A new land lays before you at the beginning of a new era. This land is yours to conquer as you lead your people through the ages from a fledgling civilization to a thriving empire. But no nation can advance alone. If you wish to bring wealth, knowledge, and glory to your own people, you must interact with the other civilizations that populate this land, whether they are allies or rivals.

Today, we're pleased to offer you a closer look at the economy focus area in Sid Meier’s Civilization: A New Dawn!

Expand Your Reach

Sid Meier’s Civilization: A New Dawn is a turn-based strategy game that offers two to four players the opportunity to become some of history’s greatest leaders as they compete to advance their civilizations to become the dominant world power. Over the course of the game, you will lead your people with wisdom and diplomacy, advancing in five interwoven focus areas and building world wonders to reshape history to your own design. A new world is yours for the taking.

No great civilization can advance by remaining solely insular, and this is where the economy focus area comes into play. Your world is populated with a wealth of rival nations and city-states. A city-state is a small sovereign state, placed at the beginning of the game, that is neutral toward all the leaders of Sid Meier’s Civilization: A New Dawn. These city-states can be extremely valuable trading partners, rewarding players who make contact by entrusting them with diplomacy cards—powerful abilities that can lend you an edge in your quest for power.

Your tool for making contact with these city-states (and even your rivals) is the economy focus card. Economy focus cards allow you to move your caravans across the world to interact with rival nations and city-states and each world leader begins the game with a single caravan on their economy card. During the game, you may use your science focus card to advance your civilization’s technology and improve your economy cards, increasing your number of caravans, allowing those caravans to travel greater distances, or making it easier to traverse certain types of terrain. For more details about the focus bar mechanic and how to advance your focus cards, you can check out our previous preview here.

Establish Trade Routes

When you move a caravan, you'll advance one of your caravan figures one space at a time across the map, up to a distance indicated on your economy card. For example, Foreign Trade allows you to move one caravan up to three spaces. To begin its expedition, a caravan on your economy card can move out of your capital city or any of your mature cities as though it started in that city’s space.

As your caravans explore the realm, the economy card’s focus bar slot determines which terrain types the caravans can move into. A card resolved in the third slot (as shown below) can move into forest terrain, as well as hills and grassland, which fall into lower slots on the focus bar. If a caravan does not reach its destination in a single turn, it remains on the board and you can move it again the next time you resolve your economy card. When you finally reach the end of your journey and move your caravan into a city-state or rival city, you return it to your economy card.

In the example below, the blue player has set their sights on Seoul. To benefit from the city, the blue player resolves their Foreign Trade card in the third slot of the focus bar, as shown above. They place the caravan in the hill space next to their capital. They cannot place it on the adjacent mountain space because mountains require a higher focus row slot.

From here, the blue player can move their caravan up to three spaces. They move first into the forest space, and subsequently to the city-state of Seoul. They then return the caravan to their economy card and place two trade tokens on their science focus card, as Seoul is a scientific city state. (These trade tokens can be spent to boost the power of your science focus card when you resolve it.) Lastly, the blue player takes one of Seoul’s two available diplomacy cards.

Defend Your Claim

When you move a caravan into a city-state, you will always place two trade tokens on your focus card that shares the city-state’s type, as we saw above. Then, if you don't already have that city-state’s diplomacy card, you take one of its cards for your own. After this, the card is yours—it can never be taken by another leader, even if they visit the same city-state.

If, however, you wish to use the powers of a city-state that has already been claimed by a rival leader, you may gain some of its benefits by attacking the city-state or liberating it. When you attack and conquer a city-state, you place one of your own cities in that space, adding the city-state’s token to the card in your focus row that matches the city state’s type.

For example, Seoul is a scientific city-state and if you conquer it, its token will be placed on your science focus card as a renewable trade token. Whenever you resolve the science focus card, you can use the knowledge gained from Seoul to advance further every time you use the card, keeping the city-state token with you as long as the city is under your rule.

To conquer a rival city-state or liberate it, you must perform an attack using your military focus card, as we described in our last preview . If you conquer the city-state, you'll claim the city-state’s token as we described above and place one of your cities in its space, seizing control of the city from any other leader who had laid claim to it. If you choose to liberate the city-state instead, you'll return its token to the map instead of placing one of your cities, reinstating the city-state as an independent, neutral force. While diplomacy may be a more tasteful way to advance your economy, military might can ensure that your trade partners make the most prudent choice for their ally.

Begin Your Trek

Journey across the realm, trade, and bring the wisdom of other nations to your own. Through diplomacy and economic advancement, your empire is sure to rise above your rivals as you move towards a new dawn!