Zigzagzigal's Guides - Georgia (R&F)

Georgia can push for continuous Golden Ages while tying religion and city-state diplomacy together. Here, I detail Georgian 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This guide is no longer updated, but will remain for the sake of those without the Gathering Storm expansion.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.

God's work stops for no-one. Not the hordes who assault my kingdom, not for the drunkards who fight without thought and not for ignoble nobles who know nothing of governing a nation. As you take the burden of the crown and arise as the new defender of Georgia, know that faith and determination shall overpower the sinners of the world.

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

Georgia has no start bias.

Civilization Ability: Strength in Unity

• Golden and Heroic Age dedications also provide their normal age era score bonuses.
  
• +50% production when building Ancient Walls, Medieval Walls and Tsikhe buildings.

Tamar's Leader Ability: Glory of the World, Kingdom and Faith

• Whenever you gain an envoy in a city-state following your founded majority religion, gain an additional envoy.
  
  • This does not affect Amani (the Diplomat)'s +2 envoy boost when present in a city-state.
    
  • This takes effect after the effect of the Religious Unity founder belief, so it will always create two envoys instead of one.
    
  • Sending your first envoy to a city-state with your religion present while you have the Diplomatic League or Containment policy card active will only grant three envoys, not four.
• Declaring a Protectorate war grants 10 turns of +100% faith in all cities.
  
  • This does not affect faith that is applied at the empire level, such as the Pilgrimage founder belief.

Unique Unit: Khevsur

A medieval-era melee infantry unit which does not replace anything

Research	Obsoletion	Upgrades from	Upgrades to	Cost	Maintenance	Resource needed
Military Tactics Technology Medieval era	Gunpowder ** Technology Renaissance era	None	Musketman (100 )	160 or 640 or 320 *	3	None

*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.

**If you lack access to nitre, you may continue to build Khevsur units even beyond the Gunpowder technology.

Strength	Ranged Strength	Moves	Range	Sight	Negative Attributes	Positive Attributes
45	N/A	2	N/A	2	None	+10 strength vs. anti-mounted units +7 strength when attacking into or defending on hill tiles Ignores extra movement cost of hill tiles

Notable features

• Does not require resources to build
  
• Has 45 strength, 9 more than classical-era Swordsmen and 10 less than renaissance-era Musketmen
  
• +7 strength when attacking into or defending on hill tiles
  
• Hill tiles cost 1 movement point to enter instead of 2.

Unique Building: Tsikhe

A renaissance-era City Centre building which replaces the Renaissance Walls

Research	Prerequisites	Required to build	Cost	Maintenance	Pillage yield
Siege Tactics Technology Renaissance era Cannot be built with: Steel Technology Modern era	Ancient Walls Medieval Walls	None	265 or 530 *	None	None

*Purchasing City Centre buildings with faith requires you to be suzerain over the Valletta city-state. This does not take into account Valletta's 30% discount for faith-purchasing walls.

Fixed yields	Other yields	Citizen slots	Great Person points	Miscellaneous effects
3 3 *	None	None	None	Adds 50 health to city outer defences until the modern-era Steel technology is unlocked

*Requires the modern-era Conservation civic.

Positive changes

• Costs 265 production/530 faith, down from 305/610 respectively (-13%)
  
• Provides 3 faith per turn

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
Tamar	6/10 (Decent)	7/10 (Good)	9/10 (Ideal)	5/10 (Decent)

Georgia can make a reasonable stab at cultural victories. Faith can contribute to tourism via Naturalists and National Parks, while extra envoys in city-states may help with science, culture and wonder production. Building wonders is one of the best sources of era score, which feeds back into strong Golden Age bonuses.

Domination is a little more effective, thanks to Georgia's unique unit. While not especially strong by itself, you can add the Oligarchy government and its legacy card to make it almost up to Musketman levels of strength. Extra envoys in city-states also makes it easy to become suzerain of a city-state with a large army and levy its units. Alternatively, with the Grand Master's Chapel building, you can purchase units with faith - powerful in conjunction with the +100% faith boost from the first ten turns of protectorate wars.

Religion is the strongest victory route for Georgia. The UB offers a little bit of faith, but it's Tamar's leader ability that can really provide you masses of it - both via extra envoys in religious city-states and +100% faith for the first 10 turns of protectorate wars. There are a couple of catches, however - Georgia has no direct advantage to founding a religion, and starting wars puts your religious units at serious risk.

Finally, Georgia can make an okay stab at scientific victories. The Jesuit Education belief allows faith to be spent to purchase Campus buildings, but more to the point, Georgia's extra envoys can help you gain more science out of scientific city-states.

Tamar's Leader Ability: Glory of the World, Kingdom and Faith (Part 1/2)

Just one envoy sent gives you two when the city is of your faith - meaning it's easy to flip back city-states to your control when the envoy race gets competitive.

This complex and potentially powerful ability ties together the faith and city-state games, and so long as you can keep city-states safe from harm, you could potentially receive enormous bonuses.

To make use of it at all, you'll need to secure a religion. As Georgia has no direct advantages to founding a religion, you'll need to build Holy Sites pretty early on. Try to expand towards mountainous areas - aside from offering strong Holy Site adjacency bonuses, you'll also be able to defend those cities effectively later on.

