Frontier Accord

Goal

Defeat every rival player on the selected map. When only one player remains alive, any neutral countries are automatically overrun by the winner before the victory reward screen and fanfare.

Lobby Setup

• The Main Lobby is the front desk. It shows active games, the shared leaderboard, and the Game Instructions button.
• Message the Developer opens a private support conversation for questions, fault reports, and suggestions. Developer replies remain available when you return with the same browser; clearing that browser's Frontier Accord site data removes access to the conversation. The panel also links to Discord for players who would rather speak with the community.
• Create Game creates a separate game lobby from the main lobby. The main lobby keeps the shared leaderboard and lists all created games.
• Game Name names the created lobby so other players can find it.
• Private Game requires a password before players or spectators can enter the lobby or view the running game.
• Enter opens an existing game from the main lobby. Private games ask for the password before you can enter.
• Open game lobbies are announced in Discord's looking-for-game channel. The bot keeps the announcement updated with the players currently waiting in that lobby.
• Discord members can open the pinned Frontier Accord message in the looking-for-game channel, then use its link or a live game announcement to join Frontier Accord with their Discord identity.
• Using your Discord name: Open the looking-for-game channel in the Frontier Accord Discord server, open the channel's pinned messages, and select the link at the top that connects you to the game with Discord. You can also use Connect to Frontier Accord with Discord directly. After Discord confirms your account, Frontier Accord returns you to the game using your unique Discord server nickname. That nickname is then reserved for your Discord account, so a web-only visitor cannot use it to create a game or enter a battle as you.
• Public waiting lobbies can also appear on the Frontier Accord TV Twitch feed with a direct join link and a compact summary of the game settings. Private lobbies are not promoted on the stream.
• The game creator is the manager. New arrivals are selected as players automatically while fewer than eight player seats are occupied. Further arrivals join as viewers. The manager can untick a player to make them a viewer, or free a seat and then tick a waiting viewer to bring them into the campaign.
• The manager can change game options, load saves, choose who plays, drag the turn order cards to choose who starts when, and start the campaign. Other connected people wait as players or viewers.
• During a campaign, the manager can select a connected human commander's card in the player strip and choose Kick Player. The removed browser returns to the main lobby, while that commander's countries, armies, and current turn continue under computer control. Computer players and the manager's own local seats cannot be kicked.
• The game lobby has a 60 minute gathering timer so players have time to join before the manager starts.
• Waiting games such as Accord Bore and Recon Sweep are browser-only distractions inside created lobbies. They give players something to do while the manager gathers everyone and chooses campaign settings.
• Name sets the first local player's name inside a game lobby.
• Add Player adds another human player controlled from the same browser. Added players can be renamed or deleted before the game starts.
• Computer Players sets AI opponents. At least two total players are required, so one human player forces at least one AI.
• Map chooses the battlefield before the campaign starts. World is the original full map; Europe, Asia, Africa, USA States, United Kingdom Counties, and Luna Sphere focus the same rules on a selected theatre.
• Planet Locations appears for sphere maps and controls how many generated named locations will be available on that planet.
• Computer Skill sets AI difficulty: Easy uses simple attacks, Medium tries to finish continents, Hard moves armies around its empire, Hardest blocks opponents from completing continents, Master adds threat defence, elimination hunting, continent breaking, and expected battle planning without hidden army or dice bonuses, and Grand Master is the highest standard AI tier.
• Demo Mode starts a zero-human campaign where every player is controlled by the computer and connected browsers watch as spectators.
• Neutral Armies controls the random army count placed on unowned countries at game start.
• Start Armies controls how many armies each player receives in their first country.
• Country Cap is the maximum armies allowed in any single country.
• Start Gap spreads starting countries apart by route distance when the map allows it.
• Capture Move controls how many armies automatically move into a country after a successful capture.
• Load Saved Game in the main lobby opens a protected downloaded .FA save as a new game lobby, using the current Game Name and Private Game settings.
• Save files are compressed, encrypted, and authenticated by the server. Edited or plain JSON save files are rejected.
• Saves also carry replay history from the start of the campaign, so a later leaderboard replay can begin at round 1 after a restored game is won.
• Loaded games show every saved player seat in the game lobby, including saved computer players. Human players with matching names can join their seats; when the manager presses Resume Loaded Game, any missing human seats continue as computer players.
• In a loaded game lobby, Claim Player lets the manager or an already-joined browser claim another saved player seat for same-browser play.
• Start Campaign begins the game using the current lobby setup.
• Invite Friends to this game copies a direct lobby link so you can share the current table with friends. Private games still require the room password.
• Table Rules opens optional Accords that human commanders vote on before launch. Rules activate with more than half of human commanders voting for them; if an even number of human commanders splits exactly, the manager's vote decides. Active rules stay locked for that campaign. Accords can delay human-vs-human attacks, protect starting countries, avoid boxed-in island-chain human starts, hide distant enemy intelligence with Explore, enable Spies, enable ICBMs, enable Airforce, switch Grand Master elimination loyalty into spoils mode, limit ICBMs to AI-held targets, or enable Grand Master Simultaneous Turns. Strategic rules include dropdowns for deployment cost and how many reserve armies can be added per turn.
• Simultaneous Turns is a Grand Master-only rule. Every living commander acts in the same round; a new round starts after everyone ends or times out. Unrelated battles run together, while a rotating initiative order resolves attacks that declare overlapping source or target countries. Simultaneous victories earn a 2% Accord Score bonus per opponent, capped at 20%.
• Explore keeps the geography visible but hides distant ownership, armies, political leaning, persuasion, spies, recovery, attack odds, and continent completion. Intelligence is revealed within two connected routes of any country controlled by a human player using your browser. Explore campaigns remain eligible for the leaderboard, but are excluded from Twitch and YouTube live broadcasts. Once an Explore campaign starts, spectators are removed and its Watch button is locked; only seated players can rejoin, preventing viewers from revealing hidden positions.
• Anyone entering after a campaign has started joins as a viewer. Viewers see the map and full game log, but do not receive game controls or game chat. Explore campaigns are the exception: spectators cannot enter after launch.

