here are all the tactics I saw fit to include. all if the tactic taken from another user besides me has their username after it
- Spread out as soon as you can. The more land you control, the more space you have to build on. Your base doesn├óÔé¼Ôäót have to be cluttered together. This will actually be a disadvantage if your enemy attacks with airplanes or long range weapons. The more land you have, the more your enemy has to cover before they can wipe you out. Remember, the best defense is a good offense.
- By spreading out, you get more metal patches. While you can get energy anywhere on the map, excluding geothermal, metal can only be made one of two ways: extracting or metal makers.
- Optimize your resources. If you├óÔé¼Ôäóre making 3000 energy and using only 1500 but don├óÔé¼Ôäót have a lot of metal and can├óÔé¼Ôäót expand, create metal makers and increase your production. This will help you build more units or build more structures a lot quicker.
- (AA) peewees and flashes are very useful, even late in the game. They are good scouts at the beginning and assault units. Later in the game, combine them with heavier units and charge a base. The peewees will take the most of the fire letting your stronger units get closer and damage the defenses at the same time.
- (AA) Light Laser Towers are the key in the early part of defense. They may be weak but they build quickly and can be a hassle to any attack, especially during a flash or peewee rush. Just remember, lasers use energy. Without it, they'll be perfect targets for practice. Combine a HLLT/Beamer or two and it will hurt any early rush, if not destroy it completely, pretty quickly
- it├óÔé¼Ôäós never too early to get your anti-air defenses built up. I have lost many battles due to lack of it. Just remember, anti-air units, i.e. jethros, defenders, in AA don├óÔé¼Ôäót fire at ground units.
- (AA) Krogoths and Orcones may be super units but they├óÔé¼Ôäóre not invincible. Both have a hard time firing at units that are up close and if there├óÔé¼Ôäós a large number of them. Also, air can mean a quick death to them. Keep them guarded by other units. Variety is the key.
- Use different strategies. Mix the game up a bit. If you attack with the same attack each time, your enemy will know how to defend himself and where. If you attack with multiple attacks and a wide variety of units then that means more work for him. IE - annihilators and doomsdays machines can take out slow moving units like bulldogs and goliaths pretty quickly but they take a long time to reload. Use this to your advantage, attack with faster units like Fidos, Zippers, Stumpies, Flashes, Peewees. Everything in the game has a weakness, you just have to find and exploit it.
- Watch replays of yourself and others. This will show you what you did wrong and how to improve it. Also, if you watch others play, you can pick up what to do and how to play a little more aggressively or defensively, whichever you prefer. Here├óÔé¼Ôäós a link to FAQ├óÔé¼Ôäós about replays
http://taspring.clan-sy.com/wiki/Spring_Replays. Just remember, you can├óÔé¼Ôäót watch replays from older versions of Spring.
- There is a reason why radar, radar-jammers, sonar, sonar-jammers are included in the game. Use this to your advantage. If you attack an enemy and he attacks you when you're out of line of sight, then he has radar. Place a couple of radar jammers in your army and you can get closer before they take out your army. Also, if you├óÔé¼Ôäóre sneaky enough, you can place radar jammers throughout the map to mislead the enemy. To know exactly how far your radar, radar-jammers, and LOS reach, press the ├óÔé¼┼ôL├óÔé¼┬Ø key. The bright green shows LOS, the darker green shows radar coverage, the yellow shows where your radar-jammer reaches if you have radar in the area, and the red shows where you radar-jammer reaches and you have no radar coverage.
- Radar-jammers jam your own radar as well. It is like a double-edged sword in a matter of speaking. Also, hills affect where and how far you radar and radar-jammers reach. Always use the ├óÔé¼┼ôL├óÔé¼┬Ø key to make sure you are covered or can see where you want to. The best place to put a jammer and/or and radar tower is on top of a hill so you get the most range.
- Speaking of radar and jammers, you can send a large party of scout planes from a one front while your army comes in another front. This will confuse him a bit and will separate his forces even if it is only for a little. It doesn├óÔé¼Ôäót have to be just planes; you can use peewees, Stumpies, flashes or anything else that you can build quickly. Even if they don├óÔé¼Ôäót fall for it, those units will still do damage at another part of the map.
- (AA) shield defectors are great but can be a nightmare. They deflect enemy rounds and your own. If enemy units get inside of the range, your units can fire at them but the rounds will just bounce off in another direction. This will give your enemy a small moment of invincibility but his shells deflect as well. Shells can also bounce off and hit your own units. If you can defend it, build some annihilators under the deflector shield and it├óÔé¼Ôäóll be pretty hard to take out
- If an enemy has a deflector shield that├óÔé¼Ôäós unguarded or lightly guarded, send in a few peewees and just shoot at the ground next to it and watch as he runs out of energy. This can work with any unit that shoots plasma. (patmo98)
- Scout early and often. You can never know what to prepare for unless you know what the enemy is doing. Remember, just because your radar shows that there├óÔé¼Ôäós nothing there doesn├óÔé¼Ôäót make it true. A player can include mobile radar-jammers with his force or send in stealth units and unless you scout, you├óÔé¼Ôäóll never know they were there.
- Never let off of your enemy. With every minute that you don't attack, this gives your enemy time to build defenses. Attack as soon and as often as you can. This will give him less time to build up and will pressure him more. Even if you feel you can├óÔé¼Ôäót defend well enough, keep your commander at the front lines. That way if they counter-attack, you can d-gun his forces and stop his assault if your defenses are not enough but only do this as a last resort. D-gunning destroys all corpses
- In any map, losing forces gives your opponent all of the wreckages which can be reclaimed as metal. This is key at the very beginning of the game and also later on. Super units give a lot of metal to whoever reclaims the wreckage so try to move up and prevent you opponent from reclaiming the wreckages left behind.
- The atlas + crawling bomb trick works well on Kroggies because they are so tall. If you have the resources, you can load a seahook up with crawling bombs and create a massive explosion, it's a bit hard to pull off but it does work.
