Earth (map) (Civ6)

Earth map icon

Earth and True Start Location Earth are two of the maps in Civilization VI. In the April 2021 Update huge variants of Earth and TSL Earth were added.

Earth

The Earth map replicates the geographical features of the Earth and its resources. Natural wonders, such as the Galápagos Islands and Pantanal, can be found in their real-life locations.

Starting positions

The Earth map randomly selects starting locations. Therefore, the starting location for each civilization will be different every time a new game is created. However, there are optimal starting locations, such as South America. With a large amount of rainforests, mountains, and resources, it will allow you to quickly expand. On the other hand, starting on the island of Australia is less than optimal, since a small island limits early game expansion.

True Start Location Earth

Like the Earth map, the True Start Location Earth map replicates the geographical features of the Earth, and its resource locations. Natural wonders can also be found in their real-life locations. However, unlike the Earth map, the True Start Location Earth map spawns civilizations on the map in their respective locations in the real world. For example, Japan will start on the Japanese archipelago's main island, while Sumeria will spawn in the present day country of Iraq.

Starting positions

Advantageous

The most advantageous start position is that of Brazil, which spawns right next to the Pantanal. This allows them to reap massive amounts of Food and Culture in the early game, which plays well into their preference for a Cultural Victory. They also start near the Galápagos Islands, which provide massive amounts of Science.

The start position of the Māori allows them to potentially colonize all of the Americas without resistance, as there are many European civilizations compared to American ones.

Arabia starts right at the Suez, allowing them to quickly earn the Inspiration for Foreign Trade and get into quick contact with other civilizations, while also locking off Africa until other civs discover Shipbuilding.

India spawns next to Mount Everest, which allows them to get an early Pantheon and quickly spread their religion.

There is often little space between the starting locations of European civilizations. This provides opportunities for early conquest, such as capturing the very first Settler of France or the Netherlands on Turn 1 as Germany.

Mali starts in the southern Sahara with the whole of western Africa available to them. This means they can have several tall cities surrounded not only by desert but also by rich grassland and, much later in the game, Oil.

Disadvantageous

England, Japan, and Scotland are all at a massive disadvantage, as they are stuck on their own tiny islands until they research Shipbuilding.

Australia spawns alone on their island covered in desert, making growth hard and forcing a beeline towards Petra and/or Outback Stations. While they can traverse the entire world with a single naval unit without Cartography, they simply lack any means of expanding beyond a few cities until the late game, especially if Indonesia is in the game. However, Australia is a vast and resourceful island, allowing the placement of at least 5 tall cities and possessing all strategic resources on the island, mitigating this disadvantage. If Australia could expand towards Papua New Guinea or even the southern tip of Africa, it can build a reasonably large empire.

Many civs spawn right next to each other, which can cause some problems with settling cities and potential conquest early on. These civs are:

• Macedon and Greece
• Arabia, Ethiopia, Nubia, and Egypt
• Portugal and Spain
• Hungary and Poland
• Byzantium and the Ottomans
• Germany, France, the Netherlands, and the Gauls (and England and Scotland just across the channel)
• The Khmer and Vietnam
• Babylon, Persia, and Sumeria

These spawn problems get even worse if there are a lot of city-states, because many of them are also very close to players' starting positions. The Middle East, Central America, Iberia, Italia, the British Isles, and Central Europe tend to be especially overloaded with city-states.

The Aztecs spawn in the desert, adjacent to a Mountain and with a nearby city-state (La Venta) preventing expansion.

The Maya spawn in Central America is extremely bad for them. They want to found cities close to their Capital, but the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans take up most of that area, and other civilizations and city-states that may spawn nearby further complicate their situation.

Norway and Sweden both spawn in Tundra terrain, which makes expansion difficult (though Norway's civilization ability alleviates this somewhat).

Map

Earth map in Civilization VI with starting locations.

See also

• Earth (map) in other games