From This Early Cradle of Civilization, On Towards the Stars
A Civ 6 Multiplayer Strategy Guide
Welcome to this civ 6 strategy guide. If you're here, you're probably interested in learning how to play civ for the first time, or I've badgered you into finally buying the game so you can play with me. This guide is a compilation of everything I've learned about the game, laid out with an eye towards helping folks level up their gameplay as quickly as possible.
There are a lot of ways to enjoy civ. Many people play it as a historical simulator or as a city sim. This guide is for folks playing multiplayer civ 6 — i.e. playing to win.
Why am I writing this?
I love Civilization. I think it is an incredible piece of game design, and is also just super fun to play. I constantly want to play more with friends, but frankly it takes a lot of work to get good at this game. Any single game of civ can last for hours, and while there is an excellent civ wiki, subreddit, and a bunch of streamers, it can be hard to dedicate the time to consuming all that content piecemeal.
I always felt like there was an unfilled niche, a single strategy guide that compiles all the useful information scattered around. So I’m writing it.
Why listen to me?
I have over 1000 hours in the game since it came out. Of those, I'd say 900 hours are in multiplayer games with a combination of human players and emperor-through-deity AI. I've introduced a few dozen people to the game (not always to their benefit!) and have helped at least some of them become as addicted to this game as I am.
Table of Contents
I think the specifics of what I end up writing about may change, but this is a very rough outline of what I hope to cover. It’s totally possible that I just lose steam, so if folks have specific questions or things that they want filled in, I can easily focus on that.
I’ll try to come back to update this document every time I post something else that’s relevant.
Introduction
Strategy
Tactics
Executing Specific Victory Conditions
One More Turn
[Written: 2/6/2025]
And that's it. That's just about everything I could possibly say about Civilization 6.
It's a bit odd finishing up this guide. I started it almost a year and a half ago, and have been steadily chipping away over hundreds of subway commutes or plane rides. And now, after ~35 chapters, it's done. I think it's a testament to the game that there was so much to say, so much depth and complexity. Not many games would justify more than a few hundred words of review. But of course, civ isn't just any kind of game. It's a game that inspires intense loyalty among its fan base, many who have dedicated thousands of hours to understanding the minutiae of its mechanics.
I probably won't be writing more civ 6 content any time soon. But I think it's fitting that this last post comes out today, only a week before the official civ 7 release and the day of the pre-order release (guess what I’m going to be doing tonight). Because of this guide, a ton of my friends who did not play civ 6 are thinking about dipping their toes into the franchise as a serious multiplayer game. So all other things being equal, I consider this whole project a massive success.
Thanks to everyone who has been following along from the beginning! Will see you all after the Civ 7 release, once I've gotten another few hundred hours in and have thoughts on how to play.
Hey there, I was wondering if you were planning on continuing the guide or not? :)
Looking forward to the other parts! Any idea when you will be posting them? :)