Trickster7135
Prince
Note: This article is out of date, the latest version is here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=469176.
EMPIRE MANAGEMENT
Empire Management is a huge facet of Civilization 5, and learning how to do so correctly is one of the primary tests of skill that allows you to play at higher difficulties more effectively. Empire Management is a rather broad term though, as it governs not only how you run your empire, but the choices you make in regard to your civilization, social policies, and religion. Effective empire management allows all your choices to be complementary. There are two main choices to make even before you start your game, and those are: are you planning to win peacefully or by conquest, and do you want to build fewer larger cities or many smaller cities? Winning peacefully doesn't mean playing peacefully, however. If you plan to win peacefully but find an enemy AI settling cities close to your start position, it is usually a good choice to take them out early to give yourself breathing room and space to settle yourself. Large cities have high populations and are typically excellent at building wonders and units, while small cities generate science and gold more effectively. Even when choosing to have many small cities, you will still have a couple of large cities where you focus production, although to a lesser extent than choosing to make all your cities large cities. There are a total of five different empire management strategies, one for each combination of those two choices, as well as a fifth outlier that seems similar but behaves very differently from the rest.
Tall and Wall: a peaceful empire that focuses on a few large cities. Tall and Wall is the easiest type of empire to manage, and is the best for producing wonders and units. It does suffer when producing science and gold, as though it will quickly build buildings that modify those resources, it has the slowest population growth.
Sprawl and Wall: a peaceful empire that focuses on many small cities. Sprawl and Wall will quickly grow its population to meet its happiness, and produces science and gold very effectively. It certainly takes more effort to manage though, and depends on specializing cities to produce wonders and units.
Tall and Maul: an aggressive empire that focuses on building a few large cities before warmongering. Tall and Maul shares many of the advantages of Tall and Wall, with little of the downside, as the initial cities you settle will grow to have high populations and excellent production for wonders and units. Where Tall and Wall suffers from slow population growth, Tall and Maul simple takes the populations along with the cities, meaning it also has excellent science and gold. The main drawback in this strategy is that it can by picky with which cities to keep and which to raze or sell, as it's usually only interested in keeping well placed cities.
Sprawl and Maul: an aggressive empire that focuses on many small cities. Sprawl and Maul starts off similarly to Sprawl and Wall, where you quickly settle territory and then specialize a few for production. It can then start conquering cities, and it does this especially well. It is the most aggressive strategy, and will readily keep nearly any city is conquers, and keep settling where it find room. It suffers in production though, as even with a few specialized cities, unspecialized tall cities will exceed it.
Insane City Sprawl: the outlier of the group, and by far the most reliant on micro-management. Insane City Sprawl (ICS) starts off similarly to Sprawl and Maul, but focuses on maximizing synergies and minimizing waste. It has the potential to far exceed any of the other strategies in generating resources such as science and gold.
After you decide which strategy you are going to employ, then you must get into the nuts and bolts of it. It is very important to make choices that are synergetic to your empire, and those choices will include which civilization to play, which social policies to pick, and which religious beliefs to choose. There are more choices than for these specific strategies, as many civilizations, social policies, and religious beliefs can be good for any strategy. This article doesn't factor in unique units though, as every civ has them and they are all generally useful. Not to say that some aren’t better than others, but that is a decision for military strategy, not empire management.
CIVLIZATIONS
These civilizations provide excellent benefits all strategies can take advantage of, such as benefits to science or gold, or they provide different bonuses that call strategies can take advantage of.
Arabia: Trade Caravans synergizes with all strategies except for Tall and Wall, while Bazaar particularly synergizes with Tall and Wall, and to a lesser extent, Sprawl and Wall.
Babylon: Ingenuity benefits science, which is something every civ needs. You may not run science specialists in every game, but that's a decision that's independent of how you manage your empire. Walls of Babylon might slightly skew Babylon to Tall and Wall, but defensive buildings in general are mediocre for human players.
Egypt: Monument Builders definitely favors the tall strategies, who will be building the most wonders. Burial Tomb is the opposite though, as it benefits sprawling.
England: Sun Never Sets doesn’t synergize with any strategy at all, but can be very nice depending on which map you play on.
Ethiopia: Spirit of Adwa will only be taken advantage of with a Tall and Wall empire, but Stele synergizes with the rest.
Greece: while those going for conquest aren’t trying to win diplomatically, they can still take advantage of city-states, and Hellenic League is excellent in that regard.
Korea: Scholars of the Jade Hall benefits science, in two different ways. The bonus to specialists slightly favor sprawling empires, who can field more total specialists. The bonus from wonders built favors tall empires, who will be able to build more wonders.
Persia: Achaemenid Legacy provides a bonus to golden ages, which peaceful strategies will have to most of since they usually have higher excess happiness, while the minor combat bonus during golden ages and Satrap's Court benefit sprawling empires instead.
Russia: Siberian Riches provides two bonuses: the increase production from strategic resources benefits sprawling empires who want to only work the best tiles with their smaller populations, while the doubled resources benefits tall empires who may only have limited qualities in their territories. Krepost is similar but in a less useful way: sprawling empires won't build barracks in all their cities while tall empires will be able to push their culture borders easily anyways.
