Zigzagzigal's Guides - Brazil (Vanilla)

A flexible civ, Brazil can viably take any path to victory with a particular focus on Great People. Here, I detail Brazilian strategies and counter-strategies.

Legacy Guide

If you have the Rise and Fall expansion, click here for the updated guide.

This guide is no longer updated, but will remain for the sake of those without the Rise and Fall expansion.

Introduction

Note: This guide only covers content released prior to the Rise and Fall expansion. Content from any DLC pack released between the base game and Rise and Fall is marked as such.

From the vast Amazon basin to the Uruguayan savanna, Brazil already covers a great expanse of land. The world already knows of Brazil's cultural exploits every year when the Carnival season returns, but what we need now is acknowledgement as a global power. To this end, we are paying much attention to the innovative individuals who will lead us into a new golden age - and to keeping our coasts defended from those who would threaten this arrangement. But the balance of nature is fragile, and if our natural landscape was to burn in the fires of greed and war, our greatest asset would become our greatest loss.

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 (assuming they have one at all).
  
• The Victory Skew section describes to what extent the civ (and its individual leaders where applicable) are inclined towards particular victory routes.
  
• Multiple sections for Uniques explain in detail how to use each special bonus of the civilization.
  
• Administration describes some of the most synergistic governments, civic cards, 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 should be given more consideration than they would be for other civs but 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, culture, gold, 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) - Describes bonuses or penalties that affect multiple tiles in a set radius. Positive examples include Factories and Stadiums (which by default offer production and happiness respectively 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 - The strategy of 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 deviation (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. Unlike unique units, buildings, districts and improvements, civ abilites do not have to be built.

Civic cards - Another name for policy cards; you fill up your government with these for additional bonuses and can switch them for free every time you unlock a civic.

Compact empires - Civs with cities close together. This is useful if you want to make use of districts that gain adjacency bonuses from other districts, maximise the number of copies of the same district in the same area, or to maximise the potential of area-of-effect bonuses later in the game.

Dispersed empires - Civs with cities that are spread out. This is useful if you want to ensure cities have plenty of room for both districts and tile improvements. 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.

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, which like civ abilities do not have to be built. Usually but not always, they tend to be more specific in scope than civ abilities. Some leader abilities come with an associated unique unit on top of the standard one every civ has.

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.

Complete information on start biases within the game can be found in the Civilizations.xml file (find the Civ 6 folder in Steam's program files, then go through the Base, Assets, Gameplay and Data folders to find the file). If a civilization is not listed as having a start bias there, it does not have one, even if you feel like you keep spawning in the same terrain when playing as that civ.

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 and offers some unique advantages on top. In some cases, there may be minor disadvantages as well, but these are always outweighed by the positive features. All unique districts cost half as much to construct relative to the regular districts they replace.

UI (Unique Improvement) - A special improvement that can only be built by the Builders of a single civilization. Unlike unique buildings or districts, these do not replace a regular improvement. Some require a technology to unlock, and many have their yields improved with later technologies. "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 built by a single civilization, and in some cases only when that civilization is led by a specific leader. These usually replace an existing unit and offer extra advantages (and occasionally minor disadvantages as well in exchange for bigger advantages).

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

Outline

Start Bias

Brazil has a tier 2 start bias towards rainforest tiles. This is important for making use of the civ ability. Rainforest tiles offer 2 food and 2 production each, giving you a surprisingly good start as well.

Civilization Ability: Amazon

• Rainforest tiles provide a +1 adjacency bonus for Campus, Commercial Hub, Holy Site, and Theater Square districts.
  
  • This does not stack with the normal Campus bonus offering +1 science for every two adjacent rainforest tiles.
• Tiles within Brazilian land gain +1 appeal from adjacent rainforest tiles instead of -1.

Pedro II's Leader Ability: Magnanimous

• After acquiring a Great Person through recruitment or patronage, 20% of its Great Person Points cost is refunded.
  
  • This is the full 20% of the previous Great Person cost, regardless of whether you used patronage or not (for example, if the previous Great Person cost 660 points, you will start the next with 132)

Unique Unit: Minas Geraes

An industrial-era ranged naval unit which replaces the Battleship

Research	Obsoletion	Upgrades from	Upgrades to	Cost	Maintenance	Resource needed
Nationalism Civic Industrial era	Lasers Technology Information era	Frigate (230 )	Missile Cruiser (??? )	430 or 1720	6	None

Strength	Ranged Strength	Moves	Range	Sight	Negative Attributes	Positive Attributes
70 75 *	80	5	3	2	Unable to capture cities	Deals full damage to city defences. Indirect fire - can hit targets over obstacles.

*Forming a fleet or armada does not increase anti-air strength.

Variable changes

• Requires the industrial-era Nationalism civic instead of the modern-era Steel technology
  
  • This means the unit is constructed faster with the Press Gangs policy card (Renaissance era, requires Exploration) instead of International Waters (Atomic era, requires Cold War).
    
