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.

I hold that in the spirit of concilation two peoples may become one. I have always strove to uphold this principle; that moderation within this nation, our home, is the only route forward. I know moderation is the heart of Canada. So I ask upon Canada to support myself in an aim of achieving liberty for all, and may we guide the Earth with these principles.


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.

Canada has a tier 1 start bias towards tundra and tundra hills, and a tier 5 start bias towards snow and snow hills. This allows Canada to almost immediately make use of Wilfrid Laurier's leader ability. While a relatively poor start bias in terms of yields, it does tend to position Canada at the edge of landmasses hence making them less vulnerable to invasion from multiple angles.

• Cannot declare surprise wars, nor be the target of them
  
  • This means that when another civ requests Canada moves their military units from their borders or vice versa, there is no option but to make the promise.
• Cannot declare war directly on city-states
  
• Successfully completing emergencies or scored competitions as a member grants +100% diplomatic favour.
  
  • This bonus has no effect if you are the target of an emergency.
• 1% of empire-wide tourism generation, rounded down, is added to diplomatic favour.
  
  • In other words, you must generate at least 100 tourism per turn before getting any benefit from this bonus.

• May construct farms on flat tundra tiles
  
• With the industrial-era Civil Engineering civic, may construct farms on tundra hills tiles. Farms on these tiles produce +2 food.
  
• Camps on flat tundra, tundra hills, flat snow and snow hill tiles produce +2 food.
  
• Mines and lumber mills on flat tundra, tundra hills, flat snow and snow hill tiles produce +2 production.
  
• +100% strategic resource generation from improved flat tundra, tundra hills, flat snow and snow hill tiles.
  
  • Note that horse and aluminium resources do not appear on tundra or snow. Iron, nitre and coal can appear in tundra but not snow.
• Flat tundra, tundra hills, flat snow and snow hill tiles may be purchased for 50% less gold.

A modern-era light cavalry unit which does not replace anything.

*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.

• No resource cost, unlike other light cavalry units.
  
• 290 production cost, 12% lower than Cavalry units and 51% lower than Helicopters.
  
• 62 strength, equal to Cavalry units and 24 points lower than Helicopters.
  
• 5 movement points, equal to Cavalry units and 1 point higher than Helicopters.
  
• Maintenance cost of 3 gold (Cavalry cost 5, Helicopters 7)
  
• Has two charges to build a National Park with.
  
  • National Parks must be positioned in a vertical diamond of tiles owned by the same city which either are land tiles with at least 2 appeal (charming) or are coastal natural wonder tiles.
    
  • Using the National Park charges does not consume the unit.
• +5 strength within two tiles of a National Park.
  
• Additional +5 strength if within two tiles of a National Park owned by Canada, for a total of +10.
  
• Has a sight radius of 4 (most other units have a radius of 2).
  
• Never obsoletes and thus may always be trained once unlocked.

*Note that the amenity yield does not require the improvement to be worked.

**Although typically you would need the atomic-era Professional Sports civic in order to achieve this yield, it is possible to get the +4 culture boost from another civ's Stadium being adjacent. Without a Stadium, the best boost possible is +6.


*This assumes you already have the enhancements of earlier eras.

**Note that the amenity and tourism yields do not require the improvements to be worked.

***Although typically you would need the atomic-era Professional Sports civic in order to achieve this yield, it is possible to get the +4 culture/tourism boost from another civ's Stadium being adjacent. Without a Stadium, the best boost possible is +6.

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.


Canada is strongest at the cultural game. Ice Hockey Rinks can add up to 10 tourism per tundra/snow city as well as a notable appeal boost to help adjacent National Parks and Seaside Resorts. But what really gives Canada their cultural edge is the Mountie unit, which allows them to easily produce all the National Parks they need without spending faith.

Diplomacy is a very effective path for Canada as well. Being immune to surprise wars makes it easier to make friends in singleplayer games, while the bonuses to diplomatic favour generation gives an edge in the World Congress - especially later in the game. However, Canada's tying of cultural and diplomatic strengths often means by the time they're in a winning position in the diplomatic game, they're already doing stronger in the cultural game.

Canada is among the least effective civs in the game at domination. Being unable to declare surprise wars is a huge downside as it means Canada will always be giving targets time to prepare, and the Mountie UU is terrible for warfare as it cannot be prebuilt, cannot be upgraded and has low strength for its era. Canada's good at getting amenities later in the game to help with managing war weariness (plus their need to use casus belli every time helps), and extra copies of strategic resources could be useful as well (especially for oil, which often appears in tundra/snow regions and is crucial for later warfare).

Religion could be a surprisingly effective route for Canada as they have two tricks to give themselves an edge. Firstly, bonuses to tundra settling makes the Dance of the Aurora pantheon a powerful source of early faith. Secondly, other civs being unable to declare surprise wars on Canada means that they won't be surprised with enemy civs condemning their religious units.

Finally, Canada has a modest edge in the scientific game. There's more viable city locations to allow for more Campuses, more strategic resources for Power Plants, and immunity to surprise wars making it easier to focus on science rather than defence early on. Tundra cities also can have a strong production base for space projects.

Wilfrid Laurier's leader ability is similar to Russia's civ ability in that it allows tundra cities to be competitive with non-tundra ones, though there's quite a few notable distinctions between the two which will be explored later in this section. For now, let's look into how this ability affects Canada's game.


With all these tundra bonuses, it may be tempting to settle extensively in tundra lands. However, by favouring settling non-tundra lands first, you can pick them up later allowing you to have a bigger and more prosperous empire - after all, most other civs aren't going to settle inferior lands right next to your own territory where they can suffer loyalty pressures. Still, having a few cities on the edge of tundra early on can produce some great farm, mine and camp yields (and later on lumber mills).

It might be a good idea to space your cities apart (with a 5-6 tiles gap between city centres). Being able to make use of tundra gives you room to be able to do that and still have plenty of cities, and it'll make developing National Parks later on a lot easier.

Snow cities are considerably weaker than tundra cities, and should be settled only when there's no better spots available. They don't even have strategic resources available until the modern era arrives revealing oil and the atomic era revealing uranium.


As soon as Canada has access to a Builder, they're able to construct a farm on tundra. While flat tundra only offers a base yield of 1 food, once Canada builds a farm there, it's up to 4 food - better than grassland farms! Add the 0.5 housing for farms on top, and you can get considerably larger tundra cities than any other civ can.

With the medieval-era Feudalism civic, farms in a triangle will produce +1 food. Tundra farms can get up to 5 food in such an arrangement, and you can use farms on adjacent plains/grassland tiles to help with this.

