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This guide is no longer updated, but will remain for the sake of those without the Gathering Storm expansion.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

At home, some still resist against the Inquisition and the one true Catholic faith. Across Europe, heresy has been spreading. And in the New World, our Conquistadors and Missions have a difficult challenge in converting the vast number of heathens present. The world as it stands shall be the ultimate test of Spain's piety, but if we can persevere, the world shall be under one true faith and one true king.


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.

Spain has a tier 3 start bias towards coastal tiles. This makes it easier to make use of your early-arriving armadas and to explore the map for new continents. Note that duel-size maps only have a single continent, and as such, all of Spain's bonuses relating to foreign continents will be useless.

• Trade routes between cities on different continents create additional yields:
  
  • International trade routes provide +6 gold
    
  • Domestic trade routes provide +1 food and +1 production
• Can form fleets and armadas with the renaissance-era Mercantilism civic instead of needing the industrial-era Nationalism or modern-era Mobilisation civics respectively.
  
• Cities on continents other than your starting continent gain +2 loyalty if at least one Mission improvement is adjacent to them.

• All military and religious units gain +4 strength against units and cities of civilizations which have a different majority religion to you
  
  • You receive no bonus against civs with no majority religion, and no bonus if you lack a majority religion.
• Inquisitors receive an additional charge for their Remove Heresy ability (4 instead of 3)

A renaissance-era melee infantry unit which replaces the Musketman

*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.


Negative changes

• Costs 250 production, 1000 gold or 500 faith, up from 240, 960 and 480 respectively (+4%)
  
• More expensive to upgrade to from a Swordsman

Positive changes

• No resource requirement
  
• +10 strength if a Missionary, Inquisitor, Apostle or Guru occupies the same tile
  
• Converts captured cities to the majority religion in your empire if this unit either gets the last hit on the city or is adjacent to the city when it is captured.
  
  • This is considered a conversion of an enemy city, and will grant you +3 era score accordingly if it's converted to your founded religion.
• Less expensive to upgrade

Enhancements

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 Spain's weakest path but isn't an impossible method for victory. Bonuses from intercontinental internal trade can help grow cities more effectively, ready for building wonders, while the strong faith output of Missions can help in purchasing Naturalists for National Parks.

Domination is very effective for Spain, and should be their primary method in multiplayer games. Conquistadors together with Philip II's ability gives you a +14 strength advantage, which is one of the highest any combination of uniques offers. If your science is strong, Conquistadors will be even more powerful. If it isn't, the atomic-era boost to Mission science should help you to catch up in military technology late in the game.

Religion is Spain's other strong route, but comes with a notable catch - their faith output doesn't really take off until the renaissance era, and there's no bonuses to Great Prophet generation. Thankfully, the bonuses in the renaissance era really help to make up for lost time. International intercontinental trade can help spread your religion while also granting you a lot of money. Conquistadors convert the cities they capture - handing them back in a peace deal allows the conversion of empires without spending a single point of faith. Meanwhile, Missions produce huge amounts of faith when placed on continents outside the one containing your capital.

Finally, Spain is surprisingly effective at science, making it an effective backup victory route. Missions can create a decent chunk of science, but that becomes much stronger in the atomic era. Meanwhile, stronger internal trading across continents helps Spain to develop bigger, more productive cities for building spaceship parts with. The high faith output of Missions can be converted into science with the Jesuit Education belief.

+4 strength from Philip II's ability add another +10 from Defender of the Faith and I think I'm going to be pretty safe here for a long time to come. Note: Since this screenshot was taken, Defender of the Faith was lowered to a +5 boost.


Spain offers great religious, military and even scientific potential - but at the start of the game, that's only potential. Spain has very few tools to help their game early on, so they have one of the trickiest starts of any civ. Still, succeed early on and you'll reap the rewards later.

Early on, a key objective is to found a religion. Train a few Settlers and build up some Holy Sites to help you with that. Taking the Divine Spark pantheon will make every Holy Site offer +2 Great Prophet Points; as long as you have at least two Holy Sites, you'll usually secure a religion from that.

Investing in Holy Sites does mean you'll be neglecting investment in other basic infrastructure, but thankfully, there's a way to make up for that. If you fall into a classical-era Dark Age, you can take the powerful Monasticism wildcard, adding +75% science in all cities with a Holy Site, at the cost of 25% of your culture output. Taking the Choral Music follower belief will help make up for that culture penalty, but building plenty of Monuments is another possible workaround.

If you end up in a classical-era Golden Age instead, you can take Exodus of the Evangelists instead for some bonus Great Prophet Points, allowing you to build fewer Holy Sites (making more room for Campuses).

When you found a religion, it will automatically spread to every city you own with a Holy Site. If that's fewer than half your cities, build a Shrine in a city so you can buy a Missionary and spread the faith to the rest of your empire. You'll need at least half your cities following the same faith for Philip II's strength bonus, and the city-conversion feature of Conquistadors, to work.


Spain's unique advantages do function even if you lack a religion of your own, though you will have less control over the spread of your majority religion, benefit less from Conquistadors, be unable to win a religious victory and risk helping another civ along the way to religious victory (keep some Missionaries of a rival religion around just in case). On the other hand, you'll have little need to invest in Holy Sites and can hence focus on more general development early on.

The rest of this guide largely assumes you're aiming to found your own religion, and will do so, but not getting any of the Great Prophets isn't the end of the world.


Philip II offers a +4 combat bonus to all military units (land, sea and air alike) so long as your opponent follows a different religion than you. This might sound an easy bonus to make use of, but remember that "following a religion" is defined as a majority of a civ's cities following one. If it's the case that either you or your opponent have no majority religion, you won't get the strength bonus!

Not having a majority faith will make it harder to use the strength bonus, and will also really mess things up when you're conquering cities with Conquistadors. As such, you'll need to ensure your empire is clearly following the one true faith! Inquisitors are great at that role - use all but one charge on making sure your own cities follow your religion, then keep them for use with Conquistadors.

