Is Iron Realms free to play?

Yes. Iron Realms is free to play in any browser with no download and no account required. Every building, troop tier and Seat of Power is reachable without spending money — purchases buy speed and cosmetics, never a higher ceiling.

Does spending money make you stronger in Iron Realms?

No. Nothing purchasable raises your power ceiling. A charter audit runs on every build and fails it if any offer would sell power. During the pre-alpha nothing is for sale at all — better than that, the store gives its goods away: everything in it is free to take, once a day per item, while the realm is being built. When payments do open, spending will compress time only: it clears timers, it never raises the summit.

How long does it take to max a keep in Iron Realms?

Keeps cap at level 45 and troops at tier 13 — the same summit for everyone, and it is a campaign: about seven months of steady play at half an hour a day, counting keep 45 and the nineteen plots that gate it. The Fair Play ledger inside the game reads that figure straight out of the shipped constants, so it is never a month behind the build.

The Realm at War

Quick answers

Is Iron Realms free to play?: Yes. Iron Realms is free to play in any browser with no download and no account required. Every building, troop tier and Seat of Power is reachable without spending money — purchases buy speed and cosmetics, never a higher ceiling.
Does spending money make you stronger in Iron Realms?: No. Nothing purchasable raises your power ceiling. A charter audit runs on every build and fails it if any offer would sell power. During the pre-alpha nothing is for sale at all — better than that, the store gives its goods away: everything in it is free to take, once a day per item, while the realm is being built. When payments do open, spending will compress time only: it clears timers, it never raises the summit.
How long does it take to max a keep in Iron Realms?: Keeps cap at level 45 and troops at tier 13 — the same summit for everyone, and it is a campaign: about seven months of steady play at half an hour a day, counting keep 45 and the nineteen plots that gate it. The Fair Play ledger inside the game reads that figure straight out of the shipped constants, so it is never a month behind the build.

The Realm at War — Iron Realms — The Realm at War in Iron Realms.

The rebel holdfasts are not scenery. Eighty rebel keeps sit on the map, and behind them the realm's NPC lords raid each other, storm seats of power, and band into free companies while you are logged out. This is a world that moves without you — and one you can eventually steer.

How the realm actually turns

The NPC realm takes a turn every four minutes, and each lord acts on one of five postures:

Turtle — digs in, fortifies, refuses the field.
Raider — strikes at neighbours for plunder rather than ground.
Conqueror — goes for seats, and will take them.
Opportunist — hits whatever is weakest this turn.
Loyalist — throws in behind a stronger house.

A lord reaches 26 tiles from home, so the map has genuine local politics: a conqueror on your border matters far more than a conqueror across the continent.

The numbers that keep it fair

NPC power runs from 200 up to a hard cap of 60,000, and a seat they hold garrisons at 6,000. The realm simulates at most three years forward, so a lord who leaves for a month returns to a changed map rather than an unrecognisable one.

Crucially, NPC fortification grows at a rate of about 0.0029% per tick — a deliberately gentle compounding curve. The realm hardens while you are away, but it does not run away from you. That single constant is what separates "the world lived without me" from "the world locked me out."

Rebel keeps respawn on a two-hour cycle, so the map's supply of fights is renewable.

The Realm at War board

The strongest free companies, the great lords, and a live feed of who struck whom and which seats changed hands.
The realm churns on its own cadence — leave and return and the map will have moved.

Sending orders

You are not only a spectator. Issue a standing order to a lord — point a conqueror at a rival's seat, call a raider back to hold its own walls, or bend a great house to your banner. Used well, an NPC conqueror is a siege engine you never had to pay for: aim it at a Seat of Power you want softened and let it spend its swords on the garrison before you spend yours.