You'll be able to build farms on tundra hills with the industrial-era Civil Engineering civic, but generally you shouldn't do that unless the city desperately needs food or you need to provide adjacency to other farms. A mine or lumber mill on that tile will offer a great amount of production, and it helps to mix both yields in a city.

Tundra farm yields become even more useful with the modern-era Replaceable Parts technology, where farms gain +1 food per adjacent farm!

Floodplains don't appear on tundra tiles, so tundra farms won't be prone to flooding. However, tundra areas with a lack of woods can be prone to blizzards, which unlike river flooding cannot be mitigated until much later in the game.


This bonus makes tundra camp yields better than those found on grassland tiles, which is great for developing new cities. With the Goddess of the Hunt pantheon, all camps provide +1 food and +1 production, potentially resulting in some strong yields in cities that for other civs would struggle - though this is map-dependent. The only resources that can be improved with camps and can be present on tundra tiles are deer and furs. Furs are a luxury resource, so will only appear on one continent in your game if at all.


Tundra lumber mills and mines for Canada will be better than ones on plains tiles elsewhere. That means your tundra cities can be more productive on a per-citizen basis as your non-tundra cities!

On snow hills, the production bonus only works for mines (as woods cannot grow on snow tiles). Given the low base yield of snow hills (only 1 production), this bonus has only niche utility. Snow hills with a mine after the Industrialisation technology will be up to 5 production, which is alright at this point in the game. Uranium can appear in snow and adds +2 production to its tile, so the maximum theoretical yield is 7 production - though that won't happen that often.



My only iron mine produces enough for a new Swordsman every five turns.

Canada can create better tundra cities than plains or grasslands most of the time, with the exception of unaffected tile improvements like pastures. However, here's a bonus that gives a more considerable advantage to Canadian tundra cities that their grass/plains counterparts simply don't have. Any strategic resource you excavate on tundra or snow produces +100% quantities; in other words, double.

Strategic resources are accumulated every turn, much like gold or faith, once you have the resources improved with relevant tile improvements. They're mostly useful for allowing you to train and maintain military units, but there's some alternative uses as well starting in the industrial era - iron and coal together are needed to build railroads, coal, oil and uranium can provide power for your cities with the respective power plant buildings, uranium is used to develop nuclear weapons and aluminium can be used to help speed up the exoplanet expedition used to achieve a scientific victory.

With all that being said, Laurier's leader ability doesn't actually affect all strategic resources. Horses and aluminium cannot be found on tundra or snow at all. Iron, nitre and coal can be found on tundra but not snow. Thankfully, you don't need horses to train the Mountie UU; as such, you may still have some spare.

Given Canada's weakness in the domination game, and the fact heavy pollution from coal/oil power plants will hurt your diplomatic favour generation, you won't really need to use all that many strategic resources yourself. As such, you can sell off your surplus to other civs. That can potentially be a good extra source of diplomatic favours, but watch out - trading strategic resources to a warmonger that relies on that resource (such as giving iron to Rome early on) could backfire badly if they get too strong. Be careful where your resources go!

Buying tundra or snow tiles (except for mountains) costs only 50% the normal rate for Laurier, making it easier to use all his other advantages.

The biggest advantage of this ability is that it allows you to rapidly grab new tundra/snow strategic resources when you need to. It's also helpful for initial city development in tundra regions as you can quickly buy your way to bonus resources and get their strong yields.

Don't be reckless with your spending. Cities can only work so many tiles at once, and buying tiles merely because the city might find them useful later isn't especially helpful. Buying tiles later in the game will cost more, but then again, you'll find accumulating money more easily by that point so you can cover that increased cost. In the mean-time, dedicating the money you would have spent on some unnecessary tile purchases on something like a building may go a lot further.


Ultimately, Canada can create a bigger peaceful empire than many other civs because they can make good use of lands that most civs struggle in. Be sure to settle warmer lands first before filling out the tundra as it's a lot more likely rivals will take nearby plains and grasslands than it is for them to take nearby tundra. Leave enough space between cities (especially in wooded regions) so they can support lots of National Parks later via your Mountie UU.

Because other civs will tend to neglect settling in tundra, this may allow you to settle tundra colonies on other continents later on. Be sure to settle multiple cities at a time or use strong loyalty bonuses so they don't flip to the control of other civs!


The renaissance-era Reformed Church civic enables construction of the St. Basil's Cathedral wonder. All tundra tiles in its city will gain +1 food, +1 production and +1 culture, making them as good as grassland with the production of plains, and culture on top!

This wonder is obviously very lucrative for Canada, and it's worth settling a city with lots of space and eligible tundra tiles to make the most of it. While being able to stack the bonuses with mines or lumber mills is nice, what really gives Laurier the edge is his tundra farms. For most civs, even the best St. Basil's Cathedral location is going to be hampered by limited food and housing limiting the city's ability to work all the relevant tiles. But with access to tundra farms, you have enough food and housing to be able to work all those boosted tiles, and have a use for unforested flat tundra!


Laurier's leader ability has a fair amount of overlap with Russia's civ ability, and if they share a game, they'll be competing for the same land. However, there's a few nuances of note between how the abilities function, which can make things play out quite differently.

The biggest difference is that Canada is by no means a religious civ - in fact, with the Mountie UU offering a faith-free source of National Parks, Canada can safely neglect faith until the atomic era brings Rock Bands. Russia, however, gets faith from every tundra tile as well as a unique Holy Site to help them secure an early religion.

Russia's tundra bonuses directly apply to the tiles, so they get more immediate yield increases, and aren't tied to specific types of tile improvement. However, Canada gets more impactful bonuses to city development and particularly city growth. Russia's tundra cities are a great source of faith but are generally less productive than their non-tundra cities; Canadian ones lack bonus faith but are generally more productive than non-tundra cities.

When it comes to tile accumulation, Russia gets a lot of land for free while Canada only gets tile purchases discounted. That gives Russia a strong initial edge, but Canada's ability can be more useful for strategic tile accumulation (e.g. blocking off an opponent, securing a new strategic resource).

Ultimately, Canada's cities will tend to be individually better than Russian ones, but Russian ones have distinct advantages that contribute to the civ as a whole. A city's faith yield doesn't do anything for the city itself directly, but can really help the wider empire.

• Settle more conventionally lucrative city spots before you settle tundra extensively.
  
• Sell off your excess strategic resources for diplomatic favours or other useful things.

+1 diplomatic favour per turn from tourism isn't a lot, but it can pick up pretty quickly as the sources of tourism expand.

