Civilization VII upcoming 1.3.0 Naval Update to add new unit, building, and more

Civilization VII has a Naval update scheduled for Nov. 3, adding a new building, unit, combat updates, Ocean Resources, and more. The devs are focusing on strategic balance efforts while focusing on changes for individual civilizations. In addition to the upcoming Naval Update, Creative Director Ed Beach stated that a new initiative is being launched in the future: the Firaxis Feature Workshop.

This feature is scheduled to launch in the “next few months,” and invites a small number of community members to go “hands-on with features still in development.” This is essentially a testing feature to accumulate player feedback. 

The new building is Harbor, a water-based Warehouse building available for all civs. This building has a base production yield and gives additional production on fishing boats; it acts as a spawn point for all naval units. 

The privateer is a new unit that unlocks in the Exploration Age on the Heraldry Civic. The unit’s strength is between the Cog and the Carrack, with its main redeeming trait being its utility and high speed. 

The following resources are being added: crabs, turtles, crowrie, and pitch. For terrain, atolls will appear in the deep ocean, which act as movement-stopping terrain and serve as strategic choke points. The lotus terrain spawns in lakes, providing bonuses to food and gold. 

As for the naval combat updates, ranged units were added to naval combat, and the naval unit types are now split into two: light and Heavy. Light units are melee units with increased movement, vision, and the ability to set up flanks. Heavy units are ranged units that move more slowly than light units and do not have as much vision. The full update will provide more details when it officially releases on Nov. 3.