Independent Powers are what Civilization 7 calls its city-states, a classic part of the modern Civilization game. Compared to its predecessors, Civ 7 has completely revamped the city-state system, and it’s more involved and interesting than in previous games. Rather than a simple, transactional relationship of either we’re friends or we aren’t, the Independent Powers in Civ 7 are aggressive, powerful, and can offer you a range of interesting rewards if you take the time – and spend the Influence – to befriend them.
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This guide covers the different types of Independent Powers, as well as how the system works throughout the Age system.
What Are Independent Powers?
Independent Powers are individual city-states that spawn randomly on the map at the beginning of the game.
Independent Powers will either spawn as Friendly or Hostile. Friendly city-states can be seen at a glance by the yellow border around their name, whereas hostile states will have a red border.
Hostile city-states are exactly that: they will send troops towards your capital, it is inevitable. On harder difficulties, like Immortal and Deity, this wave of troops can sometimes be completely overwhelming. You will need to build an army to defend yourself. This is quite different from previous games where barbarians could largely be ignored.
Befriending City-States
Each city-state will have a different attribute assigned to them: military, scientific, cultural, or economic. These reflect the four victory conditions in Civilization 7.
If you’ve already determined which sort of angle you’re going for with your Civ, then you can choose to befriend a city-state of your choosing that might help with your win condition. I.e, if you’re going for a cultural victory with Hatshepsut, you will want to befriend cultural city-states.
Befriending city-states costs Influence which is a new currency in Civilization 7. At the start of the game, you don’t earn much of this, so you need to pick carefully which city-states you want to befriend. Befriending city-states takes several turns – this depends on the speed of your game – and other civilizations can attempt to befriend city-states at the same time as you. You can spend more Influence on the same state to expedite the befriending process.
City-State Rewards
Once you’ve befriended a city-state, they will offer you a range of rewards depending on their city-state type.
Each city-state type will have a unique building that can be constructed or purchased in towns and cities. For example, the militaristic city-state will allow you to construct the Hillfort. These are ageless buildings that can be placed over citizen tiles like farms and woodcutters.
City-states will often also provide benefits that tie in with their city-state type. For example, cultural city-states will offer you culture per city-state you’re a suzerain of, a free social policy slot, or a free civic whenever you become a suzerain of a city-state.
The choice you make here is quite important, as it’s not guaranteed that you’ll be able to get multiple of the same type of city-state. These bonuses also stack nicely with your leader and civilization bonuses, and a heavy focus on Independent Powers is actually a great strategy for certain leaders.
Interacting With City-States
There are several options when it comes to interacting with city-states. If you have successfully befriended a city-state, you can promote growth, levy troops, and even bolster their military.
Troops can be levied from city-states at a cost of Influence. This can be great in a pinch, especially if the city-state borders your empire, and you quickly need to assemble an army.
Promoting growth and military growth allow you to spend Influence to grow a city-state. This might be useful if a city-state’s borders haven’t reached a certain resource yet, and you want to open a trade route with them to gain access to it. Alternatively, you might want a city-state to grow because you want to take control of it, either by force, or by peacefully incorporating the state into your empire.
You can also, eventually, incorporate a city-state into your own empire. This costs a large amount of Influence and takes several turns, but it can be a useful way to expand your empire spending Influence rather than gold or production.
- Released
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February 11, 2025
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