Civilization 6 information gathered from preview versions

[Science__Gaming]

Information and analysis of civ6. Watched very carefully hours of videos to get this information. Expect some changes in these mechanics since the people i watched are playing a preview version. As sugested i will use italic for personal opinion and tips.

1-Basic Resources
There are seven basic resources in civilization 6: food, science, culture, faith, gold, production, tourism.

1.1- Food. Food is used to make cities grow. The growing formula from civ5 still apply: each citizen uses 2 food and the remaining is what you produce to get the next citizen, so population increases with excess food. There are two new mechanics in civ6 compared to civ5 related to population: housing and amenities.

1.1.1-Housing. Each city has a housing limit that works as a cap for population. Housing can be provided by: building, civics, districts, improvements, acess to water, great people. When the population reaches 1 number below the housing limit (example 6 housing and 5 population) the city starts growing 50% slower and when the housing limit is reached 75% slower. After a city reaches 5 population above housing capacity it stops growing. The tile where the city was setled influences the starting housing number, if a city has acess to fresh water (river, lakes, oasis, some natural wonders) it starts with +3 housing, if it has acess to the coast +1 housing and with no acess to water +0 housing. Whenever a settler is selected the non water tiles in the map will be marked as one of the 4 colors: red (tile not possible to settle), white (tile with no acess to water), light green (tile with acess to the coast), dark green (tile with acess to fresh water). So there is a new aspect to consider when settling new cities: access to water. The aqueduct district can grab fresh water 1 tile away from rivers and mountains providing fresh water to cities. Cities that have access to fresh water gain +2 housing from aqueducts. The capital starts with +1 housing. The base housing for cities is 2, that means a city that is not a capital and has no acess to water starts with 2 housing.

1.1.2- Amenities. For each 2 population a city requires 1 amenity except the first 2 population.Examples: 5 population require 2 amenities, 21 population require 10 amenities, 2 population require 0 amenities. The Capital starts with 1 amenity by default from enterteinment but the other cities start with 0 amenities and require 1 when 3 population is reached. Amenities are a local need for each city and it gives bonuses if a city has more amenities than it needs or penalties if a city has less amenities than it needs. Bonuses and penalties for a total positive or negative of amenities: +10% growth and +5% non food yields for +1 total amenities in the city. -15% growth -5% non food yields for -1 total amenities (these numbers were changed in different preview versions). No bonuses or penalties for 0 points (ammount needed equal to received). Amenities work similar to hapiness in civ5 but at a local level. There are 6 ways to get positive amenities: luxury resources, civics, entertainment, great people, religion, national parks. There are 2 ways to get negative amenities: war weariness and bankrupt. Each copy of a luxury resource gives +1 amenity for up to 4 cities. It is not clear how improved luxury resources are allocated to cities in a big empire, the developers talked about it in this video

around minute 43. They said the luxury resource allocattion is automatic and the cities that need the most number of luxuries receive more which could result to every city being unhappy due to poor amenity allocation.

How I feel about housing and amenities: first obvious conclusion is food looses a lot of value with these mechanics in play, every video i saw the player strugles with the growing caps in the early game. To be able to grow properly in the early game a lot of effort is required: increase housing with granary(+2 housing) and improving resources(camps, plantations, pastures, farms provide +0.5 housing) and settling (+ building workers) specifically to improve enough luxury resources to not be capped on amenities. In the mid and late game it is easier to grow since more options are avaible. Growing is great, more tile yields mean more everything but the question in civ6 is: is the growth worth the cost of cap upgrades?

• Settlers had significant changes: if you steal a settler from another civilization it doenst turn into a worker like civ5, so stealing them is a lot more valuable and setlers can be linked to military units for them to move together. Producing settlers don´t stop city growth but it reduces the population by 1. Note that there is no global "hapiness" so there is a lot of room for settler spam since there are no direct penalties for a high number of cities. Two things to keep in mind when settler spaming:

1. Amenities might become a problem since the luxury resources are automatically allocated and cities that need more amenities will get more amenities, if many cities need amenities the automatic mechanic may decide to leave every city with negative amenities. I hope a mod allow players to be able to manually do this adding more strategy to the game.
2. For each settler built the next one costs more production, the fourth settler costs double the ammount of production compared to the first.

