Great Ashoka, you were a conqueror who oversaw the richest and most populous empire at her time. However, it was your vision for a harmonious society that made you the most beloved of emperors. Your empire saw strife between the rich and the poor, as well as tensions amongst religions, each of them offering different answers for life’s greatest questions. Although you were raised a Buddhist yourself and made Buddhism the state religion of your empire, your Edicts depict a wise ruler emphasizing tolerance of all beliefs. You wanted your people to understand and practice Dhamma, a way of life full of virtue and compassion.

Oh wheel-turning king, will you let your people live without sorrow, true to your namesake? Or will you rule through might, with the footsteps of your armies reaching the far horizon? Will you build a Civilization you believe in?

Starting Bias: None
Attributes: Diplomatic, Expansionist

NOTE- While playing as Ashoka, World Renouncer, you can initiate the Local Festival and Farmer's Market Endeavors with other players thanks to the Diplomatic and Expansionist Attributes.

Unique Ability (1): All buildings gain +1 happiness adjacency for all improvements.
Unique Ability (2): +1 Food in cities for every 5 excess happiness.
Unique Ability (3): +10% Food in all settlements during a celebration.

AI agenda: “Without Sorrow”- Increase Relationship by a medium amount with the player with the highest happiness yield. Decrease Relationship by a medium amount with the player that has the lowest happiness yield.

Playing as Ashoka unlocks the following civilizations: Chola, Nepalese





(*Note that these scores are subjective and based on personal experiences with the leader in singleplayer mode. 10= leader/civ has an insurmountable advantage over other leader/civs in a particular victory path, 5= leader/civ does not provide any bonuses to a particular victory path, 0= victory path is essentially disabled by choosing leader/civ)

Culture 9/10- Ashoka is a prototypical “Wide-building” leader, who enjoys most of his towns turned into cities. Ashoka’s toolkit allows cities to grow quickly even without the help of nearby towns. These self-sufficient cities are able to produce many buildings, which further increases the happiness and food yield under Ashoka. The food and happiness bonus allows hosting a greater number of specialists overall in your empire, which in turn increases culture yields. Highly populous cities also tend to be very productive, and Ashoka is typically able to finish any wonder that he wants to build, provided that you unlock the corresponding technology or civic before your rivals.

While Ashoka lacks direct culture bonuses, you will be able to have overall high culture yields if you play your cards correctly. Chaining celebration after celebration can help ensure you get lots of social policy slots. Also note that there is always a culture-boosting government type in every Age (Classical Republic, Theocracy, and Elective Republic), so Ashoka is typically able to enjoy a permanent +20% culture boost if he so wishes to.

In the Modern Age, gold becomes quite important for cultural victories, because purchasing Explorers is a lot faster than building them from scratch. Wide empires typically tend to have poor gold generation, but good Ashoka players will prioritize gold buildings in the earlier eras to counteract this.

Military 6/10- War is costly. The war weariness mechanic also decreases happiness by 3-7 points for every negative support you have against your enemy. As a warmonger, you will not be able to make the most use out of Ashoka’s strong growth bonuses. However, the opposite argument can also be made—Ashoka’s happiness bonuses allow you to continue your war efforts even if you are suffering some war weariness. After all, as long as the happiness value in your settlement is above zero, there are no penalties in their yields. You will most likely get away with exceeding your settlement limit by 2-3 settlements as well, provided you have enough happiness throughout your empire.

Economic 9/10- Ashoka helps the player with having lots of powerful well-developed cities that can help you build Rail Stations, Ports, and Factories quickly. The Economic Victory condition is arguably the hardest out of all four victory conditions, and Ashoka is one of the few leaders with bonuses to it. A good civilization choice (e.g. Great Britain, Nepal) can make this even faster.
The earlier era benefits are strong as well—having lots of powerful cities helps with gaining access to many resources. It also helps with slotting more resources overall, as markets and other gold-based buildings increase resource capacity in each of your cities. Ultimately, finishing all three Economic legacy paths is easy as Ashoka, and it is a reliable fall-back option while you push for any other victory condition.

Science 9/10- As addressed in the Culture section, Ashoka’s food and happiness bonuses allow you to have many self-sufficient cities that host many buildings and specialists, thereby indirectly helping with science and culture yields. Ashoka’s early game science output tend to be unimpressive, but as you progress through the eras to unlock more powerful buildings and specialist bonuses, players will witness what a strong foundation in population growth can do for your science yields.

In the Exploration Age, it becomes very easy for Ashoka players to reach more 40 yields in their quarters, because Ashoka’s happiness adjacency bonuses get amplified by each specialist (+1 happiness per adjacent improvement per specialist—if in a fully finished quarter). In the Modern Age, Ashoka is perhaps the only leader that starts the era with positive local happiness in each city (most leaders will have too many specialists by this point while the happiness buildings in earlier eras went obsolete). Having no science yield penalties provide a modest benefit to get to the Flight technology quickly.

Happiness is a very versatile yield in Civ 7 that fulfills many different functions simultaneously. First, let’s examine the differences between Local Happiness and Global Happiness.

• Definition—the total happiness in each settlement, from improvements (working tiles that provide happiness at baseline), buildings (i.e. altars, temples), resources (i.e. dyes, pearls), and certain wonders (i.e. El Escorial).
  
  
• Settlements with access to freshwater get a +5 happiness bonus. You can see which tiles provide freshwater access by using the settler lens in the bottom left part of the screen. (In Settler Lens view, green tiles mark build sites which provide access to fresh water.)
  
  
• Local happiness is consumed by specialists; every specialist costs 2 food and 2 happiness, but this cost can be decreased by social policies.
  
  
• Local happiness also decreases by 5 for every settlement that is above the settlement limit. For example, if you have 8 settlements when your settlement limit is 6, each of your settlements will have a -10 happiness penalty.
  
  
• War weariness also decreases local happiness based on how much negative war support you have (the war support value can be found under the civ leader icon that you are in war against at the top right of the screen.) For every negative war support you have against a civilization, you will have local happiness penalties in each city. The amount is different based on the original ownership of the settlement:
  
  => Settlements that you have built yourself will have -3 happiness per negative war support.
  
  => Settlements that you have obtained from another player that you are currently not in war with will have -5 happiness per negative war support.
  
  => Settlements that you have obtained from another player that you are currently in war with will have -7 happiness per negative war support.
  
  
• Some other modifiers include:
  
  => Starving cities have an additional -5 happiness.
  
  => When a new city joins your empire after revolting, it has -3 happiness for 10 turns.
  
  => When a city loses a trade route (for instance, when a war is declared), it receives -5 happiness.
  
  => If a trade route is plundered, the city receives -8 happiness.
  
  => Cities that are suffering from a plague receives -10 happiness.
  
  
• Your settlements will suffer a -2% penalty in all yields for every negative unhappiness, to a maximum of -100% (no yield!) if you somehow manage to have -50 local happiness in your settlement.

