This guide is not yet updated for the Great Builders Pack and the Rulers of England pack. Julius Caesar also won't be covered until all other leaders are.

Following this guide requires the Gathering Storm expansion.

Furthermore, it is written with the assumption you have all Civ 6 content released prior to the Leaders Pass:

• 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 Leaders Pass is only relevant when playing as or against leaders released in its content packs; otherwise it makes no difference to the game.

Choosing which civ to play as can be a daunting task. There's so many around with different playstyles, key victory routes, levels of complexity and key eras that knowing which civ is good for what is tricky. Here, I've summarised the half-a-million words of my civ-specific guides for Civilization VI into something smaller and manageable, so you can get an idea of what each one can do. If you want more detail, there's links to the more in-depth guides as well.


This guide explains the basics of each civ in the game, including:

• The civ's icon
  
• The civ's start bias, if it has one.
  
• The civ's uniques. For those that replace generic things (Unique Units, Buildings and Districts) only the differences between the unique unit and the generic one are listed.
  
• A general strategy. This informs you of the civ's favoured victory route(s) and a good way to make use of their uniques to achieve it. At the end of this sub-section is a table suggesting key governments, policy cards, religious choices, wonders, city-state suzerain bonuses and Great People with good synergy with the civ. These are not necessarily the most powerful options, but ones that fit well with the civ's uniques.
  
• A link to an in-depth guide for the civ.

Note that all costs (production, science, culture, gold, etc.) mentioned within the guide assume a game played on the normal speed settings. To modify these values for other game speeds:

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

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.

When explaining uniques for specific civs, I often also explain the game mechanics they modify. As a result, spread across the various civ-specific guides, there is a wealth of information useful if you're playing as any civ. Be aware that not every game mechanic is covered, but those which are are listed here.


The index is set out in the following format:

Game Mechanic - Guide: Section Name (Text to find)

The guide name has a link to the specific guide. Use CTRL+F / Command+F and use the text in brackets to quickly find the section refered to. Keep in mind that some of the information in the guide is only applicable to that specific civ.

Alternatively, a line may be set out in the following format:

Game Mechanic - See alternative index entry

Here, you should go to the line in the index in italics.


Air combat - America: P-51 Mustang (The Mechanics of Aircraft)

Alliance points - Egypt: Mediterranean's Bride Part 3 (Bonus alliance points from trade) or Sumeria: Adventures with Enkidu (Alliance points from common wars)

Alliances, rewards - Cree: Favourable Terms (Shared visibility with any alliance)

Amenities - Brazil: Street Carnival (Amenities) or India: Satyagraha (Extra war weariness for enemies)

Apostles - Kongo: Religious Convert Part 2 (Putting Apostles to use)

Appeal - America: Roosevelt Corollary Part 2 (How appeal works)

Aqueducts - Rome: Bath

Archaeology - Ethiopia: Aksumite Legacy Part 2 (Faith-Purchasing Archaeology)

Boosts - China: Dynastic Cycle (Mechanics)

City capture effects - Ottomans: Great Turkish Bombard Part 3 (On-Capture Bonuses)

City-states, combat against them - Germany: Holy Roman Emperor (Bonus Against City-States)

City-states, diplomacy - Greece: Surrounded by Glory (The Mechanics of City-States)

City-states, levy units - Sumeria: Epic Quest Part 2 (Half-price city-state levying)

Coastal raid - Norway: Thunderbolt of the North Part 2 (Coastal Raiding)

Coastal yields - Māori: Mana Part 1 (Enhanced Fishing Boats)

Colonies, bonuses for settling - Phoenicia: Founder of Carthage Part 1 (Making old cities into colonies)

Dedication - See Golden Ages

Diplomatic favour - Canada: Four Faces of Peace (Interlude: How diplomatic favour works)

Diplomatic visibility - France : Catherine's Flying Squadron Part 1 (Diplomatic Visibility)

Districts, adjacency based on other districts - Japan: Meiji Restoration

Districts, limit based on population - Germany: Free Imperial Cities

Embarkment - Māori: Mana Part 4 (Look out for bonuses to embarked unit movement)

Entertainment Complex - Brazil: Street Carnival and Copacabana (Street Carnivals vs. Copacabana Districts)

Envoys - See City-states, diplomacy

Era Score - Georgia: Strength in Unity Part 1 (Era Score)

Eurekas - See Boosts

Espionage - See Diplomatic visibility or Spies

Faith purchases - See Purchases, gold and faith

Gold purchases - See Purchases, gold and faith

Golden Ages - Georgia: Strength in Unity Part 2 (Dedication Bonuses)

Governors - A partial introduction in Korea: Hwarang

Governments - No guide has a complete explanation by itself, but look to Greece: Plato's Republic or America: Founding Fathers - both these guides have more in-depth looks into government choices for their respective civs than most other guides.

Grievances - Ottomans: Grand Vizier Part 2 (Capou Agha)

Healing, Land units - Arabia: Mamluk (Warfare)

Housing - Kongo: Mbanza Part 1 (Building a huge city)

Inquisitors - Spain: El Escorial Part 1 (Inquisitor Charges and +5 Strength for Religious Units)

Inspirations - See Boosts

Legacy wildcard - See Governments

Light cavalry - Scythia: People of the Steppe (Light Cavalry)

Loyalty - Mapuche: Swift Hawk Part 2 (Explaining Loyalty). A more complete breakdown can be found in the guides to England and France in the section for Eleanor of Aquitaine

Luxury resources - Aztecs: Gifts for the Tlatoani Part 1 (Acquiring luxuries)

Military Engineers - England: Workshop of the World Part 1 (Military Engineers - Mechanics)

Mountain tunnels - Inca: Qhapaq Ñan Improvement Part 1 (Mechanics - Mountain Tunnels)

National Parks - America: Roosevelt Corollary Part 1 (Getting to National Parks)

Naval melee units - Norway: Thunderbolt of the North Part 1 (Naval melee units)

Naval raider units - England: Sea Dog Part 1 (The role of Privateers)

Pillage yields - Norway: Thunderbolt of the North Part 3 (Improvements and districts)

Policy cards - Greece: Plato's Republic

Population points - Kongo: Mbanza Part 1 (Building a huge city)

Power - England: Workshop of the World Part 3

Purchases, gold and faith - Mali: Suguba Part 2 (Purchase Options)

Ranged land units - Nubia: Ta-Seti (Faster Ranged Land Unit Production)

Relics - Kongo: Nkisi (Relic bonuses) or Poland: Lithuanian Union (Relic Bonuses)

Roads - Persia: Satrapies (Improved Roads)

Rock Bands, album sales - Sweden: Nobel Prize Part 2 (Nobel Prize in Literature)

Rock Bands, promotions - England: Eleanor of Aquitaine Part 4 (The Power of Rock) or France : Eleanor of Aquitaine Part 4 (The Power of Rock)

Sentinel nets - Germany: U-Boat

Siege units - Ottomans: Great Turkish Bombard Part 1 (Exploring Siege Units)

Spies - France: Catherine's Flying Squadron Part 1 (Extra Spy at Castles and +1 Spy Promotion Level)

Strength - See Unit strength for military and religious units.

Support bonus - Macedon: Hypaspist (+50% support bonus)

Theological Combat - Spain : El Escorial Part 2 (Explaining Theological Combat)

Tile accumulation, via culture - Russia: Lavra (Free tiles)

Tourism, from wonders - France : Grand Tour Part 1 (Introduction)

Trade routes, trading posts - Rome: All Roads Lead to Rome (Trading Posts)

Trade routes, transportation efficiency - Inca: Qhapaq Ñan Improvement Part 1 (Mechanics - Transportation Efficiency)

Trade routes, yield - Egypt: Mediterranean's Bride (how districts present in a city affect trade route yields)

Trading posts - See Trade routes, trading posts

Tribal villages - Sumeria: Epic Quest (Tribal Village Rewards)

Unit strength difference - Aztecs: Gifts for the Tlatoani Part 2 (Per-Luxury Strength Bonus) or Scythia: Killer of Cyrus (Military Units)

Unit strength, loss from injury - Japan: Samurai (Putting Samurai to use) or Scythia: Killer of Cyrus (Military Units)

Visibility - See Diplomatic visibility if you mean the espionage mechanic which enables you to learn more about your opponents' operations and diplomacy. See Sentinel nets for an application of unit sight to keep lots of the map visible.

War weariness - India: Satyagraha (Extra war weariness for enemies)

Water Parks - Brazil: Copacabana

If you're fairly new to the game or a particular playstyle, it's worth keeping in mind that some civs are easier to get into than others. For those better at the game, you may instead want something a little different and harder to master. Either way, before we get into the guide proper, I've arranged civs by complexity in a subjective list.

Note that complexity is not the same as power. "Easy" here means "easy to get into", not necessarily "easy to win with". Don't worry - it's possible to win as any civ and on any victory path (with the sole exception of religious victories as Mvemba a Nzinga's Kongo), even on Deity. Note also that this list is entirely subjective; it's more of a guideline as to which civs are easier to get into rather than a definite comparison.


The core strategies of these civs are easy to understand and make great introductions to their respective favoured victory routes or the game in general.

• China (Wu Zetian) - Introduces scientific playstyles
  
• Gran Colombia - Introduces warfare in general
  
• Greece - Introduces cultural playstyles; uniques are hard to miss
  
• Japan - Introduces compact playstyles; uniques focus on fairly basic game mechanics
  
• Korea - Introduces scientific playstyles; particularly straightforward uniques
  
• Mongolia - Introduces medieval era warfare; highly synergistic uniques for Genghis Khan, and some versatility for Kublai Khan
  
• Nubia - Introduces ancient era warfare; strong synergy between uniques makes it easier to play as than most early-focused civs
  
• Rome - Introduces classical era warfare; uniques are easy to use
  
• Russia - Introduces religious playstyles; leader ability helps the civ to catch up if they're falling behind
  
• Sweden - Introduces the cultural and diplomatic games; simplifies the management of Great Works
  
• Zulus - Introduces medieval era warfare; highly synergistic uniques

These civs are not especially hard to learn, but have an element that might be tricky for very new players to handle.

• Arabia - Unusual weaving of religious and scientific bonuses
  
• Aztecs - Good synergy between war-focused uniques but relentless early warmongering may be overwhelming for new players
  
• China (Kublai Khan) - Trade route timing is a complicating factor, but otherwise not a hard civ to learn.
  
• China (Yongle) - Once you have the hang of growing large cities early on, Yongle isn't too complicated.
  
• Cree - Fairly straightforward bonuses, but lack of clear victory route
  
• Ethiopia - So long as you settle in hills, it isn't too complicated to learn
  
• Germany - Uniques are reasonably intuitive but also have decent depth for advanced players
  
• Macedon - Very strong synergy between war-focused uniques but may be overwhelming for new players
  
• Netherlands - Push for particular lake/coastal formations in addition to rivers complicates settling, but otherwise not a hard civ to learn
  
• Portugal - Management of the Feitoria improvement is the main complicating factor; otherwise an easy-to-learn maritime civ.
  
• Scythia - Heavy early war focus may be overwhelming for new players
  
• Sumeria - Huge number of early uniques adds a lot of complexity to the crucial first few turns

The middle of the road. While the little nuances of playing these civs might not be realised the first time playing them, they should still be perfectly playable without prior information.

• America (No persona pack/Abraham Lincoln/Rough Rider Teddy) - Varying bonuses which encourage action both early and late in the game
  
• Australia - Early appeal bonuses are somewhat unusual, though defensive bonuses makes this a fairly forgiving civ.
  
• Brazil - Flexible civ with a reasonable variety of bonuses
  
• Byzantium - Uniques have strong synergy but require a somewhat unusual setup.
  
• Canada - Moderately complex uniques
  
• China (Mandate Qin) - Rushing early wonders makes an unusual start
  
• China (Unifier Qin) - Requires reasonable knowledge of Barbarian mechanics for the best results.
  
• France (Black Queen Catherine) - Tricky balance of expansion and city development but reasonably intuitive uniques
  
• Gaul - Unusual district placement rules complicate the game, but otherwise easy to learn
  
• Inca - Unique unit and early mountain tunnels can be tricky to use to their full potential; otherwise fairly straightforward civ.
  
• India - Moderately complex uniques
  
• Indonesia - Heavy maritime emphasis makes expansion and city development play out differently to normal, also lacks focus regarding a victory path
  
• Khmer - Unusually for a faith-focused civ works best with huge cities.
  
• Mapuche - Distinct reactive style of play is difficult for new players to manage effectively
  
• Maya - Good city placement and management required to make the most of the uniques complicates the civ.
  
• Norway - Early naval bonuses encourage unusual early gameplay
  
• Ottomans - Lots of different components to keep track of
  
• Persia - Moderately complex uniques
  
• Phoenicia - The ability to move capital complicates the game somewhat
  
• Scotland - Moderately complex uniques
  
• Spain - Need to settle a second continent and found a religion to achieve the civ's full potential, but otherwise not too complex
  
• Vietnam - Unusual district placement rules complicate the game

Here, it really helps if you've read up on the civs a little before playing them. The details of their playstyles are often not obvious, and playing them like any other civ typically won't go well.

• America (Bull Moose Teddy) - Good appeal management for optimal yields can be tricky.
  
• Egypt - Very demanding start with uniques pushing in different directions vying for attention; trickier civ to learn than it looks
  
• England (Victoria) - Huge number of moderately complex bonuses leaning on a wide range of game mechanics
  
• France (Magnificence Catherine) - Particularly weak start, unique project is tricky to time well.
  
• Hungary - Strategic use of envoys and city placement is necessary to make the most of the civ.
  
• Kongo - Has a full set of complex or game-changing bonuses which makes this civ particularly distinctive
  
• Mali - Difficult start, reliance on deserts and purchase-centric gameplay makes a distinct civ.
  
