Zigzagzigal's Guides - Cree (GS)

The Cree have powerful trade routes and good general city development. Here, I detail Cree strategies and counter-strategies.

Introduction

Following this guide requires the Gathering Storm expansion.

It also assumes you have all other Civ 6 content, listed below, though it is not necessary to have these to utilise the key strategies of each civ.

• Pre-Rise and Fall content packs
  
  • Vikings, Poland, Australia, Persia/Macedon, Nubia, Khmer/Indonesia
• Rise and Fall Expansion
  
• New Frontier content packs
  
  • Maya/Grand Colombia, Ethiopia, Byzantium/Gauls, Babylon, Vietnam/Kublai Khan, Portugal

These content packs include exclusive civs, city-states, districts, buildings, wonders, natural wonders, resources, and a disaster, but not core game mechanics - all you need is the base game and the Gathering Storm expansion for those.

When a war starts, those who would otherwise have no reason to be opposed to each other are pushed into a vicious cycle of violence. Hostilities may end, but blame and growing distrust may once more reignite conflict. There is but one way out: mercy. Mercy is not the concession of an advantage, but the recognition of a common future.

How to use this guide

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

• The Outline details the mechanics of how the civilization's unique features work and what their start bias is if they have one.
  
• The Victory Skew section describes to what extent the civ (and its individual leaders where applicable) is inclined towards particular victory routes. This is not a rating of its power, but an 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 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, 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) - Bonuses or penalties that affect multiple tiles in a set radius. Positive examples include Factories (which offer production 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 - 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 (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.

Compact empires - Civs with cities close together (typically 3-4 tile gaps between city centres). This is useful if you want to make use of districts that gain adjacency bonuses from other districts, or to maximise the potential of area-of-effect bonuses later in the game.

Dispersed empires - Civs with cities that are spread out (typically 5-6 tile gaps between city centres). 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.

GPP - Short for Great Person Points. Districts, buildings and wonders generate these points and with enough you can claim a Great Person of the corresponding type.

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. Usually but not always, they tend to be more specific in scope than civ abilities. Some leader abilities come with an associated unique unit or infrastucture.

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.

Sniping - Targeting a specific city for capture directly, ignoring other enemy cities along the way. Typically used in the context of "capital sniping" - taking a civ's original capital as quickly as possible to contribute towards domination victory without leading to a drawn-out war.

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.

Super-uniques - Unique units that do not replace any others. 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, costs half as much to build and offers some unique advantages on top.

UI (Unique Improvement) - A special improvement that can only be built by the Builders of a single civilization. "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 trained by a single civilization, and in some cases only when that civilization is led by a specific leader.

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

Outline (Part 1/2)

Start Bias

The Cree have no start bias.

Civilization Ability: Nîhithaw

• Upon researching the ancient-era Pottery technology, receive +1 trade route capacity and a free Trader unit.
  
• Trader units claim territory for free when they move into unclaimed territory within three tiles of any of your owned city centres.
  
  • This affects land and water tiles alike.

Poundmaker's Leader Ability: Favourable Terms

• Trade routes gain +1 food per camp and pasture in the destination city.
  
• Destination cities of Cree trade routes gain +1 gold per camp and pasture they control.
  
• All alliances provide the Cree and the allied civ with shared visibility, regardless of type or level.

Unique Unit: Okihtcitaw

An ancient-era reconaissance unit which replaces the Scout

Research	Obsoletion	Upgrades from	Upgrades to	Cost	Resource	Maintenance
None	Machinery Technology Medieval era	None	Skirmisher (230 )	40 or 160 or 80 *	None	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
20	N/A	3	N/A	2	Deals -85% damage to city walls and urban defences	Starts with +1 promotion level

Negative changes

• Costs 40 production/160 gold/80 faith, up from 30 production/120 gold/60 faith (+33%)

Positive changes

• 20 melee strength, up from 10
  
• Starts with +1 promotion level
  
  • This works as if the unit got enough experience for the first promotion; subsequent ones are not any cheaper than they would be for other units.
• Costs 230 gold to upgrade, down from 250 (-8%)

Outline (Part 2/2)

Unique Improvement: Mekewap

Research	Terrain requirement	Constructed by	Pillage yield
Pottery Technology Ancient era	Any owned featureless land tile adjacent to at least one bonus or luxury resource and not another Mekewap	Builder	Pillager restores 50 health

Defensive bonus	Direct yield	Adjacency yields	Miscellaneous bonus	Typical maximum yield	Maximum theoretical yield
None	1 1	1 per two adjacent bonus resources 1 if a luxury resource is adjacent	None	1 1 1 1 **	2-3* 1 1 ** 0-1*

*A higher food yield corresponds to a lower gold yield, and vice versa.

**Note that the housing yield does not require the improvement to be worked.

Enhancements

Note that "maximum yields" assume you have all the enhancements of earlier technologies and civics as well.

Research	Direct bonus	Adjacency bonus	Miscellaneous bonus	New typical maximum	New theoretical maximum
Civil Service Civic Medieval Era	1 1	None	None	2 ** 2 1 1	2-3* 2 ** 2 0-1*
Cartography Technology Renaissance Era	None	2 per adjacent luxury resource	None	2 ** 2 0-7* 0-1*	2 ** 2 0-13* 0-3*
Conservation Civic Modern Era	None	Adjacency from bonus resources changed to +1 per adjacent bonus resource.	None	2 ** 2 0-7* 0-3*	2 ** 2 0-13* 0-6*

*A higher food yield corresponds to a lower gold yield, and vice versa.

