This game contains flashing effects, animated patterns, and rapid visual changes that may trigger seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy, including people with no previous history of seizures. If you have a history of seizures or photosensitivity, consult a medical professional before playing. Stop playing immediately if you feel unwell or experience unusual symptoms.
Reduced-motion settings limit some animations, but do not remove all potential triggers.
Challenges
Recent replays
Your 20 latest finished games, even ones you cleared. Share a link anyone can watch, save a replay to keep it, or open a saved one.
How coins, prices and auctions work
Win ranked games to earn : from Season 2, 10 in a season's first week, 20 in the second and 30 in the third, then a half, a fifth and a tenth of that, then 0, against the same opponent lineup in that format each UTC day. Claimed badge tiers pay coins too.
Coins last one season. When the next season opens, a slice of every wallet goes into its lottery jackpot, a bigger slice for a bigger wallet, and the rest retires. Cosmetics, badges, perks and Atlas countries stay.
Your stock price for a cosmetic triples after each of your own stock purchases of it. Resales and free grants do not raise it.
The first bid starts a 48-hour auction. Each new bid resets the countdown to half the previous duration (minimum 1 minute). Sellers may accept the highest bid at any time.
The highest bid reserves its ; outbid offers are refunded. Listings with bids cannot be canceled.
Roll styles
In stock
Auctions
Your tradable copies
Recent activity
Displayed at your HQ
Collection
Cosmetic studio
Build a draft, inspect it live, then publish when ready. Bundled styles retain their SVG artwork; custom uploads are PNG only, up to 2048 × 2048 per image. Publishing is permanent.
Grant published cosmeticsSaved drafts
Create lobby
Higher-rated players stake more. Losses settle on elimination. Skew 2 holds the first two buy-ins and shares all three at the third elimination. At least skew + 2 players must join.
Example Elo results
Map and start size, spawns, landmasses, start time
Nothing is running right now
Official events are tournaments with a rated buy-in; gameplay events run a few days with a twist on the rules and pay coins to whoever wins most.
The next one shows up here. Until then, a ranked duel is the quickest game going.
Your standing
Find a match
Season 1 ranked cosmetic
Dinosaur
Unlock with a rated win from Season 1. Each rated win increases its chance to roam your map.
Ranked perks
Small edges for coins. Each one gets far more expensive every time you buy it this season, and prices reset when a new season starts.
Bounties
Put coins on a player's head, for one of three things. Beat them once: whoever beats them in a ranked duel collects it, except the Emperor: beating them only pays 5% per win in your streak unless the loss takes their crown. Every hour it goes unclaimed, 1% disappears, and a target who wins a duel takes a cut of it. Knock them down to a rank or take Elo off them: every duel win over them counts the Elo it took; the win that gets there takes half, and the rest is shared by Elo taken. These do not shrink; you choose how long they run, and every step closer stretches that (halfway there adds half again). Not reached in time, they come back to you. Anyone can pay a bounty off their own head: its coins go to whoever placed it.
Plays of the season
Every other game in play
On your head
Placed by you
Public chat for every player. Shift+Enter starts a new line.
Choose a conversation
Profile
What other players see on your profile.
Map color
How your countries show on the map. Buttons and highlights follow it too.
Account
Emails
Used to sign in to your account and reset your password. Never shown to other players.
Signed-in devices
Sign out everywhere except this browser, for example after using a shared computer.
Sign out
End the session in this browser.
Appearance
Compact sidebar
Show navigation as icons only. Hover an icon for its name.
Reduce motion
Calmer screens: no entrances, sweeps or pulses, and the casino and replay skip their animations. On by itself when the device asks for reduced motion. Saved in this browser.
Sound effects
Quiet clicks and chimes across the site, and the casino's reels, gems and pegs. Also on the speaker in the sidebar. Saved in this browser.
Holiday decorations
Seasonal touches such as Halloween's skeleton names, pumpkin ranks and cobwebs. Saved in this browser; changing it reloads the page.
Graphics
Saved in this browser. Lower detail renders faster on slower computers.
Game map detail
The map you play on.
Replay detail
Turn replays and reviews.
Preview detail
Your games cards, skin thumbnails, the waiting-room map and marketplace previews.
Performance
Saved in this browser.
High-rank animations
Breathing glows, the Ruby heartbeat, Opal color play and the Emperor's turning border on every rank card, turned up on the card under the pointer. Turn off if the site feels slow on this device.
Notifications
Browser notifications
In game
Chat with opponents
Show a Messages button in games to talk privately with the other players. Moderators can review direct messages.
Sent challenges last
Show the duel challenges you sent at the end of Your games, after the games waiting for your orders.
Admin
Share privately: anyone with this link can reset the password. A new link replaces it.
Waiting for approval
Find an account
Unclaimed accounts
Revoked accounts with game history. Claiming one creates a password reset link.
Review queue
Accounts flagged automatically. Shared IPs are common at schools and homes: a flag is a reason to look, not proof.