Canada's civ ability defines their gameplay, with a big incentive to play peacefully, a disincentive for other civs to fight you, and bonuses that encourage you to mix up culture and diplomacy.


It's this, and not Laurier's leader ability, which is a huge help to Canada's early game. Being immune to surprise wars means until the To Arms! Golden Age dedication arrives in the industrial era, any civ that wishes to fight you must necessarily denounce you and wait five turns first. That means they will always give you at least five turns of warning and preparation time, letting you train up defences and position military units as needed.

But that's not all. Because you'll always have time to prepare ahead of early wars, you can neglect developing an army beyond that needed to keep Barbarians at bay, in favour of other things - like training Settlers. Expand rapidly into rich territory before other civs can take it, and you'll still be able to expand into tundra as well later on.

Still, you shouldn't get complacent. Having an especially weak army will mean even five turns of preparation time might not be enough, so keep a track of the relative military strengths of each civ so you don't fall too far behind. Furthermore, because civs will always have to use a form of casus belli against you (or use an emergency), they'll always have reduced war weariness and grievance generation making them less susceptible to attrition. Finally, once civs start unlocking the To Arms! Golden Age dedication from the industrial game era onwards, they can declare war immediately after denouncing you, giving you no time to prepare.


While Canada cannot be the target of surprise wars, they also can't engage in them themselves. This can make it quite difficult to use military means to slow down a dangerous neighbouring civ (such as a religious civ nearing victory), so it helps to be extra-cautious and prepare ahead of time if you intend to go on the offensive.

Emergencies are a good way of slowing down other civs - they don't require you to denounce the target (giving them 5 turns warning and generating grievances), and, so long as you don't veer too far off the scope of the emergency, you can avoid generating grievances. It also helps you'll get bonus diplomatic favours if you win them.

Being unable to directly declare war on city-states means you can't deny their bonuses to other civs by military means without declaring war on their suzerain. As such, dedicating resources to meeting city-state quests and seeking to maximise your envoy generation will be a good idea, as you'll be able to more easily pull city-states out of rival hands. City-state alliances are also a good source of diplomatic favours, so it'll be in your interest to keep city-states around anyway.


The remaining two bonuses in the Canadian civ ability are built around the generation of diplomatic favours, so now's a good time to explain how the mechanic works and how it can be useful for you.


Diplomatic favour is a currency used to win resolutions in the World Congress, which will be necessary as a part of achieving diplomatic victory.

Before then, there is a niche use of diplomatic favours in asking for promises to be made - for a cost of 30 diplomatic favour, you can request civs not to do things like settle near your cities or to bring military units too close to you. If they comply, they gain the 30 favour. If they don't, they'll inflict grievances on you.

The World Congress forms at the start of the medieval game era. Every 30 turns, civs will be able to vote on two resolutions that have temporary or permanent effects. These two resolutions have two main options (A and B), which typically have opposite outcomes. Furthermore, resolutions can usually target a specific civ or game mechanic within the A or B options.


For example, the World Religion resolution can strengthen or weaken one specific religion.

Every civ has one free vote on each resolution, and can apply additional votes for increasing amounts of diplomatic favour. The second vote costs 10 diplomatic favour, the third costs 20, and so forth. This makes it hard for a single civ to determine the outcome of a vote without investing heavily in amassing diplomatic favours.

The outcome of these resolutions is based on whichever column (A or B) and whichever target (in the example of the World Religion resolution, which religion) receives the most votes. If a civ voted for the winning column and the winning target, they'll receive +1 diplomatic victory point! 20 diplomatic victory points are necessary to win the game. If a civ voted for the winning outcome, but a different target, they'll get a 50% diplomatic favour refund. If a civ voted for the losing outcome, they'll get a full diplomatic favour refund.

You can try to force an outcome in a favourable direction (see the World Congress subsection of the administration part of this guide for more information on what works best there), or try and anticipate what other civs want and vote accordingly for the victory point without needing to spend as much favour.

Outside of regular World Congress sessions, there may occasionally be a vote held among eligible civs to see if an emergency should be initiated. To put an emergency to a vote, 20 diplomatic favours are needed for an aid emergency, or 30 otherwise. Unlike regular World Congress resolutions, not every civ can vote in these. The only options are to vote in favour of the emergency or to vote against - the target is already predetermined.

Into the industrial game era, regular World Congress sessions will sometimes have an additional vote to determine whether a scored competition should be initiated. Scored competitions give civs typically 30 turns to generate as much points as possible for rewards at the end - the exact means of generating points depends on the specific competition. As with emergency votes, choosing whether or not to start a scored competition is a simple yes/no choice - the specific one put up to vote is pre-determined. Being on the winning side of the vote will grant you 1 diplomatic victory point.

Starting in the modern game era, regular World Congress sessions will always have a bonus World Leader vote resolution. As with regular resolutions, there is an A and B option as well as a specific target the voters get to choose. In this case, you can choose either to grant 2 diplomatic victory points to a specific civ, or remove 2. If you're leading in the diplomatic victory race, civs will try everything they can to take points away from you, so the best option may well be to vote to remove points from yourself - that way, you'll gain a point from voting for the winning outcome, offsetting the two points you lose. That also lets you save diplomatic favours for other votes.

So, diplomatic favour is a crucial component of diplomatic victory. But now we need to consider how to generate it. First of all, here's all the per-turn sources:

• +1 per tier of government (1 for classical-era governments, up to 4 for information-era governments)
  
• +2 per Renaissance Walls building if you are using the Monarchy government or its legacy card
  
• +3 if you have the Foreign Ministry tier 2 Government Plaza building.
  
• +1 per city-state you are suzerain over (doubled with the industrial-era Országház wonder, requiring the Sanitation technology)
  
• +1 for each delegation or embassy from a foreign civilization when you have a Diplomatic Quarter district.
  
• +1 for every alliance tier for every alliance you have with another full civ (for example, if you had two tier 3 alliances, one tier 2 and two tier 1, you'd gain a total of +10 diplomatic favour per turn).
  
• +1 per Pagoda building you have (requires a Holy Site with a Temple, and a religion with the Pagoda worship belief dominant in the city)
  
• +3 per Broadcast Centre building you have, if you also have the Disinformation Campaign wildcard (must be in a information or future-era Dark Age)

There's also some ways you can lose diplomatic favour per turn:

• Producing excessive carbon dioxide emissions costs up to -20 per turn. The best way to avoid this is to avoid constructing power plant buildings.
  
• Inflicting excessive grievances on other civs costs up to -10 per turn. The best way to avoid this is to avoid capturing cities in war.
  
• You will lose -5 per turn for every original capital of another full civ you control.