- When attacking, use enemy buildings and units to your advantage. Since units in Spring need a LOS to fire, hiding behind a solar collector or building will stop units from firing upon it. This only works when they don├óÔé¼Ôäót have a LOS. (Foxomaniac)
- Use the backdoor, many, many players leave a part of their base unprotected/weak defenses, you can sneak in a unit with an air transport away from the Backdoor a bit then attack or build a factory! - include a jammer for bonus points - the backdoor helped me win many games - with a zipper (AA Zipper) I Completely Destroyed the enemy's energy economy and a large portion of his base... the ironic thing is the fact that I was core - the Zipper wasn't mine - it was a part of a pack of zippers the enemy sent after my base which I rezz'd (Foxomaniac)
- Attack your opponent from as many directions as you can. It will cause him to stretch his forces thinly and you├óÔé¼Ôäóll eventually be able to break through on one of the fronts. (Foxomaniac)
- Try to limit how much land the enemy has by building factories and defenses near his bases (works best early on) and churning out units while constantly harassing the enemy while doing this. If done properly, this will cause your opponent to focus most of his defenses around that area leaving room for the backdoor approach. (Foxomaniac)
- Keep your units mixed up. If you attack with just bulldogs or goliaths and no other units, you have to get close to attack and leave yourself vulnerable for attacks from air. Send in a few flaks and some artillery units to help push through. As mentioned earlier, mix in some faster units to draw the fire. That way, by the time your main forces get within firing range, the opponent├óÔé¼Ôäós forces should be a little damaged or preoccupied with the units closer to them.
- Use terrain to your advantage, a perfectly good example of this is the map Altored Divide where high ground is very rewarding. An HLT and two or three LLT├óÔé¼Ôäós will take out most lvl1 forces if they are build on high ground.(Foxomaniac)
- Surprise your enemy and lay some mines at parts of the map. If you do, your enemy will walk right into them and not even notice until it├óÔé¼Ôäós too late. This will soften up any force that├óÔé¼Ôäós attack even if it is lvl 2.
- Your transports can pick up enemy units. Select your transport and press ├óÔé¼┼ôL├óÔé¼┬Ø and then click on the unit. This is especially helpful if you have a heavy tank or a lvl 3 unit coming at you. (AA) Note that for lvl 3, you have to build the lvl 2 air transport and its best to send in more than one at a time. You can then transport it elsewhere or just fly it towards the enemy and watch him kill his own unit. This only works if the unit you├óÔé¼Ôäóre trying to pick up is stationary. (Foxomaniac)
- (AA) Arm is a quick but more lightly armored team then Core. Arm is more focused towards lvl 1 and lvl 2 then core. Core is best in lvl 2 tanks and lvl 3 units. Arm is a much easier team to play and get used to as Core takes more skill.
- Use artillery early on in the game. If you can get close enough but not in the range of defenses, you can either build a guardian or some (AA) lvl 1 artillery units, and blast the front lines. Just be aware that the lvl 1 artillery units have horrible accuracy.
- If you see the enemy is expanding at different places on the map, send some peewees or other quick units in. as long as he doesn├óÔé¼Ôäót have defenses built up, you can kill of his construction units and some of his structures before running into other units or defended positions.
- Each unit has a role. Tanks are for mainly flat maps as they can├óÔé¼Ôäót scale hills. They have good armor and firepower but have a higher cost then k-bots. K-bots are good all around. They don├óÔé¼Ôäót have as high or armor and firepower but they can scale hills and outshoot the tanks. If you opponent is surrounded by hills and uses tanks, then he probably hasn├óÔé¼Ôäót built up on the hills yet. Send some k-bots in through the hills and see if you can get back into his base. Airplanes are great for spreading out and quick attacks but they have weak armor. They are to be used more of as support then for a full out attack as you will probably lose most of them in the attack.
- (AA) If the wind is decent on the map, build wind generators early on as they are about 7 times cheaper then solar collectors. Just be aware that wind fluctuates and can go down.
- (AA) Build some nanotowers and set them to patrol on a certain location. They will help build anything that you build within their range. This is extremely useful when you only have one construction unit to spare. Build 3-4 and then start building solar collectors and metal makers around them and your economy will go up. This is useful on maps with little metal. On metal maps, have them help build metal extractors, solar collectors, fusions reactors and anything else you can think of.
- Dragons teeth are great for defense but certain lvl 2 units and lvl 3 units can walk right over them. Build walls once you get to lvl 2 if you plan to defend. Also, remember that they are almost instantly reclaimed. If you run up to a wall, send in a con units and just reclaim it and your force can continue.
- (AA) Artillery (Guardians, Punishers, etc) has two settings, high-trajectory and low-trajectory. Set them accordingly. Build a Guardian behind a hill and shell your opponent and he won├óÔé¼Ôäót be able to take it out unless he has one too or a force attacks it. Use low-trajectory when you have a LOS as it hits a lot faster.
- In spring, units calculate where a unit will be if he is moving. If a unit fires, micromanage your unit and move him the other way. As long as it is a dumb projectile (unguided) it will miss and you├óÔé¼Ôäóll have time to kill the unit.
- When D-gunning, walk your commander closer as he will only shoot his laser when the unit is on the outskirts of his range. Keep a watch on him to make sure he is D-gunning. When going up to a lvl 3 unit that doesn├óÔé¼Ôäót have a big explosion, cloak him so you can get in closer and then d-gun.
- Build some energy and metal storages early on in the game. This will help you have storage if you commander is lost since he store almost all of the metal and energy at the beginning of the game.
- Select your Attack Form. Most players will use a combination, but the individual paths are something along the lines of: land, raider; land, siege; land, static; Krogoth (and equivalents); air, gunship; air, bomber; air, cheese; naval; LRPC; nuke; Comm rush. About 2/3s of players will select a ground, raider form to begin with, followed by ground, siege, depending upon the map. The easiest counters to this are ground, raider to ground, static, or air, gunship to ground, static, depending upon your opponent's unit choice. Newer Spring players will almost always favor either tactical fights, or hopeless strategic fights (i.e. Krogoths with metal income in the 70s). The most effective counter-strategy to pure tactical play is Flowing - stall tactical forces with obstructions and statics and send land, raider or air, gunship forces around and past them; i.e. the German WWII strategy that governed the Blitzkrieg tactic. (Tired)
- Attack or Counter-Attack. Timing, mass and surprise are the three most critical elements. By timing, I refer to the ability to pick the best spot to hit, and the best moment to hit it, by mass, I refer to net firepower and durability of your force, and by surprise, I refer to the ability to catch your opponent off-guard. As units in TA automatically fire proficiently, the most useful elements of surprise are attack form composition and speed. All three of these factors are involved to varying degrees in every encounter, and occur on both tactical and strategic levels, depending on map size (by tactical, I refer primarily to on-screen battles, whereas by strategic, I refer primarily to off-screen. Tactical fights are more immediate, and generally more intuitive, whereas strategic fights are more anticipatory, and generally more intellectual), and require the element that most strongly differentiates TA from your grandma's RTS - information control (radar, jammers and LOS scouting). (Tired)
- If you're not familiar with the controls, you'll lose (Hint: Ctrl C then D, F4, Shift and Ctrl to start). If you don't use all of your Ctrl groups, you'll probably lose. The % of Ctrl groups dedicated to offensive groups, defensive groups, information groups and construction groups will vary according to play style (most especially Tactical versus Strategic preference). Personally, for example, I prefer a strategic style, and will have something like 5 construction groups, 1 Fighter group, 1 Gunship group, 1 LRPC or nuke group, and 2 interchangeable ground groups. (Tired)
- Solar collectors are Dual-Purpose buildings - you can for example put your vital buildings behind solar collectors and put a LLT or two in front of the solar collectors and one on each side, makes for good early fortification buildings AND you get 20+ E. (Foxomaniac)
- (AA) flak cannons are very powerful in the game. a small group can take care of an air force that├óÔé¼Ôäós coming in very quickly. Use long range missiles to take care of the nuclear bombers.
