How to play

The clock

There are no turns. Every economic cycle (90 s at Standard) each power collects income from the territories it holds. Battles resolve one combat round every 6 s. Units take real time to build and to move, and all of it scales with the match speed.

Speed isn't locked in once the war starts. The host can change it mid-match from the speed picker in the top bar (×0.25 to ×4), or step it with [ and ]. Everyone gets a line in the event feed when it changes, and the clock, moves and builds carry on from where they were at the new pace. Other players see the current speed but can't change it. In a practice game you're the host, so the picker and the pause button are yours, and the next practice game starts at the speed you picked last.

Economy and resources

Production units (PU) pay for everything. On top of PU sit 3 strategic resources: oil, steel and manpower. They come from specific territories, so geography matters: Japan needs the East Indies for oil and Germany wants the Caucasus.

• Supply lines. A territory’s output reaches you only if it connects to one of your factories over friendly land, or through sea zones with no enemy warships. Cut the line and the flow stops at once.
• Stockpiles. Strategic resources are capped at a few cycles’ income, so you can save up for an offensive but can’t hoard forever. Captured territory yields nothing for one cycle while it reorganises.
• Oil upkeep. Every five tanks, aircraft or warships burn one oil per cycle. Run dry and they move at half speed, attack at −1, and aircraft can’t raid.
• Shortages. Without steel you can’t queue anything that needs it. Without manpower you can’t build land units, though the ones you have keep fighting. The top bar pulses red when a resource will run out within two cycles.
• Sharing. Allies can send resources to each other along a connected route. They arrive a cycle later.
• Factories. Each factory builds several units in parallel: as many as its territory’s PU value, up to 4 for a minor factory. Bomb damage takes slots away until it’s repaired with PU and steel.

Units

Combat values are on a d6: a unit hits on a roll at or below its attack when attacking, or its defence when defending. Move is the time to cross one edge (land and sea) or one hop (air). Costs are per unit.

Movement

Select a stack, or split part of it off, then pick a destination. The game finds the shortest legal path and shows when you’ll arrive. A stack moves at the pace of its slowest unit and is in transit between spaces, so it can be met by the enemy when it arrives. You can halt a moving stack and it stops at the next space it reaches.

Tanks can blitz through an empty enemy territory and capture it on the way. Aircraft count hops since they last landed and must reach friendly land or a carrier before they run out of range, or they’re lost.

Combat

Hostile units in the same space start a battle. Each round, every unit rolls a d6: attackers hit on a roll at or below their attack, defenders at or below their defence. Hits are removed cheapest first. Rounds keep coming every 6 s until one side is gone, and reinforcements that arrive mid-battle join the next round.

Between rounds the attacker can retreat to the space it came from. A territory changes hands when only attacking land units are left in it. The battle panel shows every round’s dice, the losses so far and the odds as they stand.

3D battles

A major land battle can be fought in real time instead: Take command when it’s offered and you lead your side in a 3D battle against the AI or another player, while the world clock keeps running. The battle’s sidebar has a speed control (×0.5, ×0.75 or ×1, or the - and + keys). The battle clock, call-in cooldowns and command points all run at that speed, and when two players command a battle it runs at the slower one’s pick. Skirmishes and practice games also offer ×1.5.

Mountains

Defending infantry and artillery in mountain territories hit one higher, so infantry defend on a 3. The Caucasus, the Balkans, Norway, Korea and the Chinese interior around Chungking are all mountains. The territory panel shows the terrain.

Supply limits

A territory can feed 14 land units per side, plus 3 for every PU it’s worth, 8 more with a factory and 8 more for a capital. At each cycle a quarter of any excess starves, cheapest units first. Aircraft and ships don’t count. The territory panel shows the limit, so spread big armies across a front instead of piling them into one space.

Naval and amphibious

Land units board transports in an adjacent sea zone. A loaded transport ordered to unload onto a coast starts an amphibious assault: cruisers and battleships fire a round of shore bombardment, then normal combat follows. Submarines get a surprise first shot unless the enemy has a destroyer present.

Strategic bombing and convoys

Bombers ordered to raid a factory face AA fire and any defending fighters. Each bomber that survives deals d6 damage, which cuts the factory’s build slots until it’s repaired.

Some sea zones are convoy routes, such as the North Atlantic and the Murmansk run. Each enemy submarine or surface raider sitting in one cuts the owner’s income every cycle.

Fog of war

You see your own and allied territories, everything next to them, and anything your aircraft fly over. Enemy stacks outside that show only as an estimate, such as “~8”. Enemy factory queues are hidden, and you learn about an enemy tech the first time it’s used against you.

Research

Set a share of your PU income, from 0 to 30%, to go to research. That produces research points, which feed one active project per branch. How many branches you can run at once depends on your economy:

• 1 slot to start with.
• +1 at 25 PU income per cycle.
• +1 at 45 PU income per cycle.
• +1 at 5 steel income per cycle, for at most 4.

Each tier needs the one before it in the same branch. A tech a teammate has already finished costs you half the RP.

Victory

The map has 22 victory cities. Either side can win on them, and the Allies have a second way to win.

• Axis: hold at least 14 victory cities for 6 cycles in a row. The count can change hands inside that time; it only has to stay at 14 or more at every cycle.
• Allies, by cities: hold at least 17 victory cities, including at least one Axis capital, where each one counts only once its Allied owner has held it for 3 cycles. A city taken last cycle doesn’t count yet.
• Allies, by capitals: hold all three Axis capitals (Berlin, Rome and Tokyo).
• Time limit (2 hours of standard-speed game time by default): the side with more victory cities wins. A tie goes to the side with the higher total PU income, and a tie on that to the Allies.

The Axis start with 10 cities and the Allies with 12, so each side needs four or five more. The host can change the Axis count and the hold period in the match settings.

A seat left empty is taken over by a bot after a short wait, so a match keeps going if someone drops out. They can reclaim it when they come back.

Keyboard shortcuts

On a desktop, most orders have a key.