Nubian Pyramid (Civ6)

Nubian Pyramid
Introduced in Nubia Civilization & Scenario Pack
Unique to	Nubian
Built by	Builder
Unlocked by	Masonry
Plunder	Faith
Effects
+2 Faith +2 Food +1 Food if adjacent to a City Center +1 Science for each adjacent Campus +1 Gold for each adjacent Commercial Hub +1 Gold for each adjacent Harbor +1 Faith for each adjacent Holy Site +1 Production for each adjacent Industrial Zone +1 Culture for each adjacent Theater Square
Improves
Terrain	Desert Floodplains  Desert  Desert (Hills)

Back to List of improvements in Civ6

The Nubian Pyramid is a unique tile improvement of the Nubian civilization in Civilization VI. It must be built on Desert, Desert (Hills) or Floodplains (in Gathering Storm, Desert Floodplains only) tiles.

• Effects:
  • +2 Faith
  • +2 Food
  • +1 Food if adjacent to a City Center
  • +1 Science for each adjacent Campus
  • +1 Gold for each adjacent Commercial Hub or Harbor
  • +1 Faith for each adjacent Holy Site
  • +1 Production for each adjacent Industrial Zone
  • +1 Culture for each adjacent Theater Square

Strategy

The Nubian Pyramid can be extremely useful when used correctly. Because of Kandake of Meroë, Nubia already gets 20% extra Production towards Districts, and that rises to 40% Production when a Nubian Pyramid is adjacent to the City Center.

Nubian Pyramids provide +2 Faith and +2 Food (+3 Food if built adjacent to a City Center), allowing these tiles to actually contribute to Nubian Population growth. As +2 Food on each tile is still not amazing, Nubia should still look to settle on the edge of deserts and not deep within them, unless the city has many Desert Floodplains which can be improved with Farms.

Nubian Pyramids can be placed only on Desert, Desert Hills, and Desert Floodplains tiles. As already mentioned, Desert Floodplains should be improved with Farms instead; this will protect any Nubian Pyramids from flooding damage and simply provide more Food. The price of settling near these unfavorable tiles is slightly offset by both the extra Production and Gold from Mines provided by Nubia's civilization ability.

It would be remiss to not mention the other part of the Nubian Pyramids' ability, which is gaining +1 yield from all adjacent districts (based on their respective yields). Think of this as a Government Plaza in reverse: instead of granting a +1 bonus to all the Districts around it, it gets bonuses based on the Districts around it. However, due to the general lack of adjacency bonus opportunities in deserts, Nubian Pyramids should be used as a fallback plan. Nubia's Districts should still aim for their individual highest possible adjacency rather than creating huge clusters of Districts like Japan.

Desert tiles without any adjacent Districts are probably better left unimproved; the build charges spent on improving tiles with Nubian Pyramids are better spent elsewhere. Furthermore, any invaders who pillage Nubian Pyramids will gain much more Faith in one turn than Nubia will probably gain from an individual Nubian Pyramid over the course of an entire era.

Civilopedia entry

During their on-again/off-again periods of mutual conflict, Nubia found its culture influenced by the powerful Egyptian dynasties further down the Nile. Nubian burial customs would eventually come to resemble those of Egypt. Nubia’s Kingdom of Kush began burying its kings and queens in pyramids sometime in the First Millennium BCE.

Nubia took a vastly different approach to its pyramids than Egypt. Rather than build immense tomb complexes that bankrupted their state, they opted for a more practical method: smaller pyramids with no more than a 26 ft (8 m) wide base, steep sides that rose at a sharp angle in the air, and an ornate entry chamber that extended from the pyramid tomb. Though treasure hunters plundered most of these pyramids since Nubia's fall, the pyramids remain a powerful testament to Nubia's legacy.

Gallery

Nubian Pyramid in game

Historic Moment for building the Nubian Pyramid

Related achievements

Pyramid Scheme As Nubia, earn six different adjacency bonuses on a Nubian Pyramid A pun on an actual marketing strategy with the same name where people are being recruited based on promises rather than investments.