Zigzagzigal's Guides - America (GS, all additional content)

America excels in tourism generation and diplomacy, but alternatively can take a terrain-centric scientific route to victory. Here, I detail American strategies and counter-strategies - for both personas of Teddy Roosevelt as well as Abraham Lincoln.

Persona Packs and Additional Content

This version of the guide to America assumes use of the Teddy Roosevelt persona pack. If you are not using it, click here for an alternative version of this guide.

Abraham Lincoln was added later than Roosevelt's personas and as such will be covered here.

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.

Let us deal fairly but forcefully with the injustices of the world, for we have the power to do it. It is our very duty to protect the weak and young civilized states that share our continent so that we shall never again see tyranny upon our shores. And we reach out to those that share our commitment to righteousness, honour, fairness and truth, no matter where they may reside, for it is in this common cause we shall achieve justice for all.

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

America has a tier 3 start bias to grass and plains mountains, and a tier 5 start bias to desert and tundra mountains. This is largely for the benefit of Bull Moose Teddy, as mountains are necessary for him to maximise his science generation. However, it can still be useful for Rough Rider Teddy for increasing the number of hills Rough Riders can use, and for all leaders for better Campuses.

Civilization Ability: Founding Fathers

• All diplomatic policy card slots are converted into wildcard slots.
  
• Gain +1 diplomatic favour per turn for every wildcard slot in your government.

Abraham Lincoln's Leader Ability: Emancipation Proclamation

• Constructing/purchasing an Industrial Zone and its buildings produces a free melee infantry unit, with no strategic resource cost, and a permanent +5 strength bonus.
  
  • The free unit will be the strongest you can currently train based on your technology; strategic resource requirements are ignored.
    
  • The free unit will spawn on the city's Industrial Zone district will full health and can move and fight immediately.
    
  • The strength bonus is kept when the unit is upgraded.
• Cities with Industrial Zones gain +3 loyalty per turn and +2 amenities.
  
• Plantations provide their city with -2 loyalty per turn each.

Bull Moose Teddy's Leader Ability: Antiquities and Parks

• All tiles adjacent to a mountain or natural wonder with 4 or more appeal (Breathtaking) produce +2 science.
  
• All tiles adjacent to woods or a world wonder with 4 or more appeal (Breathtaking) produce +2 culture.
  
• Cities with at least one National Park add +1 appeal to all their tiles.
  
  • This includes mountain and natural wonder tiles, which usually do not gain appeal from most sources.

Rough Rider Teddy's Leader Ability: Roosevelt Corollary

• All military and religious units gain +5 strength when on your capital's continent.
  
  • This is determined based on the tile where combat is taking place, so naval and air units can make use of it.
    
  • This does not apply to your cities' ranged attacks.
• Whenever you gain an envoy in a city-state that you have a trade route with, gain an additional envoy.
  
  • This does not affect Amani (the Diplomat)'s +2 envoy boost when present in a city-state.
    
  • If a city-state has a quest for you to send them a trade route, doing so will always create two envoys instead of one.
    
  • Sending your first envoy to a city-state that you have sent a trade route to while you have the Diplomatic League or Containment policy card active will only grant three envoys, not four.

Rough Rider Teddy's Unique Unit: Rough Rider

An industrial-era heavy cavalry unit which replaces the Cuirassier

Research	Obsoletion	Upgrades from	Upgrades to	Cost	Resource	Maintenance
Ballistics Technology Industrial era	Combustion ** Technology Modern era	Knight (340 )	Tank (200 1 )	385 or 1540 or 770 *	None	2

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

**If you have insufficient oil, you may continue to train Rough Riders even after researching Combustion.

Strength	Ranged Strength	Moves	Range	Sight	Negative Attributes	Positive Attributes
67	N/A	5	N/A	2	Deals -85% damage to city walls and urban defences	Ignores Zone of Control +10 when fighting in hill tiles Gains culture equal to 50% of the defeated unit's melee strength, rounded down, when fighting on the same continent as your capital

Negative changes

• Costs 385 production/1540 gold/770 faith, up from 330/1320/660 (+16.7%)
  
• Costs 340 gold to upgrade into from a Knight, up from 230 (+48%)

Positive changes

• Does not require iron resources
  
• Has a maintenance cost of 2, down from 5.
  
• Has 67 strength, up from 64
  
• 5 movement points, up from 4.
  
• +10 strength when fighting in hill tiles
  
• Gains culture equal to 50% of the defeated unit's melee strength, rounded down, when fighting on the same continent as your capital
  
  • The same rules apply as for Rough Rider Teddy's strength bonus.
• Costs 200 gold to upgrade to a Tank, down from 310 (-35%)

Outline (Part 2/2)

Unique Unit: P-51 Mustang

An atomic-era fighter-class air unit which replaces the Fighter

Research	Obsoletion	Upgrades from	Upgrades to	Cost	Resource	Maintenance
Advanced Flight Technology Atomic era	Lasers Technology Information era	Biplane (190 1 )	Jet Fighter (270 1 )	520 * or 2040 *	1	7 1

*Must be produced or purchased in a city with an Aerodrome district.

Strength	Ranged Strength	Moves	Range	Sight	Negative Attributes	Positive Attributes
105	105	10	5	4	May only be constructed in a city with an Aerodrome district. Must be based in a city, Airstrip, Aircraft Carrier or Aerodrome district, and may only be deployed within range of the tile they're based in. Deals -50% damage to city walls and urban defences	May deploy to defend a tile and adjacent tiles against attacking aircraft +5 when attacking fighter-class aircraft +50% experience from combat

Positive changes

• 105 strength, up from 100
  
• 105 ranged strength, up from 100
  
• +5 strength when attacking fighter-class aircraft
  
• 10 flight range, up from 8
  
• +50% experience from combat

Unique Building: Film Studio

A modern-era Theatre Square building which replaces the Broadcast Centre

Research	Prerequisites	Required to build	Cost	Maintenance	Base pillage yield
Radio Technology Modern era	Theatre Square Amphitheatre Art Museum OR Archaeological Museum	None	440 or 1760 or 880 *	3 3	25

*Purchasing this building with faith requires the city to follow a religion with the Jesuit Education follower belief.

Fixed yields	Other yields	Citizen slots	Great Person points	Miscellaneous effects
2 Power bonus: 4	+100% impact of this city on other civilizations which have any modern-era technology or civic.	1 Artist (2 if filled)	2 1	Specialists in this district create +1 1 Rock Bands performing here generate +750

Positive changes

• +100% tourism impact of this city on other civilizations which have any modern-era technology or civic.

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
Abraham Lincoln	7/10 (Good)	8/10 (Good)	9/10 (Ideal)	4/10 (Acceptable)	6/10 (Decent)
Bull Moose Teddy	10/10 (Ideal)	8/10 (Good)	5/10 (Decent)	6/10 (Decent)	8/10 (Good)
Rough Rider Teddy	8/10 (Good)	10/10 (Ideal)	8/10 (Good)	5/10 (Decent)	5/10 (Decent)

Culture is a powerful route for America, mainly due to the Film Studio's enormous 100% bonus to tourism output. Turning some diplomatic policy cards into wildcards helps you hold more directly relevant bonuses, like wonder construction or tourism boosts. For Bull Moose Teddy, increased appeal with cities with a National Park also increases their tourism yield (as well as any Seaside Resorts or Ski Resorts you might have in the area).

Diplomacy is an effective path as any leader, supported largely by the diplomatic favour bonus from having wildcard slots. While lower in potential than Canada and Sweden's bonuses, it comes into play earlier than Canada's bonus and is more relevant at the end of the game than Sweden's. Furthermore, America's incentive to build the Broadcast Centre-replacing Film Studios makes them particularly well-suited to getting bonus favour from the Disinformation Campaign dark age wildcard. However, Rough Rider Teddy takes this one step further thanks to his bonus envoys, making him extremely powerful at this victory route at the cost of downplaying his domination advantages.

Domination is an excellent path for Rough Rider Teddy - the home-continent strength bonus makes him surprisingly good at early rushes but more importantly the Rough Rider UU can be beelined to provide you with an incredible strength advantage. Abraham Lincoln is perhaps even better-suited for the job with the sheer number of free, strong units his leader ability provides and free amenities from Industrial Zones letting him easily hold onto captured cities. Furthermore, with more wildcard policy slots, you can hold more bonuses directly useful for warfare at once, and the extra diplomatic favour can help you vote down emergencies against you. P-51 Mustangs will secure you air superiority from the atomic era onwards.

Religion is a possible route. Rough Rider Teddy's +5 same-continent strength bonus extends to theological combat, but Bull Moose Teddy has the edge here. By taking the Earth Goddess pantheon, any breathtaking tile you work for culture or science will also provide faith, allowing you to get a strong faith output without any additional effort. Furthermore, the extra wildcard policy slots allows you to support more religious-based policy cards.

Finally, Bull Moose Teddy is excellent at the scientific game thanks largely to his science yield bonus to breathtaking tiles, while Abraham Lincoln may find it a useful backup given how his incentive to build a strong production base carries over to the space race. Converting diplomatic cards into wildcards also allows you to use a wide array of military and economic policy cards that help with eureka boosts and science generation.

Abraham Lincoln's Leader Ability: Emancipation Proclamation

Abraham Lincoln brings the most consistently strong military of the American leaders, though he takes a little bit longer to get started than Rough Rider Teddy and lacks the significant power of the Rough Rider. Like all American leaders, his games are versatile and many victory routes are viable, but Lincoln is perhaps the most focused of the three.

Getting Started

Key to Lincoln's early game is getting to the medieval-era Apprenticeship technology quickly, so you can start building Industrial Zones and get free Men-at-Arms units.

Starting off, it's a good idea to aim for the Writing technology quickly so you can build a couple of Campuses for a decent science output. Try to expand to at least four cities - the more you have, the more free units you can get out of Lincoln's leader ability.

Researching Apprenticeship early is not especially difficult. Here's what you'll need:

• Pottery
  
• Writing (Boost: Discover another civ. Very easily achieved)
  
• Animal Husbandry
  
• Archery (Boost: Kill a unit with a Slinger. Slingers make decent early defensive units though it can be hard to secure a kill, so don't worry about missing the boost)
  
• Currency (Boost: Complete a trade route. Easily done after you get the Foreign Trade civic).
  
• Horseback Riding (Boost: Build a pasture. Easily achieved.)
  
• Apprenticeship (Boost: Build three mines. It's definitely worth taking a detour to Mining and training a Builder to cut research time here.)

Once you have Apprenticeship, try to build Industrial Zones in every city that can produce them at a reasonable speed. If you can position them next to where an Aqueduct or Dam can be built in the future, they'll receive significant production boosts later in the game.

