- "...Eagles fly, The turrets round, and seem to flout the sky;
They eye those walls now crumbling in decay,
And scare from quiet rest their destined prey."
– Samuel Prout Hill
Machu Picchu is a Classical Era Wonder in Civilization VI: Gathering Storm. It must be built on Mountains that does not contain a Volcano.
- Effects:
- +4
Gold. - Mountain tiles provide a standard adjacency bonus to Commercial Hub, Theater Square and Industrial Zone districts in all cities.
- +4
Strategy[]
Machu Picchu is a very situational wonder. Since tiles next to Mountains are already limited in number, you won't often want to increase the competition on which districts should get priority placement next to Mountains. Of the three districts that this wonder affects, Theater Squares benefit from it the most, since placing them next to wonders and Entertainment Complexes/Water Parks is otherwise the only way to give them anything more than a minor adjacency bonus. The 
Production bonus from Industrial Zones adjacent to Mountains can be significant, especially when you have a long and curvy mountain range; however, throughout numerous changes, the Industrial Zones can gain high adjacency bonuses so easily by just being placed between Dams and Aqueducts. An Industrial Zone built this way will start with +4 Production, which is equivalent to being adjacent to four Mountains when Machu Picchu is built, and very rarely do you find such a spot in more than one city. Lastly, it's easy to give Commercial Hubs a large adjacency bonus after building this wonder; however, a +1 
Gold bonus is less valuable than a +1 
Culture or Production bonus (especially when compared to every other resource or currency in the game up to this point), so it's never worth spending 400 Production solely to earn a few Gold.
Overall, there aren't many situations where Machu Picchu can truly shine. It doesn't directly help with a Culture Victory because while extra adjacency bonus for Theater Squares is welcome, you are most likely doing really well in generating Culture anyway if you want to win a Culture Victory, and there are much better ways to earn adjacency bonuses for Industrial Zones. Machu Picchu isn't really a core wonder to strive for no matter what strategy you're using, as it's highly map dependent and its bonus is nowhere near game-changing.
Ironically enough, the Inca should particularly avoid this wonder; they alone can work Mountain tiles for yields, and Mountain-adjacent Hills tiles can and usually should be used for their Terrace Farms rather than districts.
As a fun fact, this is the only Ancient or Classical Era wonder that Qin Shi Huang cannot rush, because Builders cannot move onto a Mountain tile, nor can Great Engineers use their charges for the same reason. Also, Machu Picchu will become "snowy" if placed on a Tundra Mountain.[1]
Civilopedia entry[]
At 2,430 meters above sea level in the Andes Mountains of Peru is the historic site of Machu Picchu. Once a royal estate, or perhaps a religious site, for the Incan empire, it was abandoned in the 16th century when the civilization was destroyed by a Spanish invasion. Lost to history for hundreds of years, Machu Picchu was rediscovered in 1911 by American archaeologist Hiram Bingham, exciting tourists immediately and for years to come. Today, hundreds of thousands of tourists visit the site annually.
Most remarkable about the site is how seamlessly it blends into the natural world. This lost city is made up of stone terraces, a farming sector, homes, temples, and more – approximately 200 buildings in total. The finely fit stonework and intricate irrigation systems nod to the sophistication of the lost Incan civilization.
Gallery[]
.png "Wonder Machu Picchu (Civ6).png (2.85 MB)")
.png "Machu Picchu in-game (Civ6).png (1.26 MB)")
References[]
See also[]
- Machu Picchu in other games
