In Civilization VI, mastering the balance between chopping and improving tiles is crucial to optimizing your empire’s growth. While chopping yields immediate boosts, improvements offer long-term value. This guide breaks down the mechanics, strategies, and math behind both approaches—helping you decide when to chop and when to improve.

---

What Is Chopping?

Chopping is when a builder removes a feature or resource from a tile to gain instant yields. The type of feature determines the yield:

• Woods: Production
• Marshes: Food
• Copper/Banana/Other Resources: Gold or food

Chopping is useful for:

• Accelerating Production: Speed up settlers, districts, wonders, and units
• Maximizing Bonuses:
  • Magnus (Governor): +50% yield from chopping in his city
  • Policy Cards like Colonization, Agoge, or Ilkum further increase gains
• Fourth-Ring Exploitation: Tiles beyond three tiles from a city center can’t be worked—chopping ensures you get value from them

---

What Is Improving?

Improving a tile means placing a long-term enhancement like a farm, mine, or lumber mill using a builder. These upgrades give recurring yields each turn.

Improving is valuable for:

• Sustained Output: Provides ongoing food, production, or gold
• Adjacency Bonuses: Forests and rainforests can boost districts like Campuses and Holy Sites
• Appeal for National Parks: Forests increase tile appeal, key for Culture Victories
• Strategic Synergies: Some wonders (e.g., Etemenanki) or pantheons (Goddess of the Harvest) scale with unimproved tiles

---

When to Chop vs. Improve

✅ Chop When:

1. Placing a District
   • Features are removed without yield—always chop first to capture value.
2. Needing Immediate Production
   • Rush settlers, early military, or wonder construction.
3. In Low-Yield Areas
   • Chop marshes for food, woods for production to kickstart growth in poor locations.
4. Using Magnus or Yield-Boosting Policies
   • Leverage Colonization, Agoge, or Magnus to gain up to +125% yield from a single chop.
5. Outside City Radius
   • Chop resources beyond the third tile ring, since those tiles can’t be worked.

✅ Improve When:

1. Seeking Long-Term Value
   • Lumber mills and mines eventually outpace one-time chops, especially after tech upgrades.
2. Protecting Appeal
   • Forests contribute to appeal, benefiting National Parks and Neighborhoods.
3. Boosting District Adjacency
   • Rainforests and forests give adjacency bonuses to Campuses and Holy Sites.
4. Limited Resources in Area
   • Keep vital forests or food tiles in low-yield zones to avoid crippling city output.

---

Chop Yields by Era

• Ancient Era: ~20 base yield
• Medieval Era: ~50 base yield
• Information Era: ~200+ yield

Each era increases the value of the chop. Governor Magnus and certain policy cards stack multiplicatively on top of this.

---

Chopping vs. Improving: The Math

• A forest tile gives +1 production per turn with a lumber mill
• If you chop a forest for 30 production, it takes 30 turns for the improvement to break even
• If you’re building something urgent (like a settler or Campus), the early return on a chop is often more impactful than decades of slow gain

Examples:

• Chopping for a Campus
  • A +3 adjacency Campus built 15 turns earlier = 45 extra Science
• Chopping for a Military Unit
  • Building an Archer 5 turns sooner = 5 additional attacks during a war

---

Key Scenarios

🔨 Always Chop:

• Forested Hills: Chop for production, replace with a mine for excellent yields
• Before District Placement: Always chop first to avoid losing yields
• Fourth-Ring Tiles: Can’t be worked—chop for instant value

🌾 Consider Improving:

• High-Appeal Areas: Keep forests for National Parks and Preserves
• Adjacency-Heavy Zones: Maintain woods/rainforests near Campuses or Holy Sites
• Sparse Regions: Avoid chopping the only productive or food-rich tile nearby

---

Magnus + Policy Synergies

Combining Magnus with policy cards can double or even triple your yield:

• Example: A base 30-production chop becomes:
  • +50% from Magnus = 45
  • +50% from Colonization or Agoge = 67.5
  • Total bonus: +125% yield

This combo is ideal for settler spam, early military rushes, or rapid district construction.

---

Conclusion

Chopping delivers short-term power spikes, while improving builds long-term consistency. In the early game, with the right policies and governors, chopping can skyrocket your tempo. In the mid-to-late game, improvements help scale your economy. Mastering the timing of both is key to strong Civ VI gameplay.

Found this guide helpful? Drop your favorite chopping strategy in the comments, and subscribe for more pro-level Civ VIinsights!