Test of Time is live now on Apple Arcade, 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: 

1. You can now start and stay as any civ, in any Age.
2. Legacy Paths have been replaced with Triumphs, a more flexible, sandbox-driven system.
3. 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 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, new leaders totally free to play, 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! 

Now, let's see if your empire can stand the test of time.

Happy patch-reading!

Feature Spotlight

Leading One Civilization

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 this update!

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: 

Civics

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!

Syncretism & Affirmation

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.

AI Civ Selection

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.

Ready to stand the Test of Time?

When you start a new game with this update, you’ll see the difference immediately. Starting from Create Game, you’ll see how wide open the roster is now: every base-game civ 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!

Triumphs

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. 

Major and Minor Triumphs

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.

Dedications

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
• Managing the previous Crisis successfully

Triumph Sets

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.

Victories

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.

Scoring

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.

Victory Through Dominance

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.

UI/UX

Speaking of UI, we’ve refined the look and feel of various areas and introduced new screens to help you better navigate your empire.  Here are some of the bigger changes, with more in the notes further below.

Nested Tooltips

Civ VII is a deep game with lots of concepts that are new to the series, like Warehouse bonuses, and concepts that have been around a long time which we often take for granted, like Wonders. With this update, we’re adding in nested tooltips so that concepts like Warehouses or Wonders can be inspected to get a new tooltip with a brief explanation of that concept. There’s still more detailed information to be found in the Civilopedia, but these brief explainers are easier to access in the moment when you need a quick introduction or refresher on what exactly something does.

New Appeal Lens

Presenting the new Appeal Lens! This new strategic tool is designed to help you quickly identify which tiles are Breathtaking or Charming, and even help you spot Natural Wonders.

Along with this new tool in your toolbelt, we’ve added a new one to ours. Previously, tiles could either be Appealing or not. Appealing tiles provided Happiness, and the Yield for Happiness scaled by Age. Now, Appealing tiles come in two types: Charming and Breathtaking. Charming tiles provide base Happiness, while Breathtaking tiles provide increased Happiness, and this value no longer scales by Age. 

Commerce Screen

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.

Resources

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 Mac.
• 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 Routes

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.

Empire Overview

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. 

Treasure (Exploration Age)

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.

Advisor Council

My liege, your Advisors have been promoted!

Before now, 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.

Moment of Victory

Finales now have 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.

Art & Music

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).
• New tracks for Antiquity Age versions of Modern Age civs' themes.
• New tracks from new and previously unreleased recordings.
• Several 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.

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!”

Balance Adjustments

Civs & Leaders

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.

Other Balance Changes

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).

New Map Types

Shattered Seas Map

Shattered Seas plays like a combination of the Pangaea and Archipelago map types, consisting of large islands separated by shallow water. These large islands are big enough for a couple Settlements, but in order to expand your empire, you’ll have to take to the seas early. Like the Pangaea maps, the majority of the map is available starting in Antiquity, with a few Distant Lands islands to find across the deep ocean in the Exploration Age. 

As a little bonus to help with navigation, we added coastal water visuals to the minimap so you can better explore this map type (and others).

Fractal Continents Map

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!

Archipelago Map

We've also done a bit of map-name housekeeping with this update. The previous Archipelago map has been renamed Archipelago Hemispheres, a name that more accurately reflects how it divides major archipelago regions between the eastern and western halves of the world, creating a more balanced experience. Taking its place is an all-new Archipelago map type.

Like Fractal Continents, this map has less repetition, more randomness, and a more organic feel overall. This map type features two regions of archipelagos that are randomly placed, with a smattering of Distant Lands elsewhere on the map.

While we were tinkering with Voronoi generation, we also took a look at lake generation. Previously, lakes were built around a central tile, which often led to them looking a little too same-y from game to game. With this update, lakes can generate in a much wider variety of shapes and sizes, creating more natural-looking inland waters across the map. The total amount of lake coverage has also increased. Maybe it's time for a Buganda campaign?

Hotseat Multiplayer

We’re excited to finally get Hotseat multiplayer into players’ hands!

