Pixel Civilization Guide: Tips & Tricks to Play Better

Pixel Civilization is a cute little indie game with multiplayer features that make it even more enjoyable. While relatively straightforward, some tips and tricks will come in handy and help you get the most out of the game.

From learning how to micromanage resources to build the wonder faster, to speeding up your overall progress and dealing with the plethora of things to do in the game, this guide has it all, both for beginners and more advanced players. Let’s begin!

1. Focus on housing and these main resources first

The main resources, as you just start the game, are your population, food, stone, and wood. These will be used to complete the initial villager quests, but also to level up your Town Center and eventually build the first stage of the wonder.

These resources remain important for the entire duration of the game, as population is always needed to keep your civilization running as it should (too few people would give you a huge production penalty).

Here is the setup I go with as soon as I start the game:

• 2 residential buildings
• 1 each of food, wood and stone gathering buildings

As soon as possible, I will have plenty of residential buildings mixed up with 3-4 each of the main resource-producing ones, but also 2 community buildings (to keep the morale up) and slowly build the number of other resource-producing buildings, mainly flax and minerals.

IMPORTANT: When discovering new tiles early on, focus on those that give you any of the main resources, mainly food, to complete the first set of villager quests for a welcome boost of money.

2. Community buildings keep your citizens sane

Don’t focus on population and resource buildings entirely. Community buildings bring happiness to your people and that is essential for your civilization.

Up to the Iron Age, you should be fine with just 3-4 of these (depending on how much you can upgrade them).

Also read: If you enjoy playing idle games, I recommend reading my previous article – Melvor Idle Guide.

3. Build sets to activate bonuses

Above, you have one of the many sets of buildings you can build in Pixel Civilization to unlock permanent bonuses for all of them.

The main word here is “permanent” – you only need to build them all once, and the bonus will be active for all future playthroughs.

Check them out and try to get as many done as quickly as possible, as those boosts add up. Even if you only have very low-star types of buildings, it’s worth sacrificing a spot in your civilization just for a short while to gain those bonuses.

4. Reveal the entire map ASAP

As soon as the game starts, I focus more on revealing the entire map as soon as possible, vs maxing out the level of the buildings I can build.

This is what I recommend doing because of one main thing you can find when doing it: Ruins. Finding them grants you a choice out of three random bonuses that will boost your production and help you get more from the game.

I recommend finding a balance between bonuses that give you extra development points (aka money), which are always necessary for upgrades and clearing land, and those that give you boosts to material production.

The more times you choose a rune of the same type, the higher its level becomes and the better the rewards, including the likes of chances for gaining a free extra material when one is produced.

This is why you need all Ruins explored and activated as soon as possible.

5. Activate the Random Events

Random Events give you MASSIVE rewards if you watch ads, with a few offering you a choice out of three random boxes that you can earn without watching ads.

To quickly complete the requirements for the current level you’re playing, but also to speed up your civilization’s progress significantly, I recommend getting all those random events.

PRO TIP: Before resetting to restart the game, check these Random Events for any that offer you diamonds and get those before resetting. Do the same with Villager Quests: check them out before resetting, as some might offer you Diamonds as a reward (and you won’t even have to watch an ad for those):

6. Single player or multiplayer?

The main advantage of playing a multiplayer game is the potential speed of progressing through the requirements, as you have more players working together.

At the same time, if you go for playing with random people, you never know what you will get: while some will be active, some won’t. At the same time, if you’re not fast enough, they can snag the limited land tiles before you get the chance to.

While in most games, if you are active enough, there will be some sort of a balance, in others you can be paired with much better players who will take the land and build on it, leaving you with very little options.

Therefore, I strongly recommend playing the Single Player game at least several times before jumping into Multiplayer with strangers, as you will better understand the game and know how to set up your civilization for decent progress.

Or start a game with your friends, have some rules set in stone and enjoy completing the levels faster. And remember: if things look truly terrible (teammates not active or getting all the land), you can always complete the level early, but you’ll miss on the milestone rewards.

Also read: Factory Town Idle Guide

7. Plan ahead for the more advanced resources

Start stockpiling main resources and plan for the future as soon as you start the game. You will need more advanced ones as you will progress through the ages – and the stages of the wonder – so plan ahead.

For example, the second level of the Wonder will no longer require wood or stone in most cases, while the third will only require resources that can only be produced.

Therefore, as soon as you have your first level of the Wonder built and your Town Center at level 9 or above, it’s time to start replacing the many Gathering buildings you have with the Production ones you need.

Even before that, you should set up a few Production buildings too – they take a long time to create their items, even when leveled up, so building a stash is not fast. When building them, select from the drop-down menu the type of item you need to make it easier to browse through them all.

8. Don’t go all-in buying card packs

While you shouldn’t hoard diamonds either, don’t spend them all ASAP on building card packs. Keep some saved for when you reach the Iron Age and unlock a new set of buildings.

This will happen after around a week of playing (less if you’re super-dedicated), and when that happens, you should have at least 2,500 diamonds saved up to quickly get 5 packs and start with a boost.

9. Enhance your top buildings only

You should enhance your rarest (Epic) buildings first – and out of them, work on the ones you use the most from the beginning.

These would be at least a couple of residential ones, plus at least one each of the main resource buildings and one or two community buildings.

Let the game auto-select the buildings you need for enhancement (it will always choose the lowest-quality ones, but make sure you don’t need them for a set first!)

While for the first few playthroughs, the Enhanced buildings won’t matter much since you won’t even have money to max-out their level, they will become more and more important as the game progresses and space starts to be tight – and the only thing making the difference will be the high-level buildings you own.

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10. How to handle diplomacy

Diplomacy is not talked about a lot in the tutorial, and early on it will be rarely used, to be honest.

Still, it will help you a lot eventually – especially when it comes to getting resources for your Wonder, and it’s worth learning about it early on to see how it goes.

You should send your first expedition as soon as you have the money for it (as it takes a lot of time). Afterwards, level up your Camel (Posthouse) to unlock the Cavalry and reduce the expedition time to 12 hours, and eventually the Envoy for even better results.

With each civilization they found, you can then trade: either sell them your goods for various prices, or buy resources from them.

One important thing to keep in mind: sell as much as possible in your early games. Sell everything you can, as the trade coins are kept for future playthroughs.

In other words, hoard on those valuable coins until you really need this feature!

NOTE: You also have the “Archive” where you can handle diplomacy with the other Civlizations. This is different from the active trading above and requires plenty of coins to level up.

Even at the first levels, you can still interact with these civilizations and visit the shop for buying various items, including level card packs, avatars or banners.

11. How to build the Wonder

Building the wonder takes a lot of time and materials, but also comes with great rewards – both from completing each of the four stages of the Wonder, as well as from the altar, where you can offer resources for random rewards.

To build the wonder, you will need tons of resources – rarer ones (and in higher numbers) will be required for the more advanced stages.

Try to write down (or remember) the requirements of each stage of the wonder, to better prepare for it. Roughly, this is what you will need:

• base resources for stage 1 (food, wood, stone)
• some base resources and more advanced ones for stage 2 (like stone weapons, animal skin clothing and pottery)
• advanced resources only for the future stages

Once a wonder has been built at least once, you can visit the Archive and activate it for extra rewards.

Wrapping up

Keeping the tips and tricks above in mind will help you progress faster and get more from Pixel Civilization. If you have additional tips to share with fellow players – or questions to ask – let us all know by posting a comment below.

And if you want to play a different idle game (but also exceptional), I recommend taking a look at my previous article about Galaxy Idle Clicker.