How it plays
Until We War starts from the historical RTS you know: villagers, four resources, ages, walls and siege, fog of war. The difference is political. Every other ruler is a trading partner, a threat, or both.
Diplomacy is gameplay
Treaties are not chat promises. The simulation executes them: it moves the resources, opens the gates, shares the vision and stops the arrows.
- Offers are private to the rulers negotiating them. Signed terms are public.
- Offers expire in game time. One pending offer per pair of rulers.
- Muting a ruler hides their new offers, never your obligations.
- A bundle of clauses ends together. There is no hidden debt.
- Truce
- No damage between signatories, projectiles and area effects included. Ending it is a public act with a 30-second notice.
- Exchange
- Resources change hands at once, in full, or not at all.
- Trade access
- Your caravans may use their markets. Theirs may use yours.
- Shared vision
- What their scouts see, you see, for as long as the treaty holds.
- Recurring payment
- Tribute on a schedule. Pay each installment in full, or default and the bundle ends.
- Gate passage
- Their soldiers may walk through your gates. Choose carefully who.
- Coalition
- An agreement to win together. Coalitions decide who shares a victory, not who scores points.
Battles with an emotional shape
Depth comes from interaction, not from a longer list of numbers. Combat is explained in words and symbols; the arithmetic stays inside the simulation.
Formations
Line, Loose and March Column for every army, plus one special per culture group: Lance Charge, Shield Wall, Harass or Feigned Retreat.
Morale
Pressure, flanks and losses wear an army down until it routs. Pursuit decides how much of it gets home.
Terrain
Roads, open ground, forest, hills, difficult ground, water and bridges. Forest hides, hills command, rivers funnel.
Pillage
Burn farms, seize loot and cut the caravans that pay for your enemy's army.
Three ways to win
Victory is always public, and coalitions decide who shares it. There is no aggregate score.
- Dominion
- Hold a strict majority of the trading towns through a public countdown.
- Conquest
- Leave no rival standing.
- Prestige
- Complete a Great Work in the High Medieval Age and keep it standing until its public timer runs out.
Modes
Every mode uses the same rules. Co-op has no second game underneath it.
Realm
The flagship: four rulers, three trading towns. A quiet evening with one friend and two AI rulers is a complete match.
Duel
One against one, the same rules, nowhere to hide.
Locked 2v2
Two teams with a permanent truce, shared vision and open gates between allies.
Co-op Defense
Two to four players hold a settlement against declared waves. Every advantage the attacker has is written in the briefing.
Co-op Siege
Starve, raid and breach a fortress fed by real roads and real caravans.
Built to be finished
Readable
Units read by silhouette and equipment. Player identity is a colour and a heraldic symbol, so colour vision never decides a battle.
Resumable
Save, reload and reconnect. If the host drops, the match resumes with a new host from the last common checkpoint.
Replayable
Every match can be recorded and watched back with a timeline, so arguments about what happened can be settled.
Fair
No purchasable advantage. Handicaps are labelled in the lobby and recorded with the result.