ShowDev: I'm building a real-time chat-controlled map engine, and I need help breaking the expansion logic.

Conquer The Map — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 20:09:28 +0000

Hey everyone,

I'm a software engineering student, and I've been spending my free time building a backend engine that turns a live chat into an interactive, real-time hex-grid map war.

To be 100% transparent: This channel isn't monetized, and I'm not looking for views. I'm literally just a dev trying to stress-test my logic in a live environment.

Right now, the server reads commands (like !spain or !US) and allocates hexes based on a basic expansion algorithm. But because I'm the only one testing it, I can't see how the engine handles concurrent requests, conflicting borders, or queue bottlenecks.

If anyone has a few minutes to spare, I have a live visualizer running right now. I'd be incredibly grateful if you could jump in, drop a few country codes in the chat, and actively try to break the logic or overload the system: https://www.youtube.com/live/6pYEYrUfSUc

I'm specifically looking for feedback from other devs on:

Concurrency: Does the map update smoothly when multiple people send inputs at once, or does the loop lag?
Edge Cases: How is the engine handling territory expansion when a country is completely surrounded?
Feature Logic: What backend logic would you add to make the expansion more strategic rather than just a click-spam race?

Thanks in advance for any insights. If you manage to crash the visualizer, please tell me exactly what you typed so I can figure out what went wrong!

DEV Community: Conquer The Map

ShowDev: I'm building a real-time chat-controlled map engine, and I need help breaking the expansion logic.