Glass Empire
4X · For The Display
Choose Your People
Actions
City
Research
Civics
How to Play
Domination: capture every rival capital.
Science: research all 45 technologies.
Cultural Ascendancy: adopt all 19 civics (culture tree).
Economic: hold 1,500+ gold for 5 consecutive turns.
Space Race: reach Space Flight, then build six Spaceship Parts and launch before any rival.
Religious: found a faith and convert 60% of the world's cities to it.
Pinch your unit — selects it. Pinch a reachable tile to walk there; enemies in range are red — pinch to attack.
Pinch same unit again — opens its action menu (Found City, Build Improvement, Fortify, Skip).
Pinch your city — opens the city screen (production, food, science, defense). Tap an option to switch production now, or pinch the + beside it to queue up to 3 follow-ups.
Pinch empty ground — opens the ☰ Menu (Research, Diplomacy, Event Log, World Report, Options, End Turn); ends the turn if all units are done. On phone/PC you can also tap the ☰ MENU or END TURN chip.
Selected unit — a selected unit gets a gold ring and the cursor + status bar turn amber, so you always know whether you're commanding a unit or just looking around. Esc cycles to the next unit with moves left.
Go To — select a unit and act on a distant tile: it plots a route around mountains and coasts and walks there automatically over the next turns (it stops if an enemy appears).
Scroll mode — toggle with ↑ ↓ ↑ ↓ or the MODE chip. Arrows pan the camera freely.
Zoom — cycle with ← → ← → or the ZOOM chip: far · normal · close.
On phone / PC — tap (or click) a tile to act on it, drag one finger or the mouse to pan the map, and pinch two fingers or scroll the mouse wheel to zoom. Every HUD chip (Menu, End Turn, Mode, Zoom) is tappable too, and all keyboard controls work on PC.
Bluetooth controller — pair one and it just works. D-pad / left stick move, A acts (= pinch / ⏎), B cancels / next unit, X toggles scroll mode, Y opens research, LB / RB zoom, Start ends the turn.
Each faction has a baseline yield, a signature passive, and a unique unit or building — they play differently from turn 1:
Solaris — +1 food/city, +25% Great People, unique Sun Spire (culture). Umbra — +1 atk, +1 sight, unique Nightblade (fast deadly swordsman). Tellus — +1 gold/city, +25% city defense, unique Bastion (stronger Walls).
Ferrum — +1 prod/city, 2 free military upkeep, unique Legionary (tough early footman, warmongers). Vorne — +1 atk, units heal +5 HP on a kill, unique Bloodrider (fast cavalry, aggressive). Myrr — +1 gold/city, +2 gold in coastal cities, unique Dromon (superior galley).
You face two AI rivals drawn from the rest (three on Huge/Massive maps).
45 technologies span seven ages — Ancient · Classical · Medieval · Renaissance · Industrial · Modern · Information. Each age-up grants bonus gold. The tree fans into parallel lanes — military, production, economy, culture, naval, science — so the real question is which lane to push next.
The Research screen draws the tree as a graph: cyan techs are available now, green are done, the rest are locked until their prerequisites (shown by the connecting lines) are met.
Research queue: pinch a locked tech and the game auto-queues its whole prerequisite chain as a numbered Plan. It researches the chain in order, hands-free — no need to pick a tech every few turns. Pinch a Plan chip to drop it.
Highlights: Construction (Workshop) → Industrialization (Factory, Ironworks) for production; Trade (Harbor) → Economics (Stock Exchange) for gold; Drama/Acoustics for culture; Conscription (Infantry), Ballistics (Artillery), Combustion (Tank/Battleship) for modern war. The Information age tops it off: Electronics (Submarine, Carrier), Rocketry (Bomber), Nuclear Fission (Nuke + Manhattan Project), Robotics (Modern Armor), Satellites (Hubble), AI (The Singularity), and Space Flight (Apollo Program + the Spaceship Parts that win a Space Race).
