Vampire Castle (Civ6)

The Vampire Castle is a special tile improvement in Civilization VI. It is built by the Vampire unit and is exclusive to the Sanguine Pact secret society in the Secret Societies game mode, introduced in the Ethiopia Pack. It can be built on any featureless land tile in your own or neutral territory.
* Effects:
** Duplicates yields from adjacent tiles and adds them to its own tile. These yields are provided directly to the .
** If placed next to a , receives yields equal to those generated by 1 Specialist in that .
** Occupying unit receives +4 Defense Strength and automatically gains 2 turns of fortification (+6 Defense Strength).
** Allows the ability to teleport land units between them and Aerodromes (with Endless Night).
* Restrictions:
** Cannot be adjacent to another Vampire Castle.
** Initial limit of two per civilization, increasing to three with Voivode and four with Endless Night.
In the Zombie Defense game mode, the Vampire Castle deals minor (10 HP) damage to hostile units passing through it.
== Strategy ==
Besides functioning like all other Fort-type improvements, a Vampire Castle also serves two additional purposes: an economic purpose for the and a safe haven to which your Vampires can retreat without having to go all the way back to the .
* The economic purpose is pretty simple to use effectively. Whenever a Vampire Castle is built, it will add up the yields of its tile and the six tiles adjacent to it, then transfer those yields back to the . This includes yields generated from a City Center. If placed next to a , the Vampire Castle will receive the yields equal to those generated by 1 Specialist in that . For example, a castle next to an Encampment will receive +1 and +2 (or +2 and +2 if the Encampment has a Military Academy). These yields stay the same whether you actually assign a Specialist, or assign more than one. The yields on the Vampire Castle's tile will not be updated if the yields of the adjacent tiles change over time - you will need to remove the castle with a Vampire, Builder, or Military Engineer and have a Vampire rebuild it in order for it to have new yield values. As lucrative as it sounds, Vampire Castles cannot be built on Volcanic Soil or Floodplains, but you can build them next to these tiles to leverage their high yields. Similar to other Fort-like improvements, removable features like Rainforests, Woods, and Marshes have to be cleared before the Vampire Castle can be placed.
* A Vampire Castle also works as a place for Vampires to retreat back to when their HP is brought down to 1. Remember that you don't want to put it so far from the battlefield that your Vampires have to waste several turns marching back to the front lines, but you also don't want to put it so close that the castle can be spotted and ambushed by enemies either. Each Vampire can retreat only once per turn and can be killed when standing on a Vampire Castle.
Note that the Vampire Castle's tile itself is not workable. Any cities within a 3-tile range of the castle will not be able to work the tile, as it belongs to the .
The number of Vampire Castles you can build is always equal to the number of build charges each and every Vampire of yours has. If one Vampire builds a Vampire Castle, every Vampire will lose one build charge; if a Vampire Castle gets removed, all Vampires will regain a build charge. If a Vampire Castle is pillaged but not removed, every Vampire will regain a build charge that they can use to place a Vampire Castle anywhere else. However, if they choose to do so, the pillaged castle cannot be repaired anymore.
With her Move Capital project, Dido can choose which city will receive her Vampire Castles' yields and quickly grow a newly-settled city without the use of domestic s.
When combined with the Monopolies and Corporations game mode, you can use a Vampire Castle to get an easy +4 , +10 , and +3 , or even more if you plan your Industries well.
Also, in the Apocalypse game mode, this tile improvement goes exceptionally well with the Great Bath + Soothsayer strategy. Settle quickly and immediately try to research Pottery to unlock the Great Bath. With a little bit of luck with your spawn location, you may finish the Great Bath in time even on a high difficulty level. After that, focus on cranking out Soothsayers and participating in the Appease the Gods competition. For every Soothsayer charge, the Floodplains tiles in your city will gain 1 each, and this can be done infinitely. This amount of can be further amplified by building Vampire Castles near those Floodplains tiles. This strategy/exploit works with any civilization, but it can be used best by Qin Shi Huang (since he can reliably construct the Great Bath on even the highest difficulty levels) and Ethiopia (since they benefit the most from high ). It technically can work well with Egypt since they also have an easier time building the Great Bath, but since Egyptian infrastructure is already immune to Flood damage, this is kind of redundant.
== Civilopedia entry ==
== Gallery ==
File:Vampire in-game (Civ6).jpeg|Vampire and a Vampire Castle in game
File:Civ6 Vampire Castle In-Game.webp|Vampires and a Vampire Castle in game
Category:Secret Societies (Civ6)