Difference between revisions of "Strategies"

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(Added a section on score calculation. Could not find this in forms or wiki. Found the formula on GitHub.)
 
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== Default Custom Game ==
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Glest is an RTS, or a Real Time Strategy game. Thus, the use of strategy is something the game revolves around. There's a large number of choices of strategy to use, and overly, the choice of strategy can completely determine the verdict of the game. It is recommended that players experiment to see what works best for them, utilizing their strengths and tastes.
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Glest Version: 3.1.2; Human magic player against one computer tech player
 
  
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In this scenario you have the magi and are playing against tech.
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==Faction Specific Strategies==
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I have found it impossible to just purely out-grow/out-build the computer-AI, specially at the beginning. Also, surprise attacks from my side didn't allow me to destroy any useful amount of enemy structure. I finally resorted to blatantly using the stupidity of the computer-AI for winning.
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*[[Strategies/Tech|Tech]]
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*[[Strategies/Magic|Magic]]
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*[[Strategies/UNATF|UNATF]]
  
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What can help you build similarly fast as the computer?
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==Tips==
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# Use the pause key whenever you can - you can still zap around the map and even select units and give orders to them. Additionally you can reduce the game speed - still, whatever you do, you will at some point find that you stopped producing initiates and/or a couple of them are standing around uselessly.
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*Most factions have [[units]] of varying speeds. If you just select a variety of units and tell them to attack, the fast units will always reach the destination first, and being alone, they can easily be picked off. Group your units with a number (ctrl + #) then you can select them anytime by pressing that #. We can use this to easily attack 10 steps at a time until we reach the foe, this time not one by one, but as a large powerful group.
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# Watch the four values for energy (greenish circle) gold (yellow circle), stone (gray circle) and wood (brown circle) - they are the resources you should not run out of.  
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*If you have time to burn, you can create unit lines. Archers and ranged units can wait behind rows of melee fighters, who serve as the first line of defense.
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# Let two workers harvest gold, one build an energy source (keep expanding energy sources as you need them - do it early enough, you will not be able to produce anything when running out of energy!)
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*Taking control of the units rather than telling them to plainly attack can save you more units, and defeat the foe faster. Try to target one enemy at a time to take him/her down quickly, weakening the enemy, and performing better than attacking a scattered group of enemies.
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# The golem won't be able to move much at first, because movement costs EP and the golem starts out at 0 EP. It is specially annoying to move it around the energy source already present (if you want to avoid this, restart the custom game and exchange computer and human player against each other - keep playing magi, though). Now move the golem northa as fast as possible, so that it's between you and the enemy.
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*Learn units weaknesses and strengths. For example, [[Tech|Tech's]] archer's have a piercing attack type, which is best against organic (such as the daemon) or leather (such as the horseman), but poorer against metal (such as the guard). On the other hand, impact attacks such as the catapult do better against metal, but worse against organic and leather.
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# It's probably a good idea to produce 1-2 daemons in this time and possibly produce a 2nd battlemage.
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*Units with splash attacks (such as the [[Archmage]] or Airship) do very well against buildings or large units because the splash hits the unit more than once. Every cell of the unit gets hit by the splash, meaning a size 2 (2x2) unit can be hit 4 times with a splash attack, meaning 4x damage!
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# Now run northwards with your daemon until the enemy sees you, turn back sharply and run back south (not too fast! Take care not to lose the enemy unit, the daemons are slightly faster than the swordsman and quite a bit faster than archer).
 
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# Run towards the golem, where your battle-mage(s) together with the golem will take good care of the enemy without losses on your side.
 
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# Repeat :)
 
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# Whenever one of your daemons drops to less than 100 hitpoints, use a battlemage to kill it. The daemons don't regenerate, they cannot be "repaired" by the initiates and I have found no other way to bring them back into shape - but a battlemage will become "expert" (more powerful) after collecting three kills - and this includes the kills of friendly units! So as your daemon is already pretty much dead and cannot be recovered the best value you can still get out of it is to promote your other units.  
 
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:This has a couple of consequences: it will buy you time because your enemy has to replace the lost units and cannot build up enough strength to attack you, while you can go for becoming able to build dragons, golems and wicker behemoths. It will generally slow the enemy down, because you start leeching units very early and they ''must''  be replaced - so the gold used for replacement is also lost for building up technology.
 
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# While repeating this trick, you can keep moving the golem until you are coming to the river from south... at this point, you will probably be able to add another couple of golems to your attacking force and promote your battle magi to archmagi.
 
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# When it is clear that the enemy hasn't got enough resources to attack (because your golem has advanced enough), you can increase your gold mining speed by adding another mage tower close to the gold containing rocks slightly north of your original home. When you have about 10 dragons and as many behemoth men and archmages, it is time for the final attack.
 
  
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As far as my experience goes, a sufficient amount of archers can indeed take out your dragons... and while dragons and golems have thousands of HP, they heal as fast as normal units - that means when they have to take a lot of damage, they'll not heal in a reasonable time.  
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==Generic Types of Strategies==
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===Rushing===
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Rushers create cheap, fast units and attempt to attack the foe before they are capable of putting up a proper defense. They thrive on small maps, as it takes less time to reach the foe. Their strength is their ability to destroy a foe before they are capable of defending themselves sufficiently. Their weakness is that if the rush fails, they are at a disadvantage of already having squandered resources and being behind defensively.
  
