Persian (Civ6)

The Persian people represent a civilization in Civilization VI. They are led by Cyrus, under whom their default colors are light purple and dark red; and Nader Shah, under whom their default colors are reversed. They are available with the Persia and Macedon Civilization & Scenario Pack, which was released on March 28, 2017.
The Persians' civilization ability is Satrapies, which provides +1 capacity when they discover Political Philosophy, increases the and yield of their domestic s, and gives them earlier access to advanced roads. Their unique unit is the Immortal (which replaces the Swordsman), and their unique tile improvement is the Pairidaeza.
== Strategy ==
Starting bias: None
Well-equipped for both a Domination and a Cultural Victory, the Persians are the masters of using roads, s, and the element of surprise in war.
=== Satrapies ===
==== Extra Trade Route with Political Philosophy ====
Political Philosophy is a key civic that every civilization wants to beeline in the early game, since it unlocks Tier 1 governments, but it's especially important for Persia since it provides +1 capacity. Note that unlike the Cree, this ability doesn't come with a free Trader.
The best form of government for Persia early on to couple with the powerful Immortal is definitely Oligarchy. The Immortal is the only unit in the game with a ranged attack that can benefit from this government. With an extra early on, you can stock up sooner to upgrade a meaningful number of Warriors into Immortals.
==== Domestic Trade Routes provide Gold and Culture ====
The Persians' special features point toward developing them as a military civilization first and a cultural civilization second. Their civilization ability makes it easy for them to develop a strong infrastructure and road network, so your first order of business when playing as Persia should be to expand your empire and start establishing s between your cities. Normally, these s can hamper your economy, which is especially devastating for civilizations with early conquests in mind. For Persia, this is great, since domestic s can help their cities grow very fast, yet they still have a stable income to upgrade Warriors into Immortals, and some to unlock Political Philosophy and other leaf military civics a bit faster.
Unlike Tokugawa's bonus, this one doesn't scale. Later in the game, when international s clearly overpowers domestic ones in terms of yields, you can switch to sending your s outward instead. This is especially important starting from the Modern Era, since your starts to grow quickly, and 25% extra is crucial to earn you a Cultural Victory.
==== Roads inside Persian territory are more advanced ====
In Civilization VI, roads are created by Traders, and when you send internal s, these roads will help your units move around more rapidly. Before the availability of Military Engineers, this is the only way to create roads.
There's four levels of advancements of road in the game:
* Ancient Road: 
** Units ignore terrain movement costs except for river crossings
* Classical Road: 
** Units ignore terrain movement costs 
** Forms bridges over rivers allowing units to cross them for no additional movement cost
* Industrial Road:
** Units ignore terrain movement cost
** Forms bridges over rivers allowing units to cross them for no additional movement cost
** Units use 0.75 movement points per road tile instead of 1
* Modern Road
** Units ignore terrain movement costs
** Forms bridges over rivers allowing units to cross them for no additional movement cost
** Units use 0.5 movement points per road tile instead of 1
Normally, roads are automatically upgraded once your empire's advancement reaches the respective era. For Persia, roads inside your territory are always 1 level more advanced than other civilizations, meaning you start the game with Classical roads and move on to Industrial roads in Classical Era. Combined with the fact that Persia loves domestic s, it will create an instant advantage in terms of mobilization and defense when crossing rough terrains. In other situations, however, it is only useful for units that start with at least 3 , which means Cyrus will use this ability better than Nader Shah. 
Modern roads, unlike industrial roads, offer a strong speed boost to all land units, including those with only 2 . However, this advantage won't last long, since other civilizations can unlock railroads at Steam Power, allowing units to travel considerably faster than they can on any kind of regular road.
=== Fall of Babylon (Cyrus) ===
==== Diplomatic benefits of declaring a Surprise War ====
There are three leaders who can declare a certain type of war for a bonus, with Cyrus's being both the most powerful and easiest to use. You don't need to satisfy any condition or even denounce the target to declare a Surprise War, so you'll always have the element of surprise.
A smart opponent can counter Cyrus by denouncing him, limiting his ability to declare Surprise Wars. Once denounced, he must either declare a Surprise War against that opponent within 5 turns or wait 30 turns for the denunciation to expire; otherwise, it counts as a Formal War.
Surprise Wars normally carry a penalty of 150 , but this penalty is reduced to 100 under Cyrus. This means your relationships with your enemies will get back to normal faster once the war ends (provided that you don't wipe them out completely), and the reduced penalty allows you to stay more relevant in the World Congress than other warmongers.
