Updates

• A Conqueror tells his storySeptember 24, 2026

  The first major multiplayer test concluded at the beginning of August.

  In my opinion, it proved that the underpinning principle of the entire game was true – that it could be a platform where people play out the same social, political and strategic dynamics that drive cooperation and conflict in the real world.

  Typically, computer games demand that players win through mastery of game mechanics.

  Terra Dominus demands players achieve mastery of other players.

  The mechanics of Terra are definitely essential to understand and master, however, this will be fruitless if you cannot motivate, persuade, coerce, organise, mobilise, build trust, spy, prove loyalty, and otherwise employ all other tactics available as artifacts of the human condition.

  While I feel we’ve proven that the idea works, which was impossible without the incredible participation of the volunteer game testers; the challenge is execution. This vision is suffering a long and difficult birth. But we’re getting there. There’s a lot more work to do before I announce another test.

  In the meantime, I would like to present evidence of our success – Ansik, the winner our first game, has written a biographical account of his journey toward victory.

  And yes, he did use post-it notes on his wall IRL to keep track of what was happening in the game. This has inspired a post-it note feature which allows players to write notes directly to the map (which others can’t see).

  Enjoy.

  ---

  Tell me of a simple cat, muse tell me how it wandered and was lost

  I chose my spawn because it had lots of rainfall and seemed protected by the mountain range and ocean, by then I don’t think there was many neighbours either. I have no idea what I’m doing, but as there’s no fog I can see what everyone else is doing. Vigil is sending a ship somewhere so I do the same, this later become the envoys who visits the world.

  

  I reach out to my neighbours as I know we need to unite if the mountain is to serve as protection, so send i speak with Wiglaff who joins me before I even offer, and then I invite the rest of the neighbours.

  

  While my envoys make introductions across the world I try to organise the kingdom to speedrun bronze together, and we do make some headway. Trying to instigate some drama I try to antagonise Vigil and Slege slightly, hoping to get a clear line dividing our realm and vigils realm (but not through outright combat).

  

  The first Trojan attack, utilising envoys to capture unprotected land is executed against the southern western land with Wiglaff. At first, a mission of genuine diplomatic character which went unanswered became our first successful conquest. It’s also now I start using a physical ’map’ to organise my thoughts

  

  The Northen tension follows. While Vigil wages war against their Northen neighbour & yellow, we come in seize the yellow kingdom.

  

  We debate what the next steps were; some wanted to conquer the whole continent immediately through force while others argued we didn’t have enough to hold the continent yet.

  

  In the end we settled for war. Our envoys ordered to seize capitals across the map, while our army moved on Vigiland from the north. In just two days we had grown the empire to stretch across the map from north to south and from west to east.

  

  Resistance began immediately, so this is when the first atrocity took place. By royal decree, and in the chaos of our conquest, I manage to convince most of the opposing armies to leave behind their ration. Causing many to starve immediately and many more in the following days

  

  But as predicted, we didn’t have the numbers to hold any of the lands really. We told the southerners we had no designs for their land and withdrew. At the same time my envoy in Latytude was assassinated while trying to sway them to our cause.

  

  With the last chance for a second wind gone, and attrition killing our few troops we sued for peace with Vigiland and after a short negotiation they accepted. War seemed so costly now and the deal allowed for more communication, ushering in what my people called the age of diplomacy.

  

  Then the great land reform happened, everyone’s border were reduced when absent lords were booted from their holdings. (Kicked AFK players)

  

  From here I have screenshots less often but I’ll try my best.

  After the war and loss of cities we began to rebuild. I had an initiative where I tried to populate most tiles around me to continually farm wood while Wiglaff focused on massive population growth. As neighbours again joined in we conquered them immediately and adopted them into the kingdom, most didn’t stay for long but some were very resourceful.

  Gold, to me, seemed like the natural way to motivate the vassals continued faith in my leadership. Trade seemed far away still for us, so I tried both mining at home while seeking out another conquest, without breaking the peace treaty. I had the best case for casus belli with Latytude after their assassination, and they had a fairly large gold reserve, and after mustering troops we set sail there. But just as we reach their shores they had just been seized by Grant (vassal of Vigiland) and their throne left absent (afk). Not wanting to go home empty handed (and seizing the opportunity for drama), I demanded the gold from the kingdom of Vigiland. We came to an agreement but I knew I had overstepped.

  

  After this I pivoted towards the age of diplomacy, sent envoys to our neural land GasTown and made efforts to invite others. I made plans for trade and even deals to pay toll while moving through Vigiland’s rivers.

  While this was happening Wiglaff had grown their population much larger than most, and suddenly had a massive manpower advantage that was hard to surpass. They built fortresses across the region and I made plans for how we could invade Vigiland, if diplomacy would fail and my earlier overstepping took its toll.

  

  But without my knowledges Wiglaff, driven (I think) by a wish to unite the world, had made plans with Vigil and turned on me. They made an offer were I could submit without bloodshed and I was in no position to resist their massive army now. So I took it, choosing to bid my time. The crisis this brought on for my people lamented the fact that the age of diplomacy was nearing its end.

