This version of the guide to America is for people with the Gathering Storm expansion but not using the Teddy Roosevelt persona pack. If you have it, or want strategies with Lincoln, click here for an alternative version of this guide.

If you saw "no additional content" and were looking for the guide to America for the base game with no expansions whatsoever, click here.

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.

Let us deal fairly but forcefully with the injustices of the world, for we have the power to do it. It is our very duty to protect the weak and young civilized states that share our continent so that we shall never again see tyranny upon our shores. And we reach out to those that share our commitment to righteousness, honour, fairness and truth, no matter where they may reside, for it is in this common cause we shall achieve justice for all.


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.

America has no start bias.

• All diplomatic policy card slots are converted into wildcard slots.
  
• Gain +1 diplomatic favour per turn for every wildcard slot in your government.

• All military and religious units gain +5 strength when on your capital's continent.
  
  • This is determined based on the tile where combat is taking place, so naval and air units can make use of it.
    
  • This does not apply to your cities' ranged attacks.
• Cities with at least one National Park add +1 appeal to all their tiles.
  
  • This includes mountain and natural wonder tiles, which usually do not gain appeal from most sources.

An industrial-era heavy cavalry unit which replaces the Cuirassier

*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 Rough Riders even after researching Combustion.

• Costs 385 production/1540 gold/770 faith, up from 330/1320/660 (+16.7%)
  
• Costs 340 gold to upgrade into from a Knight, up from 230 (+48%)

• Does not require iron resources
  
• Has a maintenance cost of 2, down from 5.
  
• Has 67 strength, up from 64
  
• 5 movement points, up from 4.
  
• +10 strength when fighting in hill tiles
  
• Gains culture equal to 50% of the defeated unit's melee strength, rounded down, when fighting on the same continent as your capital
  
  • The same rules apply as for Theodore Roosevelt's strength bonus.
• Costs 200 gold to upgrade to a Tank, down from 310 (-35%)

An atomic-era fighter-class air unit which replaces the Fighter

*Must be produced or purchased in a city with an Aerodrome district.

• 105 strength, up from 100
  
• 105 ranged strength, up from 100
  
• +5 strength when attacking fighter-class aircraft
  
• 10 flight range, up from 8
  
• +50% experience from combat

A modern-era Theatre Square building which replaces the Broadcast Centre

*Purchasing this building with faith requires the city to follow a religion with the Jesuit Education follower belief.

• +100% tourism impact of this city on other civilizations which have any modern-era technology or civic.

In this section, the civ is subjectively graded based on how much it leans towards a specific victory type - not how powerful it is. Scores of 3 or more mean the civ has at least a minor advantage towards the victory route.


Culture is the best route for America, mainly due to the Film Studio's enormous 100% bonus to tourism output. Increased appeal with cities with a National Park also increases their tourism yield (as well as any Seaside Resorts you might have in the area). Turning some diplomatic policy cards into wildcards helps you hold more directly relevant bonuses, like wonder construction or tourism boosts. Rough Riders getting culture from kills can help you get through the civics tree faster.

Diplomacy is America's second-best path, supported largely by the diplomatic favour bonus from having wildcard slots. While lower in potential than Canada and Sweden's bonuses, it comes into play earlier than Canada's bonus and is more relevant at the end of the game than Sweden's. Furthermore, America's incentive to build the Broadcast Centre-replacing Film Studios makes them particularly well-suited to getting bonus favour from the Disinformation Campaign dark age wildcard.

Domination is a reasonable path. Roosevelt's home-continent strength bonus makes him surprisingly good at early rushes. With more wildcard policy slots, you can hold more bonuses directly useful for warfare at once, and the extra diplomatic favour can help you vote down emergencies against you. There's also two UUs that can help you fight wars later on: Rough Riders are good against entrenched defenders in the industrial to modern eras, while P-51 Mustangs will secure you air superiority from the atomic era onwards.

Religion is a possible route thanks both to Roosevelt's +5 same-continent strength bonus working in theological combat and the extra wildcard policy slots allowing you to support more religious-based policy cards, but culture and diplomacy clearly overshadow it as a victory method.

Finally, America's shot at a scientific victory relies on their ability to convert diplomatic cards into wildcards, letting you use a wide array of military and economic policy cards that help with eureka boosts and science generation.

Teddy Roosevelt brings two rather distinct bonuses (and a unique unit, but they get their own section) to the table: a continent-spanning strength bonus and extra appeal in cities with a National Park. As these abilities varies greatly, it makes sense to discuss them separately.



Use the continents lens to work out where this bonus would apply. Seems Hungary shares my starting continent...

The +5 strength bonus for all your home-continent units is at first glance a decent defensive boost. In the earliest turns, it's a great help against Barbarians. Through the middle of the game, it helps you stay defended until you can get your other uniques going. Once Rough Riders come along, you can enjoy having 72-strength units which gain culture on kills. And at the end of the game, a strength bonus on your own ground makes it hard for someone to try and invade you to deny you your cultural victory.

But what this bonus is really useful for is early rushes against other civs that share your starting continent. Few civs have a strength bonus that's this strong, applicable to this many units and available this early. Get some Warriors and Slingers, upgrade them to Swordsmen and Archers, bring along a Battering Ram or Siege Tower and you've got a good combination for taking out a nearby civ.

Archers are mostly useful against enemy units as they have a -17 strength penalty against cities. With Roosevelt, it becomes a somewhat more manageable -12. Archers are still mostly effective against enemy units, but attacking cities won't be quite as bad.

You can build on this advantage further with the Oligarchy government or its legacy card and, if you're in a Dark Age before the industrial era, the Twilight Valour wildcard. Thanks to America's civ ability, you can use all of those at the same time, resulting in Swordsmen with a massive 49 strength when attacking! An early dark age will make it harder to hold onto cities you capture before they flip into free cities, but it will help make it easier for you to get a Golden Age in the atomic era and later, which allows you to take the powerful Wish You Were Here dedication.

Early warfare gives you more cities, which means more science, culture, and other good stuff. It also can help you eliminate a civ that might generate a lot of domestic tourists like Kongo or Greece, making cultural victory easier.

An alternative use of this ability applies in theological combat. Your religious units will get a +5 strength bonus when on your own continent, which is great if you've created your own religion and need to defend it from rival civs' Missionaries and Apostles. Founding a religion isn't a high priority for America, however, so don't expect to make use of that particular advantage in most games.


National Parks are a surprisingly powerful way to generate tourism, and because their yields are dependent on tile appeal, getting more tile appeal in cities with a National Park pushes up the tourism yields even further.

