Game Rules

Conflict 2026: Israel vs Iran in the Balance — Rules

1. Game overview

Conflict 2026 is a turn-based political strategy game for one or two players, re-enacting the intricate struggle between Israel and Iran. Players combine diplomacy, economic pressure, information campaigns, military operations, recovery, and long-term investment while managing the danger of escalation and crises.

Each side has four victory paths. You rarely have enough resources and specialists to pursue everything at once, so success depends on choosing a strategy, preparing for it, and reacting when the opponent threatens a faster victory.

2. Winning the game

Victory conditions are checked at the end of each week.

Israel victory paths

Iran victory paths

If both sides complete at least one victory track at the same victory check, the player who won initiative that week wins the game; the winning player's first completed track is recorded as the victory path. If both sides offer a ceasefire to one another and neither side completes a victory track, the game ends in a mutual ceasefire. More than one victory track can be completed at the same check.

3. The weekly turn

Each week follows the same sequence:

1. Weekly news and production: review previous week's most consequential actions, side-player moves, crises, and political or military changes. Weekly Budget and staffed-building production is updated as well.
2. Initiative bid: secretly bid Budget to gain the initiative for the turn. The highest bid wins and get to acts first and to drafts specialists first; ties use the rotating first-player order.
3. Specialist draft: alternate choosing specialists from the shared market.
4. Specialist assignment: assign specialists to buildings or leave them available for strategic actions.
5. Action planning: secretly plan up to five actions within your Action Points and available resources.
6. Action results: resolve both main players' plans and apply successful effects.
7. Side-player results: regional actors, global powers, and organizations take AI-controlled actions.
8. Crisis: aggressive activity may can trigger a crisis such as a leak, civilian casualties, cyber blowback, an exposed arms shipment, or domestic protest. A crisis immediately damages the responsible side's indexes or resources.
9. Victory check: resolve victory paths and mutual ceasefire. If nobody has won, begin the next week.

Plans are submitted simultaneously. Initiative determines resolution order. Targets and actions that become invalid during resolution may fail to produce their intended result.

5. Choosing actions and targets

Players have 5 Action Points and can plan up to five actions. Each action cost 1 Action Point in addition to their required resources and specialists.

Actions are grouped by the game core indices:

• Government: turn stable leadership and functioning institutions into decisive action.
• Military: use military capability to confront the enemy.
• Economy: leverage economic power into to pressure enemy economy.
• Domestic Support: draw on the public’s support and determination to sustain the conflict.
• International Standing: convert diplomatic legitimacy and global support into influence abroad.

Protecting these indexes does more than keep the nation standing—it keeps its actions effective.

Target selection matters in two ways:

1. It can change the success chance. The selected actor's indexes and defensive bonuses can affect the roll. Meet Partner, Request Mediation, Trade Agreement, and Narrative Campaign also become more likely to succeed when relations with the selected actor are stronger.
2. It determines what military damage affects. Military and intelligence attacks route damage according to the selected target:

The target menu only offers targets allowed for that action and faction.

6. National indexes

Indexes describe the long-term condition of a country. They affect action success, survival, production pressure, and victory. Indexes range from 0 to 100 and do not recover automatically between weeks; recovery requires an action or another explicit game effect.

7. Resources

Resources are stored and spent. They do not replace indexes: an index represents national condition, while a resource represents usable capacity for a plan.

Controlled arenas and special actions can grant additional resources. A blockade can reduce Budget and Munitions income. A submitted plan must remain affordable, and each action pays its resource costs when it executes.

8. Specialists

Specialists are persistent personnel drawn from a scarce shared market. The market supplies roughly just around third of projected demand each week. Spending Budget on initiative can therefore secure personnel needed for a particular economic or strategic plan.

A specialist assigned to a building activates one staffing slot but is unavailable for action requirements that week. Leaving specialists unassigned preserves them for actions.

9. Buildings and National development

Buildings are permanent investments. Basic buildings can reach level 3 and advanced buildings level 2. A building's level determines its staffing capacity; each staffed level produces its listed resource. Upgrade costs increase with the destination level, and each faction can own up to 12 distinct buildings out of the available 13.

Basic buildings

The Trade Office requires Revenue Office level 1.

Advanced buildings

10. International arenas, relations, and side actors

Actions such as meeting partners, legal campaigns, narrative campaigns, and trade agreements affect relationships or influence in international arenas. Control requires at least 5 influence and a lead of at least 2 over the opponent.

Each main player's card includes a Relations view showing its principal side-actor relationships on a 0–10 scale. Relations are separate from international-arena influence and control. Better relations improve the success chance of Meet Partner, Request Mediation, Trade Agreement, and Narrative Campaign:

Each arena grants a visible reward for every week it is controlled. Success bonuses accumulate permanently each controlled week; resource rewards are received weekly. A success bonus applies to every action whose primary index matches the bonus. The United States and Russia improve Military success; the United Nations improves International Standing success; the Hague Court improves Government success; and Oman improves Domestic Support success. The European Union grants Diplomacy, Jordan grants Intelligence, Qatar grants Narrative, and China and Saudi Arabia provide their listed weekly resources. Lebanon remains a regional relationship central to Hezbollah De-weaponization but is not an international arena.

