Zigzagzigal's Guide to Brazil (BNW)

If you want a late-game with plenty of depth, Brazil's the Civ for you. With an exceptional ability to generate tourism, you'll have one of the best Civs in the game for cultural victories. This guide goes into plenty of detail about Brazilian strategies, uniques and how to play against them.

Introduction

Note: This guide assumes you have all game-altering DLC and expansion packs (all Civ packs, Wonders of the Ancient World, Gods & Kings and Brave New World)



Good day to you, leader. Your nation is young but not without depth and history; the lands making up Brazil having been settled at least 10,000 years ago and discovered by the Europeans just over 500 years before the present day. The Portugese seeked wealth, and found it in the vast lands of South America, in the trees, in the potential for crop growing and later on, in gold. But when the Napoleonic wars raged across Europe, and the Portugese royal family moved into the colony for their own safety, it began to become apparent the power of the lands. Independence would follow shortly after.

Until the late twentieth century, Brazil was often plagued with oppressive regimes, but now, your nation is progressive and growing in strength. Brazil's greatest days are ahead, as an upcoming great power in a brave new world. It is up to you to use that power for the good of the world. Keep Brazil strong. Build this civilization to stand the test of time.



Following is an explanation of some key terms used throughout the guide, mainly for the sake of newer players.

Builder Nation/Empire - A generally peaceful nation seeking victories other than domination.
Finisher - The bonus for completing a Social Policy tree (e.g. Free Great Person for Liberty.)
GP - Refers to "Great People" in this guide, rather than "Great Prophet".
GWAM - Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. These are the three Great People who can make Great Works for tourism leading to a cultural victory. Brazil generates them 50% faster during Golden Ages.
Opener - The bonus for unlocking a Social Policy tree (e.g. +1 culture for every city for Liberty's opener)
Tall Empire - An empire with a low number of cities with a high population each.
Uniques - Collective name for Unique Abilities, Units, Buildings, Tile Improvements and Great People
UA - Unique Ability - The unique thing a Civilization has which doesn't need to be built.
UI - Unique Improvement (also referred to as Unique Tile Improvement) - A special form of worker tile improvement that can only be built by one Civilization. Unlike unique buildings and units, they don't replace anything else.
UU - Unique Unit - A replacement for a normal unit that can only be built by one Civilization or provided by Militaristic City-States when allied.
Wide Empire - An empire with a large number of cities with a low population each. An extreme version of this is ICS, or Infinite City Sprawl.

At a glance (Part 1/2)

Start Bias

Brazil has a jungle start bias. This can give you a very strong city for gold, culture and science when Brazilwood Camps and Universities come along, but because jungles tend to have plantation resources (and often a need to cut jungles down to access them) it gives you a fairly weak start. Still, at least you can defend your lands reasonably well.

Uniques

Brazil's Unique Ability is most effective in the late-game and their Unique Unit comes in the late modern era. Their Unique Improvement comes somewhat earlier, in the late medieval era, but overall Brazil is a Civ weighted to the late-game.

Unique Ability: Carnival

• +100% during Golden Ages
  
  • The doubled tourism output affects the base value (even if it's displayed in the tourism screen as +100%) so it stacks multiplicatively with other bonuses (so with a base of 8 tourism and +25% for open borders makes 10 for that particular Civ and in a Golden Age, would be 20 tourism per turn for the respective Civ, not 18)
• +50% towards Great Artists, Musicians and Writers during a Golden Age

Unique Unit: Pracinha (Replaces Infantry)

A gunpowder melee unit

Technology	Obsoletion	Upgrades from	Upgrades to	Production cost	Purchase cost	Resource needed
Plastics Modern era 2nd column (13th column overall)	Mobile Tactics Information era 1st column (16th column overall)	Great War Infantry (120 )*	Mechanised Infantry (10 )*	375 *	1090 *	None

*Assumes a normal speed game.

Strength	Ranged Strength	Moves	Range	Sight	Negative Attributes	Positive Attributes
70	N/A	2	N/A	2	None	Gives Golden Age Points on a kill equal to the opposing unit's strength (or ranged strength if it's higher.)

Positive stay-on-upgrade changes

• Gives Golden Age points on a kill equal to the opposing unit's strength (or ranged strength if it's higher.)

Unique Improvement: Brazilwood Camp

Technology	Enhancing Technology	Terrain Requirement	Base yield	Misc bonuses	Enhancement Effect	Final yield*
Machinery Medieval era 2nd column (7th column overall)	Acoustics Renaissance era 1st column (8th column overall)	Jungle**	2	None	+2	2 2

*Note that Hotels, Airports and the National Visitor Centre will add tourism based off culture produced (Hotels and Airports: 50% of culture generated added to tourism. National Visitor Centre: 100%)
**Does not remove the jungle.

At a glance (Part 2/2)

Victory Routes

Note these scores are a matter of personal opinion based on experiences with the Civilization. You may discover a way of utilising the Civ more effectively in unconventional ways.

Cultural: 10/10
Diplomatic: 7/10
Domination: 5/10
Scientific: 7/10

Brazil's spectacular at cultural victories, having the game's highest tourism output during Golden Ages. Brazilwood camps can rake in a lot of gold to help diplomacy, and the fact they're built on jungles can give you a lot of science with Universities, making them useful to support backup victory routes if culture doesn't pan out.

Similar Civs and uniques

Overall

France is the Civ most alike Brazil, in both cases having two different tourism advantages (both via their respective UAs and UIs) which therefore gives them the highest tourism outputs of any Civs. France typically has a higher tourism output earlier on, while Brazil is stronger later.

Same start bias

The jungle start bias is shared with the Aztecs, a notoriously aggressive Civ in the hands of the AI which could pose quite a risk early on.

Similar to the UA

Persia is the only other Civ with bonuses during Golden Ages, but while Brazil's is very focused on cultural victories, Persia can use their UA for any path.

