Zigzagzigal's Guide to Poland (BNW)

Poland's Winged Hussar wipes the floor with nearly every other Renaissance-era land unit, while their powerful Unique Ability gives them a great degree of flexibility. This guide goes into plenty of detail about Polish 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)



The Polish state was formed just over 1,000 years ago by Mieszko I, piecing together the lands and introducing Christianity to the region. While the nation fragmented from the 12th to 14th centuries, just 50 years later the nation had greatly expanded in size under Casimir III, attracting migrants and giving Poland a religious diversity unseen in much of the rest of Europe. From the late 16th to 18th centuries, Poland would form a commonwealth with Lithuania, at its greatest extent ranging from the Gulf of Riga to the Sea of Azov. But both internal and external pressures tore apart the union, and saw both Poland and Lithuania lose their independence until the First World War.

And this independence would only last 21 years until the Nazis in neighbouring Germany (and the Soviets in Russia) invaded Poland and split the land between them, triggering the Second World War. Poland lost over a sixth of their population - nearly all the deaths civilian and putting an end to the diversity that characterised the nation. And the Allied victory would not mean true independence, as Poland ended up essentially ruled by a Soviet puppet government. In the end, Polish freedom was won from within, through the Solidary trade union placing political pressure leading to free elections. The nation has reformed, and its economic strength growing (one of the few European countries to avoid recession in the late 2000s.) Now, you have the opportunity to break with Poland's history of hardship and make it a world power. You have the chance to end the sterotyping of your people that has persisted through the ages and earn them the respect they deserve. Build them a civilization to stand the test of time.



Before I go into depth with this guide, here's an explanation of some terminology I'll be using throughout for the sake of newer players.

Beelining - Focusing on obtaining a technology early by only researching technologies needed to research it and no others. For example, to beeline Bronze Working, you'd research Mining and Bronze Working and nothing else until Bronze Working was finished.
Builder Nation/Empire - A generally peaceful nation seeking victories other than domination.
GWAMs - Short for Great Writers, Artists and Musicians - the three types of Great People needed for cultural victory.
Finisher - The bonus for completing a Social Policy tree (e.g. Free Great Person for Liberty.)
Opener - The bonus for unlocking a Social Policy tree (e.g. +1 culture for every city for Liberty's opener)
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.
UB - Unique Building - A replacement for a normal building that can only be built and used by one Civilization.
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 - A high number of cities with a low population each. "Building wide" refers to making your empire a wide one.
XP - Experience Points - Get enough and you'll level up your unit, giving you the ability to heal your unit or get a promotion.
ZOC - Zone of Control - A mechanic that makes a unit use up all its movement points if it moves from a tile next to an enemy to an adjacent tile next to the same enemy.

At a glance (Part 1/2)

Start Bias

Poland has a plains start bias. This is good for getting your capital off to a productive start (though it might cause problems for food) and makes it a little more likely you'll get pasture resources near your starting point.

Uniques

Poland's UA takes effect once every era, starting with the classical era. Their Unique Building comes into play in the classical era as well, while their Unique Unit is over in the renaissance.

Unique Ability: Solidarity

• At the start of every era (besides the Ancient era) recieve one free Social Policy.
  
  • The free Social Policy does not raise the cost of future policies or remove stored culture

Unique Unit: Winged Hussar (Replaces the Lancer)

A mounted melee unit

Technology	Obsoletion	Upgrades from	Upgrades to	Production cost	Purchase cost	Resource needed
Metallurgy Renaissance era 2nd column (9th column overall)	Combined Arms Atomic era 1st column (14th column overall)	Pikeman (200 )* Landsknecht (290 )*	Anti-Tank Gun (240 )*	185 *	640 *	1 Horse

*Assumes a normal speed game.

Strength	Ranged Strength	Moves	Range	Sight	Negative Attributes	Positive Attributes
28	N/A	5	N/A	2	No defensive terrain bonuses 33% combat penalty when attacking cities	Can move after attacking 33% bonus vs. mounted units (Formation I) 15% combat bonus in open terrain (Shock I) Can knock back enemy units or deal additional damage if the Winged Hussar does more damage than the defending unit (Heavy Charge)

Positive one-off changes

• 28 strength, up from 25 (+12%)
  
• 5 moves, up from 4 (+25%)

Positive stay-on-upgrade changes

Note: Lancers have the Formation I promotion anyway, which carries over on upgrade.

• When attacking, if the defending unit deals less damage than the Winged Hussar it retreats one tile, favouring the direction opposite the Winged Hussar. If the unit can't manage that, it takes extra damage. (Heavy Charge)
  
• 15% combat bonus in open terrain (Shock I)

Unique Building: Ducal Stable (Replaces the Stable)

Technology	Building required	Required to build	Production cost	Purchase cost	City restriction	Maintenance
Horseback Riding Classical era 2nd column (4th column overall)	None	None	75 *	400 *	Horses, sheep or cattle must be in range of the city and at least one must be improved with a pasture	None

*Assumes a normal speed game.

