Zigzagzigal's Guide to Korea (BNW)

Korea's ability to acquire science is rivalled only by Babylon, while its unconventional midgame unique units make the game all the more interesting. This guide goes into plenty of detail about Korean strategies, uniques and how to play against them.

Introduction

Note: This guide assumes you have all game-altering DLC and expansion packs (all Civ packs, Wonders of the Ancient World, Gods & Kings and Brave New World)



Korea's history is characterised by keeping a distinct identity in the face of powerful neighbours. Four to five thousand years ago, the first kingdom, Gojoseon (or Old Joseon) established itself in the northern part of the peninsula, eventually joined by other nations. After Gojoseon collapsed after a war with China in the second century before the common era, three new kingdoms began to rise in Korea over the next four centuries. In the 7th century, three kingdoms would become two, and the 9th century finally saw Korea under one rule. And in the late 14th century, history would be written by one man - the general Yi Seong-gye who used his army, which was intended to invade China, to instead overthrow the King, establishing the Joseon dynasty. Under the fourth King of Joseon, Sejong the Great, Korea saw great technological advancements. The 16th and 17th centuries saw invasions from Japan and Manchuria respectively, followed by two centuries of isolation and peace.

But the world changed - in the late 19th century, Japan pushed unequal treaties upon Korea, just as Western nations had forced onto Japan, leading to annexation in 1910. After the Second World War, the Allies divided the administation of the nation between the North - administered by the Soviet Union, and the South - administered by the United States, leading to the Korean War thus dividing the country once more. In South Korea, rapid economic growth and industrialisation, coupled with a culture with increased global recognition, could yet see it become a major world power. In North Korea, a quasi-monarchical dictatorship threatens the world with nuclear weapons. It is up to you to decide the path you follow. Will you take the path of technological advancement, or the path of military-first? Can you build a civilization that will stand the test of time?



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.
Bulbing - Rushing a technology with a Great Scientist. It's generally advised to place Academies with them until sometime around the Plastics technology, then switch to bulbing.
Finisher - The bonus for completing a Social Policy tree (e.g. Free Great Person for Liberty.)
Great Tile Improvement - A tile improvement built by a Great Person (Academy, Citadel, Customs House, Holy Site or Manufactory.)
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. +1 culture for every city for Liberty's opener)
Spotter - A unit which allows a ranged unit (usually a siege unit) a line of sight with its target. Typically, siege units have a higher maximum range than their sight radius, hence the need for spotters. Hwach'a are an exception to the rule due to losing the usual sight penalty Trebuchets have.
Tall Empire - A low number of cities with a high population each. That route's advised for Korea.
UA - Unique Ability - the unique thing a Civilization has which doesn't need to be built.
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
XP - Experience Points - Get enough and you'll level up your unit, giving you the ability to heal your unit or get a promotion.

At a glance (Part 1/2)

Start Bias

In order to make it easier to take advantage of the Turtle Ship UU, Korea has a coastal start bias. This comes with a problem, however - coastal regions tend to be weak for production.

Uniques

Korea's uniques are dominated by their powerful scientific UA. Aside from that, they've got two midgame defensive units which sacrifice a core ability in exchange for a massive strength boost. There's the late-medieval Hwach'a and the early-renaissance Turtle Ship (which are on opposite sides of the technology tree.)

Unique Ability: Scholars of the Jade Hall

• +2 for every specialist
  
• +2 on every Great Tile Improvement and on every Landmark within your lands.
  
• Every scientific building, national wonder or world wonder on the following list built in the capital grants a one-off science boost equal to that of a research agreement.
  
  • Library
    
  • University
    
  • Public School
    
  • Research Lab
    
  • Observatory
    
  • National College
    
  • Oxford University
    
  • Great Library
• Like research agreements, this gives science equal to 50% of the median cost of technologies you can currently research and is affected by the boost offered by the Porcelain Tower and the Scientific Revolution Social Policy in the Rationalism tree.

Unique Unit 1: Hwach'a (Replaces the Trebuchet)

A ranged siege unit

Technology	Obsoletion	Upgrades from	Upgrades to	Production cost	Purchase cost	Resource needed
Physics Medieval era 2nd column (7th column overall)	Chemistry Renaissance era 2nd column (9th column overall)	Catapult (100 )*	Cannon (140 )*	120 *	460 *	None

*Assumes a normal speed game.

Strength	Ranged Strength	Moves	Range	Sight	Negative Attributes	Positive Attributes
11	26	2	2	2	May not melee attack No defensive terrain bonuses Must set up before attacking	None

Negative changes

• 11 strength, down from 12 (-8%)
  
• 200% bonus vs cities removed

Positive one-off changes

• 26 ranged strength, up from 14 (+86%)
  
• 2 sight, up from 1 (+100%)
  
  • If you upgrade a Catapult to a Hwach'a, it will still retain the sight penalty. Build Hwach'as from scratch to avoid this.

Unique Unit 2: Turtle Ship (Replaces the Caravel)

A naval melee unit

Technology	Obsoletion	Upgrades from	Upgrades to	Production cost	Purchase cost	Resource needed
[/previewicon] Astronomy Renaissance era 1st column (8th column overall)	Replaceable Parts Modern era 1st column (12th column overall)	Trireme (160 )*	Ironclad** (270 )*	120 *	600 *	None

*Assumes a normal speed game.
**Requires 1 Coal resource

Strength	Ranged Strength	Moves	Range	Sight	Negative Attributes	Positive Attributes
36	N/A	4	N/A	2	Cannot enter ocean tiles unless in friendly territory	None

Negative changes

• Loses "Withdraw Before Melee" promotion, meaning it doesn't have a chance to retreat a tile instead of being attacked when hit by melee.
  
  • This also means Korea can't have Ironclads with the promotion, as well, as it carries over on upgrade. However, Destroyers have the promotion anyway.
• Cannot enter ocean tiles unless in friendly territory
  
• 2 sight, down from 3

Positive one-off changes

• 36 strength, up from 20 (+80%)
  
• Obsoletes with Replaceable Parts instead of Steam Power (Industrial era, 2nd column, 11th column overall)

At a glance (Part 2/2)

Victory Methods

Note these scores are a matter of personal opinion based on experiences with the Civilization. You may discover a way of utilising the Civ more effectively in unconventional ways.

