A Vox Populi(CBP) Guide: Brazil

A guide on how to play Brazil with the Vox Populi(Community Balance Patch) mod. Brazil is probably the strongest tourism civ in the game, and can make some good money on the side as well.

Introduction

These guides are designed to help players who are new to Civ but still interested in Vox Populi, familiar with Civ but new to Vox Populi, or even those well versed in Vox Populi who just want to see if there's anything they didn't know about a particular civilization. I am actually a big fan of Zigzagzigal's Civ guide series, and it really helped me learn a lot about the game, and I wanted to bring a similar experience for fans of the Vox Populi or Community Balance Patch modpack. For those interested in the modpack it can be downloaded here[forums.civfanatics.com]

Anyways, without further ado, onto the Brazilians!

Before I go into depth with this guide, here's an explanation of some terminology I'll be using throughout for the sake of newer players.

Beelining - Focusing on obtaining a technology early by only researching technologies needed to research it and no others. For example, to beeline Bronze Working, you'd research Mining and Bronze Working and nothing else until Bronze Working was finished.
Finisher - The bonus for completing a Social Policy tree (e.g. +33% Great Scientist rate and +25% growth in all cities from rationalism.)
GWAM - Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. These are the three types of Great People who can make Great Works, a major source of tourism for cultural Civs.
Opener - The bonus for unlocking a Social Policy tree (e.g. +25% Great Person Rate and +100% construction of guilds in Artistry)
Tall Empire - A low number of cities with a high population each.
UA - Unique Ability - the unique thing a Civilization has which doesn't need to be built.
UB - Unique Building - A replacement for a normal building that can only be built and used by one Civilization.
UI - Unique Improvement - A tile improvement that can be made by workers that doesn't replace any other improvement that can only be made by a single civilization
UU - Unique Unit - A replacement for a normal unit that can only be built by one Civilization or provided by militaristic City-States when allied.
Uniques - Collective name for Unique Abilities, Units, Buildings, Tile Improvements and Great People
Wide Empire - A high number of cities with a low population each.
XP - Experience Points - Get enough and you'll level up your unit, giving you the ability to heal your unit or get a promotion.

Brief Unique Summary

Start Bias

Brazil has a Jungle/Forest start bias. This is good for your UI, but other then that it's fairly neutral, other then maybe being harder to invade early on.

Unique Ability: Carnival

When a begins, 30% of your golden age points are converted into and , and your cities gain 10 turns of carnival

-50% from needs during carnival

Unique Unit: Bandeirantes(Replaces the Explorer)

A recon unit

Technology	Obsoletion	Upgrades From	Upgrades To	Resource Needed
Compass Medieval Era	Flight Modern Era	Scout (80 )	Commando (500 )	N/A

Strength	Ranged Strength	Moves	Range	Sight	Negative Attributes	Positive Attributes
20	N/A	4	N/A	3	None	May cross oceans before astronomy(Ocean Explorer) Gains xp from revealing tiles(Reconnaissance) Gain & when you reveal tiles(Flag Bearers) +25% combat strength against barbarians(Brute Force) Ignores terrain cost Unit will heal every turn even if it performs an action. Can use enemy roads/railroads(Survivalism III) +2 sight while embarked(Extra Sight While Embarked) Embarked units defend at double strength(Embarkation With Defense) Can build Mines, Quarries, Brazilwood Camps, and Forts in owned territory

Positive One-Off Changes

• Higher combat strength (20 instead of 17)
  
• Highermovement (4 instead of 3)
  
• Obsoletes at Flight rather than Railroad
  
• Can build Mines, Quarries, Brazilwood Camps, and Forts in owned territory

Positive Stay on Upgrade Changes

• Unit will heal every turn even if it performs an action. Can use enemy roads/railroads(Survivalism III)
  
• Gain & when you reveal tiles(Flag Bearers)

