Vietnamese (Civ6)

The Vietnamese people represent a civilization in Civilization VI. They are led by Bà Triệu, under whom their default colors are yellow and dark magenta. They are available with the Vietnam & Kublai Khan Pack, which was released on January 28, 2021.
The Vietnamese civilization ability is Nine Dragon River Delta, which restricts land specialty placement to Rainforest, Marsh, and Woods tiles but causes their buildings to yield extra , , or , depending on the type of features they are on. They can also plant Woods with Medieval Faires instead of Conservation. Their unique unit is the Voi Chiến (which replaces the Crossbowman), and their unique is the Thành (which replaces the Encampment).
== Strategy ==
Starting bias: Tier 1 towards Woods, Rainforests and Marshes
Hidden behind luxuriant swathes of forests, Vietnam is patiently biding their time for the opportune moment. Once the Medieval Era comes, they can either morph into the most defensive civilization of the game, or emerge from the deep jungles and trample all unsuspecting enemies beneath the feet of their elephants. Under the leadership of Bà Triệu, Vietnam can swing from one extreme to another with such agility that all their opponents will be constantly kept on their toes.
=== Nine Dragon River Delta ===
==== All land specialty districts can only be built on removable features ====
Strictly speaking this is more of a liability than an ability, as it greatly limits where you can put down your s. The additional yields to buildings inside these s are small and do not scale for higher tier buildings, they are there to compensate the low adjacency bonus of Vietnamese s due to limited placement rules. This ability comes with a few notable quirks that players should remember when they place down s.
(This rule applies only to land specialty s. Since the Thành is not considered a specialty and does not require Population, it is not subject to this rule and does not adhere to the following mechanics.)
First and foremost, specialty s will preserve whatever features they are on, just like how the Mbanza and Chichen Itza preserve Rainforests and the Mahabodhi Temple preserves Woods. The features underneath will continue to function like normal, meaning they will still give adjacency bonuses, defensive modifications, Bà Triệu's bonuses, and are vulnerable to certain types of disasters. Therefore, Vietnam is the only civilization for whom Forest Fires can pillage Districts, and makes Vietnam particularly vulnerable to Soothsayer attacks if Apocalypse mode is turned on.
This also means that Desert and Floodplains will be your worst enemy, since removable features can never be upon them whether by world generation or planting, thus you cannot build specialty s on these tiles, ever. Technically, Snow is also the bane of Vietnam, but to be fair, almost every civilization in the game, with a few exceptions, hates Snow. Inability to have s on Desert, while a bit unfortunate, is not too difficult to work around since Vietnam normally doesn't encourage Desert settlement anyway, but inability to build on Floodplains means Vietnam will face more difficulties in developing riverside settlements, especially with Commercial Hubs (potentially losing out on the major adjacency bonus towards rivers that other empires are almost guaranteed to get), and makes it much more difficult to optimally place Industrial Zones next to Aqueducts and Dams. It is worth noting, though, that not every tile next to a river is a Floodplains tile; thus it is recommended that before you settle new cities on rivers you should check- one, how many tiles are Floodplains in the city, and two, if you have enough places to construct these s in tandem, and they are not blocked by luxury and/or strategic resources.
==== Extra yields for buildings on removable features ====
For the Vietnamese, their early start can be slow. Their s may have low adjacency bonuses and they are forced to expend to build tier 1 buildings if they want to leverage the extra yields. Again, these yields are minor and do not scale, so they are only meaningful in the early game, but fall off rapidly in mid- and late game. The best to make use of this bonus is the Holy Site. The Holy Site has amazing synergy with Vietnam for a number of reasons:
* The Holy Site has all three of its buildings unlocked by the Classical Era - at least 3 eras earlier than other s - making it the best to leverage the Vietnamese building bonus. Also, Vietnam wants to reach Medieval Faires as early as possible to gain the ability to plant Woods, so the extra from building Holy Sites on Woods is precious.
* Vietnam can plant Woods 3 eras sooner than any other civilizations, and Holy Sites gain extra adjacency bonus from Woods.
* Vietnam is a Cultural/Domination civilization, both of which can benefit from high generation. can be used to purchase Naturalists and Rock Bands for a Cultural Victory and units can be purchased (with the Grand Master's Chapel) for a Domination Victory. The Grand Master's Chapel and tier 2 Government timing coincides with the Voi Chiến and the ability to plant Woods, giving Vietnam an incredible power spike.
* Holy Sites provide additional Appeal to surrounding tiles, which works even better when it is placed on a Woods tile.
With that being said, this aspect, most of the time, feels like nothing but a flytrap that baits players into unnecessarily expending on tier 1 buildings. New players are especially vulnerable to this, since they always try their best to leverage all possible bonuses of a civilization without taking into account whether the results are worth the investment, which is why, in terms of gameplay difficulty, Vietnam is very similar to Poland, another civilization notorious for tough decision-making by leveraging its disparate bonuses with unequal focus.