Cultural: 7/10
Diplomatic: 5/10
Domination: 7/10
Scientific: 10/10

While your UUs have huge amounts of strength, (the highest in their respective eras,) the need to set up for Trebuchets and to stick to coast tiles for Turtle Ships makes winning by domination with those units trickier it may at first appear. But there's one reliable route for Korea, and that's science, which they dominate at.

Similar Civs and uniques

Overall

Babylon is the obvious choice. Babylon and Korea are the two best Civs at scientific victories in the game with defensive capabilities on top. Babylon tends to have a stronger science output earlier on, but by the late-game, Korea will often overtake them.

Same start bias

The coastal start bias is the most common in the game. Aside from Korea, it's also the start bias of Byzantium, Carthage, Denmark, England, Indonesia, Japan, the Ottomans, Polynesia, Portugal, Spain and Venice.

Similar to the UA

Korea and Babylon are both centred around their science-based UAs. The mechanics behind them differ, but in practice they create similar playstyles.

Other Civs with capital-centric UAs include France, Rome and Venice. France is best at culture, Korea for science, Rome is somewhat flexible but skews towards domination, and Venice is extremely strong at diplomatic victories.

For wonder-centric UAs, look to France (they have doubled theming bonuses in their capital, and most theming bonuses are tied to world wonders) and Egypt (which has a 20% production bonus towards national and world wonders.)

Similar to Hwach'a

Hwach'a are rather unique with no clear parallels with other units. Having a substantial strength bonus in exchange for losing a core feature is a distinct feature of both of Korea's UUs, but isn't really found elsewhere.

If you want a siege unit with a strength bonus but keeps its city attack advantage, look to Rome's Ballista.

Similar to Turtle Ships

The other Caravel UU in the game is Portugal's Nau, but it builds on the exploration advantages of standard Caravels; Turtle Ships push in a completely different direction.

Turtle Ships function more like super-Triremes than Caravels, and as such there's some common ground with Carthage's Quinqueremes. Another melee naval unit that can perform decently against cities is the Dutch Sea Beggar.

Unique Ability: Scholars of the Jade Hall (Part 1/2)

Korea's one of four Civs highly dependent on their capital (along with Venice, Rome and France.) While Venice leans towards diplomacy, France towards culture and Rome towards war, Korea's focus is upon science. The dependency on the capital comes from the research boost you get when you build certain scientific buildings in the capital, which includes the two scientific National Wonders - hence encouraging you to focus on science generation there.

Aside from the capital emphasis, Korea should build their cities tall in order to get plenty of specialists and Great People for the other parts of the UA. Let's go into more detail in each respective part of the UA...

Research boost from scientific buildings in the capital

Introduction



Above: Boom! Building an Observatory in Seoul gives me a whole load of science. Obviously I got lucky with my starting location, but the point's still valid.

Whenever you build scientific buildings, national wonders or the Great Library (other world wonders don't work) in your capital, you get a one-off bonus to research equal to that of a research agreement with a Civ with equal or better science with you. There's 8 buildings that qualify:

• Library (Ancient era)
  
• Great Library (World wonder, Ancient era)
  
• National College (National wonder, Classical era)
  
• University (Medieval era)
  
• Oxford University (National wonder, Medieval era)
  
• Observatory (Requires adjacent mountain, Renaissance era)
  
• Public School (Industrial era)
  
• Research Lab (Modern era)

Due to the game's coding, only buildings that directly give science, give science based on the number of citizens or has a percentage modifier to science will work. So, building the Porcelain Tower won't give you a research boost. However, building it is still relevant to your UA as the research boost from building the scientific buildings is affected by the same modifiers as research agreements are! The Scientific Revolution Social Policy in the Rationalism tree will also increase that boost. Both together gives you twice as much science as normal, or equivalent to the median cost of the technologies you can currently research.

You can guarantee 6 out of 8 of these buildings (all bar the Observatory and Great Library) will be built in your capital, though if your capital is exceptionally bad for science (e.g. surrounded by resource-free sea tiles) than it may work out as more science in the long-run to build your national wonders elsewhere.

The Buildings

Now, let's look at each building in turn. I'll give suggestions for possible technologies to use the research bonus on, but feel free to use your own judgement.

Libraries come early and won't be a problem to build in the capital. Don't be tempted to simply build a Library as soon as it comes, though - you're going to need to grow your city a little first for the maximum potential as the research boost is based on your recent science generation.

If you can take the risk, building the Great Library in your capital will give you two research agreements of science (one from the wonder and one from the Library), 3 science points a turn, 1 Great Scientist point a turn and a free technology on top of all that. Taking the Aristocracy Social Policy from the Tradition tree and the Monument to the Gods Pantheon gives you better odds at this powerful but highly competitive wonder. If you think you're in with a very good shot, then beelining the Great Library may be worthwhile even when rushing a Library isn't necessarily.



Above: In a sense, the Great Library offers two free technologies for Korea, the one you're currently researching and a free one of your choice afterwards.

Of course, in very high difficulties getting the Great Library is near-impossible, but for the rest of us, play it right and you can get a significant early tech lead that will probably last the rest of the game. For maximum scientific potential, start researching Calendar just before you finish the wonder, then get Philosophy with the free technology. Already have Calendar? Get Drama and Poetry, giving you one of the Guilds (which will be useful as a source of early specialists) as well as getting you closer to Education.

The National College gives you a 50% science boost in the city it's built in, encouraging you to maximise science gain in your capital. There isn't really anything in particular at this stage where the research bonus would go particularly well in, so it's up to you really.

The boost from the University can nudge you towards Astronomy or Acoustics, the former having the Turtle Ship UU as well as Observatories, and the latter on the way to Architecture. Oxford University can be used similarly (though with the free technology on top of it, you can get Navigation, for ocean-crossing naval units, or push further towards Architecture.)

