Guide a Planet · Shape History · Free Browser Game

Free Civilization
Strategy Game

You start with 1,000 credits, a population that thinks fire is impressive, and a planet that needs adult supervision. Buy shares in food, tools, factories, fusion. Survive plagues, bubbles and the occasional AI uprising. Share the planet with a rival civilization that is also having opinions about everything. A free browser civilization strategy game — no download, no sign-up, no excuses.

▲ FOOD +12% ▼ ENERGY -4%
Invest wisely, Commander!
The journey

Five ages of civilization

I
Primordial Age
Cave Dwellers
Three sectors, one priority: don't get eaten. Food, Tools and Tribal cohesion are the only things between you and a very bad winter.
II
Agrarian Age
First Settlements
Someone invented the fence and now everyone wants one. Farms, trade routes, taxes — and the occasional drought to keep you humble.
III
Industrial Age
Industry Rises
Factories, railways and a brand new feeling called "the stock market". Booms are exhilarating. Strikes are educational.
IV
Information Age
Digital Revolution
Tech, finance, global comms — money moves at the speed of light, and so do the panics. Try not to teach the algorithms anything they'll regret.
V
Space Age
Space Civilization
Asteroid mining, fusion plants, an AI that politely suggests it run things. Highest volatility, highest reward, slightly thinner air.
Mechanics

How the game works

You are the planetary investment commander, which sounds more dignified than it is. You start with 1,000 credits, a tribe that has just discovered fire, and zero board oversight. Buy shares in sectors. React to events. Try not to bankrupt the species.

The game runs in turns. Each turn: prices wobble, a new event happens to you, and the population either multiplies or has a stern word with management. Your Civilization Stock Index tracks how the planet is doing overall. Reach the Space Age in fewer turns and you earn bragging rights. Take too long and history quietly forgets your name.

📈

Invest in sectors

Buy and sell shares in things civilizations actually need: Food, Tools, Trade, Industry, Tech, Space. Each sector has a base price, a volatility, and a strong opinion about every event that fires. Prices move every turn whether you're paying attention or not.

React to events

A drought, a factory boom, an AI that wants a word. Every few turns an event fires with 2–3 choices. Each option lifts some sectors and sinks others. Whatever you happen to be holding will absolutely influence which option looks "rational." The game uses net-position weighting to spot manipulation — it doesn't flag every choice that helps a sector you own, only choices where the net gain on your total portfolio is positive. The market is doing the maths.

🌍

Advance through eras

To unlock the next era you need three things at the same time: an Index above the threshold, a Net Worth above the portfolio gate, and a Population above the people gate. Two out of three is just an interesting story. Slip too low while stability or happiness collapses and you regress an era — taking 20% of the population with you, who will not be writing thank-you cards.

⚠️

Manage stability

Stability is the silent score that keeps your civilization from staging a polite revolution. Bad event picks, market manipulation and burst bubbles all chip away at it. Below 50 you get the warning. Below 30 with a falling index, the lights go out. It heals at +0.5/turn — but when stability drops under 30, a Recovery Event arrives every few turns offering a way to claw back faster. Patience helps. Smart picks help more.

Turn count is your score

Every Next Turn click ticks the counter at the top. Reach the Space Age and that number becomes your final score — like golf, in space. Fewer turns = greater glory. Beat your previous best and lord it over your past self. We're keeping receipts.

🛰

You are not alone

A second civilization grew on this same planet. They call themselves The Procyon Hegemony and they are, broadly speaking, also doing fine. Most of the time they will not invade you, will not crash your market, will simply progress on their own schedule through the same five eras you do — and occasionally show up to propose a trade convoy, a joint research initiative, or a frankly suspicious offer to "share the river." How you respond changes them. Welcome their population and sign their treaties, and the Hegemony grows comfortable and slow. Sabotage their satellites and steal their patents, and you radicalize them. You won't see a number. You'll just notice that some runs they reach the stars before you and some runs they don't. But once an era, when they've drawn level, they stop being neighborly — and the Hegemony Gambit can strip your civilization back to the start of the age if you read it wrong. You'll be warned. Whether you listen is the game. Co-existence is the win; the rival is the company you keep — right up until it isn't.