Base output	Output Multiplier	Specialist	Great Work slots	Other effects
None	+15% (Mounted units only)	None	None	Provides 15XP to mounted units built in the respective city +1 for pasture resources* (horses, sheep, cattle) +1 for pasture resources* (horses, sheep, cattle)

*These do not need to be improved to receive the bonus.

Positive changes

• Costs 75 production in normal speed games, down from 100 (-25%)
  
• Costs 400 gold, down from 500 (-20%)
  
• 0 maintenance cost, down from 1 (-100%)
  
• Provides 15XP to mounted units built in the respective city
  
• +1 gold for pasture resources (horses, sheep, cattle)

At a glance (Part 2/2)

Victory Methods

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: 6/10
Diplomatic: 7/10
Domination: 9/10
Scientific: 6/10

Poland's UA makes it a flexible Civ if your Winged Hussars aren't enough to win you the game as fast Social Policy generation can quickly rush you through a tree to help out with whichever victory type you need. But do not ignore the strong UU combined with the UB - Poland is best at domination.

Similar Civs and uniques

Overall

Arabia is probably the Civ most alike Poland - a strong, generally all-round Civ with a powerful mounted UU. A key difference lies in how Arabia's UA encourages use of a religion, while Poland's UA offers little bonuses in that regard (unless you're using your free Social Policies to try and secure a religion or get deeper into the Piety tree.)

Same start bias

The plains start bias is shared only with Mongolia.

Similar to the UA

Although free Social Policies are unique to Poland, cultural bonuses (that lead to faster Social Policy gain) are certainly not. There's too many to list here, but to narrow it down to non-cultural Civs with good culture bonuses, look at Persia, Siam or Songhai. Persia and Songhai, like Poland, are best-equipped at a domination victory, while Siam leans towards science.

Similar to Winged Hussars

Other uniques that replace the Lancer include the Ottoman Sipahi and Sweden's Hakkapeliitta.

Overall, the role of Winged Hussars as a fast melee unit which should be used in a disproportionately large number is similar to Russian Cossacks, and the other kind of Hussar - the Austrian UU - as well as Germany's Panzers.

The Heavy Charge promotion is unique to Winged Hussars, although Incan Slingers have a reverse version; when attacked, they may be knocked back a tile instead of taking damage.

Other fast melee UUs with both higher strength and speed include Greek Companion Cavalry in addition to Germany's Panzers.

Finally, having a starting promotion that makes it easier to get to higher ones can also be seen with Hunnic Horse Archers, Japanese Samurai, Dutch Sea Beggars, Ethiopia's Mehal Sefari, and both of America's UUs.

Similar to Ducal Stables

Ducal Stables are unusual in being a UB with a restriction in where you can build it - the Aztecs' Floating Gardens form the only other example.

Quite a few UBs are cheaper to build or offer an extra source of money, but if you're looking for UBs thematically similar to Ducal Stables, consider the XP bonus on offer. Assyria's Royal Library also offers XP, and not just to mounted units, but it's only 10 XP rather than 15 and the Great Writing slot has to be filled first. Alternatively, the Zulu Ikanda offers a free promotion to standard melee units in addition to the 15 XP all Barracks give.

Unique Ability: Solidarity

While Poland's UU and UB sync well together to encourage a domination victory, Soldarity gives a degree of flexibility if that's not enough. It can give up to a total of seven Social Policies over the course of the game, (one per era besides the ancient era,) which is more than an entire Social Policy tree. This is great for getting a slight early advantage with more Social Policies unlocked, giving a better infrastructure to start the Winged Hussar wars with.

Early on, the Liberty tree will be a great help to build wide and get plenty of horses and other pasture resources for your UU and UB. But because of the extra policies you unlock, you can take bits of Tradition to give yourself a powerful capital, too, and you should be able to pick out what you need from Honour before Winged Hussars come along.

As the start of an era is at the same point Social Policy trees unlock, you can usually be the first Civ to open them. A great use of that is to get Rationalism's 10% science bonus opener immediately upon entering the renaissance era.

So, you can use Poland's UA to give yourself a major advantage throughout the game, giving you a fair number of of Social Policies without having to focus on culture generation. New eras come faster in the late-game, useful as you can quickly rush through ideological tenets or unlock a tree as part of a backup victory.

Unique Building: Ducal Stable

While your UA helps out your cities with faster Social Policies, Ducal Stables provides bonuses which will be great to back up your army later on. But, unlike most Unique Buildings, there's restrictions on where you can build it - there has to be an improved pasture resource nearby!

Early-game

Get Animal Husbandry very early to reveal horse locations - that's the main pasture resource you want seeing as Winged Hussars need them. When you build new cities, favour areas with horses or plenty of cows and sheep. Such a focus will really pay off later on.

After Animal Husbandry, pick up remaining needed Worker technologies then push towards Horseback Riding. Then, any city that can build a Ducal Stable should do (even new cities should work on this sooner rather than later.) It's cheap and has no maintenance cost, and will provide the city with extra production and gold.