For anyone who hasn't tried it, Hotseat lets you play a local multiplayer game with friends on the same device. You take your turn, hop out of the hotseat, and try not to watch as your friend sits down and plots your downfall. It’s a staple for many Civ players, and we wanted to make sure it got enough time in the oven before it officially went live.

We know many Hotseat fans have been waiting for this one, and we want to say thank you for your patience as we worked to get it out the door. Pass the phone and have fun empire-building! 

Happiness, Governments, & Celebrations

After changes to Appeal, Settlement Limits, local Happiness effects, and Specialists, this update introduces the next major step in that work: updates to Governments and Celebrations, along with new local Happiness stages that add more depth to how your Settlements feel about your rule.

Happiness Stages

The answer to “is my Settlement happy?” is no longer a yes or no question. Each Settlement’s local Happiness can now come in five stages: Ecstatic, Joyous, Happy, Unhappy, and Angry. These stages don’t have effects on their own, but will have direct impacts on game elements like the new Government abilities (see below). Here are the values for each stage of Happiness across the Ages:

• Ecstatic: 40+ Happiness per Age
• Joyous: 20-39 Happiness per Age
• Happy: 0-19 Happiness per Age 
• Unhappy: -19 to -1 Happiness (not per Age)
• Angry: -20 Happiness or lower (not per Age)

To really reach those higher levels, focus on maximizing your empire's Happiness by settling near fresh water, improving Resources, constructing Happiness Buildings, and stationing experienced Army Commanders in your Cities!

Governments

Next up, Government choices have more impact. Previously, your Government choice mainly determined which two Celebration options you could choose from when you earned a Celebration. These Celebrations provided large Yield boosts, but they could also be a little unexciting. Players weren’t getting the flavor of Despotism, just a 20% boost to Science. 

Now, every Government comes with a passive ability that takes effect as soon as you adopt it, while still providing two Celebration options when you earn them. We've also reworked Celebrations to better reflect the goals and strengths of each Government type. Additionally, each Government now adds two exclusive Government Traditions in the Civics Tree that are only available if you choose that Government. Like civ Traditions, these can be carried forward into future Ages, allowing your political choices to leave a lasting mark on your empire.

Celebrations

Celebrations, those temporary empire-wide bonuses you earn by keeping your people happy, have also seen some changes. We noticed that many players were spending most of the Age in Celebrations, even when ignoring Happiness gameplay. With no tension about earning and staying in Celebrations, effects that lengthened Celebrations were much less interesting. We want there to be some tension between triggering and staying in Celebrations, so with this update, you’ll find that Celebrations are slightly harder to earn and have been shortened - from 10 turns on Standard speed to 6. 

New Leaders: Gilgamesh & Alexander 

We’re adding two new leaders with this update,  as thanks for all the support, feedback, and playtime since launch. 

Gilgamesh

Your best friend and King of Uruk, Gilgamesh, makes his comeback to Civilization! 

Whether he was your favorite ally in Civ VI or if you've never met the legendary demigod of Uruk face-to-face, Gilgamesh is best known for his prowess in battle. In Civ VII, his emphasis on Endeavors helps him maximize their value with Allies. If you're playing as Gilgamesh, make sure you form those alliances quickly, and if you're not, becoming his Ally first may benefit you greatly. 

Gilgamesh is most effective when he invests in befriending one primary Ally. Not only does entering a war while having exactly one Ally garner him additional War Support, but his Mementos reward this one-Ally approach as well. Check out his kit below!

• Attributes: Diplomatic, Militaristic
• Unique Ability - Once Mortal, Twice Divine: Gain War Support when you have exactly one Ally. When you defeat an enemy Unit, gain Influence equal to a set percentage of its Combat Strength. All basic Endeavors are unlocked; Endeavors with Allies don’t count against the limit of having one Endeavor of a given type active at a time. Allies can support your Endeavors for free.
• Agenda - Ally of Enkidu: Increase Relationship by a Medium Amount with leaders who have started or supported the most Endeavors. Decrease Relationship by a Small Amount with leaders in Alliances with others.

