Civilization 7 victory guide: all win conditions and legacy paths explained

So, you found yourself relegated to the dustbin of history. Round the decay of that colossal wreck that is your tryhard capital city, the lone and level sands stretch far away. But it didn't have to be like this. Victory in Civilization 7 is a bit different than it has been in past iterations of the series—particularly given that the victory conditions change in every Age. But the first step to triumph is understanding. So here's what you should be focusing on next time.

How does victory work in Civilization VII?

There are six ways to win in Civ 7:

• Conquer everyone else's capital cities
• Complete Operation Ivy (the first hydrogen bomb test)
• Complete the World's Fair
• Launch the first Staffed Space Flight
• Establish a World Bank branch in all capital cities
• If none of the above happen by the end of the Modern Age, the player with the most Legacy Points wins

What are Legacy Points?

Each Age has four Legacy Paths with their own objectives, which fall into the four categories of Economic, Military, Science, and Cultural. Completing objectives along this track will give you Legacy Points. At the end of the Antiquity and Exploration Ages, these can be redeemed for bonuses that will carry forward into the next Age. In the Modern Age, finishing any Legacy Path will grant you access to a game-ending special project.

Antiquity Age Legacy Paths

Culture: Wonders of the Ancient World

This one is very simple. You just have to build a bunch of Wonders.

• Construct 2 Wonders: 1 Legacy Point
• Construct 4 Wonders: 1 Legacy Point, and unlock the Wondrous Heritage Legacy (+1 Culture and Happiness on Wonders) in the Exploration Age
• Construct 7 Wonders: 1 Legacy Point, and unlock the Wonders of the Ancient World Golden Age (Amphitheaters retain their yields and adjacency bonuses) in the Exploration Age

Military: Pax Imperatoria

This path is all about controlling Settlements, so you could complete some of its objectives simply by settling more yourself and never firing a shot. But you won't really be able to get all of the rewards that way without going way over your Settlement limit, since it requires 12 Settlements for the Golden Age and your Settlement limit at the end of the Antiquity Age will probably be around six or seven. But conquered settlements count as two, encouraging you to start some fights.

• Control 6 Points Worth of Settlements (Captured Settlements count as 2): 1 Legacy Point
• Control 9 Points Worth of Settlements: 1 Legacy Point, and unlock the Fealty Legacy (+2 Settlement Limit) in the Exploration Age
• Control 12 Points Worth of Settlements: 1 Legacy Point, and unlock the Pax Imperatoria Golden Age (Get a free Infantry unit for every Settlement you captured in Antiquity) in the Exploration Age

Science: Great Library

This one is a little bit more complicated. You will need to acquire and display Codices. Some of these you can get straight from the tech tree, such as for completing the Masteries for The Wheel, Currency, Navigation, Engineering, Military Training, Mathematics. They can also come from becoming the suzerain of a Scientific City-State, or exploring points of interest with your Scouts. They won't actually count toward the victory though if you don't have a place to display them, though, so you'll want to keep building Libraries (unlocked by Writing) and eventually Academies (unlocked by Mathematics).

• Display 3 Codices: 1 Legacy Point
• Display 6 Codices: 1 Legacy Point, and unlock the Collector of Knowledge Legacy (+1 Science for every Codex in Antiquity) in the Exploration Age
• Display 10 Codices: 1 Legacy point, and unlock the Great Library Golden Age (Academies retain their yields and adjacency bonuses) in the Exploration Age

Economic: Silk Roads

Another pretty simple one. You just need to assign Resources to your cities. Some of this can be accomplished by settling near new Resources, but the main way to get them is to train Merchants and create trade routes with City-States and other civs. Having some towns with the Trade Outpost specialization really helps here if you run out of valid trade partners, since it's one of the only ways to increase your trade range. But in a pinch, you might just have to settle closer to some new players. Also keep in mind that you can renew the "Improve Trade Relations" diplomatic pact multiple times, and you get a new trade route slot with that leader every time. Also, you might need to turn more of your towns into cities and build economic buildings like Markets just to have enough amenity slots available to complete the objective.

