Downloading elevation for every cell.
You command the blue side against a computer commander or a friend in red. The battlefield is the real place you picked: its roads, buildings, water, forest and hills all change how pieces move, see and fight.
On the setup screen, Enemy starts Far places the enemy about 20 cells farther away than Close, as far as the grid allows. Close is handy for quick test fights. Take out the enemy commander, have the enemy surrender, or hold the higher score when round 40 ends. The first side to reach 150 points is offered the other side's surrender. Accept it for the win, or fight on to finish them off. A computer enemy that has offered to surrender pulls back to the best ground near its commander, digs trenches and puts up barricades. If the enemy reaches 150 first, it demands your surrender, and you can give up or keep fighting. Menu, Surrender, gives up at any time on your turn. After a win against the computer, Keep playing on the victory screen lets you carry on and wipe out whatever is left. The win is already recorded, and Menu, Finish battle, ends the mop-up whenever you like. A commander falls when an enemy commander, soldier or rifleman steps onto it, or when rifle and artillery hits take away its 3 health. The same can happen to you.
Set Opponent to Friend on the setup screen, pick your ground and press Start battle. The game gives you a link, a QR code and a six character battle code to send. Whoever opens the link or scans the QR code first, or types the code under Join a battle on the setup screen and presses Join, becomes your opponent on the same map, and each of you sees yourself in blue. You move first. Take your turn and press End turn, and the battle server checks every move with the same rules before passing the turn over. You do not both need to be online: open the game whenever you like, and while it is open it checks for your friend's move every few seconds. Menu, Invite a friend, shows the link again. Continue friend battle on the setup screen brings you back to it.
Turn notifications buzz your phone when your friend finishes a turn, joins the battle or ends it, even when the game is closed. Turn them on from the invite screen, or with Menu, Turn notifications. Tapping the notification opens the battle.
Buildings come from the real map. Jeeps and artillery cannot drive through them. A soldier or rifleman standing next to one can use Enter building. That takes its whole turn: it waits at the door and is inside at the start of your next turn. Indoors it is hidden from the enemy until it walks out, fires, or an enemy piece stands right next to it, and it can move between the building's cells and walk back out. If the enemy is already inside when your troops go in, a close-quarters fight breaks out. Soldiers count 1 and riflemen 1.5, and the bigger force wins. Every piece on the losing side falls, the winners lose half as many as they killed, and everyone left spills out around the building. Artillery can shell any building outside your own territory that it can see, and a shell kills whoever is in that cell, hidden or not.
Set Opponent to Watch to see the computer fight itself, blue against red, on the ground you picked. Each computer plays by the fog rules and has to scout to find the other, but you see the whole map. Nothing moves until you press Next, which plays blue's move, then red's, one at a time, so you can study each one. Tap any piece between moves to read what it is. Auto plays a move every couple of seconds by itself, and Stop goes back to one at a time. The side that reaches 150 points takes the surrender straight away, so a watched battle ends sooner. Watched battles are not saved and do not go into your battle history.
Set Opponent to Zombies for a survival battle. There is no enemy commander, only a zombie nest where the enemy would start, shown in green with a Z. Every turn the nest births new zombies, as many as the horde's territory would pay in supply, so the horde starts slow and snowballs as it spreads. Easy births one fewer each turn and Hard one more. A zombie shuffles up to 2 cells toward the nearest living thing it can sense, and anything it steps onto is destroyed. Next to your commander it bites for 1 health instead. Zombies cannot walk through barricades or structures, so they claw at them: a barricade takes 3 hits to tear down. A trench costs a zombie a whole move to climb into and another to climb out. Win by destroying the nest and every last zombie, or by holding out for 40 rounds. Their bodies pile up where they fall.
A machine gun nest costs 40 supply and works in every battle. At the start of your turn it fires at up to 3 enemy pieces it can see within rifle range, nearest first. Like a rifleman it needs a clear line of fire and cannot hit troops in a trench.
Wherever a piece is destroyed, smoke rises for a round and scorched wreckage stays for a few more. A small cross marks fallen troops, twisted metal marks vehicles and guns, and rubble marks structures. You always see your own losses and anything your side destroyed. Other enemy losses show only where you can see. At the start of your turn a line sums up what you lost and what the enemy lost, and tapping wreckage tells you what it was and when it fell.