Unique Improvement: Brazilwood Camp

Technology	Enhancing Technologies	Terrain Requirement	Base Yields	Misc. Bonuses	Enhancement Effects	Final Yields
Calendar Ancient Era	Physics Medieval Era Acoustics Renaissance Era Radio Modern Era	A Forest or Jungle tile not adjacent to freshwater or another Brazilwood Camp	+1	Provides a copy of the Brazilwood Luxury Resource. Brazilwood gives +1 as well as +2 if you have a monopoly on Brazilwood. The Hexxon Refineries Corporation also gives Brazilwood +1	Physics +2 Acoustics +2 Radio +2	+1 * +6 *

*The maximum yields, or any yields, is more realistically increased by 1 and 2 due to the bonus Brazilwood gives

Strategies and Victory Routes

Strategy Ranking

These scores are merely my personal opinions from playing and examining this Civ, you may find other uses for the Brazilian uniques that make you disagree with a certain ranking

Offense	Defense	Culture	Tourism	Science	/ Growth/Production	Gold	Diplomacy	Religion
5/10	4/10	8/10	10/10	6/10	4/10	7/10	4/10	2/5

Brazil doesn't really have any military advantages, but their UA allows them to go on much longer wars without stopping due to unhappiness.
Brazil has incredible culture, culture that translates into tourism, and great tourism from other ways. A Culture victory is the ideal route for Brazil.
The Brazilian UU generates a pretty strong amount of science, and their jungle start can give a bit of extra science too. Science can be a good backup, but between their lack of growth/production and their advantages towards culture, I wouldn't say they excel at it.
Brazil's UA gives a great amount of gold, and their UI gives a bit of gold too. They lack any real advantage towards diplomacy though.
Finally, Brazil has no religious bonuses, but can afford to build shrines early on at least.

Unique Improvement: Brazilwood Camp

Note that I was in a golden age, hence the 3 gold

The first thing that you notice about the vast majority of civilizations in Civ V is something to do with their UA, but with Brazil, the Brazilwood Camp may likely be in effect before the UA is. Brazilwood Camps have fairly strict placement requirements. It's like a combo of the Hunnic UI in that it needs to NOT be adjacent to freshwater, but like the Mayan UA where it needs to be in a forest/jungle, and not adjacent to another of the same improvement. Keep an eye out for forest and jungle tiles not adjacent to rivers and lakes, and settle them accordingly

Compared to most other UIs, which tend to give several types of yields, the Brazilwood Camp is very focused on what yields it gives. It does give some gold, but the main reason you will want Brazilwood Camps is for the culture it gives. A massive 8 culture come the modern era, assuming you still have the monopoly on Brazilwood. Not only is this helping you get an edge on social policies early on, this translates to a ton of tourism, more then any other improvement, possibly even more then what landmarks are giving in the modern era at least.

While the yields of Brazilwood should be largely considered as part of the Brazilwood Camp, it is good to note that this is an extra guaranteed luxury. It will provide a bit of extra happiness and also some trading opportunities. It's a small thing considering everything else that both the Brazilwood camp and Brazil's other uniques give, but it's still nice.

Unique Ability: Carnival

The Brazilian UA is one of the more complicated, and somewhat poorly explained UAs in the game, but despite that, it is very strong. The way a golden age works is that whenever you accumulate enough golden age points (generated from excess happiness or other unique sources) you get a golden age for several turns. The cost increases each time a golden age spawns, and there are certain wonders and other ways to instantly start a golden age, which is done by instantly giving you enough golden age points to start it. For Brazil, whenever a Golden Age begins, they gain a lump sum of gold and tourism equal to 30% of the cost of the golden age



A good thing to note is that you will still get the lump sum even if you "start" a golden age while another one is already going on, so you don't have to worry about it.

