Campaign

480 BC · Thermopylae, Greece

A narrow pass, a wall of shields, and a raiding column that outnumbers you. Hold the corridor — you don't have to win the war today, only the choke.

A few thousand Greeks held the entire Persian army here for three days, because the pass was too narrow for numbers to matter. Told to surrender their weapons, Leonidas answered 'come and take them.' Warned the enemy arrows would blot out the sun, a Spartan shrugged: 'good — then we'll fight in the shade.'

Click a Settler, then click a highlighted tile to move it. Send one Settler to each glowing collection point — standing next to a point claims it. Claim both and the phase is yours.

50 BC · Gaul, Rome's frontier

Rome won on supply, not heroics. Your Settlers do the same: park them on the collection points and the ◈ comes in every turn, on its own. Bank 30 and the phase is yours.

Rome rarely won by genius on the day — it won before the day, with paved roads, standing supply lines, and legions drilled to build a fortified camp every single night. Caesar's men half-joked they conquered Gaul with the shovel as much as the sword.

Move a Settler next to each collection point and leave it there. Every point you hold pays you ◈ at the end of each turn — one point is +3, both are +5. Then just end turns and watch it climb.

1206–1241 · the steppe rides west

The horde ran on tribute: take, spend, ride on. Meet the Command — your Settlers hand you gold every turn, and the Command turns that gold into cards. Buy three and the phase is yours.

The Mongols built the largest land empire in history on horseback and speed — and on the feigned retreat: pretend to flee, let the enemy break ranks chasing you, then wheel around and destroy them. Masters of hit-and-run a thousand years before the phrase existed.

Open the Command and buy any card you can afford. Your Settlers pay you 3 gold a turn, and each card costs 3 — so you can buy one per turn. Unspent gold does NOT carry over: it refills every turn, so spend it. The cards go to your hand; a later phase teaches you how to play them.

c. 1000 AD · Song dynasty China

Song China tooled up before it fought. Now the cards you buy stop being cards: buy a building at the Command, then place it on the map. Put down two and the phase is yours.

Song China ran an economy centuries ahead of its time: printed books, the world's first paper money, and gunpowder — which they famously spent on festival fireworks long before anyone turned it into a weapon. When your rival can out-produce you, tempo is everything.

Buy a building at the Command, then click it in your hand and click a highlighted tile next to something you own. Only buildings can be placed for now — units and powers stay locked until a later phase. Placing is free; the gold you paid at the Command was the whole cost.

c. 1200 BC · the walls of Troy

Troy held because it was built to hold people. Your buildings hand you unit cards every turn — but a camp only holds so many. Put three of those cards on the map and the phase is yours.

For ten years the Greeks couldn't take Troy by force. It fell to a trick: a giant wooden horse left as a 'gift,' soldiers hidden inside, wheeled through the city's own gates. A turtle doesn't lose to patience — it loses to a plan.

Your HQ hands you a Settler card every turn: click it, then click a tile next to something you own. You'll get one out and then hit "population", which means your camp is full — buy a house at the Command and place it, and the room appears. Then keep playing the cards your buildings give you.

332 BC · the island fortress of Tyre

Alexander didn't wait for the right army to show up — he built it. So far your buildings have handed you whatever they felt like. Now you pick: put up a Barracks and order the troops you actually want. Train three and the phase is yours.

Tyre was an island fortress everyone called impregnable. Alexander's answer: build a half-mile causeway out to it, roll siege towers across, and take it in seven months. Told the sea was in the way, he essentially turned an island into a peninsula — out of spite and engineering.

Buy a Barracks at the Command and place it. It only takes orders from the turn AFTER it's built, so end your turn once. Then click it and choose a unit to train — that's you deciding, instead of playing whatever card the building handed you. Training is free; the limits are your population and one order per building at a time.

494 BC · the day Rome's people walked out

Until now every person on this map was already yours. Not these. They live out there belonging to nobody, and when you reach one you choose what they become: welcome them, put them to work, or force them. Bring one into your civilization and the phase is yours — but the choice is the part that matters.

In 494 BC the plebeians of Rome are said to have simply left — walking out to a hill outside the city and refusing to serve in the army until their debts were dealt with. The patricians could not compel them and could not replace them, so they negotiated, and the tribunes of the plebs were the price. The details come to us through Livy centuries later and are part reconstruction, but the shape of it is the point: labour that can walk away is labour you have to bargain with.

Walk a Settler up to someone and pick. Welcoming and employing both give you an ordinary worker. Forcing gives you DOUBLE output — and that person walks one step toward the edge of the map every turn, and is gone if they reach it. The only thing that stops them is having nowhere to go: your units, your walls, the terrain. Try it once and watch what happens.

1086 · England, written down field by field

Your people have been taking whatever post was nearest, and the game has been deciding for you who works and who stands idle. Now you decide. Your HQ hands you a Work Post every turn: drag it from a person to a place, and that person holds the job. Assign two and the phase is yours.

In 1086 William's clerks rode across England and wrote down who held what, how much it was worth, and how many people worked it — down to the ploughs and the pigs. People called it Domesday because there was no appeal from it, as at the Last Judgement. It was not the first survey, but it is the one that survived, and it is the clearest early picture of a state deciding to see its own subjects clearly enough to tax them.

Posts are limited — your HQ holds three and every collection point holds two, but among buildings only the Community Center and the Recruitment Center add posts of their own. When more people can reach a post than there are posts, someone is left out, and the game picks. Play a Work Post to pick instead. It matters most for a forced worker: they earn double at a post and nothing without one.

73 AD · the rock fortress of Masada

An armored fortress on high ground — only total mastery of tech and economy takes it. This is a siege of engineering, not bravery.

Masada sat on a desert cliff, unreachable. So the Roman legions built the mountain up to it — a colossal earthen ramp, hauled stone by stone, until the wall was simply within reach. Rome didn't climb the rock; Rome moved the rock. Logistics beats any height.

A near-impenetrable bastion. The tech tree is mandatory — allocate forge + tactics, max out Settlers, and use the market to convert what you're missing.

217 BC · Rome against Hannibal

An enemy that adapts to everything you try — attrition made intelligent. Strike fast and commit, before it reads you and counters. Like fighting Fabius.

After Hannibal wrecked every army Rome sent at him, Fabius Maximus tried something radical: never give battle. Shadow the enemy, cut his supply, adapt, never take the bait — and wear him down over years. Rome mocked him as 'the Delayer.' Then it worked, and the insult became a title.

The adaptive bot changes strategy in response to yours. Be aggressive in the first 10 turns — don't give it time to adapt.

Achaemenid Persia · the King's elite

A fortress reinforced by an elite vanguard that just keeps coming — it starts with extra troops and never thins out. Hero forward, tech maxed, waste no turn.

The Persian 'Immortals' were an elite corps kept permanently at exactly ten thousand: the instant one fell, another stepped into his place — so to the enemy the unit never seemed to shrink. The most efficient HR in antiquity: every vacancy filled the same day. (Yes — the same empire you held at the pass in Phase 1.)

It starts with extra infantry. Hero up front, tech tree maxed, market for whatever's missing. Every wasted turn is a turn the enemy uses to grow.