  

  I had finally taken Wiglaffs advice a few turns earlier to merge my population and grow them. As a vassal of Vigiland I could make introductions with Guerrila and the second I saw a slight crack in their foundation I began to pour water: The Latvian people still wanted vengeance on Leapolis after the earlier war. (I obviously did not mention how many of their soldiers I had directed to starve during the same conflict)

  When Vigil later ordered us to turn our attention to the southern conquest it was the final nail in the coffin for the age of diplomacy. Now was our chance to act if we were to break free of Vigiland, so I sent offers to Guerrila and Big. Big pledge their support immediately, and Guerrila seemed just as driven by our cause of freedom. I also sent an envoy to Fish under the guise of making demands, but instead warned of the conquest and advised in defences. So while conquest is planned of the southern continent I concurrently plan an occupation of Vigiland. Only hitch seems to be that Vigil suddenly moves lots of people north toward my old borders, but my invasion was planned by sea so I don’t feel too threatened.

  

  When Vigils troops landed in the southern continent, I send my final instructions to my co-conspirators. My ships, seemingly moving for the southern continent were in striking distance from Vigiland and would arrive the next turn. Everything halted when Guerrila instead made their subterfuge known; they had fed Vigil my plans and they would join their forces against mine. Slightly panicked I decided to deploy my second atrocity. Small units push out far into enemy territory with orders to request all resources from other members of our kingdom, and as the orders of war had not reached the general infantry man, they offer no resistance to the order. We end up with a ton of surplus food and tools while it leaves most of Vigils population with neither, again. Forcing them to either change to food production or risk starving.

  

  Vigil can now offer little resistance, and my army can move with ease across their lands and destroying the remaining units. At the same time my home guard free our region and secure the border. I offer a truce to Guerrila but they refuse, so my armies must plan for an occupation of the whole continent. Even with many of our citizens already committed as armies, I’m able to grow enough population to make ~50 more every second turn. So for now we will endure a war economy until Operation Declaw is complete across the continent.

  

  With at least Vigil mostly neutered, the envoy to Fish now began planing for a relief force to end Vigils conquest on the southern front. My ships and armies on the northern front began blockading the movement of Guerrila, with more ships and soldiers arriving anytime they tried to move.

  

  A few turns later we have pushed Vigils invasion back and my occupation of Guerrilas capital Latvia began, and with overwhelming force it ended in a few days with the unconditional surrender of Karlis the Politician.

  

  In the aftermath or epilogue, my ships deported the remain population from Vigiland and Latvia to a barren land. With the great rift over my people began colonising the lands we’ve conquered. An uneasy peace grew between cat and fish. But cats, in the end, could not overcome their natural instinct. Once we had licked our wounds after the previous war, preparations was made for an invasion of Fish.

  

• Development continuesAugust 15, 2026

  Development is progressing at the same speed as before.

  There will be no updates on the live site for a while, however, at least not until the game is a little more presentable.

  After PROTO (the first truly functional live test), dozens of new design decisions were made, and many bugs and issues identified.

  Some fundamental aspects of the game are changing. It’s a lot more complex, improved and involved.

  There are new unit types, resources, actions, diplomacy features and more; many of which will need new artwork which is also in progress.

  Once the new version is uploaded, I will alert you all because it will need testing again.

  With more working parts will come more bugs, and a lot of tweaking will be required to improve playability.

  This game dev stuff takes a long time and a lot of work!

• PROTO HAS ENDEDAugust 2, 2026

  The first real game with committed players has ended.

  It was more successful than I had hoped.

  Thank you to everyone who participated, your feedback has been a huge influence on development and direction. This thing would be far worse without you.

  The final rank included 5 remaining players:

  RANK	PLAYER	GOLD
  1.	ansik	1,337
  2.	big_boomer13	420
  3.	Fish	302
  4.	Guerrila man	277
  5.	Vigil	69

  We will pause starting any new games until the next version is pushed to the live site, which will have many changes.

  Those changes will bring many bugs and there will be a period of testing before inviting people to play a real game.

  Once we’re at a reasonable point of playability, I will publish a video summarising the evolution and results of PROTO, and will ask players to join the next game.

  We reached 26 players max at one point, which the site handled easily. Let’s see if we can make it bigger next time.

• Big gameplay update in the worksJune 29, 2026

  A significant update is in progress, which will have huge affects on gameplay, and will probably bring a lot of bugs along with it.

  Units will be of broader types – for example, carpenters who will be able to build workshops, horse carts, or ships, depending on what they’re assigned to. When they gain experience, it increases their skills in all the above.

  Workshops are persistent, destructible structures that occupy one land-grid cell. This is part of a move toward an infrastructure model, where there must be an investment in your land/city to achieve anything more than subsistence.

  Most units without a Workshop will only work at 25% productivity.

  One Workshop will house multiple units when they have the same owner and unit type. So if you have 2 woodcutter units, they will live in the same workshop no matter their population size (this design may change to population limited).