If you can manage to build an Observatory, you should build as many of your Academies as possible near the capital for maximum science potential. You can use the tech bonus to push towards Navigation if you haven't got it already, which is useful as Turtle Ships can't cross oceans, so you need Navigation to be able to quickly scout the seas.

Pushing towards Industrialisation with the tech bonus from the Public School isn't a bad idea in order to get you closer to an ideology. If you lack the cities to unlock ideologies by that method, you can always beeline Radio to get into the modern era as soon as possible.

Finally, the Research Lab's bonus is probably best-used to push towards Atomic Theory and the +2 science to Academies it offers.

Unique Ability: Scholars of the Jade Hall (Part 2/2)

+2 science per specialist

The research bonus from science buildings in the capital helps a little in pushing through technologies, but this aspect of Korea's UA is where the real strength is. Any specialist now is worth nearly as much science as a scientist specialist is for other civs, while scientist specialists are nearly twice as effective.

The best way to make this aspect of your UA going early is to get the Writers' Guild up as soon as you can in your capital (it's likely to be the earliest building with specialists in on your tech route, and being in your capital takes advantage of the National College you probably will have there) and fill those Writer slots. 4 science is no small amount early in the game and gets you to Education faster for those powerful scientist slots.


Above: Because of your UA's emphasis on specialists, try to grab all the other bonuses for them you can. Here's an engineer at full potential (Rationalism's Secularism Social Policy, Statue of Liberty, International Space Station.)

Of course, lots of specialists requires large cities, so it's important to emphasise city growth to help fill those slots. Don't be afraid to let your specialists work farms instead for a few turns - it'll be a short-term detriment to science, but that extra citizen could offer a significant long-term gain.

+2 science from Great Tile Improvements and Landmarks

All those specialists are going to generate quite a number and range of Great People, and Korea's UA accounts for that, too. All Great TIle Improvements (even the Great General's Citadel) now give 2 points of science on top of other yields. Academies and Manufactories are the most useful Great Tile Improvements for scientific Civs, so emphasise Great Scientists and Engineers, but Holy Sites and Customs Houses can still be handy if you have space for them and don't have anything better to do with Great Merchants and Prophets.

When this aspect of your UA gets really interesting is when Landmarks get involved. Any Antiquity sites you discover not on a Great Tile Improvement but in range of a city are worth working into Landmarks for the massive culture and the bit of science on the side. Any on a Great Tile Improvement should be covered with military units to stop other Civs wrecking your valuable tile (as is the case with most Civs) but otherwise, enjoy your easily-obtained extra bit of science.

Summary

• Focus mainly on the top half of the tech tree (except for the Hwach'a UU and in the late-game)
  
• Get the Writers' Guild going early for the science bonus from the specialists there
  
• Build tall in order to fill specialist slots, especially in your capital
  
• Fill scientist and engineer specialist slots before merchants to get the most useful Great People
  
• The Porcelain Tower and Rationalism's Scientific Revolution Social Policy also affect the science bonus from building scientific buildings in your capital
  
• Use Archaeologists to build Landmarks out of Antiquity Sites within your city limits rather than making artifacts

Unique Unit I: Hwach'a

Korea's UUs are strange. The Hwach'a is a siege unit, but without the main perk of being a siege unit - the city attack bonus. And the Turtle Ship is a Caravel without the main perk of being a Caravel - the exploration potential. But both are given the biggest strength increases of any units in the game, and are the most powerful units in their respective eras! And to make things even stranger, the Hwach'a unit is a tier of technology earlier than the Turtle Ship, but will usually be researched second due to Astronomy's proximity to Education.

So, Hwach'a lose a point of strength and the 200% bonus against cities, so to compensate, its ranged attack is 86% stronger! Additionally, unless it's upgraded from a Catapult, it loses the reduced sight penalty that Trebuchets have - meaning there's no need to get a spotter (unless it has the Range promotion.) It still has to set up and still lacks defensive bonuses, so you've essentially got a Crossbowman that's a lot more vulnerable to attack, but has nearly 50% more ranged strength for the same production cost.


Above: For a ranged unit, that kind of damage is impressive.

What Hwach'a excel at is city defence. When placed in cities, their low strength and need to set up is no problem as they don't need to move and aren't left vulnerable to attack. Roads near cities also mean you can move the Hwach'a a tile, set up and fire if need be. This remains viable even into the industrial era as Hwach'a are only 13% weaker than Gatling Guns when attacking, but have a bigger range. Cannons actually have less ranged strength than Hwach'a, so only upgrade if you intend to attack cities or Artillery are soon to be avaliable.

That's not to say Hwach'a can't attack cities. Scout out the area with a fast unit, and find a safe area for the Hwach'a to land. Be sure to take Pikemen to deal with Horsemen and Knights; Hwach'a can make mincemeat of the other enemy units. Due to the need to set up, move Hwach'a carefully. Interestingly, if attacked by city attacks or ranged units, Hwach'a will use their ranged strength to defend (like all land-based ranged units.) This makes them suprisingly resilient so long as you don't let melee units near them, and can survive quite a few attacks by cities.


Above: It's not a lot of damage, but any enemy units that try to leave the city will be slaughtered.

Trebuchets are still 60% better against cities than Hwach'a are, but on the other hand, you can substitute most of the Crossbowmen you would have taken for Hwach'a for fighting enemy units with. Once you have the Volley promotion, Trebuchets are only 7% stronger than Hwach'a against cities (or 25% if they both have the promotion) meaning you're giving up less city attack potential than it may seem in exchange for unit-killing power.

So, to summarise, Hwach'a are a kind of Crossbowman-Trebuchet hybrid, which are excellent in defence and fairly efficent in attack. Defence is their main use, and it's great for having an efficent mid-game force to repel attackers until your technology advantage grows large enough to be safe from most warmongers. Unless you're going for a domination victory, it's a good idea not to invade enemy lands with Hwach'a in order not to anger other Civs.

Special promotions kept on upgrade

None.

