Zigzagzigal's Guides - Georgia (GS)

Georgia can push for continuous Golden Ages while tying religion and city-state diplomacy together. Here, I detail Georgian 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.

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

How to use this guide

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

• The Outline details the mechanics of how the civilization's unique features work and what their start bias is 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

Start Bias

Georgia has no start bias.

Civilization Ability: Strength in Unity

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

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

• Killing military units provides faith equal to 50% of their melee strength.
  
  • This stacks with the God of War pantheon for 100% of the unit's melee strength.
• Whenever you gain an envoy in a city-state following the religion present in the majority of your cities, gain an additional envoy.
  
  • If no single religion is dominant in at least half your cities, the bonus will not apply.
    
  • This does not affect Amani (the Diplomat)'s +2 envoy boost when present in a city-state.
    
  • This takes effect after the effect of the Religious Unity founder belief, so it will always create two envoys instead of one.
    
  • Sending your first envoy to a city-state with your religion present while you have the Diplomatic League or Containment policy card active will only grant three envoys, not four.

Unique Unit: Khevsur

A medieval-era melee infantry unit which replaces the Man-at-Arms

Research	Obsoletion	Upgrades from	Upgrades to	Cost	Resource	Maintenance
Military Tactics Technology Medieval era	Gunpowder ** Technology Renaissance era	Swordsman (150 10 )	Musketman (170 10 )	160 or 640 or 320 *	10	3

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

**If you have insufficient nitre, you may continue to train Khevsur units even beyond the Gunpowder technology.

Strength	Ranged Strength	Moves	Range	Sight	Negative Attributes	Positive Attributes
48	N/A	2	N/A	2	Deals -85% damage to city walls and urban defences	+5 vs. anti-cavalry units +7 when attacking into or defending on hill tiles Ignores extra movement cost of hill tiles

Variable Changes

• Requires the Military Tactics technology instead of Apprenticeship

Positive Changes

• Costs 10 iron to train, down from 20 (-50%)
  
• Has 48 strength, up from 45
  
• +7 strength when attacking into or defending on hill tiles
  
• Hill tiles cost 1 movement point to enter instead of 2.

Unique Building: Tsikhe

A renaissance-era city centre building which replaces Renaissance Walls

Research	Prerequisites	Required to build	Cost	Maintenance	Pillage yield
Siege Tactics Technology Renaissance era Cannot be built with: Steel Technology Modern era	Ancient Walls Medieval Walls	None	260 or 520 *	None	None

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

Fixed yields	Other yields	Citizen slots	Great Person points	Miscellaneous effects
4 3 * During a Golden or Heroic Age, these yields are doubled.	None	None	None	Provides +3 strength for its city unless its outer defences are completely destroyed. Adds 200 health to city outer defences until the modern-era Steel technology is unlocked This city's outer defences cannot be circumvented by Siege Towers.

*Requires the modern-era Conservation civic.

Positive changes

• Costs 260 production/520 faith, down from 300/600 respectively (-13%)
  
• Provides 4 faith per turn
  
• During a Golden or Heroic Age, provides an additional +4 faith, and +3 tourism with the modern-era Conservation civic.
  
• Provides 200 health to city outer defences, up from 100 (+100%).

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

Georgia can perform well at cultural victories. Faith can contribute to tourism via Naturalists, National Parks and Rock Bands, while extra envoys in city-states may help with science, culture and wonder production. Building wonders is one of the best sources of era score, which feeds back into strong Golden Age bonuses. And during a Golden Age, the unique Tsikhe wonder will provide even more tourism.

Diplomacy is among Georgia's best victory routes. Few civs can match Georgia's ability to gain city-state envoys, providing Georgia with a great opportunity to become suzerain over lots of city-states simultaneously. This in turn can lead to a lot of extra diplomatic favour. Furthermore, cheap wall construction, the Tsikhe UB and the Monarchy government combine for a significant bonus to diplomatic favour.

Domination is reasonably effective, thanks to Georgia's unique unit. While not especially strong by itself, you can add the Oligarchy government and a Siege Tower and it becomes a cost-effective all-round option for warfare. Extra envoys in city-states also makes it easy to become suzerain of a city-state with a large army and levy its units. Alternatively, with the Grand Master's Chapel building, you can purchase units with faith - powerful in conjunction with faith-on-kills attribute of Tamar's leader ability..

