Plan · Catan: AI Wars

Brief

Single-file web Catan clone in Game of Thrones aesthetic, 32-bit pixel art. The four houses are reskinned as AI labs: Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, X. Single-player vs 3 AI bots.

Stack

Single game.html file, no build step
Vanilla JS + <canvas> for board and pieces
Pixel-art tile sprites generated via an image gen API like Nano Banana 2 or GPT Image 2 (paid, approve cost before batch gen)
No frameworks, no npm

Scope

Visuals

Hex board, 19 tiles, GoT terrain palette (forest, hills, fields, mountains, pastures, desert)
4 house banners reskinned: Anthropic clay, Google multicolour, OpenAI mint, X black-and-white
Pixel-art dice, settlement, city, road, robber sprites
Victory screen with winning house banner

Functionality

Standard Catan rules, base set only
Hex board with number tokens and 9 ports
Dice roll, resource distribution to adjacent settlements
7 triggers robber move + 1-card steal
Build roads / settlements / cities with cost enforcement
Bank trades (4:1, 3:1 port, 2:1 port)
Longest road and largest army bonuses
3 greedy-resource AI opponents

Out of Scope

No multiplayer networking
No expansions (Seafarers, Cities & Knights)
No save / load
No music or SFX
No dev cards beyond Knight + Victory Point

Constraints

One HTML file, all assets inline or generated at runtime
Runs in modern browser, no external deps at runtime
AI bots must complete a turn in under 1s
No console errors during a full game

Definition of Done

game.html opens in the browser, plays a complete game vs 3 AI bots from setup to a 10-VP win, declares the winning house on a victory screen, with zero console errors.

Acceptance Criteria

Board renders 19 hex tiles, 18 number tokens, 9 ports
All 5 resources (brick, lumber, ore, grain, wool) distribute correctly on dice roll
4 houses pickable from a start menu, AI claims the other 3
Settlement and road placement legal-checks pass
Robber on 7 forces a discard + move + steal sequence
Game ends the moment any player crosses 10 VP
Winning house banner displays on the victory screen
Pixel art renders crisp at 1x and 2x browser zoom

Verification

Open game.html in Chrome, play one full game vs 3 bots, console stays clean
Visual check at 1x and 2x zoom
Manually trigger a 7 roll, confirm robber sequence works end to end
Manually trigger a 10-VP win, confirm victory screen shows the right house

Turn Budget

Stop after 60 turns, or sooner once the DoD condition holds.

References

Catan base-set rulebook
GoT house heraldry style (banner shapes, sigil silhouettes)
32-bit RPG pixel-art references (Stardew Valley, Octopath Traveler)

Risks / Open Questions

AI pathing could spiral if we let it minimax. Cap at greedy-resource heuristics.
Pixel art consistency across tiles needs one locked prompt template per terrain type, gen all in a single batch.
"No console errors during a full game" needs at least one human playthrough - /goal can't fully self-verify the UX path.

/goal one-liner

/goal game.html opens in browser, plays a complete Catan match vs 3 AI bots, declares the winning house at 10 VP, zero console errors during full play, stop after 60 turns

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