Strategies

= Basic Dos and don'ts = If you are facing other players, assume that they know what they're doing.

So before heading to pvp, get your skills up and running by facing AI opponents so you at least won't get steamrolled on your first match.

The most decisive time of a game are its first 2-3 minutes. Should you make a bad decision in that timeframe, you will most likely lose. Here are some basic dos and don'ts for those vital first few minutes:

Do:
 * If the creeps (NPCs guarding each region) are disabled, send an engineer to capture it and start building extractors. You can send an escort and scout to it later.
 * If they're enabled, use scouts to capture it. It is important to have an engineer follow them and build extractors. Those are quickly built, so don't worry too much about him falling behind.


 * Build at least 2 frigate factories. Set them to build Archers and Brutes and loop their production ques. That will provide you with a steady force you can use in early game to harass the opponent's region capturing
 * You can also build a cruiser factory, but remember that cruisers take more time and resources to build. Generally, you are again looking for a missile cruiser/brawler combo.

Don't:
 * Build an advanced factory right away. It's a waste of resources that early in the game and even if you complete a dread, it will die quite quickly since there are special "anti-dread" units of each class.
 * Concentrate on only one objective. You need to multi-task to win, or even the easy AI will roll over you.
 * While it is tempting to build extractors right next to your nexus, let that wait till you captured a few regions.

Generally, when facing equivalent (=of the same tier) units, the best unit ratio is somewhere about: 40% Brawlers, 40% Arty, 10% Healer and 10% Scout.

In later game:

Do: Don't:
 * Go after your opponent's economy- pumping out units continously puts quite a strain on his economy, cutting off a number of regions can cripple his unit production, giving you an edge in the battle
 * Get better tech- upgrade to cruisers once you got your basic economy going
 * Same with Dreadnoughts- once you got a steady "income" of cruisers, build 2 advanced factories and have them construct a dread each in the background. Construction takes 2 minutes each, but doesn't drain too many resources at that point.
 * Use air units- scouts are relatively cheap and great for spotting problematic units ahead of time.
 * Capture Turinium Generators. If you capped more than your opponent, you generate "Victory points". Once you max those out, you win, regardless of the battle's current state.
 * Protect your seed. Later in the game, the enemy will most likely attempt to make a run for your seed. Keep a small force handy in case that happens so you can deal with it (which is also why you are supposed to build radars)
 * Invest in upgrades. Just build a few quanta generators and click a few upgrades while the battle progresses.
 * Support your advanced factory with an engineer to speed things up
 * Give your opponent free time- the less he has to concentrate on dealing with an immediate attack, the more he can concentrate on building an army to crush you
 * Get lured in. Army capped your region and is retreating? Your army can crush them? Well, don't give into temptation to chase them too far- they may have reinforcements waiting.
 * Start building a Prometheus just because you see a Hyperion/Cronus leaving the enemy base. By the time you can build dreads, you probably already got a few cruiser factories. Build a bunch of Nemesis cruisers, back them up with a bunch of brawlers as decoys. Works miracles against dreads of any kind.
 * Abort dread construction halfway. Sorry, resources already spent by factories don't get refunded.
 * Ignore the turinium generators entirely- If you do, you will get surprised by a sudden "defeat" screen once the enemy's victory points are maxed out.

Additional gameplay tricks

 * Currently, combat AI is very easily distracted and tends to disregard your orders during battle. You want to take the leap of faith and rush at the enemy's base, disregarding any defenses? Good luck with that, in most cases they will stubbornly engage the defenses and not move an inch towards their intended target until they are done exchanging ammo with the enemy and one side is a smoking pile of scrap metal..
 * Dreadnoughts can be upgraded now. When they kill stuff, they gain experience, and you can level your dread up and choose an upgrade. So here you got another reason to keep those bad boys alive, aside from their replacement cost.
 * Drones are evil, so use them. Seriously. Thanks to bombers being everything but cheap, people tend to slack on the air defense department. Feel free to exploit that and bring dem drone swarms. They are perfect for attacking from a safe distance without being overly inaccurate against moving units. Just be careful if the enemy brings anti-air units, those will punch your drones off the map in no time at all.