Zigzagzigal's Guides - Poland (Vanilla)

Develop your faith well and Poland will reward you with great cultural, military and religious power. Here, I detail Polish strategies and counter-strategies.

Legacy Guide

If you have the Rise and Fall expansion, click here for the updated guide.

This guide is no longer updated, but will remain for the sake of those without the Rise and Fall expansion.

Introduction

Note: This guide only covers content released prior to the Rise and Fall expansion. Content from any DLC pack released between the base game and Rise and Fall is marked as such.

To play as Poland, you must have the Poland Civilization and Scenario Pack.

Our Commonwealth enters a brave new world. Although we start in this world anew, we are not yet lost. From humble beginnings, once more shall we trade across the plains, once more shall the Winged Hussars ride on, and once more shall the true faith spread through our lands. But our potential requires the will to achieve it; the ability to balance a myriad of competing pressures, to balance our many strengths. To neglect a part of what we are capable of is to neglect the whole.

How to use this guide

This guide is divided into multiple sections explaining how best to use and play against this specific civ.

• The Outline details the mechanics of how the civilization's unique features work and what their start bias is (assuming they have one at all).
  
• The Victory Skew section describes to what extent the civ (and its individual leaders where applicable) are inclined towards particular victory routes.
  
• Multiple sections for Uniques explain in detail how to use each special bonus of the civilization.
  
• Administration describes some of the most synergistic governments, civic cards, pantheons, religious beliefs, wonders, city-states and Great People for the civ. Only the ones with the most synergy with the civ's uniques are mentioned - these should be given more consideration than they would be for other civs but are not necessarily the "best" choices when playing as the civ for a given victory route.
  
• Finally, the Counter-Strategies discusses how best to play against the civ, including a consideration of leader agendas if the civ is controlled by a computer.

Note that all costs (production, science, culture, gold, etc.) mentioned within the guide assume a game played on the normal speed settings. To modify these values for other game speeds:

• Online: Divide by 2
  
• Quick: Divide by 1.5
  
• Epic: Multiply by 1.5
  
• Marathon: Multiply by 3

Glossary

Terminology used in this guide and not in-game is explained here.

AoE (Area of Effect) - Describes bonuses or penalties that affect multiple tiles in a set radius. Positive examples include Factories and Stadiums (which by default offer production and happiness respectively to cities within a 6 tile radius unless they're within range of another building of the same type) and a negative example is nuclear weapons, which cause devastation over a wide radius.

Beelining - The strategy of obtaining a technology or civic quickly by only researching it and its prerequisites. Some deviation is allowed in the event that taking a technology or civic off the main track provides some kind of advantage that makes up for that deviation (either a source of extra science/culture or access to something necessary for a eureka or inspiration boost.

CA (Civ Ability) - The unique ability of a civilization, shared by all its leaders. Unlike unique units, buildings, districts and improvements, civ abilites do not have to be built.

Civic cards - Another name for policy cards; you fill up your government with these for additional bonuses and can switch them for free every time you unlock a civic.

Compact empires - Civs with cities close together. This is useful if you want to make use of districts that gain adjacency bonuses from other districts, maximise the number of copies of the same district in the same area, or to maximise the potential of area-of-effect bonuses later in the game.

Dispersed empires - Civs with cities that are spread out. This is useful if you want to ensure cities have plenty of room for both districts and tile improvements. Civs with unique tile improvements generally favour a more dispersed empire in order to make use of them, as do civs focused on wonder construction.

GWAM - Collective name for Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. All of them can produce Great Works that offer tourism and culture, making them important to anyone seeking a cultural victory.

LA (Leader Ability) - The unique ability of a specific leader, which like civ abilities do not have to be built. Usually but not always, they tend to be more specific in scope than civ abilities. Some leader abilities come with an associated unique unit on top of the standard one every civ has.

Start bias - The kind of terrain, terrain feature or resource a civilization is more likely to start near. This is typically used for civilizations that have early bonuses dependent on a particular terrain type. There are five tiers of start bias; civs with a tier 1 start bias are placed before civs of tier 2 and so on, increasing their odds of receiving a favourable starting location.

Complete information on start biases within the game can be found in the Civilizations.xml file (find the Civ 6 folder in Steam's program files, then go through the Base, Assets, Gameplay and Data folders to find the file). If a civilization is not listed as having a start bias there, it does not have one, even if you feel like you keep spawning in the same terrain when playing as that civ.

Tall empires - Empires that emphasise city development over expansion, usually resulting in fewer, but bigger, cities.

Uniques - Collective name for civ abilities, leader abilities, unique units, unique buildings, unique districts and unique improvements.

UA (Unique Ability) - A collective name for leader abilities and civ abilities.

UB (Unique Building) - A special building which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal building and offers a special advantage on top.

UD (Unique District) - A special district which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal district and offers some unique advantages on top. In some cases, there may be minor disadvantages as well, but these are always outweighed by the positive features. All unique districts cost half as much to construct relative to the regular districts they replace.

UI (Unique Improvement) - A special improvement that can only be built by the Builders of a single civilization. Unlike unique buildings or districts, these do not replace a regular improvement. Some require a technology to unlock, and many have their yields improved with later technologies. "UI" always refers to unique improvements in my guides and not to "user interface" or "unique infrastructure".

UU (Unique Unit) - A special unit that may only be built by a single civilization, and in some cases only when that civilization is led by a specific leader. These usually replace an existing unit and offer extra advantages (and occasionally minor disadvantages as well in exchange for bigger advantages).

Wide empires - Empires that emphasise expansion over city development, usually resulting in more, but smaller, cities.

Outline

Start Bias

Poland has no start bias.

Civilization Ability: Golden Liberty

• One military policy card slot is converted into a wildcard slot, assuming your government contains at least one.
  
• Constructing an Encampment district or a fort improvement within your own territory causes a culture bomb, granting you all surrounding tiles.
  
  • Only tiles that are within the workable range of the tile's city will be granted (in other words, they must be within a 3-tile radius from the city centre).
    
