How to play

What the game is

LibreHold is a free strategy game that runs in the browser, on a computer or a phone. There is nothing to install and nothing to buy that makes you stronger.

You start with a village. Its buildings produce wood, clay and iron, train troops and protect what you have. Troops raid the barbarian villages around you, defend you against other players and, once you can afford hetmans, take new villages for you.

The map is shared. The other villages belong to real players, to bots that are clearly labelled as bots, or to barbarians, who belong to nobody. Everything happens in real time: a building takes a while to go up, an army needs time to march, and the game goes on while you are away.

Instant games and long worlds

An instant game lasts 60 minutes. It has seats for 12 players and 18 bots on a map of 40×40 fields, and it runs at speed ×100. You can join at any time until it ends. Nobody starts from scratch: your village is already built up, and an army with a hetman is waiting in it. Play now puts you in one straight away, without an account.

A long world runs for weeks. Its default speed is ×8, and you start the classic way: a Town Hall at its first level, 500 of each resource and 10 spearmen. New players get beginner protection, 7 days by default, and nobody can attack them while it lasts. Long worlds need an account; a guest gets one by picking a name and a password.

If you have never played a game like this, start with an instant game. One game shows you the whole loop, and the guide to your first hour walks you through it.

The loop: from resources to new villages

Every game follows the same loop.

Resources come first. Your Lumber Mill, Brickworks and Ironworks produce around the clock, and the Storehouse decides how much you can keep.

Resources become buildings. A higher Town Hall builds faster, the Barracks and the Stable train troops, the Smithy researches them, the Farmstead feeds them and the Wall helps them hold.

Buildings become troops, and troops go raiding. Barbarian villages nearby have resources and usually few defenders or none, so light cavalry and axemen bring home far more than your village produces on its own.

Raids pay for hetmans. A hetman needs an Academy, coins and a strong escort. Each one that survives a winning attack lowers the target's loyalty, and when it reaches zero the village is yours.

More villages mean more resources, and the loop starts again, only bigger. Other players run the same loop and look at your village as their next target, so defence is part of it too.