Zigzagzigal's Guides - Japan (GS)

Japan can do a lot with little land and has great versatility. Here, I detail Japanese strategies and counter-strategies.

Introduction

Following this guide requires the Gathering Storm expansion.

Furthermore, it is written with the assumption you have all Civ 6 content released prior to the Leaders Pass:

• 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.

The Leaders Pass is only relevant when playing as or against leaders released in its content packs; otherwise it makes no difference to the game.

I must rid myself of my fear if I am to face the unstoppable force from over the seas. They have land, allies and armanents we are ill-prepared for. But we are not to give in to their threats and watch sunset fall upon our ancient realm. Let our faith guide us through this moment, and triumph over even the most impossible of foes. We shall outlast them.

How to use this guide

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

• The Outline details the mechanics of how the civilization's unique features work and what their start bias is if they have one.
  
• The Victory Skew section describes to what extent the civ (and its individual leaders where applicable) is inclined towards particular victory routes. This is not a rating of its power, but an indicator of the most appropriate route to victory.
  
• Multiple sections for Uniques explain in detail how to use each special bonus of the civilization.
  
• Administration describes some of the most synergistic governments, government buildings, policy cards, age bonuses, pantheons, religious beliefs, wonders, city-states and Great People for the civ. Only the ones with the most synergy with the civ's uniques are mentioned - these are not necessarily the "best" choices when playing as the civ for a given victory route.
  
• Finally, the Counter-Strategies discusses how best to play against the civ, including a consideration of leader agendas if the civ is controlled by a computer.

Note that all costs (production, science, etc.) mentioned within the guide assume a game played on the normal speed settings. To modify these values for other game speeds:

• Online: Divide by 2
  
• Quick: Divide by 1.5
  
• Epic: Multiply by 1.5
  
• Marathon: Multiply by 3

Glossary

Terminology used in this guide and not in-game is explained here.

AoE (Area of Effect) - Bonuses or penalties that affect multiple tiles in a set radius. Positive examples include Factories (which offer production to cities within a 6 tile radius unless they're within range of another building of the same type) and a negative example is nuclear weapons, which cause devastation over a wide radius.

Beelining - Obtaining a technology or civic quickly by only researching it and its prerequisites. Some deviation is allowed in the event that taking a technology or civic off the main track provides some kind of advantage that makes up for that (either a source of extra science/culture or access to something necessary for a eureka or inspiration boost)

CA (Civ Ability) - The unique ability of a civilization, shared by all its leaders.

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

Dispersed empires - Civs with cities that are spread out (typically 5-6 tile gaps between city centres). Civs with unique tile improvements generally favour a more dispersed empire in order to make use of them, as do civs focused on wonder construction.

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

GWAM - Collective name for Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. All of them can produce Great Works that offer tourism and culture, making them important to anyone seeking a cultural victory.

LA (Leader Ability) - The unique ability of a specific leader. Usually but not always, they tend to be more specific in scope than civ abilities. Some leader abilities come with an associated unique unit or infrastucture.

Prebuilding - Training a unit with the intention of upgrading it to a desired unit later. An example is building Slingers and upgrading them once Archery is unlocked.

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

Start bias - The kind of terrain, terrain feature or resource a civilization is more likely to start near. This is typically used for civilizations that have early bonuses dependent on a particular terrain type. There are five tiers of start bias; civs with a tier 1 start bias are placed before civs of tier 2 and so on, increasing their odds of receiving a favourable starting location.

Super-uniques - Unique units that do not replace any others. Examples include India's Varu and Mongolia's Keshigs.

Tall empires - Empires that emphasise city development over expansion, usually resulting in fewer, but bigger, cities.

Uniques - Collective name for civ abilities, leader abilities, unique units, unique buildings, unique districts and unique improvements.

UA (Unique Ability) - A collective name for leader abilities and civ abilities.

UB (Unique Building) - A special building which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal building and offers a special advantage on top.

UD (Unique District) - A special district which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal district, costs half as much to build and offers some unique advantages on top.

UI (Unique Improvement) - A special improvement that can only be built by the Builders of a single civilization. "UI" always refers to unique improvements in my guides and not to "user interface" or "unique infrastructure".

UU (Unique Unit) - A special unit that may only be trained by a single civilization, and in some cases only when that civilization is led by a specific leader.

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

Outline (Part 1/2)

Start Bias

Japan has a tier 3 start bias towards coastal tiles. This makes it easier to use the strength bonuses of Hojo Tokimune's leader ability.

Civilization Ability: Meiji Restoration

• Campus, Commercial Hub, Harbour, Holy Site, Industrial Zone and Theatre Square districts receive +1 of their respective yields for every adjacent district, instead of for every two.

Hojo Tokimune's Leader Ability: Divine Wind

• All land and naval units gain +5 strength in land tiles adjacent to the sea, lake tiles and coastal (shallow water) tiles
  
  • This bonus is applied based on where the defending unit is at the start of combat.
    
  • This bonus does not apply in land tiles that are adjacent to a lake but not the sea.
    
  • This bonus does apply to religious units.
    
  • This bonus has no effect on air units.
• Units and tile improvements are immune to damage from hurricanes.
  
• Civs that are at war with Japan take +100% damage from hurricanes in Japanese territory.
  
• -50% production cost for Encampment, Holy Site and Theatre Square districts

Tokugawa's Leader Ability: Bakuhan

• International trade routes receive -25% to all yields
  
• Do not receive the usual 25% tourism bonus from having a trade route with another civilization
  
• Domestic trade routes receive +2 gold, +1 science and +1 culture per speciality district in the destination city, not including the city centre.
  
• Owned cities within six tiles of the capital always have full loyalty, and with the modern-era Flight technology, all their speciality districts yield +1 tourism each.

Outline (Part 2/2)

Unique Unit: Samurai

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

Research	Obsoletion	Upgrades from	Upgrades to	Cost	Resource	Maintenance
Feudalism Civic 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 lack access to nitre, you may continue to train Samurai 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	Does not lose strength when injured +5 vs. anti-cavalry units

Variable changes

• Unlocked at the medieval-era Feudalism civic instead of the medieval-era Apprenticeship technology.

Positive changes

• Costs 10 iron to train, down from 20 (-50%)
  
• 48 strength, up from 45
  
• Does not lose strength when injured

Unique Building: Electronics Factory

An industrial-era Industrial Zone building which replaces the Factory

Research	Prerequisites	Required to build	Cost	Maintenance	Base pillage yield
Industrialisation Technology Industrial era	Industrial Zone Workshop	Any Power Plant	330 or 1320	2 2	25

Fixed yields	Other yields	Citizen slots	Great Person points	Miscellaneous effects
3 4 with the modern-era Electricity technology Power Bonus: 5	None	1 Engineer (2 if filled)	1	The production bonuses apply to all owned cities within six tiles of this city's Industrial Zone*

*Cities cannot benefit from the production of more than one Electronics Factory unless they have Governor Magnus (the Steward) present with the Vertical Integration promotion.

Positive changes

• 5 production to all cities within six tiles when powered, up from 3
  
  • Cities cannot benefit from the production of more than one Electronics Factory unless they have Governor Magnus (the Steward) present with the Vertical Integration promotion.
• Provides 4 culture with the modern-era Electricity technology
  
  • Unlike the producton bonus, this does not extend to all cities within a six-tile radius.

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
Hojo Tokimune	8/10 (Good)	6/10 (Decent)	8/10 (Good)	7/10 (Good)	8/10 (Good)
Tokugawa	4/10 (Acceptable)	6/10 (Decent)	7/10 (Good)	5/10 (Decent)	9/10 (Ideal)

Japan under Hojo Tokimune is among the most versatile civs in the game regarding victory route direction, allowing them to easily adjust to their starting situation and then figure out where to go from there. Tokugawa is more focused on the scientific game in particular.

Cultural victory is a great goal for Hojo Tokimune thanks to his cheap Theatre Squares (helping to generate GWAMs for Great Works and therefore tourism), and Holy Sites (for Naturalists and Rock Bands). Bonus culture from Theatre Square adjacency and Electronics Factories can also help a bit with civic accumulation. A bit more production from Electronics Factories combines nicely with Magnus (the Steward)'s Vertical Integration to help with building wonders. Tokugawa, however, is severely set back by losing the 25% tourism boost from international trade routes, something his tourism boost from speciality districts late in the game does not make up for.

