07 Sep 2026Developer post

Back to Work

Hello everyone, My 'holiday break' is finally over and so it is time for a quick update (and a reminder that I am still alive and working on the game again :) ). Localizations As promised, I will be starting with localization preparations from September. This is going to be the t

Hello everyone,

My 'holiday break' is finally over and so it is time for a quick update (and a reminder that I am still alive and working on the game again :) ).

Localizations

As promised, I will be starting with localization preparations from September. This is going to be the tedious grind through the code, catching up on all the YAGNI work from 4 years ago.

It includes reworking text-printing, updating fonts and reducing text overlaps. After that the partitioning of texts to translation keys and building up the externalized resource files which will then be sent to translators.

In my current capacity I expect all this to take at least until November (there's more text in the game than it looks - not long texts but it is in lots of places). At that point I would start reaching out to translators and then integrate translated texts into the game around the end of the year.

Which Languages will be supported?

I have run a very quick check of the playerbase of Microcivilization versus player population estimates versus non-english speaking rate estimates and it looks the most impactful translations might be these (not necessarily in this order):

German
Spanish
Russian
French
Polish
Italian
Japanese
Chinese
Korean

So for now this is my working list for which I would prefer having a professionally-translated texts (ideally also tested by third party - depending on my budget). I will probably also include machine-translations as an alternative (i.e. not initially tested by any humans)

Version 1.2 when?

These localizations will be core of the next version update. Because the change will be very broad, I will definitely run another beta test round. But in order to give people some motivation to run the game again I plan to also include a bit of content extension.

This means some extra workload (e.g. a month - depending on the content size) before the next version is released. My guess would be that 1.2 will be coming out around March 2027 with (hopefully) most of the translations and some of the new game content. But this is a guesstimate in its truest form...

What happens after that?

There are many things still in backlog. After localization is done I will move on to next phase of development - finalizations.

Beginning from 2027 I would like to start filling any gaps in the game and upgrading some of its weak spots. There is also a lot of optimization and balancing to be done and I also would like to pay some attention to AFK gameplay and smooth casual gaming experience (possibly rebalancing difficulties a bit).

I have not yet decided on my strategy for 2027 and further. I have a bunch of things I definitely want to do and a massive list of things which are 'nice to have'. I could easily spend the whole 2027 on fulltime extending the game but at some point next year I will have to make the decision when to stop developing new features and instead move on to a new project.

This is all for today's brief update.

Cheers,

Ondrej

Original post

29 Jun 2026Developer post

Time for Localizations

Hi, I hope you all are having a nice summer despite the warm weather. In today's update I'd like to focus on plans. I avoided looking past Adventure mode for quite some time but version 1.1 is now relatively stable and so I can turn my gaze to the future. What comes next By addin

Hi,

I hope you all are having a nice summer despite the warm weather.

In today's update I'd like to focus on plans. I avoided looking past Adventure mode for quite some time but version 1.1 is now relatively stable and so I can turn my gaze to the future.

What comes next

By adding adventure mode I have finished that part of my backlog labelled 'big features'. Now it finally comes to doing all the various tweaks, optimizations and improvements. For that reason, game updates will no longer be focused on one major topic but instead will contain various chunks and bits.

Smaller Irregular updates

This means a little dilemma for me. Whether to release a small update every say two months, doing all the associated testing myself, OR glue one or two such updates together, release every 3-4 months and run a two-week BETA test beforehand as was my approach until now.

This is something that I will have to decide but expect that updates may be coming in different sizes and frequency than before (now that the game is moving into it's more mature stage).

A little holiday

Because I have been 100% on the game for versions 1.0 AND 1.1 without a break between I decided to take the rest of summer off and spend more it with my family. I will still be doing bugfixes and normal support but won't work on any new features. I'll resume feature building from September.

Updates in 4-8 weeks

Same as the version updates, I think it will be more practical for me to compress our monthly Monday updates to a longer and more flexible range. I won't always have a presentable piece of the game each 4 weeks so this will give me a little more breathing room. I would still do at least one worthy update each 2 months where I can actually SHOW SOMETHING not just promise it.

There is a long list of extensions and descoped ideas and I want to make sure they come in a properly designed and tested bundles instead of throwing them in randomly one by one.

Localization

One VERY BIG feature I plan to look into next is localization. It is one of the debts I have towards the community and I have been delaying this for too long already. Doing localization at this stage really means four things:

1) Externalization of texts

Currently the game code is written without translations in mind. It was one of my early decisions not to worry myself too much about localizations. Early development for me had already VAST amount of risks and problems so I decided to put this one off to future me.

What this means is that I need to go through each single code line which outputs a text to the screen and change it so that it correctly goes through a new code component which handles translation. This is roughly in hundreds maybe thousands lines and pretty much just means it needs to be adjusted to a slightly different format (probably not needing manual change everywhere).

This part of work will enable adding translation files and will ensure that one text actually gets changed into its translated variant.

2) Layout

After translations can be physically done on the level of 'one text gets automagically replaced by other text' I'll have to look into text layouts and overlaps (which are already annoying in English). Translated texts will very often be longer and so areas where no line wrapping was designed might need some UI redesign.

This means going through all screens and updating text layouts so that we can either display longer texts by lower font size or by adding proper text wrapping.

3) Fonts

Given above two points I am quite certain that the main game font will need an update especially for better sizing and contrast. Additionally it will need to cover more accented characters and this sort of stuff for some of the main languages.

4) Actual translations

In the last phase I'll need to make a decision who to contract with translations for which language, run tests and eventually release updates of the game with localization done.

