WARNING: This guide is no longer updated. Beware factual inaccuracies and proposed strategies which may not be optimum. For something more up-to-date, look at the Brave New World guide.

Zigzagzigal's Guide to the Huns (BNW)

Note: The Huns require the Gods and Kings expansion. This guide is based around Gods and Kings mechanics and some elements will be outdated in Brave New World expansion.

The Huns are an aggressive, early-game focused civilization. Led by the legendary Atilla, The Huns were one of the many contributory factors to the decline of the Roman Empire.


Before I go into depth with this guide, here's an explanation of some terminology I'll be using throughout for the sake of newer players.

Builder Nation/Empire - A generally peaceful nation seeking victories other than Domination.
Early Rush - Also known as a Dagger Rush, Zerging, etc. This is where you declare war on someone early, typically before they've built a proper defence.
FInisher - The bonus for completing a Social Policy tree (e.g. Free Great Person for Liberty.)
Opener - The bonus for unlocking a Social Policy tree (e.g. +1 culture for every city for Liberty's opener)
Puppet Empire - Where a Civilization has a large number of puppet cities, typically to not raise Social Policy costs (common amongst aggressive cultural players.) The Huns generally don't go for these.
Tall empire - A low number of cities with a high population each. Good for cultural victories and securing National Wonders. The Huns play fairly effectively against them.
Uniques - Collective name for Unique Abilities, Units, Buildings, Tile Improvements and Great People
UA - Unique Ability - the unique thing a Civilization has which doesn't need to be built.
UU - Unique Unit - A replacement for a normal unit that can only be built by one Civilization or provided by Militaristic City-States when allied.
Wide empire - A high number of cities with a low population each. Good for Diplomatic victories due to the cash gained.
XP - Experience Points - Get enough and you'll level up your unit, giving you the ability to heal your unit or get a promotion.

I'm a newbie at guides and I'm by no means the best Civ 5 player around (I can put together Civ-specific strategies well, but I'm poor at more generic strategy). Corrections or better strategies would be useful.

Start Bias

The Huns have no starting bias.

Uniques

The Huns have a complicated unique ability and two unique units, both in the Ancient era.

Unique Ability: Scourge of God

• Start with the Animal Husbandry technology in addition to the normal Agriculture.
  
• +1 Production per pasture
  
• Raze cities in half as many turns as other Civilizations.
  
• Cities founded besides the capital will come from city lists of other Civilizations in your game, regardless of whether or not you have discovered them

Unique Unit 1: Battering Ram (Replaces the Spearman)

• Requires the Bronze Working technology (Ancient era, 2nd column, 3rd column overall)
  
• Costs 75 Production on normal speed games, up from 56 (+34%)
  
• 10 strength, down from 11 (-9%)
  
• Sight of 1, down from 2. (-50%)
  
• No bonus against Mounted units
  
• 33% penalty while defending
  
• Does not recieve defensive bonuses
  
• Can only attack Cities (but can still deal damage in defence)
  
• Upgrades to the Trebuchet rather than the Pikeman
  
• Cover I Promotion (33% defence vs. ranged attacks)
  
• 300% bonus vs. Cities

Unique Unit 2: Horse Archer (Replaces the Chariot Archer)

• Requires The Wheel technology (Ancient era, 2nd column, 3rd column overall)
  
• 7 strength, up from 6 (+17%)
  
• Does not use up all movement points to enter rough terrain
  
• Does not require Horse resources (somehow)
  
• 15% bonus when attacking units on open terrain (Accuracy I)

Victory Routes
Note these scores are a matter of personal opinion based on experiences with the Civilization. You may discover a way of utilising the Civ more effectively in unconventional ways.

Cultural: 3/10
Diplomatic: 1/10
Domination: 10/10
Scientific: 6/10

The Huns should go for a Domination victory, but Science is a viable backup due to extra production from pastures and an extra starting technology giving a minor advantage.

This complicated set of abilities has a single-minded goal: Raise an army fast and burn the opposition.