It is possible to have a target which is already following your religion. If this is the case, the Crusade belief is very powerful, offering a +10 strength bonus near cities of your religion in another civ. This more than makes up for the loss of the +4 strength bonus. Then again, Defender of the Faith (+5 strength near cities you own of your religion) is particularly effective in conjunction with Conquistadors to help you hold onto the cities you capture.

With all that out of the way, let's have a look at what a +4 strength bonus can do. A unit with a strength advantage of 4 will on average deal 35 damage while taking 26 (for reference, a unit with no strength advantage will on average deal and take 30). While not a massive difference in itself, this stacks with the strength bonus of Conquistadors or the strength advantage of forming early fleets/armadas. Conquistadors can get a +14 bonus over generic Musketmen; early armadas can have as much as a +21 strength advantage for a brief time. Be sure to take the Wars of Religion military policy card (available at Reformed Church) as well, for another +4 bonus.

The strength bonus can be pretty amazing offensively once stacked with other advantages, but it's also not bad as a defensive bonus, particularly in the stage after you've founded a religion but before Conquistadors arrive.

Ultimately, so long as you can ensure that a faith is dominant in your empire, the strength bonus is an easy one to use. It can be helpful for Conquistador conquests, or even towards a domination victory.




Inquisitors usually have two functions: using up charges to keep rival religions out of your own lands, and fighting rival religious units. Spain adds a third - providing a strength bonus to stacked Conquistadors - and strengthens the other two.

Remember, to obtain Inquisitors you need to found a religion, have a Holy Site with a Temple, purchase an Apostle with faith and use it to launch an inquisition. After that point, you can purchase Inquisitors with faith in any owned city that follows your religion and has a Temple.

First of all, the extra charge. Squeezing one extra charge out of Inquisitors helps make up for the fact you'll usually want to leave the units with one charge left so you can stack them with Conquistadors. The first three charges can be used to ensure that your empire consistently backs the one true faith, so your strength bonus and Conquistadors can still be effective.

Secondly, the strength bonus. As your religious units will only be fighting against units of rival religions, you can almost always use the +4 strength bonus. As strength differences in theological combat work much the same way as they do in regular combat, this bonus is just as useful. It's not just Inquisitors that gain from this - Missionaries, Apostles and Gurus do as well.

The four religious units in the game (Missionaries, Apostles, Inquisitors and Gurus) all can engage in theological combat with those of rival religions. This works like regular combat, but does not require a declaration of war.

• Apostles have 110 religious strength, making them the most powerful of the three and ideal for use offensively.
  
  • With the Debater promotion, Apostles gain an additional +20 religious strength, which will often be enough to destroy Missionaries in just one hit.
• Missionaries have 100 religious strength, but cannot initiate theological combat; they can only defend.
  
• Inquisitors only have 75 religious strength, but gain a +35 bonus within their civ's lands - regardless of which religion the nearest city follows. This makes them practically useless offensively, but great defensively thanks to them being as strong as Apostles for a lower cost.
  
• Gurus have only 90 religious strength and cannot initiate theological combat, but have three charges that may be used to fully heal itself and adjacent religious units. Be sure to keep them protected as they won't last long in theological combat alone.

There's a variety of modifiers to religious unit strength. Basic ones include:

• The less health a religious unit has, the bigger a strength penalty. This starts at -1 strength between 90 and 99 health, and down to -10 strength between 1 and 9 health. You can heal a religious unit the same way as a military unit if you bring them to a Holy Site.
  
• Religious units defending near a city of their own faith receive a +5 strength bonus
  
• Religious units can fortify, adding a defensive bonus of 3 if the unit has not moved nor performed an action this turn, or +6 for two turns.
  
• Religious units receive flanking bonuses, adding +2 strength per other owned religious unit adjacent to the target.
  
• Religious units receive support bonuses. This only applies when a unit is defending, and adds +2 strength per other owned religious unit adjacent to them.

You can boost religious strength further through these means:

• The Theocracy government (available at the renaissance-era Reformed Church civic) adds a +5 strength bonus to all religious units.
  
• The Religious Orders economic policy card (also available at Reformed Church) also adds a +5 strength bonus to all religious units.

Playing as Spain, you'll also get Philip II's +4 strength bonus to all religious units if you have a different majority religion to their opponent.

Religious units can also impose zone of control on other religious units, slowing their movement if they try to move directly past your religious units. City centres also impose zone of control on religious units, which can make it awkward to manoeuvre past them.

When a religious unit is defeated, all cities within 10 tiles will gain pressure of the victorious religion and lose pressure of the defeated one, at a level comparable to using an Apostle's spread religion charge. If the defeated unit is of a religion with the Monastic Isolation belief, it prevents their religion losing pressure (though the victorious unit will still add pressure for their faith).

Generally, Inquisitors should be used defensively, while Apostles and Gurus should be used offensively in theological combat. Missionaries should usually seek to avoid it in favour of spreading religion via their spread-religion charges.


Philip II's leader ability is simple enough - ensure your religion stays the majority faith in your own land (Inquisitors help), and you'll have a highly versatile strength bonus. The tricky part is getting to a point where a religion is the majority in your lands in the first place.

You essentially have three main ways of starting out:

• The Dark Age route - emphasise Holy Sites heavily early on with the Divine Spark pantheon if possible, and aim for a classical era Dark Age for the Monasticism wildcard and its huge science boost.
  
• The Golden Age route - don't build as many Holy Sites, allowing you to build more Campuses instead. Destroy Barbarian Encampments for era score, and aim for a classical-era Golden Age. Take Exodus of the Evangelists for the Great Prophet Points bonus. If you only get a Normal Age, try to get Holy Sites and Shrines quickly for Great Prophet Points, or else switch to the no-religion route.
  
• The no-religion route - Ignore Holy Sites until you need faith to purchase religious units to go with Conquistadors, and instead spend more time on basic infrastructure. You'll need someone else to spread their religion to a majority of your cities.

The food and production from "other bonuses" is the civ ability taking effect.


Spain isn't just about fighting wars against religious rivals - they have great strengths in the colonial game as well! Settling on other continents will grant you great trade route yields and some impressive faith yields from Missions. Sometimes that's possible early in the game if you start on a continental boundary, but often you'll have to wait until you reach Cartography, which allows you to cross ocean tiles. In that case, it'll help to prepare for the ability ahead of time.

