Quintine
8e1cd7b75b
Add the absent-Emperor Secret Ally alternative returning exactly three eligible forces free in Basic/Advanced base-faction Nexus games. Preserve ordinary force/free-revival allowances and the shared Advanced Fedaykin cap. Keep the action optional and private, consume the physical Nexus once, and validate durable source receipts through later ordinary revival and Ghola. Purchase timing remains pending the earlier uniform winner-payment UX question; partial returns and combined-module interactions remain guarded. No mode or publication gate opens. Connect private controls, explicit physical elite selection, all four legal AI profiles and a dedicated rules checklist entry. Extend the reusable local prototype writer with genuine twelve-card Nexus setup. Independent review covers rules timing, private projection, physical custody, JSON and production SQLite restore, lost-response replay and competing requests. Seventeen focused effect cases and four prototype-writer cases pass. Validation: typecheck, lint, 4649 offline tests, production build and 43 HTTP tests passed with unchanged source. Genuine-start Basic and Advanced samples completed in 715 and 263 actions with 19 and 7 periodic JSON restores, respectively, and no Emperor uses. Two explicitly staged continuations completed in 18 and 17 actions with one normal-force Emperor return each. All four had zero rejections and preserved exact Treachery, force, elite and Nexus custody; all fourteen final seat views restored unchanged. They are bounded continuation evidence, not natural full-game acceptance of the effect or AI calibration. In the conserved staged browser scenario, Advanced Fremen returned three forces including one Fedaykin using the Nexus, then three normal forces using the ordinary allowance. Reserves rose from three to nine, Tanks fell from seven to one, spice stayed three and the physical Nexus was spent once. The inspector was readable, the action notice displayed, and pending/resolved refresh restoration, physical custody and private projection passed. After the reported power outage, all 733 opening games and original seat/recovery records were preserved (767 after HTTP checks); database integrity and foreign keys passed. All 734 rooms immediately before broad verification remained unchanged. Reused the healthy server without restart, reset or recurring automation. Verified source tree: fd09a4bc71018cb7ef98c7e25c25dacc495ffed304dbd0cdfa223e539e8fa5e1
5.9 KiB
Emperor Nexus Secret Ally revival
14 September 2026. Prototyped, with Partial rules coverage. This connects the separate three-force revival alternative in Basic and Advanced base-faction games with Nexus alone. Public module starts and publication remain gated.
Rules and connected behavior
The printed Emperor Nexus has an alternative Secret Ally grant during Revival: three additional forces return free, beyond ordinary revival limits. Emperor must be absent and the holder unallied. The grant does not revive leaders, spend spice, or consume ordinary force/free-revival allowances. It can precede or follow ordinary returns while Revival remains open. Submitting the interface's ready action does not itself end that phase or invent a new card deadline. Printed cards, source audit
The ordinary Advanced one-per-turn special-force revival cap remains in force. For this roster, that means Fedaykin. The holder chooses among legal normal/elite groups totaling exactly three; one printed counter cannot become two forces. Fewer than three eligible counters remains a recorded source gap, not an implicit up-to-three option. Recruits, Tleilaxu income/prevention, CHOAM suppression, Homeworld deployment and other combined-module producers remain outside this batch. A different player's ordinary Fremen ally grant does not block the holder. November FAQ, p. 2
The engine consumes the physical Nexus and moves the exact force group in one action. A private receipt records the original pools, mode and conserved delta; independent event markers reject missing, duplicated or reordered history. Historical pools are not compared with all later current pools: ordinary revivals, Ghola and later battles can legitimately change them. The current card and event must still authorize a fresh use. Saved views never expose that receipt or rival hands/spice. The private offer creates no table-wide decision or forced pass.
All four AI profiles use the same projected legal choices. The UI supplies a physical elite selector only when it offers a real choice, shows unavailability reasons, and disables submission while busy. The existing Nexus inspector retains all three printed panels. This is legal functional support, not calibrated strategy.
Purchase alternative: pending interface decision
The printed purchase option preserves the actual buyer's spice after proving the price is held. It supplies a choice when buying. A pause only for the hidden holder would disclose eligibility; a per-bid instruction would commit earlier, before opponents finish passing or bidding. Neither is silently substituted.
The user has been asked whether to permit a uniform winner payment step, including otherwise forced spice payments, as an exception to the preference against forced confirmations. The answer is pending. The purchase effect is unimplemented; its source-specific seller-payment and non-Bidding boundaries also remain in the source contract.
Prototype entry and evidence
A fresh ready local lobby can use the existing reusable writer:
node --import tsx tools/start-prototype.ts --profile nexus \
--db PATH_TO_LOCAL_D1_SQLITE --room EIGHT_CHARACTER_CODE \
--version CURRENT_LOBBY_VERSION --out /private/new-prototype-checkpoint
It enables the real twelve-card Nexus setup, backs up saved games, compares the original room/version atomically, preserves seats and other rooms, and rejects redealing a started game. The Nexus is drawn through the ordinary closing-phase opportunity; the writer does not deal a chosen card directly to a player.
Focused tests exercise ordinary-first and Nexus-first returns, zero-spice use, Fedaykin caps, later Ghola, native/Betrayal exclusion, private controls and bots, JSON recovery, corruption, SQLite restart, lost-response replay and competing normal/elite choices. The fixture executes the real setup, alliance and Nexus draw actions but controls starting hands, deck order and the later loss topology. It is a targeted scenario, not an untouched complete game.
Independent source/privacy review and 17 focused effect tests pass; four prototype writer tests also pass. Two genuine-start samples with all four AI profiles finish: Basic 715 actions/19 periodic JSON restores and Advanced 263/7, both with zero rejected candidates and no Emperor use. Two explicitly staged continuations finish in 18 Basic and 17 Advanced actions, with one normal-force Nexus return each and no rejections. All samples preserve exact Treachery, force, elite and Nexus custody; all 14 final seat views also survive restoration. These are bounded continuation checks, not natural full-game acceptance of the Emperor effect or AI calibration.
A separate staged Advanced Fremen browser game spends the Nexus on three forces, including one Fedaykin, then revives three ordinary normal forces. Reserves rise from three to nine, Tanks fall from seven to one, spice remains three and the ordinary free allowance is used only by the second return. One Fedaykin remains in Tanks under the shared elite cap; the card is discarded exactly once. The full inspector is readable, the action notice appears, and pending/resolved states restore through refresh. Private projections and unchanged physical totals pass.
After the power outage, all 733 opening rooms and original seat/recovery records match the private backup; database integrity and foreign keys pass. The healthy server is reused without restart. A separate pre-verification snapshot protects all 734 rooms, including the new QA game. Required broad results, final preservation totals, source fingerprint and push confirmation are recorded in the checkpoint commit and private report.