Phoenix's Modern-Day Guide for Conquest with England

This guide aims to cover all of the strategy and gamplay considerations that you will need to play to win as England, from wonders and policies to military choices and battle tactics.

Rule, Britannia!

England is not generally considered to be a strong civilisation on anything but an archipelago map, but it actually brings tons to the table in Civ V. Being a proud Englishman myself, I decided to attempt a guide (my first) that maps out how to play this great nation in the game, focussing on its massive militaristic potential.

Please let me know what you think of the guide in the comments at the end, leave a rating and, most importanlty, enjoy playing as England!

If you like this guide then you might want to check out my other guide on how to play Civ V fast:
Phiphi's Speedy Guide to Playing Civ V Fast

The English Civilisation

Leader	Ability	Start Bias
Elizabeth [/previewicon]	Sun Never Sets +2 Movement for all naval units. Receives 1 extra spy.	Coast

England has incredible military might with two UU's (arriving in the Medieval Era and the Industrial Era respectively) gearing it towards a domination victory over land and sea in the mid-game.

Unit	Unique Bonuses	Replaces	Tech requirements	Obselete upon discovering	Combat Strength	Ranged Strength	Movement	Cost
Longbowman	Starts with Range promotion	Crossbowman	Machinery	Industrialisation	13	18	2	80 , 160
Ship of the Line	Starts with Sight I promotion	Frigate	Navigation	Electronics	30	35	5	123

The Longbowman starts with the Range promotion, giving the unit a ranged attack that hits up to 3 tiles away. This promotion is stunning - effectively giving you artillery in the medieval era and allowing you to park your units outside the range of an enemy city, chipping away at its health until you can walk your Horsemen straight in through the front door. Defensively, a series of Longbowman holding strategic positions on the map will do wonders for slaughting incoming aggressors; build forts ontop of hills, sit your Longbowmen on the top of them and watch as wave after wave of attacks are taken out (Note: forts can be build outside of your controlled territory so this can be a good offensive strategy too if facing an opponent with a large army!).

The Ship of the Line is arguably the best unique naval unit in the entrie game - when coupled with the +2 Movement (from Sun Never Sets) and +1 Movement/ Sight (from the Great Lighthouse - key wonder) you get a ship with 8 Movement points that hits harder and can endure more damage than the frigates it replaces. A small fleet of these ships will tear through any naval resistance and capture coastal cities with ease throughout the Indusrtial Era.

The extra spy gives you great flexibility in your gameplay and, in particular, allows you to catch up in tech at an accelerated rate after aggressive bee-lining in the early game. It will be really useful for providing sight on enemy cities during your conquests, influencing strategically-located city states to give a make-shift repair shop for your untis or just giving you extra intel on who's building what and whether there are wonders that you will need to rush to prevent the enemy from building first.

General thoughts for Gameplay Style

England has an obvious bias towards a domination victory with two Unique Units and no unique buildings/ improvements. Bonuses for naval units and extra spies give England more flexibility and power in the mid-game than most other civs and the Longbowman provides strong offensive and defensive opportunites on land whilst the Ship of the Line guards the oceans, giving well balanced land/sea power overall.

Alternative Victory Conditions

The potential for you to fully complete the Exploration policy tree could make a Tourism victory a suitable back-up plan, having had all the Hidden Antiquity sites revealed on what will likely be a fully-explored map, and the additional spy you get should ensure that you don't slip too far behind in tech if used wisely. England does not however posses any inherent cultural/ scientific advantages, so will not out-perform in these categories. Again, the extra spy could help to secure a Diplomatic victory, by either assigning all of your spies as diplomats in the other player's capitals or by gaining influence in city states, but England as a civ has no real diplomatic-focussed advantages so this will depend strongly on how you play the game.

Victory Condition	Score
Domination	9/10
Science	6/10
Tourism	7/10
Diplomatic	6/10

This will be the most likely screen that you will see if you win the game!

General Tips

• When Playing as England you will have an extremely busy early-to-mid game as you try to get the right wonders and flex your militaristic muscle upon the arrival of your two UU's around the end of the Medieval Era. England doesn't offer anything special in the late-game* so you need to make sure that you use the advantage you have in the mid-game as much as possible to secure territory and take out other players that will later pose a threat to you. Here it is important to pick your targets wisely - maybe consider coastal blockades with your Ship of the Lines (SOL's) to weaken your targets income before moving in with land-based attacks for example.
  
