Turn-Based Military Defense Strategy
War Footing Wiki
Command a nation's defense in War Footing, a turn-based military strategy game. Manage budgets, procure equipment, train your forces, and prepare for invasion across challenging scenarios.
Latest Guides
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Procurement Contracts: Deals, Licensing & Production
Navigate War Footing procurement contracts with this guide to foreign arms deals, domestic licensing, delivery schedules, and industrial capacity management.
Munitions: Supply Tracking and System Mechanics
War Footing munitions are not tracked as separate inventory items. See how the game handles equipment procurement, unit firepower, and combat resolution.
Unit Training Guide: XP, Facilities, and Doctrines
Learn how War Footing unit training works, from Training Center XP rates and Level 4 specializations to readiness recovery and doctrine synergy.
Foreign Suppliers: Guide to Arms and Licensing
Manage War Footing foreign suppliers across Western, Eastern, and Neutral blocs to license weapons, run arms deals, and secure hardware before invasion.
War Footing scenarios: Full List of All 8 Scenarios and Modes
War Footing scenarios test your defense procurement across 8 distinct missions. Review the full scenario list, confirmed mechanics, and difficulty setups.
War Footing unit readiness: Mechanics, Penalties, and Recovery
War Footing unit readiness dictates combat effectiveness. This guide explains transport caps, relocation penalties, equipment impacts, and recovery tactics.
Equipment List: Weapons and Procurement Guide
This War Footing equipment list covers verified stats, weapons, armor, aircraft, and procurement mechanics across Western, Eastern, and Neutral blocs.
War Footing hard mode: How to Beat Cold War Gone Hot
Tackle War Footing hard mode with player-tested unit compositions and defense strategies for the Cold War Gone Hot scenario.
Political Stability Guide: Sliders and Conscription
War Footing political stability dictates your mobilization budget and recruit pools. Learn how Homefront sliders, conscription, and medevac affect it.
Prepared Defenses Doctrine & Setup Guide
The Prepared Defenses doctrine in War Footing grants +15% infantry defense and +15% artillery soft attack after a 6-turn transition period.
Start Here
Your War Footing Journey
Beginner Turn Cycle
Understand weekly administrative steps, budget allocations, recruit flows, and frontline positioning basics.
Procurement and Deals
Review foreign arms contracts, open market spot buys, and domestic factory licensing mechanics.
Unit Readiness Rules
Prevent severe combat degradation caused by logistics deficits, troop movements, and equipment shortfalls.
Combat Resolution Mechanics
Inspect the multi-phase operational battle simulation, armor penetration formulas, and sector defense rules.
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Guides & References
Demo: Free Download, Features, and Strategy Guide
Download the free War Footing demo on Steam. Check system requirements, scenario limits, economy mechanics, and essential operational defense tips.
Steam: Release Details, Demo, Price, and PC Specs
War Footing Steam details cover the October 15, 2026 launch, free demo access, $11.99 pricing, system requirements, and post-release roadmap updates.
Beginner Guide: First Turns, Budgets, and Defense
War Footing beginner guide covering the weekly turn loop, defense budgeting, procurement trade-offs, unit readiness, and pre-invasion mobilization.
Center Defense Guide: Holding Capital and Flanks
War Footing center defense strategies rely on core victory rules requiring the capital to hold. See sector deployment, logistics, and lane management.
Combat Mechanics: Sector Phases and Battle Systems
War Footing combat mechanics resolve battles across multi-phase sector clashes. Learn how penetration, air support, and readiness dictate battle outcomes.
War Footing hard mode: How to Beat Cold War Gone Hot
Tackle War Footing hard mode with player-tested unit compositions and defense strategies for the Cold War Gone Hot scenario.
War Footing scenarios: Full List of All 8 Scenarios and Modes
War Footing scenarios test your defense procurement across 8 distinct missions. Review the full scenario list, confirmed mechanics, and difficulty setups.
Air Defense Systems: SAMs and MANPADS Guide
War Footing air defense systems explained. Compare SAM batteries, MANPADS, and fighters to counter enemy strikes, protect armor, and hold sectors.
Domestic Industry: Production and Licensing Guide
Maximize your War Footing domestic industry capacity, optimize production queues, and learn when to license equipment versus buying off the market.
Equipment Disposal: Can You Sell Surplus Gear?
Learn how War Footing equipment disposal works, whether you can sell surplus inventory, and what options exist for obsolete starting vehicles.
Equipment List: Weapons and Procurement Guide
This War Footing equipment list covers verified stats, weapons, armor, aircraft, and procurement mechanics across Western, Eastern, and Neutral blocs.
Foreign Suppliers: Guide to Arms and Licensing
Manage War Footing foreign suppliers across Western, Eastern, and Neutral blocs to license weapons, run arms deals, and secure hardware before invasion.
Munitions: Supply Tracking and System Mechanics
War Footing munitions are not tracked as separate inventory items. See how the game handles equipment procurement, unit firepower, and combat resolution.
