Civilization 7: How To Sail The Open Ocean

From the moment you step onto a new map in Civilization VII, you have access to the water. All maps have some kind of water element to them, and how you navigate the ocean plays a huge part in the establishment of your empire. After all, you can’t dominate the world from a single patch of land.

However. when you begin Civilization 7, you’ll notice that you don’t have any access to naval ships and the units that can move over water cannot cross into the open ocean. While staying on the coastlines can help you uncover new parts of your current continent, exploring the seas is what takes your empire to the next level.

In the guide below, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about sailing the blue waters of Civilization 7.

How to get past the open ocean in Civilization 7

If you attempted to use a scout or other unit to sail into the water during the Antiquity Age, you could only sail into the “coastal” tiles. The tiles marked “open ocean” were completely inaccessible, confusing you about how to uncover more of the map.

Unfortunately, you cannot get past the open ocean in Civilization VII during the initial Antiquity Age. While your scouts and other units can get into a boat and travel along the coastal water tiles, they cannot go deeper into the open ocean. The main reason behind this is the Antiquity Age is about building up your civilization on the native continent where you started the game. The developers don’t want you going too far, too quickly.

This is also why no naval ships can be produced during the Antiquity Age. You can only produce Commanders, land military units, and other units such as scouts and merchants.

However, all of this changes when you end the Antiquity Age and head into the Exploration Age. As soon as you start the second age in Civilization VII, the game tells you the main goal here is to explore distant lands with naval units and establish settlements on a new continent. Right from the start of the Exploration Age, you’re able to take your military naval units, including the Fleet Commander, and have them go beyond the coastal water tiles. They’re able to move into the open ocean every turn and see what’s beyond the unexplored map.

To have your non-military units go into the open ocean, you need to research the Cartography technology at the start of the Exploration Age. This is one of the first technologies you can research, so it’s highly recommended to choose this one to begin with.

Regardless of whether you venture into the open ocean with naval units or scouts, though, you’ll quickly run into a new issue in the Exploration Age.

How to not take damage in the ocean in Civilization VII

The new problem you’ll face when trying to explore the ocean is your naval units take damage every time they end a turn in an open ocean tile. The damage is usually around 14-17 per turn, so you have six or seven turns with 100 HP before your unit is destroyed in the open ocean. However, the damage will vary based on the ship you’re using.

Fortunately, you can always heal your naval units in coastal tiles. This is a feature from the start of the Exploration Age and isn’t anything you have to unlock through technologies or civics. As soon as you enter a coastal tile with your naval unit, they’ll heal a part of their missing HP at the end of every turn. Of course, as soon as you enter the open ocean again, the damage comes back.

At the beginning of the Exploration Age, the simplest and only way to avoid open ocean damage is by resting or traveling on coastal tiles. You can rest there until your ship is back at 100 HP or keep moving if you have more coastal tiles around you. Your ships can travel into an open ocean tile to reach a coastal tile and still not take damage; when a turn ends, it determines if you take damage or heal.

This is how you’ll have to navigate the seas for around half of the Exploration Age. Then, you’ll eventually gain the ability to research two different technologies. The first is Shipbuilding, which allows your military naval units to travel the open ocean without taking damage at the end of every turn. After researching Shipbuilding, you can research Shipbuilding II, allowing all your units to not take damage when traveling the open ocean. This means your merchants, scouts, and other non-naval units can travel to distant lands without worrying about their ship’s HP.

So, once you have researched the Cartography, Shipbuilding, and Shipbuilding II technologies, all of your units can travel the open ocean freely without taking damage. This takes around half the Exploration Age with the standard game length, but if you’ve opted for a longer game length, you could be sailing the ocean within the first 20% of the age. You can read about how to change your game length and difficulty level in Civilization VII in our previous guide.