Bloommove 1
Fertile ground where colonies thrive.
Soft, living, open ground: the common land your colonies grow into. Quick to cross, but with clear sightlines and nowhere to hide.
The shape of a game
Epochs is a turn-based 4X. Players take turns moving ships, building, researching and fighting on a square-grid star map. Each round your colonies pay out credits and your score is recalculated from the colonies, tech and territory you hold. The first house to reach 75 points claims dominion — or, if no one does, the highest score when the Reach falls silent wins.
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Take your turn
Move and act with every ship, spend credits on production and research, then end your turn. The AI houses answer in kind.
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Bank credits
Each colony pays 3+ credits a round. Improvements and house traits raise the yield. Credits build ships and buy tech.
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Climb the score
Territory, colonies and technology all add points. Reach 75 to win outright, or hold the lead to the end.
The four X's
Explore, expand, exploit, exterminate — the classic 4X loop, tuned for a phone and a single sitting.
1
Explore
Push rangers into the fog. Vision reaches only a couple of hops, so map control is earned, not given. Relics, neutral colonies, and — on Rift maps — precursor wormhole gates reward the brave.
2
Expand
Settle colonies with founders and weave hyperlanes between them. Colonies grow, level up, and can specialize into a permanent track. Every colony level is worth more score than raw territory.
3
Exploit
Build tile improvements, park harvesters to double a tile, research technology, and sign pacts. A well-developed, well-connected core out-produces a sprawling, undefended one.
4
Exterminate
Field the right fleet for the moment — screen with interceptors, siege with breakers, finish with dreadnoughts — and promote a veteran to flagship to rally the fleet around it. Break your rivals before they crest.
The fleet
9 ship roles, each with a distinct job. Attack and defense decide combat; move is tiles per turn; range is how far a ship can strike; sight is its vision radius. Cost is in credits, and heavier hulls take more than one turn to build. A ship that survives enough kills becomes a veteran, and a veteran can be promoted to your flagship — lending a command aura that sharpens every friendly attacker beside it.
| Ship | Atk | Def | HP | Move | Range | Sight | Cost | Build |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Warship core capital — balanced attacker | 4 | 2 | 10 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 2 turns |
Founder settler / builder (structures + colonies) | 1 | 2 | 10 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 turn |
Ranger fast skirmisher / scout | 3 | 1 | 8 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 turn |
Breaker siege striker (range 2) | 4 | 1 | 8 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 2 turns |
Interceptor cheap fast screen | 2 | 1 | 6 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 turn |
Carrier tanky support capital, wide sight | 2 | 4 | 18 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 8 | 3 turns |
Dreadnought apex heavy hitter | 7 | 3 | 16 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 10 | 3 turns |
Harvester durable economy / extraction | 1 | 3 | 12 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 2 turns |
Tender fleet support — heals adjacent ships | 1 | 3 | 14 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 2 turns |
Terrain of the Reach
Seven sector types. The number is the move cost to enter — higher is slower, and Deep Space is impassable to everyone: empty dark that fleets route around. Some houses cross their favoured terrain more cheaply, heal upon it, or draw extra yield from it.
Nebulamove 2
Drifting dust that hides a fleet.
Ionised dust drifts in slow currents. It fouls sensors and scatters comms, easy to get lost in and easy to hide in.
Asteroid Beltmove 3
A shattered field of rock and wreckage.
A churned belt of rock and wreckage, the bones of a world that did not survive the cluster. Passage is slow and grinding.
Trade Lanemove 1
A trade lane skimming the edge of a giant.
Ships ride the orbital lane past a gas giant that has never noticed them. Tethys built its fortune on lanes exactly like this.
Tundramove 2
Frozen ground that still feeds a colony.
A cold, cracked expanse on the cluster’s edge. Volatiles locked in the ice feed slow growth for anyone built to work it. Vostok is.
Wastesmove 2
Harsh, exposed, and rich in ore.
Bedrock stripped bare under a thin, hard sun. The raw ore runs deep, but there is little cover and less shelter out here.
Deep Spaceimpassable
Dead, empty, impassable dark.
The deep between the lanes. No world, no cover, no way through. Ships route around it; nothing crosses it.
Technology
21 technologies across four lanes. Entry techs open a lane; tier-2 deepens it; cross-lane capstones reward a balanced empire. Costs are in research credits.