Don't neglect civics, either. Building a couple of Monuments should help you pick up Political Philosophy and its governments at a decent pace. Grabbing the Military Tradition civic for the Strategos wildcard (+2 Great General Points per turn) is also useful to help secure a Great General for your upcoming military

The First Wave

Building your first Industrial Zone will grant you a Man-at-Arms unit with a +5 strength bonus. With the Oligarchy government, that means a massive 54 strength - nearly on par with a Musketman! Building a few Industrial Zones with Workshops, as well as a Battering Ram or Siege Tower allows these units to do massive damage against enemy cities.

While you grow your army and send it off to battle, work towards the Gunpowder technology. This will cause your new Industrial Zones and Workshops to produce Musketmen with strength on a par with Cuirassiers.


Persia is not prepared for these kinds of units.

Abraham Lincoln's leader ability saves a lot of production that would be used on military units, but before long all these bonus military units will cost a huge amount in gold maintenance. It's important to build Commercial Hubs and/or Harbours to maximise your gold output, or at least find a strong alternative gold source ready to support yet more military units.

Furthermore, all the free amenities Industrial Zones offer makes it a lot easier to handle war weariness and other negative amenity effects of warfare, meaning you can afford to neglect Entertainment Complexes in favour of yet more gold-producing districts.

Lincoln's Lull in Strength

A weak point in Abraham Lincoln's game arrives later in the renaissance era, when other civs start building Renaissance Walls which are immune to Siege Towers. This makes it significantly harder to rely primarily on melee infantry units to take over enemy cities. With just one extra technology you can reach Metal Casting and build Bombards for siege support, but this may be a good time to pull back from war for a bit, rebuild and consider your victory goals.

For all of Lincoln's strength in war, don't forget that America still has the incredible tourism potential of Film Studios, and - if you haven't taken too many capitals - the diplomatic potential of the civ ability. With all the Industrial Zones you've built, you might even have a good production base for a scientific game. As such, even if you spend the medieval and renaissance eras in war, it doesn't mean you have to spend the rest of the game that way.

The Second Wave

If you wish to continue the warpath as Lincoln, it is a good idea to wait until you have the Industrialisation and Replaceable Parts technologies. While you can pick up Military Science to train Line Infantry, this is a significant technological detour from your typical research path, and it's easier just to head for the more powerful regular Infantry.

With Industrialisation and Replaceable Parts secured, you can build Factories and Coal Power Plants to gain two Infantry units out of every city you own with an Industrial Zone. Not only will these units benefit from the +4 strength from the Oligarchic Legacy wildcard and the +5 strength from Lincoln's leader ability, but as they have no oil requirement, you'll be able to skip the entire lower path of the technology tree leading to Refining. This grants you a massive strength advantage over most opponents.

With both Industrialisation and Replaceable Parts, you'll also only be one technology away from Flight, which lets you build Aerodromes. This will be necessary for the Advanced Flight technology, required to train P-51 Mustangs, which in turn isn't too far from the information-era Satellites technology allowing Lincoln's leader ability to grant Mechanised Infantry.

Ultimately, this second peak in power for Lincoln, involving Infantry and P-51 Mustangs is somewhat less impactful than the first peak involving Men-at-Arms and Musketmen, but still gives you a strong combat strength advantage against enemy military units - if not so much against cities.

Loyalty Effects

You may notice up to this point I haven't mentioned Lincoln's loyalty effects, and that's because their effects are largely minimal on gameplay. +3 loyalty for cities with Industrial Zones can help you hold onto the cities you take from civs like Germany, the Netherlands or Gaul, which tends to build a lot of them. The -2 loyalty from plantations seldom is an issue, and if it truly becomes the difference between losing a city or not, you can simply send a Builder over to remove the improvement.

Summary

• Pick up the Writing technology early for Campuses; use the science to grab Apprenticeship quickly
  
• Send a Battering Ram or Siege Tower along with Men-at-Arms from your Industrial Zones to take out enemy cities
  
• Don't neglect your gold output to maintain all the units you generate
  
• Research Gunpowder quickly for Musketmen, but skip Line Infantry in favour of regular Infantry at Replaceable Parts

Bull Moose Teddy's Leader Ability: Antiquities and Parks (Part 1/3)

Bull Moose Teddy rewards careful city planning with spectacular culture and science yields.

From the start of the game, it's important when playing as Bull Moose Teddy to look for optimum tiles and city locations. Mountains surrounded by woods is ideal, but be sure not to ruin the appeal with districts and tile improvements that cost appeal.

To explain Bull Moose Teddy's leader ability in more depth, we first need to look into the tile appeal mechanic...

How Appeal Works

The appeal of a tile is primarily determined by the tiles adjacent to it, but there are also some modifiers that apply appeal directly to every tile in a city's range or even your entire empire. Adjacency bonuses or penalties to appeal do not affect mountain or natural wonder tiles, but direct bonuses do.

The following table shows all the possible modifiers to appeal not tied to a specific civ. All of the following affect appeal only in adjacent tiles, except those marked with an asterisk.

Appeal	Terrain	Features	Improvements	Districts	Other
+2		Natural Wonders (except Uluru and the Cliffs of Dover)	City Park		Charles Correa* Great Engineer Information era (affects all tiles in the city) Eiffel Tower* Wonder Modern era Steel technology (affects all tiles you control)
+1	Coast Mountain	At least one adjacent unimproved feature of any kind if Governor Reyna (the Financier) with the Forestry Management promotion is present in the city (does not stack) At least one adjacent river or lake (does not stack) Oasis Woods (second-growth or without Conservation civic) Woods* (old-growth with Conservation civic)		Canal Dam Entertainment Complex Holy Site Preserve Theatre Square Water Park	Alvar Aalto* Great Engineer Modern era (affects all tiles in the city) Any wonder
-1		Floodplains Marsh Rainforest	Pillaged improvements Airstrip Mine Offshore Oil Rig Oil Well Quarry	Aerodrome Encampment Industrial Zone Spaceport

*These bonuses are applied to the tile directly rather than via adjacency bonuses. These bonuses and only these can boost the appeal of mountain and natural wonder tiles. Woods provide +1 appeal to adjacent tiles, but old-growth woods also provide +1 appeal to their own tile as well.

Maximising Appeal

For Bull Moose Teddy to get the best tile yields, he needs improvements which are adjacent to mountains, natural wonders, world wonders and/or woods, and also have at least 4 appeal. As all of these provide appeal in themselves, maximising your culture and science yields can be a simple matter of making up the difference.

Once you have the modern-era Conservation civic, you can plant woods for an easy source of tile appeal in grassland and plains regions, but until then, appeal management is somewhat harder. Your best options for raising tile appeal will be specific districts, and, if you have Governor Liang (the Surveyor) with the Parks and Recreation promotion, you can build city parks.

Be sure to place your districts and wonders carefully, as once you start construction on them, you cannot move them. Using map pins to plan out your cities is a good idea.

If you need to build things that create negative appeal like Aerodromes, Industrial Zones, mines and the like, try to keep them away from mountains and woods where possible in favour of low-appeal regions. Floodplain-adjacent and rainforest regions tend to have the worst appeal and are hard to raise to a high level, so you don't need to worry about lowering appeal further there.

Finally, if you can, get the Earth Goddess pantheon to add faith to all breathtaking-appeal tiles; the faith will be useful for purchasing Naturalists for National Parks later.

Bull Moose Teddy's Leader Ability: Antiquities and Parks (Part 2/3)

The Preserve District

The ancient-era Mysticism civic unlocks the Preserve district, which can boost appeal - and importantly give you even better yields out of high-appeal tiles. Here's what the base district and each building do:

District/Building	Research	Cost	Effect
Preserve	Mysticism Civic Ancient Era	54+ * 1 district capacity Cannot be built adjacent to a city centre	When complete, grants you all adjacent unowned tiles, so long as they are within at least three tiles of any city centre you control. Provides 1 Housing on tiles with at least -1 (Average) appeal Provides 2 Housing on tiles with at least 2 (Charming) appeal Provides 3 Housing on tiles with at least 4 (Breathtaking) appeal Provides 1 appeal to adjacent tiles.
Grove	Mysticism Civic Ancient Era	150	Adjacent unimproved tiles with 2 or 3 appeal (Charming) gain +1 and +1 Adjacent unimproved tiles with 4+ appeal (Breathtaking) gain +2 , +2 and +2
Sanctuary	Conservation Civic Modern Era	440	Adjacent unimproved tiles with 2 or 3 appeal (Charming) gain +1 and +1 Adjacent unimproved tiles with 4+ appeal (Breathtaking) gain +2 . +2 and +2

*As with any district except Spaceports, this cost increases over the course of the game.


You can get some truly spectacular yields by positioning Preserves two tiles away from mountains.

Preserve districts specifically require adjacent unimproved tiles to create the best yields. This has the advantages of not needing Builder charges and being less prone to pillaging (you only need to protect the Preserve district itself). Furthermore, Preserves can improve the yields of adjacent tiles even if they're part of a National Park - something very useful in conjunction with the other part of Bull Moose Teddy's leader ability.

Bonus appeal from National Parks

National Parks are a surprisingly powerful way to generate tourism, and because their yields are dependent on tile appeal, getting more tile appeal in cities with a National Park pushes up the tourism yields even further.

The complete mechanics of National Parks are a bit complicated, so it's worth explaining how it all works.

Getting to National Parks

In order to create National Parks, you need the modern-era Conservation civic. Its prerequisites include the crucial Natural History civic (required to build Archaeologists and extract Artefacts), and it also makes all kinds of walls provide tourism and unlocks the Sanctuary building for Preserve districts, so it's something that isn't too hard to aim for reasonably early.

Once you have Conservation, you can buy Naturalists with faith. The cost is rather expensive (starting at 600 faith and rising by 100 every time you purchase one, much like the cost increases of Settlers or Builders) so it's important to build plenty of Holy Sites or Sanctuaries so you can produce them at a reasonable rate. Having the Theocracy government will reduce the cost of Naturalists by 15%, but you'll generally want to move on to the Democracy government for its strong set of policy cards.

National Parks can only be built by Naturalists under the following conditions:

• There is a vertical diamond shape consisting of four tiles where the west-east axis is shorter than the north-south axis
  
• The four tiles must be unimproved land tiles (including mountains) or natural wonder tiles, or a mixture of the two. Regular lakes or coastal tiles without natural wonders are not permitted, nor are mountains with Ski Resorts or mountain tunnels!
  
