Following this guide requires the Gathering Storm expansion.

It also assumes you have all other Civ 6 content, listed below, though it is not necessary to have these to utilise the key strategies of each civ.

• Pre-Rise and Fall content packs
  
  • Vikings, Poland, Australia, Persia/Macedon, Nubia, Khmer/Indonesia
• Rise and Fall Expansion
  
• New Frontier content packs
  
  • Maya/Grand Colombia, Ethiopia, Byzantium/Gauls, Babylon, Vietnam/Kublai Khan, Portugal

These content packs include exclusive civs, city-states, districts, buildings, wonders, natural wonders, resources, and a disaster, but not core game mechanics - all you need is the base game and the Gathering Storm expansion for those.

It is not my ambition to rule a frozen waste but an empire. We have the people and the land, and soon the seas, but we yet require a strength of will to put an end to the barbaric ways of the past. I shall learn from the West, but not be subservient to it. From our window to the west in the city of white nights, I shall watch Russia rise to be a conquerer of nations.


This guide is divided into multiple sections explaining how best to use and play against this specific civ.

• The Outline details the mechanics of how the civilization's unique features work and what their start bias is if they have one.
  
• The Victory Skew section describes to what extent the civ (and its individual leaders where applicable) is inclined towards particular victory routes. This is not a rating of its power, but an indicator of the most appropriate route to victory.
  
• Multiple sections for Uniques explain in detail how to use each special bonus of the civilization.
  
• Administration describes some of the most synergistic governments, government buildings, policy cards, age bonuses, pantheons, religious beliefs, wonders, city-states and Great People for the civ. Only the ones with the most synergy with the civ's uniques are mentioned - these are not necessarily the "best" choices when playing as the civ for a given victory route.
  
• Finally, the Counter-Strategies discusses how best to play against the civ, including a consideration of leader agendas if the civ is controlled by a computer.

Note that all costs (production, science, etc.) mentioned within the guide assume a game played on the normal speed settings. To modify these values for other game speeds:

• Online: Divide by 2
  
• Quick: Divide by 1.5
  
• Epic: Multiply by 1.5
  
• Marathon: Multiply by 3

Terminology used in this guide and not in-game is explained here.

AoE (Area of Effect) - Bonuses or penalties that affect multiple tiles in a set radius. Positive examples include Factories (which offer production to cities within a 6 tile radius unless they're within range of another building of the same type) and a negative example is nuclear weapons, which cause devastation over a wide radius.

Beelining - Obtaining a technology or civic quickly by only researching it and its prerequisites. Some deviation is allowed in the event that taking a technology or civic off the main track provides some kind of advantage that makes up for that (either a source of extra science/culture or access to something necessary for a eureka or inspiration boost)

CA (Civ Ability) - The unique ability of a civilization, shared by all its leaders.

Compact empires - Civs with cities close together (typically 3-4 tile gaps between city centres). This is useful if you want to make use of districts that gain adjacency bonuses from other districts, or to maximise the potential of area-of-effect bonuses later in the game.

Dispersed empires - Civs with cities that are spread out (typically 5-6 tile gaps between city centres). Civs with unique tile improvements generally favour a more dispersed empire in order to make use of them, as do civs focused on wonder construction.

GPP - Short for Great Person Points. Districts, buildings and wonders generate these points and with enough you can claim a Great Person of the corresponding type.

GWAM - Collective name for Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. All of them can produce Great Works that offer tourism and culture, making them important to anyone seeking a cultural victory.

LA (Leader Ability) - The unique ability of a specific leader. Usually but not always, they tend to be more specific in scope than civ abilities. Some leader abilities come with an associated unique unit or infrastucture.

Prebuilding - Training a unit with the intention of upgrading it to a desired unit later. An example is building Slingers and upgrading them once Archery is unlocked.

Sniping - Targeting a specific city for capture directly, ignoring other enemy cities along the way. Typically used in the context of "capital sniping" - taking a civ's original capital as quickly as possible to contribute towards domination victory without leading to a drawn-out war.

Start bias - The kind of terrain, terrain feature or resource a civilization is more likely to start near. This is typically used for civilizations that have early bonuses dependent on a particular terrain type. There are five tiers of start bias; civs with a tier 1 start bias are placed before civs of tier 2 and so on, increasing their odds of receiving a favourable starting location.

Super-uniques - Unique units that do not replace any others. Examples include India's Varu and Mongolia's Keshigs.

Tall empires - Empires that emphasise city development over expansion, usually resulting in fewer, but bigger, cities.

Uniques - Collective name for civ abilities, leader abilities, unique units, unique buildings, unique districts and unique improvements.

UA (Unique Ability) - A collective name for leader abilities and civ abilities.

UB (Unique Building) - A special building which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal building and offers a special advantage on top.

UD (Unique District) - A special district which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal district, costs half as much to build and offers some unique advantages on top.

UI (Unique Improvement) - A special improvement that can only be built by the Builders of a single civilization. "UI" always refers to unique improvements in my guides and not to "user interface" or "unique infrastructure".

UU (Unique Unit) - A special unit that may only be trained by a single civilization, and in some cases only when that civilization is led by a specific leader.

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

Russia has a tier 2 start bias towards tundra and tundra hills tiles. Russia receives +1 production and +1 faith for all tundra tiles, making them better than plains aside from the fact they cannot be improved with farms. Being pushed closer to the poles makes Russia less prone to being attacked early in the game, but it makes it take longer to send religious units to other nations.

• Founded cities receive 5 additional tiles.
  
  • These tiles are those which would have been favoured by the city gaining those tiles via culture (strategic resources are strongly favoured)
    
  • These tiles do not increase the culture or gold cost of future tiles.
• Tundra tiles provide +1 production and +1 faith on top of their normal yields.
  
