Compact Conflict is a strategy game played in turns, where up to four armies fight over a map of odd-shaped regions. You can play Compact Conflict unblocked in your browser against computer rivals or friends on the same screen, and every match uses a freshly generated map. The twist is the temple system, which turns holy sites into troop factories and magic shops. Jakub Wasilewski made it for js13kGames in 2014.
Setting Up a Match
The four armies are Amber, Crimson, Lavender and Emerald. By default you play Amber against two computer players, with Emerald switched off, on Nice difficulty over 12 turns. You can change each color to Human, AI or Off, pick a length of 9, 12 or 15 turns or no limit at all, and reroll the map until you like it. The game remembers your choices for next time.
How to Play Compact Conflict
Each turn gives you three moves. Here is how one usually goes:
- Click one of your regions that has soldiers ready to move.
- Click it again to change how many soldiers go.
- Click a neighboring region. Empty land becomes yours right away. Moving onto a rival’s land means a fight, and the region flips only when no defender survives.
- Repeat until your moves are spent, then end the turn.
An army that just captured a region has to rest until your next turn, so you cannot chain one stack across the whole map. Every army starts on a home temple with three soldiers. The map also has three neutral temples (four in a four-player game), each guarded by three neutral soldiers, so you will fight for those too.
How Battles Work
The code makes fights a series of one-on-one duels. The number of duels equals the smaller of the two armies, and each one kills either an attacker or a defender.
Your odds in each duel depend on how much you outnumber the defenders. In an even fight, the defender wins a little more than half the duels. With twice as many soldiers, you win nearly four duels out of five. Randomness is also kept away from the extremes, so a huge advantage rarely goes badly wrong.
There is a catch for the attacker: every defending soldier you kill pays its owner 4 faith. Attacking a rival’s big stack hands them money to rebuild.
Temples, Faith and Upgrades
Whenever a turn ends, every temple you control produces a fresh soldier. You also earn faith, one point for each region you own and one for each soldier standing in a temple. If you own no temples at all, you earn no faith.
Click a temple to spend it. Extra soldiers cost 8 faith, then 4 more for each one you buy in the same turn. Or bless the temple with an element:
- Water (15, then 25 to upgrade) gives 20% more faith, then 40%.
- Fire (20, then 30) makes one attacking soldier invincible in each battle, then two.
- Air (25, then 35) grants one extra move every turn, then two.
- Earth (30, then 45) kills one invader before a fight even starts, then two.
The second level turns a temple into a cathedral. Each temple can carry just one element, though you can rebuild it for free to switch. Lose the temple and the blessing goes with it.
Compact Conflict Strategy
- Take neutral temples first. A bonus recruit each round adds up fast in a long match.
- Leave someone on each temple. Those soldiers earn faith and guard your most valuable land.
- Wait for a bigger stack. Since even fights favor the defender, attack with a clear edge.
- Buy Air early in long games. An extra move every turn compounds over 12 or 15 turns.
- Spread out at the end. Only regions count for the win, so grab every weak or empty spot in the final two turns.
Mistakes New Players Make
The most common mistake is sending one huge army everywhere while the rest of the map sits empty. Since regions decide the winner, a wide spread beats a single giant stack. Another is attacking even fights over and over, which loses soldiers and feeds the rival faith. Finally, players forget about Earth temples. Attacking one with a small group can lose it before the fight starts.
Learning the Rules and Playing on a Chromebook
Press the ”?” button whenever you like to open a five-card rules guide, which is handy if you forget what an element does. Everything is a click or a tap, so the game works on a Chromebook touchpad and on tablets. Computer players take one to five seconds to think, and sound effects play during battles.
A 9-turn match fits a short break, while 15 turns or unlimited is better for a longer study hall. For more, see the strategy games page, or try these:
- Hex Formation is tower defense instead: you place three kinds of turrets along a hexagon road and survive ten waves.
- Evolve Idle is a long-term strategy game where you grow a species over many hours instead of one match.
- Gomoku is a faster two-player thinking game where you only need five stones in a row.
