If you have the Gathering Storm expansion, click here for the updated guide.

This guide is no longer updated, but will remain for the sake of those without the Gathering Storm expansion.

Note: This guide requires the Rise and Fall expansion.

Content from DLC packs (Poland, Vikings, Australia, Persia/Macedon, Nubia, Khmer/Indonesia) is marked as such.

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


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. This is not a rating of its power, but rather a general 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 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

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.

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.

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.

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). DLC and Expansion civs have a similarly-named file in their corresponding folders. 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.

Super-uniques - Unique units that do not replace any others, and are hence particularly unique. 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 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.

America has no start bias.

• All diplomatic policy card slots are converted into wildcard slots.

• All military and religious units gain +5 strength when on your capital's continent.
  
  • This is determined based on the tile where combat is taking place, so naval and air units can make use of it.
    
  • This does not apply to your cities' ranged attacks.
• All cities with at least one National Park gain +1 appeal for all their tiles.

An industrial-era heavy cavalry unit which doesn't replace anything

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

**If you have no access to uranium, you may continue to build Rough Riders even after researching Composites.


Notable features

• Does not require horse resources
  
• Has 67 strength (Cavalry have a strength of 62, but come at a slightly earlier technology and are light cavalry)
  
• +10 strength when fighting in hill tiles
  
• Has a maintenance cost of 2 (Cavalry have a maintenance cost of 5)
  
• Gains culture equal to 50% of the defeated unit's melee strength, rounded down, when fighting on the same continent as your capital
  
  • The same rules apply as for Theodore Roosevelt's strength bonus.

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

*If you have no access to aluminium, you may continue to build P-51 Mustangs even after researching Lasers.


Positive changes

• Does not require aluminium resources
  
• 85 strength, up from 80
  
• 85 ranged strength, up from 80
  
• +5 attack vs. fighter-class aircraft
  
• 6 flight range, up from 4
  
• +50% experience from combat

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

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


Positive changes

• +100% Tourism impact of this city on other civilizations which have reached at least the modern era.

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.


Culture is the best route for America, mainly due to the Film Studio's enormous 100% bonus to tourism output. Increased appeal with cities with a National Park also increases their tourism yield (as well as any Seaside Resorts you might have in the area). Rough Riders getting culture from kills helps you get through the civics tree faster. The main problem is that all of these bonuses arrive fairly late.

Domination is a reasonable path. Roosevelt's home-continent strength bonus makes him surprisingly good at early rushes. With more wildcard policy slots, you can hold more bonuses directly useful for warfare at once. There's also two UUs that can help you fight wars later on; Rough Riders are good against entrenched defenders in the industrial to modern eras, while P-51 Mustangs will secure you air superiority from the atomic era onwards.

Religion is a possible route thanks both to Roosevelt's +5 same-continent strength bonus working in theological combat and the extra wildcard policy slots allowing you to support more religious-based policy cards, but culture and domination clearly overshadow it as a victory method.

Finally, America's shot at a scientific victory relies on their ability to convert diplomatic cards into wildcards, letting you use a wide array of military and economic policy cards that help with eureka boosts and science generation.

Teddy Roosevelt brings two rather distinct bonuses (and a unique unit, but they get their own section) to the table: a continent-spanning strength bonus and extra appeal in cities with a National Park. As these abilities varies greatly, it makes sense to discuss them separately.



Use the continents lens to work out where this bonus would apply. Looks like Mongolia's on my home continent, making them an easy target!

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

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


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

You can build on this advantage further with the Oligarchy government, its legacy card and, if you're in a Dark Age before the industrial era, the Twilight Valour wildcard. Thanks to America's civ ability, you can use all of those at the same time, resulting in Swordsmen with a massive 54 strength when attacking! An early dark age will make it harder to hold onto cities you capture before they flip into free cities, but it will help make it easier for you to get a Golden Age in the modern age or later.

