Realm War (preview)

Three realms, a commander view and followers you can order around. An early look at where the game is heading.

The idea

One engine, two ways to play: your hero walks the world in first person, and when you need the big picture you zoom out into a commander view and give orders to the followers you have summoned. Three realms fight over a shared War World for an eight-week season, with merit earned along the way and a final siege deciding who holds the crown. The design and the decisions are in docs/adr/0015-realm-war-and-seasons.md and docs/plans/2026-10-20-realm-war-design.md.

What works today (servers with followers enabled)

1. /summon [count] calls up to 100 followers around you (200 per player at most).
2. M switches to the commander view: a raised camera with a minimap. The mouse wheel zooms and the pointer stays free; it is not captured as it is in first person. WASD or the arrow keys pan the camera up to about 3000 units away (Shift is faster, Home recentres) while your hero stands still.
3. Left-click a follower, or drag a box, to select your followers (Shift adds to the selection; Ctrl+A selects all of yours; Esc clears the selection, and pressing it again returns to the hero).
4. Right-click the ground to send the selection there. A ring marks the target. The squad finds its own way around water and buildings and fans out around the spot; units that cannot get there stay put and you are told how many.
5. Control groups: with units selected, Ctrl+1 to 0 (or Shift+number) saves them as a group. Press the number to select the group again; tap it twice to jump the camera to them. A row of numbered icons at the top shows each group's size and whether it is idle, moving or under attack; click an icon to select the group and jump to it.

Units walking a right-click order do not stop to fight on the way. Your own followers are always sent to you, even when the camera is panned far from them. Followers belong to you: other players can see them but cannot command them. Orders are limited to about 150 units away and one every 150 ms. Followers live in server memory only and vanish when the server restarts. Close up, units are drawn as small blocky peasants, soldiers and archers; zoomed out they become simple markers. The look is cosmetic for now, not a real role.

Raising your own army (servers with armies switched on)

1. Build your own campfire, storehouse, workshop and hut, then a command tent (10 wood, 4 stone). That makes you a Steward: you may lead up to 10 units.
2. Build a barracks (12 wood, 8 stone). Your first barracks unlocks the commander view (M).
3. Press E at the barracks and recruit peasants (2 wood) or yeomen (3 wood, 1 stone). Up to 5 train at a time, one after another, then appear beside the barracks as your units.
4. Three limits apply and the panel says which one stops you: housing (4 per hut), barracks slots (8 per barracks) and your rank (10 for a Steward).

Your army is saved: after a server restart it musters at your command tent when you return.

Running your base from the commander view

• Click one of your buildings (barracks, archery range, forge, workshop, tower, wall, command tent) to open its panel from wherever you are. Recruit, smelt, craft and upgrade without walking over.
• Costs come from your storehouses first, then your pack. Moving materials in or out of a building, and recovering at a campfire, still need you to be there.
• Click open ground to walk your commander there (a gold ring marks the spot). Clicking a unit selects it; dragging selects a group; right-click sends units. The commander walks in a straight line and stops if something blocks the way.

Ranks: upgrading your command post

Your command post's tier is your rank. Open it with E (or click it in the commander view) and upgrade it when you have the buildings and materials. Rank sets how many units you may lead and which troops you may train. Upgrades are not refunded if you demolish it.

Training buildings are the barracks, archery range, stables, mages tower, temple and tavern. Housing (4 per hut) and slots (8 per training building) still limit your army too. Merit from battles and a noble's endorsement will join the requirements when the realm war arrives.

The three realms

• Three realms contend for the crown: Dawnhold (order, castles and the shield wall), Mistwood (wild magic, the bow and the long road) and Ashenreach (dark forges, siege and sheer numbers).
• Type /realm to swear to one. You are also asked the first time you raise a command post or open the commander view; you can stay unsworn in sandbox worlds.
• Realm-mates share fog-of-war vision, talk on realm chat (/r message, heard in every world) and cannot hurt each other. Your armies wear your realm's colour.
• You can change or leave your realm once a week. The picker shows how many have sworn to each realm; the smallest one, when it trails, earns 25% more experience.

The War World

• Press War World on the join screen (or use the seed war) to enter this season's War World. You must be sworn to a realm first (/realm in any world).
• It is round: three homelands on the outside with a capital each, a frontier ring in the middle split into three sectors (one facing each realm), and the citadel of the final siege at the centre. Every realm's land is the same shape, so no realm starts with better ground.
• You arrive, and respawn, beside your realm's capital. Mobs grow tougher the further you go from a capital.
• Build anything in your own homeland. In the frontier only walls, towers, campfires, torches and storehouses can be built; nothing can be built in another realm's homeland or at the citadel.

