⚔️ Military & Combat

Wars will find you whether or not you seek them. This page runs from the foundations outward: first how a single fight is decided, then how each domain works, then how a war starts, ends, and fits into whatever you are actually trying to win.

If you are not planning to fight, read the first three sections and Defensive strategy – that is enough to survive an invasion. If you are going for a Military or Domination victory, the whole page applies, and Building and maintaining a force is where it comes together.

Every button a unit can press – attacks, Fortify, Pillage, Reinforce, and the Commander Commands – is cataloged in Appendix D: Unit actions and commands.

Combat Strength – the core mechanic

Every military unit carries one or more strength values, and knowing which applies when is the whole of tactical decision-making.

Strength Type	What It Governs	Which Units Use It
Combat Strength	Melee attack power and defense against all attacks	All military units
Ranged Strength	Damage dealt by ranged attacks against units	Ranged land units, later Heavy Naval ships, and all Air Units
Bombard Strength	Damage dealt against Fortified Districts and Walls	Siege units, heavy warships, Bombers
Defense Strength	Replaces Combat Strength for units that cannot fight back	Settlers, Builders, Support units, Treasure Convoys

When two units clash, the game compares the attacker's relevant strength against the defender's Combat Strength (or Defense Strength for non-combat units), applies modifiers from terrain, flanking, promotions, and abilities, then calculates damage to both sides. Higher net strength means more damage dealt and less received.

Resolving a battle – will this attack work?

Every attack in Civilization VII is decided by one number: the difference between the attacker's final Combat Strength and the defender's. Both sides take damage in the same exchange; the strength gap decides how lopsided it is.

The shape of the maths. Damage runs on a 0–100 scale against a unit's health.

Strength gap	Roughly what happens
Even	Both units take similar damage – around 25–35 each
+10 in your favor	You deal about 40–60 and take about 10–20
−3 against you	You take about 35–45 and deal about 20–30

Two things follow. Each point of Combat Strength is worth far more than it looks – roughly a 5–10% swing in the damage exchange – so a +5 promotion or a +3 terrain bonus routinely flips an attack from losing to winning. And advantages compound over rounds: a small edge means you finish each exchange healthier, which makes the next exchange more lopsided still.

The modifiers that decide it. These stack additively, and you should count them before committing:

Modifier	Effect	Applies
Hills	+3 Combat Strength to the defender	🛡️ Land
Forest / Jungle	+2 defense against ranged attacks	🛡️ Land
Fortifying	Substantial defensive bonus after a unit spends a turn entrenched	Units with Fortify
River crossing	−5 Combat Strength to a unit attacking across it	🛡️ Land
Flanking	+2 to +5 depending on the attack angle, and roughly double that at sea – see the flanking table below	🛡️ Land · ⚓ Sea
Promotions	Typically +5 for a combat promotion	All

Pro Tip – Do the Arithmetic Before You Click

Add your unit's base strength, its promotions, and any flanking; then add the defender's base strength, terrain, and fortification. If the defender comes out ahead, do not attack – bring another unit for flanking, soften the target with ranged fire first, or wait a turn for better positioning. The single most expensive habit in Civ VII is attacking into a defended hill across a river because the unit "looked stronger."

Watch Out – Movement Cost Can Cancel Your Attack

Hills, forest, and other rough terrain cost extra movement to enter. A unit that spends everything getting into position cannot attack that turn – it just stands there, in the open, waiting to be shot. Plan the approach and the attack as one action, not two.

Terrain, flanking, and Zone of Control

The modifiers themselves are listed above; this is how you use them. The same unit can feel invincible or helpless depending on where it stands and who surrounds it – a defender on a forested hill behind a river is stacking three separate advantages at once.

Flanking is a positional bonus awarded when multiple units attack one target from different angles, scaled by the angle relative to the defender's facing.

Attack Angle	Land Bonus (Combat Strength)	Naval Bonus (Combat Strength)
Side angles	+2	+5
Rear side	+3	+7
Direct rear	+5	+10

To maximize flanking, surround a target with two or three units before attacking. A weaker force can beat a stronger defender purely on positioning.

Zone of Control (ZoC). Most military units project a ZoC into adjacent tiles; enemy units entering one must stop there, though they can still attack if they arrived with enough movement. The exceptions: Ranged units project no ZoC, while Cavalry and Light Naval units ignore it entirely. The game shows this when you select a unit: red-highlighted hexes mark tiles where enemy ZoC will halt ordinary movement. Use ZoC to build chokepoints – a single Infantry unit on a bridge or mountain pass can hold back an army.

