Trade Wars Sim
Civilization survival game meets stigmergic optimization. Model WW3 as an emergent multi-agent system where 10,000 players compete for resources, territory, and survival.
January 2026. Global war erupts over semiconductors, energy, and rare earths. Six nation-states (USA, China, EU, Russia, India, BRICS+) fight for survival while AGI emerges in the background. Players submit natural language commands. An ant colony processes them through stigmergic simulation. AI generates narrative from colony state.
War is a multi-agent search problem. Nations seek survival. The colony learns optimal strategies through exploration of the possibility space.
How It Works
Seven-Stage Turn Resolution (15 minutes)
Each game turn processes through seven stages powered by ant colony optimization:
- Input Aggregation (2 min): Collect player commands, group by nation
- Conflict Resolution (3 min): Identify contradictions, resolve via pheromone weights
- Military Simulation (4 min): Execute combat, update territories, calculate casualties
- Economic Consequences (2 min): Process supply chains, shortages, black markets
- Humanitarian Impact (2 min): Refugees, famine, disease, morale
- AGI Evolution (1 min): Advance readiness meter, trigger milestones
- Narrative Generation (1 min): AI creates story from colony state
Stigmergic World Modeling
Every game concept maps to ant colony primitives:
- Nation states: Regions in the colony graph (2M+ nodes)
- Military units: Soldier-caste ants executing operations
- Supply chains: Weighted edges with pheromone trails
- Alliances: High-pheromone trails between regions
- Resource scarcity: Low pheromone density (ants avoid)
- Humanitarian crises: Negative pheromone (repels ants)
Six Playable Factions + Three Emergent
Nation-states with starting conditions:
- USA (NATO Lead): 85 military, 70 economy, high AI access
- China (AEU Lead): 80 military, 75 economy, high AI access
- EU (NATO Member): 60 military, 65 economy, medium AI access
- Russia (BRICS+): 70 military, 40 economy, low AI access
- India (Neutral/Pivot): 55 military, 60 economy, low AI access
- BRICS+ Coalition: 50 military, 55 economy, medium AI access
Emergent factions: AI Collective (unlocks at AGI readiness 60+), Corporate Hegemon (tech/defense), Stateless Resistance (refugees/AI-safety advocates)
Resource Warfare
Three tiers of scarcity cascade through the game:
- Tier 1 (Immediate): Advanced semiconductors, rare earths, energy, phosphate
- Tier 2 (Turn 5-10): Food, medical supplies, construction materials, batteries
- Tier 3 (Turn 15+): Water purification, electronics, civilian fuel
Contested War Zones
Taiwan Strait (semiconductors), Ukraine (grain), South China Sea (shipping routes), Arctic (resources), Middle East (energy), European NATO (territory). Each zone is a disputed edge in the colony graph where multiple nations compete.
The Engineering Challenge
Building a 10,000-player civilization simulator powered by ant colony optimization requires:
- Scale: 2M+ TypeDB nodes for military, infrastructure, and contested zones
- Performance: Process complete game turns in under 15 minutes
- Emergence: 50%+ outcome variability across game instances (not scripted)
- Narrative coherence: LLM generates plausible stories from chaotic game state
- Integration: Bidirectional sync with Trade Wars AGI mission
Your mission: Implement turn processing, military simulation, supply chain dynamics, and narrative generation using stigmergic principles. Make war feel emergent, not predetermined.
Patterns That Transfer
Trade Wars Sim isn't just a game — it's a pattern extraction engine. The colony crystallizes reusable knowledge: