Alliance (Civ6)

Back to Civilization VI

In Civilization VI and its expansions, an Alliance is the next step in diplomacy when you are ready to take your friendly relationship with another civilization to the next level. Alliances become possible after developing the Civil Service civic. You can only enter into an Alliance with a civ if you and its leader are Declared Friends.

Vanilla

Allies automatically have Open Borders and Shared Visibility, which means you can see everything your ally's cities and units see. In addition, you can make Research Agreements and Defensive Pacts. You cannot take hostile action against an ally.

An Alliance helps improve the relationship between two civilizations, and it makes proposed deals and other forms of trade go smoothly.

Rise and Fall onward

A Level 3 Research Alliance gives a 10% Science boost when researching a tech your ally has already researched, or when researching the same tech. Common techs are marked with a blue Alliance icon.

In Rise and Fall, Alliances have been broken down into different types and present much greater possibilities. Research Agreements and Defensive Pacts are incorporated into the new Alliance mechanics.

There are now five different types of Alliances: Research, Military, Economic, Cultural, and Religious, each of which has its own specific benefits. As the Alliance continues, its benefits will increase. Maintaining an Alliance with a player accrues Alliance Points over time, and when enough points have been accumulated, your Alliance level with this player increases. There are three levels, each one offering more powerful benefits which stack with the earlier ones. You can speed up Alliance Point accumulation by sending Trade Routes to or receiving them from your ally, or by using specific policy cards.

Each Alliance type is unique; this means that each civilization may maintain a particular type of Alliance with only one other civ at a time. For example, if you intend to enter into a Cultural Alliance with Civilization A, you cannot do so if either you or they already have a Cultural Alliance with Civilization B. You will either have to wait until the Alliances expire, or choose a different type of Alliance.

Another difference from vanilla Civilization VI is that allies do not automatically gain Shared Visibility. You still gain visibility from units, but territorial visibility will only be available under other circumstances (e.g., upon reaching Level 2 of a Military Alliance, or when participating in an Emergency). Also, allies now automatically sign a Defensive Pact and will come to each other's aid if a third party engages in hostilities against either one (and Defensive Pacts can no longer be formed outside of Alliances).

This system encourages entering into Alliances and maintaining them for as long as possible - this way, you will be able to build up trust with your ally and level up the Alliance to reap its greatest benefits. What's more, in Gathering Storm each active Alliance gives you +1 Diplomatic Favor per turn per level, which can turn into a major boost to a civilization's diplomatic power.

Of course, in order to maintain Alliances you will have to stay on good terms with other leaders. A leader you've offended (or who has many Grievances against you in Gathering Storm) will not want to become Declared Friends with you, which will prevent you from forming an Alliance with him or her.

Type of Alliance	Level 1	Level 2	Level 3
Research Alliance	+2 Science from Trade Routes to your ally +1 Science from Trade Routes from your ally	Every 30 turns (on Standard), you unlock a Eureka for a tech that your ally has researched or boosted, but you have not.	Allies receive accelerated research on techs that have been discovered by one civilization but not the other and when researching the same tech concurrently.
Cultural Alliance	Your ally's cities do not exert Loyalty pressure on yours, and vice versa +2 Culture from Trade Routes to your ally +1 Culture from Trade Routes from your ally	Each of your Districts grant an additional Great Person point per turn if you have a Trade Route from that city to your ally	You gain +20% of your ally's Tourism from Cities You gain +10% of your ally's Culture from Cities
Economic Alliance	+4 Gold from Trade Routes to your ally +2 Gold from Trade Routes from your ally	Bonus Envoy Point for every City State with your ally as Suzerain	Share Suzerain unique bonuses with your ally
Military Alliance	+5 Combat Strength against units of players at war with you and your ally	+15% Production toward military units when you or your ally are at war Share Visibility	Units start with a free Promotion
Religious Alliance	Your ally's Religion does not exert Religious pressure on cities dominated by your Religion, and vice versa +2 Faith from Trade Routes to your ally +1 Faith from Trade Routes from your ally	+10 Religious Combat Strength against non-ally Religions	+1 Faith for each of your Citizens following your ally's religion Bonus Religious Pressure in cities with no followers of your ally's Religion

Alliance Points

Suleiman is gaining 4 Alliance Points per turn for having Ibrahim with the Khass-Oda-Bashi title, Democracy with the Wisselbanken policy card, the same Secret Society as Gilgamesh and a Trade Route to Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh also has Democracy with Wisselbanken and a Trade Route to Suleiman. They are also both at war with Tamar.

In order to reach higher Alliance levels, you need to accrue enough Alliance Points (80 to reach Level 2 and 160 more to reach Level 3 on Standard speed). Two civilizations that are allies of one another always get 1 Alliance Point per turn, but there are ways to help speed up this process:

• 0.25 points per turn from sending at least one Trade Route to them. (This gets increased to 0.5 per turn under Cleopatra.)
• 0.25 points per turn from receiving at least one Trade Route from them. (This also gets increased to 0.5 per turn under Cleopatra.)
• 0.25 points per turn if you have the Wisselbanken or Arsenal of Democracy^* policy cards.
• 0.25 points per turn if they have the Wisselbanken or Arsenal of Democracy^* policy cards.
• 0.5 points per turn if you are either Gilgamesh or his ally and you are both at war with the same enemy. (The war doesn't have to be a Joint War.)
• 0.5 points per turn from being members of the same Secret Society.
• 0.5 points per turn if you have Ibrahim Governor with the Khass-Oda-Bashi title.

^* In Gathering Storm, Arsenal of Democracy was removed and its effects got transferred to the Democracy government. Therefore, Alliance Points will grow by 0.25 extra if one party has adopted Democracy and by 0.5 extra if both have adopted Democracy.

As outlined above, all of these actions have symmetric effects on both parties of the Alliance, so they will always both accrue Alliance Points at the same rate and reach higher Alliance levels at the same time.

An Alliance expires after 30 turns on Standard speed, at which point it needs to be proposed and signed again (after you and your former ally have renewed your declaration of friendship). If historical allies (i.e., civilizations that had at least a Level 2 Alliance in the past) denounce or declare war on one another, a Betrayal Emergency will be triggered.

Related achievements

Adamantine Confederacy As Poundmaker, have an active Alliance of every type. Phrase that directly means 'unbreakable alliance'.

Bromance Achieve the maximum Alliance level with Gilgamesh A term used to refer to a close friendship between two men.

See also

• Alliance in other games