A strong Vietnamese empire requires a decent flow of both and in the first two eras, with outpacing , since you need to reach Machinery and Medieval Faires with good timing, and it is easy to beeline Machinery but a lot harder to beeline Medieval Faires. To get the best bang for your buck, and should be provided by your Campuses and Thành, not this pathetic bonus. Only build tier 1 buildings because you need to, like a Shrine to found a Religion, or a Market for an extra . Do not waste crucial early game going out of your way to try to make the best out of this bonus. Not only is it not worth it, but for a civilization that requires precision in timing so it can hit a perfect power spike in Medieval Era, this can set you back a lot or even cost you the game by narrowing the opportunity window of your very powerful unique unit. For more information on early game planning for efficient and output, read below in the Thành section.
Considering certain levels of volcanic eruptions can destroy features, they can strip off the yields provided to your buildings by those features, but since this yield bonus is very little, this is not exactly a huge setback. If there is a piece of land where a nearby Volcano has erupted multiple times, feel free to take advantage of those yields by putting down a city there, but watch out: Woods cannot be planted on Volcanic Soil, so those tiles will never be able to host any .
====Reaching Medieval Faires====
Medieval Faires is the all-important civic for Vietnam, as it allows them to wrest control of their own fate, instead of leaving it up to the mercy of map generation. Therefore, if this civic can be timed to coincide with your unique unit (unlocked at Machinery), you will have a huge momentum in the mid game. generation, hence, is crucial in the early game for Vietnam. The three types of specialty s you would want to build in the early game as Vietnam are Holy Sites, Campuses and Commercial Hubs. Unless there are obvious spots with really high adjacency bonuses, prioritize placing these s onto Woods or Rainforests, with Woods have a little bit higher in priority. Your goal is to unlock Machinery and Medieval Faires at relatively the same time. Machinery is very easy to beeline (only build 3 Archers), so one or two Campuses should do the trick, but Medieval Faires is a different story. That is the reason why placing Districts onto Woods should have high priorities. Thành should be placed in every single city possible, ideally next to at least 2 of the 3 types of s listed above. Although it is said that Woods should be prioritized over Rainforests, 1 from a building is nowhere near enough, while the Thành is an incredible, much more efficient option. 
Regarding Marshes, unless there is a good spot, feel free to clear Marshes immediately to receive a burst. You need a little bit of early growth to unlock a few slots quickly and more Population to work tiles and shorten the building time. Not only do Marshes lower your Appeal, each building on Marsh tiles only gives 1 , which is borderline meaningless, considering how much you need to invest just to get that 1 back. If there are a lot of Marshes around, which can be the case for Vietnam considering their starting bias, maybe aim for the Etemenanki. This Wonder can take care of your generation, so that you can completely focus on your . It combines really well with the Lady of the Reeds and Marshes pantheon, which will give you a huge foundation. If the Etemenanki is not on your agenda, again, get rid of Marshes. 
After researching Political Philosophy, you need to pick up Games and Recreation, Defensive Tactics, and Feudalism before reaching Medieval Faires. Regarding the s required for these 4 civics, it is easy to trigger them for Feudalism and Medieval Faires, but not so much for Defensive Tactics and Games and Recreation. Considering how important Medieval Faires is to Vietnam, this beelining tactic is required when the map generation is not favorable to you. If you have a hard time generating or the of your cities is low so that you cannot build many s to surround the Thành, don't waste your time and resource with many detours on the civic tree. If you start with more Woods than Rainforest and Marsh, and your land has decent Appeal, make just one small detour and pick up Mysticism to unlock the Preserve and Grove, they can boost your early output significantly.
Above all, prioritize building Monuments in all cities as fast as possible after the Thành, as it only requires 60 to build a Monument and start gaining +2 per city, making it an incredibly cost-effective building, and you want this bonus to reach Medieval Faires ASAP.
==== Woods can be planted with Medieval Faires ====
For any other civilization this bonus would be of little consequence, but given how Vietnam interacts with Woods it becomes crucial to unlock Medieval Faires as soon as possible. This opens up placement beyond what the bounty of nature has granted you, which allows Vietnam to expand into featureless areas. However, it is worth noting that new cities on these terrain types will still need to train a Builder in order to build s, so it is advisable to build the Ancestral Hall when playing as Vietnam. Remember, Woods cannot be planted on Volcanic Soil, Floodplains, Desert, Snow, and on top of resources, but anywhere else is free game. A few worthwhile notes:
* Vietnam has a tier 1 starting bias towards Woods, Rainforest and Marsh, so you'll most likely start with a lot of these features, more than you will ever need to construct s on. Therefore, even from early stages, it is still recommended that you chop whichever features you do not intend to put a on to speed up early game production. This ability simply gives you more freedom in deciding where to put what and even more freedom in chopping. You shouldn't chop everything at once, of course, but since you will start planting Woods as well, the two types of Woods can get mixed up with one another. Since second-growth Woods give nothing when chopped, and only old-growth Woods give , remember to check before chopping.