• Iron is also an incredibly important rescource for England - ensure that you have about 10 lots upon researching SOL's, either by settling on it early, through trading with other civs or gifted by city states - so that you can quickly upgrade a fleet of Galleys or build SOL's in a short space of time to have the element of surprise over other players.
  
• When reseraching Navigation or Machinery it is a good idea to build or buy as many Galleys/ Composite Bowman as possible. This will give you a collection of units which you can upgrade as soon as the appropriate tech is researched to unlock the super-powerful UU's. As such, strong faith generation and/or a high gold income is very important, with the "Holy Warriors" belief in particular being a God-send and a must-have belief to pick when shaping your religion.
  
• Early exploration should be done predominatly with a Trireme. If you can grab the Great Lighthouse early on then even better! Have a scout and a warrior patrolling the lands initially, do not explore the coastline, then withdraw your warrior to your capital for defensive purposes once you have built a Trireme. Your trireme will probably uncover a lot of ruins, city states and natural wonders as it rapidly moves about the coast (remember it has +2 Movement from England's ability aolne) and your scout should be use to follow it around mopping up the ancient ruins. The coin gained from finding city states is useful for all sorts, but I personally prefer buying more ships or key tiles around my city.

*When Longbowmen are upgraded to Gatling Guns etc. they retain their Range promotion. Keep your Longbowmen alive throughout the Industrial Era to have late-game ranged units with extra reach!

Power of the Longbow

You might think that the Longbowman isn't anything particularly special - a comparison to the Crossbowman, which it replaces, shows that it has no additional Ranged Strength, Combat Strength, Movement or cost reduction - but this is not a wasted Unique Unit by any strecth of the imagination.

Unit	Combat Strength	Ranged Strength	Movement	Cost	Bonuses
Crossbowman	13	18	2	80 , 160	N/A
Longbowman	13	18	2	80 , 160	+1 Range

The Range promotion is the all-important difference that you should focus on here. This essentially gives you Medieval Era artillery as your Longbowmen can sit outside the range of an enemy city's attack radius and bombard it with arrow folleys until it has been reduced to nothing, then your swordsmen/ horsemen or other un-interesting unit can stroll in to capture the city. Simples.

A serious limitation to the abilities of Longbowmen is that Hills, Forest/Jungle tiles and Mountains will obscure its line of sight on potential tagets, so they always need to be occupying the high-ground in relatively flat surroundings for you to get the most out of them. A great way to do this is to sit them on top of hills and get a worker to build a fort on it, as Forts can be built outside of your own territory and provide a 50% defensive bonus for any units stationed in it. Chop down forests or jungles around the area (if you can be bothered) for maximum potency. Alternatively, if your target is on a Hill it may be more vulnerable then when in open ground as your Longbowmen will have visibility on the target due to its elevated postion.

If you predict that you're going to be hunkered down at that position for a while consider using up a Great General by building a citadel in a strategic position that gives you good coverage of the surrounding areas. This will practically make your Longbowmen untouchable. Bear in mind too that your extra range will be limited by your visibility - a Longbowmen can shoot three tiles away but it can only see two tiles away, anything hidden by fog can't be shot! To overcome this use other units (scouts), the visibility gained from owning tiles or even spies to increase the area over which a Longbowman can fire.


Here you can see that the Longbowman has a good defensive range over the territory of the city. Note how Mt. Kilimanjaro blocks the available range whilst poor visibility over the ocean also leads to a reduction in the range.

The extra spy that England gets can be used to help overcome the visibility limitation of Longbowmen whilst the other helps you to catch up on tech, as spies posted within an enemy city have a visibility of 1 tile around the city that they are stationed in.


My Longbowmen can't see the city so won't be able to attack it, despite being 3 tiles away


Now that the spy has been posted in the city, the Longbowmen have visibility on the city and can attack it from a safe distance of 3 tiles

The range promotion stays on upgrade, through Gatling guns, Machine guns and finally up to Bazookas. Not only is this unexpected for an enemy, but it overcomes the significant limitation of these units - their one-tile range!


Bazooka unit with the lovely Range promotion carried over. Keep your Longbowmen alive and upgrade them to keep your late-game army stong!


Normal Bazooka upgraded from a gifted Gatling gun. How boring.

Strength of Ship of the Line

The Ship of the Line is the absolute powerhouse of any English army, unquestionably dominating the seas throughout the Industrial Era. Ensuring that you have a decent suplly of Iron is critical as you come up to unlocking this unit.

