Zigzagzigal's Guides - Australia (R&F)

Australia excels at peaceful maritime development, but packs a punch against would-be invaders and warmongers. Here, I detail Australian 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This guide is no longer updated, but will remain for the sake of those without the Gathering Storm expansion.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 and the Australia Civilization and Scenario Pack.

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

Our home is one of mountains and plains, of grasslands and deserts, of rainforests and sea. Grand cities and vast expanses of agriculture. An ancient land, but a young nation. A juxtaposition of hardships and plenty. And now, we face a test like none before. A second Great War emerges in the west. The British Empire no longer wields the strength it once had, leaving us to determine our own destiny. Should we be successful in our efforts to stem the tide of aggression, we shall be rewarded greatly by our loyal allies; if we fail, there shall be no allies that remain to reward us.

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 (Part 1/2)

Start Bias

Australia has a tier 3 start bias towards coastal tiles and a tier 5 start bias towards cattle, horses and sheep. Starting near the coast is crucial for making the most of Australia's civ ability, while the biases towards cattle, horses and sheep work well with the Outback Station improvement.

Civilization Ability: Land Down Under

• All cities adjacent to a coastal tile receive +3 housing.
  
  • This is separate from the housing provided based on access to fresh water.
• Constructing a pasture improvement causes a culture bomb, granting you all surrounding tiles.
  
  • Only tiles that are within the workable range of the tile's city will be granted (in other words, they must be within a 3-tile radius from the city centre).
    
  • This includes tiles from other civs, but will incur a diplomatic penalty if you steal tiles off them this way. Taking land from city-states has no penalty.
    
  • Tiles stolen containing non-unique tile improvements will retain them.
    
  • Tiles containing completed districts, wonders or national parks will not be stolen, but incomplete ones will be, destroying them.

• Campuses, Commercial Hubs, Holy Sites and Theatre Squares get +1 of their respective yield in Charming tiles (2 or more appeal) and +3 in Breathtaking (4 or more appeal)
  
  • These count as adjacency bonuses for the purpose of bonuses that modify them.

John Curtin's Leader Ability: Citadel of Civilization

• All cities gain +100% production for 10 turns after you are the target of a declaration of war by a full civ or 20 turns if you liberate a city.
  
  • Being the target of a declaration of war by a city-state does not count.
    
  • These bonuses do not stack.

Outline (Part 2/2)

Unique Unit: Digger

A modern-era melee infantry unit which replaces Infantry

Research	Obsoletion	Upgrades from	Upgrades to	Cost	Maintenance	Resource needed
Replaceable Parts Technology Modern era	Satellites Technology Information era	Musketman (290 )	Mechanised Infantry (340 )	430 or 1720 or 860 *	6	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.

Strength	Ranged Strength	Moves	Range	Sight	Negative Attributes	Positive Attributes
72	N/A	2	N/A	2	None	+10 vs. anti-cavalry units +10 on land tiles adjacent to the coast +5 outside of friendly territory

Positive changes

• 72 strength, up from 70
  
• +10 strength on land tiles adjacent to the coast
  
• +5 strength outside of friendly territory

Unique Improvement: Outback Station

Research	Terrain requirement	Constructed by	Pillage yield
Guilds Civic Medieval era	Must be constructed on one of the following in your own land: Flat grassland Flat plains Flat desert Desert hills Tiles must be featureless (e.g. no floodplains)	Builder	Pillager heals 50 health.

Defensive bonus	Direct yield	Adjacency yields	Miscellaneous bonus	Typical maximum yield	Maximum theoretical yield
None	1 1 0.5	1 per adjacent pasture	None	3 1 0.5	7 1 0.5

Enhancements

Research	Direct bonus	Adjacency bonus	Miscellaneous bonus	New typical maximum*	New theoretical maximum*
Steam Power Technology Industrial era	None	1 per two adjacent Outback Station improvements	Pastures gain +1 per adjacent Outback Station. Civs other than Australia can gain this benefit if they have Steam Power.	1-3 1-4 0.5	1-7 1-4 0.5
Rapid Deployment Civic Atomic era	None	1 per two adjacent Outback Station improvements	None	4-5 ** 3-4 ** 0.5	4-7 *** 1-4 *** 0.5

*Due to conflicting adjacency bonuses, getting more production from adjacent pastures means less potential for food from adjacent Outback Stations. The bonus production pastures gain from adjacent Outback Stations is not shown here.

**These yields reflect a choice between two pastures and four Outback Stations adjacent to the tile, or having a full six Outback Stations. Having more than two pastures adjacent to a tile is pretty rare in most games.

***These yields reflect a full spectrum from having six adjacent pastures to six adjacent Outback Stations.

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
John Curtin	6/10 (Decent)	7/10 (Good)	7/10 (Good)	10/10 (Ideal)

Australia is not as well-suited to cultural victories as you might expect. The huge production bonus John Curtin offers is great for building wonders, and you can get good yields from Theatre Squares to help get through the civics tree, but there's a catch. Because you'll want to use high-appeal spots for districts, you'll have relatively few left for National Parks and Seaside Resorts.

Domination is a path that Australia is good at, but there's a catch there as well. John Curtin's production bonus allows you to churn out units at rapid pace, and Diggers can be very effective in combat, but you need to be the target of a war in order to get the production bonus, or liberate a city. Both of those actions are heavily dependent on the actions of other civs. Forcing an emergency may help you be a target of war, but it too is unreliable.

Religious victories can work reasonably effectively. Tiles next to mountains and natural wonders tend to have the best appeal, so you can make use of both the adjacency bonus and the appeal boost for plenty of faith from Holy Sites.

Science is your best option. Australia is distinct in having both a strong science output and good production, making them ideal for scientific victories. as with Holy Sites, Campuses can get two sets of bonuses from mountains, which can give you a powerful science output. Late in the game, you can use Diggers to try and liberate some cities for production bonuses to help with space projects, meeting the requirements of eurekas, and so forth.

Civilization Ability: Land Down Under (Part 1/3)

8 points of housing in a brand new city - so long as my food supplies are adequate, I won't need a Granary for quite some time!

Australia can end up with really powerful cities surprisingly early on, and take that strength in any direction.

+3 Housing in Coastal Cities

Normally, the best spots for housing are next to rivers or lakes. Coastal cities are better than having no water access at all, but not much better. Australia, however, makes coastal cities provide a lot of housing in their own right. Coastal cities with fresh water access become especially powerful.

To make sense of it all, here's a table showing how much housing Australian cities get in various situations.

	No fresh water	River or lake	Water only via Aqueduct	River/lake adjacency and Aqueduct
Inland	2	5	6	7
Coastal	6	8	9	10

I've also included the impact of having an Aqueduct. Settling a city adjacent to fresh water makes a potential Aqueduct provide less housing, but you'll still end up with more housing overall.