• All four tiles must be owned by the same city (you may need to go into the city screen, click to assign citizens and click "swap" on a few tiles to switch their ownership to the city you want to build a National Park in)
  
• All four tiles must have an appeal of 2 (Charming) or better. Mountains are always considered to have 4 appeal (Breathtaking) and natural wonders are worth 5 regardless of adjacency - they cannot have less than that, and can only get more with direct appeal bonuses to the tile such as the Eiffel Tower.

A simple example of a valid location.

When all these conditions are met, you can construct a National Park. The sum total of all appeal within the four tiles of the National Park will be added to tourism, and on top, the park will provide 2 amenities to its city and 1 to the four closest other cities in your empire. This means you don't need to worry too much about constructing Entertainment Complexes, and can instead push for more Holy Sites and Preserves. You'll also get +3 era score for every National Park you create, making it a lot easier to secure an atomic-era or later Golden Age for the all-important Wish You Were Here tourism boost.

Bull Moose Teddy's Leader Ability: Antiquities and Parks (Part 3/3)

Teddy's Appeal Bonus

When playing as America under Theodore Roosevelt, any city with a National Park present gains +1 appeal to all its tiles. This includes mountain and natural wonder tiles. A +1 Appeal bonus to cities with a National Park means each one essentially gets +4 tourism each, but the advantage isn't just limited to them.

Neighbourhoods provide housing scaling to their tile's appeal, as follows:

Appeal level	Appeal	Housing
Breathtaking	4 or better	6
Charming	2 or 3	5
Average	-1, 0 or 1	4
Uninviting	-2 or -3	3
Disgusting	-4 or worse	2

The +1 appeal bump from a National Park makes it that little bit easier to get the best housing bonuses from Neighbourhoods, if you want to grow your cities further.

Seaside Resorts can be constructed by Builders on flat desert, grassland or plains tiles adjacent to the sea and provide their tile's appeal as gold, and double that as tourism. Having a National Park in a city therefore provides a +1 gold and +2 tourism bonus to all its Seaside Resorts. Get hold of the Cristo Redentor wonder (available at the Mass Media civic) and Seaside Resorts offer double tourism - making the bonus appeal from National Parks worth +4 tourism each!

Ski Resorts can be constructed by Builders on mountain tiles without a mountain tunnel or National Park present. As you cannot move Builders onto mountains, move them adjacent to them to enable the option. Ski Resorts add +1 amenity for their city, and tourism equal to the tile's appeal. Mountains aren't affected by appeal adjacency, but can gain appeal from Roosevelt's leader ability. As such, a city with a National Park will gain +1 tourism for all their Ski Resorts.

National Parks vs. Rock Bands

The atomic-era Cold War civic allows you to purchase Rock Bands with faith. Rock Bands can perform in other civs to provide a burst of tourism pressure against that specific civ. This raises a question for America: Is it better to spend faith on Naturalists, or on Rock Bands?

Naturalists have the following advantages:

• The tourism is directed against all other civs, not just one specific civ.
  
• The tourism is boosted by the Film Studio building and other tourism modifiers, unlike Rock Band performances.
  
• You'll gain extra tourism per turn, which can add up to a lot in the long-run.
  
• Creating National Parks also grants amenities and era score.
  
• Rock Bands can be completely stopped with the Music Censorship diplomatic policy card (atomic era, requires Space Race) and can also be pushed back by enemy military units when at war. National Parks have no such hard counter.
  
• Roosevelt's leader ability causes National Parks to add appeal (and therefore tourism) to other tiles in the city.

Rock Bands have the following advantages:

• You'll receive more immediate tourism. As such, the later in the game you are, the more you'll gain from Rock Bands relative to Naturalists.
  
• Rock Bands can additionally create large sums of gold with the Pop Star promotion, or lower rival city loyalty with the Indie promotion.

It'd take a very long and complex analysis to mark out exactly in which situations Naturalists or Rock Bands create more tourism for your faith, but a good compromise is this: Use Naturalists earlier on, especially in a Golden Gate Bridge city or a city that doesn't have a National Park yet, and use Rock Bands once there's only 1-2 civs left you need to become influential over.

Summary

• Settle wooded and mountainous regions extensively.
  
• Get the Earth Goddess pantheon if you can for an easy source of extra faith.
  
• City parks, Preserves, Theatre Squares and Holy Sites are good options to boost tile appeal early on.
  
• Plant plenty of woods and build city park improvements to maximise appeal near National Parks, and avoid building mines and quarries there.

Rough Rider Teddy's Leader Ability: Roosevelt Corollary (Part 1/2)

Rough Rider Teddy has a choice of two very different gameplay paths: diplomacy or domination. You can also take Rough Rider Teddy to a cultural victory effectively, but you'll still most likely have to favour either the diplomatic or domination elements of his leader ability.

The strength bonus gives a significant edge in early warfare and the Rough Rider UU can be extremely effective later on, but warfare is detrimental to gathering diplomatic favour - a key benefit of the extra envoys.

This isn't to say you can't make use of all of Rough Rider Teddy's advantages, but generally emphasising domination will weaken your diplomatic potential and vice versa.

Own-continent strength bonus

Use the continents lens to work out where this bonus would apply. Seems the Netherlands shares my starting continent...

The +5 strength bonus for all your home-continent units is at first glance a decent defensive boost. In the earliest turns, it's a great help against Barbarians. Through the middle of the game, it helps you stay defended until you can get your other uniques going. Once Rough Riders come along, you can enjoy having 72-strength units which gain culture on kills. And at the end of the game, a strength bonus on your own ground makes it hard for someone to try and invade you to deny you your cultural victory.

But what this bonus is really useful for is early rushes against other civs that share your starting continent. Few civs have a strength bonus that's this strong, applicable to this many units and available this early. Get some Warriors and Slingers, upgrade them to Swordsmen and Archers, bring along a Battering Ram or Siege Tower and you've got a good combination for taking out a nearby civ.

Archers are mostly useful against enemy units as they have a -17 strength penalty against cities. With Rough Rider Teddy, it becomes a somewhat more manageable -12. Archers are still mostly effective against enemy units, but attacking cities won't be quite as bad.

You can build on this advantage further with the Oligarchy government or its legacy card and, if you're in a Dark Age before the industrial era, the Twilight Valour wildcard. Thanks to America's civ ability, you can use all of those at the same time, resulting in Swordsmen with a massive 49 strength when attacking! An early dark age will make it harder to hold onto cities you capture before they flip into free cities, but it will at least help make it easier for you to get a Golden Age later in the game.

Early warfare gives you more cities, which means more science, culture, and other good stuff. It also can help you eliminate a civ that might generate a lot of domestic tourists like Kongo or Greece, making a cultural victory easier.

If you're playing for a diplomatic victory, you can take other civs' cities but avoid taking their original capitals. That prevents you from suffering the -5 per turn diplomatic favour penalty, while still giving you plenty of developed cities to use.

An alternative use of this ability applies in theological combat. Your religious units will get a +5 strength bonus when on your own continent, which is great if you've created your own religion and need to defend it from rival civs' Missionaries and Apostles. Founding a religion isn't a high priority for Rough Rider Teddy, however, so don't expect to make use of that particular advantage in most games.

Rough Rider Teddy's Leader Ability: Roosevelt Corollary (Part 2/2)

Double envoys in city-states you have a trade route in

This ability lets your envoys stretch much further than they would for other civs, letting you become suzerain over far more city-states than most civs. It operates similarly to Tamar of Georgia's leader ability, with five key differences:

• Rough Rider Teddy can't get bonus envoys in a city-state he is at war with, unlike Tamar.
  
• Rough Rider Teddy's ability is harder to stop in peacetime (for Tamar's ability, another civ can simply flip the city-state's religion - for Rough Rider Teddy, someone has to start a war to pillage the trade route).
  
• Barbarians can disrupt Rough Rider Teddy's ability by pilling the trade routes; Tamar's ability cannot be disrupted by them.
  
• Trading with city-states has a a bigger opportunity cost (you could have sent that route to somewhere worth a higher yield, while spreading religion to a city-state helps boost your religious spread in other nearby cities).
  
• Tamar can convert city-states anywhere in the world by simply moving in religious units; Rough Rider Teddy needs enough trade route range to get to them.

The last of these issues can be overcome either by starting trading early so you have trading posts set up in cities (which extends your maximum trade route range) or by settling/conquering a few cities in a cluster in a landmass nearer the city-state. The reason why I say a few cities is so they can keep positive loyalty pressure on each other.

Try to avoid sending envoys to city-states that you don't currently have a trade route with, unless they have particularly important bonuses or you need to get the city-state out of a war. If you're already suzerain over all the city-states you have a trade route with, just hang onto those envoys until you convert another city-state or someone else takes control of the city-state from you.

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

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

Here's all the methods of obtaining envoys:

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

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

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

Furthermore, every city-state you are suzerain over grants +1 diplomatic favour per turn, or +2 with the industrial-era Országház wonder. This can give you a significant advantage in the World Congress. Coupled with the American civ ability, this gives Rough Rider Teddy a massive edge in the diplomatic game - or else reduce the penalty associated with conquest in a domination game.

Summary

• Use Rough Rider Teddy's strength bonus to rush a nearby civ to give yourself an early advantage. If you're going for a diplomatic victory, don't take their capital.
  
• Avoid sending envoys to city-states you don't have a trade route with, unless they have a key suzerain bonus or you need to get that city-state out of a war.

Civilization Ability: Founding Fathers (Part 1/2)

America's civ ability allows you to play a more isolationist game, downplaying diplomatic policy cards for other types, while still granting you access to a good supply of diplomatic favour you can use to vote down emergencies against you or favour resolutions that directly benefit you. Alternatively, you can use the extra diplomatic favour to help support a diplomatic victory - particularly with Rough Rider Teddy. Like the civ as a whole, this ability grows in power as the game goes on.

Early Usage

When you reach the classical-era Political Philosophy civic, you'll get your first choice of government: Autocracy, Classical Republic or Oligarchy.

Oligarchy has no diplomatic policy cards and hence lacks the versatility of the others - but nonetheless, with its +4 strength bonus for melee infantry units, it's essential for Abraham Lincoln. Rough Rider Teddy may also find it useful in conjunction with his home-continent bonus for some early warfare. For a more peaceful start, Classical Republic and Autocracy will provide more diplomatic favour so are better options. The former is better if you have plenty of districts; the latter if you have a couple of major cities you want to prioritise.

Converting a diplomatic policy card to a wildcard can also help with infrastructural development. Diplomatic policy cards tend to be slow-burners, taking time to really make an impact. As a couple of examples, Charismatic Leader and Diplomatic League help you gain envoys, but most envoy bonuses need cities at a reasonable level of development to really make a difference. America can just fill that slot with Urban Planning, Ilkum or something like that instead for a more immediate impact. Faster infrastructure development prepares you for your next war, which should help your long-term prospects far more than a couple of extra envoys would.