The main way of preparing is to ensure you have plenty of Lighthouses or Markets for trade route capacity, which means as many cities as possible will need to use up district capacity on either Harbours or Commercial Hubs. Considering you may have already built a lot of Holy Sites to help found a religion, it may be tricky to fit in Campus districts. Thankfully, there's alternative means of getting science...

• If you entered a classical-era Dark Age for the Monasticism wildcard, try to follow it up with a medieval-era Heroic Age. You can use Free Inquiry to receive science from Commercial Hubs.
  
• If you entered a classical-era Golden Age for the Exodus of the Evangelists bonus, follow it up with a medieval-era Dark Age for Monasticism.
  
• If you pursued the no-religion strategy, you can simply build Campuses instead of Holy Sites in many cities. You'll still need some faith to purchase religious units to support Conquistadors later.

Despite being a renaissance-era technology, Cartography can be beelined directly from the classical era - though it'll be extremely expensive, particularly as researching a renaissance-era technology in the classical game era makes it cost 44% more than normal. Make sure you meet the eureka requirement (having two Harbours in your empire) to save time. If you're on a pangaea-style map, or start on a continental divide, you may find it more worthwhile to head towards Gunpowder first to unlock Conquistadors instead.



Look out for this message which tells you when a new continent is discovered. Pangaea maps have multiple continents on the same landmass (as long as the map is at least Tiny-sized, as Duel maps only have one continent) while Continents maps of at least Standard size usually have a second continent on your starting landmass, but often you'll have to cross oceans to reach landmasses you can settle without suffering harsh loyalty penalties.

With cities settled on other continents (or even cities captured on other continents), you can redirect your trade routes to start from those cities and end on your home continent to help the cities develop. A few internal intercontinental trade routes will help the city rapidly get through its first district (start with either a Campus to boost Mission yields, or a Harbour/Commercial Hub for trade route capacity), and rapidly grow to work its surrounding tiles.

There's a catch to intercontinental trade, however - your trade routes will typically be leaving your territory for long periods of time, usually over water where it can be vulnerable to Barbarian pillaging. Being suzerain over Lisbon makes your water-based trade routes immune to pillaging, and the Reform the Coinage Golden Age dedication prevents your trade routes being pillaged in general, but most of the time you'll probably need to spare a couple of naval units to stop incoming Barbarians.

Aside from Spain's unique advantages, setting up colonies on other continents also allows you to make use of the Colonial Offices (+15% growth and +3 loyalty for cities outside your home continent) and Colonial Taxes (+25% gold and +10% production for cities outside your home continent) policy cards at Exploration and Colonialism respectively, in addition to the Casa de Contratación wonder (renaissance era, requires Cartography, adds +15% faith, gold and production to cities with Governors outside your home continent). Together, all these bonuses can make Spain's colonial cities more important than their core cities, making it useful to settle cities even into and beyond the renaissance era. Be aware of your amenities, however - settling too extensively can be quite punishing to your empire. Thankfully, every continent has four luxuries unique to it, so if you don't settle too extensively on a single continent, it should be manageable.

Once cities have established themselves, internal trading becomes less important - especially if you have allies you can trade with. A +6 gold bonus per international intercontinental trade route can become very tempting, especially if you need to fund a few wars.


The Reform the Coinage Golden Age dedication creates a lot of gold anyway, but now it provides even more!

Ultimately, this bonus will help you develop your colonies into great sources of faith and science later (via Missions), and later on be a great source of gold.




Fleets are 10 points of strength stronger than single units. In a fight between a regular unit and a fleet, the fleet will on average deal 45 damage and take 20 (in an even fight, the damage dealt and taken averages at 30). Armadas have a strength advantage of 17, and will deal 59 damage while taking 15 on average against single units of the same type.

Getting armadas one and a half eras early sounds good, but in practice it's a tricky bonus to make use of. For a start, Mercantilism falls on a different branch of the civic tree to Exploration, which you'll need for Missions. Except in exceptionally water-heavy maps, Missions are usually more important to go for first. Secondly, fleets require you to build two copies of a unit and armadas three; production that's hard to spare while you might be trying to bolster your Conquistador forces.

So, what use is this bonus? Well, it allows you to put off Nationalism and Mobilisation in favour of grabbing both Exploration and Reformed Church, thus allowing you to have a strong set of religious bonuses while still having a competitive navy. Missing out on corps and armies for a while is manageable thanks to the high strength of Conquistadors.

If you have a city with a coast-adjacent Industrial Zone and decent overall production (intercontinental domestic trade routes help) consider going for the Venetian Arsenal wonder. It allows its city to churn out double as many naval units - perfect for forming into fleets and armadas. Very few civs will be able to stand up to that sort of naval might, letting your Conquistadors safely cross between continents.

In summary, this part of Spain's civ ability is a somewhat niche bonus which may not see much use in a typical game.

Fortunately for me in this game, Rome had a particularly high number of coastal cities, making them easy pickings for my armada. However, I had little time to capture more cities until loyalty penalties would flip my captured city into a free city. Thankfully, I could simply purchase a Builder in the city and get them to build a Mission for bonus loyalty - and precious time.

The tricky thing about the colonial game is how easily cities flip into becoming free cities if you settle or capture close to other civs. Moving a Governor to the city will buy you some time, certain bonuses like the Hic Sunt Draconis Golden Age dedication or Colonial Offices economic policy card add to that, converting the city to your religion helps, and building a Mission next to the city centre buys a little more time.

This bonus isn't huge, but the more time you have, the more manageable it is to conquer other nearby cities so they can start providing positive loyalty pressure on each other.

• Using the Free Inquiry Golden Age dedication allows you to get science from Commercial Hubs and Harbours, allowing you to work on expanding trade route capacity unhindered by the need for Campuses. Alternatively, the Monasticism Dark Age wildcard is also useful.
  
• Trade internally across continents at first so you can rapidly develop your colonies.
  
