Note: This guide assumes you have all game-altering DLC and expansion packs (all Civ packs, Wonders of the Ancient World, Gods & Kings and Brave New World)



Hail, President! You have been elected to lead this young but mighty nation. Having risen to independence against impossible odds, America expanded greatly over the next century (through both peaceful and very, very violent means) but was held back over internal struggles - that of the slavery debate, eventually leading to brutal civil war. Though through this war, the light of abolition emerged, the nation's troubles were far from over. Despite lack of involvement in world politics as a whole, America went through a phase of imperialism, of sorts, broken by the bombing of Pearl Harbour.

Now, America had awoken. It roared to victory in the Second World War, and emerged triumphant out of the Cold War with Russia. But at what cost? Is it safe to let a nation of such strength handle the delicate matters of international policy, as a world superpower? Or does the world need America's strength to prevent catastrophic international wars from happening once more? And will this even last? These questions are for you to answer, President. Your first hundred days will be followed with interest by the entire world. Build this nation to stand the test of time.



Before I go into depth with this guide, here's an explanation of some terminology I'll be using throughout for the sake of newer players.

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.
Builder Nation/Empire - A generally peaceful nation seeking victories other than Domination.
Finisher - The bonus for completing a Social Policy tree (e.g. Free Great Person for Liberty.)
Melee Units - Throughout this guide, "melee units" typically refers to all non-ranged military units - whether on the land or sea. "Standard melee units" refer to Warriors, Swordsmen, Longswordsmen, Spearmen, Pikemen and replacement units for them.
Opener - The bonus for unlocking a Social Policy tree (e.g. +1 culture for every city for Liberty's opener)
Spotter - A unit which allows a ranged unit (usually a siege unit) a line of sight with its target. Typically, siege units have a higher maximum range than their sight radius, hence the need for spotters. America's sight bonus reduces the need for spotters (or makes them more effective.)
Uniques - Collective name for Unique Abilities, Units, Buildings, Tile Improvements and Great People
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 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.
Wide empire - A high number of cities with a low population each.
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 - Zone of Control - A mechanic that makes a unit use up all its movement points if it moves from a tile next to an enemy to an adjacent tile next to the same enemy.

America has no start bias. That's not really a problem as Minutemen are flexible to different types of terrain and B17s pretty much disregard it.


While America's Unique Ability is avaliable right from the game's start, the first Unique Unit isn't until the renaissance era, and the second is all the way in the atomic era.

• All military land units recieve +1 sight, stacking with other sight bonuses
  
• -50% tile purchase cost

A gunpowder melee unit
*Assumes a normal speed game.

*Does not include the +1 sight from America's UA. Total sight: 3
**This is equal to the opposing unit's strength, or ranged strength if it's higher.

Positive stay-on-upgrade changes

• Ignores terrain movement cost
  
• Gives Golden Age points on a kill equal to the opposing unit's strength (or ranged strength if it's higher)
  
• 15% combat bonus in rough terrain (Drill I)

A bomber-class air unit
*Assumes a normal speed game.
**Requires 1 Aluminium resource

*B17s don't have sight of their own, but that won't be a problem as they can only be based in cities and on Carriers, which of course do have sight.

Positive one-off changes

• 70 ranged strength, up from 65 (+8%)

Positive stay-on-upgrade changes

• +33% attack vs cities (Siege I)
  
• -50% damage taken from interceptions (Evasion)

Note that these scores are a matter of personal opinion based on experiences with the Civilization. You may discover a way of utilising the Civ more effectively in unconventional ways.

Cultural: 6/10
Diplomatic: 5/10
Domination: 9/10
Scientific: 5/10

You could use your relatively strong start from fast scouting and quick development from tile purchasing towards any victory path, but the edge to any aside from conquest is minor, making the latter usually the best way to go. America's sight bonus in their UA makes it easier for their siege weapons, while their UUs both make it easier to deal with unfavourable terrain in enemy lands.


Overall

America's strengths at exploration and scouting, along with a late-game military unit makes them overall very similar to the Shoshone. The Shoshone have a stronger early-game, but America's UUs are more effective in war-time.

Another similar Civ is Japan. They have two UUs which come at around the same time as their American counterparts, and have a multipurpose UA with a significant war-time component.

Same start bias

America's lack of a start bias is shared with China, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Greece, the Maya, Persia, Rome and the Shoshone.

Similar to the UA

The tile acquisition ability is very similar to Russia's Krepost. While America's UA offers a 50% reduction to tile acquisition cost via gold, Kreposts only offer a 25% reduction, but it also applies to acquisition through culture. Gaining tiles quickly is also seen in the UA of the Shoshone - in that case, new cities start with over twice as many tiles compared to normal.

As for the sight bonus, while quite a few UUs have it, the only other Civs which have sight advantages as part of their UA are Polynesia and Songhai - both of which have +1 sight on embarked units.

Aside from America, the Shoshone and Polynesia, other Civs that are particularly strong at early-game exploration include the Aztecs (thanks to their Jaguars, which ignore the terrain costs of forests and jungles) and the Inca (which ignore the terrain cost of hills as part of their UA.)

Similar to Minuteman

Other mobile front-line UUs include Aztec Jaguars, Indonesian Kris Swordsman with the Restlessness promotion and Danish Berserkers. The Ikanda UB for the Zulus can give all standard melee units an extra movement point, and the Incan UA makes all land units more mobile by ignoring the movement cost of hills. The specific ability to ignore terrain costs is unique to Scouts, Shoshone Pathfinders (which replace Scouts) and Minutemen.

The only other unit to start with Drill I is Ethiopia's Mehal Sefari, although there are others that start with basic promotions allowing you to get to better ones sooner - Hunnic Horse Archers, Japanese Samurai, Dutch Sea Beggars, Polish Winged Hussars, and your other UU (the B17) are all examples.

