Why we built a strategy game that tells you to write a bot

Most browser war games treat automation like a crime scene. You write a small helper so your empire does not starve while you sleep, and the ban hammer arrives with a copy-paste email about “unfair advantage.” We got tired of that loop — not as players defending cheats, but as builders who think the genre painted itself into a corner.

Blood and Thunder is our answer: a free browser persistent strategy MMO where writing a bot is not a loophole. It is a design pillar. This post is the philosophy behind that choice — automation as a feature, economics that refuse pay-to-win, a marketplace that levels skill floors without selling armies, and a world that keeps moving when the lobby is quiet. We are in early access. Expect incomplete systems. We will not paper over them with vanity metrics.

Automation is a feature, not a ban reason

Classic persistent browser strategy — Travian / Tribal Wars DNA — rewards people who stay online, or who quietly automate what the rules pretend must be done by hand. The meta drifts toward tools the ToS forbids; non-coders get farmed for sleeping. We do not want to police cat-and-mouse bot detection for the rest of the product’s life. We want the rules to match how ambitious players actually think.

So the contract is inverted. City and battle scripts are first-class. A public REST API aims at UI parity: if the War Room can list armies, move them, and attach doctrine, a client with a bt_… key should do the same under the same ownership checks. Humans still set the skill ceiling — scouting, timing, diplomacy — but offline maintenance is not a moral failing. Bots are part of the game, not a gray market bolted on later.

That does not mean “spam the server and win.” Rate limits apply to clickers and scripts alike. Fair automation raises the floor so you are not punished for a job, a timezone, or sleep. It does not sell a stronger roster than a careful human can field. Never opened a terminal? Play the full UI: built-in plans, hand queues, and (as the store matures) scripts from other players. For DSL samples and curl against /api/v1/, see the scripting page. This essay is the “why,” not the reference manual.

Anti-pay-to-win is a product constraint

Browser strategy history is littered with shops that sell what the map is supposedly about: troops, speed-ups that erase logistics, resources that skip the economy, power packs that turn wallets into front lines. Competitive power is not for sale here. You cannot buy armies, research spikes, or combat stats with cash. Cosmetics and quality-of-life may arrive later; combat advantage will not.

That pledge is easy to print and hard to keep. Early access is when shortcuts look tempting — convert hard, pad retention, hide a soft paywall behind “optional boosts.” We are writing the constraint into the design story now so future us has less room to rationalize. If the live build ever feels pay-to-win-adjacent, call it out in plain language; treat that report as a defect, not marketing to spin. Free-to-play with anti-P2W is not “finished economy.” Balance will move. We will not invent a leaderboard of spenders and call it skill.

The marketplace levels the field — it does not sell power

If automation is legal, non-programmers need a path that is not “learn TypeScript or lose.” The Script Marketplace is that path: authors list city, squad, and battle scripts; players who would rather command than compile buy tactics instead of troops. Design target: a modest price band and a 70/30 author split (author keeps 70%). Built-ins stay free so the game is playable without a wallet.

The marketplace sells automation and doctrine — plans, postures, city ticks — not unit packs or resource crates. A good script helps you execute a strategy you understand; it does not mint an army you did not raise. Coders get authorship and a future revenue share; everyone else stays competitive without the ban-risk underground of other titles.

Honesty check: Stripe-backed payouts and a polished storefront are v1 direction, not a claim that checkout is live with numbers we will not invent. You can write and run scripts today. Author revenue shares ship when the store is production-ready. We will not pretend a cash register exists before it does.

A living AI world, not a padded lobby

Empty maps kill immersion. Fake “players online” counters kill trust. We would rather ship AI empires that expand through the same public API humans use than fill the homepage with theater. Long-term direction: bots, human empires, and AI sovereigns on one persistent map — not a theme-park instance that wipes every season for retention.

Safety is non-negotiable. AI fleets must not become a grief engine. Targeting fails closed when ownership is human: AI aggression is built around explicit AI ownership flags, not convenience. The map can stay populated while the lobby is quiet; people stay off the AI hit list. Living world means process and presence — not a fake concurrent ticker.

Persistence is the other half. Design intent is one world that does not wipe your empire on a seasonal schedule. Cities, scripts, and grudges should compound. Early access means longevity claims are direction plus what the live build currently does — report anything that would undermine that. Bugs beat praise.

What we will not claim

No awards we did not win. No “thousands of players” when the world is young. No sockpuppet reviews. Blood and Thunder is independent early access — v0.1.0-era, pre-1.0. Join now and you are a tester as much as a player. Onboarding will have rough edges; balance will shift; docs will lag sometimes. Brutal honesty beats polite silence.

We built a strategy game that tells you to write a bot because the alternative is a genre that pretends everyone plays fair with a mouse while the real meta hides in scripts and shops. Automation as a feature. Power not for sale. Marketplace tactics for people who do not code. A world that moves without lying about who is in it. That is the bet. If it resonates, found a city, attach a script or do not, and tell us what breaks.