The complete mechanics of National Parks are a bit complicated, so it's worth explaining how it all works.


In order to create National Parks, you need the modern-era Conservation civic. Its prerequisites include the crucial Natural History civic (required to build Archaeologists and extract Artefacts), and it also makes all kinds of walls provide tourism, so it's something that isn't too hard to aim for reasonably early.

Once you have Conservation, you can buy Naturalists with faith. The cost is rather expensive (starting at 600 faith and rising by 100 every time you purchase one, much like the cost increases of Settlers or Builders) so it's important to build plenty of Holy Sites or Sanctuaries so you can produce them at a reasonable rate. Having the Theocracy government will reduce the cost of Naturalists by 15%, but you'll generally want to move on to the Democracy government for its strong set of policy cards.

National Parks can only be built by Naturalists under the following conditions:

• There is a vertical diamond shape consisting of four tiles where the west-east axis is shorter than the north-south axis
  
• The four tiles must be unimproved land tiles (including mountains) or natural wonder tiles, or a mixture of the two. Regular lakes or coastal tiles without natural wonders are not permitted, nor are mountains with Ski Resorts or mountain tunnels!
  
• All four tiles must be owned by the same city (you may need to go into the city screen, click to assign citizens and click "swap" on a few tiles to switch their ownership to the city you want to build a National Park in)
  
• All four tiles must have an appeal of 2 (Charming) or better. Mountains are always considered to have 4 appeal (Breathtaking) and natural wonders are worth 5 regardless of adjacency - they cannot have less than that, and can only get more with direct appeal bonuses to the tile such as the Eiffel Tower.

A simple example of a valid location.

When all these conditions are met, you can construct a National Park. The sum total of all appeal within the four tiles of the National Park will be added to tourism, and on top, the park will provide 2 amenities to its city and 1 to the four closest other cities in your empire. This means you don't need to worry too much about constructing Entertainment Complexes, and can instead push for more Holy Sites. You'll also get +3 era score for every National Park you create, making it a lot easier to secure an atomic-era or later Golden Age for the all-important Wish You Were Here tourism boost.

Understanding tile appeal is crucial to getting the most out of National Parks, as well as Neighbourhoods and Seaside Resorts. The appeal of a tile is primarily determined by the tiles adjacent to it, but there are also some modifiers that apply appeal directly to every tile in a city's range or even your entire empire. Adjacency bonuses or penalties to appeal do not affect mountain or natural wonder tiles, but direct bonuses do.

The following table shows all the possible modifiers to appeal not tied to a specific civ. All of the following affect appeal only in adjacent tiles, except those marked with an asterisk.

*These bonuses are applied to the tile directly rather than via adjacency bonuses. These bonuses and only these can boost the appeal of mountain and natural wonder tiles. Woods provide +1 appeal to adjacent tiles, but old-growth woods also provide +1 appeal to their own tile as well.


You may have noticed the Eiffel Tower in the top-right corner of the table, and its glorious empire-wide +2 appeal bonus. That adds 8 tourism to every National Park you have, even before taking into account modifiers like the Film Studio, international trade routes with other civs, the Computers technology and the Wish You Were Here Golden Age dedication bonus.

Carefully plan the placement of your cities, improvements and districts and you'll be rewarded with a strong tourism output. Builders can plant second-growth woods to boost the appeal of adjacent tiles by 1, and unlike mines, lumber mills don't create negative appeal - making them a great choice for your late-game production needs.

With the Eiffel Tower, just a simple vertical diamond of new-growth woods will be enough to support a National Park, not even taking into account extra appeal bonuses from tiles adjacent to the park. Still, your faith for purchasing Naturalists will be limited, so you'll probably want to search for areas with higher appeal than that.


The Golden Gate Bridge wonder adds a massive +4 appeal to all its city's tiles, and also doubles the effectiveness of the city's national parks! The catch is its tricky positioning requirement - it has to connect two pieces of land, with water on the sides.

Mountain-heavy areas are good if you want to construct National Parks without having to give up tiles that your citizens would be working. Mountains never count as having less than 4 appeal, though you will need a free non-mountain tile to be able to move the Naturalist in.

When playing as America under Theodore Roosevelt, any city with a National Park present gains +1 appeal to all its tiles. This includes mountain and natural wonder tiles. A +1 Appeal bonus to cities with a National Park means each one essentially gets +4 tourism each, but the advantage isn't just limited to them.

Neighbourhoods provide housing scaling to their tile's appeal, as follows:


The +1 appeal bump from a National Park makes it that little bit easier to get the best housing bonuses, meaning you have a slightly reduced need to build more Neighbourhoods or Sewers in future.

Seaside Resorts can be constructed by Builders on flat desert, grassland or plains tiles adjacent to the sea and provide their tile's appeal as gold, and double that as tourism. Having a National Park in a city therefore provides a +1 gold and +2 tourism bonus to all its Seaside Resorts. Get hold of the Cristo Redentor wonder (available at the Mass Media civic) and Seaside Resorts offer double tourism - making the bonus appeal from National Parks worth +4 tourism each!

Ski Resorts can be constructed by Builders on mountain tiles without a mountain tunnel or National Park present. As you cannot move Builders onto mountains, move them adjacent to them to enable the option. Ski Resorts add +1 amenity for their city, and tourism equal to the tile's appeal. Mountains aren't affected by appeal adjacency, but can gain appeal from Roosevelt's leader ability. As such, a city with a National Park will gain +1 tourism for all their Ski Resorts.


The atomic-era Cold War civic allows you to purchase Rock Bands with faith. Rock Bands can perform in other civs to provide a burst of tourism pressure against that specific civ. This raises a question for America: Is it better to spend faith on Naturalists, or on Rock Bands?

Naturalists have the following advantages:

• The tourism is directed against all other civs, not just one specific civ.
  
• The tourism is boosted by the Film Studio building and other tourism modifiers, unlike Rock Band performances.
  
• You'll gain extra tourism per turn, which can add up to a lot in the long-run.
  
• Creating National Parks also grants amenities and era score.
  
• Rock Bands can be completely stopped with the Music Censorship diplomatic policy card (atomic era, requires Space Race) and can also be pushed back by enemy military units when at war. National Parks have no such hard counter.
  
• Roosevelt's leader ability causes National Parks to add appeal (and therefore tourism) to other tiles in the city.

Rock Bands have the following advantages:

• You'll receive more immediate tourism. As such, the later in the game you are, the more you'll gain from Rock Bands relative to Naturalists.
  
