China
Yongle
Uniques and adjacency effects read from the game data.
Victory focusScienceCulture
Kit at a glance
Yongle converts population directly into economy: city projects turn production into gold, food or faith, and big cities pay him extra yields per citizen. He plays tall — a handful of huge cities out-earning wide empires.
Opening: the first 60 turns
Yongle starts slower than other Chinas because his payoff is population, and population needs housing before anything else. Settle on or beside fresh water, open Scout, Builder, Settler, and research Pottery and Irrigation early so farms and a Granary go up while the capital is still small. Plant only three or four cities, but choose sites with several flat farmable tiles and a river for an Aqueduct rather than the usual hill fortress. Take Early Empire and Craftsmanship, then Political Philosophy for Classical Republic — its amenity and Great Person bonus feeds tall cities better than Autocracy. Once a city has slack in its build queue, run his gold project instead of a Warrior; by turn 55 the capital should be at eight or nine population and climbing toward the threshold where every citizen begins paying.
Unique to this civilization
Unit
Crouching Tiger
Technology: Machinery
Adjacency effects
No adjacency bonus — standard district rules apply.
How to play it
Grow your core cities relentlessly — housing and amenities first, then run his projects whenever the build queue has slack. The per-citizen yields reward every point of population, so granaries, aqueducts and food trade routes all pay double dividends.
Victory paths
Science is the cleanest finish: the per-citizen yields scale with exactly the thing a Campus city wants anyway, and the boosted eurekas shorten the path to spaceports for a civ that will only ever have four or five cities. Culture is a strong second, since the same big cities carry Theater Squares and the extra culture per citizen, and Yongle's wonders come cheaply through China's builders. Diplomacy is possible on the side because the gold project and surplus gold buy Diplomatic Favor and city-state envoys, but it should not be the main plan. Skip domination entirely — an empire of five huge cities has neither the frontier nor the unit count. Pivot decisions come late, around the Industrial era, once you see whether your Campus or your Theater Square output is ahead.
Synergies: city-states, wonders, policies
Growth, housing and amenity providers are the real synergies: Temple of Artemis, Hanging Gardens and later Huey Teocalli or Colosseum all belong in a Yongle capital, and Magnus with Surplus Logistics turns food trade routes into growth. Pingala goes in the second-largest city, because the per-citizen yields already make the capital rich. Fertility Rites is the pantheon of choice, with Goddess of Festivals if plantation luxuries are plentiful. City-states that grow cities — Mohenjo-Daro for housing, Zanzibar for amenities, Kumasi for culture per route — beat science city-states here, and the Kandy suzerainty converts natural wonders into relics for the culture side. Policy cards to hold all game are Colonization early, then Medina Quarter, Civil Prestige and eventually New Deal.
Weaknesses and counters
Tall empires are fragile in Gathering Storm: one flood, a hurricane or a well-timed pillage can undo twenty turns of growth in the only city that matters, and disasters hit river cities hardest. Yongle is also nearly defenseless before Crouching Tigers, because the build queue that should be producing Archers is running gold projects; an early rush from a neighbor usually ends the game. Opponents counter by forward-settling to cap his land and by starving him of luxuries, since amenities are the ceiling on population. Common mistakes are running projects before the city has a Granary and Aqueduct, founding cities on hills out of habit, and chasing more cities in the Medieval era instead of pushing the ones you have past the population threshold that unlocks the yields.
Similar civilizations
Related guides
- Science Victory City Planning: Roles, the Production Core, and the SpaceportA city-by-city plan for science victories in Gathering Storm: which cities carry research, which one carries the spaceport, era checkpoints to measure against, and what to do when the plan stalls.Last reviewed: 2026-10-03
- Which Civilization Should You Play? Picks by Victory TypeThree to four leader picks for each victory type — science, culture, domination, religion, and diplomacy — with the reason each one teaches that victory well, plus flexible all-rounders and a guide to matching a civilization to how you actually like to play.Last reviewed: 2026-10-03
- Early District Planning: The First 100 TurnsHow to read city sites for future adjacency, decide between settling for yields now or reserving tile clusters, and know when a planned layout should be abandoned.Last reviewed: 2026-10-03
- City-States and Envoys: Where Your Influence Should GoWhere envoys come from, how to spend the first handful, which city-state types match each victory plan, how to win and keep suzerainty against the AI, and when conquering a city-state is the right call.Last reviewed: 2026-10-03
Last reviewed: 2026-10-03