  • This includes tiles from other civs, but will incur a diplomatic penalty if you steal tiles off them this way. Taking land from city-states has no penalty.
    
  • Tiles stolen containing non-unique tile improvements will retain them.
    
  • Tiles containing completed districts, wonders or national parks will not be stolen, but incomplete ones will be, destroying them.

Jadwiga's Leader Ability: Lithuanian Union

• Holy Sites receive +1 faith per adjacent district, instead of from every two
  
• Relics provide +4 gold, +2 faith and +2 culture each in addition to their usual yield of 4 faith and 8 tourism.
  
  • These added bonuses are not affected by modifiers to relic yields.
• If you take land off another civ's city via a culture bomb, it converts to your religion.

Unique Unit: Winged Hussar

A medieval-era heavy cavalry unit which does not replace anything

Research	Obsoletion	Upgrades from	Upgrades to	Cost	Maintenance	Resource needed
Mercenaries Civic Medieval era	Rifling ** Technology Industrial era	None	Tank (??? )	250 or 1000 or 500 *	3	None

*Purchasing units with faith requires the Theocracy government, which in turn requires the renaissance-era Reformed Church civic. This number does not take into account Theocracy's 15% discount on faith purchases.

**Winged Hussars are unique among units as they obsolete before their upgrade becomes available. This means even if you lack oil, you cannot build Winged Hussars beyond the usual point of obsoletion.

Strength	Ranged Strength	Moves	Range	Sight	Negative Attributes	Positive Attributes
55	N/A	4	N/A	2	None	Ignores Zone of Control Knocks back defeated units

Notable features

Winged Hussars have the following negative differences relative to Knights:

• Costs 250 production, 1000 gold or 500 faith, while Knights cost 180 production, 720 gold or 360 faith (+39%)
  
• Cannot be upgraded into (Heavy Chariots upgrade into Knights)

The following neutral difference:

• Unlocks at the Mercenaries civic instead of the Stirrups technology

And the following positives:

• No resource requirement
  
• 55 strength, up from 48
  
• When attacking, if the defending unit deals less damage than the Winged Hussar it retreats one tile either directly or diagonally backwards and the Winged Hussar advances into the space. If the unit can't manage that, it takes extra damage.
  
  • This ability works even for amphibious (embarked vs. land) attacks.
• Reduced cost to upgrade

Unique Building: Sukiennice

A classical-era Commercial Hub building which replaces the Market

Research	Prerequisites	Required to build	Cost	Maintenance	Pillage Yield
Currency Technology Classical era	Commercial Hub District	Bank Stock Exchange	120 or 480	None	50

Fixed yields	Other yields	Citizen slots	Great Person points	Miscellanious effects
3	Internal trade routes from this city provide +4 each International trade routes from this city provide +2 each	1 Merchant (4 if filled)	1	None

Positive changes

• Internal (domestic) trade routes from this city provide +4 gold each
  
• International trade routes from this city provide +2 production each

Victory Skew

In this section, the civ is graded based on how much it leans towards a specific victory type - not how powerful it is. Any score of 3 or above means the civ or leader has some kind of advantage to the victory route above a hypothetical civ with no unique features. A score of less than 2 means some kind of aspect of the civ actively discourages a particular victory route. All values are subjective and may be edited in future.

Leader	Culture	Domination	Religion	Science
Jadwiga	8/10 (Good)	8/10 (Good)	9/10 (Ideal)	5/10 (Decent)

Poland is distinctly strong at early cultural victories thanks to their incentive to get plenty of relics, bonus to international trade route production (making it easier to get the 25% tourism bonus associated with it) and changes to government policy cards making Autocracy and Monarchy much easier to make use of. Autocracy can be used to help with early wonders, while Monarchy allows you to build defensive buildings faster, which offer tourism later in the game. The main problem is the reliance on things you can't guarantee on getting; sources of relics rely on random chance or the Mont St. Michel wonder while you need the Reliquaries belief and Cristo Redentor wonder to maximise their tourism.

Domination is a slightly more consistent path for Poland to take, though you'll need the Crusade belief to bring Poland to their maximum potential here. Winged Hussars are very strong when they arrive, decent through the renaissance era and can even perform reasonably well into the early industrial era. Meanwhile, taking land off enemy cities via forts or Encampments can give you an advantage in war by having tiles your units can heal up in closer to the enemy city, while converting them in conjunction with the Crusade belief can provide you with a significant strength advantage.

Religious victory, however, is Poland's most effective route. Having a wildcard slot available early in the game allows you to pick up Revelation for a better stab at getting a Great Prophet, bonus faith from relics and Holy Sites is useful for the religious game in general, and converting cities via culture bombs can save a significant amount of faith. If that wasn't enough, international trade from Sukiennice cities provides bonus production meaning you can more easily make use of trade-based religious spread.

Science is Poland's weakest victory path, though it's not terrible. Culture bombs can help you take mountains off other civs for better Campus districts, and a good faith output can be used with the Jesuit Education belief to buy science buildings with, while an early wildcard slot can help you use Mysticism's Inspiration policy card (+2 Great Scientist points per turn) earlier than most civs.

In a typical game, it might be worth seeking cultural and religious aims simultaneously; Poland's relics are very good for both. You can then decide later if you have a better chance at one or the other, and emphasise that chosen route.

Civ Ability: Golden Liberty (Part 1/2)

I'm free! Free to pick whatever I want!

Poland's civ ability brings gameplay elements normally tied to warfare to be useful for any kind of playstyle.

One military card becomes a wildcard

Essentially a lighter version of Greece's civ ability which offers an extra wildcard slot, Poland also gets one - albeit at the cost of a military card slot.

Once you have Code of Laws, you can have both God-King and Urban Planning at the same time, giving you both decent production and a head start on forming a pantheon. Passing up Discipline does mean you'll have a trickier time with Barbarians, so make sure you don't neglect your military too much as you expand your empire.