Diplomacy is Japan's weakest route, but it's perfectly viable. The civ's versatility helps with city-state quests, extra Commercial Hub/Harbour gold helps with emergencies and extra Theatre Square adjacency helps with key civics. The main drawbacks are that you'll need to find a clean source of energy for your Electronics Factories and avoid excessive Samurai warfare to avoid diplomatic favour loss.

Domination works well. Samurai are quite strong if you can unlock them quickly while cheap Encampments means you can get Great Generals and an experience bonus ready for them. There's also the matter of extra production from Industrial Zone adjacency and Electronics Factories to help you train more units throughout the game, and extra gold from Commerical Hub adjacency and Tokugawa's leader ability to help you maintain them.

Religion is a fine path to take with Hojo Tokimune. Cheap Holy Sites give you an edge to founding a religion that even some more purely-focused religious civs that can struggle with. Extra faith adjacency for Holy Sites adjacent to other districts isn't as powerful as the faith potential of, say, Russia, but it's still a reasonable bonus. Furthermore, Hojo Tokimune's strength bonus will help you out with theological combat in coastal regions, though that's a bonus that's harder to use for religious units than it is for military units.

Science is effective for Hojo Tokimune, but exceptional for Tokugawa. Commercial Hubs adjacent to other districts can provide high gold adjacency, which can be added to science with the Free Inquiry Golden Age dedication - and the trade routes they enable produce even more science under Tokugawa. Later on, Electronics Factories provide a little more production, which is especially effective in conjunction with Magnus (the Steward)'s Vertical Integration promotion. Furthermore, the Heartbeat of Steam Golden Age dedication lets your strong Campuses produce lots of production to help with relatively late eurekas.

Civilization Ability: Meiji Restoration (Part 1/2)

Introduction

Six districts in the game (Campus, Commercial Hub, Harbour, Holy Site, Industrial Zone and Theatre Square districts) normally receive +1 of their respective yields (science, gold, gold again, faith, production and culture respectively) for every two adjacent districts of any kind. For Japan, they get a +1 adjacency bonus for every single adjacent district - a flexible and powerful bonus that aids any victory route and remains useful throughout the game.

It's easy to assume that this bonus simply equates to a doubling of the normal yield you get from district adjacency, but it's actually even better than that if you have a district adjacent to an odd number of other districts. A Campus next to three other districts by default just produces a +1 science bonus, but for Japan, it's +3.

Maximising Yields

To maximise the number of districts in close proximity, settle your cities as close together as possible. That being said, at first, you won't have many districts so it's a good idea for look for terrain-based adjacency bonuses as a starting point. As the game develops, however, terrain can mostly be ignored in favour of creating blobs of districts between the cities.

When placing your Government Plaza, try to position it in a way you'll be boosting as many other districts as possible. For Japan, it provides an impressive +2 boost to those districts, which makes getting a strong early Campus without mountains, Theatre Square without wonders and so forth easy.

High adjacency bonuses will make it easier to use economic policy cards that boost the yields of buildings within districts. Free Market, Rationalism, Simultaneum and Grand Opera respectively boost the primary yields of buildings within Commercial Hubs, Campuses, Holy Sites and Theatre Squares by 50% if their district adjacency is 4 or higher. You can get another 50% bonus from those policy cards once the cities are size 15 or higher, so don't forget to use your trade routes and good sources of housing like Granaries to get more cities there sooner, considering closely-packed cities leave less room for farms.

Finally, pillaged districts still contribute towards adjacency bonuses, so if you get raided by Barbarians or suchlike the districts left standing are still good.

Now, let's consider how each district type is affected...

Campuses

There's two ways you can go about building your first Campuses - either build a cluster of them near a mountain range, geothermal vents and/or reefs, or else, or surround a Government Plaza with a mixture of them and other districts (Commercial Hubs are a good idea as they can themselves provide science with the Free Inquiry Golden Age dedication if you achieve a classical or medieval-era Golden Age).

For the cultural, domination and scientific games alike, maximising Campus adjacency will be a key priority throughout the game. Don't be afraid to replace rainforests adjacent to Campuses with districts - the latter will provide a better adjacency bonus.

With an industrial or modern-era Golden Age, you may take the Heartbeat of Steam dedication to make Campuses contribute their adjacency bonus to production as well. That's really helpful for building up Electronics Factories.

You can double Campus adjacency bonuses with the Natural Philosophy economic policy card, which requires the classical-era Recorded History civic. This gets replaced in the modern era with Five-Year Plan, which requires the modern-era Ideology civic and also doubles industrial zone adjacency yields.

Holy Sites

Considering Hojo Tokimune's leader ability makes Holy Sites half-price, Japan has a decent head start at the Great Prophet race, which can make founding a religion easier than it would be for most civs. Combined with the Holy Site yield bonus on offer here, you could make a decent stab at religious victory. Nonetheless, it's worth remembering that natural wonder adjacency still provides more faith than any specific district except for Government Plazas.

To found a religion, you'll most likely need at least two Holy Sites very early in the game, which will mean putting off other districts.

A challenge with going down the religious road as Japan is a greater need for city growth (for district capacity) and production (to build districts) than is typical for religious victories from other civs. Getting plenty of Industrial Zones won't be a bad idea, and some Commercial Hubs for trade routes for city growth and production will help as well.

An advantage with Hojo Tokimune's approach to the religious game is that if a religious victory turns out to be unviable, the infrastructure can still be good towards alternative victory paths. Faith can buy land units via the Grand Master's Chapel, or Naturalists/Rock Bands to help with cultural victory.

As for Tokugawa, Holy Sites will generally be a low-priority district which will largely be restricted to cities that have spare district capacity and no other possible districts to build

You can double Holy Site adjacency bonuses with the Scripture economic policy card, requiring the classical-era Theology civic, and add that powerful faith adjacency to production with the Work Ethic follower belief.

Commercial Hubs and Harbours

Because cities can only provide trade route capacity from a Market or Lighthouse, you'll usually need to choose between building a Commercial Hub or Harbour in a city. That's a pretty tough choice for Hojo Tokimune as his maritime bonuses encourage you to use Harbours, but you can usually get more districts adjacent to Commercial Hubs.

If you can achieve a Golden Age in the classical or medieval game eras, you can use the Free Inquiry dedication to gain science out of Commercial Hub or Harbour district adjacency. Considering how easy it is to get good adjacency yields with either district (two examples: Harbours next to a city centre start with a +3 gold yield for Japan; Commercial Hubs next to a river, a Government Plaza and a city centre start with +5), building at least a few early on in case you can grab that Golden Age dedication isn't a bad idea.

Settling a city adjacent to a one-tile lake isn't great if you want to build up a navy, but place a Harbour in that lake and surround it with districts, and you'll be getting some very good adjacency bonuses (potentially up to +8, or +9 if one of the districts is a Government Plaza). Build a Shipyard in the city (requiring the renaissance-era Mass Production technology) and that strong adjacency bonus also grants production!

You can double Commercial Hub adjacency bonuses with the Town Charters economic policy card, available with the medieval-era Guilds civic. You can double Harbour adjacency bonuses with the Naval Infrastructure economic policy card, available with the medieval-era Naval Tradition civic. The modern-era Ideology civic combines the two into a single card - Economic Union.

Civilization Ability: Meiji Restoration (Part 2/2)

Theatre Squares

Considering Theatre Squares are the hardest district type to get adjacency bonuses for, the increased contribution is a very welcome bonus. For Hojo Tokimune, cutting the price in half means new cities can afford to get them up and running. If you can get to Drama and Poetry early, a well-placed Theatre Square can help you reach Feudalism and therefore Samurai sooner. This isn't something you can necessarily do every game, however. You will have to judge for yourself whether or not building a Theatre Square prior to the arrival of Samurai is worth your time.

From the modern era, Electronics Factories will provide a decent source of culture, so subsequent Theatre Squares should largely be with the intention of either providing stronger adjacency bonuses to other districts, boosting Tokugawa's trade bonuses, maximising your tourism output, or if you really want to rush to future-era civics.

You can double Theatre Square adjacency bonuses with the Aesthetics economic policy card, available with the medieval-era Medieval Faires civic. With the atomic-era Professional Sports civic, this is replaced with Sports Media which has the added bonus of adding +1 amenity to all Stadiums.

Industrial Zones

Once you've researched technologies to complement Samurai warfare, Apprenticeship is a good technology to head for next. Although the production bonus isn't quite on a par with Germany's Hansa, production will be useful for any victory route, so any bonus is welcome. Getting a bigger adjacency bonus from Industrial Zones makes them worth building in most, if not all, your cities, even before taking account the culture bonus of Electronics Factories (which unlike the production bonus applies only in the city that's built it, meaning the more cities with an Industrial Zone, the more you can get out of your UB).