  • This does not affect tundra mountains or tundra tiles containing natural wonders.
• Units, buildings and districts take no damage from blizzards.
  
• Enemy units in Russian territory take double damage from blizzards.

• All outgoing international trade routes grant Russia +1 science for every three technologies the other civ has that Russia doesn't, and +1 culture for every three civics the other civ has that Russia doesn't.
  
  • This does not affect trade routes from other civs to Russia.

An industrial-era light cavalry unit which replaces the Cavalry

*Purchasing units with faith requires the Grand Master's Chapel government building, which requires either the medieval-era Divine Right or renaissance-era Exploration civics.

**If you have insufficient aluminium, you may continue to train Cossacks even after researching Synthetic Materials.

• Costs 340 production/1360 gold/680 faith, up from 330/1320/660 (+3%)
  
• Costs 290 gold to upgrade to from a Courser, up from 270 (+7%)

• Requires 10 horse resources, down from 20 (-50%)
  
• 67 strength, up from 62
  
• +5 strength in or adjacent to friendly lands
  
  • This bonus is based on where the Cossack is at the start of the fight.
• May move after attacking
  
  • This also allows use of pillaging and applying promotions.
• Costs 530 gold to upgrade, down from 550 (-4%)

An ancient-era speciality district which replaces the Holy Site

*All districts increase in cost based on your technological and civic progress. If you have more or the same number of speciality districts as speciality district types you have unlocked and the former number divided by the latter is bigger than the number of copies of this district you have, you will receive a 40% discount.

**Purchasing districts with gold requires the governor Reyna (the Financier) with the Contractor promotion to be present in the city. Purchasing districts with faith requires Governor Moksha (the Cardinal) with the Divine Architect promotion to be present in the city.

• -50% production cost
  
• 2 Great Prophet Points per turn, up from 1
  
• +1 Great Writer Point if the district has a Shrine
  
• +1 Great Artist Point if the district has a Temple
  
• +1 Great Musician Point if the district has a Worship building
  
• Expending a Great Person in this city adds a free tile
  
  • This will give you the tile which would have been the next to be acquired by culture.
    
  • This does not work if all tiles within a five-tile radius of the city centre are already owned by you.
    
  • Great People with multiple charges add one tile per charge used.

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.


Culture is a very effective victory route for Russia. Lavras create more GWAMs than you may know what to do with, while Russia's strong faith output can help with purchasing Naturalists and Rock Bands.

Diplomacy is one of the weaker victory paths for Russia. The biggest advantage is that Russia tends to be first to a religion and has a cheap Holy Site, meaning they can reliably take the Pagoda building for bonus diplomatic favour. An incentive towards international trade might also help you secure alliances, but overall Russia is better at culture or religion.

Domination victories as Russia are reasonably strong. Cossacks are quite effective in offensive warfare, and Russia's strong faith output can be put to good use purchasing them via the Grand Master's Chapel government building. Beelining the Military Science technology will mean you lack a lot of technologies other civs have, but Peter's leader ability will make up for that.

Religion is the best victory route for Russia, and Russia is one of the game's best civs at it. Lavra districts can be built very early very cheaply and offer double the normal Great Prophet points helping you get to a religion quickly. Using the Dance of the Aurora pantheon in conjunction with Russia's civ ability and start bias can give you immense amounts of faith ready to convert the world with. If that's not enough, Peter the Great can offer you bonus culture and science if you like to use international trade routes to help spread your religion.

Science is one of the weaker routes for Russia to take, though it's not terrible. Although Peter's leader ability offers a source of science, it becomes useless if your science eclipses that of other civs. Having more viable tundra cities helps you support more cities overall, allowing you to fit in more Campuses. Furthermore, cities starting with more tiles helps you get better ones sooner - including good Campus spots. Russia's religious bonuses can also help - Russia usually is first to a religion and hence can reliably take bonuses that boost the scientific game, and you can use excess faith for Great Scientist or Engineer patronage.

Lots of land from the very start!

Russia handles the map rather differently to most civs. With your cities starting with more tiles, you can settle cities with more distant resources in mind. With tundra tiles becoming significantly more lucrative, a whole portion of the map goes from being marginal to viable - or even crucial.


When founding a city, Russia gets five extra tiles for free. This increases the odds of them getting the best tiles in range sooner, which can provide you an advantage even on the very first turn of the game. As future tile accumulation isn't any more expensive than it would be for a different civ that doesn't start with so many tiles, you can easily afford to buy your way to the remaining spots with good yields.

Getting more resources in your land at the start of the game means your first couple of Builders can earn you more eurekas. Here are all of the pre-medieval boosts dependent on particular improvements:

• Celestial Navigation - Improve two sea resources (crabs, fish, pearls, whales, turtles, amber)
  
• Irrigation - Farm a resource (maize, rice or wheat)
  
• Masonry - Build a quarry (stone, marble or gypsum)
  
• Wheel - Mine a resource (typically diamonds, iron, jade, mercury, salt, silver or amber)
  
• Iron Working - Build an iron mine

To make the most out of the ability for cities to start with many tiles, it's a good idea to train lots of Settlers early on so you can grab lots of good land before anyone else can. You may need to manually set your capital to work a high-food tile so it can handle the population loss from building a Settler, as Russian cities have a tendency to automatically work tundra tiles (which are usually food-poor). Alternatively, Governor Magnus (the Steward) with the Provision promotion can avoid population loss in a city from training Settlers, though giving him promotions delays getting good ones for Moksha (the Cardinal) to help with your religious game.

The usual route of expansion as Russia should be into areas reasonably near tundra. Try to ensure that within three tiles of the city there's a tile surrounded by as much tundra, mountains and/or forests as possible. This will be important when maximising Lavra faith yields later.

