These guides are designed to help players who are new to Civ but still interested in Vox Populi, familiar with Civ but new to Vox Populi, or even those well versed in Vox Populi who just want to see if there's anything they didn't know about a particular civilization. I am actually a big fan of Zigzagzigal's Civ guide series, and it really helped me learn a lot about the game, and I wanted to bring a similar experience for fans of the Vox Populi or Community Balance Patch modpack. For those interested in the modpack it can be downloaded here[forums.civfanatics.com]

Anyways, without further ado, onto the Indonesians!

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

Beelining - Focusing on obtaining a technology early by only researching technologies needed to research it and no others. For example, to beeline Bronze Working, you'd research Mining and Bronze Working and nothing else until Bronze Working was finished.
Finisher - The bonus for completing a Social Policy tree (e.g. +33% Great Scientist rate and +25% growth in all cities from rationalism.)
GWAM - Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. These are the three types of Great People who can make Great Works, a major source of tourism for cultural Civs.
Opener - The bonus for unlocking a Social Policy tree (e.g. +25% Great Person Rate and +100% construction of guilds in Artistry)
Tall Empire - A low number of cities with a high population each.
UA - Unique Ability - the unique thing a Civilization has which doesn't need to be built.
UB - Unique Building - A replacement for a normal building that can only be built and used by one Civilization.
UI - Unique Improvement - A tile improvement that can be made by workers that doesn't replace any other improvement that can only be made by a single civilization
UU - Unique Unit - A replacement for a normal unit that can only be built by one Civilization or provided by militaristic City-States when allied.
Uniques - Collective name for Unique Abilities, Units, Buildings, Tile Improvements and Great People
Wide Empire - A high number of cities with a low population each.
XP - Experience Points - Get enough and you'll level up your unit, giving you the ability to heal your unit or get a promotion.

Indonesia does not have a start bias. A hill bias might be somewhat nice for their luxury generation, but overall this doesn't matter


When you found or conquer a city, one of 3 unique luxury resources spawn next to or underneath the city. The 3 possible resources are cloves, peppers, and nutmeg.

+5% to yield and golden age bonuses from global monopolies

+2 to yield and from global monopolies




A melee unit



Positive One-Off Changes

• Obsoletes at Gunpowder rather than Steel

Positive Stay on Upgrade Changes

• Receives a random promotion when entering first combat(Mystic Blade)

Positive Changes

• +3 & +2
  
• 2 maintenance(down from 3)
  
• Does not require an aqueduct in the city to be built
  
• A clove, pepper, or nutmeg resource will appear near or under the city when built
  
• +15% & during we love the king day

These scores are merely my personal opinions from playing and examining this Civ, you may find other uses for the Indonesian uniques that make you disagree with a certain ranking


Kris Swordsman are a pretty solid unit for offense and defense, and Indonesia's large amount of happiness means offensive wars can go on longer without penalty, making domination probably the preferred victory route
Candi's can give Indonesia a good amount of culture, but it doesn't really translate well to tourism
Indonesia's biggest advantage is to growth and production. Pepper and Nutmeg tiles in particular are incredibly strong tiles for the early game due to the monopoly bonus. Due to this, despite not having any significant tourism or science bonuses, they can both be good victory routes.
Indonesia is also bound to be making a good amount of gold from their luxury tiles too, although they don't really have any diplomatic or even trade bonuses to leverage it into a diplomatic victory
Finally, while Indonesia doesn't have any strong early faith bonuses, the Candi will give them a great amount of faith in the mid-game.

Right when you found your capital, and for every city you found or capture after that, a resource will spawn near the city (or underneath it if there are no other valid tiles).


