Using a Gamepad

“The hex cursor is yours to command – everything else follows.”

Annhexation has full gamepad support alongside mouse and keyboard. You do not need to choose between them: pick up a controller and the game switches to gamepad mode automatically; touch the mouse or press a game key and it switches back. Glyph hints and the on-screen hex cursor follow the active device. Xbox button names are used below; PlayStation users should read A = ✕, B = ○, X = □, Y = △, and the bumpers/triggers map by position.

How Mode Switching Works

There is no setting and no menu. The game watches whatever you do last:

• Press any controller button or move a stick past the dead-zone → controller mode.
• Move the mouse, click, scroll the wheel, or press a game-related key → mouse and keyboard mode.

When you switch into controller mode the mouse pointer hides over the map, the hex cursor appears, and the bottom-of-screen hint bar shows the buttons relevant to your current context. When you switch back, the cursor disappears and the mouse pointer returns.

A small detail worth knowing: if you have Steam Input mapping your controller to keyboard keys, the game still treats the original gamepad activity as the source of truth and ignores the synthesised keypresses.

The Hex Cursor

In controller mode, a pulsing white outline marks your hex cursor. The left stick moves it one hex at a time in the direction you push (with a short delay before it starts repeating). The cursor direction is camera-aware: pushing the stick “up” always moves the cursor toward the top of the screen no matter how the camera is rotated.

The cursor is where almost every action targets. Press A to act on whatever is under it – select a unit, move your selected unit there, attack, capture, embark, open a city, and so on. On mouse you do the same by selecting a unit with a left-click and then clicking its destination tile (double-click a distant tile to commit a multi-turn journey); a right-click anywhere on the map clears the current selection, the mouse equivalent of B.

The camera auto-pans when your cursor approaches the edge of the screen, so you can drive the cursor across the map without ever touching the camera controls directly.

Camera Controls

The right stick pans the camera freely. You can use it any time, whether or not a unit is selected.

When a unit is selected, LB and RB cycle through your units awaiting orders instead of rotating the camera.

Selecting and Acting

Without a unit selected, A picks up whatever is under the cursor: a friendly unit, an enemy unit (selecting it for inspection), or an owned city (opens the city panel).

With a unit selected, A acts on the cursor hex, choosing the action from whatever is there:

• Empty reachable tile – move there. If the destination is more than one turn away, the unit walks as far as it can this turn and sets a multi-turn destination automatically.
• Enemy unit in range – show the combat preview; press A again to confirm the attack.
• Friendly transport – embark.
• Enemy city – capture (or move adjacent and capture next turn).
• Tile in enemy territory while at peace – prompt the declare-war dialog.

Press B to deselect the unit, dismiss the combat preview, or cancel any of the special targeting modes described later. On mouse, a right-click anywhere on the map deselects the current unit.

Cycling Your Units

The camera follows the newly selected unit. This is the fastest way to clear your end-of-turn queue: hammer RB to walk through every unit that still needs orders, give each a command, and end the turn.

The Unit Action Radial (Y)

With one of your units selected, press Y to open a radial wheel containing every action that unit can perform. The wheel shows different choices for different unit types – workers get the build-improvement options, settlers get Found City, combat units get Fortify / Promote / Upgrade, and so on. Disabled options (not enough movement, wrong terrain) are greyed out.

The wheel pre-highlights the most likely action – Found City for an idle settler, Fortify for a combat unit on its own tile, the recommended improvement for a worker on a resource. If that is what you wanted, Y → A does it in two quick presses.

Screens, Panels, and Menus

When a panel is open, B closes the topmost panel and Start still ends the turn. Per-panel directional focus (moving between buttons inside a panel with the left stick) is a planned addition; for now, panel interiors are best handled by switching briefly to the mouse.

Ending the Turn

Start ends the turn. If you have unit, research, or production tasks outstanding, the first press opens the Outstanding Actions panel and the second press confirms the end. This matches the keyboard Enter behaviour.

Special Targeting Modes

A handful of game actions put you into a targeting mode where the cursor selects a destination tile. The bindings collapse to the same simple pair in all three modes:

• Nuclear launch – after pressing Launch in the Nuclear Panel: move the cursor to a target enemy city within range, press A to launch, B to cancel.
• Disembark – after choosing to disembark a transport’s cargo: move the cursor to an adjacent land tile, A to disembark, B to cancel.
• Rebase – after choosing to rebase an air unit: move the cursor to one of your cities with an Airport in range, A to rebase, B to cancel.

The Hint Bar

A small panel at the bottom of the screen shows the four or five most relevant buttons for whatever you are doing. It updates automatically as you select units, open panels, or enter targeting modes. If you ever forget what a button does in the current context, glance down – the hint bar tells you.

The hint bar only appears in controller mode, and it never obstructs the map.

Full Button Reference

Map view, nothing selected

Map view, unit selected

Radial menu open

Panel open

Tips

1. Lead with LB / RB at the start of every turn. Cycle through your units, give each its order, and let the queue empty itself before you press Start.

2. Trust the auto-pan. You almost never need to touch the right stick. Driving the cursor with the left stick keeps the camera centred on what you are looking at automatically.

3. The radial knows what you want. A worker on iron pre-highlights Mine. A settler on grassland pre-highlights Found City. Tap Y and A in quick succession for the obvious action.

4. B is universal cancel. If you are unsure what mode you are in, press B until you are back to the plain map. Nothing destructive happens.

5. Switching devices mid-game is fine. Reach for the mouse for a fiddly panel interaction, then drop it and the controller takes over from the next button press. The game state never gets confused.