Skirmish Society Rules

These types of games can get a bit heated! Before you start playing, take a look at the Code of Conduct. It's very short.

Skirmish Society is free to install on your Discord! All you need is:

• A Discord you want to play on
• The skirmish-commissioner bot
• 3 to 20 players

If you are installing Skirmish Society on your Discord server for the first time, follow the simple setup guide.

Discord is very bot-friendly and this process does not require any technical know-how.

The first player to gain enough Victory Points (VP) is the winner. The number of VP needed is set by the admin on your server at the start of the game.

Victory Points can be earned in two ways:

• Expansion: As long as they control at least 5 territories, the player with the most territories at the end of a turn will earn one VP. (If multiple players are tied for most territories they each earn 1 VP)
• Farming: Armies on a farm territory can spend their turn farming, earning one VP.

Only one player can win. If two or more players cross the VP threshold on the same turn the one with more VP will win. If they are tied the game will continue until only one player is in the lead.

Each turn, you can tell your armies to Hold, Move, Support, Build, or Farm. These orders are covered in more detail below, but the basics are this:

• A holding army will defend its position.
• A moving army will attempt move to an adjacent (possibly occupied) territory.
• A supporting army stays put and lends its strength to an adjacent move or hold order.
• A building army builds a farm.
• A farming army farms a farm.

Combat happens when an army moves to an occupied territory or when two or more armies try to move to the same empty territory. When this occurs, the army with the most support will win. In a tie, a holding army wins.

You add strength to a move by supporting it, not by having a second army move into the same territory.

You can get new armies by capturing barracks territories. If you have more barracks than current armies, you can deploy new armies.

Any time you'd like a quick summary of the available orders and commands, DM the bot the /cheat_sheet command. You can use that as a fast reference to go along with this more complete rule book.

You can test out these rules in the sandbox. This is a simulation of the game where you control multiple players and can reset at any time. It is recommend that you mess around there a bit to get the hang of the game. Submitting bad orders in the real game can set you back a lot.

If you're not sure how a specific scenario will play out, try testing it in the sandbox before committing your armies to it in the real game.

The only unit in this game is the army. Armies are how the player interacts with the board. Each turn, a player can send an order to each army they have. In combat, these orders will either tell the army to stay put, move to an adjacent territory, or support a nearby army. Armies can also be ordered to build a farm or farm for VP.

Territories are the countries on the board. Some territories are barracks. These are listed in bold and have a symbol. The number of barracks a player controls determines how many armies they can have. You can read more about this in Reinforcement Orders.

Barracks territories can become farms, marked with a . The map does not start with any farms. Farms can be used to gain VP.

Some territories on the border of the map have a dotted line connecting them to a territory on the other side of the map. This is an oversea connection. These two territories are considered adjacent and moving between them is no different than moving between two adjacent landlocked territories. Outside of these overseas connections, the ocean is completely impassible.

All commands in this game happen through slash commands sent to the @skirmish-commissioner bot on your Discord server. After you join the game, you can use those commands in #skirmish-society or in a private DM with the bot.

Slash commands are widely used by Discord bots. They're just messages that start with "/". Discord will attempt to autocomplete any recognized slash command once you start typing it. They will even pop up with a little description of what the command does.

Here I am using /join to join the game:

Try using /help in your #skirmish-society channel to try it out!

Remember, the skirmish-commissioner bot isn't the only part of this game on Discord. All of your fellow players are there too! Talk to them and try to get them on your side.

One communication tool at your disposal is the Broadcast command. This will allow you to have the bot post an anonymous message on your behalf. Broadcast is covered in the Other Commands section.

If you are brand new and want to run a game of Skirmish Society on your Discord Server, follow this simple setup guide to install the bot.

Once the bot has been installed on your server, a mod or a user with the "skirmish society admin" roles can use the

/setup

command to setup the game. The game will be in join mode and players on your server can join by using

/join

in the #skirmish-society channel.

It is recomended that you have at least 5 players, but the game can support up to 20! The more players the better.

When everybody is in, the admin can use

/start

to start the game.

Once the game starts, no new players will be able to join.

During each turn period, you can communicate with other players and submit orders using the /submit command. Orders can be sent publicly in the #skirmish-society channel or secretly via DM with @skirmish-commissioner. Either way, use /submit followed by your order(s). If you are submitting more than one order, separate them with a comma.

