Land & Liege is a slow-paced, persistent medieval MMO set in England in 1066. You begin as a minor lord with a small wooden manor, a few fields and a handful of peasants.

The world itself is built from real geographic data. Every hill, river and coastline sits where it actually is, so when you claim land, you’re claiming a real piece of England. The economy is just as grounded: towns specialize, goods have weight, and everything moves by cart along real roads.

The idea is few minutes is enough to read your letters, make decisions for your manor and plan your next move. There are no resets and no seasons. Losing a battle hurts, death is possible, and the history players make stays.

If you feel like knowing more hope to r/landandliege or hop in the discord https://discord.gg/Yt4x6qVcRE

Feel free to ask anything, this is early development btw

I’ve spent the last few weeks rebuilding the world map for Salt & Soil, my generational strategy game. The goal wasn’t simply to make it prettier: mountain ranges, rivers, settlements, roads, and labels all needed to remain readable because geography directly shapes the player’s long-term decisions.

I previously shared parts of the procedural terrain pipeline on r/proceduralgeneration. After a lot of experimentation, I’m finally happy enough with the result to show the full comparison.

Each slide uses the same region and scale in the old and new styles. For the Sacramento area, I’ve also included the corresponding real-world terrain, rotated and scaled to match the in-game view as closely as possible. The game map isn’t meant to reproduce every detail, but major valleys, mountain ranges, coastlines, and settlement locations should feel recognizable.

The next public playtest is planned for September, and it will feature a completely different scenario from the previous one. There may be a few clues hidden in these maps—any guesses about when and where it takes place?

I’d also love to hear which version communicates the important strategic geography more clearly, especially at a glance.

Instead of a static main menu, we decided to go with a live parade: every unit type of a nation marches past, 40 of each, with its own song.

This is the USA, and every one of the six nations has its own.

Two honest questions:

1. A parade as the main menu: cool, or would you want an option to switch it off?

2. This one plays a phonk version of the US song. Does phonk fit a parade, or should it be a classic military march?

Free to play, pre-alpha. If you're curious:

🎮 Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/5145960/Doctrine_Strike/

💬 Discord: discord.gg/WeBjq5vcqx

Hi r/StrategyGames!

I’ve been working on Age of Mankind, a real-time grand strategy game set in antiquity, and I’d love to show you where it stands and hear what you think. Everything in the video is pre-alpha footage from the current build, recorded in-game.

What it is

You lead one people through the ancient world – from a small tribe to an empire, or from Rome to its fall. There are three historical start dates (509 BC, 264 BC and AD 117) and a free game where you can pick any of several hundred original peoples of the Old World, from Celts and Carthaginians to the Han.

What I’m trying to do differently

• The whole Old World, not just the Mediterranean. Europe, North Africa, the Near East, India, China and Japan on one hand-made map with around 9,000 provinces.
• History that moves. Names change with time and size: the Latins become the Roman Republic, the Republic becomes the Empire.
• The AI plays by your rules. No bonuses, no shortcuts. Whatever you can do, it can do, and the other way round.
• A map you want to look at. No satellite image: the earth is painted, rivers come from real elevation data, snow reaches each region in its own season, and you can zoom all the way down into the streets of Rome.
• Battles day by day. A battle runs over several days, so you can watch how it goes before it is decided.

Where it stands

Age of Mankind is pre-alpha: the foundation is in place, but several big systems are still missing or only partly done. The release date is not set yet.

