[List] Best Mods and why you need them

[( * )]

Hi everyone,

If like me you enjoy playing CIV6, but think some aspects need tweaking, I've got you covered.
After testing during days the different mods of Civ 6, here are the best (I'd even say "Required") ones, IMHO.


- Harder AI
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/harder-ai.25607/
The Native AI is to say the least...strange, roaming around without attacking and making the weirdest decisions almost all the time.
This leads to no challenge and easy (boring) victories.
Harder AI completely changes that.

To give you an idea, I just created a game (turn 93) and began to build multiple wonders; because I'm used to the AI being a virtual non-threat.
Roosevelt circled my 2 cities with 5 of his, before launching a surprise war, in coordination with France.
His units followed mine when I tried to flee, and killed them without mercy.
They protected their isolated city, when I tried a sneak attack, so I had to flee again.
As I had some money in bank, I quickly bought some warriors and fought back.
I might loose this game, for the FIRST freaking time, I'm really pumped!
Some Goal as AI+, use only one mod, as I don't think they are compatible.


- AI+
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/ai.25439/
The last version of this mod really made the AI more aggressive, so I add it to the list.
Some Goal as Harder AI, use only one mod, as I don't think they are compatible.

- The ability of the AI to wage aggressive wars. Mostly in terms of actually getting its troops there and having it do more than stare at your cities.
- Settle behavior, it now settles more appropriate locations in better amounts (more) and settlers don't run around for 500 years before settling somewhere (it is now 100 years).
- Tuning on the AI's production choices. With extra changes based on whether it's at war, or under siege. Whether it has a religion, what difficulty setting we're on, etc.
- Leaders now have more distinct personalities when it comes to district/building/unit/etc choices.
- Many other small improvements.


- Unit Report Screen
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/unit-report-screen.25396/
Especialy usefull for large armies, this mod shows your entire army in one screen, in order to know what they're doing and where they are.
You can also directly select them from this screen.
Once you'll have tried it, you won't be able to play without.


- Production Queue
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/production-queue.25530/

Add queuing to the production management of your cities.
No need to come back to your city, each time it has finished to build something, you can queue buildings.
Handy.


- Research Time
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/research-time-x.25552/
Changes the required amount of time to get each research.
If you find yourself gaining one every few turns, getting the feeling everything is rushed.
(I use X10)

- Civic Time
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/civic-time-x.25553/
Same than above, but for Civic.


- Multiple Unit per Tile
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/multiple-unit-per-tile.25511/
Lets you pile 3 units on each Tile : you won't have a headache anymore, trying to move your entire army from one point to the other.
Note : I changed it to 2 in the config file, perfect for me.


- Additional Buildings
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/additional-buildings.25677/
Adds 55 new buildings, to better fit your city specialisations and don't have the impression to spam the same buildings over and over.
Some buildings give bonuses AND maluses, so choose wisely, depending on your playstyle.


- Moar Units Mod
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/civ-vi-moar-units-mod.25391/
Adds 28 Unique Units, each linked to a civilisation.
No longer will you see each army being identical, as each new unit has its own new visual.
Impressive mod.


- Magil's Wondrous Wonders
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/magils-wondrous-wonders.25686/
From my point of view, Native World Wonders don't give enough bonuses, for the time required to research and build.
This mod adds nice bonuses, which will definitively make you want them, before the others Civs steal them from you.
List of all the changes detailed in the link.


- Better Trade Screen
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/better-trade-screen.25406/
Enhances the trade screen and lets you automatically repeat the same trades, once they're finished.
Must have.


- Updated Fortified Alert
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/updated-fortified-alert.25590/
Adds a new unit command, similar to "guard" but the unit will auto wake-up, when an ennemy is nearby.
No need to wake your entire army one by one, everytime barbarians or an other civ comes to fight you.


- More Lenses
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/more-lenses.25702/
When you select a builder, a new lense is applied to show you where he can build (very similar effect to when you select a settler).
No need to zoom in and put your face next to the screen anymore, to look at each buildable tile.
Very handy!