• Later on, especially if you have alliances, international trade is more lucrative and can be a great source of gold. The Reform the Coinage Golden Age dedication will really help.
  
• Any time a city on outside your home continent has loyalty trouble, build a Mission next to the city centre to buy some time.

The tricky start Spain has is compensated for with the immense firepower of the Conquistador. With a stacked religious unit and Philip II's leader ability, you can have a unit that's nearly as strong as Infantry two eras early!


Like all unique units, the sooner you unlock Conquistadors, the more powerful they'll be. That being said, on continents and fractal-style maps, you'll often need to unlock Cartography for crossing oceans (which also helps you scout out potential targets), so consider unlocking that first before heading to Gunpowder. Take a detour to Iron Working so you can train a few Swordsmen ready for upgrading to Conquistadors later. On the civics tree, Mercenaries is on the way to Exploration (required for Missions) and offers the Professional Army policy card for half-price unit upgrades, making it much easier to afford that.

Although Spain lacks unique faith bonuses until Missions, you should still be able to get enough faith for a small number of religious units. Use up all but one of the charges of any Missionaries, Inquisitors or Gurus you create so they can be stacked with Conquistadors later. Ensure your empire is clearly following your faith before you start capturing cities with Conquistadors, or you can end up converting cities to the wrong religion.

Also be sure to build some Battering Rams or Siege Towers to go with your Conquistadors so they can handle city defences. Once a civ has the Steel technology, you'll be unable to use those support units against their defences, so you will eventually need to use naval ranged units, Bombards or Artillery.



A strength advantage of 30 or higher is usually an instant kill. Against less advanced foes, situations like this will come up pretty often.

Conquistadors stacked with religious units and Philip II's civ ability have a +14 strength advantage, which is among the largest unique strength bonuses in the game. A 14-point strength advantage means Conquistadors will on average deal 53 damage while taking 17 from Musketeers. Add on the Wars of Religion policy card and it's a +18 advantage; they'll deal 62 damage while taking 15 on average when fighting generic Musketeers without the policy card. Use the Oligarchic Legacy wildcard for another +4, and they'll deal 73 damage while taking 12 on average.

The high strength of Conquistadors means they can handle pretty much anything prior to the modern era, so you don't need to worry about having lots of complexity in your army. Just bring some Conquistadors, religious units and siege support (Battering Rams or Siege Towers are typically the best to bring at first, but Bombards are reasonable as well).

Note that religious units cannot make a formation with military units, so you'll need to manually move them every time to get them on the same tile.

It's important to make sure as many Conquistadors as possible have attached religious units. If you don't have enough, you can try moving the religious units around various Conquistadors to rotate the +10 strength boost. Be careful moving around cities - religious units will be subject to their zone of control and as such will have their movement depleted if they try and move around them. That can leave them vulnerable if you then successfully kill with the military unit they're sharing tile with, as the military unit will move forward but the religious unit will not.




If you capture a city either directly with a Conquistador or with the unit adjacent to it when it is captured, you will convert the city to whichever religion is the majority in your empire. Make sure your own religion is predominant in your empire, and you'll get lots of nice benefits!

The most immediately useful benefit is that a city following your religion gets +3 loyalty. That means you'll have more time in control of the city before it flips back to a free city, allowing you more time to capture other nearby cities. Remember to relocate a Governor to a city and leave a garrisoned unit for even more loyalty.


Converting the city will also grant you +3 era score. Considering this will happen every time you capture a city of a different religion with a Conquistador, you can rapidly gain enough era score to ensure subsequent Golden Ages!

You can also make good use of your religious founder bonuses, such as Tithe and Church Property. Conquistadors are fairly expensive to maintain in large numbers, so being able to gain more money for every city you capture will be very useful. If you have the Defender of the Faith enhancer belief, you'll have a strong strength bonus near cities you capture making it hard for your opponents to recapture the city.

For cities which have a Shrine already, converting them to your faith allows them to immediately start purchasing Missionaries of your religion. That's helpful if you've gained a bit of faith since the start of the war and need more religious units to support your Conquistadors.

Finally, converting a city can aid religious victory without you having to dedicate any faith to the conversion if you hand back some of the cities at the end of the war. Handing back a city can erase the warmonger penalties you received from taking it in the first place, which can be a good way to ensure you don't attract a huge number of denouncements from the rest of the world. It also means you have fewer cities draining your amenities. This strategy is most effective when used against civs that share your starting continent, seeing as you'll want to keep cities overseas for the maximum amount of Mission faith.

With the industrial-era Nationalism civic, Conquistadors can be formed into corps for a +10 strength bonus, which keeps them relevant for quite a while longer. The modern-era Mobilisation civic allows forming them to armies for a +17 strength boost. Conquistador armies with a stacked religious unit and Philip II's leader ability have 86 strength; add the Wars of Religion policy card on top and they're up to the standard of Mechanised Infantry.

That sounds good, but remember that both Philip II's leader ability and Wars of Religion aren't just restricted to Conquistadors. Later Spanish infantry units with the same bonuses will be stronger than Conqusitadors, and it will be necessary to bring some stronger units if you intend to continue on the warpath.

Still, that's not to say you should get rid of your Conquistadors. They still have the unique ability to convert cities to your religion, and they don't need to get the last hit on a city to do that. Bringing Conquistador armies alongside your more advanced units is a good idea for that reason. Try to keep them safe from enemy fire, and ensure they're adjacent to a city when you're capturing it.

Finally, upgrading Conquistadors or forming armies with them will free up a few religious units. This can be quite helpful for cleaning up any heresy which might have popped up in your empire while you were conquering cities abroad.

• Take a detour to Iron Working to build some Swordsmen ready for upgrading
  
• Ensure your empire clearly follows your religion before you start taking cities
  
• Bring religious units with one charge left with your Conquistadors, as well as Battering Rams, Siege Towers or Bombards
  
• Capturing cities with Conquistadors is a great source of era score and will often secure you an industrial/modern-era Golden Age.
  
• Handing back non-capital cities on your own continent after the war can help with religious victory.
  
