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The Rally Point: Foxhole is a rabbit hole of poor logistical strategies that’s utterly fascinatingDon’t, necessarily, keep on truckin'
Don’t, necessarily, keep on truckin'
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Siege Camp
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Siege Camp
The worst part aboutstrategy gamesis the shuffling. I give up on most 4Xs in the midgame, because shuffling more icons around is too wearying. No Total War sinceMedievalhas truly enraptured me, because pathfinding for every army added nothing but hassle.
It’s why I love the model ofImperialism, where everywhere is one turn, no shuffling away. It’s also why I’m a little surprised how engrossingFoxholeis as a strategy game. As most players (including Brendy) will tell you, it’s a gameall aboutshuffling, ie. logistics. But after finally making time for it, I’ve realised that most of them, even some of the “logi” focused players, don’t know what that actually means.
Foxhole 1.0 Inferno - Launch TrailerWatch on YouTube
Foxhole 1.0 Inferno - Launch Trailer
Foxhole is a top-down warMMOwhere players of two fixed factions shoot it out, and also drive trucks full of weapons to the front lines. It offers a remarkable degree of freedom, and even joining a war late, there’s always room for someone new, and a hundred ways to contribute. Each war lasts until one side occupies enough regions, which could in theory happen overnight or never, but generally last three or four weeks.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Siege Camp
Instead of the hyper-individualist approach of the crafting orsurvival game, 98% of your preparation is strategic, not personal. You provide for others, because sharing is the only way to achieve much, and both the means and goal of everything you do. Making all your own stuff is madness. Making stuff exclusively for yourself is madness and dickheadness. Community is a good strategy. It’sthestrategy, in fact, that’s kept humans alive for a million years. Even in war, we only win when we trust in a greater effort, and help each other out. The extra things you leave for randos are possible because of extra things you took from randos. I once siphoned fuel from an ambulance. It was right.
Foxhole has no command structure. You’re not the all-powerful commander.Nobodyis. All the gambits and invasions and organisation to support them require co-ordination from the ground up. And most remarkably of all, you can do this as a solo.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Siege Camp
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Siege Camp
Oh, you can’t do everything, and you won’t get the credit for most of what you achieve. In fact, certain acts are disproportionately rewarded with in-game “commends”, essentially “likes” that players grant each other. Commends increase your rank, but beyond the first few they don’t affect anything else. Long term players will naturally gain rank over time, but there’s only a limited correlation between rank and competence. They also lead to some deeply tragic behaviour like a few people cynically swapping commends for nothing, or gaming the system to trigger a “commend player?” pop-up to multiple people, some of whom will click yes to be polite.
But that’s fine, because those commends are worthless, and it’s not like anyone can pull rank anyway. I’ve seen a Major abandon a truck full of explosives to the enemy, having failed not only to deny them, but also to arm himself and fight back, the miserable wretch.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Siege Camp
The irony is, in a game where the fighters get overlooked and truckers are lionised, it’s the latter who bask in the adulation while overlooking their own quiet batpeople. Too many of them don’t really get what good logistics are. Even ignoring that some are actually miners and manufacturers, there’s a worse problem: many in logi interpret “efficiency” only as “Make Number Go Up”. Jeep off small caches to protect every second line base the enemy could easily flank? No no, the efficient thing is to fill a freighter with a bajillion weapons and ship them to the port. It’s a better use of your time, see, because the number is bigger. Did anyone actually use them? Who cares!
It’s “efficient” in the way capitalism is: more stuff is produced, but it’s concentrated away from where it’s actually needed, achieving less in real human terms. It’s logistics as brute force, with no holistic administration. You might have done good logi because you moved thousands of crates, but meanwhile the depots are overflowing with empty guns and the bunkers with mismatched ammo because nobody’s connecting the dots or doing the small packages, making sure people get what they need.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Siege Camp
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Siege Camp
Sometimes, picking your battles means accepting the limits of one person’s influence. Sometimes it’s to reason with your own side, and accept defeat. Can I talk everyone intonotfurther fortifying the town that the enemy will obviously just go around to cut off the port road? Apparently not. But I can fortify that road, and carry gear to the three bases best placed to cover it. I’ve failed to convince the locals that those were organised recon probes, but I can patrol for a while and raise the alarm when the invasion lands. There are always other battles, other ways you can bridge the gap between your grand vision and your humble little soldier.
Foxhole is a choose-your-own-scope simulation, strategy not of command but of connection, where hopeless battles are often far more rewarding than nominally better outcomes. I knew I’d enjoy it, but I had no idea it would present such a fascinating strategic tapestry. You’ve put it off for far too long.
