Zigzagzigal's Guides - Korea (R&F)

A very straightforward scientific civ, Korea makes a great introduction to Rise and Fall's mechanics. Here, I detail Korean strategies and counter-strategies.

Legacy Guide

If you have the Gathering Storm expansion, click here for the updated guide.

This guide is no longer updated, but will remain for the sake of those without the Gathering Storm expansion.

Introduction

Note: This guide requires the Rise and Fall expansion.

Content from DLC packs (Poland, Vikings, Australia, Persia/Macedon, Nubia, Khmer/Indonesia) is marked as such.

What is the greatest achievement? To create a realm that prospers, or to lay the foundations so that it may happen? To overwhelm the weak, or to reverse a position of weakness? To succeed because of unity, or to succeed despite division? Ahead of you lies the great golden ages of Korea; the ages of science, of industry. It is your great test to set the course; to push ever further towards a greater future.

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. This is not a rating of its power, but rather a general indicator of the most appropriate route to victory.
  
• Multiple sections for Uniques explain in detail how to use each special bonus of the civilization.
  
• Administration describes some of the most synergistic governments, government buildings, policy cards, age bonuses, 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.

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.

Prebuilding - Training a unit with the intention of upgrading it to a desired unit later. An example is building Slingers and upgrading them once Archery is unlocked.

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). DLC and Expansion civs have a similarly-named file in their corresponding folders. 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.

Super-uniques - Unique units that do not replace any others, and are hence particularly unique. Examples include India's Varu and Mongolia's Keshigs.

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

Korea has a tier 3 start bias towards desert hills, grass hills, plains hills and tundra hills. This makes it likely you will have a good spot to place the Seowon district.

Civilization Ability: Three Kingdoms

• Mines adjacent to a Seowon receive +1 science and farms adjacent to a Seowon receive +1 food.
  
  • This bonus also works for mines and farms adjacent to the Campuses of other civs.

Seondeok's Leader Ability: Hwarang

• Cities with established Governors receive +3% culture and +3% science, and an additional +3% of each for every promotion that Governor has.
  
  • With all promotions on a single Governor, this can offer a +18% culture and science bonus to a single city.

Unique Unit: Hwacha

A renaissance-era ranged land unit which replaces the Field Cannon

Research	Obsoletion	Upgrades from	Upgrades to	Cost	Maintenance
Gunpowder Technology Renaissance era	Advanced Ballistics Technology Atomic era	Crossbowman (??? )	Machine Gun (??? )	250 or 1000 or 500 *	3

*Purchasing units with faith requires the Grand Master's Chapel government building, which requires either the medieval-era Divine Right or renaissance-era Exploration civics.

Strength	Ranged Strength	Moves	Range	Sight	Negative Attributes	Positive Attributes
45	60	2	1	2	Unable to capture cities -17 vs. city defences -17 vs. naval units Does not exert zone of control Must set up prior to attacking	None

Negative changes

• Must set up prior to attacking
  
  • Without movement speed bonuses, this means moving and attacking in the same turn is impossible.
• 45 melee strength, down from 50
  
• More expensive to upgrade

Positive changes

• Available at the renaissance-era Gunpowder technology rather than the industrial-era Ballistics technology
  
• Costs 250 production/1000 gold/500 faith, down from 330/1320/660 respectively
  
• Less expensive to upgrade to
  
• Maintenance cost of 3, down from 5

Unique District: Seowon

An ancient-era speciality district which replaces the Campus

Research	Terrain required	Required to build	Base production cost	Maintenance	Pillage yield
Writing Technology Ancient era	Hills	Library University Research Lab	27 * or 108 **	1	25

*All districts increase in production cost over the course of the game. If you have fewer copies of a district in total than the average among all players, it will be 40% cheaper to construct.

**Purchasing districts with gold requires the governor Reyna (the Financier) with the Contractor promotion to be present in the city. It always costs four times as much gold as it does production, before modifiers to purchasing costs are applied.