Alternatively, you can settle cities close to other civs to choke off their expansion - so long as you can handle the loyalty and diplomatic pressures, as well as the possible worse faith yields. You can then fill in the tundra areas later.




For anyone else, a flat empty tundra tile only offers 1 food, making it not particularly worth working. Russia adds production and faith, making such tiles better in raw yields than plains. Tundra tiles cannot support farms however, so avoid settling cities too far north or south unless you're suzerain over a city-state that provides access to a special tile improvement that can be built there, or there's plenty of nearby sea resources.

Tundra hills and forests are better than flat empty tundra tiles as they can support mines and lumber mills respectively. A tundra hill with a mine is like a plains hill with a mine, while a tundra forest with a lumber mill is like a plains forest with a lumber mill, but both also have +1 faith on top. With the modern-era Conservation civic, your Builders can plant woods on tundra and tundra hills, helping you bring otherwise weak tiles up to par.

Alternatively, blizzards can emerge in large tundra (or snow) areas without woods present, which add food or production to tiles in an area. This can create potentially bigger yields than lumber mills, but takes time to build up.

Tundra-heavy areas are fine for production, though food will be scarce. That's okay, though - small cities will be less of a strain on amenities and decent production means you can build and improve Lavras easily enough.

Tundra resources get the biggest yields. Again, you won't be getting any better food or production than you would do on plains tiles, but being able to use a part of the map most civs can't get much out of in addition to the faith bonus is still nice to have around.

Finally, you can make tundra tiles even better in one city with the St. Basil's Cathedral wonder. It adds +1 food, +1 production and +1 culture to all tundra tiles worked by the city, making flat tundra worth a total yield of 6 while hill/forest tundra becomes even better.

All that faith has to go somewhere, and religious victory is often the best way to make use of it. Russia's unique Lavra district can be built extremely cheaply early in the game, and when combined with the Dance of the Aurora pantheon, you can get absurd faith yields. That combination of Lavra faith and tundra faith makes Russia particularly suitable for achieving an early religious victory. Alternatively, the Grand Master's Chapel lets you spend faith on purchasing units, or you can keep it to purchase Naturalists and Rock Bands later in the game to help with cultural victory.


Blizzards do not have adverse effects for Russia, while being powerful enough to wipe out enemy armies with little trouble.

Avoiding the penalties associated with blizzards creates an potential trade-off - use lumber mills for extra production on tundra, or chop down the woods in an area and wait for blizzards to add food and production. Forest fires also add yields to tiles, however, so such a strategy may not be as effective as it first appears.

Avoiding taking damage from blizzards prevents the risk of losing units in your own territory to blizzards, ensuring you can keep a good defence going. It can also help when exploring tundra land you don't yet own or attacking other civs for their tundra cities. Double damage to enemies in your land from blizzards is an extremely unreliable bonus, but it can be devastating.

• Train plenty of Settlers early on to grab land.
  
• Cities need access to a decent food supply, so settle cities on the border between tundra and grasslands or plains, and be prepared to set some citizens to manually work food tiles so the cities can grow.
  
• The faith bonus is most effectively used to help towards religious victory.

The Lavra district offers Russia a great religious game, and a huge amount of cultural potential on top.


The Lavra is the reason why Russia is one of the best civs in the game for religious victory, and not just merely good at it. With half the price of normal Holy Sites, you can build your first one extremely early in the game, and with double the usual number of Great Prophet points on offer, you'll be among the first to found a religion.

When you found a religion, subsequent Great Prophet Points you generate are converted into faith. For Russia, the extra Great Prophet Point essentially means an extra +1 faith in every Lavra relative to other civs' Holy Sites.

The Dance of the Aurora pantheon is extremely powerful for Russia and is rarely taken by other civs. It adds +1 faith to Lavras for every adjacent tundra tile (except tundra mountains, which just offer the normal +1 yield). For that reason, try always to build your Lavras in places where they will be surrounded by as many such tiles as possible, especially forested tundra or tundra tiles that contain a district, which add even more faith.

A spot surrounded by tundra woods can be worth +9 faith with Dance of the Aurora, or +18 with the Scripture economic policy card (unlocked with the classical-era Theology civic.) If you take the Work Ethic follower belief, that will be added to production, making some very strong cities!

Faith adjacency can also be added to science for one Holy Site with the Great Scientist Hildegard of Bingen. In a classical or medieval-era Dark Age, you can take the Monasticism wildcard for +75% science in all cities with a Holy Site - making that up to 31.5 science for just one key Holy Site.

Russia's civ ability encourages you to build a wide, dispersed empire, and having lots of cities will give you masses of Lavra faith. Once you've earned a Great Prophet and founded your religion, it's time to bring the faith to the rest of the world. Few civs can match Russia on sheer faith output, but you may need to be aware of warmongers who may declare war on you and pillage your religious units. Cossacks later in the game will offer a good disincentive for other civs to invade you, but until then make sure you're fairly well defended to help avoid facing any surprise attacks - or at least have some spare faith available in conjunction with the Grand Master's Chapel so you can buy some reinforcement units when you need them.


That's not all Lavras are great for. One of their benefits is that when you use a Great Person within the city limits of a city containing a Lavra (you can check what city a tile belongs to by hovering over it with your cursor) the city instantly gains the next tile it was attempting to gain via culture. Considering Russia's civ ability already gives you eight free tiles per city, this may not sound very useful, but it does have a niche.