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

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


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

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

Getting to National Parks

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

Once you have Conservation, you can buy Naturalists with faith. The cost is rather expensive (starting at 1,600 faith and rising by 200 every time you purchase one, much like the cost increase of Settlers or Builders) so it's important to build plenty of Holy Sites so you can produce them at a reasonable rate. It's not a bad idea to start building lots of Holy Sites once you have Neighbourhoods built in your cities, as the increased housing cap will allow your cities to grow quickly so the district cap from population will be less of an issue. Having the Theocracy government will reduce the cost of Naturalists by 15%, but eventually you'll want to move on to the Democracy government for its strong set of policy cards.

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

• There is a vertical diamond shape consisting of four tiles where the west-east axis is shorter than the north-south axis
  
• The four tiles must be unimproved land tiles (including mountains and second-growth woods) or natural wonder tiles, or a mixture of the two. Regular lakes or coastal tiles without natural wonders are not permitted!
  
• All four tiles must be owned by the same city (you may need to go into the city screen, click to assign citizens and click "swap" on a few tiles to switch their ownership to the city you want to build a National Park in)
  
• All four tiles must have an appeal of 2 (Charming) or better, and the average appeal of all four tiles must be at least 4 (Breathtaking) or higher.

A simple example of a valid location.

When all these conditions are met, you can construct a National Park. The sum total of all appeal within the four tiles of the National Park will be added to tourism, and on top, the park will provide 2 amenities to its city and 1 to the four closest other cities in your empire. This means you don't need to worry too much about constructing Entertainment Complexes, and can instead push for more Holy Sites.

How appeal works

Understanding tile appeal is crucial to getting the most out of National Parks, as well as Neighbourhoods and Seaside Resorts. The appeal of a tile is primarily determined by the tiles adjacent to it (although there are some exceptions that provide boosts to every tile in a city's range or even your entire empire). Here's all the possible modifiers not tied to a specific civ (so Roosevelt's +1 appeal to all tiles in a National Park city is missing):

*These bonuses are applied to the tile directly rather than via adjacency bonuses.

Using appeal to maximise National Park yields

You may have noticed the Eiffel Tower in the top-right corner of the table, and its glorious empire-wide +2 appeal bonus. That adds 8 tourism to every National Park you have, even before taking into account modifiers like the Film Studio, international trade routes with other civs, the Computers technology and the Wish You Were Here Golden Age dedication bonus.


Carefully plan the placement of your cities, improvements and districts and you'll be rewarded with a strong tourism output. Builders can plant second-growth woods to boost the appeal of adjacent tiles by 1, and unlike mines, lumber mills don't create negative appeal - making them a great choice for your late-game production needs.

The easiest way of boosting tile appeal is to get Builders to plant woods. With the Eiffel Tower, just a simple vertical diamond of new-growth woods will be enough to support a National Park, not even taking into account extra appeal bonuses from tiles adjacent to the park. Still, your faith for purchasing Naturalists will be limited, so you'll probably want to search for areas with higher appeal than that.

Mountain-heavy areas are good if you want to construct National Parks without having to give up tiles that your citizens would be working. They provide positive appeal, so getting to the Breathtaking threshold isn't difficult.

Teddy's Appeal Bonus

A +1 Appeal bonus to cities with a National Park means each one essentially gets +4 tourism each, but the advantage isn't just limited to National Parks.

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


The +1 appeal bump from a National Park makes it that little bit easier to get the best housing bonuses, meaning you have a slightly reduced need to build more Neighbourhoods or Sewers in future.

Meanwhile, Seaside Resorts can be constructed by Builders and provide double their tile's appeal as tourism. Having a National Park in a city therefore provides a +2 tourism bonus to all its Seaside Resorts. Get hold of the Cristo Redentor wonder (available at the Mass Media civic) and Seaside Resorts offer double tourism - making the bonus appeal from National Parks provide as much tourism to each Seaside Resort as a Great Work of Writing or Music!