Adjacency bonuses	Other yields	Great Person points	Other effects
4 regardless of location 1 if adjacent to a Government Complex -1 per adjacent district	None	1	Enables the Campus Research Grants city project Domestic trade routes to this city provide +1 International trade routes to this city provide +1

Negative changes

• Must be constructed on a hill tile
  
• All regular adjacency bonuses removed, except the +1 science from Government Complexes
  
• -1 science yield per adjacent district

Positive changes

• -50% production cost
  
• Starts with a base adjacency yield of 4, regardless of location.

Victory Skew

In this section, the civ is subjectively graded based on how much it leans towards a specific victory type - not how powerful it is. Scores of 3 or more mean the civ has at least a minor advantage towards the victory route.

Leader	Culture	Domination	Religion	Science
Seondeok	4/10 (Acceptable)	6/10 (Decent)	3/10 (Acceptable)	10/10 (Ideal)

Korea isn't especially strong at cultural victories. More culture from governors will help a bit with accumulating civics, and together with the science bonuses will help you get to wonders sooner than other civs, but Korea has better options.

Domination makes a reasonable backup path. Though Hwacha arrive earlier than the Field Cannons they replace, they're not particularly effective in offensive warfare due to their need to set up before attacking. Instead, a Korean domination victory emphasises their high science output to create a military more advanced than that of their opponents.

Religion is even less effective than culture for Korea. Aside from slightly faster civic accumulation, and the occasional spare mountain for Holy Sites as Korea's Campus replacement doesn't need them, little Korea has contributes towards such a victory route.

Science is clearly your best option. Seowons produce a lot of science early on, the Civ Ability adds science to Seowon-adjacent mines, and Governors can magnify science even further. Korea will often have the game's highest science output for the first few eras, and will still be competitive until the end of the game. There isn't really anything to help build the spaceship with other than an incentive to work lots of Seowon-adjacent mines, but that's a relatively minor problem.

Civilization Ability: Three Kingdoms

Korea's gameplay revolves around their Seowons, and this is made obvious by the civ ability's dependence on it. Position your Seowons well and you could enjoy rapid city growth from stronger farms, and even more science from mines.

Seowons are unlocked with the Writing technology, and considering how cheap they are and how much science they provide, you'll probably want to beeline it right from the start of the game. The eureka boost for Writing requires you to meet another civ, which you can usually get in time. Feel free to pick up Mining before Writing if you have a very forest-heavy start.


You may only place Seowons on hills, which limits your placement options.

You should usually aim to position Seowons two tiles away from the city centre, on a hill which is adjacent to as many hills, flat grassland, plains or floodplain tiles as possible. Any resources that can be farmed (e.g. rice) or mined (e.g. copper) adjacent to the Seowon will make it even better. Placing a Seowon adjacent to the city centre will give it worse yields, while placing it three tiles away from the city centre requires you to position other cities in a way so you can work all the Seowon-adjacent tiles.

Consider carefully if you want more mines or farmland. Farms can eventually be placed on plains and grassland hills later in the game, but mines cannot be placed on resourceless flat land, so placing a Seowon purely next to flat land limits your options. Consider the trade-off:

• More farms - This will provide you with more food, aiding your cities' growth, which can feed into all kinds of yields. Being able to support your population with fewer citizens working also lets you free up more citizens for other jobs, like working mines. However, extra food stops being so useful once you hit the housing capacity.
  
• More mines - You will receive more science, helping you excel in the technology tree to an even greater extent. However, you'll need to find your supply of food from somewhere else before you can afford to send all your citizens working in the high-yield mines.

Usually, you'll have a mixture of potential farmland and potential mining sites, and that compromise is probably the best route to go down.

Unique District: Seowon

Once Seowons start being built, very few civs can keep up with Korea's pace in technology for quite some time. Build upon the advantages Seowons offer and you can extend that lead even further.

The most important thing to remember is to not lose the science Seowons offer. Do not place districts adjacent to Seowons unless you absolutely have to. That even extends to the Government Complex - though it might offer a +1 science boost to cancel out the -1 science loss, making full use of the Government Complex's adjacency bonuses in that case would require putting more districts next to the Seowon.

