Note: This guide is not yet updated to the Rulers of England pack.

Following this guide requires the Gathering Storm expansion.

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

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

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

New realms beyond the briny foam await our enlightened hand, yet there are obstacles in our mission to civilise the heathen world. Our rivals in Europe, who fight unceasing wars among each other, and threaten our interal stability. Rabble-rousers in our own country, who would rather see myself deposed than see a secure future. And the unending heathens which forcefully resist our ways. It is time. Prepare the Royal Navy. We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat; they do not exist.


This guide is divided into multiple sections explaining how best to use and play against this specific civ.

• The Outline details the mechanics of how the civilization's unique features work and what their start bias is if they have one.
  
• The Victory Skew section describes to what extent the civ (and its individual leaders where applicable) is inclined towards particular victory routes. This is not a rating of its power, but an indicator of the most appropriate route to victory.
  
• Multiple sections for Uniques explain in detail how to use each special bonus of the civilization.
  
• Administration describes some of the most synergistic governments, government buildings, policy cards, age bonuses, pantheons, religious beliefs, wonders, city-states and Great People for the civ. Only the ones with the most synergy with the civ's uniques are mentioned - these are not necessarily the "best" choices when playing as the civ for a given victory route.
  
• Finally, the Counter-Strategies discusses how best to play against the civ, including a consideration of leader agendas if the civ is controlled by a computer.

Note that all costs (production, science, etc.) mentioned within the guide assume a game played on the normal speed settings. To modify these values for other game speeds:

• Online: Divide by 2
  
• Quick: Divide by 1.5
  
• Epic: Multiply by 1.5
  
• Marathon: Multiply by 3

Terminology used in this guide and not in-game is explained here.

AoE (Area of Effect) - Bonuses or penalties that affect multiple tiles in a set radius. Positive examples include Factories (which offer production to cities within a 6 tile radius unless they're within range of another building of the same type) and a negative example is nuclear weapons, which cause devastation over a wide radius.

Beelining - Obtaining a technology or civic quickly by only researching it and its prerequisites. Some deviation is allowed in the event that taking a technology or civic off the main track provides some kind of advantage that makes up for that (either a source of extra science/culture or access to something necessary for a eureka or inspiration boost)

CA (Civ Ability) - The unique ability of a civilization, shared by all its leaders.

Compact empires - Civs with cities close together (typically 3-4 tile gaps between city centres). This is useful if you want to make use of districts that gain adjacency bonuses from other districts, or to maximise the potential of area-of-effect bonuses later in the game.

Dispersed empires - Civs with cities that are spread out (typically 5-6 tile gaps between city centres). Civs with unique tile improvements generally favour a more dispersed empire in order to make use of them, as do civs focused on wonder construction.

GPP - Short for Great Person Points. Districts, buildings and wonders generate these points and with enough you can claim a Great Person of the corresponding type.

GWAM - Collective name for Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. All of them can produce Great Works that offer tourism and culture, making them important to anyone seeking a cultural victory.

LA (Leader Ability) - The unique ability of a specific leader. Usually but not always, they tend to be more specific in scope than civ abilities. Some leader abilities come with an associated unique unit or infrastucture.

Prebuilding - Training a unit with the intention of upgrading it to a desired unit later. An example is building Slingers and upgrading them once Archery is unlocked.

Sniping - Targeting a specific city for capture directly, ignoring other enemy cities along the way. Typically used in the context of "capital sniping" - taking a civ's original capital as quickly as possible to contribute towards domination victory without leading to a drawn-out war.

Start bias - The kind of terrain, terrain feature or resource a civilization is more likely to start near. This is typically used for civilizations that have early bonuses dependent on a particular terrain type. There are five tiers of start bias; civs with a tier 1 start bias are placed before civs of tier 2 and so on, increasing their odds of receiving a favourable starting location.

Super-uniques - Unique units that do not replace any others. Examples include India's Varu and Mongolia's Keshigs.

Tall empires - Empires that emphasise city development over expansion, usually resulting in fewer, but bigger, cities.

Uniques - Collective name for civ abilities, leader abilities, unique units, unique buildings, unique districts and unique improvements.

UA (Unique Ability) - A collective name for leader abilities and civ abilities.

UB (Unique Building) - A special building which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal building and offers a special advantage on top.

UD (Unique District) - A special district which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal district, costs half as much to build and offers some unique advantages on top.

UI (Unique Improvement) - A special improvement that can only be built by the Builders of a single civilization. "UI" always refers to unique improvements in my guides and not to "user interface" or "unique infrastructure".

UU (Unique Unit) - A special unit that may only be trained by a single civilization, and in some cases only when that civilization is led by a specific leader.

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

England has a tier 3 start bias towards coastal tiles, and a tier 5 start bias towards iron and coal. Starting near the coast is useful for Royal Navy Dockyards and Sea Dogs alike, while an increased chance of starting near iron and coal works well with the civ ability.

• Iron and coal mines produce +2 copies of their respective resources per turn.
  
• Lighthouses, Shipyards and Seaports increase the strategic resource stockpile limit by 10 each.
  
• +20% production when constructing any Industrial Zone building.
  
• +100% production when training Military Engineers.
  
• Military Engineers start with +2 charges.
  
• The following buildings receive additional yields when powered:
  
  • Airport: +4 production
    
  • Broadcast Centre: +4 culture
    
  • Factory: +4 production to all cities within six tiles unless they are already in range of this building
    
  • Food Market: +4 food
    
  • Research Lab: +4 science
    
  • Shopping Mall: +4 gold
    
  • Stock Exchange: +4 gold
    
  • The bonus yields from Broadcast Centres, Research Labs and Stock Exchanges can be boosted with the appropriate policy cards.

• Great Works, relics and artefacts under your control produce -1 loyalty in cities owned by other civs within 9 tiles.
  
  • This is counted from the city centre, not the tile the Great Work is situated in.
• If a city owned by another civ becomes a free city and Eleanor is placing loyalty pressure upon it, it immediately falls under Eleanor's control.
  
  • While this is supposed to apply only when Eleanor is applying the most loyalty pressure upon the city, it functions if any is being exerted upon it in what is most likely a bug.

• The first city founded on a continent other than the one containing your capital grants you a free melee infantry unit and +1 trade route capacity.
  
  • The free unit will be the strongest you can currently train based on your technology; strategic resource requirements are ignored.
    
  • The free unit will start will full health and can move and fight immediately.
    
  • Cities may be not be captured or received in a deal.
• Constructing a Royal Navy Dockyard grants you a free naval unit on the district's tile.
  
  • The free unit will be the strongest you can currently build based on your technology (ranged strength is considered so Battleships have priority over Ironclads); strategic resource requirements are ignored.
    
  • There are three special cases where units have the same strength: Sea Dogs take priority over Frigates which take priority over Caravels, and Missile Cruisers take priority over Nuclear Submarines.

An industrial-era melee infantry unit which replaces the Line Infantry

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

**If you have insufficient oil, you may continue to train Redcoats even after researching Replaceable Parts.

• Costs 10 nitre, down from 20 (-50%).
  
• 70 strength, up from 65
  
• +10 strength on a continent not containing your capital
  
• Disembarking uses just one movement point
  
  • After disembarking, the Redcoat cannot have more movement points remaining than its limit on land, minus one.

A renaissance-era naval raider unit which replaces the Privateer


*If you have insufficient oil, you may continue to train Sea Dogs even after researching Electricity.

• 55 ranged strength, up from 50
  
• Can capture non-Barbarian naval units when destroying them.
  
  • The chance of this occurring scales based on the difference between the Sea Dog's base ranged strength and the base melee strength of the unit it defeats.
    
    • If the two values are the same, the capture rate is 50%.
      
    • For every point of strength advantage the enemy unit has, the capture rate is reduced by 2.5 percentage points. The reverse is true if the enemy unit has a lower base melee strength.
      
    • Units with a 20-point base strength advantage or higher (e.g. Sea Dog unit vs. enemy Missile Cruiser unit) cannot be captured.
  • Captured units will start at 25 health.
    
  • Captured Privateers will not be converted into Sea Dogs.
    
  • Captured unique naval units (e.g. Viking Longship, Minas Geraes) will not revert to their generic counterparts.

A classical-era speciality district which replaces the Harbour

*All districts increase in cost based on your technological and civic progress. If you have more or the same number of speciality districts as speciality district types you have unlocked and the former number divided by the latter is bigger than the number of copies of this district you have, you will receive a 40% discount.

**Purchasing districts with gold requires the governor Reyna (the Financier) with the Contractor promotion to be present in the city. Purchasing districts with faith requires Governor Moksha (the Cardinal) with the Divine Architect promotion to be present in the city.

• -50% production cost
  
• +2 gold adjacency bonus and +4 loyalty per turn when constructed on a continent not containing your capital
  
  • Duel-size maps only have one continent so this bonus cannot be used there.
• 2 Great Admiral Points per turn, up from 1
  
• All naval units built or purchased in this city have +1 movement point
  
  • This is retained when the units are upgraded.

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.


Cultural victory is about as an effective a victory route as either leader, but Eleanor is more explicitly skewed towards it. Being able to develop Industrial Zones at a lower cost and get more production out of powered Factories can aid with later wonders, many of which aid the cultural game. A cheap Harbour makes it easier to maximise trade route capacity, which can be used through internal trade to aid with wonder-building or externally for tourism multipliers. Eleanor specifically has a large incentive to build up Theatre Squares and gather lots of Great Works.

England's moderate potential in the diplomatic game rests largely on their strong gold generation from Royal Navy Dockyards which is handy in aid emergencies. Furthermore, cheap Military Engineers can help you develop railroads and Canals faster which can help boost the gold you receive from international trade. The loyalty bonus offered by Royal Navy Dockyards makes it easier to get a foothold in new continents, which aids in participating in military emergencies no matter in the world they may begin. All that being said, be warned that warfare and pollution drain diplomatic favours, and England has incentives to cause both.

Domination is largely England's best route, though Eleanor and Victoria have different ways of going about it. Victoria uses free naval units and the Redcoat UU to invade new continents, while Eleanor prefers to impose loyalty pressure on nearby cities to flip them peacefully to her control. Even though Victoria may be more suited to a domination game, Eleanor's means of expansion lacks the typical diplomatic penalties associated with conquest meaning it can more easily support other victory routes. Either way, a production advantage from powered Factories and stronger Shipyards, together with the gold from Royal Navy Dockyards and the extra buffer of a bigger strategic resource stockpile helps.

Religion is England's weakest victory route. While Eleanor's leader ability extends to relics (giving an incentive towards founding a religion) and Victoria offers extra trade routes (which can aid with religious pressure), these are minor bonuses overall.

Finally, science is a great alternative victory path for England. Royal Navy Dockyards add their powerful gold adjacency bonus to science via the classical or medieval-era Free Inquiry Golden Age dedication. Extra coal and faster Industrial Zone development makes it easy to build up a power infrastructure as soon as Coal Power Plants are available, giving you plenty of power for buildings later on. Stronger powered buildings means more science from Research Labs and more production from Factories, the latter of which will help speed up space race projects somewhat.

Welcome to England! England combines the colonial and industrial games leading to a large, productive empire. There's a lot of tools to help you along the way, but let's start with the Royal Navy Dockyard, which is typically the earliest of England's uniques to have a noticable impact.


Royal Navy Dockyards arrive at the Celestial Navigation technology. If you start on the coast near at least two sea resources, it's possible to beeline the technology but it isn't necessary to do so. Otherwise, it's often worth going to Writing first for Campuses and the science they offer.

Here's all the technologies you'll need:

• Sailing - Boost: Found a city next to the coast. Thanks to England's start bias, you can frequently achieve this on your first turn.
  
• Astrology - Boost: Discover a natural wonder. A bit luck-based, so you might need to research it without the boost.
  
• Celestial Navigation - Boost: Improve two sea resources.

Position your cities in order to optimise adjacency bonuses. You'll want to always place cities on the coast, with an adjacent lake or coast tile without a reef, and with that coastal/lake adjacent to as many sea resources as possible. This will allow you to get a +3 adjacency bonus as a minimum in nearly all of your cities, which will be helpful in all manner of ways later on.

Because Royal Navy Dockyards are half the cost of regular Harbours, it makes it easy for England to expand their trade route capacity. Building a Royal Navy Dockyard and a Lighthouse is affordable for pretty much any new city.




A rather helpful bonus - especially early on when naval units are slower - comes with the Royal Navy Dockyard's +1 movement speed bonus to all naval units built or purchased in the city, as well as those generated by Victoria's leader ability. Early on, Victoria can build up two Royal Navy Dockyards for Galleys, or Eleanor can build a couple directly to start exploring - this will also get you the eureka for Shipbuilding, required for units such as Settlers to embark.


Hey, I've found a new continent! Use the continents lens to work out which areas count as part of the new continent and which won't. Settling cities there will grant extra gold adjacency and loyalty from Royal Navy Dockyards!

Getting a navy to a new continent can take a while, but the speed bonus should cut the journey time down by a few turns. If you can manage the Great Lighthouse wonder as well, you'll have a +2 naval speed advantage over everyone else. Sea Dogs will find this speed bonus useful to chase down weak enemy ships and to escape from tricky situations, especially once they have the Silent Running promotion allowing them to move after attacking.

Remember, however, that the naval mobility bonus won't affect naval units obtained from Great People or captured by Sea Dogs.



You too can have districts like this, fuelling your empire's gold and science to an incredible extent! In this case, the district's adjacency bonus is boosted by the Naval Infrastructure economic policy card and Governor Reyna (the Financier)'s Harbourmaster promotion, while the Free Inquiry Golden Age dedication adds its gold yield to science.