**Note that the housing yield does not require the improvement to be worked.

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	Diplomacy	Domination	Religion	Science
Poundmaker	6/10 (Decent)	8/10 (Good)	6/10 (Decent)	4/10 (Acceptable)	6/10 (Decent)

Though these scores may appear low, that's largely because the Cree lack strong specific bonuses to particular victory routes, having a lot of general bonuses instead. It's not that the civ is weak, just that it isn't especially focused. This does make it particularly flexible - you can spend the early eras building up and decide what victory route you want later.

Cultural victory is a reasonable route to go down. The housing from Mekewaps helps to grow your cities early on, which will help with constructing wonders. The Cree ability to seize a lot of land easily can help them obtain more tiles for national parks and seaside resorts later. Finally, Mekewaps don't create negative appeal, unlike mines, so they can have a reasonably productive empire without limiting their national park/seaside resort locations.

The Cree skew hardest towards diplomacy, though they may struggle to compete against more firmly diplomatic civs like Canada and Sweden without switching victory path or using their more general advantages against them. Good exploration helps find more city-states sooner, allowing you to complete more quests for envoys, and also helps you find more full civs, maximising the number of emergencies you can participate in. An incentive for other civs to form alliances with the Cree helps with generating diplomatic favour, decent production helps with key diplomatic wonders like the Statue of Liberty along with carbon capture projects, and a strong gold output gives an edge in aid emergencies.

Domination victories are unusual as the Cree. Okihtchitaw can be devastatingly effective early on if they can reach their third promotion, but this is hard to reliably achieve quickly. Otherwise, the high Cree gold output can be good for supporting and upgrading units.

Religion is the weakest path as the Cree. The most notable advantage they have is a very high chance of getting a classical-era Golden Age, and being able to use the Exodus of the Evangelists dedication for Great Prophet points and stronger religious units.

Finally, science victories for the Cree emphasise the ability to meet a lot of eurekas more than having an especially high science output. The Cree have decent production but more importantly a huge amount of gold as the game goes on, which can help with purchasing anything necessary for a boost.

Unique Unit: Okihtcitaw

One of the best early explorers, Okihtcitaw combine the strength of a Warrior with even better mobility than a Scout.

Conventional Usage

Okihtcitaw cost the same as Warriors (though their production cannot be boosted with policy cards), but can sometimes be gained for free from tribal villages. Building a couple at the start of the game will really help you explore, find trading partners and discover good future city locations. With the Discipline military policy card, they're also not bad at keeping Barbarians at bay; their high mobility means they can intercept them before they start entering your land.

New Okihtcitaw can immediately be promoted. It's not a bad idea to give your first two Okihtcitaw different promotions so they can explore different areas of the map.

Though largely inferior to Archers in the role, Okihtcitaw can also help fend off ancient-era invasions from other civs. Being classed as reconnaissance units, they're not affected by many of the promotions that would counter other specific unit types. Still, with only 20 strength, they won't last ages in combat. Thankfully, the high mobility of Okihtcitaw make them great at withdrawing when needed.

Okihtcitaw may stop being useful in combat once your opponents and Barbarians start recruiting Swordsmen and Horsemen, but they can still be effective at exploration even beyond the point Scouts would normally be useful. Scouts can get killed by Crossbowmen in a single hit, but Okihtcitaw will survive that, giving them time to escape. That's really helpful once you have the Cartography technology and want to start exploring new continents (and finding more potential allies).

Unconventional Usage

Hmm... That +20 strength bonus sure looks tempting...

With the Ambush promotion, Okihtcitaw can be one of the most terrifying early-rush units in the game. They'll have the strength of an Oligarchy-boosted Swordsman with better mobility and the ability to move after attacking to keep themselves safe.

The challenge is getting enough experience fast enough. You need a total of 90 experience to get to Ambush, and Okihtcitaw start with just 15. Fighting Barbarians won't do any good as the starting promotion of Okihtcitaw ensures every round of combat with Barbarians will only be worth 1 XP.

You can get a decent amount of experience out of exploration. Every tribal village you move a Okihtcitaw into is worth 5 XP (10 with the Survey policy card). They also can occasionally offer 20 XP on top (this isn't modified by Survey). Every natural wonder uncovered is worth 10 XP (20 with Survey).

Exploration alone won't typically be enough, so it's worth finding a city-state and starting a war with them. Combat with city-states, unlike Barbarians, has no soft experience limit so you can train up reasonably well on them. Be sure to withdraw Okihtcitaw units as soon as possible as prior to the Ambush promotion they often won't survive a counter-attack. With the Guerilla promotion, Okihtcitaw units can move after attacking - by attacking and retreating over rough terrain, you're able to attack a city-state and get out of the way of counter-attacks. To help your units recover faster, settle a city next to the city-state so they can heal up there.

Finally, with an Ambush-promoted Okihtcitaw or two, you can take them over along with your other units to attack another civ. The Ambush unit can soften up enemy forces so your other units can finish them off and earn extra experience for doing so. The Oligarchy government helps your units to gain experience faster, so you can start growing your ranks of Ambush Okihtcitaw ready for the next target.

As powerful this can potentially be, this is extremely risky. A lack of nearby tribal villages or natural wonders makes it a lot harder to gain experience, and you can end up losing quite a few Okihtcitaw units along the way if you're not careful. Still, the production you need to commit to this strategy is lower than necessary for most early rushes, allowing you to develop your cities at the same time, partially mitigating failure.

Obsoletion

By the time renaissance-era units become commonplace, Okihtcitaw won't be able to survive for very long while exploring (unless they have the Ambush promotion). Thankfully, Poundmaker's ability to grant you shared visibility from any alliance means you can easily uncover vast amounts of the map making exploration barely necessary.

Still, it's worth keeping your more promoted Okihtcitaws around to upgrade into Skirmishers, as they can make pretty decent defensive units. Skirmishers with the Ambush promotion have 50 ranged strength with enough mobility to stay out of harm's way.

