[Top 15] Civilization VI Best Mods For A New Experience

Updated:

18 Sep 2023

Civilization VI is one of the best videogames ever created. It’s a constant placer in gaming’s “best of” lists, and has won countless awards since it first launched back in 2016. There really is no questioning its legacy. Thing is though, even the greatest and most beloved games can grow stale after some considerable amount of time, and Civilization VI is no exemption.

Thankfully Civilization VI, like all its predecessors in the series, is primarily a PC game, and PC gaming will always have one true advantage over the countless other gaming platforms out there—the abundance and ease of accessibility of mods. Solid modding has always brought even the stalest and deadest games back to life. Just ask Elder Scrolls and Fallout players why they still keep playing those games on a regular basis and they’ll definitely point out mods as the top reason. The same goes for Civilization VI these days.

Of course, there’s one small hitch when it comes to modding highly popular games with a robust modding community like Civilization VI—choosing the best ones to install. Don’t fret though, that’s what we’re here for after all. Here’s our list of Civ 6 mods that can provide you a fresh new gaming experience.15. Leugi's Garden District

15. Leugi's Garden District

Ever feel that the preserve district seems a bit lacking when it comes to providing representation for green spaces in Civ 6? Like it’s missing something that bridges the gap between nature and urban living? Well, wonder no more—that’s what the Garden District mod is for.

Like its name suggests, this mod adds a new district in the game called the Garden District. It’s a green space district like the Preserve but has a more urban-leaning theme for your more urban and industry-focused cities. It comes with fully-modeled buildings, each with their own unique cultural and economy-focused bonuses, as opposed to the Preserve’s that are more slanted towards science and food production.

How is Leugi's Garden District fun:

Adds an alternative to the Preserve that offers a different path to growth for your cities
Offers you better flexibility on how to build your cities
The custom models don’t look out of place from the base game design but still offers something new to look at

Get the mod here.

14. Enable Wonder on Mountains

If there’s one complaint I have with Civ 6 it’s that it feels a bit more claustrophobic than the previous games in the series. Building wonders and districts per tile can eat up real estate quickly, especially on smaller maps. Add to that the fact that those 2 aren’t buildable on mountain tiles, and clay really is a premium in this game.

Thankfully the Enable Wonder on Mountains mod exists. This solves some of that conundrum by, well, making Wonders buildable on top of mountain tiles. Now you’ve got a little bit more elbow room to work with when planning your civilization’s development sprawl.

How is Enable Wonder on Mountains fun:

Allows Wonders to be buildable on mountain tiles which lessens tile clutters
Lessens the complexity of planning city layouts which gives you more time to do something else more fun in the game
Offers you more room to wiggle when playing Civs with start biases around mountainous terrain

Get the mod here.

13. Swift – Faster Air Animation

Civilization VI has cool unit animations especially for a 4X game. The problem is they can take a while to play-out, which can be irritating when you’re moving tons of units in a single turn. One of the most glaring examples of this are fixed-wing air units, which can slow down your late-game gameplay dramatically. Sure, you can turn animations off but, well, that honestly makes the game really dull for most people.

That’s where the Swift – Faster Air Animation comes in. This mod makes those damn fighter planes and bombers move considerably faster. Now you don’t need to turn-off animations in the later part of the game just to save time and lose out on some of the eye candy that the game has to offer!

How is Swift – Faster Air Animation fun:

Allows you to save time later in the game by lessening your time spent watching redundant plane animations
Helps you enjoy the full Civilization VI eye-candy experience
No need to turn-off unit animations in late game eras which allows you to still see your fighters and bombers blow-up their targets

Get the mod here.

12. Aevum Modernum

Civilization 6’s endgame-look kinda lacks variety. Sure, there are some cosmetic variances based on cultural groupings, but Japan and India don’t really have that much in common in the real world, aside from both being located in Asia—especially on how they design things visually. Having them field units with the same visual design is pretty lazy game development, to be honest.

Good thing there’s the Aevum Modernum mod. It adds new, unique late-game units for some of the Civs with modern-day equivalents like the US, China, and Japan. Now there’s more variety, not just in looks, but actual units, when you hit the later eras!

How is Aevum Modernum fun:

Adds multiple late-game unique units per selected Civilization that brings them closer to their real-world counterparts
Offers new tactical options due to addition of new units
Gives the late-game look more variety visually due to the addition of new units

Get the mod here.

11. Dig Mountain & Fill Ocean

Build-space is definitely a premium in Civilization VI. With the new, more sprawl-oriented city-building mechanic that the game introduced, sometimes playing Civ 6 can feel a bit claustrophobic. This is especially evident in smaller maps, though larger maps aren’t that too different either, since you tend to play with more Civs on bigger maps anyway.

Well, Dig Mountain & Fill Ocean mod aims to alleviate some of that problem by allowing you to construct units capable of converting water tiles into land tiles, and mountain tiles into hill tiles. This gives the player the ability to free-up more space on the map. It even allows you to create entire continents if you are diligent and patient enough!

