A 4UC Vox Populi Guide: The Huns

These are an updated set of guides for the Vox Populi mod meant to help players learn the details and how to play each civ in the game. Whether new to civ entirely, experienced in civ but new to Vox Populi, or even well experienced with the mod and just looking for a refresher, these guides are designed to be useful to all. These guides were inspired by Zigzagzigal's guides, as they helped me learn a lot about the game when I first started playing it over a decade ago, and I wanted to provide a similar experience for the Vox Populi mod, which has become my go to way to play civ v, and is my favorite strategy game. For those looking for the download for the mod, it can be found here[forums.civfanatics.com]

With that out of the way, onto the Huns!

Before getting into the specifics of the civ, a few terms that I may be using during this guide will be defined here

Beelining - Focusing on obtaining a technology early by only researching technologies needed to research it and no others. For example, to beeline Bronze Working, you'd research Mining and Bronze Working and nothing else until Bronze Working was finished.
Finisher - The bonus for completing a Social Policy tree (e.g. All Naval and Air units gaining a promotion increasing their strength as they take damage from Imperialism.)
GWAM - Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. These are the three types of Great People who can make Great Works, a major source of tourism for cultural Civs.
Opener - The bonus for unlocking a Social Policy tree (e.g. +25% GWAM generation, +10% culture generation during golden ages and +100% construction of guilds in Artistry)
Scaling with Era - Any trait scaling with era will double in the medieval era, then increase by the same amount every era afterwards (For example, a +1 bonus scaling with era would increase to +2 in the medieval, +3 in the renaissance, etc. until a max of +7 in the information era)
Tall Empire - A low number of cities with a high population each.
UA - Unique Ability - the unique thing a Civilization has which doesn't need to be built.
UB - Unique Building - A replacement for a normal building that can only be built and used by one Civilization.
UI - Unique Improvement - A tile improvement that can be made by workers that doesn't replace any other improvement that can only be made by a single civilization
UU - Unique Unit - A replacement for a normal unit that can only be built by one Civilization or provided by militaristic City-States when allied.
UGP - Unique Great Person - A replacement for a great person that only one civilization can generate
Uniques - Collective name for Unique Abilities, Units, Buildings, Tile Improvements and Great People
Wide Empire - A high number of cities with a low population each.
WLTKD - We love the king day.
XP - Experience Points - Get enough and you'll level up your unit, giving you the ability to heal your unit or get a promotion.
ZOC - Stands for "Zone of Control" which is the effect that causes units to use all their movement if they move from a space adjacent to an enemy unit to another space still adjacent to that same unit

The Huns have a grasslands/plains start bias. This benefits both of their UUs as well as their UI.
Inflict 100% and receive 50% less war weariness +10% for each attack done against the same target in a turn Gain 1 & for every 3 damage done to a city, scaling with era

A mounted melee unit

Positive One-Off Changes

• Higher combat strength (15 instead of 14)
  
• Does not require horses
  
• Obsoletes at Metallurgy rather than Chivalry

Positive Stay on Upgrade Changes

• Heal all friendly adjacent units by 15hp when pillaging improvements(Bellum Alet)

A mounted ranged unit

*Does stack with the Hunnic UA Positive One-Off Changes

• Higher combat strength (13 instead of 12)
  
• Higher ranged strength (10 instead of 9)
  
• Obsoletes at Metallurgy rather than Physics

Positive Stay on Upgrade Changes

• +10% combat strength when attacking for each previous attack on the target this turn(Focus Fire)*

Positive Changes

• Can be built with any national population
  
• +3& (Up from +1 and +0 respectively)
  
• +2 empire for every major civilization at war with your empire
  
• +5% towards military units in all cities per major civilization at war with your empire
  
• +2& to all stables
  
• +3 to all arenas
  
• +4 horses(Up from +2)

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


The Huns are best suited for domination, as both their UA and UNW strongly push them towards early, constant warfare
The Huns can get surprisingly strong culture due to their UA and their UI actually gives solid early culture. None of this translates to tourism however
The Hunnic UI gives them very strong infrastructure, however they lack any science bonuses
Between their UA and UI, the Huns have a solid economy, although no diplomatic bonuses to leverage that towards
With all of their uniques being both early and war focused, the Huns are bad at founding a religion