Frontier territories

• Each realm's frontier sector holds five territories: a main keep, two outposts and two mines. At the start of a season every realm holds the five in the sector facing it, each marked by a banner in the holder's colour.
• To capture a territory, have more of your realm's heroes and units in its zone than any other realm, for 4 minutes at a keep or 2 at an outpost or mine. A tie pauses the timer; if the holders outnumber you, they push it back; if everyone leaves, it slowly drains. Only the first 120 of a realm's bodies count.
• Forward posts: a commander can raise one forward post (build menu, 30 wood and 15 stone) on their realm's plot in any frontier territory; the HUD says how far the plot is. It is a scaffold for 2 minutes, then a field tent: while it stands, your realm captures that territory twice as fast, and you and your army respawn there. Enemy heroes and units can tear it down (800 health, half while building). Left without any of your realm in the zone for 5 minutes it starts to fall apart, and collapses after 15. Wild beasts keep away from it.
• What holding gives: each mine your realm holds drops 1 ore a minute into the pack of every member in the War World (3 at most); a keep you hold slows attackers by a quarter while any of you stand in it; an outpost you hold lets your whole realm see 60 units around it.
• War merit: being in the zone when your realm captures a territory earns 40 merit for a keep and 20 for anything else; pushing an attack all the way back earns 10; tearing down an enemy forward post earns 15, shared by everyone who struck it in the last minute. Your merit shows on the HUD; it will rank nobles and decide the crown later.
• Keeping it fair: a realm's eighth territory and beyond score half, and a realm far behind on score (20% or more behind the leader) captures 25% faster.
• Every minute a territory earns its holder points: 3 for a keep, 2 for an outpost, 1 for a mine, and half as much again in another realm's sector. The HUD shows the territory you stand in and the season score; /standings lists every territory.

Seasons and noble titles

• The war is fought in seasons of 8 weeks: a 3-day muster (gather and build; no territory changes hands), the war, and the final siege in the last 3 days. The HUD shows the phase and the time left. Before the first season it is pre-season, and captures are practice.
• The final siege: the citadel at the centre is locked until the last 3 days. Then any realm can take it by outnumbering the others in its wide zone for 8 minutes (forward posts can stand on three plots around it). Held, it scores 10 points a minute. Whoever holds the citadel when the season ends wins the season, whatever the scores.
• The crown: the winning realm's player of Knight rank or above with the most war merit, among those who fought in the citadel's zone during the final siege, is crowned Sovereign of their realm. It is an honour, with a crown mark over their head until the next season ends.
• When a season ends without anyone holding the citadel, the realm with the highest score wins, and the result, with each realm's top three in war merit, is kept: type /seasons. Then every territory, score, forward post and everyone's merit starts again; homelands, buildings and levels stay.
• War merit earns noble titles for the season: Squire at 50, Knight at 200, Baron at 600, Earl at 1500 and Duke at 4000. Your title shows over your head in your realm's colour.

Fog of war

• On servers with armies on, you only see other players' troops where your eyes are: your hero (about 80 units), your units (40), your buildings (40), towers (100) and your command post (80).
• In the commander view the ground shows it: clear where you see now (and for 10 seconds after), dimmed where you have been, dark where you have never looked. Buildings stay drawn; hidden troops are never sent to your game at all.
• You cannot order troops into ground you have never explored. Send a scout first.
• Everyone sworn to your realm shares one view: their heroes, units and buildings are your eyes too.

When a commander falls

• If you have an army and you die, to a player or a mob, you are downed for 10 seconds: you cannot move or act, but your army fights on. One of your priests standing beside you for 3 seconds, or a player healer's heal, brings you back where you fell with 40% of your health, and your army never breaks.
• If nobody revives you, your army routs for 20 seconds: it drops its orders, ignores commands and stances, and runs for your command post. A routing unit with a mob in reach strikes back at half strength, but mobs and enemies can still catch it, so a rout is the moment to break an army.
• You respawn beside your command post after 15 seconds plus 1 second per 5 units in your army (up to a minute), plus 10 seconds for each other time you fell in the last 5 minutes. Leaving the game while fallen does not dodge it: you come back at your command post.
• Without an army nothing changes: you respawn at once at the realm's spawn point.
• If you leave the game while your army is in the field, it holds its ground: for 90 seconds when a fight is near (a mob within 60), 20 seconds otherwise. Come back in time and it follows you again; otherwise it goes home and is raised at your command post next time you play.

Better troops

Higher command post ranks (keep, castle and beyond) will later be needed for the best troops; for now the buildings alone unlock them.

Your army in a fight

• Follow (new recruits start like this): your units keep close around you and attack any mob that comes within about 10 units of you. They run to catch up when they fall behind.
• Guard: units hold the spot where they stand and leave it only to fight mobs within about 12 units, then return. Units you send somewhere with a right-click guard that spot when they arrive.
• Hold: units stay exactly where they are and only strike what is in reach.

In the commander view, select units and press F (follow), G (guard) or H (hold). A mob with your units in reach stops to fight them instead of chasing you, so a squad shields its commander. Units surround the mob they attack. Peasants have 30 health and strike for 3; yeomen have 45 health, longer reach and strike for 5. Units flash red while they are being hit, and the control group icons turn red. A unit that dies is gone from your army for good. When your units defeat a mob, its reward goes to you.

What is planned

• Fog of war: you will see what your realm's players, buildings and units can see, with the rest fogged, so you can send forces to a distant battle. Design in docs/plans/2026-10-20-realm-war-design.md (section 9f).
• Real follower roles (settlement workers, guards) and units that no longer overlap while walking.
• Game-master tools for resets and fixes, and character levels.
• The War World layout and realm identity, then seasons and the crown.
• Chaos Sessions: level-bracket matches filled with AI soldiers and teammates that real players replace as they join.

Performance

The server was benchmarked with up to 2000 units and 30 viewers: the tick stays under 14 ms, and bandwidth is the limit (about 28 KB/s per player at 500 units, 56 KB/s at 1000), so each player only receives the units in their view. Browser frame time on real hardware has not been measured yet.