Sid Meier's Civilization VII · published · build 23245653
Test of Time is live now on all platforms, and it’s our most significant update to Civilization VII yet! We know you’ve been hungry for another update, and we’re ready to finally get it into your hands. Test of Time, free for all Civ VII players, is heavily influenced by our community, from the feedback we’ve seen since launch, to contributions made by Civ fans in the Firaxis Feature Workshop. You’ll find the changes below touch nearly every system in the game.
There’s a lot to go over, but we’ll start with the three big changes that really underscore what Test of Time is all about:
You can now start and stay as any civ, in any Age.
Legacy Paths have been replaced with Triumphs, a more flexible, sandbox-driven system.
Victories have been totally reworked, reshaping how Military, Economic, Cultural, and Scientific strategies play out.
With these changes, this update is all about empowering you to shape your own story and open up the game much wider. But even beyond those big updates, you’ll find many other changes: a massive balance pass (for civs, leaders, yields, and more), improvements to the UI to help with strategic clarity, a brand-new map type, the new leader Alexander the Great, and plenty more. Consider this just the highlights reel – there are hundreds of smaller tweaks and tuning adjustments under the hood that didn't make it into these notes. You’ll find more changes just by firing up the game!
This update creates massive potential for the future of Civ VII. Unlike most of the changes we’ve made (so far) since launch, which added or built upon existing systems, you’ll find these changes to be much more foundational. It gives us a stronger base to build upon and gives you more room to define your own path each time you play.
And of course, if a feature you’ve been waiting for didn’t make it into this update, it’s not off the table. The team is already working on what’s next. (Hotseat players, we’re almost there!).
Now, let's see if your empire can stand the test of time.
Happy patch-reading!
To the 4,000 players who joined us in the test branch over the last few months: thank you! This update wouldn't look like it does today without you. You delivered honest feedback across three rounds of Workshops, thousands of Discord messages, and some very fast-paced dev-led Q&As. Whether you were reporting bugs or debating balance, we hope you see your impact in real-time in this update. Thanks for being in the design room with us.
A warning for mods: If you encounter any new bugs or issues, try disabling any mods, as some may not yet be compatible with the latest update. Since this is a big update, we’re anticipating a high impact on existing mods.
⚠️ If you have mods installed that effect the modding screen-in game, you may need to disabel all mods using the Unsubscribe from All feature in Steam Workshop!
+ A note to modders: Though we've made some improvements aimed to make modding easier this update, we know we have more to do to make modding more accessible with our new UI Framework. We'll have more details on this in a future update, but please keep the feedback coming, we want to hear from you!
Backwards compatibility: While we aim to maintain backwards compatibility for existing saves as much as possible, some new abilities or effects may not appear until you start a new game. For the best experience, we recommend starting a new game.
Legacy branch: Are you playing on Steam and want to finish your current save under a previous version? You can do so using our legacy Steam beta branch. To join the legacy branch, right-click Sid Meier's Civilization VII in your Steam library, select Properties, then click over to the Betas tab. From there, select the option named “legacy”.
Additionally, since 1.4.0 will have an impact on account progression (leader XP, unlocked Mementos, etc.), here’s what you can expect:
Existing players may notice some previously completed challenges now show as uncompleted (which can be completed again for XP). Rewards, Player Foundation Level, and Player Leader Levels are unaffected.
Previous “Legacy” platform achievements will have updated names and descriptions. Players who already completed these will still have those achievements completed.
Previous Challenges that can no longer be completed have been archived and replaced with a matching new Challenge that plugs into our new systems.
As a reminder, you can visit our tracker to see known issues. As always, the team is standing by to pursue follow up patches as needed. Be sure to submit bug reports with the team here.
The ability to lead one civilization across every Age is finally here, realizing the classic Civ fantasy of guiding your civ from the ancient world all the way into the modern era. This new system supports that epic journey while maintaining a major part of what sets Civ VII apart: the unique identity and pacing of the Age structure.
The short version: yes, you can now start and stay as any civilization in any Age!
Choosing to play as Rome in the Exploration Age, or America in Antiquity, means guiding that civ outside its historical Apex Age. The Apex Age is when a civ is at full strength, granting the full set of Unique Units, Unique Infrastructure, and a bespoke Civic Tree built specifically around that civilization.
The choice is yours: you can choose to stay or swap at each Age Transition. This update adds more flexibility to the existing civ-switching system, giving players more ways to shape their journey across the Ages while opening up new strategic opportunities in every campaign. We’re excited to see the different paths players experiment with in 1.4.0!
When you play outside of an Apex Age, we call that civ Time-Tested, and we don’t just strip what makes your civ strong away and call it a day. Instead, the game switches to a supportive framework meant to keep your civ competitive while still preserving its identity. That framework can be broken down into a couple key elements: Civics and Syncretism. Additionally, a civ’s Unique Ability is carried across all Ages, often enhancing over time to keep pace with each era.
Taken together, these systems form the backbone of the “lead one civilization” experience. They’re intended to let you commit to a civ across time while still engaging with Civ VII’s history-built-in-layers philosophy. Here’s what that looks like in play:
Instead of the usual Unique Civic Tree, Time-Tested civs will each receive their own tree made up of the following:
One truly unique Civic, crafted specifically for that civ in that Time-Tested Age, which provides Traditions and other effects that reinforce some of the civ’s feel in a way appropriate for that Age.
One Civic based on the civ’s attributes. These are shared for all Time-Tested civs in that Age for a given Attribute set. For example, America and Inca are both Economic civilizations and therefore receive a Civic in Antiquity that, in part, boosts Economic play.