• Global happiness is the sum total of all happiness values from each of your settlements.
  
  
• The main function of global happiness is for triggering celebrations. Every turn the game will add up the total happiness you had so far (cumulative global happiness), and if it exceeds the celebration threshold, it will trigger a celebration.
  
  
• Celebrations will grant one more social policy slot that you can use. This is a very important source of social policy slots, other than the ones unlocked by civic tress.
  
  
• Celebrations will also give you a bonus in culture, science, gold, unit production, or other bonuses, based on the Government Type you chose.
  
  
• Every celebration will increase the global happiness threshold. The exact amounts are as below (CREDIT: CivFanatics u/Acken)1:
  
  
  Celebration

  Antiquity

  Exploration

  Modern

  #1

  200

  799

  1331

  #2

  349

  1396

  2327

  #3

  569

  2275

  3791

  #4

  773

  3093

  5155

  #5

  962

  3850

  6416

  #6

  1137

  4546

  7576

  #7

  1296

  5182

  8636
  
  
• After the seventh celebration, the threshold does not increase further.
  
  
• The thresholds change with game speed: Online = x0.5, Quick = x0.66, Standard = x1, Epic = x1.5, Marathon =x3
  
  
• The celebration duration also changes with game speed: Online = 5 turns, Quick = 10 (for some reason, this one is the same as standard), Standard = 10, Epic = 15, Marathon = 30
  
  
• If you hit the threshold while already in a celebration, the next celebration will be triggered immediately. This perpetual celebration is often called the “Forever Golden” strategy—this terminology dates back from as early as Civ 4—because back then celebrations used to be called “Golden Ages.” I know, confusing.
  
  
• To be “Forever Golden”, your goal is to get to around 130 global happiness per turn in the Antiquity Age, 520 in the Exploration Age, and finally 864 in the Modern Age. (These numbers are just threshold #7 divided by 10.) Any higher global happiness will not provide any additional benefit. (unless you chose Maurya as your Antiquity Age civilization and plan to use the Shreni and Kshatriya traditions in the later ages—will explain more in the Civ Synergies (1) section) These numbers are more easily achievable than most may think. I will explain this more in the Jose Rizal and Charlemagne guides.

As previously discussed in the Augustus guide, there are two main gameplay styles when it comes to how many cities you will have vs towns.

If the player’s preference is to keep only a few large cities, each of them supported by many towns, it is called a “tall” build. Conversely. If the player likes to turn all settlements into cities, it is considered a “wide” build.


^Assuming you have 7 settlements like the example above, an extreme tall build will have only 1 city (capital) and everything else towns, while an extreme wide build will have all 7 settlements turned into cities.


The advantage of tall builds is that it increases growth in your cities (because there are more surrounding towns per city to supply food to them) and also is generally better at gold generation (because the production from towns are converted into gold)—at least in the Antiquity and Exploration ages.

Wide builds, on the other hand, are able to produce more buildings and units (because only cities can use production for anything) and also usually better at science/culture (since more cities mean that you can have more specialists in your empire). Wide builds tend to suffer from less food and happiness (due to many specialists but no towns) and less gold (due to building maintenance costs).




Ashoka (World Renouncer), however, throws these rules out of the window—or at least he solves the food and happiness issues of Wide empires with his ability. We will explore how to make the most out of Ashoka’s unique abilities in the subsequent sections.

All buildings gain +1 happiness adjacency for all improvements. Improvements refer to any rural tile that you have a citizen working on. The tile improvements can be non-unique like mines and pastures, or unique like the Baray and Great Wall improvements. Because every quarter can have two buildings, each quarter essentially receives a +2 happiness bonus for each surrounding improvement. In addition, every specialist further increases happiness adjacencies for each surrounding improvement: +0.5 happiness for every building that is not obsolete, and therefore +1 happiness for complete quarters. Note that damaged improvements will not provide this happiness adjacency.


This ability is the centerpiece of Ashoka’s toolkit. His other abilities depend on how well you utilize this first ability to maximize happiness in your settlements.

Adjacency bonuses typically come in three flavors:

• Science Buildings (Libraries, Universities) and Production/Military Buildings (Barracks, Blacksmith) get +1 of their respective yields for every resource tile next to it.
  
  
• Culture Buildings (Monument, Amphitheater) and Happiness Buildings (Arena, Temple) get +1 of their respective yields for every mountain tile next to it.
  
  
• Gold Buildings (Market, Lighthouse) and Food Buildings (Garden, Bath) get +1 of their respective yields for every coast or navigable river tile next to it.
  
  
• Note that Wonders (either man-made or natural) provide +1 adjacency to all buildings, except warehouse buildings.

On top of this, Ashoka adds +1 happiness to each building per each improved tile. In the early game, going for science and production/military buildings early will help you get high happiness adjacency bonuses, because you will be prioritizing improving resource tiles anyway. Note that the bonuses only apply if the tile improvement is intact; if the tile improvement is damaged or pillaged, you will not be receiving the happiness bonuses.


^The Silk tile has been damaged by flood.

^After fixing the plantation on the silk tile, now I am getting two happiness adjacencies: one from the silk tile and one from the horse tile.



The late game is where things start to become a bit absurd, especially with specialists on board.

^The above example is somewhat misleading, because the city park is actually only supplying 19 happiness (which is still a lot!). Here is the breakdown:

4 (base happiness of city parks) + 2 (Ashoka’s bonus adjacency from improvements) + 3 (happiness adjacency from wonders) + 5 (total happiness adjacency) * 4 (number of specialists) * 0.5 (adjacency multiplier from specialists per building) = 19


With Ashoka, you can theoretically reach up to 70 happiness in a single quarter (and even more with technologies and civics that increase adjacencies). 5 (City Park base yield if placed on vegetated tile) + 5 (Department Store base yield) + 6 (maximum adjacency) * 2 (two buildings per quarter) + 6 (maximum adjacency) * 8 (maximum # specialist) = 70


Of course, the game will do the math for you (even if misleading)—you can simply choose the tile with the best yields to place down buildings and get excellent results. Your REAL role as the player and decision-maker is two-fold:

1. Making sure you have good production in each of your cities such that you can finish constructing buildings quickly, while
   
   
2. not neglecting growth, so that your settlement has plenty of rural tiles as well as urban tiles.

The best way to achieve 1) is Camel Touring, which I will explain more in following section.
Ashoka’s bonuses to achieve 2) will be explained in the Unique Ability-2 and Unique Ability-3 sections.

You may have heard that “production is king.” This is very true. You can have as much science and culture as you want, but what moves the game forward is production. And at this time (Version 1.1.1), there is no resource better than camels to maximize production.

