The Swedish people (or Swedes) represent a civilization in Civilization VI: Gathering Storm. They are led by Kristina, under whom their default colors are light blue and yellow.
The Swedes' civilization ability is Nobel Prize, which grants them additional 
Great Scientist and 
Great Engineer points from Universities and Factories, generates 50 
Diplomatic Favor for each 
Great Person they recruit and adds three unique World Congress competitions from the Industrial Era onwards. Their unique unit is the Carolean (which replaces the Pike and Shot), and their unique tile improvement is the Open-Air Museum.
Strategy[]
Starting bias: None
Sweden is equipped with a powerful arsenal of bonuses that allow them to sprint towards both a Cultural and a Diplomatic Victory. Since they can earn so many Great People they can make even Brazil envious, and can generate Diplomatic Favor much more reliably than Canada, it is quite difficult to stop the Swedish machine when they are in motion.
Nobel Prize[]
This is a weird ability, nothing in the game functions quite like it. It can be somewhat of a "win-more" ability, as it rewards you handsomely if you are already leading the game in some facets, but it will backfire incredibly hard by handing a lot of advantages over to your competitors if you lag behind.
Extra 
Diplomatic Favor per Great Person earned[]
Unlike many other civilizations who are geared towards more than one type of victory, Sweden does not have to make a lot of different gameplay choices about which victory you should go for and which you should have as a backup only, as diplomacy and culture really go hand in hand. You can easily win a cultural Victory inadvertently when trying to go for a diplomatic one, and vice versa.
The Swedish civilization's ability increases the rate of earning Great Scientists and Great Engineers when the Medieval Era comes, and whenever Sweden earns a Great Person of any kind, they are rewarded with Diplomatic Favor. 50 Diplomatic Favor is quite a lot in the early game, especially if you manage to found a religion as Sweden, you will gain a hefty amount of Diplomatic Favor, before anyone else even manages to earn their first point of Diplomatic Favor (for more information on Sweden, religion and a 
Relic rush strategy, read below). Since Sweden, under Kristina, is a force to be reckoned with on the path to a cultural victory, this ability grants some prowess to Sweden in the diplomatic game as well, without them having to do anything outside of their comfort zone created by their leader.
Extra Great Scientist and Great Engineer points from Universities and Factories[]
This is a very minor bonus, but it ties in well with the previous aspect and the new Nobel Prize competitions. Combined with Kristina's ability, Swedish toolkits encourage players to go as wide as possible, and diversify their Great People generation by building Campuses, Industrial Zones and Theater Squares.
This ability may be comparable to Scottish civilization ability, but it is a lot weaker, since it won't be activated until Education (Medieval Era) and Industrialization (Industrial Era). And because of this, Sweden is very often put in a bad spot in the early game. They need to prioritize too many things, without any bonus toward 
Production to realize all of their goals. They need at least 3 types of 
Districts to activate all of their bonuses, early wonders with Great Work slots, tier 2 buildings in Campus and Industrial Zone, maybe a few Aqueducts and Dams for extra Industrial Zone adjacencies, even in rare cases, a religion (so they can pick Reliquaries Follower belief). Therefore, it is crucial that you sort out your priorities without having your empire stretched thinly in too many directions:
- Your most important District from the start of the game is the Theater Square. Your diplomatic game is tied into your cultural game, which is in turn made possible by the Theater Square.
- If you want to go for a Relic rush, dedicate Production to just one Holy Site and Shrine.
- Build an early Government Plaza and Ancestral Hall for early expansion.
- Your Campuses and Industrial Zones can wait. Their bonuses kick in later, and the Nobel Prize competitions won't start until Industrial Era.
The 3 new Nobel Prize competitions[]
All three Nobel Prize competitions benefit Sweden heavily, especially Literature and Peace when going for a diplomatic or a cultural Victory, and Physics when going for a scientific victory. Having a wide empire is an absolute must is you want to be competitive in these competitions. Only your civilization ability supplies a little bit extra Great People points, but it is too minor to be useful if you only have a few cities, and you won't be able to get Diplomatic Favor if you can't remain competitive in the Great People race. All 3 of these competitions ask you to generate either Great Scientist/ Great Engineer/
Great Merchant (Physics), or 
Great Writer/
Great Artist/
Great Musician (Literature), or Diplomatic Favor (Peace). To give yourself an additional edge, you may find the Divine Spark pantheon a little bit helpful, especially if you try to found a religion for your Relic game.