• Rock Bands can additionally create large sums of gold with the Pop Star promotion, or lower rival city loyalty with the Indie promotion.

It'd take a very long and complex analysis to mark out exactly in which situations Naturalists or Rock Bands create more tourism for your faith, but a good compromise is this: Use Naturalists earlier on, especially in a Golden Gate Bridge city or a city that doesn't have a National Park yet, and use Rock Bands once there's only 1-2 civs left you need to become influential over.

• Use Roosevelt's strength bonus to rush a nearby civ to give yourself an early advantage.
  
• Work towards the Conservation civic and build Holy Sites to get plenty of faith for National Parks
  
• Work towards the Steel and Combustion technologies - Ballistics (for Rough Riders) is on the way, and getting it early gives you a good chance of grabbing the Eiffel Tower and Golden Gate Bridge wonders for extra appeal.
  
• Plant plenty of woods and build city park improvements to maximise appeal near National Parks, and avoid building mines and quarries there.

America's civ ability allows you to play a more isolationist game, downplaying diplomatic policy cards for other types, while still granting you access to a good supply of diplomatic favour you can use to vote down emergencies against you or favour resolutions that directly benefit you. Alternatively, you can use the extra diplomatic favour to help support a diplomatic victory. Like the civ as a whole, this ability grows in power as the game goes on.


When you reach the classical-era Political Philosophy civic, you'll get your first choice of government: Autocracy, Classical Republic or Oligarchy. Oligarchy complements Roosevelt's home continent strength bonus for some early warfare, but it has no diplomatic policy cards so lacks the versatility of the others. If there's no possible target on your home continent, Classical Republic can work effectively as well. Autocracy doesn't exactly fit with America's tendency to focus on lots of cities rather than a few.

Converting a diplomatic policy card to a wildcard can also help with infrastructural development. Diplomatic policy cards tend to be slow-burners, taking time to really make an impact. As a couple of examples, Charismatic Leader and Diplomatic League help you gain envoys, but most envoy bonuses need cities at a reasonable level of development to really make a difference. America can just fill that slot with Urban Planning, Ilkum or something like that instead for a more immediate impact. Faster infrastructure development prepares you for your next war, which should help your long-term prospects far more than a couple of extra envoys would.

There are ways to work around America's tendency towards fewer city-state envoys, however. A good number of Theatre Squares (which you'll need eventually for your UB anyway) will help you get through the civics trees and pick up ones off the main path which offer envoys. Alternatively, a riskier approach is to conquer city-states on your home continent if you want to deny their bonuses to other civs. It may trigger a city-state emergency against you, but if you can defend the city well enough using Roosevelt's strength bonus, you can get extra rewards.



America with Classical Republic or Oligarchy will generate +3 diplomatic favour per turn - which accumulates nicely by the start of the medieval game era.

Aside from the military or infrastructural uses of America's civ ability, it can also give you a reliable presence in the World Congress even when you're not using policy cards that help you secure suzerain status over city-states.

If you've still got rival civs on your home continent you want to conquer, this diplomatic favour bonus can be used to prevent emergencies targeting you - ensuring you're at war with just one civ and not many.

If the World Ideology resolution comes up, vote for whichever government you're using to receive a wildcard slot. You'll get a partial refund of diplomatic favour by the next World Congress session thanks to America's civ ability.

For more information on what specific World Congress resolutions are best for America, go to the Administration section of this guide.


Three governments arrive between the late-medieval and early-renaissance eras: Monarchy, Theocracy and Merchant Republic.

Monarchy is the earliest of the governments to arrive, and is ideal for a diplomatic game thanks to its significant diplomatic favour boost. It also has the joint-highest number of wildcards.

Merchant Republic is perhaps the second-easiest to research, and also has as many wildcards for America as Monarchy. It'll help you build districts faster which is rather handy considering America benefits from a broad range of them (you'll eventually want Theatre Squares and Holy Sites in as many cities as possible, in addition to other districts you already need for typical development like Campuses, Industrial Zones, Commercial Hubs and so on).

Theocracy, on the other hand, offers a useful 15% reduction to faith purchase costs. This will save you 90 faith on your first Naturalist, 105 on your second and so forth. It also directly offers a little faith to cities with Governors present, which is also featured on its legacy wildcard. The policy card selection is slightly less useful than Merchant Republic's, however, and you won't get as much diplomatic favour out of it.

Around this time there will also be a series of wonders that offer extra policy card slots:

• The Alhambra arrives at the medieval-era Castles technology and offers a military card slot. It's a very competitive wonder so you may struggle to pick it up.
  
• The Forbidden City arrives at the renaissance-era Printing technology and offers a wildcard. It's on the way to Steel and Combustion so you can have a good shot at it.
  
• The Potala Palace arrives at the renaissance-era Astronomy technology and offers a diplomatic policy card, which America converts to a wildcard. Not only does America get more out of this wonder than other civs, but it's also in a nice location in the technology tree, being on the way to Radio.
  
• The Big Ben wonder arrives at the industrial-era Economics technology and offers an economic policy card. Its placement on the technology tree makes it very difficult to pick up for America, however - you'll typically want Steel and Radio before Economics.

Once you have the Conservation civic (and maybe Cultural Heritage as well for its helpful tourism-boosting policy card), head to Suffrage and pick up the Democracy government. It offers an impressive 4 wildcards for America, which means you'll be getting +7 diplomatic favour per turn from your government alone. If you have both the Potala Palace and Forbidden City, you can get an even more impressive 6 wildcards (and therefore +9 diplomatic favour per turn from your government alone). All these wildcards will help you to easily switch between a war-heavy focus to complement your UUs, and a peacetime tourism focus.



In this game, I managed to secure the Forbidden City and Alhambra wonders, though not the Potala Palace nor Big Ben. The sheer number of wildcards grants me unrivalled flexibility - here I'm using it to support my cultural aims.

The late-information era brings with it three final governments: Corporate Libertarianism, Digital Democracy and Synthetic Technocracy. All of them have a notably high number of wildcard slots to begin with (five), but for America, the Digital Democracy government offers eight! With Potala Palace and the Forbidden City, you could have 10 wildcards in your government - and therefore you could receive +14 diplomatic favour per turn from your government alone.

Having such a sheer volume of wildcards makes it easy to fit in whatever combination of appropriate policy cards you want, and is especially useful for supporting future-era wildcards, legacy cards and Dark Age wildcards. In the information game era onwards, falling into a Dark Age allows you to use the Disinformation Campaign wildcard, granting you +3 diplomatic favour every turn for every Film Studio you have. You can stack the future-era wildcards Diplomatic Capital and Rabblerousing for even more diplomatic favour, while still having plenty of wildcards left over for whatever you want.


