Tiles & Levels
Every tile carries three orthogonal properties: a Level that drives throughput and HP, a Type that drives identity and special effects, and a Rule that the player picks to determine what happens when units arrive.
The Three Axes
| Property | Set by | Drives |
|---|---|---|
| Level (1–6) | Game state | Per-type path budget, HP per pool, spawn count, stockpile cap |
| Type | Map RNG / conversion | Generic, Trap, Training, Nexus, biome specials |
| Rule | Player | 9-rule enum — see Tile Rules below |
Tile Levels
- Level = path budget. The total path length the player can lay out from this tile.
- Spawn rate scales with level. A tile spawns 1 unit per level per 3-second cycle. A level-6 tile produces 6 units every cycle.
- Each level has its own HP pool. Destroying a tile means grinding through pool-by-pool: level 3 → 2 → 1 → 0 → claimed.
- Home bases have 5× normal HP. A level-6 home base is the tankiest object in the game.
Newly claimed tiles start at level 1. Home bases start the match at level 6.
First-Cut HP Curve v0.3 locked
Linear scaling. All numbers are first-pass — playtest will tune against actual unit DPS.
| Tile level | Normal tile HP pool | Home base HP pool |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 100 | 500 |
| 2 | 200 | 1,000 |
| 3 | 300 | 1,500 |
| 4 | 400 | 2,000 |
| 5 | 500 | 2,500 |
| 6 | 600 | 3,000 |
Formula: tile_hp_at_level = 100 × level (normal) or
500 × level (home base — 5× normal).
Total HP grind from full level 6 to claimed:
- Normal tile: 2,100 HP across all six pools.
- Home base: 10,500 HP across all six pools.
Tile Types
- Generic — the default for unowned tiles, and the working type of most freshly claimed tiles. No special effect.
- Special types (Trap, Training, others) — rolled by the map for some unowned tiles, and acquirable via conversion below.
- Nexus — lane-intersection elite tile, hard to capture, large benefit. Specific effect TBD.
The full Type catalog is intentionally deferred. Special types will be designed alongside biomes (regions of map with biome-restricted type pools) at a later milestone — see M9 / M23 on the roadmap.
Conversion
A Generic tile that has reached max level (6) can be converted into a level-1 special tile by spending resources. This is the route to acquiring specialized tiles you don't already have on the map.
Tile Rules
The player sets one rule per claimed tile, governing what happens when units arrive — and (for producer rules) what the tile spawns / generates on its own cadence:
| Rule | Behavior | Sub-config |
|---|---|---|
| Pass-through | Default on freshly-claimed Generic tiles. Tile is inert — no spawn, no production. Units relay along the matching unit-type path tree. | — |
| Spawn-Army | Tile spawns Army units at level per 3s, walking the tile's
Army path tree. |
— |
| Spawn-Gather | Tile spawns Gatherer units at level per 3s, walking the
Gather path tree to ferry resources between producers and consumers. |
— |
| Spawn-Engineer | Tile spawns Engineer units at level per 3s, walking the
Engineer path tree to deliver work-time to active projects. |
— |
| Spawn-Defender | Tile spawns Defender units at level per 3s. Defenders walk
the Defender path tree slowly (0.1× speed) and station at the leaf. |
— |
| Resource Producer | No unit spawn. Tile passively generates a resource on its stockpile at a level-scaled rate. Gatherers transport. | Which slot (R1 / R2 / R3 / R4) |
| Upgrade | Consumes 7 units of level N of the configured unit type → emits 1 unit of level N+1. Cascades internally up to the tile's level cap. Units of other types pass through unconsumed; over-leveled inputs also pass through. Requires tile level ≥ 2. | Which unit type to upgrade |
| Tower | Maintains a pool of level Scouts (free regen, no resource
cost gates respawn). Provides a 4-hex vision aura around the tile.
Scouts are direct-control — no path tree. |
— |
| Home Base | Permanent compound rule, home base only. Passively generates all 4
resource slots at a low baseline rate AND spawns the configured unit
type at level per 3s. Inherits Tower mechanics on top
(1-Scout regen + 4-hex vision aura) for the starting Scout. |
Which unit type to spawn (faction default) |
Default rule on freshly-claimed Generic tiles is Pass-through.
Special tile types (Trap, Training, Nexus, biome specials like
Ancient Grove or Brass Workshop) instead claim with a type-baked default
rule + sub-config: e.g. an Ancient Grove claims as Resource Producer
(R4 Essence), so capturing a special tile gives you a functional tile
immediately, no engineer-project investment required. Each special tile type
definition carries its own DefaultRule + DefaultRuleSubConfig.
Upgrade math implication flagged for playtest
A single level-6 unit requires 7^6 = 117,649 raw
level-0 units fed somewhere into the network. Intentional if level-6 units are meant
to be legendary endgame artifacts; if pacing testing shows it's too steep, candidate
fixes:
- Reduce the ratio (3:1 or 4:1).
- Compounding discounts at higher tile levels.
Decision deferred to playtest.
