Zigzagzigal's Guides - Netherlands (GS)

The Netherlands is a flexible and productive civ that benefits from rivers, lakes and seas alike and can cheaply defend against flooding. Here, I detail Dutch strategies and counter-strategies.

Introduction

Following this guide requires the Gathering Storm expansion.

It also assumes you have all other Civ 6 content, listed below, though it is not necessary to have these to utilise the key strategies of each civ.

• Pre-Rise and Fall content packs
  
  • Vikings, Poland, Australia, Persia/Macedon, Nubia, Khmer/Indonesia
• Rise and Fall Expansion
  
• New Frontier content packs
  
  • Maya/Grand Colombia, Ethiopia, Byzantium/Gauls, Babylon, Vietnam/Kublai Khan, Portugal

These content packs include exclusive civs, city-states, districts, buildings, wonders, natural wonders, resources, and a disaster, but not core game mechanics - all you need is the base game and the Gathering Storm expansion for those.

Hear this message and know there is yet hope. Hope of a time of clearing storms, of the first shoots of spring, of clean waters free from the stains of war. Into a better age where we may find strength in co-operation and not victimisation. Our ships shall sail; our arts shall flourish; our sciences shall lead. It is not the moment to surrender to your fear, but hold on to this chance for a better world. And it falls to you to create it.

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

The Netherlands has a tier 2 river start bias, and a tier 4 coast start bias. Rivers are necessary for the Dutch civ ability, while coastal areas can support both the unique unit and unique improvement.

Civilization Ability: Grote Rivieren

• Campuses, Theatre Squares and Industrial Zones gain a +2 adjacency bonus if next to at least one river tile.
  
  • This functions the same way as the +2 gold bonus Commercial Hubs get; it does not stack with multiple adjacent rivers.
• Constructing a Harbour district causes a culture bomb, granting you all surrounding tiles.
  
  • Only tiles that are within the workable range of the tile's city will be granted (in other words, they must be within a 3-tile radius from the city centre).
    
  • This includes tiles from other civs, but will incur a diplomatic penalty if you steal tiles off them this way. Taking land from city-states has no penalty.
    
  • Tiles stolen containing non-unique tile improvements will retain them.
    
  • Tiles containing completed districts, wonders or national parks will not be stolen, but incomplete ones will be, destroying them.
• +50% production when constructing the Dam district or the Flood Barrier building
  
  • This bonus extends to the production added by Military Engineer charges.

Wilhelmina's Leader Ability: Radio Oranje

• Domestic trade routes add +2 loyalty per turn each in the origin city.
  
• International trade routes both to and from your cities provide you with +2 culture each.

Outline (Part 2/2)

Unique Unit: De Zeven Provinciën

A renaissance-era naval ranged unit which replaces the Frigate

Research	Obsoletion	Upgrades from	Upgrades to	Cost	Resource	Maintenance
Square Rigging Technology Renaissance era	Refining * Technology Modern era	Quadrireme (330 10 )	Battleship (310 1 )	280 or 1120	10	5

*If you have no access to coal, you may continue to build this unit even after researching Refining.

Strength	Ranged Strength	Moves	Range	Sight	Negative Attributes	Positive Attributes
50	60	4	N/A	2	Unable to capture cities	Deals full damage to city defences +7 when attacking city centres and other districts

Positive changes

• Costs 10 nitre to build, down from 20 (-50%)
  
• 50 strength, up from 45.
  
• 60 ranged strength, up from 55.
  
• +7 ranged strength versus city centres and other districts

Unique Improvement: Polder

Research	Terrain requirement	Constructed by	Base pillage yield
Guilds Civic Medieval era	Owned coast or lake tile adjacent to at least three non-mountain land tiles	Builder (embarked)	25

Defensive bonus	Direct yield	Adjacency yields	Miscellaneous bonus	Maximum possible yield
Tile costs 3 to enter.	1 1 0.5	1 per adjacent Polder	None	4 1 0.5

Enhancements

Research	Direct bonus	Adjacency bonus	Miscellaneous bonus	New maximum yield*
Civil Engineering Civic Industrial Era	4	None	None	4 4 1 0.5
Replaceable Parts Technology Modern Era	None	Additional 1 per adjacent Polder	None	7 4 1 0.5

*This assumes you already have the enhancements of earlier eras.

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	Diplomatic	Domination	Religion	Science
Wilhelmina	7/10 (Good)	7/10 (Good)	7/10 (Good)	3/10 (Acceptable)	9/10 (Ideal)

The Dutch are good at cultural victories, mostly relying on the civ ability. Bonus science and culture will help you get to wonders sooner, and bonus production helps you build them faster. Polders can potentially add a good food yield to help the city grow and work more production tiles, boosting wonder construction further.

Diplomacy is a good path for the Netherlands, owing to their good gold and production output excellent for aid emergencies and global warming mitigation projects respectively. That being said, the high Industrial Zone adjacency bonuses via the Dutch civ ability incentives heavy use of Coal Power Plants, which create a lot of pollution and therefore drain diplomatic favours.

Domination works well for the Netherlands, though it is somewhat map-dependent. Against cities, the Zeven Provinciën UU has an impressive 12-point advantage over its generic counterpart, which is already effective in that role. Even if you can't get much out of the UU, Polders have one of the best gold outputs of any tile improvement, making it easy to support lots of units, and the civ ability will help you obtain science and production to keep your military up to date.

Religion is the weakest path to victory for the Dutch. Some early culture advantages can get you to key civics like Reformed Church sooner, but that's about it.