Religion is another strong victory route for Georgia. The UB offers a decent amount of faith - especially during Golden/Heroic Ages. However, it's Tamar's leader ability that can really provide you masses of it - both via extra envoys in religious city-states and faith on kills. There are a couple of catches, however - Georgia has no direct advantage to founding a religion, and starting wars puts your religious units at serious risk. That being said, converting cities of other civs when you're at war with them is among the best sources of era score.

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

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

Tamar's leader ability makes it clear that Georgia's game is one built around faith, though the two halves of her ability work with it very differently.

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

Faith on Kills

Much like Gorgo of Greece's ability to get culture when killing enemy units, Tamar gets faith. Early on, killing a Barbarian Warrior is worth 10 faith - killing three of them is enough to secure a Pantheon. It may be useful to keep a Barbarian Outpost around without clearing it so it can spawn more Barbarians you can kill for extra faith.

Consider stacking this ability with the God of War pantheon, which like this bonus grants you faith when killing units equal to half their melee strength. The God of War pantheon only applies within eight tiles of a Holy Site, but that Holy Site doesn't have to be yours!

Faith and war often don't mix, as enemy military units can pillage your religious units with ease. However, converting the cities of other civs you're at war with will grant bonus era score, which can be a great way to support constant Golden Ages.

Offensive Warfare

If you want to actively seek out lots of faith with this ability, you may want to invade other civs. Khevsurs and Battering Rams or Siege Towers can do a good job of cutting down enemy defences, while they have a decent enough strength to stand up to any medieval-era units.

With a tier two government, you can build the Grand Master's Chapel Government Plaza building. While lacking the useful city-state levying advantages of the Foreign Ministry (which goes well with the other half of Tamar's leader ability), it does allow you to purchase military units with faith. This means in a war you can kill enemy units to further the production of future units, though be warned the cost of units rises at a faster rate than the strength of enemy units.

Defensive Warfare

An alternative use of this ability is to let the enemy come to you. The Georgian civ ability makes building city walls easy, so you can keep your cities safe while being able to kill enemy units for faith.

As Tamar is particularly good at becoming suzerain over city-states, other civs might want to invade and conquer them directly to deny Tamar the associated bonuses. Taking a city-state can initiate a City-State emergency - joining the emergency as a member is a good way to enter into a war with another civ without inflicting grievances - a great opportunity to kill enemy units for faith!

Overall

This element of Tamar's leader ability isn't a huge source of faith, and will fade in significance as the game goes on. However, it does offer good rewards for clearing out Barbarians, defending against other civs or even engaging in Khevsur wars.

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

Double envoys in converted city-states

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

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

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

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

Here's all the methods of obtaining envoys:

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

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

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

Furthermore, every city-state you are suzerain over grants +1 diplomatic favour per turn, or +2 with the industrial-era Országház wonder. This can give you a significant advantage in the World Congress.

Further Reading: Tamar of Georgia and Civilization VI

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

Civilization Ability: Strength in Unity (Part 1/3)

Georgia's civ ability is a tricky one to use well - misjudge era score just slightly and you can end up with no benefit from it for at least 40 turns. Smart use of it allows you to enter constant Golden Ages that other civs would never manage to achieve.

Dark, Normal, Golden and Heroic Ages

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

During a game era, various actions grant era score, elaborated on later in this guide. Depending on how much you earn during a game era, you will have a Dark, Normal, Golden or Heroic Age during the next game era. The four different types of ages have distinct effects:

Dark Ages

You will enter a Dark Age if you produced insufficient era score during the previous game era to reach any other kind of era.

During Dark Ages, your citizens will provide half as much loyalty pressure as normal, which can cause border cities to become disloyal, making it much trickier to hold onto conquests.

However, you also have access to Dark Age policy cards. These go in a wildcard slot and provide significant benefits but also significant drawbacks.

To help you get out of a Dark Age, you may choose one of four dedications, which grants you bonus era score from certain actions. The selection of possible dedications varies every game era.

Normal Ages

You will always start the game in the Normal Age. Further Normal Ages can be entered if you produced a moderate amount of era score in the preceding game era.

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

Golden Ages

Golden Ages can be achieved if you had a particularly large amount of era score in the preceding game era.

