How do you capture a city in Civilization 7?

Declare war, destroy the defenses of each Fortified District and occupy those tiles with a unit. Once they have all fallen, move a military unit into the City Center . The game then asks whether to keep or raze the settlement. A settlement without walls falls far faster, usually without any siege units at all.

Why can't I capture a city in Civilization 7?

The usual cause is a Fortified District you missed . Hover over every urban tile, because a low-profile walled district or a wonder such as Red Fort, Himeji Castle or Hwaseong can still block the capture. Check too that no enemy unit has retaken a tile behind you. Players have also reported issues with allied units on the tile and with specific bugs, some of which have been fixed.

Should you keep or raze a conquered city in Civilization 7?

Keep it in most cases. Since 1.2.1, razing no longer hands War Support to the enemy, but it doubles the conquest Influence penalty for the rest of the Age. A kept settlement earns Military Victory points, more so when it is captured. Raze only a badly placed or distant settlement, or one that would push you over your settlement limit for little real gain.

How do you capture an Independent settlement in Civilization 7?

According to a player on Steam in February 2025, you destroy the defenses on the center tile, the one carrying the settlement's name, then move any unit onto it, ships included. That advice comes from a discussion thread rather than an official source, so check the result in your own game before you plan an attack around it.

Can you get a city without a siege in Civilization 7?

Yes, through a peace deal. Game8 notes that a settlement can be ceded in negotiations after a few turns of war. The 1.3.1 notes also mention captured settlements being returned to their original owner that way. Since 1.4.2, Gold and Influence can be traded in those talks too, and patch 1.0.1 says the AI offers its high-value cities less often.

Civilization 7: how to capture a city, step by step (2026)

To capture a city in Civilization 7, destroy and then occupy each Fortified District, meaning every urban tile with walls around it. Next, move a military unit into the City Center and choose whether to keep or raze the settlement. The City Center cannot fall while any fortified tile holds out.

That rule comes from the combat dev diary of December 2024. Everything else relies on the patch notes up to update 1.5.0 of September 15, 2026, plus the hotfix of September 30. This guide was not written from play, and player reports are labelled as such.

The steps to capture a city

The method stays the same for a fortified City or Town. Follow these six steps in order.

Declare war. A surprise war gives the other side more War Support and penalizes you, so line up your support before crossing the border.
Find the Fortified Districts. Hover over each urban tile and look for the fortified district label, because the game does not list them clearly.
Break the defenses. Your siege units target the walls while the rest of the army protects these fragile units.
Occupy each tile. According to the official diary, destroying and then occupying a Fortified District gives you control of it and removes its yields from the defender.
Enter the City Center. A military unit must move in once the Fortified Districts have fallen.
Choose your option. The Raze or Keep menu asks what you want to do with the settlement.

Leave a unit on captured tiles if you can. A Steam thread from February 2025 explains that you do not have to hold every tile at once, but an empty tile can be retaken.

Town or City: the difficulty varies widely

The official diary stresses this gap. An undefended frontier settlement falls quickly, while a fortified Town or City nearly always demands siege units. What matters, then, is the number of walls, not the settlement’s status.

A large City has several positions to breach, and each fortified tile counts. A Well of Souls table, dated March 2025 and marked as unverified, lists +100 HP for the district and +15 Combat Strength for defenders per wall. A Town set to a defensive focus also adds 25 Health to its walls, according to that page. Treat these values as a rough guide.

A settlement on a navigable river carries a particular risk, because the diary states that a fleet can sail inland and take it if it is undefended. Update 1.3.2 confirms that a military naval unit can capture a fortified tile once all its buildings are pillaged.

Which units to bring

A balanced army beats a mass of infantry. Here are the roles to fill, with the names listed by Game8 and Well of Souls.

Siege. Ballista in Antiquity, then Catapult, Trebuchet and Bombard in Exploration, with modern artillery after that.
Infantry. It shields the siege line in melee and occupies the freed tiles.
Army Commander. It carries units, attacks with a combat bonus and can call Reinforcements in a hard siege.
Ranged. It softens up garrisons before the assault, and Focus Fire concentrates shots on one target.
Espionage. The Open the Gates action damages or destroys Fortified Districts in Exploration, according to the 1.2.1 notes.

On paper, siege alone can break through. In practice, an empty tile can be retaken, so keep a covering force nearby. At sea, 1.4.2 also lets a Fleet Commander’s Focus Fire target a Fortified District with a garrison.

Why your city will not fall

Sieges often stall on the last turn. These causes come up in official notes and on forums.

A fortified wonder. Himeji Castle and Hwaseong act as Fortified Districts that must be conquered, according to the 1.4.1 and 1.4.2 notes.
Red Fort. Several players report this block on CivFanatics: one took the City Center, then Red Fort the next turn, and the city flipped.
A retaken tile. An enemy unit may have moved back into a district behind your army.
An ally on the tile. One player reports on Steam that an allied unit disrupted the capture, with no official confirmation.
An old bug. Update 1.4.2 fixed Machu Pikchu, which could become impossible to capture once surrounded by walls.

If nothing works, check each urban tile one by one, starting with wonders. A Steam thread from February 2025 advises this hover check, since no dedicated view listed the remaining tiles at that date.

Keep or raze the settlement

Our default choice is to keep the settlement. The 1.4.0 notes reworked the Military Victory: each settlement you control earns Dominion points, with extra for captured settlements and original capitals. A razed settlement gives you none of that.

Razing no longer costs what it did at launch, but it is not free. The 1.2.1 notes removed the War Support granted to your enemies. In exchange, the conquest Influence penalty doubles for the rest of the Age, and 1.2.2 extends these rules to the Modern Age. Update 1.4.0 also sped up razing: the settlement loses one district per Age per turn.

Keeping has a cost too. Game8 describes a period of unrest in which the settlement produces nothing, and 1.4.0 limits conquest Influence penalties and unrest to the Age of capture. The Influence penalty also goes away if you lose that settlement, according to 1.2.0. You can exceed your settlement limit, at a cost in Happiness across the empire.

Raze only a badly placed or very distant settlement, or one that would push you over that limit with no real gain. The risk is holding too many small settlements at the end of an Age, when War Weariness already weighs on your Happiness.

War Weariness: watch your Happiness

According to the diplomacy dev diary, the side with less War Support suffers War Weariness. It cuts Happiness in all its settlements and its Combat Strength against that opponent. Update 1.4.0 raised the cost in Exploration and Modern, as this table shows.

Age	Settlement founded by you	Founded by another civ	Founded by an enemy at war
Antiquity	3	5	7
Exploration	5	7	9
Modern	7	9	11

These values give the Unhappiness per settlement, and the Antiquity figures did not move. A long Modern conquest therefore costs far more than a quick Antiquity war. Update 1.2.4 clarifies that this Happiness effect does not stack across several wars, which avoids the worst on two fronts.

A peace deal can also finish the job. Game8 notes that a settlement can be ceded there after a few turns of war, and 1.4.2 adds Gold and Influence to the table. One player on Steam even suggests handing back surplus settlements during talks.

What has aged in online guides

Many pages date from February 2025 and have not kept up with patches. Two mistakes keep coming back.

War Support after razing. That penalty disappeared with 1.2.1.
Losing siege units at the Age change. Since 1.2.3, your siege units and ships carry over from Antiquity to Exploration.

Going further

Your choice of civilization shapes these wars, and our tier list of civs and leaders helps you spot the military profiles. Recent changes are covered in our piece on update 1.5.0. To test a siege without waiting, see the console commands guide. All our coverage sits on the Civilization 7 page.