Civilization VII is a considerably different game compared to Civ V and Civ VI. As such, the leader guides that I wrote for those games won't quite work for Civ VII. Instead, I'm going to be experimenting with a slightly different format of doing independent guides for civilizations and for leaders separately. Leader guides will be complicated, so I'm starting with civilization guides while I figure out how I want to tackle the problem of creating guides for leaders that can change civs 3 times in a single game. Unfortunately, the lack of Hot Seat multiplayer severely limits my ability to do specific testing of things like the damage dealt by unique units in different circumstances, certain diplomatic actions, pillage effects, and other things. Hopefully, Hot Seat will be added soon.
As always, I welcome feedback. I will probably need a lot of feedback as I learn the new game and experiment with the format of these guides. Of course, you can also support the creation of this content by becoming a Patron.
As has been my tradition with these guides, I plan to start by focusing my attention on civilizations and leaders who have never been playable in Civilization games before. So the first guide will cover the rookie civilization of the Mississippians.
For almost a millennium before the arrival of Columbus in the Americas, southeastern North America was dominated by a group of indigenous peoples called the Mississippians. The Mississippians were not a single, unified group, but rather a collection of tribes that shared similar cultural practices. The most defining of these practices was the construction of impressive earthwork structures, such as mounds and pyramids that were used for functions ranging from housing, to temples, to mausoleums. Though they did not have a system of writing, they still created sophisticated social structures and permanent settlements, and their trade networks ranged from the Great Lakes and Rocky Mountains, all the way to the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. The remains of the several remaining mounds at Cahokia (outside of St. Louis) are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and are open for public visitation.
The Mississippians are an expansionist, trade-oriented Antiquity civilization in Sid Meier's Civilization VII. They seek to acquire Resources by claiming new land, and by trading with foreign Settlements.
DISCLAIMER:
Civilization VII is a "live service" game, which means it will be periodically updated with new content, new features, and balance changes. I may update this guide if Firaxis updates the game such that it considerably impacts the Mississippian civilization, or if new strategies are discovered by the community. This guide is up to date as of the 1.1.1 patch on 23 March 2025.
I welcome any feedback or suggestions that readers wish to offer. Feel free to post on the linked forums, or by posting a comment at the bottom of the page.
Mississippian uniques in Civilization VII
Mississippian capital start bias: flat, river.
Mississippian civilization unique: Goose Societies
"All buildings receive +1 Food Adjacency for Resources.
+30% Production towards constructing Monk's Mound."
The Mississippians do best when they build their city centers close to clusters of resources. This allows districts and buildings to be built adjacent to 1 or more resources, which boosts the food yield of that building. This includes all City Centers, Urban District buildings, and Rural improvements. Urban Districts will have to compete with the unique Potkop improvement for ideal spaces between resources.
The Mississippians also have a considerable advantage towards constructing the Monk's Mound wonder. In addition to receiving a 30% bonus towards constructing this wonder from the Goose Societies ability, the wonder is available much earlier in the Mississippian unique civic tree, compared to the wonder's normal location in the Commerce civic at the end of the default Antiquity civic tree. This wonder provides bonus food and additional resource slots in the city in which it is built.
Unique district: Potkop (rural)
Game Info:
"
+1 Gold, +1 Food for each adjacent Resource. Mississippian unique improvement. Ageless. Does not remove Warehouse bonus on tile. Must be placed on Flat Terrain.
"
Requirements: Earthworks civic (Mississippian unique civic),
Flat Terrain.
Cost: 30 Production.
Maintenance Cost: none
Effects:
+1 Gold,
+1 Food for each adjacent Resource.
The Potkop is a Rural improvement that provides a single Gold and additional Food from each adjacent Resource beyond what is already given by the Goose Societies ability. It should be tucked onto flat tiles in between multiple adjacent Resources, further away from the City Center, where you won't be building Urban Districts anytime soon. It will likely replace Farms and Woodcutters.
