Post-Nuclear Sustain: Ports and Trade as the Late-Game Win Engine

In the post-nuclear phase the winner is almost always the player who out-earns the opponent, not the one who fields the last Warship. The v0.34.12 buff made Ports and trade pay back faster and pushed the meta toward income-first endgames. This guide turns that shift into a decision process: when to stop buying military and start buying income, how to keep a SAM screen that survives a hydrogen, and how to force a 1v2 into a shape you can win before Overtime or Doomsday ends the match.

What the post-nuclear phase actually is

The post-nuclear phase is the window between “the nuclear landscape is set” and “the stalemate breaker ends the match.” In concrete terms, it starts when every serious player has placed their Missile Silos (or the cold-war standoff has frozen and nobody wants to launch first) and ends when either Overtime or the Doomsday Clock forces a winner. In a typical three- to four-player game this window is the last two to four minutes of active play, but it is the highest-leverage window in the entire match because the decisions you make here decide the winner.

What makes this phase different from the rest of the game is that the nuclear answer is now symmetric. If you can MIRV the second place, the second place can MIRV you. If you can hydrogen the third place, the third place can hydrogen you. The nuclear board is a game of mutual assured destruction with a small asymmetry in who has the most SAMs protecting their Cities. That asymmetry is real, but it is defensive; it decides who survives the exchange, not who wins. The offensive lever in the post-nuclear phase is income: the gold per minute you can generate from Ports, trade routes, and Factories. The player with the higher gold per minute at the moment the nuclear exchange resolves is the player who can buy the SAM screen, the last Warship, and the final push that closes the game.

This is why the post-nuclear phase is not a “fight” in the way the mid-game is a fight. It is a conversion problem: you are converting the gold you accumulated in the mid-game into the income rate that outlasts the opponent. If you arrive at the post-nuclear phase with 35M gold but only a land-income base of a few Cities and no Ports, you are sitting on a one-time windfall that will not last. If you arrive with 25M gold and a Port-Factory rail corridor that is already generating 5M per minute, you are sitting on a compounding asset that will out-earn the 35M by the time the Overtime threshold shrinks to 35% territory. The whole guide is about making the second arrival.

The post-nuclear phase also has a shape problem, which we will return to in the failure-modes section: a 1v1 post-nuclear is a clean income race, but a 1v2 post-nuclear (where you are the middle player with two bigger players around you) is a high-risk shape where the income race can still save you if you commit to it early enough. The middle player is the one most likely to be flanked, and the one most likely to be the target of a coordinated MIRV. The income strategy is the only strategy that works in both shapes, which is why it is the default and why the other strategies (full-send, over-stack SAMs, ignore the trade buff) fail in at least one shape.

Finally, the post-nuclear phase is when the stalemate breaker becomes the dominant consideration. If Overtime is declared in the room, the shrinking territory threshold is the clock, and the income strategy must pivot to territory conversion (build Cities on the contested edge, not Ports). If the Doomsday Clock is declared, the rising territory-share line (40% / 45% / 50% / 55% / 60% in v0.34.19 FFA) is the clock, and the income strategy must keep the SAM screen alive so you survive the waves and win the 1v1 that follows. Reading which breaker is in the room is a precondition to the rest of this guide; if you do not know whether it is Overtime or Doomsday, you cannot budget the transition correctly. See the doomsday-vs-overtime guide for how to read the room’s breaker at spawn.

Why military spending plateaus but income compounds after the nuclears

The core economic fact of the post-nuclear phase is that military spending has diminishing returns while income spending has compounding returns. A Warship costs 250,000 and gives you a one-time capability: it can raid a tile, screen a transport, or sink an enemy trade ship. Once the enemy has adapted (a SAM on the coast, a second Warship, a different route), the Warship’s marginal value drops to zero. A SAM Launcher costs 1,500,000 and gives you a standing capability: it intercepts hydrogen bombs for the rest of the game. But the SAM’s value is also reactive; it only matters if someone is actually throwing hydros at you, and in a frozen post-nuclear phase the hydros are often not coming. The only spending that compounds is the Port, the City, and the Factory: every minute they exist, they generate gold, and that gold buys more of the same, or buys the SAM screen, or buys the last Warship.