With just a plantation improvement, and almost a guarantee of getting the monopoly bonus since you are the only one who can spawn these resources, you can get some insane tiles and bonuses. If someone who is not Indonesia got these tiles, they'd already be looking at a very solid +4 food pepper tile(without accounting for the base food on the terrain) and +10% production across their empire for nutmeg, but for Indonesia it is even better. The pepper monopoly gives those tiles a massive 6 base food, and the nutmeg gives a large +15% production bonus. Even the +8 happiness from cloves gives you a solid amount of flexibility in how you make your empire


A single improved Pepper tile in the early game. I would pick up goddess of springtime for a pantheon, does wonders for Indonesia

One important thing to note is that the monopoly bonuses Indonesia gets applies to all resources not just their unique ones. It can be much harder to reliably get those, but it is something to try for if it is reasonable.

Their sword blade wavy
They survey the ocean blue
Oh wait oops, wrong guide

Haikus aside, the reference to the Japanese is valid when talking about the Kris Swordsman. The Japanese UB gives melee units a promotion, that when they engage in combat for the first time, transforms into a new random promotion that gives some other benefit. Indonesia has an almost identical mechanic, just built into a UU that comes earlier then the Japanese UB. The promotions that the Kris Swordsman can get however, are quite different then the Japanese ones, and they are arguably stronger too.


Kris swordsman will either be your key to domination or a solid deterrent against it. Just don't overestimate how effective they will be. The promotions are random and unlike the Japanese promotions, tend to make the unit excel in one specific area, not in general.

• Mystic Blade(Gives a random promotion after unit enters first combat)
  
• All promotions given from Mystic Blade
  

What's better then having one potentially godly tile per city you might ask? Why two of course


The Inca got jealous of all my resources compared to their barren mountains

Once you get Kris Swordsman tech I would recommend going straight for Theology. The yields from Indonesian resources are best in the early game so the earlier you can get it the more you can get out of it. Once you start getting enough Candis online, you'll probably be able to make some good trade deals with your deluge of resources.

The other big benefit to the Candi is the benefits to culture and faith. Not only does the Candi give a bit of both base, it increases them by 15% each whenever the city is in a we love the king day. Make sure you are on top of getting luxuries your cities want and you'll enjoy lots of culture and faith. I would note that the Candi gives a pretty late faith bonus, so to get the most out of it you'll want to try and invest a good bit of early infrastructure into faith to try and found a religion. Indonesia does get some early faith gen out of cloves and pepper, but it's likely not enough to found on its own. They do however have a pretty strong early infrastructure to build shrines and whatnot with, so try your best to found.


Why not enjoy a nice, well seasoned meal by the sea in peaceful Medan?

While Indonesia has a solid UU and lots of happiness to allow near constant war, they also have a ton of infrastructure buffs that can allow them to do science or culture well. Your choice of victory can come down to personal preference or just whatever you feel like doing, but there can be some factors that can make some routes easier then others


An Indonesian Domination game relies mostly on Kris Swordsman and the ability to out-attrition opponents. The early game is dedicated to getting up your luxury resources like normal, but once Kris Swordsman are up you are going to try to be in almost nonstop warfare.

A Domination game will be ideal if

• Your closest neighbors are weak militarily
  
• You lack a lot of land to settle on your own and you need to conquer someone anyways
  
• The map seems largely land based

A Domination game would struggle if

• There are strong defensive civs like Babylon or the Shoshone, especially if they are your closest neighbors
  
• Most enemy civs are across the sea, making it harder to keep constant pressure on an opponent there
  
• You lack iron

An Indonesian Cultural game relies on their infrastructure, large amount of resources and possibly their mid game religious strength. They settle wide, maybe even conquering one or two civs, and use their strong cities to build lot of wonders and generate great people, and also use their large excess of resources to sell to other civs to make them friendly so you can get open borders and trade routes easier

A Culture game will be ideal if

• You have lots of room to expand, ideally through settling but perhaps through conquest of a weak neighbor or two
  
• There aren't a lot of major warmongers or other civs who would usually not like you

A Culture game would struggle if

• You are limited in your expansion
  
• There are strong culture generating civs like Brazil or Germany
  
• There are strong wonder builders like Egypt

An Indonesian Science game almost exclusively relies on their strong infrastructure. They don't build too many cities, and really focus on making their core lands as strong as possible, using their high population to stay on top of science and production buildings as well as important science wonders.

