How to play.

Football Conquest is a territorial simulator. You pick a team, the arrow picks the matchups, FIFA rankings decide who wins, and tactics, momentum, and Aura tilt the odds. The map fills with your colour, one country at a time.

The basics

Every nation starts owning its home country. You spin a compass to find an opponent, pick a tactical stance, and play (or simulate) the match — the result is weighted by FIFA rankings, recent form, and the territory you already hold. The winner takes the loser's land. The campaign ends when one nation owns the world, or when your hero loses three times to the same opponent.

Two modes

Random Imperialism

The simulator drives everything. At each turn it picks a random surviving attacker, spins the arrow to pick a defender, simulates the match using both countries' FIFA points, and applies the result. Sit back, watch the chaos unfold across 211 turns until one country owns the map.

This mode is best for watch-mode content — you provide commentary while the simulator runs.

World Conquest

You pick one team. You're always the attacker. The arrow spins to find an opponent, and you play that match yourself in EA Sports FC. Then you come back, enter the score, and the simulator applies the result.

This is the creator mode. It's how you make "Can [team] take over the world?" videos. You provide the actual gameplay, the simulator handles map state.

How matches are decided

Every country has a FIFA Men's World Ranking points value — the top 40 are exact, the rest are estimated based on ranking position. France leads with 1877.32. Spain, Argentina, England, Portugal, Brazil, Netherlands, Morocco round out the top ten.

The simulator uses an Elo-style probability formula:

P(attacker wins) = 1 / (1 + 10^{(defenderRating − attackerRating) / 450})

A 200-point gap means the favourite wins about 73% of the time. A 400-point gap, 91%. The win probability is capped at 99% — even the heaviest favourite has a real 1-in-100 chance of losing.

Tactics

Before every match you pick one of three stances: 🛡️ Defensive, ⚖️ Balanced, or ⚔️ Attacking. Each opponent has its own natural playstyle, and the matchup is rock-paper-scissors:

• Attacking beats Defensive — break the parked bus.
• Defensive beats Balanced — soak up pressure, hit on the counter.
• Balanced beats Attacking — keep shape, punish overcommitment.

Picking the right counter swings the win probability and the expected goals in your favour. Picking the wrong one tilts both against you.

Strength: Territory + Momentum

Your hero's effective rating is the base FIFA rating plus two live bonuses — Territory and Momentum — shown as bars beside the bottom UI:

• Territory — scales with how many countries you've conquered. Each new territory adds a little less than the last. A retreat after a loss cuts it instantly.
• Momentum — scales with your win streak and weighted recent form. Bigger swings than Territory; drops fast after a bad result.

Both bonuses are capped per team. A top side tops out fast; a minnow can climb meaningfully through a deep run.

Scorelines

Match scorelines scale with the rating gap. Most matches end in normal time (1–0, 2–1, 3–0 style). Close matchups (under 100 FIFA points apart) go to extra time 25% of the time and penalties 20%. Mismatches stay in regulation 82% of the time — but produce occasional blowouts when an elite beats a minnow.

When an underdog wins, the scoreline is suppressed: usually a 1-goal margin, never a blowout. France losing to Canada will be 1–0 or 2–1, not 5–2.

Pre-match events

Roughly one match in five rolls a special event before kickoff, shown as a card on the result screen:

• Twist — a tactical wrinkle (key player injury, weather, derby tension) that shifts the odds or the scoreline.
• Boss match — every continent has a champion (the highest-rated team), and France is the final boss. Boss matchups force the event card and offer steeper odds with bigger Aura rewards.
• Revenge match — if the arrow lands on a team you've lost to but not yet beaten back, the match becomes a fiery 🔥 REVENGE matchup. Your hero gets +20 effective rating, and a win wipes the loss off the books.

Aura — your bank for boosts and skips

Every win earns ⭐ Aura — +1 base, +2 if you upset a higher-rated team, +3 for a boss (+5 for the final boss), +5 for clearing a whole continent. Effects stack.