On mobile, you may need to tap "orders" when it autocompletes the /submit command.

Submitting three orders could look like this:

/submit BL S CR to SL
/submit TR HL
/submit WB to FL

or like this:

/submit BL S CR to SL, TR H, WB to FL

You can submit your orders for the turn all at once, or send orders throughout the turn period.

You can also replace an order if you realized that you typed something wrong or you changed your mind. If multiple orders are received for the same army, the most recent one will be used and earlier ones will be thrown out. It's fine to send some initial orders knowing you might change them later.

Newer orders will always replace older orders for the same army. No greater importance is given to orders submitted publicly or privately. When the game is resolving orders, the most recent valid order for a given army will be used.

About 5 minutes before the turn resolves, orders will stop being accepted. Do not wait until the last second to submit your orders! You will also not be able to submit for about 5 minutes after the turn resolves.

To make it easier to read, this guide will mostly omit "/submit" when writing out orders. Just assume that if we're talking about submitting orders, the /submit command has been used.

During each turn period, you can submit an order to each army you control. Orders always start with the abbreviation of the territory where that army is now. For instance, to tell my army in Betts Frond to hold and my army in Jilch Nar to move to Aevora, I could submit

BF H
JN to AE

"BF" is the abbreviation for Betts Frond, and "H" is the abbreviation for Hold. "JN" and "AE" are the abbreviations for Jilch Nar and Aevora respectively, and "to" is the command for a move.

Orders are not case sensitive. You can use upper or lower case or a mix.

There are three types of combat orders:

• Hold - army stays put and defends
• Move - army moves to an adjacent territory (moving into an occupied territory is an attack)
• Support - army supports an adjacent army in a move or hold order, increasing the strength of that army by 1

There are two types of farming orders:

• Build - army turns a barracks into a farm
• Farm - army works a farm territory, gaining 1 VP

Once orders are resolved for the turn, they are written in a way to show if they were successful or not. This instruction document will do the same. If an order is successful, it is printed normally. If it failed, it is printed with an underline and tinted red. If an order was invalid, it is printed in grey with a strike through it.

In Orders Example (the image to the right), Red player submitted two orders. JN to AE succeeded. The army moved from Jilch Nar to Aevora. BF to EH failed. The order was valid, but the blue army in Erenhaz blocked the move, causing it to fail.

Blue player also submitted two orders. EH H succeeded, The army in Erenhaz successfully held their ground. VW to JN was invalid because Vinwesh and Jilch Nar are not adjacent. This order was ignored and the army in Vinwesh defaulted to a hold order (which succeeded).

All orders for the most recently resolved turn are shown to the right of the map on the game's main page.

If you miss a turn period, your armies will automatically receive hold orders, so you will not be completely vulnerable.

Any time you want a quick refresher on the available orders, you can DM the bot the /cheat_sheet command for a quick list with examples.

A hold order tells that army to stay put and defend the territory it is in. With no support, it will defend with a strength of 1.

A hold order is the abbreviation of the territory you are ordering to hold and the letter "H" or "hold". Hold orders need no further information beyond the territory doing the hold.

SI H
SI hold

In a conflict, the defender has the advantage. So an army holding without any support will be able to repel an attack from from an unsupported enemy army. In Hold Example, the army in Simm is holding and repels the attack from Obgob.

If no order is submitted for an army in a turn period, they will automatically receive a hold order. This means you don't actually have to submit hold orders for your armies, but you can if you like to write out all of your orders for the turn.

A move order tells an army to leave its current territory and move to an adjacent one. Moving to an occupied territory is how you attack other players. A move order starts with the territory of the army making the move, then the word "to", followed by the target territory.

Because this is such a common order, there are a few other ways you can write it. If you are more familiar with games like Diplomacy, you can also use the "->" symbol (a dash and a less-than symbol to form an arrow) in place of the word "to" or just use ">". The following are all valid ways of writing the same order:

EH to AE
EH -> AE
EH > AE

If the order is successful (the territory being moved into was uncontested, or the attacking army had more strength than the holding army in that territory), the army moves there and the owner of that army now controls that territory. This can be seen in Move Example 1.