Concretely, the structure costs (from the generated data, current as of the v0.34.x line) are: Port 125,000, City 125,000, Factory 125,000, Defense Post 50,000, Missile Silo 1,000,000, SAM Launcher 1,500,000, Warship 250,000. Notice the spread: a Port costs the same as a City and the same as a Factory, but a Port adds a new income source (trade ships) while a City only adds land income. A SAM costs twelve times a Port. A Silo costs eight times a Port. The post-nuclear phase is the phase where you are choosing between a 125k asset that compounds (Port) and a 1.5M asset that protects (SAM), and the answer is almost always both, in the right order: fund the Port first so the gold is there to fund the SAM.

The compounding argument is easiest to see in a 1v1. Suppose both players have 25M gold at the start of the post-nuclear phase. Player A spends 10M on a SAM Launcher and 15M on a City. Player B spends 5M on a SAM Launcher (enough to survive one hydrogen, which is the community-verified threshold from the MIRV-race thread: a level-6+ SAM is the minimum that a hydrogen cannot one-shot) and 20M on two Ports and a Factory. After the nuclear exchange resolves, Player A has a stronger SAM screen but no new income. Player B has a slightly weaker SAM screen but a new income rate of roughly 5M per minute (two Ports plus a Factory feeding the trade routes). By the time the Overtime threshold has shrunk from 50% to 35%, Player B’s income has generated an additional 30M or more, while Player A’s one-time SAM is still sitting there intercepting hydros that never come. Player B wins the income race and converts the surplus into territory.

The same argument applies, with more friction, to a 1v2. The middle player (you) has two neighbors who are both bigger. The military answer to a 1v2 is to full-send one of them, but that spends your gold and leaves you at the mercy of the other. The income answer is to build the Port-Factory corridor so fast that even if you lose the 1v1 (because one of the big players MIRVs you), the remaining 1v1 is a slow bleed you can out-earn. The income answer is the only answer that does not get worse if you are hit; the military answer gets dramatically worse. This is why the community consensus in the MIRV-race thread (“railroads, ports, and pirating already get you far above 40 mil before end game”) is the default: you want to arrive at the post-nuclear phase with the income already built, not with the gold to build it later.

There is one important caveat, and we will return to it in the mode-adjustments section: if the room’s breaker is Overtime, the compounding argument reverses for the last 60–90 seconds, because the shrinking threshold means territory is worth more than income. In that case you stop building Ports and convert to Cities on the contested edge. The Doomsday breaker does not have this reversal; the rising share line means survival (SAM screen) is worth more than income, so you keep the Port-Factory corridor and the SAM screen and let the waves thin the field. Reading the breaker is therefore the first decision, not the last.

The v0.34.12 trade-spawn buff and why it changed the meta

The v0.34.12 release (September 20, 2026) contains a single meta-affecting change: “meta: increase trade ship and train spawn rate early-mid game.” This is the buff that made the trade-heavy “island man” build go viral and that is the reason the post-nuclear phase now rewards Ports more than it did before the v0.34 line. Before v0.34.12, the trade-ship spawn rate was low enough that a Port’s payback was long and the land-income base (Cities) was usually the better late-game income source. After v0.34.12, the trade-ship spawn rate is high enough that a Port’s payback is short and the trade income rate is high enough that a Port-Factory corridor can out-earn a City-only base. The community thread on the “island man” gambit explicitly attributes the viral spread of the trade build to this buff: “The island man gambit has gone viral lately over the trade ship cap doubling, buffing the ports.”

