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Towns are a new addition toCivilization 7that replace cities, at least initially. Towns are constructed withSettlers, which is different from theFounderunit that you start the game with. Towns don’t have a production queue and can only be upgraded withGold, which you use to purchase districts and expand your settlements.
You can upgrade a town to a city by spending more Gold, which will open the production queue for the settlement - this will allow you to utilize the hammers in the settlement to produce buildings like wonders and unique quarters.Some buildings, districts, and all wonders can’t be built in towns.
We updated this article on June 10, 2025:We added a new section that discusses when you should specialise your town and which specialisation you should choose.
Town Management
Towns essentially replace cities in Civilization 7. You have a soft limit on how many settlements you may construct according to yourSettlement Limit.Any towns you settle over this limit will decrease your happiness by -5, stacking up on top of each other.
As a result, you want to be selective with where you place your towns. Unlike previous Civilization games, there’s no need to settle onLuxuryresources or seek out resources foramenities,because these features work differently in Civilization 7.
Instead, you’ll want to base your town settlement on a few crucial things - like access to powerful early game resources, likeCamels, Gold, Silver, and Cotton- as well as on aFresh Watertile for extra happiness.
you may access theSettler lensusing the small telescope above the mini-map. The Settler lens provides information on the best places to settle towns, and while this system is hardly infallible - as you learn the game you’ll likely make decisions based on your own experience - the recommended spots are a good place to start.
Any light blue tiles are where your city will have access toFresh Water.Fresh Water isn’t explained at all in the game, but it basically provides an extra happiness on your City Hall tile when you settle a new town.
Upgrading Towns
Once you’ve settled a town, you’ve got a few options on what to do next - and this is largely situational, depending on what you want from the settlement.
You can useGoldto purchase districts in a town, such as the Saw Pit, Granary, Altar, and so on. You are restricted, because you can’t purchaseCulture buildings, wonders, and other city-specific buildings.
Each time you upgrade a town, you’ll reduce the cost of upgrading it to a city. Your first town will be the cheapest one to upgrade to a city, and after that, the cost increases exponentially per town.
That being said, you don’thaveto upgrade a town to a city. Sometimes it makes more sense to keep the town but choose one of the specialization options instead.
Town Specialization, Every Town Type In Civilization 7 Explained
Towns essentially feed nearby cities with food. Any town without aspecializationsendsallits food to nearby cities. You can then choose what sort of specialization you want the town to have to further customise your town’s output.
Growing Town
By default, all towns are set toGrowing Townby default. Growing Towns receive50 percent overall growth.Often it makes sense to keep towns onGrowing Townfor a while, as changing their specialization can severely reduce the growth of towns, which means they’ll grow to good resources much slower. All production from the town is turned into gold for your empire.
However, as the game progresses, you’ll get a whole host of new options.
You can only chooseone Town specialization per Age.You can swap betweenGrowing Townor your chosenTown specialization, but you can’t further customise this once you’ve made your decision.
Town specializationsbecome available when a town reaches 7 population.
Fort Town
The Fort Town is a straightforward town specialization that will make your settlement harder to attack, with +5 healing for units within the town’s borders and +25 health on walls in the town. If you suspect you’re about to be attacked by an enemy player, a Fort Town can be a quick and easy change to shore up defenses.
Urban Center
Urban Center is great for a town that has a lot ofQuartersin. A Quarter is when you place twodistrict buildingson the same tile. For example, an Altar and a Granary would form aQuarter.Urban Center provides+1 Culture and +1 Scienceon Quarters in towns.
This one is a bit unusual as it’s usually a good idea to just upgrade any really developed town into a city. However, in some cases, this might not be the best option - for example, you’re playing asAugustus who gets a benefit from towns,recently captured an enemy settlement that has been downgraded to a town, or youdon’t have enough gold after an age transition to upgrade your towns
Farming Town
The Farming Town is likely the town specialization that you’ll choose the most, as food is king in Civilization 7. Improving the food yields of your town will increase the food output to nearby cities. You get+2 Food on Farms, Pastures, Plantations and Fishing Boats.Any city that has multiple farm units or pasture resources is a good choice for a Farming Town, especially good around navigable and regular river tiles.
In towns located on the coast, Farming Towns turn into Fishing Towns. The bonuses are the same, the name just changes if there are multiple fishing boats in the border limit of the town.
Mining Town
Mining Towns are similar to Farming Towns except for production tiles. As production turns into gold, this can be a good way of turning a town with lots of mining tiles, camps, woodcutters, and clay pits into a gold powerhouse. You receive+2 ProductiononCamps, Woodcutters, Clay Pits, Mines, and Quarries.
Trade Outpost (Antiquity Age)
The Trade Outpost is a trade-focused Town specialization available in the Antiquity Era. It provides a base+2 Happinessfor any Resource tiles in the town region and a bonus+5 Trade Route range.This can be really handy for establishing trade routes with settlements that are just a little bit out of range. The extra happiness is also useful if you’re suffering during the end-of-age crises.
Religious Site (Exploration Age)
The Religious Site Town specialization is unlocked in theExploration Age.This is actually very useful, but usually in the specific circumstances that you’re attempting a cultural victory via collecting religious relics. Temples usually provide only one slot for relics, and considering you need12 total relics displayedto win the age, you might need to upgrade one or two of your towns to a religious site to make room.
You receive+2 Happiness and +1 Relic slot on the Temple in this town.
Hub Town (Exploration Age)
The Hub Town is another Exploration Age Town specialization that is geared towardsInfluenceandDiplomacy.Influence is one of the hardest currencies to come across in the early game (although this does improve over the course of the game depending on the wonders you’ve built and the civilizations you’ve chosen), so getting a flat+2 Influence per settlement connected to this townismassive.This counts both friendly settlements and settlements from other civilizations that are connected to the town.
You can use theMerchant’s “Build Road” ability to connect towns.Friendly towns are automatically connected to other nearby settlements via road, and later in the Modern Age, rail.
When Should You Choose A Specialization For Your Town?
There are a few different variables to consider before you choose a specialization for your town: do you want the town to keep growing to important resources? Then it’s best to keep it as aGrowing Townas this increases growth by a base 50 percent.
Once your town has claimed all the useful resources within its radius, you may consider a specialization.
There are multiple specializations to choose from, and they’re all useful in some way or another throughout the game.
Early Game Specialization Strategy
One of our current favorite strategies is to use theUrban Center Specializationto generate some extra early Culture and Science while leaving your capital to focus purely on Production buildings.
A town with some districts and quarters using theUrban Center Specializationwill generatemore science than a city with a library in it.
you may instead spend time building Wonders and important Production infrastructure in your capital city while ignoring theMonumentandLibrary.
Of course, this isn’t' always applicable to every strategy - your town specialization should largelyreflect your targeted Legacy Path.
Don’t Underestimate Some Of The Specializations
One of the mistakes we made early in Civ 7 was to ignore the specializations, but all of them are useful.
Take the Trade Outpost for example: this cangreatly helpif you’re aiming to play a trading game. Trade route range is a real issue, especially during the Antiquity Age. You can settle a town and then use it to extend your trade routes, granting you access to resources that were previously unavailable.