No other Civ has specific bonuses to GWAM generation, but Austria and Sweden have general Great People bonuses that can be used that way.

Similar to Pracinhas

The ability to gain Golden Age points from kills is shared with America's Minuteman, which on top of that, ignores terrain costs and has the Drill I promotion. Minutemen are a better UU, but that's alright - Brazil has strong other bonuses to make up for it.

Similar to Brazilwood Camps

Brazilwood Camps are one of three unique improvements which add culture (and tourism with Hotels, Airports and the National Visitor Centre) along with France's Chateau and Polynesia's Moai. Brazilwood Camps have the advantage that you don't need careful land management to maximise their yields (Chateaux can't be built next to each other, creating quite a puzzle of how to maximise yields, and Moai yields are affected by adjacent Moai) but the disadvantage of having to be built on jungles; a more restrictive requirement than that of the other Civs.

Unique Ability: Carnival

Brazil's Unique Ability sets the scene - you should aim for a cultural win. Your Golden Ages are truly incredible in the late-game - the peaceful version of Persia's more aggressive approach to them - and can win you the game before most other cultural Civs can. The challenge for you is to defend well and get to that point. It helps to play peacefully throughout the game (which will let you sign lots of Open Borders agreements for extra tourism.)

In the early years, your jungle start bias gives you a fairly slow start, but eventually it'll be something spectacular. Build your cities tall and don't over-expand (in the game I played for screenshots, I only had two cities. This caused some problems as I couldn't spread out the burden of building wonders. Three to four will probably be better.) You'll want to keep in jungly areas, but don't neglect production - you may have to remove the odd jungle for some mines. Mountains in jungle-filled areas are especially strong city locations - jungles generate a lot of science with Universities and Observatories will make that even better.

Building tall makes your empire a little easier to defend (all those jungles slowing down enemies helps too) but crucially gives you more excess happiness for getting Carnivals rolling. Unlike the case with Persia, however, a very early Golden Age (like in the screenshot at the start of this section) isn't so crucial as each one puts up the cost of the next, and double tourism with +50% GWAM generation doesn't do much good before you've got Guilds going.

When Guilds come along, build all three in a tall city either adjacent to a river, a lake or has the Hanging Gardens. This allows you to stack GWAM generation bonuses. Like any cultural player, you'll probably want the city to be filling all the appropriate specialist slots at all times.


Above: +50% from the Carnival, +33% from World Congress Arts Funding, +25% from the Leaning Tower of Pisa, +25% from the Aesthetics opener, +25% from Avant Garde in the Freedom Ideology (Hero of the People in the Order ideology offers the same bonus but Freedom's the better ideology for Brazil) +25% from the National Epic, +25% from a Garden.

Until some time around the Modern to Atomic eras, you should use pretty much your GWAMs to make Great Works, which over the course of the game will build up a good level of tourism (not to mention theming bonuses.) If you can't fill a slot, keep one around a while until you can.

Archaeology should be treated like any other cultural Civ - something to prioritise. At that point in the game, you can use Brazilwood Camp gold to purchase any needed other units while your cities build Archaeologists. Cover Antiquity Sites with your military units so no-one else can take them.

Once Hotels are around, that's when you should prioritise getting as long a Golden Age as possible seeing as Hotels greatly boost tourism generation (particularly with all those Brazilwood Camps.) The Chichen Itza and Universal Suffrage tenet in the Freedom ideology extends the length of these, so it's very much worthwhile to get them.

Pracinhas help initiate a Golden Age, but won't be useful once you're in one. So, for maximum impact, keep a few Great Artists come the late-game, generate a Golden Age the normal way (with help from Pracinhas) and then expend those Great Artists to extend it. Using your strong culture, get Representation in the Liberty tree at this late stage to make the Golden Age even longer. It's along the lines of the Persian "Forever Golden" strategy.

While Brazil's Great Artists late in the game should be used for Golden Ages rather than Great Works, (like how Great Scientists are better for rushing technologies than building Academies late on,) Writers probably should just carry on making Great Works.

As for Great Musicians, the amount of tourism they can generate from a concert tour is based upon your tourism generation. Great Musicians born during a Golden Age are therefore twice as effective for this use!


404: Tourism not found. You only generate tourism against Civs you've met - I met Japan later than most Civs and as such they were one of the last Civs I became influential with. Warmongers with strong culture are tricky to deal with as they often don't like you enough for the Open Borders bonus, (and you can't send Great Musicians to them if your borders are closed.) Trying to get the shared religion bonus is one way to help deal with that.

Unique Improvement: Brazilwood Camp

Above: Note the Carnival making the potential Brazilwood Camp even better.

These things will turn a game in your favour, even with a fairly poor start. To begin to realise their power, you need to remember that Universities add 2 science for every jungle tile, and your jungle startbias will give you plenty of such tiles. This helps to push you quickly through cultural technologies before rival Civs can get them. This helps to make up for your below-average production (probably not as bad as Polynesia's, but not great as cultural players go.) The 2 base food jungle tiles have is enough to support the population working the tile, so you can get working them fairly quickly.

Now, let's consider the bonuses this Unique Improvement brings: 2 gold, and 2 culture with Acoustics. There's a fair chance you'll pick up Acoustics before Machinery, due to Acoustics being a cultural technology and Machinery not being so, but either way, nearly all the time you'll be using Brazilwood Camps, you'll have both the gold and the culture.

Three technologies: Education, Machinery and Acoustics can give you tiles generating 2 culture, 2 food, 2 gold and 2 science. If you have the Sacred Path Pantheon belief, it's 3 culture. Remember that while this yield is very good, it barely helps your cities develop (after all, there's no production here) so do not solely work these tiles.