The ability to receive Golden Age points on kills is shared with Brazil's Pracinhas.

The other Musketman UUs are Ottoman Janissaries, Spanish Tercios and French Musketeers.

Similar to B17s

The only other UUs this late in the game are Germany's Panzers and Japan's Zeroes. Panzers and B17s are the only UUs to require oil.

B17s don't have any particularly similar other UUs; the most thematically similar is perhaps Rome's Ballistae; they share a focus on weakening city defences and can do so more effectively than the generic unit.

America's uniques all have one major thing in common: they're all stronger in practice than they look on paper. The sight bonus, shown in the introductory screenshot above, comes into play immediately with even your starting warrior being more effective at scouting. This can get you a head start on discovering ancient ruins, City-States, fully-fledged Civilizations and good future city locations.

Above: Hills and mountains can be spotted before other tiles. Other Civs would take much longer before discovering that valuable ruin.

To make the most of the sight bonus, build a Scout immediately. Fighting a little with Barbarians can give it two Scouting promotions giving it a total sight radius of 5 tiles! The applications of this are huge in number - for one, the sight is so high that you can explore a continent without running into Barbarians unexpectedly. Having a large region visible also prevents Barbarian encampments from spawning, which can aid early expansion. These super-Scouts even have a use in the late-game in providing a line of sight for Artillery and bomber-class aircraft, so keep them around.

Above: Thanks to this Scout, I was able to find out shortly that Shaka's capital was on a peninsula.

Now that you know your neighbours better than they know you, the other half of your UA can come into play. America can far more easily afford to purchase tiles than other Civs, hence you can block off opponents at chokepoints to prevent their expansion, or settle right in their face to encourage them to expand in an unfavourable direction. This is going to anger them, but you'll be going to war with them eventually anyhow.

Above: Usually, you won't have a situation this favourable for blocking another Civ off, so you'll have to make do with forcing Civs into bad terrain. Just be sure to expand quickly. The Liberty Social Policy tree will aid you in that.

Aside from blocking other Civs off, cheap tile purchasing can quickly get a city to good tiles on the outermost workable ring, often before other Civs (except maybe the Shoshone and possibly Russia at times.) Keeping a bit of cash ready before founding a new city allows you to speed up its development. Picking up luxuries quickly will provide you with the happiness you need to support new cities right in the faces of other Civs.


Above: Any other Civ wouldn't see that Zulu Warrior at the bottom of the screenshot. Thanks to the sight bonus, I know exactly how big Shaka's army is.

Sight is highly important in warfare - it lets you know where more enemy units are than might otherwise be the case, and you need to have units or cities in sight to be able to fire upon them with ranged units. Siege units usually need someone to provide sight for them - a spotter - but now, all those pre-Artillery (and without the Range promotion) don't, as the +1 sight bonus cancels out the -1 penalty siege units typically have.

As for Artillery, you don't have to get a spotter in range of a city's attack in order to maintain a line of sight. Simply batter down the walls from a distance before rushing in Cavalry for the last hit to take a city without taking much damage from the city itself.

Remember that super-Scout? They can not only provide a line of sight for Artillery, but also for your B17s, so they can commence bombing runs of cities or bomb any units defending it. Such an action will probably be the death of the poor thing - it only has 5 strength, after all, but it could be difference between taking a city and not.

This is the very same Scout from the earlier screenshots, providing a line of sight so I could attack Vienna. This would prove to be the Scout's last act.

• Build a Scout immediately (unless you're playing on a map like Small Islands)
  
• Discover your starting lands and try to get as many Ancient Ruins as possible
  
• Settle near rivals to weaken their starts
  
• Use the +1 sight advantage to spy on enemies
  
• Also use the +1 sight at war, both for siege weapons and to see where enemy units are
  
• Expect to be at war often; that's where the American Civ excels.

Note: Screenshots here are before the October 2013 patch which added the Golden Age on kills promotion to the Minuteman


Many warmongering Civs are slowed down by unfavourable terrain - rough terrain tends to favour defenders who can cover it with roads to give themselves a speed advantage. Enter the Minuteman, to whom hills, forests, jungles, rivers and marshes are no harder to get through than open terrain, and attacks units on the first three almost as effectively as it would fighting a unit on open terrain - not taking into account further promotions.

Essentially, Minutemen form the backbone of a war to give yourself an edge, so you can conquer the rest of the world with B17s later on. Thanks to easy movement, terrain won't determine who to attack - your best bet is to target either a Civ likely to be trouble later, or a wonder spammer like Egypt or India.

Before you head off on your mission of conquest, consider how best to build up your army. After getting Writing and all the Worker technologies you need, it's not a bad idea to beeline Gunpowder to have a militaristic advantage. Research Steel before Physics so you can get Armouries up sooner, then make a few Trebuchets while you're researching Gunpowder.

You should certainly build Minutemen from scratch rather than building lots of units for the sole purpose of upgrading to them (unless you have the Alhambra.) As for those units which will upgrade to Minutemen, give them Shock promotions so they get a free Drill I from upgrading. That makes them a pretty flexible unit overall.

Above: After Drill II, these are all the promotions to choose from.

Minutemen should be mostly built from scratch for maximum promotion potential. Starting already with Drill I, backed with an Armoury you can get straight to strong promotions like Cover II or Siege. Here's an analysis of all the routes.

Drill II and Drill III

The standard route for most Minutemen, because this is only one promotion away from March. Ignoring terrain cost means your Minutemen can easily escape difficult situations, so healing every turn is a powerful thing to have. In river areas or those with forested hills, you can even outrun mounted units. Besides that, a huge bonus on rough terrain means you can move rapidly through areas you can easily defend.