Siam: Father Governs Children increases food from maritime city-states, something sprawling empires can take advantage of moreso, while the increase to faith and culture matters more to tall empires who are limited in how many buildings they can build to generate those resources. Wat provides a flat increase that favors sprawling empires, but the fact that it is a midgame building and would take awhile to build in small cities favors tall empires, making it a wash.
SOCIAL POLICIES
Most social policies obviously favor particular strategies over others. There are only a few that don't.
Piety: this social policy tree has an even mix of policies that favor some strategies over others. The opener, organized religion, and the finisher favor sprawling empires. Mandate of heaven, theocracy, and reformation favor tall empires. Reformation provides equal benefits to all strategies.
Patronage: city-states are useful for all strategies, although this obviously favors diplomatic victories. It makes for a good backup plan when warmongering if you come to a stalemate, though.
Rationalism: much like patronage, most policies benefit all strategies equally. Unlike patronage, science is always useful no matter what your plans are, and this policy should always be picked up if piety is not.
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS
There are a lot of religious beliefs, from pantheon, founder, follower, and enhancer. There are far, far too many to go over them individually, but some general tenants hold. If the belief provides a flat bonus per city or per tile, it usually favors sprawling empires. If it provides a percentage increase or bonus based on population/followers, it generally favors tall empires. A good example of this is to compared Church Property (+2 gold per city following religion) and Tithe (+1 gold for every four followers). In order for those two to be equal, a city would need to have 8 followers (not population, mind you), and would need 12 population for Tithe to exceed Church Property.
The beliefs that don’t favor any strategy would be (and this is mostly because they are all terrible): faith healers, goddess of protection, sacred path, religious settlements, papal primacy, and defender of the faith.
TALL AND WALL
Tall and Wall settles only a few cities over the course of the entire game, mostly in the early phases. It takes advantage of the free buildings provided by tradition to the first four cities founded. lt is able to build nearly every building desirable in their cities, and almost all cities will have the production to build wonders. The populations will be very large, and the culture borders will extend very far. It benefits from percentage increases to resources the most, as it has the highest populations per city and thus the highest base resources being generated. Since the empire is small, the army needed to defend it is small as well, so there is little emphasis on building military buildings or units, giving this strategy even more time to build wonders. Tall and Wall is typically the only strategy to actually build defensive buildings such as walls and castled in all its cities. This empire usually maintains the best relations with other civs, and will get the best trading opportunities. It is also the easiest to defend because the power is so centralized. Playing a one city challenge would also fall under this category, and tends to be the most extreme form of Tall and Wall. Since this is a peaceful strategy, the type of victory will be either cultural, science, or diplomatic.
CIVILIZATIONS
The best civilizations for Tall and Wall are those that support small, centralized empires.
India: There is no civ more focused on Tall and Wall than India. Population Growth is fantastic for growing your population, while Mughal Fort would only ever be built in this strategy.
Netherlands: Dutch East India Company makes your already good trade deals even better, when you can trade what few luxuries you have for luxuries you don't have, and come out better for it. Polder is basically a better farm, which you will want a lot of to boost population growth.
Sweden: Nobel Prize requires having declarations of friendship to have any effect, which can be difficult if not impossible with aggressive strategies. The extra influence to city-states really helps diplomatic victories.
SOCIAL POLICIES
For Tall and Wall, the choices for social policies is rather simple. In addition to the general ones listed above, the Tradition and Freedom policy trees are the best choices. Honor and Autocracy usually aren’t worth investing in, as you simply won't get into that much combat with this strategy. Most of the bonuses for Liberty, Commerce, and Order scale per city, which makes them poor choices when you only have so few cities in total.
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS
Faith is something that can be difficult for Tall and Wall to accumulate. Since there's no late game faith buildings, you are forced to build wonders that generate faith to accumulate it quickly. Also due to the mechanics of how faith spreads, you will heavily rely on missionaries and great prophets to spread it.
Dance of the Aurora, Desert Folklore, Goddess of Festivals, One with Nature, Religious Idols, Stone Circles, Divine Inspiration, Monasteries, and Reliquary: Sprawling empires typically only want to work the best tiles, and half of these beliefs boost rather poor tiles. The other half boost rather rare tiles, which can be plentiful in small groups but rare overall. These are all heavily dependent on your start, of course, but you can usually pick up one of them. Boosts to faith are much more useful for tall empires since it is much more difficult to accumulate.
Fertility Rites and Swords into Plowshares: maximizing population growth is very important for Tall and Wall, and you will try to keep on good terms with other civs.
Monument to the Gods: this strategy will build the most wonders of all of them, and this belief helps you pick up some of the less important but still useful ones.
Interfaith Dialogue, Holy Order, Messiah, and Missionary Zeal: since you have so few cities and thus spread religion passively very slowly, bonuses to missionaries and great prophets are extremely useful.
Tithe: since this belief scales per follower, compared to Church Property which scales per city, it is a better means to generate gold for a tall empire.