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===Turtling===
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Turtling is the act of focusing on a strong defense, keeping all your units in your base, surrounding yourself with defensive structures, etc. They do not attack until their base is full or they are attacked, preferring to attack a weakened foe. Their strength is that it is very difficult to defeat a turtler who has their base full of combat units. Their weakness is that delaying their attack for so long can result in the foe growing too strong for them to defeat, as well, they risk running out of resources from their anti-expansive gameplay.
  
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===Raiders===
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Raiders focus on hit and runs. Instead of charging a large number of units head on, they focus on using many fast or powerful units to sweep bases, causing as much damage as they can before retreating. This is commonly used to assault the foe's workers or buildings. The strength of raiders is their ability to cripple the foe's economy without serious damage to themselves. Their weakness is that the strategy does not work against combat units, only those who cannot attack.
  
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===Swarmers===
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Swarmers send large numbers of units in waves to try and combat the foe. They tend to focus on a single base, using large, diverse groups of units to lay siege on the opponent. Their strength is the ability to send a large number of foes at a time to attack a foe, crippling them continuously. Their weakness is that as a result of sending all these units away, their defenses tend to get neglected, and sending so many units has very high upkeep.
  
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'''Surviving Disaster - Scenario "Siege of Despair"'''
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===Lords===
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Utilize multiple small bases with their own defenses towers and units to defend it. Production buildings will be built in appropriate places (sometimes in pairs or threes), with medium defenses. Strength is in the numbers, and the ability to recover quickly if a single base is lost. The weakness is that scattered bases are far easier to topple one by one than larger, better fortified bases.
  
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===Communists===
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Similar to the Lords' strategy, but instead of having multiple smaller bases, Communists use a scattering of units over a large area to try and control that area. In effect, it's one massive base. However, this comes at the risk that moving to a part that is being attacked can be difficult to perform in a timely manner. The strength is the size that they control, as they can cover large resource areas and many paths. Their weakness is the fact that units tend to be scattered out, making it difficult to put up a constant defense.
  
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After some fun game play, you may wonder how on Earth (If at all!), a scenario advertised as insanely difficult can be survived. With this one, you start out in the center of the field. Lots of resources, but the most vulnerable position. The bad News: To the top left and right corners, Ultra CPU Tech players are looming. Worse yet - left corner to the bottom has Ultra Magic. And as if it wasn't enough, all three ultra CPU players are combined on the same team, playing against you. Without a strategy, you play this in order to lose and it is the united team work of enemy units spelling the dawn on you - no matter what you do. Impossible to win this. Is there any hope at all? Fear not, brave magician. You can survive for quite some time. You can even win:
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===Chieftain===
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Chieftains focus on attacking en-mass with one large army. They aim to have to attack only once, stockpiling units in multiple bases, expanding, but holding off attacking until they have a very large army. Their strength is that they are fiendishly powerful, and can take out players completely when they attack. Their weakness is that if their attack fails, they leave themselves crippled, and can be continuously disrupted, holding off their attack.
  
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===Octopus===
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Octopus players expand their bases, making that their focus. If there's resources, they can create a base there. Their strength is that losing a base hardly puts even a dent in their economy, and they can utilize that economy to expand further or advance an army. Their weakness is that scattered bases are very easy to take out, and their economic focus tends to leave them with a poor army.
  
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#As soon as the game starts, slow it down and pause immediately. You got it right if light is still dimmed down so that you barely see the field. Set up everything while leaving the game paused. Promote at least two mages into battlemages - all of them if you've never done something as insane as disabling an enemy right on the spot. Send the one battlemage and the deamon down to the bottom left corner for attack on Magic, order the production of two mages and adjust the production target of your base so that mages will run straight into the gold mine and start harvesting instead of standing around, waiting for orders. Also concentrate on stone harvesting early on. Send the summoner straight down to discover a moderately safe gold mine close to the bottom in the middle of the field and resume. Check and adjust paths: Do they run into trees? Are they using the shortest way to their target?  Check production targets: Do mages all target the same spot, blocking each other? Pause often and check if all is going well, order more mages if and as soon as resources permit and watch the progress on your battlemage promotion by selecting one of them. Pause as soon as they are battlemages (Timing is crucial, so pause instantly!) and send the newly promoted battlemages down to back up the attack on the ultra CPU Magic enemy. They are healthy and will charge up while they move, so do not worry about that.
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===Eagle===
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# If all goes well, your deamon will first meet, stop and kill the ultra CPU deamon with backing of your battlemage, then your damaged deamon can be used to distract the enemy by sending it running, just close enough to be in range of enemy units. It may barely survive simply moving around, leave alone being sent on attack, but moving it barely in range of the enemy has the benefit of stopping and discharging the masses of mages (or, preferably, just the summoner) while a moving target won't suffer a lot of damage itself. Eventually, the combined force of the three to four battlemages will kill either the CPU battlemage or the CPU summoner first and afterwards all of the weak, moderately discharged CPU mages. You are weak and too many mages can still take a battlemage out, so pause, check health, kill counts and enemy mage energy levels and give priority to charged enemy mages that are not moving. Move your units closer so that the enemy base becomes visible and can be selected. Check if there are any more mage units in the enemy production pipeline and kill those off until the CPU has no mages left and no further mages in production. Tear down an energy source if you need to wait for a last mage in the production pipeline, but do not waste time on the destruction of buildings. Avoid the mighty enemy golem and run back to your base when done. Park your (now hopefully expert!) battlemages to the top left of your base on the path. You did pause often, resisted the temptation to only watch the battle and kept a keen eye on all your other activities going on, so right during the battle, your summoner has probably discovered a gold mine and is now parked strategically below it. Additionally, you sent one mage straight to the right, found a big rock with two gold mines and one stone field behind it and then a path right to the top of that rock, leading further to the right, going only slightly up across water to a few trees at first and then downwards across water again, all of this roughly in the middle of the field in a line pointing right from your base. Take care, though: Later on, Tech to the top right will travel this path frequently in order to call units home.
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Eagles focus largely on getting air units early on, and use those to expand and make up the bulk of their army. Effective use of the eagle tactic will sweep targets for anti-air units before sending in their air units to lay waste. Their strength is the advantage air units tend to have over ground units. Their weakness is that air units are slow and expensive to create, can be crippled drastically by anti-air units, and are vulnerable early in the game until they can start mass producing air units.
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#You made a sacrifice and have fewer mages available for harvesting initially which is rather bad and contrary to the goals of the game, but from now on, you have one enemy less to deal with and you got it the cheap way. Still - you will barely be able to defend the first weak attack on your position in the center of the field, so either see below for a different approach, or prepare to abandon it. Meanwhile, the mage sent to the far right (you could have sent two) should have found a gold mine and a nearby stone field to the far right, circa slightly in the middle of the field from top to bottom, a bit below the path that opens into a vast, green space downwards on the far right. This could become your safe harbour, so you should produce your second energy source there. Also, a base could be constructed behind that rock to the right of your first base near the center. If a mage tower is constructed just as close as possible to the trees, below the stone field downwards behind that rock, chances are it will help tremendously with stone harvesting, provided you only ever use it to harvest stone with four mages in order to prevent it from being discovered prematurely and hence destroyed. Harvesting gold to the left might be safe up to a certain point, but get near the path to the top of that rock and you are in trouble. You will notice a trend here: Lots of mage towers and then still strategic buildings like energy sources and later on buildings up to the archmage tower to build and therefore a need for lots of stone early on, so you may whish to build your first mage tower near that stone field behind that rock anyway. Use one additional mage to help speed up building it, harvest more stone and harvest resources for building two more mage towers - one to the far right and one to the bottom in the middle of the field, centered neatly in that gold mine your summoner has just discovered. Start buildings with one mage if you can afford it. It is slow, but starting construction early on helps tremendously to get back into swing later.
 
