Borders (Civ6)

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Borders (or territory) is a term for tiles that are owned by either a civilization or a city-state in Civilization VI and its expansions. An empire must expand its borders in order to claim new resources and give its Citizens tiles to work.

For visual convenience, each civilization's borders are displayed in its primary color, and each city-state's borders are displayed in a color corresponding to its type. With the introduction of the Jersey System in the February 2019 Update, if there are two civs in the game with similar primary colors, the game assigns a secondary color to one of them in order to facilitate the distinction.

City borders

Upon founding a new city, all tiles adjacent to the City Center are claimed, plus additional tiles extending outward. For Russia, their civilization ability greatly amplifies this effect. Note that it can't claim tiles of another civilization.

Cities will gradually claim additional tiles as Culture is accrued. Additionally, individual tiles within a city's workable radius (i.e., up to 3 hexes away from its City Center) can be purchased for Gold. (See below for more information on these processes.)

In addition to determining which player can work and build on tiles, borders offer full visibility of adjacent tiles.

Border rules

Initially, borders are open and weakly defined, displayed as dashed lines and enabling units from other civilizations and city-states to enter. Once the Early Empire civic is discovered, borders will switch to closed and be displayed as solid lines. Unless an Open Borders agreement is made, attempting to enter closed borders constitutes an act of war. For city-states, Open Borders is granted to players that have reached Suzerain status or slotted the Gunboat Diplomacy policy card. João III also has Open Borders with all city-states due to his leader ability.

Note that Traders and religious units are exempt from these rules, and may pass into closed borders. This means Missionaries and Apostles can be used to perform reconnaissance in foreign lands. Additionally, the Terracotta Army grants Archaeologists the ability to enter closed borders.

Types of territory

Neutral territory

All tiles on the map are unclaimed, or neutral, at the beginning of the game. They are subject to claim by all parties at all times, whether by founding a city nearby, expanding one's cultural influence, or purchasing them with Gold. Once a tile becomes part of someone's territory, it can only return to being neutral if the city controlling the territory is razed.

Movement through neutral territory is always free for all entities. Roads and other infrastructure built there are also usable by everyone.

Friendly territory

This is territory belonging to entities friendly to your civilization. This includes not only your own territory, but also:

• The territory of any city-state of which you are currently the Suzerain.
• The territory of any civilization with which you have any type of Alliance.

Your units are able to enter freely into friendly territory; they can also upgrade there, and they heal at an accelerated rate.

Note that territory belonging to a civilization with which you have an Open Borders agreement is not considered friendly (despite what Civilopedia claims). You may enter this territory freely and use their Road network, but you cannot upgrade your units there and they heal as if they were in rival territory.

Rival (enemy) territory

This is the territory belonging to any other civilization with which you have no Open Borders agreement, or any city-state you're not the Suzerain of. With the exceptions above, your units are not able to enter such territory unless you enter hostilities with this civilization or city-state. In this territory, your land units will heal at a rate even lower than in neutral territory, but you will still be able to use some of your rival's infrastructure (like Roads, bridges, Railroads, and Mountain Tunnels).

Political lens

Main article: Lens (Civ6)

Starting territory

At the outset of a standard game, each civilization and city-state has only one Settler (or possibly more, depending on the difficulty level and starting era) and does not control or start claiming territory until they found their first city. The game engine separates some land for each civilization, taking individual starting biases (e.g., England, Indonesia, and others start near Coast tiles; Mali starts near Desert tiles; and Brazil starts near Rainforest tiles) into account - this means that their initial Settlers won't be too close to each other, and will have some space for expansion. This space is viewed by the AI as "their" land, and other civs settling there will often be met with diplomatic outrage.

Another effect of this spacing is that minor civilizations (i.e., city-states) often end up clumped together in areas not allocated to the major (i.e., playable) civilizations. If you don't meet any city-states while initially exploring, be prepared to bump into another civ soon.

Importance of territory

Simply put, states (and their cities) can only benefit from tiles they control. Cities can only construct Districts and wonders on tiles belonging to them; Citizens from cities can only work tiles that are part of your empire's territory; Builders may only construct economic improvements on land inside your territory; consequently, your empire may only use resources if they are inside its territory.

Territory also has strategic importance. Once you discover the Early Empire civic, your border patrols start turning back intruders, and other civilizations' military units may enter only if you have granted them Open Borders or they declare war on you. Several key civilian units, including Settlers and Builders, are also barred from passing. This means that you are able to effectively block enemy economic development and military undertakings if you're in a crucial geographical spot on the map.

Given the importance of territorial expansion, it's easy to understand why AI leaders are sensitive to others settling near their cities or purchasing tiles near their borders. Also, having a common border with another civilization is usually an automatic cause of disputes and worsening of relations.

Territorial expansion

There are several ways for you and your rivals to expand your territory.

By city foundation

Each city you settle will immediately claim all surrounding neutral tiles. This is the fastest and surest way to claim land in the game, so you should always look to found cities near tiles you absolutely want. Know that if you dawdle and depend on other gameplay elements to claim certain tile, a competitor may well beat you to it.

Note that all cities must be at least 4 hexes away from existing cities (or 3 hexes away, if they're on different landmasses).

By cultural influence

Of course, you cannot found so many cities as to claim directly all tiles you want as your territory. The second means of extending your borders is slower, but far easier and natural: cultural influence.