In northern South America there was a group of people known as the Legion of Hell, who employed horse tactics similar to the steppe hordes of Asia. This situation reminds me of that

Every time the Huns attack an enemy unit, the next attacker of that unit on that turn gains 10% combat strength, to a theoretically near infinite value. Of course, most units don't exactly have infinite health, but even having two units attack a single target acts as if the second unit has an extra promotion, and it can keep growing from there. Ranged units are the best users of this, as they expand the effective tiles you can attack a unit from, and therefore the amount of units that can focus fire onto a single unit. Mounted units are also going to be more effective then standard melee units as well, you should minimize how many melee units you have in your army, as they can't make as good of use of this combat boost. This ability strangely enough reaches its peak in the late game however, with air units significantly increasing the range and amount of units that can attack a single unit. Despite being a civ with all of their uniques unlocked before medieval, they probably have the strongest air force of any civ.

Cities have much more health then normal units, and remain in one spot, making them the best target to make use of the increased damage on the same target
Spoils for the horde!

For every 3 damage the Huns do to a city, they gain 1 culture and gold, scaling with era. The first bit of the Hunnic UA makes them better at fighting both units and cities, and this part gives them great incentive to do so, allowing them to sustain their economy by attacking cities, as well as gaining a lot of culture. Siege units in particular can earn you a lot of yields, so make sure to implement them into your army.

Finally, the Huns inflict 100% and receive 50% less unhappiness from war weariness. This is relatively minor compared to the other two part of the UA, but it is still nice. It means it you can minimize the amount of time you are at peace without straining your happiness, and stand a higher chance of forcing the enemy below 50% happiness, giving them a combat penalty.

Don't forget the unique Hunnic trait of all their cities after the capital taking names from the city lists of other civs in the current game, letting you know what civs you have to contend with. Not that I have any clue which civ has "Naha" as a city. Japan maybe?

While largely focused on nearly never ending war, the Huns do have a powerful improvement in the Eki. The Eki gives a starting amount of food, production and culture, and grow to give much more food and production. The Eki also gains 1 production and gold from every two Ekis. You can even build Ekis in neutral territory adjacent to your own, causing the tile to be claimed upon completion. Arguably the best part of the Eki however, is simply where it is built, flat tiles without fresh water. Normally, these are probably the worst tiles in the game, as without resources you can't build anything particularly useful on them, however the Eki gives excellent yields. This allows the Huns to expand into normally fairly bad territory and turn them into great cities. Strangely enough the Huns may be the strongest civ to settle into a lot of flat desert simply because of the Eki

The perfect Eki triangle. Don't forget academies give adjacency to all improvements, including the Eki, so if there's a random hill in the middle of a bunch of flatland, slap an academy there to further boost your Ekis.

Tarkhans actually were more military leaders and generals then some sort of elite cavalry force. While it would obviously step on their toes from a gameplay perspective, they were much more aligned to what the Mongol Khan is in this game

I'm not sure if this is a controversial opinion or not in the VP community, but I think that horseman are a pretty bad unit in Vox Populi. They cost a strategic resource, which can be very difficult to reliably have in the ancient era, and are barely stronger then a spearman, to which of course they lose to in a straight fight due to the spearman's bonus against mounted. Tarkhans do fix some of these issues. They don't require horses, and are a bit stronger, giving them a more effective role on the early game battlefield, allowing them to actually use their mobility to good effect. They can help keep your army moving more effectively while sieging too, as they give healing from pillaging to all adjacent friendly units. However, they are largely inferior to the Huns other unique unit, the Horse Archer. Now, in the classical era this isn't necessarily a problem, they don't quite occupy the same role, and the Tarkhan doesn't require horses, so they aren't fighting for resources. In classical warfare Tarkhans are certainly your melee unit of choice. However, they upgrade into knights, which DO require horses. Horse Archers are a much more worthy upgrade then Tarkhans. Now if you are able to settle a lot of horses early this is mostly a non-issue. However if you are limited on horses, prioritize upgrading Horse Archers. If you need to let Tarkhans obsolete and simply either delete them or throw them into a fight they'll almost certainly die in later on in the game, that's ok. They serve their role well enough early on, don't feel the need to pull them through later on simply because they're unique.