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#Soon enough, a swordman will show, so if you positioned your surviving (expert!) battlemages on the path to the top left of your base, they will intercept and kill it, but don't be too happy about that: This merely is your alarm call. Leave your battlemages on the road slightly to the top left of the center base. Only a little later, more swordmen and also a few archers will follow, so as soon as the next enemy unit appears, it is time to say good bye for your precious, but weak mages. You may be able to kill another swordmen on the spot, maybe even two, but even for your expert battlemages it is time now to seek shelter behind your golem which was sent towards the energy source and which itself should be told to attack the standing archers and never moving units such as the approaching swordmen. Archers have decent range, so if you can, take them out using the golem and leave the swordmen which are attacking the golem to your battlemages behind that golem. You may want to keep one or two mages for golem repairs right during battle, thereby making the golem last longer and potentially survive. Send all the other mages from your center base slightly to the right of the center gold field below that base and then straight down to build and help building the mage tower down there and make sure you do it without any enemy noticing the escaping mages, so pause and do it early enough (when the second swordmen comes in sight of your battlemages) and don't pay attention to the load of mages which won't get lost anyway. This is an emergency escape, after all.
 
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# Even if you somehow manage to kill all the archers and swordmen, using only three to four expert battlemages, clever tactics (pause often!) and mages for golem healing and hence survival... Face it: That base in the center is doomed. Soon enough, something like five horsemen will arrive, backed up by guards and more archers, more swordmen - well - you get the idea... Meanwhile, to the right and maybe even to the far right, mage towers are finished, or await being finished. Have four mages to the right of the center base for hopefully hidden stone harvesting only, give mage production to the far right a priority and use as many mages as will fit and can be afforded to help build the Summoner Guild, Library and Archmage Tower on the safe harbour area to the far right. You are late, so do that as fast as you can while keeping one mage busy producing energy sources there. Build the Summoner Guild near trees and let three or even four mages harvest wood early on. Upgrades available with the buildings will need wood and later on, behemoths can also use plenty of wood. Upgrade to advanced summoning immediately and then try to constantly order summoners, build another Summoner Guild just below your base near the bottom in the middle of the field if you can afford it and produce summoners over there as well. Pause often. Monitor building progress, optimize harvesting targets for mages. Upgrade everything available for upgrades with the buildings as soon as possible, especially the dragon call.
 
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#The base near that stone mine slightly right off the center and the hopefully safe harbour bases positioned right in the middle of two gold fields will pay off. In this scenario, it is your late ticket to the fast lane and the sole chance to catch up. With four mages harvesting stone and something like 16 mages harvesting gold on each gold mine, buildings, upgrades, mages and summoners can be produced in a hurry. Summoners in turn can produce a few ghost armors if remaining resources permit, but the fun really starts with the dragon call when you have most of the mages previously occupied with buildings available for gold mining on each of the two gold mines. Order your summoners to produce dragons until you got 18 near the bottom in the middle. Select all dragons later on and you have two guard dragons left down there. They too should be sent to battle as soon as the action starts, possibly defending the base on their way to the battlefield by taking approaching enemies out. Produce something like nine dragons (preferably more!) to the far right and send those from the far right to the base near the center of the field in order to guard the exposed position and in order to have these dragons near the battlefield when the time is ripe. Monitor your mages. Do not allow the mages near the dangerous center of the field to harvest gold near the path to the top of that rock at all and start to harvest stone to the far right early on in order to be able to build golems and further energy sources, or build another mage tower near a stone field somewhere near the bottom on the right corner. As soon as stone is used up next to the center, hide the mages near their base, promote the four mages all the way up to archmages and order four more mages to produce and help produce four to six golems as close to their base as possible. Maybe also produce a Tower of Souls between the base and that rock, add three or even four behemoths, keeping units as close to that vulnerable base as possible in order to keep it all hidden for as long as possible and promote the newly created mages to archmages when done. If that base is discovered prematurely, a sufficient amount of dragons should be present - otherwise it is next to impossible to defend it.
 
