Civilization VII Update 1.5.0: TSL Earth Map Explained

Update 1.5.0 for Civilization VII is live as of September 15, 2026, and Firaxis posted a seven-minute developer update the day before to walk through it. Live Lead Taymoor covers the long-requested True Start Location Earth map, rebuilt Terra Incognita and Shuffle map scripts, a diplomacy option that keeps you out of an ally's war, and a short stack of UI additions. Below is what each change does, straight from the video and the official update notes, plus what to load up first.

Live Lead Taymoor walks through Update 1.5.0 in the official Civilization VII Developer Update, published September 14, 2026.

01What Update 1.5.0 Changes

Five things matter here: the TSL Earth map, Voronoi rebuilds of Terra Incognita and Shuffle, the option to pay Influence to stay neutral when an ally goes to war, the Radial Ruler and tooltip upgrades, and the paid Hall of History content collection that launches alongside the patch. There is also a batch of fixes, including Independent Powers no longer spawning inside your Settlement borders and WMD strikes no longer being launchable without starting a war.

Two caveats before you patch. Firaxis says the Switch and Switch 2 version arrives later because of additional Nintendo submission requirements, and Switch crossplay with other consoles is unavailable until it does. And if you want to finish a current save on the old version, Steam players can right-click the game, open Properties, then Betas, and select the "legacy" branch. Firaxis recommends starting a new game for the best experience, since some new abilities and effects will not appear in existing saves.

1.5.0 is on the horizon! This update focuses on a few quality-of-life improvements, including the long-requested 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐋𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: 𝐄𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐡 map. Here's a quick overview of what to expect!

— Sid Meier's Civilization VII (@CivGame), September 8, 2026 on X

02True Start Location Earth Is Huge-Only

TSL Earth is hand-crafted rather than procedurally generated, and it only exists at Huge size to maximise playable space. Every campaign on it starts in the Antiquity Age; Advanced Starts are not supported on this map type. Your starting spot is set by the historic capital of the civ you pick, which is the whole point of a true start location map.

Firaxis made a few deliberate departures from the real globe. Major waterways including the Nile and the Amazon are Navigable Rivers. Each game seeds exactly seven Natural Wonders, drawn from a randomised pool and placed in their natural locations, so no two Earth games look identical. Tundra and empty Ocean tiles were trimmed, and Europe, Hawaii and Japan were magnified so island and crowded starts are not a challenge run by default. The Grand Canyon does not spawn on this map, and Independent Powers are not mapped to their historical spots because too many leaders and civs need a certain density of them to function.

“We also built our map with a purpose – fun. Our goal was to allow players to start as any of our civs and have a great time.”Taymoor, Live Lead on Civilization VII, Firaxis Games

Availability is narrower than the rest of the patch: TSL Earth runs on Steam, Epic, Mac, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2, and is not currently available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 or Xbox One. Firaxis also flagged that with hand-crafted regional maps on the way, the map selection screen itself is due for an update. The deeper design story is in the studio's From the Devs article on the Earth map.

03Terra Incognita and Shuffle Rebuilt With Voronoi

TSL Earth is not the only map work in 1.5.0. Terra Incognita and Shuffle have been reimagined with Voronoi technology, which completes Firaxis' pass over every base-game map script.

Shuffle now generates two main areas and splits civs between them like a Continents map, except each half is procedurally built from a different base script. The four possible generators are Continents, Fractal Continents, Archipelago and Shattered Seas, and rolling the same type on both halves is possible but uncommon. That makes Shuffle the high-variance pick, where reading the map is part of the opening.

Terra Incognita is a variant of Shuffle that guarantees one of the two regions is generated like a Continents map, and human players start on that side when possible. The other half is randomised with a significantly reduced chance of being Continents again. Pick it when you want a dependable Antiquity Age and a genuinely unknown Exploration Age. If you want the technical background on how these scripts are built, Firaxis has a separate write-up on procedural map generation.

04Pay Influence to Stay Neutral

The diplomacy change is small in text and large in practice. When an Ally enters a war, you now get an extra option: pay Influence and stay out of it while keeping the Alliance intact. That Influence goes to your Ally, so you are still visibly supporting them. At regular intervals — every 10 turns on Standard speed — the choice comes back around, and you either join the war or pay again. The one exception is two of your own Allies going to war with each other, where neutrality is not an option.

Firaxis frames this as a targeted adjustment while it measures the effect on full games, and expects the biggest impact in multiplayer and in late-game alliance webs. The team says it is also weighing liberation mechanics and a review of Alliance effects, both stated as under consideration rather than confirmed.