Keep in mind that if you're using Hwach'a for purposes other than city attack, it's worth not upgrading them until Artillery are avaliable as cannons are weaker against enemy units than Hwach'a.

Unique Unit II: Turtle Ship

Think of Turtle Ships as Triremes, but 260% stronger. They can't go into ocean tiles (unless in your own land for defensive reasons,) they can't retreat before being attacked and they lack the sight of Caravels, but they make up for it with an insane degree of strength, higher than any other unit in the renaissance era.

The Downside

First things first, the inability of Turtle Ships to enter ocean tiles is a significant hinderance for these reasons:

• You can't escort embarked units over oceans
  
• You can't escort Cargo Ships over oceans
  
• It's much harder to explore new lands and meet new Civs
  
• It makes them vulnerable to Frigates which can attack from the seas without being attacked back

For these reasons, it's fairly important to get Navigation soon after Astronomy. Your scientific focus should help ensure you're not at a significant disadvantage in exploration. Because of the low priority given by many Civs to naval techs, the last point should be less of a problem than it may seem.

Defence

Above: Boom! Bye-bye Barbarian Trireme.

Like the Hwach'a, the Turtle Ship is likely to be intended for defensive purposes. Its exceptionally high strength peels apart Barbarian ships, and discourages enemy Privateer fleets (unless they get lucky with the Prize Ships promotion, and if they're Ottomans, you'd better watch out.) Any trade routes to coastal cities on the same continent can be greatly reinforced with a Turtle Ship, and any embarked units you're moving onto land in the same continent will be exceptionally safe, too.

So, the Hwach'a keeps you safe on land and the Turtle Ship by sea. But there's a far more fun use of Turtle Ships...

Attack

Note: Keep in mind conquering cities will make research agreements harder to obtain later in the game due to people hating you, and it may be harder to push what you want through the World Congress. Going on the offensive with Turtle Ships and Hwach'a is an unconventional strategy and may be risky.


Privateers are pretty great at attacking cities. They've got reasonable strength and a promotion that makes them fight better against cities. Backed by an Armoury, they've got 40 strength against cities. True, a Cannon may have 60 base ranged strength against cities, (70 with Volley) but they have to set up before attacking, have less mobility, are vulnerable in defence and don't get gold from attacking it.

Korea offers the best of both worlds. Backed by an Armoury, Turtle Ships can get Coastal Raider II and have 50.4 strength against cities, or 57.6 once all three Coastal Raider promotions are earned. That's most of the advantages of a Privateer combined with most of the advantages of a Cannon! There is one slight problem - that Turtle Ships take damage when they attack cities unlike Cannons - but any speed bonus (e.g. the Exploration Opener) and the Logistics promotion allows you to perform hit-and-run raids on cities, starting and finishing out of range of their attacks.

Cities highly exposed to a coast can be taken out very quickly by Turtle Ships, but ones with limited exposure to the sea need other units attacking it to prevent a stalemate. That's where Hwach'a can come in. And even those more exposed to the sea will need backup to deal with enemy land units. Again, Hwach'a will do well here.


Above: I founded a city near Songhai to heal up Turtle Ships after attacking their cities. I should've founded it earlier so I had a base to build Hwach'a in near their lands.

So, Turtle Ships are exceptional city attackers if given the Coastal Raider promotions, and highly effective against other naval melee units. But what happens when your enemy starts churning out Frigates? You'll need some of your own. If you lack iron, shift to defence and try to end the war, or focus on attacking by land. It's better to pull out early and shift your focus back to science than to waste centuries in a war you can't win.

Special promotions kept on upgrade

None. In fact, in a sense, worse than none. Let me explain.

Normally, Caravels have the "withdraw before melee" promotion meaning when they get attacked by a melee naval unit, they have a chance to move out of the way before any damage can be done. This would be a disadvantage to the super-strong Turtle Ships, so they don't have the promotion.

But, here's where the problem kicks in: The promotion is kept on upgrade, meaning any other Civ can have Ironclads with the withdraw before melee promotion, but Korea cannot. Luckily, the next ship in the promotion line - Destroyers - do, so the problem is small, but it makes Turtle Ships unique as the only UU which loses a keep-on-upgrade bonus that the generic unit has.

Social Policies

Korea's Social Policy track is straightforward. Start in Tradition to build tall, get a bit of Exploration to go with your coastal start bias and/or any Turtle Ship-building coastal cities, and dive into Rationalism as soon as it's available.

Tradition

Opener

Fast border expansion gets you more quickly to the good tiles, letting you get your luxury and high-food tiles going sooner. The Hanging Gardens unlocked with this opener is a great wonder for Korea and worth building in your capital (in lower difficulties, anyway, where it's less competitive)

Aristocracy

On higher difficulties, take this later. Otherwise, the idea is to up your chances of getting the Great Library. Whether you get it or not, this policy's still handy for the other wonders along the way like the Porcelain Tower.

Oligarchy

Enjoy stronger city ranged attacks to see off early attackers, and maintenance-free city-defending Hwach'a.

Legalism

This'll let your first three non-capital cities begin to expand their borders as soon as they're founded, and gets you closer to the later cultural buildings in case you need Great Work slots for any Great Musicians you generate.

Landed Elite

Grow your capital tall! The taller it is, the more science anyway, but also more specialists for even more science!

Monarchy

Now, happiness won't really be a barrier to growing your capital taller. The gold's good too - by the midgame, Hwach'a and Turtle Ships can defend you effectively for a low maintenance cost (due to the fact you don't need a lot of them to be effective) and together with this policy, grant you a decent amount of spare change.

Finisher

Another aid to building tall. The free Aquaducts are particularly nice, saving you production and also saving you the trouble of having to get Engineering for them (so you can focus on getting Education sooner.)

Exploration

Policies from Exploration are a good way to fill the gap between finishing Tradition and starting Rationalism, as well as the point after getting a level 3 tenet and finishing Rationalism, thanks to your coastal start bias. If you can't expand to the coast for whatever reason, take Commerce instead to help out with the World Congress. That's not covered in this guide.