Select any of your pieces and press Group. Tap more of your pieces to add them, or tap one again to drop it. Then tap where the group should go. Each piece heads for the same spot relative to the others, so the group keeps its shape, and moves as far as it can right away. At the start of each of your turns, pieces with orders move on by themselves until they arrive, shown by a dashed line and a small flag. They never step onto another piece. Moving a piece yourself takes it off its orders, Stop orders clears them for the pieces you pick, and Undo takes back the automatic moves.
Build structures from the Deploy sheet on open ground, road, forest or a building inside your territory. Building one in a building takes over that building, and if the structure is destroyed only rubble is left. A Barracks costs 30 supply and trains a free soldier beside it every turn. A Jeep factory costs 40 and builds a free jeep every other turn. A Rifle range costs 50 and trains a free rifleman every other turn. A Drone hangar costs 40 and builds a free drone every other turn. A Gun foundry costs 60 and casts a free artillery piece every third turn. Save up supply by holding more territory. New pieces appear at the start of your turn and can act the turn after. They come out in a free cell beside the structure, or when those are full, the nearest free cell of yours up to 3 cells away. Keep a few cells around each structure clear so it never stalls. Tap your structure and press Turn to face it north, east, south or west, as often as you like. The roof points out the front, and new pieces come out on that side when there is room. Nothing can walk through a structure. Each has 3 health: every artillery shell or grenade takes 1, and destroying one is worth 10 points.
A soldier can pave a road on its own cell or the cell next to it for 3 supply, using its action for the turn. Paved roads work like any road: jeeps and artillery can drive on them, and every piece moves up to 3 cells along them. Paving opens new routes for jeeps out of forest, steep ground and dug-up trenches.
At the start of every turn you gain supply based on how much territory you hold. Under 20 cells pays 2, 20 to 29 pays 3, 30 to 39 pays 4, and every further 10 cells adds 1 more. The top bar shows your supply with this turn's income in brackets, and the Deploy sheet tells you how many cells you need for the next step. Spreading out with soldiers, riflemen and artillery grows your income. Your commander may move once, and every piece may move once and, if it has a gun, fire once. Do these in any order, then press End turn. Artillery that moves off road loses that turn's shot. Undo takes back anything done this turn. Every cell your commander, soldiers, riflemen and artillery stop on becomes your territory.
A howitzer costs 6 supply. It reaches 5 cells plus twice its tier, so a howitzer on a peak or a raised mound fires far past ordinary artillery. Its barrel cannot drop low enough for close targets: it cannot hit anything within 3 cells, or anything on lower ground within 6 cells. After each shot it spends 2 full rounds reloading, shown by orange dots under it. Press Deploy to spend supply. After you pick a piece you can keep tapping gold squares to place as many as your supply allows. Press Done to stop placing, or Pick another to switch to a different piece. There is no limit on how many of each piece you field, only on the supply you have.
| Piece | Cost | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Commander (star) | Free | Moves on foot. 3 health. Sees 4 cells. Losing it loses the battle. |
| Soldier (figure in a helmet) | 1 | Moves on foot. Destroys any enemy piece it steps onto. Carries 2 grenades and can build instead of moving. Sees 3 cells. |
| Rifleman (figure with a rifle) | 2 | Moves on foot and shoots an enemy piece 2 cells away, 3 from ridge or peak, with a clear line of sight. Can move and shoot in one turn. Sees 4 cells. |
| Scout drone (four rotors) | 2 | Flies 4 cells over anything, including water and buildings. Sees 6 cells around it over any obstacle. Cannot attack or claim ground. |
| Kamikaze drone (dart with an orange nose) | 3 | Flies 4 cells over anything, or instead of flying dives onto an enemy it can see within 3 cells, and is destroyed with it. Hits like an artillery shell: destroys a piece, takes 1 health from a commander, damages a structure, takes 2 from a barricade, or caves in a trench while the piece inside survives. It only sees 2 cells, so pair it with a scout drone. Riflemen and machine gun nests can shoot it down. |
| Jeep (box on wheels) | 2 | Needs someone aboard to drive. Drives 2 cells over open ground or road, or up to 3 along roads and tire treads. Leaves tire treads everywhere it drives. Tows 1 gun and has 3 seats for soldiers, riflemen and your commander. Cannot attack. Sees 3 cells. |
| Artillery (field gun) | 3 | Shells any cell or piece you can see within 2 plus its tier. Moves 1 cell on roads or open ground, or up to 3 along a road and still fires. Sees 2 cells. |
| Howitzer (big field gun, long barrel) | 6 | Reaches 5 plus twice its tier. Cannot hit within 3 cells, or lower ground within 6. Reloads for 2 rounds after each shot, shown by orange dots. |
| Recon plane | 3 | One pass over any spot, even under fog, that reveals 8 cells around it until your turn ends. |
| Helicopter | 4 | Hovers over any spot and reveals 4 cells around it for 3 turns. |
New pieces go on your own territory and act from the next turn. Aircraft act the moment you call them.