1.2- Science. The tech tree is similar to civ5 with a major adition: eurekas. I see eurekas as quests, if requirements are fullfilled (like build a farm, kill 3 barbarian units) the tech gets a "discount" of 50%. Discount is not the correct word because what happens is: if a tech is already half researched and you get the eureka for that tech it gets completed. Timing is really important in civ6, i saw videos of players rushing science while not having enough of the other resources to get the eurekas before the tech is researched. Probably focusing other resources would be just as fast if the eurekas were completed. So in a way, eurekas act as a soft cap to science, if you are generating a lot of science and not enough of other resources eurekas will be missed and the technological advance will not be fast. It is commmon for great scientists to give random eurekas when used. Flood science is spreaded for the techs queued so if a great person boost science put a lot of techs in queue and he will advance them in the order the player assigned. Getting behind on science seems manageable unlike civ5.

1.3- Culture. There is a civic tech tree in civ6 that the player advances generating culture. The civic tech tree provides policies, buildings, wonders, new governments, trade routes, casus beli, onvoys and other bonuses. Virtues were removed compared to civ5 and instead culture now gives 2 bonuses: increase the boarders of cities and advance on the civic tree. There are 10 different governments in the game, each one with a specific number of policies and passive bonuses (see all of them here http://civ6.gamepedia.com/Governments). Each time a new civic is developed the player can change the policies for free, there is a gold cost for changing policies in other turns. I never saw this happening in a game but the developers mentioned that if a player switches governments to one previously used there are penalties. There are 4 different policies: military, economic, diplomatic and wildcards. Military policies can only be placed in military government slots and wildcards slots. Other policies follow the same rule, some policies can only be placed in the wildcard slot. Timing is really important, some policies gives very specific bonuses that are usefull in very specific scenarios, players have to plan and time everything for full effect. Just like eurekas for science, inspiration provides a 50% bonus research for civics and are obtained by doing something specific (quests) like metting another civilization. It is possible to go through eras advancing on the civic tree.

Some techs and civics have passive bonus not shown as icons like allow units to embark so it is important to mouse over techs/civics and read.

1.4- Faith. The civilizations that reach a certain ammount of faith (25 faith in the preview) get acess to a pantheon whitch gives bonuses for the empire, there are no limits for number of phanteons in a game so every civ can get one. Faith is used like currency and can be used to purchase: religious units, great people(any type), special buildings and in Theocracy government can purchase land combat units. To achieve faith victory a civ need at least 50% of the population of every city converted to its religion. To get a great prophet a player has to aim for Great Prophet points. So far i find faith pretty underwelming, probably the worst resource in the early game since a lot is needed to buy anything and there aren´t many things possible to buy with it. Stonehenge is an early game wonder that rewards a Great Prophet to start a religion but can only be built adjacent to stone.

1.5- Gold. Buy units, buildings, tiles, great people, policies switch, improve units. Improving units is costly, some require around 400 gold per unit so a lot of gold is needed. Bankrupt leads to negative amenities and great people can be purchased with a bunch of gold.

1.6- Production. Production didnt change from civ5 it increases the time cities take to finish everything. Since food decreases in value when one of the caps is reached knowing when to switch citizens from production to everything else is a must. High production makes easier to match timers to achieve goals, like force some cities finish their buildings in a near timer to chance policies and focus settlers for maximum value.

Conclusions about resources: food, science and culture now have caps in the form of housing, amenities, eureka and inspiration, if a player focus too hard in any of them he wont get the full benefit unless it is a an planned move, i mean you can burst through the tech tree getting all the eurekas but takes a lot of effort focusing on the "quests". Production, faith and gold are uncapped. Timing policies with city production adds more complexity to the game and rewards players for good planning. Remember that lots of buildings need a specific district previouly built and that uses a lot of production.