• Slot 7 Resources: 1 Legacy Point
• Slot 14 Resources: 1 Legacy Point, and unlock the Master Caravaneer Legacy (+5 Gold for every trade route in Antiquity) in the Exploration Era
• Slot 20 Resources: 1 Legacy Point, and unlock the Silk Roads Golden Age (All your cities from the previous age remain cities, instead of having all of them but the capital downgrade to towns) in the Exploration Age

Exploration Age Legacy Paths

Culture: Toshakhana

Codices have been replaced by Relics in this era. Similarly, you need buildings like Temples to display them in, or they won't count. The main way you get Relics is by researching Masteries in the Civics tree and converting new cities to your religion, after you found one upon building your first Temple. Your chosen Reliquary Belief will determine exactly how this works. It could grant you relics for converting City-States or enemy capitals, for example. Wonders remain somewhat important, because they represent some of the only buildings besides Temples that can give more Relic slots.

• Display 6 Relics: 1 Legacy Point
• Display 9 Relics: 1 Legacy Point, and unlock the Deep Roots Legacy (+2 Culture for every Relic in Exploration) in the Modern Age
• Display 12 Relics: 1 Legacy Point, and unlock the Toshakhana Golden Age (Your Founder Beliefs remain active, allowing you to continue to benefit from settlements following your religion, whereas normally they would become inactive) in the Modern Age

Economic: Treasure Fleets

This one is a bit tricky, because it relies on a concept called "Distant Lands" that requires some amount of experience and intuition to identify. In general, it's not enough just to be on a different continent, but also separated from your start position by Open Ocean tiles, which can only be crossed in the Exploration Era and forward. The one sure way to know if you're looking at Distant Lands is to mouse over a resource and see if the tooltip says it will generate Treasure Fleets for you.

And not all resources in Distant Lands will do this! Only specific treasure resources, which tend to be the famous ones from the real-world Age of Sail like gold, silver, coffee, and spices. Having a settlement in distant lands built on top of these resources will periodically spawn a treasure fleet, which you will then have to safely sail back to your home continent to score points. You'll want to start exploring and settling very early for this one, since you can't really do much to speed up how quick the fleets spawn. And if you start too late, it simply becomes impossible to finish. I would say it's the most difficult Legacy Path in Civ 7.

• Unload 10 Treasure Fleets: 1 Legacy Point
• Unload 20 Treasure Fleets: 1 Legacy Point, and unlock the Tap the Source Legacy (+2 Gold for every unique Resource you have) in the Modern Age
• Unload 30 Treasure Fleets: 1 Legacy Point, and unlock the Treasure Fleets Golden Age (All your cities from the previous age remain cities, instead of having all of them but the capital downgrade to towns, and your cities in Distant Lands gain 2 Population) in the Modern Age

Military: Non Sufficit Orbis

Latin for, "You Must Construct Additional Pylons," this follows the theme of Military Legacies wanting you to own a lot of settlements, but only the ones in Distant Lands count. This time, settlements count for double if you conquered them militarily, or if they follow your religion. And if it's a conquered settlement that also follows your religion, both bonuses apply, and it's worth four points.

• Control 4 Points Worth of Settlements in Distant Lands: 1 Legacy Point
• Control 8 Points Worth of Settlements in Distant Lands: 1 Legacy Point, and unlock the Land of Opportunity Legacy (+10 Production for settlements in Distant Lands) in the Modern Age
• Control 12 Points Worth of Settlements in Distant Lands: 1 Legacy Point, and unlock the Non Sufficit Orbis Golden Age (Gain a free Infantry and Ranged unit in all of your settlements in Distant Lands) in the Modern Age

Science: Enlightenment

Thank goodness, another simple one. Starting in the Exploration Age, when your city gains a new point of population, you can place it on an existing Urban tile as a Specialist, buffing that tile, instead of developing a new tile. This allows you to create single tiles with a huge amount of productivity. You'll need to pick up techs like Education and Urban Planning to increase the number of Specialists per tile to make the most of it.