How is Dig Mountain & Fill Ocean fun:

Allows you to create new land tiles over water and mountain tiles so you could expand your cities more
You can create entirely new landmasses to settle on in-game
Comes with some semi-random landscaping mechanics that will keep you guessing on how your newly created tile would turn-out

Get the mod here.

10. What Did I Promise?

A huge chunk of Civilization VI’s single-player experience is dedicated towards how you and the AI interact with each other. It’s a core gameplay mechanic that honestly gives you a sense of agency in your playthrough. One vital aspect of this mechanic is making promises to the AI in exchange for their continued good relations toward you. The thing is, for all its incredible importance, there really isn’t a tool to track these proclamations in-depth so a lot of times you end up breaking these promises without actually intending to do so. The What Did I promise? Mod solves this.

The mod provides you detailed pop-up reminders whenever you are about to break a promise you made to an AI. It comes fully with its own custom tooltips, lenses, and panels. A very useful quality of life improvement, right?

How is What Did I Promise? Fun:

Helps you avoid accidentally breaking promises to the AI by updating you constantly if you are about to violate those promises
Helps you avoid souring relations with the AI accidentally by keeping track of your promises and your units’ status regarding them
Helps you avoid backtracking into reloading earlier saves due to broken promises that result in disastrous relations with a competing Civ

Get the mod here.

9. Cruise Missile Artilleries

One thing about modern warfare is the propagation of long-range, smart precision weapons like cruise missiles and hypersonic weapons. Civ 5 used to have these weapons well-represented. For some reason Civ 6 seems to have strayed away from it altogether.

The Cruise Missile Artilleries mod brings this aspect of modern warfare back into Civ 6. It adds three new missile artillery units, the Subsonic, Supersonic, and Hypersonic Cruise Missile Artilleries. Now you can hit targets from further away without relying on jet fighters and bombers to do the dirty work.

How is Cruise Missile Artilleries fun:

Adds three new artillery units spread out through several techs in the digital era
Offers you new strategies with the addition of these stand-off weapons
Changes the way wars are waged with intel and spotter units playing an even more crucial role due to fighting from longer distances

Get the mod here.

8. CypRyan's Wide & Tall

One of the biggest changes Civilization VI implemented is the shift of the game meta towards “playing wide” as opposed to “playing tall.” “Tall” is a Civ playing style that focuses on lesser cities while maximizing those cities’ productivity and yields. “Wide” on the other hand is grabbing as much land as you can by founding as many cities as you can without much regard to its development. With how the yield values of cities have been changed in Civ 6, playing “tall” has basically been gimped in favor of playing “wide.”

CypRyan's Wide & Tall mod seeks to remedy that primarily through a combination of tweaking yield numbers, adding new tall-oriented policy cards, and building extensions. It also modifies some of the great persons available in the game, and adds a new city project and Era Dedication. With those changes, founding fewer but highly-developed cities is a viable path to victory in Civ 6 once more.

How is CypRyan’s Wide & Tall fun:

Allows you to explore a completely new playstyle by tweaking some numbers and adding new content
Makes it possible to found a smaller civilization in terms of territory yet on par with riches and growth to larger civs—giving you the means to do more with less
Reduces the headache of keeping track with all that’s happening in one’s civ due to having fewer cities and lesser territory to cover

Get the mod here.

7. Diplomatic Quarter Expanded ULTIMATE

The Diplomatic Quarter is probably the most underwhelming district in the game—far more than even the breezy Preserve. You can only build one per civ, and the buildings it comes with aren’t exactly the best stats-wise. It’s practically useless, and a total waste of space even if it technically only takes up a single tile.

The Diplomatic Quarter Expanded Ultimate mod changes all that. For starters, you can now build it in every city which makes for a huge difference in its value since you can finally make use of its yields in more than one city. It also comes with a number of new buildings per development tier, and you can pick among those depending on the type of yield focus your city is going for. There are also a number of new district projects available, and a whopping 14 new diplomatic policy cards on top of it!

How is Diplomatic Quarter Expanded ULTIMATE fun:

Reworks an underwhelming part of the game
The policy cards and other additions add more avenues on how to build your cities
Comes with its own custom skin and model that doesn’t look out of place with the vanilla game design

Get the mod here.

6. Alliances Expanded

The Alliance system in Civilization VI is literally limited to 4. In games with just a handful of civs that number is more than enough. You can do plenty of wheeling and dealing with only 4 Alliance types to work with. The problem is when you’re nuts for playthroughs with a ton of civs involved. Suddenly 4 is just too few for a game with more than 20 civs scattered through the map.

The Alliances Expanded mod fixes that limitation. It adds 4 new Alliance types you could enter into with other civs, doubling the maximum amount of available alliances to 8! On top of that, it also overhauls the way Alliances level-up, making it evolve in a more organic and impactful manner as opposed to vanilla Civ’s more blander version.

How is Alliances Expanded fun:

Allows you to enter in more Alliance pacts that alters the global power balance of the game
The 4 new Alliance types add more dynamism to the game through their unique yields
Allows you to roleplay more massive geopolitical power blocs to squash rival civs

Get the mod here.

