10 of the Best Civ 6 Civic Tree Civics to Unlock in Civilization 6

The Civ 6 civic tree was a new, game-changing feature that Civilization 6 introduced to its game series. That tree includes a wide variety of civics for social, legal, and ideological civilization advancements. Thus, civics are crucial for unlocking governments, policy cards, more envoys, governor promotions, and many cultural enhancements. These are some of the best civics to unlock in Civilization 6.

Conservation

Conservation is one of the most important civics for cultural victories because of the Naturalist unit it unlocks, which enables players to establish National Parks. Aside from that, it enables your Builders to plant woods, which is a great way to increase city production and tile appeal for establishing Seaside Resorts and National Parks. Conservation enables walls to generate tourism that will further enhance your holiday industry. Plus, this civic gives you three envoys with which you can boost various yields.

Political Philosophy

Political Philosophy is the best early-game civic because it unlocks the Oligarchy, Classical Republic, and Autocracy governments. All of those tier one governments will give you more policy cards to select for a good early game leg up. Plus, they have valuable effects for players pursuing cultural, domination, religious, or scientific victory conditions to exploit.

Drama and Poetry

Drama and Poetry is a crucial Civ 6 civic for cultural players that unlock Theater Square districts and Amphitheater buildings. Thus, you won’t have much chance of winning a cultural victory without researching Drama and Poetry. Theater Square districts and their buildings are also crucial for increasing cultural output, which will enable you to research civics faster.

Early Empire

Early Empire is one of the best civics on the Civ 6 civic tree, mainly because of the Colonization policy card it unlocks. The 50% production boost for Settlers that the card gives you is crucial for peaceful civilization expansion, particularly during the early game when there’s more open territory. Early Empire also unlocks the Limitanei and Land Surveyors policy cards for increasing city loyalty and reducing tile purchase costs.

Foreign Trade

Foreign Trade is a crucial civic for boosting economies. It unlocks the Trader unit and enables your civilization to establish trade routes for increasing gold, science, culture, production, and faith yields. When you increase your trade routes with Commercial Hubs and Harbor districts (unlocked with Currency and Celestial Navigation technologies), foreign trade can significantly increase your civilization’s gold per turn.

Cultural Heritage

The Cultural Heritage civic on the Civ 6 civic tree unlocks Heritage Tourism. Heritage Tourism is one of the game’s best policy cards for securing cultural victories that doubles the tourism generated by great works and artifacts. Cultural Heritage also reveals shipwreck tiles on the map, enabling you extract artifacts from sea tiles. The two city-state envoys’ Cultural Heritage gives you a good bonus.

Professional Sports (Gathering Storm)

Professional Sports is one of my favorite civics on the Civ 6 civic tree in Gathering Storm because of the Ski Resorts tile improvement it unlocks. Adding Ski Resorts to mountain tiles is an easy way increase amenities across your civilization, which is valuable for any victory condition. Ski Resorts attract visitors, and many of them can give your tourism industry a notable boost. The Stadium and Aquatics Center Professional Sports unlocks are also good buildings for increasing amenities.

Civil Engineering (Gathering Storm)

Civil Engineering unlocks two good policy cards in the form of Public Works and Skyscrapers. The Pubic Works policy card this civic unlocks, which gives your Builder units two extra charges and boosts production for them, is one of the best in the game. Skyscrapers boost production for the wonders of the world by 15%, which is a valuable policy to select when pursuing a cultural victory.

Civil Engineering also enables you to build the Statue of Liberty in the Civilization 6 expansions. The Statue of Liberty grants your Civilization 6 four diplomatic points in the Gathering Storm DLC. That’s a crucial wonder to build for any player aiming for a diplomacy victory.

Globalization

Globalization is a late-game civic that’s invaluable for players seeking scientific victories with the Ecommerce and International Space Station policy cards it unlocks. The Ecommerce card in the vanilla Civilization 6 game is an overpowered one that gives each of your international trade routes a +10 gold and +5 productivity yield boost. Establishing four or five trade routes in a Spaceport city with the Ecommerce policy selected can give a city a huge production boost for space race projects. However, the overall economic boost Ecommerce generates makes it a good policy for all victory conditions.

International Space Station is a great policy card for boosting scientific research, especially in the vanilla Civilization 6 game. Selecting that policy gives your science output a 10% boost for each city-state you have established a suzerain in. For example, four city-state suzerains will boost science output by 40% with the International Space Station card selected.

Environmentalism (Gathering Storm)

Environmentalism is an exclusive Gathering Storm civic with which you can significantly pump up a tourist industry in the late game. The 25% tourism bonus this civic gives you is crucial to cultural civilizations. Thus, researching this civic is one of the best ways to get you over the line for cultural line victories in Gathering Storm.

Those Civ 6 civic tree civics provide invaluable policy cards, district buildings, new governments, tile improvements, and other more general effects. The Drama and Poetry, Environmentalism, Professional Sports, Conservation, and Cultural Heritage civics are crucial for securing cultural victories. The Globalization civic is a great one for winning space races. Civil Engineering, Foreign Trade, Early Empire, and Political Philosophy can be valuable civics for variable victory conditions.