In Civilization VI, every path to victory is paved with Production. It’s the engine that drives your empire, turning plans into reality. Gold can buy you shortcuts and Science can show you the way, but pure Production is what builds your army, erects your wonders, and ultimately secures your destiny. A strong production base lets you adapt to any threat, pursue any victory, and set the pace of the entire game.
I’m here to break down exactly how to build an industrial empire that will leave your rivals in the dust. We’ll go beyond the basics, covering everything from where you plant your first city to the late-game policies that will make your production numbers soar. Get ready to turn your quiet settlements into industrial powerhouses that can churn out wonders and field unstoppable armies. This is your blueprint for production supremacy.
Laying the Foundation: Smart City Placement
Your empire’s entire future is shaped by where you settle your first few cities. Getting this right isn’t just a good idea; it’s essential for building a production-focused empire.
Always Settle on Hills
The most crucial decision you’ll make on turn one is to settle your capital on a Plains Hills tile. This gives your City Center a base of 2 Food and 2 Production, instead of the usual 2 Food and 1 Production. That extra point of production from the very first turn is massive. It gets your first units out faster and, most importantly, your first Settler. This early advantage snowballs, letting you grab more land before anyone else. Don’t hesitate to move your settler a tile or two to find a hill. It’s almost always the right move.
The Industrial Triangle
The biggest production boosts come from the Industrial Zone district, specifically from its adjacency bonuses. Don’t just place your cities wherever there’s space. Plan them in clusters—think triangles or diamonds—to create super-powered Industrial Zones later.
The goal is to place an Industrial Zone next to an Aqueduct and a Dam, as each provides a +2 adjacency bonus. By planning your city clusters, you can find a single tile that will be adjacent to districts from two or three different cities. For instance, with three cities (A), (B), and (C), you can place an Aqueduct from City A and a Dam from City B next to a chosen tile. Then, you build City C’s Industrial Zone on that tile for a massive +4 bonus right off the bat. This is how you set up a production juggernaut.
Cluster for Shared Power
This clustering strategy becomes even more powerful once you build Factories and Power Plants. The production bonuses from these buildings extend to all City Centers within a six-tile radius. By packing your cities close together, a single Factory can boost two, three, or even four cities at once. A dense, specialized empire will always outperform a sprawling, disconnected one. You want to create overlapping zones of industrial power.
Shape the Land: Builders and Tile Improvements
The land itself is your raw material. How you improve it with Builders will define your empire’s productive power.
The Power of the Mine
Your default improvement for any hill tile is the Mine. It provides a base production that gets better with new technologies. Early in the game, a few mines can dramatically speed up production of essential units and buildings. Never leave a hill unimproved. Research Mining early and get your Builders out there.
To Chop or To Improve?
Woods and Rainforests give you a strategic choice: do you “chop” them for a one-time burst of production, or build Lumber Mills for a smaller, permanent yield?
- Chop for a Tempo Advantage: The instant production from a chop can be a game-winner. It can help you finish a wonder one turn before a rival or quickly build an army to defend against an attack. Chops are best used to push through a high-priority project. For maximum effect, appoint Governor Magnus and give him the “Groundbreaker” promotion for a +50% yield from all chops.
- Improve for Long-Term Gain: A Lumber Mill provides a consistent, reliable source of production that grows stronger with technology, especially next to a river. If you have plenty of hills for mines, saving some forests for late-game Lumber Mills can create a more sustainable production base. The best strategy is usually a mix of both: chop when you need an immediate boost, and improve what you can for the long haul.
Harness Strategic Resources
Don’t forget about Strategic Resources like Iron, Niter, and Coal. Improving them doesn’t just let you build powerful units; the improvements themselves provide solid production yields. Uncovering and improving these resources gives you a direct economic boost.
The Industrial Heart: Mastering the Industrial Zone
The Industrial Zone is your single most important district for maximizing production. Its placement, buildings, and synergies are what create truly staggering output.
Perfecting Adjacency Bonuses
A poorly placed Industrial Zone is a wasted opportunity. A great one is a thing of beauty. Here are the key adjacency bonuses:
- +2 Production: from an adjacent Dam, Aqueduct, or Canal.
- +1 Production: from an adjacent Quarry or Strategic Resource.
- +1 Production: for every two adjacent districts.
As I mentioned, the gold standard is placing your IZ next to a Dam and an Aqueduct for an instant +4 bonus. If you can also place it next to a Quarry, you’re already at +5 before any policy cards. Some civs, like Germany, get even better bonuses—their Hansa gets +2 from Commercial Hubs, opening up even more powerful setups.
