How to Play Civilization VI

Last Updated: January 27, 2022

Want to learn how to play Civilization VI? Civ 6 is significantly different from other games in the series, featuring many new mechanics and styles of play. The scale of the game is enormous, but don't let the complexity scare you away! This wikiHow tutorial will tell you all you need to know about how to play Civilization VI, and with a little bit of practice, you may get good enough to beat the AI at high levels (or even other players!).

Part 1

Part 1 of 5:

Installing and Setting up Civilization VI

1
Download and install Sid Meier's Civilization VI. You can install the game from the Steam store.
- To get the most out of this guide, also download and install both the expansions and all the civ packs. You can get most of them at a discounted price by purchasing the Gold Edition, but you will still have to purchase Gathering Storm separately.
2
Launch Civilization VI. Before you can play the game, Steam will perform a short first time setup. Once it's done, click on the Play button in the LaunchPad to launch Civilization VI.
- You can also find news about the latest updates to the game on the right hand side of the launcher.
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3
Launch a single player game. When you launch the game, you'll be greeted with a menu in which you can choose to play offline or online. This tutorial will use the single player mode, as the rules are slightly different if you choose to play online. It's best to avoid multiplayer until you get the rules down, otherwise you'll likely have a bad experience.

Part 2

Part 2 of 5:

Setting up the Game

1
Create the game. Click on Create Game to begin setting up your first game. On this screen, you can customize game options to your liking. The options you choose will determine your game experience, and different settings can result in wildly different games that require different strategies to win.
2
Choose your ruleset. The ruleset option lets you choose which expansions you want to include in your game. Leave it as it is for now. If you wish, you can switch to a standard ruleset if you want to remove the added mechanics in the expansions like storms and golden ages.
3
Pick your civilization. Each civilization and leader comes with their own unique abilities, units, buildings, and start biases. You can familiarize yourself with these by reading the Civilopedia, an in game encyclopedia containing information about the game, or by referring to the civilization wiki.
- A good civ to start with is Rome, led by Trajan. Rome features a fairly straightforward build order, and doesn't lean towards any one victory condition, making it an easy civ to begin playing.
4
Set the game difficulty. The difficulty setting of the game will determine the bonuses provided to the player and the AI. Prince is the default difficulty, and gives no bonuses to the player or the AI. Any difficulty below that will favor the player, and any setting above that will give the AI bonuses resource and research bonuses.^{[1]
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Research source}
- For beginners, it is recommended to play on Warlord difficulty, as any difficulty below that will ensure that the AI has no chance of winning at all, and anything above that will be too hard for a new player to manage.
5
Set the game speed. The speed setting of the game affects how much time it takes to research technologies and civics, and produce units, districts, and buildings. The lower the game speed, the longer it will take to finish. Online is the quickest, taking half the speed of a normal game to finish, and marathon being the longest, being twice as long as a normal game.^{[2]
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Research source} High speed games are best for learning the game and its mechanics, as it lets you experiment with more civilizations and strategies faster. However, if you want to fully explore a particular strategy or learn a civ in detail, a longer game might help.
6
Choose the map type. The game features many different types of maps, and you can even download others from external sources. Continents is the default map type, and is good for all civilizations and strategies. Pangaea favors land based domination, and archipelago favors naval warfare. You can even pick a map of earth if you like.
7
Choose the map size. The size of the map determines how many civilizations and city-states will be in the game. Small is the default setting, with 6 civilizations and 9 city-states. Bigger maps can allow for more diverse and entertaining games, but can take significantly longer, even on higher game speeds. The size of the map and the game speed together determine how long the game will likely take.
8
Choose the disaster intensity level. Introduced in Gathering Storm, natural disasters can significantly impact the game. Higher settings will mean more frequent and intense natural disasters that can be harder to deal with, and lower settings will mean less frequent and intense disasters. As high intensities can be hard for most players to deal with, keeping it at two is a good idea.
9
Customize the game further. If you wish to have full control over your game experience, click on Advanced Setup at the bottom of the game customization screen. This will allow you to tinker with all aspects of the game, like the civilizations in play, victory conditions, resources, barbarian spawns, etc.
10
Begin the game. Click on Start Game to initialize the game. Once the game finishes loading, click on Begin Game to start your game of Civilization.