A brand new kind of Civic that enables “Syncretism.” See below.
Additionally, as part of our update to every civ in the game, we've started to categorize Expansionist civs as either Tall or Wide, and some Diplomatic civs as Influence or Happiness. You'll see that reflected in their unique Time-Tested Civics Trees!
Civilizations evolve by learning from the world around them, and with Syncretism, we’re leaning further into that philosophy. As Gwendoline Christie puts it in-game, “Syncretism is the borrowing, affirmation, or integration of concepts, symbols, or practices of one tradition into another."
In Civilization VII, that idea comes to life by letting you borrow strength from another civilization in its Apex Age, adopting either a Unique Unit or Unique Infrastructure into your own strategy. Mechanically, it creates hybrid playstyles. Narratively, it represents adaptation and your civ growing without losing its identity.
For example, if you’re playing as Rome in the Exploration Age, you might adopt Spain’s Tercio to strengthen your infantry tactics, or the Norman Motte and Bailey to build up Culture while improving your defenses.
To access it, you’ll need to select and finish the new “Syncretism” node from the Civic Tree. Once unlocked, you’ll be prompted to choose between the Unique Unit or Unique Infrastructure of another civ. Your options are limited to civs currently in their Apex Age, and they must have an unlock relationship with either your leader or your current civ. This choice can only be made once per Age, so choose wisely!
To give you even greater depth in the single-civ fantasy, we've also added a third option for Syncretism: Affirmation. Instead of borrowing from another civ, you can choose to reinforce your own identity through unique Traditions tailored specifically to your civilization. This option exists for the players that really want to double down on their current civ.
You may be wondering, “How does the AI navigate all of this?” By default, the AI will follow your lead. If you choose to play Time-Tested civs, then the AI will do the same. If you choose to always stay as an Apex Age civ and change during Age Transitions, the AI will also change.
You’ll have access to Advanced Settings to modify this behavior, and Game Setup now lets you control if you want to see Time-Tested civs in your game, as well as how strongly the game will try to match leaders and civs to their historical pairings. You can tune your games so that the AI will always swap to an Apex Age civ, or always persist as their chosen civ regardless of how you play. Fiddle around here and see what works best for you.
When you start a new game with 1.4.0, you’ll see the difference immediately. Starting from Create Game, you’ll see how wide open the roster is now: every base-game civ – and any DLC civs you own – will be automatically available to you starting on turn one! (If that sounds intimidating, we’ve also updated the Create Game UI to make things a lot easier to navigate.)
Adding Time-Tested civs didn’t stop at systems, either. This update adds new music, narrative events, and artwork to support civs across Ages. We go into some more detail in the notes below, but you’ll feel this most fully when you’re actually in the game.
So with that – pick your civ, see how far you can take it, and challenge yourself to stand the test of time!
Gone are the old Legacy Paths, and in their place are Triumphs. This new system was built to provide a much more open, flexible system as you build your empire.
Triumphs offer a wide range of optional challenges tied to the six core Attributes in Civ VII - Militaristic, Cultural, Scientific, Economic, Diplomatic, and Expansionist. Some will trigger naturally through strong play, like hitting a population milestone. Others challenge you to pursue a riskier or more off-the-beaten-path goal, like maintaining wars on multiple fronts or racing to secure the most Natural Wonders.
These Triumphs come in two flavors. Minor Triumphs are easier to achieve and provide instant benefits like a bonus promotion on all Commanders or War Support. Major Triumphs require more focused investment in their associated systems and grant Dedications for your next Age. You don’t need to complete all Triumphs every game (although no doubt some of you will try!), and instead you can choose which goals and rewards make the most sense for the strategy you’re pursuing.
Since the Legacy Path system was deeply connected to the Legacy Cards you’d previously select at the start of an Age, we’re also modifying how that system works.
After an Age Transition, you can now select three Dedications. Dedications provide unique and powerful bonuses that you can choose in the next Age, similar to the old Legacy Cards. Instead of spending points to select them, though, you simply choose three Dedications from the ones you’ve unlocked. There are always five default Dedications available to choose from. Further Dedications can be unlocked from the following sources:
Completing Major Triumphs
Leveling up a leader
Managing the previous Crisis successfully
For those of you in the Workshop, we’re happy to report that since the last time you’ve played with this system, we’ve buffed several Triumph rewards and Dedications to make them feel even more rewarding. Additionally, gone are the days from the Workshop where changing your Capital cost a Dedication; that one’s free now, which should feel similar to previous live versions of the game.
Lastly, we also added another layer of optional customization with Triumph Sets. This is an Advanced Options feature that lets you pick from curated Triumph lists before starting a campaign. The idea is to give you more control over the tone and goals of a run, whether you want a competitive race or a conquest-heavy experience.
We’re starting with the below sets and plan to expand from here. And for those of you who asked for randomized Triumphs, a randomized option is something we’re actively exploring!
Here are the full sets available to you now:
Default Set: The standard list with 30 Triumphs per Age.
Trailblazer Set: Every Triumph becomes a race – only the first player to complete it earns the reward.
Conqueror Set: Warmongers rejoice! This set includes only Militaristic-focused Triumphs.
Classic Set: For those who liked the original Legacy Paths, these Triumphs represent those same original goals.
Explorer Set: If you’re the type of player who always wants to see what is over the horizon or master the high seas, this brand-new mix of old and new Triumphs is built specifically for you.