• Heal all friendly adjacent units by 15hp when pillaging improvements(Bellum Alet)

Now we're talking. Real horses, not whatever freak alien machine the Tarkhan is riding.

Normal mounted ranged units are already quite good at focusing damage onto one tile. With the Hunnic UA they'd already be a great choice of unit. The Horse Archer takes the damage increasing effect of the UA, and doubles it

Only the Tarkhan has attacked the Brazilian scout this turn, yet the Horse Archer gains 20% bonus multi attack damage

For every unit that has attacked an enemy unit, the Horse Archer effectively gets 2 promotions worth of base strength against that same unit. Mounted ranged units are usually only good for chip damage, finishing off low health units, or providing lots of flanking bonuses, but the Horse Archer can actually hit quite hard against well fortified units or even cities, something mounted ranged usually struggles against. Make sure you settle enough horses in your first cities, and you should be able to steamroll almost any opponent in the classical, and snowball from there.

• +10% combat strength when attacking for each previous attack on the target this turn(Focus Fire)

On its own 2 happiness may be small, but anything that keeps you above 50% is a big deal, and later on in the game you'll likely be at war with basically everyone left who you haven't killed or vassalized, making this easily anywhere from 6 to 16 happiness depending on map size

The Ulticur provides a few small bonuses that help the Huns keep up there "Forever War" style of play. Most directly is that it gives 2 happiness, and 5% production of military units in all cities for every major civ you're at war with. This lets you get out new units faster, and keeps your happiness up to prevent you suffering the penalties from unhappiness, most notably to your combat effectiveness. Arguably just as if not more important however, especially at the point of the game you build this, is that it gives 4 horses compared to the 2 of the circus maximus. This should mean that you will be able to upgrade all the Horse Archers you need, and maybe even a few Tarkhans as long as you've been diligent about settling horse resources.

The Ulticur council has agreed to more resources towards the creation of our army.

A domination civ with a unique mounted and ranged unit that can be on the field at the same time, with a strong production base and an economy fueled by their conquest of cities. That description fits more then one civ. The Huns and Songhai share a fair few similarities, so I wanted to take a section to highlight their differences, and where one civ may outperform the other.

The Huns are the much stronger civ early game. Their uniques almost all come online earlier, allowing them to get off to a faster start. Their combat bonuses are also both more reliable and have stronger potential then Songhai's

Songhai has better timing potential with the combo of Mandekalu Cavalry and Sofa being stronger then the Horse Archer and Tarkhan. They also have more potential to snowball off their conquests and have a more reliable infrastructure.

Overall in terms of pure domination potential I would rate the Huns as slightly better, mostly due to their UA more consistently giving them the strength they need. The Huns also have fairly strong culture, something Songhai simply cannot compare to. Songhai does have arguably better snowball potential however if they can make the most of their medieval power spike, and they also have the better infrastructure, allowing them to pivot a bit better away from domination if they have to, although they certainly are still a pure domination civ.

The Huns take the standard warmonger policy route of Authority into Fealty and finishing with Imperialism

Opener: Culture and science from kills is real nice, and the extra combat strength against barbs is going to make getting your early gold way easier

Imperium: Some nice yields from border growth, and more importantly a lot of yields from city conquest, of which you'll be doing a lot of.

Tribute: A free Settler is nice, lets you expand while still working on your military/infrastructure to build your military

Militarism: The Huns hypothetically has a great early economy, but one that requires a lot of active push, so this makes sure you can actually afford your military you need to get your economy moving

Dominance: Further army benefits to keep the money train going

Honor: Extra strength and extra units. Everything a warmonger could want

Finisher: Some purchasable melee units that are good at attacking cities? Sure why not!

Opener: You aren't necessarily doing a ton with faith, might as well get a decent building from it

Nobility: Faster production towards arguably the two most important medieval buildings for a warmonger? Yes please

Serfdom: Given both your UBs improve tiles you'll probably have quite a lot of non-specialists, so this should be a decent amount of culture and faith

Divine Right: You're bound to have quite a large military, so this is a little bit of extra happiness. Plus the extra border growth is nice paired with Authority

Organized Religion: If/Once you can get a religion properly set up, this will help keep it going

Fiefdoms: A bit of extra reduction to unhappiness, can't complain

Finisher: A nice bit of yields in all your cities assuming you've got your majority religion well spread.

