Governments

When you start the game you are nothing more than a band of nomads wandering around in 4,000 BC. When you decide to settle down and found your capital you are on the road to Government. But to get there you must first discover Code of Laws, the first Civic you research. It will take a bit of time to research, but when you get it the Government screen will open up. At this point you only have one Government available to you, Chiefdom, but it does give you two Policy Card slots, one slot being Military and the other Economic, and you only have two choices for each one. For the Military policy I usually choose Discipline because it gives me increased combat strength (+5) against Barbarians, and at this stage that is your major Military threat. For the Economic one I will usually start with God-King to get the Faith and Gold each turn, but Urban planning is not a bad choice either. It is just that I like to get my Treasury off to a good start.

From here you will have the chance to change your Government configuration every time you research a new Civic. You can change the policy cards for your government, and as you research your Civics you will get new Policy Cards available, and over time some Policy cards will become obselete and disappear. To research your Civics you need to be generating Culture, which is why the Monument is often the first building players produce. It is the first building to produce Culture. The higher your Culture per turn, the quicker you go through the Civics tree, and in this case that means the quicker you get to new governments. And Civics you discover also allow for new forms of government, which give you better results and more flexibility. You definitely don’t want to stay in Chiefdom any longer than necessary. Once you have researched Code of Laws and made your Policy Card choices, you will be asked to select the next Civic. If you open up the Civics tree you can see that the Civic called Political Philosophy allows three other government types. These are the Tier 1 governments, Autocracy, Oligarchy, and Classical Republic. These are Classical Era forms of Government, but a big jump after Chiefdom. What I like to do is click on Political Philosophy at this point. But it has prerequisites which it fills in. I can see that my Civics research will go:

1. Foreign Trade (15 turns)
2. Craftsmanship (25 turns
3. Early Empire (43 Turns)
4. State Workforce (43 turns)
5. Political Philosophy (50 turns)

The number of turns is just a rough guess. If you increase your Culture generation they will go more quickly. At this point I have only one city, my capital, and it is generating 1.5 Culture per turn. But I am building a Monument in my capital, which will increase my Culture per turn. And when it completed, I saw my Culture per turn had increased to 3.8, and all of the turn numbers are now less than half of what they were. There is a second way to get these faster. In both the Research Tree and the Civics Tree you can get boosts, and you can see what they are by opening the Tree and looking at each of the panels for the tech or civic. My Foreign Trade Civic got boosted because I discovered a second continent. My Craftsmanship got boosted because I improved three tiles. To get a boost to Early Empire I would need to get my population up to at least 6, and that might not happen. But I got a boost to State Workforce as a bonus from hitting a Tribal Village, the Civilization VI version of the Goody Hut that has been in Civ since the beginning. And I boosted my Political Philosophy by meeting three City-States. All of the boosts except for Craftsmanship came from having two scouts out exploring, so this demonstrates why it is important to to explore the map early.

Tier 1 Governments (4 slots)

Here are the Classical governments:

• Autocracy – You get one each Military, Economic, Diplomatic, and Wild Card policy slots. +10% Production to Wonders.
• Oligarchy – You get two Military, one Economic, and one Wild Card policy slots. Increased combat strength and XP for all of your Military units.
• Classical Republic – You get two Economic, one Diplomatic, and one Wild Card policy slots. Cities with a District receive +1 Housing and +1 Amenities. +15% Great Person Points.

Clearly, if you want to go to war, Oligarchy is best. For a Culture victory, Classical Republic is the choice. Autocracy is the balanced option.

Tier 2 Governments (6 slots)

Of course governments change over time, and in the Renaissance Era you will get some new options. But instead of them arriving together with one Civic as with Political Philosophy, each one has its own prerequisite. Here are the Tier 2 Governments:

• Merchant Republic – Available when you research Exploration. You get one Military, two Economic, two Diplomatic, and one Wild Card policy slots. +10% Gold in all cities with an established Governor. +15% Production towards Districts.
• Monarchy – Available when you research Divine Right. You get two Military, one Economic, one Diplomatic, and two Wild Card policy slots. +1 Housing per level of Walls, +50% Influence Points (which give you Envoys to City-States).
• Theocracy – Available when you research Reformed Church. You get two Military, two Economic, one Diplomatic, and one Wild Card policy slots. +5 Religious Strength in Theological Combat. +.5 Faith per citizen in cities with established Governors. 15% Discount on purchases with Faith.

