A Guide to Playing as the French Catherine De Medici Civilization 6 Leader

Catherine de Medici was a French royal consort during the 16th century. She is also the leader of the French you can select to play as in Civilization 6. Catherine is one of the three French leaders in Civilization 6 and the only one available in the base game. She is a French Civilization 6 leader who excels in cultural dominance.

Catherine’s Flying Squadron Leader Ability

Catherine De Medici’s Flying Squadron Civilization 6 leader ability gives you better diplomatic visibility and spies. This ability grants you +1 diplomatic visibility for each new civilization discovered. It also gives you a free Spy unit with the Castles technology unlocked. All your spies start at an Agent level with free promotion thanks to the Flying Squadron ability.

France’s Grand Tour Civ Ability

Grand Tour is France’s civilization ability that reduces production cost for Medieval, Renaissance, and Industrial Era wonders by 20% percent. Thus, you can build wonders from those eras faster with Catherine De Medici and other French leaders. Plus, this civ ability doubles the tourism generated by all wonders built in your French civilization.

France’s Unique Infrastructure and Units

Garde Impériale is a unique French unit that replaces Line Infantry. This unit has a melee attack of 70. However, its +10 combat strength bonus can increase that to 85 when fighting on your capital’s continent. Garde Impériale also generates great general points for each unit it eliminates.

The Château is a tile improvement infrastructure exclusively for the French. This infrastructure generates +2 culture and +1 gold yields for tiles you add it to. If built beside a wonder, it will generate an extra cultural yield. A Château placed beside a river generates +3 gold yields. All Châteaus generate tourism equal to their cultural yields with Flight unlocked, which amounts to two or three visitors.

Strategy and Tips for Winning With Catherine De Medici

Catherine De Medici is predominantly a cultural Civilization 6 leader because she is French. France’s Grand Tour civ ability alone makes it a strong civilization for securing cultural victories. That, combined with the French Château tourism magnet, makes Catherine De Medici one of the best leaders in the game for winning cultural victories.

To win a cultural victory with Catherine De Medici, wonders should be a big part of your strategy. Try to construct more wonders from the Medieval, Renaissance, and Industrial eras to get them built faster with the Grand Tour’s 20% production cost reduction. Wonders like the Boshoi Theater, Ruhr Valley, Big Ben, Hermitage, Forbidden City, and Oxford are good ones to build from those eras. However, build many wonders from all eras (even some of the poorer ones) because all will generate twice as much tourism as usual when you’re playing as the French.

To further enhance wonder production when playing as Catherine, select the Skyscrapers policy card when you can. That policy increases wonder production by 15% when selected. When combined with the Grand Tour civ ability, this will amount to a 35% production cost reduction for Medieval, Renaissance, and Industrial wonders.

Unlock the Humanism civic ASAP so you can add Châteaus to tiles when playing as Catherine De Medici. Add many Châteaus to your cities’ tiles for them to generate more cultural and gold yields for your civilization. Try to place them beside wonders or rivers when possible for additional yield buffs. When you’ve researched Flight later in the game, those Châteaus will then attract more visitors to your civilization.

To add more Châteaus to tiles faster, select the Public Works policy card. This card reduces the unit production time for Builders by 30%. It also gives your Builder units two extra build actions. Thus, you can add up to five Châteaus to tiles with a single Builder with Public Works selected.

Catherine’s Flying Squadron Civilization 6 leader ability can also come in handy for winning cultural victories. Plant the free spy you’ll receive after researching Castles in a civilization that has some valuable cultural treasures. Then, try using your spy to steal great works from that civilization. I recommend leveling up your spy first to increase its chances of stealing great works without getting captured.

Culture is the only victory condition Catherine is strong for. Yet, if you must play for an alternative, the Domination Victory condition might be worth a shot with the French. The extra gold yields generated by numerous Châteaus will increase your unit maintenance budget, enabling greater military expansion in that regard. Additional culture yields from Châteaus will enable you to unlock the military policy card and government civics faster. Plus, the Garde Impériale can be a very strong, unique unit with which to defeat enemies on your home continent.

Overall, Catherine De Medici of the French is a cultural powerhouse in Civilization 6. This Civilization 6 leader is hard to beat for cultural victories with France’s formidable wonder of the world output and Châteaus. However, she’s not a solid all-rounder, and I don’t recommend playing with Catherine De Medici for other victory conditions beyond culture.