I currently do not have any estimation how big the first three parts will be. There is of course some maneuvering space with 'how good the user experience has to be' in each specific language.

The fourth part depends on the text file sizes (result of part 1) and also is not going to be done by me so can't estimate at all right now.

My hope is that we will have some of the main translations available before the end of the year. But at this moment this is too early to make any real schedule. So I'll keep you all updated as the work progresses.

That's all for this update,

Have a nice day

Ondrej

Original post

26 Jun 2026Developer post

Patch 1.1.10

Hello, I've just uploaded a small patch today to address some of the more severe issues. 1.1.10 Atlases should no longer be built by autoconstruction in Chaos worlds Removing map edits should work correctly when grassland and hills are combined on the same tile. Enemy Civs should

10 Jun 2026Developer post

Patch 1.1.9

Patch 1.1.9 Hotfixed one issue causing corruption of Homeworld data file while loading an in-progress Chaos World for a small set of players (several conditions to be fulfilled to cause this bug). Note: If this happened to you and you seem to have lost your homeworld (or rather i

10 Jun 2026Developer post

Patch 1.1.8

1.1.8. Fixed an issue preventing buying some ascensions after Respec Fixed various corner case crashes

08 Jun 2026Developer post

Adventure mode is Out Now!

Hello, today finally the new Adventure Mode update comes live. Thanks everyone with their help in beta-testing the version 1.1. What is included in this Update You can start a new game in Adventure mode, or convert your finished existing 'Campaign' game (as long as you finished t

05 Jun 2026Developer post

Beta patch 1.1.7

Hi, a little patch. Patch v1.1.7 Bugfixes Fixed a bug causing Colonist World civilization to disappear after first scenario (later causing crash) Fixed missing Perks to drop on mid-late game Chaos worlds Fixed an issue with Imbued heroes being ejected back to inbox after load. Th

03 Jun 2026Developer post

Beta patch 1.1.6

Hello, since there were a couple of nasty bugs in BETA I decided to release whatever changes I had pending along with the fixes to the Experimental branch. Patch v1.1.6 Bugfixes Difficulty is no longer reset to normal on entering Adventure mode Homeworld Adventure mode Expansioni

02 Jun 2026Developer post

Beta patch 1.1.5

Hi, i've just released a patch for Beta targeting both Adventure and Campaign modes. Version 1.1.5 should be visible in experimental branch. Patch v1.1.5 New features/changes Added Adventure mode conversion button for players who completed the Campaign game (finished the final sc

Hi,

i've just released a patch for Beta targeting both Adventure and Campaign modes. Version 1.1.5 should be visible in experimental branch.

Patch v1.1.5

New features/changes

Added Adventure mode conversion button for players who completed the Campaign game (finished the final scenario)
You can take all your heroes and gold lotus to your adventure mode. Hero level will be cropped to 25 though. Culture points and non-gold lotuses are lost.
Collect button can now collect all heroes if you hold Shift. It will also now use all Tabs correctly.
Added a handful of tutorial-supporting objectives to Campaign mode granting small rewards

Bug fixes

Changing Perks in Homeworld will correctly recalculate everything on closing the World menu preventing issues like Workers 'disappearing' later when activating/deactivating workshops.
Wonder Ability buttons should no longer disappear once returning from Chaos Worlds.
Separate Islands should generate less often (though they still do sometimes - a more invasive change will be needed at some point)
Colossus and Pyramids Ascension in Tier 4 should no longer show White lotus cost (despite no having any)
Campaign Scenario 2 should now correctly start with initial territory
Tier 4 now allows building quarry from Trading Tech.
Tile under Fog of war should no longer show details of the tile on one of the menu details
Atlases should no longer be constructable via Auto construction service
Fixed a bug causing Restart to lose Perseverance bonuses (correctly) but not resetting Optimization technology counter (thus preventing you from regaining the same Optimization level with the same tech costs)
Pearl tiles can no longer be claimed
Removing map transformation should remove ownership if the result becomes water tile.
Autoexplore now only works after researching Warrior Code (or otherwise unlocking World Map)
Atlas charges should no longer drop from Crises.
Fixed a bug causing new era workshop levels not having some of their primary traits after moving onto a second Chaos world scenario (this included Lumbermill, Quarry, Blacksmith, Library and Marketplace)
Slash and burn/Cut Down should no longer be usable on Enemy territory
Cut down quest should no longer remove strategic resources

Original post

27 May 2026Developer post

Beta patch 1.1.4

Hello, a first batch of defects has been fixed for beta (experimental branch). 1.1.4 Secret Attack on crises (e.g. Centipedes) should no longer crash game when no secrets owned Stonehenge worlds now use quicker Stonehenge charging (1m) and have a scaling objectives to make them e

25 May 2026Developer post

Adventure Mode Beta starting now

Hello, let me invite you to the beta-test of version 1.1 using the experimental branch pass-key: WelshCorgiPembroke The branch is already activated and should contain game version 1.1.2. (this time I don't start from 1.1.0 since i wanted to distinguish some versions for internal

27 Apr 2026Developer post

Adventure Mode Announcement

Hello, another four weeks are behind us. In this update I want to finally announce the release date for the next Major Update containing Adventure mode! Version 1.1 BETA begins May 25th, going live after two weeks on June 8th The Adventure mode The content of the 1.1 major update

Hello,

another four weeks are behind us. In this update I want to finally announce the release date for the next Major Update containing Adventure mode!

