The Players

In Civilization VI, you have multiple Empires you can play as, which is the same as all prevous versions of Civ. But now you can have different Leaders with some Empires, and even some Leaders that can lead different Empires. So the selection of who you will play as just got more complicated. And to add to the complications, Civilization VI had several expansions and DLC that kept changing what was available. To the best of my knowledge I have all of the Expansions and DLC, so if you have just the original vanilla version you might be missing some of what I describe here. The fact is that as they provided added DLC, expansions, and updates, a lot of it was about adding Empires and Leaders, and modifying what went before. As an example of what I mean, the American Empire initially was led by Teddy Roosevelt. Then in 2020 they added the Teddy Roosevelt Persona Pack, which now gave you two versions of Teddy Roosevelt, one called Rough Rider Teddy, and the other Bull Moose Teddy. Rough Rider Teddy had Military bonuses, while Bull Moose Teddy had Scientific and Cultural bonuses. Then in 2022 they added the Great Negotiators Pack which brought in Abraham Lincoln as a possible leader of the Americans. What we were seeing here, I submit, is a change in their marketing model. In previous versions of Civ they would typically do a vanilla version, then do 2 expansions, roughly at 2 year intervals, until it was time for a new Civ game. Now it started moving to something a lot more like a subscription model. You need to shop carefully therefor if you are looking to pick up this game now. Look for the Civilization VI Anthology to pick up most of the DLC as a bundle for a decent price.

The Empires available include:

• American
• Arabian
• Australian
• Aztec
• Babylonian
• Brazilian
• Byzantine
• Canadian
• Chinese
• Cree
• Dutch
• Egyptian
• English
• Ethiopian
• French
• Gallic
• Georgian
• German
• Gran Columbian
• Greek
• Hunagarian
• Incan
• Indian
• Indonesian
• Japanese
• Khmer
• Kongolese
• Korean
• Macedonian
• Malian
• Maori
• Mapuche
• Mongolian
• Norwegian
• Nubian
• Ottoman
• Persian
• Phoenician
• Polish
• Portuguese
• Roman
• Russian
• Scottish
• Scythian
• Spanish
• Sumerian
• Swedish
• Vietnamese
• Zulu

That is quite a lot. 50 possible Empires. If you played each one for just one time it would probably take you over year just to run through the list. And a number of them have more than one possible leader. We mentioned two versions of Teddy Roosevelt. There are also two versions of Eleanor of Aquitaine, one as Queen of France, the other as Queen of England. (And yes, she actually was both of those things.) And for Greece you can have either Pericles of Athens or Gorgo of Sparta. And this is just a few of the options you get.

For the Empires you get a Civilization Abililty, a Unique Unit, and a Unique Infrastructure improvement. For example, take Egypt. Their Civilization Ability is called Iteru, and it gives them +15% Production towards Districts and Wonders built next to a river. And Districts, improvements and units are immune to damage from floods. Their unique unit is the Maryannu Chariot Archer, which replaces the Heavy Chariot. It has a slightly lower Melee strength (25 instead of 28), but adds a Ranged option with a Range of 2 and Ranged Strength of 35. That makes it a very powerful military unit early in the game. and the unique infrastructure improvement is the Sphinx, which can be built on a tile by one of your Builder units and will provide additional Culture and Faith, depending on what it is adjacent to. So when you are looking at these different Empires you can play as, consider their strengths and weaknesses and formulate a strategy that fits. Or you can decide on a strategy and then pick an Empire to fit it.

Leaders

There are 67 possible Leaders, so obviously many Empires have multiple options. And each leader has a Leader Ability and a Leader Agenda. For example, the Ottoman leader Suleiman has the Leader Ability of Grand Vizier, which grants him access to a unique Governor (Ibrahim, the Grand Vizier). He also has a unique unit, the Janissary, and gains an additional Governor title when he researches Gunpowder. The Janissary replaces the Musketman, and is stronger. His Leader Agenda is Lawgiver, which means he tries to keep his cities loyal and happy, and he likes other players who do the same, particularly if they have conquered cities in their Empire. But he dislikes players who strugle with happiness and loyalty, or who have few conquered cities.

In addition you have to look to the Alternate Personas that some leaders have. We have already mentioned Teddy Roosevelt and Eleanor of Aquitaine, but Suleiman (discussed above) also has two personas. In addition, Catherine de Medici, Cleopatra, Harald Hardrada, Qin Shi Huang, Saladin, and Victoria all have two personas you choose from. And between Eleanor of Aquitaine and Victoria, you have three possible leaders for England. So there are tons of choices here.