Golden Ages cause your citizens to provide 50% more loyalty pressure than normal, making it much easier to resist enemy loyalty pressures.

More importantly, you get access to a choice of one of four Golden Age dedication bonuses, which offer some powerful advantages for the rest of the era. However, the dedications in a Golden Age do not provide era score, making it harder to avoid a Dark Age in the following era.

Heroic Ages

If you are in a Dark Age, achieving enough era score for a Golden Age will instead place you in a Heroic Age.

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

Era Score Thresholds

The amount of era score you achieve in a game era will determine your next era status - the exact numbers are as follows:

• By default, having 13 era score or less will result in a Dark Age in the next game era.
  
• By default, having between 14 and 27 era score will result in a Normal Age in the next game era.
  
• By default, having 28 or more era score will result in a Golden Age in the next game era, or a Heroic Age if you are currently in a Dark Age.
  
• These thresholds are lowered by 3 for the ancient game era, so you only need 25 era score to achieve a classical-era Golden Age.
  
• These thresholds are increased by 1 for every city you controlled at the start of the game era.
  
• These thresholds are increased by 3 for every previous Golden or Heroic Age you entered, and decreased by 3 for every previous Dark Age you entered.

Enter Georgie

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

Era Score

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

City-States

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

Warfare

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

Other

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

Of special interest to Georgia is the ability to get +3 era score every time you convert a city of a civ you're currently at war with, considering the faith-on-kills attribute on Tamar's leader ability. Keep religious units escorted with military units so they can't be condemned, and you should be able to get quite a lot of era score that way!

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

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

Civilization Ability: Strength in Unity (Part 2/3)

Dedication Bonuses

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Civilization Ability: Strength in Unity (Part 3/3)

Bonus Wall Production

Even this new city with little production can get defences up quickly.

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

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

Furthermore, city walls provide tourism with the modern-era Conservation civic. Ancient Walls offer +1, Medieval Walls offer +2 and the Tsikhe UB offers +3 (+6 during Golden/Heroic Ages). Combined with Georgia's good faith output (which can easily be used to buy Naturalists for National Parks, or Rock Bands), Georgia is well-equipped for a decent cultural game if religion or diplomacy don't succeed.

City Defence Mechanics

On the subject of city walls, it's worth explaining how city defences work more in depth.

Cities have a melee strength equal to the melee strength of your strongest unit, minus 10, or the melee strength of a garrisoned unit if it's higher. This base strength value is increased by 3 if the city is your capital, 3 if it's on a hill, 2 per speciality district it has, and by 5 if Governor Victor (the Castellan) is present. Cities will lose 1 strength per 10% of health they have lost, much like units.

Cities also have 200 health, giving them double the health pool of units. Cities recover 20 health per turn, unless they are under siege (completely surrounded by enemy units' zones of control).

Walls protect cities three ways: Firstly, each level of walls adds +3 strength to the city so long as they are still standing, for a total of +9 if the city has Renaissance Walls. Secondly, walls allow cities to use a ranged attack on nearby foes within two tiles (with a ranged strength equivalent to the highest ranged strength of any unit you have trained). Thirdly, and most importantly, they add outer defences to your city.

Outer defences act as a kind of second health bar for cities. When a city with walls is attacked, both the outer defences and the city's health will be damaged. However, the more outer defences remain, the less the city's health will be affected. A city with full outer defences will take very little direct damage, and can usually heal it back again. If a city has not had any adjacent enemies for three consecutive turns, it is able to undertake the "repair outer defences" city project which completely restores depleted city defences when complete.

Furthermore, outer defences take 85% less damage from melee attacks, and 50% less damage from most kinds of ranged attacks. However, siege units, naval ranged units and bomber-class aircraft deal full damage against outer defences.

Ancient Walls add +100 outer defences; Medieval Walls another +100 and Renaissance Walls yet another +100 (for Georgia's Tsikhe, +200) for a total of 300 (400 for Georgia).

When you unlock the modern-era Steel technology, you can no longer build any kind of walls, and they will not affect your level of outer defences. Instead, all cities receive "urban defences", giving them 400 outer defences and the ability to use a ranged attack. However, existing walls will still provide strength bonuses to the city, and any relevant bonus yields (such as housing from the Monarchy government) will still apply!