While a few cities settled on your home continent early on will be useful for establishing a base for your empire, for England to achieve its full potential, you'll need to start settling on new continents.

If you are unable to reach a second continent and you're not playing on a duel-size map (which only ever has one continent), then expand within your home continent, build up Campuses as well as Royal Navy Dockyards, and try to get Cartography sooner rather than later. Its boost requires you to build two Royal Navy Dockyards, which isn't so difficult, though the prerequisite Buttress technology can cause trouble as its boost is difficult to reliably achieve.

If you can reach a second continent, then try to expand there as soon as possible - getting a foothold will make it easier to add more cities later.

With a new continent spotted, and the Ancestral Hall building complete in your Government Complex, it's time to train up a lot of Settlers to colonise this new land. The sooner you start, the more land you'll be able to get free from excessive loyalty pressures. The Ancestral Hall building allows you to train Settlers faster, and gives new cities free Builders - use them to chop down woods and rainforest, and you can rapidly build your Royal Navy Dockyards.


Royal Navy Dockyards on foreign continents can easily get up to +5 adjacency or even better. This can be doubled with the Naval Infrastructure economic policy card (requires the medieval-era Naval Tradition civic) and/or Governor Reyna (the Financier) with the Harbourmaster promotion. That's great in itself, but it becomes really powerful in conjunction with the Free Inquiry Golden Age dedication, which grants you science based on those adjacency bonuses.

Achieving a Golden Age requires you to produce a sufficient amount of era score, which can be earned from a variety of sources. But once you achieve a Golden Age, the era score threshold needed for the next one increases. This makes it difficult to follow up a classical-era Golden Age with a medieval-era one.

As such, a good strategy to adopt as England is to deliberately keep your era score low in the ancient game era in order to enter a classical-era Dark Age. This lowers the threshold needed for a medieval-era Golden Age - Free Inquiry in the medieval game era will typically be worth far more than the dedication would in the classical game era. On top of that, following up a Dark Age with a Golden Age turns it into a Heroic Age, allowing two other Golden Age dedications on top.

To keep your era score low in the ancient era, avoid destroying Barbarian encampments or building wonders, and delay building your first Royal Navy Dockyard or naval unit. To maximise era score in the classical era, clear Barbarian Encampments near your lands, explore to find other civs and natural wonders and generate Great People.

This strategy isn't entirely reliable - it's not uncommon to end up with a classical-era Normal Age resulting in a higher era score requirement for a medieval-era Golden Age. Alternatively, you may be able to develop fast enough to get a few Royal Navy Dockyards up early, making a classical-era Golden Age more lucrative than it'd otherwise be.

Free Inquiry can offer a lot of science to England - enough to secure a notable technological advantage if used well. For a classical-era Golden Age, you can rush to Education and try to get some Universities built early to preserve your scientific lead. But for a medieval-era Golden or Heroic Age, there's a lot more options.

One possibility is to beeline the industrial-era Industrialisation technology, getting access to key maritime technologies like Cartography, Square Rigging and Mass Production along the way. Getting to Industrialisation early lets you build Factories and Coal Power Plants for a huge production advantage. When playing as Victoria, this route can get you a powerful navy for cheap, as building new Royal Navy Dockyards with the Cartography or Square Rigging technologies will grant Caravels and Frigates respectively. For Eleanor, the extra production will help you to be competitive in building a lot of key wonders like the Hermitage.

Another route specifically useful for Victoria is to take the medieval-era Military Engineering technology to unlock Military Engineers and reveal nitre, then to beeline the industrial-era Military Science technology for Redcoats. Getting Redcoats unlocked early will provide you with a huge military advantage - especially on foreign continents.


You can only keep the Free Inquiry Golden Age dedication going until the end of the medieval game era, so you'll need to be prepared for a loss of science output. You can try picking up the medieval-era Education technology to get a few Universities built along the way - by building Factories in some cities and Universities in others, you can get a good production output throughout your empire and still keep science generation at a reasonable level.


Some games you may find yourself unable to secure the Free Inquiry Golden Age dedication in either the classical or medieval game eras. If this is the case, you'll need to build up more Campuses to account for the shortfall in science or else push for city conquests sooner so you can secure more science that way.

For Victoria, one strategy is to build up lots of Royal Navy Dockyards to near-completion while beelining either the Cartography or Square Rigging technology, or the Mercantilism civic. You can make up for a shortfall in trade route capacity by settling as many continents as possible. Then, when the appropriate research is complete, finish all the Royal Navy Dockyards for an instant strong navy. Use them to capture coastal cities off another civ to expand your empire and hence your potential science.

For Eleanor, the loss of science doesn't hit as hard because she relies less on science and more on culture than Victoria does.

Either way, if you can't secure an early Golden Age, you'll have a lower era score threshold needed to achieve one in a later era. This makes it easier to pick up the handy Hic Sunt Draconis Golden Age dedication in the renaissance, industrial or modern game era, which increases the speed of your navy, gives extra loyalty to cities settled in foreign continents and makes them start at 4 population instead of 1.


The strong adjacency bonuses of Royal Navy Dockyards work brilliantly in conjunction with Shipyard buildings (renaissance era, requires the Mass Production technology). Shipyards add production to a city based on their Harbour district's adjacency bonus. With the Naval Infrastructure economic policy card, you can fairly reliably achieve a +10 production boost for coastal cities on foreign continents.

You can boost the gold and production bonuses even further with the industrial-era Colonial Taxes diplomatic policy card (requires the Colonialism civic). This adds a +25% gold and +10% production modifier for all cities on foreign continents making already rich and productive cities even better.


Getting two Great Admiral points instead of one might not sound like much, but remember this is in addition to England's tendency to build far more Harbours than pretty much any other civ. It's not uncommon to produce Great Admiral Points as much as four times as fast as everyone else, giving you the lion's share of Great Admirals throughout the game.

The renaissance-era Great Admiral Francis Drake, when retired, grants England a free Sea Dog unit - without the need for the renaissance-era Mercantilism civic! While it's only a single copy of your UU, it can go a long way for reasons covered in the unit's section of this guide. You can also use the renaissance-era Great Admiral Santa Cruz to create an armada out of it to increase your chance of capturing enemy ships.

Alternatively, if getting to Mercantilism isn't a problem, try using both Santa Cruz and Yi Sun-Sin (both renaissance-era Great Admirals). Together, they can provide you with an early Ironclad Armada which complements your Sea Dogs beautifully when picking off weak enemy coastal cities. That's particularly useful if you're playing as Victoria and want to beeline Military Science rather than Industrialisation.

For more details on the most relevant Great Admirals for England, go to the Administration section of this guide.



This city already had a Harbour present when I captured it. This meant that it'd immediately have a Royal Navy Dockyard present for a +4 loyalty boost - in conjunction with a Governor, I wouldn't have any problems maintaining loyalty here.

In addition to the great gold bonus, Royal Navy Dockyards in foreign continents add +4 loyalty to their cities. This allows you to maintain colonies that might otherwise be difficult (meaning you can fit in more spots for high-yield Royal Navy Dockyards), and also is a great help in coastal conquests. Any city you capture with a Harbour will have it converted into a Royal Navy Dockyard, and its loyalty bonus in conjunction with a Governor will mean the city won't turn into a free city any time soon.

• Always aim to settle cities adjacent to the sea or a lake so you can get the basic +2 adjacency from having Harbours next to a city centre.
  
• By delaying your first Royal Navy Dockyard until the classical game era, you can increase your chances of securing the powerful Free Inquiry Golden Age dedication in the medieval game era, where it'll produce masses of science.
  
• Once you are able to, settle on foreign continents almost exclusively so you can maximise Royal Navy Dockyard bonuses. With enough stacked loyalty bonuses, you can settle pretty much anywhere on foreign continents.
  
• Ensure you have the medieval-era Naval Tradition civic as soon as possible for the Naval Infrastructure policy card, which doubles Royal Navy Dockyard adjacency (and hence Free Inquiry science or Shipyard production).

I don't even have any iron but because I have Iron Working, I get a free Swordsman from settling this new continent!

Victoria encourages you to double down on the colonising game with an incentive to settle every continent in the game, and can provide you with a powerful navy for free! Victoria also grants you access to the powerful Redcoat UU, but that'll be covered later in the guide in their own section.



Every time you complete a Royal Navy Dockyard, you'll receive a free naval unit with the +1 movement trait of Royal Navy Dockyards. The specific unit you receive is the strongest naval unit you can build given your current research level. This hierarchy is as follows:

1. Missile Cruiser (naval ranged, requires the information-era Lasers technology)
   
2. Nuclear Submarine (naval raider, requires the information-era Telecommunications technology)
   
3. Destroyer (naval melee, requires the atomic-era Combined Arms technology)
   
4. Submarine (naval raider, requires the modern-era Electricity technology)
   
5. Battleship (naval ranged, requires the modern-era Refining technology)
   
6. Ironclad (naval melee, requires the industrial-era Steam Power technology)
   
7. Sea Dog (naval raider, requires the renaissance-era Mercantilism civic)
   
8. Frigate (naval ranged, requires the renaissance-era Square Rigging technology)
   
9. Caravel (naval melee, requires the renaissance-era Cartography technology)
   
10. Galley (naval melee, requires the ancient-era Sailing technology)

You can never get Aircraft Carrier units as they arrive at the same technology as, and are weaker than, Destroyers.


Initially, getting two Royal Navy Dockyards built can get you two Galleys and with it the boost for Shipbuilding, required to embark most units (including Settlers). You can use these Galleys to explore - you'll need to discover as many continents as possible as soon as you can to make the most of Victoria's leader ability, while era score bonuses from discovering natural wonders and other civs will help you secure that all-important medieval-era Golden Age.

With Shipbuilding, you will receive Quadriremes. Quadriremes are decent at fighting Barbarians in conjunction with a land unit which can clear their Encampments. They also deal full damage against city defences, so if an enemy city is highly exposed to the coast you can damage it reasonably effectively. Generally, however, Quadriremes are used in much the same rule that Galleys are - exploration and escorting embarked units.

This ability gets a lot stronger starting with renaissance-era naval units. With Square Rigging but not the Mercantilism civic, you'll get Frigates - even if you haven't unlocked nitre at the medieval-era Military Engineering technology yet. Frigates have an impressive 55 ranged strength and deal full damage against city defences, making them excellent against cities and units alike. That being said, they can't capture cities, so bring along a Caravel or two.

With the Mercantilism civic but not the Steam Power or Refining technologies, you'll get your unique Sea Dog unit. However, you don't need large numbers of Sea Dogs to make the most of them - even just one or two will suffice, as other units can wear down the enemy ready for a Sea Dog to capture them, and you'll need Cartography to cross oceans. As such, it's okay to finish building Royal Navy Dockyards prior to Mercantilism. Researching Square Rigging before Mercantilism is a good way to get a mix of Frigates and Sea Dogs.

From the industrial era onwards, new naval units require strategic resources as maintenance. If the maintenance cost exceeds your stockpile of resources, all your units that require that resource will suffer a strength penalty. As such, pay close attention to what technologies you have before building new Royal Navy Dockyards so you don't end up with a unit you need to disband.

That being said, getting small quantities of units you don't have the resource for can still be a reasonable approach for adding some extra firepower to your navy. For example, the information-era Telecommunications technology is easy to beeline, allowing you to get a Nuclear Submarine without needing a detour to Combined Arms to reveal uranium. So long as you don't get more than a small number of Nuclear Submarines by this method, the strength penalty for insufficient resources will be low enough to be manageable.


Victoria's free naval units will be most effective in the renaissance era, where free Frigates can give a significant firepower advantage over foes. While still useful during the rest of the game as a production saver, it doesn't have quite as significant an impact as it does then.

While you're encouraged to settle outside your home continent to make the most out of the Royal Navy Dockyard district anyway, Victoria has a unique incentive to settle every continent. Every time you settle a city on a new continent for the first time (excluding your capital's continent) you'll gain +1 trade route capacity and a free melee infantry unit.

The exact extent of this bonus depends on your map size:


The free melee infantry unit you receive is the strongest one you have the technology to train - regardless of whether or not you have the strategic resources required. You can potentially receive Redcoats if you have the industrial-era Military Science technology but not the modern-era Replaceable Parts technology, though you may find more trade route capacity sooner to be more useful than holding off from settling new continents for the sake of some saved production.

Ultimately, the free melee infantry units are mostly useful for defending your new cities - it's the increased trade route capacity that's the real advantage on offer here. Expanding to many continents early, building up Royal Navy Dockyards and building up Lighthouses will give you a huge number of trade routes, which you can then use internally for food and production or externally for gold.

• Early free naval units are good for exploring.
  
• Getting to the renaissance-era Square Rigging technology quickly will allow you to get lots of free Frigates and hence a significant naval combat advantage.
  
• Settle as many continents as possible as soon as you can.

Power goes even further in English Factories - and other buildings, too!

England does not stop at merely having a large colonial empire - they offer excellent infrastructural potential as well with a huge range of bonuses.

There's a lot to cover in this civ ability section, so it's divided into the following sub-sections:

• Strategic Resources - Discusses the extra iron, extra coal and increased stockpile limit.
  
• Military Engineers - Mechanics - Introduces the mechanics of Military Engineers
  
• Military Engineers - English Bonuses - Discusses how England can use their bonuses to Military Engineers.
  
• Power - Mechanics - Explains how the Power mechanic works.
  
• Power - English Bonuses - Discusses how England can make the most of faster Industrial Zone building production and extra bonuses for powered buildings.
  
