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Oct 15, 2010, 08:48 AM #1

Trickster7135Warlord

Join Date: Aug 2010Location: 954, FloridaPosts: 179

The Civ5 Guide

TABLE OF CONTENTS1. Civilization Analysis2. National Wonders3. World Wonders4. Buildings5. Social Policies6. Yield Changes7. City Specialization8. Paths to Victory9. Expansion10. City-States11. Military Strategy12. Promotions (work in progress)13. Military Units

VERSION INFORMATION1.1.1.0 10/25/10 - Added civilization guide for Babylon and Mongolia.1.1.0.3 10/21/10 - Added an ICS guide to the Expansion section.1.1.0.2 10/20/10 - Minor errata and revisions, fixed many spelling and grammatical errors thanks to PrAyTeLLa.1.1.0.1 10/16/10 - Added Military Units section.

PolyCast Episode 103: "For What It's Worth"



1.1.0.0 10/15/10 - Remade guide in a new thread to allow for further expansion, added buildings and social policies sections.1.0.3.0 10/13/10 - Created National Wonders section.1.0.2.1 10/12/10 - Continued working on promotions section, almost done!1.0.2.0 10/03/10 - Finished wonder section.1.0.1.1 10/02/10 - Begun wonder section, procrastinating finishing promotion section.1.0.1.0 09/28/10 - Finished civilization analysis, started promotions section.1.0.0.1 09/27/10 - Rewrote most of the civilization analysis.1.0.0.0 09/25/10 - Finished the initial version with as much information as I could provide, given the limited playing experience we've had yet.

INTRODUCTION

This is the newly remade guide for Civ5, here is the old version: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=382233This new thread was required as I ran out of room to expand my guide in the other thread, silly me

This guide can be considered a permanent work in progress, as it not only intents to display current and thorough information about all aspects ofthe game, to be updated with every patch; common opinion and wisdom is also included, and is prone to change as our methods change withexperience and debate. That said, if you disagree or wish to expand on anything in this guide, I highly encourage you! Post a message quotingwhatever I said (as I might not know what you're referencing offhand, considering the size of this guide).

1. CIVILIZATION ANALYSIS

AMERICAWashington Manifest Destiny: all land military units have +1 sight. 25% discount when purchasing tiles.Minutemen - Replaces musketman, ignores movement terrain penalties.B17 - Replaces bomber, free Evasion and Siege 1 promotions.

The American civilization has two unique units, neither of which fundamentally change the strategy of those units. It's leader trait, Manifest Destiny,encourages early exploration, gold based economies, and having spread out cities. The leader trait has very little useful for a cultural victory, andencourages a rapid 'normal' expansion policy early in the game (as opposed to ICS expansion), where you emphasis large, spread out cities withmany workable tiles, compared to many small cities that are usually used for rapid expansion. The leader trait doesn't have a lot of synergy for awarmonger, other than the sight bonus, as conquered cities retain their cultural boundaries, meaning most nearby resources will already beconnected.

The ignore movement terrain penalties ability for the Minuteman gives this musketman replacement something of a scout's usefulness to quicklyexplore terrain. However, at this late in the game, most land territory would already be revealed, unless you are just setting foot on a new continentduring the Renaissance. Defensively, the ability is marginal, as roads will still allow for faster travel. The real value of the ability is to always allowdefensive positioning when moving troops, ensuring your minutemen are never caught with a crippling -33% combat penalty for being in openground.

The B17 bomber comes with two free promotions: one for survival against anti-air, and another to support what a bomber does best: acting as amodern era siege unit. While certainly powerful for its age, and promoting a warmonger strategy very well, when a civilization has a unique unit orbuilding in this late of an era, many times it can feel as if they don't have it at all. Only on very large maps would you be able to capitalize on a late-modern era unit.

ARABIAHarun al-Rashid Trade Caravans: +1 gold per trade route, double oil resources.Bazaar - Replaces market, provides an additional copy of each luxury resource found in the city.Camel Archer - Replaces knight, replaces standard knight attack with a slightly weaker ranged attack.

The Arabian civilization has a unique unit and a unique building, with the first being a radical departure for the unit it replaces, while the other isexceptionally powerful with the right strategy. It's leader trait, Trade Caravans, provides a very small gold bonus and a late-game bonus forwarmongers. It is exceptionally weak, unfortunately, as most warmongers won't reach such a late era to take advantage of the double oil resources,while the gold bonus is almost negligible - as trade is only domestic, and roads or harbors are fairly expensive. Trade routes in general only seem toprovide an adequate compensation for building them - at least unit the late game population boom. Either way, a small, non-scaling bonus is hardlyrelevant.

Where the leader trait is exceptionally weak, the unique building is exceptionally strong. It effectively doubles the number of domestic luxuryresources you have, but only if you build a market in every city. The bazaar has two components that are required to make it effective: you must bepursuing a gold based economy strategy to make building the market in every city worthwhile to begin with, and you must be playing a victory type



that allows you to have civilizations to trade with. Double luxury resources does nothing if you have no one to trade with. If you are pursuing apeaceful victory, especially one that would be focusing on building a lot of gold, such as a diplomatic victory, than you will find Arabia to be anexcellent choice to pursue that strategy.

The Camel Archer is rather strange - it is akin to a medieval chariot archer, and follows the same strategies that unit does, instead of the knight. Itis also weaker than a knight, a trade off for its ranged abilities. The really unfortunate aspect of this unique unit is that its movement is the same asthe knight, but has a very weak melee combat score like all ranged units. This makes the standard knight the best counter to this unique unit. It cannot move and shoot without being overtaken by a knight the next round.

AZTECMontezuma Sacrificial Captives: gains culture for each enemy killed.Jaguar - Replaces warrior, +50% combat bonus in jungles, heals 2 health whenever it kills a unit.Floating Gardens - Replaces watermill, reduced maintenance, provides +15% food bonus as well as +2 food bonus from worked lake tiles.

The Aztec civilization has a unique unit and a unique building, with the first being 'interesting', while the second radically powerful. It's leader trait,Sacrificial Captives, provides a small culture bonus for social policies whenever an enemy unit is killed. This trait does scale with the eras, as itprovides 1/2 the strength of the unit killed in culture. Honestly, this trait can be ignored. You would be required to kill ten barbarians at the start ofthe game just for this trait to give you the first social policy for free.

The Jaguar is very interesting for a unique unit. It replaces the warrior, and gives it two bonuses that encourage exploration. The jungle bonus isobviously only relevant in jungles - which means this unique unit won't help you take any cities early on. The other bonus, the health from decisivevictories, can act as a pseudo-march promotion, allowing your exploring Jaguars to kill barbarians and continue exploring without missing a beat. Thedrawback of Jaguars is that they replace warriors, not swordsmen, not even spearmen. Warriors are the weakest unit in the game, and the Jaguarare the weakest unique unit as well. Use them for exploration, and especially for playing games with 'raging barbarians', but don't expect them to berelevant for very long - if at all. The real value of Jaguar is upgrading them into swordsman, where they retain their healing bonuses. Holding offresearching the tech that obsoletes warriors will give you more time to build as many Jaguars as possible.

The very real strength of the Aztec is their unique building. Aztec cities will be able to grow much quicker, thanks to the extra food from bothbuilding and lakes. However, the requirements that the city be placed next to a lake or river to build the Floating Gardens is a very real limiter onthe strength of this building. While the capital can almost always be guaranteed to freshwater nearby, having other lakes and rivers for your othercities is very luck dependent.

BABYLONNebuchadnezzar Ingenuity: receive free great scientist when discovering writing. Earn great scientists at double rate.Bowmen - Replaces archer, +2 ranged attack and +2 melee defense.Walls of Babylon - Replaces walls, cheaper to produce, increased city strength, increased city attack.

The Babylon civilization has a unique unit and a unique building, with the first being just a better version of what it replaces, while the secondmaking the building it replaces actually useful. It's leader trait, Ingenuity, provides free great scientists and greatly encourages a scientific victory.The Babylon leader trait is very powerful, and will allow sling shotting through the tech tree at a degree far beyond that of other civs.

The Bowmen is an upgrade to the archer, both offensively and defensively. Now the archer is primarily a defensive unit, but with the extra rangedattack, the Bowmen can perform fairly well on offense, supporting melee units while taking cities. It is still an upgrade to a defensive unit though, soits usefulness is limited for conquering.

The Walls of Babylon almost feel like what generic walls should be. They are slightly cheaper, offer 50% more defense, and improve the city's attackas well. The fact that walls are almost never built for most strategies certainly effect the usefulness of this unique building. While coupled withBowmen the Babylon civilization certainly has a strong defense early in the game, it is more likely the AI will capitalize on that compared to a humanplayer.