The American civ ability supports a more isolationist playstyle. Given Roosevelt's incentive towards early warfare, that's rather helpful. You'll end up with fewer city-state allies, but more immediately-useful bonuses that can help your early conquests and help you prepare for your powerful late-arriving strengths. You'll also have a reliable source of diplomatic favour that other civs can't take away from you, giving you consistent power in the World Congress.

In a typical game, pick Oligarchy for your tier one government, Merchant Republic or Theocracy for tier two, Democracy for tier three and Digital Democracy for tier four.

Rough Riders are units with many different uses, but perhaps the most reliably useful application is to help keep you defended in the latter eras of the game while you focus on technologies that largely lack land combat units.


Rough Riders replace the Curiassier unit, which comes at the industrial-era Ballistics technology. The prerequisite for Ballistics - Metal Casting - is on the way to Radio, so you don't need to take much of a diversion to pick it up. In fact, Ballistics is an easy technology to beeline if your science yield is sufficient, so it's worth considering starting some wars with them.

Rough Riders are quite expensive to train, but at least you can partially circumvent that cost by training some Knights ahead of time ready for upgrading. The Chivalry military policy card (available at the medieval-era Divine Right civic) is extremely easy to obtain by the time Rough Riders are available as well, so you can enjoy that production bonus.

With the Levee en Masse policy card available with the modern-era Mobilisation civic, Rough Riders are completely free to maintain - freeing up gold for other purposes such as purchasing Archaeologists, Holy Site buildings or Film Studios in weaker cities. They also completely lack resource requirements, so if you're low on oil they can provide a useful backup defensive option.


On your home continent, Rough Riders have 72 strength, putting them ahead of enemy Cuirassiers by a whole 8 points, and able to stand up to the likes of Pike and Shot units. Bring along some Bombards and you can have some reasonable success against enemy cities.

Bring hills into the equation, however, and Rough Riders can hold their own for a very long time. +10 strength is more than enough to cancel out the defensive advantage of a fortified hill, making the unit excel somewhere other mounted units struggle to deal with. Remember that Rough Riders can defend on hills as well, making them tough targets to take out. On a hill on your home continent, they'll be defending at 82 strength, which is good enough to handle most pre-information era threats (and even some from that era).

Conservation and Cultural Heritage are important civics for an American cultural game, but they're on a separate path to modern-era governments. Rough Riders can help account for this by granting culture when they kill units, much Greece when led by Gorgo. The catch is that it only applies on your home continent, but considering you get Roosevelt's +5 strength boost there, it's not as bad a restriction as it may at first appear.

Of course, to use this bonus, you need to actually have something to fight. You could use casus belli carefully to start a war with minimal grievance generation, and then simply play defensively, but be careful that the enemy civ doesn't end up pillaging your lands. Another possibility is to draw out a war over a long period of time if someone else declared it on you, or attack a civ that has already generated grievances against you. Alternatively, you can just use them as part of a standard invasion force (along with some siege units like Artillery) until you run out of places on your home continent to capture.

Don't want a war? Build up some Neighbourhood districts on your home continent. Soon enough enemy Spies will start using the Recruit Partisans mission to spawn Barbarians there. Kill them with your Rough Riders and you'll gain culture for your trouble.


Ultimately, Rough Riders are multipurpose units that will help you get through the industrial and modern eras without too much trouble. They work well in defence at a low cost, and are relatively easy to beeline for a powerful military presence.

Welcome to the dream factory. The Film Studio is an incredibly powerful unique building which turns America from being decent at cultural victories to being one of the best.


There is one tricky thing to consider first, however: get Radio first or Steel? Steel comes with the powerful Eiffel Tower, which will substantially boost your National Park tourism as well as providing the eureka boost for Flight. The Rough Rider unit is also on the way. Furthermore, the bonus of Film Studios requires other civs to be in the modern research era, so getting them too early is redundant.

The technology tree around Radio offers many useful other things - Flight makes culture on terrain add to tourism as well as providing the Aerodrome district (you'll need at least one to build P-51 Mustangs), Radio itself also offers Seaside Resorts, Electricity offers the strong production bonus of Power Plants, Computers increases your tourism output by 25% and Advanced Flight lets you build P-51 Mustangs.

Any city that is likely to produce more than a little tourism definitely should have a Film Studio built as soon as you can. For this reason, build plenty of Theatre Squares, Amphitheatres and Museums in advance (generally Archaeological Museums are to be preferred in most cities as America lacks advantages to Great Artist generation until Film Studios are built in large numbers). Cities with strong production should manage to build Film Studios reasonably quickly, but keep some gold ready for production-poor National Park cities. Send your trade routes to other civs if you need to earn more money - you'll also get a 25% tourism bonus against them for doing so.


As for what the Film Studio actually offers you, it's simple enough: a +100% tourism bonus for the city. Thanks to Roosevelt's leader ability, you should emphasise National Parks, seaside resorts and ski resorts - but don't forget Archaeologists, GWAMs and perhaps the odd wonder.


The tourism bonus is applied at the source, so the Film Studio's bonus stacks multiplicatively with other tourism multipliers.

Like regular Broadcast Centres, Film Studios offer a slot for Great Music, two Great Musician points and one Great Artist Point. Great Musicians create two Great Works , worth 4 culture and 4 tourism each. Thanks to the Film Studio, that doubles making Great Musicians worth 8 tourism each. Add Space Race's Satellite Broadcasts civic as well and it's up to 24. 48 tourism from a single Great Person really isn't bad. It's true that because Film Studios arrive late, you probably won't get many Great Musicians out of them, but every bit helps.

As a Broadcast Centre replacement, Film Studios can provide +3 diplomatic favour each if you fall into an information or future-era Dark Age and take the Disinformation Campaign wildcard. That's useful if you fail to get a Golden Age for the Wish You Were Here bonus to National Park tourism.

One final note: Be careful if you're at war. If a Theatre Square is pillaged, the Film Studio will be the first building to be deactivated. It'll still have its Great Work of Music slot, but the tourism bonus will be disabled until it's repaired.


While Roosevelt's leader ability gets America off to a good start via the same-continent strength bonus, the Film Studio is the thing that wins you the game. No other civs can come even close to America's potential tourism output. As it doesn't work against pre-modern civs, you don't need to rush it - giving you time to head to Steel and Combustion for key appeal wonders instead.

