Founding a polis · open to all settlers
Ancient Greece
Found a Greek polis on the Aegean coast. Moor merchant vessels, trade their cargo, tap your banks, send voyages out to chart new regions, and grow one stone quay into a great city. Then do it again on the next shore.
- Plays in the browser
- Saves on your device, or sign in to save across devices
- No account needed
- Free to play
Eretria · EuboeaKey art
Six systems · one harbour
What you do
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01Harbour
Moor the traffic
Merchant vessels tie up at your quays for provisions, repairs and a hot meal, and pay on departure. One quay, one vessel at a time; every quay needs an open side for the approach.
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02Trade
Trade the cargo
Vessels sell what their home city exports and buy what it imports. Set Buy and Sell per good, hold copper for a foundry, and ride the booms.
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03Income
Tap the banks
Every building earns drachmae by the minute into its own bank. A glowing coin means it is ready: tap it and watch the drachmae fly home. Banks keep filling while you are away.
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04Timers
Build on the clock
Buildings take real time to open, from ninety seconds to four hours by tier, and upgrades take longer still. Queue a build, go live your life, come back to a brighter polis. Divine Favor skips the wait.
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05Voyages
Sail out
Send voyages from your quays to any of eight regions. They come back with cargo, charts, Divine Favor and discoveries for the Chronicle: vessels, peoples, antiquities.
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06Greek world
Claim new shores
Clear rings of unclaimed land around your agora as the polis grows, then found the next polis in one of eight regions: dry Attica, the Thracian mines, Ionian bays, the fire-born Cyclades, the Nile. One purse across all of them.
The panels you run it from
The city view
There is always something on the fire
Come back for
Missions
Fifty goals in seven chapters, three live at a time. Finish one, come back and claim the drachmae, Divine Favor and rank it pays.
Achievements
Twenty-four lifetime achievements in bronze, silver and gold, from your first fifty vessels to the whole Chronicle, each tier paying Divine Favor.
Daily reward
A seven-day streak of drachmae, crates and Divine Favor, with a banner token on day seven. Miss a day and you can mend the streak.
Civic rank
Citizen to Strategos and on to Archon of the Aegean. Ranks are earned across every region and grant real powers: collect all banks at once, a fourth mission, a bonus on every rate.
The Chronicle
Twenty-four vessels, twelve peoples of the ancient Mediterranean and sixteen antiquities to find, with a story for each. Completing a set pays Divine Favor and a title.
Territory
Every polis starts on a small plot. Buy the next ring of unclaimed land, wait for the workers to clear it, and the polis grows outward, ring by ring, in every region.
Unlocked by renown and building count
Five tiers
- L1
Fishing Harbour
One stone quay and 6,000 drachmae. Build a quay, a storehouse and a well, then serve your first vessels.
- L2
Trading Port
A heralds' hall, an emporion, courtyard houses and an aqueduct. Merchant houses begin to trust you, and the second region opens.
- L3
Walled Town
An academy, a bank, a stoa and a shipyard. Residents run businesses; you lend drachmae at interest.
- L4
Sea Power
A hilltop temple and the great beacon. Long-haul great galleys arrive.
- L5
Great City
The end of the road: a port the whole Aegean sails through.
Each one a whole new polis
Eight regions
Euboea
A long green island and a steady sun. Every founder starts here.
Attica
Thin soil and hard summers; copper and bronze at a premium.
Thrace
The mines of Mount Pangaion. Mining country.
Ionia
Long bays and open water; salt, grain and the fleets of Miletus.
The Cyclades
Volcanic islands. Provisions run rich and pirates run often.
Cyrene
A green plateau on the Libyan shore and its festivals.
Sicily
A fertile island where residents arrive in numbers.
Nile Delta
The far end of the sea road, and its great beacon.
24 buildings · six families · three levels each
The buildings
Core
Agora
Tier 1
Stone Quay
Storehouse
Village Well
Chandlery
Harbour Inn
Tavern
Tier 2
Heralds' Hall
Emporion
Theatre
Terrace Gardens
Asklepion
Courtyard Houses
Aqueduct
Customs House
Hoplite Post
Tier 3
Academy
Trapeza Bank- Stoa
Animal Garden
Bronze Foundry
Shipyard
Tier 4
Hilltop Temple
Great Beacon
24 vessels · 12 peoples · 16 antiquities to find
Who comes through
Phoenician Merchants
Merchant families of Tyre and Sidon, at home in every port.
Carian Mariners
Neighbours of the Ionians, and sailors before them.
Thracian Riders
Horse-lords of the inland kingdoms; met by voyage.
Naucratis Great Galley
Long-haul passengers of the fourth tier.
Sacred Sistrum
A temple rattle from the Nile. Rare.
Premium currency
Divine Favor
Earned by missions, daily rewards and voyages, and offered in the Store. Spend it to skip a build, call a voyage home, open a region before you have the charts, or dress the polis in a region banner. The game is free to play; nothing in it needs Divine Favor.
Offerings are real purchases, handled securely by Stripe Checkout and charged in US dollars. Items arrive in your polis as soon as the payment goes through.
- Divine Favor every new founder starts with
- 20
- Regions to unlock, with drachmae or Favor
- 8
- Favor skips eight minutes of any build, upgrade or clearing
- 1
- Things to find for the Chronicle
- 52
Keys · saves · screens
Harbour notes
Controls
- Space
- Pause
- 0 · F
- Fit the polis, focus the selection
- B S M F
- Build, Polis, Market, Fleet
- E G J R
- Voyages, Greek World, Missions, Chronicle
- Wheel
- Zoom the world; drag to pan
- Esc
- Close a panel, stop placing
Saves
Your profile saves to your browser every few seconds and when you leave the tab. Timers run on the clock, so builds finish and banks fill while you are gone.
One profile per browser, every region inside it. Export and import it from Settings, or sign in to keep a cloud save and pick up on another device. Without an account your save stays on your device.
Screens
Built for a desktop browser at 1280 px and wider with WebGL on; a landscape tablet works, and on a phone the panels fold into a bottom bar and sheets.
Current Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari. Reduced-motion settings are honoured, and the effects tier steps down on slower machines.
Questions
What kind of game is this?
A calm harbour city builder. You start with one stone quay around 800 BC and grow a polis over weeks of short visits. Timers run on the real clock, so it keeps working while you are away.
Is it free?
Yes. Every building, region, mission and achievement can be reached with drachmae and patience. Divine Favor can also be bought with real money in the Store to skip waits; prices are shown in US dollars before you pay.
Do I need an account?
No. Your polis saves in your browser. Sign in only if you want a cloud save on more than one device.
How true to history is it?
The places, trade goods, buildings and peoples are real, and the buildings and titles are drawn from the Greek world between about 800 and 400 BC. Centuries are compressed for play. It is a game about harbours and trade, not a full portrait of ancient society, and it leaves out much of the harder history.
Do the gods appear in the game?
Temples and festivals are part of city life, and Divine Favor is the name of a game currency. No god is a character, and nothing in the game makes light of anyone's beliefs.
Who are the peoples in the Chronicle?
Real cultures of the ancient Mediterranean who traded with the Greeks, among them Phoenicians, Egyptians, Carians, Lydians, Thracians, Libyans and the kingdom of Kush. Each is written as a people with their own skills and history.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. On a phone the panels become sheets over a bottom bar, and the world pans by drag and zooms by pinch. A desktop screen shows more at once.
Ready to found a polis
Polis name. Pick one on the title screen, or take the one the register hands you.
Found a polisRegister AG-0000 will be assigned at the founding