How to increase your settlement cap in Civilization 7

Your settlement cap in Civilization 7 is a limit on how many towns and cities you can have before you start to suffer penalties. Going over your settlement cap — which is easy to do in wartime, especially — can affect your civilization’s Happiness and, in turn, your settlements’ yields. Our Civilization 7 guide will tell you how to increase your settlement cap so you can keep expanding your empire. Table of Contents What is the settlement cap in Civilization 7? Your civilization’s settlement cap is a “soft cap,” per the Civilopedia. That means you can go over it, but doing so will have consequences. In Civilization 7, you start with a settlement cap of four. Specifically, being over your settlement cap incurs a -5 Happiness per settlement over the cap that gets applied to all of your towns and cities. That means if you have a cap of four and you have six settlements, all of your settlements will get a -10 Happiness penalty. The penalty is capped at -35. When the Happiness yield of a settlement dips below zero, the other yields like Production and Food start to suffer. Your civilization’s overall Happiness also contributes to how often you hold celebrations and get to slot new Policies. Independent city-states that you’re suzerain of don’t count toward your settlement cap. How to increase settlement cap in Civilization 7 Your settlement cap is really a measure of how well you can govern the settlements you have, so it’s controlled mainly by Civics, but Tech shows up periodically as well. By researching them all, you can finish your game with more than 20 settlements. [Image: https://platform.polygon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/Civ-7-Settlement-Cap.jpg?quality=90&strip=all] Each age has its own Tech and Civic tree, so we’ll break it down that way. Antiquity Age settlement cap Tech and Civics In the Antiquity Age, you can increase your settlement cap by one each with the following: * Irrigation Tech (unlocked by Irrigation, Pottery, and Animal Husbandry) * Entertainment Civic (unlocked by Mysticism and Public Life) * Organized Military Civic (unlocked by Discipline and Tactics) Exploration Age settlement cap Tech and Civics For the Exploration Age, you can increase your settlement cap by one each with the following: * Feudalism Tech (unlocked by Astronomy and Cartography) * Society Mastery Civic (unlocked by Piety, Inspiration, and Society) * Colonialism Mastery Civic (unlocked by Economics, Mercantilism, and Colonialism) * Social Class Civic (unlocked by Piety, Economics, Inspiration, Authority, Society, and Diplomatic Service) * Sovereignty Civic (unlocked by Piety, Economics, Authority, Diplomatic Service, and Bureaucracy) * Imperialism Civic (unlocked by Piety, Economics, Authority, Mercantilism, Diplomatic Service, Bureaucracy, and Colonialism) Modern Age settlement cap Tech and Civics In the Modern Age, you’ll increase your settlement cap by one each time you research the following: * Urbanization Tech (unlocked by Academics and Steam Engine) * Mass Production Tech (unlocked by Steam Engine, Military Science, Combustion, and Industrialization) * Nationalism Civic (unlocked by Social Question, Modernization, Natural History, and Political Theory) * Globalism Civic (unlocked by Social Question, Modernization, Natural History, and Political Theory) * Hegemony Civic (unlocked by Social Question, Modernization, Natural History, Political Theory, and Nationalism) For more Civilization 7 guides, see our explainers on how to increase Production, Food, and Happiness, plus how to set up trade routes and treasure fleets.