Civ 5 Shoshone Civilization
Civ Bonuses, AI Info, Strategies, Unique Units and Buildings
Updated for Gods and Kings and Brave New World DLCs
Civilization's Leader: Pocatello
Civ Bonus: Great Expanse
Founded Cities start with additional territory and Units receive a +20% Combat Strength bonus when fighting in their own Territory.
Unique Unit: Pathfinder
Unique Scout Replacement
A unique Scout replacement that has as much Combat Strength as a Warrior and starts with Native Tongue, which allows selection of bonuses from Ancient Ruins you find. Each Bonus may be chosen again every third Ruin. The Unit doesn't upgrade to anything, but if you elect to study tools to upgrade the Unit, it goes to a Composite Bowman instead of the usual Archer.
Unique Unit: Comanche Riders
Replaces Cavalry. Requires Military Science, Horses
Cost 200 vs 225 for Cavalry and have +1 Movement. The +1 Movement is a Promotion, and does carry over when upgrading the Unit meaning you have faster Landships and Tanks later in the game the more of these you make.
| Warmonger Hatred | Wonder Compete | Offense Build | Defense Build | City Defense | DoF | Friendly to Civs | Denounce Civs | War w/Civs | Deception Likelihood | CS Comp | CS War | |
| 5 | 5 | 5 | 8 | 8 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 3 | |
| Other Info | Pocatello is a trustworthy leader who is unlikely to engage you in War. He primarily plays defensively, but is capable of defending himself and creating a large mobile Army. Pocatello has a very high flavor for Expansion, so is likely to play a wide empire. | |||||||||||
Strategies/Ideas for playing Shoshone in Civ 5:
The Shoshone came with the Brave New World DLC and were initially seen as overpowered. I find them a well-balanced Civ, offering a strong early game that can allow you to quickly pass the AI. Great Expanse is an excellent early-game bonus, though you need to use it well because its effects are nearly gone by the late-game, aside from the defending bonus. Great Expanse gives newly-founded Cities 8 additional tiles - the 8 the AI would have automatically chosen had your Cultural Borders expanded naturally. This means that you are likely to get some great workable flat lands, as well as most of your resources within 3 tiles as soon as you Found a City. This bonus is way, way better than Washington's.
Capitalizing on Great Expanse means Workers, to the tune of two per City. You can cut back on them later, once your lands are developed. You have the unique ability to get all your Luxuries connected before your Borders ever expand and will rarely need to buy a tile. I do suggest trying to found a Religion with them, as terrain-specific Pantheons can be very helpful, plus you have the ability to get Faith from Ruins (more on that later). I suggest Researching Pottery first and using a build order of Pathfinder > Shrine > Worker > Archer. After your first Expansion, get out Workers asap. You want to be able to build Pastures, Mines, and Farms along Rivers and set up trade deals with other Civs. Your second Pathfinder can join the first in scouting out your lands. Shoshone do not work well on Archipelago, but rather Continents or Pangaea because it wastes this Unique Unit's excellent bonus. On a map like Plains plus, they would absolutely excel because of how many Ruins there tend to be.
With this strong early start, it's easy to get to Universities and start outpacing the AI in tech. That has led me to two Cultural Victories with the Shoshone (Turns 330-350 on Immortal) and I was very pleased with how the game went, to the point that this has definitely become one of my top 5 Civs. What I really like about them is how the early bonus translates into getting Science up and running via Education, and that's a perk players who do not own Babylon or Korea can enjoy.
Great Expanse's defensive bonus can be used offensively, so long as you fight a Warring Civ in your own territory. Your Units will deal a lot more damage and you'll be able to push them back toward their own lands. Civs that are put on the defensive and clearly bested Militarily will typically offer better Peace Treaties. They may give you lump sums or GPT and even Cities. Regardless, if you get War declared, you will be in a good position to turtle up and protect your Cities from strong foes. This bonus works well 100% of the time, unlike Ethiopia, who only get bonuses against Civs with more Cities.
The Pathfinder's usefulness is only in the first 50-70 Turns of any game. You'll start with one, but likely need two to maximize the benefits. As you Scout your continent, you should be lucky enough to find at least 4-6 ruins, if not more. You cannot pick the same bonus every time, but rather every four ruins (so Culture > Tech > Unit Upgrade > Culture > Tech would work). It's great to take a free Tech first (hopefully Mining), then Culture, then upgrade to a Composite Bowman that will be wonderful for completing CS Quests. At Turn 20, you can select to find +20 Faith from a Ruin. This means you can instantly grab a Pantheon, particularly if you have Shrine in Mason Kahni. If it's Turn 19 and no one's around, save that ruin for a couple of Turns later to get your Pantheon. After a Pantheon is founded, you are able to select Faith toward a Great Prophet (60 Faith) without waiting for three more Ruins. That gets you nearly 1/3 of the way there, and with Shrines in your other Cities and a Faith-producing Pantheon you are practically guaranteed a Religion.
