China- Ability to build wonders before the ai can really help you on the early eras but thats basicly it...crappy unique structue...amazing plundering 150gold per wall tho.

Germany- 1+ military policy slot, unique indust district which is faster to build and gets production bonuses from more than just adjacent mines, 2+ production next to a comm district.

Scythia- 5+ damage against wounded unit and heal 50hp per killing blow for that unit...add the 2 light caverly you get instead of making 1 means this can be a powerhouse from early to end game

Playing as China: Basicly only advantage is being able to build early era wonders before your enemies do. The only real way to build stonehedge before others... 1+ extra building charge is nice but the great wall ability is useless and their unique unit is meh.

Playing as Germany: Ah my favorite litle beauty, 1+ military slot at the start with the hanza unique district replacing the industrial district means this can destroy others quickly and have a way higher chance of recruiting great people due to the value of germany production up and running far above the others throughout the game means you obtain more cash, strength, and great people points.

playing as Scythia: Otherwise known as the unit spammer, great rounder in terms of everything you look for, their special abilities makes them a strong contender as a ally or enemy but nothing really stands out in terms of outside combat.

Misc: Mods i using is: "yet not another map" which incases the map size.

Thoughts on science/culture/religion victory:

Science victory basicly cuts the game short....unless that is the victory/nuisance you want

the rest can easily be achieved when you own 99 percent of the cities, you can get religion/culture victory through sheer power that way.

First off the most useful city states and the suzerain bonus you get...starting from the best/op
and the reasoning behind it.

Top 3:

Carthage Militaristic Your Encampment districts provide +1 Trade Route capacity each. Trade Routes is Love Trade Routes is Life... need to quickly turn a weak pop 2 city into a powerhouse?use trade routes.... trade routes are your lifeline, late game you dont use any cities to focus on food and use trade routes instead for the max benefits of 9+ food 5+ production 12+ gold.

Yerevan Religious Your Apostle units can choose from any possible promotion instead of receiving a random promotion. Even if your not working on religion with the right perks you can still just abuse the system with it which means a promotion can make or break a war. so big part of the other continent is filled with barbs, you need warriors ASAP right? using a apostle with the heathen convert ability you can obtain literally another army but note u should have a unit with apostle same tile so they dont kill the apostle.

Mohenjo-Daro Cultural Your Cities have full Housing from Water as if they were all next to a River. Housing housing housing....oh how it always get filled and the messages of more housing needed every ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ turn pops up, having this lil beauty means you can settle anywhere without a worry toward housing and i dont really think i need to explain more.

Next Tier:

Brussels Industrial Your cities get +15% main production toward wonders. Wonders can be OP, and any boost toward them can make or break you getting it or the ai.

Toronto Industrial Regional effects from your Industrial Zone and Entertainment Complex Districts reach 3 Tiles farther. This little city state can really boost your production and happiness... its just essential when you in full production mode.

Buenos Aires Industrial Your bonus resources behave like Luxury resources, providing 1 Amenity per type. Every little amenity counts so yeah get it =)

Valletta Militaristic City center buildings and encampment district buildings can be bought with faith. Cost of purchasing Ancient and Medieval and Renaissance walls is reduced, but they can only be bought with faith. Very useful mid to early game when you need all the boosts and booms you can get.

Zanzibar Trade Receive the Cinnamon and Cloves as Luxury Resources. These cannot be earned any other way in the game, and provide 6 Amenities each. Just amazing bonus that makes all that unhappy cities be forced with a smile.

The MEH tier:

Geneva Scientific Your cities earn +15% Science whenever you are not at war with any civilization. This is a good boom the problem is rarely you are not at war.

Jerusalem Religious Automatically converts to the Religion you founded, and exerts pressure for that Religion as if it was a Holy City. To me it felt a little meh in terms of the power it can do.

The other city states are not amazing suzume boons, your city states without any of the districts can make sure you are above the ai in term of civs/tech, the city states that affect gold i try to have envoys in, for science and civs city states not mentioned i just take over as it benefits you more.

Now as for liberation and making sure the Ai cant sweep that city state from under you there are 2 good ways: if you the suzume declare war on the ai whos close so they cannot send envoys to them. The second option is to take over the place, trade it to a ai you gonna go to war with then take the place over again to get the liberation option

There is a limited number of envoys you can earn without waiting till the envoy points fill up, use them wisely and use them in city states that you want to control otherwise use the liberation method to become suzume, 3+ auto envoys and you being the only civ that interacted with it...for now.

After going through many ways to gain an edge it feels like the best patheon is:goddess of the festival for thoses near the resources for it otherwise the god of craftsman for that 1+ extra production.

As for religion dont expect to build that stonehedge, the ai always gets it before you unless your china using building charges, my setup is work ethnic aka 1+ production for every worshipper in that city, just so op, besides that another contender is feed the world for the ability to help supply your places with food but to get the full force of it you would need shine and a temple and by then you not focusing on food.