You should usually avoid placing your cities close together to ensure Seowons have enough space and to prevent situations where placing districts next to them is unavoidable. A gap of 5-6 tiles between each city rather than 3-4 seems a good idea.

Making use of policy cards

Seowons are greatly enhanced by two economic policy cards. You'll want a decent culture output to get to these quickly, so don't forget to build plenty of Monuments.

Natural Philosophy, arriving at the classical-era Recorded History civic, is the first. It doubles the +4 yield of Seowons into a +8 science boost. It's not a hard civic to get to; you only need two more civics following Political Philosophy, which is a civic you'll want as soon as possible anyway for its governments.

Rationalism, available at the renaissance-era Enlightenment civic, is the second. Though it comes with two prerequisites for its maximum effect (cities must be size 10+ and have a Campus adjacency bonus of 3+), both of those are easy to meet as Korea. Food from the civ ability combined with Seondeok's emphasis on a smaller number of larger cities means getting a few cities to size 10 by then shouldn't be a problem.

A light in the darkness

Entering a dark age in the classical or medieval eras allows access to the Monasticism wildcard. This adds +75% science in all cities with a Holy Site at the cost of -25% culture. For a civ with very strong early science, this is highly lucrative.

Getting into a dark age in the classical era is difficult as Korea due to the +4 era score boost gained when you first build a Seowon. It'll also be hard to make the most of a classical-era dark age seeing as you need to build Holy Sites for Monasticism's full effect, and you'll struggle to have enough spare production. As such, if you want to use this card, you'll probably want to aim for a medieval-era dark age.

The best way of getting a medieval-era dark age is to get a classical-era golden age, as it increases the era score threshold necessary to avoid a dark age. The easiest way of building up era score for a classical-era golden age is to seek out and destroy Barbarian encampments. Training a few Archers will be useful for this purpose, and it'll also allow you to upgrade them to Hwacha later if you so wish.

Getting Monasticism is by no means necessary. After all, the culture penalty will make it take longer to get to the Rationalism policy card. As such, don't worry if you can't get a dark age in the classical or medieval eras.

The downside

The biggest weakness of Seowons is their vulnerability to foreign Spies. Spies can steal your hard-earned technology boosts, denting your scientific advantage. Unlike regular Campuses, Seowons should be isolated from other districts, which means if you want to place a counter-Spy to protect them you won't be defending any other districts.

As such, you might want to rely on passive defensive bonuses against Spies, such as the Police State diplomatic policy card (available at the modern-era Ideology civic) or Crytography diplomatic policy card (available at the atomic-era Cold War civic). You can then dedicate your Spies to protecting other districts like your Spaceports, Industrial Zones or City Centres.

Summary

• Never place districts next to Seowons unless it's unavoidable
  
• Don't neglect your culture - the sooner you get Recorded History and The Enlightenment, the better.
  
• If possible, try to get a classical-era Golden Age followed by a medieval-era Dark Age to exploit Monasticism's +75% science boost.
  
• Use the Police State and/or Crytography policy cards later in the game to keep Spies away.

Seondeok's Leader Ability: Hwarang

Pingala offers a +15% science and culture boost, but thanks to Seondeok I'm getting +18% instead. A fully-promoted Pingala would offer +33%!

Though a relatively small bonus, Seondeok's leader ability helps to build upon the huge science output Seowons offer while also helping your culture to not fall too far behind.

