Knowing how to trade in Civilization 7 and setting up trade routes for merchants is important if you want to strengthen your economy and diplomatic relations. Not only will trading set you up with more resources, but it’s also a key milestone you’ll need if you’re going for an Economic Victory in Civilization 7. But the whole system can seem complicated at first, as it works a little differently from previous games in the series, so we’ll cover how to get merchants in Civ 7, how to set up trade routes, and what kind of resources you can get from trading.
If you're looking for some more general pointers, then check out our Civilization 7 tips and tricks to build your empire.
How to get merchants in Civilization 7
Merchants in Civ 7 can be trained after researching a specific civic or technology. Once you reach a new age, you’ll lose the ability to train merchants and will need to unlock them again by researching a different bonus. Here is what you need to unlock in order to train merchants:
- Antiquity Age: Research Mysticism and Discipline in the Civic Tree, then research Code of Laws
- Exploration Age: Research Economics in the Civic Tree
- Modern Age: Research Steam Engine in the Tech Tree
Once you have unlocked merchants, you will be able to train them. Merchants can be trained as part of your city’s production, or bought with gold at any city or town.
How to set up trade routes in Civilization 7
We recommend finding another settlement to trade with first, before you train a merchant. You’ll be able to set them up in another leader’s town or city, so take a look around the map and find a suitable place to send them. You can also trade with Independent Powers, however you need to be a suzerain of their city state in order to set up a trade route. Once you’ve discovered a few possible settlements to trade with, select one of your cities or towns and train a merchant.
Once you have a merchant, you’ll notice a toolbar pop up on the side of the screen when you select them, showing all the possible settlements you can trade with and the resources you can get from them. This is handy if you’re unsure where to send them, as you’ll be to click on them to jump to the settlement.
You can’t set up a trade route until the merchant has gone to the city or town, so once you’ve settled on where to send them, move the merchants to the location. It’ll probably take a few turns depending on how far the town or city is from yours. Once they arrive, you’ll get a prompt to allow them to set up a trade route.
How trade works in Civilization 7
Once you’ve set up a trade route with another settlement, your merchant will follow a road back to your settlement with a share of their resources. The other leader will receive gold as a result, and can send their own merchants on the same path to you, ensuring a mutually beneficial agreement.
On the next turn after each successful trade, a screen will pop up showing which resources the settlement is offering up for trade. From this screen, you can allocate the resources for your merchant to take back to one of your towns or cities. Resources come in three types: Empire Resources (they go to your whole empire), City Resources (they can only go to a city), and Bonus Resources (they can go to either a City or Town).
The number of trade routes you can have depends heavily on your relationship with the other leader. If you’d like to increase your trading potential, you need to head over to the Civ 7 Diplomacy screen and use the action Improve Trade Relations. Both parties will need to agree to this, so if the other leader doesn’t like you enough then they may not agree to these terms. So, it’s best to keep on their good side.
While the Civ 7 trade system is designed to be as low maintenance as possible to reduce micromanaging, it’s still worth keeping an eye on your trade routes. You won’t need to continuously train merchants to keep up the flow, but they can be targeted by enemy forces. Consider moving a few military units along these roads to act as guards, should that happen.
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