- Customizable Warmonger Penalties
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/customizable-warmonger-penalties.25447/
Reduces warmonger penalties, entirely configurable.
If like me you want to be able to defend yourself, without all the AI Civs to declare war on you the next turns, this mod is for you.


- Quick AI Combat and Movement
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/quick-ai-combat-and-movement.25596/
If you like to play on very big maps with a lot of other civs, each turn can take a bit of time.
With this mod, the AI (and only the AI) will have his movement and combat speed accelerated, to gain a lot of time each turn.


- Larger worlds
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/larger-worlds.25496/
Lets you use much bigger map sizes, when you create a game.
For Very Big world battles.


- Restart Button
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/restartbutton.25481/
If like me you restart a game until you have a decent spawn point, this mod will let you do it in one click.
No need to reselect the map, your civ, the AI, their number, ... ; this mod does it for you.


- Diplomacy Total
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/diplomacy-total.25707/
Simple mod, which sums your positive and negative relation scores, with each AI civ.
Look at the linked screenshot, it's self-explanatory.
(Incompatible with "Show Diplomatic Deals")


- Show Diplomatic Deals
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/show-diplomatic-deals.25720/
Shows diplomatic deals, denunciations, and trade deals in the Gossip area along with the number of turns remaining.
You won't have to make a test trade with all civs, to know if you "open borders" or "1 orange against 100 gold" deal is still available.
Handy.
(Incompatible with "Diplomacy Total")

"Diplomacy Total" and "Show Diplomatic Deals" are incompatible.
Choose only one.
"Diplomacy Total" is handy, but feels just like a bonus feature, not a required one.
"Show Diplomatic Deals" : if you trade a lot, this mod is very useful, I recommend it.


- GDG's Scout, Submarines, Ranger, Nuclear Submarine Ignore Borders
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/gdgs-scout-submarines-ranger-nuclear-submarine-ignore-borders.25451/
IMHO, non combat units shouldn't get blocked by city borders : this mod corrects it.


- More Barbarian XP
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/more-barbarian-xp.25464/
This mod increases the soft cap on XP gained from Barbarians from 1 to 2 after the first promotion, and permits units to earn an additional promotion level before no longer gaining XP from Barbarians (3 instead of 2).
Gotta slaughter them all!


- Sink Those Transports
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/sink-those-transports.25724/
This mod applies a -20 combat strength modifier to all embarked land units when defending against naval attacks.
This should make it easier for battleships, submarines, etc. to actually sink defenseless land units on transports.


- Settlers Retreat
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/settlers-retreat.25732/
Even with Harder AI, I capture very often ennemies' settlers, to the point where it feels like a cheat, this mod offers a solution to this.
When a Settler is attacked by a hostile combat unit instead of capturing the Settler, the Settler runs back to the nearest city. This prevents abusive strategies around stealing Settlers from AI players.


- Machine Gun with 2 Attack Range
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/machine-gun-with-2-attack-range.25688/
Simple mod to set the attack range for the Machine Gun unit to 2, making it on par with all its predecessors.


- Tribes, Bandits, and Rebels
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/tribes-bandits-and-rebels.25733/

!! Requires MOAR Units and Aztec DLC !!

Barbarians now build unique units that belong to major civilizations!
Barbarians now look like the rag-tag bunch that they were meant to be and they are tough as hell!!
Most Barbarian units appear as unique units up to the Industrial Era.
Utilizes unit models in MOAR Units and Aztec DLC


- Detailed Worlds
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/detailed-worlds.25668/

Detailed worlds provides adjustments to several world generation utility functions and customized map scripts with added detail. The primary objective of this mod is to make the world more interesting, particularly with the detailed versions of the included map scripts.


- 8 Ages of War
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/8-ages-of-war.25603/

Does warfare feel slightly wrong to you in Civilization 6? Do you get annoyed that spamming archers is the solution to every problem? Tired of useless promotions like 'Commando' that just get in the way?
Then 8 Ages of War is the mod for you! The aim is to turn the art of war in Civilization 6 into something more balanced, more interesting, and more immersive. Currently this involves redoing promotions for all land units, a nerf to range units and a boost to military engineers. This includes fixing numerous bugs in the vanilla promotions and rewriting the tool tips to make them explicit. Future plans include giving players a way of defending themselves if they lack resources, preventing submarines from raiding in land and a shift in the way the late game works by adding units such as the mortar and paratroopers.