• Māori - Unique starting situation and approach to tile development.
  
• Poland - Uniques have unusual synergy greatly enhanced by particular policy card and religious choices.

These civs require in-depth knowledge of game mechanics, or the ability to keep switching to a reference guide, to make the most of their mechanics.

• Babylon - Completely unique research setup changes how the entire game works.
  
• England (Eleanor of Aquitaine) - Most effective if you have a working knowledge of all the nuances of the loyalty mechanic.
  
• France (Eleanor of Aquitaine) - Most effective if you have a working knowledge of all the nuances of the loyalty mechanic.
  
• Georgia - Good knowledge of Golden Age mechanics and city-states needed to make the most of the civ; requires significant use of long-term planning to maximise Golden Age potential

In making all these guides, there's a few questions or statements that keep coming up, so I've compiled them here.



If a civ doesn't have a start bias in the XML files, it doesn't have a start bias - regardless of how many times you seem to start in that location with that civ.

The special case is the Māori, which don't have a start bias as such, but Kupe's leader ability makes them start in ocean.



Some civs have a bit of synergy with certain victory routes, but to a much lesser extent than their main routes. Generally, these civs aren't too much different at their alternative victory route compared to a hypothetical civ without any uniques so it's not worth spending lots of time detailing how that would work.


Religious victory is harder in multiplayer as players generally won't hold back from declarations of war to pillage your religious units before they can convert their cities. As such, you may wish to use their advantages in founding a religion and/or faith to support different victory routes or general development.

With a classical, medieval or renaissance-era Golden Age, you can use the Monumentality dedication to allow you to cheaply purchase civilian units with faith.

Faith can support domination victories via the Grand Master's Chapel building (which allows you to purchase land military units with faith), cultural victories via relics, National Parks, Rock Bands and the Jesuit Education belief, and scientific victories via Jesuit Education as well.



When I started making Civ 6 guides, I made a conscious decision to only cover bonuses with direct synergy with a civ's uniques in order to greatly cut down the time needed to make guides. It should be pretty obvious that any tourism bonus is good for a cultural civ, science bonus for a scientific civ and so on, so I don't feel there's a need for me to bring such bonuses up.


You'll need to go to the main guide of each civ for that information. The more detailed descriptions in the Administration sections of each guide should give an indication as to the most important bonuses.



I've chosen not to cover these as they are not part of the main game, and to avoid overcomplicating the guides.

None.

• All diplomatic policy card slots are converted into wildcard slots.
  
• Gain +1 diplomatic favour per turn for every wildcard slot in your government.

• Military and religious units gain +5 strength when on your capital's continent.
  
  • This is determined based on the tile where combat is taking place, allowing all combat units (land, sea, air) to make use of it.
    
  • This does not apply to your cities' ranged attacks.
• All cities with at least one National Park gain +1 appeal for all their tiles.
  
  • This includes mountain and natural wonder tiles, which usually do not gain appeal from most sources.

Industrial era, heavy cavalry, replaces Curiassier

• Costs 385 production/1540 gold/770 faith, up from 330/1320/660 (+16.7%)
  
• Costs 340 gold to upgrade into from a Knight, up from 230 (+48%)
  
• Does not require iron resources
  
• Has a maintenance cost of 2, down from 5.
  
• Has 67 strength, up from 64
  
• 5 movement points, up from 4.
  
• +10 strength when fighting in hill tiles
  
• Gains culture equal to 50% of the defeated unit's melee strength, rounded down, when fighting on the same continent as your capital
  
• Costs 200 gold to upgrade to a Tank, down from 310 (-35%)

Atomic era, fighter aircraft, replaces Fighter

• 105 strength, up from 100
  
• 105 ranged strength, up from 100
  
• +5 strength when attacking fighter-class aircraft
  
• 10 flight range, up from 8
  
• +50% experience from combat

Modern era, requires Theatre Square district with an Amphitheatre and an Art Museum or Archaeological Museum, replaces Broadcast Centre

• +100% Tourism impact of this city on other civilizations which have reached at least the modern era.

America is best at cultural victories and is strong at diplomacy and domination.

America excels in the late-game, but you shouldn't neglect the strength bonus Roosevelt offers you on your home continent. A quick rush against an opponent with Archers and supporting melee units, or a slightly slower rush with Swordsmen and Battering Rams can get you off to a great start with lots of land. If you fall into a classical-era dark age, you can stack both Oligarchic Legacy and Twilight Valour for some very strong Swordsmen.

Beyond early warfare, America should settle down and focus on cultural and scientific development ready for the late-industrial/early-modern eras where their key strengths really take off. Supporting them in this role is the civ ability, which converts diplomatic policy cards into wildcards, allowing you to take a huge array of economic policy cards simultaneously, stack legacy bonuses, or even Dark Age cards. The Potala Palace wonder and the Democracy government become particularly lucrative as a consequence. Furthermore, every wildcard you have will grant you diplomatic favour, so once your grievance penalties wear off America can have a good presence in the World Congress.

The Ballistics technology is easy to beeline, making Rough Riders a potentially major threat to enemy civs. Similarly, the P-51 Mustang makes an already strong unit even more effective, though keep in mind neither of these units are particularly good against cities.

Look out for forests and mountains - they'll be really useful for boosting the yields of National Parks, which will be a key source of tourism for you. Getting city park improvements (via Liang the Surveyor) will also help. Radio brings with it the extremely powerful Film Studio building - one of the best around for cultural victories.

From here, you can double down on a peaceful cultural playstyle, using the unique units defensively, or go for a hybrid route where you aim to eliminate key rivals who might be producing far too many domestic tourists for your liking.

• Very strong tourism output
  
• Decent early-rush potential
  
• Good diplomatic favour with minimal effort
  
• Defends well, especially late in the game
  
• Easily secures air superiority

Grass Mountains (tier 3)
Plains Mountains (tier 3)
Desert Mountains (tier 5)
Tundra Mountains (tier 5)

• All diplomatic policy card slots are converted into wildcard slots.
  
• Gain +1 diplomatic favour per turn for every wildcard slot in your government.

• Constructing an Industrial Zone and its buildings produces a free melee infantry unit, with no strategic resource cost and a permanent +5 strength bonus.
  
  • The free unit will be the strongest you can currently train based on your technology.
• Cities with Industrial Zones gain +3 loyalty per turn and +2 amenities.
  
• Plantations provide their city with -2 loyalty per turn each.

• Tiles adjacent to a mountain or natural wonder with 4+ appeal produce +2 science.
  
• Tiles adjacent to woods or a world wonder with 4+ appeal produce +2 culture.
  
• Cities with at least one National Park add +1 appeal to all their tiles, including mountain and natural wonder tiles.

• All military and religious units gain +5 strength on your capital's continent, based on the defender's location.
  
• Whenever you gain an envoy in a city-state that you have a trade route with, gain an additional envoy.
  
  • This does not affect Amani (the Diplomat)'s +2 envoy boost when present in a city-state.
    
  • Quests to send a trade route will create two envoys instead of one.
    
  • Sending your first envoy to a city-state you are trading with while you have the Diplomatic League or Containment policy card active will grant three envoys.

Industrial era, heavy cavalry, replaces Curiassier

• Costs 385 production/1540 gold/770 faith, up from 330/1320/660 (+16.7%)
  
• Costs 340 gold to upgrade into from a Knight, up from 230 (+48%)
  
• No iron requirement
  
• Maintenance cost of 2, down from 5.
  
• 67 strength, up from 64
  
• 5 movement points, up from 4
  
• +10 strength in hill tiles
  
• Gains culture equal to 50% of the defeated unit's melee strength when fighting on your capital's continent
  
• Costs 200 gold to upgrade to a Tank, down from 310 (-35%)

Atomic era, fighter aircraft, replaces Fighter

• 105 strength, up from 100
  
• 105 ranged strength, up from 100
  
• +5 strength attacking fighter-class aircraft
  
• 10 flight range, up from 8
  
• +50% XP gain

Modern era, requires Theatre Square district with an Art/Archaeological Museum, replaces Broadcast Centre

• +100% tourism from city vs. civilizations which are in at least the modern era.

America is strong at cultural victories, particularly Bull Moose Teddy. Bull Moose Teddy is also strong at science while Rough Rider Teddy favours diplomacy and domination. Lincoln is primarily strong at domination.

America excels in the late-game, but you shouldn't neglect their early strengths either. As Rough Rider Teddy, you can use the home-continent strength bonus for a quick rush against an opponent with Archers and supporting melee units, or a slightly slower rush with Men-at-Arms, Oligarchy and Battering Rams can get you off to a great start with lots of land.

Abraham Lincoln should rush for Apprenticeship for Industrial Zones, ready for powerful Men-at-Arms. Together with Siege Towers they can devastate enemy cities. You can then rush to Industrialisation and Replaceable Parts to carry on the war.

Bull Moose Teddy should start by seeking wood and mountain-heavy regions, use Preserves to maximise tile yields, with city parks and Theatre Squares to boost tile appeal. This can result in excellent science and culture yields. Later on, he can mostly focus on appeal maximisation ready for National Parks and Film Studios, the latter of which is extremely powerful for cultural victories.

Supporting America is the civ ability, which converts diplomatic policy cards into wildcards. This lets you use lots of economic policy cards simultaneously, stack legacy bonuses, or even Dark Age cards. The Potala Palace wonder, as well as the Democracy and Digital Democracy government build on this.

Later on, Rough Rider Teddy needs to make a careful choice as to which advantages to emphasise. The combination of extra envoys in city-states you are trading with, in addition to diplomatic favour from America's civ ability, makes the civ among the game's best at diplomatic victories. However, the powerful and easy-to-beeline Rough Rider gives a big incentive to go for a domination victory instead, while the P-51 Mustang makes a strong unit even better.

• Very strong tourism output
  
• Abraham Lincoln: Powerful low-cost armies
  
• Bull Moose Teddy: Strong early culture/faith output
  
• Rough Rider Teddy: Decent rush potential, very strong diplomatic favour output
  
• Air superiority

None.

• When the second-to-last Great Prophet is claimed, you automatically receive a the final Great Prophet.
  
  • This does not take affect if you earned a Great Prophet previously by any other means.
    
  • This ability reserves a religion for Arabia. If Arabia is eliminated before they can obtain a Great Prophet, there will still be a Great Prophet reserved for Arabia in case they are brought back to the game.
    
  • Founding a pantheon is still necessary to found a religion, as is having either a Holy Site district or the Stonehenge wonder.
• Gain +1 science for every foreign city that follows your religion.
  
  • This is added at the empire level, not the city level, and as such will not be modified by bonuses such as Oxford University or Saladin's worship buildings.

• All military and religious units receive +100% flanking and support bonuses

• Worship buildings belonging to Saladin's religion cost 90% less faith to purchase.
  
  • This bonus applies to all cities following Vizier Saladin's religion, regardless of civilization.
    
  • This stacks additively with reductions to faith purchasing costs; for example, the Theocracy government makes Vizier Saladin's religious buildings free to purchase.
• Worship buildings of your own religion provide the city with a 10% boost to science, culture and faith in addition to their normal yields.
  
  • This does not affect cities held by other civilizations.

Medieval era, heavy cavalry, replaces Knight

• Requires 10 iron, down from 20 (-50%)
  
• Heals every turn regardless of whether it takes an action or not

Classical era, requires Campus district and Library, replaces University

• Requires the classical-era Theology civic instead of the medieval-era Education technology
  
• Generates 5 science, up from 4
  
• The quantity of science produced by the Madrasa's Campus district via adjacency and city-state bonuses is also added to faith.
  
  • This is boosted by any modifiers to the Campus district's adjacency bonus, including the Natural Philosophy economic policy card.

Arabia is best at religious and scientific victories.

Arabia's guarantee of a religion means they don't need to spend time building Holy Sites early on, leaving more time for early development and science generation. For Sultan Saladin, you can use this time to rush to Mamluks, who can very effectively use Sultan Saladin's flanking bonuses. They may lack strength against cities, but their ability to heal every turn makes them very resilient, especially with a Chaplain-promoted Apostle.

Vizier Saladin, will eventually want Holy Sites in every city eventually for the cheap and powerful worship buildings. A 10% boost to faith, culture and science alike is powerful considering how relatively rare yield multipliers are in the game.

Madrasas offer plenty of faith - especially if you can maximise your Campus adjacency bonuses, so religious victory is a great route for Arabia to go down. Vizier Saladin can use faith from his cheap worship buildings, while Sultan Saladin can group religious units together for strong flanking bonuses in theological combat.

And if that doesn't work, Arabia can switch to science instead. Arabia has two different unique sources of science - three for Vizier Saladin - and even if you've had a very religious-focused game, you can still use your progress in converting other cities towards getting a high science output. They lack bonuses to space project construction, however, so watch out for that.

• Guaranteed religion; never locked out of religious victory
  
• Versatile; can switch between religion and science effectively without losing too much victory potential.
  
• Strong science output, especially for a civ with religious bonuses

Coastal (tier 2)
Cattle (tier 5)
Horses (tier 5)
Sheep (tier 5)

• All cities adjacent to a coastal tile receive +3 housing.
  
  • This is separate from the housing provided based on access to fresh water.
• Constructing a pasture improvement causes a culture bomb, granting you all surrounding tiles.
  
  • Only tiles that are within the workable range of the tile's city will be granted (in other words, they must be within a 3-tile radius from the city centre).
    
  • This includes tiles from other civs, but will incur a diplomatic penalty if you steal tiles off them this way. Taking land from city-states has no penalty.
    
  • Tiles stolen containing non-unique tile improvements will retain them.
    
  • Tiles containing completed districts, wonders or national parks will not be stolen, but incomplete ones will be, destroying them.

• Campuses, Commercial Hubs, Holy Sites and Theatre Squares get +1 of their respective yield in Charming tiles (2 or more appeal) and +3 in Breathtaking (4 or more appeal)
  
  • These count as adjacency bonuses for the purpose of bonuses that modify them.

