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.

Ours is a realm of iron and gold; of military might and opulent palaces. Our archers are skilled and mobile, ready to strike down the enemies of Nubia, while our cities grow into metropolises worthy of the gods. If we strike early, we may build ourselves a rich and productive empire without equal. But remember - our cities should be for the living, not the dead. We can commemorate our past without being overwhelmed by it. By carefully planning our use of land, we can balance form and function.


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.

Nubia has a tier 2 start bias towards desert and desert hills, making them very likely (but not certain) to start near there. That's useful in conjunction with the Nubian Pyramid UI.

Furthermore, Nubia has tier 5 start biases towards eleven out of the twelve resources in the game that can be improved with mines (aluminium, coal, copper, diamonds, iron, jade, mercury, nitre, salt, silver and uranium, but not amber). This works well with the civ ability, which offers bonuses to mines on resources.

• +30% production when constructing ranged land units
  
• Land ranged units receive 50% more experience from combat
  
• Mines over bonus resources (copper) or luxury resources (amber, diamonds, jade, mercury, salt, silver) provide +2 gold
  
• Mines over strategic resources (iron, nitre, coal, aluminum, uranium) provide +1 production

• +20% production towards districts, rising to 40% if the city has a Nubian Pyramid adjacent to its city centre.

An ancient-era ranged land unit which replaces the Archer

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

• Costs 70 production, 280 gold or 140 faith, up from 60, 240 and 120 respectively (+17%)
  
• Costs 80 gold to upgrade to from a Slinger, up from 60 (+33%)

• 17 melee strength, up from 15
  
• 30 ranged strength, up from 25
  
• 3 movement points, up from 2
  
• Costs 230 gold to upgrade to a Crossbowman, down from 250 (-8%)

*The maximum yield always adds up to 7. Having the maximum value for any yield except food means having the minimum value for all the other yields.


*Excluding tourism, the maximum yield always adds up to 7. Having the maximum faith, science, gold or production means having the minimum of all other yields.

**The improvement does not have to be worked to provide tourism.

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.


Cultural victory is a possible path, though not one that Nubia's exceptionally strong at. Desert regions tend to be low on tile appeal, though Nubian Pyramids can offer a small alternative source of tourism and fast district construction makes it easy to piece together lots of Theatre Squares.

Diplomatic victory as Nubia rests on their decent gold generation - it can be used to get an edge in aid emergencies and be traded with other civs for diplomatic favours. Strong ranged unit production can be useful for military emergencies.

Nubia is most effective at domination, and has considerable early advantages to aid them in such a path. Pítati Archers combined with faster production and more experience gain make Nubia one of the best civs around for early rushes, so you should always start from there before working out which victory route to stick with. Considering extra mine gold and production goes well with supporting a military, and there's still bonuses to ranged units beyond the obsoletion of Pítati Archers, you'll often do well sticking to domination.

Religious victory is Nubia's second-best option, especially when combined with the Desert Folklore pantheon. Fast Holy Site construction makes it easier to secure an early religion, which is aided further by Nubia's high odds of getting a classical-era Golden Age and from it the Exodus of the Evangelists dedication. Nubian Pyramids don't offer masses of faith, but any bonus helps.

Finally. Nubia can perform reasonably well at scientific victories thanks to cheap Campuses and Spaceports as well as science from Nubian Pyramids. Extra production on strategic resources can aid with space project construction.

Won't take long to get my first Slinger.


Get ready for intense early warfare as Nubia, right from the start of the game. Unless you're starting on a tiny island, train a Slinger first in your capital. It'll be cheap, can explore, keeps Barbarians away and can be upgraded into a Pítati Archer soon enough.

Killing a Barbarian with a Slinger gets you the eureka for Archery. Once you have it, you can upgrade your Slingers and start building Pítati Archers. Although Nubia doesn't have a reduction to the cost of upgrading ranged units the way they have a reduced production cost of training them, you can still save a little time on launching an attack against another civ. The sooner you do it, the more effective it'll be. More details on that can be found on the unique unit section.


Nubia receives a 30% production bonus to all standard ranged units, including:

• Slingers (Unlocked from start)
  
• Pítati Archers (Ancient era, Archery technology)
  
• Crossbowmen (Medieval era, Machinery technology)
  
• Field Cannons (Industrial era, Ballistics technology)
  
• Machine Guns (Atomic era, Advanced Ballistics technology)

A 30% production boost does not mean it takes 30% less time to construct the units. Instead, it means every point of production that goes towards the units is worth 1.3 each. That cuts production time by just under a quarter.

