Spring 1942 · Six powers · One clock
Operation Overlord
Global war on all fronts
A real-time WW2 grand strategy game for six players on a world map. Three Axis seats against three Allied seats, one shared clock, and no turns to wait for.
221 land territories 151 sea zones Geometry from Natural Earth
The game
A war run on one clock
Germany, Italy and Japan play against the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States, with China run by the USA seat. Everyone plays at once. Income arrives every economic cycle, factories take real time to build, stacks travel edge by edge, and battles resolve one round of dice every few seconds while both sides can reinforce or pull back.
Production units pay for everything, but tanks need oil, ships need steel and every land unit needs manpower. Those come from specific territories and only reach you along an unbroken supply line, so cutting a convoy route can matter more than winning a battle. A research tree of four branches runs alongside, and techs a teammate has finished cost you half.
Axis
- Germany
- Italy
- Japan
Allies
- Soviet Union
- United Kingdom & Commonwealth
- United States + China
Twelve unit types
- Infantry
- Artillery
- Tank
- AA gun
- Fighter
- Bomber
- Transport
- Submarine
- Destroyer
- Cruiser
- Carrier
- Battleship
Tactical battles
Or take command in 3D
When a major battle starts you get ten seconds to choose: let the dice decide, or zoom into a real-time battlefield and fight it yourself. Every strategic unit is on the field: a squad for each infantry, a gun for each artillery, a tank for each tank. Hold the flags for command points and spend them on barrages, smoke and air strikes.
Whatever survives goes back to the world map. The world clock keeps running while you fight, so you can step out at any time and the battle carries on under the AI.
How to play
Five things to know
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01
Take a seat
Pick one of six powers in a match lobby, or start a practice game where bots run the other five.
-
02
Spend each cycle
Income lands every economic cycle. Queue units at your factories with PU plus oil, steel and manpower.
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03
Move stacks
Select a stack, split off what you need and click a destination. You see the path and an arrival time.
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04
Fight it out
Hostile stacks in one space start a battle. A round of dice resolves every few seconds, and the attacker can retreat between rounds.
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05
Hold the cities
The Axis win by holding 14 of the 22 victory cities for 6 cycles. The Allies win by holding 17, including an Axis capital, each for 3 cycles, or by taking all three Axis capitals. At the time limit, most cities wins.
Read the full rules with every unit, cost and tech.
Speeds
Pick how long a war lasts
Every timer scales with match speed, so the rules play the same at any of them. The host picks a preset or sets cycle length, combat round length, fog of war, resources, research, the time limit and bot level by hand.
| Speed | Clock | One cycle | A match takes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blitz | ×2 | 45 s | about 30 minutes |
| Standard | ×1 | 90 s | about 75 minutes |
| Relaxed | ×0.5 | 3 min | two to three hours |
| Campaign | ×1/240 | 6 h | days, checked on a phone |
Limitations
What it doesn’t do yet
3D battles are young
Only major battles (12+ land units, or a victory city) can be fought in 3D, the battlefield AI is simple, and phones always auto-resolve with dice.
Bots are basic
They fill seats and keep a match moving. They won’t outplay a careful human, so a practice game is for learning the controls.
No ratings or profiles
You play as a guest with a name you choose. There’s no ranked ladder, profile or match history, and switching browsers means a new guest id. An optional email sign-in only holds plans and cosmetics.
It’s an early build
Balance hasn’t been tested at scale, the starting scenario is provisional, and a server update can end a match in progress.
Common questions
Is it free? Do I need an account?
It’s free and there’s no sign-up. You type a display name, and your browser keeps a random guest id so you can rejoin your seat.
Do I need five other people?
No. Bots take any seat nobody claims, and a seat left empty for a minute (the default) is handed to a bot so the match keeps going.
Who plays China?
Whoever holds the USA seat gives orders for China as well. It has its own territories, income and armies.
Can I play on a phone?
Yes. On a small screen the map fills the display and panels open as a bottom sheet. Campaign speed is meant for this: a cycle lasts hours, so you can check in a few times a day.
Does practice mode need a connection?
Practice runs the rules engine in your browser, in a background worker. Once the page has loaded it doesn’t talk to a server at all.
Is this based on a board game?
It borrows ideas common to the genre: territories, production, combined-arms stacks and d6 combat. The rules are written from scratch, the map is built from Natural Earth public-domain data, and it isn’t affiliated with any publisher.
Who makes Operation Overlord?
Earth Ablaze, which makes military strategy games that run in the browser. The others are listed at earthablaze.com.
Take a seat
Join an open match, start your own, or learn against bots.