• All cities gain +100% production for 10 turns after you are the target of a declaration of war by a full civ or 20 turns if you liberate a city.
  
  • Being the target of a declaration of war by a city-state does not count.
    
  • These bonuses do not stack.

Modern era, melee infantry, replaces Infantry

• Does not require oil resources
  
• 78 strength, up from 75
  
• +10 strength on land tiles adjacent to the coast
  
• +5 strength outside of friendly territory

Medieval era, requires Guilds civic

• Must be constructed on featureless plains, grassland, desert or desert hills within your own lands
  
• +1 food, +1 production, +0.5 housing
  
• +1 food per adjacent pasture
  
• Steam Power technology: +1 production per two adjacent Outback Stations. Pastures gain +1 production per adjacent Outback Station.
  
• Rapid Deployment civic: +1 food per two adjacent Outback Stations
  
• Pillage yield: Pillager heals 50 health.

Australia is best at scientific victories, and are also strong at domination and diplomacy.

Settling extensively around the coast is important for Australia; your cities will start with masses of housing and have access to the high-appeal coastal areas you need to maximise your district yields. You can get really good Campus districts if you find reefs or mountains reasonably near the sea, and even without that, you can still enjoy a +3 science boost from a Campus on a breathtaking tile. Later in the game, you can plant forests or seek out other appeal boosts like the Eiffel Tower to make your districts even better.

Being a target of war is usually a pain, but John Curtin flips that around to a positive. +100% production for ten turns is enough for you to raise a decent army, but if you use defensive terrain well, you can use the bonus to help develop your empire instead.

Outback Stations split the difference between farms and mines in terms of food and production yields. They still offer as much housing as farms and lack the appeal penalty of mines, so you can spam them in high quantities. The extra food for pasture adjacency makes up for the lower food relative to most farms at that point in the game.

Diggers do not require oil resources, which allows Australia to completely circumvent the need for the Refining technology for quite some time. As such, Australia can unleash Diggers on the world long before anyone else has Infantry of their own - combined with the civ's scientific advantages, this can be quite devastating! To cover their high cost, use your bonus Holy Site faith in conjunction with the Grand Master's Chapel.

If you don't want to go for domination, try liberating some city-states. Many spawn on the coast, and Diggers are incredibly effective there. As well as gaining suzerain status in the now-liberated city and some diplomatic favour, you will receive 10 turns of +100% production in all your cities. That production boost is excellent for getting space race projects built sooner.

• Strong city development; can get huge cities early on
  
• Powerful anti-warmonger bonuses - hard to attack and has incentives to reverse warmonger conquests
  
• Has both science and production bonuses, making them good at both key yields for scientific victory
  
• Diggers can be obtained early and are useful for a long time
  
• Reasonable flexibility - decent at any victory route

None.

• Builders can use a charge to contribute 20% of the production cost of a district.
  
  • Modifiers to general production and district production do increase the contribution beyond 20%.
    
  • You cannot add a charge to a district that is not currently being worked on.
    
  • Builders cannot be used to help repair pillaged districts.
    
  • If you contribute more production via a charge than is needed to complete the district, the excess is carried over to the next thing you build.

• Every individual type of improved luxury resource within Aztec lands provides +1 amenity to six cities rather than the usual four
  
• Every individual type of improved luxury resource within Aztec lands provides a stacking +1 combat strength to all military and religious units when attacking.
  
  • This includes special luxuries offered by Great Merchants (Cosmetics from Helena Rubinstein, Jeans from Levi Strauss, Perfume from Estee Lauder and Toys from John Spilsbury)
    
  • Luxury resources from other sources (including trading, from city-states under suzerainity and the bonuses of Buenos Aires and Zanzibar) do not work for this purpose.
    
  • The strength bonus works for ranged attacks as well as melee.

Ancient era, melee infantry, replaces Warrior

• Costs 65 production, 260 gold or 130 faith, up from 40, 160 and 80 respectively (+62.5%)
  
• 28 strength, up from 20
  
• Can turn defeated non-Barbarian land military units into Builders with 3 charges
  
  • The chance of this occuring scales based on the strength difference between the Eagle Warrior and the unit it defeats. Scouts for example have a very high chance of being turned into Builders when defeated.
    
  • If you control the Pyramids wonder, Builders acquired this way will start with +1 charge.
    
  • The Serfdom and Public Works policy cards will not affect the number of charges captured Builders start with.
• Costs 60 gold to upgrade to a Swordsman, down from 110 (-45%)

Classical era, requires Entertainment Complex district, replaces Arena

• Costs 135 production or 270 gold, down from 150 and 300 respectively (-10%)
  
• Provides 2 culture, up from 1
  
• +2 faith
  
• +1 Great General Point

The Aztecs are best at domination. Religion and science are possible backup routes.

Quickly hit an enemy with Eagle Warriors and you'll end up with more Builders than you know what to do with and some city conquests. Thankfully, you can use Builders to rush districts meaning early war needn't set back your infrastructure.

From there, your aim is to spread to as many continents as possible, seeing as each continent has a unique set of four luxuries. There's also between two to four water-based resources which can be found anywhere in the world - larger maps have more. Aside from offering more amenities than they do for other civs (great for dealing with war weariness), they'll also make your units stronger at attacking. Secure all luxuries on a standard-sized map and that's a +19 attack advantage! Get Great Merchants that grant special luxuries, and you can push that even further! Note that city-state luxuries do not add the bonus, however. Even if a domination victory isn't possible, the attack boost can still be helpful for producing powerful religious units.

The Tlachtli rounds off the set of Aztec uniques, but it's not a particularly strong building. The amenity bonus from luxuries is more than enough to stop you having to worry about Entertainment Complexes for quite some time, and while the Great General point is nice, that together with the faith is still rarely worth using up a city's district limit for so early in the game.

• Works better on larger map sizes, unlike most domination or religious civs
  
• Can start an early rush without setting back early development
  
• Huge amenities advantage

River (tier 3)

• Empire-wide science output reduced by 50%.
  
  • This stacks additively with other empire-wide science outputs. For example, having the Communism government adds a 10% bonus, which results in Babylon having 60% of the base empire-wide science output.
    
  • One-off science boosts (such as from Great Scientists like Charles Darwin and Janaki Ammal) are unaffected.
• Eureka boosts instantly complete all research for their technology, even if Babylon lacks prerequisite technologies.
  
  • You may directly research any technology you have the direct prerequisites for by selecting the technology on the science panel of the world tracker. Selecting it on the technology tree will instead start researching all its indirect prerequisites as well.

• When completing the following districts for the first time, you will also gain the corresponding building in that city:
  
  • Aerodrome - Hangar
    
  • Campus - Library
    
  • Commercial Hub - Market
    
  • Diplomatic Quarter - Consulate
    
  • Encampment - Barracks
    
  • Entertainment Complex - Arena
    
  • Harbour - Lighthouse
    
  • Holy Site - Shrine
    
  • Industrial Zone - Workshop
    
  • Preserve - Grove
    
  • Theatre Square - Amphitheatre
    
  • Water Park - Ferris Wheel
• Upon building an Aqueduct, Canal, Dam, Government Plaza, Neighbourhood or Spaceport district for the first time, receive an envoy.

Ancient era, melee infantry, unlocked from start

• Sabum Kibittum units have the following negative changes relative to Warriors:
  
  • 17 strength, down from 20
    
  • Costs 120 gold to upgrade to a Swordsman, up from 110 (+9%)
• And the following positive changes:
  
  • Costs 35 production/140 gold/70 faith, down from 40 (-12.5%)
    
  • 3 movement points, up from 2
    
  • 3 sight, up from 2
    
  • +17 strength vs. cavalry units

Ancient era, requires city centre adjacent to river, replaces Water Mill

• Does not directly provide +1 food.
  
• Does not provide +1 food to bonus resources worked by farms.
  
• Unlocked with the Irrigation technology instead of Wheel.
  
• Provides 2 production per turn, up from 1
  
• Provides 1 housing
  
• Provides +1 food for all land tiles worked by the city adjacent to a source of fresh water

Babylon is best at domination victories. On smaller map sizes, culture makes a good alternative relying on wonder construction. On larger map sizes, science can work, relying on the Kilwa Kisiwani wonder to counteract Babylon's empire-wide science penalty.

Babylon is a tough civ to master due to their unorthodox civ ability. However, a reliable starting strategy is to rush Industrialisation. You can do this by researching Mining, training a Builder, using their build charges to make three Mines, training a Settler to make a second city, and building two Industrial Zones with Workshops. From here, you can build Coal Power Plants and the Ruhr Valley wonder for a huge production advantage, making it easy to get many other eurekas in the game. From here, it's easy to dominate other civs.

Helping Babylon's civ ability is Hammurabi's leader ability, which grants free buildings in your first copy of most kinds of speciality district, and envoys for your first copy of any other. The first bonus saves a lot of production when it comes to getting eurekas, as many rely on getting to particular buildings. The second bonus is minor, but can help you secure a few more envoy bonuses to enhance your building yields further.

Babylon's unique unit is a kind of hybrid between Scout, Warrior and Spearman. You most likely won't be able to spare early production for more than a few, but their good mobility and unparalleled sight for so early in the game makes them great for tracking down ancient ruins. They're strong enough to take on Barbarians, yet mobile enough to retreat to friendly land to heal without too much trouble.

The Palgum building offers yet more production advantages to help with the civ ability. Aside from providing +1 production directly, the extra food for fresh water-adjacent tiles can make mine or lumber mill tiles provide enough food to cover the citizen needed to work them, allowing you to fit in more production tiles than you otherwise would.

• Good initial exploration
  
• Can get specific technologies far before any other civ
  
• Good city development

Rainforest (tier 2)

• Rainforest tiles provide a +1 adjacency bonus for Campus, Commercial Hub, Holy Site, and Theater Square districts.
  
  • This does not stack with the normal Campus rainforest adjacency bonus.
• Tiles within Brazilian land gain +1 appeal from adjacent rainforest tiles instead of -1.

• After acquiring a Great Person through recruitment or patronage, 20% of its Great Person Points cost is refunded.
  
  • This is the full 20% of the previous Great Person cost, regardless of whether you used patronage or not.

Industrial era, ranged naval, replaces Battleship

• Requires the industrial-era Nationalism civic instead of the modern-era Refining technology
  
  • This means the unit is constructed faster with the Press Gangs policy card (Renaissance era, requires Exploration) instead of International Waters (Atomic era, requires Cold War).
    
  • This also makes modern-era Great Admirals ineffective for them, but renaissance-era Great Admirals will boost their speed and strength.
• Does not require coal resources to construct
  
• 70 strength, up from 60
  
• 95 anti-air strength, up from 90
  
• 80 ranged strength, up from 70

Classical era, replaces Entertainment Complex

• -50% production cost
  
• Provides 2 amenities, up from 1
  
• Enables the Carnival city project
  
  • Provides 1 amenity while in progress, and provides Great Engineer, Merchant, Writer, Artist and Musician points when complete.
    
  • The Great Person Points offered are equivalent to a Theatre Square Festival, plus half of Commercial Hub Investments and half of Industrial Zone Logistics.

Industrial era, replaces Water Park

• -50% production cost
  
• Provides 2 amenities, up from 1
  
• Enables the Carnival city project
  
  • Provides 1 amenity while in progress, and provides Great Engineer, Merchant, Writer, Artist and Musician points when complete.
    
  • The Great Person Points offered are equivalent to a Theatre Square Festival, plus half of Commercial Hub Investments and half of Industrial Zone Logistics.

Brazil is a very flexible hybrid civ, and can go for cultural, domination, religious or scientific victories effectively.

The nation of Brazil has a curious niche - they have lots of flexibility regarding which victory route to go for, but has relatively little flexibility regarding where to build cities. You'll want as much rainforest as you can get early on regardless of your victory path as they'll make your districts particularly strong. For Holy Sites and Campuses, rainforests become as good as mountains. For Theatre Squares, you'll be getting adjacency bonuses others struggle with. The boost to Commercial Hubs is fine, but not quite as powerful.

On top of the rainforest bonuses, Brazil also comes with a pair of advantages which help with Great Person accumulation. Either unique district is amazing for amenities (which can boost all kinds of yields) but crucially comes with a unique project that offers more Great Person Points than any other. On top of this, Pedro II refunds you Great Person Points each time you earn one, making it far easier to accumulate large quantities of them.

This set of broad bonuses doesn't make Brazil especially strong at a particular victory path, but if you're being outmatched in one route, you can switch to another with ease. Here's how to take Brazil to each victory route bar diplomacy:

Cultural - Rainforest Holy Site adjacency allows you to buy lots of Rock Bands with the extra faith. Meanwhile, the Great Person bonuses are an excellent source of Great Writers, Artists and Musicians.

Domination - The Minas Geraes is a Battleship an era early with a strength bonus on top. It rips apart enemy city defences in no time and is useful for the entire second half of the game. Bring along a Caravel or Ironclad so you can capture enemy cities. While it won't help you against inland cities, dominating the coastlines of the world makes mounting land invasions much easier.

Religious - Holy Sites surrounded by rainforest can give you a very powerful early faith output. With the Sacred Path pantheon and enough rainforest tiles, the faith output can be up there with the best religious civs. Unfortunately, Brazil has no bonuses to Great Prophet Points.

Scientific - Double effectiveness of rainforests for Campuses gives Brazil a respectable science output, and faster Great Engineer and Scientist generation helps as well. You can try going for the Sacred Path pantheon and the medieval-era Great Scientist Hildegard of Bingen for a Holy Site with a powerful science output.

• Very flexible regarding victory route
  
• Strong Great Person generation
  
• Excellent amenity output
  
• Large window of naval dominance starting in the industrial era

None.

