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Episode: 4630
Title: Playing Civilization V, Part 11
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4630/hpr4630.mp3
Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:29 (official HPR transcript)
---
This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4630, for 2026-05-01
Today's show is entitled, "Playing Civilization V, Part 11"
The host is Ahuka and the duration is 00:13:07
The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA
The summary is "We finish our look at the game mechanics of Civilization V."
Hello, this is a hookah welcome you to Hacker Public Radio and another exciting episode
We enter ongoing series on computer strategy games and we're continuing with civilization five
And what I want to do today is I want to talk about
basically all of the
players in the game there are 43 empires here and
This is I'm talking about
You know all of the expansions and downloadable content and everything else
So five is certainly quite complete at this point and there's no more updates coming that haven't been for a long time
So you've got 43 possible empires the thing is they're not all alike and
It matters which one you are and it should affect your strategy
Each empire has a particular leader a
Unicability and the unique unit
In addition, most of them have some kind of starting bias and many have a unique building or unique improvement
Understanding how to make use of these is important to your strategy
If you let random chance assign you to an empire
You need to know what kind of strategy will work with that empire
And if you want to pursue a particular strategy
You might want to know how to pick an appropriate empire to fit the strategy
Now there is a chart that lists all 43 empires with all of their parameters at the
The civilization and fandom wiki and
There's a link in the show notes for that
You might want to book mark that page for future reference
Also, you want to know what to expect concerning your opponents in a game
leader
You don't have a choice of leaders when you choose the empire you get the leader that comes with it
But these leaders are distinct in various ways
To see what I mean go to the leader page for one by clicking on the link under the leader picture and you'll see a long list of AI traits
These describe and numerical terms how competitive the leader is in various ways
How prone to war which kind of units it will build and so on?
It's a long list so your eyes may glaze over but the significance is that it gives you some insight
If this leader is one of your opponents in a game
This list is how the AI is programmed
There is also a more approachable summary under personality and behavior
And for example, here's what it says about Pedro the second of Brazil
Pedro will most commonly try for a cultural victory if he pursues a different victory condition
He's likely to choose the diplomatic one over a scientific or domination victory
And in fact the last game he was my competitor for
A diplomatic victory and we'll be talking about that shortly
Pedro is exceptionally friendly and loyal and will readily befriend anyone
But the most warlike leaders
He is more willing to denounce than to wage war himself
But will maintain a defensive militia comprised of a variety of units
He also has the habit of building a fairly large navy
Fittingly Pedro's highest priority is the happiness of his people
Followed by the development of his lands and culture
He will not claim a large territory but his cities will be highly populated and the land and water around them will be full of improvements
He will sometimes try to build wonders that enhances culture and tourism output
Now Pedro is friendly toward city states and his sphere of influence and will often pledge to protect them
He will hardly ever attack or bully them
Now the point is this describes your AI opponent
If you choose to play as Pedro of Brazil you can make entirely different decisions from what the AI would do
Now starting bias each empire will spawn on the map in ways that reflect their starting bias if any
Some empires for instance china friends
Have no starting bias at all which means they can spawn anywhere on the map
Though there is programming to ensure that the location is not a disaster like all tundra and ice or the middle of the ocean
So it will certainly be playable
Still some players like to try two three or four times to spawn to see if they can get a good place to start
For the empires with the starting bias it can be either positive or negative
For example the Mongolian empire has a bias towards starting on planes
Which makes sense historically since they come from the planes of central Asia
The Russian empire has a bias to start in tundra which again seems to fit
The song high empire has a negative starting bias which is to avoid tundra
Now the song high emperor empire
Historically was an empire in sub-saharan Africa so this kind of makes sense
The signemies empire avoids forests
Rome and shashone
Empires have no starting bias at all they could spawn anywhere
So the starting bias will apply to whichever empire you choose to play
So if you prefer not to play with a lot of tundra you would do well not to choose Russia
But then again Russia can do more with tundra than some other empires might so it does all balance out