Another thing that occurs during a golden age for Brazil is that their cities enter Carnival. But what is Carnival? It actually replaces the normal "we love the king day(WLTKD)" and can be triggered through any other method of starting WLTKD. In addition to the normal benefits, Carnival reduces unhappiness from needs by 50%. In addition to the bonus yields your cities will be producing due to your happiness, there is another part of this that synergizes greatly with Brazil. The more happiness you have relative to your unhappiness, the more golden age points you'll be generating, which means you have more golden ages which means, for Brazil, more gold and tourism. Keep an eye on what luxuries your cities want as well as what other civs are trading, and you should be able to consistently keep at least a few cities always in carnival.


There's a lot of Silk in my empire. This will be a very fancily dressed and decorated carnival I think

Unique Unit: Bandeirante

Can I just say I love this unit model?

Bandeirantes are an interesting unit. For one they don't really serve a military role, offensively or defensively, at least for the most part, unlike pretty much every other UU. Secondly, they don't especially synchronize with Brazil's other uniques. However that's not to say they are useless, in fact they give some great benefits, largely due to one promotion. Flag Bearers. This gives 3 culture, science and gold for every tile they uncover. Considering even a duel map has 960 tiles, the math checks out to be... a lot of yields. Even on a duel map that's easily enough science for at least one tech and social policy, and the potential only grows as the map size does. Usually whenever you finish scouting enough to find nearby settlement spots and neighbors you just put your scout(s) on auto-explore, but with Brazil that is wasting yields. Once you find all the spots you want to settle, take that scout back home until compass, then send him out once upgraded. In fact, it's probably worth building 3 or 4 Bandeirantes so you can scout faster because the science and culture will more more valuable early on as techs and policies are cheaper.

Bandeirantes do have a few more minor bonuses as well. First off they start with Survivalism III which lets them regenerate every turn even if they take an action. This, along with their higher strength, lets them handle any barbarians they encounter better. Survivalism III also let's them use enemy roads/railroads. This is somewhat useful for exploration as even with open borders, they are still considered "enemy" roads, but this has some use in war too. A Bandeirante can slip into enemy borders, move very fast, and pillage a lot of tiles and just be a nuisance.

The other small bonus they get is they can build quarries, mines, Brazilwood Camps, and forts in your territory. This isn't a very big deal as they are much more useful out exploring, but once that's done, they do move faster then workers, and can defend themselves, so they are technically better then workers for building those things. They certainly don't replace workers though as they can't build everything

Promotions Kept on Upgrade

• Unit heals every turn, even if it performed an action. Can use enemy roads/railroads(Survivalism III)
  
• Gains Culture, Gold and Science whenever the unit discovers a tile(Flag Bearers)

Unless you really want to keep them around for building, upgrade Bandeirantes if they happen to come into your territory while exploring.

Religion

Pantheons

Terrain/resource specific pantheons are not listed here unless they have some other synergy with a civ's uniques, however they can often be a great choice if the terrain/resources you start with favors them

Goddess of Festivals: You'll want to acquire as many luxuries as possible for happiness, so if you are successfully doing that, this will be a nice chunk of yields

Goddess of Renewal: You'll be working plenty of forests and jungles due to your UI, this will make them more worthwhile

God King: Should be a decent amount of golden age points for the early game.

Goddess of Purity: Ideally you want minimal rivers/lakes in your empire, but if you do happen to have a lot of them, this will give a solid bump to your happiness for more golden ages

Founder

Evangelism: Will be a massive boost to your tourism output, making for a significantly faster victory

Theocratic Rule: Brazil gets wltkd more often and more consistently then nearly anyone else. This will be a massive boost to all your cities

Divine Inheritance: Since you want to be in a golden age most of the time anyways, this should be a massive boost to your capital/holy city

Follower

Stupas: Tourism, golden age points, what else could you possibly want?

