Each player controls a nation vying for dominance across a procedurally generated hex map. You manage provinces, recruit armies, research spells, and wage war against other players and AI opponents.

Victory conditions:

• Domination — Control 66% of all provinces
• Capital conquest — Capture every other player's capital
• Elimination — Be the last player standing

Defeat conditions:

• Not controlling any province

From the lobby you can create a new game or join an existing one. When creating a game you choose the map size, number of player slots, and other settings. Each player picks a nation before the game starts.

Private games will only be visible to you and are typically played against different AIs, for solo play.

Public games will be visible to all and other players can decide to join the game.

Once all the players and AIs are set up, the admin can start the game.

Map generation takes a minute or two, unless a map of this size and seed has already been generated. Use seed 123 for fast map generation.

The world is made of hexagonal provinces, each with a terrain type (plain, forest, mountain, swamp, desert, hill, tundra, sea, deep sea, jungle).

Terrain affects movement, combat, and which independent units guard the province.

Movement is forbidden over mountain ranges (except for mountain survival units) and rivers without a bridge (except for swimming, amphibious or waterwalking units).

Entering sea provinces is allowed only for aquatic and amphibious units, and aquatic units cannot leave the sea.

Flying units can fly over one province and are unaffected by rivers and mountains.

Sailing units can cross small seas.

Each province generates gold (for recruitment and upkeep) and production (for building and equipping units). Forts and terrain affect income.

• Gold — Pays for units, buildings, and upkeep each turn
• Production — Used to recruit troops, especially heavily armored ones
• Gems — Magic resources produced by magic sites, used for rituals and forging
• Favor — Faith resource spent on blessings and recruiting heroes
• Research points — Generated by mages in provinces with labs, unlock spells

Three building types can be constructed in provinces:

• Fort — Provides walls for defense, increases production, and allows recruitment of nation-specific troops
• Lab — Enables magical research, ritual casting, and artifact forging
• Temple — Generates favor for blessings and hero recruitment

Buildings take multiple turns to construct and can be upgraded for stronger effects.

Labs allow one ritual and one forging per level, up to 3 for a level 3 lab.

Forts of higher level provide more production bonuses and better defense.

Temples of higher level spread faith faster.

In provinces with forts, you can recruit units each turn using gold and production:

• Commanders — Leaders who form and lead armies. Required to move troops
• Troops — Soldiers that fill an army's ranks. Each nation has unique troop types
• Heroes — Powerful unique commanders recruited through the Faith system using favor

Independent provinces also have local units that can be recruited once conquered.

Commanders lead armies of troops. Each commander has a leadership value limiting how many units they can command. An army without enough leadership cannot move.

Army orders (issued each turn):

• Move — March to an adjacent province
• Defend — Hold position
• Hide — Hold position and hide
• Siege — Besiege a fortified province to break its walls
• Break Siege — Attack a besieging army
• Sneak — Move stealthily (only if the commander and his troops have stealth)
• Sail — Travel across sea provinces (if able)

Use drag and drop to move armies to neighbouring provinces: click and drag the army title and the possible targets will appear.

Use drag and drop on a commander to send him to a neighbouring province, for instance to send a single scout or mage around. This will create a new army with only this commander.

Use drag and drop to move troops and commanders between armies.

Mages in a province will automatically contribute to research if there is a lab. Priests will also automatically preach.

Mages staying in a province will automatically search for magic sites.

Battles occur when armies meet in the same province. Before battle, you can position your units on the battlefield using the army setup screen.

Battles resolve automatically — units fight, cast spells, and use abilities based on their stats and AI. After resolution, you can watch the battle replay to see what happened.

Armies losing a lot of troops can rout. The best 10 commanders contribute to global army morale. Low morale units can even rout when wounded.

Sieges: Fortified provinces require a siege to break the walls before the garrison can be attacked. Walls need to be broken before the fort can be stormed.

Magic is organized into 8 paths: Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Astral, Death, Nature, and Blood. Mages have levels in one or more paths.

Research unlocks spells across 5 schools (Destruction, Creation, Alteration, Preservation, Enchantment). Mages in provinces with labs contribute research points each turn.

• Battle spells — Cast during combat (damage, buffs, summons)
• Rituals — Strategic spells cast from labs (summon units, attack provinces)
• Forging — Create magical artifacts in labs using gems. Artifacts grant powerful stat bonuses to the equipped commander. Forging artifacts requires research in the Enchantment school.

Magic sites are found by mages and produce gems each turn.

Lairs are special sites containing a guardian that must be defeated to claim the rewards and income.

Favor resource allows you to buy blessings (bonuses to sacred units), scales (bonuses to provinces), and to recruit heroes (the first one is free).

The player starts with 400 favor points and can reach up to 600 points. Temples generate additional favor.

• Blessings — Bonuses applied to all your sacred units once blessed by a priest. Choose minor and major blessings to shape your strategy
• Scales — Divine influence settings chosen at game start that provide nation-wide bonuses and penalties
• Sacred units — Special units that benefit from your blessings, becoming stronger the more favor you invest, if a priest blesses them
• Heroes — Unique powerful commanders recruited with favor points