Secret Societies (Civ6)

Secret Societies is the second Game Mode in Civilization VI, introduced in the Ethiopia Pack. It includes four different Secret Societies that players can join, but once a society is chosen, its membership will last the entire game and cannot be changed. Each society has its own perks for the members, including new resources, buildings, tile improvements, units and city projects. It requires either the Rise and Fall or the Gathering Storm expansion to play.

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The Secret Societies Game Mode introduces four new "societies". After performing an action (sending Envoys to City-states, discovering a Tribal Village, discovering a Natural Wonder, or clearing a Barbarian camp), a corresponding society will send you an invitation. You can turn down (by ignoring the new Governor in the Governor screen) or accept the invitation (by promoting the unique Governor to go through "Initiation"), but once in a society, all other choices will disappear off the Governor screen, and you cannot back out or change your decision to a different one, the membership will last the entire game. Even after you are a member of a secret society, you can still discover new ones by performing the corresponding action listed above. Every time you discover a new secret society, you will be granted 1 Governor Title. Also, by discovering new secret societies even if you cannot join them because you are already a member of another society, it will give you the ability to spot out members of those other societies in case you will meet them in the future.

The new Governor has four unique titles, does not need to be assigned to a specific city, and has bonuses that apply to the entire empire. You can unlock these titles by earning Governor titles like normal, but tier 2, tier 3 and tier 4 titles (called "Ritual", "Indoctrination", and "Master Plan" respectively) can only be unlocked once the game has reached a certain era. Note that these are World Eras, not Individual Eras, so you can't rush it!

Below is the list of four Secret Societies that you can potentially choose from:

• The Owls of Minerva are puppeteers who mastermind plots behind the scenes and use espionage to achieve their goals. Joining their ranks gives access to the Gilded Vault, a new building with all the benefits of a Bank, but also grants Gold adjacency bonus as a Culture adjacency bonus as well. It also grants an additional trade route for cities with a Harbor.
• The Hermetic Order values alchemy and occult science above all else. Their success comes from theories and inventions that other societies dismiss as mere fairy tales, such as Ley Lines. Ley Lines are a new map resource only Hermetic Order members can see, which gives standard adjacency bonuses to all specialty districts. They also grant bonus yields whenever a Great Person is earned. Members of the society can build the Alchemical Society, a University replacement building that has all of the base University effects, plus extra Great Merchant points, Great Engineer points, increased Production, and Gold.
• The Voidsingers follow a dark religion of ancient gods and sow chaos to control adversaries. Joining them unlocks the Old God Obelisk, which replaces the Monument. It has all of the Monument's base effects, and provides additional Faith and Great Works slots. The Voidsingers also have a unique unit, the Cultist. Purchased with Faith, Cultists can spend a charge to recruit followers in enemy cities, reducing the target city's Loyalty by calling its citizens to madness.
• The Sanguine Pact is a militaristic regime known for sapping enemies of their will to fight, shunning the sunlight. Joining the pact unlocks the unique Vampire unit, which gains Combat Strength when adjacent units perish. Instead of dying, Vampires retreat to safety with one HP and can be healed back to full by pillaging. Vampire Castles can be placed in any empty tile in your territory or in neutral territory and grant defensive bonuses and extra yields. In later eras, Vampire Castles allow you to teleport units between them.