The practical effect of the buff is threefold. First, the payback of a Port is shorter. Before the buff, a Port’s income took a long time to repay its 125,000 cost; after the buff, the faster trade-ship arrivals mean the Port pays back in a small number of trade-ship cycles. Second, the ceiling of trade income is higher. The more trade ships on your routes, the more gold per minute, and the buff raises the ceiling by raising the spawn rate. Third, the risk of a trade route is lower, because the faster spawn rate means you can rebuild a lost route faster. These three effects together make the Port the default late-game income investment, and the Factory the default late-game multiplier (a Factory feeding a Port rail corridor multiplies the Port’s income).

The buff also has a timing effect. Because the trade-ship spawn rate is increased “early-mid game,” the buff is most valuable if you build your Ports in the mid-game, not the late-game. A Port built in the mid-game has had time to pay back and to compound; a Port built in the late-game has not. This is the same timing lesson as the frontload-port-factory-investment guide: the Port is a front-loaded investment, and the v0.34.12 buff makes the front-loading even more valuable. The post-nuclear phase is the harvest of the front-loaded Port; if you did not front-load, the post-nuclear phase is the wrong time to start.

The buff also interacts with the island shape of the map. On island maps (Canaries, Madagascar, Crete, Jeju, Svalbard, Sable Island), a Port is naturally defended by water: the enemy has to cross open water to capture it, which requires a Warship screen of their own. The v0.34.12 buff makes the Port the core of the island build, and the “island man” gambit is the island build taken to its logical extreme: spawn on a mid-island, build a Port and a Factory, let the trade-ship cap do the work, and snipe the dying players’ Ports to extend your routes. On continental maps (World, Africa, MENA), the Port is less naturally defended and the rail corridor is the key: a connected Port-Factory rail line on a continental map is harder to raid than an isolated Port, and the v0.34.12 buff makes the rail corridor the default late-game investment on continental maps.

The one thing the buff does not do is make the Port invincible. A Port can still be captured by a land raid if it is on the continent side of an island, or by a Warship if it is on a coastal tile with no screen. The buff raises the return on the Port, not the safety of the Port. The safety still comes from the Warship screen (250,000) and the Defense Post (50,000) on the Port tile, and from the SAM screen (1,500,000) on the Cities that fund the Port. The post-nuclear phase is the phase where you are buying both the return (Port, Factory) and the safety (SAM, Warship screen, Defense Post), and the v0.34.12 buff makes the return side more valuable than it was before.

Decision framework: ordering the Port, the Factory, the City, and the SAM

The post-nuclear phase is a sequencing problem, not a choice problem. You are not choosing between the Port and the SAM; you are choosing the order in which you buy them, and the order is determined by three questions: (1) What is the room’s breaker (Overtime or Doomsday)? (2) What is your current income rate relative to the opponent’s? (3) What is your current SAM screen depth relative to the hydrogen threat? The framework below answers the ordering for each combination.

The default ordering (Doomsday room, you are #1 or #2, income roughly tied with the opponent) is: Port → Factory → SAM → City → Warship screen → Defense Post → Port (second) → Factory (second). The Port comes first because it is the compounding asset and the 125,000 cost is the cheapest of the late-game investments. The Factory comes second because it multiplies the Port’s income and the 125,000 cost is the same as the Port. The SAM comes third because it is the protection for the income you just built; you want the income to be generating before you spend 1.5M on the SAM, because the SAM’s value is the value of the income it protects. The City comes fourth because it adds land income and is the same cost as the Port. The Warship screen comes fifth because it protects the Port from naval raids and is 250,000. The Defense Post comes sixth because it adds a 30-tile defense zone around the Port and is 50,000 (the cheapest late-game investment). The second Port and second Factory come last because they are the compounding step: once the first Port-Factory corridor is generating, the second one multiplies the income further.

