Spanish (Civ6)

The Spanish people represent a civilization in Civilization VI. They are led by Philip II, under whom their default colors are red and yellow.
The Spanish civilization ability is Treasure Fleet, which allows them to form their naval units into Fleets and Armadas after discovering Mercantilism, increases the , , and yields of their s (with tripled yield bonuses for intercontinental routes), and provides cities founded on a continent other than their original 's continent 25% extra towards s and a free Builder. Their unique unit is the Conquistador (which replaces the Musketman), and their unique tile improvement is the Mission.
== Strategy ==
Starting bias: Tier 3 towards Geothermal Fissures
Similar to England, Spain is a colonialist powerhouse with heavy emphasis on naval power, constantly on the search for new continents to extend their empire's reach. Fueled by Philip II's religious fervor, Spain tolerates no heresy and will charge into battle until every empire shall be united under the same faith.
=== Treasure Fleet ===
==== Continent mechanics ====
The number one takeaway for players transitioning from Civilization V is the concepts of "continent" and "landmass" are totally distinguished in Civilization VI. A landmass, in Civilization VI, can contain multiple continents, while at the same time, multiple discrete landmasses can belong to the same continent. In order to know where the continent divides are, the only way is to turn on the Continent lens, an absolute must-do when playing colonialist civilizations like Spain, England or even Phoenicia. 
The number of continents scale according to the size of the map, with Duel map having only 1 continent up to 6 continents on Huge map. Although Spain's civilization ability doesn't care about the number of distinct continents the empire can reach like England, it still means that this ability is totally useless on a Duel map, while the bigger the map is, the easier a time you will have in finding new continents. Also, the more continents there are, the more likely you can found a city or find a trading partner on a different continent. Therefore, in terms of power level with regards to map sizes, Spain is less dependent on the size of the map than England, but they still obey the same rule: the bigger the map is, the better.
Spain has a tier 3 starting bias towards Geothermal Fissures. These are the terrain feature commonly found near Mountains or a long Mountain range, which in turn are found near the split of continents. This starting bias increases the chance that Spain will spawn in the middle of two continents, which is one of the best location for any civilization to spawn in. Regardless of who you are playing as, discovering a second continent early triggers the for Foreign Trade, which is worth a lot of in the early game, and sometimes instantly gives you 4 Era Score for being the first to discover a continent. However, the biggest advantage of spawning on the edge of two continents is the access to twice as many luxury resources as normal. Land-based luxury resources are bound to continents, only 4 land luxury resources will be found on a continent. These resources are unique to the continent and will not be found anywhere else. For this reason, Spain secretly has a very favorable starting bias (even without taking into account any of their bonuses yet) that increases the potential number of they can gather during the expansion phase.
==== Extra yields from Trade Routes, especially intercontinental Trade Routes ====
The base yields of s are determined by the presence of s in the destination city, as tabulated below:
District	Domestic Destination	International Destination
 	1 , 1 	3
 	1 	1
 	1 	1
 	1 	1
 	1 	3
 	1 	1
 	1 	1
 	1 	1
 	1 	3
 	1 	1
 	1 , 1 	2
 	1 , 1 	1
Normally, when you unlock your first with Foreign Trade, this is before you or foreign cities near have a chance to build any , so the yields for this will either be 3 or 1 , 1 , quite mediocre. The Spanish civilization ability grants 3 extra , 2 and 1 to all s, which more than doubles the yields of this first . In the Ancient Era, a that grants either 6 , 2 , 1 , or 3 , 1 , 2 , 2 is massive. It alone can jumpstart your economy quite early, help you sprint toward a pantheon faster, and allow your city to be productive much earlier. If you manage to discover a second continent, not only you will unlock Foreign Trade earlier, but the boost to this first will be overwhelming. 9 extra , 6 and 3 will be added on top the base bonus depending on whether this is a domestic or international , giving you a powerful headstart that can hardly be caught up for quite a while.
If you are lucky enough to find a second continent early on, your job is to populate both sides of the continental splits with cities. Make sure all s sent are intercontinental to maximize the yields. One way to guarantee this condition met without having to turn on the Continental lens all the time is to settle cities totally on the foreign continent and send all s to and from your . This will help your grow at an accelerated speed, also allows the Colonial Taxes and Colonial Offices policy cards, and the Casa de Contratación and Torre de Belém Wonders to be much more effective. Later in the game, yields can be amplified even further through policy cards like Triangular Trade, Trade Confederation, Wisselbanken, and Market Economy.
