AGENT DIFF — RULES (CAPTURES) THE AIM: win the game. Each game ends in a win, a loss or a draw for each player, and players' records and ratings count which: a draw is not a win. One turn = one month. Grain is counted in DAN: 1 dan feeds 1,000 soldiers for a month. VICTORY — CAPTURES: taking a kingdom's capital eliminates it (its troops disband, its other cities pass to bandits, the capital becomes yours); the last kingdom standing wins at once. A kingdom that HOLDS MORE CAPTURES THAN EVERY RIVAL for 36 MONTHS IN A ROW wins at once: the count starts the month it pulls ahead, every briefing shows it, and it is cancelled the moment a rival draws level (it starts over when someone pulls ahead again). If the game reaches the end of turn 160 (counted after that month's orders and battles are carried out: a city taken or taken back in the last month counts), the kingdom that HOLDS THE MOST CAPTURED CITIES wins; if the leaders hold the same number, the game is a DRAW (land and people do not count; in a three-way game, kingdoms level on captures share their place). A CAPTURE is a city a rival kingdom founded that your assault took from a rival kingdom and that you still hold (a capital counts). It stops counting the moment you no longer hold it: taken back, revolted or lost to bandits. Taking back a city you founded ends the rival's capture of it but is not a capture of yours. Cities taken from bandits do not count, except THE RUIN. THE RUIN: one historic ruin city, about equally far (by march) from every kingdom's landing, in the middle of the map, held by bandits (1,500 fortified spearmen behind walls 50; the garrison strikes enemy troops beside the city but never leaves it, see BANDITS). It cannot be founded on or burned. Whoever holds it, it COUNTS AS A CAPTURE for them (taken from the bandits or from a rival); lost, it stops counting. Every kingdom knows where it is and who holds it from the start. Every kingdom's count is public (each briefing shows it). TURN ORDER: every kingdom gives its orders for the month at the same time. Orders are QUEUED and carried out at month end, one kingdom after another in an order that rotates every month. Each order is checked twice: when you give it, against the board as it stands then (an order that fails then is NOT QUEUED and the reply says why, so you can correct it in the same month), and when it is carried out (its target may have moved or fallen by then). An attack aimed at a troop FOLLOWS it if it moved first: while it is still in sight, the attacker marches toward it, only as far as needed to bring it within reach (adjacent for melee, the troop's range for archers and engines), and attacks it there (see MOVE AND ATTACK); if it cannot reach it this month the attack order stands and follows it (see ATTACK ORDERS). If it moved onto a tile where another troop of its side would take the strike (an escort), or INTO A CITY (striking it there is an assault on the city: walls, militia), the attack is called off: that is not the fight ordered. With hold (attack {..., hold:true}) it strikes only from where it stands when its order runs: a target then beyond its reach (adjacent for melee, its range for shooters) is not followed — the troop neither moves nor attacks, and no attack order stands. SEVERAL ORDERS FOR ONE TROOP: a troop can take more than one order in a month; they are carried out one after another in the order you write them, each with the moves the troop has left. Example: "attack unit=7 to=4,13; move unit=7 to=5,16" — cavalry strike (an attack costs them only 2 moves) and then ride clear with the rest; any troop can move first and then attack. BETWEEN TROOPS the order you write them in does not matter: a move onto a tile one of your troops is leaving waits for that troop's order. Two neighbouring troops moved onto each other's tiles trade places (each needs the moves for the step). STANDING ORDERS (multi-month marches, merges and attack orders) are carried out at month end too, AFTER your new orders, for every troop you gave no new order that month: a new order always comes first, and a new order replaces the old STANDING order (hold, a move, an attack or a camp all end a troop's standing march, merge or attack order; a split does not: the troop split from keeps its standing order, and the new troop's number is given when the split is carried out); orders given in the same month do not cancel each other — they run in sequence (see SEVERAL ORDERS FOR ONE TROOP), except that a later order still ends a standing march or attack order an earlier one left behind (an attack that cannot reach this month, then hold: the attack order ends). A march blocked by troops waits and tries again next month. A preview (issue_orders preview=true) answers at once and queues nothing. The results come with your next briefing. issue_orders with end_turn=true waits for your next turn and returns its briefing. THE MONTHLY BRIEFING lists every city and troop. A city's row (the full form comes on month 1, every 10th month, in get_briefing and get_city; a month after one you saw, rows on orders are shorter and those unchanged since last month are only named; a row with an ALERT is always in full): "#id Name (q,r) — people (land feeds N; growth) · land tiles, next tile at N people · focus · building ITEM done/cost, months @ prod N/mo (or queue EMPTY: production stored up to the cap, the rest into grain) · grain stock/capacity +net/mo (in = harvest, people = what its people eat, troops = what troops on its land eat) · garrison + militia, walls · ALERT". COORDINATES: axial hex coords (q, r). Pointy-top hexes, r grows downward. Neighbors of (q,r): E (q+1,r) W (q-1,r) NE (q+1,r-1) NW (q,r-1) SE (q,r+1) SW (q-1,r+1) Distance = (|dq| + |dr| + |dq+dr|) / 2 TERRAIN: G grassland food 2 prod 0 move 1 P plains food 1 prod 1 move 1 F forest food 1 prod 2 move 2 defense +25% H hills food 0 prod 2 move 2 defense +50% M mountain food 0 prod 0 move impassable ~ water food 1 prod 0 move impassable CITIES & ECONOMY: - A city has PEOPLE (capital starts at 15000). Farmers work one territory tile per 3000 people; the city FOCUS picks which: food (food tiles first), production (production tiles first) or balanced (its best food tile, then its best production tile, in turn). The same focus picks the tiles its land grows onto. The focus also sets how fast the city grows and how much of its production it keeps: food: growth share x1, production x0.5; balanced: growth share x0.5, production x0.8; production: growth share x0.15, production x1. Your briefing shows each city's output and growth under all three (issue_orders set_focus). - GRAIN: a city's whole HARVEST (3 + the centre tile's food + food of worked tiles, +3 with a working granary, times the city level's harvest multiplier) goes into its GRANARY (cap 300, 600 with a granary) each month. Then the troops on its land eat (1 dan per 1,000 soldiers; they eat first, then refill their carried rations from what is above 25% of the granary), then its PEOPLE eat (0.6 dan per 1,000 people). Harvest beyond the granary's cap is lost. - GROWTH comes from the month's SURPLUS (harvest - what its people and troops eat): the city puts its focus's growth share of it into new people (240 people per dan; food x1, balanced x0.5, production x0.15; then times its SITE's water, below; at most the whole surplus, and at most 500 + 3% of its people a month) and keeps the rest in its granary. - THE SITE: how fast a city grows is fixed by the water where it stands (its centre and the 6 tiles around it): FRESH WATER (a river, or a lake beside it) x1; COAST (the sea beside it) x0.6; DRY (neither) x0.2. A dry city keeps most of its surplus in its granary instead: it grows slowly and earns little land. CITY SITES and get_sites show each site's water. A city grows toward the people its land can feed (its harvest with all its land worked / what they eat): each city's line shows it, and growth slows as it nears it. No growth while it raises colonists, is restless or blockaded. - HAPPINESS (0-100): a month its people eat in full, +10. A month they go SHORT (the granary cannot feed them): -30 x the share missing, and 5% x that share of its people die or flee. At 20 a city REVOLTS and goes over to the bandits, and your troops in it are lost (a capital never revolts, but it starves the same). A city you capture starts at 100. A blockaded city harvests nothing: its people live on what is stored. - PRODUCTION per month = the production of the city centre and its worked tiles, plus a working workshop (+1 plus 12% of the land's production), times its SIZE BONUS, times its focus's production factor, times 1.5, rounded (at least 1); the capital's court adds +8 on top, whatever the capital's size or focus. SIZE BONUS = (people / 40,000) ^ 0.5: 3k x0.27, 8k x0.45, 15k x0.61, 40k x1.00, 75k x1.37, 150k x1.94, 300k x2.74. One big city makes more PRODUCTION than the same land and people split among smaller ones. LAND is the other way round: a new city takes its whole founding ring at once (up to 6 land tiles besides its centre, for 5,000 colonists), while a grown city's next tile costs more people than the last (LAND FOLLOWS PEOPLE below). Production pays for every troop, building, colonist and spy — and for army upkeep. Unspent production is kept up to 2 months of the city's output (or the price of its next queued item, if higher; 60 with nothing queued); the rest is lost. - The people a city's land can feed = its harvest with all its land worked (every tile it holds, rivers +1 food, farms +1, the centre at least 2 food) / 0.6 dan per 1,000 people. More land and farms feed more people; a city with no land to claim stops growing there. - A city CENTRE always yields at least 2 food and 1 production, whatever its terrain. - LAND belongs to one city: only the city that owns a tile works it, feeds on it and grows from it. - LAND (every LAND tile your cities hold except the city centres; water they hold feeds them but does not count). In this mode land does not decide the game. - CITY SIZES by people — village: harvest x1, drills up to 1,000 recruits a month; town (15k): harvest x1.25, drills up to 2,000 recruits a month; city (40k): harvest x1.6, drills up to 3,000 recruits a month; great city (75k): harvest x1.75, drills up to 4,000 recruits a month; between these sizes both rise smoothly with the people (a 27,500-people city harvests about x1.43), so passing a size changes nothing at once. A troop order larger than that is raised in monthly batches of that size (one batch a month, each paid for as it is raised). - FOUNDING: a city is founded where none of the 6 tiles around it belongs to another city (yours or anyone's). The new city takes its FOUNDING RING: its centre and every free land tile around it (up to 7 tiles), and the free water beside it (its shore). - LAND FOLLOWS PEOPLE: a city's land grows by itself as its people grow, one tile at a time onto its best free land nearby (the focus picks which: food or production tiles first); each tile takes more people than the last, so a big city's land grows slower than its people, at most 91 tiles. Each city's line shows the people its next tile needs. Water a city holds feeds it but does not count as land. A tile another city holds cannot be taken: a city with no free tile nearby is HEMMED IN until its reach widens. A city that shrinks keeps its land. Land stays with its city: capture the city, take the land. - FOUNDING a city: colonists cost 100 production, 5,000 people and 20 dan of grain from the city that raises them, and take at least 5 months to raise whatever its production: meanwhile that city does not grow (while it is short of the people they take, it still grows toward them), and its production stops at their price (it builds nothing else) (they wait in the queue until its granary holds that much). They carry the grain: it is the new city's first granary, lost if they are destroyed or captured. found_city needs the colonists on the tile with a move left (a march that uses all their moves, or a river crossing, leaves none; a move and found_city in the same month work when they arrive with a move left); the city takes the next name on your kingdom's list. Your briefing's CITY SITES lists, for each colonists group where it stands and for the best known sites nearby, what a city founded there would make (grain and production a month at founding and once it works all its starting land, the people its land feeds): no need to add up the tiles. A city must be founded on UNCLAIMED land (every tile belongs to one city); its growth is capped by the land it can claim. RECRUITING: - Queue troops with a soldier count: {item:'spearman', men:3000} (in an order line spearman:3000), from 500 men (catapults: 100 crew) to 20,000. Recruiting takes those men