Above: Any flat jungle tile should have a Brazilwood Camp on it. In this screenshot, there's around 25 of the things, mostly on those tiles. Leave the hills until you're sure whether or not you need a mine or another Brazilwood Camp there.

Let's first look at the culture. It'll give you a truly incredible amount of the stuff for eating up Social Policies and Ideological tenets. This helps you to eat up the Aesthetics tree quickly, get a good chunk of a tree like Rationalism done, gets to Media Culture in the Freedom ideology quickly and helps to grab Representation in the Liberty tree in the end-game for its free Golden Age.

Culture from Brazilwood Camps will be added to tourism with a Hotel, Airport and/or National Visitor Centre. Together with Carnivals, this will win you the game quickly. Having Sacred Path adds to the culture of jungle tiles, which will mean more tourism.


Above: A good chunk of that tourism is from Brazilwood Camps.

Now, the gold, and an interesting bonus. If you're working plenty Brazilwood Camps, the gold made is quite impressive. This gives you the opportunity to use Caravans or Cargo Ships to move production around your empire rather than Trade Routes for gold, which helps to develop your cities faster or grab those vital wonders.

Come a Golden Age, every tile generating at least 1 gold now generates 1 extra, making lots of cash out of those Brazilwood Camps - much alike Morocco and their Kasbahs. This extra influx of money late in the game can be used very effectively in purchasing Pracinhas, while your cities focus on building Archaeologists, Wonders or buildings. Alternatively, sign a few Research Agreements for a late-game technological edge, or maybe even bribe City-States to nudge the World Congress to go the way you want.


Above: 73 gold from terrain. The overwhelming majority of that's from Brazilwood Camps.

Unique Unit: Pracinha

The Pracinha may come late, and it may not fight better than the standard Infantry, but it has a purposeful role - getting your valuable Carnivals going. Because they require Plastics to build, you don't need a huge technological detour to get to them (Cristo Redentor, Pracinhas, a science building that goes well with your jungles, I'm beginning to think it's the most Brazilian technology in the game...)

For a powerful combination, take the Volunteer Army tenet in the Freedom tree for 6 free Foreign Legion units, then upgrade into Pracinhas. That way, you have a useful advantage in combat and don't need to spend too long building Foreign Legions where you could be building wonders.

The important thing to note about Pracinhas is that getting Golden Age points is useless when the Carnival's already rolling. So use them to help initiate one, and use Great Artists or the Representation policy in the Liberty tree to extend them afterwards.

So, you've got some Pracinhas. Now, where to use them? First things first, plain warmongering is a bad idea (unless you think you can take a major cultural wonder.) Pracinhas are no better than normal Infantry in combat, and you've got no other military bonuses to back you up. Instead, there's three good uses of them, all of which are situational, but prevent other Civs getting angry with you.

Route One: Barbarian Killing

Above: Killed a Gatling Gun, I get 30 Golden Age points. Useless because I've already got a Carnival going, but I had to demonstrate it in action.

In this very late stage of the game, most of the world, if not all of it will probably be settled or at least visible to at least one Civ. But you may find a no man's land, such as between two land powers unlikely to expand much. That makes a great spot for farming Barbarian kills. Barbarians tend to be very weak at this stage of the game, so there's little need to open Honour for the bonus against them, and for maximum impact, try not to destroy the camps so more can spawn.

Route Two: Mercenary Work

Here's an unconventional route that doesn't anger anyone and syncs very well with your unique ability. All that tourism you've been making will put ideological pressure on other Civs, which can cause a huge amount of unhappiness. On Civs who like to spam cities, particularly, it could even drive them into revolts. Got Open Borders with them? Great! Send some Pracinhas in to sweep up those rebellions.

Route Three: Assist in a war

If a war's already going on involving a Civ you don't like much, you can assist the other side with Pracinhas. Use them to clear enemy units while the other Civ(s) on your side capture the cities (don't go taking lots of cities yourself - it'll drive Civs into hating you.) Just be sure you're the one making those kills, or else you won't be getting those Great Person points.

If you're taking Autocracy instead of the usual choice of Freedom, this method will be particularly effective as it synergises with Cult of Personality - potentially the strongest tourism bonus in the game. Find a Civ with very strong culture, and declare war on the same Civs they have. If you share a common enemy, you get a 50% tourism boost against them. If you have three common enemies, that's 150%!

Whatever route you take, you very well may not need to use Pracinhas again once you've started a late-game Carnival. So, it's quite a niche unit but one that synergises with your UA.

Special promotions kept on upgrade

• Golden Age points from victories

Mechanised Infantry will likely come too late for you to upgrade Pracinhas to them, but if you do, you can use their higher mobility to chase kills on possible remaining Barbarians.

Social Policies

Brazil works best as a tall-building cultural player, so Tradition and Aesthetics will be the best first two trees. To take advantage of jungle science, Rationalism makes an effective third choice before diving into ideologies. After taking Media Culture, and finishing Rationalism, head towards Representation in the Liberty tree.

Tradition

Opener

Your border expansion will be incredibly fast later in the game when you've got Brazilwood Camps going. Even at this early stage of the game, your capital should eat up a lot of tiles, and is quite likely to have most of its workable area complete by the time Brazilwood Camps are avaliable.

Oligarchy

If your cities are in areas of dense jungle, you can hit units with your cities' ranged attacks before they can reach you in most cases. A bonus to this ranged attack will help out in defence, and wiped maintenance on garrisoned units helps with affording more defences.

Legalism

This allows you to get the National Epic up easily later on as building new cities won't interrupt its construction - crucial for faster GWAM generation. Be sure to plant the National Epic in a city which can also have a Garden, and enjoy spectacular tourism generation later on.

Landed Elite

Growth bonuses will help to get over a slow start. If your capital's next to a river or a lake, it'll make a very strong GWAM city.

