If you have the Gathering Storm expansion, click here for the updated guide.

This guide is no longer updated, but will remain for the sake of those without the Gathering Storm expansion.

Note: This guide requires the Rise and Fall expansion.

Content from DLC packs (Poland, Vikings, Australia, Persia/Macedon, Nubia, Khmer/Indonesia) is marked as such.

From the vast Amazon basin to the Uruguayan savanna, Brazil already covers a great expanse of land. The world already knows of Brazil's cultural exploits every year when the Carnival season returns, but what we need now is acknowledgement as a global power. To this end, we are paying much attention to the innovative individuals who will lead us into a new golden age - and to keeping our coasts defended from those who would threaten this arrangement. But the balance of nature is fragile, and if our natural landscape was to burn in the fires of greed and war, our greatest asset would become our greatest loss.


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 (assuming they have one at all).
  
• The Victory Skew section describes to what extent the civ (and its individual leaders where applicable) are inclined towards particular victory routes. This is not a rating of its power, but rather a general 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 should be given more consideration than they would be for other civs but 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, culture, gold, 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) - Describes bonuses or penalties that affect multiple tiles in a set radius. Positive examples include Factories and Stadiums (which by default offer production and happiness respectively 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 - The strategy of 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 deviation (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. Unlike unique units, buildings, districts and improvements, civ abilites do not have to be built.

Compact empires - Civs with cities close together. This is useful if you want to make use of districts that gain adjacency bonuses from other districts, maximise the number of copies of the same district in the same area, or to maximise the potential of area-of-effect bonuses later in the game.

Dispersed empires - Civs with cities that are spread out. This is useful if you want to ensure cities have plenty of room for both districts and tile improvements. 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, which like civ abilities do not have to be built. Usually but not always, they tend to be more specific in scope than civ abilities. Some leader abilities come with an associated unique unit on top of the standard one every civ has.

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.

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. If a civilization is not listed as having a start bias there, it does not have one, even if you feel like you keep spawning in the same terrain when playing as that civ.

Super-uniques - Unique units that do not replace any others, and are hence particularly unique. 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 and offers some unique advantages on top. In some cases, there may be minor disadvantages as well, but these are always outweighed by the positive features. All unique districts cost half as much to construct relative to the regular districts they replace.

UI (Unique Improvement) - A special improvement that can only be built by the Builders of a single civilization. Unlike unique buildings or districts, these do not replace a regular improvement. Some require a technology to unlock, and many have their yields improved with later technologies. "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 built by a single civilization, and in some cases only when that civilization is led by a specific leader. These usually replace an existing unit and offer extra advantages (and occasionally minor disadvantages as well in exchange for bigger advantages).

Wide empires - Empires that emphasise expansion over city development, usually resulting in more, but smaller, cities.

Brazil has a tier 2 start bias towards rainforest tiles. This is important for making use of the civ ability. Rainforest hills have decent yields as unimproved tiles go as well, helping to make your start a little bit stronger.

• Rainforest tiles provide a +1 adjacency bonus for Campus, Commercial Hub, Holy Site, and Theater Square districts.
  
  • This does not stack with the normal Campus bonus offering +1 science for every two adjacent rainforest tiles.
• Brazilian-owned rainforests grant +1 appeal instead of -1.

• After acquiring a Great Person through recruitment or patronage, 20% of its Great Person Points cost is refunded.
  
  • This is the full 20% of the previous Great Person cost, regardless of whether you used patronage or not (for example, if the previous Great Person cost 660 points, you will start the next with 132)

An industrial-era ranged naval unit which replaces the Battleship


*Forming a fleet or armada does not increase anti-air strength.

Variable changes

• Requires the industrial-era Nationalism civic instead of the modern-era Steel technology
  
  • This means the unit is constructed faster with the Press Gangs policy card (Renaissance era, requires Exploration) instead of International Waters (Atomic era, requires Cold War).
    
  • This also makes modern-era Great Admirals ineffective for them, but renaissance-era Great Admirals will boost their speed and strength.

Positive changes

• Does not require coal resources to construct
  
• 70 strength, up from 60
  
• 75 anti-air strength, up from 70
  
• 80 ranged strength, up from 70

A classical-era speciality district which replaces the Entertainment Complex

*All districts increase in production cost over the course of the game. If you have fewer copies of a district in total than the average among all players, it will be 40% cheaper to construct.

**Purchasing districts with gold requires the governor Reyna (the Financier) with the Contractor promotion to be present in the city. It always costs four times as much gold as it does production, before modifiers to purchasing costs are applied.

Positive changes

• -50% production cost
  
• Provides 2 amenities, up from 1
  
• Enables the Carnival city project
  
  • The Carnival city project provides 1 amenity while in progress, and provides Great Engineer, Merchant, Writer, Artist and Musician points when completed.
    
  • The Great Person Points offered are equivalent to a Theatre Square Festival, plus half of Commercial Hub Investments and half of Industrial Zone Logistics.

Special note

• The Street Carnival district only provides era score when built for the first time if you have no Copacabana districts in your civ.

An industrial-era speciality district which replaces the Water Park

*All districts increase in production cost over the course of the game. If you have fewer copies of a district in total than the average among all players, it will be 40% cheaper to construct.

**Purchasing districts with gold requires the governor Reyna (the Financier) with the Contractor promotion to be present in the city. It always costs four times as much gold as it does production, before modifiers to purchasing costs are applied.

