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14 Civ 7 Mistakes to Avoid
Whether you’re a Civ veteran or totally new to 4X games, there are plenty of new systems to learn in Civilization 7. Leading a nation to victory is no easy task, and a Civ game isn’t exactly quick, so make sure to avoid these 14 crucial pitfalls.
Don’t Send Scouts Wandering Aimlessly
At the very start of the game, once you’ve got your first settlement, you’ll want to start exploring the area and discover any nearby wonders and map features like discovery tiles, which trigger narrative events that let you choose from various rewards.
To help you find these tiles, Scouts have a new ability that temporarily grants them extra vision and reveals any discovery tiles at double the distance.
Raise Your Settlement Cap to Expand
You’ll want to find out where rival Civs are on the map and start claiming territory as soon as your Capital City reaches 5 population and you can train a Settler.
Keep an eye on the settlement cap on the banner at the top of the screen.
You don’t want to go over this cap as you’ll get hefty happiness penalties on your settlements that will restrict their growth and slows down getting policy unlocks from celebrations.
Bonus Tip: Once you have a Capital City, new settlements you found will be Towns by default. You can upgrade them to Cities for a fee, but even if you're rolling in cash, we recommend you don't upgrade all your Towns into Cities - you need Towns to help grow your cities.
Don’t Miss Out On Resources
When founding a new settlement, you’re looking for spots next to plenty of resources.
Resources either apply a flat effect to your entire civilization or can be assigned to individual settlements. It doesn’t matter if you have duplicate resources as their bonuses will stack.
Don’t Get Landlocked
Access to the ocean is vital for settling Distant Lands in the Exploration age.
If you’re playing on a Continents map, see if you can secure access to the sea via both the east and west coasts wherever possible.
This is especially vital for the Economic Legacy path where you have to set up settlements on Distant Lands to import special resources like cocoa, sugar, tea, and spices. Even if you’re not going the Economic route, if you grab them, you can make sure other Civs can’t claim them for themselves.
Watch Out For Hostile Independents
If you’ve got enemies on your borders, hover over them to see which village they belong to. If you haven’t found them already, your next goal will be to discover their camp on the map. Once you’ve located them, you have a few options.
Befriend
The first option is to use influence to befriend them. This takes quite a few turns, during which time their units will still be hostile. But when it’s done, they will be friendly, and unless another civ destroys or befriends them first, you’ll become their Suzerain, and can choose from a list of useful bonuses to obtain from them, depending on the type of state they are.
You can even eventually incorporate them into your empire as a settlement if you have enough influence.
Destroy
Your next option is to march your armies over to them and wipe them out with military strength. You can disperse an independent people by stationing one of your units on their settlement tile and clicking ‘disperse’. This grants a one-time flat reward based on the settlement type.
Don't Neglect Commanders
It’s a huge waste to engage in any combat without a nearby commander getting XP and leveling up from it. Avoid this wherever possible. They can occupy the same tiles as your soldiers, and you can move them around during your turn to make sure they’re affecting the units you’re attacking with.
If you train up a unit in a settlement far from the front lines, you can send them to reinforce a commander, during which time they’ll disappear from the map. If the commander dies in the meantime, though, the reinforcement will fail and they will reappear where they were originally.
Look After Your Units
While you’re fighting, don’t miss the additional options you get by expanding the unit's action bar by clicking the arrow on the left hand side. This is where you can upgrade and heal your units!
One particularly painful mistake is easy to make while you’re fighting. Land units have a severe strength penalty while they’re embarked, making them really weak to enemy attacks.
This has always been the case in Civ games, but now the map has navigable river tiles, and your units will embark if they end up there, so make sure to avoid your units becoming vulnerable in a bad spot. The flip side of this is that you can bring ships further in-land to help attack or defend territories.
Repair Damaged Buildings With Gold
Look out for damaged buildings in your settlements. These might be the result of a natural disaster like a flood or a storm, an enemy pillaging you, or your own people getting a bit grumpy during a crisis event.
There is an option to repair them with production, but this didn’t work great for us. It seems much faster and more efficient to fix them using gold, since it’s relatively cheap and you can repair lots of damage in one go.
If you’ve got loads of money in your bank, consider purchasing units or buildings to help your armies and settlements grow.
Purchasing buildings is the only way you can add them to towns. This is definitely worth doing to help them expand quicker.
Don’t Lock Yourself Out Of Unique Quarters
It’s important to pay attention to where you’re placing your buildings, especially if your civ has a unique quarter that is formed by placing two unique buildings in the same tile.
If you build one in the wrong spot, there’s nothing you can do. And unless you’ve already unlocked the civics that let you construct both buildings, you won’t even get a warning if you’re about to lock yourself out.
Don’t Use Up All Your Influence
There are some great benefits to using it for helpful boosts or subterfuge, but I recommend you keep some saved up in case you need to spend it to block someone trying to denounce you or convert an independent fast.
Check You’re Not Falling Behind
You can keep an eye on everyone’s progress by hovering over your portrait in the top right corner, which will show vital stats for every rival you’ve met so far, including their yields per turn and number of settlements.
Don’t Forget to Set Up Trade Routes
You need to build a merchant to set up a trade route, and send them over to a settlement in range before you can set up the trade. You can have one trade route to each civilization by default, and spend influence to add more. Ideally, you should try to have a trade route with every friendly settlement in range.
Keep An Eye On Age Progress
You can track the current age’s progress on the trophy in the top left corner. When the age reaches 70% completion, this triggers a universal crisis event. There are a few different crises you can get, from plagues to revolts, and if you get unlucky they can seriously hamper your plans.
Ages don't progress at the same rate - they start off slow, and start to speed up as the Civs in the game complete Legacy path milestones. That means falling behind can be really bad, and speeding ahead in one area might not give you enough time to complete something else you’re going for.
The Golden Age rewards at the end of each legacy track are by far the most valuable, but can be pretty hard to achieve.
Don’t Be Afraid Of War
Even if you’re not going for a Military legacy path, you might sometimes want to start trouble with rival nations. Pay attention to your relationships and try to avoid fighting everyone at once, but if you notice a powerful enemy starting to get ahead of the pack, consider taking a well-placed city for yourself, or even eliminating them from the game if you’re strong enough. One less rival to compete with!