Millennia News

Hello there! Community Manager Katten here, today we give access to the Steam Next Fest Demo! So this Diary is to get you caught up to speed to the question; What is Millennia?
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Millennia is a revolutionary turn-based 4X game developed by C Prompt Games, a team of experienced strategy developers known for their work on the Age of Empires franchise. This game introduces innovative elements such as alternate history, custom tech trees, and a focus on both economy and combat.

Millennia stands out by redefining the 4X genre with dynamic historical progression, where your decisions shape the unfolding of different historical ages. Each age brings its own distinct gameplay challenges and opportunities, taking players on a journey from ancient civilizations to futuristic societies. With every choice holding significance, Millennia offers unparalleled replayability and strategic depth with its unique core pillars, so let's dive in!



A key innovation in Millennia is the Age-based design.

There are ten Ages in a “normal” game, ranging from the Age of Stone to the near-future. Each Age provides the experience of the Age – the Age of Iron has Iron Age technologies, Iron Age units, Iron Age buildings, and rules specific to the conditions of the Iron Age.

If you keep things within “normal” parameters, you might progress through 10 “standard” Ages, each delivering historical gameplay.

However, Millennia allows history to go off the rails. If you make some different decisions, you might steer your timeline into alternate Ages. These Ages are still historically themed, but explore some “what-if” territory. The Age of Aether is based on a history where the internal combustion engine doesn’t come about as soon as it did and steam-power develops further. The Age of Blood is based on a war raging out of control and spreading across the world.

Ultimately, most of the things you have to use in a game come from the Ages, so you can end up with very, very different scenarios depending on the specific history and alternate history your timeline moves through.



Think of National Spirits as “things a nation can be famous for.” Are your people known as great engineers? Is your nation seen as the center of global banking? Does the world fear your unbeatable warriors?

Mechanically, each National Spirit is a technology tree. You get to pick National Spirits from a set at different points in a game. Doing so makes the technologies of the National Spirit available to you.

Through National Spirits, you get to customize your Nation, to decide what you will be famous for, during the course of the game.



Economy and combat are key to Millennia.

As you lead your nation, you’ll need to design the right economy for your strategy. Not all resources in Millennia are the same. Cutting down trees for Logs can provide Production, much like mining Copper. However, with the right Improvements, you can create a chain where your Logs are made into Paper which is then made into Books, getting you Knowledge (or Religion or Government or Wealth) instead of Production.

Some resources are (like the Logs) broad and capable of steering into a variety of different Goods while others are more focused and less flexible. How you decide to structure your economy has an impact on your capabilities and your ability to respond to changing conditions.

One of the places this is felt is with combat. The best military for you to field changes based on your economic design (and the Age you have moved into and the National Spirits you have selected). You might be better off with more Production to train troops, or more Warfare Domain to support them, or more Wealth to pay the upkeep on expensive elite troops.

Beyond the economy, combat offers its own interesting decisions. Different types of Units have different capabilities. You design your Armies by assigning multiple Units to fight together, allowing you to create different Army types for different needs.



Here are also our series of feature breakdown videos that explain in more detail each system!

- Core Pillars
- National Spirits
- Economy
- Alternate History
- Combat

Here is also our list of Developer Diaries so far released, so if you want to get into the nitty gritty detail, let loose!

- Millennia | Developer Diaries List



Now onto what you have been waiting for, the Demo. In the Demo, you have access to playing all the way up and during the 3rd age, within a 60 turn limiter. The Demo is Singleplayer only, but Multiplayer will be available at release.

The Demo is only available in English, with additional languages at release.

During the Demo, you might encounter bugs or find areas to give feedback upon. If that is the case, we would highly appreciate it if you would tell us about it on the Forum!





Now before I let you go, we have a Giveaway starting RIGHT NOW! Join our Discord below and follow the steps in the Giveaway chat for your chance to win a fancy Paradox Mug!





Remember, if you want to keep up to date with all things Millennia, follow us on our Socials!



https://store.steampowered.com/app/1268590/Millennia/

Hello, friends. Welcome to part two of our Developer Diary covering Millennia’s economy.

Rob kicked things off for us the last time, outlining the different types of Goods and Resources, the role of Needs, and how Workers can scale in more advanced economies.

This time, we’ll build on that by covering some of the other key components at a fairly low-level of detail.

Let’s get it going…


[h3]Capital Buildings[/h3]

Each Region has a Capital City. Within that Capital, you can construct Capital Buildings.

Capital Buildings aren’t really direct contributors to the economy at the Goods lines level in that they do not typically generate any Goods themselves. There are exceptions – the Scholars National Spirit allows you to build a Capital Building that produces Books, for example – but, in general, Capital Buildings represent more the overall infrastructure of a Region.

That infrastructure takes some time to build up. Capital Buildings are built by the Capital, using the Production generated at the Capital, so there is a time component involved.

Similarly, Capital Buildings can have requirements related to the Region – if you are in the Age of Rocketry and you want to build a Foreign Office Capital Building, it requires a Region Level of 3.