==== Extra Movement after declaring a Surprise War ====
With advanced Road systems from Satrapies and extra from Surprise War declarations, the blazing speed of Persian troops can carry them to victory in wartime. It should be noted that any Surprise War declaration will give the bonus to your units. Thus, if your war is drawn out more than planned and your ten turns of increased run out, it is a relatively safe strategy to declare a Surprise War on a far-off civilization to keep the bonus in your war against your real target.
 has so many uses in wars. Slow front line and ranged units now move as fast as cavalry. Light cavalry units, especially ones with Depredation, can pillage the entire enemy city within a turn or two. Reinforcements, when combined with Satrapies, will be blazingly fast. Siege units can move and shoot within the same turn without Expert Crew. On an unrelated note, even your civilian units, most notably your Settlers and Builders, and your religious units benefit from this bonus (read more here). On another hand, exploration will also be helped tremendously. Naval units can also traverse a longer distance, which is especially useful, since every water tile is basically a flat land tile with no terrain features, so any extra will be even more valuable than on land.
==== Occupied cities have no yield penalty and receive extra Loyalty from garrisoned units ====
Another amazing war bonus for Cyrus. Although captured cities still suffer from Population loss and damaged infrastructure, they are not prevented from growing and being productive. Normally, you would have to wait until the war ends and the original owner of those cities cede them to you, but for Cyrus, he doesn't have to wait, as these cities can start producing right after being captured. 
Your internal s go really well with this aspect of Cyrus, since you can start sending those s from occupied cities to boost their growth and make them the prime spot to produce reinforcements for your army and continue your conquest.
Additionally, a garrisoned unit will give an occupied city 10 Loyalty, instead of 5. Loyalty is something other warmongers may struggle with, but definitely not Cyrus. When coupled with Governors and policy cards, this bonus almost guarantees that Cyrus will be able to hold on to his spoils of war and make them productive right from the first turn of ownership. 
=== Sword of Persia (Nader Shah) ===
Nader Shah is not exactly an interesting addition to the leader roster of Persia, since half of his leader ability is almost identical to the civilization ability, and the other half is quite underwhelming. Therefore, he doesn't introduce a new way, or bring a fresh perspective to play the civilization, he pretty much double-downs on what the civilization already does. 
==== Extra Combat Strength when attacking full health units ====
This is a rather underwhelming Combat Strength bonus, since it only applies on the first strike when the enemy is at full HP. It complements his needs for conquest and in terms of battles between two units, this ability is really nice with ranged units, since they can dish out extra damage without being retaliated against, widening the health discrepancy between your units and the enemies for the next round. For this reason, starting your conquest as soon as possible with your Immortals is even more of priority as Nader Shah compared to Cyrus, since Nader Shah's war bonus is significantly worse than Cyrus, he needs to capitalize on an Immortal push more. 
Note that, similar to the Hul'che and how Tomyris' ability works in battle, your units won't get extra Combat Strength when defending against full health units. Since if their units with melee attacks are able to get in the first hit, these units will take damage themselves, resulting in the Combat Strength bonus being nullified, being able to strike first as Nader Shah is critical. 
==== Bonus Gold and Faith for domestic Trade Routes when sent from cities not founded by Persia ====
This is a decent bonus early on, since it goes well with the Persian civilization ability and their incentive to send domestic s. However, Nader Shah's internal s have one restriction, they have to send from cities not founded by him in order for this bonus to be active. Both Persian and Shah's don't scale, so being able to activate them as soon as possible is critical. In the early game, scout for Barbarians, kill 3 of them to trigger the for Bronze Working, which reveals . This cannot be stressed enough, but as Persia, especially as Nader Shah whose bonus will become insignificant quite quickly, you need to own at least 2 sources of in the early game in order to accumulate it fast enough. Next, train Warriors en masse to upgrade them into Immortals. Each upgrade cost 130 so use that information to estimate how many upgrades you can do before unlocking Iron Working. The Immortal is a great early unique unit, and can function to siege and capture cities, and they, coupled with the unintentional bonus, can work through cities easily. 
As mentioned before, different from Tokugawa, neither of Nader Shah's nor the civilization ability scales, but Persian international s do not receive any penalty either, so it is crucial to know when to ditch trading internally and open your empire up to the outside world. The best time for this is when your early game get forgotten by the world, Diplomatic Service and Wisselbanken are unlocked which allows you to establish bountiful s to your allies. Of course, if you insist on waging wars and aiming for a domination victory instead, the entire world is probably going to hate you, you won't have any friends, so just stick to domestic s.
