How a game is built
Learn how a board, its characters, places, stats, and rules become a playable world.
Build a world players can change
A Davia game begins with a clear role inside a world that can respond. You choose the board, place the people and places that matter, describe what is true when play begins, and write the rules that make change believable.
The map is not a backdrop. It is the world players enter.
Every game brings together four parts:
- A player promise — who players can become and what situation they enter.
- A board — the fixed geography where movement and conflict happen.
- A starting state — the values that describe the world, its places, and its characters.
- Simulation rules — guidance for how those values can change when characters act and time moves forward.
Meet the four parts of your world
The Creation Hub organizes starting values into four sections:
Cells
Fixed areas of the map: provinces, districts, seas, forests, or any other meaningful piece of space.
Entities
People, creatures, armies, vehicles, and other actors that can move and act.
Landmarks
Fixed places such as cities, forts, temples, ports, and ruins.
World
The game as a whole, for stats that have no single location.
Choose the right place for each idea
| Section | Use it for | Can move? |
|---|---|---|
| World | A truth with no single location | No location |
| Cell | A fixed area of the board | No |
| Entity | An actor in the world | Yes |
| Landmark | A fixed place on the board | No |
In Rome: Republic at War, the current era belongs to World, a province in Gaul is a Cell, Julius Caesar is an Entity, and Rome is a Landmark.
A city is a landmark because it stays put. A commander is an entity because they can travel. A province is a cell because it represents space itself.
Use stats to describe what can change
A stat is a question your game keeps answering. Allegiance answers who someone or somewhere supports. Morale answers how ready an entity is to keep fighting. Status can show whether a place is secure, contested, or besieged.
One stat can apply to more than one section when the same question makes sense in each of them. Allegiance, for example, could describe cells, entities, and landmarks. Each cell, entity, or landmark can still have its own starting value.
Read the whole world in the Game Stat Table
The Game Stat Table groups your starting state into World, Cells, Entities, and Landmarks.
- Cells, entities, and landmarks appear as rows; world stats are grouped in the World section.
- Each stat column appears only in the sections where it applies.
- Each value sets what is true when a player starts the game.
The Map and Game Stat Table edit the same starting world. Use the map when location and spatial patterns matter. Use the table when you want to compare many characters, places, or values at once.
Choose whether a stat needs a default
A default is optional. Turn it on when most applicable rows should begin with the same value. Leave it off when the stat should exist only where you deliberately set it.
In Rome: Republic at War, Allegiance has no default. Cells, entities, and landmarks receive a starting allegiance only when the game needs to make that relationship explicit.
No value is also a valid starting choice in the Game Stat Table. Use it when a stat appears in a section but says nothing meaningful about one particular cell, entity, or landmark.
Write rules that make the state playable
Stats say what is true. Rules explain what can make those truths change.
- The instruction inside a stat explains what that value means and when it should change.
- Simulation Rules connect the whole game: battles, travel, territory, scarcity, politics, injury, succession, and other interactions between characters, places, and regions.
Good rules create consequences without prescribing a plot. They give the world enough structure to respond consistently while leaving room for players to surprise you.