A World Map Created By Players

In Stratagems, players are actual gods. They are the ones creating the world island after island. They do so by depositing some ETH while deciding which factions will be in charge of the island thus created.

Neighboring factions of different colors then auto-fight and upon losing, the ETH deposited is given to the player controlling the Land of the winning factions. This is how players compete and how the world gets created.

Stratagems is thus at its core a social game of coordination. It takes place on a gigantic sea where factions inhabiting its islands decide the fate of the game world.

Each day players stake a small amount of ETH (or Test Tokens in our free-to-play version) for each land they want to own. The next day they discover whether their strategy was wise or doomed. The social elements quickly come into play as who knows the other's moves get an advantage over those we do not.

But the game does not stop there. Stratagems is a world being created by each player's action and new mechanics can be added on top, giving infinite possibilities to its inhabitants.

How to play?

Stratagems is a simultaneous turn-based game and each "turn" (we call them epoch) lasts 24 hours.

Each 24-hour-long epoch is divided into 2 phases: the commit phase (which lasts 23 hours) and the reveal phase (which lasts 1 hour).

During the commit phase, players make their moves and commit to it by making a single transaction along with the corresponding deposit. They can change the decision at any time during the 23 hours and can collaborate with other players to decide on the best tactics. Once the commit phase is over, they can't change their decision and have to reveal their move in the hour, or they lose the stake deposited.

During the reveal phase, all actions are resolved simultaneously (while reveals happen in their transaction in turn, their orders do not matter).

While players can perform the reveal themselves, we offer by default a service that will reveal the moves automatically and we use specific technologies to ensure that even we can't know the player's action until it is time to reveal. Once the reveal is over, the next epoch starts with a new commit phase.

At this point, players discover what the other players have done and get happily surprised or grudgingly accept their demise. This is also where each Land evolves according to specific rules of Stratagems.

The Rules

In Stratagems players deposit ETH (or Token in our free-to-play mode) to create lands anywhere they wish to. Land starts with 2 lives, represented by 2 houses next to the center castle. The castle also shows a floating gem representing the deposited ETH/Token.

The rules that dictate how land grows or dies are then pretty straightforward. The basic thing to look at is the number of neighboring land and the various colored factions positioned there.

There are 5 player-owned factions, Blue, Red, Green, Yellow, Purple, and one Black, controlled by no one, which we will discuss further below. Factions of different colors attack each other and determine whether a Land grows or decreases its number of lives.

If you place an island on its own (like shown on the right), that is without any neighboring land, only sea tiles around, the land will start with 2 lives (represented by the houses) and then grow by one. This is represented by the tent, which will become a house in the next epoch.

If on the other hand, there are 2 neighboring lands inhabited by different factions as shown on the right, they will auto-fight and because they do not have any other neighbors helping them, they will both lose 1 life each epoch until they die (0 house left). This is represented by the house in fire. The battle is also represented by 2 units fighting each other on the border between the 2 lands.

When lands reach 0 life, the ETH deposited (represented by the gem atop the castle) will be given to the player controlling the attacking neighboring lands. In the case shown on the right, since there are only 2 players with equal strength they will both get the deposit of each other and lose nothing overall.

Note though that land that reaches 0 life its faction remains active and affects neighboring lands as before. The player can place land atop to change their faction if they wish.

But if a player has supporting neighbors like shown on the right, only the player owning the weaker land will get its deposit slashed. In the case shown, after 2 turns the red player will take the ETH deposited on the blue land.

Furthermore, it is worth noting that diagonals do not count and that like in the one vs one case above, if there is the same number of enemy neighbor factions and friendly neighbor factions, then the result is still a -1 life.

In other words, as soon as an enemy is a neighbor, you need a more friendly faction than the enemy. This also means that if you manage to put at least 2 different factions next to a target, it will lose.

The Black Faction

In the picture on the right, you can see a castle with a black color with what looks like 2 gems stacked up. In Stratagems, there are in total 6 factions but only 5 are player-owned. The black color is owned by no one and comes into existence when 2 or more players deposit ETH at the same place at the same epoch.

The ETH thus deposited is not lost yet and the player can attempt to capture by attacking the land like any other.

Info

Note that this is why in Stratagems it is important to communicate with other players because even if 2 players play the same faction, if they end up placing it at the same location, their moves get transformed into a black castle too.

Summary of the rules

Each square can contain a faction/color.

when a land has no enemy neighbor, the land's life grows by one

When a land has only enemy neighbors, its life decreases by one.

When land has both, if the number of friendly neighbors is bigger than the number of enemies, life grows by one, else it decreases by one.

When life reaches zero, the land dies and loses its deposit (represented by a gem). When that happens, the land and the faction remain active on the grid, but the land's life cannot grow anymore and any player can replace it with another color.

Furthermore, the deposited token on that land is distributed to all the neighboring land that have a different faction.

When life reaches 7 life, the land reaches its ultimate state and the owner of the land can withdraw it to get back the deposit.

The Interface

Most of the interface space is taken by the map where players can create islands. They do so by tapping on it.

In the top left corner, their current selected faction is shown.

INFO

In Stratagems players are not stuck into one faction they can decide to use different factions at different times and places. Bote though that if you place 2 opposing factions next to each other, you will make them attack each other even if you are the owner of both. This will prevent growth and might result in part of your deposit going to other players next to you.

When they first tap on the map, the Commit panel will show up on the bottom right. It will show you how many ETH/Tokens you need to perform your move. If you confirm, you'll be sending that amount in the game and will need to reveal your move in the reveal phase.

By default, we do this for you as long as you add some ETH to your deposit to pay for the cost of the reveal transaction. But note that we make no guarantee that we will succeed in performing your tx. We aim to do our best though. Just be warned that if we fail to reveal your move in time, your deposit will be lost forever.

The commit panel will also warn you if you do not have enough ETH/Tokens. In the free-to-play version, we provide players with Tokens to play with. Join our discord if you did not get any yet.

Once you are happy with your moves, you can commit and wait for the reveal phase, which will then notify you to reveal your previous move.