Leaderboard

• The lobby leaderboard records the top 100 winning campaigns on this host and ranks them by Accord Score. Each entry also lists the Table Rules used during that campaign; older campaigns without recorded rules are shown as Standard rules.
• Click a leaderboard entry with a replay to watch the recorded game from the start. Ranked replays stream the full campaign battle by battle; the host keeps replay files for the top 100 leaderboard games.
• The lobby preview and Frontier Accord TV feature public live games first. When no public game is active, they rotate between Hall of Accord replays and the computer demo.
• Frontier Accord TV runs regular field briefings that explain reserves, deployment, attacks, battle odds, captures, continent control, and army movement for viewers.
• Replay links can be shared directly, and ranked victories are announced in Discord with a final screenshot when Discord announcements are enabled.
• Major campaign moments, including full continent captures and game wins, are posted in Discord's screenshots-and-replays channel with a link back to the game or replay.
• Replay controls let you pause, rewind, fast-forward, slow down, speed up, scrub through the match, and close back to the main lobby. Battle explosions show where replay clashes are happening; the Zoom checkbox controls whether the replay camera follows those battles automatically.
• Accord Score rewards harder AI, more opponents, human opponents, captures, player eliminations, completed continents, armies defeated, and the largest captured army stack.
• Accord Score subtracts for turns taken, battle time, and armies lost, so a fast Easy win will not automatically outrank a hard-fought Grand Master victory.
• Demo Mode games are not ranked, so computer-only showcases will not fill the human leaderboard.