Aristocracy

There are plenty of useful early-game wonders, but relatively poor production is a problem you'll have to overcome.

Monarchy

Monarchy's cash will help to cover building maintenance, and should get you to Brazilwood Camps without serious financial trouble. Lower unhappiness lets you build cities taller, making filling those GWAM slots no problem.

Finisher

Another great boost to growth. Bigger cities can work more tiles, and that can mean a lot of culture, gold and science from Brazilwood Camps. Free Aquaducts saves a bit of production time which can be used on things like Wonders.

Aesthetics

Opener

Because you can only ever have two of each Artist, Musician and Writer specialists at a time, you have to rely on generation bonuses such as this to make more. Always keep your Artist, Musician and Writer slots filled, unless you're building the Chichen Itza or Leaning Tower of Pisa in your GWAM city and need every last bit of production to beat a close rival.

Cultural Centres

Building the long line of culture buildings faster will help ensure you don't have to keep a GWAM waiting until there's a slot ready, and frees up production for other stuff. Plus, it gets you to the very important Broadcast Towers sooner.

Fine Arts

Because Carnivals require excess happiness, you can make great use of this policy in nudging your way to even more policies.

Flourishing of the Arts

A very strong cultural boost merits building Wonders in most, if not all your cities. Cities that lack wonders and have lower production can make an attempt on lower-priority wonders, or just send a Great Engineer over to rush one. A 33% bonus stacked with all that Brazilwood Camp culture will net you more Social Policies than you know what to do with by the end of the game.

This policy also gives you a free Carnival, which is nice too.

Cultural Exchange

A reward for playing nice. Being a mostly peaceful cultural Civ, you should be seeking out as many Open Borders agreements as you can. As for International Trade Routes, you only need to send one to each Civ you want the bonus with, meaning you may still be able to keep some internal trade routes to help out with production. The shared religion bonus is harder to get, but still, a whole load of extra tourism ain't bad.

Artistic Genius

Take this policy earlier if you need to for theming bonus purposes, but otherwise, this should probably come last. At this stage, you're usually best off using it for a Great Work rather than a Golden Age.

Finisher

A lot of the wonders with Great Work slots come in the Renaissance and Modern eras, while Museums come with the Industrial Era's Archaeology technology. Get those wonders if you can (particularly Writing or Music-based ones, as it's quite likely you'll lack slots for those types) and enjoy a decent tourism bonus.

Exploration

Opener

You'll want just the opener here, as the rest of the tree doesn't really suit Brazil's focus (it's not worth getting all those policies for the finisher unless it's a very water-based map.) This opener lets you build the valuable Louvre wonder, that offers you a theming bonus of 8. If another Civ is likely to take it, skip this opener.

While you're here at this policy, you may as well use its other application - faster naval units with a higher sight. If you've got a coastal city, you can build some super-high-sight Caravels to patrol the oceans for potential amardas coming to attack, or to find new Civs for tourism purposes.

Rationalism

Opener

Working jungle tiles for Brazilwood Camps will give you an impressive amount of science, and it'd be a shame to ignore the potential there. The opener's all-round 10% science bonus so long as your empire's happy (which for generating Golden Ages it should be nearly always) will let you get to those crucial techs like Plastics and the Internet sooner.

When ideologies come into play, focus on those instead until you've got your level 3 tenet, then return to Rationalism to finish it off.

Secularism

As you should have Artist, Musician and Writer slots filled at all times, Secularism can make a tidy amount of science out of it. A non-GWAM city you have may be good for making Engineers and/or Scientists, which will also net you a decent amount of extra science.

Humanism

Because generating GWAMs doesn't raise the cost of other Great People and vice versa, it's a good idea to dedicate a city to Engineers and Scientists. This policy offers faster Great Scientists. You should probably use them to build Academies near an Observatory/National College city prior to the modern era, and use them to rush technologies beyond that.

Free Thought

While most Civs would be planting Trading Posts on jungles, you've got Brazilwood Camps, hence the additional science doesn't go as far. A risky move could be to replace some Brazilwood Camps with Trading Posts so you can use that extra bit of science (but it'd hurt your tourism in the meantime.) Extra University science is good anyway.

Sovereignty

A small amount of cash back, but not as significant as the amount of money Brazilwood Camps are making you.

Scientific Revolution

Playing nice throughout the game will reward you with the ability to sign Research Agreements with lots of Civs - all that Brazilwood Camp gold will help, too. Now, you can get that agreement weighted in your favour and enjoy strong science late in the game.

Finisher

A free technology is effectively utilised late in the game, such as on the costlier techs on the way to Radar or The Internet.

Liberty

Opener

Once Media Culture's picked up and Rationalism's finished, it's back to Liberty. Why? Because of the free Golden Age from Representation. Not because of the unspectacular culture this opener makes.

Citizenship

If you still haven't got all your improvements built, Citizenship will speed up that process. If you plan to replace Brazilwood Camps with Trading Posts for the science bonus with Free Thought (or vice versa for tourism,) you can do that faster, too.

Representation

It's all about the free Carnival. ("Woo! Representative government! Part-ay!") Be sure to hold off the policy until you're already in a Golden Age for the Pracinhas' sakes.

Ideology

Universal Suffrage's bonus to Golden Age length makes Freedom a must in most circumstances. Plus, it focuses on building tall, which is something you'll probably be doing anyway.

Alternatively, Autocracy can be useful under certain situations; typically if 1-2 nations have an overwhelmingly large amount of culture accumulated compared to everyone else.

This guide shows the best choices for the first "inverted pyramid" of tenets (3 from level 1, 2 from level 2, 1 from level 3)

Level One Policies - Freedom

Avant Garde

As stated before, you can only improve GWAM generation by bonuses such as these seeing as you'll pretty much immediately fill all the Artist, Musician and Writer slots as soon as they're workable. As such, this should be your first tenet.