Part 3

Part 3 of 5:

Playing the Early Game

1
Settle your first city. At the start of the game, you will spawn with a settler and a warrior. Your immediate goal at this point should be to scout the nearby area and find a good place to found your first city. While different cities have different priorities and start biases, here are some things you should consider before settling your first city:
- Fresh water - One of the most important factors, access to fresh water provides a boost to your city's growth, by providing extra housing for citizens. Having more housing means more space for citizens, and ultimately a more productive city overall.^{[3]
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  Research source} Sources of fresh water include rivers, lakes, and oases.
- Coast - Settling a city on the coast will boost your progress towards the sailing tech, and also allow for the production of naval units that can be crucial to early game exploration and warfare. Settling on the coast also provides extra housing if the city does not have any access to fresh water.
- Yields - Another thing crucial to the productivity of your city is ensuring that all nearby tiles provide adequate yield. The yield of a tile refers to the amount of food, gold, productivity, and science they provide when worked by a citizen. Hilly Grasslands, Plains, and Floodplains provide some of the best base yield, whereas Snow and Desert tiles provide no yield at all.^{[4]
  X
  Research source} Try to settle your city next to tiles with good yields.
- Resources - Having access to good resources will provide bonus yield and amenities (a resource necessary to ensure the prosperity of your cities) when improved by a builder. Strategic resources will also let you build powerful units to dominate the early game.
2
Scout the area. When you first spawn, most of the map will be presented as blank parchment, depicting unexplored and unknown areas. Build reconnaissance units like scouts to explore the world and find scout the land around you. Reconnoitering the nearby area will let you find other civilizations, meet city-states before other players to claim a bonus envoy, find tribal villages for special boosts, reveal barbarian camps, and find potential spots for new cities. Try to scout out as much of the area as possible.
- You can use your warrior to explore the map in the earliest stages of the game, but it is a good idea to build a few scouts as soon as possible and explore.
3
Pick a victory condition. There are six different ways to win a game of Civilization VI, and most civilizations lean towards a specific victory type. Aiming for a specific victory type and focusing your efforts on that goal can help you win the game. The victory conditions are as follows:
- Domination Victory - The domination victory is the most straightforward victory type. To win a domination victory, you must capture the original capital of every other civilization in the game. In order to do this, you must have a powerful military.
- Science Victory - A science victory is won by achieving certain milestones. To win a science victory you must launch an earth satellite, land a human on the moon, establish a martian colony, launch an exoplanet expedition, and finally, land on the exoplanet. To win a science victory, it is essential to generate a large amount of science from your empire's scientific districts and buildings.
- Culture Victory - To win a culture victory, you must attract a lot of tourists from other civilizations by awing them with your cultural splendor. In order to do this, you must generate a lot of culture and tourism through great works, buildings, and policies.
- Religious Victory - Win a religious victory by converting all other civilizations to your religion. It is essential that your religion be the dominant one in every civilization, so build a lot of missionaries and apostles, and generate as much faith as you can.
- Diplomatic Victory - A diplomatic victory is won by earning a certain amount of diplomatic victory points (the exact number depends on the game speed), which can be earned through events, wonders, wars, and the world congress.
- Score Victory - If no other victory condition is met in time, the player with the highest score will win a score victory. Try to reach your victory condition as fast as possible, as a score victory is boring and not something you should be aiming for.
Tip: You can disable certain victory conditions in advanced game options, if you want all civilizations in the game to focus on a specific victory type. This is also useful for turning off the score victory, which allows the game to last as long as it takes for a player to hit a win condition.
4
Research new technologies. Techs are the main way to further your civilization, and science is one of the most important outputs in the game. The more science your civilization generates, the faster it progresses. Regardless of which victory condition you are pursuing, being ahead of your opponents in technologies is very important.
- Begin with a basic technology like pottery or mining, and slowly progress through the tech tree, focusing on the technologies that are important to you. Some are more important than others, like the ones that unlock scientific buildings if you're going for a science victory, or new military technologies if you're going for a domination victory.
5
Research civics. Civics are a new research tree added in Civilization VI, which is similar to the technology tree but used to unlock various social policies that provide different bonuses to your civilization, as well as new forms of government. Civics are research by culture. The more culture you generate, the faster you unlock new civics. Researching certain civics can also trigger the eureka moment for some technologies.
6
Finish your turn. Civilization is a turn-based game, and each civilization's turns are processed one after another. Once you are done issuing orders to your cities and units, simply click the Next Turn icon on the bottom left to finish your turn. The game will them process the AI's turns before returning control of the game to you.