A Region’s Region Level can be increased in a number of ways. Building a Town in the Region increases Region Level by one (as does levelling a Town already in the Region). Certain Capital Buildings, like the Food Stockpile in the Age of Stone or Aqueduct in Age of Iron, also increase Region Level.


(Quick aside on those examples – Millennia’s Capital Buildings are organized into upgrade lines. The Food Stockpile becomes a Granary in a later Age, the Aqueduct becomes a Water Works, then Sewers, and eventually a Wastewater Processing Plant. This changes the Buildings you deal with at different stages of the game, keeps the full list of what is built in one Capital more manageable, and also means you don’t found new Capital Cities in 2004 and start things off by building an Aqueduct.)

Overall, this arrangement creates a development curve for Regions that feels somewhat realistic. You cannot plunk down a brand-new Capital City in the Age of Information and set it to work on Universities and Smart Grids and Internet Backbones – these are things that need people and infrastructure beyond what a shiny new one population Capital represents.

Returning more to the question of how the Capital Buildings participate in an overall economy, the infrastructure they represent does involve economic output. Most Capital Buildings do not produce Goods, but a Grocery Store does create Food for a Region, an Investment Bank produces Wealth, a Public Library generates Knowledge, a Police Department provides Unrest Suppression, and so on.

Overall, the Capital Buildings in a Region define a baseline output for the Region. The components of this aren’t scalable (you cannot build 12 National Landmarks in one Region) and taking the time to build them competes with training Units or running Projects, but they require no input Goods, no additional territory, and no assigned workers – they represent the broad economic activity of a Region.


[h3]Improvements[/h3]

Improvements are somewhat the opposite of Capital Buildings, both mechanically and thematically. Where Capital Buildings represent general economic activity in a Region, Improvements represent specific industries or projects.

Unlike Capital Buildings, Improvements are built in specific tiles, so they require available land within a Region and an expansion of borders over time if you want to support more of them. If you do not have enough space, you can be limited in the number of Improvements you can consider. Some Improvements also require certain types of terrain (you cannot build Fishing Boats in a Forest) which can further alter plans.

(Note that an aspect of the tile need for Improvements is that they can be more vulnerable, as they cannot be worked if an enemy Army occupies the same space and they can also be razed.)

Improvements also need workers (in most cases). Capital Buildings do not occupy population from the Region for their operation, but Improvements do. Hence, if something happens to reduce your population or if you construct more Improvements than a Region’s population can support, some of the Improvements can go idle.

Where Capital Buildings are built with a Region’s Production, Improvements are placed with Improvement Points (in later Ages, with more advanced economies, Specialists replace IP for building certain Improvements). Unlike Production, IP is a shared national level resource and it accumulates. This creates very different possibilities for building Improvements compared to Capital Buildings. For example, you can focus IP from all sources on one Region if you want and, if you have saved IP for some time, you can immediately place multiple Improvements within one Region on the same turn.

Economically, Improvements are the main “machinery” around Goods. There are exceptions, but generally Improvements either generate Goods directly (a Farm Improvement producing Wheat) or they convert Goods (a Mill Improvement taking in Wheat and producing Flour). Building and working Improvements is thus the primary way to obtain, alter, or improve Goods, and therefore defines a great deal of a Nation’s economic capability.

Let’s walk through a simple Goods chain for an example.

Say I am in Age of Rocketry, Age 8...

Goods like Clay, Bricks, Marble, Logs, and Planks are important for development during earlier Ages. Later, Goods like Steel and Concrete drive strong development.

Metal, in general, is a flexible Good and valuable from early stages of history. The Mining Technology in the Age of Bronze allows construction of Mine Improvements on hill terrain, which produce the Copper (or the more valuable Iron when you can find it).

Mines and some of the related Improvements in the metal Goods line get better as technology progresses (the first Mines can be upgraded into more productive mines during the Renaissance, for example). In the Age of Revolution, the Steel Technology unlocks a new Improvement – the Steel Furnace.

Once you have this technology, you’ll want to upgrade earlier furnaces (probably Blast Furnaces taking in metal to make Ingots) to Steel Furnaces, which can take in metal ore Goods and convert them to Steel.

Steel is worth substantially more than Ingots (and a Steel Furnace has more capacity than the older Blast Furnace), but a more important consideration in most cases are the next steps in this Goods line – more modern metal-related Improvements require Steel to operate.

So, if you want, you can just work Mines, feed the metal gathered there into Steel Furnaces, and add raw Production to a Region – just make it more capable of building. However, you can also build a deeper Goods line with additional Improvements that will allow you to get more from your Steel or get something other than Production.

Once in the Age of Rocketry, for example, you might build a Machine Shop, and start feeding Steel there to make Power Tools (worth more Production). But, maybe you need more Wealth? If you do, you could instead build a Car Manufacturer and turn the Steel into Cars. Or, maybe you plan to get in some fights – in that case, you might want to build a Defense Manufacturer and use the Steel for Missiles.