• Use Roosevelt's strength bonus to rush a nearby civ to give yourself an early advantage
  
• An early Dark Age lets you use Oligarchy Legacy and Twilight Valour simultaneously, and will help you get the Wish You Were Here Golden Age dedication later.
  
• Work towards the Conservation civic and build Holy Sites to get plenty of faith for National Parks
  
• Work towards the Steel technology - Rifling (for Rough Riders) is on the way, and getting it early gives you a good chance of grabbing the Eiffel Tower wonder for an empire-wide appeal (and hence tourism) bonus.
  
• Plant plenty of woods to maximise appeal near National Parks, and avoid building mines and quarries there.

I've picked policy cards as if I had the Autocracy government, while having the military advantages of Oligarchy!

America's civ ability lets you play a more isolationist game, forgoing some diplomatic advantages for economic power or military strength. Like the civ as a whole, this ability grows in power as the game goes on.


When you reach the classical-era Political Philosophy civic, you'll get your first choice of government: Autocracy, Classical Republic or Oligarchy. You should generally choose Oligarchy to complement Roosevelt's home continent strength bonus for some early warfare, but if there's no possible target on your home continent, Merchant Republic can work effectively as well. Autocracy has no diplomatic policy cards and hence shouldn't generally be picked.

If you choose Oligarchy, you can pick up its legacy card and still have one wildcard left over. If you fall into an early Dark Age, that means you can take both Oligarchic Legacy and Twilight Valour for extremely powerful Swordsmen units. Greece is also able to do this, but their early-arriving uniques tend to give them too much era score to secure an early Dark Age. If you have the Poland civilization and scenario pack, they can also do something similar, but they have no unique strength bonus to build upon it. As such, America is the most effective civ at this strategy.

If you don't end up in a classical-era Dark Age, that's fine - you can still use your second wildcard to support one more military policy card than is normally possible with Oligarchy, such as using Agoge and Conscription at the same time. That allows you to train an army quickly while keeping their maintenance costs low.

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

There are ways to work around America's tendency towards fewer city-state envoys, however. A good number of Theatre Squares (which you'll need eventually for your UB anyway) will help you get through the civics trees and pick up ones off the main path which offer envoys. Alternatively, a riskier approach is to conquer city-states on your home continent if you want to deny their bonuses to other civs. It will trigger a city-state emergency against you, but if you can defend the city well enough using Roosevelt's strength bonus, you'll be rewarded with a significant amount of gold.



Merchant Republic plus the Alhambra wonder (captured off another civ) lets me have this lovely peacetime combination.

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

Monarchy is the earliest of the governments to arrive, though is probably the weakest for America. The influence point bonus can make up for the fact you'll tend not to take policy cards that boost it, but the high number of military policy cards is a bit of overkill.

Merchant Republic offers the highest number of wildcards and is perhaps the second-easiest to research. It'll help you build districts faster which is rather handy considering America benefits from a broad range of them (you'll eventually want Theatre Squares and Holy Sites in as many cities as possible, in addition to other districts you already need for typical development like Campuses, Industrial Zones, Commercial Hubs and so on).

Theocracy, on the other hand, offers a useful 15% reduction to faith purchase costs. This will save you 240 faith on your first Naturalist, 270 on your second and so forth. It also directly offers a little faith to cities with Governors present, which is also featured on its legacy wildcard. Though the policy card selection isn't quite as strong as it is for Merchant Republic, it still isn't bad.

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

• The Alhambra arrives at the medieval-era Castles technology and offers a military card slot. It's an extremely competitive wonder and best left for other civs to build.
  
• The Forbidden City arrives at the renaissance-era Printing technology and offers a wildcard.
  
• The Potala Palace arrives at the renaissance-era Astronomy technology and offers a diplomatic policy card, which America converts to a wildcard. Not only does America get more out of this wonder than other civs, but it's also in a nice location in the technology tree, being on the way to Radio.
  
• The Big Ben wonder arrives at the industrial-era Economics technology and offers an economic policy card. You'll want Radio, Steel and Computers before Economics in a typical game, so it's not really worth bothering.

