Civ 6 Wonder Placement Guide

Great Lighthouse

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

Placement requirements

  • Must be built on a Coast tile (not a lake)
  • Must be built on water adjacent to land
  • Must be adjacent to: Harbor (with Lighthouse)

Unlock & cost

  • Technology: Celestial Navigation
  • Production cost: 290

Wonders that compete for the same tiles

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

Is it worth building?

Extra naval movement forever plus gold and admiral points. On a naval map with a navy worth moving, permanent fleet speed is quietly excellent; on a land map it is a lighthouse to nowhere.

Placement & timing tips

Coast next to a Harbor with a Lighthouse — your main port city. Worth contesting only if ships will decide your game: England, Norway, archipelago starts.

When to build it — and when not to

Build it when
Build when your victory path runs across water — naval conquest or aggressive overseas settling — and the Lighthouse prerequisite is already standing, making the wonder a marginal add-on to an existing port.
Skip it when
Skip on continents where your wars will be fought on land — extra admiral points help no one without ships. If the port city only wants economy, the Colossus's trade route pays better.

Which city should build it

The host has to be a real port, not a city that merely touches the sea. It needs a Harbor with a Lighthouse already standing, a coast tile beside that Harbor that also touches land, and enough production to finish the wonder before the classical era drifts away, which in practice means a coastal capital or a second city with hills and fish. The Harbor should be the district you would want anyway: adjacent to the city center for its gold adjacency and next to sea resources. Put the wonder on the coast tile that would otherwise be your weakest water tile, because it stops being workable afterward. A satellite city works fine, since Great Admiral points are pooled across the empire and the wonder does not have to sit where your fleet is built.

Winning the race

Contest for it is mild on most maps because the AI has to line up Celestial Navigation, a Harbor and a Lighthouse before it can even start, and land-bound AIs never bother. The exceptions are the naval leaders: Harald, Victoria and Dido on a coastal map will often have it done well within the classical era. Your bottleneck is the three-step prerequisite chain, so buy the Lighthouse with gold the moment the Harbor finishes and let a coastal woods chop cover the wonder itself. Reyna's Harbormaster promotion does not speed it up, but Magnus in the port city makes the chop worth more. If you see a rival's Harbor city with walls and a Lighthouse before your own Harbor is even placed, the race is already gone.

If you lose it: alternatives

Fleet speed is the part you cannot buy elsewhere until much later, when admiral abilities and promotions add movement of their own, so a lost Great Lighthouse mostly means planning naval wars with one extra turn of approach. The gold and admiral points are easy to replace: a Shipyard in the same Harbor gives production and admiral points, and a trade route from the port covers the gold. Spend the freed hammers on that Shipyard and a pair of galleys or quadriremes to escort settlers, because on a water map, control of the sea lanes is what actually wins early.

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

Other wonders of the same era

Related guides

Last reviewed: 2026-10-03