CHINAWu Zetian Art of War: effectiveness and spawn rate of Great Generals increased.Paper Maker - Replaces library, gives a small gold yield per library built.Chu-Ko-Nu - Replaces crossbowman, may attack twice per turn, weaker ranged combat score.

The Chinese civilization has a unique building and a unique unit, with the first being a marginal upgrade of the building it replaces, and the laterbeing an offensive upgrade of a defensive unit. The leader trait, Art of War, is tied with the Japanese leader trait for best warmonger trait in thegame. The Benefits of this trait are huge: Great Generals provide a +45% combat bonus instead of +25%, and they spawn twice as quickly. GreatGenerals are best used for taking cities, and no one takes cities better than the Chinese.

The only different between Paper Maker and a regular library is that Paper Makers yield +4 gold. However, that small gold income is equivalent to



two free trade posts being worked, and without the happiness cost of additional population! On paper, this building doesn't seem to do all that much,but when used in large quantities, such as the ICS or honeycomb strategy, it proves that it can be very powerful.

The Chinese unique unit is rather unusual. It is an offensively upgraded defensive unit. Crossbowmen are best used to garrison cities - they arecheap to produce and maintain, and don't require strategic resources like siege units do. Chu-Ko-Nu can attack twice per turn, but have a rangedcombat strength of ten instead of twelve. This overall leads to more damage, but the best use for these units is to supplement - not replace - siegeunits in city attacking. The Chu-Ko-Nu can attack a city twice for moderate damage, or they can weaken two incoming enemy support aiming at yoursiege units. In this way, they act like a pikeman, defending your siege units, only attacking a city if it has nothing better to do.

EGYPTRamesses II Monument Builders: +20% Production towards Wonder construction.War Chariot - Replaces chariot archer, is faster and doesn't require horses.Burial Tomb - Replaces temple, no gold maintained, provides happiness, reduced culture bonus, double gold from being pillaged.

The Egyptian civilization has a unique unit and a unique building, both being powerful upgrades to their respective replacements. The leader trait,Monument Builders, provides a +20% bonus towards wonder construction, encouraging wonder spamming. Wonders in general are most useful forcultural victories, and both the unique unit and unique building have moderate synergy with that strategy as well. However, any victory type canmake use of some wonders, so this trait is rather open ended in its application.

The War Chariot has five movement instead of four, and can be built without horses. While the movement increase is nice, its the second boon thatmakes this a game changer. During the Ancient era, you have to be lucky to have horses spawn next to your capital, and if you're going for an earlyrush you can't build too many settlers and workers to gain access to the resources you need. This unit removes the luck component to early gamestarts: if you want to early rush with chariots, Egypt says you damn well can. And enjoy the movement speed, War Chariots will be the fastest landunit in the game for a long time. It might even be worth keeping a few un-upgraded for scouting purposes into the medieval era.

Burial Tombs have a nest of changes. They require no maintenance, which is nice, but give double gold when an enemy pillages your cities. So, nodownside there. They only give 2 culture instead of 3 like temples normally do, but they also give 2 happiness. Even for a cultural victory, thebenefit of extra happiness per Burial Tomb far outweighs the loss of one culture point. This building effectively makes cities free from happiness costsassociated with placing a city. If you have five happiness and settle a city, gold rush a Burial Tomb and you're right back up enough to build up tofive population in your new city. A powerful building to go with a powerful unique unit and a powerful leader trait.

ENGLANDElizabeth I Sun Never Sets: +2 movement for all naval units.Longbowman - Replaces crossbowman, has increased range.Ship of the Line - Replaces frigate, is slightly cheaper, is slightly stronger, has increased sight.

The English civilization has two unique units, one a powerful defensive bonus to a defensive unit, and the other a general upgrade over itsreplacement. The leader trait, Sun Never Sets, provides your navy with extra speed. This speed bonus is most pronounced in the early game, whenyour triremes are zipping around at six tiles a round. A movement increase mostly assists exploration and retreating, as well as tactical usage ofships. Obviously, this trait is most useful on archipelago maps, weaker while playing continents, and mostly useless playing pangaea. It is thereforea map dependent trait, and will benefit players more than the AI, as most players would play a map dependent trait where it is most useful.

The Longbowman has three range instead of two like all other ranged units at this point. This is powerful in a way that only someone used to thetactical nature of Civ5 would immediately get: the strongest counter to crossbowmen, and all ranged units really, are cavalry. Knights have amovement of three, while crossbowmen have a range of two. Normally knights will always be able to hit a ranged unit first, and that's all a knightneeds with such a strong combat score. Longbowmen even the playing field, allowing knights to be hit once before they close in, reducing theeffectiveness of the crossbowman's greatest threat. The use of their additional range while garrisoned in a city is just icing on the cake.

The Ship of the Line has a multitude of small improvements over frigates: -20 production cost to build, +2 ranged attack score, and +1 sight, as wellas the +2 movement from the leader trait. Overall, this makes Ship of the Line's the de facto naval champions until ironclads. Take your navalsuperiority and run with it.__________________The Civ5 Guide - almost everything you want to know about Civ5!

Last edited by Trickster7135; Oct 25, 2010 at 05:31 PM.

Oct 15, 2010, 08:48 AM #2

Trickster7135 FRANCENapoleon Ancient Regime: +2 culture per turn per city before Steam Power.



Warlord


Musketeer - Replaces musketman, increased combat score.Foreign Legion - Replaces infantry, gaining a combat bonus outside friendly territory.

The French civilization has two unique units, both in the same line of upgrading, and both powerful for aggressive warmongering. The leader trait,Ancient Regime, provides a small culture bonus per city that is deceptively synergistic with warmongering into a cultural victory: puppet states grantthe additional culture bonus as well as not increasing the culture cap for social policies. The warmongering aspect of this synergy certainly plays wellwith its unique units. Alternatively, the free culture can allow a ICS strategy to acquire far more social policies than that strategy would normally beable.

The Musketeer has a combat score of 20 instead of 16 like the musketman. This makes it immediately better than the longswordsman, who isotherwise still stronger than the musketman. Unfortunately, none of the medieval units upgrade into the musketeer, so it may be best to use the latemedieval era to buildup and prepare for war in the renaissance. The musketeer with eventually upgrade into the Foreign Legion.

The Foreign Legion, unlike the musketeer, does not have a simple combat bonus upgrade. Instead, it gains a +20% combat bonus when not infriendly territory, making this unit all about warmongering. This effectively gives them a combat score of 43.2, instead of the base 36 for infantry,allowing them to dominate the industrial era.

GERMANYBismark Furor Tuetonicus: 50% chance to gain free barbarian unit and 25 gold whenever you defeat one in their encampment.Landsknecht - Replaces pikeman, production cost is halved.Panzer - Replaces tank, has increased combat strength and movement speed.

The German civilization has two unique units, one a production bonus on a defensive unit, another a powerful upgrade to a powerful late game cityattacker. The leader trait, Furor Tuetonicus, gives a 50% chance to convert barbarians to your side, and gain 25 gold, whenever you defeat one intheir encampment. Obviously this trait only has a use in the early game, when barbarian units are still a threat and populous. This trait will allow youto quickly build a small army from only one or two warriors, and eliminate a nearby civ or two. After the classical era this trait quickly becomesforgotten, but it's the ability to take a capital or two at the start of the game that makes this trait powerful. This trait is map dependent, but worksfairly equal on continents or Pangaea, just don't expect it to do much on archipelago.

The first unique unit, the Landsknecht, costs only 50 to produce instead of 100. It is in no other way stronger than the pikeman which it replaces,which is rather unfortunate, as pikeman are much weaker than longswordsman of the same era. The maintenance cost of these units is the same aswell, so being able to keep a large number of these units is not the same as being able to produce a large number. At least, these unique units willallow you to mount a quick defense in case of a cavalry rush.

The Panzer has 60 combat strength and 5 movement speed, compared to the 50 combat strength and 4 movement speed of the generic tank. Thismakes it the strongest land unit of its era, and will really allow a warmonger some late-game presence.

GREECEAlexander Hellenic League: City-State influence degrades at half-rate and recovers twice as quickly.Hoplite - Replaces spearmen, combat strength and production cost is increased.Companion Cavalry - Replaces horsemen, increased combat strength and movement speed, increased great general rate.

The Greek civilization has two unique units, both in the classical era, showing that the best time to expand the empire is in the early game. Theleader trait, Hellenic League, is arguable the strongest trait in the game. In addition to halving the loss rate of city state influence, there is a hiddenbenefit that allows Greek troops to move through a city-state without causing negative influence. City-states have some powerful benefits, andGreece can manage them at half cost, either cutting the number of cities needed to maintain the gold to support the city-states, or doubling thenumber of city-states Greece is allied with. Alexander is a shoe in for a diplomatic victory.