Different Goods have different “profiles”, some do not require a lot of investment to gather but aren’t very flexible or cannot be improved as much, others are more expensive but can be more productive or converted to different Resources. Speaking to the flexibility of the metal Goods line, you might also invest in all of the Improvements mentioned in the example above and then move workers and Steel around to get what you need most as your situation changes.

A component not mentioned above is that the more advanced Improvements sometimes introduce additional Needs. For example, Steel production requires Power and the more Steel Furnaces, Machine Shops, Car Manufacturers, and so on in a Region, the more Power you need to supply. Which means things like mining Coal or Petroleum and building Wind Farms or Power Grids. You might also decide that the additional infrastructure isn’t worth it for your strategy and try to make things work by exploring a lower-tech strategy, scaling up the cheaper mines and furnaces and foundries of an earlier era.


[h3]Import and Export[/h3]

Millennia has two general types of trade, Foreign Import and Domestic Export.

Both are governed primarily by various Capital Buildings that determine capacity. For example, if you build a Shopping Center Capital Building in a Region, you gain three Foreign Import slots and be able to import up to three Goods into the Region.

Foreign Import allows you to spend Wealth to acquire Goods from a world market. In all cases, you can import Trade Goods, which are worth Culture. If you have deployed an Envoy to the Region of another Nation, and are not at war with them, Goods produced in their Regions are added to the market and available for import.

Foreign Import is a useful way to obtain a specific Good you have had difficulty finding or to convert excess Wealth into something more valuable.

Domestic Export is similar, but it involves “trade” between your Regions, essentially sending Goods from one place to another.


If you build a Container Yard Capital Building in a Region, for example, you will gain three Domestic Export slots, which allow you to send up to three Goods from the Region with the Container Yard to any other Region in your Nation.

This is similar to how Outposts operate. Outposts are linked to Regions and, when Trade Posts are built atop Goods in their territory, these Goods are shipped to the linked Region.

Domestic Export can be very useful. Outposts are easier to establish that full Regions so, in early stages of the game, you can use them to claim a small area with bonus Goods and ship those to one of your Regions (and, since Trade Posts require no workers, this doesn’t sap capacity from the Region). Later, if you have multiple Outposts and multiple established Regions with Domestic Export capacity, you can do things like send that capacity to your Region closest to an enemy so that new military Units are trained faster and closer to the fighting. Or, you can found new Regions and use Domestic Export to supply the brand-new Region with Production that will allow it bootstrap quickly.

[h3]Merchants[/h3]

Merchants are a special Unit obtained using a Diplomacy Domain Power. They can be used in two different ways.

When sent to a Region held by another Nation, they can be moved next to the Capital City of the Region and there deployed. Deployed Merchants generate Wealth every turn, based on the population of the Region where they are active.

The second (and arguably more interesting) use for Merchants is to develop Vassals.

When you found a new Region or capture a Region from an enemy, your new territory starts as a Vassal. Vassals can be converted into full Regions but Millennia does not assume that all Vassals eventually become Regions.

Instead, since every Vassal contributes Resources each turn, in a lot of cases it is more effective to focus on building up a select set of Regions which are supported by a number of Vassals that remain Vassals.


Vassals expand and develop on their own, which increases the amount they tribute. Population is a primary driver behind this and as a Vassal’s population increases, the amount it provides each turn increases too.

Each Vassal also has a Prosperity rating which is essentially a multiplier of the Vassal’s base tribute. Getting a developed Vassal, with a larger population, into a range like 300% Prosperity can produce sizeable income.

Merchants can be deployed at your Vassals in the same manner as they can be sent to a foreign Region. It takes time for them to increase the Prosperity of your Vassal, so the choice here is short-term Wealth from the foreign Nation or longer-term investment from a Vassal you wish to build up.

[h3]Thanks![/h3]

We had to break this Developer Diary into two parts and this is still long – apologies for all of the words, but we hope you’ve enjoyed it. More importantly, we hope you can see that Millennia’s economy model is interesting, deep, and presents new options for how you can design and manage your Nation. The base model has plenty going on, but when you layer in the different Ages, different National Spirits, different approaches to victory, and so on, the combination is a massive collection of possible strategies that supercharges Millennia’s replayability.

Thanks again, and if you like what you’ve seen, please wishlist us.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1268590/Millennia/

Happy 2024, all.

Apologies for the delay on this Developer Diary – there are a lot of irons in the fire as we got back into things after the holidays. Embrace the chaos!

I am Ian Fischer of C Prompt Games and today we are going to talk about National Spirits in Millennia.


[h3]Role of National Spirits[/h3]

The concept of player authorship is central to a lot of our design. In Millennia, the National Spirits system does some heavy lifting to support that goal.

Ages, which change the baseline rules of the world and alter the Units, Technologies, Goods, and Capital Buildings involved in the game, provide a way for the world to change for all of the Nations involved, based on the direction they steer history.

National Spirits are similar in that, like Ages, they provide new and different tools to the player, but these are more focused on how one Nation decides to face the challenges presented by the world all of the Nations are in together. We really like the idea of players getting to decide what their Nation is about and we think it makes sense that Nations can develop differently when history moves in different directions.

