09 · World Map & Territory

Status: Skeleton · Owner: TBD · Updated: 2026-09-23

Purpose

Define the shared world outside the city: how it is laid out, what is on it, and what players fight over.

To define

• Map model: grid tiles, hex, or region graph
• Map size vs server population
• What occupies the map: resource nodes, ruins, monsters, NPC forts, neutral cities, wonders
• Territory control rules — who owns what and what ownership grants
• March mechanics: travel time, path, interception, recall
• Teleports, relocation, and spawn placement by alliance
• Zones: safe / contested / high-risk, and how players move between them
• Map visuals — how a dead dynasty's ruins read at a glance

Think about

• Travel time is your pacing dial for the whole PvP layer. Long marches make war deliberate, scouting valuable and defence possible; short ones make it chaotic and reaction-based. It also decides whether time zones ruin your alliances.
• Map design is social engineering. Where you put the good nodes decides where wars happen. Concentrated high-value territory creates conflict and drama; evenly spread resources create a quiet, solitary map. Decide which game you want and place accordingly.
• Protect the newcomer zone. Players who spawn inside a veteran alliance's farm territory quit within the day. Safe starting regions, shields, and alliance-adjacent spawning are standard survival gear.
• Ruins as a mechanic, not just scenery. The premise hands you a strong idea: the map is littered with the wreckage of fallen empires. Excavating a ruin for relics, lost tech or a dead dynasty's unit blueprint ties the world map directly to the setting instead of leaving it as generic farm tiles.
• Terrain is where the AoE DNA can show up cheaply. River crossings, mountain passes and coastal routes create chokepoints and make alliance strategy geographic — real positional thinking without real-time combat.
• Map state is the heaviest thing your servers do. Thousands of concurrent marches with live interception is a hard problem; tile ownership updates broadcast to everyone nearby is a hard problem. Talk to engineering before committing — see Technical.

Open questions

#	Question	Blocks	Owner
1	Grid tiles or region-based map?	Tech, UI, alliance play
2	Can marches be intercepted in transit?	Tech, war depth
3	Does territory ownership grant passive income?	Economy, alliance value