Brief

The player controls a state on a real map of Europe: develops cities, extracts resources, builds armies, plans routes, and conducts wars. The core gameplay is economy → armies → movement → combat → capturing provinces.

World and Map

• Real Europe is divided into countries, regions/areas, and provinces.

• Each province has a city-"holder": it determines control over the province.

• Provinces have clear boundaries within the borders of their state.

• The map shows outlines and highlights of selected/neighboring provinces, scaling.

Resources and Economy

• Basic resources: money, wheat, fish, metal, wood, oil, coal, gas.

• Each city extracts exactly one of these resources (on a permanent basis).

• Extraction is periodic (game "hour"): the resource automatically goes to the owner of the province.

• Resources are spent on buildings and units. Without sufficient supplies, hiring/building is impossible.

• In the interface header — resource panel, updated in real time.

Cities and Buildings

• In the city, buildings can be constructed:

  • Barracks — speed up/unlock infantry spawn.

  • Factory — for armored vehicles.

  • Airfield — for aviation.

• Buildings affect automatic spawn of units in the city (in batches at certain intervals).

• In the city panel — name, province, owner, "holder", city resource, garrison (by types), construction/hiring/movement buttons.

Units

• Types: infantry, tanks, aviation (to be specified during development, there will be several more).

• Each type has a cost (resources), health (HP), and attack power (ATK).

• Units enter the city's garrison:

  • Manual hiring (button in the city; deducts resources immediately).

Movement of Troops

• Orders are given via drag-&-drop: drag from the starting city to the target.

• The route is built through adjacent provinces (the shortest path).

• The map shows a dashed route, and the squad icon smoothly moves along the line.

• The duration of the order execution depends on the length of the route and takes from 5 to 10 seconds (for demo pace).

• Upon arrival:

  • If the city is your/allied — the squad reinforces the garrison.

  • If it is enemy — a battle occurs.

Diplomacy "friend/enemy"

• There are states of relations between factions: peace/neutral/war/embargo.

• If a player sends troops to a foreign province, it automatically means declaration of war on that side.

• The status is maintained for all events between these sides.

Combat and Capture

• When the attacking squad arrives at a hostile city with a garrison, a battle begins.

• The total HP and ATK of the sides are calculated (taking types into account).

• The side that has HP drop to 0 loses; the winner loses part of its forces proportionally to the duration of the battle (survivors form the garrison) - 1 attack every X minutes/hours.

• In case of the attacker's victory, the city and province come under its control, the owner changes.

Game Cycle

1. Overview of the map, selection of provinces/cities.

2. Economy: review of resources, construction, hiring.

3. Planning: laying routes between cities, coordinating types of troops.

4. Interaction: diplomacy (through actions), battles, and captures.

5. Escalation: expanding borders, redistributing extraction, new fronts.

Interface

• Main map with visible borders, "highlighting" of hovered and selected.

• Large city markers with names and garrison icons (infantry/tank/aircraft).

• City panel (right/left): information, hiring/construction, movement.

• Status/event log: system messages — spawn, declaration of war, battle result, change of owner.

• Resource panel in the header.

Modes and Progress

• Single-player mode with basic bot opponents (defense/counterattack, simple expansion).

• Online mode with anyone willing to join the game.

• The session can be continued: the state is saved (province owners, garrisons, resources, relations, time).

• Basic victory conditions (at the client's choice):

  • Control of N% of provinces at a given time.

  • Accumulation of a certain amount of resources/victories.

  • Temporary domination (ranking mode by points).

Balance (initial benchmarks)

• Auto-spawn package: 5 units once per interval (configurable).

• Troop speeds: aviation > tanks > infantry.

• Cost and production of resources — starting values with the possibility of adjustment after playtests.

Limitations and Rules

• One resource per city — unchangeable type of extraction.

• Movement — only through adjacent provinces (land or defined "corridors" through water/straits — to fix rules during map design).

• Without resources, hiring does not occur.

• The first enemy order automatically changes relations to state of war.

What the player gets "in hand"

• Managed, clear cycle: earned → built → hired → planned → won.

• Visibility of all key processes: resources, route, combat, change of owner.

• Feeling of scale through real geography and clear division into provinces.

Additionally

Technically, I would be glad for Laravel on the backend side and MapLibre GL or CesiumJS as the map engine. Vue/React/NativeJS - your choice. It should be remembered that since the game is real-time, there will be many websocket events that also need to be considered.

Also, after the initial rough estimate of the project, I am ready to call the selected candidates to discuss in more detail and show analogs to the game.

Must respond in the estimate

1. Links to 1–3 relevant projects (maps/games - anything related to the technology stack chosen for this project).

2. Your approach to the map data: what tiles/sources will you propose, how will you form the provinces (briefly, to understand your vision of the project)?

3. How will you implement smooth unit movement along the route (interpolation, icon updates)?

4. How will you organize combat (formula, scaling of losses) and how will you test it?

5. Estimated timelines for milestones and cost.

6. What risks do you see and how will you mitigate them (performance/data sources)?