Commanders are a crucial new unit type in Civilization 7, replacing the traditional unit XP system. These non-combat units level up through various skill trees and carry their progress across eras, significantly impacting your army’s effectiveness. Understanding how to best utilize commander promotions is vital for success in Civ 7. This guide highlights the most effective promotions you should prioritize unlocking for your commanders.
Commanders enhance your army in two key ways: packing and buffing. Packing allows a commander to combine adjacent units into a single mobile force, streamlining movement and enabling strategic maneuvers. Meanwhile, commanders provide passive buffs to nearby units, boosting their combat strength and offering coordinated attacks. Commanders gain experience by being adjacent to units that defeat enemies, making strategic positioning crucial for their development. This guide focuses on the most impactful skills across all five branches, maximizing your commander’s battlefield utility.
Key Commander Promotions for Battlefield Dominance
Each commander promotion offers unique advantages. These selections prioritize early-game strength and long-term versatility.
Steadfast: Early Defensive Powerhouse
Located in the Bastion tree, Steadfast is a must-have early promotion. It grants a +2 combat strength bonus to adjacent land units when defending. In the early game, your army consists primarily of land units, making Steadfast invaluable for establishing a strong defense and winning early engagements.
Initiative: Post-Deployment Mobility
Unlocking Initiative alongside Steadfast is highly recommended. While packing units is extremely beneficial for army movement, unpacking typically leaves them unable to act until the next turn. Initiative addresses this issue by allowing unpacked units to reposition immediately, ensuring tactical flexibility and minimizing vulnerability.
Storm: Amplified Ranged Attacks
Commanders can coordinate both melee and ranged attacks. Storm significantly enhances ranged attacks, a cornerstone of any successful army. Prioritizing ranged engagements allows you to strike from a distance, minimizing counter-attack risks. Storm amplifies this advantage, making ranged attacks even more devastating.
Field Medic: Efficient Unit Healing
While standard healing methods exist, they often require sacrificing unit mobility. Field Medic offers a more efficient alternative, enabling the simultaneous healing of multiple units without the need for fortification. While it doesn’t provide healing during combat, it allows for faster recovery and minimizes downtime.
Barrage: Devastating Focus Fire
Barrage is a late-game promotion within the Leadership tree, but it’s well worth the investment. It provides a substantial +5 combat strength bonus to all units participating in Focus Fire, a commander skill that concentrates the fire of nearby ranged units onto a single target. This combination, with multiple units receiving the Barrage bonus, can often eliminate enemy units in a single turn.
Conclusion
Mastering commander promotions is essential for maximizing your military power in Civilization 7. Prioritizing these key promotions will provide a strong foundation for both early-game defense and late-game offensive capabilities, contributing significantly to your path to victory.