Finally, science is reliably strong. +2 science from river-adjacent Campuses makes it much easier to reach higher adjacency bonuses, while +2 production from river-adjacent Industrial Zones helps you deal with production-intensive eurekas and space race projects. On land-heavy maps, this will generally be your best road to victory.

Civilization Ability: Grote Rivieren (Part 1/2)

There aren't many mountains in this part of the map, but I can still get a reasonable adjacency bonus.

The Dutch work well with rivers and coastal tiles alike, though they can perform effectively with fewer river tiles than the likes of the Khmer, and fewer sea tiles than the likes of Indonesia. All that being said, good investment into river-heavy locations can give you amazing production, good culture yields and decent science even in otherwise science-poor regions.

River Adjacency

Campuses, Theatre Squares and Industrial Zones will get considerable bonuses from being adjacent to river tiles, helping you develop your realm more effectively.

Because this ability applies on a per-district basis, it's usually a good idea to settle a high quantity of cities when playing as the Netherlands. That'll also help you boost your trade route capacity for use with Wilhelmina's leader ability.

Campuses

Getting at least +2 science to begin with is good, but what makes the Dutch civ ability even better is the fact you can get good science adjacency without needing to seek out mountains. The other district that benefits from mountain adjacency - Holy Sites - can safely be neglected when playing as the Netherlands, and high-appeal regions can just as easily be found by the sea, so you can mostly ignore mountains altogether.

Having said that, river sources may often be found in mountain ranges, which offers the potential for some very strong science yields. To find a river source, look at which way a river is flowing and follow it in the opposite direction.

You can also get strong adjacency bonuses from reef tiles (found on the coast) and geothermal fissure tiles (found on continental boundaries), so be sure to look out for them.

Generally, Dutch Campuses won't be exceptional, but will be reliable.

Theatre Squares

Theatre Squares are usually tough districts to maximise adjacency bonuses in. Adjacent wonders add +2 culture each, but if you can't secure more than a few, most cities will just have to depend on adjacency bonuses from being next to other districts (preferably Entertainment Complexes and Water Parks). For the Netherlands, you can easily get yields at least on a par with Monuments. Building a couple relatively early on will really help you on the way to key civics like Guilds, Exploration and Civil Engineering.

Industrial Zones

Getting +2 production from riverside Industrial Zones is a considerable advantage which can soon lead to some incredible production bonuses. The reason for that is the Aqueduct and Dam districts. Both of these districts add +2 production to adjacent Industrial Zones, and while Aqueducts have a few possible locations including riverside spots, Dams must be placed on river-adjacent floodplain tiles.

If all this wasn't enough, the Dutch also get a +50% production boost when building Dams, making them take about as long to build as regular speciality districts, so maximising that production bonus sooner is much easier.


Careful planning in a city can get amazing adjacency bonuses!

You can double Industrial Zone adjacency yields with the Craftsman military policy card, available at the medieval-era Guilds civic (the same one that unlocks Polders). At the modern-era Ideology civic, this card is replaced with the Five Year Plan economic policy card, which doubles the adjacency bonuses of both Industrial Zones and Campuses.

Once you get the industrial-era Industrialisation technology, you can build Coal Power Plants in Industrial Zones. These offer production equal to the district's adjacency bonuses - including the effect of the Craftsman or Five Year Plan policy cards. A riverside Industrial Zone with both an Aqueduct and Dam adjacent, a Coal Power Plant building and either the Craftsman or Five Year Plan policy cards will produce a massive 28 production per turn!

Together

One notable thing about this civ ability is that the best spots for districts are much more likely to be adjacent to each other than normal. You don't need mountains and rainforests to get a good Campus yield, so you can place them right next to your Theatre Squares, Industrial Zones and perhaps even Commercial Hubs. That makes it easier to make use of the +1 adjacency bonus those districts get from every two other adjacent districts, and by keeping districts close together you can also more easily keep them safe from enemy Spies using counter-Spies of your own.

Civilization Ability: Grote Rivieren (Part 2/2)

Harbour Culture Bomb

This ability is a minor one, but can help the Netherlands secure access to open waters, good Polder spots or simply save gold that would be spent on buying tiles containing water-based resources. You won't necessarily want Harbours in every city (after all, Commercial Hubs get a +2 adjacency bonus from rivers, nicely complementing your Campuses, Theatre Squares and Industrial Zones) but it helps to have enough that you can get a medieval or renaissance-era Great Admiral to complement your UU. You'll also want Harbours in cities with Polders so you can get the +1 food from Lighthouses and the +2 gold from Seaports added to their tiles.

Remember that Harbours get a +2 adjacency bonus when next to a city centre, and with the Shipyard building, unlocked at the renaissance-era Mass Production technology, that bonus also adds production. If possible, try to position your Harbours so they're not adjacent to three or more flat/hill land tiles so you can place a Polder there. If the two situations clash (you either have to lose a Polder spot or move the Harbour away from the city), place a Harbour in that spot if you're desperate for production and can build a Shipyard in the city, or a Polder otherwise. Even with a policy card doubling the adjacency bonus, the Harbour will still usually make less gold than a Polder would in that spot, and the Polder can add food and housing as well.

If you can't place a Harbour next to the city centre (or a Polder would be better in that spot), then it may be worth considering deliberately positioning the Harbour to make the most of the culture bomb effect. For border cities, placing a Harbour right next to rival territory can grab some land you'd otherwise have to go to war for.

Dam and Flood Barrier construction

The Netherlands receives +50% production when working towards a Dam district or Flood Barrier building. Both of these help deal with environmental effects - Dams handle flooding on river floodplains, while Flood Barriers mitigate coastal flooding later in the game.