There are ways to work around having fewer city-state envoys, however. A good number of Theatre Squares (which you'll need eventually for your UB anyway) will help you get through the civics trees and pick up ones off the main path which offer envoys. Rough Rider Teddy's leader ability more than makes up for that loss with extra envoys on top.

Enter the World Congress

America with Classical Republic or Oligarchy will generate +3 diplomatic favour per turn - which accumulates nicely by the start of the medieval game era.

Aside from the military or infrastructural uses of America's civ ability, it can also give you a reliable presence in the World Congress even when you're not using policy cards that help you secure suzerain status over city-states.

For Rough Rider Teddy or Abraham Lincoln, if you've still got rival civs you want to conquer, this diplomatic favour bonus can be used to prevent emergencies targeting you - ensuring you're at war with just one civ and not many.

If the World Ideology resolution comes up, vote for whichever government you're using to receive a wildcard slot. You'll get a partial refund of diplomatic favour by the next World Congress session thanks to America's civ ability.

For more information on what specific World Congress resolutions are best for America, go to the Administration section of this guide.

Tier Two Governments

Three governments arrive between the late-medieval and early-renaissance eras: Monarchy, Theocracy and Merchant Republic.

Monarchy is the earliest of the governments to arrive, and is ideal for a diplomatic game thanks to its significant diplomatic favour boost. It also has the joint-highest number of wildcards.

Merchant Republic is perhaps the second-easiest to research, and also has as many wildcards for America as Monarchy. It'll help you build districts faster which is rather handy considering America benefits from a broad range of them (Theatre Squares and Aerodromes for all leaders, Encampments, Commercial Hubs/Harbours for Rough Rider Teddy and Abraham Lincoln; Holy Sites and Preserves for Bull Moose Teddy)

Theocracy, on the other hand, offers a useful 15% reduction to faith purchase costs. This will save you 90 faith on your first Naturalist, 105 on your second and so forth. It also directly offers a little faith to cities with Governors present, which is also featured on its legacy wildcard. The policy card selection is slightly less useful than Merchant Republic's, however, and you won't get as much diplomatic favour out of it.

Around this time there will also be a series of wonders that offer extra policy card slots:

• The Alhambra arrives at the medieval-era Castles technology and offers a military card slot. It's a very competitive wonder so you may struggle to pick it up. It's also off the main research path for Lincoln.
  
• The Forbidden City arrives at the renaissance-era Printing technology and offers a wildcard. It's on the way to Steel and Combustion so Bull Moose Teddy looking to maximise appeal bonuses can have a good shot at it.
  
• The Potala Palace arrives at the renaissance-era Astronomy technology and offers a diplomatic policy card, which America converts to a wildcard. Not only does America get more out of this wonder than other civs, but it's also in a nice location in the technology tree, being on the way to Radio.
  
• The Big Ben wonder arrives at the industrial-era Economics technology and offers an economic policy card. Abraham Lincoln is likely to research Economics fairly early on the way to Replaceable Parts for Infantry, but Roosevelt's personas will most likely be bust with Radio and/or Ballistics.

Civilization Ability: Founding Fathers (Part 2/2)

Tier Three Governments

Once you have the Conservation civic (and maybe Cultural Heritage as well for its helpful tourism-boosting policy card), head to Suffrage and pick up the Democracy government. It offers an impressive 4 wildcards for America, which means you'll be getting +7 diplomatic favour per turn from your government alone. If you have both the Potala Palace and Forbidden City, you can get an even more impressive 6 wildcards (and therefore +9 diplomatic favour per turn from your government alone). All these wildcards will help you to easily switch between a war-heavy focus to complement your UUs, and a peacetime tourism focus.

A war-focused Abraham Lincoln or Rough Rider Teddy may want to take Fascism first to unlock its legacy card before switching to Democracy for its higher number of wildcards, unless you have such a high diplomatic favour loss from captured capitals that switching government wouldn't make a difference.

Tier Four Governments

The late-information era brings with it three final governments: Corporate Libertarianism, Digital Democracy and Synthetic Technocracy. All of them have a notably high number of wildcard slots to begin with (five), but for America, the Digital Democracy government offers eight! With Potala Palace and the Forbidden City, you could have 10 wildcards in your government - and therefore you could receive +14 diplomatic favour per turn from your government alone.

Having such a sheer volume of wildcards makes it easy to fit in whatever combination of appropriate policy cards you want, and is especially useful for supporting future-era wildcards, legacy cards and Dark Age wildcards. In the information game era onwards, falling into a Dark Age allows you to use the Disinformation Campaign wildcard, granting you +3 diplomatic favour every turn for every Film Studio you have. You can stack the future-era wildcards Diplomatic Capital and Rabblerousing for even more diplomatic favour, while still having plenty of wildcards left over for whatever you want.

If you're going for a domination victory, you might want to take Corporate Libertarianism instead to avoid the unit strength loss from Digital Democracy.

Conclusion

The American civ ability allows you to trade diplomatic advantages for ones in warfare or economic development, and to get a reliable source of diplomatic favour other civs can't take away from you. If need be, it can support an isolationist playstyle while still giving you a presence in the World Congress.

In a typical game for Abraham Lincoln, pick Oligarchy for your tier one government, Monarchy or Merchant Republic for tier two, Fascism for tier three and Corporate Libertarianism for tier four.

In a typical game for Bull Moose Teddy, pick Autocracy or Classical Republic for your tier one government, Merchant Republic or Theocracy for tier two, Democracy for tier three and Digital Democracy for tier four.

In a typical game for Rough Rider Teddy, pick Oligarchy for your tier one government, Monarchy for tier two, Democracy or Fascism for tier three and Digital Democracy or Corporate Libertarianism for tier four.

Rough Rider Teddy's Unique Unit: Rough Rider

The Rough Rider is a potentially devastating unit to be up against. It has high mobility, high strength, no resource requirement, a low maintenance cost and excels on hill terrain, where most cavalry units struggle. But perhaps its strongest element is how surprisingly quickly you can research it.

Unlocking Rough Riders

Rough Riders, like generic Curiassiers, require the industrial-era Ballistics technology. Ballistics is a notably easy technology to beeline, though it's important to start off by developing your civ before you commit to the beeline.

Getting Writing early will be crucial for early Campuses and hence a good early science output. The combination of Iron Working, Masonry and Archery is good for early rushes, which can get you extra science via captured cities.

Researching Military Engineering before Stirrups on your way to Gunpowder will give you time to build an Armoury, necessary for the latter's eureka boost. Taking a detour for the Machinery technology allows you to get two Crossbowmen, needed for the boost to Metal Casting, which may cost less science than it saves. You may also want to take a detour to Education for Universities.

Meanwhile, on the civics tree, there are two key targets. Mercenaries unlocks the Professional Army policy card, which halves the cost of upgrading Knights to Rough Riders. Divine Right allows you to use the Chivalry policy card to train Rough Riders faster, while also unlocking the Monarchy government. If you don't mind missing out on some diplomatic favour, you can then build the Grand Master's Chapel building to be able to purchase Rough Riders with surplus faith; something you may end up with a lot of during your conquests.

Into War

With 67 strength, Rough Riders are already three points stronger than Cuirassiers, which are already powerful for how relatively early you can unlock them. Bring along some Bombards and you can see some great success against enemy cities. A sufficient beeline to Ballistics and you may even face cities without walls, and civs with no units past the medieval era - allowing you to tear through the civ at great speed.

Normally, defending on hills is a great way for enemy civs to counter strong unique units. However, for Rough Riders, that's the worst possible move - Rough Riders have +10 strength on hills tiles which is more than enough to overcome defensive bonuses. Conversely, when you need to put Rough Riders somewhere fairly safe to heal for a bit, be sure to put them on hill tiles - they'll defend particularly effectively, and with their extra movement point, it's easy to do that.

Because Rough Riders are so cheap to maintain and have no resource cost, they can be spammed in large quantities. Rough Rider corps have an impressive 77 strength and are still cheaper to maintain than Cuirassiers (4 gold per turn instead of 5). This makes them a good alternative to Tanks if you lack oil.

On Defence

On your home continent, Rough Riders have 72 strength, putting them ahead of enemy Cuirassiers by a whole 8 points, and able to stand up to the likes of Pike and Shot units.

Bring hills into the equation, however, and Rough Riders can hold their own for a very long time. +10 strength is more than enough to cancel out the defensive advantage of a fortified hill, making the unit excel somewhere other mounted units struggle to deal with. Remember that Rough Riders can defend on hills as well, making them tough targets to take out. On a hill on your home continent, they'll be defending at 82 strength, which is good enough to handle most pre-information era threats (and even some from that era).


Rough Riders can also grant culture when they kill units, much like Greece when led by Gorgo. The catch is that it only applies on your home continent, but considering you get Roosevelt's +5 strength boost there, it's not as bad a restriction as it may at first appear.

Of course, to use this bonus, you need to actually have something to fight. You could use casus belli carefully to start a war with minimal grievance generation, and then simply play defensively, but be careful that the enemy civ doesn't end up pillaging your lands. Another possibility is to draw out a war over a long period of time if someone else declared it on you, or attack a civ that has already generated grievances against you.

Don't want a war? Build up some Neighbourhood districts on your home continent. Soon enough enemy Spies will start using the Recruit Partisans mission to spawn Barbarians there. Kill them with your Rough Riders and you'll gain culture for your trouble.

Conclusion

For a diplomatic player, Rough Riders can form an excellent defence and might have some niche usage in emergencies, but a domination-inclined Rough Rider Teddy can use them for an extremely effective attacking force. The main limitations are the need to research quickly, and the need to bring along slow siege units to deal with enemy walls.

Unique Building: Film Studio

Welcome to the dream factory. The Film Studio is an incredibly powerful unique building which turns America from being decent at cultural victories to being one of the best.

Film Studios are most useful in conjunction with Bull Moose Teddy's leader ability, but do enable an effective cultural path for Abraham Lincoln and Rough Rider Teddy as well.

Getting to Film Studios

Rough Rider Teddy should focus on Ballistics first for the powerful Rough Rider unit. Abraham Lincoln should pick up Replaceable Parts first for Infantry units.

For Bull Moose Teddy, however, there's a tricky choice: get Radio first or Steel? Steel comes with the powerful Eiffel Tower, which will substantially boost your National Park tourism as well as providing the eureka boost for Flight. Furthermore, the bonus of Film Studios requires other civs to be in the modern research era, so getting them too early is redundant.