Above: Petra, a Golden Age, a Ducal Stable and the God of the Open Sky pantheon making the ultimate one-size-fits-all pasture tile. While you can't rely on building Petra, getting a Golden Age is better than average for Poland as Ducal Stable-boosted pastures can benefit from the +1 gold for tiles with at least 1 gold already.

Gearing up for war

Beside the lack of maintenance, gold bonus for pasture resources and cheaper cost compared to regular Stables, Ducal Stables also offer 15 XP to new mounted units built in the city. With an Armoury, that's 15 XP away from a third promotion (for Winged Hussars, which start with Shock I already, that can mean 15 XP away from the powerful March promotion.) Don't forget also the 15% production bonus to mounted units Stables offer anyway.

This all says one thing: You should build your Winged Hussars rather than upgrading to them for maximum effect (upgrading from Pikemen to Lancers is expensive anyway.) Use the money you would have spent on upgrades or purchasing them instead on buying siege units to back up those mighty things.

Unique Unit: Winged Hussar

Not to be confused with Austria's Hussar, a Cavalry UU.



They have the strength of a French Musketeer, the speed of a Mongolian mounted unit, the open terrain bonus like a Japanese Samurai and the ability to knock back opponents like nothing else. They are the Winged Hussars.

Winged Hussars are in a certain class of Unique Units, like the Zulu Impi and the Mongolian Keshik in that much of your strategy should be based around it - once you've cleaned up Worker technologies, Animal Husbandry and Writing, favour technologies on the road to Metallurgy. Like most UUs, the sooner you get it, the better. Due to the free Shock I promotion and the way Ducal Stables' bonuses to mounted units work, you should be mostly building Winged Hussars rather than promoting to them for maximum power, though if you have plenty of horses you can do both.

They take everything a Lancer can do and makes it so much stronger. There's only one same-era counter to Winged Hussars and that's the Spanish Tercio - something you won't face much anyway.

Free Shock I

With a Ducal Stable and an Armoury, Winged Hussars are built just 15 XP away from a fourth promotion - typically March is a good choice, though you can also build a fresh Winged Hussar with Medic II to complement the ones with March.

The promotion itself makes Winged Hussars essentially strength 32.2 in open terrain (40.6 with all three promotions) but be careful not to neglect rough terrain bonuses too much. Getting hold of the Alhambra wonder helps give you flexibility in that respect.

Strength

Including anti-mounted bonuses but no others, Winged Hussar strength is...

• 29% lower than a Spanish Tercio
  
• 18% lower than a Rifleman
  
• <1% lower than Naresuan's Elephant, the Siamese UU
  
• Equal to a Musketeer, the French UU
  
• 7% lower than a Gatling Gun
  
• 10% higher than a Cavalry unit
  
• 12% higher than a regular Lancer
  
• 17% higher than a Musketman
  
• 33% higher than a Longswordsman or Artillery
  
• 100% higher than a Cannon
  
• 115% higher than a Crossbowman

Basically, anyone still in the Medieval era when you attack them is toast. You have the edge in the renaissance era, and perform fairly decently in the industrial era, too.

Speed

Notice that the Medieval-through-Industrial units with an strength advantage over the Winged Hussar all have one thing in common - low speed. And Winged Hussars have particularly high speed, allowing you to quickly cut across land or use flanking bonuses to get the upper hand.


Above: Cut across rough terrain quickly! One problem with high speed, though - the Great General'll have trouble keeping up. Generally, keep them on slower units like Cannons.
Below: They probably weren't expecting an attack around that angle...

Knockback

Don't finish off an opponent? Well, so long as you deal more damage than you recieve, the enemy unit will be knocked back one tile (and if it can't manage that, it takes extra damage.)


Above: Civilian units don't get knocked back, meaning I can take out that Settler without having to kill the Crossbowman.

When you push a unit back, the Winged Hussar takes the unit's original position. Don't worry - it won't leave you vulnerable in most cases as it can move after attacking. Just be careful if the attack uses up the Winged Hussar's final movement point making it unable to escape.

So, if you knock a unit back, either pull back the Winged Hussar or advance with other units to back it up. Otherwise, you've given the enemy unit a free 1-tile retreat and left your unit vulnerable!

One final note on this matter - a little trick you can do with the knockback promotion is to use your high speed to get behind an isolated enemy unit, then attack it to pull it towards the rest of your army.

One Problem

Now that we've covered what Winged Hussars can do, it's important to note what they're not great at: attacking cities. That's up to your siege units to sort out. Siege units are significantly slower than Winged Hussars, so don't advance too rapidly. Instead, keep pressure on your opponent until the siege units arrive - attack their units with Winged Hussars, then pull them just out just outside their cities' ranged attack radii. Once the siege units have come, then you can rush everything in.

Special promotions kept on upgrade

This promotion is kept by all Lancers being upgraded:

• Formation I (+33% vs Mounted units)

And Winged Hussars have these as well:

• Shock I (+15% strength in open terrain)
  
• Knockback units if they recieve more damage than the unit does

Probably the worst feature of Winged Hussars is that they upgrade to the Anti-Tank Gun, a niche late-game unit with only 2 moves. Because it's all the way in the Atomic era, that Formation I promotion becomes useless. At least the 100% bonus against armoured units works well with the knockback capability.

