PEAR

Each round: claim a free plot, optionally buy one more, develop, then production and the market run. Whoever is behind goes first at every step. Highest score after round 12 wins (cash, stock, land, PEARs, upgrades).

Develop (4 actions): install a PEAR as power, compute or tokens; refit a plot to another type; add a shield, cooler or cistern; give a power plot a battery.

Neighbours, whoever owns them (up, down, left, right): each same-type neighbour +1, plus +0.25 for each other same-type plot that neighbour touches. Compute next to tokens costs both −1, and a clash that stands gets worse each round (up to −2). Same-type diagonals soften clash by 0.25 each. A thorn (2+ clashing neighbours) bites harder for each same-type plot beside it; a shielded thorn takes no clash.

Power: a compute plot burns 3 power a round, a tokens plot 1. Your power plants run your own plots first; spare power is sold to whoever is short, then to the store. Short of power, a plot runs at down to half. A power plant reads the 8 plots around it: all one kind of load runs it at 110%, a 50/50 mix at 100%, and it loses 12.5% for each plot of imbalance in between.

Bartlett's grid: the town needs power too: 10% of what the colony's plots burn, every round. It takes what it can from the store's shelf and bids for the rest in the power auction at the store's price, first in line at that price. Leave it short and it browns out: next round every compute and tokens plot runs short (power plants don't), and each shortfall pushes power's price up until the town is supplied again. With the store's shelf empty, the store's price stops being the ceiling: sellers can ask up to 2.5 times it.

Batteries (power plots, $60): bank up to 6 power you didn't sell, losing 10% a round. Banked power runs your plots or goes up for sale next round. Power nobody bought fills your batteries first, then goes to the store at its buy price; turn off "sell my unsold power" and it's lost instead, which keeps the shelf empty.

Compute feeds your tokens plots (1 each); spare is sold. PEARs are made from compute: the store turns every 2 compute it holds above 6 into a PEAR, and 1 more ships in each round. The store is Bartlett, in the middle of the map. Nobody sells compute, the store runs dry and nobody can build. Tokens sell to the store, whose price sags as it fills.

Water: one reservoir, refilled by the creek every round. Every built plot drinks (tokens 3, compute 2, power 1; less on the creek and with a cooler), paid each round from your tank first, then the reservoir. The price climbs steeply as it empties; run it dry and every plot in the colony makes half, and everyone's next turn is one action shorter.

Auction: after production, power and then compute go up for auction, live. If you have spare you're a seller; if your plots are short you're a buyer. Sellers' asks start at the store's price, buyers' bids at the bottom; hold your up or down key to move. Asks and bids meet and stop: they can't pass each other, and they trade, a slice at a time, where they meet. When a seller runs out, its buyers can move on to the next ask. The top rung is the store selling (unless its shelf is empty) and the bottom rung the store buying, open only once nobody on the other side is left for you, Bartlett's grid included. When the clock runs out, leftovers settle with the store, or for power, as above. Hold out for a better price, but the clock is running. Keys: seat with the first person W/S, second ↑/↓, third I/K, fourth numpad 8/5; or a gamepad's d-pad or stick; or the on-screen buttons. You can refuse to sell to the leader.