Empires // A Full Civilization System for Hytale

Claims mods give you land. Empires gives you a nation. Found an empire, tax your citizens, promote your officers, manage your map, and declare your wars, all from one hub. Built for servers where politics are supposed to matter.

Main command: /empire (aliases: /e, /emp, /settlement) Requires: Hytale server 0.7.3+ & Gilded Dreams (economy)

Live on our main server PyreTale alongside Gilded Dreams, the Armoury by LadyPaladra, and Hexcode - Magic by Design by Riprod. Join and see it running before you install it.

OVERVIEW

Empires is a civilization mod for Hytale servers. Not a claims plugin with extra steps, an actual political system. Players found settlements, recruit citizens into a nine-rank hierarchy, tax them weekly into a shared treasury, claim chunk-by-chunk territory rendered live on the world map, and manage diplomacy from formal alliances down to open war. Settlements grow through seven tiers, from Hamlet to Empire, and can swear other settlements in as vassals, building real feudal hierarchies with tribute flowing up the chain.

Designed from the ground up to pair with the Gilded Dreams economy mod: taxes are collected straight out of each citizen's gold bank, founding a town costs real gold, and the treasury your empire builds is the same currency players trade, shop, and fight over. Politics and economics run as one system instead of two plugins ignoring each other.

Everything is managed through button-driven menus: the Empire Hub, management panels, diplomacy pages, a letters inbox, and a full map hub. Nobody memorizes forty commands to run a kingdom, and citizens can see exactly where they stand.

KEY FEATURES

Founding & Governance

Found a settlement for 1,000 gold with a unique name, then customize its identity: motto, banner, and chat tag
Seven settlement tiers: Hamlet, Village, Town, City, Metropolis, Kingdom, Empire — each unlocking a bigger claim limit as your population grows
Six government types: Feudal Monarchy, Imperial Bureaucracy, Merchant Republic, Theocracy, Tribal Confederation, Council Realm — each with its own economic modifiers
Nine ranks: Leader, Co-Leader, Treasurer, Diplomat, Marshal, Steward, Officer, Citizen, Recruit — plus custom per-player titles
Per-rank permissions (15 of them): building, interacting, claiming, inviting, kicking, promoting, treasury access, tax control, diplomacy, laws, announcements, waypoint teleports, and more — leaders decide exactly who can do what
Settlement laws you toggle yourself: outsider build / interact / containers / item pickup, recruit restrictions, overlord rights, PvP inside your borders, open or closed borders
Recruitment modes: open, invite-only, or closed — joining is a choice, not an accident
Succession system: designate an heir, set an inactivity timeout in days, and leadership transfers automatically when a ruler goes dark
Full dissolution cleans up claims and data when an empire falls

Taxes & Treasury

Weekly tax collection (Sundays): each citizen pays a leader-set percentage rate (0–100%) straight from their Gilded Dreams gold bank into the settlement treasury
Indebted citizens: can't afford your taxes? You're marked INDEBTED and building is disabled for you until the debt is reconciled from your bank (checked hourly). Overtax and you inherit a ghost town.
Upkeep costs (server-configurable): settlements pay weekly maintenance per claimed chunk and per member — big empires cost real money to run
Vassal tribute: a share of vassal income flows up to the overlord every week
Treasury ledger: every tax, deposit, withdrawal, and upkeep payment is logged and viewable in-game
Manual deposits and withdrawals for rank-authorized members

Territory & Map Management

Chunk-based claims (32×32 blocks) — stand in a chunk, claim it, done
Claim limits scale with tier: 16 chunks as a Hamlet up to 632 as a full Empire
Live world-map overlay: your empire's color painted over its territory, with a clean settlement label (name, government, member count) on each contiguous claim area
Clickable capital & home markers with "View Realm": inspect any empire straight from the map
Fog of war (optional): the map reveals only what players have explored, with configurable radius
Shared settlement waypoints (default 12 per settlement) plus optional personal waypoints, with a nearest-waypoint HUD bar
Player radar, world border, marker & coordinate teleports: all server-configurable
Per-player privacy toggles: hide other players, your death marker, or spawn markers on your own map
Teleports with warmups: /empire spawn or capital to your capital (10-second stand-still warmup), /empire home, and waypoint teleports with a configurable warmup