- When you plan to build buildings and units, look at the stats. Just move your mouse over what you want to build and it├óÔé¼Ôäóll tell you, at the bottom of the tool bar, how much metal and energy it costs, how long it takes to build, and the health. You don├óÔé¼Ôäót want to build something that costs 1k metal when you only have 500 and you├óÔé¼Ôäóre using most of your metal income. You want to build something a lot closer to 500. Keep those stats in mind.
- (AA) flagships are very powerful. I have seen an Epoch, arm side, take on multiple battleships and cruisers and win with plenty of life left. You do not want one to be built. For core, it├óÔé¼Ôäós the Sea Dragon I believe. I play arm so I cannot tell you how powerful the core variants are. You do not want either being built if the game is mainly based around naval units. An Epoch can take out a base fairly quickly. Both have radar and sonar.
- (AA) Make sure your flagship has sub defense. Four Battle subs can make a flagship run for cover. My friend was so mad when I used four battle subs to pin in his flagship and destroy it. (patmo98)
- (AA) A fighter is a hard counter for any aircraft of its level or lower. They are also the only mobile things that can take apart gunships. Gunships take apart almost anything except air, heavy-lasers, and anti-air. I think that gunships can usually beat any k-bot or vehicle, except the mobile flaker, cost for cost in metal. (patmo98)
- (AA) Watch out, the unit that looks like the OTA FARK is NOT the fark. it's a resurrection k-bot. The FARK now has a new modal and build picture. The Core equivalent of the FARK is the Freaker. (patmo98)
- (XTA) Solar collectors don't take any energy. Normal fusions give 3k energy and cloakable fusions give 1k. (patmo98)
- Don├óÔé¼Ôäót try to expand to lvl2 very quickly. Building in lvl2 is expensive so spread out a bit and secure your territory. Make sure you have a stable economy before making the transfer. An advanced k-bot lab costs around 3.5k metal and the advanced vehicle plant costs more. You don├óÔé¼Ôäót want to wait too long though either. Play a few games or watch a few replays and see how other people play with this. Learn how other people spread out and build up to lvl2. If you level up too early, you won├óÔé¼Ôäót be able to produce enough units to hold back your opponent. If you level up too late, you├óÔé¼Ôäóll have the same issue. Once your opponent has more resources, he can out produce you and swarm you with heavier units then you can build at lvl 1.
- (XTA) Moho metal mines take up 300 energy and bring in about twice as much metal as the metal extractors. It is better to build moho metal makers which produce around 16 metal and take up around 600 energy. IMO, moho metal mines in XTA are a waste of time and resources.
- (AA) Build multiple radar towers around your perimeter, the more high-tech the better. They serve not only as overlapping redundant radar but also have the longest sight range of virtually any unit - especially any that are as cheap as a radar tower. I usually build 1 radar tower for every 3 LLT├óÔé¼Ôäós in the early game. Having accurate targeting while your opponent is relying on dancing radar dots gives you as a defender a great advantage. (Caydr)
- (AA) geothermal and moho geothermal powerplants give of big blast. I took out one and a good portion of a base with three zippers. If you have a geothermal spot close to your front, build a prude geothermal as they do not give off a big explosion. The only thing you├óÔé¼Ôäóre giving up is energy. A moho geothermal gives you around 1500 energy while a prude on gives you 800 energy. It├óÔé¼Ôäós a bit of a tradeoff but it might save your frontlines from vanishing.
- (AA) zippers are very powerful in large groups. They can swarm your defenses pretty quickly if they can├óÔé¼Ôäót keep up with the speed. Just be prepared for them incase your enemy uses them.
- Snipers and spies can be very effective in the game. If you can sneak a few snipers behind enemy lines, you can create a lot of chaos at the base. Spies can sit there and give u a first hand view of what the enemy is doing. (AA) Both are cloakable and are stealth.
- Brawlers can quickly turn the tide of the battle. A small group might do little damage but if you have a group of 15 or more, they can really cause a lot of damage. Few non-anti-air units can take out brawlers quickly. Fighters are the most useful against them if you do not have anti-air. This is why you always want some anti-air close to your lines.
- Don├óÔé¼Ôäót think your base is safe even if it is surrounded by mountains. K-bots can scale almost any mountain or hill. The best thing to do is build dragons teeth around the outer edge and then put defenses behind the defenses. this will not only stop the enemy from scaling the hills, but it also means that you have the higher ground and can destroy the trapped forces. If you expand and have a decent force all over, you don├óÔé¼Ôäót have to worry too much about this at all.
- Use nano-shields if one of you units is under attack by a similar one. How this works is that you just set a construction unit to guard that one unit that├óÔé¼Ôäós unit attack. It will repair your unit while theirs├óÔé¼Ôäó just keeps losing strength and health. (forbidin)
- Lvl 2 fighters - These things do a lot of damage over time (in AA). They can be used to take out ground forces in a snap. (forbidin)
- PRODUCE PRODUCE PRODUCE! - Just because you have every metal spot on the map doesn't mean you maxed your economy. Build adv fusions and a bunch of moho metal maker├óÔé¼Ôäós. +200 on comet? You suck. +1000 on comet catcher....yea.....that├óÔé¼Ôäós more like it. NOTE: Beware the unit max, because it will hurt you here. (forbidin)
- Big Bertha's vs. Vulcan├óÔé¼Ôäós - Big Bertha's ftw. Vulcan├óÔé¼Ôäós cost WAY too much. You can build like 5 Big Bertha's for the cost of 1 Vulcan. That, and if you lose 1-2 Big Bertha's, its ok because you still have other├óÔé¼Ôäós that you can use. Vulcan├óÔé¼Ôäós are more of an end-game unit and one used for humility. Multiple vulcans are nice though if they have lots of plasma repulsers (as are Big Bertha's) as they always keep their energy down. (forbidin)
- Flagships (Epoch and Sea Dragon) - Yes you can force fire. However, having multiple cheap subs rather than 4 battle subs are even better. He can't force fire on like 10 cheap sub killers. Those 10 sub killers will eat that flag ship alive. Just stay in close, but not too close that your subs kill themselves.
