Forgefront

Iron takes land. Land makes iron.

There is one thing you do in Forgefront, and it is click the map. Wherever you click, a share of your iron goes to taking the land nearest that point. Aim at something far away and a column marches there. Aim at your own border and the border swells outward. Open plains cost 1 iron a cell, forest costs 2, and nobody crosses rock or water.

Iron comes out of forges. Your core has one, and there are 6 more scattered over the map for whoever gets to them. Every cell you hold pays a trickle too. So the land you take pays for the land you take next, which is the whole engine, and also why falling behind early hurts.

Three things come out of the ground

• Iron buys land and walls. You will never have enough.
• Gold comes from 4 mines. It buys forge upgrades, which multiply every forge you hold, and watchtowers.
• Emeralds come from 2 veins in the middle of the map, and the veins do nothing until 4:00. They buy the sharp tools: a flare, a breach through the enemy's defences, or 120 iron on the spot.

The veins sit about as far from one core as from the other. That is on purpose.

Cut the road, not the army

Land only counts while it is joined to your core. Take a bite out of the strip that connects a far-off mine to its owner, and everything past the bite stops paying at once. If it is not rejoined within 8 seconds it goes neutral, mine and all.

So a long thin road to something valuable is a liability, and the cheapest way to take a mine is often not to attack the mine. The same is true of yours.

You cannot see much

You see your own land and 3 cells past it. Everything else is fog, showing the last thing you saw there, which may no longer be true. A watchtower sees 9 cells in every direction and marks any enemy push aimed into its sight. A flare lights up anywhere on the map for 12 seconds.

Things fall out of the sky

Every so often a cache is announced at a random spot, and both sides can see where and what: iron, gold or emeralds. Whoever holds that cell, joined to their core, when it lands gets the prize. Where it falls is luck. Whether you can reach it, hold it, and keep the road to it open for the last few seconds is not.

The clock decides the rest

1. 4:00 The emerald veins wake up.
2. 6:00 Overcharge. Every generator pays double.
3. 8:00 Sudden death. Walls, core shields and home ground stop counting, and a damaged core stops mending.
4. 10:00 Time. Whoever holds more land wins.

Before sudden death, land near a core is expensive to take and cheap to take back, so a tidy defence holds. After it, nothing holds. Plan for the second half.

The full rules have every number.

Questions