In order to place unique Rural improvements, you must first claim the tile by placing a normal improvement when growing the settlement. Then, you can open the settlement's build menu and build or purchase the unique improvement to replace the normal improvement. Improvements can also be built over by Urban Districts if the city grows.
Unique unit: Burning Arrow
Game Info: "
Mississippian unique ranged unit. Increased Bombard Strength. +3 Combat Strength versus Siege Units. Applies the Burning status to tiles for 2 turns.
"
Requirements: Animal Husbandry technology
Replaces: Slinger.
Cost: 30 Production | 120 Gold [standard speed].
Maintenance Cost: 0 Gold per turn [standard speed].
Promotion Class: ranged,
Attack Type: ranged,
Attack Range: 2,
Ranged Strength: 15,
Bombard Strength: 8 (+3 from Slinger),
Melee Strength: 5,
Movement Speed: 2.
Bonuses:
Applies Burning status to tile for 2 turns.
The Burning Arrow replaces the ranged unit line for the Mississippians. It has the same base ranged and melee strength, but higher bombard strength when attacking cities. The Burning Arrow is still nowhere near as effective as a Siege Weapon, as the Ballista has a Bombard Strength of 30 (almost 4 times better than the Burning Arrow). If the enemy city does not have Walls, then the Burning Arrow can be sufficient for capturing the city. But if it does have Walls, you'll probably need a Ballista or 2.
The real power of the Burning Arrow, however, is it's ability to apply the Burning status to tiles that it attacks. This catches the tile on fire for 2 turns, and deals a small amount of additional damage to any unit that ends its turn on that tile for this turn and the next turn. In my experience, the Burning effect does 15 points of damage per turn, but I am unsure of whether the strength of the defending unit (or other modifiers) might affect this damage (since the game does not currently show how much damage is being received by enemy units due to this effect). This persistent damage makes the Burning Arrow great against fortified defenders, as the passive damage will either kill the fortified unit faster, or force it to vacate its fortifications. The Burning status does not seem to affect districts or water tiles (such as coastal tiles or navigable river tiles).
The Burning Arrow is a potent defense against raids from Independents, or for early war rushes.
Be careful about attacking with the Burning Arrow first, and then finishing off the defending unit with one of your melee units. The Burning effect can cause damage to friendly units who move into the Burning tile! Instead, you should attack with the melee unit first, and then finish off the defender with the ranged attack. In this scenario, your front-line units will be somewhat protected by the wall of fire, which will harm any enemy units that try to move in and counter-attack. Burning does not affect districts, however, so feel free to target enemy units occupying your districts without risk.
The combination of the increased bombard strength and the Burning effect makes the Burning Arrow very effective at attacking enemy units that bunker down in settlement districts. The Waahih civic in the Mississippian civic tree also allows the Burning Arrow to pillage tiles up to 2 spaces away at the cost of only a single movement point. This allows them to pillage to heal, and still be able to attack (and apply the Burn effect) in the same turn. This makes them very effective for early war rushes!
Unique unit: Watonathi
Game Info: "
Mississippian unique Merchant. Civilian who can establish a Trade Route to import Resources from a foreign Settlement. Gain 25 Gold per Resource acquired when creating a Trade Route.
"
Requirements: Code of Law civic
Replaces: Merchant.
Cost: 40 Production | 160 Gold [standard speed].
Maintenance Cost: 0 Gold per turn [standard speed].
Movement Speed: 4.
Bonuses:
Can establish Trade Routes with foreign Settlements,
+25 Gold per resource acquired when creating Trade Route.
Similar to the regular Merchant, this unique Watonathi unit must travel to a foreign settlement in order to establish a trade route. Once the Watonathi arrives at an eligible foreign settlement , you can click the "Make Trade Route" button in the unit panel to create a trade route from the current settlement to your nearest settlement. At the point that a Watonathi creates a new Trade Route, the Mississippians also receive 25 Gold for each Resource that the foreign settlement has improved.