Settler — founds cities. Worker — builds improvements (farm, mine, pasture, lumber mill, fishing boats, oil wells) inside your own borders. Your borders expand with city population. Use Auto-Improve to let workers build automatically.
Scout — fast (3 move) and cheap (12 prod), but unarmed. Built for exploring. Use Auto-Explore in its action menu to send it wandering into fog each turn.
Caravan — unarmed trade unit (Currency). Walk it to another city, then Establish Trade Route to link it with its home city for gold every turn (see Trade Routes).
Warrior 4⚔/3🛡 · Spearman 4⚔/6🛡 (+50% vs mounted — counters Horsemen/Knights) · Archer 5⚔/2🛡 · Horseman 6⚔/3🛡, 4 move
Swordsman 8⚔/5🛡 · Pikeman 6⚔/9🛡 (+50% vs mounted) · Catapult 7⚔/1🛡, siege · Musketman 9⚔/4🛡 · Rifleman 12⚔/8🛡
Infantry 16⚔/13🛡 (iron) · Artillery 20⚔ siege (iron) · Tank 24⚔/16🛡, 4 move (oil) · Fighter 18⚔, 6 move (oil)
Information age: Bomber 22⚔ siege, range 3 · Modern Armor 30⚔/22🛡 (oil) · Nuke ☢ — a one-shot area strike that devastates a region (needs the Manhattan Project wonder).
Galley 5⚔/3🛡 · Caravel 7⚔/4🛡 · Battleship 26⚔ siege (oil) · Submarine 18⚔ (+100% vs ships) · Carrier (+1 ATK to adjacent allies) — naval, water only, built at coastal cities. With Navigation, any land unit can embark and cross the sea (but is weak while afloat).
Granary +2 food · Library +2 sci · Walls +4 def · Market +3 gold · Aqueduct +3 food · Temple +3 sci, +3 culture · University +4 sci · Bank +4 gold
Monument +2 culture · Shrine +3 faith · Amphitheater +1 culture · Cathedral +2 culture · Museum +4 culture · Broadcast Tower +6 culture
Faith buildings (Shrine, Temple, Cathedral) bank faith toward founding a religion — see Religion.
Workshop +3 prod · Factory +4 prod · Hospital +3 food · Power Plant +25% prod · Corporation +8 gold · Research Lab +7 sci · Barracks (units built here muster with a free promotion)
With Philosophy, every Temple gives an extra +1 science. Stack Library + Temple + University + Philosophy for +10 sci per city.
World Wonders are unique to the whole game — the first civ to finish one locks everyone else out (you're refunded if you lose the race). They span the ages from the Pyramids and Colossus to the Manhattan Project, Apollo Program, Hubble Telescope and The Singularity.
National Wonders are unique to you (one per empire), but each demands you first build a prerequisite building in every city: Oxford University (+6 sci & instant research — needs a Library everywhere), Ironworks (+6 prod — needs a Workshop everywhere), and the Heroic Epic (units built there muster with 2 free promotions — needs Barracks everywhere). A tall, well-developed empire unlocks them fastest.
Where you found a city matters — buildings get extra yields from the 6 hexes surrounding the city centre.
Library +1 science per adjacent hill or mountain.
University +1 science per adjacent forest.
Temple +1 science per adjacent volcano or geyser (sacred sites).
Market and Bank each +1 gold per adjacent river tile.
Melee: walk into an enemy to attack. Both sides take damage.
Ranged: Archers, Catapults, and Musketmen can fire at enemies within 2 tiles without moving — and take no counter-damage. Orange-highlighted tiles show valid ranged targets.
Defense bonuses: hills +50%, city +25%, walls +75%, fortify +25%, home territory +10%.
Catapults halve city defense bonuses — ideal for breaking fortified positions.
Pillage: move a military unit onto an enemy's improved tile (while at war) and pick Pillage from its menu to raze the farm/mine/etc. for +16 gold — it ends the unit's move and hurts their economy.
City bombardment: cities automatically fire at the weakest adjacent enemy each turn. Power scales with population; Walls add +2 bombardment strength. No counter-damage to the city.
