Sovereign Storm is a turn-based naval tactics game built around one core idea: every captain plans a full round of movement and cannon fire in secret, then all plans resolve at the same time. You are not reacting to what an opponent just did — you are predicting where they will be and committing before you know. That tension is the whole game.
See also: Match Modes · The Odyssey · Multiplayer & Netcode.
The round loop
A match plays out as a loop of identical rounds:
- Plan. Each captain lays out their ship’s moves across a fixed number of slots, plus which cannon side(s) to fire. Plans are private to the captain until resolution.
- Submit. When you commit your plan, the server marks you ready. Resolution waits until everyone is ready and a minimum planning window has elapsed.
- Resolve. The server simulates the round authoritatively — movement, ship-push collisions, cannon volleys, ramming, repairs, sinks, and mode-specific effects — and produces a single sequence of ticks.
- Replay. Clients receive that tick sequence and animate it. The client never re-simulates, so there is no possibility of two players seeing different outcomes.
Because planning is simultaneous and resolution is deterministic, the skill ceiling lives in reading the board and anticipating other captains, not in reaction speed.
Movement and planning
Each vessel has a fixed number of move slots per round. A plan fills those slots with directional moves (and L-shaped moves that resolve across a forward sub-phase then a perpendicular one). Planning is also budget-constrained: moves draw from a per-vessel token pool that regenerates each round, so a captain cannot simply sprint every turn.
Larger ships trade mobility for power through forced-stall slots: a frigate or brigantine keeps the same number of slots as a sloop, but one slot is locked to “no movement.” The ship can still fire its cannons during that slot — bigger ships are slower to maneuver, not less lethal.
Cannons and damage
Captains choose which side fires each round: left, right, both, or none. Cannonball reach scales with vessel size, so heavier ships can stand off at range while light ships must close.
Damage is driven by a small, predictable shot-size system rather than per-vessel formulas:
| Shot size | Damage | Primary user |
|---|---|---|
| Small | 1 | Sloop |
| Medium | 2 | Brigantine |
| Large | 4 | Frigate (and the Hunt boss) |
Fixed damage makes the math legible while ship-push, asymmetric repair, and friendly-fire settings keep the actual “rounds to sink” feeling unpredictable. HP can be presented as abstract damage bands (Pristine / Damaged / Battered / Critical) rather than raw numbers, so combat reads by feel.
Vessels
Three captain vessels form a deliberate rock-paper-scissors of agility, durability, and reach. (The Hunt boss is a fourth, server-only vessel class.)
| Vessel | HP | Cannon reach | Primary shot | Repair / round | Role |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sloop | 6 | 3 | Small (1) | 0 | Fast, fragile cargo runner and skirmisher |
| Brigantine | 10 | 4 | Medium (2) | 1 | Balanced all-rounder |
| Frigate | 16 | 5 | Large (4) | 2 | Slow, durable heavy hitter |
Asymmetry is expressed through tuned knobs — HP, range, shot size, repair rate, push priority, ammo capacity, and forced-stall slots — rather than bespoke per-ship code paths.
Ship-push and ramming
Movement is resolved as a single system pass, not captain-by-captain. Every vessel carries a push priority (sloop 1, brigantine 2, frigate 3, boss 4). When a ship moves into a tile held by a strictly smaller ship, the smaller ship is displaced one tile in the push direction, cascading if that tile is also occupied. Equal-priority collisions ram instead, dealing damage to both. Being pushed off the map or onto a hazard inflicts crash damage — positioning is itself a weapon.
Friendly fire
A match-wide friendly fire setting governs same-team cannon damage with three states: On (full), Half (0.5×), or Off (no damage). Co-op modes default to Off and competitive modes to On; FFA is always On because every captain is opposition by definition.
Where to go next
- Match Modes — how the five modes change the win condition and the board.
- The Odyssey — the themed PvE expedition and its planned looter-shooter meta-game.
- Multiplayer & Netcode — how simultaneous resolution stays deterministic across clients.