Overall, this ability is the classical case of being "feast-or-famine." It either helps Sweden cruise along toward a very fast victory if they manage to claim land, have productive cities with many diverse Districts, or if you cannot make your land become productive and fall behind, you will fall further and further behind starting in Industrial Era when your "ability" starts to hand over more and more advantages to your opponents. For a cultural civilization with no extra Production or defensive capability, Sweden is pushed into a very tough spot in the first few eras, since they require too much preparation for Industrial Era, without any major bonus to meet those requirements. Keep in mind: Theater Squares should be the number 1 priority District, build Ancestral Hall early and start setting many cities, then focus on Campuses, Industrial Zones and maybe Commercial Hubs later.
Minerva of the North[]
Kristina's leader ability is an absolutely powerful bonus to help with the cultural victory. Every cultural player knows that in order to get the most out of your Archaeological Museums and your Art Museums, you need to move your Great Works around or exchange with other empires to satisfy a theming bonus, which, in all honesty, is a hassle. With Kristina, every wonder with 2 or more slots and building with 3 or more slots automatically themes when filled, meaning she will always receive double 
Culture and 
Tourism out of her Great Works. You now can just activate all 3 charges of a Great Artist in the same Museum, and voila, it is now themed, just as easy as that; hence this is not only a great ability but also a great quality of life aspect when playing for a Cultural Victory. Not to mention it gives you the ability to theme the previously non-themeable buildings (including Wonders).
The following buildings and wonders benefit from this ability (excluding the two types of Museums, which are themeable to everyone):
- Queen's Bibliotheque
- National History Museum
- Apadana
- Bolshoi Theatre
- Broadway
- Great Library
- Hermitage
- Mont St. Michel
- Oxford University
- St. Basil's Cathedral
- Sydney Opera House
- Old God Obelisk (with both the Secret Societies and Heroes & Legends game modes enabled, after summoning a Hero)
- Stock Exchange (with the Monopolies and Corporations game mode enabled)
- Seaport (with the Monopolies and Corporations game mode enabled)
With the sole exception of the Oxford University, everything else is unlocked with the civic tree. Since Sweden has strong incentives to build Theater Squares in every city, keeping up on the civic tree and earning Great People to fill Great Work slots should not be a problem.
Although Kristina prefers a smaller empire with few strong core cities and a lot of wonders, the Swedish ability forces her to expand widely. Ignore the early wonders in favor of expansion (to be fair, you will only lose out on Apadana and the Great Library). Only start diverting your resources into wonders when you don't have a good spot for a city. Preferably, build your wonders with Great Work slots in the same city with the Government Plaza, since the Queen's Bibliotheque and the National History Museum combined will have 10 slots of Great Works, which can all be amplified with Pingala's Curator. Note that Pingala's title only works on Great Works of 
Writing, 
Arts and 
Music, so choose Art Museum over Archaeological Museum in that city.
With the Monopolies and Corporations game mode enabled, Stock Exchanges and Seaports filled with 
Products will also be themed.
Relic method[]
Kristina's ability does work with Relics, which allows a new way to play the Tourism game. This Relic method is especially powerful if you spawn near Yerevan, or to a lesser extent, Kandy. Yerevan allows all of your Apostles to start with the Martyr promotion, so you can start farming Relics reliably before building Mont St. Michel. Kandy can also grant you Relics here and there whenever you discover a natural wonder.
Relics are known for their huge Tourism output in the early game, which will be cut short when other civilizations research The Enlightenment. To set up for this strategy, you need a religion with the Reliquaries belief. Each Relic in a city with this belief grants 24 Tourism, and 12 
Faith. Right after founding your religion, rush toward Theology and Monarchy to unlock Temple and Mont St. Michel. Build the Temple in a city (most likely your Holy City) and start buying Apostles. Of course, before Mont St. Michel and without Yerevan, your Apostles are not guaranteed to have Martyr, but you can increase this chance by promoting Moksha to Patron Saint. Note that this can be very costly, since you will have to invest 4 
Governor titles into Moksha instead of Pingala, so the safer route is to wait until you complete Mont St. Michel.
Themed Relics with Reliquaries generate 32 Tourism each. Later, build the St. Basil's Cathedral in the same city as your Mont St. Michel, preferably your Holy City, and it will add another 100% modifier to religious Tourism, making all Relics in this city generate 40 Tourism. If you also manage to pass the Heritage Organization for Relics, each one will generate 48 Tourism. Even if you cannot win a cultural victory just purely based on Relics, they can supply a huge amount of Faith that is still helpful for other cultural endeavors and Great People recruitment. You should also build Cristo Redentor to avoid your religious Tourism efficiency from being cut in half by The Enlightenment.