Positive changes

• -50% production cost
  
• Provides 2 amenities, up from 1
  
• Enables the Carnival city project
  
  • The Carnival city project provides 1 amenity while in progress, and provides Great Engineer, Merchant, Writer, Artist and Musician points when completed.
    
  • The Great Person Points offered are equivalent to a Theatre Square Festival, plus half of Commercial Hub Investments and half of Industrial Zone Logistics.

Special note

• The Copacabana district only provides era score when built for the first time if you have no Street Carnivals in your civ.

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.


Cultural victories work slightly better than the others for Brazil mainly due to the nature of their two unique districts. All the Great People that can come from Carnvial projects can contribute towards cultural victory, while both districts are cheap, letting you get to the tourism-boosting buildings requiring them sooner. Furthermore, rainforest adjacency bonuses means Brazil's Theatre Squares can have particularly good cultural yields, and bonus rainforest appeal is good for National Parks and Seaside Resorts.

Domination is a viable option, and on very water-heavy maps is probably the best choice. The Minas Geraes is a monster of a UU - make a fleet and it has more strength than a Missile Cruiser three eras early! You can also use rainforest-adjacent Holy Sites with the Sacred Path pantheon to produce lots of faith, and then use it in conjunction with the Grand Master's Chapel to purchase land units. War weariness shouldn't be a problem thanks to the unique Brazilian districts.

Holy Sites gain extra faith from adjacent rainforests, and add that to the Sacred Path pantheon and you've got an enormous faith output early in the game. If religious victory doesn't work, you can use all that faith for Great Person patronage.

Finally, scientific victory gets reasonable advantages. Although Campuses only get +1 science per rainforest (not the +1.5 you might expect), that's still a strong bonus to have. Meanwhile, Pedro's leader ability helps you to obtain more Great Scientists and Engineers.

Brazil's civ ability offers a strong advantage to any victory route - so long as you can settle near rainforests and don't cut them all down. Your start bias will usually place you near a few rainforests, and with rainforest hills yielding 2 food and 2 production, you can get off to a reasonable start.

To make the most of this ability, try to settle as many cities around rainforest as you can. It's a bad idea to settle a city right in the middle of a dense rainforest region as you won't have many free tiles to improve, but instead, if you encounter such an area, surround it with cities instead. Settling lots of cities will help maximise your Campus, Theatre Square, Holy Site and Commercial Hub yields, and it'll also be useful for maximising your output of Great Person Points, which you'll need in turn to make good use of Pedro's ability. Problems you might have regarding amenities can be sorted out later with the Street Carnival UD.

Four districts gain from this ability, so here they are:

• Campus - Although these districts gain the least (adjacent rainforests simply contribute twice as much rather than three times as you might expect), more science is still a very good bonus to have. Unless you're after a religious victory, you'll usually want these first.
  
• Holy Site - Take the Sacred Path pantheon and rainforests offer +2 faith each to the adjacent Holy Site - as much as a natural wonder! A Holy Site surrounded by rainforests gets 12 faith in that situation. Even if you're not after a religious victory, faith is good for Great Person patronage.
  
• Commercial Hub - Getting decent adjacency bonuses out of this district isn't hard anyway, but Brazil can make them incredible. Gold is a less useful yield than science or culture, and you can't bump up the yields substantially like you can with Holy Sites and the Sacred Path pantheon, so you should look for the optimum placement of the other districts before you work out where to place Commercial Hubs.
  
• Theatre Square - Theatre Square adjacency bonuses are hard to get, and Brazil's unique ability lets you get particularly good ones. Having a high culture output means you can get your incredibly powerful UU out sooner.

The other speciality districts don't gain from Brazil's unique ability. Positioning Industrial Zone carefully so it's within six tiles of as many cities as possible will mean you won't need to build many of them. If you desperately need production, build Commercial Hubs instead and use the trade routes for domestic trading. You can skip building Encampment districts (unless you really want Great Generals), but Harbours are still good. And obviously you'll want to build your unique districts in plenty of cities later on.




The in-game description in the Amazon civ ability is misleading - rainforests technically offer extra housing to adjacent Neighbourhoods, but you'll never get one with 7 housing. Instead, rainforests offer positive instead of negative tile appeal in Brazilian lands, making it easier than normal to get the full +6 yield. This isn't just useful for Neighbourhoods; you'll also get more out of adjacent National Parks and Seaside Resorts - handy if you're after a cultural victory.


Got a bunch of rainforests around for their adjacency bonuses? You can put them to good work in a National Park!


Brazil's civ ability means you're much more likely to keep rainforests around until late in the game.There's two notable useful side-effects of that.

Firstly, the industrial-era Zoo building makes all rainforest and marsh tiles add +1 science. Considering Zoos are a building of the Street Carnival district, building them shouldn't be too much trouble. Larger cities with spare citizens can help you get through the technology tree that little bit faster.

Secondly, it can help you in the space race. Any civ can use Builders to rush space projects via the Royal Society building, but it's limited to one use per turn. A science-oriented Brazil can do one better. Keeping a lot of rainforests around until late in the game means you're free to chop them down for extra production, letting you get space projects finished in very little time. Just be sure you don't hurt your science output too much in the process, unless you're already done with technologies.

• Settle extensively so you can maximise the bonus.
  