Opener

Extra speed and sight for all your naval units. That's very useful for chasing down units with Turtle Ships (or more quickly moving between enemy cities and your own land to heal if you're on the offensive.)

Maritime Infrastructure

Coastal cities often suffer from low production, so here's something to counteract that.

Naval Tradition

Even tall Civs can struggle for happiness in the midgame. Though generally, the main point of this policy is for later ones in the tree.

Merchant Navy

Getting a little cash freed up from maintenance is useful for bribing City-States and hence getting your way in the World Congress. After all, you don't want Arts Funding, do you?

Treasure Fleets

A great advantage of having a coastal city is coastal trade routes. It's probably going to be very late in the game by the time you pick up this policy, but it's still a good amount of cash on offer here for pushing through late World Congress decisions. Or buying Spaceship parts with Space Procurements.

Navigation School

Could be useful if you're trying to use a tech advantage to invade everyone else by the seas, but generally if you've got spare Social Policies left at this stage, you might as well pour them into Commerce.

Finisher

Uncovering hidden Antiquity Sites can be useful for getting Landmarks - or at least it would be if it wasn't for the fact this policy will probably be unlocked very late in the game, at which point the advantage is useless (and cultural Civs have probably already taken most, if not all of them.)

Rationalism

Every policy in the Rationalism tree is really effective for Korea (except maybe Sovereignty,) to the point that filling the Rationalism tree takes priority above even ideological tenets. As soon as the renaissance starts, start filling in those policies.

Opener

So long as you keep your happiness positive, all your science generation is increased by 10%. That's not a particularly hard task. This opener also opens up the highly-important Porcelain Tower wonder.

Secularism

Secularism basically doubles the extra science all specialists get from your UA, so Great Scientists are worth 7 science instead of 5 or 3.

Humanism

If other Civs have plenty of cash for research agreements, head to Scientific Revolution first. Otherwise, getting a faster generation of Great Scientists means more Academies or bulbing.

Free Thought

Trading Posts now give science, which is very useful if you want to get gold for the Space Procurements Freedom tenet (which lets you buy spaceship parts.) Plus, your Universities are more effective. You should see quite a decent jump up in science at this point.

Sovereignity

A bit more gold, but not particularly much.

Scientific Revolution

While this policy does affect the science boost from building scientific buildings in the capital, at this stage it'll be mostly (if not entirely) for research agreements. Have some cash available and watch the science roll in.

Finisher

A handy scientific leap forward. Be sure to use the free technology on something you're not already researching for maximum potential.

Ideology

Korea can take either Freedom or Order. The former will be better for Korea's science generation, while the latter works better for Korea building spaceship parts. Keep in mind that Freedom's wonder (the Statue of Liberty) is very useful for production and hence building spaceship parts; Order's wonder (the Kremlin) is not.

As usual, I'm covering 3 level one policies, 2 level two policies and 1 from level three.

Level One Policies - Freedom

Civil Society

Halving the food cost from specialists means your cities can grow even taller, letting you fill even more specialist slots for even more science.

Avant Garde

With all those specialists, you'll have plenty of Great Person points being generated, so it's worth bumping Great Person production even higher. One extra Manufactory or one extra bulbed tech can make all the difference.

Economic Union

If there aren't any other Freedom Civs (or it's impractical to trade with them) then you may as well take something else instead. Otherwise, it's a source of extra gold for Space Procurements.

Level Two Policies - Freedom

New Deal

Lots of specialists means lots of Great People means lots of Great Tile Improvements. New Deal makes them even better. While at this stage extra science on Academies may be redundant, extra production on Manufactories is highly useful.

Universal Suffrage

Now happiness won't hold your city growth back (and thanks to Tradition's Monarchy, your capital won't create any more unhappiness as it grows so long as the new citizens are specialists.) Got lots of happiness already? Well, there's always Golden Ages which this policy makes longer. Extra gold and production is great when you're building a spaceship.

Level Three Policy - Freedom

Space Procurements


Above: I require more gold. Spaceship parts are expensive!

While Freedom as a whole up to this point synergises with Korea's UA, this part can cause problems. Korea's not particularly good at gaining gold (building tall tends to be worse for gold than building wide) which means the high costs needed may be hard to meet. Don't fall into the temptation of spending all your money on City-State bribing, keep some for buying spaceship parts.

Level One Policies - Order

Hero of the People

Like Avant Garde for Freedom, this builds on your Great Person generating strengths.

Double Agents

Helps to preserve your tech advantage.

Skyscrapers

While tall cities can build buildings fairly quickly, buying buildings saves precious turns. This policy helps out there.

Level Two Policies - Order

Workers' Faculties

Great for some last-minute extra science, helping to get those last few spaceship part technologies out the way sooner.

Five-Year Plan

Annoyingly, this doesn't affect Manufactories. Still, a production bonus is a production bonus which is important for building spaceship parts.

Level Three Policy - Order

Spaceflight Pioneers

More useful for Korea than Freedom's Space Procurements seeing as having lots of specialists can get Great Engineers generated reasonably quickly. The fact you get a free Great Engineer (and a free Great Scientist) with this tenet guarentees you get some use out of it.

Religion

Korea can gain a fair bit out of religion, but even without one, faith is still handy for buying Great Engineers and Scientists.

Pantheon

Note: As usual, highly-situational Pantheons (e.g. resource dependent ones) aren't listed here. Some kind of faith-giving Pantheon is a good idea for giving you a better shot at getting a religion.

God of the Sea

Aids in early production, or with new coastal cities. Even without a Lighthouse, improved sea resources with this belief are rather good.

Fertility Rites

Helps you out at building tall.

God-King, God of Craftsmen or Monument to the Gods

These all offer production that helps with improving your chances at the Great Library, though God of the Sea is generally better than any of these for that purpose, so these are backups.

Won't be able to get Great Library due to your difficulty setting or a poor start? God-King is the most flexible of these three and hence is probably the best. That one point of science for example makes a significant difference early in the game.

Faith Healers

A niche option if you want to go warmongering with Turtle Ships later. 30HP a turn in extra healing means it takes very little time to get them out fighting again.