A soldier can spend its turn building instead of moving. Select it and the build buttons appear above the main bar. It can only build on open ground, road, forest or steep ground that the enemy does not own, next to itself, or under itself for a trench.
| Build | Cost | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Dig trench | Free | Riflemen cannot hit a piece in the trench. The first artillery shell caves it in and the piece inside survives. Vehicles cannot cross it. |
| Barricade | 1 | Nothing can walk or drive through it and it blocks line of sight. It has 3 health. An artillery shell, a grenade or a kamikaze drone takes 2, so a fresh barricade needs two blasts. A howitzer shell flattens it in one. Yellow marks under it show what is left once it is damaged. |
| Raise ground | 1 | Piles earth on a cell, adding 1 tier and about 13 feet of height, up to 2 levels. Artillery on a raised cell reaches farther, and riflemen get their longer range from tier 4 up. A rifleman on ground raised the full 2 levels is a sniper and reaches 1 cell farther still. Artillery can drive onto it. |
A good pattern is to raise the ground next to your artillery for two turns, then roll the gun up onto it. Barricades across the approach to your commander force the enemy to go around or spend two shells on each. Your own artillery and grenades can knock down your own barricades too, if you ever wall yourself in: select the gun and your barricades in range show in orange.
A Tank costs 12 supply and needs open ground or road. It steps only 1 cell a turn, even on roads, but fires twice a turn at anything its side can see up to 3 cells away in a clear line, and it can move and fire in the same turn. Each shot hits like an artillery shell on that one cell. It has 3 armor, shown by the yellow dots under it: each shell, grenade, tank shot, kamikaze drone or bomb takes 1, a mine takes 2. Rifles, machine gun nests and soldiers on foot cannot hurt it, a jeep cannot run it over, and a zombie that reaches it can only claw off 1 armor.
A Mine drone costs 4 and flies like a scout drone. Select it and tap Drop mine, then a gold square under it or beside it, to bury a mine there. Laying one ends its turn, and it carries 3. Only you can see your mines, as dark discs with a yellow ring. The first enemy piece on the ground to stop on one sets it off: a piece is destroyed, a tank loses 2 armor and a commander loses 1 health. Drones fly over them and your own pieces are safe on them.
A Chinook costs 20. Pick it in Deploy, tap where it should land, somewhere your side can see, then tap up to 4 of your jeeps that have not moved this turn. Press Send Chinook and they are set down around that spot, with their troops, your commander if aboard, and any gun in tow. They have used their move for the turn, so the crews unload next turn.
A grenade now catches a second enemy piece on the ground right beside its target, the most valuable one there, so one throw can take out two.
Your pieces within 2 cells of your commander, inside the faint blue square around it, get one extra action each turn. Riflemen, artillery, howitzers and tanks fire one more shot, and a howitzer only starts reloading after its last shot. A soldier that ends its first move inside the square can move or act again. The bonus counts where the piece is when it acts, so a rifleman that steps out after its first shot loses the second. The computer uses it too: off Easy it hides its commander and builds a ring of howitzers around it, so a hidden commander can be a fortress.
With Opponent set to Computer, the Computer opponents row picks 1 to 4 computer sides: red, then purple, gold and teal. Each starts about as far from you as the first and spread apart from the others, and every side fights every other side, so they will wear each other down as well as you. A side whose commander falls is out of the battle: its pieces and structures are wrecked and its land goes back to nobody. You win when every other side is out, or with the highest score after round 40, and you lose when your commander falls. The top bar shows how many enemy sides are left, as foes, and the best enemy score. Surrender offers and Keep playing are only for one on one battles.