Then there's unique ability
Generally speaking each empire will have a unique ability
For example the Austrian empire has the unique ability called diplomatic marriage
Which allows them to spend gold to annex or puppet any city state if an ally do for at least five turns
If the city state is annexed it becomes part of the Austrian empire
But if it is puppeted the city state technically remains separate
But it's under the control in some ways of the Austrian empire and what that really means
is that
You control all of the units they have but you don't control the build cues
So you can't tell the city state if it's puppet and what to do
India has a unique ability called population growth
This doubles the unhappiness caused by more cities
But reduces by 50% the unhappiness caused by increased population
So if you were playing India it is even more important to build tall rather than wide
Remember when we talk about tall versus wide wide is many cities
Each of somewhat smaller size tall is a few cities with a very high population
Now unique units
Every empire has at least one and sometimes two unique units
These units replace a normal unit but are a little better in some respects
There worth having some are more useful than others and the key factors when are they available to you
For example the Celtic empire gets the Pictish warrior which replaces the spearmen
Since the spearman is generally the first unit you learn to build it comes very early in the game
So if you're interested in the strategy of early warfare this might matter to you
The Pictish warrior is actually weaker than the spearman in one respect though in that it gets no bonus against mounted units
So if you are the calts and you're facing the Mongols you're gonna have a problem
But the Pictish warrior can pillage without any movement cost normally when you use a unit to pillage it ends your turn
But a Pictish warrior could pillage and then move if it still had movement left
And the Pictish warrior also has the foreign lands bonus which gives it a 20% bonus when fighting outside of Celtic territory
And finally the Pictish warrior gets a faith bonus when it fills an enemy unit equal to 50% of the killed units strength
Now the American empire has two unique units
One is the B17 bomber which replaces the regular bomber it comes with two promotions
siege one and a vision and it's slightly stronger 70 versus 65
The problem with this is that it comes so late in the game it's hard to see what good it will do you
If you're pursuing a domination strategy you should have already gone most of the way to conquering the world before you actually get the B17
Now the other unique unit the Americans get is the minute man which replaces the musket man
It comes with a drill one promotion
Ignores terrain restrictions and it's points towards a golden age. This is more useful than the B17
But not useful enough to push you towards a domination victory in my opinion
But since you need good units for any strategy if only for defense it's worth halfing
Personally if I was playing as the Americans I would probably choose to go for a science victory
I think they're very well suited to that
Now unique buildings and improvements
Some empires such as the Byzantines or the Japanese do not have one but they can be useful
For example the Portuguese empire has a unique building called the phytoria
Which has the interesting property of being built outside portugal's territory
The phytoria which becomes available once you're discovering navigation can be built in the territory of a coastal city state
on a coastal land tile that has no resources on it and
Has three properties
First one Portugal gets one copy of each luxury resource the city state has
This is great for either increasing happiness or is something that can be traded with other empires
Then there is a plus 50% defensive strength bonus for any combat units on the tile
And if the
Fritoria is pillaged that constitutes an active war against Portugal
Which means Portugal gets no penalties for going to war
Now another example of a unique
Building or improvement is the Dutch Polter which can be built on any marsh or flood plain tile
It gives plus three food and once you discover economics it will also yield plus one production and plus one gold
So in summary if you study the chart of empires that can help you to picking strategies for the empire
You're playing or help you to pick an empire that is well suited to the strategy you want to try
And knowing how the AI is programmed for other empires helps you to know what to expect in your game
But here are some suggestions and note that you can win with any save
But these are ones that lend themselves to a particular strategy
That said, I usually let the game give me a random choice and then formulate my strategy when I see what I get
So for domination
Germany japan
Rome
Sun high and the Mongols
All very well suited to
Domination victories
science victory
Babylon, Korea, Poland and America are all very good for that
Culture victories
Brazil, Polynesia, Poland and France are all good for that
Diplomatic victories
Greece, Arabia and Portugal are very well suited to diplomatic victories
So with this this is a hookah for Hacker public radio signing off and as always encouraging you to support free software
Bye bye
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