You can boost this production bonus to 80% by taking an appropriate military policy card:

• Agoge (Ancient era, Craftsmanship civic) - Slingers and Pítati Archers
  
• Feudal Contract (Medieval era, Feudalism civic) - Crossbowmen, plus older units
  
• Grand Armee (Industrial era, Nationalism civic) - Field Cannons, plus older units
  
• Military First (Atomic era, Rapid Deployment civic) - All ranged land units

Note that these production bonuses don't affect gold purchasing. Generally, you should use gold for upgrading existing units rather than purchasing new ones.

Ranged units are excellent against slower enemy land units, but suffer from a -17 strength penalty against cities and naval units. Their attack range can make up for that penalty if you have a lot of them, and thankfully Nubia's civ ability helps you do just that. Ranged units can't capture cities, so bring something with a melee attack like a Warrior, Scout or Heavy Chariot.




All Nubian land ranged units gain experience faster, letting you get the better promotions sooner. Let's have a look through them all.





Mines over resources create better yields for Nubia, which is most effective for supporting armies with.

Bonus and luxury resources are revealed from the start of the game, and offer +2 gold each. While that's a great bonus to have, you should generally seek out floodplain spots over those that contain more resources you can mine because of the district production bonuses offered by having a Nubian Pyramid next to the city centre. Use the extra gold to support more ranged units, or to rapidly purchase buildings in completed districts.

Strategic resources are revealed at the following technologies:

• Iron - Bronze Working (ancient era)
  
• Niter - Military Engineering (medieval era)
  
• Coal - Industrialisation (industrial era)
  
• Aluminium - Radio (modern era)
  
• Uranium - Combined Arms (atomic era)

Getting +1 production each makes it even faster to build districts and train ranged units in particular, but it's a general bonus which can help you no matter what your aims are. Uncovering strategic resources is useful for domination-inclined players anyway, so you don't necessarily need to change your strategies to take that into account.

• Build Slingers early on to help with the Archery eureka
  
• Look for policy cards with further production boosts for ranged units
  
• Don't forget to bring units with melee attacks so you can capture cities
  
• The mine bonus is particularly helpful for war, and it's not hard to use.

They're fast. They're strong. They're trained quickly. They're your ticket to a powerful early empire taken off someone else. Pítati Archers are devastatingly powerful early in the game, so be sure to train plenty and send them along with a melee unit to whichever civs are unfortunate enough to start near you. Warriors resist damage a bit better, but Scouts are more mobile and can avoid being attacked before moving in to take a city. Heavy Chariots have the best of both worlds if you can afford them.

Like regular Archers, Pítati Archers are a bit vulnerable in defence and can't do a lot of damage each turn against cities. That makes speed crucial. Make sure you keep training Pítati Archers even beyond the start of a war so you can overwhelm enemy cities. Neglect to reinforce your military, and you'll cut through cities at a slower pace, leaving your units vulnerable to counter-attacks. While Warriors shouldn't give you too much trouble, promoted enemy Archers or Horsemen can be a pain to deal with.

If you need to retreat, Pítati Archers can move two tiles away (or one tile into rough terrain) and fire in the same turn. That's really helpful for dealing with melee infantry units, as you can deal damage without the threat of taking damage back.

Aside from warfare, the high mobility of Pítati Archers makes them great for tracking down Barbarians and for scouting. In fact, it might be worth keeping a couple of non-upgraded units around even a bit beyond their obsoletion as their high movement speed can save more time when getting to Barbarian Encampments than would be saved from having a stronger unit and killing the Barbarians faster.


Ultimately, Pítati Archers are straightforward unique units which should form the core of a powerful early rush. Hang on to the cities you capture and you'll have a powerful base to support whatever path to victory you want.

Nubia's a pretty straightforward civ on the whole - aside from this distinctive unique improvement and the interaction it has with Amanitore's leader ability. While you should be focusing on getting a Pítati Archer army up and running at first, be sure to look around for good desert floodplain-heavy spots, or spots on the border of deserts, to settle later on.

