Feinthold: the rules

The map

Seven positions linked by paths: your HQ (at the bottom), the enemy HQ (at the top), three relays (the center and a forward relay on each side) and two posts. Relays bring income; posts open paths. The map changes every game (ten layouts), always symmetrical: neither side has an advantage.

Income

At the start of each turn: 5 points, plus 2 per relay held, plus 1 if your prediction of the previous turn was right. What you do not spend carries over to the next turn. You start with 4 units on your HQ.

Orders, in secret and at the same time

• Reinforce: a unit costs 2 points, a decoy 1. On your HQ (4 units and decoys at most per turn) or on one of your relays linked to the HQ through your positions (2 units and decoys at most), never on a post. What is placed this turn does not move, but fights where it is.
• Move: from a position to a neighbor, one step per turn, as many units and decoys as you had there at the start of the turn.
• Entrench: 1 point per position; your units that stay there, and those you place there this turn, count 1.5 in combat. The HQ is entrenched automatically. A unit that arrives never is.
• Scout: 2 points per position, 2 positions at most, never one of yours: the count of the enemy units and decoys, after the turn, comes in the report (a decoy counts as a unit).
• Predict: free, a position where the opponent will move units in this turn, coming from a neighbor (even from another of their positions); a reinforcement placed is not an entry, nor is a lone decoy. Right, 1 more point the next turn.

The turn resolves on its own

1. Reinforcements are placed.
2. All moves happen together: two groups that cross on a path do not fight.
3. A decoy that ends on an enemy position is unmasked and destroyed.
4. Where both sides are present, there is combat.
5. A position where only one side has units becomes theirs; an empty position keeps its flag; lone decoys take nothing.
6. Scouting reports come in, predictions are judged.

Combat

Strength: 1 per unit that arrives or stays, 1.5 per unit that stays entrenched, 0 for a decoy. The stronger side wins and loses 0.6 unit per unit of enemy strength (rounded down); the loser loses everything, and all the decoys present are destroyed. On a tie, everything is destroyed and the position becomes neutral, except an HQ, which stays with its owner. The winner always keeps at least one unit.

The fog

You see the whole map and the flags, your units and your decoys. From each position where you have a unit, and from your HQ, you see an enemy presence (“?”) on the neighbors, without the number: unit or decoy. A decoy sees nothing. Scouting gives the count, a combat reveals the enemy strength; each position keeps its last observation and its turn, in grey.

Win

1. Take the enemy HQ. If each side takes the other's HQ on the same turn, the tiebreak of point 3 decides, and a draw is possible.
2. Break through: hold 5 positions, HQ included, at the end of a turn.
3. Otherwise, after 8 turns: the most positions, then the highest total income, then the most units; otherwise a draw.

Duels between members

A duel is proposed from the duels page, with an optional stake. In blitz (60 seconds per turn, 120 for the first) and in rapid (5 minutes), the game starts when both players have clicked “Ready”, at the latest 30 minutes after the acceptance; otherwise the duel is cancelled and the stakes are returned. In correspondence (one, two or three days per turn), the first turn opens on acceptance, and a warning tells you of each turn to play.

You can change your orders as long as the opponent has not sent theirs (5 submissions per turn at most). A house AI (challenge, Daily Front) sends its own as soon as the turn opens: against it, your first submission resolves the turn. A missed turn is played without your orders: your default doctrine plays in your place, otherwise your troops stay in place and your income goes to the reserve; the game goes on and always ends in 8 turns at most. Abandoning means losing the duel by forfeit. A duel in which nobody sent any orders is cancelled, stakes returned. Each duel counts for the game's rating, except beyond 3 duels against the same member in 24 hours.

Knockout tournaments

A tournament of 4 or 8 members is created and joined on the tournaments page, with an entry fee; the seeds follow the game's duel rating. Each match is a game in correspondence, 12 hours per turn, created as soon as both its players are known: the first turn opens at once, with no start room, and the game ends in 8 turns at most, that is 4 days of play; the bracket allows 5 days per match, 1 day of margin. A match counts for the game's rating like a duel; abandoning means losing the match. A draw is broken by the right predictions, then by the combats won; if still tied, the better seed goes through. A match without a result (no orders sent by either side) sends nobody to the next round; a player whose ratings the moderators freeze loses their matches by forfeit.

Doctrines

A member can write up to three doctrines: 8 rules at most, “if … then …”, chosen from lists (no code). On each turn, the rules are read in order on what their side sees, and every rule whose conditions are true acts. Their default doctrine, set at the start of each game, plays the turns they miss; without a doctrine, their troops stay in place. The test bench plays a doctrine against the three house AIs, on both sides, on a map of each shape, and shows what each rule did.

Doctrine challenges

A member can publish a doctrine: the others then challenge it in a rated game, like the three house AIs. A challenge moves the member's challenge rating and the doctrine's, three times at most in 7 rolling days for the same member and the same doctrine, never between linked accounts nor for orders faster than a human's. A loss always counts; a win or a draw only if you played more than half of the turns yourself, and not your default doctrine. The rules of the house AIs are public; those of a member's doctrine stay theirs.

Daily Front

Every day, one blitz game, the same for everyone: same map, same house AI, same side. Monday and Thursday Sentinel, Tuesday and Friday Pivot, Wednesday and Saturday Ram, Sunday Ram with more noise. One game a day per member. Today's leaderboard: wins first, the fastest on top, then draws, then losses, the ones that held out longest on top; if tied, the most positions, then the highest total income; beyond that, tied. A win earns 3 points for the month, a draw 1. No rating, no credits. Not ranked: orders faster than a human's or at the regular pace of a machine, a win or a draw played mostly by your default doctrine, a stopped game, frozen ratings, and a removal by the moderators.

Seasons, prizes and titles

A season lasts a month. The duels leaderboard of the month pays credits when it closes: 150 to the first, 100 to the second, 60 to the third, 25 from the fourth to the tenth. The prize place only counts the members who have 8 rated duels in the month and ratings not frozen at its end; on equal rating, the most rated duels come first, then the oldest account. The challenges and the Daily Front earn titles, never credits: “Commander of the month” to the first of the challenges (8 rated challenges at least), “Doctrine of the month” to the author of the public doctrine with the best rating among those that faced 10 rated challenges at least in the month, “Front of the month” to the first in points on the Daily Front (8 ranked days at least; if tied, the most wins, then the oldest account).

Fair play

Full orders sent faster than a human can read a turn (at the median delay, from 5 turns on) count at once: in a duel, that game wins nothing and no rating moves, the other player wins the stakes if they have finished their game, otherwise the duel becomes unrated; in a challenge and on the Daily Front, the game is not ranked. Between linked accounts, a duel is unrated (the result stays, the stakes are returned, no rating moves) and any other game is never ranked. These orders, a sending pace that is too regular, a game page reloaded over and over and games between linked accounts also leave a mark, reviewed by the moderators. The moderators can stop a game in progress (a duel is then cancelled, the stakes returned), void a finished duel (it no longer counts: the rating points won or lost are cancelled, the stakes returned), remove a Daily Front from the leaderboard, hide a doctrine with an offensive name or freeze the ratings of an account: no more duels nor ratings that move, no prize nor title, and a duel in progress ends without a result, the stakes returned; in a tournament, its matches are lost by forfeit (the common duel Elo counts that forfeit, the game's rating does not move).

The house AIs

Sentinel (careful), Pivot (balanced, it scouts and bluffs with decoys) and Ram (aggressive) play with the same rules and the same menu of instructions as the players, seeing nothing more than their own side; a little noise changes the numbers of their rules from one game to the next (more on Sundays on the Daily Front).

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