The Overtime ordering (Overtime room, you are ahead on territory, income roughly tied) is: City → City → City → SAM → Port → Factory → Warship screen. The Cities come first because the Overtime threshold is shrinking and territory is the currency. You convert the gold into Cities on the contested edge, not into Ports. The SAM comes after the Cities because you need the territory first and the protection second. The Port and Factory come last because the Overtime window is short and the compounding argument does not have time to pay back; you only build them if the Overtime threshold is still high enough (40%+ territory) that you have time for the income race.

The 1v2 middle-player ordering (Doomsday room, you are the middle player, two bigger neighbors) is: Port → Factory → Port (second) → SAM → Warship screen → Defense Post → Factory (second) → City. The two Ports come before the SAM because the 1v2 middle player’s only survival strategy is the income race; the SAM is the protection for the income, but the income is the survival. The Warship screen and Defense Post come before the second Factory because the 1v2 middle player is the most likely to be raided, and the 250,000 + 50,000 = 300,000 protection is cheaper than the 1.5M SAM and gives you the naval defense that the 1v2 middle player most needs. The second Factory comes after the protection because it is the compounding step and the 1v2 middle player can afford to wait for the protection first.

The full-send ordering (you are #1 at 60%+ territory, you want to end the game now) is: MIRV → Warship screen → SAM → City → Port → Factory. This is the only ordering where the MIRV comes first, and it is the only ordering that is wrong if you are not at 60%+ territory. The community consensus in the MIRV-race thread is explicit: “do not be the villain unless you have 67% of the board.” If you are at 60%+ territory and the second place is at 25% and the third at 15%, the MIRV ends the game and the Port-Factory corridor is irrelevant. If you are at 40% territory, the MIRV makes you the target of a coordinated hydrogen and you lose the 1v2. The full-send ordering is the exception, not the default.

The framework has one meta-rule that overrides all the orderings: if your income rate is already above the opponent’s by more than 20%, stop building and convert to territory. The compounding asset has already done its job; the next step is to convert the income into the territory that the breaker rewards. The meta-rule is the difference between a player who understands the post-nuclear phase and a player who is in it: the understanding is that the post-nuclear phase has a phase transition (income to territory) and the timing of the transition is the decision.

Scenario A: the 1v1 income race (you are #1, 40% territory, 35M gold)

You are the largest player in a three-player game. You have 40% of the territory, the second place has 30%, the third has 30%. You have 35M gold. The second place has 25M gold and is hostile (you attacked them earlier). The room’s breaker is Doomsday. The Doomsday waves in v0.34.19 FFA are at 40% / 45% / 50% / 55% / 60% territory share. You are at the first wave (40%) and the next wave (45%) is coming in roughly 60–90 seconds.

The wrong play is the full-send: MIRV the second place, hope the third place does not hydrogen you. This is the “be the villain” play, and it is wrong because you are at 40%, not 67%. If the second place has a SAM screen, the MIRV is partially intercepted, the second place is still alive at 15% territory, and the third place now has a motivation to hydrogen you (you are the target of a coordinated strike). You lose the 1v2 and the Doomsday wave at 45% thins the field against you.

The right play is the income race with a SAM screen. Step 1: spend 1.5M on a SAM Launcher and place it on the City cluster that funds your Ports. The SAM’s job is to survive one hydrogen from the second place; the community-verified threshold is that a level-6+ SAM is the minimum that a hydrogen cannot one-shot. Step 2: spend 500,000 on two Ports and a Factory, placed on the rail corridor that connects your existing City cluster to the coastal trade routes. The Ports start generating immediately; the Factory multiplies the trade income. Step 3: spend 250,000 on a Warship screen to protect the Ports from a naval raid by the third place. Step 4: spend 50,000 on a Defense Post on the Port tile to add the 30-tile defense zone. Total spend: 2.3M, leaving you with 32.7M gold and a new income rate of roughly 5M per minute.

