Portugues
Zetawar
Saved games stay in this browser only.
About the game
Zetawar is a turn-based strategy game played on a map of hexagonal tiles. You command a small army against the computer. Each side starts with a base, a little money and a unit or two, and the aim is to take the enemy's bases and wipe out its troops. The map is a miniature battlefield of grass, woods, mountains and water, and the terrain matters: woods and mountains give a defending unit extra armour, swamp and ford slow everyone down, and ships can only sail on water.
Your turn has two parts. First you spend credits at your bases to build new units: infantry at an ordinary base, ships at a seaport, aircraft at an airfield. Then you move and fight. Select a unit, pick a tile to move to or an enemy to shoot at, and press the matching button. Infantry can capture neutral and enemy bases, which brings in more credits each round. Damaged units can repair, and some can do a field repair on the spot. When there is nothing more to do, you end your turn and the computer plays its own.
It plays quickly. The default scenario is a small island with two bases that you can finish in a few rounds, and there are other maps and scenarios in the New Game menu. You can choose for each side whether a person or the computer controls it, so two people can share the screen, or you can watch the computer play against itself.
Zetawar was written in ClojureScript with an eye on being a platform for artificial-intelligence players, and it was funded by a Kickstarter campaign. The version here is the project's last commit, from January 2019, running in the browser with the rules unchanged.
Playing it here
The game runs in the page and needs a mouse. It does not save your game: a match is a short one, so finish it or start a new one. The download is about 1.2 MB. The game has no sound.
This version has no menu of site links, since it runs alone inside this page; we also left out the project's music, which is under a non-commercial licence, and a sponsor's logo.
Controls
| Input | Action |
|---|---|
| Click a unit or base | select it |
| Click a tile | target a destination or an enemy |
| Move, Attack, Repair, Capture, Build | the buttons on the left of the board, once you have chosen |
| End Turn? | finish your turn (it asks if you still have moves left) |
| New Game | choose a scenario and who plays each side |
Tips
Take the bases first. Every captured base adds credits for the next round, and more credits mean a bigger army.
Fight from good ground. Standing in woods, in mountains or on a base gives a defending unit an armour bonus; the stats shown under the board tell you the bonus of the tile you hover.
Mind the cost of movement. Rough terrain costs more movement points, so a fast unit may still get stuck in a swamp.
Do not leave the base empty. A unit that walks away from its base lets the enemy capture it.
Credits and licence
Zetawar was made by Arugaba LLC and released under the MIT licence. The tiles and unit sprites are from Elite Command by Chris Vincent (Copyright 2015, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International). The game also uses ClojureScript, Reagent, DataScript, React and other open-source libraries, all listed with their licences next to the build. The licence texts, the source of the game and of the Eclipse-licensed libraries, the build script and our changes (no error reporting, no site menu, no external links) are linked from this page.
FAQ
Can I play against a friend? Yes. Open New Game and set both sides to human; you take turns on the same screen.
Does it keep my game? No.
How do I know where I can move? Select a unit and the tiles it can reach stay bright while the others darken.