Universal Healthcare

Building tall should encourage you to build most, if not all, the National Wonders. The Heroic Epic, for example, has a Great Literature slot, making it still useful to have. Now, they'll all be giving you happiness which can help get Golden Ages going faster.

Civil Society

It takes a huge city to work all those Brazilwood Camps, so help the process along. Bigger cities will make a lot more science and push you towards technologies like Radar and The Internet sooner.

Level Two Policies - Freedom

Universal Suffrage

Get this as soon as you can, because longer Golden Ages will help win you victory a lot faster. Less unhappiness from specialists gets you to them quicker, too.

Volunteer Army

You'll immediately get 6 Foreign Legion units. These are powerful as you can upgrade them into Pracinhas and keep the 20% Foreign Lands bonus, giving you a decent advantage whether you're killing Barbarians or joining someone else's war.

Level Three Policy - Freedom

Media Culture

A nice, easy to use universal tourism bonus. If you've got a base of 100 tourism and have Broadcast Towers in all your cities, this makes 134 or 268 in a Golden Age (compared to 200 without Media Culture.)

Level One Policies - Autocracy

Futurism

Autocracy might lack the 25% Great Person Points boost of Freedom and Order, but Futurism can more than make up for it. Every GWAM you make is worth 250 tourism against every Civ in the game, which means all you need to care about are few outliers with particularly high culture.

Industrial Espionage

You don't really want to fall behind in technology, especially when you're going to be involved in quite a few wars for the sake of the Cult of Personality tenet. Industrial Espionage should help in that respect.

Elite Forces

While not a particularly strong tenet (it only closes the strength gap between wounded and non-wounded units by 25%; it doesn't make wounded units 25% stronger) Elite Forces will nonetheless aid in the survival of your forces abroad.

Level Two Policies - Autocracy

Total War

If you want to farm Great Person points with Prachinas, you'll want as many of them as possible as quickly as possible; that's where Total War comes in.

Nationalism

So, you can produce a large army, but can you support it? If your answer is "no", "maybe" or even "yes, but I'd like a bit more gold please" then Nationalism is a great choice for you. Saving gold means you don't have to spend so long building Stock Exchanges everywhere, leaving you free to build cultural wonders instead.

Level Three Policy - Autocracy

Cult of Personality

Potentially the biggest boost to tourism in the game - even more than your UA! Cult of Personality adds a 50% tourism bonus on any Civ you have a common enemy with. Follow the diplomatic relations of a culturally-rich Civ carefully, and if they're involved in a war, be prepared to jump in - even if it may mean betraying an ally. Aside from the direct bonus to tourism, getting involved in other Civs' wars is a great excuse to use your Pracinhas to get more Golden Age points.

Religion

There are some beliefs which really help Brazil out, so it's worth getting a Shrine up early.

Pantheon

Note: As usual, highly-situational Pantheons (e.g. resource dependent ones) aren't listed here. Some kind of faith-giving Pantheon is a good idea for giving you a better shot at getting a religion.

Sacred Path

The strongest Pantheon for Brazil, seeing as Brazilwood Camp tiles now are worth 3 culture (with Acoustics) in addition to all the other yields, and will make more tourism later. If you decide to use some Trading Posts on jungles instead for the extra science from Free Thought, you'll still have a little culture and hence tourism.

Sun God

This is rather effective too, as bananas are pretty common in jungles. The growth bonus helps make up for potentially poor production in the region.

Oral Tradition

Plantation resources are common in jungly areas, so if you don't pick up Sacred Path, Oral Tradition's an adequate alternative. It'll get you more culture earlier on (but likely much less over the course of the game.)

Fertility Rites

Growth bonuses are very handy, so if you can't manage Sacred Path, this is a reasonable alternative.

Founder

Tithe

Tithe rewards you for building tall and doesn't require you to pour faith into Missionaries or Prophets to spread your religion to other lands (unlike World Church.) You can then use that cash for a multitude of already-mentioned purposes.

World Church

Helps gets even more culture for Social Policies, but remember this is only any good if you spread the faith to other Civs.

Ceremonial Burial or Peace Loving

While the happiness contribution here is small, more happiness may help you achieve more frequent Golden Ages.

Follower

Religious Community

Help clear the gap between you and other Civs with better production. 15 followers in your city gives you a powerful 15% production bonus to help get Wonders and Archaeologists up and running faster.

Swords into Plowshares

You shouldn't really be starting wars. (Yes, I know Brazil has some of the best war music in the game, but resist that temptation!) Hence, this 15% growth bonus can consistently see use to grow your cities tall for science, more specialists and/or working Brazilwood Camps.

Religious Art

An extra 5 tourism from the Hermitage National Wonder is worth 10 during a Golden Age and even more with other multipliers. The culture won't make a massive difference, but tourism can shave a few turns off getting victory.

Pagodas

While something more inclined towards wide empires, Pagodas are still a decent source of happiness during the mid-game. Plus, taking the policy makes it harder for rivals to make use of it.

Liturgical Drama

A bit more faith will help out for faith-purchasing GWAMs later in the game, or just for spreading your religion. Being tied to Ampitheatres, you don't need to build any extra buildings for that faith bonus on top of what you'd normally have.

Cathedrals

The key advantage to Cathedrals is extra Great Art slots, which are rare prior to Museums. The key downside is the need to have quite a strong faith generation - something that favours wide-building players.

Enhancer

Religious Texts

If you're using Tithe and/or Religious Community, it's in your best interests to get as many followers as possible. Religious Texts helps your religious pressure to keep up with your city growth (and potentially have nearly all your citizens in the city of your religion) without having to resort to Missionaries.

Defender of the Faith

Lacking defensive uniques, it's not a bad idea for Brazil to get hold of this belief to keep enemies away.