The technology tree around Radio offers many useful other things - Flight makes culture on terrain add to tourism as well as providing the Aerodrome district (you'll need at least one to build P-51 Mustangs), Radio itself also offers Seaside Resorts, Electricity offers the strong production bonus of Power Plants, Computers increases your tourism output by 25% and Advanced Flight lets you build P-51 Mustangs.

Any city that is likely to produce more than a little tourism definitely should have a Film Studio built as soon as you can. For this reason, build plenty of Theatre Squares, Amphitheatres and Museums in advance. Cities with strong production should manage to build Film Studios reasonably quickly, but keep some gold ready for production-poor cities with National Parks and/or Seaside Resorts. Send your trade routes to other civs if you need to earn more money - you'll also get a 25% tourism bonus against them for doing so.

Usage

As for what the Film Studio actually offers you, it's simple enough: a +100% tourism bonus for the city. Bull Moose Teddy's leader ability encourages you to emphasise National Parks, seaside resorts and ski resorts - but don't forget Archaeologists, GWAMs and perhaps the odd wonder.


The tourism bonus is applied at the source, so the Film Studio's bonus stacks multiplicatively with other tourism multipliers.

Like regular Broadcast Centres, Film Studios offer a slot for Great Music, two Great Musician points and one Great Artist Point. Great Musicians create two Great Works , worth 4 culture and 4 tourism each. Thanks to the Film Studio, that doubles making Great Musicians worth 8 tourism each. Add Space Race's Satellite Broadcasts civic as well and it's up to 24. 48 tourism from a single Great Person really isn't bad. It's true that because Film Studios arrive late, you probably won't get that many Great Musicians out of them, but every bit helps.

As a Broadcast Centre replacement, Film Studios can provide +3 diplomatic favour each if you fall into an information or future-era Dark Age and take the Disinformation Campaign wildcard. That's useful if you fail to get a Golden Age for the Wish You Were Here bonus to National Park tourism.

One final note: Be careful if you're at war. If a Theatre Square is pillaged, the Film Studio will be the first building to be deactivated. It'll still have its Great Work of Music slot, but the tourism bonus will be disabled until it's repaired.

Conclusion

The Film Studio is an incredibly powerful building for cultural victories. No other civs can come even close to America's potential tourism output. As it doesn't work against pre-modern civs, you don't need to rush it - giving you time to head to Steel and Combustion for key appeal wonders instead.

Unique Unit: P-51 Mustang

A deployed P-51 Mustang. Look right of the unit icon to see its model in this screenshot.

Let's get the obvious out of the way first: The P-51 Mustang arrives late; it's the only unique in the game past the modern era. That means it lacks the impact of many earlier-arriving UUs, but that's not to say it's a bad unit to have. To explain why, let's go into detail about how aircraft work...

The Mechanics of Aircraft

Once you have an Aerodrome district (requiring the modern-era Flight technology), you can start building aircraft. The amount you can build is limited based on your aircraft capacity. Every city can support one aircraft, every Aerodrome two (three with a Hangar, four with an Airport), every Carrier unit two (up to five with promotions) and every airstrip tile improvement (built by Military Engineers) three.

There are two types of aircraft: fighter-class and bomber-class. As a general rule:

• Fighters are good against other aircraft and can target individual ground units fairly effectively, though they have a penalty versus city defences.
  
• Bombers are good against city defences and can pillage tiles.

While Fighters and Bombers alike must be based somewhere with aircraft capacity, they operate differently. Bombers work rather like ranged units, only with a particularly long range and the risk of interception. Fighter-class aircraft, however, have more complicated rules.

From the site your figher-class aircraft are based, you can deploy them on land or coast (shallow water) within a certain number of tiles. Regular Fighters can go up to eight tiles away, but P-51 Mustangs have a flight range of ten.


Click the "deploy" button to set where your fighter-class aircraft will be based. My range is eleven rather than the usual ten due to my use of the Logistics military policy card.

Once deployed, fighter-class aircraft will intercept any aircraft that attempt to attack their tile or an adjacent one, and can be set to perform a ranged attack; Fighters and P-51 Mustangs have a range of five when doing so. Like regular ranged units, they can deal damage without receiving any when performing a ranged attack - unless there's anti-air (Battleships, Destroyers, Missile Cruisers, other fighter-class aircraft, Anti-Air Guns or Mobile SAMs) in that tile or an adjacent one. Be aware that in order to heal up damage taken, fighter-class aircraft will need to return to their base (in other words, they can't heal up when deployed).

Enter the P-51 Mustang

P-51 Mustangs arrive at Advanced Flight, which is thankfully not far off the important technologies of Radio and Computers. The eureka for Advanced Flight requires three Biplanes - if you have Combustion unlocked already and have oil, you can build them ahead of time so you can immediately upgrade them to P-51 Mustangs.

With Rough Rider Teddy's leader ability on top, P-51 Mustangs are as strong as the Jet Fighters of other civs for a lower cost and a lower maintenance cost, and will have an advantage when attacking them. This makes them effective right to the end of the game!

The high flight range of P-51 Mustangs means you don't need to build many Aerodromes for planes to be able to cover your entire empire. Considering you'll want to build Theatre Squares (for Film Studios) in most cities in addition to Industrial Zones (Lincoln), or Preserves/Holy Sites (Bull Moose Teddy), being able to minimise your use of Aerodromes is rather useful.

Because the anti-fighter bonus of P-51 Mustangs only applies when you're attacking - not intercepting - them, the unit is generally more effective in offensive rather than defensive wars (though the bonus can still be useful in both cases). You can clear the way for your bomber-class aircraft to bring down city defences, and then use fast units to pick off the last bit of health and capture it.

Making the Unit Better

Here's all the Fighter promotions. Note how powerful those strength bonuses are against land units.

On top of the strength bonuses, P-51 Mustangs also get 50% more experience from combat. It's probably a good idea to focus on the anti-ground unit promotions on the right-hand side of the promotion tree first as Mustangs already have an edge in air-to-air combat. A +17 bonus is akin to forming an army, which is helpful considering air units have no equivalent of corps and armies.

Obsoletion?

Because they get so many useful bonuses, there's little need to upgrade P-51 Mustangs - in fact, it can be detrimental in some cases to do so (you'll lose the fast XP gain, for a start). You may want to put off researching the Lasers technology if you want to build or buy more.

Summary

• P-51 Mustangs can basically be used like super-long-range Archers, but watch out for anti-air units.
  
• They're great against land units and other figher-class aircraft but struggle against cities; if you're using them offensively, bring some siege support such as Bombers.

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

Note that a more detailed analysis can be found in the section for the civ ability.

Tier One

Abraham Lincoln and Rough Rider Teddy should go with Oligarchy for the strength bonus to complement his own one. This will help you secure your home continent, giving you a huge advantage with all the cities you'll have captured. For a more peaceful game, take Classical Republic if you have plenty of cities with districts, or Autocracy if you're focusing on one or two large cities.

The Ancestral Hall works well as a government building for Bull Moose Teddy, seeing as you'll need a lot of cities to maximise your faith output later (as well as for ensuring you have plenty of good National Park spots). Abraham Lincoln and Rough Rider Teddy works well with the Warlord's Throne, unless you're after a purely diplomatic game - in which case the Ancestral Hall will help you settle more cities which you can establish Markets or Lighthouses in later for extra trade routes.

Tier Two

Monarchy is ideal for diplomatic games thanks to its significant influence point bonus, and as it is the fastest tier two government to research, is a reliable option. Bull Moose Teddy can benefit from Theocracy to get Naturalists for cheap, making it ideal for a cultural game.

For a diplomatic game, take the Foreign Ministry building for the extra diplomatic favour. Otherwise, the Intelligence Agency will be a generally useful government building to have to boost your Spies, helping you steal more Great Works and eurekas for example, but the Grand Master's Chapel might be useful for Abraham Lincoln or Rough Rider Teddy to get extra units onto the front lines.

Tier Three

Democracy's large number of wildcards makes it an ideal choice for America. A domination game with Abraham Lincoln or Rough Rider Teddy may favour Fascism - consider taking the government for its legacy card, then switching to Democracy to get the benefits of both.

The National History Museum is a great choice. America's tendency towards fully-developed Theatre Squares means you'll generate a lot of GWAMs, but you won't necessarily have enough Great Work slots to store all of theirs. A domination-inclined Abraham Lincoln or Rough Rider Teddy may alternatively want to use the War Department.

Tier Four

Digital Democracy has a massive 8 wildcards for America, and hence +8 diplomatic favour per turn (in addition to the +4 it provides anyway). A domination-inclined Abraham Lincoln or Rough Rider Teddy should take Corporate Libertarianism instead to avoid the penalty to military unit strength.

Administration - Policy Cards

Policy Cards

America's higher number of wildcard slots allows for strong combinations of economic policy cards to help you develop your empire faster, or strong combinations of military policy cards to help with warfare. While only policy cards with direct synergy with America's other uniques are covered here, that is not to say others are not worthwhile.

Ancient Era

(Rough Rider Teddy) Agoge (Military, requires Craftsmanship) - If you intend to carry out an early rush of an enemy civ with the support of Rough Rider Teddy's leader ability, this is one of the best policy cards to help you at that task; Slingers, Warriors, Archers and Swordsmen alike can be trained faster thanks to it.

(Abraham Lincoln) Conscription (Military, requires State Workforce) - Lincoln can end up with more free units than he can manage to maintain.

(Bull Moose Teddy) Land Surveyors (Economic, requires Early Empire) - Finding the best tiles for Bull Moose Teddy's leader ability can cost a fair amount of gold, so this policy card can be useful to save a little.

(Abraham Lincoln/Rough Rider Teddy) Strategos (Wildcard, requires Military Tradition) - With an extra wildcard slot in the Oligarchy government, you're much more easily able to support this wildcard. It can potentially help you get a classical-era Great General without the need for lots of Encampments, supporting early warfare.

Classical Era

(Rough Rider Teddy) Charismatic Leader (Diplomatic, requires Political Philosophy) - Extra influence points means extra envoys.

(Rough Rider Teddy) Diplomatic League (Diplomatic, requires Political Philosophy) - Sending a trade route to a city-state you have no envoys in. and then sending your first envoy, will immediately get you up to the three-envoy level!

(Bull Moose Teddy) Scripture (Economic, requires Theology) - Faith output is important for generating as many Naturalists as you can. You generally won't need this policy in the classical era, but it can be a great help in the modern era.

