Welcome to a guide on how to break Civilization VI. Without any sort of cheating program, without even abusing anything resembling a glitch. Just a bunch of developer oversights and questionable balance decisions leading to one, massive exploit strategy that you may or may not have encountered in Multiplayer, to the point where most lobbies have already banned it in a few days after the game's release

However, fear not. Not only is this exploit "legit", as you're only using the game's mechanics as written and coded in, but it is also not dependant on your start or conditions after start, making it virtually universal. Well, unless you spawn in some hellhole with no trees, no strategic resources, no yields. In which case a restart might be in order even during normal gameplay.

Do note that as far as this guide goes, it's deprived of visual elements, as my awful collage of a guide image might hint. I'll try to make the read not too painful, so hang on

Also, if you are reading this in the near to distant future, this might very well not work anymore as it relies on gameplay exploits available on the release version, at which point it will probably just be up for archive purposes. So if you are reading this in a year or two, don't be surprised if it doesn't work.

So, ready to learn how to literally flood the map with your units and cities in less than 100 turns, meaning certain death for your opponents from there on out ? Let's begin

Civilization VI being a brand new game, you might have heard about everything and its contrary when it comes to the famous "Starting Build Order" you need to use when starting a game. Scout - Builder - Slinger ? Scout - Scout - Monument ? Scout - Warrior - Slinger - Builder ?

Well, I'm here to tell you the one build order that you should really be following. And it is :

Production : Builder - Builder - Builder - (Slinger) - (Settler) - Builder - ...
Civics : Code of Laws - Craftmanship - Military Tradition
Research : Mining - Bronze Working - Animal Husbandry - Horseback Riding

Oh yes, this exploit is going in deep into the balance issues of Civilization VI. But it doesn't just stop at "Create Builders and Improve Stuff". Oh no, because that's where the exploit part comes in. But before getting into it, we need to get a basic sitrep of what is going to happen to us with that sort of build order :

• You will be quite deprived when it comes to scouting. You'll have about 10 turns of free scouting with your warrior before he's forced to run back home to guard against the tide of Barbarians. So drop that "Foreign Trade" Eureka unless you are lucky enough to spawn between two continents
  
• We will be getting all the Eurekas we can get for improvements. And you should, science is king, but we'll get to that in the next part
  
• Our capital will be growing extremely quickly once Bronze Working is done, if we have jungles around. And both Production and Money will never, ever be an issue. But again, we'll get to that in a moment
  
• We will be -quite- vulnerable to Barbarians. So what ? No seriously, so what ? What do they have to pillage, our hopes and dreams ? The one farm we built to prove Irrigation was possible ? And our Builders can outrun melee units just fine. Now Horse camps are another story, so if you see Barbarian Horsemen around, try to drop in another early unit or two between the Builders
  
• We will be settling soon, so try to be efficient when scouting. Although, we will be "scouting with our Builders", so to speak.

Which brings us, finally, to the next part. What to do with all these Builders.

First and foremost, do not ever use your last Builder's charge, delete him instead. We'll talk about it in a bit, it will make sense

Then, just use your Builder's charge to improve Eureka resources at first to get said Eurekas (Resource Farm/Resource Mine/Quarry/Pasture). Try to get Craftmanship's Inspiration while you are there, we're going to need it to spiral out of control. No reason to miss out on all the free Science, and the Pasture Eureka is especially important if you have Horses as Horseback Riding is an expensive tech to beeline towards without.

And this is where the exploit kicks in. Once you are out of resources to improve, cut forests. All of them. Everywhere.

Now, you may ask, "Why would I cut forests, they give me extra yields ? And what about the ones outside my borders ? I can't cut them for full, right ?"

Yes, yes you can. Cutting gives you a lot of production (a single forest cut, on Standard speed, is 21 hammers in the Ancient Era, scaling with era and techs) and you can cut outside of your borders without any loss.

So then, you may ask. "My Builder Charges are kinda limited, and you told me to not use the last one too. I'm not going to break even doing this"

Sell (i.e. Delete button) your Builder once he's down to his last charge. Yes, even outside of your borders, he'll sell normally. Yes, even if he just improved/cut something, deleting is a free action, you can do it once out of moves. He sells for half price no matter how used (50 % of buying value, which is free money if you built it and a partial refund if you bought it) and two sold Builders allow you to buy a third one straight out of the box.