Protections

Territory protection inside your borders: block breaking, placing, damaging, interacting, container access, and item pickup are all gated
Law- and rank-aware: what someone can touch depends on their rank, your laws, and your diplomatic relationship with them
Diplomacy-aware access: allies and trade partners can be granted rights outsiders don't get; overlords can be granted rights in vassal land
Admin safezones with buffer zones, marked on the map
EmpireGuard: a separate staff-only region protection system — select two corners, create named regions, and flag PvP or interaction on/off per region, all from its own GUI hub

Diplomacy, Rivalry & War

Seven formal relation states: Neutral, Alliance, Non-Aggression Pact, Trade Partner, Rivalry, War, Vassal
Full offer / accept / deny flow — diplomacy is negotiated, not imposed
War and rivalry are formal, public, hostile states that feed directly into the protection and access rules — your neighbors, and the whole server, can see exactly who stands where. The fighting itself is yours to do.
Vassalize other settlements into a realm hierarchy: tribute flows upward, realm chat connects the chain, and the realm overview shows the whole tree
In-game letters: write, send, and read mail between settlements — declare intentions on paper before you declare them in the field

Chat System

Full multi-channel chat: Global, Settlement, Officer, Alliance, Kingdom, Empire, and Trade channels, plus ranged local Say / Whisper / Shout / Emote
Settlement chat tags and titles shown in channels
Leader announcements broadcast to every member
Staff and Admin channels, plus staff moderation tools (mute/unmute/kick)

The Hubs

Empire Hub (/empire hub): ranks, treasury, laws, diplomacy, letters, and management in one button-driven menu
Map Hub (/empiremap): personal map settings, HUD toggles, marker privacy, and waypoints for every player
Citizen view: rank, taxes, and empire status at a glance
Admin hubs: a full admin panel, an admin map hub (live server config: fog of war, world border, teleport rules, map scales, exploration resets), and the EmpireGuard region hub
Same UI language as the Gilded Dreams shop hub, so the whole package plays like one game, not a stack of plugins

Built as an Ecosystem

Gilded Dreams: full gold economy, player shops, banking — strongly recommended; taxes, founding costs, and treasuries all run on it (Empires still loads without it)
The Armoury by LadyPaladra and Hex Magics by Riprod run alongside Empires on PyreTale
SQLite storage, single jar, battle-tested live on a real server — not just in a dev world

COMMAND REFERENCES

Although Empires has an advanced command system, our goal was/ is to build a mod that is accessible through the various /hub commands. Drop down menus, buttons, communications and more! Empires aspires to move away from chat commands, leaving them as an option for players, rather than a need.

CITIZENSHIP & GOVERNANCE

Command	Description
`/empire`	List all empire commands
`/empire hub` (`menu`, `panel`)	Open the settlement hub menu
`/empire create <name>`	Create a new settlement (costs 1,000 gold)
`/empire invite <player>`	Invite a player to your settlement
`/empire accept`	Accept a settlement invite
`/empire join <name>`	Join an open settlement
`/empire leave`	Leave your settlement (disbands if you're the leader)
`/empire kick <player>`	Kick a member
`/empire promote <player>` / `demote <player>`	Move a member up or down the rank ladder
`/empire assignrank <player> <rank>`	Assign a specialty rank: treasurer, diplomat, marshal, steward
`/empire title <player> <title>`	Set a custom member title (or `clear`)
`/empire permissions` (`perms`)	Manage rank permissions
`/empire law` (`laws`)	View laws; `law set <law> <on/off>`, `law recruitment <open/closed/invite_only>`
`/empire setgov <type>`	Change government type
`/empire govsettings` (`gov`)	View government type and rank titles
`/empire identity <field> <value>`	Set motto, banner, or chat tag
`/empire rename <name>`	Rename your settlement
`/empire succession`	Designate a successor, clear one, or set the inactivity timeout
`/empire announce <message>` (`broadcast`)	Announce to all members
`/empire delete` (`disband`)	Disband your settlement permanently
`/empire info` / `info lookup <name>`	View settlement info
`/empire list`	List all settlements and their realms
`/empire overview`	Open the realm overview panel
`/empire manage`	Open the settlement management panel

ECONOMY

Command	Description
`/empire treasury`	Treasury panel
`/empire treasury deposit <amount>` / `withdraw <amount>`	Move gold in or out
`/empire treasury tax <rate>`	Set the weekly tax rate (0–100%)
`/empire taxprofile`	View or modify tax settings
`/empire ledger`	View recent treasury transactions

