# Terrastead: a guide to the real-time strategy game

> Terrastead, a free real-time strategy game you play in your browser: the rules, the controls, the natives, the three lives, and how to hold out against the AI.

- Web page: https://www.neurostim.fr/en/wiki/terrastead
- Play: https://www.neurostim.fr/en/terrastead
- En français: https://www.neurostim.fr/wiki/terrastead.md
- Updated: 2026-11-08

Terrastead is a free real-time strategy (RTS) game that runs in your browser, with no download and no sign-up: you run a colony on a hostile planet, up against five rival colonies played by the AI and against the natives who pour out of their nests. There are no turns. Everything moves at once, and the last colony standing wins.

On Neurostim, [the match](https://www.neurostim.fr/en/terrastead) starts the moment the page opens, full screen, and your browser computes all of it. This guide covers the rules as the game actually applies them, the mouse, keyboard and touch controls, a way to hold out, and what becomes of a colony nobody gives an order to, measured on the game's own engine.

## In short

- **Genre**: real-time strategy, single player against the AI.
- **Goal**: be the last charter standing. A charter is one of the six colonies in the match; yours is called Haut-Val.
- **Opponents**: five charters played by the AI, plus the natives, a third force that hits everyone.
- **Lives**: three per charter. Lose three defences against the same side in a short time and your colony's core falls, which costs a life.
- **Length**: none set. At the default pace, a game day lasts 4 min 48 s; a colony left without a single order is eliminated after 21 minutes.
- **Pace**: × 1, × 4 or × 16, set from the menu. It starts at × 4.
- **Account and saving**: neither. The match lives in the page, and reloading it starts a new one.
- **The world**: the same at the start of every match, 218 sites linked by 381 routes, with 16 native nests around the edge.
- **Leaderboard**: only the match's own ranking. No time or score leaves the match.
- **Language**: mixed. On the game's English page, the controls, menu and help are in English; the colony windows, the news feed and the "Comment jouer" panel are in French. A glossary below covers the French words.
- **Devices**: a computer with mouse and keyboard, or a tablet or phone by touch. Your browser must support WebGL 2.

## The rules of Terrastead

### The map, sites and routes

The map is a network of sites joined by routes. In the middle, the Landing is the shared base, with its trading post. Around it lie the near lands, the high lands and the far lands; right at the edge is the ring of nests, home to the natives. A site can be a plain, ice, an ore deposit, a crater, highlands, a geothermal vent, a crystal outcrop, a guarded relay spire or a nest.

You start with three sites: your colony, set on an ore deposit in the high lands, and its two neighbours. You only see your own sites clearly, plus everything up to two routes away from them, and the Landing with its surroundings. The rest of the map stays in haze.

### The colony

Your colony is a 5 × 5 grid, three quarters built already: the core, 17 modules around it and 7 free squares. Here is the starting grid, row by row. The core sits in the middle with the gate just above it, the turret is in the bottom left corner, and the seven empty squares all lie on the edges.

```puzzle
So So La . So
. Gr Ga Ba .
Me Ha Co Dr St
. Bt Ai Mi .
Tu . . MP Wi
```

```puzzle-key
Co core (Noyau), the heart of the colony
Ga gate (Sas), where columns leave from
Ha habitat (Habitat)
Me mess hall (Réfectoire)
Gr greenhouse (Serre)
Dr ice drill (Foreuse à glace)
Ai air plant (Usine à air)
Mi mine (Mine)
La laboratory (Laboratoire)
So solar field (Champ solaire)
Wi wind turbine (Éolienne)
Bt battery (Batterie)
St storehouse (Entrepôt)
Ba barracks (Caserne)
MP motor pool (Garage)
Tu turret (Tourelle)
. free square
```

Every module costs metal, polymer, parts or crystal and takes a few beats to build, and most of them either make or use power. An inner module has to touch a module connected to the core; solar fields and wind turbines can go anywhere on the grid. Two builds run at once, plus one more for each pair of technicians your modules leave idle. The 6 × 6 Grid research adds a row and a column, and the 7 × 7 Grid research takes it to 49 squares.