There's also ways you can get one-off bursts of diplomatic favour:

• You can buy diplomatic favour off other civs through trading with them. Some may charge a high price for it, so it's a good idea to have a strong gold output. You may find this method near-impossible if you're nearing victory.
  
• Making a promise with a civ grants 30 , though break it and you'll suffer a grievance penalty.
  
• Liberating a city grants 100
  
• Bringing an eliminated civ back into the game grants 200 .
  
• Successfully completing a non-aid emergency as a member grants 100 (200 for Canada).
  
• Successfully winning a non-aid emergency as the target grants 200 .
  
• Scoring in the top 25% of the World's Fair and Climate Accords scored competitions, as well as the Aid and Military Aid request emergencies, grants 100 (200 for Canada).
  
• Scoring in the top 25% of the International Space Station scored competition grants 50 (100 for Canada).
  
• Scoring in the top 50% but not the top 25% for the World's Fair and Climate Accords scored competitions, as well as the Aid and Military Aid request emergencies, grants 50 (100 for Canada).

Diplomatic favour helps you achieve a diplomatic victory, or just help you gain general benefits through World Congress resolutions. The best ways to gain it are being suzerain over city-states, being allied to lots of other civs and always voting in favour of and engaging with emergencies and scored competitions.


You'll have noticed in the preceding section that emergencies and scored competitions can be powerful sources of diplomatic favours for Canada. However, there's two big barriers to achieving that bonus - first, the emergencies and scored competitions have to be initiated in the first place, and second, you need to perform strongly enough to get any favour from it.

Aid requests and military aid requests are a kind of emergency-scored competition hybrid, and are a great source of diplomatic favours. However, you'll need enough gold to be able to compete in these competitions and get the best rewards, so make sure your realm has plenty of trade routes.

City-state, military, betrayal and nuclear emergencies require the members to wage war against the target, while religious emergencies require converting a targeted city away from the targeted civ's religion. These rest on mechanics that Canada isn't so strong at, but thankfully all you need to do to score the rewards is to win the emergency and have at least some contribution whatsoever - you don't need to be the top contributor. Look for a militaristic ally and see if you can get them to join in your war, or for religious emergencies, consider initiating a war against the target civ so you can condemn their religious units - then bring in an ally if necessary.

Scored competitions can be reliably initated as they only require passing the World Congress, unlike emergencies and aid requests which are very inconsistent. Only the World Games and the three unique Nobel Prize competitions added if Sweden's in your game do not offer any direct diplomatic favour rewards, but as the World Games offers a direct tourism bonus it's useful for Canada anyway. All scored competitions have different means of achieving points, but as a general rule, it's a good idea to focus most of your empire's production on working towards the competition's goals once one starts until you're clearly in the lead.

Ultimately, this bonus can potentially be a useful supplementary source of diplomatic favours, but it's very inconsistent. In a game where civs are more peaceful, emergencies become rarer and hence it's harder to get good rewards out of them. Scored competitions are more consistent, but whether or not you can get the best diplomatic favour rewards all depends on who your competition is.

Once Canada generates at least 100 tourism per turn, you'll receive +1 diplomatic favour per turn. Once you generate at least 200 tourism per turn, you'll receive +2 diplomatic favour per turn and so on. This means if Canada wants a diplomatic victory, they'll want to play like a cultural civ.

Thankfully, Canada comes with two handy sources of tourism to make that all possible - the Ice Hockey Rink unique improvement (offering up to +10 tourism per city close to tundra or snow) and the Mountie unique unit (making National Parks far more affordable). Wide expansion enabled by both Canada's immunity to surprise wars and Laurier's tundra-settling advantages means you can get a lot of cities with Theatre Squares generating GWAMs as well for Great Works and hence more tourism.

This also means that Canada will always have a strong cultural backup if a diplomatic victory doesn't appear possible, and vice versa.

Alternatively, if you want to double down on cultural victory, you can consider selling off your diplomatic favours for gold or other things. Diplomatic favours can be extremely valuable to other civs, and they may offer some very lucrative deals.

• Your immunity to surprise wars means pre-industrial warmongers must give you warning - this means you can neglect your military in favour of expansion.
  
• Always approve emergencies (if you are not the target) and scored competitions, and always try to compete in them.
  
• Maximise your tourism output as if you were playing a cultural game, even if you're aiming for diplomatic victory.

Ice Hockey Rinks offer strong potential culture yields, and tourism soon enough. They can also help you manage a large, growing empire with their amenity bonus, but there's quite a few harsh limitations as well. You can only build them on tundra or snow, they can only be built once per city, and they arrive later in the game than any other unique improvement.

Thankfully, despite being an industrial-era civic, Colonialism can be researched relatively quickly. From the renaissance-era Humanism civic (which unlocks Art and Archaeological Museums which are both good sources of culture), there's a direct line of civics all the way to the atomic-era Cultural Heritage civic. Both Colonialism and Conservation (needed for Mounties) are along the way. If you've been investing heavily in a culture infrastructure, you can reach both civics long before many non-cultural civs can.

Ice Hockey Rinks should, where possible, be built on a tile surrounded by tundra and snow, and not adjacent to a mountain. If their city already has an Entertainment Complex among some tundra or snow, place the Ice Hockey Rink next to it so it can benefit from Stadium adjacency later. Alternatively, position them next to old-growth woods or other areas with reasonable appeal so you can boost them further and make them good spots for National Parks later on. A third possibility is to position multiple Ice Hockey Rinks from different cities next to a future Stadium spot, so one Stadium can boost them all simultaneously.

With a yield up to +6 culture per turn, Ice Hockey Rinks can be worth working to get you through to key later civics like Conservation, Suffrage and Professional Sports sooner.

With the modern-era Flight technology, Ice Hockey Rinks will produce tourism based on their culture yield, making each one potentially better than a Great Work. That being said, while the per-tile output is good, the inability to build more than one Ice Hockey Rink per city means they'll tend to have an overall tourism output inferior to other culture-based tile improvements other civs can build.


With the atomic-era Professional Sports civic, Ice Hockey Rinks gain +2 food and +2 production. This means you'll almost always be able to spare a citizen to work them for the culture bonus. Professional Sports also allows you to build Stadiums, and if an Ice Hockey Rink is adjacent to a Stadium, they gain an additional +4 culture. This notably means that not only can Ice Hockey Rinks yield a great bonus of +10 culture, +2 food and +2 production, but that bonus isn't that hard to reliably achieve!


