How to play Ronoplex

Completed placed buildings that support upgrades can rise one level at a time, up to level 10. Upgrades compound instead of doubling. While an upgrade timer runs, the structure keeps its current-level effects; a destroyed building pauses the upgrade until it is repaired. Launched vessel hulls become vessels rather than upgradeable buildings.

• Hut Shelter: L4 +1 Housing, L7 +1, L10 +3. It rises from 5 housing at L1 to 10 at L10.
• Large Hut: L4 +2 Housing, L7 +2, L10 +4, reaching 20 housing at L10.
• Storage Pit: capacity increases every level with larger increments, from 600 at L1 to 10,000 at L10.
• Farm Plot and Quarry: +8% output each level, plus +1 Worker slot at L5 and L9.
• Training Camp: gradual soldier capacity from 5 at L1 to 25 at L10.
• Outpost Tower: each level adds 2 tiles of vision and 2 tiles of construction radius. At L10 that is vision radius 23 and build-radius bonus +10.
• Adventurer's Guild: 2 simultaneous Adventures at L1, 4 at L4, 5 at L7 and 6 at L9. Levels not named as milestones add no Adventure slot.
• Dirt Roads and Bridge Spans: civilization-wide network upgrades. Every segment shares the network level and movement bonus, gradually reaching 3× at L10.
• Empty perk levels: the upgrade UI points ahead to the next level that actually grants a unique perk. The temporary +6% integrity-per-level rule remains while combat durability is still being tested.

A star hovers above every building above level 1 so you can read a city's development at a glance without opening a single panel.

Every currently upgradeable structure uses the same steep economic curve. The paid upgrades to levels 2 through 10 cost 0.5×, 1.5×, 4×, 12×, 35×, 90×, 220×, 500× and 1,000× the structure's original build cost. Upper levels are civilization-scale projects: if a required resource cannot fit in your current stockpile, expand or upgrade Storage Pits first. Upgrade work time remains 0.5 + 0.35 × level of the original build time.

• Your first Hearth uses a 2×2 Settlement Center that houses 8, adds 200 storage per resource and provides local vision/build territory. Stone Age civilizations may have at most 2 Hearths.
• All Hearths in one civilization share the same resource and population pools. Founding the second Hearth does not create citizens; it creates another valid settlement/build area.
• Worker parties physically walk to a node, occupy it and haul the yield home. Distance is real time, so a weaker node close to the hearth usually beats a rich node far away.
• Population is shared across the civilization as unassigned citizens, ordinary Workers and troops. Workers can be dispatched as gathering parties, assigned to workplaces, or claimed temporarily by construction and repair projects.
• Storage is per resource. Anything gathered above the cap is lost, so assign Storage Pits to whatever your crews actually bring back.
• Nodes deplete. The world tracks depletion globally, so contested ground runs dry for everyone.

Starting a technology pays its resource cost up front, then one research project progresses at a time. Research does not use a Scholar population profession. Writing increases base research speed. The intended age-up rule is to complete every technology in the current age and then pay the next age's upgrade cost, but player age advancement is currently disabled in the pre-testing alpha. Civilization XP does not gate that age rule.

Palisade segments knit automatically to their neighbours. A closed perimeter is truly closed: workers, scouts, armies and NPC units all reroute to the nearest open gate. Leave at least one gate or your own gatherers will stall at the wall. Damaged buildings must be repaired before they can be upgraded.

NPC civilizations are classed F through SSS and use need-driven policies for gathering, building, research, repairs, recruitment, expansion and combat while they are active. Barter unlocks eligible neutral NPC trade and Currency improves NPC trade prices. Winning a fight does not capture an NPC settlement; eligible destroyed sites can yield loot and rebuild on their own timer. Combat casualties still reduce the population committed to armies.

• Public GDD — the design rules and current direction behind the playable systems.
• FAQ — account, persistence, browser and current-alpha answers.
• Play Ronoplex — enter the shared world.

Water is no longer one flat blue. The world generator measures how open a basin is, so enclosed pockets become lakes, coastal water stays ocean and the far basin floor becomes open ocean. This reads from the same world seed, so existing worlds keep their exact shorelines and only gain the new classification.

Research Boatbuilding to unlock the Harbour Port, built directly on shoreline water beside passable land. Once a Harbour Port is complete you can lay Dock Platforms over the water: the first dock must touch your port, later docks extend that chain, and completed docks are walkable to workers, scouts and armies. Vessels are built on water beside your finished dock or port. Completed hulls launch as movable vessels. Stop beside land or a Dock to board nearby worker parties, scouts or idle armies, then sail and disembark them at another valid shore or Dock. Capacity is measured in people, and passengers remain inactive while aboard. Stone Age hulls are the Reed Raft and Fishing Skiff; later-age vessel definitions such as the Longboat are not current Stone Age build options.