Screenshots
Idle Empires
Vethon · Published by Vethon
Last updated 10 Oct 2026
Idle Empires is an incremental strategy game where you build and expand a thriving empire, one hex at a time. Place buildings, gather resources, and upgrade your empire automatically over time. Whether you’re actively playing or letting progress tick while idle, your empire is always growing.
Indie, Simulation, Strategy, Early Access · More free games
Discover how to effortlessly grow a thriving empire by placing buildings and gathering resources in this unique incremental strategy experience from Vethon. Expand your territory one hex at a time, whether you're actively playing or letting it progress while you take a break.
About this game
Hex-Based Grid Building
Expand your empire on a hexagonal grid. Strategically place buildings to maximize bonuses, adjacency effects, and long-term growth.
Idle & Incremental Progression
Generate resources continuously—even when you’re offline. Return to a stronger, wealthier civilization every time you check in.
Building Upgrades & Synergies
Upgrade your buildings to dramatically boost their output, unlock new building types, and discover powerful synergies between placement and surrounding tiles and buildings.
Tech Tree & Progression Systems
Research technologies that improve efficiency, unlock advanced buildings, and introduce powerful automation systems that reduce micromanagement. As you progress, your civilization evolves through multiple eras—each with its own unique mechanics and strategic opportunities.
Player Trading
Interact with other players by trading surplus resources in a simple, optional trading system. Sell resources you have in abundance, or buy resources for those you’re lacking, helping to smooth out bottlenecks and accelerate growth. Whether you're focused on production, expansion, or research, trading allows for smarter resource management and a touch of collaboration in an otherwise idle experience.
Prestige & Replayability
Once you've reached a key milestone, you can reset your empire through a prestige system, earning Building Cards to increase the output of buildings, making the next run faster and more strategic.
Time Travel
Unlock the ability to Time Travel, allowing you to return to a previous Age within your current game. Sacrifice your upgraded buildings to earn Time Travel Points, which can be spent on powerful meta-upgrades. Time Travel opens up advanced meta-strategies by letting you refine your empire through iterative runs.
System Requirements
Will my PC run this? →Minimum
- OS: Windows 10 or later
- Processor: Core 2 Duo
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: Integrated Graphics
- Storage: 350 MB available space
- Sound Card: Integrated
Recommended
- OS: Windows 10 or later
- Processor: Core i5
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: Integrated Graphics
- Storage: 350 MB available space
- Sound Card: Integrated
Supported Languages
Latest news
Patch NotesOfficial
Beta Patch v0.3.1.107
Beta Patch v0.3.1.107Welcome to the v0.3.1.105 Beta Branch update! This patch introduces the new per-cycle Worker system, a resizable Resource Watch panel, refreshed graphics, and several interface and tutorial improvements to make production, resources, and territory management easier to understand. NewReplaced live Population capacity with per-cycle Workers for building production, transport, and territory claims. Worker and Happiness details are now available from the empire metrics and statistics views.Added a resizable Resource Watch panel with sortable stock, consumption, production, deficit, and run-out information. Watched resources and the panel size are saved with your preferences.Refreshed older building, resource, and deposit graphics.ImprovementsResource Watch production and consumption values can now highlight the buildings that produce or consume a resource, including power fuel, warehouses, markets, and Caravanserais.Selecting a tile now highlights other visible tiles that share its visible deposit resources.Tile tooltips now show the name and icon of buildings, while empty tiles continue to show deposit details.The selected-building panel now focuses on construction or upgrade progress by hiding inactive input, output, and storage details while work is in progress.Military claim priorities can now be reset to researched resource value order, with newly researched resources kept ahead of stale saved entries.Moved the Feedback button to the empire navigation bar.The close confirmation now explains that offline progress will be calculated while you are away.The tutorial panel is now docked near the controls, scrolls within the viewport, and animates tutorial targets.Updated the territory border graphics.Read full article on Community Announcements (healeyjames)Patch NotesOfficial
Beta Patch v0.3.0.102
Welcome to the v0.3.0 Beta Branch update! This patch adds the new Monarchy government, new wonders, special country buildings, and a new theme preset. It also improves tutorial guidance, technology and reincarnation panels, building-resource interactions, and progression balance across the game.NewAdded Monarchy as a new government path with four policy slots covering military, economy, administration, and logistics.Added Petra as a Classical wonder. It stores offline time beyond the automatic start-up simulation limit for manual use from the Petra panel; the limit can be configured in Game Settings.Added Saint Basil's Cathedral, granting the user two building cards: one from the Renaissance and one from the Middle Ages.Added the Tower of London as an England special building. When built, it doubles the effect of workshop neighbours.Added Notre-Dame de Paris as a French special building. When built, it grants a +N multiplier, where N is the number of buildings within a one-tile radius that make up the Faith production line.Added a new theme preset: Illustrated Historical. ImprovementsTutorial and planning guidance now explain research affordability, resource net flow, local stockpiles, military claim requirements, upgrade costs, and reincarnation milestones more clearly.The Technology panel now shows the estimated time to afford each unresearched technology based on current Knowledge income and provides quick navigation between eras.Boat Building now requires Sword Smithing, while Sacred Architecture now requires both Chivalry and Education.Reincarnation Cards now show random-opening costs, remaining points, opened-card summaries, and merge previews.Input resources in the selected-building panel can now be clicked to highlight their producer buildings on the map.The Great Pyramid now adds a ×1 transport multiplier; previously, it provided +2 resources per delivery.Hagia Sophia now costs 100 Faith and grants Churches x1 output, storage, and transport capacity multipl...Read full article on Community Announcements (healeyjames)AnnouncementsOfficial
