Peaceful Domination with Eleanor of England – The Complete Guide

Eleanor of England offers a unique and compelling playstyle in Civilization VI, centered around culturally flipping enemy cities rather than conquering them through military might. This guide provides a step-by-step strategy to leverage her abilities effectively and achieve a peaceful domination victory.

Key Strategy: Culturally Flipping Cities

Eleanor’s main ability allows her to reduce the loyalty of foreign cities within 9 tiles of her cities that contain Great Works. As a result, enemy cities lose loyalty over time and, when they reach zero loyalty, they will peacefully join your empire.

Important Considerations

1. Disable Culture Victory: Since this strategy relies heavily on creating Great Works, you will also generate a significant amount of tourism. To avoid accidentally winning a Culture Victory before completing the peaceful domination challenge, consider turning off the Culture Victory condition.
2. Beware of Dido: If Phoenicia’s Dido is in the game, her coastal cities with a Cothon district will always maintain full loyalty. These cities cannot be flipped culturally and may require military conquest.
3. Cultural Alliance: Avoid forming a Cultural Alliance with targeted civilizations, as this will eliminate loyalty pressure on their cities. Cultural Alliances last for 30 turns, so use them strategically and plan to end them when you’re ready to exert loyalty pressure.
4. Maximizing Loyalty Pressure: The amount of loyalty pressure a target city experiences depends on the number of Eleanor’s cities exerting pressure, how close they are to the target, and the size of their population. Surrounding a target city with your own high-population cities increases the loyalty pressure and accelerates its flip.
5. Golden Ages: Keep your civilization in a Golden Age every era, as this boosts the loyalty pressure on nearby enemy cities.

Step-by-Step Guide

Map Selection

• Terra Map: Choose a Terra map where all civilizations start on the same continent. This setup allows you to settle cities close to your opponents, maximizing the effect of Eleanor’s loyalty-reducing ability.
• Or you can try Pangea or Highlands, not as fun though.

Early Game Setup

1. City Placement:
   • Settle cities aggressively near enemy borders to exert maximum loyalty pressure. Ensure cities are within 9 tiles of enemy cities to make the most of Eleanor’s cultural influence.
2. City Growth:
   • Build Commercial Hubs or Harbors to create a healthy domestic trade network.
   • Consider specializing a city in food districts and Magnus Surplus Logistics title, where domestic trade routes will be sent to for extra food.
   • Focus on rapid city growth by chopping bonus resources like cattle or rainforests and ensuring cities have sufficient housing and amenities to support larger populations.
   • Build a strong economy trading resources to enable trading for Great Works from other civilizations.
3. Religion:
   • Ensure healthy Faith production with several Holy Sites, it is important for purchasing Apostles in spreading your religion, purchasing Cultists, or even building National Parks to keep up with Amenities demand or earn easy era score.
   • It pays to spread your religion, a city AI owns that does not follow their Religion will lose -3 Loyalty.

Mid-Game Expansion

1. Districts:
   • Build and expand your cultural infrastructure by building Theater Squares with Amphitheaters, and other cultural buildings in cities close to enemy borders and placing Great Works in them.
   • Entertainment Complexes become valuable for the Bread and Circuses project that reduces loyalty of cities within 9 tiles by each citizen by 1. So the larger the city with running the project the better.
2. Leverage Governors:
   • Place Amani (with Emissary title) in key border cities to increase loyalty pressure.
3. Secret Societies (Highly Recommended):
   • If playing with the Secret Societies mode, consider joining the Voidsingers. This will provide additional yields and access to Cultists, units that can further reduce loyalty in enemy cities. Make sure you have a strong Faith production for this path, because Cultists can only be bought with Faith.

Diplomatic and Defensive Strategy

1. Maintain Peaceful Relations:
   • Focus on diplomacy to keep relations peaceful with other civilizations, allowing you to build up your cultural influence without the risk of war.
2. Build a Moderate Defense:
   • While your goal is peaceful domination, maintain a small but effective defensive force to repel barbarians or unexpected enemy attacks.

Loyalty Flipping and Cultural Domination

1. Maximize Great Works:
   • Continuously acquire and create Great Works to amplify loyalty pressure. Position these works in cities close to enemy borders to destabilize nearby cities.
2. Espionage:
   • Deploy spies to neutralize enemy governors in target cities
   • Conduct Foment Unrest missions to further destabilize the city’s loyalty.
3. Cultists:
   • Use Cultists to rapidly reduce loyalty in enemy cities. It’s best to deploy a group of Cultists at once, as they have limited charges (typically 3), and their combined effect can flip a city quickly.
4. Bread and Circuses Project:
   • The Bread and Circuses project from an Entertainment Complex or Water Park doubles the effective population count for loyalty pressure, making it an effective tool in high-population cities.
5. Target Enemy Capitals:
   • Focus on flipping larger key enemy cities, especially capitals. These cities exert more loyalty pressure on surrounding areas, making it easier to flip nearby cities once they fall.
6. Target Amenities:
   • Deprive targeted civs of extra amenities by halting a trade with them and purchasing all other available luxuries globally.

Late-Game Victory

1. Final Push:
   • As more cities flip to your control, your loyalty pressure will snowball. Continue to expand your cultural districts, produce Great Works, and apply pressure to remaining enemy cities.
2. Dark Summoning Project:
   • If aligned with the Voidsingers, the Dark Summoning project can further increase Cultists’ loyalty damage by 2 (up to a cap of 30). The project costs 1000 production, but you can speed up completion by chopping resources and having Governor Magnus in the city to maximize production yields.
3. Avoid Direct War:
   • Stick to cultural dominance and avoid direct military conflict. Maintain a defensive posture but focus on flipping cities through loyalty rather than conquest.

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Key Tips

• Strategic City Placement: Place cities close to enemies to maximize loyalty pressure.
• Cultural Focus: Build Theater Squares and acquire Great Works to amplify cultural influence.
• Diplomacy and Defense: Maintain peaceful relations while protecting your borders.
• Adaptability: Adjust your strategy based on the map, opponents, and game situation.

With careful planning and execution, Eleanor can dominate the world through culture, making it one of the most unique and satisfying paths to victory in Civilization VI.