Opener: The extra great general movement is huge, plus you can't complain about cheaper units

Regimental System: Generals are important, and this makes them even better at boosting your army (and navy for admirals)

Civilizing Mission: You'll be doing lots of conquering, this just makes those cities you get this late actually useful.

Exploitation: You've already got some solid tile boosts, this makes them even better

Colonialism: Yields from buildings you want, and extra bonuses from monopolies you probably have. Very nice

Martial Law: Happiness could be a fairly big problem at this point in the game, and this is potentially a lot.

Finisher: The Huns actually have a decent navy, and arguably the best air force in the game, this just makes it even better.

Unsurprisingly, the Huns work best with Autocracy

Military Industrial Complex: You've probably got more Ekis then other tile improvements combined across your empire, so this should be a lot of science

Elite Forces: The Huns can build up new faster then almost anyone, this makes sure those units are actually worth it.

Iron Fist: You've probably got a fair few vassals, so this makes them better, plus your workers can get to building even more Ekis much faster

Lightning Warfare: Makes sure your generals can keep up with army, plus some nice boosts to your melee units

Third Alternative: Makes sure that both strategic resources and gold maintenance should no longer be a problem.

Air Supremacy: For most domination civs air units are nice, and making them better is good, but the Huns genuinely have a terrifying airforce, so getting it out faster will rapidly secure your victory.

Terrain/resource specific pantheons are not listed here unless they have some other synergy with a civ's uniques, however they can often be a great choice if the terrain/resources you start with favors them

God of the Open Sky: While the Huns do want to grab a lot of horses, this is most beneficial due to the Eki, which make the Huns work a lot of flat grassland and plains

God of War: The Huns will certainly be killing lots of units, a great choice

Hero Worship: Gives a ton of bonuses for the conquest you're doing

Holy Law: The Huns have solid culture, so this should give a decent few yields as a backup to Hero Worship

Teocallis: The Huns are good at taking out enemy units, so this is a good bit of faith

Orders: Also great at making your units stronger

Thrift: The Huns only keep their economy moving through sieging cities. This helps out when you aren't doing that

Zealotry: Allows you to really put your faith towards domination, plus keep up all the important strategics (read; horses) that you need
Crusader Spirit: A huge boost to your army strength

Defender of the Faith: A good backup to Crusader Spirit if someone gets it first

Statue of Zeus: Translates directly to more culture and gold for the Huns, an even higher priority for them then most warmongers

Temple of Artemis: Mounted ranged units are affected by the production boost, so this can help get your first Horse Archers out much faster

Terracotta Army: A ton of culture from all the units you're definitely killing

Oracle: A smidge out of the way of the typical Hun tech path, but a worthy addition to any game.

Great Wall: The general is nice but the real reason you're grabbing this is that if a neighbor builds this, they become much harder to invade

Alhambra(Authority Only): While the Huns are pushed towards mounted ranged due to the Horse Archer, mounted units are still a worthy addition assuming your have the horses. Alhambra makes them even better
Himeji Castle: Similar mindset to grabbing the Great Wall, you don't want someone else having it

Red Fort(Fealty Only): Another wonder in the list of "don't want someone else to have it"

Neuschwanstein: The Huns may have slightly less happiness problems then most domination civs, but it is still definitely a problem for them, this will help a lot
Prora(Autocracy Only): The happiness is nice, but you're here for the free policy
Pentagon(Imperialism Only): You already have a top tier airforce, this will all but guarantee your domination of not just the skies, but the world.
CERN: Two free techs to clean out the tech tree.

The Huns require you to play in a particular way to get the most out of their bonuses. While I'd argue it isn't in a way that different from normal, it can still lead to mistakes

It is generally good advice for all civs to focus their attacks onto a single unit at a time whenever possible, it is simply the most efficient way to do warfare in Civ V. This is doubly true for the Huns however. If you aren't focusing attacks onto one unit, you are throwing away your biggest combat advantage.
The Horse Archer gains double the benefit from attacking the same unit, so you want to give them the biggest amount of prior attacks possible. Make sure to have them attack last for the greatest benefit
Since Ekis can be built in neutral territory and claim the territory when built, you should also build them in neutral territory first, as this is just claiming free tiles for the city that it doesn't have to spend culture on growing to. Build them in the tiles you already have owned later.
Tarkhans get the job done, but Horse Archers are your real power unit. In the classical it's fine and even ideal to mix plenty of both into the army, but in the long run Horse Archers are what you want to be upgrading. Don't waste horses on upgrading Tarkhans if it means leaving a Horse Archer un-upgraded.