Peace Loving, Pilgrimage, and World Church: only peaceful strategies can take advantage of beliefs that depend on foreign cities.
SPRAWL AND WALL
Sprawl and Wall settles many cities through the game, first clustered near the starting position, but eventually branching out into remote sections of the world. If the land has a few resources and/or some workable terrain, it's worth settling a city there. This strategy attempts to play peacefully, although it is more difficult than Tall and Wall, as many civs find land grabs threatening. It's key to maintaining good relations with civs to not grab land near their borders, or you'll end up in constant war for the rest of the game if you do. Sprawl and Wall uses bonuses that provide per city bonuses, such as those in Liberty. It's important to have a few production specialized cities, most likely the capital, where you emphasis farms and population growth along with mines and mills. The other cities are allowed to grow slowly, and are mostly filled with trading posts. Wonders can still be useful in Sprawl and Wall, and you'll build more of them than in Sprawl and Maul since you aren’t building such an extensive military. Even the tall cities won't be as tall as those in true Tall and Wall cities though, since you will lack much of the growth modifiers. Since this is a peaceful strategy, the type of victory will be either cultural, science, or diplomatic.
CIVILIZATIONS
The best civilizations for Sprawl and Wall are those that support large, dispersed empires.
Austria: Diplomatic Marriage is one of the best ways to expand peacefully even when there's no more room to do so. You don't take a diplomatic hit as you would for taking out a city-state either. You should still be cautious about taking a city-state that borders a civ, as they will incur clashing borders and build resentment. Coffee House is icing on the cake, although typically will only really benefit your production specialized cities.
Carthage: Phoenician Heritage is very powerful in watery maps, less so for continents, and only moderately useful for pangea. It is still excellent regardless, as it lets you set up trade route income instantly as well as removing maintenance to support it.
Celts: the faith per forest from Druidic Lore is nice at first, allowing you to quickly set up a religion without even building a shrine. Its usefulness wanes as time passes though, but Ceilidh Hall is exceptional for a sprawling empire, as happiness can be a real issue when you still have room to expand.
China: Art of War won't get much use in a peaceful game, but Paper Maker is great. Gold can be a real issue early in the game, especially before you research trade posts. With China, that's not much of a problem.
France: Ancien Regime is a really fantastic early in the game, and you can completely ignore culture buildings until you have finished your initial setup phase. It's better in pangea type maps where steam power is less important.
Inca: Great Andean Road will save you a lot of gold in maintenance, and allows you to move between cities much easier with workers. Terrace Farm will rarely be built, but when it is it can be ridiculous in its effectiveness. With the Inca, the number of locations you can drop a city that can support itself is certainly higher than for most civs.
Iroquois: The Great Warpath will save you a lot of time building roads, as well as maintenance to support a trade network. Longhouse ensures your production cities will really be producing a lot while still having the food to support population growth.
Maya: The Long Court is nice, but the synergy comes from Pyramid, which will ensure every city will be producing a lot of faith and science almost immediately.
Polynesia: being able to explore and settle remote islands immediately can be very powerful when playing a sprawling empire, as it allows you to sprawl even if you're closed off by neighbors on land. Make sure not to overextend though, as those remote cities will need defending. Moai is decent for a cultural victory, as it provides 1/3 of an artist specialist which can feed itself.
Rome: The Glory of Rome, despite being a percentage increase, is actually more suited for a sprawling empire than a tall one. The reason being is that by specializing your capital for production, you ensure it builds buildings quickly which then allows all the trade post cities to gain the benefit from it.
Songhai: River Warlord isn't much for this type empire, although the extra gold from barbarian huts can be nice at times. Instead, it is Mud Pyramid Mosque that is useful, providing a maintenance and free culture from an early game building.
Spain: Seven Cities of Gold is marginal but can be useful if you get lucky. Sprawling empires typically put more effort into exploration, and some of the bonuses provided by natural wonders can be very useful. Conquistador is also perfect for this kind of empire though, as it functions as a settler and scout combined with a knight to quickly explore new territory and settle cities without needing an escort.
SOCIAL POLICIES
For Sprawl and Wall, the choice for social policies is rather simple, much like with Tall and Wall. Since you have a sprawling empire, you'll want to pick up Liberty and Order, as they both provide excellent bonuses for this play style. Honor and Autocracy aren’t worth it if you're playing peacefully, and the general ones are good choices as well. Sprawl and Wall does have an additional choice in Commerce, which plays well with a trade post empire, and even more so if you have a lot of coastal cities.
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS
Compared to Tall and Wall, this strategy has a much easier time developing faith through shrines and temples, especially with Organized Religion. It is also much easier to passively spread religion, so missionaries and great prophets aren’t as important. Instead, the focus on beliefs should center on increasing the returns per city. The free great person from liberty is also a great way to found a religion, and can be well worth it if you want to get your religion up and running quickly.