Later in the game, the National History Museum can also host Relics, and is themeable, since it has 4 slots. Also, the Apadana can also host themeable Relics, but as outlined above, you have way too many important priorities in the early game to pay attention to this wonder.
With both the Secret Societies and Heroes & Legends game modes enabled, any Old God Obelisk can also be themed by filling it with one Great Work of any type and two 
Heroic Relics, which will generate extremely high Tourism in the early game.
Queen's Bibliotheque[]
When playing as Kristina, Great Work slots become even more valuable, and the Queen's Bibliotheque plays to this strength better than any of the other buildings or wonders in the game. Not only can you automatically theme this building once it is filled, it contains a whopping six slots, the most in the game. Your goal is to earn a Great Writer, a Great Artist, and a Great Musician as fast as possible to fill this building first, as it will become your main Culture and Tourism hub for the entire game. It comes with a 25% discount compared to other tier 2 Government Plaza buildings, and of course, it unlocks a Legacy card. Generally speaking, pick Monarchy if you're playing a normal cultural/diplomatic game, or Theocracy if you're playing a Relic game.
It doesn't come without its downsides, however. If you want to prioritize building this, you will have to give up the ever so wonderful Intelligence Agency, making Sweden's espionage a bit weaker, but the sacrifice is definitely worth it. Great Works placed inside the Queen's Bibliotheque are not vulnerable to espionage missions, so they can never be stolen. Combined with the automatic theming, the Culture and Tourism bonus is equal to that of 12 Great Works, or 4 full non-themed Museums of other civilizations. The main challenge in using this building is to be able to earn a Great Musician as quickly as possible to fill in the 2 Great Work of Music slots, but once this is done, Pingala can turn it into the central Tourism hub of the entire world, before any other cultural civilizations.
Open-Air Museum[]
The +2 Culture and +2 Tourism bonus per terrain type is substantial, making it worthwhile to spread out a bit to found cities on the various terrain types. This improvement does not count terrains and their Hills separately, so settling, for example, on both Snow and Snow Hills does not give you more Culture. In other words, the maximum yield you can get is 10 Culture per Open-Air Museum.
This improvement urges Sweden to explore for city spots in all biomes. While it is easy to have a good city spot on Plains and Grassland, it is a lot harder to find one on Desert and Snow. For Desert, you can try to settle on the edge of a vast desert where you can still have access to fertile land, or on a Desert Floodplains tile, or in a vast open desert with a lot of Desert Hills tiles and then try to build Petra. It is substantially more difficult with Snow. Your best bet is either on a Snow tile adjacent to Tundra regions, or on a coastal Snow tile next to a river with a lot of sea resources. You can try to build the Amundsen-Scott Research Station later in this city. As for the Tundra city, it is not as easy as Grassland or Plains, but not as hard as Snow or Desert, since Tundra can still host a lot of resources, and also Woods, which can be made productive with Lumber Mills. As for the St. Basil's Cathedral, you have to choose if you want to maximize the yields by putting it in a Tundra city, or maximize the Tourism output in your Relic game by putting it in your Holy City with the Mont St. Michel.
The good thing is since Tundra, Snow and Desert spots are most likely subprime, they are almost always available. If there is a spot you want to settle, but is subject to strong foreign Loyalty, although the innate Loyalty bonus of this improvement does help a bit, you can try to form a Cultural Alliance with the nearby empire to negate their pressure.
Note that you do not need to unlock Flight for the Tourism bonus to kick in, unlike every other Culture-generating improvement, further amplifying the early Tourism potential over every other cultural empires. Also, despite the tooltips saying that this improvement only takes into account cities "founded" by Sweden, it actually counts captured cities as well. Therefore, if you've managed to conquer some cities that were founded on certain types of terrain, you won't need to settle new cities there to get the maximum yield out of your Open-Air Museums.
Carolean[]
The Carolean can be equally strong whether on defense or when attacking (though nowhere near as good as its Civilization V counterpart). It is a good idea to prepare for the use of this unit early by training Spearmen or Pikemen, preferably at an Encampment containing a Barracks, and leveling them up to earn the Redeploy 
Promotion, which will increase both their strength and mobility when they upgrade to Caroleans. Other abilities which increase 
Movement rate of units should also be put to use, such as the Logistics policy card (available with Mercantilism) and Great Generals.