* There is not many differences between Rainforests and Woods, except for the type of yields they grant your buildings, and it has been discussed multiple times above that these yields are insignificant. For this reason, unless certain Rainforest tiles are giving adjacency bonuses to a Campus, or you picked Sacred Path pantheon combined with Work Ethics belief, feel free to replace all Rainforests with Woods, the Appeal difference going from Rainforests to Woods is +2. Also, get rid of Marshes. Once you can plant Woods, there is virtually no reason to keep these worthless tiles around. The only time you want to keep Marshes around is when you have a lot of them around your starting location, and you succeeded in building Etemenanki and chose the Lady of the Reeds and Marshes pantheon.
* Since you can start planting Woods so early, your Appeal ratings will be very high, so Earth Goddess can be a great pantheon choice. The thing is your Appeal in the first two eras can be dreadful due to Rainforests and Marshes, so this pantheon may give you nothing early on. It is your call whether you want that or not, but keep in mind, all these Woods and this pantheon work incredibly well with the Preserve and its first building, the Grove. As stated in the previous paragraph, Sacred Path and Lady of the Reeds and Marshes are also Pantheons that can take advantage of tiles you are predisposed towards. It ultimately depends on whether you want smaller yields in the moment or can wait for much greater yields, and how many of those tiles you see around you.
* Normally, with Conservation, tiles with an old-growth Woods gain 1 Appeal, differentiating them from second-growth Woods (second-growth Woods add 1 Appeal to all surrounding tiles, but not the tiles they are on). Since Vietnam gains the ability to plant Woods at Medieval Faires, their old-growth Woods also gain this extra Appeal for their own tiles with this civic.
This ability can also combine with Bà Triệu's ability to create an impenetrable empire. Enemies will be slowed to a crawl while receiving extra damage from your units, city shots and endless layers of Encampments. On offense, you can bring along some Builders; whenever you manage to capture a city, put down some Woods on the border of that city and your next target, turning this newly conquered city into the stepping stone for your army, especially your Voi Chiến. They will start with 5 on these tiles and can move back and end their turns on Woods after attacking, effectively allowing them to repeat this cycle until you deplete the health of the city and capture it with a melee unit. Feudalism is a prerequisite of Medieval Faires, so thanks to Serfdom your Builders should have 5 charges by now, meaning this strategy can be very cost effective. However, you cannot plant Woods in neutral territory, so you cannot use this strategy for the first target, but your elephants are so incredibly strong they can take care of this easily enough. Keep in mind that your enemies cannot remove features in neutral territory either, so it is not possible for anyone to completely nullify your war bonuses, except for a handful of civilizations who love settling on Desert or Snow.
=== Drive Out The Aggressors ===
==== Bonus Combat Strength when fighting on removable features ====
To truly understand this aspect, you need to understand that in Civilization VI, the battle occurs on the tile of the defender, so this bonus will apply when you attack into or defend on a tile covered with Woods, Rainforest or Marsh, similar to how Menelik II's ability, Hojo's ability, the Digger or the Highlander works. This bonus is a common bonus trope in the game, but it is especially powerful in the hand of Vietnam. With the strong starting bias, Vietnam is incredibly hard to invade. It is inarguable that Vietnam hits an incredible power spike in Medieval, but by no means invading them in Ancient and Classical to hamper their progress is an easy task. A measly Warrior fortifying on a Hills tile with Woods or Rainforest can reach a staggering 42 Combat Strength on defense, and exerts zone of control to nearby tiles. And since you will only be too happy to build Archers en masse to prepare for the arrival of your unique unit when playing as Vietnam, just this small military can most likely fend off invasions with ease. The enemies will be bogged down by rough terrain, hindered by the zone of control, and take extra damage when ending their turns on removable features. In fact, it may be ideal to get invaded as Vietnam in the first two eras, so that you can earn fast and easy experience for your Archers. If your Archers can reach Incendiaries, the Voi Chiến they are going to turn into will be intimidating. An additional reason why this ability feels a lot more impactful than the Combat Strength bonus of Menelik II and Hojo is that with Vietnam's ability to plant Woods early, you have a lot more flexibility to create a suitable environment for you to fight in, where as Japan and Ethiopia, you rely on your starting bias and your enemy's foolishness to end their turns where you want them to be. 
This bonus synergizes incredibly well with units with a defensive nature, like anti-cavalry units, or ones with ranged attacks, since they have low defensive Combat Strength (including your unique units and siege units). When combined with the fact that Vietnamese specialty s have to be built on features, the Garrison suddenly becomes overwhelmingly powerful for all Vietnamese ranged units. For more details, read below in the Voi Chiến section. 