Cities prioritise strategic resources when automatically gaining tiles via culture. Most strategic resources aren't revealed until you've unlocked a corresponding technology:

• Iron - Bronze Working (ancient era)
  
• Nitre - Military Engineering (medieval era)
  
• Coal - Industrialisation (industrial era)
  
• Oil - Refining (modern era) OR James Young (industrial-era Great Scientist)
  
• Aluminium - Radio (modern era)
  
• Uranium - Combined Arms (atomic era)

If you have a Great Person unlocked around the time you're researching one of these technologies, consider delaying activating them until the technology is complete. Then, if one of the strategic resources revealed is just outside the borders of one of your cities, you can activate them there. This saves a bit of time or money relative to accumulating the tile normally, and can also be a way to obtain tiles beyond the purchase radius of three tiles (tiles may be acquired by culture up to five tiles away from the city).

On the whole, though, this is a minor bonus and not one you necessarily need to play around.


If everything else wasn't enough, Lavras offer one Great Person point each for Writers, Artists and Musicians, once the district is developed with buildings.

This is the same bonus offered by newly-constructed Theatre Squares. If you develop lots of Lavras, you might find yourself with plenty of GWAMs but nowhere to put their Great Works, so you may need to keep them safe until you can get some Amphitheatres, Art Museums, Broadcast Centres and/or wonders built.

Getting more Great Works gives Russia a greater potential tourism output. You can combine this with your faith to buy Naturalists to create National Parks; you'll have so much land thanks to Russia's civ ability that you can usually find a few good spots for them. Later on, faith is useful for Rock Bands as well.

• Grab the Dance of the Aurora Pantheon for a huge boost to Lavra faith.
  
• Russia is usually one of the first civs to a religion.
  
• GWAM generation helps with your culture output and helps offer an alternative cultural path to victory.

The culture and science from "other bonuses" is the leader ability taking effect.

Peter's leader ability has two main benefits: It can help you catch up if you're falling behind in technologies or civics, but it can also make beelining easier.

As a side-effect of the ability incentivising international trade, you can also use it to spread your own religion to some extent - particularly if you send a lot of routes to the same target city. It will also help you accumulate alliance points, which can lead to even better international trade route yields later.


The Lavra UD encourages you to delay building Campus and Theatre Square districts which can lead to Russia falling slightly behind in culture or science early on. Trading with other civs can be used to make up the difference. That being said, external trade means forgoing production and food until you can pick up the Wisselbanken diplomatic policy card in the late-medieval era.

Nonetheless, because a religious playstyle doesn't need much production, and tundra regions provide decent amounts of production for Russia, the loss of some from not trading internally isn't the problem it can be for other civs.


This ability also makes Russia particularly good at beelining. Rather than filling out technologies or civics of your current era, you can push purely towards key later ones. Although you'll technically end up ahead of other civs in terms of your research era, they'll have technologies or civics you lack hence making trade routes with them still provide culture or science.

The best use of this advantage is to beeline the Military Science technology, where Cossacks become available. You'll end up having to research a small number of expensive technologies while other civs research a lot of cheap ones, letting you exploit a strong science boost from trade.


Trade extensively with other civs while avoiding researching the exact same things as them, and Russia can keep their culture and science output at a decent level even if lacking in Campuses and Theatre Squares.

Having trouble spreading your faith and need an alternative means of persuasion? Warmongers threatening your lands? Need to stop a runaway rival from getting too powerful? Or just are tired of a world that's going unconquered? Cossacks arrive at a nice time to solve such problems. Not too early that building them distracts from religious aims, but not too late that they don't have any impact.


Once you're done with useful early technologies, Military Science makes a good goal to head for. Peter's leader ability can help you beeline it, which should allow you to have access to Cossacks before most other civs can retaliate with Pike and Shot units. Meanwhile, you can head towards Nationalism on the civics tree so you can make your Cossacks into corps if needed. Corps have +10 strength relative to individual units making them brutally effective against the unprepared, though keep in mind they're expensive to train, maintain and upgrade.

How can you afford to train all those Cossacks? There's three good ways. One, you can train some Horsemen or Coursers earlier in the game ready for upgrading into Cossacks later. Two, you can make use of the Chivalry military policy card (available at the medieval-era Divine Right civic) which adds a 50% production bonus when training Cossacks. Three, you can use the Grand Master's Chapel building so you can spend faith to purchase them. The latter option is best-used when you have a strong religious rival who you can't defeat through religious units alone.


Cossacks have 67 strength, or 72 in or adjacent to home territory. That's better than an Infantry unit for a lower cost, with better mobility and no need for resource maintenance. As a result, Cossacks can hold their own in a defensive role even if you're facing an enemy with more advanced units. If you're the one ahead in technology, that amount of strength will wipe the floor with those who are yet to reach the industrial era. Relative to Musketmen units, that's a strength advantage of 17, which allows your Cossacks to reliably take them out in just two hits.

Offensively, Cossacks should be accompanied with siege units like Bombards. Light cavalry units aren't really designed for capturing cities by themselves, although Cossacks will be good at defending newly-captured ones. That gives you time to convert them to your faith, ready for you to hand some back in a peace deal, forcing religious dominance upon them.

Aside from having a good combat ability, Cossacks can move after attacking. This allows you to attack something and get out of the way. The high movement speed of Cossacks (5, and potentially 6 with the Pursuit promotion) means slower units like Field Cannons will struggle to retaliate. This isn't a bad way of attacking cities, assuming they have reasonably open surroundings. In addition to moving, Cossacks can also pillage and even promote themselves after attacking. Both are a great help in keeping the units alive, and the latter also saves precious turns during warfare. On the defensive, Cossacks can hit an attacking unit and retreat back to the safety of a city centre or Encampment district.


Cossacks can surprise your foes with substantial firepower at a time where they may have written you off as a peaceful religious civ. The ease in which you can beeline Military Science can make them particularly good when they first arrive, and their ability to move after attacking can keep them safe from counter-attacks.

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.



Classical Republic works well. Faster Great Person generation allows you to get more GWAMs out of your Lavras, but more importantly it has a good number of economic policy slots you can fill with cards such as Scripture.

