Civ 7: Adjacency Explained

Adjacency is one of those slightly obscure features in Civilization 7 that doesn’t get much explanation in the game, but is actually one of the most complex and important parts of city planning. If you’ve played Civilization 6 you’ve probably got a decent understanding of what adjacency is and how it benefits your empire in Civilization, but if you’re brand-new to the series, some parts of it might need clearing up.

This guide covers adjacency bonuses for the buildings in Civilization 7, as well as how to optimize your cities to return the maximum yields.

Every Type Of Tile In Civ 7

There are three main types of tiles in Civilization 7: Rural, Urban Districts, and Quarters.

Rural tiles are any tiles based on resources in your city, i.e, a pasture on some sheep or a plantation on some cotton.

Urban Districts include any buildings that have been constructed on empty tiles, ie, your Saw Pit or Library.

Quarters are where two Urban Districts have been built on the same tile. This may be your civilization’s unique quarter, or simply placing a Saw Pit and Granary on the same tile at the start of the game.

However, there are also Warehouse tiles and Ageless tiles.

Warehouse tiles can’t be overbuilt between ages. You shouldn’t place these in areas with high adjacency bonus potential (like near mountains or Wonders), because you won’t be able to increase your yield across Ages.

Increasing your yield between Ages is reliant on Overbuilding. This is a mechanic wherein you build over buildings from the previous Age and replace them with buildings of your current age. This is quite a complicated system, so you can read a lot more about it here.

Each of these tiles has different interactions when it comes to adjacency. We will be referencing these tile types throughout this guide.

So What Is Adjacency In Civ 7?

Adjacency is the extra yield on tiles you earn when you place certain districts and quarters in certain areas.

The easiest to understand is Wonders. Wonders provide adjacency to a range of buildings, and this is usually shown when you attempt to build a building in your city. Alongside Resources and Natural Wonders, these are the most important tiles in the game.

For example, Science buildings receive +1 Science adjacency for Wonders and Resource tiles that are next to them.

Building Adjacencies In Civilization 7 By Type

Here’s a look at all the adjacency bonuses in the game for the base type of tiles, not including unique quarters.

Warehouse Buildings

These buildings are Ageless which essentially means they are permanent across ages and can’t be replaced by overbuilding them with new buildings.

As a result, you shouldn’t place these in spots where you’ve planned for massive adjacency boosts – like near natural wonders, resource adjacency, or next to constructed world wonders.

• Fishing Quay
• Brickyard
• Granary
• Saw Pit
• Gristmill
• Sawmill
• Stonecutter
• Grocer
• Brickyard
• Ironworks

Adjacency Between Ages

You should, as a very roundabout tip, overbuild older buildings of the same type with newer buildings from the Exploration or Modern Age.

This is to maintain your adjacency bonuses. Between age, older buildings become less important or redundant, losing their existing adjacency. However, things can start to get a little complicated as you transition between ages.

For example, you should place an Observatory over a Library where possible to retain the existing yield (now just +2 science from the Library), while also getting the bonus from the up-to-date building adjacency from mountainous terrain.

Adjacency – In Images

In the above picture, we’ve marked a tile with an X. This tile has an adjacency bonus available from two Resource tiles (the Camels and Salt), as well as two Mountainous terrain adjacency bonus from the two mountains.

This makes it an ideal spot for a wide variety of buildings – though a culture building will receive bonuses from the mountainous terrain, and a science building will receive an adjacency bonus from the resources, but not the mountains.

If you were to place a Wonder to the north of the tile, you’d then increase the potential adjacency yield massively for culture buildings which receive a bonus from the mountainous terrain and the wonder.

Using this concept, you can start to identify the best tiles in your city’s borders.

There is currently no pin system as there was in Civilization 6, which can make it a bit harder to keep track of the best tiles in your cities. We expect that this is a function that will be added to the game at a later date.

Palace Adjacency

In your capital city, the Palace provides a bonus to +1 Culture and +1 Science for Districts that are adjacent to it. This means when the game starts you can place a Granary that will provide extra Culture and Science as well as the warehouse bonus. This is extremely situational whether you want to place a granary on a palace tile, or actually wait for a better non-Ageless building to fill that slot.

Unique Quarters, Civilization-specific Adjacency Bonuses

As with everything else in Civilization 7, your choice of leader and civilization will reflect on your adjacency bonuses. Certain unique quarters will provide adjacency or accrue adjacency from other sources.