Medieval Era

(Rough Rider Teddy) Chivalry (Military, requires Divine Right) - Although this is available in the medieval era, you won't necessarily need it until the industrial era as it lets you train Rough Rangers faster! Alternatively, you can use it to train Knights faster ready for upgrading later. If you're taking the Classical Republic government and don't want to take a detour to Divine Right to boost Rough Rider production, another card is available at the modern-era Ideology civic.

(Abraham Lincoln) Craftsmen (Military, requires Guilds) - Lincoln's strong incentive to build lots of Industrial Zones makes this policy card particularly effective.

Gothic Architecture (Economic, requires Divine Right) - Two key wonders arrive in the renaissance era to give your government more flexibility: the Potala Palace and the Forbidden City. This policy card will help you get hold of them before a different civ does.

(Rough Rider Teddy) Merchant Confederation (Diplomatic, requires Medieval Faires) - Turn your envoy advantage into a gold one.

(Abraham Lincoln/Rough Rider Teddy) Professional Army (Military, requires Mercenaries) - Cuts the gold cost of upgrading units in half - crucial for the expensive Knight to Rough Rider upgrade path for Rough Rider Teddy, or ensuring all the earlier free units with Lincoln stay up-to-date.

(Rough Rider Teddy) Trade Confederation (Economic, requires Mercenaries) - Extra yields for trading with city-states.

Renaissance Era

(Abraham Lincoln) Invention (Wildcard, requires Humanism) - Gives you a huge advantage to Great Engineer generation.

Logistics (Military, requires Mercantilism) - Helpful for all leaders! Increases the flight range of P-51 Mustangs even further, and helps Rough Riders or melee infantry units cover more ground. It also cuts down the travel time needed for Naturalists, helping you get more tourism sooner as Bull Moose Teddy.

(Bull Moose Teddy) Simultaneum (Economic, requires Reformed Church) - Another handy boost to faith for generating Naturalists with, but again, one you probably won't need until the modern era.

(Rough Rider Teddy) Wisselbanken (Diplomatic, requires Diplomatic Service) - Gives you more food and production for trading with city-states, so long as you are suzerain.

Industrial Era

(Bull Moose Teddy) Public Works (Economic, requires Civil Engineering) - Planting forests is a good way of boosting the yield of National Parks, but that can cost a lot of Builder charges. This policy card will help with that.

(Bull Moose Teddy) Public Transport (Economic, requires Urbanisation) - Stronger appeal yields from National Parks leads to better yields from Neighbourhoods with this policy card.

Skyscrapers (Economic, requires Civil Engineering) - Aside from the general advantages surrounding building wonders faster (wonders are a great source of tourism), this policy card is especially useful to Bull Moose Teddy to help secure the Eiffel Tower wonder its boost to tile appeal.

Symphonies (Wildcard, requires Opera and Ballet) - Every Film Studio will generate an extra +4 Great Musician Points.

Modern Era

(Abraham Lincoln) Five Year Plan (Economic, requires Ideology) - Doubles Industrial Zone adjacency.

(Rough Rider Teddy) Gunboat Diplomacy (Diplomatic, requires Ideology) - Extra influence points to help you accumulate envoys.

Levee en Masse (Military, requires Mobilization) - Makes Rough Riders completely free to maintain, and lowers the substantial cost of P-51 Mustangs and Lincoln's infantry.

(Rough Rider Teddy) Lightning Warfare (Military, requires Ideology) - Allows you to train Rough Riders faster.

(Rough Rider Teddy) Market Economy (Economic, requires Capitalism) - Boosts the yields of international trade routes.

New Deal (Economic, Democracy only, requires Suffrage) - Need to build Aerodromes or the like but your cities are already full of districts? Take this policy card and they'll be able to grow large enough to support them.

(Rough Rider Teddy) Their Finest Hour (Wildcard, Democracy only, requires Suffrage) - Together with Rough Rider Teddy's leader ability, you'll have a +10 strength bonus on your home continent in friendly territory, making it tough for would-be warmongers to stop your diplomatic or cultural aims.

Atomic Era

After Action Reports (Military, requires Rapid Deployment) - Want to build upon the fast experience gain of P-51 Mustangs? This policy card will help with that.

Satellite Broadcasts (Economic, requires Space Race) - All boosts to tourism are useful (including the ones not listed here), but this policy card gets a slight boost for America compared to the typical cultural civ as your incentive to build a lot of Film Studios will give you a lot of Great Musician points.

Information Era

Strategic Air Force (Military, requires Globalisation) - Allows you to train P-51 Mustangs faster.

Future Era

Diplomatic Capital (Wildcard, requires Smart Power Doctrine) - America can hold more wildcards than other civs, and gains diplomatic favour for having wildcard slots. As with that bonus, this wildcard offers a flat diplomatic favour bonus that can't be prevented by other civs.

(Rough Rider Teddy) Global Coalition (Wildcard, requires Smart Power Doctrine) - An excellent defensive bonus which acts as an upgraded replacement to Their Finest Hour, and stacks well with Rough Rider Teddy's leader ability.

Rabblerousing (Wildcard, requires Information Warfare) - Provides a little diplomatic favour, and if you're not going for a diplomatic victory yourself, getting a partial refund when reducing another civ's diplomatic victory points will be very useful.

Administration - Age Bonuses and World Congress

Age Bonuses

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

(Bull Moose Teddy) Monumentality (Golden Age, Classical to Renaissance eras) - Preserves and Holy Sites are a good source of appeal, and also are good sources of faith. The Earth Goddess pantheon also nicely complements Bull Moose's leader ability by adding faith to breathtaking-appeal tiles. However, it might be hard to find uses for faith until the modern era, so this Golden Age dedication is very welcome.

(Abraham Lincoln/Rough Rider Teddy) Twilight Valour (Dark Age, Classical to Renaissance eras) - This stacks nicely with Rough Rider Teddy's home-continent strength bonus or Lincoln's strength boost along with the Oligarchy government for some particularly strong Men-at-Arms.

(Rough Rider Teddy) Reform the Coinage (Golden Age, Renaissance to Modern eras) - Trading to distant city-states? This will keep those traders safe on the way, and will give you extra gold on top.

(Abraham Lincoln) Robber Barons (Dark Age, Industrial to Information eras) - The gold boost will help you maintain the many free units you got from your many Factories - and those Factories will have a useful production bonus. The amenity bonus is easily handled by Lincoln's own amenity boost.

(Bull Moose Teddy) Wish You Were Here (Golden Age, Atomic to Future eras) - An almighty Golden Age bonus that makes Bull Moose Teddy's already considerably powerful National Parks even stronger.

Cyber Warfare (Dark Age, Information to Future eras) - Helpful for keeping your P-51 Mustangs strong beyond the atomic era. If you use them defensively, you don't have to worry about the lack of grievance decay.

Disinformation Campaign (Dark Age, Information to Future eras) - Grants +3 diplomatic favour for every Film Studio - which can add up to an awful lot. Quite a useful fallback for Bull Moose Teddy if you can't get the Wish You Were Here Golden Age dedication.

Sky and Stars (Dedication, Information to Future eras) - When playing for a cultural victory, if you slip into a atomic or information-era Dark or Normal Age, you'll want to ensure you get enough era score to get the Wish You Were Here Golden Age dedication in the era following. This dedication rewards you for generating Great People (having lots of Film Studios should provide you with plenty) and developing your Aerodromes.

Sky and Stars (Golden Age, Information to Future eras) - Allows P-51 Mustangs to gain experience at an unrivalled rate, quickly getting them powerful strength bonuses.

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.

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

National Parks have tricky placement requirements, but being able to take land off other civs can make that easier - so long as the district itself doesn't get in the way of your desired National Park location.

(Rough Rider Teddy) City-State Emergency - Vote in favour

Gives you extra gold from your envoys if you win.

(Abraham Lincoln) Espionage Pact - Effect B (The chosen Spy operation is unavailable) on Industrial Zone Sabotage

Keeps your many Industrial Zones safe.

Heritage Organisation - Effect A (Tourism from Great Works of this type is doubled) for Great Works of Music

America's incentive to build lots of Film Studios means you'll generally have more Great Works of Music than most other civs.

(Abraham Lincoln) Mercenary Companies - Effect A (Producing, or purchasing military units using the chosen currency type costs 100% more until the next World Congress) on any option

This hurts your enemies' military unit production without affecting your own primary method of obtaining units.

(Abraham Lincoln) Military Advisory - Effect A (Units of the chosen land promotion class gain +5 strength) on melee infantry units

Builds on Lincoln's existing strength advantage for melee infantry units.

Nobel Peace Prize - Vote in favour if you have a good shot at winning it.

America's diplomatic favour bonus makes it easier to win this scored competition, while the Great People will be very useful.

(Bull Moose Teddy) Sovereignity - Effect B (City-states of this type do not provide their unique suzerain bonus) for a city-state type that you're not suzerain over at all

America's incentive to take fewer diplomatic policy cards means Bull Moose Teddy is often less competitive in the race for envoys - meaning this will harm other players much more than it hurts you.

(Rough Rider Teddy) 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

Extra trade route capacity makes it easier to ensure as many city-states as possible are eligible for doubled envoys.

(Bull Moose Teddy) Treaty Organisation - Effect B (No diplomatic favor earned from being suzerain of a city-state of this type) for a city-state type that you're not suzerain over at all

Similarly, choosing this outcome cuts favour to diplomatic rivals without hurting you.

Urban Development Treaty - Effect A (+100% production towards buildings in this district) for Theatre Squares, or Industrial Zones as Abraham Lincoln

Faster Theatre Square development helps you build Film Studios faster. For Lincoln, Industrial Zone production means more military units.

World Ideology - Effect A (This government type gains a wildcard policy slot) on whichever government type you're currently using

You'll get a partial refund on the favour cost of passing this policy thanks to America's civ ability, and of course the wildcard will be handy in general.

Administration - Pantheons, Religion and City-States

Pantheons

(Abraham Lincoln) City Patron Goddess - Somewhat useful for getting more military units as you can rush through Industrial Zones in new cities faster.

(Bull Moose Teddy) Earth Goddess - An extremely powerful pantheon for Bull Moose Teddy as all the tiles generating extra culture and/or science (and some more besides) will now make faith on top.

(Rough Rider Teddy) God of the Forge - Speed and power are crucial in an early rush - Rough Rider Teddy's leader ability offers a strength boost that offers the power; this pantheon can help to hasten the attack by making early units faster to build.

(Domination) God of Healing - P-51 Mustangs and other such aircraft can stack in an Aerodrome if not deployed, and until they're promoted enough, cannot heal when deployed. That means most of your aircraft will be healing in the same spot. You can deliberately place Holy Sites next to where future Aerodromes will be so this pantheon can allow all those aircraft to heal rapidly.

