OpenFront Team Victory Threshold: Turn 80% Into a Safe Finish

Direct answer: stop playing four private races when the team is near 80%

In the v0.34.15 ruleset, a Team side wins when the sum of its members’ valid territory is strictly above 80% of the non-fallout land checked by the server. Treat that as a shared finish line, not as four personal score targets. One player should own the protected final route, another should keep the nearest counter-front quiet, and the remaining players should preserve the reserve and remove the next safe obstacle. Exactly 80.00% is not a win, and a teammate still owning land does not prevent the other team from ending the match.

The practical sequence is READ, SUM, ASSIGN, PUSH, CANCEL. Read the live team share, not an old screenshot. Sum only land that remains in the denominator after fallout is excluded. Assign one finisher, one support player, one reserve owner, and one scout or naval cover when the roster allows it. Push the cheapest route that adds durable land to the team’s total. Cancel the plan when the route becomes exposed, the enemy can cross its own win line first, or the match timer will end before the capture can settle. This sequence is different from the broad Team roles guide: that page explains jobs across a match; this page decides when those jobs collapse into a safe team finish.

Do not wait for every teammate to reach 80% personally. A 2v2 can finish with one player holding a large connected core and the other holding a small bridge, because the checker groups territory by Team. Conversely, four players can lose while each still owns a respectable island if the opposing team has the higher sum. Team victory is an aggregate event. The UI can make individual colors look alive after the server has already found a winning team, especially when the last visible check happened during a busy attack. Your callout should therefore contain a share, a route, and a stop signal: “We are 76.4%; capture the east corridor, protect the City, stop if the reserve falls below 30%.”

The rest of this guide turns that callout into measurements, two numerical examples, mode adjustments, counterplay, and a final checklist. Use Team economy space before spending Gold on a shared corridor, and use Winning Overtime only when the lobby actually enables a falling threshold. The objective is not to make the last attack dramatic. It is to make the cheapest safe percentage point predictable enough that the team can end the game before a winning position turns into an unnecessary cleanup war.

Measure the right denominator before you promise a finish

The server does not compare your colored pixels with the entire visual map. The tagged WinCheckExecution path removes fallout from the denominator, sums each player’s owned tiles by Team, selects the leading team, and then applies a strict comparison. Conceptually, calculate teamShare = teamTiles / nonFalloutTiles * 100, then ask whether teamTiles * 100 > nonFalloutTiles * threshold. The integer calculation and the strict greater-than operator matter. A displayed value rounded to 80 can still be below the threshold, while a percentage that appears to jump after a nuclear strike may have moved because the denominator changed rather than because your team captured a new tile.

Use three snapshots rather than one. First record the current non-fallout denominator and your team’s summed tiles. Second record the same values after a planned capture or after a fallout animation settles. Third record the strongest enemy team’s values and its shortest route to 80%. If the three snapshots disagree, label the cause before acting: new land, converted land, fallout removed from both sides, or a stale visual update. Do not infer the denominator from map area, player count, or the amount of gray land that looks empty. Fallout can be visually present while excluded from the victory calculation, and a teammate’s loss can change the denominator without changing your team’s ownership.

The check runs every ten ticks, so a click is not a synchronous victory command. An attack can cross the line between checks, then fail to hold the tile by the time the next check runs. A winning call therefore needs a margin and a holding plan, not only a capture animation. If the team needs 1.2 percentage points, aim for a route worth 2 to 3 points when it is safe, or wait for a better-shaped pocket. A narrow spike that technically crosses the line but can be cut before the next ten-tick check is a liability. Keep the land-combat guide nearby for the local fight; this page owns the denominator and the team-level timing around it.

Assign the endgame jobs around a single protected route

The final phase works when every player has a job that changes the team’s share or protects the job that does. Name the finisher first. This player has the shortest safe path to unclaimed or enemy land and enough troops to hold the new boundary. The finisher is not automatically the player with the largest personal territory. Name a support player second. Support feeds troops, closes a side border, escorts a Transport, or blocks a counterattack; support does not start a second war merely because its own color has an easy target. Name a reserve owner third. That player keeps a visible home force, watches the opponent’s shortest route, and pays for the emergency City, Defense Post, Port, or transport that the plan may require. In a coastal or island map, name a cover player who keeps Warship or landing information current even if no shot is planned.