Summary

• Train a couple of Okihtcitaw units early on and give them different promotions so they can start exploring
  
• Okihtcitaw units are still useful for exploration until renaissance-era enemies become commonplace
  
• Okihtcitaw with the Ambush promotion can pull off an effective early rush, but getting there is risky.

Civilization Ability: Nîhithaw

So, now that you have some land discovered, it's time to claim it. The Cree civ ability makes claiming a lot of land early on easy, especially if you can settle a good number of cities.

With the Pottery technology, you'll immediately get a free Trader and trade route capacity. It's quite possible to research this so early you don't even have a destination city to choose from, but otherwise it'll make the land-grabbing part of the civ ability useful very quickly.

For the maximum amount of free tiles, settle your cities with around a six tile gap between them, and use your Traders to form internal trade routes. Having your cities a little more spaced apart rather than close together also means each city can make use of more Mekewaps.

You'll also want as many Traders as possible, and for that you'll need a high trade route capacity. Get cities to build Commercial Hubs with Markets, or Harbours with Lighthouses. Use Builders to chop woods or rainforests to speed up the process if you have to. It's not a bad idea to deliberately settle a couple of coastal cities and build Harbours there as having two Harbours triggers the Cartography eureka. The Cartography technology makes Mekewaps offer more gold and lets you cross oceans (helping you find more potential allies).

Keep reassigning Traders to maximise the accumulation of tiles; moving them to new cities will be a good idea both to secure them more land and to help them develop. If you lose Traders to Barbarians, it's not necessarily a bad thing - it means you can set up a new trade route sooner, letting you take even more tiles.


Carefully check the paths of trade routes. Traders have to go around mountains and many natural wonders, which can grant you more or fewer tiles than you may otherwise expect.

Accumulating land from Traders has a few useful impacts:

• It can act as a barrier to other civs, allowing you to stop them exploring or settling where you don't want them to. If you can manage the loyalty penalties, you could even surround a civ to prevent their expansion. Traders can take sea tiles - useful if you want to block off a coast from other civs' units.
  
• It saves gold from being used to purchase tiles. Combined with the maintenance-free Okihtchitaw UU, gold from Poundmaker's leader ability and gold from Mekewaps, you could end up with quite a lot of free gold for things like purchasing buildings with.
  
• It prevents your roads being pillaged when you're not at war (well, except by Barbarians).

Conclusion

The Cree civ ability helps them support a more dispersed empire without having to spend a lot of gold accumulating land. Though the land-grabbing ability isn't as immediate as it is for, say, Russia, and it can't flip tiles of other civs unlike Poland's civ ability, it's great at ensuring your cities are linked up as soon as possible.

Poundmaker's Leader Ability: Favourable Terms

"Other bonuses" is this ability in action!

Poundmaker's leader ability has two distinct parts - one that builds upon existing Cree trade route advantages, and another that makes mid-game exploration nearly effortless.

Trade route yields

Regardless of whether you're sending a trade route to a domestic or foreign city, you'll gain +1 food for every camp and pasture present there. At first, you'll largely want to trade internally to maximise the amount of land you gain from the Cree civ ability, so look for city spots with plenty of the following:

• Camp resources:
  
  • Deer (bonus)
    
  • Furs (luxury)
    
  • Honey (luxury)
    
  • Ivory (luxury)
    
  • Truffles (luxury)
• Pasture resources:
  
  • Cattle (bonus)
    
  • Sheep (bonus)
    
  • Horses (strategic)

Deer, cattle and sheep are pretty common and will also provide extra food to adjacent Mekewap improvements. Luxury resources are tied to a specific continent, so they'll be harder to find.

Unlike the Mekewap improvement's adjacency bonuses, you need to improve the resources before they start offering extra yields. As such, don't neglect to train a few Builders, and be prepared to purchase the odd tile if you can't get them via Traders. Purchasing Builders in whichever city has Liang the Surveyor present puts your spare gold to good use.

For even better food yields, place Magnus the Steward in whichever city has the most camps or pastures and give him the Surplus Logistics promotion. That'll add +2 food for all your trade routes to that city.

In addition to the sending city getting food, the city that receives the trade route gains gold. For external trade routes, this means giving gold to the other civ or city-state, but internal trade lets you take that gold for yourself. Still, external trading can become much more lucrative later in the game thanks to things like alliance bonuses. One of the biggest downsides of external trade - the lack of a food yield - is covered by this leader ability, though you will often have to look elsewhere for production.

Shared visibility with any alliance

Okihtcitaw units not enough for you? Want another round of being the best at exploration? All you need is a few alliances with some distant civs.

The Civil Service civic allows you to form alliances with civs you have declared friendship with. The Cartography technology allows you to cross oceans and meet any remaining civs you haven't already met. And both the civic and technology make Mekewap improvements stronger, so you'll want them anyway.

In singleplayer games, you can get on a civ's good side fairly easily by sending a delegation/embassy as soon as you meet them, meeting their leader's agenda or secret agenda and avoiding warmongering. Chandragupta's India is especially suitable as his agenda makes him favour distant civs, while Sumeria's Gilgamesh reliably accepts friendship offers, but you can usually find someone willing to make an alliance even if they're not on the map.

There's five types of alliance: cultural, economic, military, religious, and research. You can have one alliance of each type, and every time one expires you can switch it out for a different type (assuming it's available). For the best flexibility, sign alliances at the same time so they all expire at the same time.

Cultural alliances are great for neighbours as they stop both civs from creating negative loyalty on each other. They also add culture to trade routes with the ally (+3 for sender, +1 for recipient). At level 2, they make districts produce extra Great Person Points if the corresponding city has sent a trade route to the ally. At level 3, they even allow both civs to share 10% of their culture and 20% of their tourism output. It's probably a good idea not to sign a level 3 cultural alliance with a highly advanced cultural civ.

