Trading is one of the best ways to boost your economy in Civilization 6. You can establish some international and domestic trade routes depending on how many Commercial Hub and Habor districts your cities have. The gold, production, food, culture, and science yields of your trade routes will vary depending on the districts in selected destination settlements. You can also optimize your Civilization 6 trade routes to increase their yields. Here are several ways to optimize trade routes in Civ 6.
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Establish More Trading Posts by Expanding Trade Routes
Trading posts automatically get built at every destination city for completed trade routes. The trading posts in foreign civilization cities add +1 gold to every route that passes by them. For example, three trading posts on a route for a caravan to pass by will generate +3 gold.
So, you can optimize your Civilization 6 trade routes simply by establishing more trading posts. To do that, you’ll need to choose more different cities to trade with rather than select to repeat the same routes. By selecting to establish trading posts with the most distant cities, you can also expand your civilization’s trade range.
An international trade route’s yields
Build the Great Zimbabwe Wonder
Building the Great Zimbabwe Wonder in a settlement will give trade routes sent from it a +2-gold bonus for each bonus resource within three tiles of its city center. For example, it will generate +6 gold for Civilization 6 trade routes if the city has three bonus resources within its territory no more than three tiles from its center. These are the bonus resources that can boost the gold yields of trade for a city with Great Zimbabwe:
- Cattle
- Crabs
- Fish
- Deer
- Maize
- Rice
- Sheep
- Wheat
- Stone
- Copper
- Bananas
The Great Zimbabwe Wonder
Establish Suzerainty of Amsterdam, Jarkta, and Kumasi
Three city-states in the base game offer Suzerain bonuses for optimizing Civilization 6 trade routes. Your trade routes will generate +1 gold for each luxury resource in selected destination cities when you’re the Suzerain of Amsterdam. For example, a destination city with two luxury routes will provide a +2 gold bonus for trade routes sent to it. Amsterdam is also an economic city-state that will boost your gold for envoys established at it.
Jakarta is another economic city-state that offers a Suzerian bonus for trade. Becoming the Suzerian of this city-state gives all your trading posts in foreign cities a +1-gold boost. Thus, this bonus effectively doubles the gold generated by trading posts.
The Amsterdam city-state
You can further optimize your Civilization 6 trade routes by establishing Suzerainty of the Kumashi city-state. Kumashi has a Suzerian bonus that adds +2 culture and +1 gold to trade routes for each district at their origin cities. For example, this Suzerian bonus will add +4 culture and +2 gold for a trade route established from an origin city with two speciality districts.
Play With a Civilization That Offers Trade Bonuses
Spain, Rome, Egypt, and Russia are four civilizations in the base Civ 6 game that offer leader or national trade bonuses. So, selecting to play with Trajan, Peter, Cleopatra, or Phillip II will immediately boost your Civilization 6 trade routes from the outset. These are the trade bonuses you’ll have when playing with those leaders:
- Philip II: Spain’s Treasure Fleet bonus gives your trade routes +3 gold, +2 faith, and +1 production, and that bonus is tripled for routes established between continents.
- Trajan: The Roman’s All Roads Lead to Rome ability automatically establishes trading posts that generate +1 gold on routes in all founded and captured cities.
- Cleopatra: This leader’s ability gives your international Civilization 6 trade routes a +4 gold boost. Plus, trade routes sent to Egypt from other civilizations will generate +2 gold.
- Peter: This leader’s Grand Embassy ability gives Russia’s trade routes to cities in civilizations three technologies ahead a +1-science boost. Establishing trade routes with civilizations three or more civics ahead of Russia boosts their culture yields by +1.
The Trajan leader
Select Policy Cards That Boost Trade Routes
Selecting policy cards that offer trade bonuses is one of the best ways to optimize your Civilization 6 trade routes. There are about eight policy cards, most of them economic ones, you can select that boost trade in different ways. However, you can’t select all of them at once. These are the best five policy cards for optimizing trade:
- E-commerce: E-commerce is the crème da la crème of trade policy cards that boosts your international Civilization 6 trade routes with a whopping +10 gold and +5 production yields.
- Trade Confederation: This policy card gives all your international trade routes a +1 science and +1 culture boost, enabling you to increase science and cultural output more through trading.
- Triangular Trade: The Triangular Trade card provides a +4 and +1 faith bonus for all your Civilization 6 trade routes.
- Collectivisation: Provides +4 food bonus for domestic trade routes in your civilization.
- Caravansaries: The Caravansaries policy card increases all your trade routes’ gold returns by +2.
Trade policy cards
Build More Districts in Your City For Domestic Trade
Domestic trade routes are those established between cities within your civilization. Although not as lucrative as international alternatives, domestic trade routes enable you to boost production and food yields in your cities. Any domestic trade route established will increase food and production at the origin city a caravan is sent from.
A domestic trade route
Districts in target cities determine the yields of domestic trading. Cities with more districts offer bigger food and production yields for domestic trade. So, you can optimize your domestic Civilization 6 trade routes by building more districts in your cities. These are the yields the districts provide for domestic trade routes:
- Industrial Zone: +1 production
- Entertainment Complex: +1 food
- Campus: +1 food
- Holy Site: +1 food
- Theater Square: +1 food
- Harbor: +1 production
- Commercial Hub: +1 production
- Encampment: +1 production
Establish an Economic Alliance (Rise of Fall DLC Only)
The Rise and Fall Civ 6 DLC includes different alliance types you can establish with other civilizations. Among them is an economic alliance with which you can optimize your Civilization 6 trade routes. Establishing an economic alliance provides a +4-gold bonus for all trade routes to cities within your allied civilization. You’ll also receive an additional +2 gold for trade routes to your cities set up by the allied civilization.
Optimizing your Civilization 6 trade routes in the ways outlined above will considerably boost their trading yields. Don’t underestimate the potential of trading in Civilization 6, for that’s one of the best ways to accumulate gold. More gold will enable you to purchase and upgrade units with greater regularity and expand your military. So, don’t neglect trade in Civ 6.