• Settle around rainforests, not in the middle of them
  
• Emphasis the districts you get bonuses to, plus your unique districts.
  
• Cultural players should make use of the extra appeal of rainforests for National Park and Seaside Resort tourism.
  
• Domination players should push for high Theatre Square adjacency bonuses to get to Nationalism sooner.
  
• Religious players should take the Sacred Path pantheon to maximise Holy Site yields.
  
• Scientific players should build lots of Campus districts, then chop down the rainforests at the end of the game to rush space race projects.

Before...

...and after.

Pedro II's leader ability helps you acquire more of the kinds of Great People you want by giving you a substantial amount of points back every time you generate one. If you've been getting plenty of cities to maximise yields via the Amazon civ ability, you'll also generate lots of Great Person Points to help with this ability.

Remember that this ability is more powerful the more Great People you create in the first place. If you never generate any, you'll never get a bonus here. Remember to fill your districts with plenty of buildings to maximise your odds of generating them!

Don't forget about patronage - you'll need plenty of gold or faith for that, but it can mean a considerably faster generation of Great People. Faith goes further than gold for this purpose, but Commercial Hubs offer Great Merchant Points while Pedro's leader ability is useless for Holy Sites and Great Prophets seeing as you can only ever generate one. It might be worth taking the Divine Spark pantheon instead of Sacred Path if you don't have big enough cities to handle Holy Sites in addition to all the other important districts.

The biggest problem with Pedro's leader ability is that it's so broad that you can't possibly chase after all the different kinds of Great People. Thankfully, there's something that can help substantially - the Carnival project, enabled in cities with either of your unique districts. It produces Great Engineer, Merchant, Writer, Artist and Musician points. Add that to the districts the Amazon ability makes stronger, and you'll be particularly good at generating GWAMs, Great Merchants and Great Engineers - a combination that works well for the cultural game in particular.

Very late in the game, it may be worthwhile to start selling off minor, underdeveloped cities to other civs for gold so you can afford patronage of key late Great People. Some of the last Great Merchants offer substantial tourism bonuses, for example.

The Minas Geraes is basically an atomic-era unit that got lost and ended up in the industrial era. This thing is almost as powerful as a Missile Cruiser at attacking, defends just as well, but comes at a time when most civs will still be using Caravels and Frigates. On water-heavy maps, forget other victory paths - this thing will help you significantly on the road to domination victory.


Due to the sheer power of this unit, you'll want it as fast as you can, so make sure you have plenty of Theatre Squares surrounded by rainforests. Don't forget to build Monuments as well!

Assuming you have the Games and Recreation, Political Philosophy and Drama and Poetry civics, here's all the ones you need for Nationalism:

• Defensive Tactics - Boost: Be the target of a declaration of war (Out of your control)
  
• Recorded History - Boost: Have two Campus districts (You should do this anyway thanks to all the science you can get)
  
• Feudalism - Boost: Have six farms (Not too hard unless your cities are in very hilly regions)
  
• Civil Service - Boost: Get a city to size 10 (Usually better to get this after Feudalism to increase your odds of getting the boost)
  
• Medieval Faires - Boost: Have four trade routes active simultaneously (Can be tricky depending on how quickly you can develop districts.)
  
• Guilds - Boost: Build two Markets (If you have enough Commercial Hubs for Medieval Faires, this isn't too much of a stretch)
  
• Humanism - Boost: Earn a Great Artist (Tricky! If you've been using your Carnival project a lot you've got a good chance)
  
• Diplomatic Service - Boost: Have an alliance with another civ (Any civ you've befriended can usually be allied easily)
  
• The Enlightenment - Boost: Earn three Great People (Easy enough for Brazil.)
  
• Nationalism - Boost: Declare war using a casus belli (Just hard-research this one)

You'll probably want to make a detour to Exploration at some point. That'll offer you a decent government, pass through the Mercenaries civic (which offers the Professional Army policy card, reducing the cost of upgrading Frigates to Minas Geraes units) and the Press Gangs civic card, offering a 100% production boost to renaissance and industrial-era naval units. Normal Battleships don't get a production boost civic card until the atomic-era International Waters card, so you've got yet another advantage over other civs!

While you're busy with all that civic unlocking, you should try and get Square Rigging on the technology tree beforehand so you can build a few Frigates. Having units ready to upgrade as soon as you have Nationalism will make their incredible power arrive even sooner. It may also help to work towards Steam Power so you can bring along some Ironclads to get the last hit on cities, as Minas Geraes can't capture them themselves, though Caravels will still perform reasonably well at the job.

It may be helpful to have a few Harbours to help you get a Great Admiral, but the strength advantage of the unit is already so high that the +5 strength boost is often redundant. Building Commercial Hubs instead has more synergy with Brazil's other unique advantages.

Because Minas Geraes arrive at Nationalism, you can form them into a fleet immediately, making them even stronger than a Missile Cruiser. In most cases it's redundant to give a unit that strong any more strength, so you generally should hold off from forming a fleet until your enemies have Battleships and Submarines of their own.

A curious side-effect of obtaining your first Minas Geraes is that your cities will suddenly jump in defensive strength. That's because the strength of your cities is scaled to the melee strength of your strongest unit, and having one that's so ridiculously strong means you'll have very hard cities to take over for quite some time.