Already working:

• Three historical start dates and a free game with every original people
• The full map: around 9,000 provinces, seasons, rivers, and Rome you can zoom into
• Building, population per province, settling new land
• Armies and multi-day battles
• Diplomacy, trade and treaties
• AI that builds, settles, fights and negotiates under the same rules as you
• Saving and loading

Still to come:

• Culture: the cultures are already on the map, but they don’t affect gameplay yet
• The research tree: only a small part of it exists so far
• Artwork for units and buildings: every culture gets its own look. A Celtic warrior or a Persian palace should look Celtic or Persian, not like a reskinned Roman one.
• More 3D buildings for the cities: right now Rome shows its monuments up close; more cities and cultures will follow, each in its own architectural style.
• Armies as 3D figures: right now armies are shown only by their standards on the map. They’re supposed to become proper 3D figures in the style of their culture. That’s a big job and will take a while.
• The new interface (the leather-and-bronze look you see in the video) is being finished
• Smarter AI in war and defense, and a lot of balancing

Next: keep building the core systems, one by one.

I’d really like your input: what would you most want to see in a grand strategy game set between 509 BC and AD 476? Is there a mechanic, a people or a moment of ancient history that other games have left out?

I’ll be around to answer everything in the comments.

Steam page, if you’d like to follow along: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5331500/Age_of_Mankind/

Hi everyone. This is MESHFALL, a strategy game I've been building on my own. It sits somewhere between an RTS and a tower defense.

The idea it's built on: your units only take orders while they're inside the signal your relays put out. In the clip, raiders kill the last relay on a bridge and the nine soldiers past it stop hearing me. They keep fighting, I just can't tell them anything until I rebuild the link.

There's a free demo that runs in the browser, no signup: https://applechr.itch.io/meshfall

Two things I'd like to hear from people who play a lot of strategy games. Does losing control like that feel like a fair consequence, or like the game taking your units away? And is it clear from the clip why it happened?

Happy to answer anything.

I’ve been a longtime fan of Paradox grand strategy games, especially Crusader Kings, but I never found starting as a ruler especially relatable. I wanted the dynasty story to begin before the family owned a castle, commanded an army, or had a politically useful surname. So I made Fallowborn, where you can start as a medieval nobody.

There are currently two starting dates, 867 and 1066, with seven starting situations ranging from serf and free farmer through craft, religious, and military paths to petty baron.

At the lower stations, your decisions concern livelihoods, property, education, marriage, relationships, and keeping a household intact while realm wars and successions unfold above you.

If the family rises, the same campaign gradually opens outward into guild and church politics, feudal obligations, assemblies, councils, diplomacy, field armies, sieges, and crowns.

The ladder also works in both directions. Defeat, debt, attainder, or losing the land that supports a title can push the family downward without ending the campaign. A ruler might surrender and continue as a vassal; a ruined freeholder might return to serfdom. Losing power changes how the dynasty plays rather than automatically ending its story.

Fallowborn is free and playable now in a browser, with no account or download required. It works on desktop and mobile. You can also change the in game language to French, German, Spanish, or Italian (all courtesy of google translate lol) - this is in the game settings.

Latest build: https://play.fallowborn.com (has offline play mode)

Itch.io: https://dli9431.itch.io/fallowborn

Discord: https://discord.gg/G8E67hY2pj

Any feedback is welcome - I’m especially interested in whether the commoner phase feels strategically meaningful or like a grind before acquiring land, and whether the transition from household management into realm politics feels natural. A lot of the recent development has come directly from player feedback.

Development disclosure: Fallowborn is a solo project. Generative AI was used extensively while coding and while drafting and editing text, and the soundtrack is AI-generated. The visuals are drawn procedurally by the game’s code; no generative-AI imagery is used. The source is public: https://github.com/dli9431/fallowborn.

Hi! I’m working on a game built around the idea of combining the feel of Empire: Total War and Napoleon: Total War with a deeper grand-strategy layer inspired by Paradox games.

The campaign begins in 1702 and runs until 1836. The map features more countries and a more detailed political landscape. War is not just about taking territory—you also need to govern it, keep its economy afloat, and deal with the diplomatic consequences.

The campaign is turn-based. You develop cities, set tax policies, build trade networks, research technologies, use agents, negotiate alliances and military access, and bargain over territory, reparations, and war score in peace deals. Armies can suffer attrition when their supply lines are cut in enemy territory; sieges gradually starve garrisons; and neglecting public order can lead to rebellions or even new independent states.

