Take command. This update puts a banner in your hand: plant it and your whole army rallies to it, marches with it, and in the later ages spreads into a battle line you draw yourself. The technology tree has been rebuilt around four war doctrines, the AI now leads its own armies under banners, and no two worlds come out alike anymore. It's our biggest update since launch.
Army Flags — plant a banner and your whole army rallies, marches, and forms up under it.
Battle Lines — in the later ages, draw the front you want to hold by hand.
War Doctrines — the technology tree rebuilt around Strike, Attrition, Position and Sustain.
A commanding AI — it leads its armies under banners and battle lines, just like you.
A new world every time — continents drawn fresh for each map, from one landmass to many, with real open sea.
Plus 8x speed, plunder, mercenaries, banking, and a redesigned technology panel.
Take command of your army under the banner. Researching Banner Muster (Ancient Age) unlocks your first two army flags.
Plant and rally. Plant the flag anywhere you can see and your whole field army enlists under it, forms up in eight companies around the banner, and follows wherever you move it.
No more stragglers. Newly trained soldiers march out to the nearest flag on their own, and the army regathers its stragglers every day. Battles, reinforcements and long marches no longer leave your troops scattered.
One thing to command. While your army serves under a flag, you move the banner instead of herding soldiers. Disbanding and every other order now live in a single Army Actions panel that opens when you select the flag.
Found villages on the march. Flip a flag's auto-found switch and your army settles new land by itself whenever it stands on suitable ground and the gold is there. A flag parked safely behind the lines keeps founding villages even in wartime, so a long war no longer freezes your expansion.
More banners in the later ages. Every realm gains a third flag in the Renaissance Age, and rulers who commit deeply to the Position doctrine field up to five. Plant or remove a flag and the army splits itself evenly, each soldier joining the nearest banner.
Plant at their gates to lay siege. A flag planted right beside an enemy settlement you're at war with becomes a siege order: your army forms up against the walls and keeps the siege going, with the overflow waiting in reserve.
Fill your garrisons with one order. A new Army Actions command sends soldiers from the flag army into your understaffed towns and cities, nearest first.
Your first banner raises itself. The moment the flag technology unlocks, a flag plants itself at your capital and the field army gathers under it right away, so meeting the banner takes zero clicks. Every flag after that is yours to place.
Your banners grow up. Research Early Firearms (Renaissance Age) and each of your army flags evolves into a battle line.
Draw your front. Hold the right mouse button and draw the line you want to hold, anywhere on the map. Your army spreads out evenly along the stroke, holds it, and gathers stragglers back to their posts every day.
Longer lines later. Lines have a maximum length, and Line Infantry (Imperial Age) doubles it. While drawing, the stroke stops at the limit, so you always keep what you drew.
Read the map at a glance. Your front is painted on the map in your faction's colors.
Same commands as a flag. A line marches when you order it, can still found villages, and answers to the same Army Actions panel. It stays exactly where you drew it until you redraw it, and that call is yours.
The technology tree has been rebuilt around four war doctrines: Strike, Attrition, Position and Sustain. Every optional technology now belongs to one of them.
Commit as deep as you dare. Each doctrine technology deepens your commitment. Bonuses grow faster the further you go, but so do the costs, in upkeep, soldiers or settlements. How far you push is your call.
See it clearly. A doctrine bar shows your level in each doctrine, with tooltips that spell out exactly what the next level gives and what it costs.
12 out, 12 in. Twelve technologies retired and twelve added across all five ages, including situational techs that pay off only at war (War Drums, Total War), only at peace (Tribute Paths, Standing Army), or only on your own territory (Waystations).
Numbers you can trust. Tooltips now list every effect a card has, with numbers that match what you actually pay on every Game Pace.
Old saves keep working. Your completed research is preserved, and retired cards remain as completed history. Balance on old saves may shift slightly, as several effects were reorganized.
Three new ways gold changes hands in the later ages:
Plunder Doctrine (Medieval Age): capturing an enemy town or city loots part of the defender's treasury straight into yours. The bigger and richer the target, the bigger the haul.
Mercenary Companies (Imperial Age): hire soldiers instantly at any town or larger settlement. They cost 2.5x the normal price, but need no population and no training time.
Banking System (Renaissance Age): now also pays monthly interest on your treasury, up to a cap.
The AI now leads its armies the same way you do, planting a banner, moving its whole army under it, and in the Renaissance Age drawing a battle line across its border and advancing behind it. The old imbalance, where the AI moved a loose swarm while you commanded under a flag, is gone.
It gathers before it strikes. The AI holds at a staging point until it has the strength to win, then moves on its target as one force instead of trickling soldiers at your walls.