A Science game will be ideal if

• You are limited in your expansion
  
• There are lots of aggressive civs/civs that just don't like you

A Science game would struggle if

• There are lots of strong science and/or production civs, like Korea, Portugal and Germany

Progress is probably the recommended starting policy tree so you can get your resources in very quickly. Authority is also an option if you really want to improve Kris Swordsman and/or know for certain you want to go domination. Fealty would then be the best choice for science/domination victories, but Artistry would serve you better for culture. Finally, a culture Indonesia goes Industry, Domination goes Imperialism and Science goes Rationalism


Opener: If at all possible, try to avoid growing your capital much before you get this, you'll get more science that way. The culture you immediately get from this will likely almost be enough for the next policy

Liberty: If you don't have any worker techs yet, it might be a good idea to save this for later, otherwise this makes sure you're improving stuff and getting your unique luxuries up ASAP

Organization: Faster workers, settlers, and even great people all help infrastructure get built just a little bit faster

Expertise: Faster building construction is great, especially in the early game where production might be sparse.

Fraternity: Little bit of food and science, both good to have

Equality: You don't really NEED the happiness here per se, but it doesn't hurt

Finisher: A nice bit of gold to support whatever you need


Opener: Little bit of production to help early unit and building construction, plus easier barbarians and some culture out of them and any other units you kill to boot

Dominance: Get some science out of your kills too, plus the healing will allow your units without recruitment to stand a bit of a chance at surviving a followup attack after defeating another unit.

Tribute: Some extra yields for your cities here and there never hurt

Imperium: You're bound to be conquering a lot of cities, so this will probably add up to several techs and a few policies

Discipline: Indonesia does well with both gold and happiness, but it never hurts to have more

Honor: Some extra units here and there, plus they are all stronger. Neat.

Finisher: Free Companies, Foreign Legions and Mercenaries can be useful from time to time, especially since you should have a decent bit of money to purchase them as needed


Opener: Monasteries are a solid building and the cheaper faith buys are nice too.

Nobility: Castles are a decent building, but armories are often a pain to build, even for warmongers. This makes both much easier to build, and actually gives even more incentive to build castles in particular

Divine Right: This should be a solid lump of culture considering all the happiness you have

Serfdom: Makes some of the tiles outside of your plantations pretty decent too

Burghers: Extra border growth combines well with Tribute from Authority if you went that way, and the production is quite welcome

Organized Religion: Should make it a bit easier to spread your religion to nearby cities and keep it there

Finisher: The extra yields are decent, but this isn't the best finisher unless you are going a Cultural route, in that case this is incredibly useful


Opener: Guilds are expensive, but very useful. Cheaper guilds and faster great people are a must for any cultural civ.

Refinement: A little bit more happiness never hurt, just keep your guilds up

National Treasure: Extra gold from all the great people you'll have, plus an extra one for free

Humanism: Once you start building up your great works these are some solid yields

Heritage: You're going to be building plenty of wonders, get some golden ages out of them

Cultural Exchange: Mo Culture, Mo Tourism, Mo Win!

Finisher: Even more artifacts and landmarks, awesome to see


Opener: More trade for more reliable tourism bonuses

Division of Labor: Seaports and Train Stations are normally expensive buildings, but now they are in line with other buildings. Also a large boost to your production and gold outputs

Mercantilism: A large boost to your culture and science outputs. If there was something for food and faith and you'd have everything you could ever want.

Free Trade: Extra gold from ITRs is always a good thing

Entrepreneurship: Spreading out the quality of tiles away from just your unique luxuries isn't a bad thing, you only have 2 per city in most cases after all

Protectionism: A nice bit of food and science, and your gold also goes farther

Finisher: You'll have at least a few specialists, so extra production and gold from them is a good thing


Opener: At this point in the game (depending on the map type you're playing on) your last rivals are likely on different continents, so faster navies and embarked units is great. The extra production is good, and the cheaper upgrades are great.

