output than either of them, making her among the best generators of tourism in the entire game.

Prior to trying out Magnificence Catherine, it helps to first play Black Queen Catherine, as her more forgiving start will help you get more acquainted with France's other bonuses.


Any luxury resource in Magnificence Catherine's lands will yield an extra +2 culture when worked, if it is adjacent to a Theatre Square or Chateau improvement. As Chateaux require either an adjacent bonus or luxury resource anyway to be built anyway, that bonus isn't especially hard to meet later in the game. As adjacency bonuses for Theatre Squares largely relate to your district and wonder positioning anyway, you might as well make sure that you position Theatre Squares next to unboosted luxuries where possible.

It's not necessary to stack multiple Theatre Squares or a Theatre Square and a Chateau next to the same luxury - the bonus will never be higher than +2 culture. Instead, if all the luxuries you have in a city's range are already boosted, plan future Theatre Square/Chateau placement around wonders if possible.

Overall, this bonus is a small help in the civics tree, though soon enough Great Works and Theatre Square buildings will make a much larger part of your overall culture output. It's a small bonus - Magnificence Catherine's unique project makes a much bigger impact.




France already comes with bonus tourism from wonders and a tourism-yielding unique improvement, but the Court Festival project takes this one step further - at least, potentially. There's a lot of complications to the project which can make it tricky to use, but effective usage can bring France to a faster cultural victory than practically any other civ can manage.

You essentially have two different options on how to use this bonus:

• The low-risk, slow method - Use this project later in the game once you have a good Theatre Square and wonder infrastructure built. This game plays rather similarly to Black Queen Catherine, with a slower start but with faster tourism at the end.
  
• The high-risk, high-reward strategy - Accumulate lots of surplus luxuries early in the game and attempt to complete a lot of projects early on while the cost of district projects is still relatively cheap.

The rest of this leader section will detail both methods.


Every continent has a unique set of four luxuries. As such, a good way to maximise the number of surplus luxuries you have is to dominate a single continent. Thankfully, France has a unique unit very well-equipped for that purpose: the Garde Impériale.

To help unlock Garde Impériale units quickly, you'll want plenty of Campuses and Theatre Squares - and for that, you'll need a decent number of cities, so be prepared to train plenty of Settlers early on. Defence is also important as Magnificence Catherine is likely to be vulnerable to attacks early in the game, so don't be afraid to spend a few turns building up city walls or training new units.

After Writing and basic Builder technologies, your next goal on the technology tree will be Military Engineering. As well as revealing nitre (which you'll need for the Garde Imperiale unit), it allows you to build Trebuchets. Owning two Trebuchets can be used as an alternative to owning two Bombards to boost the Siege Tactics technology, which in turn is one of the prerequisites for Military Science (which unlocks the Garde Impériale unit).

Garde Impériale units are incredibly strong on their home continent, and by conquering other civs' cities there, you can earn yourself plenty of luxuries. Develop your Theatre Squares and build plenty of wonders for a tourism infrastructure, and you can round out the game by spamming the Court Festival project.


By owning enough cities, trading for enough luxuries and manipulating your research carefully, you can gain massive amounts of culture and tourism earlier than the game than most civs can manage. However, this strategy is a riskier one which leaves you vulnerable to more advanced foes.

The trick comes in manipulating the cost of city projects. City project cost scales to the proportion of the game's technologies or civics you've unlocked (whichever is higher). By not finishing technologies/civics for as long as possible, you can keep the costs of the project low and manageable.

Of course, this by itself is not enough - you'll still need plenty of luxuries and Theatre Squares early on. Be sure to train plenty of Settlers, look for city locations with lots of luxuries in range and be prepared to trade gold, diplomatic favours and/or strategic resources with other civs for even more luxuries.

This method is particularly effective if you are suzerain over the Hong Kong city-state, which offers a 20% production bonus towards city-projects. Furthermore. the classical-era Great Merchant Colaeus and the renaissance-era Great Admiral Ferdinand Magellan can generate you an extra copy of a luxury resource.


Overall, Magnificence Catherine takes France's already-strong cultural game and takes it even further, but is much more single-minded towards that goal than the other leaders. Few can win a culture game as fast - but few have such a vulnerable start.

It's a slow start, but once I have some more improved tiles, this city should get the wonder built at a reasonable rate.


France's civ ability is the core of the civ, encouraging you to seek a cultural victory by obtaining as many wonders as possible. Some wonders you should build yourself to take advantage of the 20% production boost in the medieval, renaissance and industrial eras, but others you can capture with help from the Garde Impériale UU or Eleanor's leader ability.

The amount of tourism wonders generate starts at 2 per turn, plus 1 per era beyond the era the wonder is first available. When the wonder is constructed doesn't matter, so if the Pyramids are constructed in the ancient era, they will generate the same amount of tourism in the information era as if it was only just constructed. France doubles this.


Every wonder built creates +3 era score, and another if it's of the current game era or later. This means a big emphasis upon building wonders can lead to quite a few Golden Ages! An atomic, information or future-era Golden Age lets you use the Wish You Were Here Golden Age dedication for an extra +50% boost to tourism in cities with governors. For Eleanor, Golden Ages are also useful for maximising your loyalty pressure on the cities of other civs.


As tempting as it may be, avoid focusing too heavily on wonder construction as soon as you can. Both leaders should focus on early expansion and basic infrastructure instead so you have a strong base for wonder construction, buildings with Great Works, training Spies and training military units later. Both personas of Catherine de' Medici should space cities apart so you have plenty of space for farms to help cities grow, mines for production and other tiles for wonders. Eleanor should keep cities close together to maximise her loyalty pressure.

If you intend to engage in Garde Impériale conquests (which should usually be the case for Black Queen Catherine), get Military Engineering as soon as you're done with key early technologies like Writing and Currency so you can see if you have nitre or not. If you have nitre, focus on the bottom part of the technology tree. It's fairly easy to beeline Military Science (where Garde Impériale units come available), and the Alhambra, Kilwa Kisiwani and Forbidden Palace wonders are on the way as well as Castles for Black Queen Catherine's free Spy. Stack most or all of your trade routes in one strong city and you can manage to build a wonder at a reasonable pace.

If you lack nitre or are playing as Eleanor, you can take a more relaxed approach to technologies, aiming for key wonders which will help you throughout the rest of the game.

On the civics tree, you have two government options to aim for after researching Political Philosophy and Drama and Poetry:

• The fast route - Aim to get Divine Right as soon as possible once Political Philosophy is done for the Gothic Architecture policy card (+15% production to wonders up to the renaissance era). Adopt the Monarchy government so you can get to work on the Intelligence Agency building and its Spy bonuses. All leaders will benefit from the extra Spy, as it can be used for Great Work Heists or defending against them.
  
• The slow route - Aim for Exploration first instead for the Merchant Republic government, and pick up Divine Right afterwards.

The slow route gives you a government that offers more appropriate bonuses, but will put you at a disadvantage when it comes to unlocking new wonders. The fast route gives you a bit more time to build wonders before Garde Impériale units are unlocked.

With your government sorted out, the Diplomatic Service civic will be useful for the extra Spy capacity while Humanism allows you to build Chateaux. Both those civics are needed for Nationalism (via The Enlightenment), which allows you to form corps and also unlocks the Grand Armee policy card, allowing you to train Garde Impériale units faster.

If you're aiming for Garde Impériale conquests, you'll end up in a tricky situation after researching Military Science as you'll have four different things to produce demanding your attention: Wonders, Spies, Garde Impériale units (along with siege support such as Bombards) and Builders to construct Chateaux with. Focus on Garde Impériale units at first until you have a decent army, then use your major cities for wonders while your mid-level cities get some Spies built. Builders can be purchased with gold, unlike wonders and Spies, so if you need any for Chateaux, just buy them.