It defends a real front. On defense it forms a line along the border, its town and city garrisons holding alongside the field army, and a settlement in the path of its advance is taken on the way.
It keeps the fog's secrets. You won't see an enemy army's flag, its line or its strength until your own vision reaches it.
Every new world used to come out looking like the last: one big landmass, every time. The number of continents is now drawn fresh for each map and actually held to.
Truly separate continents. Landmasses are divided by open sea rather than a thin gap, so each reads as its own continent with its own coastline.
Every shore is reachable. No landmass is ever stranded beyond sailing range, so there's always a way to expand overseas, and the AI can reach the far shores too.
New games only. An existing save keeps the exact world it was created on, unchanged.
A new fast-forward step: key 6 sets the game to 8x speed, on top of the usual 1x to 5x on keys 1 to 5. It's rebindable like every other key, and your chosen speed survives saving, loading and pausing.
The guided tutorial now teaches the new command systems, and it slows down so you can watch each one work.
New flag lessons walk you through planting your first banner, moving it, and watching your whole army march with it.
Founding on the march is taught hands-on: you flip the auto-found switch yourself, then watch soldiers peel off to settle new land.
In the full game the tutorial goes further. It lets your banner evolve into a battle line and has you draw your first front by hand.
Several steps now hold for a moment after you act, so you see the result instead of rushing to the next card.
Walls now hold against primitive armies. While an attacker is still in the First Age, sieges against Towns and larger settlements grind far more slowly and cost far more soldiers (Villages are exempt). The same rule binds the AI, so early AI armies no longer throw themselves at walls they can't crack.
Numbers no longer snowball. In a lopsided battle only part of the larger army can reach the enemy at once, and the surplus waits in reserve. Your losses now scale with the enemy's strength, not the size of your own army. Outnumbering still wins. It just no longer wins for free.
War doctrines rebalanced. Sustain's upkeep power now climbs at half its former pace. Strike's early rings are clearly cheaper, with only the deepest rings staying expensive. Attrition's settlement founding surcharge is halved. Doctrine tooltips show the new prices.
The AI fights to win, not to survive. An AI at war now holds its ground and keeps attacking unless truly outweighed, instead of turtling the moment the odds tilt. Its stubbornness scales with difficulty: Hard presses far longer, Easy stays cautious.
Line Infantry no longer prices itself out. The Imperial Age's mandatory infantry tech keeps its full damage bonus, but its soldier cost, upkeep and training time have been cut deeply. It should feel like an upgrade now, not a tax.
Citadels reach farther. The cities that qualify a settlement for the Citadel upgrade now count from a wider area, so late-game empires actually reach the requirement their maps promised.
The AI crosses the water. AI factions now settle coastal land across seas and lakes by the same rules you do. Island starts no longer trap them on their home shore.
The AI budgets like it means it. It sets gold aside for its next village or upgrade before spending on research, so its first settlements come much earlier.
Every AI has its own research taste. Factions favor different doctrines and no longer research the same techs in the same order.
The AI grows into towns. Factions now upgrade villages into towns, which is what lets a settlement train soldiers, so their economy turns into real military strength far more reliably.
The AI fights smarter wars. A beaten army pulls back to regroup, spare armies are committed to the front, and a stranded army marches home instead of wasting away.
A peaceful AI builds the army its economy can carry. Factions at peace grow their armies in step with income and population, and keep founding and upgrading while they do. The mountain of idle gold guarded by thirty soldiers is gone.
Big empires keep expanding. A rich AI whose heartland is full now sends a banner to a fresh frontier and starts founding again, instead of freezing for the rest of the game.
The technology panel has been redesigned. A stat rail beside the tree shows your current military and economic totals, and hovering a card previews exactly what it would change. Cards are the button now, with mandatory research sorted to the front, and the panel scales cleanly to any resolution.
The selected-army counter updates live. Battle losses, settlers leaving and soldiers entering a garrison all show up immediately.
Wars with the dead now end. Defeating a faction properly clears every war, peace and alliance it was part of. Loading an older save repairs this automatically.
Fixed a crash on AMD graphics cards in very long sessions. Marathon games could exhaust graphics memory, and the map's coloring now updates far more efficiently, which should remove the cause.
A save that no longer fits the game returns you to the menu, and says so, with a clear message, instead of dropping you into a broken half-loaded game.
No more soldiers stranded at the edge of a fight. A soldier caught between a battle and the fog now returns to the ranks, and clicking the ground behind a crowded army works again.
Better crash reporting for graphics problems, so a report that reaches us has the detail we need.
Localization: all new and changed text is available in English, Turkish, French, German, Italian and Spanish.
Thank you for playing Conqueror's Stage. Plant your banner, draw your line, and let us know what you build. See you on the map.