15. Territory, Cities & Warfare

15.1 Ways to expand

v0.7: every expansion decision – buying squares, founding cities, cessions, conquest – is made by the nation’s AI leadership; citizens supply the money, labor and settlers, and pressure the choice through their system’s levers (Section 8.5).

Method	Rules	Who decides
Buy squares	Unclaimed Wildlands squares adjacent to owned land can be bought from the World Registry. Price rises with distance from the capital and with total squares owned (anti-snowball) [ASSUMPTION: base price × (1 + owned/1000)].	AI treasury authority per system (AI Assembly budget, AI Plan Commission, AI Monarch, etc.)
Found a city	An Expedition (charter + supplies + at least 10 volunteer or assigned citizens, human or AI [ASSUMPTION]) travels to a Wildlands site; on arrival it claims a radius-2 block of squares. Minimum distance between cities: 6 squares.	Kindle: the AI government, or a human-founded company whose charter the AI government approves; Confluence: AI cooperative federations; Korund: the AI Chairman’s order; Aurelle: a royal charter (often a new fief for an AI lord, with estates for loyal human citizens); Ilmar: an AI Sanctum mission; Hoarvale: an AI-run Trading House or the AI Cabinet; Varkand: an AI Command’s order (forward garrison towns); Veldwood: an AI Grove council, or a human initiative (each new city becomes a new Grove); Fulmara: a chartered company (human-founded or AI) holding a colonization charter from the AI board.
Treaty	Cession, purchase or joint-development agreements.	Ratification rules per system (Section 13).
Conquest	Capture enemy frontier squares and cities in war. Heartland squares cannot be captured.	War powers per system.
Influence (optional)	Cultural pressure slowly converts unclaimed squares next to cities with high culture/faith/propaganda output.	Automatic; slow.

15.2 Cities

Cities have population capacity, districts (residential, industrial, market/plan depot, civic, military, sacred), buildings and an AI governor (an AI Mayor elected by human citizens in Kindle; appointed elsewhere).
City growth depends on food, housing and the nation’s migration rules (Section 16).
Each city is also a voting district (Kindle, Ilmar, Confluence Assembly, Hoarvale region), a Grove (Veldwood), a garrison district (Varkand), a port ward (Fulmara) or a plan unit (Korund).
Capitals have unique buildings: the Exchange (Kindle), the Congress Hall (Confluence), the Steam Palace of the Party (Meridian), the Mountain Hall (Korund), the Sky Throne (Aurelle), the Mirrorhall (Ilmar), the Moot Hall (Hoarvale), the Citadel of Commands (Varkand), the Ring of Groves (Veldwood), the Arc Exchange (Fulmara).

15.3 War design for a persistent real-time world

War must be dramatic but must not ruin players who sleep, work or take a week off. Principles: declared, scheduled, logistical and bounded.

Aspect	Design
Declaration	War requires a formal declaration with a 48-real-hour mobilization period before any attack. Both sides and the world are notified; AI declarations also pass the casus belli gate and rate limits of Section 13.5. Veldwood’s offensive wars need a human referendum first (defensive war does not), which makes it slow to attack and quick to defend.
Battle windows	Each nation sets a daily 4-hour defense window (its ‘prime time’). Attacks on cities and forts can only be resolved inside the defender’s window – inspired by reinforcement timers in EVE Online. Open-field skirmishes on frontier squares can happen anytime but only move control slowly.
Armies	Army units are produced from arms, food and conscripts/volunteers (human and AI citizens); AI officers command stacks on the tile map, and human soldiers join units, where their participation (shifts, drills, squad stances) raises unit strength and morale. Movement: 1 square per 20–60 real minutes by terrain [ASSUMPTION].
Logistics	Units need supply lines from depots; cut supply lines reduce strength each game day. Quartermasters, drivers and sailors are player jobs (inspired by Foxhole’s player logistics, at a much lower intensity).
Resolution	Battles are resolved server-side in rounds (every 10 real minutes) from strength, terrain, fortification, supply, morale, AI commander decisions (stances, reserves, retreat) and human soldiers’ squad stances. No twitch combat.
Sieges	Capturing a city takes at least two successful assaults on two different days inside the defender’s window.
War weariness	Every game week at war adds Unrest (more in Kindle, Hoarvale and Veldwood; less in Korund and Varkand; in Fulmara, lost convoys hurt more than lost squares); casualties and lost squares accelerate it.
Peace	Peace treaties set terms; occupied squares not covered by the treaty revert or are retained per terms.
Hard caps	A nation can lose at most 10% of its frontier squares per real week [ASSUMPTION]; Heartland is immune.

15.4 Protections for offline players and newcomers

Citizen safety: individual citizens are never ‘killed’ in war. Soldiers whose units are destroyed are wounded (out of action for 1–3 real days) and keep their gear insurance.
Property protection: a citizen’s home and personal belongings are never looted. If their city is captured, they are evacuated to the nearest home city, keep their personal items and receive a housing voucher; immovable property (shops, land) is compensated at a set share by their state [ASSUMPTION: 50–80% depending on system].
Newcomer shield: new citizens cannot be conscripted for 14 real days and newly founded cities have a 10-real-day foundation truce.
Young nations: during a shard’s first 30 days (Founding Period) war declarations are disabled.
Absence: dormant citizens (Section 17.4) are skipped by conscription and plan quotas.

15.5 Espionage

Spies are a formal career (not alt accounts): infiltrate an enemy’s public spaces as a visitor under an Envoy pass, steal plan documents, sabotage depots, plant propaganda. Every operation has detection risk. Making espionage a sanctioned, rewarding role reduces the incentive to use multi-accounts for spying (Section 20).