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Confucius is an expansionist and scientific leader inCivilization 7. He excels at building large cities with a large population, then using that population to support a host of specialists, generating gold, culture, and science per turn. He is very flexible when it comes to the victory conditions as science generation opens up a lot of buildings and paths. You’ll want to focus a lot on expansion of feeder towns to make your capital as large as possible.
This guide covers an overview of Confucius, some early game Antiquity Age strategies, and the best civilizations and mementos.
This guide is based on singleplayer Deity difficulty AI, not multiplayer. Strategies may differ.
Confucius Overview
Confucius is a powerful scientific leader in Civilization 7 with significant bonuses for Specialists.
You willwant to focus on Productionprimarily as the base growth rate is already improved to the point that buildings like theGranaryand, to some extent, theBathandGardencan be considered secondary to useful Wonders and production buildings.
This gives Confucius a big advantage over other leaders: you can focus on Production without worrying about compromising the growth of your capital and other cities.
+2 Science from Specialists.
Bonus Growth Rate
Confucius has cities that growquickly.That flat bonus growth rate stacks with other bonuses in the game, like the boost from theHanging Gardenswonder or theFertility RitesPantheon. Combine all of these, and you can have a capital that reaches 20 population by turn 100.
Scientific Specialists
Confucius' enormous cities will make the most out of their specialist slots, with an extra +2 science per specialist. This is on top of the science and culture generation specialists already provide.
You will want to focus on planning outgood specialist tileson yourLibary,Monument,Production buildings, and more.You can read more about adjacency here.
The absolute trickiest part of playing Confucius is aboutbalancing specialists with happiness, and havinggood adjacency planning.
Read more about adjacency in Civ 7 here.
Specialistscost happiness, which could be detrimental in the Antiquity and Exploration Age. As you reach the modern age, you should have enough happiness and policy cards that reduce the impact of specialist happiness, but early on you shouldonly use specialists on your best tiles.
Confucius Strategy In the Antiquity Age
Confucius has quite a unique approach to the Antiquity Age. You’ll want to get yourProduction buildings up quicklyand then head straight towards any tech and civics thatimprove your specialists, hopefully setting you up for an easy Science victory in the Exploration Age with40+ yield tiles.
Confucius is all about setting yourself up nicely in the Antiquity Age toreap the benefits later down the line. You might not feel the full force of Confucius' specialist focus until the Modern Age, but the wait is worth it for the excellent science production towards the end of the game.
The AI will likely get annoyed with you, so you’ll likely need to play fairly defensively. We’ll cover some of thebest early game strategiesfor Confucius below, including where to settle, which civics and research to grab first, and how to properly plan your cities for maximum specialist adjacency.
Let’s take a look.
Early Scouting And Discoveries
Early scouts are unbelievably powerful in Civ 7. We recommendat least two Scouts to start with, though we often triple up for maximum scouting.
This is because we want to grabas many Discoveriesas possible, and as you are racing against the AI for these, the more Scouts the better.
You want to prioritizeScienceandCulturefrom Discoveries, pushing for your early important technologies likePotteryandAnimal Husbandryto boost production in your capital; and your early civics, likeMysticism, to attempt to grabthe Fertility Rites Pantheon, which is S-tier for Confucius.
Early Buildings
Confucius gets an excellent growth bonus which makes building the Granary first a much worse choice overall. Instead,focus on production buildings, like the Saw Pit and Brickyard.
Use your first towns to feed your main settlement rather than focus on food in your capital.Produce three settlersimmediatelyafter your firsttwoproduction buildings, i.e the Pit and Brickyard.
Plant those settlers on good tiles with plenty of resources that aren’t too far from your city. Food will be sent back to your capital to help it grow while you focus on production.
Once your towns reachseven population, you can set them toUrban Center Focusto generate Culture and Science on everyQuarter.A Quarter is any tile that has two completed districts on it, i.e the Granary and Brickyard.
The Urban Center focus will generatemorescience per turn than a Library, which means youdon’t need to rush Writing- instead, use the production for troops, settlers, and production buildings.
Tech And Civics
We tend to pick up eitherPotteryorAnimal Husbandryfirst. This depends on what starting tiles you have. Pottery for clay pits and mines, animal husbandry for pastures.
Then you want to grabMasonry, andMasonry II,thenIrrigation,thenWriting. This will give Confucius a very powerful production start without skimping on science in the long-run.You can easily catch up with your boosted science yields, anyway.
In terms of civics, you almostalwayswant to pickMysticismfirst, as this will allow you to get an early Pantheon.
