Games Like Mercatoria

[h1]Mercatoria[/h1] A hex-grid, turn-based grand strategy game set in the Age of Discovery, inspired by the 1999 classic Imperialism 2. The year is 1492. You take command of one of six European powers — England, France, Spain, Holland, Portugal, or Sweden — and compete for dominance of the Old World through trade, industry, colonisation, and war. Across the Atlantic, the New World lies mostly unexplored: sugarcane, tobacco, fur, and diamonds await the nation bold enough to reach them first. Every turn is a year. Every map is new. No two games play the same.

What you actually do in Mercatoria

Build a transport network. Resources don't appear in your stockpile by magic. Send Engineers out to build roads, connect your iron ore mines and timber clusters to your capital, lay down a harbour, and watch your industrial base come to life. Rivers give free transport. Roads take 1–3 turns to build depending on terrain. Every hex matters. Industrialise. Raw materials become finished goods in your capital: timber becomes lumber and paper; iron ore and coal become steel; wool becomes fabric for training your workforce. Lock your production batches manually or let auto-production handle the grind. Grow your workforce. Level 1 workers produce 1 Labour per turn. Upgrade them through four tiers using luxury goods — sugar at tier 2, cigars at tier 3, fur hats at tier 4 — and a single worker can do the output of eight. But luxuries need to come from somewhere, which usually means the New World, which usually means you need a navy. Explore, colonise, and conquer. Send Explorers out to prospect for hidden minerals. Build fleets. Establish bridgeheads. Land armies on indigenous territory and claim new colonies — or leave the natives in peace and trade with them instead. Wage war, or avoid it. Combat plays out over up to six rounds of simultaneous fire: artillery first, cavalry second, infantry and warriors in melee. Units earn medals that stick with them across battles. Generals automatically emerge in every garrison of 10+ units and boost morale and deployment. Forts reduce incoming damage. Terrain matters. Encirclement matters. Trade and diplomacy. The World Market is a shared auction house — your order gets matched with nations that like you more than your competitors. Subsidise allies. Boycott rivals. Form Non-Aggression Pacts and Alliances. When an ally gets attacked, you'll get a war request popup. Decline it and your alliance breaks, and your relations sink. Research a deep tech tree. Over 80 technologies covering farming, mining, transport, military tactics (four eras of infantry, cavalry, and artillery), and extraction — the techs you need to upgrade your resource hexes beyond Level 1. Only one research slot at a time. Choose carefully. Win the Old World. Control 70% of Old World provinces and you win. The New World doesn't count toward victory — but its wealth can fund your conquest.

Features

A word from the developer

Hi. I'm Dennis, the one person working on Mercatoria. I'm not a studio. There's no marketing team, no publisher, no second developer. Mercatoria is what I build in my evenings and weekends because I love strategy games and because nobody has made a proper Imperialism 2 successor in 25 years. Mercatoria is in Early Access. That means:

I want Mercatoria to be a game strategy fans actually enjoy playing for years. I can't promise I'll implement every request, but I can promise I'll read every one and take them seriously. If you loved Imperialism 2 and have been waiting a long time for something in the same spirit — welcome aboard. Let's build this together. — Dennis, Groundwork Studio