Dams first come available at the medieval-era Buttress technology. Given the technology's on the way to Square Rigging for De Zeven Provinciën unit, you won't need a research detour to pick it up. Dams normally cost 50% more than a speciality district, but the Dutch production bonus cancels that out.

Dams provide +3 housing, an amenity, and prevent droughts from causing food loss in the city, but there's two effects of particular note for the Netherlands. Firstly, they prevent damage from river flooding on the entire floodplain area the Dam is based in, which helps protect the many riverside districts you're likely to have. Secondly, they offer +2 production for adjacent Industrial Zones, making it extremely easy to get an Industrial Zone to 4+ adjacency. That being said, watch out for enemy Spies performing the Breach Dam mission on your cities - position Spies of your own on your Industrial Zone or Dam districts, and they'll be able to defend both from sabotage.

At the medieval-era Military Engineering technology, you'll be able to train Military Engineers in any city with a Encampment and an Armoury building. Military Engineers have two build charges, and aside from building improvements with them, they can rush the production of certain districts and buildings - including Dams and Flood Barriers. Normally, each charge would cover 20% of the production cost, but for the Netherlands that's increased to 30%.



This makes it considerably easier to get Dams up in newer cities or those with less production!

Military Engineering is also required to reveal nitre, which your unique unit requires to be built, so there's no research detour needed to pick it up. You'll only need one city to have an Encampment and Armoury building for you to benefit from Military Engineers, so that shouldn't disrupt your plans to build other important districts.

Later in the game, at the modern-era Computers technology, your cities can build Flood Barriers. Flood Barriers protect low-lying coastal tiles from sea level rise resulting from climate change. Flood Barriers cost more to build and maintain the more severe climate change has become, though thankfully the Dutch bonus to production means with Military Engineers you can rush them in any city with just four build charges. That's something you might need to rely on as the high Industrial Zone adjacency bonuses gives the Dutch a huge incentive to use Coal Power Plants, which contribute significantly to climate change.

Summary

• Look out for riverside spots for your cities. Coasts and lakes are good, but rivers are key.
  
• The civ ability makes it easy to place lots of districts next to each other, both maximising adjacency and making your cities easier to defend from enemy Spies.
  
• Settling a high quantity of cities will help you get more out of this civ ability.
  
• The Harbour culture bomb is a minor ability and largely has a minimal impact on the game.
  
• Position Industrial Zones, Dams and Aqueducts together for huge adjacency bonuses, and capitalise on them with Coal Power Plants
  
• With just two Military Engineers, the Dutch can rush a Dam or Flood Barrier in any city.

Wilhelmina's Leader Ability: Radio Oranje

While lacking the power of the Dutch civ ability, Wilhelmina's leader ability nonetheless can help you use the Zeven Provinciën UU and Polders more effectively. To make the most of this ability, you'll need plenty of trade routes, so consider settling a lot of cities with either Harbours with Lighthouses or Commercial Hubs with Markets.

Bonus Culture

Being able to get extra culture from international trade can help you get through some key early civics, and get you on the way to Guilds for Polders. Still, consider the food and production you get from internal trade - is it worth sacrificing some of that for more culture?

You can also get culture from other civs trading with you. Unlike Cleopatra's leader ability, this doesn't grant anything extra to the other civ, so you'll want to make a particularly strong incentive for other civs to send trade routes to you. A city with a large variety of speciality districts (except for Preserves and Aerodromes, which don't add to trade yields) will be particularly lucrative to other civs. Alliances will also help, particularly with civs that have trade route bonuses of their own.

Bonus Loyalty

Internal trading offers +2 loyalty for the city that sends the trade route, and this can stack.

There's two key applications of this bonus:

• Tipping a city over the edge to positive loyalty - If a city is losing a slight amount of loyalty per turn, rather than moving a Governor there (and losing out on their bonuses), you can use trade routes instead.
  
• Stacking trade routes in a city to defy even large amounts of loyalty pressure - Particularly useful in captured coastal cities.

Regarding the second application of the bonus, you can keep some Traders unused ready to transfer to the first coastal city you capture, and send them on a trade route back to your core lands for a good loyalty boost. In conjunction with a Governor, a Monument and maybe some loyalty-boosting policy cards on top, you should be able to buy yourself enough time to properly secure the city as yours. Polder gold can be used to purchase land units in the cities you take to help defend them if need be.

Conclusion

This leader ability is ultimately small in impact. It can provide some extra culture, but you'll still need plenty of Monuments and/or Theatre Squares to get to key civics like Guilds faster.. Stacking trade routes in an isolated city can prevent it becoming a free city, but the need to switch around trade routes (and sacrifice potentially better trade routes going from other cities) makes that a fairly niche ability.

Unique Improvement: Polder

Polders turn some relatively low-value coast and lake tiles into something akin to a super farm. In the industrial era, they bloom into a mighty source of gold as well.

Getting Started

Early on, it helps to search for good spots for future Polders. Lakes are particularly good, as are rougher coastlines. Don't neglect rivers, though - the bonus yields for Campuses and Industrial Zones can be worth giving up one or two Polder spots.

To get to Polders, you need the Guilds civic. The civ and leader abilities will help you get plenty of culture, though it's important to consider inspirations as well. Starting with the assumption you have Political Philosophy, here's what you need:

• Drama and Poetry (Boost: Construct a wonder - Probably best to research this first, and without the boost.)
  
• Recorded History (Boost: Construct two Campus districts - Not too hard considering your civ ability makes them better.)
  
• Games and Recreation (Boost: Research the Construction technology - Can be a fairly awkward technology to get to in time.)
  
• Defensive Tactics (Boost: Be the target of a declaration of war - Out of your control. Sometimes you'll get it, sometimes you won't.)
  
