Features

Fully Data-Driven Config

Every game constant is tunable via a GameConfig struct with 80+ parameters. Load configs from JSON files during development, or from PostgreSQL in production — the Facade + Adapter architecture means zero changes to game code.

Configurable areas include: city economics, combat balance, AI behavior, hero costs, faith generation, espionage rates, diplomacy timing, trade routes, victory thresholds, mage AI (mana reserves, spell tiers, ritual gates), and much more.

Content versioning via SHA-256 hashes ensures idempotent uploads. A CLI tool uploads config files directly to the database with a single command. The entire game is tunable without recompiling — perfect for live ops balancing and modding.

Six Doctrine Trees

Doctrines are the defining strategic choice. Each player invests in one or more of six doctrine trees, unlocking unique buildings, units, abilities, and victory conditions. Hybrid cross-doctrine builds unlock capstone effects available nowhere else.

Procedural Hex World

Maps are procedurally generated with 9 biomes — plains, forest, desert, mountain, hills, tundra, ocean, coast, and river. Each biome affects movement costs, combat modifiers, resource yields, and building eligibility.

Mines spawn on mountain tiles with specific resource deposits (iron, silver, gold, crystals). Harbours can only be built on coastal tiles. Roads and bridges connect your empire — infrastructure is visible on the map and affects movement speed.

Fog of war and visibility are tile-based. Units, cities, and terrain features extend your vision range. The minimap shows explored territory, unit positions, and player borders.

Combat System

37 unit kinds across 3 tiers (basic, elite, faith). Combat resolves with: attack/defense stats, unit counters (spear beats cavalry, archer beats flyer), morale (units break and flee), flanking bonuses, terrain modifiers (forest defense, river penalty), siege mechanics (walls, towers, moats), shore battery fire from harbours, and naval combat (warships, galleons, transport ships).

Guard units garrison in cities for defense. Supply wagons extend army range. Engineers build roads, bridges, and tile improvements. Heroes attached to armies provide leadership bonuses and unique combat abilities.

Magic & Faith

Arcane: Mages draw power from mana fonts and dark shrines. Spells include fireballs, teleportation, summoning, and terrain manipulation. Rituals are multi-turn grand spells requiring multiple mages. Portals of light and darkness enable instant army teleportation across the map.

Faith: Temples and churches generate faith. Sanctified territory provides combat bonuses to faithful units. Crusaders and inquisitors suppress enemy religions in conquered cities. The Divine Mandate victory requires controlling five holy sites simultaneously.

Heroes & Champions

Recruit unique hero units — paladins, archmages, death knights, warlords, chaos lords. Heroes have individual skill trees, can equip artifacts found in the world, and level up through combat and quests.

Hero abilities include: rally (restore army morale), smite (massive single-target damage), teleport (reposition on battlefield), corrupt (turn neutral units), and aura buffs that affect all friendly units in range. A high-level hero can turn the tide of an entire war.

Economic Depth

10 resource types: food, wood, stone, iron, silver, gold, mana, crystal, chaos, and faith. Cities generate base yields modified by terrain, buildings, population, and doctrines.

Buildings: 39 types across production (workshop, forge, siege workshop), economy (market, bank, granary), resource extraction (5 mine types, mana font), military (barracks, walls 1-3, towers 1-3, moat), faith (temple, church, dark shrine), arcane (mana font, portals), naval (harbour, shipyard, grand shipyard), and unique buildings (grand forge, observatory).

Trade networks connect cities and generate passive gold. Supply wagons extend army operational range. Food surplus drives population growth. Resource scarcity creates natural strategic bottlenecks — control the only crystal mine on the map to dominate arcane production.

Victory Conditions

Six victory paths. Each sustained-progress path must hold its condition for sustain_empire_ticks consecutive empire ticks before victory fires — no last-second flips.

• Conquest: Eliminate all opponents. The default fallback — games resolve this way if no other path completes.
• Economy: Accumulate the configured gold reserve and trade-route count. A trade-and-build victory, not a conquest in disguise.
• Science: Reach the configured knowledge threshold. Rewards sustained research investment and observatory play.
• Faith: Accumulate the configured total faith and temple count. Sanctified territory, crusaders, and inquisitors drive this path.
• Diplomacy: Reach the configured honor threshold. Reward for trade deals, alliances, and keeping the peace.
• Team Power (team games): In 2-team formats, the first team to hold team_power_threshold_pct of combined power score for sustain_empire_ticks wins as a team.