Battles can be played as real-time 3D engagements, with line infantry, cavalry charges, artillery, square formations, morale, fatigue, ammunition, weather, and terrain all playing a role. Naval warfare, fleets, and ports are also part of the campaign.

The main goal is to make major countries feel like more than differently colored versions of the same faction. Each has its own national mechanics: ongoing institutions that must be managed over time, can spiral into crises if neglected, and create different historical or alternate-history paths.

A few examples:

• The Ottoman Empire: You must reform while balancing the Janissaries, provincial notables, and the ulema. Move against the Janissaries too soon and you may lose the throne; empower the provinces too much and the center weakens. The Balkans and the Straits also create a shared tension with Russia.
• England / Great Britain: Parliament, public credit, the navy, chartered companies, and the colonies form an interconnected state machine. Cheap credit lets you finance long wars, but war debt eventually creates pressure to tax America. You can even choose an alternate route and offer colonial representation in Westminster.
• France: The Estates, fiscal crisis, and legitimacy pressure shape the road to Revolution. After that, the Republic, the Empire, the loyalty of the marshals, and the liberal–ultra royalist struggle during the Restoration all create very different ways to play.
• Russia: You deal with Peter’s modernization program, palace coups, Catherine’s era, the “Third Rome” claim, and serfdom. Expansion in the Balkans can make Russia stronger abroad while making constitutional reform harder at home.
• Prussia: You allocate population between farming, the economy, and the army on a canton-by-canton basis. Over-militarizing can create a powerful short-term army, but it can also cause permanent population loss. Defeat in 1806—or reforming before it—can completely change Prussia’s path for the rest of the campaign.
• Spain: The Bourbon dynasty, relations with France, Napoleonic pressure, and the fate of the American colonies are all connected. Keeping the empire is possible, but continued silver income can also delay the fiscal reforms Spain needs to survive without it.

In short, the goal is to preserve the battlefield feel of Total War while adding the sense that you are genuinely governing a country, with visible institutions and decisions that have real consequences.

What are your thoughts? In a game combining these two approaches, what matters most to you: deeper diplomacy, a more detailed economy, or the alternate-history paths created by national mechanics?

Note: I’m building this project solo, using AI throughout the entire development process.

We're Peter Jurkovský and Dávid Jankes from Prešov, Slovakia, the two people behind Black Deer Games, and this is how our 3-month experiment turned into an ambitious Norse-inspired fantasy siege game that combines elements of base building, real time strategy, and bloody hands-on action!

That is how the idea of Hordeguard was born

Hordeguard is a Viking action-strategy base defense game where you grow a fragile settlement into a fortress and recruit warriors to hold it. But you don’t just build and then fall back. When the horde arrives, you pick up your weapon and fight alongside your towers and warriors, defending your little base from the mean enemies! As well as repairing structures and patching up weak points because someone has to do that too…

Between attacks, you can leave the village to hunt for loot and XP. Loot is used for further upgrading and advancing your base, and with more XP you level up unlocking upgrades for your hero. One important thing to note here is that - while you’re out on your adventures and conquests, the timer for the next wave stops to make sure you have enough time to plunder - like a real Viking! Once you’re back inside the premises of your base, the timer continues, and you need to cleverly choose what to focus on to prepare for the next attack.

Hordeguard can be played solo or with a friend in local split-screen co-op - and both modes are designed to have their own unique flavor! In co-op, one of you will usually gather while the other builds until the horde forces you both to adapt, and the game becomes a test of strategy and organization. In solo mode, however, you’ll sometimes have around a minute in total to gather the resources, build the structures, raise the army, and all that while constantly making split-second decisions on what to prioritize. If you played those early Warcraft 3 custom survival maps, you’ll know the feeling.

Where we are at the moment & plans for the future

Earlier this year, we had our first public playtest that brought in more than 38,000 players, and tbh this gave us a huge burst of motivation to continue pushing even harder because of how much people loved Hordeguard.