Economic alliances make trade routes with each other produce more gold (+6 for sender, +1 for recipient). At level 2, you'll gain influence points faster for every city-state your ally is suzerain under (encouraging you not to compete for city-states). At level 3, you can even share suzerain bonuses. This is a good choice for a civ that's further away from you.

Military alliances grant +5 strength to both civs' units during defensive wars. Level 2 military alliances are normally the only type to offer shared visibility, but the Cree can use level one alliances of any type for that. Level 2 military alliances also add a +15% production bonus when building military units during wars. Level 3 alliances make all units start with a free promotion. You might want to sign this with a peaceful civ as warmongers will get a lot more out of the level 2 and 3 bonus than you will.

Religious alliances prevent you and your ally from imposing religious pressure on each other - very helpful if you're both neighbours and own different religions. They also add faith to shared trade routes (+3 for sender, +1 for recipient). At level 2, they make religious units stronger in theological combat by an impressive 10 points, but not against the ally's religion. At level 3, you'll gain 1 faith for every follower of the ally's religion in your cities and a bonus to religious pressure (except against cities that contain the ally's religion).

Research alliances grant you both science from trading with each other (+3 for sender, +1 for recipient). At level 2, they grant a free eureka, that neither civ has, every 20 turns. At level 3, you gain 10% of your ally's science when either you or them are researching a technology the other civ has already, or when you're both researching the same technology. Research alliances are best-suited for civs on a similar level of technology.

Do be warned that signing alliances means you'll be called into war if the other civ is attacked. For more distant civs, this usually isn't so bad, but it can be quite a problem if you're unprepared and two neighbours decide to fight. It'll also reveal your lands to the other civs, so make sure the target civ isn't one likely to betray you later. For that reason, avoid allying with warmongers situated close to your lands where possible.

Getting immediate visibility of a civ's lands (as well as the lands they've explored) makes it easy to gauge each civ's power, find good potential cities for trade (or Spies), discover city-states (and reveal their quests) or even to look for good unclaimed land for settling.

Summary

• Look out for camp and pasture resources so you can make better internal trade routes
  
• Try to grab the Civil Service civic and Cartography technology reasonably early so you can find new distant allies and reveal the map quickly.

Unique Improvement: Mekewap

Complementing the Cree ability to grab a lot of land and Poundmaker's trade route bonuses is the Mekewap improvement. Initially as good as a mine with twice the housing a farm offers, it can eventually blossom into a strong general improvement useful no matter your playstyle.

Placement

Terrain isn't too much of a problem for Mekewap placement. They can't be constructed on terrain with features like forest, rainforest, marsh or floodplains, but anything from flat snow to desert hills is fine. However, be careful where you place them. You have to place Mekewaps next to bonus or luxury resources, and you can't place them next to each other. Being unable to place them next to each other means it helps if you space your cities further apart so they can't get in the way of each other.

Look out for spots with lots of bonus or luxury resources, especially if they can be improved with a camp or pasture. Bonus resources have a yellow background in their icon, and luxury resources have a purple one. Resources with a red background are strategic, and do not make Mekewaps any stronger.


Here is just one possible example.

Location 1 shows the best possible spot, so it's obvious this makes the best first Mekewap.

Location 2 is adjacent to two bonus resources, so it's worth +2 food. The strategic resource won't offer any bonus yield but can determine where I want to place Mekewaps and districts.

Location 3 is a tricky one. With Cartography it will be worth 5 gold, but if I built a Mekewap one tile south-east, it'd be worth 3 gold and 1 food with Conservation. Still, the latter yield would take longer to arrive, and it'd also block more potential future Mekewap spots.

Locations 4 and 5 won't create a great yield from adjacency, but the +1 production and +1 housing is still helpful. The placement also follows a pattern that will minimise the disruption when attempting to place Mekewaps further out for other cities. On the whole, you'll want to place Mekewaps with a one-tile gap between them rather than two tiles to maximise the quantity you can construct.

It's not easy to get an optimal placement every time, so consider removing some old Mekewaps and building new ones later in the game to maximise the yields you gain from them overall.

Yields

Mekewaps initially create +1 production and +1 housing. It is the latter of the two bonuses that is more useful, as an early source of housing combined with Poundmaker's leader ability really helps your cities to grow.

You'll also gain +1 food for every two adjacent bonus resources. Having more than three adjacent to the same tile is rare, so you'll largely just have the +1 boost at the most. You can also get +1 gold for an adjacent luxury resource, which nicely complements the lack of a need to purchase tiles and the maintenance-free Okihtcitaw to give you a good early income.

An Early Golden Age

You will gain 4 era score for training an Okihtcitaw for the first time, as well as building your first Mekewap. Together, this makes it really easy to achieve a classical-era Golden Age. Consider taking Free Inquiry or Pen, Brush and Voice for the science or culture advantages respectively, which will help you on the way to enhancing Mekewaps.

Enhancement

Mekewaps gain +1 production with the Civil Service civic; the civic that allows you to make alliances. This largely corresponds to the +1 production mines get at Apprenticeship, so there's no need to work a whole lot of mines to stay productive.

The Cartography technology - required to cross oceans - grants +2 gold for every luxury resource adjacent to the Mekewap, in addition to the 1 gold they get for being adjacent to at least one. Theoretically, a Mekewap completely surrounded by luxury resources could make a massive 13 gold per turn, but you usually won't get more than 7, and even then it isn't especially common. Considering the Cree want a lot of trade routes, building two Harbours for the eureka for Cartography shouldn't be too hard.

