Sanguine Pact (Civ6) (2024)

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TheSanguine Pactis one of four Secret Societies in Civilization VI, exclusive to the Secret Societies game mode, introduced in the Ethiopia Pack. They are a militaristic regime that shares an unhealthy appetite for blood and focuses on building a strong army.

Introduction[]

The girl shows up at the gates of the city, white-faced and mumbling about a dark stranger she met on the road, a rush of wind and wings, and the sweetest pain that she ever felt. Your doctors treat her, but she seems to be fading fast. As night falls, a foreign noblewoman (she seems like a noblewoman, at least, just as she seems foreign) appears at your gates. "The girl is with me," she says, her smile revealing astonishingly white – and prominent - teeth. "Perhaps you could invite me in?"

After Joining[]

You have drunk of the red cup and felt new life course through your veins. The night seems alive with new possibilities, and appetites. Your palace stands shuttered and quiet during the day, but after sunset new courtiers pace the halls, their feet making no sound as they go.

Overview[]

Similar to the other Secret Societies, Sanguine Pact membership lasts the entire game. Once joined, players will unlock a new Governor with four unique titles. This Governor operates on a national scale, thus granting bonuses to the entire empire without being assigned to a city.

Joining the pact unlocks the unique Vampire unit, which gains Combat Strength when adjacent units perish. Instead of dying, Vampires retreat to safety with one HP and can be healed back to full by pillaging. Vampire Castles can be placed in any empty tile in your territory or neutral territory and grant defensive bonuses and extra yields. In later eras, Vampire Castles allow you to teleport units between them.

The Sanguine Pact's base chance of sending an invitation after you clear a Barbarian Camp is 70%. However, as with other societies, this chance will get slightly smaller with every other civilization that joins this society (meaning "popular" societies will be less likely to send you an invitation).

Titles[]

Strategy[]

The Sanguine Pact is the best Secret Society for bloodthirsty players, hands down. It is one of the more difficult societies to join - it takes more time to find a Barbarian outpost and muster the military strength to clear it than it does to satisfy most of the other societies' membership conditions - but the benefits are too great for a Domination Victory seeker to pass up. Vampires are highly resilient and continue to grow in power throughout the game, and the Vampire Castles they can build from the Medieval Era onward offer a combination of tremendous yield potential and tactical possibilities for cunning players to exploit. Vampire Castles provide their yields directly to the owner's Capital, so Sanguine Pact members' Capitals will usually be more productive than those of their opponents.

Vampires receive a huge power spike every time you unlock a new military unit with higher Combat Strength, except for air units and Giant Death Robots. The first Vampire you receive is probably the strongest one you will have in the entire game, since this one will be present at the most fights and can start gaining extra Combat Strength from kills and Barbarians before the others come into play, so you should rename your Vampires accordingly to differentiate them. Vampires cannot heal too well, so anything providing them extra per turn regeneration is well appreciated, such as the War Department, the Fountain of Youth, or Abu Al-Qasim Al-Zahrawi. For a detailed guide regarding Vampires, read here.

Besides their economic uses, Vampire Castles are crucial for keeping your Vampires alive and running. When you are in a conquest, make sure to prioritize strategic placements of these Castles over their yields. Put them close enough to the battlefront that your Vampires can retreat when badly wounded and quickly return to the front lines when healed up, but not so close that they can be easily spotted by the opponent. For a detailed guide regarding Vampire Castles, read here.

The Sanguine Pact also provides late-game advantages for players seeking a Science Victory. By surrounding your Vampire Castles with high- Production tiles, you can turn your Capital's Spaceport into a Production powerhouse. Your first two Castles are unlikely to generate more than 15-20 Production each for your Capital, but upon discovering Conservation, Steel, and Industrialization, each Castle can be reconstructed to generate 25-30 Production. Because the Spaceport and the Science Victory projects require 900-2100 Production and must be performed in sequence, having 75-120 combined Production from your Vampire Castles can shave dozens of turns off your victory.

Recommended civilizations[]

Overall, any civilization with a domination tendency can benefit tremendously from this society; however, there are some that work better than others. Gran Colombian Vampires are always very fast, while Vampires under Chandragupta and Cyrus will double their Movement when the appropriate Casus Belli is used. Although Vampires cannot form Corps and Armies, Shaka can form Corps and Armies and Spain can form Fleets and Armadas early, thus boosting the base Combat Strength of their Vampires. Vampires under Tomyris are extremely dangerous - they heal a whopping 30 HP whenever they kill a unit, basically eliminating their only weakness entirely. Vampires also play nicely with Ambiorix, since being adjacent to other military units gives them a combat bonus and puts them in an optimal position to get permanent Combat Strength bonuses when enemy units are killed.

Harald Hardrada's Viking Longship and Phoenicia's Bireme are both available in the Ancient Era, so they will have the strongest Vampires in the early stages of the game. Thanks to Dido's Move Capital project, Phoenicia has the added advantage of being able to channel its Vampire Castles' yields to different cities.

Civilopedia entry[]

It is difficult to imagine horror fiction without invoking Dracula. Bram Stoker, on writing his tale of the lonely bloodsucking Count trapped in his Transylvanian castle, drew upon Irish fairy legend, Romanian folktales, and a host of Northern European anxiety surrounding the Continent. In writing about vampires, he also drew upon a body of literature and folklore from closer to home, following Gothic authors such as Le Fanu, Lord Byron, and James Rymer, whose vampires were cautionary tales about unhealthy friendships and obsessions. In these, vampires are a kind of pinnacle of Gothic literature, bringing together moral decay, dark castles, and a decadent and corrupted elite. Here, the Sanguine Pact seeks to represent the kind of dark brother- and sister-hood inspired by Stoker.

Vampire myth in Greece, Turkey and Romania is in its origins about the return of a dead relative – especially the victim of a suicide or epidemic - to bother living family members. Unlike the Romantic (and romantic) Gothic vampire, the folkloristic vampire looks more like a fresh corpse of a loved one rather than a mysterious nocturnal nobleman. It is more a reflection on grief and mourning, and the ways that a dead loved one can still haunt us, especially when taken from us too quickly. However, like the Count, one got rid of such a being via the traditional method of stakes and crosses. While our modern-day vampire draws from southeastern Europe, other regions have their own bloodsucking revenants: the Chinese jiangshi, the Thai phi pop, the Norse draugur, or the myth of Lilith in Jewish folklore.

Related achievements[]

This Blood is the Life Earn all Governor promotions for the Sanguine Pact Secret Society. A reference to the opening scene in the 1992 vampire film Bram Stoker's Dracula.