Celestial Empire News

Dear Community!
Even though the Emperor gave you the power to govern part of this land, your powers will always be limited. At the beginning of our journey, you will be limited by the borders of your own estate. You will have to choose where to settle, you will have to look for a spot that will provide you with the most basic resources like trees and water.



Once you find the perfect place, you can start building your city within the borders. In the beginning, the land available to you is a small rectangle. You must be able to fit all the buildings needed for your citizens to survive.



If you start outgrowing the initial land, you can expand your domain to suit your growing population. Your citizens have more and more needs, so you have to find a way to get more and more space. You can do that with the help of Towers. They allow you to claim more land, so you can fulfil more of your citizens’ needs. You must remember that this building has its own separate needs, which are not connected to the initial price of placing it down. Additionally, the price of every other Tower you place will be more expensive.



We decided to create rectangular borders, as the ability to rotate them allows you for much more flexible development of your cities: moving your borders towards resources or pretty natural features.

We hope that the limitations at the beginning of your playthroughs help with your creativity and resource management. Growing your cities will become a more organic part of the experience. With the limitations, we try to make sure that all players can express themselves in designing your cities. Let us know how you feel about this change, we’re awaiting your opinions and propositions on how to make this more fun for you.
See you next time
The Devs

Dear Community!
We’re bringing some story elements which will help you shape your cities in many ways, by encouraging stable development. Event and Quests will help you keep up with the ideal growth and give you plenty of choices to make. But remember that choices you make may have unforeseen consequences.


Significant moments will shape your journey. After major milestones, you will be directly confronted with your citizens’ needs and have to find the best possible solutions for all of them. It’s up to you to decide what your city’s budget and workforce can afford. You will have a general idea of the consequences of your actions, but like everything in life, nothing is for sure. Sometimes your decisions may have unlikely consequences and you will have to pay the price.



But milestones are not the only moments when events will interrupt your peaceful city planning. Life isn’t always predictable and certain events will catch you by surprise. These may be related to forces of nature, the Emperor’s moods or special holidays. You will have to make the decisions and then follow through. The citizens will remember your choices and that will influence their satisfaction. So very often if you decline their pleadings, you will be punished with temporary satisfaction debuffs.





They are the tasks you must fulfil once you make your decision in the Event window. These are often related to providing your city with a certain amount of materials or newly unlocked processed goods. If your citizens came to you asking for new clothing and you decided to help them, the quest of making clothes will begin. Sometimes you will have to race the clock and provide for the city before the time runs out. And if you fail, your citizens will not be too happy and for a while, you will have to work extra hard to satisfy their needs.

So the shape of your city, decorations and where you choose to build things, it’s still completely up to you. We want to make sure you get to experience all sides of running a city and that you don’t accidentally forget certain branches of the industry or infrastructure.
Let us know what events you would like to see the most!
See you next time
The Devs

Dear Community!
We bring you some of the settings that will influence the way your cities grow and develop throughout your playthroughs. These will shape your playthroughs in more than one way.


While new players may need some help from us, experienced players may see this as being held by the hand. And sometimes returning players need help remembering what to do and need only a bit of guidance. You can have a choice of how much help you need.



Full Guidance
We will walk you through all game’s mechanics and show you how to build your city from the ground up. It’s useful during your first playthroughs, where even the most basic mechanics may seem a bit new.

Less Guidance
We will introduce some of the mechanics, especially those that are not commonly found in other city-builders. The basics seem too obvious for us to explain at this point. We recommend this setting if you are a returning player, who has played many city builders before but hasn’t touched Celestial Empire in a while.

No Guidance
You probably know the game inside out and can play with your eyes closed. There will be no tutorials, no hints, and no expertise from us. You are the expert now. The training wheels are off.

These tutorial changes do not include tooltips, which explain certain functionalities and mechanics behind tools and buildings.


As players, you will be faced with a choice that will influence most of your playthroughs. Each difficulty will have its own set of challenges and different starting points. Certain obstacles are more likely to happen and even some handy tools may be disabled for the sake of the challenge.



Easy Difficulty will let you create and redecorate your dream city. Your fields will always yield high harvests and your citizens will be easier to please, so you can relax and enjoy the simple life as the Governor with almost unlimited power. Disasters will rarely threaten your citizens, so you can have some fun with barely any consequences to your choices. You start as a rich man and will hopefully help your city get even richer.

Medium Difficulty will bring some challenges but they will not be overwhelming. You can still reshape the city at any point, but it will cost you. Everything around you will be mediocre, harvests will be okay, and there will be enough materials to help you satisfy your citizens’ needs. Disasters will come and go, but with smart planning ahead and skilled building placing, you will be fine.

Hard Difficulty is challenging. Forces of nature and odds are stacked against you. There’s a permanence to your choices, so you better plan ahead, because there is no moving of the buildings. There is only demolition. Disasters will stick to you like flies to a glue trap and disastrous consequences will be more devastating than ever. Even the soil does not like you and will make harvests a miserable experience. So good luck feeding your people and finding materials. It’s you and your skills against the scary world of Hard Difficulty.

So these are the tutorial, difficulty settings. They will be the cornerstone of your playthroughs. We’re very excited to introduce some challenges and give you the option to just relax and not worry about too many things. How do you think, which difficulty setting will be your favourite? Let us know!
See you next time!
The Devs

Dear Community!
Before you develop sprawling cities on this untouched land, take a moment to look at the large open fields. Waving grass dances to the wind and a variety of trees change colours through the seasons. This may be a small detail but nature surrounding your city will be the most beautiful backdrop.



We’re aiming to create a complex palette of colours in which the cities will be the main focus. The lush plant life will bring out the best of the buildings’ colours. We’ve already talked about a wide variety of trees, so it’s time to mention the tiniest of plants. The base layer of the greenery cake is the grass. It may not seem like a lot, but it will be key to the seasons changing.



Masks in Unreal Engine allow us to place thousands of small tufts of grass all over the map. This will also allow for ease of access, so we can change and tweak colours depending on the time of year. Seasons will visually indicate the gameplay changes. Harsh winters will stop food production and increase the amount of fuel our citizens need. So observe nature to prepare for the upcoming hardships.



Let us know how you are planning to incorporate natural beauty into your cities. Will you have spaces for rabbits and ducks to relax and frolic around? Remember that including trees and green spaces is key to creating balance and making people happy.
Can’t wait to hear about your dream cities.
See you soon!
The Devs

Last month we presented a closer look at the technical side of things and today we deliver a visual delight that is the new trailer! You can see the full scale of the details created using Unreal Engine's Nanite. We're able to include the tiniest elements of the buildings and surrounding areas!

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This trailer also delivers a closer look into the lives of your citizens! Watch them walk around, work, buy food and enjoy a lovely day at the temple! They may not know it yet, but your leadership will bring the prosperity you can see in the gorgeous and blissful scenes of the video.



Agriculture mixes with industrial parts of the city as we all watch it grow and evolve in front of our eyes. Let us know which citizens or buildings or any elements of the city are your favourite! We're eagerly waiting for your comments here, on youtube or in our Discord!

This trailer is also available here on Steam, so you can check it out on our Steam Store Page!