You might notice in the table that settling a coastal city always provides more housing than settling one inland. Generally as Australia, you should seek to settle as many cities as possible by the sea, but it's fine to make exceptions for areas with high densities of mountains (allowing you to get the best Campus yields), pasture resources (allowing you to make the most of Outback Stations) or to fill out the interior of your home landmass (helping to give your empire a more secure core).

Having a lot of housing means your cities can grow to a great size earlier in the game, which helps you to maximise district capacity. It can also give you a hand on some early wonders, though it's often better to focus on getting Australia's strong districts up as soon as possible. Remember that all those extra citizens will need something to do - get some Builders trained to help with that. Leave resourceless desert tiles, flat plains and flat grasslands adjacent to pastures empty for now (unless you need the Feudalism boost, which requires 6 farms in your empire) as you'll want to build Outback Stations there later, and there's no point wasting Builder charges for farms or mines that will only be removed later.

Housing from both this ability and working large quantities of Outback Stations can mean Australia doesn't need to build many Neighbourhoods. Aside from saving production, it also ensures more high-appeal tiles are reserved for making your districts more powerful - something covered later in this civ ability section.

There is one little catch, however. Having lots of population will be demanding on amenities, and Australia's focus on coastal areas tends to create a long, snaky empire which can't use area-of-effect amenity buildings like Zoos, Aquariums, Stadiums and Aquatics Centres very effectively. To get around that, be prepared to trade extensively with other civs, or place small colonies on new continents (every continent has its own unique set of four luxury resources, which is a good source of amenities).

More cities or bigger cities?

A tough choice to make with Australia is whether you want to build on your housing advantage to make around six huge cities (which the Audience Chamber Government Plaza building will help with), or to build lots of cities and use the housing advantage to help them grow to a good size sooner (which the Ancestral Hall Government Plaza building will help with). The former option will make wonder construction very easy, but the latter will allow you to have more copies of the same district throughout your empire, maximising your adjacency bonuses from the other half of this civ ability.

Pasture culture bomb

Sorry Poland, but I'm having that land.

When you construct a pasture as Australia, you'll automatically receive the adjacent tiles without any gold or culture cost - for this reason, avoid buying tiles adjacent to a pasture resource (sheep, cattle or horses) you already have in your control.

The main purpose for this ability is to secure land that you can place Outback Stations on later, though you could hypothetically aggressively place a city next to another civ's city and a pasture resource, then steal the other civ's land. Considering you get a 100% production bonus if they then declare war on you, it's not as bad a tactic as it may initially appear.

If you're still founding new cities later in the game, the combination of the housing boost, pasture culture bombs, Ancestral Hall Government Plaza building, Hic Sunt Dracones Golden Age dedication and John Curtin's civ ability can rapidly develop any new city on new continents. A single Settler will give you a size 4 city with plenty of housing, at least three Builder charges which can get you more land via culture bombs, and the city will have a strong enough production base to help develop itself.

Civilization Ability: Land Down Under (Part 2/3)

Bonus Campus, Holy Site, Commercial Hub and Theatre Square yields based on appeal

Look at that spectacular campus yield.

Usually, tile appeal is a mechanic oriented towards the latter half of the game. Neighbourhoods arrive in the industrial era, while National Parks and Seaside Resorts arrive in the modern era. For Australia, however, tile appeal becomes important much earlier.

If you want a complete table of what offers positive or negative appeal, click here to go to the guide to America. Go to the second part of the section on Theodore Roosevelt's Leader Ability to see it. A few notable things from that table are:

• Coasts, forests and mountains tend to create the best appeal.
  
• Rainforests and marshes are bad for appeal but can be removed.
  
• Mines and quarries lower appeal, so be careful where you build them.
  
• Encampments and Industrial Zones are the most common districts to create negative appeal, so be especially careful where you place them.
  
• Holy Sites, Theatre Squares, Entertainment Complexes and Water Parks increase appeal. The first two get adjacency bonuses from being next to other districts anyway, so it's easy to make good use of that. Coastal tiles with Water Parks will add a total of +2 appeal to adjacent land tiles, making them often preferable to Entertainment Complexes.
  
• Governor Liang (the Surveyor) provides access to the City Park improvement, which offers a massive +2 appeal in adjacent tiles.
  
• Later in the game, with the Conservation civic, old woods become one of the best sources of appeal, while you can also grow new forests to provide appeal nearly anywhere.

To get around the negative appeal of mines, Australia can use Outback Stations. They produce some production (though not as much as mines) but crucially have no appeal penalty. You can't build them on non-desert hills, but if you need to improve hills later in the game, you can plant a forest there and construct a lumber mill on top, or place a farm there.

If a tile has at least +2 appeal, it's rated as "charming". Australian Campuses, Holy Sites, Commercial Hubs and Theatre Squares get a +1 bonus in that situation. That's easy to achieve - tiles adjacent to at least two coastal tiles will usually get that.

If a tile has at least +4 appeal, it's "breathtaking" and those four district types get a +3 bonus for Australia. Those tiles tend to be uncommon, though you can often get one or two per coastal city. Forested coastal areas tend to be good, as well as forested mountainous regions.

These bonuses count as adjacency for the purpose of bonuses that interact with it (e.g. policy cards that double adjacency). This makes it easy to make even more out of your civ ability.


Getting any district to 3+ adjacency (4+ for Commercial Hubs and Harbours) for the first time grants you era score, helping you grab a Golden Age.

Let's now break down how the bonus works for each district type.

Campus

Campuses already get +1 science per adjacent mountain, and mountainous areas tend to have high appeal. Put the two together and you'll have very fast research early in the game.

Tracking down spots that are both mountainous and adjacent to a coast can be tricky; you might have to just settle for a +3 science boost from a breathtaking coastal tile. That's still better than most civs will get from their Campuses at this stage in the game. If you're not quite at breathtaking yet, consider building a Theatre Square adjacent to it to boost the appeal.

Building lots of Campuses will give you a good advantage in the science game - the production from John Curtin's leader ability will help there as well by making it easier to meet the requirements for many eurekas and for setting up an infrastructure to handle the space race.

Holy Site

Like Campuses, Holy Sites also get bonuses from mountain adjacency, though faith tends to be a less valuable yield than science. If you really want to maximise faith output, however, look for natural wonders. Natural wonders offer +2 faith to adjacent Holy Sites, and for multi-tile wonders like the Pantanal or Mount Everest, you can get a +4 faith adjacency bonus. Furthermore, natural wonders produce +2 appeal in adjacent tiles, which also stacks; multi-tile natural wonders can make a Holy Site with an adjacency bonus of 7 or more!

If you want to take Australia to a religious victory, and you lack mountains or natural wonders, you can also look for forests to boost your faith output. Every two adjacent unimproved woods tiles provide +1 faith to Holy Sites, and woods tiles also provide +1 appeal each.