A module goes up to level 3. Level 2 costs twice its price and level 3 four times, with a build that takes one and a half times, then twice as long; a production module then yields 1.6 and 2.2 times as much. While it is being upgraded, it produces nothing. Demolishing a module or cancelling a build refunds half the price of its level.

### Resources and colonists

The colony lives on seven resources. Air, water and rations keep the colonists alive; metal, polymer, parts and crystal pay for buildings and units. Every beat, which stands for ten minutes of game time, modules produce and colonists consume. Solar fields only give power from 6:00 to 18:00, game time; at night the batteries take over.

A production module only runs at full output when it has its staff, which you assign in the colony's Crew tab (Équipage): technicians for the ice drill, the air plant and the workshop, growers for the greenhouses, miners for the mine, and three researchers per laboratory; the motor pool ties up a technician as well. A unit takes its crew from colonists with no job, and that colonist never comes back, so your colonists are both your workforce and your army.

Running out of air, water or rations lowers morale, and from the third beat of shortage on, one colonist leaves the colony every beat. New colonists only arrive through a landing pad, one every six beats, if the habitats have room and morale is above 45.

### Units and columns

The barracks train guard squads and engineers; the motor pool builds rovers and haulers, then, once researched, crawlers, mortars and drones. Each building trains one unit at a time per level, and the queue holds twenty at most. Times are at the × 4 pace.

| Unit | Crew | Attack | Defence | Hit points | Speed | Training | Cost (metal, parts, crystal) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Guard squad (Garde) | 1 | 4 | 6 | 10 | 5 km/h | 6 s | 10, 5, 0 |
| Engineers (Génie) | 2 | 1 | 3 | 10 | 5 km/h | 8 s | 30, 10, 0 |
| Rover | 1 | 6 | 3 | 12 | 20 km/h | 12 s | 40, 15, 0 |
| Hauler (Transporteur) | 1 | 0 | 2 | 20 | 10 km/h | 12 s | 50, 20, 0 |
| Crawler (Chenillé) | 2 | 14 | 12 | 40 | 7.5 km/h | 24 s | 60, 30, 5 |
| Mortar (Mortier) | 2 | 6 | 2 | 15 | 5 km/h | 20 s | 50, 25, 2 |
| Drone | 1 | 5 | 1 | 5 | 30 km/h | 8 s | 20, 20, 1 |

Your units do not roam the terrain freely. They set out as a column, through the gate, and follow the routes to their target; without a gate, no column can leave the colony. A column moves at the pace of its slowest unit, and no path can cross a standing nest, a guarded spire or a site of a charter at war with you, unless that is where it stops.

A right click gives the order that suits the place: on a free site your engineers stake it; on a nest, a spire or an enemy site your combat units attack; on an enemy colony they raid it; on a ruin the engineers explore; at the Landing the haulers deliver a convoy; on your own colony the column comes home. A stake costs 20 metal and 5 parts: engineers, escorted by a guard, go to a free site one route from your territory, and after six beats there it is yours.

### Fights

A fight is settled when the column arrives, with no manoeuvring on the ground. Each unit weighs in with its attack, or its defence when defending, multiplied by its hit points and divided by 10; each side gets a swing of up to 10%, and the stronger side wins. Your colony adds 24 to its garrison for each level of each finished turret, 24 at level 1 and 72 at level 3, plus a militia drawn from its colonists, worth roughly one point per colonist. A turret in the middle of an upgrade does not count.

A beaten column loses 60 to 90% of its units, and the survivors head home. The winner loses less the clearer the win. If an enemy column beats your colony, it raids it: it carries off a fifth of your metal and 15% of your rations, your output is halved for 8 beats, and your garrison loses 70% of its units.

### The natives and pollution

The natives live in 16 nests, all on the outer ring of the map. Every five beats, a group may leave one of the two nests nearest your colony and march on it at 6 km/h, never more than two groups at once. If your defence is strong enough, the group is driven back and you gain 5 prestige; if not, you lose a defence and your garrison loses 40% of its units.

Their threat follows your pollution. Each mine adds 4, each workshop 3, and each greenhouse takes 2 away. The higher the threat, the more often groups come out and the stronger they are; it moves up a tier above 8, then above 20. A colony that pollutes little sees its threat drift slowly back down. A razed nest grows back after 60 beats.