  • This also makes modern-era Great Admirals ineffective for them, but renaissance-era Great Admirals will boost their speed and strength.

Positive changes

• Does not require coal resources to construct
  
• 70 strength, up from 60
  
• 75 anti-air strength, up from 70
  
• 80 ranged strength, up from 70

Unique District: Street Carnival

A classical-era speciality district which replaces the Entertainment Complex

Research	Terrain required	Required to build	Base production cost	Maintenance	Pillage yield
Games and Recreation Civic Classical era	Any land tile within your territory. The city cannot already have a Copacabana district.	Arena Zoo Stadium	27 *	1	Restores pillager to full health

*All districts increase in production cost over the course of the game. If you have fewer copies of a district in total than the average among all players, it will be 40% cheaper to construct.

Adjacency bonuses	Other yields	Great Person points	Other effects
None	2	None	Enables the Carnival city project Domestic trade routes to this city provide +1 International trade routes to this city provide +1 Adjacent tiles receive +1 appeal

Positive changes

• -50% production cost
  
• Provides 2 amenities, up from 1
  
• Enables the Carnival city project
  
  • The Carnival city project provides 1 amenity while in progress, and provides Great Engineer, Merchant, Writer, Artist and Musician points when completed.
    
  • The Great Person Points offered are equivalent to a Theatre Square Festival, plus half of Commercial Hub Investments and half of Industrial Zone Logistics.

Victory Skew

In this section, the civ is graded based on how much it leans towards a specific victory type - not how powerful it is. Any score of 3 or above means the civ or leader has some kind of advantage to the victory route above a hypothetical civ with no unique features. A score of less than 2 means some kind of aspect of the civ actively discourages a particular victory route. All values are subjective and may be edited in future.

Leader	Culture	Domination	Religion	Science
Pedro II	8/10 (Good)	7/10 (Good)	7/10 (Good)	7/10 (Good)

Cultural victories work slightly better than the others for Brazil due to the special Carnival project. Great Merchants and Engineers can help a little at any victory route, but there's quite a few in particular with direct synergy with cultural victories. The other free Great People you get points for are GWAMs. Furthermore, rainforest adjacency bonuses means Brazil's Theatre Squares can have particularly good cultural yields. Finally, Brazilian rainforests offer positive, rather than negative appeal, which is good for National Parks and Seaside Resorts.

Domination is a viable option, and on very water-heavy maps such as archipelago, is probably the best choice. The Minas Geraes is a monster of a UU - make a fleet and it has more strength than a Missile Cruiser! The other Brazilian uniques can support this gameplay style rather well, especially the extra amenity from Street Carnivals.

Holy Sites gain extra faith from adjacent rainforests, and add that to Sacred Path and you've got an enormous faith output early in the game. If religious victory doesn't work, you can use all that faith for Great Person patronage.

Finally, scientific victory gets reasonable advantages. Although Campuses only get +1 science per rainforest (not the +1.5 you might expect), that's still a strong bonus to have. Meanwhile, Pedro's leader ability helps you to obtain more Great Scientists and Engineers.

Civ Ability: Amazon

Extra yields from rainforest adjacency

Brazil's civ ability offers a strong advantage to any victory route - so long as you can settle near rainforests and don't cut them down. Your start bias will usually place you near a few rainforests, and with 2 food and 2 production, they're pretty good tiles at the start of the game.

To make the most of this ability, try to settle as many cities around rainforest as you can. It's a bad idea to settle a city right in the middle of a dense rainforest region as you won't have many free tiles to improve, but instead, if you encounter such an area, surround it with cities instead. Settling lots of cities will help maximise your Campus, Theatre Square, Holy Site and Commercial Hub yields, and it'll also be useful for maximising your output of Great Person Points, which you'll need to make good use of Pedro's ability. Problems you might have regarding amenities can be sorted out later with the Street Carnival UD.

Four districts gain from this ability, so here they are:

• Campus - Although these districts gain the least (adjacent rainforests simply contribute twice as much rather than three times as you might expect), more science is still a very good bonus to have. Unless you're after a religious victory, get these built first.
  
• Holy Site - Take the Sacred Path pantheon and rainforests offer +2 faith each to the adjacent Holy Site - as much as a natural wonder! A Holy Site surrounded by rainforests gets 12 faith in that situation. Even if you're not after a religious victory, faith is good for Great Person patronage.
  
• Commercial Hub - Getting decent adjacency bonuses out of this district isn't hard anyway, but Brazil can make them incredible. Gold is a less useful yield than science or culture, and you can't bump up the yields substantially like you can with Holy Sites and the Sacred Path pantheon, so you should look for the optimum placement of the other districts before you work out where to place Commercial Hubs.
  
• Theatre Square - For many games, this is arguably the most useful bonus. Theatre Square adjacency bonuses are hard to get, and Brazil's unique ability lets you get particularly good ones. Having a high culture output means you can get your incredibly powerful UU out sooner.