Summary

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

Unique Unit: Khevsur

Moderately mobile and moderately strong, Khevsurs offer a useful edge in medieval-era wars, destroying Barbarian Encampments and in defence. You can even use them on the offensive if you like; bring along a Siege Tower if you intend to do that. With enough faith, even without an Encampment district you can buy a Great General.

Preparation

Getting to Khevsurs requires the Military Tactics technology. You'll also need Bronze Working to reveal iron resources so you can train them. You'll probably also want to pick up Astrology, Archery and key Builder technologies like Irrigation first, but otherwise the sooner you have it the more effective the units can be.

To make the most out of Khevsurs, you'll need the Oligarchy government for its +4 strength boost, making Khevsurs stronger than Knights. It'll also really help if you can get the Feudalism civic for the Feudal Contract policy card so you can train them faster. Alternatively, if you have enough gold, you can upgrade Warriors or Swordsmen to them, though you'll need to take a detour to the Iron Working technology to do this.

Usage

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

Khevsurs are mostly effective as defensive units, but come at a good time for Georgia. A cost-effective defensive force means you can dedicate more production on developing Holy Sites and expanding your faith output.

Unique Building: Tsikhe

The Tsikhe building offers a lot of great advantages for Georgia - some obvious and some subtle; some direct and some indirect. It'll help you defend better, collect plenty of faith and even get some bonus tourism, alongside lots of other potential boosts.

Construction

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

Importantly, the Tsikhe is rare among UBs by not requiring a specific speciality district. This makes it easy to build in every city in your empire, but there's a catch - the Tsikhe is also the only UB that obsoletes, so be sure to build it everywhere before the Steel technology so you can keep its bonuses!

Yields

The Tsikhe building offers 200 outer defence, up from the typical 100 Renaissance Walls offer. A Georgian city with a Tsikhe building will be as well-defended as a city with Urban Defences from the modern-era Steel technology, making it particularly hard to take out. Even Bombards will struggle to leave a dent in Georgian cities.

The Tsikhe building also offers a decent +4 faith boost, which is better than most worship buildings, and without the need for a specific speciality district. Enter a Golden or Heroic Age, however, and this is doubled to a very impressive +8.

With the modern-era Conservation civic, all Renaissance Walls (including the Tsikhe UB) offer +3 tourism. However, the Tsikhe UB doubles this to +6 during a Golden or Heroic Age - better than most Great Works!

There's two other handy bonuses you can apply to Renaissance Walls (and by extension, Tsikhe buildings):

• The Monarchy government adds +1 housing per level of walls, so a city with a Tsikhe building will have a +3 housing advantage. More significantly, it adds +2 diplomatic favour for every Tsikhe you have, granting an incredible diplomatic advantage.
  
• The industrial-era Urbanisation civic offers the Military Research military policy card, which adds +2 science for each Tsikhe you have.

Conclusion

The Tsikhe building might replace a relatively niche building, but its impressive faith output in Golden and Heroic Ages, lack of prerequisite district and fast construction speed makes it worth constructing in every city. It's useful for diplomatic, religious and cultural games alike, and helps your cities stay well-defended between up to the modern era.

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

Oligarchy is useful to enhance the power of your Khevsurs, though Classical Republic can be good as well if you need an extra edge to Great Prophet Points to help secure a religion, or if you want the extra economic policy card.

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

Tier Two

Monarchy complements both Tamar's leader ability and the UB well, with significant advantages in the diplomatic game. Alternatively, take Theocracy for the religious advantages.

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

Tier Three

Democracy is a reliable choice. Its high number of economic policy cards helps support the religious game, and the incentive to have allies makes it work well in a diplomatic game as well.

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

Tier Four

For a cultural game, Digital Democracy is the least bad option of the three. It doesn't have particularly strong synergy with a cultural game, but avoids the more awkward penalties the other tier four governments have. For a diplomatic game, take Synthetic Technocracy so you can get Carbon Recapture projects done faster.

Policy Cards

Ancient Era

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

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

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

Classical Era

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

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

Limes (Military, requires Defensive Tactics) - Offers a huge production boost to walls, including your UB. Stacked with Georgia's civ ability, even weak cities can get a Tsikhe building up reasonably fast ensuring you can enjoy a considerable faith bonus during Golden and Heroi Ages.

Medieval Era

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

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

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

Industrial Era

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

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

Skyscrapers (Economic, requires Civil Engineering) - Boosts the construction of all wonders - handy for getting a little more era score.