If you're going for Garde Impériale conquests, your cities will generally be too tied up in production to be able to build many wonders. As such, you can work on the upper branch of the technology tree towards Industrialisation without much trouble. There, you'll have access to Factories for a welcome production boost, as well as a shot at the powerful Ruhr Valley wonder. You can follow that up with Flight. Both Astronomy and Scientific Theory along the way have good wonders (Potala Palace and Oxford University respectively) but more importantly, Flight will make your Chateaux start contributing towards tourism.

If you're not going for warfare, then aim to research the wonders you most want to build. Which specific wonders are best for France in the medieval-industrial eras are covered later on in this section. You'll still want to head to Flight reasonably soon for the tourism boost, however.

Beyond that, the sooner you can reach the latter eras, the more tourism your wonders will create. Beelining Telecommunications is a fast route to the Information era, while the bottom of the technology tree starting from the atomic-era technology Plastics offers potentially a fast route to the future era (though keep in mind future-era technology prerequisites are randomised and that might not work in every game).

There's plenty of wonders in the game to choose from, and knowing which ones to go for can be difficult. So, here's a list of all medieval, renaissance and industrial-era wonders in a rough chronological order and a description of how useful they are for France.


Requires the medieval-era Military Tactics technology.
Must be constructed on a lake tile adjacent to land.
+1 amenity for each lake tile adjacent to this wonder. All lake tiles in your empire receive +1 food and +1 production.

This is a rather terrain-dependent wonder. The bonus food and production from lakes is alright, but what really sells the wonder is the strong amenity boost. If you have a very big lake near you, consider going for it. If not, it's probably one to capture later.


Requires the medieval-era, Machinery technology.
Must be constructed on a land tile adjacent to coast.
Gain +3 envoys. This city gains +15% of the yield corresponding to each suzerain city-state. If you are suzerain of at least two of the same type, all your cities gain that +15% bonus.

A situationally-powerful wonder, which is most effective when there's at least two industrial city-states you can be suzerain over. It's on the way to Printing and Military Science and interacts well with the Monarchy government (which comes at the same civic as Gothic Architecture and its wonder production bonus). For Black Queen Catherine it neatly complements Spies' Fabricate Scandal mission, while for Eleanor it's a potentially strong source of culture, so you've got a good shot at getting a lot out of this wonder.


Requires the medieval-era Buttress technology.
Must be constructed on flat land adjacent to a Holy Site district, and you must have founded a religion.
+4 faith. Missionaries and Apostles can use their spread religion function one additional time.

This is a pretty competitive wonder and for a good reason - extra charges from Missionaries and Apostles is great for those seeking religious victory. France, however, generally isn't on that path. It's usually a wonder to pass up on.


Requires the medieval-era Castles technology.
Must be constructed on hills adjacent to an Encampment district.
+2 amenities, +1 Great General Points, +1 military policy card and provides the same defensive bonuses on its tile as a fort.

It allows you to get most of the military benefits of Monarchy while running the Merchant Republic government - great if you're taking the slower civic path but still want to put your Garde Impériale to good use, but is a good wonder to go for anyway due to its convienient placement on the technology tree.


Requires the medieval-era Civil Service civic.
Must be constructed adjacent to a Holy Site district, and you must have founded a religion.
+3 faith. Grants 2 Gurus. Gurus are 30% cheaper to purchase. Religious units adjacent to Gurus gain +1 movement and +5 strength.

A niche wonder that could be useful if you were playing a religious game with Black Queen Catherine, as the religious strength bonus pairs well with the strength boost from diplomatic visibility. But on the whole, it's a wonder to capture rather than build.


Requires the medieval-era Education technology.
Must be constructed adjacent to a Campus with a University.
+3 science, +1 faith and +2 Great Scientist Points. Domestic trade routes to this city grant +1 faith to this city. Foreign routes to this city grants them +1 science and +1 gold. Gain +2 science for every route to this city.

Not a bad boost to science, which can translate into more tourism later on by researching key technologies (or entering later eras) sooner. That being said, it incentivises sending routes from different cities to this one destination, as opposed to sending a lot of trade routes from the same city - given wonder-builders prefer the latter, you might not get as much from this wonder as you'd like.


Requires the medieval-era Medieval Faires civic.
Must be constructed adjacent to an Aqueduct.
+1 population in all currently owned cities and +1 housing in all owned cities.

It's on the way to Humanism, is only moderately competitive, and offers a reasonable bonus - extra population and housing in every city helps you prepare for building future wonders.


Requires the medieval-era Guilds civic.
Must be constructed on a rainforest tile.
+2 culture and +1 production for all rainforest tiles in this city.

A reasonably niche wonder, though boosted rainforest tiles can be pretty nice for getting you through the civics tree faster. Later on in the game, you may need to cut down some rainforest to maximise tile appeal. Not a high priority wonder to pick up, but not the worst around.


Requires the medieval-era Divine Right civic.
Must be constructed adjacent to a Holy Site with a Temple.
Gain four Warrior Monks corresponding to your founded religion, or your majority religion if you have not founded one, or the majority religion of this city if you meet neither of the other requirements.

Warrior Monks can offer a good defence prior to Garde Impériale units arriving, but without a founded religion of your own they might not quite achieve their full potential. It's also a pretty competitive wonder, and the need for a Holy Site with a Temple is quite a strict requirement for a non-religious civ.


Requires the medieval-era Divine Right civic.
Must be constructed on a floodplains or marsh tile.
+2 faith, +2 relic slots, all Apostles gain the Martyr promotion for free.

One of the less relevant wonders for Catherine's personas, but very effective for Eleanor of Aquitaine as it allows you a reliable source of relics. Relics are a kind of Great Work, and thus can lower the loyalty of nearby rival cities.

Requires the renaissance-era Cartography technology.
Must be constructed adjacent to a Government Plaza.
Gain +3 Governor promotions. Cities on foreign continents with Governors gain +15% gold, production and faith. +3 Great Merchant Points.

A bit of a mixed bag for France. Getting Governor promotions will be useful for making the most of the Wish You Were Here Golden Age dedication later in the game, and a production bonus is very welcome, but you often won't often have many cities beyond your home continent.


Requires the renaissance-era Mass Production technology.
Must be constructed on a coastal tile adjacent to an Industrial Zone district.
+2 Great Engineer Points, producing naval units in this city results in two units.

Great for water-heavy maps, and also is great against naval-focused civs - you can put up a defence against them faster, and you'll also deny them this wonder for themselves. Once you have the Cultural Heritage civic, consider covering up any shipwrecks in neutral land with spare naval units until your Archaeologists can get them.


Requires the renaissance-era Banking technology.
Must be constructed on a tile both adjacent to cattle and a Commercial Hub district with a Market.
+5 gold, +2 Great Merchant Points, +1 trade route capacity, trade routes from this city receive +2 gold for every bonus resource within this city's territory.

With some of the strictest adjacency requirements, this wonder can be pretty uncompetitive. That's rather nice if you're putting off Banking while beelining something else. The wonder's effect can be pretty powerful, and in a city with a lot of bonus resources, you can end up with masses of gold.


Requires the renaissance-era Printing technology.
Must be constructed on flat land adjacent to the city centre.
+5 culture, +1 wildcard policy slot.

Regardless of how you want to play, a wildcard policy slot is always good - especially if you're taking the faster civic route and hence the Monarchy government. Printing is on the way to Military Science, so you have a good shot at picking up this wonder.


Requires the renaissance-era Reformed Church civic.
Must be constructed adjacent to the city centre.
All tundra tiles in this city gain +1 food, +1 production and +1 culture. +100% religious tourism in the city. 3 relic slots.

