Zigzagzigal’s Guides – Egypt (GS)

Overview

Egypt’s demanding start can eventually lead to great cultural, diplomatic and religious power. Here, I detail Egyptian strategies and counter-strategies.

Introduction

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.

The time shall come when tradition shall fail us. When even the greatest monuments no longer inspire, when the river no longer protects us, when the line of Pharaohs falls. And when we are left with nothing but our wits. But we shall remain strong, ready to resist the empires that rise and fall with every passing age, for they are but a blink of the eye against the eternity of Egypt.

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.

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.

Complete information on start biases within the game can be found in the Civilizations.xml file (find the Civ 6 folder in Steam’s program files, then go through the Base, Assets, Gameplay and Data folders to find the file). DLC and Expansion civs have a similarly-named file in their corresponding folders.

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.

Outline

Egypt has a tier 2 start bias for grassland floodplains and plains floodplains, and a tier 5 start bias for rivers. Note that floodplains can only appear adjacent to a river, so together these two start biases make a river start extremely likely, helping you make use of Egypt’s civ ability. Egypt’s immunity to floodplains pillaging improvements as well as extra culture from Sphinxes located on them make those tiles particularly useful.

• All districts and wonders construct 15% faster if positioned adjacent to a river
• Units, improvements and districts within your territory are immune to flood damage.
• Fertility bonuses from flooding is halved within your territory as if a Dam is present on every river.

• International trade routes from Egypt to another civ or city-state provide +4 gold each.
• International trade routes from another civ or city-state to Egypt provide +2 gold for Egypt and +2 food for them.
• Alliances gain an extra +0.25 alliance points per turn for having at least one trade route sent to the other civ.
• Alliances gain an extra +0.25 alliance points per turn for having at least one trade route incoming from the other civ.

An ancient-era ranged land unit which does not replace anything

*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.

• 90 production cost, 50% more than an Archer (60) and 50% less than a Crossbowman (180)
• 25 melee strength (Archers have 15; Crossbowmen 30)
• 35 ranged strength (Archers have 25; Crossbowmen 40)
• Uses ranged land promotions, but has a 10-point strength vulnerability to anti-cavalry units like light and heavy cavalry units.
• +2 movement points if starting a turn on open terrain.
• Costs 190 gold to upgrade to a Crossbowman, 24% less than the Archer to Crossbowman upgrade path (250 gold)

*This assumes you already have the enhancements of earlier eras.

**You do not need to work the improvement to receive its tourism yields.

Victory Skew

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.

Egypt is very strong at cultural victories, and has a variety of tools to help. Faster wonder production on riverside tiles helps you build more of them and get the associated tourism yield. Faster district production on riverside tiles aids with getting Theatre Squares completed sooner for GWAM points. Sphinxes directly add tourism once you reach the Flight technology, but their big appeal boost can also aid with National Park and Seaside Resort tourism. An incentive for other civs to keep friendly relations with you for trading purposes makes it easier for you to secure the +25% tourism bonus from trade routes, and Egypt’s strength in the religious game can be worth another +25% tourism boost. Finally, Sphinx faith can be used for GWAM patronage, buying Naturalists (for National Parks) and buying Rock Bands – all helpful for tourism.

Egypt also has good diplomatic potential. A versatile district construction bonus can be quite useful when trying to meet the requirements of multiple city-states, and extra gold from trade routes can be funneled into aid emergencies. Extra alliance points can lead to bonus diplomatic favour in the long-run. Note, however, that the Statue of Liberty wonder – one that’s powerful for diplomatic victories due to granting +4 diplomatic victory points – cannot be built next to a river and hence cannot benefit from Egypt’s 15% production bonus.

Domination can be a possible path via the powerful Maryannu Chariot Archer. Training them is expensive, and they have a major penalty against cities, but they can nonetheless deal massive amounts of damage with a high level of mobility.

Religion is a powerful option. In addition to the high potential Sphinx faith yield, Egypt’s bonus to district construction may aid in constructing Holy Sites, and the bonus to wonder construction aids with wonders such as Mont St. Michel and well as making the most faith out of the Divine Inspiration belief. Trade is a possible way to spread your religion, and Cleopatra’s bonuses mean you’ll have plenty of incoming trade routes to help you with that. If you can secure Stonehenge, Egypt’s early-game religious potential is among the best around.

Finally, science is an alright route to take owing to cheaper Campuses and Spaceports as well as the edge to picking up some scientific wonders. It should be considered as a backup route.

Civilization Ability: Iteru (Part 1/2)

Even with unspectacular production, I can build a wonder at a reasonable rate.

Settling adjacent to rivers is important for any civ to ensure your cities have as much housing as possible, but for Egypt river tiles become even more valuable. Districts become cheaper to build, saving you a considerable amount of production over the course of the game. On top of this, most wonders in the game can be built faster on riverside tiles.

There’s two big challenges here:

• There’s only so many riverside tiles available, and in the case of floodplains, Sphinxes will also compete for those spots.
• It can be difficult at times to account for both adjacency bonuses/requirements and riverside placement.

The second of these applies on a case-by-case basis, so let’s for now consider the availability of riverside tiles. Here’s a few strategies you can attempt to maximise the number:

• Look for confluences or branching rivers. If multiple rivers meet, you can end up with a lot of valid tiles.
• Favour settling inland rather than directly on the coast, so more river tiles are in range. You can’t get bonuses to Harbour construction and coastal wonders, after all.
• Consider settling a city a tile away from a river if it means getting a second river within three tiles. You shouldn’t try this until you’re able to quickly build Aqueducts.
• Look for lakes and oases. They can provide the fresh water your cities need without your city using up a riverside tile you could be building a district or wonder on.
• Don’t use riverside tiles for cheap uncompetitive wonders. That way, you can free up more tiles for more important ones.

There’s four main ways to start as Egypt:

• Low risk/reward: Expand rapidly with Settlers and make sure you can secure a Campus district early on. Don’t worry about wonders or Holy Sites (assuming a religion is still available) until you’ve had a bit of time to develop your empire.
• Intermediate risk/reward: Again, resist the temptation of very early wonders and instead try to build a couple of Holy Sites so you can secure a religion. You may need to delay wonder-building for quite some time so you can ensure you have Campus districts and other important infrastructure ready.
• High risk/reward: Attempt an early rush against an opponent using Maryannu Chariot Archers and Warriors. This will be covered in the section for the UU.
• Very high risk/reward: Attempt to rush the Stonehenge wonder. This requires you to have flat land adjacent to stone, and for you to be able to pick up the Astrology and Mining technologies reasonably quickly. Mining isn’t a requirement for the wonder, but it allows you to use Builders to improve the stone tile(s) and chop down woods to help speed up production. Once the wonder is built, construct Sphinxes adjacent to it for a huge amount of faith, expand your empire and construct plenty of Holy Sites. From there, you can rapidly spread your religion.

