Best Metagame & PvP Setups [Updated for Rising Tide]

American Reclamation Corporation (ARC)
Covert Operations are 25% faster and cause 25% more intrigue.
RT Covert Operations are 30%/40%/50% faster and require -1 covert level to initiate.


This sounds good on paper but during an actual match you would need to have spies before your opponent in order to reap the most benefits from this.
The 2 main ways to achieve this is to either go straight for the spy agency while using virtues for a free settler & worker (to keep up with expanding) OR to pick up free spys from virtues. Both take around equally as long to do.

Siphoning (energy) is useful but stealing (science) is game changing! You can fly through science & affinities plus if you are playing Rising Tide there is an artefact; Soul Discerner Training (+25% Covert Operation Speed) too. There are however some caveats, first of all spying speed can never exceed 50% so stacking bonuses is pointless so if you nab the artefact you don't need to spend diplomatic capital on her base ability. Second of all you often don't get the quest 'collect agent' so don't rely on it for your fourth spy. This issue/bug seems limited only to ARC.

You can also Recruit Defectors and this is really interesting. The game is coded so that you can steal (actually you generate, no one actually loses a unit) any units that the target has researched meaning that though your foe might be Purity they may have researched Supremacy units so you have a chance to generate those instead regardless of if you have that affinity or not!

Steal Technology also works in a similar manner in that you will 'gain' a Technology regardless of if your foe has learned it themselves. Against the A.I. you can normally grab a few cities or even the capital if they are especially neglectful but most of the time you will be stuck at intrigue Lv3 unfortunately.

Stealing things is always worthwhile and your spies should always be active.


Pan-Asian Cooperative
+10%(production) towards Wonders, and +25% Worker speed.
RT 1 FREE WONDER per each city you own. +1/2/3(diplomatic capital) per wonder.


The boost to worker speed is good enough on it's own so the additional boost to wonder building is icing on the cake, although some wonders unfortunately are really weak and seldom worth building there are a few that combine very well with these abilities.
You can gain additional +Worker Speed and +Wonder Building Speed very early on from virtues which really helps too and some quests will further boost worker speed.

Out of all the sponsors, PAC is probably the best to spam Academies with if you can afford the Energy cost because they can build fast enough to keep up with the pacing of Quick. Other sponsors can get +Worker Speed but they will never match the PAC innate bonus.
Faster tile improvements means better cities, a solid sponsor.

Jigen writes "The +XX% worker speed also applies to explorer expedition speed as well (Both from PAC bonus and otherwise)."

In Rising Tide she is broken. Although she loses the worker speed increase, a free wonder in every single city has no other words to describe it. Imagine playing Civilization V(5) and obtaining Pyramids by turn 5 then Great Library by turn 10, it would be busted. Being able to pick wonders like food in a shopping isle is the stupidest thing I ever heard. Oddly however she works really well with the useless early wonders like Ectogenesis Pod (+1 free worker in every new city) because by the time you unlock those technologies normally, the early cities are settled and the wonders are obsolete. However this perk does not work with Spy Agency for some reason.
Also has the flip side that she does not work well with One City Challenge (OCC) unless you pick the Crawler wonder (+25% wonder speed in this city) as your free wonder.

Franco-Iberia
Gain a free Virtue for every 10 Virtues acquired.
RT Gain a free Virtue for every 10/9/8 Virtues acquired with culture.


Once upon a time Franco-Iberia was a solid pick due to the ability to culture rush in early game and nab a free technology. Nothing was added or changed for them in Rising Tide so into the trash they go. They have no redeeming factors and culture is pretty rubbish now in Rising Tide to be honest. Even in the base game they are lacking.
Also her ability works with Virtues you acquire via culture only.
Not a saving grace but kind of useful for her, is an artefact; Quantum Politics(+100% Virtue acquisition speed) also water cities gain 50% extra culture which is not exclusive to Franco-Iberia but I recommend settling water cities as her.

Slavic Federation
Orbital Units stay in orbit 50% longer, gain +50% Petroleum.
RT Orbital units requirements -1/-2, start with +4/+6 Petroleum, Titanium and Geothermal resources.


The 50% by itself is 'nice' and it can be combined with a virtue which also grants +50% to give 100% longer satellite duration which will really make coating your lands in satellites worthwhile.
Satellites in general are really hit or miss since most of them have extremely useful abilities that you will want to exploit but usually require Petroleum which is one of the more sparse resources in the game, as well as another resource like Xenomass or Firaxite and you might not have any of those around but Slavic Federation just bypasses those issues. Sadly you can easily do fantastic (even in PvP), whilst ignoring most of the early satellites which leads to the unfortunate situation of simply 'forgetting' satellites even exist by the time you do have the resources for them.
Worse, the resources in demand for satellites are also extremely valuable with the exception of Titanium so you really have to choose between the satellite or something else.