Double envoys in converted city-states

The more consistently powerful part of the leader ability lets your envoys stretch much further than they would for other civs, letting you become suzerain over far more city-states than practically anyone else. For the sake of efficiency, unless city-states have particularly important bonuses you need as soon as possible, avoid spending envoys in city-states you haven't converted. If you're already suzerain over all the city-states you've converted, just hang onto those envoys until you convert another city-state or someone wins the city-state off you.

For a list of the city-state suzerain bonuses most relevant to Georgia (and therefore some of the city-states you'll want to favour the most), head to the Administration section of this guide.

As for envoy bonuses, those from religious city-states are generally the most relevant, but otherwise it largely depends on what you need at the time. If in doubt, scientific and industrial city-state envoy bonuses are almost always useful. Keep in mind that the 3 and 6 envoy bonuses require you to build corresponding buildings to make use of the bonus.

Here's all the methods of obtaining envoys:

• The Religious Unity founder belief provides Georgia with +2 envoys in a city-state when they convert one to their religion.
  
• Some government options help accumulate them over time (the Monarchy government and the Charismatic Leader, Diplomatic League, Gunboat Diplomacy and Containment policy cards).
  
• Certain civics grant you envoys directly when unlocked - usually civics that are off the main research path.
  
• The classical-era Apadana wonder offers two envoys, plus two more for every wonder built in the same city - considering wonder construction is a great way of gaining era score, it's a good fit for the Georgian civ ability. Note: to build the Apadana wonder you require the Persia and Macedon Civilization and Scenario Pack.
  
• Some Great People grant envoys when used - see the Administration section of the guide for more details.
  
• Amani (the Diplomat) grants 2 envoys in a city-state she is present in. This, however, is not doubled by Tamar's leader ability. If promoted enough, Amani also doubles the number of envoys you have present in a city-state.
  
• Liberating a captured city-state puts you at 3 envoys if you liberate it in the medieval era or earlier, 6 envoys if it's between the renaissance and industrial eras, or 9 envoys in the modern era or later.

Be warned that enemy Spies can remove some of your envoys via the Fabricate Scandal mission. Of course, you can use that mission yourself to set back everyone else.

Having lots of envoy bonuses and city-state allies is useful for boosting all kinds of yields, but it also helps provide a handy defensive advantage - when you go to war, all your suzerain city-states will join you, and with a bit of cash you can take control of all their military units for 30 turns.

If civs get wise to this, and start declaring war on your suzerain city-states directly to avoid going to war with you, that's where the next bonus kicks in...

Tamar's Leader Ability: Glory of the World, Kingdom and Faith (Part 2/2)

+100% faith for the first 10 turns of protectorate wars

64 faith per turn from a single city ain't bad.

if you have the classical-era Defensive Tactics civic and someone directly declares war on one of the city-states you're suzerain of, you'll have access to the Protectorate casus belli against them. If it doesn't appear lit up on the casus belli options in the diplomacy screen, simply denounce the civ and the option will be immediately available. Declaring a protectorate war comes with no warmonger penalties, so you don't need to worry about losing friends or suffering harsh war weariness.

For Georgia, declaring a Protectorate war grants 10 turns of +100% faith in all cities. This can help you purchase worship buildings to push up your faith output even higher, purchase military units via the Grand Master's Chapel building or simply to buy more religious units. Be warned, however, that warfare and religious gameplay often doesn't mesh well together - enemy units can pillage your religious units, destroying them and lowering your religious pressure in a certain radius. Still, you can get around that if you simply keep your religious units a fair distance away from enemies.

If the war goes well and the other civ withdraws from the city-state, you can declare peace as soon as the faith bonus wears off, seeing as the amount of time the bonus lasts for is the same as the number of turns needed before you can declare peace.

If, however, your city-state gets conquered, not all is lost. It'll most likely trigger a city-state emergency. You'll have 30 turns to liberate the city-state, a reward if you do so and a few other effects as well:

• All members of the coalition will have open borders and shared visibility with each other, and cannot declare war on each other during the course of the emergency.
  
• The captured city-state will be fixed at full loyalty for the course of the emergency.

If you successfully liberate the city, all members of the coalition will gain a lump sum of gold (the fewer members, the more gold each civ will get) and +1 gold per turn for each envoy they have present at a city-state - rather powerful for Georgia. If the target civ wins, they'll gain +2 gold per turn for every trade route they send to a city-state, and a lump sum of gold.

Ultimately, protectorate wars can be pretty rewarding - you'll get the faith no matter what, and if you can't save the city-state from capture, you've got the opportunity to get a lot of gold from an emergency reward.

Further Reading: Tamar of Georgia and Civilization VI

Tamar (and Georgia)'s inclusion in Rise and Fall might be a surprise to players who were unfamiliar with developments in the Civ community prior to the release of Civ 6, considering Georgia has never featured in a Civ game before.

Between Civ 6's announcement and its release, the civs that would be featured in the base game were introduced - generally on a weekly basis - in a series of First Look videos. Occasionally different videos were released to explain elements of the game's development, and one of those videos included a blurry poster in the background. This poster appeared to showcase the leaders that would feature in Civ 6's base game, and as more First Look videos were released, it confirmed that the poster was accurately showing which leaders (and therefore which civs) would be in the game.

Deciphering the poster wasn't easy for the Civ community. The blurry resolution meant that it was necessary to find historical images that roughly corresponded to its shape. Some were easy enough to find, but some proved elusive. One in particular was mis-identified as representing Tamar of Georgia.

