Your first campaign
Plan patiently. Advance deliberately.
Select a city with your banner. Set its governor and a continuing policy.
Queue one action per city: recruit, build, march, or choose a civil or logistics order. Orders are editable until the month ends.
Recruit at least 500 troops or leave a home guard of 500 when marching. Gold and grain are local, not an empire-wide pool.
Choose a commander, a road-connected target, troops, and approach. Marching into your own city transfers troops and the commander; extra grain travels with them.
Only neighboring regions with a shared land border and a drawn land route are directly reachable. Select a city to see dashed routes to its neighbors. You cannot skip intervening cities or cross the sea. To travel farther, move through friendly cities one month at a time.
For a joint attack, queue marches from two or more friendly, road-connected cities to the same enemy city in the same month. Their strength combines into one battle; each city pays its own supplies and keeps its home guard. Different factions do not combine armies. Siege reduces wall defense in proportion to its share of troops.
End the month. All armies depart before battles resolve; other factions may reinforce or attack. Then every city earns income and pays upkeep.
Capture all cities, or demand submission from a weakened rival to shorten the final campaign.
Economy Building upgrades cost 300, 450, then 600 gold. Each market level above level 1 adds 150 gold per month; each farm level adds 180 grain. Income starts in the construction month. A first market upgrade pays back in two collections. Construction uses the city’s monthly action, so weigh investment against immediate recruitment.
Farming adds 240 grain and restores 4 support each month. Trade adds 180 gold and restores 2 support. Training adds 150 troops for 50 gold and 100 grain if affordable, and restores 2 support. Recruitment consumes support. Farms, markets, and forts can reach level 4. Armies consume 0.055 grain and 0.025 gold per soldier per month; a grain shortage causes desertions.
Self-development
Enable Send surplus to the front under Farming or Trade. Keep three months of garrison upkeep plus local preparation funds (at least 5,000 gold and 3,000 grain). Only the chosen resource is sent, with normal fees and one monthly city action. Manual orders take priority. Fronts border non-neutral rivals without a treaty; nearby needy fronts take priority. Friendly relays must opt in with the same policy. Each shipment moves one road per month using existing stock, never newly arriving cargo. Supplied fronts stop requesting shipments; if no shipment is needed, enabled self-development continues. Switching to Training or Military readiness suspends supply.
Tier prices: levels 1–5 cost 1×, 1×, 3×, 6× and 10× the base price. The first two tiers keep their original effects; each later tier adds 3% weapon strength, 3% loss reduction or 1.5% drill strength. Existing levels are kept.
Military readiness stays selected. While any preparation is below level 5, it schedules one affordable weapons, armor or drill upgrade, prioritizing the lowest affordable level and preserving at least 500 gold and 1,000 grain (more for upkeep deficits). Once fully prepared at month start and still fully prepared after arrivals and combat, it trains up to 150 basic troops for 50 gold and 100 grain if affordable, within the 12,000-troop cap. No training occurs in the month of the final upgrade. New recruits have no free equipment: when military levels fall, paid preparation resumes automatically. Manual orders take priority over automatic upgrades. No self-development checkbox is needed; choose another policy to stop.
Military autonomy aims for 6,000 troops inland and 8,000–10,000 beside rival cities; these are recruitment targets, not new caps. The continuing Training policy still adds up to 150 basic troops monthly and does not itself grant drill bonuses. Autonomy keeps at least 500 gold and 1,000 grain, more for deficits, and checks future upkeep before recruitment. It builds production first when needed. Small equipment dilution waits instead of triggering constant top-ups.
Self-development keeps your policy and governor. Farming and Trade prioritize civilian development. Training prioritizes grain, gold and support, then sustainable recruitment, weapons, armor and drills using one paid monthly order. It equips the weakest preparation first, rather than following a fixed rotation. It never marches, transfers or conducts diplomacy.
Manual orders override autonomy for that month. Cancelling a manual order restores the automatic plan. Uncheck self-development to stop it. Plans update when resources change; costs are paid at month end, with no offline actions. Newly acquired cities start under manual control.
Civil orders & logistics
Each uses the same monthly city order. Continuing policies still run. Civil orders and friendly deliveries resolve before battles; income and upkeep follow.