Map Controls

• Click a country to select it. The whole country is clickable, and very small countries have a larger invisible click area.
• With Attack selected, gold lines lead from your selected country to its available neutral or enemy targets. Each line is a direct border or special map connection; choose any country at the end of a gold line to attack it.
• Country borders show political leaning in the colour of the player that country favours most; stronger leanings are brighter and thicker.
• French Guiana is a separate South American country; it does not create an attack route directly into France.
• Use the mouse wheel to zoom. Drag the map or use arrow keys to pan while zoomed in.
• On mobile, use two fingers to zoom and one finger to drag the map around.
• After you press End Turn, the map follows the active turn and battles. If you manually pan or zoom, follow stays off until one of your local players presses End Turn again. The Zoom checkbox turns this automatic following on or off in live games and replays.
• When one player controls every country in a continent, the continent receives an outside border highlight in that player's colour.
• The right-hand country list shows every country grouped by continent.

Turn Flow

• When your turn begins, new armies are added to your reserve. You can spend them now or stockpile them for later.
• Your draft increases by 1 for every 2 countries you own. If you own an entire continent, you gain another 1 draft for every 4 countries in that continent.
• The top bar shows Reserve, Countries, Round, Country Cap, turn Clock, total Battle time, and the active Turn player.
• The turn clock counts down. If a human player runs out of time, their turn ends automatically.
• Pause freezes battles, AI turns, the turn clock, and the battle clock until a human player resumes.
• An unpaused running game with no human player move for 3 hours receives a Game Admin inactivity message in game chat. A participating human commander must send the exact keyword shown within the next hour. The admin replies OK, Thank You when accepted; without a valid reply, the inactive game closes automatically. Time spent paused does not trigger or consume this inactivity period.
• AI Fast starts on and speeds up computer-player turns and battles. Living human players can change it during the game by majority vote.
• Fast UI starts off. If a player enables it, their manual battles retain an opening reaction window and never use computer-player speed, so Stop Battle remains usable even with a 99-army stack.
• Help Commander is the single in-game tutorial. It uses spoken guidance and a pulsing ring to walk a new commander through attacking, optional army movement, ending the turn, and deploying the new draft in Round 2.
• Army movement is taught as three separate actions: select the country the armies will move from, click Move Armies, then select the owned destination country. Help Commander waits for each real action instead of advancing through artificial Next buttons.
• Help Commander is available below the Frontier Accord title on desktop and in the cog menu on mobile. Switch it off there at any time, or reopen it later for lessons on attacking, reinforcing, moving armies, ending a turn, speed controls, and any strategic tools enabled by the Table Rules.

Action Buttons

• Attack is the default desktop mode when you enter a campaign. Select one of your countries, then click a neighboring enemy or neutral country to attack.
• Deploy changes desktop selection back to inspection/deployment mode without automatically attacking a selected neighbour.
• Route March moves armies over a longer owned route on desktop. Select the source country, press Route March, then click an owned destination connected through your own countries.
• Reinforce opens a dialog asking how many reserve armies to place in the selected country.
• Stop Battle stops your current battle after the current clash resolves. You can also right-click the map during one of your battles to stop it quickly.
• Save Game asks the server to create a compressed encrypted .FA save of the current game, then downloads it to your browser so it can be loaded later.
• Surrender removes you from the game and turns your countries neutral.
• End Turn passes play to the next living player.
• If surrender or battle leaves only one player alive, the remaining neutral countries automatically join the winner and the game ends.