An example Democracy government with the Alhambra and Forbidden Palace wonders. Here, I've got faith bonuses to help with the National Parks, tourism bonuses and some other bonuses to complement P-51 Mustangs.

Once you have the Conservation civic (and maybe Cultural Heritage as well for its helpful tourism-boosting policy card), head to Suffrage and pick up the Democracy government. It offers an easy source of housing to complement your amenities from National Parks, but more importantly, it offers more wildcards than any other government for America, starting at 4. If you have both the Potala Palace and Forbidden City, that rises to 6, which is the most any civ can get. This allows you to easily switch between a war-heavy focus to complement your UUs, and a peacetime tourism-heavy approach.

If you're not interested in cultural victory, you could alternatively take Fascism for its war bonuses, at the cost of one wildcard slot. You'll still be able to use both the legacy cards of Oligarchy and Fascism with one wildcard left over.


The American civ ability supports a more isolationist playstyle, which is fine considering the way Roosevelt's strength bonus will encourage early warfare and hence poor diplomatic relations with other civs for a few eras. You'll end up with fewer city-state allies, but more immediately-useful bonuses that can help your early conquests and help you prepare for your powerful late-arriving strengths.

In a typical game for a cultural victory, pick Oligarchy for your tier one government, Merchant Republic or Theocracy for tier two, and Democracy for tier three.

Rough Riders are units with many different uses, but perhaps the most reliably useful application is to help keep you defended in the latter eras of the game while you focus on technologies that largely lack land combat units. On your home continent, they'll have 72 strength, putting them ahead of Infantry though 8 points of strength behind AT Crews and Tanks.

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

Rough Riders are very cheap to maintain and with the Chivalry policy card (available at Monarchy) they can be trained at a reasonable pace, providing you with a large, affordable army. With the Levee en Masse policy card available with the modern-era Mobilisation civic, they're completely free to maintain - freeing up gold for other purposes such as purchasing Archaeologists, Holy Site buildings or Film Studios in weaker cities.

Speaking of civics, Conservation and Cultural Heritage are on a separate path to modern-era governments. Both paths are important for America, but prioritising one would typically mean you're late for the other. Rough Riders can help acccount for this by granting culture when they kill units, much like Gorgo's leader ability. The catch is that it only applies on your home continent, but considering you get Roosevelt's +5 strength boost there, it's not as bad a restriction as it may at first appear.

Of course, to use this bonus, you need to actually have something to fight. You could use casus belli carefully to start a war with minimal warmonger penalties, and then simply play defensively, but be careful that the enemy civ doesn't end up pillaging your lands. Another possibility is to draw out a war over a long period of time if someone else declared it on you. Residual warmonger penalties from early warfare and concerns about your high tourism output can push civs into doing that. Alternatively, you can just use them as part of a standard invasion force (along with some siege units like Artillery) until you run out of places on your home continent to capture.


Don't want a war? Well, soon enough enemy Spies will start using the Recruit Partisan mission to spawn Barbarians in your civ. Kill them with your Rough Riders and you'll gain culture for your trouble.


Ultimately, Rough Riders are multipurpose units that will help you get through the industrial and modern eras without too much trouble. They're decent defenders, but the only thing they especially excel at is providing you with an army without being a financial burden.

In a world where the race for tourism is as competitive as the battlefield, one civ will rise up to best them all with the aid of the silver screen. This holiday season, prepare for the movie event critics are already calling "actually not that bad", "stop calling this number" and "why did you keep this joke in the Rise and Fall guide?": FILM STUDIO. In 3-D. This film is still not yet rated.

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

There is one tricky thing to consider first, however: get Radio first or Steel? Steel comes with the powerful Eiffel Tower, which will substantially boost your National Park tourism as well as providing the eureka boost for Flight. The Rough Rider unit is also on the way. Furthermore, the bonus of Film Studios requires other civs to be in the modern research era, so getting them too early is redundant.

