Frontlines

How to play

Start

Tap any land and press Found nation here. 49 rival nations appear around the world.

Grow

Tap anywhere on a nation to see everything about it: people, land, buildings, bombs, wars and allies. Tap your land and hold Expand, or tap free land on your border and hold Claim. Tap a neighbour's land, choose how many of your people to send (1% to 100%), and press Invade: your troops sweep in as a wave and their number counts down as they fight. It's all about population: each sector costs as many troops as the people defending it, so if you send more troops than they have people, you win. A nation you invade only fights back with 1% of its strength until it invades you back, and the same goes for you: when someone invades you, hit back to defend at full strength. Sending 100% leaves your own land empty. Every purchase costs a little more than the last one, for every nation.

Build

Pick a building from the bottom bar, then tap your land to place it. Tap it later to upgrade it. Press Build (or B) to see everything: factories, power plants, farms, banks, cities, barracks, forts, bunkers, silos, radars, airbases, spy HQs, ports, research labs, hospitals and monuments. Factories and power plants power everything in their ring: anything marked Needs power does nothing outside one. Barracks, forts and farms work anywhere. A City is expensive but doubles your income and almost doubles the people around it.

Bombs

Buy bombs at a silo: missiles at level 1, toxic bombs at level 2, nukes at level 3. Each bomb has its own range, and upgrading adds more. To fire, tap enemy land and pick a bomb that can reach. A bomb shot down by a radar or ship does no damage at all. Bombs that land leave toxic fallout that kills people and blocks land until it fades, or until you pay for a cleanup.

Sea

Scout ships carry a small radar that spots and shoots down some bombs. Transports let you claim or invade any coast they are parked next to. Tap a ship, then tap the ocean to sail.

Peace

Attacking a nation starts a war. Tap their land to offer a ceasefire; nations that are losing usually say yes. Wars also end on their own after a long quiet spell.

Allies

Tap a nation you are at peace with and choose Propose alliance. Allies are combined with you: their factories and power plants power your buildings (and yours power theirs), you can build on each other's land, and you can invade anyone they border. Whenever either of you goes to war, the other joins and automatically sends 10% of their people to help. Ending the alliance undoes all of it: buildings on each other's land are taken down.

Difficulty

Easy: rivals mostly expand, and the odd bomb is small. Medium: a calm start, then wars. Hard: constant wars and frequent bombing. Extreme unlocks after you win on Hard. Every game starts gentle: early on rivals pick on you less, send smaller armies, bomb you less and rest between attacks, then the pressure builds over the years (check Rival pressure in the Overview). Only one rival army can invade you at a time. Each level also learns from your own normal games (not quests or custom games): win a lot and it gets a little tougher, lose a lot and it eases off. This stays on your device.

Win

Own 98% of the world, or defeat every rival. A nation that drops to 2% of its biggest size falls.

Controls

Drag to move, pinch or scroll to zoom. Esc or P pauses and saves. M turns the battle music on or off; it gets more intense when you're at war and when bombs come for you.