Promotions: every 2 kills a unit earns a promotion and you pick 1 of 2 — Strength (+1 atk), Armor (+1 def), Vigor (+2 HP), or abilities: Siege (+50% vs cities), Cover (+50% defense vs ranged), Blitz (+1 movement). Build veterans that fit your playstyle. Gold stars show promotion level.
Healing: fortified +2 HP/turn, idle (didn't move) +1 HP/turn, moved = none.
Cities work nearby tiles for food/prod/gold. Borders grow with population — working a tile requires your culture.
Military units cost 1 gold/turn upkeep. Negative gold slowly drains your treasury.
Research Sailing to unlock the sea. Workers can enter water to build Fishing Boats on fish tiles (+2 food, +1 gold).
Galleys are naval combat units — water only, 3 movement. Built at coastal cities. Land ranged units can fire at ships on adjacent water.
City-states are neutral gold-colored cities scattered across the map. Pinch one to:
Befriend (50g) — pay gold to ally with it. Bribing an AI-held city-state costs 75g.
Quest — each city-state also offers a free-alliance task (research a tech, control N cities, or defeat a barbarian). Complete it and you ally with no gold spent.
Ally perks: Mercantile +2 gold/turn · Scientific +2 sci/turn · Militaristic +1 ATK on your military units
Declare War to conquer with military force. Capturing a city-state loots 100 gold and turns it into a normal city of yours.
Every so often a world event strikes — a bountiful harvest, gold rush, research breakthrough or free migrants, or setbacks like plague, earthquakes, unrest or barbarian uprisings. Open the Event Log (global menu) to review your full history.
Tribal villages — reward on first visit: gold, worker, research, or +1 pop.
Barbarian raiders — spawn from unowned edges early game. Weaker than warriors.
World Wonders — unique buildings marked ✦. Race the AI to complete them first. Ancient: Hanging Gardens, Oracle, Great Wall, Great Lighthouse, Forge. Classical: Pyramids (+1 prod/city), Library of Alexandria (+2 sci/city). Medieval: Notre Dame (+2 culture/city), Sistine Chapel (+3 culture/city), U. of Sankore (+2 sci/city). Renaissance: Big Ben (+30% gold), Statue of Liberty (+1 ATK). Modern: Hoover Dam (+1 prod/city), West Point (+1 ATK), Eiffel Tower (+2 culture/city), The Internet (+3 sci/city).
Natural wonders — Volcano (+1 prod adjacent), Geyser (+1 food adjacent).
Rivers — +1 food to worked tiles along the river.
All civs start at war. Open the Diplomacy menu (global actions) to see every rival, their personality, and the moves available to you:
Offer Peace (war) — sue for peace; the AI accepts based on its mood.
Propose Alliance (peace) — permanent peace pact, can't declare war until renounced. Peaceful AIs accept more readily than aggressive ones.
Trade for Tech — pay 80g to gain +35 science toward your current tech. Economic AIs love this; scientific AIs are stingy.
Declare War — break the peace at any time.
AI personalities ⚔ Aggressive, ☠ Warmonger, ☮ Peaceful, ⚗ Scientific, ● Economic — rolled at game start (Ferrum is always a Warmonger, Vorne always Aggressive). They affect build picks, war probability, and what offers the AI brings to you (alliances, research deals).
Relations shift over time. Each rival builds tension toward you — settling cities on their doorstep, out-powering them, declaring war, or taking their cities all anger them; peace, alliances and fair trades cool things off. The Diplomacy menu shows each rival's mood (Cordial → Wary → Tense → Hostile); an angry rival is far likelier to declare war and far less likely to accept your offers.
Earn culture points from culture buildings (Temples, Monuments, Museums, etc.) and military XP from kills. At 50 points a Great Person spawns in your capital:
Great General — activate for +2 ATK to all units for 8 turns.
Great Scientist — activate for one free technology.
Great Engineer — activate in a city to rush its current production.
Great Merchant — activate for +120 gold.