Finally, the Conservation civic makes Mekewaps provide +1 food per adjacent bonus resource instead of +1 for every two. This won't make Mekewaps competitive with post-Replaceable Parts farms in terms of food output, but it will allow your cities to enjoy reasonable production, food and good gold all on the same tile.

Summary

• Look out for bonus and luxury resources in close proximity, especially if they can be improved with a pasture or camp
  
• Begin by placing a city's first Mekewap on a tile near as many bonus and luxury resources as possible.
  
• Then, look for the next-best locations, preferably with a one-tile gap between each Mekewap.
  
• The Civil Service civic, Cartography technology and Conservation civic are easy enough to get and will make Mekewaps stronger.

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.

Government

Tier One

Classical Republic is a reliable choice for a peaceful game, granting amenities to help match the housing bonus of Mekewaps. Autocracy also has its uses if you want to build a particularly strong capital.

If you want to train Okihtcitaw with the Ambush promotion, Oligarchy's experience bonus helps there. Okihtcitaw do not benefit from Oligarchy's strength bonus, however, and you might want to switch to a different government when obtaining the legacy policy card.

As for government buildings, all three have their uses.

The Ancestral Hall is ideal if you desire rapid expansion. The more cities you have, the greater trade route capacity you can have, and the more land the Cree civ ability can grant you.

The Audience Chamber is more suitable if you don't want too many cities, and instead want to use Poundmaker's leader ability and Mekewaps to help grow them.

If you think you can be successful with Okihtcitaw warfare however, consider using the Warlord's Throne. Bonus production means while your armies are out fighting, your cities back home can develop faster, leading to an eventual nughty empire indeed.

Tier Two

Monarchy is the strongest choice for the diplomatic game thanks to its significant diplomatic favour bonuses. Alternatively, Merchant Republic is a reliable choice of government. The gold bonus for cities with Governors goes nicely with the large gold output the Cree tend to have, and there's a good arrangement of policy card slots.

The Intelligence Agency will probably be the most reliably useful government building. Poundmaker's leader ability means you can reveal most of the map by the time Spies become available, which means you can always target the best cities of other civs, or the best city-states for Fabricate Scandal missions. Alternatively, take the Foreign Ministry for a reliable diplomatic favour bonus.

Tier Three

Democracy is ideal as it offers both extra yields from trading with allies and a discount on gold purchases. The strong Cree economy can stretch even further! For a scientific game, Communism's production and science bonuses may be more relevant.

If you're after a diplomatic or scientific victory, the Royal Society lets you sacrifice Builders to speed up the construction of space project parts or carbon capture projects. If you're after a cultural victory, the National History Museum is a decent building to hold Great Works before you can construct more Great-Work-holding buildings in other cities.

Tier Four

Digital Democracy is best for cultural games; Synthetic Technocracy for scientific ones. When playing for diplomacy, the former has a more directly relevant array of policy card slots but the latter offers a bonus to city projects including carbon capture.

Policy Cards

Ancient Era

Caravansaries (Economic, requires Foreign Trade) - An immediate economic boost, as by the time you unlock this you'll probably already have a trade route from the Pottery technology.

Discipline (Military, requires Code of Laws) - Okihtcitaw are stronger than normal Scouts, but they'll have a harder time keeping Barbarian Spearmen away than Warriors do. As such, this policy card may be necessary.

Ilkum (Economic, requires Craftsmanship) - Aside from constructing Mekewaps, you'll want a lot of Builders so you can develop your quickly-acquired land from your civ ability, as well as improving Camps and Pastures to make the most of Poundmaker's leader ability.

Survey (Military, requires Code of Laws) - Getting double XP for Okihtcitaw units makes it a lot easier to get them to the all-important Ambush promotion.

Classical Era

Veterancy (Military, requires Military Training) - Faster Harbours and Lighthouses mean your coastal cities can increase your trade route capacity sooner.

Medieval Era

Retainers (Military, requires Civil Service) - The Cree have growth bonuses and a bit of housing, but nothing in the way of amenities. As such, you'll want to pick up bonuses like this one to help.

Serfdom (Economic, requires Feudalism) - More Builder charges helps you make the most of all your land.

Trade Confederation (Economic, requires Mercenaries) - Internal trade is more lucrative for the Cree than external trade at first, but eventually things like alliance bonuses will encourage sending more and more trade routes to other civs. You can build on that with this little bonus to science and culture.

Renaissance Era

Liberalism (Economic, requires The Enlightenment) - An easy source of amenities for a civ which may struggle to obtain them.

Triangular Trade (Economic, requires Mercantilism) - Gain more gold out of your trade routes, and a little faith.

Wisselbanken (Diplomatic, requires Diplomatic Service) - You're encouraged to make alliances, and you're encouraged to make a lot of trade routes. This policy card makes good use of both of those, making trade routes to allies provide extra food and production for both you and them.

Industrial Era

Public Works (Economic, requires Civil Engineering) - Finish off the job of improving your cities' many tiles.

Modern Era

Collectivisation (Economic, Communism only, requires Class Struggle) - Can't get allies? Don't worry, you can get incredible amounts of food and reasonable production with both this and Poundmaker's leader ability.

Market Economy (Economic, requires Capitalism) - Strengthen your international trade routes based on luxury and strategic resources in the destination city. Destination cities with furs, honey, ivory, truffles or horses will be particularly lucrative thanks to Poundmaker's leader ability.

New Deal (Economic, Democracy only, requires Suffrage) - An excellent policy card in conjunction with the food from trade routes.

Atomic Era

Sports Media (Economic, requires Professional Sports) - More amenities to help support your large cities.

Information Era

Ecommerce (Economic, requires Globalisation) - A good boost to production and gold for internal and international trade alike.

