"Civilization 7" is a strategy game and the latest work in the Civilization series. Trade usually revolves around exchanging resources and establishing trade routes. Resources are limited items on the map that can bring powerful bonuses. Trade routes can bring revenue gains to your empire every turn.
Introduction to trading system
In the Civilization series, trade usually revolves around exchanging resources and establishing trade routes. Resources are limited items on the map that can bring powerful bonuses. Trade routes can bring revenue gains to your empire every turn. Due to the elimination of trade in diplomacy, and the overall goal of wanting players to focus on the big decisions, we've decided to make some important changes to the trade functionality in Civilization VII.
First of all, "Civilization VII" simplifies the way to obtain resources. There are three ways to obtain resources:
Development Event: As your settlement expands due to population growth, selecting a tile with a resource will automatically build an improvement that captures that resource.
Trade Routes: Sending merchant units to nearby settlements will establish trade routes, allowing you to obtain a corresponding amount of resources produced locally.
City-states: In each era, some city-states have unique resources that can only be obtained by becoming their suzerain.
In practical terms, this means that if you want to obtain a specific resource, you can simply find it on the map. Thereafter, you can develop settlements or send merchants to establish trade routes to obtain this resource.
Resources in "Civilization VII" are divided into the following three categories:
Empire resources: can provide map-wide bonuses. Many are strategic resources from previous Civilization games, such as iron.
City Resources: Benefits and abilities that can be used to specialize a specific city (not a town!). City resources can be used to build cities that specialize in producing technology, culture, or gold.
Bonus resources: Fixed income bonuses that can be allocated to any settlement (including towns). This type of resource is very useful for improving settlements with high dissatisfaction, and can also be used to speed up development.
As mentioned above, you can allocate specific types of resources to your cities and settlements. Each settlement has a different number of initial resource slots based on its importance: capitals have the most slots, cities second, and towns only have one slot. The number of slots can be increased based on a range of factors. Building certain buildings in a settlement can increase resource capacity, and camel resources can also increase city capacity! Watch this short video to see how resources work:
Trade routes are crucial for obtaining additional resources, and are even the main way to obtain more resources when you reach the settlement limit. To establish trade routes, you typically need to unlock merchant units by researching the appropriate municipalities, and then send merchants to settlements. Overall, you can choose to travel by land or sea. Land routes have a shorter maximum distance, but can build roads between foreign settlements and the nearest settlement in your trade network; sea routes have a maximum distance of twice as long as land routes.
If someone sends a merchant to establish a trade route with you, you will automatically share the resources of the corresponding settlement and receive gold coin benefits. The more resources you provide, the more benefits you will receive. If it is a sea route, the benefits will be doubled. In the Classical Era and the Age of Exploration, merchants needed to reach settlements to establish trade routes; in the Modern Era, merchants can establish trade routes no matter where they are on the map. Once a trade route is established, a trading caravan or ship is generated. Such units are generated continuously, so trade routes do not need to be reactivated once completed. But be careful, as these units can be looted by enemy forces!
