The game
Rise from Ashes
The world map you know, after the world you know has ended. Hold ground, feed your people, keep your labs running, and file your orders on time.
What kind of game this is
Rise from Ashes is turn-based grand strategy, played the way people played by mail in the 1980s and by email in the '90s. Nobody has to be online at the same time. Each player runs one power. Everyone files orders for the turn, then the house resolves all of them together.
The map is the present-day world, cut into land regions and sea zones. Ground matters. Gulf and Arabian oil, the grain of the plains and Ukraine, steel from Germany and southern China. The seas yield nothing, but you'll want them anyway.
Every arm you can raise comes from one catalog of designs: aircraft, ground formations, ships, and strategic and space systems. Power runs from 1, roughly the Second World War, to 10, the near future. Your labs decide how far up that ladder you get.
What winning looks like
There's no score. The aim is to still be holding ground when the others aren't.
Why by email
Slow on purpose
Real-time strategy rewards fast hands. Play-by-email rewards a good plan. You get time to look at the map, guess what your neighbor is up to, and change your mind before the turn closes.
It also fits around a life. Ten minutes over breakfast is enough to file a turn. A busy day doesn't cost you the war.