Colonialism: An amazing bonus for Indonesia, as you basically have 3 guaranteed monopolies right off the bat, and probably more after conquest. If the rest of Imperialism wasn't so military focused I would recommend Imperialism to every Indonesia, but alas...

Regimental Tradition: Great Generals and Admirals are very important to keep your army fighting at peak strength, so making them affect more units, and affect them better, is great. Unfortunately doesn't effect heroism units

Martial Law: You might have a few puppets by this point, and now they are less of a burden

Exploitation: Because your unique luxuries weren't good enough?

Civilizing Mission: Gold to support your conquests, production to support your conquered cities, both exactly what you need on the war path.

Finisher: A better navy, less unhappiness(which at this point even you might need), and making your air units more effective on defense are all solid things to have


Opener: Lots of science and a bit of production.

Scientific Revolution: Depending on the terrain this could be only a bit of science or a ton, but overall it's usually worth building these.

Empiricism: Helps prevent other civs from leeching off your science lead

Rights of Man: Little bit of food, better villages, probably the weakest policy in rationalism.

Enlightenment: A free tech and more science is a fantastic bonus. I recommend putting it off till this late because the free tech is likely more useful if you postpone it to when the techs are more expensive

Free Thought: Great Scientists are critical in getting through the atomic and information era, and this makes them better at it.

Finisher: More Great Scientists and more growth.

Indonesia can go any of the 3 ideologies, depending on their victory route of choice. Freedom serves science best due to Indonesia building tall and their solid amount of gold. Order serves culture best due to Indonesia having solid production and a lot of happiness. Finally, Autocracy serves domination best because of course it does


Civil Society: You have lots of plantations, now they are even more insane

Avant Garde: Should help you get more scientists and engineers, which are both very important

Universal Suffrage: You probably are going to get lots of golden ages cause of high happiness, so make them longer


Universal Healthcare: A free hospital in every city, possibly before you even have biology researched, is amazing.

Capitalism: Should be a solid amount of gold given the size of your cities


Space Procurements: Makes your gold much more useful towards your science victory


Communism: There are crucial wonders for culture in the late game, and this helps you get them.

Hero of the People: Makes you get your GWAMs much faster

Worker's Faculties: Free factories for more production and some science too

Peace, Land, Bread: A plethora of great bonuses that don't directly help with a culture victory, but it will still help strengthen the empire


Dictatorship of the Proletariat: The main reason you went order, you can get high happiness more consistently then almost any civ, and can therefore use this bonus much more reliably

Five Year Plan: Lots of production, what else do you want?

Cultural Revolution: High Tourism means it's likely you've managed to flip some civs ideologies, get even more benefit against them.


Great Leap Forward: Can get you those last techs for those last wonders quicker then a lot of other civs

Spaceflight Pioneers: Two free great people and some more benefits, not too shabby


Elite Forces: Whether you need to replenish your army or are continuing to fight with veteran units, this will make them improve much faster

Military Industrial Complex: Combined with Imperialism upgrading units is pretty much free

Iron Fist: As you conquer you'll need tiles repaired even more then most civs, so this makes it much easier to do so, with some other benefits on top


Lightning Warfare: Better armor and gun units, as well as faster generals is hard for almost any civ to stand up to.

Martial Spirit: It might be a good idea to delay this if you have more then 1 or 2 civs left to conquer, but this will allow you to clean up your last few conquests


Air Supremacy: Free Airports allow your army to be almost anywhere at any time, and almost eliminates the need for a navy as long as you've conquered/founded a city on every continent

Pyramids: An early city means more luxuries to improve.