If you place Industrial Zones near the centre of a cluster of districts, you can not only take advantage of lots of production from adjacency bonuses, but you'll also keep the negative appeal Industrial Zones create away from potential Neighbourhood spots.

You can double Industrial Zone adjacency bonuses with the Craftsman military policy card, available with the medieval-era Guilds civic. This gets replaced in the modern era with Five-Year Plan, which requires the Class Struggle civic and also doubles Campus adjacency yields. The Coal Power Plant building also provides production based on the adjacency bonus of the district.

Non-adjacency districts

Most districts that don't gain adjacency bonuses are best-positioned on the edge of your main district clusters. That way, the central part of the district cluster with the biggest adjacency bonuses is dedicated to districts that can actually make use of it.

Entertainment Complexes and Water Parks each offer an impressive +2 culture adjacency to Theatre Squares, on top of the +1 for being another district. As such, if you need to build these districts, try to place them on the same side of a cluster of districts so you can place Theatre Squares next to lots of them.

Exceptions to the rule

The most notable exception to the rule that non-adjacency districts should be on the outskirts of district clusters is the Goverment Plaza. If they're in the middle of a cluster of districts, they can boost the yields of more districts.

Aqueducts and Dams each offer a +2 adjacency boost to Industrial Zones, on top of the +1 they offer for being a district, though they aren't quite as effective at boosting other districts. Two cities can build Aqueducts facing each other, with Industrial Zones in the middle and possibly Dams around them for excellent yields.

Districts to avoid

As Hojo Tokimune, you'll probably want to minimise construction of Aerodomes and Preserves in particular as they use up district capacity while not synergising well with Japan's uniques. Cutting back on Aerodomes shouldn't cause too much trouble if you make good use of Carriers. Preserves are hard to use well as Japan anyway given you're incentivised to pack cities close together, leaving little space for unimproved tiles.

As Tokugawa, your largest cities should try to build as many speciality districts as possible to maximise the yields of trade routes going towards them. Aerodromes and Preserves should still have the lowest priority of speciality districts however, as they don't inherently boost trade route yields unlike other districts. Aerodromes can provide a little extra production via their buildings, so they have a slightly higher priority to build than Preserves.

Summary

• Exploit the +2 adjacency bonus Government Plazas offer to create strong early districts.
  
• Eventually, districts should form clusters between two or more cities - aside from Government Plazas, Aqueducts and Dams, districts that don't gain adjacency bonuses themselves should be around the edge of the clusters.
  
• Commercial Hubs and Harbours can produce science if you get a classical or medieval era Golden Age, so be sure to build some early.
  
• Minimise your use of Aerodromes and Preserves so you can build more of the other districts which either receive or greatly boost adjacency yields.

Hojo Tokimune's Leader Ability: Divine Wind (Part 1/2)

There's two distinct parts to Hojo Tokimune's leader ability with relatively little overlap: the coastal strength bonus (with the minor hurricane bonuses), and the faster construction of three different districts.

Coastal combat bonus

The coastal regions of the world are where Hojo Tokimune's units are at their strongest. Though not quite as versatile a strength bonus as, say, Tomyris' +5 boost against wounded units, it still nonetheless has some very useful applications, including:

• Fighting coastal Barbarians
  
• Defending against coastal invasions
  
• Attacking coastal cities
  
• Coastal theological combat

All of these are explained in more depth later in this leader ability section.

Keep in mind that the strength bonus only applies to land military, naval military and religious units which are engaged in combat on:

• A coast (shallow water) tile, regardless of how far it is from land
  
• A land tile that is adjacent to coast (shallow water) - tiles that are only adjacent to lakes don't count!
  
• A lake tile.

This is based on where the defending unit/city is, not where the attacker is. A Battleship on an ocean tile attacking a city adjacent to the sea will still receive the +5 strength boost.

With that out of the way, let's explore in more detail the uses for this bonus...

Fighting Coastal Barbarians

Barbarian encampments will appear near the sea fairly often, and cannot relocate once they're there. As such, they're ripe targets for your land military units. Dedicating a few units early on to clearing Barbarian encampments will be a good source of era score prior to the renaissance game era, as well as gold at any time.

Once you have access to Privateers, Submarines or Nuclear Submarines, you no longer need land units to clear coastal Barbarian encampments. You can simply destroy the units occupying them from a two-tile distance, then move adjacent to the encampment and destroy it in a coastal raid. Coastal raiders aren't usually especially strong against land units compared to naval ranged units, but the +5 strength bonus will make this strategy more effective. As such, just a small force of naval raider units can help you earn a bit of extra cash and keep the seas safe.

Repelling Coastal Invasions

Japan's Samurai UU requires a focus away from the navy to produce, which can leave Japan with a relatively weak navy in the early renaissance era.

Strong navies can be a significant threat for a maritime empire with a weak navy, as until air units come available, you have only three options against them - build up city defences and hope the ranged attack can stop them, attack them with regular land ranged units and suffer a -17 attack penalty, or use siege units which suffer from poor mobility.

Hojo Tokimune can use the latter two strategies much more effectively than most other civs. Regular ranged units won't be quite so weak against naval units, and the poor mobility of siege units will be partially addressed by them being able to defend better when stationed on the coast, meaning they can stay out longer before needing to retreat.

If the enemy intends to disembark an army onto your coast, you can place a line of melee infantry units (Samurai are great at this) along the shore as a powerful barrier against the would-be attackers. Pay attention to where cliffs are located so you can minimise the number of land units you might need to dedicate to this, seeing as only promoted melee infantry units can embark on them. If you're going for a cultural victory, you can do something similar later in the game to protect your seaside resorts.

Attacking Coastal Cities

Attacking coastal cities is perhaps the best use of Hojo Tokimune's strength bonus. Coastal cities can sometimes be tricky targets as they're much harder to put under siege than inland ones. With a +5 strength boost, you can deal more damage and take them out sooner. Don't forget that embarked land units as well as naval units are useful for the purpose - you can stack both together to maximise the amount of damage you can deal to cities each turn.

Theological Combat

As with many other unique strength bonuses, Hojo Tokimune's leader ability can apply in theological combat, making your religious units stronger by the coast. Because religious units often have to travel inland to convert the cities of others, this can be a tricky ability to reliably use.

Perhaps the most reliable use of this bonus in theological warfare is defensive. As one example, injured religious units can temporarily retreat to coastal tiles before they move back to a friendly Holy Site or city with Governor Moksha (the Cardinal) promoted with Laying on of Hands present. As another, you can surround your coastal cities with Inquisitors to keep rival religious units at bay.

Hurricane Effects

Hurricanes are storms which appear in and move through open waters, lasting three turns. They can make landfall, adding fertility yield bonuses to land tiles, but typically they remain in the sea. They usually move about 3-4 tiles per turn they are active.

There are two types of hurricanes in the game: Category 4 and Category 5. Both types, especially the latter, become more common as climate change affects the world. Category 4 hurricanes affect seven tiles per turn, having a 60% chance of damaging naval units in range for 40-60HP. Category 5 hurricanes have an extra tile radius, affecting a whole 19 tiles per turn, and will always damage naval units in range for 60-80HP. They can also pillage districts and their buildings and destroy or pillage tile improvements.

Hurricanes won't ever deal damage to Japanese units, improvements, buildings or districts, though Japan may still benefit from the fertility yield bonuses. Furthermore, enemy units in Japanese territory will take double damage from hurricanes - Category 5 hurricanes will reliably kill all enemy naval units in range!

The downside of this bonus is that the appearance of storms is random, so you cannot rely on it. It makes settling small islands out in the sea a little safer, but don't count on it to defeat a naval invasion.

Hojo Tokimune's Leader Ability: Divine Wind (Part 2/2)

Half-Price Holy Sites, Encampments and Theatre Squares

Hojo Tokimune allows you to build three different district types at half the cost, much like a unique district. How useful this bonus is varies depending on your favoured victory route - cultural and religious players will gain the most. All players may find cheap districts useful for maximising the adjacency yields of other, higher-priority ones, particularly once cities grow and have significantly more district capacity.

Note that all districts increase in cost based on your technological and civic progress. If you have more or the same number of speciality districts as speciality district types you have unlocked and the former number divided by the latter is bigger than the number of copies of this district you have, you will receive a 40% discount. Combined with this ability, it stacks multiplicatively to become a 70% discount.

