The foreign ministry can be a part of an exploration strategy

DeckerdJames

Warlord
Joined
Nov 1, 2019
Messages
286
You can levy units at half price and the units are a little stronger. As a bonus you get +3 diplomatic favor.

For a civilization on a huge map that want to explore the world before it is revealed by satellites or prefer not to be involved in joint wars that grant visibility, then you could focus on getting to cartography and building boats and meeting city states.
 
You would have probably explored most of the world even in huge maps by the time you reached the tier 3 governments unless if you’re playing oceanless map type
 
You would have probably explored most of the world even in huge maps by the time you reached the tier 3 governments unless if you’re playing oceanless map type
The Foreign Ministry is a Tier 2 government building in Civilization VI: Rise and Fall. It is built in the Government Plaza district and requires a Tier 2 government (Merchant Republic, Monarchy, or Theocracy) and a Tier 1 government building (Ancestral Hall, Audience Chamber, or Warlord's Throne).
https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Foreign_Ministry_(Civ6)

I have not tried the strategy yet. It is a mid-game strategy, I guess. Even at half cost, saving up to levy city state units would require a decent economy. Maybe focusing on getting a strong economy going and heading to the tier two government. On a huge map, you have research to cartography to get onto the oceans, but settling a coastal city and building galleys would allow exploration of the shallows.
 
It's an interesting tradeoff, between the Foreign Ministry and the Grand Master's Chapel.

Yes, the Foreign Ministry allows me to spend less gold to levy city-states. That can be very useful if the city-states are close to the civ I am about to declare war on.
Do I need to be suzerain of the city-state to levy them? In the mid-game, I often need to be selective with where I send my envoys.

On the other hand, GMC allows me to buy land units with faith. I don't give those units back after 30 turns, as happens with levied troops. I can buy scouts and send them out.
Faith-buying a garrison unit when I found a new city has been really useful.

For both of these buildings, their effect remains in effect even when I adopt a tier 3 government.
 
IIRC city states have an independent research mechanism. So if you see a city state with a boat in ocean before you have cartography, you can send your envoys over and levy them and the boat *should* still be able to traverse ocean tiles, which can allow you to get the jump on exploration if that is something you're interested in. Please do correct me if I'm wrong.

Granted, I'm not sure it's worth building the Foreign Ministry for that sake if you aren't going to extensively use levies in general.
 
Top Bottom