Unfortunately, Confucius' best Pantheon isFertility Riteswhich provides +10 percent growth rate in the settlement.
As you can see from the image above, the AI really loves to grab this one before you - and this was an image from a decently-strong Confucius start, too.
As an alternative, we really likeStone Circlesfor the extra production on Mines, Quarries and Clay Pits. Obviously, this is only applicable if you actuallyhavethose tiles in your city. It does apply toeverysettlement with an altar, so even if your capital doesn’t have the tiles it can still be a good pickup.
When Should You Place Your First Specialists?
As Confucius, it can be a bit difficult to understand when to place your first specialists.
However, there are some yields that are justtoogood to pass up on. Let’s take a look at this early game Confucius city.
As you can see, even early on we’ve opened up some great specialist slots. There’s a +6 Science and +2 Culture tile, or a +1.5 Food, 1.5 Gold, +4 Science and +2 Culture tile. These are better than themajority of open rural tilesin the city.
As a rule, you want to get your adjacency set up nicely on yourLibrary tileto maximize your science output.
Science buildings get adjacency from resources.As you can see, the library in this city is receiving adjacency from theSilverand theHorses.
you’re able to read hereand about how tomaximize the yields in your cities here.
Because Confucius wants toutilize Specialists as soon as possible, you want to make sure that you are researching the right civics and techs to enable that.
Improving Your Specialists
Confucius is capable of getting someverypowerful specialist tiles in his cities. This is all reliant on adjacency planningandgrabbing Wonders and techs that improve your specialists.
Some civilizations provide extra specialist bonuses, and this is a useful way of deciding which civilization you want to play.
Civilization civics are not available from the main menu, so you’ll actually need to start a game and investigate the tree yourself. Most of the specialist-focused improvements for civilizations are only available in their specific civic tree.
For example, theHan Civilizationprovides +1 Science per specialist on itsJunzicivic tech research. While the Han don’t completely complement Confucius' style of play, they might be worth playingjustfor that one single civic.
Best Wonders
There are a couple of really standout Wonders for Confucius.
The Hanging Gardens are not that hard to get on Deity difficulty, but the Angkor Wat is a favorite of the AI. You will need toreallyrush to grab it from them.
Best Civilizations For Confucius
Confucius haslotsof versatility with civilization choice because his bonuses are pretty universal.
Maya
If you just want to go absolutely ballistic with science, then Maya are the civilization for you.
The Palace gains +0.5 Science for adjacent Vegetated Terrain.
+30% Production towards constructing Mundo Perdido.
The Maya are anexcellent civilization for science, though that’s not immediately apparent from their overall bonuses.
They do get a nice (but small) science bonus from vegetated terrain, and theK’uh Nahunique building also provides science, but it’s in the civic tree that this civilization really takes off.
The Maya, however, provideno meaningful bonus to Specialists- which you might prefer as Confucius.
Khmer
Want to lean completely into Confucius' growth bonuses? Introducing the Khmer.
Districts on Rivers do not remove the natural yield of the tile.
30% production towards constructing the Angkor Wat.
The Khmer are all about growth. Their unique building,the Baray, provides a base bonus of +3 food when constructed. However, it also provides an extra +1 food onevery floodplain tile in the settlement.With the right starting location, this is alotof extra food.
However, it’s the Khmer civics that really complement Confucius.
The wording of theKambu-Meracivic is important. It doesn’t mean that your specialistsare freebut that you essentially get an extra specialist per specialist forno cost.This is just to make sure there’s no way to imbalance the game by just having completely free specialists across the board.
Best Confucius Mementos
Confucius has lots of great Mementos, both on his own unlock tree and from other leaders.
In general, though, you want to adjust your Mementos as you play.you may change Mementos when the Age transitions.
We enjoy theImago MundiandMarco Poloscouting Mementos in the Antiquity, as you can quickly scan the map and gain gold as you do so. In Exploration, we may switch to Confucius' more specialist-specific Mementos.
Confucius In The Exploration and Modern Age
Confucius usually establishes himself with a powerful scientific lead in theAntiquity Age, followed up by profiting off of this in theExploration Age.
A Religious style of play suits Confucius as there are some great social policies thatimprove science in settlements converted to your religion.
Specialists also become more impactful during theModern Ageand this is where all the work of adjacency planning and bonus-stacking really comes into their own. Ideology plays a big part in the Modern Age, and the government you choose will directly impact your specialists - either providing extra science, food, production, happiness, and other bonuses.