Ancestor Worship, God of Craftsmen, Goddess of Love, Messenger of the Gods, Sacred Waters, Ceremonial Burial, Church Property, Initiation Rites, Asceticism, Choral Music, Feed the World, Guruship, Liturgical Drama, and Religious Center: these beliefs all scale per city, and are a great way to increase your returns without having to worry about tiles.
God of the Open Sky, God of the Sea, Goddess of the Hunt, One With Nature, and Oral Tradition: these beliefs all scale per tile, and they are all common tiles to be working. Since the population per city is generally low, you will only want them to work the best tiles, and these beliefs make the best tiles even better.
Peace Loving and World Church: only peaceful strategies can take advantage of beliefs that depend on foreign cities.
Itinerant Preachers, Religious Texts, and Religious Unity: these beliefs all enhance your passive religion spreading, allowing you to not even bother with missionaries except for remote cities. Religious Texts is the best of the three, especially after Printing Press.
Cathedrals, Mosques, and Pagodas: these buildings are excellent for a sprawling empire, as they help to create a snowball effect with faith. Say you have ten cities, each with a shrine and temple as well as Organized Religion. That right there is +5 faith per city, and adding just one of these adds another +2 or +3. You're looking at +70 or +80 faith per turn without even building a single wonder!
TALL AND MAUL
Tall and Maul starts off like Tall and Wall, settling a few cities and developing the population and infrastructure. Tall and Wall uses this time to build wonders, while Tall and Maul is preparing for war. It may still build a few key wonders, and will be better at it than the sprawling empires, but it's main focus is on the troops. This type of conquest focuses on building a strong base to continuously churn out units in war time. Since the number of cities is smaller, it will have to go through periods of peace to continue developing the infrastructure as techs are unlocked. When conquering cities, it's important to only keep the good ones - capitals and any city placed in good terrain with resources. Small cities that can't support themselves are just a drain on the resources, and not worth keeping around - raze or sell and move on. The cities that are captures can either be turned into trade post cities to generate gold for the massive armies, or developed into true tall cities by building their population and production. City-states are usually let alone or allied, as other than a luxury resource or two, they are pretty often in crappy terrain. Generally, Tall and Maul will need much more trade post cities than production cities, as it doesn't have the high free unit maintenance that sprawling empires do, although the maintenance for buildings and roads will be much less of a problem. It will never be as wealthy, although the science and population will be comparable once you start warmongering. The production will always be better in this empire, and wonders and units are much easier to build from scratch.
CIVILIZATIONS
The best civilizations for Tall and Maul are those that support aggressive, centralized empires.
Aztec: Sacrificial Captives can be a lot fun, and plays perfectly for warmongering. Floating Gardens is also good for this strategy, as rivers make great places to settle cities anyways, and the AI favors them as well.
China: Art of War is great for aggressive play, although you won't get much use out of the Paper Makers compared to a sprawling empire.
Germany: Furor Tuetonicus is at its strongest in this kind of empire, as unit maintenance is highest here. The free units are just icing on the cake.
Inca: unlike sprawling empires, the gold saved from maintenance isn't the real value here - it's the ability to move troops through hills quickly, maintaining defensive positions while moving through enemy terrain. Terrace Farm is nice but will very rarely be built, although it works well with high population cities and observatories.
India: despite being perfect for Tall and Wall, India does reasonably well with this kind of strategy. When playing India aggressively, it's even more important than usual to not keep weak and pathetic cities, as the drain will be higher thanks to Population Growth. Mughal Fort can be completely ignored, but it's not like it was very important for Tall and Wall either.
Japan: Bushido is all about fighting. Not much more to say than that.
Ottomans: for a continent map Barbary Corsairs is good, for anything with more water it is awesome. Much like with Germany, unit maintenance will be a large drain on the coffers.
Rome: The Glory of Rome won't be much of a factor in the initial cities you settle yourself, but will allow the cities you conquer to quickly build the infrastructure you desire.
SOCIAL POLICIES
For Tall and Maul, the choice of social policies depends on whether you want to focus on your empire or your military more. The first choice is either Tradition or Honor, although I would suggest Tradition to help you quickly develop your cities, since you generally delay warmongering until you've got a strong group of core cities. Piety, Patronage, and Rationalism are all fine choices. Commerce can be useful on watery maps, but most of it just isn't synergetic enough to justify investing it. The final choice will be either Autocracy, Freedom, or Order. Freedom has several weak policies, such as Universal Suffrage and Constitution, while Order's bonuses might not be much since the total number of cities you control won't be terribly high. Planned Economy is definitely the best policy in Order, although it might not be worth investing in other policies just for it. My suggestion: Autocracy, and have fun with it!
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS
Tall and Maul will have trouble building faith early in the game, unless you go for a faith wonder. The number of cities will be low, and since they are spread out, you will need missionaries and great prophets to spread religion. Basically, this strategy uses the same beliefs as Tall and Wall, with a few key differences.
Just War: well this is always fun. Spread your religion, then declare war and reap a sweet combat bonus.
Peace Loving, Pilgrimage, and World Church: don't take these, since you will be running out of foreign cities eventually from all that conquering
Swords into Plowshares: best to skip this as you will be in war fairly often.