• All military and religious units gain +3 strength per Holy City following Byzantium's founded religion.
  
• Killing full civ or city-state units (including support units) causes Byzantium's founded religion to increase in pressure by 250 points in cities within 10 tiles.
  
  • This does not stack with the Disciples promotion for Warrior Monks.
• Holy Sites produce +2 Great Prophet Points per turn, up from +1.

• Light and heavy cavalry units do not have the usual 85% damage penalty against city defences so long as those cities follow Byzantium's religion.

Medieval era, heavy cavalry, replaces Knight

• Costs 10 iron, down from 20 (-50%)
  
• Adjacent military and religious units receive +4 strength
  
  • Units may only receive a strength bonus from one adjacent Tagma.

Classical era, naval ranged, replaces Quadrireme

• 2 range, up from 1
  
• +10 ranged strength vs. land and naval units

Classical era, replaces Entertainment Complex

• -50% production cost
  
• Provides 3 amenities, up from 1
  
• Upon the district and its buildings' completion, receive a free heavy cavalry unit. The free cavalry unit has no gold maintenance nor resource cost, even when upgraded.
  
  • The free heavy cavalry unit is whichever one you can train that has the most strength.

Byzantium is best at domination and religious victories, and their strengths at both are closely intertwined.

Build a couple of Holy Sites early on, and you can easily secure a religion as Byzantium. Grab the Crusade belief if you can, but otherwise you don't have to worry too much about religious infrastructure in the early parts of the game. Instead, try to expand your empire with Settlers while expanding your gold and culture outputs. Yes - Byzantium is a religious/warmonger hybrid which can neglect faith and science alike early in the game!

A key early goal for Byzantium is to get to the medieval-era Divine Right civic as quickly as possible. Along the way is the Games and Recreation civic, which unlocks the Hippodrome district. Start work on it in as many cities as possible, but until you research Divine Right, leave the districts unfinished. That allows you to finish all the districts at Divine Right for an instant force of Tagmata!

A force of Tagmata can single-handedly take down enemy civs, as killing enemy units will spread your religion, and you'll be able to ignore the outer defences of enemy cities which follow your religion. That being said, it helps to accompany them with some Missionaries or Apostles to help convert the trickier enemy cities. Converting enemy cities to your religion grants era score, and this combined with the strength bonus you gain for every Holy City you convert will allow Byzantium to snowball in power as the game goes on.

• Can convert enemy cities even at a major faith disadvantage
  
• Dominant naval presence until the renaissance era
  
• Very fast warfare - can quickly destroy city defences and move on to the next city
  
• High amount of amenities

Tundra (tier 1)
Tundra Hills (tier 1)
Snow (tier 5)
Snow Hills (tier 5)

• Cannot declare surprise wars, nor be the target of them
  
  • This means that when another civ requests Canada moves their military units from their borders or vice versa, there is no option but to make the promise.
• Cannot declare war directly on city-states
  
• Successfully completing emergencies or scored competitions as a member grants +100% diplomatic favour.
  
  • This bonus has no effect if you are the target of an emergency.
• 1% of empire-wide tourism generation, rounded down, is added to diplomatic favour.
  
  • In other words, you must generate at least 100 tourism per turn before getting any benefit from this bonus.

• May construct farms on flat tundra tiles
  
• With the industrial-era Civil Engineering civic, may construct farms on tundra hills tiles. Farms on these tiles produce +2 food.
  
• Camps on flat tundra, tundra hills, flat snow and snow hill tiles produce +2 food.
  
• Mines and lumber mills on flat tundra, tundra hills, flat snow and snow hill tiles produce +2 production.
  
• +100% strategic resource generation from improved flat tundra, tundra hills, flat snow and snow hill tiles.
  
  • Note that horse and aluminium resources do not appear on tundra or snow. Iron, nitre and coal can appear in tundra but not snow.
• Flat tundra, tundra hills, flat snow and snow hill tiles may be purchased for 50% less gold.

Modern era, light cavalry, requires Conservation civic

• No resource cost, unlike other light cavalry units.
  
• 290 production cost, 12% lower than Cavalry units and 51% lower than Helicopters.
  
• 62 strength, equal to Cavalry units and 24 points lower than Helicopters.
  
• 5 movement points, equal to Cavalry units and 1 point higher than Helicopters.
  
• Maintenance cost of 3 gold (Cavalry cost 5, Helicopters 7)
  
• Has two charges to build a National Park with.
  
  • National Parks must be positioned in a vertical diamond of tiles owned by the same city which either are land tiles with at least 2 appeal (charming) or are coastal natural wonder tiles.
    
  • Using the National Park charges does not consume the unit.
• +5 strength within two tiles of a National Park.
  
• Additional +5 strength if within two tiles of a National Park owned by Canada, for a total of +10.
  
• Has a sight radius of 4 (most other units have a radius of 2).
  
• Never obsoletes and thus may always be trained once unlocked.

Industrial era, requires Colonialism civic

• Must be constructed on featureless tundra or snow in your own territory and cannot be within the city limits of a city already host to a Ice Hockey Rink.
  
• Provides 1 amenity to its city, even when not worked.
  
• +1 culture per adjacent tundra or snow tile (not including mountains)
  
• +4 culture if adjacent to an Entertainment Complex with a Stadium
  
• +2 appeal to adjacent tiles
  
• Flight technology: Culture yield added to tourism.
  
• Professional Sports civic: +2 food, +2 production
  
• Pillage yield: Pillagers heal 50 health

Canada is best at cultural and diplomatic victories.

Canada can neither declare nor be the target of surprise wars, and as such for most of the game civs must give Canada five turns of warning in the form of a denouncement. This buys Canada plenty of time to build up defences if need be, so you can start the game by focusing on expansion instead. While Canada excels in tundra regions, other civs don't and have little incentive to expand into them - as such, expand into non-tundra regions first so you can maximise the land you control early on.

As Canada's diplomatic favour bonus scales to your tourism output, you should play the game as if you're after a cultural victory regardless of your eventual route. Both the unique unit and improvement aid tourism generation. Mounties can create National Parks at a considerably lower cost to Naturalists and avoid the need for Canada to generate faith until Rock Bands arrive in the atomic era, though unlike most unique units are weak at combat for their era. Ice Hockey Rinks can be worth up to 10 tourism each in cities with sufficient tundra or snow.

If you want to take Canada in a diplomatic direction, the diplomatic favour from tourism can be strong but mostly comes into play late in the game. In the mean-time, you can trade excess strategic resources with other civs for diplomatic favours, and approve every emergency and scored competition you can.

• Can effectively use tundra where most civs would struggle, giving the civ more settlement options
  
• Strong diplomatic favour generation
  
• Less need for faith than most tourism-inclined civs
  
• Strong amenities later in the game

None.

• All boosts (eurekas and inspirations) complete 50% of the base research cost for their respective technology or civic, up from 40%.
  
  • "Base research cost" refers to the cost of the technology if you are in the corresponding game era. The amount of research gained through a boost is fixed, but it will represent a higher percentage of research if you are in a later game era, or lower if you are in an earlier game era.
    
  • In other words, eurekas and inspirations offer 25% more science and culture respectively than normal.
• When completing a world wonder, receive a random eureka and inspiration boost of its respective era.

• All governments receive an extra economic policy card slot.
  
• When first establishing a trading post in another full civ, gain a random eureka and inspiration boost.
  
  • You may only receive this bonus once per full civ you send a route to.
    
  • The random eureka and inspirations will favour technologies and civics you are able to research but lack the boosts for.

Note: Mandate Qin is the default Qin Shi Huang for those without the Rulers of China Pack.

• Builders have an additional charge (4 by default instead of 3).
  
  • This extra charge is kept if the Builder is captured by another civ.
• Builders can use a charge to contribute 15% of the production cost of a wonder from the ancient or classical era.
  
  • This is affected by modifiers to general production and wonder production.
    
  • This is tied to the wonder's era, not your current era.
    
  • You cannot add a charge to a wonder that is not currently being worked on.
    
  • If you contribute more production via a charge than is needed to complete the wonder, the excess is carried over to the next thing you build.
• Canal districts are unlocked at the ancient-era Masonry technology rather than the industrial-era Steam Power technology.

• All melee infantry units have a charge of the Convert Barbarians action, consuming the unit to convert all Barbarian units in adjacent tiles to your control.
  
  • This ability may be used while the unit is embarked.
    
  • Converted Barbarians will be at the same health they had pre-conversion, and cannot take an action until the following turn.
    
  • Destroying a Barbarian Encampment by converting a Barbarian on its tile will not trigger the healing effect from the Initiation Rites pantheon, though it will still grant the faith.
    
  • If you have the Hagia Sophia wonder, melee infantry units have a second charge of the action, and may use one charge without being expended.

• +1 Spy capacity at the classical-era Defensive Tactics civic, and gain a free Spy
  
• May purchase Spies with faith.
  
• All Spies operate at +1 level.
  
• Upon a successful offensive espionage mission in a foreign city, receive 50% of the science and culture that city produced that turn.

• All cities gain access to the three unique Lijia projects. These convert a portion of production into their respective yield . They have no completion bonus, unlike other city projects.
  
  • Lijia (Faith) - 50% of the city's per-turn production is converted into faith.
    
  • Lijia (Food) - 50% of the city's per-turn production is converted into food.
    
  • Lijia (Gold) - 100% of the city's per-turn production is converted into gold.
• Cities of at least size 10 gain +2 gold, +1 science and +1 culture for every point of population
  
  • This means cities of size 10 receive a bonus +20 gold, +10 science and +10 culture.

(Medieval era, ranged land, requires Machinery technology)

• Costs 140 production/560 gold/280 faith (22% cheaper than a Crossbowman)
  
• 30 strength (same as Crossbowmen)
  
• Has 50 ranged strength (Crossbowmen have 40)
  
• Has 2 movement points
  
• Has 1 range (Crossbowmen have a range of 2)
  
• Maintenance cost of 3
  
• Costs 390 gold to upgrade to a Field Cannon, 26% higher than the Crossbowman to Field Cannon upgrade cost (310 gold)

(Ancient era, requires Masonry technology)

• Must be constructed on the edge of your territory, free from terrain features. You cannot have a Great Wall tile adjacent to more than two others.
  
• +4 defence for units on this tile
  
• +2 gold
  
• +2 gold per adjacent Great Wall tile
  
• Castles technology: +2 culture per adjacent Great Wall tile
  
• Flight technology: Culture output added to tourism
  
• Base pillage yield: 50 gold

China is best at cultural and scientific victories. Wu Zetian and Yongle in particular lean more on the scientific game, and Unifier Qin is good at domination as well.

China's defining feature is their more powerful eureka and inspiration boosts, which save a lot of culture and science over the course of the game, so long as you can meet their requirements. Fast civic gain is useful for getting a head start on some cultural wonders and tourism-boosting policy cards, but fast technology gain is even more important for scientific victories. Be sure to make good use of Spies to steal eurekas you can't easily unlock yourself - and to defend your own from being stolen.

Kublai Khan is one of the easier leaders to learn. When you complete a trade route in another civ for the first time, you get a bonus eureka and inspiration boost. After the classical game era, trade routes take longer to complete so it's a good idea to trade with as many different civs as you can early in the game for the most immediate impact. The free economic policy card is more powerful and even easier to learn - simply slot in an extra development, scientific, production or tourism bonus.

Mandate Qin's bonus is a bit trickier to use, but has great potential - the ability to rush pre-medieval wonders with Builders. Two Builders are enough to rush any pre-medieval wonder and still have a charge left over. Consider settling some extra cities quickly so your whole empire can train Builders and therefore contribute to wonder construction. Early wonders are worth a lot of tourism, and that only increases as you advance through the eras. It'll also be a great source of era score - a classical-era Golden Age is useful whether you go for Free Inquiry, Monumentality, or Pen, Brush and Voice. Qin Shi Huang also gets early Canals, which can be strategically used to boost the production yields of adjacent Industrial Zones.

Unifier Qin can raise a huge early army by training a couple of Warriors early on, finding Barbarian outposts, and waiting for Barbarian Scouts to complete their journey to a city's border back to the outpost. When a Barbarian Scout successfully does this, the outpost will spawn units over several turns which you can then convert. This converted force can then be used for an early rush against another civ. Barbarian outposts cannot spawn in territory that any civ has in sight, and the more tiles that any civ has in sight, the fewer outposts can spawn around the world. As such, this ability is most effective earlier in the game, but you can still get new units in later eras by sending your melee infantry units to isolated islands. Try to get the Hagia Sophia wonder if you can so your melee infantry units get an extra charge for converting Barbarians.

Wu Zetian builds on China's incentive to steal eurekas by granting an extra Spy, and strengthening all of them. They're also great for stealing Great Works. Don't use your free Spy at Defensive Tactics to steal technologies right away - try easier missions like Fabricate Scandal or Forment Unrest for easy promotions and to greatly boost your success rate. Keep in mind that missions that can be failed always have a minimum failure rate of 10%. Although you can buy Spies with faith, the cost of building up a faith infrastructure is quite steep so that's best-kept for later in the game.

Yongle becomes incredibly powerful once a city reaches size 10 - but before then, you can use his Lijia (Faith) project to usually secure the first Pantheon. Religious Settlements is a good choice for an early second city. Now, your aim is to balance expansion with city growth. Governor Magnus (the Steward) will aid greatly in this task; the Provision promotion prevents population loss from training Settlers, while his Surplus Logistics promotion speeds up city growth. If your capital starts with fresh water, you can build a Granary and six tile improvements like farms that boost housing, then use the Lijia (Food) project to get to 10 population easily. With a city at size 10, you can use it to train additional Settlers with Magnus' help while you focus on boosting the housing and food of your other cities. Try to settle extensively early on as you'll have more population points overall that way.

