Rules & Gameplay

Overview

The Golden Conqueror is a real-time multiplayer medieval strategy game played on a procedurally generated map. Players expand their empire by building cities, training armies, managing their noble family, and fighting for one of two victory conditions. Matches require at least two players.

Game Setup

Map Sizes

Game Modes

Conquest: Be the first to control 75% of all cities on the map at the same time.

Regicide: Kill all four of every enemy player's nobles. In this mode noble deaths are permanent, there is no respawn, and each of your active nobles costs 10 population per growth tick to maintain.

Winners

When creating a game the host sets a maximum winner count.

• A specific number (1 through max players): the first player or alliance to meet the win condition, up to that headcount, wins.
• "When All Players Agree": the game ends only when players collectively vote to end it.

The Map

The map is generated from a fixed random seed and contains six terrain types. All terrain is passable.

Terrain Effects

Desert combat: Any army currently on a desert tile, or within 2 hours of having left one, fights at 75% of normal strength. Armies from a desert city take only half this penalty when in desert terrain.

Mountains movement: Mountains are passable but slow you to about 1.5/10 of normal speed. A tile that would normally take 30 minutes takes 200. Passes carved through mountain ranges are ordinary terrain and cross at their own tile's speed, so they remain the practical way through. You cannot found a city on a mountain tile.

Snow maintenance: Units pay 25% higher maintenance per growth tick in snow terrain. Armies from a snow city pay only half this extra cost.

Plains home: Armies and garrisons from a plains city pay 20% less maintenance than the base rate.

Forest vision: Armies standing in forest see a reduced radius of 2 tiles rather than the standard 3. Scout armies in forest see 3 tiles rather than 5. Armies from a forest city are not affected by this penalty when operating in forest. They see the full 3-tile radius, and forest-home scout armies see the full 5-tile radius. Enemy armies approaching your forest territory still suffer the reduced vision regardless.

Water

Movement on Water

Non-waterborne armies can cross water but move at 40 minutes per tile. Waterborne armies (produced by a city with the Naval Upgrade) cross at the standard 30 minutes per tile.

On water, all unit-specific speed modifiers are suppressed. Cavalry does not gain its speed bonus, and caravans, siege towers, and nobles do not slow the army. Every unit type moves at the same flat water speed. An army's crossing time is determined solely by whether it is waterborne or not.

Combat on Water

Archer pre-combat volleys are suppressed when both sides are fighting on a water tile. All other combat mechanics apply normally.

Fog of War on Water

Enemy armies on water are displayed as boats. You can see how many boats are in the fleet but not what unit types are inside. If a noble is aboard an enemy fleet, the boat is marked with a noble crown badge, so you know a noble is present, but not which rank or how many. Your own armies on water display their full composition as normal.

Cities

Cities are the core of your empire. They grow your population, train your units, and sustain your armies in the field.

Population

Cities start with 1,000 population and cap at 100,000.

Population grows every 3 hours, provided your total population across all cities exceeds the maintenance cost of all your armies and garrisons. During a healthy tick each city deducts its proportional share of your global maintenance and then grows at 10% per tick. This rate is reduced by 10% for each noble who is currently captured or dead.

If total maintenance exceeds your total population, starvation begins. The death rate scales with the severity of the deficit, starting around 25% per tick at minor shortfalls and climbing toward 95% at extreme ones. In Regicide mode, if all regular units die from starvation, your nobles begin to die as well.

Building Units

Each city has a build queue. Only one item per unit type can be queued at a time. The population cost is spent immediately when you place the order. Units complete after 3 hours.

Founding a New City

A caravan can travel to any non-water tile and found a new city there, provided the location is at least 10 tiles from any existing city. The new city starts with 2,500 population and inherits the terrain type of its location. A caravan can travel and found on its own without an escort.

If the founding location sits on a mix of terrain types, you choose which terrain the city is classified as.