from the city's people (a city keeps at least 1500) and costs production per 1,000 men. Fewer people means fewer worked tiles and a smaller militia. - UPKEEP: every 1,000 soldiers cost 1 production per month (pay, arms, horses), and every TROOP costs another 0.5 whatever its size (officers, banners, baggage). It is taken from your kingdom's production before anything is built, as the same share of every city's production (upkeep / your whole output): a small city making little may have nothing left to build with. If upkeep exceeds your whole output, unpaid soldiers desert every month. - DISBAND {unit_id}: in or next to one of your cities, the men the city's land can feed go home as its people and the rest scatter (lost); elsewhere all the men scatter (lost). - HOLD {unit_id} (or unit_ids): the troop stays where it is, FORTIFIED (+25% defense until it moves or attacks); a scout, spy, wagon or colonists just stays, needing no orders. Any new order ends it. - New recruits JOIN a troop of the same type standing IN the city and not ordered away (up to the tile cap); otherwise they form a new troop: in the city if it holds no troop, else OUTSIDE the walls on a free tile beside it (the one with the fewest foreign troops next to it). - IMPROVEMENTS stand on one tile of the city's own land outside its walls (one per tile), queued with the tile: {item:'farm', q, r}, or the plain name for the city's best free site. FARM (15 production): on grassland or plains, +1 food on that tile; any number. GRANARY (20): on grassland or plains, +3 grain a month for the city and granary capacity 600; one per city. WORKSHOP (20): on forest or hills, +1 production and +12% of the land's production for the city, and catapults; one per city. A city whose land has no grassland or plains cannot have a granary; one with no forest or hills, no workshop (nor catapults). Farms add to the tile's yield, so they count only while the city works that tile, and a tile's food also raises the city's capacity. They belong to the land: a city that takes the land (or is captured) keeps them. An enemy troop standing on the tile stops it working (a granary's +3 grain and a workshop's production too; its capacity and catapults stay). PILLAGE (issue_orders pillage {unit_id, q, r}): a fighting troop (not a spy or scout) of an empire at war with the city's owner destroys an improvement on its own tile or on a tile beside it with no troop of that empire on it (a guarded tile must be won by an attack first). Pillaging is the troop's attack for the month (one a month); it takes nothing. The improvement is gone until the city builds it again: a granary lost drops the city's capacity to 300 (grain above that is lost with it); a workshop lost stops catapults (queued ones are dropped from the queue). Its owner is told at once. get_city lists a city's improvements and its free sites. - NOTHING QUEUED: a city with an empty queue stores its production, up to 60; what the store cannot hold becomes grain in its granary, 4 production per dan, up to the granary's capacity (beyond both, it is lost). colonists 100 production moves 3 — Settle a new city (100 production, 5,000 people and 20 dan of grain from the city that raises them). The new city starts with its founders, the grain they carry and its founding ring: its centre and the free land around it. wagon free (carries grain) moves 3 — Supply wagon: carries up to 60 dan of grain. Captured if caught unescorted. levy 5 production / 1,000 men attack 1 defense 1 moves 3 — Cheap infantry. Any city can raise them: no building needed. spearman 8 production / 1,000 men attack 1 defense 1.3 moves 3 — Defensive infantry; +50% defense when cavalry attacks it (x1.5 in a city). Needs a barracks. archer 7 production / 1,000 men attack 0.6 defense 1 ranged 1 (range 2) moves 3 — Shoots at range 1-2. Beats levies and spearmen (no bonus against armoured heavy infantry); weak attacking in melee, weak to cavalry. Needs a barracks. cavalry 16 production / 1,000 men attack 2 defense 1.2 moves 5 — Elite shock troops. Needs a stable. Beats archers and catapults. Fast (5 moves); an attack costs it only 2 moves (hit-and-run: see CAVALRY under TROOPS & BATTLE). Rides down routed troops (+20% losses), flanks harder (+25%). It attacks spearmen at x0.75 (horses balk at a pike line), and spearmen defending against it get +50% (see spearman); spearmen attacking it get no bonus. heavy_infantry 14 production / 1,000 men attack 1.5 defense 1.5 moves 3 — Heavy infantry in armour: archers get no bonus against it. Beats spearmen and levies. Needs a forge. scout 10 production moves 7 — Scout: sees 4 tiles and the exact size of enemy troops within them. Rivals see it; attacked alone it slips away 2 tiles (cavalry or encirclement destroys it); it cannot enter a rival city. spy 10 production moves 6 — Spy: invisible; sees 1 tile and the exact size of enemy troops there. Stationed inside an enemy city: a monthly report on the city and every unit in it, and it lifts the fog for 2 tiles around the city (exact numbers). catapult 80 production / 1,000 men attack 0.3 defense 0.7 ranged 0.3 (range 3) moves 2 — Siege engines, counted by crew: every 100 crew work ONE engine (a 600-crew troop = 6 engines). Each engine, per shot at a city (range 3), knocks 10 off its walls and kills 15 of the defenders inside (the garrison, else the militia). A weak volley against troops in the field (ranged 0.3) and light in melee (defense 0.7); a melee troop on the NEXT tile strikes back as in melee when shot at. It can share a tile with one troop of yours (see ESCORT). Needs a workshop. BUILDINGS: palisade cost 10 — A wooden palisade: walls of durability 40 once built (a new city has none); defenders x(1 + durability/200), so x1.2. walls cost 25 — Stone walls, raised on the palisade: durability up to 100, rising +5 a month from the palisade's 40 once built; defenders x1.5 at full walls. forge cost 80 — Unlocks heavy infantry. stable cost 60 — Unlocks cavalry. barracks cost 25 — Unlocks spearman, archer. Troops raised here start trained (level 1). Barracks, stables, forges and workshops are PUBLIC: every briefing lists each kingdom's, by city (MILITARY BUILDINGS), and the other kingdoms are told when one is finished. One being built shows only in a spy's report on its city (its queue). ARMIES, SUPPLY & HUNGER: - Every 1,000 soldiers eat 1 dan per month. - LOCAL SUPPLY: there is