The Hoplite has 9 strength instead of 7 strength compared to the spearmen, but costs 60 production instead of 50. This increased strength makesHoplites excellent city attackers very early in the game, and combined with Companion Cavalry, give Greece an overwhelming advantage early in thegame.

The Companion Cavalry has 2 more strength and 1 more movement than the horseman, and has an increased great general growth rate fromcombat. Companion Cavalry have double base strength compared to spearmen, putting them at equal ground compared to their supposed counter.Their increased movement is nice, but has little tactical application other than to have them able to catch up or escape from enemy horsemen easier.Their real value is the additional strength, making Greece the best civ for early warmongering.

INDIAGandhi Population Growth: half unhappiness from number of citizens, double unhappiness from number of cities.War Elephant - Replaces chariot archer, increased melee and ranged combat strength, increased production cost, reduced movement speed, doesn'trequire horses.



Mughal Fort - Replaces castle, slightly cheaper, provides increased defense, provides culture, provides gold after flight is researched.

The Indian civilization has a unique unit and unique building, the first turning an early game cavalry into a pseudo siege unit, the latter a buildingthat encourages the strategy the leader trait does as well. The leader trait, Population Growth, halves unhappiness from number of citizens whiledoubling unhappiness from number of cities. This trait makes early expansion difficult and emphasized building up happiness resources and buildings.A small empire that has a large population is well suited towards a cultural victory. However, this trait only discourages expansion early in the gamewhen happiness resources are hardest to come by. The break even point for placing a city and raising it's happiness is a bit higher for India than theother civs, but it's total unhappiness will be much lower for it's population.

The War Elephant changes the chariot archer drastically. It's strength, both melee and ranged, are increased by two, while it's movement speed isreduced by one. It's production cost is increased by 20, but it no longer requires horses to build and has no penalty for moving on rough terrain.This turns the normally quick to scout and harass chariot archers into pseudo siege units, capable of taking down cities when applied in largenumbers, but able to counter spearmen and archers thanks to their higher movement speed. It is a pity that the other aspects of the Indiancivilization do not line up with early conquest like the unique unit does.

The Mughal Fort is 20 production cheaper than castles, which is not much at this point. It adds 2 culture and has a higher defense score of a fewpoints. It also adds some gold after flight is researched. Normally walls and castles are not built in every city, but this unique building has excellentsynergy with the small empire the leader trait encourages. If your empire is concentrate, it is best your defenses are as well. The additional culturealso has synergy with a cultural victory.

IROQUOISHiawatha The Great Warpath: Forests and Jungles function as roads for unit movement and trade routes within friendly territory.Mohawk Warrior - Replaces swordsman, +50% bonus in forests or jungles.Longhouse - Replaces workshop, slightly cheaper to produce, gives +1 production on worked forest tiles.

The Iroquois civilization, thankfully no longer summarized as the native americans, has a unique unit and unique building. The first has a defensivebonus for a city attacking unit, while the second makes the best tiles even better. The leader trait, The Great Warpath, is rather marginal in avacuum. Increasing movement speed in forests and jungles within friendly territory would be rather marginal, except that the Iroquois areprogrammed to always start in forests, and usually rather vast ones as well. Their leader trait has synergy with both their unique unit and building,and overall encourages either a warmonger or scientific victory, as the heavy reliance on forests results in exceptional production in all cities withforests.

The Mohawk Warrior is a swordsman with a 50% combat bonus in forests and jungles, which is rather unfortunate, as swordsman tend to be thebest city attackers of their era. If Mohawk Warrior replaced spearmen instead, this would have been a better use of a defensive upgrade. At leastthis unit has excellent synergy with the forest start the Iroquois have.

The Longhouse is a fantastic upgrade of the workshop, being 20 production cheaper, and giving +1 production to all forests tiles, which whenimproved with a lumber mill and the appropriate tech, is the best production tile in the game. Of course, building a trade post on these tiles willinstead provide a very well rounded tile, providing 1 food, 2 production, and 2 gold. Befriend a few maritime city-states, and you wouldn't even haveto worry about farms.

JAPANOda Nobunaga Bushido: unites fight as though they were at full strength even when damaged.Samurai - Replaces longswordsman, greatly increased great general rate, stars with Shock 1 promotion.Zero - Replaces fighter, gains a combat bonus against other fighters.

The Japanese civilization has two unique units, which is rather appropriate considering it's leader trait. It's leader trait, Bushido, is tried with Art ofWar as the best warmongering leader trait. Having all your troops being able to continue fighting at full strength despite their injuries allows Japan toaggressively push forward at times other civilizations would have to fall back and heal. This trait has excellent synergy with the March and Medicpromotions, creating a nigh-unstoppable army.

The Samurai, not only the coolest damn troop in the game, is also a very powerful version of the longswordsman. The boosted great general rate isexcellent, but it's the free Shock 1 promotion that really sets the samurai apart. The Shock line of promotions are generally not as useful than theDrill line, because any unit in flat terrain already has a -33% combat penalty. However, getting either Shock or Drill to level three gains access tothe best two promotions after that for the Samurai: March and Blitz. With the appropriate buildings of this era, a freshly bought or produced Samuraican start at level 3 Shock.

The Zero gains a bonus against other fighters. This bonus will let you rule the skies once you hit that era, taking down enemy aircraft easily.However, the Zero doesn't gain any bonus against anti-air land units, so be careful where you apply them.

MONGOLIA



Genghis Khan Mongol Terror: +30% combat strength when attacking city-states and their units. Mounted units gain +1 movement.Keshik- Replaces knight, replaces standard knight attack with a weaker ranged attack.Khan- Replaces great general, has higher movement and has double medic promotion.

The Mongolia civilization has two unique units, which is rather appropriate considering it's aggressive history. It's leader trait, Mongol Terror, is anexcellent warmongering trait, although perhaps weaker than China's and Japan's, at least in a vacuum. The bonus versus city-states is a fringebenefit, although city-states tend to have the best defended cities. The real boon is the movement increase for mounted units, making the fastestunits even faster.

The Keshik is very similar to the Camel Archer. It replaces the knight, and replaces it's strong melee attack with a much weaker ranged attack, anda fairly pathetic melee defense. Where the Keshik really shines, especially over the Camel Archer, is it's base movement of 5. Coupled with theMongolian leader trait, you have a 6 movement ranged attacker, making an excellent unit for taking out non-garrisoned units.

The Khan replaces the great general, making this a unique unit that is relevant all game. It has a movement of 5, making it able to keep up with allyour mounted units. It also has a double medic promotion, healing 2 health to all adjacent units per turn. This is a drastically powerful alteration tothe great general, and pushes Mongolia to a top tier military civ, easily rivaling China and Japan for best choice for conquest.

OTTOMANSSuleiman Barbary Corsairs: 50% chance of converting a barbarian naval unit and earning 25 gold.Janissary - Replaces musketman, gains a 25% combat bonus on the attack, fully heals after killing a non-barbarian enemy unit.Sipahi - Replaces lancer, increased movement and sight, can pillage at no movement cost.

The Ottoman civilization has two unique units, both encouraging aggression and warmongering. It's leader trait, Barbary Corsairs, grants a 50%chance to convert barbarian naval units and earn 25 gold. This trait can be difficult to take advantage of, and is obviously map dependent. The bestway to utilize this bonus is the use your Triremes to scout islands with barbarian encampments, steal their navy and kill their units, but leave theencampments, and station your trireme there to continue this activity. Utilizing this strategy will give you a quick and strong naval advantage earlyin the game, which can be important for an archipelago map, simply nice if playing continents.

The Janissary has two powerful upgrades: it gains a 25% bonus to attacking, effectively making its combat score 20, the same as the French uniqueunit, while also giving it a full heal after the unit kills any non-barbarian unit. This set of bonuses greatly encourages full stop aggression, and will bean excellent unit to prepare a warmongering strategy for. Note however, that musketmen, the unit this replaces, cannot be upgraded from any ofthe medieval units, they must all be bought from scratch.

The Sipahi has +1 movement and sight compared to the lancer, and has no movement cost to pillaging. This makes the Sipahi excellent scouts andharassment units, able to pillage up to five tiles per turn. Sending Sipahi against a far away opponent, simply to declare war, pillage their lands, anddeclare peace without trying to really take any of their cities, is an effective strategy with the Sipahi, and provides a huge gold boost. It may causenegative relations with the civ, but will cripple their economy, especially if you can steal their workers as well.

PERSIADarius I Achaemenid Legacy: +50% Golden Age length, units get +1 movement and +10% combat strength during a golden age.Immortal - Replaces spearmen, increased combat score and production cost, heals at double rate.Satrap's Court - Replaces bank, increased happiness.