Drill II and Siege

For areas covered in hills or forest land, you may struggle to get any siege units in at all. This is a possible alternative - try to surround the city so you can take it quickly.

Cover I and Cover II

Having a unit like this near your front lines to take some punishment isn't a bad idea, so long as you can keep it healed up. A unit like that should help distract from your Trebuchets.

Medic I and Medic II

These should back up your Cover and March-promoted units. You may only need one of these, but keep in mind it's likely to be targeted by enemies. Try to keep it on rough terrain if possible so it's harder to kill.

Drill II and Formation I

Situational. Unless you're up against a Civ like Siam or Poland, there's probably little need.

Amphibious and something else

Rivers are non-existant to Minutemen with the Amphibious promotion, but use is situational. The best use of it is probably attacking riverside cities.


You've got your Minutemen, Trebuchets and maybe some other stuff to help you along. You've located a good target, now it's time to launch. Because Minutemen are so effective on rough terrain, you should exploit that advantage as much as possible.

Above: Most of the tricks of Minuteman warfare in a single screenshot. Thanks to ignoring terrain cost, that Minuteman can exploit flanking bonuses. True, it'd recieve more damage than it takes for that attack - it's against a French Musketeer, after all - but the flanking bonus will help the other units and I'd be able to withdraw it the following turn if it got seriously injured.

Now, mobility will help you take out other units and the rough terrain defence bonus makes your Minutemen hard to kill, but you really need to keep your siege units alive. So, dedicate those Minutemen to killing enemy units rather than attacking cities (besides the last hit.)

Now for another trick of Minutemen: they make excellent pillagers, being roughly the speed of a mounted unit on rough terrain, but without the glaring vulnerability to Pikemen or Lancers. Both of the main production-based tile improvements - mines and lumber mills - are on rough terrain. You can move on to them and pillage in the same turn - most Civs would take two for a Musketman. This allows you to quickly dent your enemy's production helping to prevent them sending reinforcements.


Right, you know how well these things fight, and how to use them in combat effectively. But Minutemen have another ability - if they score a kill, they earn Golden Age points much alike the Brazilian Pracinha.

Happiness is fairly hard to come by, so an alternative source of Golden Age points helps lessen the problem. As is the case for Pracinhas, the promotion's useless when you're already in a Golden Age. If you get one rolling, it can help unit production as well as get a little cash to help sustain your economy through this midgame war. Not to mention culture for pouring into the powerful Rationalism Social Policy tree.

• Ignore terrain cost
  
• Golden Age on kills
  
• Drill I (15% combat bonus in rough terrain)

Around the time Riflemen come into play, it's about time to slow down the war machine so you can focus on infrastructure. All those wars aren't good for your happiness and finances, so you'll need to get ready in time for B17s. It's not a bad idea to head towards Industrialisation and Scientific Theory to get an ideology going and for the science respectively before the long road to Radar.

As for the former Minutemen, their mobility coupled with the +1 sight from your UA makes them excellent spotters for B17s. Back them up with Anti-Aircraft Guns if your opponent has Bombers of their own, then rush them or a Tank in for the final hit on a city. It's harder to score kills with infantry units later on in the game due to the complexity of late-game warfare, meaning you won't get many Golden Age points off them, but the spotting use is still very effective.

Note: All screenshots in this section were taken before the October 2013 balance patch which added a stacking limit of 6 to air units in cities, or 10 if the city has an airport.


Do not for one moment dismiss the B17 for coming late in the game. This is the unit that will win you the game, and defeat other Civs shockingly quickly unless they've prepared a strong defence. Get Biology early so you know where the Oil is needed to build these things.

Before I go into more depth, one word of warning with all air units - their animations take forever, particularly bad if you have a large force of them (as you should with B17s.) Turn on quick combat in the options tab if it isn't already, unless you want to sit through ages of the same animation sequence over and over again.


In order to use B17s effectively, you'll need to understand how air warfare works. Bomber-class air units (Great War Bombers, Bombers, B17s, Stealth Bombers) are very good at fighting cities from a huge distance away, and can attack and kill enemy units reasonably effectively. They're essentially siege units with a massive attack range, but will take damage every time you use it. Like siege units, you need a line of sight for them, and they can't take cities by themselves - you need a different unit for the last hit. This is where upgraded former-Minutemen can come into play, as their high mobility and strong defence on rough terrain means they can make it there.

Bombers have three main weaknesses - Anti-Air Guns, Destroyers and Fighters (Triplanes, Fighters, Japanese Zeroes and Jet Fighters.) These can intercept your Bombers, meaning they take extra damage.

What makes Bomber-class air units really shine is that you can stack up to 6 in a single city, or 10 with an Airport - meaning it's not that difficult to batter down the defences of an enemy city. A problem with this is if your city falls, all the air units within fall with it, so be sure to keep your own base well-defended.


Above: To see all the air units in a stack, simply scroll over the city they're in. Brazil's got a lot of Triplanes - the earliest Fighter-class air unit.

To use Bombers to their absolute full potential, you need to achieve dominance on the seas. That's because the Carrier unit (an aircraft carrier naval unit which can carry 2 aircraft, and with promotions up to 5) lets you freely move your air forces around, and is crucial for attacking new continents. To make things even better, aircraft can heal up even on a moving Carrier, giving them huge mobility. Its strength is only a measly 40, compared to the Destroyer and Battleship's 55, so escort it with other naval units and maybe consider giving it the Armour Plating promotions. Remember that melee naval units can take coastal cities, so there's no need to even bring any land units at first.