Write the route in map terms, not in encouragement. “Push east” is too vague. “Take the three-tile bridge beyond the river, secure the City behind it, and stop if the north player sends more than 20% of their troops” gives the finisher a destination and a cancellation rule. The support player should know whether to donate before or after the first capture, because a donation that arrives after the route is cut is not support. The reserve owner should announce a floor such as 30% of current troops or one full defensive response. A floor is not a universal balance formula; it is a shared signal that prevents the team from spending the same reserve twice.

Do not let a player chase a personal lead during this phase. A personal capture that adds no team percentage, opens a fourth border, or removes the only reserve can reduce the chance of winning. The most common trap is a teammate who sees a weak neighbor and commits 60% of their army while another teammate is one safe corridor from the line. The answer is a direct stop request, not an argument about skill: “Your route is optional; our protected route is the finish.” If the player refuses, recalculate the team margin with their troops unavailable and move the reserve job to somebody who can still respond.

The Team roles page remains useful for the wider match, and the team-economy guide explains who owns a City, Factory, Port, or rail lane. At the threshold, however, roles are temporary contracts. A support player can become the finisher after the original corridor is cut. A naval player can become reserve after a safe landing is no longer needed. The contract is complete only when the team has crossed the exact threshold, held the route through a check, and confirmed the winner screen. Until then, keep the map readable and the cancellation signal explicit.

Scenario A: a 2v2 at 76.4% should buy margin, not one desperate tile

Assume a standard 2v2 public Team match with Overtime disabled, no active fallout change, and a non-fallout denominator of 10,000 tiles. Your team owns 7,640 valid tiles, so the exact share is 76.4%. The eastern player sees a safe corridor worth 210 tiles, or 2.1 percentage points of the current denominator. Capturing it raises the team to 7,850 tiles, 78.5%. That is useful territory but not a win. The call is not “attack until the panel says 80.” The call is “take the corridor only if it leaves a route for the next 160 to 220 valid tiles and can be held through the next check.”

Before the first click, the finisher marks the corridor’s nearest owner and the tile behind it. The support player closes the southern border with a Defense Post or a bounded counterattack, while the reserve owner keeps enough troops to answer the opponent’s 78% route. If the corridor is 210 tiles but costs the finisher 45% of their army, its nominal percentage is misleading. A smaller 120-tile bridge that costs 15% and exposes one border may be the better first step, because it leaves the second capture affordable. The team is purchasing a sequence of stable percentage points, not a single screenshot.

Use a simple margin ledger. Start with 7,640 team tiles, add the expected 210 from the corridor, then add only the portion that is likely to survive: perhaps 180 after a contested edge. The projected 7,820 is 78.2%, so the team still needs 180 valid tiles to reach 80 and a few more to be strictly above it. If the enemy can remove 80 tiles before the next check, the route needs a second branch or a stronger hold. The reserve owner should compare that 180-tile requirement with the opponent’s shortest available route. If the opponent can capture 300 tiles in one unprotected valley, defending that valley is worth more than starting an unrelated Port or Factory.

The cancellation signals are concrete. Cancel the corridor if a hostile Warship cuts the landing, if the finisher’s army falls below the agreed floor, if the route opens a second enemy border, or if the room timer leaves less time than one capture-and-hold cycle. If the corridor becomes contested, retreating early can preserve the 76.4% base and force the enemy to spend troops. Do not turn a 2.1-point opportunity into a 10-point personal war. Once the team reaches a projected share above 80 with a stable pocket, shift every spare action to holding, because the next server check is the finish line and not an invitation to keep expanding.