No matter how you begin, it’s important to remember that you shouldn’t go overboard with wonder construction over the course of the game. Favour wonders with more relevant bonuses and if possible, spread the burden of their construction out among your cities.

Look for bonuses to wonder construction to stack with your 15% bonus. Here are them all:

• (Pantheon) Monument to the Gods: +15% production boost to ancient and classical-era wonders. Great if you’re rushing Stonehenge, but the loss of Divine Spark may make it harder to found a religion otherwise.
• (Government) Autocracy: +10% bonus to wonder construction.
• (Policy Card) Corvée: +15% production boost to ancient and classical-era wonders. This, along with the other policy card bonuses, is the easiest to pick up giving you a reliable 30% production boost for wonders next to a river.
• (Policy Card) Gothic Architecture: +15% production boost to wonders up to the renaissance era.
• (Policy Card) Skyscrapers: +15% production boost to all wonders wonders.
• (Golden Age Dedication) Heartbeat of Steam: +10% production boost to industrial-era and later wonders.
• (City-State) Any Industrial City-State: +2 production in the capital and for every Workshop for wonders, buildings and districts with at least one envoy, +2 for any Factory or Consulate with at least three envoys, and +2 for any Power Plant or Chancery with at least six.
• (City-State) Brussels: +15% production bonus to all wonders if you are suzerain, on top of the industrial city-state bonuses. Usually not a hard bonus to maintain if you carefully focus your envoys on the city, but make sure you’re not neglecting the envoy bonuses for other industrial city-states.

Monument of the Gods, Autocracy, Corvée and Egypt’s ability together makes a 55% bonus early in the game. That sounds great, but remember that actually reaching the wonder’s technology/civic is a major part of a wonder race – consider whether you really need more wonder construction bonuses or something to help with city growth, culture or science would be better instead.

It can also be useful to chop woods and rainforests to help with some of the more competitive wonders. Governor Magnus (the Steward) present in a city will provide a 50% boost to chopping production, which on top of all the other wonder construction bonuses will get them up in no time.

If you’re going for a religious victory, try to go for wonders like the Mahabodhi Temple and Hagia Sophia. Try to position them apart from each other where possible to maximise the potential Sphinx faith yield. Also try to grab the Divine Inspiration belief for lots of extra faith from every wonder.

If you’re after a cultural victory, wonders like the Oracle and Terracotta Army will be helpful if they are still available. Any early wonders that haven’t been picked up will still be worthwhile, as earlier wonders generate more tourism later in the game (wonders generate +2 tourism per turn, and +1 per era beyond the wonder’s era). You don’t need to worry about optimum positioning of Sphinxes; in fact, it can be worth waiting until the modern era (where the Flight technology makes them provide tourism and National Parks provide a means of converting faith into tourism).

For a diplomatic game, the Mahabodhi Temple, Potala Palace and Országház wonders are ideal. Though you don’t get a direct bonus to building it, the Statue of Liberty is important as well for its +4 diplomatic victory points offered.

In addition to the main benefits of wonders and the bonus faith adjacent Sphinxes will be offering, constructing wonders is also a great source of era score, which can help you secure lots of Golden Ages. Head to the Administration section of this guide for more details on which Golden Age bonuses are most useful for Egypt.

Civilization Ability: Iteru (Part 2/2)

Not a problem. In fact, an asset!

Egypt’s cities, districts and tile improvements will never be damaged by river flooding, and units will be immune to damage from river floods so long as they’re in owned territory. However, as this mechanic works similarly to the flood-prevention effect of Dams, it also reduces the amount of fertility river floods add to Egyptian tiles, and therefore yields.

A big advantage of this bonus is that you can settle floodplain-heavy areas without the risk of having precious improvements and districts be pillaged, and without the risk of population loss from them. That stops your plans for wonder construction being thrown off by random chance. A secondary advantage is that you can avoid the need to construct Dams until you need Hydroelectric Dams.

To avoid the reduced contribution to tile yields from river flooding, consider holding back from purchasing floodplain tiles until you strictly need them. That way, more yields can accumulate on those tiles prior to you obtaining them.

Remember that while you may be resistant to river flooding damage within your own territory, the same is not true outside it. If fighting another civ, don’t assume that you’ll always be safe fighting near their floodplains. Civilian units especially should avoid ending turns on floodplain you don’t own – at least, if they don’t have a military escort.

Egypt’s civ ability is certainly the core of the civ and the bonus you should be mainly building strategies around, but you have to remember not to be carried away with wonder construction. Expansion is still important – more cities means more faith, GWAM points and more spots for building wonders. Use your river-adjacent tiles carefully and don’t just thoughtlessly fill them with districts (adjacency bonuses are important after all) and wonders.

Cleopatra’s Leader Ability: Mediterranean’s Bride (Part 1/3)

The “+4 gold from other sources” stat is Cleopatra’s ability taking effect!

Cleopatra’s leader ability is an odd one, offering notable benefits for other civs as well as yourself. Still, it encourages other civs to work with you rather than invading, which can save you quite a lot of trouble throughout the game. Later on, it could mean a lot of powerful alliances at a time where many civs can only manage one strong one.

Cleopatra’s external trading gains a lot of extra gold, which can more than double external trade route yields early on. However, external trade means you won’t be getting the food and production you would be getting from trading internally. Less production weakens your ability to build districts and wonders, thus weakening Egypt’s civ ability. That’s a tricky balance to get right, so consider carefully if the yields on offer for international trade are actually better than what you can get internally.

A strong gold yield can be great for early development; you can buy tiles, Builders and buildings to help develop your cities faster. Alternatively, if you’re going for an early rush with Maryannu Chariot Archers, trading with a city-state can be a good way to cover maintenance costs.

For religious players, external trade can be a helpful way to spread your religion, though be aware that the destination city will produce a small amount of pressure in your origin city. Stacking multiple trade routes so they all go towards the same city can help you convert it without you needing to commit Missionaries or Apostles.

Once you have the renaissance-era Diplomatic Service civic, you can pick up the Wisselbanken diplomatic policy card for +2 production and food from international trade routes, as well as a bonus to alliance point gain. The modern-era Democracy government adds a +4 boost to both yields on top – meaning you don’t really need to bother with internal trade any more.

Once you enter the modern era and receive the strong tourism boosts of the Flight technology, National Parks and Seaside Resorts, external trade becomes especially useful for cultural-oriented players. Trading with a civ gives you a 25% tourism bonus against them, and the information-era Ecommerce policy card makes external trade even stronger still. A little late-game cash boost can be helpful for patronage of late-arriving Great People – some of which offer huge tourism bonuses.

