"Ten great war-chariots lead the vanguard." — Shijing (Classic of Poetry), "Sixth Month"
Yuanrong: Princeps Militum is a 2D turn-based tactical strategy game. Choose your cultural origin — Central Plains, Steppe, Western, or Desert — take your starting warband, and enter a procedurally generated continent. Begin as an unknown company. What you become is up to you.
A World That's Never the Same
Every campaign generates a full continent from scratch. Terrain, climate, settlements, faction layouts, and travel routes are all different. You move across the overworld, take contracts, visit settlements, recruit soldiers, manage supplies, and pick your fights. Battle outcomes feed back into the world: settlement stability, regional threats, and available recruits shift with your actions.
Soldiers You Raise
In Yuanrong, soldiers are not a number. Each recruit starts as a green villager — limited ability, zero experience. You bring them into battle, let them earn their stripes, and choose their path along branching troop trees: infantry, spear, ranged, cavalry — each leading to a different battlefield role. Every culture has its own troop tree.
Raising a veteran takes time and risk. And any soldier can fall in any battle.
Formation & Chain of Command
Trained soldiers are slotted into your battle order. Formations have commanders, officers, NCOs, and rank-and-file positions. The chain of command determines how orders carry, how cohesion holds, and how your force behaves under pressure. Who leads, who supports, how roles are matched — these pre-battle decisions shape the fight before it begins.
Hex-Grid Tactical Combat
Combat plays out on a hex grid, turn by turn. Action point allocation, unit positioning, cohesion management, fatigue tracking, and role matchups all matter. A formation that loses cohesion will break even at full strength. Exhausted heavy infantry becomes a liability in the late rounds.
Enemy AI varies by culture. Steppe forces harass and kite. Central Plains infantry hold formation and push. Western knights charge as a mass. Desert archers skirmish and reposition. Understanding how the enemy fights is the first step to beating them.