Māori
Kupe
Uniques and adjacency effects read from the game data.
Victory focusCultureReligion
Kit at a glance
Kupe starts on the open ocean and lands wherever he chooses: the Māori begin with seafaring knowledge, unimproved woods and rainforest pay production, and marae spread culture and faith without Great Works. The land itself, left wild, is the economy.
Opening: the first 60 turns
Kupe's opening is spent at sea, and the discipline is to keep sailing while the free science and culture tick and stop only for a genuinely excellent site: a coastal hill beside a bay, with woods, rainforest and a marsh or two inside the second ring, because the Marae will pay per feature tile and the Māori production bonus rewards leaving all of it unimproved. Once landed, the free Builder should place fishing boats first, never chop, and the queue runs Warrior, Scout, Settler, Settler. Research Pottery, Astrology and then Construction purely for the Toa; Sailing and Shipbuilding are already known. Civics go Craftsmanship, Foreign Trade, then straight to Drama and Poetry so the Marae is available in every city by turn fifty.
Unique to this civilization
Unit
Toa
Replaces Swordsman
Technology: Construction
Building
Marae
Replaces Amphitheater
Civic: Drama and Poetry
Adjacency effects
No adjacency bonus — standard district rules apply.
How to play it
Cruise a few extra turns for a genuinely great first city — the ocean start is a free scouting pass. Never chop woods; preserve and later plant more. Marae plus national parks make a tourism engine that needs no artists at all.
Victory paths
Culture is the path and the Marae is the mechanism: every city with woods, rainforest, marsh or reef inside its borders earns culture and faith from each of those tiles, and after Flight the same tiles produce tourism, so the Māori win with landscapes rather than Great Works. That matters because the civ cannot earn Great Writers at all, which rules out the usual museum route and pushes the plan toward national parks, seaside resorts and the faith needed to buy Naturalists. Religion is the supporting path: the Marae's faith is large enough to found a religion without a strong Holy Site, and a pantheon such as Earth Goddess, which pays faith on high-appeal tiles, compounds with the preserved terrain. Choose culture from the start and keep the religion small and domestic.
Synergies: city-states, wonders, policies
Earth Goddess is the pantheon of choice because the untouched woods and coast that Māori cities keep are exactly the breathtaking tiles it rewards; Lady of the Reeds and Marshes is the alternative on swampy starts. Conservation is the civic to reach early for Naturalists and for planting woods on tiles that lack features, which raises both Marae yields and the production bonus. Liang with Parks and Recreation can build City Parks that raise appeal, and Reyna's Forestry Management adds gold on the same unimproved tiles. Auckland and Nan Madol are the city-states to hold, and Pyramids remains unnecessary since Builders never harvest. Eiffel Tower and Cristo Redentor are the late wonders that scale appeal-based tourism further.
Weaknesses and counters
Refusing to chop or harvest means Māori cities grow slowly and lack the burst production other civs use for early wonders and Settlers; a start with few features leaves the Marae nearly empty and the production bonus pointless. Flight arrives late, so the culture plan has no tourism until the Modern era and can be outpaced by a Great Work civ that started earlier. The Toa is a solid Classical defender but the civ has nothing afterwards, and coastal cities with unimproved surroundings are easy to pillage without much loss to the attacker. Players also linger at sea too long and land after rivals have claimed the coast. Opponents beat Kupe by settling the feature-rich coast he wanted, by chopping their way to early wonders and Great Works first, and by burning his woods in wartime.
Similar civilizations
Related guides
- Culture Victory: Planning Cities for TourismHow tourism actually beats other players' culture, where Theater Squares and Great Works belong, how to protect appeal from the first settle for National Parks and Seaside Resorts, and the late-game push with trade routes, open borders, and Rock Bands.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