Cheap Holy Sites give you a better shot at founding a religion - so long as you act fast. The Divine Spark pantheon will help. Keep in mind, however, that getting Holy Sites early means delaying Campuses, Commericial Hubs or other such useful districts. That's a trade-off that can't easily be ignored if you're not going for a religious victory.

Cheap Encampments are helpful if you want a Great General in time for Samurai. Samurai with Oligarchy and a Great General have an impressive 57 strength - better than Musketmen! If you have enough spare production, you can also try and go for Barracks as well so those Samurai can gain experience faster.

Cheap Theatre Squares can help you get to Feudalism and the important Feudal Contract policy card (which helps you train Samurai faster) at a reasonable speed. For cultural players, cheap Theatre Squares are great for maximising GWAM points along with Great Work and artefact slots, which together can be great for maximising your tourism output.

Summary

• The coastal combat bonus is mainly useful against coastal Barbarians, enemy naval units and enemy coastal cities.
  
• The appearance of hurricanes is fairly random so you cannot really play around Hojo Tokimune's bonuses there.
  
• Half-price Holy Sites, Theatre Squares and Encampments vary in usefulness depending on your intended victory route, but building them is eventually useful for anyone for maximising adjacency bonuses.

Tokugawa's Leader Ability: Bakuhan

Tokugawa trades off some of the versatility of Hojo Tokimune in exchange for a more isolationist playstyle with excellent science yields.

Domestic trade route bonuses

When sending trade routes towards one of your own cities, you normally receive food and production based on the speciality districts in the targeted city. Tokugawa receives extra science, culture and gold on top of this, making an excellent overall yield.

This ability will be at its most effective if you have one or two huge cities with as many speciality districts as possible, and all your other cities sending trade routes there. Because trade route capacity is largely limited by the number of cities you have with either a Market or Lighthouse, it helps to settle a large number of cities early on. In other words, your nation should have 1-2 large cities, and lots of smaller ones.

The city you choose to grow should be one with plenty of open space for farms, or with a lot of plantation resources and/or sea resources. This is because these improvements offer both food and housing critical to growing a city quickly early. Training a Builder or two very early can help get city growth off the ground. Assign Governor Magnus (the Steward) to this city and you can use both the Surplus Logistics and Provision promotions to maximise city growth while avoiding population loss from training Settlers.


As your capital is the first city to grow, gets extra yields from city-states, and has an extra point of housing from the Palace, it will usually be your best choice of city to expand.

Try to build the Government Plaza and Diplomatic Quarter in your key large city as soon as possible. This is because trade routes to a city with these districts gain both +1 food and +1 production, unlike most other speciality districts which only provide +1 food or +1 production. Avoid building Preserves or Aerodromes until you have all other speciality districts covered, as they do not provide intrinsic food or production to trade routes - only Tokugawa's bonus.


With the help of Great Engineers that offer bonus district capacity such as Bi Sheng and plenty of food bonuses like the Replaceable Parts technology, you can get an enormous yield from every trade route heading to your key city.

Look out for bonuses to domestic trade routes - the renaissance-era Great Merchant Raja Todar Mal, the modern-era Great Merchant John Rockefeller and the modern-era economic policy card Collectivisation all are particularly handy boosts to these yields.

If you have more trade routes than cities, consider sending those trade routes from your largest city so you can use the food and production to expand faster and eventually support even more districts.

With extra science and culture, Tokugawa's Japan should be well-equipped to rush through the technology and civics trees.

International trade route penalties

Tokugawa's international trade routes do not provide the usual 25% boost to tourism, in addition to having a 25% penalty to all yields. This, combined with the varied strong yields you can get from domestic trade routes, greatly discourages use of international trading outside of specific scenarios like maximising alliance point gain or getting bonus envoys.

The loss of the tourism bonus in particular is a significant setback in the cultural game, encouraging Tokugawa to use his trade route bonuses to support a scientific playstyle instead.

Bonuses for cities within six tiles of the capital

Any city owned by Tokugawa within 6 tiles of the capital are 100% loyal. This rarely comes into play in a typical game as loyalty pressures for your own civ are usually very strong in that area anyway, but it can help with very early expansion if you start very close to another civ, or you're dealing with a civ that puts out a lot of loyalty pressure like Eleanor of Aquitaine's England or France.

With the modern-era Flight technology, these cities will also gain some extra tourism from their speciality districts. In practice, the tourism boost is set back by Tokugawa's inability to get extra tourism from international trade routes, so Tokugawa's leader ability overall will usually cost more tourism than it generates.

Summary

• Make one big city to maximise district capacity, and lots of smaller cities with Harbours or Commercial Hubs.
  
• Be sure to use Builders early on to build farms and maximise the growth of your key city.
  
• Governor Magnus (the Steward) should go in your key city to aid growth.
  
• Look out for the Great Engineers Bi Sheng and Ada Lovelace to boost your district capacity of your key cities sooner.

Unique Unit: Samurai

No matter your intended victory path, consider the potential of Samurai. With the Oligarchy government, they have 52 strength, and unlike Knights they can use Battering Rams and Siege Towers to take out enemy defences. You can even upgrade Swordsmen to them to save some production.

Unlocking Samurai

Unlike most military units, Samurai are unlocked in the civics tree - to be precise, at Feudalism. You can either settle plenty of cities and build Monuments in between districts to maximise your early culture output, or else (as Hojo Tokimune) beeline Drama and Poetry for Theatre Squares.

On the technology tree, you'll want Bronze Working early on to reveal iron as soon as possible so you know where to settle cities to secure it for yourself. Getting Bronze Working is also helpful for unlocking Encampments (needed for a Great General) and the ability to clear rainforest for clearing potential district spots.

If your enemies are likely to have a lot of walled cities, research Masonry or work towards Machinery after Military Tactics so you can build Battering Rams or Siege Towers respectively. Siege Towers are a bit more effective in the role of taking down cities, but they take longer to research and build. Crossbowmen can also be nice to have around, but don't hold off starting a war in anticipation of them - you can bring them in later.

Putting Samurai to use

With 48 strength, Samurai are nearly as strong as Knights to begin with for a lower cost. Oligarchy or its legacy card puts them on a +2 advantage over them, and on tiles adjacent to the coast, a massive +7 advantage. Additionally, the ability to fight at full strength even when injured allows the units to gain an advantage in a battle of attritrion.

Units usually lose strength when injured at a rate of 1 strength per 10% of health lost, rounded up. A unit at 90-99 health will lose 1 strength, a unit at 80-89 health will lose 2, and so forth. At 30-39 health, Samurai are equally powerful to a Musketman of that same level of health, although you probably don't want to risk them in combat at that point. Having persistently high strength means you don't need many Samurai to deal massive amounts of damage to civs behind in military technology, and just a couple plus a Battering Ram or Siege Tower can deal surprising amounts of damage to cities. You can also wait longer before you need to retreat Samurai (or hold off pillaging farms for health for longer).

When you're launching amphibious attacks (from sea to land), escort embarked Samurai (preferably with the Amphibious promotion) with the strongest naval units you can build. The embarked Samurai can keep attacking land-based targets such as cities while the naval units they're stacked with keep them safe from counter-attacks. This allows you to keep attacking with embarked Samurai until they're at very low health without the risk of them being easily killed, helping you maximise their damage output.

The Elite Guard promotion takes some time to reach, but makes melee units able to attack twice, making them more dangerous. For most units, the second attack will be weaker than the first due to them losing health from the first round of combat, but Samurai fight just as well both times.

Obsoletion

Samurai will remain effective until Musketmen become commonplace, and even then can hold their own reasonably well for a time - they're only seven points of strength weaker at the most, cost a third less to train, have a lower maintenance cost and have an easier strategic resource requirement. That means you can put off researching Gunpowder to focus on other important technologies like Industrialisation and Electricity.

Summary

• Get Bronze Working early so you can find iron
  
• Settle plenty of cities and build Monuments, or alternatively beeline Drama and Poetry to get Theatre Squares for culture.
  
• Take the Oligarchy government for a +4 strength bonus.
  
• Accompany Samurai with Battering Rams or Siege Towers to deal with cities.

Unique Building: Electronics Factory

Regular Factories are a key source of production in the later eras of the game, and Electronics Factories build on that with an even bigger bonus when powered, and a reasonable culture boost once you can get to the modern-era Electricity technology.

