ABOUT
Every civilization falls. The only question is when you let it.
The short version
You found a civilization. You raise it, expand it, and take every point of Legacy it will give you. Then it stops giving. Regions that once paid well start paying less, and nothing you build turns that around. At some point you stop feeding a dying thing, go into Decline, and found a new civilization on top of the old one — richer for having buried it.
It runs in a browser, it runs whether or not you're logged in, and it runs alongside everyone else's civilizations in the same world. A single civilization's whole life — founding to collapse — takes days rather than months.
The cycle
Every civilization moves through the same five stages in the same order. The stages are not optional and they cannot be skipped. What you control is how fast you move through them and how much you take out along the way.
Found
Pick a river, a coast, or a high pass. One region, one people, no history.
Rise
Food, population, faith. The early years are generous and forgiving.
Decadence
The payments shrink. More regions, less return. It is not a bug and not reversible.
Decline
Step down deliberately. Bank everything earned. The map remembers you.
and found again, higher up than you started
Decadence
Decadence is the engine of the whole game. Early on, each new region you take pays close to its full Legacy value. As your civilization ages, that per-region yield falls — slowly at first, then steeply. A hundred-region empire deep in Decadence can earn less per tick than a twenty-region kingdom in its Rise.
There is no building, no technology, and no ruler that reverses it. You can slow the curve, and good play does, but every civilization in the game's history has ended on the right-hand side of this chart.
Going into Decline
Declining is a choice you make on purpose, and it is the most important decision in the game. Go too early and you walk away from Legacy your civilization would still have paid you. Go too late and you spend days grinding regions that barely return anything, while other players are already three civilizations further on.
When you decline, your civilization ends. Its cities become ruins on the shared map, its borders open, and its record is written into the archive under its own name. Everything it earned is banked. Then you found again — and the new civilization does not start from nothing.
This is what a tell is: the mound that forms when a city is rebuilt, over and over, on the rubble of the city before it. Every real ancient site you can name is one. It is also, exactly, your account.
You are not alone on the map
The world is shared and it does not pause. While your civilization rises, other players are expanding into the regions you wanted, trading with your neighbours, and deciding whether you are worth invading. When someone declines, their territory opens — and everyone nearby moves at once.
Nothing is lost when you log off; ticks continue, harvests come in, and armies keep marching. Coming back to a changed map is the normal experience of playing, not a punishment for being away.
Found something that will fall
Pick a river. Take what it gives you. Know when to walk away from it.