Nandonia vs Astro Empires
Reviewed: 9 September 2026
The short answer
These are not the same genre, and this page is not going to pretend otherwise. Astro Empires is a space strategy MMO built on fleets, research and combat between players. Nandonia is a medieval city-builder with no combat at all.
The reason to compare them is that they compete for the same person: someone who wants a persistent browser world they can check in on for years, without installing anything. If you have played Astro Empires and eventually got tired of losing fleets and bases you had spent months on, this page is about what the alternative actually looks like.
What each one is
Astro Empires is a free-to-play space strategy browser MMO from Cybertopia Studios, set in a persistent universe. Players build bases, research technologies, form alliances and commission fleets to attack and defend against other players. It runs several server galaxies in parallel, and it is playable from a mobile browser as well as a desktop one. See its own site.
Nandonia is a free-to-play medieval city-building browser game. You claim land, build and upgrade a city, send envoys to other players' cities, trade, explore, and uncover the history of a world remade by a cataclysm. There is no combat anywhere in it.
So the honest framing: if you want space, fleets and war, Nandonia is not a substitute for Astro Empires and nothing below will make it one. What it can substitute for is the part of Astro Empires that is a long-running world you tend to over months.
The specific thing people leave over
In Astro Empires, fleets are the investment. They cost resources and time to build, they are what your position rests on, and they can be destroyed by another player. Bases can be attacked. The strategy around that is the game.
What that means in practice is that the value of an hour spent playing is contingent on other people's decisions. A month of accumulation can be undone by someone who decided you were a target, at a time you did not pick, quite possibly while you were asleep. For players who want a competitive war game, that risk IS the reward. For players who wanted a world to build in, it is the reason the game eventually stops being fun.
Nandonia has no version of that. There is no fleet, no attack, no defence statistic and no mechanic of any kind by which one player removes something from another. Everything you accumulate is permanent, so an hour spent is an hour banked. That is the whole trade: you give up the tension, and in exchange nothing you do can be undone by someone else.
Being straight about what is lost
A comparison page that only lists what the other game does wrong is not worth reading, so here is what Astro Empires has that Nandonia does not, and will not.
- Military strategy as a skill. Fleet composition, timing, and reading an opponent are real competences that a peaceful game gives you no way to exercise.
- Alliance warfare. Coordinating people against other people is a specific social pleasure, and cooperation against a world is not the same feeling.
- Decisive outcomes. A battle resolves. Building does not resolve, it accumulates, and some people find that unsatisfying.
- Science fiction. Nandonia is medieval, and if the setting is what you are there for, that is a real answer.
If two or more of those are why you play, the honest recommendation is to keep playing Astro Empires.
Side by side
| Nandonia | Astro Empires | |
|---|---|---|
| Setting | Medieval, one persistent world | Science fiction, several server galaxies |
| Runs in a browser | Yes, no download | Yes, no download |
| Mobile | Built mobile-first, browser only | Mobile-friendly browser skin |
| Combat | None, and none is planned | Fleet combat between players |
| Can another player destroy what you built | No | Yes, fleets can be destroyed and bases attacked |
| Persistent world | Yes, and it changes permanently with what players do | Yes |
| What you compete on | Cultural influence, city development, exploration, collection | Military and economic power |
| Monetisation | Gold: cosmetics, convenience, insurance, land | Free to play with a paid tier |
| Sign-up | Google, Apple or a Solana wallet. No password | Account registration |
What carries over if you make the switch
More than you would expect, because the habits an Astro Empires player has are mostly not combat habits.
- Long-horizon planning. Natural resources in Nandonia are finite and deplete, so choosing what to spend a deposit on is a decision you live with for months.
- Build-order thinking. Ten building types across twenty levels, with mastery choices and city talents that fork.
- Reading a map for advantage. Land varies by terrain and rarity, land can be merged, and where you sit relative to other players decides what trade is worth to you.
- Alliance-shaped cooperation, minus the war. A world wonder the whole server builds together, investment in other players' cities that pays both sides, and envoys who live abroad and raise influence for their host.
- The check-in rhythm. It is still a game you touch twice a day, but a missed day costs you uncollected resources rather than a fleet.
Which should you play?
- Stay with Astro Empires if the fleets, the war and the alliances are what you are there for. Nandonia has no answer to any of those and is not trying to.
- Try Nandonia if what you actually liked was the persistent world, the long build, the planning and the community, and the combat had become the price of admission rather than the point.
- Trying it costs a browser tab and a sign-in. There is no download and no email verification, and the 10 wonders and the world map are visible before you commit to anything.