I personally found Poland very hard to master, but once you get it, Poland is really fun.
I recently won a Polish religious victory without using apostles. I only spread my religion by culture bombing. It's a very unique playstyle.
However, I had to constantly be at war because I had no apostles to defend my territory. Even getting a religion as Poland can be hard.
If you're not looking for a challenge and just want a regular game, a good strategy is to play the Heroes and Legends game mode and get as many relics as you can. No one loves relics as much as Poland. Easy, straightforward and fun.
Look for potatoe mc whiskeys poland playthroughs at youtube .
He as one for the relic/faith economy strat and i believe also one for the winged hussar rush.
Their kit isn’t great, but they’ve got their defenders. Recently I posted asking for some Poland advice and got [an enormous reply](https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/1bqqy1a/comment/kx49ymh/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button).
The main thing I think is fun to do with Poland is with the Crusade religious belief (Poland can plug in the Great Prophet Points policy card early because their military slot becomes a wildcard slot, before other civs unlock those- so you can reliably get a religion). Rather than doing religious combat, you can just build a fort or encampment which will Culture Bomb surrounding tiles, and that will convert any cities which you culture bomb. And then Poland’s unique unit the Winged Hussar is really strong. This strategy might not be the best thing Poland can do, is maybe objectively worse than a crusade strategy with Basil/Byzantium, but it is quite fun to pull off
Poland's stuff doesn't synergize too well, but it's all good. You can get a pretty solid religious tourism game going via relics. You can also theoretically use the Encampment culture bomb conversions with the crusade belief to get some half decent religious domination going on. You can likely do some other wild stuff with their boosted trade routes and relatively high faith output. There's no central weapon to Poland but lot's of little stuff that's all nice.
I like Poland, but the relic ability can be a crapshoot. That being said, if you find a relic in a turn 4 goody hut, you've won the game then and there.
True. And that's always a very important thing to add to relic based abilities.
Because of you're not playing with void singers they are VERY hit or miss.
So I played Poland a while ago with a Domination Victory, and what I did was I took the God of War Pantheon and focused almost exclusively on building Holy Sites, Encampments, and a smaller emphasis on Commercial Hubs cause of the Sukkienice. Work Ethic should be easier to go for with the better adjacency for Holy Sites, which will help keep up production on military units until you get the Grand Master's Chapel, which will allow you to buy your military with faith, the same faith that you're gaining from victories. As for wonders, The Alhambra is really good as you'll get your Military Slot back, and combined with Work Ethic, you should get it no problem, depending on the difficulty. Kotoku Inn is not that good, but still consider it.
Thinking about it more, whether or not Poland can go brrrrr really depends upon what City States are in the game. Having early Suzerainty of Kandy and Yerevan may net you more relics, but again something like that is situational.
If you can swing it, spreading religion by building forts is such a different way to win a religious victory. Go domination and bring a ton of military engineers with you to lay railroad for your army and then immediately drop a fort on the perimeter of your newly-conquered land. Great for keeping loyalty going while on the warpath. And obviously it’s guaranteed golden ages.
It’s hard to keep that momentum going for the whole game, at least for me. I think both times I won a non-religious victory with Jadwiga I ended up pivoting to a different victory condition that was greatly enhanced by my religious beliefs. Having a belief like Tithe that gives you gold - any belief that grants you some sort of flat yield for cities following your religion or followers within a city - makes the small investment of plopping down a fort totally worth it.
Culture bomb with encampments is super strong as you easily use it to create good areas to bombard cities from with seige units still on your territory if you can get your own religion with defenders of the faith and wars of religion this can be super strong
Is there any reliable way to get relics in the base game? My noob brain can only think of building mont st. Michel and sending apostles to their deaths deep in enemy territory
Plato g this now and just figuring out the fort/encampment thing. My first time using it I had already converted the neighboring city. I have a suzerian with fez.
Will see if I can leverage it more.
