Crow Cottage releases How Empires Work
Players automate taxation, build roads and employ aristocrats to administer an expanding state.
Crow Cottage released How Empires Work on Steam on November 3. Players start with a local lordship and button clicks, then set up tax collection, trade networks and the bureaucracy needed to administer an empire across centuries.
Players can expand through diplomatic influence or conquest, build roads and manage provinces on a hand-painted map. Repeated actions become automated as they unlock institutions and employ aristocrats to oversee administration. Tax deliveries travel across the countryside toward the capital.
Crow Cottage is a four-person team based in Europe and China. How Empires Work is its first independent release, available for Windows, macOS and Linux. A free Steam demo is also available.
The developers have already adjusted an early objective for players who prefer influence. A November 3 patch changed the Control the Southwest task from conquering an area to controlling five areas, removing a progression block for players who had expanded without conquest.
On November 4, Crow Cottage also fixed a blocked exploration route to India, the game’s largest region.
Crow Cottage · Influence progression fix, November 3 · Crow Cottage · India exploration fix, November 4