• Summary - Distills this entire section into a few sentences.

Horses, iron, nitre, coal, oil, aluminium and uranium are all examples of strategic resources - goods which are necessary for the production of certain military units, as well as some buildings. You can accumulate some for spending later - much like gold, faith or diplomatic favour - but unlike those yields, there's a limit to how many you can hold at a time. By default, the limit is 50 per category.

Normally, you can expand this capacity by constructing Encampment buildings (Barracks, Stables, Armouries or Military Academies), but England offers an alternative. You can instead develop your Royal Navy Dockyards with Lighthouses, Shipyards and Seaports and gain extra capacity that way. You may end up with more strategic resources than you need

England also receives extra iron and coal from their respective mines.

Iron is used to train Swordsmen, Men-at-Arms, Knights and Cuirassiers and to build railroads (in conjunction with coal). Generally, England's need for iron is quite low, so you can trade your excess to a different civ for something more useful.

Coal is used to build and maintain Ironclads and Battleships, as well as to build railroads (in conjunction with iron) and fuel Coal Power Plants. All of these applications are directly useful for England, so make sure you're mining as much coal as possible once you have the industrial-era Industrialisation technology. If you accumulate a lot early on, then you'll have a buffer stock built up allowing you to briefly consume more coal than you're producing without penalty. That's useful if you have a large navy at this point in the game.

With the modern-era Radio technology, you can reveal the aluminium resource. If you're heading for a scientific victory, accumulating lots of it will be helpful for building Lagrange Laser Arrays, which speed up the Exoplanet Expedition. England's high strategic resource limit means you'll be able to accumulate all the aluminium you need without having to trade other civs for it.


Military Engineers are special units unlocked with the medieval-era Military Engineering technology. They function akin to Builders in that they have a set number of build charges to perform certain functions and are able to repair and remove improvements. They can also remove woods, rainforest or marsh for one build charge. Note, however, that Military Engineers by default only have two charges, while Builders have three and can get more with appropriate policy cards.

Unlike Builders, Military Engineers act as support rather than civilian units (meaning they can stack in the same tile with Builders, but not with units such as Siege Towers), cost 2 gold per turn to maintain and can only be trained in cities with an Encampment district containing an Armoury building.

Military Engineers can create the following tile improvements:

Military Engineers can also use a build charge to provide 20% of the production towards certain buildings and districts.

For less productive cities, switch to building something else between turns so you can build both the building/district that can be rushed and something else simultaneously. You can contribute multiple charges in a turn by using multiple Military Engineers with a single charge remaining.

The full list of affected buildings and districts are as follows:



England's Military Engineers receive four charges instead of two, and can be trained in half the usual amount of time, making them considerably more cost-effective.

If you're playing as Victoria and intend to rush to Redcoats, you'll need Military Engineering along the way to reveal nitre resources. If you're rushing ahead to key naval technologies like Cartography, you might want to wait until finishing your beeline before taking the detour to Military Engineering.

While Military Engineers must be trained in a city with an Armoury, you'll be able to produce them rapidly enough that you don't need too many Armouries in your empire. Even one can suffice.

The cost of a Military Engineer charge is very low for England - for functions like clearing woods, rainforest and marsh, it's often more cost-effective than it would be to use a Builder. Because both units can stack in the same tile, it's possible to clear a wood/rainforest/marsh and place an improvement with a Builder in the same turn!

Rushing Aqueduct, Dam or Canal districts - or Flood Barriers - is another very effective use of Military Engineer charges. A single Military Engineer can provide 80% of their production, which usually will save you much more production than it costs - especially later in the game. The three districts are also useful for maximising Industrial Zone adjacency, while Flood Barriers help you mitigate pollution your Industrial Zones and military produces.


Look out for city spots that offer the possibility of good Canal routes, as they may allow your naval supremacy to reach further inland than would otherwise be the case. You can accompany a Settler with a couple of Military Engineers to build up one quickly.

Outside of the cost-saving application of Military Engineers in rushing Aqueducts, Dams, Canals and Flood Barriers, their other uses are mostly strategic in nature. More build charges is useful when accompanying an army with Military Engineers - you can push inland against an enemy, spending charges as you go for things like forts and airstrips, while still having leftover charges that can be used to chop woods or rainforest in an occupied city for quick production.

Ultimately, England's key benefits from cheap Military Engineers are production savings for cities, and time savings for units via things like canals, railroads and mountain tunnels. More free production means more to use on Royal Navy Dockyard buildings, military units, Industrial Zones and the like, while cutting journey times for units helps you make the most of Redcoats (for Victoria) and your navy.

Starting in the industrial era, you may notice that some buildings have additional yields when powered, in addition to a power load requirement. These are as follows, in chronological order:


So long as a city's power supply exceeds their total power load, they'll gain all the benefits of powered buildings. But if there's even a slight shortfall, all the power bonuses will be lost! As such, you'll need an adequate supply of power. The most effective sources come from the three Power Plants: Coal, Oil and Nuclear. You can build either in a city with a Factory, and all cause cities within six tiles to consume their respective resources to provide power. They'll only consume as much resources as are necessary to power the cities in range - not any more.

• Coal Power Plants can be constructed as soon as Factories are built. They produce 4 and 820 units of carbon dioxide for every 1 coal resource consumed.
  
• Oil Power Plants require the modern-era Electricity technology. They produce 4 and 490 units of carbon dioxide for every 1 oil resource consumed.
  
• Nuclear Power Plants require the atomic-era Nuclear Fission technology. They produce 16 and 48 units of carbon dioxide for every 1 uranium resource consumed, but run the risk of causing a nuclear explosion.

The trouble with relying on power plants is that they either produce a high amount of carbon dioxide (Coal and Oil Power Plants) significantly contributing to climate change and lowering your diplomatic favour generation, or have a risk of nuclear meltdown if not sufficiently maintained (Nuclear Power Plants). Both can be destructive to your civ. They're also prone to being sabotaged by enemy Spies.

As such, you might want to consider investing in renewable energy sources. These largely arrive later in the game and require tiles to be set aside for their use, but require no resources to maintain and have no detrimental side-effects:

• Hydroelectric Dam buildings require the modern-era Electricity technology and may be built in any city with a Dam district. They provide their city with +6 - though they can be breached by enemy Spies.
  
• Geothermal Plant improvements require the atomic-era Synthetic Materials technology and a geothermal fissure tile. They provide their city with +4 .
  
• Solar Farm improvements require the information-era Satellites technology and a flat desert, grassland, plains or tundra tile. They provide their city with +2 each.
  
• Wind Farm improvements require the information-era Composites technology and a hills tile. They provide their city with +2 each.
  
• Offshore Wind Farm improvements require the future-era Predictive Systems technology and a coast or lake tile. They provide their city with +2 each.

All of the preceding sources of energy provide an additional +2 if in a city where Governor Reyna (the Financier) is present with the Renewable Subsidiser promotion.

The Synthetic Technocracy government (requires the information-era Optimisation Imperative civic) provides all cities with +3 , while the Aerospace Contractors wildcard (future era, requires Exodus Imperative) provides all cities with Spaceports with +3 .

Being suzerain over Cardiff causes all Lighthouses, Shipyards and Seaports to provide their cities with +2 each, though you can't rely on Cardiff being available in every game.

Finally, if all else fails, you can use the Industrial Zone Logistics project for temporary power in a city.



It might arrive late, but a science bonus is a science bonus.

While powered buildings offer good yields to begin with, England makes most even better. This offers a wide range of handy boosts in the second half of the game, ensuring England has both a lot of cities and a good yield coming out of every one.


Factories are the first building that can be powered, and create an excellent bonus when they are: +10 production for every city within six tiles of the district!

A possible strategy to make the most of this bonus early is as follows:

• Enter a medieval-era Golden/Heroic Age for the Free Inquiry dedication, then use the huge science boost to beeline the Industrialisation technology.
  
• While you're researching, build a few Industrial Zones and Workshops dispersed throughout your empire so as many cities as possible are within six tiles of them. You don't need Industrial Zones in every city - just enough to cover most cities.
  
• If you have time, build or buy Shipyards in your Industrial Zone cities for extra production.
  
• With Industrialisation complete, build mines on all coal resources in your empire and build up both Factories and Coal Power Plants in cities with Industrial Hubs. The +20% production bonus to Industrial Zone buildings will save time, while extra resources from coal mines should be sufficient for your Coal Power Plants.

By exploiting the high science combination of Royal Navy Dockyards and Free Inquiry, in addition to England's production bonus to Industrial Zone buildings, you can access a strong production bonus much earlier than most. Add Shipyards in cities on foreign continents for even more.

The downside of this approach is it produces a lot of pollution early on - costing you diplomatic favour and also running the risk of flooding your coastal tiles before you have a chance to defend them with Flood Barriers. At least with the modern-era Electricity technology you can build Hydroelectric Dams in Dam districts for extra power, and England's efficient Military Engineers will be able to rush the districts quickly.

For a strong production yield in a single city, place Governor Magnus (the Steward) with the Vertical Integration promotion there and build Factories in all nearby cities. This can hypothetically reach bonuses of up to +180 production, but something in the range of +60 is a more realistic goal.


Stock Exchanges by default offer +4 gold, or +11 when powered. For England, the maximum is up to +15.

Stock Exchanges are one of three powered buildings which can gain up to an +100% yield bonus with an appropriate policy card. This raises England's boost from +4 gold to a more respectable +8, and the total gold yield from +15 to +30.

Still, England's strong Royal Navy Dockyards provide enough money by themselves, and the district capacity used for Commercial Hubs can be put to much better use on something else like Campus districts or Theatre Squares.


Food Markets go from providing a fairly weak +4 yield when unpowered to a more respectable +10 yield when powered as England. That allows you to remove a farm or two to be replaced with second-growth woods and lumber mills for extra production, or perhaps solar farms for extra power.


The powered bonus on offer here is mostly useful for Eleanor. When powered and with the Grand Opera policy card at full effectiveness, Broadcast Centres will produce an impressive +20 culture per turn!


A powered Research Lab provides 8 science, or 12 for England. With the Rationalism policy card at full effectiveness, it's up to 24. This is obviously great if you're taking England in a scientific direction, and isn't bad for a domination game, either.


Shopping Malls provide tourism, gold and amenities making them useful in cultural and domination games in particular. Their power requirement is low, and their maximum gold output under England is a reasonable +8.


English powered Airports offer a respectable +10 production boost (versus the +6 of other civs) - though they arrive late. It's mostly useful as an added bonus if you were intending to build up Aerodromes anyway.

• More efficient Military Engineers often makes them more cost-effective than Builders for clearing woods, rainforest and marsh.
  
• Use Military Engineers for rushing Aqueducts, Dams, Canals and Flood Barriers to save on overall production, and to more rapidly develop new cities.
  
• Rushing the Industrialisation technology allows you to quickly develop strong powered Factories for a major production advantage.
  
• Factories, Research Labs and Broadcast Centres generally gain the most from England's bonus to powered buildings.

Both Victoria and Eleanor can conquer their way through the world - but Eleanor offers a wildly different approach. Why fight everyone when you can simply convince them to join you?

Eleanor of Aquitaine offers a unique means of expansion fuelled by loyalty and Great Works. While the mechanics behind it are straightforward enough, making the most of the ability is a whole different matter.

This is another very long section of the guide, so it's divided into sub-sections.

• Starting Out - Discusses Eleanor's early-game.
  
• Humanism - Describes the basics of using Eleanor's leader ability from the renaissance-era Humanism civic onwards, when it starts becoming impactful. You can stop here if you just want the general gist of how Eleanor's game works.
  
• Manipulating Loyalty - Helps you work out how to maximise your loyalty pressure over other cities in the times before Rock Bands enter the game.
  
• Maximising your Great Works - Discusses maximising your Great Work capacity to increase the amount of loyalty pressure you place on other civs via Eleanor's leader ability.
  
• The Power of Rock - How Rock Bands make Eleanor's ability much stronger and much easier to use. Keep your culture output high so you can unlock them (at the atomic-era Cold War civic) sooner!
  
• English Eleanor vs. French Eleanor - Compares England under Eleanor to France under Eleanor.
  
• Summary - Ties everything together.

The start of Eleanor's game is similar to Victoria - expand quickly while building up Royal Navy Dockyards. Eleanor is a little bit more vulnerable than Victoria early on, so have some Archers at the ready for defensive purposes, and be sure to get Monuments built for some extra culture. The more cities you have, the better, and ensuring they're close together will allow you to maximise your loyalty pressure later.

While a religion could be useful for Eleanor for its influence on loyalty and the potential for Cathedrals' Great Work slot, you usually can't afford to spend production and district capacity on Holy Sites so early in the game.

Though it may be tempting to beeline the Drama and Poetry civic and start building up Theatre Squares sooner, going to Political Philosophy first instead allows you to get your first real government and construct the Ancestral Hall building to help with further expansion. With Political Philosophy done, now go to Drama and Poetry and start getting those Theatre Squares and Amphitheatres built.

Unlike Victoria, Eleanor does not have a bonus for settling on every continent. Nonetheless, it's a good idea to settle in as many different parts of the map as you can manage, as it'll increase the number of potential cities that can flip to your control. You can manage even locations with a -12 loyalty penalty with a Governor and a Royal Navy Dockyard.

If you can secure a medieval-era Golden Age, use your Free Inquiry science to rush to Industrialisation. There, you'll have access to powerful Factories for bonus production. Powered Factories will provide +10 production to all cities within six tiles, meaning just a few cities with Industrial Zones can make your entire empire significantly more productive. That'll give you a considerable edge towards building key wonders such as those that provide Great Work slots.


