Religious

Nazca

Suzerain and envoy bonuses summarised in our own words from the game data.

Suzerain bonus

Builders can construct the Nazca Line on flat Desert: +1 Faith to adjacent tiles (+1 more if they hold a resource), later Food for adjacent Desert and Production for adjacent flat tiles, +1 Appeal. The Line's own tile cannot be worked.

Game data trace

MINOR_CIV_NAZCA_UNIQUE_INFLUENCE_BONUS

Strategy guide

Nazca Lines turn flat desert — otherwise dead land — into faith generators for every adjacent tile, later adding food and production. The lines themselves can't be worked, so draw them on tiles you'd never work anyway and let the neighbors collect the yields.

Best civs & plans

Desert-heavy starts — Mali, Nubia — convert wasteland into an economy; pairs well with Desert Folklore-style faith plans.

Envoy plan

Nazca Lines need suzerainty and nothing more, so the third envoy is the one that matters; the religious-type rewards make the first envoy worthwhile on its own, since faith in the capital and every Shrine helps the pantheon and Great Prophet race that a desert start is usually running anyway. The competition is the problem: AI civs that found religions treat religious city-states as priority targets and stack envoys there steadily, so a player with a desert-heavy capital should commit three envoys before the classical era rather than trickle them in. Amani is the cheapest way to hold the margin afterwards. If your land has no flat desert at all, the type rewards alone do not justify the envoys — send them to a religious city-state whose bonus you can actually use.

Value by era

The early value is faith on tiles that citizens actually work: a line drawn in the middle of a desert cluster feeds up to six neighbours, and a couple of them in the capital can stand in for a weak Holy Site adjacency during the ancient religion race. Through the classical era the lines are mostly a faith supplement, because bare desert still lacks food and production and nobody wants to work it. The real peak comes once the Civil Service civic adds food to adjacent desert and Mass Production adds production to adjacent flat tiles — from that point a ringed desert city works its neighbours like decent farmland. Late game the appeal bonus is a small extra for seaside resorts and National Parks, and a late suzerainty still pays if Builders are cheap and desert is idle.

Pitfalls and how to protect it

Because the line's own tile can never be worked, every line placed on a tile with real yields — a desert hill, a resource, a Petra-boosted tile — throws that tile away permanently; keep the lines on bare flat desert and let the Petra tiles collect the bonus instead. Two lines side by side waste each other, since a line cannot work the faith its neighbour gives it, so alternate lines with worked tiles. The yields only exist on tiles a citizen is standing on, which means a small city ringed by lines gains little until it grows. Nazca itself usually sits in open desert with poor defences, so an aggressive neighbour can take it early; if it falls, the lines already drawn keep working but no new ones can be added, so treat liberation as optional rather than urgent.

Envoy bonuses

1 envoy+1 Faith in your capital and in each Shrine you own.
3 envoys+2 Faith in each Temple and each Consulate you own.
6 envoys+3 Faith in each worship building and each Chancery you own.

Envoy bonuses are shared by every city-state of the same type.

Plan your districts in the adjacency calculator →

Other Religious city-states

Related guides

Last reviewed: 2026-10-03