Many higher difficulty players will inform you that the two most important things in the early game are faith and expansion. The former gives happiness and other benefits, while the latter ensures that you get prime city locations and block enemy expansions.

This civ's bonuses help with just that. The UA makes it so that faith goes a long way to both making more cities and growing your cities taller. The UU gives an almost passive faith boost for doing the simplest tasks and the UB's are an almost inevitable bonus. The combination of these early game strengths makes a strong mid to late game.

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The Cucuteni-Trypillian were less a civilization than a culture. The span of their "empire" is better measured in changes in style and way of life than in names.

The earliest beginnings of the Cucuteni-Trypillian people date back to the 5th century B.C. They actually trace their heritage even further back in terms of cultural holdovers. In the area now known as Moldova, they spanned from some of the plains down the settlements at the base of the Carpathian Mountains. Early Cucteni-Trypallia society revolved around animal husbandry and gathering. Men hunted and gathered food for the society, whle women made pottery and textiles. Some items suggest that there was a measure of social stratification in the society, but not enough evidence exists to definitively prove this.

More interestingly, the pottery of this time showed images of women prominently, though the significance of this is still unknown. Further, the style of the pottery is one of the means by which archaeologists date the progression of the culture. Around 4000 B.C., the pottery became kiln-fired, and often painted with white, marking the transition from Early to Middle Cucuteni-Trypillian culture.

The Middle period was marked by a movement towards more permanent settlment. During this time, the Cucuteni people settled their homes on plateaus near rivers. These settlements were built on poles, using mud and plant fibers to create the platforms. The production of female fetishes stepped up during this time, leading many to believe the society was matriarchal. At the same time, cultivation of the surrounding areas increased, and hunting was supplanted by farming.

The "end" of the Cucuteni-Trypallian empire was techincally defined as its dissolution into other societies. At the height of the empire, they interacted with the peoples near the Black Sea. Eventually, the exchange of culture, along with the empires' size, caused the culture to dissapate, integrating into new geocultural groups.

One particularly interesting note about the empire was the fact that every 80 or so years, they would burn down their old homes and rebuild. The manner in which this was done was observed to be almost organic, with the new homes "growing" off of the ruins of the old ones. For this reason, it is theorized that it was done for religious reasons.

The Cucutani-Trypallia UA is two-fold.

• Local faith production contributes to settler production.
  
• Shrines in cities carry 10% food over on growth.

The first part is a direct one-to-one bonus. One faith equals one extra production, but only towards settlers. This is still useful in the early game, when settlers take a long time and investment to build. This means that faith pantheons and beliefs are all the more important early on, so beliefs like Dance of the Aurora or Desert Folklorw become even more powerful than normal since they also speed settler production. Barring those two, Earth Mothers also works quite well, especially on strategic balance map type.

The bonus to settlers is more prominent on higher time settings, as even a little bit of extra production increases the speed significantly. On lower speeds, the bonus is a larger percentage of the total, but is less consistent. Obviously, this points towards a wide strategy, and can combo well with the bonus to Settlers from Liberty.

The other half of the UA is more pointed towards a tall empire however. By making shrines feature an extra 10% food retention, it allows new settlements to grow quicker and larger settlments to reach the next level faster. This is really a minor-ish ability, though it stacks with other benefits, like Aqueducts.

There is pride to be had in a job well done.

Alongside units like the Khan, the Olar replaces a civilian unit rather than a military one. Strangely enough, it replaces the worker. It keeps most of the abilities of the base worker, but one crucial difference: it generates a small amount of faith every time it makes an improvement.

Early in the game, this means that whenever you produce a basic improvement like a farm, you get a crucial amount of faith. The boost is small (6 on standard speed), but not insignificant. Even workers captured from other cities become Olar as well, making it so that you can just as easily get them from your enemies instead of having to produce them yourself.

More importantly is what it qualifies as "improvements." The Olar generates faith when it builds any kind of improvement, including roads and railroads. It also produces faith when it repairs an improvement. These two facts combined make it easy to exploit in the early/mid game. After getting crucial things set up, one can build a basic farm, and use a unit to pillage it and repeatedly repair a worthless tile to generate semi-consistent faith.

I like to call them Walls Sina, Rose, and Maria.

The UB for the Cucuteni-Trypillian is actually three nearly identical buildings. Each one provides the same benefits of:

• +1 faith
  
• +1 food
  
• The third Stina provides +1 happiness as well

Though they replace the walls, they are available at agriculture, and offer less defensive bonuses. The faith and food bonuses make it so that new cities can contribute to the empire early on, as well as providing defense early on to protect the new cities from threats.

The main difference between the three is that each "level" of Stina has a higher production cost and maintainance cost, making them progressively more expensive to make and maintain. Even so, they are quite powerful. Consider:

A shrine gives +2 faith (base) and a granary gives +2 food, ignoring its other benefits. Further, walls give a defensive benefit, but do not cost. The Stina gives half the flat benefits of the shrine and the granary, and a portion of the walls for the cost of one gpt for the first one. Within two, the cost is up a little, but gives the benefits of a shrine and a granary, as well as walls. Within three, it surpasses the shrine and granary and the walls. Even further, the thrid Stina acts as half a colliseum. Though each one gives less advantage than the compostie buildings, together, they act as a convenient way to set up new cities by building fewer buildings with more composite benefits.

Early on, maximizing faith is imperative. Stealing a worker is a smart move, as the faith boost will not only help you, but stealing a worker is a proven way to slow down an opponent. By maximizing faith, you can increase the rate at which settlers are produced. By buildings Stinas in each town, it not only secures the border, but gives the cities the benefits they need in order to grow. The hardest part will be balancing happiness and maintainance. The former can be managed by building Stinas in each town, but those cost, and so getting Caravans, roads and markets set up quickly are important. For policies, Liberty will get your empire to expand faster, and the production benefits will allow cities to get Stinas up sooner. Piety will increase the amount of faith in an empire, which in turn increases settler production.

In the mid-game, faith can be used to either continue pushing for more land, or go to war. In either case, land is important. Be careful, as your large empire, despite its defenses, is still weak to massive attack. By taking Holy Warriors, you can spend some of your faith on units. Be aware that the number of cities you have also drains on your science and culture coss, making it hard to compete late in the game. The best chance you have is to use your massive empire to make an equally massive army.

If you make it to the late game, Order is the best policy to take. Order makes it so that wide empires can actually compete in the late stages. Worker's Facilities gives a science boost on factories and Party Leadership gives a flat +1 to most stats on a city. At late stages, aiming for either a late domination or a science victory is more likely. By using engineers to make spaceship parts, you stand a chance of competing against the heavier science civs.

After a long break, I'd like to once again thank everyone involved!

• Zigzagzigal for his inspiration on guides.
  
• Ryanjames for not only making the civ, but being a wonderful person.
  
• And of course, you readers for reading.

Until next time!