==== Bonus when beginning turns on removable features ====
Inarguably the better aspect of this ability, the extra you will receive has such a wide scope of application that you can feel it putting in the work right from the very first few turns of the game. Remember, you cannot control where the enemies will end their turn to leverage the Combat Strength bonus, but you can have higher degree of freedom to decide where your units will end theirs.
Exploration is significantly improved with Bà Triệu's ability, since your Scout (kind of) receives a free Ranger right off the gate. As long as you prioritize Woods and Rainforests to end the turn, your Scout can move through swathes of jungles very quickly. With the Ranger , your Scout will zoom through the land, since Woods and Rainforests don't cost extra to get on to, but boost next turn. Again, don't bother with Marshes unless you really have to, since getting on Marsh costs 2 in the first place. Your starting Warrior also benefits a lot from this ability. You can move your two units farther away from your cities than normal, since the jungle road can help your units get back in time in case there are aggressions from your neighbors. Overall, this is just an improved version of the Iroquois' ability in Civilization V, since Bà Triệu's ability can be leveraged in hostile and neutral territories as well. 
Not just military units, your civilian units also benefit heavily from this, especially your Builders. In the same vein as the Gran Colombia's bonus, extra for Builders means they can get your improvements up a bit faster, which allows your cities to put those extra yields into work sooner. This may not sound like much, but since the bonus can apply to your very first Builder to your last, it can create a huge ripple effect throughout your entire playthrough without you noticing it. Also, when Medieval Faires is unlocked, your Builders will take no time to cover your entire territory in Woods, since they are guaranteed to end their turn on the Woods tiles that they just created. To a lesser extent, your Settlers can race toward unclaimed land a bit faster as well. Also, with an extra , beside the fact that they can navigate rough terrains better, Settlers can avoid getting captured by Barbarians more easily, if you want to live your life on the edge and do not want to escort your Settlers.
==== Offensive purposes ====
What makes Vietnam a lot more fearsome than other Cultural civilizations is that they are not only extremely sturdy against invasions, but they can also become an incredibly menacing aggressor if they wish to. It is hard to deal with Vietnam proactively, but it is even harder to do so reactively. The combination of the ability to plant Woods, the Voi Chiến, Bà Triệu's ability, and a healthy point generation and boosted combat experience gained from the Thành's buildings can be totally overwhelming for anyone to deal with when the game hits Medieval. 
A typical Vietnamese offensive campaign should start in the Medieval Era when your unique unit is available. Since it is extremely difficult to generate at such a pace that you reach Medieval Faires before Machinery, feel free to wage wars before you gain the ability to plant Woods. The longer you wait, the narrower the window opportunity of the Voi Chiến will be. The Voi Chiến is your key player to get your snowball rolling, as they are much more important than the ability to plant Woods, when it comes to aggressive skirmishes, so do everything you can to empower them. Bring a few melee or cavalry units with you to block tiles, exert zone of control to protect the Voi Chiến in the backline and deal the last hit to capture cities. The hardest part of your conquest will be the first city of the first civilization you wage war on. You would like to choose a city that is close to your empire so you can have an easier time exerting Loyalty after you conquer it, ideally with some features in its territory or right outside its border. Your Voi Chiến can take turn shooting the City Center then one by one move to the backline to avoid counterattacks. If you can, make sure your Voi Chiến will end their turn on a tile with a feature to increase their defensive Combat Strength and their maneuverability next turn. Once you manage to capture the first one or two cities, assign Victor with the Garrison Commander title to alleviate all Loyalty issues you may have. These cities will then be leveraged to take down the rest of the empire, which is especially effective once you have the ability to plant Woods. Assign your Builders to put down a few Woods tiles on the border next to the next target city so that your Voi Chiến will always have a safe space to end their turn. Considering that these newly planted Woods are still inside your territory, your Voi Chiến will start with 5 , a will bring it up to 6, allowing the Voi Chiến to close any gap from the border to the City Center to attack and move back. Bring some Builders with you on your conquest, rinse and repeat. By the time the Voi Chiến phases out of relevance, this tactic can still be employed consistently, and you already have a vast empire behind you to support your decision on whether to continue the war or retreat to protect what you have achieved. However, be aware that large-scale conquest indirectly makes a Cultural Victory harder by limiting your sources of and causing heavy diplomatic penalties against you. While Vietnam can be a prime candidate for a Domination Victory even on large maps, if you don't want your gameplay to be too repetitive and still want to aim for a Cultural Victory instead, remember that you can hamstring your opponents severely by taking most of their territories, but don't kill them off completely. Leave them one or two cities to send s and immediately ask for Open Borders after making peace before they get the chance to Denounce you.
It is also worth noting that although in the mid-game you may use your Voi Chiến as the replacement for siege units, later down the road your siege units are also a lot stronger than normal since extra from Bà Triệu's ability and potentially many , Vietnamese siege units can move and shoot from the get go. To learn more about how to effectively make use of this mechanic, head here.