Immediate Animal Husbandry

Unlocking Animal Husbandry immediately lets you build pastures as soon as you've got a worker, taking advantage of the +1 pasture production immediately. It also reveals horses. You're not going to need them right away as the Horse Archer doesn't need horses. (Strangely. If that's not a horse, what is it?) However, the pasture will still provide extra production so it's still worthwhile knowing where those horsies live.


Above: Note the horses in the bottom-right corner. I know these are here right from turn 0.

Aside from pastures, Animal Husbandry is crucially on the way to The Wheel and Horse Archers. You can get both unique units in just four technologies rather than the five you may otherwise expect, letting you bring out your army early.

+1 Pasture production

Focus your Worker(s)' attention on cows, sheep and horses as soon as your city is ready to work them. Even the smallest bonus to production makes a huge difference at the start of the game, where production times are often long. If your city produces 10 production a turn, it would get a Battering Ram out in 8 turns. With 11 production due to a Hunnic pasture, it's ready in 7. Saved time equals more units!

Do not neglect to build food improvements, however - it's no good having plenty of production tiles if your city cannot work them!

Double raze speed

The Huns aren't about occupying large chunks of land or puppet empires. They want to bring down nations! Razing cities is a good way to get rid of unwanted unhappiness (once it's completely razed.) The Huns raze twice as fast, meaning half as much time being held back by occupied-unhappiness.

Double raze speed still stays relevant in the later game. If you manage to snatch a city off an enemy, they only have half as long to take it back. This is particularly effective against tall empires where the loss of a city is very significant. Those few turns less could be the difference between them saving the city and not being able to reclaim it, with all those lovely buildings lost forever.


Above: Now you see it, now you don't. To be fair, after I battered it down, it fell from a size 3 to a size 1 city making razing easy.

"Borrow" city names

After settling down in Atilla's Court, every city the Huns found is taken from another Civ's city list. Lazy programming, neglecting a city list you say? Nonsense! It's a useful bonus for the reason that it only takes city names from Civilizations currently in your game.


Above: Second city is Arretium. Sure enough, I'm up against Rome.

Build Hull or Coventry? You're going to be up against England. Apolyton? Expect Companion Cavalry and Hoplites. You don't even need to discover them to know they'll be out there. In a duel map, this will let you know precisely the target you'll be up against, and hence allow you to prepare. Unfortunately, the city is taken randomly from city lists, so you may need to check lists of city names until you have the one that matches.

You're in luck if your second city turns out to reveal America or another late-game focused civ. Conversely, if you find a civ like India which defends well in the early game, that means you may need to bring more units.

First things first, the Huns have no Spearmen. A Battering Ram is not a Spearman. It is an implement of destruction, yes, but it is ineffective against horses. Instead, think of the Battering Ram as a melee catapult - good against cities but weak against anything else.

Did I say good? I meant awesome. Rather than the normal +200% bonus against cities other siege units have, Battering Rams get +300%. They do more damage to cities than Catapults for the same cost, but arrive earlier in the game. A couple of these will take down an enemy capital before they have a chance to build a unit to respond.

Remember, as a melee unit, Battering Rams take damage when attacking cities. The Cover I promotion (33% defence against Ranged attacks) helps, but generally Rams will die fast if you don't take the city quickly.

Horsemen are your worst nightmare. Without Spearmen, you have no counter to them, and they do even more damage than normal against Battering Rams due to their penalty on defence. Not to mention the high speed means they can seemingly come out of nowhere. Your other unique unit - the Horse Archer - should scout out for such evil.

Special promotions kept on upgrade

• Cover I (33% defence vs. Ranged attacks)

Seeing as most siege units before Artillery will only ever have a range of 2, they're vulnerable to cities and other ranged attacks. Having a Cover promotion already there will make life easier for your Cannons and Trebuchets, maybe letting in another hit before retreating for cover.

Horse Archers are the least complex of The Huns' uniques, but that's not to say they're weak. They carry four advantages over normal Chariot Archers that work together to make excellent escorts and scouts to your vulnerable Battering Rams.

No horse requirement

The Huns somehow invented a way of riding horses without needing horses. Maybe they're not actually riding horses but people think it out of fear? Maybe it's a pantomime horse? Maybe it's a dyed zebra? Whatever the explanation, you don't need to worry if you don't start near horses.