2- Districts. Beginning at 1 population and then every +3 population a city can build 1 district (1 population max 1 district, 4 population max 2 districts, 7 population max 3 districts and so on), here is a list of all avaible districts: http://civ6.gamepedia.com/District .Districts are focused tiles that produce resources or do something unique like train units. A large number of city buildings are built in districts so they are unnavaible until you have a specific district built. Districts get adjacency bonuses for specific tiles like mountains for campus and forests for holy sites. A city is a district and that information is needed to make better decisions when promoting units and for adjacency districs bonuses. Many districts get bonuses for being adjacent to other districts. For every district built the next one increases production cost. Unique districts are great because they don´t count for the maximum number of districts cap.

3- Tiles. Link to every tile yields: https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/4wgo4t/mechanics_of_civ6_tile_yields/ now having forests, rainforests(jungles), hills, marsh are better than normal tiles.

4- Movement. Moving is a lot different from civ5, each tile requires an ammount of movement and if a unit has 2 total movements and 1 movement left he cant move into a tile that requires more than 1 movement, unlike in civ5 that you could move a warrior into a grassland and then to a forest, thats not possible in civ6 unless the warrior has special abilities. That makes chasing incredibly hard, if something runs away you need a faster unit to reach it, units with the same movement ammount cant chase each other unless the terrain works favorably for the chaser. Moving is different and it seems hard to move in optimal ways, every video i saw players screw up their movement every couple of turns. Scouts have 3 movement but dont ignore terrain. The most primitive roads dont increase movement but allow units to ignore terrain.

5- Great People. Great people changed a lot from civ5, now many effects are just for an specific era and each great person has a different effect. Every civilization races for great people with points and the first to get enough can choose to get it immediately or loose some points to wait another person with different bonuses. The pool of great people is random and changes during the game. I have to say some great people have pretty underwelming effects and this system adds more strategy, it is important to know when to pick and when to pass. Some great people have passive abilities. It is possible to "rush buy" great people remaining points with gold or faith according to how many great people points are needed to claim.

6- Builders. Every builder by default start with 3 charges. Planning which tiles are better to improve first is important since each builder has limited charges. The improvements increased yields can be found here http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Tile_improvement_(Civ6)
Repairing improvements takes 1 turn and doens´t use a builder charge. You can visually see how many charges a builder has by counting the builders in the group, a builder is created with 3 visible builders if he has 3 charges and 1 disappears when a charge is used. Roads are now built by caravans(trade routes) or other special units like the roman legion and military engineer. Civilizations need constant builders created throughout the game. There is a policy unlocked by feudalism civic that increase the number of tiles they can improve before vanishing (+2). For each builder finished the next one costs slightly more production. Removing and harvesting tiles are the best underused mechanics in civ6, people didnt realise that removing a forest then building a mine in a plains hill forest tile for exemple does not change yields, uses 2 build charges and gives 66 production instantly, which is less than the cost of another builder in the early game, a nice trick to build a "4 charges builder", there are tricks to boost food as well. The way builders were designed in civ6 allow many creative plays that have amazing effects, i have some in mind that should work can´t wait to try.

7- Tribal villages. It has many names, on civbe it was called resouce pods on civ5 it was called ruin. They are special tiles units can move to and get bonuses. The possible bonuses: technologies, civics, relics, builders, traders, eurekas, inspiration, scouts and military units.

Some details i found watching videos:

• Pillaging different improvements gives different bonuses for the raiding player (gold, science, faith, hit points) and it takes 3 movement points so units with 4 or more moves can pillage and attack/move in the same turn. Light cavalry promotion tree has the option to make pillaging cost 1 movement.

• You can add notes to different tiles using pin mechanic in game.

• Continents in civ6 is a relative concept and a big enough landmass will count as more than 1 continent even in islands maps.

• Each unit type has a different promotion tree, a feature i really like this but my concern about it is most of them are not choices one promotion path is clearly better than the other most of the time. Promoting a unit heals 50 hit points and end its turn, 1 movement left is enough to use a promotion and a unit cannot gain experience if the promotion is not used.

• A city has 2 different hit points, one for walls and one for the normal city hit points. A city can´t attack enemies until walls are produced. While a city has wall hit points melee units do decreased damage. Baterring rams allow melee units to ignore penalty against walls and its upgrade allow melee units to ignore walls and attack the city HP directly even with walls. If enemies are applying zone of control to all tiles around a city it doens´t heal at the end of the turn. Ranged units don´t apply zone of control.