Announcements
Tip: admins can also post from the Admins chat room with /announce [12h] text.
Roll style prices
Coins each roll style costs in the Marketplace. Only the true admin can change them.
Splash text
The lines under the EMPIRES wordmark. Everyone sees them cycle every few seconds, in order. With none left, it shows “Turn-based strategy”.
Site activity
Dice luck vs win rate
Duels with a winner: does luck in each kind of roll decide who wins?
Monuments games
How finished Monuments games end, and which Monument plans win. Every rate shows its count: small samples mean little.
Nominated plays
Approved
Front page game
The finished game the front page plays as visitors scroll, with every player named only by color. Unpinned, the server picks the most brilliant game of the last week each time it starts.
Schedule a gameplay event
A time-limited queue with its own rules. Players queue from its card on the Events tab and are matched into unrated games; the most wins takes the top prize.
Scheduled and recent events
Bots
Bots are ordinary-looking accounts that play ranked duels badly, so new players always have an opponent. One queue bot always waits in the duel queue; bots accept challenges from players within their Elo range, answer turns after a random delay around their average, never raise wagers, and always show as Wood. Only you can see which accounts are bots.
Audit log
Rank lottery
How the lottery pays
Five or more of a rank joined side by side or above and below (not diagonally) pay out, clear, and new symbols fall in. Gems (Quartz, Emerald, Topaz, Diamond, Ruby, Opal and Black opal) are rarer but pay with just three alike, and five or more joined gems of any mix pay half of each gem’s prize. Each cluster in a spin pays more than the last (×2, ×3, ...). Now and then a spin comes up lucky and the high ranks fall more often; the crowns fall as they will, every spin. Five joined Emperor crowns win the whole pool; two to four crowns touching set off a crown blast: everything on the board except the gems is blasted away and new tiles fall in around them. Bombs go off when anything clears next to them, but never touch crowns. Once the board settles: a huge wood cluster sets a forest fire that burns every wood tile, seven or more granite start a rockslide (three columns slide down one place, then two more, then one, with the board settling between), and nine or more gold start a gold rush that turns every wood and granite tile to gold. Clear a whole column and your next spin gets an extra column; clear a whole row for an extra row. Every Plinko and lottery stake goes into the pool, and every prize comes out of it.
♛
Jackpot pool
0coins
Five joined Emperor crowns win it all. Every Plinko and lottery stake goes in, and every prize comes out.
Plinko
Drop a coin and see where it lands. Every coin a drop loses goes into the lottery pool.
The world map is being charted
A world of countries you can buy with coins and keep from season to season. It opens soon.
Draft
Only admins see a draft. Generating again replaces the layout and clears every name, buff and price. Publishing fixes the layout for good; names, buffs and prices stay editable.
Style regions
Inventory
Map color
Saved immediately. Your color and skin apply to existing games on their next refresh, without waiting for a turn.
Skins
Mix skin parts
Combine land, details, cities, borders and flags from skins you own. Equipping a full skin resets every part; a partial skin changes only its own parts.
Map items
Paid copies add their per-country chances, capped at 100%. Season items appear more often with each rated win.
Victory animations
Equip one to play it, with your name in your color, on the game-over screen of everyone in a game you win.
Grant special cosmetics
Map view
Opponent colors
Player profile
Choose your map color
Choose one of 30 curated presets. A coordinated accent is derived for your map; other players may choose the same preset.
Modifier roll
Help
New to EMPIRES? The tutorial walks you through a short practice game against a practice rival, on the real map. It never affects your rating, coins or games.
Ask your friends to show you the ropes, or spectate a game to see how turns play out. In the lobby, open Live and choose Watch on a ranked duel or any other game being played. Use turn reviews to see what each order did.
Your turn
Everyone plans secretly. Tap or click countries on the map to build an order, then choose Add order in Orders. When all your orders are added, choose Lock in. Turns resolve when everyone locks in or the timer runs out. You can pass without giving orders.
On mobile, use the bottom tabs to open Orders or inspect your Empire and a selected Country. Tap Map or the active tab to close the panel. Drag to pan; pinch or use + / − to zoom. On desktop, scroll to zoom.
Actions you can take
Choose HQ
At the start of a new game, select one of your existing cities and confirm it as HQ. An HQ gives growth and defensive bonuses. Protect it: losing your last HQ hands your remaining land to its capturer.
Move
Select a route through your own bordering countries. Units from the earlier countries move to the last one. Use the unit sliders to leave people at home.
Attack / claim
Start on your land and finish on a bordering enemy or neutral country. You can combine units along a friendly route. Neutral land has no defenders; enemy battles use chance, not a guaranteed win. Army sizes are squared, so a bigger army wins much more reliably: 15 against 5 wins 90% of the time. Check the odds in Orders.
Defend / predict
Click the enemy country you expect an attack from, then your own country it would hit. If the attack comes in that way, your effective defenders count double and you get a further 10% chance to hold. That country cannot also send units or develop.
