Clockwork Labs Details BitCraft's Empire System, From Founding to Growth, and Sieges

mmorpg.com:

Clockwork Labs is detailing BitCraft’s Empire system, shedding some light on what this important, yet optional, feature is like in their upcoming sandbox MMORPG. 

The team previously unveiled empires as an optional system. For some, it will offer another option for competition, strategy, and even part of the social game. For the Clockwork Labs team, it will also be a way of monetizing BitCraft.

In a new devblog, they take us through how you can get on your way to creating empires, building them up, expansion, and yes, sieges for the conquest-minded.

If you are a wannabe emperor, you'll have to complete on empire infrastructure quest and then you'll have the ability to make a claim or have your settlement join an existing empire. In order to found an Empire you must use hexite shards, which cost real money. If you do make a claim, your claim becomes the capital of a brand new empire and you'll have to do what may be the hardest part: come up with a unique name.

Once founded, you won't have any subjects or territory. First you'll want to create a Foundry and find ways of generating hexite. As you start doing that, you'll be able to claim some land by placing watchtowers, which each claim 3x3 territory squares on the map. Eventually you can also have as many  subject as you can get.

These are some of the processes that you'll have to do to build things up, recruit some settlements to join your empire, expand it, maintain your empire, and then eventually start to name some subjects to positions of authority and give them duties. The number of authorities you can have depends on how much territory you have.

If you are extra competitive, you'll also be able to start a siege. Those all important watchtowers are key here because you can go to an enemy empire and mark the territory for a siege,  which means you're going to try and capture their watchtower, and thus some of their land. Then, both sides will face off.

For an optional system, empires an in-depth system that