Great Artist — activate to trigger a Golden Age.
When you research the right tech, older units can upgrade for gold: Warrior → Swordsman (Steel) · Archer → Musketman (Gunpowder) → Rifleman (Rifling) → Infantry (Conscription) · Horseman → Knight (Chivalry) → Tank (Combustion) · Catapult → Trebuchet → Cannon (Mathematics, Metallurgy) → Artillery (Ballistics) · Galley → Caravel (Navigation) → Battleship (Combustion). Open the unit's action menu to upgrade.
Switch your empire's government from the Era screen. Each gives a small per-city bonus: Monarchy +2 gold, Republic +1 sci, Theocracy +1 culture & +25% Era Points, Autocracy +1 ATK & +1 prod, Democracy +1 gold & +1 sci. Switching costs 2 turns of anarchy (gold and science halved).
Proclaim an Edict for a sharp +x/-y tradeoff that lasts 6 turns: War Footing +1 ATK/-1 gold, Mobilization +1 prod/-1 sci, Free Market +2 gold/-1 prod, Scholarship +2 sci/-1 gold, Festivals +2 stability/-1 gold, Mass Levy +1 prod/-1 stability. One active at a time.
Bank Era Points from culture output + a slice of gold/sci surplus. Crossing the threshold (60, then +40 each time) triggers a Golden Age — +1 to every tile yield for 8 turns. Also triggered by a Great Artist or by capturing a city (Conquest Surge, 5 turns). The ERA chip in the bottom HUD shows your progress; it glows gold during a Golden Age.
A separate culture tree of 19 civics across 5 tiers, fuelled by culture/turn. Each adopted civic grants a permanent bonus (culture, stability, gold, science, GP rate, golden-age length, etc.). The 5th tier adds Meritocracy, Mercantilism, Environmentalism, Total War and the Welfare State. Adopting all 19 wins a Cultural Ascendancy victory. Open the Civics screen from the global menu. Queue civics like techs.
On reaching the Modern age, adopt one guiding Ideology from the global menu — a culture-side identity that mirrors governments with big empire-wide bonuses: Freedom (+science, +culture, faster Great People), Order (+production, +stability), or Autocracy (+attack, +production, +Era Points). You can switch later, freely.
Build Shrines, Temples and Cathedrals to bank Faith. Spend a little early on a Pantheon — a civ-wide blessing (+food / prod / gold / science / faith) you keep all game. Bank more to found a faith and pick a Belief: Tithe (gold per follower), Pilgrimage (faith per follower), Piety (+culture), Scholarship (+science), Fertility (+food), Stewardship (+prod), Prosperity (+gold) or Missionary Zeal (faster, farther spread). Once your faith reaches 4 cities you may Reform it and add a second belief.
Your faith spreads on its own to nearby cities each turn. To push it harder, spend Faith to train a ☩ Missionary (walk it to a city → Spread Faith) or an ☨ Inquisitor (Purge Heresy to reconvert one of your cities and lock it). A ☧ Great Prophet — earned from Faith — can found a religion for free or imprint your faith on nearby cities. A city following a rival faith breeds unrest; one sharing your empire's faith is content. Convert 60% of the world's cities for a Religious victory. Holy cities never convert.
From the Classical age you field spies (a 2nd from the Renaissance) via 🕵 Espionage in the global menu. Assign one to Steal Technology, Sabotage Production, or Incite Unrest against a rival — each shows its odds and resolves in a few turns — or keep one home on Counterintelligence (−25% odds for spies targeting you). A caught spy enrages the victim, and rivals run missions against you too.
A badly beaten rival may offer capitulation: accept and they become your ⚜ vassal — keeping their cities but paying tribute gold every turn, joining your wars, and counting as conquered for Domination (no mop-up grind). Release a vassal from the Diplomacy menu for goodwill.