France's lack of a religious emphasis makes it hard to make the most out of this wonder, though it nonetheless can be helpful raising the yields in a city near tundra to a standard competitive with the rest of your empire. For Eleanor, it's most effective if you also have Mont St. Michel (especially if it's in the same city) - that way, you can easily fill all the relic slots.


Requires the renaissance-era Astronomy technology.
Must be constructed on a hill adjacent to a mountain.
+2 culture, +3 faith, +1 diplomatic policy slot, +1 diplomatic victory point.

It's generally an inferior wonder compared to the Forbidden City, but it's still worthwhile - especially for Black Queen Catherine who'll be able to stack a Spy bonus with another diplomatic card.


Requires the renaissance-era Humanism civic.
Must be constructed adjacent to a river.
Historic moments worth at least 2 era score gain +1 more.

There are a lot of sources of era score, but the one most relevant for France is the +3 or +4 you get every time you construct a wonder. The Taj Mahal makes it easier to secure those all-important late-game Golden Ages for the Wish You Were Here dedication bonus, and neatly comes at the same civic as Chateaux! That makes it one of the best wonders of its era for France. For Eleanor specifically, it's a hugely helpful wonder due to the loyalty pressure boost from Golden Ages.


Requires the renaissance-era Mercantilism civic.
Must be constructed on a coastal tile (not a lake) adjacent to a Harbour.
+5 gold and +1 Great Admiral Point per turn. International trade routes from this city receive +2 gold for every luxury resource at the destination. When completed, all cities not on your home continent receive a copy of the cheapest building they can construct.

Hard to use well as France as you're unlikely to have that many cities outside your home continent. The gold bonus can potentially rival Great Zimbabwe if you can find a trading partner with a lot of luxuries in a city, but ultimately this is a lower-priority wonder.

Requires the industrial-era Industrialisation technology.
Must be constructed adjacent to a river as well as an Industrial Zone containing a Factory.
+20% production for this city, and +1 production for every mine and quarry in this city.

A powerful wonder that will help you construct further wonders more effectively in the same city. Trouble is, this wonder is competitive and at the other side of the technology tree to Garde Impériale units.


Requires the industrial-era Scientific Theory technology.
Must be constructed on flat grassland or plains adjacent to a Campus district with a University.
+3 Great Scientist Points, +2 Great Work of Writing slots, +20% science in this city, and gain two random technologies.

Scientific Theory is on the way to Flight, Radio and other useful technologies at the top of the technology tree, so you've got a decent shot at this rather effective wonder. Two random technologies for free could be strong or relatively weak, but either way it saves you some time researching, and the science boost is helpful for getting to later eras sooner.


Requires the industrial-era Civil Engineering civic.
Must be constructed on a coastal tile adjacent to both land an a Harbour district.
Grants +4 diplomatic victory points. All cities within 6 tiles are always 100% loyal.

If you can build it near the border of another civ that shares your continent it can make Garde Impériale conquests easier - though generally this wonder arrives too late for that to be worthwhile. As such, you'll mostly be building this for the tourism, if you build it at all.

However, for Eleanor this wonder is important to build as it denies other civs the chance, allowing you to flip their cities.


Requires the industrial-era Opera and Ballet civic.
Must be constructed on flat land adjacent to a Theatre Square district.
+2 Great Writer Points, +2 Great Musician Points, +1 Great Work of Writing slot, +1 Great Work of Music slot, gain two random civics.

A reasonable wonder for cultural victories, and its placement on the civics tree makes it uncompetitive. Gaining two random civics should make up for the small detour on the civics tree (though be sure to fill out less useful dead-end civics like Naval Tradition first), while additional Great Writer and Musician points is nice to have around.

For Catherine's personas, there's certainly better options around, but it's a wonder one of your mid-sized cities can work on without too much risk of losing it.

For Eleanor, two free civics can really help cut down time needed to research Cold War., while the extra Great Work slots may help with putting extra pressure on other civs' cities.


Requires the industrial-era Steam Power technology.
Must be constructed on a flat land tile between two valid canal spots, cities, coastal water or lakes.
Acts as a canal. Automatically completes adjacent canals when finished. +10 gold.

A strategic wonder which varies in usefulness depending on your specific map. Slightly easier for Eleanor to build as her cities tend to be closer together. Generally not a high priority as France isn't a naval power, but certainly useful if it enables things like connecting an inland sea to the ocean.


Requires the industrial-era Sanitation technology.
Must be constructed adjacent to a river.
+4 culture. Being suzerain over city-states grants +100% diplomatic favour.

A very valuable wonder for diplomatic civs, so grabbing it for yourself might be good if you want to slow down their route to victory. But its technology tree placement is a bit out of the way, so consider carefully if you can spare the production.


Requires the industrial-era Economics technology.
Must be constructed adjacent to a river as well as a Commercial Hub with a Bank.
+6 gold, +3 Great Merchant Points, +1 economic policy slot, increases current treasury by 50%.

The wonder is moderately competitive. When you're building it, try to avoid spending any gold as all the gold you'll have accumulated in that time will be increased by 50% once the wonder's complete. That money will be useful for buying things like Builders, cultural buildings and Archaeologists. More importantly, you'll gain an economic policy card, which helps give you more flexibility in regards to which bonuses you can choose from.


Requires the industrial-era Natural History civic.
Must be constructed adjacent to a river and not on desert or tundra.
+3 Great Artist Points, +4 Great Work of Art slots.

Gives you somewhere to store Great Art if you're out of spaces, but importantly for Eleanor of Aquitaine specifically, it's tied for the highest number of Great Work slots in a single building. When full, all rival cities within 9 tiles will lose 4 loyalty a turn.


The easiest part of France's civ ability is the mechanics. Bonus production for certain wonders and bonus tourism for all wonders is straightforward. However, the placement of the Gothic Architecture economic policy card, the Chateaux improvement and the Garde Impériale UU complicates France's research paths in the exact time this bonus is the most relevant. You can still secure plenty of wonders, but remember that you can get a lot out of other bonuses, too.

If France's civ ability wasn't enough tourism for you, Chateaux take that even further. Offering a decent sum of culture when adjacent to a wonder, they'll provide even more alongside quite a lot of tourism with Flight - and yet more tourism with Computers and Environmentalism.

The catch, however, is in their tricky placement requirements. Chateaux have to be next to a bonus or luxury resource, and it can be difficult to have both that and wonder adjacency. Catherine (both personas) may want to spread out her cities in order to maximise the number of potential Chateaux spots. Eleanor should keep her cities close together, so she'll just have to work with what she can get in regards to Chateau locations.

Garde Impériale conquests and/or city-flipping will also help with this - capturing wonders from other civs means your wonders will be spread out among a large number of cities, also giving you more free space for squeezing in Chateaux.

Black Queen Catherine usually should only construct Chateaux adjacent to wonders (preferably multiple) and not work too many due to their lack of food or production yields. Generally, smaller cities should be on Chateaux duty while larger cities should dedicate their citizens to production and food to help with wonder construction. Switch tiles between cities so lesser cities can access Chateaux adjacent to the wonders of better cities. A good culture output will help you get to Nationalism sooner, allowing you access to the Grand Armeé policy card (boosting Garde Impériale production) as well as the ability to form corps.

Eleanor, however, needs all the culture she can get considering how critical the Cold War and Cultural Hegemony civics are to her game, so feel free to build a lot of Chateaux in sub-optimal locations.

Magnificence Catherine should have a Chateau adjacent to any workable luxury resource that doesn't have an adjacent Theatre Square. However, the need to maximise production for Court Festival projects can discourage directly working too many.

Placing Chateaux adjacent to a river grants +2 gold, but this is a small bonus and largely only a complement to the more important culture yield. As such, you don't really need to concern yourself with that bonus too much.