A deployed P-51 Mustang. Look right of the unit icon to see its model in this screenshot.

Let's get the obvious out of the way first: The P-51 Mustang arrives late; it's the only unique in the game past the modern era. That means it lacks the impact of many earlier-arriving UUs, but that's not to say it's a bad unit to have. To explain why, let's go into detail about how aircraft work...


Once you have an Aerodrome district (requiring the modern-era Flight technology), you can start building aircraft. The amount you can build is limited based on your aircraft capacity. Every city can support one aircraft, every Aerodrome two (three with a Hangar, four with an Airport), every Carrier unit two (up to five with promotions) and every airstrip tile improvement (built by Military Engineers) three.

There are two types of aircraft: fighter-class and bomber-class. As a general rule:

• Fighters are good against other aircraft and can target individual ground units fairly effectively, though they have a penalty versus city defences.
  
• Bombers are good against city defences and can pillage tiles.

While Fighters and Bombers alike must be based somewhere with aircraft capacity, they operate differently. Bombers work rather like ranged units, only with a particularly long range and the risk of interception. Fighter-class aircraft, however, have more complicated rules.

From the site your figher-class aircraft are based, you can deploy them on land or coast (shallow water) within a certain number of tiles. Regular Fighters can go up to eight tiles away, but P-51 Mustangs have a flight range of ten.


Click the "deploy" button to set where your fighter-class aircraft will be based. My range is eleven rather than the usual ten due to my use of the Logistics military policy card.

Once deployed, fighter-class aircraft will intercept any aircraft that attempt to attack their tile or an adjacent one, and can be set to perform a ranged attack; Fighters and P-51 Mustangs have a range of five when doing so. Like regular ranged units, they can deal damage without receiving any when performing a ranged attack - unless there's anti-air (Battleships, Destroyers, Missile Cruisers, other fighter-class aircraft, Anti-Air Guns or Mobile SAMs) in that tile or an adjacent one. Be aware that in order to heal up damage taken, fighter-class aircraft will need to return to their base (in other words, they can't heal up when deployed).


P-51 Mustangs arrive at Advanced Flight, which is thankfully not far off the important technologies of Radio and Computers. The Eureka for Advanced Flight requires three Biplanes - if you have Combustion unlocked already and have oil, you can build them ahead of time so you can immediately upgrade them to P-51 Mustangs.

With Roosevelt's ability on top, P-51 Mustangs are as strong as the Jet Fighters of other civs for a lower cost and a lower maintenance cost, and will have an advantage when attacking them. This makes them effective right to the end of the game!

The high flight range of P-51 Mustangs means you don't need to build many Aerodromes for planes to be able to cover your entire empire. Considering you'll want to build Holy Sites (for faith for National Parks) and Theatre Squares (for Film Studios) in most cities, being able to minimise your use of Aerodromes is rather useful.

Because the anti-fighter bonus of P-51 Mustangs only applies when you're attacking - not intercepting - them, the unit is generally more effective in offensive rather than defensive wars (though the bonus can still be useful in both cases). You can clear the way for your bomber-class aircraft to bring down city defences, and then use fast units to pick off the last bit of health and capture it.



Here's all the Fighter promotions. Note how powerful those strength bonuses are against land units.

On top of the strength bonuses, P-51 Mustangs also get 50% more experience from combat. It's probably a good idea to focus on the anti-ground unit promotions on the right-hand side of the promotion tree first as Mustangs already have an edge in air-to-air combat. A +17 bonus is akin to forming an army, which is helpful considering air units have no equivalent of corps and armies.


Because they get so many useful bonuses, there's little need to upgrade P-51 Mustangs - in fact, it can be detrimental in some cases to do so (you'll lose the fast XP gain, for a start). You may want to put off researching the Lasers technology if you want to build or buy more.

• P-51 Mustangs can basically be used like super-long-range Archers, but watch out for anti-air units.
  
• They're great against land units and other figher-class aircraft but struggle against cities; if you're using them offensively, bring some siege support such as Bombers.

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.


Note that a more detailed analysis can be found in the section for the civ ability.


Go with Oligarchy for the strength bonus to complement Roosevelt's own one. This will help you secure your home continent, giving you a huge advantage with all the cities you'll have captured. For a more peaceful game, take Classical Republic.

The Ancestral Hall works well as a government building, seeing as you'll need a lot of cities to maximise your faith output later (as well as for ensuring you have plenty of good National Park spots).


Monarchy is ideal for diplomatic games thanks to its significant favour bonus. Theocracy lets you buy Naturalists for cheap making it ideal for a cultural game.

For a diplomatic game, take the Foreign Ministry building for the extra diplomatic favour. Otherwise, the Intelligence Agency will be a generally useful government building to have to boost your Spies, helping you steal more Great Works and eurekas for example, but the Grand Master's Chapel might be useful for the extra faith if you intend to do a lot of pillaging.


Democracy's large number of wildcards makes it an ideal choice for America.

The National History Museum is a great choice. America's tendency towards fully-developed Theatre Squares means you'll generate a lot of GWAMs, but you won't necessarily have enough Great Work slots to store all of theirs.


Digital Democracy has a massive 8 wildcards for America, and hence +8 diplomatic favour per turn (in addition to the +4 it provides anyway).

America's higher number of wildcard slots allows for strong combinations of economic policy cards to help you develop your empire faster, or strong combinations of military policy cards to help with early warfare. While only policy cards with direct synergy with America's other uniques are covered here, that is not to say others are not worthwhile.


Agoge (Military, requires Craftsmanship) - If you intend to carry out an early rush of an enemy civ with the support of Roosevelt's Leader Ability, this is one of the best policy cards to help you at that task; Slingers, Warriors, Archers and Swordsmen alike can be trained faster thanks to it.

Strategos (Wildcard, requires Military Tradition) - With an extra wildcard slot in the Oligarchy government, you're much more easily able to support this wildcard. It can potentially help you get a classical-era Great General without the need for lots of Encampments, supporting early warfare.


Scripture (Economic, requires Theology) - Faith output is important for generating as many Naturalists as you can. You generally won't need this policy in the classical era, but it can be a great help in the modern era.


Chivalry (Military, requires Divine Right) - Although this is available in the medieval era, you won't necessarily need it until the industrial era as it lets you train Rough Rangers faster! Alternatively, you can use it to train Knights faster ready for upgrading later. If you're taking the Classical Republic government and don't want to take a detour to Divine Right to boost Rough Rider production, another card is available at the modern-era Ideology civic.