Modern Era

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

Atomic Era

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

Information Era

Collective Activism (Diplomatic, requires Social Media) - Helps you get through the last few civics by leveraging the city-states you're suzerain over. It will also help you accumulate domestic tourists to slow down rival cultural civs.

International Space Agency (Diplomatic, requires Globalisation) - Offers a stacking 5% science bonus per city-state you are suzerain over. On larger maps, this can be quite considerable - if religious or cultural victory doesn't work out, maybe science will?

Future Era

Non-State Actors (Wildcard, requires Cultural Hegemony) - This wildcard allows you to directly choose which promotions Spies get. This allows you to consistently pick the Smear Campaign promotion, making Spies more effective at removing envoys other civs have present in a city-state. As the number of envoys removed scales to the Spy's level, that promotion essentially makes them remove two more envoys every time. Consider also adding Disguise and Linguist so the Spies can act even more rapidly to remove rival envoys.

Administration - Age Bonuses and World Congress

Age Bonuses

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

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

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

(Cultural) Flower Power (Dark Age, Atomic to Future eras) - Allows you to more effectively leverage your faith advantages into a tourism advantage by boosting the effectiveness of Rock Bands.

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

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.

City-State Emergency - Always vote in favour.

Winning this emergency as a coalition member gives you a permanent gold bonus for every envoy you have present at a city-state. Given how many envoys Georgia can generate, that can become a considerable source of money.

Espionage Pact - Effect B (The chosen Spy operation is unavailable) on Fabricate Scandal

Avoids the risk of Spies taking away your precious envoys.

Military Advisory - Effect B (Units of the chosen land promotion class lose 5 strength) on siege units

Georgia's reliance on walls for defence can make siege units a threat, but this resolution makes them significantly less of one.

Nobel Peace Prize - Always vote in favour

Georgia's strong envoy generation means you should be suzerain over plenty of city-states, generating plenty of diplomatic favour. That makes this scored competition easier to win.

Religious Emergency - Minimise your vote against this resolution when you are the target.

Succeeding a religious emergency as the target causes your faith to have a considerable one-off burst of religious spread. This can be a cost-effective way to convert a lot of cities - including city-states.

Treaty Organisation - Effect A (Double diplomatic favor earned from being suzerain of a city-state of this type) on whichever city-state type you're suzerain over the most.

Use your advantage in the World Congress to win yourself an even bigger one!

Urban Development Treaty - Effect A (+100% production towards buildings in this district) on city centres.

Helps you get your UB built faster.

Administration - Pantheons, Religion and City-States

Pantheons

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

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

God of War - So long as you're fighting within eight tiles of any Holy Site (owned by you or otherwise), you'll receive 100% of a unit you kill's base strength as faith.

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

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

Religious Beliefs

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

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

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

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

Pagoda (Worship) - Ties together Georgia's strengths in religion and diplomacy.

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

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

City-States

Akkad (Militaristic) - While this city-state is useful if you're taking your Khevsurs on the war path, the main point of becoming suzerain over Akkad is to prevent other civs doing the same, ensuring your cities' walls stay strong.

Ayutthaya (Cultural) - The Limes policy card in conjunction with Georgia's civ ability makes walls much faster to build than their production cost would suggest. In conjunction with Ayutthaya, this is a great way to obtain culture.

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

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

Fez (Scientific) - In conjunction with the Exodus of the Evangelists dedication or the Religious Unity belief, you can get even more rewards for a first-time city conversion.

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

Administration - Wonders and Great People

Wonders

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

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

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

Mahabodhi Temple (Classical era, Theology civic) - Wonder construction in general is a good source of era score, but add advantages that help your religion and diplomatic victory points on top, and this is a great wonder for Georgia.

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

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

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

Országház (Industrial era, Sanitation technology) - A very powerful wonder for Georgia, as all those suzerain city-states will now produce twice as much diplomatic favour. This will help you dominate the World Congress.

Statue of Liberty (Industrial era, Civil Engineering civic) - Georgia's great wall-building ability enables aggressive city placements, though loyalty pressure can be a limiting factor. The Statue of Liberty removes that problem. More to the point, it provides four diplomatic victory points.

Great People

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

Medieval Era

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

Imhotep (Great Engineer) - Great for grabbing an early wonder for some era score.

