Turn
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A defense ministry strategy game about building the army before the battle begins.
A defense ministry strategy game about building the army before the battle begins.
Your neighbor has declared your country an unacceptable threat. You have weeks — maybe — before the invasion begins.
You are the Minister of Defense. Not a general. The decisions that determine whether your army survives happen before the first shot is fired: what to buy, who to train, where to deploy, and which political relationships to keep intact along the way.
War Footing is a turn-based strategy game about preparation, trade-offs, and consequence. When the invasion comes, the army you built is the army you fight with.
Each turn is a week. You'll spend it sourcing weapons and vehicles from foreign suppliers or your own domestic industry, raising units from company to brigade level, and equipping them with whatever your budget and your suppliers' catalogs will allow. Over 130 equipment types — each with distinct trade-offs in cost, capability, and availability.
Diplomatic and political relationships compete with military spending for resources. Keeping allies cooperative and domestic politics manageable costs time and money that could otherwise go to ammunition and training. Neglect the ledger and the money dries up.
Battles resolve at the operational level: sector by sector, week by week. No unit micromanagement — outcomes depend on what you built. Unit readiness, doctrine fit, equipment quality, and where you chose to deploy. There's no scrambling for reinforcements mid-battle. The work is already done, or it isn't.
Each turn you manage a budget and a timeline. Equipment orders take time to arrive. Units take time to train and equip. The invasion clock ticks whether you're ready or not.
When the fighting begins, you don't pick up a controller. You watch the result of your decisions play out sector by sector. A well-equipped, well-deployed force holds; an under-resourced one bends or breaks. The outcome is determined by the ministry, not the battlefield.
Some scenarios give you time and a thin budget. Others give you money and almost no runway. A few start with alliances already strained. The problem is always the same — be ready — but the shape of that problem changes every time.
The force coming at you determines the doctrine you need to counter. An armor-heavy thrust demands different procurement than a combined arms push or an air-superiority campaign. Building a force that fits the threat is half the challenge.
Equipment availability, supplier relationships, and political conditions vary. The same scenario with a different procurement strategy produces a different army — and a different outcome when the invasion begins.
Income, licensing, and the new arms deals system — how War Footing rewards players who plan ahead rather than panic-buy when the invasion begins.
How battles resolve in War Footing — from air defense and fighter escorts to armor penetration, helicopters, and the final push.
A tour through the core loop: time pressure, building your defense, deploying into sectors, sourcing equipment from nine countries, and what happens when the invasion finally begins.
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