As mentioned above, your conquest will start when you have your unique unit, which is before you can freely put down Woods. For that reason, civilizations who are incentivized to keep their features instead of chopping them, like Brazil, Kongo, the Māori, or America under Bull Moose Teddy (no Vietnam War reference intended here) are prime candidates to be invaded first. However, unlike Civilization V, it is not possible to remove features in neutral territory in Civilization VI. As long as you can spot out a few Woods or Rainforest tiles near the borders of an enemy, there won't be anything stopping your elephants from trampling them. Again, Domination is just a game of snowballing, meaning that the smoother the beginning goes, the easier the end will be.
==== Religious purposes ====
Since it is analyzed above that Vietnam has a nice synergy with the Holy Site, Bà Triệu's ability also makes "a religious Vietnamese civilization" quite a viable strategy. Nothing can be said that has not been mentioned above, Vietnamese religious units benefit fully from the leader ability, making them stronger and faster than normal. However, since you cannot plant Woods in neutral or enemy territory, there is no way this ability can be taken advantage of by religious units as efficiently as military units in a Domination game. Therefore, these religious perks are best used as a supplementary for a Domination Victory (like a Religion with the Crusade belief) or for a Cultural Victory (defend your Religion against conversion attempts while accumulating ), especially on a Standard map or larger. Vietnam is entirely dependent on Holy Sites and their buildings to generate , so it is very difficult for them to shoulder the ever-increasing cost to spam Missionaries and Apostles. The Missionary Zeal belief, which allows all religious units to ignore terrain costs, has amazing synergy with Bà Triệu's ability. Your religious units will have easier time to find and get onto removable features to end your turn, effectively boosting their next turn. 
=== Voi Chiến ===
Just in case the Vietnamese vast swathes of Woods are insufficient in slowing down enemies' advance in the Medieval Era, they also have the Voi Chiến, a unique Crossbowman. As if the Crossbowman itself is not already the heart of any Medieval battle (read more here), the Voi Chiến has its own set of bonuses, combined with Bà Triệu's leader ability, catapulting it to become an absolute menace.
The most outstanding factor of the Voi Chiến is the ability to move after attacking, reminiscent of the Camel Archer's reign of terror in Civilization V. This simple ability can have many applications, but above all, it gives the Voi Chiến is the unparalleled capability to focus-fire. With a of 2, high innate mobility and extra from Bà Triệu's ability if starting in appropriate features, legions of Voi Chiến can nimbly take turn moving in and out to shoot down a city. Even wounded units can still contribute their damage and then manage to safely retreat to the backline. That is not all, a Voi Chiến can attack to earn experience, and if it is eligible for a , it can promote and heal within the same turn.
However, Voi Chiến should pay close attention to zone of control, which forces you to stay on the same tile until the next turn, even after you carry out an attack. Losing the ability to move after attack is huge, since this is what makes this unit so fearsome. The effect of zone of control will be amplified when fighting against the Zulus, and especially Gauls, since they have high propensity to build defensible s.
As if it is not already a tall order to kill just one Voi Chiến due to their mobility, there are other factors in the Vietnamese arsenal that also play into the power of this unit. A Voi Chiến that ends it turn on a Woods or Rainforest tile outside Vietnamese territory, ignoring the fact that it will gain extra mobility next turn, can gain a massive 8 Combat Strength, elevating to 11 Combat Strength if this is a Woods or Rainforest Hills tile. Combined with the fact in Medieval Era, Vietnam is almost guaranteed to have a (since they are the only civilization in the game incentivized to put down Encampments in every city), their defense strength can reach an astonishing 51 Combat Strength, and none of these conditions are far-fetched or hard to align with one another. That does not even count if the tile the Voi Chiến is on is inside Vietnamese territory, the defense strength will reach 56. The strongest Medieval unit is the Malian Mandekalu Cavalry, with Combat Strength at 55, a Mandekalu Cavalry with no additional Combat Strength is incapable of pushing the Voi Chiến around when it is on full defense mode, and remember, this is a ranged unit. The best line for the Voi Chiến is Garrison, Incendiaries and Suppression, to maximize their damage against cities and to hinder enemy's with their presence. They are so tanky that the tier III Emplacement seems like an overkill, especially when your Voi Chiến will retreat to safe spots outside of the City Center's reach after attacking anyway.
On a side note, Garrison is an extremely overpowered for all Vietnamese ranged units, especially on defense. Normally, that grants 10 Combat Strength when the unit defends on a non-defensible specialty , and 10 Ranged Strength when attacking out of one. Considering that Vietnam has to build their specialty s on removable features and Bà Triệu's ability, a Vietnamese ranged unit gains a massive 20 Combat Strength when defending on a specialty , before taking into account possible extra Combat Strength from terrain modifiers. When attacking out of a specialty , it can gain 20 Ranged Strength if the enemy is standing on a removable feature. On offense, it is slightly weaker, but still effective. Foreign s are not built on features, and tiles with features in other empires may not be as dense as inside Vietnamese territory, so it will only gain 10 Combat Strength on defense and 10 to 15 Ranged Strength, as long as it can find a (doesn't have to be a specialty in this case) to occupy. This plays so well into the Voi Chiến's inherent tankiness and superior mobility, especially when the leader and civilization abilities are brought into the equation.