Cleopatra’s Leader Ability: Mediterranean’s Bride (Part 2/3)

This is a curious feature of Cleopatra’s leader ability which strongly incentivises other civs to trade with you while offering you rewards. Normally, internal trading is the best option for food, but your presence in the game offers an alternative for other civs. If more civs are trading with you, it gives you diplomatic leverage over them; if they declare war, they’ll lose their trade routes and the food/gold/other yields with it.

Furthermore, while other civs trading with you unfortunately won’t activate the 25% tourism bonus against them, they will provide you with 2 gold for every route they send. To maximise the potential of this bonus, you’ll need to make your own cities lucrative destinations for trade routes. The best way of doing this is to ensure your cities have as many districts as possible, which in turn requires your cities to be fairly large. Egypt’s advantage to district and wonder construction encourages you to build large cities anyway, so this shouldn’t be too hard to achieve.

Here’s a table showing you how districts present in a city affect trade route yields:

Note: Other districts do not affect trade route yields – even Aerodromes and Preserves, which count towards the district cap.

Not all yields are equally important in the eyes of different civs. Scientific and diplomatic civs tend to have less use for faith than cultural and religious civs, for example, and are hence less likely to send trade routes to cities with Holy Sites.

One consequence of having more incoming trade routes than a typical civ is that you may end up with a lot of roads leading into your lands early on. That can make it easier to launch a Maryannu Chariot Archer rush against other civs, but equally it could make it easier for the other civ to launch an attack against you!

Furthermore, incoming trade routes will provide more pressure in your own lands for the religions of the civs sending you them. While this sounds like a problem, it’s easier to clean a rival religion out of your own lands than it is to clean it out of the lands of a third party. As such, it’s better for a rival religious civ to send their trade routes to you than a different civ with no religion at all.

Later on, you can make good use of Governor Reyna (the Financier) to gain extra gold from incoming trade routes. Position her in a city that a lot of other Traders need to pass through to get to your key cities, and enjoy a reasonable bump in gold output.

Finally, a stronger incentive for other civs to trade with you makes it very easy to maximise your alliance point gain, something explained in more detail in the following sub-section.

Cleopatra’s Leader Ability: Mediterranean’s Bride (Part 3/3)

The “other sources” refers to the bonuses from the Wisselbanken diplomatic policy card and Democracy government.

When the age of the Maryannu Chariot Archer comes to an end, it’s time to settle down and search for friends. With the medieval-era Civil Service civic, you can make alliances with other civs, which initially provides useful bonuses when trading with them including a diplomatic favour point every turn. Eventually, you can upgrade alliances to level 2 and level 3, providing an extra diplomatic favour point per turn per level, and some useful additional benefits.

To get alliances to level 2 and 3, you need a total of 80 and 240 alliance points with your ally respectively. You gain alliance points by the following means:

• 1 per turn you’re allied to the civ
• +0.25 per turn for having at least one trade route with them – Cleopatra raises this to +0.5
• +0.25 per turn if they have at least one trade route with you – Cleopatra raises this to +0.5
• +0.25 per turn if you have the Wisselbanken policy card (diplomatic, requires the renaissance-era Diplomatic Service civic respectively)
• +0.25 per turn if you have the Democracy government (requires the modern-era Suffrage civic)
• +0.25 per turn if they have the Wisselbanken policy card.
• +0.25 per turn if they have the Democracy government.
• +0.5 per turn if you’re allied to Gilgamesh of Sumeria and you’re both at war with the same foe.

The first four can be fairly reliably achieved with Cleopatra for a total of +2.25 points per turn once you have Diplomatic Service. This allows you to get a level two alliance in roughly 36 turns rather than the 46 needed for most civs’ alliances, and a level three alliance in roughly 107 turns rather than 137, starting at a new level one alliance.

If you can reliably get your ally to use Wisselbanken and the Democracy government, and you do the same, then a level two alliance is achievable in 27 turns (rather than 32), and a level three alliance in 80 (rather than 96).

There is a catch, however. Even with these bonuses, getting to a level 3 alliance takes a very long length of time, and by the time you’re nearing a level three alliance, other civs may decide they don’t want you to benefit from those bonuses considering it may be nearing the end of the game. Furthermore, all level three alliance bonuses except the one for military alliances grants some of your existing advantages to the other civ, meaning this bonus can backfire if you use the wrong type of alliances (e.g. a level three cultural alliance with a powerful cultural civ might just hand them a faster victory).

• Just because you have a bonus to external trade doesn’t mean internal trade isn’t useful; compare them.
• Make sure you have plenty of districts constructed to maximise the amount of incoming trade routes and therefore gold you receive.
• Ensure your alliances benefit you more than the other civ, but are still useful enough for them to encourage preserving them.

Unique Unit: Maryannu Chariot Archer

Boasting a ranged strength of 35 with a range of 2 and excellent mobility, the Maryannu Chariot Archer is arguably the most powerful military unit of the ancient era. But there’s a catch – at 90 production a time, it’s 50% more expensive than an Archer! Chopping woods can offset that somewhat, but it still remains a particularly expensive UU to develop.

As such, despite the unit’s power and versatility, an early rush isn’t always a great route to go down. Consider your starting position – if you lack good nearby targets (e.g. they’re far away, they’ve got strong early armies or there’s lots of rough defensive terrain near their cities) you may want to take a different approach where you can instead think of Maryannu Chariot Archers as an all-purpose defensive unit to be built in small numbers once you have some initial infrastructure off the ground. They can swiftly deal with marauding Barbarians, and with the right promotions, they can even see off medieval-era threats from other civs.

Remember that like Heavy Chariots, Maryannu Chariot Archers receive bonus movement if they start on open land (no woods, rainforests or hills). For this reason, you should always try to make sure they end their turn on open land. When you’re not at war and there aren’t Barbarians incoming, position them on open land close to your cities (or on the city tile) so they can move in any direction to repel threats.

Maryannu Chariot Archers are almost as strong offensively as a Swordsman, with double the movement speed in open land, a ranged attack for even greater mobility and with the very helpful advantage of not taking damage when it deals some. Even with the -17 strength penalty against cities, they still have 18 strength against them which is nearly as good as Warriors can manage. If you want to rush an opponent with them, bring a Heavy Chariot or two so you can get the last hit on a city and capture it.

Maryannu Chariot Archers can retreat and fire in a way that makes it impossible for melee units to be able to catch up, so long as there’s rough terrain available. That’s very helpful for avoiding damage. To do so from starting adjacent to a melee unit, retreat a tile into a hill, woods or rainforest and then fire on the opponent.

You can also use Maryannu Chariot Archers to pillage enemy tiles. Their high mobility, reasonable defence and ranged attack makes them great at this job. Remember that pillaging farms heals the unit, allowing you to cause havoc for quite a while.

Maryannu Chariot Archers obsolete when Crossbowmen become available, but their high mobility and strength mean they can handle even some medieval-era threats. For that reason, you might want to hold off researching Machinery for a while unless you have access to a Great General for additional strength and mobility. Once you start facing large quantities of Coursers, Knights or stronger units, you should probably think about upgrading them.