Eleanor's distinct gameplay begins around the time of the Humanism civic, as it unlocks Art and Archaeological Museums. These are important as they greatly expand the Great Work capacity in your border cities.

The choice of Art or Archaeological Museums in any specific city for Eleanor depends on a few factors:


You can simplify this to "core cities should have Archaeological Museums and border cities should have Art Museums" as a general rule if you want to save time on decision-making.

A city with a full Amphitheatre and a full Museum will have 5 Great Works - or in other words, the city will produce -5 loyalty in any rival city within 9 tiles.

When a city runs out of loyalty, and it's within 9 tiles of one of your cities, it'll immediately come under your control with the options to keep or raze it. Usually you should keep every city you can, as they can become bases for future loyalty pressure once they have a developed Theatre Square in place. You can speed up this process by using Governor Reyna (the Financier) to purchase Theatre Squares with gold, then purchasing subsequent buildings.

So, that's the basic usage of Eleanor's leader ability - develop your Theatre Squares and fill them with Great Works, and the negative loyalty pressures will become overwhelming and start flipping enemy cities. But if you want to make the most of Eleanor's leader ability, read on to find out the many ways you can make your loyalty pressure stronger, and rival loyalty pressure weaker...

Until you have access to Rock Bands (more on them later), you'll only be able to flip cities that are losing more loyalty than they're gaining. As such, it's important to know how cities both gain and lose loyalty.


Use the loyalty map lens to work out precisely how much loyalty cities are gaining or losing per turn. Cities that are only gaining a little per turn are vulnerable!


This is the biggest influence on loyalty, with up to a 20 loyalty per turn gain or loss! The calculation is a bit complicated, so let's break it down.

Firstly, the domestic pressure is a score determined by the presence of nearby citizens of the same civ. To get the number, first work out the contribution of every city of the same civ within 9 tiles, including the affected city itself. This number is 10, subtract the number of tiles away the city is, then multiplied by the population of this city, multiplied by 2 if it's currently running the Bread and Circuses city project, then multiplied by 0.5 if the civ's in a Dark Age, 1 for a Normal Age and 1.5 for a Golden or Heroic Age. Finally, if the capital city is within 9 tiles, apply its pressure again as if it was in a Normal Age but not running Bread and Circuses. Sum up this total, and you've got the domestic pressure!

Next, the foreign pressure is a score determined by the presence of nearby citizens of other civs, except for city-states and free cities. Again, each foreign city contributes pressure equal to (10-distance)*population mutliplied by 0.5 for a Dark Age, 1 for a Normal Age and 1.5 for a Golden or Heroic Age doubled if the city's running Bread and Circuses, and capitals apply their loyalty pressure a second time as if it was in a Normal Age but not running Bread and Circuses. Sum up this total, and you've got the foreign pressure.

Finally, subtract the foreign pressure from the domestic pressure and divide this number by 0.5 plus whichever pressure number is smaller. Then multiply the result by 10.

It's far too much work to expect you to endlessly keep track of the fluctuations of this number, but here's a few things that can help you maximise your foreign pressure on other cities:

• Keep your cities tightly packed so more of them can apply pressure onto the cities of other civs. If your cities are closer to your rival, they'll put even more pressure on them.
  
• Make sure your border cities have plenty of food, housing and amenities so they can grow and exert more pressure. Internal trade routes or powered Food Markets are a good source of food if necessary, and packing your cities together means that buildings like Zoos can easily provide a lot of amenities. Neighbourhoods are great for housing but beware of enemy Spies spawning Barbarian units in them.
  
• Try to maintain a Golden Age for as long as you possibly can. Two good sources of era score are wonder construction (3 a time - use your powered Factories to get an edge), and every city flipped is worth 2.
  
• The Bread and Circuses project can be useful if nearby cities are only gaining a little positive loyalty per turn and you can spare the production.

The presence of a Governor in a city adds +8 loyalty per turn - even before they've finished establishing themselves. Civs with the Audience Chamber government building will suffer -2 loyalty in cities without Governors, so the presence of a Governor in such civs' cities is essentially a +10 boost. Civs using the diplomatic policy card Praetorium (classical era, requires Recorded History) will get another +2 boost from Governors, and up to +6 with the information-era Communications Office card (requires Social Media).

Governor Victor (the Castellan) with the Garrison Commander promotion not only applies +8 loyalty to his city, but +4 loyalty to all other cities of the same civ within 9 tiles once he's established. How do you counter that? With a bit of espionage!

If you have at least one level of diplomatic visibility with a civ (you'll always have this with the renaissance-era Printing technology - otherwise use a delegation or trade route) you can see if another civ's city contains a Governor. With level two visibility, you can see the specific Governor and hence work out precisely where Victor is. With a Spy, you can use the Neutralise Governor mission to remove him from the city for 6 turns, and he won't be able to use his area-of-effect bonus for 9 turns.

You can also use the Forment Unrest mission to remove 15 loyalty from the city, plus 5 per Spy level (up to a maximum of -30). This is good for speeding up city flips where a city is losing only a small amount of loyalty per turn.

There's one governor particularly useful to you: Governor Amani (the Diplomat). When she has the Prestige promotion, she makes other civs' cities within 9 tiles lose 2 loyalty per turn!


Cities with a surplus or deficit of amenities can gain or lose a little loyalty. It works as follows:

• Deficit of 3 amenities or more: -6 loyalty
  
• Deficit of 1 or 2 amenities: -3 loyalty
  
• Surplus of 1 or 2 amenities: +3 loyalty
  
• Surplus of 3 amenities or more: +6 loyalty

There's a few ways you can target a civ's amenities without starting a war. Using a Spy to breach a civ's Dams directly costs them amenities before they can repair it, and could also pillage any Entertainment Complexes and luxury improvements on the nearby floodplain. Refusing to trade luxuries to a civ will also avoid granting them extra amenities. Building certain amenity-granting wonders (e.g. Colosseum, Alhambra) before the other civ can ensures they won't get the bonus.

• If the civ has founded a religion, but it's different to the majority religion in the city: -3 loyalty
  
• If the civ has founded a religion and it's the majority in the city: +3 loyalty

It's simple enough - religious civs don't want their cities following other faiths or else they'll lose loyalty.

While you'll generally want to save up faith for Rock Bands later on, it still might be worth buying a few Apostles early on in the hopes of the Martyr promotion (which grants you a relic if the unit dies in theological combat). You can use all but one religious charge on converting rival border cities to the wrong faith, and then use the units in theological combat to either weaken their faith, or in another civ's lands as a sacrifice for relics.

• If the city is occupied and doesn't have a garrisoned unit, it suffers -5 loyalty per turn.
  
• Cities with garrisoned units gain +2 loyalty/turn with the Limitanei military policy card (ancient era, requires Early Empire) or +4 loyalty/turn with Martial Law (wildcard, modern era, requires Totalitarianism and the Fascism government).
  
• Cities lose loyalty the more grievances the founder of the city has with its conquerer.
  
• Starving cities lose 4 loyalty per turn.

Newly-captured cities tend to struggle with loyalty, so if two rival civs are fighting each other near your lands, you might have a great opportunity!

• The Colosseum wonder provides +2 loyalty to all cities within six tiles.
  
• The Statue of Liberty wonder makes all owned cities within six tiles always at 100 loyalty.

The Colosseum wonder offers amenities as well as direct loyalty, so it can make city flipping in its area a fair bit tougher, if still generally manageable. But the Statue of Liberty's bonus is quite a pain - you'll have to capture the city directly if you want to flip nearby cities. You might want to dedicate a city to building it directly so no-one else can take it.

Cultural alliances prevent each civ being able to exert loyalty pressure on each other. While at first glance that implies Eleanor should never make a cultural alliance with a neighbouring civ, there is a niche occasion you may find that useful. You can settle extra cities right next to the allied civ, build up Theatre Squares and move in Great Works ready to add extra pressure once the alliance ends.


The Migration Treaty decision in the World Congress can boost a civ's loyalty by 5 while reducing their population growth by 20%, or reduce their loyalty by 5 while increasing their population growth by 20%. Vote for the latter to happen to a neighbour to help flip their cities.

• Cities with Monuments gain +1 loyalty/turn
  
• Cities with Government Plazas gain +8 loyalty/turn.
  
• The renaissance-era Colonial Offices diplomatic policy card (requires Exploration) offers +3 loyalty in cities not in the civ's capital's continent.
  
• Civs suzerain over Preslav gain +2 loyalty per Encampment building they have.
  
• If a civ fails as a member of a nuclear emergency, their cities will exert 1 less loyalty in pressure.

On the whole, these elements are fairly easy to ignore. Colonial Offices tends to only be used by civs when setting up new colonies and they'll soon switch to something else. Government Plazas are often built in a civ's capital or in a nearby city - usually the last parts of a civ's empire you'll be flipping anyway.

• England: +4 loyalty in cities on foreign continents with Royal Navy Dockyards.
  
• Netherlands: +1 loyalty in cities per trade route they're sending out.
  
• Ottomans: If Governor Ibrahim (the Grand Vizier) is present in your capital, you cannot exert loyalty pressure on the Ottomans. Furthermore, cities owned but not founded by the Ottomans have +4 loyalty and an amenity on top.
  
• Persia: +5 loyalty in occupied cities with a garrisoned unit.
  
• Phoenicia: Coastal cities on their capital's continent never lose loyalty.
  
• Spain: +2 loyalty in cities on foreign continents with at least one Mission adjacent to the city centre.
  
• Zulus: +3 loyalty in cities with a garrisoned unit, rising to +5 if it's a corps or army.

The Netherlands and Spain have tiny loyalty bonuses which are seldom a problem. Persia's is only useful if they're currently at war.

The Ottomans and especially Phoenicia will be particularly troublesome neighbours - you may have to start a war with them.

The rest of the civs' loyalty bonuses can be significant enough to notably slow down your loyalty pressure - consider pressuring other civs' loyalty first before switching to them if possible.


Free cities are created when a city runs out of loyalty and isn't within 9 tiles of one of Eleanor's cities, or if Eleanor decides not to accept a city flipping to her. They can suffer loyalty pressure, and if they run out of loyalty, they'll join whichever civ was exerting the most pressure onto them. However, they have a +10 loyalty/turn bonus to make that task harder.

City-states have a +20 loyalty/turn bonus by default, which usually means they can't be flipped - but for Eleanor they can be. This can be a problem if you're trying to keep their bonuses, but at least it means no other civ can have them either.


With everything explained, let's make a simple list of things you should do to maximise your loyalty pressure over other civs:

• Keep your cities close together and ensure they can grow large.
  
• Try to maintain a Golden Age.
  
• Use Spies to remove Governors in neighbouring border cities.
  
• Avoid trading luxuries to neighbouring civs.
  
• If a neighbour founded a religion, covert their border cities to a different religion if you can spare the faith.
  
• Build the Statue of Liberty so other civs can't take it.
  
• Don't enter cultural alliances with your neighbours unless you want to settle more cities near them.
  
• Vote for the migration treaty to take loyalty away from an neighbouring civ.

And obviously, you'll want a lot of Great Works to use with Eleanor's leader ability, so let's look into that in more detail...


Earlier, I mentioned a simple combination for getting lots of Great Work capacity easily: An Amphitheatre and a Museum. But obviously, there's plenty of other ways of getting Great Works and Great Work capacity!

Theatre Squares can have up to 6 slots in all: Two Writing slots from the Amphitheatre, three Art or artefact slots from Museums, and one Music slot from Broadcast Centres.

Holy Sites have 1 relic slot if they have a Temple present. Relics are typically obtained from Apostles with the Martyr promotion dying in theological combat. That requires a faith investment you might want to save for Rock Bands. Holy Sites can also have a slot for a Great Work of Religious Art with a Cathedral present (the city must follow a religion with the Cathedrals worship belief to be able to build it). These slots can be tricky to use well, but are decent backup options if you can't use Rock Bands for whatever reason.

Any given city could have up to 8 Great Work slots in total, though 6-7 is more realistic most of the time. Be sure to purchase buildings with Great Work slots in border cities so you can move Great Works in and keep pressuring rivals!

Otherwise, all sources of Great Works are limited to individual cities. These include:

• Palace (located in your capital) - 1 slot for any Great Work
  
• Apadana wonder (classical era, Political Philosophy civic) - 2 slots for any Great Work
  
• Great Library wonder (classical era, Recorded History civic) - 2 slots for Great Writing
  
• Mont St. Michel wonder (medieval era, Divine Right civic) - 2 slots for relics
  
• Bank building, boosted by the renaissance-era Great Merchant Giovanni de Medici - 2 slots for any Great Work
  
• St. Basil's Cathedral wonder (renaissance era, Reformed Church civic) - 3 slots for relics
  
• Bolshoi Theatre wonder (industrial era, Opera and Ballet civic) - 1 slot for Great Writing, 1 slot for Great Music
  
• Hermitage wonder (industrial era, Natural History civic) - 4 slots for Great Art
  
• Broadway wonder (modern era, Mass Media civic) - 1 slot for Great Writing, 2 slots for Great Music
  
• National History Museum (requires any modern-era government unlocked, built in Government Plaza) - 4 slots for any Great Work
  
• Sydney Opera House wonder (atomic era, Cultural Heritage civic) - 3 slots for Great Music

On the whole, you won't be able to have these present in border cities where they'd have the most impact - unless you take them off other players. You see, if you flip a city to your control, you keep their Great Works intact. As such, if you flip a major city of a wonder-builder, the rest of their empire will soon follow. How is that done? Through the power of rock.