Now the second place has two options. Option 1: they MIRV you. The SAM intercepts the MIRV (or a large fraction of it), the City cluster is damaged but not destroyed, and the Ports and Factory survive. You are at 38% territory, they are at 30%, the third is at 30%. The Doomsday wave at 45% is coming, and you are the player with the highest income rate. The wave thins the field, and the 1v1 that follows is an income race you are winning. Option 2: they do not MIRV you, and the Doomsday wave at 45% comes. The wave drains the territory of the players below the line (the second and third at 30% are below 45%), and you are above the line. The second and third lose territory, and the 1v1 that follows is you at 50%+ and the second place at 25% or less. You win the income race and convert the surplus into territory.

The assumption in this scenario is that the second place does not have a MIRV that can bypass the SAM. If they do (a MIRV with enough warheads to overwhelm the SAM’s intercept capacity), the SAM screen is not enough and you need a second SAM or a repositioned City cluster. The check is: count the SAMs protecting the second place’s Cities; if they have more SAMs than you, the MIRV race is in their favor and you should not full-send but should also not sit still: you should build the second Port and the second Factory and let the income rate do the work. The assumption is the part of the scenario that you must verify in the live game; the rest of the scenario is the decision process.

Scenario B: the 1v2 middle player (you are #2, 30% territory, 25M gold)

You are the middle player in a three-player game. The first place has 45% territory and 40M gold. The third place has 25% territory and 20M gold. You have 30% territory and 25M gold. The room’s breaker is Doomsday. You are the target of a potential coordinated MIRV: the first and third places can team up and MIRV you, the middle player, because you are the highest-risk shape (flanked by two players who are both, in some sense, bigger than you).

The wrong play is to full-send the first place and hope to knock them out. This spends your 25M gold on a MIRV that may not kill the first place (they have the SAM screen), leaves you at 0M gold and 30% territory, and the third place now has a motivation to hydrogen you (you just attacked the first place, you are now the villain, and the third place is happy to let the first and third team up against you). You lose the 1v2 and the Doomsday wave thins the field against you.

The right play is the income race with a naval screen. Step 1: spend 1.5M on a SAM Launcher and place it on the City cluster that funds your Ports. Step 2: spend 500,000 on two Ports and a Factory. Step 3: spend 250,000 on a Warship screen. Step 4: spend 50,000 on a Defense Post. Total spend: 2.3M, leaving you with 22.7M gold and a new income rate of roughly 5M per minute. The Warship screen is the critical difference from Scenario A: the 1v2 middle player is the most likely to be raided, and the Warship screen is the cheapest naval defense (250,000) that keeps the third place from capturing your Ports.

Now the first and third places have three options. Option 1: they team up and MIRV you. The SAM intercepts a large fraction of the MIRV, the City cluster is damaged but not destroyed, and the Ports and Factory survive. You are at 28% territory, the first is at 43%, the third at 25%. The Doomsday wave at 45% is coming, and the first place is above the line (43% is close to 45%) while you and the third are below. The wave drains the first place’s territory, and the 1v1 that follows is you at 35%+ and the first at 35% or less, with the third place eliminated or at 10%. The income race is now a 1v1 you are winning because your income rate is higher. Option 2: the first and third do not team up, and the Doomsday wave at 45% comes. The wave drains the first place’s territory (they are above the line but the wave still hits them), and the 1v1 that follows is you and the first place at roughly equal territory, with your income rate higher. Option 3: the first and third do team up but do not MIRV you, and instead the Doomsday wave does the work. The wave thins the field, and the 1v1 that follows is the same as Option 2.

The assumption in this scenario is that the first and third places do not have a simultaneous MIRV (two MIRVs at the same time) that can overwhelm the SAM. If they do, the SAM screen is not enough and you need a second SAM or a repositioned City cluster, or you need to force the 1v1 by trading land with the third place (give them a strip of territory in exchange for a ceasefire, then the 1v1 is you and the first place, and the income race is a 1v1 you are winning). The force-the-1v1 option is the last resort and it is only available if the third place is a rational player who would rather have the strip of territory than the risk of being the target of a coordinated MIRV. The assumption is the part of the scenario that you must verify in the live game.