• When Conquistadors obsolete, form some into armies and keep them next to enemy cities so you can still convert them through conquest.

Missions arrive later than most other unique improvements and do not offer food nor production, but they compensate with an enormous faith yield and eventually a surprisingly good science output. To construct Missions, you need the renaissance-era Exploration civic, which helpfully also unlocks the Merchant Republic government.

Their base yield of 2 faith is not particularly strong by itself, but on any continent not containing your capital, that amount rises to 4. Because the yield is so substantially better outside your home continent, it's important to settle and conquer plenty of colonies. Spain's civ ability will be of great use when you're trying to grow these cities, and the bigger your colony cities are, the more Missions you can work.

Aside from a strong faith output, Missions also offer 2 science each when adjacent to a Campus. If you intend to work a lot of Missions, it can often be worthwhile to position Campuses somewhere out in the open rather than near mountains or rainforests; the bonus science from Missions will more than make up for the loss of adjacency bonuses. Missions have very few terrain restrictions compared to many other unique improvements, making it easy to generate lots of science.

The science boost is particularly welcome if you exploited age bonuses for science earlier in the game rather than building Campuses (e.g. Monasticism for a classical/medieval Dark Age, Free Inquiry for a Golden Age).The moment you're no longer able to exploit those science boosts, you have a special one of your own to keep your techologies up to date.

With all the faith Missions offer, you can spam out Missionaries and Apostles to help with a religious victory, or any religious unit to provide the +10 strength bonus to Conquistadors. Alternatively, the Grand Master's Chapel government allows you to purchase military units with faith for half the cost it would be via gold. You can also use faith to purchase cultural or scientific buildings with the Jesuit Education follower belief.


With the atomic-era Cultural Heritage civic, the science from Missions increases by two. Missions next to Campuses on a continent not containing your capital therefore produce 4 faith and 4 science, one of the highest yields of any improvement in the game! While this is a very late-arriving bonus, Cultural Heritage is a fairly easy civic to beeline and the science should still be greatly useful if you still plan to fight more wars at this stage of the game.


Although this guide primarily covers religious or domination victories, a unique improvement that can offer up to 4 science is very tempting for use towards science victories. But that's not all - other Spanish uniques can be surprisingly good for supporting scientific aims as well.

If you want to go down this route, first take the Divine Spark pantheon to help you found a religion and generate Great Scientists faster. Once you have a religion, take the Jesuit Education belief to allow you to buy science builkdings with faith, and stop building Holy Sites - build Campuses, Commercial Hubs/Harbours and Theatre Squares instead. Outside of an initial Apostle to start an inquisition, and an Inquisitor to keep rival faiths out your land, save up faith for religious units to go with Conquistadors. Use them to conquer overseas lands, where you can build Missions.Try to get the Cultural Heritage civic quickly for the strong science boost. Finally, position your trade routes late in the game to ensure your strongest cities are getting even more production from intercontinental trade - that'll help them build Spaceports.

The key distinction of this strategy is that you only need the bare minimum religious infrastructure to found a religion, and none beyond it. Missions on foreign continents grant +4 faith whether you have a Holy Site there or not, allowing you to get a great faith output while still emphasising districts such as Campuses instead.

• Capture or found lots of cities on continents not containing your capital
  
• Surround Campus districts not on your home continent with Missions
  
• Missions are generally useful for religious victory, but can help with science as well.

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.


Tier One

Oligarchy is a good choice for its legacy card, which adds +4 strength not only to Conquistadors, but also to Caravels. An early Caravel armada can be very powerful. Keep Oligarchy if you're likely to have aggressive neighbours; otherwise consider switching to Classical Republic; the bonus to Great Prophet points will help you in securing your own religion.

Take the Ancestral Hall building to help you expand your empire, particularly once you can start settling new continents.

Tier Two

You have a bit of choice here. Theocracy helps you get a lot out of your high faith output for religious and domination victories alike, and also has a good balance between military and economic policy cards. It also boosts the strength of your religious units, which stacks with Philip II's bonus. On the other hand, Merchant Republic conveniently arrives at the same civic as Missions and helps you build districts faster - handy for getting Campuses built on foreign continents so you can boost Mission yields.

The Grand Master's Chapel is a reliably good choice of Government Complex building. With it, you can purchase Conquistadors for 500 faith each, and get faith from pillaging anything.

Tier Three

If you want to continue down the warpath, Fascism will be effective for its strength bonus. Otherwise, Democracy is good for religious victory thanks to its higher number of economic policy card slots, and Communism isn't bad for the scientific game as the production bonus works nicely with internal intercontinental trade route production for cities that can rapily build Spaceports.

For domination or religious victories, use the War Department so military and religious units heal from kills. The Royal Society saves some time in the scientific game as you can use Builders to rush space race projects.


Ancient Era

Agoge (Military, requires Craftsmenship) - Training Warriors and Swordsmen, then later upgrading them to Conquistadors, gets you a great army much faster than training Conquistadors from scratch.

Limitanei (Military, requires Early Empire) - A helpful loyalty bonus once you start capturing cities on other continents.

God King (Economic, requires Code of Laws) - The sooner you can get a pantheon going, the better a shot you have at Divine Spark and hence a religion. It's a shame to miss out on Urban Planning's production bonus, but at least you get a little gold to compensate.

Revelation (Wildcard, requires Mysticism) - Getting as many Great Prophet points as quickly as possible is essential for successfully founding a religion as Spain.

Classical Era

Praetorium (Diplomatic, requires Recorded History) - Holding onto captured coastal cities can be tough due to the loyalty pressures, so here's a policy card that helps with that without you needing to use up a precious economic or military card slot.

Medieval Era

Feudal Contract (Military, requires Feudalism) - Although generally it's a better idea to upgrade Swordsmen to Conquistadors where possible to save time building them from scratch, you may need to build some more over time.

Professional Army (Military, requires Mercenaries) - Reducing the cost of unit upgrades will make turning a Swordsman army into a Conquistador one much more affordable.

Serfdom (Economic, requires Feudalism) - You'll want a lot of Missions if you want to catch up with other religious civs' faith bonuses. This policy gives you more charges out of your Builders which should mean more faith.