This bonus is scaled to how many governor titles you can get. You can obtain governor titles from the following civics:

• Early Empire (Ancient)
  
• State Workforce (Ancient)
  
• Defensive Tactics (Classical)
  
• Recorded History (Classical)
  
• Medieval Faires (Medieval)
  
• Guilds (Medieval)
  
• Civil Engineering (Industrial)
  
• Nationalism (Industrial)
  
• Mass Media (Modern)
  
• Mobilisation (Modern)
  
• Globalisation (Information)
  
• Social Media (Information)
  
• Future Civic (Information)

You can also gain governor titles from:

• Building a Government Complex
  
• Building any Government Complex building (up to a total of 3 titles)
  
• The medieval Great Merchant Irene of Athens
  
• The renaissance-era Casa de Contratación wonder (grants three titles)
  
• The industrial Great Merchant Adam Smith

You can reliably get six governor titles by the end of the classical era by having a tier 1 Government Complex building along with the Defensive Tactics and Recorded History civics. That's enough to have a fully-promoted governor in one city for a +18% culture and science bonus, or perhaps +9% culture and science in two cities.

Using Governors

Consider carefully where each governor should be positioned. The science/culture bonuses won't apply while they're being relocated, so you'll generally want to keep them put once you assign them.

If you want to concentrate your governors in a small number of cities, look out for cities with a high quantity of hills surrounding their Seowons. Via Korea's civ ability, they'll have a high base science yield and hence stand to gain the most from a large multiplier.

If instead you want to spread out the governors among a range of cities, consider the following notes on each governor type:

Amani, the Diplomat

Amani is mostly useful placed in city-state, though she can also be reasonable at reinforcing your own loyalty and spreading it to rival cities. For the sake of maximising culture and science, though, she'll usually be one of the last governors you'll want to recruit.

Liang, the Surveyor

A great choice for your second or third governor as Korea. The extra Builder charge is immediately useful.

Magnus, the Steward

Another great early choice, dependent on your starting terrain. Initially, you'll want to place him in a woods or rainforest-heavy city to exploit the extra production and food from cutting them down. Around the time factories arrive, move him to the middle of your empire so you can make the most of the powerful Vertical Integration ability.

Moksha, the Cardinal

Most of these advantages are based on the religious game, which Korea isn't particularly strong at. As such, he should be one of the last governors appointed, assuming you still have a city without a governor by that point.

Pingala, the Educator

An immediate boost to culture and science combined with Seondeok's leader ability makes Pingala an ideal first or second choice. Along with Magnus, he's one of the best candidates for promoting when playing as Korea.

Reyna, the Financier

Faster tile accumulation is one of the weaker starting bonuses available, though Reyna does come with some decent promotions. As such, she should probably come in your second half of recruited governors as Korea.

Victor, the Castellan

A purely defensive governor based around making a city a tough target. If you have an aggressive neighbour, recruiting him early might not be a bad idea. Additionally, he only takes three turns to establish in a city rather than the usual five, so you'll get your science and culture slightly sooner.

Beware of Spies!

Just as the Seowon is vulnerable to Spies, so too is Seondeok's leader ability. Enemy Spies in your city centres can disable Governors for a few turns, denying you precious culture and science. Use Spies as counter-spies on your city centres or adjacent tiles and make use of policy cards that boost your defensive espionage abilities to help keep your opponents weak.

Conclusion

Seondeok's leader ability, like Korea's civ ability and the Seowon district, is a simple one. Look out for governor promotions, don't spread your empire too thin, protect your city centres from spies and enjoy a culture and science boost.

Unique Unit: Hwacha

If your high science output is starting to make neighbours nervous, they may be tempted to start a war. The Hwacha is a strong enough defensive unit to convince them otherwise. Its mobility is poor, making it hard to use in offensive campaigns, but it has a good amount of firepower at an affordable price meaning you don't need to build masses to make your opponents think again about invading you.

Hwacha arrive at the renaissance-era Gunpowder technology, but Korea's science output is so strong you can get hold of them long before the renaissance game era begins. Hwacha can still perform well even into the modern era, so building a few of them (or upgrading Archers/Crossbowmen to them) as soon as possible allows you to neglect further military development for quite some time. That frees up production for other uses, such as building Universities or training Spies.

Position Hwacha in cities, Encampments, on hills and behind lakes to keep them safe from counter-attacks. Their defensive strength isn't terrible, but you'll still want to ensure they take as little damage as possible.

Hwacha corps and armies have enough firepower to see them through to the atomic era, assuming you can keep them safe from counter-attacks. Due to their superior range relative to Machine Guns, you might as well keep them around to fortify cities if nothing else.