Gothic Architecture (Economic, requires Divine Right) - Two key wonders arrive in the renaissance era to give your government more flexibility: the Potala Palace and the Forbidden City. This policy card will help you get hold of them before a different civ does.

Professional Army (Military, requires Mercenaries) - Cuts the gold cost of upgrading units in half - crucial for the expensive Knight to Rough Rider upgrade path.


Logistics (Military, requires Mercantilism) - Increases the flight range of P-51 Mustangs even further, and helps Rough Riders cover more ground. It also cuts down the travel time needed for Naturalists, helping you get more tourism sooner.

Simultaneum (Economic, requires Reformed Church) - Another handy boost to faith for generating Naturalists with, but again, one you probably won't need until the modern era.


Public Works (Economic, requires Civil Engineering) - Planting forests is a good way of boosting the yield of National Parks, but that can cost a lot of Builder charges. This policy card will help with that.

Public Transport (Economic, requires Urbanisation) - Stronger appeal yields from National Parks leads to better yields from Neighbourhoods with this policy card.

Skyscrapers (Economic, requires Civil Engineering) - Aside from the general advantages surrounding building wonders faster (wonders are a great source of tourism), this policy card is especially useful to America to help secure the Eiffel Tower wonder and the boost to tile appeal it offers.

Symphonies (Wildcard, requires Opera and Ballet) - Every Film Studio will generate an extra +4 Great Musician Points.


Levee en Masse (Military, requires Mobilization) - Makes Rough Riders completely free to maintain, meaning the only limits are how fast you can train them and how much space you have in your land to hold them. In the case of P-51 Mustangs, it lowers their considerable maintenance cost (7 gold per turn ain't cheap) to a somewhat more reasonable 5. All this cash saving helps you to purchase Film Studios in cities that don't have the production to build them quickly.

Lightning Warfare (Military, requires Ideology) - Allows you to train Rough Riders faster.

New Deal (Economic, Democracy only, requires Suffrage) - Need to build Holy Sites or Aerodromes but your cities are already full of districts? Take this policy card and they'll be able to grow large enough to support them.

Their Finest Hour (Wildcard, Democracy only, requires Suffrage) - Together with Roosevelt's leader ability, you'll have a +10 strength bonus on your home continent in friendly territory, making it tough for would-be warmongers to stop your cultural or diplomatic game.


After Action Reports (Military, requires Rapid Deployment) - Want to build upon the fast experience gain of P-51 Mustangs? This policy card will help with that.

Satellite Broadcasts (Economic, requires Space Race) - All boosts to tourism are useful (including the ones not listed here), but this policy card gets a slight boost for America compared to the typical cultural civ as your incentive to build a lot of Film Studios will give you a lot of Great Musician points.


Strategic Air Force (Military, requires Globalisation) - Allows you to train P-51 Mustangs faster.


Diplomatic Capital (Wildcard, requires Smart Power Doctrine) - America can hold more wildcards than other civs, and gains diplomatic favour for having wildcard slots. As with that bonus, this wildcard offers a flat diplomatic favour bonus that can't be prevented by other civs.

Global Coalition (Wildcard, requires Smart Power Doctrine) - An excellent defensive bonus which acts as an upgraded replacement to Their Finest Hour, and stacks well with Roosevelt's leader ability.

Rabblerousing (Wildcard, requires Information Warfare) - Provides a little diplomatic favour, and if you're not going for a diplomatic victory yourself, getting a partial refund when reducing another civ's diplomatic victory points will be very useful.

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

Twilight Valour (Dark Age, Classical to Renaissance eras) - This stacks nicely with Roosevelt's home-continent strength bonus and the Oligarchy government for some particularly strong Swordsmen.

Wish You Were Here (Golden Age, Atomic to Future eras) - An almighty Golden Age bonus that makes America's already considerably powerful National Parks even stronger.

Cyber Warfare (Dark Age, Information to Future eras) - Helpful for keeping your P-51 Mustangs strong beyond the atomic era. If you use them defensively, you don't have to worry about the lack of grievance decay.

Disinformation Campaign (Dark Age, Information to Future eras) - Grants +3 diplomatic favour for every Film Studio - which can add up to an awful lot. Quite a useful fallback if you can't get the Wish You Were Here Golden Age dedication.

Sky and Stars (Dedication, Information to Future eras) - When playing for a cultural victory, if you slip into a atomic or information-era Dark or Normal Age, you'll want to ensure you get enough era score to get the Wish You Were Here Golden Age dedication in the era following. This dedication rewards you for generating Great People (having lots of Film Studios should provide you with plenty) and developing your Aerodromes.

Sky and Stars (Golden Age, Information to Future eras) - Allows P-51 Mustangs to gain experience at an unrivalled rate, quickly getting them powerful strength bonuses.


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 votes that have high relevance for this civ relative to other civs.

Border Control Treaty - Effect A (New districts built by this player act as culture bombs) on yourself

National Parks have tricky placement requirements, but being able to take land off other civs can make that easier - so long as the district itself doesn't get in the way of your desired National Park location.

Heritage Organisation - Effect A (Tourism from Great Works of this type is doubled) for Great Works of Music

America's incentive to build lots of Film Studios means you'll generally have more Great Works of Music than most other civs.

Nobel Peace Prize - Vote in favour if you have a good shot at winning it.

America's diplomatic favour bonus makes it easier to win this scored competition, while the Great People will be very useful.

Sovereignity - Effect B (City-states of this type do not provide their unique suzerain bonus) for a city-state type that you're not suzerain over at all

America's incentive to take fewer diplomatic policy cards means they're often less competitive in the race for envoys - meaning this will harm other players much more than it hurts you.

Treaty Organisation - Effect B (No diplomatic favor earned from being suzerain of a city-state of this type) for a city-state type that you're not suzerain over at all

Similarly, choosing this outcome cuts favour to diplomatic rivals without hurting you.

Urban Development Treaty - Effect A (+100% production towards buildings in this district) for Theatre Squares

Helps you build Film Studios faster.

World Ideology - Effect A (This government type gains a wildcard policy slot) on whichever government type you're currently using

You'll get a partial refund on the favour cost of passing this policy thanks to America's civ ability, and of course the wildcard will be handy in general.

Many faith bonuses are tempting, but remember that it won't be directly useful to America's unique advantages until the modern era. It's better to take something with a more immediate benefit instead unless you're determined to found a religion.

Earth Goddess - Although it won't really take off until you can start assigning National Parks, this pantheon will still be useful before then for accumulating faith in high-appeal regions ready for their arrival.