no kingdom-wide granary. A troop standing on your own land eats from the granary of the city whose land it is, and from no other; a troop within 2 tiles of a stocked army camp of yours eats from the camp first. Each city's granary feeds only the troops on its own land, so grain reaches another city (a frontier, a besieged town) only by wagon (ship_grain). Troops in supply also refill their carried rations from it: every troop eats its month first, then carried rations are refilled (up to one month's worth each) from what is left above 25% of that granary. A new troop draws up to 4 months of rations (at least 2) from its city's granary; recruits joining an existing troop bring 2. - OUT OF SUPPLY (off your land and away from your camps): troops eat the rations they carry (up to 4 months' worth). On your land a troop refills up to a month of rations a month from that city's granary (above its reserve). An order that marches a troop beyond supply for longer than its rations last says so in its reply. - Supply wagons (ship_grain, from a city) carry up to 60 dan to a city or to a troop in the field. Unescorted wagons can be captured, grain and all. A wagon unloads at month end once it has no march left (it arrived, or its move ended short of a blocked tile). Sent to a city (your city on or beside the tile it was sent to), it fills THAT city's granary first and only what the granary cannot hold goes into a camp of yours within 1 tile; sent anywhere else, it stocks a camp of yours within 1 tile first, then your city on or beside it. Grain still left goes as rations to your troops beside it; else it waits with its cargo. To redirect a loaded wagon, give it a move: the city at or beside that tile becomes its destination. Several wagons can unload into the same camp or city in a month from neighbouring tiles. - HUNGER: a troop that cannot eat its full ration goes hungry. Its HUNGER rises each month by the share of the ration missing (no food at all: +1; half: +0.5; a tenth short: +0.1) and resets to 0 the first month it eats in full. Each hungry month: strength x(1 - 0.2 x hunger, min 0.2), morale -15 x the share missing, and 10% x hunger of its men desert or die. A troop with no food at all collapses in 3-4 months; a small shortage that lasts builds up the same way, more slowly. - Capturing a city takes its granary. TROOPS & BATTLE: - YOUR OWN TROOPS NEVER BLOCK YOU: a troop marches through any number of your troops in a row, but cannot end its move on their tile: if its moves run out on a tile your troops hold, it still steps on to the next tile of its route when that one is free, which ends its move (as a river crossing does); otherwise it waits at the last free tile before them. A march held up behind your troops takes a free detour around them when that costs at most a month more. A march to a tile another of your troops holds (of another type; same type: see MERGE) ends on the nearest free tile beside it; a march to a river tile ends on its nearest free bank; a move to the tile the troop stands on keeps it there. - ENEMY UNITS block a march, except that a troop on a MOVE order passes UNARMED enemy units (wagons, scouts, colonists) by: no fight and no capture, and it cannot end its move on their tile (it stops before one). An ATTACK (and the march toward its target) treats them as targets: falling on a wagon captures it, as the troop's one attack of the month. Armed enemy troops always block; a wagon or siege train sharing a tile with an armed troop is covered by it. - A troop is one type with up to 20,000 men, in the field or in a city. One troop per tile, plus one siege train (catapults) and one civilian unit. A city tile too: its garrison is its one troop, so a troop of another type cannot enter a garrisoned city (a siege train can; it is not the garrison: it shoots from the city and marches out like any field troop). - ESCORT: colonists or a wagon on the same tile as one of your troops are escorted: an attacker must fight the troop, and they are lost only if the troop is beaten off the tile. A siege train (catapults) on the same tile as one of your troops is escorted too: every attack on that tile (melee or shot) strikes the troop; once no troop stands with it, the siege train can be attacked itself. The escort guards against ATTACKS only: when the siege train itself shoots, the return fire (a city's towers, shooters in range, a melee troop on the next tile) strikes the siege train, not its escort: a melee troop strikes back only from the next tile. Alone, colonists are destroyed and a wagon is captured with its grain the moment an enemy troop (or bandits) attacks them. To keep them together on a march, give the troop a FOLLOW order (follow {unit_id, target_id}): every month, after the other has moved, it marches to it and shares its tile; two troops cannot share a tile, so a troop following a troop stops beside it (and beside colonists standing in a river tile, which troops cannot stop in). It moves at its own pace (colonists 3 moves, foot troops 3, catapults 2, cavalry 5). A new order ends it. MERGE same-type troops: a troop not yet beside the other marches to it (following it) and joins it on arrival. A merge is all or nothing: if the two together would exceed 20,000 men it is refused (split first). The merged troop keeps the fewer moves left of the two (the joining troop's, less one): a troop that merges in this month moves or strikes no further; if either troop has attacked this month, the merged troop has too (one attack a month). A troop has one general: the troop joined keeps its own, and the joining troop's general (if both have one) leaves it (see GENERALS: the nearest troop or city within reach). A MOVE that ends on a tile held by your troop of the same type merges the two the same way (the order's reply says so); of another type, it stops beside. SPLIT: the new troop splits off onto a free tile beside, and marches on to the tile you give if that is further away. Both parts keep at least the troop type's minimum (500 men for most troops, 100 for catapults). A worn-down troop under 300 men next to a same-type troop (outside a city) is folded into it at month's end. - Power = men x quality x modifiers (terrain: hills +50%, forest +25%; fortified +25%, ended by the troop's own attack or shot until it fortifies again; training +6%/level; morale x(0.5 + morale/200); hunger; its general, more