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# At some point, mages in the middle gold mine near the bottom will start to become useless when gold spots start to disappear. Promote these to archmages as and when gold disappears. Don't let them block other harvesting mages because of space constraints. You may order something like eight more mages there and potentially have them build a golem as close to the top of that base as possible, taking sufficient walking space of harvesting mages into account. You aim for 16 archmages and still have something like eight mages left down there when those are still busy harvesting the last gold spot available. You will also want to promote at least six out of something like nine summoners near the bottom in the middle of the field to drake riders now. Things are going to get extremely nasty in a hurry, supplies for further mass production of dragons are no longer in reach at this time, so you urgently need your summoners for backing in the battle and hence turn enough of these into fast moving and much more powerful drake riders.
 
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#Some six to eight mages are busy harvesting the last spot of gold near the bottom in the middle of the field. You can no longer win a harvesting race, so it is the perfect time for aquisition of fresh resources and hence battle. From the bottom of the field, just below your mage tower downwards across the water, a straight path leading left to the disabled CPU Ultra Magic base exists. As soon as all your archemages down there approach an energy load near 3500, you can send all of them in attack mode to the left, accompanied by dragons and ghost armors, followed by the drake riders so that (if possible), all of them arrive and attack at once, but remember to have the ghost armors and drake riders attack in a different corner and out of the line of fire of your archmages, because you do not want to let the archmages kill your own units as a nasty side-effect of their devastating attack. Surprise, surprise. Tech is present with a few units, but nothing that will stop you. The combined force you sent simply rolls over anything down there. What was mighty in the beginning is now simply melting away without having any noticeable effect on your troops besides discharging those a bit, so try to avoid overkill on a single remaining archer for the sake of keeping archemages charged. Have the remaining mages from your nearby base follow closely, or as soon as gold is used up (possibly leaving only one to take care of what little remains) and use them to build two more mage towers near the two gold mine fields on your newly aquired position immediately.
 
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#Glorious victory? Not yet, my friend. While doing this, Hell will brake lose. Lots of units, including a few ornithopters, batteships, catapults, a number of horsemen, plenty of guards, swordmen, archers and even a few of those nasty battle machines. Either your enemies will attack the position formerly owned by the now extinct Ultra CPU Magic, or (more likely) while rushing in to back up the now dead guard units down there, they could have discovered your hidden base next to the center and focus on attacking that base instead, so you should order your forces to the place where the real action happens in order to remain the superior force on the battlefield. Trip the discovery of your base next to the center using a behemoth, the drakes, or the golems if need be: That position is best suited to draw enemy fire because of the golems and behemoths. Additionally, rather than meet the full enemy forces in the open, the archmages down to the left can now conveniently chase troops rushing towards the center, kill some on their way, unite with the center forces and finally present the superior force with your combined firepower defending the center against mere groups and, later on, lone enemies rushing in. Either way - you need to build further dragons, defend your positions and wrestle the enemy down somehow. Pause often. The CPU enemies will attack and pay full attention to harvesting and construction of buildings at the same time, so that's why you absolutely need to take brakes, pause and analyse everything in order to stay in business.
 
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# Stay cool and try to give priority to any unit that is able to attack air and use any resources you have, including those from that base near the center which won't stay hidden much longer anyway. Pay attention to units chasing loners and order them to spots where real action is going on if need be. The more dragons survive, the better for you and at some point, dragons will remain and take out with ease whatever isn't able to attack air, turning to anything that is actually able to threaten them more and more casually, so keep a keen eye on battle machines, ornithopters and pay special attention to seemingly measly, but threatening archers in order to protect the dragons from suffering unreasonable damage. Don't neglect mighty battleships and vicious horsemen completely, should these threaten any nearby ground units too much, especially after your shielding golems have finally fallen down. (You didn't expect their survival, did you.)
 
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#Have you survived? Enough units left, even? Dragons moderately healthy and archmages still (re)loaded moderately with energy? If so, do not waste too much time on small enemy groups and loners trickeling in. Gather your troops and continue right away! Just a short walk to the left, on the path to the top of the center isle, a path to the top left ultra CPU Tech enemy base opens up. Likewise, to the top right of the center isle, a path to the top right ultra CPU base exists, so while having your bases secured and guarded only moderately, it is time to keep the enemies nailed to their own bases and away from your otherwise insufficiently guarded mage towers. After that heavy battle, only a few ground and air units will trickle down and block your way. Nothing that really stops a few archmages and dragons. However, don't be overly trigger-happy and do not send a few damaged dragons against mighty enemy air ballista defenses, or fully discharged archmages against anything (no matter how insignificant!) that is capable of attack. That is suicide. Take out what you can take down safely, retreat if you can't, monitor health and energy levels of units and watch out for newly produced, possibly hidden archers, ornithopters and those pesky defense towers. It is perfectly sufficient for the time being if you can continue to attack workers and buildings and hence keep your enemies in sight, nailed to their base and hence under control. Do not panic if you can't. You got fresh resources, so you can produce sufficient troops and even defenses in a timely manner. Do not underestimate enemy resources, though. They've got plenty up there, so don't place any bets on enemy resource starvation. The wealth of resources near the Tech bases is just another nasty property of this scenario and it is still you against both of them.
 