The natives also run on a clock. At the start of day 5, the strength of all their waves doubles, then doubles again every 72 beats, up to × 1,024. It applies to every colony, the AIs' included.

### Three lives, then ruin

Each charter has three lives. A lost defence counts for 72 beats: three lost defences inside that window against the same side, a rival charter or the natives, bring the core down and cost a life. After a fall, the core is immune for 108 beats. No new attack targets it, native groups marching on your colony vanish, and a defeat taken during immunity does not count.

Before day 4, a fall cannot take your last life. When the last life goes, the charter is eliminated: its colony turns into a ruin, its sites become free again, and its columns and garrisons are gone.

### How a match ends

There is no clock on the match. It ends when only one charter is left standing, the winner, or as soon as you are eliminated or give up, since you are the only human in it. The final ranking puts the winner first, then the charters still standing by prestige, then the eliminated ones, from the last to fall to the first. So your place depends on how many charters fell before you; prestige only ranks the ones still standing. The end screen lets you watch the map, play again or go back to Neurostim.

## Playing Terrastead on Neurostim

### When the page loads

The page goes straight into the match after a short loading screen: no lobby, no form. The view swoops down to Haut-Val, your colony, and a three-step guide shows you how to select it, send engineers to stake a site with a right click, then move the view. Once finished or skipped, it does not come back in that browser. The "Comment jouer" (How to play) panel, at the top of the screen and in the menu, sums up the rules in French.

Within seconds, your engineers set off to stake a site, natives come down a route towards you, and Zeneal, the neighbouring charter at war with you from the start, sends a small column. These first attacks are sized to be beaten off.

### Controls

| Action | Mouse | Touch |
|---|---|---|
| Select a colony, a garrison or a column | left click, `Shift` to add | tap |
| Box select | drag | drag |
| Take every unit of the same type on screen | double click, or `Ctrl` + click | double tap |
| Give the order that suits the place | right click | press and hold |
| Pick from every order for that place | `Alt` + right click | |
| Chain an order after the current trip | `Shift` + right click | |
| Zoom | wheel | pinch |
| Move the view | right or middle drag, or push the mouse to the screen edge | two-finger drag |
| Minimap | click to go there, right click for an order | tap to go there, press and hold for an order |

### Keyboard

| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| `W` `A` `S` `D` (or `Z` `Q` `S` `D`), arrow keys | move the view, faster with `Shift` |
| `+` and `-` | zoom in and out |
| `Space` or `H` | back to the colony |
| `Backspace` | jump to the latest event |
| `Delete` | recall the selected column |
| `F` | switch between sending all units and half of them |
| `Ctrl` + `1` to `9` | save a group; `1` to `9` brings it back, twice in a row to centre the view |
| `B` | the colony grid |
| `U` | train units |
| `R`, `T`, `P`, `C` | research, trading post, diplomacy, council |
| `M`, `L`, `J` | threat, ranking, journal |
| `?` or `F1` | help |
| `Esc` | cancel, close, deselect, then open the menu |

The view follows where the keys sit, not their letters, so it works on QWERTY and AZERTY alike, and groups use the number row on either layout. While something is selected, the letters on the command card, bottom right, take priority over the window keys. In the training window, a click trains one unit and `Shift` + click trains five. Anything the windows mark "Coming soon" cannot be chosen yet. At the Landing council, the vote, counted every 90 beats, pits the Truce, which blocks any new declaration of war, against the status quo.

### The French on screen

The game's English page translates the controls, the menu, the command card, the selection panel, the first-minute guide, the help window and the end screen. The windows that the keys open are in French, from the colony grid to the journal, along with the module and unit names inside them, the news feed and the "Comment jouer" panel. These are the words you will meet most.