Failure modes and counterplay

The four failure modes that most commonly end the post-nuclear phase badly are: (1) the over-stack SAM mistake, (2) the ignored trade buff, (3) the premature full-send, and (4) the blockaded island without a screen. Each has a specific counterplay, and the counterplay is the decision you make in the minute before the failure happens.

Failure 1: the over-stack SAM mistake. This is the mistake the late-game Reddit thread describes: “You created multiple 6-stack SAMs early which still don’t even successfully negate a hydro.” The player spends 9M (six SAMs at 1.5M each) on SAMs before they have the income to pay back the 9M. The counterplay is the sequencing rule: the SAM comes after the Port and the Factory, not before. The 1.5M SAM is the protection for the income, and the income must be generating before the protection is worth 1.5M. The specific check: if you have spent more than 50% of your gold on SAMs and less than 20% on Ports and Factories, you are in the over-stack SAM mistake and the fix is to stop building SAMs and start building the Port-Factory corridor.

Failure 2: the ignored trade buff. This is the mistake of building only land income (Cities) and missing the Port-Factory corridor because the player does not know about the v0.34.12 buff. The counterplay is the income-rate check: at the start of the post-nuclear phase, count your gold per minute from land and from trade. If your trade income is less than 20% of your total income, you are in the ignored-trade-buff mistake and the fix is to build the Port-Factory corridor now, not later. The specific check: if you have more than two Cities and no Ports, you are in the ignored-trade-buff mistake. The v0.34.12 buff is the reason the Port is now the default late-game investment; ignoring it is the same as ignoring a free income source.

Failure 3: the premature full-send. This is the mistake of MIRVing the second place when you are at 40% territory, not 67%. The counterplay is the territory check: if you are below 60% territory, the full-send is the wrong play and the income race is the right play. The specific check: if you are at 40% territory and the second place is at 30%, the full-send makes you the target of a coordinated hydrogen and the income race is the only play that works. The community consensus in the MIRV-race thread is explicit: “do not be the villain unless you have 67% of the board.” The 67% threshold is the line; below it, the income race is the default.

Failure 4: the blockaded island without a screen. This is the mistake of building a Port on an island or a coastal tile without a Warship screen. The counterplay is the naval check: if you have a Port on a tile that is within range of an enemy Warship, you need the 250,000 Warship screen before the next trade-ship arrival, not after. The specific check: if the enemy has a Warship and you do not, the Port is at risk and the Warship screen is the first investment, not the fifth. The Defense Post (50,000) on the Port tile is the second naval investment; it adds the 30-tile defense zone that makes the Port harder to raid from land.

The meta-counterplay to all four failures is the income-rate check at the start of every minute of the post-nuclear phase: count your gold per minute, count the opponent’s, and if your rate is lower, invest in the Port-Factory corridor. If your rate is higher, convert to territory (the phase transition). The meta-counterplay is the single decision that prevents all four failures, and it is the decision that the rest of this guide is about.

Mode adjustments: Overtime, Doomsday, and No Alliances

The post-nuclear phase has three mode adjustments, and each one changes the ordering of the framework. The adjustments are: Overtime (shrinking territory threshold), Doomsday (rising territory-share line), and No Alliances (no ceasefire, fragile trade routes). The default framework in this guide assumes the Doomsday breaker; the Overtime and No Alliances adjustments change the default.

Overtime adjustment. In an Overtime room, the shrinking territory threshold is the clock, and the last 60–90 seconds of the post-nuclear phase are dominated by the territory conversion, not the income race. The ordering changes from “Port → Factory → SAM” to “City → City → City → SAM → Port → Factory.” The Cities come first because the threshold is shrinking and territory is the currency. The Port and Factory come last because the compounding argument does not have time to pay back in the short Overtime window. The specific check: if the Overtime threshold is at 35% or below, the income race is over and the only play is territory conversion. If the Overtime threshold is at 45% or above, the income race is still valid and the default ordering applies. The Overtime adjustment is the only adjustment that reverses the compounding argument, and it is the adjustment that the winning-overtime guide covers in depth.