Naval Upgrade

Any city can be upgraded to produce waterborne units. Units spawned from a waterborne city cross water at the standard 30 minutes per tile rather than the slower rate.

Units

Unit Stats

Speed is relative to the base 30 minutes per tile. An army always moves at the speed of its slowest unit type. Speed modifiers are suppressed on water (see the Water section).

The Unit Triangle

Infantry, cavalry, and archers counter each other in a triangle.

• Infantry counter cavalry: attack and defense bonuses of 2 versus cavalry, compared to the base value of 1.
• Cavalry counter archers: attack and defense bonuses of 2 versus archers.
• Archers counter infantry: attack and defense bonuses of 2 versus infantry.

In practice: 100 cavalry fighting 100 archers deals 200 attack against the archers' 100, giving cavalry a decisive advantage. A mixed army combining all three types is much harder to counter than a single-type force. Units with no counter (nobles, siege towers, scouts) use their base attack of 1 against all defenders.

Siege Towers

Siege towers provide an attack bonus when assaulting a city. Each tile adjacent to the target city that contains at least one siege tower adds +1 to your total attack for that battle, up to a maximum of +12. Additional siege towers on the same tile add nothing beyond the first. Siege towers on water tiles do not contribute to the bonus. Inside a garrison, siege towers fight as normal units.

Siege towers cost 50 population per growth tick to maintain. Snow and plains terrain modifiers do not apply to siege tower maintenance.

Scouts

Scouts move at 1.15x base speed and reveal a 5-tile vision radius rather than the standard 3. In forest terrain scouts see 3 tiles, unless they are from a forest city, in which case they see the full 5. Scouts cost 30 population per growth tick to maintain, subject to the same snow and plains terrain modifiers as other units.

Caravans

Caravans have zero combat ability. A caravan can travel alone or alongside an army. In field battles, caravans are captured and transferred to the winner rather than destroyed. A caravan that reaches a valid founding location can establish a new city.

Builders

Builders have zero combat ability and add no bonus to a stack, like caravans. A builder costs 500 population to train and 10 population per growth tick to maintain (a flat cost, with no terrain modifiers). A builder can travel alone or with an army, and is used to raise a fort (see the Forts section).

Forts

A fort is a single-tile stronghold raised by a builder. It is a tactical outpost, not a city: it has no population, cannot produce units, and does not count toward victory or the conquest ratio.

Building a Fort

A builder can raise a fort on its tile provided that tile is at least 3 tiles from any city. The builder is consumed in the process. The fort takes 3 hours to complete. Each player may hold at most 7 forts at once; only forts you currently own count toward that limit, so losing one to an enemy frees up a slot.

Garrison

A fort can garrison units. Garrisoned units receive the normal garrison benefits: the defensive bonus in a siege and the 10% maintenance reduction. Biome maintenance modifiers do not apply to garrisoned units. A fort provides these benefits to an allied garrison as well.

Visibility

A fort provides no vision of its own, not even on its own tile. Only units garrisoned inside a fort reveal the surrounding area. An empty fort sits under fog of war.

Ownership

A fort's ownership only changes through combat. An enemy army that defeats the garrison, or occupies an undefended fort, becomes the new owner. An empty fort with no garrison still belongs to whoever owned it last. An ally garrisoning your fort does not gain ownership.

Decay

A fort decays 3 days after it is built and is then removed. The fort panel shows a countdown to decay. The owner can also disband a fort at any time from its panel.

Movement

The base movement rate is 30 minutes per tile. An army moves at the speed of its slowest unit type, and terrain multipliers apply on top. Speed modifiers are suppressed on water tiles (see the Water section).

After winning a field battle, the victor is temporarily delayed before advancing. The delay depends on how large the defeated force was relative to the winner:

Combat

Field Battles

When two enemy armies share a tile, combat resolves immediately.

Archer pre-combat volley: Before the main exchange, each side's archers fire a volley equal to 20% of their full potential damage output. Both sides volley simultaneously, reducing unit counts before main combat is calculated. Volleys are suppressed on water tiles.

