Modes change how a match starts or how the world works. Quick start, Risky start and End game are exclusive; everything else combines. Garrisons has its own tab. Each combination has its own leaderboard class.
Fog of war
Ownership and names stay visible; troop counts, buildings, ships and missiles are hidden outside your vision. You see 8 tiles past your own and allied land, plus radar stations (45), long-range radar (110), radar ships (60), your warships (gun range), fighter patrols, spy planes (need an airfield) and the satellite. Radar jammers blank enemy radar within 30 tiles but not eyes. Your SAMs only engage missiles you can see; missile command only targets what you can see.
Quick start
Everyone begins with a large contiguous holding absorbed from the neutrals around them, 4× troops and 5× gold. The land grab is mostly done; the match starts at the point where ports, factories and fronts matter.
Risky start
Nobody starts with land. Players and bots draft neutral countries round-robin in a shuffled order, 2–8 picks each depending on the map, then the war begins. Picks can be anywhere — a concentrated block or a gamble spread across the map.
End game
The whole map is divided between players and bots at the start by flood-fill from each spawn, no neutrals, everyone at 45,000 troops and 15,000 gold. It's the late game from minute zero.
Instant build
No construction or shipyard timers — except shield generators and level II upgrades, which keep their timers so a shield can be worn down and not simply rebuilt on the spot. Repairs always take time.
Billionaire
You alone start with a billion troops and a billion gold.
Paused orders
Normally a paused game is for looking: no building, buying, launching or attacking until you unpause. This mode lets you give orders on a stopped clock. Because that's an advantage, matches played with it sit on their own leaderboard class ("Standard + Paused orders", and so on).
Teams
Nations are dealt round-robin into 2, 3 or 4 permanent teams. Teammates can't declare war, share vision under fog, defend each other's land with SAMs and ships, trade automatically and can send aid. A team's combined land wins at 72%; map colors tint toward the team color.
Difficulty
Difficulty changes what the bots do, not only how fast they grow. Super easy bots never learn. Easy bots place defenses sensibly. Normal bots also manage their economy slider and reinforce an attack that's winning — that's the level the game is balanced around. Hard bots remember where they were hit (missiles, landings, bombs, torpedoes, blockades) and build the answer there, pick a focus enemy for a few minutes at a time, break off attacks that stall, refuse pacts from a nation past 45% of the land and ally with each other against it. Super hard adds air power — an airfield by minute six, patrols, bombers, paradrops on thin coasts. Impossible does all of it with the biggest growth and aggression multipliers.
Settings
Starting troops and gold (with an option to give bots the same), No troop cap (armies grow past the cap at full rate), and the list of allowed buildings, ships and weapons — disabling a unit removes it for everyone.