War
- WeaponsWarships +1 attack.6c
- PropulsionRangers +1 move, +1 vision.5c
- RailgunsBreakers +1 attack, +1 range.8c
- Strike DoctrineWarships +1 move; +1 atk vs ships that moved this turn.7c
Hearth
- ShieldsColonies +5 max HP, +1 regen.8c
- SensorsColonies see +2 tiles.7c
- Reactive PlatingYour ships +1 defence on tiles you own.8c
- Deep Sensors+1 credit per claimed relic.7c
Craft
- HyperlanesFounders lay hyperlanes without ending their turn.6c
- LogisticsColonies build +1 tick faster when no enemy is adjacent.5c
- EnvoysPacts last +3 turns. Pact income +1 credit/round.7c
- ResonanceYour ships +1 attack.10c
- AegisColonies regen +2 hp per turn.10c
- Jump DriveAttune to the Reach: jump through wormhole gates between continents (Rift).7c
- Overcharge DriveUnlocks Overcharge: warp a ship between your colonies once every few rounds.7c
Frontier
- ExtractionAsteroid Belt tiles you work yield +1 production. Ships +1 defence in asteroid belts.5c
- Nebula HarvestingNebula tiles you work yield +1 credit. Ships +1 vision.6c
- Orbital TradeTrade Lane tiles you work yield +1 credit. +1 pact income.5c
- CryonicsIce World tiles you work yield +1 growth. Colonies +1 regen.6c
- FoundryBarrens tiles you work yield +1 production. Colonies +3 max HP.6c
- Forward BasingBuild Forward Shipyards — produce combat ships away from the capital.7c
What founders build
Founders settle colonies and raise structures on owned tiles. Improvements and extractors boost a tile's yield; turrets guard it; relays extend vision; and a Forward Shipyard lets you produce combat ships far from the capital, so war moves to wherever you can plant one. Hyperlanes are permanent fast routes laid with a ship's movement rather than credits.
| Structure | Role | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Extractor | economy | 4c |
| Improvement | economy | 4c |
| Hyperlane | utility | move points |
| Turret | military | 5c |
| Relay | utility | 3c |
| Forward Shipyard | military | 8c |
The frontier
Past the four X's, a handful of systems reward players who read the whole board — command, the old gate-network, diplomacy, and how a colony chooses to grow.
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Flagships
A ship that racks up enough kills becomes a veteran and hits harder. Promote one to your flagship and it projects a command aura, sharpening every friendly attacker beside it — until it falls.
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Wormholes & the Rift
Rift maps scatter your holdings across continents joined only by precursor wormhole gates. Research the jump drive to travel them, then seize and hold the gate-mouths for a steady toll each round.
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Pacts
Sign a pact with a rival for shared income and trade growth; envoys make one hold longer and pay richer. Break it when the moment turns — diplomacy is a lever, not a leash.
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Colony tracks
A grown colony can specialize into a permanent track, bending it toward credits, production or defense. The choice is one-way, so shape each colony to the ground it sits on.
Colonies & victory
Colonies are your engine and your anchor. They pay credits, project vision, grow in level over time, and must be defended — capturing an enemy colony swings a game. Colony levels are the single biggest term in your score, ahead of technology, with raw territory a distant third.
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Income
Each colony pays 3 base credits a round, before improvements and house traits.
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Resilience
Colonies have 10 HP and must be sieged down. Some houses regrow them or brace harder.
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Upkeep
The first 2 ships per colony are free; beyond that each costs 1 credit a round. Fleets have a price.
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Winning
Reach 75 points for an outright win, or hold the highest score when the game ends.
The houses in depth
Each house is a distinct power with its own doctrine. Identity is more than a colour — it changes where you heal, how you move, and what you build toward.
Verda
the Verda Directorate
“Make the dead worlds live.”
Strategy. Settle nebulae early for healing and vision. Let warships anchor defensive positions while rangers scout. Your strength compounds. Early losses hurt, but a rooted Verda position becomes nearly impossible to uproot.
Ferron
the Ferron Command
“Build it to outlast the siege.”
Strategy. Your colonies are naturally tougher, so use them as anchors. Push slowly with warships backed by fortified positions. Avoid overextension; a single well-defended colony is worth three unprotected ones.
Caravel
the Free Captains
“Own nothing; reach everything.”
Strategy. Your extra movement is your edge; use it for early map control and relic racing. Avoid static defense. You cannot lay hyperlanes but you do not need them. Strike, drift, and reposition before the enemy adapts.
Tethys
the Tethys Exchange
“Commerce is the only law.”
Strategy. Orbit tiles fund your economy and boost your attacks. Claim orbital sectors aggressively and defend from high ground. Your patience is an economic weapon: credit advantage becomes a tech lead, and a tech lead becomes late-game dominance.
Vostok
the Vostok Pact
“Settle where no one else will.”
Strategy. Asteroid and frozen terrain are your domain; move cheaply through them while enemies pay full cost. Use terrain control to create chokepoints. Your defense bonuses stack with positioning, and a warship on frozen ground is nearly invincible.