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

Any city that is likely to produce more than a little tourism definitely should have a Film Studio built as soon as you can. For this reason, build plenty of Theatre Squares, Amphitheatres and Museums in advance (generally Archaeological Museums are to be preferred in most cities as America lacks advantages to Great Artist generation until Film Studios are built in large numbers). Cities with strong production should manage to build Film Studios reasonably quickly, but keep some gold ready for production-poor National Park cities. Send your trade routes to other civs if you need to earn more money - you'll also get a 25% tourism bonus against them for doing so.

As for what the Film Studio actually offers you, it's simple enough: a +100% tourism bonus. Thanks to Roosevelt's leader ability, you should emphasise National Parks and Seaside Resorts - but don't forget Archaeologists, GWAMs and perhaps the odd wonder.


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

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

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


While Roosevelt's leader ability gets America off to a good start via the same-continent strength bonus, the Film Studio is the thing that wins you the game. No other civs can come even close to America's potential tourism output.

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

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


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

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

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

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

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


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

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


P-51 Mustangs arrive at Advanced Flight, which is thankfully not far off the important technologies of Radio and Computers. Computers doubles your tourism output, so it's a good idea to go for it first. The Eureka for Advanced Flight requires three Biplanes - something worth building anyway so you can immediately upgrade them to P-51 Mustangs.


With Roosevelt's ability on top, P-51 Mustangs are as strong as the Jet Fighters of other civs for a lower cost, slightly less maintenance and no resource requirement - although they have a slightly inferior range. This makes them effective right to the end of the game!

The high flight range of P-51 Mustangs means you don't need to build many Aerodromes for planes to be able to cover your entire empire. Considering you'll want to build Holy Sites (for faith for National Parks) and Theatre Squares (for Film Studios) in most cities, being able to minimise your use of Aerodromes is rather useful.

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



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

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


Because they get so many useful bonuses, there's little need to upgrade P51-Mustangs - in fact, it can be detrimental in some cases to do so (you'll lose the fast XP gain, for a start). So long as you lack access to Aluminium, you can still build them even with the Lasers technology - you might want to deliberately remove any Aluminium mines you might own for a few turns if you want to build or buy more.

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

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.


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

Tier One

Go with Oligarchy for the strength bonus to complement Roosevelt's own one. This will help you secure your home continent, giving you a huge advantage with all the cities you'll have captured.

The Ancestral Hall works well as a government building, seeing as you'll need a lot of cities to maximise your faith output later (as well as for ensuring you have plenty of good National Park spots).

Tier Two

Theocracy lets you buy Naturalists for cheap, but Merchant Republic offers an extra wildcard slot making your government particularly flexible. Both are good.

The Intelligence Agency will be a generally useful government building to have to boost your Spies, helping you steal more Great Works and eurekas for example, but the Grand Master's Chapel might be useful for the faith boost if you intend to do a lot of pillaging.

Tier Three

Democracy is usually the best choice, with a reliably useful production and housing boost as well as the biggest array of wildcard slots. For a domination game, take Fascism.

The National History Museum is a great choice. America's tendency towards fully-developed Theatre Squares means you'll generate a lot of GWAMs, but you won't necessarily have enough Great Work slots to store all of theirs. For a domination game, build the War Department instead.


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

Ancient Era

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

Classical Era

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

Medieval Era

Chivalry (Military, requires Divine Right) - Although this is available in the medieval era, you won't necessarily need it until the industrial era. It lets you build Rough Rangers faster, which is important considering you can't upgrade any units into them.

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

Renaissance Era

Logistics (Military, requires Mercantilism) - Increases the flight range of P-51 Mustangs even further, and helps Rough Riders cover more ground. It also cuts down the travel time needed for Naturalists, helping you get more tourism sooner.

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

Industrial Era

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

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

Modern Era

Levee en Masse (Military, requires Mobilization) - Makes Rough Riders completely free to maintain, meaning the only limits are how fast you can build them and how much space you have in your land to hold them. In the case of P-51 Mustangs, it lowers their considerable maintenance cost (7 gold per turn ain't cheap) to a somewhat more reasonable 5. All this cash saving helps you to purchase Film Studios in cities that don't have the production to build them quickly.