God of the Forge - Speed and power are crucial in an early rush - Roosevelt's leader ability offers a strength boost that offers the power; this pantheon can help to hasten the attack by making early units faster to build.

(Domination) God of Healing - P-51 Mustangs and other such aircraft can stack in an Aerodrome if not deployed, and until they're promoted enough, cannot heal when deployed. That means most of your aircraft will be healing in the same spot. America is unusual in that you'll tend to build Holy Sites very late, meaning you can deliberately place them next to where future Aerodromes will be so this pantheon can allow all those aircraft to heal rapidly. The downside is that earlier in the game, this pantheon will mostly be restricted in use to helping your units heal up faster after capturing religious enemy cities.


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

Defender of the Faith (Enhancer) - Combined with Roosevelt's leader ability, you can have an incredibly strong defensive edge to keep your continent secure.

Divine Inspiration (Follower) - Playing as America under Theodore Roosevelt, your faith generation will primarily be to further your tourism output via National Parks. Wonder construction in general also helps out at this. Make wonders generate faith, and you can essentially get more tourism out of every one you build.

(Domination) Holy Waters (Enhancer) - Combines nicely with God of Healing for even faster aircraft healing.

Jesuit Education (Follower) - Spending faith on Film Studios instead of National Parks is a tricky trade-off, but one that allows you to save production or gold. For players who like to push both tourism and domination at the same time, this is a good option, but purely cultural-minded players will generally be better off looking for more faith bonuses.

Synagogue (Worship) - Offering more immediate faith than any other religious building, Synagogues will be very useful for maximising your Naturalist output. The Dar-e Mehr building does eventually offer more faith if it's around for a few eras, but America's tendency to develop Holy Sites quite late will limit that potential.

Warrior Monks (Enhancer) - Found a good spot for a National Park, but some mean rival civ has taken some of the tiles you need? Use the culture bomb from this belief to right that wrong. Just be sure that new Holy Site doesn't take one of the tiles you would need for the National Park.


America tends to be relatively poor at gaining envoys due to their civ ability discouraging use of diplomatic policy cards. This means you'll often struggle to remain suzerain of city-states. As such, you'll largely want to seek out envoy bonuses. Religious city-states are good to emphasise later in the game - the bonuses for having 3 or 6 envoys can be considerable if you have a lot of cities with developed Holy Sites.

Akkad (Militaristic) - Useful for supporting early Swordsman rushes, as you won't need to bring along siege support.

Armagh (Religious) - By allowing you to build Monasteries, Armargh can help you generate faith (to help generate Naturalists with) without you having to have founded a religion. Even if you lose suzerain status, you'll still keep the improvements you already built.

Granada (Militaristic) - Being suzerain over Granada allows you to build the special Alcázar improvement, which grants science based on its tile's appeal. Roosevelt's appeal bonus allows you to get even more science out of them.

Kabul (Militaristic) - Considering how quickly P-51 Mustangs gain experience anyway, bumping up that level even further will make rushing through the promotion tree effortless. This will make them effective against land units and air units alike.

La Venta (Religious) - Much like Armargh, lets you build a special improvement that offers faith, without you having to found a religion first.

Nazca (Religious) - Nazca Lines are a good additional source of faith in desert areas, and create bonus appeal.

Jebel Barkal (Classical era, Iron Working technology) - A nice wonder to capture or even to build yourself, this offers a huge amount of faith for your National Parks without you having to worry about Holy Sites.

Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (Classical era, Defensive Tactics civic) - Offers some extra faith, but more importantly allows you to retire the Great Engineers Alvar Aalto and Charles Correa twice for extra appeal later in the game.

Forbidden City (Renaissance era, Printing technology) - Build on your wildcard advantage with this wonder, which offers another wildcard slot. That will help make your governments particularly versatile, and will also offer +1 diplomatic favour per turn for the rest of the game.

Potala Palace (Renaissance era, Astronomy technology) - For America, this wonder is as strong as the Forbidden City, offering a wildcard slot and therefore +1 diplomatic favour per turn for the rest of the game.

Bolshoi Theatre (Industrial era, Opera and Ballet civic) - America's incentive to construct lots of copies of a building boosting Great Musician points makes it worthwhile to look for wonders that offer more points.

Országház (Industrial era, Sanitation technology) - The reason for building this wonder is to deny it to diplomatic rivals who are better at gaining envoys. The less diplomatic favour they have, the further yours will go.

Broadway (Modern era, Mass Media civic) - Another wonder helping you generate Great Musicians.

(Cultural) Cristo Redentor (Modern era, Mass Media civic) - An excellent choice of wonder and certainly should take priority over Broadway, which arrives at the same civic. Roosevelt's Leader Ability makes cities with a National Park have higher-appeal tiles, which boosts the tourism yields of Seaside Resorts. With this wonder and a Film Studio, having a National Park in a city provides +8 tourism to all Seaside Resorts in the city's limits.

Eiffel Tower (Modern era, Steel technology) - Probably the most important wonder for Roosevelt's America to go for. +2 appeal for all tiles means at least +8 tourism per National Park and +4 per Seaside Resort, but it also allows you to build them in areas you may have previously not been able to. The limit on how many National Parks you can support becomes about faith, not whether or not you have enough breathtaking-level land.

Golden Gate Bridge (Modern era, Combustion technology) - While not quite as strong potentially as the Eiffel Tower, the rewards are still huge. +4 appeal in all the city's tiles and +100% National Park tourism. With old-growth woods or city parks, the Eiffel Tower and other appeal bonuses you could have National Parks worth well over 100 tourism per turn each!

Biosphère (Atomic era, Synthetic Materials technology) - Provides a powerful source of tourism that Film Studios can magnify. It also eliminates the appeal penalty from marsh and rainforest.

(Cultural) Sydney Opera House (Atomic era, Cultural Heritage civic) - There's two reasons why America has an incentive to get this wonder. One: Film Studios produce two Great Musician points each, and combined with this wonder you'll have quite an advantage to producing them (well, the last few anyway). Two: Cultural Heritage is only one civic away from Conservation, which you need for National Parks, so it's not much of a detour.


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.


Imhotep (Great Engineer) - Early wonders are worth more tourism by the end of the game than later-arriving ones, so rushing one can be quite useful to your cultural aims.


Gustave Eiffel (Great Engineer) - Make him rush the production of his own wonder. That's really useful if you ended up researching Radio first before Steel.