If there are Resources within the foreign settlement's borders, but the Resource has not been improved yet, then the Watonathi will not generate any Gold for that resource. Thus, it may be worthwhile to wait a turn or 2 until the foreign Settlement grows big enough to improve all of its local Resources before you use the Watonathi to create a Trade Route. How many turns remain before the Settlement grows can be viewed in the Settlement name plate above the City Center tile. Keep in mind that even if you wait for the Settlement to grow, there is no guarantee that it will claim the Resource that you are waiting for.
You also don't want to wait around too long for foreign Settlements to grow and claim more resources. The resources that the Settlement already owns will provide passive benefits to your Settlements once the Trade Route is created. Every turn that you wait for the Settlement to grow is one less turn that you are receiving bonus Happiness, Food, or Production from the Resources that Settlement already owns. As such, prioritize sending your Watanathi to mature foreign cities that have already improved their surrounding Resources.
Mississippian Civic Tree
Mississippian civics tree.
The Mississippian civics tree has 3 civics and 1 mastery. The base civic, Earthworks, unlocks the unique Potkop improvement, as well as a bonus towards constructing buildings. Its mastery unlocks the Monk's Mound wonder much earlier than it would otherwise be available, giving Mississippians a huge advantage towards completing that wonder. The mastery also unlocks an additional Gold adjacency bonus for all building adjacent to resources (including the Potkop).
The Waahi civic largely improves the Burning Arrow unit by allowing it to pillage 2 tiles away, and by unlocking a policy that grants a bonus to ranged units while defending. The other civic, Cah-ha-nah, grants economic bonuses. It increases the resource capacity of the capital by 2, and unlocks a policy that grants extra Gold and Happiness from resources imported by your Watanathi.
Recommended leaders for Mississippians
The Mississippians will likely pair best with leaders who also have bonuses towards Resource-collection, trade, and food-generation.
Xerxes, the Achaemenid leader unique: Silk Road
"
+1 Trade Route limit with all other Civilizations.
Gain 50 Culture and 100 Gold per Age when creating a Trade Route or Road.
+1 Culture and Gold per Age on Unique Buildings and Improvements.
"
Xerxes, the Achaemenid pairs exceptionally well with the Mississippians by explicitly augmenting the Mississippian uniques. If he creates new Trade Routes using the Mississippian unique Watanathi, he will also gain more Gold, and also Culture, in addition to the Gold per Resource that the Watanathi already generates. Furthermore, his ability increases the Trade Route limit, which allows Mississippians to create more Watanathi, and create even more Trade Routes!
Ashoka, World Renouncer leader unique: Dhammaraja
"
+1 Food in Cities for every 5 excess Happiness.
+10% Food in all Settlements during a Celebration.
All Buildings gain +1 Happiness Adjacency for all Improvements.
"
Ashoka, the World Renouncer also supplements the Mississippian uniques very well. Since you will likely be building Potkops and Districts in tight clusters between or around Resources, Ashoka's ability will buff those buildings with additional Happiness. That Happiness, combined with Happiness generated from the Resources that you've acquired from Settlements and from trade with foreign civilizations, will further boost the Mississippian food yields.
Tecumseh leader unique: Nicaakiyakoolaakwe
"
+1 Food and Production per Age in Settlements for every City State you are Suzerain of.
+1 Combat Strength for all units for every City State you are Suzerain of.
"
Tecumseh's ability also grants food and production bonuses for being the suzerain of City States. The Mississippians can supplement these suzerain bonuses by sending Trade Routes to those City States in order to acquire additional Gold and Resources.
The effectiveness of Tecumseh is largely dependent on map conditions and which other civilizations and leaders are on the continent. He is most effective on maps with lots of easily-accessible, non-hostile Independent Powers, and with other nearby leaders who have little-to-no interest in either befriending or conquering those Independent Powers.
Amina leader unique: Warrior-Queen of Zazzau
"
+1 Resource capacity in Cities.
+1 Gold per Age for each Resource assigned to Cities.
+5 Combat Strength on all units on Plains and Deserts.
