Truce
In force
- You
- The ruler across the river
While it holds, neither side can harm the other: not with a sword, an arrow or a stone thrown from a trebuchet. An attack order will not break it.
Either of you may end it at any time, but never quietly.
A medieval strategy game, in development
Until We War
Build a realm. Trade with your neighbours. Sign a truce with the one you can't beat yet. When you break it, everyone on the map gets thirty seconds of warning.
Windows and macOS on Steam, with Linux later. No date and no store page yet. The docs describe exactly what the build does today.
In the current build
- Four culture groups
- Four ages
- Treaties and the ledger
- Caravans and towns
- AI rulers
- Local matches
How a war starts
Thirty seconds of warning.
A truce here isn't a promise. It's a rule. While it stands, your archers can't hit their villagers and their trebuchets can't touch your walls, whatever anyone clicks.
Either side can end it. But ending it is announced to every ruler on the map, and the truce keeps holding for thirty more seconds. Thirty seconds to pull your caravans off the road. Thirty seconds to get the cavalry to the gate. Thirty seconds to write a very short letter to your other neighbour.
Try it. The seal on the right is a working one.
The part you already know
Villagers, four resources, walls and a trebuchet.
Villagers chop, farm and mine. Food, wood, gold and stone. Houses raise the cap, palisades come before stone, and you scout because the map is dark until you do. If you've played a historical RTS, the first ten minutes will feel like home.
Then a caravan rolls past your gate carrying somebody else's gold, and it stops feeling like anything you've played.
Town Hall
House
Farm
Tree
Villager
Spearman
Archer
Heavy cavalry
Trebuchet
Armies you can read from across the map.
Spears, bows, horses and engines, each with its own silhouette. Every ruler has a colour and a heraldic mark, so you never lose a battle to a colour you can't tell apart.
A settlement in the native development build. Formations, morale and routs are implemented; art and balance review continues.
Diplomacy
Every deal is written down. Everyone can read it.
Negotiate in private. Sign in public. Press L in a match and the ledger opens: every treaty in force, every payment made or missed, who owes what to whom.
There's no back channel and no fine print. If your ally is paying tribute to the ruler you're about to attack, you'll know before you march.
Seven kinds of clause. Bundle them however you like. A bundle ends together, so nobody is left holding half a deal.
Kept in every match
The public ledger
- ITruceNo damage between signatories, projectiles and area effects included. Ending it is a public act with a 30-second notice.
- IIExchangeResources change hands at once, in full, or not at all.
- IIITrade accessYour caravans may use their markets. Theirs may use yours.
- IVShared visionWhat their scouts see, you see, for as long as the treaty holds.
- VRecurring paymentTribute on a schedule. Pay each installment in full, or default and the bundle ends.
- VIGate passageTheir soldiers may walk through your gates. Choose carefully who.
- VIICoalitionAn agreement to win together. Coalitions decide who shares a victory, not who scores points.
Trade
Wars start on the road.
- I
Caravans carry the gold
A caravan earns when it comes home from a foreign market, and the farther that market, the bigger the purse. It is a unit on the map like any other. It can be followed, escorted, ambushed and robbed.
- II
Towns are the prize
Trading towns sit where the roads cross. Anyone can trade there. Anyone can garrison them. There are always fewer towns than rulers, which is usually how the trouble starts.
- III
Nobody wins in secret
Hold most of the towns and a countdown begins that every ruler can see. Your neighbours then have to decide whether your peace is still worth keeping.
700 to 1350
Four ways to rule. None of them is the villain.
Each group brings its own architecture, one special command, two special units and a Great Work. Subcultures share their group’s rules; their full art and audio set is still in production.
Latin Kingdoms
Hold and smash
Fortification, heavy warfare and shock. Slow to move, hard to move off a position.
- Command
- Lance Charge
- Great Work
- Grand Cathedral
Eastern Realms
Form and endure
Discipline, combined arms and position. Armies that hold their shape under pressure.
- Command
- Shield Wall
- Great Work
- Imperial Sanctuary
Sultanate Realms
Trade and maneuver
Trade, maneuver and knowledge. Rich caravans and armies that fight on the move.
- Command
- Harass
- Great Work
- Grand Foundation
Steppe Confederacies
Raid and outmaneuver
Mobility, pillage and manipulation. The weakest at static defence and the hardest to pin down.
- Command
- Feigned Retreat
- Great Work
- Great Ordu
Six centuries
From a timber hall to a stone city.
Four ages, each a step up in political scale. There is no gunpowder anywhere in the game. A trebuchet is the biggest thing you will ever point at a wall.
I
Founding Age
c. 700–850
Small settlements, timber, basic infantry, scouts and palisades.
II
Territorial Age
c. 850–1000
Organized domains, mounted warfare, markets and roads, early stone defenses.
III
Kingdom Age
c. 1000–1175
Castles, heavy infantry and cavalry, serious siege, trade networks.
IV
High Medieval Age
c. 1175–1350
Stone cities, sophisticated siege, mature formations and the Great Works.
Ways to play
One friend, two bots, one evening.
Four rulers and three trading towns is the whole game. Fill the other seats with people or with AI rulers; the map does not care which.
Local matches, co-op operations and a private LAN lobby with rejoining are implemented. Live network release checks remain open.
Realm
The flagship: four rulers, three trading towns. Play locally against AI rulers, or invite friends through private LAN play.
Conquest
Four rulers, each fighting for themselves. Leave no rival standing.
Duel
One against one, the same rules, nowhere to hide.
Locked 2v2
Two teams with a permanent truce, shared vision and open gates between allies.
Co-op Defense
An allied team holds a settlement against declared waves. Every advantage the attacker has is written in the briefing.
Co-op Siege
Starve, raid and breach a fortress fed by real roads and real caravans.
From the workshop
Development notes
Nothing published yet. The first note will be about what the build does and what it doesn't, and it will show up here.
The Great Hall
Pull up a chair.
Argue about a treaty, report a bug, found a clan, or ask us why the Steppe keeps winning. One account covers the forum, clans and support, and it's free.