A Wonder is a mega-building that is unique in the world and provides potent bonuses to a civilization. All Wonders are inspired by, and named after, famous real-world buildings or landmarks that have stood the test of time and changed the world forever. Wonders require time, energy, and effort to complete, but once constructed, they provide your civilization with many benefits.
Civilization VI adds a feature known as "wonder movies," which allows you to watch a Wonder being constructed from scratch in less than 30 seconds (somewhat similar to the wonder movies from Civilization IV). This replaces the announcement screen you see in Civilization V when you complete a Wonder.
Building a Wonder
Building a World Wonder is an important achievement for a civilization. Each specific Wonder may exist only once in the whole world, so their construction is, in fact, a race between civs. Players should plan their progression well if they want to be able to build the Wonders they covet! Note that, unlike in Civilization V, the "consolation prize" for failing to complete a Wonder before another player is not Gold but Production (which is arguably much more useful, since it allows the players who didn't complete the Wonder to catch up on lost construction opportunities).
In relation to previous games, Civilization VI adds a revolutionary new feature: Wonders are now constructed not inside a city (that is, on the city tile), but on a separate tile near a city (like a Planetary Wonder in Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth). What's more, there are now a slew of specific requirements for almost all Wonders, which can encompass terrain type, adjacency, or other game elements. Finally, many Wonders are now unlocked via the new civics tree, instead of the normal tech tree.
Wonders can only be built on valid land tiles (or Coast tiles in some cases) that don't contain a district. You'll only be able to build a Wonder on a Marsh if you have Irrigation or on a Rainforest if you have Bronze Working (because these are the techs which enable you to remove such features from the terrain). Also, any other existing improvements and resources will be removed from the tile, so it as advised you build them on flat land or hill tiles with no resources or features (like forests). Flat Desert tiles with no resources are perfect for constructing Wonders since they don't provide any yield normally anyway. Note that, since you cannot "work" a Wonder (that is, you cannot assign Citizens to its tile), you will be unable to use the yields of its tile anymore; however, the tile will continue providing adjacency bonuses. This is important for Wonders which are constructed on terrain features without removing them (such as Chichen Itza or Mahabodhi Temple).
Wonder construction can be accelerated via Industrial City-States. The Capital Capital gains a +2 Production bonus from every such City-State where you have at least 1 Envoy Envoy. All other cities which have an Industrial Zone (including the Capital Capital, if it has one) will gain +2 Production bonus from every such City-State where you have 3 Envoy Envoys, and another +2 Production if you have 6 Envoy Envoys. Note that in Rise and Fall, these additional bonuses are tied to the presence of a Workshop and a Factory (respectively).
With these new mechanics it becomes much more difficult to construct Wonders because, depending on their specific starting location and available nearby terrain (as well as their general development), players will have access to far fewer Wonders than before. However, this can also work to the players' advantage: Wonders will be less likely to be snatched up by whoever managed to research the tech that unlocks it first, allowing you to have a chance to construct it even if you are not leading in Science or Culture. We can also expect to see much more strategy-specific Wonder construction, where each particular civ will construct only Wonders which suit its overall strategy and/or terrain availability.
Starting the process of building a land-based Wonder also builds a road in (but not to) that tile, and unlike most natural wonder tiles your units can move across them. The borders of a city that completes a Wonder will immediately expand by two tiles, provided there are tiles within range for the city to claim. If a city is razed after completing a Wonder, the Wonder can be rebuilt in another city (unless the game has reached an era that renders the Wonder obsolete).
List of Wonders
Unless a Wonder's description stipulates otherwise, its effects apply only to the civilization that builds it. Both standard districts and buildings and their unique replacements will satisfy any listed placement restrictions.
