Iron Frontier: don't turtle, scout

We lost our first several Iron Frontier maps by playing defensively, building walls and waiting. The AI just out-economied us every single time. Turtling does not work here.

The real game is in the opening scouting phase. Send a cheap unit out early to find the enemy's supply routes, because those routes are their whole economy. Knowing where they are shapes everything you do next.

Once you know their layout, you can pick a single route to harass and pressure. You don't need to win the whole map at once, you just need to slow their income enough to build your own lead.

Resource priority matters more than army size early. We now rush the mid-tier resource building before anything military, and it's made a huge difference in how our matches open.

Save your first big army for a counterattack, not a first strike. Let the AI overextend, then punish it. Patience wins here, but it's active patience, not sitting still.