General build order?

[Lampros]

Specific build orders for SM and the Guard would be helpful, too - as I intend to play those two exclusively.

[Alpharius]

Why dont you play the game and find what plays well for you.
Buildings? Or units?
Your question is really open ended, the way you develop your research has an affect on this.

[Lampros]

Originally posted by Warsmith:

Why dont you play the game and find what plays well for you.
Buildings? Or units?
Your question is really open ended, the way you develop your research has an affect on this.

Buildings. I am playing but I can't figure it out - and there are no guides on this :(

[Kabookie]

edit: removed my SM order, i have a better one ill post shortly.

For am. Wait till patch to fix econ will be this month

[Hawthorne]

I play AM vs. AI and have experimented with various build orders. I typically play without quests enabled. AM economy is pretty tight so you can't afford to tech into much off the "must haves". To me, those must-haves are:

1) Lord Commissar (possibly 2)
2) Scout Sentinels (at least 1)
3) Basilisk (3-4)
4) Leman Russ Battle Tank (4-5)
5) Techpriest Enginseer (repair armor)
5) Some infantry to scout/sponge damage, through they become less necessary the later into the game you get

Nice-To-Haves:
a) Hydra (esp. facing Necron)
b) Primaris Psyker (extra anti-armor plus at-will scouting for arty)
c) Heavy Weapons Squad (great vs. armored enemies but are squishy AF)

In all my matches I have never used Bullgryns or had time to research into the Wyrdvane Psykers. Air is a luxury.

For building, your first city must have access to good stone deposits. Several +20% tiles is good enough. If you have just a +food start, you can try going all-infantry (Guardsmen + Heavy Weapons) but you will be gimped in the medium game without armor.

[Quasicide]

It is worth point out, Hawthorne has mentioned a good build, but there are other solid builds too.

I find Heavy Weapons to be must haves when running a vast, WW2 Eastern Front scale, Infantry army. A huge amount of infantry armed with Frag, Krak, Med-Packs and Heavy Weapons can often crush your enemies before they can R&D and mass produce those technological terrors. :D

My point being, there is more than one way to play both the Guard and the Space Marines.

Are you looking for a buildings build order, R&D build order, unit build order, or the whole thing?

[Nitroglycerine]

isn't the joy of 4x games figuring out the build orders rather than having them handed to you?
In any case, searching "build order" really should of brought this thread up, but I'll link it :)

AM build order: https://steamcommunity.com/app/489630/discussions/0/3216031607508204956/#c1742229167175111466
- While lots of people like infantry builds as AM, I find AM infantry (both heavy gunners and guardsmen) becomes utterly obsolete around turn 50-60. Once units like MegaNobz and Triarch Praetorians show up, they're just fodder.
- Thus, having basilisk and sentinels transitions better towards Leman Russ tanks.


SM build order (infantry)
This video is way back in v1.0.5, but SM has barely changed which makes the build order still work very well. Basically: rush out 2 captains, and 1 chaplain. Then add infantry or vehicles. Double captain earning influence allows you to equip up your leaders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHxZOTFA5_M&index=2&list=PLnRMVcUfWyPvQgISXWTx5dgwogR8SHT4x&t=0s

Infantry Build:
- tactical squads with grenades handle other infantry very well.
- devastators let you kill robots early on. However, they're really terrible for pushing, and their overwatch is generally wasted on other infantry units.

Vehicle Build:
- SM bikes are decent skirmishers, but really easily killed. Hunters are great for taking down skimmers (e.g. heavy destroyer). Predatators are devastators that can move and shoot, and actually have hit points.

I generally like to move from tactical squads > devastators > predators + thunderfire cannons (infantry unit) > apothecarions > terminators

[Lampros]

Originally posted by Kabookie:

My infrantry build. It's not set in stone as the map can determine what you need to go but in general
Sm: drop at req or research node.
If req: research, infantry, req, hero, req node tile, maybe another req or Influence if map isn't great, pop, orbital and/or loyalty (depending if you got chaplain or dropped fortress so that you stay above 0 loyalty), Second infrantry.

If research: infrantry, claim research node, as above..

Sometimes I'll go straight infranry, hero then 2 resource buildings, pop

Fortress depends on nodes gathered but generally best to hit 3-4 fortresses for resources. In general: req, research, power, pop

But you need to understand that I dont play more than 1 hero of each type and dont use orbital bombardment for SM

I have YouTube vids but they are out of date now with the loyalty change.

What you research has changes to the order. It's a bit hard to just give buildings when the start position is not static from game to game.

For am. Wait till patch to fix econ will be this month

Thanks so much!

May I ask why you only restrict yourself to 1 hero each type and no orbital bombardment? Fluff-reasons - or are they inefficient?