Nubian Pyramids can be constructed on flat desert, desert hills or desert floodplains. If you're only intending to build a single Nubian Pyramid in a future city for the extra district production bonus, settle a city on the outskirts of a desert or among desert floodplains - that way, you still have plenty of good tiles to work. But if you want to maximise the yields of the tile itself, you'll either need a strong desert floodplain region or the classical-era Petra wonder (requires the Mathematics technology).

Desert floodplain tiles offers 2 food each by default, while flat desert has no yields and desert hills only offers 1 production. By placing a Nubian Pyramid on floodplain next to a city centre, you'll get a yield better than a grassland farm with faith on top - albeit without the housing. Even desert hill Nubian Pyramids adjacent to a city centre provide better yields than a plains farm with faith on top.

Desert floodplain can be enhanced further with the Lady of the Reeds and Marshes, adding a massive 2 production to every single one! A city-centre adjacent desert floodplain with a Nubian Pyramid is worth an impressive 5 food, 2 production and 2 faith!


You can boost the yields of Nubian Pyramids further with most kinds of adjacent district. Be careful not to sacrifice good adjacency bonuses merely for the sake of getting a slightly higher yield for Nubian Pyramids. Instead, look where you can easily get both.

• Campuses get their best adjacency bonuses from mountains, geothermal fissures and reefs. The combination of those and nearby floodplain is quite uncommon - it might be better to try and position Campuses near your Petra city if you have the wonder.
  
• Commercial Hubs are a reliably good choice - they get +2 gold from river adjacency, so a Nubian Pyramid on desert floodplains can easily be positioned next to them.
  
• Harbours can be situationally effective if there's desert floodplain on a river mouth. That allows you to form a triangle with a city centre, Harbour and Nubian Pyramid. Desert hills are still good if you can't manage that.
  
• Holy Sites get strong adjacency from mountains, and even better from natural wonders. Look out for natural wonders found in desert regions like the Eye of the Sahara.
  
• Industrial Zones gain +2 production from adjacent Aqueducts, which can be positioned between a city and a river. By positioning a city centre, Aqueduct, Industrial Zone and Nubian Pyramid in a diamond formation, they can all benefit. Alternatively, position Industrial Zones near desert mines.
  
• Theatre Squares are one of the harder districts to get strong adjacency bonuses for to begin with, but you can position wonders around them later for an extra boost. This means you can initially place Theatre Squares with the intention of making Nubian Pyramids stronger.

Once food and housing becomes less urgent concerns, and you begin to fill out the districts in your cities, you can start placing Nubian Pyramids to exploit intersections where there may be a large number of districts adjacent to it. Flat desert Nubian Pyramids without Petra aren't particularly strong tiles to work, but a little extra bit of science or culture can still be useful.

Now there's the question of what to do with that faith! While it can complement a religious playstyle moderately well, there's a few other uses. For a domination-centred playstyle, try using faith to purchase units with via the Grand Masters' Chapel building or to buy Naturalists in order to create National Parks (aside from their typical purpose of offering tourism, they also boost amenities, making them useful for supporting warfare).


If the Nazca city-state is in your game, Nazca Lines and Nubian Pyramids go together nicely. This screenshot predates the April 2021 patch which added +2 food and +1 faith to all Nubian Pyramids.


Many kinds of district enhance Nubian Pyramids, but not them all. The easy way to remember which ones do and which ones don't is this: speciality districts that receive adjacency bonuses make Nubian Pyramids better, while districts that don't do not.

So, where should you position those districts? Try putting them adjacent to districts that do receive adjacency bonuses, but on the opposite side to Nubian Pyramids. That way, they can still help to boost your adjacency bonuses without getting in the way.


With both Nubia's UU and UI arriving in the ancient era, that makes it easy to get a classical-era Golden Age. It's not a bad idea to pick up the Monumentality dedication as it lets you use your excess Nubian Pyramid faith to purchase Settlers and Builders at a low cost, but all four dedications can complement Nubia's bonuses.


Overall, Nubian Pyramids make otherwise low-value desert regions into excellent sources of faith and later other yields. While they combine best with the Petra wonder or desert floodplain tiles, they're perfectly good tiles to work in their own right thanks to their base food output covering the food needed for a citizen to work their tile. The potential bonuses for science and culture can help Nubia to stay up-to-date in the technology and civics trees.

I can get this district built in fewer turns than the city's production output would imply.