Speaking of which, if your ships are getting owned by subs, just send it a few to "touch" the subs, they will kill themselves along with your ship (forbidin)
- Crawling bombs - Port one up and they can kill subs easy. They are also great for killing a front line defense and some ground units. (AA) Core has an advanced crawling bomb that can cloak and climb walls. These are very effective when a normal crawling bomb can├óÔé¼Ôäót get past the defenses. (forbidin)
- Force firing - Works great for any unit in any situation. Dancing radar dots? Just look in the main screen to see where the actual laser/plasma is coming from and force fire it there. If the units still want to fire at the dancing dot, then force fire BEHIND the dot. (forbidin)
- Unit control. Ever wonder the other guy's 4 flashes killed your 10 thuds without a loss? Or why his 1 flash beat your flash and is now running havoc in your base? Wonder why people using your own metal extractor as cover against your LLT? Wonder why people always go around your stuff to avoid your commander? This is because the person is micromanaging his forces instead of just issuing an order. (forbidin)
- Strategic, Operational, and Tactical Warfare
(AA) Understanding the distinctions among strategic, operational, and tactical warfare is important in devising a successful battle plan. However, the distinctions can be a bit fuzzy; there is overlap at each level.
Strategic planning deals with the overall objective of the war - in this case, to destroy every enemy unit before being destroyed yourself. Strategy is at the national scale in the real world, which would be analogous to the scale of the whole of the player's units and buildings at the TAS scale. Strategy integrates economic, political, and military forces to achieve the final goal. Strategic goals are those that lead to the ultimate strategic objective: destruction of the enemy. They tend to be general rather than specific: for example, "destroy the enemy's energy generation capacity".
Operational planning provides a specific means for reaching a strategic goal. Operational planning deals with where, when, and how forces should be employed in order to reach a strategic goal. For example, if the objective is to "destroy the enemy's energy generation capacity," the operational components of this would be to locate the enemy's energy generation buildings, assess the enemy forces available to defend the respective buildings, determine the best route to take to destroy the enemy building with the least enemy resistance, and deploy forces in such a way as to achieve the strategic goal. Operational goals tend to be on a more specific level than strategic ones; strategic goals can be broken down into one or several operational goals. An example of an operational goal may be "destroy the fusion plant at the north of the enemy's base".
Tactical planning involves the use of force to best achieve the intermediate steps to the operational goal. Tactics involves where and how to best employ each unit so that its destructive potential is maximized, and the enemy's destructive potential against it and the whole force is minimized. Tactical planning will destroy single enemy defense structures, groups of defense structures, units, and so on. A good example of tactical planning might be "this group of Goliaths will advance and destroy the enemy's Annihilator defending his fusion plant".
Why is it important to understand this? In order to win the game, you must set strategic goals that provide the best way to win. How is the game won? The game is not won on the battlefield; it is won on an economic level. You must set strategic goals in such a way as to maximize your own economic production over the length of the game, and minimize your enemy's. Operational goals allow you to break strategic goals down so that you can act with a sense of purpose; they give a concrete way of determining where, when, and how to use your forces. Tactics allows you to use your units to their maximum potential, thereby increasing the number of units that you can have because the need to replace losses will be less. (Felix the Cat)
- Maneuver Warfare vs. Attrition Warfare
(AA) Attrition warfare is war conducted in such a way as to wear down and eventually destroy the enemy's forces, so that the strategic objective can be achieved by first destroying the enemy's forces, then advancing in the absence of opposition to achieve the strategic objective. It is often (but not always) static. The defining factor of attrition warfare is focus upon destruction of the enemy's forces as the prime operational method to achieve the strategic objective.
Maneuver warfare is more direct. The definition that I have read is "movement toward an objective, with intent to gain an advantage over an opponent." While attrition warfare aims to battle the enemy, maneuver warfare aims to defeat the enemy. It is the least costly and most effective method of warfare. Maneuver is essentially operational and strategic in nature; it employs forces such as to achieve strategic goals without an intervening destruction of enemy forces. (Felix the Cat)
- The Basics of Maneuver Warfare
(AA) Maneuver warfare employs three basic tactical/operational (depending on the situation) methods for achieving the objective: preemption, dislocation, and disruption.
Preemption uses speed and surprise to thrust where the opponent least expects it. Its effects are largely psychological, intending to frighten an enemy into faulty actions or even surrender. The Israeli attack on the Arab forces in 1967 (the Six-Day War) is an example of preemption: the Arabs were planning an attack, so the IDF launched a preemptive attack when the Arab leadership least expected it, caught the armies unaware, destroyed the air forces on the ground, and advanced on all fronts.
Dislocation forces the enemy to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It often deploys forces in such a way as to put your forces between the defenders and the objective that they are supposed to be defending. The German attack through the Ardennes in 1940 is a good example of this: the Germans attacked south of the planned British defensive lines and thus forced the British Expeditionary Force to be out of position to defend France, which was the objective of the BEF. In a TA:S example, Zipper raids are an example of dislocation: they should attack at a place and time where they will be able to reach their objective before the defenders are able to.
Disruption is the use of unlike forces with asymmetric capabilities to destroy the enemy's ability to fight. It is very effective in TA:S. Disruption depends on maintaining a combined-arms force with which to attack various sorts of enemy forces.
Opportunities for disruption in TA:S abound. If the enemy has a large number of level 2 kbots defending a certain section of frontage, use an air attack to destroy or heavily damage them, and then use vehicles to advance, destroy or push aside the remaining defenders, and push on to the operational objective. If the enemy is making heavy use of static defenses, long-range plasma cannon and missile attacks can take these out and allow your ground units to advance to their objective.