Alexander the Great

We’re also welcoming a Civ legend back into the roster – Alexander the Great! 

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.

You can check out the full game guide and First Look videos for Gilgamesh and Alexander the Great on civilization.com.

Update Notes

Gameplay

Age Transitions 

• 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.

AI 

• Made various improvements to AI leaders’ ability to pursue Victory.
• AI now properly uses unique Diplomatic actions gained from City-State bonuses.
• Addressed a reported issue where Independent Power Army Commanders would fail to move or take any actions after the Independent Power became friendly while raiding a player's Settlement.
• Independent Powers AI no longer fails to pack Army Commanders after the player selects Incite Raid.
• Uposatha, Charters, Enlightenment, Patronage, Indenture, and Colonial Surplus now properly apply their bonus on Yield type adjacency for Improvements when slotted.
• Captured Settlements no longer fail to be returned to their original owner when the AI sends a Peace Deal.
• Addressed a reported issue where AI would overly commit to Counter Spy actions in the Modern Age, even against friendly civilizations and allies. AI now properly prioritizes Diplomatic Actions based on its relationship with other leaders.
• AI behavior around Diplomacy gameplay has been updated.
  • Diplomatic leaders will more properly use the Military Sabotage Action unlocked in the Diplomatic Attribute tree.
  • Militaristic leaders will more properly use the Open the Gates Espionage during War, and put more Influence towards War Support. 
  • All leaders befriend Independents slightly more often.
  • Individual leaders have had specific biases adjusted to better support their gameplay. 
  • Leaders with City-State centered gameplay more properly Suzerain and Incorporate City-States. 
  • Leaders with Personas have had their personalities slightly differentiated to vary gameplay. 
  • Civs have had specific biases adjusted to better support their gameplay.
• AI now fully uses all Sanctions against other players, including other AI players.
• When an AI proposal to form an alliance is accepted, the alliance is now properly created between the two leaders.
• AI no longer fails to use the Establish Air Base Ability when progressing through a game in the Modern Age.
• AI no longer fails to attack Air Bases with Air Units when establishing an Air Base near the AI's Settlement during Modern Age Gameplay.
• AI now more consistently builds naval Units.
• Addressed a reported issue where AI would not properly select Celebrations.
• Addressed a reported issue where AI players could still receive free walls in multiple Settlements when a custom difficulty game sets free walls to 0.