==== Free Builder and extra Production towards districts for cities founded on a foreign continent ====
As if the yields aren't enough to incentivize settling away from the , Spanish cities founded on a foreign continent also have a really strong start. They start with a free Builder and receive 25% extra towards building s. The free Builder mechanic stacks with the Ancestral Hall, which is the recommended Tier 1 government building for a civilization that requires rapid expansion and colonialization like Spain. With two free Builders, it is recommended that you run Land Surveyors to reduce the cost of purchasing land plots, since you most likely will buy a lot of land just to use up all the build charges and get the city up and running quickly.
Extra towards building s is just a cherry on top. Spain requires a combination of many s, similar to how Poland works. They need Commercial Hubs or Harbors for s, Holy Sites for their religious pursuits, Campuses for scientific endeavors and to buff their Missions, and Encampments to prepare for the arrival of their Conquistadors. This bonus is impactful in establishing Spanish presence on a new continent, pushing new cities to a good start and allowing them to colonize new continents more quickly than other empires.
This ability takes effect when Spain captures a city that isn't on their 's continent, which seems to be an unintended feature. There's no limit on the number of free Builders per city either, which means that capturing a city, losing it, and recapturing it will grant Spain a Builder every time they gain control of the city.
==== Can form Fleets and Armadas with Mercantilism ====
Inarguably the least impactful part, this aspect rarely has any game-changing consequences. At first, it may sound comparable to the Zulus' ability (which is undoubtedly very strong), but in reality, it isn't. Even without going into details that navies generally carry less significance than land armies, forming Fleets and Armadas is not cost effective. The Zulus' Ikanda allows them to build Armies and Corps outright without the Military Academy, whereas Spain still requires the Seaport to build Fleets and Armadas like a normal civilization.
That being said, this ability reduces the pressure of having to have a lot of if you want to be competitive in the oceans, and Spain probably will be behind in . The only naval class that this ability can be useful for is naval ranged, most likely Frigates, considering the time this ability becomes available. Naval raiders are mainly used for coastal raiding, merging multiple units into one defeats the purpose of the class, and the only purpose of naval melee is to capture coastal cities. An Armada of Frigates will have 72 Ranged Strength without suffering 17 Ranged Strength penalty for attacking cities, which is really powerful if you want to invest into. As mentioned above, the main downside of trying to use this ability is how expensive Fleets and Armadas are when trying to train them from scratch, so anything that can reduce the cost of building individual ships is welcome, such as policy cards or even the Venetian Arsenal. Try to form at least one Armada of Frigates if you have a good coastal city with high , and use it to assist your Conquistadors in conquest. By doing that, you will also unlock for historic moments for the first Fleet and first Armada in the world. 
==== Circumstances of unfavorable continental divisions ====
Your starting bias does not guarantee you will easily find a second continent. After all, this is only a tier 3 starting bias, and long Mountain ranges do not have to be splitting two continents. The good thing about Spain, when compared to England, is that Spain does have other bonuses that do not depend on the continental split to be effective. In unfavorable situations, your s will not be as powerful, so scale back on Harbor and Commercial Hub's priority, and focus on and output through Campuses and Holy Sites.
While it is true that all s of Spain will receive 3 , 2 , and 1 , but as cities develop, base yields of s also scale up. However, without a continental split, these yields will stay the same, so its effectiveness will taper off rather quickly. By divesting resources into Campuses and Holy Sites, you can unlock Conquistadors a lot earlier and change the direction of your empire from trading to conquering. Conquistadors are incredibly strong, which will be analyzed in great details down below. In terms of , Spain does not have any significant bonus towards generating , so it can never win a Religious Victory in a traditional way. If it does, it will have to combine it with Domination, so the purpose of building Holy Sites is, first, to get you a religion, and second, to generate a decent amount of to purchase Conquistadors (with the Grand Master's Chapel), and some religious units to assist your Conquistadors in combat. Also, Holy Sites grant to adjacent Missions, and the combination of Holy Sites and Campuses is extremely busted during a Dark Age, when you can run Monasticism. Therefore, in this situation, the Campus is your number 1 that should be present in every city, while the Holy Site takes a secondary supporting role. You can still throw in Harbors and Commercial Hubs here and there to boost your output a little bit to prepare for the arrival of your Conquistadors.
