Harriet Tubman Leader Guide For Civ 7

Harriet Tubman is the master of espionage in Civ 7. There are a few fun strategies with her that can result in massive war weariness for aggressive AI, particularly good for higher-difficulty games. The Deity AI is aggressive as it is, so being able to essentially shut down opponents while also carrying out espionage to collect tech and hinder their progress can be extremely useful.

Actually getting Tubman’s bonuses to work in a game can be a bit tricky, however. This guide covers the best Harriet Tubman strategies, as well as some ideas for the best civilization combos and Mementos.

Harriet Tubman Overview

Harriet Tubman is all about negative war support for your attackers, as well as committing espionage actions.

Espionage Actions

Tubman is basically able to shut down an enemy player’s empire from the inside. Espionage Actions are a set of diplomatic actions that can be used to reduce your enemy’s happiness, steal technology, and much more as the game develops. As a general rule, Tubman wants to be at war – a lot – but never actually in danger of losing any cities.

War Support

War Support can be a frustrating mechanic for higher difficulties (the AI usually just starts wars with you for no reason), but Tubman turns this completely on its head. Five free war support is actually massive, and it makes turning the tide of war in your enemy’s favor a huge investment for them in terms of Influence.

Best Harriet Tubman Strategy For The Antiquity Age

Harriet Tubman is a unique way to play the game, and depending on your civilization choice (we’ll go over this below), she can either be played aggressively or as an annoying thorn in the AI’s side, as you turtle up while stealing their tech and building up culture and science while they waste resources on your wars.

Scouting And Discoveries

Just like with any other leader in Civ 7, your journey begins with two or three Scouts to get vision of the surrounding area.

You’re looking for Discoveries to help you rush Culture and Gold. You want Culture to grab the Mysticism Civic early on, and Gold to help develop your first settlement.

Forward Settling

Harriet Tubman is the best leader for forward settling your enemies. This means you can find a nice spot near your enemy’s capital and then plonk a settlement right down in their face.

You want to make the AI angry and this is pretty easily done by encroaching on their land. As long as you are prepared for some conflict, then you should be safe with your early war weariness advantage.

Your main job as Tubman is to irritate your enemies until they’re constantly at war with you: you can do this by settling cities close to them, stacking lots of units on their borders, or denouncing them.

Civics And Tech

Tubman relies quite a lot on healthy Influence gain to be able to play the diplomatic game, so you utlimately want to make a beeline for the Weiyang Palace – this is the best Influence Wonder in the game. It’s unlocked via the Citizenship civic, which you need to research Code Of Laws first to unlock.

Early, though, you just want to grab Mysticism into Discipline. You’re probably going to be fighting a lot.

You definitely want to research the Discipline Mastery civic. This unlocks the Gate Of All Nations. It provides an extra +2 War Support for the entire game. This is probably the best war Wonder in the game.

Pantheon

Your choice of Pantheon is typically quite limited on Immortal and Deity difficulty because the AI will typically beat you to the best ones.

However, if you do manage to snag an early Mysticism, then the best Pantheon for Tubman is the City Patron Goddess. This provides +3 Influence on your Altar.

If you can’t get the City Patron Goddess, you will have to be a bit more flexible. Typically, production Pantheons are useful – like Stone Circles if you have the correct tiles for it.

Best Civilizations For Harriet Tubman

Tubman is very versatile when it comes to civilization picks, though there are a couple of standouts from the Antiquity Age.

Greece

Greece is a fantastic Influence civilization in Civ 7. They have great base bonuses to Influence gain, and a host of diplomatic-focused civic techs that complement Tubman’s playstyle.

• Ekklesia, Xenia – The Ekklesia civic grants the Xenia tradition, which reduces the cost of Befriending city states by 50%. Its mastery provides +2 Culture for active Endeavors & Sanctions, which is handy when you’ll be sanctioning every play in the game (hopefully.)
• Symmachia Mastery – The final tech on the civic tree for Greece is Symmachia, and its mastery provides +30% Influence towards Sanctions and Endeavors. This greatly reduces the cost for Tubman to irritate her enemies by stealing tech and hindering their morale.

As well as these fantastic civics, the Greeks have a powerful Antiquity Age unit – the Hoplite – and the Parthenon unique build that provides extra Influence gain.

Persia

If you prefer a more militaristic approach to Tubman, then we can recommend the Persians as one of the best military civilizations in the Antiquity Age.

The Immortal is one of the best Antiquity Age units. You get a bunch of free units via the Persian’s unique narrative events, and they heal after defeating a unit.

As we mentioned above, the Gate Of All Nations is also a fantastic wonder for Tubman as it adds to her overall war weariness advantage across all three Ages of the game.

While the Persians let you play more aggressively, make sure that you are not declaring wars as you will lose your war weariness bonus.

Instead, attempt to aggravate the enemies to the point that they attack you. You can do this settling cities close to their borders, amassing lots of troops on their borders, or denouncing them.

Best Mementos For Harriet Tubman

Tubman has some excellent Mementos for her strategy, both on her own unlock path and from other leaders.

• Lantern – Lantern is Harriet Tubman’s first Memento unlock at level 2. It makes it so a Migrant appears in your capital whenever you complete an Espionage Action without being detected. This is a bit slow in the Antiquity Age, but later in the game it can get really out of hand with free population in your capital!

• Imago Mundi and The Travels Of Marco Polo Memento Combo – This is easily one of our favorite Antiquity Age combinations in the game. You get a bunch of extra scout sight from Imago Mundi and generate gold from scouting with Marco Polo. This is useful on Tubman because you can quickly assess where your opponents are, and get important vision of potential city sites.