🛡️ Land warfare

Land combat is where most of the game is decided, and it runs on three ideas: put the right unit type against the right target, control the ground between them, and never let your fragile units stand alone.

The four land classes

Class	Its job
🛡️ Infantry	Holds ground and is the only class that captures Districts
🐎 Cavalry	Flanks, pursues, raids, and ignores Zone of Control
🏹 Ranged	Damages land units without taking a counter-attack
💣 Siege	Breaks Walls and Fortified Districts; needs an escort in the open

There is no counter triangle. Fights are decided by which Strength applies: Combat Strength in melee, Ranged Strength against land units, Bombard Strength against naval units and Fortified Districts, plus the final modifiers from terrain, flanking, promotions, and fortification. Unit classes still create soft counters through movement and role: Cavalry ignore Zone of Control and can close on Ranged units from outside their Range, Infantry hold ground by exerting Zone of Control, and Siege damages the unit inside a Fortified District rather than the wall.

The practical consequence is that a mixed force beats a larger single-type one. Build around Strength and positioning rather than fixed matchups: a class advantage helps, but it does not override a large Strength gap or a better defensive position.

Formation and positioning

Terrain, flanking, and promotions routinely overcome a soft class disadvantage, and a later-Age unit will often win on raw Strength alone. Treat class roles as a planning aid, not a rule – what you actually control is the shape of your army.

A functional army is layered, not a blob:

• Front line: Infantry. They hold ground, project Zone of Control, and are the only units that capture Districts.
• Second line: Ranged. One tile back – close enough to fire, far enough that melee cannot reach them without first going through your front line.
• Protected: Siege. Screened at all times. Enemy cavalry hunts siege engines specifically.
• Flanks and rear: Cavalry. Not in the line – out wide, hitting exposed Ranged units, cutting reinforcements, and pursuing damaged units that try to withdraw.

Zone of Control is what makes a line a line: two or three units across a river ford or mountain pass can hold a front far wider than their number, because the enemy cannot simply walk past them. See Terrain, flanking, and Zone of Control.

Rotate the wounded. Damaged units pulled back into forest heal while fresh units take their place. An army that never rotates loses units it did not need to lose.

How land war changes by Age

• 🏺 Antiquity – small armies, cheap Walls, and the mildest War Weariness in the game. Wars are decided by a handful of units, and taking a neighbor's city is never cheaper than it is now. This is also when Commanders should start earning XP, because it never expires.
• ⛵ Exploration – armies grow, Walls get harder, and Siege becomes mandatory rather than optional. Distant Lands add a second theater, so land war now competes with naval investment for the same Production.
• 🏭 Modern – the largest armies, the toughest fortifications, and War Weariness at its most punishing (−7 to −9 Happiness per point). Air power arrives and changes the arithmetic of assaulting cities. Wars here should be short and decisive; a long Modern war can collapse a healthy empire's Happiness on its own.

⚓ Naval warfare

Naval combat uses the same strength system as land, with one enormous difference: flanking bonuses at sea are roughly double their land equivalents. Positioning matters more on water than anywhere else in the game.

Terrain is not your lever at sea. With no hills to hold or rivers to defend, positioning does more of the work. A fleet that engages piecemeal will lose to a smaller fleet that concentrates: move ships around a target across one or two turns, then attack with everything adjacent.

The three naval roles

⚓ Heavy Naval (Galley → Quadrireme → Cog → Carrack → Galleon → Ship of the Line → Dreadnought → Battleship) – your battle line. In Antiquity they fight as melee ships; by Exploration they become ranged bombardment platforms. Slow and powerful, they anchor a fleet the way Infantry anchors an army, and they are what actually bombards coastal Districts during a siege.

⛵ Light Naval (Privateer in Exploration; Ironclad → Cruiser → Destroyer in Modern) – fast, flexible, and they ignore Zones of Control at sea, which makes them the naval equivalent of cavalry. They escort Treasure Convoys, intercept enemy trade, and chase down damaged ships. The Privateer is the specialist raider: it can Coastal Raid and Plunder Trade Routes, and it returns Gold equal to 100% of the Combat Strength of any unit it defeats – a navy that pays for itself.