=== Immortal ===
With the introduction of the Man-At-Arms, the power level and significance of Swordsman replacements got hampered, since now their opportunity windows become very narrow. The Immortal is not an exception, but its power spike got hit the least. Thanks to its unique attribute, the Immortal functions as both a Swordsman and an Archer, allowing it to perform things other unique Swordsmen cannot.
In the early game, sieging cities is mainly the job for Archers, since they can shoot cities without fear of retaliation, but Archers come with a major downside similar to other ranged units: they are very vulnerable up close, especially against Swordsmen and Horsemen, and they become practically a liability once enemy cities get their Walls up. For this reason, early armies that rely heavily on Archers need to be quite big, since they need a frontline to protect the Archers, and because they need to act quickly before Walls are finished, this frontline most likely comprises of Warriors only. This typical Archer rush can be feast-or-famine, since it depends a lot on how inept the response from the enemies is. The moment an enemy Horseman or Swordsman shows up, their cities will be almost twice as tanky, or if Walls get finished in time, a lot of your will go down the drain. And this is what makes the Immortal so powerful, since it is a foolproof unit that fixes all of these issues.
The Immortal is an anomaly: in spite of being a melee unit and following the appropriate promotion table, it is essentially an Archer with 20 extra Combat Strength and the ability to capture cities. Being able to pelt enemies with arrows from a distance while having the resilience to defend itself against attacks allows the Immortal to quickly and safely gain XP and levels, and groups of them can chip away at cities until they're ripe for the taking. Having a ranged attack also gives the Immortal an unparalleled ability to focus fire and finish units within a turn, if the enemy tries to throw resistance back your way. Also, since they are melee units, they exert zone of control and can put cities under siege, something an army heavy on ranged units cannot perform easily. They can also use their melee attacks to capture cities, and they benefit from Battering Rams to counteract Walls.
The Immortals are exceptionally good at killing anti-cavalry units, since the Combat Strength bonus against anti-cavalry units works on their ranged attacks. Also, their ranged attacks also benefit from Oligarchy's Combat Strength bonus, making this government a priority for Persia in early conquest.
The bottleneck of using Immortals is the accumulation of . In the early game, hunt down 3 Barbarians to trigger the for Bronze Working, and make sure your empire has at least 2 sources of . Since the Immortal is a one-size-fits-all unit, there is almost no need for any other types of units in your army, besides a Battering Ram, so being able accumulate and quickly should be your priority within the first 2 eras. You can train en masse Warriors to upgrade at the beginning (each upgrade costs 130 ), and then train Immortals the traditional way with Agoge after.
Later on, when the Persians have researched Apprenticeship and stockpiled some , they can upgrade their Immortals to Men-At-Arms and have a powerful force of melee units at their disposal.
Note that, by default, the Immortal attacks in melee. This matters because the right-click attack shortcut will trigger a melee attack instead of a ranged shot (as it does for ranged units). If you want your Immortal to shoot the target instead of approaching and attacking it in melee, you should explicitly give a ranged strike command, and not right-click!
=== Pairidaeza ===
Once upon a time, the Pairidaeza used to be one of the strongest improvements in the game, especially when used in combination with the Earth Goddess pantheon. After a series of nerfs to both the improvement itself and the pantheon, the Pairidaeza, just like the rest of Persia's toolkits, is more like a middle of the road improvement and nowhere near the power level it used to be at.
The first major bonus of the Pairidaeza is extra and , which are boosted even higher if it is next to City Centers, Commercial Hubs, Holy Sites or Theater Squares. Although the Pairidaeza is unlocked in the Ancient Era, don't go overboard with it, since growth and productivity is still prioritized at this point. However, and are both crucial for the early war strategy of Persia, so a few of this improvement is decent to help you upgrade and support an Immortal army and work through the civic tree. Its base yield is pretty good, but after the warring period ends, focus on developing your infrastructure, prioritizing Commercial Hubs, Holy Sites and Theater Squares, so you can shift focus to a cultural victory. This is the time when the Pairidaeza truly shines, especially after Diplomatic Service is unlocked.
The second bonus of the Pairidaeza is that it also increases the Appeal of all surrounding tiles by 1, which can create ideal spots for Neighborhoods, Seaside Resorts, and National Parks. This Appeal bonus used to be what made the Pairidaeza stand out, and players would often try to leverage this Appeal bonus much more than the yields. The Appeal bonus used to be +2, and Earth Goddess used to grant 2 for every Breathtaking tile, instead of 1, making this a really broken combo. Any tiles that are adjacent to 2 Pairidaeza used to receive 4 Appeal, reliably push those tiles' Appeal rating to Breathtaking, allowing Persia to generate a huge amount of independently from Holy Sites, which can be used for both cultural and domination victory. Now, with only +1 Appeal and the bonus from Earth Goddess is now halved, not only the Pairidaeza cannot reliably make every tile in your empire Breathtaking anymore, it is also not really worth the effort and resources invested.
