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Resources are special commodities found in limited quantities on the map. As in all Civilization games, they are essential to your empire's development and are an important reason to seize and hold territory. Different resources may be found virtually anywhere except Ocean tiles. There is a limit of 1 resource per tile.

Overview

Accessing Resources

In order to gain access to and make use of a resource, you will first need to expand your territory onto its tile. Then, in order to make use of its tile yields, you have to assign a Citizen Citizen from a nearby city work it. To gain access to strategic and luxury resources' special functions, a builder must spend one charge to improve them with the appropriate tile improvement. Accessing resources provides many benefits, including increased tile yields (Production Production, Food Food, etc.), the ability to produce new military units, and extra Amenities Amenities Amenities for your civilization.

Resource Spawning

All resources are placed at the very start of the game, when the map is first generated - unlike in Civilization: Beyond Earth, resources cannot be created by player actions. Most strategic resources are not visible in the beginning of the game, but they are nevertheless there. Antiquity Site Antiquity Sites and Shipwreck Shipwrecks are also invisible in the beginning; however, it is unclear if they are actually placed at map creation, or the game uses a system similar to Civilization V where significant playing events (a battle, the destruction of a Barbarian Outpost, etc) later become Antiquity Site Antiquity Sites. It is known that Antiquity Site Antiquity Sites may appear underneath Districts; they won't, however, appear in a tile with any other Resource.

Some resources spawn only on land tiles, some spawn on sea tiles and some of them can spawn both on land and sea tiles (Oil Oil and Amber Amber). Each resource has a specific spawn probability. For land resources the most frequent are Horses Horses, Stone Stone and Wheat Wheat, while for sea resources the most frequent are Fish Fish and Crabs Crabs.

Each resource has a specific type of terrain or terrain feature that it is tied to, and it will not appear on any others. Some resources can be found on more than one type. There are certain terrains and features that may never hold a resource: Oceans (being too deep for effective exploration), Ice (being too cold and unstable), Mountains (being too tall), and Oases (being in themselves valuable). Rivers also can't hold resources, because they don't actually occupy tiles. Natural wonders are also too valuable in themselves to hold any additional resources. If you're familiar with the prevalent resources around your starting terrain, you will be able to guess what you will find nearby even without exploring.

There are a total of 4 different types of resources: Artifacts, Bonus Resources, Luxury Resources, and Strategic Resources.

Artifacts

Artifact spots are special "resources" on the map, since they do not have any extra yields and they cannot be developed. They can, however, be excavated by an Archaeologist to yield an Artifact Artifact, which can then be displayed if there is an appropriate slot in your empire. There are two types of artifact spots: Antiquity Site Antiquity Sites and Shipwreck Shipwrecks.

Resource Enables Found on Notes
Antiquity Site 
Antiquity Site
Artifacts Land Revealed by Natural History. Found only on land tiles, and may be excavated by Archaeologists to produce Artifact Artifacts.
Shipwreck 
Shipwreck
Artifacts Sea Revealed by Cultural Heritage. Found only on water tiles, and may be excavated by Archaeologists to produce Artifact Artifacts.

Bonus Resources

Bonus resources are the most frequently found type of resource, and they are the most versatile in a strategic sense. They provide bonus Food Food, Production Production, or Gold Gold to the tile's yield, benefiting a nearby city, and they can be improved further for even greater benefits. But that's not all:

  • Bonus resources may be Harvested by a Builder - a new gameplay action which gives a significant, one-time boost benefiting the city owning the tile. The boost is comprised of a large quantity of the same bonus yield which the resource inherently provides to the tile (+20 Food Food, +20 Production Production, or +40 Gold Gold, scaling by era). However, harvesting a bonus resource permanently removes it from the map. Harvesting of resources is unlocked with certain early technologies (e.g. Pottery allows the harvesting of Wheat Wheat and Rice Rice).
  • Bonus resources may also be Removed so city districts or Wonders can be placed on their tiles. This happens automatically in the District or Wonder placement dialogue, and is almost, but not completely, the same as Harvesting: while it is unlocked by the same technology (e.g. a Wheat Wheat resource can be removed only after discovering Pottery), and it results in the resource vanishing from the tile, it is different from "Harvesting" for purposes of resources gained. When you Harvest the resource, you gain the bonus mentioned above, but when you remove it, you don't gain anything! This may be explained by the fact that Removing is done instantly without you needing a Builder to expend an action. Therefore, the Resource is basically wasted. To avoid this, have a Builder Harvest it beforehand, giving you access to lump sums of Food Food, Production Production or even Gold Gold!
  • Before Harvesting or Removing resources, it's important to remember that some bonus resources may be required for certain Wonders. For example, Stonehenge must be built next to Stone Stone.

