Civilization 7: How To Disperse An Independent Power

Civilization VII is mainly a game about building an empire from the ground up and dominating the world around you. However, along your journey to becoming a world leader, you will receive some quests in your journal. These are usually in the form of Legacy Path objectives and the ones you receive are determined by what path you select at the start of every age. For example, if you choose the militaristic path, you'll receive Legacy Path objectives centered around combat or expansion.

Speaking of military objectives, one objective you might receive on this path calls for you to "Disperse an Independent Power," which might sound like a foreign language to you the first time you read the task. In our case, we received this task through "The Prince" objective, which is available when choosing Machiavelli as your leader. If you want to progress your Legacy Path and get past this objective in Civilization VII, don't worry, we have you covered in the guide below.

Independent Powers refer to the small settlements without a true leader that you can find in randomized locations all over your map. These settlements will only take up one tile with their capital but can have some serious military forces the higher you crank up the difficulty level. When you start Civilization VII, you'll find "Independent Villages," which can either be peaceful, neutral, or hostile towards you. You have a few actions with these villages, with the biggest one trying to take it over and become its Suzerain.

As you get into the later ages of Civ 7, you'll also find slightly different Independents called "Encampments." These are the same types of villages, but they're always hostile towards you and will continue to pop up in different locations regardless of how many times you destroy them. Encampments can't be turned into your settlements through Suzerainship, and they're the most likely candidate to disperse.

If you want to try and seek out these Independent settlements, you simply need to uncover more of your map. In most scenarios, you'll find a few different Independents on every continent, which can mean there are close to a dozen of them depending on your map size. So if you want to find more Independents, take a Scout or a naval unit and scout your starting continent or other continents across the ocean. If you're still in the Antiquity or early Exploration Ages, though, you'll want to read our guide on how to cross the ocean safely.

By uncovering the entire map, you'll find at least a few of these Independent Powers. However, if you want to disperse them, you have to act fast, as other world leaders can accomplish that goal before you.

Now that you have a better idea of what Independent Powers are and how to find them, it's time to go over how to disperse them. To disperse an Independent Power, all you have to do is find one and challenge their capital tile with military forces. Directly attack the capital until its district defenses have completely fallen and every one of its troops inside the capital is gone or dead.

Once that happens, move any one of your military units onto the capital tile of the Independent. If your unit has a move left in the current turn, select them and then expand the left side of their combat menu at the bottom of the screen (press the arrow). Here, right under the option to "rest," you should see an icon with a skull on it. Hover over that icon to see that it says "Disperse Independent."

Naturally, you want to click the icon, which completely dismantles the Independent Power and removes the settlement from the map entirely. If you dispersed an Encampment, its settlement will return in a new spot on the map in roughly two dozen turns. However, if you disperse a village, then it will be completely removed without a trace for the rest of the game.

With Machiavelli as my leader, the first time I dispersed an Independent Power completed "The Prince" objective. However, you might have to disperse a certain number of Independents to satisfy your specific objective, so make sure to read your journal carefully. You can access the journal by clicking the trophy icon at the top-left of the screen in Civilization VII.

There's so much else to learn and discover when you're exploring the massive world of Civ 7. Be sure to use our Civilization 7 guides hub to find all of our guides on the game in one spot.