The Buildings That Power It
Inside the Industrial Zone, three key buildings ramp up its output:
- Workshop: A simple +2 Production. You have to build it first.
- Factory: Adds +3 Production, and its bonus extends to all City Centers within a 6-tile radius. This is where your city clustering really pays off.
- Power Plant: Adds +4 Production, also with a 6-tile regional effect. Later, you’ll power this building with Coal, Oil, or Uranium, which provides an additional production bonus equal to the IZ’s adjacency bonus. This “doubling” effect is the final piece of the puzzle.
Imagine a city with a +6 adjacency Industrial Zone. Once you build a Coal Power Plant, you get 6 production from adjacency, and another 6 from the power plant itself. That’s +12 production from one district before factoring in anything else.
Don’t Forget Other Districts
While the IZ is king, other districts can chip in:
- Harbor: In a coastal city, the Shipyard building provides production equal to the Harbor’s gold adjacency bonus. A well-placed Harbor can be a production powerhouse in its own right.
- Encampment: The Barracks and Armory provide direct production bonuses, which is especially helpful for building military units.
The Conductors: Governors and Policy Cards
Governors and Policy Cards are how you fine-tune your production engine for massive, game-changing boosts.
Magnus: The Production King
When it comes to production, Magnus the Steward is your guy. No one else comes close. These are his essential promotions:
- Groundbreaker: As mentioned, this gives you a +50% yield from chopping. Always time your big chops for when Magnus is established in the city.
- Vertical Integration: This is one of the most powerful governor abilities in the game. It allows Magnus’s city to draw production from adjacent Industrial Zones in other cities. In our clustered city setup, this is incredible. Your main city can receive production bonuses from the Factories of all surrounding cities, creating a cascade of power in one spot.
The Right Policies at the Right Time
Policy cards are dynamic modifiers that can double your production. Using the right ones is critical.
- Early Game: Urban Planning (+1 Production in all cities) is a solid start. Agoge and Craftsmen help you produce early military units.
- Mid Game: This is where things take off. Apprenticeship (+100% adjacency bonus for Industrial Zones) is your first major power spike. That +5 IZ now becomes a +10. Serfdom (+2 Builder charges) is also essential for improving your land faster.
- Late Game: Five-Year Plan is the ultimate production card. It doubles the adjacency bonus for both Industrial Zones and Campuses. This stacks with the Power Plant’s effect, leading to insane yields. A +7 adjacency IZ becomes +14 from the card, and the Coal Power Plant then adds another +14 on top of that, for a total of +28 production from the district alone.
Monuments to Industry: Key Wonders for Production
Wonders are a big investment, but the right ones provide permanent, empire-wide bonuses that will secure your production dominance.
The Holy Trinity of Production Wonders
- Pyramids: An Ancient era wonder that gives all your Builders an extra charge. This is a massive long-term economic advantage, saving you a ton of production over the course of the game. It has to be built on a Desert tile, and it’s often worth settling a city just to get it.
- Great Zimbabwe: While mainly for Gold, this wonder also gives you a +1 Trade Route capacity. You can use that extra route for a powerful internal trade route to boost a new city.
- Ruhr Valley: This is the undisputed king of production wonders. It must be built next to a river and an Industrial Zone with a Factory. Its effects are incredible:
- +20% Production in its city.
- +1 Production for every Mine and Quarry in the city.
A city with the Ruhr Valley, Magnus’s Vertical Integration, a powered Industrial Zone, and the Five-Year Plan policy becomes a nexus of production that can build space race projects in just a few turns.
The Lifeblood of the Empire: Trade, Growth, and Happiness
Your empire is a living system. Its growth, happiness, and internal connections are all tied to its productive power.
The Power of Internal Trade
While sending trade routes to other civs earns you gold, internal trade routes are the lifeblood of a growing empire. Send a trade route from a new, low-production city to your industrial heartland (the city with Magnus and your best IZ). This will feed the new city with a steady stream of Food and Production, allowing you to develop your new settlements much faster.
Population, Housing, and Amenities
More citizens mean more tiles being worked, which means more production. But your population needs to be happy.
- Amenities: A city with extra amenities becomes “Happy” or “Ecstatic,” which grants a bonus to all non-food yields. An Ecstatic city gets a +10% bonus to Production. On the flip side, a city with negative amenities gets a major production penalty. Managing amenities isn’t optional; it’s a direct multiplier on your entire industrial output.
- Housing: Population growth stops if you run out of Housing. Build Granaries, Sewers, and Neighborhoods to make sure your cities can grow large enough to work all those improved tiles.