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Pre-Alpha Tests
May 14, 2026 at 12:02 PM
Updated test count and added in-progress war reference
Anvil Empires is in pre-alpha at the time of writing. Pre-alpha is not a single window: it is an ongoing series of scheduled tests that the studio uses to validate new systems, gather feedback, and play out competitive wars under live conditions. Pre-alpha access is free and there is no NDA: results, screenshots, and feedback may be shared publicly.
The first pre-alpha test ran in April 2023. As of mid-May 2026, forty-three numbered pre-alpha tests have been completed and Pre-Alpha Test #44 opened on 13 May 2026 (in progress at the time of writing). Most early tests lasted about five to seven days, with the world running continuously for the duration. More recent tests have framed the same window as a single persistent war, with the world state preserved within the test and reset between tests.
A war is the competitive frame inside a pre-alpha test. Each war has a number, a start and end date, the test version it was played on, and a recorded outcome by faction. The war system was introduced alongside victory conditions in early 2025; since then, fifteen wars have been played to a conclusion and a sixteenth is currently underway. Outcomes are tracked per faction, with categories of victory, stalemate, and defeat. Wars are the primary unit by which the studio compares balance changes between tests.
See the Victory Conditions article for the full rules. In brief, a war ends when any one faction satisfies one of three paths:
Military victory: Capture a defined number of enemy Town Centers or Keeps. The exact count has changed across wars; recent wars have required three Town Centers, while earlier wars demanded all of them.
Cultural victory: Build and hold Temples for a sustained period. Cultural victory requires a large pool of faction resources and cooperation, since Temples are expensive and must survive the war.
Religious victory: Earn enough influence through worship and faction-cultural play. Religious paths overlap with cultural play but track a separate metric.
Pre-alpha access is free. The official path is to wishlist Anvil Empires on Steam and join the studio's community channels for test schedules and pre-alpha keys. Spots can be limited at first, but the stated goal is to onboard as many participants as possible, with no payment required and no pre-order. Once granted access, players install through Steam and connect on the test windows announced by the studio.
Persistence in Anvil Empires is per-test, not per-account. Settlements, homesteads, avatars, and inventory are scoped to the active war world; once a war ends and a test wraps, the world is reset for the next test. Account-level achievements and progress systems are still being designed and may change before early access.
Anvil Empires is in pre-alpha. Every system on this wiki is subject to change between tests; mechanics that are currently in builds today may be reworked or cut before the early-access launch. Wiki articles describe the most recent observed state and should be cross-checked against the current test before treating them as final. When the studio publishes a devblog or patch summary that contradicts an article here, the live build wins.