The Ice Hockey Rink neatly ties Laurier's leader ability to the Canadian civ ability by making tundra and snow cities provide a welcome boost to tourism, which can help you on the way to more diplomatic favours. All that being said, the bonus isn't as big as the potential tourism advantage that Mounties can give you via their National Parks, though thanks to the large appeal boost of Ice Hockey Rinks, the two can work together rather well.

Mounties are not your standard unique unit. They're a standalone unit with no upgrade path, but hence never obsoletes. They also have poor strength for their era, making them bad for offensive warfare outside some niche uses. But what really gives them an edge is the ability to create National Parks, offering you an affordable means of creating lots of them without needing a faith infrastructure. This allows a cultural victory-inclined Canada to potentially ignore Holy Sites until Rock Bands enter the game in the atomic era, and dedicate late-game faith purely towards Rock Bands.


Mounties require the modern-era Conservation civic, which is only two civics from Colonialism (needed for Ice Hockey Rinks). If your culture output is reasonably strong, it's a fast civic to beeline, and you could get it while less culturally-inclined civs are still researching in the renaissance era.

At an initial cost of 290 production, Mounties are actually cheaper than Cavalry (330 production), which have the same amount of strength. You can speed this up further by getting to the Ideology civic for the Lightning Warfare policy card. Still, it's worth training some in the mean-time to help greatly boost your tourism output. You can alternatively buy them with gold at a cost of 1,160 each, or even with faith via the Grand Master's Chapel for a fixed cost of 580 each, but the production method is fine.


Mounties are best-considered as a kind of unique Naturalist unit with several notable differences:

• They produce twice as many National Parks per unit.
  
• They're significantly cheaper to produce, can be produced by production and gold, and don't raise in price per unit.
  
• However, they have a maintenance cost of 3, unlike Naturalists which, like other civilian units, lack a maintenance cost.
  
• They can defend themselves, so they won't be instantly destroyed by enemy military units.
  
• They have 5 movement points rather than 4, helping them get to an appropriate National Park spot sooner.
  
• They have 4 sight rather than 2, allowing them to serve a scouting or spying role.
  
• You get to keep the unit after using their National Park charges.

The biggest advantage is their relatively low cost, allowing you to spam them until you run out of National Park spots while you have faith spare for other uses.


National Parks can be created on a vertical diamond of tiles owned by the same city which either are land tiles with at least 2 appeal (charming) or are coastal natural wonder tiles. They grant 2 amenities to their closest city, 1 to the four closest other cities in your empire, and tourism equal to the combined appeal of their four tiles.

Mountains may be included in National Parks, and are always considered to be worth 4 appeal. Other tiles have appeal primarily based on adjacent tiles. A more complete guide to tile appeal can be found in the guide to America, but here's a condensed version:

• +2 from adjacent: Old-growth woods, natural wonders (+4 for Uluru/Cliffs of Dover), city parks, Ice Hockey Rinks
  
• +1 from adjacent: Coast tiles, mountains, at least one adjacent river or lake (capped at +1), second-growth woods, oases, Canals, Dams, Entertainment Complexes, Preserves, Theatre Squares, Water Parks, wonders
  
• -1 from adjacent: Floodplains, marsh, rainforest, pillaged improvements, mines, quarries, oil wells, offshore oil rigs, airstrips, Aerodromes, Encampments, Industrial Zones, Spaceports
  
• All tiles in a city gain +4 appeal if it has the Golden Gate Wonder
  
• All tiles in a city gain +2 appeal if the Great Engineer Charles Correa retired there
  
• All tiles in a city gain +1 appeal if the Great Engineer Alvar Aalto retired there
  
• All tiles in your empire gain +2 appeal if you have the modern-era Eiffel Tower wonder (requires the Steel technology).

Old-growth woods are quite plentiful in tundra regions while floodplain, marsh and rainforest is absent, so you'll be able to make some strong National Parks initially. Growing new woods with your Builders is a good way to maximise the yields of new National Parks.

Aside from boosting the appeal yield, there's a couple of further ways to boost National Park tourism:

• With a Golden Age in the atomic era or later, you can choose the Wish You Were Here dedication for +100% tourism from National Parks.
  
• The Golden Gate wonder grants +100% tourism to its city's National Parks.

With the National Park charges used, you'll still have a Mountie unit available. Their base strength of 62 is on a par with earlier-arriving Cavalry units, but near an owned National Park they have a respectable 72 strength which just a bit behind the strength of Infantry units. Given their low maintenance cost and good mobility, they can make decent defenders for your civ for an era or two. Consider forming Mounties which have depleted their build charges into corps and armies so they're a little less vulnerable away from their National Parks.

Mounties can also play a support role thanks to their uniquely high sight. Most units have a sight radius of 2, allowing them to view up to 18 tiles at once (not including the tile they're occupying). Mounties, however, have a radius of 4, allowing them to view up to 60 tiles at once! Positioned near a border, they can allow you to spy on another civ's territory. In isolated tundra regions, their high sight can be useful to prevent Barbarians from spawning, making it easy to settle there later. Finally, in war-time, they can provide a line of sight for units with a high attack range like Artillery supported with an Observation Balloon.

Once atomic-era aircraft become commonplace, the sight advantages of Mounties become more niche, while their low strength means they'll struggle to continue to be useful in a defensive role. They'll still be useful in their core function as low-cost sources of National Parks.

• A cultural Canada doesn't need to build a faith infrastructure until the atomic era, when Rock Bands become avaiable. This saves you production/district capacity for other things.
  
• Conservation is easy to beeline and you should do so after getting Humanism.
  
• Don't wait to start training Mounties - the sooner you can get that tourism, the better.
  
• Mounties make good spies and explorers, but mediocre defenders and are bad on the offensive.

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 is an excellent choice. You'll be able to maximise your early expansion potential by stacking a range of economic policy cards, and the lack of military cards shouldn't matter as you're immune to surprise wars. If anyone denounces you, you have time to switch to Oligarchy just before any war starts, and switch back afterwards.

Use the Ancestral Hall to help with rapid early expansion.


Monarchy is ideal for a diplomatic game. It offers influence points to help with acquiring envoys and hence city-state alliances for diplomatic favours, adds extra diplomatic favour to Renaissance Walls, and is also the fastest tier 2 government to unlock - letting you focus more on getting to Colonialism and Conservation sooner. Most significantly, it adds bonus diplomatic favour for renaissance walls. Merchant Republic is a fairly versatile alternative.

Go with the Foreign Ministry for your building. As a civ with advantages in the diplomatic game, Canada should aim to be suzerain over at least a couple of city-states for additional diplomatic favours. Cheap and more powerful levied units means that you can safely neglect your military for a while longer, knowing that if you're attacked or an emergency comes up, you can rapidly throw together a cheap force to help handle it. And, of course, the bonus diplomatic favour is always useful.