After the Anti-Tank Gun comes the Helicopter Gunship, which has 6 moves, though it can't move after attacking like the good old Winged Hussar can. Still, fast movement, ignoring terrain cost and a massive bonus against tanks together with that knockback promotion makes it a good way to keep Tanks out of your lands.

Social Policies: Pre-renaissance

Poland can chew through more Social Policies than most Civs, and enter Social Policy trees as soon as they become available. It's a good idea to start with Liberty so you can get plenty of horses ready for Winged Hussars, and you can also mix in a little of the Tradition tree for faster-expanding borders (and Monarchy's handy gold and happiness.)

After those first two trees, work your way through Honour or Commerce ready for the Renaissance era and you can finish off with Rationalism, Patronage or maybe even Aesthetics depending on the victory route you want to go down. I'm assuming in this guide you're going down the militaristic route, taking advantage of the infrastructure you already have.

Liberty

Opener

Lets all your cities expand their borders immediately, so you can safely put off building Monuments in favour of infrastructure buildings if need be. (Of course, having both will help greatly with Social Policy gain.)

Republic

This will be very handy for building Ducal Stables in new cities, allowing them to more rapidly reap the production benefits, from there giving you a decent city much sooner than may otherwise be the case.

Collective Rule

Faster Settlers and a free one means your capital doesn't have to spend so much time focusing on building them. At this point, consider taking the Tradition opener in order to make all your new cities expand their borders much more quickly, saving you cash you would have used to buy tiles.

Citizenship

Gets those super-pastures up and running sooner.

Meritocracy

Helps a little with happiness. Getting Monarchy from the Tradition tree as well offers more happiness, so you can more effectively handle the happiness woes from conquests.

Representation

Take this policy last (out of those in the Liberty tree) so you have time to build Ducal Stables and hence get more gold from the free Golden Age.

Tradition

Opener

Mixing in some Tradition policies in with Liberty ones is a good idea to take advantage of the strong infrastructure policies both offer. The opener gives you extra culture in your capital, and more importantly lets all your cities expand their borders quickly, which is very useful to a reasonably wide empire.

Oligarchy

Garrisoning units without a maintenance cost goes very well with Military Caste in the Honour tree (which grants 1 happiness and 2 culture in cities with a garrison.) You can just churn out cheap units to fortify in your cities while your stronger units fight off Barbarians.

Legalism

If you've held off building culture buildings up to this point, this policy offers you quite a sizable boost to it for no cost, saving you precious gold and production.

Monarchy

The happiness bonus in conjunction with Meritocracy in the Liberty tree (and Military Caste in the Honour tree) should serve you well, preventing your armies from being slowed down by complaining citizens. And the gold's good too, stopping you running a deficit before the renaissance.

After this point, the rest of the Tradition tree is a bit less relevant for your warmongering goals. Consider switching to Honour.

Aristocracy

If you've got a city that's got good production, you could always make a shot at a wonder or two. The policy also offers a little happiness, too.

Landed Elite

Thanks to Monarchy, this policy can grow your capital tall fairly effectively without being a huge drain on happiness, which really comes in handy for churning out Winged Hussars faster.

Finisher

This finisher offers more growth, but if you're not careful, your fast-growing cities could drain your happiness dry before you've even gone into war. You may need to micromanage your cities and ensure that those in low-production areas don't grow too fast at the expense of those more able to churn out an army.

Honour

While you should be taking Liberty and/or Tradition first to help out with infrastructure, that's not to say you should cut out Honour entirely - far from it. The tree offers handy boosts to military persuits, which will help greatly with Winged Hussars. It's just that you don't have to take Honour straight away.

Opener

The opener offers you bonuses against Barbarians, which is a little useful if you want to avoid random pillagers in your land while your army's off fighting abroad. The main benefit of the opener is the ability to build the Statue of Zeus wonder - if you manage to get it, it'll greatly help with taking cities. To improve the odds of getting the wonder, you could always get this opener sooner.

Discipline

Winged Hussars become even deadlier with this policy (despite the reference to "melee units" in the description of the policy, the bonus applies to all non-ranged military units.)

Military Caste

At this moment, Poland's fast Social Policy gain can really give you a significant advantage - with Tradition's Oligarchy, the culture-and-happiness granting garrisoned units are free to maintain, and with Tradition's Monarchy and Liberty's Meritocracy, you'll get quite a lot of happiness too. Alright, it may be a bit difficult to get all of that in time, but you can have a better stab at it than most Civs.

Professional Army

Take this policy last if you've already prepared for war at this point. Otherwise, it's a hand up for getting Barracks and Armouries built faster and saves money for upgrading siege units. You generally shouldn't be upgrading units to Winged Hussars as mentioned before, but one strategy you could use if you can spare the Social Policies is to upgrade Landsknecht to Winged Hussars, giving you a 5-move unit that pillages for free.