Churches: Free carnival right at the point in the game where it is probably hardest to trigger, and happiness is tightest

Mastery: A solid chunk of golden age points to keep the tourism and gold chugging along

Enhancer

Sacred Calendar: A great choice to take advantage of golden ages and get a bit of extra gold too

Symbolism: A bit of extra golden age points, but the extra great people points are arguably more important

Reformation

Sacred Sites: The best reformation belief for any culture civ. Try to nab lots of follower buildings to compound the effects

Faith of the Masses: Culture buildings purchased with faith is nice, but you're here for that massive amount of happiness

Inspired Works: A solid boost to science, culture, and faith

Social Policies

Brazil takes a standard Culture route of Tradition into Artistry and then finishing with Industry

Tradition

Opener: The extra population will help you get more production to build early wonders

Justice: The early production will further help wonder building

Sovereignty: Border expansion is nice, plus this is some artist generation for early tourism, and potentially some golden age points in the late game.

Ceremony: The extra science will help clear up any remaining worker techs, as well as limit the downtime between having the techs to build wonders

Splendor: I always recommend going Splendor before Majesty because Splendor can give a good amount of culture, getting you to finishing tradition quicker. Oh yeah, and also some golden age points.

Majesty: You'll probably have a good amount of GWAM specialists, so this helps prevent growth from getting too stumped

Finisher: Get a bit more use out of your great person improvements, and the throne room is a good overall boost in the capital

Artistry

Opener: Guilds are normally expensive, but very useful for a culture game. The faster Great People rate is nice too.

Humanism: The yields on all great works is nice, but it's best for literature as those give golden age points

Refinement: Happiness is golden age points

Heritage: You're going to be building plenty more wonders, get some golden ages out of them

National Treasure: Extra gold from all the great people you'll have, plus an extra one for free

Cultural Exchange: Mo Culture, Mo Tourism, Mo Win!

Finisher: Because Golden Ages should generate more tourism

Industry

Opener: Two trade routes are a great bonus for keeping up the trade route tourism bonus, plus generating some extra money

Division of Labor: Seaports and Train Stations are normally expensive buildings, but now they are in line with other buildings. Also a large boost to your production and gold outputs

Free Trade: Faster Great Merchants, plus extra gold from ITRs is always a good thing

Entrepreneurship: Gold and production, the industry tree knows what it wants, and you do too. Even a small bit of happiness. Joy!

Mercantilism: A good bit of extra science and culture. Who ever said Industry was just gold and production? Wait a minute...

Protectionism: Pretty nice to give your carnival some extra yield bonuses

Finisher: Little bit of yields, plus even more happiness.

Ideology

Freedom is an easy choice due to Brazil's focus on Golden Ages.

Level 1 Policies

Universal Sufferage: A free golden ages, longer golden ages, and more happiness to get more golden ages. Awesome

Civil Society: Your jungle heavy cities might have been struggling to grow if they had a lot of Brazilwood Camps, but now they should thrive.

Avant Garde: You'll soon be making the final tourism push, you'll want to squeeze out as many GWAMs as you can.

Creative Expression: Make your great works work as hard as your Brazilwood Camps towards tourism

Level 2 Policies

Capitalism: Will help with the large amounts of specialists you likely have

New Deal: More yields and some tourism from your various great people improvements

Transnationalism: Corporate franchises actually increase Tourism towards the civ you found them in, so getting a few extra will help

Level 3 Policies

Media Culture: This will push your Tourism over the edge and you should be able to convert even high culture civs, at least with a musician or two to back you up.

Treaty Organization: Having some pull in the World Congress is good to prevent really bad policies like Travel Ban from passing.

Wonders

Ancient Era

Mausoleum of Halicarnassus: An early Carnival, plus this makes them better for whatever city you build this in.

Pyramids: A free settler is great, but you're here for the golden age points

Classical Era

Great Library: A hard wonder to get, but a free tech is great and the writing slots are solid.

Parthenon: A free great work, plus a bit of culture and science

Medieval Era

Notre Dame: A free golden age, all you could ever want.

University of Sankore(Tradition Only): A little bit of science from all those great people

Renaissance Era

Chichen Itza: Longer golden ages and a little less unhappiness so you can get more golden ages.

Globe Theatre: A must have wonder for Brazil.