As more First Look videos were released, the idea that the next one would showcase Tamar of Georgia became an in-joke, particularly in the CivFanatics forums. This extended even past the release of the game once First Look videos were released for DLC civs, slowly morphing into an increasingly popular desire to see Georgia in the game, and ultimately culminated in Tamar and Georgia actually featuring in Rise and Fall.

Conclusion

Tamar's leader ability pushes you to tie together religion and city-states. You may have to spare a couple of Missionaries more than the typical religious civ for the full advantage, but faith from protectorate wars and suzerain or envoy bonuses from city-states will help make up for that.

Civilization Ability: Strength in Unity (Part 1/2)

Georgia's civ ability is a tricky one to use well - misjudge era score just slightly and you can end up with no benefit from it for at least 30 turns. Smart use of it allows you to enter Golden Ages you would otherwise have no business entering.

Dark, Normal, Golden and Heroic Ages

The game is divided into eight game eras: ancient, classical, medieval, renaissance, industrial, modern, atomic and information. These last between 40 and 60 turns depending on the rate at which civs research technologies and civics.

Many different actions gain era score, which will be elaborated on later. The amount you obtain during an era determines your status in the next era:

• Gaining less than 12 will cause you to enter a Dark Age.
  
• Gaining between 12 and 23 will cause you to enter a Normal Age.
  
• Gaining 24 or more will cause you to enter a Golden Age. If you are currently in a Dark Age, you will enter a Heroic Age in the next era instead.
  
• Every previous time you have entered a Dark Age, these era score thresholds will be reduced by 5.
  
• Every previous time you have entered a Golden or Heroic age, these era score thresholds will be increased by 5.

The four different types of ages have distinct effects:

Dark Ages cause your citizens to provide half as much loyalty as normal, which can cause border cities to become disloyal, and it becomes much trickier to hold onto conquests. However, you also have access to Dark Age policy cards. These go in a wildcard slot and provide significant benefits but also significant drawbacks. To help you get out of a Dark Age, you may choose one of four dedications, which grants you bonus era score from certain actions. The selection of possible dedications varies every era.

Normal Ages have nothing particularly special about them. Like Dark Ages, you may choose one of four dedications for bonus era score.

Golden Ages cause your citizens to provide 50% more loyalty than normal, making it much easier to resist enemy loyalty pressures. More importantly, you get access to a choice of one of four Golden Age dedication bonuses, which offer some powerful advantages for the rest of the era. However, the dedications in a Golden Age do not provide era score, making it harder to avoid a Dark Age in the following era.

Heroic Ages are identical to Golden Ages, except they let you choose three dedication bonuses instead of just one.

Georgia's civ ability makes a notable change to the typical rules - Golden and Heroic Age dedication bonuses provide extra era score as well as direct advantages. The main effect of this is it makes it much easier to follow up Golden or Heroic Ages with another Golden Age, but it does come with the drawback that Normal Ages are pretty useless for Georgia. Unless you're out conquering and need the loyalty boost, it's often better to get a Dark Age than a Normal Age.

Era Score

So, we've established that Georgia needs plenty of era score to make the most of their civ ability, and now we need to consider where era score comes from. There's too many sources to list them all, but most of them are one-off boosts. Here are the key repeatable methods:

City-States

• Being the first suzerain of a city-state prior to the renaissance game era grants +2 era score.
  
• Cancelling another civ's levied units by equalling or exceeding their envoys present in the corresponding city-state grants +2 era score.
  
• Dragging a city-state out of a war by equalling or exceeding their suzerain's envoys grants +2 era score.

Warfare

• Destroying a Barbarian Encampment prior to the renaissance game era offers +2 era score, and an extra 1 if it's within six tiles of one of your cities. This is one of the best (and easiest) sources of era score early on.
  
• Killing an enemy unit with a unit with a Great Admiral or General attached gains +2 era score. This can only be done once per Great Admiral or General you have.
  
• Killing a corps or army with a unit gains +1 era score.
  
• Killing a unit with at least two more promotions than your own grants +3 era score.
  
• Converting a city of another civ to your faith while you're at war with them adds +3 era score.
  
• Reconquering a city adds +2 era score, though you probably don't want to rely on this.
  
• Taking the capital of a civ adds +4 era score.
  
• Eliminating a civ adds +5 era score.

Other

• Uncovering a tribal village in the ancient game era offers +1 era score.
  
• Earning a Great Person adds +1 era score, increasing to +3 if you earned it via faith or gold patronage in a way that represented more than 50% of the progress needed to unlock it.
  
• Each wonder built offers +3 era score, and an extra 1 if it corresponds to the present game era or later.
  
• Creating a national park adds +2 era score each time.
  
• Flipping a free city to your civ adds +2 era score.
  
• Winning an emergency as a coalition member prior to the atomic game era grants +3 era score.
  
• Winning an emergency as the target, regardless of era, grants +4 era score.

Of special interest to Georgia is the ability to get +3 era score every time you convert a city of a civ you're currently at war with, considering the huge faith bonus from protectorate wars. Keep religious units escorted with military units so they can't be pillaged, and you should be able to get quite a lot of era score that way!

Constructing wonders is also a reliably good source of era score, which goes nicely in conjunction with the Divine Inspiration belief for extra faith. The renaissance-era Taj Mahal wonder, available at Humanism, is of particular note - it makes anything that grants 2+ era score grant an additional 1 point.

Out of the one-off bonuses, it's worth noting that training your first Khevsur or building your first Tsikhe will grant +4 era score each.

