Civilization 7 Economic Victory Strategies and Top Leader Picks

In Civilization 7, the path to an Economic Victory is a high-stakes game of global finance and industrial might, where your empire’s wealth and influence become your greatest weapons. Master the art of trade, build sprawling rail networks, and amass Railroad Tycoon Points to summon the Great Banker-then establish World Bank Offices in every capital city to claim ultimate economic dominance. Ready to turn your civilization into a financial powerhouse and outsmart rivals on every continent? This guide will show you how to build your empire from the ground up and secure victory through cunning diplomacy and industrial expansion.

In this Civilization 7 guide, we’re going to give you a broad idea of how to get an Economic Victory and then give you an age-by-age walkthrough on how to make it happen.

How to get an Economic Victory in Civilization 7

To achieve an Economic Victory in Civilization 7, focus on building a powerful trade empire by rapidly researching Industrialization and Mass Production to unlock Rail Stations and Factories. Connect your cities with rail networks and accumulate Factory Resources to generate Railroad Tycoon Points. Once you reach 500 Railroad Tycoon Points, a Great Banker unit will appear, which you must use to establish World Bank Offices in every capital city worldwide. This requires a strong economy with abundant Gold and Influence, as well as strategic expansion to acquire resources and trade routes. Balancing production, science, and diplomacy is crucial to efficiently build infrastructure and amass wealth, ultimately securing the Economic Victory.

In an Economic Victory, you’ll be going for a wide variety of objectives, making it a bit different than something like a Military Victory. But what it all really boils down to is diplomacy and ensuring that you’re trading with as many people as possible to get richer and richer and richer.

In the beginning of the game, you’re just looking to gobble up as many resources as possible. You can do that by expanding your own empire and trading with other civilizations when you encounter them.

Things get a little more complex later in the game, once you reach the Exploration Age and have to start worrying about treasure fleets. Here, you’ll need to expand onto different continents in order to bring treasures home, enriching yourself with exotic goods from distant lands. Finally, you’ll end up building a rail line and moving goods around the world in order to become the first ever railroad tycoon.

The important thing to remember about an Economic Victory is that you are rich as hell. That might sound obvious, but if money is your main focus, you can stack up a lot of it very quickly as the turns roll on. Throw your weight around by building high yield buildings or even buying expensive units to quickly win a war with your allies. Use your vast wealth to further improve the lives of your citizens, and it’ll come back to you tenfold.

The wealth and diplomatic power you generate over the course of the game will help you establish a World Bank Office in every capital city in the world, which is exactly what you need to do to win.

Economic Victory walkthrough in Civilization 7

To achieve an Economic Victory in Civilization 7, focus on building a powerful trade and industrial empire throughout the game’s ages. Start by expanding your resource base and establishing trade routes in the Antiquity Age, then progress to acquiring treasure fleets and boosting your economy in the Exploration Age. The core of the Economic Victory lies in the Modern Age, where you must rapidly research Industrialization and Mass Production technologies, build rail stations and factories, and accumulate Railroad Tycoon Points by slotting factory resources in your cities. Once you reach 500 Railroad Tycoon Points, you unlock the Great Banker unit, which you send to every other civilization’s capital to establish World Bank Offices. Completing this final step secures your Economic Victory, demonstrating your dominance in wealth, diplomacy, and industrial might.

As described above, an Economic Victory is all about making that money and spreading your wealth through your empire and the empire of others. That can make it a little tricky, and it’s got some weird mechanics going on in some of the ages.

Below, we’re going to give you a bit of more structured advice for each age to help you push through the game’s objectives and complete the Economic Legacy Path, which will help guide you to completing the World Bank in the Modern Age.

Antiquity Age

Before we get started, here’s a snapshot of what the Antiquity Age looks like for an Economic Victory:

Study Code of Laws in the Civics tree
Build a merchant and create a trade route
Use the “Improve Trade Relations” Diplomatic Action
Slot 20 resources

In the Antiquity Age, you have one of the simplest objectives in any of the Legacy Paths. All you need to do is have a combined 20 resources slotted into your various towns and cities by the end of the age. Now, you have to do a bit of research to get there, and there are ways to fumble it, but chances are you might’ve accidentally gotten most of the way through the Economic Legacy Path going for other victories before.