As an aside on that…. We know from early playtesting feedback that a lot of players come in expecting pre-made Nations that they need to figure out how to put to the best use. Millennia has a different arrangement -- we treat Nations as cosmetic things. You don’t pick Spain because of the bonuses Spain has, rather you pick Spain because … well, because you like Spain – you want Spanish location names, Spanish symbology, you like the idea of “being Spain.” For Millennia, no Nation (aside from fairly minor starting bonuses and the cosmetic elements) is different from any other at the start of a new game.

But … where you take your Spain as history unfolds and you make decisions about how to approach things – Nations grow to become very different from one another as the game develops.


[h3]Basic Structure of National Spirits[/h3]

National Spirits are grouped into four sets, based on the Ages when they are first available – two, four, six, and eight. As soon as a Nation enters an Age where a National Spirit choice is available, they can make a selection from the corresponding set. (There is no cost.)

Only one National Spirit can be selected in each of the Ages when they are available (so a Nation ends the game with four different National Spirits).

The National Spirits available are not exclusive -- more than one Nation can have the same National Spirit. However, National Spirits that have not been selected gain a bonus when other Spirits are adopted, meaning that less popular options are offset by additional rewards.

All National Spirits are associated with a Domain, with the exception of Government (so: Exploration, Warfare, Engineering, Diplomacy, and Arts). Governments are their own unique system and there are no Government National Spirits.

In addition to the content offered by National Spirits, selecting one also causes a Nation to earn additional Domain XP in the related Domain -- if you take a Warfare Domain National Spirit in Age 2, say Raiders, you will earn additional Warfare XP every turn.

This can change the way you think about National Spirit selection in certain circumstances. Usually, you’re focused on what the National Spirit itself has to offer but, on occasion, the extra Domain XP each turn or the bonus Domain XP for picking a less-popular National Spirit can enable different strategies.

Once selected, each National Spirit presents a set of bonuses called Ideals. There are seven Ideals in a National Spirit, organized into tiers. You must unlock at least one Ideal of a lower tier to gain access to the next tier. Ideals have a cost in the Domain XP of the National Spirit’s Domain. So, Raiders mentioned above, a Warfare Domain National Spirit – it has Ideals with Warfare XP costs.

The final tier of each National Spirit is a special Ideal called a Legacy. Legacies are cheap, they cost only one Domain XP, but they have a requirement related to the National Spirit. For example, Theologians, an Age 4 National Spirit, has a Legacy that unlocks when you achieve 40 population following your state religion. Legacies reward Social Fabric points and are one of the easier ways to get these, so they can be quite valuable.


[h3]Anatomy of a National Spirit – Khans[/h3]

Any easy way to think about National Spirits, at a conceptual level, is as a kind of “reputation” – what is a Nation known for?

Common examples we use to illustrate this are things like Spartan Warriors, Swiss Banking, Silicon Valley, or Egyptian Pyramids.

As those examples suggest, that means National Spirits are substantial. What you select will have a lot of impact on your strategy as Ideals provide major bonuses and unique capabilities. The design here is less “your stuff is a little better than everyone else’s stuff”, more “you’re the only ones that have this at all.”

In general, National Spirits provide Ideals that have value in different spans – things that are only good in the era when you first get the National Spirit, things that can be valuable for a bit longer, and things that have utility for the remainder of the game. However, there is some shifting there, with certain National Spirts that are strong “now” (and only “now”) and others that have less immediate but more consistent, ongoing value.

The one we’ll look at in more detail here, Khans, is more of a “now” National Spirit.

Khans is an Age 4 Warfare Domain National Spirit. Thematically, this National Spirit allows you to pursue a direction inspired by the Mongol Empire – you want to unleash your own Genghis Khan on the world.

As soon as Khans is selected, it spawns a special Unit – the Khan. Your Khan is powerful, with a high Tactics score (and free, instant), but only around for 50 turns, so make the time count.

In the first tier of Khan Ideals are Khan, which causes Barbarian neutrality, and Horseback Archery, which spawns Horse Archers.

So, pretty quickly, a Nation with Khans is doing some different things – the only ones with a Khan leader, the only ones with Horse Archers, the only ones not being attacked by Barbarians.

The next tier of Ideals builds on this with Incite Conflict, which gives you a new Domain Power that allows you to, essentially, put the Barbarians to work for you. You can leave it at that – just allowing the Barbarians to pester your enemy, or you could get Uniter of Tribes and give your Khan the ability to treat any Barbarian Camp (ones there on their own or created by you) as a way to add more Horse Archers to your growing Army.

Since you only get the one Khan, Keshing is also a solid pick, making the Khan harder to kill and also providing a Unit Ability that allows spawning Horse Archers at the Khan’s location (convenient when you’re out fighting and have a limited number of turns to wait for Units to arrive after training back in a home Region).

Since you’ll likely have a lot of Horse Archers, Composite Bows, is useful for making them deadlier.

Finally, Call to War adds a unique Culture Power to the set available to you, allowing you to spawn two more Horse Archers at each Region.