If you find a solar collector in the early game then you will have a huge advantage against other human players similar to Spain from Civilization V(5) and building array tile improvements will increase your orbital launch range so you are strongly encouraged to focus satellites. Their versatility is also extremely useful because you can boost the tile yields over a large area giving you a significant boost.

Having a lot of orbital coverage is very helpful however satellites can be shot down so parking miasma dispensers over enemy land might not provide the desired results. Satellites over your own cities however are extremely useful and worthwhile.

Speaking of miasma, both the miasma removal & miasma spreading satellites will remove or spread miasma over the affected tiles over several turns but will always affect all tiles in range when they de-orbit. This ability is actually a nerf not a buff to those kind of satellites, because you want those satellites to time out as soon as possible, the longer they are airborne, the less effective they are being! (this however might be a bug)

Rising Tide brought along new satellites to play with but the loss of longer satellite flight time hinders Slavic Federation when some of the newer toys are actually really good.

Kavithan Protectorate
Cities and Outposts aquire new tiles twice as fast.
RT -30%/-40%/-50% Culture & Energy cost to aquire tiles.


Well well well, what do we have here? We really hit the bottom of the barrel here didn't we lads?
Garbage-tier, but it needs some context.
Originally religion was going to be in the game but that got canned near release. This sponsor was supposed to be all about the faith but with no faith, well, we kind of ran out of time didn't we? So we have this instead. It is not her fault, really as religion was going to be really good but when it got shelved so did she and what we have remaining is not very good.

Gaining tiles has limited application. It is by no means the worst offender since that is your territory you are preventing your enemies from using but it just doesn't offer much when compared to everyone else. Outposts gaining tiles twice as fast does turn them into cities faster.
Also if you own all the tiles around an outpost, it will become a city immediately which is a nice way to bypass the unhealth penalty on forming new cities if you plan to rapidly expand.

Brasilia
Units have +10%(strength) in melee combat and gain +5 healing per turn when fortified.
War score increased by 30%/40%/50% and +1diplomatic capital per kill. (rising tide).

I want to like Brasilia but that bonus only applying to Melee in addition to it being a % and not a flat number really hurts them. The %(strength) scales very well but their are some problems with it we need to discuss.

First of all, at the beginning of the game your standard unit is the Soldier. They have 10(strength). For Brasilia this is 11. Given the various terrain modifiers and that attacking in Melee is always a worse proposition to fighting at range, that 1 point is going to make next to no difference.
When the unit is upgraded it gains 14 (strength) and for Brasilia this is 15.4 (yes the game rounds to 1 decimal place) which again is not enough of a difference to swing a fight in your favor.
How can this be so? Well all rolls for damage are randomized. So the game might say you will deal 20 damage and then you deal 12. You will almost never notice that extra 1 point of damage.

Second of all, ranged units are god-tier. So why couldn't Brasilia get a 10% bonus to both Melee and Ranged? What a huge shame. It would amount to a free promotion to all units so it would have been a much welcomed addition and made him a distinct leader choice for warmongers. As it stands, ironically leaders like PAC or ARC are much better warmongers because their bonuses translate to war (or aiding war) much better than anything Brasilia has to offer.

Thirdly, yes it really is that underwhelming that there is a third point to be made, which is the fact that all ranged units have poor melee defensive values. Looking at Rangers, the first ranged units you will most likely get access too, they have a melee value of only 4(strength) which means Soldiers or any melee unit for that matter will eat them alive. Oh but as Brasilia they have a value of 4.4(strength) which means...Absolutely nothing. They still get eaten for breakfast and it confers little benefit against ranged attacks either.

Ranged units recieved a strange change in the update in that while they still have ranged strength and melee strength, attacks against them will now use the higher value. As far as I can tell, this is a buff to everyone and a slight nerf to Brasilia since that strength bonus does not apply to ranged attacks. The +5 healing however is a huge deal because not only does it stack with all other sources of healing, it makes them able to either be very strong defensively or to march onwards faster, offensively. Not as pronouced during simultanious turns because people will just rapid-click dogpile a unit, but if you are the host (your clicks register first) or you are playing hybrid turns, then Brasilia is okay.

In Rising Tide, Brasilia is still middle of the road. +1 Diplomatic capital per kill is nothing. Its not even worth the effort. To add context, the first Diplomatic trait on standard speed is 150 diplomatic capital. The loss of the old bonuses is also a noticable disadvantage and pushes Brasilia ever closer to the dustbin.