Alternatively, having lots of cities with both Holy Sites and Campuses can be very effective if you fall into a classical or medieval-era Dark Age. The Monasticism Dark Age wildcard adds a 75% bonus to science in all cities with a Holy Site (albeit at the loss of 25% of the culture output in every city). Follow that up with a medieval or renaissance-era Heroic Age, and, among other bonuses, you can take Monumentality, which lets you cheaply buy civilian units with all that faith you've been accumulating.

Civilization Ability: Land Down Under (Part 3/3)

Commercial Hub

Considering you can only get trade route capacity in a city from a Commerical Hub or a Harbour, and Australia is a coastal-focused civ, this one is tricky. A Commercial Hub on a breathtaking riverside tile produces an impressive +5 gold output, but Harbours can eventually offer food, production and a little housing. Then again, Commercial Hubs tend to produce Great People which are more relevant for Australia's typical playstyle, and if you can secure a classical or medieval-era Golden Age for the Free Inquiry dedication, the higher yields of Commercial Hubs will provide you with more science than Harbours would have done.

Seeing as Australia has a housing bonus enabling bigger cities and hence more districts, you eventually can support both a Harbour and a Commercial Hub in a city. If you intend to do this, try to have it so the city centre, Commercial Hub and Harbour form a triangle; Commercial Hubs gain +2 gold from having an adjacent Harbour as well as +1 gold for having two adjacent districts.

Theatre Square

Although the bonus for Campuses is possibly better because it builds on the already-strong yields for placing them next to mountains, the Theatre Square bonus is notable because getting good adjacency bonuses for Theatre Squares is normally difficult. Civs without lots of wonders usually have to make do with no better than a +1 bonus for a long time, but Australia with a breathtaking tile can get a +3 or +4 bonus. That's almost like a free bonus Monument!

If you're serious about taking Australia down a culture-heavy path, use the strong housing bonus early on to rapidly develop your cities and build some early wonders. Wonders produce +1 appeal for every adjacent tile and +2 culture to every adjacent Theatre Square, so you'll get great adjacency as well as breathtaking appeal. That'll really help out with the civics tree. Having said that, dedicating lots of high-appeal tiles to districts rather than National Parks or Seaside Resorts can make maximising your tourism later in the game tricky.

A note about the Government Plaza

The Government Plaza provides +1 adjacency to districts that receive such bonuses, in addition to the 0.5 that any kind of district offers. As such, try to position it in a way that's adjacent to as many breaktaking tiles as possible so you can make lots of particularly strong districts later. Typically, that means placing it two tiles away from the sea or a mountain range.

A note about the Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower wonder adds +2 appeal to every tile in your empire, which is incredibly strong for Australia considering how it pushes all charming tiles into breathtaking status, greatly boosting district yields. Unfortunately, the Steam Power and Replaceable Parts technologies (the former boosts your Outback Stations' production and the latter lets you train Diggers) are on different branches of the technology tree to Steel, which can make getting the wonder difficult.

There's a few different strategies you can try to use to help with that:

• Research Steel before Steam Power or Replaceable Parts so you can get a head start on the wonder.
  
• Recruit Gustave Eiffel (an industrial-era Great Engineer who can rush wonders) so you can grab the wonder despite being late researching Steel
  
• Use John Curtin's production boost to build the wonder faster.
  
• Build a Digger army ready to capture the wonder from whoever builds it.

Summary

• Settling a city next to the sea is more important than next to a river, but get both if you can.
  
• Don't buy tiles adjacent to cattle, sheep or horses unless it's on the way to get that specific tile; you'll get those for free later.
  
• Look out for mountains for strong Campus yields.
  
• Keep mine construction to a minimum so you don't lower your appeal; use Outback Stations instead.
  
• Try to get the Eiffel Tower to maximise your district yields.

John Curtin's Leader Ability: Citadel of Civilization

The +100% from "modifiers" is this ability in action.

Warmongers beware. Australia gets two powerful production bonuses which make them both hard to invade and a threat to civs who have already conquered cities. Though the mechanics are basically the same, the prerequisites make them work quite a bit differently in practice.

Production when a target of war

Being caught out with a declaration of war against you isn't much fun, especially if you've been focusing on city development rather than defences. Australia, however, gets ten turns of essentially doubled production in those situations, allowing a rapid military response. Defensively, this advantage is also very useful for constructing the various types of walls, seeing as they can't be purchased the way other buildings can be.

Of course, you don't have to use the extra production for defences. If you use defensive terrain carefully, you may be able to hold off the attackers while developing your non-front line cities. Even if you end up with a few pillaged districts, the production boost should more than make up for that temporary loss. Double production can be great for building wonders with, but remember that ten turns won't be enough by itself - you'll need a city with reasonable production to begin with. For a lower-risk option, consider building districts. You can't purchase them directly until you have Governor Reyna (the Financier) with the Contractor promotion, so it's a great use of your production boost.

Be wary going on the offensive with the production boost. A civ that's willing to declare war on you is generally a civ with a decent military infrastructure, and although you'll briefly have the upper hand against them, once your production bonus fades the advantage might very well swing to their side once more.

That's the basics covered, but there's a more advanced method of using this bonus - deliberately encourage other civs to declare war on you. There's a few ways you can do this:

• Denounce the other civ
  
• (Singleplayer/Co-op multiplayer only) - Deliberately go against the leader's agenda and/or hidden agenda
  
• Settle cities right next to the other civ's lands
  
• Take land off the other civs via the pasture culture bomb ability
  
• Keep your military deliberately small (don't neglect defensive buildings though).
  
• Start a war (you're often more likely to be a target of a war declaration when you're already at war). Declaring war on a city-state which another civ is suzerain over can be particularly effective, especially once the other civ has the Defensive Tactics civic and can declare a protectorate war against you.
  
• And lastly, force an emergency against you. Capturing a city-state is the easiest way to trigger an emergency. Only civs that have envoys present in the city-state can join that emergency, so try to aim for a city-state with enough civs interested that someone will join in, but not too many you'll be swarmed with enemies.

Production when liberating a city

While there may be instances where you can turn a defensive war into a chain of city liberations, usually this part of John Curtin's leader ability is one that comes into play in a different part of the game. After some time has passed, other civs are likely to have fought each other or captured some city-states. That's your chance to go in and liberate them.

It's important to choose your target carefully. For a start, consider which cities are possible to liberate. Look out for elimination messages in the sidebar (e.g. "Bandar Brunei has been defeated"). If one comes up, it's a sure sign you have something you can liberate.

Backstabbing friends in order to deliver some cities from them to a civ you hate isn't exactly the best move to make (though betrayal does trigger an emergency, which might make you the target of a war), nor is starting a war with a civ that's particularly strong. You don't want a war to last too long - the war weariness can be painful for a civ that already can struggle with amenities.

Another consideration is the choice between liberating cities of full civs or city-states. There may be multiple captured cities of a full civ, which can mean an extended period of double production. Note that the production boost is based on 20 turns from your last liberated city, so you can't accumulate loads of turns by liberating lots of cities in quick succession. Alternatively, liberating city-states gives you instant suzerain status with at least three envoys present, providing you with a potentially powerful boost.


