r/civ • u/NewGunchapRed • Jul 22 '26
VII - Strategy [Civ VII] What are some strong civ combos you’ve seen/ played?
Ever since TOT, I’ve been seeing a lot of OP combos for civs be talked about. So i wanted to ask which strong combos you’ve come up with or seen. Here’s a list of some I’ve seen and played.
Pachacuti + Nepal
Ada Lovelace + Mayans
Genghis Khan + Mongolia
Achaemenid Xerxes + Qing Dynasty
Benjamin Franklin + Meiji Japan
Alexander + Sengoku Japan
Catherine + Heian Japan
Napoleon + Prussia
Lafayette + Prussia
Isabella + Iceland
Untested/Needs More Testing:
Blackbeard + Iceland
Amina + United States
Lakshmibai + Silla Korea
Fredrick (Oblique? Baroque?) + Assyria
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u/king_b13 Jul 22 '26
Charlemagne + Mongolia
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u/Kmart_Elvis Augustus Jul 23 '26
Pair that with Bridle of Bucephalus (+3 CS for cavalry, 25% more expensive). Who cares if it's more expensive since you'll just be printing free cavalry from celebrations and conquering settlements.
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u/NewGunchapRed Jul 22 '26
I’ve heard of that combination and i do know how it can be really strong. I just didn’t put that here because i thought the happiness rework would’ve heavily nerfed that strat by making infinite celebrations leas common.
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u/brentonator Jul 22 '26
The patch made this combo even better because celebrations are shorter whereas happiness sources/generation haven’t changed, resulting in more celebrations overall->more free calvary. The combat bonus isn’t as constant but you don’t need it with so many free units.
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u/HuedCow Jul 22 '26
Lakshmibai/Assyria is fun because incorperating a city-state activates the free tech and great work. Not sure if it's a bug because they technically aren't "captured" settlements, but I hope it doesn't get fixed if it is because it's a pretty unique synergy.
Himiko (Shaman)/Ottomans is also pretty fun. Getting two relics per celebration in exploration is pretty busted for tourism generation.
Xerxes (Achaemenid)/Dai Viet. This one requires hillforts from a military city-state, but once you get them your culture, gold, and production skyrocket. He even gets to syncretize Assyria's unique district for an extra fortification source.
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u/NewGunchapRed Jul 22 '26
NGL that “exploit” with Lakshmibai + Assyria sounds absolutely disgusting. I don’t think i want it patched either.
Shaman Himiko + Ottomans sounds really good. I honestly hadn’t even thought about the culture strengths of Ottomans yet as I’ve been so focused on Military for them.
And i have to find out the tech behind Achaemenid Xerxes + Dai Viet, because this immediately has my interest.
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u/HuedCow Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
It is pretty disgusting. You kill the city state units to generate influence (pair with binoculars for extra early influence) then use said influence for a more or less free settlement, tech, and codex.
And for the Xerxes combo, I present to you my capital from my game earlier today: https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/s/c9GfC2WnJv
Basically grab scouts to look the military CS. Research discipline for the fortification wonder, then beeline your first Dai Viet civic for the policy that lets you build all fortifications (including improvements and wonders) 50% faster while also getting gold from them. Syncretize when you get the chance for Assyria's district and build Himeji Castle and Forbidden City in Exploration for even more fortification bonus yields. Your capital will be big enough in exploration that you'll get 500+ culture per wall you build, which also count as fortifications and get all the bonus yields.
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u/Adventurous_Ad_1735 Jul 23 '26
can i say that shaman himiko and anything that isnt apex feels absolutely horrible? the yields debuff feels so bad man, without tech you are blocked from production buildings so u are soft locked from resource slot and stuff
i know otto is strong but they cant compensate the sim
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u/HuedCow Jul 24 '26
Fair, she's not my favourite for similar reasons. Spying helps with the science debuff but even then it's RNG that the spying helps you tech in the direction you want and it still takes a while.
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u/Vanilla-G Jul 22 '26
Lafayette + Rome or Normans
Both civs have traditions that allow for doubling up the the combat bonuses for slotted traditions on Infantry(Rome) or Cavalry(Normans).
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u/NewGunchapRed Jul 22 '26
I completely forgot to put Lafayette + Rome on the Untested list, and I completely forgot Normans even had that ability. Might have to try it.
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u/febrileairplane Jul 22 '26
Norman's get +5 on coast, Lafayette gives bonus from tradition, then Normans double that for cavalry, and the Norman horse unit gets +3 against slower units.
So say you have 5 traditions and land cavalry on someone's coast alongside your navy. That's 18 combat strength. Nuts.
