Carcassonne, Aude, France

The Ages of Carcassonne

2,500 years on the same hill. One age at a time.

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Dig into the hill

Before the medieval City and its fifty-two towers, before the Visigoths, before Rome, people already lived on this hill. They weighed salt on the scales, healed with plants, read the sky to know when to sow. Their name for this place: Carcaso.

The Ages of Carcassonne doesn't tell you that story. It lets you live it. You take charge of one inhabitant of the hill — their vigour, knowledge, standing and fortune — and carry them to the end of their age. Every action in the game is drawn from what we genuinely know about that age.

Then comes the next age. And another. Rome, the Visigoths, the City of knights, its abandonment, its rescue — all the way to the hill as it stands today.

The hill, in cross-section

Eight ages, one single place

Here, the centuries don't follow one another elsewhere: they stack up in the same spot. Let's dig down.

Today

Two million visitors

A UNESCO site, the City welcomes the whole world. The last age is the one we live in — and it raises questions of its own.

Coming
1853

Viollet-le-Duc

The architect raises the towers and caps them with slate. Restore, or reinvent? The argument is still running.

Coming
1850

Cros-Mayrevieille

The State votes to demolish the ramparts. One Carcassonne scholar stands alone against the decision — and saves the City. Without him, there would be nothing to visit.

Coming
17th–19th c.

The abandonment

The border retreats to the Pyrenees: the City serves no purpose. The walls crumble, poverty moves in. The fortress becomes a slum.

Coming
13th century

The City of knights

Double ramparts, towers, basilica. What the whole world comes to see today — and it's only one layer among many.

Coming
5th century

The Visigoths

The kingdom of Toulouse holds the place. The town changes masters, language, god.

Coming
118 BC

Colonia Iulia Carcaso

Rome lays the Aquitaine road and fortifies the hill. Stone replaces wood. Livius forges, Agrippina sews.

Soon
550 BC

Carcaso, the Gaulish hillfort

A fortified village of wood and earth, on the salt and tin route. This is where it all begins — and where you enter the game.

Playable
Two possible lives

Who will you be on the hill?

Two characters, two ways through the same age.

Gaulish merchant

Ségomaros

Salt comes up from the sea, tin comes down from the north, and everything passes through the hill. Segomaros must trade on a fair balance, travel, host a feast and read his map of the known world — never cheating, for his reputation follows him.

⚖️ Goal — Fortune: 100
Keeper of memory

Lituria

Among a people without writing, everything lives in one head. Lituria must hold the tales of the evening gathering, know the healing herbs, settle disputes with justice and read the wheel of the year in the sky.

📜 Goal — Knowledge: 100
In practice

How it plays

The hill is waiting

It has waited 2,500 years. It can wait one more click.

▶ Play now
Free · No sign-up · Phone and desktop