Currently, we are working on a third playable hero and a brand-new biome, along with an Endless Mode and more boss fights. We hope to have all of this ready for the next playtest, that is planned to happen around late November/early December.

You can check out the game here, and, if it looks interesting - wishlist:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3618000/Hordeguard_Winds_of_the_North/ 

Hordeguard brings together everything we've learned so far, and it's the first game we can truly call our own, and we can’t be more proud to show it to you!

- From Peter & David at Black Deer Games

I make Open Doctrines, a free grand strategy game. Open Fly hooks the complete wiring of a fruit fly's brain, the FlyWire connectome run as the Shiu et al. 2024 model, up to it. Every turn, what happened to its country reaches the brain as taste:

• Sugar: land and money gained.
• Bitter: losses and new wars.
• Water: the treasury.
• Johnston's organ: the number of wars.

The brain runs for 200 ms, and its descending neurons pick the orders.

It isn't trained and doesn't learn. It's a bug making decisions with a bug's wiring. You can watch it live, pick its map and country, and see every neuron fire: https://pr1nted.itch.io/open-fly

Think you'd do better than the fly? The game is free in the browser: https://opendoctrines.pages.dev

https://reddit.com/link/1whcdao/video/1ewru6lixqph1/player

This post is my first attempt at describing why I'm interested in making my own games, and what I intend to focus on. I want to hear from players (you all) about whether you think I've got it right or not.

Hi everyone,

As a long-time grand strategy fan, I’m working on a project titled Era of Hegemony — an upcoming grand strategy game set between 1900 and 1950.

Since HOI4 is the gold standard for 20th-century warfare, I wanted to design something that complements this era with a deeper focus on:

• Complex Population (POP) dynamics and labor allocation

• Organic diplomacy and regional stability shifts

• Long-term socio-economic management alongside warfare

The game is in early development. If you're interested in following the progress, reading devlogs, or sharing feedback on what mechanics you'd like to see in a 1900–1950 strategy game, feel free to check out r/EraofHegemony.

What features do you feel are most missing in current 20th-century strategy games?

Hi everyone! I'm the solo developer behind Smoke and Steel, which I've been working on since 2023. I've spent more hours than I'd like to admit on this one-minute trailer over the past two weeks, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out!

The idea is wargaming meets grand strategy, fully turn-based and set in early 1700s Europe. Manage your nation, diplomacy, economy and supply lines on the campaign map, then command your armies in tactical battles where morale, positioning and keeping your troops supported matter.

The trailer shows both the battles and the grand campaign. Everything shown is still in development, with release planned for 2027.

Happy to receive feedback or answer questions about either side of the game!

I’m the solo dev of Salt and Soil, a strategy game about one family across three centuries of North American history, 1607 to 1900. You choose where they settle, who marries whom, which child inherits and what the family builds.

The video starts with the very first version of the map: one garbage AI-picture stretched over the whole continent. Eleven months later, zoom in and the map is alive:

• tree crowns swaying in the wind
• waves on the coast and water running in the rivers
• smoke from the chimneys
• trains on the railroads that existed in your year
• sailing ships, canoes and steamboats
• people of different nations and eras, dressed for their time and place
• herds, wild animals and birds
• and up close you hear the trains and steamboats near you

Zoom back out to plan your family’s next move, and all of it fades so the map stays readable.

I’m still polishing the game and honestly pretty nervous about Steam Next Fest and the Early Access launch. But looking at where this map started, I’m proud of how far it has come.

Demo on Steam on October 19 for Next Fest, Early Access on November 9.

My enjoyment of strategy games goes back to Civilisation II in the 90s some time! I have passed by countless games since, honourable mentions to Red Alert and Tribal Wars. Tribal Wars was particularly hooky with noble trains and having to set alarms for 3am to try and block them. More recently I have been an avid club chess player.