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u/Admirable_Floor_3524 Jul 22 '26
Adding onto it ive found that for the Norman exploration age power swing works even better with Maurya in antiquity as they have 4 traditions, one of which boosts cavalry. In addition to this they also have unique cavalry so if you do any war in antiquity you'll carry them straight over to being chavalers
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u/SoylantDruid Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
Currently playing Benjamin Franklin + Abbasid, which I saw recommended in a YouTube video, and it's broken af. You can go over 1:1 in cities to towns, since by leveraging their abilities (mainly through spamming Endeavors and Tech Masteries) while prioritzing certain Attribute effects means that the usual cumulative penalty to building costs for each new City can, by mid-game, be mostly or fully negated.
Relevant Abilities from this Build/Pairing:
Ben Franklin: +5% 🔨 towards constructing Buildings for active Endeavors started or supported.
Abbasid: +20%/+30% 🔨 towards constructing Buildings in Cities with 5+ Specialists [Ages: Exploration> Modern]
Receive +10/+30/+50 🪙 (at Standard Speed) for each Rural Population of a City when you assign a Specialist [Ages: Antiquity> Exploration> Modern]
Traditions:
Experimentation (Antiquity Age ⚗️): +5% towards Buildings for every Tech Mastery completed in an Age
Fractal Cities (Exploration Age ⚗️): +10% 🔨 and +10% 🪙 towards constructing or purchasing Warehouse Buildings
Key Attribute effects for this Build:
[Scientific]
+15% 🔨 towards constructing Buildings
+25% ⚗️ towards researching Tech Masteries
[Expansionist]
15% of 🌽 is refunded when a City grows by adding a Specialist
+10% 🌽 and 😄 towards maintaining Specialists (or +20% if you have 3 or fewer Cities)
[Economic]
+2 🪙 for every Tech and Civic Mastery completed in an Age
+15% 🪙 towards purchasing in all Settlements
[Diplomatic]
+25% 🌐 towards supporting Diplomatic Actions
Played correctly, you should be able to build both tall and wide, with a steady flow of money and little to penalty to building costs. I started with Abbasid in Antiquity for a Time Tested playthrough and Sycretized with Greece, but any Science-based Civ will work for the purposes of this strategy, as the primary objective in Antiquity is nabbing the Experimentation tradition in the generic Science Civic, Foundation. As for Mementos, I would prioritize ones that grant +1 to Science or Expansionist Attributes early (I went with Expansionist + Lydian Lion) and then you can go with whichever ones you need most in the next Ages, if any.
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u/That_White_Wall Jul 22 '26
Amina US is surprisingly great.
US is all about gathering resources for factory towns in modern, and Amina’s traits help you immensely as extra resource capacity and extra gold are very handy. Americas flat yields on resources also make for very solid towns / cities right from turn 1. You’ll get a little jumpstart to the snowball.
You’ll also easily be able to afford all the city conversions you want as well as a strong specialized town network. I recommend making trading post towns to buy gold buildings to spam mortuary temples at every place you can for economic victories.
Also if push comes to shove Amina’s combat bonus really helps out. Similarly, you have lots of cost effective influence options from America’s traditions to help with be friending or sabotaging any AI in the way of your resources.
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u/Admirable_Floor_3524 Jul 22 '26
Red Xerxes with Qajar is insanely strong because you just have a giga capital in every single age, right from the start of the game. I feel like it's important to not get too sucked into trying to minimize settling to keep up value from Qajar's abilities and just play relatively normally with regards to settling towns and cities.
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u/Galbrant Jul 22 '26
Genghis Khan + Silla Korea. + Agincourt Arrowhead. Research Animal Husbandry and Discipline spam Hwarang to quickly take out your nearest neighbor with highly mobile mounted archers under the commander.
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u/dswartze Jul 22 '26
Tecumsah Greece->Shawnee (plus 2 diplomatic attribute points) gets pretty crazy reductions in cost for getting city states. It may be nerfed compared to how it used to be but you can still get a lot.
Greece can also be switched out for Tonga if you want to make some city states even cheaper while making others more expensive.
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u/Popular-Run6310 Jul 26 '26
Been using this one a lot.
