Canada joined the roster of Civilization VI nations in the Gathering Storm expansion, and true to cultural stereotypes, the country’s abilities involve being very nice. More specifically, the leader Wilfrid Laurier’s Four Faces of Peace ability prevents it from being targeted by surprise wars, or declaring them. Unfortunately, it does not protect Canada from getting nuked.
It turns out that you can drop as many nukes on Canada as you please without any of the usual surprise war penalties, as Baerchna noted on Reddit. “I played Canada and went for culture win, flatmate played Malians and went for science. When he noticed I was close to winning, the nukes started falling. As you see in the picture, no war was declared afterwards.”
Assuming that this tactic works in single-player games – and other commenters are suggesting that it does – that means you’ve got a pretty foolproof way of harassing Canada in the late-game. Drop those nukes and turn Canada into a nuclear waste, and if Wilfrid wants to retaliate he’s going to have to drum up Casus Belli and take the warmonger hit to do so.
Or Wilfrid might just shrug and say “sorry” after you nuke him. Could go either way.
We’ve got a Civ 6 Canada guide to help you play the nation effectively, but this nuke thing might just blow the whole thing wide open. (At least until the inevitable patch.)
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Check out our Gathering Storm review if you’re still on the fence about the new expansion. Rich finds some of the systems which happen outside your control a bit frustrating, but says “the new civs are among the series’ best and most novel.”