My instrument of world domination.

Developing your Theatre Squares will not only grant you Great Work slots, but also a lot of culture. Powered Broadcast Centres are also an excellent source of culture on top. You'll want to generate a lot throughout the game, as the sooner you can get to the atomic-era Cold War civic, the better. The Cold War civic allows you to purchase Rock Bands using faith, which are an excellent source of tourism but more importantly could be a means of removing a lot of loyalty from rival cities.

When you purchase a Rock Band, you have a choice of one promotion out of a possible three - much like when you create Apostles or Spies. Here's what they are:


Notice the Indie promotion's effect? -40 loyalty is just under half the maximum loyalty a city can have. If you can make three Indie performances in the same city in the same turn, or three to four in succession, you can make almost any city in the game run out of loyalty. And thanks to Eleanor's leader ability, so long as that city's within 9 tiles of one of yours, it'll flip right to your control.

But there's a catch - Rock Bands don't always let you pick the Indie promotion, so you'll need to do a few more performances with the hope you'll be able to choose it when they may next choose a promotion. Rock Bands can have a maximum of three promotions.

So, which promotions should you pick? If you can't choose Indie the first time, I'd recommend choosing a promotion that boosts the band's ability to perform on certain tiles. That way, they have a much reduced chance of disbanding after their first performance. If the second promotion isn't Indie, or the band already has Indie and is seeking another promotion, I'd recommend Surf Band, Space Rock or Music Festival, as it increases their variety of possible venues making it easier to hit certain cities with multiple loyalty-draining performances.

A band with only the Indie promotion will disband half the time they perform, so consider holding back from using them until you have a third unit with their promotion. That way, you can perform three times in the same city in the same turn, draining the city's loyalty down to 0. The city will then flip to your control the next turn thanks to Eleanor's ability.

Flipping cities can grant you a lot of tourism via stolen wonders and Great Works, and lots of faith via stolen Holy Sites meaning the increasing cost of Rock Bands needn't slow you down. But make sure your culture output stays high, as there's a very late-in-the-game bonus you won't want to do without...

The future-era civic Cultural Hegemony brings with it the Hallyu wildcard, which allows you to choose from any promotion when you buy a new Rock Band or promote an existing one - so long as the unit doesn't already have that promotion. This means all your Rock Bands can reliably have the Indie promotion and cause havoc on your rivals!

Resist the temptation to give all your Rock Bands the Indie promotion right away, unless another civ is close to winning and you need to stop them quickly. Giving Rock Bands a performance-boosting promotion like Album Cover Art first will help them earn promotions and reduce the chance of them disbanding when they perform, saving you a lot of faith in the long-run. Then you can give them the Indie promotion. Again, something like Surf Band which allows them to perform at more venues is a good third choice.

Other civs may well get wise to what you're doing, and use the Music Censorship diplomatic policy card (atomic era, requires Space Race). It prevents you sending Rock Bands into their territory, at the cost of 1 amenity in all their cities of size 10 or higher. Losing amenities may mean their cities lose a bit of loyalty per turn as well, so you can just switch to other means of placing loyalty pressure on the other civs. If there's still relics to create, consider spending faith on a few Apostles you can promote with Martyr.

Ultimately, Eleanor of Aquitaine offers the strongest end-game expansion potential of any leader in the game - all without causing diplomatic penalties. Still, she usually ends up with a cultural rather than domination victory.

Eleanor of Aquitaine uniquely can lead two different civs - England or France - and as such if you want to play with Eleanor's unique attributes, you have two different sets of complementary bonuses to choose from. Both civs have their distinct advantages over the other.

• Stronger early-game - The Royal Navy Dockyard offers some general infrastructural support as well as gold and potentially science to help Eleanor get through the early eras.
  
• Superior colonisation - English Eleanor can more easily get a foothold in new continents thanks to the +4 loyalty bonus offered by Royal Navy Dockyards, increasing the number of potential target cities to flip.
  
• Faster Theatre Square development - England can build up a powered Factory infrastructure faster and more effectively than France can, resulting in more production that can be used for building Theatre Squares and their buildings, and training Archaeologist units.
  
• More gold - Royal Navy Dockyards offer plenty of gold that can be used to buy Theatre Squares and their buildings.

• More clustered cities - England's skew towards coastal settling locations means that their Great Works will have less overlap with each other.
  
• Less competition for district slots - England will use a district slot in most cities for Royal Navy Dockyards, while France has far less need for Harbours.
  
• Better wonder production - France's +20% bonus to medieval, renaissance and industrial-era wonders makes it easier to secure ones such as the Hermitage or Bolshoi Theatre.
  
• Stronger culture output - The Chateau unique improvement will help France get to key civics like Cold War and Cultural Hegemony sooner.
  
• Better defence around the industrial era - The Garde Impériale unit helps to keep France's core cities safe if a rival seeks to retaliate with force.

• Expand quickly early on and try to have cities present throughout the world.
  
• Build Theatre Squares in all your cities.
  
• Once you have Museums, aim to maximise your loyalty pressure on other civs with the following:
  
  • Keep your cities close together and ensure they can grow large.
    
  • Try to maintain a Golden Age.
    
  • Use Spies to remove Governors in neighbouring border cities.
    
  • Avoid trading luxuries to neighbouring civs.
    
  • If a neighbour founded a religion, covert their border cities to a different religion if you can spare the faith.
    
  • Build the Statue of Liberty so other civs can't take it.
    
  • Don't enter cultural alliances with your neighbours unless you want to settle more cities near them.
    
  • Vote for the migration treaty to take loyalty away from an neighbouring civ.
• Keep your culture output high so you can unlock Rock Bands and the Hallyu wildcard quickly.
  
• Use the Indie promotion on Rock Bands to rapidly flip rival cities.

Sea Dogs have all the advantages of Privateers, with a stronger ranged attack. But what makes Sea Dogs particularly effective is the way they can help you get lots of extra naval units for free, making your overall navy much stronger.


The renaissance-era Great Admiral Francis Drake, when retired, grants England a free Sea Dog unit. Especially for Victoria, this allows you to get hold of a copy of your unique unit a fair bit earlier than would otherwise be the case. You can complement this with a beeline to the Square Rigging technology, which for Victoria will grant free Frigates every time a new Royal Navy Dockyard is built, so long as you don't have the Mercantilism civic. That way, you can use Frigates to damage enemy naval units, and your lone Sea Dog to finish them off.

Otherwise, Sea Dogs are fairly unusual among unique units as they arrive on the civic rather than the technology tree. That's particularly good for Eleanor, who's encouraged to maximise her culture output.Once you have Political Philosophy, Drama and Poetry and Games and Recreation, then you'll need these:

• Defensive Tactics - Boost: Be the target of a declaration of war. This happens pretty often, and if it doesn't, you've probably had a pretty easy start so that'll compensate for the lack of a boost.
  
• Recorded History - Boost: Have two Campus districts. Can be tricky for Eleanor considering how Royal Navy Dockyards and Theatre Squares compete for your district slots.
  
• Feudalism - Boost: Build six farms. Easily done with a couple of Builders.
  
• Civil Service - Boost: Grow a city to size 10. Can be tricky to achieve in time; having a city with plenty of sea resources or room for farms will help.
  
• Medieval Faires - Boost: Have four trade routes active. Easy thanks to the Royal Navy Dockyard.
  
• Guilds - Boost: Build two Markets. You'll have to research without this boost.
  
• Humanism - Boost: Earn a Great Artist. A tricky boost and one you'll often have to do without as Victoria.
  
• Mercantilism - Boost: Earn a Great Merchant. You'll have to research without this boost.

If you're struggling with any of these boosts but think you may be able to achieve them, it might be a good idea to make a detour to Exploration for the Merchant Republic government. It also offers the Press Gangs economic policy card, which helps you build Sea Dogs faster - helpful considering their relatively high cost.


Privateers are the first naval raider unit, a class that also includes Submarines. They're a bit weaker than Frigates defending (40 melee strength vs 45 respectively) but are invisible to other civs other than their cities, Destroyers and other units which are adjacent to them. They also have the coastal raid ability, letting them pillage land tiles next to the sea. You can get all kinds of yields out of this (not to mention the fact that pillaging farms heals your unit).

Privateers may attack land units and cities if they're in range. They receive a 50% damage penalty against defences, so it'll take a while to wear them down (unless the city is fairly weak or lacks defences altogether) - a penalty naval ranged units don't have to worry about. If your Sea Dogs don't have something better to do, wearing down city defences isn't a bad idea especially considering they can retreat and exploit their invisibility attribute if need be. Make sure you bring some melee naval units as well, or some embarked melee land units, so you can capture the city.

Naval raiders also come with a decent set of promotions. Homing Torpedos gives them a +10 strength bonus against naval units, so your Sea Dogs can take on Frigates more effectively. Silent Running lets them move after attacking, which is great for keeping the unit hidden and avoiding taking damage. Wolfpack lets the unit attack twice per turn, which is extremely powerful combined with high mobility and moving after attacking.


First of all, here's two screenshots showing you how to use the ship-capturing ability:


The naval unit you want to capture cannot be a Barbarian unit or an embarked unit. If you set it up correctly, you should see the percentage chance to capture the unit appear when you hover over it.


It's mine! Captured units start with just 25 health, so be sure to get them to your home territory so they can heal!

It's worth remembering that ships you capture won't get the +1 speed bonus from being constructed at a Royal Navy Dockyard because they, obviously, weren't. That means captured ships can lag behind when you're sending your navy to new continents.

What this ability is great for is providing you with naval superiority without you having to spend much production or gold on a large navy (although watch out for maintenance costs!) If your enemy has a strong navy, you can pick off and convert any units that might have wandered off from the pack, or convert one of their front-line naval units and slow them down while they kill a unit they used to own (keep in mind that losing a unit increases your war weariness three times as fast as regular combat). If your enemy doesn't have much of a navy at all, you can use the regular Privateer advantages of coastal raiding and attacking coastal cities without them being able to retaliate.

To help capture stronger naval units, it's a good idea to form Sea Dogs into a fleet or armada. The renaissance-era Great Admiral Santa Cruz allows you to do this earlier than normal. Even when modern-era naval units arrive making Sea Dogs largely ineffective at direct combat, Sea Dog armadas can still be used to get the last hit on enemy naval units to capture them. While enemy Destroyer, Missile Cruiser or Nuclear Submarine armadas will be too strong to capture, there is still a chance against individual units.

If a Sea Dog captures a unique unit, it will not revert back to its generic form. That allows you to exploit some of the advantages usually restricted to another civ! Let's go through each of the unique naval units and consider how they can help you.


Probably the least useful unique naval unit you can capture, as most of the advantages of Viking Longships are tied to the Norwegian civ rather than the unit itself. Its strength advantage is largely meaningless by the time Sea Dogs are available, and the speed bonus only allows it to match up to a Royal Navy Dockyard-enhanced Galley; not exceed it. Still, bringing it to your home territory and upgrading it to a Caravel is cheaper than training it from scratch.


While unsuited for combat or exploration by this point in the game, Phoenicia's Biremes do have a helpful support function - they prevent Traders on water within four tiles from being pillaged. You can place Biremes on city centres to offer this function without the risk of being destroyed.


Dromons are Quadriremes with extra range and extra firepower against units. By this point in the game, their impact will be minor, but it's nice to have a Quadrireme which doesn't have to get close to enemies to hit them.


Barbary Corsairs are another UU which replaces the Privateer. They're not any stronger, so they're easy enough to capture - so long as you can find them. Their low cost and early arrival means that the Ottomans have a good chance to have a few built by the time Sea Dogs arrive, but be careful starting a war with the Ottomans at this point in the game - their power on land is quite considerable.

Barbary Corsairs lack Sea Dogs' ability to capture other ships, and instead may engage in coastal raiding for no movement cost. Just a couple of captured Barbary Corsairs can devastate an enemy coast while giving you all kinds of yields.

Keep in mind that Barbary Corsairs count as a medieval-era unit, not a renaissance-era one. As such, classical-era Great Admirals will be able to boost their strength and movement, but renaissance-era ones won't.


This fast, strong and early-arriving Frigate replacement is a great target for Sea Dogs to capture - particularly due to its ability to rapidly escort attached embarked units across the map. That can cut time down bringing Settlers, Military Engineers or Redcoats to new continents.


Unfortunately, the best element of this UU (the Feitoria improvement) is tied to Portugal, so you'll merely get a Caravel with a lower maintenance cost.


While not as versatile as Jongs or as strong as the mighty Minas Geraes, they're still a fair bit better than your regular Frigates. They're 5 points stronger in both melee and ranged strength, and get an extra 7 points on top against district defences.


The immense strength of this unit makes it hard to capture (form fleets/armadas with your Sea Dogs to increase your chances), but rewarding if you succeed. It's strong enough to make mincemeat of city defences or land units, and its long range allows you to deal serious damage to land units which aren't even close by.

Keep in mind that the Minas Geraes counts as an industrial-era unit, not a modern-era one. As such, renaissance-era Great Admirals will be able to boost their strength and movement, but modern-era ones won't. Furthermore, remember that as a Battleship replacement, Minas Geraes units consume one unit of coal every turn. England's coal bonuses mean that often won't be a problem.


U-Boats have a high sight radius and extra strength in oceans, which makes them good at intercepting enemy naval units crossing between continents. Their low movement speed (as with all Submarines) is a notable weakness, but at least they're easy to chase down. If you can catch them in coastal tiles, they're no harder to kill than regular Submarines, though you'll still want to form fleets/armadas with your Sea Dogs to increase your odds of capture.

