Civ 6 Wonder Placement Guide

Forbidden City

Required neighbors are shown on the map — the remaining tiles can be anything.

Placement requirements

Must be built on: Desert, Grassland, Plains, Snow, Tundra
Must be adjacent to: City Center

Unlock & cost

Technology: Printing
Production cost: 920

Wonders that compete for the same tiles

From the placement data: these wonders share a placement requirement with Forbidden City. A city meant to hold both needs a separate qualifying tile for each.

Eiffel Tower — both next to a City Center
St. Basil's Cathedral — both next to a City Center

Is it worth building?

A wildcard policy slot — the most flexible bonus in the game, worth a strong card of any color every turn forever. One of the few wonders that is simply good for every civ and every strategy.

Placement & timing tips

City Center adjacency in your production capital. It is contested in every game — commit early with builder or Magnus support, or don't start it at all.

When to build it — and when not to

Build it when: Build when your best city hits a production peak around Printing with no urgent district or army in the queue — any victory plan repays the slot, so the only real question is winning the race.
Skip it when: Skip when rivals have out-built you at every wonder so far — losing this race forfeits dozens of your best city's turns for a partial refund. An Industrial Zone there compounds risk-free instead.

Which city should build it

A flat tile beside the City Center in your best production city, full stop. The effect is a policy slot for the whole empire, so nothing about the host matters except the speed of the build and having that center-adjacent flat tile still available in the renaissance. That tile is the same one the Eiffel Tower will want later, so a capital with two spare flat neighbors is a real asset; a capital ringed by hills, river districts and a Government Plaza may simply be unable to host it, in which case a hilly second city with a flat side and an Industrial Zone is the answer. Keep Magnus there from the medieval era so the chops that finish it hit at full value.

Winning the race

Contested in nearly every game and by nearly every leader, because the AI rates a wildcard slot as highly as players do and Printing is on every path through the renaissance. The race is won before Printing, not after: research it with the Eureka in hand, have the flat tile cleared, and hold Filippo Brunelleschi unspent for the turn it unlocks, with Gothic Architecture slotted and two builders standing on woods. That package can finish it in three or four turns, which is faster than any AI. Without a Great Engineer, expect a fifteen-turn build and a coin-flip result. The tell you are losing is a rival who has already built two renaissance wonders; they have the production and the intent.

If you lose it: alternatives

No building replaces a wildcard slot, but governments do. Merchant Republic already leans on wildcards, and a switch to a tier-three government later reshuffles the slots again, so the question is only which color you are short of; Alhambra covers red, Big Ben yellow, and both are less contested. If the race is lost, the flat tile beside the center is still valuable for the Eiffel Tower, so do not fill it. The freed renaissance production should go into an Industrial Zone with Workshop and Factory in the same city, which compounds for the rest of the game, or into the Ruhr Valley if you would rather have one enormous city than one extra card.

Planning a district next to this wonder? Check its adjacency bonus →

Other wonders of the same era

Related guides

Last reviewed: 2026-10-03