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Polis

Polis is a team-based, real-time strategy game set in the world of mythological Ancient Greece. Players work together as a team to build and manage a city-state (polis), constructing production chains, managing citizens, earning the favor of the Olympian gods, and accumulating prestige to achieve victory. Matches can be played cooperatively against the clock or competitively against rival polises.

Gameplay Loop

  • Citizens are assigned to work, driving everything in the loop

  • Spending resources to construct buildings generates more resources in return

  • Buildings yield higher-tier resources, which supply temples

  • Resources flow through a supply chain — from basic extraction, refined into higher-tier resources, then fed into temples

  • Uniting villages unlocks more buildings and temples to build

  • Temples consume higher-tier resources to produce Prestige

  • Reach the Prestige goal to win

Supply Chain

Supply chain is the core gameplay system of Polis 3.0, requiring players to collaborate and coordinate in real time to keep resources flowing efficiently across all production tiers.

Structure

  • The supply chain has three tiers: raw resources → refinements → temples

  • A single raw resource feeds into the empire (team), which branches into multiple refinement buildings

  • Each refinement building then unlocks two god temples, giving eight possible temples in total from one resource source

How It Works

  • Raw resources are harvested from terrain and pooled in the village depot

  • Refinement buildings draw from the depot and process them into higher-tier resources

  • Those refinements are then consumed by temples to generate Prestige tokens

  • Importantly, an entire team's empire shares one single depot — all villages united under the same team contribute to and draw from the same resource pool

Maintaining the Supply Chain

  • Monitor resource bars and reassign idle citizens to fix shortages before they stall the chain

  • Balance extraction and refinement — over-investing in one without the other wastes citizen slots

  • Expand to new villages when territory runs out, connecting them via roads to feed the shared depot

Synergizing Temples

Temple Combinations & Strategic Depth

  • Each god temple does two things simultaneously: generates Prestige and applies a Dominance bonus that buffs your economy — the key is choosing temples whose bonuses feed into each other

  • This creates a chain reaction design: one temple strengthens production, which fuels the next temple, which generates more Prestige than either would alone

  • For example, Demeter boosts food production across the polis — on its own, that's a useful economic bonus; but pairing it with Dionysus, whose Prestige output scales with surplus food, turns that bonus into a direct Prestige multiplier

  • This interdependency rewards players who plan their temple path ahead of time rather than reactively building whatever they can afford

  • It also creates meaningful differentiation between teams — two teams with the same temples but different build orders will have very different Prestige outputs

Design Principle

Accessible but Deep

  • Drag-and-drop controls keep moment-to-moment play simple and intuitive for new players

  • Strategic depth emerges from the economy system, not from complex inputs — anyone can play, but mastering temple combinations and supply chains takes skill

Teamwork as a Core Mechanic

  • The shared depot means no single player can win alone — coordination and communication are built into every decision

  • Citizens are scarce, so dividing responsibilities between teammates is essential rather than optional

Meaningful Choices at Every Stage

  • Early game: which resources to extract and which buildings to prioritize

  • Mid game: which refinement path to commit to

  • Late game: which temple combinations to synergize for maximum Prestige output

  • No stage of the game plays itself — players are always making decisions

Economy Over Combat

  • Victory is determined entirely by how well you build and manage your economy, not by attacking opponents

  • Competition comes from racing to Prestige goals and denying resources, keeping the tone constructive rather than destructive

Specialization Over Uniformity

  • The production tree rewards players who double down on a chosen path rather than spreading evenly across all resources

  • Different temple combinations lead to genuinely different playstyles, giving each match a unique flavor

My Artwork in Polis