Electronics Factories arrive pretty late as unique buildings go, and the culture bonus arrives even later - though thankfully it's easy to beeline Electricity after Industrialisation. To make things trickier, while you only need to build a few Factories to spread its production bonus to all your cities, the culture from Electronics Factories has no such advantage; to reach their full potential you'll need one in as many cities as possible.

Outputs

As with regular Factories, without power, Electronics Factories provide +3 production to cities within six tiles. Secure a source of power for the city, and you'll get an impressive +8 production to all the cities in range, rather than the regular +6.

A good way to power your Factories is via Coal Power Plants, as they have a direct production bonus based on the adjacency bonus of your Industrial Zones. Japan can get very strong Industrial Zone adjacency bonuses by surrounding them with Aqueducts, Dams and other districts. Speaking of Dams, with the Electricity technology, you can build Hydroelectric Dams there for an extra source of clean energy.

You can boost that production advantage even further if you station Governor Magnus (the Steward) in a centrally-located city and give him the Vertical Integration promotion. That allows one city to get an incredibly strong production yield. If you can manage to have 10 Electronics Factories in range of your Magnus city, that city will be gaining 80 production (20 of which is only achieved thanks to this UB). You can make that even stronger with the industrial-era Great Engineer James Watt, who boosts the production yield of all Electronics Factories by 2, Mexico City's suzerain bonus if they're in your game (it increases the range of AoE buildings by 3, letting you get more Electronics Factories in range of your Magnus city), or the modern-era Great Engineer Nikola Tesla who can provide a similar boost to a single Industrial Zone.

If you've been neglecting culture throughout the game thus far to focus on warfare and science, Electronics Factories will help make up for that. 4 culture per city is more than you'd usually get from an unimproved Theatre Square for the cost of a building you'll be building in plenty of cities anyway. With the advent of Replaceable Parts' huge bonus to food from farms, and Urbanisation offering Neighbourhood districts, cities can get much larger at this point in the game and handle many more districts than before. As such, if you held off building Theatre Squares before, you'll usually be able to build some around this point without sacrificing more immediately relevant districts. The combination of Electronic Factory culture and more Theatre Squares can zoom you through the late-game civics and get the powerful future-era policy cards.

Being an Industrial Zone building, Electronics Factories are prone to sabotage by Spies - this can pillage them even in peace-time! To avoid this, make sure you don't neglect to train new Spies, and have them ready for counterespionage. Japan's civ ability encourages you to cluster districts together, and Spies protect the district they're assigned to and all surrounding ones in a one-tile radius, so thankfully you'll be able to cover lots of your key districts easily.

Summary

• Use Governor Magnus (the Steward) with the Vertical Integration promotion so a city can make the most of Electronics Factory production.
  
• Coal Power Plants and Hydroelectric Dams are two easy, and effective, sources of energy for Electronics Factories.
  
• The culture bonus can help you on the way to powerful future-era civics.

Administration - Government

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 a good choice early on. The +4 strength bonus to Samurai makes them even more effective against unprepared civs. However, if you don't think you can unlock Samurai at a fast pace, or don't wish to use them much, take Classical Republic instead. Classical Republic is usually the better choice for Tokugawa.

Complement Oligarchy with the Warlord's Throne so you get production bonuses every time you capture a city. Complement Classical Republic with the Audience Chamber so you can maximise your district capacity faster.

Tier Two

If you're after a religious victory, you'll want Theocracy, but otherwise Merchant Republic is ideal for its district construction bonus.

The Intelligence Agency is typically your best option for a tier two government building as you can keep more Electronics Factories safe from being sabotaged. The Grand Master's Chapel also isn't bad for a domination-focused Japan - you can use your cheap Holy Sites to provide faith you can then use to purchase units. Diplomatic players should take the Foreign Ministry.

Tier Three

Fascism is often the best option if you're pushing for a domination victory. Communism is ideal for a scientific game, and is therefore usually the best option for Tokugawa. Democracy works best for a cultural, diplomatic or religious game.

Your choice of tier three government building similarly depends on your victory route - use the National History Museum for cultural games, Royal Society for diplomatic or scientific games (you can use Builders to rush carbon capture or space projects with it) or the War Department otherwise (the health-on-kills works for both military and religious units).

Tier Four

Corporate Libertarianism exploits Japan's cheap Encampments and strong Commercial Hubs, and is a great choice for domination games. Digital Democracy rewards building a high number of districts, and is ideal for cultural games. Synthetic Technocracy makes powering Electronics Factories easier while boosting project production, the latter of which is good for the diplomatic and scientific games, and to a lesser extent religion (you can more effectively use Holy Site Prayers projects).

Administration - Policy Cards

Policy Cards

Ancient Era

(Tokugawa) Caravansaries (Economic, requires Foreign Trade) - Boosts the gold from your trade routes further.

(Tokugawa) Colonisation (Economic, requires Early Empire) - The more cities you can settle early on, the more trade routes you'll have later and therefore the more gold, science and culture you'll receive.

(Tokugawa) Ilkum (Economic, requires Craftsmanship) - Tokugawa's start is significantly better if you can grow a key city quickly. Part of that involves building plenty of food and housing-based tile improvements, for which you'll want plenty of Builders.

Limitanei (Military, requires Early Empire) - Useful if you want to start Samurai conquests. Japan's bonuses to an array of district types do not include Entertainment Complexes, so you can be prone to being short on amenities. Add to that the relatively slow movement speed of Samurai, and maintaining loyalty in captured cities could be quite a challenge. This policy card will help with that.

Urban Planning (Economic, requires Code of Laws) - Japan benefits from being able to build a lot of districts, and getting a production bonus now while the cost of districts is still fairly low will be very useful.

Classical Era

Insulae (Economic, requires Games and Recreation) - If you need a bit of extra housing to maximise district capacity, this is a reasonable, if not exceptional, choice.

Natural Philosophy (Economic, requires Recorded History) - Doubles Campus adjacency bonuses. One of the best adjacency bonus boosts to pick up.

Praetorium (Diplomatic, requires Recorded History) - Useful if you really need more loyalty during Samurai wars.

(Hojo Tokimune) Scripture (Economic, requires Theology) - Doubles Holy Site adjacency bonuses.

(Hojo Tokimune) Veterancy (Military, requires Military Training) - Makes setting up a developed Encampment district lightning-fast, and Harbours somewhat faster. Building Samurai in cities with a Barracks makes them earn experience faster, allowing them to achieve their full potential sooner.

Medieval Era

(Hojo Tokimune favoured) Aesthetics (Economic, requires Medieval Faires) - Doubles Theatre Square adjacency bonuses.

Craftsmen (Military, requires Guilds) - Doubles Industrial Zone adjacency bonuses. Considering the importance of production, this is one of the better double-adjacency cards to get.

Feudal Contract (Military, requires Feudalism) - Speeds up training of Samurai.

Medina Quarter (Economic, requires Medieval Faires) - Aids in boosting housing, and therefore district capacity.

Naval Infrastructure (Economic, requires Naval Tradition) - Doubles Harbour adjacency bonuses. Rather effective if you have plenty of Shipyards as it will also double the production output they offer, or if you have the Free Inquiry classical/medieval Golden Age dedication as it will double their science output.

Retainers (Military, requires Civil Service) - Extra amenities helps you hold off from building Entertainment Complexes in favour of districts that have adjacency bonuses.

Town Charters (Economic, requires Guilds) - Doubles Commercial Hub adjacency bonuses. Also combines well with the Free Inquiry Golden Age dedication for bonus science.

Renaissance Era

Drill Manuals (Military, requires Mercantilism) - Coal Power Plants are the first source of power in the game - crucial for Electronics Factories - and also offer production based off its district's adjacency bonus. As such, maximising your coal output will be very useful.

Free Market (Economic, requires The Enlightenment) - Japan's civ ability makes maximising Commercial Hub adjacency easier, allowing you to get more out of this bonus.

Liberalism (Economic, requires The Enlightenment) - A valuable source of amenities allowing you to put off building Entertainment Complexes in favour of more districts with adjacency bonuses.

Machiavellianism (Diplomatic, requires Diplomatic Service) - Electronics Factories are vulnerable to enemy Spies, so you'll want to train your own Spies to stop them. This policy card cuts the time needed to do so.

Rationalism (Economic, requires The Enlightenment) - Japan's civ ability makes maximising Campus adjacency easier so you can more easily get more science out of this policy card.

(Hojo Tokimune) Simultaneum (Economic, requires Reformed Church) - Boosts Holy Site building faith so long as the adjacency bonus is 3 or higher - something that's easier to achieve thanks to Japan's civ ability.

