The Greeks excel at diplomacy and influencing city-states. Their unique ability makes their Influence with city-states degrade more slowly and recover faster. This ability is arguably more powerful than it looks. It is easy for them to maintain an Allied status with city-states once they achieve it. Use every opportunity throughout the game to do this, and Greece will not only be well on the way to a diplomatic victory but also gain other substantial advantages. If all the policies in the Patronage tree are adopted, Greece will be able to maintain a stranglehold on city-state alliances that will be nearly impossible for rival civilizations to break. Religion can also play an important role in Greek diplomacy, because if its religion spreads to an allied city-state, Greece loses Influence with the city-state even slower (or not at all, if the Patronage opener was chosen).
Austria's unique ability allows you to spend Gold to acquire allied city-states without having to conquer them by military means, provided the city-state remains your ally for at least five consecutive turns. The exact price scales with the progress of the game (and the development of the city-state), starting from around 500 Gold in the Ancient Era and reaching more than 1000 Gold in the Information Era. A city-state acquired in this way immediately becomes part of your empire, without any Resistance or damage to buildings and Population, and with all of its units intact! Also, thanks to the high income it can create a strong cultural and diplomatic sphere, which can influence the outcome of the game.
Venice's unique ability makes it an exceptional civilization when compared to all the others - so exceptional, in fact, that it almost deserves a dedicated strategy article on its own!
The Venetians cannot train Settlers and are thus unable to found any new cities once they build their Capital. (Even Settlers gifted by other players or spawned with cheats will be useless, lacking the Found City ability once the initial one is expended to found the Capital.) What's more, they cannot even annex cities they conquer, only keeping them as puppets! This essentially makes Venice a playable city-state and leaves the Venetians with only two options for expansion.
The Byzantines are a versatile civilization. On one hand, they have the most powerful early game naval vessel: the Dromon. This is the only ranged naval vessel in the Ancient and Classical Era and gives the Byzantines a great advantage against both barbarians and the navy of any other civilization early in the game. Not only is it able to attack from afar, but it also has a Bonus vs Naval, making it devastating against Triremes! Moreover, the fast sea domination makes it easier to diplomatically influencing city-states.
The Dutch, introduced in the Gods & Kings expansion for Civilization V, is an interesting civilization. First, they have a unique ability to retain half the Happiness bonus of a luxury resource they control after they've traded their last copy of it. This ability is quite powerful because a civilization rarely has more than one count of most luxuries (especially in the early-middle of the game). Trading away those single luxuries may get you valuable Gold income when you need it, or allow you to get access to other luxuries, while still retaining sufficient Happiness. This allows for great flexibility for an entrepreneurial player and thanks to the constant money flow you can easily make a lot of friends and gain diplomatic influence.
Coming down form the higher place among the heroes, Cristian has great resilience to people with bad gaming skills, and offers help to anyone who asked through his reviews and gaming strategies,
Gamer Since:
2005
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RPG
Currently Playing:
HOI IV, GTA, FIFA, CK2, CK3, MINECRAFT, CIV V, RAINBOW SIX SIEGE
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Company of Heroes 2, Mount & Blade: Warband, Arma 3