Finally, in Gathering Storm, Bonus resources may be destroyed outright by the eruption of a nearby Volcano. So, when you see such a resource in the 'blast radius', be sure to make use of it right away, before it gets destroyed! If its yields are useful to your civ in the long term, improve it; otherwise feel free to Harvest it.

Resource Base Yield Modifier Improvement Harvest with Notes
Bananas 
Bananas
+1 Food Food Plantation Irrigation +1 Culture Culture with Plantation and Goddess of Festivals Pantheon.
Copper 
Copper
+2 Gold Gold Mine Mining +2 Faith Faith with Mine and Religious Idols Pantheon.
Cattle 
Cattle
+1 Food Food Pasture Animal Husbandry +1 Culture Culture with Pasture and God of the Open Sky Pantheon.
Crabs 
Crabs
+2 Gold Gold Fishing Boats Celestial Navigation +1 Production Production with Fishing Boats and God of the Sea Pantheon.
Deer 
Deer
+1 Production Production Camp Animal Husbandry +1 Food Food and +1 Production Production with Camp and Goddess of Hunt Pantheon.
Fish 
Fish
+1 Food Food Fishing Boats Celestial Navigation +1 Production Production with Fishing Boats and God of the Sea Pantheon.
Maize 
Maize

[1]

+2 Gold Gold Farm Pottery +1 Food Food with Water Mill.
Rice 
Rice
+1 Food Food Farm Pottery +1 Food Food with Water Mill.
Sheep 
Sheep
+1 Food Food Pasture Animal Husbandry +1 Culture Culture with Pasture and God of the Open Sky Pantheon.
Stone 
Stone
+1 Production Production Quarry Masonry +2 Faith Faith with Quarry and Stone Circles Pantheon.
Wheat 
Wheat
+1 Food Food Farm Pottery +1 Food Food with Water Mill.

Luxury Resources

Luxury resources are commodities highly prized by Citizen Citizens, and their availability helps increase Citizen happiness by granting Amenities Amenities Amenities. Most Luxury Resources are provided by the land, and you can access them by improving a tile that contains the resource or even founding a city on it (provided you've discovered the technology necessary to improve it). Some, however, are exclusive products of specific city-states and may only be obtained via achieving Suzerainty with them. Yet, others are the lifework of Great Merchants, who you will need to attract to your civilization in order to access the resource.

Most luxury resources provide +1 Amenities Amenities Amenity for the 4 cities that need it the most, though a few special ones will provide for up to 6 cities. Duplicates of the same luxury resource will not supply additional cities; however, these extra resources may always be traded to other civilizations. Luxury resource tiles provide more varied tile yield bonuses than Bonus and Strategic resources. These include Gold Gold, Science Science, Faith Faith, and Culture Culture, which aren't normally found on any terrain making these resources quite valuable.

The amount of different water luxury resources is determined by the map size:

  • 2 for duel and tiny map size
  • 3 for small and standard map size
  • 4 for large and huge map size
Luxury Resource Base Yield Modifier Improvement Notes
Amber 
Amber
R&F-Only
+1 Culture Culture Mine, Fishing Boats Found both on land and sea
Cinnamon 
Cinnamon
Obtained via Suzerainty with Zanzibar. Provides for 6 cities
Citrus 
Citrus
+2 Food Food Plantation +1 Culture Culture with Plantation and Goddess of Festivals Pantheon.
Cloves 
Cloves
Obtained via Suzerainty with Zanzibar. Provides for 6 cities
Cocoa 
Cocoa
+3 Gold Gold Plantation +1 Culture Culture with Plantation and Goddess of Festivals Pantheon.
Coffee 
Coffee
+1 Culture Culture Plantation +1 Culture Culture with Plantation and Goddess of Festivals Pantheon.
Cosmetics 
Cosmetics
Obtained from the Great Merchant Great Merchant Helena Rubinstein. Creates 2 copies, and provides for 4 cities
Cotton 
Cotton
+3 Gold Gold Plantation +1 Culture Culture with Plantation and Goddess of Festivals Pantheon.
Dyes 
Dyes
+1 Faith Faith Plantation +1 Culture Culture with Plantation and Goddess of Festivals Pantheon.
Diamonds 
Diamonds
+3 Gold Gold Mine +2 Faith Faith with Mine and Religious Idols Pantheon
Furs 
Furs
+1 Food Food, +1 Gold Gold Camp +1 Food Food and +1 Production Production with Camp and Goddess of Hunt Pantheon
Gold Ore 
Gold Ore
+3 (Gifts of the Nile)

or +4 (Outback Tycoon) Gold Gold

Mine Only appears in Gifts of the Nile and Outback Tycoon
Gypsum 
Gypsum
+1 Production Production, +1 Gold Gold Quarry +2 Faith Faith with Quarry and Stone Circles Pantheon
Honey 
Honey

[1]

+2 Food Food Camp +1 Food Food and +1 Production Production with Camp and Goddess of Hunt Pantheon
Incense 
Incense
+1 Faith Faith Plantation +1 Culture Culture with Plantation and Goddess of Festivals Pantheon.
Ivory 
Ivory
+1 Production Production, +1 Gold Gold Camp +1 Food Food and +1 Production Production with Camp and Goddess of Hunt Pantheon
Jade 
Jade
+1 Culture Culture Mine +2 Faith Faith with Mine and Religious Idols Pantheon
Jeans 
Jeans
Obtained from the Great Merchant Great Merchant Levi Strauss. Creates 2 copies, and provides for 4 cities
Marble 
Marble
+1 Culture Culture Quarry +2 Faith Faith with Quarry and Stone Circles Pantheon
Mercury 
Mercury
+1 Science Science Mine +2 Faith Faith with Mine and Religious Idols Pantheon
Olives 
Olives
R&F-Only
+1 Production Production, +1 Gold Gold Plantation +1 Culture Culture with Plantation and Goddess of Festivals Pantheon.
Pearls 
Pearls
+1 Faith Faith Fishing Boats +1 Production Production with Fishing Boats and God of the Sea Pantheon
Perfume 
Perfume
Obtained via the Great Merchant Great Merchant Estée Lauder. Creates 2 copies, and provides for 6 cities
Salt 
Salt
+1 Food Food, +1 Gold Gold Mine +2 Faith Faith with Mine and Religious Idols Pantheon
Silk 
Silk
+1 Culture Culture Plantation +1 Culture Culture with Plantation and Goddess of Festivals Pantheon.
Silver 
Silver
+3 Gold Gold Mine +2 Faith Faith with Mine and Religious Idols Pantheon
Spices 
Spices
+2 Food Food Plantation +1 Culture Culture with Plantation and Goddess of Festivals Pantheon.
Sugar 
Sugar
+2 Food Food Plantation +1 Culture Culture with Plantation and Goddess of Festivals Pantheon.
Tea 
Tea
+1 Science Science Plantation +1 Culture Culture with Plantation and Goddess of Festivals Pantheon.
Tobacco 
Tobacco
+1 Faith Faith Plantation +1 Culture Culture with Plantation and Goddess of Festivals Pantheon.
Toys 
Toys
Obtained via the Great Merchant Great Merchant John Spilsbury. Creates 1 copy, and provides for 4 cities
Truffles 
Truffles
+3 Gold Gold Camp +1 Food Food and +1 Production Production with Camp and Goddess of Hunt Pantheon
Turtles 
Turtles
R&F-Only
+1 Science Science Fishing Boats +1 Production Production with Fishing Boats and God of the Sea Pantheon
Whales 
Whales
+1 Production Production, +1 Gold Gold Fishing Boats +1 Production Production with Fishing Boats and God of the Sea Pantheon
Wine 
Wine
+1 Gold Gold, +1 Food Food Plantation +1 Culture Culture with Plantation and Goddess of Festivals Pantheon.