(Tokugawa) Triangular Trade (Economic, requires Mercantilism) - Further boosts gold from your trade routes.

Industrial Era

(Hojo Tokimune favoured) Grand Opera (Economic, requires Opera and Ballet) - Japan can use this policy card more easily than most civs to squeeze even more culture out of Theatre Squares, though with the culture from Electronics Factories, you may need to ask yourself if you really need that much culture at the cost of other policy card bonuses.

Modern Era

(Tokugawa) Collectivisation (Economic, Communism only, requires Class Struggle) - An excellent choice for Tokugawa, this policy card provides an impressive boost to food and production for all your internal trade routes.

Economic Union (Economic, requires Ideology) - Combines the effects of Naval Infrastructure and Town Charters.

Five-Year Plan (Economic, requires Ideology) - Combines the effects of Natural Philosophy and Craftsmen. A very useful policy card worth keeping to the end of the game.

(Domination) Martial Law (Wildcard, Fascism only, requires Totalitarianism) - Keeps your war weariness down while also helping keep your loyalty up, letting you conquer more effectively without having to use up district capacity building Entertainment Complexes and Water Parks.

New Deal (Economic, Democracy only, requires Suffrage) - Getting +2 amenities in every city with 3+ districts means you can focus on districts that offer adjacency bonuses instead of buiilding Entertainment Complexes and Water Parks.

(Domination) Propaganda (Military, requires Mass Media) - Helps keep war weariness down, saving you valuable amenities.

(Hojo Tokimune) Their Finest Hour (Wildcard, Democracy only, requires Suffrage) - Stacks nicely with Hojo Tokimune's coastal strength bonuses to make your civ particularly hard to attack.

Atomic Era

Cryptography (Diplomatic, requires Cold War) - Helps you defend your Electronics Factories against enemy Spies.

Sports Media (Economic, requires Professional Sports) - A late game replacement for Aesthetics. Offers the same bonus with +1 amenity for Stadiums on top.

Information Era

Communications Office (Diplomatic, requires Social Media) - A boost to loyalty which will help you with any late conquests.

(Tokugawa) Ecommerce (Economic, requires Globalisation) - Even more gold and production for your trade routes.

Future Era

(Hojo Tokimune) Global Coalition (Wildcard, requires Smart Power Doctrine) - Keep your coasts particularly safe with this wildcard.

Non-State Actors (Wildcard, requires Cultural Hegemony) - You can reliably give Spies good defensive bonuses to protect your key districts.

Space Tourism (Wildcard, requires Exodus Imperative) - Electronics Factories and good Theatre Square adjacency bonuses can put Japan in a strong position for culture output by the end of the game. With this wildcard on top, you can be even more effective at stopping rival cultural civs.

Administration - Age Bonuses and World Congress

Age Bonuses

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

Free Inquiry (Golden Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - Well-positioned Commercial Hubs next to a Government Plaza, a river and some other districts can produce large amounts of gold, which can be added to science with this powerful Golden Age dedication. If that wasn't enough, it also makes eureka boosts more effective.

(Tokugawa) Isolationism (Dark Age, Classical to Industrial eras) - If you're done settling cities, you can enjoy a handy boost to domestic trade route food and production.

(Hojo Tokimune) Monasticism (Dark Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - Although not quite as potentially powerful as the Free Inquiry Golden Age dedication, it's still extremely strong in Japan's hands. The Holy Site requirement is easy to achieve thanks to Hojo Tokimune getting them for half-price so your good Campus adjacency yields can be boosted even further.

Monumentality (Dedication, Classical to Renaissance eras) - Japan's incentive to build a lot of districts makes this a good dedication to choose when you're trying to gain era score.

Pen, Brush and Voice (Golden Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - A good choice if you're coming out a classical-era Dark Age into a medieval-era Heroic Age, as the culture boost can make up for lost time from the Monasticism Dark Age wildcard. Gaining culture based on your number of districts works well considering Japan's incentive to build a lot of them.

Twilight Valour (Dark Age, Classical to Renaissance eras) - Stacked with Oligarchy, Samurai can attack at a massive 57 strength (62 with a Great General, or equivalent to Cavalry). The restriction to only healing in your own territory isn't as much of a drawback as it is for many civs with slow units as Samurai still fight at full strength when injured.

(Tokugawa) Reform the Coinage (Dedication, Renaissance to Modern eras) - A reliable source of era score for a leader encouraged to make lots of trade routes.

Heartbeat of Steam (Dedication, Industrial to Atomic eras) - Electronics Factories arrive in the industrial era, and this dedication gives you era score for building industrial-era or later buildings.

Heartbeat of Steam (Golden Age, Industrial to Atomic eras) - Your strong Campuses will now provide a good amount of production on top.

(Domination) To Arms! (Golden Age, Industrial to Information eras) - Reducing the warmonger penalties from a war also reduces the amount of war weariness it creates. As such, this Golden Age dedication is very useful for late-game warfare without you needing to use up district capacity for Entertainment Complexes or Water Parks.

Collectivism (Dark Age, Modern to Information eras) - If you don't need any more Great People, then this Dark Age wildcard can be a good way of growing your compact cities while also making them a fair bit more productive.

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 votes that have high relevance for this civ relative to other civs.

Border Control Treaty - Effect A (New districts built by this player act as culture bombs) on yourself

Getting extra tiles for free will help you maximise the number of districts you can fit into a district cluster before other civs start buying tiles and getting in the way.

Espionage Pact - Effect B (The chosen Spy operation is unavailable) for Sabotage Production

Prevents your Electronics Factories from being pillaged outside of war-time.

Migration Treaty - Effect A (+20% faster population growth but -5 loyalty per turn in this player's cities) on yourself, unless you are at war.

Japan is encouraged to keep cities close together, which has the side-effect of keeping loyalty high. Compact cities can also struggle to secure many food tiles, so a growth bonus can be helpful.

Nobel Prize in Physics - Vote in favour

Electronics Factories are a good source of Great Engineer Points, while Japan's civ ability in general encourages the construction of Campuses and Commercial Hubs for Great Scientist and Merchant points respectively.

(Tokugawa) Trade Policy - Effect A (Trade routes sent to the chosen player provide +4 gold to the sender. The chosen player receives +1 trade route capacity) on yourself.

Helps you get a little more out of Tokugawa's leader ability.

Urban Development Treaty - Effect A (+100% production towards buildings in this district) on Industrial Zones

Helps you build Electronics Factories, or at the very least prepare for them.

Administration - Pantheons, Religion and City-States

Pantheons

City Patron Goddess - Makes setting up your first district in each city faster, which can get you stronger adjacency bonuses sooner. For Tokugawa, it can save time getting Commercial Hubs or Harbours up in new cities, therefore allowing you to get more trade route capacity sooner.

(Hojo Tokimune favoured) Divine Spark - Helps you found a religion with Holy Sites, secure more Great Scientists with Libraries or secure more Great Writers with Amphitheatres.

(Hojo Tokimune) God of Healing - Being able to build Holy Sites cheaply means you can use them as reasonably effective spots for your units to heal.

(Hojo Tokimune) God of the Sea - Japan's strong coastal defence makes this pantheon easier to use.

(Tokugawa favoured) Religious Settlements - Although securing this pantheon is very difficult, it is amazing as a source of a Settler without costing population in your capital. This is important as Tokugawa favours having a huge early city, but otherwise settling extensively early on to maximise trade route capacity.

(Hojo Tokimune favoured) River Goddess - Japan's civ ability means you can position Holy Sites next to rivers and still get adjacency bonuses akin to them being near mountains, making the amenity and housing bonus easier to use. The amenities will be useful for avoiding having to build Entertainment Complexes or Water Parks, which lack the same synergy with Japan's unique bonuses.

Religious Beliefs

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

(Hojo Tokimune) Jesuit Education (Follower) - Cheap Holy Sites combined with this belief means you won't need production or gold to get your Campuses or Theatre Squares developed.

Stewardship (Founder) - Makes your strong Campus and Commercial Hub districts slightly stronger.

Stupa (Worship) - A source of amenities without needing to build Entertainment Complexes or Water Parks.

(Hojo Tokimune) Warrior Monks (Follower) - Hojo Tokimune's low-cost Holy Sites makes the culture-bomb effect rather good if you need more land (whether neutral land or that owned by another civ).

Work Ethic (Follower) - Add your impressive faith adjacency yields to production on top!