And expand your empire you should! Winged Hussars are one of the few UUs to arrive on the civics tree, and early in the game, the best way of obtaining culture is to expand your empire and construct plenty of Monuments. Having lots of cities will be great for maximising your faith output as well.

Although you'll want to get to Mercenaries on the civics tree reasonably early, make a detour to Mysticism so you can use the Revelation policy card before nearly every other civ. With it and a Holy Site district in one of your cities, you can usually secure one of the first religions without having to spend too much time on religious infrastructure early in the game.

Once you reach Political Philosophy, you have a choice of three different governments, though only two of them have military policy cards, and one of those is Oligarchy, which isn't especially useful for Poland early in the game. What's left is Autocracy, which normally has more military policy cards than most civs need, but for Poland it's rather well-balanced. Still, even though it doesn't have any military policy cards, Classical Republic's bonuses to Great Person Points and amenities makes it a reasonable choice as well.


One possible setup with Autocracy.

The second tier of governments comes in the late medieval and early renaissance eras. All three are of use to Poland; Monarchy's heavy emphasis on military policy cards isn't the problem for Poland it is for many civs, Merchant Republic offers two extra trade routes Sukiennices can make stronger and Theocracy works well when playing the religious game.

As for the modern-era governments, Poland's civ ability is a little less impactful by that point, but it's still nice to have greater flexibility than most other civs. With the Democracy government for example, you can take six economic policy cards at once - great for supporting religious development late in the game.

Civ Ability: Golden Liberty (Part 2/2)

Culture Bombs

Kaboom!

Worry about civs settling close to your cities and taking land that's rightfully yours no more! Poland can take land off other civs by constructing Encampments and forts on the edge of your territory, although you can only gain tiles within the workable range of one of your cities that way, and you can't take completed districts or wonders.

Encampments

Until the renaissance era, this ability can only be used when you place Encampment districts. Encampments can't be placed adjacent to your city centre, and you won't gain many (if any) tiles if they're three tiles away from the city centre, so consider going for a spot two tiles away from the centre that'll give you lots of land.


Here's one example. Placing the Encampment not only stole an improved luxury resource from Rome, and converted the city to my religion (see Jadwiga's leader ability section for more on that), but it also makes the city really vulnerable to attack if I wanted to invade.

Placing Encampments in the second ring of a city's workable area not only gives you the most tiles - it also leaves a gap between the district and your city centre that's perfect for placing a Holy Site. That Holy Site will start with at least a +2 faith yield thanks to Jadwiga's leader ability.

Forts

Once you have the medieval-era Military Engineering technology, you can train Military Engineers at cities which contain an Armoury. With the renaissance-era Siege Tactics technology, those Military Engineers may construct forts.

Culture bombing with forts can be a powerful tool to grab land you really have no business taking. You can push back the front lines in war, push another civ's city out of natural wonders, get payback for a city buying a luxury tile before you could quite reach it or even destroy another civ's wonder progress by taking the tile! The catch is that Military Engineers are initially relatively expensive at 170 production a time for just two forts - don't be too reckless!



Not only did I push the front lines back, but I also converted the city to my religion thanks to Jadwiga's leader ability. The Aztecs took Defender of the Faith, while I took Crusade, meaning that one fort gave me a 20-point strength boost within the city's area!

Later in the game, Military Engineers become more manageable in cost, and you can afford to be a little more reckless in your usage. Settling a colony city on a foreign continent and taking land off other civs with forts can be very effective. Just be aware that other civs don't like you taking their land much.

Further Reading: The Origin of the Culture Bomb

The "culture bomb" terminology used in Civ 6 might be confusing to a player unfamiliar with the series, considering it doesn't actually involve the culture yield.

The term originates from Civ 4. Rather than claiming land on a tile-by-tile basis, cities would expand the radius of their borders once they reached certain culture thresholds. Cities with very high amounts of culture could even flip the tiles of those owned by other nearby civs to their side. Great Artists could be expended to produce a high quantity of culture, which would also rapidly expand the city's borders in the process and could often capture a lot of tiles off other civs. "Culture bombing" became a fan nickname for this function of Great Artists.

In the base game of Civ 5, Great Artists had an ability literally called a "culture bomb" allowing you to expend them to claim all surrounding tiles, including those owned by other civs. While sharing the land-grabbing ability of the Civ 4 counterpart and also being tied to Great Artists, this notably differed by no longer offering you culture.

The Gods and Kings expansion of Civ 5 changed the mechanic of culture bombs, giving Great Generals the ability when they were expended to construct a Citadel (a kind of super-fort) but removing the culture bombing functionality from Great Artists. Poland's culture bombing abilities very much follow on from this.

Summary

• Take both God-King and Urban Planning once you have the Code of Laws civic finished for both good production and a fast pantheon
  
• Take a detour to the Mysticism civic for the Revelation wildcard for a much better shot at founding a religion
  
• Build Encampments in a city's second ring both to claim more tiles and also to provide a space where a powerful Holy Site can go later
  
• Use forts to take land in war-time, giving you a tactical advantage.
  
• Try to take the Crusade belief so culture bombing in war is even more effective

Jadwiga's Leader Ability: Lithuanian Union

The Reliquaries belief is already boosting the tourism yield considerably. For some reason, it doesn't seem to be affecting faith at all; that's probably a bug.

Jadwiga sets out Poland's advantages to the religious game, which makes it all the more important you found your own religion. Take the Revelation policy card at Mysticism and construct a Holy Site (just one will do at first; you can build more later) and that should suffice.

Double Holy Site District Adjacency

Other civs (aside from Japan) would only get a +1 faith bonus here.

Poland gets as much Holy Site adjacency from other districts as they do from mountains. Although at the very most that's a +3 faith bonus relative to normal (and usually it's only worth one or two extra points of faith), it nonetheless takes a lot of pressure off finding the best spots. Poland should expand rapidly early in the game to maximise Monument culture, and this little bonus means you won't be punished for expanding into mountain-free terrain.