With that out of the way, you can settle down to a more straightforward game. The Great Wall tile improvement acts as an early fort and can be helpful for securing chokepoints from enemy attack. It also yields a very good amount of gold and some decent culture as well, so it's worth sparing some citizens to work them. It's particularly good for maintaining and upgrading Unifier Qin's units.

The Crouching Tiger Cannon might appear to be a tool for conquest at first glance, but its low range and low melee defence makes it vulnerable to counter-attacks. Instead, they can defend your cities, Encampment districts and Great Wall chokepoints.

• Kublai Khan - Very consistent bonuses
  
• Mandate Qin - Extremely effective at building wonders in the first two eras
  
• Unifier Qin - Can raise a large early army; Barbarians are rarely a threat
  
• Wu Zetian - Excellent at obtaining and using eurekas
  
• Yongle - Immense raw culture, science and gold outputs
  
• Can keep up with technologies and inspirations even with relatively poor science or culture respectively.
  
• Great gold output from the Great Wall

None.

• Upon researching the ancient-era Pottery technology, receive +1 trade route capacity and a free Trader unit.
  
• Trader units claim territory for free when they move into unclaimed territory within three tiles of any of your owned city centres.
  
  • This affects land and water tiles alike.

• Trade routes gain +1 food per camp and pasture in the destination city.
  
• Destination cities of Cree trade routes gain +1 gold per camp and pasture they control.
  
• All alliances provide the Cree and the allied civ with shared visibility, regardless of type or level.

Ancient era, recon, replaces Scout

• Costs 40 production/160 gold/80 faith, up from 30 production/120 gold/60 faith (+33%)
  
• 20 melee strength, up from 10
  
• Starts with +1 promotion level
  
  • This works as if the unit got enough experience for the first promotion; subsequent ones are not any cheaper than they would be for other units.
• Costs 230 gold to upgrade, down from 250 (-8%)

Ancient era, requires Pottery technology

• Must be placed on an owned featureless land tile adjacent to at least one bonus or luxury resource and not another Mekewap
  
• +1 production, +1 housing
  
• +1 food per two adjacent bonus resources
  
• +1 gold if a luxury resource is adjacent
  
• Civil Service civic: +1 production
  
• Cartography technology: +2 gold per adjacent luxury resource
  
• Conservation civic: Food adjacency changed to +1 food per adjacent bonus resource
  
• Pillage yield: 50 health

The Cree are best at diplomatic victories though their very general bonuses gives them a reasonable edge at any route.

Okihtcitaw are basically super-Scouts. Their free starting promotion gives them a great amount of mobility helping you to reveal more land sooner, while their greater strength allows them to survive in this role for longer than normal. However, they can also be used for a risky early rush. Grabbing the Survey policy card will help to boost the experience gained from uncovering natural wonders and entering tribal villages; combine that with an early war against a city-state so you can fight them for experience, and you may be able to get one with the Ambush promotion, which raises it to an impressive 40 strength. Accompany this unit with some other Okihtcitaw so they can train up during warfare allowing you to get even more with the Ambush promotion.

The exploration advantages of the Cree don't stop with Okihtcitaw. With the medieval-era Civil Service civic, you can form alliances and immediately uncover all the tiles the civ knows. Allying distant civs can be a great way of revealing the entire map far earlier than most other civs can manage.

Position your cities with a 5-6 tile gap between them. The reason for this is both to make the most of the civ ability's rapid acquisition of tiles, and to ensure you have more space for Mekewaps (which cannot be placed next to each other). Mekewaps initially are good for their high housing contribution and reasonable production, though later in the game they can offer decent amounts of food or a strong amount of gold.

Maximising trade route capacity is important not only for tile acquisition but also for extra yields from Poundmaker's leader ability. Early on, you can send trade routes to cities you own with a lot of pastures and camps for both food (for the origin city) and gold. Later on, once your alliances start creating stronger yields, you can benefit from the advantages of international trade while still generating a strong amount of food for your own cities.

• Very strong gold output
  
• Good city growth
  
• Rapid renaissance-era discovery via alliances
  
• General bonuses make the civ effective at a range of victory routes

Grassland Floodplains (tier 2)
Plains Floodplains (tier 2)
Rivers (tier 5)

• All districts and wonders construct 15% faster if positioned adjacent to a river
  
• Units, improvements and districts within your territory are immune to flood damage.
  
• Fertility bonuses from flooding is halved within your territory as if a Dam is present on every river.

Note: Egyptian Cleopatra is the default Cleopatra for those without the Leaders Pass.

• International trade routes from Egypt to another civ or city-state provide +4 gold each.
  
• International trade routes from another civ or city-state to Egypt provide +2 gold for Egypt and +2 food for them.
  
• Alliances gain an extra +0.25 alliance points per turn for having at least one trade route sent to the other civ.
  
• Alliances gain an extra +0.25 alliance points per turn for having at least one trade route incoming from the other civ.

• Tiles with both floodplains and a resource present yield +1 food and +1 culture.
  
• Egyptian-owned floodplains grant +1 appeal to adjacent tiles instead of -1.

• When completing a building, gain culture equal to 15% of its production cost.
  
• When completing a wonder, gain culture equal to 30% of its production cost.

Ancient era, ranged land, requires the Wheel technology

• 90 production cost, 50% more than an Archer (60) and 50% less than a Crossbowman (180)
  
• 25 melee strength (Archers have 15; Crossbowmen 30)
  
• 35 ranged strength (Archers have 25; Crossbowmen 40)
  
• Uses ranged land promotions, but has a 10-point strength vulnerability to anti-cavalry units like light and heavy cavalry units.
  
• +2 movement points if starting a turn on open terrain.
  
• Costs 190 gold to upgrade to a Crossbowman, 24% less than the Archer to Crossbowman upgrade path (250 gold)

Ancient era, requires Craftmanship civic

• Must be constructed on owned desert, grass, plains or tundra. May have floodplains present but no other features. Must not be adjacent to another Sphinx.
  
• +1 culture, +1 faith
  
• +1 culture if built on floodplains
  
• +2 faith if adjacent to a wonder (does not stack)
  
• +2 appeal to adjacent tiles
  
• Natural History civic: +1 culture
  
• Flight technology: Culture output added to tourism
  
• Base pillage yield: 25 faith

Egypt is best at cultural and religious victories, and does well at diplomacy as well.

The obvious thing to do is spam wonders early on, but Egypt's start is trickier than that. Unless you can secure Stonehenge very early on and get a huge head start to your religion (which is often not possible on higher difficulties), you'll need to ensure your civ is reasonably well-developed before you can start concerning yourself with wonders. Look for city locations with plenty of rivers which aren't too close to each other so you have plenty of space for districts and wonders, and make use of farms and mines to get them ready for wonder construction. Once you get going with wonder construction, you may find you'll get a lot of era score, letting you make use of great bonuses like Exodus of the Evangelists, Monumentality, Reform the Coinage (for Egyptian Cleopatra), Heartbeat of Steam and Wish You Were Here.

Egyptian Cleopatra's leader ability can get you a good amount of gold from external trading, but where it really shines is giving you money for nothing once other civs start sending you trade routes. Building large cities will be both good for wonder construction and supporting a wide variety of districts, and cities with a wide variety of districts are very lucrative for other civs to send trade routes to, so make sure to promote city growth! Sending trade routes to civs and receiving them will help your alliances develop faster; avoid warfare later in the game so you can secure plenty of them.

Ptolemaic Cleopatra gets a good start to food and culture in floodplain regions, and together with the appeal bonuses from Sphinxes can create powerful Preserve districts very early in the game. Her appeal bonuses are excellent later for making powerful National Parks and seaside resorts.

Ramses II can risk starting wonder construction a little earlier than Egypt's other leaders as he can afford to neglect culture infrastructure for quite some time. It may even be worth skipping Holy Sites as him to save district capacity for Campuses and Industrial Zones to secure the most wonders.

Maryannu Chariot Archers are strong, but they come with an high production cost which can make them tricky to use. Still, a few of those complemented by a couple of units with a melee attack such as Heavy Chariots or Horsemen can make for an effective early rush option. Alternatively, you can keep a few around as a good defensive option.

Sphinxes are useful for both cultural and religious victories. At first, Sphinxes should generally only be constructed adjacent to wonders to ensure a decent yield, or two tiles away from Preserves to maximise their yields. Later in the game, even unboosted unworked Sphinxes produce tourism, so they should be built in large quantities. They're also one of the few tile improvements that can be constructed on desert tiles, making them ideal for spamming near a Petra city. Religious players will obviously want to use the faith to buy religious units, while cultural civs can really help get their development off the ground with the Monumentality Golden Age dedication bonus, which allows you to purchase civilian units with faith. The appeal boost can allow for National Parks in regions were they'd otherwise be unviable, as well as better seaside resorts.

• Range of early bonuses can make Egypt unpredictable early on, especially with Egyptian Cleopatra
  
• Decent early-rush potential
  
• Consistently effective wonder construction
  
• Good at both wonder-centric and terrain-centric approaches to cultural victory

Coastal (tier 3)
Coal (tier 5)
Iron (tier 5)

• Iron and coal mines produce +2 copies of their resources per turn.
  
• Harbour buildings increase the strategic resource stockpile limit by 10 each.
  
• +20% production to all Industrial Zone buildings.
  
• +100% production to Military Engineers; they have +2 charges.
  
• The following buildings receive a +4 bonus to their main yield when powered: Airport, Broadcast Centre, Factory, Food Market, Research Lab, Shopping Mall, Stock Exchange.

• 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 her control.

• The first city founded on each foreign continent grants you a free melee infantry unit and +1 trade route capacity.
  
  • The free unit will be the strongest you can currently train based on your technology; strategic resources are ignored.
    
  • The free unit will start will full health and can move and fight immediately.
• Constructing a Royal Navy Dockyard grants you a free naval unit on the district's tile.
  
  • The free unit will be the strongest you can currently build based on your technology (ranged strength included); strategic resources are ignored.
    
  • Sea Dogs take priority over Frigates which take priority over Caravels, and Missile Cruisers take priority over Nuclear Submarines.

Industrial era, melee infantry, replaces Line Infantry

• Costs 10 nitre, down from 20
  
• 75 strength, up from 70
  
• +10 strength on a foreign continent
  
• Disembarking costs just one movement point

Renaissance era, naval raider, replaces Privateer

• 55 ranged strength, up from 50
  
• Can capture non-Barbarian naval units when destroying them
  
  • The chance of this scales based on the strength difference between the Sea Dog and the unit it defeats. Units with less melee strength are more likely to be captured.
    
  • Captured units will start at 25 health.
    
  • Captured Privateers will not be converted into Sea Dogs.
    
  • Captured unique naval units will not revert to their generic counterparts.

(Classical era, replaces Harbour)

• -50% production cost
  
• +2 gold adjacency bonus and +4 loyalty per turn when constructed on a foreign continent
  
• 2 Great Admiral Points per turn, up from 1
  
• All naval units built or purchased in this city have +1 movement point, retained when the units are upgraded.

England is best at domination and scientific victories. Eleanor is inclined towards culture as well.

Building a Royal Navy Dockyard in a city followed by a couple of Galleys can get your exploration off to a great start. Try and find a new continent, and settle it extensively. The Ancestral Hall Government Plaza building will give those cities Builders; use them to chop down trees to rush more Royal Navy Dockyards. Getting the Free Inquiry Golden Age dedication in the classical or medieval era will cause those cities to generate lots of science. Get some Monuments as well to get through key civics - the Naval Infrastructure policy card available at the medieval-era Naval Tradition civic doubles Royal Navy Dockyard adjacency, adding to Free Inquiry further.

Victoria can use Free Inquiry to beeline the Military Science technology for early Redcoats. With a massive +15 strength advantage over regular Line Infantry on foreign continents, they are an excellent tool for domination. Royal Navy Dockyards and Sea Dogs together allow you to raise a huge navy with minimal investment, and extra trade routes can help cover the resulting maintenance costs.

Alternatively, either leader can rush to Industrialisation. England can develop Industrial Zones quickly, and will be rewarded with much stronger powered buildings. This is most impactful for Factories, Research Labs and Broadcast Centres, all of which can aid in cultural, domination and scientific games to varying extents. More efficient Military Engineers make them effective at developing weaker cities - you can chop trees for a low cost, or rush Aqueducts, Canals, Dams or Flood Barriers there.

Eleanor can take cities without warfare, though this is most effective late in the game. To prepare, expand to plenty of closely-packed cities and build lots of Theatre Squares. Build Art Museums in border cities as you can easily move in Great Works. Just three Rock Bands with the Indie promotion can make any rival city into a free city - try rushing to the future-era Cultural Hegemony civic to pick up the Hallyu wildcard.

• Excellent colonising potential
  
• Eleanor: Take over cities in peace-time
  
• Victoria: Huge navy at a low cost

Desert Hills (tier 2)
Grassland Hills (tier 2)
Plains Hills (tier 2)
Tundra Hills (tier 2)

• Improved resource tiles each grant their city +1 faith per improved copy of that resource in the city's territory
  
  • As an example, a city with 3 improved wheat tiles and 2 improved fish tiles will yield 9 faith for the wheat, and 4 for the fish.
    
  • Improvements do not have to be worked to provide this yield.
• International trade routes yield +0.5 faith for every resource in the origin city
  
• May purchase Archaeological Museums and Archaeologists with faith

• Cities founded on hills generate bonus science and culture equal to 15% of their faith output
  
• All military and religious units receive +4 strength when fighting in hills
  
  • This strength bonus is determined by the defending unit's location.

Medieval era, light cavalry, replaces Courser

• Costs 10 horses, down from 20 (-50%)
  
• 48 strength, up from 46
  
• 3 sight, up from 2
  
• Ignores movement cost of hills

Classical era, requires Drama and Poetry civic

• Must be built on a featureless hills or volcanic soil tile within your own territory and not adjacent to another Rock-Hewn Church
  
• +1 faith
  
• +1 faith per adjacent hills or mountain tile
  
• Can never be removed by natural hazards; only pillaged.
  
