Arena Rubra Digital turns the rules into an environment that can be executed repeatedly, inspected and revised. The visible match is only one part of the application.
Deck tools, map authoring, tutorials, AI opponents, history, telemetry and diagnostics make the browser version useful both to players and to the design process itself.
Executable rules
The browser build resolves movement, combat, states, targeting, ENE, deployment and victory checks as an executable rules environment rather than a static presentation.
Control Center
Play, card tools, maps, analysis, settings, version information and diagnostics are gathered into one operational hub.
Cards & decks
A card library, rendered card data and deck-building workflows let the content layer be inspected and changed without losing the rules context.
Maps
Official and custom battlefields can be inspected, validated and edited through a dedicated hex-map workflow.
Guided tutorials
Structured lessons use narrator overlays, highlights and controlled states to teach rules inside the actual game.
AI opponents
Automated players are used both as opponents and as repeatable behavioural test subjects for faction doctrines.
Telemetry & history
Match state, seeds, economy, card use and other runtime evidence can be exported and inspected instead of relying only on memory.
Diagnostics
Debug, logs, import/export and explicit baseline information make regressions easier to reproduce and compare.
A project with instruments
The game carries its workshop with it.
The Control Center exposes the parts normally hidden behind a development build: content, maps, statistics, telemetry, logs, version state, settings, diagnostics and archive operations.
That matters because a behavioural problem can be traced through evidence instead of being reduced to “the match felt wrong.”
The five factions
One canonical identity, expressed through executable doctrine.
The common faction descriptions below come from the shared Arena Rubra data source used by both Digital and Tabletop. The digital branch adds a testing interpretation rather than maintaining a second copy of the canon.
Nexus
ControlNetworksEfficiencyStrategic Points
Nexus creates dependable deployment lines, contests Strategic Points efficiently and answers threats with precise tools. Its danger increases as infrastructure matures and the opponent loses room to manoeuvre.
Battlefield identity
Balanced, methodical combined arms supported by structures and battlefield systems.
Strategic philosophy
Order comes from preparation, redundancy and efficient responses to changing conditions.
Wants to control
Strategic Points, deployment networks and the central flow of the map.
Creates pressure through
Reliable infrastructure, denied enemy options and the gradual conversion of map control into an inevitable advance.
A machine intelligence created to restore order, whose perfect efficiency became an oppressive and dehumanising system. Cold, precise and imperturbable.
Plays like: building a machine that answers every problem, then closing the map around the opponent.
Exordium
Combined ArmsFormationForward PressureCommand
Exordium combines heavily armed infantry, vehicles and offensive tactics, often reaching full potential when a Commander leads the assault. It wants the centre because the centre creates opportunity.
Battlefield identity
Aggressive formations, powerful vehicles and concentrated frontal force.
Strategic philosophy
Opportunity belongs to those willing and able to seize it; momentum must be converted into decisive action.
Wants to control
The central front, key approach lanes and the spaces from which a massed assault can be launched.
Creates pressure through
Compact formations, superior combat values, offensive tactics and commander-led breakthroughs.
A civilisation born among exiles and abandoned territories, rising from a settlement into the first power capable of challenging Nexus. Revolutionary in origin, martial in expansion, bound by a shared creed.
Plays like: assembling a war column, taking the centre and breaking the enemy line at full force.
Liberti
NumbersMobilityAttritionRaiding
Liberti units become dangerous through numbers, mobility and coordinated positioning. They exploit flanks, punish isolated units and try to decide the battle before slower factions can stabilise.
Battlefield identity
Fast, numerous raiders built around mobility, encirclement and violent early attacks.
Strategic philosophy
Strength is proven in action; hesitation gives the enemy time to organise.
Wants to control
Flanks, open routes, isolated targets and the tempo of the early game.
Creates pressure through
Cheap mobile units, numerical superiority, positional attack bonuses, bleeding and repeated attacks from unexpected angles.
Raiders, guerrillas and outcasts of the Wild Lands, armed with repurposed machinery and governed by strength, reputation and the culture of the Arena.
Plays like: starting a running fight, surrounding exposed targets and winning before the battlefield can stabilise.
Agathoi
ResilienceStructuresRecoveryFortification
Agathoi establish territory rather than merely occupying it. Resilient infantry, defensive machinery and interlocking Structures reward patience, mutual support and measured counter-advance.
Battlefield identity
Resilient defenders who turn structures, terrain and formation into long-term strength.
Strategic philosophy
Hold what matters, cultivate strength patiently and advance only when the ground has been made secure.
Wants to control
Defensive lines, connected strongpoints, Strategic Points and the territory immediately around their infrastructure.
Creates pressure through
Attrition, durable formations, defensive reinforcement and a gradual advance that becomes increasingly difficult to reverse.
Agrarian communities, builders and guardians of living land, deeply suspicious of digital technology and fiercely protective of their territory. Peaceful by inclination, formidable when rooted.