The Persian civilization has a unique unit and a unique building, the first promoting aggressive warmongering early in the game, the lattersynergizing well with the leader trait. The leader trait, Achaemenid Legacy, increases golden age length by 50%, as well as proving a +1 sight and10% combat bonus to units during golden ages. Obviously, the strategy for Persia is to try to string together as many golden ages as possible.Golden ages can come from excess happiness, great people, and building a few key wonders. Persia will need to beeline to techs that unlock thosewonders and attempt to build them faster than the other civilizations, to really take advantage of this trait. The combat bonuses cannot beoverlooked as well, but managing to build wonders, string together golden ages, and maintain a strong warmongering strategy can be a bit dauntingof a task.

The Immortals have 8 combat strength and cost 60 production, and have the additional bonus of healed at double speed. This second ability hasexcellent synergy with Medic and March promotions. The increased combat strength will encourage warmongering at the classical era, which can bethe best time to expand your empire in preparation for peaceful building.

The Satrap's Court replaces the bank, and increases happiness by two. Satrap's Courts can only be built in cities which already have a market, sothis unique unit demands a gold based economy to be most effective. The increased happiness has excellent synergy with the leader trait,accelerating the next golden age to take advantage of.

ROMEAugustus Caesar The Glory of Rome: +25% production to any building already built in the capital.



Legion - Replaces swordsman, increased combat score and production cost.Ballista - Replaces catapult, increased ranged combat score.

The Roman civilization has two unique units, both encouraging city attacking, and both in the same era as well. The leader trait, The Glory of Rome,increases production for any building already built in the capital by 25%. In Civ4, this ability would have been ridiculous, but Civ5 has a productionproblem. Normally, building maintenance and long production times for buildings will lead to city specialization: only trade post cities build markets,only production cities build barracks, etc. This would result in a rather weak if you don't accommodate for it. Make sure you capital is a productioncity - save forests to build lumber mills, for example, and try to build every building available in the capital. It would be helpful if your capital hasiron or marble to enhance it's production, but you can't accommodate for luck like that. You will be paying a bit more in maintenance, and notbuilding a many wonders or units as you normally would in a production, but the long term benefits for a large empire would overshadow thesepenalties.

The Legion costs 10 more production to build, and have 2 more combat power over the swordsman. This unit works very well with the Ballista, and aclassical era war to expand the empire has great synergy with the leader trait. This makes playing Rome somewhat luck based, as your exceptionalunits are limited by iron resources. Having few or even no iron weakens the great power of the Roman Empire.

The Ballista has four more ranged combat score, and comes in the same era as the Legion, both excellent city attack units. It only has two lessranged combat than the Trebuchet, but costs much less production. It can be more cost effective to build Ballista even into the medieval era, andnot upgrade the ones you have leftover from the classical era. The unfortunate problem with both unique units, is that they both require ironresource, making it hard to fully capitalize on both units in the same game.

RUSSIACatherine Siberian Riches: +1 production on all strategic resource, double quantities of iron, horse, and uranium.Krepost - Replaces barracks, reduces culture cost of acquiring new tiles by 50%.Cossack - Replaces cavalry, increased combat strength against weakened enemies.

The Russian civilization has a unique building and a unique unit, the first a powerful enhancement to a warmongering cultural victory strategy, thelatter a strong upgrade to an already strong unit. The leader trait, Siberian Riches, increases production on all strategic resources worked by acitizen, and doubles the quantity of iron, horse, and uranium resources. As long as Russia has at least one iron resource in it's borders, it shouldnever bother with producing spearmen or pikemen. Likewise, archers and crossbowmen are unneeded for city attacking, as siege units will always beavailable to build. The horses bonus will allow a large cavalry until the industrial era and tanks. Late game, nuclear powered buildings and units willbe rapidly available.

The Krepost is an interesting spin on a barrack: halving the culture cost of acquiring new tiles. The strong emphasis on military and expansion thatthe leader trait and unique unit provides, combines well with a military building giving an advantage to culture buildings. Russia is poised to have astrong cultural victory, after a strong game of warmongering.

The Cossack gains a 50% bonus against weakened troops, making this cavalry replacement an excellent scout and harassment unit, quicklydispatching of runners and reinforcements. Pillage terrain to bait the defending player into sending troops to defeat it, have a few more cossack inreserve just outside the sight range of the defending player to quickly swoop in and tag team enemy units.

SIAMRamkhamhaeng Father Governs Children: +50% food and culture from city-states.Naresuan's Elephant - Replaces knight, increased combat score, reduced movement speed, bonus versus mounted units.Wat - Replaces university, reduced maintenance, provides culture.

The Siamese civilization has a unique unit and a unique building, the first a defensive upgrade to an offensive unit, the second providing a small buffto a cultural victory. The leader trait, Father Governs Children, increases food and culture from city-states by 50%. cultural city-states provide anexceptional amount of culture when going for a small empire cultural victory, while the food bonus from maritime city-states provides a generallyexcellent bonus for a large empire, especially for having a large number of production cities. The problem with this trait is that cultural city-statesare most effective when your empire is small, while maritime city-states work in the opposite direction. Only if you're going for a diplomatic victorywill you find yourself gaining a good benefit from both types. It is interesting, unfortunately, that militaristic city-states do not get a bonus from thisleader trait.

The Naresuan's Elephant is a radical change on the knight, increasing its combat score by four, reducing it's movement to two, and gaining a 50%bonus against mounted units, as well as not requiring horses to build. This makes these units no longer a counter to ranged units, but giving yourown siege units a strong unit to defend against enemy cavalry, while being strong city attackers themselves. If iron is short, Siam can skip buildingmelee units to attack with, and stick with these units instead.

The Wat costs one less gold to maintain, and provides 3 culture. This makes the Wat a decent replacement for the university when going for acultural victory, as cities in these empires typically have a small number of high population cities, but still have a long string of techs to advance



through this early in the game.

SONGHAIAskia River Warlord: triple gold from barbarian encampments and pillaging cities. Embarked units can defend themselves.Mud Pyramid Mosque - Replaces temple, no maintenance, produces more culture.Mandekalu Cavalry - Replaces knight, 30% bonus while attacking cities.

The Songhai civilization has a unique building and a unique unit, the first a great boost to cultural victories, the second a strong mid game cityattacker. The leader trait, River Warlord, triples gold gained from pillaging barbarians encampments and cities, as well as having embarked unitsdefend themselves. The tripled gold from encampments emphasizes early exploration with melee units, especially on archipelago maps where yourmelee units can pass by barbarian galleys without worrying about being destroyed. The tripled gold from cities makes taking border cities and islandcities, even if just to raze them, a good strategy, and is synergistic with the unique unit.

The Mud Pyramid Mosque is a maintenance free temple with 5 culture instead of just 3. These unique buildings allow for early cultural expansion, aswell as emphasizing cultural victories. Alternatively, build these buildings in lieu of building late game cultural buildings when going for a dominationvictory and wanted some culture border popping in newly conquered cities.

The Mandekalu Cavalry has a 30% bonus while attacking cities, which has strong synergy with the leader trait. Mounted units normally are only usedto take small and undefended cities, and this unit does that especially well. Make a deliberate effort to take down border and island cities, even justto raze them. The amount of gold raked in with this strategy is exceptional. Three of these units are usually enough to take down an undefended cityin on turn, never giving a defending civ the time to send reinforcements.

2. NATIONAL WONDERS

National wonders are wonders that every civilization can build, but require every city to have 1 of a single type of building in every city. This makesnational wonders much harder to build in large empires, but can be well worth the extra maintenance and production costs from building all thosebuildings.

Hermitage - Cultural output in this city is doubled.Requirements: Archaeology tech, 300 production, must have built a museum in every city.

The Hermitage is a fantastic wonder for a cultural victory. Build it in your wonder city, and settle all great artist as landmarks in this city as well.This is one of the easiest national wonders to have access to, because cultural victories typically have small empires with all cities focused onbuilding culture.

Heroic Epic - All newly trained units in this city receive the moral promotion, increasing combat strength by 15%.Requirements: Iron Working tech, 300 production, must have built a barracks in every city.

The moral promotion can only be received from the Heroic Epic. It is a decent promotion, and works well if you want to gold purchase units in thiscity as well. Having one city pumping out military constantly can be useful for a domination victory, but this national wonder must be built early inthe game, as puppets can't be counted on to build barracks.

Ironworks - Production output in this city is increased by 20%.Requirements: Chemistry tech, 150 production, must have built a workshop in every city.

Workshops tend to be good investments for medium or small empires. The Ironworks has good synergy with the Heroic Epic, but comes much toolate in the game to be feasibly built for a large empire. If you only have invested in one production city, whether for wonders, military, or space shipparts, this national wonder is an excellent investment.