U-Boats, unlike regular Submarines, also don't require oil, so even if you lack access to oil yourself, capturing these units off Germany can be a great way to get Submarines of your own.

• Units you capture should be brought to your home seas to heal
  
• If the enemy lacks a navy, just use Sea Dogs to pillage and attack cities with
  
• Form fleets and armadas with Sea Dogs so they can remain relevant for longer.

Two things make Redcoats particularly effective - Military Science is an easy technology to beeline, and their strength on foreign continents is better than pretty much anything they're going to face for quite some time.


The sooner you can get Military Science, the more powerful Redcoats will be. Settling extensively, building lots of Royal Navy Dockyards, using the Free Inquiry Golden Age dedication and using the Naval Infrastructure economic policy card will provide you with masses of science - and you'll need it. Although Military Science has relatively few prerequisites for an industrial-era technology, you won't be able to get most of the eureka boosts along the way. Be sure to take a detour to Military Engineering along the way so you can reveal nitre, as you'll need it to train Redcoats.

Alternatively, you can head for Industrialisation first for a production advantage, or grab Gunpowder so you can train Musketmen ready for upgrading, then head to Military Science afterwards. While this lacks the impact of a Military Science beeline, it makes the cost of Redcoats much more manageable.

You can get Redcoats for free if you settle new continents immediately after researching Military Science (even if you haven't revealed nitre), but this won't be a good source of the units as there's a limited number of times this can be done based on the map size. Thankfully, you'll have many cities capable of working on Redcoats at once - especially once you have powered Factories. You can also use Builders or Military Engineers to chop down woods or rainforest to help you rush the first few Redcoats, or use your Royal Navy Dockyard gold to buy some.

Finally, Redcoats need siege support as they're not very effective against city defences. Bombards are good on land, while Frigates can do the job against coastal cities. Siege Towers are a possibility against foes without Renaissance Walls or the Steel technology, but you'll need to unlock Redcoats fast if you want to make that work.


Redcoats have 80 strength when outside your capital's continent. That's better than an Infantry unit, with no resource maintenance cost! Against Musketmen, that's an impressive +25 strength advantage, and against foes that haven't reached that point you can kill most of their units in just one hit. But even against equally-advanced foes, Redcoats have an impressive 16-point advantage over Cuirassiers.

However, at home, Redcoats only have 70 strength. That's still good, but for efficiency's sake you may want to use other units to defend your home continent.


As a relatively niche additional bonus, Redcoats can move or fight after disembarking if they have sufficient movement points remaining. This saves a bit of time when bringing Redcoats to new landmasses, and also allows more angles of attack on coastal cities than may otherwise be the case. This helps with flanking bonuses and to push the front lines of war forwards.

Additionally, cheap disembarking is useful for dealing with cities that are not directly on the coast but are reasonably close. In those cases, you can move from the coast to adjacent to the enemy city in just one turn.

That being said, while Redcoats are quite mobile while disembarking, they're not especially mobile on land with a base movement speed of 2. To make up for this shortcoming, put your Military Engineers to good use! You can build roads even in enemy lands to provide faster routes for your army, and once you've taken cities you can also build mountain tunnels and Canals to save time and offer new routes for your army and navy respectively.


Redcoats remain very useful until Mechanised Infantry become commonplace, and even then their lack of a resource maintenance requirement allows you to train them in much larger quantities without trouble. You may even want to hold off researching Replaceable Parts so you can keep training them as outside your home continent Redcoats are always better than Infantry.

If you have sufficient oil, Royal Navy Dockyards will provide you with so much gold that upgrading them shouldn't be a problem.

• Beeline Military Science with help from the Free Inquiry Golden Age dedication; remember to take a diversion to Military Engineering to reveal nitre.
  
• For landmasses with strong land defences, escort Redcoats over with naval units; their quick disembarkment helps you land them all quicker.
  
• Don't neglect defence in your home continent; Redcoats are less effective there.

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.



Starting with Classical Republic is a good move. Extra amenities will help you handle a growing empire more effectively, the bonus to Great Person Points can increase the odds of you getting some powerful Great Admirals like Francis Drake or Santa Cruz, and the arrangement of policy card slots is good for a peaceful start of the game.

You should definitely take the Ancestral Hall Government Plaza building. It not only allows you to train Settlers faster, but gives you free Builders in new cities helping you to develop them.


Merchant Republic is ideal. Cheaper districts mean you can get Royal Navy Dockyards in new cities even faster, and the gold multiplier also works nicely in cities on foreign continents.

The Intelligence Agency is useful for helping you either catch up with technologies you missed on a Military Tactics beeline (more, stronger Spies helps you steal eurekas more effectively), or defend your Theatre Squares from heists.


For a domination game as Victoria, Fascism is ideal with a +5 strength bonus to all units and a bonus to unit production. For a scientific game, go with Communism, and for Eleanor, try Democracy - its discount to purchase costs is great given the amount of cash Royal Navy Dockyards can get you and the high number of economic policy card slots fits neatly.

For a domination game under Victoria, go with the War Department. For a scientific game, the Royal Society. The National History Museum is ideal for Eleanor.


Synthetic Technocracy is a reliable choice for non-cultural games as the power bonus works well with England's civ ability. For cultural games, take Digital Democracy instead.

Caravansaries (Economic, requires Foreign Trade) - Cheap Royal Navy Dockyards mean you can quickly expand your trade route capacity. Bonus gold per trade route helps you become quite rich even when trading internally.

Colonisation (Economic, requires Early Empire) - The bonuses for founding cities on a foreign continent become more effective the more cities you have there, so getting Settlers up and running faster will be very helpful.

God-King (Economic, requires Code of Laws) - Using this policy card at the start of the game gives you a much better shot at the God of the Sea pantheon, which offers a great production boost in the time before Shipyards and Factories come available.

Limitanei (Military, requires Early Empire) - Stacked on top of other loyalty bonuses, this policy card can help you hold onto colonies even right next to other civs.

(Eleanor) Maritime Industries (Military, requires Foreign Trade) - Training Galleys in a Royal Navy Dockyard city will really get your exploration off to a good start. Victoria can get them by other means.


(Eleanor) Literary Tradition (Wildcard, requires Drama and Poetry) - Generating more Great Writers means Eleanor's leader ability can make a bigger impact sooner.

Praetorium (Diplomatic, requires Recorded History) - Another loyalty bonus to help you hold onto colonies.

Raid (Military, requires Military Training) - Rather useful if you have a lot of Sea Dogs as their coastal raid ability will be twice as effective.

(Eleanor) Scripture (Economic, requires Theology) - Faith is needed for Rock Bands. You don't need this policy card until near that time, however.

Veterancy (Military, requires Military Training) - Helps develop Encampment and Royal Navy Dockyard districts faster.


Craftsmen (Military, requires Guilds) - England's strong bonus to powered buildings and extra coal encourages the use of Coal Power Plants as soon as possible. They boost Industrial Zone adjacency bonuses - and so does this policy card. The two are great together.

Naval Infrastructure (Economic, requires Naval Tradition) - Doubles Royal Navy Dockyard adjacency. Shipyards make it add to production as well, while the Free Inquiry Golden Age dedication adds science.

(Victoria) Professional Army (Military, requires Mercenaries) - If you're getting a lot of naval units from Victoria's leader ability, the cost of keeping them up to date can be very expensive. This policy card helps.

(Victoria) Serfdom (Economic, requires Feudalism) - Great with the Ancestral Hall Government Plaza building. You can chop woods/rainforest down to rush Royal Navy Dockyards and get free naval units, and still have Builder charges left over.

Trade Federation (Economic, requires Mercenaries) - This can help if you're a bit behind on science and culture, though it requires you to trade internationally.


Colonial Offices (Diplomatic, requires Exploration) - A very helpful loyalty and growth boost for your overseas colonies.

(Eleanor) Frescoes (Wildcard, requires Humanism) - Helps you generate more Great Artists, though the point contribution is low. Consider carefully if it's worth dedicating a wildcard to this policy.

Logistics (Military, requires Mercantilism) - Builds upon your Royal Navy Dockyard speed advantage. For Victoria's Redcoats, this helps cover their low mobility.

Press Gangs (Military, requires Exploration) - Press Gangs helps you construct Sea Dogs significantly faster. Form fleets and armadas with them to help them survive and improve their odds of capturing enemy units.

Rationalism (Economic, requires The Enlightenment) - Powered Research Labs are worth 12 science for England - this policy card can potentially double that to 24.

(Eleanor) Simultaneum (Economic, requires Reformed Church) - Useful later on when you need faith for Rock Bands.

Triangular Trade (Economic, requires Mercantilism) - Some extra gold out of all your trade routes - especially useful for Victoria.


Colonial Taxes (Diplomatic, requires Colonialism) - Been settling or conquering cities overseas? Enjoy a 25% boost to gold income, and a 10% production boost.

(Victoria) Force Modernisation (Military, requires Urbanisation) - Helps cut the cost of upgrading your old naval units you got for free.

(Victoria) Grand Armee (Military, requires Nationalism) - Helps you train Redcoats faster.

Grand Opera (Economic, requires Opera and Ballet) - Mainly useful for Eleanor for getting to key civics faster. Powered Broadcast Centres are now worth up to 20 culture each!

Military Research (Military, requires Urbanisation) - England's incentive to build both Encampments (for Military Engineers) and Royal Navy Dockyards means eventually you may have a good number of Military Academies and Seaports. You can get more science out of them with this policy card.

(Victoria) Native Conquest (Military, requires Colonialism) - A beeline to Military Science means you'll have an army at least one era ahead of the first civs you fight. This policy card allows you to get extra gold from killing their units.

National Identity (Military, requires Nationalism) - Units captured by Sea Dogs are left with just 25 health. This policy card increases the chance they'll survive.

(Victoria) Public Works (Economic, requires Civil Engineering) - Useful for the same reason as Serfdom.

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

Total War (Military, requires Scorched Earth) - Good if you have a lot of coastal-raiding Sea Dogs.


Economic Union (Economic, requires Suffrage) - Doubles Royal Navy Dockyard adjacency bonuses.

Levee en Masse (Military, requires Mobilisation) - Accumulating units from Sea Dogs and Victoria's leader ability can hand you a hefty maintenance bill. This helps to lessen that.

(Victoria) Martial Law (Wildcard, Fascism only, requires Totalitarianism) - Extra loyalty in cities with a garrisoned unit, helping you to hold onto colonies.

(Eleanor) New Deal (Economic, Democracy only, requires Suffrage) - Housing and amenities helps you handle larger cities - remember that larger cities exert more loyalty pressure than smaller ones.

(Scientific) Resource Management (Military, requires Conservation) - Allows you to fill your huge stockpile limit with aluminium ready for Lagrange Laser Stations later.

(Victoria) Third Alternative (Military, Fascism only, requires Totalitarianism) - England has stronger Research Labs and fast Power Plant construction. This policy card makes them even better.


(Eleanor) Heritage Tourism (Economic, requires Cultural Heritage) - Doubles tourism from artefacts and Great Works of Art.

(Scientific) Integrated Space Cell (Military, requires Space Race) - England will end up with a lot of Seaports so enjoy a space project production bonus.

(Eleanor) Satellite Broadcasts (Economic, requires Space Race) - Triples tourism from Great Works of Music.


Communications Office (Diplomatic, requires Social Media) - A loyalty boost to help you hold onto more precarious cities.

Ecommerce (Economic, requires Globalisation) - Bonus trade route gold and production.

(Eleanor) Online Communities (Economic, requires Social Media) - You can use your many trade routes for bonus tourism.


(Eleanor) Hallyu (Wildcard, requires Cultural Hegemony) - With this, all your Rock Bands can get the Indie promotion and start flipping cities with ease.

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

Free Inquiry (Golden Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - A crucial Golden Age dedication bonus which makes your considerable Royal Navy Dockyard adjacency bonuses add to science. With enough cities, you can beeline Military Science (as Victoria, for Redcoats), Square Rigging (as Victoria, for free Frigates) or Industrialisation (for powered Factories)

(Eleanor) Monasticism (Dark Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - Slipping into an early Dark Age reduces the cost of future Golden Ages, and more importantly enables this powerful science boost. While it does require you spend some production on Holy Sites, the science advantage makes up for that - and you'll be able to use the faith infrastructure later for buying Rock Bands.

Monumentality (Dedication, Classical to Renaissance eras) - The low cost of Royal Navy Dockyards, and the importance of getting lots built quickly, makes this a decent source of era score.

(Eleanor) Pen, Brush and Voice (Golden Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - Entered a medieval-era Heroic Age? Take this on top of Free Inquiry. The potentially huge culture boost will help you on the way to key civics like Humanism faster, letting you get to the interesting parts of Eleanor's game sooner.

Hic Sunt Dracones (Golden Age, Renaissance to Modern eras) - A rather powerful dedication for England - it can make holding onto even the most isolated colonies much easier, and makes crossing oceans much faster.

Letters of Marque (Dark Age, Renaissance to Modern eras) - Losing half of your trade route yields is quite harsh for a civ likely to have a lot of trade routes, but being able to quickly build and move Sea Dogs can help you catch enemy naval units and convert them to your side.

Reform the Coinage (Dedication, Renaissance to Modern eras) - Lots of Royal Navy Dockyards and Lighthouses will mean you'll have plenty of trade routes. As such, this dedication is an easy source of era score - especially for Victoria.

Reform the Coinage (Golden Age, Renaissance to Modern eras) - No matter how far from home they are, your trade routes can't be pillaged. Handy in a large colonial empire.

