Choosing your game
Every option above changes how a match plays. Here is what each one does, so you can pick a game that suits the time you have and the challenge you want.
Single player or multi player
Single player puts you against AI commanders and starts as soon as you press Start. It is the best way to learn the game and to try new openings without pressure.
Multi player matches you with other people. Quick match joins the fullest open room or opens a new one with your settings. You can also create a public room, or a private one that friends join with its code or invite link. Seats nobody takes are played by AI commanders, and a room starts by itself once every seat is filled.
Map size
Small maps have 20 islands, medium maps 30 and large maps 40. For a single-player game the server picks a random map of that size from all three worlds, so you may land on a branching archipelago, a map full of loops, or a symmetric mirror map. Read the links in the first seconds and plan around them.
Small maps are fast and decided by the first attacks. Large maps take longer, give you room to expand and reward planning more than speed.
Players and difficulty
Players is the number of commanders on the map, you included, from 2 to 6. More players means more fights at once: a rival busy with someone else is a rival you can surprise.
Difficulty sets how fast the AI commanders move and grow. On Easy they play at half your pace, on Normal at the same pace as you, and on Hard one and a half times faster. Start on Easy or Normal, and move up once you win regularly.
Playing as a guest
You can play without an account. Guests can play every open map, but they earn no rewards and keep no progress, and clearing your browser data ends the guest account. Sign in with a free account to keep your rewards, unlock the maps of each world one by one and see your match history.
How a match plays out
A match starts with the picking phase, where each commander claims a starting island. Then every island you hold produces troops, and you send them along the links to claim free islands and attack rivals. In single player you win by removing every enemy from the map; a match lasts about 13 minutes at most.
New to the game? The how-to-play guide explains the island and forward panels step by step, and the strategy guides cover openings, attacking and defending, map types and soil.