The other speciality districts don't gain from Brazil's unique ability. Position an Industrial Zone carefully so it's within six tiles of as many cities as possible, so you therefore don't need to build many of them. If you desperately need production, build Commercial Hubs instead and use the trade routes for domestic trading. You can skip building Encampment districts (unless you really want Great Generals), but Harbours are still good. And obviously you'll want to build your unique district in plenty of cities.

Rainforest appeal

Note: This screenshot was made before a patch which made mines provide -2 appeal to adjacent tiles.

The description in the Amazon civ ability is misleading - rainforests technically offer extra housing to adjacent Neighbourhoods, but you'll never get one with 7 housing. Instead, rainforests offer positive instead of negative tile appeal in Brazilian lands, making it easier than normal to get the full +6 yield. This isn't just useful for Neighbourhoods; you'll also get more out of adjacent National Parks and Seaside Resorts - handy if you're after a cultural victory.


Old-growth woods, mountains and a natural wonder makes a strong National Park, but the adjacent rainforests add even more!

Spaceships

If you're after a scientific victory as Brazil, make sure you have plenty of housing and Builders ready for the information era. Once you start building Spaceports, you won't have as great a need for the strong district adjacency bonuses any more, so go ahead and chop down some of the rainforests near your Spaceport cities to replace them with farms and mines. Ignore the terrible implications of this ("we need to ruin this planet so we can colonise another faster and ruin that").

Summary

• Settle extensively so you can maximise the bonus.
  
• Settle around rainforests, not in the middle of them
  
• Emphasis the districts you get bonuses to (plus Street Carnivals).
  
• Cultural players should make use of the extra appeal of rainforests for National Park and Seaside Resort tourism.
  
• Domination players should push for high Theatre Square adjacency bonuses to get to Nationalism sooner.
  
• Religious players should take the Sacred Path pantheon to maximise Holy Site yields
  
• Scientific players should build lots of Campus districts, then chop down the rainforests at the end of the game to rush the spaceship.

Pedro II's Leader Ability: Magnanimous

Before...

...and after.

Pedro II's leader ability helps you acquire more of the kinds of Great People you want by giving you a substantial amount of points back every time you generate one. If you've been getting plenty of cities to maximise yields via the Amazon civ ability, you'll also generate lots of Great Person Points to help with this ability.

Don't forget about patronage - you'll need plenty of gold or faith for that, but it can mean a considerably faster generation of Great People. Faith goes further than gold for this purpose, but Commercial Hubs offer Great Merchant Points while Pedro's leader ability is useless for Holy Sites and Great Prophets seeing as you can only ever generate one. It might be worth taking the Divine Spark pantheon instead of Sacred Path if you don't have big enough cities to handle Holy Sites in addition to all the other important districts.

The biggest problem with Pedro's leader ability is that it's so broad that you can't possibly chase after all the different kinds of Great People. Thankfully, there's something that can help substantially - the Carnival project. It produces Great Engineer, Merchant, Writer, Artist and Musician points. Add that to the districts the Amazon ability makes stronger, and you'll be particularly good at generating GWAMs and Great Merchants - great for cultural victories.

Very late in the game, for cultural and scientific victories, it may be worthwhile to start selling off minor, underdeveloped cities to other civs for gold so you can afford patronage of key late Great People. For scientific players, there's a few Great Engineers and Scientists that offer spaceship construction bonuses.

Remember that this ability is more powerful the more Great People you create in the first place. If you never generate any, you'll never get a bonus here. Remember to fill your districts with plenty of buildings to maximise your odds of generating them!

Unique Unit: Minas Geraes

The Minas Geraes is basically an atomic-era unit that got lost and ended up in the industrial era. This thing is almost as powerful as a Missile Cruiser at attacking, defends just as well, but comes at a time when most civs will still be using Caravels and Frigates.

On water-heavy maps, forget other victory paths - this thing will help you significantly on the road to domination victory. You'll want it as fast as you can, so make sure you have plenty of Theatre Squares surrounded by rainforests. Don't forget to build Monuments as well!

Assuming you have the Games and Recreation, Political Philosophy and Drama and Poetry civics, here's all the ones you need for Nationalism:

• Defensive Tactics - Boost: Be the target of a declaration of war (Out of your control)
  
• Recorded History - Boost: Have two Campus districts (You should do this anyway thanks to all the science you can get)
  
• Feudalism - Boost: Have six farms (Not too hard unless your cities are in very hilly regions)
  
• Civil Service - Boost: Get a city to size 10 (Usually better to get this after Feudalism to increase your odds of getting the bonus)
  
• Medieval Faires - Boost: Have four trade routes active simultaneously (Should be okay, but depends how many cities you can get)
  
• Guilds - Boost: Build two markets (If you have enough Commercial Hubs for Medieval Faires, this isn't too much of a stretch)
  
