How do you win in Civilization 7? Civ 7 brings many changes to the popular strategy game series, including mix-and-match leaders from their civilizations, a new Age mechanic, and more. One of the biggest changes that might catch veteran players out is a whole new victory system, which stems from Legacy Paths.
Civ 7 Legacy Paths are a new quest mechanic that guides players through the 4X game, from the early stages of the Antiquity Age, right through researching flight and even heading to space in the Modern Age. While you can win by spreading across different areas during the three Civ 7 Ages, focusing on one Legacy Path can lead to one of four new Civ 7 Victories, as we’ve detailed below.
Here are all the different ways you can win in Civilization 7:
- Modern Military Victory
- Modern Economic Victory
- Modern Science Victory
- Modern Culture Victory
- Domination Victory
- Points Victory
Modern Military Victory
To earn a new Modern Victory in Civ 7, you must complete the Military Legacy Path before the end of the Modern Age, or before someone else claims their own victory.
The Military Legacy Path naturally concentrates on invasion and occupying lands claimed by other civilizations. As such, this path guides you through which technologies and civics to learn in order to unlock the best military units, before tasking you with claiming enemy territory. Your military advisor also helps you decide which buildings to place in towns and cities, but you can ignore them in favor of other ideas.
Once you have claimed enough settlements from others, you complete the Legacy Path and a final task is unlocked: building the Manhattan Project. Once you have built the wonder in any city, you can conduct ‘Operation Ivy’. By being the first player to complete Operation Ivy, you automatically win by a Modern Military Victory.
Modern Economic Victory
For the first time in the series, Civ 7 lets you achieve an economic victory. Now you can put all your eggs in your economy’s basket thanks to the Economy Legacy Path.
The Economic Victory comes down to trains and trade as you become a railroad tycoon. The early milestones of this Legacy Path come from researching Cartography and Astrology and using them to build a strong naval infrastructure. In the Modern Age, this naturally becomes railroads. Building a factory in a settlement with a rail connection and using it to assign five resources gains you 20 Railroad Tycoon Points. Across the various stages of the Legacy Path, you must earn a total of 500 Railroad Tycoon Points to claim the World Bank victory.
Modern Science Victory
As we alluded to in the intro, you can once again head for space in the final stages of Civ 7. This is your goal for achieving a Modern Science Victory. Of course, this doesn’t come into play until the Modern Age, and you’ll build up to space exploration by placing Civ 7 Specialists in your early towns, using them to build up an incredible 40 yield-per-tile. Then, there are three steps towards space flight: the Space Race Projects, all of which must be completed to win a Science Victory.
Before building a launch pad and heading into space, you need to master standard flight. Research flight, then complete the Trans-Oceanic Flight Project. Next, have your scientists research aerodynamics, and complete the ‘break the sound barrier’ project. Finally, research rocketry, build a launch pad, and complete the satellite project. Now, you’re ready to send your civ into space and win with the First Staffed Space Flight victory condition.
Modern Culture Victory
If you’d rather go down the cultural route, then there’s a Legacy Path for you, too. This entails training an explorer to research at a university or museum before taking their knowledge across continents to uncover artifacts. Artifacts can be discovered through narrative events, excavating ruins, and overbuilding settlements, and you must display a total of 15 in your museum finish the Cultural Legacy Path. Doing this unlocks the World’s Fair Wonder, and building this in any city results in your victory.
Domination Victory
Don’t worry, while there may be four new victories, the classic Domination Victory is also still possible in Civ 7. To claim victory by Domination, you must capture all settlements belonging to other leaders. A Domination Victory can be claimed in both the Exploration and Modern Ages, but can only be done in the Antiquity Age when playing a Single-Age game.
Points Victory
The Civ 7 Points Victory is basically the last resort. Since Ages complete when players collectively earn enough Legacy Points, a winner still needs to be chosen if none of the above criteria have been met before the end of the Modern Age or the end of a Single-Age game. In this case, the player with the most Legacy Points wins. For this reason, it’s important to keep your Legacy Points in mind even if you’re going after a specific win.
With this information in mind, you can start to plan your own Civ 7 Victory. To give you a greater experience of every aspect of the strategy game, why not work towards getting all five main Victories? This will give you a chance to try plenty of the Civ 7 leaders and Civ 7 civs on offer.