You can try out submitting move orders in the sandbox.

An attacking army without support has a strength of 1. A move order fails if a defending army has as much or more strength than the attacking army, or if two armies of equal strength attempt to move into the same territory. When a move order fails, the army stays where it was and is considered to be holding.

Failed move orders are shown on the map as a faded, transparent arrow.

In Move Example 2, Red and Blue both attempt to move an army into Regelix. The two armies bounce and remain where they started. This is called a standoff.

A move order will also fail if the army would kill another army that belongs to the same player.

A string of armies can each move into a territory previously controlled by the others, as long as all armies are in a valid place after resolution.

The only exception is that two armies cannot trade positions. However, three armies can "rotate."

In Move Example 3, several armies move into territories that were occupied, but because each army moved into a new one, there were no conflicts.

However, if any of those move orders fail, it may cause a chain of other failed moves as each army "bonks" into the one in front.

In Move Example 4, the orders are very similiar, but because the army in Filp holds, it causes all of the other move orders in the chain to fail.

Moving two of your armies into a territory will not increase the strength of a move!

All this will do is create a scenario where your two armies are in a standoff and stay where they are. You must use support orders to increase the strength of a move. The same is true for strengthening a hold order. Don't move another army into the territory; use a support order.

In Double Move Example, the Red player tries to move into RG with two armies. Instead of taking it easily, the two armies bounce off each other as if they were on opposing teams.

There may be unusual circumstances where you want to issue two move orders into the same territory, but this is rare.

Some territories on the border of the map are connected via a dotted line over the ocean. These territories are considered adjacent.

This means armies can move between them, and that Support (see next section) can be given between them.

A support order pledges that army's strength to a Hold or Move order that ends in an adjacent territory. Support orders allow you to work with yourself or others to acomplish your goals. A supported Move order is the only way to kill an opponent's army. You can give and receive support from other players.

While reading this section, you might want to try submitting some support orders in the sandbox.

Support orders must start with the abbreviation of the territory your army is in, and then list the full order that is being supported. (For instance, you cannot just order the army in Obgob to support a move from Regelix, but must specify that Obgob is supporting a move from Regelix to Simm.)

RG to SI
OG S RG to SI

Assuming the support order succeeds, an order receiving support will have its strength increased by 1. In Support Example 1, Blue player defeats the Red army in Simm because support from Obgob increased the strength of the move order to 2.

Support orders are shown on the map as hash lines.

Hold orders can also receive support. The total strength of an attacking army must beat the strength of the holding army. Ties go to the defender. In Support Example 2, we see the same attack from Blue, but this time Red player has the army in Filp support the hold order in Simm. The army in Simm now has a strength of 2, matching the strength of the Red attack from Regelix.

SI H
FI S SI H

When supporting a hold order, you only need to list the territory that is holding (You can leave off the 'H').

FI S SI

The above order will be understood as Filp supporting a hold order in Simm.

Orders can receive support from any number of adjacent units.

Note: a support order can succeed and the order it is supporting can still fail. Likewise, a support order can fail, but the order it was supporting could still succeed. In Support Example 2, The OG S RG to SI order was sucessful (support was given) even though the RG to SI order failed.

When supporting a move order, the army giving the support must be in a territory adjacent to the location being moved to. It does not need to be adjacent to the source.

In Support Example 3, Sogrash is able to support the army in Obgob moving to Betts Frond, because Sogrash is adjacent to Betts Frond. Sogrash would not be able to support a move from Betts Frond to Obgob.

You can support orders from your own armies as well as other players. Support cannot be refused, even if it is unwanted. When offering support to another player's move order, you'll need to know exactly what they intend to write and match it with your support order.

In Support Example 4, Blue fears an attack from Red, and has convinced Green to help them out by having the green army in Aevora support the holding army in Regelix. Maybe they convinced Green that Red is the real threat and that if Red takes Regelix, Green's territory will be next.

Note: Although support cannot be refused, a player's army cannot kill another army controlled by the same player no matter how much support it has.

In a standoff (where multiple armies try to move into the same territory), the army with the most support will win and the other armies will bounce, remaining where they started.

In Support Example 5, Red and Blue both try to move an army to Regelix. Blue is unsupported and has a strength of 1. Red has support from Margalb and has a strength of 2, winning the standoff.

