Vaulters

This guide will give you a sense of general direction on how to play the Vaulters.
There are also tips and guidelines on Strategy, Military and Economy for you to consider.
I hope this guide gives you a deeper understanding and many victories while playing the Vaulters.

Vaulters

DIFFICULTY:

Vaulters are a race that find themselves in a great position to gain a science victory. To achieve a science victory you need to research 5 out of the 6 technologies in the 6th Era. This guide will focus on what the race is designed to accomplish. If you find other uses for the race, please share in the comments below!

Traits

The Vaulters are best played with a turtle strategy. Turtling implies that you grab a handful of strategic pieces of land and wall yourself in. You'll be looking for high resource and science yielding areas to maximize your advantage.



These traits give you a head start with science as with resources. Later on you will unlock Vaulter specific technologies that increase science even more. They also support the turtling strategy as they give bonuses for FIDS resources and increase science on districts. Keep your territory contained to a maximum amount of areas depending on how many players are in the game. Example: 5 player = 20% expansion, 3 players 33% expansion etc.. It is more important to upgrade current cities instead of expanding to new ones. The reason for this is to be able to increase science gained but also to increase your defensive capabilities through fortification.

Technologies



Something to remember while you're playing the Vaulters. Achieving a science victory is a difficult task. Don't underestimate the amount of science required for the 5 technologies. The Vaulter race also requires plenty of food and dust resources. Count in the fact that an enemy could be knocking on your door to cause more problems. You'll need to balance everything out for a strong economy and military. While at the same time have enough science in your back pocket to achieve the science victory.

Strategy

Expand to science or luxury resource areas > Main Quest 1/3 > Upgrade current cities to lvl 2 > Main Quest 2/3 > Find Hyperium > Main Quest finished > Defend

Early Game
Make sure your first city becomes the core of your empire that can provide units whenever necessary. Focus on food and industry to increase your population and districts. Follow the main quest which has pretty easy objectives. Try setting up friendly relations and avoid war. Winning fights is something that takes great effort with the Vaulters. Finish as much technologies within the first 3 eras as possible (because they are very cheap) to unlock era 6 faster. You don't want to be wasting time in era 4 and 5 with expensive technologies.

Mid Game
You should start focussing on science now. Try to research science boosting technologies before anything else. Keep increasing the population so you can build districts, a high population will be handy in the end game to increase science. With your fast research you'll be able to spot Hyperium first. If you don't have an area with hyperium, quickly gather your forces and take it before the enemy gets too strong. Defend that area mostly as you'll need it to build essential research boosting buildings.

End Game
By now you will have to be in the position to start researching one of the 6th era technologies. I would recommend researching in this order:

• Science
  
• Food
  
• Dust
  
• Industry
  
• Influence or Military

Always keep an eye out for the enemy on the world map, once they get the message that you've researched 2 of the victory technologies they'll be out looking for you. Have an army ready to intercept any attack and don't forget to use the teleport ability!

Please keep in mind that these are general directions. Each game will bring new challenges to overcome. The key to success is focusing on your end goal and not getting distracted by too many issues around you.

Military

As a rule of thumb I use 0 as the lowest possible stat and 50 as highest stat, without including HP and Speed

The Vaulter army is fairly balanced out while leaning more towards defensive tactics. Due to the technolover ability the Vaulter units can gain a temporary 50% boost if they're carrying equipment that is made with the same resource as the holy resource. If you're choosing to go for the science victory, then it is more efficient to choose the holy resource for economy purposes instead of military.

The most effective way to use the Vaulter army is in a defensive manner. Keep them located at your most valuable cities and bottlenecks. Once an enemy approaches you can simply teleport all your units towards the attacked city. Fortification technologies will buy you time to reinforce the attacked cities with more units.

A well balanced ranged unit and useful throughout a whole game. You can build them offensively with bows or defensively with crossbows and shields. Because you're mainly going to be focussing on defense it is more efficient to choose crossbows+shield Marines. They're good at taking care of minor factions early game and are generally worth more than dawn officers in the long run.














The Dawn Officer unit is the opposite of the Marine. The attack and damage have been switched for health and defense. They're used to rush past enemy defense troops and take out ranged units. They're very fast on the battlefield and thanks to the high initiative they're able to act first.

















The Titan has the highest starting defense stat. It has avarage damage dealing capabilities. But due to their low battle movement speed they are obviously the one to stand in one place and take the blows. Once you're able to build one of these you can consider using them with bow Marines.


















Tactics

Defense all the way. Don't worry about killing all the enemy troops, let them come to you while they waste battle turns walking. If you're playing the turtle strategy then you'll probably have plenty of reinforcements coming right up. Use the time before the enemy has closed the gap to position your Marines on high ground and the Titans in tight spots to defend them.

If we would think of a basic tactic to use during all of our battles it would look something like this:

Front
The front is where our Titans should be. As I said before, place them in bottlenecks to delay the enemy even more. Keep an eye out for forests where they can get a defense bonus.

Side
If you're on the offense, place the Dawn Officers on the side instead of the middle. Use them to run past enemy troops and try to kill the enemy ranged units. If you're defending then use them as an extention of the Titan to block enemy troops.

Back
The marines belong in the back like any other ranged unit.



The unit balance of your army and weapon choice should be something like this:

• Titans - 25% Give them shields if you give marines bows, otherwise go for claws.
  
