Climb the sky alone, or take the last throne from seven rivals.
1 · Two Ways to Play
▲ THE ASCENT is the main climb: fifteen altitudes of procedurally built camps, each stronger than the last, then endless — from altitude 16 the camps grow roughly 20% stronger every round until they finish you. You climb alone; there are no rival commanders. Clear altitude 15 to unlock the next tier of the ladder.
⚔ SKIRMISH is the original tournament: you and seven AI rivals each rule an isle with 100 health. Lose a fight and your isle takes damage; reach zero and you fall. From round 16 the Skysunder storm grinds every isle down until one throne is left. Difficulty runs Easy → Brutal++.
2 · The Ascent Ladder
Five tiers, and each one keeps every modifier below it. Tier I — An introductory difficulty to Skysunder. 5 defeats end the run. Then: II Thin Purse (start on 100 less gold) · III Three Falls (a third defeat ends the run) · IV Narrow Host (one fewer banner slot) · V No Second Thoughts (your first relic is final). Higher tiers score harder: ×2 · ×3 · ×4 · ×6 · ×9. Past the summit, Endless keeps scoring through more battles, banners and gold - there is no flat per-altitude bonus.
3 · The Round Loop
PREP — build your town and shop the Bazaar. DEPLOY — place your banners and give them orders, taking as long as you like. BATTLE — the armies fight on their own while you cast with QWER, each spell once per battle. In Skirmish the first four rounds are neutral camps, a gentle on-ramp; from round 5 it is commander against commander.
4 · Know What Is Coming
On the climb you see the exact army you are about to fight before you spend a coin — every banner, every headcount, full stats on hover, and a blunt read on whether you outweigh them. That is the point of the mode: shopping is planning, not guessing. Nothing is hidden and nothing changes between the preview and the battle.
5 · Banner Orders
Every banner carries one of three orders, chosen in DEPLOY and kept between rounds.
⚔ AGGRESSIVE advances and pursues. Right-click your banner to arm, then right-click an enemy banner to hunt them — a thick arrow shows the commitment, and an hourglass on it counts the seconds until they arrive. Right-click empty ground while armed sets Auto (Aggressive, nearest target). The panel flashes amber when nothing is designated.
🛡 DEFENSIVE comes from the same gesture aimed at an ally. Melee shields guard that ally, cutting off whatever closes on them and forcing it to fight; a shield whose charge falls turns Aggressive. Ranged escorts stay near that ally and shoot whoever attacks them — they do not kite off on their own.
⚓ HOLD never advances. Set it by right-clicking a banner to arm, then right-clicking the same banner. It strikes whatever enters its reach and nothing pulls it forward. That safety costs you: a banner that never advances can never earn ground bonus (below). If both armies end up holding, they are shoved into Aggressive rather than staring at each other forever.
6 · Ground Is Worth Damage
The field is banded. A grey neutral strip runs down the middle, and each side has three zones behind it — each one wider and further back. Fighting inside the enemy’s zones pays +10% / +20% / +30% weapon damage, per unit, for wherever that unit is standing. Spells are unaffected.
You do not get this for being aggressive. Both armies advance, so a straight melee clash meets in the neutral strip and nobody earns anything. You earn it by breaking a line and pushing through — roll a backline army off its feet and your troops start hitting a fifth harder.
7 · Gold
Income arrives every round: a base wage, +40 per Treasury level, interest (10g per 100 held, capped at 1,000 held), win/loss streaks, +3 per taxed Peasant, and +5 per Prospector. Hover the income pill for the breakdown. Spend or hoard — both are real strategies.
8 · The Shared Pool
Everyone recruits from one shared pool, the same size no matter how many commanders play. Per unit type the pool holds a multiple of that type’s max stack, thinning as tiers climb: Tier 1 — 2× · Tier 2 — about 1.75× · Tier 3 — about 1.5× · Tier 4 — 1× (rounded to whole men, so small stacks land a little either side). Cards sitting in a Bazaar hold their units; rolling past returns them. A drained type stops appearing until men come back through disbands. Exiling returns the men but bans the type from your shop for good.
9 · The Bazaar
Each roll deals mostly Troops and some Items. Your Town Hall sets the base rarity curve — an untouched town sees only Commons, a maxed Hall deals 10% Legendary. Imprison on a troop card (and a drained shared pool) thins a tier’s live troop odds and lifts the others; the Odds line under Town tracks that. Every recruit card shows its Imprint, a permanent trait the banner is founded with ( good, bad), so reroll and dig for the version you want. Gear appears sparingly until a banner hits its cap; after that, recruit cards for that banner arrive as upgrades instead. Each banner takes at most 3 weapon/armour cards — army-wide upgrades are unlimited. The 🔒 lock keeps a shop one extra round.
10 · Banners
You fly at most five banners, one troop type each. Every banner has a unit cap set to twice its original roster value; cap relics can raise it further. King Tyla grants a sixth banner; Ascent IV takes one away. Disband for a half refund to make room. Each banner shows its category pills and at a glance — hover for the full dossier. In DEPLOY, right-click-drag a squad to stretch it from a clump into a line (spacing follows the drag), and Q/E to change how many files deep it stands. A few living structures and everything you summon take no gear or enchantments.
11 · Winning the Exchange
Fighter and Ranger deal +20% to LIGHT troops. Magic and Hybrid deal +20% to HEAVY armour. Beyond that, troops have their own answers: Crossbowmen ignore half their target’s armour and outrange every bow, Cannoneers and Shieldbreakers punish heavies, cavalry tramples packed lines. Read the enemy’s pills and bring the counter.
🎯 RELENTLESS units cannot be intercepted — no ordinary taunt, no body in the way turns them off their mark (ability taunts still work). The counter is damage, not obstruction: every blow that lands staggers one, costing 20% of its speed for a second (10% if it flies). You wear it down on the way in; you never turn it around.
12 · Buildings, Doctrines & Relics
The Hall raises card quality, the Treasury pays, the Arcanum grants spell boons, the Mana Channeler adds raw potency, the Prison banishes unit types, and the Type Armories train each weight class. Every troop has a Type, Class and Race; Doctrine cards buff a whole category by +8% and stack, so themed armies compound hard. Racial Standards make your army count as one race at half strength, and Race Boons guarantee that race in every shop — one of each per run.
Every 3rd round you draft one of three run-warping relics. The first draft of a run can be rerolled once — the opening relic shapes everything after it, so a dead hand should not end a run before it starts. Ascent V takes that reroll away.