Above: My B17's attacking Graz while my other naval units keep Austria's navy at bay

The worst enemy of the Carrier is Submarines, as they can slip behind your lines and usually kill the poor Carrier in a single hit - taking down all those planes with it. For that reason, always keep a Destroyer (and/or Submarines of your own) close to your Carriers to prevent losing all those lovely B17s.

Above: Privateers upgrade to Destroyers and keep the Prize Ships promotion when they do. It's not a bad idea to build a few. Give them Boarding Party promotions for maximum effect.


Above: Bring some Battleships along for the ride, too. They have the range and indirect fire capabilities of Artillery, with more strength (but less against cities) and more sight. Take the opener of Exploration so they can pretty much always use their full range.

One final point about the oh-so-lovely Carriers. Once your enemies see them, they can dogpile Bombers of their own to quickly take them out. Either be sure never to have your Carriers in their sight, keep Destroyers very close to intercept those Bombers, or place a Fighter of your own per Carrier.

Once you've conquered a coastal city, it's a great opportunity to heal your navy up. Hold the ground and get some defensive buildings in the city if need be before grabbing an Airport. Now, you can rebase your bombers to that city, airlift in a Tank or former Minuteman, bomb a more inland city and get the final hit with that Tank or former Minuteman.


So, Bombers can take out cities' health quickly and safely. But simply by a slight boost to strength and a couple of free promotions, B17s are a huge improvement over an already effective unit. You don't really need to bother taking out enemy Fighters or Anti-Aircraft Guns/Mobile SAMs because the damage you take from them intercepting your unit is halved.

The goal of taking cities is made easier with the free Siege I promotion. The strength bonus and Siege I promotion together makes a B17 with no further promotions 43% better vs cities than a standard Bomber without promotions. But, like the Minuteman, the main advantage is getting to later promotions faster (and hence, like the Minuteman, you should build your B17s from scratch rather than upgrading lots of units to them.)

With a Military Academy and either the Total War tenet in the Autocracy tree or the Brandenburg Gate, your B17s can start with the Logistics promotion straight away. Double attacks right from the start give you a huge advantage over other Civs who'd have to earn that Logistics promotion first. It also helps your units level up faster, so you can pick up the Air Repair promotion allowing the unit to heal even after a bombing run.

Once you have Logistics and Air Repair, giving a few Bombardment promotions to your B17s will really help them in clearing the board out before moving units in to take the city. After all, you wouldn't want to lose the city immediately after taking it.

All in all, B17s can end your game quickly and spectacularly in your favour, and most of all rely on the element of surprise - most people don't expect an attack this late, and are quietly focused on diplomacy, culture or science.

• +33% attack on cities (Siege I)
  
• -50% damage taken from interceptions (Evasion)

Above: Stealth Bombers have a huge sight bonus, meaning if you're hopping from one city to the next adjacent one, you don't need spotters. They have a huge range though, meaning it's not hard to take out all the world's capitals.

B17s never obsolete, meaning you can always build them for their promotions, even once Stealth Bombers are around. This is a good move for another reason, too - Stealth Bombers can't board Carriers. If there's still a continent you have no presence on, you can attack a weak coastal city with B17s on Carriers, rebase the B17s into the city, then upgrade the lot.

Your UA's +1 sight applies to all land units, including the UUs you might pick up from militaristic City-States. Also useful are those front-line UUs that upgrade to Minutemen. Here's some of the best ones - prioritise alliances with City-States offering these. Note that some UUs not listed may be more worthwhile than those listed here - I'm only focusing on synergy with uniques.


Jaguar (Higher priority)

While the Woodsman promotion makes no difference to Minutemen, that 33% forest/jungle bonus will, in addition to the health on kills. Super-effective against the Celts or Iroquois.

Maori Warrior (Lower priority)

Not quite as good as the Jaguar overall, though a little more flexible with that -10% combat penalty for adjacent enemy units.


Mohawk Warrior (Higher priority)

Like Jaguars, the 33% forest bonus will certainly come in handy. While it doesn't need iron itself, you'll need iron to upgrade it.

Kris Swordsman (Higher priority)

There are some powerful possibities here when it's upgraded to a Minuteman. +50% attack, -20% defence? The defence loss isn't a problem if you keep around rough terrain. +50% flanking bonus? Easy to use due to your high mobility. +30% defence and +20HP healed per turn? Once it gets to March, it'll be near invincible in rough terrain. 50 health on kills? Great anyway. +1 move and +1 attack? Incredibly powerful as you can move through rough terrain faster than pretty much any other unit.

The purely bad promotions are not dropped on upgrade, nor is Mystic Blade (the introductory promotion replaced by a random one after the first round of combat,) so to prevent getting Enemy Blade Minutemen, send these Kris Swordsmen to fight some Barbarians to get the promotion sooner rather than later.

Siege Tower (Higher priority)

This is good to get anyway as it's such a strong unit, but consider its sight radius of 3 by default rises to 4 with the American UA, making it great for spotting enemy reinforcements before they come.


Berserker (Lower priority)

Only the Amphibious promotion will carry over, but that's still decent as you can surround a riverside unit and take full advantage of flanking bonuses. To a Minuteman with the Amphibious promotion, rivers are pretty much non-existant.

Conquistador (Higher priority)

An American Conquistador is the best land-based scout in the game, as with the Sentry promotion it has a grand total of 6 sight.

Longbowman (Higher priority)

One of the best units for synergy with the American UA. Now, they don't need a spotter to fire at their full range, which is very effective against cities.


Hussar (Lower priority)

They have a sight bonus of 1, so why not make that even better? You can use them as spotters for Artillery, and if any unit starts giving the Artillery trouble, surround that unit with the high flanking bonus.