5. Civilizations Expanded: Mod Collection

Some players find the civ unique abilities, buildings, improvements, and districts underwhelming. Numbers-wise they might just have a case for believing so. It’s pretty hard to argue against it when you see yourself struggling to hold together a handful of cities, while the AI has already dotted the map with dozens of cities at Deity difficulty even when playing in conditions that your unique abilities are more favored to excel in.

That’s where installing the Civilizations Expanded: Mod Collection can help you out. It buffs the numbers of all the unique civ stuff across the board, and adds a handful of sensical reworks like all civs being able to work mountain tiles, and the Nobel Prize competition occurring even without Sweden in the game. Even though it also affects the AIs, you still don’t find yourself lagging behind in-game anymore since the buffs are well enough into a threshold that it improves your competitiveness towards the AI even on unequal footing due to difficulty-level buffs.

How is Civilization Expanded: Mod Collection fun:

Brings your output potential closer to AI at deity-level difficulty
You don’t feel gimped anymore against the AI at higher difficulties
You don’t need to download AI-nerfing mods which can break the game’s difficulty formula

Get the mod here.

4. JNR’s Project 6T

Ever feel that there are a number of things missing in Civilization 6 when it comes to the content of techs and eras? Like, there should be more stuff included when you research a tech or culture, but you just can’t think of something specific because you’re not exactly as well-versed in mankind’s over 5000 years of historical, cultural, and technological development? Well, it’s a good thing that prolific civ modder JNR is around since he did all the thinking, planning, adding, and coding for you!

Project 6T adds tons of content into the game that specifically fills-in the units and government types that are missing in-between stuff in the game. It aims to fill the “empty” techs and cultures with era-appropriate units, bridging the gaps where the game seemingly left-off some crucial units and inventions. Now you don’t have to wonder why there are things like the lack of self-propelled artillery units in the game when it should be in-between the howitzer and rocket artillery development-wise in real-world progression!

How is JNR’s Project 6T fun:

Adds tons of units with their very own custom models
Comprehensive additional content that is well researched and doesn’t break the game’s core ideas
Adds a lot of new things to explore that can have great impact on how your playthrough can unfold

Get the mod here.

3. Age of Capital

Some luxury resources in Civilization VI are only obtainable when you do specific things like becoming the suzerain of a particular city state, or getting Great Merchants. This is a fun little mechanic that is close to real-world circumstances on how we get access to a lot of manufactured goods these days. Thing is, there’s just too few of them around in Civ VI. That’s what the Age of Capital mod actually fixes.

The Age of Capital mod adds 9 new manufactured goods into the game, spread out through the later eras. It also changes the amenity values that you gain from luxury and bonus resources, buffing them, which helps you support cities with larger populations—perfect for people who prefer to play tall.

How is Age of Capital fun:

Adds new luxury resources which helps with overall immersion
The increased number of resources offers you some more wiggle-room when it comes to dealing with AI Civs
Buffs resource values so that you have way more flexibility when choosing to play tall

Get the mod here.

2. JNR’s Urban Complexity

One of the biggest changes that Civilization 6 introduced is the district feature. Personally, I think it’s a very innovative and great addition to the game, and is pretty much the right direction to take in shaking-up the long-running series for the better. The thing is though, just because something is great doesn’t mean you can’t improve on it—and that’s precisely what JNR’s Urban Complexity mod does.

The Urban Complexity mod aims to provide more depth to building and developing your cities, primarily by reworking the district system. The mod does this by adding tons of new buildings and dividing them into several progression chains, grouped together by the type of yield they output, and making them exclusive of each other. This offers new choices on how the player plans to streamline his city’s focus output. This is especially useful when you plan to play tall due to its focus and buffs on streamlined city output.

How is JNR’s Urban Complexity fun:

Adds tons of new content into the game that completely reshapes how you play Civ 6
Comes with its own well-made tool-tips and custom models
Adds more complexity and depth to the game by reworking districts, especially the more underutilized ones like the Aqueduct, Government, and the Neighborhood districts

Get the mod here.

1. Yet (not) Another Maps Pack

Civilization 6’s map generator kinda sucks. It’s very generic and you can’t really have much input on how you want your new playthrough’s map to shape like. This is quite a disappointment since maps are, well, where your games will be set, and you really want some form of control in creating the place where you’ll spend hours of your life playing in.

The Yet (not) Another Maps Pack, despite what its name implies, isn’t just a map pack. It also comes with a comprehensive improvement of the in-game map configuration panel where you can tweak anything from resource abundance, down to individual continent shapes, and civ starting positions. This solves the lack of control when it comes to shaping the map’s creation that the vanilla Civ 6 map config has.

Oh, and the included pre-made maps aren’t too bad either. It includes different full Earth maps in several sizes complete with true starting locations for all civs in the game, and continental and regional maps.

How is Yet (not) Another Maps Pack fun:

Helps you create more detailed maps that you can tweak more according to your preferences
Adds additional bigger map size options that can accommodate more civs per playthrough
Comes with highly-detailed real-world maps with true starting locations for civs so that you can roleplay a more real-world oriented campaign

Get the mod here.