Or buy other things, which is where the amazing part of this exploit kicks in. You are now getting free production and free gold out of getting rid of every single forest (and soon Jungle, once Bronze Working is done) on Earth

You may ask, "how much gold and producion ?". On Standard, in the Ancient Era, 110 Gold and 45 Hammers per Builder. This is a ton, imagine how many turns it would take to get either with your starting city, even if you used your starting Builder to improve everything. And this kicks in in about 3 turns, instead of 7-10, which means you can instantly create units and buildings to get the ball rolling

Even better. Once Bronze Working is done, cut the Jungles. They give only 13 Hammers, but they also give 13 Food. Food means growth. Suddenly your poor, starved capitals grows a few million people overnight as your Builders venture forth and deforestate the Amazon forest early, and immediately work tiles to sustain themselves. And from here, your empire is quickstarted with even more production and gold to spare. And this is where the fun part begins, because we're still in the Ancient Era, and now new options are opening to us as we finish techs like Craftmanship or Horseback Riding, and our Settler gets ready to expand our empire

With Craftmanship done, you get access to a fun little Civic policy called "Ilkum". The name might sound obscure to you (Babylonian National Conscription, to put it simply), but the effect will not. You produce Builders 30 % faster, which in gameplay terms means that for 1 Production inputted into a Builder, you get 1.3 Production towards building it. This means you can catch up to Builder cost ramping up for every global build and get a net gain in Production from your explorating Builders demolishing the world's ecosystem

And then, comes the Pyramids. One extra charge and a free builder. This is the most powerful synergy you will get until Serdom, and much later Public Works. In the Classical Era, you now get 32 Production per cut, so one four charge Builder now yields 96 Production and 110 Gold

But the meat of the strategy doesn't end here. Now you have access to Horsemen. You might want to build an Encampment to make things easier, then simply slot Maneuver in. Double production. This makes all mounted units half as cheap to produce, and they're already cheap

So, you have a tide of Horsemen who can murder any city, just get six around the city, a few in reserve for casualties, and you basically win any and every fight. Use your early Horsemen rush to kill a few civilizations, and you are unstopabble. But what if you can't do that ? Maybe the sea or ocean is in the way, or your neighbours spawned very far away this time, or they're just maybe a little too strong, Deity oblige ? Also, how do you deal with the immense mainteance costs ?

Sell your Horsemen. Half production Horsemen sell for half the buying cost still, even if horribly damaged, or surrounded by six units and at 1 HP on the other side of the map. As you might have noticed, units cost a ton of money to buy. And I'm sure you'll have the audacity of asking me "Well, I can't produce anything else !". Just buy it. Reserve cutting for when you have to hard build a district or wonder

You can build Horsemen until the Industrial Era and Cavalry, although the Civic card "upgrades" will force you to switch to Knights eventually, so you can do this endlessly. Every city set to building and selling Horsemen, and cut yourself districts and wonders you need. Now that is the life

And what if you don't have Horses ? Then you'll have to do the less efficient version of the exploit. If you have Iron, you can still beeline to Knights (which don't require Horses, apparently), otherwise just build Archers. Sellable, used for an important Eureka (Machinery), easy to build, and useful for defense against Barbarians. Early unique units may also apply, like Hoplites, War Carts, Saka Horse Archers or Eagle Warriors. They require no resources and often are worth more than their base unit.

If you are playing China or the Aztecs, you can also buy Builders and use them to rush wonders or districts respectively, but we'll talk more in depth about that later. And as you can guess, Scythia is crazy with this, also coming up later

By now, you should have dozens of Horsemen roaming around the map, covering everything with their four movements, crushing city states and newly-met civilizations alike under a sea of hooves. Either that or more money than all the civilizations of the world combined, and fully improved and up-to date cities with plenty of money to spare to get new ones

Get Serfdom as soon as possible. No comments should be needed here, the extra charges allow you to send single Builders out to remove the few tiles of forests hiding on the coldest and most isolated parts of your home continent, to squeeze the last few hammers of production easily available to you

So, where do we go from here ? By now your home continent has probably been completely rid of forests, but hopefully you should have campuses, holy sites, theaters, commercial districts and industrial zones kicking in all of your worthy cities, replacing the steady income from cutting with the steady income of industry. So the next step is obvious, colonizing a new continent and cutting all its forests. Just build and buy yourself a colony in a kit, a Caravel, a Frigate, a good melee and ranged unit, a Settler and a Builder. From here, your new colony will very quickly become a massive, powerful city as you exploit all the woods left on the continent with Renaissance-tier efficiency

From here, the game is on autopilot. Find the last civilizations, and introduce them to the way of the new Genghis Khan, or make an easy beeline for Cultural or Science, or create tides of missionaries and apostles with all your holy sites and purchased buildings for a religious victory

Remember to disband completely stranded units to get some worth back

All civilizations have their own unique take on this strategy, depending on their unique abilities, units, buildings, improvements or districts.