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# Produce mages and start harvesting gold near the center and on the newly created bases to the bottom left where you just aquired the former ultra CPU Magic position and hence fresh resources. Produce dragons and more summoners for dragon production, or whatever you feel is helpful against your enemies at the time. You may want to reconstruct the previously abandoned mage tower in the center and continue mining all the gold there, provided you keep your enemies under attack, or the place in the exposed center otherwise guarded. If all went well, you will soon need further energy sources on the far right to keep up with demand caused by the restarted unit mass production while your enemies struggle hard with the presence of your dragons and archmages near their base, or defenses you build and further guard forces rushing in as you produce them. Revenge is sweet. If you made it thus far, that is...
 
  
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You may not win. You may not survive the very first attack, even. Likely not the first time. It gets easier if you know what the playing field looks like. Don't even think about survival if you didn't master the scenarios advertised as "hard" and "very hard". This is marked as "insane", so just a few less than perfect moves can and likely will decide on your destiny. A little luck is needed as well, so if some measly enemy archer accidentally bumps into any of your newly created bases prematurely, it is time to just face facts: Odds were against you and luck wasn't on your side either, so quit the game and start over, or at least be prepared to struggle hard and lose anyway. Still - after I figured how, I always played it to win and last time I played the scenario, it was 1 accidental death for me (a severely damaged drake rider against a lone horsemen coming in from an unexpected direction) and 103 kills on all ultra CPU players combined, so it can be done - even if it seems like a doomed scenario that isn't at all meant to be played in order to be won. Actually, survival without any losses seems possible, but that is a different story:
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==Multiplayer==
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:<small>See [[MG/How to win an Internet-Game]]</small>
  
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I was using 4 battlemages, the deamon and the summoner in order to swiftly disable magic to the bottom left. After merely making sure all mages got killed without further mages in production, I created two more battlemages for backing of a similar attack on the top left tech enemy and later on three more for backing of those in order to defend the discharged troops against a few helper troops coming in (too late!), to the rescue from the top right tech base. After taking the top left castle base down in order to really make sure that lone workers cannot reconstruct anything, troops were sent back home, behind the golem that always got moved strategically towards the entrance of the path leading to the top right tech enemy (needs to be done right from the start of the game!). With backing of yet 4 to 6 more battlemages, upgrades (energy compression and later on, energy sharpening) and maybe two drake riders, the golem shields nicely against a serious attack involving some 5 horsemen, maybe 6 archers, 6 swordmen and some 2 to 3 guards. After that, care still is required, because the last surviving enemy got enough time to produce workers, let these harvest and construct buildings, but if you march on towards the top right tech base (right after the battle), the combined force of the battlemages should be able to deal with lone archers, swordmen and even horsemen, provided you keep your troops together, pause as soon as further enemy forces appear and target the accasional threats in a timely and appropriate manner, i.e. usually all of the battlemages against any horsemen, possibly less against archers and swordmen. Of course, mages should be kept busy and further buildings for upgrades need to be created near the center base as usual with this approach, because it doesn't involve sending mages to safe harbour areas in order to prepare to abandon the otherwise convenient, ressourceful center position at all. Timing is as critical as getting pretty much everything else right. It is possible to keep the base and maybe even win with no losses at all, but you absolutely need to pay full attention to health states and enemies during battle while the production of mages, energy sources, buildings and such need to continue without any pauses right during battle, so slowing it down and pausing often is as much a must as choosing the shortest possible paths for swift movement of forces in the beginning, where you may even need to pay attention to seemingly insignificant detail like kill counts of battlemages to have as many expert battlemages as you can get out of the limited supply of enemy mages.
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==Scenarios==
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:<small>See [[Strategies/Scenarios]]</small>
  
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Still - as weak as magic may seem and as hopeless as the setting may be - it merely is a matter of using your advantages. Battlemages do heal and can even grow stronger after a few kills, so even a few seemingly weak battlemages can remain the superior force, provided they always outnumber enemies rushing in one after another, or provided they get a golem for shielding when critical situations arise, like three horsemen and maybe a few archers at once against a mere pack of battlemages which, when unshielded, would suffer enough losses to lose the battle in the end.&nbsp; Playing against the CPU also means playing against an enemy that can predictably be dealt with, provided you can deal with enemies one after another. This is difficult when a few horesmen rush in, or when the CPU sends in all mages at once against a few already weakened battlemages, but it is not impossible to deal with. You can pause the game, check health states, adjust targets in order to give priorities, draw enemy fire by moving a mere deamon barely in range across the field and so on. Even better - what the CPU does is predictable, so if you lost a game because the CPU surprised you with unexpected helper forces rushing in, chances are it will always happen. This means you can develop a strategy and even refine your tactics for any given situation until you finally have a plan like the one mentioned above that actually gets you through, despite all the odds set against you.
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==Scoring==
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The battle end score is calculated using the formula "int score= enemykills*100 + unitsProduced*50 + resourcesHarvested/10". It is possible to win the battle but not have the highest score. This case is more likely with less aggressive players.
  