- Replace Trays With Trees
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/replace-trays-with-trees.25773/

If you are like me, you always open the Tech or Civics tree when its tray comes up.Usually because you want to see more information than is provided by the tray itself.
Well that is just what this simple mod does -- it displays the Tech or Civics tree rather than the tray when you click to update Tech or Civics data.


- Quo's Combined Tweaks
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/quos-combined-tweaks.25703/

The Chiefdom government (the first you receive) now provides a Wildcard slot instead of an Economic slot.
Settlers die on capture.
Scouts start at lvl 2 (you can pick a promotion the moment you build them) and have +1 additional Vision, making them very valuable early.
Palaces now have walls, allowing the capital city to shoot enemy units. This should assist with early Barbarian rushes and also make it somewhat harder to take enemy capitals with just Archers.
And many other changes.



- Less Gossips
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/less-gossips.25832/

This mod removes some of the gossips (rumors) from the game. The gossips are the notifications that clutter up your screen while you wait for your turn to end / your new turn to begin, and which makes it quite hard to see the map below them (see the screenshot, although those are actually not being removed from the game).
They are not the little icons to the right of your screen.
The also show up in the diplomatic screen, but does anybody actually go there and read that?
You still might find some of the entries I removed useful for you, it's pretty easy to get them back in the game. Just remove the line or add a "--" before it (without the quotes).



- Lumbermills for Rainforests
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/lumbermills-for-rainforests.25831/

Because why the f*** not? Now you maybe even want to keep some of those rain forest tiles instead of cutting them down right away.



- Tougher City States
http://www.nexusmods.com/civilisationvi/mods/3/?

Have you put two envoys into a city state, just to watch Germany or Scythia just take it? Well, it can still happen, but now those city states start with a bit more army to defend themselves. So at least it won't happen as quickly.
On the bright side, they're now also better at keeping the barbarians busy early on.
Includes the starting units until Modern Era or so, in case you'd like to start later. They'll tend to lag behind technologically, but at least have SOME army to defend themselves with.



- Research Reminder
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/research-reminder.25712/

Research Reminder is a simple quality-of-life mod that prevents you from wasting precious science and culture. It reminds you to switch research of unboosted techs and civics by popping up the Research or Civics side panels when you reach the halfway point (or 40% for China).
The mod will not trigger for techs and civics that have already been boosted, or for techs and civics that cannot be boosted, i.e. Pottery, Mining, Animal Husbandry, Code of Laws, and Future Tech.



- Rule with Faith
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/rule-with-faith.25465/

RwF adds a new Religious policy slot, 16 additional policies (14 religious, 1 economic, 1 military), and 3 new Governments.
In addition, some of the existing Governments have been re-named for political saliency, 7 existing policies have been changed to religious ones, and Potala Palace and the Forbidden City have been changed to grant 1 Religious policy slot and 1 Diplomatic policy slot, respectively.
In the future, I hope this mod will come to parallel Rise to Power in terms of political and religious gameplay.


- Even MOAR Units: The Aztecs
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/even-moar-units-the-aztecs.25878/

Two new units for the Aztecs. Requires the Aztec DLC.
Jaguar Warrior
Unique Aztec melee unit that replaces Swordsman. +7 Combat Strength when attacking and -7 Combat Strength when defending. May capture defeated enemies, turning them into Builders.
Warrior Priest
Aztec unique support unit available with the Mysticism Civic. Can be purchased with Faith. Adjacent Melee, Anti-Cavalry and Ranged units fight at full strength when damaged and earn Great General points from kills.