Unique Improvement: Sphinx

Having wonders around is nice enough, but Sphinxes make the rewards even greater. Even early in the game, you can end up with a yield of 3 faith and 2 culture, and late in the game, its appeal bonus can be useful for making strong Preserves, Neighbourhoods, Seaside Resorts and National Parks.

How exactly you use the improvement depends on the victory path you’re going for.

Sphinxes for religious players will be mainly useful for their high early faith output. If you can manage to rush Stonehenge and surround it with Sphinxes, you’ll have a faith output of 11 per turn (assuming you can dedicate three citizens to the Sphinx tiles). Add a Holy Site and Shrine so you can start buying Missionaries, and you’ll be producing 11 faith at the very least, in just one city! This allows you to spread your faith long before other civs are really prepared to deal with it, and can secure you an early religious victory on smaller maps.

Now, for those of us who aren’t risking a highly-competitive wonder, consider carefully how you use Sphinxes. A Sphinx that isn’t next to a wonder generally isn’t worth working early on unless you’re really desperate for culture and/or faith. Even Sphinxes next to wonders can be poor choices to work if it means holding off on expansion (more cities means more faith later after all). Still, you shouldn’t hold off for too long – the longer you wait to maximise your faith output and start really spreading your religion, the more cities you’ll need to convert and the harder existing ones will be to flip.

You can make early Sphinxes more useful via the the Earth Goddess pantheon, which adds +1 faith for tiles of breathtaking appeal or higher (4 or more, in other words). Rather than working the Sphinxes themselves, position them next to tiles you’re likely to work which aren’t quite at breathtaking appeal.

Constructing more wonders will allow you to get more out of Sphinxes, especially if you build those wonders spaced apart. Get the Divine Inspiration belief in your religion and you’ll have an even stronger faith output without needing to dedicate more citizens.

If you can’t build many wonders in a city, you can instead use a Preserve district with a Grove building, and use the appeal bonus from the Sphinx to boost the faith yields of the Preserve-adjacent buildings.

Eventually, it will be time to go all-out on faith generation. Ensure you have lots of Holy Site buildings and work as many Sphinxes as possible. Falling behind a little in city growth and science won’t matter if you’re about to win the game.

Sphinxes are a great source of faith if you can’t secure a religion, and allows you to make use of quite a few faith-based mechanics without needing to use up district capacity on Holy Sites.

A good relatively early use of faith is via the Monumentality Golden Age dedication bonus, which allows you to buy civilian units like Settlers, Builders and Traders with faith, and gives a 30% discount to purchasing Settlers and Builders. With the medieval-era Serfdom policy card (available at Feudalism), Governor Liang (the Surveyor) present in the city and possibly ownership of the Pyramids wonder somewhere in your empire, you can generate some extremely cost-effective Builders.

Into the industrial era, however, Sphinxes start becoming useful for other reasons. Sphinxes provide +2 appeal to adjacent tiles, making them handy for boosting the housing you receive from Neighbourhoods even when they’re not worked. City Parks provide the same appeal, but they require Liang (the Surveyor) to have the Parks and Recreation promotion, and their direct yields when worked aren’t as good. Nonetheless, City Parks can still complement Sphinxes effectively, particularly when positioned outside a city’s working area.

The modern-era Flight technology combined with the modern-era Conservation civic makes Sphinxes particularly useful to work. Flight makes them produce tourism, while Conservation lets you spend faith to buy Naturalists, which in turn can create National Parks for more tourism (as well as amenities). The modern-era Radio technology lets you build Seaside Resorts for even more appeal-based tourism.

If you’re playing for a diplomatic victory, Sphinx culture will be useful to getting to envoy-granting civics sooner, and eventually the very important Global Warming Mitigation civic. Meanwhile, you can use the faith to purchase Pagodas for bonus diplomatic favour. Overall, Sphinxes are less useful for a diplomatic victory than they are for culture or religion, so don’t waste citizens working too many of them, but they’re still nice to have around.

Sphinxes can be used to aid border expansion in new cities that do not have a Monument yet. Building one near a new city and working it for a few turns can be a reasonable way to accumulate some tiles without spending gold. Just make sure that the city has a good supply of food from elsewhere to make up for dedicating a citizen to that role.

Because Sphinxes can be constructed on flat desert tiles, they work very well in a city with the Petra wonder. A Sphinx on flat desert land adjacent to a wonder (such as Petra itself) will be worth 3 faith, 2 food, 2 gold, 1 production and 1 culture!

Sphinxes can be used for a considerable amount of faith or to enhance tourism yields, but like all unique improvements that offer neither food, housing or production, you need to be careful not to work them too extensively at the cost of your cities’ development. Religious players can usually start working Sphinxes in large numbers much sooner than cultural players, but all Egyptian players should be able to get something good out of this tile improvement.

Administration – Government and Policy Cards

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.

Autocracy is a reasonable first choice – the 10% wonder construction bonus goes well with Egypt’s 15% bonus, and the bonus yields for the capital and Government Complex buildings can help make a stronger city more ready to build wonders. That being said, you may want to consider Classical Republic instead for its higher number of economic policy cards.

To help grow your cities and hence prepare them for building wonders, the Audience Chamber is an ideal building.

Religious players should obviously go for Theocracy. At this point, it’s a good idea to go all-out on faith output – work as many Sphinxes adjacent to wonders as you can, and fill your existing Holy Sites. Cultural players will find a lot to like from Merchant Republic‘s bonus to district construction (stacking with Egypt’s own) and array of economic policy cards. Diplomatic players should take Monarchy for its diplomatic favour bonuses.

The Foreign Ministry‘s diplomatic favour bonus neatly complements the alliance point bonuses from Cleopatra’s leader ability.

Democracy is ideal due to its bonus to trade route yields and alliance points. Extra production from international trade routes can help cities build wonders, and its high array of economic policy cards allows you to take a good array of tourism-boosting policy cards for a cultural game, or faith-boosting cards for a religious game. With one more diplomatic slot relative to other tier three governments, it’s also the ideal choice for a diplomatic game.

Cultural players should probably go with the National History Museum for its very useful unconditional Great Work slots, but religious players have a choice. You can convert Cleopatra’s gold to Builders and then into faith via the Royal Society and the Holy Site Prayers project, or use the War Department to help keep religious units healed after theological combat. The diplomatic game favours the Royal Society as it can save time on Carbon Recapture projects, maximising the amount of diplomatic favour you can gain.

Digital Democracy is best for cultural and diplomatic games; it comes with a high number of diplomatic policy cards allowing you to make the most of your diplomatic advantages, while avoiding the tourism penalty of Synthetic Technocracy. For a religious game, Synthetic Technocracy‘s higher number of economic policy cards makes it a better choice.