Zen Meditation (Follower) - Another decent source of amenities without having to build Entertainment Complexes or Water Parks.

City-States

Akkad (Militaristic) - Saves you having to bring Battering Rams and Siege Towers with your Samurai.

Bologna (Scientific) - Extra Great Person Points as a reward for all that district construction.

Buenos Aires (Industrial) - More amenities to help you avoid having to use Entertainment Complexes and Water Parks.

Cardiff (Industrial) - Allows you to power Electronics Factories immediately, and enjoy the production boost sooner.

(Tokugawa) Chinguetti (Religious) - Provides some bonus faith for trade routes. If you can convert your largest city to your religion, with as many followers as possible, you could get over 100 faith per turn with this city-state!

(Tokugawa) Hunza (Trade) - A little extra gold from trade routes.

Kabul (Militaristic) - Faster experience gain means Samurai can get to Elite Guard sooner. Attacking twice is less of a risk for Samurai relative to other melee units as they'll still fight at full strength.

Mitla (Scientific) - Building lots of Campuses early will also be rewarded with fast city growth. The faster your cities grow, the more productive they'll become sooner.

Mexico City (Industrial) - Building your first Electronics Factory will have a bigger immediate impact, a city with Governor Magnus (the Steward) and the Vertical Integration promotion will gain even more production, and you won't need as many Entertainment Complexes or Water Parks to bring Zoo, Aquarium, Stadium and Aquatics Centre amenities to all your cities.

Muscat (Trade) - Adds an amenity to every Commercial Hub, meaning there's less need for you to build Entertainment Complexes.

(Hojo Tokimune) Valletta (Militaristic) - Hojo Tokimune's Encampments are cheaper to build than those of other leaders, but his Encampment buildings aren't any cheaper to construct. This suzerain bonus allows you to purchase their buildings with faith, freeing up production and gold for other uses.

Vilnius (Cultural) - If you have an alliance, all your already-good Theatre Squares get a 50% adjacency boost. If you have a tier two alliance, it's 100%. Tier three? 150%. A Theatre Square surrounded by other districts could produce 15 culture per turn, and that's even before taking into account the Aesthetics policy card.

Zanzibar (Trade) - An amazing source of amenities without you having to build Entertainment Complexes.

Administration - Wonders and Great People

Wonders

Great Bath (Ancient era, Pottery technology) - Generally too risky a wonder to build in most games, but is nonetheless useful for Japan. It acts as an early Dam, protecting districts you may have clustered around a floodplain, and also helps the city grow taller and hence support more districts.

Temple of Artemis (Ancient era, Archery technology) - A source of amenities for a single city (due to the way luxuries work, that amenity bonus can end up distributed throughout your empire), and both food and housing to help it grow. It's a good idea to build this in your Government Plaza city so it can support as wide an array of adjacency-receiving districts as your other cities. That being said, building this uses precious production you could be using for Settlers and other districts in the first place.

Colosseum (Classical era, Games and Recreation civic) - Although it requires an adjacent Entertainment Complex with an Arena, the main advantage of building this is you won't need to build more Entertainment Complexes for quite some time thanks to all the amenities on offer. That helps you focus on the districts with adjacency bonuses.

(Tokugawa) Colossus (Classical era, Shipbuilding technology) - Extra trade route capacity builds on Tokugawa's leader ability.

Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (Classical era, Defensive Tactics civic) - Given Japan's incentive to develop Industrial Zones, you'll likely receive a lot of Great Engineers which this wonder magnifies the effects of. Tokugawa in particular benefits greatly from doubling the retirement abilities of Bi Sheng and Ada Lovelace to boost district capacity in a city and in turn boost the yields of trade routes heading there.

Alhambra (Medieval era, Castles technology) - An extra military policy card can help strengthen your conquests, while extra amenities helps alleviate war weariness. The catch is that the Castles technology has a tricky eureka boost to achieve if your cultural output is poor, and it's a different branch of the technology tree to where many useful districts and buildings lie.

Angkor Wat (Medieval era, Medieval Faires civic) - Bumping up all your cities by a population point as well as providing extra housing will really help you maximise the number of districts you can fit in a small area.

(Tokugawa) University of Sankore (Medieval era, Education technology) - An excellent additional source of faith and science if you have a lot of trade routes heading towards this specific city.

(Tokugawa) Great Zimbabwe (Renaissance era, Banking technology) - Extra trade route capacity is always useful, and the city sending these trade routes can generate a lot of gold as well as culture, science, food and production if sent to a city with a lot of speciality districts.

Great People

These Great People have particular synergy with Japanese uniques, but are not necessarily the most effective options overall. Any classical or medieval-era Great General will be useful for Samurai, but it would be redundant to list them all.

Classical Era

(Domination) Trưng Trắc (Great General) - An early, and permanent reduction to war weariness - very useful if you lack Entertainment Complexes, as is quite common for Japan.

(Tokugawa) Zhang Qian (Great Merchant) - Extra trade route capacity.

Medieval Era

Bi Sheng (Great Engineer) - Bi Sheng increases the district limit in a city by 1. Having lots of districts increases the effectiveness of Japan's civ ability, and especially Tokugawa's leader ability.

(Hojo Tokimune favoured) Hildegard of Bingen (Great Scientist) - Makes a Holy Site's adjacency bonus also add to science. Considering they're cheap for Hojo Tokimune to build, it's easy enough to make use of.

(Tokugawa) Ibn Fadlan (Great Merchant) - +1 trade route capacity.

(Tokugawa) Marco Polo (Great Merchant) - +1 trade route capacity.

(Hojo Tokimune) Rajendra Chola (Great Admiral) - Extend your advantage in coastal tiles by making all your naval units more powerful.

(Tokugawa) Zheng He (Great Admiral) - +1 trade route capacity.

Renaissance Era

(Tokugawa) Raja Todar Mal (Great Merchant) - Makes your internal trade routes provide a total of +2.5 gold per speciality district at the destination!

Leonardo da Vinci (Great Engineer) - Makes all Workshops produce +3 culture. Considering you'll want to build plenty to make use of Electronics Factories, that's a reasonable advantage.

Industrial Era

(Tokugawa) Ada Lovelace (Great Engineer) - Extra district capacity on your largest city can boost the yields of most of your internal trade routes once the capacity is filled up.

James Watt (Great Engineer) - Instantly builds an Electronics Factory and makes all Electronics Factories provide +2 production. This makes them twice as good at providing production as the regular Factories of other civs!

John Spilsbury (Industrial Merchant) - More amenities.

Joseph Paxton (Great Engineer) - Helps get more out of an Entertainment Complex, so you can dedicate more cities to districts that offer adjacency bonuses. Beyond this point, cities will soon grow rapidly with the food bonus from Replaceable Parts and the housing provided by Neighbourhood Districts so building more Entertainment Complexes won't carry as high an opportunity cost. As such, it won't be as important to look for amenity bonuses.

Modern Era

(Domination) Joaquim Marques Lisboa (Great Admiral) - Reduces war weariness so a lack of Entertainment Complexes or Water Parks is less of an issue.

(Tokugawa) John Rockefeller (Great Merchant) - Boosts the gold of most, if not all, of your trade routes.

Nikola Tesla (Great Engineer) - Makes both an Electronics Factory and a Power Plant in the same city stronger.

Information Era

(Hojo Tokimune) Jamseth Tata (Great Merchant) - Very useful if you want to change course towards a cultural victory. Your many strong Campus districts will now offer a massive +10 tourism each.

(Hojo Tokimune) Kenzo Tange (Great Engineer) - Powerful for the cultural game - a city with a lot of high-adjacency districts, boosted by the Japanese civ ability, will now create a lot of tourism!

(Hojo Tokimune) Masaru Ibuka (Great Merchant) - The Electronics Factory UB combined with Japan's civ ability already encourages you to have lots of Industrial Zones. Masaru Ibuka adds +10 tourism to every single one.

Counter-Strategies (Part 1/2)

Japan is among the game's most versatile civs, so they can easily adjust victory route direction if need be - especially under Hojo Tokimune, but somewhat still under Tokugawa. Furthermore, many of Japan's strengths are hard to take away from them, but that's not to say you can't play around them. Here's some good ways to take on Japan.

Civilization Ability: Meiji Restoration

Doubled adjacency bonuses for adjacent districts can be tricky to counter-play. One possibility is to prevent Japan settling cities close together, or to push them into settling cities in a line rather than a blob, so the strongest adjacency bonuses are hard to secure. One mean method of doing so is blocking off the best locations for Settlers with your own military units. Even if you can't stop Japan clustering districts, you can exploit it as an easy source of pillaging yields with cavalry units.

