Every playthrough of Civilization VI is an entirely unique experience, a story that exists in its own vacuum, and rarely ever overlaps another. It’s what gives Civilization VI its replay value, being fresh every time you start a new game. With that said, it isn’t hard at all to feel overwhelmed—especially in the late stages of the game.
Whether you’re a new player, or a returning one, you should know about the fantastic modding community. Fans of the title have made some of the best Civilization VI mods to date, breathing new life into the game, or simply tweaking a few design choices that arguably improve the mechanics for the better.
Best Civilization VI Mods
Here are 10 of the best Civilization VI mods for 2020 you should have installed already, even more so if you’re new to the game.
R.E.D. Modpack
Continuing the trend of mods that leave gameplay unaltered is R.E.D. Modpack. It’s a cute mod that reduces the size of your units on the map, down to a more realistic size. Furthermore, it increases the numbers of each unit, but in representation only, not in terms of strength. It’s a small change that’ll tickle the kind of players looking for immersion.
WASD Camera Panning
Edge scroll is by far one of the most annoying camera styles in video game history. When you’re forced to push your mouse at the edge of the screen briefly to move the camera, especially in a high action situation, it can be the difference between life and death. To combat this rather frustrating camera style, some games used WASD to move the camera; Civilization VI does not.
Adding the WASD Camera Panning mod frees up your mouse for important decisions while sticking the camera panning to WASD. Not only that, it just so happens your lenses are hotkeyed to the number line. It’s a small change, but it provides more natural hand placement.
Radial Measuring Tool
Planting a factory in your city ends in you counting hexes with your fingers, probably smearing your screen, too. The Radial Measuring Tool changes that completely. But this mod isn’t just a measuring tool; it provides oodles of information like adjacency bonuses, terrain yield, and even gives you positive or negative feedback based on your chosen preferences.
Diplomatic Favor with Tourism
Tourism is almost always ignored for the most part. You might invest in it for a few turns, but it’s quickly swept under the rug. It carries very little weight in the game until you install the Diplomatic Favor with Tourism mod.
To sweeten the deal, a single Diplomatic Favor point gets dropped into your pocket for every 100 Tourism generated. Not bad if you need a few additional votes during a session with Congress. It isn’t a game-breaking change, but a simple, yet effective tweak that makes tourism far more rewarding.
Concise UI
In a game like Civilization VI you can quickly get overloaded with information, and sometimes the UI doesn’t quite convey information in digestible amounts. On top of that, there are a few design choices that leave much to be desired. The Concise UI mod aims to add a bountiful list of quality of life changes without altering gameplay; information Concise UI might reveal is already available, but this makes it easier to see.
Starting off with citizens and buying tiles. These two have their own separate toggles in the base game, but Concise UI combines the two into one, allowing you to purchase tiles and deal with citizens with one click. Resources for each city are altered as well. Rather than list the full amount of resources a city puts out, this UI mod chances it to specify how much you get per turn, already taking into account the resources that a particular city uses each turn.
For major changes, the Great People panel is completely changed. The base game provides this really long panel with a lot of negative space. The mod shrinks the Great People screen to be far less convoluted.
Speaking of people, trading with other civilizations is a bit frustrating. It only needs a few tweaks, which Concise UI delivers. By having the ability to alter offerings in various bulk sizes make the trading way easier than before.
Zee’s Fewer Trade Offers
Are you tired of leaders bothering you with trade deals? We feel your pain. You want to play the game, not get on someone’s bad side simply because you denied them a trade offer for the millionth time. Zee’s Fewer Trade Offers increases the length of time before another civilization bothers you for something you have.
JFD’s Civilizations and Leaders
Those of you who’ve mastered every civilization are probably looking for greener pastures. What more is there? Why, more civilizations to master. With JFD’s Civilizations and Leaders mod, old and new civilizations are brought into the fold, many with their own unique traits not found in the base game.
What’s nice is the mod isn’t one big civilization pack; you can pick and choose who you want. Each civilization is its own stand-alone download, making your game a little more unique from others.
Sukritact’s Simple UI Adjustments
At some point in Civilization VI, you’ll end up with so many cities micromanaging is going to be a nightmare. You have to click on a city, then issue a command, or a task. Imagine doing that a dozen, or so times. Sukritact’s Simple UI Adjustments mod skips the clicking and provides an overview of your city. From there you can decide if it’s worth managing during your turn, or move on. Simple UI isn’t a huge UI overhaul like Concise UI is. In fact, that and Simple UI work really well together. Definitely use the two for maximum convenience.
Catastrophic Disaster Intensity
For Civ players with nerves of steel, playing on “Hyperreal” is already tough with the increased chances or natural disasters. Playing Civilization VI with Catastrophic Disaster Intensity mod makes “Hyperreal” feel like vanilla. Hell has come to Earth.
For starters, just about every turn, the map will experience some kind of disaster. To make matters worse, the more severe versions of said catastrophes are way more common, especially flooding. Coastal lowland tiles get hit hard with flooding due to an increase from 33 percent to 75 percent.
And you know those cool, dormant volcanoes you knowingly placed a city near? Well, every volcano on the map is active now. Basically, every nearby city ends up being Pompeii, minus Kit Harington.
Yet (not) Another Map Pack
You can’t have a list of Civilization VI mods without a map mod. Yet (not) Another Map Pack aims to provide a more immersive map, not just in style, but in size and culture as well. Starting locations, for example, are linked to the civilization you’ve chosen. Furthermore, maps get a massive growth spurt with additional map sizes such as Enormous, Giant, and Ludicrous—128×80, 180×94, and 200×100, respectively.
It’s important to note, however, the Gathering Storm update uncovered a few bugs when choosing the larger map sizes, specifically anything after “Enormous.”