EMPIRE MANAGEMENT
Empire Management is a huge facet of Civilization 5, and learning how to do so correctly is one of the primary tests of skill that allows you to play at higher difficulties more effectively. Empire Management is a rather broad term though, as it governs not only how you run your empire, but the choices you make in regard to your civilization, social policies, and religion. Effective empire management allows all your choices to be complementary. There are two main choices to make even before you start your game, and those are: are you planning to win peacefully or by conquest, and do you want to build fewer larger cities or many smaller cities? Winning peacefully doesn't mean playing peacefully, however. If you plan to win peacefully but find an enemy AI settling cities close to your start position, it is usually a good choice to take them out early to give yourself breathing room and space to settle yourself. Large cities have high populations and are typically excellent at building wonders and units, while small cities generate science and gold more effectively. Even when choosing to have many small cities, you will still have a couple of large cities where you focus production, although to a lesser extent than choosing to make all your cities large cities. There are a total of five different empire management strategies, one for each combination of those two choices, as well as a fifth outlier that seems similar but behaves very differently from the rest.
Tall and Wall: a peaceful empire that focuses on a few large cities. Tall and Wall is the easiest type of empire to manage, and is the best for producing wonders and units. It does suffer when producing science and gold, as though it will quickly build buildings that modify those resources, it has the slowest population growth.
Sprawl and Wall: a peaceful empire that focuses on many small cities. Sprawl and Wall will quickly grow its population to meet its happiness, and produces science and gold very effectively. It certainly takes more effort to manage though, and depends on specializing cities to produce wonders and units.
Tall and Maul: an aggressive empire that focuses on building a few large cities before warmongering. Tall and Maul shares many of the advantages of Tall and Wall, with little of the downside, as the initial cities you settle will grow to have high populations and excellent production for wonders and units. Where Tall and Wall suffers from slow population growth, Tall and Maul simple takes the populations along with the cities, meaning it also has excellent science and gold. The main drawback in this strategy is that it can by picky with which cities to keep and which to raze or sell, as it's usually only interested in keeping well placed cities.
Sprawl and Maul: an aggressive empire that focuses on many small cities. Sprawl and Maul starts off similarly to Sprawl and Wall, where you quickly settle territory and then specialize a few for production. It can then start conquering cities, and it does this especially well. It is the most aggressive strategy, and will readily keep nearly any city is conquers, and keep settling where it find room. It suffers in production though, as even with a few specialized cities, unspecialized tall cities will exceed it.
Insane City Sprawl: the outlier of the group, and by far the most reliant on micro-management. Insane City Sprawl (ICS) starts off similarly to Sprawl and Maul, but focuses on maximizing synergies and minimizing waste. It has the potential to far exceed any of the other strategies in generating resources such as science and gold.
After you decide which strategy you are going to employ, then you must get into the nuts and bolts of it. It is very important to make choices that are synergetic to your empire, and those choices will include which civilization to play, which social policies to pick, and which religious beliefs to choose. There are more choices than for these specific strategies, as many civilizations, social policies, and religious beliefs can be good for any strategy. This article doesn't factor in unique units though, as every civ has them and they are all generally useful. Not to say that some aren’t better than others, but that is a decision for military strategy, not empire management.
CIVLIZATIONS
These civilizations provide excellent benefits all strategies can take advantage of, such as benefits to science or gold, or they provide different bonuses that call strategies can take advantage of.
Arabia: Trade Caravans synergizes with all strategies except for Tall and Wall, while Bazaar particularly synergizes with Tall and Wall, and to a lesser extent, Sprawl and Wall.
Babylon: Ingenuity benefits science, which is something every civ needs. You may not run science specialists in every game, but that's a decision that's independent of how you manage your empire. Walls of Babylon might slightly skew Babylon to Tall and Wall, but defensive buildings in general are mediocre for human players.
Egypt: Monument Builders definitely favors the tall strategies, who will be building the most wonders. Burial Tomb is the opposite though, as it benefits sprawling.
England: Sun Never Sets doesn’t synergize with any strategy at all, but can be very nice depending on which map you play on.
Ethiopia: Spirit of Adwa will only be taken advantage of with a Tall and Wall empire, but Stele synergizes with the rest.
Greece: while those going for conquest aren’t trying to win diplomatically, they can still take advantage of city-states, and Hellenic League is excellent in that regard.
Korea: Scholars of the Jade Hall benefits science, in two different ways. The bonus to specialists slightly favor sprawling empires, who can field more total specialists. The bonus from wonders built favors tall empires, who will be able to build more wonders.
Persia: Achaemenid Legacy provides a bonus to golden ages, which peaceful strategies will have to most of since they usually have higher excess happiness, while the minor combat bonus during golden ages and Satrap's Court benefit sprawling empires instead.
Russia: Siberian Riches provides two bonuses: the increase production from strategic resources benefits sprawling empires who want to only work the best tiles with their smaller populations, while the doubled resources benefits tall empires who may only have limited qualities in their territories. Krepost is similar but in a less useful way: sprawling empires won't build barracks in all their cities while tall empires will be able to push their culture borders easily anyways.