Collectively, the intent is to deliver a “Genghis Khan experience” -- you have a powerful and unique military leader, you have a feel of uniting the tribes, your armies are different from the other armies of the era, you can move quickly and push militarily, you don’t have the most powerful Units of the era but they’re strong and you can get a lot of them.

[h3]Thanks![/h3]

Khans may seem like it provides a powerful set of bonuses, and it does, but so do the seven other National Spirits available in Age Four. Each of these, like Khans, provides a set of Ideals that deliver a unique experience and strategic options.

As you can probably gather, the depth of the different National Spirit options creates a lot of replayability, both individually and when considering strategies built around using a set of complimentary National Spirits.

The modular approach, which allows us to look at each National Spirit as its own special thing instead of having to consider all of the different options as branches on one (huge) tech tree, is very powerful – Millennia delivers a lot of fun, unique gameplay through this system.

We hope you have enjoyed this overview and look forward to the time (soon!) when you can try it out yourself. (And, as usual, if you like what you’ve seen of Millennia, please wishlist us.)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1268590/Millennia/

Hello, everyone! Welcome to the next Developer Diary for Millennia. I am Ian Fischer of C Prompt Games and today we will cover Domains and Culture.

[h3]Domains[/h3]

If you have been following Millennia, you know a theme of the design is the idea of player authorship. We are excited by the idea of the “what if?”, of getting to play with history from the perspective of “if I were there, I would have done this.”

To support that, you’ll find less of things like predefined Nations with fixed bonuses in Millennia – designs that have you figuring out how to make your “character” work best with history. Instead, we steer more toward systems that give players tools to define their Nation over the course of a game – designs that let you decide how to grow your Nation in response to the direction history takes.

Domains are one of those systems.

There are six Domains: Government, Exploration, Warfare, Engineering, Diplomacy, and Arts. At the start, in the Age of Stone, the Government Domain is active for all Nations. The remaining Domains become active for a Nation as soon as they encounter them. For example, if you run into some Barbarians and get in a fight, you’ll open up the Warfare Domain. If you built a Lookout Tower, that will enable the Exploration Domain. When you encounter a Tribal Camp, you might find something that provides Engineering. (And so on.) Generally, all Domains are in play by the end of the third Age.

Each Domain provides your Nation with related Domain Powers, tools that allow you to take actions involving the Domain. The range involved with each is broad – the Warfare Domain, for example, includes Domain Powers that represent preparedness, stored materials, leadership training, and martial spirit.

There are a set of “standard” Domain Powers for every Domain. For example, every Nation gets an Exploration Domain Power that allows them to spawn a Scout. Additional Domain Powers become available over time. Depending on what Ages history moves through, you can end up with different Domain Powers – moving into the Age of Monuments (Variant Age) will grant unique Domain Powers you will not have if you progress into Age of Kings. Certain National Spirits also unlock Domain Powers, so different timelines and different decisions about how to grow a Nation will produce different capabilities.

Domain Powers are fueled by Domain XP of their type. The Exploration Domain Power that allows you to spawn a Scout costs some Exploration XP.

XP is earned in a number of different ways. As mentioned, you can gain some from rewards like Tribal Camps and also from actions, such as Warfare XP being rewarded by getting into battles.

Capital Buildings also supply Domain XP – a Town Center provides Government XP, a Barracks generates Warfare XP, a Market Square will bring in some Diplomacy XP. However, to really invest in a Domain and generate substantial amounts of XP, you generally need to look at Improvements and plan some of your economy around the direction you’re interested in – if you build Mines and Furnaces and send Ingots to a Weaponsmith, the weapons made provide Warfare XP.

The intent of this is to allow Nations to take actions that align with their strategy and character. If I have built a lot of Market Squares and Great Halls, deployed numerous Envoys, and set up Improvements to get trade Goods like Tea, I will have a lot of Diplomacy XP and that will allow me to use more of the Diplomacy Domain Powers – my Nation will be characterized by its use of Diplomatic actions, more truces and trade and alliances.

If instead I have built a lot of Workshops and my Mines and Forges are supplying Improvements like Toolsmiths, I’ll show signs of that National character through the Engineering Domain Powers – I’ll likely have more Outposts, more Improvements, higher level Towns.

This arrangement helps Nations to “be more what they do.” If a neighboring Nation has been fighting since the start of the game, has Barracks in every Capital, and has extensive Goods chains dedicated to making Weapons, I can guess that they aren’t likely to be strong on Diplomacy or Arts. I can expect that their long experience with war, their investment in training, and their weapons industry is going to translate into a capable opponent on the battlefield – they will be able to use more Warfare Domain Powers than a less militant Nation.

[h3]Domains and National Spirits[/h3]

To touch on a related element briefly, National Spirits are also associated with specific Domains.

Selecting a National Spirit provides some income of their Domain (taking an Engineering Domain National Spirit will provide Engineering XP each turn) and the Ideals of a National Spirit have costs in their Domain. Additionally, any Domain Powers unlocked by Ideals in a National Spirit will have a cost in the same Domain (and any unique Improvements or Capital Buildings from a National Spirit will often provide ways to earn more of that Domain than usual).