| On screen | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Grille, Énergie, Équipage | Grid, Power, Crew |
| Chantier, Niveau, Démolir, Annuler le chantier | Build in progress, Level, Demolish, Cancel the build |
| Armée, Former, File de formation | Army, Train, Training queue |
| Garnison, Colonnes en route | Garrison, Columns on the way |
| Recherche, Rang, En cours | Research, Rank, In progress |
| Comptoir du Landing, Acheter, Vendre, Contrats, Livrer | Landing trading post, Buy, Sell, Contracts, Deliver |
| Diplomatie, Guerre, Préavis, Neutre | Diplomacy, War, Notice, Neutral |
| Conseil, Trêve, Statu quo | Council, Truce, Status quo |
| Menace, Classement, Journal | Threat, Ranking, Journal |
| Jalonner, Attaquer, Piller, Prendre | Stake, Attack, Raid, Capture |
| Se poster, Renforcer, Explorer, Convoi, Rentrer | Move to a site, Reinforce, Explore, Convoy, Return |
| Charte, colonie, noyau, sas | Charter, colony, core, gate |
| Autochtones, nid, groupe, vague | Natives, nest, group, wave |
| Vie, défense perdue, immunité | Life, defence lost, immunity |
| Eau, Rations, Métal, Polymère, Pièces, Cristal | Water, Rations, Metal, Polymer, Parts, Crystal |
| Colons, sans rôle | Colonists, no job |

### Pace, pausing and the page

The menu, opened from the button at the top right or with `Esc`, sets the pace of the match: × 1, × 4 or × 16. It only changes the speed, not what happens: at × 1 everything takes four times as long as at the default pace, at × 16 a quarter of the time. There is no pause button. The match moves forward as the page is drawn, so when its tab is hidden, the browser stops running it, and it picks up roughly where you left it when you come back.

Nothing about the match is saved. Reloading the page or choosing "Play again", in the menu or on the end screen, starts a fresh one. The browser only remembers two settings: sound muted, and the guide already seen. The page needs a connection to load; after that the match runs in your browser without asking the server for anything, and without an account.

## Holding out to the end: a method

### Feed the colony first

The starting colony eats more than it grows: it loses 1.15 rations per beat, and left alone, its rations hit zero in just over 8 minutes at the × 4 pace. A second greenhouse adds 2 rations per beat and soaks up some pollution, and your two growers are enough to staff two greenhouses. But a greenhouse drinks water too, and your colony, built on ore, only just breaks even on water: an extra ice drill heads off the next shortage. Every colonist who leaves is one worker fewer, one unit fewer you can train, and a weaker militia.

### Parts and crystal

Nothing makes parts at the start. You need a workshop, which turns 2 metal and 1 polymer into 1 part every beat. Parts pay for units, turrets, stakes and most modules. Metal comes from the mine, 3 per beat, and every stock caps at 700 with the starting storehouse, 300 more per storehouse. Crystal is not produced at all: you have 4, the trading post at the Landing sells it for scrip, the game's own currency, and a ruin, which is what an eliminated charter leaves behind, yields 6 along with 20 parts when your engineers explore it. Keep that in mind before you plan on crawlers, which cost 5 each.

### Defend the core

Your lives depend only on the defence of your colony. A new turret is worth 24 there, as much as four guard squads, without taking a single colonist, for 40 metal, 20 parts and a 12 s build at × 4. Taking it to level 2 costs 80 metal and 40 parts for another 24, without using a square, but it does not defend during the 18 s upgrade; level 3 costs 160 metal and 80 parts, with a 24 s upgrade, for 24 more again. A crawler is worth 48 in defence for two colonists, a guard squad 6 for one. The militia shrinks as colonists leave.

A column sent far away no longer defends the colony, and an attack order sends every selected combat unit: `F` sends only half. The Threat window (Menace, `M`) lists every native group on the march, with its strength and the time left before it arrives, along with the next doubling of the waves. Check it before sending a column far from home.

### Go out without exposing yourself

At the start, four free sites lie one route from your territory. Each site you stake pushes out your staking range and your view, but it adds nothing to the defence of the core, and the guard escorting the engineers is away from the garrison for the trip and the six beats on site. Before you attack a nest or a colony, compare strengths: a beaten column loses 60 to 90% of its units, and their colonists do not come back.

### Day 4 and day 5

At the start of day 4, 9 min 13 s in at the × 4 pace, the match enters its Confrontation phase, shown next to the clock: each AI picks a target among the colonies nearest its own and keeps it until that charter is eliminated, attacking whenever its core is not immune. Never more than two AIs go after the same charter, and the AIs fight each other too. At the start of day 5, 14 min 01 s in, the natives' waves double, then double again every 2 min 24 s: the strength shown for marching groups in the Threat window jumps at every step, and your defence has to keep up.