Leaning Tower of Pisa: More GWAMs, and great people in general is good for any cultural civ

Sistine Chapel: You already generate a ton of culture, so multiply it even more

Taj Mahal: Free golden age, golden age points, even a few extra yields, this is a great wonder for Brazil

Uffizi: A more conventional culture wonder for more conventional tourism

Industrial Era

Louvre(Artistry Only): Tons of tourism, enough said.

Neuschwanstein: May be tricky to build due to placement requirements, but happiness, I think you get where I'm going by now.

Modern Era

Broadway(Industry Only): Like the Uffizi, but for music

Cristo Redentor: Lots of tourism from things you're already building to get tourism, an essential wonder for any culture game

Statue of Liberty(Freedom Only): The production is really nice as Brazil really lacks it, and the social policy is awesome too.

Information Era

CN Tower: More Tourism from every normal source of Tourism.

Great Firewall: Not actually very useful for Brazil, you want it to deny anyone else it as this will make a culture win much harder if someone else, especially someone with high culture builds it

Sydney Opera House: Can't say no to some last minute culture yeah?

Pitfalls to Avoid

In order to make the most of Brazil, you need to be active in how you use your uniques, otherwise they might go to waste, leaving you with very little.

Not Building Cultural Wonders

Carnival gives a large sum of tourism that has nothing to do with your tourism generation. However, you can't win the game off of it alone. You still need to keep up with conventional tourism in order to win.

Not Trading for Luxuries

Getting luxuries is important for both aspects of your UA. More luxuries means you have more happiness which means you get golden ages more often, which means more carnival. Trading for luxury resources to trigger WLTKD is also important, as while the goal is to trigger golden ages as often as possible, there will still be some downtime where your cities aren't in carnival, which is wasted culture, and means your cities are more unhappy, meaning golden ages take longer.

Neglecting Military

Your Jungle start bias gives you some minor protection in the early game, but it won't stop a dedicated warmonger. Probably the best use of the money you get from Carnival is to purchase a military, but do build more if you need to. Doesn't matter how happy or well developed your cities are if they aren't yours.

Building too tall

Brazil is a tall civ, no question about that, but Brazilwood camps have some decently strict placement requirements, and you'll want to get as many spots that can build them as you can. The reduced unhappiness from carnival means you can actually build somewhat wide and be nowhere near unhappy, although don't overdo it, as you still want to get golden ages frequently.

Not Chopping Forests/Jungles

Brazilwood Camps are important to build, but they need to be not near freshwater and not near eachother, as well as in a forest/jungle. You don't have to keep around any forests/jungles that you can't build Brazilwood Camps on. Judge those tiles like you would any other civ.

Scouting too much early

Once you have done enough scouting to know your closest neighbors, city states, and potential city spots, pull back your scouts. The more tiles you uncover, the less yields you'll get from Bandeirantes.

Ignoring Bandeirantes

It can feel easy to ignore Bandeirantes because they don't help much in combat, nor do they directly help tourism. However the potential yields Bandeirantes can give are fantastic, and while you don't need more gold and culture(although it certainly doesn't hurt) the science is very important. You can't build important wonders without their techs after all, and you need every advantage in getting them due to your lack of production.

Using Bandeirantes as the Bulk of Your Military

Bandeirantes are great units, but they don't offer much in combat. If you try to make an army out of them, they won't hold up to pretty much anything renaissance, and even a lot of medieval units.

Ransacking Rio: Counter Strategies

Brazil is one of the strongest cultural civs in the game, and have a surprisingly strong economy and even good science that makes them in theory pretty flexible. However, they most certainly have weaknesses to exploit

Cancelling Carnival

The best way to hurt Carnival is to deny Brazil luxury resources. Don't trade with Brazil, and settle spots that you can near Brazil with luxuries. This prevents them from getting carnival in their cities, both because they can't improve them themselves, but also because they have less to trade to other civs, and it also gives them less happiness, so therefore less golden age points.