Liberating a city-state also grants you era score as it'll count you as its first-ever suzerain. Getting an industrial or modern-era Golden Age means you can use the Heartbeat of Steam dedication to make your Campuses provide production, which this leader ability will double!

Once you know who to declare war on, be sure to watch out for warmonger penalties - launching a surprise war might just turn former friends against you, so send a denouncement first, seek to use a casus belli, or join an Emergency coalition to work around that. A low warmongering penalty will be cancelled out with the positive boost for liberating a city - if you're going to liberate a lot of cities, you might be able to take a couple of cities as well without long-term diplomatic repercussions.

Note that it's possible to liberate a city by obtaining it via a deal as well as via conquest. This is usually only possible if you're winning a war that's gone on a while. You'll still get the 20-turn liberation production boost this way.

Once you've liberated all you can, it's a good idea to go on some pillaging sprees until you can declare peace. It'll give you more out of war without you having to incur warmonger penalties.

One of the best uses for this boost is speeding along Spaceports and space race projects. After you launch a satellite, the entire map will be revealed if you haven't done so already. That's a great time to look for potential cities to liberate - doing so may provide a production bonus for long enough for you to be able to build all space race projects.

Summary

• The production boost is most effective for things that can't be easily purchased, such as walls, districts, wonders and space race projects.
  
• Look out for wars where cities change hands and eliminated city-states so you can liberate them later and enjoy a long-lasting production boost.

Unique Improvement: Outback Station

If Australia's already-considerable city development advantages weren't enough, they have a versatile unique improvement to support the growth and productivity of the entire empire.

Getting to Outback Stations

Outback Stations arrive at the late-medieval Guilds civic. Assuming you're starting from the classical-era Political Philosophy civic, here's everything else you need to research:

• Drama and Poetry (Boost: Construct a wonder - Although Australia's early housing boost makes them fairly decent at wonder construction, you'll often have to research this without the boost. As it unlocks Theatre Squares and hence a strong source of culture, this is worth grabbing immediately after you've got Political Philosophy.)
  
• Recorded History (Boost: Construct two Campus districts - Not too hard considering Australia should be building them early to take advantage of appeal bonuses anyway.)
  
• Games and Recreation (Boost: Research the Construction technology - Can be a fairly awkward technology to get to in time.)
  
• Defensive Tactics (Boost: Be the target of a declaration of war - Unlike John Curtin's ability, this activates if you declare war on another civ and their allied city-state declares war on you.)
  
• Civil Service (Boost: Bring a city to size 10 population - Much easier as Australia than it is for most other civs. If you reach 11 housing in a city and have a reasonable supply of food you'll easily hit that target)
  
• Feudalism (Boost: Construct six farms - Easy if you've expanded fairly quickly or start near a lot of wheat or rice.)
  
• Guilds (Boost: Build two Markets - Australia's bonus to Commercial Hubs encourages you to build them anyway.)

Using Outback Stations

Outback Stations offer an effective compromise between the food of farms and the production of mines, while still offering the housing boost of the former and lacking the appeal penalty of the latter. As Australia's cities will usually be on the coast and have access to some high-food fish tiles, you can afford to sacrifice a little bit of food in exchange for bonus production.

Of course, where Outback Stations really excel is when they're next to pasture resources (cattle, sheep or horses). In those cases, you should avoid improving the adjacent tiles with anything other than Outback Stations except to improve resource tiles or to make a stab at the Great Zimbabwe wonder. A plains tile with an adjacent pasture and an Outback Station produces 3 food and 2 production, which is a comparable yield to an improved bonus resource. You can end up with both a strong food output (great for hitting your higher housing cap) and a strong production output (which John Curtin's leader ability can make even more powerful).

Sometimes, you may face a choice between settling a city inland with a lot of pasture resources and settling a city on the coast. If you find yourself in that situation, consider how much housing you can get in that inland city. Getting loads of food from Outback Stations won't do you much good if you don't have enough housing to make use of it, but if you feel you can still get plenty of housing, then go for it.

Concerning Deserts

Outback Stations can be built on flat desert as well as desert hills (but not floodplains, unlike regualr farms), making desert cities a little more viable for settling. The yields will still be fairly poor until you have either the Steam Power technology (more on that in a bit), adjacent pastures or the Petra wonder.

Petra makes desert tiles for its city produce +2 food, +2 gold and +1 production, making them better than plains or grassland. Desert hills in particular become especially lucrative. Combined with Outback Stations and a pasture resource or two, you can make an incredibly powerful city with strong food, production, gold and housing alike.

Steam Power

Mines receive additional production at Industrialisation, while farm yields improve considerably with Replaceable Parts. Steam Power comes at around the same time and makes Outback Stations produce production if at least two other Outback Stations are adjacent. Furthermore, it also makes Pastures produce bonus production for every adjacent Outback Station, making them incredibly strong tiles.

There's two good ways of using these bonuses. One method is to construct the improvement in triangles, ensuring that every single Outback Station is adjacent to at least two others. An alternative method is to encircle pastures, giving the pasture tile immense amounts of production and also ensuring so long as there's no unsuitable terrain in the way, each Outback Station is adjacent to at least two others. Of course, you can try both methods together by simply spamming them on as many tiles as possible.

Remember that the improvement benefits from other adjacent ones even if they're outside of your city's work radius. The same is true for regular farms, but it's worth making a reminder of that fact.

Rapid Deployment

It may be very late in the game, but Outback Stations receive another boost with the atomic-era Rapid Deployment civic; this time offering extra food for the same conditions as Steam Power requires for production. The food yields will still typically be lower than you'd get from farms at this point, but the overall yields are better.

Conclusion

Australia's Outback Stations split the difference between farms and mines at worst and provide huge amounts of both food and production at their best. Anywhere next to a pasture you can build them you should, and most flat plains, flat grassland and desert tiles should have them present. Try to build them in clusters where possible for better yields after Steam Power, but you can still get a lot out of them even without that.

Unique Unit: Digger

It takes time for other civs to start eating up each other's lands, so it can take a while until you can start liberating cities for production bonuses. As such, the Digger arrives at a great time - late enough that you can be effective in liberation wars, but not too late that it can't make an impact. It helps that Replaceable Parts is a relatively easy technology to get quickly, though Steam Power (which makes Outback Stations stronger) and Steel (which unlocks the powerful Eiffel Tower wonder) will be competing for your attention.

Defence

Diggers get a 10 point boost to strength when adjacent to the coast, making them very effective when defending your coastal cities. With 82 strength in those situations, they're nearly as strong as Mechanised Infantry! Inland, they're only slightly stronger than regular Infantry, so exploit John Curtin's production boost and overwhelm your opponents with quantity over quality.

Liberation

The best application of Diggers is liberating cities from other civs, especially if they're next to the coast. Bring Battleships to help weaken the city's defences while Diggers handle land-based warfare. A Digger on a foreign coast has a massive 87 strength - as much as a regular Infantry army! That makes them very tough to kill before they can get the final hit on a city, capturing it.