Doomsday adjustment. In a Doomsday room, the rising territory-share line (40% / 45% / 50% / 55% / 60% in v0.34.19 FFA) is the clock, and the post-nuclear phase is dominated by the survival of the SAM screen and the thinning of the field by the waves. The default ordering applies, with one addition: the SAM screen is more important in the Doomsday room because the waves hit the players below the line, and the player who survives the waves is the player who wins the 1v1 that follows. The specific check: if you are below the next Doomsday wave’s line, you are the target of the wave and the SAM screen is the first investment. If you are above the next wave’s line, the wave is the opportunity and the income race is the first investment. The Doomsday adjustment does not reverse the compounding argument; it extends it, because the waves thin the field and the 1v1 that follows is longer than the 1v2 that preceded it.

No Alliances adjustment. In a No Alliances room, the trade routes are fragile because there is no ceasefire and the enemy can raid the Port at any time. The ordering changes to add the Warship screen and the Defense Post before the second Port: “Port → Factory → SAM → Warship screen → Defense Post → Port (second) → Factory (second).” The Warship screen (250,000) and the Defense Post (50,000) are the protection for the trade route, and in a No Alliances room the protection is worth more than in a room with alliances because the enemy can raid without the constraint of a ceasefire. The specific check: if the room is No Alliances and you have a Port on a coastal tile, the Warship screen is the first investment, not the fifth. The No Alliances adjustment is covered in depth in the no-alliances-mode guide.

The three adjustments have a common thread: the protection (SAM, Warship screen, Defense Post) is worth more in the mode where the threat is higher (Doomsday waves, No Alliances raids) and worth less in the mode where the clock is the territory threshold (Overtime). The meta-rule is the same as in the framework section: the protection comes after the income, but the amount of protection is determined by the mode. The Overtime room needs the least protection (the clock is the territory threshold, not the enemy). The Doomsday room needs the most SAM protection (the waves are the threat). The No Alliances room needs the most naval protection (the raids are the threat).

Map adjustments: islands, continents, and small maps

The post-nuclear phase has three map adjustments, and each one changes the shape of the Port-Factory corridor. The adjustments are: island maps (Canaries, Madagascar, Crete, Jeju, Svalbard, Sable Island), continental maps (World, Africa, MENA), and small maps (4-player). The default framework in this guide assumes a continental map; the island and small-map adjustments change the default.

Island adjustment. On an island map, the Port is naturally defended by water: the enemy has to cross open water to capture it, which requires a Warship screen of their own. The Port-Factory corridor is the core of the island build, and the “island man” gambit is the island build taken to its logical extreme. The ordering on an island map is: “Port → Factory → Port (second) → Warship screen → SAM → Defense Post → Factory (second) → City.” The two Ports come before the SAM because the island Port is naturally defended and the income race is the survival strategy. The Warship screen comes before the SAM because the naval threat is the first threat on an island map. The specific check: if you are on an island map and the enemy has a Warship, the Warship screen is the first investment, not the fifth. The island adjustment is covered in depth in the island-defense guide.

Continental adjustment. On a continental map, the Port is less naturally defended and the rail corridor is the key: a connected Port-Factory rail line is harder to raid than an isolated Port. The ordering on a continental map is the default: “Port → Factory → SAM → City → Warship screen → Defense Post → Port (second) → Factory (second).” The SAM comes before the Warship screen because the land threat is the first threat on a continental map. The specific check: if you are on a continental map and the enemy is within land range of your Port, the SAM is the first investment, not the third. The continental adjustment is the default and is covered in the train-network guide for the rail corridor details.