• Units heal 10 per turn 15 in friendly territory and 20 in a city.

• Catapults don´t have to set up but can´t move and attack in the same turn unless it gets an specific promotion for that.

• Many units can be linked to military units to move together: battering rams and other special units, great generals/admirals, settlers, workers.

• The feudalism civic gives a massive bonus for farms: a farm increases food production by 1 for each adjacent farm when 3 farm improvements are adjacent to each other. This can make a farm produce up to +7 food.

• There are no quantity numbers for strategic resources, each improved strategic resource count as 1. With 1 copy of an strategic resource units that need it can be built on cities with encampments and and with 2 copies they can be built in any city. Strategic resources are rare and often players have to settle in bad locations just for the resource.

• Wonders and districts are built outside the city and the original tile yields of the built tiles become unnavaible so it is better to build those in less valuable tiles and manage workable space. Districts can still be worked but will yield specific resources for each district like +2 science for campus.

• Dennouncing an enemy allows a civ to declare formal war 5 turns later (in standard pace) reducing warmonger penalties. Information about war and can be found here
  Razing cities is instantly and have a huge warmonger penalty. As civilizations advance through the eras warmonger penalties increase and there are no warmonger penalties in the ancient era.

• Staying on a government for some time gives a permanent legacy bonus, scroll over the government to see which bonus it provides.

• Some religious units can fight against each other without war declared.

• Warriors and its upgrades are strong against anti-cavalry units which are strong against cavalry, each has +10 combat bonus. Ranged units don´t have zone of control and land units dont have zone of control over water tiles. Light Cavalry doesnt have +10 bonus against warrior and its upgrades i couldn´t find a player using heavy cavalry to check its strenghts and weaknesses. The policies that increase melee units production include anti-cavalry units, developers confirmed in their last stream but what i would like to know is if light and heavy cavalry melee units stack bonuses from both increased cavalry production and increased melee production policies.

• Upgrading units can be done on friendly territory and uses the unit remaining movements, 1 movement left is enough to upgrade.

• Example of how planning can drastically affect a game:

There are 2 policies in the early-mid game that affect workers- one that increase production by 30% when building workers and one that give built workers +2 actions, if a player can time multiple cities building workers with these policies each worker would take less turns to build and every 3 workers would have a total of 15 charges whereas in the normal way they are built slower and every 5 workers would have a total of 15 charges. Each worker built with these 2 bonuses are almost like 2 workers built whithout any bonuses.

• Here you can see all natural wonders in civ6
  Note that Torres Del Paine doubles TERRAIN yields so improvements wont have double effect. Example: a terrain like hill plains will be a 2 food 4 production tile and when improved with a mine 2 food 5 production.

• Full tech and civic tree:

• Workshop and entertainment complex need planning to be built, in the late game they effect every city within 6 tiles. Some wonders and unique buildings spread bonuses to more than 1 city according to specific placement rules. Plan in advance.

• The AI is pretty bad so expect huge bonuses for them in high difficulties. Bonuses include but are not limited to: Bonus yields for every city, combat bonuses for all military units, starting bonuses (civics, technologies, scouts, settlers, workers, military units)

• Eureka boost for the last techs can only be received from great people and spies.

• There are implicit bridges adjacent to cities.

• Borders are visually distinct if they are open or closed, in ancient era boarders start the game open i saw a lot of civ5 players walk around borders from civs and city states when they didnt need to.

• City states are influenced by onvoys sent to them, onvoys are obtained with influence points provided from: government, policies, civic tree and some unusual sources like great people and wonders.

• Barbarian camps gets boosted if their scout returns with a city location, the boost is stronger according to the game difficulty. If you play in higher difficulties be prepared to kill barbarian scouts near your cities.

• Many AI agendas compare your empire stats with theirs, in higher difficulties since it is hard to keep up they get unfliendly with players sine they start with a lot of bonuses.

• AI receives combat bonuses for all military units based on difficulty, +1 on king, +2 on emperor confirmed. I can´t confirm for immortal and diety but i would assume +3 immortal and +4 (or +5) on deity.

