← Back to the Lab

Combat Variants — Overflow Slate (V11+)

Version: 0.1 Date: 2026-07-31 Owner: Design / Combat Status: WIP expansion pass. Supplements 01-SLATE.md rather than changing it.

01-SLATE.md deliberately chose the best 10 of 19 candidates. This page tracks the "build the rest anyway" pass: runnable overflow prototypes for the discarded candidates, plus room for post-19 new experiments if the search keeps going.

Mapping

id	source candidate	state	notes
V11	Forge	built	Arithmetic rung-shift version of House Rules. Intentionally more compute-heavy.
V12	Weather Die	built	Global weather version of Painted Ground.
V13	Manthan	built	Last-turn/current-turn wheel relation instead of card/current relation.
V14	Kalari Stance	built	Enemy-facing stance / initiative read.
V15	Engraving	built	State lives on die faces; denser than Written Die.
V16	The Churn	built	Charge-forward ring transform, likely slots 1–2 biased.
V17	Declare	built	Order/initiative-first variant.
V18	The Walker	built	Moving focus marker / trail logic.
V19	Fuse	built	Enemy-fuse pressure track.
V20	Blank Bargain	built	Explicit blank-face economy / Void spend patterns.
V21	Counterweight	built	Left/right board lean and favored-side pressure.
V22	Forecast	built	Number-memory omen system.
V23	Tributary	built	Flow direction / moving board procession.
V24	Pressure Dial	built	Shared pressure band changes what cards want.
V25	Gatehouse	built	Open/closed slot patterns derived from the element die.

Batch A goals

Build the easiest three discarded candidates first:

1. Forge — because it is closest to V01-house-rules.html and tests whether the arithmetic burden is actually fatal when played, rather than merely predicted.
2. Weather Die — because it is the direct global-board counterpart to V04-painted-ground.html.
3. Manthan — because it is the cleanest test of the "compare against last turn's element instead of a board-authored operand" idea.

Implemented in this pass

V11 — Forge

• The element die tempers the number die into a different rung before resolution.
• Agni +1, Jal -1, Vayu opposite, Prithvi exact, blank exact.
• If the tempered rung is empty, the strike slips clockwise to the next occupied slot.
• Riders are tuned to expose why this is harder to read than House Rules:
  • Agni = +2 and Heat
  • Jal = board fold / slide
  • Vayu = return + draw
  • Prithvi = bolt / stay on board

V12 — Weather Die

• The element die sets a global weather for the turn instead of painting a persistent slot.
• The number die still picks the eye of the storm.
• Agni / Jal / Vayu / Prithvi map to Heat / Flow / Scatter / Set respectively.
• This is the fast test of whether a whole-board weather surface is exciting or just too disruptive.

V13 — Manthan

• The slot card is only the payload.
• The real question is the relation between the stored memory element from last turn and the current element on the wheel.
• Pure / Feed / Smother / Clash still exist, but the player authors only one of the two operands each turn, which is the hypothesis under test.

Expansion wave — V20–V25

These six are new experiments, not part of the original 19-candidate list. They exist because the working target became 25 total prototypes.

• V20 Blank Bargain — blanks are a real economy, not dead air.
• V21 Counterweight — left/right board lean creates favored seats.
• V22 Forecast — today's result writes tomorrow's lucky number.
• V23 Tributary — the board flows after resolution; the river direction matters.
• V24 Pressure Dial — a shared pressure band changes what attacks and blocks want.
• V25 Gatehouse — the element die derives an open-gate pattern; multiple slots can fire.

Next

• Build a launcher / comparison hub that can present all 25 in a deliberate order.
• If we keep iterating after 25, start a fresh search doc rather than overloading this one.