For 30 supply, Deploy, Bomber run sends a bomber along a straight line. Tap where the run starts, then tap toward where it should fly, in any of 8 directions. A red strip 3 cells wide and 10 long shows what it will hit, and a warning shows if any of your own pieces are in it. Tap inside the strip to send it. Every cell in the strip is hit 7 times in 10. A hit destroys any piece on the ground, yours included, takes 1 health from a commander, damages a structure, takes 2 from a barricade, or caves in a trench while whoever is in it survives. Troops inside buildings are sheltered and drones in the air are untouched. The strip stays scorched on the map for a round so both sides can see where it fell. It is the answer to a big zombie horde, and the computer uses it when it can see a crowd of your pieces with none of its own in the way.
Wooden crates with a question mark are scattered across the map. Move your commander, a soldier, a rifleman, a jeep or artillery onto one to open it. Drones and zombies cannot open them. Inside is 10 or 20 supply, an abandoned jeep, an abandoned artillery piece, a crated kamikaze drone, or a medic kit that gives your commander back 1 health. A piece found in a crate appears beside it and can act the next turn. A medic kit opened at full health counts as 10 supply instead. Crates come in matching pairs, one on your side of the halfway point and one on the enemy's, holding the same thing, so it is a race. The computer goes after the ones it can see.
Only soldiers carry grenades, 2 each. Throwing one takes the soldier's turn and reaches 2 cells in any direction, over walls and into trenches, at anything you can see. A soldier can throw one after walking, but not after attacking, building or entering a building. A grenade destroys any piece, takes 2 of a barricade's 3 health, or takes 1 health from a commander. They are the answer to troops dug into trenches and to barricades when no artillery is close.
Park a jeep beside one of your guns that has not acted this turn, select the jeep and tap the gun, which shows in a gold square. The gun rides along while the jeep drives. After driving, tap Drop gun and pick an open or road cell beside the jeep. The gun sets up there and fires from the next turn. That turns a slow gun that crawls 1 cell a turn into one that can cross the map in a few turns and set up on distant high ground. If the jeep is destroyed while towing, the gun is lost with it.
A jeep will not move without a driver. It has 3 seats, and any soldier, rifleman or your commander can drive. A new jeep arrives empty, so park a trooper next to it or put it beside your commander. Select the jeep and tap Load, then tap a soldier, rifleman or your commander beside it. A trooper can also climb in by selecting it and tapping the jeep beside it, which shows in a gold square. Climbing in uses that piece's turn. A small star on the jeep means your commander is aboard, and an orange number shows how many troops are with them. Tap Unload to let troops out beside the jeep. They act again from the next turn. Tap Commander out to put your commander back on foot. While riding, your commander moves with the jeep and cannot be stepped on separately, but anything that attacks the jeep's cell attacks your commander: a rifle, grenade or shell takes 1 health, and an enemy piece stepping onto the jeep ends the battle. If the jeep is destroyed, the troops aboard are lost.
A jeep with a driver can run down enemy soldiers, riflemen, zombies and a commander on foot. Any of them within its drive shows in orange when the jeep is selected, and driving onto one destroys it. The road to it has to be clear, and troops in a trench, a building or forest are out of reach, because a jeep cannot drive there. Guns, jeeps and drones cannot be run over.
Everywhere a jeep drives it leaves tire treads. Treads count as road for every piece that starts on them, so a jeep that has driven a route once can run 3 cells along it next time, and so can your troops and guns.
A commander, soldier, rifleman, jeep or artillery piece that starts its move on a road or on tire treads can run up to 3 cells along connected road and treads instead of stepping 1. The run stops at any piece in the way, and troops can end it by attacking an enemy piece on the road. Away from roads every piece steps 1 cell in any of 8 directions.