The Aztecs aren't close to researching Steel yet, so I can still use Battering Rams to help handle these walls, but usually you should use Battleships, or else units like Bombards, Artillery or Bombers to help.

When you liberate a city-state, you will instantly become suzerain over it but any unit close to the city centre will be pushed away a tile or two. In some instances, that can push Diggers away from the coast and into a spot where they're a little more vulnerable. As such, it may help to clear the city's surroundings of enemy units before you liberate it.

Obsoletion

The Satellites technology obsoletes Diggers, so if you're going for a scientific victory, there's no avoiding that. Mechanised Infantry are more expensive to train and slightly more expensive to maintain, though they're nearly always more effective in combat.

Administration - Government and Policy Cards

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.

Governments

Tier One

Classical Republic tends to work the best, with a good set of economic policy slots and a very helpful amenity boost which allows you to handle your larger early cities.

If your expansion is constrained or you want to build a lot of wonders, the Audience Chamber is a useful building to have (larger cities have a bigger potential for production, after all). The Ancestral Hall, however, lets you train Settlers faster and gives new cities a Builder, which is great if you want to settle lots of cities to take advantage of the district yield bonuses.

Tier Two

Merchant Republic is a reliable choice, with plenty of potential economic policy cards so you can maximise adjacency bonuses, housing and amenities.

Build the Intelligence Agency for the extra Spy and Spy capacity. You'll have a lot of districts in your empire, and having more Spies to protect them will be a good idea.

Tier Three

Democracy has a good number of economic policy card slots, and a decent general production bonus which can be enhanced further by John Curtin's city-liberation boost. If you have a large number of cities, it'll probably be your best choice. Alternatively, Communism offers a good balance of economic and military bonuses to help you with the space race and city liberations alike, as well as a potentially bigger production boost for your key cities.

The Royal Society is typically your best choice of tier three building as it lets you speed up the production of space projects even further with Builders.

Policy Cards

Ancient Era

Ilkum (Economic, requires Craftsmanship) - The sooner you improve pastures, the more free tiles you gain. As such, you'll want plenty of Builders early.

Urban Planning (Economic, requires Code of Laws) - Unlike many other production-boosting policy cards, this can be doubled in effect via John Curtin's leader ability, making it quite powerful if you're the target of a declaration of war early in the game.

Classical Era

Bastions (Military, requires Defensive Tactics) - This policy helps keep your cities defended so they can use the production bonus from being a target of war on other things.

Limes (Military, requires Defensive Tactics) - Defensive buildings don't contribute towards your military power rating, helping you to stay defended in case of war without necessarily putting off others from declaring war on you.

Natural Philosophy (Economic, requires Recorded History) - Australia's appeal bonuses to Campuses (and other districts) counts as adjacency, and hence will be doubled by this policy card. This can give you a pretty huge science output.

Scripture (Economic, requires Theology) - Holy Sites become even better with this bonus. One adjacent to a couple of natural wonder tiles may offer as much as 14 faith per turn now!

Medieval Era

Aesthetics (Economic, requires Medieval Faires) - Most civs struggle to get good Theatre Square adjacency bonuses (hence making it hard to use this policy card well), but Australia's civ ability can offer that.

Craftsmen (Economic, requires Guilds) - Doubles Industrial Zone adjacency bonuses. That can be doubled again via John Curtin's leader ability.

Professional Army (Military, requires Mercenaries) - Whether you have a lot of units you spammed defensively in a war and now need to upgrade, or you simply need to upgrade a lot of Musketmen into Diggers, this policy card will help you get the job done.

Retainers (Military, requires Civil Service) - Australia can often struggle with amenities as a coastal emphasis makes it hard to use the area-of-effect bonuses of Zoos, Stadiums and the Colosseum wonder, while the housing boost from the civ ability makes each individual city demand more of them. This policy not only helps to solve that problem, but also gives you a good use for all those military units you might have spammed out in a previous war.

Serfdom (Economic, requires Feudalism) - More Builder charges means you can much more rapidly set up Outback Stations throughout your empire.

Town Charters (Economic, requires Guilds) - Enjoy masses of gold from enhanced Commercial Hubs.

Renaissance Era

Colonial Offices (Economic, requires Exploration) - Australia's coastal housing boost makes them unusually good at setting up colonies overseas. Build on that with this policy card.

Free Market (Economic, requires The Enlightenment) - Australia will find it easy to reach the population and adjacency requirements for this card's full effect, maximising your gold potential from it.

Liberalism (Economic, requires The Enlightenment) - A useful source of amenities for a civ that can often struggle with them.

Rationalism (Economic, requires The Enlightenment) - Given Australia's Campus and housing bonuses, it's easy to reach both requirements for this policy card to reach its full potential, providing you with plenty of additional science.

Simultaneum (Economic, requires Reformed Church) - Need yet more faith? This policy card can add a 100% bonus to the faith output of Holy Site buildings in cities that are both size 10+ and have a Holy Site of 3+ adjacency. Australia's civ ability makes reaching that easy.

Industrial Era

Colonial Taxes (Economic, requires Colonialism) - Given Australia's strong ability to settle colonies overseas thanks to the housing boost and John Curtin's civ ability, it might not be a bad idea to boost them further with this policy card.

Grand Armee (Military, requires Nationalism) - Produce Diggers even faster!

Grand Opera (Economic, requires Opera and Ballet) - Maximise your Theatre Square yields with ease.

Modern Era

Economic Union (Economic, requires Suffrage) - Offers all the advantages of Town Charters, plus double Harbour district adjacency. Doubling Harbour adjacency also doubles the production Shipyards offer. Which can be doubled again with John Curtin's leader ability.

Five Year Plan (Economic, requires Class Struggle) - Natural Philosophy and Craftsmen, combined into one policy card.

Martial Law (Military, requires Totalitarianism) - Reduces war weariness, helping you fight liberation wars without your huge cities suffering too much.

New Deal (Economic, requires Suffrage) - While the cost can be substantial, so can the benefits. A housing boost as well as amenities helps your cities to grow ever-larger without you having to dedicate high-appeal tiles to Neighbourhoods.

Police State (Diplomatic, requires Ideology) - Protect your many districts from Spies.

Propaganda (Military, requires Mass Media) - Also reduces war weariness.

Atomic Era

Cryptography (Diplomatic, requires Cold War) - Also helps protect your many districts from Spies.

Sports Media (Economic, requires Professional Sports) - An updated version of Aesthetics which also makes Stadiums stronger.

Information Era

Ecommerce (Economic, requires Globalisation) - The production potential is excellent anyway, but add John Curtin's leader ability on top and you're getting four extra production per trade route. Make sure all your trade routes are coming from cities working on space race projects, and you'll get them up in no time.