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==See Also==
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*[[Mods/List|List of Factions]]
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'''General strategy'''
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*[[Multiplayer]]
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[[Category:Strategies]]
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"1. You do your harvesting as usual with wood, gold, and stone.
 
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2. You get enough worker units not just for resources but construction as well. You remember to time budget the work shifts for the initiates.
 
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3. You aim for finishing the magic library
 
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4. You continue to harvest as much as you can for the 'Ancient Summoning' ability
 
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5. You finally got it. Time to recruit the 'MAGIC ARMOR' not the daemons with the use of your summoner.
 
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6. You start to invest less in the magic armors and save more money for the final building. Now is the time to give your armors defense training with the regular use of work shift and recruit more initiates (activately).
 
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7. You invest in building up to the tower, save more harvests and wait a bit. You still have to buy 'dragon summon' and meet the summon costs for dragon. You go into less spending with initiates and armors.
 
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8. You finally got the dragon summons and prepare to wait more for the dragon unit to arrive.
 
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9. You got the dragon, time to invest in harvesting for more dragons for a better defense.
 
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10. You decided that it's time to scout (actually, sabotage the enemy's resources). So, you sent your 1st dragon to look about for the enemy base. Your enemy faction will now trip once you find it, it's time to escape. Let your first dragon to camp in safe distances from the base and near a neighboring mine crop (of gold).
 
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11. You find that the enemy has ran out of mine crops and will now explore for more. If your calculations are correct, the enemy will sent scouts. You hide from the enemy scouts and later attack the enemy miners when they are present in your dragon's area. The enemy will trip again and sent in ranging units, and that means FLY away till they are gone.
 
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12. You have been summoning a plenty of dragons while your enemy struggles with resource exploration. Now you wanted to make your dragon scout area a more secure place. You sent your other dragons to the area and start to defend it valiantly against all enemy invaders (especially the rangers and workers). You wanted to make your raid and assembled all your armors to march to the out skirts of the enemy base. MORE time passes by while your armors dog paddle across the land.
 
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13. You said FINALLY when all combat units are in position. You decided to wait for the enemy AI to sent out the remaining troops for its last stand (that part gets epic). You march your armors snuffing any resistance around the base. You decided to bring in the dragons to break down those annoying towers one by one. From there, you achieve victory, taking some screenshots of the last stand and a downfall of a tired outpost. You enjoyed a splendid one punch win.
 
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*Disclaimer: don't (always) rely on this with the Glest 2.0 version, this is to give you a fighting chance. I hope that there is a Glest version without the Tech (horseman and air units) and Magic (golem, raptor, anti air tower, and demon giant) added characters still out there for free download.
 
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*as for the Tech faction, it's almost the same except for using the Workers, Knights, Technicans, and Battle Machines. Gaining a scout area is NOT likely to happen with the techs. Refer to the version 1.3 (I think).
 
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*I hope these general hints help you enjoy this game.
 
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'''Playing against the computer'''
 
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If you wanna beat man - think like a man! If you wanna beat computer - ... I'm not sure how you should think then! <b>:)</b> I will give you an example on Tech. Computer makes many small units rather than a few big. I saw CPU produce 20 archers, while I was researching Robotics. So, maybe it is better to have a different tactic than the CPU, and make strong units when the time arrives. But don't do that in the beginning! First make some small units. Here is one more example: This is a tip for the Water world settlement map: There is no way to attack than by air units. So here is what to do:
 
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#send one worker to build a farm, send others to mine, order producing 5 workers
 
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#send these workers to mine and produce more workers. DO NOT send any worker to repair/help the builder. There is enough time to build it.
 
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#make a blacksmith, but don't upgrade anything! All upgrades are for land units.
 
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#make a technodrome
 
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#produce 3 technicians
 
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#research advanced architecture.
 
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#send an technician build a aerodrome, and one more to repair (help) building.
 
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#send another technician to make an air ballista.
 
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#research robotics
 
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#produce 2-3 ornithopers.
 
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#make more technicians, more aerodroms.
 
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#produce 2 airships.
 
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#make one more air ballista
 
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#send an ornithoper to discover enemy bases. When you see an enemy, don't try to attack - run away and search for other bases. Run away again to your base.
 
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While doing this, throw your eye on your ally a bit. WHAT DO THEY DO?? I saw my ally fill his whole island with units, and then produce ONE dragon! See? You shouldn't think like a computer here(!) but after you attack with your air units, you probably won't win. Thats because they have so much land units that they are stronger(!) than you. Attacking with 5 air units on 50 archers is suicide! What now? if you were acting like a computer you wouldn't be able to attack for a very long time! At the end I closed my game because everything convulse because of so many ally and enemy units!
 
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No discussion page, so I'll append my comments here:
 
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0) you should have said what scenario and what version of glest you're talking about - I didn't encounter anything like you described yet, so perhaps it has even been dropped...
 
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1) this looks like a how-not-to to me - you say you ended up in a tie situation and you stopped frustrated - so obviously you didn't have a winning strategy.
 
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2) you didn't understand the phrase "when you want to beat a &lt;something&gt;, you have to think like a &lt;something&gt;" - it doesn't mean you have to act the same way, it means you should know his/her/its thinking and use the weaknesses this reveals against them... e.g. will a computer enemy unit keep following you, even if that means running into a superior force... that's how the programmer tried to implement useful rules... which they might be most of the time, but we humans should be good at finding the exceptions and use them
 
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'''Learning from how AI plays'''
 
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<b>andyglest:</b><br />
 
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"the best way is to begin a game with this:
 
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# human - magic - team 1
 
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# cpu ultra - magic - team 1
 
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# cpu ultra - tech - team 1
 
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# closed
 
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Now watch how the cpu ultra plays and do the same. Also, while playing you can watch and attack.
 