Their Finest Hour (Military, requires Suffrage) - This lets you build P-51 Mustangs faster. Unfortunately it obsoletes once you have Globalisation, which is a useful civic to get for E-Commerce's huge boost to trade route yields.

Atomic Era

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

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


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

Twilight Valour (Dark Age, Classical to Renaissance eras) - America is one of only three civs that can combine this with both Oligarchy and Oligarchy's legacy card prior to the renaissance era for an enormous strength boost. America furthermore has the advantage of a home-continent strength bonus to add on top, making some particularly strong Swordsmen.

Wish You Were Here (Golden Age, Modern to Information eras) - An almighty Golden Age bonus that makes America's already considerably powerful National Parks even stronger.

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

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

Many faith bonuses are tempting, but remember that it won't be directly useful to America's unique advantages until the modern era. It's better to take something with a more immediate benefit instead unless you're determined to found a religion.

Earth Goddess - Although it won't really take off until you can start assigning National Parks, this pantheon will still be useful before then for accumulating faith in high-appeal regions ready for their arrival.

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

(Domination) God of Healing - P-51 Mustangs and other such aircraft can stack in an Aerodrome if not deployed, and until they're promoted enough, cannot heal when deployed. That means most of your aircraft will be healing in the same spot. America is unusual in that you'll tend to build Holy Sites very late, meaning you can deliberately place them next to where future Aerodromes will be so this pantheon can allow all those aircraft to heal rapidly. The downside is that earlier in the game, this pantheon will mostly be restricted in use to helping your units heal up faster after capturing religious enemy cities.


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

Burial Grounds (Enhancer) - Found a good spot for a National Park, but some mean rival civ has taken some of the tiles you need? Use this belief to right that wrong. Just be sure that new Holy Site doesn't take one of the tiles you would need for the National Park.

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

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

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

Synagogue (Worship) - Offering more immediate faith than any other religious building, Synagogues will be very useful for maximising your Naturalist output. The Dar-e Mehr building does eventually offer more faith if it's around for a few eras, but America's tendency to develop Holy Sites quite late will limit that potential.


America tends to be relatively poor at gaining envoys due to their civ ability discouraging use of diplomatic policy cards. This means you'll often struggle to remain suzerain of city-states. As such, you'll largely want to seek out envoy bonuses. Religious city-states are good to emphasise later in the game - the bonuses for having 3 or 6 envoys can be considerable if you have a lot of cities with developed Holy Sites.

Armagh (Religious) - By allowing you to build Monasteries, Armargh can help you generate faith (to help generate Naturalists with) without you having to have founded a religion. Even if you lose suzerain status, you'll still keep the improvements you already built. Requires the Vikings Scenario Pack.

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

La Venta (Religious) - Much like Armargh, lets you build a special improvement that offers faith, without you having to found a religion first.

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

Forbidden City (Renaissance era, Printing technology) - Build on your wildcard advantage with this wonder, which offers another wildcard slot. That will help make your governments particularly versatile.

Potala Palace (Renaissance era, Astronomy technology) - For America, this wonder is as strong as the Forbidden City, offering a wildcard slot.

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

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

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

Eiffel Tower (Modern era, Steel technology) - Probably the most important wonder for Roosevelt's America to go for, and neatly arrives just one technology after Rough Riders. +2 appeal for all tiles means at least +8 tourism per National Park and +4 per Seaside Resort, but it also allows you to build them in areas you may have previously not been able to. The limit on how many National Parks you can support becomes about faith, not whether or not you have enough breathtaking-level land.

(Cultural) Sydney Opera House (Atomic era, Cultural Heritage civic) - There's two reasons why America has an incentive to get this wonder. One: Film Studios produce two Great Musician points each, and combined with this wonder you'll have quite an advantage to producing them (well, the last few anyway). Two: Cultural Heritage is only one civic away from Conservation, which you need for National Parks, so it's not much of a detour.