• Civil Service (Boost: Bring a city to size 10 population - Often hard to achieve in time unless you can quickly get a city to 11+ housing.)
  
• Feudalism (Boost: Construct six farms - Easy if you've expanded fairly quickly.)
  
• Guilds (Boost: Build two Markets - Again, not too hard if you've expanded fairly quickly.)

It helps to train up a few Builders prior to researching Guilds so you can place Polders right away. You'll also need the Sailing technology to embark Builders, but that won't be a problem in the slightest.

Practically any tile you can place a Polder on, you should do so. The only exceptions are if you really need to place a Harbour or Water Park district in a specific spot, or need to place the Huey Teocalli wonder and don't have anywhere else for it to go. Fisheries don't offer anywhere near as good yields, so Polders should always take precedence over them.

The Speed Penalty

One of the curious effects of Polders is that they increase the movement cost needed to enter their tiles to 3. This affects naval and embarked land units alike, and represents the only time in the entire game where naval units need more than one movement point to enter a tile. Though this can be a little bit annoying at times when moving around your own naval units, it can actually be rather useful in defence.

A city build on a peninsula or headland sticking out into the sea can be relatively safe from land attacks but vulnerable to the sea. Flanking the city with Polders, however, makes it a trickier target - melee naval units will end up losing two additional movement points on the way to the city, which could delay their attacks and provide a window of opportunity for siege units to attack them back. As such, the city will be harder for other civs to take.

Increasing the movement cost also makes Polders hard to pillage, and pillaging units prone to counter-attacks. Considering pillaging needs at least three movement points, naval units usually won't be able to move onto the tile and pillage it in the same turn, leaving them vulnerable.

Boosting the Yield Indirectly

Tiles that contain Polders start with 2 food, 1 gold, 1 production and 0.5 housing at the very least. That's a fine yield, but not particularly ground-breaking in itself. Having adjacent Polders adds more food, but that can't always be achieved.

Any coastal city with a couple of Polders should have a Harbour district. Lighthouses add +1 food to all sea and lake tiles, while Seaports add +2 gold. Be careful with cities that are near lakes but not the sea - building a Harbour may come at the cost of a good Polder spot, and cost more food and gold than it grants.

Thankfully, lake Polders can benefit from the Huey Teocalli wonder, which adds +1 production and +1 food to all lake tiles. The medieval-era Military Tactics technology required to build the wonder requires a bit of research detour, but it's not an especially competitive wonder and if you can secure a lot of lakes it's well worth the effort. You may even be able to complete it before you get to the Guilds civic.

The Auckland city-state boosts production of all coast and lake tiles by 1, rising to +2 in the industrial era. Combined with the default +1 production boost Polders offer, it can provide the tiles with a comparable production boost to mined hills.

Boosting the Yield Directly

Polders gain a massive +4 gold boost at the industrial-era Civil Engineering civic. Though they aren't the strongest unique improvement in the game in terms of theoretical gold yield, they're perhaps the most consistently strong one - particularly as Polders are placed on tiles that already offer gold.

There's lots of good uses for this gold bonus, but one of particular note is purchasing land units in coastal cities you capture via your UU, letting you move the fight inland. You may be able to use Wilhelmina's leader ability to buy some time by boosting the city's loyalty, assuming you have enough free trade routes.


With the modern-era Replaceable Parts technology, Polders provide twice as much food from having other Polders adjacent. This allows them to keep up with the huge boost to food farms get at this technology, ensuring they continue to be great tiles to work.

Conclusion

Polders are great tile improvements which are worthwhile no matter how you intend to use the Netherlands, particularly in regards to their food and gold outputs. Though the need to track down lakes or rough coastlines while also considering the need for rivers for the civ ability can be tricky at times, the huge eventual yields Polder tiles can have more than makes up for that.

Unique Unit: De Zeven Provinciën

Coastal cities beware. De Zeven Provinciën comes to completely wreck their defences with a 12-point advantage relative to regular Frigates or Bombards at that role. They're not bad at fighting other units, either - they can take out enemy Bombards and Frigates in just two hits, and Caravels or Musketmen in three.

Preparation

To build copies of De Zeven Provinciën, you need the renaissance-era Square Rigging technology, as well as the Military Engineering technology to reveal nitre resources. Before you research them, it's a good idea to get the Apprenticeship technology (for Industrial Zones) first. Consider researching Shipbuilding fairly early so you can train Quadriremes and immediately upgrade them once you have Square Rigging and enough nitre.

The Press Gangs military policy card comes available at the renaissance-era Exploration civic, and boosts the training of this unit by 100%. Once you're done researching Guilds for Polders, that may be a good choice of civic to go for next considering it also unlocks the Merchant Republic government. The Mercenaries civic is also on the way, and comes with the Professional Army and Retinues military policy cards for 50% less gold and strategic resource upgrade costs respectively - excellent for upgrading Quadrirmes to De Zeven Provinciën.

In Action

With 67 ranged strength versus cities, De Zeven Provinciën units can make short work of city defences. They're only three points weaker than Battleships in this role, which arrive two eras later! Bring along a few together with a medieval or renaissance-era Great Admiral and some Caravels or Ironclads and you can easily take over - or liberate - coastal cities. City-states often appear on a coast, so if any get captured, you can use this unit to quickly liberate them.

If you choose to capture coastal cities, keep in mind you'll probably have severe loyalty penalties flipping that city into a free city in little time - even with a Governor present in the city. Either aim to take multiple nearby coastal cities simultaneously, use Wilhelmina's leader ability and some trade routes for extra loyalty, or use some Polder gold to buy land units and move the fight inland.