Per-type upgrade interactions
The Upgrade rule's WhichUnitType sub-config determines which transiting stack the tile consumes. Per-type behavior:
| Unit type | Behavior on configured Upgrade tile |
|---|---|
| Army | Standard 7-to-1 consume-and-upgrade. |
| Gather | Cargo from the 7 inputs combines into the upgraded gatherer, capped at the new level's per-resource capacity. Excess drops as a loose pile on the tile. |
| Engineer | Consumed at the upgrade-engineer tile en route; downstream projects wait for the upgraded engineer to reach them. |
| Scout | Consumed only on the forward leg; round-trippers that survive aren't upgrade-immune by accident. |
| Defender | Walks through the upgrade-defender tile despite 0.1× speed; player must route the defender path through it. |
Units already at-or-above the tile's level cap pass through unconsumed — no destruction-for-nothing on overlevel input. If an Upgrade tile is de-leveled to L1 by combat, its Rule auto-reverts to Pass-through (any level-gated rule does); to resume, re-level the tile to ≥ L2 and re-set the rule via engineer project.
Tower Rule Details
Tower is the only path of entry for Scouts. Mechanics distinct from the Spawn-X family:
| Concept | Rule |
|---|---|
| Scout pool | level Scouts maintained per Tower (L1=1, L6=6). |
| Spawn cost | Free — no resource gate on initial spawn or respawn. |
| Respawn delay | Tower respawns dead Scouts after a delay (~10s placeholder). |
| Vision aura | 4-hex vision aura around the Tower tile (home-base equivalent). |
| Scout control | Player commands Scouts via click-to-move. No path tree. Scouts sit idle at last commanded tile (or at the Tower if uncommanded). |
| On Tower capture | Existing Scouts remain alive under the previous owner until killed. New owner's Tower starts fresh respawn pool up to level. |
The home base inherits Tower mechanics on top of the Home Base rule — maintaining its 1 starting Scout for free, regardless of which unit type the Home Base rule is set to spawn.
Per-Tile Stockpile
Every owned tile carries its own per-resource stockpile. Resources live on the tile, not in a global player pool — the localized economy is what makes supply lines a real verb instead of an accounting detail.
- Capacity:
50,000 × tile levelper resource slot. A level-6 tile holds up to 300K of each resource; an L1 tile holds 50K. - Generation: Resource Producer rule deposits at level-scaled rate (formula tunable). Home Base passively trickles all 4 slots at a low baseline rate.
- Filling: Gatherer drop-offs deposit at owned consumer tiles along their route (default 10% of gatherer capacity per tile, configurable).
- Spending: auto-spend on local unit production; pay-upfront on engineer projects queued at the tile (resources reserved at queue time, refunded on cancel).
- On de-level: stockpile clamps to the new (lower) cap; excess is shed. On capture, this is the attacker's yield ceiling.
- Loose pile on a tile (drop-on-death cargo) bypasses the tile cap and is any-team pickup; slow decay ~1%/min when uninteracted with.
Engineer Projects
"Big" tile actions — rule swaps, level-ups, type conversions — are engineer projects. Two gates must both close for a project to complete:
- Materials gate (pay-upfront): resources are reserved from the tile's stockpile when the project is queued. If the stockpile lacks them, the project blocks until gatherers deliver enough — engineers do no work in the meantime ("no materials, no work").
- Work-seconds gate: a project specifies a work duration in
seconds (e.g. 120s). Each engineer arriving at the tile stops for the per-tile
stop-duration (e.g. 10s) and contributes
level × stop-duration × (0.8 + level × 0.2)engineer-seconds. Stack 12 L1 engineers at 10s each and you collect 120 engineer-seconds in 10s wall-clock.
Queue depth is one project per tile for now — wait or cancel before queuing another. Cancellation refunds the materials but loses the accumulated work-seconds (the friction cost of indecision).
Rule-swap cost tiers
| Tile state | Cost to set / change rule |
|---|---|
| Newly-claimed Generic, first rule set after claim | Free — one-time per claim event (covers the (Rule, sub-config) tuple). |
| Generic, subsequent changes | Standard engineer project (resources from tile stockpile + engineer time). |
| Special tile (Trap / Training / Nexus / biome special) | Premium engineer project — higher resource and time cost. Reflects scarcity and commitment-weight of special tiles. |
Recapture resets the free-change option (each fresh claim event gets one). Stockpile and per-type path trees are preserved across rule swaps; only in-progress sub-state (mid-cascade counts, mid-cycle spawn) is discarded as the destructive cost of the swap.
Tile HP Regen
- A tile regenerates HP only when no enemy units are present on it.
- Regen scales with stationary Defenders garrisoned on the tile and with Engineers stopped on the tile (engineers heal more per unit — they're literally the repair class).
- Walking units, Army, Gather, and Scouts don't contribute to regen.
- Regen caps at ~10× single-unit rate so 50 stationary units don't trivialize HP recovery.
- Dormant tiles (eliminated player's territory) do not regen — no owner, no claim-HP to recover.
Tile Destruction Walkthrough
The end-to-end sequence when an attacker reaches a defending tile:
- Combat begins, ticking 3 rounds/sec at the tile.
- Damage applies to the current-level HP pool only.
- If defending units are present, incoming damage splits between defenders and the tile — more defenders means less damage to the tile (a structural reason to garrison).
- When a level's HP pool reaches 0, the tile drops one level and a fresh HP pool begins for the new level.
- When the tile reaches level 0, the attacker claims it.
- If the attacker dies first, accumulated tile damage persists until regen kicks in.