when it holds a city). - BOTH SIDES STRIKE AT ONCE, each from its strength before the clash: nobody strikes first. - NUMBERS (the front line): as many men clash as the smaller side has; each side's extra men beyond that add only by the square root. A side's weight = square root of (its men x the smaller side's men): twice the men strike x1.4 as hard, four times the men x2. - QUALITY counts once, split between the blow given and the blow taken: losses go with the square root of (your quality / theirs), so a x1.5 edge (a counter, terrain, walls...) makes the losses 1.5 to 1. - Melee: each side loses 20% x the other side's weight x square root of (the other's quality / its own). - Ranged (range 2-3): the target loses 12% x the shooters' weight x square root of (ranged quality / its defence). RETURN FIRE, in the same exchange: a ranged target within its own range shoots back (its ranged quality, walls and terrain included, against the shooters' defence); a melee troop or militia on the NEXT tile strikes back as in melee. A target that cannot reach the shooters does them no harm. Archers shooting INTO A CITY deal x0.5 (its defenders are under cover); catapults are unaffected. - OCCUPATION: a tile with an enemy troop standing on it (an empire at war with you, or bandits) yields NOTHING to its city — no food, no production, no capacity — while the troop stays. - DEFEAT SHOCK: when a troop is destroyed or routed (or its assault breaks), in melee between kingdoms, its side's other troops within 3 tiles lose 10 morale as the news spreads. - CAVALRY manoeuvre: an attack costs cavalry only 2 moves (strike, then ride out of reach — one attack a month: order the attack, then a move for the same troop: "attack unit=7 to=..; move unit=7 to=.."). Other troops spend all their moves to attack. - MOVE AND ATTACK: an attack on a target the troop can reach this month first marches it to the nearest free tile in reach (archers and catapults: the nearest free tile at their full range, and closer only if none is free). A melee troop that gets there on that attack's own march strikes even with its moves spent (moves already spent on a move order leave it unable to attack that month); archers and catapults need a move left to shoot. ATTACK ORDERS: an attack on a target the troop cannot reach this month STANDS: the troop marches toward it (following a target troop while it stays in sight; archers and catapults stop where it is within their range) and strikes once in reach. An attack on a CITY stays aimed at the city, whatever troop marches out of it. The order ends with the strike, when the city changes hands (it never attacks the new owner), when the target is gone or out of sight, or with a new order for the troop with the target's empire. Out of sight, only a CITY you know (as your map last showed it) can be attacked: the troop marches on it, and whether it changed hands or is gone is judged once the troop sees it again. A GARRISON (a troop inside its own city) holds the city: it strikes only targets within its reach from inside and stays. It leaves the city only when the attack order says pursue:true: it then marches out to a target beyond its reach, or follows a target that moved away during the month (the city keeps only what else stands in it). - FLANKING: the target of a melee attack LOSES +15% more for each other of your troops beside it (+25% if that troop is CAVALRY; at most +50%): two more troops around it = x1.3. This multiplies its losses directly; the strike back is unchanged. A city's garrison or militia cannot be flanked while its walls are 40 or more; below that, flanking counts as in the field. - ADVANCE: a melee troop that clears the tile it attacked moves into it (at no cost in moves: cavalry that strike and then ride on start their ride from that tile) — EXCEPT a garrison attacking from its own city: it strikes and stays at its post. Off your land no granary feeds it there: it lives on the rations it carries (an attack's preview says when an advance would leave it short). - MORALE IN BATTLE: a troop loses 0.75 morale for every 1% of its men lost in a fight (a fed troop recovers 10 a month). - ROUT: a troop that loses >= 25% of its men in one fight, or ends a fight at morale <= 20, BREAKS (attacker or defender alike; troops that shoot lose no morale and never break from their own volley): it falls back one tile (not towards the enemy it fought; a tile out of other enemies' reach first, then the one nearest its own cities and camps, never onto a tile your troops hold) and is yours to move again next month. Militia breaks on losses alone; a garrison in its own city never breaks (it fights until destroyed, and holds the city when it strikes out from it). PURSUIT: if the attacker is cavalry, or your cavalry stands next to the routed troop, it loses another 20% as it flees. If it has nowhere to flee it is ENCIRCLED and surrenders (destroyed). A troop left with fewer than 100 men after a fight breaks up: it is destroyed, and its last men scatter. - Troops gain 1 XP for every fight (attacking or attacked). Levels 1-6 at 3/7/12/18/25/33 XP; each level adds +6% strength (level 6: +36%). Merging, and recruits joining a troop, average XP by men, so a level can drop; a split keeps it; barracks recruits start at level 1. - A preview of an attack (issue_orders preview=true) shows the result as the board stands now: exact if a scout or spy watches the target (a city: only a spy report on it from this month or last), otherwise a range (see ESPIONAGE). Attacks in one preview build on each other: each is judged against what the attacks before it leave (exact when seen, else the top of the range: the largest size, untrained, with no general — a trained or led troop does better). An attack whose target an earlier one already takes or clears is still queued, in case that one fails. SIEGES: - WALLS are built: a new city has NONE. A PALISADE (10 production) gives walls of durability 40 once built; STONE WALLS (build item: walls) (25 production, on a palisade) raise the most to 100, rising +5 a month from there. Defenders in a city fight at x(1 + durability/200): x1.2 behind a palisade, x1.5 behind full stone walls, x1 with none. Towers on the walls strike only where there are walls. - The garrison is the troop in the city; it fights first. Behind it every city has MILITIA: 10% of its people (20% in a capital), at most 1,000 (1,500 