Mastering early game development and expansion is essential for a strong Civilization VI game. Strategic planning during the first few turns can determine your entire victory path. Whether you’re pursuing a cultural, religious, or science victory, these foundational steps can set the tone. This guide walks you through key strategies—district prioritization, faith management, AI diplomacy, and growth decisions—that you can use to build a prosperous empire.
1. Optimal Starting Location and City Placement
Evaluating your starting location is crucial to early success. Moving a few tiles to a more resource-rich location can make a significant difference. Look for tiles with food and production bonuses to ensure quick growth. Cattle, sugar, or diamond resources, for example, can accelerate early city expansion, enabling you to reach a solid production base sooner.
Tip: Take a turn or two to move to a better starting location if it means better access to resources. Early access to high-food and production tiles will boost city growth and support a robust start.
2. Scout Early and Consider Double-Scout Strategies
Exploration is essential for building momentum in the early game. Opting for a double-scout opening is often advantageous. Scouts with double experience explore faster, uncovering territory and earning promotions that allow them to traverse hills and forests more efficiently. This accelerated exploration gives you access to more tribal villages, natural wonders, and AI civilizations.
Tip: Use a double-scout opening for faster exploration. Slot in the Survey policy card instead of barbs early on to get your scouts promoted faster. Promoted scouts move quickly, uncovering the map and increasing your chances of earning valuable era score for your first Golden Age.
3. Build Order and Resource Optimization
Build order is another aspect of the early game that can impact long-term success. Start with a scout to quickly discover your surroundings, then follow up with a builder to improve nearby resources. This allows you to generate additional yields and improve city growth. Focus on resources like diamonds, cattle, and other high-yield tiles that give immediate benefits.
Tip: Start with a scout, then build a builder to improve high-yield resources. Prioritizing resources that provide food or production will enhance capital’s growth and provide flexibility for future builds. But settling subsequent cities should consider luxury and strategic resources access. Trading luxury and strategic resources early is an easy source of gold.
4. Building Your First Districts Wisely
District choices are pivotal, especially in the early game. Focus on districts that support your growth rather than those providing immediate yields. Building a Campus or Theater Square early is tempting, but these districts contribute only to your science or culture, without aiding empire growth. Instead, prioritize districts like the Holy Site or Commercial Hub to foster growth.
Tip: Holy Sites will provide faith to be used with Monumentality golden age dedication so you can expand faster. Commercial Hubs or Harbors will provide trade routes, essential for city growth. These districts provide foundational support for empire growth and flexibility for future yields, setting you up for success across multiple victory types.
5. Prioritize Holy Sites Early On
In any Civ VI victory type, building Holy Sites early is beneficial. Even if you’re not aiming for a religious victory, faith is a versatile yield that enables you to purchase units, expand, and fund other aspects of your empire as the game progresses. Holy Sites might not produce immediate benefits, but investing in faith early builds a resource that becomes valuable around turn 40 or later.
Tip: Focus on Holy Sites in the early game to accumulate faith, setting yourself up for strategic unit purchases and district growth in later turns.
6. Transition to Commercial Hubs and Trade Routes
Once your faith yield is on track, Commercial Hubs should be your next focus. They offer essential trade routes that can accelerate the development of new cities and district production.
Tip: By securing trade routes early, you’ll ensure a steady flow of food and production, allowing you to support your cities and expand at a sustainable rate. Each city should have a trade route or more.
7. Balance Faith and Golden Age Requirements
Faith isn’t only for religious victories. It plays a crucial role in obtaining the Monumentality dedication during a Golden Age. With enough faith, you can purchase settlers and builders, accelerating city development without sacrificing production. This balance is critical, as entering a Golden Age with low faith limits your options, preventing you from purchasing the units you need for expansion.
Tip: Aim to collect enough Era Score to reach Golden Age. Then accumulate sufficient faith to maximize the benefits of Monumentality, making expansion smoother and more resource-efficient.
8. Strategic Early Game Government Policy Choices
The early game government choice is vital for efficient development. While God King might seem appealing to players aiming to generate early faith, other policies like Urban Planning offer a more substantial benefit by providing +1 production to all cities. This can significantly accelerate early builds and help maintain a strong start.
Tip: Opt for Urban Planning over God King to enhance production and ensure smooth early development. The extra production adds up, creating a robust foundation for your empire.
9. Choosing Your Pantheon Wisely
Your Pantheon choice should complement the resources in your immediate surroundings. For example, if you have spices or cocoa nearby, consider Goddess of Festivals that boosts culture yields from plantations. Culture is particularly valuable in the early game, as it can be harder to accumulate compared to other yields like faith. Otherwise, adjacency pantheons are always on the table, given the terrain supports the choice.
Tip: Match your Pantheon to your resource and terrain surroundings. Culture Pantheons, in particular, can offer substantial advantages for long-term growth, especially if your goal is a culture victory.
10. Investing in Early Growth Through Trade and Loyalty
Growing your empire’s population early on can exert loyalty pressure on nearby AI cities. Establishing a trade route between your cities fosters rapid growth. High-growth cities with access to food and production tiles can develop loyalty pressure on nearby AI cities, leading to potential flips without direct conflict.
Tip: Use trade routes or chop bonus resources like cattle to increase city population in contested areas to exert loyalty pressure on AI cities, which can result in peaceful city acquisition through loyalty flips.
11. Tactical Use of Resources and Chopping Strategy
Chopping bonus resources can give an immediate production, food and gold boost and should generally be prioritized. These resources don’t provide long-term yields comparable to other resources, so chopping them to accelerate building early infrastructure is beneficial.
Tip: Chop copper, maize, deer, cattle and similar resources early to boost gold, food, production for vital early-game builds. Chopping these resources helps accelerate initial development and secures a strong foundation for your city.
12. Understand the Impact of AI Dispositions
Recognize that every action taken in relation to the AI impacts their disposition. Positive diplomatic actions such as open borders, trade routes, and gifts will improve relations. A good rule of thumb is to avoid lump-sum gold gifts, opting instead for per-turn gold to maintain flexibility. If the AI declares war, per-turn gold is stopped, unlike lump-sum gifts.
Tip: Favor per-turn gifts over lump-sum gold to mitigate the risk of losing gold if war breaks out.
13. Diplomatic Management with AI Neighbors
Establishing good diplomatic relations with neighboring AI civilizations is critical to avoid early wars, especially on higher difficulties. Basil and Alexander, for instance, are militaristic leaders likely to declare early wars. Counteract this by offering favorable trades and sending delegations early. These positive actions can increase your diplomatic standing, reducing the chances of conflict.
Tip: If you’re forward-settling near an AI, send gifts and delegations early to mitigate negative disposition. Favorable trades can shift AI disposition from hostility to neutrality or even friendship. Sometimes starting the war first would disrupt the AI, so consider preemptive strikes, before they can gather the troops.
14. Forward-Settle with a Diplomatic Strategy
If you identify a high-value location near an AI, you can consider forward-settling, but it’s risky. For success, you’ll need to maintain a high level of diplomatic relations, being friends would be best. For example, settling near resources like sugar and diamonds can provide essential growth bonuses but requires careful diplomacy to avoid conflict with neighboring AI.
Tip: Use forward-settling strategically, targeting resource-rich locations only if you have the diplomatic resources to pacify AI neighbors.
Conclusion
Early game development in Civilization VI is all about balance. With the right combination of district planning, resource management, diplomatic maneuvering, and a bit of flexibility, you can build a resilient empire that thrives well into the mid and late game. By following these tips, you’ll be positioned for a strong start, with a foundation capable of supporting any victory condition you pursue.