Trade Agreement is a once-per-partner economic action available with countries affiliated with the player's side or with neutral countries. China, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan may also make trade agreements with the opposing player despite their political affiliation. Failed Meet Partner and Request Mediation actions reduce relations with the selected partner by 1.

Side actors are AI-controlled. Their behavior reflects their role—aggressor, defender, mediator, opportunist, proxy, or global power—and they may attack, supply, sanction, condemn, mediate, or aid the main factions. Their actions can directly change the board and victory progress, so relationships and regional actors are not merely decorative.

11. Crises and ceasefire

Military operations, intelligence actions, and other destabilizing plans can trigger a crisis. Crises immediately damage the responsible side's indexes or resources and appear in the following week's news.

A successful Offer Ceasefire improves the offerer's International Standing and Domestic Support. Mutual successful offers end the game. A later successful Military or Intelligence action cancels outstanding ceasefire offers involving its actor and target.

12. Strategic packages and faction identity

High-cost breakthrough actions convert several turns of production into large victory-track movement.

Israel can pursue Nuclear Removal, Regime Pressure, Lebanon Alignment, and Economic Siege. It can also secure United States joint operations after controlling the U.S. arena, unlocking allied Air Defense, suppression-strike, interdiction, and sanctions-enforcement support.

Iran can pursue Isolation Campaign, Military Shock, Civilian Unrest, and Government Crisis. It can defend its position with Nuclear Material Dispersal, Emergency Economic Stabilization, and Hezbollah reinforcement.

These packages are powerful but expensive, usually commit a specialist for the week, and can carry escalation or political costs. Opponents can see the economic and building preparation needed for them and should use recovery, defense, diplomacy, or counter-pressure accordingly.

13. Strategy by victory path

Israel

• Remove Nuclear Material: prioritize Intelligence, Munitions, Operations, Intel Cells, and Precision Strike Doctrine. Air Strikes supporting this strategy target Nuclear sites. Save for Nuclear Removal, and act before Iran can repeatedly disperse material.
• Government Overthrow: develop Diplomacy, Legal, Intelligence, and Narrative for Regime Pressure. Air Strikes supporting this strategy target Headquarters so their damage applies to Government. try to obtain Secure Joint Operations as support for this path, allowing Suppression Strikes to add pressure where an Israeli victory condition is closest. Combine direct Government damage with economic and international pressure so Iran must spend turns on several kinds of recovery.
• Hezbollah De-weaponization: treat this as a two-front political objective. Air Strikes and Cyber Attacks supporting this strategy target Lebanese assets so their damage applies to Hezbollah Military. Stop treating military-only actions as victory support once the Military requirement is met. Repeatedly damage Hezbollah or counter its reinforcement while building relations and arena influence in Lebanon. Diplomatic infrastructure is as important as military pressure.
• Economic Collapse: build Legal Bureau, Foreign Ministry, and economic pressure capacity; Air Strikes supporting this strategy target Energy or Port sites so their damage applies to Economy. Combine sanctions, Economic Siege, partner influence, and interdiction. Economy only needs to reach 0 at a victory check, but Iran can use Emergency Economic Stabilization before that check if it still has the resources and opportunity.

Iran

• Political Isolation: build Narrative, Diplomacy, and Legal, then combine Isolation Campaign with side-actor condemnation and arena control. Isolation Campaign relies on Iran's International Standing, so protect that index and contest the United Nations arena to keep the campaign effective.
• Devastating Military Attack: invest in Munitions, Operations, Missile/Drone Complex, and Planners. Layer salvos and drone attacks before committing Military Shock, while denying Israel the U.S. arena and anticipating Air Defense repair.
• Civilian Unrest: develop Media and intelligence capacity, use Unrest packages and political pressure, and force Israel to choose between Public Address, mobilization, and offensive actions. Reduce Israel's Domestic Support to 0 at a victory check to win immediately.
• Government Collapse: combine Government Crisis with Domestic Support pressure and international isolation. Intel Cells and a balanced stock of Intelligence, Legal, Narrative, and Diplomacy are essential. Because collapse must persist for two checks, disrupt Israel's recovery economy and avoid giving it an uncontested quiet week.

14. Action reference

Every listed action costs 1 Action Point. Effects apply on success unless described as launch effects. Damage is severity-scaled; explicitly listed index changes are fixed.

Shared main-player actions

Israel-only actions

Iran-only actions

United States joint-operation actions

These actions become available to the United States after Israel secures Joint Operations.

Appendix: Success and severity

Investment is guaranteed. Other actions make a success roll:

Attack score = base attack for the action's primary index × (current primary index ÷ 100)
             + cumulative matching arena bonus + matching building bonus + relation bonus

Defense score = base defense × (defender's relevant index ÷ 100)
              + defensive building bonuses

Success chance = Attack score − Defense score, limited to 5%–95%

The same primary index determines the action's base attack family and its matching building and arena bonuses. Relation bonuses apply only to the actions described in the Relations section. Narrative Campaign receives no relation bonus when the relationship is untracked.

Successful scalable damage rolls one of four equally likely severity levels:

Launch effects and fixed effects do not scale with severity.