The Magistrate - City Builder in Ancient China
Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2026 11:48 pm
I’ve recently published The Magistrate, a historical management and simulation game set in Tang Dynasty China.
https://fabermundi.itch.io/tang
Rather than playing as an emperor, general or conqueror, you govern a single county as its magistrate.
Your problems are much more local: taxes need collecting, roads need repairing, grain needs storing, criminals need catching, disputes need judging, and when the harvest fails, thousands of ordinary people may depend on the decisions you make.
You can:
- Build roads, bridges, canals, wells, granaries, markets, docks, schools, clinics, gaols and workshops
- Manage taxation, government spending and labour obligations
- Develop farmland, irrigation and flood defences
- Buy, store and release grain as prices and harvests change
- Manage trade in goods including grain, silk, tea, salt, iron and ceramics
- Organise patrols and combat banditry
- Investigate crimes and civil disputes
- Examine testimony, documents, injuries and physical evidence before delivering judgements
- Deal with merchants, landowners, local elites and officials above you
- Respond to floods, droughts, epidemics, famine, corruption and unrest
- The main idea is that these aren't isolated systems.
- Build a major public works project and you may improve the county in the long term—but you're also taking labourers away from their fields.
- Create a successful market and commerce may flourish—but prices, migration and crime can change with it.
- Raise taxes and you can save an empty treasury while pushing poorer households further into debt.
- Store too much grain and you tie up valuable money. Store too little and a failed harvest can become a famine.
The court system works in much the same way. Cases aren't designed around simply picking the obviously "good" answer. You need to consider evidence, law, mercy, public order and the political consequences of your judgement.
And you're still part of the Tang bureaucracy. Your superiors expect taxes, reports and results. What is best for your county isn't necessarily what is best for your career.
My goal was to make the county feel like a place you govern, rather than another settlement that you simply optimise until all the numbers turn green.
By the end of your term, you might leave behind full granaries, prosperous villages and functioning infrastructure.
Or you might bankrupt the treasury, mishandle a famine, anger the local elite and attract some extremely unwanted attention from your superiors.
The Magistrate is available now, with English, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese support. It can also be played entirely offline, with no account requirement or ads.
I'd be interested to hear what people think of this kind of smaller-scale historical strategy game, particularly the idea of playing as a bureaucrat rather than a ruler.
https://fabermundi.itch.io/tang
Rather than playing as an emperor, general or conqueror, you govern a single county as its magistrate.
Your problems are much more local: taxes need collecting, roads need repairing, grain needs storing, criminals need catching, disputes need judging, and when the harvest fails, thousands of ordinary people may depend on the decisions you make.
You can:
- Build roads, bridges, canals, wells, granaries, markets, docks, schools, clinics, gaols and workshops
- Manage taxation, government spending and labour obligations
- Develop farmland, irrigation and flood defences
- Buy, store and release grain as prices and harvests change
- Manage trade in goods including grain, silk, tea, salt, iron and ceramics
- Organise patrols and combat banditry
- Investigate crimes and civil disputes
- Examine testimony, documents, injuries and physical evidence before delivering judgements
- Deal with merchants, landowners, local elites and officials above you
- Respond to floods, droughts, epidemics, famine, corruption and unrest
- The main idea is that these aren't isolated systems.
- Build a major public works project and you may improve the county in the long term—but you're also taking labourers away from their fields.
- Create a successful market and commerce may flourish—but prices, migration and crime can change with it.
- Raise taxes and you can save an empty treasury while pushing poorer households further into debt.
- Store too much grain and you tie up valuable money. Store too little and a failed harvest can become a famine.
The court system works in much the same way. Cases aren't designed around simply picking the obviously "good" answer. You need to consider evidence, law, mercy, public order and the political consequences of your judgement.
And you're still part of the Tang bureaucracy. Your superiors expect taxes, reports and results. What is best for your county isn't necessarily what is best for your career.
My goal was to make the county feel like a place you govern, rather than another settlement that you simply optimise until all the numbers turn green.
By the end of your term, you might leave behind full granaries, prosperous villages and functioning infrastructure.
Or you might bankrupt the treasury, mishandle a famine, anger the local elite and attract some extremely unwanted attention from your superiors.
The Magistrate is available now, with English, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese support. It can also be played entirely offline, with no account requirement or ads.
I'd be interested to hear what people think of this kind of smaller-scale historical strategy game, particularly the idea of playing as a bureaucrat rather than a ruler.