Napoleon Bonaparte (Great General) - Allows you to make an army slightly earlier than most. A Rough Rider army will be able to see off the more powerful enemy units for quite some time, having almost as much strength as a Tank. Make sure you have another renaissance or industrial-era Great General to spare first, however, as a +5 strength and +1 movement boost to a number of units is better than just a +17 strength boost to one.


Alvar Aalto (Great Engineer) - +1 appeal to all tiles in a city means an extra 4 tourism from a National Park, 2 tourism from seaside resorts and 1 tourism from ski resorts. Be sure to use this Great Person carefully - you'll generally make the most in a city with extensive high-appeal coastlines which can still support a National Park - whichever city has the Golden Gate Bridge wonder is ideal.

Marina Raskova (Great General) - An extra aircraft slot without needing to construct additional buildings or Airstrips isn't huge, but if you're trying to get as many P-51 Mustangs as possible, extra capacity is always welcome.

Sarah Breedlove (Great Merchant) - A tourism bonus is always welcome, especially on top of the huge Film Studio boost.


Melitta Bentz (Great Merchant) - Another boost to tourism from trade routes.


Charles Correa (Great Engineer) - Like Alvar Aalto, but provides double the effect. Again, be careful which city you use him in to maximise your tourism output; your Golden Gate Bridge city is best if you have it.

Kenzo Tange (Great Engineer) - One city gains a considerable tourism bonus based on district adjacency, magnified by Film Studios.

Jamseth Tata (Great Merchant) - All Campuses provide +10 tourism, or +20 with Film Studios.

Masaru Ibuka (Great Merchant) - All Industrial Zones provide +10 Tourism, or +20 with Film Studios.

America has a very powerful late-game presence but has relatively little in the earlier stages of the game. They still defend well, however, so you might want to consider non-military methods of weakening them if possible.



America's civ ability only makes a difference if they're using fewer diplomatic policy cards than other civs. This by extension means they're likely to be less competitive in the race for city-state envoys, weaker in espionage and have weaker trade with allies. That being said, having a lot of wildcard slots makes them versatile - they can quickly adjust to cover up those weaknesses if need be.

Denying America wonders that offer extra policy cards (especially the Potala Palace and Forbidden City) will ensure their government is only moderately more flexible than that of other civs, rather than substantially more. Similarly, voting in the World Congress for America's government to lose a wildcard if the vote comes up will be beneficial.

Otherwise, this is an ability that's hard to predict and hence counter seeing as you won't know exactly what policy cards they're using.


America gets a diplomatic favour bonus that is quite hard to directly counter - every wildcard slot they have adds +1 diplomatic favour per turn. To stop America choosing better governments, either slow down their culture output (such as by pillaging their Theatre Squares) or force them to switch (such as fighting them while they're using Digital Democracy, so they're encouraged to switch to a different government to avoid the strength penalty).

A better option is to work around their bonus and look for other areas where America is weak in gathering favour. America will tend to be weak in the race for city-state envoys, for example, so you can try becoming suzerain over many of them.



Roosevelt's strength bonus on his starting continent gives America a defensive edge which helps them get to the point where all their powerful late-arriving bonuses take effect. America's still at their weakest early in the game, but you'll need either strength or numbers advantages (or rely on naval warfare) if you want to fight America on their home continent. Thankfully, you'll have plenty of time to prepare - most of America's other advantages don't kick in until the industrial era.

If you're a religious player and Roosevelt has a religion of his own, be aware that he'll perform particularly well in theological combat on his own continent. Try to use trade routes or the spread-religion function of Missionaries and Apostles instead to get around this.


Try settling mountain-heavy spots or natural wonders so America can't reach them. Mountains and natural wonders are both good for appeal and Holy Site adjacency, and America being denied them means they'll make fewer National Parks.

Remember that you can lower America's tile appeal by going on a pillaging spree. Light cavalry units are particularly well-suited to this goal. If America secures the Eiffel Tower or Golden Gate Bridge, it's worth trying to take over the city to limit their tourism output.


Rough Riders take everything terrifying about Cuirassiers - their high speed, their high strength, and the relative ease in which the Ballistics technology can be beelined - and build on it further. Their main downside is their higher cost, but this is somewhat mitigated by their lower maintenance cost and lack of a resource requirement.

Pike and Shot units fight at a slight disadvantage against Rough Riders unless promoted, but they are a fair bit cheaper. Consider clustering them together for flanking and support bonuses. While defending on a hilltop is a good move against most unique units, it's the worst possible move against Rough Riders, which have a +10 bonus against units on hill tiles and can easily get a promotion granting a +10 boost against fortified units. Instead, defend behind rivers or in forests on flat land, and don't bother fortifying.

Once you have the Chemistry technology, you can use AT Crews to deal with Rough Riders without too much trouble. Remember still to avoid hill tiles.


If you share a continent with Teddy Roosevelt and avoid warfare, he'll get along with you fine. He hates civs that start wars on his own continent (including against city-states). Roosevelt will never have the Darwinist hidden agenda, as it conflicts with this agenda, and will never have the Exploitative hidden agenda as it would weaken his National Park bonuses.

If you want to start a war on Roosevelt's continent for the first time, it might be worth targeting him first; partially because it can help in denying him his late-game bonuses, and partially because you'll anger him anyway so you might as well declare war on him before he declares war on you.

In addition to this agenda, Roosevelt has a 33% chance of having the Environmentalist hidden agenda. This agenda makes him more likely to create National Parks and plant woods and less likely to cut down woods and rainforests. He will favour civs that preserve the natural landscape while disliking those that cut it all down. Take that last point into consideration if you're starting near Roosevelt and don't want to provoke a war early on.


If you're fighting America late in the game, avoid using unpromoted Fighters as a anti-air method in favour of surface-based anti-air, such as Anti-Air Guns, Mobile SAM, Battleships, Destroyers and Missile Cruisers. You may want to use siege units such as Rocket Artillery in place of Bombers as well. America's edge at air combat is relatively short-lived - P-51 Mustangs are only around for an era before they obsolete - but avoiding engaging a UU where it's at its strongest is always a good idea.


Although in theory you can weaken Film Studios by delaying entering the modern research era, this isn't feasible for most civs. Pillaging Film Studios also helps, but not everyone can afford a war. So, for the civs that are left, the key is denying America access to their sources of tourism.

Because America lacks bonuses to GWAM generation (aside from the incentive to build lots of Film Studios giving them a late edge to Great Musician Points, and a minor one to Great Artist Points), they'll often be using Archaeologists to bump up their tourism. Targeting antiquity sites near America can help set them back.

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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)
  
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• 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.