A really powerful tactic that is often employed in multiplayer games that you can use in your single player games is to spot out an open area next to the target of your conquest where there are some Woods and Rainforest tiles and put down a city right there. Next, assign a Governor, and run both Limitanei and Praetorium to hold on to this city and use it as a base to launch your attacks. Your Voi Chiến can now wage an offensive war with 6 per turn, more than enough for them to move, attack and come back, and with maximum Combat Strength on defense. This tactic allows you to start conquering before researching Medieval Faires and still be able to unlock the fullest potential of your leader ability, and there is no obvious counterplay to prevent this, since unlike Civilization V, it is impossible to remove features in neutral territory.
A bit less important, but extra is also nothing to scoff at. The idea of having a bonus is often underestimated, since most units with extra or s in the game are units with melee attacks, not the best classes to make use of this statistic. On a ranged unit like the Voi Chiến, however, it can make a difference between whether you can get your attacks in this turn or have to wait until next turn.
The best way to make use of this unit is to pre-build Archers and let them fight early to earn some s on them. Upgrading an Archer into a Voi Chiến costs 290 , as opposed to 250 when upgrading into a regular Crossbowman. It is quite pricey, especially when you are still far away from the Professional Army policy card, but the investment is definitely worth it. Vietnam's starting bias towards Woods and Rainforests means they likely will start with Plantation and Camp luxury resources that grant a lot of , so make sure if you save up when you are about to unlock Machinery. In order for a Voi Chiến rush to be successful, try to save enough to upgrade at least 3 Archers, if you want to build more, you can pick up Feudal Contract (unlocked with Feudalism), which is convenient because it is on your way to Medieval Faires. Once you have Medieval Faires, bring a few Builders with you so they can put down Woods in your territory next to the enemy city you want to conquer and use these tiles as the stepping stones for your elephants. A Voi Chiến starting on these Woods tiles will have 5 , 6 if next to a , 7 if the Logistics policy card is run, they can shoot, then move back onto those tiles to end their turn and repeat this cycle until that all cities fall like dominoes.
=== Thành ===
The Thành is an incredible , it is so powerful and unique that it completely repurposes the original Encampment, and it breathes a new life into somewhat of a forsaken specialty .
The most obvious downside of the Encampment is that it takes up a slot. No matter which Victory you are pursuing, there is no situation in which building Encampments in every city is a good strategy. The most bloodthirsty warmongers, including the Zulu with their Ikanda, do not need the defensive capability of the Encampment, and civilizations who do not pursue a Domination Victory always have higher priorities in other s, which, all in all, leaves the Encampment in a bad position: no one can benefit completely off of every aspect of this when it is taking up space of other more influential s. The Vietnamese Thành eliminates this completely. First and foremost, the Thành does not require Population, which means it can be placed down in every city without normal repercussions. Even before taking into account the massive and generated by a good Thành placement, just this change alone turns the Encampment on its head and reshapes the way it should be played with. Vietnam is a Domination/Cultural civilization, and just the sheer number of Thành can give them an unbreakable multilayered shield for defense, and with some buildings inside the , a good flow of points for offense. Enemies who are foolish enough to invade Vietnam will get bombarded from all sides by multiple Thành, while having to crawl painfully slowly through rough terrains.
The Thành also serves another crucial purpose for Vietnam: being the and generator for the civilization. It gains a major adjacency bonus for every nearby, so it is natural that you would want to turn the Thành into a mini City Center and surround it with s. One notable placement rule to keep in mind is that similar to the Encampment it replaces, Thành cannot be placed next to City Centers, so you will not get an easy +2 without having to dedicate to erecting Districts. Therefore:
* Non-specialty s are great with Thành, since they are not restricted by Population. They are even more amazing for standalone cities (cities that are not close to any other cities in your empire), since these cities cannot make use of s built by other cities to alleviate the Population requirement. The best non-specialty for this purpose is obviously the Aqueduct, as it not only is the earliest engineering unlocked, but also fits the Thành placement requirement perfectly. For standalone cities, you would like your Thành to be situated in the second ring of tiles (1 tile away from the City Center), since you can surround it with s built in the first ring and the third ring. Your Aqueduct can fit snugly in between the Thành and the City Center.
* For cities that are close together, use the knowledge you have when playing Japan and Germany regarding how to build a compact empire with many groups of 2 to 3 cities. For Thành, building them in groups of 2 is more feasible, because they only gain adjacency bonuses from s, and Vietnamese specialty s are limited to where they can be placed. Also, Woods and Rainforests are very likely to host luxury resources on them, thus will block the placements of s. Being able to find a chunk of land big enough, covered in features and without luxury resources to host s of 3 to 4 cities is just impossible. For city building ideas and mega complex inspirations, head here.