Robber Barons (Dark Age, Industrial to Information eras) - Makes your powerful Factories and Stock Exchanges even better, at the cost of amenities.

(Eleanor) Flower Power (Dark Age, Atomic to Future eras) - If you're using Rock Bands extensively, you might as well get more tourism out of it.

(Eleanor) Wish You Were Here (Dedication, Atomic to Future eras) - Eleanor's incentive to have a lot of artefacts makes this a potentially decent source of era score.

(Scientific) Sky and Stars (Golden Age, Information to Future eras) - Helps you fill up your huge aluminium stockpile limit so you can build lots of Lagrange Laser Stations later.


How you should vote in the World Congress will often be specific to your game - if you have a strong rival, for example, it might be better to vote to hurt them than to help yourself. Furthermore, there may be general bonuses to your chosen victory route or gameplay which are more relevant than ones that have stronger synergy with civ-specific bonuses. Otherwise, here's a list of key relevant votes that have high relevance for this civ relative to other civs.

Climate Accords - Vote against if you're likely to be the deciding vote.

England's tendency to pollute heavily means you'll tend not to get anything out of this scored competition.

(Eleanor) Espionage Pact - Effect B (The chosen Spy operation is unavailable) on Great Work Heist.

Ensures you won't lose your loyalty pressure to enemy Spies.

Global Energy Treaty - Effect A (50% discount on the production of Power Plants of this type) on whichever type of Power Plant you intend to build the most of.

Helps you get the full advantage of powered buildings sooner.

(Eleanor) Governance Doctrine - Effect B (All active Governors of the specified type are neutralized for 6 turns) on Governor Victor (the Castellan)

Victor's ability to add a lot of loyalty can be quite a roadblock to your city-flipping.

(Eleanor) Heritage Organisation - Effect A (Tourism from Great Works of this type is doubled) on whichever Great Work type you have the most of.

Eleanor has a strong incentive to generate a lot of Great Works, and getting more tourism on top is helpful.

(Eleanor) Migration Treaty - Effect A (+20% faster population growth but -5 loyalty per turn in this player's cities) on a neighbouring civ

So long as the cities don't grow so fast that they create a lot more domestic loyalty pressure, this is definitely a good resolution to pass as it makes it a lot easier for you to flip your neighbour's cities.

(Eleanor) Nobel Prize in Literature - Vote in favour if you have the highest generation of Great Writers, Artists and Musicians

Winning this scored competition permanently lowers the price of future Rock Bands.

(Eleanor) Patronage - Effect A (Earn double points towards Great People of this class) on Great Writers, Artists or Musicians

Helps you generate a lot more Great Works.

(Eleanor) Public Works Programme - Effect A (+100% production towards this project) on Holy Site Prayers if you are close to the Cold War civic or have already unlocked it.

This gives your cities an effective use for spare production, helping you generate more Rock Bands.

Urban Development Treaty - Effect A (+100% production towards buildings in this district) on Theatre Squares for Eleanor, or alternatively Industrial Zones or Harbours for either leader.

Helps you make the most of the districts most relevant to you.

City Patron Goddess - Useful if you can't get God of the Sea, as it helps you get your first district in cities even faster - such as the all-important Royal Navy Dockyard.

God of Craftsmen - Neatly goes with England's start bias and incentive to track down additional iron and coal, though doesn't provide anywhere near as much production as God of the Sea.

(Eleanor) Divine Spark - Helps you on your way to your first few Great Writers.

(Eleanor) God of the Open Sky or Goddess of Festivals - Maximising culture gain is really important to Eleanor's game, and either of these pantheons help.

Religious Settlements - The free Settler helps speed up your early expansion.

God of the Sea - A strong, reliable choice for a naval-focused civ, offering +1 production to all fishing boat improvements.


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

(Eleanor) Cathedral (Worship) - An extra Great Work slot potentially in every city, really helping to enhance Eleanor's leader ability. Because founding your own religion can be a bit too risky, try to get another civ's religion with this belief spread to your lands.

(Eleanor) Choral Music (Follower) - An excellent complement to the Cathedral worship belief as it makes your Holy Sites a strong source of culture, helping you get to key civics like Cold War faster.

(Eleanor) Reliquaries (Follower) - If you have the Mont St. Michel wonder, you'll be able to generate plenty of relics. With this belief, they'll generate enough faith to pay for themselves while also outputting a lot of tourism on top.

Religious Colonisation (Enhancer) - Cities following your religion gain +3 loyalty. With this enhancer belief, that makes it easier to hold onto new colonies.


(Victoria) Akkad (Militaristic) - Allows Redcoats to blast through enemy walls without needing siege support.

(Eleanor) Anshan (Scientific) - Grants bonus science to Great Works of Writing and artefacts!

Antananarivo (Cultural) - England can produce an awful lot of Great Admirals, and getting a culture bonus from that is useful. Eleanor can particularly gain a lot here.

(Eleanor) Armagh (Religious) - Late in the game, you'll want to maximise your faith output so you can keep purchasing Rock Bands. The special Monastery improvement will help with that.

Auckland (Industrial) - Makes coastal cities considerably more productive.

Ayutthaya (Cultural) - The English civ ability encourages the construction of a lot of buildings, which can result in a lot of culture if you're suzerain over Ayutthaya.

(Eleanor) Bologna (Scientific) - Can really help you generate GWAMs.

Cardiff (Industrial) - Neatly ties together the English civ ability with the English unique district, letting the latter boost the former. This reduces your need to build Power Plant buildings, and by extension your pollution output, reducing the associated loss of diplomatic favour and threat of coastal flooding.

(Victoria) Hunza (Trade) - Long-distance trading - such as that you may do across continents - is worth more gold if you're suzerain of Hunza.

(Eleanor) Kandy (Religious) - An alternative source of relics - particularly useful early on when you're still exploring your starting area.

(Eleanor) La Venta (Religious) - Colossal Head improvements are a source of faith; useful later on when you're buying Rock Bands.

Mexico City (Industrial) - Allows your powerful Factories to reach further afield, letting you boost your empire's production at a lower cost.

Mogadishu (Trade) - Makes your Traders on sea tiles completely safe from pillaging! Considering you may be undertaking a lot of intercontinental trade by the end of the game, that could save a lot of hassle.

Nan Madol (Culture) - Get some bonus culture out of your Royal Navy Dockyards.

(Eleanor) Nazca (Religious) - A source of faith for late-game Rock Band purchasing.

(Victoria) Ngazargamu (Militaristic) - Beelining Military Science for Redcoats? They time time to train and you can't upgrade units into them, but if you have some Armoury cities built up for Military Engineers, you'll be able to purchase them with your Royal Navy Dockyard gold for a much more affordable price. This ultimately allows you to launch your powerful unit against foes sooner.

(Victoria) Samarkand (Trade) - Allows you to get more gold from trade.

(Victoria) Singapore (Cultural) - Makes international trade provide more production.

(Eleanor) Yerevan (Religious) - Allows you to reliably take the Martyr promotion and generate lots of relics.

(Eleanor) Oracle (Ancient era, Mysticism civic) - Can be a great boost to early GWAM points, and get you producing Great Works sooner.

(Eleanor) Apadana (Classical era, Political Philosophy civic) - Has two Great Works capable of holding any kind. Handy if any other civ has settled near your capital.

(Eleanor) Colosseum (Classical era, Games and Recreation civic) - Building the Colosseum denies other civs the opportunity to use its loyalty bonus against you.

(Eleanor) Great Library (Classical era, Recorded History civic) - Has two slots for Great Works of Writing.

Great Lighthouse (Classical era, Celestial Navigation technology) - With this wonder, all your naval units constructed in a city with a Royal Navy Dockyard will have a +2 speed advantage over the units of all other civs.

Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (Classical era, Defensive Tactics civic) - Makes for a strong coastal city, and also the Great Engineers you'll be generating will be even more effective.

Alhambra (Medieval era, Castles technology) - England's high number of relevant military policy cards means any source of more is very welcome.

University of Sankore (Medieval era, Education technology) - Allows you to get plenty of science from your many trade routes.

Casa de Contratación (Renaissance era, Cartography technology) - Overseas colonies can grant you even more gold and production with this wonder.

Forbidden City (Renaissance era, Printing technology) - You may notice England has an unusually high number of effective policy cards. You may also notice this wonder offers an extra wildcard policy slot. And for Victoria, Printing is on the way to Redcoats.

(Eleanor) Taj Mahal (Renaissance era, Humanism civic) - More era score makes it easier to sustain a Golden Age, maximising your external loyalty pressure.

Torre de Belém (Renaissance era, Mercantilism civic) - Boost the effectiveness of trade routes for a city, and more importantly get free buildings in all your colonial cities.

Venetian Arsenal (Renaissance era, Mass Production technology) - Want to dominate the seas even more? Get twice as many naval units when you train them. Note that this does not extend to free units from Victoria's leader ability.

Big Ben (Industrial era, Economics technology) - Big Ben provides an extra economic policy card slot so you can get more of the many relevant policy cards for the civ. It also increases your current treasury by 50%, so save up some cash just before you finish it.

(Eleanor) Bolshoi Theatre (Industrial era, Opera and Ballet civic) - Provides a Great Writing and a Great Music slot.

(Eleanor) Hermitage (Industrial era, Natural History civic) - Build it in a border city if you can. Four Great Art slots means potentially -4 loyalty for all rival cities within 9 tiles.

(Eleanor) Oxford University (Industrial era, Scientific Theory technology) - Two Great Writing slots.

Panama Canal (Industrial era, Steam Power technology) - A well-positioned Panama Canal can save an awful lot of time for your navy getting around the map, and also allows your navy to aid with defence in a more inland part of your empire.

Ruhr Valley (Industrial era, Scientific Theory technology) - With this wonder, a bunch of powered Factories and Governor Magnus (the Steward) with the Vertical Integration promotion, you can end up with one of the world's most productive cities.

Statue of Liberty (Industrial era, Civil Engineering civic) - For Eleanor, this denies other civs from using the loyalty bonus against her. But for either leader, it can be useful for supporting a tenuous colony - use a Great Engineer such as Gustav Eiffel to help rush it.

(Eleanor) Broadway (Modern era, Mass Media civic) - Really helps you get and store more Great Works.

Amundsen-Scott Research Station (Atomic era, Rapid Deployment civic) - Builds on England's strong Factories and Research Labs.

Biosphère (Atomic era, Synthetic Materials technology) - A mighty boost to your power output, granting associated yields from powered buildings!

(Eleanor) Sydney Opera House (Atomic era, Cultural Heritage civic) - The last wonder to offer Great Work slots.

Great Generals and Admirals are only mentioned if their retirement bonuses have specific synergy with the civ; not merely for providing a strength bonus to a unique unit. Obviously all GWAMs are useful for Eleanor, and it would be redundant to list them.


Gaius Duilius (Great Admiral) - Save his retirement bonus for when you have your first Sea Dogs. A Sea Dog fleet will have better odds of capturing enemy ships than a single one does.

(Eleanor) Sun Tzu (Great General) - Produces a bonus Great Work of Writing.


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

Bi Sheng (Great Engineer) - England gains advantages for a wide range of district types, so extra district capacity in a city will be very helpful.

Irene of Athens (Great Merchant) - An extra Governor title allows you to have an extra Governor to secure loyalty in a colony.

Leif Erikson (Great Admiral) - An interesting Great Admiral to have, Leif Erikson's retirement bonus means you can ignore the Cartography technology in favour of a direct beeline to Military Science for Victoria - though keep in mind early ocean-crossing only applies to naval units, not embarked ones. Alternatively, if Eleanor's culture output is considerably outpacing her science, she can still get ocean-crossing Sea Dogs. For both leaders, the extra sight will help Sea Dogs spot potential threats before those threats spot them - useful considering their relatively low melee strength.

(Eleanor) Omar Khayyam (Great Scientist) - Offers an inspiration boost to help you on your way to key civics.

Rajendra Chola (Great Admiral) - A notable advantage to naval warfare for the rest of the game.


Ferdinand Magellan (Great Admiral) - Provides loyalty to a city.

Francis Drake (Great Admiral) - Allows you to get a Sea Dog for free - and sometimes considerably earlier than the Mercantilism civic. Bring along some Frigates and/or Caravels, and keep your Sea Dog safely out of harm's way until it's ready to capture a unit.

(Eleanor) Giovanni de Medici (Great Merchant) - Use this Great Person in a border city so when Great Works are moved in they have the maximum impact on rival civs.

Leonardo da Vinci (Great Engineer) - Potentially a decent complementary source of culture from your Industrial Zones

Mimar Sinan (Great Engineer) - England's incentive to build up Industrial Zones means this Great Person's ability to make them initiate culture bombs can be more helpful than it would otherwise be.

Santa Cruz (Great Admiral) - You can use Santa Cruz to form a Sea Dog Armada (and an early one with Francis Drake), but consider instead seeing if you can secure Yi Sun-Sin as well for an early Ironclad armada. Either option is very effective.

Yi Sun-Sin (Great Admiral) - An early Ironclad will complement your Sea Dogs very nicely.


Ada Lovelace (Great Engineer) - Extra district capacity helps England to make use of all the various districts the civ has an advantage for. Furthermore, the boost for Computers helps with reaching Flood Barriers faster.

Horatio Nelson (Great Admiral) - Develops a Royal Navy Dockyard up to having a Shipyard (very effective in new cities on new continents as it'll provide a notable production boost) and also makes all naval units stronger by boosting their flanking bonuses.

James Watt (Great Engineer) - Develops an Industrial Zone up to having a Factory, and makes all Factories stronger. Powered Factories are now worth 12 production for all cities in range!