Small-map adjustment. On a small map (4-player), the Doomsday waves come faster and the 1v2 is the default shape. The ordering on a small map is the 1v2 middle-player ordering: “Port → Factory → Port (second) → SAM → Warship screen → Defense Post → Factory (second) → City.” The two Ports come before the SAM because the 1v2 is the default shape and the income race is the survival strategy. The specific check: if you are on a small map and you are the middle player, the 1v2 middle-player ordering applies, not the default. The small-map adjustment is the only adjustment that changes the shape of the 1v2, and it is the adjustment that the community consensus in the MIRV-race thread (“5 hydros ≈ a MIRV on small maps”) reflects.

The three map adjustments have a common thread: the natural defense of the Port (water on islands, rail on continents) determines the order of the protection investments. The meta-rule is the same as in the mode-adjustments section: the protection comes after the income, but the type of protection (naval, land, or both) is determined by the map. The island map needs the naval protection first. The continental map needs the land protection first. The small map needs both, in the 1v2 middle-player order.

Cost table and the practical checklist

The cost table below is the reference for the post-nuclear phase. The numbers are from the generated data (current as of the v0.34.x line) and the v0.34.19 Doomsday wave values.

Asset	Cost	Role in the post-nuclear phase
Port	125,000	Compounding income (trade ships)
City	125,000	Land income + territory
Factory	125,000	Multiplier for Port/City income
Defense Post	50,000	30-tile defense zone (cheapest protection)
Warship	250,000	Naval screen (Port protection)
Missile Silo	1,000,000	Nuclear offense (full-send only)
SAM Launcher	1,500,000	Nuclear defense (hydrogen survival)

The practical checklist for the post-nuclear phase is the decision process in six steps. Step 1: read the room’s breaker. Is it Overtime or Doomsday? This determines the ordering. Step 2: read the shape. Are you #1, #2, or the middle player in a 1v2? This determines the ordering. Step 3: read the map. Are you on an island, a continent, or a small map? This determines the type of protection. Step 4: read the income rate. Is your gold per minute higher or lower than the opponent’s? If higher, convert to territory. If lower, build the Port-Factory corridor. Step 5: read the SAM screen. Do you have a level-6+ SAM protecting the City cluster that funds your Ports? If not, the SAM is the next investment. Step 6: read the naval screen. Do you have a Warship screen protecting the Ports? If not, the Warship screen is the next investment.

The checklist is the operational version of the framework: the framework is the why, the checklist is the when. The framework tells you the ordering; the checklist tells you the next investment in the ordering. The six steps are the decision you make at the start of every minute of the post-nuclear phase, and the decision is the post-nuclear sustain: the slow, compounding, income-first endgame that the v0.34.12 buff made the default and that the Overtime and Doomsday breakers reward.

Two of the six steps are the fast checks (the ones you can run in under three seconds) and two are the slow checks (the ones that require counting the opponent’s assets). The fast checks are Step 1 (read the breaker) and Step 4 (read the income rate); these are the checks that decide the shape of the next minute. The slow checks are Step 5 (read the SAM screen) and Step 6 (read the naval screen); these are the checks that decide the protection of the next minute. The meta-rule for the slow checks is: if you are unsure of the answer, assume the worst and build the protection. The cost of a false positive (building the SAM when you do not need it) is 1.5M and a lost minute of income; the cost of a false negative (not building the SAM when you need it) is the City cluster and the Port-Factory corridor. The asymmetry is the reason the slow checks default to building the protection.

If you can run the six steps in under ten seconds (which you should, because the numbers are in the table above and the breaker is visible in the room UI), you are running the post-nuclear phase correctly, and the rest of the match is a conversion of the income into the territory that the breaker rewards. The ten-second check is the difference between a player who controls the post-nuclear phase and a player who is controlled by it: the controller runs the six steps every minute and the controlled player runs them once at the start of the post-nuclear phase and then reacts. The reaction is the failure mode; the six steps are the counterplay.