Administration - Government, Policy Cards and Ages

Note that the Administration sections strictly cover the options that have particularly good synergy with the civ's uniques. These are not necessarily the best choices, but rather options you should consider more than usual if playing this civ relative to others.

Government

Tier One

Classical Republic is a reliably good government choice which supports your early science expansion.

The Audience Chamber makes an ideal complement to Seondeok's leader ability and the food from Korea's civ ability, letting you grow your Governor-boosted cities even further.

Tier Two

Merchant Republic offers a good assortment of policy cards, and its bonus gold for cities with Governors also fits well with Seondeok's leader ability.

The Intelligence Agency is probably your best choice of government building. More and better Spies will help you keep other civs from stealing your eurekas or disabling your Governors.

Tier Three

Democracy goes well with the extra food Korea's civ ability creates, and has a suitable array of policy cards. Alternatively, if you want to focus more heavily on production (which should help with space project parts) Communism may also be effective.

The Royal Society is the best choice of government building. Letting you use Builders to help rush space project parts compensates for Korea's lack of production bonuses.

Policy Cards

Note that Dark Age and legacy policy cards are not included in this section.

Classical Era

Insulae (Economic, requires Games and Recreation) - All the food from Korea's civ ability needs to be accompanied with extra housing if you want your cities to really become strong.

Natural Philosophy (Economic, requires Recorded History) - All Seowons now contribute +8 science per turn. Unless you've placed a district next to one. That'll help you zoom through technologies and build quite a considerable lead.

Medieval Era

Feudal Contract (Military, requires Feudalism) - Want to build Hwacha faster? You'll need this policy card.

Medina Quarter (Economic, requires Medieval Faires) - More housing to go with your Seowon-adjacent-farm-food.

Professional Army (Military, requires Mercenaries) - If you've made use of Archers to kill Barbarians and gain era score early on, then this policy card will make upgrading them to Hwacha much cheaper.

Renaissance Era

Logistics (Military, requires Mercantilism) - Hwacha aren't very mobile, so the extra movement provided from this movement will really help in defensive wars.

Machiavellianism (Diplomatic, requires Diplomatic Service) - Faster Spy training helps you to cover your vulnerability to Spies.

Rationalism (Economic, requires The Enlightenment) - Meeting both requirements for this policy card's full effect is really easy as Korea, granting you an enormous boost to your science output.

Modern Era

Five Year Plan (Economic, requires Class Struggle) - An upgraded version of Natural Philosophy, which also makes your Industrial Zones stronger.

New Deal (Economic, requires Suffrage) - Though the gold cost can be quite notable, getting extra housing and amenities will help you make the most of the food from the civ ability.

Police State (Diplomatic, requires Ideology) - The loyalty penalty from this policy card is easily manageable when you've got governors in all your cities. By weakening enemy Spies, you can keep your eurekas from being stolen, your Industrial Zones and Spaceports from being sabotaged and your governors from being disabled.

Atomic Era

Cryptography (Diplomatic, requires Cold War) - Like Police State, this works to reduce the effectiveness of enemy Spies, keeping your scientific advantages secure.

Integrated Space Cell (Military, requires Space Race) - Korea's strong at science but lacks production advantages for building space project parts. Cover the weakness with this.

Age Bonuses

Only bonuses with notable synergy with the civ's uniques are covered here.

Free Inquiry (Golden Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - Stronger eurekas nicely complement your high early science output.

Monasticism (Dark Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - Adds +75% onto an already impressive science output at the cost of needing to build Holy Sites and losing 25% of your culture output.

Pen, Brush and Voice (Golden Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - Helping your culture to catch up to your science will make it easier to get certain eurekas, and more importantly, get to the powerful Rationalism policy card.

Heartbeat of Steam (Golden Age, Industrial to Modern eras) - Let all your Seowons produce vast quantities of production.