Ah, Victory, the culmination of all your hard work in a playthrough. Victories have been reworked to feel more flexible, and more connected to the full arc of a multi-Age game. Previously, progressing toward a win often meant committing to a specific path in the Modern Age, which could narrow your options even as your empire evolved. This also had the side effect of compressing the Modern Age into a shorter, more linear race to the finish.
With this update, Victories are more fully integrated across all Ages, giving each Age more room to develop and making the path to a win feel more cohesive from start to finish. The four Victory types remain (Military, Cultural, Economic, and Scientific), but how you achieve them has been completely reworked.
For all four Victory types, we’ve added a score unique to each Victory’s playstyle. There are many different ways to contribute to these scores, allowing you to choose how you want to arrive at that win. Here’s a breakdown:
Military: Achieve a Victory by being the greatest conqueror. Earn Dominion (Military Victory Points) for each Settlement you control. Earn extra points for original capitals, captured Settlements, Distant Lands Settlements, and more.
Cultural: Achieve a Victory by attracting the most Tourists to a culturally unique and happy empire. You earn Tourism (Cultural Victory Points) for Wonders, Natural Wonders, Relics, Artifacts, Unique Buildings, and Unique Improvements in your Empire. Captured Wonders constructed by other leaders are worth less Tourism. In addition, you earn Tourism each time you earn a Celebration. (Note: While we used the same term, Tourism in Civ VII does not behave the same as in Civ VI).
Economic: Achieve a Victory by earning the most GDP (Economic Victory Points) over the campaign. You earn GDP each turn for slotted Resources and Gold Buildings in your empire’s Cities, as well as by returning Treasure Convoys and slotting Factory Resources.
Scientific: Achieve a Victory by earning Innovation (Scientific Victory Points) and winning the Space Race. You make progress in the Space Race through researching Tech, earning Codices, and completing new Special Projects throughout the Ages.
In all cases, you can make progress toward these victories starting in the Antiquity Age, and additional ways to earn points open up as you continue your campaign.
Military, Cultural, and Economic Victories are all based on dominating in that field (we’ll get to Scientific in a bit). In order to earn the Victory, you need to achieve and maintain a significant lead over all other civilizations. Specifically, you need to reach and remain at a certain score threshold over the second-place player.
Early on, that threshold is extremely high, meaning only players with an overwhelming lead can secure Victory (if you’re finding you’re hitting these early Victories, it may be time to move up a difficulty level!). As the game progresses, the threshold lowers, allowing more attainable wins later, but still rewarding those hardcore players who were able to achieve total dominance early.
To get into the nitty-gritty, that threshold breakdown is below:
Transcendent Victory: Between 50% and 80% Age Progress in Exploration, have 6x the second-place player’s score.
Crushing Victory: Between 80% Age Progress in Exploration and 20% in Modern, have 4x the second-place player’s score.
Decisive Victory: Between 20% and 40% Age Progress in Modern, have 3x the second-place player’s score.
Momentous Victory: Between 40% and 60% Age Progress in Modern, have 2x the second-place player’s score.
Substantive Victory: Between 60% and 80% Age Progress in Modern, have 1.5x the second-place player’s score.
Narrow Victory: Between 80% and 100% Age Progress in Modern, have 1.25x the second-place player’s score.
Once you hit a threshold, get ready: a five-turn countdown begins! This countdown gives your opponents a final window for counterplay – if they narrow the gap and push you below the threshold, your timer pauses until you reclaim the lead. Once the countdown is complete, Victory is yours!
There’s an exception to this focus on dominance, and that's the Scientific Victory. Instead of comparing against other players, it’s a race to 100 points, after which you must maintain an active Launch Pad for five turns. This reflects the urgency of a real-world space race, and ensures Scientific Victories can still conclude before the end of Modern, even when other Victory paths are tightly contested. If you’re pursuing another path, keep an eye on your rivals’ Scientific progress, lest they scoop up the win.
If Modern reaches 100% without anyone winning, Victory goes to the player with the highest score. This final score is determined by a series of tiebreakers that take into account a number of factors: your turns in a Victory countdown, your placement in all the Victories, and how many Major Triumphs you’ve completed. Domination Victory is still available by eliminating all opponents. As before, you can continue with One More Turn after winning. And finally, though it didn’t make it in for this update, we’re also working on adding back the functionality to customize which Victories are enabled before starting your game.
These updates also come with updated UI/UX: a brand-new Victory Screen accessible through the Trophy / Age Progress button in the HUD. It shows where you stand, how players are earning points, and the current status of each Victory path.
Speaking of UI, we’ve also taken a hard look at Civ VII’s UI/UX, refining the look and feel of various areas and introducing completely new screens to help you better navigate your empire. We know there’s more work to do here, but we're ready to share major progress since our last update. Here are some of the bigger changes, with more in the notes further below.
One of the biggest requests coming from players was better clarity around trade and Resources. We rebuilt that experience into a single hub we’re calling the Commerce Screen: a place to manage Resources, trade routes, and empire logistics without bouncing between menus.
The Commerce Screen now gives you clearer previews, better filtering, and fewer “why can’t I do this?” moments when slotting Resources into your empire. Here are the key changes:
Added Yield delta preview when making Resource assignment changes. This means you can now see exactly how Science, Gold, or Culture will change before you commit to a Resource assignment.
You can now see how many Warehouse and Water Buildings a Settlement has, which is relevant information for some Resources.
Improved error messaging for City/Factory Resources and Settlement connections.
Added filtering Resources based on Yield benefit.
Added "imported" indicator to identify which Resources come from other empires.
Added Settlement Type and Location tags.
Improved the visibility and clarity of the “Resource Allocation Unavailable” message.
Resource tooltips now display Resource type, effect, and origin.