Version 1.1 BETA begins May 25th, going live after two weeks on June 8th

The Adventure mode

The content of the 1.1 major update will be mainly the Adventure mode. An entirely new game mode with its specific meta-game mechanisms and more open-ended gameplay:

You can visit semi-random worlds each consisting of a scenario sequence.
Each world type is focused on specific play style and build synergies.
You can Transform the world map by directly creating strategic resources or land.
You Return to your persistent Homeworld civilization where you unlock powerful perma-upgrades.
Gold Lotuses are earned via new mechanims.

Core game changes

I have yet to make some decisions whether or not to include core 'campaign' game changes in the same update - There is a number of bugfixes and UX changes planned but unfortunately my time capacity this year is problematic - mostly because of constant respiratory illnesses (my 3 year old son is in his first year in kindergarten so he brings home new virus samples every week).

So I am probably going to postpone some changes to future update despite me already promising some earlier. Things like Auto skills, new tutorials, difficulty redesigns and scenario revisits may not all make it into 1.1 (or at least not in their full scope)

How long will the adventure mode be?

My target for the first version of Adventure Mode to cover up to around 30h of gameplay - roughly the same size as the campaign mode's main line. But take this number with a grain of salt because:

You will be able to transfer your save from Campaign to Adventure preserving your earned Lotus (converting all purchased ascension) and preserving your heroes (they will however be brought down to level 1, preserving your culture).
Thanks to the above, existing players may be able to rush through early Adventure mode much faster. So for those players it might be a shorter experience.
On the other hand there will be no actual end boss or anything. You will theoretically be able to play endlessly until you 'unlock everything'. If that is the case you might end up playing a lot longer.
With new 'chaos world' system and homeworld there are two new 'dimensions' in the game design that can be expanded in future patches and updated and can easily add additional hours for 'completionist' type of players.

At the moment I do not have the final scope for 1.1 - there are features I may consider 'not ready' and cut them from this version to be polished for the next one. The final 'edit' is to be produced in the next two weeks.

Once core adventure mode gameplay is working live and there is sufficient feedback from players, we can extend and adjust it any way we like in future updates.

Regional Pricing Updated

As you may have noticed, Valve came up with a new up-to-date pricing recommendations. Since I do not have enough qualification to justify my own pricing policy I have been using these recommendations since day one.

So as of today I also updated Microcivilization pricing to this new set.

Note: This doesn't affect the $17.99 base price in USD. Only the price for countries with different currencies.

Base price for microcivilization has stayed at $17.99 and is planned to stay that way.

That's all for today, I wanted to keep this one brief - Have a nice day,

Ondrej

Original post

30 Mar 2026Developer post

Adventure mode continued...

Hello, Last time I talked about individual features of Adventure mode. This time I'd like to give you a kind of a big picture how this mode will be played. Please note that this is still early stage so some key mechanisms may still change significantly. Adventure mode flow Your t

Hello,

Last time I talked about individual features of Adventure mode. This time I'd like to give you a kind of a big picture how this mode will be played. Please note that this is still early stage so some key mechanisms may still change significantly.

Adventure mode flow

Your typical adventure game will begin in a so called Homeworld. This is your stable world where you can do whatever you want. There's no research here, no ascending, no score. This world just exists and you can experiment here.

You also get regular opportunities to enter different world.

1. Chaos World Spawn

Every now and then a new world will appear at your doorstep. You will see some very limited info about this world (size and type) but most will be concealed. If you want to, you can enter this world. Or you don't have to and can chill in Homeworld a bit more. Entirely up to you.

2. Entering Chaos World

If you choose to enter the Chaos world, you will leave whatever Population and buildings you had in your homeworld. At that point you will be 'moved' to a new world with its own randomly rolled map, rules and ascension upgrades.

Example of an early chaos world. It consists of just two scenarios reaching Classical era and various optional upgrades on the sides. Note that most upgrades can be purchased repeatedly.

3. Scenarios

Your task is to 'tame' the world by completing its scenarios. There is no generic 'Start new civilization button', you can only play Scenarios one by one.

Each scenario is semi-randomly generated - it has a Primary objective and a set of Secondary objectives.

These objectives are your source of Gold Lotus score here as opposed to Campaign, where score is mainly granted by reaching civilization milestones like population or crises defeated.

In addition to this score, each World will also have a special resource similar to Coal&Oil which will act as multiplier to the end lotus score.

4. Returning Home

After completing all Scenarios, you will unlock the ability to leave the world forever. All upgrades you bought here will be fully refunded. In fact you will gain a percentage interest on the total amount of Gold lotus you spent.

That way each journey through a Chaos world can not only gain Gold lotus via Scenario score but also multiply the lotus you invest into the upgrades.

5. Rest and Recover

After finishing a Chaos world, you will return to Homeworld in the same state you left it. With newly gained Lotus you will be able to unlock new permanent upgrades, build new stuff in Homeworld and perhaps attempt to reach for higher Tiers.

This is the gist of how Adventure mode is designed at the moment. The variation of it will be also determined by Difficulty Tiers and something i call World 'Flavor'. So there should be some extra dimension here that will make the experience different than the Campaign mode.

Map strategic resources

One frequent idea i keep hearing from players is to have strategic resources selectable by player instead of random roll. People are looking for other means to achieve perfect layout for their build. Something that would give them full control on placing resources and terraforming the land.

I agree with the reasoning and want such control system as well but I do also like the reroll mechanism of Campaign mode - I think it has some kind of magic of its own. And so because I want to have everything I decided to keep the existing system in Campaign mode while introducing a completely new system to the Adventure mode.