Smart selection of Bonuses is important to maximizing use of the Pathfinder. Whether you're playing with Liberty or Tradition, you will want Techs first, then Culture, then to upgrade the Pathfinder so it can squish Barbarians. Upgrading the Pathfinder also gives you a strong Unit early in the game, which can be used to harass other Civs and steal Workers. This feels a lot less like cheating than using City-States to accomplish the same, and it's likely the Civ in question will forgive you so long as you don't actually try to take a City.
Taking a free Population is sometimes a bad idea, depending how much Food is around. Readers below noted that food does carry over, so that it will add a full population and keep the food you had. Sometimes, you will not have many food resources and it's a good time to take Population. When Food resources are plentiful, the City will grow quick naturally, and you will reach size 4-6 then stagnate without a Worker to add farms or improve resources - so you're speeding the rate you hit that wall, though benefitting from higher Production/gold in the City earlier. Faith is the best pick for the long term, but for the others I prioritize Tech > Culture > Upgrades > Gold. With low food/high production around, I would take Population to help with Production, as opposed to Culture. That would get a Worker and other buildings out sooner and allow the City to grow further.
The Shoshone give you a very strong start, and it's up to you to make that translate into a good game. While their bonuses peter out, it's great to get the ability to grab free Techs and Culture from Ruins. This will give your Workers the Tech needed for Improvements, reveal Horses, or get you closer to Philosophy. Having plenty of early Workers, you should have no trouble getting your City Connections up and running and raking in Gold with Trade Routes, allowing you to buy necessary buildings.
I do not have much good to write about the Comanche Riders. I used only a few during my games with the Shoshone. The good things about them are very simple - they have +1 Movement and are 25 Production cheaper than a Cavalry. This means you can make them 10% faster and will have an extra Movement to move around rough terrain and pillage tiles. They do this well when upgraded to Tanks, too. I do suggest you build at least a few of these as fast responders to Wars and their ability to sneak behind the front lines to hit Cannons and Crossbowmen/Gatling Guns.
I have not played the Shoshone Wide with Liberty, as it's typically hard to grab lots of land on Immortal in a timely manner, but it's clear their Cities would work very well this way. Cultural Expansion of Borders won't be a problem and you'll be able to set your Workers on improving the very best tiles to capitalize on Great Expanse. Even neglected Cities will perform far better than usual, since they will have those 3-food or 2 Food/1 Production tiles to fall back on. Given all the Workable tiles you'll have, micromanaging your Citizens in the early-game is highly recommended.
This Guide should have given you some insight on why the Shoshone are viewed as a strong Civilization. Share your Tips and experiences playing as Pocatello below to help your fellow Civ players.
| Sid Meier's Civ 5 is a deep strategy game. I created these individual Civilization Guides to highlight the strengths of their specials and unique units. If you have an opener or tip for playing this Civ that you would like to share with other readers, please use the comments form below. Some Guides are in need of update and will be improved to a new standard of quality or altered to reflect gameplay changes in G&K and Brave New World. | ||||||
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Share Tips and FAQs (11)
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If you catch one when your City has 10 turns to grow, I can defnitely see the Population paying off. It all depends where the city is. I think the best I can do is warn against taking that option when you're a few turns from growth, since it's a wasted choice.
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3The only thing I'll have to say about them that is positive is that the embarked berserkers would be about as powerful as ships at the time when in the water. I would personally build the berserkers, upgrade them to ski infantry and ensure the bulk of my military has been upgraded through that line before moving on to some standard domination with Artillery. You'd have amphibious units with bonuses in unforested hills/snow/tundra that can help, situationally - for example when you want to conquer a coastal snow city (heh). Too bad they take Iron.. eliminating that would have helped a bit, so you could have a horde. You're limited in your ability to follow that upgrade line by your iron supply. Too many things are situational. They might pass as OK on Archipelago...
I think what's worse about them is that if I start wars around that time, the World Congress is also going to be founded soon. Every Civ in the world is going to know of it, we're not even halfway through the game, nor do I have Cannons to help take out Cities with 40+ strength yet... bad, bad, and bad.
I'd have to disagree with your assessment that they play wide. I think they are better tall (the way you played them) due great expanse. If playing wide (many cities clumped together) the cities will compete with each other for tiles that much sooner and semi negating the benefits.
So really I agree with you? I'm confused.
I can see Shoshone played this way as an absolute war machine, for their early Cities will be able to spam units better than anyone else. Couple this with extra Workers from liberty, and you can be a powerhouse - at least in the early game! Gotta capitalize on their early benefits, anyway...