Tutorial

How to play — step by step

01
🪐
Name your planet
Pick a planet name, a trader face, and a currency (EUR, USD, CZK or GBP — purely cosmetic). You start with 1,000 credits and a small tribe.
02
🌾
Buy your first shares
In the Market Sectors table, click BUY on any unlocked sector and pick a quantity. Buying nudges that sector's price up; selling nudges it down. The number in brackets next to the price is your last trade price: (green) = you bought, (red) = you sold, (–) = untouched.
03
Advance the turn
Click NEXT TURN (top right, or anywhere on the comic panorama). Prices move, the Index updates, an event fires, the ⏱ Turns counter ticks up by one. That counter is your final score — fewer turns = better.
04
Respond to events
A card appears in the Planetary Dispatch panel with 2–3 choices. Each option boosts some sectors and damages others. The market reacts immediately. Manipulation is detected by net position: if the weighted boost to sectors you hold outweighs the weighted damage to sectors you hold, it counts — stability drops −7 instantly. Picking a choice that hurts your biggest position is never flagged, even if it also helps something smaller.
05
💡
Read the Insider Tips
Every few turns an Insider Tip appears below the event panel — a hint about which way a sector might move. Tips aren't just flavor: they apply a real price bias to that sector for the next 3 turns, nudging it in the predicted direction. Accuracy is 65–75% depending on the tip — on an inaccurate tip the bias runs the opposite way. Better than a coin flip, never a guarantee.
06
📊
Mind the three gates
Advancing to the next era needs three things at once: a high enough Index, enough Net Worth, and enough Population. All three bars live in the Era Progress panel. Hitting two out of three doesn't move you forward — only three out of three does.
07
🚀
Unlock new eras
When all three gates click together, civilization graduates: Agrarian → Industrial → Information → Space. New sectors unlock automatically. If your Index is ready but wealth or people aren't, the Planetary Wizard will appear and explain what's missing.
08
💰
Sell for profit (or damage control)
Click SELL on any sector you hold. You receive current price × quantity in cash. Old-era sectors tend to plateau — rotating yesterday's winners into today's growth sectors is usually the smart move.
09
⚠️
Watch for regression
If your Index falls below the regression threshold and stability or happiness collapses, civilization slides backward one era. 20% of your population dies, and any sectors above your new era get locked — your shares stay in your portfolio at their current value, but you cannot buy or sell them until you climb back up. Treat the red stability banner like a smoke alarm.
10
🥇
Earn medals (one per era)
Every era you complete awards a medal: Copper → Pewter → Bronze → Silver → Gold. They appear in the top bar next to your commander name. Click any medal to review it. Five medals total — gold is reserved for full victory in the Space Age. Regression keeps your medals; you don't lose what you earned.
11
🏆
Reach the Space Age
Era 5 — Space Industry, Fusion Energy, AI Systems. Volatility is at its highest; single turns can swing prices hard. When you arrive, your final turn count is your score. The Golden Path target is 30–45 turns. Beat it for bragging rights.
▶ Take the interactive tour →
Walk through the live command screen with an on-screen pointer and optional voice narration — no game progress, just explanations.
Game Logic

The mechanics behind the market

INDEX = (avg sector price ÷ avg base price) × 1,000
The Civilization Stock Index, computed every turn from active sectors. 1,000 is the baseline — "things are basically fine." Above, things look up. Below, write a memo.
ERA ADVANCE = Index ≥ threshold AND Net Worth ≥ portfolio gate AND Population ≥ pop gate
All three at once. Net Worth = cash + holdings at current price. Hitting two of three is "very nearly the future."

📈 How prices move

Volatility
Each sector has its own volatility — Food is sleepy, Space is wild. Prices wobble every turn by a random amount scaled to that volatility, with a tiny upward tilt. Later eras are wilder by design.
Bubble risk
Over-buying a single sector inflates a bubble score. When the right panel flashes "Sector Bubble Risk", that sector can crash hard — price collapse plus a stability hit. Bubbles deflate naturally if you stop poking them.
Manipulation
The game uses net-position weighting to detect manipulation. Before flagging a vote, it computes: (boost % × shares you hold for boosted sectors) minus (damage % × shares you hold for damaged sectors). If that sum is positive, manipulation is triggered — stability −7 and the counter goes up. At 3 stacked charges the Banking Collapse arc fires. Honest play that happens to help a small position while hurting a large one is never penalised.