• Humanism - Boost: Earn a Great Artist (Tricky! If you've been using your Carnival project a lot you've got a good chance)
  
• Diplomatic Service - Boost: Have an alliance with another civ (Any civ you've befriended can usually be allied easily)
  
• The Enlightenment - Boost: Earn three Great People (If you don't manage this boost, you're not using Pedro's ability and the Carnival very well)
  
• Nationalism - Boost: Declare war using a casus belli (Just hard-research this one)

You'll probably want to make a detour to Exploration at some point. That'll offer you a decent government, pass through the Mercenaries civic (which offers the Professional Army policy card, reducing the cost of upgrading Frigates to Minas Geraes units) and the Press Gangs civic card, offering a 100% production boost to renaissance and industrial-era naval units. Normal Battleships don't get a production boost civic card until the atomic-era International Waters card, so you've got yet another advantage over other civs!

While you're busy with all that civic unlocking, you should try and get Square Rigging on the technology tree beforehand so you can build a few Frigates. Having units ready to upgrade as soon as you have Nationalism will make their incredible power arrive even sooner. Also try to work towards Steam Power so you can bring along some Ironclads to get the last hit on cities, as Minas Geraes can't capture them themselves.


Because Minas Geraes arrive at Nationalism, you can form them into a fleet immediately, making them even stronger than a Missile Cruiser. Yes, this is a unit that arrives in the early industrial era. In most cases, it's redundant to give a unit that strong any more strength, so you generally should hold off from forming a fleet until your enemies have Battleships and Submarines of their own.

A curious side-effect of obtaining your first Minas Geraes is that your cities will suddenly jump in defensive strength. That's because the strength of your cities is scaled to your strongest unit, and having one that's so ridiculously strong means you'll have very hard cities to take over for quite some time.

In combat, an 80-strength behemoth up against units like Frigates and Caravels absolutely splatters them - the Minas Geraes will typically destroy them in just 1 hit. Land units similarly can be crushed, and city defences fall fast (Battleships deal full damage to city walls). Again, remember they can't capture cities, and also remember their range of 3 is only useful if another unit can provide a line of sight for them.



A promoted Minas Geraes corps laughs in the face of pitiful city defences.

Once Submarines start appearing, no problem - just upgrade your Ironclads to Destroyers and they'll be revealed before they can be too much of a threat.

Consider putting off researching the Lasers technology and Cold War civic. That will allow you to carry on building Minas Geraes units at a fast pace. Although they're a bit weaker than a Missile Cruiser, they're significantly more cost-effective.

Ultimately, the Minas Geraes is an amazingly powerful naval unit which ensures none can stand up against Brazil on the seas for at least two eras. In terms of pure strength relative to others of its era, it's the strongest unique unit in the game.

Unique District: Street Carnival

The Street Carnival may at first appear to be a weak unique district. It doesn't directly produce Great Person Points and lacks adjacency bonuses, so it appears to have poor synergy with other uniques. It also replaces a district which doesn't tend to be built in large quantities. However, via its special project, it's arguably the best source of Great Person Points in the game.

Because of the district's dependence on its unique project, you don't need to build any until you have decent production in a city or really need amenities. Unlike most unique districts, rushing Street Carnivals doesn't work so well due to the need to commit production to them once they're done to achieve their full potential. Don't feel too bad about delaying them, but don't delay them too much - generating lots of Great People is still important!

Amenities

While working on a Carnival, the city will receive +1 amenity. Often, this will mean one amenity from a luxury resource will be moved from a city working on a Carnival to a different city for its duration. Having lots of amenities provides nice boosts to growth and all yield types, so working plenty of Carnival projects might be more useful than it looks at first glance.

At this point, it's worth bringing up amenity mechanics. First things first, cities need 1 amenity per 2 points of population they have, starting at size 4. So, a size 3 or smaller city won't need any amenities, but a size 4 or 5 city will require one, a size 6 or 7 city will require two, and so on.

• A city with a deficit of 7 or more amenities is in revolt. It stops growing, has a -60% penalty to all non-food yields and will cause Barbarians to spawn based on your current military technology every few turns. Obviously you want to avoid this.
  
• A city with a deficit of 5 or 6 amenities is in unrest. It stops growing, has a -30% penalty to all non-food yields and will cause Barbarians to spawn based on your current military technology every few turns, albeit in smaller numbers than if it's in revolt.
  
• A city with a deficit of 3 or 4 amenities is unhappy. It has a -30% growth rate and a -10% penalty to all non-food yields.
  
• A city with a deficit of 1 or 2 amenities is displeased. It has a -15% growth rate and a -5% penalty to all non-food yields.
  
• A city with no surplus or deficit of amenities is content has no yield bonuses or penalties.
  
• A city with a surplus of 1 or 2 amenities is happy. It has a 10% bonus to growth and a 5% bonus to all non-food yields.
  
• A city with a surplus of 3 amenities or more is ecstatic. It has a 20% bonus to growth and a 10% bonus to all non-food yields.