A prepared opponent may have Bombards at the ready, which on average can kill your Zeven Provinciën units in three hits. Mobility will be your greatest advantage - you can scout an area with one unit by moving in and out again without attacking, or move the bulk of your naval invasion force to a different part of the enemy empire buying you a few turns until the Bombards can reposition themselves.

Alternatively, a prepared foe may use Privateers against you. It helps to keep your navy fairly close together so they can search nearby seas looking for them the moment you get unexpectedly attacked.

Obsoletion

With the modern-era Refining technology, Battleships become available. They eclipse the combat abilities of the Zeven Provinciën UU. That being said, Zeven Provinciën units are a fair bit cheaper and are only 10 points weaker than Battleships. Forming Zeven Provinciën fleets will cancel out that strength difference, and is a good stopgap measure if you're putting off getting the Steel technology, lack access to coal or need coal for Coal Power Plants.

Conclusion

The Dutch UU can take on most pre-modern naval units, tear apart city defences like nothing else of its era and crush land units. Their main weakness is that it's quite difficult to hold onto captured coastal cities, so you'll need to find plenty of sources of loyalty to account for that.

Administration - Government and Policy Cards

Note that the Administration sections strictly cover the options that have particularly good synergy with the civ's uniques. These are not necessarily the best choices, but rather options you should consider more than usual if playing this civ relative to others.

Government

Tier One

Classical Republic makes a good starting government. Extra Great Person Points helps you on the way to a Great Admiral, bonus amenities help you support expansion without needing to worry too much about building Entertainment Complexes, and the economic policy card slots help you use cards that complement the civ ability.

The Dutch civ and leader abilities benefit from having a higher quantity of cities, so the Ancestral Hall is a good choice of government building to make that easier.

Tier Two

Merchant Republic is usually your best choice. Again, a good array of economic policy card slots goes well with the Dutch civ ability, and there's other good stuff here as well - the gold bonus makes Polders even more effective and faster district construction is great for getting even more boosted districts built.

The Intelligence Agency is a decent choice of government building. You'll probably have a large quantity of districts spread across many cities, so an extra Spy will help cover that. Still, the Netherlands is encouraged to keep districts close together, minimising the number of Spies needed, which may let you use some offensively as well. Stealing eurekas from other civs will complement your good raw science output well.

Tier Three

Democracy's bonus to trading with allies nicely complements Wilhelmina's leader ability, and the array of policy card slots goes well with the civ ability, making it a good general-use government if you're unsure what to take. Communism is a good alternative for its bonus to science yields.

For a scientific Netherlands, build the Royal Society building; it allows you to get space race projects done faster by using Builder charges.

Tier Four

Synthetic Technocracy is the ideal government for scientific games as it speeds up space race projects.

Policy Cards

Ancient Era

Caravansaries (Economic, requires Foreign Trade) - Get a little gold out of your trade routes in addition to either culture or loyalty.

Maritime Industries (Military, requires Foreign Trade) - Building some Quadriremes ready for upgrading to Zeven Provinciën units later? You'll save a lot of production with this policy card.

Classical Era

Natural Philosophy (Economic, requires Recorded History) - A river-adjacent Campus will now be worth 4 science at a minimum.

Medieval Era

Aesthetics (Economic, requires Medieval Faires) - A river-adjacent Theatre Square will now be worth 4 culture at a minimum. Theoretically, you could get a +28 adjacency boost with a riverside Theatre Square surrounded by wonders, Entertainment Complexes and/or Water Parks.

Craftsmen (Military, requires Guilds) - Makes river-adjacent Industrial Zones worth at least 4 production. Position Industrial Zones adjacent to Aqueducts and Dams for even more production, and build a Coal Power Plant to capitalise upon it!

Professional Army (Military, requires Mercenaries) - This policy card cuts the cost of upgrading units, including the Quadrireme to Zeven Provinciën path.

Retinues (Military, requires Mercenaries) - Saves precious nitre on the Quadrireme to De Zeven Provinciën upgrade path.

Serfdom (Economic, requires Feudalism) - Considering Polder-eligible tiles aren't really good for any other tile improvement, you'll need to use more Builder charges than the average civ to get everything improved. This policy card will help with that.

Trade Confederation (Economic, requires Mercenaries) - Boost your international trade routes to get more culture and a little science on top.

Renaissance Era

Colonial Offices (Economic, requires Exploration) - Helps you hold onto and grow cities on other continents - useful in conjunction with your De Zeven Provinciën conquests.

Drill Manuals (Military, requires Mercantilism) - Extra nitre for De Zeven Provinciën, and extra coal for your powerful Coal Power Plants.

Press Gangs (Military, requires Exploration) - Helps you build your UU faster.

Rationalism (Economic, requires The Enlightenment) - The Dutch river adjacency bonus for Campuses makes it easy to meet the 4+ adjacency requirement needed to make the most of this policy card.

Triangular Trade (Economic, requires Mercantilism) - A gold boost to trade routes. Also offers a little faith.

Wisselbanken (Diplomatic, requires Diplomatic Service) - Makes international trading much more lucrative if you have an ally or city-state you are suzerain over - handy if you want to pick up a little more culture.

Industrial Era

Colonial Taxes (Economic, requires Colonialism) - Settled or taken cities on another continent? Have Polders there? Enjoy a decent boost to your gold income.

Grand Opera (Economic, requires Opera and Ballet) - It's easier to meet the full requirements for this policy card than it is for many other civs, so enjoy a good boost to culture.

Raj (Diplomatic, requires Colonialism) - Extra gold for trading with city-states, on top of the culture you get as part of Wilhelmina's leader ability.