Wonder | Era | Req. | Prod. | Bonus | Placement |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Alhambra |
Medieval | Castles | 710 |
|
Must be built on Hills adjacent to an Encampment district. |
"Everything here appears calculated to inspire kind and happy feelings, for everything is delicate and beautiful." – Washington Irving | |||||
Amundsen-Scott Research Station |
Atomic | Cold War | 1620 |
|
Must be built on a Snow or a Snow Hills tile next to Campus with a Research Lab. |
"For scientific leadership, give me Scott; for swift and efficient travel, Amundsen." – Sir Raymond Priestley | |||||
Angkor Wat |
Medieval | Medieval Faires | 710 | Must be built adjacent to an Aqueduct district. | |
"The temple is surrounded by a moat, and access is by a single bridge, protected by two stone tigers so grand and fearsome as to strike terror into the visitor." – Diogo do Couto | |||||
Apadana |
Classical | Political Philosophy | 400 |
|
Must be built adjacent to a Capital Capital. |
"My ancestor Darius made this Apadana, but it was burnt down. By the grace of Ahuramazda, Anahita, and Mithra, I reconstructed this Apadana." – Artaxerxes II | |||||
Big Ben |
Industrial | Economics | 1450 |
|
Must be built next to a River adjacent to a Commercial Hub district with a Bank. |
"Don’t watch the big clock; do what it does. Keep going." – Sam Levenson | |||||
Bolshoi Theatre |
Industrial | Opera and Ballet | 1240 |
|
Must be built on flat land adjacent to a Theater Square district. |
"Bolshoi Ballet is a universe of the imagination, a place of magic and enchantment, beauty and romance. Its many worlds vibrate with graceful dancers, glorious music, and sumptuous costumes." – Trudy Garfunkel | |||||
Broadway |
Modern | Mass Media | 1620 |
|
Must be built on flat land next to a Theater Square district. |
"There’s no business like show business." – Irving Berlin, 'Annie Get Your Gun' | |||||
Casa de Contratación |
Renaissance | Cartography | 920 |
|
Must be built adjacent to a Government Plaza. |
"All other lands found on the western side of the boundary shall belong to the King and Queen of Castille—and their successors." – Treaty of Tordesillas | |||||
Chichen Itza |
Medieval | Guilds | 710 |
|
Must be built on Rainforest. |
"The Great Ball Court is also very impressive. I would like to have seen them play a game, although it sounds like the end was pretty violent. I think it was safer to be a spectator." – IslaDeb | |||||
Colosseum |
Classical | Games and Recreation | 400 | Must be built on flat land adjacent to an Entertainment Complex district.
Must be built on flat land adjacent to an Entertainment Complex district with an Arena. | |
"While the Colosseum stands, Rome shall stand; when the Colosseum falls, Rome shall fall; when Rome falls, the world shall fall." – Saint Bede | |||||
Colossus |
Classical | Shipbuilding | 400 |
|
Must be built on coast and adjacent to a Harbor district. |
"At Rhodes was set up a Colossus of seventy cubits high, representing the Sun … the artist expended as much bronze on it as seemed likely to create a dearth in the mines." – Philo of Byzantium | |||||
Cristo Redentor |
Modern | Mass Media | 1620 |
|
Must be built on Hills. |
"Thus, the sculpture serves to give people one thought – ‘Everything is in God’s hands.’" – Sergey Semenov
| |||||
Eiffel Tower |
Modern | Steel | 1620 |
|
Must be built on flat land adjacent to City Center. |
"I ought to be jealous of the tower. She is more famous than I am." – Gustave Eiffel | |||||
Estádio do Maracanã |
Atomic | Professional Sports | 1740 | Must be built on flat land adjacent to an Entertainment Complex with a Stadium. | |
"Down through its history, only three people have managed to silence the Maracana: the Pope, Frank Sinatra, and me." – Alcides Ghiggia, Uruguayan soccer player
| |||||
Forbidden City |
Renaissance | Printing | 920 |
|
Must be built on flat land adjacent to City Center. |
"The whole palace complex is built along a central axis, the axis of the world, everything in the four directions suspend from this central point represented by these palaces." – Jeffrey Riegel | |||||
Golden Gate Bridge |
Modern | Combustion | 1620 |
|
Must be built on a coast tile. The bridge must run straight across the hex between two land tiles directly opposite one another. At least one water tile must be present on both the left and right sides of the bridge. |
"The golden gates of Sleep unbar Where Strength and Beauty, met together, Kindle their image like a star In a sea of glassy weather!" - Percy Bysshe Shelley | |||||
Great Bath |
Ancient | Pottery | 180 |
|
Must be built on a Floodplains tile. |
"Yet in this captious and intenible sieve I still pour in the waters of my love And lack not to lose still: thus, Indian-like, Religious in mine error, I adore The sun, that looks upon his worshipper, But knows of him no more." - William Shakespeare | |||||
Great Library |
Classical | Recorded History | 400 |
|
Must be built on flat land adjacent to a Campus with a Library. |