Every Nubian city has a 20% bonus to district production - without any catch. Add a Nubian Pyramid adjacent to a city's centre, and the bonus for that city doubles to 40% - even if that Nubian Pyramid is on a flat desert tile with poor yields. That represents quite a lot of saved turns in production, especially in newer cities. As such, finding city spots next to deserts can be worthwhile even if there's just the one tile.

Governor Liang (the Surveyor) can build on this advantage once she reaches the Zoning Commissioner promotion. Cities with both her and an adjacent Nubian Pyramid present will construct districts at an incredible rate.

Fast district construction encourages you to build your cities up to the district limit before filling out buildings. You can then use gold (or faith with certain districts and certain bonuses, like Campus and Theatre Square buildings with the Jesuit Education belief) to buy your way to the buildings you want. If you're after a domination victory, you can rapidly build an Encampment, buy your way to a Military Academy and then quickly build ranged unit armies at a low cost.

Aside from getting speciality districts out the way sooner, faster district construction also helps with Aqueducts, Dams and Neighbourhoods - especially useful considering Nubian Pyramids don't offer housing. Faster Canals and Aerodromes help with sea and air defence respectively, helping to complement Nubia's land bonuses. And eventually, you can build Spaceports faster than most other civs in the game, which is ideal if you find yourself unable to complete a domination victory.

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.



Seeing as Oligarchy's strength bonus doesn't work on ranged units, try Classical Republic for extra amenities to help support your early war efforts, or else Autocracy. Most cities you capture won't be adjacent to deserts and thus won't be able to make use of Nubian Pyramids and the faster district construction associated with them. As such, your capital will often be stronger than your other cities.

The Warlord's Throne should be your first government building. The production boosts it offers will really help to develop your cities quickly.


Continuing on the warpath? Consider the combination of Theocracy and the Grand Master's Chapel so you can use your excess Nubian Pyramid faith to cheaply purchase units.

Alternatively, you can develop districts even faster with the Merchant Republic government, and keep them secure from enemy Spies with help from the extra Spy offered by the Intelligence Agency building.


If you're still on the warpath, go for Fascism as it offers a helpful strength bonus to all your units and allows you to train ranged land units even faster. The War Department building complements it well.

Alternatively, Democracy is a versatile government useful for peaceful victories in general. The Royal Society is a reliable choice of government building to complement it, as using Builders to rush city projects can benefit any victory route.


Corporate Libertarianism is ideal for warfare. Otherwise, either Digital Democracy or Synthetic Technocracy is useful. The former has a per-district culture bonus that'll help you defend against cultural civs, while the power bonus of the latter helps you get the most out of developed districts.



Agoge (Military, requires Craftsmanship) - Train Pítati Archers at an even faster rate, helping to overwhelm your foes.

Conscription (Military, requires State Workforce) - Eliminates the maintenance cost for Pítati Archers, allowing you to train vast quantities of them.

Ilkum (Economic, requires Craftsmanship) - Nubian Pyramids add yet another thing for your Builders to construct, so it's useful to cut down the time it takes to train new ones.

Limitanei (Military, requires Early Empire) - Nubia's cheap ranged units means you can often spare one or two to provide extra loyalty via this policy card. That's particularly helpful early on as there's relatively few early-game sources of loyalty.

Urban Planning (Economic, requires Code of Laws) - An extra point of production in every city goes a lot further with Nubia's civ ability or Amanitore's leader ability.


Insulae (Economic, requires Games and Recreation) - Nubian Pyramids offer food if next to a city centre, but not housing. As such, it's useful to seek out alternative sources, like this one. Seeing as you have a strong bonus to district production, this is one of the better alternative sources of housing around.

Veterancy (Military, requires Military Training) - You can get Encampments and Harbours up very quickly with this policy card. With Encampments specifically, you can then spend some gold to get your way to Military Academies (with the industrial-era Military Science technology). Finally, use your bonus to land ranged unit production to build some ranged unit corps or armies.


Feudal Contract (Military, requires Feudalism) - Train Crossbowmen in half the time it'd take for a different civ without this policy card. It also still works for Pítati Archers if you haven't researched Machinery yet.

Medina Quarter (Economic, requires Medieval Faires) - Use your fast district construction to get additional housing, letting you work more Nubian Pyramids.

Professional Army (Military, requires Mercenaries) - Fast ranged unit production means you'll end up with a large army which costs quite a lot to upgrade. Use this card to minimise that problem.