If you're planning on building a city close to your potential enemy, consider keeping your faith generation low to not found a religion before you found the city. Why? Because your Pantheon spreads immediately to new cities if you haven't yet got a religion, but your religion does not. Of course, you could bring a Missionary if you have the faith.

Founder

Tithe or Church Property

Korea's not particularly strong at gaining gold, so this is an effective way to cover that problem. Particularly desirable if you intend to take the Space Procurements tenet in the Freedom tree, as that'll need all the gold you can get.

Generally, Tithe is preferable to Church Property as the former doesn't require you to maintain religious dominance in cities to generate gold.

Interfaith Dialogue

An extra source of science can be useful for rushing through the tech tree faster, though the contribution from this belief is relatively small.

Follower

Swords into Plowshares

The faster you grow a city, the sooner you can fill those specialist slots, and the sooner you can get that science bonus.

Religious Community

Capitalise on building tall with up to a 15% production bonus. Handy throughout the game, but particularly good for getting the spaceship built.

Feed the World

A weaker backup for Swords into Plowshares. Same principle, it's about growing your city tall.

Guruship

And a weaker backup for Religious Community. For most of the game, you shouldn't have a city that doesn't have any specialists, so you can easily get that +2 production.

Enhancer

Religious Texts or Itinerant Preachers

Helps to secure your religion in your cities without having to buy lots of Missionaries.

Reliquary

All that Great Person generation can give you a fair amount of faith with this policy, that later on you can pour into more Great People.

Holy Order

An alternative to Religious Texts or Itinerant Preachers, this cuts the faith cost of Missionaries and Inquisitors and hence makes it easier to reinforce your cities against unwanted rival religions.

World Congress

I've already stated how Korea lacks bonuses to gold generation, but it's something you'll need to stop the World Congress pushing through lots of policies you don't want. Completing City-State quests is probably an easier way of gaining influence, with gold to make it up to an alliance.

Note "priority" refers to how high you should prioritise your votes if it comes up, not how much you should prioritise putting them forward. If someone wants to implement Arts Funding, you should prioritise to vote no, for example. If you could put forward a vote, then it'd be a bad idea to put Arts Funding on the table. Note also that voting choices can vary depending on your game.

Arts Funding

High priority
Vote no

Cultural Heritage Sites

Medium priority
Vote no

This is more for cultural Civs. Thanks to Hotels, Airports and the International Visitor Centre, this policy gives them lots of tourism. You don't want that to happen.

Embargo City-States

High priority
Vote no

Trading with full Civs means giving them science.

Historical Landmarks

Medium priority
Vote yes unless a cultural Civ has lots of Great Tile Improvements and/or landmarks

Landmarks and Great Tile Improvements already give you +2 science, so why not +2 culture, too? It can offer you decent defence against tourism, though watch out for cultural Civs trying to push this through to boost their tourism generation.

International Games

Medium priority
Vote no

International Space Station

High priority
Vote yes

This makes bulbing more effective. If possible, try to get this going before the Hubble Space Telescope (or hold on to the Great Scientists) so you can make the most out of them.

Natural Heritage Sites

Low priority
Vote no unless you have Natural Wonders of your own

Nuclear Non-Proliferation

High priority
Vote yes unless you want to exploit your tech advantage by nuking unprepared Civs, and don't yet have the nukes to do so.

Generally, you want these banned. But, if you have the uranium and other Civs are a long way off nukes of their own, you've got an option to completely ruin their day.

Scholars in Residence

High priority
Vote no

Don't want someone leeching off your technology, do you?

Sciences Funding

High priority
Vote yes

Standing Army Tax

Low-Medium priority
Vote yes

Generally, scientific Civs can keep smaller armies and hence are affected less by this resolution than other Civs.

World's Fair

Low priority
Vote no

If it goes through, it can be worth working on it for the culture to defend against cultural Civs.

Wonders

While your UA's description mentions a technology boost for "scientific wonders", the only world wonder affected is the Great Library. Still, UA boost or no UA boost, there's a few other decent choices; here's some of the best.

Ancient Era

Great Library

Highly competitive, but no-one gets as much out of the Great Library out of Korea seeing as it gives you two loads of research agreement-equivalent boosts, a good boost to science per turn, a free technology, an early Great Scientist point, and two Great Writing slots - notable as the rarest of the three types of Great Work slots.

Now, in the higher difficulties, getting the Great Library is an unrealistic goal but that doesn't mean you're doomed. You've still got the tech boost from building a Library in your capital, and once you have specialists going, you'll quickly catch up with whichever thief stole your wonder Civ ended up getting it in the end.

Classical Era

Great Lighthouse

A lower-priority wonder out of ones on this list, but it makes Turtle Ships more effective at chasing down enemies.

Hanging Gardens (Tradition Only)

One of the most competitive Social Policy-exclusive wonders, but if you manage it, you can grow your city exceptionally fast and really get the specialist science rolling.

Oracle

The Great Scientist point at this relatively early stage in the game is handy, and so is squeezing in an extra Social Policy, which can help you to develop faster.

Medieval Era

Machu Picchu

Being a scientific Civ, you'll want a city next to a mountain for the sake of getting an Observatory. If your city's up for it, then it can build this wonder for a helpful bonus to gold.

Renaissance Era

Leaning Tower of Pisa

Highly competitive, but having a tech advantage helps in picking up this wonder, as you have a shot of it before other Civs do. It offers a free Great Person of your choice (usually a Great Engineer or Scientist will be best) and makes all Great Person generation faster, meaning even more Great Engineers and Scientists.

Porcelain Tower (Rationalism Only)

Granting a free Great Scientist, getting you more out of research agreements and more out the science-boost-from-science-buildings-in-the-capital aspect of your UA makes this wonder very high priority.

Taj Mahal

Obviously the Porcelain Tower gets higher priority. The Taj Mahal is useful for a quick boost to gold, culture and production at a time where important new buildings like Factories and Public Schools are coming through.