(Cultural) Online Communities (Economic, requires Social Media) - After a cultural victory? You'll want this handy tourism bonus for civs you have a trade route with. Of course, you'll want other tourism-boosting policy cards as well, but this is the one with the most explicit synergy with Cree uniques.

Administration - Age Bonuses and World Congress

Age Bonuses

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

Isolationism (Dark Age, Classical to Industrial eras) - This card will stop you settling new cities, but the development potential for your existing cities is rather good.

Reform the Coinage (Dedication, Renaissance to Modern eras) - Simple enough, gain era score from completed trade routes. The Cree should maintain a lot of them, and will be rewarded with a good chunk of easy era score.

Reform the Coinage (Golden Age, Renaissance to Modern eras) - Get vast amounts of gold as well as total immunity to your Traders being pillaged.

(Diplomatic/Scientific) Automated Workforce (Dark Age, Information to Future eras) - The reasonable production of the Cree makes them well-equipped to get through space race or carbon capture projects - so long as you can handle the amenity loss.

World Congress

How you should vote in the World Congress will often be specific to your game - if you have a strong rival, for example, it might be better to vote to hurt them than to help yourself. Furthermore, there may be general bonuses to your chosen victory route or gameplay which are more relevant than ones that have stronger synergy with civ-specific bonuses. Otherwise, here's a list of key relevant votes that have high relevance for this civ relative to other civs.

Aid Request - Vote in favour

The strong gold output of the Cree means you can often win this competition.

Border Control Treaty - Effect B (This player's borders will not grow via culture) on a neighbouring civ, assuming there's some neutral territory between you

This gives you more time to acquire those tiles via trade routes.

Mercenary Companies - Effect A (Producing, or purchasing military units using the chosen currency type costs 100% more until the next World Congress) for production

This grants you a temporary defensive advantage - enemies attacking you will struggle to produce extra units, while you can simply buy your way to a defensive force.

Migration Treaty - Effect A (+20% faster population growth but -5 loyalty per turn in this player's cities) on yourself if you can handle the loyalty penalty.

Helps you make the most of Mekewap housing and your strong food output.

Sovereignity - Effect A (+100% of the city-states' yield type when sending trade routes to a city-state of this type) for the trade route type you're trading with the most, assuming you're trading with any city-states.

Can offer an extra little boost for your trade routes.

Trade Policy - Effect A (Trade routes sent to the chosen player provide +4 gold to the sender. The chosen player receives +1 trade route capacity) on either yourself or a main trading partner.

Either get an extra strong trade route, or make multiple routes of yours provide more gold.

Administration - Pantheons, Religion and City-States

Pantheons

Fertility Rites - Turn good city growth thanks to Poundmaker's leader ability into slightly better city growth.

God of the Open Sky - Both Poundmaker's leader ability and the Mekewap UI benefit from pastures. This belief builds on that further by granting you culture - helpful for getting you to the Civil Service civic sooner.

(Domination) God of War - Can help with an Okihtcitaw rush if you want to take the risk.

Goddess of Festivals - If there's a lot of plantation luxuries in your lands, then this pantheon is a good choice for some bonus culture to complement your stronger Mekewaps.

Goddess of the Hunt - Offers food and production to all camps. This is particularly useful if you have a lot of deer.

Initiation Rites - Okihtcitaw units are fast, but not especially strong meaning they'll lose a lot of health in combat. By healing up to full health when they capture Barbarian encampments, they can rapidly switch to the next target, keeping you safe.

Religious Idols - Any bonus or luxury resource you can mine (e.g. copper, amber) is useful anyway for maximising Mekewap yields. This Pantheon also makes them produce some faith, which may help with things like Great Person patronage.

Religious Beliefs

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

Cross-Cultural Dialogue (Founder) - Helps you use your strong city growth to get bonus science.

Stupa (Worship) - Get a useful amenity.

World Church (Founder) - Your strong city growth can be used for bonus culture.

Zen Meditation (Follower) - A fairly easy source of an amenity.

City-States

Bandar Brunei (Trade) - Get a little bit of extra gold out of your international trading.

Buenos Aires (Industrial) - A helpful source of amenities, rewarding you having a large variety of bonus resources.

Hunza (Trade) - Long-distance trading can now grant you extra gold.

Johannesburg (Industrial) - The Cree already have a strong incentive to settle resource-rich regions, and Johannesburg builds on that by adding production.

Kabul (Militaristic) - Find Kabul early on? Send Amani the Diplomat over and make sure you become suzerain. Kabul doubles the experience you gain making it much, much easier to get Okihtcitaw units to the powerful Ambush promotion.

Kumasi (Cultural) - Can be helpful for getting the most out of city-state trade. Once you start making alliances, however, this bonus becomes a lot less useful.

Mexico City (Industrial) - The Cree work best when spreading out their cities rather than keeping them close together, but this does make many area-of-effect bonuses hard to use. Toronto helps by extending the range of Industrial Zone and Entertainment Complex AoE.

Mogadishu (Trade) - Losing Traders to pillagers can actually be a good thing if you want to redirect the trade route to gain more free tiles. However, once you start relying more on long-distance trade and trade with allies, it can become quite annoying. Mogadishu puts an end to your trade routes being pillaged while they cross over the seas.

Muscat (Trade) - A straightforward source of much-needed amenities.

Samarkand (Trade) - Enhance the gold from your trade routes.

Singapore (Industrial) - If you're trading internationally, Singapore will boost your trade routes' production yields.

Venice (Trade) - Gain extra gold from international trade. Particularly useful when sending trade routes to cities with furs, truffles or ivory.

Zanzibar (Trade) - More helpful amenities.

Administration - Wonders and Great People

Wonders

Note that any wonder granting diplomatic victory points is worthwhile for a diplomatic Cree game - you can use internal trading and Mekewap production to help.