So, even though Carnivals might not directly offer gold, science, faith or culture, by providing an amenity they can indirectly offer all of these - and even production!

Great Person points

When a Carnival is complete, you'll get as many GWAM points as you would have had for completing the Theatre Square Festival project, in addition to half the Great Merchant Points you would have got from the Commercial Hub Investments project, and half the Great Engineer Points you would have got from Industrial Zone Logistics. The exact number scales through the game; the later a project is complete, the more points it grants.

Because the Great Person Points output of Carnivals completely eclipses that of Theatre Square Festivals, the only uses of Festivals are if you are either really desperate for culture or do not have a Street Carnival in the city yet. As extra amenities can boost your culture output, that slight advantage will rarely ever be worthwhile.

In the last few eras of the game, it's not a bad idea to keep spamming Carnival projects in cities that can manage it. Don't neglect the provision of housing capacity, relevant specialist slots (if you need to boost certain yields in particular), Great Work Slots or your UU, but otherwise you can just keep spamming them. If you've got plenty of amenities and don't need GWAMs, switch to regular district projects once Great Engineers or Merchants are depleted so you can get better outputs.


While two core cities build Spaceports, the rest of the empire works on Carnivals. The extra amenities on offer may readjust my empire's luxuries to boost the amenities and hence production of my spaceport cities.

Administration - Government and Religion

The administration section covers the governments, policy cards, pantheons, religious beliefs, wonders, city-states and Great People which have particularly good synergy with Brazilian uniques. Be aware that these are not necessarily the best choices, but rather options that you should consider more than usual if playing as Brazil relative to other Civs.

Classical Era Governments

Classical Republic is a good place to begin regardless of your intended victory path. While there's no military policy cards, a military-oriented Brazil will still benefit from the amenity bonus, and all will benefit from extra Great Person Points - which goes together with Pedro's leader ability nicely.

Medieval/Renaissance Era Governments

Merchant Republic is a reliable choice for all victories except religious thanks to its two extra trade routes. I'd love to recommend Monarchy, but three military policy cards is usually overkill at this point in the game.

If you're going for religious victory, take Theocracy.

Modern Era Governments

Democracy is perfect for Brazil. Half-price Great Person patronage costs help you make the most of Pedro's leader ability in the latter eras of the game, and bonus district project yields helps your Carnivals stretch even further. For a religious Brazil, this means getting more faith out of Holy Site Prayers.

Once the supply of Great People dries up, consider switching to Communism if you're after a scientific victory; the +10% production bonus will be very useful for the spaceship.

If you're after domination victory, Fascism will make the Minas Geraes UU attack pretty much as well as a Missile Cruiser, and +20% unit production lets you spam out these powerful things.

Policy Cards

Ancient Era

Inspiration (Wildcard, requires Mysticism) - +2 Great Scientist points per turn.

(Cultural) Literary Tradition (Wildcard, requires Drama and Poetry) - +2 Great Writer points per turn.

(Domination) Strategos (Wildcard, requires Military Tradition) - +2 Great General points per turn. Good if you're intending to go to war fairly early on.

Classical Era

Natural Philosophy (Economic, requires Recorded History) - Doubles Campus adjacency bonuses.

(Religious) Scripture (Economic, requires Theology) - Doubles Holy Site adjacency bonuses. Especially good combined with the Sacred Path pantheon.

Medieval Era

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

Navigation (Wildcard, requires Naval Tradition) - +2 Great Admiral points per turn. You may be neglecting Harbours due to their lack of bonus rainforest adjacency, so this is a good way of getting a Great Admiral ready for the Minas Geraes UU. As if it needed more strength.

Town Charters (Economic, requires Guilds) - Doubles Commercial Hub adjacency bonuses.

Traveling Merchants (Wildcard, requires Guilds) - +2 Great Merchant points per turn.

Renaissance Era

(Cultural) Frescoes (Wildcard, requires Humanism) - +2 Great Artist points per turn.

Invention (Wildcard, requires Humanism) - +2 Great Engineer points per turn.

Press Gangs (Military, requires Exploration) - While most civs need to wait until the atomic era to get a policy card to build Battleships faster (International Waters at Cold War), you can grab a boost to production much sooner thanks to your Minas Geraes UU coming in the industrial era. There is the downside that once you have the Cold War civic, this policy card obsoletes, but until then enjoy quickly building an extremely powerful navy.

Industrial Era

(Domination) Military Organization (Wildcard, requires Scorched Earth) - +4 Great General points per turn.

(Cultural) Symphonies (Wildcard, requires Opera and Ballet) - +4 Great Musician points per turn.

Modern Era

Economic Union (Economic, requires Suffrage) - Doubles Commercial Hub adjacency bonuses, as well as those of Harbours.

Five Year Plan (Economic, requires Class Struggle) - Doubles Campus adjacency bonuses, as well as those of Industrial Zones.