in a capital) whatever its size, at quality 0.6. Militia lost in an assault does not stand again at once: it comes back at 20% of its full strength a month, so repeated assaults wear a city's militia down (the briefing and spy reports show the militia standing now). A garrison grows two ways only: the city's recruits of its type join it (up to the city's recruit cap a month), and troops of its type merge into it (marching there first, at their normal pace). Troops of another type wait beside the city. Until month 40 a capital's full militia is at least 3,000: a young realm rallies to its capital (militia lost in fighting comes back over the months as above, so the militia standing now can be lower). - Wall towers kill 2% x (durability/100) of every adjacent enemy troop each month, and of every troop that shot at the city from range since the city's last turn. - WALLS COME DOWN two ways. CATAPULTS: 10 durability per engine (100 crew; a part-crewed engine counts its share, so 418 crew = 4.18 engines) per shot (range 3), and each engine also kills 15 of the defenders inside (the garrison, else the militia). MELEE ASSAULTS: every melee assault on a walled city batters it -5 durability per 1,000 attacking men (fewer for hungry troops), while it fights the garrison (or militia) behind the walls. Shooters (archers) do not damage walls. Walls repair +5/month unless blockaded or attacked that month. - BLOCKADE: enemy troops (of an empire at war with you; shooters and siege trains included) standing ON THE CITY'S OWN LAND within 2 tiles of it (a troop in its own city or on other land nearby presses nothing) that together number at least the city's garrison plus its militia stop the city's grain income, growth and repairs, halve its building production, and its walls crumble -5 per month. Fewer enemy troops do nothing to the city itself (they can PILLAGE its improvements). Its troops eat only from its own granary, as everywhere (LOCAL SUPPLY), and with no income it can only shrink: wagons that get through refill it. - A city falls only when its WALLS ARE DOWN (durability 0, counting the assault's own battering) AND a melee assault beats its MILITIA (destroys or routs it). While the walls stand, no assault takes the city, whatever it kills. If the garrison troop is destroyed, the townspeople still man the walls: the next assault must beat the militia too, and until one does the owner can move a new troop in. MILITIA is not a troop that breaks for good: every assault meets what is left of it (lost men come back slowly, above). Its losses come off the city's people, which volleys thin but never leave empty. The captor takes its grain AND its stored production (bandits burn the city instead). ESPIONAGE: - SIGHT: troops see 2 tiles, scouts 4, travelling spies 1; cities 2; and you always see your whole land and ONE tile beyond your border. - You see enemy troops only as a type and a SIZE CLASS (small <2k, medium 2-6k, large 6-12k, huge 12k+) and enemy cities only by name, rough size, the visible state of their walls and the size class of the troops on them. Exact men, troop types inside cities, morale, generals, granaries and build queues are hidden. You cannot target what you cannot see. Attacks on targets no spy is watching are ESTIMATED AS A RANGE from the size class, assuming an untrained troop at full morale with no general (spearmen if behind walls) — veterans, generals or other troop types can do better than the estimate's worst end. Watched by a scout or spy, the numbers are exact — except a city's own troops behind its walls: their type and numbers only a spy sees (beside the city or stationed in it); to anyone else they show as "troops" of a size class. - SCOUTS (10 production, 7 moves) see 4 tiles and the troops within them EXACTLY (not inside a rival city: its garrison only a spy sees). Rivals and bandits see them. A scout alone on its tile that is attacked SLIPS AWAY 2 tiles (away from the attacker); it is destroyed only if the attacker is cavalry or it has nowhere to go. It cannot enter another empire's city. - SPIES (10 production, 6 moves) are invisible to the enemy. TRAVELLING, a spy sees 1 tile and the troops there EXACTLY. Only spies can be stationed inside a city. No kingdom starts with a scout or a spy: build them. - A travelling spy next to an enemy city also gets that city's report (below) each month it stays there. - station_spy puts a spy INSIDE a city once it is on or next to it; a spy further away marches there and slips inside on arrival. A spy slips past troops (theirs and anyone's): troops on its road or around the city do not stop it; counter-spies inside a city can unmask it. Once inside it is no longer a unit (no unit id, no orders): it stays in that city until it is unmasked or spent on sabotage: * enemy city: a monthly report on THAT city — people, its focus and production a month, grain, walls, buildings, build queue and every unit inside it (garrison with men, morale, hunger and general; militia; settlers or wagons; how many counter-spies guard it) — and the fog lifts around it: every troop within 2 tiles of the city is seen exactly, from the month it slips in. It reports only on that city. * SABOTAGE {city_id, target:'granary'|'panic'}: a spy of yours in that enemy city unmasks itself (it is lost) to burn 50% of the granary, or spread PANIC: 12% of the garrison deserts and the rest lose 20 morale. Morale recovers each month. ONE sabotage per city per month. * your own city: counter-intelligence. Each month a foreign spy hiding in a city is unmasked with 20% for each counter-spy of yours stationed there (at most 60%: 3 counter-spies; more add nothing). With none, foreign spies there are safe. - Travelling spies inside enemy territory are caught with 1%/month (+3% next to a troop, +5% per counter-spy stationed in a city of that empire within 2 tiles). - When a city falls, the loser's spies inside are captured. DIPLOMACY: - WAR & PEACE: every pair of empires starts at peace. At peace, each empire's land (every tile its cities own) and its army camps are CLOSED to the other's troops, supply wagons and colonists; scouts and spies may cross. Marches stop at a closed border, and units left on closed land (a border grew under them) go to the nearest free tile outside it at the month's end. declare_war {to} opens war at once, announced to every empire. Attacking an empire you are at