"
Amina's abilities provide further benefits for the Mississippians' desire to accumulate Resources. The Resource cap in cities is higher, allowing more Resources to be acquired and used, and she gains additional Gold for Resources slotted into Cities.
Hatshepsut leader unique: God's Wife of Amun
"
+1 Culture for every imported Resource.
+15% Production towards constructing Buildings and Wonders in Cities adjacent to Navigable Rivers.
"
Hatshepsut also generates bonus Culture for Resources that are imported to the Mississippians via the Watonathi. She also gains bonus Production in Cities adjacent to Navigable Rivers. The Mississippians have a bias towards starting next to rivers (though not necessarily navigable), which makes it more likely that Hatshepsut will be able to use this aspect of her leader ability.
Strategy for Mississippians in the Antiquity Age
A starting build queue of 2 or 3 Scouts will be good for the Mississippians to find nearby clusters of resources for new settlements. You should be hoping to find clusters of resources that are adjacent to each other, or separated by only a single tile. Of course, whether or not you find these will depend almost entirely on the luck of the map generator. In any case, you'll want to get Settlers trained quickly in order to start claiming territory around clusters of resources. I recommend keeping your settlements a medium distance apart -- not too close, but also not spaced too far apart. Ideally, you should position your settlements so that resources are between settlements, at the fringes of their workable range. This will allow multiple settlements to place Potkops and Districts adjacent to those same resources, in order to double-dip on the Food and Gold bonuses.
Settle near clusters of resources, and tuck a Potkop in between them.
Early Civic priorities should be Code of Laws (in order to unlock the unique Watonathi merchant) and the Mississippians' unique Earthworks Civic (and its Mastery). The Earthwork Civic will unlock the Potkop, as well as the Shell-Tempered Pottery Social Policy that grants extra Gold adjacency bonuses for Buildings (including the Potkops).
It's up to you whether you want to go for Earthworks first, or if you prefer to go for the Mysticism Civic in order to unlock a Pantheon. The Fertility Rites Pantheon belief is good for the Mississippians, since it will supplement the extra food generated by the Potkop and Districts adjacent to resources. However, this belief seems to be taken by other civs very early, so you need to rush straight to Mysticism if you want a chance to adopt this belief.
The Earthworks Mastery will also unlock the Monk's Mound Wonder. This wonder provides a small amount of extra food, and increases the resource cap of the city in which it is built. It is normally unlocked by the Commerce Civic, which is one of the last Civics on the tree. The Mississippians, however, can unlock the Monk's Mound near the beginning of the game. Despite being unlocked early, this wonder still has the cost of a late-Antiquity wonder, which makes it very expensive to build right away. You will likely want to wait a little bit in order to develop your settlements more and improve their productivity. In any case, the Mississippians should have no trouble completing this wonder long before other civilizations in the game have even unlocked the Civic necessary to build it.
Next up, you should choose whether you want to focus on using your Burning Arrow units for early war rushes, or if you prefer to focus on peaceful trade. If the later, then you should start pumping out Watonathi and sending them to the foreign cities that have the most resources in order to earn the most gold possible. Use your Influence to develop relationships with nearby trade partners, but try to keep a reserve of 120 Influence on hand, so that you can reject any Denouncements from belligerent neighbors, which will reduce the likelihood that they go to war with you (which will instantly end any trade routes you have with them).
Use the "Improve Trade Relations" endeavor to allow your Watonathi to trade with additional cities owned by a rival with whom you've already established a trade route. Also look at using Influence to befriend nearby Independent Powers. Be careful that you don't waste your influence trying to befriend Independents who are just going to get eliminated by other civs. Once you are friendly with an Independent Power, you can potentially send your own units into their territory to act as blockers and peace-keepers against potential attack from other civs.
Focus on establishing trade routes with foreign cities that have the most resources, for large lump sums of gold.
Silk Road and Pax Mississippian
The emphasis on resources and trade makes the Mississippians a prime candidate for the Silk Road (Economic) Legacy Path in the Antiquity Age. Just looking for luxuries for your Potkop improvements will get you most of the way towards completing the Silk Roads objective, and your Watonathi merchants should be able to trade with neighboring civilizations in order to make up the difference.