Starting with policies from Liberty will help you get plenty of land early and a good start for the rest of the game, though there's decent policies in Honour, too. There's no need to start with Honour - Liberty offers plenty of good stuff that's helpful to get as soon as possible. Afterwards, head into Rationalism to help get to B17s sooner. Exploration's Opener will be useful for late-game warfare if there's plenty of water in the map and travel between more than one landmass is required.


Opener

Liberty's a good starting choice. It allows all your cities to start expanding their borders the old-fashioned way immediately, so you can dedicate your gold towards buying tiles to block opponents.

Republic

The production bonus offered here can make quite a difference in the early-game - the quicker you get your cities going, the more effective your attacks will be later.

Collective Rule

This policy offers a massive advantage to expansion - getting it fairly early helps to make life harder for opponents you block off.

Citizenship

Help develop cities faster, or rebuild after a pillaging spree. Minutemen are particularly good at pillaging due to their ability to ignore the movement costs of rough terrain.

Meritocracy

Provides you with a decent source of happiness to help support having more cities (or conquering more of them.)

Representation

A chance for some gold, production and culture, and any new founded cities won't raise your Social Policy cost as much as before.

Finisher

Using a Great Scientist to plant an Academy is a good way to get plenty of science to push towards Gunpowder sooner. Alternatively, there's a few wonders that might be worth rushing with a free Great Engineer (Petra is a particularly good wonder for that purpose.) A third strong possibility is a Great Prophet to help get a religion going.


Opener

You can reveal a lot of land very early in the game, and together with this Opener, you're unlikely to get caught off-guard by Barbarians. Get killing them for the culture they give - the more policies you can get in this early stage, the better. The bonus against Barbarians applies to all your military units, including Scouts, making it easier to get them up to Scouting II for that massive sight radius.

Warrior Code

More Great Generals will be useful in a war for their ability to plant Citadels. Once Minutemen are around, planting Citadels on hills and planting a unit with March and/or Cover II will make them particularly tough to kill.

Military Tradition

Extra experience will be very useful for getting Minutemen to March or B17s to Air Repair faster.

Discipline

Minutemen can utilise this effectively by using their high mobility to surround opponents. Remember it affects strength, not just attack, so you can more easily hold a position.

Military Caste

Lessens the happiness pain from Minuteman conquests. Be sure you're not slowing your attacks down too much by keeping your whole army garrisoned, though be sure to garrison as many units as you can once the mid-game wars are over.

Professional Army

If you have this before Minutemen, you can rapidly build Barracks and Armouries in preparation for them. Otherwise, it's still useful for when you need to build Military Academies for B17s. Reduced unit upgrade cost can save you a tonne of cash which you could use for buying more new units, rapidly developing new/conquered cities or bribing City-States.

Finisher

Gold on kills may seem not up to much, but the gold does stack up, particularly late in the game. Killing an Infantry unit gets you 70 gold, for example. B17s can rapidly kill units and pull in plenty of cash. As stated before, it's not a bad idea to buy an Airport in a conquered city once you've secured it, so you can bring troops right to the front lines as well as even more aircraft.


Opener

If it's the renaissance era by now, go straight into Rationalism and pick this up later. You can also ignore it if you're on a map lacking water. Otherwise, this opener will be a great help to late-game conquests, as now Carriers are more mobile, and you can use naval units as spotters for your B17s without getting in range of the city. This policy won't be that useful until then, but it's certainly worth having to help your late wars.


Opener

The late-game sees Civs competing to win the game first, so you'll need to get to B17s sooner rather than later so you can take the world's capitals quickly. Rationalism's opener offers a 10% science boost, so long as you can keep your empire happy.

Humanism

Great Scientists should be your main Great Person focus so you don't fall behind tech-wise. Until the Modern era, use them for Academies. Rushing the last few technologies before Radar can work fairly effectively (and beyond that point, they'll usually produce more science if you rush techs with them rather than making Academies.)

Free Thought

To maintain your armies (and all those XP buildings) you may need to build plenty of trading posts. Now, they make a bit of science. Normally, the main way of getting more science is growing your cities taller, but that creates unhappiness. Simply work fewer farms and more trading posts to minimise that risk. Extra University science is always good.

Secularism

A small, but still useful science boost to you. The more the merrier.

Sovereignty

You'll free up more cash for unit maintenance here, which will allow you to build larger armies later. (There's other uses, obviously, but unit maintenance is the main one at this point.)

Scientific Revolution

Research Agreements are unlikely, you being a warmongerer and all that. Hence, take this policy last for the finisher.

Finisher

A free technology gets you to Radar faster if you don't already have it. Otherwise, push on towards Stealth. B17s upgraded to Stealth Bombers are nasty things for your opponents to be up against.

While Autocracy is generally better for war than Order, the latter supports your infrastructure better. I'd recommend avoiding Order if you don't have the Brandenburg Gate as your B17s will be much less effective without a Logistics start, but if ideological pressure from non-Autocratic ideologies is very high (few cultural Civs choose Autocracy) then Order's probably best.

Both ideologies shall be covered, with the best choices for the first "inverted pyramid" of tenets from each (3 from level 1, 2 from level 2 and 1 from level 3.)


Industrial Espionage

Unless you're the tech leader, you should find use for this tenet. Essentially, you can beeline Radar while getting all the other technologies off other Civs.

Mobilisation

If you can't get an Airport in time in one of your newly-conquered cities, you can always buy a Tank or something to help out in the land fighting.

Elite Forces

This applies to all military units, including your B17s. Because you should be promoting pretty much all of them with Logistics, they'll find use for this policy for at least half the hits they make.


Note that there's a lot of good choices here. If you're struggling on happiness, take the level one tenet Fortified Borders and the level two tenet Militarism on top of everything else.