Statue of Zeus: Makes it so your Kris Swordsman need less support to take on a city

Stonehenge: Indonesia has great mid-game faith but can struggle to found a religion. Stonehenge makes founding a lot easier


Great Library: A free tech means you are that much closer to getting Candis

Hanging Gardens: A free Candi early is nice, not to mention the food on top

Oracle: A fantastic wonder that should get you to Candis and beyond rapidly

Terracotta Army: The faster tiles are improved the faster you are getting benefits from them, and Indonesia has lots of benefits to gain


Alhambra(Authority Only): You probably won't use a lot of mounted units as Indonesia, but can't complain about the culture

Borobudur: Borobudur is just a large Candi after all, feels wrong not to build it, and hey, spreading your religion is always a good thing

Karlstejn: Reforming early is always good, as Reformation beliefs are powerful

Forbidden Palace(Progress only): Can't say no to cheaper purchases

Hagia Sofia: Right on the same path as Candis, if you did manage to found a religion a great prophet will help a lot in making your religion better


Chichen Itza: You're bound to have of golden ages, make them longer

Globe Theatre(Culture): A good start to your tourism generation

Leaning Tower of Pisa: A free great person and more great people is great for all

Porcelain Tower(Science): Slap this in your biggest city for a nice science bump

Red Fort(Fealty Only): Someone trying to invade your city? Won't work if you got this there

Sistine Chapel: Should amount to a lot of culture, especially if you're playing wide

Uffizi(Culture): A difficult one to theme, but will give lots of tourism if you can


Eiffel Tower: Cheaper policies will be very useful, especially since Indonesia doesn't have amazing culture generation

Louvre(Artistry Only): The most difficult theming bonus, but if you can manage it, there's a ton of tourism to be had


Broadway(Industry Only): Uffizi: The Musical

Cristo Redentor(Culture): Tourism, and more tourism from where you are already getting tourism

Prora(Autocracy Only): Not as good for Indonesia as it would be for most warmongers as Indonesia does well with happiness, but it's still nice, and a free social policy is always great

Statue of Liberty(Freedom Only): A nice chunk of production and a free social policy, fantastic

Kremlin(Order Only): Like most Order civs, you're just here for the free policy


Bletchley Park(Rationalism Only): Makes it much harder for enemy civs to spy on you, and much easier for you to spy on them

Pentagon(Imperialism Only): Better aircraft in every way, what's not to love?


CERN: Two free techs is great no matter who you are

CN Tower(Culture): More Tourism from every normal source of tourism, should seal a culture victory

Great Firewall(Culture/Science): For a science civ, makes it so you shouldn't be spied on anymore, at least with any effectiveness. For a culture civ, get it so another civ can't get it and shut down your tourism

Hubble Space Telescope(Science): A massive help to building spaceship parts.

Sydney Opera House(Culture): To help get your last policy or two to finish the game

Indonesia is actually a pretty straightforward and flexible civ. However, flexibility can breed indecisiveness, and that can cause a few problems


Kris Swordsman are pretty strong units and you want to build a lot of them so they can be the bulk of your army for the rest of the game. You can't do that if you don't have iron. Get Bronze Working early (it's on the way to iron working anyways) and try to settle any iron you can


Your unique luxuries aren't doing much for you if you can't put plantations on them. Calendar should pretty much be the first tech you go for, then you should go for Kris Swordsman


Indonesia can go for a lot of victory routes, but they can't do them all at once. You can take some time to decide what victory route to go for, but you'll need to make a choice eventually.

Indonesia has a strong infrastructure with incredible happiness that gives them a lot of flexibility. However, Indonesia is one of the few civs where you can really turn their own strengths against them.


Short of straight up murdering them (which is not a terrible idea) Indonesia will pretty much always be getting the happiness benefits from having extra luxuries. However I would argue the bigger bonuses they get from monopolies. So the simple answer is, take the monopoly for yourself. Conquer a significant part of Indonesia and you will massively hurt their infrastructure while benefiting yours more then other conquests. In fact, if Indonesia is invading you, it might not be a bad idea to let them take a city or two if you are confident you can get them back, as it will cause an Indonesian luxury resource to spawn.