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First make many initiates, few deamons, start building energy sources, then summoner guild, then libary. at same time make few battlemages. attack with 10 battlemages and 5-6 deamons, 5-6 magic armors and a 1-2 drakers.
 
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Magic and tech are the same difficulty, however you need to learn how to use it. For beginners, tech is easier because it is similar to real life; magic doesn't exist in real life, therefore you need to explore it."
 
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About watching the cpu ultra:
 
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As I found in a forum, the CPU ultra plays exactly the same as a normal CPU, only it is able to produce/mine faster - I don't understand why there isn't a "human ultra" as well, so you have an easier stand as a beginner.  I actually feel that the "CPU ultra" is like having someone cheating...
 
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I doubt that tech is easier because it is "more like real life" - how many archers/horse- and swordsmen have you seen in your life? [[User:Irii|Irii]] 08:30, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
 
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'''Using (Magi) Golem against AI'''
 
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"Golem is great for defense! walking takes too much ep, but i know how to use it! move a initiate near a enemy, and then ritual a golem&nbsp;:) walk with that golem to enemy, and when they see u press hold position. golem will not move, but they will come to you because they saw u. u will defeat many enemy units then, and weak it."
 
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"I found succes in fighting an Tech AI by building up a good defense with some Golems and some drakes behind to cover a fast aproach to the Archmage Tower and... Dragon Call.
 
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If you can stop the AI long enough to produce some Dragons... you can kick serious butt!
 
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Only these orni... copter..., ehm... you know what I mean, only they are able to take out your Dragons in the field, airships can't attack air, archers are too weak.
 
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If you want to win over Tech AIs you gotta move over the field slowly with your golems. Back them up with a few dragons and drakes... you're unstoppable."
 
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''Horsemen and ornithopters''
 
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"I had more than 3 times the kills of all CPUs combined Smile
 
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I did it by producing nothing but horsemen and gyros. When they attacked I sent the gyros in to bombard them, and then ran the horsemen straight to the back to take down catapults/robots, then used the horsemen to take down the archers, then sent horsemen back to base and left the gyros to deal with the rest. After that, if it was daytime I sent my healthy units to their base to take down their castle, then retreated and repaired my injured units so I could keep elites. When things were quiet I'd send my near elites to the de-castled bases to kill pigs 'n stuff to get elite Smile
 
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So, from this, there's a couple of bits of feedback:
 
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1. Horsemen are the only worthwhile ground units
 
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Horsemen have same production time as archer/swordsman but are much more powerful and are easily worth the extra cost. Robots take too long to produce (and require more attention) and aren't as fast. Horsemen are easily better than robots when used properly, their speed makes it easy to surround loners and move on before reinforcements come to help.
 
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2. Gyros are only worthwhile air units
 
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Gyros can only be hit by enemy gyros and archers. Horsemen make short work of archers, so as long as you have more gyros than the enemy, the gyros are virtually invincible. Blimps are too slow and can't shoot gyros, so they're very vulnerable. They might be useful for going on a quick suicide mission to take down an enemy castle, as long as you have a few gyros to draw the archers/gyro fire. Gyros are more useful in defence though, so it makes the 500 gold price tag not really worth it.
 
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3. Would be nice if units surrounded their target
 
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When you've got a group of horsemen and you click an enemy unit, they tend to line up on one side, rather than surrounding the enemy unit. I usually click just behind the unit to make sure the horsemen surround them. Gyro's do the same thing, which makes them more vulnerable to archers.
 
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4. No good base defences
 
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The air ballista kicks arse (probably a little too much), but in general, the base defences aren't worth building. You need to do a fair bit of investment (blacksmith -&gt; technodrome -&gt; advanced architecture) just to get an archer tower, and they're not very useful. I find 3 archers to be much more potent than a tower, and you get the advantage of being able to move them. I think the tower should shoot the gyro flames (do they do more damage?) and you should be able to build them from the beginning. It seems like their should be more defence structures, maybe moats/barricades.
 
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5. Technicians should have auto-heal
 
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It's quite time consuming (and hard at night) to get the technician to heal my units after a raid. Would it be possible to make the technician move on to the next nearby unit when they finish healing the current one? Could do something similar with building repairs too.
 
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6. The Gyrocopters aren't 'gyrocopters'
 
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They're Ornithopters"
 
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'''Magic strategy'''
 
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This is a good strategy against Tech. Ultra Magic  has too many Summoners, Plus their regular army.
 
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Attack 1:"Attack with 48 Daemons, and 16 Battlemages. they  might not get killed, but it really works. while they are trying to kill your Daemons, your Battlemages will own them."
 
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Attack 2: "This time, send 16+ Ghost Armour, and 16 Archmages. The same thing will happen as the other attack, only this one will most likely kill them."
 
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Magic strategy  3
 
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After trying several frustrating methods my final advice: Be fast. <br />Don´t allow the KI to built up any infrastructure and workers. Make 2 deamons and 2 inits, let one init do the gold job and convert the rest to battlemages and overrun your enemy. That gives you time. At the end let your golem do the final work.
 