Agoge (Military, requires Craftsmanship) – Yes, it’s Agoge and not Manoeuvre you want for Maryannu Chariot Archers. This won’t make them cheap as such, but will make them a fair bit more affordable. It also makes chopping down woods and rainforest provide more production when working towards them.

Caravansaries (Economic, requires Foreign Trade) – Need even more money from trade? This may be helpful. Strong early money allows you to purchase key buildings or units and save production for other purposes.

Corvée (Economic, requires State Workforce) – A 15% production bonus to ancient and classical-era wonders, stacking with Egypt’s civ ability for a 30% bonus.

Conscription (Military, requires State Workforce) – If you’re engaging in an Maryannu Chariot rush, this makes a good second military card to cover their maintenance costs once you reach Political Philosophy’s governments.

Ilkum (Economic, requires Craftsmanship) – Keeping some Builders around will be of great use when you’re building wonders – they can chop down trees for a quick production boost. That’s especially important if you’re trying to rush Stonehenge. Additionally, faster Builder production is great in general for improving the lands around your cities, promoting city growth and hence the ability to construct wonders.

Insulae (Economic, requires Games and Recreation) – Of great help when you’re trying to grow your cities to prepare for more wonder construction.

Gothic Architecture (Economic, requires Divine Right) – Another +15% wonder production boost, this time for wonders up to the renaissance era.

Medina Quarter (Economic, requires Medieval Faires) – An improved version of Insulae.

Trade Federation (Economic, requires Mercenaries) – International trade becomes even more lucrative with this bonus to culture and science. Although the overall boost to yield may be relatively small, it’s a fairly easy bonus to use.

Triangular Trade (Economic, requires Mercantilism) – Double the effect of Caravansaries plus some faith on top.

Wisselbanken (Diplomatic, requires Diplomatic Service) – Gain an extra +0.25 alliance points per turn with allies, and more importantly get significantly better trade yields from trading with them. At this point, you shouldn’t have much need for internal trading.

Skyscrapers (Economic, requires Civil Engineering) – The final of the three +15% wonder construction bonus economic policy cards, this time covering all wonders.

Market Economy (Economic, requires Capitalism) – A good boost to international trading.

New Deal (Economic, Democracy only, requires Suffrage) – Your cities might be struggling a bit to grow further thanks to limited space for Neighbourhoods or limited amenities. This policy card rewards you with strong cities that shall be able to finish off the remaining late-arriving wonders. That being said, if your housing situation is fine and you have plenty of National Parks for the amenities, you might not need this.

Ecommerce (Economic, requires Globalisation) – Makes trading considerably more effective with gold and production alike.

Online Communities (Economic, requires Social Media) – A crucial bonus to tourism with all civs you have a trade route with.

Diplomatic Capital (Wildcard, requires Smart Power Doctrine) – A direct bonus to diplomatic favour to complement Egypt’s faster-developing alliances.

Rabblerousing (Wildcard, requires Information Warfare) – The extra diplomatic favour is useful for Egypt in general, but the main point of this policy card is to refund diplomatic favour for voting another civ to lose diplomatic victory points. This is really useful if you’re not playing for a diplomatic victory yourself.

Administration – Age Bonuses and World Congress

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

Exodus of the Evangelists (Dedication, Classical to Renaissance eras) – If you can secure Stonehenge, you can end up with a particularly strong early religion. This dedication helps you generate huge amounts of era score from it.

Monumentality (Dedication, Classical to Renaissance eras) – Egypt’s bonus to district construction makes it a little easier to get era score out of this dedication.

Exodus of the Evangelists (Golden Age, Classical to Renaissance eras) – A must-have dedication if you succeed with the risky Stonehenge strategy. The faster, more cost-effective religious units on offer can spread your religion far and wide before anyone’s prepared to deal with it.

Monumentality (Golden Age, Classical to Renaissance eras) – A powerful Golden Age bonus, particularly if you don’t manage to found a religion. Sphinx faith can be converted into Settlers and Builders, meaning Egypt’s early development becomes a lot easier.

Pen, Brush and Voice (Golden Age, Classical to Medieval eras) – Though you’ll probably want Monumentality or Exodus of the Evangelists over this, this is still good for medieval-era Heroic Ages. This bonus makes a lot of districts provide a lot of culture. Cleopatra’s leader ability encourages you to have more districts in your cities to attract international trade, while you also have a bonus to district construction via the Egyptian civ ability.

Reform the Coinage (Dedication, Renaissance to Modern eras) – A good source of era score if you have a lot of trade routes.

Reform the Coinage (Golden Age, Renaissance to Modern eras) – In conjunction with Cleopatra’s leader ability, this is a powerful source of gold.

Robber Barons (Dark Age, Industrial to Information eras) – If you can make a few National Parks with your Sphinx faith, or use amenity-granting religious bonuses, you can probably handle the amenity loss. The production boost will be great for wonder building, while the gold complements Cleopatra’s gold bonuses.

Heartbeat of Steam (Golden Age, Industrial to Atomic eras) – Provides a 10% bonus to wonder production in the industrial era or later, and also makes Campuses add production.

Flower Power (Dark Age, Atomic to Future eras) – Ideal for making the most of your faith in a cultural game, as it boosts the tourism your Rock Bands generate.

Wish You Were Here (Golden Age, Atomic to Future eras) – In the latter eras of the game, this will be a culture-oriented Egypt’s best choice. Double National Park tourism makes your Sphinx faith go even further, and bonus tourism from world wonders rewards you for something you’ll have worked on already.

Disinformation Campaign (Dark Age, Information to Future eras) – An excellent policy card if you’ve been simultaneously playing the cultural and diplomatic games, as every Broadcast Centre you own will become a major source of diplomatic favour.

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

Migration Treaty – Effect A (+20% faster population growth but -5 loyalty per turn in this player’s cities) on yourself.

Bigger cities are better at constructing wonders as a general rule, as they have more citizens to work production tiles. More citizens also means you can work more Sphinxes.

Nobel Peace Prize – Vote in favour if you have a few allies.

Cleopatra’s bonus to alliance point generation means you can secure a diplomatic favour edge over many other civs if you have plenty of alliances, making it easier to win this scored competition.

Nobel Prize in Literature – Vote in favour if your generation of Great Writers, Artists and Musicians is strong.

Scoring well on this competition permanently strengthens the performance of your Rock Bands. This is ideal for a cultural game, as Egypt’s Sphinxes grant you a strong faith output relative to many other cultural civs.

Sovereignity – Effect A (+100% of the city-states’ yield type when sending trade routes to a city-state of this type) on whichever city-state type you are trading with the most.

Trading with city-states is often a safe way to gain extra gold via Cleopatra’s leader ability, and this bonus helps make trading with them even more effective.