Modern Era

Collectivisation (Economic, Communism only, requires Class Struggle) - Need to use internal trade for a loyalty boost? This policy card will let you grow the city at a good rate at the same time, which will help boost its loyalty further.

Five Year Plan (Economic, requires Ideology) - Get double Campus and Industrial Zone adjacency on just one policy card, rather than needing two!

Market Economy (Economic, requires Capitalism) - Get better culture, science and gold yields from international trade.

New Deal (Economic, Democracy only, requires Suffrage) - Polders offer a lot of food and gold, but never more than 0.5 housing. Use of this policy card can help you secure plenty of housing and amenities to go along with it.

Atomic Era

Sports Media (Economic, requires Professional Sports) - Basically Aesthetics with a potential few amenities on top.

Information Era

Ecommerce (Economic, requires Globalisation) - Get +2 production and +5 gold out of all your trade routes. Quite handy when you need a bit of last-minute production for space race projects.

Administration - Age Bonuses and World Congress

Age Bonuses

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

Isolationism (Dark Age, Classical to Industrial eras) - Settled enough cities? Need to boost loyalty with internal trade routes? Make good use of this policy card's food and production bonuses.

Monumentality (Dedication, Classical to Renaissance eras) - The Dutch civ ability encourages districts to be built in high quantities, meaning this dedication can provide you with quite a bit of era score.

Pen, Brush and Voice (Golden Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - If you can secure a classical-era Golden Age, the culture boost from this will really help you get to Polders much sooner.

Hic Sunt Dracones (Golden Age, Renaissance to Modern eras) - Makes your navy even faster and makes it easier to hold onto captured coastal cities.

Reform the Coinage (Dedication, Renaissance to Modern eras) - Wilhelmina's leader ability encourages you to have plenty of trade routes. This dedication gives you plenty of easy era score from completing them.

Reform the Coinage (Golden Age, Renaissance to Modern eras) - Pillage immunity for all your trade routes means you can stack trade routes in a city for loyalty without risk, or alternatively enjoy extra gold to accompany your culture from international trade.

Robber Barons (Dark Age, Industrial to Information eras) - If you can handle the amenity hit, this is a lovely complement to your strong Industrial Zones and Polders.

Collectivism (Dark Age, Modern to Information eras) - Bonus Industrial Zone adjacency goes well with the Dutch civ ability, though the loss of Great Person Points can be an issue.

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.

Espionage Pact - Effect B (The chosen Spy operation is unavailable) on Breach Dam or Industrial Zone Sabotage

Some other Spy operations are also good to disallow, like Steal Tech Boost, but considering the Dutch incentive to settle cities extensively in river regions, the incentive to build plenty of Dams and the huge devastation a breached Dam can cause, Breach Dam is an excellent one to disallow. Industrial Zone Sabotage is also worth blocking as Dutch Industrial Zones can have huge adjacency bonuses you won't want to lose, and the mission has a higher success rate than Breach Dam.

Global Energy Treaty - Effect A (50% discount on the production of buildings of this type) on Coal Power Plants

Coal Power Plants add production equal to the Industrial Zone's adjacency, which can get particularly large in Dutch cities. The resulting damage to the climate is somewhat mitigated for the Netherlands thanks to the production bonus you have towards Flood Barrier buildings.

Nobel Prize in Physics - Vote in favour.

The Dutch incentive to build Campuses and Industrial Zones means you'll often have an advantage at this scored competition.

Patronage - Effect A (Earn double points towards Great People of this class) on Great Engineers, Scientists, or any GWAM

These Great People correspond to Campuses, Industrial Zones and Theatre Squares; the three speciality districts the Dutch have the most incentive to build.

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.

There's two great effects from this resolution: One, the extra trade route capacity allows you to get more loyalty or culture. But two, the boost to gold for any trade route heading to your cities will add a stronger incentive for other civs to send trade routes to you, which will provide you with extra culture.

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

Aids in getting Coal Power Plants up faster.

Administration - Pantheons, Religion and City-States

Pantheons

City Patron Goddess - Get your civ ability off to a good start by using this pantheon to help you build the first district in each city faster.

Divine Spark - Get more Great People out of your strong Campuses and Theatre Squares.

God of the Sea - Helps make your coastal cities more productive, helping you make the most out of Polders.

Religious Beliefs

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

Jesuit Education (Follower) - Got some excess faith you need to use? Develop your strong Campuses and Theatre Squares with it.

Religious Community (Follower) - Extra gold for international trade routes to complement your culture.

City-States

Auckland (Trade) - Possibly the most important city-state for the Netherlands to be suzerain over due to the way it boosts the yield of every Polder.

Bandar Brunei (Trade) - Trading a lot with other civs and setting up trading posts? You can get extra gold from that.

Bologna (Scientific) - Get more Great Person Points out of your favoured districts.

Chinguetti (Religious) - Boosts the yields for international trade routes, albeit with faith, which is a less important yield for the Netherlands.

Geneva (Scientific) - Not a bad choice for a peaceful scientific game, magnifying your good Campus yield.

Hattusa (Scientific) - Provides you with nitre for your UU if you have no other source, and coal for your mighty Coal Power Plants.

Hunza (Trade) - Get bonus gold out of your trade routes.

Kumasi (Cultural) - Get lots of culture from trading with city-states.

Mogadishu (Trade) - Your traders will now be immune to being pillaged if they're on water tiles. That's rather helpful if you're using them to boost the loyalty in a distant colony.

Nan Madol (Cultural) - Building districts around river mouths or setting up Harbours? Enjoy some extra culture.

Ngazargamu (Militaristic) - Polder gold makes it easier to buy a lot of military units, and Ngazargamu makes that cheaper.

