Civilization 6 is one of the best games in the series, but many of the familiar mechanics have been altered. The biggest change to the series is in how you plan your cities. In previous titles you’d find a spot within three squares of some luxury resources, with a source of a food and a few hills for mines and be done with it. Every building was held inside the one square that the city started from.
In Civilization 6, the process is a bit more involved. Now you must build districts, which take up their own tile on the map and house buildings of a similar type. A campus district will house all of your science buildings, an encampment will house your barracks and buildings of war and so on. That means that if you don’t have a campus district, you can’t build a library, even if you’ve unlocked the technology to do so.
Below is a guide to the most common districts that will ensure you’ll be nuking Gandhi before he nukes you.
Since the districts are in their own spots on the map, they’re vulnerable to barbarians and enemy armies. If your campus district is pillaged, you can say goodbye to that precious science until you can rebuild it from your production queue in the city center. As such, you’ll need to protect more than your city center from attacks, adding new depth to city sieges. Of course, if push comes to shove, protect the center above all else, because if you lose that you’ll lose the districts anyway.
The encampment is unique in that it has it’s own hitpoints so can act as a forward operating base to defend your city. I like to put them on the side of my city where my neighbors are for those annoying times that the AI randomly declares war.
The complexity goes a little farther – the location a district is placed dictates whether or not you get certain bonuses. This agency bonus can be huge, so now when building a city, you must think about your future districts and not just the city center. Below is a guide to adjacency bonus, but as an example: Campus district will give you +1 Science for every Mountain adjacent to it. Mountains provide no other resources so you’ll have to balance that science boost against what those tiles could be producing if they weren’t mountains. All of this adds a very fun level of complexity to city building.
Below are the main districts and their Agency Bonuses:
Campus:
This is where the learning happens. Libraries and Science generating buildings reside here.
Bonus: +1 Science for every adjacent Mountain, +0.5 Science for every adjacent Rainforest.
Commercial Hub:
Banks and buildings that generate gold go in here.
Bonus: +2 Gold if next to a river. +2 Gold if next to a Harbor District.
Encampment:
Will house your barracks and other buildings of war.
No Agency bonus’ but can be used as an outward defensive strong point.
Harbor:
Lighthouse, Shipyard and Seaport are built here.
Bonus: +1 Gold if next to a water resource (e.g. Fish or Crabs)
Holy Site:
Religious buildings reside here.
Bonus: +2 Faith if next to a Natural Wonder. +1 Faith if next to a Mountain.
Industrial Zone:
This holds your workshops, Factories, and Power Plants.
Bonus: +1 Production for being next to a Quarry, +1 Production for being next to a Mine.
Theater Square:
This holds your Museums and Culture generating buildings.
Bonus: +1 for every Man made Wonder next to it.
These are the Early to Mid game main districts you’ll need to worry about. Remember all these bonuses stack. If your Industrial District is next to five Mines, it’ll give you +5 production, which can be a huge jump early game.