Laissez-Faire (Wildcard, requires Capitalism) - +4 Great Merchant points per turn.

(Scientific) Nobel Prize (Wildcard, requires Nuclear Program) - +4 Great Scientist points per turn.

Atomic Era

Sports Media (Economic, requires Professional Sports) - Doubles Theatre Square adjacency bonuses, and also adds +1 amenity to Stadiums.

Pantheons

City Patron Goddess - If you want to set up new rainforest cities with stronger districts sooner, this pantheon will help with that.

Divine Spark - An excellent choice to help make use of Pedro's leader ability sooner. Cultural and scientific players will generally get the most out of this. Religious players should favour getting Sacred Path first.

Earth Goddess - If you can't manage Sacred Path, this is a good alternative. Rainforests add appeal for Brazil rather than reducing it, easily giving you tiles of charming or better appeal.

Sacred Path - Ideal for religious players and still good for anyone else who wants lots of faith. This pantheon makes rainforest tiles add +2 faith to your adjacent Holy Sites rather than the +1 offered from Brazil's civ ability alone.


Barely started the game and already I can get enormous faith outputs.

Religious Beliefs

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

(Religious) Burial Grounds (Enhancer) - If you place a Holy Site in the middle of a rainforest, you want to be sure that other civs won't take the adjacent tiles and chop the rainforests down. This belief eliminates that problem.

(Religious) Feed the World (Follower) - Dedicating a lot of land to unimproved rainforest tiles can make it hard to obtain food. Here's a belief that really helps to make up for that.

(Religious) Gurdwara (Worship) - Also a source of food.

Papal Primacy (Founder) - Bonuses to your districts from city-states count as adjacency bonuses (except for Encampments and Industrial Zones, but they aren't affected by Brazil's civ ability anyway). Considering you'll want to be using plenty of adjacency bonus policy cards, this belief will be rather effective.

(Domination/Religious) Warrior Monks (Follower) - Use it in conjunction with the Sacred Path pantheon for a mighty fighting force in the two eras before the Minas Geraes UU arrives.

Administration - Wonders and City-States

Wonders

There's a lot of wonders here, mainly because of the synergy between Pedro's leader ability and Great Person Points bonuses. Think carefully about which bonuses are most relevant to your current game; you won't get all of these.

Oracle (Ancient Era, Mysticism civic) - Cheap patronage of Great People with faith helps Pedro's leader ability to go further, and extra Great Person points from districts doesn't hurt, either. Both the Divine Spark and Sacred Path pantheons go well with this.

Colossus (Classical Era, Shipbuilding technology) - You might be neglecting Harbours in order to focus on districts the Brazilian civ ability adds extra adjacency bonuses for, so an alternative way to get a Great Admiral point is rather handy. With a little luck, you can get a Great Admiral some time between the renaissance and modern eras so they can boost the strength of your UU. You also get an extra trade route from this wonder.

Great Library (Classical Era, Recorded History civic) - Provides an extra Great Scientist point, some science, two Great Writing slots and a whole bunch of Eurekas. Religious players don't get that much here, but otherwise it's a helpful wonder to get.

Great Lighthouse (Classical Era, Celestial Navigation technology) - Another source of Great Admiral points (or one, at least), and it boosts the movement points of all your naval units - including your UU. Greater speed allows you to get more out of the unit before other civs' navies can catch up.

Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (Classical Era, Defensive Tactics civic) - Bonus charges from Great Admirals has synergy later in the game with the Minas Geraes UU; Yi Sun-Sin for example can both create an Ironclad and still have a charge remaining, allowing them to provide your navy with strength bonuses. Furthermore, Great Engineers can receive an additional charge, which goes nicely with your bonuses to Great Engineer generation. Requires the Persia and Macedon Civilization and Scenario Pack.

(Cultural/Domination) Terracotta Army (Classical Era, Construction technology) - Offers a Great General point, promotes all your land units and lets your Archaeologists sneak into other civs' lands without permission.

(Domination) Alhambra (Medieval Era, Castles technology) - Great General points are nice, as are some amenities to help deal with war weariness, but the real draw is the military policy slot card. This allows you to make good use of governments like Democracy, which lack military cards but have inherent bonuses with good synergy with Brazilian uniques.

Chichen Itza (Medieval Era, Guilds civic) - Rainforest-heavy cities might make good district outputs, but the problem with rainforest tiles is that you can't add tile improvements to them. Chichen Itza adds +2 culture and +1 production to all rainforest tiles worked by a city making them more worthwhile to work. With the modern-era Flight technology, all those tiles will also begin to generate tourism when worked!

Great Zimbabwe (Renaissance Era, Banking technology) - Can make you very rich via its bonuses to trade route gold output, which is useful for Great Person patronage, and also offers +2 Great Merchant points.

Venetian Arsenal (Renaissance Era, Mass Production technology) - A very important wonder for a domination-oriented Brazil, but still good for everyone else. Combine with the Press Gangs civic card and you can churn out your UU like there's no tomorrow.

