One shared galaxy, built in the open. Here's what you can command today — and the course we're charting from here.
One galaxy some 20,000 light-years across — thousands of procedurally-generated systems and named worlds any commander can claim. Scout rivals, strike their fleets and colonies, and carve out a corner of space that's yours.
Every star generates a true solar system, worlds filling in by orbit around it — scorched rock close in, temperate worlds in the middle, gas giants and frozen bodies out in the cold, with asteroid belts between. Size, climate, arable land and the ore beneath decide what a world is for — a lush breadbasket, a small dense ore-jackpot, a frozen outpost — and a genuinely livable world is a find you explore for, not a given.
The clouds are worth claiming. Deploy an Orbital Habitat over a gas giant to found a sealed station that harvests Aetherium — a purple energy resource that powers the mighty Fusion Reactor and fuels boosted warp to fling a fleet across the map when timing matters. The station grows no food, so keep a supply line running or it starves.
Worlds don't last forever. Fuel and ore are finite reserves in the ground — a refinery world eventually runs low, and a rich vein is a rich vein for now. It rewards spreading your industry out and moving fuel and minerals where they're needed, instead of parking on one bottomless planet.
Settle planets, mine their ore, and terraform hostile worlds. Every colony grows and eats — farms feed your people, and lush worlds ship their surplus to barren mining rocks that can't feed themselves. Colony breakdowns show happiness and population limits at a glance.
Many worlds are home to an indigenous people — frost-mind researchers, reactor-tuning ember-folk, ocean-dwelling workforces and more. Colonise their world and they live alongside your own, each thriving in its own climate and boosting your colony — but terraform it for your people and you push them out. Keep it their way, or make it yours.
Governing many worlds strains your administration — spread too thin and happiness dips across your whole empire. Research Civics and build a Seat of Government to raise how many colonies you can run well, so a strong, compact empire outperforms a sprawling one.
Set a colony to a goal — a balanced economy, an extraction hub, a fortress — and its governor builds it toward that goal on its own, respecting your budget and workforce. Manage intent, not every building, so a growing empire is less clicking and more commanding.
A hex tech grid you pan and zoom, with seven branches that unlock in real time and an illustrated icon on every technology. Queue up to five techs, watch live progress and finish times, click a distant tech to auto-queue its whole path — or switch on auto-research and let the labs run themselves.
Late research is a real chase — top-tier techs cost far more the deeper you go — and once your tree is finished, your whole science output diverts into empire-wide build speed. A fully-teched empire builds dramatically faster, and pausing research to surge production becomes a genuine wartime lever.
Design your own vessels — pick a hull, fit its slots with weapons, engines, scanners, colonist berths and cargo, and watch it rotate in 3D. There are no preset warships — you draw up your own first blueprint, and research unlocks new hulls and modules to fit.
Every hull is a size class with three slot pools: exactly one engine, external weapon hardpoints, and internal module bays. Shields are a module you fit and power, and guns draw from the same budget — so a freighter can't bristle with cannon, and every warship is a set of trade-offs you balance.
Build warships — corvettes to dreadnoughts and titans, in a rock-paper-scissors matchup — and group them into named task forces you split, rename and command as one, with round-by-round battle reports.
Crossing the galaxy is a real commitment. Fit different engine types — thrifty warp coils for the long haul or thirsty antimatter drives for raw speed — and treat fuel as range. A grouped fleet shares tanks and moves at its slowest ship; bring a Tanker and it refuels your warships mid-flight, extending your reach into open space.
Load minerals and fuel into cargo holds and haul between worlds — or set standing supply lines that run freighters on a loop automatically, topping up a hungry colony from a rich one. Escort them, because pirates hunt a laden convoy and its spilled cargo drifts where it falls.
Space itself is worth working. Survey asteroid belts and gas clouds, set prospectors mining on an automatic loop, and plant permanent Extraction Outposts on the richest fields — then guard them, because a laden miner is exactly what pirates come for.