Unit	Combat Strength	Ranged Strength	Movement	Cost	Bonuses
Frigate	25	28	5	123	N/A
Ship of the Line	30	35	5	123	+1 Sight

This unit is one that you want to get out and be proactive with as soon as possible so that you can earn as many promotions for it as you physically can. Its increased Combat Strength and Ranged Strength give it a massive edge over Frigates, which it replaces, and the extra sight promotion can come in handy too for monitoring the open waters. Couple this with the +2 Movement from the Sun Never Sets ability, the +1 Movement / Sight for military navy units from the Exploration policy opener and the +1 Movement / Sight that can be gained from the Great Lighthouse and you have a unit with significantly increased strength, sight and movement abilities! It will be easy to tear apart any navy you come across (I have found that naval units are often ignored in multiplayer games so this might not even be the case) and wreck coastal cities with ease.

To maximise the potential of these units, ensure that you have a barracks built in each city which you intend to build them in and also amass a fleet of Galleys which you can upgrade (for 110 in a quick game) into Ship of the Line's as soon as Navigation is completed. Unlock the Military Tradition policy from the Honour tree early on to earn promotions 50% faster with your units and farm coastal barbarian encampments if you don't want to go to war straight away but want to start gaining experience with your new units.


Start building Galleys whilst researching Astronomy and Navigation in preparation.


The payoff. Here are 6 Ship of the Line's that are ready to go and cause trouble as soon as Navigation was completed.

Consider building Armouries too and try to get the Brandenburg Gate in one of your cities (probably the capital). By having a barracks, armoury, military academy and the Brandenburg Gate in one city, all units produced there will gain 3 promotions when built. The important thing to note here is that you can gain two promotions in land/ naval unit targetting and then get the Range promotion straight away. Now you're laughing.
What this allows you to do is have Ship of the Line's with a ranged attack up to 3 tiles away. That's right:

A unit with a high ranged attack strength, high visibility, extremely high movement and a ranged attack that allows them to sit out of the range of enemy cities!!!

What you now posses is essentially the sea-based equivalent of artillery with 9 Movement points that will smash any coastal cities it finds without them being able to hit back. Build around 10 of these ships in the Industrial Era and sit back as they go around giving other players a headache.

Also note that when these ships are upgraded to Battleships you are likely to still have a seriously powerful navy - just watch out for aeroplanes that may try to bomb your ships.


A fleet of Battleships upgraded from Ship of the Line's with the Range promotion carried over

If you don't fancy being too offensive in your gameplay and only want to use the ships for defensive purposes you can get the +1 visibility promotion when building the ships in a city with an armoury. Coupled with the policies and wonders mentioned above, you can set up a watch with just a few of these ships around your territory to monitor any suspicious activity over the oceans and keep a lookout for approaching armies.


Massive sight (6-tile radius) on a Ship of the Line with a +1 Visibility improvement


Setting up a Neighbourhood Watch on the oceans surrounding my island using Ship of the Line's

The Extra Spy: "007 reporting for duty"

The extra spy granted with England's UA is easily wasted by lazy players but can actually be a big help in the mid-game.

Generally, spies have three main uses:

• Stealing tech from other players and looking at what is being built in enemy cities
  
• Influencing city states to get you more allies and votes at world congress
  
• Using spies as diplomats to influence world congress voting and even to gain votes in the late-game (diplomats are rubbish in multiplayer)

For now I'm going to look at the first two points on the list, as I believe these traits will be far more relevant and beneficial to a mulitplayer match. Also the diplomat ability just isn't that much fun anyway!

Stealing tech

Due to the fact that you will want to bee-line techs that are on opposite sides of the tech tree (Machinery for the Longbowmen at the bottom and Navigation for the Ship of the Line at the top) you will most likely have a big gap in technologies that run through the middle of the tech tree, such as Civil Service or Chivalry.
The extra spy granted to you allows you to safely bee-line these two technologies without significant impact on your late game by letting you steal tech from other players at a faster rate. By placing your spies in enemy capitals (ensuring that one is leading in science) you will quickly and passivley catch up to everyone else without switching all of your cities over to a Science focus / Research production in order to boost your science output.

Make sure that you check the cities which your spies are posted in regularly to see what they are building - if you see that they are constructing a wonder that you want, try rushing the wonder to complete it before they do (the later you can leave this the better). This will also help you to keep tabs on anyone trying to build an army up.