Camels are a city resource available in the Antiquity and Exploration Ages. Their effect is to provide 2 additional resource slots in your cities. A very important thing to note here is that there are no limitations to how many camels you can place in one settlement. So if you are able to access lots of camels by settling or trading and put all of them in one city, you can essentially put close to unlimited amounts of resources.


^I am sure you can easily find more impressive cases online, but the point is that you can slot in a boatload of resources in a single city.

In the above example, I put all of the production, culture, and money providing resources in my capital. The resources are providing +45 production, +40% culture, and +30% gold.


I used my capital as an example, but you can do this for any city. Even poorly built, newly founded cities can enjoy a gargantuan boost to production. You just have to move all of the camels to the new city.

^Houma city was a population 6 town that I turned into a city only a few turns ago. Houma city was able to build essentially all exploration age buildings every 2 turns.


Note that you are allowed to reassign resources whenever you spend money to turn a town into a city. “Camel Touring” refers to the strategy where your legion of camels all jump to a new city, bringing all the production resources into it. With the production bonuses, the new city builds all of the necessary infrastructure quickly. Then the Camels jump onto the next city, and so on. Civ 6 players will fondly remember the "Tour-de-Magnus" strategy with builders. Same idea.

Ashoka especially enjoys this strategy since his happiness bonus hinges upon having many buildings in urban districts, also with the ability to hold specialists. The faster you can finish developing each city, the better.


In order to get maximum use out of this strategy, you will have to prioritize settling near resources that provide production, or obtain them by trade. The priority targets are:


The Modern Age has Ivory, Whales, and Tobacco for production, but Camels are not available at this age, so Camel Touring is impossible. Most gold buildings provide additional resource slots in a city; so having many gold buildings can still help you continue this strategy somewhat in the Modern Age.

All that being said, you will still need plenty of food and population to get as many rural tiles/improvements as possible, if we were to maximize Ashoka’s bonuses. This leads to….

+1 Food in cities for every 5 excess happiness.
Note that this bonus only applies to cities, not towns.


This is the other secret sauce that Ashoka uses to create a thriving wide empire. This bonus applies from the very beginning of the game and gets stronger and stronger as the game progresses.

As you begin the game and establish your capital with your Founder unit, you will notice that the palace provides +5 food and +5 happiness. With Ashoka, it’s actually +6 food, because you get a bonus +1 food from the 5 happiness. If you claim tiles with happiness, that leads to even more food. Although not as significant as Confucius’ 25% growth boost, Ashoka still enjoys quick early capital growth, more than most other leaders.

All settlements other than the capital start off as towns, so this early growth bonus does not apply immediately. The fun begins once you pay money to convert your towns into cities. There are typically 16-18 buildings (excluding the Palace, City Center, Bridges, and Walls) in each era that provide adjacency bonuses, plus 0-2 unique buildings per civilization. If you are able to get at least 2 adjacencies from improvements on each of those buildings, that’s 32-40 free happiness, which adds 7-8 free food in your city. Even more once you start to put in specialists. For young developing cities, this food bonus makes a big difference.


^In the above example, Tenenku is a young distant land city with a true population (tile improvement + specialist) of only 7. However, since I have built all possible buildings in the exploration age by “camel touring,” it enjoys 72 happiness, which converts to 14 food.
The following is what the difference would have been if Tenenku did not have Ashoka’s bonus vs when Tenenku does have Ashoka’s growth bonus.


You can see that with Ashoka’s food bonuses, the amount of time that a settlement takes to grow is significantly reduced. The additional growth can be used for either acquiring more rural tiles, or added to an urban tile as a specialist. Both options will further increase the happiness of Ashoka’s city with his first Unique Ability—which leads to even more food bonuses. Ultimately Ashoka’s cities become self-reliant food and production machines, even without any support from nearby towns.

One more thing to address is the location of your urban tiles vs rural tiles in your city. In order to maximize the contact between urban and rural tiles, I typically recommend a “branching” pattern of how urban quarters are located, rather than a “clustered” pattern.


^Using Tenenku as an example again, you can see that the urban tiles are spreading out from the city center in a straight line, such that you can “sandwich” as many rural tiles/improvements as possible. This way you maximize your happiness adjacencies, and thus food bonus as well.


With Ashoka’s ability, fast production in young cities with Camel Touring leads to more buildings and increased happiness (from Unique Ability #1). This leads to faster growth in those cities, which in turn allows even more rural tiles and specialists (from Unique Ability #2).

+10% Food in all settlements during a celebration. This effect applies to towns as well as cities. Note, given Ashoka’s strong happiness bonuses, you will essentially be in a celebration most of the time.

As mentioned in the “A Review on Happiness” section, the benchmark is to have 130 global happiness per turn by the end of the Antiquity Age, 520 by the end of the Exploration Age, and 864 happiness by the end of the Modern Age. Given Ashoka’s unparalleled ability to generate happiness in cities, this is not very difficult—as long as you have enough towns converted into cities.

During a celebration, Ashoka adds a +10% food bonus in all settlements. Whatever food that was being sent from towns into your cities also receive a +10% bonus. Let’s see what this does to our city Tenenku from the previous section.



This is assuming the additional populations are not being assigned to rural tiles for additional food generation. Even if they are assigned to being specialists (which consume food), with social policies and civilization abilities that decrease specialist costs (see Confucius guide, Unique Ability (2) section) and with the happiness adjacencies amplified by specialists, the food cost can be negated. As Ashoka, each specialist typically costs net zero food, or sometimes a net positive food contribution.

The Government Type does not matter for this bonus—whatever type you choose you will get the +10% food bonus during celebrations. In terms of what Government synergizes best with Ashoka, this will be discussed later in the “Governments and Ideologies” section.


Ashoka’s happiness bonuses lead to celebrations after celebrations, leading to a “Forever Golden” status in your empire. This provides an additional +10% food bonus on top of the food bonuses per happiness the Ashoka already receives.

*NOTE: general strategies for each Civilization will be covered in separate Steam Guides. This section details the Civilization’s unique bonuses as it relates to the Leader’s Ability.

**SPOILER ALERT: if you wish to discover powerful Civ synergies and overall strategies on your own, please skip this section.


Reminder—The goal to satisfy all Legacy Path requirements in the Antiquity Age is toamass 10 codices (Science), build 7 wonders (Culture), house 25 resources (Economic), and score 12 settlement points (Military; 1 point for your own settlements, 2 points for conquered settlements).


As discussed earlier, wide empires tend to have issues with food, happiness, and gold. Ashoka solves the food and happiness problems, so civilizations that generate gold tend to be excellent companions.

The Mississippian civilization boasts near-perfect synergy with Ashoka, with their focus on resources and gold.

• The civilization ability, Goose Societies, provide all buildings with +1 food adjacency for resources. As Ashoka, you will prioritize improving resources anyway, so most of your buildings will be receiving a happiness as well as food bonus.
  