The Ancestral Hall is a good first building. By greatly speeding up Settler production, you can quickly seize a lot of land in conjunction with Russia's civ ability.


Theocracy is the obvious choice. It makes making religious units and buildings cheaper to purchase with faith, and makes your religious units stronger in theological combat.

The Grand Master's Chapel is a good choice of building. It'll let you use your huge faith output to buy Cossacks, and you can get faith from pillaging - especially useful considering Cossacks have access to a promotion that makes pillaging cheap. Alternatively, to complement Peter's leader ability, you may want to take the Intelligence Agency for an extra Spy instead so you can steal more eureka boosts from other civs.


Democracy works very well for cultural and religious victories due to its good array of economic policy cards, and its bonuses for trading with allies helps you get more out of Peter's leader ability.

The National History Museum gives you somewhere to store your spare GWAM works, while the War Department helps your Cossacks in warfare or your religious units in theological combat.


Synthetic Technocracy is a good choice for a religious game as it provides extra production towards city projects, including Holy Site Prayers, as well as plenty of economic policy card slots. For a cultural game, Digital Democracy is a better alternative due to the lack of a tourism penalty.



Caravansaries (Economic, requires Foreign Trade) - Trading a lot? Add some gold on top.


Scripture (Economic, requires Theology) - A crucial policy card to pick up especially in conjunction with the Dance of the Aurora pantheon. By doubling adjacency bonuses from Lavra districts, you can make an already-impressive faith output into something amazing.


Chivalry (Military, requires Divine Right) - Helps you train up Coursers, which can be upgraded to Cossacks immediately after you research Military Science. Also useful for boosting the production of Cossacks directly.

Professional Army (Military, requires Mercenaries) - If you're training Coursers for upgrading later, this saves a lot of money.

Trade Confederation (Economic, requires Mercenaries) - If you're trading extensively with other civs already to catch up with science and culture, this policy card makes that even better.


Triangular Trade (Economic, requires Mercantilism) - Get even more gold out of your trade routes, on top of the science and culture.

Wars of Religion (Military, requires Reformed Church) - A good reason for using Cossacks is to fight religious rivals. This policy card makes that strategy even more effective. Cossacks now have a massive 76 strength when fighting religious rivals in or next to home territory, or 71 when fighting them outside of your own lands.

Wisselbanken (Diplomatic, requires Diplomatic Service) - Tundra regions tend to be low on food, but Peter's leader ability can push you towards international trade which lacks food bonuses. Thankfully, this policy card helps to solve that problem by giving you food for trading with allies.


Force Modernisation (Military, requires Urbanisation) - Halves the cost of upgrading units, including the Courser to Cavalry route.


Market Economy (Economic, requires Capitalism) - An improved version of Trade Confederation.

Their Finest Hour (Wildcard, Democracy only, requires Suffrage) - Stacks nicely with the Cossack strength bonus in or adjacent to friendly territory.


Heritage Tourism (Economic, requires Cultural Heritage) - Get more tourism out of your Great Works of Art, as well as any artefacts you might have lying around.

Satellite Broadcasts (Economic, requires Space Race) - As a rare civ to have an advantage to Great Musician generation, Russia can get more out of this card than most.


Online Communities (Economic, requires Social Media) - Your international trade can now offer extra tourism.

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

Exodus of the Evangelists (Dedication, Classical to Renaissance eras) - Russia can spread a religion earlier than most other civs, making this dedication a great source of era score.

Exodus of the Evangelists (Golden Age, Classical to Renaissance eras) - If you have the Dance of the Aurora pantheon, you may find that the biggest barrier to spreading your religion is that you can't move your religious units fast enough. This Golden Age dedication should make it easier.

Monasticism (Dark Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - Lavras are half the price of normal Holy Sites, so you can more easily meet the requirements for this policy card than other civs and generate vast amounts of science. Though there is a culture penalty, Russia's strong GWAM generation (and hence Great Work output) should help you handle that.

Monumentality (Golden Age, Classical to Renaissance eras) - Turn your impressive faith output into impressive expansion, helping you grab lots of land and develop it, too.

Reform the Coinage (Golden Age, Renaissance to Modern eras) - Neatly prevents other civs from denying you the science and culture you obtain from Peter's leader ability.


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

Border Control Treaty - Effect B (This player's borders will not grow via culture) on a civ you intend to settle cities near

Settling cities near a civ allows you to take a lot of land they would have otherwise taken thanks to Russia's civ ability. If you slow down their border expansion, that buys you time to settle more cities near them and take even more land they've otherwise have.

Deforestation Treaty - Effect A (Clearing features of the chosen type yields gold equal to the production and/or food) on woods if you are intending to encourage blizzards to appear

Chopping down woods on tundra tiles in an area allows blizzards to appear. For Russia, they'll cause no damage and can add food to multiple tiles while damaging enemies.

Espionage Pact - Effect B (The chosen Spy operation is unavailable) for Great Work Heist

Prevents other civs stealing your GWAM advantage.

Heritage Organisation - Effect A (Tourism from Great Works of this type is doubled) on whichever Great Work type you are currently receiving the most tourism from.

Lavras produce a lot of GWAMs, which can mean a lot of early tourism from Great Works.

Mercenary Companies - Effect B (Producing, or purchasing military units using the chosen currency type, is -50% of the cost until the next World Congress) on faith if you have the Grand Master's Chapel

This is an effective way to use your faith advantages to get an edge offensively or defensively. Especially effective around the time Cossacks are first available.

Nobel Prize in Literature - Always vote in favour

GWAM points from Lavra districts increase your chances of winning this emergency, and Russia's strong faith output means you can get more out of the bonuses to Rock Bands.

Patronage - Effect A (Earn double points towards Great People of this class) on Great Writers, Artists or Musicians

Builds on your advantage from Lavra districts.

