Silesian Wars is Live!
Greetings, my friends!
Finally, the game was approved - and it is available to download and play.
While I was waiting for approval, I made plenty of changes. The one I consider most important is music. There were many other features too, but why is music the most important, you ask? In my opinion, it makes the whole experience much better. Brilliant tracks from three great studios: Phat Phrog Studios, Dark Fantasy Studio, and Joel Steudler.
The game might feel complicated to many of you — especially when a very short turn timer is set. I know this, and I will try to address it with a good interactive tutorial just after my vacation, targeting early August for that release.
For now, when you set up a new game, you can change the Turn Timer to be longer or disabled. When disabled, the game simply waits for all players to press Ready (either the small button or Enter).
There will be plenty of changes to the UI — and hopefully, based on your feedback, we will make this much more readable and let you focus on the mechanics of the game.
How the Game Works
The game is turn-based and split into 4 phases:
Phase 1 — AI Orders: All AI characters commit orders for their factions.
Phase 2 — Player Orders: All players have limited time to commit orders for their factions.
Phase 3 — Execution: All orders from Phases 1 and 2 are executed at the same time.
Phase 4 — Combat: All orders that resulted in combat are fought out.
Then the turn advances to N+1, and the phases begin again from the start.
Where to Start
For now, I suggest you play Age of Tribes as the scenario where you can learn the game. There are not many factions, which should be easier to manage. The special mechanic of this era is colonization — empty provinces can be colonized by settlers from adjacent factions.
Another interesting scenario is Era 1, with its mechanic of the Mongol invasion. Here you will be playing as one of the many allied factions trying to repel a huge enemy — one goal for all of you.
Age of Duchies is a cool era if you are into difficult scenarios where you need to be feeding on bigger and bigger enemies to achieve your goal — especially hard for small nations in the middle of the map.
Eras 5 and 6 are the least interesting for now, as I have not added anything special there yet — but Era 7 has a first iteration of the plebiscite that happened in Silesia just after the First World War.
What Is Already in the Game
Since the first playable builds, a lot has been added beyond the core turn system:
A full Silesia map — 504 provinces on a hand-built master map, with era-specific layers and historical scenarios from the Age of Tribes through the post-WWI plebiscite (Eras 0a–7).
Online multiplayer — host or join over the internet or LAN, with lobby setup, faction assignment, player personas, in-match chat, and host-authoritative pause.
Play vs AI — solo games against AI-controlled factions, with calibrated difficulty levels and unique AI characters (traits, archetypes, and historical leaders).
Diplomacy — declare war, negotiate alliances, manage a proposal inbox, pay tribute, and deal with war-declaration alerts.
Economy & development — gold and manpower, province development, buildings (Fort, Market, Barracks, and more), landmarks with strategic value, and building slots scaled to province size.
Colonization — settle empty wilderness provinces from adjacent territory (core mechanic in Age of Tribes, available across eras).
Religion — per-era faith systems, conversion actions, faith-based income modifiers, zealot uprisings, and a religion map view.
Era-specific mechanics — Mongol invasion & razed provinces (Era 1), Christianisation (Era 0b), Hussite Wars & heresy spread (Era 3), and the Silesian Plebiscite with campaigning, voting, and faction actions (Era 7).
Combat & battles — simultaneous order execution, battle reports with event paintings, auto quick-battles for overwhelming advantage, retreat/flee mechanics, and a live battle minimap on the wait panel.
Music & audio — a full in-game jukebox with peace/war track switching, ambient audio cues, and sound effects for development, reinforcement, and war declarations.
UI & quality of life — era-adaptive theming, multiple map views (political, religion, unrest, diplomacy, powiat, stabilization, plebiscite lean), Find Province search, drag-to-move armies, save & continue with autosave, configurable turn timer, ultrawide resolution support, and scenario intro paintings.
What Is Still Missing
Another pass on the user interfaces
Improvements to the overall user experience — shortcuts, quality-of-life, and readability
Adding more advanced mechanics for each era
Another pass on building balance and adding special era and faction buildings
Technology
Some sort of fame / prestige / infamy mechanics to represent long-term karma-like characteristics
Reworking battles (e.g. castles should make it much harder for attackers)
An interactive tutorial (targeting early August)
And many more
Closing Words
I hope you will have the opportunity to play this with your friends and come back with feedback or interesting stories.
Hope to see you all after vacation.
Major Features Added
A chronological overview of the biggest additions since development began:
Core & Map
Master Silesia map — 504 provinces, 10 000×8 000 canvas, era layers for Eras 0a–7
Historical scenarios with era-appropriate factions, starting ownership, and victory conditions
Landmarks, geography data, province crests, and powiat (county) grouping
Colonization of empty wilderness provinces
Gameplay Systems
4-phase turn structure (AI Calculate → Player Orders → Execute → Combat)
Buildings: Fort, Market, Barracks — with era-specific art and province-size building slots
Province development, gold/manpower economy, and order fees
Army movement, reinforcement, transit, and mass-move drag modes
Diplomacy: wars, alliances, proposals inbox, tribute, infamy
Religion system across eras: faith data, conversion, zealot bands, faith-based income
Champions & Silesian legends (Karkonosz, Włast, and others)
Event system with scenario popups and historical paintings
Era Mechanics
Era 0a (Age of Tribes): Tribal confederacies, colonization, sacred sites
Era 0b (Bohemian Dawn): Christianisation conversion mechanic
Era 1 (Piast / Mongol): Mongol invasion event, allied factions vs the Horde, razed provinces, Mongol economy & auto-routing
Era 2 (Age of Duchies): Fragmented Piast duchies
Era 3 (Hussite Wars): Heresy spread, Hussite League faction, counter-Reformation, Taborite radicals, unrest map view, Hussite win conditions
Era 7 (Plebiscite): Per-province loyalty lean, campaigning, voting, arbitration, uprising, emigrant influx, and full faction-action table with AI behavior
AI
Unique AI characters with traits, archetypes, and historical portraits
AI Calculate phase — factions plan orders before the player turn
Parallel AI computation across CPU cores
Difficulty calibration pipeline with shipped difficulty database
AI Arena: room layouts, benchmark campaigns, King of the Hill, Tabula training, and performance tracking
Combat memory, role-aware army positioning, desperation moves for losing factions
Multiplayer
Host/join over internet (UDP) and LAN discovery
Lobby with scenario, timer, and faction picker
Player personas with portrait and color selection
Host-authoritative pause, network status panel, match chat
Autosave at turn start; host-controlled save/load in-match
Audio & Visuals
Full music soundtrack — Phat Phrog Studios, Dark Fantasy Studio, Joel Steudler
In-game jukebox with peace/war transitions and song-gap countdown
Era-adaptive UI theming with per-era palettes, typography, and border ornaments
Battle wait panel with faction crests, battle minimap, retreat arrows, and phase tracking
War-declaration horn & popup, development sounds, pause/unpause cue
Ultrawide resolution support (3440×1440, 5120×1440)
UI & UX
Multiple map views: political, religion, unrest, diplomacy, powiat, stabilization, plebiscite lean, colonization
Find Province search panel
Configurable turn timer (including disabled / ready-based)
Save & Exit, Continue (resumes newest ongoing game), per-era save filter
Skip battle reports, ultra-fast battles, auto quick-battles
Drag-to-move armies, Ctrl+LMB cancel orders, RMB pan
Scenario intro popups, province detail panels, treasury display, match log