  
• But the main reason you play as the Mississippians is their extremely powerful tradition, “Shell-Tempered Pottery”—which is unlocked with Earthworks II (Mastery). With this, all buildings get an additional +1 Gold adjacency bonus for resources. Since this is a tradition (ageless social policy), you can use this bonus in the Exploration and Modern Ages as well. As Ashoka builds more and more buildings, not only your citizens will be happy but they will also be swimming in gold.
  
  
• Recall that all adjacency bonuses are amplified with specialists. Each specialist essentially provides +1 food, +1 happiness, and +1 gold bonuses with the Ashoka-Mississipian combo.
  
  
• The Potkop unique improvement provides +1 food to a tile for every adjacent resource, as well as +1 gold. This improvement tends to compete with good building/urban tile locations with Ashoka. In general, you should probably de-prioritize the Potkop improvements because the building-related adjacency bonuses are so strong.
  
  
• The Burning Arrow units are excellent defensive units. If your opponents attack you because they are wary of your aggressive expansion, you can produce/purchase 3-4 of these units, and you will be able to defend against most Antiquity Age forces.

Ashoka also synergizes well with civilizations that provide you with strong culture and science yields. As mentioned in the Victory Path Bias section, Ashoka is great at ensuring population growth, but struggles with providing enough science and culture in the Antiquity Age.


The Han civilization takes a balanced approach to yields, providing culture, science, happiness, as well as influence.

• At this time of writing (Version 1.1.1), the Han Great Wall is considered one of the best unique improvements in the game. This improvement is truly unique in that when built, it does not require a population to work the tile—it simply adds the tile yield to the city. Essentially it decreases a population from the city while providing the yield it is supposed to give. Why is this good? It’s because now the threshold for population growth is lowered, because you are considered to have 1 less population. This hidden effect makes Han cities grow supremely fast, while enjoying the culture and happiness bonuses of the Great Wall improvement.
  
  
• When combined with Ashoka’s ability, it becomes very easy to surround your entire perimeter with the Great Wall improvements—not only they provide happiness adjacencies to the nearby buildings, they also provide culture and happiness themselves!
  
  
• In addition, the Tianxia tradition provides +1 science on specialists. Since this is a tradition, it can be used in the Exploration and Modern Ages. This tradition is even more powerful in the later ages because you will have far more specialists in your empire.
  
  
• The Guanxi and Jiu QIng traditions also provide +1 influence on science and happiness buildings, respectively.
  
  
• Lastly, the Zhi civic provides science buildings with adjacencies to quarters. As Ashoka is encouraged to build as many buildings as possible, you will be able to make great use of this ability.

Even with the nerfs with version 1.1.1., the Mayan civilization remains a good choice.

• The Mayans start the game with a small science bonus—0.5 science for the palace for each adjacent Vegetated tile. Starting the game with 12 or 13 science instead of the default 10 helps you with unlocking key technologies early. The faster you unlock techs, the earlier you are able to start constructing buildings as Ashoka.
  
  
• The Mayans also offer two unique buildings, the Jalaw and K’uh Nah. Together they provide a great amount of happiness, culture, and science.
  
  
• The Mayan unique quarter, Uwaybil K'uh was nerfed from providing production equal to 15% of the science cost when a new technology is researched, to only 5%. This is still a very helpful bonus when technologies in the late Antiquity age require 430-738 science. Even a 20-30 production bonus is helpful, when you are trying to construct as many buildings as possible. Because unique quarters are ageless, this effect continues in the Modern Age—technologies like Rocketry cost ~10k science. This is a 500 production boost, which can help you instantly finish some of the Modern Age buildings.
  
  
• The Hulche unit is also an excellent defensive as well as offensive unit. Many times you will be able to use a few Spearmen and Tier 2 Hulche to snag a few cities from nearby opponents. This is useful especially when there isn’t much room in the continent for you to build your wide empire.

You can also attempt to double down on Ashoka’s happiness bonuses, by choosing a civilization gears towards maximizing happiness. The prime example of such a civilization is:


The Maurya civilization is considered the “default” historically accurate civilization choice for Ashoka. It provides reasonably great synergy with Ashoka, World Renouncer. (whereas it has near perfect synergy with the Ashoka, World Conqueror)

• The Mauryans offer two unique buildings—Dharamshala and Vihara, both of which provide happiness. They provide a small amount of science and culture as adjacency bonuses as well. When built together, it becomes the Matha unique quarter, which further increases the Happiness of the settlement by 10%.
  
  
• The unique settler, Nagarika, also add +2 happiness in the city hall for all new settlements.
  
  
• The Charvaka and Kshatria traditions also provide happines on science and military buildings. When all of the above combined, a fully built Mauryan city with all Antiquity Age buildings will have at least a +26 happiness advantage. These are very good traditions; even after age transitions and all your early age buildings lose adjacency bonuses, by using this tradition you will still be able to get happiness bonuses.
  
  
• The Shreni and Arthashastra traditions also add +1 gold and +1 science for every 5 surplus happiness in cities, respectively. This is not as much as what the Mississipians or Mayans will provide, but a welcome bonus nonetheless. The real fun is when you use these traditions in the Modern Age when you start to have +1000 global happiness from your wide-built empire. That is a huge amount of gold and science. I have previously mentioned that there are typically no additional benefits with having happiness values higher than ~860 in the Modern Era in previous sections, but choosing Maurya as your Antiquity Age civilization is one notable exception.

Last but not least, the Khmer civilization is an honorable mention. The Khmer civilization is geared towards tall-building, but there is nothing wrong with using Ashoka’s food and happiness bonuses to create the largest tall cities the world has ever seen. You can always go back to Wide-building and tending to your smaller settlements in the later Ages.

• The Khmer civilization is all about growth and having many specialists in their cities. As the wheel-turning king (Chakravarti), Ashoka benefits from the Chakravarti civic of the Khmer, which provides +50% Growth Rate in the capital. The penalty of -5 happiness in every other city does not matter to Ashoka, since he provides large happiness bonuses anyway. This is the civic you want to unlock as quickly as possible while playing as the Khmer.
  
  
• The Kambu-Mera tradition (unlocked by the Chakravarti civic), also decreases food and happiness cost of specialists by half. Combined with Ashoka, employing specialists often become a net positive gain in food and happiness in your cities. Your cities will have no limits to growing endlessly.
  
  
• The Khmer civilization ability also synergizes well with Ashoka’s building spree. If you have a good building location but on a fertile floodplains tile, fear not; not only you will keep the yields from the tile itself, the buildings on rivers will not receive flood damage with the Mousong civic.
  
  
• The only downside of the Khmer civilization is the lack of additional settlement limits—you can try to unlock the Entertainment and Organized military civic quickly to get up to 6 settlements, which is a reasonable number.