Military & Combat

• 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).
• Made several updates to naval combat: 
  • The Cog (Exploration Unit) now has a range of 2, increased from 1.
  • Light and Heavy Naval Units are more distinct. This applies to both Exploration and Modern.
    • Light Naval Units are now primarily melee Units with very weak ranged and bombard strength. They have increased movement and sight compared to the Heavy Naval Units in their Age, and can benefit from flanking when attacking. Light Units take reciprocal damage when attacking.
      • The new Privateer Unit in Exploration is a Light Naval Unit. 
      • Light Naval Units in Modern have had their ranged and bombard strength reduced by 20 to better fit their role as melee Units.
    • Heavy Naval Units are now primarily ranged Units. Their melee strength has been reduced by 5, and their ranged and bombard strength have increased by 5. Like other ranged Units, Heavy Units don’t take reciprocal damage when attacking.
    • Civ Unique Naval Units have been adjusted to keep their relative strength compared to the Unit they replaced in that Age.
  • Submarines (Modern Unit) are now ranged Units with an increased ranged strength of 70 and a reduced melee strength of 50. Previously they had a base strength of 65. They can no longer attack Districts or land Units.
  • The Fleet Commander’s Focus Fire and Coordinated Attack should now utilize Heavy and Light Units respectively. Light Naval Units should not be included in a Focus Fire, and Heavy Naval Units should not be included in a Coordinated Attack.
    • Privateers and Units with the Pirate ability will not participate in a Coordinated Attack or Focus Fire command while not at war.
• Trench Fighters and Dive Bomber Units have had their Bombard Strength reduced, and Bomber and Heavy Bomber Units have had their Ranged Strengths reduced, to make the air Units fit better into their intended roles.
• Army Commander's "Focus Fire" can no longer be used with Naval Units when Naval Units are within an Army Commander's Command Radius.
• Military Academy now correctly grants a free level when training Fleet / Air Commanders in the Settlement.
• The Treasure Convoys’ origin and Treasure Fleet point information no longer disappears when the original Settlement is captured.
• Naval Units no longer attack other Naval Units from Range when the "Shipsheds" Mastery Unique Civic is unlocked during Antiquity.
• Captured City Center tiles with only an undamaged Palace or City Hall no longer appear as valid coastal raid targets.
• Addressed a reported issue where Army Commanders from Antiquity would incorrectly receive an additional Command Radius boost after transitioning to the Exploration Age when playing as Friedrich Oblique.
• Army Commanders no longer fail to gain XP when a Unit damages an enemy in the Army Commander's upgraded Command Radius.
• The description for the Niter Resource has been updated in Modern. It now states that it applies to Heavy Naval Units in addition to Siege Units.  
• Communism no longer spawns Naval Ranged Units instead of Land Ranged Units when completed in the Civic Tree.
• The Donjon Unique Quarter no longer gives an extra Chevalier Unit when the Normans reconquer a Settlement with a completed Donjon Unique Quarter.
• Addressed a reported storylet issue causing Army Commanders to disappear after gaining the reward.
• Commanders no longer consume all movement points when deploying all Units.
• Splash damage reduced from 50% to 25% on Fleet and Squadron Trees.
• Commander's Coordinated attack no longer fails to work when individually unpacking with 'Initiative'.
• Commander Units in process of respawning no longer appear as an available choice when opening the "Levy Unit" menu from a Suzerain City-State.
• Ottru Units no longer fail to receive any active Naval Unit bonuses.

Diplomacy

• 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. 
• The player’s Diplomacy panel now automatically opens on the player’s civ and leader uniques, and now shows Traditions. For items with a prerequisite tech/civic, the unlock requirement is now also listed.