The Carolean is, however, far from invincible, especially if overextended. Musketmen are entirely capable of standing up against them due to their bonus against anti-cavalry units. To alleviate this, Caroleans should be backed up by some kind of ranged units, for which they can also provide protection from enemy cavalry. Swedish players should also pay attention to terrain on the battlefield and how many Movement points the Carolean can retain before making the move to attack and keep in mind that pillaging as the Carolean can deprive them of nearly a sixth of their full 
Combat Strength due to expending Movement points. This is necessary due to the fact that by default it doesn't quite have the mobility of its previous incarnation; for instance it doesn't have the old March promotion, generally forcing it to either use Movement points to pillage or else forgo movement altogether and hold in place if it hasn't just leveled up in combat, in order to heal.
Keep in mind that Roads benefit the Caroleans a lot since Movement points left always get rounded up when calculating for Combat Strength bonuses. It means just a 0.25 Movement points left can still grant your unit 3 Combat Strength bonus like normal. Also, the extra Combat Strength does apply on defense, if the unit didn't attack last turn and didn't use all of its Movement (if it attacked the turn before, its Movement would drop to 0, resulting in no extra Combat Strength on defense).
Victory Types[]
Once it reaches the Medieval Era unpunished, Sweden feels like an unstoppable machine marching towards either a Cultural or a Diplomatic Victory. Thanks to the Nobel Prize ability, a Scientific Victory is not out of the question either, thus should serve as a great backup, although if you determine to go down the Cultural and Diplomatic route, you most likely will win it without needing a backup.
Counter Strategy[]
Sweden has a very weak presence on the map in the early game, as they are literally a vanilla civilization with few to no functioning bonuses in the first two eras of the game, which makes them especially vulnerable to warmongers. Also, their early game tends to be very sluggish, with too many districts to build to maximize their bonuses, meaning they may not dedicate a lot of Production into training an army. However, Sweden is a civilization that you do not need to wipe completely off the map, since as long as you can keep her territory in check, the ability to vie for Great People is almost non-existent. The extra Great Scientist point and Great Engineer point are very minor if they do not have a lot of cities, and they distract Sweden from their main strength. Keeping Sweden in the game allows you to still compete in their Nobel Prize competitions where they have no chance of winning if you cripple them enough. These competitions can help you tremendously on a lot of Victory paths that you are pursuing.
When the bonuses start to go online, the strongest ability of Sweden is Kristina's leader ability. This is an incredibly strong ability that can push Sweden towards a Cultural Victory faster than almost any other leaders. Sweden under Kristina loves Great Work slots more than anything else, as she can make use of even terrible Wonders like the Hermitage, so your priority as a player is to deny, or at least try to, deny Wonders with Great Work slots from Sweden. It is very easy to see if Sweden is in the game or not, especially when Industrial Era comes and the three Nobel Prize competitions show up. Also, with the Queen's Bibliotheque and the National History Museum, Swedish Government Plaza can host 10 Great Works, and with the governor Pingala, the city with this district will become a dangerous Tourism hub that you need to stop. Either trying to conquer it or sending Spies to neutralize Pingala is a great option. You do not have to keep that city, since that city is most likely her 
Capital, you just need to quickly capture it to steal the Great Works in that city from her. Since this is the Tourism hub, it is the one with most Great Works, it will be impossible to quickly move all of them before the point of capturing.
Civilopedia entry[]
People have been living in Scandinavia since before the Neolithic period, with the region marked by a distinctive “Battle Axe Culture,” who take their name from the carved stone axes found in period graves of high-status individuals. Small bands and settlements made up the preponderance of settlements, and it was a pagan realm of Viking raiders through the end of the Western Roman Empire (Scandinavian tribes appear to have been part of the period of migration) and up through the start of the medieval period.
Christian missionaries visited during the 9th Century, first by St. Ansgar, but Christianity as a whole was not widely established until the 11th or 12th Centuries, during the time in which the Vikings were at the height of their activity. During this time, there was a gradual change from the traditional Viking way of life towards more of a feudal model, and in 1280, King Magnus Ladulas established a true feudal model of governance in Sweden, with an established nobility owing service to their liege.
This feudal system and consolidated rule of the monarch continued. Sweden's famous “Tre Kronor” heraldry—three golden crowns on a field of blue—was first used in the early 1300s, and is still one of the recognizable symbols of the country. In 1389, the crowns of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway were all held in personal union by the Danish Queen Margareta. The resultant Kalmar Union of 1397 united all three lands under the monarch, but the unification was not peaceful in practice.