Reminder—The goal to satisfy all Legacy Path requirements in the Exploration Age is tohave 5 districts with total 40 or higher yields each (Science), house 12 relics (Culture), score 30 treasure fleet points (Economic), and score 12 settlement points from distant lands (Military; 1 point for your own settlement not following your religion, 2 points for conquered settlements or settlements converted to your religion, 4 points if both apply).

The Exploration Age is where Ashoka’s growth and happiness bonuses truly start to shine. With more cities, buildings, and specialists compared to your rivals, Ashoka starts to outpace most other leaders in terms of science, culture, and production. There is one civilization that fits almost perfectly with Ashoka’s playstyle:


The Majapahit civilization fits best with Ashoka, making the most out of building construction while providing some culture and specialist-related bonuses.

• The Wayang II civic mastery provides a +25% production towards overbuilding. Between this civic and the Plutocracy government type (+30% production towards overbuilding during celebrations) and the Commune social policy (+20% production towards overbuilding) unlocked with the Piety civic, building production costs are essentially decreased to half cost. Quite an amazing boost for Ashoka who likes to produce as many buildings as possible.
  
  
• Once you have built all those buildings, the Gamelan civic adds +2 culture for quarters with multiple buildings from this age. If you finished all Exploration buildings in the city, that is a +18-19 culture bonus per city.
  
  
• The Gamelan civic also unlocks Borobudur, a very powerful wonder with food and happiness bonuses applying to all of your cities.
  
  
• The Majapahit offers many specialist-related bonsues as well. The Negarakertagama tradition decreases specialist maintainence costs by 33%. The Negara (Majapahit Civ Ability) provides +1 specialist slot in non-capital cities, which is further boosted by the Panji tradition that adds +1 culture to non-capital specialists.
  
  
• The Pura unique quarter also provides +1 relic when completed, as a minor bonus.

The Majapahit civilization is relatively easy to unlock as Ashoka—you will need to improve 3 pearl resources or have at least 3 naval trade routes. You can also start the game as the Khmer or Maurya, as recommended in the Antiquity Age.



Otherwise, as wlth all other wide empires, gold tends to be the main issue that stops you from having infinite cities. Good civilizations for Ashoka in the Exploration Age either have strong gold bonuses, or have other culture or science-related bonuses that makes the weak gold income all worthwhile.

In terms gold generation and empire expansion, Spain has one of the best advantages in the Exploration Age.

• Ashoka enjoys upgrading towns into cities quickly such that he can maximize the number of buildings in his empire. The Spain civilization’s unqiue ability, Siglo de Oro, offers a small upgrade discount: ~13% for homeland towns and ~23% for distant land towns.
  
  
• Spain further provides a number of strong bonuses to gold generation, between the Casa de Contratación building (+5 gold with standard gold adjacency bonuses) and Plaza quarter (+2 gold for every distant land settlement), as well as the Cerro Rico tradition providing +2 gold for every resource. Between these three bonuses, each fully developed city tends to have a 20-40 gold advantage over non-Spanish cities.
  
  
• If you plan to have a standing navy for offensive or defensive purposes, the Great and Most Fortunate Navy tradition helps decrease gold maintenance costs for naval units by 1 gold.
  
  
• All distant land settlements also get a +10% food and +10% production bonus with the New World Riches civic.

Spain is automatically unlocked by playing as the Greek, Roman, or Carthaginian civilizations in the Antiquity Age; however, if you did not play as any of these, unlocking Spain is notoriously difficult. You will have to lose a settlement to an opponent and then reconquer it in the Antiquity Age—which is easier said than done.


The Songhai has the highest potential for gold income in the Exploration Age, provided that you have plenty of desert tiles or navigable rivers.

• You most likely built at least one gold building in your cities in the Antiquity Age. With the Timbuktu tradition, having at least one gold building adds +2 gold on all mines in a city. The Mud Brick tradition also lets you build new Gold buildings quickly as well.
  
  
• The Tajiro unique trader unit brings in extra gold compared to other trader units, and even more if the target city has any navigable river tiles.
  
  
• The Songhai civilizations’ unique ability adds +2 resources slots in all cities next to navigable rivers. If you have been using your Tajiro unit extensively, you can fill these extra slots with production, gold, or culture-providing resources for extra benefits.
  
  
• Lastly, the Caravanserai unique improvement is very “spammable” in every desert tile for large amounts of gold per turn, even more with resource adjacencies and the Ships of the Desert II civic mastery.

Songhai is not the easiest civilizations to unlock—you would have either had played as the Aksumites or Egyptians in the Antiquity Age, or have 3 settlements with at least 3 navigable river tiles each. In many games the map will not allow this requirement to be fulfilled in the first place.

The Hawaii civilization provides a good balance between growth and culture generation.

• Hawaii starts off with gaining 25 culture each time a Settlement expands to a marine tile. As your settlements (especially distant land island settlements) grow, you will have high amounts of passive culture income. The Ho'okupu tradition adds +2 culture onto these marine tiles you have expanded on.
  
  
• The Lo’I Kalo improvement can be build en masse in all grassland and tropical tiles (in fact, you should probably replace all of your rural improvement with this one) and it will provide +3 food and +2 production. With the Ohana II civic mastery, it will also provide +2 culture as well.
  
  
• The Ahupuaʻa tradition adds +4 food for culture buildings as well, a small but welcome bonus.

To unlock Hawaii, you will have to start the game as the Mississippians or Maya, or you will have to settle 2 settlements on the same island (a landmass with a maximum of 15 tiles)—the latter of which is not possible unless you play on a naval map such as Archipelago.


An honorable mention is the Chola civilization, the default civilization unlocked by choosing Ashoka.

• The Chola civilization is best used for offensive warfare. The Kalam unique naval unit is considered the best offensive naval unit in the game. It has the same melee and ranged strength as regular Tier 1, 2, and 3 units, but a slightly decreased Bombard strength. This does not matter because the Kalam unit can attack twice as long as there are any movements left. No naval settlement is safe from a Kalam rush. No fleet can defend against it, unless it is a higher tier unit such as the Galleon.
  
  
• The Manigramam and Anjuvannam unique buildings provide happiness and gold, respectively, which fits well with Ashoka’s playstyle. The Five Hundred Lords unique quarter does not provide direct gold bonuses, but increases your trade route range. If you spot Camels or any other good resource at the other side of the continent, this quarter will help you reach it.
  
  
• The Chola provide a small culture bonus with the Devakoshta tradition (+3 culture on gold buildings). The Angadi tradition also provides +4 gold in settlements other than your capital if they have a water building (fishing quay, etc).

Reminder—the Modern Age is where you typically choose a single victory path to pursue, unless you wish to have a try at multiple paths simultaneously. The Legacy Path requirements in this age are: research the Flight, Aerodynamics, and Rocketry technologies and finish their respective space projects (Science), obtain the Natural History and Hegemony civics and obtain 15 artifacts (Culture), score 500 Railroad Tycoon Points by building Rail Stations and Factories (Economic), and gain 20 Ideology Points (Military; more points with ideologies).