Static World Maps

As I explained above each chaos world will consist of a serie of miniscenarios - basically normal civilizaiton runs but with some unique objectives and rules. What is important is that all of them will be played on the same map repeatedly.

The world map for each world will be generated randomly once and cannot be rerolled. While the player stays in this world the Map will stay same even between ascensions.

In between scenarios, players will be able to 'upgrade' this map by adding strategic resources and changing biome (lowland/hills/water). That bit gives them full control but also will require some 'resources' to have a notable impact.

Player will be able to place Strategic Resources in any layout they want. The amount of changes will be limited by certain upgrades and will also cost Jade lotus - a new meta-game resource exclusive for Adventure mode. Note: Diamonds resource here is one of the new 'Flavor-specific' resources which boosts Gold lotus gain (similar to Oil in campaign mode).

Jade lotus

Jade lotus is a new type of Lotus which will replace Red lotus (red lotus will be exclusive to Campaign, while Jade lotus will be exclusive to Adventure).

There are pretty much three core ideas about it:

It can only be reliably 'farmed' in Homeworld (exact mechanism of this is to be designed).
It has a max limit cap. E.g. you can only have up to 10 in the beginning.
Most 'cool' power-ups in Chaos Worlds will cost a Jade lotus.

To give you an idea which 'cool powerups' I mean - consider the following usages of Jade lotuses:

Each Strategic Resource placed into map consumes 1 Jade Lotus.
Each map tile changed to different biome consumes 1 or more Jade Lotus.
Each Ascension upgrade purchased more than once also costs 1 Jade lotus each time.
Adding extra Perk Slots for your civ costs 1 or more Jade lotus.
Resetting your map to rearrange strategic resources costs Jade lotuses
Special random rewards generated in Ascension tree will cost Jade lotus to access.
New Meta power to fight Judgements for Jade lotus

Since you only have a limited supply once you leave your Homeworld, you will have to plan what to spend these for. Later on you will also have some limited means of generating Jade Lotus while outside your Homeworld. But overall - managing Jade lotus will be one of the central meta-mechanisms in Adventure mode.

That is all for today.

Have a nice day,

Ondrej

Original post

03 Mar 2026Developer post

Yin and Yang

Hello everyone, let's do our first 'proper' update in the post-1.0 world. In the last few days and weeks I have been struggling with various annoying illnesses (which is why this update also comes late) so sadly this was one of the weaker months so far. But nevertheless some prog

Hello everyone,

let's do our first 'proper' update in the post-1.0 world.

In the last few days and weeks I have been struggling with various annoying illnesses (which is why this update also comes late) so sadly this was one of the weaker months so far.

But nevertheless some progress was made - and like I promised I managed to put together enough to show something from the new game mode. So here we go.

More Patching of 1.0

Before I plunge into the details of the new Game mode (now officially renamed Adventure mode), let me do a brief situational report on 1.0.

Balancing

I have been monitoring the situation after the last balancing patch and while it still is not optimal, the ratio of players struggling with early game challenges seems to have dropped to a fraction. The major difference was in seen in Nemeses and hostile civilizations but also with various era bosses or new shielded enemies.

I do still have another patch planned to address war risk calculation and other things but due to limited time capacity I chose to prioritize Adventure mode (at least until the 'big ideas' are put to code)

Tutorials & User Experience

Meanwhile I am also working on a new update for 'early game User Experience' which will be partly based on the existing objective system. The old tutorial UI will receive an update, but I need also to experiment with this new guidance feature within the new Game Mode (where it will have slightly more demanding requirements).

I do not yet have a concrete plan for the upcoming patch but sometimes during next two weeks would be nice.

The Endless Adventure Mode

Let's take a little dive into the new game mode - note that this game mode will be available both as a new save as well as continuation of the game once you finish the old 'Campaign'.

In the Adventure mode you will be alternating between two world types: World of Order (single permanent world) and Worlds of Chaos (randomized with limited lifetime).

Each world consists of its Tile Map (i.e. the actual physical hex-grid world) and its ascension map (i.e. the upgrades tree).

Note: As you may have noticed before, I sometimes use ARPGs as a design inspiration and reference. So in RPG terminology The Order World represents the 'town' where you can chill, resupply and plan strategy, while Chaos worlds represent the 'dungeons' where you fight and gain new stuff.

Chaos Worlds

Chaos worlds are very similar to the current Campaign mode and will be the core gameplay in the Adventure mode. In a Chaos world, you run each civilization as usual - from its roots, through eras up to ascension to earn Lotus score. For earned lotus you can buy upgrades on its Ascension map.

After that you run another and another, until you unlock the entire Ascension tree of that World. So far this is business as usual.

Flavour

What is different is that each 'Chaos World' will have different Lotus Score objectives - sometimes you will be needed to destroy civilizations, sometimes to grow a 'tall empire' with tiny territory, sometimes to focus on specific economy, trade, building or wonder. You will no longer be rewarded Gold Lotus 'for everything' like in Campaign.

I internally call this world specialization a Flavour. The Flavour system should motivate players to use different strategies and explore the game features fully.

Work-in-progress Ascension Tree of an early Chaos world - this one is 'flavoured' with 'Expansionist'. So in here Gold lotus is gained for Tiles owned and civilizations defeated. There are mini scenarios with 'expansionist' challenges and in later Tiers there will be Flavoured White lotus challenges and Judgements. Note that in Adventure mode you can also buy economical upgrades multiple times.

Collapse

A key feature of Chaos Ascension Trees is that they collapse when completed - similar to what happens after Tier 2 in Campaign. Like in the Campaign your upgrade tree vanishes and all Lotuses invested in upgrades will be refunded back to you (this time with some interest rate) You will also usually leave with some extra 'meta-game' advantage or upgrade...