Added drag-and-drop functionality for PC.
Added the ability to “remove all” Resources back for reassignment, either from a single Settlement or from all of them at once.
Resolved Camel assignment so slots update correctly without manual reassigning.
Trade information is now grouped into three clear sections so you can quickly understand what’s happening and what’s possible:
Active Trade Routes: Displays your empire’s current trade partners, your relationship with them, and benefits each of you are receiving from a Trade Route.
Available Trade Routes: Presents all of the currently viable Trade Routes with explanations for why they’re unlocked.
Unavailable Trade Routes: Shows all of the Settlements which are currently not meeting the requirement(s) necessary to establish a Trade Route, with an explanation as to why and what you can do to meet those requirements.
We’ve also added a consolidated breakdown of your empire’s Resources. Empire Resources are now presented in a stack to easily see their quantity, gameplay effects, and origin at a glance.
Last but not least for the Commerce Screen, you now have a dedicated view for Treasure Convoys available during the Exploration Age.
Each Settlement will display its associated Treasure Resources, the number of active Treasure Convoys, how much each is worth, how close each Settlement is to generating a new Treasure Convoy, the requirements for generating Treasure Convoys, and an explanation as to what you need to do to meet any unmet requirements.
My liege, your Advisors have been promoted!
Before 1.4.0, Advisors were primarily there to provide "Warnings" when something went wrong (assuming your Tutorial level was set high enough).
With Test of Time, Advisors have been reimagined as a full Council: a dedicated, always-available guidance system that exists independently from tutorial settings. Each Advisor now offers proactive tips and strategic suggestions tailored to the Victory path you’re pursuing, helping you make more informed decisions as your empire evolves.
You’re also in control of how much input you receive. Choose between full guidance, warnings from all Advisors, or only hearing from the ones you actively follow. You can follow or unfollow Advisors – and adjust these settings – at any time.
On the UI side, we’ve introduced a new Advisor Council Screen to bring everything together in one place. Notifications have been reworked for better at-a-glance readability, and warnings now include clearer context about what’s happening, along with actionable advice on how to address it.
With Test of Time, we’ve given the finale a bit more presence.
You’ll now see a multi-part sequence play out when your game ends. It starts with a Victory-type-specific moment, followed by a flyover of your empire with your leader offering their closing thoughts (if you win). You’ll also hear from narrator Gwendoline Christie, who acknowledges your triumph (or defeat) before you land on updated Victory screens with a full breakdown of scores and final standings.
We also can't talk about the Test of Time update without talking about how it sounds. Our audio team has been cooking up a suite of new sounds and music tracks to better match the pace and mood of your empire as it evolves. To give an idea of the scale (no pun intended) of music work being done, we’ve added 175 new tracks, totaling over nine hours of music, with more to come in future updates!
Here's the breakdown of what’s being implemented:
4 new Antiquity Age ambient themes (2 peace, 2 war).
6 new Exploration Age ambient themes (3 peace, 3 war).
2 new Modern Age ambient themes (1 peace, 1 war).
19 new tracks for Antiquity Age versions of Modern Age civs' themes.
19 new tracks from new and previously unreleased recordings.
125 alternate mix variations of existing civ and ambient themes.
As you can see, we've revisited all of the recordings of in-game music and created many alternate variations using a subtractive/additive approach. Outside of a civ’s Apex Age, you’ll hear scaled-down, more intimate variations of their core theme. In the civ’s Apex, you’ll get the full multi-layered version of the theme. This model adds more depth and variety to the musical pacing of the game. Give these new versions a listen, and let us know what you think!
Beyond the sound, the art team has been working hard too. We’ve created new Building variations to give your Time-Tested civilizations a cohesive look through the Ages. All-new environment art sets for the Pacific, North African, Eastern European, and South Asian regions feature familiar color palettes so that your civ can retain its signature architectural style as it evolves. Check out a few examples below:
The screenshot of Modern Egypt above shows new Exploration and Modern Age North African buildings.
The screenshot of Modern Siam above shows new Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern Age Pacific buildings.
With the Test of Time update, this gave the Unit team an opportunity to fill out some of the culture sets that were underrepresented in the base game. From Southeast Asia, India, Pacific Islanders, and beyond, the team has taken great care in creating historically accurate armor, clothing, weapons, and more! This also includes making sure all culture groupings have properly represented assets throughout all Ages.
Here are just a few examples of new assets created for this update. We hope that as you play, you’ll have moments of “Wow, I can’t believe they included that helmet/weapon. That’s awesome!”
With all of the changes to the base game, we took a look at our civs and leaders to see how they fit in a post-Test of Time game. Almost every civ has had its Unique Ability, Unique Civic Tree, and unlocks reevaluated.
Some Unique Abilities were slightly tweaked and given new forms outside that civ’s Apex Age, while others like the Mayan Unique Ability were changed entirely. Our work on Unique Civic Trees involved removing most of the stray passive effects that clogged up the previous trees and replacing them with Traditions. Some of those passive effects are important to civs' identities, so we upgraded some to be part of a Unique Ability instead, or incorporated them into the civ’s Traditions.
Our adjustments to leaders were a little lighter, but we updated several with minor buffs or focused their abilities to better reflect their identity. For specifics, see the details in the notes below.
Time-Tested civs, Triumphs, and Victories are changes to the core of Civilization VII. With such fundamental reworks, we’re revisiting the pace and balance of the whole game. Our goals are to make each Yield relevant through all Ages (looking at you, Happiness), reward long-term strategies, and enable snowballing through smart decision-making over grabbing as many bonuses as you can. We’re leaning into asymmetricality, identity, and interesting trade-offs where possible.