National College - Science output in this city is increased by 50%.Requirements: Writing tech, 100 production, must have built a library in every city.

The National College is available very early, and is most effective when settling great scientists in this city. If you use your great scientists to poptechs, then this national wonder won't have such a strong impact. As popping techs is currently grossly overpowered over building an improvementwith a great scientist, this wonder is somewhat lacking.



National Epic - Great People output in this city is increased by 25%Requirements: Philosophy tech, 100 production, must have built a monument in every city.

The nice thing about this wonder is that it is pretty much a guarantee you will be able to build it, as monuments are typically the first thing built inany city. It's actually effect is rather small, but will be appreciated if you dedicate at least one city to specialists early in the game. Building it in thesame city as the Hermitage or National College is an effective strategy.

Oxford University - 1 free technology.Requirements: Education tech, 250 production, must have built a university in every city.

The Oxford University is a very good wonder if you're trying to beeline towards a particular tech. You can hold off building it until it is necessary, asyou don't have to worry about other civs competing with you to build it.__________________The Civ5 Guide - almost everything you want to know about Civ5!


Oct 15, 2010, 08:49 AM #3



3. WORLD WONDERS

Ah, wonders. There are wonders that benefit every victory type in the game, and every civilization should plan ahead on what wonders to focus on.Some wonders are better on different maps, and some are better for different victory types, and each will be explained how to best utilize each forthe best role available. The wonders will be divided by era, following their chronological tech path.

ANCIENT ERA

The Great Lighthouse - All military naval units receive +1 movement and +1 sight.Bonuses: +1 , +1 great merchant point.Requirements: Sailing tech, 130 production, city must be built on the coast.Victory Type: None.Priority: Low.

The Great Lighthouse is a map dependent wonder, being far superior on an archipelago map than a pangaea map. On continents is can be veryuseful, assuming you are able to secure an entire continent to yourself. This wonder lends itself to no particular strategy, other than navalsuperiority. As its primary benefits are long term, as well as having limited use before unlocking caravels, this wonder can easily be skipped in favorof conquering the city that ends up building it later in the game.

Stonehenge - +8Bonuses: +1 great engineer point.Requirements: Calendar tech, 120 production.Victory Type: Cultural.Priority: Medium.

Stonehenge is the only wonder which providing culture is its primary benefit. This would make it an obvious inclusion for a cultural victory, and it is.It is just that the benefits it provides are actually fairly small. While +8 culture is hefty in the early game and will unlock social policies quickly, it'slong term benefits are minimal. This is especially true if social policies are conserved for a later era. If you feel like you have a strong lead to buildthis wonder, either from having marble in your capital or playing Egypt, then go ahead and being construction. Just don't feel bad if you need to skipit to build settlers or warriors this early in the game.

The Great Library - One free technology.Bonuses: +1 , +1 great scientist point.Requirements: Writing tech, 150 production.Victory Type: None.Priority: High.

The Great Library is an excellent wonder to build for any victory type, as it allows you to 'slingshot' through the tech tree, allowing you to enter themedieval era far quicker than the other civilizations. The best tech to slingshot to would be Civil Service, increasing productivity of farms andallowing you to build the pikeman unit. Civil service is also 60% higher beaker cost than any other tech at its level. The Great Library is the best



wonder of the Ancient Era, and the best reason to quickly settle a city near any available marble.

The Pyramids - Worker construction speed increased by 50%.Bonuses: +1 , +1 great engineer point.Requirements: Masonry tech, 175 production.Victory Type: None.Priority: Low.

The Pyramids are the most expensive wonder in the ancient era, and yet seem to give the smallest benefit. Increasing worker construction speed isa fairly weak benefit, as population growth is much slower than the time it takes for workers to build improvements. Not that the benefit is useless,it's just very weak. The only real reason to build the Pyramids is because you teched to Masonry first to get your marble up and running for yourwonder city - this will be the only wonder available at the time.

The Colossus - +1 gold from water tiles worked in this city.Bonuses: +1 , +1 great merchant point.Requirements: Bronze Working tech, 150 production, city must be built on the coast.Victory Type: None.Priority: Low.

The Colossus is one of only two wonders that can go obsolete - in this case, at Navigation tech. On the surface this wonder seems even worse thanthe Pyramids, and it usually is. The Colossus shines only in a specific case, when you are doing a one city challenge with a coastal start, especiallywith 3 or more coastal resources. For the far majority of games, however, this wonder can be completely ignored. This is different than the Pyramids,which there is never a specific situation to take advantage of by building it.

CLASSICAL ERA

The Oracle - 1 free social policy.Bonuses: +1 , +1 great scientist point.Requirements: Philosophy tech, 150 production.Victory Type: Cultural.Priority: High.

The Oracle is on the short list for wonders to build for a cultural victory. It gives a free social policy - not just free of the culture needed, but freefrom raising the culture cap for the next social policy as well. This facet of this wonder makes its value not the culture you would have saved for thenext social policy, but the culture you would have needed to get the last social policy. This makes its effects extremely long reaching, greatlyshortening the time it takes to build the Utopia Project, and one of the must have wonders for a cultural victory. If you get beat to this wonder, youmight want to rethink your victory path. All that said, this wonder is still decent for any other victory type. Obviously not something to rush to, but ifyou feel like you have a decent shot at building it, well, every victory type can benefit from social policies.

The Hanging Gardens - +1 population in all cities, +3 happiness.Bonuses: +1 , +1 great artist point.Requirements: Mathematics tech, 200 production.Victory Type: None.Priority: Low.

The Hanging Gardens suffers from bad timing. At this early in the game, most empires are fairly small, so very few population are added from thiswonder. The happiness bonus, as seems to be the case with all happiness wonders, to be very small considering this is a wonder, when compared toother happiness buildings. It should also be noted that the Hanging Gardens will create more unhappiness than happiness, except when built in avery small empire, where it is the most useless.

The Great Wall - Enemy units must spend an additional movement per tile moving in your territory.Bonuses: +1 , +1 great engineer point.Requirements: Construction tech, 350 production.Victory Type: None.Priority: Low.

This is the most expensive wonder this early in the game, which is rather unfortunate as it's fairly decent bonuses it had in Civ4 have been replacedwith one of the worst bonuses any wonder offers. Fighting a defensive war in your territory isn't something a player with a good grasp of the gamewould encounter very frequently. The most common attackers would likely be barbarians - which only further highlight how much more abysmal thiswonder is compared to it's Civ4 version.



MEDIEVAL ERA

Angkor Wat - Culture cost of acquiring new tiles reduced by 75%.Bonuses: +1 , +1 great engineer point.Requirements: Theology tech, 300 production.Victory Type: Cultural.Priority: Medium.

Angkor Wat is an interesting wonder. It really only has an effect for those going for a cultural victory, but doesn't do anything directly to further thatvictory. Instead, it allows all your high culture cities to spread their culture - and acquire resources - far more dramatically than they would normallybe able to do. A point to note is that there doesn't seem to be a limit on how far a single city's culture can spread, or at least the limit is very high.Building this wonder early, you will see your cities taking tiles five or six hexes from the city itself by the end of the game, allowing you to controlan incredible amount of territory from only a small number of cities. This wonder further propagates the cultural strategy of building a small numberof spread out cities. Don't bend over backwards trying to build this wonder, but you will be very happy if you can.

The Hagia Sophia - +33% Great People generation in all cities.Bonuses: +1 , +1 great artist point.Requirements: tech, 300 production.Victory Type: Cultural or Scientific.Priority: Medium.

The Hagia Sophia is a good wonder for any strategy involving specialists, which will usually be cultural and scientific victories. The problem with thiswonder is that the bonus it provides is spread over your empire, instead of being concentrated in only one city. Considering that for most of thegame, only a few cities will be large enough to maintain a specialist population, and this bonus really only applies to the city that has the mostspecialists and modifiers. It is still a good wonder to build for those victory paths, just not a great one.

Chichen Itza - Length of golden ages increased by 50%.Bonuses: +1 , +1 great engineer point.Requirements: Civil Service tech, 450 production.Victory Type: None.Priority: High.

Chichen Itza went from one of the worst wonders in Civ4 to one of the best in Civ5. Nearly every victory type can utilize this wonder. Popping greatpeople is the best way to string wonders together, so the large number of great people cultural and scientific victories generate will be easy to utilizethis way. Domination victory will generate a large number of great generals, which can also be popped for golden ages, while diplomatic victories willfind the free great people from city-states useful for poping golden ages as well. If you're planning on building this wonder, and you really should,make sure to save your great people to pop golden ages after this wonder is built. You will get much better value out of them this way.