Total War

This is mandatory because with a Military Academy, your B17s will be straight to Logistics, where they can attack twice and hence not only do nearly twice as much damage, but also get XP faster.

Third Alternative

B17s need oil, Stealth Bombers need aluminium. Unless you have plenty of the stuff already, you may very well need Third Alternative to help increase your potential army size. Additionally, it can stretch your coal reserves further; useful if you have a little but not enough for all the Factories you want.


Clauswitz's Legacy


Above: Note where it says "Temp attack bonus (2)" - that's Clauswitz's Legacy in action. I took the policy just before going to war with Austria. It lasted through my defeat of them, taking Sweden's capital and to victory.

While the use of this ability is limited to 50 turns, it works on cities unlike many attack bonuses. Hold off getting this tenet until you're sure you're ready and try to take as much land as you can before it expires. It doesn't work in defence, so keep up the barrage.


Socialist Realism

A really easy way to solve possible happiness woes, meaning you won't need to slow down conquest.

Skyscrapers

This policy makes it easier to develop conquered cities, such as by buying an Airport for airlifts or Walls to help resist attack.

Patriotic War

The point here is to help secure ground you've just conquered, as a 15% bonus doesn't discriminate between land you've always owned and that you've only just acquired.


Workers' Faculties

You'll still want to keep ahead in the tech race, even late in the game. After all, Stealth Bombers with all those B17 promotions will be nasty for your opponents to be up against if they're still making do with Triplanes, and you might be able to get Giant Death Robots long before anyone can deal with them. Plus, cheaper factories means more production in more cities. Just be sure to have enough coal.

Five-Year Plan

Quite a significant production boost here, which is great for churning out the last few units. As mentioned before, never build Stealth Bombers. B17s never obsolete, so you can build them and then upgrade them to Stealth Bombers for more promotions.


Iron Curtain

A great help in reducing the burden of unhappiness when conquering lots of cities. The internal trade route bonus is a great help if your routes are likely to be pillaged, or you can afford the gold loss from not having International Trade Routes. Focus on production to get more B17s and Carriers rolling.

You shouldn't go out of your way to found a religion, though it can be very helpful for dealing with unhappiness (as the Social Policy route I outlined has little in the way to alleviate that problem.)


Terrain-dependent Pantheons aren't individually listed here, but picking up one is often a good idea to increase your chances of getting a full religion.

Faith Healers

This works on planes. With Air Repair, your B17s are healing 55HP when in your cities Every. Single. Turn. Without fail.

Messenger of the Gods

Science is always useful to have, especially for a Civ that takes quite some time to reach its UUs. Easy tile purchasing from your UA makes it easy to make sure your cities don't get cut off from each other, ensuring you can maintain those city connections for that extra little bit of science.

God of War

That block-opponent strategy outlined in the section of the UA lends itself nicely to this Pantheon, as a lot of combat will be within 4 tiles of one of your cities.


Tithe or Church Property

You'll get a steady flow of income here, useful for maintaining more units.

Ceremonial Burial

It may not add masses of happiness, but every point counts if your people are unhappy. Every point of unhappiness weakens all your units at fighting by 2%.


Pagodas

The best belief for happiness for wide empires, pretty much.

Mosques

More faith but less happiness than Pagodas. Makes a good backup option.

Asceticism

This is a rather inexpensive way to get a quick-fix of happiness. Not spectacular, but isn't tied to faith generation.

Cathedrals

A backup for a backup - minus the Great Art slot, Cathedrals are only half as effective as Mosques, but a maintenance-free happiness building is better than nothing.

Holy Warriors

On the other hand, having good faith generation could make it practical to faith-purchase Minutemen.


Messiah

Great Prophets pretty much instantly convert a city to your religion. This is very useful if you have the Faith Healers Pantheon and have just moved in your B17s to a city without it. Simply airlift it in, then convert.

Religious Texts or Itinerant Preachers

This offers you a way to more easily spread your religion without spending faith.

Here's a list of the decisions and brief notes on importance of some. Ones missing depend greatly on the situation you're in. Voting choices may vary depending on your game (for example, if you get lots of Natural Wonders, Natural Heritage Sites may be worth it)

Note that "priority" means how important it is to vote on a matter if it comes up, not necessarily how much you should prioritise putting a vote for the matter forwards if you have an opportunity to. For example, you shouldn't put the Standing Army Tax forward, but if it does turn up, you should prioritise to vote against it.

Arts Funding

Low priority
Vote no

Cultural Heritage Sites

Low priority
Vote no

Embargo City-States

High priority
Vote no

City-states may be your only source of international trade after all that warring.

Historical Landmarks

Low-Medium priority
Vote no

International Games

Medium priority
Vote no

International Space Station

Medium priority
Vote no

Natural Heritage Sites

Low priority
Vote no unless you have a Natural Wonder of your own

Nuclear Non-Proliferation

High priority
Vote yes unless you have uranium and anyone likely to build nukes lacks it

Nuclear bombs are very, very bad to a stack of B17s. You have an edge in conventional warfare, not nuclear warfare, so generally voting to ban nukes before anyone gets hold of them can be a good idea.

Scholars in Residence

Medium-High priority
Vote yes unless you're in the lead technologically speaking

Sciences Funding

Medium priority
Vote yes

Standing Army Tax

Very High priority
Vote no

World's Fair

Low priority
Vote no

You should be capturing rather than building wonders mostly, but some wonders will make it easier to go to war and therefore will make it easier to capture others. Here's a selection of the best wonders, some of which may be worth attempting to build; the others for capture.


Pyramids (Liberty Only)

This wonder can help you develop quicker (particularly with your UA's rapid tile accumulation meaning you get to good tiles needing improvement sooner,) and Liberty exclusivity makes it far more likely you can actually build it.