World Congress

Printing Press is an important technology for you to pick up, and it requires Machinery, which you'll need for Brazilwood Camps. Hence, it's possible (but not highly likely) you'll be the one to found the World Congress. Even if you don't found it, gold from Brazilwood Camps could be used to buy favour in City-States to get the decisions you want.

Like any cultural Civ, it's a good idea to try and prevent embargoes to Civs with high amounts of culture, as you'll lose the potential for the Open Borders tourism bonus.

Note "priority" refers to how high you should prioritise your votes if it comes up, not how much you should prioritise putting them forward. If Babylon wants Science Funding, you should prioritise to vote no, for example. If you could put forward a vote, then it'd be a bad idea to put Science Funding on the table.

Arts Funding

High priority
Vote yes

Cultural Heritage Sites

Very High priority
Vote yes

More culture for wonders will mean more tourism with Hotels, Airports and the National Visitor Centre.

Embargo City-States

Very Low priority
Abstain

No point angering anyone over this vote. You won't really need to trade with City-States.

Historical Landmarks

High priority
Vote yes unless you lack Antiquity Sites and Great Tile Improvements

Landmark culture can be added to tourism, so increasing it is a powerful move.

International Games

Very High priority
Vote yes

If it passes, drop everything and concentrate on contributing to it. That double tourism is very strong indeed and may very well win you the game before it runs out.

International Space Station

High priority
Vote no

Natural Heritage Sites

Low priority
Vote yes unless you have no Natural Wonders

Nuclear Non-Proliferation

Medium-High priority
Vote yes

Scholars in Residence

Low priority
Vote no unless you're behind technologically speaking

Sciences Funding

High priority
Vote no

Standing Army Tax

Low-Medium priority
Vote yes unless you're spamming Pracinhas for very fast Golden Age production

World's Fair

High priority
Vote yes

Wonders

Wonders are crucially important for pretty much any cultural Civ - Brazil is no exception. You may find trouble getting some of the earlier wonders, but once jungle science kicks in, the later ones should be less of a problem.

Ancient Era

Mausoleum of Halicarnassus

Building this wonder may be tricky with your jungle start, but it provides a nice extra source of cash from your fast GWAM generation. Be careful its Great Merchant point doesn't get in the way of Engineer or Scientist generation if you prefer those.

Temple of Artemis

This'll help you defend better with faster ranged unit production, but it also helps out for building tall with a 10% bonus to food. This isn't the same as the growth bonuses from the Tradition tree; it affects base food, not net food, meaning you'll get more out of it then you might expect.

Classical Era

Hanging Gardens (Tradition Only)

Food = Growth = Science = Head start on other wonders. It also means you can work more Brazilwood Camps with the city later on.

Great Wall

Feel threatened by a nearby Civ? Completely ruin their plans. Your jungly lands will be hell to get through for Civs reliant on a fast UU, and may make the Aztecs and Iroquois think twice before invading. Plus, the fact obseletion is based on your technologies is all the sweeter seeing as you'll probably get Dynamite late.

Parthenon

While relatively weak as a wonder, the Parthenon nonetheless offers you some early tourism which will accumulate nicely over the course of the game.

Medieval Era

Chichen Itza

The top priority wonder for Brazil, as longer Golden Ages means more turns of extra GWAM generation and tourism. Plus, extra happiness lets you generate them faster.


Above: Beware of Persia. This is a very high priority wonder for them, too. If they win it, it's not a good idea to invade them to try and take it - their UA and UU helps them at war and your abilities don't.

Notre Dame

Helps to ensure you don't run into a spell of unhappiness, or gets you plenty-more happiness for Golden Ages' sakes.

Renaissance Era

Globe Theatre
Theming bonus wonder - 2 Great Writing, same era and Civ for theming bonus

Great Writing slots are hard to come by, so the Globe Theatre's a very desirable wonder for cultural Civs.

Leaning Tower of Pisa

A pretty competitive wonder, falling on a point in the tech tree where multiple paths converge and useful for a range of Civs. Get it, and you can generate GWAMs faster (and obviously other Great People, but GWAM generation is important.) If you take a Great Engineer as your choice of Great Person, you can go and rush another useful wonder of the era.

Sistine Chapel
Theming bonus wonder - 2 Great Art/Artifact, needs art of the same era and Civ for theming bonus

Your culture output will be high already, but this wonder will help push it to incredible levels - great for working your way through Aesthetics and Freedom. It's also a theming bonus wonder, although one of Great Art (making a difficult decision of whether or not you use your Great Artists for Carnivals or Great Works.)

Uffizi (Aesthetics Only)
Theming bonus wonder - 3 Great Art/Artifact, needs art of the same era and Civ for theming bonus

Exclusivity helps prevent random Civs building this for little reason other than it's a wonder. Use the free Great Artist to make a Great Work of Art rather than using it for a Carnival, it'll get you more tourism over the course of the game that way, chances are.

Industrial Era

Louvre (Exploration Only)
Theming bonus wonder - 4 Great Art/Artifact, needs 2 art and 2 artifacts all of different Civs and eras for theming bonus

The theming bonus is the prize, though more Artifact/Great Art slots are useful too.

Modern Era

Broadway
Theming bonus wonder - 3 Great Music, same era and Civ for theming bonus

The theming bonus requires three pieces of Great Music from the same era. Because the wonder gives a free Great Musician, it's probably a good idea to make that era the Modern one. Great Music slots are handy seeing as they're often lacking.

Cristo Redentor

A low priority wonder, but the culture it gives turns into tourism effectively. Faster Social Policies doesn't really make a huge difference at this stage of the game.

Eiffel Tower

Free tourism, and happiness too! Nothing wrong with that.

Statue of Liberty (Freedom Only)

All that production is a very useful bonus to have. Your GWAM city should gain at least 6 production, not accounting for modifiers, hence helping you get the final few things up faster.