When the game first starts, you’ll need to rush to the Code of Laws in the Civics tree, which will allow you to build a merchant and establish trade routes with other civilizations. This is critical, as it’ll both net you gold and access to other civilizations resources.

But you’ll want to do more than just trade to secure your resource empire. Make sure you take your settlers – even your first one – and place them near resource tiles. Expand your empire rapidly, in order to claim some of these resources around the maps. (Getting a scout early is advisable here to look for other civilizations and, more importantly, valuable resource nodes.)

Try to avoid wars during this age if you can, as they are money sinks. Instead, use your Influence to improve your trade relations with as many civilizations as possible, which will increase your relationship with them, netting both of you some gold, and increasing the number of trait routes you can have with them.

You should also be training and buying merchants in your cities, as well as upping your town’s Production so they’ll send you back Gold.

Once you slot 20 resources in, you’ll finish the Economic Legacy Path and start with an Economic Golden Age, which gives you the incredible bonus of allowing you to keep all cities as cities when you transition to the Exploration Age.

Exploration Age

Before we get started, here’s a snapshot of what the Exploration Age looks like for an Economic Victory:

Research Cartography and Astronomy
Research Shipbuilding and Shipbuilding Mastery
Build a settlement in a distant land
Build a fishing quay in a distant land settlement
Improve Treasure Resources in a distant land
Score 30 Treasure Fleet Points by capturing treasure fleets

Your punishment for a straightforward Antiquity Age is a convoluted Exploration Age. Things start out pretty simple here, and quickly get complex and confusing.

At the start of the age, you need to focus on getting your civilizations shipshape and ready for ocean travel. Buy some Science buildings with your vast fortune and expedite Shipbuilding and Master Shipbuilding. Then make some settlers and send them across the ocean to various different parts of the world. Scout boats are great here.

You’ll need to look for treasure resources in these distant lands, build a settlement near them, and then improve them by spending a population on them to build a mine, farm, etc. You then need to build a fishing quay that connects the settlement to your homeland’s fishing quay. And then you need to wait for “some time.” Eventually, a treasure fleet will spawn, and you’ll need to escort it back to your home port and deposit it.

When you deposit a treasure fleet, you get one point for every treasure resource that’s in the settlement it came from. You need 30 treasure fleet points to complete this Legacy Path. Yikes.

This is a very time-consuming process, and it’s a little finicky. So to maximize your likelihood of success, there are two things you can do.

First: ABE – always be expanding. Send as many settlers as you can to as many foreign areas as you can. And try to place your foreign settlements next to two or more treasure resources, so that your treasure fleets are worth more points when they finally spawn. The earlier you do this in the age, the better.

Second: Be a pirate. If you buy yourself a powerful navy fleet – which you should be able to do, since you should have a lot of gold at this point – you can actually steal other civilization’s treasure fleets and bring them back to your city instead. This can get you in a bit of trouble, obviously, as you’ll be getting yourself into conflicts. But with enough boats, you can build yourself a nice little pirate fleet.

Once you finally accumulate all those treasure points, the age will come to an end. If you make it to the end of the Legacy Path, you’ll once again be able to keep all of your cities once you transition to the Modern Age.

Modern Age

Before we get started, here’s a snapshot of what the Modern Age looks like for an Economic Victory:

Research Industrialization in the Tech tree
Build a rail station
Research Mass Production in the Tech tree
Build enough rail stations to connect three settlements by rail
Build a factory
Slot factory resources and earn 500 Rail Tycoon Points
Send the Great Banker to every capital in the world and establish a World Bank Office

In the modern age, you have another complex path to victory, although it’s a lot less frustrating than treasure fleets. This time, you get to become the world’s first (and best) railroad tycoon and eventually establish the World Bank.