Democracy is ideal for a peaceful game where you have lots of allies. Stronger trade routes with allies is particularly good for developing your tundra cities, which will start to really grow in this point in the game thanks to Replaceable Parts' farm yield bonus.

The National History Museum makes storing Great Works less of a hassle, helping you to maximise your tourism output.


Digital Democracy offers the most diplomatic policy card slots, and is a reliably good choice. If war is a major risk, consider Corporate Libertarianism instead to avoid the strength penalty Digital Democracy has.



Colonisation (Economic, requires Early Empire) - Canada's weakness at the military game means you'll want to settle rather than conquer land, but the immunity to surprise wars means you can put fewer resources in a defensive military and more in expansion.

Land Surveyors (Economic, requires Early Empire) - This neatly complements Laurier's leader ability to make tundra and snow tiles extremely cheap to purchase.


Equestrian Orders (Military, requires Military Training) - If you really feel like cornering the iron market, you can use this policy card to get even more out of tundra iron spots.


Colonial Offices (Diplomatic, requires Exploration) - Many civs will leave tundra regions alone, letting you settle in them later. However, the loyalty penalties can be quite severe from settling so close to another civ, so pick up this card and others like it to help.

Drill Manuals (Military, requires Mercantilism) - Want even more nitre? Take this policy card.


Expropriation (Economic, requires Scorched Earth) - Cuts the cost of buying snow and tundra even further, and if there's still any tundra/snow spots left unsettled on the map, you can train Settlers faster to track them down. Even a snow city with few resources could be worth an easy +6 tourism with an Ice Hockey Rink.

Public Works (Economic, requires Civil Engineering) - Builders will become heavily in demand for Canada at this point in the game - whether it's for building Ice Hockey Rinks, developing farms ready for when Replaceable Parts greatly ups their yields, or for developing second-growth woods to enhance National Parks.


Levee en Masse (Military, requires Mobilisation) - Need a cheap defence? With this policy card, Mounties will cost a mere 1 gold per turn to maintain.

Lightning Warfare (Military, requires Ideology) - Allows you to train Mounties faster, helping you get all the National Parks you need.

Resource Management (Military, requires Conservation) - Get even more oil out of your tundra or snow oil wells.


Heritage Tourism (Economic, requires Cultural Heritage) - Tourism is obviously helpful for any cultural civ, but Canada specifically benefits from tourism boosts as the more base tourism is generated, the more diplomatic favours they generate.

Music Censorship (Diplomatic, requires Space Race) - National Parks and Ice Hockey Rinks together will be producing a lot of amenities, and if you've been maximising your tourism output, you've most likely been generating a lot of culture along the way as well giving you good defence against rival cultural civs. As such, you can more afford to make use of this policy card than most civs. Just be sure you're not giving up a more relevant diplomatic bonus in the process.

Satellite Broadcasts (Economic, requires Space Race) - +200% tourism for Great Works of Music, helping you on the way to more diplomatic favours or cultural victory.

Sports Media (Economic, requires Professional Sports) - Stadiums make adjacent Ice Hockey Rinks produce greater yields, so you'll want to build plenty. With this policy card, you can boost their yields even further, while also getting a bit more culture out of your Theatre Squares.


Note that Online Communities (Economic, requires Social Media) does not boost your base tourism output and hence doesn't have synergy with Canada's civ ability. It's still worthwhile if you're playing a cultural game, but Canada has no distinct advantage for using it over other cultural civs.


Diplomatic Capital (Wildcard, requires Smart Power Doctrine) - Extra diplomatic favour to complement your existing sources.

Rabblerousing (Wildcard, requires Information Warfare) - A little extra diplomatic favour.

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

Hic Sunt Dracones (Golden Age, Renaissance to Modern eras) - Excellent for settling the untouched tundras of the world, and ensuring your cities won't flip from your control too quickly.

Robber Barons (Dark Age, Industrial to Information eras) - Canada's National Parks and Ice Hockey Rinks will generate a lot of amenities, so the downside shouldn't be a problem. The gold and production bonus means you can have rich, productive cities without needing to build power plants. That means you can keep your pollution levels low, avoiding the associated loss of diplomatic favour.

To Arms! (Golden Age, Industrial to Information eras) - If you really need to fight another civ, this dedication allows you to skip the normal waiting time and go to war immediately after denouncing them. It also allows you to train Mounties slightly faster.

Wish You Were Here (Golden Age, Atomic to Future eras) - A must-have for Canada, and try to get plenty of era score so you can keep it going as long as possible. It boosts National Park tourism by 100% in all cities, as well as boosting world wonder tourism by 50% in cities with Governors.

Disinformation Campaign (Dark Age, Information to Future eras) - Builds on Canada's theme of mixing cultural and diplomatic strengths by granting you diplomatic favours for every Broadcast Tower you own. Sure, there's a culture and science penalty, but it's manageable by this point.

Automation Warfare (Golden Age, Future era) - Hit a future-era Heroic Age? You can boost your uranium output even further, and enjoy a free Giant Death Robot to help keep you defended.


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 relevant votes that have high relevance for this civ relative to other civs.

Aid Request - Always vote in favour unless winning the emergency seems impossible

Aid requests are a great source of diplomatic favour, and a potential source of diplomatic victory points.

City-State Emergency - Always vote in favour unless winning the emergency seems impossible

Winning the emergency grants you favour. Liberating a city grants you favour. Liberating a city-state makes you suzerain, granting you favour. It's all good.

Climate Accords - Always vote in favour

Potentially a lot of diplomatic favour, or possibly even a diplomatic victory point.

International Space Station - Vote in favour unless scientific civs are a major threat

Could provide you with a nice supply of diplomatic favour, but bonuses on offer to scientific civs could really help them speed up their victory, so be wary of this!

Military Aid - Always vote in favour

Another potentially great source of diplomatic favours and maybe even a couple of diplomatic victory points.

Military Emergency - Always vote in favour unless winning the emergency seems impossible

Winning the competition will grant you 200 diplomatic favours, as well as weakening a potential threat.

Nuclear Emergency - Always vote in favour unless winning the emergency seems impossible

Winning the competition will grant you 200 diplomatic favours, as well as weakening a potential threat.

Public Relations - Effect A (The chosen player generates 100% more grievances, and other players generate 100% more grievances toward this player) targeting a civ that's a major warmonger

By targeting a civ that's generating a lot of grievances, you can increase the odds they trigger a military aid request.