Procurement Contracts: Deals, Licensing & Production
Navigate War Footing procurement contracts with this guide to foreign arms deals, domestic licensing, delivery schedules, and industrial capacity management.
Mechanized Units: Templates, Costs, and Viability
War Footing mechanized units offer high firepower but demand steep equipment and recovery costs. Here is how mechanized formations compare and perform.
Tanks: Armor Mechanics and Force Building Guide
War Footing tanks guide detailing armor mechanics, hard attack penetration, production trade-offs, and how tanks compare to infantry and IFVs.
Unit Deployment: Rules, Sectors, and Readiness Guide
Master War Footing unit deployment across sectors. Learn readiness penalties, defensive entrenchment, air missions, and operational front rules.
War Footing unit readiness: Mechanics, Penalties, and Recovery
War Footing unit readiness dictates combat effectiveness. This guide explains transport caps, relocation penalties, equipment impacts, and recovery tactics.
Unit Training Guide: XP, Facilities, and Doctrines
Learn how War Footing unit training works, from Training Center XP rates and Level 4 specializations to readiness recovery and doctrine synergy.
Combined Arms: Synergies & Force Mixes
War Footing combined arms rewards mixing infantry, armor, artillery, and air defense to protect sectors and survive invasion combat.
Mass Assault Doctrine Guide and Transition Strategy
In War Footing, mass assault grants +20% production capacity and faster troop training. Maximize pre-war buildup before swapping to combat doctrines.
Prepared Defenses Doctrine & Setup Guide
The Prepared Defenses doctrine in War Footing grants +15% infantry defense and +15% artillery soft attack after a 6-turn transition period.
Budget Management: Allocation and Economy Guide
Master War Footing budget management with proven strategies for split allocations, industrial investment, arms deals, and political stability.
Diplomacy Guide: Blocs, Envoys, and Arms Deals
Master War Footing diplomacy with this detailed breakdown of envoys, bloc relations, trade markups, arms deals, and licensing rules.
Political Stability Guide: Sliders and Conscription
War Footing political stability dictates your mobilization budget and recruit pools. Learn how Homefront sliders, conscription, and medevac affect it.
Playthrough: Complete Defense Procurement Strategy
Execute a winning War Footing playthrough by mastering pre-war procurement, factory licensing, logistics staffing, and three-lane defense management.
Preview: Defense Ministry Mechanics
War Footing shifts wargaming to defense procurement and strategic planning. Here is our hands-on preview of mechanics, scenarios, and combat.
The Game at a Glance
What is War Footing?
War Footing is a turn-based defense procurement simulation developed and published by Strategist's Den Games. Players take on the role of a national Minister of Defense tasked with managing state budgets, securing foreign and domestic weapons contracts, training military recruits, and deploying formations to safeguard their country's independence ahead of an impending invasion.
Each standard run unfolds across weekly preparation turns where players balance four strategic expenditure priorities and structure armed forces across three border lanes. When hostilities erupt, combat resolves automatically sector by sector across sequential tactical phases, evaluating combined-arms balance, force readiness, entrenchment, and equipment quality.
Explore All Guides- Developer
- Strategist's Den Games
- Platform
- Windows PC
- Genre
- Strategy
- Scenarios
- 8
- Equipment Types
- 180+
- Positive Reviews
- 83%
- Release Date
- Oct 15, 2026
Choose Your Topic
Find Your Next Guide
From your first weekly turn to equipment procurement and sector defense, choose the topic you need.
Beginner Guide
Learn the weekly turn cycle: manage your defense budget, source equipment, train units, and assign your forces before invasion begins. Political stability and diplomatic obligations compete with military spending as you prepare your country's defenses.
Check available cash reserves, recurring weekly income, intelligence alerts on enemy axes, and domestic political stability.
Ensure projected operating expenses, maintenance, and future arms deal installment payments do not exceed weekly revenue.
Contract foreign supplier hardware or license gear for domestic factories while forming combat units across active facilities.
More details
Position trained formations across northern, central, or southern border sectors before confirming choices to end the weekly turn.
Equipment and Procurement
Explore over 180 equipment types, including small arms, armor, artillery, aircraft, and air defense systems, with different costs, capabilities, and availability. Foreign suppliers and domestic industry provide equipment for formations ranging from companies to brigades.
Instant market deliveries resolve sudden hardware deficits at full price but provide no diplomatic relationship bonuses.
Scheduled contracts deliver foreign arms over 5 to 15 turns at a discount and build diplomatic relations with the exporting nation.
One-time blueprint fees unlock indigenous production runs that cut equipment acquisition costs by roughly 50 percent.
More details
Dedicated surface-to-air missile batteries provide regional sector cover while man-portable systems give local battalion protection.
Combat and Deployment Guide
Understand how readiness, doctrine, equipment quality, combined arms, and deployment affect battles resolved sector by sector each week. The battle tally adds armor penetration and soft attack comparisons, while the battle map tutorial explains sectors and victory conditions.
Sector surface-to-air missile batteries check coverage percentages to detect and engage hostile aircraft before ground strikes hit.
Assigned interceptors contest the skies before surviving combat strike craft deliver ground bombardments against frontline formations.