• Achieve a total combined yield of 40 or more in one tile (City-Centers don't count): 1 Legacy Point
• Achieve a total combined yield of 40 or more in three tiles (City-Centers don't count): 1 Legacy Point, and unlock the Lyceums Legacy (+3 Science on each Quarter) in the Modern Age
• Achieve a total combined yield of 40 or more in five tiles (City-Centers don't count): 1 Legacy Point, and unlock the Enlightenment Golden Age (Universities retain their yields and adjacency bonuses) in the Modern Age

Modern Age Legacy Paths

New to this Age, every Legacy Path has one or more ways to win the game instantly.

Economic: Railroad Tycoon

Oh boy, oh jeez, this is another kind of complicated one. To put it as simply as possible, you get points toward this Legacy for each city that has three things: a Rail Station (unlocked by Industrialization), a Factory (unlocked by Mass Production), and a slotted Factory Resource (it largely seems arbitrary which resources become "Factory Resources" in the Modern Age, but they are at least easy to tell apart from others). A key tip here is that you can only have one kind of factory resource per city, but you can slot as many copies of that resource as you want.

When all of the above conditions are fulfilled, the city will start generating Railroad Tycoon Points for every Factory Resource you have slotted, and there don't seem to be many ways to speed it up. So, like Treasure Fleets, you really want to get the infrastructure up and running as fast as possible. Any towns you aren't going to convert into cities should probably be given the Factory Town designation if they're eligible.

• 150 Railroad Tycoon Points: 1 Legacy Point
• 300 Railroad Tycoon Points: 1 Legacy Point
• 500 Railroad Tycoon Points: 1 Legacy Point, and spawns a Great Banker in the Capital
• Victory Condition: The Great Banker must visit every remaining capital and spend a cost of Gold and Influence to establish a World Bank branch

Military: Ideology

Guess what? You need to capture some Settlements! Settling them yourself doesn't count anymore. You'll get one point for every Settlement you capture for the first time if you haven't yet joined an Ideology. You join an Ideology by first researching Political Theory, and then taking your pick of Democracy, Fascism, or Communism. At that point, all captured Settlements become worth two points. And if the Settlement was owned with someone with a different ideology, it's worth three.

• Capture 10 Points Worth of Settlements: 1 Legacy Point
• Capture 15 Points Worth of Settlements: 1 Legacy Point
• Capture 20 Points Worth of Settlements: 1 Legacy Point, unlock the Manhattan Project Wonder (lets you make nukes once completed)
• Victory Condition: After completing the Manhattan Project Wonder, you can start the Operation Ivy Project (the first hydrogen fusion bomb), which will immediately win the game once completed since nobody even dares to mess with you at that point.

Science: Space Race

Pretty straightforward! You need to get ahead in tech and complete a series of aerospace-related milestones.

• Build an Aerodrome (unlocked by Flight) and complete the Trans-Oceanic Flight Project: 1 Legacy Point
• Research Aerodynamics and complete the Break The Sound Barrier Project: 1 Legacy Point
• Build a Launch Pad (unlocked by Rocketry) and complete the Launch Satellite Project: 1 Legacy Point, and unlocks the Staffed Space Flight Project
• Victory Condition: Complete the Staffed Space Flight Project

Culture: Geographic Society

Codices? Relics? Sounds like old news. We're interested in Artifacts now. Which are… also really old. But, you know, you get the point, right? You'll be training Explorers to go dig up old stuff, mostly belonging to other people, and bringing it back to show off at home. Visiting any science building reveals Exploration Age dig sites, and researching Hegemony will open up Antiquity Age ones. You'll need to build Museums to actually display them and have them count toward victory. You know the drill at this point.

• Display 5 Artifacts: 1 Legacy Point
• Display 10 Artifacts: 1 Legacy Point
• Display 15 Artifacts: 1 Legacy Point, and unlock the World's Fair Wonder
• Victory Condition: Complete the World's Fair Wonder

Winning without a victory condition

There are many ways to leave your mark on history in Civ 7. You can also always ignore all of the above and simply conquer everyone if you want. Or you can dabble in everything and simply take home the high score when the Modern Age ends. Of course, if you see someone else getting close to any of those objectives, it might be time to pay them a visit. Possibly with nukes.