Kris Swordsmen are a weird unit to fight because they will have wildly different strengths based on what promotion they get. The general rule of thumb to follow overall though is probably overwhelming force. If you spot a Kris Swordsman with a really strong promotion, namely Restlessness, and perhaps Invulnerability, you need to bring down overwhelming force onto that unit. Attack units that attack well but defend poor. Try to ignore units that defend well but attack poor unless you have no other important targets/they are weak. At the end of the day if taken out of the situation their promotion excels in, they are no better then a swordsman, or whatever melee unit they've upgraded into


As for what Candis really mean to an enemy civ and what they can do to exploit it, they are basically just round 2 of their UA. In fact, a warmonger may want to wait to conquer Indonesia until they build Candis, as they are one of the only UBs that retain a benefit for their conquerers, as the spawned resource doesn't go away if a Candi is destroyed.


Early-Game Warmongers: Might want to save Indonesia for later, not because they'd be too hard to conquer, but because you can gain greater benefits from conquering them later if you plan to continue on the war path. Kris Swordsmen could be an issue though

Mid-Game Warmongers: A great time to conquer Indonesia, watch out for upgraded Kris Swordsman, knights will probably be your friend until tercios, then after that ranged units or melee units of your own will do good

Late-Game Warmongers: Make sure to take out upgraded Kris Swordsman and Indonesia will lack any great defensive options, and be a juicy conquest to boot

Science Players: If you fear invasion, getting swordsman tech will tide you over until you can get medieval units to counter them. Otherwise, try to get to techs with important science wonders first and you shouldn't find a lot of direct competition.

Cultural Players: Indonesia may prove annoying competition as they have strong cities to build wonders with. Either do your best to get your tech and production up, or maybe just conquer Indonesia for yourself, it will be worth it if you can pull it off

Diplomatic Players: On paper banning Indonesian luxuries sounds like a good idea, but there are 3 of them so it's easier said then done. Going for the more specific bans based on what victory type their going for (if you can tell) would be a better play

These guide cover every civ in the game, and can be used as a quick reference

• Civ Summaries

• America (Domination/Science/Culture)
  
• Arabia (Culture/Science)
  
• Assyria (Science/Domination)
  
• Austria (Diplomacy/Culture)
  
• The Aztecs (Domination/Science)
  
• Babylon (Science)
  
• Brazil (Culture)
  
• Byzantium (All)
  
• Carthage (Domination/Diplomacy)
  
• The Celts (Domination/Culture/Science)
  
• China (Domination/Culture)
  
• Denmark (Domination)
  
• Egypt (Culture)
  
• England (Domination/Diplomacy)
  
• Ethiopia (Science)
  
• France (Domination/Culture)
  
• Germany (Diplomacy/Science)
  
• Greece (Domination/Diplomacy/Culture)
  
• The Huns (Domination)
  
• The Inca (Science/Domination)
  
• India (Science/Culture)
  
• The Iroquois (Domination)
  
• Japan (Domination/Culture)
  
• Korea (Science/Domination)
  
• The Maya (Science/Domination)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Morocco (Culture/Diplomacy)
  
• The Netherlands (Diplomacy/Domination)
  
• The Ottomans (Domination/Science)
  
• Persia(Domination/Culture)
  
• Poland (Domination)
  
• Polynesia (Culture)
  
• Portugal (Science/Diplomacy)
  
• Rome (Domination/Science)
  
• Russia (Science/Domination)
  
• The Shoshone (Domination/Science/Culture)
  
• Siam (Diplomacy/Science/Culture)
  
• Songhai (Domination)
  
• Spain (Domination/Culture)
  
• Sweden (Domination)
  
• Venice (Diplomacy/Culture/Domination)
  
• The Zulus (Domination)