Gathering Storm, a new expansion for the ever-popular strategy game Civilization 6, has brought many former players back as well as lured a new crowd into the game, flooding it with a new wave of players. Some of them may need a refresher on some of the main concepts in the game or gain new knowledge before diving right in there. As always with guides on the Eneba blog, the Civilization 6 guide for beginners does not aim to teach you how to cheat the game. Instead, the goal is to teach some basic mechanics and provide some tips that would hopefully help the player to thrive in the game.

What is Civilization 6?

Just in case anyone reading up on this guide has not heard of Civ 6, or the Civilization franchise in general before, let’s start off with a brief introduction. It is a strategy game franchise developed by Firaxis games that has seen its first release come all the way back in 1991. The game that this Civilization 6 guide is dedicated to has been released in 2016 and has had several major expansions come its way already, constantly keeping the game up-to-date.

The action takes place a significant time back in the past when a new game is started, with very little technology and no modern science. The player gets to witness the beginning of a new nation and become its leader. Lead the nation to improve across the centuries, immerse in wars, handle the politics, simply do whatever it takes to build the most powerful dynasty in history!

Don’t just drop your city

Let’s get to the actual point of the Civilization 6 guide – giving you advice! Sure, you are eager to start playing, but not rushing your decisions is one of the most important things if you were to be successful in the game. When placing your city at the get-go, make sure that there are either valuable resources or a healthy water supply nearby. Ideally, start off at a river bed or by the coastline. The thinking behind it is simple – water is most important to maintain life, so setting up the base by the water will allow you to support more citizens at the start. Follow this Civilization 6 guide tip for quicker, more efficient development!

civilization 6

Another thing to pay attention to when it comes to water is the tiles, which are highlighted to show that they are the best to get water from. Don’t bother digging in the desert when there is an oasis nearby! Constantly having access to fresh water makes the early game significantly easier, even though it will get easier as technology improves, nobody wants any part of the game to be a stressful grind!

Make sure to explore

Do not limit yourself to a small area of the map! As a yet another Civilization 6 guide tip – get out of your comfort zone and venture into the unknown. It is better to face some dangers while exploring than facing them when the enemy is confident enough to go exploring into your territory! Furthermore, knowing what surrounds you is essential when it comes to planning further expansion of your civilization! Make sure you know of every city that surrounds you and may possibly be of threat to you in the future! Civilization is all about planning one step ahead, make sure you do just that!

Study your neighbors closely before making a move directed at them, after all, you don’t want to bite off more than you can chew! If you are to follow this Civilization 6 guide – make allies with those who are stronger than you and show aggression towards those you can defeat, not the other way around! You will rarely, if ever, come out on top by playing David in a David vs Goliath encounter!

Civilization 6 guide to amenities

Amenities work a lot like happiness did in previous Civilization titles and are essential to the growth of your city. You need 1 amenity for every 2 citizens in citizens apart from the first two of your citizens. You have to do either one of 6 things if you want to gain amenities. If you don’t, this Civilization 6 guide might as well be useless! You need to give your people access to Religion, Entertainment, Civics, Luxury Resources, have some Great People in your city, and create National Parks. Doing any one of those things will result in an increase in amenities. There are also two ways to gain negative amenities, those being by bankruptcy and war weariness.

civilization 6 districts

Why make sure your people are happy? If you want your city to thrive, the people being happy boosts its growth significantly! If you do enough to make your people happy, you gain a 10% increase in growth and a 5% increase in yield! Follow the Civilization 6 guide all the way, get your people ecstatic and the bonuses increase – 20% for growth and 10% for yield! Go out of your way to make the people happy, and everything else will come easy!

How to set up your game

Choosing the wrong setting before starting a new game of Civilization can lead to a rather uneventful, boring, or straight-up unplayable experience! Make sure you got everything set up just right and it will turn out to be some of the best gaming experiences you have ever had!

Assuming you are a beginner in the game, don’t try to play a hero when it comes to game difficulty! Following a Civilization 6 guide is useless if you’re not having fun while at it, so start on Settler mode, which is the easiest, and slowly work your way up to the hardest, Deity mode!

If you want a faster-paced game, set the game speed to Quick, which is 33% faster than normal. If you’re not in a hurry or simply prefer a slower pace to your games, go with the Standard mode, where the global speed of the game is slower! Furthermore, think about how many players are joining you and choose an appropriate map size! The more players, the larger the map!

There you have it! Follow this Civilization 6 guide and you are almost sure to have a pleasant experience during your time playing! Just make sure to remember that it is a turn-based game and you don’t always have to make rapid decisions, so think through your moves and dominate the map!