The Huns have one of the strongest armies throughout the entire game, a strong snowball potential, and a solid infrastructure in their cities. If they can't get the conquest train going however, they will rapidly fall behind.

The Huns hit harder then pretty any other civ. Trying to hold a defense against a strong Hunnic army is going to be one of the toughest challenges in Vox Populi. However, there is a small Achilles heel to the Hunnic army. Their strengths only apply on the attack. Instead of standing your ground, challenge the Huns with an attack of your own. Since they prefer mobile and ranged units, mounted units of your own will serve best. Break into the Hunnic line and they'll actually be able to do little to stop it, as the average Hunnic army composition is focused on powerful offense, and will be quite vulnerable to an attack of your own. Use this pressure to keep them away from your cities, and maybe even try to push them back into their own territory and the Huns will lose their momentum and power.
Even if the Huns weren't a scary warmonger it'd still be difficult to stop them from building Ekis, as they are built in terrain that is otherwise pretty useless to most civs. Trying to take prime Eki land will just lead to bad cities of your own. However, since they will be building lots of Ekis, in easy to move through territory, they actually serve as a small detriment to the Huns on defense. If you invade the Huns yourself there will be lots of tiles to pillage.
Tarkhans are a fairly spammable unit, giving the Huns an unprecedented level of mobility on an early melee unit. However, they still somewhat suffer the weakness of a typical horseman, in that they still lose to the most common unit of the early game, the spearman. Keep enough spearman around and Tarkhans on their own can't do much. However they are not the problem for the early Hun invasion
Horse Archers are the really scary unit for the Huns. Spearman are too slow to really challenge them, and horseman and skirmishers of your own are going to be too weak to get the job done. You don't want to just flee to your cities to defend either as that just gives the Huns the opportunity to gain culture and gold by attacking your city. Still, the best advice is to push into them, don't let them pound into your defense that will almost always be a losing battle. Once you can get to medieval units, knights will be by far your best choice, even against upgraded Horse Archers a knight has the mobility to catch up to them and the strength to destroy them.
The Ulticur simply allows the Huns to more effectively continue doing what they want to do. If you have managed to successfully fight off the Huns the Ulticur won't make the difference, and on the flip side if the Huns are causing you problems, the Ulticur isn't really the reason they're able to do that.
Early Game Warmongers: The hardest time to fight the Huns. Leverage whatever advantage you have, and keep on the offense. If you can pillage their horse resources, their Horse Archers won't be nearly as effective

Mid Game Warmongers: Oddly enough probably the best time to attack. Knights and other mounted, mobile units will be your friend. Remember. Offense

Late Game Warmongers: For such an early focused civ the Huns have a terrifying late game army. Bring lots of anti air units, and have fighters of your own to defend. Don't underestimate them on water either, their UA still applies there.

Scientific Players: Once you get past around the medieval era, the Huns shouldn't prove much threat, as you'll almost certainly be ahead of them in unit tech, as science is the one thing the Huns struggle on. Early game though, just do what you can to survive until you can get knights up.

Cultural Players: The Huns will prove a very annoying threat, as they require enough of an army to be able to actively push the Huns away, rather then just a static defense. Better sacrificing some cultural progress then dying however.

Diplomatic Players: The Huns even moreso then most warmongers want to chain conquests together, and while they have some bonuses to mitigate this, if enough things come together to stop their momentum they'll crumble. Global peace accords, sanctions, and targeting luxury bans can cause them to go unhappy and lose money, which can potentially stop their snowball and completely hamstring them.

• Arabia (Culture/Science)
  
• The Inca (Science/Domination)
  
• Korea (Science)
  
• The Netherlands (Diplomacy/Domination/Culture)
  
• Portugal (Science/Diplomacy)
  
• Russia (Domination/Science)
  
• Siam (Diplomacy/Science/Culture)
  
• Songhai (Domination)
  
• Sweden (Domination/Diplomacy)