Idle Empires Steam Playtest Is Now Open
The free Idle Empires Steam Playtest is now open! Build a civilization from its first settlement into a growing empire. Place buildings across a hex-based map, develop production chains, research new technologies, and expand your territory across the ages. What you'll be able to doPlan cities around resource deposits, adjacency bonuses, storage, transport, and power.Gather materials and build increasingly advanced production chains.Research technologies and unlock new buildings, resources, and strategic options.Claim territory and construct historic wonders.Choose government policies and develop your empire's national identity.Reincarnate your empire and improve future runs with Building Cards.Trade surplus resources with other players through the Caravanserai.Continue making progress while you are away through offline simulation.The Playtest also includes a guided tutorial (needs some work), detailed production and empire statistics, resource information, and tools to help you understand and improve your growing economy (there's more I want to improve here, so your feedback is important). Online trading is optional—the core game remains playable as a single-player experience. This is an early-development build, so balance, content, and interface details are still being tested. Bugs are expected, and progress may be reset during development. We'd love to hear what you think. Please share bug reports and suggestions through the in-game Feedback form, Steam Discussions, or the Idle Empires Discord. Thanks for helping shape Idle Empires!Read full article on Community Announcements (healeyjames)AnnouncementsOfficial
🎮 Idle Empires Steam Playtest begins Friday, September 11!
We’re getting ready to open the public Steam Playtest for Idle Empires on Friday, September 11, 2026. What you’ll be able to doBuild and expand an empire on a hexagonal grid.Plan production chains, logistics, storage, workers, and power.Research technologies and progress through multiple historical ages.Expand territory and construct wonders.Reincarnate your empire and develop Building Cards for future runs.Reincarnate to choose a different country with different traits to play (England/France).Trade optional surplus resources through the Caravanserai. What we want to learn We’re especially looking for feedback on the tutorial, progression speed, production and logistics, interface clarity, and optional trading. Please report bugs and suggestions through the in-game Player Feedback form, Steam Discussions, or the Idle Empires Discord. A few things to knowThis is an early-development build, so balance, content, and interface details are still changing.Bugs are expected, and Playtest progress may be reset in future updates.The main game remains playable as a single-player experience; online trading is optional. If you’d like to take part, visit the Idle Empires Steam store page and follow the Playtest signup option. The Playtest will begin on Friday. Thanks for helping shape Idle Empires!Read full article on Community Announcements (healeyjames)AnnouncementsOfficial
Idle Empires is back — a new beginning
Hello everyone, It’s been a long time since I last posted anything about Idle Empires, and I'm ready to give a proper update on what's been happening. I first started working on the game during late 2024 on and off until around 16 months ago when I started to put a lot more time into it and publish on steam. Unfortunately, after a few losses in my family over recent years leading up to development and one during, I eventually reached a point where I needed to step away from the project for a while. Development stopped around a year ago, and I apologise that I disappeared without really explaining what had happened.Here's how things looked last August: Fast forward to today, where, instead of simply picking up where I left off, I've been rebuilding Idle Empires from the ground up for the past month, making use of AI tools has helped to speed up some of the development work, particularly with the rewrite, but the ideas, direction, design and decisions behind Idle Empires are still very much my own. The result so far is a much stronger foundation for the game, along with a completely refreshed look.For anyone new to Idle Empires, it’s an idle city-building game where you start with a small settlement and gradually grow it into a thriving empire. You’ll build production chains, research new technologies, expand your territory, manage resources, storage and logistics, and come back later to see how your empire has progressed while you’ve been away. The new version currently includes:A completely redesigned interface and mapA much clearer technology research treeProduction chains spanning several historical agesTerritory expansion and resource logisticsOffline progress while you’re awayA guided tutorial for new playersReincarnation and building progressionIndustrial-era buildings, power generation and more advanced productionGame Settings, Visuals, Themes, Shortcuts etc.There’s still plenty of work to do, and the game is very much in active development, but this time I wa...Read full article on Community Announcements (healeyjames)