Originally posted by Hawthorne:

I play AM vs. AI and have experimented with various build orders. I typically play without quests enabled. AM economy is pretty tight so you can't afford to tech into much off the "must haves". To me, those must-haves are:

1) Lord Commissar (possibly 2)
2) Scout Sentinels (at least 1)
3) Basilisk (3-4)
4) Leman Russ Battle Tank (4-5)
5) Techpriest Enginseer (repair armor)
5) Some infantry to scout/sponge damage, through they become less necessary the later into the game you get

Nice-To-Haves:
a) Hydra (esp. facing Necron)
b) Primaris Psyker (extra anti-armor plus at-will scouting for arty)
c) Heavy Weapons Squad (great vs. armored enemies but are squishy AF)

In all my matches I have never used Bullgryns or had time to research into the Wyrdvane Psykers. Air is a luxury.

For building, your first city must have access to good stone deposits. Several +20% tiles is good enough. If you have just a +food start, you can try going all-infantry (Guardsmen + Heavy Weapons) but you will be gimped in the medium game without armor.

Thank you as well!

Also, may I ask why you play without quests? I have thus far not done so either, but only because one guide claimed that I shouldn't as a beginner. But I was intending to enable them once I master the game.

Originally posted by Quasicide:

It is worth point out, Hawthorne has mentioned a good build, but there are other solid builds too.

I find Heavy Weapons to be must haves when running a vast, WW2 Eastern Front scale, Infantry army. A huge amount of infantry armed with Frag, Krak, Med-Packs and Heavy Weapons can often crush your enemies before they can R&D and mass produce those technological terrors. :D

My point being, there is more than one way to play both the Guard and the Space Marines.

Are you looking for a buildings build order, R&D build order, unit build order, or the whole thing?

Hi, I am interested in mainly what buildings to construct at the beginning, but of course I am interested in research and unit priority as well! ;)

Originally posted by Nitroglycerine:

isn't the joy of 4x games figuring out the build orders rather than having them handed to you?
In any case, searching "build order" really should of brought this thread up, but I'll link it :)

AM build order: https://steamcommunity.com/app/489630/discussions/0/3216031607508204956/#c1742229167175111466
- While lots of people like infantry builds as AM, I find AM infantry (both heavy gunners and guardsmen) becomes utterly obsolete around turn 50-60. Once units like MegaNobz and Triarch Praetorians show up, they're just fodder.
- Thus, having basilisk and sentinels transitions better towards Leman Russ tanks.


SM build order (infantry)
This video is way back in v1.0.5, but SM has barely changed which makes the build order still work very well. Basically: rush out 2 captains, and 1 chaplain. Then add infantry or vehicles. Double captain earning influence allows you to equip up your leaders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHxZOTFA5_M&index=2&list=PLnRMVcUfWyPvQgISXWTx5dgwogR8SHT4x&t=0s

Infantry Build:
- tactical squads with grenades handle other infantry very well.
- devastators let you kill robots early on. However, they're really terrible for pushing, and their overwatch is generally wasted on other infantry units.

Vehicle Build:
- SM bikes are decent skirmishers, but really easily killed. Hunters are great for taking down skimmers (e.g. heavy destroyer). Predatators are devastators that can move and shoot, and actually have hit points.

I generally like to move from tactical squads > devastators > predators + thunderfire cannons (infantry unit) > apothecarions > terminators

Thanks for the link!; I will read right away.

As for learning on my own: Sure, that's important. But I feel that is a next stage process. If you don't have even the basics down, then learning itself is not possible - or at least greatly hindered. For instance, to read literature in one language (and ultimately write), you need to learn the actual words and grammatical structure first, right? ;)

[Hawthorne]

Originally posted by Lampros:

Also, may I ask why you play without quests? I have thus far not done so either, but only because one guide claimed that I shouldn't as a beginner. But I was intending to enable them once I master the game.

It's because, while the first few AM missions give you nice bonuses when you complete them, the last two quests will each spawn hordes of tough units around your base. It becomes a pain to avoid completing that third-to-last quest -- essentially you have to forego building any Influence buildings, which can be a drag.

[Lampros]

Originally posted by Hawthorne:

Originally posted by Lampros:

Also, may I ask why you play without quests? I have thus far not done so either, but only because one guide claimed that I shouldn't as a beginner. But I was intending to enable them once I master the game.

It's because, while the first few AM missions give you nice bonuses when you complete them, the last two quests will each spawn hordes of tough units around your base. It becomes a pain to avoid completing that third-to-last quest -- essentially you have to forego building any Influence buildings, which can be a drag.

Ah, ok.

So you can't fight other factions while you take care of the quest enemies?

Also, is this an issue only with AM?

[Hawthorne]

You can theoretically fight other factions while dealing with the quest enemies, yes. In theory. :)

I've heard that other factions' quests can also spawn enemies (Necrons spawning for Space Marines, I think), but I don't know the exact details.