Overall, this means that there’s competition for the Domain points and a fair amount of space for thinking about how you use these different pieces.

[h3]Culture[/h3]

Culture is a lot of fun…. Mechanically, you can think of Culture as a “super Domain.” But, thematically, Culture is the force behind major events in history, big turning points.

As with the other Domains, you gain Culture from your actions in the game – if you construct Capital Buildings like Colosseum, set up Goods lines for Wine, deploy Artists, or control a dominant Religion, you will generate more Culture.

Unlike other Domains, there are not Domain Powers with a variety of costs and you cannot use the Powers any time you can afford them. Instead, the Culture you generate fills your Culture Meter and, when you amass enough, you can pick from any of the Culture Powers available to you.

Culture Powers are arranged by Domains – when you get your first Warfare XP, it opens up the Warfare Domain for you and also makes Warfare Domain Culture Powers available. As with other Domains, different Culture Powers can become available to you because of the Age the game moves into or because of the National Spirits you adopt.

No matter where they come from, all Culture Powers are “big” – founding a religion, changing your government, calling a crusade, raising Armies, and advancing current research are all examples of Culture Powers. A lot of players will have an idea of how they intend to use Culture Powers as they advance through a game, but one of the places where Culture Powers really shine is when those plans go off the rails. Because the Culture Powers are more impactful than other Domain Powers, and because they provide a lot of flexibility, they can serve as powerful wildcards – things that can get you out of a jam you didn’t expect.

The arrangement used for the Culture system is intended to model cultural movements – things that might be seen as “zeitgeist”, as something more about the “mood” of a Nation at a specific point in history instead of the direct product of more tangible industry. Think of historical events like the push to settle the western portion of North America in the 1800s, the increase in raiding after the Germanic Iron Age, or the period of rapid technological advance sparked by the invention of the printing press.

As such, a difference between how Culture works and the other Domains operate is that Culture has a connection to the size your Nation. Smaller Nations, with fewer people and less distance between them, have an easier time maintaining cohesion. Larger Nations, with more people and greater distances to cover, need more to stick together – they require an amount of Culture to offset their size. Hence, if your Nation has more Regions, you’ll spend more of the Culture you generate on keeping them together, and you’ll (likely) get Culture Powers less often. If you instead pursue more of a “tall” strategy and have a smaller number of more developed Regions, you’ll (likely) get Culture Powers more frequently.

[h3]Thanks![/h3]

Domains and Culture are two key systems in Millennia. Hopefully, you can envision some of the potential – they make for a lot of interesting strategies to explore and provide Millennia with strong replay value. We hope you have enjoyed this overview and look forward to the time (soon!) when you can try them out fully yourselves.

Thanks again, and if you like what you have seen so far, please wishlist us!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1268590/Millennia/

Hello! I’m Ben Friedman, a Game Designer at C Prompt Games, and I have the pleasure of presenting the next dev diary for Millennia! We’ve left some of you hanging with our allusions to the various Ages in our game, and now it’s time to go into detail about that.

Something that’s always been at the core of Millennia has been the ability to explore each era of human history and let the player toy around with what you might’ve done if you were there. People get excited talking about big “what-if” moments in history and our vision is to let you play through those possibilities. To do that, Millennia features a range of historical and alternate history Ages that create a sandbox for history. From there, you can explore Ages that involve “What if Rome never fell?” “What if steam power was viable?” “What if AI becomes sentient and takes over the world?”

To put these together, we were at a white board scribbling the most common and interesting “what-ifs” we could think of, coming at it from both what we thought were the coolest themes and also what we thought would be fun to play with. We quickly came up with way more Age concepts than we could build for the initial release so, for now, we’ve only built the ones we thought would be the most impactful and that we could make shine for launch.

[h3]Ages, Broadly​[/h3]

The timeline in Millennia is separated into 10 distinct Ages. Each Age houses a handful of Techs that unlock Units, Buildings, Improvements, and more. Unlocking each Age will both progress you through history and potentially expose you to these “what-if” alternate history timelines. The historical Ages have Technologies you’ll recognize, and the alternative history Ages have new Techs unique to that Age. The “What if steam power was viable?” Age has floating airships, steampunk machines, and more, just to give you a taste!


In order to progress from one Age to the next you’ll have to research a certain minimum number of Techs from your current Age and meet any additional requirements the next Age might have, then research the Age you want to advance into. Other players can see your progress on any Age advance research you start, and are alerted towards whatever Age research is closest to being completed. This might give you a chance to see what someone else is doing and race ahead to beat them to the Age you prefer.

In the top-left, the Age progression warning appears

By progressing into a non-mainline Age, you diverge your game away from the historical known timeline, and into alt-history scenarios. We’ve chosen cut-off points in the timeline to break up our Ages that work both historically and are suited for alt-history. For example, if you choose to go into an Age like “What if Rome never fell?” it picks up right about when Rome was in decline, and an Age like “What if steam power was viable?” is right at home in the Victorian period. Due to all of the permutations, every game you play is going to be different because of which ages you link together.