• Flight: Faith yield added to tourism. This includes any faith added from the Earth Goddess or Fire Goddess pantheons.
  
• Base pillage yield: 25 faith

Ethiopia is best at religious and cultural victories, and works well at science as well.

Always settle on hills if you can as Ethiopia, as you'll gain some easy extra culture and science for every point of faith you generate in those cities - which can more than make up for pushing for early Holy Sites to secure a religion. Very hilly or mountainous areas are ideal for the Rock-Hewn Church, which generate so much faith they're worth working early in the game. Try getting the Earth Goddess pantheon for even more faith - it'll even add to the tourism the improvement offers with Flight.

Improving resources will give you bonus faith even if you don't work them, especially in cities with large quantities of the same resource. The cities most likely to fit this criteria are coastal or island cities with a large quantity of fish, so consider those locations and not just hill/mountain-heavy areas. You'll need plenty of Builders to improve all those resources - the Monumentality Golden Age dedication will help greatly if you can manage it.

The Oromo Cavalry is among the game's most mobile units and with the Depredation promotion becomes an excellent pillager. They're also great as a scout though they're not exceptionally strong in direct combat. Still, they can easily slip out of harm's way if they get injured.

While Ethiopia's faith strong output is ideal for a religious game, they also have an extra option to use it in a cultural game, as they can purchase Archaeological Museums and Archaeologists with faith. With help from Governor Moksha (the Cardinal), you can buy a Theatre Square in a new city, spend 600 gold for an Amphitheatre and spend your way with to an Archaeologist. This can give you a considerable head start at the Archaeology game allowing you to accumulate quite a lot of tourism before most other civs can.

• Good culture/science yields even when pushing for religion
  
• Reasonably good defence, with the most mobile unit for its era

Rivers (tier 3)

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

Note: Black Queen Catherine is the default Catherine de' Medici for those without the Persona Pack.

• +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 with a free promotion

• 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 her control.

• All luxury resource tiles adjacent to at least one Theatre Square district or Chateau yield +2 culture.
  
• Cities with Theatre Squares have access to the Court Festival project.
  
  • When completed, 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.
      
    • 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.
    
  • As with other district projects, the cost increases scaling with the proportion of the game's technologies or civics (whichever is higher) you have unlocked.

Industrial era, melee infantry, replaces Line Infantry

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

Renaissance era, requires Humanism civic

• Must be constructed in your own territory, adjacent to a bonus or luxury resource and not another Chateau.
  
• +2 culture, +1 gold
  
• +2 gold if adjacent to a river
  
• +1 culture per adjacent wonder
  
• +1 appeal to adjacent tiles
  
• Flight technology: Culture output added to tourism
  
• Base pillage yield: 25 faith

France is by far most effective at cultural victories.

France's three different leaders all play the cultural game, but all have their own unique take on it.

Black Queen Catherine has the most straightforward start, and her diplomatic visibility bonus adds extra strength to keep you safe. Start the game by settling cities reasonably spaced apart so there's room for farms and wonders. With the Printing technology, she'll know when any met civ in the game has started construction on a wonder, allowing you to react accordingly to ensure you take it. Furthermore, an extra Spy can be amazing for setting back other civs without going to war, or for stealing Great Works. Knowing when another civ is starting work on missions to Mars and having the Spies to disrupt it can save you from defeat.

Eleanor can take cities without warfare, though this is most effective late in the game. To prepare, expand to plenty of closely-packed cities and build lots of Theatre Squares. Build Art Museums in border cities as you can easily move in Great Works. Just three Rock Bands with the Indie promotion can make any rival city into a free city - try rushing to the future-era Cultural Hegemony civic to pick up the Hallyu wildcard.

Magnificence Catherine can go slowly, playing at first like Black Queen Catherine without the espionage bonuses, before colonising other continents for luxuries and then making lots of Court Festivals. Alternatively, you can risk it all on a fast route to cultural victory - build loads of cities with Theatre Squares, trade for every luxury you can get and complete as many Court Festivals as possible.

All three leaders share a bonus to building wonders, though Magnificence Catherine will probably use this the least. Wonders from earlier eras are worth more tourism, especially if you can get to later research eras quickly. Chateaux are an extra source of tourism with Flight, and you don't even need to work them. Garde Impériale can aid you in capturing wonders.

• Strong tourism output
  
• Black Queen Catherine: Good defence; espionage advantages are great against scientific civs
  
• Eleanor: Take over cities in peace-time
  
• Magnificence Catherine: Potential for very fast cultural victory

Copper (tier 2)
Diamonds (tier 2)
Iron (tier 2)
Jade (tier 2)
Mercury (tier 2)
Salt (tier 2)
Silver (tier 2)

• Cannot build speciality districts adjacent to city centres.
  
  • You can still place new cities adjacent to existing speciality districts of other cities, or keep the speciality districts of cities you capture.
• Speciality districts do not receive the standard +0.5 adjacency from other districts.
  
  • This does not affect specific district-to-district adjacency bonuses, like Government Plazas providing +1 to other districts' adjacency, Harbours receiving +2 gold from city centres, or Theatre Squares receiving +2 culture from Entertainment Complexes and Water Parks; these are still in effect.
• Speciality districts receive +0.5 adjacency from mines.
  
• Mines provide +1 culture
  
• Mines provide +1 tourism with the modern-era Flight technology.
  
• Mines culture bomb adjacent unowned tiles when built.
  
  • Only tiles that are within the workable range of the tile's city will be granted (in other words, they must be within a 3-tile radius from the city centre).

• When training any military or support unit, gain culture equal to 20% of the unit's production cost.
  
  • You do not receive culture if the unit is purchased.
• Melee infantry, anti-cavalry and land ranged units receive +2 strength per adjacent military unit.
  
  • This applies regardless of whether the adjacent units are owned by you or not.

Ancient era, melee infantry, replaces Warrior

• Costs 60 production, 240 gold or 120 faith, up from 40, 160 and 80 respectively (+50%)
  
• +10 strength vs. units with a higher base melee strength.
  
• +5 strength when attacking city centres and other districts.
  
• Obsoletes at the medieval-era Apprenticeship technology, instead of the classical-era Iron Working technology
  
• Upgrades directly to Men-at-Arms instead of Swordsmen.

Classical era, replaces Industrial Zone

• Arrives at the classical-era Iron Working technology, instead of the medieval-era Apprenticeship technology.
  
• Does not gain +2 production adjacency from Aqueducts, Canals or Dams.
  
• Does not gain +0.5 production adjacency from districts or lumber mills.
  
• Does not inherently gain +0.5 production adjacency from mines (this is instead provided by the Gallic civ ability).
  
• -50% production cost
  
• Completing your first Oppidum instantly completes the medieval-era Apprenticeship technology, regardless of whether or not you have the prerequisites.
  
• +2 production per adjacent strategic resource, up from +1.
  
• +2 production per adjacent quarry, up from +1.
  
• Has its own health (akin to an Encampment). Gains outer defences and can perform a ranged attack if the city has walls or urban defences.
  
• Grants no yield to pillagers.
  
• May only be pillaged by having its health reduced to 0 or by enemy Spies using the Sabotage Production mission.

Gaul is best at domination victories.

With some Gaesatae units and Archers, Gaul can be terrifyingly effective at early rushes. Keep your military units packed together for maximum strength bonuses - a front line of Gaesatae units, a second line of Archers and a third line of injured units that need to heal up is a reasonable combination. As you can gain strength from adjacent enemy units, their flanking bonuses won't post a threat to you. Grab Iron Working quickly for your first Oppidum district, build it and you'll instantly be able to upgrade your Gaesatae units to Men-at-Arms for a huge strength advantage.

Training units grants extra culture via Ambiorix's leader ability, and you'll get extra culture for having mines as well. This allows Gaul to keep ahead in the race for civics without needing to invest in Theatre Squares. Stack bonuses to unit production for more efficient culture outputs. As naval units have bigger production bonuses from policy cards than other units, if you want to optimise your culture output, focus on building them.

Gaul can't place districts adjacent to a city centre, nor do they gain district adjacency from other districts, though to compensate they can receive minor district adjacency from mines and they can quickly seize land by building mines. This makes Gallic city placement more driven by terrain than is the case for many other civs, and substantially weakens Harbours. Look out for stone, gypsum, marble and strategic resources in particular as they'll add considerably to production yields for the unique Oppidum district.

Oppidums are cheap to build and are a great source of production in new cities, but because their adjacency requirements are largely out of your control, they lack the yield potential of many other unique districts. However, their ability to defend themselves gives Gaul a massive advantage when it comes to securing land. You can use both Oppidums and Encampments together to make a tough wall your enemies can't easily break through, or secure two different chokepoints at once. Oppidums also can't be directly pillaged (making them safer from natural hazards) and give no yield to civs that destroy them, though they're still susceptible to Spies.

• Strong early rush potential
  
• Devastatingly powerful land armies; both strong quality and quantity of units
  
• Excellent defensive capabilities

None.

• Golden and Heroic Age dedications also provide their Normal Age era score bonuses.
  
• +50% production when building Ancient Walls, Medieval Walls and Tsikhe buildings.

• Killing military units provides faith equal to 50% of their melee strength.
  
  • This stacks with the God of War pantheon for 100% of the unit's melee strength.
• Whenever you gain an envoy in a city-state following the religion present in the majority of your cities, gain an additional envoy.
  
  • If no single religion is dominant in at least half your cities, the bonus will not apply.
    
  • This does not affect Amani (the Diplomat)'s +2 envoy boost when present in a city-state.
    
  • This takes effect after the effect of the Religious Unity founder belief, so it will always create two envoys instead of one.
    
  • Sending your first envoy to a city-state with your religion present while you have the Diplomatic League or Containment policy card active will only grant three envoys, not four.

Medieval era, melee infantry, replaces Man-at-Arms

• Requires the Military Tactics technology instead of Apprenticeship
  
• Costs 10 iron to train, down from 20 (-50%)
  
• Has 48 strength, up from 45
  
• +7 strength when attacking into or defending on hill tiles
  
• Hill tiles cost 1 movement point to enter instead of 2.

Renaissance era, requires Ancient Walls and Medieval Walls, replaces Renaissance Walls

• Costs 260 production/520 faith, down from 300/600 respectively (-13%)
  
• Provides 4 faith per turn
  
• During a Golden or Heroic Age, provides an additional +4 faith, and +3 tourism with the modern-era Conservation civic.
  
• Provides 200 health to city outer defences, up from 100 (+100%).

Georgia is best at diplomatic and religious victories.

Train a few Slingers or Warriors at the start of the game, kill some Barbarians and you can secure a pantheon very early in the game as Georgia. Divine Spark is a good choice as it allows you to secure a religion with just a couple of Holy Sites, saving precious production early in the game where expansion is crucial. Aiding Georgia's early development and expansion is the Khevsur UU, with good mobility and great strength on hill tiles. They're great defensively, but with help from Battering Rams, they're not bad at attacking either.

With some early development out of the way, you can look into Georgia's key advantages.

Normally, every Golden Age you enter increases the threshold to the next one, making it hard to chain them together. For Georgia, however, you can keep the era score of a dedication bonus while picking up its Golden Age bonus, making it much easier to keep up a constant Golden Age. Some great ways to gain era score include destroying Barbarian Outposts, converting cities of civs you're at war with, building wonders, and creating National Parks later in the game.

Georgia's other key advantage that they gain envoys twice as fast in city-states that follow their religion. That can get you to the 3 and 6-envoy thresholds quickly, granting you all sorts of advantages for cities with the corresponding buildings. Becoming suzerain over more city-states gives Georgia a great advantage at diplomatic favour generation.

Finally, Georgia has great defensive capabilities thanks to their bonus to wall construction and the Tsikhe unique building. A city with a Tsikhe defends as well as a city with urban defences, making you virtually untouchable for an era or two. It also generates a good amount of faith, which adds up considerably as it's the only unique building in the game that is neither tied to specific terrain or a specific district, so you can build it in every city. Avoid researching Steel until you have them all built though, as the technology will prevent you building any more.

• Strong defence, particularly in the renaissance era
  
• Maintains Golden Ages; hence has consistently strong loyalty
  
• Extremely strong ability to generate envoys; great in the World Congress as a result

Rivers (tier 5)

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

• All governments receive an extra military policy card slot.
  
• All military units have a +7 strength bonus against city-states and their units.
  
  • This does not apply against levied units.

Modern era, naval raider, replaces Submarine

• Costs 510 gold to upgrade to a Nuclear Submarine, up from 410 (+24%)
  
• Costs 430 production/1720 gold, down from 480 production/1920 gold (-10%)
  
• Costs 310 gold to upgrade to from a Privateer, down from 410 (-24%)
  
• Does not require oil resources
  
• 3 sight, up from 2.
  
• +10 strength and ranged strength when fighting in ocean tiles
  
  • This is based on where the defending unit is located.

Medieval era, replaces Industrial Zone

• Does not provide the usual +1 production bonus from adjacent quarries
  
• Does not provide the usual +0.5 production bonus per adjacent mine or lumber mill
  
• -50% production cost
  
• +2 production per adjacent Commercial Hub district
  
  • This stacks with the +1 production bonus per adjacent two districts, so a Hansa adjacent to two Commercial Hubs will receive a +5 production bonus.
• +1 production per adjacent resource of any kind instead of just strategic resources
  
  • This includes resources in adjacent coastal tiles

Germany is best at scientific and domination victories.

Germany's one of the best civs around at city development, but you can really make use of your strength bonus against city-states for some early expansion as well. That may result in a city-state emergency against you, but win, and you'll be rewarded with a substantial amount of gold. An extra military policy card may appear to be a bonus intended for a war-heavy game - it can be, but you can also use it to cover a weakness in some of the more peaceful governments like Classical Republic.