Civilization Ability: Strength in Unity (Part 2/2)

Dedication Bonuses

Now that we know some good sources of era score, it's time to consider what can be done with it all. Each era has a set of four possible dedications, and as the game goes on some new ones become available to replace old ones. Here they all are:

Dedication Name	Era Score Bonus	Golden Age Bonus	Start Era	End Era
Free Inquiry	1 era score per eureka unlocked, 1 per science building built	Eurekas provide an additional 10% of science cost. Harbour and Commercial Hub adjacency adds to science.	Classical	Medieval
Pen, Brush and Voice	1 era score per inspiration, 1 per building with a Great Work slot	Inspirations provide an additional 10% of culture cost. All cities gain +1 culture per speciality district.	Classical	Medieval
Monumentality	1 era score per new speciality district	Builders gain +2 movement. May purchase civilian units with faith. Cost of purchasing Settlers and Builders (including via faith) reduced by 30%.	Classical	Renaissance
Exodus of the Evangelists	2 era score for converting a city for the first time	Missionaries, Apostles and Inquisitors get +2 movement and new ones get +2 charges. Gain +4 Great Prophet Points per turn.	Classical	Renaissance
Hic Sunt Dracones	Gain +3 era score per natural wonder or continent discovered. Gain +1 era score for killing a non-Barbarian naval unit.	Cities settled on a foreign continent gain +3 starting population, and +2 loyalty per turn. Naval and embarked units gain +2 movement.	Renaissance	Industrial
Reform the Coinage	Successfully completing a trade route grants +1 era score.	All traders are immune to pillaging. Gain +3 gold per speciality district at the destination from international trade routes.	Renaissance	Modern
Heartbeat of Steam	Gain +2 era score for each industrial-era or later building.	Gain +10% production towards industrial-era and later wonders. Campuses also add their adjacency bonus to production.	Industrial	Modern
To Arms!	Gain +1 era score for killing a non-Barbarian corps and +2 from killing a non-Barbarian army.	Gain +15% production towards military units. Also unlocks a special casus belli that reduces warmonger penalties by 75% relative to a formal war and can be used immediately after denouncing a foe.	Industrial	Information
Wish You Were Here	Gain +1 era score per artefact excavated.	National Park tourism doubled. Cities with governors gain +50% tourism from world wonders.	Modern	Information
Bodyguard of Lies	Gain +1 era score per successful Spy operation.	Spies take no time to establish themselves in an enemy city. Offensive Spy operations take 25% less time.	Atomic	Information
Sky and Stars	Gain +1 era score per Aerodrome building constructed and Great Person gained.	Air units gain +100% experience. Gain 3-4 eurekas (Atomic era: Advanced Flight, Nuclear Fission, Rocketry. Information era: Satellites, Robotics, Nuclear Fusion, Nanotechnology)	Atomic	Information

Early on, Exodus of the Evangelists will be extremely useful for Georgia getting their religion off the ground, through Monumentality can be great as well if you can get an early protectorate war going; cheap Settlers purchased with faith can really help expand your empire. If you don't feel you can achieve a religious victory, the Wish You Were Here Golden Age bonus offers a very effective boost to help you convert your strong faith output into tourism.

Because of the rising era score thresholds for Golden Ages, you'll probably eventually need to enter a Dark Age at some point to lower it again. This also creates the possibility of a Heroic Age, so it's not a huge loss if done well. Here's a potential plan of action which ensures you get the most relevant Golden Age bonuses, without the difficulty of relying on a non-stop chain of them.

• Classical Era: Golden Age - Exodus of the Evangelists
  
• Medieval Era: Golden Age - Exodus of the Evangelists
  
• Renaissance Era: Golden Age - Exodus of the Evangelists
  
• Industrial Era: Dark Age - Reform the Coinage is probably the easiest dedication bonus for era score.
  
• Modern Era: Heroic Age - Wish You Were Here, Heartbeat of Steam, Reform the Coinage (replace the latter with To Arms! if you're likely to do a lot of combat)
  
• Atomic Era: Golden Age - Wish You Were Here
  
• Information Era: Golden Age - Wish You Were Here

Destroying a few Barbarian Encampments will help you get to the first few Golden Ages. The UU and UB will also help provide bonus era score to secure the renaissance-era Golden Age. The industrial era has the least relevant bonuses to a heavily faith-centric strategy, so it's a good time to concede a Dark Age. If you end up in the wrong kind of age, just continue this path as if that never happened.

An alternative approach is to concede a classical era Dark Age so you can get a Heroic Age going when the Khevsur UU is most relevant, and to make subsequent Golden Ages a bit easier to acquire. You'll probably unlock the Khevsur UU before the medieval game era, but you'll need time to train them up seeing as you can't upgrade anything to them.

+50% production towards defensive buildings

In addition to the main era score-granting bonus of the Georgian civ ability, there's also a helpful +50% production bonus to the three defensive buildings in the game: Ancient Walls, Medieval Walls and the Tsikhe UB. This neatly stacks with the Limes military policy card (classical era, requires Defensive Tactics) for a +150% boost.

While obviously helpful for getting your UB built sooner, it can also be handy for early defences. Ancient Walls can be built in approximately 33% less time relative to other civs (assuming no Limes policy card in both cases). If you both have the Limes policy card, this amounts to approximately 20% less time spent. That frees up more production for other uses, like defensive units.

Summary

• Avoid Normal Ages if possible.
  
• An easy, reliable way of gaining era score is to convert cities of civs you're at war with - combine this with your protectorate wars.
  