Jealousies and internecine strife escalated between Danish and Swedish, factions, drawing in German principalities and the Hanseatic League. The Swedes attempted to gain greater autonomy for themselves over decades, and the matter came to a head when Danish King Kristian II executed a number of prominent people in Stockholm in 1521. This provoked a general revolution, led by the Swedish nobleman Gustav Vasa. He was crowned King Gustav I Vasa of Sweden by the nobility, successfully fended off Danish efforts to remove him, and ruthlessly crushed any opposition to his rule, and for this is generally seen as the father of the modern state.
Sweden was an early convert to nascent Protestantism under the direction of Gustav I, occurring at about the same time as Henry VIII's conversion in England (and under much the same set of circumstances, both being the result of long-simmering conflicts between the king and the pope). Sweden would continue to be a bastion of Lutheranism during the centuries that followed. King Gustav II Adolphus Vasa was one of Sweden's most famous kings, a redoubtable warrior on the Protestant side during the Thirty Years' War, who left Sweden the first-rate power in Northern Europe for the next century. Gustavus Adolphus died at the Battle of Lützen in 1632, and reign passed to his only child, Kristina (see her section for her life).
However, Sweden's control of the Baltic region declined after the Great Northern War in the early 1700s, losing prominence to Russia and its allies—including the Danish-Norwegians. During the Napoleonic Era, Sweden lost the territory of modern Finland to Russia, and was pressed into another union with Norway in 1810 through the French Marshal Jean Baptiste Bernadotte—placed there by Napoleon as part of his reordering of Europe. The new king, who had been a Parisian Jacobin firebrand as a young man, was rumored to have had “Death to Kings” tattooed on his arm.
Eventually, the union with Norway was dissolved at the start of the 20th Century, to the relief of everyone. Rapid industrialization defined the early part of the 20th Century. The first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901, the gift of the chemist and entrepreneur Alfred Nobel, who had come to desire to remembered as something other than an inventor of more efficient ways for people to kill each other.
Sweden had an unbroken policy of neutrality in European wars since the middle of the Napoleonic period. The morality of this policy during World War II was controversial at the time and which is still hotly debated by scholars today. But in the years that followed, Sweden was an ardent supporter of the international order, seeing it as a way to prevent global wars and other political catastrophes.
Sweden's long history has been one of iteration and reform of its political systems and governance, and it has succeeded in creating a stable, orderly, egalitarian society, with a high degree of equality for all its citizens. Having renounced military adventurism for two centuries, it has used those resources to develop the nation, and leads many rankings of quality of life. Sweden has been at the forefront of political solutions for international problems through the United Nations, and the Swedish economist and politician Dag Hammarskjöld served as the second Secretary General of that body and remains one of the best-regarded statesmen of the Twentieth Century. As the Twenty-First Century progresses, the nation continues to endorse its egalitarian principles, as applied to all the nations of the world—and thus Sweden enhances its reputation as a willing arbiter between parties seeking to establish a lasting peace.
Cities[]
Citizens[]
| Males | Females | Modern males | Modern females |
|---|---|---|---|
| Axel | Astridh | Anders | Amanda |
| Erik | Barbro | Anton | Anna |
| Gunnar | Ebba | Björn | Elin |
| Gustav | Filippa | Filip | Elsa |
| Håkan | Greta | Johan | Emelie |
| Henric | Ida | Marcus | Emma |
| Ingvar | Öllegård | Olof | Hanna |
| Karl | Ragna | Oskar | Josefin |
| Magnus | Sigrid | Simon | Julia |
| Sven | Thora | Viktor | Sara |
Trivia[]
- The Swedish civilization's symbol is the Three Crowns, which appear on the Swedish coat of arms.
- The Swedish civilization ability is named after the prizes established by the 19th-century Swedish scientist to reward those considered to have made great contributions to humanity in different fields during the preceding year.
- Before the Swedish civilization was released, the Swedish city of Stockholm was a city-state. After Sweden's release, Stockholm became one of the Swedish cities, and it was replaced by Bologna.
- Sweden first appeared as a playable civilization in the Vikings, Traders, and Raiders! scenario, in which it is led by Olof Skötkonung.
Gallery[]
Videos[]
Related achievements[]
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Literally Playable
Win a game as Kristina
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Smörgåsbord
As Kristina, at the start of a turn have cities in five different terrain types (Snow, Tundra, Desert, Plains and Grassland) and have Open Air Museums in all of them.
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See also[]
- Swedish (Civ6)/Vikings, Traders, and Raiders!
- Swedish in other games
External links[]
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1 Requires DLC
 Added in the Rise and Fall expansion pack. Added in the Gathering Storm expansion pack. |