Path to Prosperity

Path to Prosperity is a settlement and strategy game set on a newly discovered island. As a commander, you develop a small village into a thriving settlement and industry while defending it from pirates and expanding into new areas. You begin with a few houses and villagers, then build an economy that can support more people, produce goods to sell and eventually fund an army.

Life on the island

You manage the island from a first-person perspective rather than viewing it from above. You cannot zoom out to survey the land or see an opponent’s army from far away, so you need to explore, anticipate enemy movements, identify and secure chokepoints, and keep track of what is happening around you. Being on the ground also lets you intervene directly: cut down trees when villagers are slow to gather wood, build a house beside a new mine or use a gun to help repel pirates.

Each island has riches hidden in its jungle. A node system places random loot, ore veins and pirates of varying value and threat across the map. Exploring can reveal the terrain and give your settlement early advantages, or uncover gold and gem veins to exploit, though a rich vein is not guaranteed. You have to weigh exploration against managing your settlement.

Build your settlement

Villagers gather resources, produce goods and defend what you have built. Each house provides room for more villagers, and every villager consumes food, so you need to keep food production and deliveries to markets secure. Villagers who die return on the next ship, but you must assign their jobs again, and the disruption can give pirates an advantage.

Build up your logistics and economy to support more villagers and settlements. As your wealth grows, it also attracts more attention from the pirates, while each development costs coin.

Game modes

• Score Mode: Accumulate wealth and send a predetermined amount of coin back to your homeland. Defeating pirate encampments is optional, but venturing farther into the island can bring greater riches and better technology for defending yourself.
• Artefact mode: Find and retrieve an important artefact that pirates have stolen from your country. You must build a large army and defeat multiple pirate encampments across the map, while balancing resources against pirate attacks that can slow your progress.

Command your army

You can command armies directly while advancing with them, from nearby using your tactical map, or across the island using your strategic map. The game has three tiers of melee units and three tiers of ranged units, as well as scouts who reveal and update your maps. Ranged units are more powerful at a distance, but need ammunition supplied from your villages, so attacks require supply lines. With adequate supplies, armies can secure new areas and defend against pirates.