Civilizations in order :

• France : Due to double tourism from all wonders, cutting allows you to very rapidly get all the wonders in the game, replacing the Horseman spam strategy. Perhaps one of the most peaceful strategies, just win by Culture before the AI even knows what happened to it. The +20 % production to Medieval, Renaissance and Industrial wonders might sound off-topic, but this means every 1 Production is worth 1.2 towards the wonder. Which includes cutting ! Everything else in this civ is worthless however, from the early Spy and diplomatic visibility, to the unique unit, to the unique improvement
  
• Egypt : Iteru is actually extremely useful, because as stated above the +15 % production bonus includes cutting yield. This means you can wonder spam harder than Ramsesses on crack. The trade route bonus is nice but off-topic. The Sphink has its uses. Finally, the Heavy Chariot Archer is Egypt's Horseman rush. Rain down arrows on them, and then maybe sneak in a single Horseman for the cap, or a Scout. Something fast
  
• Germany : The free district slot per city is okay, and helps to run away to victory once the early strategy is done if Domination victory is no longer realistically attainable. Holy Roman Emperor is absolutely incredible and allows you to massacre city states with absolute impunity, along with getting a free card slot to put alongside your cavalry policy, probably maintenace costs. The Hansa helps further with running away to victory. U-Boat is just useless, you'll have won by then
  
• India : India is also unconventional with this strategy just like France. You are forced to be at peace with major civilizations to get good use of your unique abilities (and ironically, not murdering them). The Varu (replaces Horsemen, reduces combat strength of adjacent units) however is right in there and obscenely powerful, and doesn't need horses. You might very well want to neuter all the civilizations in the game using your Horseman replacement, and then permanently unite the world in peace and -your- religion
  
• Sumeria : Half gold to levy city state militaries is useless. Free village boosts from killing barbarian camps is obscenely good and gives you a good reason to ruthlessly purge all Barbarians on the map to get the linked boosts. Your War Cart is obscenely good with this strategy, up to the point where it can replace the Horseman and lead to insanely early conquering
  
• Greece (Gorgo) : Wildcard slot is extremely useful and allows you to slot anything or everything, and even get Scientists and Prophets going early. Culture from kills needs no comment, it's incredible. Hoplite however is an oddball. Certainly useful in MP to counter said strategy, if your game allows it. Acropolis is fun, I guess
  
• Norway : Being able to enter Ocean early allows you to try and rush a Domination victory on non-Pangea maps (and even then, civs might be on the other side of the world, making the ocean crossing faster). Naval raiding can help weaken civs before your Horsemen tides rush in. Stave Church is incredibly bad since it gets adjacency from Woods (*cough*). Berserker and Longboat are okay in their niches, although you won't be building the former for obvious reasons
  
• Japan : Meiji Restoration makes cutting districts early obscenely good. Being able to build Theaters, Encampments and Holy Sities in half the time is just great, and the combat bonus has its uses. Samurai is useless. Electronics Factory can help wrap up the game with a well-placed beeline to Electricity
  
• Aztecs : Being able to build 20 % of a district with a Builder charge needs no comment, it has incredible synergy with this strategy if you ran out of Woods but have tons of gold around, leaving only Wonders to hard build. Improving luxuries early is important to make your Horseman rush ultra-powerful, and your Eagle Warrior will do short work of city states and neighbour civs early and allow you to spiral out of control by using all the extra Builders to cut and speed up things everywhere. The unique building is okay, I suppose
  
• Kongo : The unique ability is aimed towards culture victories, although having 5 slots in the Palace instead of 1 certainly helps drain those early Writers. Religious Convert allows you to ignore the religion game and focus on other things. Your unique unit is useless, and your unique district is obscenely good in allowing you to grow ultra-tall if used properly
  
• Brazil : Adjacency for rainforest ? I think not, Pedro. 20 % rebate on great people purchases helps abuse the early districts to stack the entire GP pool. Battleship is useless. Unique district is okay in its own uses
  
• Greece (Pericles) : See Greece (Gorgo). A bit worse off, we don't want to spare city states, we want to conquer them. I guess he might afford to spare them, barely
  
• Russia : Extra tiles and Tundra production boost has its own use. Grand Embassy is absolutely useless and a crutch ability if you've seen one. Lavra is okay but off-topic
  