• Settling on a hill is better than settling on the flat version of that tile providing +1 production for the city yeld.

• The maximum number of religions is half the number of players +1. Not changed from civ5.

• City states can declare war on players, they get more agressive towards players that take other city states.

• Many AIs don´t care if someone takes city states. Usually when they care is because of their main agenda.

• Captured cities are immediatly productive and conquering them lower population and damage buildings (need to be repaired for reduced cost).

• 15 nice tips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjKArILyl6E

• Link to check civilizations bonuses: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02NnBilglpk Note that it is still hard to try to say which are the best civs because many numerical values are unknown. Example India stepwell improvement, how much food and housing does it provide? we still dont know.

Advice: dont limit yourselft with ideas like: "faith isn´t important", "never take city states" see by yourself by trial and error if these are or not guidelines you should follow. Out of all the resources in the game faith and tourism are the ones a player can completely ignore and still win the game, how much they are important lets see when the game comes out.

Numerical values for civilization bonuses shown in videos:

• Scythya: Saka horse arches cost 100 production, 4 moves, 1 range, 15 melee strenght, 25 ranged strenght doesnt require horses. When a unit from scythia kills an enemy unit it heals 50 hit points and attacking wounded units grant +5 combat strenght. The Kurgan tile improvement gives +1 gold, +1 faith and +1 addictional faith for each adjacent pasture.

• Aztec: +2 combat strenght for each different improved luxury for all military units. Eagle warrior has 28 combat strenght, 2 moves, cost 40 production and convert defeated not barbarian enemies into workers.

• Greece: Gorgo leader ability gives half of defeated unit combat strenght as culture. Hoptiles have 25 combat strenght, 2 moves and +10 combat strenght bonus when adjacent to other hoptile, cost 65 production.

• Japan: Hojo leader ability grants +5 combat strenght bonus in tiles adjacent to coast and shallow water. Their civilization bonus makes every district including the city count as 2 for adjacency bonuses.

• Sumeria: War cart unique unit has 30 combat strenght, 3 moves +1 if starts the turn on open terrain, no penalty against anti cavalry units, avaible at the start of the game and has unknown production cost.

A big thanks for everyone making good content about civ6 without their videos i would never had this information. These are the channels i got the info:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl8UfR1WkSJS666PlNsn6Yg
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsQnAt5I56M-qx4OgCoVmeA
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG8cQBZrG2-Q76hlAZ-Et9g
https://www.youtube.com/user/quill18
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWj7XnnfbKHGVnZ8iSoETSQ

Feel free to ask, mend, refine and add information. I will record and mb stream civ6 starting on immortal difficulty to do some testing then deity and multiplayer, here are my channels: youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt-6121ieGUP2DlPwgNfaKQ twitch https://www.twitch.tv/science__gaming

 

[Tomice]

Thank you very much for this huge compilation of facts, I appreciate your effort as I haven't watched that many letsplays.
It may profit a bit from formatting, however. I find it relatively hard to read. What about bold text for headlines/key words, italic for your personal opinion/interpretation?

 

[Science__Gaming]

Thank you very much for this huge compilation of facts, I appreciate your effort as I haven't watched that many letsplays.
It may profit a bit from formatting, however. I find it relatively hard to read. What about bold text for headlines/key words, italic for your personal opinion/interpretation?

It looks better now, thanks

 

[Tomice]

A huge improvement, thank you!

 

[pochesun]

Great work, thx a lot.

 

[Sansa_Stark]

Nice work.

Just one thing after quick read - builders should be really named builders and not workers.

 

[Tomice]

Quick question: Do rivers have any effect apart from increasing the housing cap? There seem to be a few buildings that require riverside settling, but are there many/are they important?
Do rivers change any tile yields (e.g. more food for farms?)

 

[ExemplarVoss]

Quick question: Do rivers have any effect apart from increasing the housing cap?

Yes, Commercial district: +2 gold if its placed along a river (and +2 for an adjacent harbor, so a coastal river tile is really good for commercial districts, much moreso than the city itself)
Aqueducts also require a river, lake, oasis or mountain

There seem to be a few buildings that require riverside settling, but are there many/are they important?