Environment

• Added new map types, Shattered Seas, Fractal Continents and Archipelago.
• 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. 
• 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.
• 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
• Coastal tiles are now visible on the minimap. 
• Water tiles now mention their biome type - Marine.
• Whales and Fish now spawn in the Ocean in Modern.
• Rainfall now has more of an impact on biomes, and mountains cast a rain shadow, creating zones of low rainfall. This follows Westerly and Easterly wind behavior, so the dry zones change with latitude..
• Excavate Artifact no longer becomes unavailable when a Ruin is within the borders of a Settlement that gets conquered.
• Added several new resources:
  • Crabs: Appears on Coastal and Lake tiles.
    • Tile Yield: +1 Food
    • Antiquity (Bonus Resource): +1 Food on Warehouse Buildings
    • Exploration (Bonus Resource): +2 Food on Warehouse Buildings
    • Modern (Bonus Resource): +3 Food on Warehouse Buildings
  • Cowrie: Appears on Coastal tiles.
    • Tile Yield: +1 Happiness
    • Antiquity (Bonus Resource): +4 Gold in Cities, +2 Science in Towns
    • Exploration (Bonus Resource): +5 Gold in Cities, +3 Science in Towns
    • Modern (Bonus Resource): +6 Gold in Cities, +4 Science in Towns
  • Turtles: Appears on Coastal tiles.
    • Tile Yield: +1 Culture
    • Antiquity (Bonus Resource): +1 Culture on Warehouse Buildings
    • Exploration (Bonus Resource): +2 Culture on Warehouse Buildings
  • Pitch: Appears on Vegetated tiles in Grassland, Plains, and Tundra.
    • Tile Yield: +1 Production, +1 Gold
    • Exploration (Bonus Resource): +1 Gold on Water Buildings
    • Modern (Bonus Resource): +1 Production on Factories, +10% Production towards constructing Factories in all Settlements when slotted.
• Updated Resource generation: 
  • Resources should be more consistent between Ages now. If a resource is not generated in an Age, it will not appear suddenly in future Ages, nor will it disappear for an Age and then come back. For example, if you didn’t see Turtles in Antiquity, they will not appear in Exploration.
  • Maps will now have a guaranteed minimum of 3 different Coastal Resources, with a chance for more. 
  • When Age Transitioning, maps will now have at least 1 new Resource introduced in that Age. For example, transitioning to Exploration would guarantee at least one Resource new to Exploration, like Whales, Niter, or the new Pitch.
• Added new terrain types, Atolls and Lotus.
  • Atolls: Atolls are a Feature that can appear on Ocean tiles. They stop movement for Units, and have a combat defense bonus for Units on the Atoll. Their Yields when worked are:
    • Exploration: 1 Food, 2 Production, 1 Culture
    • Modern: 1 Food, 2 Production, 2 Culture
  • Lotus: Lotus is a Feature that can appear on Lake tiles. They replace Reef tiles that previously appeared in Lakes. Their Yields when worked are:
    • Antiquity: 1 Food, 1 Culture
    • Exploration: 2 Food, 1 Culture
    • Modern: 2 Food, 2 Culture
• Made several updates to existing terrain: 
  • Reefs: Reefs no longer spawn in Lakes. They are now exclusively in Coastal tiles that are not Lakes. Their Yields when worked have been updated:
    • Antiquity: 1 Food, 1 Production, 1 Science
    • Exploration: 1 Food, 2 Production, 1 Science
    • Modern: 1 Food, 2 Production, 2 Science
  • Ocean: Ocean tiles are now workable by all civs in the Modern Age and provide 1 Food and 3 Gold.
  • Grand Canyon: The Grand Canyon now gives 1 Science on Flat tiles, from 2 previously.
• When clicking on Units with Auto Explore, Discoveries are now highlighted in blue to improve readability. 
• The automated exploration ability can no longer be activated when the Unit is within range of being able to reach a discovery (within 2 turns of movement).

Economy

• 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: 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 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.
• The player is no longer unable to create trade routes to some Distant Land Settlements from the Homelands.
• Salt and Truffles now properly give +20% Production towards training any Unit when slotted into a City. 
• Clay Pits now correctly gain a Production bonus from Technology / Warehouses when the Improvement is created on a Clay Resource tile.
• Great Stele's Gold now properly scales per Age when building Wonders in Exploration and Modern.
• Affected unimproved tiles will no longer retain their Yield preview when a player removes a Policy card that increases their Yield.
• Changed “Rural District" to just “Rural” on various tooltips, effects, descriptions, and Civilopedia articles for better consistency with gameplay logic. These tiles are now simply referred to as “Rural” to avoid confusion with "Districts” or Urban tiles.
• Players no longer fail to receive +2 Culture from ongoing Diplomatic projects when the Ekklesia Mastery has been completed and a Diplomatic project has been started.
• Added Production Adjacency from Wonders for Factories in Modern.
• Riches of the Duat will no longer provide a +20% production bonus when constructing a Wonder in a city not located in desert terrain.
• The Anjuvannam Unique Building no longer fails to receive Adjacency Bonuses from Coastal tiles when slotting the "Shusei Kokubo" tradition.
• Ageless Fortified Districts no longer lose Health and Wall Defense bonus when transitioning to the following Age.
• Sawmill no longer requires River placement.

Happiness & Appeal

• Added new Appeal Lens.
• Appeal’s effect on Happiness has been updated. The way a tile’s Appeal is calculated is unchanged. 
  • Appeal is no longer binary, and now has levels. Tiles can be Average, Charming, or Breathtaking. Appeal level determines how much Happiness a tile provides, and Happiness from Appealing tiles no longer scales by Age.
    • Average tiles continue to not provide Happiness.
    • Charming tiles provide +1 Happiness when improved.
    • Breathtaking tiles provide +2 Happiness when improved.
  • Abilities that previously referred to tiles with a Happiness Yield or a Natural Happiness Yield have been updated to reference Appeal instead.
• 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)

Mementos

• 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). 
• 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.
• Dell'Arte della Guerra: Now provides +3 Gold per Sanction you have active per Age. (Previously: +5 Gold per Sanction you have active per Age.)
• 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.
• 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.)
• 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.)
• Uraeus: Now gives +10 Culture per Age in Cities with at least 1 Wonder. (Previously: +10% Culture in Cities with Wonders.)