Artillery batteries soften defenses before tanks and armored fighting vehicles clash directly using hard attack penetration values.
More details
Residual infantry battalions engage in close soft-attack attrition to decide whether defensive sectors hold or yield ground.
Scenarios
Discover scenarios including Cold War Gone Hot, Iron Curtain, Force Modernization, Industrial Giant, and Air Menace. Industrial Giant starts with almost no equipment or units but substantial production capacity, making income and equipment licensing central to its challenge.
Restructure a legacy military force stocked with baseline Soviet trucks and outdated equipment against an escalating enemy army.
Start with virtually no standing combat units but leverage massive domestic factory capacity to arm formations before invasion.
Defend thin border sectors against an imminent, heavily mechanized hostile armor offensive by fielding anti-tank solutions.
More details
Defend against an all-out multi-sector invasion threatening the capital across standard difficulty and a dedicated hard mode.
Demo and System Requirements
Try the Steam demo, which is limited to one scenario, before purchasing the full game. Minimum requirements include Windows 10 64-bit, a dual-core 2.0 GHz processor, 4 GB RAM, integrated graphics, and 500 MB of storage.
War Footing runs on 64-bit Windows 10 with a dual-core 2.0 GHz processor and integrated graphics hardware.
The simulation needs 4 GB of system RAM and requires only 500 MB of available hard drive storage space.
The Steam demo provides an accelerated single-scenario run featuring full turn mechanics and updated economy balancing.
Patch Notes
Follow official balance changes, bug fixes, and interface improvements, including the V1.0.1 changes to arms-deal relationship bonuses. Linux players experiencing interface issues can enable compatibility mode in settings and restart the game, as described in the developer's update.
Added a Linux compatibility mode, enabled unit renaming, fixed tooltip scaling, and raised diplomatic deal thresholds to 2 million.
Scheduled for late Q4 2026 to add community balancing adjustments, a new scenario, and at least one new gameplay mechanic.
Upcoming downloadable content plans introduce three foreign nations alongside at least three brand-new playable scenarios.
Quick Answers
Frequently Asked Questions
What platforms is War Footing available on?
War Footing is officially available on PC for 64-bit Windows 10 through Steam. It is not available on Mac or consoles.
Does War Footing include a standalone demo?
Yes, a free standalone demo is accessible on Steam featuring an accelerated single scenario to test mechanics and hardware compatibility.
Can players sell or scrap surplus military equipment in War Footing?
No, War Footing does not have an in-game mechanic to sell, scrap, or delete obsolete military equipment from national inventory.
Are munitions and ammunition tracked separately in War Footing?
No, War Footing abstracts munitions directly into complete equipment platforms and overall formation readiness rather than tracking discrete shell or missile reserves.
Which scenario features an official hard mode in War Footing?
Cold War Gone Hot is the only scenario in War Footing with an official hard mode variant, which awards its own dedicated Steam achievement.
What causes an immediate campaign defeat in War Footing?
A campaign in War Footing is lost immediately if domestic political stability drops to zero, if the central capital sector falls, or if both northern and southern flank sectors are lost simultaneously.
Where will you start?
Learn the basics, compare equipment procurement options, or plan your unit training and deployment.
War Footing · Platform: Windows PC · Developer: Strategist's Den Games
Keep exploring
Unit Training Guide: XP, Facilities, and Doctrines
Learn how War Footing unit training works, from Training Center XP rates and Level 4 specializations to readiness recovery and doctrine synergy.
Tanks: Armor Mechanics and Force Building Guide
War Footing tanks guide detailing armor mechanics, hard attack penetration, production trade-offs, and how tanks compare to infantry and IFVs.
Domestic Industry: Production and Licensing Guide
Maximize your War Footing domestic industry capacity, optimize production queues, and learn when to license equipment versus buying off the market.
Preview: Defense Ministry Mechanics
War Footing shifts wargaming to defense procurement and strategic planning. Here is our hands-on preview of mechanics, scenarios, and combat.
Foreign Suppliers: Guide to Arms and Licensing
Manage War Footing foreign suppliers across Western, Eastern, and Neutral blocs to license weapons, run arms deals, and secure hardware before invasion.
Mechanized Units: Templates, Costs, and Viability
War Footing mechanized units offer high firepower but demand steep equipment and recovery costs. Here is how mechanized formations compare and perform.
Munitions: Supply Tracking and System Mechanics
War Footing munitions are not tracked as separate inventory items. See how the game handles equipment procurement, unit firepower, and combat resolution.
Mass Assault Doctrine Guide and Transition Strategy
In War Footing, mass assault grants +20% production capacity and faster troop training. Maximize pre-war buildup before swapping to combat doctrines.
Prepared Defenses Doctrine & Setup Guide
The Prepared Defenses doctrine in War Footing grants +15% infantry defense and +15% artillery soft attack after a 6-turn transition period.
Budget Management: Allocation and Economy Guide
Master War Footing budget management with proven strategies for split allocations, industrial investment, arms deals, and political stability.