"We can roam the bloated stacks of the Library of Alexandria, where all imagination and knowledge are assembled; we can recognize in its destruction the warning that all we gather will be lost." – Alberto Manguel | |||||
Great Lighthouse |
Classical | Celestial Navigation | 290 |
|
Must be built on the coast and adjacent to a Harbor district with a Lighthouse. |
"This Lighthouse was the cynosure of all eyes." – Henry David Thoreau | |||||
Great Zimbabwe |
Renaissance | Banking | 920 |
|
Must be built adjacent to Cattle and a Commercial Hub district with a Market. |
"King Solomon gave the Queen of Sheba all she desired and asked for; besides what he had given her out of his royal bounty. So she turned and went to her own country, she and her servants." – 1 Kings, 10:13 | |||||
Hagia Sophia |
Medieval | Education | 710 |
|
Must be built on flat land adjacent to a Holy Site district, and player must have founded a religion. |
"It is a beautiful and important monument and an international, inter-cultural treasure … Unless and until it can be shared by both religions in harmony – which would be a grand idea – it should remain a secular building honoring both religions who have made it beautiful." – Ljubo Vujovic | |||||
Hanging Gardens |
Ancient | Irrigation | 180 | Must be built next to a river. | |
"The ascent to the highest story is by stairs, and at their side are water engines, by means of which persons, appointed expressly for the purpose, are continually employed in raising water from the Euphrates into the garden." – Strabo | |||||
Hermitage |
Industrial | Natural History | 1450 |
|
Must be built next to a river on a non-desert and non-tundra tile. |
"Museums are on the front lines of the fight for culture, of good with evil – in any case, of the fight against platitudes and primitiveness." – Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage | |||||
Huey Teocalli |
Medieval | Military Tactics | 710 |
|
Must be built on a Lake tile adjacent to land. |
"But the wrath of Huitzilopochtli was great, and as the sacrifice passed each of the four rooms dedicated to the sun god, the sun disappeared or reappeared in the sky." – Fray Diego Durán | |||||
Jebel Barkal |
Classical | Iron Working | 400 | Must be built on a Desert Hills tile. | |
"At the south-west corner a large perpendicular mass of sandstone has become separated by a deep fissure from the body of the mountain … it has all the appearance of a colossal statue." –E. A. Wallis Budge | |||||
Kilwa Kisiwani |
Medieval | Machinery | 710 |
|
Must be built on a flat tile adjacent to a Coast. |
"Kilwa is one of the most beautifully built cities in the world; the houses there are entirely made of wood, their rooftops out of rope grass, and it rains with great vigour." – Ibn Battuta | |||||
Kotoku-in |
Medieval | Divine Right | 710 |
|
Must be built adjacent to a Holy Site with a Temple. |
"O ye who tread the Narrow Way, by Tophet-flare to Judgment Day, be gentle when ‘the heathen’ pray, to Buddha at Kamakura!" – Rudyard Kipling | |||||
Machu Picchu |
Classical | Engineering | 400 |
|
Must be built on a Mountain tile that does not contain a Volcano. |
"...Eagles fly, The turrets round, and seem to flout the sky; They eye those walls now crumbling in decay, And scare from quiet rest their destined prey." - Samuel Prout Hill | |||||
Mahabodhi Temple |
Classical | Theology | 400 | Must be built on woods adjacent to a Holy Site district with a Temple, and player must have founded a religion. | |
"In a dusty, bustling corner of the Indian state of Bihar, there is a magical place that one might think of as the hub of Buddhism." – Visitor’s Guide, Bodh Gaya | |||||
Meenakshi Temple |
Medieval | Civil Service | 710 | Must be built adjacent to a Holy Site district, and player must have founded a religion. | |
"We greet you, Devi Meenakshi, she who shines like a thousand-million suns, adorned with bracelets and garlands... She who is auspicious, she who embodies existence. I always bow to you, whose compassion is an ocean." - Adi Shankara | |||||
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus |
Classical | Defensive Tactics | 400 |
|
Must be built on a coastal tile adjacent to a Harbor district. |
"A vast tomb lies over me in Halicarnassus, of such dimensions, of such exquisite beauty as no other shade can boast." – Lucian of Samosata | |||||
Mont St. Michel |
Medieval | Divine Right | 710 |
|
Must be built on Floodplains or Marsh. |
"Church and State, Soul and Body, God and Man, are all one at Mont Saint Michel, and the business of all is to fight, each in his own way, or to stand guard for each other." – Henry Adams | |||||
Oracle |
Ancient | Mysticism | 290 | Must be built on hills. | |
I sprang upon the swift ship in the form of a dolphin, pray to me as Apollo Delphinius; also the altar itself shall be called Delphinius and overlooked forever." – Homer | |||||
Országház |
Industrial | Sanitation | 920 |
|
Must be built on a River. |
"With self-government is freedom, and with freedom is justice and patriotism." - Lajos Kossuth | |||||
Oxford University |
Industrial | Scientific Theory | 1240 |
|
