Public GDD · Stone Age alpha
Ronoplex Design Book
This is the public game design document for Ronoplex. It explains what the game is trying to feel like, what the current build actually does, and what is still rough. It is not a wiki dump and it is not a promise sheet.
If a rule changes, this page should change with it. If something is not playable yet, it should say so plainly.
Play the current build →The short version: Ronoplex is trying to make civilization strategy feel physical. You should care where people are, how far they have to walk, what the land can hold, and what another civilization is doing on the same map. Everything below is just that idea broken into parts.
01
The promise
Ronoplex starts with one idea: the world should carry the strategy. The map is not a backdrop for menus. It is where your people, distance, resources and mistakes live.
What is the game?
A persistent browser civilization MMO where you begin in the Stone Age and build a place that belongs to one shared world.
You are growing a civilization, not queueing up a disposable match.
What should feel different?
People and work have a location. If somebody gathers wood, builds a wall or repairs a structure, that job happens on the map.
Travel time, terrain and where you settle become part of the economy.
What are we avoiding?
A strategy game that is mostly panels, invisible labor and timers with a world painted behind them.
The player should be looking at the ground when making important decisions.
02
The first twenty minutes
The opening is supposed to teach the game by making the player notice the land, then commit people to it. The first settlement should feel small enough to understand and fragile enough to care about.
Look before building
Scout around the first Hearth. Nearby food, woodland, stone and water can completely change the opening.
The best-looking tile is not always the best place to grow from.
Move actual people
Send ordinary Workers to gather, build and repair instead of treating labor as an abstract number.
A close resource can be worth more than a richer one that wastes half the day in walking.
Stabilize first
Housing, food and storage are the boring things that stop a promising settlement from choking on its own growth.
Expansion should feel earned, not automatic.
Then make a choice
Research, fortify, push through the fog, work toward water or prepare for another civilization.
The opening should branch because the map changed the plan, not because a build-order guide told you what to click.
03
The world
The world is meant to feel like a place with memory. Discovery matters because it changes what you know, and persistence matters because the ground you changed should still mean something when you return.
One shared map
Civilizations occupy the same live world rather than living in isolated single-player copies.
Another settlement is a location and a neighbor, not just an entry in a matchmaking list.
Fog has memory
Scouting permanently reveals explored ground while active vision still matters for what is happening there now.
Knowledge grows, but certainty still has a range.
Persistence without fake idle progress
Your civilization and explored world are stored between sessions. Ronoplex does not pretend an invisible idle economy is doing hours of work while you are away.
You return to your place, but meaningful routine play still comes from actually being there.
04
People and work
Workers are not a special magical unit class. They are ordinary people from the same population your settlement uses for everything else. The design is deliberately physical: work takes people, and people take time to get there.
Who is a Worker?
An ordinary citizen assigned to work. Farming is a job assignment too; there is no separate Farmer species hiding in the population model.
Population decisions stay understandable because everyone comes from the same pool.
Why does travel matter?
Workers physically move to gathering sites, construction and repair jobs.
A badly placed economy bleeds time even if its raw resource numbers look good.
What happens when capacity disappears?
People are reconciled back into the civilization instead of being deleted because a workplace or Worker slot vanished.
Losing infrastructure should hurt the plan, not silently erase population.
05
Resources and storage
The current build stores 8 resource types. The interesting part is not the list; it is that distance and storage can turn a good resource find into a bad economic decision.
Why finite nodes?
Natural resource deposits can run out. A settlement eventually has to look beyond the comfortable first ring around home.
Exploration becomes economic planning instead of sightseeing.
Why resource-specific storage?
Storage Pits are assigned to particular resources rather than acting like one infinite warehouse.
Preparing for a major project means deciding what the civilization needs room to hold.
Why make upper upgrades expensive?
Late building levels are supposed to be civilization-scale commitments, not a routine click whenever a timer ends.
Several storage projects and a deliberate stockpile may be needed before a major upgrade makes sense.
06
Building a settlement
Buildings are there to change what a place can do. Housing lets the population grow. Storage makes large plans possible. Roads change movement. Walls buy time. A building should have a reason to exist beyond filling a tech tree.
