Land Terrain Guide

[JNR13]

A visual reference for the various terrains and features in Civ VII. Quite a few things have changed:

- There is now a "Tropical" terrain to distinguish more temperate grassland with pine forests from tropical grasslands with rainforest.
- Features have been grouped into tags such as "Vegetated" (Woods, Rainforest, Sage Brush) and "Wet" (Marsh, Swamp, Oasis, Watering Hole) which will be used for modifiers. The biome-specific differences are limited to base yields.
- Hills are now called "Rough" terrain because the map uses elevation on a larger scale than just single tiles.
- Snow is no longer its own terrain but grouped into Tundra. "Medium Snow" has been seen in a tooltip as well as different snow levels between eras. The mechanics are unclear still.
- Base yields have been reduced because cities now automatically grab all yields inside their territory (meaning that a city starts with grabbing the yields of *six* tiles right away). Yields have also been equalized so that Desert and Tundra starts are no longer as much at a disadvantage).
- Improvements are automatically picked based on terrain or resource on the tile. Each terrain has a corresponding improvement and they are arranged accordingly in this guide.
- Happiness is now a yield. It is not granted by default but based on the Appeal of the tile. I already made a separate post on that.

Volcanos and Geothermal Fissures (or Hot Springs?) also seem to be back, independent of terrain:

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I presume that hills are gone because we got elevation in? So Rough replaces Hills for the role.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Desert +1 Production is undoubtedly an... interesting choice, to say the least. It is not something people will naturally associate with the desert; I think the devs just want to give it a yield that is not Food.

 

[pokiehl]

Very helpful compilation!

 

[j51]

Great work! Thank you!

I’m wondering if they should rename Tundra to Boreal and Snow to Tundra?

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Are there different terms for Vegetated Grass, Plains, Tundra, and Snow, or are they all Woods?

Are there unique terms for rough terrain in the different biomes?

EDIT: Also, how do navigable rivers, regular rivers, coast, and ocean figure into the table? I assume navigable rivers are a terrain while regular rivers are a terrain feature? Are there Vegetated Coast tiles (like Kelp Forests)?

 

[SammyKhalifa]

This is neat (though it will take me some getting used to that "rough" and forested can't exist in the same place).

 

[JNR13]

Are there different terms for Vegetated Grass, Plains, Tundra, and Snow, or are they all Woods?

Are there unique terms for rough terrain in the different biomes?

EDIT: Also, how do navigable rivers, regular rivers, coast, and ocean figure into the table? I assume navigable rivers are a terrain while regular rivers are a terrain feature? Are there Vegetated Coast tiles (like Kelp Forests)?

Yes, they do have more flavorful names. On desert it's "Sage Brush". I don't know if plains, grass, tundra, and snow forests will have different names or if they'll all be "Woods". I expect tropical to be either "Jungle" or "Rainforest". The Wet features also have different names. On desert it's still an Oasis. On plains it's a "Watering Hole". My personal guess is that grass will stay as Marsh, tropical will be "Swamp", and tundra will be "Mire".

Gameplay bonuses, however, deal with the overall categories Vegetated an Wet (see Mayan bonuses for example).

Navigable rivers are also features (there's a tooltip showing "Navigable River Desert"), but I wanted to make a separate post on everything related to water later. Reef and both Kelp Forest have been spotted, but we haven't seen yet if they do also carry the Rough and Vegetated tags, respectively, or if they are their own thing.

This is neat (though it will take me some getting used to that "rough" and forested can't exist in the same place).

Smart move though, tbh. Forest can make it hard to identify the terrain underneath. Also, stacking two production sources always felt just a tiny bit too good. I'm more sceptical about no longer being able to remove or plant forest.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I've never liked chopping forests. It felt like a gross exploit that always makes mathematical sense to do.

 

[greenOak]

Vegetated desert giving 1 gold is kind of messed up given how much worse it is than 1 production.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Vegetated desert giving 1 gold is kind of messed up given how much worse it is than 1 production.

Sounds like gold will be pretty important, it's the only way to develop towns, I think?

 

[greenOak]

Apparently you can buy buildings in towns, but it's probably going to be at something at a rate of 1 hammer = 4 gold. 1 hammer has been worth a lot more than 1 gold in every version of civ, and I don't see it changing in civ 7. Meanwhile, food and hammers have always been close to equal in value so having 1 food terrains and 1 hammer terrains makes sense.

 

[Krikkit1]

Vegetated desert giving 1 gold is kind of messed up given how much worse it is than 1 production.

Are we sure that is the case? maybe you can buy things in Towns for 1 gold/hammer and towns generate 1 gold for every 3 hammers.

 

[greenOak]

Are we sure that is the case? maybe you can buy things in Towns for 1 gold/hammer and towns generate 1 gold for every 3 hammers.

Obviously we don't know for sure, but I'd wager a large amount of money that, just like every other version of the game, 1 hammer will be much much better than 1 gold in civ 7.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Obviously we don't know for sure, but I'd wager a large amount of money that, just like every other version of the game, 1 hammer will be much much better than 1 gold in civ 7.

It that is true, then the yields seen on Vegetated Desert tiles will surely be different in the actual game than in the showcased videos to date.

If the actual game matches the videos, then either 1 gold is at least equal to 1 hammer in value in Civ 7 or there are ways to multiply raw gold more than raw hammers.

The one thing I'm quite sure of is that the dev team will not have designed Vegetated Desert tiles to be materially weaker than regular Desert tiles.

 

[Siptah]

It's not to be taken too seriously, but one of the streamers (Steinwallen) that got to play the game at FXS reported that one of the goals with the rebalance of terrain yields was to make starting biomes more equal. He said it will play different to start on desert or tundra, but not strictly worse. This implies that gold wouldn't be that bad. Yet, this is to be taken with a lot of care, as it is based on one play through of one age, from (marketing) hearsay and memory. Also, irrc, he said that one type of terrain (ice? mountains?) would have science as a basic yield, and I don't think we've seen that anywhere. Maybe he was "lucky" and started near a geothermal fissure and draw the wrong conclusions. Tomorrow, when we'll see the gameplay, they will hopefully turn on yields at some point and the "empty" map will tell us quickly what the yields per biome and feature are.

 

[Ornen]

I'm going to kinda miss desert and tundra being generally worse, but with the potential to find/make upside via resources, improvements, and wonders. Some of my favorite civs in 6 are Russia and Mali, both of which excel at making good use of large swathes of land the other civs are less inclined to settle.

There's a real life comp as well, as it's pretty common for states that do claim desert or tundra to claim large swathes of it (think US, Russia, China, even North African countries like Algeria & Libya). Desert and tundra are an area where with space to go wide, and I like that the terrain favors that.

 

[abj9562]

Awesom OP. Thank you!

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Maybe, if desert gives +1 production, you're supposed to train units and conquer better lands?

You know, rather than decrease yields, you can just increase costs.

 

[bbbt]

Obviously we don't know for sure, but I'd wager a large amount of money that, just like every other version of the game, 1 hammer will be much much better than 1 gold in civ 7.

The one thing I'm quite sure of is that the dev team will not have designed Vegetated Desert tiles to be materially weaker than regular Desert tiles.

I thought you can only use production in "cities" now, not towns (you can only buy in towns, not build). Production could be stronger unit for unit, but a lot more limited, and useless in a town.

So different situations. Regular desert tiles are useless until you make your town a city. Vegetated desert tiles can be useful in a town or a city.