Ashoka’s generalist bonus in food and happiness helps you with any type of victory. Any Modern Age civilization will appreciate Ashoka’s strong empire foundation, but a few particular civilizations stand out:


The Great Britain civilization offers fast building production, as well as a strong edge in both Economic and Cultural victories. (…reverse colonization?)

• Great Britain offers a 20% discount on both gold and production costs of buildings. (+25% gold/production towards completion = 20% discount) A very welcome bonus for Ashoka. The Pax Britannica civic also adds a small amount of production to the city for every factory resource assigned.
  
  
• The unique ability balances this production bonus by increasing the upgrade costs from towns to cities by +50%. This is typically not an issue—your well-developed Exploration Age cities may have been turned into towns with the start of the Modern Age, but their upgrade cost will be low given how large and well-developed they are. You can also avoid upgrade costs for all of your ex-cities, if you finished the Economic Legacy Path in the Exploration Age and thus unlocked the “Treasure Fleet Golden Age” legacy option at the beginning of the Modern Age.
  
  
• To make the most out of Great Britain’s toolkit, you should probably pursue the Cultural Victory path simultaneously, as you pursue your preferred victory path. The Antiquarian unique unit provides extra culture whenever an excavation occurs; this will help you unlock ideologies and the Hegemony civic quicker. With the Society of Antiquaries unique civic, these units will also move faster as well. This is critical since you will beat your rivals to Artifact Sites for excavation.

Unlocking Great Britain is incredibly easy; you merely have to build two fleet commanders. Otherwise, you can play as the Roman or Norman civilizations during earlier Ages to naturally unlock Britain.


Nepal is the default civilization unlocked by Ashoka, and synergizes incredibly well with his playstyle, if you have lots of mountain ranges nearby your cities.

• As Nepal, all warehouse effects apply to mountain tiles. If you have built all of them so far, you will have a minimum of +2 food, +6 production, and +4 happiness on each tile. The first few population growths as you start the Modern Age can be assigned to these tiles, which will increase your cities’ production, such that you can overbuild powerful Modern Age buildings quickly. This is especially a godsend when all of your Exploration Age production buildings lost their adjacency bonuses, and many of the production-providing resources become unavailable.
  
  
• Unlocking the Sagarmatha II civic mastery is paramount for optimal Nepal play. This civic allows your Sherpas to install Highland Power Stations to any mountainous tile outside your empire’s borders, but within the 5 tile radius from your capital. This adds +3 production and +3 culture to the already strong mountain tiles as Nepal. The best part is that these Mountain tiles claimed by the Shepa unit does not require a population to work the tile—it simply adds the tile yield to the city, just like how the Han Great Wall improvements work. Since this is considered an improvement, it also provides happiness adjacencies with Ashoka’s ability.
  
  
• Food and science buildings also receive +1 adjacencies for their respective yields from mountains, with the Sagarmatha I civic.
  
  
• These powerful Nepalese cities will be well-defended thanks to Nepal’s other abilities. The Gurkha unit Is the strongest Modern Age infantry unit of the same tier, with an automatic +5 combat strength and +1 movement bonus. It is especially excellent at defending against city state aggression, but you can use them for offensive purposes as well. Note that dispersing a military “village” will provide an extra one-time boost in production your cities.
  
  
• The Jyumdo Bagha civic also instantaneously adds fortifications to all districts next to mountains. As you run away with science, culture, gold, and influence, the AI civilizations will try to declare war to stop you—as Nepal, you will be able to defend against them easily.

An honorable mention is the Russian civilization—if you played well in the Exploration Age and built lots of districts, the Russian civilization will reward you with +1 culture and +1 gold per district, and if the city center is on a tundra tile, an extra +1 culture and +1 science. (You only get all these yields if you finish the Table of Ranks I and II civics.) This is a very strong bonus at the beginning of the Modern Age, but tends to be overshadowed later by the strong yields from Modern Age buildings themselves.

You will gain many attribute points if you dutifully finish all your Legacy Path missions. Typically, the choice you will have to make is between spending your Military Legacy Path points for Military vs Expansionist Attributes, and your Culture Legacy Path pointer for Cultural vs Diplomatic Attributes.



Ashoka (World Renouncer) makes the most use out of Expansionist and Science Attributes. Between Cultural and Diplomatic Attributes, I would argue that the Cultural Attribute are more useful—the happiness bonuses from Diplomatic Attributes tend not to be very useful when Ashoka can go “forever golden” very easily. Of course, if you gain Diplomatic Attributes throughout your gameplay, the influence boosting options can still be quite useful.


Expansionist Attribute Tree—The left side of the tree focuses on big cities with many specialists, whereas the right side of the tree focuses on creating many productive towns. Ashoka benefits from the left side of the tree. Some of the notable Attributes:

• Expansionist Attribute Tier 1: +25% production in settlers. This is a mild bonus that can help save a few turns in the Exploration era where you are settling many faraway towns for resources. Note that the production reduction does not affect purchasing costs.
  
• Expansionist Attribute Tier 2, Option 1: +5% Growth Rate in Cities.
  
• Expansionist Attribute Tier 3, Option 1: 25% food refund when city adds a specialist. Essentially, another +25% growth boost for the next growth event if you placed a specialist for the current one. Your hard-earned population growth will not go to waste. The best growth-related boost combinations tend to be those that combine a flat food bonus (from Ashoka’s ability) together with a percentage growth bonus (which lowers the threshold for the next population growth).
  
• Expansionist Attribute Tier 4, Option 1: +15% food and +15% happiness towards maintaining specialists, or +30% if you have 3 or fewer cities. Even more happiness bonuses, to help you remain forever golden.
  
• Expansionist Attribute Tier 5, Option 2: +1 food in cities per Town. Normally this would be a much more powerful boost, but with Ashoka attempting to create as many cities as possible, this may not be as effective.

Scientific Attribute Tree—The left side of the tree focuses on infrastructure, while the right side of the tree focuses on increasing science yields directly. Ashoka benefits from the left side of the tree.

• Scientific Attribute Tier 2, Option 1: +15% production towards constructing buildings. Need I say more? Ashoka loves buildings.
  
• Scientific Attribute Tier 3, Option 1: +20% gold and happiness towards maintaining buildings.
  
• Scientific Attribute Tier 4, Option 1: +1 Science on Specialists, +2 if you have 3 or fewer cities.

Culture Attribute Tree—The left side of the tree focuses on wonders, while the right side of the tree focuses on increasing culture yields directly. Here Ashoka benefits from the left side of the tree, again.

• Cultural Attribute Tier 3, Option 1: +10% culture in cities with at least 1 wonder. Not a very good power in the early game, but as your culture income increases this percentage boost becomes more valuable.
  
• Cultural Attribute Tier 4, Option 1: +1 Science on Specialists, +2 if you have 3 or fewer cities.

