Civ 5 Korea Strategy

Hi guys! I would like to know what´s the best way to play Korea. When to expand, which wonders get, etc. Thanks!

Korea has always been a favorite of mine. Generally I prefer to base my strategy around the environment, but with Korea you should either be science focused or using the science bonus for expansion.

Having a tech advantage is just strong enough that it blends well with any victory type.

We think the same! What do you think is the best type of empire for Korea?

civ5freak said:

We think the same! What do you think is the best type of empire for Korea?

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Korea can go wide or tall, but you need to make your capital good regardless.

Also make sure to build the Porcelain Tower which will boost the bonuses from RAs and the boost you get from your UA.

Please somebody answer, do I have to wander spam or focus on science wonders only? Should I get wonders like chitchen itzá or pyramids anyway?

So far this is my fav civ. I'm still learning the ins and outs - just purchased civ 5 + all exp a few weeks ago - I'm loving it!!


The fellow before you posted that last thing says you can do whichever you want with Korea - so far that seems true so expand a lot or don't - either is good.

I tried to stay small (adopting tradition) but, warring factions against me would offer up cities in peace treaties after greedily attacking me. So I ended up getting bigger than I expected - adopted order to compensate - I'm guessing that's not the optimum way but, I'm going to get science victory for sure - plus I'm dominating hard with my advanced military only on prince mode so far.

I was just thinkin about starting a thread asking for Korea strategies! 8)

I think with Brave New World, they could be well suited for a cultural game, they can even stay quite small as they have their very powerful defensive UUs - hwacha and turtle ship - for protetction. I love the UUs but not having caravels is quite a tradeoff..

A fun civ to play, a bit underapreciated I guess..

It's clear from their UA is that they are best focusing on specialists and science. Your best bet for the mid/late game is using rationallism to boost specialists and academies, and freedom to boost great people generation (which feeds back into academies) and the circle is complete. Them or babylon will get you the highest science output in the game. What you wanna do with it is up to you. The 2 beakers per specialist is very strong and flexible, cause if you're going culture you can max out on Artists but still pull some decent beakers off em. Early game focus on food then once you start getting buildings with specilist slots focus on maxing out on them, including all available options like building Gardens, National Epic, using the Freedom and Rationalism trees. Enjoy!

Great Library (if you have high & marble) -> National College -> Hanging Gardens
-> *SPAM ANY BUILDABLE WONDERS* -> Leaning Tower of Pisa -> Porcelain Tower

The AIs are now crazy about building GL, so only build it if you are confident to finish it
Hanging Gardens is a MUST (imo), gives you some food to support specialist (or growth).

Oh and if you are going for war, Hwacha+Crossbowmen are probably the most OP comp that you can use until Renaissance. Use Hwacha to kill units (26 is super strong) and let the crossbowmen take down the city. You can't use this in jungle-tile favored civ though

civ5freak said:

Hi guys! I would like to know what´s the best way to play Korea. When to expand, which wonders get, etc. Thanks!

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Hi.... Koreas unique ability makes it suitable for all victory types, but particularly the science victory. If playing as Korea, you will definitely be and era ahead of others if used properly

My path to science victory:

1)First rush 'writing' tech in order to get access to the great library. Start building The Great Library.
2)Next tech to research is 'philosophy'. Done that then you get access to the national college.
3)Rush 'education' tech to get access to university and oxford university.
4)Research 'scientific theory' next. Done that then you can build a public school.
5)Rush 'future tech' to get everything else.
6)Start apollo programme once available.

Social Policiesin order of adopting)
Tradition--> Aristocracy-> Legalism-> Landed elite-> Liberty--> Republic-> Collective Rule-> Citizenship-> Monarchy-> Rationalism--> any other policies

Things to note:
•While rushing 'education', this will be your best time to build up your early defence and improving you civ.
•Have a maximum of 2-3 cities and grow them to a size of 10 at least.
•Build more defensive units than offensive (with some ranged ones).
•Level up your first spy, then move him to your capital.
•Maintain your happiness, it helps generate science.
•Trade 'research agreementsc5gold:n) more often.

I wonder...

Would it be wise to go for a high faith generation as Korea? I mean, found a religion, and get the Messiah Enhancer, and plant some Holy Sites. If you have high enough faith generation, you can utilize the UA even more. Not sure if full Piety would be a good idea, but maybe it could work on the mid difficulties (Prince to Emperor)?

Then again, I'm as usual theory crafting again...