Trade Policy – Effect A (Trade routes sent to the chosen player provide +4 gold to the sender. The chosen player receives +1 trade route capacity) on yourself.

Civs will now have a huge incentive to send trade routes to you, which will generate extra gold for yourself as well as alliance points. An extra trade route for yourself can mean even more gold on top, or perhaps even tourism if you’re able to trade wih a new civ.

Administration – Religion and City-States

Divine Spark – An excellent choice for Egypt as it allows you to secure a religion with just a couple of Holy Sites, freeing up production for other things like Maryannu Chariot Archers, Settlers, Builders, districts and wonders.

Earth Goddess – Sphinxes and wonders generate appeal; with this pantheon you can get a lot of extra faith out of that.

Lady of the Reeds and Marshes – Excellent for desert floodplain regions, granting those tiles an impressive +2 production. Add Sphinxes on top for a strong range of yields.

Monument to the Gods – Seems like an obvious choice, but unlike most pantheons it will eventually obsolete. Furthermore, the more you make use of this pantheon to help build wonders, the more you set back general development goals such as setting up a science infrastructure.

Religious Settlements – Egypt’s demanding start can be eased somewhat with the bonus Settler from this pantheon.

River Goddess – You’ll want to grow your cities quickly early in the game, but aside from housing trouble, that could eventually strain your amenities. Take advantage of your fast district construction adjacent to rivers and enjoy some housing and amenities from this pantheon. Remember not to go overboard building Holy Sites – you need other yields as well!

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

Cross-Cultural Dialogue (Founder) – Science from population allows you to push for Holy Sites and Theatre Squares without losing too much in the race for research.

Dar-e Mehr (Worship) – If you have a strong early faith output, this religious building makes a good investment.

Divine Inspiration (Follower) – A civ with advantages to both wonder construction and faith can get rather a lot out of this belief. It’s especially good for religious players, but not without merit for other victory routes.

Jesuit Education (Follower) – A good option for cultural and diplomatic players who want a means to convert excess Sphinx faith into something more directly useful. Faith purchasing costs half as much as gold purchasing, and nothing costs faith maintenance, so your faith will go further than you might expect.

Meeting House (Worship) – More production means faster wonder construction, which means more faith, which means more of these, and the cycle continues.

Pagoda (Worship) – The best choice for diplomatic games, and still helpful for other victory paths as it builds upon Cleopatra’s faster-growing alliances.

Religious Community (Follower) – Boosts your international trade yieds.

Religious Unity (Founder) – Rather handy for diplomatic games – you can use your good faith output to spread your religion, gain extra envoys, become suzerain over more city-states and therefore get more diplomatic favour.

Sacred Places (Founder) – Get a range of useful bonuses for building wonders in cities. This belief works best when you’re spreading out your wonders in multiple cities rather than concentrating them in a few.

Work Ethic (Follower) – This powerful pantheon makes Holy Sites produce potentially plenty of production, ideal for building wonders.

Bandar Brunei (Trade) – If you trade enough internationally to start setting up trading posts in foreign cities, Bandar Brunei will make that more effective by adding additional gold to routes that pass through.

Brussels (Industrial) – Arguably the most important city-state bonus for Egypt to maintain, as it essentially doubles the wonder-building bonus offered by the civ ability. A 30% advantage over all other civs (minus China and France in certain eras) makes wonder races quite a bit less risky.

Chinguetti (Religious) – Gain faith from your trade routes!

Fez (Scientific) – Egypt’s demanding start can make it hard to keep up in the technology race, but their strong faith output makes this city-state a good source of science.

Kumasi (Cultural) – A city-state with good synergy with both Cleopatra’s leader ability and Egypt’s faster district construction. Enjoy trade routes that can produce both a lot of gold and quite a lot of culture.

Hunza (Trade) – Trading with distant civs for gold, alliance points and tourism bonuses will now pay off with even more gold.

Mitla (Scientific) – You should get Campus districts built reasonably early anyway. The extra growth is great for getting your cities ready to build wonders.

Muscat (Trade) – Due to the way Egypt’s civ ability works, you’ll generally want to build Commercial Hubs rather than Harbours to increase your trade route capacity. Free amenities for doing so is very welcome.

Nazca (Religious) – Nazca lines can boost the yields of adjacent desert Sphinxes, making marginal regions into somewhere rather decent.

Samarkand (Trade) – Trading Domes help enhance trade route yields.

Singapore (Industrial) – Send trade routes to a range of other civs and enjoy some extra production ready to contribute towards wonders.

Valletta (Militaristic) – Mostly useful for cultural players, this allows you to purchase city centre buildings with faith. Faith purchasing costs half as much as gold purchasing, so things like Granaries can be surprisingly cheap.

Venice (Trade) – Makes international trading worth even more money by giving you gold based on the luxury resources the destination city has.

Administration – Wonders

Although Egypt has bonuses to the construction of all wonders that are built adjacent to a river (basically any wonder that isn’t built on a coastal tile can benefit), only wonders of particular synergy with other uniques or with one of Egypt’s main playstyles are listed here.

Etemenanki (Ancient era, Writing technology) – Has amazing synergy with Egypt’s floodplain advantages. Sphinxes on floodplains in the city can produce five different yields! The catch is that to maximise the bonus you receive, you’ll need to refrain from building additional districts or wonders on floodplain in that city.

Hanging Gardens (Ancient era, Irrigation technology) – It’s pretty affordable, and the growth bonus on offer (as well as the housing) means building the wonder doesn’t set back your infrastructure development the way dedicating production to other early wonders can. Most importantly, the growth bonus will help on the way to securing other wonders.

Oracle (Ancient era, Mysticism civic) – Bonus Great Person Points can up your chances of founding a religion, but more importantly, cheap patronage via faith helps you make more out of Sphinxes if you fail to found one.

Pyramids (Ancient era, Masonry technology) – More Builder charges means you can improve your growing cities faster, make the most out of the Monumentality Golden Age dedication and feel less guilty about dedicating charges to the Sphinx improvement. It also looks really good to have the Pyramids next to a river with a Sphinx by the side while playing as Egypt, but that’s a different matter.

Stonehenge (Ancient era, Astrology technology) – An early religion combined with Sphinx faith (and perhaps a Desert Folklore-boosted Holy Site) can give you a religious victory fast enough to make Russia envious. The problem is, there’s a lot left up to chance. The requirement for stone means you’re not guaranteed to be able to even start building it, and the wonder is extremely competitive in higher difficulty settings and larger map sizes.

Temple of Artemis (Ancient era, Archery technology) – Akin to the Hanging Gardens, but with an effect concentrated in a single city. Build it in your capital, and together with the Autocracy government you’ll have a particularly strong wonder-building city.