Develop
Select your country, then a valid empty spot inside it for a new city. Existing cities gain 1 capacity and a new city starts at capacity 1 if there is room. Your people are busy and cannot defend that turn, though an HQ's garrison still does. The usual development limit per country is the number of players; modifiers can change it.
Each country can take one action per turn; receiving a friendly move does not use its action. Population is also your army. Cities grow population after orders resolve, up to capacity; HQs add growth and free defenders.
Tap a country in an existing order to select it. Use the × beside an order to remove it, or Clear to discard only the current draft. Added orders are not submitted until you lock in, and locking in takes a finished draft with it. Use Unlock to edit before resolution if you need to change them.
Monuments games
Lobbies marked Monuments play on a small map: 11 countries for two players, 15 for three, with 2 starting countries each. They end at a 10-day time limit if nobody has won.
Build a Monument
Develop a country you captured (not one you started with, and not one with an HQ): select it, then click a spot for the new city, and a wheel opens there (again each time you click a spot). Choose Monument instead of City, then War, Oracle or Fertility on the second wheel. Monuments stand on the map as obelisks with their symbol above, which grows when you point at the country. You may own one of each type. It is built instead of a city, where you clicked, and does not count toward the development limit; the country's people are busy that turn, as with any development. Everyone can see it.
War
Units sent from its country count 1.5× in win chances. Casualties are unchanged.
Oracle
An attack on its country that you correctly predict is always repelled, even with nobody home.
Fertility
+1 growth in its country and in each of your countries next to it.
Raise a Wonder
Develop one of your Monuments again to raise it into a Wonder. A Wonder has no bonus of its own, and while it stands every other Monument, yours included, is switched off and none can be raised. Hold the Wonder, with at least one unit in it, at the end of the next 2 turns to win.
Captures
A captured Monument or Wonder becomes a level 1 Monument of the same type for its captor, or is destroyed if they already have one of that type. When a Wonder falls, every Monument switches back on.
Two Wonders
If two Wonders are raised on the same turn, neither counts until one of them is captured. At the time limit, a lone standing Wonder wins; otherwise most countries does.
Keyboard shortcuts
These are optional on desktop. On phones, use the matching buttons. No keyboard is needed.
Enter
Add the current draft order.
Shift + Enter
Lock in added orders, with the same checks and confirmations as the button.
Backspace
Undo the draft's last step.
Escape
Clear the draft and deselect an order; keep added orders.
0–9
While drafting an attack, set every sender to 0–90% of its population, rounded down. Use sliders for other amounts.
Order shortcuts are inactive while typing in form fields or viewing a dialog or turn review.
Turn reviews
← / →
Previous / next review step.
Space
Play or pause.
Escape
Close the review.
Lobby pages
Outside a game, one key opens each page in the sidebar; hover a page there to see its key.
Y
Your games
E / Shift + E
Events / Empires
G
Custom games
C / Shift + C
Chat / Casino
R
Ranked
L / Shift + L
Leaderboard / Live
B / Shift + B
My bounties / Badges
P
Players
A
Atlas
M
Marketplace
I
Inventory
S
Settings
What’s new
Welcome to EMPIRES
EMPIRES is a turn-based strategy game about growing an empire on a shared map.
Every player plans their turn in secret. When everyone has locked in, or the turn timer runs out, all orders resolve at once and you watch a replay of what happened.
Last player standing wins.
The map
The map is split into countries. Yours wear your colors; gray ones are neutral and free to claim.
Each country's population is also its army. Cities grow population every turn, up to their capacity. Your HQ adds growth and free defenders, so keep it safe.
Countries connect over land borders and over dotted sea lanes. Drag to pan; scroll, pinch or use + / − to zoom.
Giving orders
Click one of your countries, then the country you want to act on. Each country takes one action per turn:
Move
Through your own countries to send units somewhere else.
Attack
Into a neighbor. Neutral land is free; enemy battles are a dice roll, with the odds shown in Orders.
Defend
Predict which enemy country an attack will come from. Guess right and your defenders count double, plus 10% more chance to hold.
Develop
Click your country, then an empty spot in it, to build or grow a city.
Locking in
Choose Add order for each order, then Lock in when you're done. You can unlock and edit until the turn resolves.
Handy keys on desktop:
Enter
Add the current order
Shift + Enter
Lock in
Backspace
Undo the last step
Esc
Clear the draft
Tab
Jump to your next game
Finding your way
Ranked
Quick 1v1 duels and three-player Trios that change your Elo.
Events & custom games
Bigger games with more players, run by admins or other players.
Live
Watch the top ranked duels, or any other game in play, to learn how turns play out.
Chat
Talk to everyone, or message a player directly.
Marketplace & Inventory
Spend the coins you earn on map skins and badges.
The ? button opens the full rules whenever you need them.
▶
Join a game
A ranked duel is the quickest way to start: you're matched with a player near your rating.