Game Modes

Game Modes

Every enemy system that is not a boss system rolls each game mode separately, at the rate set by the difficulty tier. The active modes appear under Game Modifiers in Planetary Intelligence and on a bar in the live game, for example "Sudden Death | Bounties x0.3".

The four modes

Mode	Tooltip	Rolled at	Notes
Bounties	"BOUNTIES: earn an economic multiplier for every kill."	25% on every tier	Each army you destroy raises your economy by the bounty value. Enemies earn bounties too. The base game hides the modifier from the player list, but it shows below your economy bar
Land Anywhere	"LAND ANYWHERE: players can start anywhere on viable starting planets."	20% on every tier	Each starting planet's landing zone covers the whole planet, so you can land anywhere on it. The AI ignores this and lands in the usual zones
Sudden Death	"SUDDEN DEATH: any commander death on a team kills the entire team."	10% on every tier	Losing a Sub Commander loses the battle
Eradicate	"ERADICATE: all units of specific types must be eradicated."	20% Beginner and Casual, 15% Iron and Bronze, 10% Silver and above	One to three unit types are picked from Colonels, Factories, and Fabbers, on top of the Commander, which is always listed. The type the game labels "Sub Commanders" is the Colonel unit, not your Sub Commanders. Eradicate is hidden when Sudden Death is also on

Bounty value by tier: 0.5 on Beginner and Casual, 0.4 on Iron and Bronze, 0.3 on Silver and Gold, 0.2 on Platinum and Diamond, and 0.1 on Uber.

Four cards force a mode on in every system for the rest of the war: Bounty Tech, Land Anywhere Tech, Sudden Death Tech, and Eradication Tech. See Stat Tech.

FFA systems

In every non-boss system, each other enemy faction has a 25% roll to contest it. A contesting faction fields a shared army of Commanders, half as many (rounded up) as the primary faction's Commanders plus one, holding the same AI tech as the primary faction. It fights you and the primary faction alike. A system taken by a contesting faction falls when that faction's boss is defeated. Under the Cluster faction every contesting force is a Security stack (see Factions).

Allied Commanders

A non-boss system may host an allied Commander, at the tier's rate (100% on Beginner, down to 5% on Diamond and Uber). The ally comes from your faction, fights as your race with your ally brain and a normal economy, is marked ALLY in Planetary Intelligence, and halves the system's Threat Level. No system hosts an ally while you hold the Space Excavation Commander or Tourist Commander loadout.

Bosses and shared armies

Bosses and contesting factions use shared armies, so one enemy army can hold several Commanders. That gives it more build power and more lives, and lets it connect planets very quickly. Each Commander in a shared army picks its own landing spot, so their bases can be spread across the system.