The commander’s guide

Maps and Skirmish AI

Compare all six Petalwar maps and learn how Skirmish opponents expand, defend, build armies and choose their attacks.

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Skirmish against the AI

Choose a map, your faction, the opponent’s faction or Random, and up to seven opponents, as many as the map seats. Each AI plays by the same rules you do:

It is drawn with a personality: a Raider sends small, early waves; a Turtle builds point defence and attacks later with more; a Boomer grows a greedy economy and techs up sooner; a Balanced AI does a little of everything.
Its form drifts through the match, so a sharp opponent has sloppy spells and a sloppy one sharp spells.
It spends what it earns. Its army grows with its economy, not the clock: spare matter buys top-tier units, upgrades every factory and founds more, and its engineers help the factories that need them most.
It marches to win. Its waves gather into one march that crosses by a bridge away from both bases, gathers on your side of the map and assaults when the odds allow. A side that falls far behind pulls back to defend.
It answers a raid: enemy units within 750 metres of its Heartbloom draw its nearest units, about twice their weight, while the rest of its army keeps attacking. Its interceptors and anti-air tanks guard home and go after enemy aircraft that come within 750 metres.
It builds everything its factories offer from its top two tiers, mobile shields, anti-air tanks and drones included, but never scouts or tankers. From minute six, once it runs two factories, it adds an air factory (a second from minute fifteen) and sends aircraft with its waves. It builds anti-air only once it has seen your aircraft. It does not build a navy, refuelling stations or radar disruptors, so the water is yours.
It waits for your first order before it starts.

The maps

Maps, seats and water
Map	Seats	Terrain	Water
Hearthland Basin	2	8 km · north against south	a river with three bridges between the two bases
Fourfold Ford	4	8 km · two a bank · mesas on the flanks	a river with three bridges between the banks
Petal Crown	8	8 km · eight bases in a ring · a mesa between every pair of neighbours	a lake over a kilometre across in the middle
Amber Hollow	2	8 km · a valley duel · an open centre and two mesa-lined flanks	none: a dry valley
Lilymere	4	8 km · four shores · race around the banks or build a fleet	a broad lake in the middle
Willow Divide	6	8 km · three commanders on each bank · shared flank roads	a river with three crossings between the banks

The Skirmish page: Hearthland Basin selected in the map list beside its painted map, Fourfold Ford and Petal Crown below it, and the three faction cards — The Skirmish page: pick a map from the list (scroll for all six), then your faction and your opponent.

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