Support can be cut by attacking the territory of the army providing support. Even if the attack is not successful, the supporting army will have to defend itself and will hold instead of supporting.

In Cut Support Example 1, the Red army in Margalb tries to take Aevora with support from Regelix, but the Blue army in Filp cuts support. Even though the move order from Filp to Regelix was unsuccessful, it was still enough to cut support, forcing the army in Regelix to hold.

On the map, cut support is shown as a faded grey hash line.

The only exception to this is that support will not be cut if an army supporting an attack on another territory is attacked from that territory. (This would effectively allow the defending army to single-handedly repel an attack with 2 strength.)

In Cut Support Example 2, the Red army in Margalb attacks Aevora with support from Regelix. The Blue army in Aevora attempts to move to Regelix to cut support, but it fails because Regelix is supporting an attack into Aevora.

You cannot support a support order. Sending support to a territory performing their own support order will be treated as a support hold order. If that army is attacked the support will be cut no matter what, but you can still send support to prevent that army from being killed.

In Cut Support Example 3, Red player's army in Aevora tries to support Green's move. Blue Player attacks Aevora with support. Normally this would cut support and kill the Red army there. However, Red used their army in Jilch Nar to support Aevora.

A build order tells an army to transform the barracks territory they are in into a Farm. Farms can be used to generate VP. A build order will permanently take away the barracks status of the territory.

Farms are identified by the icon and by a more ordered version of the player's pattern.

A build order is written as the barracks territory where the army is followed by "B" or "Build"

EH B
EH Build

A build order can only be issued to an army in a barracks territory. If it succeeds the territory will no longer be a barracks. It will be a farm instead.

A build order should be carefully considered as losing a barracks sets back your ability create new armies. Furthermore, Farms are not player-specific and can be captured by another player.

In Build Example 1, Blue player ordered their army to turn Erenhaz into a farm. It is no longer a barracks and will no longer be counted when determining their max army size.

You can try out submitting build orders in the sandbox.

Much like support, build orders can be cut. Any army moving into the territory of the building army will force it to hold instead of building (even if the attack fails).

Build orders cannot receive support. Any support sent to a farming army will be hold support in the event that they are attacked. This behaves identically to Cut Support Example 3.

A farm order tells the army receiving it to work the farm and gain one VP. An army receiving a farm order must be in a farm territory. A successful farm order is marked by a "+1VP" under the army.

A farm order is written as the farm territory where the army is followed by "F" or "Farm"

EH F
EH Farm

Before you can send a farm order you will have to use a build order to create a farm or capture a farm from another player.

In Farm Example 1, Blue earns 1 VP. This is in addition to any other VP they may have earned this turn (for example, from having the most territories).

If you control more than one farm territory, you can issue more than one farm order in a turn. You will generate 1 VP for each successful farm order.

Much like support and build orders, farm orders can be cut. Any army moving into the territory of the farming army will force it to hold instead of farming (even if the attack fails).

Farm orders cannot receive support. Any support sent to a farming army will be hold support in the event that they are attacked. This behaves identically to Cut Support Example 3.

In Farm Example 2, Blue player tries to farm Erenhaz, but their army is forced to hold instead because of a move from Aevora. Even though the move was unsuccessful, the farm order was still cut and no VP is generated.

You can try out submitting farm orders in the sandbox.

If a hold order fails (including a different order that was converted to a hold order because it was interrupted), that army is killed. The victorious army is shown standing over the defeated army.

Dead armies are immediately removed from the board. The losing army icon is shown to make it easy to see that there was combat, but this unit is no longer on the board and cannot receive orders. (For those familiar with Diplomacy, there is no retreat phase in this game.)

In Dead Army Example, the Red army in Simm was killed by the Blue army moving from Regelix. The victorious Blue army is shown over the defeated Red army. Simm now belongs to Blue player.

You can add armies to the map if you have fewer armies than barracks. To do this, you submit a move order from the Reinforcements (abbreviated as "REF") to a barracks you control. Armies can only be added to barracks territories (marked with a icon).

The Reinforcements exist outside of the game. Armies can be moved from this zone to the game board. A reinforcement order is a move order that starts in "REF".

REF to MA

If you'd like you can also leave out the "to".