It must be stressed at this point: do not attack without an objective. An attack simply because you happen to have finished your building cycle is an attack doomed to failure. You must identify an objective - remember, since the battle is won by economic means, and the strategic way to win the battle is to maximize your own production while minimizing your enemy's. This means that your objective should be economic in nature*. Once you have identified your objective, you should then ascertain the best way to reach it. If your opponent has three Annihilators and one Crasher defending the objective, disruption would dictate that you should use an air attack rather than a ground one. If your opponent has heavily defended the shortest path to your objective, dislocation would dictate that you should attack in such a way as to put your forces between the defenses and the objective. (Felix the Cat)
- Which Units Should I Use?
One of the most important decisions that you will make is which units to use in which situation. Kbots, vehicles, and aircraft all have their unique advantages and disadvantages; within those groups, each distinct unit has its own properties that distinguish it from the others. Knowing how to use each unit properly is vital to constructing a proper attack or defense; proper use of units enables you to use your units more efficiently than an opponent who does not properly use units.
First, we'll consider the different classes of units.
K-bots
Strengths: cheapest; can climb hills; good variety of special-purpose units; smaller; more maneuverable than vehicles.
Weaknesses: typically lower HP and damage values than vehicles; lack of very heavy firepower; need to have many more for an attack.
Vehicles
Strengths: cheaper than aircraft; some are very fast; most armored and strongest units.
Weaknesses: more expensive than kbots; can't climb hills well; low turn rate and maneuverability.
Aircraft
Strengths: very fast; opponent needs special units to hit them; good range of firepower; ignores terrain.
Weaknesses: most expensive; tend to die easily.
It's important to stress that you are not limited to just one unit type. As resources become available, you should build factories for other unit types, so that you can have the combined-arms capability to utilize the disruption doctrine of maneuver warfare. If your opponent has lots of Flakkers, you need the ability to take them out with land units, rather than being bound to air units and continuing to send your planes to die in futile attacks. (Felix the Cat)
- On The Attack
Which units should you use in your attacking force? This depends on three factors: terrain, your enemy's dispositions (defenses and their locations), and your objective.
Terrain can limit which units are available for your attack. On flat terrain, there is no distinction between the movement capabilities of vehicles and kbots. However, as the terrain becomes more diverse and sloped, kbots become superior to vehicles because of their higher climb rates and turn rates.
One thing to note is that many players defend lightly behind hills and defend heavily at passes. This is good tactics, so long as you attack at the passes. However, the doctrine of preemption would teach that you should attack with speed and surprise where your opponent does not expect it - over a hill. If you can send a diversion at your opponent's main defense, where he is expecting an attack, and send your main attack force consisting of kbots or aircraft over the hill, you will have bypassed your opponent's defenses altogether and should then proceed to destroy his resource production capacity.
Your enemy's dispositions will affect your attack as well. Disruption indicates that you should attack at the time and place where your forces will enjoy an advantage over the enemy's. Does your enemy lack AA? An attack with aircraft would be called for in this instance. Does your enemy have large numbers of short-range units on defense? Artillery and rockets can damage or destroy these without being hurt. Attack in such a way as to minimize your own losses and maximize your enemy's in pursuit of your objective.
Your objective is, of course, to eliminate your enemy's ability to fight, on a strategic level. However, your operational objective will be different with each operation. Take this into account with your attack. If your objective is to disrupt your enemy's economic infrastructure, and your enemy's defenses are not very deep or can be circled around, a fast raid-type attack is called for - and you would do well to build units such as Zippers, Fidos, or aircraft. If your objective is to destroy the enemy commander who is building a new front-line base, you would do well to use Brawlers, heavy tanks, or anything faster and with longer range than the commander. (Felix the Cat)
- Don't attack the same line over and over with the same tactic, it won't work. If, for instance, your enemy has a guardian or two behind a hill and is blasting your line, don't keep trying to attack around the hill. More often then not, the other guy will have LLT's, HLT's, gauss cannons, annihilators, or something similar guarding the line. Instead, try to be sneaky. Snipers are a great way to get behind the line. While they're weak, they do about 1000 damage per shot (AA). Sending in some brawlers usually does the trick. I know plenty of people, me being one of them, that are usually late on the anti-air defenses. Lastly, just attack a different area. If you're fighting over one particular area, chances are he's focusing the majority of his forces in that one area and leaving the rest weaker. Test his lines.
- Learn how much units cost. You surely don't want to go into a fight with lvl2 units when your economy can't support them. If metal is scarce on the map but wind is strong, build a lot of windmills and some energy converters.
- Play games with people that are better then you. Sure, you might lose but you also learn how they play and how you should play. If you play with people lower then you, you won├óÔé¼Ôäót learn much except how easy it is to win against lesser opponents. Also, you├óÔé¼Ôäóre going to lose from time to time, it├óÔé¼Ôäós a given. No one can win every game that they play.
- Don├óÔé¼Ôäót worry if you├óÔé¼Ôäóre playing differently then someone else or if you├óÔé¼Ôäóre building up slower then someone else. Everyone has their own style of playing and it├óÔé¼Ôäóll differ from someone else. Just focus on what you need to get done and everything will be ok.
- Communicate as much as possible. You may see a unit advancing on your ally that he may not see. Just bring attention to him if you see something. If he can├óÔé¼Ôäót get past a line, maybe you can get a spy through there and show him what is there. In team games, work as a team and not as individuals. In one of my games, we almost lost because we were disorganized. Once we started communicated and pointing out spots where to attack, we turned the battle around and won.
- Know what the game settings are. If it├óÔé¼Ôäós comm death=game end you surely don├óÔé¼Ôäót want to send your commander to the front and send him and a small force into the enemies base. If there├óÔé¼Ôäós low wind on the map, you don├óÔé¼Ôäót want to build wind generators.
- (AA) Do not d-gun single lvl1 kbots! I've seen lots of people d-gun peewees, AK├óÔé¼Ôäós and even fleas, when the comm laser can kill them off in seconds. Resources are very precious at the start of the game, so do not waste them. (Aun)
- Nano-stalling is the way to lose any battle.
If at any time you use more energy or metal than you produce, you will nano-stall. Everything slows down while the metal/energy is being supplied to the production process... And it gets worse; without energy, plasma and laser weapons won't fire and mexes won't produce metal. (gavan)
- Economy units
Metal comes from metal extractors ("mex") or metal makers, energy comes from wind, solar, geo or fusions.
If you've built much more energy than you actually (will) use, adding some (moho) metal makers will boost your economy.
Wind-power fluctuates on most maps, and is seldom stable above what a solar can give you (20e).