• Spain : Treasure Fleets has it owns uses and helps reward you for your rapid and powerful expansions. El Escorial will very often be available, allowing you to kick AIs around even harder. The Conquistador is useless (not even mounted this time around), and the Mission is marginally okay
  
• China : Boosted Eurekas and Inspirations are always useful, no comment there, this helps get the ball rolling quicker. Boosting wonders with Builders is great, free charge on Builders from the start of the game is awesome. The cannon and the Great Wall are both worthless, but the three unique abilities makes this civ the best in the game for the peaceful side of the strategy
  
• Arabia : Crutch prophet is meh, you might not even ever activate it due to eliminating other civilizations early (bringing total religions below or equal to total civs alive to found one). Faith purchase on faith building is broken, and free, so here's that. Mamluk is obscenely good for a mid-game rush using Knights
  
• America : Founding Fathers is okay, but irrelevant. Rough Riders can be used for a second wind in the late eras if your victory is not done yet, and the hill fighting bonus helps cavalry where it otherwise wouldn't shine. Otherwise hard to synergize well
  
• Scythia : The one and only, the real winner against Huns and Mongols alike. Saka Horse Archers do not require Horses, allowing you to recover from an awful start, but the double horse units (minus Knights and Tanks) and the 50 HP heal on kills are what makes Scythia the most OP civilization in the game. It's not uncommon to literally cover the map with your units after a bit, or get ungodly amounts of money due to the double units you can sell (or sell one unit, use the other)
  
• Rome : Rome can very rapidly spiral out of control with this strategy, Domination-wise. Every city you found or conquer gets a free Monument, which increases the speed of getting all your new cities online, and roads will quickly go to Rome, allowing you to send full-speed Horsemen everywhere on the map to deal with virtually anything. The Legion is useless unless you are forced into a no-resource start. Baths are interesting and can help growth
  
• England : England is the most useless civilization in the entire game with this strategy, although many may argue they are equally useless in the base game. Nothing synergizes, and all their abilities are useless, outside of selling the one free melee unit you get per settle on a different continent. Must be punishment for the Brexit

That's done, now left is explaining a bit of the behind-the-scenes tricks

The main reason why this strategy even works is that you get just a few Production less for cutting with your Builder and selling the last charge than for producing it, and you also get this yield back quickly which allows you to quickly get other buildings down. Finally, by chaining Builders, you slowly go towards buying a "free Builder", which allows you to actually create raw production out of this combo while other civilizations struggle to get started with their normal setups, especially due to having to output military units too early in anticipation of the Barbarians, when you can cut one and have it output immediately

Furthermore, being able to buy a Builder and have him cut a district or wonder into completion is extremely powerful, and can be used to rapidly beeline important wonders

Once you get the Pyramids and later Serfdom, you get a massive extra yield per Builder as long as you can find forests to cut down, leading to a rapid and decisive spiral out of control until your whole continent is out of forests

Once you are out of forests, it's time to switch to mass producing units and selling them to get the money to buy buildings. You will probably get enough money to buy buildings faster than you can hard produce them due to the mid-game production crunch, the immense production boost policies for military units, and the lack of good production boosts for buildings

Furthermore, once you are completely out of things to buy, you can use the gold to siphon the GP pool. 5000 gold to steal a GP from nothing sounds a lot less expensive when you can sell for 400 gold every two or three turns from the Classical Era onwards, all the while still developing your empire

A possible sub-strategy is to avoid cutting until both Serfdom and the Pyramids are done, both to get Medieval's cutting bonus, get a chance to get the lumber mill boost before forests literally disappear from the game and be able to focus cutting more on things that absolutely cannot be bought like wonders and buildings. This does however make your start much weaker until you get access to Agoge or Maneuver to spam out units, leading to less opportunities for easy kills

I've learned recently that district costs scale in a very strange manner. Their base cost is 60, and for every tech or civic advance, it goes up to 600 base cost, with the most advanced tree counted for the calculation

This means that aggresively cutting forests and rainforests as early as possible, and beelining Serfdom, is ultra important. Beelining Industrial Districts to put them down before production costs become obscene, too

By cutting all your districts early, they will all cost roughly 70 to 120 production, the cost of a handful of builders. While it is possible cutting costs scale this way too, it's preferable to build all your districts like this

Districts that have been placed will no longer scale cost, even if production is cancelled

The AI, on the other hand, will probably struggle to get its districts up before they cost a fortune, although if you are behind in global average of a district type, you get a 25 % discount on its creation