In addition to culture, tourism and gold, Chateaux also create appeal in adjacent tiles. This can be useful for maximising the housing in Neighbourhoods as well as the tourism in National Parks and Seaside Resorts.

With the Flight technology, feel free to spam Chateaux anywhere you can. Even if you're not working them, you can get tourism out of them. With Flight, the culture yield from wonder adjacency also doubles, so any city with a lot of wonders can make particularly lucrative yields.


For Black Queen and Magnificence Catherine, Chateaux are complementary sources of culture and tourism to be used in small quantities where their yields are strongest - at least until the Flight technology, where they can be spammed for tourism.

For Eleanor, it's worth spamming Chateaux anyway to aid on the way to the Cold War and Cultural Hegemony civics.

It looks like a defensive unit, it sounds like a defensive unit, and it's very good at defence, but the Garde Impériale is more versatile than that - and can really help you secure your home continent.


Before we go further, it's important to note that the role of the Garde Impériale differs between France's three leaders.

Black Queen Catherine has great potential for aggressive expansion with the help from Garde Impériale units. Going on the warpath might seem strange for a civ which has a wonder construction bonus at the same time, but successful conquests of wonders and other civs' lands can do far more for you than sitting back and spending all the time building your own wonders will.


As Garde Impériale units are strongest on your home continent, you'll want to check ahead of time who's present there. You can usually find 1-2 other civs sharing your home continent in a given game. Make sure you don't befriend or ally the civ(s) too soon before you intend to start a war, as it'll leave you with no good targets.

Eleanor lacks bonuses to complement the strength of Garde Impériale units the way Catherine does, and her trickier early-game means she can't really afford to dedicate so many resources into warfare. While she can use Garde Impériale units offensively in a similar way to Catherine, you may find it better to dedicate more resources to building up your Great Work slot capacity and GWAM generation instead rather than leaning too heavily on warfare. Still, Garde Impériale are great in defence, like when other civs start a war with you to stop your Rock Bands.

Magnificence Catherine can use Garde Impériale units to help secure her home continent and its many duplicate luxuries, in addition to wonders and all their extra tourism. As such, while she can't conquer as well as Black Queen Catherine, she gets more out of those conquests.


Garde Impériale units are unlocked at the industrial-era Military Science technology. They replace the Line Infantry, meaning you can upgrade earlier melee infantry units into it, but there's a catch - to do so, you need Gunpowder, which is not a prerequisite of Military Science. As such, consider carefully if you want to train Garde Impériale units from scratch, or spend more time researching in exchange for being able to immediately upgrade old units into them.


Black Queen Catherine's unique advantages can beautifully complement the Garde Impériale for some powerful industrial-era warfare, exploiting the strength bonus from diplomatic visibility.

Firstly, Military Science (which unlocks the Garde Impériale unit) is easy to beeline, giving you a substantial strength advantage to begin with. Be sure to research Military Engineering before you commit to an all-out Military Science beeline so you're sure you actually have nitre! Build plenty of Campuses throughout your empire as well to ensure you can research at a decent rate.

Secondly, Printing, which provides a +1 diplomatic visibility bonus, is on the way to Military Science. Because it's not an essential technology for many civs, there's a good chance your nearest neighbour won't have it by the time you initiate a war against them, giving you a +1 diplomatic visibility advantage.

Thirdly, Castles, which provides your first Spy, is on the way to Military Science as well. Complete an offensive mission to gain a promotion level (e.g. Siphon Funds due to its relatively high rate of success) and then they'll provide +2 diplomatic visibility from a Listening Post mission rather than the usual +1.

This can produce the potential for an enormous strength advantage. With an enhanced Listening Post, Black Queen Catherine's visibility boost and the bonus from Printing, you could get as much as a +12 strength bonus! Even if the target civ has Printing, a +9 advantage is still massive. Garde Impériale units on your home continent are already 25 points stronger than Musketmen (the strongest pre-industrial land unit) so the extra boost on top will make you virtually unstoppable.


The high strength advantage of the Garde Impériale means they can handle pre-modern era corps and armies effectively. Considering you get +1 era score every time you kill a corps or army with a unit, it can be a nice little complement to your era score from wonder construction.

Garde Impériale units alone will struggle against well-defended cities, so be sure to research Metal Casting so you can bring along some Bombards.

As the war rages on, you should be able to earn a Great General through killing enemies with Garde Impériale units. This means you don't need to invest heavily in Encampments, freeing up district capacity for things like Theatre Squares or Holy Sites to complement your cultural aims.

Your goal will be to march through your home continent, taking every city with a wonder you can. It's true that you'll ruin your relations with other civs in the process and maybe trigger an emergency or two, but that doesn't really matter too much if your defences are up to scratch. You'll get lots of tourism directly from the wonders, and more in potential Chateau spots.

Once you have your home continent secured, that's a good time to stop and consolidate your conquests.

Eleanor's slower start and lack of diplomatic visibility bonuses makes her less effective at using Garde Impériale units relative to Black Queen Catherine, but there's still some options available to you.

Defensively, Garde Impériale units can stand up to any pre-atomic era threat and can be an affordable defensive option later in the game even when their strength bonus isn't so impressive.

Still, you do have offensive options as well. You can try sniping key cities with a lot of Great Work slots with your Garde Impériale units, followed by filling those slots with Great Works to start flipping other enemy cities. This allows you to speed up your city flipping-based expansion without incurring too harsh diplomatic penalties.

Garde Impériale units also come in handy if Phoenicia's capital is on your starting continent (their coastal cities on their continent their capital is in is immune to loyalty pressure) or an enemy civ has the Statue of Liberty wonder (which makes nearby cities immune to loyalty pressure).


If you have the Replaceable Parts technology and at least 1 oil resource in your stockpile, you will no longer be able to train Garde Impériale units - despite the fact Garde Impériale units on your home continent are five points stronger than the Infantry they upgrade into!

Outside of deliberately selling off your oil reserves, removing all your oil well/offshore oil rig improvements or relying so much on Oil Power Plants you run out of oil resources, the best way to ensure you can continue training Garde Impériale units is simply to hold off researching Replaceable Parts.

The information-era Satellites technology unlocks Mechanised Infantry, and also entirely locks you out of training Garde Impériale units regardless of your strategic resources. On your home continent, Mechanised Infantry are 5 points stronger than Garde Impériale units but cost considerably more to train (650 instead of 360 production) and maintain (8 gold and 1 oil per turn, versus just 5 gold). By using a defensive bonus like the Global Coalition wildcard (requires the future-era Smart Power Doctrine civic), Garde Impériale can remain useful until Giant Death Robots appear.

• For Black Queen Catherine or Magnificence Catherine:
  
  • If Military Engineering has revealed nitre near you, try to get Military Science as soon as possible to get a head start training Garde Impériale units.
    
  • Bring along some Bombards to help deal with cities.
    
  • Try to capture every wonder on your home continent.
• For Eleanor:
  
  • Garde Impériale units are largely used defensively, but careful use can massively speed up your city flipping without too harsh a diplomatic cost.

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.



Classical Republic is a reliably good choice. A good selection of policy card slots, the helpful amenity bonus and also extra Great Person Points. Autocracy comes with a wonder-construction bonus and can make your Government Plaza city into a great place to start building them.

Bigger cities are more capable of building wonders, so get the Audience Chamber government building as your first choice as Black Queen Catherine. Eleanor might want to take the Ancestral Hall to help with setting up a lot of cities in a small area, and Magnificence Catherine will benefit greatly from having lots of early cities for extra Theatre Squares.


Merchant Republic seems an obvious choice due to its high number of economic policy cards complementing a wonder-building playstyle, but you can save a lot of crucial time getting to key civics if you just take Monarchy instead.