Renaissance Era

Colonial Offices (Economic, requires Exploration) - You'll want your Mission colonies to grow quickly, and this policy card is ideal for that, especially stacked with the intercontinental trade route bonus. It also boosts your loyalty in overseas cities - that's particularly helpful for conquests.

Triangular Trade (Economic, requires Mercantilism) - Internal trading across continents can produce plenty of food and production, but won't grant you much in the way of gold. This policy helps to rectify that, and also offers a little faith.

Religious Orders (Economic, requires Reformed Church) - Together with Philip II's ability, you can have a +9 bonus in theological combat; add the Theocracy government on top and you have +14. That's enough to keep your Missionaries safe from enemy Apostles.

Wars of Religion (Military, requires Reformed Church) - Stacked with Philip II's ability, you'll have a +8 advantage over enemy armies which aren't supported by the policy card.

Wisselbanken (Diplomatic, requires Diplomatic Service) - Intercontinental trade with allies is great for gold, but now it can be decent for food and production, too.

Industrial Era

Colonial Taxes (Economic, requires Colonialism) - Cash in on all of those Mission colonies on other continents with a 25% boost to gold output in all of them. They'll also get a 10% production bonus to help them develop even faster.

Modern Era

Arsenal of Democracy (Diplomatic, requires Suffrage) - Intercontinental trade becomes even more lucrative when you can trade with an ally and get good amounts of food and production as well as lots of gold.

Collectivisation (Economic, requires Class Struggle) - Internal intercontinental trade now produces masses of food. This allows you to dedicate more tiles and citizens to Missions instead of farms.

Market Economy (Economic, requires Capitalism) - A great boost to science, culture and gold which makes intercontinental international trading very lucrative.

Martial Law (Military, requires Totalitarianism) - Same effect as the earlier-arriving Propaganda and stacks with it, and adds a loyalty bonus on top.

Propaganda (Military, requires Mass Media) - Keeping your war weariness low is important as it prevents you receiving a penalty to faith output.

Information Era

Ecommerce (Economic, requires Globalization) - Intercontinental trading can be a spectacular source of gold and production. That's great if you need to fund a war (so long as your trade routes don't get pillaged!)

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

Exodus of the Evangelists (Dedication, Classical to Renaissance eras) - If you're in a classical-era Dark or Normal Age, this dedication will help you follow it up with a medieval-era Heroic or Golden Age. Founding a religion causes all your cities with a Holy Site to immediately convert to it, which can instantly grant quite a bit of era score.

Exodus of the Evangelists (Golden Age, Classical to Renaissance eras) - A good choice for a classical-era Golden Age, or a medieval-era Heroic Age. In the classical era, the Great Prophet Points can help you found a religion. In the medieval era, it can help you secure your religion against rivals without you needing to spend too much faith.

Free Inquiry (Golden Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - All your Commercial Hubs and Harbours will now generate science. You'll want to build those districts anyway for trade route capacity, and getting lots of science means you don't have to worry about missing out on Campuses.

Inquisition (Dark Age, Classical to Renaissance eras) - The science penalty is harsh, but you don't actually need this wildcard for long. Buy an Apostle, switch to this wildcard, launch an inquisition, and switch to a different wildcard like Monasticism. That way, you've unlocked Inquisitors without having to use all the charges of an Apostle.

Monasticism (Dark Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - A must-have wildcard if you fall into an early Dark Age, as it allows you to focus on Holy Sites while still getting the kind of science outputs you'd expect if you built Campuses instead. Be sure to build plenty of Monuments or else use the Choral Music follower belief to handle the culture penalty.

Monumentality (Golden Age, Classical to Renaissance eras) - A good bonus for a renaissance-era Golden Age in particular, this allows you to direct faith from Mission improvements into general development.

Pen, Brush and Voice (Golden Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - A great support dedication for a medieval-era Heroic Age as the culture it grants will help you to get to key civics like Exploration sooner.

Hic Sunt Dracones (Dedication, Renaissance to Industrial eras) - A tricky dedication to use well. If there's strong naval rivals and lots of continents to uncover, this can be a great source of era score. If you've already discovered most of the continents and there's a lack of good naval rivals, pick a different dedication.

Hic Sunt Dracones (Golden Age, Renaissance to Industrial eras) - Helps you to support settled/conquered colonies with the loyalty bonus and also goes nicely with your early armadas to have a speed as well as strength advantage.

Reform the Coinage (Dedication, Renaissance to Modern eras) - You'll want to make a lot of trade routes, so here's an easy source of era score.

Reform the Coinage (Golden Age, Renaissance to Modern eras) - Intercontinental trade routes are vulnerable to pillaging, but this bonus allows you to circumvent that problem. Furthermore, international intercontinental trade will generate an awful lot of money.

Divine Spark - A high-priority pantheon considering Spain has no bonuses to Great Prophet generation of their own. It'll also be helpful for generating Great Scientists, and the more science you can get early on, the sooner you can obtain Conquistadors and the more effective they'll be.

God of the Sea - Spain's start bias and intercontinental emphasis means you can get a lot out of a pantheon that boosts maritime yields.


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

Choral Music (Follower) - More culture will help you get to Cultural Heritage sooner, and its powerful science boost to Missions. It's especially useful if you're relying on the Monasticism Dark Age wildcard for science.

Church Property (Founder) or Tithe (Founder) - Keep the warpath going with a boost to gold output every time you take a city with Conquistadors.

Cross Cultural Dialogue (Founder) - A good way to combine your religious and scientific strengths.

(Domination) Crusade (Enhancer) - An excellent choice for war. Philip's unique strength bonus doesn't work against civs that follow your religion, but this belief certainly does. Keep in mind that the strength bonus is tied to the city and the surrounding area, not the civ. You won't be able to use Crusade or Philip's ability in cities that don't follow your religion belonging to civs that do, although you'll be able to use both in cities that follow your religion belonging to civs that don't.