• Wonder building is another reasonable source of era score if you have enough spare production - combine it with the Divine Inspiration belief for extra faith.
  
• The Exodus of the Evangelists, Monumentality and Wish You Were Here Golden Age bonuses are the most directly relevant ones to Georgia's faith advantages.

Unique Unit: Khevsur

Splitting the difference between the mobility of Norwegian Berserkers and the strength of Japanese Samurai, Khevsurs offer a useful edge in medieval-era protectorate wars, destroying Barbarian Encampments and in defence.

Getting to Khevsurs requires the Military Tactics technology. You'll probably want to pick up Astrology, Archery and key Builder technologies like Irrigation first, but otherwise the sooner you have it the more effective the units can be. Making a detour to Bronze Working not only will help with the eureka boost for Military Tactics, but also let you build Battering Rams to complement your Khevsurs.

To make the most out of Khevsurs, you'll need the Oligarchy government and its legacy policy card for a combined +8 strength boost, making Khevsurs 5 points stronger than Knights. It'll also really help if you can get the Feudalism civic for the Feudal Contract policy card so you can train them faster.

In combat, Khevsurs should be keeping to hill tiles as much as possible for the +7 strength boost as well as the mobility advantage. Khevsurs with the Commando promotion or a classical/medieval era Great General are more mobile on hills than Knights can ever be, and will fight considerably more effectively.


Khevsurs are particularly useful in chokepoints between mountains. They can clear enemy units out the way as their attack bonus into hills is more than enough to cover the defensive terrain bonus, and they'll be extremely hard for enemies to remove from there.

Of course, you won't find hills everywhere. Some areas only have a few hills here and there, but Khevsurs can still be useful there. Fortifying a Khevsur on a hill can impose a zone of control that's hard for other civs to shift, letting you move around more vulnerable units behind it. Still, Charge-promoted Knights can be a problem - you may need a Pikeman or two to accompany your Khevsur-led army.

Once Musketmen come along, you'll want to upgrade most of your Khevsurs to Musketmen. Keeping one or two around for a bit longer can still be useful as their mobility on hills can secure you a good defensive spot before other enemy units can take it, or put a city under siege sooner. You can then switch out the Khevsur for a Musketman.

Unique Building: Tsikhe

The Tsikhe UB is pretty weak on the whole - it's only slightly cheaper than Renaissance Walls, a +3 faith bonus is small by the standards of most unique buildings that arrive this far into the game and it's the only UB that you'll become barred from building after a certain point (in this case, the Steel technology), but it has one great advantage - it's the only unique building that isn't tied to a specific district, so every city can build it.

This building comes available at the renaissance-era Siege Tactics technology, which is relatively easy to beeline once you're done with Military Tactics, Apprenticeship and whatever other technologies you feel you need. The Limes military policy card (available at the classical-era Defensive Tactics civic) grants a +100% production boost while building it as well as its prerequisite buildings, and Georgia's civ ability adds another +50%, so it can still be manageable in relatively small cities.

Getting +3 faith is the main unique advantage of this building, which can be doubled to +6 during the first 10 turns of a protectorate war. Building up the UB does have some other advantages, however:

• Renaissance Walls are rarely built by most civs, so civs generally aren't prepared to face a city that has them. It will be incredibly hard for other civs to take down your cities.
  
• The Monarchy government adds +1 housing per level of walls, so a city with a Tsikhe building will have a +3 housing advantage.
  
• The industrial-era Urbanisation civic offers the Military Research military policy card, which adds +2 science for each Tsikhe you have.
  
• The modern-era Conservation civic causes all wall types to add tourism, for a total of +6 for a city with a Tsikhe present.
  
  • This is rather useful if you can't secure a religious victory and instead want to emphasise a national park-based cultural victory using your strong faith output - though keep in mind that you need the Steel technology (which stops you being able to build your UB) for the Eiffel Tower wonder (which adds +2 appeal to all your civ's tiles, greatly boosting your tourism from national parks.)

Ultimately, this isn't an especially strong building, but it will complement Tamar's leader ability reasonably well thanks to the faith boost, and by not being tied to a specific district type, it gives you a bit more flexibility regarding which districts to build.

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

You'll want Oligarchy to enhance the power of your Khevsurs, though Classical Republic can be good as well if you need an extra edge to Great Prophet Points to help secure a religion.

The Ancestral Hall is probably the best tier one government building for Georgia seeing as faith output is largely scaled to the number of cities you have.

Tier Two

Monarchy complements both Tamar's leader ability and the UB well, though you'll probably want to later switch to Theocracy for the religious advantages.

The choice of tier two government building is fairly open. If you find yourself in offensive wars, the Grand Master's Chapel is a good choice. If you're in defensive wars, the Foreign Ministry makes raising a quick army out of your city-states affordable. If you find yourself rarely at war, the Intelligence Agency provides you an extra Spy you can use for the Fabricate Scandal mission.

Tier Three

Democracy is a reliable choice. Its high number of economic policy cards helps support the religious game, while the housing boost helps you transition from the housing boost Monarchy offers to walls.

The Royal Society lets you turn Builder charges into faith via the Holy Site Prayers project while the War Department helps with theological combat, but if you're switching to a faith-based cultural victory approach, the National History Museum may be more useful.

Policy Cards

Ancient Era

Corvée (Economic, requires State Workforce) - Building wonders is a great source of era score, though keep in mind Georgia's production will often be tied up in basic expansion and building Holy Sites.

