Taking on board some Civ 7 tips before you start building your empire will help prepare you for the challenge that lies ahead, so you can move forward more quickly. It's a difficult task to start out with nothing but your first city and turn it into a sprawling empire, with Civilization 7 throwing plenty of challenges at you to try and stand in the way of progress. If you're just starting out then things can feel somewhat overwhelming, so we've gathered together the best Civ 7 tips to guide you through the first age.
1. Begin on Scribe difficulty
Civilization 7 dramatically changes up the 4X gameplay formula, to the point that even returning players may not be used to the new systems introduced. As such, we recommend turning the difficulty down to Scribe, the lowest of Civ 7’s six difficulty levels.
This will allow you to learn the game from the ground up at a leisurely pace. With the Scribe difficulty active, other leaders are less likely to stomp all over you, and you’ll be able to learn each of these new and returning systems without the fear of that looming over your head.
Once you’ve got to grips with how the game works and the best ways to progress through a standard game, you’ll be better off moving up to higher difficulties for added challenge.
2. Start by building scouts
As early as the first 10 turns, you should prioritize training a few scout units to explore the surrounding terrain. Building a scout will allow them to get the lay of the land and help you find good resource tiles along with other factions while you’re still setting up your main city.
Scouts can move two tiles per turn, and have a higher field of view when compared to other units you can create at this point. Therefore, they’re incredibly useful for exploring the world map and finding areas you’ll want to expand into.
The main thing to beware of is that scouts aren’t fighters, so if a hostile enemy decides to attack your scout unit, you’ll risk losing them altogether.
3. Be aware of surrounding terrain
When using your scouts to explore the terrain around your city, now’s a good time to take note of what resource tiles are available to you and plan accordingly. When it comes to expanding your starting city (or building new towns), it’s important to pick up technologies that take advantage of the resources available to you.
For example, if your first city is located near a lot of food tiles, research technologies that will improve your yield from food. This will help your city grow massively in the early game, allowing you to expand quickly.
The same goes for other types of resources. So, if you’re settled near a lot of production tiles, prioritize technologies that will take advantage of that.
4. Expand early and quickly
Being aware of nearby resources is important, but you know what else is important? Being aware of what isn’t near your city. If there’s a specific resource you need which isn’t as readily available, you’ll have to expand by creating towns.
The best thing about having towns is that they’re a major boon to resource stockpiles. Ideally, you’ll want to settle at least two additional towns by the time you reach around Turn 50. We recommend placing them on the same continent as your city, but on opposing coasts. This comes in handy during the Exploration Age later on, when you need to venture further outside of the starting area.
There’s no downside to settling more towns, as long as you make sure you stay under the settlement limit. If you go over by settling too many towns, you’ll receive a penalty.
5. Choose a Legacy Path early
Civ 7’s Legacy Paths are the conditions you need to follow in order to achieve victory. There are four routes to victory: Economy, Military, Culture, and Science. However, this is not just a case of following one route from the first turn to the final turn, as each age has its own conditions to achieve.
There are three distinct ages a Civ 7 game will play through: Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern. Legacy Paths will give you a set of objectives to achieve in each age, and accomplishing them will influence your play in the following age.
Sometimes it’s best to stick to one Legacy Path throughout all three ages, but depending on your leader and civilization, it may also be beneficial to switch them up mid-game. We recommend experimenting with the best leader and civilization combinations and how they influence the Legacy Paths.
6. Use your Influence points
As you meet other leaders, you’ll gain Influence points which allow you to strengthen or weaken how favorably other civilizations think of you. If you’re aiming for a more diplomatic victory, it’s wise to use your Influence points to keep these leaders happy. We’ve found that using Influence for Civ 7 diplomacy that’s mutually beneficial for both civs is the best route to avoiding conflict.
Similarly, you’ll also encounter independent factions as your scouts move around the map. Spending influence points will allow you to befriend them and become part of your civilization. This brings new bonuses and will help you grow your empire.
7. Military is important, even for peaceful players
Generally speaking, the AI in Civilization 7 is quite aggressive in our experience. Even if you’re pursuing a peaceful playthrough, it’s wise to amass a large army if only for self-defence. Particularly in the Antiquity Age, you’ll certainly run into some hostile independent cities that can become a problem for you if you don’t have a strong military presence.
Commanders, a new addition to Civ 7, are also great to have. You can use them to stack multiple units on one tile, allowing them to move as a group. It’ll also make them much stronger when it comes to fighting with a hostile enemy.
8. Be prepared for disasters
It helps to be prepared when faced with a crisis. This could mean an ally potentially turning on you, or a natural disaster destroying a portion of your settlements and units. At any time, your city could be upturned by a blizzard, a volcanic eruption, a flood, or something else entirely. Should this happen, you’ll need to use your resources to rebuild any tiles affected by the disaster.
On the other hand, once the Age progresses to around 60%, every leader will be hit with a crisis to deal with. This will appear in the Government screen, where you’ll be required to pick up a social policy which brings some kind of debuff to your progress. As the age continues to edge towards completion, this crisis will worsen, so make sure you’re prepared to deal with it.
And those are the best Civ 7 tips we can offer to help you start out.
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