Frontier Command

Overview

Frontier Command squeezes a classic base-building real-time strategy match onto one screen. Your command hall sits in the lower-left corner with a single harvester already shuttling crystal home; the enemy hall, power plant, and barracks mirror you in the upper-right. Crystal is the only resource, so every decision is about timing: a second harvester pays for itself in three trips, a power plant accelerates all training by 25 percent and unlocks the war factory, and barracks turn credits into rifles and rocket troopers while the factory rolls out tanks. Every half minute the enemy launches a wave that grows with each cycle, and the AI keeps its own production queue running between attacks. Rocket troopers deal double damage to structures, which makes them the siege arm, while tanks anchor the push and rifles screen them. You win by leveling the enemy command hall; you lose the moment yours burns. A typical match runs four to seven minutes and the first crystal deposit lands within seconds of pressing start.

How to Play

Press Start Game and your harvester begins mining on its own. Tap any of your units to select it, tap open ground to issue a move order, and tap an enemy unit or building to focus fire. The button bar trains harvesters, rifles, rockets, and tanks, or arms building placement for the power plant, barracks, and war factory — then tap the map to drop the structure. Select Army grabs your whole strike force at once. On keyboard, arrow keys move the command cursor and Space performs the same select-or-order action at the cursor position. P pauses and R restarts the match.

Tips & Strategy

Spend your opening 250 credits on a barracks plus one rifleman rather than banking them: the first enemy wave arrives around the half-minute mark and an empty base cannot answer it. Queue a second harvester immediately after — the economy doubles and pays for the power plant that unlocks tanks. Mix rockets into every push once the enemy hall is exposed, because their doubled structure damage ends games faster than any tank duel. Keep your army between the crystal fields and your hall so raiders meet your guns before your harvester. When a wave warning appears, pull home, let buildings absorb fire while rifles pick off attackers, then counterattack the moment the wave breaks — the enemy base is weakest right after it spends everything on an assault. Finally, never leave fewer than two rifles at home; a single rocket squad slipping past your push can trade a hall for a hall, and the AI wins that race.

What Makes It Distinct

Most browser RTS sketches stop at unit brawls. Frontier Command keeps the whole classic loop — harvesting, build order, tech gating, wave defense, and the counter-push — but compresses it so every 15 seconds contains a real decision. The enemy's free wave reinforcements mean defense alone always loses, which pushes the game toward the aggressive timing attacks that made 90s base-builders memorable.