Dune/docs/ECAZ_OCCUPY_RULES.md

Ecaz Occupy: source conflict and implementation contract

Primary-source audit, 2026-09-07, corrected after independent verification. The casualty-rounding conflict remains unresolved by an authoritative correction. An earlier version of this document incorrectly attributed a community member's proposed numerical correction to designer Jack Reda. That attribution and the resulting claim of resolution are withdrawn. The allied-entry and battle-role clarification below is a separate, verified designer statement.

Provenance and attribution correction

Source	Observed wording or correction	Authority and conclusion
GF9 E3 rulebook, p.8	Contribution rounds upward; survivors after a win round downward.	General printed rule, supporting ceil contribution/loss and floor survivors.
Same publisher PDF, indexed p.15	Five contribute two; two die and three remain.	Contradicts the general paragraph. A current publisher URL does not prove every page includes later revisions.
Publisher-authored English mirror, p.15, extracted in /tmp/dune-rules/ecaz-audit.txt:686	Five contribute three, but two still die and three remain.	Contribution agrees with p.8; casualty sentence still conflicts.
Rulebook file submitted by Jack Reda / The Warp	File description mentions numerical corrections.	Supports the existence of a revised file, but the description alone does not identify the casualty correction or establish corrected contents.
Jack Reda, 26 August 2023, on that file page	Explains face-up Ambassador placement and face-down Terror placement.	Does not correct Occupy casualties.
Jeff C / @brigade, 28 November 2023, on that file page	Reports remaining number errors and proposes three of five Ecaz forces die, with two surviving.	Community interpretation, not publisher or designer erratum. It cannot resolve this task's source conflict.

The exact fresh query site:boardgamegeek.com/filepage/263742 "First Q&A" returned the full comment boundaries. An earlier broader result had omitted the intervening Jeff C author/date block, causing the false attribution. Direct BGG opening returned 403. The complete indexed result takes precedence over that incomplete excerpt. Do not cite Jeff C's sentence as a Reda ruling or infer author approval from his hosting the file.

For participating Ecaz force count E, the p.8 reading, not an adjudicated correction, is:

Ecaz contribution = ceil(E / 2), fully supported without spice
Ecaz losses on ordinary allied win = ceil(E / 2)
Ecaz survivors on ordinary allied win = floor(E / 2)

The partial revision supports the upward contribution, but for E=5 the example's two losses/three survivors conflicts with p.8's three losses/two survivors. The earlier Ambassador audit and remaining-effects readiness therefore remain correct to identify a source gap. A primary correction or explicit supported interpretation is still needed before claiming that combat implementation fully resolves it. Ecaz's fixed contribution is not a selectable dial, and its independent losses must not also be charged against the ally's chosen dial; those structural requirements do not depend on which rounding sentence wins.

Occupation, controller and battle order

Ecaz and its current ally form one occupation side and may share a territory. Their actual counters retain separate ownership. This allows Ecaz to enter a stronghold already holding its ally and an enemy; it does not allow a third unrelated occupation side. Storm restrictions still apply. Homeworlds are expressly excluded because they are not territories. Existing discovery locations and the mobile stronghold require their own admission rules; Occupy does not itself create permission to ship directly into the mobile stronghold. E3 pp.8,10

Jack Reda independently confirms the stronghold exception and explains the two meanings of aggressor in Understanding Ecaz Occupy, 16 October 2023: ordinary storm order still determines who selects battles; the faction ultimately fighting matters for tie priority. His answer also confirms that selecting Ecaz does not exchange the roles of the two force pools. BG advisors need not flip and do not participate in Occupy combat while they remain advisors.

Implementation must therefore distinguish:

• Battle-order actor: determined by the normal battle sequence before Ecaz's selection.
• Selected battling faction: Ecaz chooses this after battle order is determined. It supplies its own permitted leader, hand and Battle Plan; it is not permission to browse or play the ally's hand.
• Dialed force owner: always Ecaz's ally while Occupy operates.
• Fixed-contribution owner: always Ecaz, with the printed half-force contribution and separately attributed casualties.

Do not represent these as one interchangeable attacker identifier. In a storm order ally → opponent → Ecaz, selecting Ecaz must not silently inherit the ally's tie priority merely because the ally selected this battle. The precise API should retain the battle-order actor and derive the selected combatant's ordinary tie relation separately. This follows the designer's distinction; no Sapho or Stronghold-card exception is inferred from it.

Battle calculation, support and losses

The ally's chosen dial uses its normal force rules; the Ecaz increment costs no support spice in Advanced play. The E3 p.15 Fremen FAQ confirms Fedaykin can be dialed and Fremen forces retain free full strength in this co-occupied battle. Its answer to the first of two questions is not a numerical one-Fedaykin limit. Preserve physical force types and actual force ownership when computing support and casualty alternatives. E3 pp.8,15

For a normal win, settle the dialed ally's legal losses under Basic or Advanced rules, then the independent Ecaz loss under the explicitly selected rounding rule. For a normal loss, both participating allied force pools lose their forces: retaining Ecaz's fixed survivors is conditional on winning, not a guaranteed retreat. BG advisors remain outside these pools. A lasgun/shield explosion destroys all affected territory forces under its general rule; neither half-rounding nor the unchosen-faction label makes a safe army. Base pp.10–11,13,22

The chosen faction owns the plan and is the ordinary plan-payment actor under base p.13. Apply only established funding permissions, such as CHOAM's battle aid; shared occupation does not merge spice balances or grant arbitrary allied funding. The fixed Ecaz increment is not an amount of spice secretly paid by Ecaz and must not create CHOAM payment income. Preserve normal force-owner properties, including the explicitly confirmed Fremen support exemption. This payment composition is inferred from the ordinary plan rule and Ecaz's explicit selection, rather than a retrieved worked payer example.