Big Ben (Industrial Era, Economics technology) - Save up some cash while building this, and it'll be doubled when the wonder is done. That'll go a long way with Great Person patronage. Additionally, you get an economic policy card slot - useful for all victory routes - some extra gold-per-turn, and three Great Merchant points.

(Cultural) Bolshoi Theatre (Industrial Era, Opera and Ballet civic) - 2 points each for Great Writers and Musicians, and one Great Work slot each.

(Cultural) Hermitage (Industrial Era, Natural History civic) - 3 Great Artist points and 4 Great Art slots.

Oxford University (Industrial Era, Scientific Theory technology) - 3 Great Scientist points, 2 Great Writing slots, a 20% science bonus for the city and two free technologies.

(Cultural) Broadway (Modern Era, Mass Media civic) - +3 Great Writer and Musician points, as well as a Great Writing slot and 2 Great Music slots.

(Cultural) Cristo Redentor (Modern Era, Mass Media civic) - As Brazil, rainforests add appeal rather than take it away. This can produce some pretty good tourism yields for Seaside Resorts. Cristo Redentor doubles that.

Eiffel Tower (Modern Era, Steel technology) - Synergises with the extra appeal rainforests create. Favours cultural victories due to the bonus tourism you'll get from National Parks and Seaside Resorts, but everyone gains from the advantages to Neighbourhood housing.

(Cultural) Sydney Opera House (Atomic Era, Cultural Heritage civic) - Gain 5 Great Musician points per turn, and get 3 Great Music slots. Also get a good chunk of culture.

City-States

Antananarivo (Cultural) - As a civ focussed upon generating lots of Great People, you can get more out of this city-state than perhaps anyone else. Earn ten Great People, and it's a global 20% bonus to culture, on top of the culture you get from having envoys present in the city! Requires the Vikings Scenario Pack.

Hong Kong (Industrial) - The bonus to city projects works on Carnivals.

Stockholm (Scientific) - Greatly helps your Great Person Points output, especially if you have a large number of cities.

Toronto (Industrial) - By extending the range of Factories and Power Plants, you can focus on districts that offer extra adjacency bonuses from rainforests rather than spamming Industrial Zones everywhere. Extending the range of Zoos and Stadia, meanwhile, saves a little production.

Administration - Great People

Great People

Any Great Person can be useful for Brazil, but I'll only note the ones with particular synergy here.

Medieval Era

Bi Sheng (Great Engineer) - Lets a city produce an extra district over the population limit, which means you can get even more strong Amazon rainforest yields.

Hildegard of Bingen (Great Scientist) - If you've taken the Sacred Path pantheon, you may have a Holy Site with a huge faith output. Hildegard can add that faith to science as well.

Renaissance Era

Santa Cruz (Great Admiral) - All Great Admirals between the renaissance and modern eras strengthen your UU (try to get at least one, even if they're not listed here), but Santa Cruz is particularly notable as he can form an armada early. Once you have a second renaissance-modern Great Admiral, retire him on a Minas Geraes and enjoy an industrial era unit with nearly 100 strength. Your enemies won't.

Yi Sun-Sin (Great Admiral) - Lets you get an Ironclad early. Minas Geraes units can't capture cities, but Ironclads can. Keep in mind that Ironclads can't heal (aside from pillaging and promotions) until you have access to coal.

Industrial Era

Ada Lovelace (Great Engineer) - Increases the district limit in a city by one, meaning you can get a little more out of Amazonian adjacency bonuses.

Joseph Paxton (Great Engineer) - Just because you have a lot of Street Carnivals doesn't mean you need to build a lot of Zoos and Stadia. Just build a Zoo and/or Stadium in the middle of your empire, and use Joesph Paxton to make it much more powerful. That saves you production in other cities.

Modern Era

Alfred Nobel (Great Scientist) - Gives you an even higher starting point after you obtain a Great Person for your next one.

Alvar Aalto (Great Engineer) - Remember that rainforests add appeal for Brazil rather than taking it away. Stack that with this bonus, and you can make powerful National Parks, Seaside Resorts or even just Neighbourhoods with a strong housing output.

Nikola Tesla (Great Engineer) - Thanks to Tesla, you don't need to build many industrial districts to have a productive empire. That means you can instead pay attention to districts which gain from Brazil's civ ability.

Atomic Era

Janaki Ammal (Great Scientist) - Been holding onto rainforests for adjacency bonuses? Great! Now you can get masses of science out of them.

Information Era

Charles Correa (Great Engineer) - Double the effect of Alvar Aalto.

Counter-Strategies

Brazil's advantages lie in their flexibility to any victory route and their near-unbeatable industrial-era navy, but they are very dependent on particular kinds of terrain.

Amazon

Brazil can't use this ability if they don't have access to rainforest tiles. Settling your own cities close to rainforest land helps, and if you think Brazil is likely to take over those cities, start chopping down those trees. Rainforest can't be regrown once cut down.