Apadana (Classical era, Political Philosophy civic) – Intend to build a lot of wonders in your capital? This wonder will give you two envoys for every wonder you build there including this one and succeeding ones (though not including any you already have built). More envoys means a variety of bonuses for your empire, and it’ll also be easier to secure suzerain status over city-states for bonus diplomatic favour!

Colossus (Classical era, Shipbuilding technology) – An odd choice considering Egypt has no bonus to building it nor Harbour districts, but a free trade route could mean a lot of gold thanks to Cleopatra’s leader ability.

Jebel Barkal (Classical era, Iron Working technology) – Nearly as good as Stonehenge for Egypt, and perhaps even better if founding a religion isn’t an issue. You’ll get lots of faith from the wonder itself, as well as the ability to place up to three Sphinxes next to it for even more faith.

Mahabodhi Temple (Classical era, Theology civic) – Two Apostles for free is a great faith-saver, and faith is everything in a religious victory. Also grants two diplomatic victory points!

Petra (Classical era, Mathematics technology) – Egypt’s floodplains start bias makes it likely you can build this wonder. It makes desert tiles better than grassland or plains in the city, and desert hills become particularly strong. A city that can build this will be great at building wonders for the rest of the game.

(Religious) Hagia Sophia (Medieval era, Education technology) – An excellent choice to help your faith go further.

Great Zimbabwe (Renaissance era, Banking technology) – A free trade route is very welcome for its synergy with Cleopatra’s ability, but consider also the huge amount of gold this wonder can generate in its own right if plenty of bonus resources are near the city. You don’t even need international trade to get that money.

University of Sankore (Medieval era, Education technology) – Get even more out of other civs trading with you.

(DIplomatic) Potala Palace (Renaissance era, Astronomy technology) – Goes nicely with Cleopatra’s faster-growing alliances for some extra diplomatic favour.

Taj Mahal (Renaissance era, Humanism civic) – A particularly powerful wonder for Egypt, the Taj Mahal makes many sources of era score – including the bonus for completing wonders – more effective. This makes it much easier to use the Wish You Were Here Golden Age dedication bonus later in the game for a boost to wonder tourism.

(Cultural) Bolshoi Theatre (Industrial era, Opera and Ballet civic) – The placement requirements aren’t too hard, the wonder’s placement on a dead-end civic makes it relatively uncompetitive, and the bonuses are straightforward things that help towards cultural victory.

(Cultural) Hermitage (Industrial era, Natural History civic) – You have to build this next to a river, so you’ll automatically get your 15% production bonus. More to the point, you’ll get plenty of Great Art slots and three Great Artist points per turn from this.

(Diplomatic) Országház (Industrial era, Sanitation technology) – This wonder has to be built next to a river, so you’ll always get your 15% production bonus. It doubles the diplomatic favour from having suzerain city-states, making it ideal for diplomatic games. Even if you have few suzerain city-states of your own, it’s worth building this to deny other civs the opportunity!

Ruhr Valley (Industrial era, Industrialisation technology) – A 20% production bonus, and more production on top for mines and quarries makes a city into a wonder-building behemoth – especially if it’s also your Petra city. This wonder has to be built next to a river, so you’ll have no problem getting your 15% production bonus to building it.

(Cultural) Broadway (Modern era, Mass Media civic) – Similar to Bolshoi Theatre, only with better bonuses as far as Great Works are concerned and slightly worse bonuses as far as free civics are concerned.

Eiffel Tower (Modern era, Steel technology) – Sphinxes allow you to boost the appeal of adjacent tiles. Planting forests can also do the same job, but remember that you can’t plant forests in deserts. Combined with the +2 appeal boost from the Eiffel Tower, and maybe some City Parks, you might make some otherwise useless desert locations viable spots for National Parks. Otherwise, enjoy your existing Neighbourhoods, National Parks, seaside resorts and ski resorts becoming stronger.

Golden Gate Bridge (Modern era, Combustion technology) – Boosts the appeal and tourism yields from tiles in the city considerably. Sphinxes themselves will make more tourism, and using them to boost appeal of adjacent National Parks and seaside resorts will go even further. The downside is its specific placement requirements (including the fact you can’t build it adjacent to a river tile for the 15% production bonus).

Administration – Great People

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.

Zhang Qian (Great Merchant) – A bonus trade route capacity is nice enough, but Zhang Qian also offers a bonus that works much like Cleopatra’s leader ability. Send him over to a city which is likely to grow large (and hence have a lot of districts) and it will be an extremely lucrative target for foreign trade. Every route sent there will give you 4 gold – not bad!

Bi Sheng (Great Engineer) – An extra district regardless of population helps you build a stronger city sooner, and attract more international trade.

El Cid (Great General) – A Maryannu Chariot Archer corps has 45 ranged strength – that’s stronger than a Pikeman or Crossbowman! This makes it particularly good as a Barbarian killer, as the unit is more mobile than most. Still, if you’re up against an enemy army, you might want to upgrade some Maryannu Chariot Archers to Crossbowmen and use El Cid’s strength and movement speed bonus for them instead.

Ibn Fadlan (Great Merchant) – An extra point of trade route capacity.

Imhotep (Great Engineer) – Rush an early wonder without the need to spare precious production!

Isidore of Miletus (Great Engineer) – The boost to wonder production is particularly useful for key wonders you aren’t building adjacent to rivers, though you won’t get as much production. If Petra isn’t built yet, seriously consider using this Great Person to get it up quickly in a desert hill-heavy city.

Marco Polo (Great Merchant) – The same effect as Zhang Qian, only this time, you get a Trader unit for free as well. If you have both Great People, it’s probably a good idea to activate them in the same city to make it especially lucrative to foreign trade.

Zheng He (Great Admiral) – An extra trade route, and hence more gold for you.

Filippo Brunelleschi (Great Engineer) – Can boost wonder production. Best-used on competitive wonders.

Ada Lovelace (Great Engineer) – Boosts the district cap like Bi Sheng, and also offers the eureka boost for Computers – a crucial technology for cultural victories due to its 25% tourism bonus.

Gustave Eiffel (Great Engineer) – Another boost to wonder construction.

Alvar Aalto (Great Engineer) – A city-wide appeal bonus goes nicely with the appeal offered by Sphinxes.

John Rockefeller (Great Merchant) – Can aid in making your trade routes more valuable.

(Cultural) Sarah Breedlove (Great Merchant) – Trading with other civs will now add another 25% tourism modifier.

Shah Jahān (Modern Engineer) – Allows you to essentially purchase a wonder. Rather useful if you’ve been saving up gold from trade.

Jane Drew (Great Engineer) – Like Mimar Sinan, offers housing and amenities.

John Roebling (Great Engineer) – More housing and amenities.

Melitta Bentz (Great Merchant) – Trade routes with other civs add another 25% tourism boost. You’ll also see your trade route capacity increased by 1, making it even easier to make use of those tourism bonuses.