Administration - Ages

Age Bonuses

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

Free Inquiry (Golden Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - A powerful early science boost if you have a lot of strong Commercial Hubs. A riverside breathtaking Commercial Hub adds +5 gold - or +5 science with this dedication. If that's not enough, it also makes eurekas more powerful.

Monasticism (Dark Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - Given the strong bonuses you get for both Campuses and Holy Sites, having lots of cities build both, then taking this wildcard can result in you having vast amounts of science. Just be sure to build some Monuments or Theatre Squares to offset the culture penalty.

Monumentality (Dedication, Classical to Renaissance eras) - Considering Australia's civ ability encourages you to build a lot of districts, this dedication may be a better source of era score than the others.

Hic Sunt Dracones (Golden Age, Renaissance to Industrial eras) - Given your housing bonus for coast-adjacent cities, you won't end up losing the bonus population as soon as you settle cities on foreign continents. Meanwhile, faster embarked movement makes it easier to get your units to cities you want to liberate.

To Arms! (Dedication, Industrial to Information eras) - On foreign coasts, Diggers are as strong as Infantry armies. Destroying corps or armies with individual units already creates era score; this dedication increases it further.

Heartbeat of Steam (Golden Age, Industrial to Modern eras) - So long as you can find breathtaking tiles and build a couple of other districts next to it, it's not hard to build lots of Campuses of at least +4 adjacency. Add the Natural Philosophy policy card, and it's up to +8. Add this dedication, and it'll produce +8 production for the city. Finally, add John Curtin's leader ability and it's up to +16. And that's the low end of what you can achieve - Campuses next to a lot of mountains could be worth +24 production or more!

To Arms! (Golden Age, Industrial to Information eras) - By minimising your warmonger penalties, you can capture more cities alongside your liberations without angering other civs. The unit production bonus available will help you train new Diggers to aid with that, as well.

Collectivism (Dark Age, Modern to Information eras) - Though the loss of Great Person Points will be quite painful, and you won't gain much from the farm bonus, doubling Industrial Zone adjacency can mean quite a lot coupled with John Curtin's leader ability. Consider very carefully whether taking this is a good idea or not, as the downside is quite significant.

Administration - Religion and City-States

Pantheons

Divine Spark - All three of the districts affected are boosted by Australia's civ ability, so this bonus is easy to get a lot out of.

Fertility Rites - The advantage is small, but helps you hit your high initial housing cap sooner.

God of Craftsmen - A bit of a gamble considering you won't know where most strategic resources are at this stage of the game, but the production will be boosted with John Curtin's leader ability later.

God of the Open Sky - Not only will this make pasture tiles even more lucrative, but the culture bonus will help you unlock Outback Stations sooner.

God of the Sea - Australia's maritime emphasis means you might be able to get an awful lot of production out of this. Quite possibly the best choice around for the civ.

Lady of the Reeds and Marshes - It's a direct production bonus, which means John Curtin can double it. Oasis and Floodplains are only found in desert regions, but thankfully Outback Stations make them more viable to settle cities in.

Religious Beliefs

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

Burial Grounds (Enhancer) - Let's say you've found a good mountain range, or other such high-appeal area, but you only own one tile of it. With this belief, you can build a Holy Site on that tile to steal some more, letting you get multiple good districts out of the location. It doesn't hurt that Holy Sites themselves add extra appeal to adjacent tiles.

Crusade (Enhancer) - Well, considering you have an incentive to liberate cities of other civs (which typically requires war) and a faith bonus, you might as well put the two together. The defensive counterpart, Defender of the Faith, might be a poor choice as it may put off other civs from declaring war on you.

Feed the World (Follower) - A good bonus to use if you're short on pasture resources but still want to make use of Outback Stations, as the food on offer makes up for the lower amount of food Outback Stations produce relative to farms.

Gurdwara (Worship) - Complements Feed the World well.

Jesuit Education (Follower) - An excellent choice as it allows you to use Australia's decent faith yield to make their good Campuses and Theatre Squares even better.

Meeting House (Worship) - Any direct bonus to production (which isn't a percentage modifier) is powerful for Australia as John Curtin can double it. This is no exception.

Stupa (Worship) - Australia can often struggle with amenities, so this is a good choice.

Zen Meditation (Follower) - Another handy source of amenities.

City-States

Auckland (Industrial) - Be nice to New Zealand and they'll reward you with great coastal production. Like all direct production yield bonuses, John Curtin can double it. Requires the Vikings scenario pack.

Buenos Aires (Industrial) - A source of amenities to help handle Australia's often strained amenity situation.

Geneva (Scientific) - Help capitalise on Australia's high science output. The bonus only works when you're at peace, but if someone declares war on you, you'll get your powerful production bonus. Either way is good.

Lisbon (Trade) - A very maritime-focused civ can be vulnerable to enemy Barbarian pillagers (or even naval invasions from other civs). Lisbon's bonus puts an end to that problem. Well, at least for trade routes.

Mitla (Scientific) - Australia can create powerful Campuses, so you'll want plenty of them anyway. The city growth bonuses Mitla offers in cities with a Campus present makes it a lot easier to fill the higher housing limit. Requires the Vikings scenario pack.

Mohenjo Daro (Cultural) - Sometimes you can't find a good city spot that's both next to a river and the sea. Mohenjo Daro stops you needing to worry about that - at least until you lose suzerain status.

Muscat (Trade) - You'll get bonus gold from Commercial Hubs, and may have problems with amenities. Muscat puts the two together, giving you effective relief from all lack-of-amenity related ailments. Requires the Vikings scenario pack.

Nan Madol (Cultural) - Australia's maritime focus alone would be enough to encourage being suzerain over his city-state, but what makes it even better is the fact many of the tiles with the best appeal are next to the coast, making it easy to use the +2 culture bonus offered here.

Valletta (Militaristic) - Use your impressive faith output to rapidly develop new cities, or improve their defensive capabilities without having to spare production.

Zanzibar (Trade) - Up to 12 amenities spread across your empire, assuming you have at least six cities. That should help handle Australia's tricky amenity situation.

Administration - Wonders and Great People

Wonders

Hanging Gardens (Ancient era, Irrigation technology) - A growth bonus helps your cities reach Australia's higher housing cap sooner, while the two points of housing on offer can make the city that builds it powerful indeed.

Oracle (Ancient era, Mysticism civic) - This offers a good way of using your Holy Site faith if you're not after a religious victory.

Temple of Artemis (Ancient era, Archery technology) - A coastal city with access to fresh water and this wonder will be up to 11 housing, and 13 with a Granary. Supply it with plenty of food and it'll become quite a powerhouse ready to build more wonders later.

Colosseum (Classical era, Games and Recreation civic) - Australia's fast growth will strain your amenities. Though coastal emphasis might make it hard to get the full potential effect of this wonder, getting a few more amenities will be helpful nonetheless.

Petra (Classical era, Mathematics technology) - A Petra city with Outback Stations present will soon be a behemoth. What you want to do with the city next is up to you.