Influencing City States

City states have fairly obvious bonuses when allied, such as increased culture/ food/ happieness as well as gifted resources like Iron and Horses, but they are also very useful during war. If you are trying to attack an enemy city with a decent defensive army around it then it can be very difficult to make progress when you're fighting in land far away from your own territory - this becomes particularly true when using a navy that could be attacking on the other side of the world. Here is where city states come in.
By befriending and becoming allies with city states that neighbour your enemy's cities, you can pull injured units back out of the fray to heal up in allied borders at +20 HP per turn, essentially giving you a mobile medical station. This healing option is priceless in wars that are fought far away from the homeland and can give you a rolling army that attacks, retreats to heal and attacks again.

Spies will help you to ally city states without paying out large bribes or chasing barbarians across the map, and the extra spy that England gains will essentially double the rate at which you make City State alliences if you choose to use your spies solely for this purpose.


Here you can see an allied Wittenburg on the left with three potential coastal targets nearby. My relatively small naval fleet could attack and take each city in turn, retreating back to Wittenburg to heal up in between.


Here two allied city states, Syndey and Buenos Aires, are found above and below the Portugese city of Coimbra. I could use these to heal units up between attacks on Portugal, and if I were to go to war then they would likely cut off a lot of Portugal's trade routes too.

Early Game Social Policies

The position of each policy on the list shows the order in which you should unlock a particular tree in the social policy menu. If a policy is not listed, then it isn't worth unlocking in the tree.

You should aim to complete the Tradition tree, then spend a bit of time filling out the Honour tree until you unlock Military Tradition. From there, open the Commerce and Exploration trees in the Medieval Era to give your navy more power and your economy a boost.

Tradition

The tradition Opener provides +3 culture in the Capital, which is really handy for early border expansion.
Despite the annoying change that has occured with the tradition tree in a recent update, I would still reach for this policy tree before Liberty.

Policies to unlock:

• Oligarchy
  
• Legalism
  
• Landed Elite
  
• Monarchy
  
• Aristocracy

Policy	Effect	Requires
Oligarchy	Garrisoned units cost no maintenance and citys with a garrison gain +50% Ranged Combat Strength	Tradition Opener
Legalism	Provides a free culture building in your first four cities	Oligarchy
Landed Elite	+10% Growth and +2 Food in the Capital	Legalism
Monarchy	+1 Gold and -1 Unhappiness for every 2 Citizens in the Capital	Legalism
Aristocracy	+15% production when building Wonders and + 1 Happiness for every 10 citizens in a city	Tradition Opener

Tradition is good as it will giive you 4 good cities to build up and then expand out of as you unlock your UU's. For completing the tree you get +15% Growth in all cities, a free aqueaduct in your first four cities and the ability to purchase Great Engineers with Faith starting in the Industrial Era. The Great Engineers can certainly come in hand for rushing the Brandeburg Gate or Big Ben later on in the game!

Honour

The honour Opener gives you +33% combat bonus vs barbarian units, lets you know when new barbarian encampments spawn in explored territory and grants you Culture every time a barbarian unit is killed. This is a good one to try to get early as it will save you a lot of hastle when dealing with barbs in the early game. You can also churn out a couple of archers and farm barbarian encampments for experience and culture, giving you leveled-up archer units ready to upgrade into Longbowmen and some culture on the side.

Policies to unlock:

• Warrior Code
  
• Military Tradition

Most of the policies in this tree won't be too relevant to your game, so only unlock those listed above so you can spend more time in the Commerce/ Exploration tree come the Medieval Era.

Policy	Effect	Requires
Warrior Code	+15% production when training melee units and a Great General appears outsite the Capital. Great Generals are earned 50% faster	Honour Opener
Military Tradition	Military units gain 50% more experience from combat	Warrior Code

Mid/ Late Game Social Policies

Commerce

Adopting Commerce boosts Gold output in the Capital by 25%, and offers good advantages for a militaristic playstyle.
The extra gold that this policy tree will help you to generate can be used to support large maintenance costs from big armies, and the +2 Happiness for each luxury resource (once Protectionism is unlocked) is really well-suited to a wide empire with lots of puppeted cities.