Watch Out – Raiding Without War Is Not a Privateer Thing

Crossing borders and attacking without declaring war is the Pirate ability, which belongs to Edward Teach and the Republic of Pirates – not to Privateers generally. A Privateer still needs a war to attack.

🌊 Stealth Ships (Submarines) – Modern Age, unlocked by Mobilization. They can only be seen by adjacent units, so they ambush capital ships and vanish. Aircraft Commanders can flush them out: the Aerial Reconnaissance promotion reveals stealth units, and a Carrier's Spotting promotion reveals everything within 3 tiles.

What navies are actually for

Sea control is rarely about sinking ships for its own sake. A navy earns its Production by:

• Protecting your Trade Routes and Treasure Convoys – a single intercepted Convoy can swing an Age
• Enabling Distant Lands settlement, which is both expansion and Dominion score
• Opening a second front in a siege – coastal Districts bombarded from the water force a defender to cover ground their land army cannot reach
• Coastal Raids, pillaging shoreline improvements and districts for economic damage
• Carrying air power in the Modern Age

How naval war changes by Age

• 🏺 Antiquity – coastal only, mostly scouting and light harassment. Navies matter for map knowledge more than combat.
• ⛵ Exploration – the naval Age. Ocean crossing, Distant Lands colonization, Treasure Convoys to escort or intercept, and Privateers plundering Trade Routes and Coastal Raiding once war is declared. If you intend to play on the water at all, this is when the investment pays.
• 🏭 Modern – submarines, carriers, and naval bombardment of hardened coastal cities. Sea control now also means air projection, since carriers are mobile air bases.

✈️ Air warfare

Air power arrives in the Modern Age with the Flight technology, and it does not behave like anything else in the game. Air Units cannot move freely across the map – they operate only from an Aircraft Commander, and everything about using them well comes down to where those Commanders are.

What makes them different. Air Units work like Ranged Units but outclass them on every axis: 4 Sight and an attack Range of around 10 tiles. They ignore terrain obstacles when attacking, and they can target City Centers hidden by fog of war – so nothing inside their range is ever genuinely safe.

The three air classes

Class	Combat Strength	Ranged Strength	Bombard Strength	Range	Use it for
Fighter	High	Lower	Minimal	Slightly reduced	Air superiority – killing other aircraft
Ground Attack	Reduced	High	Average	High	Enemy units in the field, land and naval
Bomber	Reduced	Average	High	High	Settlements and fortified districts

Read the table as roles, not tiers. Fighters win the sky, Ground Attack aircraft break armies, Bombers break cities – and a force of only one type will find itself helpless against whatever it does not counter.

The three Aircraft Commanders

Air Units are trained into a Commander and stay assigned to it. The Rebase Aircraft action moves them between Commanders, as long as both are within Movement range.

🏠 Aerodrome Commander – spawns automatically when you complete an Aerodrome, and is where newly trained aircraft are assigned. It is stationary: aircraft under it can only operate from the Aerodrome tile. That makes it a defensive installation – good for covering your own territory, useless for projecting force.

🚩 Squadron Commander – recruited manually once you have your first Aerodrome, and the key to offensive air power. It can Establish Air Base on any neutral or friendly land tile within Movement range, instantly – aircraft can rebase and operate from it the very next turn. It can then pick the base up and move it again, bringing its aircraft along. It also heals and deploys packed Land Units, making it a general-purpose forward support platform.

🚢 Aircraft Carrier – unlocked by Mobilization. A Naval Support Unit that carries aircraft across water and never fights directly. Because it moves rather than establishing a fixed base, it offers the most flexible reach in the game: some aircraft can strike, the carrier can then reposition, and the remaining aircraft strike from the new position. Carriers can also detect stealth units such as submarines.

Watch Out – Losing a Squadron Commander Can Kill Your Whole Air Force

If a Squadron Commander is defeated, its aircraft try to relocate to the nearest available Aerodrome within their Movement. If none is in range, every one of them is destroyed. Forward air bases have no fortifications, so a Squadron Commander parked deep in hostile territory is a single high-value target carrying your entire air investment. Always know which Aerodrome your aircraft would fall back to.

Pro Tip – Build the Aerodrome for the Commander, Not the Building

The Aerodrome's real output is the free Aerodrome Commander it spawns and the Squadron Commander it unlocks. Get one up as soon as Flight lands, even in a quiet interior city – then do your actual fighting with mobile Squadron Commanders and Carriers, keeping the Aerodrome as the fallback your aircraft can survive a bad turn by reaching.

