Cities and troops

This page explains how cities produce troops, how stacks grow and cap out, and how cities change hands. These are the core mechanics of your economy and army.

Cities produce every tick

The game advances in ticks — four per second. Each city you own produces 1 troop per tick, automatically, with no orders needed. Four ticks per second means an untouched city grows at a steady 4 troops per second until it saturates.

Saturation: the cap of 30

A city cell holds at most 30 troops. Once it reaches 30, production stops for that tick — no overflow, no waste beyond the cap. A saturated city resumes producing the moment troops march away and free up room.

Open (non-city) land cells hold at most 30 troops as well, so a big stack arriving in a small cell simply fills it to the cap.

Troops are your currency

Troops are not just fighters:

• They garrison cells and capture cities.
• They are delivered through pipes to wherever you need them — flow adds troops at the destination without draining the source (see Pipes).
• Special weapons consume them: a paratroop order spends troops from the source cell, and so does every gun shot.
• Unfed troops decay away (see Pipes) — troops you cannot supply are troops you will lose.

Capturing cities

Cities change hands through occupation, not destruction:

• When troops of one player occupy a city cell owned by another player, the city transfers immediately to the occupying force.
• The troops doing the capturing stay put — a captured city keeps its troop count, now serving its new owner.
• A city with defenders fights first: incoming troops must win the engagement in that cell before they count as occupants (see Combat).

Because elimination requires losing all troops AND all cities (see Objective), your cities are your lifeline: even a single recaptured city puts you back in production.

The opening loop

A typical opening: let your starting cities build up, lay pipes toward the middle of the board, and stream fresh troops forward while keeping your home cells topped up. Production is free — forgetting to spend it is the only waste.

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