🌍 Stability, recovery & regression

Heal
Stability slowly heals every turn on its own. Happiness heals slower and is tied to food prices — keep food affordable and morale follows.
Recovery Events
When stability drops critically low, a special Recovery Event fires with a green "RECOVERY" badge. Three choices: a safe pick, a bold pick, and a trap that looks like a sector play and actually drops stability further. Recovery events are your fastest way out of a crisis.
Regression
If the Index falls below the regression threshold while stability or happiness collapses, civilization slides back one era. 20% of your population dies, and any sectors above your new era get locked — your shares stay in your portfolio, but you can't buy or sell them until you climb back up.
Strategy

Tips for new commanders

🎯
Diversify early. Boring works.
Spread your starting credits across all opening sectors. One bad turn won't ruin a balanced index. Going all-in on one sector early is the strategic equivalent of putting your entire tribe in the same cave during a bear migration.
📖
Read first. Then choose. Then regret.
Before answering an event, check what you hold. Manipulation is flagged by net position: if a choice's weighted boost to your holdings exceeds its weighted damage to your holdings, that's a dirty vote — −7 stability, no exceptions. Three charges triggers the Banking Collapse arc. Picking an option that hurts your biggest position is always clean, even if it nudges a smaller one upward.
⚠️
Watch the bubble meter
Every large buy puffs up that sector's bubble score. When the right panel flashes "Sector Bubble Risk", that is the universe asking you, politely, to stop. Pause your buying for that sector and let it deflate. Bubbles are fun to inflate, less fun to be standing under.
🛡️
Keep the people fed and stable
Stability and happiness are your safety nets, and your safety nets do not patch themselves. If the stability bar nears the danger zone, play conservatively — avoid event options that penalize stability. Happiness is tied to food prices and quietly drives population growth. Hungry citizens have famously good organisational skills.
⚖️
Recovery events: read all three choices
When stability hits the critical zone, a Recovery Event with a green "RECOVERY" badge arrives every few turns. Three choices: safe (modest gain, small cost), bold (big gain, real cost), and a trap that looks like a clever play and actually drops stability further. The trap usually boosts a sector instead of stability — read all three before clicking.
🔄
The world keeps turning while you're out
The game simulates a limited number of turns while you're away. Come back to a Planetary Report summarising the parts you missed. Stability decays slowly offline, so don't log out in the middle of a crisis and assume time will heal it. Time, in this case, will not.
🛰
The rival is watching. Possibly literally.
The Procyon Hegemony shares your planet. About one in four events involves them — trade offers, treaty proposals, the occasional opportunity to commit light industrial espionage. None of it is required. The cooperative choice is almost always defensible. The aggressive choice almost always costs more stability than it gains in sectors. And the rival, somehow, remembers. You'll feel it more than you'll see it. Once an era, though, they call in everything at once — the Hegemony Gambit, where one wrong read sends your whole age back to the starting line. The advisor warns you first. Read the warning.
Economy

Civilization sectors to invest in

🌾
Food & Agriculture
The bedrock. Cheap when things are fine, very loud when they aren't. Famines crash this sector hard; surplus quietly multiplies your population.
Available from Era 1
⚒️
Tools & Industry
Stone axes, then steel mills, then 3D printers. The thing humans build to build everything else. Quietly compounds across all five eras.
Available from Era 1
🌿
Agriculture (Agrarian)
Irrigation, crop rotation, the radical idea of fences. Drought and flood events hit this hardest — weather is, regrettably, still in charge.
Unlocks Era 2
⚖️
Trade & Commerce
Connect settlements, open markets, invent the toll booth. Trade routes amplify the returns of every other sector — capitalism's most useful trick.
Unlocks Era 2
Energy
Coal, oil, solar, fusion — whatever's burning that decade. Powers the rest of the index. An energy crisis can bring the whole show down with it.
Unlocks Era 3
🚀
Space Industry
Asteroid mining, interplanetary trade, very expensive solar arrays. Highest volatility in the game, highest reward, no take-backs.
Unlocks Era 5

Your planet is waiting. Slightly impatiently.

No downloads. No sign-up. Name your planet, pick a currency, and start making decisions you can defend in a memo. Free to play.

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