Numerically, some of the changes we’re making are reductions compared to the live version of the game. Many of these are to address Yield bloat, where players were finding they had very high Yields with little investment, hazy knowledge of where those Yields were coming from, and high-enough Yields that we couldn’t offer meaningful tradeoffs. Making these adjustments now leaves us healthy space for more systems and content in the future. We’ve also revisited costs, availability of Buildings and effects, and invisible stacking bonuses to accommodate.
We encourage you to play the game with fresh eyes and build a new baseline for Civilization VII. Many numbers have been tweaked and bonuses sliced to make decisions more meaningful (or harder). Check out these areas of change in the notes below!
New map alert! We’re adding in a new map type called Fractal Continents, and it’s our most randomized map yet, putting emphasis on the eXploration part of 4X. They're only guaranteed to appear in a certain fraction of Distant Lands, but the shapes and number of landmasses are totally randomized. It also supports sea levels like the other Voronoi Maps (What-maps? Check out this From the Devs piece). Eventually, we intend for this map to replace the old Fractal map.
We could explain more, but best to just see what it looks like for yourself. Here are a couple examples (one small, one large) to show the variety. Try them out in-game!*
*Map restrictions may apply to gameplay on Nintendo Switch. See FAQs at https://civilization.2k.com/civ-vii/faq/ for more info.
We’re welcoming a Civ legend back into the roster – Alexander the Great! This leader is available free with Test of Time for every Civ VII player as thanks for all the support, feedback, and playtime since launch.
Great in both name and deed, Alexander conquered a vast territory from Greece to India in his short life, spreading Hellenistic culture across the Near East and into Egypt. He ended the rule of the Persian Achaemenids, spread Greek philosophy to the Indus Valley, and founded the city of Alexandria, famed location of the Great Library. Though his empire fractured after his death, its cultural influence is still felt today.
Attributes: Militaristic, Cultural
Unique Ability - King of the World: Cities other than your Capital with a Wonder get increased Production and Culture; this effect is doubled if they are on a different Continent than your Capital. Increased Combat Strength for Land Military Units. Increased Combat Strength for Unique Military Units for every City with a Wonder other than your Capital, up to a maximum cap. Increased Dominion for every City with a Wonder other than your Capital. Towns converted into Cities are renamed after Alexander.
Agenda - Godlike Basileus: Increase Relationship by a Small Amount with Leaders who have the fewest conquered Settlements. Decrease Relationship by a Medium Amount with Leaders who have the most conquered Settlements.
Added a new Civ Selection screen to better present the options of staying as your civ versus swapping.
Civ selection now happens at the end of the current Age, letting you review your empire before committing.
Made various improvements to AI leaders’ ability to pursue Victory.
DLC leaders should now do a better job of selecting their associated civs based on Game Settings.
Added Auto Pan to Combat, meaning the camera will automatically pan to combat events. This can be disabled in the settings, and is enabled by default.
Adjusted values for War Weariness.
Dev note: As iteration continued on the Happiness economy, we found the Unhappiness of War in Exploration and Modern was not as impactful as we would like. Now, Unhappiness increases by +2 per Settlement in Exploration and +4 in Modern, compared to Antiquity. New values (Settlements founded by you/other civs/someone you are at war with):
Antiquity: 3/5/7 (unchanged)
Exploration: 5/7/9
Modern: 7/9/11
Razing is now faster; the Settlement loses 1 District per Age per turn (Previously: 1 District per turn).
Adjusted Diplomatic action scaling.
Dev note: We’ve found a lot of success in using cost-scaling to better pace and balance game content, so we’re bringing it to Diplomatic Actions. While we plan to expand Diplomacy gameplay in the future, these changes will help smooth out the late-game Influence economy for players now. Here are some of the changes:
Improve Trade Relations: Now has a 25% increased Influence cost each time it is performed.
Befriend Independent: Now increases by 20% per active Action and Suzerained City-State.
Itsaraphab (Siam Unique Action): Now has 10% increased Influence cost per number of Suzerained City-States and active Befriend Independent Actions.
Lighting has been upgraded with new Sun Settings and HDR texture to bring out the environment and Units’ colors and shadows better. This change also improves the visuals for leaders and Independent Powers skin tones, shadows, and backlighting.
Implemented regional architecture for each Time-Tested civilization for all Ages.
Implemented Palace and City Hall assignments for Time-Tested civs outside of their Apex Age.
Made several additions to regional architecture, including:
Exploration South Asian Set
Antiquity Pacific Set
Exploration Pacific Set
Modern Pacific Set
Antiquity Eastern European Set
Exploration Eastern European Set
Modern Native American
Exploration North African Set
Modern North African Set
You can now claim unimproved plots from your other nearby Settlements during a Growth event. While this is limited for now, we’re looking into expanding this to placement events in the future.
Civ and leader game effects for "Settlements not founded by you" have been changed to "Captured Settlements from any Age." This allows those Yield bonus effects in captured Settlements to persist across an Age Transition, rather than resetting. Other effects, like Influence penalties and Unrest from conquest are still limited to the Age in which that Settlement is conquered. Affected civs and leaders are: Assyria, Maurya, Persia, Mongolia, Normans, Prussia, and Xerxes, King of Kings.
Specialists no longer have a base Yield (Previously: 2 Science and Culture). Instead, they now give 100% of their tile’s Adjacency Yields as additional Yield. (Previously: 50%). Most generic bonuses to Specialists base Yield have been updated to include an increased Maintenance cost.