Once a city is founded in the wilderness, the example of its comforts and opportunities will start slowly spreading your empire's influence in the countryside. This process is the faster the bigger the city's Culture generation is. Thus, one by one, the city will continue extending its borders into neighboring neutral tiles. Each time, a certain amount of Culture needs to accumulate, which will result in claiming a new tile. This tile will be adjacent to a tile the city currently owns (territorial growth is always gradual). The more territory the city claims, the more accumulated Culture is needed to claim new tiles.

You can visualize the next tile the city's territory will grow to by activating either the Citizen assignment or the Tile Purchase option of the city command tab. The tile will be displayed in purple, and the number in it will show how many turns until the growth occurs.

As usual, tiles with resources or those bordering resources will be claimed first, then tiles with important terrain features, and finally tiles without anything special. Tiles which are relatively closer to the City Center, however, always have priority, sometimes even over more distant tiles with resources.

Note that cultural border expansion will only claim tiles within a 5-hex radius of the City Center. Besides, the Culture cost of claiming new tiles eventually becomes so great that a city is unlikely to claim them before the game ends.

By purchasing

You may spend Gold to purchase any tile bordering the current boundaries of a city. The tile will be added to your territory immediately, the wild men there dazzled by the riches you have so suddenly showered upon them. Note that you can only purchase tiles up to 3 hexes away from the City Center.

The base price of purchasing tiles is 50 Gold for those 2 hexes away from the City Center and 75 Gold for those 3 hexes away. The price increases as you discover more civics and research more technologies, so you are advised to buy tiles you want as early as possible. Unlike in Civilization V, resources don't seem to affect the price of tiles.

By building wonders

Building a wonder is another way to add territory to your empire (although this is hardly the main purpose of building wonders). Every time a city of yours finishes a wonder, it expands its borders by 2 tiles automatically, and without losing its normal Culture progress. As with cultural border expansion, only tiles within 5 hexes of the City Center can be claimed in this manner.

By conquest

When one civilization wages war on another and manages to capture one of their cities, all territory controlled by this city switches hands immediately even before the actual fate of the city is decided. This is the way a civ can claim the most tiles at once, because the city usually controls much more territory than a newly established one. Note that this territory may later switch hands back to its original owner at the peace negotiations.

Speaking of negotiations, diplomacy is also a way to claim another civilization's city. However, depending on the difficulty level, this may be an uncommon occurrence, as cities are an empire's most cherished possessions - a leader will only surrender a city they own if their army is defeated and they face utter annihilation, or if they are the one to offer a peace deal.

By Culture Bombing

Main article: Culture Bomb (Civ6)

Poland, Australia, Jayavarman VII, the Netherlands, and the Māori can trigger Culture Bombs to add tiles to their territory - Poland's are triggered by building Forts or Encampments, Australia's are triggered by building Pastures, Jayavarman VII's are triggered by building Holy Sites, the Netherlands' are triggered by building Harbors, and the Māori's are triggered by building Fishing Boats. Triggering a Culture Bomb gives the civilization control of all adjacent tiles, even if they had already been claimed by another civilization.

The Gauls can also trigger a Culture Bomb by building Mines, but they can only claim unowned tiles.

One of the religious beliefs, Burial Grounds (Warrior Monks in Gathering Storm), causes Holy Sites built in a cities that follow the appropriate religion to trigger a Culture Bomb. Also, in Gathering Storm, Outcome A of the Border Control Treaty resolution in the World Congress allows a civilization to Culture Bomb nearby tiles by building any district.

By receiving Envoys

Main article: Envoy (Civ6)

City-states, unlike civilizations, do not enlarge their territory by generating Culture or purchasing tiles with Gold - instead, they do so by receiving Envoys from players. Each Envoy after the first a given player sends to a city-state that gives that player more Envoys than anyone else has there expands the city-state's borders by 1 tile, following the rules of cultural influence detailed above. City-states whose Suzerainty is highly contested may wind up controlling large expanses of territory by the end of the game.

City territory

Several previous references were made to territory possessed by a specific city, and not by a civilization. In fact, a civ's territory is only formed by the combination of territory controlled by all cities belonging to that civ. This becomes important in cases when there are two or more cities close enough to each other that their 3-hex rings (i.e., workable radii) overlap. Each of these overlapping tiles can be worked by only one city at a time - this city will benefit from the tile's yields, and its tile modifiers, if any, will apply to this tile, while the other cities within range won't benefit from or affect the tile. At the same time, only the city that works the tile is able to build Districts or wonders on it.

In other words, even though all tiles in your territory appear a continuous part of your civilization, each tile belongs to only one city. Let's demonstrate this with a common gameplay example: take City A and City B, whose City Centers are found 4 hexes away from each other; and Tile X, which is 3 hexes away from both City Centers and has been claimed by City B. In this case, if City A attempts to build a district in Tile X you will notice that the tile chooser won't let you select Tile X, even though it appears to be well within your territory and close enough to City A. In order to circumvent this, you will have to click the Manage Citizens button to swap tiles between cities. A tile with a wonder, a District, an Ice Hockey Rink, an Open-Air Museum, or a Golf Course cannot be swapped; therefore, when you play as a civilization with one of these tile improvements, or want to build a district or a wonder, you should be extra careful which tiles you want to belong to which cities.

It is also worth nothing that a tile adjacent to the City Center of one city cannot be swapped to another city, even if that tile is within 3 hexes of another City Center.

See also

• Borders in other games