Mechanics

Victory conditions

A match ends in one of four ways: conquest, science, dominance or the turn limit. If more than one holds at the same time, this order decides the winner: conquest, then science, then dominance, and the turn limit last.

1. Conquest

A seat is eliminated when it loses its last city: its units leave the board and its turn never comes back. When only one seat is left at the table, the match ends and that seat wins.

Losing a capital is not elimination on its own: if you have other cities left, the seat is not eliminated. What happens when a capital falls is below, in "When a capital falls".

To take a city you must reduce its HP to zero and then move a unit into it. The city you walk into goes through this: its population drops by 1 (never below 1), its production queue and accumulated stores are wiped, its buildings survive, and it changes hands at full HP for its new population — so the conqueror does not inherit the breach it just made, but a city worth defending.

Neutrals are not part of the conquest condition. What counts is the number of seats still standing, and the neutral side holds no seat (Bandit camp, Neutral village): the match ends the moment you take the last opponent's last city, even with bandit camps left uncleared and villages left untaken. A neutral's city does not count as a seat's city, so there is no conquest to win against it. The reverse holds too — the neutral side cannot win: it has no row in the score table and it never attacks a city.

A truce stops the conquest clock. You cannot attack a side under truce, and you cannot enter its cities — not even one already at zero HP (Diplomacy and truces). So buying peace does not only protect you, it binds you too: you cannot eliminate that opponent until the truce expires, and the turn counter keeps running. The same holds for a rival you are in the same pact with; the pact's target is outside this protection.

When a capital falls

When a capital falls, a seat that has other cities left is not eliminated; its empire is split. Three things happen:

1. Nearby cities go to the conqueror. Every city 4 steps or closer (boundary included) to the fallen capital is transferred to the player who took the capital — but in revolt (see below). Distance is measured in hex steps.
2. Distant cities stay with their owner. Cities outside the radius keep belonging to the former owner; their units stay on the board too.
3. A new capital is appointed. The city with the largest population among those left becomes the capital. If population is tied, city ID order decides; nothing is random.

Transferred cities go through only part of the treatment of a direct capture: they carry their population, HP and food stores across untouched, but their production queues and their accumulated production are wiped. The price they pay is not population or HP but revolt.

The new capital can fall too: then the same rule applies again. The seat is eliminated the moment it has no city left. So distant cities keep an empire standing, but shrink it a little with every fall.

Taking a capital therefore does not eliminate a rival who has distant cities, it breaks their empire. To eliminate them you have to go after the remaining cities. If all of a rival's cities are within the radius of the fallen capital (a single-city seat included), the capital's fall eliminates them in the same command.

Revolt

Cities transferred when a capital falls stay in revolt for 3 turns. A city in revolt:

• Produces no income — no food, no production, no gold; the resource nodes in its region stop working too (Economy). The one exception is Law: a player who knows it gets a share of the city's normal income from it.
• Earns no science points. The city's share and the Madrasa inside it do not count toward the gain until the revolt is over (Research and the tech tree). The points you already hold belong to the player and stay where they are.
• Does not advance its production queue. You may queue items, even fund them with gold; the item completes once the revolt is over (The production queue).
• Does not repair at the start of the turn. Gold repair still works (Cities and population).
• Defends worse: its city defense is multiplied by ×0.5 (Combat).

Ownership, however, transfers immediately: the city counts toward your score from the moment it changes hands (Territory and score). So a revolt does not cancel the prize, it delays it. The Divan shortens the duration.

A capital's fall is not the only source of revolt: an event card can also drop one of your own cities into revolt (Public unrest). The rules are the same — no income, the queue does not run, no repair, low defense — but ownership does not change and the Divan does not shorten this revolt.

This has two consequences. Taking a capital does not hand you a rival's whole economy in the same turn — you still have to feed your army. And while the revolt lasts, the transferred cities of a fallen empire are an open target for a third player: low defense, and an owner who has not settled in yet.

A city you take in direct battle does not go into revolt; you already paid the price of conquest. For the same reason, if you take a city that is in revolt, the revolt is cleared: the player who besieged it and walked in has earned that city.

2. Science

The Observatory is the building of the science victory: the seat that completes it wins the match at once. The path has four rules:

• Prerequisite is the Prosperity node; a player who does not know it cannot queue the Observatory. The node is bought with science points (Research and the tech tree), while the Observatory itself is built with production: points do not buy the wonder.
• Cost is 50 production, and your empire can hold only one Observatory.
• It cannot be rushed with gold. The Observatory has no price; if gold turned directly into victory, the path would stop being a production race.
• The moment it enters a queue, every seat is told. The Observatory takes production, and production takes time; the announcement gives rivals a chance to counter in that time.

The Observatory is tied to a city: if its city falls — by direct capture or by the transfer after a capital's fall — the queue is reset and the accumulated production is lost. If the city is in revolt, the queue does not advance. So this path is less a question of "how early" than of "who can defend that city".

3. Dominance

Your dominance share is the ratio of your cities to the seats' total city count. A neutral village enters neither the share nor the total: a village is not in a seat's hands.

The rule works at the start of every turn, as your turn opens:

• If your share is 75 percent or higher, your dominance counter goes up by one.
• If your share is below that, the counter resets.
• The moment the counter reaches the threshold of 8 turns, the match ends and you win.

So a one-time lead is not enough; you have to hold the share turn after turn. The share is measured after that turn's flow (income, production, the revolt counter) has been processed, and before you make a move — the ownership you see at the start of the turn is what counts.

The counter is public: if a rival's counter is running you can see it, and the countermove is to pull the share below the threshold — taking a city lowers their share; if the share drops below the threshold, the counter resets at the start of their next turn. The opposing AI also counts the cities of a seat whose counter is running as a more valuable target (The AI opponent).

4. Turn limit

If conquest, science or dominance has not happened by the end of the last turn of the turn limit chosen at setup, the highest score wins (Match length). Formula and tiebreakers: Territory and score.

Losing

If you lose your last city you are eliminated: your units leave the board and your turn never comes back. If you are the only person at the table, the match ends right there and the winner is the surviving opponent with the highest score — you are not left watching the opponents race each other.

If several people share one device (Hotseat: taking turns on one device), one person's elimination does not end the match; it ends when no person is left standing.

You can lose without being eliminated, too: when a rival fills their dominance counter or completes the Observatory, the match ends with your cities still standing. Your countermove is to pull that seat's share below the threshold, or to take the city where the Observatory sits in the queue.

The numbers on this page are read from the game’s balance tables.