Maui (Civ6)

Maui
Melee Hero unit
Introduced in Babylon Pack
Game mode	Heroes & Legends
Stats
Movement	3
Movement	3
Melee	30
Melee	30
Sight	2
Sight	2
Lifespan	30
Lifespan	30
Action charges	4
Action charges	4
Passive effect - Agile
Ignores Movement penalties on Woods and Rainforest.
Active ability - Maui's Inventions
	Use when located on an unowned, empty plot. Maui creates a random Bonus or Luxury Resource on the plot. Costs 1 Charge and all Movement.
Relic
	Torch of Maui
Notes
Demigod and hero of Polynesian myth, renowned for his feats and gifts to humanity.

Back to the list of heroes

Maui is a Hero in Civilization VI. He is exclusive to the Heroes & Legends game mode, introduced in the Babylon Pack.

• Attributes:
  • Has 4 Charges.
  • Counts as a melee unit.
  • Cannot earn experience or Promotions.
• Abilities:
  • Agile: Ignores Movement penalties in Woods and Rainforest terrain.
  • Maui's Inventions: Use when located on an unowned, empty plot. Maui creates a random bonus or luxury resource on the plot. Costs 1 Charge and all Movement.

Strategy

Like all Hero units, Maui's Strength increases with the progression of the eras, as shown in the table below.

Era	Combat Strength
Classical	42
Medieval	54
Renaissance	66
Industrial	78
Modern	90
Atomic	96
Information	108
Future	120

Note: Since the February 2021 Update, Maui's Inventions can only spawn luxury resources that are already on the map. Because of this update, he becomes weaker on smaller map sizes, since there are fewer continents and thus fewer luxury resources he can spawn. The data tabulated below are the most accurate on Huge maps (which in general have access to all luxury resources spread across 6 continents). The smaller the map is, the slightly more likely Maui will spawn bonus resources, since the number of possible luxury resources is bound to continents and map generation but the number of bonus resources is not. However, these numbers can still be used as guidelines to see which terrains/features have the highest possibilities of hosting a luxury resource.

Maui is an interesting Hero: while he looks underwhelming at first, he can help bolster your territory with new luxury resources without being limited by the maximum number of luxuries on one continent. There are two main methods of using Maui effectively that every civilization can apply.

The first popular use is to send him to coastal cities and use him to spawn Resources in the surrounding Coast tiles so that you can build a Harbor with a good adjacency bonus. However, since the spawned resource is chosen randomly from the possible resources for the tile, and there are two possible bonus resource choices and three possible luxury resource choices on a Coast tile, the chance of you having a luxury resource per Charge is 60% - pretty low. Up to +7 adjacency bonus is possible with a Harbor adjacent to the City Center. With a Shipyard, the adjacency bonus also provides Production which can be tripled by establishing Reyna with the Harbormaster title and using a policy card such as Naval Infrastructure.

The second use is purely to maximize the number of luxury resources you can possibly get out of the 4 Charges. Maui is an early-game oriented Hero; his Combat Strength is one of the lowest among non-ranged Heroes, and his ability doesn't scale well into the mid- and late game, especially when you think of the hefty amount of Faith spent to recall Heroes. Therefore, you'll want Maui to be your first Hero, or second at the latest, and his job will only be focusing on improving the yields and Amenities of your early empire. You should use him to spawn as many luxury resources as possible, and then save your Faith to recall a more useful Hero later in the game. Since the likelihood of getting a bonus resource or a duplicate luxury resource increases the more often you recall Maui, a diminishing return with an escalating Faith cost is guaranteed.

The most obvious spots for Maui to use his ability are Woods (9 out of 10 odds) and Rainforest (9 out of 10 odds) terrain features. Marsh (2 out of 3 odds) has a low diversity of resources and is good for discovering Sugar and Truffles. The final terrain feature that can host resources is Reef, which can only host Turtles and Fish, resulting in a low (50%) chance of spawning a luxury; therefore, you may be better off creating resources on a non-Reef water tile if you already own Turtles.

As long as Woods, Rainforest, Marsh, or any other terrain feature is present on a tile, the underlying terrain doesn't influence the chance to spawn a luxury resource.

Feature	Bonus resources		Luxury resources		Luxury spawn chance
Woods	1		9		90%
Rainforest	1		9		90%
Marsh	1		2		66.67%
Grassland Floodplains	2		2		50%
Plains Floodplains	2		2		50%
Desert Floodplains	1		2		66.67%
Reef	1		1		50%
Geothermal Fissure	0		0		Invalid (cannot contain Resources)
Ice	0		0		Invalid (cannot contain Resources)
Oasis	0		0		Invalid (cannot contain Resources)

If no features are present:

Terrain	Bonus resources		Luxury resources		Luxury spawn chance
Grassland	4		10		71.42%
Grassland (Hills)	3		3		50%
Plains	2		11		84.61%
Plains (Hills)	2		4		66.67%
Desert	0		4		100%
Desert (Hills)	2		3		60%
Tundra	1		4		80%
Tundra (Hills)	3		3		50%
Snow	0		0		Invalid (cannot contain Resources)
Snow (Hills)	1		0		0%
Ocean	0		0		Invalid (cannot contain Resources)
Coast and Lake	2		3		60%

Maui can spawn Bananas on a Desert tile, which can only happen when none of the luxury resources on the map can be spawned on Desert.