Charles Correa (Great Engineer) – Like Alvar Aalto, a city-wide appeal bonus. This one is doubly effective in comparison.

Jamseth Tata (Great Merchant) – A massive +10 tourism to every Campus you own. Your fast district construction should make it easy to get them up in every city if you haven’t already.

Masaru Ibuka (Great Merchant) – Gain +10 tourism for every Industrial Zone you control.

Counter-Strategies

If Egypt spends too much time focusing on their wonder-building capabilities, they will fail to develop in other ways. If they spend too little time on it, they will not reach their true potential. Throw Egypt off balance and they will be a manageable opponent to defeat.

To state the obvious, the most effective way of dealing with a bonus when constructing on river-adjacent tiles is to make sure Egypt gets as few of them as possible. Putting a bit more effort into early expansion is one possibility, but simply purchasing river tiles if your cities are near to theirs is another viable method. If you can’t stop Egypt getting river tiles, at least try to push them away from floodplains (where their Sphinxes are stronger and where their immunity to flood damage makes the tiles more lucrative for them).

Because Egypt is encouraged to place districts next to rivers, good pillaging targets will often be concentrated together. With some cavalry units such as Horsemen, you can have fun ripping apart Egypt’s infrastructure while giving yourself lots of nice pillage yields.

Egypt’s wonder construction emphasis will tend to provide them with a lot of era score. This means they’ll probably enter more Golden Ages than most civs. Exodus of the Evangelists, Monumentality, Reform the Coinage, Heartbeat of Steam and Wish You Were Here are the most effective ones for Egypt, but they can all be weakened with pillaging. Pillage their Holy Sites, Sphinxes and Campuses and that should set them back. Be wary settling cities too close to Egypt without sufficient loyalty.

Isn’t this nice – a unique ability that can give their opponents more than they get! +2 food for trading with Egypt is a really good bonus, and one that outshines the +2 gold they’ll be receiving. Often, this will make trading with Egypt a better option than internal trade (at least, until the production yields start getting good). This only really becomes a concern for you if lots of civs are trading with Egypt – they might all get a bit of food, but Egypt will be getting a large combined stack of cash.

Furthermore, Cleopatra’s bonus to alliance points works both ways, meaning an alliance with her matures faster, giving you better bonuses sooner. Consider making a military alliance as unlike other alliance types, the level three bonus doesn’t provide the other civ with advantages based on your own strengths. A strong army will also please an AI-controlled Cleopatra, so that all works out rather well.

If you’re not allied, remember that trading extensively with Egypt essentially gives them control over your economy. If they decide to declare war on you, you’ll suddenly be losing a lot of gold and well as food.

A computer-controlled Cleopatra likes civs with strong armies and dislikes those with weak ones. She will never have the Paranoid hidden agenda (as it contradicts this) nor the Standing Army hidden agenda (as it overlaps).

For warmongers who aren’t yet going to war extensively enough to annoy all the civs in the game, this can make Cleopatra a reasonable trading partner, and a good potential military ally. For other civs, her being annoyed at you might be a good indicator that you need a better defence. It’s all to easy to focus all your energies on constructing buildings and districts while neglecting the fact every other civ could wipe out yours in a few turns.

The main weakness of the Maryannu Chariot Archer is their high production cost. The more Egypt build, the more they’re setting back their infrastructural development. As such, try to kill them quickly and don’t let them escape.

How can you do this? Try training some Horsemen, or even Heavy Chariots. They have enough mobility to catch up to Maryannu Chariot Archers, and can quickly get to promotions to make fighting them easier (Heavy Chariots can use Barding for better defence against them, while Horsemen can use Coursers for improved combat capability against them in general). Once you have Knights, Maryannu Chariot Archers will struggle to stay relevant.

Spearmen have a +10 strength bonus against Maryannu Chariot Archers, and are cheaper to train. This can make them a reasonably affordable counter so long as Egypt’s units don’t have room to retreat and can’t repeatedly hit your Spearmen before you can close the gap. As such, they’re best-used in areas of rough terrain where Maryannu Chariot Archers lack a mobility advantage.

If Egypt’s actively attacking your cities with the units, remember they have a -17 strength penalty against cities and cannot capture them. Pick off their melee units, and they’ll never be able to take the city.

The fewer wonders Egypt builds, the less they get out of Sphinxes. As such, any tactic that weakens Egypt’s civ ability is also good for weakening Sphinxes. If you can’t deny Egypt river tiles in general, try to deny them floodplain spots so their Sphinxes can’t get the extra +1 culture yield.

As a religious player, remember that every Sphinx you pillage is worth faith. Bring some Horsemen, Coursers, Knights, Cavalry or other such fast units, declare a holy war and you can tear up Egypt’s religious infrastructure while boosting your own. Pillaged tile improvements also create -1 appeal in adjacent tiles, so simply pillaging a Sphinx will drop the appeal of Egypt’s adjacent tiles by 3.

Other Guides

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• China (Cultural/Scientific)
• Cree (Diplomatic)
• Egypt (Cultural/Diplomatic/Religious)
• England (Cultural/Domination/Scientific)
• Ethiopia (Cultural/Religious)
• France (Cultural/Domination)
• Gaul (Domination)
• Georgia (Diplomatic/Religious)
• Germany (Domination/Scientific)
• Gran Colombia (Domination)
• Greece (Cultural/Diplomatic/Domination)
• Hungary (Diplomatic/Domination)
• Inca (Religious/Scientific)
• India (Domination/Religious)
• Indonesia (Cultural/Domination/Religious)
• Japan (All)
• Khmer (Cultural/Religious)
• Kongo (Cultural)
• Korea (Scientific)
• Macedon (Domination/Scientific)
• Mali (Diplomatic/Religious)
• Māori (Cultural/Religious)
• Mapuche (Cultural/Domination)
• Maya (Scientific)
• Mongolia (Domination)
• Netherlands (Scientific)
• Norway (Domination)
• Nubia (Domination)
• Ottomans (Domination)
• Persia (Cultural/Domination)
• Phoenicia (Domination)
• Poland (Cultural/Domination/Religious)
• Portugal (Diplomatic/Scientific)
• Rome (Domination)
• Russia (Cultural/Religious)
• Scotland (Scientific)
• Scythia (Domination/Religious)
• Spain (Domination/Religious/Scientific)
• Sumeria (Diplomatic/Domination/Scientific)
• Sweden (Cultural/Diplomatic)
• Zulus (Domination)

Guides listed here have no Gathering Storm counterpart. These guides are for those with the Rise and Fall expansion, but not Gathering Storm. If you want to see a pre-Gathering Storm version of any guide, click any of these links and scroll down to the “Other Guides” section.

• Civ-specific tricks, secrets and clarifications
• Civ summaries

The Vanilla guides are for those without the Rise and Fall or Gathering Storm expansions. These guides are no longer updated. 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.