Civilization 7: All Town Focuses and the difference to Cities

A breakdown of the new feature

Firaxis / 2K Games / Take-Two Interactive

Among the myriad of changes Civilization 7 is making to the series’ formula, the new distinction between Cities and Towns will be one of the earliest and most noticeable changes for players.

Table of Contents

1. Civilization 7: Towns explained
2. Civilization 7: All Town Focuses

Cities remain the heart of your civilization – they grow, add districts, construct buildings, and train units as they have always done. However, founding a City will work a little differently from before, because Settlers no longer directly create a new City when you activate them at the promising location you’ve found. Instead, a Settler creates a Town – but what exactly is different about this?

We explain the difference between City and Town in Civilization 7 below to get you up to speed.

Civilization 7: Towns explained

A Town is, in essence, a fully-automated predecessor to a City in Civilization 7. When you use a Settler to found a Town, it will exploit the resources and yields on its territory and provide these economic benefits to your nearest City. However, you cannot construct buildings or train units in Towns. Instead, they convert all of their production power into gold, enriching your coffers.

That doesn’t mean that you’re stuck with a single City all game long, of course. You can upgrade a Town into a City using gold, gaining direct control and all the usual functionalities. This is not unlike the expansion system found in Millennia.

Like Cities, Towns grow their population over time. Upon reaching certain population milestones, Towns can be specialized in specific roles – while they always remain automated, this allows you to steer their resource output indirectly or use them in other ways that benefit your empire. Take a look at the available Town Focuses below and that will become clear very quickly.

Civilization 7: All Town Focuses

Here are all Town Focuses available in Civ 7. / Firaxis / 2K Games / Take-Two Interactive

• Farming Town / Fishing Town: Bonus Food on Farms, Pastures, Plantations, and Fishing Boats.
• Mining Town: Bonus Production on Camps, Woodcutters, Clay Pits, Mines, and Quarries.
• Trade Outpost: Bonus Happiness on resource tiles and Trade range. (Antiquity and Exploration Age only)
• Fort Town: Bonus healing to Units and health to Walls in this Town.
• Religious Site: Bonus Happiness to all Temples in your Empire. (Exploration Age only)
• Hub Town: Bonus Influence for every connected Settlement. (Exploration and Modern Age only)
• Urban Center: Bonus Science and Culture on Districts with two Buildings in this Town.
• Factory Town: Bonus Gold towards purchasing a Factory in this Town and adds an additional Resource Slot. (Modern Age only)

Aside from gathering specific resources, Towns can serve as border fortifications to bolster your empire’s defenses, or generate Influence to help your diplomatic endeavors. As you might have noticed in the list above, some Focuses are only available during specific Ages. However, there’s no need to worry about some of your Towns becoming obsolete later in the game, because their Focus resets at the beginning of each Age anyways, so you can adapt to new situations across a match.

Both Cities and Towns appear to be counting towards the newly introduced Settlement Cap, but as the developers have often emphasized this is not a hard limit – you can expand as much as you wish, as long as you can pay the increasing cost of maintaining such a bulking domain.

For more information about the upcoming game, check out how Civilization 7 changes Great People.