For the reasons above, the main bonus of the Pairidaeza right now is the and yield from adjacent s, and while this improvement still helps Persia tremendously on a cultural path, it is because it promotes the construction of Holy Sites and Theater Squares, not because it allows reliable establishment of National Parks and Seaside Resorts, since a bonus Appeal of 1 is basically the same as every other "spam-able" -orientated improvements, except for the Sphinx.
=== Victory Types ===
As detailed above, either a Domination Victory or a Cultural Victory is the best choice for the Persians. Their bonuses can also assist with a Religious Victory to some degree: the bonus from Surprise Wars applies to religious units as well, the extra early can help them unlock Theocracy sooner, and Appeal from Pairidaezas can reliably generate a lot of if they have the Earth Goddess pantheon. With Persia, these three victory conditions go very well together, since you can pick up Crusade and use your military prowess to spread your good words, and a strong income and high-Appeal tiles are great for patronizing and establishing National Parks.
=== Counter Strategy ===
Persia can be an imposing neighbor to have during the early game. Their bonuses toward Surprise Wars combined with their potent Immortals can spell doom for any unprepared civilization in the Classical Era. But it is crucial to always remain wary of Persia, even when their era of dominance has passed. Even with evenly matched armies, your units can be easily toppled by Persia's quicker, stronger ones. No matter your advantage, a war with Persia will always be costly, expending time, attention, and . Thus, you should try to avoid a war with Persia by any means possible. Send a delegation, trade open borders, and make Cyrus happy by whatever means possible so you can declare friendship. Once you have done so, you can merely renew your friendship every time it ends to ensure you will be safe from Persia for the rest of the game.
Additionally, there is one civilization that completely denies the power of Persia's Surprise Wars by merely existing: Canada. Thanks to Four Faces of Peace, no civilization can declare Surprise Wars on them, leaving Cyrus's Fall of Babylon ability practically useless. While Canada lacks any early game bonuses to defend against Persia's Immortals, they are still an excellent option to survive against Persia. Merely separating Persian units from their and Combat Strength bonuses makes their army substantially weaker, so as long as Canada builds walls and plenty of ranged units, they can defend against Persia with little effort.
In times of peace, Persia is truly threatening only to other players pursuing a Cultural Victory, thanks to the Appeal bonus of their Pairidaezas enabling National Parks. But any Persia could muster from their Pairidaezas is easily surpassed by any directly culturally-focused civilizations, such as America or Canada. And even if Persia's becomes too much of an issue, one should never feel afraid to give them a taste of their own medicine and utilize some Surprise Wars of your own.
== Civilopedia entry ==
== Cities ==
== Citizens ==
Males 	Females 	Modern males	Modern females
Ariomardus	Artistun 	Arash 	Banu
Arsames 	Cassandane	Dariush 	Darya
Arsites 	Drypetis 	Firdaus 	Firuzeh
Bardiya 	Parmida 	Jalal 	Golnar
Cambyses 	Parysatis 	Kianoush 	Laleh
Gaumata 	Phaedymia 	Rostam 	Niusha
Hydarnes 	Roxana 	Saam 	Roghayeh
Otanes 	Sisygambis	Soheil 	Simin
Oxyathres 	Stateira 	Vahid 	Yasamin
Sogdianus 	Amytis 	Zubin 	Zareen
== Trivia ==
* When the Persians were first added to the game, their colors were periwinkle and blood red. In Gathering Storm, they were later changed to lavender and red, which now applies to all rulesets.
* The Persian civilization's symbol is an eagle with a sun above its head, based on a stylized variant of the "falcon standard" of the Achaemenid Empire.
* The Persian civilization ability references the provinces into which the Achaemenid Empire was divided.
==Soundtrack==
== Gallery ==
File:Immortal in-game (Civ6).jpg|The Immortal, Persia's unique unit
File:Pairidaeza in-game (Civ6).jpg|The Pairidaeza, Persia's unique improvement
File:Persian capital.JPG|Persian capital in Medieval Era
== Videos ==
thumb|center|300px|First Look: Persia
== Related achievements ==
== See also ==
* Persian in other games
== External links ==
* https://civilization.com/news/entries/civilization-vi-cyrus-ii-leads-persia
ru:Персия (Civ6)
Category:Persian