At a glance, as long as the tile doesn't contain a feature, Hills tiles are a lot worse than their flat variants, and Desert and Tundra have a better chance for a luxury resource than Grassland and Plains. Desert tiles have a 100% chance for a luxury resource but none of the 4 possible luxuries is one that boosts growth, a problem Desert cities often have, so only a handful of civilizations that can take advantage of this. If no resource can be produced, Bananas are created instead, which don't spawn in Deserts in normal scenarios. However, since you would like those luxuries to be different from one another, resource diversity of different terrain types is also worth considering, although it is not as important as the percentage chance above. For example, a Desert Floodplains tile has a 66.67% chance of spawning a luxury, but there are only 2 types of luxury that can be spawned on this terrain ( Sugar and Cotton), so if you activate Maui on 3 Desert Floodplains tiles, you are bound to get a duplicate, which is not ideal; on the other hand, Tundra Hills tiles only have 50% chance for a luxury, but since 3 possible luxuries can spawn there ( Diamonds, Gypsum, and Silver), using Maui 3 times still has a low 12.5% chance of giving you all 3 luxuries. Considering that the more times Maui uses his ability, the more likely you are to end up with a bonus resource or a duplicate luxury, it is best to use him only once to enhance your early cities and never bring him back.

Maui's ability cannot be used on tiles containing unrevealed strategic resources or hidden Ley Lines. This can be useful for city and district planning by use of map tacks.

Maui is a great starting Hero for every civilization and leader that is more focused on building rather than conquering in the early game. An exception to this is Montezuma, who will use Maui to boost his military power by creating more luxuries. Maritime civilizations can use him to boost their Harbors and then get the Free Inquiry Golden Age Dedication to boost their Classical and/or Medieval Era Science output, most notably England and Phoenicia with their unique Harbors. Norway also loves Maui, since their Stave Church can convert all of these water resources into Production; coupled with the fact that they love to choose God of the Sea as their pantheon, Norway is actually incentivized to keep bringing back Maui to turn all of their coastal cities into bustling industrial centers. Similarly, Indonesia's Kampung gets stronger with each adjacent Fishing Boat. The Maya and Scotland both benefit greatly from Maui as well - the former because they get more Amenities out of luxuries by settling cities next to them, and the latter because they get a massive boost in Science and Production from having high Amenities. Ptolemaic Cleopatra can add resources to Floodplains tiles and gain extra Food and Culture from them, and these tiles can produce immense yields over time as flooding fertilizes but does not damage Egyptian rivers. Finally, Magnificence Catherine is the only leader who can get a tangible benefit from duplicate luxury resources thanks to her Court Festival.

Civilopedia entry

The term "Polynesia" is a loose one, encompassing regions from the Maori Aotearoa (New Zealand) to Hawaii and parts in between. While calling all of this area by one term, "Polynesia," is a vast simplification, there are myths and legends that are shared across the wide expanse, concepts that have made it into English as the words taboo and mana. One of these shared myths is that of Maui.

In Maori myth, Maui does not have the best of beginnings. He is tossed into the sea by his mother, and only survives because the god Ragni nurtures him. When he returns, he is faced with four skeptical brothers, whom he is able to win over by displays of the magic he learned in the depths. He then goes about helping to create the world as we know it. When his brothers refused to give him any fishing bait, he took a magical jawbone and baited it with his own blood to catch the mighty fish that became New Zealand’s North Island. While he was gone to find a priest (a tohunga) to perform the necessary rituals, his brothers came and began carving up the fish, which is why Aotearoa has mountains and valleys, and not a smooth plain, like a fish’s flank. He continues to alter the world: finding fire for humans, creating the first dog, and the like.

His final task was to win immortality for humanity, and to do this he had to crawl through the body of a reclining goddess. He had to do this, the story goes, without anyone laughing at him. If he could pass all the way through, the goddess would die, and mankind would live forever. His friends, a varied flock of birds, tried their best, but they could not help laughing, and so Maui died, and so must we all.

Maui remains an important figure across Polynesia as Polynesian societies re-assert themselves in the wake of colonialism. New respect for local myths and traditions in Aotearoa, Hawaii, Tonga, Tahiti and Samoa, and other places, mean new tellings of Maui’s story, and new interpretations and meanings to his myth.

Trivia

• Maui's icon (the two feathers) refers to his ability to transform into the New Zealand pigeon, an important cultural symbol of the Māori.
• In Maui's Civilopedia entry, Rangi's name is misspelled as "Ragni."