Commanders are essential to your empire's growth and survival in Civilization VII. Without them, you'll have to control dozens of military units one by one, which can cause dysfunction and confusion if you're heading into war. By using your Commanders properly, you'll be able to earn XP for them by defeating enemy units. This in turn allows you to unlock new Promotions for your Commanders, which give them specific skills and abilities. Every Commander has five dedicated skill trees with five to six abilities in each of the trees. While you'll eventually be able to unlock all Promotions for your Commanders, there are some you should target before others. Below, we'll go over three Promotions you should unlock first for both the Army Commander and the Fleet Commander in Civilization VII. Army Commander - Initiative The first Promotion Point you want to spend for the Army Commander is Initiative, which is located under the red "Assault" category. Initiative allows your units to move after they are deployed from the Commander. This is a huge bonus, as sometimes it takes time for your Commander to get to a combat situation and if you have to take multiple turns to unpack your units and then have them attack, they could take massive damage as a result. With Initiative, your Commander can arrive, unpack the units, and then you can attack with all of them on the same turn. Not only does this protect your units from more damage, but it allows them to attack before an enemy can. Fleet Commander - Weather Gage Weather Gage is located under the green "Engagement" category of the Fleet Commander's Promotion Points. It does the same exact thing as the Initiative Promotion for the Army Commander. After unpacking your naval vessels from the Fleet Commander, they can move and attack on the same turn. This is especially useful for naval ships, as you often need to arrange them strategically in the water to attack a fortified district on land or other units in the water. Army Commander - Mobility The next Promotion Point you want to spend for the Army Commander is Mobility, which is the first skill in the orange "Manuever" category. Mobility is a skill designed for Commanders that you plan to send all over the map, going from encounter to encounter. The skill gives your Commander another movement tile every turn while on land. It also ignores any movement restrictions from terrain when your units are packed with the Commander. So if you come across a river or mountain range, your Commander can still move freely and farther with the Mobility skill equipped. Mobility is not a skill you want to unlock for Commanders that you plan on keeping stationary at a settlement. For those Commanders, I recommend unlocking Zeal, the first skill in the blue "Leadership" category. Zeal increases all of a settlement's production yields by 5% when a Commander is stationed there. Fleet Commander - Naval Artillery It's time to venture into the red category, which is all about increasing your combat strength for a Commander's units. Specifically for the Fleet Commander, the best early Promotion Point to spend is on Naval Artillery. This skill gives your naval units a +5 to Combat Strength when they are within the Commander's movement radius and attacking a fortified district. Fortified districts refer to most enemy capitals in a settlement. Going for Naval Artilley allows your naval units to deal more damage to these capitals, which can in turn help your land units claim the capital and the settlement for your empire. Army Commander - Rout Similar to the Naval Artilley, the Rout skill is under the red "Assault" category for an Army Commander and is centered around improving your unit's combat strength. Rout gives your infantry units a +2 to Combat Strength when in the Commander's radius and attacking. Infantry units refer to units containing soldiers that fight with their hands instead of at range. Any unit that wields a sword or can only attack when in the adjacent tile counts as an infantry unit. You can read the description of a unit if you need to know for sure that it's infantry. Rout allows your infantry units to deal more damage when they attack an enemy while being near a Commander. Why that's important is fairly self-explanatory, but this could turn a stalemate into a major victory during a combat engagement. Fleet Commander - Warships Warships is the final Fleet Commander Promotion we recommend you target first. This skill is located under the yellow "Logistics" category and gives you a 15% increase in the production of naval units when your Fleet Commander is stationed in a city. Naval units, especially ones during the Modern Age, can take forever to produce, sometimes exceeding 10 turns. With the Warships skill, you can cut down on that time significantly, allowing you to produce more ships at any one of your coastal cities. It's important that you station your Fleet Commander with the Warships skill at a coastal city and not a town. If you station the Fleet Commander in a town, you can only purchase naval units, not produce them. The Warships skill specifies an increase in production, not a reduction in price. So by stationing your Fleet Commander with the Warships skill in a coastal city, you can then produce naval units much faster in that specific city.