⚔️ Capture Power (CAP) & Combat Rebalance
Removal of Instant 10-CAP Flips: Eliminated 1-turn instant tile capturing across all units to ensure matches cannot be won solely by sprint rushes. Dedicated expansion units (Scout, Sandman, Blight, Terraformer, Outpost, Reclaimer) now cap at 5–6 CAP (requiring at least 2 turns to flip standard tiles), heavy combat units operate at 2–3 CAP, and frontline/utility units sit at 3–4 CAP.
Combat Interaction: Combat and defensive armies now have reliable opportunities to intercept, flank, and punish isolated capture runners before territory flips.
🛡️ Unit Archetype Standardization & Tactical UI
4 Core Archetypes: Standardized all 59 units into four distinct, intuitive roles with updated localization and tutorial guides:
🔴 Offense: Direct damage dealers and elimination specialists.
🟢 Defense: High HP, frontliners, shields, and fortifications.
🔵 Support: Healers, combat buffers, spawners, and board expansion units.
🟣 Utility: Board manipulation, traps, morphs, EMP, and status effects.
Streamlined Unit Cards & Legend: Unit selection cards now feature 4 color-coded stat badges (🟢 HP, 🔴 ATK, 🔵 CAP, 🟣 MOV) alongside an illuminated 5-stat tactical legend.
Balanced Squad Randomizer: Squad randomization now guarantees diverse team builds by capping any single archetype to a maximum of 2 units.
💰 Economy, Bounties & Progression
Starting Economy: Starting match funds adjusted to 2,000 resources with home base income standardized to +100 resources/turn.
Scaled Kill Bounties: Kill streak bounties increased to +150 resources at 2 kills and +300 resources at 3+ kills, with live bounty indicators integrated directly into the unit status bar and Unit Intel panel.
Interactive Meta Analytics: Added an interactive multi-series SVG chart in simulation analytics to inspect turn-by-turn economy, active units, casualties, damage dealt, and territory control.
🧠 Smarter Tactical AI
Supply-Aware Capturing: AI commanders will no longer make suicide pushes onto isolated neutral or enemy objective tiles lacking adjacent friendly supply connections.
Allied Wall Safety: Attacking friendly Architect walls now deals zero recoil damage, and AI pathfinding actively navigates around friendly walls unless completely trapped.
Tactical Sequencing & Formations: AI now executes support aura movements and debuffs before committing damage dealers, prioritizes focus fire on high-threat targets, spreads out against Splash/AoE threats, and anchors squishy units behind defensive tanks.
🚀 Graphics & Engine Performance
Major CPU & Render Optimizations: Replaced intensive board scans with O(1) set lookups for Fog of War and neighbor checks for move validation, saving up to 99% CPU overhead on large maps and eliminating ticker frame drops.
Viewport & Particle Caching: Dynamic biome ambient effects and off-screen tile calculations now leverage reusable particle caches and hardware-accelerated viewport culling.
New Arena Skin: Added Stone Cave (arena_cave), featuring torchlit subterranean cavern backdrops and rustic carved stone borders.
🛠️ Quality of Life & Polish
Watch & Spectator Mode: Spectators can now freely inspect active unit stats, review live tactical intel, and experience the full Operation End summary screen.
Auto-Away & Presence: Extended idle threshold to 5 minutes with automatic polling suspension to conserve resources while tabbed out.
Full Localization: Updated all new roles, stat labels, and descriptions across English, German, Lithuanian, Turkish, and Simplified Chinese.