Consider putting off researching the Lasers technology and Cold War civic. That will allow you to carry on building Minas Geraes units at a fast pace. Although they're a bit weaker than Missile Cruisers, they're significantly more cost-effective.


In combat, an 80-strength behemoth up against units like Frigates and Caravels absolutely splatters them - Minas Geraes units will typically destroy them in just 1 hit. Land units similarly can be crushed, and city defences fall fast as Battleships have no penalty against them. You will need other units to support them, though - whether to provide a line of sight so they can make use of their huge attack range, or to capture cities.


The Musketman is providing a line of sight to the city, allowing my Minas Geraes to splatter its defences.

Once Submarines start appearing, no problem - just upgrade your Caravels or Ironclads to Destroyers and they'll be revealed before they can be too much of a threat.

Air units also shouldn't be too much of a problem unless they have the Strafe promotion (for fighter-class aircraft) or the Torpedo Bomber promotion (for bomber-class aircraft), as Minas Geraes units helpfully have higher anti-air strength than the units they replace. If you're up against an enemy with particularly strong aircraft (e.g. America in the atomic era), you may want to bring a Carrier full of fighter-class aircraft to help out.


In terms of the strength advantage it creates, the Minas Geraes is the strongest unique unit in the game. It has two key drawbacks: arriving some way into the game so other civs have time to anticipate it, and being useless for more inland battles. But on the seas or land close to the sea, it's virtually unstoppable for two whole eras.

Brazil is unique among civs for having two unique districts: The Street Carnival and the Copacabana. Both have the same unique bonus, though there are differences between the two that affect how they're used. The general mechanics of the unique bonus will be covered here, while a comparison of the two districts will be in the Copacabana section.

The Street Carnival may at first appear to be a weak unique district. It doesn't directly produce Great Person Points and lacks adjacency bonuses, so it appears to have poor synergy with other uniques. It also replaces a district which doesn't tend to be built in large quantities. However, via its special project, it's one of the best sources of Great Person Points in the game.

Because of the district's dependence on its unique project, you don't need to build any until you have decent production in a city or really need amenities. Unlike most unique districts, rushing Street Carnivals doesn't work so well due to the need to commit production to them once they're done to achieve their full potential. Don't feel too bad about delaying them, but don't delay them too much - generating lots of Great People is still important!


While working on a Carnival project, the city will receive +1 amenity. Often, this will mean one amenity from a luxury resource will be moved from a city working on a Carnival to a different city for its duration. Having lots of amenities provides nice boosts to growth and all yield types, so working plenty of Carnival projects might be more useful than it looks at first glance.

At this point, it's worth bringing up amenity mechanics. First things first, cities need 1 amenity per 2 points of population they have, starting at size 4. So, a size 3 or smaller city won't need any amenities, but a size 4 or 5 city will require one, a size 6 or 7 city will require two, and so on.

• A city with a deficit of 7 or more amenities is in revolt. It stops growing, has a -60% penalty to all non-food yields, -6 loyalty per turn and will cause Barbarians to spawn based on your current military technology every few turns. Obviously you want to avoid this.
  
• A city with a deficit of 5 or 6 amenities is in unrest. It stops growing, has a -30% penalty to all non-food yields, -6 loyalty per turn and will cause Barbarians to spawn based on your current military technology every few turns, albeit in smaller numbers than if it's in revolt.
  
• A city with a deficit of 3 or 4 amenities is unhappy. It has a -30% growth rate, a -10% penalty to all non-food yields and -6 loyalty per turn.
  
• A city with a deficit of 1 or 2 amenities is displeased. It has a -15% growth rate, a -5% penalty to all non-food yields and -3 loyalty per turn.
  
• A city with no surplus or deficit of amenities is content has no yield bonuses or penalties.
  
• A city with a surplus of 1 or 2 amenities is happy. It has a 10% bonus to growth, a 5% bonus to all non-food yields and +3 loyalty.
  
• A city with a surplus of 3 amenities or more is ecstatic. It has a 20% bonus to growth, a 10% bonus to all non-food yields and +6 loyalty.

So, even though Carnivals might not directly offer gold, science, faith or culture, by providing an amenity they can indirectly offer all of these - and even production!


When a Carnival is complete, you'll get as many GWAM points as you would have had for completing the Theatre Square Festival project, in addition to half the Great Merchant Points you would have got from the Commercial Hub Investments project, and half the Great Engineer Points you would have got from Industrial Zone Logistics. The exact number scales through the game; the later a project is completed, the more points it grants.

Because the Great Person Points output of Carnivals completely eclipses that of Theatre Square Festivals, the only uses of Festivals are if you are either really desperate for culture or do not have a Street Carnival in the city yet. As extra amenities can boost your culture output, that slight advantage will rarely ever be worthwhile.

In the last few eras of the game, it's not a bad idea to keep spamming Carnival projects in cities that can manage it. Don't neglect the provision of housing capacity, relevant specialist slots (if you need to boost certain yields in particular), Great Work Slots or your UU, but otherwise you can just keep spamming them. If you've got plenty of amenities and most Great People are completely depleted, switch to regular district projects so you can get better outputs.

Brazil not only gets a unique Entertainment Complex, but a unique Water Park as well, ensuring you still have a choice of which to build. The unique bonus is the same for both districts, but they have a subtly different set of associated buildings which may determine which district you place where.