Wind-mills are also a liability in actual combat. If placed in groups (which you'd have to do if you want to build enough of 'm quickly enough), and one gets shot/bombed, all in the group blow up.
Only in separated diagonal lines can this chain-explosion be contained. Also, if wind fluctuates from below 7 to any number, you want some solar collectors incase wind goes below that and you will have a very low energy income. If wind range is something like 10-30, then you don├óÔé¼Ôäót have to worry as much as long as you have enough built.
Now, solar collectors on the other hand, are your friend.
They give off a stable energy flow, unless being shot at.
They leave wreckage that's not easily removed when they die.
They are perfect for building defensive lines (as opposed to dragon teeth, which can be run over by heavy tanks).
Small, spread-out fields of advanced solar collectors are hard to kill, and provide collectively enough power to keep your factories producing units if the enemy bombs all your fusions. I usually try to get about 60-100 adv solar collectors, 6 fusions and 2-3 adv fusions. (gavan)
- Base (de-)construction and Bottlenecks
If you have structures that can blow up when they die (geothermal power plants, fusions, some stationary guns), then don├óÔé¼Ôäót build anything directly next to it!
If it blows up (L1 mex & wind), don't build it in large groups..
Same goes for those shiny L3 kbots (mechs); most of them make a bang when they die, so keep 'm apart during battle, if you can.
Try to create bottlenecks wherever you can. Bottlenecks are places where the land (and structures on it) forces the enemy through a narrow passage.
Fewer units come out of a narrow passage, allowing you to point more guns at each unit. Heavy units often leave corpses, which further block the passage.
The light dragon├óÔé¼Ôäós teeth won├óÔé¼Ôäót work effectively because heavy tanks just destroy them when they drive over them. The heavy perimeter blockade unit (forgot name) does work, but takes ages to build in lines.
If you see someone building those heavy fortifications in the field, it pays to have some tanks harass his workers (construction units). It'll force him to change strategy.
On flat land, you could use L1 solar collectors as a way to create a bottleneck, at least until heavy tanks/mechs come into play (which can munch up even the rubble and move through it).
On a metal map, having a row of solar collectors can be 'augmented later' by adding a row of armed metal extractors before the solar collectors. Now your 'static defense' produces metal, energy, and shoots violently at attackers.
I've used these types of rows, and am very pleased with how fast they munch up large L1 groups or even heavier L2 units.
Leave some room behind the solar collectors (towards your base, to add anti-air. 2 anti-bomber turrets and 3 flak gives you an effective no-fly zone). (gavan)
- Know thy enemy
Units have their strengths and weaknesses, and therefore are either prey or predator of other unit types.
There are other posts that explain which units work best against which others, for each mod. I'll try to stay mod-unspecific here.
Beginners often simply build units and keep them in their base, hoping to build some force that can take out the enemy in one swoop.
It often doesn't work, because you build stuff that is easily destroyed by what the other guy builds.
So if you're going to build 20 tanks, you'd better send 2 of 'm to the enemy to see how he reacts to them.
Those 2 tanks will tell you a lot about what the other guy is doing, and experience will tell you how to overcome his units.
Does he use brawlers against 'm? Add mobile flak to your force.
Does he flood them with L1 kbots? Add levelers to the force.
Experienced players also 'build up a hidden army', but they do it while they are pounding the enemy with other units.
That's to keep the enemy distracted and busy, while the 'killing army' is being built. While it's being built, experienced players vary the 'normal' (or distracting) attacks, not only to confuse and keep the enemy busy, but also for reconnaissance.
By varying the angle of attack on his base, you see what else he is up to, if he is building a secret force himself, and where his defense perimeter is weakest (opposed to your attacking force). (gavan)
- Overspecialize, and you breed in weakness
20 tanks might seem very useful, but if your enemy knows you like Goliaths and builds super-heavy lasers, and/or some other tank-munching stuff, you'd better know how to counter that anti-tank arsenal of his first.
Is he building air, at all? Send in just 4/5 of your 20 tanks to see if he counters with gunships (brawlers/rapiers). If he does, your other tanks will need to include about 6 mobile flak to protect them from the gunships. Mix up the tanks & flak by selecting the whole group and moving it into a line (right-click-drag).
Is he building 4 or more super heavy lasers (annihilators/doomsday machines)? Better bring in some mobile long-range artillery or some bombers if his anti-air defense isn't fully built up yet.
- Never use the same attack twice. If you rush Peewees at your enemy's defenses and they are unsuccessful, don't do it again and expect a different result, or I will call you slow in the head. Use a different tactic or a different unit, or attack a different area. There are two exceptions to this rule: if your attack is successful, and if you are trying to lull your enemy into complacency. (Felix the Cat)
- Reserves are good, reserves are great, reserves make me want to master Spring! Keep some units back when you attack. There are lots of things you can do with reserves. Your attack fizzled out just as you broke through? Send in the reserves. Your attack is drawing off a lot of his forces? Use reserves to attack elsewhere. The enemy is attacking from elsewhere? Use reserves to counter it. Are there unexpected raiders in your base? You can kill them with reserves. I try to keep several groups of units in reserves. Fast units make the best reserves - Flashes, Fidos, and Recluses. They can respond to threats quickly and forcefully.
Mix unit types. 10 Flashes, 5 Shellshockers, and 5 Slashers are more likely to be successful (if properly managed) than 20 Flashes. Use artillery to destroy an enemy's defenses and then rush through the opening with your fast units; if your enemy is advancing, defend in front of him with Fatboys and Bulldogs (preferably mixed with stationary defenders or in good defensive terrain, like behind a bottleneck or on top of a hill) and circle to the back with Fidos and Recluses. This is especially good if your enemy is mixing Dominator L2 rocket kbots with Pyros or some other faster unit; your mobile force - your cavalry, so to speak - can destroy his longer ranged, slower units (like Dominators) that would ordinarily pound your defenses to pieces, while your defenses should handle Pyros if they are not backed up with the Dominators. (Felix the Cat)
- People, including me often think that your enemy is crippled beyond repair because you kill lots of his infrastructure or he lost a lot of land. THIS IS OFEN NOT THE CASE!
I myself have lost one or two games just because I thought I was going to win, for example when killing the middle in Small divide and start massing level 1 to try to finish him...
The enemy can gain some advantages bye moving back, the enemy now has to defend less area while having a medium economy can tech boom extremely fast since he has no way off attacking! Don't rush blindly in with attacks just because the wind blows your way. Don't stop doing everything else just to push more money into the tank maker.
