Keep the game interesting with these great mods.
Mods in Civ VI run the gamut from new civs, new units, and even new skins that completely change the way the game looks.
Makeovers aside, I find the best mods are the most useful ones that don't sacrifice balance in the original gameplay.
While I strongly encourage everyone to check out all the great skin and civ mods, these are my favorite mods to improve the overall civ experience.
15. R.E.D. Modpack
R.E.D. Modpack resizes units to look more like realistic army miniatures and not like 40-foot tall titans kicking down renaissance walls.
While it is purely for aesthetics, R.E.D. Modpack is a great and welcome addition to Civ VI that just might make you disable quick combat for a little while longer.
- Resizes units to a smaller scale, while multiplying their original numbers to make things look more realistic.
- R.E.D. Modpack rescales/resizes units for every individual civ, both vanilla and DLC’s.
- Units are scaled to city size for added realism.
Get the mod here.
14. Yet (Not) Another Maps Pack
While Civilization uses RNG (Random Map Generation) to create new maps, there are also a handful of maps that come with vanilla civ.
This is a great mod that adds new maps, new sizes, and improved true start locations, amongst other features.
- Increased map sizes available from the original “huge” to new Enormous, Giant, and Ludicrous.
- Adds several new maps including a “giant earth” map with true start locations.
- Allows you to set the game with 63 civs at the same time- just make sure you have the RAM.
Get the mod here.
13. Better Trade Screen
Civ VI has a lot going for it, but the lackluster trade screen is not one of them.
This mod completely overhauls the trade screen to include more details, organize routes, and give options for filtering that the original needed but simply lacked.
- Trade routes can be automated to repeat based on destination or top trade route.
- Allows routes to be filtered by city-state, international routes, and trade quests.
- Color-codes yields for ease of quick comprehension.
Get the mod here.
12. Radial Measuring Tool
Whether you’re new or old to the series, measuring out how many hexes you will need for a factory to affect cities can get a bit tedious.
Radial Measuring Tool (RMT) is a great mod especially for those new to the series.
RMT gives you a visualization when founding cities, districts with adjacency bonuses, and other great features for ease of use.
- Visualizes city placement using a color-coded yield table to maximize placement efficiency.
- Shows the terrain yield for wherever you plan on putting your city, and changes based on checked preferences.
- It allows you to change the radius of visualization for what you are placing, making it great for measuring out how far your city will stretch, or where to best place your industrial zone.
Get the mod here.
11. Policy Change Reminder
If you’re like me, you like to plan out when you get that free policy for maximum efficiency; if you’re also like me you forget to change it 98% of the time.
A simple yet effective mod, this gives you that oh-so-important nudge to get your free policy change before you have to restart from your last save...for the 37th time.
- Upon completing a civic you may change policies for free, which can be hard to remember to do without this mod.
- Procs the player to change a policy if there is a free change available, does so before ending the turn.
- As it is a simple UI enhancement, it is compatible with most (if not all) other mods.
Get the mod here.
10. Terra Mirabilis
While there are many natural wonders to discover and benefit from in Civ VI, there are still many more in the world that are left out.
Terra Mirabilis (Amazing Earth) not only adds many new (and classic) wonders to the roster, as well as rebalances, reworks, and changes many effects of the wonders to work better, easier, and add more fun for the player.
- Adds 19 wonders to the game, including old classics like Lake Victoria and brand new additions like Vredefort Dome: each with their unique bonuses/yields.
- Wonders now have increased district adjacency and national parks now yield gold as well as tourism; as well as a multitude of other tweaks to natural wonders.
- For those who may not want or appreciate every change made, this mod allows players to pick and choose which parts they want and which they don’t.
Get the mod here.
9. Religion Expanded
The world is and has been home to 1,000s of religions, beliefs, cults, and other offshoots since the dawn of civilization.
So it’s a little odd that there is such a limited amount of religions in Civ VI.
This mod not only max-caps religious availability for every game but also adds new beliefs and religious buildings, making religion in Civ feel more real (ironic, right?)
- Sets available religions per game set to 12 by default, and 16 if used with Tomatekh’s Historical Religions mod (also highly recommended)- the max for every game.
- Adds 40 new beliefs, 8 new religious buildings, and 12 new pantheons.
- This mod is compatible with and is recommend to be used with many other religious mods.
Get the mod here.
8. CIVITAS City-States Expanded
One of my favorite mods, CIVITAS City-States Expanded adds more city-states, city-state types, and better color schemes to the already robust city-state collection.