Units & Buildings

• New Building: Harbor
  • The Harbor is an Antiquity Age Warehouse Water Building available to all civs that unlocks on Sailing.
    • As a Water Building, it can be placed only in Coastal and Navigable River tiles. It has the same placement restrictions as a Fishing Quay.
    • Like other Warehouse Buildings, the Harbor is available in Towns.
  • It provides +1 base Production, and a +1 Production Warehouse bonus on Fishing Boats. 
  • Naval Units will default to spawning on the Harbor, similar to the Barracks for land Units.
• New Unit: Privateer
  • The Privateer is an Exploration Age Light Naval Unit available to all civs that unlocks on Heraldry. It is a melee-focused Unit, with very weak ranged and bombard attacks.
  • The Privateer has the Pirate ability (see below for details). Additionally, when the Privateer kills a Unit, it gains 100% of its Combat Strength as Gold. 
• New Unit Ability: Pirate
  • The Pirate ability allows the following:
    • Units can cross borders of other civs without Open Borders, Alliance, or War.
    • Units can Plunder Trade Routes between non-Allied civs without War.
    • Plundering a Trade Route this way causes a slight reduction in Relationship with the civ the Trader belonged to.
  • Units can attack non-Allied Units without War.
    • Defeating a Unit this way causes a slight reduction in Relationship with the civ the Unit belonged to. Attacking an Independent Power this way causes them to become Hostile.
• 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.
• You can now build Walls on tiles with a Wonder. (Previously: Walls could only be built around Urban Districts.)

Wonders 

• Added the Great Library Wonder to the game. Provides +4 Science base Yield, +1 Science on Science Buildings across your Empire, and +3 Innovation. Has 3 Codex Slots. Must be placed adjacent to a District. Unlocked on the Mathematics Tech Mastery.

Misc

• 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.
• Navigation is now a prerequisite for Future Tech in the Antiquity Tech Tree.
• Made various visual and camera improvements to the world wrap effect on maps.
• Independent Powers no longer spawn more Units than expected when performing Incite Raid in early Antiquity.
• Festival Ground now specifies that it needs to be placed on an existing improvement in the choose bonus menu.
• Independent Power Carracks no longer receive Rough Seas damage when they move into Open Ocean tiles.

Leaders & Civs

Leaders

• Added new free leaders, Alexander the Great and Gilgamesh.
• Augustus: Now gets 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 (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.
• Charlemagne: His adjacency bonus has been switched from Quarters to Fortifications.
• 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.

Civs

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.

UI/UX

Alignment & Spacing

• Improved the UI for the Espionage Report Window.
• Improved spacing and formatting of text and button prompts throughout the UI.
• Glow behind header text in the civic menu is now centered properly.
• Advisor Warnings no longer fail to fit in the screen when opened in certain resolutions.
• Building Yield icons no longer fail to properly scale in size when constructed.
• Warning stripes on Narrative buttons no longer extend out of the box when there is a lot of text.

Civilopedia

• Added new Civilopedia entries for Test of Time features.
• Updated various Civilopedia entries for accuracy.
• Added an entry for Pirating.
• The Marine Unique Unit and Terrain now appear as unique entries when searching “Marine” in the Civilopedia.
• Happiness accumulation during a Celebration is now clarified properly when viewing the entry for Celebration in the Civilopedia.
• Added a new entry for the Skirmish ability.
• Added a new entry for the Poison ability.
• Walls now properly state that they can not be built on Rural tiles.
• Added a new entry for Trade Range.
• The entry for Attributes now mentions Wildcard Attributes.

