Game Rules

Conflict 2026: Israel vs Iran in the Balance

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.

Each faction has four different political and military victory paths. Players combine diplomacy, economic pressure, information campaigns, military operations, recovery, and long-term investment while managing the danger of escalation and crises.

Completed games are recorded locally on the device. The Settings page links to a Service Record that summarizes games, faction and victory-path results, action performance, development, influence, initiative, escalation, crises, and recent outcomes. Mutual ceasefires are recorded separately from victories and defeats. Detailed completed-game records remain local and are used to maintain the career totals.

2. Objective and victory

At the end of every week, the game checks all victory tracks. A player wins immediately when a one-week condition is met, or after the required number of consecutive checks for a sustained condition.

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.

During a running game, the Victory button in the bottom toolbar opens a reference panel listing both factions' victory paths, their exact conditions, and progress recorded at the most recent victory check. Closing the panel returns directly to the game without ending or leaving it.

3. Setup

• Choose Israel or Iran. In a one-player game, the other main faction is AI-controlled.
• At the start of the first week, the chosen leader addresses the player while the speech is transcribed word by word, with pauses at punctuation. The first weekly news appears when the player selects Start Game, whether or not the transcription has finished. It opens with a new-conflict lead, followed by a regional-tensions headline and four reports establishing the missile, Hezbollah, nuclear, and U.S. naval developments driving the conflict; later weeks open directly with news generated from resolved events.
• Both main factions begin with Government, Military, Economy, Domestic Support, International Standing, and Air Defense at 100.
• Iran also begins with Nuclear at 100; Israel's Nuclear value is 0.
• Each side begins with 2 Diplomacy, 2 Intelligence, 1 Legal, 3 Narrative, 3 Munitions, 2 Operations, and no stored Budget.
• Each side begins with a level-1 Foreign Ministry, Intelligence Network, Legal Bureau, Media Center, Munitions Industry, and War Room.
• Relationships, military strengths, international influence, targets, and national capabilities begin at their scenario values.

4. The weekly turn

Each turn represents one week and follows these steps:

1. Weekly news: review the previous week's most consequential actions, side-player moves, crises, and political or military changes. A crisis leads the edition when one occurred; otherwise, the strongest event becomes the headline. Reports describe the concrete action, target, and consequence without desk prefixes. Related developments are consolidated, and the edition favors a mix of actors and story types instead of repeating similar reports. Building investments name the upgraded building and are treated as minor news. If nothing significant occurred, the edition reports that there is no additional news. A short Middle East weather forecast appears in the footer as flavor and has no gameplay effect. The first week randomly uses one of the two severe winter forecasts; later weeks randomly use any available forecast. New weekly income and building production are applied.
2. Initiative bid: secretly bid 0–3 Budget points to win turn initiative. The higher bid receives priority in the specialist draft and action resolving; ties use the rotating first-player order. Bid Budget is spent.
3. Bid results: reveal bids and establish draft order.
4. Specialist draft: players alternate selecting from the shared weekly specialist market in initiative order until it is empty.
5. Specialist assignment: assign specialists to compatible buildings. A building may receive no more specialists than its level.
6. Action planning: secretly choose up to five actions. A normal side has 5 Action Points (AP), and most actions cost 1 AP. Costs, targets, prerequisites, faction restrictions, and available unassigned specialists must all be valid.
7. Action results: resolve both main players' plans and apply successful effects.
8. Side-player results: regional actors, global powers, and organizations take AI-controlled actions.
9. Crisis: the current escalation level and the actions taken that week 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.
10. Victory check: check victory tracks and ceasefire. If nobody has won, begin the next week.

Plans are simultaneous even though initiative determines specialist selection order. Targets and actions that become invalid during resolution may fail to produce their intended result.

Combat animation paths from main-player and side-player attacks remain together on the map through the current turn so the full turn's attacks can be reviewed. They are cleared when the next turn begins.

5. Action Points and actions

Action Points limit how much a player can attempt in one week. Players normally have 5 AP and may submit no more than five actions. AP is separate from Budget and the six specialist resources.

Actions fall into seven categories:

• Political: meet partners, request mediation, offer a ceasefire, build legal or diplomatic pressure, and unlock cooperation.
• Military: air strikes, missile salvos, drone attacks, and allied military operations.
• Intelligence: cyber and intelligence-led attacks.
• Economic: trade agreements, funding, sanctions, investment, and interdiction.
• Recovery: repair Air Defense, restore readiness, stabilize Iran's economy, protect its nuclear program, or reinforce Hezbollah.
• Media: mobilization, public addresses, humanitarian initiatives, narrative campaigns, and unrest or isolation packages.
• Strategic: reserved for high-impact operations directly aimed at a victory path.

An action may require a target actor, a named map target, control of an international arena, a building prerequisite, a faction capability, resources, or an unassigned specialist. By default, the action menu filters choices and targets according to these rules. Its unchecked Show all option reveals the current faction's unavailable actions as dimmed cards and highlights what is missing; unavailable cards remain unselectable.