Machu Pichu - +20% gold from trade routes.Bonuses: +1 , +1 great merchant point.Requirements: Currency tech, 550 production.Victory Type: None.Priority: Low.

Machu Pichu suffers from the changes trade routes went from Civ4 to Civ5. Trade routes cost gold to maintain, and for large empires the gold fromtrade routes will usually only cover the cost of the route itself. In compact empires with large populations, trade routes become a semblance ofincome, but it is still usually a small number like 10% or 20%. Trade routes are usually cheaper to maintain in coastal cities which rely on harborsinstead of roads. Combined with the Commerce social policies, which encourage naval power and provide an additional trade route modifier, thiswonder could be useful for certain strategies. It still is nothing to rush towards, though.

Notre Dame - +5 happiness.Bonuses: +1 , +1 great merchant point.Requirements: Education tech, 500 production.Victory Type: None.Priority: Low.

Compared to the Hanging Gardens, which comes an era earlier, this wonder is the lesser of the two. If you find yourself at enough lesuire andresources to build this wonder, you might want to play your next game on a harder difficulty, especially considering how many good wonders thereare available in this era.



The Porcelain Tower - A free great scientist when this wonder is built.Bonuses: +1 , +2 great scientist points.Requirements: Education tech, 400 production.Victory Type: None.Priority: High.

Don't be fooled by the great scientist - this wonder is not only for scientific victories. While the +2 great scientist points certainly encourage that, thegreat scientist should be viewed like the Great Library - a means to slingshot through the tech tree, immediatly reaching the Renassaince. The besttech to pop towards with the great scientist is largely dependant on your victory path. Nearly all the first Renaissance techs are useful for one oranother victory type, with Acoustics or Astronomy being the easiest techs to reach once this wonder can be built.

Himeji Castle - +25% combat strength for units fighting in friendly territory.Bonuses: +4 , +2 great engineer points.Requirements: Chivalry tech, 600 production.Victory Type: Cultural.Priority: Medium.

The Himeji Castle is deceptively strong, it initially seems as weak as the Great Wall. It would be just from its main bonus, but its the +4 culture and+2 great engineer points that make it useful for a cultural victory. Great Engineers are great for building wonders, which the cultural victory typicallydoes more than any other victory type. The +4 culture is half what Stonehedge provides, but is still far more than any other wonder up to this era.Build it if you can, but don't sweat it if you can't.

RENAISSANCE ERA

Sistine Chapel - +33% culture in each city.Bonuses: +1 , +2 great arist points.Requirements: Acoustics tech, 650 production.Victory Type: Cultural.Priority: High.

After the Oracle, this is the second 'must build' wonder for a cultural victory. If you get beat to this building, its best to go to war and capture thecity it's built in - it's that important. Luckily its bonus is applied over the game instead of just a one shot effect.

The Kremlin - Defensive buildings in cities are +50% more effective.Bonuses: +4 , +1 great scientist point.Requirements: Acoustics tech, 650 production.Victory Type: None.Priority: Low.

The Kremlin is a weak wonder. It provides +4 culture, so is some use to a cultural victory, but also provides +1 great scientist points, which areuseless. This is the kind of wonder you hate when the AI builds it, but is otherwise negligible.

The Forbidden Palace - Unhappiness from number of cities reduced by 50%.Bonuses: +1 , +1 great artist point.Requirements: Banking tech, 600 production.Victory Type: None.Priority: Low.

The Forbidden Palace is no longer a nation wonder, it is now a one time world wonder. In very large empires, the unhappiness reduction will besizable, and combines with a late game social policy to reduce unhappiness to 0 from number of cities. In medium sized empires, the ForbiddenPalace may not justify building it, and in small empires it can be even worse than Notre Dame.

Taj Mahal - Immediate starts a very long golden age.Bonuses: +1 , +2 great artist points.Requirements: Printing Press tech, 600 production.Victory Type: None.Priority: High.

The Taj Mahal is a fantastic wonder, especially when coupled with Chichen Itza. On standard game speed, the golden age will be 22 turns long! Every



victory type can use golden ages, and every victory type should emphasize building this wonder.

Big Ben - Cost of gold purachases reduced by 25%.Bonuses: +1 , +2 great merchant points.Requirements: Economics tech, 700 production.Victory Type: None.Priority: High.

Big Ben is a great wonder if your empire focuses on building gold. A Diplomatic victory path would emphasize this the strongest, but all type can usethis wonder. From units to buildings, Big Ben reduces the cost of them all. Don't just think your empire is gold focused beause it has trade posts. Ifyou have enough production in your cities that you never feel the need to buy units or buildings, than you can skip this wonder.

The Louvre - Two great artists appear when this wonder is built.Bonuses: +1 , +2 great artist points.Requirements: Archeaology tech, 700 production.Victory Type: Cultural.Priority: Medium.

A cultural victory can view this as another stonehendge, providing +9 culture from two landmarks the artists would create as well as the wonderitself. Anyone can benefit from building this wonder, however, as the great artists can simply be used for two short term golden ages. Either way,this is a useful but not critical wonder to build.

Brandenburg Gate - A great general appears when this wonder is built.Bonuses: +1 , +2 great scientist points.Requirements: Military Science tech, 550 production.Victory Type: None.Priority: Low.

Brandenburg Gate isn't a terrible wonder, as anyone can use the great general to pop a short term golden age. It is just that the victory type thiswonder is suited for, Domination, typically will have more than enough great generals at this point in the game.

INDUSTRIAL ERA

Statue of Liberty - Specialist give +1 production.Bonuses: +1 , +3 great engineer points.Requirements: Replacable Parts tech, 1200 production.Victory Type: Cultural or Scientific.Priority: Medium.

The Statue of Liberty is a good wonder for specialist focused empires, typically cultural and scientific. At this point in the game, once hospitals arebuilt, there is usually enough population support for every city to run four or more specialists, and this wonder will really allow them to pay off. The+3 great engineer points is the equivelent of a engineer specialist as well, the highest so far. A solid late game wonder.

Cristo Redentor - Cost of adopting policies reduced by 33%.Bonuses: +1 , +2 great artist points.Requirements: Telegraphy tech, 1200 production.Victory Type: Cultural.Priority: High.

Cristo Redentor is the third of the 'must build' wonders for a cultural victory. It is a good strategy to save social policies until after this wonder isbuilt, and is coming close to the time when the utopia project can be built.

Eiffel Tower - +8 happiness.Bonuses: +1 , +2 great merchant points.Requirements: Radio tech, 1000 production.Victory Type: None.Priority: Low.

Considering how late in the game the Eiffel Tower is available, and how much production is costs to build it, it is unfortunetly the worst wonder inthe game. A minor happiness bonus is peanuts at this stage of the game.



MODERN ERA

Pentagon - Gold cost of upgrading military units reduced by 50%.Bonuses: +1 , +2 great merchant points.Requirements: Radar tech, 1200 production.Victory Type: Domination.Priority: High.

The Pentagon is the perfect clinch for a Domination victory game that needs one more push in military power to conquer the world. The Radar tech ison route for modern armor and the best flight units, and upgrading to those units as easily as this wonder allows should be all you need for worlddomination.

Sydney Opera House - 1 free social policy.Bonuses: +1 , +2 great artist points.Requirements: Globalization tech, 1000 production.Victory Type: Cultural.Priority: High.

If the game is going on late, and you're lagging on your cultural victory, the Sydney Opera House is exacally what you need to reach the utopiaproject. Most games will be over or building the utopia project by this point, but if you were unlucky and beaten to a critical wonder, or simplyplanned poorly, this wonder will make up for it.

4. BUILDINGS

ANCIENT ERA

BARRACKS - +15 XP for all land units.Prerequisites: Bronze Working.Cost: 80 production.Maintenance: 1 gold.Specialists: none.Priority: medium.

Barracks are a decent military building, and come at a good time as well. If you're planning on using swordsman to take cities during the ClassicalEra, you can build a barracks in the Ancient Era in anticipation. The thing with Barracks, and all military buildings, is that because of their highproduction costs and gold maintenance, you generally only want to have one city building them, at least early in the game.

GRANARY - +2 food.Prerequisites: Pottery.Cost: 100 production.Maintenance: 1 gold.Specialists: none.Priority: low.

Granaries are a very weak building. They no longer halve the growth time for population like in Civ4, only providing a marginal food boost. AGranary is a decent building to build in a production or specialist focused city, but maritime city-states will usually be a far greater investment thangranaries.

LIBRARY - +1 science for every 2 population.Prerequisites: Writing.Cost: 80 production.Maintenance: 1 gold.Specialists: 2 scientists.Priority: high.

The library is a very powerful building, and a prerequisite for all science buildings that come after it. Libraries are unique in that instead of simplyincreasing science by 50% like the other science buildings, they add to the base science rate. This means that the increased science generated fromlibraries is then multiplied from the other science buildings!