Order World

Every time you complete and collapse a chaos world you will return to your Homeworld.

Homeworld is a new concept - It is a parallel civilization which never ends or ascends. It will keep existing even while you visit a Chaos world waiting til you get back. In your homeworld you can experiment with whatever build you want with little consequences as there are no growing threats. It is your own little 'sandbox' world.

Homeworld will be a peaceful place. Besides using it for experimenting, you can also build some unique Wonders called Atlases here which will have special effect even while you're out in a Chaos World. A lot is still in design phase here though.

Main Ascension Tree

It is in the Homeworld where you will have access to a truly persistent Ascension upgrade tree. Because unlike Chaos World ascension upgrade tree:

Homeworld ascension tree is always the same and it never collapses.
Homeworld tree bonuses will apply also for ALL chaos worlds you visit.
You can increase/decrease the 'Tier' difficulty and level handicaps here (similar mechanism to Campaign Tiers but in smaller steps and up to a higher maximum for very-late-game)
Most fun stuff is available very soon and it is up to the player what they choose to unlock first (this mode recommends playing the Campaign first to learn the concepts)

Homeworld has a star-structure. So mechanisms like Magnitude are available much sooner in Adventure mode if the player chooses to obtain them, allowing an advanced meta-game strategizing sooner.

Chaos world spawning

While in Home world, you will periodically get opportunities to visit a new Chaos world. Whether you do or not will be entirely up to you. There will not be any penalty, however you wont progress in the game without eventually exploring them (in other words, you will not gain any Gold Lotus while sitting in your Home world)

Persistent Maps

Unlike campaign mode Adventure mode will have same persistent world map for each World. You will have a map for your Homeworld and a map generated per each Chaos world.

Instead of spamming re-roll to find optimal structure and strategic resources all maps will be generated with no strategic resources and become 'upgradable' by the player. Something like in-game map editor (though there will be a limit to how much you can change). This also includes terraforming hills and landfilling sea to a degree.

Rare-Unique hero merging

For late game here I intend to introduce a new significant recipe. One that will replace all Unique hero's non-unique traits with traits from a selected Rare hero.

I also intend to look into Rare hero customization recipes so that players have a more non-RNG-spam method of getting the combo they need.

When can I play this?!

At this point I have two plans in mind. It depends solely on how much time capacity I am granted (basically how many migraines I get and how many microbes our kid brings home from kindergarten). Optimistic plan is starting Adventure mode beta in April. If this turns unrealistic I'll probably target early June instead.

That's all for today.

Have a nice day,

Ondrej

Original post

03 Feb 2026Developer post

Patch 1.0.12

Hello, i've released a small patch. Main reason was the button hotkey regression fix caused by previous update. But I've added a bunch of other bugfixes next to that. 1.0.12 Hotkeys on units and workshops now working again Fixed a bug in controls menu which prevented saving of ch

01 Feb 2026Developer post

Demo is Out

Hello, I know its not Monday yet everywhere, but I wanted to give a little heads-up how things are going and what is planned next. Also I have just released the Demo version of the game, so might as well do it in one update - more on that below. Big Thanks to the Player Community

Hello,

I know its not Monday yet everywhere, but I wanted to give a little heads-up how things are going and what is planned next. Also I have just released the Demo version of the game, so might as well do it in one update - more on that below.

Big Thanks to the Player Community

First of all I want to send my Thanks to all of you for helping me make it to through to 1.0. That's all the Beta testers, community contributors, streamers and of course all the players who bought and played the game.

More than four years ago I decided to make a game as a hobby project next to work and family to prove myself it can be done. And thanks to all your support it turned out it can!

After 6,000 hours on the project we made it through seven major release beta tests, each with its specific quirks and problems. We twisted and turned mechanisms, we made stuff work for various play styles. We added tens of new features based on your feedback each update - extending this early access period to more than twice the expected length! So massive thanks to all of you.

And because my wife is also part of the player community I want to express special huge thanks to her for everything (especially for two wonderful kids she gave us during these four years). And actually you should all know ... the mammoths were her idea.

Upcoming updates & patches

As you may have noticed there are some usual bugfixes and balancing updates coming every couple of days now - I am estimating most of the problems will be stabilized within next two weeks via patches (guessing based on how previous updates went, though this one has undeniably higher influx of new players and thus more ideas for improvement).

Civilization recovery

One particularly hot area is that of rebuilding a fallen civilization. As you may of may not have figured out, collapsing (at least partially) is almost inevitable part of the game. My take here on the story of human civilization is that it is a story of rising, falling and about cultural persistence that beats individual nations falls, death, wars and famine. And so the Collapse has a big role in the game as well.

While a collapse may also be a source of major frustration when challenges are too frequent and too unfairly difficult, the core of the game is the ability to find strength to stand up again. This is an ambitious goal since it is a common practice if players can magically make all problems go away and reload the game after a mistake, or sell all progress for prestige points instantly an start anew. So deliberately taking away this option from players creates a more 'hardcore' feature than may appear on paper.

One of the old teaser screenshots of the game. Turned out we're not this hardcore after all (yet). Notice the old concept included a time-travel technology (with the flux-capacitor icon)

At this point the civilization recovery mechanism has been updated with the redesign of worker vacancy and small adjustments to the grace period advantages. But more updates in this area are in the making process. Specifically I am looking into a kind of a revenge system (I would like to take an inspiration from the Orc Vendetta system from the Mordor games and twist it to our little world of crises). But we'll see if the concept is feasible.