- Note that in multiplayer, all players take their turns simultaneously.
7
Enact social policies. Unlocked by civics, social policies allow you to add to a certain aspect of your civilization to advance your goals. There are four different kinds of social policies that you can enact, and these all affect a different aspect of gameplay. The number of policies you can enact at one time is affected by your government, which you can improve later. You can also gain more slots by building wonders. You gain more policy cards are you progress along the civics tree. The policies you can enact include:
- Military policies - These policies enhance your military, from small bonuses like an increase in combat strength versus barbarians, to huge ones like an increase in experience gain for all units.
- Economic policies - Economic policies increase can increase production, gold gain, housing, and amenities.
- Diplomatic policies - Diplomatic policies mainly focus on gaining envoys to city-states as well as diplomatic favor. Enacting the right diplomatic policies goes a long way towards winning a diplomatic victory.
- Wildcard policies - Wildcard policies mainly grant bonuses to great people generation, which can be useful for all victory types. Unlike other policies, any policy card can be added to a wildcard policy slot, making it highly versatile.
8
Explore tribal villages. Tribal villages are special areas that provide bonuses to your empire when explored. These include additional builders, population, technologies, experience, etc. Tribal villages are only found in the early game, so early scouting will reap rich rewards.
9
Settle additional cities. There are two types of empires - tall empires and wide empires. These refer to your empire's structure. Tall empires will typically have a few large cities and wide empires will have numerous small cities. Civilization VI favors the latter style of play, so unless you have a specific strategy in mind, try to settle as many cities as you can.
10
Produce a builder. Builders are special units that can build improvements on certain tiles, to increase their yield and give you access to any bonus resources. Produce a builder in your city or buy one with gold. Each builder can execute 3 actions before disappearing, but these can be increased through policies, wonders, and governors.
11
Build improvements. Some basic improvements like farms, mines, pastures, and camps are essential to any civilization, but some civilizations come with their own custom tile improvements, like Egypt's Sphinx or China's Great Wall. Move your builder to a tile and then click on the improvement you want to build.
- Certain improvements can only be built on specific tiles. For instance, you cannot build a mine on a grassland, or a lumber mill on plains.
12
Fend off barbarians. Barbarians are rogue units that spawn across the map in undiscovered territory, that are hostile to all civilizations and city-states. They spawn in encampments, and it is essential to destroy these encampments as you find them. Fledgling empires are especially vulnerable to barbarian attacks, and they can plunder your tile improvements and destroy your units.
- In order to avoid getting overrun by barbarians, destroy any barbarian encampments you come across.
13
Zone a specialized district. Districts are areas in your city that house specific buildings and specialize in a certain field. There are many different kinds of districts, each providing a certain output. For instance, the campus provides science, the industrial zone specializes in production, the encampment defends your city and improves your army, and so on.
14
Send an envoy to a city-state. City-states are small independent nations that do not compete for victory. They can be influenced by players and make a huge difference to the game as they provide certain bonuses to the civilization they are most influenced by. To gain influence with a city-state, send some envoys across.
- You gain some envoys automatically, but can gain additional ones by being the first to meet a city-state, completing quests for a city-state, or researching some civics and policies.
15
Found a pantheon. Before you found a religion, you can found a pantheon in the early game that provides some boosts to your civilization. When you have enough faith, the game will prompt you to found a pantheon. Click on the bonus you wish to receive and your civilization will gain that bonus. No two civilizations can found the same pantheon.
16
Start a trade route. Once you have researched the necessary technology, you can produce a trader unit, which allows you to trade with city-states and civilizations to gain gold and other currency. Produce or buy a trader, and then issue the necessary order to begin a trade route between cities. Maximise the efficiency of your trade routes by sending them to the cities they gain the most gold out of. These will be the most developed ones, or the ones you have an economic alliance with.
- Trade routes, like most other mechanics, can be boosted through wonders and social policies. The amount of trade routes you can have also varies through the game as you progress in civics and technology. Add additional trade routes whenever you can.
17
Progress to the next era. After researching enough techs and civics, the game will progress to the next era. You can then make a dedication to focus on a certain aspect of progress through the next era.
- Depending on your era score, the bonuses differ. Your civilization will be more loyal and productive, and will be given a greater boost to progress, if you earned a golden age the previous era. On the other hand, if you fail to gather enough era score, your civilization will enter a dark age. All your cities will be less loyal and your empire will be harder to manage. Try not to fall behind, and aim to hit a golden age whenever possible.