The Commander system

Commanders are persistent hero units that lead your armies across all three Ages. They do not fight directly; they project a Command Radius that buffs every friendly unit inside it. A well-promoted Commander turns a mediocre army into an unstoppable one.

Five Commander types exist, each with its own promotion trees:

Commander	Domain	Notes
Army Commander	Land	The workhorse; available from Antiquity
Fleet Commander	Naval	Unlocked by Cartography
Aerodrome Commander	Air	Free with an Aerodrome; stationary
Squadron Commander	Air	Mobile forward air base
Aircraft Carrier	Air, at sea	A Naval Support Unit that carries aircraft

The three air Commanders are covered in detail in Air warfare.

Commanders also pack units inside themselves to simplify movement (up to six when fully upgraded) and act as reinforcement targets for newly trained units.

For the button-by-button reference – every Command, what it costs, and when to press it – see Appendix D: Unit actions and commands.

Promotions and Commendations

Commanders gain experience from battles fought within their radius and spend it in five trees, which differ by Commander type.

Commander	Its trees
Army	Bastion · Assault · Logistics · Maneuver · Leadership
Fleet	Bombardment · Engagement · Logistics · Maneuver · Leadership
Aerodrome / Carrier	Dogfighting · Raids · Logistics · (Carrier adds Carrier Operations)
Squadron	Dogfighting · Raids · Logistics · Airlift Operations

Commendations are not awards for heroism – they are earned by completing the final node of a Promotion Tree. Max out all five trees and you earn five Commendation Points.

Commendation	Effect (Army / Fleet)
Order	+5 Combat Strength for all units in the Command Radius
Merit	+1 Command Radius
Service	+1 Movement for units in the Command Radius
Valor	Grants Grant Second Wind – restore 2 Movement to one unit in radius that already attacked this turn
Duty	Grants Heroic Assault – the Commander makes a ranged attack on an adjacent enemy not behind walls, using its Defense Strength

Aircraft Commanders draw from a shorter list: Order (+5 Combat Strength for packed Air Units), Service (+2 Movement for packed Air Units), and Achievement (units heal 10 HP after attacking).

Both Valor and Duty unlock a Command you must actively press. For how Commands resolve and who is eligible to join, see Appendix D.

Promotions are what turn a Commander from a unit into a multiplier, since almost everything earned applies to every unit in the radius rather than to the Commander itself. Two picks outrank the rest: Initiative, first in the Assault tree, lets units move the turn they unpack instead of standing in the open, and Order, earned by finishing any tree at all, adds +5 Combat Strength to everything in radius. Because Commanders are Ageless and keep their promotions, experience spent early keeps paying – a Commander promoted in Antiquity is still earning in Modern.

Movement and reinforcement

Reinforce Army sends a unit to any Commander with a free slot. The unit leaves the map and rejoins the Commander on arrival, invisible and untargetable the whole way – the one exception being an Aircraft Commander's Aerial Reconnaissance, which reveals reinforcing units within 8 Range. It is not a teleport: the unit takes as many turns as it would have needed to walk, and spends its Movement for the turn to set out. Land and Naval units only – Air Units Rebase between Aerodromes, Carriers and Squadron Commanders instead.

This is how you reinforce a distant front without marching replacements across the map, and it is the reason a Commander parked in enemy territory stays useful after losses.

In the Modern Age, railroads do not make units move faster. Movement across a railroad costs the same as a road. What they add is Move By Rail: from a Rail Station, jump to another Rail Station within 20 tiles on the same network. It needs at least 1 Movement and consumes all of it, so crossing an empire is a series of turn-by-turn hops. The network crosses water – an overseas Settlement with a Port and a Rail Station at both ends is on the same network with no track between.

Packing and unpacking has its own economy. Assemble Army costs the Commander nothing and can be repeated; a unit joining with Add To Army spends nothing; a unit leaving with Leave Army spends its own Movement but not the Commander's. Deploy Army is the exception and the trap – unpacking everything at once consumes all Movement from the Commander and every unit deployed. Use it on safe ground, never in contact.