Warrior Code

Having more Great Generals comes in handy for drilling into enemy land with Citadels, and ensures you always have one handy for the 15% combat bonus. The "melee unit" production bonus does not work with Winged Hussars, so the main use of this policy is leading towards the following one.

Military Tradition

With an Armoury and a Ducal Stable, Winged Hussars are only 15 XP away from a fourth promotion, such as March. You can cover that gap a little faster with Military Tradition, and from there start taking other powerful promotions such as Blitz more rapidly than would otherwise be the case.

Finisher

If Ducal Stable gold wasn't enough, you can get more through combat, meaning you can maintain even more units so long as you score kills.

Commerce

Opener

Commerce is an optional alternative or complement to Honour for one reason - Landsknechte. The Opener also gives you some easy gold; useful for supporting more Winged Hussars and especially strong if your capital's near plenty of pasture resources.

Mercenary Army

Landsknechte upgrade to Winged Hussars and keep their double city plunder and no movement cost to pillage advantages. The downside is that you can't promote them as far as you can new Winged Hussars, as Ducal Stables won't grant them XP and they don't start with Shock I (they will when upgraded to Winged Hussars, though, so give them Drill promotions instead to avoid losing a promotion.)

Interestingly, Landsknechte never go obselete, meaning in the late-game you can make new Winged Hussars by promoting to them, and promoting them further into Anti-Tank Guns or Helicopter Gunships allows you to create new units with the Heavy Charge attribute.

Mercantilism

Want to go a little further into Commerce? Mercantilism makes buying stuff (like more Landsknechte or more Winged Hussars) cheaper and makes your money buildings give you science. Beyond this point, you'll probably get more out of different Social Policy trees, so it's worth switching.

Social Policies: Rationalism

Rationalism

After the Winged Hussar onslaught, the rest should be easier. Rationalism is a good midgame Social Policy tree to ensure your technology and hence conquering potential doesn't fall behind.

Opener

You can pick this up as soon as you enter the renaissance, and it's not a bad idea to do so, as it's probably the joint-strongest Social Policy opener around. Unlike the other - Patronage - you can be sure you're always finding use for the 10% science bonus.

Humanism

Great Scientists are good Great People no matter the Civ seeing as everyone needs science, but the main point of taking Humanism is for the powerful Free Thought policy.

Free Thought

A powerful policy for science-boosting, particularly in cities with lots of trading posts (if you're trying to keep a city small, placing trading posts where you'd otherwise have farms is a good idea.)

Secularism

Not in the same league as Free Thought for Poland, but still, a science bonus is a science bonus.

Sovereignty

Saves a decent amount of cash from the maintenance of buildings you'll have pretty much everywhere.

Scientific Revolution

This is mostly for the finisher as you may find being trusted difficult.

Finisher

There's a lot of military technologies in the late-game, so a free technology will help you stay competitive. You can also pour faith into Great Scientists to help out even more.

Ideology

Autocracy offers you strong late-game warmongering, as well as a diplomatic route to back it up (the gold from your Ducal Stables helps there.) If you want to go down a scientific route or your infrastructure's outdated after all that fighting, choose Order.

I'm covering both here and assuming you're aiming for a domination victory, covering the first "inverted pyramid" of both ideologies' tenets (three from level one, two from level two, one from level three.)

Level One Tenets - Autocracy

Fortified Borders

A maintenance-free source of happiness. Castles should be pretty affordable at this point of the game, and picking up the Neuschwanstein wonder synergises very well with this tenet.

Industrial Espionage

You've gotta use those Spies for something, and keeping your tech rate up isn't a bad idea. If somehow you're the world's technology leader at this point, focus on researching military technologies and soak up the rest through spying.

Elite Forces

Any warmongerer taking Autocracy (except Japan) gains from this tenet, closing the gap in strength between injured and non-injured units.

Level Two Tenets - Autocracy

Total War

Because Winged Hussars upgrade to rather boring Anti-Tank Guns, you're going to need to build up an army again in the late-game. If you can manage to take this tenet prior to researching Combustion, then you can make Cavalry with 75 starting XP (thanks to Military Academies and Ducal Stables) ready for upgrading.

Lightning Warfare

Goes together nicely with Total War to make very strong tanks, meaning you can have a Winged Hussar-like playstyle in the late-game.

Level Three Tenet - Autocracy

Clauswitz's Legacy

Hold the tenet off until you're ready for war, but when you are, a 25% attack bonus is devastating for Civs without a colossal tech advantage.

Level One Tenets - Order

Socialist Realism

A really cheap source of happiness, which really helps out in supporting conquests.

Skyscrapers

You can pour in any excess cash into backing up infrastructure, or improving defences in newly-conquered cities.

Hero of the People

Generating Great People is something pretty much every Civ wants to do, so there's no real downside to this policy.

Level Two Tenets - Order

Workers' Faculties

An excellent tenet for keeping your tech rate up. Plus, cheap Factories means you can more quickly take advantage of its production bonus.

