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Civilization 6 (Switch) Beginners Guide 2: builders and military icons

Here we are back again with some more Tips for Civilization 6, a game that can be daunting when you are new to it. This Civilization 6 Guide is for Beginners but also for players who once played one of the older games. You might pick up some tips!

The first part of the Beginners Guide can be found here. And as we expect to make the guide bigger in the upcoming week, every article is listed in this special page. Civilization 6 Switch Beginners Guide

Certain tiles/hex’s in Civilization 6 naturally provide food, wealth and other items, but many hex’s can be improved by a builder. Or you can concentrate on making your armed forced really count. It’s imperative that you know what the icon’s mean. So for this part of the guide, we will check out in-depth what the icon’s are on your builders’ or military units.

Builder units. What are these icons for?

Let’s start with a builder’s icon’s.

Check out the image beneath, and look at the icons on the bottom row of the four little pics. Moving from left to right along the bottom row of icon’s on the builders control box, the icon’s are:

  • Skull- Destroy Builder:
    not used often, you don’t want to destroy them!
  • Spanner- Repair Hex (top left)
  • Arrow-Move Builder
  • Curved arrow- Skip Turn:
    Skip Turn is what it says, got nothing for your builder to do then you can skip that turn or in the case of sleep put him to sleep and he won’t move until you click on the builder again.
  • Crescent Moon- Sleep
  • Sickle- Harvest Resources (bottom right):
    You can use the sickle to clear a hex of resources before placing something on the hex, it’s a great way to have a few extra food or whatever was on the hex.

Now, check out the image above in combination with the image beneath, and look at the icons on the top row of each of the four little pics of the builders’ control box. Moving from left to right along the top row of icon’s on the builders control box, the icon’s are:

  • Bulldozer– Remove/destroy
  • House -Build Far.
  • Trees– Plant Trees
  • Mine Cart– Build Mine
  • Pick axe– Build Quarry
  • Livestock-Cattle, sheep etc.
  • Logs-lumber mill
  • Tent-Camp
  • Net– Fishing boats.

These are the icon’s for  improvements that you can make to a hex. Of course it depends on how far you are along the Technology Tree to trigger what icons you will see. Plus, the sort of hex your builder is on will depend on what icon is available to you at that time.

For instance the pick axe icon won’t appear for you to build a quarry until you have completed Mining in the technology, but since it’s one of the first techs on the tree you won’t have to wait to long.

Military units: What are these icons for?

Moving on to some different units now, this time it’s your military units.  Along the bottom of their control box from left to right the icon’s are:

  • Emblem– Promotion Available For Unit.
  • Skull– Destroy Unit
  • Cog– Automatic Exploration
  • Bullseye– Ranged Attack
  • Up Arrow– Upgrade unit costs gold.
  • Arrow– Move Unit
  • Sun– Wake up Unit
  • Circle with line– Cancel Order
  • Shield with circle– Alert
  • Solid Shield– Fortify Unit
  • Shield with cross line–  Fortify Until Heal
  • Curved Arrow– Skip Turn

Of course depending on what  military unit’s you are using some of the icons will be different from unit to unit, like the ranged attack icon on an archers control box which doesn’t appear on the warriors control box as the warriors don’t have a ranged attack.

If you Fortify a military unit it will stay on a hex and receive a defensive bonus for each turn it’s fortified. If you heal a unit it  will heal 5HP in an enemy territory per turn, 10HP in neutral  territory, 15HP in friendly territory and 20HP in a City.

With automatic exploration your unit will explore the map, if they come across anything of interest you will be notified in the notification panel, I usually send out at least two units and or scouts at the start of the game as you never know who or what they will find.

The ultimate tips for a beginner: be kind to yourself!

Keeping track of your units

Don’t forget that you can keep track of your builder and other units by pressing the left joy stick in when you have another unit highlighted and a handy list of every one of your available units on the map, pick the one you want and the game will wiz you to their location on the map.  As the picture above shows.

Be kind to yourself, start small

Civilization games in general can be overwhelming when you are new to the series and Civilization 6 is no exception. My biggest tip for new players is be kind to yourself and pick a tiny or small map with only a couple of other Civilizations on it, say a two or four player game on a Settler setting.

A large map with the full eight Civilizations will have a lot going on at one time and can be a bit hectic to follow. If you wish turn of barbarians raids in the advance settings and you won’t have to go hunting barbarians camps either, use the games advance setting to tailor the game your likening until you feel you understand the progress of the game.

Have fun until the next time.

😀

 

One comment

  1. Thanks!!
    I didn’t know about the ‘keeping track of you units’ option!
    Gonna try it next play. From your picture it looks like it also shows units that are ‘sleeping’.
    That’s super helpful because I have more than once lost units because I just couldn’t find them anymore.

    I knew you could harvest resources of a tile (before building something on it) but I keep forgetting about it, even though the game reminds and warns you (“This action will remove the forest”). I push the button and than think ” Noooo, I did it again”
    But there is so much to think about..

    Extra Builder tip :
    Builders are not linked to the city that build them.
    So can build a builder in a city and sent him to another city to improve tiles.
    (very handy for when you have founded a new city and can immediately improve tiles)
    Be aware, you only see the ‘improve tile icon’ for the tiles of the city your builder is in. But walk to a tile of another city and you can see all the tiles you can improve in that city.

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