Discipline (Military, requires Code of Laws) - One of the best ways of getting era score prior to the renaissance era is to destroy Barbarian encampments. This policy card helps you kill Barbarians faster.

Revelation (Wildcard, requires Mysticism) - Though this policy card is useful for any religious civ without a religion yet, it's even more important for Georgia. Unlike most religious civs, that can simply use their advantages for something else if they can't found a religion, the double envoy bonus Tamar offers only works if you can found a religion.

Classical Era

Charismatic Leader (Diplomatic, requires Political Philosophy) - Accumulate envoys at a faster rate.

Diplomatic League (Diplomatic, requires Political Philosophy) - If you have no envoys present in a city yet, and the city is converted to your religion, Tamar's leader ability combined with this policy card means the first envoy will be worth three.

Limes (Military, requires Defensive Tactics) - A crucial policy card if you want to get your UB built in a reasonable amount of time.

Scripture (Economic, requires Theology) - Though useful for any religious civ, Georgia's faith multiplier during protectorate wars makes this policy card even better than normal. A 3-adjacency Holy Site with this policy card and a protectorate war would offer 12 faith per turn for example.

Medieval Era

Feudal Contract (Military, requires Feudalism) - Helps you train Khevsurs faster.

Gothic Architecture (Economic, requires Divine Right) - Boosts medieval and renaissance-era wonder production. Once you're done training Khevsurs and building your UB, you should have much more production spare. Building wonders will help you keep your era score high, ensuring you can chain together those Golden Ages.

Merchant Confederation (Diplomatic, requires Medieval Faires) - Georgia can end up with nearly twice as many envoys as most other civs, which means this policy card will be nearly twice as good as it is for other civs.

Renaissance Era

Simultaneum (Economic, requires Reformed Church) - Extra faith from Holy Site buildings which your protectorate wars will magnify.

Industrial Era

Military Research (Military, requires Urbanisation) - This policy card helpfully makes all copies of your UB provide +2 science.

Raj (Diplomatic, requires Colonialism) - Got a lot of suzerain city-states? Want more out of them? This policy card gives you +2 science, culture, gold and faith for each one you have.

Skyscrapers (Economic, requires Civil Engineering) - If you want some bonus era score in the later eras of the game, the wonder production bonus on offer here will help.

Modern Era

Gunboat Diplomacy (Diplomatic, requires Totalitarianism) - Helps you accumulate envoys even faster.

Atomic Era

Containment (Diplomatic, requires Cold War) - Is a city-state following your religion, but has a suzerain with a different government to you? Pick up this policy card and every envoy you send there will be worth three.

Information Era

Collective Activism (Diplomatic, requires Social Media) - Though you probably won't need the culture boost for unlocking civics, extra culture from being suzerain over city-states will help you accumulate domestic tourists and slow down rival cultural civs.

International Space Agency (Diplomatic, requires Globalisation) - Offers a stacking 10% science bonus per city-state you are suzerain over. On larger maps, this can be quite considerable - if religious or cultural victory doesn't work out, maybe science will?

Age Bonuses

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

Monumentality (Golden Age/Dedication, Classical to Renaissance eras) - Declaring a protectorate war combined with this bonus lets you really spam Settlers and Builders early on, which can be a nice boost to your early civ development.

Exodus of the Evangelists (Golden Age/Dedication, Classical to Renaissance eras) - A reliably powerful choice for Georgia, making your religious efforts considerably more effective. It's also a pretty good source of era score in itself. If your religion is strong enough, you should be able to keep this bonus up for the full three eras.

Wish You Were Here (Golden Age, Modern to Information eras) - Great if you want to convert your faith advantage to a tourism one.

Administration - Religion and City-States

Pantheons

Any pantheon that adds faith is good in conjunction with Tamar's leader ability and protectorate wars, but it would be unnecessary to list them all.

Divine Spark - An incredibly important pantheon if you want a better shot at founding a religion.

God of Healing - Holy Sites are typically best-placed near mountains, where there tends to be plenty of hills. This can make an incredibly good spot for Khevsurs to defend, as they'll simply heal through most damage they take.

Initiation Rites - Out hunting Barbarians for era score? You can grab some faith as well.

Monument to the Gods - If you have a lot of spare production, this pantheon can help you get some early wonders. If you don't, you're best-off picking a different pantheon.

Religious Beliefs

You can have one founder, one follower, one enhancer and one worship belief as part of your own religion.

Crusade (Enhancer) - Converting cities while you're at war with them is a great source of era score. With this belief, it'll also make it much easier to capture them.

Dar-e Mehr (Worship) - While Mosques are usually better for religious victories, this is the worship building with the best eventual faith output. Three eras after it's built it'll be producing +6 faith, or +12 during the first 10 turns of a protectorate war.

Divine Inspiration (Follower) - Building wonders is also a great source of era score. With this belief, you can get bonus faith out of them as well - and even more during protectorate wars.

Feed the World (Follower) - The Monarchy government combined with your UB will provide plenty of housing. This belief will help you fill that housing capacity.

Papal Primacy (Founder) - Papal Primacy gives you religious pressure when you send envoys to a city-state, helping to ensure you can carry on getting two envoys a time there.

Religious Unity (Founder) - Convert a city, and you'll immediately create two envoys! This is a consistently great founder belief for Georgia.

Synagogue (Worship) - Though the Mosque is probably the best worship building for religious victories, the Synagogue is useful for having the highest immediate faith output. During the first 10 turns of a religious war, it'll create 10 faith per turn.

