Launching Trade Routes in Civ 7: A Step-by-Step Guide

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Starting trade routes is crucial for expanding your empire in Sid Meier’s Civilization 7. These trade routes enable you to import and export various resources, providing the necessary materials to pursue different victory strategies. To set up trade, you will need specific units, so it’s wise to plan ahead and unlock these early in the game.

In Civilization 7, there are three distinct Ages during which you can establish trade routes. Each Age has its own specific units that need to be unlocked, which can complicate recruitment depending on the timeline of your empire’s development. It’s beneficial to familiarize yourself with these unique units ahead of time for effective gameplay.

How to Acquire Merchants

Research the Necessary Tech or Civics

Merchants are the key units required to create trade routes in Civ 7, but you will need to unlock them at three different points throughout your game. Their unlock conditions change with each Age and are connected to the technology or civic trees. Here’s what you need to research at each stage:

Antiquity Age: Code of Laws (Civic Tree)
Exploration Age: Economics (Civic Tree)
Modern Age: Steam Engine (Tech Tree)

The Antiquity Age can be challenging for acquiring Merchants since you must first unlock other civic nodes like Discipline and Mysticism before accessing the Code of Laws. In contrast, acquiring Merchants in the Exploration and Modern Ages is somewhat easier.

Merchants must also be trained in your cities before they can set out to build trade routes. Roads are created when Merchants travel, allowing connections between your settlements on the world map. However, some areas may already be connected by natural features, so consider training Merchants away from routes that do not require additional development.

Starting a Trade Route

Selecting Friendly Nations

You can only initiate a trade route with a nation that has at least an Unfriendly relationship with your empire. City-states won’t engage in trade until they become your allies, which limits your options for trading partners. As long as you are not in conflict with a nation, they are likely to consider trading.

Once your Merchant is fully trained, you’ll be notified of which nations are open for trade and what resources they have available. Depending on the type of map you’re using in Civ 7, establishing a trade route may vary in difficulty based on distance.

Tip: Training a Merchant requires 40 Production points, making it vital to avoid sending them to areas where they might be defeated as you seek new trade opportunities.

To begin a trade route, follow these steps:

Select the Merchant you’ll use.
Choose a glowing green settlement from another nation.
Right-click that settlement to send your Merchant there.
Wait for the Merchant to arrive at the destination.
Select the prompt to set up a trade route based on your Merchant’s path.

On your next turn, you can start trading resources between your towns and those of the nation with whom you established the trade route. Note that trade routes may be limited if the path to a settlement is too long or obstructed by geography—like needing sea travel to reach another nation across the ocean.

Only specific resources can be traded, so sometimes rival settlements might have nothing to offer, preventing the formation of a trade route. You can utilize the Improve Trade Relations diplomatic option to potentially establish a route automatically if none are possible at that time.

In my experience, trade routes are an excellent way to boost your production by connecting with other nations, especially less aggressive ones. Your choice of leaders and civilizations in Sid Meier’s Civilization 7 can influence how easily you can get Merchants and launch trade routes, but all factions have valuable resource exchange capabilities.

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