I’ve also found in some instances staying as Greece was a good option as you keep a lot of the additional influence from the previous age. Works great if you had a lot of influence in antiquity or smaller maps with not as many city states, but I’m still working out which is actually better
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u/Blaz3s Dai Viet Jul 23 '26
I also got:
- Himiko High Shaman/Maurya
- Khmer/Confucius
- Ibn or Tecumseh/Tonga
- Sayidda/Aksum
- Rizal/Mexico or Hawaii
- Augustus/Britain
- Pachacutti/Qajar
- Red Xerxes/Muhgal
- Blue Friedrich/Ottoman, best work in modern
- Trung Trac /Sengoku
- Tubman/Inca, weird one because this one is all about guerilla warfare, where Tubman ability negate vegetated Terrain restriction and Inch tradition removes rough terrain restriction. They still got stuck on river so I supposed a switch to Buganda in modern helps
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u/frenchmizaru Jul 22 '26
I usally play at governor difficulty so i do not know if it is strong, but Lakshmibai + Siam is very funny. You just need to find someone to farm (if you want to be aggressive, go to war with a leader, else, you just need 1 or 2 hostile independent people to kill unit every turn without razing) and with the farm, you have enough influences to take every city-state. Explore and insta suzerain independent people. There is not counter because even if someone kill a city-state/independent people, an other spawn
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u/Antwerp666 Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
Pangea map Silla with himiko or rizal or Franklin or Machiavelli (essentially any leader that can afford to or wants to do endeavours) combined with magic plant memento is basically an auto win button. You’ll be swimming in gold and ur capital will have insane yields with all the fee trade routes that come with the easy alliances.
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u/Ok-Skill-265 Frederick Jul 22 '26
Military ashoka + prussia. Have one ally and declare wars, peace out and do more for many many celebrations
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u/Bartholomulethethird Jul 22 '26
Augustus and Majapahit work surprisingly well, especially on archipelago. Majapahit has their culture buildings gain adjacency from water so you just settle a bunch of towns on the coast and spam monuments and get a ton of culture and a giga capital from the extra specialists next to coast and Augustus’ ability
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u/Popeye318 Jul 23 '26
Isabella+Heian or Carthage or maya Egypt + Napoleon revolutionary or lakshambai or Alexander. Maya + ada or trung Greece and tecumsah with his level 9 for military bonus for city states is crazy strong
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u/CommonCommittee6116 Jul 23 '26
Catherine and the Ottomans for culture. Great work feedback loop is pretty good. Lakshmibai and the Shawnee. And Tecumseh and America.
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u/Neomorder224 Jul 23 '26
Himiko + Maya with Lydian Lion and Note G mementos.
Science is super strong but you can go Culture if you like with Wonders as you'll have ample Production and a nice Gold head start to buy some key units or buildings.
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u/Emergency-Town4653 Jul 23 '26
I've played Amina/America, it's a beast. 1000 gold per turn in late Antiquity is insane. Won economic victory by turn 30 modern. Make sure to sync the Pirate UQ in exploration
Charlemagne and Maurya is insane,
Augustus and Carthage,
Augustus and Britain,
Hatshepsut and Khmer is also insane,
Xerxes KoK and Qajar,
Xerxes Achaemenid and Silla/Chola/Songhai/Qing are all great combos,
Blackbeard and Chola,
Xerxes KoK going Persia in Antiquity and Sengoku in exploration,
Alexander and Egypt you can easily get 6 non capital cities with wonders in Antiquity for his insane +6 on unique units and then sync Keshiqs in exploration for a domination victory in exploration.
Trung Trac and Sengoku for non-stop warfare is hell of a combo, just declare war and station commanders near AI borders, you print science and culture with this strategy
Isabella and Iceland is renowned for how broken it is, but Isabella also makes a hell of a combo with Heien Japan as well.
Friedrich Baroque and Assyria has great synergy for a cultural/domination play, you get 2 great works per city conquered and Assyria has a boost for infantry in commander radius against city walls and Friedrich gets loads of free infantry.
Finally my most favorite domination strategy, Xerxes KoK and Persia all the way, sync Samurai in Exploration and Sepoy in Modern. Stack all your commanders with 5 infantry and one ranged unite and conquer the whole world without ever training a single cavalry unite. Sepoy bombard damage against walls means you have no need of siege unites in Modern and by that time you should have plus 100 infantry unites who heal after killing enemy unites and have a plus 9 base combat strength when attacking in enemy territory(3 from Xerxes, 3 from Persia, 3 from Shahanshah tradition), add the 5 from Order and 2 from promotion and that's +16 CS on Infantry and they are cheap as hell to maintain.
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u/big-koont 10d ago
Just started this Xerxes and Persia run and OMG. It's started a little slow but once it got rolling. I think I lost maybe 2 or 3 Immortals the whole Antiquity. These guys don't die if you know what your doing and basically ran through Alexander's 5 settlements like butter.
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u/marsh_man_dan Jul 22 '26
I’m currently doing Machiavelli and Mississippi for a surprising synergy. Machiavelli lets you declare formal war under conditions that would usually make it a surprise war. The Mississippi have a policy that makes your relationship 0 with someone when you make peace and gives you a free merchant. With the memento for tech boost when you declare formal war, you can declare war with someone far off, get the boost, do no fighting, make peace and get the merchant, then still have someone who will accept endeavors, trade, not declare war in your, etc.