WARFARE
Attacks are announced before they land, which means every battle is fought twice — once in the estimate, once in the numbers.
THE SEQUENCE
Every engagement runs through four steps, in order:
- Declaration. The attacker commits power to a target tile.
- Reaction. The defender is told an attack is coming — and sees the incoming strength only as a fogged band unless they have espionage on the attacker. They may spend on reactive defense or play Fortify, against a guess.
- Resolution. Effective attack is measured against effective defense.
- Damage. Losses, casualties, and possibly capture.
Because the defender must commit resources before knowing the true size of the attack, a feint costs the attacker very little and can cost the defender a great deal. Over-defending a probe is how empires bleed out.
THE EQUATION
Effective attack (EA) versus effective defense (ED).
Both start from committed military power and are modified by research, terrain and
abilities. Sentiment modifies defense only — a content population
defends up to 1.5× as hard, a miserable one as little as 0.5×.
The loser forfeits 100% of committed power (research can soften this); the winner loses proportionally to how close the fight was. A ±10% variance roll means a marginal advantage is never a guarantee.
GROUND VERSUS AIR
| GROUND | AIR | |
|---|---|---|
| Reach | Adjacent tiles only | Ranged, launched from bases |
| Can capture? | Yes | No — it only damages |
| Defense | Garrison + sentiment + terrain | Passive air defense plus reactive spending |
| Overflow | Excess becomes casualties | Leakage becomes casualties |
Air power cannot take ground. It is an attrition tool: you use it to empty a hub of staff and garrison so that a ground assault becomes cheap, or to grind down an economy you have no intention of occupying.
SHIELD AND HEALTH
A tile's garrison is its shield and its population is its health. Overwhelm the shield and the excess lands on the people underneath as casualties — which for a hub means lost staffing, which means lost output.
Rural tiles simply flip. Hubs are captured, and capture inverts the hub's sentiment around the midpoint — the "liberator swing". A hub that despised its previous owner is delighted to see you; one that was perfectly happy becomes your problem.
THE COST OF WAR
Fighting generates war-weariness against your own civilian sentiment, and human casualties are the single sharpest sentiment shock in the game. A long war won on the map can still be lost at home — which is precisely why the automation doctrine exists.