MONUMENT - +2 culture.Prerequisites: none.Cost: 60 production.Maintenance: 1 gold.Specialists: none.Priority: high.

The Monument is the most cost effective culture building, both from a production and maintenance point of view. It also is the first building that canbe built. Building a monument in every city will go a long way to providing tiles to work for the citizens in your cities.

Wall - +5 city defense.Prerequisites: Masonry.Cost: 100 production.Maintenance: 1 gold.Specialists: none.Priority: low.

Defensive buildings are buildings most people never build, and with good reason. Military units are far more effective at dissuading attackers, andproper use of terrain and choke points will keep enemies from every getting to your cities. The only time defensive buildings take priority is in verysmall empires or one city challenges, where defending your small empire with your weak military is very important.

WATERMILL - +2 food.Prerequisites: The Wheel, city must be built by a river.Cost: 120 production.Maintenance: 2 gold.Specialists: none.Priority: low.

If the granary is bad, the watermill is even worse. It has a higher production and maintenance cost for the same benefit, and the additionalrequirement of needed to be by a river. River terrain makes for excellent farmland, making this building even more unnecessary.

CLASSICAL ERA

ARMORY - +15 XP for all land units.Prerequisites: Iron Working, barracks.Cost: 130 production.Maintenance: 3 gold.Specialists: none.Priority: low.

The Armory provides the same bonus as the barracks, which it stacks with. The problem is that is comes at the same time you want to start buildingyour army, and costs much more to build and maintain. Armories will typically either be bought with gold or built in anticipation of longswordsmen,much after this building can be built.

Circus - +3 happiness.Prerequisites: Horseback Riding, city must have improved horses or ivory.Cost: 150 production.Maintenance: 3 gold.Specialists: none.Priority: medium.

Happiness buildings are usually built as needed, when happiness is starting to get low or in anticipation of settling or conquering new cities. Of thehappiness buildings, the Circus is the 2nd best behind Colosseums. It's unfortunate that you will rarely be able to build more than a few Circuses,considering the resource requirement.

COLOSSEUM - +4 happiness.Prerequisites: Construction.Cost: 150 production.Maintenance: 3 gold.Specialists: none.Priority: medium.



Colosseums are the first and best happiness building available, and like all happiness buildings, are usually only built as needed.

Courthouse - Eliminates unhappiness from an occupied city.Prerequisites: Mathematics, annexed city.Cost: 200 production.Maintenance: 5 gold.Specialists: none.Priority: high.

Courthouses can only be built in annexed cities, and remove the rather high occupied city unhappiness. They do take awhile to build in a smallpopulation city, and have a rather high maintenance cost. It is this reason that razing and settling conquered cities is usually a good idea.Courthouses cannot be gold bought.

LIGHTHOUSE - +1 food from water tiles.Prerequisites: Optics, city must be built on coast.Cost: 80 production.Maintenance: 1 gold.Specialists: none.Priority: low.

A lighthouse is rarely needed, but is at least a better building than a granary. If you have a city with three or more coastal resources, you mightwant to prioritize a lighthouse, but those resources usually already provide a lot of food. At least the lighthouse is cheap.

STABLE - +25% production for mounted units.Prerequisites: Horseback Riding, city must have improved horses.Cost: 100 production.Maintenance: 1 gold.Specialists: none.Priority: low.

The Stable is a poor building. It is unlocked at the same time as horsemen, so unless you buy it with gold, you're going to want to skip the stable infavor of just producing units. It doesn't help that you will have to produce a very large number of mounted units to make up for the initial productioncost of this building. Now if this building was available at Animal Husbandry, it might actually be useful to build.

TEMPLE - +3 culture.Prerequisites: Philosophy, monument.Cost: 120 production.Maintenance: 2 gold.Specialists: +2 artists.Priority: high.

Unless you're going for a cultural victory, the temple and monument should be the only culture buildings you need in your cities to build socialpolicies and claim territory.

MEDIEVAL ERA

CASTLE - +7.5 city defense.Prerequisites: Chivalry, walls.Cost: 200 production.Maintenance: 3 gold.Specialists: none.Priority: low.

The Castle is a very specialized building, and will only be built in situations outlined with Walls. It unfortunately only provides a defensive bonus,compared to the varied bonuses in Civ4.

FORGE - +15% production for land units.Prerequisites: Metal Casting, city must have improved iron.Cost: 150 production.Maintenance: 2 gold.



Specialists: none.Priority: medium.

Like the Stable, the Forge will take a very long time to recoup the initial production cost. The Forge benefits from good tech placement like theBarracks though, being available before the next best unit, the longswordman. The production boost is smaller than the Stable, but land units will bebuilt til the end of the game, unlike the eventually outdated mounted units.

GARDEN - +25% great people generation rate.Prerequisites: Theology, city must be near river.Cost: 120 production.Maintenance: 2 gold.Specialists: +1 artist.Priority: medium.

The Garden is a very specialized building, but provides one of the few great people rate increase. Designating your specialist cities by rivers isimportant simply because of this building.

HARBOR - Forms a trade route with Capital over water, +25% production when building naval units.Prerequisites: Compass, city must be built on the coast.Cost: 80 production.Maintenance: 3 gold.Specialists: none.Priority: high.

The Harbor is typically the first building you build in a new coastal city, or perhaps right after a monument. The Harbor is also the most cost effectiveway to form a trade route, and the naval production boost is just gravy. It is also one of the cheapest buildings in the game. All upsides with thisbuilding.

MARKET - +25% gold.Prerequisites: Currency.Cost: 120 production.Maintenance: none.Specialists: +1 merchant.Priority: high.

The Market is a building you will eventually want to build in every city, as it has no maintenance. When you first unlock it however, just building it inyour highest gold producing cities will suffice.

MINT - +3 gold per gold or silver resource worked.Prerequisites: Currency, city must have improved gold or silver.Cost: 120 production.Maintenance: none.Specialists: none.Priority: high.

The Mint is a building you really want to build, as it provides a large gold boost on tiles that already are very good. The gold bonus is added to thebase yield as well, which means a market and other buildings will multiply the gold gained from this building.

MONASTERY - +3 culture, +2 culture if incense and/or wine is nearby.Prerequisites: Theology, city must have improved incense or wine.Cost: 120 production.Maintenance: 2 gold.Specialists: none.Priority: high.

If a city can build a Monastery, it will have a lot of culture available to it, at least +5 from this building alone. New cities can skip a monument andtemple entirely if they can build this building.

UNIVERSITY - +50% science, +2 science from worked jungle tiles.Prerequisites: Education, library.Cost: 200 production.



Maintenance: 3 gold.Specialists: +1 scientist.Priority: high.

The University provides a straight +50% bonus on science yields, the first multiplicative bonus available. The +2 science per worked tile will also getthis bonus, making at least +3 science per jungle tile worked. The University is the best reason to not chop jungle tiles.

WORKSHOP - +20% production for buildings.Prerequisites: Metal Casting.Cost: 100 production.Maintenance: 2 gold.Specialists: +1 engineer.Priority: medium.

The Workshop is a building you'll want to build in any city that will develop a reasonable population, but you don't need to rush to build it. While youwill get the best return on your investment for building this building as soon as you unlock it, waiting until after you build that monastery oruniversity can have a stronger short term impact.__________________The Civ5 Guide - almost everything you want to know about Civ5!


Oct 15, 2010, 08:49 AM #4



RENAISSANCE ERA

BANK - +25% gold.Prerequisites: Banking, market.Cost: 220 production.Maintenance: none.Specialists: +1 merchant.Priority: high.

The Bank, much like the market before it, is something you'll want to build in every city, but will want to prioritize in your high gold producing citiesfirst.

MILITARY ACADEMY - +15 XP for land units.Prerequisites: Military Science, barracks.Cost: 350 production.Maintenance: 3 gold.Specialists: none.Priority: low.

The Military Academy is unlocked at a stage in the game where you probably already have a large, well promoted army. It's not useless, but youmight not need to build it if you think your current forces can hold you out till the end of the game. If you have a standing army in peace time, youmight as well as build this building in your military production city, as this late in the game the 3 gold maintenance cost won't be much to add in.

MUSEUM - +5 culture.Prerequisites: Archaeology, opera house.Cost: 350 production.Maintenance: 3 gold.Specialists: +1 artist.Priority: high.

The Museum continues the trend started by the opera house, of cultural buildings that only a cultural victory will worry about building.

OBSERVATORY - +50% science.Prerequisites: Astronomy, city must be built next to a mountain.Cost: 180 production.Maintenance: 2 gold.



Specialists: none.Priority: medium.