The Copacabana district requires the industrial-era Natural History civic, which is a key civic anyway for cultural civs. That being said, you shouldn't beeline it - any map which has enough water to make Copacabana districts particularly powerful has enough water that you won't want to get Nationalism (and hence your UU) late.


Generally, it helps to have a mixture of Street Carnivals and Copacabana districts, seeing as both eventually host buildings that provide amenities in a radius but don't stack with themselves. The choice of which cities should host which districts depends on which fully-developed districts have the most appropriate bonuses.

Here's a comparison of some key differences between the two districts.


The bonuses of the two sets of buildings are similar, but Street Carnivals largely favour more land-based cities while Copacabana districts favour the coast. Nonetheless, having an occasional Copacabana in an inland lake can be useful to ensure as many cities benefit from its amenities as possible. Try to cover as many cities as possible within the range of both districts - that way, you can make the most of the bonuses for high amenities and maintain loyalty in any cities you may have captured with help from your UU.

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.


Tier One

Classical Republic is a good place to begin regardless of your intended victory path. While there's no military policy cards, a military-oriented Brazil will still benefit from the amenity bonus, and all will benefit from extra Great Person Points - which goes together with Pedro's leader ability nicely.

If your supply of rainforests is relatively limited and you don't intend to conquer too much, the Audience Chamber is a good choice of government building to ensure you make the most out of a low number of cities. If rainforests are more plentiful, use the Ancestral Hall to help develop new cities faster and get plenty of high-yield districts up and running.

Tier Two

This tier depends on your victory route aim. Merchant Republic is good for cultural and scientific games alike due to their selection of policy cards, Monarchy for domination games as it requires a shorter detour from the path to Nationalism than the other governments, and Theocracy for religious games.

Brazil's civ ability promotes a wide diversity of districts, which can be vulnerable to Spies. That can make the Intelligence Agency a reliably decent choice of government building. For domination games, the Grand Master's Chapel in conjunction with the Sacred Path pantheon can make raising a land army very affordable - a great complement for your naval dominance later in the game.

Tier Three

Democracy is a reliable choice for non-domination games, especially if you took the Ancestral Hall building earlier. Communism can be decent for scientific games, particularly if you built the Audience Chamber, thanks to the production boost. For a domination game, Fascism is the obvious choice.

The Royal Society allows you to contribute Builder charges to Carnvial projects, and is a reliably good choice. The War Department may be more helpful for domination games.


Ancient Era

Inspiration (Wildcard, requires Mysticism) - +2 Great Scientist points per turn.

(Cultural) Literary Tradition (Wildcard, requires Drama and Poetry) - +2 Great Writer points per turn.

(Domination) Strategos (Wildcard, requires Military Tradition) - +2 Great General points per turn. Good if you're intending to go to war fairly early on.

Classical Era

Natural Philosophy (Economic, requires Recorded History) - Doubles Campus adjacency bonuses.

(Religious) Scripture (Economic, requires Theology) - Doubles Holy Site adjacency bonuses. Especially good combined with the Sacred Path pantheon.

Medieval Era

Aesthetics (Economic, requires Medieval Faires) - Doubles Theatre Square adjacency bonuses. Particularly helpful for getting you to Nationalism sooner.

Navigation (Wildcard, requires Naval Tradition) - +2 Great Admiral points per turn. You may be neglecting Harbours due to their lack of bonus rainforest adjacency, so this is a good way of getting a Great Admiral ready for the Minas Geraes UU. As if it needed more strength.

Town Charters (Economic, requires Guilds) - Doubles Commercial Hub adjacency bonuses.

Traveling Merchants (Wildcard, requires Guilds) - +2 Great Merchant points per turn.

Renaissance Era

(Cultural) Frescoes (Wildcard, requires Humanism) - +2 Great Artist points per turn.

Invention (Wildcard, requires Humanism) - +2 Great Engineer points per turn.

Press Gangs (Military, requires Exploration) - While most civs need to wait until the atomic era to get a policy card to build Battleships faster (International Waters at Cold War), you can grab a boost to production much sooner thanks to your Minas Geraes UU coming in the industrial era. There is the downside that once you have the Cold War civic, this policy card obsoletes, but until then enjoy quickly building an extremely powerful navy.

Industrial Era

(Domination) Military Organization (Wildcard, requires Scorched Earth) - +4 Great General points per turn.

(Cultural) Symphonies (Wildcard, requires Opera and Ballet) - +4 Great Musician points per turn.

Modern Era

Economic Union (Economic, requires Suffrage) - Doubles Commercial Hub adjacency bonuses, as well as those of Harbours.

Five Year Plan (Economic, requires Class Struggle) - Doubles Campus adjacency bonuses, as well as those of Industrial Zones.

Laissez-Faire (Wildcard, requires Capitalism) - +4 Great Merchant points per turn.

(Scientific) Nobel Prize (Wildcard, requires Nuclear Program) - +4 Great Scientist points per turn.

Atomic Era

Sports Media (Economic, requires Professional Sports) - Doubles Theatre Square adjacency bonuses, and also adds +1 amenity to Stadiums.


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

Monasticism (Dark Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - A rather useful backup option if you get the Sacred Path pantheon but fail to get a religion. All cities with a Holy Site can now provide a +75% science boost, meaning those districts are still very much useful. You will suffer a -25% culture cost, however, so make sure you don't delay getting your UU too much as a consequence.