Plays like: growing a fortress across the battlefield until defence itself becomes an advance.
Fabeot
EconomyDisruptionDenialManipulation
Fabeot attacks the systems behind the battle. It manipulates ENE, information and timing, reduces the enemy’s good choices and turns uncertainty into control.
Battlefield identity
Indirect control, resource manipulation, information warfare and modular disruption.
Strategic philosophy
The visible battle is only one layer of the conflict; knowledge and obedience decide what happens before force is required.
Wants to control
ENE flow, information, enemy timing and the opponent’s ability to execute a clean plan.
Creates pressure through
Sabotage, denial, stolen resources, summoned or contracted assets and effects that force the enemy to act under uncertainty.
A secret order operating through agents, influence and hidden hierarchies. Corporate, occult and conspiratorial; black attire, red shoes and the sense that every public event conceals another design.
Plays like: fighting the opponent’s plan rather than their army, then striking when their options collapse.
nexus
Digital doctrine work focuses on stable network growth, Strategic Point commitment and converting a mature position into actual offensive projection.
exordium
The AI is tested for combined-arms timing, Commander deployment, forward commitments and the ability to turn formation into sustained assault.
liberti
Digital tests watch whether numbers and aggression become useful pressure rather than simple clustering or wasteful exposure.
agathoi
The rules environment makes it possible to test whether resilience and Structures eventually create movement and counter-pressure instead of permanent passivity.
fabeot
Automated play is used to inspect whether economic disruption, denial and conditional effects genuinely alter enemy decisions rather than merely add noise.
Testing lab
The game is also its own test lab.
Arena Rubra has not been balanced only on paper. Across development, more than one thousand matches have been used to observe how the rules behave when strategies collide repeatedly. Testing combines manual matches, player-versus-AI sessions, bot-versus-bot simulations, repeated faction matchups, reversed starting positions, telemetry inspection, runtime logs, targeted regression tests, balance experiments and doctrine-specific AI tests.
A rule can sound elegant and still produce bad games. Arena Rubra treats the match itself as evidence.
Telemetry is treated as design evidence, not decoration.
What we test
Winning is only one signal.
Faction behaviour
Does each faction actually play differently?
Map pressure
Do Strategic Points create movement rather than static clustering?
Economy
Does ENE produce meaningful trade-offs?
Match length
Do victory conditions resolve games without arbitrary endings?
Card value
Is a strong card strong because of cost, position or raw efficiency?
AI doctrine
Can automated players express faction identity rather than generic tactics?
Edge cases
Can the rules survive unusual combinations and long matches?
Usability
Can players understand what happened and why?
One world. Two playable forms.
Digital and Tabletop test different weaknesses.
Arena Rubra Digital and Arena Rubra Tabletop are two expressions of the same strategy system. Digital play accelerates iteration, telemetry and large-scale balance testing; tabletop play exposes the physical clarity, pacing and decision weight of every rule. Each version tests the other, and both evolve from the same strategic core.
The goal is not numerical identity between the two versions. The goal is preservation of the same strategic character while each medium is allowed to demand different solutions.
Real development captures. Click any frame to inspect the full image.
Open ↗Current match interface — battlefield, objectives, ENE, hand management and card inspection in one live view.Open ↗Tactical zoom — movement geometry, occupancy, Strategic Points and unit state remain visible during decisions.Open ↗Control Center — play, cards, maps, telemetry, history, diagnostics and archive tools gathered into one hub.Open ↗Map Editor — map geometry, Strategic Points, terrain, hazards, validation and import/export are editable directly.Open ↗Guided tutorials explain rules through controlled game states, narrator overlays and highlighted interactions.Open ↗Telemetry snapshots preserve match evidence for diagnosis, comparison and regression testing.Open ↗Starter Game build identity — a playable public branch inside a larger active development project.
AI-assisted, human-directed
AI is used throughout Arena Rubra development as an engineering and analysis partner: to reason about systems, propose implementations, investigate regressions, inspect telemetry and help translate design requirements into code.
That does not remove the need for direction. Rules still have to be chosen. Builds still have to be tested. Unexpected behaviours still have to be reproduced. Features still have to earn their place, and a statistically interesting result still needs to be interpreted in the context of the game that produced it.
The project is therefore less interesting as a claim about what a prompt can generate and more interesting as a record of what becomes possible when implementation speed is paired with requirements, acceptance criteria, repeated testing and deliberate rejection of solutions that do not work.
Project status
Arena Rubra Digital remains an active work in progress. The browser build is real and playable, while interface details, balance, AI behaviour, maps, assets and supporting tools continue to evolve through validated baselines.
The public repository remains the reference point for the code shared outside the local development archive. The live application is a development-facing demo rather than a claim of final release status.
Product hub
Distribution, documentation and release status.
Arena Rubra already has a playable browser build and public repository. This hub separates those real endpoints from the Starter roadmap, future community surfaces and any later commercial edition.