Managing Commanders:

• Command Radius determines who benefits. Friedrich (Oblique) starts Commanders with the Merit Commendation for +1 radius from turn one.
• Promotions stack. Trung Trac earns +20% Commander experience and gains a free unique Commander, Trung Nhi, after obtaining her first Land Military Unit – a single Commander who keeps her promotion tree and persists across every Age Transition, not a fresh one granted each Age.
• Cross-Age persistence is the big one: Commander XP and Promotions carry across Age Transitions, so early investment compounds for the entire game. See The Three Ages and Invest in What Persists.

Pro Tip – Never Field an Army Without One

Even a freshly recruited Commander with zero promotions provides meaningful buffs. Keep them one tile behind the front line, surrounded by friendly units – a Commander is a civilian unit and can share a tile with a military one, so there is no excuse for leaving one exposed.

Key Insight – A Dead Commander Comes Back, But the War May Not Wait

If a Commander is defeated it is not gone for good: it respawns at your Capital after a Recovery Time, with its promotions intact. The cost is the delay – losing your best Commander mid-campaign removes its Command Radius from the front for a long stretch, which is often enough to lose the war you were winning. The Resilience promotion in the Leadership tree halves that Recovery Time.

Taking a city

Capturing a Settlement is not one attack – it is a sequence, and understanding the sequence is the difference between a two-turn siege and a ten-turn bloodbath.

What actually has to happen

A Settlement is made of Districts, and most Districts can be fortified. To conquer a Settlement you must:

1. Destroy the walls on each Fortified District, and
2. Capture those Fortified Districts themselves.

The City Center is the critical one. It always counts as a Fortified District and carries +100 HP, and it also heals units resting on it by +10 per turn – including the defenders. Crucially: if there are no other Fortifications, capturing the City Center takes the Settlement. A sprawling city with walls on several Districts must be dismantled piece by piece; an undeveloped one falls the moment its center does.

The assault, step by step

1. Scout first. Know how many Fortified Districts you face and where the defenders sit. A city with three walled Districts needs a fundamentally bigger army than one with a bare City Center.
2. Bring Siege units. Siege exists to break Walls, and without it, melee units grind themselves down against fortifications for very little progress. Without Siege, an invasion stalls at the first walled city.
3. Screen the Siege. Siege units are fragile and nearly useless in open combat. Put Infantry between them and the enemy – an unescorted Catapult is a gift to enemy cavalry.
4. Soften with Ranged and Bombard. Ranged units damage defenders without taking a counter-attack. Whittle the garrison down before you commit melee.
5. Surround for flanking. Every additional attacking unit adds flanking strength, and the defender's health does not regenerate as fast as you can stack attackers.
6. Take the Districts with melee. Only melee units capture. Ranged and Siege break things; infantry occupies them.
7. Finish on the City Center – the last Fortified District standing takes the city with it.

What each unit class contributes

Class	Role in a siege
🛡️ Infantry	The only units that capture Districts; also your screen for everything else
💣 Siege	Breaks Walls and Fortified Districts. Essential; nearly useless in the open field
🏹 Ranged	Damages defenders without counter-attack; softens the garrison before assault
🐎 Cavalry	Cuts off reinforcements and hunts relief forces rather than assaulting walls directly
⚓ Naval	Bombards coastal Districts from the water, opening a second front the defender must cover
✈️ Air	Bombers hit Districts and can target City Centers through fog of war

Key Insight – Walls Age, and Aged Walls Fall Faster

Fortifications belong to the Age that built them. A city defended by Antiquity walls in the Modern Age is far softer than its wall count suggests, because your siege technology has moved on and its defenses have not. When choosing a target, look at when the defenses were built, not just how many there are.

Defensive strategy

Three pillars: fortifications, terrain, and deterrence.

🧱 Walls are the foundation of city defense. A city without Walls falls to a handful of melee units; a city with Walls demands dedicated Siege units. Upgrading Walls through the tech tree raises their hit points and defense strength. Always prioritize Walls in border cities, and garrison two or three units behind them – the cost is modest and the deterrence enormous.

⛰️ Terrain is free defense. A city on a hill behind a river with Walls is nearly impregnable without overwhelming force. When founding settlements, weigh defensive terrain as seriously as yield potential – a high-yield city that falls to the first invader generates nothing.

👁️ Deterrence is preventing war through visible strength. AI opponents evaluate your military power before attacking; a standing army near your borders, backed by one or two Commanders, signals that aggression will cost. Alliances multiply the effect, since attacking you means fighting your allies too. Fortified cities and a ready garrison also buy the time you need to mobilize if deterrence fails.

