Civilization 7: How Merchants And Trade Routes Work

Resources are what drive your individual settlements forward in Civilization VII. Not only do they improve all of the pertinent stats your empire needs to sustain itself, but they also improve relations with neighboring leaders. The more resources your civilization has access to, the better off you’ll be.

The best way to acquire resources outside your settlements owning resource tiles is by establishing trade routes. Trade routes can only be established by merchants, who are individual units you can produce or purchase in a city or town. However, the process of using your merchants is not as simple as it sounds in Civilization 7.

How to get Merchants in Civilization 7

Merchants are one of the earlier units you can produce in Civilization VII. In our initial playthrough, we were first able to produce a merchant at the 50% mark of the Antiquity Age. You’ll know you can start producing merchants when you see the first “Trade Opportunity” message appear during one of your turns. The message will state that a neighboring leader has abundant resources, and you should send a merchant to set up a trade route with them.

When you get this message, go to your capital city and scroll down the production units until you see “Merchant.” The merchant takes roughly three or four turns to produce, but you can also purchase one for around 400 gold. Merchants can be produced in cities or bought in towns.

Once your merchant has been produced, you need to choose where they go to establish a trade route. By selecting the merchant during a turn, you’ll see all the possible trade routes they can visit. These trade routes directly result from how many leaders you’ve met and all of their settlements you’ve discovered.

How to establish Trade Routes in Civilization 7

During your first turn with a merchant, select the settlement you want to set up a trade route with. You mainly want to look for what settlement has the most resources to offer, but you can also specialize your trade route if you’re looking for one or two specific resources.

If you want to set up more possible trade routes, you need to discover more of the map and other leaders’ settlements. The merchant also needs to be within a certain range of possible locations. With this in mind, it’s wise to produce merchants at different settlements within your empire so you have a more extensive selection of places to go.

You can send multiple merchants to the same settlement to establish a trade route. However, this requires going to a leader’s portrait page and spending Influence to set up additional trade routes. You can only do this with leaders who are friendly or neutral with you. Leaders who you’re warring with or have a negative relationship with will generally reject any trade route proposals.

You can see the status of your relationship with a leader by going to their portrait and selecting the tab with a heart and number on it. If the number is green, you’re in good standing with the leader, but the leader is hostile towards you if it’s red.

Returning to setting up trade routes, once you have selected the settlement you want to visit, select it from the “Possible Trade Routes” menu. Then, your game will take you to that location on the map. From here, right-click on the capital of the settlement and you’ll send your merchant off on their journey.

Depending on how far the settlement is from your merchant’s starting location, they could take several turns to reach their destination. Don’t worry, though, as the merchants are automated, so you don’t have to control each turn individually.

When the merchant arrives at the settlement, they’ll be given a turn, and you have to decide what to do with them. To establish a trade route with the settlement they’re in, view their box in the bottom-right and press the icon with two arrows and a plus sign, as seen in the screenshot below.

This establishes a trade route with the settlement, granting you the resources it offers. From there, your merchant will disappear and you can allocate your newfound resources to cities or towns. If you send your merchant to a city, the resources in return can only be allocated to one of your cities. However, merchants visiting a town will grant you bonus resources, which can be allocated to cities or towns in your empire.

Your other option with the merchant is to send them to another settlement. This forgoes the establishment of a trade route. Generally, you want to ensure you’re always establishing a trade route once your merchant arrives at their destination, or else you’re just wasting turns with them traveling all over the map.

It’s usually wise to have at least one or two merchants roaming the map in Civilization VII. This earns you more resources, increases your relationship with other leaders, and lets you increase the stats of your settlements.