Statue of Zeus (Honour Only)

The bonus against cities applies to all your military units, making this ability powerful throughout the game. Honour exclusivity helps make sure you can actually build it.


Great Lighthouse

The immediate uses are small in number (hence this is a wonder that might be good to capture rather than to build) but it can be very useful in the late-game. Carriers are amazing units, able to bring mobility to your air forces. Problem is, they have low strength and Destroyers are faster then them. Now, with the Exploration opener as well, you'll turn the tables in respect to speed, and you can far more easily see enemy units coming. The sight bonus also makes it easier to provide a line of sight for your B17s.

Oracle

If you head to Philosophy quickly for the National College, you may have enough time to build this up as well. The Oracle's free Social Policy could mean more happiness or gold by the time Minutemen are around, and hence more potential for conquest.

Terracotta Army

If you can build a diverse army early followed by building the Terracotta Army, it can give you the edge over rivals, but you shouldn't rely on such a strategy. A niche wonder and one that generally shouldn't be a key priority.


Angkor Wat

This has some synergy with your UA, further cutting the costs of tile buying, which is especially good if you're founding new cities and want to work their full radius quickly. It's also good for lands near to an enemy where buying tiles puts your lands closer to enemy cities, thus giving you a better start to wars.

Chichen Itza

4 points of happiness can help out in supporting conquests, while any Golden Ages created from your Minutemen can now be extended. This is a wonder to capture rather than build due to its high competitiveness.

Notre Dame

Another one that may be better to conquer rather than build (though you may have a head-start tech-wise.) Conquering a city with it is essentially a free city happiness-wise, as the 10 happiness together with other happiness things in the city probably cancels out the unhappiness from population and number of cities.


Himeji Castle

The reason for getting this wonder is the same as the reason for getting the Patriotic War tenet in the Order tree - securing conquests. As soon as you capture a city, all the surrounding land immediately offers you a 15% bonus (and 30% with Patriotic War) making it difficult for opponents to take it out. That's very handy for securing a base for your B17s to operate from. The fact it unlocks at Gunpowder, a technology you should get as soon as you can, gives you a head start at building it.


Brandenburg Gate

A must-have wonder if you're going down the Order ideology, and still very useful for Autocracy. For Order, with a Military Academy, your B17s are straight to Logistics. For Autocracy, you'll probably get Logistics anyway, but now they're just a little bit closer to Air Repair, too.


Kremlin (Order Only)

You can't solely fight with B17s. There's a land war to win, too, and rapid Tank production will aid you greatly at that end. Build them in your stronger cities and airlift them to the front lines.

Neuschwanstein

Need help with those late conquests? Neuschwanstein turns Castles into happiness buildings which generate gold and culture, allowing you to support a bigger army and more cities, as well as aiding in getting through your ideological tenets sooner and reducing the unhappiness pressure caused by rival ideologies.

Prora (Autocracy Only)

A bit short on happiness? Prora is a great solution to that issue. Plus, you get a free Social Policy to help get through tenets faster.


Pentagon

You'll be upgrading units a lot. Minutemen will need upgrading, so will B17s once Stealth Bombers are around. That could cost a fair but of cash, but the Pentagon offers means to reduce that burden.

Most Civ 5 players have played as America at some point, but it's not the easiest of Civs to play. Here's a bunch of misconceptions and poor strategies.


Scouts are cheap and will give you a huge early-game advantage with your sight bonus. Plus, if you get them early and train them through the sight promotions, you might still find Ancient Ruins that could turn them into a super-sight Archer.


The tile purchasing ability is fairly situational, like tile purchasing itself. You wouldn't spam-buy tiles in every city normally, so why now? Use it to rapidly expand a city's borders when you need to, not just because it's cheaper than normal.


Unique Units work on a simple principle: Use them or lose them. The way the tech tree falls around Gunpowder makes it easy to have Minutemen before opponents can deal with them - holding on to them until later for their promotions rather than using them then loses this golden opportunity.


If you don't get Minutemen early, they'll go to waste. If you don't get B17s early, that may cost you the game. After getting worker technologies and Writing, (and maybe Philosophy for the National College,) head straight to Gunpowder. Afterwards, work your way to Biology and finally to Radar. Occasionally, there may be good reason to get a technology off this course, but you shouldn't make a habit of it.


Whether it's Minutemen, B17s or anything else, you can't fight effectively with only one type of unit. Minutemen are mobile and can take out other units reasonably well thanks to the rough terrain bonus, but they can't fight against cities any better than a regular Musketman. B17s need other units for the final hit on cities.


The B17 is like the Dutch Sea Beggar - it's a good unit made even better, but that's not the point I'm making here. People often complain with late UUs that "I'm never going to use them!" or "I'll have won anyway by that time!" but the trick to the B17 is that opponents don't tend to expect huge late-game wars, and will likely be ill-prepared.


True, you may need some Fighter-class units to defend your cities from enemy Bombers, but halved interception damage to B17s means you don't really need to bother with an air sweep. Fighters take time and oil you could dedicate to more B17s. The most effective way to take out enemy Fighters is to take the city they're in before they can withdraw.


Carriers are pretty vulnerable units, and if they go down, the air units stationed on them do too. Always bring at least one Destroyer to look out for Submarines and also to get the last hit on coastal cities after your B17s weaken them. Battleships are good too, as are Submarines of your own. If your opponent has a strong navy, consider giving your Carriers the Armour Plating promotions and building more of them (to compensate for carrying fewer planes each than might otherwise be the case.)


When a city is captured, all units inside it are killed - that could mean an awful lot of B17s down the drain if you move them in to an unsecured city.