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

U-Boats are a bit of a niche unit as UUs go, but they still perform admirably in the role of intercepting enemy fleets before they can reach your shores. With an extended sight range, you can keep a lot of ocean visible ensuring you know exactly what their attack angle will be. Their low cost and lack of oil requirement means it's easy to spare some production for them.

• Reasonable early expansion potential via bonuses against city-states
  
• Powerful production
  
• Great at city development even with low food or housing

Gran Colombia has no start bias.

• All units gain +1 movement.
  
• Promoting a unit does not end its turn nor does it cost movement points.

• When entering a new game era, receive a free Comandante General.
  
  • The specific Comandante General you will receive is random, though you will never receive the same one twice in a game.

• Non-competitive unlike other Great People, so other civs cannot deny you them
  
• Does not grant era score when earned, unlike other Great People. However, like Great Generals, grants +2 era score the first time a unit you own within two tiles scores a kill.
  
• Offers +5 strength to owned land military units within two tiles.
  
  • This stacks with the bonus offered by Great Generals, though not with the bonus from other Comandante Generals.
    
  • This bonus is not tied to an era, unlike the Great General bonus, so it can apply to ancient-era units.
• Has a unique set of retirement bonuses:
  
  • Antonio Jose de Sucre: Instantly creates the strongest unit you can train. This unit receives a free promotion. This unit requires no resource maintenance.
    
  • Antonio Nariño: +1 trade route capacity and receive a free Trader in the nearest city.
    
  • Francisco de Paula Santander: Grants a Governor title.
    
  • Gregor McGregor: Grants +1 promotion level to a military land unit and gold equal to 50% of the unit's purchase cost.
    
  • José Antonio Páez: All cavalry units within 2 tiles gain a permanent +4 strength bonus.
    
  • José Félix Ribas: Enemy units within 2 tiles lose 30HP
    
  • Manuel Piar: Permanent +7 strength to a land military unit on this tile.
    
  • Mariano Montilla: Units within 2 tiles gain +4 strength permanently when attacking cities.
    
  • Rafael Urdaneta: All land combat units within 2 tiles regain all movement and attack capability, as if they had just started a new turn.
    
  • Santiago Mariño: +4 strength permanently to all melee infantry and anti-cavalry units within two tiles.

Industrial era, light cavalry, replaces Cavalry

• Maintenance cost of 2 gold per turn, down from 5 (-60%)
  
• +2 strength per adjacent Llanero
  
• Heals to full health when a Comandante General is retired within two tiles of this unit.

Renaissance era, requires Mercantilism

• Must be constructed on featureless grassland, grassland hills, plains or plains hills within your own lands
  
• +2 gold, +1 production, +0.5 housing
  
• 1 food per two adjacent plantations
  
• 1 production per two adjacent Haciendas
  
• Replaceable Parts technology: Adjacency from plantations changed to +1 food per adjacent plantation.
  
• Rapid Deployment civic: Adjacency from Haciendas changed to +1 production per adjacent Hacienda.
  
• Pillage yield: Pillager heals 50 health.

Gran Colombia is best at domination victories.

Mobility is key to Gran Colombia, as all their units are faster - even civilians and religious units! Early on, you can use this mobility to discover land faster and get new Settlers where they need to be sooner. Use this precious early time to build up a couple of Encampments and train some Archers alongside general city expansion.

Once the classical game era begins, you'll receive your first Comandante General, and around that time you'll be likely to gain your first Great General as well. Comandante Generals boost the strength of all land military units regardless of era, so combined with Archers they can make a force comparable to Nubia's Pítati Archers in power. However, a Great General and Comandante General together for an appropriate era's units can be worth an impressive +10 strength as well as +1 movement! This extra mobility is most effective for siege units like Catapults, as they'll be able to move from a safe place to attacking a city in a single turn. Promotions not ending your turn can allow for even faster combat as your army can heal up as it goes.

Haciendas are a handy support improvement with moderate production and food - but crucially, has gold on top of these basic resources. This allows you to reliably work these tiles and enjoy the gold bonus, helping you to support subsequent military endeavours.

Finally, Llaneros are very powerful if massed in large numbers and, boosted by Comandante Generals, can rival atomic-era levels of strength. They can easily take down unfortified cities and units, though if a foe is using walls, a siege unit such as a Bombard or Artillery will help.

• Consistently high mobility for all units
  
• Comandante Generals offer a reliable strength advantage for all eras

Desert Hills (tier 3)
Grassland Hills (tier 3)
Plains Hills (tier 3)
Tundra Hills (tier 3)

• All governments receive an extra wildcard policy card slot.

• Killing military units provides culture equal to 50% of their melee strength.
  
• All units gain +1 strength per military policy card in your government.
  
• Grievances created against Gorgo decay at double the usual rate.

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

Ancient era, anti-cavalry, replaces Spearman

• 28 strength, up from 25
  
• +10 strength when adjacent to at least one other Hoplite

Classical era, replaces Theatre Square

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

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

An early wildcard slot offers a lot of flexibility, especially early in the game. If you like, you can take the Mysticism civic and pick up Inspiration for early Great Scientist Points, or Revelation for bonus Great Prophet Points. Gorgo can pick up the Oligarchy government and stack military policy cards for an impressive +8 strength bonus for Hoplites, while Pericles might want to stack bonuses to envoy accumulation.

The Hoplite unique unit offers a good amount of strength at a low cost. Two adjacent to each other have more strength than a Swordsman, and can stand up to even Knights reasonably effectively. Gorgo can take them on the offensive to pick off some cities and kill units for culture, while Pericles might want to show a bit more restraint.

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

Every Acropolis you construct gives you an envoy, which is fine for Gorgo but great for Pericles as the more city-states you're suzerain over, the greater his culture output. Although Gorgo has a better up-front culture output, Pericles will overtake her later in the game. That makes getting to late-arriving tourism boosts much easier. Furthermore, becoming suzerain over lots of city-states is a great source of diplomatic favour, giving Greece an edge in the diplomatic game.

• Strong early-game thanks to the immediate wildcard policy card
  
• Reasonable early-rush potential, especially with Gorgo
  
• Very high culture output, especially with Pericles
  
• Strong envoy generation

River (tier 3)
Geothermal Fissure (tier 5)

• +50% production when constructing districts and buildings adjacent to, but the other side of a river from, their city centre.

• When levying a city-state's units, gain two envoys with the respective city-state.
  
• Levied city-state units gain +2 movement points and +5 strength.
  
• Levied city-state units cost 75% less gold and strategic resources to upgrade.
  
  • This stacks multiplicatively, not additively, with appropriate policy cards, so upgrading units will never be free.

Medieval era, light cavalry, replaces Courser

• Costs 205 production/820 gold/410 faith, up from 200/800/400 respectively (+2.5%)
  
• Costs 260 gold to upgrade to from a Horseman, up from 250 (+4%)
  
• Costs 10 horses, down from 20 (-50%)
  
• 49 strength, up from 46
  
• +3 strength for every adjacent controlled levied unit.

Industrial era, light cavalry, replaces Cavalry

• Costs 335 production/1340 gold/670 faith, up from 330/1320/660 respectively (+1.5%)
  
• 65 strength, up from 62
  
• +3 strength for every alliance Hungary has active.
  
• Costs 540 gold to upgrade to a Helicopter, down from 550 (-2%)

Industrial era, requires Entertainment Complex with Arena, replaces Zoo

• Does not apply science to rainforest or marsh tiles.
  
• Provides 2 amenities for cities within 6 tiles, up from 1 amenity, so long as they are not in range of another Thermal Bath.
  
• Offers 2 production to cities within 6 tiles, so long as they are not in range of another Thermal Bath.
  
• Adds 2 amenities and 3 tourism to its city if it has a geothermal fissue in the city limits.

Hungary is best at domination and diplomatic victories.

At the start of the game, Hungary will typically start by a river, but don't be afraid to move your starting Settler within the first turn or two to get a location with more tiles on the other side of a river - it'll pay for itself before long with fast district and building construction.

Just one envoy (typically the first discovery bonus or researching Mysticism early) combined with Governor Amani (the Diplomat) gets you suzerain status with a city-state early on. Do that, then levy the troops before switching Amani to a different city-state to repeat the process. Before long, you can end up with a massive envoy advantage with a wide range of bonuses - and a fast, strong, cheap-to-upgrade army you can send against anyone you wish. Once you have a tier two government (Monarchy is ideal as it's unlocked fastest), you can build the Foreign Ministry for an even bigger advantage to levied units.

The Black Army unit complements your powerful levied units with a huge strength boost if they're adjacent to a lot of them. Bring some siege support and they can do masses of damage - and better still, you can upgrade them to Huszárs later to still have a bit of a strength advantage.

Be careful upgrading levied units to modern-era units. Matthias Corvinus' leader ability makes them cost no resources to upgrade, but resource maintenance will drain your units' strength if you have a deficit of the resource. Still, you can exploit this - you can go to Replaceable Parts before Refining to get some early Infantry, but keep the number you have low so the strength penalty isn't very high.

Finally, the Thermal Bath building offers a minor advantage to amenities and production. Amenities are useful for handling war weariness, and production is great for training units.

• Powerful city development
  
• Strong ability to maintain city-state suzerain status
  
• Can raise fast, strong armies at a low cost via levying

Desert Mountains (tier 2)
Grass Mountains (tier 2)
Plains Mountains (tier 2)
Snow Mountains (tier 5)
Tundra Mountains (tier 5)

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

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

Ancient era, requires Foreign Trade civic

• Must be built on a mountain in owned or neutral territory.
  
• Allows land units of any civ to pass through this tile at the cost of 2 movement points.
  
• Land units may move between tiles adjacent to two Qhapaq Ñan and/or Mountain Tunnel improvements owned by the same civ on the same mountain range for 2 movement points.
  
• Melee land units adjacent to a Qhapaq Ñan improvement may attack enemy units on other tiles adjacent to other Qhapaq Ñan or Mountain Tunnel improvements owned by the same civ on the same mountain range.
  
• Provides 15 points worth of transportation efficiency for international trade routes that pass through.
  
• Provides visibility to the owner in its tile and adjacent tiles.
  
• Unlike most other unique improvements, this is not destroyed if the tile changes ownership.
  
• Cannot be pillaged nor destroyed, except by razing a city which contains this improvement

Medieval era, recon, replaces Skirmisher

• Costs 165 production/660 gold/330 faith, up from 150/600/450 respectively (+10%)
  
• Costs 280 gold to upgrade to from a Scout, up from 250 (+12%)
  
• 40 ranged strength, up from 30
  
• No movement cost to attack.
  
• May attack a second time in a turn for no additional movement point cost.
  
• Costs 440 gold to upgrade to a Ranger, down from 470 (-6%)

Ancient era, unlocked from start

• Must be built on desert, grass or plains hills, or volcanic soil, within your own territory, without woods or rainforest.
  
• +1 food, +1 housing
  
• +1 food per adjacent mountain or volcano
  
• +2 production per adjacent Aqueduct
  
• +1 production if fresh water is adjacent but no Aqueduct
  
• Feudalism civic: +1 food per two adjacent Terrace Farms
  
• Replaceable Parts technology: Adjacency bonus from Terrace Farms changed to 1 food per adjacent Terrace Farm

The Inca are best at scientific victories, but perform strongly at culture and religion as well.

Mountains are key to a good Incan game, but you don't have to have loads to have good yields. A small number of mountains can have great yields if surrounded by Terrace Farms, and conversely large masses of mountains may be less valuable to work directly, but lead to great Terrace Farms. As Mountain tiles are always considered to have Breathtaking appeal, using the Earth Goddess pantheon and Preserve districts are great ways to get excellent yields when working them. Having plenty of mountains is also great for Campus and Holy Site adjacency bonuses.

Mountainous Incan cities can become huge and productive thanks to Terrace Farms and Pachacuti's Leader Ability. Consider maximising the number of mountain tiles in a single city and sending lots of domestic trade routes from there, then moving in a Governor which scales with city population such as Pingala (the Educator).

To aid with getting around mountain ranges, the Inca have access to the Qhapaq Ñan improvement which functions akin to an early mountain tunnel. It's most effective on the opposite ends of long mountain ranges, and because you can place it in neutral territory, it's possible to pre-emptively make a route for your Settlers. Don't overuse them though, as invaders can use these paths against you!

The Incan game mostly focuses around peaceful mountainous development, but the Warak'aq unit offers something very different: conquest potential. With 40 ranged strength and the ability to attack twice per turn, the unit's damage output exceeds that of most renaissance-era units. If you can get the Ambush promotion, its damage output is on a par with modern-era units. The catch is their particularly poor defence, so consider fighting some city-states to train them up safely.

• Excellent city growth, especially in hill/mountain regions where most civs would struggle
  
• Decent production
  
• Ideal for isolationist games

None.

• May use the follower beliefs of all religions present in a city, regardless of the religion's founder.
  
• Cities gain +1 amenity for each different religion present within them.
  
• All Missionaries gain +2 spread-religion charges.
  
• Outgoing trade routes produce +100% religious pressure.
  
  • This affects both the city that sends the route, and the city that receives it.

• The War of Territorial Expansion casus belli is available with the classical-era Military Training civic, instead of requiring the modern-era Mobilisation civic.
  
  • As always, you still need to either wait five turns after denouncing a civ, or be the target of a denouncement in order to use the casus belli.
• For the first 10 turns after declaring a War of Territorial Expansion, all units gain +2 movement, and all military and religious units gain +5 strength.

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

Classical era, heavy cavalry, requires Horseback Riding technology

• Classed as heavy cavalry, unlike Horsemen which arrive at the same technology
  
• 40 strength, 4 higher than Horsemen but 8 lower than Knights
  
• Only two movement points, two less than Horsemen or Knights
  
• Sight range of 3 (most land units have a sight of 2)
  
• Reduces the strength of adjacent enemy units by 5
  
  • This does not stack.
• Costs 120 production, 50% more than Horsemen at 80.