Scenario B: a four-player team must recalculate after fallout changes the map

Assume a four-player Team side appears to own 78.9% on a large map. The exact ledger before a strike is 7,890 team tiles out of 10,000 non-fallout tiles. A nuclear exchange then turns 500 enemy tiles and 250 of your own exposed tiles into fallout. The new denominator is 9,250 and your team has 7,640 valid tiles. The share is now 82.59%, even though your team lost 250 tiles. That can be a winning position, but it is not permission to launch another strike: the calculation improved because the denominator shrank, and the remaining enemy routes may still be able to change the next check.

This is where four-player communication often fails. One player sees the old 78.9% and starts a huge attack; another sees the new 82.59% and begins a side capture; a third assumes fallout land will count later; the fourth abandons the reserve. Replace those assumptions with a verbal reset: “New denominator 9,250, team valid 7,640, exact share 82.59; hold the three exposed edges, no side war until the next check.” The reserve owner should verify that the apparent lead survives the opponent’s shortest capture. If the opposing team owns 7,100 of the same 9,250 denominator, it is at 76.76%; a 350-tile route would still leave it below 80, but a 600-tile valley could reverse the race.

The four-player version benefits from splitting observation rather than splitting attacks. Let one teammate read the top enemy route, one watch fallout and the denominator, one hold the safest edge, and one prepare the smallest capture that creates margin if the next check falls short. If the team has no safe capture, preserving 82.59% is a valid action. If a friendly pocket will become fallout soon, do not count it as a future buffer. If your own attack creates fallout near a teammate’s core, include that teammate’s lost tiles in the next denominator calculation before calling the strike efficient.

The failure mode is emotional certainty: “We are over 80, so nothing matters.” Strict comparison, ten-tick checks, timers, and route geometry still matter. Hold the result through the check, watch for a higher enemy team, and keep one emergency response. If the winner screen appears, stop spending; the server has ended the match. If it does not, treat the share as a lead, not as a completed win, and repeat the three-number callout after each terrain conversion. Fallout can make the correct action defensive even when the team’s percentage rises.

Overtime, timers, Ranked, and map shape change the finish line

The base Team threshold at v0.34.15 is 80%, matching FFA. Overtime is a separate room setting, not a hidden Team rule. In the public default it is disabled. When a Host or Singleplayer configuration enables it, the threshold starts from the configured value and falls according to that room’s schedule; the tagged defaults describe a 30-minute start and a drop of 2 percentage points per minute, equivalent to 1 point every 30 seconds. The denominator, team summation, and strict greater-than comparison remain the same. Read the lobby setting before importing the Winning Overtime timing into a Team plan.

Ranked 2v2 can also end through a special elimination path when only one team remains alive. That is not a substitute for calculating territory in ordinary Team rooms. A custom timer or the 170-minute hard limit can end the match before a slow corridor reaches the checker. Doomsday changes the value of a compact surviving core, while Water Nukes change the coast and route preview. Disabled structures remove some of the team’s normal ways to turn Gold into a safe percentage point. These are mode boundaries, not guarantees about a particular map. Write the active settings in the first callout so a teammate does not plan around a threshold or building that the room removed.

Map shape changes which percentage point is cheap. On a compact land map, a short interior pocket may add 1% but create a new border that is hard to hold; on a continent with a river neck, a 1% bridge can be worth more because it closes an enemy route. On islands, a Transport landing can add territory faster than a land push, but a Warship screen and a connected retreat route are part of the cost. Water-Nuke terrain is permanent, so a new channel can invalidate the corridor you measured thirty seconds earlier. On a map with long rails, use the train network guide and Team economy space before treating a Factory route as endgame support.

The correct adjustment is not to memorize a different universal percentage. Re-run the same five questions: what is the exact threshold now, what valid land is in the denominator, which route adds durable tiles, who holds it through the next check, and what timer or mode event can end the match first? A public Team room with Overtime off, a custom room with Overtime on, and Ranked 2v2 may look similar on the map while requiring different stop signals. A map modifier can make a route slower without changing the victory formula. Keep the formula stable and change the route, reserve, and time budget around it.