General

• Added a Deselect action on units.
• 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.
• [Mac] 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. 
• Selecting a Merchant now properly displays possible Trade Routes.
• The 'Naval Attack' action for Naval Units is no longer missing the red arrow preview when selecting the action and targeting Hostile Units.
• The Settler Lens no longer remains active when opening the Settlement growth panel.
• Tutorial welcome messages now properly show when starting an Antiquity Age game with tutorials enabled.
• The health bar now correctly disappears when a District reaches full health.
• The unmet leader’s portrait is no longer empty when attempting to form an alliance with a leader that is at war with an unmet leader.
• The game resolution setting now properly reverts to the default “Auto” when the player selects to reset the graphics tab in Options.
• Added “Turns until next Celebration” underneath the Government icon in the HUD.
• Added red outline around the Unit flag of hostile City-States (previously this only showed for hostile Independent Powers).
• Addressed a reported issue leading to inconsistent ordering in Civic Trees.
• When clicking your leader portrait while in a Diplomacy menu, it will now open your Diplomacy screen to the last opened tab.
• District Health Bar is no longer missing when reloading a save with a destroyed District.
• Promotion options no longer remain selectable when the player views the promotion menu after adding and confirming all available points.
• Treasure Convoys now display their point value and Settlement origin on both their tooltip and Unit panel, and also show point value directly on the Unit icon.
• The Unit Action Panel now updates health correctly after combat when the Unit remains selected.
• Commander Level now displays correctly when viewing a leveled-up Army Commander’s icon.
• The Incite Raid Target button now properly highlights when hovered in the Independent Powers’ Diplomacy menu.
• The Army Commander Experience bar in the Units panel now updates correctly when experience is gained.
• Ranged combat arrows now properly center on Units in open Ocean.
• The Graphics Profile setting now remains on Custom after modifying and reopening Graphics Settings.
• Unit preview arrows now correctly account for hostile Zones of Control.

Text Changes

• Made various text improvements and fixes.
• The Wonder quote for World’s Fair will now properly appear.
• Added directional help and new text to Diplomacy tabs before other players choose Governments, and before the player meets their first Independent Power.
• The Unit description for Submarines now mentions its unique combat role when viewing it in the Production menu and Civilopedia.
• Light Naval Units now properly present Melee Strength when viewing them on the Production/Purchase menu.
• The Pantheon Menu is no longer mostly empty and missing information related to its unlock requirements when starting a New Game in early Antiquity Age gameplay.
• Updated description for the Shwedagon Zedi Daw Wonder to mention Appeal. 

Tooltips

• Tooltips are no longer partially covered by mouse cursor.
• Made various sizing and layout adjustments to tooltips. 
• Made several adjustments to tooltips for accuracy and clarity of information. 
• Added information about the Unit respawning after being defeated in the Aircraft Carrier Unit tooltip.
• Units are now properly referred to as 'Units' when viewing the Fleet Commander's Assemble Army ability tooltip.
• Added tooltips to tabs within the Diplomacy panel.
• Unit icons will no longer overlap the tooltips of the Trade Route when viewing possible Trade Routes.

Tutorials

• Improved UI for tutorials.
• Tutorials have been re-worked to support nested tooltips.
• Updated and expanded tutorials for Test of Time features.

Narrative

• 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.)
• 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.
• Addressed improper triggers in Narrative Events.
• Added 8 new narrative events to support Privateer content.
• Added 4 new narrative events to support new resources.
• Made several improvements to balancing and text for narrative events.

Audio

Music

• 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.

SFX & VFX

• 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.
• Added a new UI audio notification for Cities converting to a new Religion.
• Added Narrator VO after building the World’s Fair Wonder. 
• Made several QOL improvements to in-game audio. 
• Addressed missing SFX for various Civic Masteries.
• Added SFX when adding a building to Production while another is already in the queue.
• Added SFX when upgrading all units within an Army Commander.
• Added SFX when placing Harbor building.

Graphics

• Adjusted Graphics settings for optimal performance on MacBook Neo