Robber Barons (Dark Age, Industrial to Information eras) - Though it does come at the cost of amenities, this provides a much-needed source of late-game production for Korea to help with space projects or building things to trigger eureka boosts with.

Sky and Stars (Golden Age, Atomic to Information eras) - Korea's breakneck research speed can make it difficult to pick up eurekas, so getting some for free will help cut a few turns off researching parts for space projects.

Administration - Religion and City-States

Pantheons

Divine Spark - Got a lot of Seowons? Now enjoy a lot of Great Scientists as well.

God of Craftsmen - This is a bit of a gamble considering strategic resources that can be mined don't turn up immediately at the start of the game, but it can reward you with very productive mines, especially when adjacent to Seowons for the extra science bonus. That can make up for Korea's lack of production bonuses.

Lady of the Reeds and Marshes - A Seowon adjacent to floodplains could create some very impressive farms.

Religious Beliefs

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

Jesuit Education (Follower) - Save yourself the trouble of building Seowon buildings when you can simply buy them. This is particularly effective if you were using the Monasticism Dark Age policy card and needed to build a lot of Holy Sites for the science boost.

Pagoda (Worship) - More housing helps you use the extra food from Korea's civ ability.

Religious Community (Follower) - Even more housing.

Work Ethic (Follower) - Korea is encouraged to build a tall empire, which makes it easier to use the production bonus on offer here.

City-States

Geneva (Scientific) - Offers a 15% science boost. Because obviously your science output isn't high enough already.

Palenque (Scientific) - Cities with a Seowon (which will generally mean all of them) will grow faster, making good use of the extra food from Seowon-adjacent farms. Requires the Vikings scenario pack.

Stockholm (Scientific) - Get even more Great Scientist Points out of your Seowons.

Administration - Wonders and Great People

Wonders

Hanging Gardens (Ancient era, Irrigation technology) - Make the most of your Seowon-adjacent-farm-food.

Temple of Artemis (Ancient era, Archery technology) - Want to grow an even bigger city? Here's an option for you.

Great Library (Classical era, Recorded History civic) - The main draw for Korea is the free random eureka boosts whenever another civ recruits a Great Scientist. Civs like Korea with high science outputs are usually kept in check by the difficulty of obtaining eureka boosts, but this will help you circumvent that problem.

Petra (Classical era, Mathematics technology) - A risk and a half, but highly rewarding if you can find an area with a lot of desert hills. Desert hill mines with Petra and boosted by a Seowon are incredibly powerful.

Casa de Contratación (Renaissance era, Cartography technology) - Every governor promotion you can get will make Seondeok's leader ability stronger, and this wonder adds three.

Oxford University (Industrial era, Scientific Theory technology) - Magnify your already-impressive science output in a city.

Ruhr Valley (Industrial era, Scientific Theory technology) - Extra production from mines makes already good tiles even stronger, and helps prepare you for building space project parts.

Great People

Classical Era

Euclid (Great Scientist) - Eurekas can be hard to obtain when you're researching very quickly. Euclid is the one of the first of several Great People to offer free eurekas, helping to ensure you research as fast as you can.

Hypatia (Great Scientist) - All Libraries permanently produce extra science, and thanks to your UD, you should have plenty. Combine with the Rationalism policy card for even more.

Medieval Era

Abu Al-Qasim Al-Zahrawi (Great Scientist) - Gain a free random medieval/renaissance eureka.

Irene of Athens (Great Merchant) - Adds an extra governor title, or, in other words, +3% science and culture for one city.

Omar Khayyam (Great Scientist) - Two eurekas and an inspiration.

Renaissance Era

Emile du Chatelet (Great Scientist) - Three renaissance/industrial eurekas.

Isaac Newton (Great Scientist) - Permanently stronger Universities. This goes great with the Rationalism policy card.

Leonardo da Vinci (Great Engineer) - A random modern-era eureka. Also makes Workshops provide culture, which is helpful for ensuring your civics can keep up with your technologies.

Industrial Era

Ada Lovelace (Great Engineer) - Lets you get the Computers eureka without needing to get to a tier 3 government first, saving a little time when researching necessary space technologies.