The Observatory is a rare but excellent building to build in any city that can build it. However, like the Public School, science buildings in this erastart to take a backseat to whichever buildings or units would further the victory path chosen by the player.

OPERA HOUSE - +5 culture.Prerequisites: Acoustics, temple.Cost: 220 production.Maintenance: 3 gold.Specialists: none.Priority: high.

The Opera House is the first cultural city you can skip if you arent going to be going for a cultural victory. The other buildings in this line will all behigh priority for cultural victories, and low priority for everyone else.

PUBLIC SCHOOL - +50% science.Prerequisites: Scientific Theory, university.Cost: 350 production.Maintenance: 3 gold.Specialists: +1 scientist.Priority: medium.

Unless you're going for a scientific victories, science buildings can take a backseat to other buildings and units that are more in line with your chosenvictory type. Unlike cultural buildings though, you will always want to build science buildings when you can, it just won't be your first priority.

Seaport - +2 production per worked sea resource.Prerequisites: Navigation, city must be built on coast.Cost: 140 production.Maintenance: 2 gold.Specialists: none.Priority: high.

The Seaport is a great building that can be hard to take advantage of. Not only can it only be built on coastal cities, you need sea resources for iteven to do anything. Luckily, sea resources are the best workable tiles in the game, and the seaport makes them even better. Priority changes withhow many resources are available, but since they usually are clumped together, having 3+ resources makes this building high priority.

THEATRE - +4 happiness.Prerequisites: Printing Press, colosseum.Cost: 300 production.Maintenance: 5 gold.Specialists: none.Priority: medium.

The affiance of happiness starts degrading with each era, and continues the trend of only building happiness buildings as they are needed.

WINDMILL - +15% production.Prerequisites: Economics.Cost: 180 production.Maintenance: 2 gold.Specialists: +1 engineer.Priority: low.

Windmills provide a very small boost to production, and take a long time to recoup the initial production. The real value of windmills are the engineerspecialist. Building Windmills only in your production cities is the recommended strategy, and even then there is no need to rush them.

INDUSTRIAL ERA

ARSENAL - +20% production when building land units.Prerequisites: Railroad, military academy.Cost: 350 production.



Maintenance: 3 gold.Specialists: none.Priority: low.

Much like the military academy, the Arsenal is only useful if you plan to be building a large number of units this late in the game. On huge maps,going for domination with tanks can warrant this building, as they must all be built from scratch.

BROADCAST TOWER - Doubles culture gained.Prerequisites: Radio, museum.Cost: 600 production.Maintenance: 3 gold.Specialists: none.Priority: high.

The Broadcast Tower is the final culture building available, and it is also the most powerful. Taking Order policies can help your Industrial Era citiesbuild these very important buildings that much quicker.

FACTORY - +50% production.Prerequisites: Steam Power, 1 coal resource.Cost: 300 production.Maintenance: 3 gold.Specialists: +1 engineer.Priority: high.

The Factory is a very powerful building, as it will greatly increase production in every city you build it in. It is painful when a puppet state decides tobuild it though, robbing you of a precious coal resource.

HOSPITAL - 50% of food is carried over after a new citizen is born.Prerequisites: Biology.Cost: 400 production.Maintenance: 2 gold.Specialists: none.Priority: medium.

The Hospital is a great building when you are in a situation that can really take advantage of it, that is when you have a lot of excess happiness andfood resources. That said, you certainly don't need to rush to build it even in those situations.

MILITARY BASE - +12 city defense.Prerequisites: Telegraph, castle.Cost: 450 production.Maintenance: 4 gold.Specialists: none.Priority: low.

Yet another cut and dry defense bonus building. If you've investing in walls and castles, you might as well as build this too.

STOCK EXCHANGE - +33% gold.Prerequisites: Electricity, bank.Cost: 650 production.Maintenance: none.Specialists: +1 merchant.Priority: high.

The Stock Exchange has a very high production cost, but with good reason. It is the 2nd best building in the Industrial Era, after the factory, whichwill help mitigate this high production cost. The gold bonus is also larger than its predecessor buildings as well.

MODERN ERA

HYDRO PLANT - +1 production per worked river tile.Prerequisites: Plastics, 1 aluminum resource, city must be built by a river.Cost: 600 production.



Maintenance: 3 gold.Specialists: none.Priority: medium.

The Hydro Plant can be a powerful building, as the production bonus is added to the tile yield and thus subject to modifiers. However, the aluminumresource requirement cannot be overlooked, especially if you plan to maintain a modern army.

MEDICAL LAB - 25% of food is carried over after a new citizen is born. Stacks with Hospital.Prerequisites: Penicillin, hospital.Cost: 500 production.Maintenance: 3 gold.Specialists: none.Priority: low.

The Medical Lab is an equivalent variant of the hospital that stacks with its effect, pushing population growth to ridiculous levels. However, it can behard to even have enough happiness for this building to be worth building at all.

NUCLEAR PLANT - +25% production.Prerequisites: Nuclear Fission, 1 uranium resource.Cost: 600 production.Maintenance: 3 gold.Specialists: none.Priority: medium.

The nuclear plant is like the hydro plant in that it requires a resource, so must be built with consideration. That said, uranium tends to be used lessthan aluminum, so unless you plan to build warheads, you can go ahead and build this building where appropriate.

RESEARCH LAB - +100% science.Prerequisites: Plastics, public school.Cost: 600 production.Maintenance: 3 gold.Specialists: +1 scientist.Priority: low.

The Research Lab provides the biggest science boost of any building, but comes so late you should be able to get all the techs you need simply byusing saved great scientists.

SOLAR PLANT - +25% production.Prerequisites: Ecology, city must be built near desert.Cost: 600 production.Maintenance: 3 gold.Specialists: none.Priority: high.

Unlike the hydro plant and nuclear plant, the solar plant doesn't require any resource. Instead, you need to have desert tile nearby. If a city canbuild it, it should, unless you just don't need any more production this late in the game.

SPACESHIP FACTORY - +50% production for space ships.Prerequisites: Robotics, 1 aluminum resource.Cost: 450 production.Maintenance: 3 gold.Specialists: none.Priority: high.

If you're going for the space race, and have aluminum, building these buildings in your key production cities in anticipation of building space shopparts is a good idea. A better idea is to buy this building for gold and bulb through techs with great scientists to be able to buy this building andbuild the space

ship parts immediately.

STADIUM - +4 happiness.



Prerequisites: Mass Media, theatre.Cost: 450 production.Maintenance: 6 gold.Specialists: none.Priority: low.

At this late in the game, you probably shouldn't be worried about population growth or expansion, as the game is nearly at its end.

5. SOCIAL POLICIES

The Civics of Civ4 are the Social Policies of Civ5. Instead of being unlocked by specific technologies, social policies are unlocked by eras, with somebeing available immediately. They are bought by culture accumulated from cities and city-states, and culture can be held to buy social policies laterin the game. The cost of buying social policies increases with every city you settle or annex. Puppet states do not increase policy costs.

TRADITION

The Tradition social policy is 'best for small empires', and in that regard it is both true and untrue. It would be better to say that it is best for a onecity challenge, with a few policies any empire could use. Cultural victories will generally want to invest in this policy tree, if only for Aristocracy.

TRADITION - +1 food bonus in capital.Prerequisites: None.

As the first policy in the Tradition policy tree, Tradition is very weak. +1 food per turn in the capital is almost negligible, except in the very beginningof the game. A one city challenge would not find this policy appreciable, as they typically have a very high population in their one city.

ARISTOCRACY - +33% wonder production.Prerequisites: Tradition.

Many players will dip down into Tradition strictly for this policy, and then go no farther. Aristocracy is possibly one of the strongest single policies inthe game. The production to wonder is higher than the leader trait for Egypt, and higher than building in a city that has marble. Considering howpowerful wonders can be, getting this social policy just for Chichen Itza and Taj Mahal can be a possible strategy for any victory type.

OLIGARCHY - +33% combat strength for units in your territory.Prerequisites: Tradition.

Oligarchy is a useful policy that gets better the harder the difficulty is, and the more peaceful your strategy is. Obviously a one city challenge willappreciate this bonus, as defense is the only thing your military is for. A prince level player going for a domination win may never even see thebenefits of this social policy however.

LEGALISM - -33% unhappiness from population in capital.Prerequisites: Tradition.

For a one city challenge, this policy is fantastic. For a small or medium empire, this policy can be compared to the other happiness boosting policiesin other trees. Large empires won't see much benefit from this policy at all.

LANDED ELITE - +33% population growth in capital.Prerequisites: Aristocracy and Oligarchy.

Landed Elite is very similar to Legalism, and synergizes very well with it. In situations where Legalism excels, Landed Elite does at well. Oddlyenough, Legalism isn't a prerequisite for it though.

MONARCHY - -5

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