Siam: Father Governs Children increases food from maritime city-states, something sprawling empires can take advantage of moreso, while the increase to faith and culture matters more to tall empires who are limited in how many buildings they can build to generate those resources. Wat provides a flat increase that favors sprawling empires, but the fact that it is a midgame building and would take awhile to build in small cities favors tall empires, making it a wash.
SOCIAL POLICIES
Most social policies obviously favor particular strategies over others. There are only a few that don't.
Piety: this social policy tree has an even mix of policies that favor some strategies over others. The opener, organized religion, and the finisher favor sprawling empires. Mandate of heaven, theocracy, and reformation favor tall empires. Reformation provides equal benefits to all strategies.
Patronage: city-states are useful for all strategies, although this obviously favors diplomatic victories. It makes for a good backup plan when warmongering if you come to a stalemate, though.
Rationalism: much like patronage, most policies benefit all strategies equally. Unlike patronage, science is always useful no matter what your plans are, and this policy should always be picked up if piety is not.
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS
There are a lot of religious beliefs, from pantheon, founder, follower, and enhancer. There are far, far too many to go over them individually, but some general tenants hold. If the belief provides a flat bonus per city or per tile, it usually favors sprawling empires. If it provides a percentage increase or bonus based on population/followers, it generally favors tall empires. A good example of this is to compared Church Property (+2 gold per city following religion) and Tithe (+1 gold for every four followers). In order for those two to be equal, a city would need to have 8 followers (not population, mind you), and would need 12 population for Tithe to exceed Church Property.
The beliefs that don’t favor any strategy would be (and this is mostly because they are all terrible): faith healers, goddess of protection, sacred path, religious settlements, papal primacy, and defender of the faith.
TALL AND WALL
Tall and Wall settles only a few cities over the course of the entire game, mostly in the early phases. It takes advantage of the free buildings provided by tradition to the first four cities founded. lt is able to build nearly every building desirable in their cities, and almost all cities will have the production to build wonders. The populations will be very large, and the culture borders will extend very far. It benefits from percentage increases to resources the most, as it has the highest populations per city and thus the highest base resources being generated. Since the empire is small, the army needed to defend it is small as well, so there is little emphasis on building military buildings or units, giving this strategy even more time to build wonders. Tall and Wall is typically the only strategy to actually build defensive buildings such as walls and castled in all its cities. This empire usually maintains the best relations with other civs, and will get the best trading opportunities. It is also the easiest to defend because the power is so centralized. Playing a one city challenge would also fall under this category, and tends to be the most extreme form of Tall and Wall. Since this is a peaceful strategy, the type of victory will be either cultural, science, or diplomatic.
CIVILIZATIONS
The best civilizations for Tall and Wall are those that support small, centralized empires.
India: There is no civ more focused on Tall and Wall than India. Population Growth is fantastic for growing your population, while Mughal Fort would only ever be built in this strategy.
Netherlands: Dutch East India Company makes your already good trade deals even better, when you can trade what few luxuries you have for luxuries you don't have, and come out better for it. Polder is basically a better farm, which you will want a lot of to boost population growth.
Sweden: Nobel Prize requires having declarations of friendship to have any effect, which can be difficult if not impossible with aggressive strategies. The extra influence to city-states really helps diplomatic victories.
SOCIAL POLICIES
For Tall and Wall, the choices for social policies is rather simple. In addition to the general ones listed above, the Tradition and Freedom policy trees are the best choices. Honor and Autocracy usually aren’t worth investing in, as you simply won't get into that much combat with this strategy. Most of the bonuses for Liberty, Commerce, and Order scale per city, which makes them poor choices when you only have so few cities in total.
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS
Faith is something that can be difficult for Tall and Wall to accumulate. Since there's no late game faith buildings, you are forced to build wonders that generate faith to accumulate it quickly. Also due to the mechanics of how faith spreads, you will heavily rely on missionaries and great prophets to spread it.
Dance of the Aurora, Desert Folklore, Goddess of Festivals, One with Nature, Religious Idols, Stone Circles, Divine Inspiration, Monasteries, and Reliquary: Sprawling empires typically only want to work the best tiles, and half of these beliefs boost rather poor tiles. The other half boost rather rare tiles, which can be plentiful in small groups but rare overall. These are all heavily dependent on your start, of course, but you can usually pick up one of them. Boosts to faith are much more useful for tall empires since it is much more difficult to accumulate.
Fertility Rites and Swords into Plowshares: maximizing population growth is very important for Tall and Wall, and you will try to keep on good terms with other civs.
Monument to the Gods: this strategy will build the most wonders of all of them, and this belief helps you pick up some of the less important but still useful ones.
Interfaith Dialogue, Holy Order, Messiah, and Missionary Zeal: since you have so few cities and thus spread religion passively very slowly, bonuses to missionaries and great prophets are extremely useful.
Tithe: since this belief scales per follower, compared to Church Property which scales per city, it is a better means to generate gold for a tall empire.