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Tech strategy
 
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Bisurge (from the forums):(Tech)
 
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Tech is easy. I just like making a swarm of archers and letting them rip. At the beginning however you need a few Guards to defend your base, so make a blacksmith ASAP. Swordsmen are useless, weaker than Daemons for their cost.
 

Latest revision as of 13:01, 10 January 2017

Glest is an RTS, or a Real Time Strategy game. Thus, the use of strategy is something the game revolves around. There's a large number of choices of strategy to use, and overly, the choice of strategy can completely determine the verdict of the game. It is recommended that players experiment to see what works best for them, utilizing their strengths and tastes.

Faction Specific Strategies[edit]

Tips[edit]

  • Most factions have units of varying speeds. If you just select a variety of units and tell them to attack, the fast units will always reach the destination first, and being alone, they can easily be picked off. Group your units with a number (ctrl + #) then you can select them anytime by pressing that #. We can use this to easily attack 10 steps at a time until we reach the foe, this time not one by one, but as a large powerful group.
  • If you have time to burn, you can create unit lines. Archers and ranged units can wait behind rows of melee fighters, who serve as the first line of defense.
  • Taking control of the units rather than telling them to plainly attack can save you more units, and defeat the foe faster. Try to target one enemy at a time to take him/her down quickly, weakening the enemy, and performing better than attacking a scattered group of enemies.
  • Learn units weaknesses and strengths. For example, Tech's archer's have a piercing attack type, which is best against organic (such as the daemon) or leather (such as the horseman), but poorer against metal (such as the guard). On the other hand, impact attacks such as the catapult do better against metal, but worse against organic and leather.
  • Units with splash attacks (such as the Archmage or Airship) do very well against buildings or large units because the splash hits the unit more than once. Every cell of the unit gets hit by the splash, meaning a size 2 (2x2) unit can be hit 4 times with a splash attack, meaning 4x damage!

Generic Types of Strategies[edit]

Rushing[edit]

Rushers create cheap, fast units and attempt to attack the foe before they are capable of putting up a proper defense. They thrive on small maps, as it takes less time to reach the foe. Their strength is their ability to destroy a foe before they are capable of defending themselves sufficiently. Their weakness is that if the rush fails, they are at a disadvantage of already having squandered resources and being behind defensively.

Turtling[edit]

Turtling is the act of focusing on a strong defense, keeping all your units in your base, surrounding yourself with defensive structures, etc. They do not attack until their base is full or they are attacked, preferring to attack a weakened foe. Their strength is that it is very difficult to defeat a turtler who has their base full of combat units. Their weakness is that delaying their attack for so long can result in the foe growing too strong for them to defeat, as well, they risk running out of resources from their anti-expansive gameplay.

Raiders[edit]

Raiders focus on hit and runs. Instead of charging a large number of units head on, they focus on using many fast or powerful units to sweep bases, causing as much damage as they can before retreating. This is commonly used to assault the foe's workers or buildings. The strength of raiders is their ability to cripple the foe's economy without serious damage to themselves. Their weakness is that the strategy does not work against combat units, only those who cannot attack.

Swarmers[edit]

Swarmers send large numbers of units in waves to try and combat the foe. They tend to focus on a single base, using large, diverse groups of units to lay siege on the opponent. Their strength is the ability to send a large number of foes at a time to attack a foe, crippling them continuously. Their weakness is that as a result of sending all these units away, their defenses tend to get neglected, and sending so many units has very high upkeep.

Lords[edit]

Utilize multiple small bases with their own defenses towers and units to defend it. Production buildings will be built in appropriate places (sometimes in pairs or threes), with medium defenses. Strength is in the numbers, and the ability to recover quickly if a single base is lost. The weakness is that scattered bases are far easier to topple one by one than larger, better fortified bases.

Communists[edit]

Similar to the Lords' strategy, but instead of having multiple smaller bases, Communists use a scattering of units over a large area to try and control that area. In effect, it's one massive base. However, this comes at the risk that moving to a part that is being attacked can be difficult to perform in a timely manner. The strength is the size that they control, as they can cover large resource areas and many paths. Their weakness is the fact that units tend to be scattered out, making it difficult to put up a constant defense.

Chieftain[edit]

Chieftains focus on attacking en-mass with one large army. They aim to have to attack only once, stockpiling units in multiple bases, expanding, but holding off attacking until they have a very large army. Their strength is that they are fiendishly powerful, and can take out players completely when they attack. Their weakness is that if their attack fails, they leave themselves crippled, and can be continuously disrupted, holding off their attack.

Octopus[edit]

Octopus players expand their bases, making that their focus. If there's resources, they can create a base there. Their strength is that losing a base hardly puts even a dent in their economy, and they can utilize that economy to expand further or advance an army. Their weakness is that scattered bases are very easy to take out, and their economic focus tends to leave them with a poor army.

Eagle[edit]

Eagles focus largely on getting air units early on, and use those to expand and make up the bulk of their army. Effective use of the eagle tactic will sweep targets for anti-air units before sending in their air units to lay waste. Their strength is the advantage air units tend to have over ground units. Their weakness is that air units are slow and expensive to create, can be crippled drastically by anti-air units, and are vulnerable early in the game until they can start mass producing air units.

Multiplayer[edit]

See MG/How to win an Internet-Game

Scenarios[edit]

See Strategies/Scenarios

Scoring[edit]

The battle end score is calculated using the formula "int score= enemykills*100 + unitsProduced*50 + resourcesHarvested/10". It is possible to win the battle but not have the highest score. This case is more likely with less aggressive players.

See Also[edit]

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