Great Bath (Ancient era, Pottery technology) - You can support a large city with this wonder, but it's a very risky one to build.

Hanging Gardens (Ancient era, Irrigation technology) - Together with Poundmaker's leader ability, you can grow new cities very quickly.

Pyramids (Ancient era, Masonry technology) - You've got a lot of improvements to build early on to make the most of your uniques, so getting more Builder charges is a good idea.

Temple of Artemis (Ancient era, Archery technology) - Building on the camp/pasture emphasis of the Cree while also adding food and housing to complement their existing growth advantages, this wonder is certainly a good one for the Cree to have.

Colosseum (Classical era, Games and Recreation civic) - A decent source of amenities, though the Cree tendency to position cities further apart makes it harder to use than it would be for many other civs.

Colossus (Classical era, Shipbuilding technology) - Grants a free Trader and an extra point of trade route capacity, which complements both the civ ability and leader ability alike.

Petra (Classical era, Mathematics technology) - Mekewaps can be constructed on desert tiles. Combine it with Petra's strong yield bonus for those tiles, and you have a very powerful city.

Terracotta Army (Classical era, Construction technology) - Have a lot of Okihtcitaws? They'll now be one promotion closer to the all-important Ambush promotion. It's recommended that you train as many of the units to their second promotion as possible before you get this wonder for the maximum impact.

Huey Teocalli (Medieval era, Military Tactics technology) - With a large enough lake, this can be quite an effective source of amenities.

University of Sankore (Medieval era, Education technology) - Get some faith and science out of your trade routes.

Great Zimbabwe (Renaissance era, Banking technology) - This wonder will help you produce incredibly strong trade routes, with masses of both food and gold.

Torre de Belém (Renaissance era, Mercantilism civic) - Boosts international trade route yields from a single city.

Big Ben (Industrial era, Economics technology) - Between the Cartography technology and the Economics technology, the Cree can earn quite a considerable amount of gold from Mekewaps and trade. If you let that gold accumulate, and then build Big Ben, you'll even more ready to spend how you wish.

Estádio do Maracanã (Atomic era, Professional Sports civic) - An empire-wide boost to amenities to make your empire easier to handle.

Great People

Classical Era

Zhang Qian (Great Merchant) - Gain extra trade route capacity.

Medieval Era

Ibn Fadlan (Great Merchant) - More trade route capacity.

Marco Polo (Great Merchant) - Yet more extra trade route capacity.

Zheng He (Great Admiral) - Extra trade route capacity.

Renaissance Era

Raja Todar Mal (Great Merchant) - Internal trading produces more gold.

Industrial Era

Joesph Paxton (Great Engineer) - Get more amenities out of an Entertainment Complex to help support your growing cities.

John Spilsbury (Great Merchant) - Offers a unique luxury, and hence extra amenities.

John Rockefeller (Great Merchant) - Makes trading more profitable if the destination city has strategic luxuries.

Modern Era

Nikola Tesla (Great Engineer) - Extending the range of Factories and Power Plants helps them to reach the more distant cities in your dispersed empire.

(Cultural) Sarah Breedlove (Great Merchant) - Better tourism with civs you have a trade route with. The Cree emphasis on trade routes makes this easy to use.

Shah Jahān (Modern Engineer) - Essentially allows you to buy a wonder if you've saved up enough gold.

Atomic Era

Helena Rubenstein (Great Merchant) - More amenities.

Jane Drew (Great Engineer) - Housing and amenities to help your growing cities.

John Roebling (Great Engineer) - Even more housing and amenities.

Levi Strauss (Great Merchant) - Yet more amenities.

Melitta Bentz (Great Merchant) - Another point of trade route capacity, and boosts your tourism with other civs you have a trade route with.

Information Era

Estée Lauder (Great Merchant) - Some last-minute amenities.

Counter-Strategies

The Cree have great advantages when it comes to city development and exploration, but lack a strong victory focus. An inflexible Cree player may well be overtaken by a civ better-suited to the victory path they're on, while a flexible Cree player can be an unpredictable opponent.

Civilization Ability: Nîhithaw

The Cree rely heavily on trade routes, but simply pillaging them might not be the best answer unless you can keep up the pressure and keep pillaging them as soon as they're established. When the Cree re-establish trade routes, they can immediately send them in a different direction and gain more new tiles out of it.

Instead, perhaps a better strategy is to constrain Cree expansion. The closer together Cree cities are, the fewer tiles this ability grants them (and the harder it is for them to use a lot of Mekewaps).

If the Cree are settling cities right next to you, be ready to purchase key tiles before they take them for themselves.

Poundmaker's Leader Ability: Favourable Terms

But why antagonise the Cree when you can mutually benefit? Settling a city near a lot of camp or pasture resources will encourage the Cree to send a lot of trade routes your way, giving you gold in the process.

The Cree shared visibility from any alliance means you'll be giving away your discoveries the moment you ally them, but it works in reverse as well. That means you'll get to know where all their cities are - and what might be the best angles to attack if you decide to betray them later.

Poundmaker's Agenda: Iron Confederacy

Poundmaker wants to make as many alliances as possible. He likes those who seek many allies, and dislikes those who don't.

Largely, this agenda is better for peaceful civs and punishes warmongers, but it can be a bit of a meta-agenda in a sense. If you struggle to meet the agendas of a lot of other civs, it'll be hard to make many alliances.

Unique Unit: Okihtcitaw

Okihtcitaw are mostly effective as an exploration unit, and they arrive too early for you to really be able to do much about that. You can try investing more into exploration yourself so you can grab more ancient ruins before the Cree take them (and their experience bonus) for themselves, but you don't really need to do that if you have more important things to do early in the game.