Defender of the Faith (Enhancer) - This belief is powerful in Spain's hands. If you capture a city with a Conquistador, or if a Conquistador is adjacent to the city when you do so, you'll immediately convert the city to your religion. With this belief, it'll also grant your nearby units a +5 strength bonus making it hard for your enemy to take it back.

Holy Order (Enhancer) - Although it doesn't make Inquisitors cheaper, it's still good for spamming affordable Missionaries with, which can support your Conquistadors.

Jesuit Education (Follower) - You'll want lots of Campus districts both for their direct science output and the bonus they offer Missions. Filling the districts can be expensive, but this belief lets you put your high faith output to good use there. This intersection between faith and science can rival that of Arabia.

Religious Colonisation (Enhancer) - Settling colonies on new continents in order to get strong Missions? This belief will ensure those new cities follow your religion, saving you precious faith you can use on other things. Be careful, however - if they grow too fast and they're not getting religious pressure from elsewhere, they'll end up without a majority religion soon enough.


Antioch (Trade) - International intercontinental trade can now make massive amounts of money.

Bandar Brunei (Trade) - Intercontinental trade within the same continent often requires trade routes to pass through multiple foreign cities. Getting some extra gold out of the arrangement is rather nice.

Jerusalem (Religious) - Capturing cities with Conquistadors may put your religion there, but pressures from a variety of faiths may threaten to reverse that. Jerusalem greatly improves your cities' passive religious spread, allowing you to really reinforce your religious pressure once you take a few cities.

Kumasi (Cultural) - Considering Spain lacks advantages to culture despite being encouraged to go in three different directions on the civics tree (Exploration, Mercantilism and Reformed Church), getting culture bonuses out of trade routes is a reasonably good way to go.

Lisbon (Trade) - Intercontinental trade often requires crossing seas, which can leave your traders vulnerable to Barbarians and other pillagers. Being suzerain over Lisbon stops this being a problem. No longer will your treasure fleets be left to the mercy of privateers!

Nan Madol (Cultural) - For a civ with a bit of a maritime focus and a moderate need for culture, this is a good city-state to be suzerain over.

Stockholm (Scientific) - Helps to improve your chances of founding a religion, much like the Divine Spark pantheon.

Valletta (Militaristic) - If you're after a domination victory, this is a great city-state to have under your control. Your high faith output can rapidly secure your newly-captured cities by purchasing walls, and you can also develop cities quickly by buying buildings such as Granaries.

Yerevan (Religious) - You can constantly pick the Debater promotion for Apostles, and enjoy winning practically every round of theological combat considering Philip II's leader ability adds strength as well.

Great Pyramids (Ancient era, Masonry technology) - A wonder to capture rather than to build. Builders with extra charges will be really helpful when the Exploration civic arrives and suddenly there's a lot of Missions to construct.

Oracle (Ancient era, Mysticism civic) - In the event you don't manage to found a religion, this is a useful wonder to capture as it allows you to dedicate Mission faith to Great Person patronage effectively.

Stonehenge (Ancient era, Astrology technology) - Although a competitive wonder, Stonehenge is a great wonder for Spain to have if you can afford the risk. Guaranteeing a religion means you don't need to worry about building Holy Sites until the renaissance era.

Colossus (Classical era, Shipbuilding technology) - Extra trade route capacity means a fair bit of extra food and production, or gold.

Great Lighthouse (Classical era, Celestial Navigation technology) - Early Armadas can deal a lot of damage, but they won't do much good if they can't reach your opponents. The bonus movement speed from the Great Lighthouse will help there.

Jebel Barkal (Classical era, Iron Working technology) - A strong early source of faith to get your religion off the ground ready for Missions. Also offers +2 iron, which guarantees you can train Swordsmen ready for upgrading into Conquistadors later. Requires the Nubia Civilization Pack.

Mahabodhi Temple (Classical era, Theology civic) - Two Apostles for free means you needn't let low faith generation at this stage in the game stop you from having a developed religion.

Hagia Sophia (Medieval era, Education technology) - Extra Missionary and Apostle charges means you can get just as much out of them as other civs, and still have a charge left over allowing the units to provide the combat bonus to Conquistadors.

Casa de Contratación (Renaissance era, Cartography technology) - An ideal wonder for Spain, this allows you to get a faith, gold and production bonus on every city on a foreign continent with a Governor. In cities with a lot of Missions or intercontinental trade routes, this goes a long way.

Great Zimbabwe (Renaissance era, Banking technology) - Offers +1 trade route capacity, and makes trade routes from the city exceptionally powerful.

Taj Mahal (Renaissance era, Humanism civic) - Conquistadors grant you +3 era score every time they convert a city as part of capturing it. With the Taj Mahal wonder, that rises to +5. Enjoy your consecutive Golden Ages.

Venetian Arsenal (Renaissance era, Mass Production technology) - Early fleets and armadas are much easier to make use of when you have access to a wonder that makes you produce double as many ships.

Oxford University (Industrial era, Scientific Theory technology) - The science multiplier is the important thing here. If you can capture a reasonably large city on another continent, make sure lots of Campuses are within range (not just the one of the city itself), build this wonder and construct plenty of Missions, you can end up with a massive amount of science. It gets considerably better after the Cultural Heritage civic.


Remember that these are only the ones that have particular synergy with Spanish uniques, not necessarily the most effective options. Obviously, all Great Generals and Admirals can be useful for a domination victory, but it would be redundant to list them all.

Classical Era

Themistocles (Great Admiral) - Provides loyalty to a city. That's useful later on for holding onto a colony or a captured coastal city.

Zhang Qian (Great Merchant) - Increases your trade route capacity.

Medieval Era

Æthelflæd (Great General) - Provides loyalty to a city.

Marco Polo (Great Merchant) - Also offers an extra trade route.

Renaissance Era

Ferdinand Magellan (Great Admiral) - Provides +4 loyalty for a city.

Raja Todar Mal (Great Merchant) - Makes internal trading also offer gold. This is useful as it allows you to grow your colonies while also having a bit of cash to maintain Conquistador armies with.

Industrial Era

Napoleon Bonaparte (Great General) - A Conquistador army has enough strength to kill a regular Musketman in a single hit.