To start off, you need to research Industrialization in the Tech Tree, which is pretty early on. Even so, buy some Science buildings if you’re lagging behind, as you’ll want as much time as possible once you’ve unlocked the rail station. You should build a rail station in as many of your settlements as possible, as it’ll upgrade your roads to rails.

Next you’ll need to research Mass Production to unlock the factory, which is a bit further into the Science Tech Tree. While you’re doing this, get started buttering your neighbors up and increasing your relationship with them by sending them gold and improving your relationships. Try to avoid any wars, as you’ll want to maintain a positive relationship with as many other civilizations as possible in order to help you out later.

Once you’ve unlocked the ability to build a factory, put one in every one of your settlements. This will allow you to slot special factory resources that you’ll find around the map. These resources behave very similarly to other slotted resources, but they can only go in your special factory slot.

Once you slot at least five factory resources, you’ll be off to the races on trying to become a railroad tycoon. Every turn that you have resources slotted into your factories, you’ll gain Railroad Tycoon Points. The thing is, you need 500 such points to finish the Legacy Path and start in on your victory. This is basically just time consuming, but you can make it go faster by building more factories and settlements. The more resources you have in your factory slots, the more points you’ll get per turn. While you wait, keep accumulating wealth and Influence, but be a little frugal with both, as you’ll need them soon.

After you’ve earned 500 Railroad Tycoon Points, you’ll gain a new unit: the Great Banker. This unit is about to become the most important person in your society, and you’ll need to move them to each player’s capital city and have them use the “Establish World Bank Office” action in each. This action costs both Gold and Influence, and it’s more expensive depending on how much a civilization hates you.

Accumulate funds and Influence, and move your little Monopoly man around the map until you’ve established a World Bank Office in every city capital in the world. Once you’re done, you’ll instantly win an Economic Victory.

What secret strategies can turn trade routes into victory points in Civ 7

To turn trade routes into victory points in Civilization 7, employ these secret strategies:

Physically move merchants into opponent settlements to establish trade routes, which grant you copies of their resources and generate gold for both sides.
Prioritize high-gold trade routes and diversify your partners to avoid economic collapse if one ally turns hostile.
Use the diplomatic action “Improve Trade Relations” repeatedly with a leader to increase the number of available trade routes, allowing you to set up multiple lucrative routes with the same civilization.
Set up roads via merchants between your cities and trade partners’ settlements, enhancing resource flow and movement efficiency.
Guard your trade caravans and ships with military units to prevent enemy disruption, ensuring steady resource and gold income.
Expand your empire strategically near resource-rich settlements to maximize trade route options and resource allocation.
Combine trade route income with economic infrastructure like Rail Stations and Factories to accelerate your path to an Economic Victory.

Mastering these tactics will transform trade routes from simple resource exchanges into a powerful engine driving your civilization’s economic dominance and victory points accumulation.

What are the hidden tactics to maximize trade route resources in Civ 7

To maximize trade route resources in Civilization 7, consider these hidden tactics:

Physically move your Merchant units into the target settlement’s borders before establishing a trade route; this is essential to activate the route and receive copies of that settlement’s resources.
Use the diplomatic action “Improve Trade Relations” repeatedly with a leader to increase the number of trade routes you can have with them, enabling you to set up multiple routes and gather more resources from the same civilization.
Produce Merchants in cities closest to your desired trade partners to reduce travel time, allowing quicker establishment and renewal of trade routes.
Focus on trading with settlements that offer valuable City and Bonus Resources, as these can be allocated to your cities or towns to boost yields like Food, Happiness, and Production.
Expand the number of resource slots in your settlements by building structures like Markets or Wonders that add resource capacity, so you can assign more traded resources effectively.
Maintain friendly diplomatic relations to ensure trade routes remain active; hostile or unfriendly relations block trade, so use diplomacy to keep partners cooperative.
Protect your trade caravans and ships with military units, as enemies can target and destroy them, disrupting your resource flow.

By combining these tactics, you optimize the quantity and quality of resources gained from trade routes, accelerating your civilization’s growth and economic power.