Policies to unlock:

• Mercenary Army
  
• Mercantilism
  
• Wagon Trains
  
• Entrepreneurship
  
• Protectionism

Policy	Effect	Requires
Mercenary Army	Allows the purchasing of Landsknechts	Commerce Opener
Mercantilism	Purchasing items in Cities requires 25% less Gold. +1 Science from every Mint, Market, Bank and Stock Exchange	Mercenary Army
Wagon Trains	+2 Gold from all your land-based Trade Routes. Maintenance paid on Roads and Railroads reduced by 50%	Commerce Opener
Entrepreneurship	Great Merchants are earned 25% faster. Receive double Gold from Great Merchant trade missions	Wagon Trains
Protectionism	+2 Happiness from each luxury resource	Entrepreneurship and Mercantilism

Adopting all policies in this tree will grant you 1 extra gold for every trading post you have, which is nice but nothing to get too excited about. It also allows for the purchasing of Great Merchants with Faith come the Industrial Era, which can be very useful for generating a large sum of gold fast.

Exploration

The Exploration Opener gives you +1 Movement and +1 Sight for all you military naval units. This adds really nicely to the naval bonuses that you get from the English UA and (hopefully) the Great Lighthouse, further stregthening the power of your navy.

Policies to unlock:

• Naval Tradition
  
• Navigation School
  
• Maritime Infrastructure
  
• Merchant Navy
  
• Treasure Fleets

Naval Tradition	+1 Happiness for each Harbour, Seaport or Lighthouse	Exploration Opener
Navigation School	A Great Admiral appears at the Capital. +2 Movement for all Great Admirals. Great Admirals are earned 50% faster	Naval Tradition
Merchant Navy	+1 Gold for each Harbour, Seaport or Lighthouse, +4 and +4 Culture in the city with the East India Company	Maritime Infrastructure
Treasure Fleets	+4 Gold from all your sea trade routes	Merchant Navy and Navigation School

Completing the Exploration tree lets you see Hidden Antiquity sites on the map and allows you to purchase Great Admirals with Faith.
I would only recommend adopting all of the Exploration policies if your war efforts don't go as well as you had planned and you need to revert to a back-up plan: a tourism victory boosted by Artifacts found in Hidden Antiquity sites.

Ideologies

Order is all you need

For a militaristic civilisation with a few strong core cities, Order is the obvious Ideology to adopt.
Below I have listed the first "pyramid" of Ideological Tennants that you should aim to adopt first, those that will give you the best stregth to continue fighting and expanding your way to victory.

Tenant	Effect	Tier
Socialist Realism	+2 Local Happiness from each Monument. Build Monuments in half the usual time.	1
Skyscrapers	Gold cost of purchasing buildings reduced by 33%	1
Patriotic War	+15% attack bonus when fighting in friendly territory	1
Five-Year Plan	+2 production per city. +1 production per mine and quarry.	2
Worker's Faculties	+25% Science for cities with a factory. Build factories in half the usual time	2
Iron Curtain	Free Courthouse when capturing a city. +50% food and production from internal trade routes	3

If you find that you have been a little too sucessful in your conquests and, as a result, your happiness is dangerously low, you may want to substitute Skyscrapers and/or Patriotic War with these two tennants:

Tenant	Effect	Tier
Young Pioneers	+1 Happiness per Workshop, Factory and Solar/Nuclear/Hydro Plant.	1
Universal Healthcare	+1 Happiness from each National Wonder	1

Social Realism is a great Tennant, as most of the cities that you will own/ capture will have a Monument in them already so you will get a great happiness boost upon adopting this tennat. If your cities don't have Monuments for some reason, build them in half the time and gain more smiley faces.
Skyscrapers will help you to buy important buildings, like Courthouses, Colosseums and Circuses , at a rapid rate when you capture a new city or find your orginal cities are missing something. If possible, couple this with the effect of Big Ben and that of Mercantilism from the Commerce tree for a 73% reduction in building purchasing costs.
Patriotic war is good for if you capture enemy cities quickly and they then try to counter-attack and take the city back. Hopefully the extra 15% combat bonus will help you to squish any resitance on your home grounds.

Five-Year Plan and Worker's Faculties are great tennants for boosting the output of your cities, and will help keep you up-to-date on tech and infrastructure whilst you are off warring other nations.

The Iron Curtain tennant is very nice. Very nice indeed. It actively encourages a Domination style victory by removing the happiness penalty associated with capturing cities. The bonus to internal trade route helps you to quickly return a captured city to its former glory so that you can use its strategic position for further militaristic gains.