Theoretically, a Thành can reach a maximum of 12 , but this is easier said than done. Vietnam, with their tier 1 starting bias with Woods and Rainforests, is prone to receive strategic, and especially luxury resources, on these tiles, not to mention their unique ability limits where specialty s can go. Even with Medieval Faires, there are tiles that Woods cannot be planted on, like Desert, Snow and Floodplains, effectively further restricting the type of s that can go on those tiles to non-specialty only. The strength of the Thành is that it can be placed in any city, for it does not require Population, so there is no need to bend over backward to reach this maximum number.
Speaking of the all-important Medieval Faires civic, the Thành is a crucial player in helping Vietnam reach that feat with a respectable timing. As mentioned above, although the Thành is so different from the Encampment it replaces, most players still tend to forget about it when they finish researching Bronze Working, since the Encampment has never been a priority so high that it has to be placed down immediately after unlocking. The Thành for Vietnam, however, is such a priority. The Vietnam gains from having buildings on Woods is pathetic, that "bonus" is a flytrap more than anything. The cheapest building that can leverage that bonus is the Shrine (70 ), while your unique has the base cost of 27 , even after the scaling due to civic and technology progression, the ratio of per extra is still heavily in favor of the Thành. In the first two eras, all your cities should have a Thành, a Campus and a third specialty in a triangle (this can be a Holy Site for a Cultural game, or a Commercial Hub for a Domination game). By the virtue of this, you will have a good and flow to beeline Machinery and Medieval Faires simultaneously. This can easily be achieved, since all you need to do is to find two tiles with features next to one another, and place the Thành adjacent to both. A Thành is not a specialty , so it is not subjected to the feature-only placement rule, which also means a Thành will clear out the feature on its tile when get placed down.
After the April 2021 Update, the Thành was nerfed so that it no longer provides 1 point. However, considering how important the extra provided by the is to your Voi Chiến timing push, being able to get at least 1 before Medieval Era hits is still a must. There are a couple of ways you can do this. The least efficient way to generate points is to build more Barracks. You still need at least 1 Barracks in the early game to boost the experience gained by your Archers/Voi Chiến, but building any more Barracks than that feels like a waste, since this building is as expensive as a Library, doesn't give you anything more than just the point, and it doesn't benefit from the Vietnamese civilization ability, since the Thành is not a specialty . The better ways to do this are either to run the Strategos policy card (you have to sacrifice a Wildcard policy slot for this), or to complete one or two Encampment Training projects, which is more efficient in terms of point received per spent, and you will get some back that can be used to upgrade your units later. If you insist on building a few Barracks, make sure you research Military Training civic to unlock the Veterancy policy card. The for this civic is to build an Encampment, which is something you want to do anyway, and all of its prerequisites are civics you have to research regardless in order to reach Medieval Faires. Veterancy is an incredible policy card for Vietnam, so you would want it sooner or later, since it makes the Thành even cheaper, along with all buildings inside.
A hidden benefit of the Thành is that it makes counterespionage simple and efficient. One Spy, when placed on a Thành tile, is able to protect all s around it, allowing Vietnam to easily protect their properties against sabotage. Also, since Vietnam is the only civilization incentivized to build Encampments in every city, they are the best to make use of the otherwise lackluster Consulate, making spying against Vietnam even harder.
A pitfall that many players often get caught into is to put yields above anything else. Remember, this is still an Encampment, its defensive capability is also something should be taken into consideration. A huge Thành formation right in the core of your empire connecting s from multiple cities can be satisfying in terms of output, but it does next to nothing against an invasion from outside. Hence, cities on the outskirt of your empire should be treated as standalone cities, their Thành should be prioritized for defensive purposes and help shield your core cities from outside aggressions. These core cities, thus, can safely use their Thành for and pursuits.
=== Victory Types ===
Like the Māori and Babylon before it, a game as Vietnam will change the way you think about gameplay. If played effectively, Vietnam is a decidedly strong civilization with an inclination towards a Culture Victory, through the great generation of their districts on Woods and the Thành's output, and a Domination Victory, through the mighty Voi Chiến and Bà Triệu's bonuses to warfare.
