Military System (Deterministic, Optional)

Armies are designed to be a secondary layer.

Design constraints

• one army per tile
• deterministic combat only
• clear modifiers
• short action cooldowns

Core ideas

• Armies spawn in neutral zones through periodic auctions.
• Each army has visible strength and upkeep.
• Armies consume low-level resources each period.
• Stronger upgrade paths consume high-rarity resources.
• Armies can contest ownership effects on occupied land (e.g., tax/subversion/yield disruption).

Example combat resolution

A simple deterministic score can be:

combatScore = baseStrength + terrainBonus + allySupport + readiness - upkeepPenalty

Higher score wins.

A smaller army can still win if defending position + support + enemy fatigue/cooldown edge > raw strength.

Why deterministic?

• No RNG means better transparency.
• Outcomes can be reasoned and explained.
• Trade-offs stay in planning and positioning.

Early v1 scope recommendation

Ship first with:

• summon, station, move, upgrade, cooldown
• no deep unit specialization
• no hidden modifiers
• no multi-stage battle chains