All Civilization 6 cities produce variable amounts of food that contribute to population growth. A city must produce more food than its citizens eat (two foods per turn) to grow. Increasing food output in Civilization 6 is important for expanding your population. The more people you have, the higher your civilization’s science and cultural output will be since each citizen generates 0.5 science and 0.2 culture. These are the ways you can increase cities’ food yields in Civilization 6 to accelerate population growth.
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Select the Food Yield Optimization Option
There are six yield optimization options you can select for cities, and among them is one for food. Select the Food radio button on its own to maximize food output for a city. Having that option selected for the duration of games will keep your cities focused on food production and sustain population growth across your civilization.
Add Farms, Pastures, Plantations, and Fishing Boat Improvements to Tiles
Improving tiles with farms, pastures, plantations, and fishing boats is among the more obvious ways to increase cities’ food output in Civilization 6. You can add farms to your cities’ tiles with builders from the outset of games. These are the food yield increases the tile improvements provide:
- Farm: +1 food and 0.5 housing
- Pasture: +1 food (Stirrup required)
- Fishing boat: +1 food and +2 food with Plastics researched
- Plantation: +1 food (Scientific Theory required)
Farms produce more food when added to adjacent tiles with Feudalism and Replaceable Parts researched. Adjacent farms will have +3 food yields when you’ve unlocked those technologies. Creating triangles with three farms is the best way to optimize their yields since each tile of the triangle can generate +5 food from two adjacent farms. So, keep your farms together to reap bigger harvests from them.
A farm
Build Buildings That Increase Food Output
Five buildings increase food output in Civilization 6. Building all those buildings after unlocking them will collectively increase food yields for a city by +7. These are the buildings for increasing food output in Civilization 6.
- Granary: +1 food
- Lighthouse: +1 food (Harbor required)
- Seaport: +2 food (Harbor required)
- Water Mill: +1 food
- Gurdwara: +2 food (Holy Site required)
The Water Mill building description
Obtain More Resources With Base Food Yields
There are numerous luxury and animal resources with base food yields. Adding plantations and pastures to them further increases their food yields. Establishing settlements closer to more luxury and animal resources will enable you to reap more food from them. These are the resources with base food yields:
- Rice: +1
- Bananas: +1
- Fish: +1
- Cattle: +1
- Sheep: +1
- Wheat: +1
- Horses: +1
- Niter: +1
- Wine: +1
- Sugar: +2
- Spices: +2
- Honey: +2
- Citrus: +2
Build Wonders of the World
There are two wonders of the world in the vanilla Civ 6 game that have food yield bonuses for certain tiles. Petra has a +2 food yield bonus for desert tiles in the city where it’s built. Huey Teocalli has a +1 food yield bonus for all lake tiles within your civilization. So, build those wonders to further increase some of your cities’ food output in Civilization 6.
The Petra wonder of the world
Establish Domestic Trade Routes
All domestic trade routes have at least a +1 food yield. However, this can be more depending on the districts the destination city for a route includes. Sending a trade caravan to another city in your empire will increase the food yield for the settlement you’re sending it from.
To further boost food yields for trade, select the Collectivization policy card. This policy provides a +4 food yield increase for all your domestic trade routes. Thus, all domestic trade routes will have minimal +5 food yields with that policy card selected. This makes domestic trade a good way to increase food output in Civilization 6.
Food yields for trade routes
Build Mbanza Districts
Mbanza is a unique Neighbourhood district you can only build when playing with Kongolese. This unique district has a +2 food yield. Thus, adding those to Kongolese cities will increase housing and food output in Civilization 6.
Select Pantheons With Food Yield Bonuses
A pantheon is a belief you can establish by accumulating 25 faith during the early game period. Select the Goddess of Festivals or Goddess of Hunt pantheons to increase your cities’ food output in Civilization 6. Goddess of Hunt provides a +1 food yield increase for camp tile improvements. The Goddess of Festival pantheon grants extra food yield for the cocoa, incense, tobacco, coffee, and tea plantations bonuses.
Add Stepwells to Tiles
India has a unique Stepwell tile improvement with which you can increase food yields for tiles when playing with that civilization. A Stepwell always increases food for the tile it’s on by at least one. However, it can increase food yield for a tile by +3 when placed beside a farm with the Professional Sport civic unlocked.
The Stepwell tile improvement
Establish Cities Near Some Natural Wonders
Natural wonders provide variable tile yield bonuses for cities established near enough to them. Some of those wonders have food yield bonuses either for tiles on them or adjacent ones. So, settle near these natural wonders when you can to increase your food output in Civilization 6:
- Cliffs of Dover: +2 food yields on its wonder tiles (+4 food in total)
- Great Barrier Reef: +3 food yields on its wonder tiles (+6 food in total)
- Mount Kilimanjaro: +2 food yields for all adjacent tiles
- Pantanal: +2 food yields for all its tiles (+8 food in total)
- Torres del Paine: Doubles all base yields for adjacent tiles
A natural wonder
Don’t let your people get hungry in Civilization 6. Keep your cities growing by increasing their food output in Civilization 6 with the methods discussed above. This will gradually increase your nation’s scientific and cultural output as your nation’s population grows. A bigger population will also increase your game score since each citizen in your empire adds one point to it.