Aside from your first Holy Site or two to ensure you can grab a religion, consider holding off building more until after you've launched a Winged Hussar war. The reason for that is you'll need to develop Commercial Hubs and possibly Encampments among other districts that may be competing for your attention and offer more immediately helpful yields.

Relic Bonuses

Along with Kongo, Poland is one of two civs to receive bonuses to relic yields. While the bonus is a little less powerful (2 faith, 2 culture and 4 gold for Poland compared to 2 food, 2 production and 4 gold for Kongo), Kongo can't build Holy Sites and as such is limited in how many relics they can have. Poland has no such restriction; just keep building Holy Sites with Temples and you'll be fine.

There's four methods of obtaining relics:

• Discover one randomly in ancient ruins
  
• Be suzerain over Kandy (a religious city-state), then discover a natural wonder
  
• Have an Apostle with the Martyr promotion die in Theological Combat (the most common method)
  
  • You can guarantee new Apostles get this promotion with either the Mont St. Michel wonder or being suzerain over Yerevan, a religious city-state.
• Retire the renaissance-era Great General Jeanne D'arc. Unlike other sources of relics this can only be done once.

After the Mercenaries civic for Winged Hussars, consider heading to Divine Right next for the Mont St. Michel wonder and the guarantee that every killed Apostle makes a powerful relic. By that point, you should have enough rivals that theological combat becomes possible. Try to use up all bar one of an Apostle's spread religion charges before you start theological combat.

A unit that dies in theological combat will drop its religious pressure in nearby cities, while the victorious unit gains religious pressure in those cities. As such, taking bonuses to strength in theological combat (like the Theocracy government) might be a good idea. Rather than simply letting your unit die, take out a few enemy religious units and get your religious pressure up. You may get relics a little bit slower that way, but it may help you win the game faster. And in the end, that's what counts.

Alternatively, use the Monastic Isolation enhancer belief. Your religious units dying won't lower your religion's pressure, though the other civ will still see a bump up to their religion's pressure in nearby cities.

If you want a cultural rather than religious victory, feel free to be more aggressive with theological combat, as the tourism output of relics (especially with the Reliquaries belief) is quite something.
If you're really desperate for relics, you could even feed Apostles to Barbarians after depleting them of all but one charge - it has the same effect. Civs with The Enlightenment civic will be only affected half as much by relic tourism, but you can counter that with the Cristo Redentor wonder. Relic culture combined with the culture infrastructure you should have established to get to Mercenaries (and hence Winged Hussars) sooner should get you to Mass Media reasonably quickly.


No-one countering your Apostles with Inquisitors or Apostles of their own? Try keeping some one-charge Apostles in their territory just in case while you flood their lands with Missionaries. Either they'll have to let you convert their land, or they'll have to start producing religious units of their own. This is a very powerful tactic if you're doing well in both tourism and in progress towards religious victory, as it forces your opponents to help you with one or the other.

Culture Bomb Conversions

This screenshot is part-way through a culture bomb. You can see that the Aztec city has been converted to my religion (Catholicism) already.

When you take land off other civs via Encampments, forts, or the Burial Grounds enhancer belief, you'll convert them to your religion. This is notable because you don't need to expend faith to do that, and that you can do that surprisingly effectively even in the middle of a war.

Try to get the Crusade belief in your religion. In war, you can construct forts on the front line to push back enemy territory while also giving yourself a powerful strength boost. Winged Hussars boosted by Crusade have an incredible 65 strength, which is three points better than Cavalry!

If you can't manage Crusade, Defender of the Faith can be reasonably good as well. Once you've converted a city and captured it, it'll be much harder for the other civ to take it back again.

If you're not so interested in war, consider taking the Pilgrimage belief so you all these fort conversions give you extra faith - directly helping your religious aims.

Summary

• You don't need to worry about terrain adjacency much when placing Holy Sites; district adjacency is just as good
  
• Try to get the Mont St. Michel wonder so you can easily obtain lots of relics
  
• Use the Crusade belief so culture bomb conversions can give you a huge wartime advantage

Unique Building: Sukiennice

There are two main types of trade routes: internal and international. Internal trade is great for food and production, while international trade is great for gold and also offers tourism and religious pressure bonuses against the target civ. The Sukiennice UB blurs the lines between the two by giving internal trade routes a great sum of gold, and international routes reasonable production.

Now, this sounds great, but there's a bit of a catch. Trade routes used for the sake of extra production or food are most effective in new cities, but new cities won't have this UB yet. As such, carefully balance out your distribution of boosted and non-boosted routes. Obviously, you'll want to send a lot of routes from cities with this UB, but be sure to reserve some for your new cities as well.

Internal Trade

Extra gold for internal trade routes is most effective in war-time, where you need gold to support an army but don't necessarily have any good trading partners (it doesn't help that other civs are more likely to declare war on you when you're already at war). You can have the benefits of a strong economy while having trade routes that are safe from pillagers.

External Trade

The +2 production from "other" bonuses is the Sukiennice in action.

Extra production for international trade routes is good for cultural and religious players alike.

If you have at least one trade route with another civ, you'll have a 25% tourism boost against them - considering Poland's incentive to get lots of relics, you could potentially win an early victory this way. Normally, cultural civs are somewhat discouraged from international trade at first because it doesn't offer much production, which is crucial for constructing wonders with. Poland, however, can trade with other civs and get roughly the same amount of production as they'd get trading internally. Admittedly, the food yields are worse, but the fact you don't need to settle in mountainous areas for good Holy Sites can lead you to plenty of good open land for farms.

For the religious game, external trading can complement your Missionaries, Apostles and culture bombs as a means of providing religious pressure. You'll still have production to help build your Winged Hussars, districts and Military Engineers with, so you can push for empire development and religious spread at the same time.

Unique Unit: Winged Hussar

Winged Hussars are basically super-Knights. Knights are strong for their era and are great at breaking up front lines. Winged Hussars are incredibly powerful for their time and are even better in that role thanks to their ability to knock back defeated foes.

