Civ 7 For Dummies: Best Beginner Guide

Leaders and Civilizations

Civ 7’s approach to civilizations is a bit different. You choose a Leader and a Civilization separately. Each Leader brings unique passive abilities and modifiers that impact your civilization’s resource output. For example, a Leader might boost Food production for one Civilization but enhance Culture generation for another. Matching your Leader’s skills to your chosen civilization’s starting advantages is key for a successful early game.

Resource Yields

Civ 7 features seven key resources:

• Science: Fuels research, not used directly.
• Culture: Drives Civic research, influenced by buildings and policies.
• Gold: Essential for purchasing buildings, research, and expediting unit training.
• Influence: Used for diplomacy, alliances, and other non-violent interactions with other nations.
• Happiness: Affects your civilization’s overall stability; unhappy citizens reduce yields.
• Production: Speeds up construction of buildings within settlements. Can be converted to Gold.
• Food: Determines population growth within settlements.

Understanding how these resources interplay is critical to long-term success.

Ages and Changes

Civ 7 progresses through three Ages: Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern. Each Age brings significant changes to your gameplay and the available technologies. Transitioning between these Ages involves a Crisis, potentially disrupting your strategy with events like plagues or uprisings. These Crises are unavoidable, but some can surprisingly boost your early game progress.

Adjacency Bonuses

Strategic placement of buildings matters. Buildings adjacent to specific resources or other buildings often gain adjacency bonuses, enhancing your resource yields. This is particularly crucial when dealing with rivals or Independent Powers on nearby tiles, enabling you to maximize your output in limited spaces.

Using Influence for Diplomacy

Influence is a powerful resource, especially valuable for diplomatic maneuvers. You can use it to forge alliances, make treaties, impose sanctions on opposing powers, or even absorb Independent Powers. Mastering influence management is key to navigating international relations and potentially altering the course of the game.

Military Units and Warfare

Army Commanders are pivotal in Civ 7’s military system. They are the driving force behind your army, not just individual units. Choose commanders and specialize them in different skill trees (Bastion, Assault, Logistics, Maneuver, and Leadership) to gain army-wide bonuses like increased movement speed or attack damage.

Antiquity Age Tips

• Prioritize securing fresh water sources (blue tiles) for your founding cities, as they facilitate rapid population growth.
• Begin exploring for important discoveries early. Discoveries will improve your yields or give you a significant advantage.
• Specialize your cities early. Concentrate your efforts on the resources best suited for your civilization’s strengths.
• Use your civilization’s strengths. Know which win conditions align best with the civilization you’ve chosen to increase your chances.

Exploration Age Tips

• Gain early access to coastal areas. By settling near the sea in the early game, you’ll have a faster path towards the Exploration Age and port-based strategies.
• Utilize the Theology civics. The civics that unlock within this age boost your civilization’s yields when strategically invested in, providing you with more diverse options for growth.

Modern Age Tips

• Modern Warfare is significant. New technologies will be available to you, and this is the right time to begin your campaign for a Military Victory.
• Factories: Modern Age unlocks new structures like Factories. Factories provide boosted yields in your existing specializations, allowing you to dramatically increase your output.