Part 4

Part 4 of 5:

Mastering the Mid Game

1
Hire a Governor. Governors boost your cities and keep them loyal so that they do not rebel against your empire. Each governor specializes in a certain area, like science, faith, gold, production, etc. Once you have earned a governor title, appoint a governor and assign it to a city.
- You can appoint and assign additional governors as you gain new governor titles, as well as promote existing governors to make them more useful. If you manage to hire all governors, you gain era score to help you avoid dark ages and progress towards a golden age.
2
Meet new civilizations. As you explore the nearby areas, you will discover new civilizations. Greet them as you wish. Once you discover a civilization, its leader will be displayed as an icon on the top-left corner of the screen, and you can click on that icon to interact with the leader. After discovering a new civilization, they will begin to send you offers, which you can accept or decline.
3
Discover natural wonders. Natural wonders are special tiles that greatly boost any cities settled next to them. If one of your units stumbles upon a natural wonder, try to settle a city next to it as soon as possible. Building holy sites or neighborhoods next to a natural wonder is a great way to increase their productivity. Natural wonders also add to your era score when discovered, which can add to your progress towards a golden age.
4
Build world wonders. World wonders are unique buildings, only one of which can be built on the map at a time. They provide strong boosts, and many wonders are critical to certain victories. Try to aim for a certain wonder and build it as soon as possible.
- World wonders cost a lot of production and take a lot of time to produce, even if your city has a high production output, but are highly rewarding to build.
5
Promote your units. Military units gain experience by killing enemy units, and recon units gain experience by discovering new territory. Once a unit gains enough experience points, you can promote it to heal it by 50 health points, and make it stronger in future battle. Some buildings, wonders, great people, and tribal villages also help promote your units. Promoting your units can make your army much stronger, allowing for easier domination victories.

Tip: Another way to make your military stronger is by forming corps, armies, and armadas, which add to the combat strength of a unit without adding another unit to manage.
6
Recruit Great People. As your civilization's art, science, economy, religion, military, and productivity grows, you will earn Great People Points (GPP). Once you have enough Great People Points, the game will prompt you to recruit a great person. Each great person provides a specific bonus, and if that bonus is useful to you, you can click the Recruit button to recruit the great person to your civilization.
- Great People may then be expended to provide a boost, or, in the case of Great Generals and Great Admirals, be sent along with your military to boost its strength. Managing your great people correctly is key to winning a game of Civilization.
7
Change your system of government. As you continue to progress through the civics tree, you will unlock new forms of government that can house more policy cards and provide powerful effects. Whenever you unlock a new government, consider if you want to switch to it.
- Each government features a different policy structure, some favoring certain victory types over others. Fascism can house many more military policies than democracy, and as such may be good government to consider if you're going for a domination victory. On the other hand, it has very little slots for economic policies, so picking it if you're going for other victories can cripple you. Choose the right government for your civilization and you will be on your way to victory.
8
Found and spread your religion. What a pantheon is to the early game, a religion is to the mid and end game. Founding and spreading a religion is especially important if you're aiming for a religious victory, but can be useful otherwise as well. You can found and enhance your religion through Great Prophets, which can be earned by great people points, or through a wonder like the Stonehenge.
- Sharing a religion with another civilization can increase the information you receive about that civilization, and give you other benefits. Spread your religion using missionaries or apostles, by wiping out other religions and replacing it with your own.
9
Trade with other civilizations. Apart from trade routes, another way to further your goals is by trading with other civilizations. When both of you have something the other wants, one civilization can offer the other a trade deal. If it is mutually agreeable, both civilizations gain what was promised. You can do a whole lot more with a trade deal than you can with a trade route. While a trade route is a fairly straightforward one-sided action, a trade deal needs to be agreeable to both parties. By proposing good trade deals, you can greatly advance your civilization. Some things you can do with a trade deal include:
- Gold - The most basic trade, you can trade some amount of gold per turn or make a one-time payment to another civilization
- Great works - Two civilizations can agree to trade great works, or trade one for something else. This is useful if either one of the civilizations is aiming for a culture victory, and the other is aiming for something else. Just be careful not to give your opponent enough to reach their win condition before you!
- Joint wars - Once you have formed an alliance with a declared friend, you automatically form a defensive pact with them. In addition to this, you can declare joint wars through trade deals.
- Research agreements - Through a research agreement, two civs can agree to jointly research and share a certain technology that they both need to gain it much faster.
- Strategic and luxury resources - Strategic and bonus resources can be traded to maximize their output. As you don't gain extra amenities for duplicate copies of a resource, you can trade any extra resources for new ones from other civilizations to keep your citizens happy.
- Cities - The ultimate trade deal, trading cities can be done as part of a peace treaty or if you just want to help an ally out.
10
Manage your Great Works. As you earn Great Writers, Artists, and Musicians, you will begin to amass Great Works. Great Works give you bonus tourism, and managing them effectively is key to winning a culture victory. Certain buildings provide Great Work slots, and you must have a Great Work slot available before you can produce one.
- Even if you're not aiming for a culture victory, you can trade Great Works to other civilizations that are for a large amount of gold or resources, as they hold great value.
11
Maintain a strong military. While especially important for civs seeking a domination victory, a strong military is necessary if you want to last till the late game. Peaceful civilizations without strong standing armies are easy targets for warmongers seeking a domination victory, and you will often be attacked and destroyed if you fail to keep up.
- You do not need to attack other civilizations with your military, but maintaining a standing army will allow your civilization to defend against attackers and stay in the game to reach whatever victory condition you are chasing.
12
Weather natural disasters. As you build your empire, you will be struck by natural disasters depending on the game's disaster intensity. Tornadoes, floods, volcanic eruptions, droughts, dust storms, and other disasters can wreak havoc on your civilization. Take precautionary measures in areas that are disaster-prone to avoid falling prey to a natural disaster.
- For instance, if your civilization is on the banks of a river that is prone to flooding, build the great bath or a flood barrier. If tornadoes seem to strike your city often, hire the surveyor and use her reinforced materials ability to disaster-proof your city. In spite of all these measures though, you will undoubtedly be affected by a natural disaster sometime, so repair the damage with a builder(or your city if a district is damaged) as soon as you can to avoid falling behind.
Tip: While natural disasters can do great damage, they can also benefit you. For instance, a volcano erupting or river flooding fertilizes the land around it, and building on those tiles can help you recover and gain from the disaster.
13
Spy on other civilizations. When you research the necessary civic in the renaissance era, spies become available. Espionage can be a valuable tool in your arsenal to further your own agenda while hindering your opponent. You can send a spy to another civilization's city to siphon funds or stir up unrest, while keeping spies in your own cities to avoid them doing the same to you.
14
Declare war on another civilization. If a civilization is proving troublesome to deal with, or is close to a victory, cripple it by declaring war. This is easier if you have a casus belli (a cause to go to war), but even a surprise war can be useful to prevent an opponent from winning the game, or to win a domination victory. Note that once you declare war, you cannot make peace for some time, so weigh your decision carefully. Also keep in mind that all city-states you are the suzerain of also go to war with the enemy, and the same goes for your opponent.