For a strategy which requires less direct action, remember that rainforest regions tend to be near the equator. This makes Brazil likely to border a lot of civs at once. Between all those civs, you can usually find one that hates Brazil and is willing to get involved in a joint war. If you intend to hand back cities to Brazil in a peace deal, chop down some of the rainforests while you occupy them. The one-off production boosts will help those cities contribute to your war effort.

Pedro II - Magnanimous

The fewer Great People Pedro gets in the first place, the weaker his ability is. It'll also be weak if he can't focus enough on a particular kind of Great Person to produce them at a decent rate. Pushing Pedro into producing a diversity of districts will help - an easy way to do this is to start a war, encouraging him to build more Encampments instead of things like Commercial Hubs. Denying him wonders that offer Great People is a peaceful option that helps here as well.

Brazil's best at producing GWAMs and Great Merchants (incidentally, the same kind as Kongo, and they both have rainforest start biases, so have fun watching them compete if they're both in the same game), good at producing Great Engineers and decent at producing other kinds. Take that into account when competing with them.

Pedro II - AI Agenda (Patron of the Arts)

Pedro II likes civs that haven't produced many Great People, uses patronage extensively and dislikes civs that beat them to a Great Person they're trying to obtain.

If you're focused with your Great Person output, and avoid generating unecessary ones, that won't be too much of a problem. Things get tougher if you're a cultural civ, as Brazil is particularly good at producing GWAMs and having lots of wonders gives you an advantage to general Great Person output.

Minas Geraes

One of the scariest UUs in the game to face in direct combat, this is an industrial-era unit which is almost as strong as one in the information era. There's no real direct unit counters until you can get to Submarines at the modern-era Electricity technology, so you'll need to plan for them in advance.

For a warmonger civ, be sure to invade Brazil before they can build this UU. Either go for their capital or cut them off from the coast. For other civs, get on Brazil's good side or avoid building cities directly on the coast. Preparation is key here.

Can't stop them from building their UU? Try forming corps and armies out of Bombards or Artillery so you can at least damage them from the land.

Street Carnival

A major weakness of the Street Carnival is that by stacking sources of amenities on a single tile, Brazil can suddenly take a large hit to amenities when the tile's pillaged. Another weakness is that the district requires its city to dedicate a lot of production to make the most out of its advantages. Cities that are spending a lot of production on the project aren't building infrastructure, or wonders... or defences. The weaker Brazil's production is, the bigger their disadvantage will be. A little bit of Industrial Zone sabotage using Spies can help here substantially.

Other Guides

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Compilation Guides

• Civ summaries
  
• Civ-specific tricks, secrets and clarifications

Individual Civ Guides

• America (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Arabia (Religious/Scientific)
  
• Australia (Scientific)
  
• Aztecs (Domination)
  
• Brazil (All)
  
• China (Cultural/Scientific)
  
• Egypt (Cultural/Religious)
  
• England (Cultural/Domination)
  
• France (Cultural)
  
• Germany (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Greece (Cultural/Domination)
  
• India (Religious)
  
• Indonesia (Cultural/Domination/Religious)
  
• Japan (Domination)
  
• Khmer (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Kongo (Cultural)
  
• Macedon (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Norway (Domination)
  
• Nubia (Domination)
  
• Persia (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Poland (Cultural/Domination/Religious)
  
• Rome (Domination)
  
• Russia (Religious)
  
• Scythia (Domination/Religious)
  
• Spain (Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Sumeria (Domination/Scientific)

[Somebody]

Thank you!

[Ramon]

My country of origin. I liked the guide.

[Zigzagzigal]

Yes, eventually - largely after I've finished making guides for the new Rise and Fall civs. Nubia has a Rise and Fall counterpart guide already.

[ahi_PL]

Thank you for very good work : ) Are you planning to covert vanilla quides to R&F?

[Yensil]

Looks like they can use battering rams. For some reason they're doing very little damage to the city center, I think it's due to a tech difference.

[Zigzagzigal]

I think they can based on what I've seen online, but I haven't personally tested it yet.

[Yensil]

Can warrior monks not use siege towers?

[Zigzagzigal]

Changes to Brazil from the 19 October Autumn Patch:

- New pantheons and religions have arrived, some of which are particularly useful to Brazil. Earth Goddess in particular makes a good backup if you can't manage Sacred Path.

[Zigzagzigal]

Almost forgot:

- Press Gangs now comes at the renaissance-era Exploration civic, instead of the industrial-era Colonialism. That makes boosting your Minas Geraes production speed even easier.

[Zigzagzigal]

Changes to Brazil from the 27 July Summer Patch:

- All districts (including the Street Carnival) are 10% cheaper, and the production bonus for having fewer of them than average is 40%, up from 25%.

- Minas Geraes units are unchanged, but they only have a +5 anti aircraft strength advantage over regular Battleships instead of +10.