=== El Escorial ===
==== Religion as Spain ====
Spain's first priority under Philip II should be to found a religion as quickly as possible, because his leader ability is useless otherwise. They should research Astrology first, get a Holy Site up and running fast and run a few Holy Site Prayers projects. If you don't want to run projects, aim to build at least 2 Holy Sites and 2 Shrines, or 2 Holy Sites and get the Divine Spark pantheon.
Spain is slightly more versatile than other religious civilizations, so that even in the case of failing to secure a religion, they still have other trade bonuses to rely on; even the Conquistador is really powerful even without the presence of a majority religion in your empire. Spain is different from Byzantium, another domination-religious civilization, because failure in getting a religion doesn't totally break your game, but managing to found one makes you significantly stronger. Therefore, since Spain doesn't have any bonus towards getting one, you should act quickly. 
When founding a religion, you should pick an Enhancer belief to go with the mandatory Follower belief, since there are a lot of great Enhancer belief options for Spain. They are:
* Crusade: it goes without saying that every domination-religious civilization loves this belief, although for Spain, it can be quite counter-synergistic with both Philip's ability and the Conquistador. More analysis on this belief down below.
* Defender of the Faith: quite powerful in combination with the Conquistador, also provides Spain a little defensive mechanism before the arrival of their unique unit.
* Holy Order: cheaper Missionaries mean you can spam more of these units to support your Conquistadors. This belief doesn't make Inquisitors any cheaper though.
The two best Follower beliefs for Spain are:
* Choral Music: to be fair, everyone loves this belief. For Spain, they often lag behind in generation, especially if Monasticism is used to generate , so this is especially helpful.
* Jesuit Education: Spain can develop a strong scientific foundation thanks to the Mission, so this belief plays into the fact that Spain already wants to build a lot of Holy Sites and Campuses.
There is no need to evangelize your religion as Spain; there are definitely great Founder belief and Worship belief options for Spain, but they are a lot less important. You can do it if you have a generous amount of . A few recommendations to look at are Cross-Cultural Dialogue, Tithe, World Church for Founder, and Wat, Meeting House or Mosque for Worship, depending on what your empire needs.
==== Extra Combat Strength when fighting against civilizations that follow a different religion ====
Note that this ability only takes into account the majority religion (the dominant religion that 50% cities in the empire follow) of Spain and their enemy, not the religion of each individual city where the battle takes place. If either empire doesn't have a majority religion, the bonus will not be activated. While there is little you can do if the enemy doesn't follow a different religion (since you can only hope a third empire will spread their influence into the empire you want to conquer), you need to make sure your religion has established itself in your empire.
You can stack both the Combat Strength from this ability and from Crusade belief, by converting cities one by one. By doing that, the majority religion of the empire stays different, while the city you are attacking will activate Crusade. This ability also stacks perfectly with Wars of Religion, adding an extra layer of Combat Strength on top. However, it is worth remembering that conquering using Conquistadors will gradually convert the enemy into your religion, so Philip's ability (as well as Wars of Religion) is more likely to work in the beginning of the conquest, and most likely stops working halfway through. If a Domination Victory is what you are seeking, make sure to scout out and include the original in your battle plan early on. If a Religious Victory is on your agenda, then you don't need to worry about that, as all you want is to reduce the number of cities following a different religion than yours.
The best thing about this ability is that it works on every Spanish unit, land armies, navies, airplanes, even religious units.
==== Stronger Inquisitors ====
Inquisitors and Gurus are much less important religious units than Missionaries and Apostles, but Philip's ability gives you a little bit more incentives to use Inquisitors. First, in order to get access to Inquisitors, you need to expend an Apostle by Launching an Inquisition, then any city with a religion and a Temple can purchase Inquisitors of its respective religion. In vanilla, Inquisitors remove 100% foreign religions, while from Rise and Fall forward, they remove 75%; however, Philip's Inquisitors always remove 100% and have an additional charge.
Compared to other religious units, Inquisitors are cheaper and stronger at defending your religion on your home turf. They are crucial in ensuring your empire is following one religion only, which plays into the strength of Philip's other ability. Their cheap cost and an extra charge means they are a good economical choice to assist your Conquistadors in battle. Not only that, they receive 5 Religious Strength when fighting a theological combat against other religions' units, which makes them stalwart defenders of your religious stronghold.