While you can build as many Horse Archers as you like, don't go overboard. You've got maintainance costs to worry about, as well as Battering Rams to build. Remember, too, that you'll need horses to upgrade these units later on in the game. But don't worry about those horses in the early game, that's future-you's problem.

+1 strength

There's no base ranged strength increase for Horse Archers, but this small bonus will keep it better defended against Spearmen, Archers and other threats.

No rough terrain penalty

You can move through 2 tiles a turn in hills or forest rather than 1. This means your Horse Archers can always outrun melee units (such as pesky Spearmen) as well as your own Battering Rams (thus making better scouts for them.) Just a small boost that'll help amplify the unit's uses.

Accuracy I

15% bonus against open terrain units is useful to take down threats to your Rams faster, but more crucially it'll bring you to the higher tier promotions sooner, with all sorts of lovely bonuses which will still be useful when you upgrade your unit.

One great advantage of starting with Accuracy I is you can make more out of the cap on XP from Barbarians. After level 3 you can't get more XP from Barbarians (that's two promotions after the unit's built.) With two promotions on top of Accuracy I, you can get March (heal every turn.) If you build your Horse Archers early, they can farm XP off Barbarians while your Battering Rams are being built.


Above: March promotion, and I'm not even at war yet.

Horse Archers with March can resist attack incredibly well. With higher strength than Chariot Archers and health restored every turn, you can get more hits in before having to retreat and more easily soak up damage that otherwise your Rams would take.

Special promotions kept on upgrade

• Accuracy I (15% ranged combat bonus against units in open terrain)

Unfortunately, this promotion becomes useless when you upgrade the unit.

If you're playing the long game, you'll probably need a good direction for where to go beyond the days of the Battering Ram. The Huns work well with the Honour and Autocracy trees (obviously) but can effectively take certain policies from Liberty, Patronage, Commerce and Rationalism.

Honour - Opener

While building up an army, you can spare a Horse Archer or two to deal with Barbarians, for culture and City-State influence. Those militaristic City-States are incredibly useful to befriend (particularly as they're your only way to get real Spearmen)

Honour - Warrior Code

A free Great General makes this an excellent early choice (seeing as you can't otherwise get a Great General so early in the game)


Above: 2890 BC and all is well.

Honour - Military Tradition

Lots of experience for units early in the game will mean you'll have some very powerful units indeed by the end of it. One of the most important uses of this policy is to get Horse Archers some promotions that'll still be useful when they're promoted.


Above: Double damage output? Yes please.

Honour - Discipline

You're going to use more than one Battering Ram, so an extra 15% combat bonus due to them being adjacent to each other can't hurt.

Honour - Military Caste

While happiness and culture are handy, this policy works best for puppet empire strategies, which the Huns are not for. It may be more worthwhile to go for a different policy unless you're heading to Professional Army.

Honour - Professional Army

Much more useful for you than Military Caste which is required for it. Reduced upgrade cost will help preserve your well-promoted units without breaking the bank.

Honour - Finisher

The problem with the closer is by the time you unlock it, your Rams and Horse Archers will probably be obselete and you'll likely have a better economy than you did then, thus making gold on kills less useful. If you're fairly tight on cash (or low on production and you need the cash for puchasing units) then the finisher is useful, otherwise it may not be worthwhile diving into the depths of Honour just for it.

Liberty - Opener

The small amount of culture isn't a lot of use when you're focusing on burning cities to smoldering ashes, but that's not the point. The point is this is on the way to the free Settler later on.

Liberty - Republic

The bonus for buildings may not be up to much, but +1 production is +1 production. Any boost to that is good, and will let you build more unique units.

Liberty - Collective Rule

A Settler without needing to focus Atilla's Court on building one saves precious production. Also, your second city will reveal one of the civs in the game (see the Unique Ability section for more information.) The new city may not contribute much to an early war, but that kind of intelligence may swing the war's outcome.

Patronage - Opener

This helps to keep relations with Militaristic City-States on good standing, for more free units.

