Beginner's Lesson: Building Suggestions

[falconeer999]

Walls are moste useful against the computer. I tend to let the computer attack me one time to see what route he's going to use. Then I place walls in a V shape with the bottom of the V having a gate or just open, kind of like a funnel. Put turrets behind the walls and as those ground troops try and run through the funnel, they are wiped out very easily. It is never necessary to upgrade walls against the computer. Only if you leave no opening will it actually start attacking the walls. It's handy to have some mechs nearby later in the game once the computer gets the technology to make artillery and cannons. Then it'll start trying to take down the turrets. Just pop some mechs out, kill off the artillery, and go back to base. Just takes 5-10 mechs at the most for this purpose. I usually play 1 vs 3 games against the computer and this strategy insures that I don't to expend a large amount of resources making a huge defense army.

 

Of course against human players its another story. Human players just build air transports and by pass them. I've seen the computer build air and sea transports but never have I actually seen them used.

[Chessack]

I have seen the computer use sea transports once or twice, but not often.

 

You are right that humans will by-pass your defenses, if you have them, but I wonder... if you don't build any ground defenses at all, wouldn't a human realize that you were vulnerable on the ground and take advantage of that? I sure would.

 

I have noticed that the computer, at least on Medium, will try alternate routes. Not all the time, but this has happened a few times now. If you let the game go on long enough, the computer will eventually realize that its first attack route did not work, and it will try another direction. In my last game (as the Gungans), I had the Trade Federation, controlled by computer, attack me from 3 different directions, over the course of the game. Never from behind, but from the east (by land), then the southeast (by sea, including a loaded transport), then the northeast (by land). It doesn't happen a lot, but this is the 3rd or 4th game it has happened to me in.

[falconeer999]

Originally posted by Chessack

You are right that humans will by-pass your defenses, if you have them, but I wonder... if you don't build any ground defenses at all, wouldn't a human realize that you were vulnerable on the ground and take advantage of that? I sure would.

 

To me, it's a resource trade off. If you build guarded walls then you spend ore building the walls, and turrets along the walls, along with turrets close to your base for when the opponent flies those transports in and drops off the troops. If you don't build the walls, then you can get away with building a better defense close to your base that should eat up any invasion quicker.

 

By building walls, you're expending Ore that could be better spent building turrets, in exchange, you force your opponent to build air transports that cost, what, 25 carbon, 35 food? They are very cheap to build and only cause a minor inconvenience to the opponent.

 

I always view each game in the terms of resources. "He who controls the spice, controls the Universe." If you can use fewer resources on defense than your opponent uses on offense, most times you're going to come out the victor.

[SirKai]

1) Use your scout in Tech 1 to locate the bad guy(s). Determine their most likely route(s).

 

2) For each likely route, find a funnel: a location where the route is narrowed by landscape (trees, water, etc.). If one of the routes is wide open, use prefab shelters to create your funnel.

 

3) In Tech 2, for each funnel, build 2 towers and defend with 5-10 troopers backed by a 1-2 medical droids.

 

4) In Tech 3, add another medical droid or 2, 5-10 AA troopers, 5 anti-troop mechs, and 5 destroyer mechs (This not only defends the route but is the start of a grand army).

 

5) In Tech 4, increase all defenses as necessary.

 

All this assumes that you are beating the opponent to Tech levels. You may need to build AA troops earlier if the opponent is advancing faster.

 

This plan seems to work for me and is relatively inexpensive. The medical droids keep the troopers alive and I use workers to repair injured mechs between attacks.

 

SirKai

[Chessack]

Originally posted by falconeer999

 

 

 

To me, it's a resource trade off. If you build guarded walls then you spend ore building the walls, and turrets along the walls, along with turrets close to your base for when the opponent flies those transports in and drops off the troops. If you don't build the walls, then you can get away with building a better defense close to your base that should eat up any invasion quicker.

 

 

 

By building walls, you're expending Ore that could be better spent building turrets, in exchange, you force your opponent to build air transports that cost, what, 25 carbon, 35 food? They are very cheap to build and only cause a minor inconvenience to the opponent.

 

 

 

Perhaps you build much larger bases than I do. By the time I'm done with the game, usually my base is literally wall-to-wall buildings (with some maneuvering space, space for farms, etc, of course). There is no place "closer to my base" but "far away from my outer walls" where the bad guys can get to. Oh, sure, the exact center of the base is relatively tower-free, but I usually have tons of troops scatterred around near gates and stuff, and it only takes a few seconds for them to turn around and head into the middle of town to take out any assaults that might occur. Plus, I usually keep AA mobiles and AA troops in the middle of town, so any air transports that somehow manage to get through my outer defenses are probably meat.

 

Of course, a really concerted air attack will probably harm me, but in that case, towers are useless anyway, since he could just bring tons of bombers.

 

May the Force be with you.