Game modes

Supremacy

A single-player game mode. This game type allows you to play with and against the AI personalities on one of several Random Maps.

1v1 Supremacy ladderTeam Supremacy ladderArmy builds for every civilizationThe Competitive mapsCivilizations ranked by their armies

Treaty Mode

A game type that enforces a ban on fighting until a pre-determined amount of time has passed. When starting a game, you can select the Treaty option. A Treaty game starts with a period of non-combat: 10-40 minutes, depending on what your choice. During this time, you can engage in combat only vs. treasure guardians. You can only construct buildings within a certain radius of your starting town center. Your combat buildings (town center, outposts, etc.) can still shoot at intruders, to prevent an enemy from exploiting the peaceful early part of the game by stationing his troops inconveniently inside your homeland. Trade Monopoly and Revolution options are disabled in Treaty games.

Treaty ladderBest late-game civilizationsThe Treaty mapsUnit upgrades

Deathmatch

Deathmatch is very fast-paced starting players with alot of resources, skipping the gathering process and allowing players to begin building their civilizations immediatley.

Deathmatch ladderCounters

Empire Wars

Game Mode with a faster start and many wagons to quickly establish your empire.

1v1 Empire Wars ladderTeam Empire Wars ladderBest Fast Fortress civilizations

Independence

Independence Mode removes the Home City and Experience (XP) systems. To compensate for the lack of shipments, all Villagers gather resources faster and an unlimited number of workers can construct buildings together. Traditional XP sources now yield resources; for example, Level 1 Trade Routes provide a mix of Food, Wood, and Coin. Cultural Adjustments: • African Civilizations: Units trained in the War Camp generate Influence. African Cattle can now construct and slowly gather from Fields. • Asian Civilizations: All Wonders can be reconstructed during the final Age. • European Civilizations: Can build up to two Forts in Age 3 and two Factories in Age 4. All advanced Church technologies are available. • Federal Americans: Generals can build Town Centers and Factories in Age 4 and Quaker Guns at Artillery Foundries. All advanced Church technologies are available. • Indigenous Americans: All ceremonies are available. Native Scouts receive an automatic upgrade in Age 2.

1v1 Independence ladderTeam Independence ladder

Regicide

Regicide is a game type in which every player begins with a regent, or leader. In order to win the game you must defeat an enemy's regent.

King of the Hill

King of the Hill is a game type that requires the player to capture the King’s Hill and hold it for a certain period of time to win. This game is a challenge, as the moment you seize the objective you become every player's enemy.

Nomad

Nomad is a game type that starts players out with only their Explorer, a Covered Wagon, and one or two additional units. The Covered Wagon is used to construct a Town Center. Once it is constructed, the player automatically advances to the Exploration Age and receives their initial gatherers and crates. Since you cannot get any gatherers or Home City Shipments until the Town Center is placed, it is important in a Nomad game to either place your Town Center quickly to get a fast start, or to more carefully pick a spot on the map for strategic benefit later in the game.

Tycoon

The main objective of Tycoon is to reach the highest Tycoon Score possible. Players should prioritize building economic units and buildings then upgrading their technologies to increase overall resource gain. Players can also gain Tycoon Score through unique systems, only available in this new game mode.

Trade Monopoly

An alternate to victory by military conquest. If you are playing a Standard game, and your team owns more than half the trading post sites in the game (both native settlements and trade routes count), then you can activate the Trade Monopoly button. This starts a timer, and prevents your team from building any more Trading Posts until the timer has ended. The other team has until the timer’s end to destroy enough of your team’s Trading Posts to bring the total down to 50% or fewer of the sites available. For example, on a map with 7 trading posts, if you started a Trade Monopoly victory count-down while owning 5 of the posts, your enemy would have to destroy 2 posts to stop the timer.

Native settlements (their sites count)

Against the computer and starting ages

At higher difficulty settings, the computer players attack earlier, more often and with larger armies. On easier difficulty settings, the computer players have a weaker economy and advance in Age more slowly.

You can start a game in a later Age. Nomad starts a game in the Exploration Age with a Covered Wagon instead of a Town Center. Post-Industrial starts a game in the Industrial Age and all improvements researched. Post-Imperial starts a game in the Imperial Age with all improvements researched.