Befriending an economic Independent Powers can also allow you to take the Gemstones suzerain bonus, which grants a free luxury resource in your capital. It's not much, but it will get you 1 step closer to completing the Silk Road.
Burning Arrow can be used to rapidly pillage enemy lands.
The Burning Arrow can be useful for quickly dispatching entrenched defensive units, if you decide to capture cities from other civilizations in order to claim their resources by force. Rapid expansion in order to claim as many resources as possible can also put the Mississippians on the path to the Pax Imperatoria (Expansion/Military) Legacy Path. This requires settling a large number of settlements, and conquered settlements count as double.
Even if you aren't able to breach an opponent's walls, you can still use the Burning Arrow (with the Waahih civic) to rapidly pillage enemy districts in order to hold their economic progress in check, or to outright pillage them back to the stone age.
Native American legacy
In my opinion, there aren't a whole lot of Exploration civs that compliment Mississippians particularly well. The best fit is probably the Native American Exploration civ, the Shawnee. The Shawnee are automatically unlocked by playing as the Mississippians, so you won't have to do anything special to unlock them.
The Shawnee have a unique improvement, the Mawaskawe Skote, which provides bonuses from adjacent resources, similar to the Potkop. These can be built adjacent to Potkops in order to be adjacent to the same groups of resources, so long as the tile is vegetated and you didn't put an urban district there.
The Shawnee also have a lot of diplomatic bonuses, which is a decent compliment to the trade focus of the Mississippians.
If you want to pivot more towards a militaristic approach, the Shawnee also have a unique unit (the Kispoko Nena’to) which gets a boost to its combat strength from each unique resource the Shawnee have connected. Thus, having acquired a lot of resources as the Mississippians in Antiquity will give you stronger infantry units as the Shawnee in the Exploration Age.
Playing against Mississippians
The Mississippians will be a largely economic threat. There won't be many Antiquity civs that will be able to match up against the Mississippian economy, especially if the Mississippians are paired up with a strong economic leader. Their interest in trade can make them a good partner or ally, so it might be a good idea to cozy up to them with diplomatic deals and trade routes for mutual benefit. In the Antiquity Age, civs aren't competing with each other quite as directly as you do in the later Ages. As long as they aren't forward-settling you or building your preferred wonders, then it is probably a good idea to work with them, instead of against them.
Obviously, the Mississippians have a huge advantage towards building the Monk's Mound wonder. If they are in the game, you probably shouldn't bother considering that particular wonder.
Don't completely sleep on the Mississippian Burning Arrow, however. They can be a threat in an early war rush, especially before you're able to get Walls up around your cities. You also can't play defensively against them. They have the potential to be able to pillage to heal and also still attack on the same turn. The burn ability will mean that bunkering down in a district or fortification will be a liability. Your units will have to stay on the move to avoid taking extra passive burn damage by remaining in the tile. Ranged units do not impose zone of control, so if mounted units such as Chariots can get behind the Mississippian lines, they can make hit-and-run attacks against the Burning Arrows.
The Burning Arrow can potentially pillage to heal itself, and attack your fortified defenders on the same turn.
Your combat effectiveness against the Burning Arrow will depend largely on the terrain of the battlefield. Definitely do not let Burning Arrows pin you with your back to a wall (such as mountains or a coast), or in a bottleneck that will limit mobility. Being able to move around, avoiding staying in burning terrain, surrounding the Mississippian forces, and eliminating the Burning Arrows quickly will be your best path to victory in any conflict.
Discussions & Change Log
Thanks for reading. I hope this guide helps you to build a Mississippian civilization that will stand the test of time!
These strategy guides for Civilization VI have been taking longer to research and write than I would like. Part of this is due to the fact that I'm not as familiar and experienced with Civ VI as I was with Civ V when I started writing strategy guides for that game, so I have to spend more time trying to learn the different mechanics and rules associated with each new civ that I play. I also have a lot more things competing for my time.
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