Skirmish II emblem SKIRMISH II

Skirmish II is open — and it stays open. A couple of small, clearly labeled ads help pay for the servers and keep development going. They never cover the game and never pop up. Thanks for being here!

Skirmish II emblem — a wooden shield with crossed swords and a small tower

SKIRMISH II

Some games cannot die.

Skirmish II is the attempt to build one: it starts simple, it keeps growing, kept alive by the community, for the community. Anyone can play it — right in the browser, no install, no account.

The chess of the 21st century — mechanics that don't need to change. They need to run forever.

Advertisement
Ads pay for the servers — thanks for being here.
Ads pay for the servers & keep Skirmish II open.

Play the test build

This is the live M13 test build — the game now opens on a Lobby Browser: the list of open games with live pings — join one, or create a lobby and share the link to play a friend in the browser, no accounts. Plus a working economy, construction, combat, and now the full command shell: queued orders, rally points, control groups and idle keys, just like your hands remember. Send villagers to gather wood, berries, gold and stone, train more at the Town Center, then build: Houses raise your population room, Farms grow food your villagers harvest. Your Scout Cavalry rides with the village from the start; sheep, boars and deer roam the map. A Barracks trains Militia and Spearmen, and advancing to the Feudal Age unlocks the Archery Range (Archers and Skirmishers), the Stable, the Blacksmith and their technologies — Man-at-Arms, Fletching, Wheelbarrow and more. Every unit, building and tree on the map is now our own original art. A unit hiding behind a building shows its outline through it, in its owner's colour, and every match ends on a full score table — military, economy, technology, society. Every match now generates a fresh Arabia-style map — rolling hills, ponds, and fog of war — with both starts mirrored fair. The game opens fullscreen, on its own page.

Test build · M13 — open-games lobby, send-a-link 1v1, generated Arabia, fog of war, Dark & Feudal Ages Skirmish II — a little village of workers, trees and a town center, in original art

Play the test build →  ·  Play online →

How to play: click a villager to select it, then right-click a tree, bush, gold or stone to gather — or the ground to move. Train villagers at the Town Center, but training stalls at the population cap: build Houses (+5 room, 25 wood), Farms (175 food, 60 wood) and a Barracks (175 wood) from the build menu. Right-click an animal to hunt it; build the Barracks to train Militia and Spearmen, and the Archery Range (Feudal Age) for Archers and Skirmishers. Pan with WASD / arrow keys or right-mouse drag; zoom with the mouse wheel; Esc pauses.

Why Skirmish II

Big strategy games want new hardware, a huge download and a store account. Skirmish II is the opposite: a complete little RTS that lives in a browser tab — for anyone, on any machine.

Same game, every machine

The simulation is pure Rust with fixed-point math: same seed, same commands, same result — on every computer. That is what makes fair multiplayer and replays possible.

Runs on anything

One build for every computer. Only the visuals scale to your machine — the simulation never does — so an old laptop and a gaming rig play on even terms.

Original & clean-room

Every sprite and every line of code is made for Skirmish II, from scratch. Inspired by the classics — never copied from them.

Built in the open

The source is on GitHub and the game grows in public, milestone by milestone. Play it, read the code, follow along — or fork it.

Roadmap

Small milestones, shipped one at a time. The economy, construction, combat, the full input shell, a scripted opponent, ages and technologies, generated maps with fog of war, the full Dark-and-Feudal roster and an end-of-match score table — and now send-a-link multiplayer — are playable today.

M0Deterministic sim core — done
M1Movement & pathfinding — done
M2Economy loop — done
M2.5Construction — houses, farms, population — done, playable now
M3Combat — Scout, hunting, Barracks, Militia & Archers — done, playable now
M4Input shell — control groups, queued orders, rally points — done, playable now
M5Scripted opponent + Conquest — done, playable now
M6Ages & technologies — done, playable now
M7Generated Arabia maps, hills, fog of war — done, playable now
M8Multiplayer — send a link, play a friend — done, playable now
M9Open-games lobby — join a game or create one — done, playable now