Success and severity

Investment is guaranteed. Other actions make a success roll:

Attack score = base attack × (attacker's relevant index ÷ 100)
             + assignment bonuses + building bonuses

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

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

A successful action with scalable damage then rolls severity. Each band has a 25% chance: Light applies 25% of listed scalable damage, Moderate 50%, Severe 75%, and Strategic 100%. Some effects occur at launch or have fixed values and therefore do not scale with severity.

Isolation Campaign contests Iran's Government against Israel's Government with base attack 105. Civilian Unrest contests the two sides' Domestic Support, using Iran's normal Media attack and Israel's normal Media defense. Government Crisis contests Iran's Government against Israel's Government, using Iran's normal Political attack and Israel's normal Political defense.

Military targets translate site damage into strategic index damage. Air Strike, Missile Salvo, Drone Swarm, Cyber Attack, and Suppression Strike use the same target mapping: Headquarters damages Government; Energy, Port, Infrastructure, and Commercial Vessel targets damage Economy; City damages Domestic Support; Nuclear damages Nuclear; Israeli Air Defense targets damage Air Defense; and other target types damage Military. Iran is represented by a curated set of 40 geographically distributed city targets. Its represented Air Defense targets are the Qeshm Air Defense Site, Semnan Air Defense Complex, and Tabriz Air Defense Site; hits on these sites damage Iran's Military index. Its represented transport targets include Shahid Rajaee Port, Kish Island Transport, and Chabahar Port. These actions damage Hezbollah's Military when directed against Lebanese targets. Attacking civilian or politically sensitive targets can damage International Standing, Domestic Support, or the wider political position. Military action generally increases escalation; diplomacy and recovery often reduce it.

Target eligibility follows the owning actor's alignment, not merely the site's geographic region. Allied and neutral national sites—including bases and economic facilities in the UAE, Jordan, Bahrain, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Kuwait, and Oman—are not treated as Iranian targets for Israeli attacks. Iran-linked proxy facilities abroad remain Iranian targets where explicitly represented.

Israel's specialized map targets include the Dimona Nuclear Research Center, Nevatim Air Base, Palmachim Drone Base, Tel Nof Air Defense Facility, Beit Shemesh Missile Base, HaKirya Headquarters, Glilot Intelligence Headquarters, Ne'ot Hovav Chemical Industry, and Kiryat Ata Industrial Infrastructure. Be'er Sheva is represented as an Israeli city target. Lebanese locations are not represented as Israeli city targets.

Lebanon is represented by seven targets: Beirut, Tripoli, Sidon, Nabatieh, Baalbek, Hezbollah Headquarters in Dahieh, and Hezbollah Base in Hermel. Lebanese targets belong to Lebanon while remaining aligned with Iran.

Turkey is not represented by map targets.

Iraqi national cities, civilian airports, the Green Zone, and Iraqi oil fields are not represented as Iran-owned targets. Iran-aligned Iraqi targets are limited to proxy and affiliated military sites and facilities.

6. Core indexes

Indexes are long-term national conditions, normally ranging from 0 to 100. They affect action success, survival, production pressure, and victory. Indexes 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 35% of projected demand each week. Spending Budget on initiative can therefore secure personnel needed for a particular economic or strategic plan.

At assignment, each specialist can staff one compatible building slot. Existing assignments carry over between weeks unless the player changes them. When the assignment phase opens, the player's card automatically opens to Buildings. If an unassigned specialist has exactly one compatible vacant slot, the client visibly moves that specialist from reserve into the slot and proposes the assignment. With multiple compatible vacancies or no compatible vacancy, the specialist remains unassigned. These automatic placements remain proposed assignments until the player submits them normally. Staffed slots activate that building's production for the coming week. Staff assigned to buildings is unavailable for action specialist requirements; unassigned staff can be committed to qualifying actions. Action commitments reserve the specialist for that week's plan but do not permanently remove the specialist. This creates the central personnel choice: build a reliable economy or reserve experts for an immediate breakthrough.

Buildings also create specialist demand. Capacity not already covered by owned compatible specialists helps determine the size of the next shared market, but owning a building does not guarantee that its preferred specialist will appear or that its owner will draft first.

9. Buildings and national development

Buildings are permanent investments. A building's level sets its number of staffing slots and potential production. Basic buildings reach level 3; advanced buildings reach level 2. Upgrade costs multiply by the destination level, and prerequisites must already be met.

Shared basic buildings

The Trade Office is part of the basic economic branch but cannot be built until the player has constructed Revenue Office level 1. Further Trade Office upgrades do not require additional Revenue Office levels.

Shared advanced buildings

• Cyber Command: requires Intelligence Network 2; produces Intelligence and gives +4 Cyber success per level.
• Legal Warfare Network: requires Legal Bureau 2 and Media Center 2; produces Legal and gives +2 Diplomacy and +2 Media success per level.
• Air Defense Command: requires Munitions Industry 1 and War Room 1; produces Operations and improves air and missile defense. It can also protect against Military Shock.