So you can start to picture the kind of game, given the tools available now, that I would build if I could build any conceivable game...

So this is an action replay from "Trading Blows" a turn based two side multiplayer multi-layer war game.

You take your place amongst up to 47 other players fighting a war against an equally sized opponent. You dont have troops, this is very much a 2020s war game. Your weapons are drones and missiles. Victory comes with total annihilation of a whole side.

There is no takeover of cities, you bomb them into submission. You can fight a tactical war against your nearest opponents, changing and modifying the direction and composition of your attacks to take advantage of weak spots whilst manoeuvring and switching air defences to cover your own.

But this is a strategic battle too, there is no glory in personal victory if your side is wiped out. You can request and send assets, produce long range weapons to affect the wider theatre or assist your side strategically at the cost of neglecting your tactical battles.

And if you are destroyed early, you can join the intelligence layer. Coordinating your side, looking for strategic weakness and assisting your team mates.

Itll be a few months till this is ready to demo but I would love feedback on the premise and any ideas/feedback are always welcome.

Hey there!

I’m Erik, the game director of Steadfast which started a year ago as a hobby project of mine. I was inspired to bring back the feeling of Age of Sail I/II games. I then began working with Igor, who is a talented game artist who has previously worked on the Ultimate General/Admiral series of games.

We’re excited to reveal a slice of the game with you. It’s a RTT (real-time tactics) strategy title which is set during 1793 - 1815. It puts you in command of your fleet with a range of ship classes from small nimble cutters up to first rate ship of the line. Everything from hull damage, crew morale and weather is modeled.

We will be revealing more and more over the weeks to come. But hope you enjoy our teaser trailer which shows some footage!

The goal is to make an engaging city builder strategy with good combat. Which is both hard to balance, code and make accessible so I will be happy for any suggestions what would you like to see in such game.

Hi r/StrategyGames,

I'm currently building a physics-heavy tower defense game with an unusual twist: the dead can reshape the battlefield.

Waves can reach up to 10,000 enemies, with every soldier physically simulated.

Dead units don't simply disappear: they remain on the battlefield and gradually form obstacles that the living have to deal with.

Right now, this can result in soldiers having to physically climb over piles of bodies.

My plan is to take this further by having large corpse piles slow armies down and potentially influence their pathing, with units preferring to go around particularly difficult areas.

In TD terms, this would introduce a kind of dynamic mazing: instead of the player building the maze directly, part of it emerges from where enemies die.

Beyond the corpse mechanics, I also want the battles to feel physical and reactive rather than having thousands of enemies simply loop animations regardless of what is happening around them.

• Their animation state can be disturbed by collisions with other units or corpses.
• They try to raise their shields toward incoming arrows.

I'm still fairly early in development, so the gameplay can change quite heavily, but I'm trying to figure out whether the basic premise is something players find interesting.

Let me know what you think!

Hi there.

Creating my own strategy game and decided to update the UI before going to closed test with other players!

Help me to decide.

P.S: Old UI attached in the end.
P.S.S: While judging try to ignore the planet/buildings detalization.

Bonus question: What planet you like more? Hot(mars) or cold one?

Join my community and stay tuned! Waiting for you on play test!

Discord: https://discord.gg/UWJ83V5Ghy

Me on X: https://x.com/Vlad_notVampire

I created subreddit for the game, so everyone who feels better with reddit than discord could join us here:
r/WarfrontEclipse

Below is the FAQ for this project:

Is that Free-2-Play game?
Yes, at some degree, but not in classic understanding of similar projects.

Is that Pay-2-Win?
Nope. We are not going to create another Clash Of Clans here.

Does it require to spend tons of time in order to progress?
It's adjustable, but in general we AIM to achieve the kind of game play that not trying to fight for time with your real life. So not another Clash Of Clans again.

Does it have unique features?
Yes. It's not going to be classic.

How the game loop will look like?
Establish your base > Produce Units > Gather resources > Trade > Attack other players and fight for map control alone or with your friends.

