Civ 6 Wonder Placement Guide

Pyramids

Placement requirements

Must be built on: Desert, Floodplains

Unlock & cost

Technology: Masonry
Production cost: 220

Wonders that compete for the same tiles

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

Etemenanki — both allowed on Floodplains
Great Bath — both allowed on Floodplains
Mont St. Michel — both allowed on Floodplains
Petra — both allowed on Desert, Floodplains
University of Sankore — both allowed on Desert

Is it worth building?

A free builder and +1 charge on every builder forever — the compounding classic. Over a full game it quietly finances dozens of extra improvements; chop-heavy and improvement-heavy strategies love it most.

Placement & timing tips

Flat desert next to the river ideally — pair it with a future Petra region if the map allows. Early is everything: each builder trained after it multiplies the investment.

When to build it — and when not to

Build it when: Build when your whole economy runs through builder charges — chop-powered wonder races, heavy improvement plans, Feudalism timing pushes — and a workable desert tile sits near real early production.
Skip it when: Skip when the nearest desert is a settler's journey away — never distort your city placement for it. Training two plain builders delivers most of the benefit with zero race risk.

Which city should build it

This is a capital wonder in practice, since only the capital has enough production in the first few dozen turns and the free builder should start working the capital's tiles at once. The tile must be flat desert or a desert floodplain, so a capital with a single desert tile on its rim qualifies just as well as a desert start. Masonry also unlocks stone harvesting, so a stone resource beside the capital turns the same tech into both the unlock and the funding. Leave the desert tile unimproved and keep a second city's builder plan ready to absorb the extra charges.

Winning the race

Among the most fought-over ancient wonders; desert-affine AI leaders treat it as a first build, and on higher difficulties it is often gone before turn fifty. Winning it means Mining into Masonry with almost nothing in between, a builder trained or bought before the tech lands, and the stone and woods around the capital chopped straight into the wonder in the same turn the tech completes. Do not start it with the city's base production alone. If the capital has no chops and a rival AI with a desert capital exists, treat the race as lost before it begins; a scaffold appearing in a neighbour's desert visible from your scouts settles it.

If you lose it: alternatives

The effect is fully replaceable: Serfdom later gives extra charges to newly trained builders, Ilkum speeds their production, and Liang's Guildmaster promotion adds a charge in her city. Ancient Walls-era gold buys builders outright, which is what most players end up doing anyway. Redirect the Masonry-turn production into a settler; the second city you found ten turns earlier compounds harder than the builder charge ever would. If the desert tile was reserved and now sits idle, it becomes a fine Holy Site or Campus base once the district cost is affordable, or simply a farmed floodplain.

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

Other wonders of the same era

Related guides

Last reviewed: 2026-10-03