05The Radial Ruler and the Tooltip Upgrades

Counting hexes by hand has been a quiet tax on Civ VII planning, because so many effects key off tile distance: Settlements generally claim tiles up to three away from the City Center, the El Escorial Wonder only reaches Settlements within six tiles, and several of the new Gauls abilities care about how far your Settlements sit from each other and from rival borders. The Radial Ruler is an overlay that follows your cursor and shows the three-tile and six-tile radius around the highlighted plot. Toggle it from the Lenses Panel, or flip it on while the Settler Lens is active.

Plot tooltips also now call out whether a tile is part of an Island, which matters for the new England civ, and display Appeal level and value, which matters for Heian Japan. Unit tooltips carry more data too, including base Combat Strength and Movement, by hovering a Unit Flag on the map. Finally, game setup now shows which civs you can syncretise with outside your Apex Age, alongside the usual per-Age unlocks for your chosen leader and civ — useful before turn one rather than three Ages later.

06Hall of History Adds Two Leaders and Three Civs

Hall of History is the paid content collection launching with 1.5.0, and unlike previous collections the whole thing unlocks immediately on purchase. The base game is required. It leans on names longtime Civ players will recognise from earlier entries.

Elizabeth I is Cultural and Economic, with Royal Monopoly: unlimited Trade Route range, a Great Work when you found a Settlement off your Capital's Continent, cheaper and faster Settlers and Merchants, and reduced Combat Strength per Age on Land units. George Washington is Diplomatic and Expansionist, with Constitutional Convention: a Migrant in your Capital when you enter a Celebration, plus Food and Happiness scaling per Policy slotted in your Government.

On the civ side, Babylon is Antiquity-Apex, Cultural and Expansionist, with extra Growth Events from Food and Culture Buildings and Wonders, a reduced Settlement Limit, and the Hanging Gardens as its associated Wonder. The Gauls are Antiquity-Apex, Economic and Expansionist, rewarding spread-out Settlements and border friction. England is Exploration-Apex, Economic and Cultural, with Magna Carta converting Gold Buildings into Culture and vice versa, doubled on Island and Distant Lands Settlements, and the Longbow as its unique ranged unit. Separately, 1.5.0 adds "Win in the Modern Age" platform achievements for a long list of existing DLC leaders on Steam, Epic, PlayStation and Xbox.

07How to Get Into 1.5.0 Tonight

How to Get Into Update 1.5.0 Tonight

1. 1Restart Steam or the Epic launcher to pull 1.5.0, or check the store on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Switch and Switch 2 builds arrive later, and Switch crossplay with other consoles is paused until then.5 min
2. 2Firaxis recommends a new game so new abilities and effects register. To finish an existing campaign on the old build, right-click the game in Steam, open Properties, go to Betas and select the legacy branch.2 min
3. 3Pick True Start Location Earth in map selection. It is Huge-only, Antiquity-only, and does not support Advanced Starts, so plan for a full-length campaign.3 min
4. 4Before you hit start, review which civs your leader and civ unlock each Age and which ones you can syncretise with outside your Apex Age. That decision shapes your whole run.2 min
5. 5Open the Lenses Panel and enable the Radial Ruler, or toggle it while the Settler Lens is active. Use the three-tile ring for Settlement claims and the six-tile ring for El Escorial and Gauls spacing.1 min
6. 6Each TSL Earth game seeds seven Natural Wonders from a randomised pool in their real-world regions, and the Grand Canyon is excluded. Early scouting tells you which seven you drew.15 min
7. 7When an Ally declares war, take the pay-Influence option to stay out of it and watch your Influence reserve. The prompt returns every 10 turns on Standard speed, so budget for repeats.10 min
8. 8Once the Earth map novelty wears off, try the Voronoi rebuild of Shuffle to see two halves generated from different scripts, or Terra Incognita for a guaranteed Continents home region.5 min

08What Comes After 1.5.0

Firaxis used its PAX West developer panel to show the first substantial look at what follows: a fourth Age arriving in the free Arc of Tomorrow update, and a paid expansion called Earthrise. The team says it is now heads-down on both, so the patch cadence will quiet down over the coming months, with one more interim update still in the pipeline. No release timing for either has been confirmed in the update notes.

If you want to see changes before they ship, the studio is taking applications for the Firaxis Feature Workshop, which puts community feedback on early builds in front of the team. For now, 1.5.0 is the patch that finally lets you start Rome in Italy — and gives you a ruler to plan the rest.