What is the settlement anchor?
The Hearth is the core settlement anchor. In the current Stone Age rules a civilization can support up to 2 Hearths.
A second settlement is a strategic commitment, not unlimited city spam.
What do upgrades mean?
Higher levels improve the role a building already has, with milestone perks where they make sense instead of inventing a new gimmick at every level.
The city should look and operate more developed because you invested in it.
Can a ruined building come back?
Yes. A structure at 0 HP remains part of the settlement and can be repaired if the civilization can commit the Workers and cost.
Damage creates recovery pressure without turning every loss into permanent map cleanup.
07
Research and ages
Research is meant to open new ways to use the world, not just add percentage points. Age advancement is intentionally simple on paper so the interesting decisions happen inside the age rather than in a checklist of arbitrary promotion requirements.
How should an age advance?
Finish the current age's research tree, then pay the next age's upgrade cost.
You do not need a hidden score made from army size, city count, food reserves and unrelated settlement objectives.
What is playable today?
The public alpha is still held in the Stone Age while the next-age transition is being finished and balanced.
The document separates the intended rule from what the current build can actually do.
Why keep the rule public?
Because players should be able to tell the difference between a design decision, a temporary alpha limit and something that simply has not been built yet.
The game should not need vague roadmap language to explain what is happening.
08
Conflict and other civilizations
The world needs pressure that is not just a hunger bar. NPC civilizations are meant to develop, move, build and make the map less comfortable. Combat matters because it changes access to places, people and infrastructure.
What are NPC civilizations for?
They are world actors with their own development and military behavior, not stationary camps placed around the player as loot boxes.
A neighboring tribe can become a trading opportunity, a warning sign or a future problem.
What should combat protect?
Workers, routes, storage, settlement access and the time you invested in a place.
Fighting has more meaning when the map behind the army matters.
Is a settlement permanently defeated at 0 HP?
No. Settlement Centers and Hearths remain attackable and repairable rather than entering a special irreversible defeated state.
War can wreck a civilization without deleting its ability to recover.
09
Water and distance
Water should open a new logistics problem instead of becoming a teleport lane. Docks and vessels extend the civilization, but the design still asks who is going, what they can carry and how the trip connects back to land.
Can boats sail empty?
No. Vessels need real occupants or crew before they can begin or continue sailing.
A ship is transportation for people, not a free-moving camera token.
Why build maritime infrastructure?
Harbour and dock structures are there to turn a coastline into an operating edge of the civilization.
Reaching water is only the start; using it well should take preparation.
10
What the alpha is allowed to be rough about
A public GDD is more useful when it says what is unfinished. The current build is not pretending every number is final. The goal is to keep the core rules coherent while balance, pacing and later-age content are still moving.
What is locked right now?
The playable public progression is Stone Age. Later-age data can exist in the project without being presented as finished playable progression.
Roadmap data should never be confused with a feature the player can use today.
What is still being tuned?
Combat durability, the economic weight of higher building levels and the pacing around expansion are all areas where numbers can still move.
The design principles should stay stable even when balance values change.
What is the standard for changing a rule?
It should make the world easier to understand, make an actual decision more interesting, or remove a rule that only exists because strategy games usually have one.
If a mechanic survives only because it looks familiar in a template, it is a candidate for removal.
11
Rules we use to judge the rules
These are the filters. A mechanic can be familiar, clever or technically impressive and still be wrong for Ronoplex if it fights these.
A few current rules people keep asking about
| System | Current rule | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Stone Age Hearths | Maximum 2 | Expansion is a deliberate choice. |
| Stored resources | 8 active resource types | Storage planning is part of large projects. |
| Workers | Ordinary citizens assigned to work | Population stays one understandable pool. |
| Age advancement | Complete the research tree, then pay the age cost | No arbitrary settlement checklist. |
| Vessels | Cannot sail empty | Water transport still represents real people. |
| 0 HP structures | Still repairable | Damage creates recovery pressure without deleting the settlement. |