Starting a war

You can declare war on anyone at any time – including your own Allies – except during the redeclaration cooldown: the 10 turns immediately following a peace agreement with that civilization. See Ending a war.

The three declarations

Declaration	Requirement	War Support cost	Notes
Formal War	A Hostile relationship with the target	None	The clean option – no diplomatic penalty beyond the war itself
Surprise War	None – declare on anyone	Penalty to the aggressor, scaling with how good the prior relationship was	Also incurs extra diplomatic penalties; the friendlier you were, the worse it lands
Joint War	An Ally already at war	None, whatever your prior relationship	Joining an Ally's war is the one way to attack a friend without paying for it

The relationship requirement is why Formal War is a plan, not a button. Getting a rival to Hostile takes deliberate work – Sanctions, Denouncing, settling against their borders, violating their Agenda, or getting caught in Espionage will all do it. Spending an Age nudging your intended target downward means you can open the war you wanted at no War Support cost. See Diplomacy, Influence & Trade for the actions that move relationships.

What happens the moment war is declared

All of this fires immediately, and several of them are easy to forget until they cost you:

• All Endeavors between you are cancelled, and all trade between you stops
• All Trade Routes, Buildings, and Tile Improvements become pillageable by enemy forces
• All units may enter each other's borders freely – there is no more Open Borders question
• Every City-State joins alongside its suzerain
• Every Ally of both sides must immediately choose: join the war, break the alliance, or pay Influence to stay out of it and keep the alliance intact
• Your relationship with the target drops sharply, scaled to how you declared

Watch Out – Your Alliances Are Also on the Table

Declaring war does not just create one enemy. It forces every Ally on both sides to pick between fighting, breaking with you, or buying their way out, and it drags in every City-State whose suzerain is involved. A war against one rival can end with three civilizations against you and two alliances dissolved. Count the whole board before you declare.

Before you declare

The four things worth having in place first:

1. Combat readiness. Know which of your Settlements and borders are exposed, and garrison and fortify them before the declaration, not after.
2. Intelligence. Know your opponent's unit count and quality, their alliances, and the routes they can invade through.
3. Gold reserves. Units cost maintenance, and the ability to emergency-purchase a unit or a wall is often what turns a bad turn into a survivable one.
4. Domestic stability. War Weariness eats Happiness, and an Unhappy empire loses yields empire-wide. Go in with a Happiness buffer. See Happiness, Governments & Celebrations.

Pro Tip – Let Them Swing First

If you suspect a rival is about to attack, do not preemptively declare. Let them declare the Surprise War on you: they eat the War Support penalty, you gain +100 Influence and +3 War Support, and other leaders sympathize with your position. Defensive wars are diplomatically profitable – and because a Surprise War's penalty scales with how friendly you were, a rival who betrays a good relationship pays the most of all.

Two civilizations bend these rules. Prussia does not cease trade with civilizations it is at war with, so the usual economic cost of belligerence does not apply to it. Edward Teach's Naval Units can cross borders, plunder Trade Routes, and attack Units belonging to non-Allied civilizations without declaring war, which means a Teach player may already be attacking your economy while you are still nominally at peace – at the cost of +1 Gold maintenance on his own Naval Units.

War Support and War Weariness

Wars are not won solely on the battlefield. War Support tracks your civilization's willingness to keep fighting; when it hits zero you are forced to sue for peace on unfavorable terms.

War Support moves with: Surprise War declarations (−2 to −5 for the aggressor, immediately), Influence spent on diplomatic actions during wartime, passive bonuses from the Militaristic Attribute Tree, certain Wonders and leader abilities, and third-party civilizations pledging support to either side.

War Weariness is the domestic bill. Every turn at war accumulates it, and it reduces Happiness directly, scaling by Age and by how each settlement was acquired.

Age	Founded Settlement Penalty	Conquered Settlement Penalty
Antiquity	-3 Happiness per War Weariness point	-5 Happiness per point
Exploration	-5 Happiness per point	-7 Happiness per point
Modern	-7 Happiness per point	-9 Happiness per point

Conquered settlements suffer worse Weariness than founded ones, so aggressive expansion gets more painful the longer a war runs. In the Modern Age a prolonged war can collapse Happiness into Unrest across an entire empire. See Happiness, Governments & Celebrations.

Ending a war

Wars do not end when you stop fighting – they end when someone negotiates, and the terms depend entirely on the position you have built by then.