The advantages of the Meiji Restoration will be lessened if Japan builds a lot of districts that can't have adjacency bonuses. Consider avoiding trading Japan luxuries so they're more likely to build Entertainment Complexes and Water Parks. If you appear to be a militaristic threat, they might be pushed to build more Encampments. Air superiority might encourage them to build more Aerodomes.

Hojo Tokimune's Leader Ability: Divine Wind

Coastal combat bonus

On map types such as Archipelago, where the strength bonus can rarely be avoided, be prepared to put up stronger defences than usual when facing Hojo Tokimune's Japan. Otherwise, if Japan starts near you, you can lessen their threat to you by avoiding founding cities directly on the coast - a tile or two inland will suffice. This will deny them a +5 strength bonus against those cities and reduces the risk of you having to fight a Japanese unit on terrain that favours them.

Prior to the renaissance era, it's a good idea to avoid fighting naval battles with Japan where possible. If they have a navy and intend to use it against you, make sure any naval units you have are kept close together and near to your coastal cities. That way, they can group together to bring down the stronger Japanese units, and heal up again afterwards ready to face more. Once you have Cartography, you can simply position your naval units in ocean tiles outside Japanese territory to make them less vulnerable to Japanese naval units.

Hurricane effects

Hurricanes mostly only affect naval units, but a category five hurricane in Japanese territory will deal so much damage as to instantly destroy any naval unit in the way, and even category four ones frequently will. While not an especially common weather event (at least until climate change increases their frequency), it's nonetheless a good idea to spread out your navy before you enter open Japanese waters - a line rather than a cluster is a good idea.

Faster Encampment, Holy Site and Theatre Square construction

Fast construction of these district types pushes Japan into building these more than other civs might. Holy Sites and Theatre Squares also gain from the Meiji Restoration civ ability, but Encampments don't. If Japan goes to war a lot, they may be incentivised to build more Encampments. Starting a war against Japan early on might help push them down such a path, even if otherwise little lasting damage is done - though beware that they may well end up with a Great General they otherwise wouldn't have as a consequence.

Keep an eye on Japan's era status in the classical and medieval eras. If they end up with a Dark Age in that time, they can use cheap Holy Sites and strong Campuses to get a lot out of Monasticism's huge science boost. If they get a Golden Age and take the Free Inquiry dedication, their Commercial Hubs and Harbours will create a lot of science.

Hojo Tokimune's Agenda: Bushido

Hojo Tokimume likes civs that have a strong military as well as strong faith or culture, while disliking the civs with strong militaries but without either. He will never have the Cultured, Devout, Standing Army or Paranoid hidden agendas; the first three overlap with his main agenda and the last conflict with it.

If you want to befriend him, keep in mind that he has a requirement of strong faith or culture - you don't need both. Either way, you'll still need a strong army. Some civs will be naturally inclined this way (Spain tends to have a good army and good faith, while Greece under Gorgo will usually have strong culture and a good army, as examples) but even if the civ you're playing as isn't, you can still adjust. A cultural or religious civ just needs to build a stronger defence while a domination-inclined civ can boost its cultural output. For scientific civs, your tech advantage will make your armies stronger without having to build as many units, and upping your culture output will be useful anyway for getting to key civics such as Space Race faster.

Counter-Strategies (Part 2/2)

Tokugawa's Leader Ability: Bakuhan

Tokugawa can settle cities within 6 tiles of his capital without ever receiving loyalty pressure. This usually won't make much difference, but keep it in mind if you're trying to use loyalty pressure to flip his cities (most relevant when playing as Eleanor of Aquitaine).

Tokugawa's penalty to international trade routes makes him a worse ally, as you most likely won't receive the alliance point bonus from him trading with you. It also limits his potential in the cultural game by denying him a notable tourism boost.

The bonuses to domestic trade route yields are the most important part of Tokugawa's leader ability. It is at its most effective if Tokugawa has 1-2 large cities with lots of speciality districts, and lots of other smaller cities with Commercial Hubs or Harbours. The fewer cities Tokugawa can settle, or the fewer districts his largest city has, the weaker the ability will be. Unlike Hojo Tokimune, Tokugawa largely lacks direct military bonuses and as such will be less able to stop you settling near him and cutting off expansion routes.

Both Tokugawa's districts and trade routes will be very vulnerable to pillaging - light cavalry units are perfect for this job.

Tokugawa's Agenda: Bakuhan

An AI-controlled Tokugawa prefers isolation and hates civs that own other civs' original capitals. He will never have the Turtler hidden agenda as it overlaps with his main agenda.

This is obviously an agenda that punishes warmongers, but anyone conducting that much warfare will probably find it hard to get along with other civs anyway. Due to Tokugawa's incentive not to form international trade routes resulting in slower alliance point generation, he makes a bad choice of ally if others are available.

Unique Unit: Samurai

Samurai have 48 strength. Knights, however, have 50, making them an excellent choice for countering them. If Samurai are exploiting Hojo Tokimune's strength bonus on coastlines, or are exploiting Oligarchy's strength bonus, promoting your Knights with Charge (+10 strength against fortified defenders) can help. Crossbowmen also work well if you can keep your distance, and regular Pike and Shot units of your own aren't so bad. Keep your unpromoted Pikemen away from Samurai, or you'll be dealing with a strength difference of 8 in their favour.

In the event you don't have access to medieval-era units when Japan attacks, Horsemen and Swordsmen can work so long as you can withdraw them when injured. They each have 36 and 35 strength respectively, which is 12 or 13 less than Samurai, but their lower cost means in a prolonged war you should be able to outnumber Japan's forces. Use Archers to garrison your cities; their low defence won't matter there.

Unique Building: Electronics Factory

A notable thing about Electronics Factories relative to other buildings that provide culture is that you can pillage them without even having to go to war. Spies can sabotage Industrial Zones, which includes Japan's UB. Do so and you set back not only Japan's production, but their culture as well.

The combination of strong production and some culture makes Industrial Zones a good target in war-time as well. Bomber-class aircraft are good at pillaging, as are light cavalry units. Unlike pillaging Industrial Zones via Spies, pillaging them in war-time will provide you with some science!

Other Guides

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

Gathering Storm

Compilation Guides

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

Individual Civilization Guides

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

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

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

Rise and Fall

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

Vanilla

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

[moisole]

That's a quick response! Thank you :)

[Zigzagzigal]

Alright, fixed it!

[moisole]

Hi. Was re-reading this. Good update. But there's still a reference to Samurai not being an upgrade to anything, which is obsolete information, on the Administration section on the policy card Feudal Contract.

This is just a minor thing that slipped through the updates, of course. Great job overall :)

[Zigzagzigal]

Because Tokugawa's tourism boost only affects cities in range of the capital, at the very most you can get 132 tourism (13 cities, 10 speciality districts each, plus Government Plaza and Diplomatic Quarter). This means as long as you're generating at least 529 tourism from other sources, you're always going to lose more tourism than you gain.

Now, in a practical game, you'll probably generate like 60 tourism or less from the ability, so once you're generating like 250 tourism from other sources you're losing out.

When you're after cultural victory, you'll usually generate well over 1000 tourism per turn passively later in the game. So, I think +3 tourism per district would probably be needed for the tourism boost to be useful.

[Benzombie]

What tourism boost from districts, would you say, would make Tokugawa's tourism outweigh the trade route penalties, +2 +3?

[Zigzagzigal]

Updated with Tokugawa. Tokugawa favours 1-2 huge cities and lots of smaller ones, rather than a smaller number of cities of a similar size. He's less versatile than Hojo Tokimune but stronger at science.

[Glorbo Frutodrillo]

worthy of note is that because of the adjacency bonus you can make more out of conquered cities with their questionable district placements than other civs would be able to.

[moisole]

To condense that the spammer is saying (sorry, but it would be much nicer if you said all that in a single comment), changes to Japan are.
- Now has a starting bias to coast at tier 3 (minor change)
- Samurai no longer a hard-build, upgrades from Swordsman into Musketman
- Samurai unlocks with Feudalism, not Military Tactics

[god of being bad at everything]

as for the appeal for national parks and seaside resorts i generally like to get the high appeals tiles woods sometimes mountains and coast but mostly woods

[god of being bad at everything]

speaking of which your category for australia i kinda disagree since while you do get a ton of production playing as john curtin going for a cultural victory is fairly simple