Watermill (+1 food, +1 production, more food for wheat and rice)
Also several wonders require riverside: Hanging Gardens, Big Ben, Hermitage, Ruhr Valley

Do rivers change any tile yields (e.g. more food for farms?)

Unimproved, no. But lumber mills give +1 production if adjacent to rivers.

But the housing cap is also just a really huge deal, and aqueducts waste space, time and production.

 

[rpgalon]

Quick question: Do rivers have any effect apart from increasing the housing cap? There seem to be a few buildings that require riverside settling, but are there many/are they important?
Do rivers change any tile yields (e.g. more food for farms?)

rivers increase appeal if i remenber correctly.

 

[Sylmarr]

Districts. Beginning at 1 population and then every +3 population a city can build 1 district (1 population max 1 district, 4 population max 2 districts, 7 population max 3 districts and so on)

Hum from what I have seen and heard it does not work exactly like that.

I think it is: Every city starts with the ability to build a district, and can make one more every 3 population it has : one district immediately available, then 2 districts max a 3 population, 3 districts max at 6 population and so on.

 

[Science__Gaming]

Hum from what I have seen and heard it does not work exactly like that.

I think it is: Every city starts with the ability to build a district, and can make one more every 3 population it has : one district immediately available, then 2 districts max a 3 population, 3 districts max at 6 population and so on.

start playing the video on minute 18

but as a general advice don´t get too attached to these numbers, they may change when the game is released, the important message here is: there is a maximum district cap based on population

 

[Estelil]

Wow, great work there !

There are 2 policies in the early-mid game that affect workers- one that increase production by 30% when building workers and one that give built workers +2 actions, if a player can time multiple cities building workers with these policies each worker would take less turns to build and every 3 workers would have a total of 15 charges whereas in the normal way they are built slower and every 5 workers would have a total of 15 charges. Each worker built with these 2 bonuses are almost like 2 workers built whithout any bonuses.

I think those two Policies can't be ennact at the same time, the latter (Serfdom) rendering the former (Ilkum) obsolete upon research, if I'm not mistaken.

 

[bbbt]

1.4- Faith. The civilizations that reach a certain ammount of faith get acess to a pantheon whitch gives bonuses for the empire. Faith is used like currency and can be used to purchase: religious units, great people(any type), special buildings and in Theocracy government can purchase land combat units. To achieve faith victory a civ need at least 50% of the population of every city converted to its religion. To get a great prophet a player has to aim for great person points. So far i find faith pretty underwelming, probably the worst resource in the early game since a lot is needed to buy anything and there aren´t many things possible to buy with it.

In theory, it's like a 'bonus' resource. If you have a civ/terrain that leads to high faith output (i.e. Russia in a mountainous or tundra area), you can use faith to supplement other, weaker areas (i.e. have a religion/religious building that provides food to supplement your one food tundra tiles). If you have low-faith output, you can ignore it. It also allows for 'just for fun'/non-optimum play-through approaches (i.e. win a domination victory only buying units with faith).

However, with the new religious victory, it's a bit odd: you have a high faith output and are focusing on buying on apostles, etc. to spread your religion to win, or you have a low-faith output, and are focused on buying defensive religious units to prevent a religious victory. It might not leave much faith to buy anything else.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Marbozir's "15 civ6 tips" video:

 

[Sylmarr]

start playing the video on minute 18

but as a general advice don´t get too attached to these numbers, they may change when the game is released, the important message here is: there is a maximum district cap based on population

He has already two districts built (campus and commercial hub) in this city with 6 population, witch should not be possible with your calcul. So I'm still pretty sure of what I have say.

The problem is indeed lying in the red text, most certainly a bug just like the weird district counts when you capture a city in this build.

But hey you're right with the most important part of the message : there is a district cap based on population.

 

[Science__Gaming]

He has already two districts built (campus and commercial hub) in this city with 6 population, witch should not be possible with your calcul.

According to the summary a city with 4 population can already build 2 districts, so his city with 6 can build 2 as well and when it reaches 7 population can build a third district. If it followed what you said it would be able to build a third district in the video thats why i don´t think its correct.