• Marines - 75% Give them crossbows if Titans get Claws.
  
• Dawn Officers - 25% (offensive only) Because they're outnumbered and are going in for the kill, give them a 2h battle axe to deal as much damage as possible.

To elaborate on the Titan and Marine weapon choices:
You're going to determine who's going to be the damage dealer here.

• Giving Titans shields and Marines bows means that the defense is for the titan and damage for the marine.
  
• Giving Titans Claws and Marines crossbows and shields means that the titan will deal more damage before the enemy arrives at the marines. The marines will get the point blank ability to finish the enemy off and their shields will give them the time to do so multiple times.

Economy

Science is your way to victory one way or the other. Be it to gain the science victory or boost your armies strength. One thing is for sure, it comes with a price. Because you're able to research quickly and unlock new technologies, you'll be stuck with loads of buildings in your construction queue.
You'll have to make a choice between buildings or armies. And both ask you to pay un upkeep. If you choose no to build more than you can keep up with. You'll lag behind and might lose a fight.

Theres also a choice to make wether you're going to focus on food or industry. Food will give you long term resources and growth potential. While industry can give you short term defensive responsiveness and stockpiles. Balancing the two out is possible, but risky and challenging.

Economy Priority

- You'll need this to keep up with your fast research.
- Different but both equally important for growth.
- Yes you have plenty, but you'll always need more. Especially at the end.
- You'll need it for the empire plan and to keep out of wars.

Resources

Era I
Spices

• +5 Approval on cities
  
• +50% Food on cities

Era III
Grassilk

• +10 Approval on cities
  
• +33% city fortification on cities

Moonleaf

• +10 Approval on cities
  
• +50% Science on cities

Era IV
Dust Orchid

• +10 Approval on Cities
  
• +25% FIDS on cities

Pixie Blood

• +10 Approval on cities
  
• +20% health regen on cities

[skaarf]

dawn officers r too good to pass up.

[Gilmoy]

I scoffed at Dawn Officers for a year, until I actually saw them in Era VI vs Endless with 688 hp :o I think they're the only unit in the game with Fast 2. Add any Movement Improvement ring and they get default 4 (cavalry) +2 (Fast 2) +1 = tactical speed 7(!!), which lets them pin any reinforcement flag and/or hit the back-rank enemy heroes ASAP.

All high-init/high-speed units exist for that one job, so stats don't really matter. They just need to survive 1-3 rounds, then run back to your healers. In some games, you can fill this role by assimilating a minor, and save a tech. Conversely, if you didn't get any good cavalry minors, and you want to fight battles with board control, Dawns are a serious option. Plan C is that you let the AI pin your flags, and fight defensively.

[Omgwtfbears]

I clad all my guys in holy resource gear, head to toe, and then kill everybody. Why do i need fortification ever, if i can just teleport in and smash face?
(to do this reliably you need to assimilate silics though)

[gGeorg]

Final note: Dawn officer is usless unit. More marines and ranged bonus from hero is MUCH better. Titan is favorably replaced by Urces you save a tech this way.

[gGeorg]

All trade, All road technology
might sounds good but roads helps enemyes to faster moves, you have teleport. So building roads lowers value Vaulters best weapon the teleport. As long as trade rquires roads, you dont need to bother trade technology too. If you capture a region with roads, destroy them so your enemyes will move slower. Also equip your army with movement trinket. Ranged hero has skill squirel +1 movement. Use your mobile army and teleport feature to strategicaly outmanever enemy. If they have army in one place, they can not move it quickly to other side of map, Vaulters could. Limit movements of your enemy and stay agile as possible.

3.Heading to a specific victory
if you want a scintific or diplomatic victory, just capture most valuable cityes - the capitals. Hold them and wait till you win. If an enemy attack, teleport your armies there and wipe them. Get noticed you can teleport an army inside the City under the Siege!

[gGeorg]

2. Research and empire strategy
Era1 Weapon, Era2 armor, Era3 Weapon+Armor, Era4 Armor, Era5 Weapon+Armor
Do not bother with Strenght of the Vault, or any other City defence technologies
Your teleport is the best defence tool, once you see an enemy just teleport your army there and wipe them. Offence is the best defence. Focuse your ranged heroes to the most left tree. Focus get +1 range skill ASAP.

[gGeorg]

Your guide is impressive. I would share my oportunist way of playing Vaulters. Offence is the best defence, teleport and technolover are the BEST Vaulters technology. Focus everything to ephasiye them. Keep moving and stike where it hurts.

1. Expansion
Technolover is your best friend. Glassteel T1 equipment with Holy technolover has similar powers like T3. This is enormous advantage which must be pressed in first half of the game. Focus on quickest Glassteel income (quest helps). Once you get T1 wepon it invented have prepared in advance your amy on your border, immediate rearm and assault closest enemy. Do not turtle, do not build any settler. Use giant firepower of Glassteel bows and conquerr land, 3-4 marines wipe the neemy city. Around turn 40 (normal speed) you should have 3 cityes. Two of them capitals.

[DimensiO]

@Lemonwood No not really, as I point out somewhere in the guide, each match is different so you need to adapt anyways.

[Lemonwood]

I doubt you reply but got any good Customs builds for the vaulters

[Magistar]

Nice guide:).

Boosters seem to be random per game. For example in my game Grassilk will give me +100% dust income and +10 approval instead of the 33% fortication bonus listed in this guide.