Contact Front
Quick StartAcademyPlay

Quick Start

Your first game in five minutes: the goal, a turn, the controls and the traps.

What am I trying to do?#

Take every enemy city. Countryside doesn't count.

Contact Front is played one against one, in teams or in a free-for-all, against friends or bots, on a real map split into provinces. Some provinces have cities. Cities pay for new units, and holding all of the enemy's cities wins the game.

How does a turn work?#

  1. Give your orders. Everyone does this at the same time, and nobody sees anyone else's orders.
  2. End your turn.
  3. Watch it play out. Every stack moves at once, one province per step, and battles happen wherever enemies meet. Playback shows it step by step, then a summary of what you won and lost.

Then the next turn starts. Because everyone moves at once, you're always guessing where the enemy will be, not just where it is. Moving at the same time explains how to use that.

How do I give orders?#

Move a stack. Click one of your stacks (tap it on a phone). Choose how many of each unit to send with the sliders, or All, Half or Keep 1. Then click (tap) a lit neighbor to draw the path. Armor can go two provinces: click a second one. Press ✓ (or Enter) to confirm. A path into an enemy province is an attack, and shows your odds. If terrain, a river or support changes them, small chips beside the number say why.

On a phone: tap a stack, tap a lit neighbor, then ✓.
On a phone: tap a stack, tap a lit neighbor, then ✓.

Support with artillery. Select a stack with guns, press Support, then pick the province next door where the fight will be.

Strike with planes. Select a city stack with planes, press Strike, then pick a province in range. Pick your own city to defend it.

Build. Click one of your cities (on a phone, tap it and then Build here) and pick a unit.

Your orders are listed with their odds. Press ✕ on one to delete it, or Undo last. When you're done, press End turn.

The order list: an attack, the artillery supporting it, and an air strike on the same province.
The order list: an attack, the artillery supporting it, and an air strike on the same province.

What does playback show?#

Each step of the turn: where every stack moved, and every battle with its result. Press Next to step through it, or Auto to let it play. Summary shows what you gained and lost, your losses and your income. Then Continue to orders (Orders on a phone).

The turn summary: provinces gained and lost, battles, losses and income.
The turn summary: provinces gained and lost, battles, losses and income.

Five traps in your first game#

  1. An empty city falls without a fight. If your last unit leaves a city on the same turn an enemy walks in, it's theirs. Keep one ground unit in every city you care about.
  2. Attacking across a river. It divides your strength by ÷1.25. Look for a border without one, or bring artillery.
  3. Leaving artillery and planes idle. Guns add +2 each to a fight next door, and planes +3 each to a fight up to 3 provinces away, without being in that fight. Give them an order every turn.
  4. Counting on new units to save a city. They appear at the end of the turn, after every battle.
  5. Sending armor into forest, mountains or cities. Armor is weak there. Use it on plains, and send infantry and support elsewhere.

Which bots should I play?#

On New game, pick how strong the enemy bots are:

  • Easy plays like a newcomer: timid, and it often forgets its support.
  • Normal plays like someone who has played a few games.
  • Hard plays the full strategy, with the enemy bots planning as one team.

A bot on your team can follow your lead (it plans after you, and joins your attacks) or play its own game. Lead with your army; a following ally backs you up but won't start the fight for you.

Where next?#

The Contact Front Academy goes deeper: the math behind the odds, terrain, artillery and air, supply, and the moments that surprise people. The Rules panel in every game has the exact numbers.