Five-Year Plan

Together with cheap Factories, even your smaller cities can contribute towards building a strong late-game army.

Level Three Tenet - Order

Iron Curtain

While this tenet doesn't make existing Courthouses free, it's still powerful for slashing back the unhappiness from conquests without the high maintenance Courthouses usually have.

Religion

Founding your own religion isn't a necessity for Poland's game, but it can help. Here's some of the best options if you do go down that route.

Pantheon

Consider taking a faith-based Pantheon to increase your odds of founding a full religion. They're all situational and hence not listed here, but there's usually at least one that fits your starting location well.

God of the Open Sky

If your pastures weren't good enough already, you can add culture to the mix. This nicely brings your UB and UA together, giving you faster Social Policy gain while still working your gold-giving pastures.

Messenger of the Gods

To secure plenty of horses, you need to build reasonably wide. Messenger of the Gods helps to offset the rise in technology costs as a result, getting you to Winged Hussars that little bit faster.

Founder

Tithe

You need money to maintain your armies, and Tithe is generally the best of the money-giving Founder beliefs as it's the only one not requiring your religion to be a majority in the city. If you can't manage Tithe, Church Property also offers gold.

World Church

If you can manage to spread your religion to other Civs, World Church offers you culture to build upon your existing Social Policy-gaining strengths.

Follower

Pagodas

Helps to relieve the burden of unhappiness, and gives a useful place to dump excess faith if needed.

Mosques

A backup belief for Pagodas, or perhaps a compliment to it if your faith generation's good, or you want to deny other Civs from easily getting faith buildings.

Asceticism

An easy way of getting extra happiness; all you need is a Shrine and your religion to be dominant in a size 5+ city.

Religious Community

While intended for tall empires, a production bonus is a production bonus and this policy might cut a few turns off launching an attack, hence increasing its effectiveness.

Guruship

Getting at least one specialist in a city isn't difficult (you can just fill an Engineer slot in a Workshop for even more production.) More production means Winged Hussars are finished faster.

Enhancer

Religious Texts or Itinerant Preachers

This reduces the risk of your cities being converted to rival religions without having to spend faith on Missionaries, Inquisitors or Prophets.

Just War

Just because you needed to make Winged Hussars even more unstoppable.

World Congress

Thanks to Ducal Stable gold, Poland can at least have some influence on the World Congress, though it's likely to be limited by Civs angry at your warmongering.

Here's a list of the decisions and brief notes on importance of some. All these decisions assume you're going down the warmongering route. Ones missing depend greatly on the situation you're in. Voting choices may vary depending on your game - if everyone's pushing for a policy you don't want, but your strategy doesn't rest on it, then it may be better just to abstain (or vote for it for possible diplomatic bonuses.)

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 Polynesia wants the International Games, you should prioritise to vote no, for example. If you could put forward a vote, then it'd be a bad idea putting the International Games on the table (unless you're pretty sure you can seize first place and deny anyone else the tourism.)

Arts Funding

Medium priority
Vote no

Cultural Heritage Sites

Low priority
Vote no unless you've captured a lot of wonders

Embargo City-States

Medium-High priority
Vote no

Warmongerers typically need City-State trading as it's more reliable than trading with Civs who don't trust them.

Historical Landmarks

Low-Medium priority
Vote no

International Games

Low-Medium priority
Vote yes if you can spare enough production for the happiness and City-State boost (and maybe to deny cultural Civs the tourism.) Vote no otherwise.

International Space Station

Medium-High priority
Vote no

Natural Heritage Sites

Low priority
Vote no unless you have Natural Wonders of your own

Nuclear Non-Proliferation

High priority
Vote yes if you have plenty of nuclear weapons, you lack uranium and other players have them or you're the only player with nuclear weapons. Vote no otherwise.

Sciences Funding

Medium priority
Vote yes

Marie Curie would be proud. You can get more out of Great Scientists and Engineers than GWAMs.

Standing Army Tax

High priority
Vote no

World's Fair

Medium priority
Vote yes

Might as well go for all the Social Policies you can...

Wonders

It takes time to reach the renaissance, so until then your cities have the chance to get a few wonders up and running. Here's a selection of the best.

Ancient Era

Pyramids (Liberty Only)

If you want those pasture-filled cities to be up and running sooner, you need plenty of Workers, and fast ones, too. Liberty exclusivity makes the already-cheap wonder easier to build.

Statue of Zeus (Honour Only)

What this wonder does best for you is cutting back the penalty for mounted units attacking cities, from -33% to -18%. That turns attacking cities with Winged Hussars from a risky move to a rather practical one (you should still use siege though for the bulk of the damage.)

Classical Era

Hanging Gardens (Tradition Only)

Competition is fairly fierce seeing as Civs that take Tradition are likely to be serial wonder builders, but if you manage to build this in a good pasture city, you'll grow the city tall and hence have strong production in time for Winged Hussars later.

Oracle

Building on your strength at soaking up Social Policies.

Medieval Era

Alhambra

Getting this before you start churning out Winged Hussars gives them greater flexibility - they can fight well on both open and rough terrains.

