A field manual for FrontWars
FrontWars, read off the client
Every number on this site was read off the FrontWars client on 2026-11-03, client v42.5. Where we did not read it ourselves, the sentence says who said it and we do not print a figure we cannot source. There is no third category, and no number here is rounded to sound cleaner than it is.
- TESTED building costs, hotkeys, map defaults — 2026-11-03
- IN-GAME the Instructions screen, quoted verbatim
- OFFICIAL ONLY Steam Early Access date and review count
- NEEDS CHECK where the replay button is after a match
What this manual is for
FrontWars is a browser and Steam strategy game about taking a world map by gold and by troops. A match is a map, a resource loop, and a fight over borders. The store listing explains the idea; it does not tell you that a defence post costs 50,000 and a missile silo costs a million, and it does not tell you which key opens the build menu on Windows.
This site does. It is written as a field manual: numbered clauses, plates with captions, a stamp at the foot of each page saying when we last opened the client. Read it in order for the first hour, or jump to a clause when a match turns and you need a number in ten seconds.
What we measured ourselves
| What | What we saw | Mark |
|---|---|---|
| Building costs | All ten, from 50,000 to 35,000,000 gold | TESTED |
| Attack ratio | Starts at 20%, moves in 10% steps, tops out at 100% | TESTED |
| Map entries | 31 in the picker: 30 maps plus Random | TESTED |
| Default nations | 6 (Faroe Islands) to 97 (Giant World Map) | TESTED |
| Client languages | 32, French included | TESTED |
| Building | What the tooltip says | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| City | Increases max population | 125,000 |
| Factory | Produces units | 125,000 |
| Port | Allows naval units | 125,000 |
| Defense Post | Increases defenses | 50,000 |
| Missile Silo | Launches missiles | 1,000,000 |
| SAM Launcher | Anti-aircraft defense | 1,500,000 |
| Warship | Battleship unit | 250,000 |
| Atom Bomb | Nuclear weapon | 750,000 |
| Hydrogen Bomb | Thermonuclear weapon | 5,000,000 |
| MIRV | Multiple independently targetable warheads | 35,000,000 |
Costs are printed in full inside tables, because the client abbreviates them and abbreviations are where guides go wrong. The in-game tooltip says 1.00M Gold for a missile silo; the table says 1,000,000.
What we have not confirmed
Two questions are open at the time of writing, and each page that touches them says so rather than inventing an answer:
- Replays. The client ships a replay system — the bundle contains a local replay server, seek targets and a replay achievement — but a guest's end screen offers only Exit, Spectate and Join Server. Where the entry point is for signed-in players is unverified.
- CHAOS. We have seen CHAOS lobbies in the Next Game rotation twice, with different modifiers each time, and we have never played one. What it changes is described on the Multiplayer page as far as we can see it.
Where to start
If you have not played: Play is the first thirty minutes, in order. If you have: Economy explains the gold loop, Maps lists every map with its default nation count, and Controls is the key table with the two platform differences marked.
If you want to know how the marks above were earned — what a session is, what a date on a page means, and what we refuse to write — the next page is How we test. It is the shortest page on the site and the one that governs the other 31.
Last checked against the client: 2026-11-03 · client v42.5