=== Conquistador ===
The Conquistador is a great way to push Spain's main agenda: Religious Victory through conquest. It is quite underrated as a unique unit, despite the potential for outstanding damage output. Thanks to Spain's religious fervors under Philip II, the Conquistador is one of the easiest unique unit to stack many layers of bonus Combat Strength on. These are just a few most common ways to give additional Combat Strength to your Conquistadors:
* +10 Combat Strength when within one tile of a religious unit.
* +9 Combat Strength when fighting a unit (or city) belonging to an empire of a different religion (5 Combat Strength from Philip and 4 Combat Strength from Wars of Religion).
* +10 Combat Strength from Crusade belief or 5 Combat Strength from Defender of the Faith belief.
* +4 Combat Strength from Oligarchy or its legacy policy card.
* +5 Combat Strength from a potential . (clearly the least common one here, but it is worth pointing out)
Except for the , everything else is quite easy to get, which allows your Conquistadors to boast an absurd level of Combat Strength that fares well one or two eras after it becomes available, and this unit already has a built-in 3 extra Combat Strength over the standard Musketman. All of that costs only 10 extra !
Regarding whether Crusade or Defender of the Faith is the better Enhancer belief, it depends a lot on your generation. Crusade undoubtedly allows city captures to go a lot faster, since another layer of 10 Combat Strength can make Conquistadors unstoppable. However, it is susceptible to enemy Inquisitors and it renders the conversion ability of Conquistadors worthless, since you have to establish the presence of your religion in the city before the capture. Crusade is recommended when your is good enough to purchase a lot of Apostles to bring along on a conquest, since they are the only religious unit that can effectively counteract enemy Inquisitors and stand their ground against them in theological combat, and Missionaries are too weak to be able to quickly and reliably convert a religious city to another religion. If your generation is lacking, Defender of the Faith is the better choice. You can cheaply purchase Missionaries or Inquisitors to bring along to combat, of course you will have to forgo a good chunk of Combat Strength when trying to capture enemy cities, but they will be instantly converted to your religion, thanks to the Conquistador's ability. This will make it harder for the enemy to re-capture their own settlements, thanks to the newly gained 5 extra Combat Strength. Holy Order is also a worthwhile Enhancer belief if you have low , but it is worse than Defender of the Faith, since Missionaries with 30% discount are roughly the same as a normal price Inquisitors anyway, and you don't have the extra Combat Strength to prevent city re-capture.
The ability to convert enemy cities into your religion can be redundant if you pick Crusade, but can be very useful otherwise since you can push closer to a Religious Victory without expending any . You can also print out Era Score very rapidly by converting foreign cities during a war, similar to how Byzantium works. If these cities have a Holy Site with buildings inside, they can also instantly purchase religious units of your religion to further support your army. Note that the Conquistador will convert captured cities into your majority religion, not your founded one. Therefore, if you do not have a majority religion in your empire, the Conquistador will convert captured cities into atheism (similar in function to an Inquisitor removing an alien religion), or if your majority Religion is different from your founded one, that alien religion will be adopted instead.
Similar to other domination-oriented unique units, the sooner you unlock your Conquistador, the better. Try to train Men-At-Arms to upgrade them into Conquistadors. Mercenaries is an important civic to reach, since it provides Retinues and Professional Army, allowing you to upgrade your army at a discount in both and .
=== Mission ===
The Mission is also another underrated piece in the Spanish arsenal, considering its potential output being the highest in the game while also providing a great mix of , , and .
The base yield of a Mission is 2 , quite mediocre, but if it is built on a foreign continent, this goes up to 4 , 1 and 1 , more than twice as much. The extra and may sound minor, but they are decent compensations for Farms and Mines, This is what makes this improvement superior to a lot of other "spam-able" improvements (like Kurgan, or Sphinx), since it doesn't completely stunt the growth and productivity of the city if you want to focus on one type of yield and go completely overboard with it. For this reason, Spain urgently needs to discover another continent before Medieval Era hits, to ensure the maximum potential of this improvement when it is available for use. Also, cities on a foreign continent will receive 2 Loyalty if they have a Mission next to the City Center. The amount of Loyalty provided isn't huge and on its own cannot prevent colonies from revolting, but it is something to prolong the period of peace, giving you more time to act on the matter.