After a fall, your core is immune for 3 min 36 s at × 4: no wave heads your way and no new attack targets it. That is the time to rebuild the garrison, bring rations back up and replace what you lost.

## Benchmarks: a match with no orders

We ran the game's own engine, the program that simulates the match in your browser, inside a browser with no screen, in November 2026, stepping it beat by beat from the same start as the game page, at the default pace. It gives two things: how long the rules last in real time, and what becomes of your colony if you touch nothing.

### Game time in real time

| Game time | At × 1 | At × 4 (default) | At × 16 |
|---|---|---|---|
| One beat (10 minutes of game time) | 8 s | 2 s | 0.5 s |
| One hour of game time | 48 s | 12 s | 3 s |
| One game day | 19 min 12 s | 4 min 48 s | 1 min 12 s |
| Staking a site (6 beats) | 48 s | 12 s | 3 s |
| Window for three lost defences (72 beats) | 9 min 36 s | 2 min 24 s | 36 s |
| Immunity after a fall (108 beats) | 14 min 24 s | 3 min 36 s | 54 s |
| From the start to day 4 | 36 min 53 s | 9 min 13 s | 2 min 18 s |
| From the start to day 5, the first doubling of the waves | 56 min 05 s | 14 min 01 s | 3 min 30 s |

The match opens on day 2 at 1:50 in the morning, and the sun rises 49 s later at × 4. Research, one technology at a time, earns 4.8 points per beat with the two researchers and the lab you start with: a rank 1 technology (100 points) takes 42 s at × 4, rank 2 (350 points) 2 min 26 s, and rank 3 (1,000 points) 6 min 58 s. A third researcher brings rank 1 down to 28 s. Of the 32 technologies in the tree, 13 can be researched today; the others are marked "Coming soon" and cannot be chosen. A rank 2 or rank 3 technology needs two playable technologies of the rank below in its branch, or just one if the branch only has one. That is why crawlers and mortars, at rank 2 of the Défense branch, open with no earlier technology, drones need Jalons à moitié prix (half-price stakes), and the 7 × 7 Grid needs Hydroponie (hydroponics).

### What becomes of a colony with no orders

A whole match, played by the game's engine in November 2026 without a single order, at the × 4 pace:

- **0 min 22 s**: the first native group reaches the colony and is driven back.
- **0 min 50 s**: Zeneal's first column arrives and is beaten off too.
- **8 min 07 s**: rations hit zero; the first colonist leaves 4 s later. By the start of day 4, 8 of the 14 are left.
- **9 min 13 s**: day 4 begins, and Zeneal sends a column at the colony straight away.
- **10 min 34 s**: first defence lost; 14 s later the third one brings the core down. Two lives left.
- **14 min 01 s**: day 5 begins and the native waves double.
- **16 min 04 s**: the core falls a second time.
- **21 min 22 s**: third fall. Zeneal eliminates the colony and the match ends: 6th out of 6.

The natives never broke through this starting defence: 8 groups arrived, 8 were driven back. It was all Zeneal, which sent 25 columns at the colony; of the 22 that arrived, 10 were beaten off.

What you can take from it: the starting garrison handles the first minutes, but not what follows. You have about 8 minutes to sort out food and 9 to get ready for day 4, when the attacks turn serious. Every order you give changes what follows, so treat these minutes as landmarks, not a timetable.

## The genre: real-time strategy

According to Wikipedia, a real-time strategy game is a strategy game in which players manage resources and command units continuously, rather than taking turns. A typical game involves gathering resources, building a base, developing technology and controlling units indirectly. The term is credited to Brett Sperry, who coined it in the early 1990s; the French article dates its first use to 1992.

Real time adds a pressure turn-based games do not have: everything has to be handled at once. The English article separates micromanagement, the fine control of individual units, from macromanagement, the economy and large-scale expansion, and it notes the old complaint that the genre can turn into a "click-fest" won by whoever is fastest with the mouse.

Terrastead keeps the core of the genre: resources, a base to build, a research tree and units to train. It changes the shape of it. Units do not run across open ground; they march in columns along routes, and fights are settled on arrival, on the balance of strength, with no micromanagement. Territory is won site by site, by staking. The natives are a third force whose clock pushes the match towards its end, the three lives give you room to recover from a bad call, and the adjustable pace gives a player who would rather think the time to do so.