Samarkand (Trade) - Trading dome improvements increase international trade route yields on top of the bonus culture Wilhelmina's leader ability offers.

Singapore (Industrial) - Extra production from international trade.

Venice (Trade) - A small additional boost to international trade routes to complement your culture boost.

Vilnius (Cultural) - Trading with allies will produce better trade route yields and help you gain alliance points faster. The highest level of alliance you have will determine the bonus this city-state grants. At its best, this can increase Theatre Square adjacency bonuses by 150%, making riverside ones worth at least 5 culture per turn.

Administration - Wonders and Great People

Wonders

Oracle (Ancient era, Mysticism civic) - The Dutch civ ability encourages building a large variety of districts early on, and the Oracle's Great Person Points bonus goes rather well with that kind of development.

Colossus (Classical era, Shipbuilding technology) - A free Trader and trade route capacity, in addition to some gold and a Great Admiral Point, complementing both Wilhelmina's leader ability and the UU.

Great Library (Classical era, Recorded History civic) - The Netherlands is pretty good at getting a raw science output, and this wonder will help you secure more eurekas.

Great Lighthouse (Classical era, Celestial Navigation technology) - Boosts the movement points of all UUs, including your UU.

Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (Classical era, Defensive Tactics civic) - With better Industrial Zones and a maritime emphasis, the Netherlands complements this wonder rather well. Enjoy better coastal tile yields in the city (which can add to Polder yields) and more charges for Great Engineers.

Huey Teocalli (Medieval era, Military Tactics technology) - Boosts the food and production of all lakes you own by +1 food and +1 production. Lake Polders become rather powerful in conjunction with this wonder.

University of Sankore (Medieval era, Education technology) - Adds a stronger incentive for other civs to trade with this city, helping you get more culture bonuses, as well as granting you bonus science for every trade route that goes to this city.

Casa de Contratación (Renaissance era, Cartography technology) - Multipliers to gold and production work well with Polders and the boosted Dutch Industrial Zones respectively.

Great Zimbabwe (Renaissance era, Banking technology) - Grants additional trade route capacity and makes trade routes from this city more powerful.

Torre de Belém (Renaissance era, Mercantilism civic) - Boosts international trade route yields from this city, alongside other useful effects.

Venetian Arsenal (Renaissance era, Mass Production technology) - Get double copies of your UU! Assuming you're building them from scratch and not buying them.

Big Ben (Industrial era, Economics technology) - The high gold output international trade and Polders can create makes the +50% treasury bonus potentially very powerful. Furthermore, an extra economic policy card slot helps you build on the civ or leader abilities with corresponding policy cards.

Oxford University (Industrial era, Scientific Theory technology) - Found a good river-and-mountain-adjacent Campus spot? Boost that good science yield further with this wonder. You'll also gain two free technologies.

Ruhr Valley (Industrial era, Scientific Theory technology) - Make a good Industrial Zone city into a real powerhouse.

Broadway (Modern era, Mass Media civic) - A strong Theatre Square can be boosted further with the 20% bonus this wonder offers. On the whole this wonder is best-suited to cultural games, though, so if you're not aiming for a cultural victory you should probably pass on it.

Amundsen-Scott Research Station (Atomic era, Rapid Deployment civic) - Though finding a good spot for it may be difficult, finding a good use for the bonus won't be. A huge science boost and a substantial production one in every city makes great use of your civ ability and will work well for domination and scientific victories alike.

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

Gaius Duilius (Great Admiral) - You can use Gaius Duilius to create a Quadrireme fleet, and therefore a Zeven Provinciën fleet. That resulting unit will damage city defences almost as well as the Brazilian Minas Gereas UU, but a whole era earlier!

Hypatia (Great Scientist) - Got lots of strong Campuses? Get lots of strong Libraries as well!

Themistocles (Great Admiral) - Permanently increases your production towards naval ranged units - including your UU.

Zhang Qian (Great Merchant) - Adds an extra trade route, and incentivises other civs to send routes to you - which means more culture for you!

Medieval Era

Ibn Fadlan (Great Merchant) - Extra trade route capacity and extra faith for trading with city-states.

Leif Erikson (Great Admiral) - Increases the sight of all naval units, including your UU.

Marco Polo (Great Merchant) - Also adds an extra trade route and encourages other civs to trade with you.

Rajendra Chola (Great Admiral) - Makes all naval units you control - including your UU - stronger.

Zheng He (Great Admiral) - An extra trade route, and an incentive for other civs to trade with you.

Renaissance Era

Isaac Newton (Great Scientist) - Your incentive to build a lot of Campuses will result in a lot of Universities. Boost their science output with Isaac Newton.

Leonardo da Vinci (Great Engineer) - Want yet more culture? Your many Industrial Zones will soon help produce that once they have Workshops present.

Mimar Sinan (Great Engineer) - Mimar Sinan makes Industrial Zones cause a culture bomb when first built. That's particularly useful for the Netherlands as that will allow you to gain control of adjacent riverside tiles ready for other districts.

Raja Todar Mal (Great Merchant) - Need internal trading for the loyalty boost? You'll now generate a little gold at the same time.

Santa Cruz (Great Admiral) - Make sure you have a spare medieval or renaissance-era Great Admiral before retiring Santa Cruz. Assuming you do, you can produce a Zeven Provinciën armada with 72 melee strength, 82 ranged strength and 89 strength versus city defences. For most purposes, that's stronger than a Missile Cruiser!

Industrial Era

James Watt (Great Engineer) - Your many Industrial Zones will now have better Factories.

Modern Era

Albert Einstein (Great Scientist) - Boosts the science yield of your many Campuses' many Research Labs.

John Rockefeller (Great Merchant) - Boosts the gold yield from your trade routes.