Retainers (Military, requires Civil Service) - When you're not actively at war, use your large army to keep your amenities high. Alternatively, quickly build some units to keep in your own lands to handle war weariness.

Serfdom (Economic, requires Feudalism) - Extra Builder actions means sparing a charge for Nubian Pyramids is less of a problem.


Liberalism (Economic, requires The Enlightenment) - Getting to two districts in a city is easy as Nubia, and the amenity boost helps to deal with war weariness.


Colonial Taxes (Economic, requires Colonialism) - Conquered your way into new continents? Enhance the gold you get from luxury mines there, and get a production bonus on top to make development particularly fast.

Grand Armée (Military, requires Nationalism) - Allows you to train Field Cannons or earlier land ranged units faster.

Public Works (Economic, requires Civil Engineering) - Fast Builder training and additional build charges make it easier to get those last few Nubian Pyramids built, or late-arriving strategic resources mined.


Levee en Masse (Military, requires Mobilisation) - Makes a large Field Cannon or Machine Gun army more manageable to maintain.

New Deal (Economic, Democracy only, requires Suffrage) - Put that luxury resource mine gold and fast district construction to good use, with a strong bonus to housing and amenities.


After Action Reports (Military, requires Rapid Deployment) - Your ranged units will now have an impressive 75% boost to experience gain, or perhaps 150% with a full array of Encampment buildings.

Military First (Military, requires Rapid Deployment) - Train any ranged unit faster.


Ecommerce (Economic, requires Globalisation) - A good boost to production from trade, which bonuses to ranged unit or district production can magnify.


Aerospace Contractors (Wildcard, requires Exodus Imperative) - Nubia's cheaper Spaceports means that in conjunction with this wildcard, you have a reasonable alternative source of aluminium and power.

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

Monasticism (Dark Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - Nubia's ability to build districts quickly means you can get plenty of Holy Sites and enjoy +75% science from this Dark Age policy card.

Monumentality (Dedication, Classical to Renaissance eras) - Not a bad source of era score when you're playing as a civ that can construct districts particularly quickly.

Monumentality (Golden Age, Classical to Renaissance eras) - The Golden Age counterpart is good, too. You can use excess Nubian Pyramid faith to buy Builders or Settlers at a low cost, helping you develop your cities faster.

Pen, Brush and Voice (Golden Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - Get lots of culture out of Amanitore's leader ability! Great if you want to build districts other than Theatre Squares.

Elite Forces (Dark Age, Industrial to Information eras) - If you can afford the maintenance cost, your ranged land units will be able to train up incredibly quickly.

Cyber Warfare (Dark Age, Information to Future eras) - Machine Guns are the latest unit Nubia can train faster and get faster experience gain for, but they'll struggle against units of later eras. This strength boost should help.


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 votes that have high relevance for this civ relative to other civs.

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

Quickly-constructed districts can mean a lot of culture bombs with this resolution, giving you potentially lots of extra land.

Mercenary Companies - Effect B (Producing, or purchasing military units using the chosen currency type, is -50% of the cost until the next World Congress) on production

Makes land ranged units extremely affordable, though keep in mind other civs will be able to exploit this bonus as well.

Military Advisory - Effect A (Units of the chosen land promotion class gain +5 strength) on land ranged units

Now your key units can be even stronger!

City Patron Goddess - Develop your first district in a city even faster - which can create a stronger Nubian Pyramid sooner.

Desert Folklore - Nubia's encouraged to settle near desert, and so it's easy to generate a lot of faith out of this pantheon.

Divine Spark - Bonuses to district production make it easy to get lots of Great Person Points from this pantheon.

God of Craftsmen - Make strategic resources even stronger! You can end up with a massive amount of production on each strategic tile, which is useful no matter your goals for victory. You'll even get a little faith as well.

God of the Forge - Train Pítati Archers at an even faster rate.

Lady of the Reeds and Marshes - Nubian Pyramids are best-placed on desert floodplains, and this pantheon makes them offer production as well. A Nubian Pyramid adjacent to a city centre with this pantheon offers 4 food, 2 production and 1 faith - an excellent yield this early in the game.

Religious Idols - Get 2 extra faith from mines over bonus and luxury resources, on top of the +2 gold bonus from Nubia's civ ability.

