FAQ & How to Play

What is Frontlines?

A real-time territory conquest game. Found a nation, grow your population, split it between troops (fighting) and workers (gold), expand across the map, and win by controlling 70% of the world — solo against AI nations or online against real people (bots fill the empty seats).

How does combat work?

Click enemy or unclaimed land next to your borders; the attack ratio slider decides how many of your available troops go. Attacks grind tile by tile — each tile costs troops based on terrain and how densely defended the enemy is (their troops ÷ their land). Dense little nations are expensive to crack; sprawling giants are cheap per tile. The defender bleeds population while you grind, and your survivors come home when the attack ends.

Mountains ≈ 1.8× cost, desert ≈ 1.65×, nuclear fallout ×1.5.
Defense posts multiply the cost of taking nearby tiles — put them on hot borders.
If someone throws 100% of their troops at you, their homeland is undefended — counter-attack.

Why does my Railway/Airport do nothing?

Boosters only work as a combo: a railway needs a city AND a factory within range 6 (airport: range 12) — then it adds +4% (airport +7%) to your growth and gold, shown in the HUD as 🚀×1.xx next to your income. Build the trio close together: city + factory + railway. The build log now tells you immediately whether a booster is ACTIVE or idle.

What do the buildings do?

🏢 City — raises your population cap. 👑 Capital — big boost, but losing it shakes your defense.
🏭 Factory — steady gold. ⚓ Port — unlocks ships (needs coast; rivers reaching the sea count).
🏰 Defense — fortifies nearby borders. 📡 SAM — intercepts one missile, then recharges 30s.
🚂 Railway / 🛫 Airport — growth & gold boosters (see above). 🚀 Silo — unlocks missiles.
Missiles: 🧨 Rocket (cheap, small blast) → 💣 Nuke → 💥 H-Bomb → ☠️ Doomsday (erases a nation). SAMs can intercept all of them.

Ships?

🚤 Transport — carries troops (attack-ratio %) across the sea to invade other continents. Unarmed — escort it!
⛵ Trader — earns gold automatically. 🚢 Warship — patrols a zone, sinks enemies, captures traders.
🛳 Carrier — big patrol zone and storms nearby enemy coasts for you.

Who are the AI rivals?

⚔️ Nations play to win and will invade you. 🕊️ Settlers expand peacefully and only fight players their own size. 🏴‍☠️ Pirates hold small coves, raid your traders, and occasionally go berserk. In 🧟 Outbreak mode, every rival is part of one relentless zombie horde.

Best practices (from painful experience)

Grab free land fast early — the land race decides your starting weight class.
Keep the troops/workers slider ~75% troops while expanding, then rebalance for economy.
Build your city + factory + railway cluster early; compounding boosts win long games.
Watch the ⚔️ numbers over rivals — attack when a neighbor bleeds from another war.
Never leave your coast portless: sea trade + transports = second front.
SAMs before silos if a rival already went nuclear.

Multiplayer

Quick match throws you into the public lobby; the Open games list shows custom rooms you can join, or create your own (FFA, 2-team, or 🧟 co-op Outbreak; pick the map & size, share the ?room=name link for private matches). Bots fill empty seats. During the spawn phase everyone's flag is visible — pick your ground strategically and re-click to move it before the timer ends.

Alliances: click a 👤 player in the leaderboard to propose one (or leave it). Allies can't attack each other, and their warships hold fire.
Quick-chat: the emoji bar on the left broadcasts an emote over your territory.
Giving up (🏳) or disconnecting hands your nation to a warlord bot that fights on.
📱 Phones & tablets: drag to pan, pinch to zoom, tap to attack/build.

Hotkeys

1–9 buildings · T transport · R trader · W warship · C carrier · B/N/M/X rocket/nuke/H-bomb/doomsday · F fly home · Esc cancel · Space pause (solo).

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