REF MA

The above will also be recognized as a reinforment order to MA.

In Reinforcement Example 1, Red player controls two barracks (Margalb & Aevora), but has only one army, so they can submit a reinforcement order if they choose to.

You can try out submitting reinforcement orders in the sandbox.

Sucessful reinforcement orders are shown as a saluting army icon.

A player can only submit one move from REF each turn. For instance, if a player has 2 armies but 4 barracks and wants to deploy two new armies, they would have to do it over two turns. They could also choose to do nothing; players are not required to submit reinforcement orders.

A reinforcement order must start in REF and end in a barracks controlled by that player. In Reinforcement Example 1, Red could not have moved the reinforcement army into Regelix because Regelix is not a barracks.

Although REF is not on the board and cannot be moved to, these orders follow all of the same rules as a standard move order. They can be blocked if the target territory has an army in it, or if another army tries to move into that territory. They can also be supported by armies adjacent to the territory that the reinforcement army is moving into.

In Reinforcement Example 3, Red's reinforcement order into Margalb fails because Blue's army in Filp tries to move into the same territory. The Blue order also fails because the two armies are in a standoff.

Failed reinforcement orders are shown as a little X next to the barracks icon.

In Reinforcement Example 4, Red's reinforcement order into Margalb succeeds because this time it has support from the army in Aevora. The support gives the reinforcement order a strength of 2, beating the strength of 1 from the Blue army in Filp.

The only restrictions on a move order from REF are:

• The player controls more barracks than armies the turn it was submitted
• The move target is a barracks controlled by the player making the order

It may not be immediately obvious what will happen if you submit a build order and a reinforcement order on the same turn

The validity of a reinforcement order is determined by how many barracks and armies a player has at the start of order resolution. So if a player has 3 barracks and 2 armies, they can submit a reinforcement order and build order that turn. If all of their orders succeed they will end the turn with 3 armies and 2 barracks.

In this example, the Red player has 3 barracks and 2 armies. They want to convert Mojack to a farm, but they also want to get a new army while they still have more barracks than armies, so they submit a reinforcement order to Kruff.

This is all legal! If no other player interferes both of these orders will go through. They now have more armies than barracks and will not be able to submit more reinforcement orders until they gain barracks or lose armies as described in the next section.

In the course of the game, a player may find themselves with more armies than barracks. For instance, they may have moved their forces out and another player moved in and took those barracks without having to kill those armies. This is fine; nothing happens. Players can have more armies than barracks. However, they will not be able to submit reinforcement orders until they capture more barracks, or they suffer enough losses that their number of armies is lower than the number of barracks they still have.

On some turns, the commissioner bot will announce a voting event. This means some special effect will affect orders submitted on the following turn. These effects can be positive or negative. There are no votes in the first few turns, so you don't need to worry about this until the bot announces a vote.

If a vote is happening, it is announced an hour after the turn resolves. The vote will be between two effects that will take effect on the following turn (this delay makes sure that everybody knows exactly how their orders will be affected when they submit). The bot will also announce which effect will be chosen in the event of a tie.

Players have until order resolution to vote. When the turn is resolved the winner of the vote will be announced and that effect will happen on the following turn. This means that when submitting orders, you will always know if they will be affected by a voting event.

The effect from a voting event only last a single turn. These effects are not cumulative.

In addition to being announced by the skirmish-commissioner bot, the homepage of the game will always list any events being voted on as well as any events that could affect orders for that turn period. You can mouse over the name of the vote to see what it does.

Once a vote has been announced, you can vote for the effect that you want using the /vote command. Voting must be done in the public channel and not over DM. You can choose not to vote, but one of the two effects will happen even if nobody votes.

A vote for an effect named "Feast" would look like this:

/vote FEAST

Once you vote, the bot will tally the current results.

You can only vote once in a given turn. Players must have armies on the board in order to vote.

As the game progresses you may find that you've fallen behind. If this happens, you have the option of joining up with another player. If you do this, your territories and armies will be combined and you will form a new joint-player that you both control.

When two players join forces, the new player will have both of their names separated with a slash. For all gameplay purposes they are a single player. All territories and armies that either player had now belong to the new joint-player. Either one can submit orders to the bot for any army they control. The joint-player will get the Victory points of whichever player had less VP after that turns resolution.