Organize market: no upfront cost; earn 100 gold plus 1.5 times governor administration, rounded down (basic administration is 35 without a governor). Garrison farming: at least 500 troops; gain 100 grain plus 15 per full 100 troops, up to 500. No upfront cost or troop loss. Trade grain: buy 500 grain for 200 gold or sell 500 for 100 gold. Trade 500–5,000 grain per order. Distribute relief: spend 500 grain for up to 15 public support, capped at 100. Transport supplies: send gold and grain without a shipment cap, in hundreds, to an adjacent friendly city. Pay 20 gold plus 5% of each resource sent. The full shipment arrives; gold and grain have no storage cap. Transfer officer: move one named officer to an adjacent friendly city for free, without troops. A departing governor is replaced by a remaining officer, or basic administration. An arriving officer cannot move again that month. Supplies and officers arrive before combat and can be captured if their destination falls. Gold and grain have no storage cap; markets, farming and monthly income continue to add resources.
Weapons, armor and drills
Each preparation uses one monthly city order and improves up to one tier for the current garrison, with a maximum average tier of 5. Weapons cost 600 gold per 1,000 soldier-tiers and add up to 10% attack per tier. Armor costs 800 gold per 1,000 soldier-tiers and reduces battle losses by up to 10% per tier; a defeated garrison is still lost. Drills cost 250 gold and 300 grain per 1,000 soldier-tiers and add up to 5% attack and defense per tier. Partial improvements cost proportionally, rounded up. Prices and quantities are fixed from the garrison at month start, before incoming evacuations.
New recruits start at zero. Armies carry a proportional share of equipment and training; survivors keep their share on retreat or conquest. Casualties, desertion and demobilization remove the corresponding share; destroyed defenders do not donate their equipment to the victor. Splitting rounds down for the departing army and leaves the remainder at home. Bonuses are limited, not a guaranteed victory. Grain shortages still weaken defense. AI pays the same costs, uses the same monthly order and cannot see private enemy orders. With Training selected, city autonomy can recruit and prepare troops. Old saves start with basic equipment and no drill bonus; save, reload and Undo preserve all new preparations.
Commanders & battles
Leadership increases army strength. Strategy modestly improves attack (a multiplier of 0.95 plus strategy / 1,000). Martial ability reduces winning casualties. A governor’s administration improves income.
Steward: +60 gold per month as governor. Harvest: +120 grain per month as governor. Vanguard: +6% attacking strength. Guardian: +8% defending strength as governor. Tactician: +8% attacking strength with siege. Quartermaster: 15% less marching grain, excluding extra cargo. Steady advance balances cost and casualties. Assault raises attack by 17% but loses more troops. Siege uses extra grain, reduces the wall bonus and reduces winning casualties.
Every city can use a basic garrison captain (leadership 60), even without named officers. Captains are local command staff, not additional named generals. A losing force retreats to a surviving friendly city. Defeated city officers join the capturing banner. A named commander travels with the army, so taking your governor away can weaken the home city. Arrivals above 12,000 troops demobilize the excess into gold. Gold and grain have no storage cap. Combat is deterministic; forecasts use the current garrison and can change when other armies move.
Diplomacy & saving A truce or alliance is non-aggression only: no shared control or automatic reinforcements. After expiry, wait four months before renewing. Submission requires at least eight cities, twice the rival’s troops, and no more than two rival cities. Progress saves on this device after every decision and month. Reload restores queued orders; no time passes while away. New campaign requires confirmation before replacing a save.
Grain & combat Before each battle, a garrison's supply coverage is its stored grain plus current monthly production, divided by one month's troop upkeep (about 55 grain per 1,000 soldiers), capped at 100%. Defense strength is 50% plus half that coverage: full supply keeps full defense; a shortage weakens it. Zero stock alone is not starvation if farms can feed the troops. Supplies already delivered and resolved civil orders count; future or merely queued deliveries do not. The same rule applies to every faction, newly occupied cities and joint attacks. Marching armies already pay campaign rations when departing, so their attack is not charged or penalized again. Grain income, upkeep and any desertion are still settled once after battles.
Evacuate city uses that city's monthly order. Confirm a neighboring friendly city or neutral empty city to move all troops, officers, gold and grain before battles, without a fee. A neutral destination joins your faction. The empty city becomes neutral and keeps its buildings; anyone may occupy it. Neutral cities produce nothing. The destination must fit all arriving and recruited troops within 12,000. Gold and grain have no storage cap. Incoming orders to the departing city and chained evacuations are not allowed. If rival evacuations target the same empty city, monthly rotating faction priority decides who settles first; later rival evacuations are cancelled without moving anyone or any supplies. Enemy armies can still attack the settled city. Normal battles, income and upkeep still follow.
Undo restores the state before a month resolved. Redo restores the saved next-month state without repeating battles or income. Changing orders, policies, governors or diplomacy clears Redo; simply viewing cities or switching language does not. Restarting or importing also clears Redo. Undo keeps up to 12 snapshots, fewer when its size limit is reached. Redo is saved in this browser when storage permits, but is not included in exported or online saves.
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