War Footing
With limited time and a limited budget, can you build an army that survives what's coming?
The Game
Your neighbor has declared your country an unacceptable threat. Diplomatic relations are deteriorating. The invasion — if it comes — arrives in weeks.
You are the Minister of Defense. Not a general. Not a strategist in the field. You control the budget, the procurement contracts, the political relationships and the force structure. Whether the army that meets the enemy is ready is entirely down to the decisions you make before the first shot is fired.
War Footing is a turn-based management game about building a military from the ground up under time pressure. Each turn represents a week. You'll spend them sourcing equipment from foreign suppliers or your own domestic industry, assigning doctrines to your formations, and managing political stability to keep the budget flowing. When the invasion begins, the army you built is the army you fight with.
Key Features
- Build the force. Raise and outfit units from company to brigade level, then train and equip them from a catalogue of 180+ systems with real trade-offs in cost, capability and availability.
- Buy abroad or build at home. Foreign suppliers deliver faster but depend on relations; domestic industry needs capital investment now to produce anything later. Arms deals can be financed over time — longer terms, higher interest, bigger orders.
- Manage the politics. Political stability starts at 50 out of 100 and competes with the military for the same money. Let it hit zero and a coup ends the run.
- Read the enemy. Intelligence narrows down where the blow will land, but never entirely, and you never have enough units to cover all three sectors.
- Fight at the right scale. No unit micromanagement. Battles resolve sector by sector, week by week, on unit readiness, doctrine fit, equipment quality and where you chose to deploy.
- Live with it. There are no mid-battle reinforcements. The invasion is the exam, not the class.
Fact Sheet
| Title | War Footing |
| In-game title | Ministry of Defense: Prelude to Conflict |
| Developer | Strategist's Den Games |
| Publisher | Strategist's Den Games (self-published) |
| Release date | October 15, 2026 |
| Demo | Free on Steam since July 16, 2026 |
| Platforms | PC (Windows) — Steam and GOG |
| Price | $11.99 USD |
| Genre | Turn-based strategy / wargame / military management |
| Players | Single-player |
| Steam App ID | 4727860 |
| Steam tags | Turn-Based Strategy · Wargame · Text-Based · Minimalist · Alternate History · Cold War · Military · Management |
| Steam page | store.steampowered.com/app/4727860 |
| Community | reddit.com/r/warfooting |
| Trailer | youtu.be/tVp3A-WYYWY |
| Press contact | admin@strategistsden.com |
Under the Hood
One turn is one week. Campaigns run 120 turns; the invasion arrives around turn 68, earlier if tension climbs faster than you expected. The theater is three sectors — north, central and south — each with border, midlands and heartland zones, plus a rear echelon for units still forming up.
It asks very little of the machine it runs on — no dedicated graphics card, and half a gigabyte of disk.
| Operating system | Windows 10 (64-bit) |
| Processor | Dual-core 2.0 GHz |
| Memory | 4 GB RAM |
| Graphics | Integrated graphics |
| Storage | 500 MB available space |
| Installer size | Roughly 80 MB (Windows) |
| Languages | English (interface) |
| Steam features | Single-player · Steam Achievements · Steam Cloud · Family Sharing |
| GOG build | DRM-free |
| Steam Deck | Not yet rated |
Content and AI Disclosure
AI generated content. As stated on the Steam page: "AI was used for coding assistance only. Artwork was produced by a paid human artist."
Mature content. As stated on the Steam page: "This game features war between two fictional countries. Violence is abstract and not described in detail."
Screenshots
All images from build 0.9.4. Full-resolution PNGs are linked directly below and are cleared for use in coverage.
Copy Blocks
Ready to paste. All versions are factually consistent with build 0.9.4.
With limited time and a limited budget, can you build an army that survives what's coming?
You are the Minister of Defense. You control the budget, the procurement contracts, the political relationships, and the force structure. Whether the army that meets the enemy is ready is entirely down to the decisions you make before the first shot is fired.
Your neighbor has declared your country an unacceptable threat. Diplomatic relations are deteriorating rapidly. You have limited time to prepare.
You are the Minister of Defense. You control the budget, the procurement contracts, the political relationships and the force structure. Each turn is a week: source equipment from foreign suppliers or your own industry, raise and train units from company to brigade level, and keep political stability high enough that the money keeps flowing. When the invasion begins, the army you built is the army you fight with. War Footing is a turn-based strategy game about preparation, trade-offs, and consequence.
Your neighbor has declared your country an unacceptable threat. Diplomatic relations are deteriorating rapidly. You have limited time to prepare.
You are the Minister of Defense, not a commander in the field. You control the budget, the procurement contracts, the political relationships and the force structure. Whether the army that meets the enemy is ready is entirely down to the decisions you make before the first shot is fired.
War Footing is a turn-based management game about building a military from the ground up under time pressure.
Each turn represents a week. You'll spend them sourcing equipment from foreign suppliers or your own domestic industry, assigning doctrines to your formations, and managing political stability to keep the budget flowing. When the invasion begins, the army you built is the army you fight with.
BUILD THE FORCERaise and outfit units from company to brigade level. Over 180 equipment types sourced from 9 real-world countries — small arms, armor, artillery, aircraft and air defense systems — each with distinct trade-offs in cost, capability and availability.
MANAGE THE POLITICSMilitary spending doesn't happen in a vacuum. Diplomatic obligations and political stability compete for the same resources. Ignoring them has consequences.
FIGHT AT THE RIGHT SCALENo unit micromanagement. Battles resolve at the operational level — sector by sector, week by week. Outcomes depend on what you built: unit readiness, doctrine fit, equipment quality, and where you chose to deploy.
Eight scenarios offer distinct starting conditions, resource constraints and enemy configurations. Each one asks a different question about what a credible defense actually looks like.
Roadmap
Free demo live on Steam. Player feedback drove the economy rework below.
Income now splits across four competing budgets: Procurement & Capital Funds, Industrial Investment, Homefront (stability and recruitment), and Diplomacy (envoys, stackable on a single nation). The "Lobby" button is gone — starting income was rebalanced to match what aggressive lobbying used to yield, without the clicking. Arms deals can be financed over time, with longer terms carrying higher interest.
Free to all owners. At least one new feature and one new scenario, plus polish, bug fixes and balance changes.
Three new nations and at least three new scenarios. Details to be announced shortly after release.
Contact & Terms
Review keys are available on request. Screenshots, the icon and the copy in this kit may be used freely in coverage of War Footing — articles, videos, streams and reviews — without further permission. Please credit Strategist's Den Games.
Credits
Development, design and writing — Strategist's Den Games.
Music: "Chase" by Alexander Nakarada (creatorchords.com); "In Dreams" and "Simulacra" by Scott Buckley (scottbuckley.com.au), all licensed under CC BY 4.0. Additional tracks via Pixabay Content License by hitslab, lnplusmusic, Universe_Bella, redproductions and sound4stock.
Press Contact
Links
Steam — store.steampowered.com/app/4727860
Community — reddit.com/r/warfooting
Trailer — youtu.be/tVp3A-WYYWY