Israel-only buildings

• Precision Strike Doctrine: requires Intelligence Network 2, Munitions Industry 1, and War Room 1; produces Operations and strongly improves Air Strike and Nuclear Removal success.
• Regional Security Compact: requires Foreign Ministry 2 and Legal Bureau 2; produces Diplomacy and improves diplomatic success.

Iran-only buildings

• Proxy Channel: requires Foreign Ministry 1 and Intelligence Network 1; produces Operations, improves diplomatic and media success, and gives activated Iranian proxies +5 action success per staffed level, subject to the +15 combined coordination cap.
• Missile/Drone Complex: requires Munitions Industry 2 and War Room 2; produces Munitions and improves missile/drone attack success.

Because advanced buildings require both construction resources and suitable specialists, development should follow a chosen victory path rather than trying to maximize every branch at once.

10. International arenas, relationships, 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 current tracked relationships with side actors on a 0–10 scale. A relationship without a specific scenario value starts at the neutral value of 5. Relations are separate from international-arena influence and control.

Each arena grants a visible reward while controlled. Examples include Air Strike support from the United States, diplomatic bonuses from the European Union or Hague Court, Budget from China, missile support from Russia, and Media success from Qatar. Some arenas instead produce Diplomacy, Narrative, or Operations.

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. Organizations and all other countries affiliated with the enemy are not eligible. It costs 1 Budget and 1 Diplomacy, raises the player's Economy by 5, grants 3 Budget immediately, and adds 2 influence where the partner has an arena. A staffed Trade Office adds 1 to the immediate Budget reward, regardless of how many of its slots are staffed.

A side actor acts when referenced by a main-player action that week or after passing the normal 30% activation roll. Relations and proxy coordination do not grant additional activations or Action Points. When activated, mediators choose Global Condemnation 25% of the time and Humanitarian Initiative 75% of the time. The client that created the game selects AI side-player plans and submits them to the server; the server validates and resolves those submitted plans and reports rejected side actions by actor.

Iranian proxy coordination applies to Hezbollah, the Houthis, Syria, and the Palestinians. Relations of 0–3 give their actions −10 success, 4–6 give no modifier, 7–8 give +5, and 9–10 give +10. Each staffed Proxy Channel level adds another +5, with the combined modifier capped at +15. Hezbollah and the Houthis can both use Missile Salvo and Drone Swarm. The Houthis can also use Maritime Interdiction against Israel. Syria alternates between supplying Iran and using Drone Swarm against military targets. The Palestinians apply condemnation pressure. A staffed Proxy Channel also directs military proxies toward Israeli targets whose associated national index is weakest.

Failed Meet Partner and Request Mediation actions reduce relations with the selected partner by 1. An Arms Shipment Exposed crisis reduces Iran's relation with the responsible proxy by 1 when that proxy can be identified.

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. Escalation, crises, and ceasefire

Escalation records how dangerous the wider conflict has become. Actions add or subtract escalation, up to a maximum of 200. At the crisis step, escalation and risky military, intelligence, or strategic activity raise the chance of a harmful event. The configured roll starts at 5%, adds both sides' activity risk and 1% per 25 escalation, and is capped at 25%.

When a crisis triggers, the affected main player is weighted toward the side whose actions created more risk. The event is then selected from the activity that contributed to that risk: military operations tend toward civilian-harm scandals or exposed arms shipments; intelligence and cyber operations tend toward leaks or cyber blowback; and explicitly destabilizing actions such as sanctions, national mobilization, regime or economic pressure, isolation, unrest, and government-crisis packages can lead to domestic protest. Ordinary investment, recovery, diplomacy, and routine media actions are not treated as crisis causes. If no event matches the week's activity, any crisis may occur without attributing it to an unrelated action.

Crises apply substantial immediate losses through the existing resource and national-index systems. They do not create a separate response action, continuing status, or mitigation layer. Instead, the crisis becomes the lead story in the next weekly news. The report describes the kind of crisis, the affected side, the general area of impact, and whether the resulting damage was limited, moderate, serious, or severe; it does not list individual index or resource changes. When the responsible action can be identified, the report names it as the cause. The player must decide whether to use existing recovery, production, investment, or diplomatic actions to repair the damage or continue with the original plan. Aggressive plans may accelerate a victory track but also create civilian, diplomatic, economic, and retaliatory costs. A ceasefire offer reduces escalation and improves the offerer's standing and support if successful. Mutual offers end the game.

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. The AI also values United States control and 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. While relations remain below the victory requirement, the AI directs Narrative Campaigns toward Lebanon. It weighs Hezbollah Military and Israel-Lebanon relations separately, prioritizes whichever component is lagging, and stops treating military-only actions as victory support once the Military requirement is met. The AI also values United States control and Secure Joint Operations as support for this path, while Suppression Strikes remain directed toward whichever Israeli victory condition is closest. 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. Protect Iran's own International Standing so its political actions remain 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 below 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 are available to the United States side actor only after Israel successfully secures Joint Operations.

Other side-actor actions

Successful Military or Intelligence actions cancel outstanding ceasefire offers involving the actor and target.