Failure and counterplay: protect the lead from the next obvious route

The most dangerous Team mistake is to defend the percentage and ignore the route that produces it. A side at 81% can still lose its lead if the opponent has a connected 500-tile valley, a prepared Transport beach, or a nuclear strike that changes the denominator and opens a follow-up. The reserve owner should therefore ask not only “are we above 80?” but also “what is the opponent’s cheapest durable path to above 80, and how many ticks until it can be checked?” If the answer is shorter than your own route, delay the side project and close that path first.

Opponents can counter the finisher without attacking the biggest army. They can cut the rail or road behind the route, force the finisher to guard two borders, create fallout that removes your team’s buffer, or bait a support player into a personal chase. The response is to make the route narrow in purpose: one protected capture, one reserve floor, and one cancellation event. If the enemy opens a second border, the support player should stop the new fight rather than “help a little” on both fronts. If a teammate’s personal lead becomes a liability, freeze their expansion and move the finish contract to the player who still has a route and a reserve.

Do not mistake a living enemy color for a live threat in every mode. Team checks group friendly land; a losing teammate can remain visibly alive after the opposing team wins. Conversely, do not mistake a dead-looking color or fallout band for a settled route. Verify the exact team totals and the next eligible tiles. A player who is eliminated may still have removed land from the denominator, and a player who is alive may have no legal route to change the threshold before the timer. The threat assessment guide is useful for scanning third-party benefits, but the threshold call must stay numerical.

After a failed push, recover by naming the first invalid assumption. If the corridor was not actually reachable, move the route. If the capture was affordable but not holdable, raise the reserve floor or add cover. If the opponent’s route was underestimated, assign a dedicated watcher. If fallout changed the denominator, reset the ledger instead of arguing from the old panel. A failure is expensive when the team repeats it with more troops; it is useful when it changes the next route. The finish remains the same: cross the exact line, survive the check, and stop before a winning lead creates a new border that nobody agreed to hold.

Final checklist and version boundary

Before the decisive click, say the following in order. One: name the active mode, whether Overtime is enabled, and the timer or hard-limit risk. Two: state the exact non-fallout denominator and each team’s summed valid tiles. Three: state the strict target: greater than 80% in the ordinary Team rules, or the configured falling threshold in an enabled Overtime room. Four: name the finisher, support, reserve owner, and any naval or transport cover. Five: identify the route’s expected valid tiles, its holding point, and the event that cancels it. Six: check the enemy’s shortest route and preserve enough force to answer it. Seven: after the capture or fallout event, repeat the denominator, team tiles, and share before spending again. Eight: when the winner screen appears, stop; do not convert a finished game into a needless cleanup.

This guide is bounded by the formal v0.34.15 Release, the tagged Config.ts, the tagged WinCheckExecution.ts, and the tagged WinCheck tests. The v0.34.0 Release records the change from a 95% Team threshold to the shared 80% baseline; v0.34.15 is the latest formal non-TEST patch and does not announce a new victory coefficient. The source code confirms that Team totals are grouped by team, fallout is excluded from the denominator, the comparison is strict, and the check runs every ten ticks. These sources do not know your current troop reserve, map route, lobby timer, or opponent intent, so those remain live observations.

Use the Team roles guide when the match is still in its broad coordination phase. Use Team economy space when a City, Factory, Port, or rail corridor needs an owner and a payer. Use Winning Overtime when the room explicitly enables a falling threshold, and use Land combat when the final route is already fighting. The handoff is deliberate: those pages explain the system that supplies the route, while this page tells the team when to stop optimizing the system and safely end the match.

The durable habit is to make the finish measurable. A callout with only “we are winning” invites four different plans. A callout with “7,890 of 10,000 valid tiles, 2.1 points from the safe corridor, 30% reserve floor, cancel on a second border” gives every teammate the same state. The number can change after fallout, a capture, an elimination, or a timer event; the framework does not. Recalculate, assign, push, hold, and stop. That is how a Team side turns the 80% rule into a controlled finish instead of a late-game argument.