Peace Loving, Pilgrimage, and World Church: only peaceful strategies can take advantage of beliefs that depend on foreign cities.
SPRAWL AND WALL
Sprawl and Wall settles many cities through the game, first clustered near the starting position, but eventually branching out into remote sections of the world. If the land has a few resources and/or some workable terrain, it's worth settling a city there. This strategy attempts to play peacefully, although it is more difficult than Tall and Wall, as many civs find land grabs threatening. It's key to maintaining good relations with civs to not grab land near their borders, or you'll end up in constant war for the rest of the game if you do. Sprawl and Wall uses bonuses that provide per city bonuses, such as those in Liberty. It's important to have a few production specialized cities, most likely the capital, where you emphasis farms and population growth along with mines and mills. The other cities are allowed to grow slowly, and are mostly filled with trading posts. Wonders can still be useful in Sprawl and Wall, and you'll build more of them than in Sprawl and Maul since you aren’t building such an extensive military. Even the tall cities won't be as tall as those in true Tall and Wall cities though, since you will lack much of the growth modifiers. Since this is a peaceful strategy, the type of victory will be either cultural, science, or diplomatic.
CIVILIZATIONS
The best civilizations for Sprawl and Wall are those that support large, dispersed empires.
Austria: Diplomatic Marriage is one of the best ways to expand peacefully even when there's no more room to do so. You don't take a diplomatic hit as you would for taking out a city-state either. You should still be cautious about taking a city-state that borders a civ, as they will incur clashing borders and build resentment. Coffee House is icing on the cake, although typically will only really benefit your production specialized cities.
Carthage: Phoenician Heritage is very powerful in watery maps, less so for continents, and only moderately useful for pangea. It is still excellent regardless, as it lets you set up trade route income instantly as well as removing maintenance to support it.
Celts: the faith per forest from Druidic Lore is nice at first, allowing you to quickly set up a religion without even building a shrine. Its usefulness wanes as time passes though, but Ceilidh Hall is exceptional for a sprawling empire, as happiness can be a real issue when you still have room to expand.
China: Art of War won't get much use in a peaceful game, but Paper Maker is great. Gold can be a real issue early in the game, especially before you research trade posts. With China, that's not much of a problem.
France: Ancien Regime is a really fantastic early in the game, and you can completely ignore culture buildings until you have finished your initial setup phase. It's better in pangea type maps where steam power is less important.
Inca: Great Andean Road will save you a lot of gold in maintenance, and allows you to move between cities much easier with workers. Terrace Farm will rarely be built, but when it is it can be ridiculous in its effectiveness. With the Inca, the number of locations you can drop a city that can support itself is certainly higher than for most civs.
Iroquois: The Great Warpath will save you a lot of time building roads, as well as maintenance to support a trade network. Longhouse ensures your production cities will really be producing a lot while still having the food to support population growth.
Maya: The Long Court is nice, but the synergy comes from Pyramid, which will ensure every city will be producing a lot of faith and science almost immediately.
Polynesia: being able to explore and settle remote islands immediately can be very powerful when playing a sprawling empire, as it allows you to sprawl even if you're closed off by neighbors on land. Make sure not to overextend though, as those remote cities will need defending. Moai is decent for a cultural victory, as it provides 1/3 of an artist specialist which can feed itself.
Rome: The Glory of Rome, despite being a percentage increase, is actually more suited for a sprawling empire than a tall one. The reason being is that by specializing your capital for production, you ensure it builds buildings quickly which then allows all the trade post cities to gain the benefit from it.
Songhai: River Warlord isn't much for this type empire, although the extra gold from barbarian huts can be nice at times. Instead, it is Mud Pyramid Mosque that is useful, providing a maintenance and free culture from an early game building.
Spain: Seven Cities of Gold is marginal but can be useful if you get lucky. Sprawling empires typically put more effort into exploration, and some of the bonuses provided by natural wonders can be very useful. Conquistador is also perfect for this kind of empire though, as it functions as a settler and scout combined with a knight to quickly explore new territory and settle cities without needing an escort.
SOCIAL POLICIES
For Sprawl and Wall, the choice for social policies is rather simple, much like with Tall and Wall. Since you have a sprawling empire, you'll want to pick up Liberty and Order, as they both provide excellent bonuses for this play style. Honor and Autocracy aren’t worth it if you're playing peacefully, and the general ones are good choices as well. Sprawl and Wall does have an additional choice in Commerce, which plays well with a trade post empire, and even more so if you have a lot of coastal cities.
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS
Compared to Tall and Wall, this strategy has a much easier time developing faith through shrines and temples, especially with Organized Religion. It is also much easier to passively spread religion, so missionaries and great prophets aren’t as important. Instead, the focus on beliefs should center on increasing the returns per city. The free great person from liberty is also a great way to found a religion, and can be well worth it if you want to get your religion up and running quickly.
Ancestor Worship, God of Craftsmen, Goddess of Love, Messenger of the Gods, Sacred Waters, Ceremonial Burial, Church Property, Initiation Rites, Asceticism, Choral Music, Feed the World, Guruship, Liturgical Drama, and Religious Center: these beliefs all scale per city, and are a great way to increase your returns without having to worry about tiles.