Trade Policy - Effect A (Trade routes sent to the chosen player provide +4 gold to the sender. The chosen player receives +1 trade route capacity) on yourself or your main trading partner.

Get either more science and culture for yourself, or more gold.

Urban Development Treaty - Effect A (+100% production towards buildings in this district) on Holy Sites.

Helps you develop Lavra districts faster.

World's Fair - Vote in favour if you think you have a good chance of winning it.

Lavra districts provide a lot of Great Person Points, giving Russia a distinct edge at this scored competition.

Dance of the Aurora - Russia does well in tundra-heavy areas. Russia has a unique Holy Site district. Put the two together, and Dance of the Aurora is the obvious choice of pantheon. Note that it doesn't affect the adjacency bonus of tundra mountains.

Earth Goddess - A decent alternative to Dance of the Aurora. Tundra regions are often reasonably well forested, which creates a lot of tiles with a good level of appeal. Having a few tiles early on offering +2 faith is rather effective.

Goddess of the Hunt - A possible backup pantheon if Dance of the Aurora is already taken. Camp resources such as deer are relatively common in tundra-heavy regions, and boosting their food and production output will help your cities become stronger.

Religious Settlements - The extra border expansion speed and bonus Settler allows you to grab even more land.


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

(Cultural) Cathedrals (Worship) - Russia often ends up with more Great Works than can be stored, but this worship building can help with that.

Dar-e Mehr (Worship) - As Russia develops a religion quickly and has a strong faith output, it's easier for them than it is for most civs to maximise the faith output of this building. It also can't get pillaged from weather effects like blizzards, but make sure other civs can't pillage it or it'll be back to its basic +3 faith yield.

Defender of the Faith (Enhancer) - Stacks nicely with Cossack strength bonuses to make your realm particularly hard to invade.

Feed the World (Follower) - Tundra regions are usually food-poor, but this belief helps make up for that.

(Cultural) Jesuit Education (Follower) - Gives a good alternative use for your faith if you need it. Combined with the bonus to GWAMs Lavras offer, you have a good shot at cultural victory.

Holy Order (Enhancer) - Helps substantially in making your faith go further.

Pilgrimage (Founder) - Russia's ability to found an early religion and gather lots of faith quickly makes expanding to other civs much easier. With extra faith from this belief, you can gain an even bigger early religious advantage.

Religious Colonisation (Enhancer) - Founding a religion when you're still trying to found new cities can be a pain as you'll end up having to spend time converting your own cities. This belief saves a lot of that trouble.

Religious Community (Follower) - Your international trading can now yield more gold.

Scripture (Enhancer) - Pressuring other civs via international trade routes? Put on even more religious pressure with this belief.

Warrior Monks (Follower) - Put your faith to good use on the battlefield with this strong special unit. The culture bomb combines nicely with Russia's already-strong land-grabbing abilities to restrict other civs' expansion potential.

Work Ethic (Follower) - Lavra cities can become much more productive - especially in combination with the Dance of the Aurora pantheon.


Note that Bologna (A scientific city-state that offers +1 Great Person Points of corresponding type to all appropriate districts) does not boost the Great Writer, Artist and Musician Points offered by Lavras.

Anshan (Scientific) - Put your strong Great Writer generation to good use! Great Works of Writing provide extra science while you're suzerain over Anshan.

Antananarivo (Cultural) - Goes nicely with all the GWAMs Lavras help you to generate.

Armagh (Religious) - This city-state lets you build Monasteries, which add +2 faith on a tile and can be built on tundra to create a tile offering 1 food, 1 production and 3 faith. It also helps religious units to heal without them needing to get to a Holy Site.

Chinguetti (Religious) - In addition to culture and science, trade routes can also be a source of faith.

Fez (Scientific) - Allows your religious advantages to aid a beeline to Military Science.

Granada (Militaristic) - The Alcázar improvement is one of the relatively few in the game that can be built on tundra. It offers +2 culture as well as science based on the tile's appeal, and also +4 strength for units defending on its tile.

Hunza (Trade) - Sometimes you need to trade across long distances to get culture and science, and this city-state adds bonus gold for such long-distance routes.

Jerusalem (Religious) - Every city with a Lavra will now exert significantly more religious pressure. Considering how cheaply Russia can build them, and how early Russia often founds a religion, this can be a considerable boost in the early religious game.

Kumasi (Cultural) - You can gain science and culture from city-states via Peter's leader ability, much as you can for full civs (although as city-states tend to be less advanced, the yields tend to be a little lower). Kumasi offers decent gold and good culture when you send trade routes to city-states, on top of these existing yields.

La Venta (Religious) - Colossal Heads can be built on tundra and offer +2 faith. They also offer +1 faith for every adjacent wooded tile (as well as for every two adjacent rainforests). Finally, the renaissance-era Humanism civic adds +1 culture as well.

Nalanda (Scientific) - This improvement gains extra faith when next to a Lavra district.

Samarkand (Trade) - Get more gold from international trading.

Singapore (Industrial) - Receive bonus production from international trading.

Vatican City (Religious) - An excellent choice for Russia, the Vatican City lets you combine the various advantages of the Lavra district. All those GWAMs (and other Great People) will not only grant you extra tiles via the Lavra when they retire, but extra religious spread to nearby cities.

Venice (Trade) - Peter's leader ability incentivises international trade. Venice makes it even more lucrative by increasing the gold revenue from doing so.

Oracle (Ancient era, Mysticism civic) - Cheap patronage of Great People with faith works very well if religious victory doesn't work out. Note that the bonus Great Person Points for corresponding districts won't give you extra GWAM points from Lavras.

Temple of Artemis (Ancient era, Archery technology) - The bonus food is great for when you have a city in a tundra-heavy region.