Specialist Maintenance costs have been updated (Previously: 2 Food and Happiness). Specialist costs on Current-Age and Unique Ageless Buildings increase by Age (now 2/4/6 Food and Happiness). Specialists placed on Warehouse or Obsolete Buildings cost 1 Food and Happiness per turn (not per Age).
Adjusted the Growth Curve in later Ages to better pace Population growth, particularly Specialist placement.
All Town Focuses have been updated across all Ages. Scaling by Age has been removed from Town passives. Almost all Towns now have the ability to purchase a subset of Buildings when a Town Focus is chosen, and are no longer limited to Tier 1 buildings.
The impact of local Happiness has increased to -5% negative Yields per point of Unhappiness (Previously: -2%), to a maximum of -80% Yields in an Unhappy Settlement. Negative Happiness does not apply to a Settlement’s Food.
The negative Happiness applied to each Settlement for exceeding the Settlement Limit is now uncapped. (Previously: -35 max)
The costs of many Techs and Civics have been adjusted.
Almost all passive Yield increases on the Tech Tree have been removed. Some have been replaced with other bonuses and the Tech Tree has been reorganized to accommodate. A new node in Modern, Computation, has been added to better balance the late-game Tech progression in Modern.
Artilleryman’s Gloves: Now gives +2 Culture for each Army Commander Promotion. (Previously: +1 Culture per Age for every Army Commander Promotion.)
Dev Note: We changed a few of the Mementos that scaled on the number of Commander Promotions to no longer scale per Age. This is part of an overall pass to remove most “double-scaling” effects. Since you naturally have more Commander Promotions, the Age-scaling no longer felt necessary. When choosing which scaling to keep, we prefer to pick the one the player has the most control over.
Bifocals: Now gain +25 Influence per Age after researching a Technology. (Previously: Gain +50 Influence after researching a Technology or Civic Mastery.)
Dev Note: As one of Ben Franklin’s Mementos, we updated it to align more with his abilities when we updated Ben Franklin (see Leaders section below).
Chanda-Mahasena: Now gives +3 Combat Strength against Fortified Districts for all Units during a Celebration. (Previously: +5 Combat Strength.)
Corona Civica: Now gives +1 Settlement Limit each Age, but +50% Convert to City cost. (Previously: +1 Settlement Limit per Age, but +50% Convert to City cost.)
Dev Note: We updated a few effects that worked like this to no longer scale per Age, including Xerxes, King of King’s ability and Alexander’s new Gordian Knot Memento.
Flag of Jhansi: Now gives +2 Influence for each Army Commander Promotion. (Previously: +1 Influence per Age for each Commander Promotion.)
Glass Armonica: Now gives +15 Science and Happiness per Age when in an Alliance for you and your ally. (Previously: +10% Science and Happiness when in an Alliance for you and your Ally.)
Dev Note: This change is part of the continued removal of percentage bonuses in generally available abilities.
Gold Snuff Box: Now gives +20 Food per Age in Cities when in only one Alliance. (Previously: +20% Food when in only one Alliance.)
Joyeuse: Now gives +1 Happiness per Age on Cavalry Units stationed on a Palace or City Hall. (Previously: +2 Happiness for every Cavalry Unit.)
Kiem: Now gives +2 Science for each Army Commander Promotion. (Previously: +1 Science for every Commander Level.)
Mascapaycha: Now gives +1 Gold from Specialists. +1 additional Gold on Specialists in tiles adjacent to Mountains. (Previously: +1 Gold and Food from Specialists in tiles adjacent to Mountains.)
Dev Note: With the Specialist changes in this patch, we are more careful about giving Food and Happiness effects to Specialists. This Memento joins the Analects and Altar Set Mementos in giving players a way to get default Yield on Specialists now.
Noli Me Tangere Memento: Now gives +1 Science, Culture, and Gold per Age for each Major Triumph completed in an Age. (Previously: +10% to Science, Culture, and Gold per Age for each Legacy Path completed.)
Poteskwate: Now gives +1 Food per Age in Towns for each City-State you are Suzerain of. (Previously: +1 Food per Age in Settlements for each City-State you are Suzerain of.)
Dev Note: Since we adjusted Tecumseh’s abilities (see Leader section below), we adjusted his Mementos to match. When Mementos duplicate parts of a Leader’s abilities, we prefer them to either match or be slightly weaker versions of the core ability. This lets the leader stand out while also having the option to double down.
Saddle: Now gives +1 Food per Age on Cavalry Units stationed on a Palace or City Hall. (Previously: +1 Food per Age per Cavalry Unit Stationed on a Town Center.)
Shisa Necklace: Now gain +50 Influence per Age when you become Suzerain of a City-State. (Previously: Gain +100 Influence when you become Suzerain of a City-State.)
Sulde: Now gives +1 Culture per Age on Cavalry Units stationed on a Palace or City Hall. (Previously: +1 Culture per Age for each Commander Promotion.)
This previously overlapped with the Artilleryman’s Gloves Memento, so we redesigned it to match some other Cavalry-focused Mementos.
Uraeus: Now gives +10 Culture per Age in Cities with at least 1 Wonder. (Previously: +10% Culture in Cities with Wonders.)
Wampum Belt: Now gives +1 Production per Age in Cities for each City-State you are Suzerain of. (Previously: +1 Production per Age in Settlements for each City-State you are Suzerain of.)
War Club: Now gives +1 Combat Strength for Infantry Units for each City-State you are Suzerain of. (Previously: +1 Combat Strength for all Units for every City-State you are Suzerain of.)
Added new map type, Fractal Continents.