Religious Beliefs

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

(Rough Rider Teddy) Defender of the Faith (Enhancer) - Combined with Roosevelt's leader ability, you can have an incredibly strong defensive edge to keep your continent secure.

(Bull Moose Teddy) Divine Inspiration (Follower) - Playing as America under Bull Moose Teddy, your faith generation will primarily be to further your tourism output via National Parks. Wonder construction in general also helps out at this, and they also helpfully add appeal to adjacent tiles. Make wonders generate faith, and you can essentially get more tourism out of every one you build.

(Domination) Holy Waters (Enhancer) - Combines nicely with God of Healing for even faster aircraft healing.

Jesuit Education (Follower) - Spending faith on Film Studios instead of National Parks or other things is a tricky trade-off, but one that allows you to save production or gold. For players who like to push both tourism and domination at the same time, this is a good option, but purely cultural-minded players will generally be better off looking for more faith bonuses.

(Rough Rider Teddy) Religious Community (Follower) - Extra gold from international trading.

(Rough Rider Teddy) Religious Unity (Founder) - Flipping a city to your religion also gives an extra envoy - send a trade route first, and you'll get two envoys!

(Bull Moose Teddy) Warrior Monks (Follower) - Found a high-appeal location, but some mean rival civ has taken some of the tiles you need? Use the culture bomb from this belief to right that wrong.

City-States

(Abraham Lincoln/Rough Rider Teddy) Akkad (Militaristic) - For Rough Rider Teddy, this is useful for supporting early Swordsman rushes, as you won't need to bring along siege support. For Abraham Lincoln, however, it's incredibly powerful, allowing later-era melee infantry units to break through enemy defences with ease.

(Rough Rider Teddy) Bandar Brunei (Trade) - Trading extensively internationally will now provide you with more gold.

(Bull Moose Teddy) Granada (Militaristic) - Being suzerain over Granada allows you to build the special Alcázar improvement, which grants science based on its tile's appeal. Stacks nicely with Bull Moose Teddy's bonuses!

(Rough Rider Teddy) Hunza (Trade) - Trading to distant city-states can now generate you plenty of gold.

Kabul (Militaristic) - Considering how quickly P-51 Mustangs gain experience anyway, bumping up that level even further will make rushing through the promotion tree effortless. This will make them effective against land units and air units alike.

(Rough Rider Teddy) - Kumasi (Cultural) - Boosts the yields you receive for trading with city-states.

(Abraham Lincoln) Mexico City (Industrial) - Together with Governor Magnus (the Steward) with the Vertical Integration promotion, and your many completed Industrial Zones, you can get an enormous production boost in a city.

(Rough Rider Teddy) Mogadishu (Trade) - Helps you trade with more distant city-states by making your traders immune to being pillaged.

(Bull Moose Teddy) Nazca (Religious) - Nazca Lines are a good additional source of faith in desert areas, and create bonus appeal.

(Rough Rider Teddy) Samarkand (Trade) - Boosts international trade route yields.

(Rough Rider Teddy) Venice (Trade) - Boosts international trade route yields.

Administration - Wonders

Wonders

(Rough Rider Teddy) Colossus (Classical era, Shipbuilding technology) - Extra trade route capacity.

(Bull Moose Teddy) Jebel Barkal (Classical era, Iron Working technology) - A nice wonder to capture or even to build yourself, this offers a huge amount of faith for your National Parks without you having to worry about Holy Sites.

(Abraham Lincoln/Bull Moose Teddy) Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (Classical era, Defensive Tactics civic) - For Bull Moose Teddy, it offers some extra faith, but more importantly allows you to retire the Great Engineers Alvar Aalto and Charles Correa twice for extra appeal later in the game. For Abraham Lincoln, boosting Great Engineers builds on the existing Great Engineer Point advantage you're likely to have.

(Abraham Lincoln) Terracotta Army (Classical era, Construction technology) - If you can get a lot of units quickly with initial Industrial Zones and Workshops, you can get a lot of promotions out of this wonder.

Forbidden City (Renaissance era, Printing technology) - Build on your wildcard advantage with this wonder, which offers another wildcard slot. That will help make your governments particularly versatile, and will also offer +1 diplomatic favour per turn for the rest of the game.

Potala Palace (Renaissance era, Astronomy technology) - For America, this wonder is as strong as the Forbidden City, offering a wildcard slot and therefore +1 diplomatic favour per turn for the rest of the game.

Bolshoi Theatre (Industrial era, Opera and Ballet civic) - America's incentive to construct lots of copies of a building boosting Great Musician points makes it worthwhile to look for wonders that offer more points.

Országház (Industrial era, Sanitation technology) - The reason for building this wonder for Bull Moose Teddy is to deny it to diplomatic rivals who are better at gaining envoys. The less diplomatic favour they have, the further yours will go. And for Rough Rider Teddy, it builds on your already considerable envoy advantages. For Abraham Lincoln, it can offset the disadvantages from engaging in warfare.

Broadway (Modern era, Mass Media civic) - Another wonder helping you generate Great Musicians.

(Bull Moose Teddy) Cristo Redentor (Modern era, Mass Media civic) - An excellent choice of wonder and certainly should take priority over Broadway, which arrives at the same civic. Bull Moose Teddy's leader ability makes cities with a National Park have higher-appeal tiles, which boosts the tourism yields of Seaside Resorts. With this wonder and a Film Studio, having a National Park in a city provides +8 tourism to all Seaside Resorts in the city's limits.

(Bull Moose Teddy) Eiffel Tower (Modern era, Steel technology) - Probably the most important wonder for Bull Moose Teddy's America to go for. You can gain a considerable boost to culture and science throughout your realm! Furthermore, +2 appeal for all tiles means at least +8 tourism per National Park and +4 per Seaside Resort, while also allowing you to build them in areas you may have previously not been able to. The limit on how many National Parks you can support becomes about faith, not whether or not you have enough breathtaking-level land.

(Bull Moose Teddy) Golden Gate Bridge (Modern era, Combustion technology) - While not quite as strong potentially as the Eiffel Tower, the rewards are still huge. +4 appeal in all the city's tiles and +100% National Park tourism. With old-growth woods or city parks, the Eiffel Tower and other appeal bonuses you could have National Parks worth well over 100 tourism per turn each!

Biosphère (Atomic era, Synthetic Materials technology) - Provides a powerful source of tourism that Film Studios can magnify. It also eliminates the appeal penalty from marsh and rainforest.

(Cultural) Sydney Opera House (Atomic era, Cultural Heritage civic) - Film Studios produce two Great Musician points each, and combined with this wonder you'll have quite an advantage to producing them and storing their Great Works of Music.

Administration - Great People

Great People

Great Generals and Admirals are only mentioned if their retirement bonuses have specific synergy with the civ; not merely for providing a strength bonus to a unique unit.

Classical Era

(Rough Rider Teddy) Zhang Qian (Great Merchant) - Grants +1 trade route capacity.

Medieval Era

(Rough Rider Teddy) Ibn Fadlan (Great Merchant) - Boosts the yields of trade routes with city-states, and provides +1 trade route capacity.

Imhotep (Great Engineer) - Early wonders are worth more tourism by the end of the game than later-arriving ones, so rushing one can be quite useful to your cultural aims.

(Rough Rider Teddy) Marco Polo (Great Merchant) - Grants +1 trade route capacity.

(Rough Rider Teddy) Piero de' Bardi (Great Merchant) - Grants an envoy.

(Rough Rider Teddy) Zheng He (Great Admiral) - Grants +1 trade route capacity.

Renaissance Era

(Rough Rider Teddy) Ana Nzinga (Great General) - Grants an envoy.

(Rough Rider Teddy) Jakob Fugger (Great Merchant) - Grants two envoys.

(Abraham Lincoln) Leonardo da Vinci (Great Engineer) - Lincoln is encouraged to build lots of Workshops - Leonardo da Vinci makes them all produce 3 culture each - or six if you have the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus and can retire him twice.

(Abraham Lincoln) Mimar Sinan (Great Engineer) - Get bonus territory every time you build an Industrial Zone.

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

(Rough Rider Teddy) Zhou Daguan (Great Merchant) - Grants three envoys to a specific city-state.

Industrial Era

(Bull Moose Teddy) Gustave Eiffel (Great Engineer) - Make him rush the production of his own wonder, and you can enjoy a huge appeal boost thoughout the whole of America.

(Abraham Lincoln) James Watt (Great Engineer) - Makes your many Factories more powerful.

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

(Rough Rider Teddy) Napoleon Bonaparte (Great General) - Allows you to make an army slightly earlier than most. A Rough Rider army will be able to see off the more powerful enemy units for quite some time, having almost as much strength as a Tank. Make sure you have another renaissance or industrial-era Great General to spare first, however, as a +5 strength and +1 movement boost to a number of units is better than just a +17 strength boost to one.

Modern Era

(Bull Moose Teddy) Alvar Aalto (Great Engineer) - +1 appeal to all tiles in a city means an extra 4 tourism from a National Park, 2 tourism from seaside resorts and 1 tourism from ski resorts. Be sure to use this Great Person carefully - you'll generally make the most in a city with extensive high-appeal coastlines which can still support a National Park - whichever city has the Golden Gate Bridge wonder is ideal.

(Rough Rider Teddy) John Rockefeller (Great Merchant) - Extra gold for international trade routes.

Marina Raskova (Great General) - An extra aircraft slot without needing to construct additional buildings or Airstrips isn't huge, but if you're trying to get as many P-51 Mustangs as possible, extra capacity is always welcome.

(Abraham Lincoln) Nikola Tesla (Great Engineer) - Makes an Industrial Zone's buildings more effective.

(Rough Rider Teddy) Matthew Perry (Great Admiral) - Grants enough envoys to become suzerain of a city-state - or grants double if you're trading with that city-state.

Sarah Breedlove (Great Merchant) - A tourism bonus is always welcome, especially on top of the huge Film Studio boost.

Atomic Era

Melitta Bentz (Great Merchant) - Another boost to tourism from trade routes, and increases trade route capacity by 1.

Information Era

(Bull Moose Teddy) Charles Correa (Great Engineer) - Like Alvar Aalto, but provides double the effect. Again, be careful which city you use him in to maximise your tourism output; your Golden Gate Bridge city is best if you have it.

Jamseth Tata (Great Merchant) - All Campuses provide +10 tourism, or +20 with Film Studios.

Kenzo Tange (Great Engineer) - One city gains a considerable tourism bonus based on district adjacency, magnified by Film Studios.

Masaru Ibuka (Great Merchant) - All Industrial Zones provide +10 Tourism, or +20 with Film Studios.