Apadana (Classical era, Political Philosophy civic) - Handy for storing excess Great Works.

Great Library (Classical era, Recorded History civic) - In conjunction with Peter's leader ability, you can neglect science to some extent and leech other civs' progress. While Peter's leader ability gives you science from international trade, this wonder gives you eurekas when other civs obtain Great Scientists. Also offers two Great Works of Writing slots.

Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (Classical era, Defensive Tactics civic) - An extra charge for Great Engineers means you can grab more land via Lavras.

Angkor Wat (Medieval era, Medieval Faires civic) - Tundra cities can be hard to grow, so getting a point of population and housing for free in every city is welcome.

Kotoku-In (Medieval era, Divine Right civic) - Though not the most powerful wonder on this list, getting 20% extra faith out of a tundra-heavy city can be a helpful boost.

Mont St. Michel (Medieval era, Divine Right civic) - In conjunction with Cristo Redentor, a great way to turn a religious advantage into a cultural one.

St. Basil's Cathedral (Renaissance era, Reformed Church civic) - Find a good tundra-heavy city for this, preferably with plenty of riverside woods tiles for powerful lumber mills, for the biggest bonus. Alternatively, build it in your holy city for a strong boost to tourism.

Torre de Belém (Renaissance era, Mercantilism civic) - Makes a city get pretty strong gold yields from international trade, which goes well with Peter the Great's leader ability.

Bolshoi Theatre (Industrial era, Opera and Ballet civic) - +1 Great Writing and +1 Great Music slot.

Hermitage (Industrial era, Natural History civic) - +4 Great Art slots - handy for all those GWAMs your Lavras will generate.

Oxford University (Industrial era, Scientific Theory technology) - +2 Great Writing slots.

Broadway (Modern era, Mass Media civic) - +1 Great Writing slot and +2 Great Music slots.

Amundsen-Scott Research Station (Atomic era, Cold War civic) - This wonder's bonuses are good by themselves, but what makes this wonder particularly worthwhile for Russia is that you can deny other civs from getting it. Your tundra focus will put your cities closer to snow tiles than those of most other civs, meaning you should have better cities capable of building the wonder than most other civs.

Sydney Opera House (Atomic era, Cultural Heritage civic) - +3 Great Music slots.


Great Generals and Admirals are only mentioned if their retirement bonuses have specific synergy with the civ; not merely for providing a strength bonus to a unique unit.

Note that Great People with multiple charges (notably including all GWAMs), if expended in a Lavra city, will give you a tile every time you use a charge.


Zhang Qian (Great Merchant) - +1 trade route capacity, which could mean more science and culture via Peter's leader ability.


Bi Sheng (Great Engineer) - Religious-centric strategies often mean neglecting science and/or culture. Bi Sheng lets one of your cities build an extra district, so you don't have to deal with that trade-off.

Hildegard of Bingen (Great Scientist) - Makes a Lavra's adjacency bonus add to science as well. Considering how strong the adjacency bonus can be if you're making use of the Dance of the Aurora pantheon, this is a very good Great Person to have. Consider saving up some faith so you can use Great Person patronage rather than relying purely on Great Scientist Points.

Ibn Fadlan (Great Merchant) - +1 trade route capacity.

Marco Polo (Great Merchant) - +1 trade route capacity and a free Trader.

Zheng He (Great Admiral) - +1 trade route capacity.


Giovanni de Medici (Great Merchant) - Rapidly develops a Commerical Hub, importantly giving it two Great Work slots that can hold anything. Useful if you have any excess GWAMs waiting around!


Rani Lakshmibai (Great General) - Produces a free Cossack when retired - though be sure to have a spare renaissance or industrial-era Great General as the passive speed and strength bonus is more useful than the free unit.


Sarah Breedlove (Great Merchant) - Trading internationally for extra culture and science? Enjoy extra tourism on top.


Melitta Bentz (Great Merchant) - +1 trade route capacity and extra tourism for civs you're trading with.

Russia is a religious behemoth which can easily control a lot of land, but that can leave them vulnerable in other ways.


Russian cities do best on the border with tundra regions, not in the middle of them; such areas tend to be low on food. By ensuring you take any good tiles that are fairly close to tundra, Russia is pushed to build tundra/snow cities instead of, say, tundra/grassland.

If you've started fairly close to Russia, consider expanding towards them. This will push Russia to expand away from you, and grab lots of land from other civs instead. Otherwise, keep some units ready to spy on any Russian Settlers that might be nearing your lands. Be prepared to declare war and capture them, or else you might end up with a new Russian city choking off your capital's expansion.

One of the lovely things about Russia being in your game is that if you capture their cities, you get the large borders for yourself. If Russia's overstretched herself in terms of building new cities, you can easily sweep in and take them - though you'll probably want to raze or give back the excessively tundra-heavy cities.

Settling in tundra encourages Russia to use the Dance of the Aurora pantheon. If you're really desperate to set back Russia early on, you could try to take it before they do, but that means you have to give up a good pantheon of your own.

If invading Russian tundra cities, try to avoid placing too many units in open tundra tiles. Large expanses of tundra or snow without woods can produce blizzards, which can destroy many of your units at once. To avoid this, stick to tundra woods or attack Russia from angles which avoid open tundra areas.


This ability only works if Russia lacks technologies and civics that other civs have. If Russia is dominant in those fields, this ability is useless. A smart Russian player will use the culture and faith to help support beelines - particularly to Military Tactics, where Cossacks become available. Still, this has risks. Using trade routes internationally means they won't have so many to use internally; combined with the relatively low food of tundra regions, Russian cities may struggle to grow. Furthermore, as international trade routes are less easy to defend, using good pillagers (like light cavalry units) can cause a lot of trouble for them.


