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How to play Porchlight Wars

Play Porchlight Wars

A turn-based war game for two to four players, each playing for themselves. Buy units, capture buildings for income, and take the enemy headquarters.

How to win

A side is beaten when either of these happens:

• Its HQ is captured.
• It has no units left on the board.

In a two-player game, that ends the game. With three or four players, the beaten side is knocked out: its units are removed, its buildings turn gray, and the others play on until one side is left.

Most games also have a day limit (20 days unless the table chose otherwise). A day is one turn for every side. When the limit is reached, the side that owns the most buildings wins. If that is tied, the side with the more valuable army wins (each unit counts its price, scaled by its health). If both are tied, the game is a draw.

The map

• Each side is a color: Red, Blue, Green or Orange. Turns go in that order, so Red always moves first. Colors are drawn at random each game.
• Each side starts with an HQ and at least one factory, and on some maps a port. Gray buildings belong to nobody until they are captured.
• A map is made for a set number of players. A map can be played with fewer: the spare color's buildings start gray and its HQ counts as a city.
• Ranked games are one on one, with no fog and a 20-day limit, on maps checked to play close to even. Other maps may favour one side; judging which, and playing to it, is part of the game.

A turn

At the start of your turn, in this order:

1. You earn 1,000 for each building you own.
2. Units standing on your own buildings are refuelled, rearmed and repaired (see Repairs).
3. Your supply trucks refuel and rearm the units next to them.
4. Aircraft and ships burn fuel unless they are on one of your airports (aircraft) or ports (ships): jets 5, helicopters 2, ships 1. A unit that reaches 0 fuel crashes or sinks. Nothing burns fuel on day 1.

Then give orders. Each unit gets one order per turn, in any sequence you like:

1. Click the unit. Striped squares show where it can go.
2. Click the square to move to, or the unit itself to stay where it is.
3. Choose what it does there: Fire, Capture, Board the… (naming the carrier), Drop off…, Resupply neighbors or Wait.

A unit that has had its order is drawn darker for the rest of your turn.

You can also buy units by clicking one of your own buildings that has nothing standing on it: land units at a factory, aircraft at an airport, ships at a port. A new unit can't act until your next turn. You can't buy a unit while you have 40 on the board.

Press End turn when you're done. If you still have units that haven't moved, the button asks you to confirm. The whole turn runs on one clock: one minute plus five seconds per unit, up to three minutes (the table's turn timer setting can halve or double this). If the clock runs out, your turn ends as it stands. If it runs out twice without you making a move of your own in between, you're treated as having left the game (see Leaving a game).

Movement

Each unit has movement points. Every square it enters costs points, depending on the terrain and how the unit moves. A unit can pass through friendly units but not stop on them, and can't pass through enemy units at all. Moving costs fuel, one point per movement point spent, and a unit with no fuel can't move.

"Tracked" covers supply trucks, tanks, heavy tanks, artillery and anti-air. Aircraft fly over everything at 1 point per square, but get no defense stars from the ground beneath them. Ships can only enter sea squares and ports.

Units

Land units

Aircraft

Ships

Aircraft and ships start with 99 fuel.

Weapons and ammunition

Ammo is for a unit's main weapon. When it runs out, the unit uses its backup weapon if it has one, which never runs out; otherwise it can't fire until it is resupplied.

"Vehicles" means recon, supply trucks, tanks, heavy tanks, artillery and anti-air. Only jets, anti-air and cruisers can hit a jet.

Fighting

Move next to an enemy and choose Fire, then pick the target. Before you commit, the panel shows the expected damage dealt and taken.

• Health runs from 10 (full) down to 1. The damage a unit deals depends on the two unit types and is scaled by the attacker's health: a unit at 5 health hits half as hard.
• Terrain protects the defender. Each defense star takes off 1% of the damage for every point of the defender's health. A full-health unit in a city (3 stars) takes 30% less; at 5 health it takes 15% less.
• Luck adds 0 to 9 percentage points to each attack.
• Return fire. If the defender survives, is next to the attacker and has a weapon that can hit it, it fires back at once, with the health it has left. Artillery and battleships never fire back, and neither do unarmed units.
• Artillery and battleships fire at targets 2 to 3 squares away (artillery) or 2 to 5 (battleships), only if they haven't moved this turn. Nothing can return fire from that distance, but they can't hit the square next to them.

Capturing

Infantry and bazookas capture buildings. Move onto a building you don't own and choose Capture.

• A building has 20 capture points. Each turn, the soldier removes points equal to its health. A full-health soldier takes a building in two turns; choose Keep capturing on the second turn.
• If the soldier moves away or is destroyed before finishing, the building goes back to 20.
• A captured building earns you income and repairs your units from your next turn.
• Capturing an HQ beats its owner. The HQ then serves you as a city.

Repairs

At the start of your turn, a unit standing on one of your own buildings of the right kind is repaired. Cities, factories and HQs repair land units; airports repair aircraft; ports repair ships.

• Health is shown in whole points, 1 to 10. Any damage below a whole point is made good for free.
• Then the unit gains 2 points for a fifth of its price. If you can't afford that, it gains 1 point for a tenth of its price. If you can't afford that either, it gains nothing.
• A unit on one of these buildings also has its fuel and ammo refilled, whether or not it needed repair.

Carrying units

• A supply truck or transport helicopter carries one infantry or bazooka.
• A landing craft carries two land units of any kind.

To board, move the unit onto the carrier and choose Board the… (it names the carrier). If the carrier is somewhere the unit couldn't normally go (a helicopter over water, a landing craft at sea), the unit can board from the square next to it for 1 movement point. Boarding uses the unit's order for the turn.

To unload, move the carrier and choose Drop off…, then click a square next to it for each passenger. The square must be one the passenger could stand on. A landing craft can drop one unit and keep the other (Keep it aboard). A unit that has been dropped off can't act until the next turn.

If a carrier is destroyed, everything inside it is lost. Units inside a carrier can't fire, and under fog they can't see.

Supply

A supply truck refuels and rearms every friendly unit next to it, aircraft and ships included, automatically at the start of your turn, or at once if you choose Resupply neighbors. Units are also fully resupplied when they are repaired on a building.

Fog of war

A table can turn on fog of war. You then see only what your units and buildings can see. Squares out of sight are shaded.

• Infantry and bazookas on a mountain see 3 squares further.
• Your buildings show their own square.
• Forests hide land units. A land unit in a forest is visible only if one of your units is directly next to it. Aircraft over a forest are always visible.
• You can still see who owns every building, and every side's funds and building count. You can't see other sides' unit counts, what their carriers hold, or their capture progress on buildings out of sight.
• Ambush: if your unit's path runs into an enemy you couldn't see, it stops on the last square before that enemy where it can stand, and its order is lost. Dropping a passenger onto a square with a hidden enemy fails, and the passenger stays aboard.

Sides that have been knocked out, and anyone watching, see the whole map. The fog lifts for everyone when the game ends.

Table options

• Map: a named map, "Random (ranked maps)" or "Random (any map)". Maps for more than two players are marked in the list.
• Fog of war: on or off. Off in ranked games.
• Day limit: 15, 20, 30 or no limit. Ranked games use 20.
• Computer players: easy, normal or hard. "Play with bots" is one on one; at a table, the host can fill more seats with bots.
• Turn timer: Normal, Relaxed (twice as long) or Quick (half as long). Ranked games use Normal.

Leaving a game

In a two-player game, a player who resigns, or who loses their connection and doesn't come back within about a minute, forfeits, and the other player wins. With three or four players, a computer player takes over the seat, the game continues, and the player who left is placed last.

Play Porchlight Wars

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