Because these Tier 2 governments have different “trigger” discoveries, you won’t necessarily get what you want right away. For instance, I often find that Monarchy is the first one I get because it is a Medieval Era government and the others are Renaissance Era, and if I was going for a lot wars it is good fit. But what if I am going for a Science victory? I can take Monarchy for now, and remember that every time you research a new Civic you get a chance to reshuffle your government. So I take Monarchy for now, and as soon as I research Exploration I can switch to Merchant Republic. You can always make that change. But don’t go backwards to a previous government without a very compelling reason!

Anarchy

When you switch back to a form of government you have previously adopted you first enter a period of Anarchy. This period can last at least 3 turns, but the more times you have previously adopted this form of government the longer the Anarchy lasts. During a period of Anarchy you receive no Gold, Science, Culture, or Faith, from any source. You have no policy slots and no policies. And you cannot change the form of government until the Anarchy ends.

Tier 3 Governments (8 slots)

Of course Governments continue to develop over time, and in the Modern Era we have three more options. Each of these governments also has exclusive Policy Cards that only they can use:

• Communism – Available when you research Class Struggle. You get three Military, three Economic, one Diplomatic, and one Wild Card policy slots. +0.6 Production per citizen in cities with Governors. +10% Science.
• Democracy – Available when you research Suffrage. You get one Military, three Economic, two Diplomatic, and two Wild Card policy slots. Trade routes to an ally or a City-State you are Suzerain of provide +4 Food and +4 Production to both cities. Alliance points with all allies increase by an additional .25 per turn. 15% discount on all purchases with Gold.
• Fascism – Available when you research Totalitarianism. You get four Military, one Economic, one Diplomatic, and two Wild Card policy slots. All units get +5 Combat Strength, War Weariness reduced by 15%. +50% Production towards Units.

These are basically your Twentieth Century Government forms, but we are now in the Twenty-first Century and heading for the future. So of course we have the futuristic governments:

Tier 4 Governments (10 slots)

• Digital Democracy – Available when you research Distributed Sovereignty. You get one Military, one Economic, three Diplomatic, and five Wild Card policy slots. +2 Amenities in all cities, +2 Culture per Specialty District. -3 Combat Strength for all units.
• Synthetic Technocracy – Available when you research Optimization Imperative. You get one Military, three Economic, one Diplomatic, and five Wild Card policy slots. +3 Power in all cities and +30% Production towards all City Projects. -10% Tourism.
• Corporate Libertarianism – Available when you research Venture Politics. You get three Military, one Economic, one Diplomatic, and five Wild Card policy slots. Your Commercial Hubs and Encampments each give their cities +10% Production. Accumulating resources with improvements provide +1 per turn. -10% Science.

Summary

These are all of the governments you might encounter in a game of Civ VI, but it is quite possible to win the game before you get to all of the Tier 4 Governments. But a close inspection shows the paths you might want to take in typical games depending on the Victory type you are aiming for.

• Domination – This is pretty straightforward. From Chieftain you will probably want to go to Oligarchy, then Monarchy, then Fascism, and if the game is still going by then, Corporate Libertarianism.
• Science – From Chieftain you may want to go to Classical Republic for the Great Person points, though Autocracy is good for building wonders. From there Merchant Republic, Democracy or Communism , and finally Digital Democracy.
• Religious – From Chieftain to Autocracy, Theocracy, then either Communism or Democracy, and finally either Synthetic Technocracy or Corporate Libertarianism
• Culture – From Chieftain, go to Classical Republic, Merchant Republic, Democracy, and Digital Democracy.
• Diplomatic – From Chieftain to Autocracy, to Monarchy, Democracy, and finally to Digital Democracy.

These are just suggested paths you might take, and you can have a lot of fun trying to win with other governments. So experiment with the options you have!