Angkor Wat

You can get many pastures in range of a city, and acquiring them all within city limits quickly can be difficult. Thankfully, the Angkor Wat makes that easier.

Machu Picchu

More cash means your army can support more units.

Notre Dame

Happiness is hard to come by in the mid-game, which is something Notre Dame is particularly good at addressing. Physics is on the way to Metallurgy, anyway, making this wonder fairly easy to pick up.

Renaissance Era

Taj Mahal

Helps out with unit production and maintenance, at least for a short while. And more culture might let you squeeze in another Social Policy.

Industrial Era

Brandenburg Gate

This comes at the same technology as Cavalry. Build the wonder in a city with a Ducal Stable and a Military Academy, and Cavalry units you build there will have 75 XP from the start. (90 XP if you have the Total War tenet from Autocracy as well - that's just 10 XP off a 4th promotion!)

Modern Era

Cristo Redentor

Helps strengthen your Social Policy/tenet advantage. They come quite fast in the late-game anyway, but you may as well make them faster (if you can spare the wonder's production costs)

Kremlin (Order Only)

Gets Tanks built much faster, which is useful for building up an army to substitute for those Winged Hussars.

Neuschwanstein (Autocracy favoured)

This stacks nicely with Autocracy's Fortified Borders to create Castles worth 2 happiness, 3 gold and 2 culture each. Otherwise, it still could be useful as a negative-maintenance source of happiness.

Prora (Autocracy Only)

Getting lots of Social Policies pays off with Prora, which rewards you with more happiness the more Social Policies you have. And it gives a free one, too.

Atomic Era

Pentagon

Armies develop rapidly in the late-game and end-game, so cheaper upgrade costs helps you to keep on top of all that.

Pitfalls to Avoid

While Poland's UA is strong, people are prone to framing it alone as their strategy and somewhat neglecting the potential of Winged Hussars. Here's a list of other mistakes worth avoiding.

Taking Horseback Riding late

You may have a start free of pasture resources and full of wheat and metal resources, but the longer you delay Horseback Riding, the less of a chance you have of taking the good horse spots.

Building lots of Pikemen to upgrade to Winged Hussars

With an Armoury and Ducal Stable, you can bring Winged Hussars to just 15 XP away from March. Pikemen upgraded to Winged Hussars on the other hand will be 70 XP away. And the upgrade cost is no small matter either - 200 gold in a normal speed game per unit!

Building lots Musketmen to complement Winged Hussars

Excessive Musketman production means fewer Winged Hussars, though they are slightly better at attacking cities. Despite Winged Hussars' lack of defensive bonuses, they still defend better in rough terrain than Musketmen (unless it's a forested hill.)

Ignoring siege

Winged Hussars fight at 18.7 strength against cities. Trebuchets fight at strength 42, and Cannons at 60. Your super-Lancers might be able to wipe the floor with other units, but you'll need siege to handle cities with.

Stacking Great Generals with Winged Hussars while they're attacking

(Unless you have backup.) If a Winged Hussar pushes back an enemy unit, it'll move forward, but any Great General it's stacked with won't. That leaves it vulnerable unless you can move another unit to cover it.

Not considering knockback

Knocking opponents back can actually be a bad thing if you end up driving the unit into safer land in the process. Winged Hussars have an extra move for a good reason - you can get around the unit and push it in a direction away from rough terrain or backup.

Chopping Casimir: The Counter-Strategies

Poland has a lot resting on their renaissance-era game, but has a backup plan with fast Social Policy gain.

Playing against Solidarity

Solidarity's trick lies in having a head start to Social Policies (particularly ones with strong openers like Rationalism) as well as Social Policy gain generally at a very fast pace. This may become most apparent in the mid-game, where culture generation varies highly between Civs and Poland's free policies puts them at a notable advantage. In the early-game, they haven't recieved enough policies yet to make much of an impact, and by the late-game, getting lots of Social Policies doesn't have the impact it used to (though the advantage earlier in the game from free Social Policies gives them a lot of long-term benefit.)

As such, Poland's UA is weakest in the early-game, and if you wish to invade them, then's your best bet. If you can't manage that, try the Industrial era, where Winged Hussars are fairly vulnerable and not yet upgradable, and many Social Policy choices are non-militaristic in nature.

If you're playing peacefully and have resisted the Winged Hussar onslaught, then Poland becomes a little less predictable as an opponent for the late-game as the UA allows them a flexible end-game. They'll probably have enemies though, so diplomacy is the key to defeating them. Denouncements, negociating wars, that kind of thing.

Playing against Ducal Stables

The way to stop Ducal Stables being a problem is to stop them before they start. It's not hard to prioritise pasture-heavy areas for settlement for most Civs. If a Polish city has a pasture resource within three tiles, but it's within three tiles of your own city, buy the tile to deny them the chance of getting the resource. If they have no pasture resources within the city limits, they can't build a Ducal Stable!

A mistake to avoid is simply targeting the pastures to pillage. Ducal Stables add gold and production to the resource, not the improvement, meaning it's no more effective to pillage that as it'd be for any other Civ's pasture (besides the Huns.)

