A Crisis will happen as an Age comes to a close in Civilization VII (Civ 7), bringing Crisis Policies that add negative effects to your empire. Learn more about the Crisis System, what Crisis Policies are, how to survive Crisis Events and if you can stop them, and how to turn them off in this guide!

Crisis System Explained

Negative Events That Trigger Near the End of an Age

A Crisis is an event that will trigger when you are nearing the end of an Age, causing empire-wide challenges that also matches the Age's theme. This introduces varying debuffs that you must overcome as you transition to the next Age.

All civilizations in the game will experience their own Crisis, and as you get closer to 100% Age Progress, more Crisis Policies and Crisis Policy slots will be added until you have four Crisis Policies slotted.

The New Ages Explained

List of All Crisis Events

Antiquity Age Crises

Exploration Age Crises

What Are Crisis Policies

Debuff For Your Settlements and Units

Crisis Policies work quite similarly to Social Policies. You choose among the unlocked Crisis Policies and slot them to policy slots to gain their effects. However, instead of helping your empire develop, Crisis Policies give debuffs instead.

You are also required to fill all Crisis Policy slots, which only increases as the Age progresses, before you can end the turn. More Crisis Policies will also be added along with the exclusive slots, but these all reset after Age transition.

Some Crisis Policies are Double-Edged

While most Crisis Policies only give handicaps, some carry buffs along with them. For example, the Prognosis Crisis Policy during a Plague Crisis Event increases the Science yield of infected Science buildings but increases their Gold maintenance cost in exchange.

This makes the Crisis Policy more bearable as, with the proper setup, you can still have positive Gold per turn with the policy equipped and use the extra Science to research Future Tech and speed up the end of the Age and the Crisis.

How to Survive Crisis Events

Plague Crisis Tips

Experiencing the Plague Crisis in the Antiquity Age is a difficult challenge as you can only watch your settlements get infected and hope it doesn't do much damage until it goes away on its own several turns later.

You can minimize the damage caused by the Plague by moving your units away from infected tiles as these deal can slowly chip their health and having high number of Happiness to counter the Unhappiness caused by unrest.

In the Exploration Age, the Plague can be cleared by producing Physicians—a unit only available during the Exploration Age Plague—and using their ability on the infected settlements.

Revolt Crisis Tips

As the main effect of the Revolt Crisis is to stack Unhappiness to your settlements, the obvious counter to this event is to have as much Happiness as you can in both cities and towns and prevent it from dropping further by avoiding wars and going over the settlement limit.

Invasion Crisis Tips

Military units from new Independent Powers will attack your settlements endlessly during an Invasion Crisis. Like with every invasion, the best way to defend yourself is to build fortifications and station units inside them.

Placing ranged units on fortified tiles is recommended as they can strike incoming barbarians as they approach to weaken them before they reach the walls.

Uprising Crisis Tips

During an Uprising Crisis in the Exploration Age, all types of yields are affected negatively in some way, which can slow down development if you're unprepared. Luckily, this is one of the easiest Crises to manage as you can simply focus on increasing yields and stop waging wars to make the debuffs less noticeable.

Holy War Crisis Tips

Probably the easiest Crisis to deal with, especially if you're not going for a Culture Victory. You can survive the Holy War Crisis by not focusing on the Religion mechanic in the Exploration Age.

Whether you've already converted a lot of foreign settlements for the Culture Legacy Path or mostly ignored the religious race, the Crisis Policies for the Holy War are still very minor in terms of effects.

Can You Stop Crisis Events?

Can Be Disabled When Starting a Game

You have the option to enable or disable Crises when starting a new game. In the confirmation screen—where you choose the difficulty, game speed, map type, and size—scroll down to the bottom and click Advanced Options. From here, you can disable Crisis Events and see the rest of the game settings.

Unavoidable if Left Enabled

If Crisis Events are enabled upon game creation, they cannot be stopped from happening whenever an Age is ending. The best way to get around it is to study all the possible Crises of an Age and plan ahead so you can get through with minimal setbacks and survive the last leg.

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