You cannot propose peace for the first 10 turns – call this the peace-proposal window. That window is the real risk in any declaration: once you commit, you are committed for at least ten turns regardless of how it goes. After that, either side can open negotiations.

What can change hands. A peace deal can transfer Settlements, Gold, and Influence. Gold and Influence move in fixed lump sums scaled by Age rather than haggled amounts, so think in terms of whole concessions rather than fine-tuning. You can demand enemy Settlements as the price of peace, or cede your own to buy your way out of a war you are losing.

What decides whether they accept. Two things above all: how much damage you have inflicted, and whether your military is standing inside their territory. An army parked on their land is worth more at the negotiating table than the same army sitting at home. If the AI is refusing terms you think are fair, the usual answer is that you have not yet made the war hurt.

After peace, the redeclaration cooldown – 10 turns – blocks either side from redeclaring war on the other. Use it deliberately: heal damaged units, rebuild pillaged improvements, re-establish severed Trade Routes, and reposition for whatever comes next.

Pro Tip – Decide Your Exit Before You Enter

The most common way a strong empire loses ground is winning the fighting and then staying at war too long. Name the objective before you declare – this city, this resource, this rival's army – and open peace talks the moment you have it. Every extra turn past that point is War Weariness you are paying for nothing. See War Support and War Weariness.

Key Insight – Peace Is a Negotiation, Not a Surrender

Because Gold and Influence are now on the table alongside Settlements, a war you cannot win militarily can still end profitably. If your position is deteriorating, opening talks early – while you still hold something worth trading – beats fighting to the point where you are ceding cities. Conversely, a war you are winning does not have to end in conquest: taking a large Gold and Influence settlement instead can be worth more than a city you would struggle to hold.

Building and maintaining a force

How much army you need is a function of what you are trying to win, not a fixed number. The mistake at both extremes is expensive: an over-built army drains Gold and Production you needed elsewhere, while an under-built one invites the war you were trying to avoid.

If you are pursuing Military or Domination

Your army is your win condition, so it gets first call on Production. Two points are genuinely military rather than a restatement of the Victory page's scoring math: recruit Commanders early, because their XP and Promotions are what persists across every Age Transition – even a Commander that only ever fought Independent Powers is a head start you keep. And secure Horses and Iron early for the empire-wide Combat Strength they unlock. Dominion's per-Age scoring picture – what to take and when to stop – is canonical on Playing for a victory; this page is about building the force that gets you there.

If you are pursuing Culture, Science, or Economy

You still need an army – you just need it to be cheap, defensive, and credible; the garrison, Walls, terrain, and deterrence playbook is the same one in Defensive strategy. Two things matter beyond that baseline:

• Buy rather than build where you can. Gold spent on emergency units preserves the Production your actual victory path needs.
• Maintenance is the real cost. A unit costs Gold every turn it exists, so a standing army is a permanent tax on the economy funding your victory. The right size is the smallest force that still deters, plus the ability to expand it quickly if deterrence fails – which is why Commanders and Gold reserves matter more than raw unit count for non-military players.

Keeping a force current across Ages

Units are replaced by their new-Age equivalents at every transition, so the army you finish an Age with is not the army you start the next one with. What survives is Commander XP, Promotions, and Commendations – which is the argument for investing in Commanders rather than in unit volume. See Invest in What Persists.

War as a strategic tool

War ripples through diplomacy, economics, and scoring, which is why even Cultural and Scientific players should understand it.

Joint Wars are among the most powerful diplomatic tools in the game. Proposing one against a mutual rival earns substantial Influence with your ally, strengthens the alliance tier, and splits the War Support burden – and you need not commit significant forces for the diplomatic benefit to land.

Sanctions are war by other means. Rallying other civilizations to sanction a rival cuts their Trade Routes and limits their resource access without triggering War Weariness or risking a single unit. See Diplomacy, Influence & Trade.

Conquest and victory. Capturing settlements and settling Distant Lands feeds the Dominion score, while a Domination Victory requires eliminating every opponent outright. Even short of that, knocking a rival out removes them from all four scoring contests at once. See Victory, Triumphs & Dedications.

For non-military players the insight is this: you do not need to win wars to benefit from understanding combat. Defensive capability protects your investments, knowledge of flanking and terrain lets you survive invasions that would otherwise end your game, and the credible threat of force strengthens every negotiation you undertake. The best diplomats in Civilization VII are the ones whose armies make their words believable.

