Janissary (Civ6)

The Janissary is a unique melee unit of the Ottoman civilization (when led by Suleiman (Kanuni)) in Civilization VI: Gathering Storm. It replaces the Musketman and requires 10 to train.
* Common abilities:
** +5 Combat Strength vs. anti-cavalry units.
* Special abilities:
** 
** 
** 
* Special traits:
** 
** 
== Strategy ==
The Janissary is one of the most fearsome unique melee units in the game, thanks to its cheap cost, good Combat Strength and free starting .
The most outstanding feature of this unit is its appealing price tag. Standing at only half the cost of a normal Musketman, the Janissary is the cheapest unique unit in the game, if you only consider the cost ratio between the unit itself and the standard counterpart it replaces, similar to how the Grand Bazaar is also the cheapest unique building in the game. This 50% discount makes the Janissary so cheap that it becomes an anomaly, when it actually costs more to train a Man-At-Arms, the predecessor, than a Janissary. Therefore, for Suleiman, you should never train Men-At-Arms to take full advantage of your unique unit (more on this down below). Secondly, despite its cheap cost, the Janissary even has a Combat Strength edge over the Musketman, and a free when trained. On average, 5 Combat Strength difference results in 6-7 extra damage per attack.
However, all of this power comes at a cost. Similar to training Settlers, any city founded by the Ottomans will lose 1 Population whenever they train a Janissary. This can be quite detrimental, but bypassing it is simple. There are two major options to minimize your losses when you want to train this unit:
* The first method is to invest some of your resources into early conquests. Although it is true that the Ottoman war machine is at its peak in the Renaissance Era, it is entirely possible to engage in conquest as early as the Classical Era and gain the conquered cities needed for Janissary production. By combining Ibrahim's innate ability of +20% towards units and the God of the Forge pantheon's +25%, the Ottomans can gain +45% towards all military units in the first two eras and +95% towards Catapults. With Ibrahim's Serasker title, Ottoman Catapults can gain an additional +10 Combat Strength bonus (which, in conjunction with the +5 from the Ottomans' Great Turkish Bombard ability, gives them a total Combat Strength bonus of +15) when attacking s, allowing them to destroy the defenses of even walled cities in the blink of an eye. This method should be considered against neighbors that play defensively and have potential to snowball if left alone, such as Korea, China, or Greece when led by Pericles. The April 2021 Update introduced the Trebuchet, a medieval siege unit that can act as a useful stepping stone between the Catapult and the Bombard, making the combat prowess of the Ottomans before their renaissance peak even more terrifying.
* The second method is to pre-train units and then upgrade them into Janissaries. If you spawn next to defensive powerhouse civilizations, or civilizations with their military power peaks in early eras, like Nubia, Vietnam, or the Gauls, you may want to play nice with them for the first few eras and wait for your true potential to unlock. The most cost efficient way to train Janissaries is to mass-produce Swordsmen and upgrade them when Gunpowder is unlocked. Again, not Men-At-Arms, but Swordsmen. As analyzed above, the Janissary is so cheap and even the Man-At-Arms is more expensive than them. Training Men-At-Arms when playing as Suleiman is wasteful and pointless, and it still costs you 10 more to upgrade a Man-At-Arms into a Janissary even after you already spent 40 extra . The Swordsman is the way to go because one, they are cheaper (90 only), require , which you don't need much of, and is affected by the God of the Forge pantheon if that is the one you pick. The bottleneck of training Janissaries lies neither in their potential Population cost (as it is easy to circumvent) nor in their cost (as it is 50% cheaper than the standard Musketman) but in availability. Since is unlocked very slightly sooner than Janissaries, you have little chance to stock up this resource beforehand, while more likely than not, you have a stockpile of lying around. Due to the Janissaries' low cost, combined with Professional Army and Retinues, upgrading is cheap in terms of both and . By doing it this way, you can have your army of Janissaries without having to make early conquests when they are not the most favorable to you, or having to wait for to start piling up so you can train Janissaries one by one and potentially missing your window of opportunity to use them. Remember to prioritize researching Military Engineering to locate where is, try to stockpile it as much as you can, before beelining for Gunpowder.
== Civilopedia entry ==
== Gallery ==
File:Civ6 Janissary Concept Art.jpg|Janissary concept art/render
File:Civ6 Janissary In-Game.jpg|Janissary in game
File:Historic Moment Janissary (Civ6).png|Historic Moment for building the Janissary
== See also ==
* Janissary (Civ6)/Jadwiga's Legacy
* Janissary in other games
ru:Янычар (Civ6)
Category:Ottoman