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If you’re striving to become the world’s richest empire in Civilization 7, then you’ll need to set sail for the Distant Lands, establish settlements, and send precious resources back to home during the Exploration Age. This will not only result in copious amounts of Gold, but earn you progress on the Economic Legacy Path, setting the stage for an Economic Victory in the Modern Age.

There is just one tiny wrinkle in this plan — the game is less than straightforward about the “how” of achieving this, which may leave players a little confused.

Find out how to spawn Treasure Fleets in Civilization 7 and earn Economic Legacy Points in the Exploration Age.

How To Spawn Treasure Fleets in the Exploration Age

After entering the Exploration Age, you should immediately send a ship across the ocean to find the Distant Lands. It’s important to keep an eye out for resources like Tea, Spices, or Cocoa — these are the treasure resources which can spawn Treasure Fleets for you when being worked by a settlement.

This means that you’ll want to found settlements in the Distant Lands near treasure resources — and so fast, because other empires will covet the same spots.

It doesn’t matter whether you leave these settlements as Towns or convert them into Cities, but in addition to working the treasure resources, you’ll need to build a Fishing Quay on their territory as well as one at any settlement on your home continent that’s connected to the Capital. These harbor buildings will then create a connection between the colony and your Capital, be it direct or indirect. With that step done, the colony will be part of your global trade network.

Before your colonies can generate Treasure Fleets, however, you need to research a couple of key technologies:

1. Astronomy
2. Cartography
3. Machinery
4. Heraldry
5. Feudalism
6. Shipbuilding

Shipbuilding is the final piece of the puzzle, the other technologies are what you need to have in order to unlock it.

Once you have successfully researched Shipbuilding, any settlement with a treasure resource that’s connected to your trade network via a harbor building will automatically start to generate Treasure Fleets in certain intervals. The more treasure resources a settlement is working, the more valuable a Treasure Fleet it creates. You can check the Resources tab to find out when settlements will spawn the next Treasure Fleet and how valuable it will be.

After Treasure Fleets have been spawned at your colonies, you need to navigate them into any water tile under your control that’s connected to your home continent, where you can use their “Unload” ability. This will provide you with Gold and TF Points based on their value.

A Treasure Fleet will net you 100 Gold and one TF Point for every treasure resource worked by the settlement it originated from.

Make sure to guard the routes of your Treasure Fleets well and you’ll soon swim in the riches of the Distant Lands — and build a fantastic foundation for an Economic Victory in the Modern Age.

For more insights on the game, read our interview with the Civilization 7 developers.