Any Great General or Admiral can be useful for domination victory, and any GWAM can be useful for cultural victory, but I'll only note the Great People with particular synergy with American uniques here.

Industrial Era

Gustave Eiffel (Great Engineer) - Make him rush the production of his own wonder. That's really useful if you ended up researching Radio first before Steel.

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

Modern Era

Alvar Aalto (Great Engineer) - +1 appeal to all tiles in a city means at least 4 tourism from a National park and 2 tourism from Seaside Resorts. Be sure to use this Great Person carefully - you'll generally make the most in a city with extensive high-appeal coastlines which can still support a National Park.

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

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

Atomic Era

Melitta Bentz (Great Merchant) - Another boost to tourism from trade routes.

Information Era

Charles Correa (Great Engineer) - Like Alvar Aalto, but provides double the effect. Again, be careful which city you use him in to maximise your tourism output.

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

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

America has a very powerful late-game presence but has relatively little in the earlier stages of the game. They still defend well, however, so you might want to consider non-military methods of weakening them if possible.


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

Watch out if America enters an early Dark Age, as they can stack Oligarchy, its legacy card and Twilight Valour for a huge strength boost to melee infantry and anti-cavalry units.. You can counter that by using promoted melee infantry units combined with the Oligarchy government.

Denying America wonders that offer extra policy cards (especially the Potala Palace and Forbidden City) will ensure their government is only moderately more flexible than that of other civs, rather than substantially more.

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


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

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

As for the appeal bonus, remember that you can lower America's tile appeal by going on a pillaging spree. Light cavalry units are particularly well-suited to this goal. If America secures the Eiffel Tower, it's worth trying to take over the city to limit their tourism output.


While defending on a hilltop is a good move against most unique units, it's the worst possible move against Rough Riders, which have a +10 bonus against units on hill tiles and can easily get a promotion granting a +10 boost against fortified units. Instead, defend behind rivers or in forests on flat land, and don't bother fortifying.

Despite all the special little bonuses Rough Riders have, they're only strong for a short time until modern-era units become commonplace (well, except on hill tiles). AT Crews arrive at Chemistry and perform very effectively against Rough Riders for only a slightly higher production cost. Before that point, Cavalry or Pike and Shot corps are reasonable options as well.


If you share a continent with Teddy Roosevelt and avoid warfare, he'll get along with you fine. He hates civs that start wars on his own continent (including against city-states).

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

In addition to this agenda, Roosevelt has a very high chance of having the Environmentalist hidden agenda. This agenda makes him more likely to create National Parks and plant woods and less likely to cut down woods and rainforests. He will favour civs that preserve the natural landscape while disliking those that cut it all down. Take that last point into consideration if you're starting near Roosevelt and don't want to provoke a war early on. Because Roosevelt favours using faith to create Naturalists and hence National Parks, he will tend to be less competitive in the religious game if he even founds a religion at all.


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


Although in theory you can weaken Film Studios by delaying entering the modern research era, this isn't feasible for most civs. Pillaging Film Studios also helps, but not everyone can afford a war. So, for the civs that are left, the key is denying America access to their sources of tourism. Because America lacks bonuses to GWAM generation (aside from the incentive to build lots of Film Studios giving them a late edge to Great Musician Points, and a minor one to Great Artist Points), they'll often be using Archaeologists to bump up their tourism. Targeting antiquity sites near America can help set them back.

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These guides are for those with the Rise and Fall expansion, but not Gathering Storm.

Compilation Guides

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

Individual Civilization Guides

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

The Vanilla guides are for those without the Rise and Fall or Gathering Storm expansions. These guides are no longer updated. You can find these by scrolling to the top of this page, clicking "Zigzagzigal's Guides" and looking near the end of the list of guides. The "Other Guides" section of every Vanilla guide has links to every other Vanilla guide.