On top of that, the Mission grants 1 for each adjacent Campus or Holy Site, regardless of the continent it is on. This is what fuels the Spanish game, since the sheer amount of generated by this improvement can tiptoe on the "absurd" territory. 1 per adjacent may not sound as much, but that doesn't take into account that this improvement virtually has no special placement restriction, beside common restrictions that every improvement has (it cannot be built on Floodplains or Volcanic Soil, for example). It can be built on all terrain types, including Desert and Tundra, which allows great potential for a Desert Petra city or a Tundra St. Basil's Cathedral city (incredibly powerful if that city is on a different continent, since in that case each Mission provides 4 plus and for these barren terrains). Missions can be built next to one another, meaning you can build Holy Site and Campus in every city one tile away from one another, and then completely surround those two s with Missions. But the fun doesn't stop there. With Cultural Heritage, each Mission earns 2 additional , effectively doubling or tripling the amount of every Mission has if they are built next to a Holy Site and/or a Campus! The major strength of this improvement lies in its ubiquity, so make sure you put it down everywhere, especially to surround Campuses and Holy Sites or when the city is on a foreign continent. This is also the reason why Choral Music is the number one Follow belief choice for Spain. Spain most likely will lag behind in since their focus will be on trade, and , but they do have crucial civic benchmarks they need to hit, such as Mercenaries or Cultural Heritage, and Choral Music grants for a Spain would like to build anyway.
The April 2021 Update made this improvement even more powerful by moving its prerequisites from Exploration to Education. Not only that is one whole era earlier, Education is a technology while Exploration is a civic, meaning now Spain will have a much easier time unlocking their prowess.
=== Victory Types ===
Religion and domination go hand in hand for the Spanish, as a significant part of their gameplay resembles that of Byzantium. For that reason, Spain skews towards both a Religious Victory and a Domination Victory, and it requires you to perform well in both fields in order to win on either path. However, Spain has an additional layer of versatility, as they can compete very well for a Science Victory if they focus on building Campuses and Industrial Zones and use domestic to boost their cities' Population and potential. Their high output can be converted into easily if they pick the Jesuit Education belief.
=== Counter Strategy ===
Many Spanish bonuses take a while to kick in at all - and the ones that don't rely on getting lucky enough to spawn on a continent split. If you spawn next to them, they can definitely be a priority early war target, perhaps with a Horseman rush (as their speed will help them capture Builders or plunder s). Or you can just forward-settle them if that keeps them stuck to their home continent.
Note that the Spanish are highly incentivized to get a religion from Philip II's leader ability and Conquistadors, but lack direct bonuses towards founding one. If you can rush your own religion, you might be able to deny them one. Beware, though, as if both you and Philip II get a religion, his agenda will kick in and often push you towards a war with him. If that's during the height of Conquistador power, load up on garrisoned Crossbowmen, focus fire to expose religious units that you can then condemn, and pray.
== Civilopedia entry ==
== Cities ==
== Citizens ==
Males 	Females 	Modern males	Modern females
Bernardo 	Agacia 	Alejandro 	Benita
Gualterio	Carmita 	Carlos 	Dolores
Leandro 	Joaquina	Duarte 	Evita
Maurio 	Lupita 	Ernesto 	Florida
Naldo 	Paloma 	Fidele 	Ignacia
Ramiro 	Ramona 	Hernando 	Madalena
Rufio 	Suelita 	Javier 	Nevada
Teodoro 	Ursulina	Pancho 	Seina
Vicente 	Ventura 	Pepe 	Tabora
Xavier 	Zanetta 	Santos 	Yoana
== Trivia ==
* The Spanish civilization's symbol is the head of a bull, the national animal of Spain.
* The Spanish civilization ability references the Spanish empire's transatlantic convoy system.
==Soundtrack==
== Gallery ==
File:Civ6 conquistador3.jpg|The Conquistador, Spain's unique unit
File:Civ 6 Mission.jpg|The Mission, Spain's unique improvement
File:Spanish capital.JPG|Spanish capital in Medieval Era
== Videos ==
thumb|center|300px|First Look: Spain
== Related achievements ==
== See also ==
* Spanish in other games
ru:Испания (Civ6)
Category:Spanish