God of the Open Sky, God of the Sea, Goddess of the Hunt, One With Nature, and Oral Tradition: these beliefs all scale per tile, and they are all common tiles to be working. Since the population per city is generally low, you will only want them to work the best tiles, and these beliefs make the best tiles even better.
Peace Loving and World Church: only peaceful strategies can take advantage of beliefs that depend on foreign cities.
Itinerant Preachers, Religious Texts, and Religious Unity: these beliefs all enhance your passive religion spreading, allowing you to not even bother with missionaries except for remote cities. Religious Texts is the best of the three, especially after Printing Press.
Cathedrals, Mosques, and Pagodas: these buildings are excellent for a sprawling empire, as they help to create a snowball effect with faith. Say you have ten cities, each with a shrine and temple as well as Organized Religion. That right there is +5 faith per city, and adding just one of these adds another +2 or +3. You're looking at +70 or +80 faith per turn without even building a single wonder!
TALL AND MAUL
Tall and Maul starts off like Tall and Wall, settling a few cities and developing the population and infrastructure. Tall and Wall uses this time to build wonders, while Tall and Maul is preparing for war. It may still build a few key wonders, and will be better at it than the sprawling empires, but it's main focus is on the troops. This type of conquest focuses on building a strong base to continuously churn out units in war time. Since the number of cities is smaller, it will have to go through periods of peace to continue developing the infrastructure as techs are unlocked. When conquering cities, it's important to only keep the good ones - capitals and any city placed in good terrain with resources. Small cities that can't support themselves are just a drain on the resources, and not worth keeping around - raze or sell and move on. The cities that are captures can either be turned into trade post cities to generate gold for the massive armies, or developed into true tall cities by building their population and production. City-states are usually let alone or allied, as other than a luxury resource or two, they are pretty often in crappy terrain. Generally, Tall and Maul will need much more trade post cities than production cities, as it doesn't have the high free unit maintenance that sprawling empires do, although the maintenance for buildings and roads will be much less of a problem. It will never be as wealthy, although the science and population will be comparable once you start warmongering. The production will always be better in this empire, and wonders and units are much easier to build from scratch.
CIVILIZATIONS
The best civilizations for Tall and Maul are those that support aggressive, centralized empires.
Aztec: Sacrificial Captives can be a lot fun, and plays perfectly for warmongering. Floating Gardens is also good for this strategy, as rivers make great places to settle cities anyways, and the AI favors them as well.
China: Art of War is great for aggressive play, although you won't get much use out of the Paper Makers compared to a sprawling empire.
Germany: Furor Tuetonicus is at its strongest in this kind of empire, as unit maintenance is highest here. The free units are just icing on the cake.
Inca: unlike sprawling empires, the gold saved from maintenance isn't the real value here - it's the ability to move troops through hills quickly, maintaining defensive positions while moving through enemy terrain. Terrace Farm is nice but will very rarely be built, although it works well with high population cities and observatories.
India: despite being perfect for Tall and Wall, India does reasonably well with this kind of strategy. When playing India aggressively, it's even more important than usual to not keep weak and pathetic cities, as the drain will be higher thanks to Population Growth. Mughal Fort can be completely ignored, but it's not like it was very important for Tall and Wall either.
Japan: Bushido is all about fighting. Not much more to say than that.
Ottomans: for a continent map Barbary Corsairs is good, for anything with more water it is awesome. Much like with Germany, unit maintenance will be a large drain on the coffers.
Rome: The Glory of Rome won't be much of a factor in the initial cities you settle yourself, but will allow the cities you conquer to quickly build the infrastructure you desire.
SOCIAL POLICIES
For Tall and Maul, the choice of social policies depends on whether you want to focus on your empire or your military more. The first choice is either Tradition or Honor, although I would suggest Tradition to help you quickly develop your cities, since you generally delay warmongering until you've got a strong group of core cities. Piety, Patronage, and Rationalism are all fine choices. Commerce can be useful on watery maps, but most of it just isn't synergetic enough to justify investing it. The final choice will be either Autocracy, Freedom, or Order. Freedom has several weak policies, such as Universal Suffrage and Constitution, while Order's bonuses might not be much since the total number of cities you control won't be terribly high. Planned Economy is definitely the best policy in Order, although it might not be worth investing in other policies just for it. My suggestion: Autocracy, and have fun with it!
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS
Tall and Maul will have trouble building faith early in the game, unless you go for a faith wonder. The number of cities will be low, and since they are spread out, you will need missionaries and great prophets to spread religion. Basically, this strategy uses the same beliefs as Tall and Wall, with a few key differences.
Just War: well this is always fun. Spread your religion, then declare war and reap a sweet combat bonus.
Peace Loving, Pilgrimage, and World Church: don't take these, since you will be running out of foreign cities eventually from all that conquering
Swords into Plowshares: best to skip this as you will be in war fairly often.
It's not that you can't win by picking Honor, but Tradition and Liberty will give you a much stronger start.
