[EXCLUSIVE] Civilization: Eras & Allies Producer Cliff Lance Explains How Eras & Allies Reinvents Civilization for Mobile

The Civilization franchise has been a cornerstone of strategy gaming for over three decades, but it’s always been primarily a PC experience. That’s changing with Civilization: Eras & Allies, the first mobile game in the series designed entirely with phone and tablet players in mind. We had the exclusive opportunity to interview Cliff Lance, Executive Producer of Civilization: Eras & Allies, to learn how his team is bringing the beloved strategy series to a whole new audience without losing what makes Civ special.

A New Kind of Civilization Experience

While previous Civilization games have made their way to mobile devices, Lance is quick to point out what makes Eras & Allies different. “Yes, there have been other Civilization games on mobile, like Civ VI and Civilization Revolution I & II, but this is the first game published by 2K that’s built entirely with the mobile audience in mind,” he explains.

The scale is perhaps the most dramatic change. Traditional Civilization games typically support 8 to 10 players, but Eras & Allies throws that limitation out the window. “This game is what happens when you drop 6,000 Civ players into a lobby and let them play Civilization together,” Lance says with clear enthusiasm. “That’s what gets me the most excited — it creates a kind of MMO-lobby feel that’s totally new for the franchise.”

This massive multiplayer approach isn’t just about numbers. Lance emphasizes that mobile audiences expect large-scale social gameplay with alliances, diplomacy, cooperation, and competition. The game uses familiar mobile structures like alliance systems but applies them to classic Civ-style diplomacy, where players engage in genuine strategic relationships around seasonal objectives.

Keeping the Depth Without the Grind

One of the biggest challenges in mobile gaming is maintaining strategic depth while avoiding the endless resource grinding that plagues many mobile titles. Lance and his team tackled this through a seasonal system that resets progress every 30 days. “Unlike other games where resources just stack infinitely, we intentionally designed things so the grind is minimized,” he explains.

The depth comes from what Lance describes as “almost a deck-building minigame built in.” Players can collect historical leaders from different time periods and combine their skills in unique ways to command armies across a massive Pangaea-style map. “It’s deep, and it’s endlessly replayable,” Lance notes.

This seasonal format offers constant evolution, with new heroes to collect, meta shifts, new mechanics, and sometimes new enemies and allies through server merges. “People you used to fight might now be your only allies,” Lance points out. “So not only does the content evolve, but the social landscape constantly changes too.”

Reimagining Classic Civilization Systems

The famous Civilization tech tree has been completely reimagined for mobile play. Instead of the typical small percentage bonuses found in many games, every research breakthrough in Eras & Allies unlocks meaningful new gameplay possibilities. “Researching ‘Flight’ means your units can now actually fly. Researching ‘Districts’ means you can construct entire military zones in your cities,” Lance explains. “It’s not just passive buffs — it’s that true Civilization-style eureka moment: ‘I finished research, and now I can do something I couldn’t do before.'”

The leader system has also evolved significantly. While maintaining the traditional focus on historical figures, players can now recruit leaders from different civilizations and combine them in armies. The team addressed potential historical accuracy concerns through a Bond System, where heroes with shared characteristics get unique power-ups. “Some are historical, like a Roman Triumvirate. Others are thematic — for example, we have a bond for powerful women leaders,” Lance describes.

Making Real-Time Strategy Work on Mobile

Moving from turn-based to real-time strategy presented major technical and design challenges. With thousands of players, the traditional turn-based system simply wouldn’t work. “If you want to reach MMO scale, you can’t have a turn-based game where 5,999 players are all waiting on one turn,” Lance explains.

The team optimized for a wide range of devices and networks while making smart design choices about player attention. Features like Night Mode make PvP harder at night so players can rest, and player-initiated automation helps manage time efficiently. “This isn’t a game that demands 24/7 presence. You can step away and come back in the morning, and a research project might’ve finished — changing your entire day’s strategy,” Lance says.

Advice for New Civilizations

For players jumping into this new style of Civilization, Lance offers two key pieces of advice. On the individual level: “Abandon your tiles as soon as you hit the tile cap. Seriously — I didn’t do that during early dev builds and got stomped.”

More importantly, he emphasizes the social aspect: “Join an alliance. This game is called Eras & Allies for a reason. Alliances are critical. Talk to others, learn from them, and grow with them. Our audience is smart and strategy-savvy — don’t go it alone.”

The Heart of Civilization

Despite all the changes and mobile-first design, Lance believes the core of what makes Civilization special remains intact. “Civ isn’t about one-and-done experiences. It’s about learning, adapting, and doing better the next time,” he reflects. “The seasonal system embraces that. It lets you experiment, fail, learn, and try again — all while giving you new tools, new friends, and new strategies every time. That’s the soul of Civ, and that’s what we tried to preserve.”

Whether Civilization: Eras & Allies will eventually make its way to PC remains to be seen. When asked about potential platform expansion, Lance keeps things mysterious: “Can’t speak to that now. It’s not a priority for us at the moment… but let’s just say, some games do that. That’s all I can say.”

For now, the focus remains on delivering a mobile Civilization experience that honors the franchise’s strategic depth while embracing what makes mobile gaming unique. With its blend of massive multiplayer gameplay, seasonal progression, and reimagined classic systems, Eras & Allies represents an ambitious attempt to bring one of gaming’s most beloved franchises to an entirely new audience.

Join Us!