A field manual for FrontWars
Cities: the ceiling
A city costs 125,000 gold and raises the ceiling on your troops. It is the first purchase that makes your army bigger rather than merely better placed.
- TESTEDthe price, the tooltip and the troop line before and after, 2026-11-03
- IN-GAME"Increases max population" — the client's own sentence
- OFFICIAL ONLYno store page describes the city at all
- NEEDS CHECKwhether the increment grows with city level, and what an upgrade adds
What it changes on screen
The troop line at the bottom left reads current / maximum (+growth). The maximum is the number a city moves. In our 2026-11-03 session the line read 11.2K / 12.1K (+85); a hundred thousand gold later the ceiling is what you bought, not the troops themselves — those still have to grow into it at the rate in brackets.
That distinction matters more than it sounds. Buying a city when your gold is high but your troops are far below the ceiling buys nothing yet; buying one when the line is pinned at the maximum is what converts gold into an army.
Cost against the rest of the board
| Building | Cost | Buy it when |
|---|---|---|
| Defense Post | 50,000 | a border is being pressed |
| City | 125,000 | the troop line is at its ceiling |
| Factory | 125,000 | the ceiling has room to spare |
| Port | 125,000 | you hold coast and want ships |
What one city added, measured
At 2m36s on Black Sea on 2026-11-03 the troop line read 12.0K / 12.0K (+0) — pinned at the ceiling, growing nothing. We placed one city there. The line then read 23.2K / 37.0K (+774). The ceiling moved by 25,000 and the growth number came back.
That is the whole reason a city is worth 125,000. At the cap, gold buys nothing; the troops stop. The client never prints the increment, so the only way to have it is to read the line before and after — which is what this page is for.
Still open: whether the increment grows with the city's level, and what a middle-click upgrade adds to one.
The second city costs twice as much
After the first city was standing, the build menu priced the next one at 250,000 instead of 125,000, with a small 1 badge on the cell showing how many you already own. We paid 125,000 for the second one before that, which means the escalation is not retroactive: it is the price of the next one, not a bill you are sent later.
So the honest cost of a city is "125,000 for the first, 250,000 for the next" as measured, and higher after that. Everywhere on this site that prints a single city price prints the first one, and this paragraph is why.
Last checked against the client: 2026-11-03 · client v42.5