During voting events, the joint-player will get a single vote.

Here the blue and green players joined forces. They are now a single purple player.

Remember: joining forces is no replacement for good old fashioned alliances and handshake deals. Nobody can join forces until somebody has taken the lead so don't wait to make friends!

Requirements to Join Forces

Joining forces is a way for players to get back in the game, not a way for the players in the lead to ensure victory. For that reason, there are a few rules that must be satisfied for two players to join forces:

• The combined territory count of the two players cannot be greater than the highest territory count among players
• At least one of the players has 3 less VP than the player in first place
• Neither player has already joined forces with somebody else

Here's a bit more info about each requirement:

• The combined territory count of the two players cannot be greater than the highest territory count among players

For example imagine Player A has 8 territories, Player B has 6, Player C has 4 and Player D has 2. Player A has the most (regardless of their VP), so 8 is the max size after joining forces. Players B and C cannot join forces because their total would be 10. B and D can join though because they would be exactly at 8. C and D are definitely good!

• At least one of the players has 3 less VP than the player in first place

At least one member of the new joint team must be behind on victory points. For example, if the first place player has 5 VP, at least one half of the joint-player must be at 2 VP or less.

The reason only one player needs to satisfy this requirement is that when players join forces, the new joint-player will get the Victory Points of whichever player had less VP after that turns resolution. If a player with a lot of VP joins with a player who has 0, the joint-player will have 0.

The VP requirement means that nobody can join forces until at least one player has reached 3 VP.

• Neither player has already joined forces with somebody else

Joining forces is for keeps and you can only do it once!

These requirements are checked only when the join forces request is made. Either player can gain territories or VP that turn and it won't invalidate the request.

Join Forces Requests

To join forces, both players must agree on the same turn that they want to combine their resources. This is done by sending requests in the public channel. Both players must request to join forces with the other for it to work.

To join forces with a player named Fictitious Fiona you would use

/join_forces @FictitiousFiona

And if Fiona is on board with this plan, she would use

/join_forces @YourName

Here's how it looks typing out the command:

Here's how it looks in Discord (assuming both players agreed to join forces):

Joining Forces Victory Point Examples

The new joint account will always have the VP of whichever player has less VP after resolution. This means players can potentially earn VP the turn they request to join forces, but only if they both increase their VP (if they started with the same amount) or if the player with less earns VP through farming. Here are some examples of what would happen with different values:

If Player A has 4 VP and Player B has 3VP, when they join forces the new Player A/B will have 3 VP.

If A and B submit join forces requests and Player B farms for 1 VP that turn, Player A/B will have 4 VP because A and B both have 4VP after resolution.

If both A and B farm for 1 VP, Player A/B will still have 4 VP because Player A will end the turn with 5 and B will end the turn with 4. A/B will inherit B's 4VP because it is lower. Player A probably should have done something else with their turn.

If you control no armies and no barracks territories, you are out of the game.

Players with no armies who still control one or more barracks can submit reinforcement orders to try and get back on the board.

You can change the color and pattern used to show your territory and armies. Each one has a command you can send to @skirmish-commissioner either publicly or over DM.

If you want to change your color, you can use /color [number] where [number] is a value between 1 and 20.

For exmaple, to set your color to purple, you would use /color 16.

Here are the color choices:

You can set what pattern appears on your territories. You must enter a number between 1 and 8. For instance, to select pattern 5 you can use /pattern 5.

If you have purchased the High Society Account Upgrade you get access to 8 more funky patterns:

If you're enjoying the game, you can upgrade your account with the High Society upgrade. This provides no in-game advantage but does offer some helpful tools and gives you access to fun aesthetic options.

In addition to the new patterns you can select from (9-16 in the image above!), if you upgrade to High Society the bot will automatically check your orders to make sure they're valid. No more finding out at resolution time that you typed something wrong! Doing this requires the backend to load and resolve the board every time an order is sent, which is a heavy operation. The cost of doing this adds up in server fees which is why this is restricted to High Society accounts.

Admins with the High Society upgrade will also get access to new admin commands.

You can buy a High Society key from the shop. After you purchase you will get an email with your activation key.

You can redeem your key using the redeem command.

/redeem [YOUR_KEY]

Buying a High Society upgrade helps me cover server costs and supports development of this game. As an indie dev, it really helps!