Kilwa Kisiwani (Medieval era, Machinery technology) - When you liberate a city-state, you instantly become suzerain over it. Liberate enough, and this wonder can provide you with some helpful empire-wide bonuses.

Kotoko-In (Medieval era, Divine Right civic) - A city with a particularly high faith output (such as one with a Holy Site adjacent to multiple natural wonder tiles) will produce even more with this wonder. It's a low-priority one for Australia on the whole unless you really want those Warrior Monks.

Forbidden City (Renaissance era, Printing technology) - With a leader bonus dependent on reacting to what other civs do, you need a government that's flexible. The Forbidden City's extra wildcard policy slot really helps with that.

Great Zimbabwe (Renaissance era, Banking technology) - Outback Stations encourage you to settle near cattle, and stronger Commercial Hub yields on top means it's not too hard to meet the awkward positioning requirements for this wonder. It offers lots of gold and an extra trade route, which is useful for any playstyle.

St. Basil's Cathedral (Renaissance era, Reformed Church civic) - Akin to Petra for tundra cities, though the yield potential isn't quite as high, especially as you can't build Outback Stations on tundra tiles. Nonetheless, forested tundra hills with lumber mills (particularly riverside ones) will create a lot of production that John Curtin can double.

Big Ben (Industrial era, Economics technology) - An extra economic policy card does a lot of good for a civ like Australia which can benefit from quite a few offering adjacency bonuses. Economics leads into Replaceable Parts, which is required to construct Diggers, so you should be able to have a decent stab at the wonder.

Oxford University (Industrial era, Scientific Theory technology) - Somewhere you should hopefully be able to have a Campus with really good mountain adjacency bonuses, even if it's just one city. Oxford University can build upon that city's high science output.

Ruhr Valley (Industrial era, Industrialisation technology) - The production multiplier stacks additively, not multiplicatively, with John Curtin's leader ability, but the extra mine and quarry production still works well with it. If you can get this and Petra in the same city, you'll have the game's most productive city by far - giving you a great advantage for other wonders or space projects.

Eiffel Tower (Modern era, Steel technology) - The big one. This makes all charming tiles breathtaking, which can greatly improve your empire's science, culture, gold and faith. It also denies cultural civs a major boost to their tourism, so that's a plus as well.

Amundsen-Scott Research Station (Atomic era, Cold War civic) - The production bonus is nice, but what's really powerful is the science boost of up to 40% for your entire empire. Considering how strong your Campuses are, this will help you zoom through the last few technologies, ensuring your science can keep up with how quickly you'll be getting through space projects.

Estádio do Maracanã (Atomic era, Professional Sports civic) - Wave goodbye to your irritating amenities problems!

Great People

Any industrial or modern-era Great General works well with Diggers, but it'd be redundant to list them all.

Classical Era

Hypatia (Great Scientist) - Permanently makes all your Libraries better, so your super-Campuses are now even better.

Medieval Era

Bi Sheng (Great Engineer) - Extra district capacity in a city helps you to get as much out of Australia's civ ability as possible while your cities are still not big enough to simply build every district.

James of St. George (Great Engineer) - Can quickly make three cities well-defended. If you're in the game of trying to encourage other civs to declare war on you, hold off from using him until the war starts, so you can surprise them with unexpectedly strong city defences.

Hildegard of Bingen (Great Scientist) - Makes a strong Holy Site into a second Campus of sorts.

Renaissance Era

Galileo Galilei (Great Scientist) - Mountain-heavy areas produce the best Campus and Holy Site yields, and also the most science from Galileo.

Isaac Newton (Great Scientist) - Permanently boosts your Universities' science outputs.

Industrial Era

Charles Darwin (Great Scientist) - If you've exploited the fact Holy Sites adjacent to at least two natural wonder tiles make amazing yields for Australia, you can also exploit Charles Darwin's boost to science.

James Watt (Great Engineer) - Permanently makes all your Factories stronger. Potentially, with John Curtin's bonus on top, that could be an extra +4 production in every city - and a lot more for a city with Governor Magnus (the Steward) with the Vertical Integration promotion.

John Spilsbury (Great Merchant) - One of four Great Merchants offering unique luxuries, and with them precious, precious amenities.

Modern Era

Albert Einstein (Great Scientist) - Permanently makes all your Universities stronger, thus making your Campuses incredibly powerful.

Alvar Aalto (Great Engineer) - Use this bonus carefully, and you could bump multiple districts from charming to breathtaking, giving you a reasonable boost to various yields in the process.

Joaquim Marques Lisboa (Great Admiral) - War weariness is a pain for Australia, which can often struggle for amenities. Getting a permanent reduction to it is very welcome.

Nikola Tesla (Great Engineer) - Permanently boosts Factory production, which goes nicely with John Curtin's leader ability.

Atomic Era

Helena Rubenstein (Great Merchant) - Offers unique luxuries, and with it, extra amenities.

Jane Drew (Great Engineer) - More amenities to help support your high-population empire.

John Roebling (Great Engineer) - Even more amenities to support an empire that needs plenty of them.

Levi Strauss (Great Merchant) - Offers unique luxuries and hence more amenities.

Information Era

Charles Correa (Great Engineer) - Boosts the city's appeal by +2 for all its tiles. That will uplift all charming-tier tiles into breathtaking.

Estée Lauder (Great Merchant) - The final of four Great Merchants offering unique luxuries, only this time producing six amenities instead of four.

Counter-Strategies

Australia might seem like a scary behemoth invulnerable to attack, but their favoured playstyle can expose some weaknesses that most civs lack.

Civilization Ability: Land Down Under

Housing Bonus

If Australia can't settle next to the sea, they can't get the housing bonus. You don't necessarily have to take coastal spots to deny them to Australia - you can try placing cities on rivers close to the coast.

Alternatively, if you want to be particularly cruel, you could plant Scouts on riverside coastal tiles near Australia. Either they'd have to start a war (forgoing their strength bonus from being a target of war) or go somewhere else.

Because Australia tends to settle directly on the coast, and have no naval military bonuses until someone declares war on them, they're very vulnerable to a naval invasion. That's something to keep in mind if you're playing as a civ like England, Brazil or Norway. Furthermore, a coastal-focused empire tends to be quite long and snaky, which can be vulnerable even in land-based warfare. Just taking a single city can split Australia in two!

Pasture Culture Bomb

You're fairly unlikely to be heavily affected by this, but just be aware that settling very close to an Australian city might allow them to take land off you if there's a pasture resource near them. Just be sensible and don't try to improve those particular tiles unless Australia's already built a pasture there.

Appeal Boosts District Yields

This mostly becomes a problem for you if Australia can secure a strong mountain range, as both their science and faith output can become very powerful. Mountain ranges near coasts should be kept out of Australia's hands if possible. Australia isn't particularly good at offensive wars early in the game so settling land they want is unlikely to result in fierce retribution. Not yet, anyway. Just be aware that settling too close to Australia will result in huge loyalty penalties - particularly considering their tendency towards large cities - so have a spare Governor at the ready to help with that.