Strategic Table Rules

• Spies, ICBMs, and Airforce are optional Table Rules. Spies can be enabled on Hard or above, ICBMs can be enabled on Grand Master, and Airforce can be enabled on any difficulty.
• Each strategic rule has a deployment cost and a per-turn training limit chosen in the lobby before the campaign starts.
• Spy Train moves reserve armies into Spy Training. Once the chosen cost is reached, Release Spy sends a spy cell into enemy territory.
• Released spies move automatically on your turns. You cannot steer them. Each successful infiltration cuts the current holder's country loyalty by up to 45% and then the spy looks for another target on a later turn.
• Players can see when a spy cell is inside one of their countries. A country recovering from spy damage shows a loyalty recovery line in the country details.
• To rebuild loyalty after spy damage, hold the country with at least 10 armies stationed there for 5 of your turns.
• ICBM Build moves reserve armies into the ICBM Pool. Once the chosen cost is reached, select any allowed country and press Launch ICBM.
• An ICBM strike makes the target country neutral, sets it to 10 unaffiliated armies, and resets that country's persuasion to neutral values.
• Airforce Train moves reserve armies into the Airforce Pool. Launching an Airforce attack costs the chosen deployment amount plus the airborne armies you commit to the landing.
• Launch Airforce can target enemy or neutral countries anywhere on the map. Airborne armies fight using the normal loyalty odds, and any surviving attackers land in the captured country.
• Spy Withdraw, ICBM Withdraw, and Airforce Withdraw move stored reserves back into your normal reserve if you need armies urgently.
• When a player is destroyed in Grand Master, their remaining loyalty fractures evenly across surviving factions instead of transferring to the destroyer. The optional Elimination Loyalty Spoils rule changes this: loyalty shifts to the eliminator without displacing a surviving faction that already leads that country's loyalty. Countries held by another survivor with more than 10 armies keep the defeated loyalty locally.

Mobile Controls

• Tap once to select a country. Selecting an adjacent enemy shows its holder, armies, loyalty, political lean, and attack chance without starting a battle.
• Double-tap an adjacent enemy or neutral country to attack from your last selected owned country. Gold lines show available targets.
• Hold an owned country to deploy reserve armies there. If no reserves are available, holding it starts an army move; tap the owned destination and enter the amount.
• During one of your battles, double-tap the map to stop after the current clash.
• Two-finger pinch zooms in or out. One finger drags the map around.
• The cog menu contains music and voice controls, AI Fast, Fast UI, Help Commander, Pause, Surrender, Continents, Moves, and Return to Lobby. End Turn remains beside the cog.
• Mobile web and the native mobile app omit Save and Load controls.
• The map automatically follows other players' attacks. When your turn returns, it goes back to the last country you attacked from.

Battle Rules

• Each clash removes 1 army from either the attacker or defender.
• The base chance is 50/50. Country ideology compares attacker persuasion against defender loyalty: favorable persuasion makes capture easier, but a country loyal to its holder is harder to take.
• Normal captures do not change a country's loyalty. When a player is destroyed, their remaining loyalty is removed: on Easy, Medium, Hard, Hardest, and Master it transfers to the player who destroyed them; on Grand Master it is evenly distributed across the surviving factions unless Elimination Loyalty Spoils is active. With that rule, the eliminator receives it without overtaking a surviving faction that already leads the country's loyalty. A surviving holder with more than 10 armies keeps that country's eliminated-player loyalty locally. Surrendered loyalty disperses because there is no destroyer.
• Attacking into a continent fully owned by the defender from outside that continent reduces the attacker's win chance by 20%.
• A battle stops automatically if the attacking country reaches 1 army, because at least 1 army must remain behind.
• When the defender reaches 0 armies, the country is captured and the Capture Move amount moves in if possible.
• Battle flashes and sounds mark each hit. The Sound checkbox in the top bar turns effects, the adaptive orchestral score, the victory tune, and limited commander voice announcements on or off. The Music slider sets the score volume separately.

Moving Armies

• A neighbouring army move transfers armies between adjacent countries you own without reducing your turn clock.
• Route March can move armies across multiple connected countries you own, as long as every country in the route belongs to you.
• Route March asks how many armies to move, obeys the Country Cap at the destination, and always leaves at least 1 army behind in the source country.
• Route March reduces your remaining turn time by 10 seconds for each country crossing in the route. If that uses the last of your clock, your turn ends after the move.

Shortcuts And Panels

• On desktop, select a source and right-click a neighbouring owned country to move armies, or right-click a farther owned country to open Route March when a continuous owned path exists.
• Route March shows a convoy animation across the chosen path and flashes the moved army count at the destination.
• The right-hand panel changes to the active local player's color when it is their turn.
• The move log records recent turns and battles. The chat box lets connected players talk during the lobby or game.
• Lobby returns everyone to a fresh lobby and ends the current game.