The vast majority of what you send to the bot will be orders, but there are a few other commands you can use besides /submit.

Unless otherwise stated these commands can be used in the public #skirmish-society or in a DM with the bot.

To start playing, use /join in the #skirmish-society channel. You'll be prompted to respond over DM, but you must start this process in the public channel so that the bot knows which server you are playing on.

Once the game has started, new players will not be able to join.

If you decide that you do not want to keep playing, you can use /resign to quit.

During the join phase, this command will just remove you from the game. You can still rejoin as long as the game is still in the join phase.

Once the game has started, this command will permanently remove you from the game. Your armies will receive hold orders until captured by other players. This will automatically turn off notifications as well. Be careful: This cannot be undone.

This posts a link to the current board, the rules, and some info about the current state of the game. Use /help and the bot will reply with the links.

Prints out a list of the orders with examples.

Just use /cheat_sheet over DM or in the public channel.

You can have the bot anonymously post a message to the public channel. DM /broadcast [your message] to have the skirmish-commissioner send out your message.

This command is used during a voting event. See Voting Events for info on how to use it.

ex: /vote FEAST

By default the bot will DM you two times per day. Once to tell you resolution will happen soon and once to tell you how your orders resolved. You can disable this by using /notifications false or enable it again by using /notifications true

If you change your display name for the server, you can use /refresh_name to have your name updated on the map.

This will happen automatically if you change your color, change your pattern, vote, or submit an order from the public channel.

This only works in the public channel because the bot cannot see your server nickname over DM.

The bot can list the orders you have submitted so far for this turn along with your valid orders from last turn. Although you can use /list in the public channel it would be wiser to do it over DM. If you post this publicly, all of your currently submitted orders will be revealed.

Use /hint to get a random hint.

In case you need some sage advice from tacticians of yesteryear you can use /call_of_duty_loading_screen.

This is similar to /hint except that it is useless.

You will need at least one admin to play the game. This must be a mod on the server (any user with the Manage Server permission) or a user with the "skirmish society admin" role. It is fine to have multiple admins.

In addition to being able to setup & start the game, users with this role have access to additional tools to help them run the game. All of these commands must be used in the public channel.

This role does not need any special permissions and can be any color, but it must be named "skirmish society admin" because that is what the bot will be looking for.

You do not need to create "skirmish society admin" if the person running the game already has Manage Server permissions on your server. This role is only needed you want to let somebody who is not a server mod run the game.

If you have purchased the High Society upgrade, you get access to special admin commands to let you take even more control of how you run the game.

Creates a new game room. This will overwrite any game in progress.

Use /setup to start the setup. The bot will ask you a few questions and then create a room for you.

This process is described in detail in the simple setup guide.

Once all players are in, this command starts the game!

Pauses the game, preventing turn resolutions until the game is unpaused.

Resumes a paused game. Resolution will not happen until the normal resolution time.

Enables or disables the use of the broadcast command for all players.

Bans a player from the game, causing the bot to ignore any orders from this player. This command is formatted as /ban @NAME_OF_PLAYER.

For example, to ban JohnFakeName, you would write /ban @JohnFakeName.

In the join phase, banning a player will remove them from the game. If unbanned before the game starts, they can use the /join command again to rejoin.

If the game has started, the bot will ignore orders from a banned player, but they are not automatically resigned. If unbanned, they can continue playing.

Unbans a player. This command is formatted as /unban @NAME_OF_PLAYER.

Changes when the game will resolve. This command is formatted as /resolution_time [HOUR].

HOUR can be an integer between 0 and 23 and can optionally include AM or PM at the end. The time will be based on the local time for the game.

For example, to have the game resolve at 6AM local time, you could use /resolution_time 6 or /resolution_time 6AM.

To have it resolve at 2PM local time, you could use /resolution_time 14 or /resolution_time 2PM.

Changes the local time zone for the game. This is done by inputting the current hour where you are. This command is formatted as /local_time [HOUR].

Just like /resolution_time, HOUR can be an integer between 0 and 23 and can optionally include AM or PM at the end. For example, if it is 6:45AM where you are, put "6" or "6AM". If it is 2:03PM, put "14" or "2PM".