Exploit the opportunity, but use your head and take caution. Cute fuzzy rabbits fight for their life when cornered. (Kixxe)
When you├óÔé¼Ôäóve delivered a fatal blow, send anything and everything in as soon as you can so that your opponent has very little time to rebuild. Sure, he may have less land to defend but more then likely, that land may be weakly defended. If you wait and buildup, your opponent can quickly defend his land. HLT├óÔé¼Ôäós don├óÔé¼Ôäót take long to be build and a few can cause havoc to an advancing force. (SwiftSpear, modified a little by me)
- The art of micromanagement.
Whoever builds the heaviest guns with the least amount of clicks, wins.
Well, that's easily said.. But it's often hard to keep track of your production crews during battle. That leads to idle factories and construction bots.
That's why i have production 'crews' and 'leaders' working on different parts of economy, factory & defense production, and unit production.
In the very early game, the commander builds most of my economy (mexes and solar collectors), but this soon gets taken over by construction bot teams. The commander then becomes a speed worker slave. It can't build much, but does so in a hurry
Workers on the construction teams shift quite often, when i want to speed up something i pull workers off one job and put 'm on the urgent job.
And the 'leader' is used to build several related types of units after each other, properly placed. It sometimes gets CTRL-#ed, for easy access using #. (# = number)
My strategy almost forces me to build both vehicles and kbots and planes.
Vehicles for defense and offense, Kbots for construction and battle support, planes mostly for recon and/or brawlering/bombing.
Obviously, on a water map subs and ships are the important units, instead of vehicles.
It's possible to build the first part of the economy with only a vehicle / k-bot factory, but i find that involves more brain activity, and quite often it means I cannot put out enough units after 5 to 10 minutes into the game.
Since tanks fire heavier shots than kbots, i put out the heaviest L1 tank as mobile base-defense. Rushers usually respect that, and opt to invest in a L2 economy straight away instead of L1 rushing to death.
The k-bots are the nimblest builders, and my strategy requires a lot of shifting of construction kbots.
Construction vehicles may be faster, but they are much more likely to stall production by stopping in the wrong place. Especially in narrow workplaces they are a disaster.
So the first k-bot factory outputs 10 construction kbots, and has a pre-set order of 'move south, then east/west, then a bit north, and guard your parent factory'.
The first tank and k-bot take a while to produce, but the 2nd is faster. The 5th is produced real fast, coz there are now 4 workers guarding/assisting the factory.
So the 2nd construction k-bot can be put on another task, like building more mexes. The 3rd gets put on adv-solar construction, and the 4th guards the 2nd.
Or, you guard the vehicle factory with the 4th, increasing its production (and economic drain).
The vehicle factory is managed a bit more closely, it's start build queue (on Metal Heck) is usually something like 1 leveler, 1 construction bot, 2 levelers, 1 construction bot, 3 levelers, 1 construction bot, 300 levelers.
You can add a 100 units to a factory's queue by left-clicking it's build picture while you hold CTRL + shift.
Why do I get 3 vehicle construction bots when I├óÔé¼Ôäóm already making 10 construction kbots? Because someone might blow up my vehicle factory just at the moment I want to make an L2 vehicle factory. That can only be done by the construction vehicle.
Of course, you might want more sophisticated build queues, but I urge you to keep it simple. Brain- and click-time is best spent on recon and attack, not construction.
But anyways, now you know you have 2 teams, one for energy one for metal, who's leading those teams, and their production plan.
You can shift the workers from one to another group, thereby changing priorities of your army.
And as soon as my economy has some steam, the same trick is pulled for aircraft. Factory is built, 2-5 construction planes put in the queue, followed by 20 fighters, guard-order the factory to guard itself, and walk away. The first plane takes a while, but 2 const planes can help put up your fighter aircraft quickly.
Those fighters are excellent mobile anti-air and/or recon units. If your opponent is foolish enough to use slow construction planes for his base production, then your fighters can hurt those quickly and badly.
Once enough LLT├óÔé¼Ôäós are up in the opponent's base, planes are also about the only thing that can give you a complete view of his base.
At some point, most production teams get L2 leaders, the economy groups first.
The 'defense' L2 leader's first task is building radar and possibly anti-radar. The L2 radar jammer is comfortably large, and cheap.
However, some players attack soon after you start to jam radar.
L2 production teams can get quite large, and it's then useful to put the leader (alone) in a group. CTRL-[number] to put it in, hitting [number] twice will center the view on where ever your leader is at that time.
Since my left hand is around AWSD on the keyboard, I use control groups 1-4 for battles, 5-7 for construction and 8-0 for LRPC├óÔé¼Ôäós groups.
During the buildup of my adv L1 / early L2 stage, some construction kbots are on factory-assist duty. But nano-towers out-build anything, so they are used for factory assist, a.s.a.p.
In AA 1.44 I use about 6-8 nanotowers for a L2 vehicle plant, and as many as 20-30 for a mech (L3 k-bot) factory.
When nano-towers die, they blow up, taking out their neighbors. So in most cases, i build 'm in groups of 4-8. So when a bomber gets a lucky hit on one of 'm, the other groups survive.
Nano-towers take forever to build, so having 2/3 L1 kbots working on one is not a bad idea.
You can also order the first nano-tower on the blocks to assist the k-bot building the blocks, as soon as the outline of its own construction is visible.
By putting your factories to one side of the n-tower block and some economy on the other side (facing away from your opponent), you can have the n-towers speed up economy production as well, in a limited radius.
I've found that capability to be extremely helpful towards winning, since it allows me to adapt more quickly than the other guy.
Just don't overdo it! On a map like metalheck, you'll still need approx 10 L1 construction units and 20-30 L2 construction units in case your nano towers get bombed or otherwise destroyed.
As you might have guessed, using blocks of n-towers to fuel production of your economy forces you to spread out your base, and diversify the sectors. That's good, because if part of your base is destroyed; none of the 'pillars' (metal, energy, factories) will be gone.
Spread out, diversified bases allow you to bounce back after an attack.
N-towers are kind of difficult to construct, and when the battle requires your attention, adding production power to a factory with n-towers can take too many clicks...
So instead, have 2 L2 k-bot factories.
One L2 K-bot factory (plus n-towers) is used only for production of battle units, and the 2nd uses no assisting (guarding) nano-towers.
