Plan and adapt

Free strategy games

Choose between a fixed building budget and a timed search task. Check the goal, the cost of a failed input and a worked plan before starting.

A placement budget and a countdown need different plans

Tiny Dominion: balance three building targets

Tiny Dominion gives you a five-by-five board with four fixed water cells. Place farms, forests and towers on empty land. Reach FOOD 12, DEF 8 and JOY 6 together within 15 valid placements. There is no running decision timer: inspect the board before committing. Clicking water or an occupied cell does not spend a turn.

Farms gain food beside water and beside other farms. Forests add defense and joy; neighbouring forests increase joy. Towers add defense, with an additional benefit beside another tower. Only the four edge-sharing neighbours count; diagonal contact is not adjacency. Placed buildings cannot be moved or replaced.

Zero Cartographer: scan before confirming

Zero Cartographer is a timed observation task in this catalogue, rather than a building or army simulation. Find and chart eight anomalies within the current 62-second countdown. Move the lens over a target and hold its position while the scan builds; confirm after it becomes stable. A premature or empty confirmation costs four seconds and resets the combo.

The anomaly positions change between attempts. This page does not promise that every strategy entry is deterministic, turn based or free of random setup. For a first attempt, choose Tiny Dominion if you want time to inspect a fixed board; choose Zero Cartographer if you want to manage search time and confirmation timing.

An eight-placement Tiny Dominion route you can repeat

Count rows from top to bottom and columns from left to right, starting at one. The water cells are row 2 columns 1–2 and row 4 columns 4–5. Use the FARM, FOREST and TOWER selectors above the board, or keys 1, 2 and 3.

Select FARM. Place at row 1 column 1, then row 1 column 2. Both touch water and touch each other; together they provide 10 food.
Place another FARM at row 3 column 1. It touches water above it, taking food to 14.
Select FOREST. Place at row 5 columns 1, 2 and 3. The three forests provide 3 defense and 7 joy, including their edge-sharing bonuses.
Select TOWER. Place at row 1 column 4, then row 1 column 5. The adjacent pair provides 8 defense. Together with the forests, defense reaches 11.

The final totals are FOOD 14, DEF 11 and JOY 7 at turn 8. All three thresholds are met, so the round ends successfully before turn 15. This route was completed through ordinary inputs on the current runtime and returned 867 points. It is a reproducible example, not a claim of the highest possible score or the only solution.

Check the failed condition before repeating the input

A Tiny Dominion click does not add a building

Check for a water symbol or an existing building. Those cells cannot accept another placement. Select an empty land cell; repeatedly clicking the same occupied cell will not replace it.

Two buildings touch but the expected bonus is missing

Check whether they share an edge. A diagonal is not counted. Also check the building type: forest adjacency affects joy, tower adjacency affects defense, and farms gain food from water or another farm.

One building target is high, but the round is not complete

All three targets must be met together. More food does not substitute for missing defense or joy. Before spending the last placements, inspect the lowest indicator and the available empty cells.

Zero Cartographer shows UNSTABLE SCAN and loses time

Do not keep clicking. Keep the lens over an uncharted anomaly until the scan fills, then confirm. Scanning decays when the target leaves the lens; move and stabilize again if needed. On touch, use a slow drag to position the lens, then allow the scan to build before the confirming tap.

Checked 13 October 2026 against the current Tiny Dominion and Zero Cartographer runtime definitions, including the later active overrides. Tiny Dominion's worked route was played through; this is not a claim that all eleven catalogue entries have been individually played or that their existing descriptions are correct. The remaining game links retain their existing URLs and require their own rule checks.

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