The influence of other civs

Something to note is that if you adopt an "unpopular" Ideology (i.e any Ideology that is different from the one adopted by the most culturally-influencial player) then you will suffer significant penalties to your happiness as the populations of your cities revolt and try to get you to swap Ideologies. In this scenario, you have two choices; wipe out the culturally-influential civ that is causing you a headache, or swap Ideologies.
Swapping Ideologies might be easier, but you have to lose some of the tennants that you have already unlocked, as well as go through a short period of civil unrest, so it is preferential to avoid this at all costs. Consider attacking the other civ, who is likely to have focussed on culture generation and not so much on their military.

Essential Wonders to Grab

Here is a list of the highest-priority Wonders applicable to England.

• The Great Lighthouse - Classical Era
  
• Colossus - Classical Era
  
• Notre Dame - Medieval Era
  
• Brandenburg Gate - Industrial Era

The Great Lighthouse

Cost	Tech Requirements	Effects
195	Optics	+1 Culture. +1 Great Merchant Point. Provides a free lighthouse in the city in which it is built. All military naval units receieve +1 Sight and +2 Movement.

This is without a doubt the most important wonder for England. The Great Lighthouse gives +1 Movement and +1 sight to all naval units and synergises remarkably well with the English UA to give +3 Movement and +1 sight to all English navy units (this includes units build before the Great Lighthouse).
This is a key wonder to grab and will make Neptune look like your ♥♥♥♥♥ when it comes to controlling the sea.


Triremes can essentially replace Scouts in the early game if you grab the Great Lighthouse due to their high mobility and large visibility range

Colossus

Cost	Tech Requirements	Effects
185	Iron Working	+1 Great Merchant point +5 Gold. Gains an additonal trade route slot and a cargo ship appears in the city. Trade routes that other players make to the city with the Colossus will generate an extra 2 gold for the city owner and an additional 1 gold for the trade route.

I want to start by saying that this can be quite a tricky wonder to grab, so try to gather as much information about who does/ does not have a coastal city and whether anyone else has a good, production-heavy start by using your trireme explorer boosted by the Great Lighthouse to whizz about the coast. Venice will want this wonder a lot so expect tough competition from them - you won't be bee-lining Iron Working initially either and so might not be the first to unlock this wonder.

If you find yourself within a chance though, this wonder can significantly boost your early-game gold generation, which is all-important for accumulating and supporting an army of Composite Bowmen, ready for a fast upgarde to Longbowmen as soon as Machinery is researched. The extra trade ship can be used to boost the growth of your second city (which should be coastal and close by anyway!) or used to trade with city states to gain more gold. Both are great options, but I would argue that boosting city growth is more important in the early game than gold - when you're itching for war switch the cargo ship to gold generation to help support your army!

Notre Dame (Offensive Pay)

Cost	Tech Requirements	Effects
400	Physics	+1 Great Merchant point. +10 Happiness. +4 Faith.

An essential wonder for anyone on a mission to rule the world, the happiness bonus that this wonder provides is simply a must-have if you really want to start drilling into enemy territory. The rate at which you take cities could be very high during the Industrial Era - as you will be fighting at the cosat with your Ship of the Line units and on land with your Longbowmen - so you need something to help keep your population mindless and happy whilst mass murder occurs in some forgein lands far away. The faith bonus is a nice little addition too.

Brandenburg Gate

Cost	Tech Requirements	Effects
750	Military Science	A Great General appears at the Capital and +15 experience for all new units built in this city

This wonder will turn your navy from good to excellent. When a city has a barracks, armoury, military academy AND the Brandenburg Gate any unit that it produces will have 3 promotions upon completion. Unlock Military Tradition to give your units 50% more experience from battle and you will quickly move on to higher promotions from there.
For land units, this means that you can get three terrain-based promotions (open or rough terrain modifiers) and then the March promotion quickly thereafter, letting your units heal every turn regardless of the action that they take. For ranged naval units (i.e. Ship of the Line) you can grab two combat modifiers and then get the Range promotion. This gives your ships a range of 3 so that they can tear down enemy cities without any worry of retaliation from the target city.

Optional Wonders

Hanging Gardens

Cost	Tech Requirements	Effects
250	Mathematics	+1 Culture. + 6 Food. Provides a free Garden in the city in which it is built.