Counter-Strategies (Part 1/2)

America has a very powerful late-game tourism generation and strong diplomatic potential as well. Rough Rider Teddy is particularly good at defending, while Bull Moose Teddy has some good culture and science yields, and even better tourism.

Civilization Ability: Founding Fathers

Diplomatic cards become wildcards

America's civ ability only makes a difference if they're using fewer diplomatic policy cards than other civs. This by extension means they're likely to be less competitive in the race for city-state envoys (in the case of Abraham Lincoln/Bull Moose Teddy), weaker in espionage and have weaker trade with allies. That being said, having a lot of wildcard slots makes them versatile - they can quickly adjust to cover up those weaknesses if need be.

Denying America wonders that offer extra policy cards (especially the Potala Palace and Forbidden City) will ensure their government is only moderately more flexible than that of other civs, rather than substantially more. Similarly, voting in the World Congress for America's government to lose a wildcard if the vote comes up will be beneficial.

Otherwise, this is an ability that's hard to predict and hence counter seeing as you won't know exactly what policy cards they're using.

Extra diplomatic favour

America gets a diplomatic favour bonus that is quite hard to directly counter - every wildcard slot they have adds +1 diplomatic favour per turn. To stop America choosing better governments, either slow down their culture output (such as by pillaging their Theatre Squares) or force them to switch (such as fighting them while they're using Digital Democracy, so they're encouraged to switch to a different government to avoid the strength penalty).

A better option is to work around their bonus and look for other areas where America is weak in gathering favour. Bull Moose Teddy will tend to be weak in the race for city-state envoys, for example, so you can try becoming suzerain over many of them. Lincoln can be prone to incurring a lot of grievances through warfare which impairs his diplomatic favour generation.

Abraham Lincoln's Leader Ability: Emancipation Proclamation

Free, stronger melee infantry units from Industrial Zones

The bulk of Lincoln's power comes from his ability to get powerful, resource-free melee infantry units when he develops Industrial Zones. As this bonus doesn't come into effect until Lincoln can reach the medieval-era Apprenticeship technology, he is vulnerable in the first two eras of the game.

Once Lincoln reaches Apprenticeship, he will be able to produce a lot of strong Men-at-Arms units while building up his production base. At 50 strength, they're as powerful as Knights - but they still only have the movement speed of regular Men-at-Arms. This leaves them vulnerable to Knights and Crossbowmen, which can outmanoeuvre them. Lincoln also has no direct science bonuses, so it shouldn't be too hard to keep up with his research at this point in the game.

If Lincoln fully-develops all the Industrial Zones he can, he won't be able to produce any more boosted melee infantry units. Picking these units off will force him to spend production on newer, worse units. Alternatively, the large number of units generated can put Lincoln in considerable debt forcing him to disband units or spend a lot of production building up an economy.

Later melee infantry units are easier to counter - with Renaissance Walls or the Steel technology, Lincoln will have to bring proper siege support to bring down your cities, and heavy cavalry units from the same era can deal decent damage against his infantry.

Amenity and Loyalty Changes

Lincoln gains loyalty from Industrial Zones, and loses it from plantations. It's a small difference on the whole - just consider that Lincoln will have an easier time holding onto conquered cities with Industrial Zones.

The bigger difference comes in the form of the +2 amenity bonus, which means even more loyalty, but crucially, Lincoln is well-equipped to handle war weariness. Still, Lincoln has a vulnerability in terms of diplomacy in prolonged conflicts - grievances decay slower in war, cancelling out America's advantage to diplomatic favour generation.

Abraham Lincoln's Agenda: Preserver of the Union

A computer-controlled Lincoln likes civs that share the same government as him. He dislikes those with a different government form, especially if it's a different government form from the same tier (for example, Classical Republic vs. Oligarchy).

Aside from the first few turns of the game, where everyone has the same government, it is a relatively difficult agenda to meet. If you are ahead or behind in civic development relative to Lincoln, you can easily end up with a different government - not to mention if you're taking a different victory route. As such, Lincoln may be particularly difficult to ally.

Bull Moose Teddy's Leader Ability: Antiquities and Parks

Try settling mountain-heavy spots or natural wonders so America can't reach them. Mountains and natural wonders are both good for appeal and Holy Site adjacency, and America being denied them means they'll have worse tiles and fewer National Parks.

Remember that you can lower America's tile appeal by going on a pillaging spree. Light cavalry units are particularly well-suited to this goal. If America secures the Eiffel Tower or Golden Gate Bridge, it's worth trying to take over the city to limit their appeal.

Bull Moose Teddy's Agenda: The Bull Moose

A computer-controlled Bull Moose Teddy likes to settle in appeal-rich areas, and will try to build districts and wonders to maximise appeal. He likes civs with many high-appeal tiles, and dislikes civs with many low-appeal tiles.

Bull Moose Teddy will never have the Naturalist, Darwinist or Exploitative hidden agendas. Naturalist somewhat conflicts with his main agenda (leaders with the agenda don't like chopping rainforest, but rainforest provides negative appeal). The Exploitative agenda also conflicts with his main agenda.

Outside of certain specific civs like Australia, tile appeal is generally most important to those going for a cultural victory, as National Parks and Seaside Resorts provide tourism scaling with their tiles' appeal. Civs that settle the coast or mountains extensively will also have plenty of high-appeal areas. Civs that rely on mines, Industrial Zones, Encampments and the like may struggle the most to keep to this agenda.

Counter-Strategies (Part 2/2)

Rough Rider Teddy's Leader Ability: Roosevelt Corollary

Own-continent strength bonus

Roosevelt's strength bonus on his starting continent gives America a defensive edge which helps them get to the point where all their powerful late-arriving bonuses take effect. America's still at their weakest early in the game, but you'll need either strength or numbers advantages (or rely on naval warfare) if you want to fight America on their home continent. Thankfully, you'll have plenty of time to prepare - most of America's other advantages don't kick in until the industrial era.

If you're a religious player and Roosevelt has a religion of his own, be aware that he'll perform particularly well in theological combat on his own continent. Try to use trade routes or the spread-religion function of Missionaries and Apostles instead to get around this.

Double envoys in city-states they have a trade route in

If Rough Rider Teddy can't convert a city-state, he won't get extra envoys there. Starting a war and pillaging the trade route can be effective - especially by sea, where his strength bonus won't apply.

If Rough Rider Teddy's envoys in a city-state are too much to handle, simply conquering the city-state will end that problem. Of course, it'll create a whole new problem - you may be the target of a city-state emergency - so be sure you keep a strong enough defence.

Rough Rider Teddy's Unique Unit: Rough Rider

Rough Riders take everything terrifying about Cuirassiers - their high speed, their high strength, and the relative ease in which the Ballistics technology can be beelined - and build on it further. Their main downside is their higher cost, but this is somewhat mitigated by their lower maintenance cost and lack of a resource requirement.

Pike and Shot units fight at a slight disadvantage against Rough Riders unless promoted, but they are a fair bit cheaper. Consider clustering them together for flanking and support bonuses. While defending on a hilltop is a good move against most unique units, it's the worst possible move against Rough Riders, which have a +10 bonus against units on hill tiles and can easily get a promotion granting a +10 boost against fortified units. Instead, defend behind rivers or in forests on flat land, and don't bother fortifying.

Once you have the Chemistry technology, you can use AT Crews to deal with Rough Riders without too much trouble. Remember still to avoid hill tiles.

Rough Rider Teddy's Agenda: Big Stick Policy

If you share a continent with Teddy Roosevelt and avoid warfare, he'll get along with you fine. He hates civs that start wars on his own continent (including against city-states). Roosevelt will never have the Darwinist hidden agenda, as it conflicts with this agenda, and will also never have the Exploitative hidden agenda.

If you want to start a war on Roosevelt's continent for the first time, it might be worth targeting him first; partially because it can help in denying him his late-game bonuses, and partially because you'll anger him anyway so you might as well declare war on him before he declares war on you.

In addition to this agenda, Rough Rider Teddy has a 33% chance of having the Environmentalist hidden agenda. This agenda makes him more likely to create National Parks and plant woods and less likely to cut down woods and rainforests, making him somewhat closer to his Bull Moose counterpart. He will favour civs that preserve the natural landscape while disliking those that cut it all down. Take that last point into consideration if you're starting near Roosevelt and don't want to provoke a war early on.

Unique Unit: P-51 Mustang

If you're fighting America late in the game, avoid using unpromoted Fighters as a anti-air method in favour of surface-based anti-air, such as Anti-Air Guns, Mobile SAM, Battleships, Destroyers and Missile Cruisers. You may want to use siege units such as Rocket Artillery in place of Bombers as well. America's edge at air combat is relatively short-lived - P-51 Mustangs are only around for an era before they obsolete - but avoiding engaging a UU where it's at its strongest is always a good idea.

Unique Building: Film Studio

Although in theory you can weaken Film Studios by delaying entering the modern research era, this isn't feasible for most civs. Pillaging Film Studios also helps, but not everyone can afford a war. So, for the civs that are left, the key is denying America access to their sources of tourism.

Because America lacks bonuses to GWAM generation (aside from the incentive to build lots of Film Studios giving them a late edge to Great Musician Points, and a minor one to Great Artist Points), they'll often be using Archaeologists to bump up their tourism. Targeting antiquity sites near America can help set them back.

Other Guides

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Gathering Storm

Compilation Guides

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

Individual Civilization Guides

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

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

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

Rise and Fall

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

Vanilla

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

[MeniliteZ]

That question gave me an idea. What about decommissioning a power plant and then building a new one? Would that give Lincoln another unit?

I'm pretty sure its possible to do that, though I think it needs a World Congress effect.

[Zigzagzigal]

No, as converting power plants is considered a project rather than a new building.

[Max]

does conerting to different power plants giev lincoln more units?

[Hadrax]

Thank you for your guides. They are great! They are my go to for finding civs to play and figuring out how I will play.

[Zigzagzigal]

I decided to stop at Civ 6 a while ago to avoid pressuring myself too much, but hopefully someone will take up the torch for Civ 7. I'm even having trouble just writing guides for the last Civ 6 leaders right now.

[hespacc]

Dude great guides, they help me as a civ newbie alot. very detailed, easy to understand. souce of choice when starting a new civ. well done, I bet on you once CIV7 is out :D

[Zigzagzigal]

Don't worry about that! Asking for clarifications is totally fine.

[MeniliteZ]

I see you took out Singapore from the City State list. I apologize if my question sounded rude. I was honestly asking if I was missing something, because I often do. I should have worded that better.

[Zigzagzigal]

Updated with Abraham Lincoln.

[Whisper]

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