Modern Era

Statue of Liberty (Freedom Only)

All your specialists gain a point of production. That's on top of the science. And the other science from Rationalism. This works nicely for making full use of all your specialists when building spaceship parts, as they'll all be contributing production.

Atomic Era

Great Firewall

The city you build this wonder in becomes impossible for other Civs to loot technologies from, so you can use the Spy elsewhere, such as to rig City-State elections. It also makes it harder in general for other Civs to steal technologies from you, helping to keep your science advantage large.

An interesting problem arises with the fact it cancels out the doubled tourism Civs get from the Internet technology, as if a high culture but low tourism Civ such as the Aztecs gets hold of the wonder, they can slow down cultural Civs' attempts to win the game more effectively than you can. Still, on the other hand, not getting the wonder means other Civs can more easily push through the technologies leading up to the Internet by piggybacking off your research.

Information Era

Hubble Space Telescope

Faster spaceship building = faster victory. In the very late-game, it's worth beelining Satellites before researching other spaceship technologies so you can make full use of this wonder, though if your tech rate is incredibly high, then you may not even need to build the wonder. Generally, however, it's worth it.

Pitfalls to Avoid

While Korea's UA is often seen as one of the most powerful, that's not to say that a Korean game will be super-easy. Here's a list of mistakes you could fall into.

Quitting after failing to build the Great Library

For this guide, I ran through two screenshot games on the same difficulty: one where I got the Great Library and one where I didn't. Either way, I in the end got a tech advantage mostly thanks to my UA. Recovering from major setbacks like losing the Great Library makes victory all the sweeter.

Not keeping an eye on citizen placement in cities

When playing Korea, you'll likely need to micromanage specialist placement, as the AI that automatically assigns citizens tends to favour Artist, Musician and Writer specialists. You should be favouring Scientists and Engineers first.

Excessively building Hwach'a and Turtle Ships in defence

What these units are particularly good at is efficency - you don't need many of them to do plenty of damage to would-be attackers. There's little use in wasting maintenance gold and production to get a huge armed force you're never going to need.

Attacking Civs which have Frigates, using Turtle Ships

Unless you have Frigates of your own. As Turtle Ships can't enter ocean, they can be attacked without being able to retaliate.

In the case of England, steer clear of them entirely. Their Longbowmen out-range your Hwach'a, and Ships of the Line have a ranged strength only one point below the strength of Turtle Ships. Keeping away from the Ottomans is also a good idea to prevent them getting hold of a Turtle Ship that can capture other Turtle Ships.

Using solely Turtle Ships to attack a city with a lack of exposure to the coast

That only results in stalemate. Bring some backup, or move on to a different city.

Not escorting Hwach'a when invading an enemy

They've only got 11 strength to defend with, and no defensive bonuses. They're easy pickings for Horsemen and Knights if you don't bring along a Pikeman or two.

Assuming a technological advantage means invulnerability

Unique Units are the best way for other Civs to bring scientific players down a peg. For example, you may have a cosy Information-era defence and all of a sudden a whole load of American B17s bomb your cities to a pulp, or the Germans bring in the Panzers, or Russia nukes everything. It's easy to neglect building a defence, particularly late in the lifespan of your UUs where they lose many of the advantages they used to have.

Losing the Script: The Counter-Strategies

Korea's science gain is intimidating to other Civs aiming to overcome them, and two powerful mid-game UUs don't make things any easier. But, there are ways of overcoming such obstacles.

Playing against the UA: Scholars of the Jade Hall

Korea's UA dominates its game, but has one basic flaw that can be exploited: Korea will likely be putting their National College in their capital for the research bonus, and hence their capital will dominate their science gain. Remove the capital, and that's the end of the tech advantage problem.

Of course, dealing with the capital isn't easy. In the mid-game, there's Hwach'a and Turtle Ships to contend with and in the late-game, Korea's accumulated tech advantage makes it difficult to make an impact on them. The obvious solution is an early rush, but that's not always practical to every Civ. You could always run in a few fast units and pillage their Great Tile Improvements to set them back a bit, but that carries risks as well.

Like with many tall-building Civs, you can ruin their day by ramming a city right in their face, denying them some food or good land for another city. Be sure to reinforce your position in case they decide to attack.

Remember not to agree to a research agreement with Korea later on in the game, as they'll likely have the Scientific Revolution Social Policy if not the Porcelain Tower as well, giving them considerably more out of the deal than you'd get.

Playing against Hwach'a

They may have more strength in attack than a Musketman or a Lancer, but Hwach'a are rubbish at defending against melee units, and out in the open they're left extremely vulnerable to mounted units in particular.

Are they walled up in cities? Then invest in some Cover promotions or cause havoc outside its attack radius, encouraging it to move out of those safe, cosy walls. Mounted units can do this effectively, by moving in to the city's range, pillaging, and moving out again as an example. The idea is to choke them, to either weaken them or force them to make poor tactical decisions.

Are there lots of them defending Korea? Then it's important to pillage their roads to greatly weaken their mobility. Moving a tile, setting up and firing costs one movement point with a road, and two without one.

Playing against Turtle Ships

One word: Frigates. If you keep them two tiles away from coastal tiles, Turtle Ships can't attack them.

If Korea's defending with them, or it's a particularly wide coast, try bombarding the Turtle Ships with Frigates and finishing them off with a Privateer for a chance of getting one of those powerful things of your own. It'll certainly tilt the odds more in your favour.

Not got Navigation, or Astronomy for that matter? Use land-based ranged units. They may be less effective than Frigates against Turtle Ships, but Turtle Ships can't attack them.

A point about England

One Civ exposes the flaws of Korea's UUs more than any other - England.

Hwach'a may be incredibly strong at attacking, but it's held back from the need to set up. England's Longbowmen take advantage of that - by attacking outside their range, Hwach'a have to move and set up again, giving the Longbowmen plenty of time to move and shoot again.

Turtle Ships have to watch out for Frigates anyway, but how about one that has ranged strength just one point lower than the Turtle Ship's strength? The super-high mobility of the English Ship of the Line (7 moves vs the Turtle Ship's 4) means even if Korea boosts the Turtle Ship's mobility as much as possible, they'll never catch up with a Ship of the Line.