Atomic Era

Great Firewall

There's a very good chance you'll win before you even reach The Internet, but what if you don't? What if there's a tough culture-rich Civ around? What if they build this, making your +100% tourism bonus from the technology useless? Don't let it happen. Build this before they can.

Sydney Opera House
Theming bonus wonder - 2 Great Music, same Civ but different eras for theming bonus

Lots of culture slows down rival cultural Civs, but the main point of the wonder for you is more Great Music slots.

Information Era

CN Tower

Makes your Broadcast Towers maintenance-free and provides an unhappiness-free population point. Selling all the Broadcast Towers you can immediately before finishing the wonder is a decent source of cash, but risky.

Pitfalls to Avoid

In the Brazil game featured in the screenshots, I only ever built two cities. Hence, I had trouble having enough Great Work slots - three would've probably been better, but by the time I realised my error, the best city spots were gone. I also focused so much on wonder building I neglected to build Caravans. Learn from my mistakes, and avoid falling into these other possible traps:

Getting Representation in the Liberty tree early

Carnivals are strongest in the end-game. Hence, the free one in Representation will be most effective at that stage, and not sooner.

Neglecting defence

Jungle empires are tricky targets for enemies, but your start bias is pretty much your only defensive advantage, and a tiny one at that as a whole. Sometimes, you'll have to give up a Great Work wonder for a defensive one.

Not chopping jungles whatsoever

Jungles are great for science, but sometimes a jungle on a hill needs to be cut down to make room for a mine if the respective city's production is low, or perhaps a jungle on flat land cut for food if the city is struggling to grow.

Using earlier Great Artists to make Golden Ages

Again, Carnivals are strongest in the end-game. Earlier ones may generate GWAMs a bit faster, but unless you really need the Golden Age production bonus for a wonder or something like that, until the end-game, use your Artists to make Great Works.

Getting Machinery as soon as possible

Yes, Brazilwood Camps are good. But look at the tech tree. The Chichen Itza comes with Civil Service, which requires a rather different set of technologies, and it's important to get hold of such a wonder. If you must focus on rushing a technology, go for Civil Service first.

Initiating a war with Pracinhas

They're no better at fighting than normal Infantry, and starting wars will cause other Civs to turn against you (potentially cutting those Open Borders agreements and the tourism bonus it provides.) Support someone else's war or kill Barbarians with them.

Going into war with Pracinhas when you're already in a Golden Age

In a Golden Age, Pracinhas are statistically identical to Infantry in every way. You won't gain Golden Age points when you're already in a Golden Age.

Making Great Works with Great Artists and Musicians late in the game

In the Atomic era, you may have begun reaching influential status with some Civs. Hence, your Great Musicians should focus tourism generation on the trickier Civs (most commonly other cultural players.) At this point, generating Carnivals will make you far more tourism than adding more Great Works onto the pile, so use those Great Artists for Golden Ages.

Persecute Pedro: The Counter-Strategies

Brazil can generate more tourism than anyone else (though not as consistently as Polynesia or France.) Their key weakness lies in a lack of defence.

Playing against the UA: Carnival

The Carnival UA relies entirely on generating Golden Ages, and before the end-game, most of those will be generated the old-fashioned way - with happiness. Pillaging Brazil's luxury resources wreak havoc on that.

Avoid signing Open Borders agreements with Brazil where possible to cut back their tourism pressure. Being the highest contributer in the World's Fair doubles your culture output, helping to build up a resistance against Brazil.

Overall, the best way to stop the UA is through military action. Expect plenty of rough terrain (and promote new units accordingly) but typically Brazil isn't the world's best defender.

Playing against Brazilwood Camps

Like any improvement, if Brazilwood Camps are getting particularly dangerous, burn them to the ground or take them for yourself.

Brazilwood Camps can only be built on jungle, so if there's no jungles, there's no problem. Because you can clear forests and jungles outside your own lands, a particularly mean tactic is to send a Worker near their lands to cut the jungle down before their cities can spread to those tiles.

The jungle requirement will make Brazilian city placement somewhat predictable. Settling a city near a jungle (that's not too far away from Brazil) gives you a forward operating base to invade their cities. Taking them lets you use that gold and culture for yourself (and eventually tourism.)

If you're an wide-building Civ, (like most diplomatic players,) taking a few good jungle spots is a decent move. Brazil's weakness in combat means they probably won't try taking those cities off you.

Playing against Pracinhas

Statistically, Pracinhas are no different to Infantry, making them just as vulnerable to Tanks and Bombers as the generic unit. The simple thing is to not let units die to them - if a unit of yours is certainly going to die, move it away from the Pracinhas. Simple.

A point about the Aztecs

Against most Civs, the Brazilian jungle start bias is a decent defence, slowing down their units. Not against the Aztecs. Jaguar Warriors move through jungle as if it was open ground, in addition to their combat bonuses, at a time before Brazil's uniques take any effect. Painful.

Strategy by Style

Early-game Aggressors - An easy target as a whole. Promote units with rough terrain promotions, and look for any hills near their cities for planting ranged units on.

Mid-game Warmongers - Brazil may be beginning to improve their game with jungle science, but it's only really the rough terrain that's likely to be a problem, and maybe the odd defensive wonder.

Late-game Warmongers - Brazil may have a lot of friends by this point, but they still don't have a lot in the way of defence. A small distraction force on one side of their lands can help a strong army to attack one of their major cities. You may as well go straight for their capital, seeing as it's likely to be the backbone of their tourism generation.

Cultural Players - Try to get a production advantage over Brazil to get the more valuable wonders. If they're a threat to victory, try to persuade a warmonger to invade them. They may not win, but it should take Brazil's focus off culture for a moment.

