How to play

01Getting started

You start with a Construction Yard (the heart of your base), a few units and $5,000 in credits (in skirmish you can pick anything from $2,500 to $20,000). Everything is built from the sidebar on the right, split into four tabs: Buildings, Defenses, Infantry and Vehicles (which also holds aircraft, ships and transports).

1. Power Plant (+200 power) — without power, nothing works.
2. Ore Refinery — turns ore into credits and comes with a free harvester.
3. Barracks — infantry and engineers.
4. War Factory — tanks, vehicles and new harvesters.
5. Radar — switches on the minimap and unlocks advanced units and defenses.
6. Airfield and Naval Yard — aircraft and ships (the shipyard goes on deep water, next to the shore).

Click a building in the sidebar to start it; when it shows Ready, click the map to place it. New buildings must be placed within 4 tiles of one of your buildings. Units can be queued (click several times) and roll out of the barracks or factory on their own. Right-clicking an item in the sidebar cancels it.

Ore and harvesters

Harvesters head to the nearest ore field on their own, load up to $700 and unload at the refinery. To send them to another field, select them and right-click the ore. Harvesters are your opponent's favorite target: protect them and build a second or third one as early as you can.

• Repair (the wrench button) — click a damaged building; the repair costs credits as it progresses.
• Sell (the dollar button) — you get back half the price, less if the building is damaged.
• Rally point — select the barracks or factory and right-click the map: new units head there.

02Controls

03Combat

Every weapon has a warhead type and every target an armor type. Machine guns shred infantry but barely scratch tanks; rockets and armor-piercing rounds wreck armor but are wasted on soldiers; cannons are all-rounders; artillery levels buildings and tight clumps of infantry.

Some weapons only hit ground targets, others only aircraft (Patriot Missiles, Flak Cannon, Aegis Cruiser), and some hit both (Rocket Soldier, IFV, Flak Halftrack, Gatling). Torpedoes only hit ships. Look up every unit in the faction encyclopedia.

Veterans

Units gain experience by destroying targets (as much as the target is worth). Once they have earned their own value they become Veteran (damage +25%, health +20%), and at 3 times their value they become Elite (damage +50%, health +40%, and they slowly repair themselves). Keep your veterans alive: pull them back in time.

Battlefield tricks

• Crushing — tanks and heavy vehicles run over enemy infantry in their path. Hover tanks and ships don’t crush.
• Stealth — the Phantom Tank and the Submarine can only be seen from 2.2 tiles away or less, or for 2.5 seconds after they fire.
• Mind control — the Psionic Adept takes over one enemy unit (the Psychic Tower up to 3); if the controller dies, the unit is freed. The Psychic Nexus’s wave makes it permanent.
• Transports — with units selected, right-click your transport to board it; D unloads them. A soldier takes 1 seat, a vehicle 3.
• Aircraft — attack aircraft have limited ammo and return to the airfield on their own to rearm.
• Goliath Tank repairs itself over time, and Gatling weapons fire faster the longer they keep shooting.

04Neutral buildings

Many maps have buildings that belong to no one. Civilian houses (4 soldiers) and abandoned bunkers (6 soldiers) can be garrisoned with infantry: select your soldiers and right-click the building. From inside they fire with extra range, protected by the walls. D with the building selected sends them back out; if a garrisoned building is destroyed, the soldiers escape, but wounded.

Tech buildings are captured with an engineer (right-click them). While they are yours they give you an edge, but the enemy can recapture or destroy them:

05Map objects

Maps have small obstacles that change routes and ambushes:

• Fences, sandbags and crates — block the way, but break in explosions.
• Concrete barriers and tank traps — block the way and can only be destroyed by superweapons.
• Fuel barrels — block the way and explode when hit, hurting everything nearby (friend or foe) and setting off neighboring barrels. A perfect trap for an enemy column.
• Beacons and street lamps — just scenery.

06Superweapons

Each faction has a superweapon (requires a Radar, costs $5,000 and draws 100 power). It charges for 5 minutes as long as you have power; then you pick a target area on the map. Superweapons can be turned off in the battle settings.

07Campaign

Three campaigns, 6 missions per faction (18 in total), with briefings, objectives, reinforcements and attack waves. Missions unlock one at a time: finish one to open the next.

• Allies: Shield of Europe — from a recon run with a handful of soldiers all the way to the final battle.
• Soviet Bloc: The Bear Awakens — a border raid turns into a war that ends with a single strike.
• Shadow Legion: Mind over Metal — stealth, mind control and hovercraft.

Your progress is saved to your account (verified by the server), so you’ll find it on any device.

08Multiplayer

From the game menu, pick Multiplayer: type a room name and join. Whoever joins first is the host: they pick the map, the AI players (0–6) and the mode — free-for-all, teams chosen by the players, or co-op against the AI. Between 2 and 8 players per room. Give your friends the room name so they can join you.

• Chat: Enter in game, or the message box in the room.
• Reconnect: if your internet drops or you reload the page, you have 60 seconds to get back into the same match.
• Online games can’t be paused or saved.

Ranked matches

A match is ranked (it changes your rating) only if the host ticks “Ranked match” and every condition is met:

• exactly 2 human players, both signed in;
• no AI players in the room;
• on a generated map (not one made in the editor);
• the match lasts at least one minute.

09Experience, levels and rank

Your account has two separate measures: your level (1–100), which grows with the experience (XP) earned in any verified game, and your rank, which comes only from ranked matches.

Against the AI, XP is halved on editor maps and drops by 30% if you start with more than $10,000.

Your rank is calculated with the Glicko-2 system (as in chess): everyone starts at 1,200, you gain more when you beat someone stronger, and your rating settles as you play. The tiers: Recruit (0+), Private (1,100+), Sergeant (1,250+), Lieutenant (1,400+), Captain (1,550+), Major (1,700+), Colonel (1,850+), General (2,000+), Marshal (2,200+).

10Saves and replays

In skirmishes against the AI and in the campaign, the in-game menu (Esc or the ⚙ button) has Save game (in the browser, up to 12 saves) and Download save as a file. Resume them from the main menu → Load.

Any game can be watched as a replay, at 1×, 2×, 4× or 8× speed. Server-verified matches have their replay available from your profile.

11Map editor

The map editor lets you paint terrain (grass, dirt, sand, forests, rocks, water, fords), raise and smooth the elevation, and place ore, objects (fences, barrels, traps) and neutral buildings (houses, bunkers, oil derrick, hospital, repair depot).

• Maps from 64×64 up to 192×192 tiles.
• Between 2 and 8 starting bases.
• Automatic check: the editor tells you whether the map is playable.
• Save in the browser or as a JSON file, then test it straight in the game.