- Raging Barbarians
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/raging-barbarians.25680/

- Number of allowed Barbarian camps increased
- Minimum distance between Barbarian camps decreased
- Barbarians attack boldness increased
- Odds of Barbarian camp spawn increased (I think)
- Barbarian tech rate increased
- Percentage of ranged Barbarian units slightly increased

Note : the AI doesn't know how to deal properly with strong Barbarian camps.
If you use this mod, the AI Civilisations will be considerably weakened, as hoards of Barbarians will continuously crush their cities.




Note : many other mods are available on https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/categories/civilization-vi-downloads.145/
I only selected these which better fit my tastes, so feel free to take a look by yourself.


NB1 : in order to install these mods, most websites say to extract the mod files into C:\Users\YourName\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization VI\Mods
DO NOT use that folder, as it bugged every of my save files (you might not encounter this, but just in case, don't).

Instead USE : C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization VI\DLC
The game detects both folders, but the DLC one doesn't create bugs, forcing you to restart your game from scratch.


NB2 : In order to better fit my tastes, I edited quite a few of these mods.
If you're interested in knowing what mods I'm talking about, and what I changed, don't hesitate to ask and I'll share my files.

[ambershee]

Do you know which, if any, of these mods conflict with one another?

[( * )]

Originally posted by ambershee:

Do you know which, if any, of these mods conflict with one another?

From what I remember, there shouldn't be any conflict.

But, to be honest, I tried many mods and edited them quite heavily.
I can't guarantee it 100%.

In order to check it, you can manually look at all the files names, and see if you find any showing in other mods.
If you do find any double in this list, I'll help resolve any conflict, as I already did it locally.

[teos_the_blue]

thanks a i totally love this list

[🥇 Xaxoon 🥇]

THANK YOU so much, some of that mods helps me with a few of the most annoying problems with that game, GREAT LIST!!

[( * )]

Originally posted by Xaxoon:

THANK YOU so much, some of that mods helps me with a few of the most annoying problems with that game, GREAT LIST!!

You're welcome :)

[postpaleo]

Would you happen to know if they work on multiplayer hot seat?

[SephiriotH]

Good games don't need mods. Period.

[( * )]

Originally posted by postpaleo:

Would you happen to know if they work on multiplayer hot seat?

I didn't try Multiplayer yet.
But some of these mods refere to it, so I think yes they should work.

Let me know if you try, always good to know.

[ambershee]

To my knowledge, almost all mods will work in hotseat. Online is a slightly different matter.

[postpaleo]

Originally posted by ambershee:

To my knowledge, almost all mods will work in hotseat. Online is a slightly different matter.

It was real iffy what would and what wouldn't work in Civ5. for multi. I can understand it, to a degree, but my GF and I just have fun with it and don't really play for blood. But, IIRC, at a point they stopped all multiplayer addons, earlier you could. Might be wrong on that. Should load 5 up again, just to remind myself the differances between the two.

I had over 2k hours in it, but I'll bet a ton of those hours was just getting an ok map to play. It will be nice to have a button to push that remembers the game settings :)

[ambershee]

I'm looking forwards to having all the proper mod tools, since Civ 6 looks like it's much more multiplayer mod friendly.

[SakuraKoi]

hmm... welp, gotta take the Larger Worlds & Detailed Worlds (linked from Larger Worlds) since those do confirm what I was kinda afraid of, I already have 190x118, not just "pesky" 116x74 and Civs spawned quite close to each other.

Also Quick AI Combat and Movement might quite help.

Now I am not sure if Harder AI or AI+ is better... and which actually removes the unfair advantages the AI gets, the latter apparently does not but for the prior it is not mentioned either while touching the tech tree in inapprioriate places...

[ZenTeapot]

Chaos Quick UI is definitely another good mod. It addresses a ton of quality of life issues.
https://github.com/chaorace/cqui

[🥇 Xaxoon 🥇]

UPDATE:
i', playing now a new game with all your recommended mods and: IT ROCKS! Like a charm, not perfect, but MUCH MUCH better than vanilla civ6, much more comfortable and fun!

Its a shame that modders have to repair that game. But anyway, thanks !

[Dray Prescot]

Could you get them to pin this post to the starting permanent list so it is easy to find?