African Union
10%(food) in growing Cities when healthy and a free earth relic in every city.
+10/+15/+25(food) in growing Cities when healthy and all specialists provide +1/+2 bonus. (rising tide)

Originally the laughing stock of a sponsor, while they retain their downsides the free earth relics are a huge deal! Conferring 2(3 as a quest reward) cuture per newly founded city gives PAU a very strong early game, growing faster both in culture and population than any other leader during the vital early turns.
With penalties increasing when cities become unhealthy PAU received an indirect buff because now your rivals won't be building cities all over the map (although the AI will) and with the nerf to trade routes, population is king once again.
A solid pick and easily one of the better picks post-patch infact if you don't own Starships then they are currently considered the best.

The AI on higher settings seems to not to have to worry about (health) and you will often see Africa sprawling all over the map as a result.

In Rising Tide, PAU is one of the few sponsors to recieve a new trait while retaining its old one. But once again they suck because specialists suck. An extra +1 Energy or +1 Science is worthless because resources are abundant, you have no reason to use specialists, ever, because tile yields are always a better option even in desert!
Has a nifty trick where if you can obtain 'specialists no longer consume food' you can make everyone a specialist but you can only buy that from another player/sponsor who is also playing as PAU, sadly.

Scientists
+2 Science in every City

Not as useful as you would imagine. Science is the engine that drives this game and having more is always good but their are no shortage of ways to gain more science in cities.

Refugees
+2 Food in every City

Worst pick. Their is no redeeming factor to this ability anymore (after the winter patch).

Aristocrats
+4 Energy in every City

A great choice for warmongers, cities you capture are included for all these abilities but when you go to war, you need to pay your army or else they will disband if you hit -5 (energy). This ability combines very well with warmongering and should almost always be picked if you are planning to win via domination because while yes trade routes will fund your army, the earlier you start war, the better off you will be over your enemies.

Engineers
+2 Production in every City

I personally don't rate this ability very well and here is the my reasoning as to why. If you start with a worker (or build one quickly) you can turn hills into mines for +3(production) so starting with +2(production) does not seem to have as much of an impact in my opinion as it would initially seem. More so when you consider that starting near Titanium and creating a mine over it will provide +6(production) and as far as resources go, Titanium is extremely abundant.

Artists
+3 Culture in every City
+2 Culture in every City (rising tide)

Once the necter of the gods but even the mighty, must fall. Artists is still a solid pick if you do not own Starships but for those players that do, their is one ability that you pick every game without fail and this is not the one! For everyone else however this is still a solid pick since culture means virtues.

Pick artists. Feel free to try out the other abilities but after some experimenting I am sure you will agree, picking artists is one of the best choices if you don't own Starships.

[noicon]Pioneering Starships Only!

Build Colonists and Explorer units at double speed.
The new Mr.Dynamite of PvP bar none, and not for the reason you might expect either.
You want explorers and you want them fast! We will come to the 'why' when we look at Spaceships so pick this and get those explorers out there ASAP. Even without the colonist bonus this skill would be the best but with it, you just 'win'.

[noicon]Mercenaries Starships Only!

All cities gain an additional +25HP and all units have +10% Melee & Ranged combat bonus when in friendly territory.

An anti-'early rush' choice but not much more than that. It obviously screams defensive and the extra attack power is nice but the overall bonus is far too modest in comparison to everything else you have to give up in order to take this choice and Aristrocrats is still a better anti-rush choice because you can maintain a larger military with it or if war doesn't happen the extra energy still has other uses.

Continental Surveyor
- Reveals Coasts on Map.


I personally like this ability but I acknowledge that this is a guide for how to win PvP or playing at the current metagame level and in that context it is subpar.
Miasma can never effect water tiles so starting with this ability and a coastal start means you can immediately send trade routes to other coastal leaders or your own coastal cities.

This is of course hamstrung immediately if you are not able to place your founding city on a coastal tile or there is no coast (for example if playing random maps and you happen to spawn the skirmish map) so this option is more of a gamble that pays off extremely well when it works, and leaves you a little hamstrung when it doesn't pay off. Being able to see the coastline however still has a lot of uses but admittedly you will feel cheated if this goes belly up.

In Rising tide this skill is not OP but is very, very useful! In addition to revealing the coastline it will also show ANY resource pods that happen to be on the coastline as well! You can use this to your advantage by starting in water or on the ocean coastline and building a boat to grab a whole bunch of resource pods and unlike Expeditions, resource pods don't take any time or slow you down!