Simon Bolivar (Great General) - Provides +4 loyalty for a city.

Modern Era

John Rockefeller (Great Merchant) - Makes trading more lucrative by offering extra gold based on strategic resources in the destination city.

Togo Heihachiro (Great Admiral) - Provides +6 loyalty for a city.

Atomic Era

Melitta Bentz (Great Merchant) - An extra trade route.

Sudirman (Great General) - Provides +6 loyalty for a city.

Although Spain can be a religious powerhouse with a strong military, their uniques take a while to really come into play. There's a few ways in which you can take advantage of that.


Trade bonuses

Trade between different continents requires there to be Spanish cities on different continents in the first place. If other civs can settle enough land, setting up decent colonies on other continents will be very difficult, leaving Spain with lacklustre cities.

Often, intercontinental trade will require Spain to send trade routes across seas. These trade routes are the most vulnerable to pillaging. Try using Privateers or Submarines as they can pillage without being detected (except by naval melee units) - useful if Spain has a particularly strong navy.

Early fleets and armadas

Early fleets and armadas gives Spain a naval combat advantage for a time, assuming they have the production and/or gold to produce naval units quickly enough. Denying them the Venetian Arsenal wonder might be a good idea to prevent them getting a huge advantage. Once you have the Mobilisation civic, Spain's early armada-building ability is no longer helpful.

If you have to fight Spanish armadas, it may be a good idea to focus fire on one unit at a time. A lost armada represents a huge amount of lost production or gold for Spain. Try to use ranged units like Privateers or Frigates as melee units will typically take too much damage from combat.


Military combat bonus

If Spain's majority religion is present in a majority of your cities, or you control a large empire with a huge range of different religions keeping each other in check, there's nothing to worry about here. If it isn't, you can make use of the Wars of Religion military policy card, made available at the renaissance-era Reformed Church civic. The bonus there will cancel out Spain's unique bonus unless they are using the policy card themselves. If you're a bit behind the times in regards to civics, you can instead make use of Oligarchy's +4 strength bonus for melee infantry, anti-cavalry and naval melee units as a stopgap measure.

If Spain is using Wars of Religion themselves, make good use of defensive terrain to prevent the strength bonus being too powerful. Promoted units can overcome their strength advantage pretty easily as well, so the bonus usually won't be too much of a problem by itself.

All this trouble, however, can be completely avoided if you attack Spain before religions start spreading. Spain has practically no advantages in the very earliest parts of the game, making a great opportunity for an attack.

Religious bonuses

Philip's strength bonus also applies to religious units, and on top, all his Inquisitors gain an extra charge to remove heresy with. This makes him particularly effective at defending against enemy religions. To overcome this, consider using Apostles rather than Missionaries so you can get an edge in theological combat, or bring a Guru or two to help heal them up. This will cost you a lot more faith than it does for Spain, so trying to limit how many Missions they can build away from their home continent will be a good move. Thankfully, pillaging Missions is a great source of faith for you.


Philip II actively will try to stamp out heathen religions in his own lands more than most leaders, and hates those trying to spread heathen faiths into Spain. He likes those that share his religion.

You'll typically get on fine with Philip if you start close by and lack your own religion, as soon enough Spanish Missionaries and Apostles will arrive to convert your cities.

If you have a religion of your own, however, you can expect Philip to usually be hostile towards you. Be careful how you use your Missionaries and Apostles against Spain - it's more likely to provoke a war than it would be against most civs, and Spain has stronger military advantages than most religious civs. A war while you have religious units near Spain's cities could mean a lot of lost units and hence lost faith. To avoid this problem, try to use religious units against Spain at times where it's unlikely to start a war, such as when they're already fighting one against someone else, or if they've just ended a war against you.


Conquistadors stacked with religious units are scary to face, especially considering Philip's strength bonus on top, and the possibility you're behind in technology. If your situation ticks all these boxes, consider investing in some Knights and Crossbowmen. The strength difference might be strongly in Spain's favour, but remember that medieval units are cheaper to train. Use terrain and promotions carefully to prevent the strength difference being too harsh.

If there's only one or two religious units mixed in with Spain's army, it might be a good idea to see if you can quickly destroy the military unit stacked with the religious unit and press the Condemn Heretic button to get rid of it. Although a Conquistador stacked with a religious unit is harder to kill, eliminating the religious unit as quickly as possible will cause you fewer problems later.

If you have access to Apostles or Inquisitors of your own, you have another option. Use your religious units to fight Spain's in theological combat - if they kill the religious unit, then focus your military units on killing that now-vulnerable Conquistador. Move in a military unit onto that space to protect your religious unit from being condemned. This approach is particularly effective if you're defending against Spain and they're using Inquisitors or Gurus rather than Missionaries or Apostles.


Missions are the latest-arriving of the game's religious uniques, and as such Spain has a disadvantage to faith generation relative to other religious civs for quite some time. While this is good news for civs like Russia which aim for an early religious victory, it also can be an opportunity for other religious civs in general. If Spain's early-game faith generation is poor, it means they can't easily use patronage to acquire a Great Prophet. Coupled with their lack of bonuses to Great Prophet generation, Spain can have a hard time founding a religion.

To make the early-game tougher for Spain, one possibility is starting an early war. This doesn't necessarily mean putting together a huge force to take over Madrid (though it's a good time to do so if you think you can), but rather a couple of fast units to pillage their tiles, annoy their civilians and generally be a pest. If you can provoke Spain into building Encampments instead of Holy Sites, you will have successfully set back their religious game even further.

Let's assume Spain will definitely found a decent religion. What now? Well, like Spain's civ ability, Missions depend on Spain being able to settle foreign continents for the best yields. The more land taken on other continents by other civs, the less effective Missions and therefore Spain will be. Even if you can't shut down the entire continent, small coastal colonies which cannot obtain many tiles won't have much space for Missions and hence will have a limited faith output.

Because they'll generally be situated far from Spain's core, Missions are very vulnerable to pillaging. Each one you pillage is worth 25 faith, so you can bring some light cavalry with the Depredation promotion and have a lot of fun.

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