In warfare, you can obviously pillage the high-yield districts, but you can also pillage the tiles next to them; pillaged tiles reduce the appeal of adjacent tiles by 1, which may be enough to take the districts out of breathtaking or charming status. If you aim to take the city, that may be a better move considering improvements are easier to fix than pillaged districts.

John Curtin's Leader Ability: Citadel of Civilization

Defensive Production

This is a nasty little ability to play against, as a typical way of countering a more peaceful civ - warfare - is turned against you. Thankfully, there's a few strategies you can employ to deal with this as a warmonger:

• Spend lots of time preparing for the war, march right up to Australia's borders, then declare war and aim to get it done as quickly as possible. If you can manage this in three or fewer turns, you should be fine.
  
• Alternatively, fight a war of attrition. Start out by using fast units to pillage Australia's tiles, then retreat to defensive terrain. After ten turns, Australia loses their production advantage allowing you to advance once more.
  
• Start a joint war against Australia. They'll only get ten turns of doubled production (it doesn't accumulate), but will have to defend against two civs instead of one.
  
• Attack them from two angles consecutively - attack from the sea at first, encouraging them to spend all their production bonus on naval units, then bring in your land units after a few turns.
  
• Ensure they're attacking you instead - starting an emergency by capturing a city-state they have envoys present in is a good way to encourage that.

Liberation Production

Australia gets a massive 20 turns of double production if they liberate a city. In almost all cases, you'll want to avoid that from happening. Any city you didn't found should be well-defended, and you should be sure to surround an Australian city before you take it over so they can't flip it back.

Consider also the position of other civs which may have taken cities. Major warmongers will probably not be prone to having cities liberated off them by Australia, but smaller civs which may have picked off a city-state or two early in the game could be vulnerable. If you're a warmonger, you might want to invade such civs sooner before Australia can exploit their bonus.

Alternatively, this bonus can make Australia a reasonable ally in emergencies involving city liberation (notably city-state emergencies) as they'll have a strong incentive to join in. Obviously, you should try and be the one to liberate the target city first before they can.

John Curtin's Agenda: Perpetually on Guard

John Curtin is no fan of warmongers, especially ones that capture cities. He likes those that liberate cities and also aims to form lots of defensive pacts.

For peaceful civs, John Curtin can be a reasonably good ally to have considering his defensive advantages and an agenda that rewards civs that aren't aggressive.

Warmongers, however, are put in an interesting position. The more a civ hates you, the more likely they are to fight you. By taking cities off a different civ first, you can encourage Australia to declare war on you, which means they don't get their doubled production for ten turns for being a target of war.

Unique Unit: Digger

Away from coastal tiles, Diggers are on equal footing to Infantry with the Battlecry promotion - and that's assuming they're out of their home territory. Don't neglect your navy, and you should be able to intercept Diggers before they can reach those tiles.

Entrenched Diggers on your coastal tiles can be handled effectively by Tanks with the Charge promotion - as can Diggers in general. If you're behind Australia in technology, you might have to instead amass Field Cannons in large numbers. If Diggers move away from the coast to attack your Field Cannons, they'll lose their +10 strength advantage making them prone to counter-attacks.

Unique Improvement: Outback Station

The fewer pasture resources Australia has, the less effective their Outback Stations are. Eventually, they're going to have to choose whether to go for higher appeal areas or areas with more pasture resources - by settling cities right in Australia's way, you can force their hand. Usually, they'll get more out of high-appeal coastal tiles than areas with a few pasture resources, so keep that in mind if you're settling to deny them good spots.

Pastures gain production from adjacent Outback Stations after Steam Power. That's not to say they have to be your Outback Stations. If you have some pastures on Australia's border, you could potentially get a decent production boost off them.

In war, consider pillaging the pastures first before the Outback Stations. Part of that is because it'll drop the city's food yields, and part of that is Outback Stations heal your units when you pillage them (it's better to delay pillaging them until you need the health).

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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
  
• Civ summaries

Individual Civilization Guides

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

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]

I've decided not to cover game modes in the main guides as they're not standard gameplay, but I might make a meta-guide later (similar to tricks, secrets and clarifications) to point out certain game mode synergies. Not sure at this time though.

[gskal.music]

Thanks so much for your guides! I've become a much better Civ player thanks to them. Was wondering if you'd considered adding an "Administration - Game Modes" section, to cover particular synergies with each Secret Society, Heroes, etc? For example, playing as Australia here in Dramatic Ages mode, I was able to exploit free cities reinforcing loyalty on each other by liberating a coastal city of Babylon's which they could never hold on to over and over. It would fall back to free cities every 5 turns or so, more than enough time to heal in between liberations, and give me double production the rest of the game!

[BobbyGuard]

The digger is extra OP because he doesn't use oil like the normal infantry counterpart. That means you have a really strong infantry unit, that isn't bound by resources and doesn't emit carbon. So you can build as many diggers as you can afford with no emmissions penalty, which leaves more room to build battleships, which are easily the most OP unit since when they are fully upgraded they can have an astounding 4 range. Also, I love picking the god of the sea pantheon and using Maui, and having him to plant bonus and luxery sea resorces all around my harbors (that i build in every city) stronger. The extra production from fishing boats and shipyards scales amazingly with citidel of war, and its so powerful I feel like Austrailia is OP and that I'm cheating.

[Zigzagzigal]

Yeah; I agree. I think I may have overlooked that bit when originally making this guide due to me emphasising a Pingala/Magnus start.

[Icicle]

I think Liang and her city park improvement might deserve a mention in regards to land down under/appeal.

[JackAttack108]

OP Australia production strat: declare war on someone with an ally. Their defensive pact will kick in, their ally will declare on you, and you get an amazing production bonus for an offensive war.

[Yensil]

I find it really annoying, not to mention immersion breaking, how casually AI John Curtin captures city states. For someone who supposedly want's to liberate everyone he sure is quick to snap up any city state he isn't suzerain of.

[Leonard]

I'm surprised to see that "Choral Music" is missing from belief list. It single handedly eliminates the need of theatre squares for civics entirely for those who pursue scientific victory. You can just build Holy sites and Campuses, use faith on GP patronage or buying land units. Also if you're going wide, a pantheon choice of "City Patron Goddess" will help mitigating the ever-increasing costs of districts for each of your newly found cities. Also Church Property is the only decent choice for a non-religious-victory Australia, in my opinion. You can combine it with religious colonization if you don't want to spam missionaries to convert each of your newly found cities.

[CyberGamer15]

Yeah. I can see them making a lot of friends due to their frequent liberations, which should help them out in the World Congress. I do wonder if they will get more out of using resources to generate electricity, or going green to help their position in Congress.

[Zigzagzigal]

There's hints Australia's getting something new in the expansion, though it's hard to tell what at this stage. I do think that their incentive to liberate cities might feed well into the new diplomatic victory.