Retrograde Thrusters
- Wider area for choosing where to land first City, and additional visibility around starting area.


Rubbish. Just plain rubbish. The extra landing zone choices usually make little differences because not everything (like Alien nests for example) is visible until you commit to a tile to land on! Really ruining this choice. If it showed all resources in range (similar to Tectonic Scanner) then it would be a very strong pick indeed but as it stands, easily one of the worst of the bunch.

Tectonic Scanner
- No Technology is needed to see Petroleum, Geothermal, and Titanium resources.


This is what the Metagame and PvP revolve around right now and still do if you don't own Starships. Titanium is so unbalanced that not picking this requires a very good explanation on your part as to why! A Titanium tile with a mine on top is +6(production) and Purity UU Lv4, the Battlesuit only requires 1 Titanium to be built, which itself requires no further research in the Tech tree if you have picked this ability. Petroleum is also needed for a lot of satellites and is a very rare resource so finding it from turn one in order to settle near it is again a good reason to pick this ability.

Fusion Reactor
- Begin with 100 Energy (at Standard Speed)


Scales with speed so worth more on slower speeds and less on faster speeds.
Useless. No jokes, no puns, no punchlines.

Lifeform Sensor
- Reveal Alien Nests on Map


Honestly, not as useless as it might seem. Aliens nests equals Xenomass so this is like the Tectonic Scanners ability for players wanting to go Harmony. Furthermore gaining a nest in your borders will help you befriend the Aliens faster and conversely knowing where the nests are will help your explorer to not get too close and accidentally get killed.
If Tectonic Scanners ever gets nerfed in the future then this will probably become the next in line ability and choosing to kill aliens for science when picking virtues is extremely strong right now too.

[noicon]Supply Modules Starships Only!
Begin with +2 Resource Pods near your starting location.

Goody huts (our nickname for these) have been nerfed in this game and while they still provide a valuable resource they are not as make or break as they once were in previous civ games. These contribute to the quest 'Relics from home' which requires you to collect 3 resource pods and the bonuses inside are themselves good enough. A good pick in Rising Tide as it is 2 more chances to obtaining Relics and Relics are great. This would have been an excellent pick if not for our next contestant that is dominating PvP and PvE...

[noicon]Electromagnetic SensorStarships Only!
Reveal Artefacts on map.

Here is it ladies and gentlemen. The grand daddy of everything right now, Mr.Dynamite himself!
Why is this so good? Artefacts open up affinity or even a huge jump-start on the victory condition of making contact with the planet. Knowing where these are changes the game immensely because as early as turn 20 you can have 1 affinity and have found 'the signal' or even better, you could get 2 affinity points, before you even get any of the free/easy affinity points. Before you even research your first affinity point! This is why Pioneers is also so strong as you need to extract Artefacts and you need explorers to do that.

Its broken. It's just plain broken. Players who do not own Starships will get annihilated by players who do and their is nothing they can do to match the power of this ability because even for an early rush they have to find you first and you can easily score 2 ruins before they cross the map in search of you.

Not sure if this is surpassed in Rising Tide. On the one hand, free affinity points! On the other hand...No there is no other hand. Continental Surveyor steps its game up and rivals this Spacecraft but it doesn't beat it.

Hydroponics
- Begin with an extra Population in your first City


This +1(population) does not come for free. Your city will act as if it has just grown to size two so this ability can be hit or miss depending on how good or bad your starting position is.
Besides that this ability is trash on Quick speed (which most PvP matches are anyway) and brilliant on Marathon speed.
One of the few polarized choices really because game speed makes a huge difference with this one.

Laboratory
- Begin with the Pioneering Technology


Pioneering unlocks the ability to build Settlers and Trade Routes.
Their are times when for example aliens nearby might make this undesirable (they can attack trade routes) but in these instances creating a settler instead...And then trade routes is still a fantastic starting option and is probabaly one of the best ways to go into this game.

Raw Materials
- Begin with a Clinic building in your first City


A Clinic is a starter building that requires no prior Tech in order to be built (you always start with the Technology to build it unlocked) and provides +1(science) & +1(health)

I don't really see the overall point in starting with the Clinic already built. Yes you have an additional +1(science) and if you choose you can combine it with +2(science) per city but the clinic is so cheap both in terms of (energy) cost (only 270 (energy) in standard speed) and (production)(only 60(production)) that it is really not prohibitive to obtain whilst offering precious little for the lost oppurtunity cost of picking something better.