You'll obviously want the Intelligence Agency to complement Black Queen Catherine's Spy bonuses. The other leaders should also go for it as it helps with Great Work Heists or defending against enemy Spies doing that.


Both Communism and Democracy can be useful. Communism has a bigger production bonus, but Democracy has a better array of policy cards when you're not at war.

Take the National History Museum as your tier three Government Plaza building so you have plenty of capacity for Great Works.


Digital Democracy helps you get to the useful Cultural Hegemony civic sooner, while the amenities help with supporting larger cities, though at the cost of unit strength. If you're still engaging in warfare, or have remaining wonders to build, Corporate Libertarianism's production bonus may be more helpful. Despite the tourism penalty, Magnificence Catherine might want to take Synthetic Technocracy to significantly speed up Court Festival projects.

(Eleanor) Limitanei (Military, requires Early Empire) - Just because you have enough loyalty pressure to flip a city doesn't mean you have enough loyalty to keep it from becoming a free city after you take it. Once you start flipping cities, consider picking up loyalty bonuses like this one to help.


(Eleanor) Literary Tradition (Wildcard, requires Drama and Poetry) - Generating more Great Writers means Eleanor's leader ability can make a bigger impact sooner.

(Eleanor) Praetorium (Diplomatic, requires Recorded History) - Like Limitanei, you don't need this policy card right away, but it might be helpful later once you start flipping cities.

(Eleanor) Scripture (Economic, requires Theology) - Maximising your faith output will be important later in the game when you're creating Rock Bands. You don't need this policy card until near that time, however.


Aesthetics (Economic, requires Medieval Faires) - Wonder construction can lead to some impressive Theatre Square adjacency bonuses - you can build on them further with this policy card.

Gothic Architecture (Economic, requires Divine Right) - With this, you'll have an impressive 35% production bonus for wonders up to and including the renaissance era.

Serfdom (Economic, requires Feudalism) - Extra Builder charges helps you develop cities quickly, which is important for making them ready to build wonders. It also means you can afford to construct Chateaux without much trouble, and redevelop cities captured by Garde Impériale units or flipped via Eleanor's leader ability.


(Eleanor) Colonial Offices (Diplomatic, requires Exploration) - Useful if you've started flipping cities on foreign continents and want to hold onto them.

(Eleanor) Frescoes (Wildcard, requires Humanism) - Helps you generate more Great Artists, though the point contribution is low. Consider carefully if it's worth dedicating a wildcard to this policy.

(Black Queen Catherine) Machiavellianism (Diplomatic, requires Diplomatic Service) - The production bonus to Spies makes this policy a must, and taking two turns off Spy operation times (four for the Fabricate Scandal mission) makes Spies considerably more effective.

(Eleanor) Simultaneum (Economic, requires Reformed Church) - Useful later on when you need faith for Rock Bands.


Grand Armee (Military, requires Nationalism) - Allows you to train Garde Impériale units faster.

Grand Opera (Economic, requires Opera and Ballet) - Bigger cities are better at building wonders, and building wonders boosts Theatre Square adjacency significantly. As such, it's easy for France to make the most of this policy card.

Native Conquest (Military, requires Colonialism) - If you've beelined Military Science reasonably well, you'll usually be fighting armies of earlier eras with Garde Impériale units. The gold you can earn is a good way to pay for their maintenance.

Skyscrapers (Economic, requires Civil Engineering) - You'll have a useful 35% production bonus towards medieval, renaissance and industrial-era wonders with this policy card, and 15% for the small number of post-industrial wonders, or any pre-medieval wonders that never got built.

(Eleanor) Symphonies (Wildcard, requires Opera and Ballet) - +4 Great Musician Points per turn.


Collectivisation (Economic, Communism only, requires Class Struggle) - Great for producing strong cities that can build remaining wonders - or bigger cities that give off more loyalty pressure.

New Deal (Economic, Democracy only, requires Suffrage) - Another option that helps grow larger cities effectively.

(Black Queen Catherine) Nuclear Espionage (Diplomatic, requires Nuclear Programme) - Need to catch up on technology? Pick up this policy card, send Spies to other civs' Campuses and enjoy double the usual number of eureka boosts.


(Black Queen Catherine) Cryptography (Diplomatic, requires Cold War) - Take this with Machiavellianism and enjoy very powerful Spies.

Heritage Tourism (Economic, requires Cultural Heritage) - Useful to either leader in general, but especially useful for Eleanor due to her incentive to collect a lot of Great Works of Art and artefacts.

Military First (Military, requires Rapid Deployment) - As with Grand Armee, allows you to train Garde Impériale units faster.

Satellite Broadcasts (Economic, requires Space Race) - Triples tourism from Great Works of Music - particularly useful for Eleanor.


(Eleanor) Collective Activism (Diplomatic, requires Social Media) - Even a relatively small culture boost helps you get to the all-important Cultural Hegemony civic for the Hallyu wildcard.

(Eleanor) Communications Office (Diplomatic, requires Social Media) - A handy loyalty boost to help you hold onto more precarious cities.


(Eleanor) Hallyu (Wildcard, requires Cultural Hegemony) - With this, all your Rock Bands can get the Indie promotion and start flipping cities with ease. Still, it's recommended to take a promotion that boosts the Rock Bands' ability to perform first, and take Indie as a second promotion so they have a much better chance of surviving each performance.

(Black Queen Catherine) Non-State Actors (Wildcard, requires Cultural Hegemony) - Pick up this wildcard and you're completely free to choose Spy promotions. Try Disguise + Linguist + Rocket Scientist to make it a lot easier to deal with enemy scientific civs.

Isolationism (Dark Age, Classical to Industrial eras) - Once you're done settling cities, this policy card's only downside is that it requires a wildcard slot. Getting +2 production and food from every internal trade route means you can stack a lot in a city, and watch it both grow quickly and build wonders much faster.

(Eleanor) Monasticism (Dark Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - Slipping into an early Dark Age reduces the cost of future Golden Ages, and more importantly enables this powerful science boost. While it does require you spend some production on Holy Sites, the science advantage makes up for that - and you'll be able to use the faith infrastructure later for buying Rock Bands.

(Eleanor) Pen, Brush and Voice (Dedication, Classical to Medieval eras) - Eleanor will want to develop a lot of Theatre Squares, making this a decent source of era score.

(Eleanor) Pen, Brush and Voice (Golden Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - The potentially huge culture boost will really help you on the way to key civics like Humanism sooner, letting you get to the interesting parts of Eleanor's game sooner.

Elite Forces (Dark Age, Industrial to Information eras) - Due to the cost of Garde Impériale units, you'll probably want them in relatively small numbers - keeping down the cost of this Dark Age wildcard. Gaining experience twice as fast will help them get to key promotions reducing their incoming damage, increasing their damage output and adding extra movement speed, helping you conquer faster.

To Arms! (Dedication, Industrial to Information eras) - By the time this dedication can be picked, you should have some Garde Impériale units, and other civs should have some corps and armies they can fight for era score.

Heartbeat of Steam (Golden Age, Industrial to Atomic eras) - Helps you build industrial-era wonders even faster, especially thanks to the way it makes Campuses add their science yield to production.

(Black Queen Catherine) Bodyguard of Lies (Dedication, Atomic to Future eras) - Catherine's extra Spy makes this a reasonable source of era score in the atomic era.

(Black Queen Catherine) Bodyguard of Lies (Golden Age, Atomic to Future eras) - Spies can get to new cities much faster, and their operations will take two fewer turns (four for the Fabricate Scandal mission). Combined with Machiavellianism, this lets you squeeze in roughly twice as much sabotage, Great Work thefts and so on.

(Eleanor) Flower Power (Dark Age, Atomic to Future eras) - If you're using Rock Bands extensively, you might as well get more tourism out of it.