General battle effects still need their own scoped application. A traitor's ordinary winner-loss exception, defeated-side destruction, leader deaths, and card ownership must be considered across the actual allied side instead of processing Ecaz as an unrelated third army. Neither the conflicting example nor the community correction is an explicit ruling on every traitor, Face Dancer, Stone Burner, Suboid exchange, Auditor, capture or Stronghold-card combination. These integration checks are separate from the still-open rounding conflict.

E3 p.16 specifically says that Harass & Withdraw returns the card player's undialed forces, while the ally's forces follow their normal treatment. Therefore a side-wide indiscriminate retreat is incorrect. Preserve owner-labelled force pools before adding this card. E3 p.16

Collection, control and victory

Desert collection is a shared allocation: the allies may agree on the split; absent agreement it is as equal as possible with the odd spice going to Ecaz's ally. Determine the actual collectible amount once, respecting force availability and collection rate, then allocate it. Do not pay the entire spice deposit separately to both factions. The p.15 FAQ also confirms that co-occupation in Arrakeen gives both factions ornithopters and collection rate three. E3 pp.8,15

The Advanced Collection advantage is separate: in co-occupied Arrakeen and Carthag each ally receives two bank spice; in co-occupied Tuek's Sietch each receives one. It applies at Spice Collection, and does not multiply desert spice or grant Basic stronghold income. E3 p.8, base p.13

At turn end a co-occupied stronghold counts once for the alliance and Ecaz controls it. Three strongholds suffice for their allied victory only when both factions co-occupy all three; otherwise ordinary allied victory conditions still matter. A two-and-one distribution is not three co-occupied strongholds. Advisors cannot manufacture a second fighting occupier. The p.15 FAQ forbids combining split ownership of the three Tech Tokens into an extra stronghold and confirms Ecaz/Fremen co-occupation in Sietch Tabr does not spoil Fremen's special victory. E3 pp.8,15, base p.12

A single holder of all Tech Tokens can still gain their ordinary stronghold equivalent. That does not itself establish a third territory occupied by both allies; the special three-co-occupied test must retain its physical co-occupation requirement. This is the direct composition of the threshold wording with the token FAQ, not a new permission to combine token custody.

Karama: native and converted

The Occupy cancellation is explicitly before Battle Plans are formed. Once canceled, the chosen battling faction dials its own forces and the other ally contributes zero. It does not revoke their three-stronghold victory permission or evict legally co-occupied forces. Preserve the selected combatant; do not quietly select whichever faction now has more forces. A separate Collection cancellation denies Ecaz's co-occupation bank income while the ally collects normally. It is not a cancellation of desert collection, territory access or the whole alliance. E3 p.16

An Advanced BG Worthless conversion uses the same substantive timing and result as a printed Karama. Conversion is not permission to cancel after a plan has become committed, to see the selected opponent's private plan, or to add a second Occupy choice after cancellation. The existing BG conversion response can decide whether the Worthless operates as Karama; after that decision the original source-bound Occupy request resumes. An allowed cancellation must recompute force ownership, support and dial options before any plan becomes valid. Base p.18

The p.16 row explicitly states zero combat contribution for the non-battling ally but does not itself give a full casualty sentence for that canceled case. Ordinary-winning-side retention and losing-side destruction are a plausible composition; do not advertise an independently retrieved designer ruling on that consequence. This is a separate source check from native rounding.

Recommended bounded next slice

Implement a pure, owner-labelled Occupy battle profile shared by validation, AI, public preview and actual scoring: current Ecaz/ally side; selected combatant; battle-order actor; dialed force owner; exact Ecaz contribution; ordinary winner casualty split; and canceled profile. Keep the rounding policy explicit until resolved; retain storm-separated and advisor exclusions, and never read the non-selected ally's hand. Integrate a durable public combatant-selection stage and the pre-plan Karama opportunity before admitting plans. The p.8 arithmetic can be represented as a labelled candidate in an isolated pure helper, but an execution path must not silently treat it as a designer-corrected rule. The independently supported allied-entry and battle-side identity work is the safer immediate production slice.

Acceptance examples should include Ecaz counts 1–5, either selected faction, all three relative storm positions, both win/loss outcomes, Basic/Advanced supported dials, Fremen free strength, advisor-only BG exclusion, printed and BG-converted cancellation, and JSON recovery after selection. Separate targeted follow-ups should cover the source-scoped special battle effects above, agreed/default desert allocation, Advanced Collection, and actual three-co-occupied victory. Keep the optional Homeworld/Nexus/Discovery modifiers explicitly outside the initial profile until their own faces and outcomes are wired; no ordinary Occupy rule may be used to bypass them.

No runtime, tests, mode gates, or prior source documents were changed in this audit. The prior false designer-erratum attribution is explicitly corrected above. Native rounding, advanced interactions and canceled-loss semantics remain separate evidence boundaries.