Trade

Cahokia

Suzerain and envoy bonuses summarised in our own words from the game data.

Suzerain bonus

Builders can construct the Cahokia Mound: +3 Gold, +1 Housing (more with later civics), an Amenity from your first Mound (second after Natural History), and Food from adjacent districts as civics/techs advance. Cannot sit next to another Mound.

Game data traceMINOR_CIV_CAHOKIA_UNIQUE_INFLUENCE_BONUS

Strategy guide

Cahokia Mounds pay out gold, housing, amenities and eventually food from adjacent districts — a genuine all-purpose improvement. Drop one early in every city for the housing and amenity alone; the late-game food conversion makes them even better next to district clusters.

Best civs & plans

Housing-per-improvement makes it strong for rapid wide expansion any civ can run; the amenity helps warmongers keep conquered cities content.

Envoy plan

Cahokia is a trade city-state, and that ladder is the best partner an expansion plan could ask for: Gold in Markets and Lighthouses at one envoy, more in Banks at three, on top of a Mound that itself pays Gold. Send three envoys as soon as your third or fourth city is founded, because the Housing and Amenity from a single early Mound is what lets a new city grow to size four without a Granary. Six envoys is reasonable in a Gold-heavy game, never mandatory. AI competition is steady rather than fierce — trade city-states attract Gold-focused leaders — so keep a one-envoy margin and top up each era. Redirect envoys meant for a second trade city-state; the Mound's mix of Gold, Housing and Food beats a flat Gold bonus for any empire that is still settling.

Value by era

Mounds are strongest in the ancient and classical eras, when Housing is the hard cap on every new city and a builder charge that adds a house plus an amenity plus Gold is better than almost any other improvement. Their value dips slightly in the medieval era as Aqueducts, Neighborhoods and Entertainment Complexes solve the same problems in bulk, but the Gold continues. The improvement then gets a second life: later civics add Housing, Natural History unlocks the second Amenity per city, and the Food from adjacent districts turns a Mound beside a Campus-Commercial Hub pair into a strong tile again by the Modern era. It never really fades, and because a wide empire has an empty flat tile beside its districts in every city, late suzerainty still lets you drop a dozen useful improvements in a few turns.

Pitfalls and how to protect it

Mounds cannot be adjacent to one another, and only the first one or two per city give the Amenity, so a city plastered with five Mounds is mostly Gold tiles that could have been mines; one or two per city, next to future district sites, is the pattern. Because the Food conversion depends on adjacent districts, building the Mound before the districts is fine, but placing it where the district itself needs to go is not — it gets deleted. Losing suzerainty leaves existing Mounds working, so there is no emergency if an AI outbids you; recover the envoy lead at leisure. If Cahokia is captured, treat it the same way. The one situation to avoid is an empire with no flat land near its districts, such as a hill-and-mountain core, where the improvement has nowhere sensible to sit.

Envoy bonuses

  • 1 envoy+2 Gold in your capital and in each Market or Lighthouse you own.
  • 3 envoys+4 Gold in each Bank, Shipyard and Consulate you own.
  • 6 envoys+6 Gold in each Stock Exchange, Seaport and Chancery you own.

Envoy bonuses are shared by every city-state of the same type.

Plan your districts in the adjacency calculator →

Other Trade city-states

Related guides

Last reviewed: 2026-10-03