Patronage - Aesthetics

Together with a pledge to protect, you can keep Militaristic City-States pernamently on friendly relations and get military units for free. (Unless you go to war with an ally or something.)

Commerce - Opener

Cash in the capital will support more units, but the main point of the opener is that it's on the way to more useful things.

Commerce - Trade Unions

You'll get a little more money out of this, but again, the point is a later policy.

Commerce - Mercantilism

This is the main reason for choosing Commerce as a military nation - cheaper unit purchasing. Seeing as you need three social policies in Commerce to get to this point, however, ignore this route unless you have a particularly good culture output.

Commerce - Protectionism

While you're in the Commerce tree, Protectionism pratically puts an end to all unhappiness problems with +2 happiness from each luxury. For militaristic empires which tend to neglect happiness, this is quite an advantage. Just be sure you're not neglecting Rationalism or Autocracy in the process too hard.

Rationalism - Opener

For those who want to use The Huns' production bonus from pastures to assist building the spaceship, (futuristic technology and yet still using horses to help build them,) the Rationalism opener will help further those aims. It's basically great for everyone, so there's little reason not to get it.

Autocracy - Opener

Right then! Keeping all those units promoted from yesteryear won't kill your bank account like it normally does. Plus, snatching and razing cities from tall-building cultural players (see the Unique Ability section) will give you lots of culture back, making up for a lack of your own culture buildings.

Autocracy - Militarism

Together with Mercantilism from Commerce and/or Big Ben, it costs much, much less than normal to buy your way to a late-game army, meaning any money left over from upgrading old units will go further.

Autocracy - Populism

Those former Battering Rams with Cover I will take less damage from cities, machine guns and suchlike. Together with a flat damage bonus from injured units, if you play it right, you can have only mildly damaged units dealing lots of damage (though, to be fair, you can do that also by healing units nearly to full health.)

Autocracy - Police State

Not a great policy for aggressive city-razing Civilizations like the Huns, but reducing enemy Spy effectiveness is handy if you manage to get a decent tech lead over someone.

Autocracy - Fascism

Never had enough horses to promote all those Horse Archers? Don't have the heart to disband them? Can't get any Civs or City-States interested in selling/giving you any horses? Now, you can more easily promote your Horse Archers all the way up to Cavalry and Landships. At long last, Great Generals can keep up with them.

Autocracy - Total War and Finisher

Pasture bonus + Stables + Total War = Very fast horse building, if you somehow manage to unlock this while you can still build cavalry. Otherwise, production bonuses are still useful and the extra XP will help greatly too.

At the same time, you get the finisher attack bonus, meaning you need to plan carefully to make the most out of it. After the early-game devastation you unleashed upon the world, this war will probably be the last.

The Huns are more concerned about puns about Random Access Memory than religion typically, but if you do found a religion, here's a few decent choices to make.

Pantheon - God of the Open Sky

You're already focusing on pastures, so why not +1 culture to that +1 production? Saves you having to build Monuments.

Pantheon - God of Craftsmen

Another production bonus. With the Liberty social policy tree and +1 production for pastures, you may very well have the best production in the game (at this stage, at least)

Founder - Papal Primacy

This helps maintain relations with Militaristic City-States.

Founder - Tithe

Cash means more units. Tithe is a good choice for money, but if you have or are up against a wide empire, Church Property may be more useful.

Follower - Guruship

Not particularly useful until the Medieval era, but production is production nonetheless. Handy for maitaining productive superiority a bit beyond normal.

Follower - Holy Warriors

A good place to dump excess Faith. If you get this particularly early, you could even support your Horse Archer/Battering Ram armies with faith-purchased units. The fact it ends in the Industrial era barely matters as you'll probably be close to winning by then.

Follower - Religious Community

A favourite of mine. True, it aids tall empires the most, but if you're going for the Spaceship as a backup strategy, you'll probably have a couple of cities that will eventually find this very useful.

Enhancer - Just War

If you like to mix faith into your conquests, this is for you. Just War's 20% bonus against same-religion enemies gives you a powerful edge.

Enhancer - Religious Community

If you're taking Papal Primacy, this ensures it's actually being used, with greater religious pressure in friendly City-States. Otherwise, it's somewhat less useful.

