Ironhold

Issuing an order does not move a unit. It sends a rider, and the rider takes time: one turn from a unit standing beside your keep, three from one out at the far edge of the map. The order appears on the board immediately — as a translucent ghost of the unit, standing where it intends to be, labelled with the turn it will arrive — and both armies can see every ghost, including through fog. So the question is never what a unit should do. It is what the battlefield will look like when the order gets there.

How it plays

• A 16x12 mirrored map, generated from a seed and asserted symmetric — in a one-versus-one game an asymmetric map is a balance bug, so there is never one.
• Three units, each with one job. Spear holds a line and hits Riders half again as hard. Ballista reaches three cells and cannot strike anything adjacent. Rider moves six and its orders always arrive in one turn, because it carries them itself — so it is the only thing you can truly react with, and it has eight hit points.
• Shoot where the ghost is going. A published destination is a legal target, which is how a Ballista punishes a plan instead of chasing a unit. Aim where they were and the order arrives to an empty field.
• Four neutral holds. Standing on one for a turn takes it, and every hold you own is a place orders can be sent from — so taking ground literally buys you responsiveness. The economy and the hook are the same system.
• Two ways to win. Besiege the enemy keep for three turns, or hold all four neutral sites for three. Twenty-four turns, then territory decides.
• No dice. Damage is attack minus the cover the defender is standing in. A game with delayed orders already has all the uncertainty it needs.

Flat vertex colour under one long-shadowed light, in true orthographic isometric — no textures anywhere. A strategy game's first job is being readable.