deepseek b642726428 IMPERIUM ARCANUM — web-based Caesar 3-like city builder with heroes, magic & monsters
- Full classic layer: roads/walkers, 11-tier housing evolution, food chain,
  industry chains, trade routes, taxes/wages, ratings, fires & collapse
- Fantasy layer: heroes (XP/levels/auras), mana & 7 spells, monsters/invasions,
  walls/towers/legions/golems, campaign of 5 scenarios + endless sandbox
- Canvas2D isometric engine with procedural sprites, zero runtime deps
- Save/load slots + autosave, WebAudio synth music/SFX, HUD/menus/minimap
- Tests: headless sim smoke test + Playwright E2E (build/combat/save)
2026-08-23 07:00:05 +00:00

IMPERIUM ARCANUM ⚔️🔮

A Caesar 3style city builder with heroes, magic and monsters — running entirely in your browser.

Inspired by Caesar 3 and its open-source remaster Augustus / Julius, rebuilt from scratch as a modern web game — then extended with a full heroes & magic fantasy layer.


▶ Play

pnpm install
pnpm dev            # → http://localhost:5173

Production build:

pnpm build          # outputs dist/ (single-page, static hosting ready)
pnpm preview        # serve the production bundle

No backend. No accounts. Saves live in your browser's local storage.


🏛️ Classic city-builder depth

System Details
Roads & walkers Buildings may be placed anywhere; connect them with roads to employ workers. Prefects, priests, actors, teachers, doctors and tax collectors patrol as animated walkers
Housing evolution 11 tiers from Small Tent to Estate — water → food variety → religion → entertainment → education → health + luxury goods + desirability
Food chain Farms/orchards/fisheries → carts → granary → market buyers → peddlers feed homes; famine starves citizens and stalls growth
Industry chains Clay→Pottery · Timber→Furniture · Olives→Oil · Grapes→Wine · Iron+Timber→Weapons — warehouses store, markets distribute
Trade Open routes with foreign cities, toggle per-good import/export lists, quarterly caravans, price factors per partner
Treasury Tax rates, wages, forums/senate collection coverage, unemployment and sentiment feedback
Ratings & victory Culture / Prosperity / Peace / Favor ratings drive scenario goals across the 5-mission campaign
Disasters Fire spreads tile-to-tile until prefects douse it; buildings collapse without engineers

⚔️ Heroes

Build the Hall of Heroes and summon legends:

  • Aurelius the Champion — unbreakable melee tank
  • Lyra the Huntress — swift ranged killer
  • Magnus the Stormcaller — area devastation, +industry aura

Heroes gain XP, level up (more HP/damage), passively boost nearby industry, fall in battle and return from the underworld after a few months.

🔮 Magic

Temples trickle mana; Ley Pylons on crystal seams, mage towers and the Arcanum make you rich in it.

Spells (bottom bar): 🌿 Blessing of Ceres · 🔥 Firestorm · 💧 Healing Rain · 💨 Hermes' Haste · 🗿 Summon Golem · 🛡️ Aegis Ward · 🔮 Divine Insight. The Great Library and Arcanum research advanced spells.

👹 Monsters

Hydra, Minotaur, Harpy flocks and the Lich King (who raises skeletons) attack in scripted campaign waves and scaling sandbox raids. Answer with walls, towers, legions trained from weapons, golems, heroes and spells.

🗺️ Content

  • 5 campaign scenarios — farming village → breadbasket → ley-line awakening → iron frontier → eternal city of magic
  • Endless sandbox with prosperity-scaled monster waves
  • Procedural maps: rivers, forests, clay, iron, crystal ley lines, fertile meadows

🎮 Controls

Input Action
Left click Place / select · drag paints roads, walls, plazas, gardens
Right-drag / WASD Pan camera
Mouse wheel Zoom
Space Pause
1 4 Game speed
Esc Cancel tool / close panel

Overlays: fire risk, water coverage, desirability, farm fertility.

🛠️ Tech

  • TypeScript + Vite, zero runtime dependencies
  • Canvas2D isometric renderer with procedurally drawn sprites (no art assets)
  • Deterministic seeded maps, BFS/A* pathfinding, monthly-tick economy simulation
  • WebAudio synthesized music & SFX
  • Test suite: headless sim test (scripts/simtest.ts) + Playwright E2E (scripts/e2e-test.mjs, scripts/combat-e2e.mjs)
node scripts/build-simtest.mjs && node /tmp/simtest.mjs   # sim balance smoke test
BASE=http://localhost:5173/ node scripts/e2e-test.mjs     # full browser E2E

Made with ⚖️ by an open hand — have fun, Governor.

S
Description
IMPERIUM ARCANUM — a Caesar 3-like city builder with heroes, magic & monsters. Pure TypeScript + Canvas2D, zero runtime deps, runs in the browser.
Readme
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TypeScript 94.7%
JavaScript 4.8%
HTML 0.5%