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The Yongle Emperor, whose given name was Zhu Di, is one of three historical personalities added toCivilization 6in the Leaders Of China Pack. Of all the playable characters who can rule China in the game, Yongle is arguably the best-suited to making use of the country’s unique abilities.
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Playing as the Yongle Emperor lets players recreate the wealth and splendor of the Ming Dynasty, with large and powerful cities. In this guide, we’ll take a look at his excellent Lijia ability and how to turn China into an economic, scientific, and cultural powerhouse!
Lijia
Named for the Ming Dynasty’s system of local administration, Lijia allows Yongle toenact unique Projectsin his cities. Lijia can be enacted for Food, Faith, or Gold; doing so yieldsFood or Faith equal to half the city’s Productionfor that turn, orGold equal to the city’s full production.
Since Lijia is available at the start of the game, you may use it toquickly reach the 25 Faithnecessary to found a Pantheon. This lets Yongle get first pick!
Lijia’s real strength comes into play around the same time you discover Engineering. Any city with ten or more population producesone extra Science and Culture plus two extra Goldper citizen! By controlling multiple large cities, Yongle can easily generate enough yields to outpace his opponents, even on high difficulty settings.
Early Game Strategy For Yongle
At every point in the game, your first priority with Yongle should be to ensure every city you controlreaches ten population as quickly as possible.This meansprioritizing Food and Housingduring your initial expansion; Farms, Granaries, and Encampments are all worthwhile early investments. The Encampments provide extra Housing in their Barracks, and canhelp defend against Barbariansor aggressive neighbors.
Recruit Pingala the Educator and Reyna the Financier with your first Governor Titles. Both grant bonuses that scale with their city’s population, making them a perfect fit for Yongle’s empire!
Try to haveat least one decent-sized Campus, as there are two technologies that are key to your success in the early game;Masonryallows you to construct China’s unique improvement, the Great Wall, whileEngineeringunlocks the all-important Aqueduct to keep your cities' growth on-pace.
Don’t neglect Production! Your focus may be on Food, but remember tobuild Mines, Quarries, and Pastures as needed; otherwise you won’t be able to build anything in a timely manner!
The Great Wall is particularly useful for Yongle, and is well worth the number of Builders you’ll need to commit to its construction. Each section of the Great Wallprovides a healthy amount of Culture and Gold, which can help give your cities a snowball effect. More Culture means your cities willclaim neutral tiles faster,giving your people more land to work. That leads to more Food, which means more people to work the Great Wall tiles, which means more Culture, and the cycle continues!
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Late Game Strategy For Yongle
The Yongle Emperor is more than capable of pursuing any victory type, butleans slightly toward a Culture Victorythanks to the Great Wall and the extra Faith output allowed by Lijia. After getting Aqueducts set up in your cities, focus onTheater Squaresto boost your Culture even further. The goal in the midgame is toresearch the Urbanization Civicas quickly as possible, unlocking Neighborhoods.
Dams and Preserves are also good ways of increasing your Housing before you reach Urbanization, provided you have the appropriate tiles on which to build them.
Once you have thriving Neighborhoods established in your cities, the rest of the game is simply a matter ofspreading Tourism across the world.Rock Bands and National Parks are essential for this, and you can quickly create both byusing Lijia to generate enormous amounts of Faithin your high-production cities. This is alsoa fantastic way to recruit Great People!
When you reach the Civics of the Future Era, which should be fairly fast given your Culture output by this point,use Seasteads along your coastto give your population one last burst of growth. It should be enough to seal the win, even if you were forced to switch gears to a different victory type!
Best Wonders For Yongle
While he doesn’t have the same Wonder focus as his counterpart Qin Shi Huang, the Yongle Emperor can still get additional benefit from Wonders thanks to thefree boosts granted by China’sDynastic Cycleability.Try to build these Wonders for the best possible results:
