In Civilization VI you can combine units into corps, fleets, armies and armadas. Once the era and technology requirements are met creating one of these is not difficult and there are two methods for doing it.

To combine units in Civilization VI you need to be in the Industrial Era with the Nationalism Civic available so Corps and Fleets can be created, plus identical units must be next to each other. To be able to create Armies and Armadas you must be in the Modern Era with research completed on the Mobilization Civic.

Civ 6 How To Make A Corps Or Fleet

To combine units to create a Corps or Fleet, a couple of requirements must be met. First, you need to be in the Industrial Era and you need to have completed research on the Industrial Era Civic Nationalism (it also gives you access to spies), although there are at least one or two civilizations that have a different name for this civic. Once you are in that era and have the right Civic researched a Corps or Fleet can be created.

A special icon appears in the action tab when merging is possible. The unit starting the merge will be the remaining unit once the merge is finished and a stronger, merged unit will be created in the tile where the starting unit was. If one unit is injured the units will combine and will either gain or lose half the difference in health between them.

To create a Corps or Fleet two identical units need to be next to each other. Click the unit you want to merge another unit with, usually the unit with the most experience. A special action with two stars on the icon will be present on the actions bar if another compatible unit is adjacent to it. Clicking the icon with two stars causes the hex with any compatible units for merging to turn green. Left click on a unit in the hex with the blue highlighting to finish combining them. The unit that was combined with the first unit disappears and the existing unit now has two stars on its emblem, indicating that it is a Corps or Fleet. The Combat Strength of the combined units is only 10 more than a single unit so there are some definite pros and cons to merging units. If you want to know how to start out on the right path for creating formations check out my page about what the early game build order should be in Civilization VI.

Civ 6 How To Make An Army Or Armada

In order to create an Army or Armada you need to have already created a Corps or Fleet first and need to be in the Modern Era, trying to merge three identical units into an Army or Armada at once will not work. You also need to finish research on the Mobilization Civic. The process for creating an Army or Armada is essentially the same as for creating a Corps or Fleet. An identical unit must be adjacent to the Corps or Fleet. Click the Corps or Fleet and a blue highlighted tile will appear under any compatible units. Left click the compatible unit to merge them together. Once combined the unit’s emblem will have three stars on it to indicate it is either an Army or Armada. Once combined the Army or Armada will have 17 points more in combat strength than a single unit of the same type.

In all instances the higher unit maintains its promotions, experience and name. The lower ranking unit’s promotions are lost but it gains the experience the other unit has. It makes the most sense to combine new units with experienced units and is a good way to increase military strength on a crowded battlefield.

If both units are at the same level with different promotions the unit being merged loses its promotions and gains the ones the merged unit has. In Gathering Storm the unit maintenance cost stays the same for merged units.

Read More: Interested in a culture victory rather than crushing everyone militarily? Want to know whether to run Directx 11 or 12?

How To Build Formations In Cities

Another method is to actually build a formation (Corps, Fleet, Army, Armada) in a city. You will need a specialty district like a Theater Square and Industrial Zone and a Military Academy for land units or Seaport for naval units. Corps and fleets will require 150% of the usual production and gold cost and will take twice as many strategic resources. Armies and Armadas will take 225% of production and gold cost and will require triple the amount of strategic resources.

Although this takes longer than building an individual unit it is still faster than building two or three individual units to merge together. If you’re still looking for a good place to start a city check out my How To Choose Where To Settle page.

Should You Form Corps? Is Merging Units Worth It?

There are pros and cons to merging units, and as usual, a lot of it is situational. One definite advantage is reduced upkeep costs. If using the Gathering Storm ruleset merged units have the same costs as a single unit of the same type, a nice benefit.

It’s also a good way to concentrate firepower. For example, it’s great for fighting at chokepoints where there are less tiles to position your forces in. On the other hand, not a good option for open ground combat because it consolidates your forces, giving the enemy more chances to outflank you.

It’s a good strategy when facing a technologically superior foe. More raw firepower might be just the thing you need to offset an opponent’s technological advantage over you.

Similar to fighting at a chokepoint, if you have more units than you can use in a firefight a good option is to merge them so you can bring additional firepower into the fight.

Just remember that although combined units are less powerful than two individual units that they have a higher survivability rate and take up less space. This makes them much better at defending due to increased stamina. If you’re fighting a defensive war this is a great option to consider, it just might help you maintain control of that critical chokepoint.

Another pro for merging units is that once you have a steady supply of new units you can start merging them into your more experienced units. When merged they gain the experience level of the other unit which gives you a more powerful, experienced unit.

It reduces War Weariness. War Weariness increases each time a unit fights and each time a unit is lost during combat. Corps and Armies finish opponents faster, meaning less fighting and they die less often.

If you have some outdated units, you can get some increased benefit out of them by merging them to increase their combat strength. For example, if you can’t afford to upgrade your outdated units and don’t want to kill them off merge them together instead.

One final reason for merging units is that it makes it easier to attack cities if space is limited, or to defend yourself in limited space.

One reason for not merging units is that you lose the option of attacking twice with two units. Since units are merged you only get one opportunity to attack.

If you already have a small number of land or naval units merging might not be a very good idea. This will result in even less units to attack and defend with. If you have a large empire you might not have enough military forces available to adequately protect it after merging units.

Whenever you’re fighting a technologically inferior opponent merging units is not a good option. Overwhelm him with the raw firepower that two individual units provides instead.

If you do lose the unit during combat you’ve effectively lost two units at once.

One of the biggest drawbacks to merging units is the decreased combat strength The overall strength of the units decreases significantly since you lose all but ten points of the merged units combat strength for a Corps or Fleet.

Producing Units in Civ 6

There are four main types of units in civilization VI, Military, Civilian, Support, and Religious. No two units of the same type can occupy the same tile, but one of each type can. Units are built in cities either through production or by buying them with gold or faith, plus more units become available as your technology increases. Units bought with gold or faith won’t be available until the next turn.

Most units cost maintenance to keep them going, which is primarily gold and food. If you run out of enough gold to maintain your units, they could start disbanding, and generally the more advanced a unit is the more it costs to keep it going. Paying attention to your economy has to be done or you could face losing some of your military units.

Civilian units cannot defend themselves. If an enemy unit enters their tile they are captured and owned by the enemy player. They will become a part of that player’s civilization, forced to do his or her bidding.