(Eleanor) Wish You Were Here (Dedication, Atomic to Future eras) - Eleanor's incentive to have a lot of artefacts makes this a potentially decent source of era score.

Wish You Were Here (Golden Age, Atomic to Future eras) - A must-have Golden Age dedication bonus for France, it boosts the tourism of all world wonders in cities with Governors present by 50%.

(Magnificence Catherine) Automated Workforce (Dark Age, Information to Future eras) - Speeds up production of Court Festival projects, at the cost of amenities and loyalty.


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.

(Black Queen Catherine) Espionage Pact - Effect A (Spies executing the chosen operation function 2 levels higher) on an action you intend to carry out a lot.

Making your strong Spies even better is an obvious choice to make.

(Eleanor) Espionage Pact - Effect B (The chosen Spy operation is unavailable) on Great Work Heist.

Ensures you won't lose your loyalty pressure to enemy Spies.

(Eleanor) Governance Doctrine - Effect B (All active Governors of the specified type are neutralized for 6 turns) on Governor Victor (the Castellan)

Victor's ability to add a lot of loyalty can be quite a roadblock to your city-flipping.

(Eleanor) Heritage Organisation - Effect A (Tourism from Great Works of this type is doubled) on whichever Great Work type you have the most of.

While useful for either leader, it's especially relevant for Eleanor given her incentive to create a lot of Great Works.

(Magnificence Catherine) Luxury Policy - Effect A (Duplicates of the chosen Luxury resource grant duplicate amenities) on whichever luxury you have the most copies of.

Due to the way the World Congress works, if enough people vote for Effect B, the resolution might backfire on you and cause you to gain no amenities from the luxury - however, as it now makes the luxury worthless to other civs, it might be easy to trade for more! And of course, if the resolution passes as intended, you'll get lots of bonus amenities.

(Eleanor) Migration Treaty - Effect A (+20% faster population growth but -5 loyalty per turn in this player's cities) on a neighbouring civ

So long as the cities don't grow so fast that they create a lot more domestic loyalty pressure, this is definitely a good resolution to pass as it makes it a lot easier for you to flip your neighbour's cities.

(Eleanor) Nobel Prize in Literature - Vote in favour if you have the highest generation of Great Writers, Artists and Musicians

Winning this scored competition permanently lowers the price of future Rock Bands.

(Eleanor) Patronage - Effect A (Earn double points towards Great People of this class) on Great Writers, Artists or Musicians

Helps you generate a lot more Great Works.

(Eleanor) Public Works Programme - Effect A (+100% production towards this project) on Holy Site Prayers if you are close to the Cold War civic or have already unlocked it.

This gives your cities an effective use for spare production, helping you generate more Rock Bands.

(Eleanor) Urban Development Treaty - Effect A (+100% production towards buildings in this district) on Theatre Squares

Helps rapidly develop Theatre Squares - particularly in weaker border cities.

Relevant food or production pantheons will be useful for getting cities ready to construct wonders, but which specific one is best depends on your starting location.

(Magnificence Catherine) City Patron Goddess - A great help if you want to set up a lot of Theatre Squares early in the game so you can start using the Court Festival project.

(Eleanor/Magnificence Catherine) Divine Spark - For Eleanor, this helps you on your way to your first few Great Writers. For Magnificence Catherine, it helps you get more out of the many Theatre Squares you're encouraged to build.

Earth Goddess - Chateaux add appeal to adjacent tiles, which makes it easier to generate faith out of this pantheon. You can then use the faith for things like purchasing Rock Bands.

Fertility Rites - Having your cities grow faster will still be helpful for making them ready to build wonders sooner. The bonus Builder is nice to have around as well.

(Eleanor/Magnificence Catherine) Goddess of Festivals - For Magnificence Catherine, many luxury resources are improved by plantations, so being able to stack culture yields in one place is very useful. For Eleanor, any source of culture is great as maximising culture gain is key to her game.

God of Healing - Even if you never build a Holy Site, Garde Impériale conquests might result in you having a few. The healing bonus on offer here helps them recover faster, ensuring your wars are more effective.

(Eleanor) God of the Open Sky - Maximising culture gain is really important to Eleanor's game, and this pantheon can really help.

Religious Settlements - Great for speeding up your start given France (especially under Eleanor and Magnificence Catherine) lacks early economic advantages.

(Magnificence Catherine) Religious Idols - Get bonus faith from your luxury good mines.


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

(Eleanor) Cathedral (Worship) - An extra Great Work slot potentially in every city, really helping to enhance Eleanor's leader ability. Because founding your own religion can be a bit too risky, try to get another civ's religion with this belief spread to your lands.

(Eleanor) Choral Music (Follower) - An excellent complement to the Cathedral worship belief as it makes your Holy Sites a strong source of culture, helping you get to key civics like Cold War faster.

Defender of the Faith (Enhancer) - Your homelands will be extremely secure with this belief and the Garde Impériale unit. They'll fight at 85 strength in your lands on your home continent, and potentially even higher with help from Black Queen Catherine's leader ability.

Divine Inspiration (Follower) - Lots of wonders means lots of tourism. With this belief, it also means lots of faith, which can be fed back into tourism via Rock Bands.

Meeting House (Worship) - Every bit of production helps when constructing wonders.

(Eleanor) Reliquaries (Follower) - If you have the Mont St. Michel wonder, you'll be able to generate plenty of relics. With this belief, they'll generate enough faith to pay for themselves while also outputting a lot of tourism on top.

Sacred Places (Founder) - Building wonders in various cities can result in some decent yields from this belief.


Akkad (Militaristic) - Removes the need to bring siege support in Garde Impériale wars, which can make them even more effective as you can launch them sooner.

(Eleanor) Anshan (Scientific) - Get some science out of your Great Works of Writing, relics and artefacts! That means less need to build Campuses, and more production spare for developing Theatre Squares and Holy Sites.

(Eleanor) Antananarivo (Cultural) - A really helpful boost to culture which rewards you for something you should be doing anyway (generating GWAMs).

(Eleanor) Armagh (Religious) - Late in the game, you'll want to maximise your faith output so you can keep purchasing Rock Bands. The special Monastery improvement will help with that.

(Eleanor) Ayutthaya (Cultural) - Developing Theatre Squares takes plenty of production so this city-state can be a good supplementary source of culture.

(Eleanor/Magnificence Catherine) Bologna (Scientific) - Can really help you generate GWAMs. For Magnificence Catherine, the incentive to have a lot of Theatre Squares can pay off here.

Brussels (Industrial) - Hold onto this bonus and you'll have a 35% production bonus to medieval, renaissance and industrial era wonders. Add Gothic Architecture (up to renaissance era wonders) or Skyscrapers for an impressive 50% bonus. Be sure to use a Spy to keep spamming the Fabricate Scandal mission in Brussels so other civs won't rob you of your suzerain status.

Granada (Militaristic) - The special Alcázar improvement adds science based on the appeal of its tile. Adjacent to a Chateau, that can be quite an effective yield.

Hattusa (Scientific) - If you're suzerain over Hattusa, you can reliably train Garde Impériale units even if you lack nitre in your lands.

(Magnificence Catherine) Hong Kong (Industrial) - Faster city project production extends to the unique Court Festival project.

(Eleanor) Kandy (Religious) - An alternative source of relics - particularly useful early on when you're still exploring your starting area.

(Eleanor) La Venta (Religious) - Colossal Head improvements are a source of faith; useful later on when you're buying Rock Bands.

(Eleanor) Nan Madol (Cultural) - A complementary source of culture that should help with getting to key civics sooner.

(Eleanor) Nazca (Religious) - A source of faith for late-game Rock Band purchasing.

Palenque (Scientific) - Faster city growth for cities with a Campus is really helpful early in the game when you're trying to grow cities ready to construct wonders.