Tip: Declaring war can backfire. Unnecessary warmongering can incur a severe diplomatic penalty and war weariness, and losing a war can be catastrophic, crippling your chances of winning.
15
Make a demand of your opponent. If you are far ahead of another civilization in military might, but don't want to declare war and incur the world's wrath, but still want something from them anyway, move the full might of your military(this includes any naval and air units) next to their empire and make a demand of them. If your military is powerful enough, they will have to concede to your demand.
- The more powerful you are, the more you can demand. In some cases, the AI might even be willing to give you whole cities rather than fight a war it knows it will lose.

Part 5

Part 5 of 5:

Clinching the End Game

1
Zero in on your victory type. As you hit the end game, your every action should be taken with your victory in mind. For example, if you're aiming for a science victory, all your production should go towards scientific projects. Unnecessary actions in the end game can lead to an opponent hitting their win condition before you.
- Keep a watchful eye and carefully monitor how close your opponents are to the victories they are aiming for, and plan your actions accordingly. Try to sabotage opponents close to their win conditions, either through spies, declarations of war, or the World Congress.
2
Vote in the World Congress. Voting carefully in the World Congress is tremendously important if you want to win at higher levels of play. The World Congress lets you sabotage players who are close to their win conditions, by restricting their military production, great people generation, stripping them of their diplomatic victory points, stopping their tourism, and condemning their religion.
- The World Congress can also greatly aid you in achieving your goals, by passing resolutions that are favorable to the type of victory you are trying to achieve. For example, if you're aiming for a culture victory, try to pass a resolution to double your tourism.
Tip: Manage your diplomatic favor carefully. It becomes an important resource in the end game, and having enough diplomatic favor can mean the difference between a decisive victory and a soul-crushing defeat.
3
Monitor climate change. Climate change becomes an important factor in the end game, as it starts to affect the earth. Turning a blind eye to climate change can crush your civilization as it sinks under rising sea levels, so be careful to watch how emissions are affecting the earth.
- Climate change can also be used as a weapon against your opponents. If a winning civilization has most of their cities at low elevations, it might even be worth it to try and trigger climate change, as long as your civilization is protected. On the other hand, if your civilization is at a low elevation, it becomes imperative to keep your carbon footprint to an absolute minimum through the necessary city projects.
4
Hit your victory condition. Be it scientific, cultural, religious, domination, or diplomatic, hit your victory condition before any other civilization to win the game!