Nemesis — wrong a rival enough and their leader swears vengeance: taunts, a 💀 marker in Diplomacy, and a big Era-Point payoff when you finally humble them (take their capital or force capitulation). Cool relations to reconcile. World Type at setup reshapes the map — Pangaea, Continents, Islands (naval!), or Highlands — and optional Challenges (One City, Raging Barbs, Blitz) twist the rules. Specialize each city from its city screen (Fortress / Market / Academy / Holy / Port). A Great Artist can create a named Great Work (+2 culture in an Amphitheater/Museum slot — lootable by conquest!). Spies can also Coup a city-state or Incite War between rivals, and veteran services earn better odds. Beware: volcanoes erupt and rivers flood. Earn 🏆 Achievements across games — see Options.
While 🏴 barbarian raiders roam, gold talks: hire the nearest raider into your army, or bribe the clans to hunt a rival for a few turns. And the world remembers — razed cities and great battles leave ruins; a late-game ⚱ Archaeologist excavates them for culture and Era Points, with the story of what happened there. Check the Era screen for 🎯 Era Quests — standing objectives that pay Era Points toward your next Golden Age.
Build a Caravan (needs Currency), walk it to another city — yours, or a foreign/city-state at peace — and Establish Trade Route. The caravan is spent and the route pays gold every turn (more for distance + city size, +50% if international). You can run one route per city. An enemy military unit parked next to either endpoint disrupts the route (it pays nothing) — so a rival's trade lines are a juicy raiding target. Routes show as dashed lines on the map.
Water comes in two depths: Coast (hugs the land) and dark open Ocean. The tech ladder rules the waves: Sailing builds Galleys (coast-only) and lets any land unit embark on coastal water; Navigation launches the Caravel, your first ocean-crossing hull (Galleys upgrade); Astronomy lets embarked armies brave the open ocean; Metallurgy arms the ⚓ Frigate, a ranged broadside warship. Embarked units ride rafts and defend at 0.4× — escort them or lose them. Port-to-port trade routes earn a +25% sea-lane bonus, and the ⛴ Trade Ship (Sailing) sails to a foreign port to open a sea route worth another +25% — the richest gold in the game. Each Harbor adds +1 trade-route slot. On Continents and Islands worlds, the navy IS the war — and the wallet.
Flanking: each friendly military unit already next to your target adds +10% attack (up to +30%). Surround a defender before you strike. Zone of Control: moving next to an enemy military unit ends your move — you can't sprint a unit past an enemy's line, and they can't past yours. The combat-odds preview already factors flanking in.
Cities accumulate unrest from growing too large and from wartime. Content buildings (Temple, Amphitheater, Cathedral), certain governments, edicts, civics, and Golden Ages reduce unrest. If unrest exceeds pop × 3, the city revolts — production halts. Sustained revolt spawns rebel raiders on your soil.
Oil and Iron are soft-gated: Tank, Battleship and Fighter require oil on your territory; Infantry and Artillery require iron. Workers build Oil Wells on oil tiles. You can always train at least one ungated option per unit line.
Open the action menu and select Show Yields to toggle food/prod/gold numbers on every tile.
From the title screen, Export Save shows a long code that holds your whole game. Tap Copy, then paste it into Import Save on another device to pick up where you left off. Codes work between glasses, phone, and PC at the same URL.
Map size: Small (12×12) up to Massive (28×28) and Colossal (32×32). Bigger maps pack in more city-states, villages, wonders and barbarians. Rivals sets how many AI civilizations you face — Auto scales with the map, or force 1–5. World Type reshapes the land: Pangaea, Continents, Islands, Highlands.
Difficulty: a 5-stop slider from Chieftain (very forgiving — passive AI, weak economy) through Normal (balanced) to Brutal (relentless early rushes, richer AI).
Victory
Save Code
☁ Cloud Sync
Set the same sync code on every device (phone, PC, glasses) and they share one save — no scanning needed. Saves upload after each turn and download on launch (newest wins).
Move a game between devices (same code on each):
…or use the full link / QR:
⌨ Enter Sync Code
Swipe to move · pinch to press · choose ✓ Set when done. Same code on every device shares one save.