Ancient era, requires Irrigation technology

• Must be constructed on flat land in your territory and not next to another Stepwell
  
• +1 food and +1 housing
  
• +1 food if adjacent to a farm
  
• +1 faith if adjacent to a Holy Site
  
• Feudalism civic: +1 faith
  
• Sanitation technology: +1 housing
  
• Professional Sports civic: +1 food
  
• Pillage yield: Pillager healed 50 health

India is best at religious victories. Chandragupta's India is also similarly effective at domination victories.

India gets considerable advantages to the religious game, most notably the extra spread-religion charges for Missionaries. With some early Holy Sites to found a religion and some Stepwell faith on top, you can get an impressive head start on the religious game or else spread your religion internally for a minimal faith cost. Training your first Varu and building your first Stepwell yields era score, which can help you secure the powerful Exodus of the Evangelists Golden Age dedication for an even stronger start to the religious game.

Stepwells make city growth much easier, with more housing and initially more food than farms. Huge cities will find it easier to use your ability to use the follower beliefs of all religions present in the city. If your religion is strong, try sending trade routes to cities with rival religions to get a little pressure for them in your own cities. If your religion is weak or you lack one, your land might end up a religious battleground, providing you with plenty of bonuses. Alternatively, Chandragupta's conquests can provide you with cities with rival religions present, ready for partial conversion.

Chandragupta's leader ability turns Varu from a slow-but-strong unit to a unit that's fast and strong for its era - particularly if you can manage a classical-era Great General as well. The catch is the need to use the War of Territorial Expansion casus belli to receive speed and strength bonuses, which requires you to wait 5 turns after denouncing a civ before it can be used, and requires you to declare war on civs that border you.

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

• Can grow cities quickly very early in the game thanks to Stepwells, with less amenity problems than most civs strong at city growth
  
• Good defence, especially in the classical and medieval eras
  
• Chandragupta: Powerful and fast classical-era warfare
  
• Gandhi: Strong religious start

Coastal (tier 2)

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

• City centres adjacent to lake or coast tiles gain +2 faith.
  
• Naval melee, ranged, raider and carrier units may be purchased with faith
  
  • Like other faith purchases, these costs can be reduced with the Theocracy government.
    
  • As with gold purchasing, the Venetian Arsenal wonder will not give you double quantities of faith-purchased naval units and there is no discount to purchasing fleets/armadas in cities with Seaports.
• Embarking and disembarking religious units costs just one movement point
  
  • Units always end up with fewer movement points remaining after embarking or disembarking regardless of whether or not their maximum movement points changed in the process.

Medieval era, ranged naval, replaces Frigate

• Costs 300 production, 1200 gold and 600 faith, up from 280, 1120 and 560 respectively (+7%)
  
• Costs 370 gold to upgrade to from a Quadrireme, up from 330 (+12%)
  
• Unlocked with the medieval-era Mercenaries civic instead of the renaissance-era Square Rigging technology
  
  • This makes renaissance-era Great Admirals ineffective for them, but classical-era Great Admirals will boost their speed and strength.
• Does not require nitre resources
  
• 5 movement points, up from 4
  
• +5 strength when in formation
  
• Formation units inherit the Jong's movement speed
  
  • To use this ability, move the Jong, not the unit it's in formation with.
    
  • This works even if the formation unit has no remaining movement points.
    
  • This cannot be used to boost the movement speed of embarked religious units.
• Costs 270 gold, down from 310, to upgrade to a Battleship (-13%)

Classical era, requires Shipbuilding technology

• Must be constructed on a owned coast or lake tile adjacent to a water resource
  
• 1 production, 1 housing
  
• +1 food per adjacent fishing boats improvement
  
• Mass Production technology: +1 housing
  
• Civil Engineering civic: +1 production
  
• Flight technology: Food yield added to tourism, plus one if the city has a Lighthouse.
  
• Pillage yield: Pillager heals 50 health

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

Indonesia is all about building a maritime empire. Look out for spots near plenty of sea resources, and you'll be rewarded later with some very powerful cities. Early in the game, coastal settling can secure you one of the first pantheons - the God of the Sea pantheon is a good choice for getting your production off to a good start, while Divine Spark helps you found a religion. You'll also get adjacency bonuses from coast and lake tiles for a variety of districts - this is particularly powerful for Campuses if you can find some reefs. Otherwise, it won't give you amazing yields, but will help support your other bonuses.

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

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

If domination isn't for you, Indonesia has alternative options. Religious units can disembark and embark quickly, which saves a little time in the religious game, while Kampungs can offer tourism with the Flight technology to help towards cultural victory. Large cities with reef-boosted Campuses can be useful on the way to a scientific victory.

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

Coastal (tier 3)

• Campus, Commercial Hub, Harbour, Holy Site, Industrial Zone and Theatre Square districts receive +1 of their respective yields for every adjacent district, instead of for every two.

• All land and naval units gain +5 strength in land tiles adjacent to the sea, lake tiles and coastal (shallow water) tiles
  
  • This bonus is applied based on where the defending unit is at the start of combat.
    
  • This bonus does not apply in land tiles that are adjacent to a lake but not the sea.
    
  • This bonus does apply to religious units.
    
  • This bonus has no effect on air units.
• Units and tile improvements are immune to damage from hurricanes.
  
• Civs that are at war with Japan take +100% damage from hurricanes in Japanese territory.
  
• -50% production cost for Encampment, Holy Site and Theatre Square districts

• International trade routes receive -25% to all yields
  
• Do not receive the usual 25% tourism bonus from having a trade route with another civilization
  
• Domestic trade routes receive +2 gold, +1 science and +1 culture per speciality district in the destination city, not including the city centre.
  
• Owned cities within six tiles of the capital always have full loyalty, and with the modern-era Flight technology, all their speciality districts yield +1 tourism each.

Medieval era, melee infantry, replaces Man-at-Arms

• Unlocked at the medieval-era Feudalism civic instead of the medieval-era Apprenticeship technology.
  
• Costs 10 iron to train, down from 20 (-50%)
  
• 48 strength, up from 45
  
• Does not lose strength when injured

Industrial era, requires Industrial Zone district with Workshop, replaces Factory

• 5 production to all cities within six tiles when powered, up from 3
  
  • Cities cannot benefit from the production of more than one Electronics Factory unless they have Governor Magnus (the Steward) present with the Vertical Integration promotion.
• Provides 4 culture with the modern-era Electricity technology
  
  • Unlike the producton bonus, this does not extend to all cities within a six-tile radius.

Hojo Tokimune's Japan is reasonably balanced at all five main victory routes. Diplomacy is generally their weakest path. Tokugawa is best at scientific victories.

Japan's the perfect example of a civ which favours settling cities close together. Districts gain better adjacency bonuses when next to other districts, which allows you a method of getting strong yields without needing to rely on getting good terrain. Cluster your adjacency-gaining districts in the middle of a group of cities for the maximum effect. Place a Government Plaza in the middle of one cluster with some adjacent Commercial Hubs, and you can get a lot of science with the Free Inquiry Golden Age dedication in the classical or medieval game eras. Alternatively, you can get reliably good faith yields for Holy Sites and culture from Theatre Squares.

Tokugawa works best with one large city with both the Government Plaza and Diplomatic Quarter and as many districts as possible, while all other cities send trade routes to it. His tourism bonus does not make up for the loss from international trade routes, so it is usually best not to persue cultural victory with him.

Late in the game, Electronics Factories capitalise on the clustering of your cities by offering a good production bonus to multiple ones at a time, though beware of enemy Spies that might want to sabotage them.

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

Samurai are a bit tricky to use on the battlefield due to their awkward research requirement, but by retaining their full strength when injured, they're particularly resilient in combat. If you want to take Japan to war, it's better to focus on the cheap Encampments and good general yields from districts than to emphasise Samurai too much.

• Hojo Tokimune - Versatile: can push for any victory route effectively
  
• Hojo Tokimune - Strong defence against naval civs
  
• Tokugawa - Excellent science and culture yield
  
• Good district yields without needing much land

River (tier 3)

• Cities with an Aqueduct gain +1 amenity, and +1 faith per point of population.
  
• Farms gain an additional +2 food if adjacent to an Aqueduct, and +1 faith if adjacent to a Holy Site
  
  • These bonuses do not stack for multiple Aqueducts and Holy Sites, though a farm may gain the benefit of both an Aqueduct and a Holy Site.

• Constructing a Holy Site district causes a culture bomb, granting you all surrounding tiles.
  
  • Only tiles that are within the workable range of the tile's city will be granted (in other words, they must be within a 3-tile radius from the city centre).
    
  • This includes tiles from other civs, but will incur a diplomatic penalty if you steal tiles off them this way. Taking land from city-states has no penalty.
    
  • Tiles stolen containing non-unique tile improvements will retain them.
    
  • Tiles containing completed districts, wonders or national parks will not be stolen, but incomplete ones will be, destroying them.
• Holy Sites gain a +2 faith adjacency bonus if next to a river.
  
• Holy Sites adjacent to rivers provide +2 housing, even when pillaged.
  
• All Holy Sites generate food equal to their adjacency bonus.

Medieval era, siege, replaces Trebuchet

• 40 strength, up from 35
  
• 50 bombard strength, up from 45
  
• Imposes zone of control
  
• May attack after moving for just 1 movement point
  
  • This bonus functions identically to the Expert Crew promotion, making that promotion useless to Domreys.

Classical era, requires Holy Site district with a Shrine, replaces Temple

• Provides 6 faith, up from 4
  
• Produces +0.5 culture per point of population in the city
  
• With the modern-era Flight technology, produces 10 tourism per turn if the city has 10+ population, and 10 additional tourism per turn if the city has 20+ population for a total of 20 tourism per turn.

The Khmer are best at cultural and religious victories.

Always settle on or near rivers if you can as the Khmer, as the rewards are great. You'll want at least one riverside tile per city for a Holy Site, and one valid Aqueduct tile adjacent to the city centre (if the city's on a river, it'll be fine). This will provide you with bonus food, housing and amenities alike! If possible, take the River Goddess pantheon and Work Ethic follower belief so your Holy Sites will generate bonus housing and amenities on top, as well as extra production.

As they grow, Khmer cities will generate some great faith yields (with an Aqueduct) and culture (with the Prasat building). If you take the Cross-Cultural Dialogue founder belief, you can get some extra science on top. This is important as the Prasat building offers a potentially massive tourism bonus - but only with the modern-era Flight technology. For the full tourism boost, you'll also need to get cities to size 20. Consider moving around which cities own which tiles as soon as a city reaches size 20 so you can get more cities to that point quickly.

Finally, the Domrey is a bit of an odd one out among the Khmer's unique bonuses, but is still very much useful. Their ability to fire after attacking combined with their ability to impose zone of control and their higher strength allows them to easily siege down enemy cities and destroy their defences. You can use this to take out a cultural or religious rival - or at the very least weaken them.

• Excellent city growth
  
• Great faith yields
  
• Strong ties between cultural and religious playstyles
  
• Potentially strong tourism output

Rainforest (tier 2)
Woods (tier 2)

• The Palace has five slots for any kind of Great Work, up from one.
  
• Every relic, artefact and Great Work of Sculpture adds 4 gold, 2 food, 2 production and 1 faith in addition to normal yields.
  
  • These yields are affected by theming bonuses.
• +50% Great Artist, Merchant and Musician Points.
  
  • This does not apply to Great Person Points received from completing district projects.

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

• Cities on your capital's continent generate +10% food, production, gold, faith, science and culture.
  
• Cities not on your capital's continent generate -15% food, production, gold, faith, science and culture.

Classical era, melee infantry, replaces Swordsman

• Costs 110 production, 440 gold or 220 faith, up from 90, 360 and 180 respectively (+22%)
  
• Costs 150 gold, up from 110, to upgrade to from a Warrior (+36%)
  
• Costs 5 iron, down from 20 (-75%)
  
• 38 strength, up from 35
  
• +10 strength when defending against ranged attacks
  
• Woods and rainforest tiles do not block sight or slow movement
  
• Costs 110 gold to upgrade to a Man-at-Arms, down from 150 (-27%)

Medieval era, replaces Neighbourhood

• Must be constructed on a woods or rainforest tile
  
  • The tile retains the defensive, appeal and adjacency aspects of the woods/rainforest tile.
• Provides 5 housing, regardless of appeal, instead of ranging from 2 to 6.
  
• Available with the medieval-era Guilds civic, instead of the industrial-era Urbanisation civic.
  
• -50% production cost
  
• Provides 4 gold per turn
  
• Provides 2 food per turn

Kongo is by far most effective at cultural victories. Mvemba a Nzinga's leader ability makes religious victory impossible.

Kongo is among the best civs in the game for maximising tourism yields - but that takes time to develop. Early on, you can try using the Ngao Mbeba's mobility and ranged damage resistance to rush an opponent or as cost-effective defence. Nzinga Mbande should try and build a couple of Holy Sites to secure a religion with the Reliquaries belief.

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

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

While Mbanzas offer you lots of housing, Kongo's bonus food to Great Works of Sculpture, relics and artefacts helps you to grow your cities to fill that capacity. Meanwhile, the production is great for building wonders and the gold will help you develop Theatre Squares. Great Works of Sculpture can be obtained by Great Artists and artefacts via Archaeologists, but relics can be quite a challenge. Mvemba a Nzinga's leader ability makes obtaining Apostles easy, allowing you to give some the Martyr promotion (if you have the Mont St. Michel wonder, you can guarantee Apostles have them). Give some the Heathen Conversion promotion so you can deal with any Barbarians other civs summon to your lands via the Recruit Partisans Spy promotion, which your Mbanzas are vulnerable to.

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