For some, there’s no more satisfying way to complete a game of Civilization than by crushing your rivals via your own iron fist. A shifting economy can disable them. A scientific advancement can surpass them. A cultural overtaking can transform them. But a military victory is absolute.
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For those of you just starting out with Civilization 7, we have a few tips on how to make this happen. From the early days of empire to the final reckoning, here’s what we’ve found that’ll suit your domination-inclined fancy. Armed with knowledge, after all, there’s precious little your foes can do to thwart you.
Prepare The Assault
Unlike other victory paths, Domination victories in Civilization 7 don’t require you to progress all the way to the end. That is to say, you technically do not need to reach the Modern Age. So long as you play your brutality cards right, you can make strong headway as early as the Antiquity Age.
That means completing the Antiquity Military Legacy Path, which – by its end – requires you to have earned 12 settlement points. You’ll gain these at a rate of one point per founded settlement and two points per conquered settlement.
As the numbers here imply, the best path forward is through conquest. But there’s something wider-ranging to consider: the more damage you do to your continental neighbors in Antiquity, the less you’ll need to bother doing in the second age, Exploration.
To make things substantially easier on yourself later on, don’t just aim for the 12 points. Do more. More, more, more. Build up your army from the very beginning, finding some time to work on your cities along the way. A monument, an altar, a library, those sorts of things; don’t fall behind entirely, or it’ll cause you some headache.
Since, as of this writing, Civilization 7 only supports map sizes up to “Standard”, it shouldn’t take long to find the other civs on your home continent. To make things faster, grab the Memento that increases your scout’s sight range.
Tick Off (Nearly) Everybody
Now, it might seem wisest to declare war on everyone as soon as you have a couple of Army Commanders, a handful of siege units, and a bunch of infantry, ranged, and/or cavalry units. In our experience, there’s a smarter choice.
Build up friendly relations with one neighbor. Preferably someone who’s as far away as possible, so that you’re picking someone who would have been harder to reach, anyway. If you can, ally with them while you irritate the heck out of everybody else.
An alliance will force them to go to war alongside you once you’ve declared it on your enemies (or they’ve declared it on you!). The advantages to this are twofold:
- If your ally is capable enough, they will besiege your opponents, keeping their armies split down the center to ease your city-capturing.
- If your ally is particularly feeble, they will make for ripe pickings, convincing your opponents to divert more of their forces, anyway.
Either way, you’ll have an easier time of things. You’re even better off if your ally does fail to hold up their end of the bargain, because they’ll have weakened themselves halfway to a rump state by the time you do the inevitable – when you’re finished with your other rivals, end your ally’s existence.
Even if you don’t quite manage to wipe the rest of your enemies off the face of your temporarily-truncated map in the Antiquity Age, you will have made serious headway.
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Set Sail
Once the Exploration Age kicks up, research Cartography and Astronomy. Our aim, now, is to build a strong navy.
As it happens, you’d need to do this for an Economic Legacy Path, too. Best of all, our goals are going to align nigh-flawlessly with the Exploration Age’s Cultural Legacy Path, so this whole business has surprisingly solid synergy.
While you’re awaiting the opportunity to send your fleet out to Distant Lands, you should go ahead and study Piety, and then construct Temples across your empire. You see, the Military Legacy Path in Antiquity is bolstered by converting Distant Lands settlements to your religion.
Go ahead and “pond-jump”, as we like to call it, by sending your navy out one ocean tile at a time, sustaining some damage in search of those Distant Lands. Soon enough, you’ll no longer need to do this. But it’s important that we locate our far-off foes ASAP, and you can be sure that any surviving rivals on your continent will be doing the same.
Once everything is nice and ready, aim for the Shipbuilding tech and any techs that’ll upgrade your military units, and set off in the meantime. We aren’t going to be able to transport our armies to decent effect until we have the tech that’ll let them cross the ocean unimpeded, but that doesn’t mean we can’t start picking off our enemies via naval assaults.
If you happen to stumble upon any distant civs who are at war with a neighbor of theirs, all the better. Declare war on one of the embattled civs.
Impose Your Zeal
Assaulting coastal cities with your naval vessels (make sure to bring at least one Fleet Commander!), will nab you a nice inroads while you’re waiting to bring over your Army Commanders and their units. But you’ll also want to train Missionaries at Temples.
When choosing your religion, focus on warlike beliefs, such as the one that allows Missionaries to heal your units.
From here, the play is simple enough, albeit undoubtedly time-consuming. Bring your armies to bear upon the distant civs’ interior, carrying Missionaries in tow. Once again, we’ll want to surpass the Legacy Path points total of 12 as best we can. Less work later.
While conquering every distant civ throughout the remainder of the Exploration Age might be too much to achieve, especially on higher difficulties, convert settlements for points, and convert conquered settlements for twice as many points. But still, yes – work to obliterate those civs if you can.
Remove What’s Left Of The World
In the Modern Age, we’re on clean-up duty. Beeline techs to strengthen your military, and train new military units galore at your Distant Lands settlements. For your civic, follow along with the Modern Domination Victory objective of learning Ideology and choosing the one that best suits you, probably Fascism.
There are two ways to win here. Either finish that path by researching the Manhattan Project and Operation Ivy, or – preferably – finish off your surviving rivals. If you’ve weakened them sufficiently, they’ll still hate you; but more importantly, they’ll be rather limp heading into this final age.
That’s honestly it. The Modern Age will either progress shockingly swiftly, or it will take a good deal of time, depending on which route you’re taking (and whether or not the finish-off-your-foes route can be done at good speed).
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