The Civilization series has been a fan favorite for decades. This 4X series allows you to take a civilization from early history and build it up all the way through the ages — as long as you survive that long, that is. Civilization 7 is the latest entry and is far more than just a graphical update. There are dozens of new civilizations to play with, mechanics to learn, and strategies to employ for every win condition. Those who have already put hundreds of hours into the series will have a leg up, but there are still a few things you will need to unlearn. Newcomers especially will benefit from some tactics that would otherwise take hours of experimenting and losses to figure out.
Let’s make sure your Civilization 7 experience starts off on the right foot with these essential tips and tricks.
Choose your Leader with a plan
Like previous games in the series, Civilization 7 allows you to win in multiple ways. This time, you can win through Cultural, Military, Economic, or Scientific goals. Each path has different objectives you need to hit across each age before giving you one final victory condition in the Modern Age. You don’t need to only invest in one of these categories, and wouldn’t make it far if you did, but starting the game with a focus in mind is essential for guiding your civilization.
That begins with picking your leader. Civilization 7 has dozens of leaders to choose from and each one has two focuses, such as economic and militaristic, plus a unique ability and agenda that further diversifies them. Knowing which victory type you’re going for will make this list far more manageable, and then you can just compare the unique skills of each leader to make a final decision. While the Leader’s main attributes are important, you also shouldn’t spend too long stressing over the other details unless you’re playing on the highest difficulty or in PvP.
Be aware that during each of the three age transitions you will select a new civ from a few options to replace your previous one. When this happens, you will have a second opportunity to pick a civ with the same or different attributes. While you can pivot here if you wish, it is highly recommended that you continue focusing on your initial victory condition.
This is also where Legacy Points come into play. These points are earned by reaching specific milestones in each of the four corresponding Legacy Paths. We will talk more about those later, but it is another small opportunity to either reinforce your goal or help redistribute your bonuses if you’ve been lacking in other areas.
If you’re new to the entire 4X genre and have no idea where to start, choosing random to start is a fantastic way to begin. Don’t be tempted to simply choose militaristic. While that might sound the most fun, it is one of the more challenging ways to play before you understand all the other systems and resources you need to pay attention to besides your army.
Expand with purpose
When you first land on a map, you will want to expand in three major ways: uncovering the map with a scout, building out your capital city, and setting up additional towns.
Scouts will be the first unit you can produce, so make one right away and send them off into the deep unknown. Knowing what’s around you in terms of resources, oceans, independent powers, and other proper civilizations will guide your entire strategy. A good rule of thumb is to navigate your account between tiles with the VII logo on them since they indicate some point of interest. Also, remember to take advantage of a scout’s ability to take a turn to expand their sight range so you don’t waste turns moving towards a dead end or ocean and then have to backtrack.
When it comes to your capital, the tiles you can expand to each have different resources they offer once you claim them, but that shouldn’t be your only concern. You want to balance getting enough of the necessary resources — especially gold — while also working towards bonus tiles on the map that give you additional resources. There are also times when you don’t want to expand but either add a structure onto an existing tile for bonuses. Pay attention to what you’re building and what benefits it can get or give to adjacent areas. If you need to, you can build over areas you’ve already settled but that shouldn’t be done until after the first Age if it can be avoided.
Finally, founding new settlements is a big priority in the early game. You can do this with your own settler units, or by building your relations to an Independant Power long enough to incorporate them into your civ. However, be aware that there is a limit on how many new Towns you can settle in each Age so try and pick ones with plenty of resources nearby to expand to. Also, don’t upgrade all your Towns into Cities. This costs more and more gold to do, and there are positives and negatives to each settlement type. It is best to keep an equal balance of Towns to Cities.
Manage your resources and trade
The main resources you will be juggling in Civilization 7 are gold, happiness, influence, food, production, science, and culture. These each serve a purpose, but nearly every building will cost you one resource in order to provide more of another. Once you start making new settlements, you should focus each one on producing a couple of those to all balance out in the end. While you shouldn’t let anything get critically low in a city, the most important thing is that your total from all sources on each resource is in the positive.
Map resources are also too many and spread out to get the benefits of each type. As soon as you can make merchants and have a positive enough relationship with your neighboring Leaders, get trade routes going to add more resource buffs than you could get staying isolated.
Use your Influence wisely
Influence is a brand new mechanic in Civilization 7 that is spent on all diplomatic interactions. This includes improving relations with other Leaders, accepting their proposals for temporary buffs, giving you advantages when war is declared, incorporating Independant Powers, and more. You will have an Influence income each turn much like gold that you need to pay attention to and grow. You don’t want to get caught without enough when there’s a proposal you want to take advantage of (or deny to spite that Leader) and bigger actions cost hundreds of Influence.
Focus on your objectives
Civilization 7 still offers the same four primary victory conditions we spoke about earlier but is much more guided in helping you know exactly how to achieve that end goal one step at a time. Your objectives are always listed on the top left of your screen which will push you forward on your target Legacy Path. Whichever path you’re taking, make sure you’re always working towards that next objective. After the first few, however, the next step won’t be something you can directly work towards, such as asking you to research a technology that isn’t yet an option. This is when you want to open your tech or culture skill tree and check out the paths available during that Age.
Like any skill tree, you will need to progress through the right set of earlier skills to unlock the option to research the one you need, and the path isn’t always obvious. In fact, you need to pay close attention even when studying the tree since the lines connecting each skill don’t always move forward linearly like it looks a first. Quite often a skill at the top will curve down and connect to one near the bottom or vice versa. It pays to double-check which skill actually leads you to the next objective so you don’t spend 10 or more turns researching something that doesn’t connect to what you need it to.