Monumentality (Dedication, Classical to Renaissance eras) - The Brazilian civ ability promotes the construction of lots of districts, so if you need a bit of extra era score early on (and haven't got a religion to exploit Exodus of the Evangelists with) this is often the most effective dedication.

Free Inquiry (Golden Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - Commercial Hubs will now provide science - in conjunction with Brazil's civ ability, that can be a very substantial boost.

Pen, Brush and Voice (Golden Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - Ideal for domination games, this Golden Age dedication will help you get to Nationalism much faster.

Monumentality (Golden Age, Classical to Renaissance eras) - Got Sacred Path but no religion? Put that faith to very good use purchasing Settlers and Builders.

Hic Sunt Dracones (Dedication, Renaissance to Industrial eras) - If other civs have decent-sized navies, you can use your UU and this dedication together to get a huge amount of era score. If they've neglected naval units, you might want to pick a different one instead.

Hic Sunt Dracones (Golden Age, Renaissance to Industrial eras) - Once you've got a few Minas Geraes units, the main thing slowing them down will be their movement speed, not their ability to deal damage. That makes the +2 movement boost on offer here very useful.

To Arms! (Dedication, Industrial to Information eras) - Corps become available at the same time as the Minas Geraes UU, so eventually you might be up against quite a few. You can use this dedication to get plenty of era score from killing those corps.

City Patron Goddess - If you want to set up new rainforest cities with stronger districts sooner, this pantheon will help with that.

Divine Spark - An excellent choice to help make use of Pedro's leader ability sooner due to the Great Person Points it offers. Cultural and scientific players will generally get the most out of this. Religious players should favour getting Sacred Path first.

Earth Goddess - If you can't manage Sacred Path, this is a good alternative. Rainforests add appeal for Brazil rather than reducing it, easily giving you tiles of charming or better appeal.

Sacred Path - Ideal for religious players and still good for anyone else who wants lots of faith. This pantheon makes rainforest tiles add +2 faith to your adjacent Holy Sites rather than the +1 offered from Brazil's civ ability alone.


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

Burial Grounds (Enhancer) - If you place a Holy Site in the middle of a rainforest, you want to be sure that other civs won't take the adjacent tiles and chop the rainforests down. This belief eliminates that problem.

Feed the World (Follower) - Dedicating a lot of land to unimproved rainforest tiles can make it hard to obtain food. Here's a belief that really helps to make up for that, and is particularly useful if you're seeking a religious victory.

Gurdwara (Worship) - Also a source of food.

Jesuit Education (Follower) - A good way to help your boosted Holy Sites help cultural or scientific games.

Warrior Monks (Follower) - Use it in conjunction with the Sacred Path pantheon for a mighty fighting force in the two eras before the Minas Geraes UU arrives. Your unique districts will handle any amenity problems.


Antananarivo (Cultural) - As a civ focused upon generating lots of Great People, you can get more out of this city-state than perhaps anyone else. Earn ten Great People, and it's a global 20% bonus to culture, on top of the culture you get from having envoys present in the city! Requires the Vikings Scenario Pack.

Babylon (Scientific) - Helps your Great Writers contribute towards science.

Hong Kong (Industrial) - The bonus to city projects works on Carnivals.

Stockholm (Scientific) - Greatly helps your Great Person Points output, especially if you have a large number of cities.

Toronto (Industrial) - By extending the range of Factories and Power Plants, you can focus on districts that offer extra adjacency bonuses from rainforests rather than spamming Industrial Zones everywhere. Extending the range of Zoos, Aquariums, Stadiums and Aquatics Centres, meanwhile, gives your empire more amenities sooner.

Vilnius (Cultural) - Want to make those good Theatre Square adjacency bonuses even better? Get a good alliance and become suzerain over Vilnius.

There's a lot of wonders here, mainly because of the synergy between Pedro's leader ability and Great Person Points bonuses. Think carefully about which bonuses are most relevant to your current game; you won't get all of these.

Oracle (Ancient Era, Mysticism civic) - Cheap patronage of Great People with faith helps Pedro's leader ability to go further, and extra Great Person points from districts doesn't hurt, either. Both the Divine Spark and Sacred Path pantheons go well with this.

Colossus (Classical Era, Shipbuilding technology) - You might be neglecting Harbours in order to focus on districts the Brazilian civ ability adds extra adjacency bonuses for, so an alternative way to get a Great Admiral point is rather handy. With a little luck, you can get a Great Admiral during the renaissance or industrial eras so they can boost the strength of your UU. You also get an extra trade route from this wonder.

Great Library (Classical Era, Recorded History civic) - Provides an extra Great Scientist point, some science, two Great Writing slots and a whole bunch of Eurekas. Religious players don't get that much here, but otherwise it's a helpful wonder to get.

Great Lighthouse (Classical Era, Celestial Navigation technology) - Another source of Great Admiral points (or one, at least), and it boosts the movement points of all your naval units - including your UU. Greater speed allows you to get more out of the unit before other civs' navies can catch up.

Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (Classical Era, Defensive Tactics civic) - Bonus charges from Great Admirals has synergy later in the game with the Minas Geraes UU; Yi Sun-Sin for example can both create an Ironclad and still have a charge remaining, allowing them to provide your navy with strength bonuses. Furthermore, Great Engineers can receive an additional charge, which goes nicely with your bonuses to Great Engineer generation. Requires the Persia and Macedon Civilization and Scenario Pack.