Getting to Winged Hussars

Unusually among UUs, Winged Hussars are unlocked through the civics tree rather than through technology. This means you can be competitive on the battlefield while still having a surprising amount of flexibility over what to research. Of course, you'll want Astrology for a Holy Site, Currency for Sukinniences, Military Engineering for, well, Military Engineers, and Siege Tactics for forts, but you can afford to take a few detours there if need be.

To maximise your culture output, dedicate a lot of your production early on to building Settlers and then have as many cities as possible building Monuments.

Before you beeline Mercenaries, head to Mysticism so you can use the Revelation policy card. Here's what you need:

• Code of Laws
  
• Foreign Trade (Boost: Discover a foreign continent - Usually not too hard on larger maps or pangaeas of at least small size, but may prove difficult otherwise)
  
• Mysticism (Boost: Found a pantheon - By taking the God-King policy card after Code of Laws, you can often get a pantheon in time.)

With that out the way, you'll want to get to Political Philosophy next for a better government. Here's what you need:

• Craftsmanship (Boost: Improve three tiles - Just one Builder will be enough for that)
  
• State Workforce (Boost: Build any district - You'll need at least one Holy Site to found a religion and things like Campuses and Commercial Hubs are good anyway)
  
• Early Empire (Boost: Grow your empire to a population of 6 - If you've not been neglecting expansion, this should be easy)
  
• Political Philosophy (Boost: Meet three city-states - Usually not a problem if you can dedicate a unit to exploration)

At this point, you may be tempted to make a detour to Drama and Poetry for Theatre Squares and extra culture, but you might not be able to build them fast enough. It's probably best to just carry on towards Mercenaries:

• Games and Recreation (Boost: Discover the Construction technology - Construction is on the way to Military Engineering, though it's hard to research it in time for the boost to Games and Recreation. Consider just researching this all the way if need be.)
  
• Defensive Tactics (Boost: Be the target of a declaration of war - Mainly out of your hands; you might have to hard-research this.)
  
• Feudalism (Boost: Have six farms in your territory - A couple of Builders can get the job done.)
  
• Military Tradition (Boost: Destroy a Barbarian Encampment - Barbarians are everywhere. Getting this boost is easy.)
  
• Military Training (Boost: Build an Encampment - You'll need them to train Military Engineers with, and having a Stable makes better Winged Hussars, so meeting this requirement should be manageable)
  
• Mercenaries (Boost: Have 8 land military units in your territory. Archers are a good choice for this as they're fairly cheap, and Mercenaries offers a policy card that makes them cheaper to upgrade)

Now, Winged Hussars are pretty expensive and unlike Knights you can't upgrade other units into them. Divine Right offers the Chivalry policy card allowing you to build them faster, but that will take a while to reach after Mercenaries. Just find some productive cities and get to work! By the time you've got some built, you should be able to get Machinery on the technology tree to upgrade Archers into Crossbowmen so they can support your attack.

The Strength of Winged Hussars

At 55 strength, Winged Hussars have a seven-point advantage over regular Knights, which are already the most powerful unit of their time. They're on a par with Musketmen in terms of strength and production cost, but are slightly cheaper to maintain and are more mobile.

Knights are excellent at breaking entrenched enemy positions down, especially with the Charge and Marauding promotions, and Winged Hussars are no different. Alternatively, the other side of the promotion tree offers Barding and Rout, which are a bit less powerful but more versatile. Barding helps your Winged Hussars resist ranged attacks, while Rout makes them stronger against units on less than full health.

Knockback

I just moved the Aztec Knight one tile to the left, allowing my city to strike it.

If a Winged Hussar deals more damage than the unit it's attacking, the unit will either be pushed back a tile or take additional damage. The pushback isn't necessarily directly backwards - sometimes the defending unit will be moved diagonally. You can use this to keep enemy units away from tiles (or civilian units) they're trying to protect, or to push them into a tile that makes them easier to finish off (like open terrain).

Without the Breakthrough promotion, Winged Hussars cannot move after attacking. This is important for the battles where you might not want to occupy the enemy's tile. If the enemy unit has more strength than the Winged Hussar, you should be fine, but if not, consider hitting them with ranged attacks instead. Alternatively, exploit the fact Winged Hussars ignore Zone of Control to go behind the enemy unit and push them towards your units.



Proof that it can even work for amphibious attacks - and can be a great way to clear a Barbarian Encampment faster.

Forming up

Considering Winged Hussars are rather strong, they have a wide window of usage. By forming corps (available at the industrial-era Nationalism civic), you'll have a 65-strength unit that can take on most industrial-era threats. Winged Hussars can even perform reasonably well in the modern era when formed into armies (requires Mobilisation), though watch out for enemy Infantry corps, Cavalry armies, Tanks and AT Crews.

Unfortunately, even with a Military Academy to cut the cost, Winged Hussar corps and armies aren't particularly cost-effective, so any you build later in the game should be mainly used for the knockback function. Once other civs start largely using units over 72 strength, it's time to upgrade your Winged Hussar armies.

Finally, beware that Winged Hussars obsolete at Rifling and not Combustion as you might expect.

Administration - Government

The administration section covers the policy cards, pantheons, religious beliefs, wonders, city-states and Great People which have particularly good synergy with Polish uniques. Be aware that these are not necessarily the best choices, but rather options that you should consider more than usual if playing as Poland relative to other Civs.

Governments

Classical Era Governments

Autocracy performs fairly well thanks to its decent array of policy cards as Poland.

Alternatively, Classical Republic has no military policy cards (and as such lacks direct synergy with Poland's civ ability) but comes with a handy early amenities boost.

Medieval/Renaissance Era Governments

All three governments can work well.

Monarchy offers a good amount of housing, fast wall construction (which can mean more tourism later) and for Poland has a reasonable distribution of policy cards. If you're after a cultural victory, it may be your best choice.

Merchant Republic offers two extra trade routes, which goes well with the Sukiennice UB. Discounts on gold purchasing let you use Poland's strong economy more effectively.