Adam Smith (Great Merchant) - Adds an extra governor title.

Dmitri Mendeleev (Great Scientist) - Get two free eurekas.

James Watt (Great Engineer) - Permanently make Factories stronger, helping you build up the production base you need to handle building Spaceports and developing space projects.

Modern Era

Alan Turing (Great Scientist) - Get two free eurekas.

Albert Einstein (Great Scientist) - A free eureka and permanently stronger Universities.

Alfred Nobel (Great Scientist) - Get a free eureka.

Nikola Tesla (Great Engineer) - Extra production for Factories and Power Plants to help you develop those space projects.

Robert Goddard (Great Engineer) - Produce space projects faster and get the Rocketry Eureka.

Atomic Era

Erwin Schrodinger (Great Scientist) - Gain three Eurekas.

Grace Hopper (Great Admiral) - Gain a Eureka.

Jane Drew (Great Engineer) - A good food yield doesn't mean a lot without housing and amenities to keep up with it. Jane Drew is one of multiple Great Engineers who can offer you both housing and amenities.

John Roebling (Great Engineer) - More housing and amenities.

Sergei Korolev (Great Engineer) - Who needs to worry about scraping together some late-game production for space projects when you can use a Great Engineer to skip through the process?

Information Era

Abdus Salam (Great Scientist) - Not done with research yet? Abdus Salam grants you all information-era boosts so you'll be done in no time.

Carl Sagan (Great Scientist) - Lets you build a space project part for essentially no production cost.

Stephanie Kwolek (Great Scientist) - Cut down the costs of remaining space projects.

Wernher Von Braun (Great Engineer) - Also can rush a space project.

Counter-Strategies

Korea has a huge science output, but has few strengths that are not derived from that.

Civilization Ability: Three Kingdoms

Korea is highly encouraged to develop around their Seowons. This creates a cluster of tile improvements which are practically begging to be pillaged. Mines and the Seowon district itself are worth 25 science each (for Seowons, you can pillage them multiple times for each building), while farms heal your pillaging unit up by 50 health.

Seondeok's Leader Ability: Hwarang

The big problem with Seondeok's leader ability is its dependency on Governors. Not only does it mean Korea needs to keep a small empire if they want the most efficient use of this bonus, but it's also vulnerable to Spies. Spies can disable Governors for a few turns when operating in a city centre.

The bonus is also disabled for some cities while Korea moves around Governors. If your diplomatic visibility with Korea is high enough, you can see where their Governors are. If Korea has a religion, you may be able to encourage Seondeok to move Moksha (The Cardinal) by putting religious pressure on their other cities. Alternatively, declaring war might encourage her to move Victor (The Castellan) to wherever your angle of attack is.

Seondeok's Agenda: Cheomseongdae

An AI-controlled Seondeok likes civs with high science outputs and dislikes those with low science. This is similar to, albeit more narrow than, the agenda of Peter (of Russia).

Fellow scientific civs shouldn't have too much trouble here, and a domination civ determined to keep up to date might be able to make up for some diplomatic penalties from warmongering, but religious civs might struggle here.

Unique Unit: Hwacha

Hwacha can make Korea a pain to invade once they're on to renaissance-era technology (to see where they're at, open up the technology tree and look for Seondeok's icon at the bottom). Thankfully, their lack of mobility means they won't be too hard to handle if you're in a defensive war (try swarming them with Knights, or attacking them from the coast with Frigates).

If you intend to attack Korea, it'll be easiest to do so earlier in the game. By the modern era, you have units strong enough for Hwacha not to be so much of a problem, but Korea's huge science output might make their army tough to defeat.

Need to attack Korea while Hwacha are at their full power? Knights are mobile enough to be able to catch them without being first hit, and can then hopefully retreat to safety. For coastal areas, Frigates will be great as standard ranged units have a -17 strength penalty against naval units. Finally, Musketmen with the Tortoise promotion can resist Hwacha attacks reasonably well.