Tile Yield is now differentiated across Biomes, and no longer scales by Age automatically.
Dev Note: With this change, increasing the value of Rural tiles with Warehouses and other bonuses is an active decision. It also helps address some of the Yield bloat (especially Gold) in later Ages.
Multiple Resources have been updated, mostly buffed.
Adjusted spawning rules for Navigable Rivers. In short, we've lengthened the navigable section of longer rivers while removing really short Navigable Rivers to keep the total number of River tiles roughly equal.
Updated Shattered Seas map so it now has better access to Distant Lands.
Erosion can now erode multiple tiles deep into landmasses and is controlled by rules like avoiding plate boundaries (harder rock) and eroding more where westerlies / trade winds blow large waves into the coastline. This leads to subtle improvements in the shape of landmasses.
We’ve tweaked what counts as an Island for some effects that cared about them. Now, land counts as an Island if it is a maximum of 30 continuous tiles surrounded by water. (Previously: 15 tiles). This affects Hawaii’s unlock condition and the Nan Madol Wonder.
Treasure Convoys now only validate their path on their last move; no more resetting your entire fleet's destination when one ship arrives.
Production Buildings no longer contribute to the increased cost scaling for future Buildings in that Settlement.
Dev note: We love to take opportunities to make Buildings matter beyond just providing Yield. Having Production Buildings not impact Production costs matches Gold and Happiness Buildings not requiring their respective Yields as Maintenance costs.
Food and Production Warehouse Buildings no longer count as Food and Production Buildings, respectively, for effects that care about those types of Buildings. Effects that will affect Food and Production Warehouse Buildings now call them out specifically. This means effects like the City-State Bonus that provides Food to Food Buildings now only applies to Current-Age or Unique Ageless Food Buildings.
Unique Improvements now scale in cost as you build more in the same Settlement. The cost increase for future Unique Improvements of the same type in a Settlement is 50% per previous copy. The Han and Ming Great Walls scale more slowly at 25% per previous copy. Building the same Unique Improvement in separate Settlements, or different Unique Improvements in the same Settlement has no impact on cost.
Game Setup now lets you control if you want to see Time-Tested civs in your game, as well as how strongly we try to match leaders and civs to their historical pairings.
Platform Achievements have been updated to reflect the removal of the Legacy Path system.
Achievements that previously referenced the typed Legacy Paths of the Antiquity and Exploration Ages have been replaced with Achievements that reference the corresponding Major Triumphs instead.
Achievements that referenced the Legacy Paths in Modern have been replaced with Achievements around the Diplomatic and Expansionist Major Triumphs in previous Ages.
Challenges have been updated to reflect the new design.
Foundation Path:
New Tutorial Challenges were added referencing Triumphs, Dedications, and Traditions.
Civ-based Challenges were updated to reference Triumphs instead of Legacy Paths.
Legacy Path-based Challenges were updated to reference Triumphs. New Challenges were added to include Diplomatic and Expansionist Triumphs.
New Challenges were added referencing Victories and Triumphs across Ages.
Leader Paths:
Challenges around completing Ages and Narrative quest chains remain unchanged.
Challenges around completing Legacy Paths have been either updated to reference Triumphs or cut.
New Challenges around the Diplomatic and Expansionist Triumphs, different types of Victories, and difficulty have been added.
Added new free leader, Alexander.
Ada Lovelace: Now gains Culture equal to 100% of your total Science per turn when you complete a Technology Mastery. (Previously: gain Culture equal to 50% of Science.)
Augustus: Now get 15% Gold towards purchasing Buildings in Towns, doubled to 30% if that Building is in your Capital. (Previously: 50% Gold towards purchasing Buildings in Towns.)
Ben Franklin: Now gets +5% Production towards constructing Buildings and +2 Science per Age for each active Endeavor you have started or supported. (Previously: +1 Science per Age for each active Endeavor you have started or supported, and +50% Production towards constructing Production Buildings only.)
Harriet Tubman: Now earns a Migrant in the Capital whenever you complete an Espionage Action without being detected.
Dev note: We’ve left the Memento that previously did this unchanged, so you can double down now.
Himiko (High Shaman): Yields adjusted to +15% Culture and -15% Science; these effects still double during a Celebration. (Previously: +20% Culture but -10% Science.)
Himiko (Queen of Wa): Now has a +100% Influence cost penalty when rejecting Diplomatic Actions.
Ashoka (Renouncer): Unique Buildings now gain a Happiness Adjacency for all tile improvements. (Previously: All Buildings gain a +1 Happiness Adjacency for all tile improvements.)
Dev note: With our Specialist changes being well received, we felt Ashoka had to change. Unfortunately, his abilities negated too much of the Specialist costs. While this is a significant shift in his abilities, we have a buff planned for him soon.
Pachacuti: Specialists adjacent to Mountains keep their Maintenance reduction, but Specialists not adjacent to Mountains now have their Happiness Maintenance increased by +1. (Previously: Specialists adjacent to Mountains have their Happiness maintenance reduced by -2.)
Dev note: While a nerf, this felt like a good opportunity to reinforce identity as we lean more into asymmetry and directional design. It felt appropriate for Pachacuti to require Mountains more than other leaders, and have a reason to fight over them.
Simon Bolivar: Now gains +2 War Support specifically on wars you declare. (Previously: Gain +1 War Support on all your wars.)
Dev note: This is a small tweak for now, but we’ve got our eye on Bolivar. He’ll get a larger update when we add new systems in the future.
Charlemagne: His adjacency bonus has been switched from Quarters to Fortifications.