Weapon Arsenal
- Begin with a Soldier unit


If a foe has picked Brasilia and Aristrocrats and you fear an early rush then pick this. It won't win you the war but it will be better than nothing at all.
This ability is surprisingly useful in PvP for stealing a worker early in the game and killing enemy explorers. Be mindful that human players never forgive and almost never accept peace treaties once you have declared war on them however stealing a worker or forcing them to hard build a military unit will cripple their start.
Against the AI always a bad pick. On higher settings the AI already starts with a full army and on normal setting they pose no threat to you at all, because they are so brain dead.

Picking this ability and not harrasing a neighbour is a HUGE waste of immense proportions so be sure to be aggressive if you pick this! Steal their worker, pillage their tiles, kill their explorer (they now have 8 strength so killing them is no longer a simple task)

You can kill aliens for science too but that doesn't come soon enough to justify starting with this ability and ranged units are much better for that task anyway.

In Rising Tide if you pick a water city then you get a boat instead which is broken due to how fast it can traverse the water, picking up water based Resource Pods at a move speed of 5. Sometimes getting 2 in a single turn. Strongly consider this if you pick a water civ.

Machinery
- Begin with a Worker Unit


Not a 100% pick for PvP but certainly a popular pick! Remember that Titanium? Building a mine on top is +6(production) and you need a worker to make that improvement so starting with a worker is pretty much almost always the best starting choice and again you will see it happen often. Even if you don't luck out and get Titanium you can always benefit from improved tiles. On the flip side, you can always build a Worker, you have to research Pioneering before you can build a Trade Route.

[noicon]Cyrotome Starships Only!
An odd one. I like it and I like the fact it is a cargo choice but you won't see it picked often. A free worker just offers so much! As does starting with a soldier to steal another players worker. Its a good ability just over shadowed by the competition. The free virtue is totally free so if you are playing as PAU with artists, you get to chew through virtues just that little bit faster.

[noicon]Xeno Mangement Starships Only!
Wow! This is a case of an interesting choice in the wrong place. What this does is give you a unique vehicle (sadly with a move of 1) that repels aliens. This is utterly amazing for guiding settlers unprotected. It's downsides are the aformentioned slow speed of 1 and the fact that if it ever gets detroyed, you can't make another one. Its lost forever.
A move of 2 or ideally 3 (its not an attacking unit) and/or giving the player the option to make more after picking this would have been much better but as it stands this is the worst choice you can pick. Again it isn't that bad its just the fact that the other options are much better.

In Rising Tide if you pick a water-based Civ and then pick this, you get nothing!
This unit cannot enter water tiles so effectively its like you chose nothing at all.

As you can see, the Sponsors are pretty evenly matched in the base game with African Union currently having the best start if you don't own Starships and PAC being the best if you do because worker speed translates to expedition speed as well with ARC and PAC being solid leaders in my opinion even if you don't own Starships.

After that you are really forced into 2 schools. Either you are an early game warmonger who is going to harrass your foe until you can build up an army to conqeur them, or you are going to quietly bide your time until your affinity is high enough (or you get started on your victory) and those feel like the only 2 viable choices you have.

Battlesuit rushing was nerfed as were a lot of affinity units and with trade routes being weakened it now takes longer to grow a decent size empire. Science is still queen and population is still king but the removal of free technologies has really helped even the sponsors out.

Spy espionage was half fixed, with establishing a network providing zero intrigue now but still levelling a spy up regardless so it can be exploited but is nowhere near as bad as it was before and some of the nastier espionage tricks are now Lv4 instead of Lv5 but it doesn't help that they are Lv4 because you can cap cities at no higher than Lv3 espionage and furthermore the nasty stuff is still rediciously far into the virtue trees anyway so by the time you could be doing nasty stuff, you coud just as well build an army and march it over instead.

Starship players being able to find dig sites is amazing if you own Starships and reason to quit if you do not. You can't keep up with the competition at all in a 1v1 and you just have to rush build military so you can kill their explorers ASAP which is all fine and dandy except you have to find them first. And explorers got a buff making them harder to kill so you just might not be able to kill them before they finish an expedition.

Rising Tide really messes things up with ARC being so godly, they are the new PAU and PAU became worthless, again! The game is a hodgepodge mess sadly.

Starship players often are in a race to find dig sites and kill anyone else who even so much as looks at a dig site the wrong way.

With the release of Civ6 and the fact that it was almost impossible for me to get games going when Civ:BE Rising Tide was new, I sincerely doubt I will be able to meaningfully complete this guide. Which is a shame as Al Falah has a very unique playstyle! Chungsu is also "not terrible" but really shines if you can increase his spy stealing speed although is ultimately weaker than ARC.