Influence, which you may be familiar from past Civs' expansions, has finally made the jump to being a base game currency out of the box in Civilization 7. Alongside Food, Gold, Culture, Science, and Production, it's one of your main tools for achieving world domination. But unlike some of the others, it's not tied to a specific victory condition. Instead, it can give you an assist with any of them. It's just a matter of learning how to use it, since the Legacy Path objectives won't really tell you how.
Here's how to generate influence in Civ 7, and—more importantly—how to put it to good use:
How do I get influence in Civilization 7?
The primary way of getting influence is through Urban buildings like the Altar, but it can also come from certain Wonders, Policies, Diplomatic Pacts, and leader or civ abilities. Civ 7 will repeatedly warn you that there is a cap on how much Influence you can have stored, so you should spend it as you get it. But this cap isn't displayed anywhere in the UI or mentioned in the Civilopedia, and I have never personally been able to hit any kind of cap even when I was trying to. My honest suspicion is that this cap doesn't actually exist, but some references to it remain from an earlier build when it might have. If you know anything more about the Influence cap, let us know in the comments.
Spending influence on City-States
One of the best ways to spend Influence, especially if you're playing as a leader like Tecumseh, is befriending City-States. For a one-time investment, you will start ticking up toward befriending them. Some City-States will start out as hostile, meaning this process will take longer. But once you hit the first milestone, their military units will stop being hostile to you. At the next milestone, you will become their suzerain, and get to pick a suzerain bonus like a unique tile improvement or a free technology. Finally, at the highest level, you can spend another large chunk of Influence to integrate them and make their capital into a town under your control.
If another leader is trying to befriend the same City-State at the same time, you can spend more influence to speed up the process and beat them to the punch. It's also possible to spend Influence on a City-State you are already suzerain of to promote their growth, bolster their military, or levy some of their military units, which gives you permanent control of them.
Spending influence on Diplomatic Pacts
One of the other main ways to use Influence is on Diplomatic Pacts, which have a one-time cost and can be responded to in multiple ways:
- The other leader can Accept your proposal, which costs them no Influence, which typically gives you as the sender a medium-sized bonus and they either get a small bonus or no bonus.
- The other leader can Support your proposal, which costs them Influence, and gives both of you a larger bonus.
- The other leader can Reject your proposal, which costs them Influence, refunds you your Influence, and cancels the whole agreement.
This also works the same in reverse for you, when you receive a Diplomatic Proposal from another leader.
Typically you can only have one of each type of Diplomatic Proposal going at once, though certain abilities increase this limit. You should almost always have the main type of Diplomatic Proposal relevant to the Legacy Path you're pursuing active, such as a Research Agreement if you want to win a Science victory.
An important pact for military leaders is Denounce, which will lower your opinion with another leader. It can also be used against you, so you might want to keep some influence saved to counter it. The reason it's so significant is that declaring war on someone you have good relations with is considered a Surprise War, which penalizes your starting War Support.
War Support
In Civ 7, War Support is a tug-of-war mechanic representing who is seen as being more "in the right" in a given war. Declaring a Surprise War, for instance, will usually start you on the back foot in terms of War Support. Both combatants can spend Influence to swing War Support to their side, but it gets more expensive every time. There are also some Wonders and Policies that grant more War Support.
For every point you're behind in War Support, your units will incur a stacking combat penalty against the opposing leader's units, and it will penalize your overall Happiness in every settlement. So it's really not a good idea to start a war where you're not going to be able to stay ahead in War Support, and you can very reliably end one even when you're outgunned by driving your side's War Support up.
Espionage
Eventually, you will gain the ability to spend Influence on Espionage actions, such as stealing technologies from another leader. They typically have a 100% chance to succeed, but may have a high chance of being discovered if you're not focusing on espionage. Being discovered will give you a large negative opinion modifier with the other leader. You can defend against Espionage actions with the Counterespionage action, which makes Espionage actions against you from that leader take longer and have a higher chance of being discovered.
Almost every Legacy Path will require some understanding of Influence if you really want to make the most of your capabilities, and it's especially important for Military victories. For more specific tips on each legacy path, check out our Victory Conditions guide.
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