Theocracy fits a religious playstyle best. The extra strength for theological combat is really useful for your Apostles, and the discount on faith purchases can help it to go much further. On top of that, having a wildcard instead of one of the military policy cards is great for a religious playstyle as relatively few military policy cards are useful towards religious victories.

Modern Era Governments

Democracy is a good choice for religious victory, and is decent for culture as well. Better district project yields and a good number of economic policy cards work well for religious players, and cheap Great Person patronage is great for getting GWAMs.

Communism can be good for cultural victories as well. The array of policy cards is better than it is for other cultural civs, but the production is as helpful as always for building wonders and training Archaeologists.

Policy Cards

Ancient Era

Caravansaries (Economic, requires Foreign Trade) - Make your trading even more lucrative. Internal trade routes are now worth 6 gold each if from cities with your UB.

God-King (Economic, requires Code of Laws) - You can, and generally should, take both economic policy cards at Code of Laws. God-King can help you to secure an early pantheon. Once you're done with that, switch to something else.

Inspiration (Wildcard, requires Mysticism) - Only Poland and Greece can use this card that early, which can be helpful if you want to work towards a couple of early Great Scientists. Still, you're usually better off using Revelation for a Great Prophet.

Revelation (Wildcard, requires Mysticism) - Helps you get a Great Prophet without you having to worry too much about Holy Sites early in the game (you'll still need at least one though).

Urban Planning (Economic, requires Code of Laws) - There's nothing particularly special about the effect itself for Poland, it's just that you can take both it and God-King at the start of the game so you can both have a nice productive start and be fast to a pantheon.

Classical Era

Scripture (Economic, requires Theology) - Doubles Holy Site adjacency bonuses, as well as envoy bonuses from religious city-states. Poland gets particularly good Holy Site adjacency, so you'll get more faith out of this than most.

Veterancy (Military, requires Military Training) - Faster construction of Encampments is nice for getting your culture bombs sooner. You'll need Armouries in order to train Military Engineers, so this policy card is good for that as well.

Medieval Era

Chivalry (Military, requires Divine Right) - Winged Hussars are pretty expensive. They're still a bit expensive with this policy card, but slightly less so.

Renaissance Era

Religious Orders (Economic, requires Reformed Church) - A dead Apostle with the Martyr promotion gives you a relic, but unless you're after tourism and don't care too much about the religious game, it's better to take a few enemy religious units down with them. Religious Orders boosts the strength of religious units in theological combat.

Triangular Trade (Economic, requires Mercantilism) - Has great synergy with both the religious and trade aspects of Poland, making all trade routes offer a small amount of faith and a decent sum of gold on top of everything else.

Wars of Religion (Military, requires Reformed Church) - Complement Winged Hussar warfare with a strength bonus against civs following rival religions.

Modern Era

Arsenal of Democracy (Diplomatic, requires Suffrage) - Trading with allies becomes extremely lucrative here, as you'll get at least 4 production and 2 food on top of everything else if you're sending the route from a Sukiennice city.

Collectivisation (Economic, requires Class Struggle) - Alternatively, trade internally for a high amount of food in addition to gold.

Market Economy (Economic, requires Capitalism) - Get even more out of international trade.

Information Era

Ecommerce (Economic, requires Globalisation) - International trade is now worth at least 7 production a time in Sukiennice cities, and can easily hit 9 production each.

(Cultural) Onlne Communities (Economic, requires Social Media) - Poland has less trouble switching from internal to international trade than most civs, making it easier to make use of this powerful tourism boost.

Administration - Religion and Wonders

Pantheons

City Patron Goddess - Whether it's Encampments, Holy Sites or Commercial Zones you're after, this pantheon will help you get your first district up and running sooner.

Divine Spark - A fairly safe choice which can help you to generate your Great Prophet sooner, and help out with some Great Writers later. Considering you can pick up the Revelation policy card early, the bonus here might not be necessary so feel free to choose whatever pantheon you like.

Religious Beliefs

You can have one founder, one follower, one enhancer and one worship belief.

Burial Grounds (Enhancer) - Allows culture bombs from the construction of Holy Sites, which gives you another shot at converting rival cities. Still, you'll usually be better off taking Crusade.

Choral Music (Follower) - Of great help when you're on the way to Winged Hussars or the Theocracy goverment, this belief adds culture to your Holy Site buildings based on their faith output.

Crusade (Enhancer) - A spectacular choice as Poland. Because of the way fort culture bombs work, Poland can convert enemy cities without needing to get near them, which is very powerful in wartime. After taking an enemy city, use a fort to culture bomb another enemy city, converting it to your religion and letting you use the +10 strength bonus on offer here.

Defender of the Faith (Enhancer) - Weaker than Crusade for Poland (unless you're at threat of invasion) but can be effective to stop captured cities flipping back. Remember that you can't convert cities by culture bombs if you own them, so convert them before you capture them.

(Cultural) Jesuit Education (Follower) - Offers a great way to convert faith into something more directly useful for cultural victory, though Reliquaries is more useful.

Meeting House (Worship) - Winged Hussars are expensive and getting more production will help here.

Monastic Isolation (Enhancer) - An extremely useful belief for Poland, as any Martyr Apostles you send to die for relics won't hurt the spread of your religion.

Mosque (Worship) - An extra spread religion charge for Apostles lets you get more out of them, which is particularly useful if you're reserving the last charge so they can engage in theological combat.

Pilgrimage (Founder) - Culture bombs let you convert cities at no faith cost, and this belief will make those cities give you faith. Against a civ with a stronger faith output than you, this belief can go far.

(Religious) Religious Colonisation (Enhancer) - Settling a new city right in the face of a rival civ and then using a culture bomb to convert them is an effective tactic with this belief, though it comes at the cost of not having the powerful Cruade belief.

Reliquaries (Follower) - An essential pick for cultural Poland players, as it makes relics produce three times the normal tourism. You can potentially win the game very early this way.

Wat (Worship) - Poland has advantages to Encampments, Holy Sites and Commercial Hubs alike. By taking the Wat as your worship building, you can get a decent science output even with a low number of Campuses, allowing you to focus more on the districts Poland's best at using.