With fog on, you only see what your pieces can see, plus your own territory. Sight is blocked by higher ground in between, by buildings and by forest, worked out from the real elevation. Standing on a building lets a piece see over its neighbors. Drones and aircraft look straight down, so nothing blocks them. Guns can only fire at what you can see. Ground you have scouted before stays lighter, and enemy territory there shows as it was when last seen. A faded star with a question mark marks where the enemy commander was last spotted. The computer plays by the same fog and sends its own recon planes when it loses track of you.
| Ground | On foot | Artillery |
|---|---|---|
| Road | Yes, up to 3 cells along it | Yes, up to 3 cells along it and still fires |
| Open ground | Yes | Yes |
| Buildings | Yes | No |
| Forest | Yes | No |
| Steep slope | Yes | No |
| Railway | Yes | No |
| Barrier (walls, riverbanks) | Yes | No |
| Trench | Yes | No |
| Barricade | No | No |
| Water | No | No |
| Cliff | No | No |
Every cell gets a tier from its real elevation compared with the rest of the battlefield. Higher tiers are worth more to capture and give artillery more reach.
| Tier | Name | Share of map | Capture value | Artillery range |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Valley | Lowest 20% | 1 | 3 |
| 2 | Plains | Next 25% | 2 | 4 |
| 3 | Hills | Next 25% | 3 | 5 |
| 4 | Ridge | Next 20% | 4 | 6 |
| 5 | Peak | Top 10% | 5 | 7 |
Points only come from attacking.
| Action | Points |
|---|---|
| Capture an enemy cell | Its tier, 1 to 5 |
| Destroy a drone | 4 |
| Destroy a kamikaze drone | 3 |
| Destroy a soldier | 5 |
| Destroy a rifleman | 6 |
| Destroy artillery | 8 |
| Rifle or artillery hit on the enemy commander | 5 |
| Seal enemy cells inside a closed loop of your territory | 10, and everything inside flips to you |
| Step onto the enemy HQ | 20, once |
| Blue fill | Your territory |
| Red fill | Enemy territory |
| Green square | Where your commander can step |
| Orange square | A move the enemy can hit next turn |
| Teal square | Where the selected piece can move. Dashed teal uses the artillery shot. |
| Dashed gold | Where a new piece can go |
| Orange fill | What the selected gun can hit. A crosshair marks the enemy commander in range. |
| Red dashed box | Reach of each enemy gun you can see |
| Blue dashed box | Area your helicopter is watching |
| Gray haze | Fog. Darker means never scouted. |
| Brown zigzag | Trench |
| Dashed brown double line | Tire treads |
| Small square behind a jeep | Artillery in tow |
| Orange number on a jeep | Troops aboard |
| Dark bar with stripes | Barricade |
| Brown cell with small hills | Raised ground, one hill per level |
| Purple dashed | What the enemy did last turn |
| Dark hatching | Nobody can enter |
| Brown hatching | Artillery cannot enter, shown while artillery is selected |
| Dots under a star | Commander health |
| Faded piece | Already used this turn |
| White dashed square | Artillery still setting up |
Easy earns half the territory income (at least 1 a turn) and aims its guns at your pieces before your commander. Normal plays the full plan with the same territory income rules as you. Hard also gets 1 extra supply every third round.
Tap a green square to move your commander. Tap any of your pieces to select it, then tap a teal square to move or an orange one to shoot. A rifleman stays selected after moving so it can still shoot. Deploy opens the list of pieces and aircraft. Tap any other cell to read its ground, height, tier and owner. Pinch to zoom and drag to look around. Center brings your commander back into view.
Every finished battle is logged on this device with the place name, map position, grid, difficulty, fog setting, result and the full tally. Open it from the menu or the setup screen to fight the same ground again, or export the whole log as a file.
Map tiles, place names and the roads, buildings, water, forest and barrier data come from OpenStreetMap contributors under the Open Database License. Elevation comes from public terrain tiles built from government survey data. If a data source does not answer, the game says so and falls back to open ground or generated hills.
Your location is only used on this device to center the map. There are no accounts and no game server. The map, place name and elevation services see which area is being downloaded, like any map app. Your current battle and your battle history are saved in this browser only, and leave it only when you export them.
Every finished battle is logged on this device with where it was fought, the settings and the result. Export saves the whole log as a file.
No finished battles yet.
Send this link to the friend you want to fight. The first person to open it joins as your opponent. You each take your turn whenever you open the game, and the game checks for their moves while it is open.
Your friend can scan the square with their phone camera, open the link, or open topo-wars.vercel.app and type this code under Join a battle on the setup screen.
Get a notification on this phone when your friend finishes their turn, even when the game is closed. Firefox will ask you to allow it.