This is another wonder that is often heavily contested and which others will likely unlock before you, so don't set your heart on this one. It is a fantastic wonder though, giving +6 Food in the city in which it is built. It is a sure-fire way to have a high-population capital that can generate a lot of science, production and culture through filling Specialist slots in certain buildings and working as many tiles as possible within your territory.

Great Wall (Defensive Play)

Cost	Tech Requirements	Effects
250	Engineering	+1 Culture. +1 Great enegineer Point. Enemy land units must spend 1 extra Movement point when inside your territory. Provides walls for free in the city in which it is built. Upon discovering Dynamite (this is refering to the player who built the Great Wall), The Great Wall becomes obselete.

This wonder is nice for defensive play and generally you won't see too many people rushing to get it either, which might make it easier to build. With this wonder in hand, a small number of Composite Bowmen/ Longbowmen can defend your cities from early-game attacks (from the likes of Rome, Mongolia and The Aztecs) fairly easily and make it safer for you as you set yourself up for the arrival of Navigation and the Ship of the Line units. It also makes it harder for other players to take captured cities back as the extra movement point they spend will make their troops more vulnerable to shots from your new city and any of your own units around it.

Big Ben

Cost	Tech Requirements	Effects
750	Industrialisation	+2 Great Merchant points. +1 Culture. +4 Gold. Cost of gold purchasing reduced by 15% in all cities.

You will need to have made a start on the Commerce policy tree to unlock this wonder, so that may reduce the competition battling it out for this one and make it easier to grab. If you unlock the Mercantilism policy from the commerce tree you will get a furcher reduction on in-city purchases by 25%, giving a 40% overall discount on gold purchasing prices. A tennant picked from the Order Ideology can take this down further to a 73% reduction - better than the Steam sales! This is great for spawning an army fast or buying happiness builidngs like a Circuses, both of which you will likely need for militaristic dominance.

Dangerous units: Unique Unit Tables

To undertsand which players are going to be the biggest threats to England's chances of a Domination vitory, we need to consider what advantages the English UU's have over the UU's of other civs, and visa versa.

Below are tables showing the unique units that you are likely to come across if playing against the civs listed below.

Longbowmen Competition: Other land-based unique units, Medieval Era

Unit	Civilisation	Replaces	Bonuses	Attack Strength	Movement	Resource Requirement	Risk
Beserker	Denmark	Longswordsman	Amphibious promotion. +1 Movement	21	3	Iron	High
Camel Archer	Arabia	Knight	Can move after attacking.	17 21	4	Horses	Low
Chu-Ko-Nu	China	Crossbowman	May attack twice in one turn	13 14	2	None	Low
Hwach'a	Korea	Trebuchet	Extra strength.	11 26	2	None	Low
Impi	The Zulus	Pikemen	Free ranged attack when entering close combat. 25% stength bonus against Gunpowder units	16	2	None	Mid
Keshik	Mongolia	Knight	No penalty when attacking cities. Earns Great Generals 50% faster. Gains 50% more experience from battles. +1 Movement	15 16	5	Horses	High
Mandekalu Cavalry	Songhai	Knight	No penalty when attacking cities	20	4	Horses	Mid
Samurai	Japan	Longswordsman	Earns Great Generals 100% faster. 15% combat bonus on open terrain. Can build fishing boats when embarked	21	2	Iron	Mid

Ship of the Line Competition: Other unique naval units, Renaissance Era

Unit	Civilisation	Replaces	Bonuses	Attack Strength	Movement	Resource Requirement	Risk
Nau	Portugal	Caravel	Performs a one-off trade mission outside of forgein cities to gain gold and experience. +1 Movement	20	5	None	Low
Sea Beggar	The Netherlands	Privateer	Prize ships - may capture defeated ships. Coastal raider II promotion. Supply promotion	25	5	None	High
Turtle Ship	Korea	Caravel	Extra strength. (Can't enter ocean tiles outside of Korea's terriotry)	36	4	None	Low

Players To Look Out For

There are a few civs that can really be a pain in the neck if you're playing as England and this can arise from a whole variety of reasons linked to each civ. If you can time you're attacks well, then you can catch the other players off-guard or at a time when they don't have access to any special unique units, which could tip the odds in your favour.