Religious Emergency - Always vote in favour unless winning the emergency seems impossible

Failing a religious emergency causes the target's religion to spread substantially, which can cost you the game if you're not careful! But if there's a good shot at success, you can get some diplomatic favour out of this, plus a relic to generate some tourism.

Urban Development Treaty - Effect A (+100% production towards buildings in this district) on Entertainment Complexes in the the atomic era or later, or Theatre Squares in any era

Rapidly developing Entertainment Complexes allows you to build Stadiums and enhance Ice Hockey Rinks sooner, but otherwise, boosting Theatre Square production will help you boost your GWAM output, aiding you in securing more Great Works and therefore tourism.

World Religion - Effect B (All players may condemn units of the chosen religion, and doing so grants 25 diplomatic favor) for a powerful rival religion

Given Canada's inability to declare surprise wars makes it hard to suddenly condemn rival religious units, try using this dedication instead as a workaround. Plus, you get some diplomatic favour on top!

World's Fair - Always vote in favour unless your Great Person Points generation is very low

An extra source of diplomatic favour that'll be boosted by the Canadian civ ability.

Dance of the Aurora - A good way to make use of Canada's skew towards tundra regions for bonus faith.

God of Craftsmen - Seeking out a lot of strategic resources in the tundra? Now you can make them even more productive.

Goddess of the Hunt - An excellent complement to Canada's +2 food bonus for tundra camps. If you have a lot of deer near your start, this may well be the strongest pantheon for Canada.

Religious Idols - Tundra/snow mines on non-strategic resources can now produce faith in addition to their good production yield.

Religious Settlements - An excellent choice to speed up early-game expansion thanks to the bonus Settler.


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

Defender of the Faith (Enhancer) - Canada's immunity to surprise wars gives you a little bit of time to prepare - enough time to spread your faith to your border cities and get this helpful defensive bonus up and running.

Pagoda (Worship) - Bonus diplomatic favour to build on Canada's existing advantages.

Reliquaries (Follower) - A powerful early source of tourism (and maybe even diplomatic favours) if used effectively - though it does mean you'll need to invest heavily in Holy Sites for faith to be able to afford Apostles in decent quantities.


Geneva (Scientific) - Canada is very much built around peaceful play outside of emergencies, so it's easy to get this handy science boost.

Johannesburg (Industrial) - Searching for a range of tundra resources will pay off with a strong production boost.

Taruga (Scientific) - Canada's incentive to search for strategic resources in tundra areas means this city-state could be a decent source of science.

Temple of Artemis (Ancient era, Archery technology) - Deer are a common bonus resource in tundra regions, so you can potentially make a really strong city with this wonder.

Angkor Wat (Medieval era, Medieval Faires civic) - Been expanding rapidly thanks to your ability to use tundra effectively and your immunity to surprise wars? Enjoy a huge empire-wide boost to population. Every point of population is worth 0.5 science, 0.3 culture and whatever yield the new citizen works, and that could really add up nicely in a large empire.

St. Basil's Cathedral (Renaissance era, Reformed Church civic) - The religious tourism bonus may be moderately useful in its own right, but obviously you're here for the tundra bonuses. Build this wonder in a city with lots of tundra tiles and enjoy tiles which have the food of grassland, the production of plains and some culture on top, but can still be improved with farms, strong mines or strong lumber mills. If the city has a lot of tundra hills and is eligible to build Ruhr Valley as well, do so - the results will be amazing.

Ruhr Valley (Industrial era, Scientific Theory technology) - You can make your decent tundra mines even better, but combine this with St. Basil's Cathedral for something truly special. Tundra mines enhanced by both wonders and Laurier's leader ability will have a massive +8 production yield, on top of +2 food and +1 culture.

Statue of Liberty (Industrial era, Civil Engineering civic) - Many civs will ignore tundra regions, allowing you to colonise them. However, loyalty can be a problem. Rush this wonder with an appropriate Great Person or heavy use of internal trade routes, however, and you can fix that issue. Of course, this wonder is also really effective for helping your diplomatic victory aims, but that doesn't have specific synergy with Canada any more than it does any other diplomatic civ.

Cristo Redentor (Modern era, Mass Media civic) - A helpful boost to tourism for your cultural victory or diplomatic favour aims.

Eiffel Tower (Modern era, Steel technology) - Given how many National Parks Mounties can help you create, this wonder could potentially be a huge tourism boost. Of course, it also helps ski resorts, seaside resorts and neighbourhoods as well.

Golden Gate Bridge (Modern era, Combustion technology) - The placement requirements mean only a few cities will be eligible to build this wonder. If possible, try to do so in a city with a lot of spare land available. Then, once the wonder is built, you can use the huge appeal boost to cover all available land with powerful National Parks.

Amundsen-Scott Research Station (Atomic era, Rapid Deployment civic) - Settling snow cities will finally pay off with a nice boost to production and science.

Biosphère (Atomic era, Synthetic Materials technology) - An extra tourism boost.


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 the modern-era Great Merchant Sarah Breedlove and the atomic-era Great Merchant Melitta Bentz will boost your tourism against specific civs, but not your base tourism output. This means they cannot help you get more diplomatic favours via the Canadian civ ability. They're still useful for aiding cultural victory, but lacks specific synergy with Canada's uniques.


Themistocles (Great Admiral) - It's worth saving Great Generals and Admirals which provide loyalty bonuses so you can use them later to secure tundra colonies. Many civs often leave tundra regions unsettled until late in the game, which gives you a great opportunity to take them before they do.


Æthelflæd (Great General) - Grants +2 loyalty per turn to their city.


Ferdinand Magellan (Great Admiral) - Grants +4 loyalty per turn to their city.

Ibn Khaldun (Great Scientist) - Once Mounties become available, you'll be able to secure vast amounts of amenities from National Parks. Ibn Khaldun magnifies the non-food yield bonuses from them.


James Young (Great Scientist) - Revealing oil early helps you grab those tiles before other civs can, and helps indicate where your Builders need to go ahead of you researching the Refining technology, helping you get more oil, sooner.

Joesph Paxton (Great Engineer) - To make the most of Ice Hockey Rinks, you need to build Stadiums. However, cities without tundra or snow can't build Ice Hockey Rinks, and as such don't have as much need for Stadiums. As such, extending the amenity range of one can help reach more cities away from the poles.

Simon Bolivar (Great General) - Grants +4 loyalty per turn to their city.


Alvar Aalto (Great Engineer) - +1 appeal to all his city's tiles, helping to produce greater amounts of tourism from National Parks.