Playing against Winged Hussars

These are nasty to face. All those stacked bonuses makes for an incredibly difficult opponent if Poland's gone and declared war on you. But for all that strength, you've still got something they don't have - defensive bonuses. Position units so that even if knocked back they're still on rough terrain if possible, so hopefully you can slow their advance. Never stack Great Generals with units exposed to being knocked back (as the Great General won't be and hence will be destroyed.)

In terms of the specific units you should be using to counter Winged Hussars directly, it's not a bad idea to use Musketmen. Why? Because of the Formation promotions. A Musketman with Formation I will act as being strength 32 to Winged Hussars, and Formation II counts as a very respectable 40. You need either Shock II or Drill II for the Formation line (favour Shock promotions to cancel out the ones Winged Hussars have) but you can get those two straight away for units built in cities with both Barracks and Armouries.

A point about Spain

The place Poland will fear to tread is Spain. That's because of the Tercio, that 26-strength Musketman with a 50% bonus against mounted units. A strength of 39 - roughly a 25% strength advantage over Winged Hussars ignoring other promotions.

And it doesn't stop there - the Conquistador's fast speed, high sight and city settling is good for taking the remaining pasture resources before Poland can (plus, the high sight is great for spying on Poland's lands while they build up their Winged Hussar army.)

Strategy by style

Early-game Aggressors - Not really harder to face than the average Civ. Settle right in their face to have an easy springboard for invasion, and to deny them pasture resources.

Mid-game Aggressors - Deal with them around the Industrial era if possible, while their Winged Hussars are vulnerable to Riflemen. Keep your distance until then.

Late-game Aggressors and Diplomatic Players - Slow down Poland's midgame warmongering so they don't get as much of a late-game edge. A good way to do this is to compete for favour with their local City-States, meaning they divert gold to alliances rather than units. Bribing other Civs to declare war on them is also a classic way to deal with warmongerers,

Cultural Players - Becoming influential with Poland could either be particularly easy (if they avoid culture generation in order to focus on infrastructure, with their UA covering Social Policy gain) or particularly difficult (if they build on their UA.) If they're the latter, prioritise sending Great Musicians their way. If not, their army's likely to be deadlier, so defend well.

Scientific Players - Take advantage of your good tech rate. Getting Industrialisation early is a good idea, being close to Scientific Theory on the tech tree. That offers you Gatling Guns, which have slightly higher strength than Winged Hussars. Alternatively, deviate a little more for Rifling and the higher-strength-still Riflemen.

Other Guides

If you like these guides and want to send a tip, you can click here![ko-fi.com]

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)

[☺﴾CassetteCobra﴿☺]

Continued from last comment:

This is why people are prune to making the UA their main strategy and forgo the other two uniques, Besides building Stables for the gold, Poland's UA is one of the strongest in the game. The UA is so good that you can survive easily without your other two uniques. While you are not using Poland to its fullest potential with all of its uniques combined, you are using it for another good purpose to suit your needs. Hence making Poland the greatest All-Rounder Civ in the game. Go for what you wish to do, you might not be the greatest at it, but that is the cost of the best flexibility in the game.

Use this guide if you want to follow the Way poland is best at, only use tidbits of it otherwise.

[☺﴾CassetteCobra﴿☺]

Even though this guide is for domination mostly and tells you not to put all of your focus on your UA, It honestly isn't as punishing to do it in the first place. Well, in an AI game that is. Sure Poland is best at domination victories, but their UA's sheer flexibility means you can be a credible threat in other routes as well.

Sure you won't be as good at Scientific victories as Korea or Babylon, but the sheer amount of policies means you can switch for a back up option if you're losing out on the science race. Same with Cultural, Egypt or France doing better? Then switch to science or diplomacy to even the odds.

[Shifugou]

Hi ! First thanks for those guides really helpfull ! Then, after play with Poland yesterday i saw Helicopter Gunship up-graded from Winged Hussar able to move after attacking, unlike you said in the guide.

I m assuming it's probably from some up date made after you created the guide ~~

[Ineedtostopchangingusername]

In the ducal stable you wrote God of the open sky social policy instead of pantheon

[Ineedtostopchangingusername]

I didn't notice

[Zigzagzigal]

That's already mentioned in this guide - buying them and upgrading them to Winged Hussars can be rather effective!

[Ineedtostopchangingusername]

Landshnet (IDK how to spell it but i know its wrong) can be bought throughout the game and can be upgraded. I want to note that i noticed this from another guide (can't remeber which)

[Zigzagzigal]

It's not a guarantee (it simply makes them more likely than the average civ to start there), and not every civ has it. If you go to my "tricks, secrets and clarifications" guide, I have a list of all the start biases in the game.

A general rule is that if a civ has a bonus tied to a specific type of terrain, they'll probably have a start bias associated with it.

[Booker]

I had no idea civs had a start tile they always get. Is it always like this?

[Zlobenia]

Awesome guide, nice work.