Burning Down Brazilwood Camps

Similar to their UA, the best way to counter Brazilwood Camps is just to deny Brazil territory where they can build it, although that is slightly awkward. Most of the time you want the freshwater, and would rather take that over random forest/jungle in the middle of nowhere. Try your best to take forest/jungle close to good locations, and if you have the opportunity, steal the dry land later.

Banning Bandeirantes

Bandeirantes can give Brazil a large amount of yields, so the best way to deal with them is to kill them. They don't have embarkation with defense, so they are very vulnerable to ships. Park several ships around Brazil's coast, and declare war if you see any come into the water. Of course there's a good chance they got some out before you had a chance to build a navy, so there isn't a ton you can do if they are already exploring, unless you get lucky and run into them during your own exploration, but it is still worth it if you can kill some, the slower they explore the less useful their science and culture is. Do be prepared for a Brazilian response if you neighbor them though. They likely won't have a large military when you declare war, but they can purchase one pretty quick.

A Note About the Aztecs

The Aztecs with their Jaguar warriors, can easily invade Brazil with their jungle start, well before they get their first lump sum of gold from a golden age. In fact, since both the Aztecs and Brazil have a jungle start, there is a solid chance they start near each other, making the matchup even worse for Brazil.

Strategy by Style

Warmongers: Brazil is no bigger threat militarily at the beginning of the game then they are at the end, but that's not to say they are a complete pushover. Brazil will probably have a good nest egg of cash to build up a quick defense force, but it will be a very basic army.

Cultural Players: Brazil has strong tourism and culture, and will probably be one of the last civs you culturally influence. However, Brazil lacks production bonuses, so most cultural civs should be able to beat Brazil to the important wonders.

Scientific Players: Consider stealing any wonder that gives some sort of Golden Age bonus, like Notre Dame or Taj Mahal, and that will hurt Brazil a decent bit.

Diplomatic Players: A sanction will deny Brazil happiness and carnivals. Standard anti-cultural things like Travel Ban will also hurt them a lot.

Other Guides

Meta Guides

These guide cover every civ in the game, and can be used as a quick reference

• Civ Summaries

Civ Specific Guides: Alphabetized

• America (Domination/Science/Culture)
  
• Arabia (Culture/Science)
  
• Assyria (Science/Domination)
  
• Austria (Diplomacy/Culture)
  
• The Aztecs (Domination/Science)
  
• Babylon (Science)
  
• Byzantium (All)
  
• Carthage (Domination/Diplomacy)
  
• The Celts (Domination/Culture/Science)
  
• China (Domination/Culture)
  
• Denmark (Domination)
  
• Egypt (Culture)
  
• England (Domination/Diplomacy)
  
• Ethiopia (Science)
  
• France (Domination/Culture)
  
• Germany (Diplomacy/Science)
  
• Greece (Domination/Diplomacy/Culture)
  
• The Huns (Domination)
  
• The Inca (Science/Domination)
  
• India (Science/Culture)
  
• Indonesia (Domination/Culture/Science)
  
• The Iroquois (Domination)
  
• Japan (Domination/Culture)
  
• Korea (Science/Domination)
  
• The Maya (Science/Domination)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Morocco (Culture/Diplomacy)
  
• The Netherlands (Diplomacy/Domination)
  
• The Ottomans (Domination/Science)
  
• Persia(Domination/Culture)
  
• Poland (Domination)
  
• Polynesia (Culture)
  
• Portugal (Science/Diplomacy)
  
• Rome (Domination/Science)
  
• Russia (Science/Domination)
  
• The Shoshone (Domination/Science/Culture)
  
• Siam (Diplomacy/Science/Culture)
  
• Songhai (Domination)
  
• Spain (Domination/Culture)
  
• Sweden (Domination)
  
• Venice (Diplomacy/Culture/Domination)
  
• The Zulus (Domination)
  

[lifeordeath2077]

Brazil is updated to 3.9

[nobubblegums]

Great guides man, thanks. Have thought about posting these on reddit sub or civfanatics?