Frontier Flow.

How to play Frontier Flow

1. Choose a map and CPU difficulty, then press New match. Tap an inland land tile to found your nation, or use Choose a good start. The other seven nations settle after your choice.
2. Use the Attack ratio slider to choose a commitment from one to one hundred percent of your available population. Press Expand to advance across all neighboring unclaimed land, keeping the rest of your population at home.
3. Select a neighboring nation on the map and choose Attack. Watch the border move and your reserve recover. Retreat recalls the troops still committed to your active attacks with a two percent loss.
4. Select Build, choose a structure and tap your own land. Ports need a coastal tile; other buildings need enough room. Construction takes three seconds. Place a matching building on its existing tile to upgrade it, up to level three.
5. Select a distant coastal land tile and choose Send boat to launch a transport. Use Nations to inspect CPU rivals, offer a temporary alliance or transfer part of your population to an ally.
6. Grow toward eighty percent land control. Use cities, defenses, trade and careful timing to hold your gains. A ready missile silo can launch at enemy land for 2,400 gold, while air defense protects nearby territory.

Make your move

About Frontier Flow

Frontier Flow is a real-time territorial strategy game about deciding when to spend strength and when to let it grow. Your nation begins as a small colored patch on a topographic map. Unclaimed land is available to anyone who reaches it, so the opening rewards quick expansion, but the population you send away is no longer defending home. Seven clearly labeled CPU nations make their own decisions about expansion, construction, enemy fronts and coastal landings. They use the same resources and construction rules as you.

The map is more than a background. Attacks spread across the border you share with their target, taking land a little at a time. Forests and mountains increase the price of advancing, while a densely defended region or a nearby defense post can turn an apparently easy invasion into an expensive campaign. An attack continues with the troops you committed until its front disappears or its force runs out. You can reinforce it by sending another attack at the same target, or retreat and recover the remaining force with a small loss.

A stronger economy opens other routes to victory. Cities add population capacity so your nation can maintain a larger reserve. Ports on the coast send trading vessels between your own ports and the ports of allies, paying gold when a journey completes. Factories earn income from nearby cities, ports and other factories, with visible rail connections and trains. Transport boats follow the water around coastlines and establish beachheads, making distant islands worth more than a glance. A missile silo offers a costly way to clear enemy land, while air defense can intercept a strike before it lands.

Heartland offers a broad mainland, an inland sea and offshore territory. The Straits places narrow crossings between two large regions, rewarding defensive positions and sea routes around the choke points. Archipelago spreads nations among island groups, so a land-only strategy eventually runs out of room. Each match generates original coast and terrain variations from a seed, and your starting position changes the neighbors you meet first. Relaxed, Standard and Veteran alter how quickly and aggressively the CPU nations make decisions.

Victory goes to the first nation to control eighty percent of the map, or the last nation still holding a foothold. If the match reaches twelve simulation minutes, the largest surviving nation wins. Pause is available whenever you need to think, and the speed control moves the simulation at one, two or three times its normal rate. Wins, completed matches, your highest land-control percentage and preferences are saved on this browser. There are no accounts, online opponents, purchases or waiting timers.

A little help for your next high score

• Use modest attack commitments during the opening. A high reserve grows more slowly near its capacity, but spending everything leaves your borders vulnerable.
• Check the density of a neighboring nation, not only its size. A small nation with a large population and defense posts can be expensive to invade.
• Build cities before your population repeatedly reaches its cap. When land is contested, extra capacity can be more valuable than another costly frontier.
• Ports earn gold only after a trading vessel reaches another friendly port. Establish more than one useful coastal location, or ally with a nation that has ports.
• Use boats to open a second front around a fortified crossing. Save enough population at home to survive the journey, and remember that an ally cannot be attacked until the pact ends.

Good questions