Ashoka unlocks the following three Mementos:

• Chakra (Ashoka, World Renouncer Level 2): +1 Food in the Capital for every 5 excess Happiness.
  
• Gold & Sapphire Flowers (Ashoka, World Renouncer Level 5): Gain 100 Food in the Capital when you spend an Attribute Point on the Expansionist Attribute Tree.
  
• Diamond Throne (Ashoka, World Renouncer Level 9): +1 Happiness per Age in Quarters during a Celebration.

Only the Chakra Memento is useful for Ashoka himself. The other two are rather weak, due to the already strong bonus to food and happiness Ashoka receives.

Instead, Ashoka enjoys Mementos from other leaders (underlined are some of the best synergies):

• Altar Set (Confucius Level 5): +1 Culture from Specialists
  
• Brush and Scroll (Confucius Level 2): +5% Growth Rate in Cities for every Specialist in that City (max +25%).
  
• Chalcedony Seal (Xerxes, Achaemenid level 9): +1 Culture and Gold for Unique Buildings and Improvements.
  
• Eagle Banner (Catherine Level 2): +2% Science in Cities for each Great Work they contain (max +20%).
  
• Kusanagi no Tsurugi (Himiko, High Shaman Level 9): +3 Culture per Age on Happiness Building, but -1 Science per Age on Happiness Buildings.
  
• Letter to Jamaica (Simón Bolívar Level 9): +50% Gold towards purchasing Units during a Celebration. (Even if you are playing defensively, a discount on unit purchase is welcome, especially when your money is running thin from playing wide).
  
• Mascapaycha (Pachacuti Level 9): +1 Gold and Food from Specialists in tiles adjacent to Mountains. Delicious.
  
• Note G (Ada Lovelace Level 9): Every time you research a Technology or Civic Mastery, the Capital gains Production equal to 15% of its cost.
  
• The Analects (Confucius Level 9): +1 Science per Specialist
  
• Topayauria (Pachacuti Level 2): +1 Food per Age on Districts adjacent to Mountains.

When in doubt, the Corpus Juris Civilis memento is always versatile and helpful—start with 1 extra social policy slot.

Civilization 7 encourages wonder-building, and any wonder can provide a great beneficial effect to your empire. Ashoka tends to appreciate wonders that provide further bonuses to buildings, quarters, and specialists.

Antiquity Age

Great Stele

• Effect: +200 Gold every time a wonder is completed in this settlement, including the Great Stele.
  
• Terrain requirement: Flat Tile
  
• Unlocked by the Writing tech, or by playing as Aksum and unlocking the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea civic

This may be the most important wonder for Ashoka. The 200 gold for every wonder is very welcome, especially in the early game where you need a lot of money compared to your gold per turn to turn towns into cities.


Colosseum

• Effect: +3 culture. +2 happpiness on Quarters in this city
  
• Terrain requirement: Adjacent to District
  
• Unlocked by the Entertainment Civic or by playing as Rome and unlocking the Senatus Populusque Romanus Civic.

Any wonder that has bonuses to Urban Quarters (which Ashoka encourages to build) is highly beneficial. The Entertainment Civic also unlocks +1 settlement capacity, so overall very beneficial for Ashoka.


Pyramid of The Sun

• Effect: +3 Culture. +2 culture on Quarters in this city.
  
• Terrain requirement: on Flat terrain adjacent to a District.
  
• Unlocked by the Mathematics Technology.

Another high-priority wonder. Mathematics also unlocks the Academy building, so the AI naturally prioritizes this technology. If you manage to snag this, the benefits are immense combined with the Colosseum wonder as Ashoka.

Exploration Age

Serpent Mound

• Effect: +4 Influence. +3 Science and +2 Production to all unique improvements in this settlement.
  
• Terrain requirement: on Grassland terrain
  
• Unlocked by the Astronomy technology, or by playing as the Shawnee and unlocking the Wiyehi Simekofi civic.

An decent early Exploration Age wonder, when combined with Antiquity Age civilizations that provide unique improvements such as the Han or Mississippians. The production boost from this wonder is very welcome at the beginning of the Exploration Age where all of your production buildings have lost adjacency bonuses.


Borobudur

• Effect: +3 happiness. +2 food and +2 happiness on Quarters in the entire empire
  
• Terrain requirement: Adjacent to Coast
  
• Unlocked by the Bureaucracy Civic or by playing as the Majapahit and unlocking the Gamelan Civic.

Same as the Colosseum, but even better since it gives you food and applies to the entire empire. Also does not matter if the individual buildings went obsolete; you still get bonuses to quarters themselves. If you played as the Majapahit, the Gamelan Civic is already providing +2 culture to all quarters. Overall an excellent Wonder for Ashoka (and perhaps makes sense as a Buddhist monarch to build). The only issue is the terrain requirement; inland cities might not be able to build this wonder.


Notre Dame

• Effect: +4 happiness. All specialists in your empire provide +3 culture during celebrations. Start a celebration immediately.
  
• Terrain requirement: Adjacent to a River and a District
  
• Unlocked by the Social Class II civic.

An extremely powerful late Exploration Age wonder. Because Ashoka is essentially guaranteed to be “Forever Golden” starting the Exploration Age, this essentially adds a huge amount culture per turn to your empire. Once you have unlocked key civic for your religion and for your civilization, it is worthwhile to dive straight towards Social Class II, just to snag this wonder before anyone else.


Machu PIkchu

• Effect: +4 gold, +1 resource capacity in this settlement. +4 culture and +4 gold on every building adjacent to this wonder.
  
• Terrain requirement: Built on a Tropical Mountain
  
• Unlocked by the Urban Planning technology or by playing as the Inca and unlocking the Mit’a II civic mastery.

A decently good late Exploration Age wonder, especially in the hands of Ashoka. Due to the difficult terrain requirements, there is a good chance that your opponents will not be able to have access to building this wonder in the first place. If you notice a tropical mountain tile, it can prove useful to try to surround the tile with as many quarters as possible. Because the culture and gold bonus applies to every building, it’s actually a +8 culture and +8 gold per quarter. Unfortunately, at this time (Version 1.1.1) the wonder is bugged and the adjacency bonuses will not trigger in the Modern Age.

Modern Age

Oxford University

• Effect: +4 Science. Grants 2 free technologies. +1 Wildcard Attribute point.
  
• Terrain requirement: Next to a district tile
  
• Unlocked by the Academics technology.

A good wonder, especially for Economic victories—since you want to unlock the Mass Production technology quickly for Factories. The Wildcard Attribute is also very helpful—if you did not manage to get enough science or cultural attributes as Ashoka, now is your chance.


Eiffel Tower

• Effect: +5 Culture. +2 Culture and +2 Happiness on Quarters in this settlement.
  