What is the current stage of the game?
It's on MVP stage and we are trying to get to the closed Alpha.

Can I participate in the game test?
YES and we want you to do so.

What platforms game will be made for?
PC, Mobile. Mobile here will be needed so you will be able to manage your base even when out of home or react on treats.

Wanted an old school Age of Empires-style game I could play in a browser for free. Couldn’t find one. Built one.

**•   The computer is actually smart** — it reads the board, adapts mid-game, probes your weak flanks, and learns where you attack. Not a scripted bot on a timer  
**•   Terrain matters** — forests, water, rock are impassable, so chokepoints are real  
**•   Full siege endgame** — catapults, ballistae, trebuchets with flaming shot  
**•   100% custom** — JS, no engine, no build step. Open source, clone it and make it yours  
**•   Asset pipeline is swap-ready** — drop in your own art pack, no code changes

There’s a global leaderboard. Beat the AI on Hard and knock my score off it. Feedback & ideas welcome, still actively building.

https://robleuscaesar.github.io/civilization-game/

Hi everyone! We’re currently prototyping a new military RTS built around a fairly unusual idea: you can run a conflict in any city in the world using OpenStreetMap data.

We’re still at an early stage of development, so we’d love to hear what r/StrategyGames players would actually want from a game built around this concept.

If you have a few minutes, we’d really appreciate it if you could fill out our short survey: Google Forms survey.

Every single filled-out survey is extremely appreciated!

Hey RTS fans!

I'm a solo developer working on Wars of Empire, a medieval-inspired 2D isometric RTS.

The game currently features five playable civilizations:

• Byzantines
• Ottomans
• Britons
• Huns
• Chinese

I'm now thinking about which civilizations to introduce next, and I'd love to hear what fellow RTS players think.

Some candidates on my list are Vikings, Japanese, Mongols, Franks, Persians, Mamluks, Malians, and Seljuks.

I'm primarily focusing on the Middle Ages and closely related historical periods, rather than civilizations from entirely different eras.

One thing I really want to get right is making each civilization feel unique in gameplay, not just visually. Different military tactics, special units, buildings, technologies, and economic strengths.

If you could pick just ONE civilization to add, which would it be, and what unique gameplay mechanic should it bring?

I'm genuinely curious about your ideas!

When you initiate combat you have two choices either fight defensively like in Total war or try to breach enemy and rout it faster.

Breaching is calculated risk, if enemy is prepared you might just expose formation for counter attack and be breached in turn. It cost stamina and calculates skills + mass of defenders and attackers.

It shows friendly breaches as yellow and enemies as red.

When fighting at high levels breaching is usually a best way to win with lowest casualties, if you cannot overwhelm with multiple formations.

Still balancing each :)

Feedback welcome!

Links:

steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5087810/Pennants_of_Glory_Condottiere/

trailer: https://youtu.be/MS-Rfg1JQ-4

reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/pennantsofglory/

Working on clearer geometry visualization, feedback appreciated.

You think it's good or too much ?

steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5087810/Pennants_of_Glory_Condottiere/

discord: https://discord.gg/nrCMnUUJT

Hey everyone, this time I wanted to show how the melee units in my game fight in formation.

I always loved switching formations depending on the situation in Total War: Rome 2 and the older games, so every shield unit in Sundered Reach can switch between five formations, one key each: shield wall, testudo, phalanx, orbis and fire cover.

Fire cover is the one for the guns. The shields kneel in one long line and you can hook your riflemen in right behind them, every rifleman gets his own spot behind a shield and fires over it. The human shields are holo fields, every hit lights them up, and when one takes too much it fails and turns red for a few seconds.

It's still not where I want it to be, a few units still do their own thing sometimes, but I'm on it and I'll go deeper into it in the next dev diary.

Which formation would you use the most? And if you have ideas for more formations, let me know.

Everything is recorded in game, still in development.