These alternate history Ages take the place of the historical Ages, and that means you’ll sometimes miss out on something important from the main timeline in order to get something else unique from your alt-history Age. This variation leads to some wild games, and the system accounts for that by requiring you to return to the next historical Age after adventuring into an alternate history branch. That way you’re always in a known position when we present the next “what-if” question, and we know that you have the tools to rise to whatever challenge comes next.

However, the past influences the present (and future), so Units, Buildings, Improvements, Goods, and so on that came about because you went into a variant Age can change things farther down the timeline – just because you progress out of a variant Age doesn’t mean it stops having an impact on your timeline.
These Ages are linked together in the timeline

When you research a new Age, you get a suite of Units, Buildings, Improvements, and more, just like any other Tech. By researching the Age of Blood, for example, you unlock the Berserker Unit that’s ready to lay waste to your enemies! (Which you’ll have a lot of in the Age of Blood.) If you’re the first person to enter an age, you also lock in that Age for the timeline. All other players will have to progress through the same Ages as you once the timeline is locked in. That makes the leading Nation an important role to maintain, as you get to choose which Technologies are available in your game.

Each Age also has a set of “Age Rules” that are enforced globally as long as that Age is the leading Age. Entering a new Age will replace the old Age Rules from the previous Age. The historical ages have more tame Age Rules that reward players for following patterns from known history, like building castles in the Age of Kings, but the alt-history Ages are where the Age Rules are more pronounced. The Age Rules for the Age of Blood forces every Nation to be at war with every other Nation, but also reduces the penalties associated with being at war. These Age Rules can make each Age more impactful than just the Technologies available. (So, you might want to pick an Age just because you can leverage the Age Rules in your favor.)

[h3]Types of Ages​[/h3]

If you want to diverge your timeline into an Age that you like, you’ll have to compete with all of the other Nations trying to do the same thing. Some Ages are easier to reach, some are harder, and some you’ll accidentally slip into.

Historical Ages don’t have any additional requirements beyond the minimum Tech requirement, and they tend to have more subtle Age rules. These follow a traditional historical route that will be familiar. There is plenty to do if you stay on the “known path,” there are fine strategies that involve trying to progress through the standard Ages timeline, but you’ll miss some of the fun of the alternate Ages.

Variant Ages are the primary place where “what-if” scenarios are explored. These have special requirements to unlock them, but you might meet those by accident because of your playstyle (or you might decide to go out of your way to steer into a Variant). Variant Ages tend to be somewhat equivalent to historical Ages, except their “what if” scenario bends the game, making it play differently. If your Nation is booming in the Age of Iron, it might be wise to push for the Age of Monuments next, instead of Kings, as Monuments offers unique Improvements that can help your Regions grow.

Crisis Ages are Similar to Variants, they have unique Units, Buildings, and other content to help you progress, but they also generally come with some horrible disaster that will challenge every Nation in the game. That isn’t always “bad”, if you’re well-suited to overcome the challenge, you might want to go into the Crisis just to make other Nations suffer (or you might want to go into the Crisis Age for a Unit or Tech you couldn’t get otherwise).

Another difference in Crisis Ages is that you are locked out of other Age options when you meet their requirements. You don’t necessarily have to enter the Crisis Age at that point, if you don’t want to, you could instead continue to research Technologies and bide your time, hoping that another Nation researches a different Age and sets the timeline to something else.
Scary stuff

Victory Ages are the last type of Age. These have a very high bar to meet, but if you can manage it, you gain the ability to win the game. The most common Victory Ages are the Age 10 Victories (every Age 10 option is a Victory Age). There are also some Victory Ages that are available earlier, which we call internally “off-ramp” Victory Ages. These were put in place to let you end a game early if you feel like you’ve gotten a firm lead and don’t want to pass 200 more turns just to see the Victory screen. But be careful when entering a Victory Age, as these just set the specific rules for winning. Anyone who meets the victory conditions can win, so don’t rest on your laurels just yet!

[h3]Historical Ages​[/h3]

As mentioned before, after you progress through an alternate Age you’ll return to the next historical Age, which means that at least half of the Ages you play in will be historical Ages. To best walk through what the historical ages are like, here’s a general description of how my games tend to go when sticking to just the historical ages.

(Note: most games will play differently due to the alt-history ages, different National Spirits, and another zillion granular choices you can make.)

[h3]Stone c. 10,000 B.C.E.​[/h3]
Despite being the first turn of the game, with only one Region and a few Units to control, there’s lots of decisions you need to make to get the ball rolling. I normally focus on building farms and keeping my Needs met at 200% as much as possible. I use my starting Warband Units to clear the fog of war around my starting area, supplemented by one or two Scouts I’ll build. I try to collect Reward Camps and stomp out any Barbarian Camps I see to hopefully get something helpful to rocket myself into a good position.

[h3]Bronze C. 5,000 B.C.E.​[/h3]
In the Age of Bronze, I’ll pick my first National Spirit based on what I think is going to be the most beneficial for me. Most of these National Spirits care about what terrain is nearby, but my go-to (with all factors being equal) is the Mound Builders NS because it helps me grow my population faster. I’m still focusing on keeping my Needs at 200% as much as possible, so I like to chain together my wheat farms with flour mills. Flour is so efficient that I can normally free up a spare worker that otherwise would’ve been on a farm to go work at a clay pit or forester Improvement and get some production flowing.

