Tribes

The tribe selection menu

Tribes are civilizations that players play as. Different tribes start with different technologies and have different terrain and resource spawn rates. There are 16 tribes, including 12 regular tribes that share the same technologies, units, and buildings and four special tribes with unique technologies, units, and buildings.

Tribes can be purchased through microtransactions. On mobile, four tribes are available for free (Xin-xi, Imperius, Bardur, and Oumaji), and the other 12 are available as in-app purchases. The Steam version of Polytopia includes all regular tribes, and special tribes are available as DLC. Purchases can help pay for game development, keep servers active, and keep the game free of advertisements.

Each tribe has its own unique cosmetic design for terrain, fruits (and etc), units, cities, and monuments. More visual differences can be seen in special tribes. These cosmetic differences do not impact gameplay. Each tribe also has its own ambience that plays on tiles of their "native lands." For instance, a rattlesnake is heard in Oumaji terrain, and howling wind and wolves are heard in Bardur terrain. Each tribe also has its own music, which can be heard while in the tech branches and other areas.

More tribes will continue to be added in the future; however, all future tribes will be special tribes. (Yădakk is the final regular tribe.) The latest tribe added has been the Cymanti.

List of Tribes

Regular Tribes

Regular tribes, formerly known as human tribes, share the same technologies, units, and buildings.

On mobile, all paid regular tribes cost $0.99 USD, except Luxidoor, which costs $3.99 USD. The Steam version includes all regular tribes.

Image	Name	Starting Technology	Release Date	Color
	Xin-xi	Climbing	February 4, 2016	Red
	Imperius	Organization	February 4, 2016	Blue
	Bardur	Hunting	February 4, 2016	Dark brown
	Oumaji	Riding	February 4, 2016	Yellow
	Kickoo	Fishing	February 4, 2016	Bright green
	Hoodrick	Archery	March 23, 2016	Brown
	Luxidoor	None Starts with a level 2 city	March 23, 2016	Purple
	Vengir	Smithery	June 23, 2016	White
	Zebasi	Farming	August 4, 2016	Orange
	Ai-Mo	Meditation	December 1, 2016	Turquoise
	Quetzali	Shields	October 19, 2017	Dark green
	Yădakk	Roads	December 25, 2018	Maroon

Special Tribes

Special tribes have unique technologies, units, and buildings.

All special tribes cost $1.99 USD on mobile and $2.99 USD on Steam.

Image	Name	Starting Technology	Release Date	Color
	Aquarion	None	June 8, 2017	Salmon pink
	∑∫ỹriȱŋ	Forest Magic (Replaces Hunting)	May 24, 2018	Hot pink
	Polaris	Frostwork (Replaces Sailing)	June 14, 2019	Light tan
	Cymanti	Farming (modified)	February 17, 2021	Lemon-lime

Disabled Tribes

The Xin-Xi tribe has been disabled, as seen by its greyed-out tribe head.

Tribe disabled; it cannot be used by you or the AI.

-In-game description

Disabled tribes cannot be used by opponents. Tribes can be disabled in the tribe picker menu; long-pressing a tribe head disables (or enables) all other tribes. Players might commonly disable tribes that are difficult to play against.

Disabled tribes do not decrease the maximum number of opponents in singleplayer; rather, multiple opponents will play the same tribe.

Tribe Name Pronunciations

The official pronunciations for the tribe names are:

• Xin-xi: Chin-chee
• Imperius: Im-peer-ee-us
• Bardur: Bar-dur
• Oumaji: Oo-mah-zhee
• Kickoo: Ki-koo
• Hoodrick: Hoo-drick
• Luxidoor: Lux-ih-door
• Zebasi: Zeh-bah-see
• Vengir: Ven-geer (with a hard G)
• Ai-Mo: I-mo
• Quetzali: Ket-zah-lee (mirroring the Spanish pronunciation)
• Yadakk: Yad-ak
• Aquarion: Ah-quar-ee-on
• Elyrion: Eee-leer-ee-on
• Polaris: Po-lar-is
• Cymanti: Sih-mahn-tee

See also

• Terrain#Spawn Rate Modifiers by Tribe