Iron Frontier: wall layouts that hold under pressure

Iron Frontier's AI is smarter than most base-building games give you credit for. It scouts, it finds your thinnest wall, and it commits. The first few times I lost a base, it was always through a corner I'd assumed was safe.

The core lesson is to think in layers. A single wall is a speed bump, but a double wall with your turrets covering the gap between them turns an assault into a grind the AI usually can't win. Overlap your defensive ranges so no attacker gets a clean run.

Resource placement matters too. Keep your most valuable buildings toward the center and use cheaper structures as buffers on the edges. Losing a barracks stings less than losing your main production line.

In the campaign specifically, read the mission briefing carefully. Several missions telegraph exactly which direction the attacks will come from, and building asymmetrically around that saved me a lot of grief.

Once your layouts start holding on their own, the game shifts from panic defense to calm expansion, and that's when it gets really enjoyable.