Vilnius (Cultural) - So long as you're allied with a civ, you can get some really strong Theatre Square culture yields, building on the already good adjacency yields your wonders will add.

Wolin (Militaristic) - Builds upon the existing Great General Points-on-kill attribute of Garde Impériale units.

(Eleanor) Yerevan (Religious) - Allows you to reliably take the Martyr promotion and generate lots of relics.

All wonders from the medieval, renaissance and industrial eras are covered in the second and third parts of the section on France's civ ability.

For France generally, the best wonders are the Alhambra, Forbidden City, Potala Palace, Ruhr Valley, Taj Mahal, and Kilwa Kisiwani if there's at least two industrial or cultural city-states in the game. Angkor Wat and Big Ben are also good, but have less synergy with France's typical playstyle. The Bolshoi Theatre, the Hermitage and Oxford University are alright wonders if you can spare the production for them for Catherine's personas, but potentially very useful for Eleanor.

Furthermore, all early wonders are useful to France due to their high tourism contribution. Generally, you should be capturing those rather than directly building them. Ones with particular synergy with France's uniques are listed below.

Great Bath (Ancient era, Pottery technology) - Too competitive to worth risking early on, but whichever city you take it from will have great potential for building future wonders.

Hanging Gardens (Ancient era, Irrigation technology) - As much as this wonder's cheap cost can make it tempting, there's no shame in waiting to capture it later. The growth bonus is helpful when you're trying to develop cities to build further wonders, and +2 housing really helps grow a city.

(Eleanor) Oracle (Ancient era, Mysticism civic) - Can be a great boost to early GWAM points, and get you producing Great Works sooner.

Temple of Artemis (Ancient era, Archery technology) - Creates one powerful early city if you can supply enough food to fill the housing capacity, ready to get through lots of mid-game wonders.

Apadana (Classical era, Political Philosophy civic) - If you have an especially strong city that can build multiple wonders, you can get a lot out of the Apadana. Use the envoys to unlock 3 and 6-envoy bonuses from industrial city-states, and it'll be easier to construct future wonders. Also has two Great Work slots - excellent for Eleanor.

(Eleanor) Colosseum (Classical era, Games and Recreation civic) - Building the Colosseum denies other civs the opportunity to use its loyalty bonus against you.

(Eleanor) Great Library (Classical era, Recorded History civic) - Has two slots for Great Works of Writing.

Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (Classical era, Defensive Tactics civic) - Getting an extra charge from Great Engineers is particularly helpful for those which offer production boosts to wonders.

(Eleanor) Terracotta Army (Classical era, Construction technology) - The ability to cross borders with Archaeologists even without the Open Borders arrangement is useful for getting more artefacts.

(Eleanor) Broadway (Modern era, Mass Media civic) - Really helps you get and store more Great Works.

Cristo Redentor (Modern era, Mass Media civic) - Well-positioned Chateaux can make some strong Seaside Resorts (though, admittedly, so can second-growth woodlands, but they don't offer tourism in their own right, and city parks, though they can't be placed adjacent to each other). Cristo Redentor makes those Seaside Resorts doubly effective, while also making any sources of religious tourism you may have captured or acquired otherwise more effective.

Eiffel Tower (Modern era, Steel technology) - Chateaux add appeal. So does the Eiffel Tower. High appeal makes strong National Parks and Seaside Resorts, which in turn increases your tourism output.

Golden Gate Bridge (Modern era, Combustion technology) - Doubles Chateau tourism for its city, and also adds lots of appeal. In conjunction with the appeal Chateaux already offer, you could create some strong seaside resorts or National Parks.

(Eleanor) Sydney Opera House (Atomic era, Cultural Heritage civic) - The last wonder to offer Great Work slots.

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.


(Magnificence Catherine) Colaeus (Great Merchant) - Gives you an extra luxury. Use them on a copy of a luxury you already have improved to add to your total of surplus luxuries.

(Eleanor) Sun Tzu (Great General) - Produces a bonus Great Work of Writing.


Bi Sheng (Great Engineer) - Allows you to get Printing's Eureka without having to take a detour to Education, cutting the amount of time before you can reach Garde Impériale units.

Imhotep (Great Engineer) - Earlier wonders are worth more tourism, so rushing one can be rather useful for France's tourism plans.

Isidore of Miletus (Great Engineer) - Among the earliest Great Engineers to offer two one-off boosts to wonder construction. Note that your percentage-based wonder multipliers will increase the production you get from this Great Person!

(Eleanor) Omar Khayyam (Great Scientist) - Offers an inspiration boost to help you on your way to key civics.


(Magnificence Catherine) Ferdinand Magellan (Great Admiral) - An extra copy of a luxury, which can mean an extra surplus luxury for the Court Festival project.

Filippo Brunelleschi (Great Engineer) - Offers two one-off boosts to wonder construction.

(Eleanor) Giovanni de Medici (Great Merchant) - Ironically more useful for Eleanor than either of Catherine de' Medici's personas. Use this Great Person in a border city so when Great Works are moved in they have the maximum impact on rival civs.

(Eleanor) Leonardo da Vinci (Great Engineer) - Potentially a decent complementary source of culture.


James Watt (Great Engineer) - Because you'll be typically heading to Military Science before Industrialisation, you may be a bit late to factories. James Watt doesn't care if you have Industrialisation or not - he'll still build an enhanced Factory ensuring you can still construct wonders and units at a decent pace.

Gustave Eiffel (Great Engineer) - Offers two one-off boosts to wonder construction.

Napoleon Bonaparte (Great General) - Aside from making his own soldiers stronger via his passive bonus, Napoleon can create an early army with a unit. A Garde Impériale army has 97 strength on their own continent (keep around another renaissance/industrial Great General to get up to 102, plus Black Queen Catherine's visibility bonus for 105 or possibly more) and will typically kill Curiassier units in a single hit!


Alvar Aalto (Great Engineer) - Extra appeal for a city complements the appeal boost of Chateaux.

(Black Queen Catherine) Mary Katherine Goddard (Great Merchant) - With the Printing technology, you now have the penultimate level of diplomatic access with all civs as a baseline. You can reach Top Secret level with just an embassy, a trade route or a Spy using the Listening Post mission - the last of which works even in war-time. It also helps you with warfare by guaranteeing you another +3 strength bonus over your opponents. With Black Queen Catherine's ability and the Listening Post mission, getting a +9 strength bonus on other civs isn't too hard.

Nikola Tesla (Great Engineer) - More production is very useful considering how Spies, Garde Impériale units and wonders all compete for your attention.

(Eleanor) Stamford Raffles (Great Merchant) - If you need to get a foothold into an area to start applying loyalty pressure, annexing a city-state via Stamford Raffles' retirement ability and enjoying the permanent +10 loyalty boost there is an effective route.


(Eleanor) Mary Leakey (Great Scientist) - Been gathering artefacts? They can now produce significantly more tourism!


Charles Correa (Great Engineer) - Twice as good as Alvar Aalto, offering appeal in a city to complement Chateau appeal.

France's cultural might isn't unstoppable. Black Queen Catherine's dependence on particular research paths for full effectiveness can make her pretty predictable, and a predictable opponent is a vulnerable one. Eleanor and Magnificence Catherine, meanwhile, have an extremely vulnerable early-game.


A curious effect of this ability is that it has two halves that slightly contradict each other - the tourism bonus is stronger for earlier wonders, while the production bonus is focused on the mid-game. France doesn't have any particular edge at grabbing early wonders, and the more time they spend trying to build them, the less prepared they are for later wonders.

Even if France is more focused on city development and expansion than wonder construction, it can still leave them moderately vulnerable to an early attack - (so long as you can handle the +3 strength bonus Black Queen Catherine usually add if attacking her specifically).