Nemeses are also long due for an update but more on this another time.

Demo is up

Based on feedback I decided to do a tiny change in plans and release the demo version of the game today. My original plan was to do it prior to the endless mode to have a fully stable version as a basis. So this will likely make things a little more complicated...

But I think it will be a big advantage for people to test the game before deciding if they want to buy it. The game blends several genres together so it is easy to mis-communicate the entire game experience through a few screenshots and videos. There are people expecting a cozy idle experience, some expect a traditional prestige system, some are looking for a city builder....etc. Which are all understandable expectations when the game is seen only from a single perspective. So a demo should hopefully help manage that better than my own words or store screenshots.

The demo currently contains main game content up to Classical era (including all its ascensions) and allows seamless transition to main game with the existing save. It doesnt have any limitations on drops or any other in-game features, so players can farm as much as they want and bring it to the main game.

Achievements are disabled for demo, but some of them will be automatically unlocked in Main game later.

Endless

Not much has been said about endless mode yet. So let's fix that today. Honestly there is near nothing 'put to code' and very little 'on paper' but some concepts are already clear.

Endless mode or Adventure mode?

The endless mode is an alternate mode of the game that will exist next to the current 'campaign' let's say. The name 'Endless' is a placeholder now because in my mind this is mostly something like Adventure mode. But we're not an Action RPG (or are we?) so the name doesn't fit. I'll have to come with some new name that buzzes with both vagueness and coolness.

Endless/Adventure mode will be a more intensified version of the campaign experience (and obviously with no fixed ending). While campaign is played on technically two big Ascension trees (if you consider the fall from Tier 2 to be end of first tree) Endless mode will be be played on semi-randomly generated small Ascension trees.

Size of Tier 4 tree is in my mind roughly 3-times bigger than the intended 'Endless-Adventure mode' Trees. They should fit a single screen.

How does endless differ from the campaign?

The main difference is that endless mode will not offer one set of rules but each Ascension tree will have different score for Lotus gain, different scenarios, limitations on play-style and focus on particular feature subset of the game.

My vision is to encourage players to try Heroes and Wonder combinations they did not have a reason to try in 'campaign' and create more 'simple life' by not having to 'farm everything at all times'. In other words, each ascension tree should motivate players to change and develop a new hero/wonder/perk/map-layout build.

That said I would like to also continue level progression of things to higher numbers as far as the math persists and my excel files do not explode.

Can you continue the main game after Final Confrontation?

Probably the most frequent question is - is the Final Confrontation the end? No - one of the reason endless mode will be created is so you can continue the game afterwards.

If you choose so, your game will be converted to endless mode and you will carry your meta-progress stuff over there. This means your culture, heroes and all Lotus so far earned.

I have not yet made decision if this meta progress would be somehow modified, capped or converted to another type of resource or fully migrated with no change. It depends highly on how progress will be handled in the new mode.

Can we start endless mode instead of main game

Yes. The endless mode will be possible to start separately even if you havent finished the campaign fully and players will start from complete scratch similar to how they started in campaign.

That's all for this update. Next time I hope I'll have some pictures of the new mode as promised.

Have a nice day,

Ondrej

Original post

01 Feb 2026Developer post

Patch 1.0.11

Hello, it's time for another patch. This time I made a few invasive changes mostly for balancing purposes (and usual bug fixing). There are a few tiny changes in information flow / tutorials as well but those are only some quick patch changes. A bigger update of tutorial and info

Hello,

it's time for another patch. This time I made a few invasive changes mostly for balancing purposes (and usual bug fixing). There are a few tiny changes in information flow / tutorials as well but those are only some quick patch changes. A bigger update of tutorial and information system is planned for a future (probably major) update.

1.0.11

Civilization Recovery update

After some discussion on the forum, discord and individual email exchanges (and save analyses) I revisited the recovery flow of decimated civilization and decided to do some changes in fundamental mechanics to remove some unnecessary micromanagement.

The idea was to not add economical advantages to normal gameplay or make actual combat less difficult (lot of nerfing has already happened so let's let that settle for a bit). The following changes aim to simplify some complexity and increase the speed/safety of recovery when a complete or partial collapse of civilization happens.

Note: This but first slightly more invasive step. Another step in the future will be an incentive system for the actual recovery process. I have tried a very simplistic solution for this locally but testing has proven it will need proper user interface integration on several places and reasonable scaling and variation. So I decided to descope it from this patch and build it properly for another targeted update. I'm already playing too much of a cowboy with the changes below.

So here's what changes now:

Losing workers no longer abandons tiles completely. Tiles with insufficient workers will be still yours but shown as inactive (no traits from these) and will automatically reactivate when workers are regained. This eliminates the need for reclaiming territory on each fall or worker drop.
Tile attack from certain crises will now only destroy improvement on that tile and will not unclaim (I will reintroduce actual territory loss as a separate ultimate attack for some boss crises at some later time but will need to make it more interesting).
Auto-explore ability's improve option will now automatically re-improve any owned tile which no longer has improvement created by the player (e.g. destroyed by crisis). The preview button will show the intention on each tile - bear in mind please that existing saves will not automatically pick this information up. You either re-improve the tiles or test it in new ascension.
Nemesis locks are now generated after the milestone lock on each rare technology. These milestone locks are now all population based for a more reasonable population level to withstand the nemesis.
Nemesis lock now includes crisis difficulty estimate for its initial level.
Nemesis warning dialog now appears every time a player attempts to unleash it.
Standard four Rare-tech Nemeses attack sets has been slightly nerfed, plus they no longer deal Disaster attacks.
Unique crises now have a smaller rate of Ultra-attacks
Reduced stone cottage cost and increased its housing capacity
Fall Grace period increased to 7 minutes on normal difficulty and 3 on hard difficulty from original 5 and 2.
Falling now also creates a short 3m boost for double housing construction efficiency and growth rate.