City-States

Brussels (Industrial) - Building wonders is a great source of era score, and Brussels will help you build them faster.

Stockholm (Scientific) - Becoming suzerain over Stockholm early on will really help your efforts to found a religion thanks to the extra Great Prophet Point bonus.

Valletta (Militaristic) - Valletta lets you buy the Tsikhe UB (and its prerequisites) with faith. While you might not want to do that if you're pushing for a religious victory, it does help free up production for wonder construction or unit training. Then again, the existence of the Limes policy card means the production cost is a lot more manageable than it would be for most buildings.

Administration - Wonders and Great People

Wonders

Any wonder with a direct faith output can be useful for Georgia as Tamar can double its faith output during the first 10 turns of protectorate wars, but it's unnecessary to list them all.

Oracle (Ancient era, Mysticism civic) - The Oracle makes faith patronage of Great People much easier, which is rather useful considering Great People are a source of era score. If you're not aiming to use that faith to help with a religious victory, it's not a bad wonder to have.

Stonehenge (Ancient era, Astrology technology) - It's an extremely competitive wonder but secure it and you don't have to worry about the trouble of founding a religion. You'll also get some early era score to help you secure a classical-era Golden Age.

Apadana (Classical era, Political Philosophy civic) - An excellent wonder for Georgia. Building lots of wonders in the city with this wonder will provide plenty of era score anyway, but now it can provide lots of envoys as well. Requires the Persia and Macedon Civilization Pack.

Jebel Barkal (Classical era, Iron Working technology) - This wonder provides a nice bump up to your faith output, and is especially strong during the first 10 turns of your protectorate wars. Requires the Nubia Civilization Pack.

Kilwa Kisiwani (Medieval era, Machinery technology) - Become suzerain of enough city-states and this wonder can provide some powerful empire-wide boosts. Generally this wonder will be stronger in larger map sizes as they have more city-states available.

Potala Palace (Renaissance era, Astronomy technology) - Georgia benefits from a lot of diplomatic policy cards, and this wonder provides an extra slot for them. Of course, so does the Forbidden City via its wildcard slot, but the research path for it is a little more out of the way.

Taj Mahal (Renaissance era, Humanism civic) - Had trouble making it into Golden Ages? You shouldn't any more thanks to the bonus era score the Taj Mahal offers. Just be warned that it does make it harder to deliberately enter a Dark Age as well, and therefore a Heroic Age.

Great People

Any classical or medieval-era Great General would complement Khevsurs nicely, but it would be redundant to list them all.

Medieval Era

Hildegard of Bingen (Great Scientist) - Been getting Holy Sites early to secure a religion? Have you been neglecting science to do so? Hildegard will help fix that problem by making a Holy Site provide science for you.

Isidore of Miletus (Great Engineer) - Helps you rush a wonder (and grab its era score).

James of St. George (Great Engineer) - The Georgian UB can be quite expensive to set up in smaller cities (though the Limes policy card greatly helps). James of St. George makes that task a lot easier by setting up Medieval Walls in three of your cities. Favour using him in weaker cities that can't so easily spare production.

Piero de' Bardi (Great Merchant) - Provides an envoy. Send it to a city-state that has your religion present and it'll be worth two.

Zheng He (Great Admiral) - Provides an envoy when retired.

Renaissance Era

Ana Nzinga (Great General) - Provides an envoy when retired.

Filippo Brunelleschi (Great Engineer) - Helps you rush a wonder.

Jakob Fugger (Great Merchant) - Provides 2 envoys, or 4 with Tamar's leader ability.

Raja Todar Mal (Great Merchant) - Grants an envoy.

Industrial Era

Gustave Eiffel (Great Engineer) - Helps you rush a wonder.

John Jacob Astor (Great Merchant) - Grants two envoys.

Counter-Strategies

Georgia is a relatively hard civ to conquer - their incentive to build city walls, the Khevsur UU, their tendency to have a lot of city-states allied to them and their loyalty pressure boost from Golden Ages can all make it trickier. Nonetheless, they have weaknesses - particularly early in the game.

Civilization Ability: Strength in Unity

Era score

Era score isn't the most predictable thing in the game, but there are some reliable means of obtaining it. Destroying Barbarian Encampments, converting cities while at war with them and building wonders are three good ways. Deny Georgia the ability to do those actions, and it becomes a lot harder for Georgia to make the most of their civ ability.

Working out Georgia's Golden Age bonus will also help, seeing as they'll provide era score via the dedication bonus as well. If their religious units are moving faster than normal for example, they have Exodus of the Evangelists - pillaging their religious units so they can't convert any cities will deny them plenty of era score.

Georgia's high number of Golden Ages does mean that their loyalty pressure is likely to be constantly at a high level. Invading Georgia while you're in a Dark Age will often be a bad idea for that very reason. On the other hand, continuous Golden Ages will eventually cause Georgia trouble when the Normal/Golden Age threshold raises later in the game. Without good management, Georgia can be very prone to falling into a Dark Age (or several) later on at a time where they're unprepared to deal with the consequences.

Wall-building bonus

Georgia is exceptionally good at building up city walls. This means that you can't neglect siege when fighting them, and you'll need to ensure your siege units are relevant to the era as well. The counter-strategies subsection for Tamar's Agenda and the Tsikhe building will provide more information on this.

