Strategy

Macrocosm is won by scoring the most points by the end of the round. Score comes from many different systems - land, research, building, combat, religion, trade, colonies, zone control, and more. The most successful kingdoms choose one or two primary paths and invest in them consistently, while not ignoring the systems that feed into everything else.

The Starting Position

Every kingdom begins with 350,000 mass, 350,000 energy, and 200 land. This starting fund needs to be spent carefully, because the decisions you make in the first few hours define how quickly your economy comes online.

The priority order is almost always the same:

1. Economy first. Build Mass Generators and Power Plants to grow your income. Without a strong resource base, everything else stalls. Farms are also important early because they drive population growth, and population drives research.
2. Expand your land. Once your income is established, run expansion to create more building space. More land means more structures, which means more output.
3. Fill your land with economy. Repeat until your income is strong enough to support military and religion investment.

Resist the temptation to spend your starting resources on hangars and units immediately. A player who spends their first 350k on economy will have dramatically more output within 12 hours than one who went straight for ships.

Primary Paths

Once your economy is running, you choose how to score. The main approaches are:

Religion

Religion is the strongest early-game scoring path. Preacher Drones are cheap, and influence placed on colonies begins generating faith score immediately. The score compounds as you hold control of colonies and the round progresses.

Getting your Sanctum built as soon as your economy supports it is the key unlock. From there, Priors and Zealots become available and your scoring potential increases sharply. Religion rewards consistent dispatching - set up a routine of spending credits on units and dispatching them regularly rather than sitting on your reserves.

Religion scoring starts producing returns from the very first dispatch and never stops. It is a strong choice for players who want to be competitive without heavy fleet investment early in the round.

Trade

Trade follows closely behind religion in early-game scoring potential. Building a fleet with strong cargo capacity (Manatees and Leviathans) and running regular trade envoys to distant colonies generates both income and score. The score bonus scales with trade distance, so targeting far-away colonies pays off considerably.

Trade also gives you access to special resources, each of which provides a 1% economy boost. A well-connected trader can stack a significant economic multiplier on top of their base income, which accelerates everything else.

Trade is reliable and relatively safe - you are not putting your fleet at risk in combat. The downside is that it requires active colony targets to trade with, so trade scoring depends partly on other players building and levelling colonies.

Combat

Combat is a slower burn than religion or trade. Early in the round, fleet sizes are small and land rewards from attacks are modest. The investment required to field a competitive attacking fleet is also significant.

Combat scales dramatically in the mid to late game once key research is unlocked. The Wraith (Mirage Technology research) appears smaller on enemy reconnaissance than it really is, making your fleet strength harder to gauge. The Erebus (Erebus Experimental Unit research) is the most powerful unit in the game by a considerable margin - a fleet containing one or more Erebus-class ships can take on much larger conventional fleets.

Once these ships are available, combat becomes extremely potent against kingdoms that have scaled up through religion or trade but have not matched their military investment. A well-timed late-game assault on a high-land trader or a dominant religion player can transfer significant land and score in a short window.

The practical reality is that pure combat players tend to climb the rankings steadily rather than explosively. The explosive growth comes once the late-game units are online.

Colonies

Colony levelling generates score through the colony level score system - higher level colonies earn more score per tick. Combined with religious control of those same colonies, a player who invests in levelling their colonies creates a compounding scoring engine that rewards long-term presence on a planet.

Colonies also generate resources and provide special resource access, making them an economic multiplier on top of a scoring one. Defending your colonies and levelling them consistently is a strong supporting strategy for any primary path.

Probing as a Secondary

Probes support every other strategy. Use them to:

• Steal resources from rivals when your own production is limited
• Spy on targets before committing a fleet to an attack
• Sabotage shields ahead of a missile strike
• Generate Infiltrate backdoors to sell on the Marketplace for credits

Probe missions run in the background and cost nothing beyond the initial facility investment. Running probe missions routinely is simply good practice regardless of your primary focus.

General Principles

• Consistency beats bursts. A kingdom that dispatches religion units every day, runs trade envoys constantly, and expands steadily will outperform one that has flurries of activity and long quiet periods.
• Protect your economy. Shields and defence emplacements are not glamorous but they deter attackers and protect the structures generating your income.
• Watch the scoreboard. The highscores page shows you who is strong in each category. Knowing who the dominant religion player or top trader is helps you decide whether to compete with them directly or find a different angle.
• Zone control is free score. If you have colonies, you may already be contesting zones without realising it. Check the Galaxy Map and consider whether holding a full zone is within reach.