Bugfixes & Changes

IMPORTANT CHANGE: Unit button right-click now selects it for construction instead of a left-click. This now therefore works even during crisis when a Unit would otherwise be used or when it is ready to be used outside crisis.
Unit usage allowed by Rare technologies is now only possible 7 seconds after crisis instead of original 3 seconds (this is to minimize accidental usages). This is a temporary mitigation of the issue. This feature is due for an upgrade eventually in a later update so the User experience will be changed as well.
Unique heroes should now drop more from under-levelled crises. In other words, anti-trash mechanism which automatically replaces low-level heroes to culture drop will not apply if the rolled hero would be unique. This should not only make unique farming easier in late game but also give a more steady income of unique in the normal playthrough.
Hero rewards containing Unique heroes will now display confirmation dialog if Right-clicked to salvage them to prevent accidental dismantle.
Destroying civilization via Siege invalidates all existing dilemmas for that civilization preventing various problems and crashes.
Fixed a bug in unit discharge causing the first discharged unit to be removed immediatelly. This was also leading to units instantly removed after finishing a quest.
Fixed a bug causing a crash when trying to spawn more than 8 civilizations via flag locks.
Unit discharge is now proportional to their number correctly, so it is faster the more units you have above the limit
Tier 2 white lotus pledge Valor now using the same Tech as a limit as in Tie4 - Nanotechnology (instead of Genetic engineering)
Fixed a bug allowing Space elevator to be destroyed by some Crisis attacks.
Autoexpansion service will no longer attack unique critters on map
Increased Tutorial Messages contrast and fixed z levelling on Research screen to prevent unreadable text. Highlighted tutorial messages to be more visible in Message log.
Added hint how to extract idol from an infused hero in the hover detailed text.
Black lotus penalty references now indicate it is an actual penalty, not a benefit.
Reduced Tier 3 enemy civilization initial and max size slightly.
Reduced Tier 3 enemy civilization initial level from 15/25 (normal/hard) to 6/9. This was causing weird situation with Raids slowly decreasing in levels as the tiles downgraded to match your low tech level.
Added Level number to quest buttons with Crisis
Increased Spirit points from salvaging Idols to match Hero yield.
Hard Difficulty now yields double Culture from all sources (except from certain fixed rewards like Ascension locks). Note that this is applied to base reward vale so it doesnt show those extra green 'Bonuse culture' notifications like other culture bonuses do.
Devoted grounds pledge wording changed a bit to indicate Devoted grounds are done on map.
Click heat indicator is now visible when 'Showing details' is on (left Alt) even if below 300 heat.
Correct popup should appear at the end of Final Scenario (seriously how more stupid bug can you make in a 1.0 release?)
Napoleon should correctly boost metal instead of wood.
Cleopatra no longer affects damage perseverance reward trait
Siege quest is now slightly faster
Unique Critters can no longer spawn on Devoted Grounds (and thus should no longer ruin your day)
Autoexplore preview no longer shows preview when the button is invisible (due to autoexplore not being unlocked)

Original post

28 Jan 2026Developer post

Patch 1.0.10

Hello, another small patch is here. More balancing issues including some of those chunky bits that required more testing... Hopefully this removes all known annoying obstructions to progressing. Thanks to everyone sharing their saves in relation to shields struggle. As I mentione

Hello,

another small patch is here. More balancing issues including some of those chunky bits that required more testing... Hopefully this removes all known annoying obstructions to progressing.

Thanks to everyone sharing their saves in relation to shields struggle. As I mentioned in discussions the problems are quite fragmented. While the common issue is that players are hitting unexpected resistance from shields the root-causes vary. Based on the cases I have seen I decided to separate the general experience with shields between Hard an non-hard difficulties - with normal/easy being more tolerant to unit usage diversity (see details below)

As for so called Crises Death Spirals I believe a Horn of Resolve change (mentioned below) will provide a sufficient mechanism to recover from any mistakes player makes in regards to warfare or other risky business. Together with last patch grace card we should have a decent safety net for normal difficulty gameplay.

Still I will be keeping an eye on these in case there are any more corner cases ending in hard to recover state. An adviser system is something I have in mind to assist with situational tips ingame - to complement tutorials in the future...

This patch is relatively invasive (in terms of code changes) so please do not hesitate to report any new defects or weird behaviour.

1.0.10

Bug fixes

Hot-Fixed Tech tree structure and resulting tech cost calculation in Tier 4 Classical era (it was using an obsolete cost model and was badly connected to the correct model resulting in a mish-mash of both). Besides throwing away the old model I've also reduced Tier 4 research costs overall after Classical to soften the current pace and added a Population lock to help steer the player towards minimum expected population count.
Note: The resulting state is not perfect and would deserve a full balancing retest, but because the old values were ridiculously wrong I decided to do a quick-fix for this first and fine tune this later. The Full balancing tests of the correct model are by this time invalidated by population/autonomy-affecting changes in prior patches - so the test has to be redone. I now ran two smaller tests through the Classical using very naive build and the timing seems playable (with 'absolutely naive' build they need to fit under 10 mintues per tech). Obviously using midgame features (magnitude, unique heroes, wonders or Idols) and doing a synergic map layout with strategic resources can turn this into under-a-minute matter easily.
Fixed an issue with older save containing a shield boost crashing the game.
Fixed an issue causing rare crashes when selecting construction projects
Fixed Perk and Hero randomness on Civilizations spawned by Flag locks

