Doctrine Guide — Run Commitments

One commitment, whole run

A Doctrine is chosen BEFORE a run and reshapes one rule for its entire length — you take exactly one, or none. Build doctrines bend your own math (Glass Doctrine trades Core integrity for raw tower damage; Overclock trades economy for fire rate). Protocols reshape the enemy world itself (Swarm Protocol nearly doubles spawn counts at half health; Titan Protocol sends a handful of monsters; Famine starves your Biomass and pays premium rewards for surviving it). Pacts do both at once — a sacrifice and a payoff on the same signature.

Exclusivity is the design: you cannot stack every multiplier, so a doctrine forces a divergent build instead of a bigger one. A run with no doctrine is always legal and never punished.

Which doctrine when

Match the doctrine to what your account is good at, not to the biggest advertised number. A splash-heavy line feasts under Swarm Protocol; a beam-and-sniper build wants Titan. If your economy management is strong, Famine and Overclock pay far above their sticker price. Protocols carry reward multipliers up to ×1.6 — the harder the warp, the richer the run — and the reward premium stacks with your mastery rank in that doctrine.

New doctrines unseal as your campaign deepens (the picker shows each gate), so the roster grows with you: two are available from your first run, and the graduate-exam Overmind Protocol waits at stage 30.

Mastery ranks

Every doctrine tracks your wins and your deepest wave under it, and ranks up on whichever signal is further: Initiate, Adept, Zealot, Exemplar. Each rank adds a permanent run-end reward premium for that doctrine, your Bio-Dex records the ladder per doctrine, and achievements recognize breadth — winning under five different doctrines, and under all three families. Commitment is a progression axis of its own: the doctrine you keep returning to literally pays better.