Unique District: Seowon

If Korea places districts next to Seowons, they become weaker. If Korea's expansion is constrained, and they have to settle cities closer together, it's more likely that they'll have to do this. Pushing Korea into settling coastal cities isn't a bad idea - not only will they have less land spare before they have to squeeze in districts, but they'll also leave more of their coastline exposed to Frigates and other naval ranged units that Hwacha can't easily handle.

Seowons also have the problem that they have to be constructed on a hill, which means Korea will want to avoid settling in wide open spaces. By taking the hillier spots first, you'll force them to either take an inferior city spot or leave it for you.

But assuming Korea gets the good city spots and builds Seowons perfectly, they have yet another flaw - they're really vulnerable to Spies. Normally, Counter-Spies protect their district and all adjacent ones. For Korea, Spies dedicated to their Seowons will only protect them. They won't be able to protect all their Seowons, City Centres, Industrial Zones and Spaceports with the few Spies they have. Go ahead and steal some eureka boosts, disable their governors and sabotage their space race infrastructure.

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Rise and Fall

These guides are for those with the Rise and Fall expansion, but not Gathering Storm.

Compilation Guides

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Vanilla

The Vanilla guides are for those without the Rise and Fall or Gathering Storm expansions. These guides are no longer updated. You can find these by scrolling to the top of this page, clicking "Zigzagzigal's Guides" and looking near the end of the list of guides. The "Other Guides" section of every Vanilla guide has links to every other Vanilla guide.

[nanimo]

Hey, I think there's an error - at one point you say you need the Humanism civic to unlock rationalism, whilst at another The Enlightenment civic, the latter being correct.

[Starkman Jones]

Crap. Didnt notice.

[Zigzagzigal]

It's there; it's listed as "The renaissance-era Casa de Contratación wonder"

[Starkman Jones]

You mention the Casa De Contrarion as a good wonder for Korea to build due to it granting 3 governor titles. But in the Hwarang section; you dont mention it as a way to get governor titles.

[Zigzagzigal]

Key changes for Korea from the 11 May 2018 update:

- Seondeok's Leader Ability has been overhauled. It's generally weaker than before, especially early on, but no longer pushes you to have a wide range of governors. You can go for a wide range of them instead if you like.

- Monasticism has been nerfed to a +75% science boost, down from +100%.

[awase149]

Nice guide!! You put a lot of work into it. Thanks!

[Zigzagzigal]

Ooh, that latter point's a particularly interesting one. It seems akin to how pastures gain production from adjacent Outback Stations (with Steam Power) even if you're not Australia.

[paulski66]

Nice guide as always, zzz. Thanks for your ongoing efforts.

A couple of nuances, probably related, that I noticed in my one playthrough as Korea:

1) When you capture a city with a campus, the campus is automatically converted to a Seoweon, regardless of whether it meets the placement requirements of a Seowon. In other words, even if it's built on flat grasslands, the campus is converted. I half-expected such campuses to be destroyed/cleared upon capturing the city (like unique improvements are when you capture a city). Nope.

2) The Three Kingdoms bonus does *not* require Seowons to be active. If your civ borders another civ, and that other civ has built a campus on the border-tile between your two civs, then any mines or farms you build adjacent to their campus will still receive the Three Kingdoms bonus (bonus to science/food on the improved tile that is being worked). I was a little surprised to see this.

Anyway, keep up the great work...

[Zigzagzigal]

The main problem with the Amundsen-Scott wonder is that it has to be constructed in a sub-optimal city that nonetheless is established enough to have a decent production output. A civ like Korea that emphasises a relatively low number of strong cities does not have a playstyle that suits that wonder especially well.

Furthermore, because it arrives on the civics tree and Korea has a significantly better science output relative to culture, by the time it becomes available you won't get much out of it.

[Robijn Wasverzachter]

Great guide as always, thanks to you i was able to absolutely crush my friends in the game ;)

(p.s. wouldn't the new Amundsen-Scott Research Station be a great wonder for Korea, especially because it has a tier 3 bias towards tundra hills?)