Best way to get a prophet is to buy them, trade deals with other ai with paying back per 30 turns in exchange for their current cash doing that every turn till you saved up and got it, declare war on them to lose the debt.

Next is papal primacy= city states with your religion as dominate 50percent more to the current boon it provides. The other 2 is really up to you due to how underwhelming they are.

Early game the ai dont see holy relics as a treasure and can be bought off with 1gold per 30turns until they start getting into religion.

Religious combat is broken, when a inquisitor or apostate no buffs/debuffs verus a ai missionary is stronger then your units without focusing on civics/etc to boost units then it truly just not worth it. The best and quickiest way is at war with the ai that has a blob of missionaries at your place and just using regular combat units to take them out, there is no combat doing this, your units basicly go where they are and can continue moving after they disappear, causing that religion influence around surrounding cities to disperse.

So you want that edge given to you on a bloody platter right? Sadly you have to compete against the Ai for that friend,

S' = science tree. C' = Civic tree

Wonders you should aim for in each Era avaible in order:

Ancient:

S' Hanging gardens: Ai doesnt really try to go for it and the 15+ percent growth in all cities
S' Pryamids: Grants builders 1+ extra building charge.

Classical:

S' Petra: 2+ food 2+gold 1+ production on every desert tile in that city. Use a great person ability for wonder construction in a desert covered in all hils which means you basicly turn it into a powerhouse and one of the best cities due to that wonder. Including the bonuses due to it with trade routes to it makes it great....

Renaissance:

S' Venetian Arsanal: builds 2ships instead of one BUT its kinda meh considering how underwhelming sea combat is so.... yeah but the ai doesnt try to make it due to I THINK the industrial district needed to be build on the coast.

S' Forbidden city: 1+ wildcard slot. Use a charge of a great person wonder production for this wonder for how amazing it can be.... 1+ slot in any slot can be amazing when you need that extra slot.

Industrial:

S' Big ben: 1+ economically slot.

Modern:

S' Eiffel Tower:2+ appeal for every tile in your land. AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING neighborhoods mean number of appeal = number of additional housing so 6 appeal is 6 housing.

Atomic:

Estadio Do Maracana: 2+ amendities for every city in your civilization. This is really amazing when you considering how many cities you will eventually own and how much you need to pump out enterainment districts so rebellions dont pop up.



Wonders the ai will naturaly build before you unless you use a great person or your china in the early eras but you really want

Ancient:

S' Stonehedge: grants a free great religion person which means first to establish a religion....which will be build before you.


Classical:

C' Mahobodhi temple:grants 2 apostles

Medieval:

S' Hagia Sophia:missionaries and apostles are granted 1 extra charge, must have founded a religion...which you did if you wanna rekt the game but ai will build it before you...
S' Alhambra: 1+ military slot

Renaissance:

S' Potala Palace: 1+ diplomacy slot

Industrial:

S' Ruhr Valley: 30+ production percent and 1+ production for every mine/quarry. Can get it if you use a great person wonder production charge which may be amazing IF used alongside petra while the desert is basicly all hills.... thats a scary industrial combo isnt it?

I could delve into this abit but the game wiki provides plenty....what this part is though is a rant/tip spot.....

Diplomacy: The Ai and their traits affect how they see you, also for what and what you are not doing, the 2ed traits make or break them being buddy buddy with you, some traits make it so they dont percieve you negatively if you have any warmongering penalties like other civs see.

Alliances: So you want to be buddy buddy right? well it doesnt really provide any benefits as just an alliance but if your ally ass is getting kicked you can declare a liberation war verus their enemy, 0 warmongering for declaring war.... pretty good.

Alliances that ai makes with other ai: late game you will see them all being buddy buddy with everyone...mostly... declare war against 1 might mean their allies also auto war with you, funny enough when you can do the peace talk you can make a tad bit of cash from them even if you never even hit a unit of theirs.

Warmongering is broken: Defending yourself in your own territory without a civ thats in later eras mean you will still get a penalty.... fighting another ai who is just becoming an annoyance and is hated by everyone whichy you think you can just take out right? yeah no.... the penalties for wiping out a civ is great, same for taking over their cities.... by the time i noticed i obtained a 400 warmongering penalty...ironic when i tried to be passive for a long time, after awhile it seems it only goes down by 1 each turn.... and every chance the ai got they denounce me over and over including formal wars and such. At that time you cannot turn your warmongering off due to civs attacking you even if you trying to be passive the game basicly doesnt let it go down. At that time in the game you wont be making bank with thoses resources you trade to other known civs due to them being all snotty. Only way is to meet a civ JUST MET, trade them everything for all they worth including repeating gold per turn due to the turn after met they will get the debuff aka warmongering you done and will act like the rest of the civs you met before. There are exceptions but it depends on their traits aka if the traits like you being at war.