R&F-Only Added in the Rise and Fall expansion pack.
GS-Only Added in the Gathering Storm expansion pack.

Strategic Resources

Strategic resources are those that are important from a military standpoint. They also provide some bonuses to tile yields, but more importantly, when the relevant tile improvement is built on them, they provide access to vital materials which allow you to build important military units (e.g. Horses Horses are needed to produce Horsemen and Iron Iron is needed to produce Swordsmen). All strategic resources, provided you start in the Ancient Era, are hidden at the beginning of the game - they do not appear on the map until you develop technologies to reveal each resource. Horses can be seen right from the start in the base game and Rise and Fall, but in Gathering Storm they are also hidden at the start and revealed with Animal Husbandry.

  • You can place districts, Wonders, and even cities on tiles which contain unrevealed strategic resources - in this case, upon discovering the relevant technology, you will gain use of the resource as if it were already improved. However, if there is a tile improvement on top of a strategic resource that doesn't match it (e.g. you have a Farm on a Niter Niter resource), you will need to remove it and build the right improvement to access the resource.
  • Strategic resources cannot be harvested. Districts and wonders cannot be built on tiles with revealed strategic resources.

Vanilla Civilization VI and Rise and Fall

In order to produce some units like Knights or Tanks, you need access to improved tiles with a Strategic resource or you need to obtain it by trading with other civilizations. Two pieces of a resource enable you to build a unit in each city, but only 1 piece enables you to build a land unit in a military district and a naval unit in a port district. For example, if you only have 1 improved tile with Iron Iron across your empire, all land units that require it may only be produced in cities that have an Encampment district, but if you have two improved tiles with Iron Iron across your empire, you can produce those units even without the district, and in whatever city you want, provided it has the applicable production capabilities. This also means that having 3 improved tiles of the same strategic resource is of no further use to your civilization, and is a good trading commodity for deals with other leaders.

Gathering Storm

Gathering Storm alters the way Strategic resources are handled. Instead of each source producing 1 of that resource (3 sources meaning your empire would have 3 of the resource), now each source produces a certain number of the resource per turn, which is then added to your stockpile. Thus, if you have 2 sources of Iron Iron (each producing 2 per turn), you will be gaining 4 of the resource per turn, until you reach your stockpile limit. The maximum stockpile amount is initially 50 for each resource, but constructing military buildings in your empire (Barracks, Armory, etc.) will increase your maximum stockpile by 10 per building for each resource. Everything using the resource (units, buildings, projects, etc.) will draw from this stockpile.

For example, you will need to gather and spend 20 Iron Iron for each Swordsman you want to train or purchase. Or, if you want to turn all your Warriors into Swordsmen, but you have only stockpiled 30 Iron Iron, you will be able to convert only 1, and wait to obtain more Iron for the rest. This means that Production Production or Gold Gold are no longer the only things determining how quickly you can create units: how much of a resource you have stockpiled and how many sources you have are also important.

Additionally, Strategic resources are used in three distinct ways: for unit production, as fuel for unit upkeep, and for Power Power production for your cities. The second and third only enter into play from the Industrial Era on.