[h3]Iron C. 2,000 B.C.E.​[/h3]
I like reaching the Iron Age ASAP because I can reform my Tribal Government into a new Government. Which Government I pick depends on how my game is going, whether I have a lot of Vassals, or if I’m better off keeping my borders close-knit and just focus on keeping my Regions growing. By the Age of Iron, I also normally have a plan for how I’m going to get ahead of my neighboring Nations. If I’m lucky with the terrain near where I spawned, I can focus on investing in myself, getting my iron mines up and running, and continuing to chain together basic foods into more efficient refined goods. If I’m unlucky, I’ll have no choice but to invest in my military and train some Cavalry to harass my neighbors or try and steal an unprotected Vassal from them.

[h3]Kings C. 0 C.E.​[/h3]
In the Age of Kings, I like to upgrade my Outposts into Castles early to get the Age Rule reward for building Castles, and because it protects my Outposts from attacks. (I may or may not get into a lot of wars early on.) I can also found a Religion in this Age, but tend to wait on it instead of rushing in, because meeting the Faith Need is a bit trickier than other Needs, and not meeting the Need will result in an upcoming Crisis Age. The Age of Kings also has the Feudalism Tech which I tend to take first, because it makes my farms extremely efficient, and chaining together the mills and ovens to bake bread means I have loads of free workers to work other Improvements outside of just meeting my Needs.

[h3]Renaissance C. 1400 C.E.​[/h3]
Continuing down the path of known history, I arrive at the Age of Renaissance. You get a free Explorer Unit when you research this Age, which I use to go on Expeditions at Landmarks near my Regions. I’ll also upgrade any Scouts into more Explorers to help with the Expeditions. I tend to get the Navigation Tech quickly here, as it allows me to load up my land Units into Deep Water Transports, and send them across the deep blue sea. I want to know what’s going on at the other continents or islands, and I’ll either join a winning battle to steal a piece of land for myself from the losing side, or I’ll instigate conflict on my own now that my territory is safe on the other side of an ocean. Renaissance also reveals the Social Fabric system, which I’ll typically start with a few free points from the National Spirits I’ve taken, and I’ll focus on producing a lot of Domain Points to increase my Social Fabric Score to get the sweet bonuses.

[h3]Enlightenment C. 1650 C.E.​[/h3]
In the Age of Enlightenment, the game gives you the tools to really explode your Knowledge production and put it into high gear, but I tend to play it safe because there’s also a Crisis Age coming related to over-doing it and failing to meet the associated Education Need. I use this age as a cooling period to make sure all of my Regions have upgraded Improvements, their Needs are still being met, and I’ll spend my resources where I can to get all of my Regions to be powerful economic machines.

[h3]Revolutions C. 1800 C.E.​[/h3]
Knowing what I know about the game, I seek out locations early on in anticipation for the Age of Revolutions. Specifically, I look to claim as much Coal on the map as I can, even though it doesn’t have much use until now. Coal is a really cheap way to generate Power, to meet my upcoming Power Need. Power Needs for a Region comes from building “factory” style Improvements and other advanced Buildings, which I intend to do as soon as possible once I’ve unlocked them. The benefit for doing so is that I can assign multiple workers to each factory Improvement, and my smaller Regions can catch up to my Regions that control much more territory. Revolutions is a really important inflection point in the game, but is also one of the only historical Ages that comes with its own conflict built-in. When revolutionary Rebel units start spawning, I need to be prepared with my military to fend them off, which is why it’s good that I use the Age of Enlightenment to cool down my wars and bring my troops home.

[h3]ATOM C. 1920 C.E.​[/h3]
If I’m the first player to this Age, I’ll update my Government to whichever Government benefits me the most, but if I’m late to the party I’ll pick whichever Government allows me to join the most powerful Faction, so that I can ride their coattails and claw my way back into the lead. I also leverage the Space Race whenever I can, as the first player to complete it gets a nice reward for themselves and for their Faction, which can be the tipping point to get a high tier Faction Reward.

[h3]Information C. 1980~2030 C.E.​[/h3]
Once I hit the Age of Information, I have to start focusing on how I’m going to win. If I feel like I’m in a safe position relative to the other Nations, I enjoy heading into the riskiest Victory Age: the Age of Singularity. I take the Information Tech that unlocks the supercomputer Improvement, and build an unreasonable amount of them to summon the Rogue AI Crisis to end the game in a big firework final showdown.


[h3]Sign-off​[/h3]

There’s plenty more to talk about for the Ages, but this is where I have to end today’s diary entry. We’ll be sure to talk more about the Ages again, so look forward to Part 2! Thank you for bending your ears, err… eyes? We appreciate all of the love we’ve seen for the game so far, and if you like what you’re seeing, and you haven’t already, please wishlist us!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1268590/Millennia/