When controlled by a computer, Peter likes you if you are ahead in technologies and civics, and dislikes you if you are behind. He'll never have the Cultured or Technophile hidden agendas as his agenda essentially already incorporates both.

This agenda's requirements aren't too hard to meet as you should at least have a little inclination towards doing no matter your general strategy. Of course, if you're after a domination victory, Peter congratulating you on being ahead in technology might as well be him saying "Invade me next please!"

Peter's agenda and leader ability together makes him a good ally. Having shared trade routes gains alliance points faster, which helps you get to the better bonuses sooner.

On the other hand, if Russia's ahead of you in terms of technologies and civics, befriending them can be tricky. An advanced civ that hates you is something you don't really want to face, especially when Cossacks enter the battlefield. If you find yourself trailing Russia in the technology race, make sure your defensive capabilities are up to scratch.

Additionally, Peter has a 10% chance of having the Sycophant hidden agenda, which makes him like civs in Golden Ages and dislike civs in Dark Ages. Wonder-builders in particular will find an advantage there - China especially given their bonus to eurekas and inspirations.


Cossacks in Russian territory have +10 strength relative to the Cavalry of other civs, and the ease in which Military Tactics can be beelined gives Russia a potentially huge advantage. Even Pike and Shot units will reliably lose to them unless sufficiently promoted, though AT Crews should perform effectively.

Away from Russian lands, Cossacks only have a +5 strength bonus relative to the units they replace, which makes them deal about 22% more damage to other Cavalry while taking 18% less. That difference is pretty manageable considering your units will heal up faster than theirs in your own territory. You can alternatively use Cuirassiers, giving them only a +3 advantage.


Lavras can be built very early, but they can also be pillaged very early as well. Declaring war in the ancient era has no warmonger penalties, and it can be worthwhile to send in a Heavy Chariot, pillage the Lavras, and move out again. This slows down Russia's religious development, giving time for other civs to found theirs first. Religions are stronger the sooner they can be founded, and if Russia's is weaker, then their immense faith output will be less threatening.

Always keep in mind Russia's huge faith output. Even if they fail to get Dance of the Aurora and don't have that many tundra tiles, the cheap cost of the Lavra encourages Russia to have as many as possible. If they go overboard with Missionaries, Apostles and Gurus, declare war on Russia to clean them up. Yes, other civs will declare you a warmonger, but better that than having Russia win via a religious victory. If the World Religion resolution comes up in the World Congress, you can vote to allow Russia's religious units to be condemned without starting a war.

One of the advantages of Russia's Lavras is that they get land from using Great People, on top of all the land they already receive from their civ ability. This usually will only be used in cities that are reasonably-well developed to begin with, so you don't have to worry about Russia suddenly taking lots of land near your cities. As is the case with the civ ability, large borders means you can grab a lot of land from invading Russia.

Russia also gets an advantage to GWAM generation via Lavras. If you're aiming for a cultural victory, that either makes them a good target for an invasion, for Spy heists, or to trade with. Having a strong culture output will encourage them to like you anyway, so you might be able to get some decent trades going. Alternatively, you can pillage Lavras to force Russia to spend time rebuilding them, as the GWAM points require specific Holy Site buildings to function.

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• Civ summaries (Start here for an introduction for all civs)
  
• Civ-specific tricks, secrets and clarifications (Ideal for more experienced players)

• America - no additional content* (Cultural/Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• America - all additional content* (Cultural/Diplomatic/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Arabia (Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Australia (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Aztecs (Domination)
  
• Babylon (Cultural/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Brazil (Cultural/Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Byzantium (Domination/Religious)
  
• Canada (Cultural/Diplomatic)
  
• China (Cultural/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Cree (Diplomatic)
  
• Egypt (Cultural/Diplomatic/Religious)
  
• England (Cultural/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Ethiopia (Cultural/Religious)
  
• France (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Gaul (Domination)
  
• Georgia (Diplomatic/Religious)
  
• Germany (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Gran Colombia (Domination)
  
• Greece (Cultural/Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Hungary (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Inca (Religious/Scientific)
  
• India (Domination/Religious)
  
• Indonesia (Cultural/Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Japan (All)
  
• Khmer (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Kongo (Cultural)
  
• Korea (Scientific)
  
• Macedon (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Mali (Diplomatic/Religious)
  
• Māori (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Mapuche (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Maya (Scientific)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Netherlands (Scientific)
  
• Norway (Domination)
  
• Nubia (Domination)
  
• Ottomans (Domination)
  
• Persia (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Phoenicia (Domination)
  
• Poland (Cultural/Domination/Religious)
  
• Portugal (Diplomatic/Scientific)
  
• Rome (Domination)
  
• Russia (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Scotland (Scientific)
  
• Scythia (Domination/Religious)
  
• Spain (Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Sumeria (Diplomatic/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Sweden (Cultural/Diplomatic)
  
• Vietnam (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Zulus (Domination)

*The Teddy Roosevelt Persona Pack splits Roosevelt's leader ability in two, meaning the game with it is substantially different from without - hence two different versions of the America guide. Lincoln was added later and is only covered in the latter guide.

Other civs with alternative leader personas are not split because the extra personas added in later content do not change the existing gameplay - as such the guides are perfectly usable by players without them.

These guides are for those with the Rise and Fall expansion, but not Gathering Storm. They are no longer updated and have not been kept up to date with patches released since Gathering Storm. To look at them, click here to open the Rise and Fall Civ Summaries guide. The "Other Guides" section of every Rise and Fall guide has links to every other Rise and Fall guide.


The Vanilla guides are for those without the Rise and Fall or Gathering Storm expansions. These guides are no longer updated and have not been kept up to date with patches released since Rise and Fall. To look at them, click here to open the Vanilla Civ Summaries guide. The "Other Guides" section of every Vanilla guide has links to every other Vanilla guide.