However, Vietnam is secretly a jack-of-all-trades civilization. A Science Victory is also a serviceable backup, as plentiful district placement on Rainforest can generate quite a lot of . A scientific civilization benefits heavily from a good flow (as proven from your experience with Babylon), and Vietnam is so much better than any regular scientific civilization at generating reliably. A Religious Victory is arguably even better than a Scientific Victory as Vietnam, if your playstyle often revolves heavily around founding a religion. As mentioned above, Holy Sites have great synergy with the Vietnamese civilization ability, plus the massive amount of you can earn from Earth Goddess and the Preserve, all of which allow Vietnam to train a lot of Missionaries and Apostles. Not to mention, Bà Triệu's leader ability applies to religious units, and Vietnam's offensive and defensive prowess in the Medieval Era can be proven unstoppable when spreading and defending their religion. Diplomacy is the worst Victory condition for Vietnam, but that does not mean they have nothing going for them on that path. Vietnam's strong starting bias towards Woods and Rainforests can mean their starting luxury bonuses are likely to be improved by Camps or Plantations (or !), which can give them a good flow of in the entire game. Woods can be planted early and turned into Lumber Mills instantly, granting all of their cities high output much earlier than other civilizations, so they can reliably run all the Competition projects.
=== Counter Strategy ===
It is incredibly tough to effectively strategize against Vietnam. Think about this: all four bonuses they have are so synergistic and versatile that they all have both offensive and defensive implications, allowing Vietnam to change their stance very smoothly. Normally, an aggressive civilization will lose a significant part of their bonus if they don't go for war, and a peaceful, defensive civilization will generally have a harder time trying to claim territory through warfare. Vietnam has neither of these issues.
If you are thinking that since their huge power spike is in Medieval Era, it is a good idea to invade them in the Ancient and Classical Era, you should probably think twice about it. A Warrior fortifying on a Woods/Rainforest Hills in Vietnamese territory can reach 42 Combat Strength on defense (46 if they have Oligarchy)- that is almost as high as a Knight! You will have plenty of time reconsidering your decisions when your units try to crawl past rough terrains (due to their tier 1 starting bias) and hostile zone of control of that one Warrior you can barely do anything about while Archers (pre-built Voi Chiến) rain arrows from above. You will almost never achieve anything besides giving easy experience to their Archers and making the inevitable Voi Chiến push more devastating. Even if Vietnam is ill-prepared and loses the war, their cities are unattractive targets: their s have low adjacency bonuses due to weird placement restrictions, and Encampments will be in every city. True to history, this civilization is unassailable on defense! Dealing with Vietnam requires other, more unusual tactics.
The key knowledge about Vietnam that is known by everyone is their huge power spike in Medieval, so unlike other early aggressors, you do have time to prepare against Vietnam. They are unlikely to attack you before the Voi Chiến is unlocked, since this is the time they require to build up the necessary infrastructure. In order to successfully defend against Vietnam, there are two main takeaways: one, remove your features in your territory, and two, focus on building cavalry units. The first one is quite obvious, since you don't want them to have a leg up fighting in your own territory, but if you play as a civilization who needs to keep their features, like Maori, Brazil or Kongo, you will need more defending units than normal. Cavalry units are crucial to your defense because they are the only class of units that ignore zone of control and are mobile enough to corner and kill Voi Chiến when they retreat to the backline. Vietnam's Domination path relies heavily on snowballing with Voi Chiến- Bà Triệu's ability is strong but by no means it can win a Domination game on its own. Therefore, if the world is past Medieval and Vietnam does not make their move, it means aggression is not on their agenda. Also, in order to bypass Bà Triệu's ability, naval units, aircraft and especially nukes (which remove features underneath s and the extra yields to buildings in them) are worth considering, so Vietnam is significantly weaker on a water map or in the late game against civilizations with strong output.
== Civilopedia entry ==
== Cities ==
== Citizens ==
Males	Females	Modern males	Modern females
Nam 	Lan 	Định 	Bạch
Văn 	Chiêu 	Dương 	Binh
Dũng 	Thị 	Công 	Trà
Quang	Khoa 	Giang 	Chinh
Hồ 	Hoàng 	Hà 	Huệ
Giáp 	Từ 	Đức 	Hồng
Hiến 	Phật 	Huy 	Linh
Tông 	Kim 	Nam 	Quỳnh
Túc 	Trắc 	Nguyên 	Nguyệt
Mục 	Nhị 	Quân 	Ngọc
== Trivia ==
* The Vietnamese civilization's symbol is the Kim Quy (lit. "Golden Turtle"), a mythological creature featured in two popular Vietnamese legends: An Dương Vương and the magic crossbow, and Lê Lợi's mythical sword and his victory over Ming invasions.
* The Vietnamese civilization ability is the translation of the Vietnamese name for the Mekong River Delta, a geographical feature in southwestern Vietnam with great historical, economic, and cultural importance.
==Soundtrack==
== Gallery ==
File:Civ6 Voi Chiến.png|The Voi Chiến, Vietnam's unique unit
File:Civ6 Thành.jpg|The Thành, Vietnam's unique district
== Videos ==
thumb|center|300px|First Look: Vietnam
== Related achievements ==
== See also ==
* Vietnamese in other games
== External links ==
* https://civilization.com/news/entries/civilization-vi-first-look-ba-tri-u-of-vietnam/
ru:Вьетнам (Civ6)
Category:Vietnamese
Category:Civilization VI: New Frontier Pass