  • Resources Used for Unit Production (Horses Horses, Iron Iron, Niter Niter, Aluminum Aluminum). When producing or buying a unit requiring one of these resources, you will need to pay a set amount of the resource at the moment you start production (or the moment you purchase it). This puts a practical ceiling on the number of units you may purchase or start producing at the same time (within the same turn). When you exhaust your stockpiled resource, you will need to either wait for it to accumulate or trade for it with another player.
  • Resources Used as Fuel for Units (Coal Coal, Oil Oil, Uranium Uranium, Aluminum Aluminum). When producing or buying a unit that requires one of these resources, its upfront cost will be greatly reduced. However, each turn, the unit will consume a certain amount of that resource as fuel. This puts other restrictions on you - rather than having a hard limit on how many units you may start producing at the same time (or you can purchase together), you now have to think of how production will affect your resource stockpile flow. The more units you have that consume a particular resource, the slower the resource will accumulate. Therefore, if you only have 1 source of a certain resource, you will only be able to safely maintain 3 units consuming that resource; if you have 2 sources, 6 units; and so on. Anything else and you risk depleting your resource stockpile, and then running into the consequences of having a negative resource flow (see below). You will then be forced to constantly trade with other players in order to replenish your stockpiles.
  • Resources Used for Power Production (Coal Coal, Oil Oil, Uranium Uranium). In addition to using these resources for fuel, they will also be needed for your Power Plants, which will consume them each turn and convert them into Power for your cities! This process is completely automatic and varies according to the number of buildings in your cities and how many Renewable energy sources you have used to replace Power Plants. Thus, in the late game, you will need to juggle powering up your cities and producing/maintaining units, and this is not an easy decision!

Note that the (un)availability of Strategic resources will also affect the units after you produce them! For example, if you had acquired Iron Iron to produce Swordsmen, but have no continuous access to Iron Mines, those Swordsmen won't be able to Heal! For later units, lack of their respective Strategic resource will also mean a Strength Combat Strength penalty during combat (which is proportional to the amount you're short).

Of course, Strategic resources may still be traded with other players. Arguably, the new system makes trading them even more important than before. Note, however, that unlike Gold Gold trading, you can only trade lump quantities of Consumable resources, as opposed to trading a set number per turn.

Resource Enables Base Yield Modifier Improvement Notes
Horses Horses Pre-GS-Only: Horseman, Cavalry

GS-Only: Horseman, Hetairoi, Courser, Black Army, Keshig, Cavalry, Cossack, Huszár

+1 Production Production, +1 Food Food Pasture Tech not required to see. GS-Only Revealed by Animal Husbandry. Found on flatland Grassland and Plains.
Iron Iron Pre-GS-Only: Swordsman, Knight

GS-Only: Swordsman, Knight, Berserker, Hypaspist, Immortal, Khevsur, Legion, Mamluk, Mandekalu Cavalry, Ngao Mbeba, Samurai, Cuirassier, Winged Hussar

+1 Science Science Mine Revealed by Bronze Working. Found on Hills.
Niter Niter Pre-GS-Only: Musketman, Bombard

GS-Only: Musketman, Bombard, Frigate, Conquistador, De Zeven Provinciën, Garde Impériale, Janissary, Redcoat

+1 Production Production, +1 Food Food Mine Revealed by Military Engineering. Found on flatland only.
Coal Coal Pre-GS-Only: Ironclad, Battleship

GS-Only: Ironclad, Battleship, Minas Geraes

+2 Production Production Mine Revealed by Industrialization. Found on Hills.
Oil Oil Pre-GS-Only: Tank, Aircraft Carrier

GS-Only: Infantry, Artillery, Modern Armor, Rocket Artillery, Submarine, Destroyer, Missile Cruiser, Biplane, Tank, Mechanized Infantry, U-Boat

+3 Production Production Oil Well, Offshore Oil Rig Revealed by Steel (GS-Only Refining). Found both on land and at sea.
Aluminum Aluminum Pre-GS-Only: Bomber, Fighter, Jet Bomber, Jet Fighter

GS-Only: Bomber, Fighter, Jet Bomber, Jet Fighter, Helicopter, P-51 Mustang

+1 Science Science Mine Revealed by Radio. Found on Plains and Desert.
Uranium Uranium Pre-GS-Only: Nuclear Devices, Nuclear Submarines, Modern Armor

GS-Only: Nuclear Devices, Giant Death Robot

+2 Production Production Mine Revealed by Combined Arms. Found everywhere.
Civilization VI [edit]
Rise and FallGathering StormNew Frontier PassLeader Pass
Lists
Concepts
Miscellaneous
R&F-Only Added in the Rise and Fall expansion pack.
GS-Only Added in the Gathering Storm expansion pack.
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