Must be built on flat[2] Grasslands or Plains adjacent to a Campus district with a University. |
"The clever men at Oxford... Know all that there is to be knowed. But they none of them know one half as much... As intelligent Mr. Toad!" – Kenneth Grahame | |||||
Panama Canal |
Industrial | Steam Power | 920 | Must be built on a flat land tile where there are two adjacent tiles directly across the build tile from one another the meets the following criteria: one adjacent tile must be able to legally hold a Canal district connecting into the Panama Canal construction tile; the other must be either a city, a water tile, or be another tile that can hold a connecting Canal. | |
"Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof." - Psalms 46:2-3 | |||||
Petra |
Classical | Mathematics | 400 |
|
Must be built on desert or floodplains without hills. |
"Petra is a brilliant display of man’s artistry in turning barren rock into majestic wonder." – Edward Dawson | |||||
Potala Palace |
Renaissance | Astronomy | 1060 | Must be built on a hill adjacent to a Mountain. | |
"The first time I stepped onto the rooftop of the Potala Palace, I felt, as never before or since, as if I were stepping onto the rooftop of my being: onto some dimension of consciousness that I’d never visited before." – Pico Iyer | |||||
Pyramids |
Ancient | Masonry | 220 | Must be built on desert (including floodplains) without hills. | |
"From the heights of these pyramids, forty centuries look down on us." – Napoleon Bonaparte | |||||
Ruhr Valley |
Industrial | Industrialization | 1240 |
|
Must be built along a River adjacent to an Industrial Zone district with a Factory. |
"The industrial heart of Germany practically stopped beating. Hardly anyone worked; hardly anything ran. The population of the Ruhr area … had to be supported by the rest of the country." – Adam Fergusson | |||||
Statue of Liberty |
Industrial | Civil Engineering | 1240 |
|
Must be built on a Coast adjacent to land and a Harbor. |
"Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand a mighty woman with a torch, whose flame is the imprisoned lightning." – Emma Lazarus | |||||
St. Basil's Cathedral |
Renaissance | Reformed Church | 920 |
|
Must be built adjacent to a City Center |
"One had a twisted design, red, on a green ground; another, all prickly angles, yellow and black; a third was ornamented with scales of blue and crimson; a fourth was in quarters like a melon." – Katharine Blanche Guthrie | |||||
Stonehenge |
Ancient | Astrology | 180 |
|
Must be built on flat land adjacent to Stone. |
"Can you imagine trying to talk six hundred people into helping you drag a fifty-ton stone eighteen miles across the countryside and muscle it into an upright position, and then saying, ‘Right, lads! Another twenty like that … and then we can party!" – Bill Bryson | |||||
Sydney Opera House |
Atomic | Cultural Heritage | 1850 |
|
Must be built on coast adjacent to a Harbor. Cannot be built on a lake. |
"An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down. It starts in my imagination, it becomes my life, and it stays part of my life long after I've left the opera house." – Maria Callas | |||||
Taj Mahal |
Renaissance | Humanism | 920 |
|
Must be built next to a River. |
"Did you ever build a castle in the air? Here is one, brought down to earth and fixed for the wonder of ages." – Bayard Taylor | |||||
Temple of Artemis |
Ancient | Archery | 180 | Must be built next to a Camp. | |
"When I saw the house of Artemis that mounted to the clouds, those other marvels lost their brilliancy, and I said, 'Lo, apart from Olympus, the Sun never looked on aught so grand.'" – Antipater of Sidon | |||||
Terracotta Army |
Classical | Construction | 400 |
|
Must be built on flat Grassland or Plains adjacent to an Encampment district with a Barracks or Stable. |
"There were seven wonders in the world, and the discovery of the Terracotta Army, we may say, is the eighth miracle of the world." – Jacques Chirac | |||||
University of Sankore |
Medieval | Education | 710 | Must be built on a Desert or Desert Hill adjacent to a Campus with a University. | |
"Scholars are the heirs of the prophets, for the prophets did not leave behind a legacy of wealth but that of knowledge." - Musnad al-Bazzar 10/68 | |||||
Venetian Arsenal |
Renaissance | Mass Production | 920 |
|
Must be built on the coast[4] and adjacent to an Industrial Zone district. |
"The commonwealth of Venice in their armory have this inscription: ‘Happy is that city which in time of peace thinks of war.’" – Robert Burton |
- ↑ This effect was added in the Summer 2017 Update.
- ↑ Note that "flat" is not specified in-game.
- ↑ This bonus applies to any city.
- ↑ Note that in-game it lists the requirement as "adjacent to the coast", but this is not correct.
Added in the Rise and Fall expansion pack.
Added in the Gathering Storm expansion pack.
See also
Civilization VI [edit] | |
---|---|
Rise and Fall • Gathering Storm • New Frontier Pass • Leader Pass | |
Lists | |
Concepts
| |
Miscellaneous | |
Added in the Rise and Fall expansion pack. Added in the Gathering Storm expansion pack. |