Mitla (Civ6)

Mitla
Scientific City-state
Introduced in Maya & Gran Colombia Pack
Color	Blue
Envoy bonuses
1 Envoy	+2 Science in the Capital. Ethiopia Pack: +1 Science in the Capital and in every Library building.
3 Envoys	+2 Science in every Campus district. +2 Science in every Library building. Ethiopia Pack: +2 Science in every University and Consulate building.
6 Envoys	+4 Science in every Campus district. +2 Science in every University building. Ethiopia Pack: +3 Science in every Research Lab and Chancery building.
Suzerain bonus	City growth rate is 15% higher in cities with a Campus district

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Mitla is a scientific city-state in Civilization VI. It replaced Palenque under all rulesets in the Maya & Gran Colombia Pack.

Strategy

The faster growth rate provided by Mitla works similar to other growth rate bonuses in the game, like the Hanging Gardens or the Fertility Rites pantheon, as it modifies the amount of Food after accounting for citizen consumption, not the total amount of Food, so this is always negligible. Coupled with the fact that this bonus comes with a condition that the city needs a Campus and the existence of Housing in Civilization VI, Mitla should be close to the bottom of your city-state priority list.

Civilopedia entry

In the heart of the Oaxaca valley in what is today Mexico, the Zapotecs founded a series of urban centers. Mitla was one of the most significant of these – a metropolis that, when the Spanish took it over in the 16th century, had nearly half a million residents, a solar calendar as well as a separate calendar for ritual purposes, its own writing system, and a thriving agricultural production of squash, chili peppers, maize and beans. In the dry Oaxaca valley, the Zapotec had organized irrigation systems, fortifications, and built impressive religious and cultural structures, surviving despite the occasional incursions of neighboring Mesoamerican groups. They would survive Spanish conquest, too: there are still nearly a million Zapotec in Mexico today.

The name "Mitla" is a Spanish gloss of the Nahuatl word meaning "place of the dead." And the dead of Mitla were an auspicious group. Zapotec religion divided the living and the dead into two distinct categories, each with their own gods; to be buried at Mitla meant that the dead would become fused not with the gods of death, but with the gods of the living – Lightning and Earthquake. These lucky nobles became "cloud people," living on in the skies to help their descendants.

While the Spanish plundered Mitla and sought to erase it as a religious and cultural center for the Zapotec, the climate has preserved what they left. Most significant are Mitla’s grecas – carvings in the walls of its stone plazas. These have dizzying geometrical patterns, suggesting the scales of a giant serpent (a mythological creature in Mesoamerican legend) which, during Mitla’s height, would have been painted a deep red.

Trivia

• Mitla's symbol is that of two common Zapotec artistic motifs, the spiral and diamond. These represent life and death, and the eye of god, respectively.

See also

• Mitla in other games