To summarise, the ones below will probably be your most annoying / dangerous opposition:

• Venice
  
• The Netherlands
  
• Denmark
  
• The Ottomoans
  
• Mongolia & Rome

Venice

Venice is more of an annoyance that a genuine threat most of the time. It's coastal bias will put it in good stead to build wonders like the Great Lighthouse and Colossus, with Colossus being particularly desirable as it will give them two extra trade routes beacuse of Venice's UA. It can also interfere with your city state allies, potentially buying out one of your strategic city states used for healing up your units during war time with a Great Merchant of Venice. Keep an eye on Venice and don't let them sneak up behind you.

The Netherlands

The Netherlands are a real danger to your navy and are really the only civ that has potential to stand up to England's Ship of the Line. The dutch Sea Beggar can capture ships upon defeating them, so you could end up having one of your Ship of the Line units captured and turned against you if you are not careful! Do not allow a fleet of Sea Beggars to arrive at your city gates or sneak up on your unsuspecting fleet whilst it is still being build; they have Coastal Raider II and Supply promotions from the start so can do serious damage to your cities. The supply promotion means that you will have to ensure that you kill the unit and don't just let it run away only to heal up and haunt you again later on when at full health. I has no strategic resource requirement so these ships can be spammed without needing much prepartion. The Netherlands also has a coastal bias and so will be directly competing with you in some of the important early-game wonders that you need to secure.

Denmark

Beserkers are scary. With 3 movement points they will very rapidly close the gap between themselves and your Longbowmen, not giving you much time to react, if any, and posing a serious threat to your units. They can pillage for free, true Viking-style, so going to war with Denmark can ruin your game even if you don't lose a city and their amphibious promotion can give them a strong edge for swarming in from the sea before you have Ship of the Line units on guard. Denmark, surprise surprise, also has a coastal bias so may snatch some of the wonders you need.

The Ottomans

The Ottomans are quite similar to The Netherlands in the danger that they pose to an English civ, despite not having any unique ships that offer improvements over standard navy units. All of their melee ships have the Prize Ship promotion, allowing them to capture Ship of the Line units if they manage to defeat one and use it against you, and they also have a coastal bias so could build your wonders. They
only pay one-third the cost for naval unit maintenance so could create and support a massive fleet of ships for next to nothing. Playing as England, you will need to be very careful around their melee ships - using the increased movement and visibility that your ships are likely to have to make up for the fact that you will probably be out-numbered. Keep an eye on The Ottomans throughout the game to prevent being overwhelmed by ships.

Mongolia and Rome

These two civs favour an early rush strategy, where they have a big militaristic push in the early stages of the game to catch players off guard and when they are unlikely to have much in the way of an army. The Roman UU's are purpose built for this and are very strong, so be wary if you find Rome settled on the same island as you. Mongolia has very fast mounted units that could cause havoc for your Longbowmen by using hit-and-run tactics and could hurt your efforts if they attack you just before you start mass-producing Longbowmen.

[Illuminare]

I'm playing england and guese what. Every ones at war with me

[codecube]

I think citystates have a coastal bias.

[Foulkesy]

Good point well made codecube, that could shift England's diplomaticic ability to a more favourable strategy.
However, this is a very map-dependent strategy (need lots of coastal city states!) and is based in the late game so against other purpose-built diplomatic Civs you may still struggle. It's best to hit people hard and fast and try to dominate as much as possible with England's UU's earlier in the game :)

[codecube]

autocracy also has 33% less maintenance for military units, which allows you to have a large navy for this.

[codecube]

If you get autocracy and then gunboat diplomacy, then you can have your extremely fast navy move across the map to gain influence with city-states, and along with an extra spy, this makes England a good diplomacy Civilization.

[btuson]

Thanks for the solid guide to a Civ I have always enjoyed playing on a variety of map types. Describing and assessing the specific units and Civs that threaten England is a nice feature. You might replace tennant/tenant with tenet in the ideology section.

[WODKA40]

Thanks for your work. That is pretty interesting guide. :)

[SapphicKerfuffle]

the English thanks to the longbow have no legimate threat from the samurai i have as france tried invading england with musketeers a much more robust unit compared to samurai and failed miserably. England will have no opposition from melee units late medeval to early rennisance except for mounted units which used correctly can destroy England. However correctly allying your empire with France for example against a civilization such as Mongolia will prove better in outcome.

[=S.T.A.R.= Chessburger]

I've played with England once and I truly enjoyed it. But now, every time i scroll through the civ list and stop at England, i feel like ''eh, you're boring, don't wanna play with you atm''. This guide reminded me of England's true potential in Civ 5. Thank You!

[Coolcrumbshark]

No prob and thanks