(Cultural/Domination) Terracotta Army (Classical Era, Construction technology) - Offers a Great General point, promotes all your land units and lets your Archaeologists sneak into other civs' lands without permission.

(Domination) Alhambra (Medieval Era, Castles technology) - Great General points are nice, as are some amenities to help deal with war weariness, but the real draw is the military policy slot card. This allows you to make good use of governments like Democracy, which lack military cards but have inherent bonuses with good synergy with Brazilian uniques.

Chichen Itza (Medieval Era, Guilds civic) - Rainforest-heavy cities might make good district outputs, but the problem with rainforest tiles is that you can't add tile improvements to them. Chichen Itza adds +2 culture and +1 production to all rainforest tiles worked by a city making them more worthwhile to work. With the modern-era Flight technology, all those tiles will also begin to generate tourism when worked!

Casa de Contratación (Renaissance era, Cartography technology) - Provides +3 Great Merchant Points as well as three Governor titles.

Great Zimbabwe (Renaissance Era, Banking technology) - Can make you very rich via its bonuses to trade route gold output, which is useful for Great Person patronage, and also offers +2 Great Merchant points.

Venetian Arsenal (Renaissance Era, Mass Production technology) - A very important wonder for a domination-oriented Brazil, but still good for everyone else. Combine with the Press Gangs civic card and you can churn out your UU like there's no tomorrow.

Big Ben (Industrial Era, Economics technology) - Save up some cash while building this, and it'll be doubled when the wonder is done. That'll go a long way with Great Person patronage. Additionally, you get an economic policy card slot - useful for all victory routes - some extra gold-per-turn, and three Great Merchant points.

(Cultural) Bolshoi Theatre (Industrial Era, Opera and Ballet civic) - 2 points each for Great Writers and Musicians, and one Great Work slot each.

(Cultural) Hermitage (Industrial Era, Natural History civic) - 3 Great Artist points and 4 Great Art slots.

Oxford University (Industrial Era, Scientific Theory technology) - 3 Great Scientist points, 2 Great Writing slots, a 20% science bonus for the city and two free technologies.

(Cultural) Broadway (Modern Era, Mass Media civic) - +3 Great Writer and Musician points, as well as a Great Writing slot, 2 Great Music slots and +20% culture for the city.

(Cultural) Cristo Redentor (Modern Era, Mass Media civic) - As Brazil, rainforests add appeal rather than take it away. This can produce some pretty good tourism yields for Seaside Resorts. Cristo Redentor doubles that.

Eiffel Tower (Modern Era, Steel technology) - Synergises with the extra appeal rainforests create. Favours cultural victories due to the bonus tourism you'll get from National Parks and Seaside Resorts, but everyone gains from the advantages to Neighbourhood housing.

(Cultural) Sydney Opera House (Atomic Era, Cultural Heritage civic) - Gain 5 Great Musician points per turn, and get 3 Great Music slots. Also get a good chunk of culture.

Amundsen-Scott Research Station (Atomic era, Cold War civic) - Gain 5 Great Scientist points per turn.

Any Great Person can be useful for Brazil, but I'll only note the ones with particular synergy with Brazilian uniques here.

Medieval Era

Bi Sheng (Great Engineer) - Lets a city produce an extra district over the population limit, which means you can get even more strong Amazon rainforest yields.

Hildegard of Bingen (Great Scientist) - If you've taken the Sacred Path pantheon, you may have a Holy Site with a huge faith output. Hildegard can add that faith to science as well.

Renaissance Era

Santa Cruz (Great Admiral) - All Great Admirals between the renaissance and modern eras strengthen your UU (try to get at least one, even if they're not listed here), but Santa Cruz is particularly notable as he can form an armada early. Once you have a second renaissance-industrial-era Great Admiral, retire him on a Minas Geraes and enjoy an industrial era unit with nearly 100 strength. Your enemies won't.

Yi Sun-Sin (Great Admiral) - Lets you get an Ironclad early. Minas Geraes units can't capture cities, but Ironclads can. Keep in mind that Ironclads can't heal (aside from pillaging and promotions) until you have access to coal.

Industrial Era

Ada Lovelace (Great Engineer) - Increases the district limit in a city by one, meaning you can get a little more out of Amazonian adjacency bonuses.

Joseph Paxton (Great Engineer) - Just because you have a lot of Street Carnivals doesn't mean you need to build a lot of Zoos and Stadia. Just build a Zoo and/or Stadium in the middle of your empire, and use Joesph Paxton to make it much more powerful. That saves you production in other cities.

Modern Era

Alfred Nobel (Great Scientist) - Gives you an even higher starting point after you obtain a Great Person for your next one.

Alvar Aalto (Great Engineer) - Remember that rainforests add appeal for Brazil rather than taking it away. Stack that with this bonus, and you can make powerful National Parks, Seaside Resorts or even just Neighbourhoods with a strong housing output.

Nikola Tesla (Great Engineer) - Thanks to Tesla, you don't need to build many industrial districts to have a productive empire. That means you can instead pay attention to districts which gain from Brazil's civ ability.

Atomic Era

Janaki Ammal (Great Scientist) - Been holding onto rainforests for adjacency bonuses? Great! Now you can get masses of science out of them.