José de San Martín(Great General) - Grants loyalty to a city.

(Victoria) Napoleon Bonaparte (Great General) - The irony of Napoleon leading a Redcoat army aside, the two make a powerful combination. Redcoat armies on foreign continents have 92 strength; 2 more than Mechanised Infantry! Just make sure you have a spare renaissance/industrial Great General to provide extra strength and movement to a bigger number of units.

Stamford Raffles (Great Merchant) - Establishes you a valuable foothold onto a new continent by annexing a city-state and adding a permanent +10 loyalty bonus for you there.


Nikola Tesla (Great Engineer) - Makes England's already strong Factories even better.

(Cultural) Sarah Breedlove (Great Merchant) - Boosts tourism for sending out trade routes to other civs.

Togo Heihachiro (Great Admiral) - Grants loyalty to a city.


(Eleanor) Mary Leakey (Great Scientist) - Not only will you obtain masses of science, but artefacts will henceforth provide three times as much tourism.

(Cultural) Melitta Bentz (Great Merchant) - Like Sarah Breedlove, having a trade route with another civ provides an additional 25% tourism bonus against them.

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


(Cultural) Jamseth Tata (Great Merchant) - Been building up Campuses for England's strong powered Research Labs? You'll now get +10 tourism per turn out of every single one.

(Cultural) Masaru Ibuka (Great Merchant) - Grants an impressive +10 tourism for every Industrial Zone you have. Given your incentive to build plenty, that tourism boost will be strong indeed.

England is powerful overseas, but vulnerable at home. Their key bonuses also take a reasonable amount of time to take off, making them often weak in the first couple of eras.



With all of England's Harbour buildings offering an increase to their strategic resource stockpile, and England's strong incentive to settle a lot of Harbour cities, on top of their need for Armouries for their improved Military Engineers, the civ will end up with a much bigger potential strategic resource cap than any other. This means England can afford to trade strategic resources more than many other civs, so if you need to buy some, keep England in mind.

England also extracts iron and coal at a faster rate. England has no unique need for iron outside of building up railroads with their cheap Military Engineers, so you might be able to trade for some at a good rate. England's coal, however, is different. England has incentives to use every single function of coal, so they're far less likely to have any available to trade. That being said, it also means that strategic pillaging or capturing of cities with coal resources can rapidly weaken England's industrial/modern-era naval potential and their power supply at once!

England's extensive use of coal also will tend to result in them being one of the biggest polluters in the game. A high pollution output will drain their diplomatic favour generation, making them weak at defending their own interests in the World Congress - especially for Victoria, who has a large incentive to go to war as well and can be potentially targeted by a lot of emergencies.

England's tendency to pollute heavily also can backfire once sea levels rise, as they tend to settle extensively on the coast. While their stronger Military Engineers can help with rushing Flood Defences, they'll need to get to the atomic-era Computers technology to be able to build them at all. By building a few Coal Power Plants in your own civ, you can speed up climate change even further increasing the chance England's coastal lowland tiles will be entirely submerged before they have a chance to protect them.


England gets Military Engineers that are twice as good, for half the price. This has two main benefits for the civ: They can more effectively rush things like Aqueducts, Dams, Canals and Flood Barriers, and they can provide extra mobility for their land units via things like roads, railroads, airstrips and mountain tunnels.

Because Military Engineers can only be trained in cities with Armouries, and England (especially under Eleanor) doesn't have a strong incentive to build lots of Encampment districts, most English Military Engineers will probably be coming from just a couple of cities. In war-time, you can try intercepting the Military Engineers that come out of these cities, capturing the Encampments or pillaging production tiles in the city's radius. In peace-time, you can target Industrial Zones near England's Encampment cities for sabotage via Spies.


England's Airports, Broadcast Centres, Factories, Food Markets, Research Labs, Shopping Malls and Stock Exchanges gain extra yields when powered. But the moment England's power needs in a city exceed their capacity to generate it, all those powered building bonuses are lost!

The earliest and easiest source of power is via power plant buildings in Industrial Zones - England's production advantage for buildings in the district adds an additional incentive for them to seek to meet their power needs this way. But that makes England vulnerable to Spies carrying out the Sabotage Production mission, which pillages all the buildings in an Industrial Zone when successful. The earliest reliable alternative energy source - Hydroelectric Dams - also can be pillaged by Spies (and also may pillage many other riverside tiles in the city in the process). Cutting off England's power supply, even for a few turns, can substantially weaken them.


Eleanor of Aquitaine is a huge threat later in the game whether she leads England or France. English Eleanor isn't as vulnerable in the early parts of the game as French Eleanor is thanks to the Royal Navy Dockyard district, but she's still weak against an early rush - particularly from land units.

The problems start if you let her remain into the latter eras of the game. Her ability to drain your cities loyalty can become an incredibly huge problem if left alone until late on. Unlike conventional warmongers, building up defences simply isn't an option. You can try boosting loyalty with strategic use of Governors, policy cards or ensuring your cities have plenty of amenities and/or your founded religion, but even that can be overcome by Eleanor.

So, you have a few possibilities. Aside from warfare, something you can do is try and cut off Eleanor's supply of Great Works. Vote for proposals in the World Congress to prevent the generation of certain GWAMs or to slow down the construction of Theatre Square buildings. Use Spies in Great Work Heists in her lands. Preemptively take as many artefacts as you can. Make a cultural alliance with her.

Still, warfare is your best option - and it even allows you to use her ability against her! Consider this: Any city of yours that becomes a free city within 9 tiles of one of her cities will come under her ownership. Cities that flip to her ownership, unlike free cities, won't spawn enemy military units. That means that a city continuously flipping to her ownership is an easy target for training military units on. Furthermore, you can even bring a Builder to repair the tiles around the city while it's under your control so when it flips you may pillage the tiles again!

Finally, once Eleanor starts using Rock Bands, consider using the atomic-era diplomatic policy card Music Censorship - at the cost of an amenity in cities over size 10, it'll completely stop her Rock Bands entering your territory, making you free from the risk of indie music flipping your cities.


Eleanor likes you if your nearby cities have a high population, and dislikes you if your nearby cities have a low population.

Eleanor will never have the Populous hidden agenda as it is very similar to her core agenda.

As bigger cities are harder to flip, this basically means the more well-defended you are against Eleanor's leader ability, the less likely she is to dislike you. That might allow you to secure a cultural alliance and be free from her loyalty pressures.

Victoria can't get free melee infantry units or extra trade route capacity if she can't obtain cities outside her own continent. Warmongers should certainly consider an early rush to take her out before she can do so, while peaceful civs might want to settle in a way that it blocks her routes to new continents. By settling near the coast but slightly inland, you can deny her coastal spots without leaving the cities vulnerable to attacks from her navy - though that won't do much to stop Redcoats later on, so be warned!

Victoria's ability to get free naval units from Royal Navy Dockyards allows her to get a significant advantage in naval combat, especially once naval units become stronger and more mobile in the renaissance era. If you can't block Victoria's attempts to settle the coast entirely, then take coastal spots on other continents before her. That'll deny her the best Royal Navy Dockyard spots while also denying her the chance to get better naval units for free later on. As such, she'll be forced to spend extra gold to keep her navy up to date.

Naval units are moderately vulnerable to siege units. Any coastal cities and Encampments you have should be garrisoned with them as that'll account for their low defence.


The sheer strength of Redcoats makes them scary to face in direct combat, but as Victoria's army composition is likely to depend heavily on them, you can give lots of units anti-melee promotions. Field Cannons and Cuirassiers will be particularly good for this purpose as Redcoats are slow.

If you have sufficiently strong land units like Cuirassiers, you can line your coast with them. That stops Redcoats from exploiting their fast disembarkment ability, and also forces into amphibious warfare (for which they receive a -10 strength penalty).

If possible, take the fight to Victoria's home continent. Redcoats have 70 strength there making them just 5 points stronger than Line Infantry instead of 15.


An computer-controlled Victoria appreciates peaceful civs that are on the same continent as at least one of her cities. She dislikes anyone who's on a continent she isn't already on, and attempts to expand to all continents.

Victoria's agenda is rather nice if you're playing peacefully and start near her. The relations boost makes it less likely she'll try to rush you, letting you focus more on infrastructure.

If you start on the same landmass but a different continent, Victoria may dislike you at first but switch opinion later if allowed to expand. On the other hand, letting her expand into a new continent gives her extra gold, trade route capacity and free units, so you might want to just accept those poor relations and invade England if there's an attempt to settle your continent.

If you start on both a different landmass and continent, make sure your coasts are reasonably well protected in the event of a naval invasion. Winning her over will be difficult without one of you setting up a city on the other civ's continent, but loyalty pressure will make it hard for you to settle her continent while vice versa will give her a foothold to attack you.


Sea Dogs are no better at defending than regular Privateers, so Caravels will be reasonably effective against them and Ironclads especially so.

Moving wounded naval units back may encourage England's Sea Dogs to chase them, and from there you can lead them into a trap (such as a line of Bombards).

One way to force Sea Dogs to reveal themselves is to place naval units with a gap of two tiles between each one. Sea Dogs moving through the area won't be able to stay invisible (although a loose formation like that does make it easier for Sea Dogs to capture your units).

Any unit Sea Dogs succeed in capturing will only have 25 HP to begin with. That makes them easy to destroy. Losing units causes triple the war weariness of a regular round of combat, so if England isn't careful to protect the units they capture, they can end up facing amenity penalties throughout their realm.


The obvious thing to say is "just pillage them", but England will often have a strong navy stopping you from doing that. What else can you do? Take the city spots which would have the optimum Royal Navy Dockyard adjacency bonuses (areas on continents England didn't start on next to a river and plenty of sea resources). Those are pretty good city spots for most civs anyway (especially if you're Australia, Indonesia or the Netherlands) so you don't need to go out of your way to weaken England. Even taking other bits of coastline can help; the fewer coastal cities England can build, the weaker their Unique District is.

If England gets a classical or medieval-era Golden Age, they can take the Free Inquiry dedication for a huge science boost. You can also try destroying Barbarian Encampments near England so they can't get the era score they would get from destroying them. Also consider sending envoys to city-states near England so you can be suzerain first and get the associated era score bonus.

Naval units trained in Royal Navy Dockyards are faster than normal, which is something you'll need to be aware of when fighting naval battles against England. Grabbing the Great Lighthouse wonder for yourself allows your naval units to match their speed, but otherwise know that English naval units will usually be able to chase yours down. Consider keeping your naval units in groups so your other naval units can cover a weak one's retreat. It'll also make them less prone to being picked off by Sea Dogs.

England will tend to end up dominating the Great Admirals of the game, giving them another +1 movement speed advantage as well as +5 strength. If the opportunity arises, voting in the World Congress to stop the generation of Great Admirals temporarily can slow England down.

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• Civ summaries (Start here for an introduction for all civs)
  
• Civ-specific tricks, secrets and clarifications (Ideal for more experienced players)

• America - with persona packs* (Cultural/Diplomatic/Domination/Scientific)
  
• America - without persona packs* (Cultural/Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Arabia (Religious/Scientific)
  
• Australia (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Aztecs (Domination)
  
• Babylon (Cultural/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Brazil (Cultural/Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Byzantium (Domination/Religious)
  
• Canada (Cultural/Diplomatic)
  
• China (Cultural/Scientific)
  
• Cree (Diplomatic)
  
• Egypt (Cultural/Diplomatic/Religious)
  
• England (Cultural/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Ethiopia (Cultural/Religious)
  
• France* (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Gaul (Domination)
  
• Georgia (Diplomatic/Religious)
  
• Germany (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Gran Colombia (Domination)
  
• Greece (Cultural/Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Hungary (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Inca (Religious/Scientific)
  
• India (Domination/Religious)
  
• Indonesia (Cultural/Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Japan (All)
  
• Khmer (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Kongo (Cultural)
  
• Korea (Scientific)
  
• Macedon (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Mali (Diplomatic/Religious)
  
• Māori (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Mapuche (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Maya (Scientific)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Netherlands (Scientific)
  
• Norway (Domination)
  
• Nubia (Domination)
  
• Ottomans (Domination)
  
• Persia (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Phoenicia (Domination)
  
• Poland (Cultural/Domination/Religious)
  
• Portugal (Diplomatic/Scientific)
  
• Rome (Domination)
  
• Russia (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Scotland (Scientific)
  
• Scythia (Domination/Religious)
  
• Spain (Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Sumeria (Diplomatic/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Sweden (Cultural/Diplomatic)
  
• Vietnam (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Zulus (Domination)

*The Teddy Roosevelt Persona Pack splits Roosevelt's leader ability in two, meaning the game with it is substantially different from without - hence two different versions of the America guide.

The guide to France does not have two different versions because the Catherine de' Medici Persona Pack only adds an extra optional leader ability and does not change the existing gameplay - as such the guide is perfectly usable by players without it. "Black Queen Catherine" with the Persona Pack is identical to Catherine de' Medici without it.

These guides are for those with the Rise and Fall expansion, but not Gathering Storm. They are no longer updated and have not been kept up to date with patches released since Gathering Storm. To look at them, click here to open the Rise and Fall Civ Summaries guide. The "Other Guides" section of every Rise and Fall guide has links to every other Rise and Fall guide.


The Vanilla guides are for those without the Rise and Fall or Gathering Storm expansions. These guides are no longer updated and have not been kept up to date with patches released since Rise and Fall. To look at them, click here to open the Vanilla Civ Summaries guide. The "Other Guides" section of every Vanilla guide has links to every other Vanilla guide.