👑 Leaders & civilizations that bend the rules of war

Everything above describes the default game. These are the leaders and civilizations that rewrite parts of it – worth a look if something on this page caught your interest.

If you like Commanders

Pick	What changes
👑 Trung Trac	+20% Commander experience, and Trung Nhi appears after the first Land Military Unit and persists across Ages with her own promotion tree – the fastest route to a decorated Commander
👑 Friedrich (Oblique)	Army Commanders start with the Merit Commendation (+1 Command Radius), and he earns Science for every Commendation his Commanders hold
👑 Genghis Khan	Commanders gain +1 Movement when carrying no packed units, and once per Age they can convert adjacent Independent military units to your side
👑 Yi Sun-sin	Fleet Commanders unlock early at Discipline, one arrives free with a Harbor, and naval kills convert into Science

If you like cavalry, or hitting hard

Pick	What changes
👑 Genghis Khan	+3 Combat Strength for Cavalry, rising to +5 inside a Command Radius
👑 Charlemagne	Once Cavalry are unlocked, entering a Celebration grants two free Cavalry; all Cavalry gain +5 Combat Strength while it runs
👑 Napoleon (Revolutionary)	+1 Movement for all Land Units, and defeating enemies pays Culture equal to their Combat Strength
👑 Toyotomi Hideyoshi	Land Units deal double damage attacking – and take double damage defending. The purest glass-cannon aggression in the game
👑 Alexander	+2 Combat Strength for all Land Units, and +1 Combat Strength for Unique Units per non-Capital City holding a Wonder (max +6) – plus +2 Dominion per such city, so conquest and Wonder-building score together

If you like taking cities

Pick	What changes
👑 Ashoka (Conqueror)	Declaring Formal War triggers a Celebration, and during it units gain +5 Combat Strength against Fortified Districts
👑 Xerxes (King of Kings)	+3 Combat Strength attacking outside friendly territory, +10% Gold empire-wide (doubled in captured Settlements), +1 Settlement Limit every Age, plus Culture and Gold for the first time he captures each Settlement
👑 Simón Bolívar	Free Building purchase in conquered Settlements, Unrest does not block purchasing, and +2 War Support on Wars he declares – captured cities become productive immediately
🏺 Assyria	Capturing a Settlement for the first time grants a free Technology and a Codex – conquest literally replaces research
⛵ Mongolia	Every captured Settlement hands you the strongest Cavalry Unit you can train – but −50% Production toward Settlers, so conquest is not a supplement to expansion, it is your expansion
👑 Machiavelli	Ignores the Hostile-relationship requirement for Formal War, and can Levy Troops from City-States he is not Suzerain of – the diplomatic prerequisites for war simply do not apply to him

If you like the sea

Pick	What changes
⛵ Republic of Pirates	Naval Units, Treasure Convoys, and Buccaneers enter foreign borders without war or Open Borders, and naval kills grant +5 Gold – but Settlers cannot be trained or purchased. You expand by capturing rivals' Settlers, and by three free ones: at Sailing, at Navigation, and from the Pirate Origins Civic
👑 Edward Teach	Grants Naval Units the Pirate ability against non-Allied civilizations – raid trade, attack without ever declaring war, and capture the defeated ship plus 50% of its Combat Strength in Gold, for +1 Gold maintenance per Naval Unit
👑 Yi Sun-sin	An entire naval economy: Fleet Commanders arrive early and free, and their kills fund your research
⛵ Norman	+5 Combat Strength for Land Units and Fortified Districts adjacent to Coast, plus +25 HP on Fortifications – a coastline that fights back

If you prefer to be left alone

Pick	What changes
👑 Harriet Tubman	+5 War Support on any war declared against you, and +100% Influence toward Espionage
👑 Napoleon (Revolutionary)	When war is declared on you, you gain a free Commander with an army attached
🏭 Prussia	+1 Combat Strength for every Unfriendly-or-worse relationship – being widely disliked is the strategy
⛵ Norman	+5 Combat Strength for Land Units and Fortified Districts adjacent to Coast, plus +25 HP on every Fortified District – the strongest civilization for making a coastline too expensive to invade
🏺 Han China	Great Wall segments grant +6 Combat Strength to defenders and lay Roads, while the Chu-Ko-Nu has higher Defense and Zone of Control – a border built to slow an invasion before it reaches the Capital