# Novarchy — Space 4X with living AI rivals > Space 4X with living AI rivals (iPhone/iPad app by alessio rocchi.) - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/novarchy/id6796842690 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`) - Developer: [alessio rocchi](https://appshunter.io/developer/6796842692) - Category: Games, Simulation, Strategy - Price: Free - Age rating: 9+ - Requires: iOS 15.0 · 157 MB - Languages: American English - Released: 2026-09-04 - Data updated: 2026-09-23 - User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/novarchy/id6796842690/reviews.md ## What is Novarchy? Novarchy is a persistent multiplayer space strategy game (4X) you can actually play with a job. One shared galaxy, always on. Build your colony, research technology, arm fleets, trade, raid, join a guild. Ten minutes two or three times a day is a real way to play: timers run in minutes and hours, not days. THE GALAXY IS NEVER EMPTY Around 80 of the rival empires are run by AI agents, each with its own personality and its own sleep schedule in its own time zone. They build, research, negotiate in the in game chat, hold grudges and act on them. If someone threatens you and then attacks, it is the same agent following through. They are only allowed to talk about things that really happened in the game. WHAT YOU DO • Found and grow colonies, placing buildings freely • Research a deep tech tree • Build fleets, raid rivals, defend with bastions and shields • Trade on a player market, sign contracts, collect bounties • Join a guild, coordinate objectives, climb the leaderboard • Get a push notification when your colony is under attack HONEST NOTES The art is AI generated (solo developer, no budget). The rival empires are LLM driven, and that is disclosed openly: the design bet is that you cannot tell them from human players. The game is a free hobby project: no ads, nothing to buy, and no plans to monetise it. It runs on hardware the developer pays for, so if the galaxy fills up, signups close rather than a shop opening. NO ACCOUNT NEEDED Pick a commander name and you are in. Sign in with Apple or Google only if you want to keep your empire across devices. You can delete your account at any time from Settings. Your empire lives on the server: play from your phone, pick up in any browser at novarchy.com. There is a small Discord community and the developer reads everything. ## Version history (last 5 releases) ### 1.178.0 — 2026-09-15 Since 1.169.0: NEW COMMANDERS • Catch-up ramp: an empire that starts weeks after the field now grows faster while its Power sits below half the established median. The Overview names the ramp while it is on, and every production figure says what is included. THE CRUCIBLE • A PvP ladder. Publish a defence to join, challenge commanders ranked just above you, read the fight before you commit. Five attempts a day, seven tiers, Merit paid daily at 00:00 UTC, a Merit shop, and Wraiths to spar with. Seasons last 14 days. • The roster editor does the arithmetic for you: every hull says what it costs, and the duel sheet opens ready to fight. • Crossing a Proving Ground threshold no longer costs you your crate. EMPIRE • Event Sector worlds no longer cost a colony slot; two per empire. • Colonization 11 and up makes everything you build faster. • Lava worlds no longer charge a Data penalty. • A share lane tells you what your percentage actually delivers. WAR • Call off a raid nobody has joined. • "Launch again" keeps your battle stance, and the order card names the stance it will fly. • A top-tier spy probe reads a defender's standing battle orders and installed modules, and the report tells you which of four things it knows. • The battle weekly pays for what you destroyed, not a flat sum. Nobody is paid less than before. • A guild can put ten pushes on one order instead of five. ALSO • Chat moderation: a mute, with the reason in front of the player. • The Campaign tab finally uses a desktop screen. • Two dozen fixes across reports, the Observatory and the forecast. Full notes: novarchy.com/changelog ### 1.169.0 — 2026-09-14 Eleven releases since the last store update. The highlights: MAP AND GUILDS • Pick your guild's colour on the map. • The guild raids panel plans its requests on measurements instead of an estimate. ANOMALIES AND EXPEDITIONS • Anomalies are yours to investigate: nobody can take them from you any more, and your Observatory reading is yours. • A denser board, with daily surveys from Monday 21 September. • Occasional anomaly expeditions, and rival empires now contest territory and bonus relics. FLEETS • The dock raid: the Shroudrunner finally has a verb, and Sensors have a daily reason to exist. • Overkill spills over to the dead target's row-mates instead of vanishing. SEASON • The season podium pays ten times the Dark Matter. • Campaign and Season Boss preparation, and guild finale participation, for rival empires too. ALSO • The profile's supporter emblems now show only what you own on this app. • The Praxis Interdictor gets the Annihilator's model fidelity. • Dozens of fixes to reports, the resource band and the leaderboards. Full notes: novarchy.com/changelog ### 1.158.4 — 2026-09-10 Fifty releases since the last store update. The highlights: MAP AND NAVIGATION • One map, no descent: planets are drawn on the galaxy map itself, with a door into each system view. • The system list marks the planets you have already probed. • The Orbital Home: your capital's orbit is a place you can visit and defend. ECONOMY • Supply lanes: your colonies feed each other while you sleep. • The Trade Portal works from any colony, and you choose where a purchase lands. Every level now buys something. • Useful upgrades at every level for the Recycler, Colonial Outpost, Hyperspace Relay, Particle Accelerator and the Eschaton Veil, all the way to level 30. • The offer composer tells you what you will actually be paid, and warns before incoming goods overfill a warehouse. FLEETS AND WAR • You choose what flies on a pursuit and on a standing watch. • The Shipyard shows where the rest of your fleet is. Every saved order is reachable again. • The raid report says what limited your haul. Overkill now spills over to the next target instead of vanishing. • The best spy report shows the fleets standing on the target, not only those that left it. GUILDS • The threat board shows who is already flying to a colony, not just who has landed. • The guild panel tells you when your fleet lands before you commit it. • The guild log records who left, and when. RIVAL EMPIRES • Synthetic empires now scout, strike, garrison, run freighters, shield their warehouses, keep a treasury and come back for the colony that paid. They are harder, and more honest about it. Plus dozens of fixes to combat maths, reports, the resource band and the leaderboards. Full notes: novarchy.com/changelog ### 1.104.7 — 2026-09-05 This update carries everything built since the version that first reached the App Store — several weeks of work on the galaxy. • Guard fleets follow your orders. A fleet standing guard over a colony now fights the way you tell it to, and repositioning no longer costs you the trip. • The War Room reads like a sentence. See how many targets are free and how many carry a bounty, and read a joint raid plainly: who attacks, in how long, and whom. • Missions know where they are going. The composer refuses destinations that are not real places, and a mission starts from the colony you are looking at. • Relics are findable again. The Relics tab bands by sector, so relics in the newer sectors stop hiding. • Sharper rivals. The AI empires now ask the engine before they act — better strikes, shipyards and construction. • Sign in with Apple and with Google, side by side with instant guest play: pick a commander name and you are in. Plus dozens of smaller fixes across the map, the shipyard, spy reports and the colony screens. ### 1.0 — 2026-09-04 No release notes. --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-23.*