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

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

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

Renaissance Era

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

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

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

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

Industrial Era

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

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

Modern Era

Matthew Perry (Great Admiral) - A powerful stalemate-breaker in the race to be suzerain over a city-state, as he completely eliminates all other civs' envoys from it. That could be quite devastating if used against you, so it helps to acquire Matthew Perry for yourself if you can. Furthermore, if the city-state follows your religion, you won't only get enough envoys to become suzerain, but you'll get double that number!

Counter-Strategies

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

Civilization Ability: Strength in Unity

Era score

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

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

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

Furthermore, age thresholds increase the more cities a civ has at the start of a game era. Allowing Georgia to settle in weak locations like tundra or snow could make it much harder for them to achieve Golden Ages - though remember that their faith output is largely scaled to how many cities they have, so be prepared to face a more powerful Georgian religion.

Wall-building bonus

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

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

Faith on kills

Tamar won't get any faith from her unique ability if she can't kill anything. Make sure your higher-strength units always have an escape route when fighting her so you can retreat them if necessary. Ranged units with a low melee strength won't give her much culture if she kills them, so if given the choice between sacrificing a Knight and a Crossbowman, you may want to sacrifice the Crossbowman.

Embarked units can be attacked by naval units without dealing any damage in retaliation themselves, making them easy for her to kill. As such, be sure to invest in a navy of your own when taking units overseas near Tamar.

Once you're able to form corps or fleets, do so. The faith Tamar gets from killing a corps or fleet is less than the faith she'd gain from killing two of the individual units.

Double envoys in city-states of Georgia's religion

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

Alternatively, Georgia cannot use this ability if no religion covers a majority of her cities. A strong enough presence of rival religions in Georgia - even multiple different ones - may be enough to set back Georgia's ambitions.

If Tamar's envoys in a city-state are too much to handle, simply conquering the city-state will end that problem.

Tamar's Agenda: Narikala Fortress

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

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

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

Unique Unit: Khevsur

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

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

Unique Building: Tsikhe

The main impact this UB has when you're fighting Georgia will be their tendency to have highly-fortified walls in the renaissance and industrial eras, meaning you'll need particularly good siege units to get through it. Multiple Bombards may be necessary.

The Tsikhe UB also provides Georgia with plenty of faith, and unlike other UBs, cannot be pillaged. The best way to minimise that issue is to try and prevent Georgia entering a Golden Age by preventing them destroying Barbarian Encampments, building wonders, and other key sources of era score.

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

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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)
  
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• Cree (Diplomatic)
  
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• 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)
  
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• Mali (Diplomatic/Religious)
  
• Māori (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Mapuche (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Maya (Scientific)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
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• 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.

[Zigzagzigal]

Ah, the old copy-and-paste error.

[Bardagh]

"Once you're able to form corps or fleets, do so. The culture Tamar gets from killing a corps or fleet is less than the culture she'd gain from killing two of the individual units."

I think you mean faith?

[dantesedge]

Love your guides and I’m so glad you did Georgia since they are my favorite Civ. I have to point out one thing though... you can actually do the double envoy bonus using someone else’s religion as long as that Civ's religion has a majority over your empire.

This allows an alternate strategy of ignoring Holy Sites completely to focus on other things and then waiting for another religion to absorb 50%+ of your empire and the City States in your area. From that point, you can throw Envoys at those City States getting your double-Envoys and not having had to do much work to get the bonus. You can build Holy Sites later and just build Faith with the LA in the early game. Clearly you're not doing a Religious Victory though, but this helps the other victory types if you can weave it in properly. It has its downsides (helping someone else's religious game), but it offers another path forward especially if you miss a Great Prophet.

[[tcfl] Mr. Match]

I'm really excited to see what you think of the April '21 changes to Georgia in particular. Sort of a Faith version of Gorgo, probably wonderful synergy with the Grand Master's Chapel. A tremendous buff for a civ that really needed it.

[TakeItEes]

Thank you so much for these guides!! I use em like bibles because of how wonderfully infirmative they are. Always looking forward to more!!

[Yensil]

Surprised you don't mention monasticism for the classical dark age strategy. Helps you keep up on science after focusing everything into founding your religion...admittedly at the expense of delaying temples a bit due to the culture penalty.

[breezy]

wow bro nice guides