The game
What Aetas is, how a match plays out, and what is in it.
Aetas is a classic real-time strategy game: build an economy, raise an army and take out your opponent with it, while the clock runs from the Stone Age to the Industrial Age. Everything below is in the game — this is not a wishlist.
How a match plays out#
You start with a town center and four workers on a map that was generated a moment ago. The first few minutes are about resources: wood from the forest, food from berries and later from farm plots around your mill, stone, gold and iron from veins in the ground. Each resource has its own drop-off point, and workers walk back and forth on their own.
Once you have enough, you advance to the Bronze Age. That is also the moment you pick your civilization — not in the lobby, but inside the match, when you have already seen what kind of map you got and who you are up against.
After that it is all trade-offs. Every age costs resources you could have spent on soldiers. Keep building and you will have better units later; attack now and you have more units now. That is the whole game, seven ages long.
Resources#
| Resource | Where it comes from | Where you drop it off |
|---|---|---|
| Food | Berries, farm plots around the mill, hunting | Town center, mill |
| Wood | Forests — which also block movement | Town center, lumber camp |
| Stone | Rock veins | Town center, mining camp |
| Gold | Gold veins | Town center, mining camp |
| Iron | Iron veins and abandoned iron mines | Town center, mining camp |
Veins lie in irregular patches and run out. The big deposits in the middle of the map are worth defending; that is often where the first fight happens.
Army#
Four classes — infantry, ranged, cavalry and siege — that keep each other honest. Spearmen bring down cavalry, archers cut through infantry, cavalry rides over archers, and siege engines break the buildings the rest of them break their teeth on. The full table is on the units page.
You order them with formations (box, line, wedge, spread), stances, control groups, attack-move and rally points. Melee stands in front, archers behind — the formation does that for you.
Building#
Sixteen buildings, from mill and lumber camp to university, fort and watchtower. Walls and gates close off your town; a gate lets your own units through and nobody else's. Towers get more expensive with each one you build, so a wall of towers stays a choice.
Maps#
Six map types — mixed, plains, highlands, woodland, lakes and continental — all running on the same generator with different thresholds. Water, hills and forest density differ per type. Every map is new.
Multiplayer#
Up to eight players, through the server list or straight to an IP, with computer players mixed in if you want them. The game runs on deterministic lockstep: every machine computes the same match and only commands go over the wire. That keeps the traffic small and the matches exactly identical — and it is the reason every match can be watched back as a replay.
If your connection drops, you can come back into the match. Anyone who would rather watch than play can join as an observer, with sight of the whole map.
Tutorial#
Seventeen steps inside a real match: camera, selecting, gathering, building, research, a barracks, control groups, attack-move and an attack you have to hold off. When it is done you can simply keep playing on that same map.
What it costs#
Aetas will be a single purchase of around €12–15 with everything in it. No paid civilizations, no tech points, no seasons. There will also be a free demo that stays up.
System requirements#
Windows 10 64-bit, any dual-core CPU from the last ten years, 2 GB RAM, OpenGL 2.0 graphics and 300 MB of disk space. You do not need to install Java separately: the runtime is bundled.