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The First Explorers: A Settlers-Like City-Building & RTS Game

Embark on an epic journey of discovery in The First Explorers, a captivating game blending the charm of Settlers-like city-building with the strategic depth of real-time strategy (RTS). Set in antiquity Europe, you'll lead the Romans, Carthaginians, or Gauls, forging a thriving civilization from the ground up. Are you prepared to raise a formidable army, powered by a robust and meticulously crafted economy?

Experience unparalleled detail as you construct every building piece by piece, carefully managing resources and optimizing your production chains in this immersive city-building simulator.

Explore the World of Antiquity

Immerse yourself in a world inspired by antiquity and late antiquity, with factions, landscapes, and goods reflecting this rich historical era. While not strictly historically accurate, the game draws inspiration from European antiquity to deliver a captivating gameplay experience and beautiful art style.

What Makes The First Explorers Unique?

The First Explorers delivers an atmospheric and engaging city-building and RTS hybrid experience. Witness a bustling world come to life with our "aquarium effect," where every resource and inhabitant is graphically represented. Observe each step of production, ensuring your economy is optimized. Carefully observe the game world to identify where investment is required.

No Fantasy Elements

Rest assured, The First Explorers remains grounded in reality, free from fantasy elements. You won't encounter fantasy peoples, wizards, or mythical creatures in this historically inspired world.

The Objective: Build, Conquer, and Thrive!

Land on a pristine island with your crew and establish a thriving settlement from scratch, exploiting the map's resources. Your ultimate goal? Defeat all opposing factions and secure your dominance in this RTS strategy game.

Diverse Victory Conditions

Military success is a core victory path, but The First Explorers also offers alternative routes to triumph, catering to different playstyles. Expect victory through economic dominance or the construction of magnificent, unique building projects. Friends of peaceful victories should take note, as the system allows for that playstyle.

Game Length

A typical game of The First Explorers can range from 1.5 to 5 hours, depending on player choices and strategies. The game's flexible mechanics ensure a dynamic and engaging experience every time.

Game Modes

Currently, the focus is on skirmishes against AI opponents and other players (PvE and PvP). A story-driven campaign is also planned, contingent on ongoing development.

Building Mechanics: Territory Matters

Buildings and roads can only be constructed within your territory's borders. Furthermore, be mindful of the terrain! Hilly landscapes will increase construction times; therefore, a strategically selected building site is invaluable.

Protecting Your Settlers

Civilian buildings and settlers are invulnerable to direct attacks. Only military structures like watchtowers can be captured by enemy forces.

Civilian Settler Behavior

Your hardworking settlers will bravely continue transporting goods even under pressure from enemy units, ensuring your economy remains stable.

Unit Control

Directly command soldiers and geologists to expand your influence, while civilian residents like carriers and construction workers are indirectly managed through construction orders and production tasks. Prepare to command colossal armies in thrilling battles!

Expanding Your Territory

Expand your influence and secure strategic locations by constructing military buildings such as watchtowers, thereby extending your territory's borders with border stones.

Settlement Upgrades: From Hamlet to Town

Grow your settlement and unlock new buildings and units by constructing special landmarks to level up your settlement. Currently, the game plans 3 settlement level tiers: hamlet, village, and town.

Mining and Resource Extraction

Yes, The First Explorers features mines built into real mountains for efficient resource extraction.

The Food System: Fueling Your Economy

Miners require basic food to operate. Production buildings can function without food, but efficiency can be drastically increased by providing meals. Recruit new carriers in taverns by providing delicious meals. Meals are prepared in cookhouses, using food obtained from market stalls. Higher settlement tiers require higher-quality meals.

Acquiring New Inhabitants

Recruit new settlers via a port, who will arrive by ship from their homeland. The ability to acquire new settlers by land is also planned for the future.

Defensive Structures: Walls and Palisades

Defend your settlement with wooden palisades and formidable stone walls, protecting your citizens from invaders.

Tower Defense

Strategically position soldiers atop towers and stone walls for enhanced defensive capabilities.

Combat Power System

Soldiers defending their home territory receive a significant combat power bonus, effectively preventing early "rush" tactics. Influence combat power in the course of a game.

Mod Support

The First Explorers is designed with modding in mind! The extent of mod support will be determined during development.

Community Interaction

Expect active community engagement on Steam and the official Discord server. Regular updates on development progress will be shared and discussed with the community. I greatly welcome your ideas and feedback!

Game Engine

Built with the power of Unreal Engine 5.

Maps: Handcrafted vs. Procedural

Currently, the focus is on creating handcrafted maps. That said, the game is built so that it allows the use of procedural elements later. So procedural maps are definitely possible.

Solo Development

The First Explorers is a solo project by Buchwald.Interactive, developed by Sebastian in his spare time in Germany.

Platform Availability

A Windows release is currently planned. Additional platforms may be added during development.