The 2nd is used to put out 5, 10, 15 or 20 farks / freakers (L2 speed builders). That factory gets an order to move the units to the factory that needs a speed increase, and have 'm guard it.. That means you order the factory to do what you want the produced units to do. Factories don't walk :D
This way, the production on the 'war factory' is increased gradually to as high as you need it, without the clicking of building nano-towers, waiting for it to complete, and then having the n-towers assist the factory. You can focus on the battle instead.
And yes, having 2 construction bots / n-towers guard the production of the farks/freakers will result in quicker increases.
If I├óÔé¼Ôäóm allowed the time by my opponent, I build other crucial structures (like a L2 vehicle factory with it's n-towers) also double..
Of course, you're not going to use all your factories all the time.
But having those (with those n-tower blocks) means you can build units quickly when you want / need them.
My L2 aircraft factories has about 8-12 n-towers near it, but those are working on other stuff most of the time...
If the other guy nukes me, i build 2 more anti-nukes stocked with 100 anti-nukes, just in case he fires 50 nukes from 5 silos after each other later in the game..
Now, I├óÔé¼Ôäód like to share some battle tactics as well.
The relation between recon and base design/defense I├óÔé¼Ôäóll get to in another post. (gavan)
- Some proven tactics
These tactics relate to the balance of absolute annihilation, version 1.44.
Suppose you can build 5 tanks quickly. Then use them, instead of building 20 :)
Drive 2 or 3 heavy tanks as panic-inducing reconnaissance into your enemy's base, while your factory produces 10 more.
It really pays to micromanage those tanks.
1) You can have 'm shoot the weak / important stuff first. Why take out those front row HLT├óÔé¼Ôäós and guardians if you can drive by them and take out his juicy mexes and geothermal (which he put next to his fusion, for fun's sake)
2) You'll see what other structures/units your opponent has, or is working on.
3) You'll get to see how your opponent manages his troops. (gavan)
- Drive by shooting
Most base defenses get thicker as you deeper into the base. So instead of driving your tanks straight into it, drive heavy tanks along the edge back and forth. That way you eat up the defense, and if he tries to repair it you can attack the construction bots, which represent a lot of micromanagement time for your opponent.
Of course, if there are a bunch of annihilators or doomsdays (long-range heavy lasers), this strategy is foolish. Then retreat your tanks, and move on to:
Artillery
Long-range mobile artillery can actually work...
If you're playing AA Core, have a look at Tremors (from L2 vehicle plant). In groups of 3-4, they are devastating.
So much so, that if you point such a group at someone's base, they will do anything to get rid of them. They'll send in their brawlers if they have 'm, or entire tank force, or whatever.
Be ready for that reaction. Have your tremors behind plenty of firepower to deflect whatever he throws at you. Goliaths and Levelers work best, I├óÔé¼Ôäóve found.
Usually I put the tremors into 2 control groups (select 2 tremors, hit CTRL+1 to put them into group '1', CTRL+2 for group 2, etc) possibly together with some anti-air units.
Then put your tanks into group 3.
Now you have a quick way to micromanage the tanks and the artillery.
Keep the tanks between your enemies approaching units and your artillery.
Use the artillery groups (1 and 2) to bomb different parts of his base.
If and when you win the tank battle, you can send some tanks into the base as eyes for the artillery. Better yet, have a group of L1 kbots standing ready at the flanks, to provide additional protection to the artillery or tanks, but also to invade the base and finish off what the artillery started.
Hidden sets of 10+ brawlers / L2 bombers can quickly end your artillery party, but your fighter aircraft might save it. And provide LOS for your artillery too. Send 1 or 2 fighters in and force-fire the artillery on your selected target. (gavan)
- I tend to disagree on the "drive by shooting" part. I have found that most players tend to have strong, linear defenses. The best way to defeat a strong, linear defense is to bypass it. This means that you use your strong units to break a hole in the defensive line and then rush your attack force through the hole into the enemy's base area.
Also, I disagree on the "use 5 tanks now vs. 20 tanks later". It depends on the circumstances. If your enemy is undefended, by all means, use your forces now. But if your enemy has strong defenses, you will want to assemble a force strong enough to break an opening in the defense and rush through to his economy. Also, because of wreckage and crowding, each successive attack on an area tends to have less momentum. Therefore, it would be to your advantage to use the element of tactical surprise and attack when you have a 20 tank force and your opponent doesn't expect it, or only expects 5 tanks, and make this your first and quickest attack. (Felix the Cat)
- The greater you mass your forces the more difficult a time your enemy will have defending against them. Your enemy has to build static defensive structures on all flanks if he wants to survive, where as your one massed force can attack anywhere you want it to, therefore you are outpacing your enemy on a linear scale as he has to buy more and more expensive guns to cover more and more ground. You also have the advantage of holding all the cards with a massed force. Your enemy doesn't know if you will have spiders in your force, he doesn├óÔé¼Ôäót know if you will have air backup, he has to cover more bases then you do because there's more risk to trying to hold a line then there is to trying to break a line.
That being said, I mentioned elsewhere that once you have opened a hole, make sure it doesn't close. 1 peewee can prevent a cont from building an HLT effortlessly, but if there are 2 HLT up they can decimate a force of 30 peewees. If you open a hole often times its better to desperately rush units to keep the hole open rather then taking the time to rebuild another mass rush. A string of peewees 1 by 1 can do a lot of damage if your opponent doesn't have the defense to kill then before they start shooting. (SwiftSpear)
- In AA, the Dragon's Tooth is the same size as an LLT and HLT, but has a much higher slope tolerance. Because an area is leveled when you build on it, if you need to build an LLT, HLT, or other 1x1 building on a slope, first build a Dragon's Tooth, then reclaim it, then build your building.
I've even extended this to leveling an area on a slope to build a Guardian with DTs, though it required multiple repetitions to get the area level enough. (Felix the Cat)
- (AA) If the enemy keeps attacking your base and you are having a hard time keeping a force large enough to counter it, use a resurrection bot and resurrect the corpses that you can. Just remember, while the resurrection bots don't use metal, they do use energy.
- (AA) While slow, Zeus├óÔé¼Ôäós do pack quite a punch and they have good armor. Combine them while some lvl1 kbots or tanks, and some mavericks and you've got a good force to break through a line.
- (AA) If you just pushed through a line and are having a hard time keeping it open, airlift units to that area. Just take a transport aircraft tell it to pick up a unit within a certain range and then drop it off at a certain location. To keep the aircraft doing this all the time, just tell it to repeat the action. This is very useful with slow units like Sumos and Fatboys. Airlift a group of five or more and you├óÔé¼Ôäóll have a good sized force to take on almost anything and keep that area yours.