World Church (Founder) - Lets culture bombs actually provide you with culture, which can help you get to key civics like Reformed Church sooner.

Wonders

(Cultural) Oracle (Ancient era, Mysticism civic) - You can turn Poland's strong faith output into GWAMs with help from this wonder. It also helpfully comes at a civic you'll want as soon as possible anyway.

Colossus (Classical era, Shipbuilding technology) - Extra trade route capacity means more gold or production.

Jebel Barkal (Classical era, Iron Working technology) - An excellent way to get your faith output off to a good start without you needing to spend too much time building Holy Sites. Requires the Nubia civilization and scenario pack.

Mahabodhi Temple (Classical era, Theology civic) - Poland is often late to Theology as civs with religious inclinations go, so it might be hard getting this wonder. Still, if you manage it, it's great for adding crucial extra beliefs to your religion.

Alhambra (Medieval era, Castles technology) - Don't like the lower number of military policy cards in your governments? Get the Alhambra wonder. Your governments will now be as good as Greece's.

(Religious) Hagia Sophia (Medieval era, Education technology) - An extra charge out of Apostles means you can get more out of them before sending them off for theological combat.

Mont St. Michel (Medieval era, Divine Right civic) - A very important wonder for Poland as it makes gaining relics considerably easier. You'll be guaranteed a relic for any future Apostles who die.

Forbidden City (Renaissance era, Printing technology) - With this wonder, all of your governments will have an incredible amount of flexibility. For religious players in particular, this allows you to hold onto the Theocracy government for longer without falling behind other civs in terms of how strong your government is.

Great Zimbabwe (Renaissance era, Banking technology) - Makes some amazingly strong trade routes.

Big Ben (Industrial era, Economics technology) - An extra economic policy card makes it easier to use the Theocracy government for longer without neglecting card slots.

(Cultural) Cristo Redentor (Modern era, Mass Media civic) - A must if you want a cultural victory as Poland, as it removes penalties to relic tourism.

(Cultural) Eiffel Tower (Modern era, Steel technology) - Taking the Cristo Redentor wonder is mainly useful for boosting your relic tourism, but it also makes Seaside Resorts much more effective. Seaside Resorts require lots of appeal, so the Eiffel Tower will really help out there.

Administration - City-States and Great People

City-States

Amsterdam (Trade) - Get a little more gold out of international trade.

Bandar Brunei (Trade) - Like Amsterdam, also helps you get more out of international trade.

Carthage (Militaristic) - A very powerful city-state indeed! All Encampments now add +1 trade route capacity each, which can be an enormous boost for Poland thanks to the Sukiennice UB. Considering Poland's civ ability encourages you to build Encampments anyway, it's easy to get lots out of this.

Kandy (Religious) - Unfortunately the faith bonus to relics doesn't affect Poland's unique boost to relic faith, but you can still gain free relics by discovering natural wonders. If you lose the suzerain status, be sure to stop uncovering new tiles until you can get it back again - there's little worse than losing the status, then discovering three natural wonders immediately afterwards.

Kumasi (Cultural) - City-state trading counts as international trade, so Sukiennices will add production to them. Kumasi makes trading to city-states also provide extra culture and gold.

Muscat (Trade) - The Sukiennice UB requires you to construct plenty of Commercial Hubs. Muscat makes Commercial Hubs also grant you amenities. Requires the Vikings scenario pack.

Preslav (Militaristic) - Helps make your Winged Hussars more effective by giving them a strength bonus on hills.

Valletta (Militaristic) - You can use your faith to purchase Encampment buildings with this city-state, helping you get to Armouries sooner, which is needed for Military Engineers.

Yerevan (Religious) - An alternative to the Mont St. Michel wonder as a source of Apostles with the Martyr promotion.

Great People

As usual, I'm only covering Great People with particular synergy with Polish uniques. Any classical or medieval-era Great General can complement Winged Hussars well, but it'd be redundant to list them all.

Classical Era

Zhang Qian (Great Merchant) - +1 trade route capacity, which goes well with the Sukiennice UB.

Medieval Era

Hildegard of Bingen (Great Scientist) - Your decent Holy Site adjacency bonus can become a small, but useful, amount of science.

Irene of Athens (Great Merchant) - More trade route capacity.

Marco Polo (Great Merchant) - Another helpful bonus to trading.

Renaissance Era

Jeanne D'arc (Great General) - Receive a relic when you retire her.

Raja Todar Mal (Great Merchant) - Extra gold for internal trade.

Industrial Era

Adam Smith (Great Merchant) - An extra economic policy card slot means you can use Theocracy's bonuses for longer without being disadvantaged due to having fewer policy card slots than other civs.

Modern Era

John Rockefeller (Great Merchant) - More gold for trade routes.

(Cultural) Sarah Breedlove (Great Merchant) - Makes the first international trade route you send to a civ boost your tourism even more.

Atomic Era

(Cultural) Melitta Bentz (Great Merchant) - Another boost to trade route tourism.

Counter-Strategies

Poland can be a pain to play against in the religious game, and can be unpredictable due to their strength in medieval warfare and potential for early relic-led cultural victory.

Golden Liberty

Military card becomes a wildcard

Poland's government comes with a little more flexibility than most; wildcard slots can easily flip from offering peaceful to wartime bonuses. Still, Poland has to either pay money or finish a civic to change policy cards, so it's not as if they are completely flexible in the way they use their government.

One of the interesting consequences of this aspect of Poland's civ ability is that they're likely to use fewer military bonuses in their government than another civ would. That can make them vulnerable to invasion in eras where their Winged Hussars aren't a factor.

Culture bombs

If you border Poland, pay attention to where their city centres are relative to your own. Using map pins, you can mark out a line three tiles away from their city centres, giving you an idea of how much land Poland can potentially take off you. Avoid using tile improvements in that area as they could be stolen off you, and don't construct wonders on the Polish border - they might just destroy your progress with a culture bomb.

