Comeback Mechanics

Every country's heartland — the closest ~5% of the world's land sectors to your capital — auto-processes resources without infrastructure. No Refineries needed.

This means:

• As long as you hold your capital, you have a base income from your core territory.
• An enemy can destroy every one of your frontier Refineries and you still have the heartland economy intact.
• The only way to strangle your economy is to take your capital or a large chunk of your core — both require serious sustained effort.

The heartland is the floor of your economy. Even after losing every frontier, a disciplined country can keep funding a military from its core.

When your territory drops below ~50% of its peak — the largest size your country ever held — Rebels start spawning automatically each cycle. You don't queue or pay for them, and they aren't on the build menu.

• Move range: 4, Attack: 15, Range: 6, Armor: 1.
• Upkeep: $0 — rebels fight for free.
• Homeland bonus: +50% combat power when defending a sector your country owns within ~12 land-hops of your capital.

How they spawn

At the end of each cycle, every country's territory-to-peak ratio is checked. The further below 50% you are, the more rebels appear that cycle:

Territory vs. peak	Rebels spawned per cycle
Below 50%	2
Below 40%	4
Below 30%	7
Below 20%	10
Below 10%	14

They spawn into eligible sectors — currently owned by your country, within ~12 hops of your capital, with no friendly land units already there. Once you recover above 50% of peak, no new rebels spawn. Existing rebels remain on the map.

Why Rebels matter

1. Free reinforcements during your worst cycles. The deeper you fall, the more arrive. No income, no orders, no decisions required.
2. Homeland bonus on the ground that matters. Their +50% defense covers your capital region — exactly the area an attacker has to cross to finish you off.
3. They make elimination expensive. An aggressor pushing for total wipeout has to grind through waves of locally-boosted defenders that cost you nothing. It's often cheaper for them to accept a treaty than to keep pushing.

Using Rebels well

• They're a defensive shell, not a wall. A single rebel won't stop an advance — an attacker can kill it and keep moving in the same phase. What rebels do is force the attacker to spend power on every sector instead of strolling through.
• Stack them where it counts. Multiple rebels in the same defended sector — especially with the homeland bonus — can break an attack outright. Concentrate them on the sectors blocking the path to your capital.
• You can move them, but the bonus stays home. Rebels obey normal movement rules, but their +50% only applies inside your capital region. Marching them into enemy territory strips the bonus and leaves you with weak infantry.
• Don't disband them when you recover. Spawning stops above 50% of peak, but the rebels you have keep their upkeep-free status forever.

Before the movement phase runs, you can mark your own structures for scorched earth — they're destroyed rather than risk being captured. No refund (unlike Sell), but the enemy gets nothing either.

Eligible for scorched earth:

• Your own Refineries.
• Your own Defense Turrets.
• Your own bases (Land, Sea, Air).

Not eligible:

• Mines — already hidden one-shots, no additional scorched-earth needed.
• Units — units aren't captured, they're killed. No scorched earth needed.
• Bridges — once built, bridges are neutral. You can't scorched-earth a bridge, but you can attack segments to sever it.

When to scorched earth

• Falling back from a Refinery. If the enemy will capture a Refinery next cycle, destroying it denies them a cycle of frontier income.
• Abandoning a forward base. Surrendering a base intact gives the enemy a supply line forward — scorched-earth denies that.
• Preventing a chain of captures. A captured Land Base lets the enemy build locally, extending their reach. Destroying it first slows the advance significantly.

When NOT to scorched earth

• If you might retake the sector soon. Scorched-earth is irreversible within the cycle. If your counterattack will succeed, holding infrastructure is better.
• If the enemy can't hold it either. If the enemy will capture and immediately lose the sector (say, to a mutual opponent), destruction just burns your value.
• Early game. Scorched earth is a defensive tool. If you still have the initiative, focus on retaking rather than denying.

A lost capital is not permanent. If an enemy captures your capital:

• Your income is halved while they hold it.
• But they can only hold it with military force — it's not a permanent transfer.
• Retaking your capital restores full income.

Defending your capital is high priority, but if it falls, retaking it is doable — especially with Rebels and homeland bonus. Don't give up a game just because your capital changes hands.

Treaties are a lifeline when you're behind. A well-timed treaty proposal to an aggressive neighbor can freeze your front line for 10–20 cycles while you recover. See Diplomacy.

Attackers will sometimes accept treaties with losing players because:

• Rebels + scorched earth make final elimination expensive.
• The aggressor may have other fronts that need attention.
• A treaty frees them to attack a different neighbor.

If you can't hold a Refinery or Turret and scorched earth doesn't fit the situation, selling gives you a partial refund (40% × current strength/100). Especially useful for:

• Damaged Refineries that are about to be destroyed — sell them for something rather than losing them for nothing.
• Sea or Air Bases being isolated by enemy advances — sell a partial refund before you lose it.

If your treasury runs negative for 3 consecutive cycles, morale collapses:

• Build orders fail in Phase 5 for any unit/base/structure you can't afford — the order is marked failed but doesn't refund anything you'd already lost to upkeep.
• Every one of your units loses 10% of its current health that cycle, and any unit dropped to 1 HP or below is destroyed outright.
• The bleed continues every additional cycle you stay in deficit, so a long deficit empties your armies fast.

To recover: sell infrastructure, sell expensive units, scorched-earth what you can't hold, and focus on your heartland income. Don't push offensives while your economy is collapsing.

• Your capital and heartland are the safety floor. Defend them relentlessly.
• Rebels are your losing-player advantage. You don't build them — they spawn automatically once your territory drops below 50% of peak. Use them aggressively.
• Scorched earth denies the attacker. When retreat is inevitable, burn what you can't keep.
• Treaties work in your favor when losing. Attackers often prefer a freeze over a drawn-out extermination.
• A comeback is always possible. The game is designed so that 20% territory doesn't mean 0% chance.