If you want a match of a few minutes that works your logic rather than your strategy, try [the daily minesweeper](https://www.neurostim.fr/en/wiki/minesprint) or [sudoku](https://www.neurostim.fr/en/wiki/sudoku); for raw reaction speed, there is [the reaction time test](https://www.neurostim.fr/en/wiki/flashtap).

## Frequently asked questions

### What is an RTS game?

An RTS, short for real-time strategy, is a strategy game with no turns: every side acts at the same time. You gather resources, build a base and train units to defeat your opponents, and the time pressure is part of the challenge. Terrastead is one, played against five AI colonies.

### Where can you play a free real-time strategy game online, with no download?

Terrastead plays free in your browser, with no download, no sign-up and nothing to buy: the match starts as soon as the page opens, against five AI opponents. The scrip you trade at the trading post is an in-game currency that cannot be bought. All you need is an up-to-date browser with WebGL 2.

### How do you play Terrastead?

Left click your colony to select it, then right click a place: your units set out as a column to do whatever suits it, such as staking a free site, attacking a nest or coming home. The `B` key opens the colony grid for building and `U` opens unit training. The goal is to be the last charter standing.

### How do you beat the AI in Terrastead?

By staying on your feet longer than it does: victory goes to the last charter standing, not to whoever destroys the most. Feed your colony, make parts with a workshop, keep a solid defence around the core and keep units at home. Get ready for day 4, when each AI picks a target, and for day 5, when the natives' waves start doubling.

### How long does a game of Terrastead last?

There is no set length: the match ends when only one charter is left standing, or when you are eliminated. Left without a single order, the starting colony is eliminated after 21 min 22 s at the default × 4 pace, and every order you give changes that. The menu also offers × 1, four times slower, and × 16, four times faster.

### Can you save, pause or resume a game?

No: a Terrastead match is not saved anywhere, and reloading the page starts a new one. There is no pause button either, but the × 1 pace slows everything down, and while the tab is hidden the browser stops running the match, which picks up again when you come back.

### Can you play Terrastead on a phone or tablet?

Yes, Terrastead works by touch: tap to select, drag to draw a box, press and hold to give an order, pinch to zoom and drag with two fingers to move the view. On a small screen the windows slide up from the bottom. As on a computer, the device's browser must support WebGL 2.

### What are the keyboard shortcuts in Terrastead?

The main ones are `W` `A` `S` `D` or the arrow keys for the view, `Space` to go back to the colony, `B` for the grid, `U` to train, `R` for research, `M` for the threat window, `F` to switch between all units and half, `Ctrl` plus a number to save a group, `Delete` to recall a column and `Esc` to cancel, then open the menu.

### What do the natives and pollution do?

The natives are a third force: their groups leave the nests and march on colonies, yours and the AIs' alike. Your pollution draws them in, 4 for each mine and 3 for each workshop, while each greenhouse takes 2 away. From day 5, the strength of their waves doubles every 72 beats, up to × 1,024.

### How do the three lives work?

You lose a life when your core falls, which happens after three lost defences within 72 beats against the same side, either a rival charter or the natives. The core is then immune for 108 beats. When your last life goes, your charter is eliminated and its colony becomes a ruin; before day 4, the last life cannot be lost.

### Is Terrastead in English?

Partly: on the game's English page, the controls, menu, command card, help window and end screen are in English, while the colony windows, the news feed and the "Comment jouer" panel are in French. This guide's tables and its glossary of the French words on screen are enough to play from the first minute.

### Is Terrastead multiplayer?

No. Each Terrastead match pits you alone against five charters played by the AI, in a world your browser computes, and no other player can join it. That is also why the match ends the moment you are eliminated: there is no human left at the table.

## Sources

- The Terrastead game client, version of 8 November 2026: rules, tables and starting world read from its code, and one match played by its engine for the measurements on this page.
- Wikipedia, [Real-time strategy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_strategy), checked on 8 November 2026.
- Wikipédia (French), [Jeu de stratégie en temps réel](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeu_de_strat%C3%A9gie_en_temps_r%C3%A9el), checked on 8 November 2026.

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