With the number of total city-states in the game after installing the mod, it’s unlikely you’ll keep running into the same ones over and over, adding more variety and replay value.
- Adds over 40 new city-states with locations from all over the globe and from all periods like the Sri Lankan city of Anuradhapura and the millennia-old Megiddo.
- Adds 4 new city-state types: agricultural, consular, entertainment, and maritime, each with their unique bonuses.
- Recalibrates starting locations of all city-states, making their starting locations more geographically realistic.
Get the mod here.
7. Botanist
Probably the single most self-explanatory mod name ever to grace the Steam Workshop, Botanist adds...yep, a botanist to the game.
This mod allows you to build a School of Botany in a science district once in your empire.
From there you can build the botanist, who can essentially “move” plants from place to place, planting and replanting seeds, allowing you to “sow your seeds” across your empire.
- It allows you to build a School of Botany, from which you can build botanists.
- Botanists can move plants and seed new areas with plants, allowing you to manage your amenities and yields with more customization.
- Mod is fully compatible with other resource mods like Resourceful 2 and CIVITAS resources.
Get the mod here.
6. Real Era Tracker
If you’re new to the Civ VI expansions, era score might be a bit tricky to learn; and even for others it can be tricky to master.
Real Era Tracker is a great mod which allows you to view categorized lists of possible historic moments, which can help you get a golden age, avoid a dark age, or plan out a heroic age.
- Mod groups historic moments into World, Civilization, or Repeatable; these types can be achieved as “world's first”, “your civs first”, and “can be earned multiple times”, respectively.
- This mod automatically tracks and checks earned moments, and allows you to hide them.
- It contains a tracker in the “reports” menu which shows all historic moments which makes this mod easy to use and extremely useful.
Get the mod here.
5. Better Espionage Screen
Better Espionage Screen is another one of the QOL (quality of life) report enhancement mods that, while a small change, is an invaluable one.
While the old espionage menu was a bit lacking, this mod organizes and categorizes spies and missions in a much easier to use and understand the report screen.
- Changes the espionage screen to show both missions and cities instead of just one or the other.
- It allows you to filter cities by districts, so no more scrolling down long lists of cities to find the one spaceport you’re looking for.
- It allows more filter options like civ filtering and hiding cities without specific districts.
Get the mod here.
4. Great Works Viewer
Great Works Viewer does what the great works menu should have done from the beginning, which makes it more easily viewable.
This mod cleans up the great works menu by making the menu larger and adding the ability to categorize great work by type.
- Cleans up the Great Works viewer to make it more understandable and clear.
- Give the ability to sort Great Works by slot type, making it easier to theme museums.
- It allows you to expand the view to easily drag and drop Great Works without having to scroll all the way to the other side.
Get the mod here.
3. More Lenses
Lenses in Civ VI are used to highlight features of the landscape to help identify regions, yields, and other important data.
More Lenses adds new lenses to identify even more features than the vanilla game, allowing you the ability to more easily and efficiently plan out your next move.
- Adds 5 new unit lenses, such as the Builder lens which highlights unimproved resources, and the Naturalist lens, which shows where national parks can be built.
- Adds the wonder and resource lens, which highlights built or natural wonders, as well as bonus and luxury resources on the map.
- Color-codes lenses like city overlapping tiles to make it easier to place cities.
Get the mod here.
2. Better Report Screen
The Reports menu in Civ VI can look overwhelming, confusing and chaotic for many players both new and experienced.
Better Report Screen seeks to remedy that by adding some method to the madness.
This mod helps to organize your reports by adding new tabs for units, resources, cities, and more.
- It allows you to show the yields each policy and city-state is contributing to your empire.
- Categorizes your report menu into easy-to-digest lists and rows per city.
- Adds yields for GS DLC like power per city, CO2 footprint, and flood-endangered tiles, as well as many other details.
Get the mod here.
1. Resourceful 2
While there are many resources in Civilization VI, after so many games, it can get a bit repetitive to harvest cattle for the 10,000th time.
Resourceful 2 adds an abundance of resources for every type of improvement/environment, adding replay value as well as an added level of immersion to every game.
- Adds 51 new resources, divided into 8 different categories, like mines and pastures.
- One big problem with coastal cities is how dead water tiles can be, this mod adds 11 new water resources, bringing coastal cities to life.
- It can be combined with CIVITAS Resources and Botanist, for an even better and deeper level of immersion and fun.
Get the mod here.
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