• Terrain requirement: Next to a district
  
• Unlocked by the Radio technology, or by playing as France and unlocking the Code Civil des Français civic

Essentially, Colosseum + Pyramid of the Sun. A good wonder for any city that is decently well-developed.

Ashoka, World Renouncer unlocks the following Narrative Events (attribute point rewards will be underlined due to their high value):

Antiquity Age- Oligarchy’s 30% production for buildings is very useful when Ashoka benefits from constructing all buildings available in an era as quickly as possible. Classical Republic is also a decent choice however—since Ashoka’s early game culture tends to be somewhat slow. If you have access to lots of production resources, the Oligarchy boost for buildings may not make too much of a difference in how quickly you construct buildings; might as well go for Classical Republic for a Culture boost or Despotism for a Science boost.

Exploration Age- Plutocracy is typically the best choice that provides +30% production towards Overbuilding. In the later game you can choose +20% gold, since you probably finished constructing all buildings. If you are planning to build some of the more powerful late Exploration Age Wonders like Notre Dame, consider Theocracy for the extra culture bonus. Many wonders are unlocked from the Civics tree, so having lots of culture yields help you get a head start on these wonders. The culture bonus from Theocracy also allows you to unlock settlement limits quicker, which is helpful especially if you are trying to create lots of strong Distant Land cities.

Modern Age- You probably have built plenty of strong cities, now is time to maximize your yields. Elective Republic is best for its +20% culture and +20% science bonus—tailor it to suit whatever victory condition you are aiming for.


Ideologies-
If you are seeking a peaceful cultural victory, No ideology (neutral) is a valid strategy to avoid having your relationship statuses degraded. There is essentially no role for Democracy as Ashoka, since his happiness game is already so strong, and you likely have more than 500 culture per turn by the time you unlock ideologies. (See Augustus guide for more details on when to adopt Democracy or not). In general, best use of Democracy is for Military Victories, for the happiness bonuses and unlocking more settlement limits—but again, Ashoka’s cities will be very very happy all the time. Fascism would be better for Military production and upgrade purposes.

Otherwise, Fascism is best for Economic victories, and Communism is best for Science victories. I argue against Fascism for Science victories as Ashoka, because Ashoka can really use some help in the raw Science yield department to finish the technology tree quickly. He doesn’t typically have issues with production—while the boost from Fascism is certainly welcome, the issue is decreasing marginal utility. After all, you only need one strong city with an Aerodome and Launch Pad to win the Science victory.

The comparison with Pachacuti is unavoidable. While Ashoka is Happiness first and then Food second, Pachacuti is the opposite. The direct food adjacencies from buildings help Pachacuti cities to grow faster in the earlier Ages. Pachacuti also does not have to worry about having enough rural tiles like Ashoka does; he likes to employ as many specialists as possible. As such, at least in the early game, Pachacuti will likely have more specialists than any other leader. As food requirements drastically increase in the later ages, however, eventually Ashoka and all other leaders will catch up. Note that Pachacuti’s happiness bonuses are noticeably weaker—he eliminates happiness requirements from specialists next to mountains, but this is typically not enough to keep Pachacuti “Forever Golden.” There are also many alternate ways to decrease happiness costs from specialists, most notably social policies, without any help from Pachacuti's ability. Pachacuti does have a Mountain terrain bias, so he will naturally be able to get high culture and happiness adjacency bonuses in his buildings.

Confucius also has a growth and specialist focus. In terms of maximizing growth, Confucius is much more “beginner-friendly” and will give you a 20% decrease in population growth threshold no matter what you do in the game. Ashoka, on the other hand, has the potential to provide much faster growth, depending on how well you utilizes his bonuses. In a way, Ashoka is the leader with the higher “skill ceiling.” Even with all this, you likely will not be able to out-do Confucius in terms of pure science output, due to the +2 science to all specialist bonus that Confucius receives. Ashoka has an edge in all other victory type conditions.

José Rizal is also notable for sharing a "Forever Golden" playstyle with Ashoka. Due to José Rizal's longer celebration times, being "Forever Golden" is essentially a guarantee. The downside is that because of the longer celebration times, you will trigger a fewer number of celebrations, thus will not be able to unlock as many policy slots. Ashoka doesn't have this problem.

Ashoka, World Renouncer’s AI agenda is “Without Sorrow,” which Increases Relationship by a medium amount with the player with the highest happiness yield, while decreasing relationship by a medium amount with the player that has the lowest happiness yield. Ashoka tends to be a good neighbor as long as you are not a warmonger or tyrant. Ashoka also likes to expand aggressively, so if you are also playing wide, tensions may arise from competing over territories.

In a multiplayer game, there are a few things you can slow down a skilled Ashoka player. You and your friends can form a coalition to sanction him so that he cannot make too many trade routes. Without adequate access to production resources, the ability to play wide becomes quite limited. War is also an option; however, it is more likely you will be the one who suffers more from war weariness than the Ashoka player due to differences in happiness generation. Hope you have plenty of influence to win the War Support tug of war!

1https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/formula-analysis.695108/ (Accessed 4/9/2025)

Builders Series

• Confucius and Introduction to Specialists
  
• Augustus and Introduction to Towns
  
• Ashoka, World Renouncer and Introduction to Happiness
  
• Pachacuti and Introduction to Urban Planning

Warlords Series

• Napoleon, Revolutionary and Introduction to Infantry Warfare
  
• Ashoka, World Conqueror and Introduction to Siege Warfare
  
• Charlemagne and Introduction to Cavalry Warfare

Tacticians Series

• Trung Trắc and Introduction to Commanders
  
• Simon Bolivar and Introduction to War Support
  
• Xerxes, King of Kings and Introduction to Empire Management

Negotiators Series

• Benjamin Franklin and Introduction to Endeavors
  
• Himiko, Queen of Wa and Introduction to Endeavors (2)
  
• Tecumseh and Introduction to City States

Traders Series

• Amina and Introduction to Resources
  
• Xerxes, the Achaemenid and Introduction to Trade Routes

Strategists Series

• Machiavelli and Introduction to Levies
  
• Harriet Tubman and Introduction to Espionage
  
• Napoleon, Emperor and Introduction to Sanctions

Explorers Series

• Ibn Battuta and Introduction to Leader Attributes
  
• Isabella and Introduction to Natural Wonders
  
• Jose Rizal and Introduction to Narrative Events

Polymaths Series

• Lafayette and Introduction to Traditions
  
• Friedrich, Oblique and Introduction to Military Planning
  
• Friedrich, Baroque and Introduction to Military Planning (2)

Patrons Series

• Hatshepsut and Introduction to Wonders
  
• Catherine and Introduction to Great Works
  
• Himiko, High Shaman and Introduction to Celebrations
  
• Ada Lovelace and Introduction to Masteries

This guide is an homage to Zigzagzigal’s Guides to Civilization 5 and Civilization 6. Thank you Z for guiding all of us.