River Goddess - Nubian Pyramids are most effective on floodplains, which are always adjacent to a river. River Goddess encourages you to place Holy Sites on rivers as well for an amenity and housing bonus, and by placing the two next to each other, you'll get an extra point of faith as well.


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

Feed the World (Follower) - More housing allows you to work more Nubian Pyramids.

Jesuit Education (Follower) - If you're not after a religious victory, you'll need some other use for Nubian Pyramid faith. This belief is great for that - use your fast district construction to put together Campuses or Theatre Squares, and spend faith to fill those districts up.

Stupa (Worship) - Excess faith can be used to purchase these, and the amenity helps you handle war weariness.

Warrior Monks (Follower) - Got some spare faith from Nubian Pyramids? Get some Warrior Monks to complement your strong ranged units.

Zen Meditation (Follower) - Helps you deal with war weariness by offering an amenity in every city with at least two districts.


Bologna (Scientific) - A very powerful city-state for Nubia to be suzerain over, seeing as Nubia favours building new districts before filling up the existing ones.

Kabul (Militaristic) - Gain promotions for your ranged units at a really rapid rate.

Kumasi (Cultural) - Cities with a lot of districts can output a lot of culture with help from this city-state.

Johannesburg (Industrial) - Your excellent resource mines can now be even more effective.

Mitla (Scientific) - Faster-growing cities can fill their district capacity sooner.

Nazca (Religious) - Nazca Lines are an excellent complement for Nubian Pyramids improvements, as while Nazca Lines can't be worked, they can greatly improve adjacent flat desert tiles. Most civs can't place improvements in flat desert that can be worked, but Nubia can.

Taruga (Scientific) - Been seeking out strategic resource mines for the bonus production? Now you can get bonus science on top.

Valletta (Militaristic) - You can use Amanitore's fast district production to build Encampments, excess Nubian Pyramid faith to fill it with buildings and the bonus to ranged units to train cheap Field Cannon or Machine Gun armies.

Etemenanki (Ancient era, Writing technology) - A desert floodplain city can stack Nubian Pyramids with Etemenanki's bonuses for excellent yields.

Great Bath (Ancient era, Pottery technology) - While this wonder is generally too competitive to be worth building directly, you can capture it off another civ. Preventing flooding damage helps keep your Nubian Pyramids protected.

Hanging Gardens (Ancient era, Irrigation technology) - The faster cities grow, the sooner they can construct more districts.

Oracle (Ancient era, Mysticism civic) - Puts the faith from Nubian Pyramids to good use, while also offering extra Great Person Points from the districts in the city the wonder's built in. Considering Nubia aims to fill their district limit faster than other civs, you'll get more out of this wonder than most.

Pyramids (Ancient era, Masonry technology) - Extra Builder charges help you to build more Nubian Pyramids without neglecting farms, mines and other key improvements.

Temple of Artemis (Ancient era, Archery technology) - This wonder helps make one city particularly strong - it can grow faster and support that higher population more effectively. That allows it to build more districts sooner, and create some pretty strong Nubian Pyramids.

Jebel Barkal (Classical era, Iron Working technology) - Like Nubian Pyramids, this is a source of faith without you needing to build a whole load of Holy Sites. Best-used in conjunction with something like Jesuit Education or the Oracle.

Petra (Classical era, Mathematics technology) - A very powerful wonder for Nubia, especially in desert hills-heavy areas. A Nubian Pyramid on desert hills adjacent to a city centre with this wonder offers 3 food, 2 gold, 2 production and 1 faith - and that's before you add any other adjacent districts. Resources you can mine become especially powerful.

Terracotta Army (Classical era, Construction technology) - A large Pítati Archer military can become an extremely powerful one thanks to the free promotions this wonder offers.

Ruhr Valley (Industrial era, Industrialisation technology) - Extra production is always welcome, especially when it makes your already-strong mines even better.


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.


Note: Using El Cid to boost Crossbowmen is far more effective than creating a single Pítati Archer corps.

Bi Sheng (Great Engineer) - Extra district capacity can be easily filled via Amanitore's leader ability.

Hildegard of Bingen (Great Scientist) - Best-used in conjunction with the Desert Folklore pantheon for a strong boost to science.

Imhotep (Great Engineer) - Can allow you to secure the powerful Petra wonder before anyone else gets the chance.


