Civilization 7‘s Big Question: Towns Or Cities?

As you begin to step beyond your boundaries and expand your empire in Civilization VII, you’ll note that investing in a Settler and sending them off on a mission to settle new land doesn’t culminate in a city like previous entries. You begin with a township. A town is a small settlement, held back by its size, incapable of fielding multiple specialists or building certain structures. But it’s your footprint on the world.

Should you convert towns to cities in Civ VII?

I’ve always been the type to build tall when playing a 4X strategy game, as it allows me to consolidate my power within a small handful of cities. All of my income, my military units, and my borders remain within my reach, and I can send reactionary forces at a moment’s notice. But if you’d prefer to play wide, you’ll quickly learn that Civilization VII revitalized its city system to include towns, which you may upgrade. But why would you want to? Cities come with additional costs and responsibilities, but there’s a purpose behind the madness.

In time, as you expand and bring in more gold, you can convert a town into a city—a central hub—where you may construct wonders, additional buildings, and even units. As such, it’s often best to spread your cities out but not too far; you want the ability to send units to the frontlines quickly.

So, why would you keep a town instead of upgrading to a city?

Towns produce goods and services culminating in gold, feeding your empire’s coffers each turn

A town requires less micromanagement, as you don’t need to constantly keep tabs on production and maintenance

You can specialize a town to focus on food, which is then distributed throughout your empire, allowing your cities to focus on the grand scheme instead of minute details, like sustenance and keeping people happy

Types of town specializations

Growing Town: Increases a town’s growth by 25 percent

Fort Town: Additional healing to nearby units and +25 Health to Walls

Urban Center: +1 Culture and Science with Quarters

Farming Town: +1 Food to Farms, Pastures, Plantations, and Fishing Boats

Mining Town: +1 Production to Camps, Woodcutters, Clay Pits, Mines, and Quarries

Religious Site: +2 Happiness and +1 Relic Slot to Temples

Hub Town: +2 Influence per Settlement connected to this town

Trade Outpost: +2 Happiness per Resource tile in the town and +5 Trade Route range

How and why to upgrade a town to a city

As you expand and progress, you’ll find that your towns stop growing. They’ll reach a certain point and halt further development. Then, you can upgrade from a town to a city, but it requires a lot of gold depending on various modifiers. The maximum is 1,000 gold, and the minimum is around 200 gold.

Once you’ve built up a town and wish to convert to a city, select the town in question and scroll down in the production menu until you find “Convert to City.” This option will detail the total cost beforehand and warn you that it’s a permanent upgrade. If you’re satisfied with the gold requirements, click “Ok.”

The evolution is automatic!

You can play Civilization VII now on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.