Diplomatic Players - Make sure not to let World Congress decisions that favour Brazil go through. Trading with them is a risky move as it may just encourage them to use Trade Routes for production or food (plus, it gives them a tourism boost.) Use your cash to persuade a warmonger to attack them if need be.

Scientific Players - Use a tech lead to invade Brazil if need be - Bomber aircraft work brilliantly as rough terrain is meaningless to them. The Great Firewall is a nice choice to slow their tourism down if they have the Internet technology while helping to stop other Civs stealing your techs.

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Meta-guides

These guides cover every Civ in the game and can be used as quick reference guides.

• Civ summaries (Gives a brief overview of how each Civ plays)
  
• Civ-specific tricks, secrets and clarifications (Compiles the lesser-known features of each Civ)

Civ-specific guides, in alphabetical order

All 43 Civs are covered in in-depth guides linked below. In brackets are the favoured victory routes of each Civ.

• America (Domination)
  
• Arabia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Assyria (Cultural, Domination and Scientific)
  
• Austria (Cultural, Domination and Scientific)
  
• Aztecs (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Babylon (Scientific)
  
• Brazil (Cultural)
  
• Byzantium (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Carthage (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Celts (Cultural)
  
• China (Domination)
  
• Denmark (Domination)
  
• Egypt (Cultural)
  
• England (Domination)
  
• Ethiopia (Cultural/Scientific)
  
• France (Cultural)
  
• Germany (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Greece (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Huns (Domination)
  
• Inca (Scientific)
  
• India (Cultural/Scientific)
  
• Indonesia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Iroquois (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Japan (Domination)
  
• Korea (Scientific)
  
• Mayans (Scientific)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Morocco (Diplomatic)
  
• Netherlands (Diplomatic, Domination and Scientific)
  
• Ottomans (Domination)
  
• Persia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Poland (Domination)
  
• Polynesia (Cultural)
  
• Portugal (Diplomatic)
  
• Rome (Domination)
  
• Russia (Domination)
  
• Shoshone (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Siam (Diplomatic/Scientific)
  
• Songhai (Domination)
  
• Spain (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Sweden (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Venice (Diplomatic)
  
• Zulus (Domination)

[Max]

this is niche but if you get a start with truffles in jungle, that can be great since you can still get culture from sacred path. I guess since you aren't using brazilwood camps on those tiles this applies to everyone, but brazil REALLY likes sacred path

[Huggable Cube]

One thing I found as Brazil is that unless I had a lot of production early on I wouldn't even try for early wonders. Jungle start rarely has the production to keep it up. I'd rather get my basic infrastructure ready for early mid game wonder rush. I might go for Hanging Gardens but that's usually the earliest Wonder and even then I may not.

[ptkato]

I'll tell you that much, it's really easy to win if you get the right wonders, play the nice guy and avoid wars at all costs. Last game I ended with 511 tourism output at turn 402.

[Zigzagzigal]

I found Sacred Path can contribute to tourism if you have a Brazilwood Camp there as well, but not if you don't. Essentially, the game checks for improvements that add culture and doesn't take into account the fact culture could come from other sources.

[matthew_kilpatrick]

i know civ 5 is like 100 years old but i still play it. great guides- really love your insight and detail. but a little note that is relevant to this guide (and others) is that culture from Sacred Path (and all non improvement based pantheons for all civs) doesn't add anything to Tourism... things like culture from Oral Tradition do. :)

[cubiksoy]

These guideds are excellent, this one is no exception, and it's great to see you integrate useful comments into the guide (especially with ideology, which can be one of the least linear aspects of the game IME). Thanks Zigzagzigal. You're a real one

[Zigzagzigal]

Brazil is one of the best candidates for Autocracy/Culture, although the loss of Freedom's 50% Golden Age length bonus is quite harsh. You're right to point out the Futurism/fast GWAM generation synergy, and Pracinhas seem designed to synergise with Autocracy.

As such, I'll add stuff about Autocracy to the guide.

[Simon Berger]

So instead of Freedom, you could take Autocracy with : 1. Futurism, Elite Forces, Fortified Borders or Universal Healthcare; 2. Militarism, Total War; 3. Cult of Personality. All in all, taking Autocracy would be like a 60's-80's Brazilian dictatorship simulation (which isn't so fun, when you think about it...). I think it worths trying. What do you think ?

[Simon Berger]

...Alright, first Autocracy hasn't something like Universal Suffrage which makes your Golden Ages longer. But Fortified Borders (or Universal Healthcare) and even more Militarism give you a good happiness generation, which allows more frequent Golden Ages: even with only three cities, Militarism can offer up to 18 points of happiness. And why not, since you took Autocracy, take this advantage to eliminate a cultural rival and capture the wonders he stole from you (as they're all rightfully yours, aren't they) ? So you can have even more castles, arsenals, barracks, armouries and military academies... Second, it's true that your Pracinhas aren't so great fighters. But Elite Forces can make them a little better and tougher, and with Total War, supported by a military academy (and why not the Brandenburg Gate, if you had some spared production), you can churn out a quite good army for what you're aiming, which isn't a WC but grabing some GA points and influencing your allies.

[Simon Berger]

Hi Zigzagzigal ! Thank you very much for your guides, they're all great ! I followed this one with Brazil, and won an easy victory. Though a kind of boring victory : reaching some point, I knew the game was over and I was about to win. I know the way you describe here is the simplier and certainly the most effective one, but I wonder if there isn't a funnier and a little spicier way.

Isn't Autocracy a viable alternative to Freedom ? I mean : Autocracy has Futurism, which can become a bomb with Brazil bonus to GWAM generation during Golden Ages. To generate more and more Golden Ages, you can use your Pracinhas extensively, so again it's not a bad idea to take Autocracy. And finally, Cult of Personality, which can be quite effective considering you're probably using your Pracinhas as mercenaries for others' wars, stacks with Carnival tourism bonus and is like the icing on the cake...