Build the Ages Ancient Egypt A river city builder · in the browser

Founding a town · open to all settlers

Ancient Egypt

Found a town on the Nile in the Old Kingdom. Moor reed boats and cedar barges, trade their cargo, tap your banks, send voyages out to chart new regions, and grow one river quay into a great temple city. Then do it again in the next region.

Found a town How it plays
  • Plays in the browser
  • Saves on your device, or sign in to save across devices
  • No account
  • Free to play

Six systems · one river

What you do

  1. 01River

    Moor the traffic

    Merchant vessels tie up at your quays for provisions, repairs and bread and beer, and pay on departure. One quay, one vessel at a time; every quay needs an open side for the approach.

  2. 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.

  3. 03Income

    Tap the banks

    Every building earns deben by the minute into its own bank. A glowing coin means it is ready: tap it and watch the deben fly home. Banks keep filling while you are away.

  4. 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 town. Favor of the Gods skips the wait.

  5. 05Voyages

    Sail out

    Send voyages from your quays to any of eight regions. They come back with cargo, charts, Favor of the Gods and discoveries for the Annals: vessels, peoples, antiquities.

  6. 06Known world

    Claim new ground

    Clear rings of unclaimed land around your hall as the town grows, then found the next town in one of eight regions: dry Sinai, the Nubian gold fields, the channels of the Delta, the cedar port of Byblos, Thebes. One purse across all of them.

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 deben, Favor of the Gods and rank it pays.

  • Achievements

    Twenty-four lifetime achievements in bronze, silver and gold, from your first fifty vessels to the whole Annals, each tier paying Favor of the Gods.

  • Daily reward

    A seven-day streak of deben, crates and Favor of the Gods, with a banner token on day seven. Miss a day and you can mend the streak.

  • Civic rank

    Scribe to Overseer of Granaries and on to Vizier of the Two Lands. Ranks are earned across every region and grant real powers: collect all banks at once, a fourth mission, a bonus on every rate.

  • The Annals

    Twenty-four vessels, twelve peoples of the ancient Nile world and sixteen antiquities to find, with a story for each. Completing a set pays Favor of the Gods and a title.

  • Territory

    Every town starts on a small plot. Buy the next ring of unclaimed land, wait for the workers to clear it, and the town grows outward, ring by ring, in every region.

Unlocked by renown and building count

Five tiers

  1. L1

    River Landing

    One river quay and 6,000 deben. Build a quay, a granary and a well, then serve your first vessels.

  2. L2

    Market Town

    A messengers' hall, a market quay, mudbrick houses and a great canal. Merchant houses begin to trust you, and the second region opens.

  3. L3

    Walled Town

    A scribal school, a temple treasury, a craft quarter and a boatyard. Residents run businesses; you lend deben at interest.

  4. L4

    Nome Capital

    A great temple and the great pylon. Long-haul cedar barges arrive.

  5. L5

    Temple City

    The end of the road: a temple city the whole Nile sails to.

Premium currency

Favor of the Gods

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 town in a region banner. The game is free to play; nothing in it needs Favor of the Gods.

Offerings are real purchases, handled securely by Stripe Checkout and charged in US dollars. Items arrive in your town as soon as the payment goes through.

Favor of the Gods every new founder starts with
20
Regions to unlock, with deben or Favor
8
Favor skips eight minutes of any build, upgrade or clearing
1
Things to find for the Annals
52

Keys · saves · screens

River notes

Controls

Space
Pause
0 · F
Fit the town, focus the selection
B T M F
Build, Town, Market, Fleet
V K I A
Voyages, Known World, Missions, Annals
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 river city builder. You start with one river quay in the Old Kingdom and grow a town 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 deben and patience. Favor of the Gods 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 town 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 Egypt between about 2600 and 1100 BC. Centuries are compressed for play. The builders here are paid workers, as the evidence from Giza and Deir el-Medina shows. It is a game about the river and its 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 Favor of the Gods 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 Annals?

Real cultures of the Nile and its neighbours, among them Nubians, Puntites, Byblites, Keftiu from Crete 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 town

Town name. Pick one on the title screen, or take the one the register hands you.

Found a town

Register AE-0000 will be assigned at the founding