Civ 7 Map Settings

By Matt Goodsell , Marloes Valentina Stella , Jen Rothery

Updated: Feb 8, 2025 12:25am UTC

There are six different map types in Civilization 7, and three different map sizes. The map type determines the shape and uniformity of the randomly generated land masses and continents. The map size changes how much space you have, and how many other players will spawn by default.

Civ 7 Map Sizes

By default, Tiny maps can hold 4 players, Small maps are 6 players, and Standard contains 8 players.

According to the game's maps.xml file, Tiny maps have 3 natural wonders and two continents, with 3 players spawning on landmass 1 and 1 on landmass 2.

Small maps have 4 natural wonders and 4 continents, with 4 players starting on landmass 1 and 2 on landmass 2.

Standard maps have 5 natural wonders and 4 continents, with 5 players on landmass 1 and 3 on landmass 2.

Civ 7 Map Types

Each map is randomly generated according to a random seed assigned when creating a game. When you pause your game, you can see the map seed belonging to your current game in the bottom right hand corner. To input a seed when generating a new map, go to Advanced Settings while setting up.

Below are screenshots of examples all the Civilization 7 map types, generated in the launch version of the game.

Note that these are just examples of the kind of map you get with each generation preset. The map you get will definitely be different, and some presets are much more random than others!

Continents Plus

Tiny	Small	Standard

The Continents Plus map is the default recommended map type, and features two major landmasses, with several small islands scattered in between. These islands often contain Distant Land resources which can be worked to produce Treasure Fleets.

Continents

Tiny	Small	Standard

The regular Continents map features two large landmasses, without the islands scattered in between, although there are occasionally a couple of them dotted around.

Archipelago

Tiny	Small	Standard

The Archipelago map is roughly divided into two distinct halves, but instead of two main continents, there are several disconnected or thinly connected land masses on each side. There's plenty of water and coastal tiles, favoring a naval focused campaign.

Fractal

Tiny	Small	Standard

Fractal map generation produces more randomly shaped land masses, which seems to result in fewer blunt edges/'unnatural' shapes, but less actual land area overall. There are still two major 'continent' areas and smaller islands between them, but continents may be split into several parts.

Shuffle

Tiny	Small	Standard

Shuffle maps use a randomized preset to generate the map. We're not sure yet exactly how these calculations are made, but based on the map generation script files, Archipelago, Continents, and Fractal are all possibilities.

Terra Incognita

Tiny	Small	Standard

According to the Civ 7 Exploration Age Developer Livestream, Terra Incognita generates a standard Continents map as the homeland landmass, and uses a randomized preset to generate the second landmass.