Balancing adjustments

On Normal/easy difficulty, Ottomans, Redcoats and Prussians crises will not spawn with cross-resisting Massive/Furious perk. They will always have the perk more advantageous for the player. Other war crises still spawn with random perk. This is done mostly to prevent first encounters with blue and black shield to carry this extra resistance (it can be effectively a 3x-4x powerup for the crisis depending on level). Hard difficulty is unchanged
On Normal/easy difficulty Black shield absorption maximum is lowered by about 1/3. This enables buffed light units to potentially destroy the shields under normal circumstances up to later stages of the game. Hard difficulty is unchanged
On Normal/easy difficulty Blue shield absorption is 90% instead of 95%. As above this allows players to use traditional builds (like light unit spam) early on to somehow beat through the initial bosses. Hard difficulty is unchanged
Unit and ability preferences are now highlighted with additional green/red chevron icons when the relevant crisis perk or shield is on. This should give a quicker indication which unit to use. This also shows up on Damage Hero abilities when Blue shield is on.
Four basic Nemeses (smallpox, inquisition, huns and locusts) levels are now capped to your tech level +10. Other nemeses will still grow beyond without limit. This will kick in retrospectivelly on the next time you face the nemesis but you need to force it to level up at least once (by surviving it). It will cap on the max level.
Horn of resolve will now make peace with red hostile civilizations (besides it existing grace period effect).
Crises now have a chance to drop Horn of Resolve on normal and easy difficulty if you have none.
Added a tutorial for Horn of Resolve in case you are overwhelmed with crises.
Added a visual indicator on the Horn of Resolve button during crisis (to not forget you have it when in trouble)

Other changes

Added a Show details toggle button on main screen (below Use 10/100) which toggles additional UI details which could otherwise cause a screen clutter. Currently it only displays Unit caps and makes all popups appear instantly without delay. Can be hot-keyed with left Alt key. I plan to add more effects to this button eventually and also distribute it to other screens as needed.
Units over capacity now discharge slowly. They also eat less food. Note: There is a plan to actually make over-cap units play a bigger role in a future update - so this is just a 'temporary solution'.
Nemesis locks on tech tree now display correct initial nemesis level, mortal condition and cooldown length. This takes effect after new run since the tech tree needs to fully respawn.
Rare technology ascension was pushed later after Industrial era which should make players more prepared for first encounter with a Nemesis. It was swapped with one of the worker ascensions.
Flipped Rare technology and Strategic resources in Tier 4 tech tree so that Strategic Resorouces are available right after emerging from T3 (i.e. without beating first artist lock). This also helps with research cost problem above (more than it would seem)
Strategic resources II in Tier1 was pushed to right after Medieval era and made cheaper. This should make an important upgrade such as this less likely to miss and be available sooner.
War locks should no longer be opened by Auto research unless the 'Nemeses option' is turned on
Game speed changes now done by 100%s and the indicator is visible while game is paused so that game speed can be easier to change while paused

Cheers,

Ondrej

Original post

25 Jan 2026Developer post

Patch 1.0.9

Hello, releasing a small patch including small changes to war balancing mainly to reduce the initial spike in difficulty. 1.0.9 Indigo tutorial message no longer pops up infinitely on tier 3 Re-emerging from tier 3 now makes all ascension locks visible correctly. Party Hard, Part

22 Jan 2026Developer post

Version 1.0 is out!

Hello, today I am releasing the game from Early Access and officially marking it a version 1.0. Many thanks to all you all who were brave enough to try the early access in its unstable days, who helped testing the game a gave me new ideas and inspiration over the past two years.

Updates & announcements

Localizations

Which Languages will be supported?

Version 1.2 when?

What happens after that?

What comes next

Smaller Irregular updates

A little holiday

Updates in 4-8 weeks

Localization

1) Externalization of texts

2) Layout

3) Fonts

4) Actual translations

1.1.10

Patch 1.1.9

1.1.8.

What is included in this Update

Patch v1.1.7

Bugfixes

Patch v1.1.6

Bugfixes

Campaign Balancing/Changes

Patch v1.1.5

New features/changes

Bug fixes

1.1.4

WelshCorgiPembroke

What is in this Beta?

Campaign-Adventure Conversion

Version 1.1 BETA begins May 25th, going live after two weeks on June 8th

The Adventure mode

Core game changes

How long will the adventure mode be?

Regional Pricing Updated

Adventure mode flow

1. Chaos World Spawn

2. Entering Chaos World

3. Scenarios

4. Returning Home

5. Rest and Recover

Map strategic resources

Static World Maps

Jade lotus

More Patching of 1.0

Balancing

Tutorials & User Experience

The Endless Adventure Mode

Chaos Worlds

Flavour

Collapse

Order World

Main Ascension Tree

Chaos world spawning

Persistent Maps

Rare-Unique hero merging

When can I play this?!

1.0.12

Big Thanks to the Player Community

Upcoming updates & patches

Civilization recovery

Demo is up

Endless

Endless mode or Adventure mode?

How does endless differ from the campaign?

Can you continue the main game after Final Confrontation?

Can we start endless mode instead of main game

1.0.11

Civilization Recovery update

Bugfixes & Changes

1.0.10

Bug fixes

Balancing adjustments

Other changes

1.0.9

Reducing early Hostile crisis difficulty