Matthew Perry (Great Admiral) - Canada lacks bonuses to envoy generation unlike quite a few other diplomatic civs, so competing in the race for city-state suzerain status can be difficult. Matthew Perry overrides this disadvantage by outright flipping a city-state's suzerain status to you, no matter how many envoys are stacked there from other civs.

Stamford Raffles (Great Merchant) - Serves two useful purposes: Can secure you a tundra colony by annexing a city-state and offering an impressive +10 loyalty boost there, and also cuts off a diplomatic rival from having a suzerain city-state.

Togo Heihachiro (Great Admiral) - Grants +6 loyalty per turn to their city.


Mary Leakey (Great Scientist) - Makes artefacts grant +200% tourism, which can help you with the accumulation of more diplomatic favours.

Sudirman (Great General) - Grants +6 loyalty per turn to their city.


Charles Correa (Great Engineer) - Grants +2 appeal to all his city's tiles, helping to produce greater amounts of tourism from National Parks.

Kenzo Tange (Great Engineer) - Grants tourism in a city based on their districts' adjacency bonuses.

Jamseth Tata (Great Merchant) - Makes Campuses provide +10 tourism each. Considering the tourism boosts from the Computers technology and Environmentalism civic, just seven Campuses will provide enough tourism for an extra diplomatic favour point per turn!

Masaru Ibuka (Great Merchant) - Makes Industrial Zones provide +10 tourism each.

Canada is a civ inclined towards peace, mixing cultural and diplomatic strengths. They're strongest later in the game, so if you want to weaken them, it helps to do so before they reach the modern era.



An immediately noticable impact of Canada's civ ability is you can't simply declare a surprise war on them - you have to denounce them first, then use a formal war or a form of casus belli after five turns have passed. If you have the To Arms! Golden Age dedication (available from the industrial to information eras) you can ignore that waiting time and declare war immediately after a denouncement, but until then, you'll have to work around that 5-turn delay.

Warmongers have two good options against Canada - either bring overwhelming force so the 5-turn preparation time is insufficient, or attack from an angle they're not expecting (if you border them, attack them from an opposite side for example) so their preparation doesn't work as effectively.

All this being said, you can twist this around to an advantage. Because you can't use surprise wars against Canada, you'll have to use kinds of war which produce fewer grievances and less war weariness.

For non-warmongers, denouncing Canada might put them in a defensive stance even if you don't attack them, making them put fewer resources into things like early expansion.


Canada's surprise war ban works both ways - it means that if Canada hasn't denounced you, they'll only be able to declare war on you under very specific conditions (an emergency or attacking one of your allies). This means if you start near Canada, you can neglect your defences near them in favour of defending against a different neighbour, or you can expand extensively near them safe in the knowledge they will have to give you warning before a military retaliation.


A city-state surrounded by Canadian cities is going to be safe unless Canada is at war with their suzerain. If a civ prone to conquering city-states like Germany is on the map, you might want to favour sending your envoys to city-states that are near Canada - they'll last longer.


While Canada has the potential to get quite a bit of bonus diplomatic favour here, there's two key conditions that must be met.

First, the emergency or scored competition must actually go ahead - voting them down will either prevent Canada from having the opportunity to get favour from them, or it'll go ahead and you'll get your spent diplomatic favours back.

Secondly, Canada must either win the emergency or place in the top half of civs in the scored competitions to win bonuses. Declaring war on Canada is a good way of making it hard for them to achieve those goals. If you don't want a war, you can try helping out the emergency target (for non-aid emergencies) by trading with them, try and outcompete Canada in scored competitions, or help out a rival to Canada in scored competitions.


Anything that hurts Canada's base tourism output will hurt this bonus. This includes (but is not limited to) taking wonders so they can't build them, denying them high-appeal city locations like mountain ranges or second-growth woods, taking GWAMs so they can't generate them for themselves, using Spies on Great Work Heists in their cities, pillaging their improvements to hurt their tile appeal, and so forth.

Canada's diplomatic favour can alternatively be damaged if they pollute too much. Passing World Congress resolutions to make Industrial Zone buildings or Coal Power Plants cheaper might help nudge them in that direction. Alternatively, if they're neglecting developing a power infrastructure, they may suffer from poor production hence leaving them bad at responding to an attack.


Laurier's leader ability doesn't make tundra cities really good; it merely makes them less bad and more viable. This can still be a powerful advantage - a lot more of the map is relevant to Canada allowing them to have a lot more strong cities - but if Canada is pushed into only settling tundra, they'll be at a disadvantage. Given their inability to declare surprise wars on you, you can settle right near their lands so long as you can withstand the loyalty pressures, taking non-tundra lands before they can pushing them to expand in an inferior direction.

The only strategic resources Laurier can boost the generation of are iron, nitre, coal, oil and uranium; he can't boost the generation of horses and aluminium as they don't appear in tundra or snow regions. As such, he's likely to have a stronger infantry than cavalry or air force. Excessive focus on melee infantry can leave a civ vulnerable to cavalry, while a weak air force can make a civ vulnerable to bomber-class aircraft.

Alternatively, if you want to make friends with Laurier, keep in mind that he's more likely to have spare iron, nitre, coal, oil and uranium to sell than spare horses or aluminium.


Laurier favours voting for and joining emergencies and scored competitions. He likes civs that do the same, and dislikes civs that don't.

Laurier's agenda makes him a good long-term ally as he can reliably join you on emergencies you want to get involved with, upping the chances you can succeed and get the rewards. While you'll have to outcompete him if you want the best rewards from scored competitions, he won't resent you for it. On the whole, it's not an especially hard agenda to meet.


Mounties have a 5-point disadvantage against Pike and Shot units, meaning they can be taken out even with a substantial technological disadvantage. Destroying them before they can use their build charge means Canada wastes a lot of production. Even if the Mounties have their full +10 strength bonus, promoted Pike and Shot units can still take them down with ease.

Because Canada doesn't need to spend faith on Naturalists, they'll have more spare for Rock Bands. Consider using the Music Censorship diplomatic policy card (requires the atomic-era Space Race civic) to prevent them sending Rock Bands into your lands.


Ice Hockey Rinks produce good amount of culture and tourism, but only once per city, and only in tundra/snow regions. They also don't arrive until late in the game. This tends to limit their impact relative to other tourism-granting improvements.

On the whole, there aren't a lot of great counterplay strategies for Ice Hockey Rinks specifically; it's better to target Canada's tourism generation in general. Still, if you're at war with Canada, consider pillaging their Ice Hockey Rinks - they'll heal your unit, and create a huge drop in appeal in adjacent tiles (from +2 to -1).

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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.