Aura is the resource you spend on three things:

• Boosts — one-match advantages bought in the match modal. 🛡️ Park the Bus (2 Aura, opponent xG ×0.6), ⚡ All-Out Attack (2, your xG ×1.4), 💪 Reinforcements (3, +50 effective rating).
• Double or Nothing 🎲 — opt in before the match. Win, and your Aura earnings are doubled. Lose, and you forfeit your entire bank.
• Instant Win ⚡ — when your hero is strong, nearby teams rated under OVR 80 show a gold ⚡-cost pill on the map. Click it, spend 3–6 Aura, and the territory is conquered without playing the match. Saves the grind through trivial matchups.

Continental conquest

All 212 nations are tagged into the six FIFA confederations — UEFA, CONMEBOL, CONCACAF, CAF, AFC, OFC. A panel at the bottom-left tracks your progress in each one.

Clearing every nation of a continent fires a gold milestone toast, gives you +1 momentum, and banks +5 Aura. Each continent's highest-rated team is its champion — those matches are flagged as boss fights.

Nemeses

The first time you lose to a team, they're logged as your nemesis (💢 in the Events log). If the arrow lands on them before you've taken revenge, the match becomes a 🔥 REVENGE matchup — your hero gets a momentum boost and a win wipes the score clean and earns +3 Aura.

World Conquest rules in detail

You win a match

The defender's flag is removed, their territory paints your colour, your flag moves to their old position, and a faint dotted trail arrow records the conquest. Camera pans to your new frontline at regional zoom. Loss count for that opponent resets to zero (you may face them again later if you happen to conquer back).

You lose a match

Your loss count against that specific opponent increments by 1. The most recently conquered country is given to your opponent (not back to its original owner — they got knocked off earlier). Your flag retreats to the previous country in your conquest chain. The trail arrow you came in on turns red, preserved as a memory of the failed advance.

You lose three times to the same opponent

Game over. The campaign ends with a dramatic GAME OVER overlay showing the final score.

You eliminate every other team

Victory! The map is yours, the screen shows VICTORY in gold, the turn counter shows how long the campaign took.

Leaderboards

Before your first campaign you choose a username — that's your handle on the global Leaderboards. Completed runs are recorded automatically; longest survival and biggest wins rank highest. Browse the leaderboards from the top toolbar.

Tools for creators

Production settings

Click the gear icon in the game panel to access:

• Slow animations — 1.67× longer compass and roulette spins, for commentary pacing.
• Click to reveal — defers the score reveal and map repaint until you click. Builds dramatic tension for your edit.
• Skip micronations — excludes Vatican, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Andorra, Tuvalu, Nauru, and others from random attacker selection.

Light/dark map

The toolbar has a one-click toggle between dark ocean (deep navy) and light ocean (soft sky blue). Pick whichever matches your video's grading.

Undo

Players cannot undo — that would defeat the leaderboard. The creator build (the version recorded for videos) keeps full undo via Ctrl/⌘+Z, including reverse-spinning the arrow.

Save and load

Ctrl/⌘+S saves the current state to a downloadable file. Ctrl/⌘+O loads one back. Use this if you record across multiple sessions, or want to preserve a particularly good run.

Tips for great videos

1. Use World Conquest for narrative. Random Imperialism is fun watching, but viewers connect more deeply when you're playing the matches.
2. Turn on Slow animations + Click to reveal for commentary.
3. Pick teams with regional drama. England has the British Isles to consolidate before facing France/Spain/Germany — natural three-act structure.
4. Don't fight the losses. A run that includes a near-elimination at 2/3 losses is far more compelling than a sweep.
5. Save your state frequently. If you accidentally close the browser, your campaign is gone otherwise.

FAQ

Is this affiliated with FIFA or EA Sports?

No. The FIFA rankings used are public data. The match simulation is custom. We're not affiliated with any football federation or game publisher.

Can I use this in my YouTube videos?

Yes, absolutely. Make all the videos you want with it. A small credit to footballconquest.com in the description is appreciated but not required.

Is there a mobile app?

Not yet. A mobile version with club leagues (Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Süper Lig) is in development. Subscribe to the @Ghiellini YouTube channel for updates.

Can I add custom flags?

Not in the simulator itself yet — but if you want custom maps with your own flag designs, check out the PSD map packs at grkn.shop.