Tecumseh: Now earns +1 Food per Age in Towns and +1 Production per Age in Cities for every Suzerained City-State. (Previously: Both bonuses applied to all Settlements.) His combat bonus is now specific to Infantry and Ranged Units, and all Independent Powers will now start Friendly with him.
Dev note: Tecumseh is a fun and powerful leader, but the wide application of his bonuses were closing design space around other City-State gameplay, and didn’t reinforce his synergy with civs that cared about City-States like the Shawnee or Greece in a healthy way. We’re hoping this change feels more like a reinforcement of his identity, even though parts of it are technically a nerf.
Friedrich (Oblique): Now gains +2 Science per Age for each Commendation earned by your Commanders.
Xerxes (King of Kings): Adjusted his Settlement Limit bonus to +1 per Age. Previously, this bonus scaled cumulatively (+1 in Antiquity, +2 in Exploration, +3 in Modern, totaling +6), but it now consistently grants +1 in each Age (+3 total).
Dev note: As Settlement Limit can be retained across Ages, effects that provided multiple Settlement Limit increases in later Ages were too valuable. The Corona Civica Memento was updated to match this change as well.
Dev Note: As we mentioned up-top, there was a lot of work that went into updating civs for Test of Time, and many of these changes ripple across multiple systems and Ages in ways that are hard to fully capture in the update notes. We’ve highlighted some of the bigger adjustments below, but the best way to get a feel for the full scope of the changes is to jump into a new game!
Introduced Time-Tested civs, adding the option to start and stay as any civ.
Designed New Unique Abilities for every civilization to ensure they stay competitive and flavorful across all three Ages.
Every civ now has brand-new Traditions tied to the Syncretism system, allowing you to double down on your specific cultural roots with Affirmation if you choose not to hybridize.
Added new Civilopedia entries for Test of Time features.
Updated various Civilopedia entries for accuracy.
Added new Commerce Screen.
Added new Advisor Council Screen.
Refreshed the visuals of the Main Menu.
Reworked the Create Game screens to better support Time-Tested civs and Memento selection.
[PC-only] Players can now scale the UI to better fit their screen and preferences with a new “UI Scaling” setting in Options. On lower resolutions (below 1080p), the setting is disabled to keep things readable.
Dev note: Depending on your resolution and scaling value, elements may appear under- or over-sized. If things don’t look right, you can always adjust the setting back at any time!
Advisor Notifications now either include a “Take Me There” button to jump straight to the relevant event, or a “Tell Me More” button to get more insights.
Updated Treasure resource icon to better distinguish regions: filled for Distant Lands, hollow for Homelands.
Changed Empire Resource Type icon from red to orange to reduce confusion with error signals.
Added a Conquest Decoration, showing which Districts need to be captured to conquer a City, including your own. It can be enabled via the Lens Panel above the minimap.
Added the ability to see an enemy Unit's Zone of Control when selected. Entering a Unit's Zone of Control ends their movement, but attacks can still be made. This mechanic is not new, just better visualized!
City-State types are now visible from the "Minor Powers" tab of the Diplomacy Panel.
Tab icons in the Diplomacy Panel are now highlighted when selected.
Selecting a Government choice now more clearly shows the selected Government.
Added an icon representing the current Age to the turn counter in the upper right.
Addressed an issue that can cause issues with Yields not being rounded to the nearest whole number.
Made numerous improvements to the functionality and styling of the Traditions and Policies screen.
Added first pass of enhanced scaling behaviors for new UI screens, supporting higher resolutions and ultra wide.
Made several improvements to plot tooltips including:
Improved formatting and styling.
Added Building descriptions and Resources.
Added tags for quickly identifying key elements.
Added alerts to highlight important statuses.
Added Settlement name for owned plots.
Plot tooltips now support nested tooltips.
Added additional nested tooltips (including plot tooltips) and added the autolock option.
Tooltips are no longer partially covered by mouse cursor.
Made various sizing and layout adjustments to tooltips.
Improved UI for tutorials.
Tutorials have been re-worked to support nested tooltips.
Updated and expanded tutorials for Test of Time features.
Added new narrative events for Time-Tested civs. These events will trigger in the first chronological Age when they are not in their Apex (ex. Antiquity civs will have it in Exploration, Exploration/Modern civs will have it in Antiquity.)
Dev note: There is another one for each civ's second chronological age coming as well!
Added additional narrative events for Jose Rizal meeting Test of Time civilizations.
Reworked Jose Rizal’s ability, so he should get more narrative events on average.
Added several new Discoveries.
Updated visuals for several narrative events.
Added new Antiquity Age versions for every single Modern Age civilization.
Added 4 new Antiquity Age ambient themes (2 peace, 2 war).
Added 6 new Exploration Age ambient themes (3 peace, 3 war).
Added 2 new Modern Age ambient themes (1 peace, 1 war).
Added 19 new tracks for Antiquity Age versions of Modern Age civs' themes.
Added 19 new tracks from new and previously unreleased recordings.
Added 125 alternate mix variations of existing civ and ambient themes.
Updated and added new sound effects for in-game notifications.
Updated and added new sound effects for Map Resources.
Added sound effects for all new Test of Time features: Commerce, Syncretism, Triumphs, Victories, Storylets, and much more!
Added sound effects for building placement.
Added new music and sound effects during end-of-game Victories.
Added new sound effects to support refreshed Create Game screens, including sounds for Age Selection and Random civ and leader selection.
Added sound effects for several buildings.
Added additional Unit character expressions for combat and idle animations.
Addressed many reported audio issues across leaders, VO, UI, Music, and Controller.