Information Era

Charles Correa (Great Engineer) - Double the effect of Alvar Aalto.

Jamseth Tata (Great Merchant) - All those Campuses you've built will now contribute tourism. Masaru Ibuka does the same for Industrial Zones, though Brazil lacks unique bonuses to them the same way.

Brazil's advantages lie in their flexibility to any victory route and their near-unbeatable industrial-era navy, but they are very dependent on particular kinds of terrain.


Brazil can't use this ability if they don't have access to rainforest tiles. Settling your own cities close to rainforest land helps, and if you think Brazil is likely to take over those cities, start chopping down those trees. Rainforest can't be regrown once cut down.

For a strategy which requires less direct action, remember that rainforest regions tend to be near the equator. This makes Brazil likely to border a lot of civs at once. Between all those civs, you can usually find one that hates Brazil and is willing to get involved in a joint war. If you intend to hand back cities to Brazil in a peace deal, chop down some of the rainforests while you occupy them. The one-off production boosts will help those cities contribute to your war effort.


The fewer Great People Pedro gets in the first place, the weaker his ability is. It'll also be weak if he can't focus enough on a particular kind of Great Person to produce them at a decent rate. Pushing Pedro into producing a diversity of districts will help - an easy way to do this is to start a war, encouraging him to build more Encampments instead of things like Commercial Hubs. Denying him wonders that offer Great People is a peaceful option that helps here as well. You can also use Spies to sabotage his Industrial Zones, denying him Great Engineer points.

Brazil's best at producing GWAMs and Great Merchants (incidentally, the same kind as Kongo, and they both have rainforest start biases, so have fun watching them compete if they're both in the same game), good at producing Great Engineers and decent at producing other kinds. Take that into account when competing with them.


A computer-controlled Pedro II likes civs that haven't produced many Great People, uses patronage extensively and dislikes civs that beat them to a Great Person they're trying to obtain.

If you're focused with your Great Person output, and avoid generating unecessary ones, that won't be too much of a problem. Things get tougher if you're a cultural civ, as Brazil is particularly good at producing GWAMs and having lots of wonders gives you an advantage to Great People generation in general.


One of the scariest UUs in the game to face in direct combat, this is an industrial-era unit which is almost as strong as one in the information era. There's no real direct unit counters until you can get to Submarines at the modern-era Electricity technology, or get promoted air units in the atomic era, so you'll need to plan for them in advance.

On water-heavy maps, consider avoiding settling cities directly on the coast if Brazil is in the game, so they're forced to land units to capture them. Warmongers may instead want to invade Brazil before they can build this UU at all. Brazil lacks military advantages until this UU becomes available, making them a pretty easy target.

Can't stop Brazil from building their UU? Try forming corps and armies out of Bombards or Artillery and plant them on city centre or Encampment districts so you can at least damage them from the land. While air units will struggle against them at first, promoted ones can do a reasonable amount of damage.


Street Carnivals have a significant weakness: pillaging them heals the pillaging unit to full health. This contrasts with farms, which only heal the pillaging unit 50HP. This means many Brazilian cities will have a good spot to pillage if you need to keep a unit alive. Pillaging the district will also give Brazil a considerable hit to their amenities.

Alternatively, Brazil's tendency to have more Entertainment Complexes than most civs means Brazilian cities are easier to manage when captured, assuming you didn't pillage them.

Outside of war-time, the main weakness of Street Carnivals is the need for Brazilian cities to dedicate a lot of production to make the most out of its advantages. Cities that are spending a lot of production on the project aren't building infrastructure, or wonders... or defences. The weaker Brazil's production is, the bigger their disadvantage in those areas will be. A little bit of Industrial Zone sabotage using Spies can help here substantially.


Much of what applies to Street Carnvials also applies to the Copacabana district, though there is a notable distinction - they're placed on coastal tiles instead of land tiles. Pillaging a Copacabana district can help keep a naval unit alive after taking a hit from a Minas Geraes.

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These guides are for those with the Rise and Fall expansion, but not Gathering Storm.

Compilation Guides

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

Individual Civilization Guides

• America (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Arabia (Religious/Scientific)
  
• Australia (Scientific)
  
• Aztecs (Domination)
  
• Brazil (All)
  
• China (Cultural/Scientific)
  
• Cree (Cultural/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Egypt (Cultural/Religious)
  
• England (Cultural/Domination)
  
• France (Cultural)
  
• Georgia (Religious)
  
• Germany (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Greece (Cultural/Domination)
  
• India (Domination/Religious)
  
• Indonesia (Cultural/Domination/Religious)
  
• Japan (All)
  
• Khmer (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Kongo (Cultural)
  
• Korea (Scientific)
  
• Macedon (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Mapuche (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Netherlands (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Norway (Domination)
  
• Nubia (Domination)
  
• Persia (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Poland (Cultural/Domination/Religious)
  
• Rome (Domination)
  
• Russia (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Scotland (Scientific)
  
• Scythia (Domination/Religious)
  
• Spain (Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Sumeria (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Zulus (Domination)

The Vanilla guides are for those without the Rise and Fall or Gathering Storm expansions. These guides are no longer updated. You can find these by scrolling to the top of this page, clicking "Zigzagzigal's Guides" and looking near the end of the list of guides. The "Other Guides" section of every Vanilla guide has links to every other Vanilla guide.