B17s can take out many units fairly well, but there's only so many times in succession you can use them until they need to be healed, and they can't intercept other Bombers. Be sure to back up your conquests with land units.


B17s never obsolete, and start with two promotions that carry over on upgrade. Simple enough, build B17s and upgrade them to Stealth Bombers.

America is the President of late-game warmongering thanks to the B17, but it's often vulnerable on its home ground.


Let's cover the tile purchasing first. America can rapidly buy tiles for new cities, and could potentially settle a city right in your face and take luxuries that are rightfully yours. You could threaten them with war, as they'll likely be focusing more on expansion than the army, but otherwise you'll have to settle for finding some other spot. Don't place cities in bad positions just because they may be near your capital.

If they manage to cut you off, you'll probably have to get Optics early, so you can embark your units for further exploration. Otherwise, prepare for war.

Now the extra sight. In the early-game, you'll have to assume America knows much more of the map than you. Don't expect any hidden Ancient Ruins near their lands. Come the Industrial Era, watch out for those Artillery units keeping out of reach of your cities. Cavalry might be good at dealing with them quickly.


Minutemen work strongly in rough terrain, but as soon as they're out in the open, they're no better than normal Musketmen. Promoting a Longswordsman with Shock I allows it to fight on equal footing, and that's likely to be the case most of the time as relatively few Minutemen will have Shock promotions of their own.


It's a good idea to have intercepting units, even though they only do half the damage against B17s. It's still something. Be sure to build defensive buildings in cities likely to be at risk - every one adds more health and lets the city deal more damage to those pesky things. Be sure not to leave a weak spot in your coastal defences, so they can't fly in B17s on Carriers (and if they try, target the Carriers. Submarines are the best at this, but Battleships will still work well, and Destroyers will be competent at the task.)

Now, the best way to deal with a stack of B17s is to take out the city they're based in before they move out. You can wear down its defences with Bombers of your own, though the last hit will have to be by a land unit. Use a Tank so it can get in fast enough, or back your forces with plenty of Anti-Aircraft Guns.


Early-game Aggressors - Take out America early on before they can cause any trouble.

Mid-game Aggressors - While Minutemen are decent in rough terrain, they aren't spectacularly strong Unique Units, and they don't have much of an advantage in their home terrain where roads would give them a speed advantage anyway. Take the fight to America before they can take the fight to you, if you can.

Anyone wishing to fight America in the Industrial era will do fairly effectively seeing as they may be recovering from Minuteman wars at that point, and furiously rushing through infrastructure technologies to make up for beelining Gunpowder.

Late-game Aggressors - Air superiority will be hard to achieve, but strength on the land or sea might be a bit easier for you. If they're on a different continent to you, be sure to have Submarines ready for when they bring their Carriers over. Rush their cities with Bombers and Tanks - you need to take them quickly for maximum impact. Surrounding a city with units means it slows down their conquest - after all, they have to make a melee hit on the city to take it. The Siege focus of B17s means they won't be much better than normal Bombers against land units, so try to take the fight to them as quickly as you can.

Non-warmongering Players - Defensive buildings do well against America - Minutemen are no better than normal Musketmen against cities, hence they're slow to take them down, while the city strength increase causes trouble for B17s later. Scientific players should have a noticable tech lead over America by the late-game - nothing scares a stack-building player like nukes.

Note: All links in this section are to external websites.

I wouldn't know how to play America to its full potential if it wasn't for the following guide from CivFanatics. The guide's based around the base game without expansions, but it explained how to use the UA to block off opponents, amongst other things.

Civfanatics War Academy: America (Vanilla)[forums.civfanatics.com]

While I'm here, I'd like to thank the Civ V Handbook for Despots and Dictators, found in the 2K forums. When I really started getting into the game after Gods and Kings, it helped greatly in giving a basic outline to strategy.

2K forums: Civ V Handbook for Despots and Dictators[forums.2kgames.com]

Also, here's a link to Civilopedia Online, a site which has the complete Civilopedia as it appears ingame. I use it to check for factual accuracy (e.g. exact values of a unit's strength.)

Civilopedia Online[www.civilopedia.info]

If you like these guides and want to send a tip, you can click here![ko-fi.com]


These guides cover every Civ in the game and can be used as quick reference guides.

• Civ summaries (Gives a brief overview of how each Civ plays)
  
• Civ-specific tricks, secrets and clarifications (Compiles the lesser-known features of each Civ)

All 43 Civs are covered in in-depth guides linked below. In brackets are the favoured victory routes of each Civ.

• America (Domination)
  
• Arabia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Assyria (Cultural, Domination and Scientific)
  
• Austria (Cultural, Domination and Scientific)
  
• Aztecs (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Babylon (Scientific)
  
• Brazil (Cultural)
  
• Byzantium (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Carthage (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Celts (Cultural)
  
• China (Domination)
  
• Denmark (Domination)
  
• Egypt (Cultural)
  
• England (Domination)
  
• Ethiopia (Cultural/Scientific)
  
• France (Cultural)
  
• Germany (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Greece (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Huns (Domination)
  
• Inca (Scientific)
  
• India (Cultural/Scientific)
  
• Indonesia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Iroquois (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Japan (Domination)
  
• Korea (Scientific)
  
• Mayans (Scientific)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Morocco (Diplomatic)
  
• Netherlands (Diplomatic, Domination and Scientific)
  
• Ottomans (Domination)
  
• Persia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Poland (Domination)
  
• Polynesia (Cultural)
  
• Portugal (Diplomatic)
  
• Rome (Domination)
  
• Russia (Domination)
  
• Shoshone (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Siam (Diplomatic/Scientific)
  
• Songhai (Domination)
  
• Spain (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Sweden (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Venice (Diplomatic)
  
• Zulus (Domination)