But what do you do with all these choices? Your strategy is to match the Empire and the Leader. with the Victory type you will pursue. For some examples:

• Science – Korea has a unique District, the Seowon which replaces the Campus but is cheaper to build and has good bonuses. And it gives you Science as a bonus from every Mine you build. Seondeok as a leader gives you +3 Science for every promotion a Governor has in a city with a Governor which can mount up nicely. Babylon, although it takes a penalty to its Science generation, can instantly discover any technology as soon as it gets a Eureka, so you can race through the Science tree pretty quickly. Sumeria can build a unique Infrastructure Improvement called the Ziggurat that gives +2 Science per turn.
• Domination – For a fast start, Macedon is good. Their unique unit the Hypaspist replaces the Swordsman, so it is available early, and their unique building the Basilikoi Paides replaces the Barracks and is also available early. The Leader, Alexander, has a unique unit called the Hetairoi which replaces the Horseman. All of this says go to war early. And you can keep going to war because none of Alexander’s cities experience war weariness. Mongolia gives its units added combat strength, and their unique unit the Keshig is a ranged cavalry unit of the Medieval era. Their unique building the Ordu replaces the Stable. The leader Genghis Khan gives +3 Combat Strength to all Cavalry units plus a chance to capture enemy Cavalry units which then get added to his army. Kublai Khan, your other choice, is great for building a large treasury which in itself is always helpful.
• Culture – Greece has a unique District the Acropolis which replaces the Theater Square. And they get an additional Wildcard Policy slot in all governments. That slot can be used to get added Culture. The leader Pericles gets +5% Culture for every City-State thay are Suzerain over. Or you can go with the Spartan leader Gorgo and get Culture for each enemy unit you kill. Kongo is also good because they get 4 extra slots for Great Works in the Palace, so they are available from the beginning (and early slots are really great because you haven’t had to build the buildings). They also get +50% Great Artist and Great Musician points, and in turn all Relics, Artifacts, and Sculptures provided bonuses of Food, Production, Faith, and Gold.
• Religion – Arabia is always guaranteed to get a Great Prophet, and with Saladin the Vizier as leader, the Worship building is 90% cheaper to purchase with Faith. Russia gets +1 Faith from all Tundra tiles, and their unique District the Lavra replaces the Holy Site.
• Diplomatic – Sweden gets +50 Diplomatic Favor from every Great Person recruited. They also bring three Nobel Prize competitions into the game. They are great for a combined Diplomatic/Science game which lets you choose at the end which one to choose for the final push. Canada is also good because they gain Diplomatic Favor from Tourism, and bonus Diplomatic Favor from completing Emergencies and Competitions.

Nows these are just a few suggestions of good candidates for each Victory type. You can get addditional suggestions at the Civilization Wiki. But you can win any type of victory with any civilization as long as you understand how to use their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. For example you can play as Mali with the leader Mansa Musa and be rolling in Gold almost from the start. And with a lot of Gold you can buy what you need for many kinds of Victories.

Evaluate Your Opponents

A useful skill is to evaluate your opponents in a game. If you are playing Single Player against the AI, it will play its players according to their strengths. For instance, I never yet played a game against Russia where they weren’t sending wave after wave of Religious units into my territory and everyone else’s to get conversions. And Mongols in the game guarantee there will be fighting. To illustrate how I might approach this, I will take a Saved Game that is still pretty early so I haven’t yet met everyone in the game. But I want to gather what information I can at this point to plot my best strategy. I am playing as Ludwig, the leader of Germany. Germany is strong in Production, with a unique District the Hansa which replaces the Industrial Zone. It also can construct one District more than would usually be allowed for a given level of Population, so for example a city of size 4 which normally could build 2 Districts can build 3 Districts. Now Production is not a Victory type, but it can support many other types. Ludwig as a Leader can get a lot of Culture bonuses, so it makes sense to use the German production to support Culture and go for a Culture victory. But the Production makes it even better to go for a Science Victory.

My opponents are only partially known at 110 BC. But so far I have:

• Trajan – Leader of Rome. Their Civilization Ability is called All Roads Lead to Rome and it gives Trade bonuses. Their Unique Unit is the Legion which replaces the Swordsman, making a good early game unit. Trajan’s Leader Bonus is that his cities each get a free building in the City Center. His Agenda is to expand as far as possible, which can make him a threat.
• Amanitore – Leader of Nubia. Their Civilization Ability is +30% Production for Ranged Units. Their Unique Unit is tha Pitati Archer which replaces the Archer. Their Unique Infrastructure is the Nubian Pyramid, a tile improvement which gives bonus Faith and Food, and other bonuses that depend on adjacencies. Amanitore’s Leader Bonus is +20% for producing Districts, and her Agenda is for maximizing the number of Districts in each city.
• Lady Six Sky – Leader of Maya. Their Civilization Ability gives Farms added Production and Housing. Their Unique Unit is the Hul’che, which replaces the Archer, and their Unique District is the Observatory which replaces the Campus. Lady Six Sky’s Leader Bonus gives increased yields to any of her cities within 6 tiles of her Capital, and her agenda is to be left alone in her little Empire.

All three of these opponents get their Unique Unit early in the game, so their biggest military threat is in the early game. And by definition they are my closest competitors. So I will want to keep up a good military. The Maya will probably go for a Science victory, but the others are not clear. So far I am not seeing anything like a Religion Civ in this game, but there are 4 Civs I have not yet met. Meanwhile, I can monitor where we all are using the World Rankings screen, accessed from a button on the upper left. You should get in the habit of checking this screen regularly through the game.