Try to build a Campus next to mountains or a rainforest so you can get adjacency bonuses. Generally building a Campus (available after researching writing) is a good next step once walls and Settlers have been taken care of, and they are good to build in cities that don’t have high production. Walls are available after researching Masonry.
Unless on an island building defensive walls around your city is a great item to build next when enemies are close by or if you are playing on a higher difficulty setting. If there are immediate threats keep your city’s defenses in mind. Keep building Settlers and expanding until you have a good reason not to, then take out the weaker and less friendlier civilizations close by. Keep building Settlers until you can’t expand anymore and build at least two Settlers before constructing your first district. Your available population will be the most limiting factor to doing this at first. If there are no immediate threats keep building Settlers and expanding. After a kill they can be upgraded to Archers much more quickly. This unit provides an excellent defense against Barbarians and hostile neighbors alike, and killing enemy units, like Barbarians, can lead to quick improvements for your Slinger units.
On the other hand, if Barbarians are nearby (they usually are) a Slinger is a good idea as a next build item instead since cities can’t defend themselves at the start of the game, unlike Civilization V. Neither one of those is a good option for a budding empire. If you don’t you could end up being boxed into an area that’s not very favorable resource wise, or be stuck in an area with limited space to expand in. If another civilization is close by, then contrary to your first instinct build a Settler instead of a military unit next (unless the new civilization is openly hostile to you) so you can claim the land in that general direction to block him or her from advancing in your direction. The second item to build depends on what you’ve discovered in the surrounding area with your Warrior. Of course, the higher the difficulty level of the game the harder it is going to be to “play nice” with them, meaning more military units will need to be built earlier. If there are other civilizations close to you, you need to know how warlike or peaceful they are as well since it can also affect what you build next.
If a city-state is close by you want to become its friend as soon as you can before other empires sway it into their sphere of influence. They can roll back the fog in the surrounding area much more quickly than other units due to their speed. Scouts are much more well-suited for scouting than Warriors because of their added mobility.
Having a Scout will free up your Warrior unit to defend your city until a Slinger becomes available. While your Scout is being built explore the area with your Warrior, just be sure to not let him wander too far away, you need him close by to counter any Barbarian threats. You need to know what’s in your general vicinity since it can make a difference about what you build next. Early Game Build OrderĪfter founding your first city (check out my where to settle page for help in founding your first city), regardless of what type of victory you are working toward build a Scout first. The third item to build will almost always be a Settler if it wasn’t the second choice. The next item to build depends on what your Warrior finds while exploring, generally it will be a Slinger to defend your city from Barbarian attacks. In Civilization VI the first thing to build is a Scout, regardless of what victory condition you are striving for. As a beginner Chieftain is a good difficulty level to start at and is the difficulty level this article is based on. The guidelines in this article include the Gathering Storm DLC, and that is the ruleset that was used. The thing to remember is to tailor your eventual builds to the victory condition you have in mind, although that isn’t always possible in the very early game.
But there are some general guidelines that will definitely help a beginning player get started. Civilization VI is a very complex game making it impossible to create a build order that suites every type of situation or victory condition.