It's easy to waste precious turns early in the game, or make a poor tactical decision. Here's a few pointers about mistakes likely to be made in playing with The Huns.

You don't always need a Barracks!

Barracks provide promotions to new units. However, they cost the same production as a Battering Ram at the same technology. Think about what you need more: Taking down that city much faster or taking it down slightly faster? Alternatively, use the time saved to attack sooner before they have a chance to defend.

Don't build wonders before launching the attack!

You're leading a militaristic nation. If you want wonders, you plunder them off other players. Anyway, the benefits of early-game army-based wonders don't outweigh the cost (The Statue of Zeus costs the equivilant of over two Battering Rams. A mild bonus vs. cities or a huge one? Your choice.) That explains the lack of a Wonder section in this guide.

You don't need horses for Horse Archers!

Don't waste precious early turns moving your Settler near Horses, unless the spot is generally just better than your starting position.

Don't assume the first war is guarenteed victory!

A good defending nation like Ethiopia or Babylon could make an early rush harder than normal. If you lose lots of Horse Archers and Battering Rams, you may be undefended back home...

One nation down isn't the game won!

Unless you're playing a duel map, there's still a long way to go for victory. You probably won't win before your unique units are rendered obselete, so use the immediate advantage of a second capital city to help keep you from falling behind other nations.

Don't expect the element of surprise!

Pretty much every human player will know you intend to win the game early. Hence, they'll prepare. Expect to face a lot of Spearmen.

Atilla is a huge threat in the early-game, more so than pretty much anyone else. The key to playing against him, therefore, is to outlast his unique units.

Playing against the UA: Scourge of God

The Huns place a lot of emphasis on pastures. Early discovery of horses together with +1 production means that such areas are desirable for them to expand into. However, it's also a weakness. Taking good pasture spots leaves them with much diminished production compared to what they could achieve.

Aside from pasture emphasis, the Huns also raze cities fast. As it's hard to counteract this, your best method is to prevent those cities falling in the first place. Defend them well when the Battering Rams are coming.

Remember that as an early-game aggressor, the Huns' army is likely to be bleeding their coffers dry. Hence, in the Classical and even Medieval eras, they may lack the gold to upgrade their units. Good time for some payback...

Playing against Battering Rams

You'll hate these if you play against the Huns. They can wipe out your capital in just two hits. As such, fighting them is always your top priority.

The Cover I promotion Rams have cancels out vulnerability in defence, but 1 less strength than a Spearman and no defensive bonuses means Archers are still better against them than Spearmen. Archers work well in defence as you can easily position them out of harm's way.

Probably the best way of taking out Rams, however, is through Horsemen. With a good amount of movement, a melee attack and 12 strength, Horsemen can easily outrun them and smash them to pieces. With no Spearmen, the Huns cannot easily stop them.

In a prolonged war, tech towards Construction. Masonry on the way will give you Walls so your cities can take an extra hit by Rams, and Construction's Composite Bowmen give you a unit with a higher damage output than their Horse Archers.

Playing against Horse Archers

One word: Spearmen. Spearmen can do plenty of damage to Horse Archers, and without Spearmen of their own, yours will probably work very effectively.

If you're up against Horse Archers with Range or Logistics (which allows them to move after attacking) it may be hard to catch up with them. Horsemen do decently well at this task.

Strategy by Style

Spearmen, Horsemen and Composite Bowmen are all ideal defenders against the Huns, but are on different tech routes. Hence, the one to go for depends on your Civ.

Early-game Aggressors - Spearmen make good defenders. When you've defeated their Rams, taking the offensive is a good idea as their defence is likely to be weak.
Other Aggressors - Either Horsemen or Spearmen will do fine in defence for you. Attack the Huns at their weak point in the late Classical to Medieval eras, or when your own unique units arrive.
Builders - Composite Bowmen will be your salvation. Work with your fellow builders to prevent anyone falling to the Huns so they're little threat later in the game.

There are four other guides based on Gods and Kings mechanics available.

Carthage
The Incans
The Mayans
Spain