Nikola Tesla (Great Engineer) - In conjunction with Magnus (the Steward)'s Vertical Integration promotion and the Dutch civ ability encouraging you to build lots of Industrial Zones, this can result in immense amounts of production for one city.

Atomic Era

Melitta Bentz (Great Merchant) - Provides extra trade route capacity.

Information Era

Jamseth Tata (Great Merchant) - Turn your many Campuses into a great source of tourism. Great for a last-minute switch towards a cultural victory.

Kenzo Tange (Great Engineer) - Adds tourism in a city based on the adjacency bonuses of all their districts, which is likely to be very strong in a riverside Dutch city.

Masaru Ibuka (Great Merchant) - Adds tourism for all your Industrial Zones.

Counter-Strategies

Though the Netherlands doesn't have the weakest early-game of any civ, they're still pretty vulnerable at their point. A good chunk of their bonuses don't arrive until at least the medieval era.

The Netherlands is somewhat comparable to Indonesia as an opponent, though they're better at production, are a bit less constrained regarding where best to settle but completely lack Indonesia's religious advantages.

Civilization Ability: Grote Rivieren

The key thing of note here is how the civ ability influences where the Netherlands tends to place their cities and districts.

Getting bonuses from river adjacency for three different districts in addition to Commercial Hubs - which get them anyway - encourages them to position them all together. While it makes things easier for their counter-Spies, it also makes the districts vulnerable to pillaging sprees. Promoted light cavary can do a lot of damage to them in relatively little time.

With no significant incentive to build Holy Sites, a good alternative source of Campus adjacency bonuses and a coastal emphasis which allows access to plenty of high-appeal spots, the Netherlands has less reason to settle mountainous areas relative to most other civs. This may free up more good spots that you can settle yourself.

Dutch Harbours cause culture bombs. This is rarely a concern seeing as Harbours are usually best-positioned adjacent to city centres, and even if they take tiles off you, it'll usually be mainly low-value water tiles. If you see a bordering Dutch city beginning to build a Harbour adjacent to your lands or seas, either stop improving the tiles around there or try to get a district of your own there faster than them - completed districts are immune to culture bombs.

The Dutch ability to build Dams faster, coupled with their incentive to place lots of districts adjacent to rivers, makes them especially vulnerable to the Breach Dam Spy mission, which pillages a Dam and all downstream improvements and districts. Be sure to promote your Spies or use the Gain Sources mission first to maximise your chances of success, as Breach Dam is one of the less likely missions to succeed.

Wilhelmina's Leader Ability: Radio Oranje

Sending trade routes to the Netherlands gives them culture, but gives you nothing aside from the standard yields. As such, it's a good idea not to send the Netherlands more than one trade route at a time. The first route will satisfy Wilhelmina's agenda if she is controlled by a computer opponent, will boost alliance points if you are allied to her and will provide a tourism bonus, but beyond that point the advantages of sending trade routes to her will diminish for you.

You can prevent the Dutch from sending trade routes or receiving them from other civs by using option B (Cancels any international trade routes between other civilizations and the chosen player, and embargoes any new ones from starting) of the Trade Policy resolution in the World Congress. This will completely shut down Wilhelmina's culture bonus.

The Dutch can also send trade routes to their own cities for extra loyalty, which can make it tough to flip their cities if they rely on it extensively. However, to make the most of this ability, they'd need to send a lot of trade routes from the same city which makes them particularly vulnerable to pillaging.

Wilhelmina's Agenda: Billionaire

A computer-controlled Wilhelmina likes civs that send trade routes to her, and dislikes those that don't.

Though this agenda can be annoying early on where internal trading tends to be better than international trade, it's rather helpful once you reach the Civil Service civic and can start forming alliances. Having a trade route with another civ is a great way to gain alliance points, and the fact it boosts Wilhelmina's opinion of you makes it easier to hold onto that potential alliance.

If you want to cause Wilhelmina trouble without declaring war on her directly, you can pillage trade routes other civs are sending to her. She'll lose a bit of culture but more importantly her relations with the civ whose route you pillaged will drop.

Unique Unit: De Zeven Provinciën

The Dutch UU makes short work of city defences, so it helps if you can intercept them before they get too close. Any renaissance-era naval unit can perform moderately well, but you'll want to have strength in numbers to counter their high damage output. Alternatively, using guerilla attacks with Privateers is an option if you can't spare that much production. Considering naval units can't heal outside of friendly territory, it'll take a while for them to recover.

If playing the naval game isn't an option, getting a lot of Bombards on your coastline may be necessary. Though they can't defend well against Zeven Provinciën units, their attack power is good. The Crew Weapons promotion adds +7 defensive strength and is easy enough to obtain, while the Advanced Rangefinding promotion adds +10 strength versus naval units which should be enough to make the Netherlands cautious.

Unique Improvement: Polder

The usual counter for unique improvements - pillaging them - isn't necessarily a good move against Polders unless you have a particularly good navy. It costs three movement points to move a naval unit onto a Polder, and an extra three to pillage, meaning you'll end up using up a lot of movement points you could be using to simply capture the city. It'll also tend to leave your units vulnerable in the mean-time.

Instead, if you want to really counter Polders, you'll want to deny the Netherlands access to large lakes, rough coastlines and/or the Huey Teocalli wonder. Or, to put it another way, a landlocked Netherlands is a weaker Netherlands. The fewer coastal cities they can settle, the better. Settling cities so they deny coastal spots, without actually being on the coast, can weaken the Netherlands while preventing the opportunity for them to use their UU in retaliation.

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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.

[yubbleio]

Great guide, will help a lot with future netherlands games!