Culture bombs can destroy incomplete districts and wonders, but they can't take completed ones. A line of districts (Neighbourhoods are especially good in that role) can be a good preventative measure, but make sure Poland doesn't culture-bomb you while you're setting it up.

The most effective way for Poland to culture bomb is via the fort improvement. Forts need Military Engineers, which in turn need Armouries. If you find yourself in a drawn-out war with Poland, targeting their Encampments might help to stop them pushing the front lines into your territory with culture bombs.

Jadwiga - Lithuanian Union

Holy Site Faith

Poland's improved adjacency bonuses from districts next to Holy Sites makes woods and mountains a little less useful to them relative to some civs, in favour of somewhat more open terrain. That can leave more mountains for you to use, which is great for Campus districts. Speaking of science, Poland has strengths at three different district types but not Campuses, which can lead them to neglect technology.

Relic Bonuses

So long as Poland doesn't have Mont St. Michel nor suzerainity over Kandy or Yerevan, getting relics is pretty hard for them. The odd Apostle might have the Martyr promotion, but you can try to force them to use their spread-religion charge instead of engaging in theological combat by avoiding keeping religious units too close to them.

Assuming Poland does have suzerain status over Yerevan or the Mont St. Michel wonder, be very careful about killing their Apostles. Keep a close eye on their tourism output (you can find this on the cultural victory progress screen). If Poland's religion is much stronger than their tourism, then feel free to kill those Apostles. If it's the other way around, try to force them to use their spread-religion charges instead.

Relic tourism is boosted with the Reliquaries belief and Cristo Redentor wonder. Getting either for yourself can be a good way to deny Poland them.

Conversion from Culture Bombs

In the case of cities which are near a Polish city and have at least one tile within a three-tile radius of their city centre, don't worry too much about converting to them your faith. Target other cities first; you can come back for those later.

If Poland has the Crusade belief, watch out - a single culture bomb can suddenly make it much harder for you to hold onto your city. Consider keeping an Inquisitor or two around border cities just in case.

Jadwiga - AI Agenda (Saint)

Jadwiga likes civs that generate a lot of faith, and dislikes those that don't.

Religious civs should find it fairly easy to get along with Poland - at least until you have to start converting their cities.

Cultural civs tend to have the second-highest faith outputs behind religious civs due to the use of faith for National Parks. Being friendly with Poland isn't too difficult in that case.

Winged Hussar

As strong as Winged Hussars are, they tend to arrive a bit later than Knights. While seven points stronger than Knights, they're quite a bit more expensive so you should be reasonably-balanced in warfare.

Pikemen are another option; they're only 4 points weaker than a Winged Hussar in direct combat, a gap that can easily be closed with the Echelon promotion.

When dealing with the knockback ability, make sure that any civilian units are away from your front lines so they don't get captured. Leave some room for your units to retreat if need be so they don't take the extra damage penalty, and make sure your front line is a solid one without gaps partly because of the useful flanking bonuses, but also to stop the Winged Hussars from slipping behind your units and dragging them forward to a more vulnerable location.

Be aware of strength differences. A unit with more strength than a Winged Hussar usually won't get knocked back, so having fewer-but-stronger units is often preferable to having a higher number of weaker units.

Sukiennice

Sukiennices require Commercial Hubs, so if Poland's pushed to settle coastal areas and end up building Harbours, they'll probably neglect them therefore leading to them having fewer copies of their UB.

Otherwise, the main ways to stop Poland using their UB are in war - you can pillage their Commercial Hubs or the routes themselves.

Other Guides

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Compilation Guides

• Civ summaries
  
• Civ-specific tricks, secrets and clarifications

Individual Civ Guides

• America (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Arabia (Religious/Scientific)
  
• Australia (Scientific)
  
• Aztecs (Domination)
  
• Brazil (All)
  
• China (Cultural/Scientific)
  
• Egypt (Cultural/Religious)
  
• England (Cultural/Domination)
  
• France (Cultural)
  
• Germany (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Greece (Cultural/Domination)
  
• India (Religious)
  
• Indonesia (Cultural/Domination/Religious)
  
• Japan (Domination)
  
• Khmer (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Kongo (Cultural)
  
• Macedon (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Norway (Domination)
  
• Nubia (Domination)
  
• Persia (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Poland (Cultural/Domination/Religious)
  
• Rome (Domination)
  
• Russia (Religious)
  
• Scythia (Domination/Religious)
  
• Spain (Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Sumeria (Domination/Scientific)

[Zigzagzigal]

I tend to go Holy Site first for the first two cities, and Commercial Hubs first beyond that point. You won't need Encampments in every city, but they're a reasonable second or third choice. Campuses are also important and should generally come second or third.

[Ixionas]

Hey zigzagzigal, I just want to say thanks for all of the guides, I use them every game. What order would you build districts in your capital in a typical poland game? Holy site, Encampment, and Commercial hub all seem important, not to mention Campus and Theater square(if cultural),

[Zigzagzigal]

Thank you for that revelation.

[Gaz]

Mr Zigzag sir, I spotted an error sir. Revelation is spelled "Relevation" a few times. Great guide as always though.

[Zigzagzigal]

Changes from the Autumn 2017 Patch relevant to Poland:

- Trade routes now provide religious pressure

- A few new useful religious beliefs

- Religious units now have their own layer and can slip through military untis

- Various other assorted religious changes

[Zigzagzigal]

One nice thing about the next patch is it's known that AI will be less inclined to push for religion if they don't have any religious advantages (apparently about a third of AI civs are affected by that change). This, coupled with an increased number of beliefs in the game (also arriving in the patch, not the DLC), should make it easier to reliably take Crusade as Poland.

[Bravehoof]

Thank you, I found this guide to be very helpful. I'm really enjoying the religion synergy with crusade+ culture bomb! Can't wait to see your take on the new civs just announced.

[Zigzagzigal]

Yep, I did. Thanks for that correction.

[Benzombie]

Awsome that Poland can be used for culture victories. Also, I think you meant Merchant Republic instead of CR again in the Govs section.