MERIDIAN / WIKIRULES GUIDE · 01

A world of consequences

Meridian is a strategy game of territory, cards and diplomacy. Choose a nation, build an economy and commit your orders while your rivals plan theirs. Every turn resolves together.

The game is designed for 4–8 players, on a Europe + MENA map, across 60 turns. This guide describes the current rules design. The playable online game and final content catalogue are still being developed.

Your first decisions

Read your economy. Food keeps cities growing; Industry turns your plans into units and buildings.
Watch the shared market. Buy cards now to play from the next turn.
Protect supply routes. Isolated units cannot sustain a campaign.
Read your neighbours. Diplomacy with neutral nations opens alternatives to conquest.
Contest the objectives. Expansion needs a purpose.

Explore the field guide

Meet the nations, inspect units and cards, explore city growth, or watch a turn unfold.

Unrevealed traits, statistics and card effects stay marked Hidden for now until they are authored and balanced.

A turn, together

Everyone plans at the same time. Initiative rotates each turn and breaks ties when players compete for the same opportunity.

01 · Income

Tiles and cities produce resources, upkeep is paid, and the market refreshes. Population automatically works nearby hexes; you can adjust those assignments.

02 · Planning

Queue purchases, card plays, movement, attacks and other orders. Choose fallbacks so an interrupted plan still has an intention. Lock in when ready; otherwise the planning timer closes the phase.

03 · Resolution

Purchases and transfers resolve first, followed by deployments, non-kinetic actions, movement and combat. Captures, supply, victory scoring, experience and the era clock follow.

Combat is deterministic. Visible information lets you estimate an engagement, but fog of war can hide your opponent’s plans and reinforcements.

04 · Playback

Watch the events your nation could see. The turn report explains orders that changed or failed, so the next decision starts with evidence.

Watch the animated turn.

Build an economy

Eight stockpiled resources support different parts of your strategy.

Resource	What it enables
Credits	Buying cards on the market
Industry	Deploying units and buildings
Food	Population growth and infantry upkeep
Oil	Armour, aircraft and naval upkeep
Rare earths	Advanced technology
Uranium	Nuclear plants and deterrence cards
Data	Intelligence, cyber and advanced cards
Influence	Neutral diplomacy, uprisings and rerolls

Cities create capacity

Population works nearby hexes. Food surplus can grow a city; unpaid Food upkeep can shrink one. Workers extract deposits beyond city radii, while engineers construct improvements inside your territory.

A city begins with two building slots, gains another for each five population, and caps at four. Each building can appear once per city. Buying a building card and playing it are separate costs.

Keep the army supplied

Supply connects forces to friendly cities without crossing enemy zones of control. Unsupplied units take attrition. A stronger army on paper can still lose its campaign to a broken route.

Explore the interactive city.

Cards become consequences

Unit cards become pieces on the map. Building cards add capabilities and income to cities. Action cards create one-shot effects.

Buy cards with Credits, then pay their deployment resources when playing them. A purchase cannot be played in the same turn: plan at least one turn ahead.

Three market surfaces

Surface	How it works
Basic shelf	Unlimited infantry, militia, engineers, workers, agents and garrisons
Era shelf	Unlimited standard cards unlocked by the era
Contested row	Six shared cards; initiative settles competing purchases

The hand limit is seven cards. Cards left unbought in the contested row for three turns are discarded.

Read a unit by its role

Infantry holds the front, militia offers a basic fighting force, garrisons defend, engineers build, workers extract and agents support non-kinetic operations. Land, sea and air forces follow their own movement and basing rules.

Exact prices, statistics and the named era catalogue will be revealed as the content is completed.

Open the unit and card atlas.

The world advances

Technology progresses on a shared era clock. Everyone enters the next era together; your leader perks and nation trait create your individual path.

Era	Turns	Direction
I · Present	1–20	Conventional forces and the oil economy
II · Near Future	21–40	Drones, cyber and emerging technologies
III · Orbital	41–60	Satellites, orbital capabilities and AI command

A new era, new options

The contested row refreshes and the new standard shelf opens. An Era Dispatch offers a private choice of one of three standard cards, free to acquire; its play cost still applies. Previous-era cards remain usable.

Shape your leader

Experience unlocks levels and perk choices. Every player earns baseline experience; achievements add more. Nation traits provide a separate passive identity.

The progression map shows shared eras and leader choices. A personal research tree is outside the current version’s scope.

Explore progression.

Read the map. Read your neighbours.

Choose from twelve nations: France, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Poland, Türkiye, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Algeria and Sweden. Each player selects a different country. Other nations on the map remain neutral powers.

Beyond conquest

Neutral nations consider structured proposals: trade, non-aggression, passage, basing rights and annexation. Alignment, recent aggression and the nation’s personality influence its response.

A proposal is a commitment with terms, costs and timing. A rejected offer can impose a cooldown. Passage can make a route possible without taking the territory beneath it.

A nation’s identity

Country traits and starting opportunities are being authored and balanced. Examples in the atlas are previews; unrevealed traits remain concealed.

Explore the nation atlas.