Ibn Khaldun (Great Scientist) - Helps a city grow with extra housing and an amenity, allowing it to support another district sooner.


Ada Lovelace (Great Engineer) - More district capacity for you to rapidly fill up.


Dwight Eisenhower (Great General) - Produce ranged units that little bit faster. Emphasis on little - the production bonus on offer here is very small.

Jane Drew (Great Engineer) - More housing and amenities.

John Roebling (Great Engineer) - Even more housing and amenities.


(Cultural) Jamseth Tata - Fast district production makes Nubia well-positioned to exploit the huge tourism bonus on offer here.

(Cultural) Kenzo Tange (Great Engineer) - A single city with a lot of speciality districts could also produce a lot of tourism.

(Cultural) Masaru Ibuka - Also offers direct tourism boosts from districts, only in this case, it's Industrial Zones instead of Campuses.

Nubia's straightforwardness also makes them predictable opponents, and in that their greatest vulnerabilities lie.



Nubia's armies will be heavily weighted towards ranged units. Ranged units are strong at attacking land units, but have limited strength against cities, cannot capture cities alone and are typically vulnerable in defence. For land wars, cavalry units are probably your best bet, but promoted melee infantry can work as well - use both the Tortoiseshell and Battlecry promotions together for maximum impact.

Perhaps the greatest weaknesses of ranged land units are naval ranged units and naval raiders. Though this obviously doesn't help you if you're fighting far from the sea, you can use Quadriremes, Frigates, Privateers, Battleships, Submarines, Missile Cruisers and Nuclear Submarines to hit any Nubian ranged units that get too close to the coast. All ranged land units get a -17 strength penalty when attacking naval units, so you won't take much damage in return.


Nubia may have to choose between good mine spots and desert locations. If you don't mind a military retaliation, you can try forcing their hand by taking the mines before they can.

Otherwise, remember that mined resources (along with districts) are generally your best pillage target when fighting Nubia as they'll lose more yields from that action.


This leader ability leads Nubia to have lots of districts per city, but that might be at the cost of buildings. Keep Nubia away from per-district bonuses like the Stockholm city-state or the Oracle, and they may struggle to be particularly strong generating any specific Great Person.

If you can keep Nubia away from deserts, they'll only have a 20% bonus here instead of 40%, though that's not always possible.


Amanitore loves to build cities to the district limit, and likes other civs that do that. She's not a fan of civs that leave cities with lots of spare district capacity.

Constructing districts a fair bit of production, so if you really want to win Amanitore's favour, try switching the focus in your cities to it. Alternatively, you can use Governors Reyna (the Financier) with the Contractor promotion or Governor Moksha (the Cardinal) with the Divine Architect promotion to buy districts with gold and faith respectively.


Pítati Archers are powerful opponents, but thankfully they only defend slightly better than the unit they replace. Warriors with the Tortoise promotion can get in close, while Warriors with the Battlecry promotion can do reasonable damage against them. As long as you're using the Agoge policy card, you should be able to output Warriors faster than Nubia can train Pítati Archers.

Archers of your own with the Garrison promotion can deal plenty of damage against attacking Pítati Archers - or better yet, Nubia's melee units. Take out the melee units, and Nubia can never take your cities.

Horsemen have a good amount of strength and enough speed to catch up with retreating Pítati Archers, and once you have medieval-era units, they shouldn't be too much of a threat any more.

Finally, any Pítati Archers that get too close to the sea will be vulnerable to Quadriremes. Pítati Archers attacking Quadriremes will have 13 attack versus 20 defence (dealing on average 23 damage), while Quadriremes attacking Pítati Archers will have 25 attack versus 17 defence (dealing on average 41 damage).


Nubian Pyramids are most effective on desert floodplain adjacent to a city centre. If Nubia can't settle next to desert floodplains, they can't get as effective Nubian Pyramids, so consider that if you start near them.

Like any unique improvement, they'll be destroyed if you capture a city containing one, so feel free to pillage them. You'll get at least 25 faith per pillage, increasing as the game goes on.

Nubian cities in the middle of the desert away from high-yield tiles can be made productive via the Nubian Pyramid. As they'll be destroyed if you capture the city, a city that is good for Nubia may be terrible for you. Consider razing such cities to avoid having to use precious amenities and gold maintenance to support the city, while also preventing Nubia from being able to recapture and redevelop it.

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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.