After you put in the hour, the bot will ask you to confirm your time zone.

Changing the local time zone will not alter the time when the game will resolve.

Note: right now this game does not check daylight savings time, so you may want to use this command if the clocks change in your area.

This completely deletes the room and removes all players. You will not be able to view the map or anything after using this. Be very careful with this; it cannot be undone.

You do not ever need to use this since you can always use /setup to start a new game, but it is available if you want to stop a game in progress or bail on a game that is still in the join phase.

Players cannot join multiple games of Skirmish Society, so this is one way to free players up if a game has not started yet. Those players can also use the /resign command individually.

If you are in charge of the game and you have the High Society upgrade there are a few other powerful admin commands you can use to run your server.

These commands will only work if the user submitting them has purchased the High Society upgrade and could otherwise use admin commands (they are a mod on the server or a user with the "skirmish society admin" role).

Although it is not the intended way to play the game, if you want to play a much faster version of the game you can set the bot to resolve the turn every 15 minutes. This can be useful if you want to stream the game or play it in one sitting.

This can be turned on or off at any time, so you could also use fast mode to speed through the first few turns of a game before setting it back to every 24 hours. In general though, the gameplay will be better if you let the game play out at the intended, slower pace.

You can turn on fast mode with the command /fast_mode true.

And turn it back off with /fast_mode false.

The pause command will still work in fast mode in case you want to split the game up between multiple sessions.

Just like the normal setup command, but with more options so you can better tailor your game!

You will need to provide several pieces of information when you enter the command:

• vp: the amount of VP needed to win (up to 50).
• current_hour: the current time where you are. Formatted like you would for /local_time.
• fast_mode_enabled: True if you want to play in Fast Mode, False if you want a normal game.
• resolution_hour: The hour you want turns to resolve. Formatted like you would for /local_time. (put any value if you are using Fast Mode).
• votes: Voting frequency. Every turn, every other turn, or disabled.
• vote_start_turn: The turn that voting should start. Enter any value if votes have been turned off.

There are some extra options which you can set when using advanced setup

• map_type: How much room players have.
• Normal: The intended experience.
• Spacious: There will be more unclaimed territories and slightly more barracks. Note that spacious maps will have much less conflict.
• voting_mode: How voting will work.
• Normal: The intended experience. Voting will work the way it is described in this rules document
• Same Day: An experimental mode where votes are resolved the same turn they are announced and affect the orders submitted that turn. Votes can be placed in secret and players do not know the outcome when submitting orders.
• Same-day votes create much more tactical uncertainty when submitting orders. This setting is for groups that want a game that leans more on the social elements. It is not recomended for new players.
• hints: True if you want the bot to give hints, False to disable hints.

Once your account has High Society, you can start typing /advanced_setup and the bot will prompt you to enter all necessary information.

The optional settings can be accessed by clicking the "+3 more" text after filling out the required settings or by pressing tab once you have filled in all the required info. On mobile, they should appear above the text box once you have entered all of the required info.

Undoes the most recent turn resolution, rewinding the gamestate to the previous turn.

The orders for that turn will be stored as submitted orders (which can be overwritten with new ones). Any votes cast for a voting event will be lost and will need to be resubmitted.

Do not do this lightly. The rewind command should be reserved for weird mitigating factors that caused players to miss the turn or to undo an early turn if players greatly misunderstood the rules.

Thank you for checking out this game! I hope you have a good time with it!

Skirmish Society is being actively developed. I am trying to make it freely available to play but server costs may add up and I may have to charge to start a game. In the meantime, the best way to support the game and its development is to purchase a High Society account. It's cheap and gives you access to goodies! If you're enjoying the game, it really helps.

Direct questions/feedback/whatever to Andy (andy[at]andymakes[dot]com).

You can also join the Skirmish Society Society on Discord. This is the official Discord group for the game. You can use it to talk strategy, report bugs or find people to play with.

If you are curious about how the game has changed over time, have a look at the Changelog.

Thanks for reading this far!

• Design & Programming by Andy Wallace
• Frontend Programming by Walt Mitchell and Nick Santaniello
• Icons by Chris Hernandez
• Additional Backend Programming by Dustin Long
• Trailer by Trash Panda QC
• Skirmish Commissioner Icon by lastspark

Licenses and Credits