Similar to previous installments, the goal for the player is to develop a civilization from an early settlement through many in-game millennia to become a world power and achieve one of several victory conditions, such as through military domination, technological superiority, or cultural influence, over the other human and computer-controlled opponents.

A critical design focus was to avoid having the player follow a pre-set path of improvements towards their civilization which they had observed from earlier games.

There are also new artificial intelligence mechanics for computer-controlled opponents, which include secret goals and randomized engagements to disrupt an otherwise stable game.

They found cities and grow them through the creation of mines, farms, and other improvements, while simultaneously exploring the randomly-generated world and encountering other civilizations and barbarians.

Similarly, cavalry units were split into light and heavy variants, with both having high movement, but severe negatives against districts and walls.

In Civilization VI, the government is defined by placing appropriate and available policies into a number of slots divided among the Military, Economic, Diplomatic, and Wildcard categories.

The policies define boosts or limitations for the civilization (e.g. improved attack bonuses for military units against certain types of enemies such as Barbarians).

Policies can be changed for free upon completing a single Civic, or for a small cost at any other time, allowing the player to adapt to a new situation as needed, according to lead producer Dennis Shirk.

[6] The Religion system introduced in Civilization V's Gods & Kings expansion is built further upon in VI, featuring more units and improvements that can lead to interreligious conflicts.

[12] Because of the larger number of systems in place, the studio expected to ship the game with a large-scale tutorial, separate but supplementing the guidance given by the player's various in-game advisors.

[12] A major foundation of the development of Civilization VI was to prevent players from following routines in playing through a game, according to lead designer Ed Beach.

These changes in Civilization V exposed other weak areas of the core gameplay of the series, specifically how cities were simply seen as places to dump improvements and Wonders with little effect on the map, according to producer Dennis Shirk.

[4] Because of the importance of the surrounding terrain to the growth of a city, Firaxis had to review their procedural generation for game maps to meet this new approach.

Beach noted that early testing with the unstacked cities on archipelagos generated by their older system made gameplay nearly impossible, and that with mountains becoming a valuable resource towards city expansion, test players would restart maps built on the old map generation system to get the right placement of mountains to exploit them successfully.

[9] Senior gameplay designer Anton Strenger compared their approach towards the development of the computer opponents, with main and hidden agendas, similar to concepts they had used in Rising Tide expansion for Civilization: Beyond Earth.

[14] They selected historical leaders to span a diverse range of faction and play style dynamics, while also looking for figures that had "really interesting personalities" that they could fit these agendas into.

[14] Beach previously designed a system in the Civilization V: Brave New World expansion that gave a "Mayhem level" in the computer opponents.

[12] Whereas the process of tuning this for Brave New World required manual playthroughs of the game, Firaxis had set up several computers in their offices to run Civilization VI, using only computer-controlled opponents; the results and behaviors of these games were reviewed by the part of the team dedicated to the artificial intelligence systems and used to balance the Mayhem level.

While this cycle does not affect the core gameplay, art director Brian Busatti anticipates that this feature could be used by modders to create new tactical considerations.

[16] This necessitated the simpler art style to allow players to quickly recognize units and buildings while looking over a city without having to resort to user interface tooltips or similar distractions, according to Shirk.

[18] The game's original score was written and orchestrated primarily by Geoff Knorr, who was assisted by Roland Rizzo, Griffin Cohen, and Phill Boucher.

[20] Sean Bean, who narrated the early trailers of the game, also provided his voicework for quotes read to the player as they progress along the technology and civics tree.

[50] The second pack featured the Ethiopian civilization, led by Menelik II, along with alternative costumes for Catherine de Medici and Teddy Roosevelt with different abilities; a new district called the Diplomatic Quarter, which gives improvements on diplomacy and espionage; and the "Secret Societies" mode, which allows players to join one of four available secret societies, each with a different hidden agenda, including exclusive traits.

[51] The third pack introduced the Byzantine and Gaulish civilizations, led by Basil II and Ambiorix, respectively; a new map called "Highlands"; and two new world wonders—the Biosphere and Statue of Zeus.

[52] The fourth pack introduced the Babylonian civilization, led by Hammurabi; six new city-states with unique bonuses; 24 new great personalities; and the "Heroes and Legends" mode, which introduces the heroes, special units with exclusive and powerful perks based on legendary characters from myth and history that can be recruited after being discovered by completing a special project.

[53] The fifth pack introduced the Vietnamese civilization, led by Lady Triệu; Kublai Khan, who is an alternative leader for both Mongolian and Chinese civilizations; the Preserve district, which has no yield at all but gives bonuses to nearby tiles; and the "Monopolies and Corporations" mode, which allows players to make use of excess luxury resources to improve cities and provides other bonuses should they manage to monopolize them.

Later packs featured Elizabeth of England, Ramses of Egypt, Yongle and Wu Zetian of China, Sejong of Korea, Sundiata Keita of Mali, Ludwig II of Germany, Nader Shah of Persia, Theodora of Byzantium, and Tokugawa of Japan; as well as personas for Qin Shi Huang, Cleopatra, Suleiman, Harald Hardrada, and Victoria.

[59] Critics like Scott Butterworth from GameSpot praised the game's nuanced additions and the unstacking of cities, which "adds a new strategic layer that fills a gap and creates greater variety in the types of thinking Civ demands.

"[68] Peter Glagowski from Destructoid was slightly more critical, dubbing the religious victory condition in the game a "nuisance" and recommending "turning it off".

He also lamented the lack of scenarios, the scrapping of the diplomatic victory condition (which would eventually be reintroduced in Gathering Storm), and the absence of Steam Workshop support at launch.