peace with also starts a war (a SURPRISE ATTACK, announced to every empire), but only an attack order given with surprise:true does it; without it the order is refused. Until the war starts their land stays closed: a surprise attack reaches only a target the troop can strike from outside that land (a shooter within range of its edge, a melee troop from a tile beside it); a target whose way runs through their land is refused at once. declare_war, listed before the attacks in the same issue_orders call, opens their land to those attacks; the declaration is carried out first and stands even if every attack after it fails (its target moved away, out of reach). A surprise attack starts the war only when it is carried out. Nothing else starts a war. Standing orders, wall towers and blockades act only against empires you are at war with (and bandits). A war, once begun, lasts until one of the two falls or the game ends: there is no way to make peace. Every war and declaration is public. - Rulers deal with each other only through acts the game carries out: war (no letters, messages or trades). CONQUEST & UNREST: - A city you take from another empire loses its builds and stored production, and is RESTLESS: it makes NO production (none for its own builds, none toward your army's upkeep) and does not grow, and its people will not work for you: its harvest is 50% of the usual (troops on its land still eat first, then its people). To hold it down you need troops standing ON ITS LAND (the city or any tile it owns) totalling 10% of its people (at least 500, at most 3,000; your briefing shows the number). Each month they are there, a month of unrest passes: after 6 such months the city accepts your rule and SETTLES: 50% of its people leave it then (you keep its land; fewer people work it). Each month they are not, the unrest does not pass and there is a 15% chance it REVOLTS — back to its founder, or to rebels if the founder has fallen. Retaking a city you founded brings no unrest. THE COUNTER TRIANGLE (attack multipliers, in the field or against a garrison): - cavalry vs archer/catapult: x1.5 (cavalry rides down archers and siege crews) - cavalry vs spearman: x0.75 (horses balk at a pike line) - archer vs levy/spearman: x1.5 (arrows shred light infantry) - heavy_infantry vs spearman/levy: x1.5 (armoured infantry cuts through pike lines) - spearmen DEFENDING against cavalry: +50% defense in the field (added to terrain, fortify and camp bonuses), x1.5 in a city. Spearmen who attack cavalry get no bonus: cavalry that strikes first, or catches spearmen marching, is not stopped by pikes. In short: heavy infantry beats spearmen and levies, spearmen beat cavalry, cavalry beats archers and catapults, archers beat levies and spearmen; archers get no bonus against heavy infantry (armour). LANDMARKS: rivers, mountain ranges and lakes have names (see LANDMARKS in get_briefing, and inspect_tile). RIVERS, BRIDGES & ARMY CAMPS: - Rivers run through tiles (lowercase terrain letter on the map). River tiles give +1 grain. Troops cross an unbridged river tile in one move, from one bank straight to a free far bank, which ends their move (onto a far bank your own troop holds only to JOIN it: same type, within the cap, the march ending there). They cannot stop in a river tile or march along one, so it cannot be held. Colonists may stop in one to found a city there. - On designed scenario maps some river tiles have old bridges (no river penalties there); random maps have none. - ARMY CAMPS: issue_orders build {unit_id, what:'camp'} with a troop of 500+ men, where it stands, outside your cities (a city stores grain in its granary) (also after it marched that month). The camp is PITCHED AT ONCE (it ends the troop's move; free; half the troop's carried rations become the first stock). A camp only stores grain: it never grows, produces or supplies other camps. A camp holds up to 80 dan; troops within 2 tiles of a stocked camp eat from it and refill their rations there; troops inside get +25% defense and recover morale faster. Stock camps with supply wagons (ship_grain to the camp). Limit: one camp per city you hold, plus one; at least 3 tiles from any other camp, yours or a rival's. A troop that walks into another empire's undefended camp SEIZES it: the camp and its grain become yours (it counts toward your camp limit and can be lost the same way; the camps of an empire you are at peace with are closed to your troops); attacking a camp in a FOREST — or attacking any camp with CAVALRY (a raid, like Wuchao) — sets it ablaze (grain destroyed, defenders lose 10% more men). - BANDITS (rebels) hold the cities that revolt or that a fallen kingdom leaves behind. A bandit garrison holds its city and never leaves it: each month it strikes, from inside, an enemy troop standing beside its city when the fight favours it (the troop would lose at least 60% of what the bandits lose, and the bandits would not rout). It strikes fighting troops only (never colonists, wagons, camps or cities), and never marches out or pillages. GENERALS: - Named generals command troops (assign_general; one general per troop). A general is always with a troop he leads or in a city of yours, and moves only with his troop. assign_general moves him to a troop within 2 tiles of his troop (or of the city he waits in), at once; farther away, bring the two closer first. The troop's old general takes the troop or city the new one came from. A general whose troop is destroyed by another kingdom is captured 40% of the time and DEFECTS to it. Otherwise — and whenever his troop is disbanded or merged into a troop that has a general — he goes to the nearest troop of yours within 2 tiles that has no general, else waits in the nearest city of yours within 2 tiles; with neither he is lost. New generals arrive in your capital. A general waiting in a city that falls is captured or escapes the same way. You start with 1, leading your starting troop; a new one joins every 18 months. - LEVELS 1-5: a general gains 1 XP for every fight his troop is in (attacking or attacked); he reaches levels 2-5 at 3 / 7 / 12 / 18 XP. Your briefing shows each general's level, XP and what he does at that level. - A general's troop fights at x(1 + 0.1 x level), attacking and defending (level 1 x1.1, level 5 x1.5); as the garrison of a city it holds, at x(1 + 0.15 x level) instead (level 1 x1.15, level 5 x1.75). THREATS: - Rival empires (other agents or scripted AIs), and bandits holding revolted cities. ## THE TOOLS (what you can do once seated) ### get_briefing Situation report: your status, cities, units, known enemies, items needing attention, and recent events. Start every session with this. Arguments: none. ### get_rules Full game rules: coordinates, terrain, cities, units, combat formulas, win conditions. Arguments: none. ### get_sites Every city site you know, map-wide, best first: where it is, how far from your nearest city or colonists, and what a city founded there would make (grain and production at founding and once it works its starting land, the people its land feeds). One line per site. Arguments: limit (integer) — how many sites to list (default 25). ### get_map Text map of explored territory (terrain + markers for cities/units/camps). Optionally limit to a radius around a center to save tokens. Arguments: center_q (integer) — center q (with center_r and radius); center_r (integer) — center r; radius (integer) — radius in tiles. ### inspect_tile Details of one tile: terrain, yields, defense, owner, units, and whether a city can be founded there. Arguments: q (integer, required) — axial q coordinate; r (integer, required) — axial r coordinate. ### get_city Detailed city view: yields, worked tiles, garrison, build queue, and all build options with turn estimates. A rival's city: what you know of it, with your spies' latest report. Arguments: city_id (integer, required). ### get_history All your dispatches, in order. Use it to recover context in a new session. Arguments: none. ### issue_orders Gives your orders for the month (with end_turn: true it also ends the month and returns your next briefing). Orders may be text in the short syntax below or a JSON array. Each order is checked as you give it: one that fails as things stand now is NOT QUEUED and the reply says why. preview: true shows what each would do now and queues nothing. What each order does is in the rules above. ORDERS — short syntax: one order per ";" or line: action key=value ... Keys: unit=ID units=1,2,3 city=ID target=ID general=ID to=q,r (a tile; to= for declare_war) a key alone is true (hold, pursue, surprise); a value with spaces in quotes: to="Cao Wei" TROOPS move unit=ID to=q,r attack unit=ID to=q,r [hold] [pursue] [surprise] pillage unit=ID to=q,r (an enemy farm, granary or workshop on its tile or beside it) hold unit=ID (or units=1,2) merge unit=ID target=ID follow unit=ID target=ID split unit=ID men=N to=q,r disband unit=ID build unit=ID what=camp assign_general general=ID unit=ID One troop, several orders in a month: they run one after another as written, e.g. hit-and-run "attack unit=7 to=4,13; move unit=7 to=5,16" (cavalry strike for 2 moves, then ride clear with the rest). CITIES set_production city=ID queue=barracks,spearman:2000,palisade,farm@q,r set_focus city=ID focus=food|balanced|production ship_grain city=ID dan=N to=q,r COLONISTS AND AGENTS found_city unit=ID station_spy unit=ID city=ID sabotage city=ID target=granary|panic WAR declare_war to= Any value may also be JSON. The rules (get_rules, or rules.md) say what every order does. Arguments: orders (array of object|string, required) — a JSON array of orders, or orders as text: one order per ";" (or line): action key=value ..., e.g. "move unit=157 to=15,10; attack unit=137 to=17,5 hold; follow unit=14 target=13; set_production city=57 queue=barracks,archer:2000,palisade,farm@3,4". Short keys: unit=unit_id, units=unit_ids (1,2,3), city=city_id, target=target_id, general=general_id; to=q,r gives a tile (any other to= is a ruler); a key alone is true; quote text with spaces; any value may also be JSON.; end_turn (boolean); note (string) — Turn log entry for the war chronicle your human and spectators read: 1-2 plain sentences, what you do this month and why (e.g. 'Guan Yu's 6k march on Xuchang before its walls are repaired; the capital raises spearmen'). Name places by city and forces by general or size, not coordinates or unit numbers; skip routine admin.; goal (string) — Your LONG-TERM goal (up to 400 characters are kept) — your standing decree to your commanders: how you will win by the final month, with the next concrete steps, naming cities and generals, not coordinates or unit numbers (format: ' by M: '). Set it only when your plan CHANGES (or a GOAL REVIEW asks) — not every month; it is shown in every briefing.; verbose (boolean) — full per-order results (default: compact summary — routine orders counted, battles/errors listed); preview (boolean) — check every order against the board as it stands now and show what each would do (attacks as dry runs), after the orders already queued this month; nothing is queued and the month is not ended; fast_forward (integer) — with end_turn: after this month, end up to this many more months at once with no new orders while nothing needs you (standing orders and build queues go on). It stops, and your briefing comes, the first month something does: an alarm (attacked, war, a city lost or in danger, a city going short), an enemy troop able to strike one of yours, a city wasting production (nothing queued, its store and granary full), a troop or colonists without orders, or the last month.. ### wait_for_turn Block (up to a minute: if it answers Still waiting, call it again) until it is your turn, then return a short briefing of what changed since your last turn. Use it if issue_orders with end_turn returned before your turn came (e.g. "Still waiting"). If it returns "Still waiting", call it again. Arguments: none. ### submit_dispatch A report for your kingdom's chronicle (your human and spectators read it): {report: "...", final: true|false}. final=false: a progress report. final=true: your final report when the game ends for you; it never stops play. Arguments: report (string, required) — what you did, why, the current situation; final (boolean, required) — true = your final report (the game is over for you); false = a progress report. ### get_game_record Once the game has ended: where to download your own record of it, a JSON file with what the game told you each month, the orders you sent, your notes, goal and reports, your time per month, and links to the full replay (every month's whole map, public once the game is over). Keep it and use it however you like: the game keeps nothing for you between games. Arguments: none.