Oh - and their tech advantage? England's extra Spy says hello.

Strategy by style

Early-game Aggressors

Korea should probably be one of your earlier targets, so you can deal with them before they get a tech advantage.

Mid-game Warmongers

Try to attack by land (or bring Frigates) and take plenty of mounted units with you to deal with Hwach'a. If they're becoming a bit of a problem, try to move in with lots of mounted units at once, pillage what you can and pull out of the city attack range to drain Korea of resources.

Late-game Warmongers

Try to ensure their army doesn't match their technical capabilities. Pushing through something they don't want in the World Congress and/or competing with their City-States will divert attention towards them instead of spending money on upgrading their units, leaving them a little more vulnerable to attack.

Cultural Players

Send Archaeologists into their lands to steal their Artifacts before they can turn their Antiquity Sites into Landmarks. Otherwise, there's not a lot that cultural players in particular can do against Korea any more than any other Civ.

Diplomatic Players

You can more easily handle Arts Funding than Korea can. After all, Great Artists offer Golden Ages, and with it a fair amount of cash. In general, exploit Korea's relative lack of gold by pushing them around in the World Congress. An embargo may be hard to push through unless they've been off fighting before.

Scientific Players

Korea's vulnerable in the industrial era, where their UUs are a bit dated but they likely haven't upgraded them yet. If you feel like a little war and don't mind ruining your reputation among other Civs, that's your time. Otherwise, they're a good target for any leftover Spies you have after putting Spies defensively.

Other Guides

If you like these guides and want to send a tip, you can click here![ko-fi.com]

Meta-guides

These guides cover every Civ in the game and can be used as quick reference guides.

• Civ summaries (Gives a brief overview of how each Civ plays)
  
• Civ-specific tricks, secrets and clarifications (Compiles the lesser-known features of each Civ)

Civ-specific guides, in alphabetical order

All 43 Civs are covered in in-depth guides linked below. In brackets are the favoured victory routes of each Civ.

• America (Domination)
  
• Arabia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Assyria (Cultural, Domination and Scientific)
  
• Austria (Cultural, Domination and Scientific)
  
• Aztecs (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Babylon (Scientific)
  
• Brazil (Cultural)
  
• Byzantium (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Carthage (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Celts (Cultural)
  
• China (Domination)
  
• Denmark (Domination)
  
• Egypt (Cultural)
  
• England (Domination)
  
• Ethiopia (Cultural/Scientific)
  
• France (Cultural)
  
• Germany (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Greece (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Huns (Domination)
  
• Inca (Scientific)
  
• India (Cultural/Scientific)
  
• Indonesia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Iroquois (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Japan (Domination)
  
• Korea (Scientific)
  
• Mayans (Scientific)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Morocco (Diplomatic)
  
• Netherlands (Diplomatic, Domination and Scientific)
  
• Ottomans (Domination)
  
• Persia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Poland (Domination)
  
• Polynesia (Cultural)
  
• Portugal (Diplomatic)
  
• Rome (Domination)
  
• Russia (Domination)
  
• Shoshone (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Siam (Diplomatic/Scientific)
  
• Songhai (Domination)
  
• Spain (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Sweden (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Venice (Diplomatic)
  
• Zulus (Domination)

[Cobra_mkII]

It is only in the past 18 months that I have realised from Zigzagzigal's guides that I have only been messing with Civ 5 all these years. I now have Korea consistently winning victories so I moved on to Venice and Bablylon and now finally understand the game depth.

Now, ready to try another nation

I will skip buying Civ 6 for some time yet, I have only scratched 5's surface so far.

Thanks Zigzagzigal

[skyfeelan]

thanks my friend, i've never seen anyone as dedicated as you :)

you even make a guide for trash civ like indonesia (that's why we're still relatively uncivilized by 2019) (I'm indonesian)

[Zigzagzigal]

My point was that you'll get more of an advantage by getting a Library slightly later, as the free tech boost will be bigger. You obviously don't want to hold off for too long, but you can afford to grab a couple of Worker technologies first before getting Writing.

[OtakuLord]

So I'm kind of confused. At one part you said to not try and beeline Writing for libraries (and I guess in extention the Great Library). You said we should focus on growing our civ in population first. Why is that? Shouldn't we be focusing on getting the Great Library first and then focusing on growing your civ? and how am I supposed to grow tall and not stray too far from what I'm trying to focus on (education/observatory). I'm guessing animal husbandry, trapping and possibly calender in very niche circumstances but that seems like it would take too long and hurt any sort of possible early science boost.

[Zigzagzigal]

I've made a Civ 6 guide to Greece, and plan to release one for Arabia in a week.

After testing it, I found science from research agreements/Korea's UA boost isn't any lower in the first few turns relative to later ones. Unlike Great Scientists, research agreement science is calculated on the turn you complete them.

[11 Armenian Genocide]

So I was wondering. You said Korean UU boost is the same as a one sided research aggrement. What if it's built before turn 25? Would the science boost take a significant reduction becuase it hasn't been 25 turns since the game started?

[11 Armenian Genocide]

What have you been up to lately Zigazgigal after you created guides for all the civs?

[Wabba]

Aqueduct was spelled as "Aquaduct" under social policies.

[Zigzagzigal]

It's more that the scientific potential is so overwhelmingly strong, that culture looks a fairly weak option in comparison.

[Κύριος Τέρας]

Why 6/10 for cultural victory? Cultural - science go realy great, specialy for korea. First to beging with great library and oxford gives great work slots, one of your first specialist are from guilts (artist, writers...), being ahead in tech than other it mean you can get wonders with great work slots, and get tourism tech like archeology and internet befor other. When others cultural civs have 100 tourism, you have +400 because of hotels, airports, internet and wonders. Overall, all scientific civs are quite good in cultural victory but the best is korea, just because you want to make capital/cites big and fat to fill the specialist slots for more science (and also fill guilts). Korea should have atleast 8/10 for cultural victory, I thing you underestimate it's cultural power XD