At war with the Cree? Okihtcitaw rely on their mobility rather than strength. Three hits with Archers will kill them, or two hits with a Horseman or Swordsman. In fact, even regular Warriors will be fine - with the Agoge policy card, they're cheaper than Okihtcitaw are.

Of course, it's a different story if Okihtcitaw have the Ambush promotion. You'll want to trap the units that have it, kill them quickly and stop them pillaging farms to heal up. Promoted Archers can help to take them down until you have Swordsmen or Horsemen.

Unique Improvement: Mekewap

Mekewaps heal units up to full health when pillaged (farms only heal 50HP when pillaged) and their placement requirements mean they'll often be reasonably spaced out throughout the Cree landscape. That will often mean if you're at war with the Cree, you're rarely far from somewhere to heal up a unit.

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Gathering Storm

Compilation Guides

• Civ summaries (Start here for an introduction for all civs)
  
• Civ-specific tricks, secrets and clarifications (Ideal for more experienced players)

Individual Civilization Guides

• America - no additional content* (Cultural/Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• America - all additional content* (Cultural/Diplomatic/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Arabia (Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Australia (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Aztecs (Domination)
  
• Babylon (Cultural/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Brazil (Cultural/Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Byzantium (Domination/Religious)
  
• Canada (Cultural/Diplomatic)
  
• China (Cultural/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Cree (Diplomatic)
  
• Egypt (Cultural/Diplomatic/Religious)
  
• England (Cultural/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Ethiopia (Cultural/Religious)
  
• France (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Gaul (Domination)
  
• Georgia (Diplomatic/Religious)
  
• Germany (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Gran Colombia (Domination)
  
• Greece (Cultural/Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Hungary (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Inca (Religious/Scientific)
  
• India (Domination/Religious)
  
• Indonesia (Cultural/Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Japan (All)
  
• Khmer (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Kongo (Cultural)
  
• Korea (Scientific)
  
• Macedon (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Mali (Diplomatic/Religious)
  
• Māori (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Mapuche (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Maya (Scientific)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Netherlands (Scientific)
  
• Norway (Domination)
  
• Nubia (Domination)
  
• Ottomans (Domination)
  
• Persia (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Phoenicia (Domination)
  
• Poland (Cultural/Domination/Religious)
  
• Portugal (Diplomatic/Scientific)
  
• Rome (Domination)
  
• Russia (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Scotland (Scientific)
  
• Scythia (Domination/Religious)
  
• Spain (Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Sumeria (Diplomatic/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Sweden (Cultural/Diplomatic)
  
• Vietnam (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Zulus (Domination)

*The Teddy Roosevelt Persona Pack splits Roosevelt's leader ability in two, meaning the game with it is substantially different from without - hence two different versions of the America guide. Lincoln was added later and is only covered in the latter guide.

Other civs with alternative leader personas are not split because the extra personas added in later content do not change the existing gameplay - as such the guides are perfectly usable by players without them.

Rise and Fall

These guides are for those with the Rise and Fall expansion, but not Gathering Storm. They are no longer updated and have not been kept up to date with patches released since Gathering Storm. To look at them, click here to open the Rise and Fall Civ Summaries guide. The "Other Guides" section of every Rise and Fall guide has links to every other Rise and Fall guide.

Vanilla

The Vanilla guides are for those without the Rise and Fall or Gathering Storm expansions. These guides are no longer updated and have not been kept up to date with patches released since Rise and Fall. To look at them, click here to open the Vanilla Civ Summaries guide. The "Other Guides" section of every Vanilla guide has links to every other Vanilla guide.

[MeniliteZ]

@The Sprinkler
I'm not too good at those 2 victory types, nor am I a great player either. But maybe play as India? Stepwells might help you match the Mekewap housing, and the Elephants are good defenders.

Gandhi has better faith and extra war weariness for opponents, and Chandragupta has better offense in war.

If it's a Duel map, Gandhi's faith bonus probably won't help much, though.

[The Sprinkler]

I'm struggling to go up against a good player who exclusively uses Poundmaker. It's only ever religious + combat victory, no other victory conditions. I don't know a good leader to use against him, nor am I a great player. The last time I played with them Poundmaker had canons and I was slowly researching out of bows. Any tips? Advice? A leader I can use?

[DatOneMinuteman]

WATTO MOMENT

[No Daut]

Mekewaps get a second point of housing at Civil Service. Civilopedia fails to mention that, but it's definitely there.

Honestly I've always considered that (in conjunction with absolutely stupid food yields from domestic trade) to be the most impactful of the Cree uniques. Choosing your victory path feels like a formality when you've got multiple 20 population cities and it's only the early renaissance.

[MeniliteZ]

@Yokuyin
Also, I don't think a Cree Destination city of another Civ's trade route will get gold like that. I could be wrong, though.

[MeniliteZ]

@Yokuyin
Yes, a Cree Destination city will get the gold.
That part you said isn't relevant actually is. When Cree is sending its trade routes to other Civs, the Destination City is that other Civ's city.

[Yokuyin]

Hey Zigzagzigal, I found a mistake in the guide. In the Outline of Favourable Terms you state:

"Destination cities of Cree trade routes gain +1 gold per camp and pasture they control."

But I've noticed in my games that the Cree gains gold if a Trade Route has a Cree destination city. So if a foreign civ sends a Trade Route to a Cree city with camps or pastures, the Cree gets the gold.

This also means that this part is no longer relevant:

"this means giving gold to the other civ or city-state, but internal trade lets you take that gold for yourself. Still, external trading can become much more lucrative later in the game thanks to things like alliance bonuses."

Otherwise a great guide, and it helped me a lot!

[Mon'keigh]

Wow ! Excellent guide !!!! Thank you very much, there's a ton of work, love and dedication gone into this. I salute you !