Pirates are the galaxy's ever-present threat — roaming raider fleets, hidden strongholds, and named Warlords whose sieges grow as your empire does. Fend off raids on your colonies, intercept them in open space, and storm their dens for tiered loot. Persistent Nemesis Lords escape, nurse a grudge, and return angrier.
A second tech tree fuelled by Xeno Fragments torn from pirate wrecks: cloaking fields that move a whole fleet unseen and decloak into a first strike, deployable space mines, EMP weapons that collapse shields, and boarding craft that seize ships.
Vision is something you earn. Every colony sees only a short way on its own — build and upgrade a Deep Space Array, then research sensor tech to widen how far you watch for rivals and incoming raids.
Hold your worlds against raiders and rivals: orbital defense platforms, upgradeable for heavier guns, and planetary armies raised from your own population — ground troops that defend where orbital defense can't. A live Defense readout on every world shows exactly how safe it is.
Set a fleet to patrol a colony and it defends itself — flying out to intercept inbound raids and hunt pirates within its scanner range, then returning to refuel, repair and rearm. Cautious by design: it only picks fights it can win, and holds when it's out-gunned.
Strike pacts with rival commanders — non-aggression treaties and shared vision across the galaxy — form alliances, and choose when to honour them or break them and face the fallout.
The space between players is full. Rival AI empires settle worlds, run their economies, research and build, field paced defensive fleets, and do diplomacy and trade — each with a character, some prospering, some conquering, some scheming. Out past the settled middle lie the Outer Rim Warlords, the endgame powers of the deep wild: reach them, and breaking a Warlord's capital shatters their faction.
Trade with other commanders through a Merchant Exchange — list minerals and whole ships as packed cards, buy a hull you could never build yourself, and deal under Free-Trade Accords with escrow protecting both sides.
Play unfolds in seasons. An Empire Score ranks every commander across six pillars — wealth, expansion, military, science, the pirate war and missions — with live leaderboards, and a Hall of Fame that immortalises each season's champions when the age ends.
Always a next objective. First-hour missions teach the ropes by doing; a growing ladder of milestones and repeatable contracts hands you goals and rewards — including nyxium, the prestige material you can't simply mine. Daily quests refresh for the regulars, a weekly batch pays out a good week's work, and a Missions pillar ranks the galaxy's most accomplished commanders.
A cinematic colony view — your planet ringed by live readouts, ships in orbit, an orbital shipyard you build from — plus mail, friends, galaxy chat, and a community forum built right into the game where you pitch features and watch them pick up Planned / Building / Done tags.
Today a won siege destroys an enemy colony and frees its world. Next, you'll be able to take it — capture a rival commander's or an AI empire's world intact and fold it into your empire. Breaking an Outer Rim Warlord will mean seizing their throne, not just burning it down, and conquest becomes a real path to power alongside settling the frontier.
The AI empires get teeth. Sour your relations and they'll raid you — fairly, telegraphed, with real warning — not just skirmish among themselves. They field heavier warships as the season wears on instead of forever flying corvettes, and a galaxy-news feed lets you follow the wars raging between them across the map. The living galaxy stops being a backdrop and becomes a genuine rival.
SpaceCiv already runs in your pocket — a touch star map, portrait HUD and tap-to-open cards. Next comes the piece that makes an always-on 4X truly work on mobile: push notifications, so a raid inbound, a finished project or an enemy on the move reaches you wherever you are. Command your empire from the couch, and never miss the moment that matters.
Distinct species with their own strengths, looks, and playstyles.
Building on today's pacts — a relationship ladder, passage and trade deals, and the reputation you earn across the galaxy.
For the wanderer: chart deep-space anomalies, uncover ancient sites, and refine exotic materials found only at the galaxy's edges.
Broaden the player market that's live today — blueprint trading, neutral NPC free-ports and player-built trade stations, and richer routes with the empires you befriend.
Galaxy-wide threats that rise above the pirates — the kind that make old rivals set their wars aside.
A dedicated desktop client, so SpaceCiv lives on your Steam shelf.
Worlds worth fighting over → conquer, don't just raze → a galaxy that fights back
A roadmap, not a contract — priorities shift as we learn what makes the galaxy fun.