12 · PvP, Seasons & Servers

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

Purpose

Define competitive structure: how servers are populated and aged, how seasons reset the competition, and how PvP stays fair enough to keep people playing.

To define

• Server model: state/kingdom shards, and target population per shard
• Server lifecycle — opening cadence, merges, sunset
• Season length, reset scope, and what carries over
• Cross-server competition and matchmaking
• PvP protection: shields, beginner grace, revenge windows, tile bubbles
• Ranking and leaderboards — individual, alliance, server
• Migration rules between servers
• Anti-snowball and comeback mechanics

Think about

• Server life is the real content cycle. A shard opens, tribes form, wars are fought, a dominant alliance emerges, the server calcifies, and players leave. Everything — seasons, merges, migration — exists to delay or reset that decay. Plan the whole arc before launch; retrofitting it is painful and visible.
• The Moksha title points at seasonal rebirth. Empires fall, the cycle begins again, the players carry something forward. If you want a signature system, this is the strongest candidate in the document — and it solves the calcification problem at the same time. It has to be genuinely fair, though: seasonal resets that only reset the weak are the fastest way to lose a community.
• Server merges are inevitable, and they are a design problem, not an ops task. Two cultures, two dominant alliances, doubled territory demand and a new power ceiling. Design the merge experience — announce early, give a truce period, offer relocation.
• Whale vs F2P coexistence. If a spender can flatten anyone at will, the server empties and the spender leaves too — they need people to beat. Bands, matchmaking limits, revenge windows and diminishing returns on repeat attacks all help. State your target: how much power can money buy, and how fast?
• Shields are the peace/war valve. Cheap and abundant means a passive server; scarce and expensive means bleeding new players. Most games settle on generous early, scarcer later, with shield-break rules for war events.
• Leaderboards create the story. Server-vs-server competition gives veterans a reason to care in month eight, and gives alliances an external enemy that unites them rather than fracturing them internally.

Open questions

#	Question	Blocks	Owner
1	Season length, and what resets?	Economy, retention, identity
2	Target population per server?	Map size, alliance caps, tech
3	Cross-server play at launch or later?	Tech, scope