If you’ve ever booted up a new Civilization 7 run and written off the small, independent settlements scattered across the map as irrelevant filler, you’re missing out on one of the biggest competitive edges in the game. Civilization 7 city states are far more dynamic and useful than their counterparts in earlier franchise entries, and learning to work with them can cut your time to hit any victory type by 20% or more, whether you’re playing against AI on deity or facing off against friends in multiplayer. A lot of new players either ignore them entirely or conquer every one they see, but that’s almost never the optimal play for long-term success.
How Civilization 7 City States Differ From Earlier Franchise Releases
If you played a lot of Civ 6, you’re probably used to city states only offering meaningful benefits if you invested enough envoys to become their suzerain. That’s not the case anymore. Every envoy you send to a Civ 7 city state gives you an immediate, permanent yield bonus that scales with the number of envoys you have there, even if another civ holds suzerain status. Even one free envoy you earn from exploring tribal villages can give you a 10% boost to food production across all your cities if you send it to an agricultural city state.
Another big change is dynamic relationship tracking. City states now remember how you treat them and other city states over the course of a game. If you send military units to help defend a city state that’s being attacked by a rival, you’ll get a permanent +2 relation boost that cuts the cost of future envoys by 25%. If you plunder their trade routes or declare war on another city state they’re allied with, they’ll penalize you by reducing the yield bonuses you get from any envoys you’ve sent to them.
You also don’t have to compete for suzerain status just to get unique perks from a city state anymore. Many city states now offer mid-tier bonuses for 3 envoys that are almost as useful as the full suzerain bonus, so you don’t have to waste half your envoy supply fighting an AI for control of a single settlement.
The 4 Core Types of City States and Their Unique Perks
All Civilization 7 city states fall into one of four core categories, each with perks tailored to different playstyles. You don’t have to engage with all four types, but knowing what each offers will help you make smarter envoy allocation decisions early on:
- Agricultural city states: Grant extra food and farm adjacency bonuses for every envoy you send. Suzerains get access to the unique Granary replacement that cuts food waste from tile disasters by 75% and reduces the time it takes for new citizens to join your cities by 20%.
- Militaristic city states: Grant free combat experience points for all units trained in your cities, plus extra production for military buildings. Suzerains can hire their unique defensive units for 50% less gold than standard mercenaries, and those units get a +3 combat buff when fighting near your territory.
- Economic city states: Grant extra gold per trade route and bonus production for commercial hubs and harbor districts. Suzerains get a 15% discount on all building and unit purchases across their entire empire, plus access to a unique market building that doubles the gold you get from luxury resources.
- Cultural city states: Grant extra tourism and culture per envoy, plus bonus appeal for all tiles within 2 tiles of your city centers. Suzerains get access to the unique Monument replacement that doubles great person point generation for 10 turns after you unlock a new civic or technology.
A lot of new players make the mistake of spreading their envoys evenly across all four types to get a little bit of every bonus, but that’s rarely efficient. You don't have to become suzerain of a city state to get 90% of its practical benefits, so it’s almost always better to focus your envoys on the one or two types that align with your chosen victory condition first. For example, if you’re going for a domination win, you can skip cultural city states almost entirely unless their appeal bonus will help you place high-yield industrial zones near your core production cities.
You can also use city state bonuses to cover gaps in your empire’s natural yields. If you spawn on a map with very few fertile grassland tiles, sending your first three envoys to a nearby agricultural city state can make up for that food deficit and let your capital grow just as fast as if you’d spawned on a perfect start location.
Smart Envoy Allocation Strategies for Every Playstyle
The first three envoys you earn in any game are the most impactful, so you want to use them wisely. For almost every playstyle, your first three envoys should go to the same city state that matches your core victory priority. If you’re playing a science run, send them to an economic city state to get extra gold to fund campus building purchases. If you’re playing a cultural run, send them to a cultural city state to unlock faster civic research right out of the gate.
Never waste envoys on a city state that a rival civ already has 3 or more envoys in, unless you're actively trying to compete for suzerain status for a specific unique bonus. If another civ already has a big lead on envoys in a city state, you’ll have to spend twice as many envoys to take suzerain status from them, and that’s rarely worth the investment unless the suzerain bonus is game-changing for your run.
Mid-game, once you have your core yield bonuses locked in, you can use extra envoys to farm diplomatic favor for world congress votes. City states that are currently at war with another civ will give you double diplomatic favor per envoy you send them, so keep an eye on the world relation tab to spot these opportunities. You can also send envoys to city states that border aggressive rival civs to get access to their territory, which lets you position your military units for a surprise attack without having to declare war first.
In multiplayer runs, you can coordinate with teammates to split envoy sends to high-value city states. If one of you is playing a military role and the other is playing a science role, you can split envoys to a militaristic city state so one of you gets suzerain status, and both of you get the XP bonus for all units you train. That way you don’t waste envoys competing against each other for the same bonus.
When It Makes Sense to Conquer a City State Instead of Allying With It
A lot of players treat conquering city states as a bad move because of the diplomatic penalty you get from other civs, but that’s not always the case. There are plenty of scenarios where taking over a city state will give you a far bigger boost than allying with it ever could.
If a city state is sitting on a unique strategic or luxury resource you desperately need for a wonder or to resolve a happiness crisis in your core cities, and they won’t trade it to you even if you’re their suzerain, conquering it might be worth the short-term diplomatic hit. The diplomatic penalty for conquering a city state drops by 50% if you can prove the city state attacked you first, so let them declare war before you send your troops in if possible. You can provoke them by parking military units on their border or plundering their trade routes until they declare war, which eliminates most of the diplomatic backlash from other civs.
Another scenario where conquering makes sense is if a rival civ is one envoy away from becoming suzerain of a militaristic city state right on your border, and you know they’re planning to declare war on you soon. Taking the city state first will cut off their access to free mercenary units and give you an extra defensive buffer between your core cities and their army. Razing a city state will permanently erase its unique perks, so always keep it standing unless you have no other choice due to loyalty pressure. If you keep the city intact, you’ll get to keep all its existing buildings and even the bonus yields it used to grant to envoys, applied directly to your own empire.
If you’re playing a full domination run and you’re already at war with most of the world, the diplomatic penalty for conquering city states doesn’t matter at all. You can take every city state on the map for extra territory, resources and production with no real downside, and it’ll often be faster than founding new cities from scratch.
It’s easy to overlook smaller settlements when you’re focused on growing your own empire or planning your next war, but civilization 7 city states are one of the most underrated tools at your disposal. You don’t have to follow a single rigid rule for working with them: send envoys for extra yields when it fits your playstyle, conquer them if they’re standing between you and a win, and use their diplomatic support to push through key world congress votes when you need it. I’ve pulled off last-minute science and diplomatic wins on deity by leaning heavily on city state alliances when my own empire fell behind on production or favor, so don’t sleep on these small allies in your next run.