Tamar's Leader Ability: Glory of the World, Kingdom and Faith

If Tamar can't convert a city-state, she won't get extra envoys there. If you have a faith of your own - or have someone else's faith and a Shrine - you can buy a Missionary and convert the city-state away from Tamar's faith. If you have enough spare faith, you could even leave an Apostle there to ambush any Georgian Missionaries that try and convert it back.

If Tamar's envoys in a city-state are too much to handle, simply conquering the city-state will end that problem. Of course, it'll create a whole new problem - you'll be the target of a city-state emergency, and if you declared war on the city-state directly instead of Tamar, she can use a Protectorate casus belli for an 100% boost to faith for 10 turns.

Still, if your military is strong, you can turn Tamar's temporary faith bonus against her. If she starts spamming religious units, you can simply pillage them all to reduce the religious pressure in nearby cities.

Tamar's Agenda: Narikala Fortress

A computer-controlled Tamar likes building up walls in her cities, and likes civs that do the same. She dislikes civs that don't bother building them.

This agenda is mostly impactful in the mid-game. Civs that have an incentive to take the Monarchy government (e.g. Greece) may find it useful to build more walls and may therefore get along better with Tamar. Warmongers will struggle to win her trust seeing as capturing cities destroys the fortifications.

Once you reach the modern-era Steel technology, urban defences take the place of walls, meaning you can't play around this agenda any more.

Unique Unit: Khevsur

Khevsurs are hard to fight on hill tiles, but sooner or later they'll have to leave the hills. There, they'll be vulnerable to Charge-promoted Knights.

Crossbowmen are also effective against Khevsurs. By positioning them in open land and firing on Khevsurs that refuse to move from their defensive position, you force them to either attack your Crossbowmen (putting them in a more vulnerable spot) and stay put, constantly taking damage until they're killed.

Unique Building: Tsikhe

The main impact this UB has when you're fighting Georgia will be their tendency to have highly-fortified walls in the renaissance era, meaning you'll need particularly good siege units to get through it - or Siege Towers and units with melee attacks.

To widen the window in which Georgia can build this UB, they may neglect researching Steel for quite some time. This can make Georgia vulnerable to late-game warfare, particularly from the sea.

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Rise and Fall

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

Compilation Guides

• Civ-specific tricks, secrets and clarifications
  
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Individual Civilization Guides

• America (Cultural/Domination)
  
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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.

[Zigzagzigal]

Currently, the change doesn't seem to be functioning in the Rise and Fall version of the game, contrary to what the patch notes are saying.

[Zigzagzigal]

Guide updated for the 10th September 2019 patch, which gives Georgia a +50% production bonus to all types of walls. This change was applied to all applicable versions, unlike Gathering Storm's buff to the Tsikhe building.

[Yensil]

I think Georgia will be a lot stronger in Gathering Storm. I haven't tried them yet, but I played as Greece (Pericles) and got a Diplomatic victory. The primary method of generating diplomatic favor is from city states. The more suzerainships you have, the more favor you'll generate. As far as I know, Greece, Georgia, and Hungary are the only civs with unique bonuses to envoy generation. Also the addition of Rock bands makes faith based culture victories much more viable, even if you don't have space for National Parks.
Looking forward to your GS guides!

[ThePoeSalesman]

I've had fun ignoring religion entirely in the early stages of the game, then using a strong classical/medieval army complemented by Khevsureti (I think that's the plural) to conquer a neighbor who does have a religion. I then spread the religion until I get a majority and get all the benefits of Strength in Unity.

You can't win a religious victory this way, but depending on the city states around you,you can make a strong push towards any victory type.

[Zigzagzigal]

Personally, I like the idea of the UB replacing renaissance walls, but it has to be strong enough to justify its late arrival and high set-up cost. America's Film Studio is a good example of how to do that.

[paulski66]

I agree that I love civs that change the way you play Civ, and there are several in R&F that are among my favorites; the Cree for example, are an absolute blast to play, and open up whole new strategies and paths to victory. I just wish Georgia were a little stronger so that you could enjoy that different playstyle on deity. For example, ancient walls that give the benefits of renaissance walls and had a faith bonus; that would allow you to enter defensive mode early in the game and make a bumrush for a religion (not an easy thing to grab at the highest to difficulties), and defend yourself when Shaka comes a-knockin'. (I know...that would probably be overpowered, but would still be pretty sweet). I tried 5 straight games to survive with them on deity, and I got the beatdown every time. I did win with them on immortal, though, and that was kind of fun.

[Zigzagzigal]

Personally I like Georgia's core design (the religion-city-state connection is pretty distinctive and the era score bonus, if weaker in practice than on paper, is pretty distinctive), but I have to admit they're the weakest of the Rise and Fall civs.

[paulski66]

Probably the weakest (and my least favorite) of the new civs. Weak uniques that come way too late, especially on higher difficulty levels. The renaissance wall replacements are nice but offer very little; you have to expend the shield output on a building I never ever build in any of my other games, just to gain a few bonus faith. The Khevsur is nice but doesn't offer anything game-changing, especially considering how late it arrives. And good luck getting a religion on deity with Georgia; if you do, you're so hopelessly behind in science that your neighbors will steamroll you. If you don't...well, all that semi-useful religious half of your game is meaningless.

[Zigzagzigal]

From what I've seen, you have to found it yourself. This can be quite a problem on higher difficulties!

[beezany]

Does Georgia need to found a religion to receive the envoy bonus, or is it sufficient to adopt a majority religion founded by another civ?