AIcivs said:

Hi.... Koreas unique ability makes it suitable for all victory types, but particularly the science victory. If playing as Korea, you will definitely be and era ahead of others if used properly

My path to science victory:

1)First rush 'writing' tech in order to get access to the great library. Start building The Great Library.
2)Next tech to research is 'philosophy'. Done that then you get access to the national college.
3)Rush 'education' tech to get access to university and oxford university.
4)Research 'scientific theory' next. Done that then you can build a public school.
5)Rush 'future tech' to get everything else.
6)Start apollo programme once available.

Social Policiesin order of adopting)
Tradition--> Aristocracy-> Legalism-> Landed elite-> Liberty--> Republic-> Collective Rule-> Citizenship-> Monarchy-> Rationalism--> any other policies

Things to note:
•While rushing 'education', this will be your best time to build up your early defence and improving you civ.
•Have a maximum of 2-3 cities and grow them to a size of 10 at least.
•Build more defensive units than offensive (with some ranged ones).
•Level up your first spy, then move him to your capital.
•Maintain your happiness, it helps generate science.
•Trade 'research agreementsc5gold:n) more often.

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Reminds me of my Prince/King strategy.

1) Beeline Writing, build GL
2) make sure Calendar is researched before GL finishes
3) Then you can choose Philosophy for your free tech, which is good because
4) it's more advanced than any other tech in that era
5) puts you in classical era
6) means you can get on national college right away
7) with luck, you can have GL and NC by turn 60 or so. Now start founding your other cities.

The drawbacks are that early game expansion is slowed and you won't have much military either till turn 60 +








BTW I dont have Korea or Babylon, is there a way i can get them? Bought Vanilla on Steam then added G&K a few months later followed by BNW.... but not the bundle that gives all 3 plus korea/bablyon (which would have been cheaper than buying separately... but i never realised i'd like the game so much).

I´m trying a some what new strategy with Korea. Normally I try and build the library and the NC asap but this time I decided to hard build the libraries in 3 cities before building the NC to get the population up in Seul since building science buildings in Korea works as a RA. So my idea is more pop means a stronger tech push when I build the library in Seul, I had more then 10 citizens when the library was built. And then I build the NC and it took 10-11 turns and during that time my science had gone up a lot since then Korea had extra science from the library. And as it is I could start building universities as soon as I finished with the NC. NC at turn 110 and university at turn 120 is perhaps not great but my city is growing out of control (starting to get happiness issues) and the science is good.

Oh and it is on Emperor and my closest neighbors are Sweden, Etophia...and Genghis Khan. Lucky me, Gustav and Rastaman fight with Genghis (think they really like those city states he goes to war against) and are friendly towards me. I will try to stay out of trouble and are beelining Physics now. I really need Notre Dane so I can keep growing and Koreas UU Hwachas are a great defensive weapon.

Should their high range strength mean I will rise in the rankings for soldiers? I am dead last right now but 3-4 of those should push me up the standings should it not?

Any particular reason we're picking Order for Korea? Freedom seems a no-brainer for them, with Korea's specialist and GP improvement bonuses.

Idk.. it seems that freedom can be used as a pre ideology. I dont even consider freedom an ideology since you could change to autocracy or order if freedom fails.

In BNW, freedom gives half unhappiness for specialists and Korea gives specialists +2 science. If happiness was your reason for Order, get the happiness bonus for specialists.

Pick Korea -> Win

Silverman6083 said:

Pick Korea -> Win

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Pretty much. It takes a lot of messing up to not win with Korea. Anything below King definitely. I think I won my last Korea game 35 techs ahead of second place thanks to funding both sides of every research agreements.

Just won my fastest SV on emperor, turn 320 (1900). Not impressive but my economy was really bad until I got to the later stages so I did not sign one single RA even do I was friendly with a lot of them.

And the other civs tried for a cultural win meaning I probably missed out on a GS or two with the 33% penalty from the world congress.

I am a little bit disappointed that I did not win earlier, could not have gotten much better city locations with lots of grassland and jungle and a river that I managed to place all the cities along. Had a natural wonder in my capital (the one that gives food and culture and altitude upgrade) so managed to build an observatory to.
Ended up with 3 cities and total population of 50 m. One 40+ city and two 25+ cities. And then I had just built hospitals and medical labs towards the end of the game, I reckon it would not take long to have a 50+ and two 30+ cities.

Any tips for a quicker win? I did take some detours to get a couple of wonders but mostly I beelined as I think I should have and I stayed out of wars. One of the reasons my economy was bad was because I had to upgrade my units all the time so that Sweden and the Mongols would not get any funny ideas.