TERRITORY, MAP, AND TRAVEL

Command	Description
`/empire claim`	Claim the chunk you're standing in
`/empire unclaim`	Unclaim the chunk you're standing in
`/empire unclaim all`	Unclaim ALL land (leader only)
`/empire setcapital` / `sethome`	Set the capital / home chunk
`/empire spawn`	Teleport to your capital (10s warmup, don't move)
`/empire home [settlement]`	Teleport to your settlement's home
`/empire capital [settlement]`	Teleport to a capital
`/empire waypoints` (`wp`)	Your settlement's shared waypoints
`/empire mapview <id>`	View a realm from the world map
`/empire hud` / `hudbar`	Toggle the location HUD / waypoint HUD bar
`/empire hideplayers` / `hidedeath` / `hidespawn`	Map marker privacy toggles
`/empiremap` (`emap`)	Map hub — `hub` for player settings, `admin` for staff

DIPLOMACY, WARS, & REALMS

Command	Description
`/empire diplomacy <action> <settlement>`	Manage relations: alliances, NAPs, trade partners, rivalries, war
`/empire diplomacy accept` / `deny`	Answer a pending diplomacy offer
`/empire diplomacy unally <settlement>` (`break`)	Break an alliance or trade partnership
`/empire vassal add <settlement>`	Invite a settlement to become your vassal
`/empire vassal accept <empire>` / `deny <empire>` / `offers`	Answer vassal invitations
`/empire letter` (`mail`)	Letters inbox; `letter write <settlement>` to compose
`/empire chat`	Switch chat channel or list channels
`/empire chatsettings` (`channels`)	Chat channel settings

ADMIN & STAFF

Command	Description
`/empireadmin` (`ea`)	Admin command list
`/empireadmin hub`	Admin hub: overrides, safezones, quick actions
`/empireadmin forcecreate <player> <name>`	Force-create a settlement
`/empireadmin deletesettlement <name>`	Force-delete a settlement (releases vassals)
`/empireadmin transfer <settlement> <player>`	Transfer leadership
`/empireadmin edittreasury <settlement> <amount>`	Set a treasury balance
`/empireadmin settier <settlement> <tier>`	Set a settlement's tier
`/empireadmin overrideclaim <settlement>`	Force-claim the current chunk
`/empireadmin overridesettlement`	Toggle personal claim-protection override
`/empireadmin forcediplo <s1> <s2> <relation>`	Force a diplomacy state
`/empireadmin safezone create/confirm/delete/list` (`sz`)	Manage admin safezones
`/empiremap admin`	Admin map hub: live config, safezones, realm map
`/empireguard`	Region protection: `hub`, `pos1`, `pos2`, `create <name>`, `delete <name>`, `list`, `flag <region> <pvp\|interact> <on\|off>`
`/admin`	Staff roles: `setrole`, `removerole`, `chat`, `list`
`/staff`	Moderation: `mute <player> <reason>`, `unmute`, kick

Permission Nodes (For Server Admins)

Node	Grants
`empire.use`	Base player access (`/empire`, `/empiremap`)
`empireguard.command.*`	The `/empireguard` region system (`use`, `hub`, `pos1`, `pos2`, `create`, `delete`, `list`, `flag`)
`empireguard.bypass`	Walk through EmpireGuard region protection
`empireadmin.command.*`	The full admin suite: `use`, `hub`, `map`, `forcecreate`, `transfer`, `edittreasury`, `settier`, `overrideclaim`, `forcediplo`, `safezone`, `overridesettlement`, `deletesettlement`, `admin`, `setrole`, `removerole`, `adminchat`, `liststaff`, `debughierarchy`, `faketown`

Grant regular players empire.use only. Grant staff the empireguard.* and empireadmin.* trees. Do not give players a broad empire.* wildcard.

GETTING STARTED

Install Empires (and Gilded Dreams for the full economic loop)
Earn 1,000 gold coins through mob farming or trading with wandering traders and type /empire create <name>
/empire hub — invite citizens, set your ranks, laws, and tax rate
/empire claim your borders, /empire setcapital, and open the world map to watch your color spread
Start making history

SUPPORT & COMMUNITY

Bug reports, feature requests, and the fastest answers: https://discord.gg/PTbXg4WWUF

Want to see Empires at full scale? It runs live on PyreTale, our dark medieval Hytale server, set in the world of the upcoming novel Pyre. IP and details in the Discord.

PyreTale Empires