Main combat: After volleys, each side calculates its total attack against the other's current unit composition. Attack is weighted by what the opponent actually has. For example, archers deal more damage if the enemy force is mostly infantry, because archers counter infantry. The side with higher total attack wins. Ties go to the defender.

The loser is destroyed. The winner takes damage equal to the loser's attack output, distributed across the winner's unit types according to each type's defense value against what the loser was fielding. Different unit types within the winning army can suffer different loss rates.

If both sides wipe each other out simultaneously, both armies are deleted. Caravans are always captured and transferred to the winner rather than destroyed.

City Siege

When an attacking army moves onto an enemy city, a siege battle triggers. The garrison defends with an additional +1 defense bonus on top of all other modifiers. Allied troops stationed in the city fight alongside the garrison.

Attacker wins:

• The city changes ownership.
• The city is sacked: population is reduced by 15%, plus an additional 5% per 50 garrison troops that were defending.
• All allied garrison troops are destroyed.
• Surviving attacking units become the new garrison.

Defender wins:

• The attacking army is destroyed.
• Surviving garrison units are redistributed proportionally between the city owner and any allied contributors.

Both wiped:

• The city stays under its original owner with an empty garrison.

Nobles

Each player starts with exactly 4 nobles: a King, a Queen, a Prince, and a Princess.

Noble Bonuses

A noble stationed in an army adds their bonuses to that army's attack and defense. A noble stationed in a city adds their defense bonus to the garrison. Nobles in an army slow it to 0.75x base speed. All four nobles combined give an army +5 attack and +5 defense.

Population Growth Penalty

Each noble who is not active (captured or dead) reduces your growth rate by 10% per tick. Losing all four reduces your cities to 60% of their normal growth rate.

Capture and Execution

When an army loses in battle, all nobles in it are captured by the winner.

With "Immediately Execute Nobles" turned off (default): captured nobles become prisoners. You can hold them indefinitely, start the 24-hour execution countdown at any time, or release them back to their owner.

With "Immediately Execute Nobles" turned on: captured nobles are killed the moment they are captured, with no prisoner phase.

Grace period: If you capture a noble you previously released, the instant-execution setting does not apply to them for 24 hours after the release. They become a prisoner instead, and you must use the 24-hour timer. This restriction only applies to the player who did the releasing. Any other player who captures that noble is not subject to the grace period.

Respawn (Conquest Mode Only)

When a noble dies, they respawn 96 hours later in your first available city.

Succession: If a King dies and the Prince is still active, the Prince is promoted to King and the reborn noble returns as a Prince. The same applies between Queen and Princess.

In Regicide mode noble deaths are permanent and succession does not apply.

Alliances

An alliance takes effect when both players have declared the other as an ally. One-sided declarations have no effect.

When allied:

• Your armies do not engage each other in combat.
• Your armies can garrison in each other's cities, appearing as an allied garrison separate from the host's own units.
• You share the victory condition. If your combined holdings meet the win condition, you both win.

Alliance and victory: For a group to win together, every member must be directly and mutually allied with every other member. A and B allied, and B and C allied, does not make A and C allies. All pairings in the group must be explicitly declared.

When an alliance breaks, all allied garrison troops are ejected to the rally point of whichever city they were stationed in.

Fog of War

Each tile has one of three visibility states:

• Unexplored: You have never seen this tile. It appears black.
• Explored: You saw this tile before but currently have no vision here. Terrain and structures are visible but enemy units are not.
• Visible: You have live vision here from a nearby army or city.

Cities reveal a 5-tile radius around them. Armies reveal a 3-tile radius. Armies containing scouts reveal a 5-tile radius. All radii are halved when the army is standing in forest, except for armies from a forest city, which see their full radius regardless.

Victory

Conquest: Control 75% of all cities on the map at the same time.

Regicide: Kill all four nobles belonging to every non-allied player. Once a player has no living nobles they are eliminated.