Black Queen Catherine knows when you've started production on wonders with just a delegation, a trade route or the Printing technology (among other methods). However, she won't know when you've stopped. You can mislead her by starting production on a wonder you never intend to finish (use a tile you don't need right now) and switching focus to something else.

Because Black Queen Catherine automatically gets +1 diplomatic visibility with you, she'll almost always have a strength bonus against you (which extends to theological combat). It's a good idea to maximise your own diplomatic visibility against her if you're likely to be at war - try to get the Printing technology reasonably early, use a Spy (preferably of the best or second-best level) to maintain a listening post in one of her cities, and if possible obtain the modern-era Great Merchant Mary Katherine Goddard for an extra +1 diplomatic visibility bonus. If you're engaged in theological combat rather than regular war, you can get a delegation/embassy in France and send a trade route as well for more diplomatic visibility.

As for the extra Spy and their increased effectiveness, consider heading to the Diplomatic Service civic a bit sooner than normal so you can recruit a Spy of your own as a counter-Spy. With the atomic-era Cold War civic, you can use the Cryptography diplomatic policy card to slow down her Spies as well. Finally, at the future-era Cultural Hegemony civic, you can take the Non-State Actors policy card to choose your Spy promotions from the entire list, letting you tailor your Spies to defend more effectively against her.

It's also a great idea to build up a Diplomatic Quarter district (available with the classical-era Mathematics technology), as it makes the specific city much less prone to Spies. If it has the Consulate building, Spies operate at one level lower in every city you own with an Encampment. With the Chancery building, you'll get 50 science per level of Spy for every single one you kill - as Black Queen Catherine's Spies always start at level 2, that's 100 science every time at least!

Black Queen Catherine's Spies aren't any cheaper than yours, and if a lot of hers die, the costs can rapidly spiral out of control for her. The more time she spends training Spies, the less time she spends on military units and wonders.


Catherine loves making use of Spies and gaining diplomatic visibility, and hopes you do too. She dislikes those who are insufficient at that.

Catherine will never have the Gossip hidden agenda as it overlaps too much with her core agenda.

Early on, avoiding being disliked by Catherine de Medici can be a simple task of remembering to send delegations to other civs. It doesn't cost a lot to do that, and raising relations with other AI civs is a good idea anyway.

Once Spies arrive, be sure to get some for yourself - if only to counterspy against her. If you get a positive agenda-based relations boost, that's probably a sign you have sufficient defence against her Spies.


Eleanor has an exceptionally weak start, with virtually no advantages of note in the first couple of eras. This means she's particularly vulnerable to an early rush - even from civs that aren't inclined that way. Even into the renaissance era, she'll generally be a manageable opponent.

The problems start if you let her remain into the latter eras of the game. Her ability to drain your cities loyalty can become an incredibly huge problem if left alone until late on. Unlike conventional warmongers, building up defences simply isn't an option. You can try boosting loyalty with strategic use of Governors, policy cards or ensuring your cities have plenty of amenities and/or your founded religion, but even that can be overcome by Eleanor.

So, you have a few possibilities. Aside from warfare, something you can do is try and cut off Eleanor's supply of Great Works. Vote for proposals in the World Congress to prevent the generation of certain GWAMs or to slow down the construction of Theatre Square buildings. Use Spies in Great Work Heists in her lands. Preemptively take as many artefacts as you can. Make a cultural alliance with her.

Still, warfare is your best option - and it even allows you to use her ability against her! Consider this: Any city of yours that becomes a free city within 9 tiles of one of her cities will come under her ownership. Cities that flip to her ownership, unlike free cities, won't spawn enemy military units. That means that a city continuously flipping to her ownership is an easy target for training military units on. Furthermore, you can even bring a Builder to repair the tiles around the city while it's under your control so when it flips you may pillage the tiles again!

Finally, once Eleanor starts using Rock Bands, consider using the atomic-era diplomatic policy card Music Censorship - at the cost of an amenity in cities over size 10, it'll completely stop her Rock Bands entering your territory, making you free from the risk of indie music flipping your cities.


Eleanor likes you if your nearby cities have a high population, and dislikes you if your nearby cities have a low population.

Eleanor will never have the Populous hidden agenda as it is very similar to her core agenda.

As bigger cities are harder to flip, this basically means the more well-defended you are against Eleanor's leader ability, the less likely she is to dislike you. That might allow you to secure a cultural alliance and be free from her loyalty pressures.

Magnificence Catherine, much like Eleanor of Aquitaine, has a weak start that makes her vulnerable to early rushes.

While the unique Court Festival project can potentially make Magnificence Catherine a serious contender for an early cultural victory, it has a lot of conditions. First, she needs enough cities with Theatre Squares - using light cavalry or other fast units to pillage them is an option. Second, she needs plenty of surplus luxury resources - refusing to trade her any luxuries she already has copies of will help, and you can pillage her luxury resource tiles as well. Finally, the project costs a lot of production, and will increase as she unlocks more technologies and civics. Try to avoid her being suzerain over Hong Kong if it's present in your game.

Cultural civs should target Magnificence Catherine for Rock Bands if possible as she can accumulate culture very rapidly later in the game via her unique city project.


An AI-controlled Magnificence Catherine wants as many luxuries as possible, and likes civs that trade them to her! She dislikes those who don't.

This is one of the easier agendas to meet as practically every civ will end up with excess luxuries at some point, though obviously you should keep track of France's civic and tourism progress in case the number of luxuries they have are making them too strong. Consider only trading France luxuries they don't have any copies of so it won't count as a surplus luxury.


If you don't share a continent with France, then promoted Musketmen can perform reasonably well. Garde Impériale units are pretty costly (50% more expensive to train than Musketmen!) so the production difference should make up for that.

Assuming you do share a continent with France, and you don't want to (or can't) pull off an early rush against them before they can unleash Napoleon's armies upon you, try to make use of defensive terrain and ranged units, and combine units into corps or armies to fight at a more even footing. Cavalry or Cuirassier corps will be particularly useful if you have access to them.

Look for where France's siege units are. Without siege support, Garde Impériale units will have difficulty tearing down city walls, so try to pick them off if you can.

Once you have Infantry, Garde Impériale forces should be reasonably manageable, and once you're up to Tanks, they shouldn't pose a significant threat any more.


Chateaux have very specific terrain requirements for their optimum yields. France needs plenty of space to be able to make the most of them, and that's not always possible. Simply put, the more tiles you take near French lands, the weaker Chateaux become as a consequence.

Like all unique improvements, Chateaux are vulnerable to pillaging - you'll get 25 faith each time, increasing over the course of the game. Promoted Cavalry and Helicopters can quickly tear them down, putting a slight dent in France's tourism output as well. If you're taking over French cities, pillage Chateaux as you go seeing as (like all unique improvements with yields) you won't keep them when you capture the cities.

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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)
  
• Babylon (Cultural/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Brazil (Cultural/Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Byzantium (Domination/Religious)
  
• Canada (Cultural/Diplomatic)
  
• China (Cultural/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Cree (Diplomatic)
  
• Egypt (Cultural/Diplomatic/Religious)
  
• England (Cultural/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Ethiopia (Cultural/Religious)
  
• France (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Gaul (Domination)
  
• Georgia (Diplomatic/Religious)
  
• Germany (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Gran Colombia (Domination)
  
• Greece (Cultural/Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Hungary (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Inca (Religious/Scientific)
  
• India (Domination/Religious)
  
• Indonesia (Cultural/Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Japan (All)
  
• Khmer (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Kongo (Cultural)
  
• Korea (Scientific)
  
• Macedon (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Mali (Diplomatic/Religious)
  
• Māori (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Mapuche (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Maya (Scientific)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Netherlands (Scientific)
  
• Norway (Domination)
  
• Nubia (Domination)
  
• 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.