So you dug some up and wanna perhaps sell it or get that holy item your nice neighbor have right?

Even thought the ai treats the artifacts you dug up as i will not make the deal under any blah blah blah, you can trade them it with other items such as writings music etc, the ai treats the artifacts same as them and thus thinks of it as a equal trade. You can then sell back the artifacts you got from the deal and make bank.

Trade routes: If you make your powerhouse city with each district that gives a bonus, districts dont need to be upgraded for the bonus, you can get the most food/production/gold from a route to it, i advise 3 cities or more with every district for them cities that need more then 1 trade route, note dont forget you need a harbor district for the best output.

Later on in the game there is a civic that gives 4+ food to every domestic trade route. At that point you dont need to focus on farms or anything just production. Trade routes become your life blood and followed this guide right could have hundreds of trade routes all to make you into the best nation.

The main districts ill delve into are better known as:

Most districts give a bonus in trade toward that city and dont need to upgrade or even touch the districts after building them for that bonus.

amendity: At the start of the game you dont really need it if you trading right, later after building a industrial/commerial district and have decent space of housing, mass producing and leveling this district means all cities in that blob of ectasy is happy, while the frontlines get the amendities you are now sparing.

Culture: Useless, you can catch and will catch up asap with the ai as long as you have cities/monuments, only reason to build is for the bonus you get in trade routes, dont need to max just build the district

Science: Useless also, as like culture you will catch up and surpass more then likely due to cities just normally producing it.

Encampments: Production bonus for the city when you upgrading the districts is nice plus the 1+ housing but build theses after the commerial/industrial.

Harbors: Likewise like encampments but the bonus you get is more food/housing compared to production/housing.

Commerial:your money maker, great for the great people points and for filling your wallet, advise building after industrial.

Industrial: The district you should always build first. Maxing the district which means cities 6tiles away getting that bonus makes thoses blob of cities into all powerhouses.

Holy Sites: Even if your not going for a religious victory you will need the points if you got the work ethnic belief, spreading your religion to your cities for that 1follower=1production for that city just means every pathetic pop 1 cities can turn into a monster quicker.

I say buggyness because you can launch them right at that enemy you made peace with and they cannot declare war or have denounced, other times even if you launch it on the rim of your enemy territory it means at war but trying it on their land means declare war, being able to go back to war asap to a ai using this trick means you can resume a invasion.

The AI doesnt use nukes, no need for the mobile SAM units and the ai doesnt really counter them.

Nuke city, use a unit to take it over, use a builder right next to said city in a tile not contaminated and move them to the city tile to decontaminate and boom, your unit wont die and you get that city asap.

Late game it turns tedious aka the ai isnt a threat and its just a game of time, using the nuke method mentioned above speeds up conquering alot.

Great people...Can be truly great, when i saw the perks they provide at least for science/theatre i felt it was very underwhelming due to by the time you have the required points to recruit them the ai A. got them before you. B. just not worth it/useless to you currently.

The generals and adermials also are underwhelming at least for when you get rid of them, i felt they werent something you should focus on when you see the commerical and industrial great people.

Commerial: ranges from must have to yeah i could use another 6+ amendities. commerical great people are for thoses wanting a boost in their gold, some of the great peoples perks are more useful then others.

Industrial: Ah the meat of this section, industrial can give you boons for production wonders to just using 1charge to 0-100 percenting that one wonder you know the ai will build before you. Ability to use such actions as long as you even save them for the late eras means you wont lose that wonder you must have to your oppent. The other boons you can get ranges to increase production to appeal and increase range of industrial units plus various other boons.

Ai doesnt use it much even in island maps, prefer to use regular units to travel but occasionly uses ships.... which they dont use for combat...k then. underwhelming when a normal unit in the water can move more in one turn then any regular ship units even through the last eras.

Ah the last section....i may cry....sniffle.

Anyway harvesting.... when and why you ask?

Harvesting provides gold/production/food depending on the resource.

Cant harvest luxary or stragetic resource.... Later on you can make forests so dont worry about harvesting forests vs making lumber mills for production.

Rainforest is useless due to not being able to build most things on, include the nice addition to food and production means in just a few turns a 1pop city in the middle of a rainforest area can become 13 pop or more just by harvesting all the surrounding.

quarries vs harvesting rock: Quarries are good yes but you can just build mines instead, but it depends if the city with thoses resources are new.

Rice/wheat: Harvest, trade routes can be the substitute for food needs, plus the pop increase due to harvest far to great.

Fish: Same as rice/wheat but its on water. Note: Crabs give gold not food.


Hope this all helped thoses struggling. If need further help comment and ill reply ASAP.
Note: If enough people ask for it ill include a section for the best governments/cards for each era with explanations of why they are amazing.