About This Game

Build a trading empire, command powerful fleets, and conquer a procedurally generated world, one turn at a time.

Gold Admiral is a turn-based strategy game of trade, research, expansion, and conquest – at sea and on land. Explore procedurally generated seas and island worlds, found settlements, and develop small villages into powerful metropolises. Command admirals, generals, fleets, and armies, and chart the course of your empire.

Choose from 47 playable factions, including 6 pirate factions, with their own advantages and partially different research paths. Build a trading empire, secure supremacy alongside your allies, or sail as a pirate in search of valuable plunder. Trade between ports, complete contracts, collect bounties, raid rivals, and negotiate with other powers.

Every decision demands resources: will you invest in new settlements, a powerful fleet, or your next research breakthrough? Build a research laboratory in your capital to unlock improvements for your economy, logistics, defences, and warfare. Research costs gold, population, and goods that you also need to develop your empire.

Defend your trade routes and settlements against pirates, marauders, and hostile factions. At sea, wind, broadsides, ramming, boarding, and morale can decide a battle. On land, success depends on army composition, range, terrain, training, and the leadership of your generals. Your commanders gain experience and develop their skills and personal traits.

Your Empire, Your Course

Shape each game to suit your preferences: choose the map size and layout, water coverage, fog of war, starting conditions, and AI difficulty. Adjust mercenaries, indigenous settlements, dungeons, and global threats. Up to 12 factions per game, 7 AI difficulty levels, and fixed teams of two, three, or four offer varied challenges and shared objectives.

Choose one of 6 victory conditions, or play in Sandbox Mode without automatic victory checks. Lead the score rankings from turn 500 onward, control all regular settlements as a faction or alliance, accumulate 60,000 gold in a settlement you own, or win 200 naval or land battles. To claim the Dungeon Hunter victory, fully clear one level VII land dungeon and one level VII sea dungeon.

Features

• 47 Playable Factions: Choose between nations and 6 pirate factions with their own advantages and research paths.

• A World to Discover: Explore procedurally generated landmasses, island worlds, and archipelagos with independent settlements, pirate ports, and indigenous settlements.

• 7 Settlement Development Tiers: Grow small villages into metropolises and specialise your settlements in production, trade, supply, or defence.

• 23 Building Types: Construct ports, shipyards, taverns, academies, markets, warehouses, fortifications, and production buildings.

• Extensive Research: Unlock 88 upgrade technologies and 14 researchable ship blueprints. The complete catalogue includes 102 research technologies across 6 categories, with 499 researchable levels across all faction paths. Individual technologies offer up to 12 levels; availability depends on your faction.

• Versatile Fleet Building: Combine 21 ship blueprints – 7 basic and 14 researchable – with 3 ship types and 6 sizes for a total of 378 standard ship combinations. Build, buy, sell, repair, and upgrade your ships.

• Tactical Naval Battles: Use wind, broadsides, ramming, and boarding to your advantage. Account for morale, ship damage, and your admirals’ abilities.

• 8 Land Unit Types: Lead skirmishers, light and heavy infantry, pikemen, light and heavy cavalry, and light and heavy cannons into battle.

• Develop Your Commanders: Strengthen admirals and generals through experience, trainable skills, and personal traits. Make use of flagships, bodyguards, and support from your own or allied commanders.

• Trade and Economy: Trade food, wood, metal, iron, muskets, cannons, and horses. Complete contracts, collect bounties, and manage your reputation.

• Automation and Piracy: Deploy automated traders on land and at sea. As a pirate, research automated raiders and establish your own smuggling network.

• Land and Sea Dungeons: Take on 7 levels of each, featuring increasingly demanding battles, loot, and special rewards.

• Recruitment and Diplomacy: Recruit admirals, generals, settlers, mercenaries, and settlement guards for your empire. Maintain diplomatic relations and forge alliances.

• Flexible Victory Conditions: Choose Score Victory, Global Victory, Gold Rush, Naval Victory, Land Victory, or Dungeon Hunter – or develop your empire freely in Sandbox Mode.

Set sail, rule the waves, and become the Gold Admiral.

AI Generated Content Disclosure

The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:

Gold Admiral uses pre-generated AI-assisted visual content.
Generative AI tools were used to create or assist selected in-game artwork as well as selected Steam store and marketing artwork, including capsule images, the custom store-page background, and promotional graphics.
All AI-assisted outputs were reviewed by the developer and edited where necessary before inclusion. Gold Admiral does not use generative AI to create content while the game is running.