  When another player wants their units to work productively in the same land, they will have to build their own workshops.

  Military units can burn down workshops.

  Other unit types will be:

  • Engineer – build and destroy walls, roads.
  • Smith – Tools (requiring wood + metal): Farming, woodcutting, mining/quarry, engineering, weapons
  • Miner – Mine tin, copper, gold, stone.
  • Farmer – Grain, cattle, horses
  • Carpenter – Build workshop, carts, shipwright (available only on coastal land)

  Boats are a new unit type, but must be crewed by either a navy or fishing unit to be used. They can also hold passengers. Passenger and cargo space is limited by the size of the ship, which is determined by the amount of wood used when building.

  When a boat is left abandoned by a crew, another player can come along and take it.

  Land grid – The general direction will be toward using the land grid toward displaying all elements of a land as a visual summary here. It’s a kind of physical representation to understand what is happening in the land at a glance.

  Lots of other changes coming, and things will of course evolve as the design is fleshed out.

• Coming soon: Horses!June 12, 2026

  

  This update should arrive in the next day or two.

  New unit: Horse Breeder.

  • Horse breeding units can support 2 horses per unit population, however the horses will also need cleared land to reproduce.
  • The unit always starts with 1 horse, no matter how large the unit pop is.
  • Horses reproduce at the same rate as trees! Meaning growth will depend on rainfall, but they will grow at a minimum of 1 horse per turn. It doesn’t quite make sense but it kinda makes sense?! Will possibly double the growth per turn depending on feedback.

  New resource: Horses.

  • Horses are basically another resource, and can be transferred to store in your land or to another unit.
  • Once a unit has the same number of horses as population (1:1 minimum), you will see the horse icon turn green on the unit card – this means your unit is able to move 2 hexes per turn, just like boats but on water!
  • Each horse will add an extra 5 inventory space (equivalent of half a human’s capacity) to the unit. So a 10-pop unit with 1 horse gets +5 inventory capacity.
  • HOWEVER, even if the horse:human ratio is 1:1, once the unit is holding more than the human population’s full inventory, the unit loses the ability to move 2 hexes per turn, and only moves one hex per turn.
    • For example, 10-pop unit has 100 inventory, then 10 horses are added which allow 50 more inventory space. Once the units loads more than 100 resources, the double-move ability is gone.
  • Horses do not take up inventory space themselves.
    • Once the new boat mechanics are implemented, if horses are boarded onto boats, they WILL take up inventory space, and the 50% inventory buff will disappear.

  Intercept policies

  • Horse double-movement will be interrupted the same way as boats – if another player has a military unit in a land and their intercept policy says so, they will cause your mounted unit to move once per turn through that land. This also creates a chance to attack the mounted unit.

  Starvation

  • If a land has too many horses and not enough cleared area, the horses will start feeding from the unit’s food supply at 1 food per horse.
  • Horses without food starve and disappear. They will die first before their human owners.

  Combat

  • Fully mounted armies (1:1 minimum) gain the following buffs/debuffs:
    • Attacking units on land: +25% strength.
    • Defending against units on land: -25% strength.
    • Attack against units behind walls: ZERO horse contribution to strength

  Included in this update will be a new follow action – you can target any unit and follow them (your own or others), your unit will appear in whatever land the other unit moved to. If the target moved twice in that turn, your unit will need to have the ability to move 2 tiles as well, otherwise they’ll be left in the first tile. You can still also be intercepted by other units.

• Friday big updateMay 29, 2026

  Here are the changes coming with today’s update. Mostly bug or other issue fixes, message improvements and a few other things.

  If it’s particularly broken, I will revert to the last version. Otherwise, please continue to let me know in Discord when you find bugs.

  • Deceased unit resources and loot transfer controls are again visible to eligible looters. Looting access applies to players with living units on the land, the land owner, and the land’s king.
  • Move options remain visible and are disabled when over capacity, with no refresh needed after inventory updates.
  • Message threads default to newest-first with user-selectable sorting (newest, oldest, unread-first). Turn number headings removed.
  • Unclaimed land stats are accessible and restricted to trees/farmland series.
  • Joining a kingdom now requires explicit vassalage confirmation before queueing.
  • Transfers targeting unclaimed land now show the non-retrievable resource warning.
  • “Go to capital of this kingdom” is hidden when already viewing that capital.
  • Transfer notifications persist on the notifications page and include land, turn, resource, amount, source, and target details.
  • Battle notification email details preserve structured line breaks instead of collapsing into a single paragraph.
  • Envoys no longer grow in population size.
  • Land-view queued attack tooltips now show the target unit instead of the land ID.
  • Tin requests are constrained to bronze units only.
  • Navy units now share the fisher-style unlimited inventory behaviour while on water.
  • Equal metrics now share rank positions in leaderboard display and persistent game scoring.
  • Gold victory ranking now counts only gold stored or carried on homeland (capital) lands.
  • Farmland/Forest now shows explicit “Tree growth next turn: XX” information.