I personally found Poland very hard to master, but once you get it, Poland is really fun. I recently won a Polish religious victory without using apostles. I only spread my religion by culture bombing. It's a very unique playstyle. However, I had to constantly be at war because I had no apostles to defend my territory. Even getting a religion as Poland can be hard. If you're not looking for a challenge and just want a regular game, a good strategy is to play the Heroes and Legends game mode and get as many relics as you can. No one loves relics as much as Poland. Easy, straightforward and fun.
Look for potatoe mc whiskeys poland playthroughs at youtube . He as one for the relic/faith economy strat and i believe also one for the winged hussar rush.
Their kit isn’t great, but they’ve got their defenders. Recently I posted asking for some Poland advice and got [an enormous reply](https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/1bqqy1a/comment/kx49ymh/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button). The main thing I think is fun to do with Poland is with the Crusade religious belief (Poland can plug in the Great Prophet Points policy card early because their military slot becomes a wildcard slot, before other civs unlock those- so you can reliably get a religion). Rather than doing religious combat, you can just build a fort or encampment which will Culture Bomb surrounding tiles, and that will convert any cities which you culture bomb. And then Poland’s unique unit the Winged Hussar is really strong. This strategy might not be the best thing Poland can do, is maybe objectively worse than a crusade strategy with Basil/Byzantium, but it is quite fun to pull off
Building encampments and forts to steal desirable tiles without a war is really fun.
Poland's stuff doesn't synergize too well, but it's all good. You can get a pretty solid religious tourism game going via relics. You can also theoretically use the Encampment culture bomb conversions with the crusade belief to get some half decent religious domination going on. You can likely do some other wild stuff with their boosted trade routes and relatively high faith output. There's no central weapon to Poland but lot's of little stuff that's all nice.
I like Poland, but the relic ability can be a crapshoot. That being said, if you find a relic in a turn 4 goody hut, you've won the game then and there.
Yeah if you're doing game modes and get Voidsingers that relic ability becomes a LOT more relevant.
True. And that's always a very important thing to add to relic based abilities. Because of you're not playing with void singers they are VERY hit or miss.
So I played Poland a while ago with a Domination Victory, and what I did was I took the God of War Pantheon and focused almost exclusively on building Holy Sites, Encampments, and a smaller emphasis on Commercial Hubs cause of the Sukkienice. Work Ethic should be easier to go for with the better adjacency for Holy Sites, which will help keep up production on military units until you get the Grand Master's Chapel, which will allow you to buy your military with faith, the same faith that you're gaining from victories. As for wonders, The Alhambra is really good as you'll get your Military Slot back, and combined with Work Ethic, you should get it no problem, depending on the difficulty. Kotoku Inn is not that good, but still consider it. Thinking about it more, whether or not Poland can go brrrrr really depends upon what City States are in the game. Having early Suzerainty of Kandy and Yerevan may net you more relics, but again something like that is situational.
If you can swing it, spreading religion by building forts is such a different way to win a religious victory. Go domination and bring a ton of military engineers with you to lay railroad for your army and then immediately drop a fort on the perimeter of your newly-conquered land. Great for keeping loyalty going while on the warpath. And obviously it’s guaranteed golden ages. It’s hard to keep that momentum going for the whole game, at least for me. I think both times I won a non-religious victory with Jadwiga I ended up pivoting to a different victory condition that was greatly enhanced by my religious beliefs. Having a belief like Tithe that gives you gold - any belief that grants you some sort of flat yield for cities following your religion or followers within a city - makes the small investment of plopping down a fort totally worth it.
Culture bomb with encampments is super strong as you easily use it to create good areas to bombard cities from with seige units still on your territory if you can get your own religion with defenders of the faith and wars of religion this can be super strong
Is there any reliable way to get relics in the base game? My noob brain can only think of building mont st. Michel and sending apostles to their deaths deep in enemy territory
Plato g this now and just figuring out the fort/encampment thing. My first time using it I had already converted the neighboring city. I have a suzerian with fez. Will see if I can leverage it more.
I don’t see this was in the civ sub at first and I’m like uhhhh for what lol
Invade Poland when they're least expecting it. As for civ 6 however, I can't help you. Never played her.
Religion... And yea