Do you use soldiers?

[Marcus]

Hi all, I been reading some guides and they sometimes discourage the use of soldiers due to their short range and making loud noise which attract more zombies. Few times I used them, I do feel they should have a small range increase. Do you find them useful or is it better to switch to snipers? Cheers all.

[Captain of the 4th Company]

In survival I'd go with archers (forgot the real name) and then jump straight to snipers.

In the campaign? Definitly soldiers. Almost always. They have good enough range, get good upgrades (durability etc), when they get to veteran they just demolish zombies if theu have upgrades and you can get them early in the campaign.
PS. Lucifers are also super great in tje campaign but take some time to get.

[Mikey's Zombie]

60% through campaign on nightmare almost never build soldiers never spec'd soldiers in spec tree, dont even start each map with a soldier

Dev's have repeatedly said however that many builds and specs can win you the game and somebody specifically won only building soldiers. I personally just don't bother. At most I build 25 archers to early clear maps but even thats a rarity before I spam snipers and towers.

However against harpies I'm building hella soldiers to stand infront of my snipers if they arn't vets yet, hell even if they are they can be cannon fodder, works really well for me

[Drascalicus]

Soldiers are very good all around units. While Captain is right about some problems with soldiers, I would argue that soldiers are much better until you can make snipers effectively. They are great defenders and can hold their own very well, along with allowing you to push into runner and executive territory. The exception to this is map 4.

Watch a few of DeadlyOptics tutorials and some of his videos. He's one of the best players (streamers at least) who constantly ran 800% difficulty.

[amordron]

So far ~60% done nightmare and havent made or even teched into snipers and been using only soilders mainly. By specing mainly into one made me able to get luci really early to make swarm missions a joke (just stand there and win even on nightmare) while getting shock tower + stone walls that has made all the holdout missions easy no wave has even managed to break one layer of walls thx to shock towers the stone walls are overkill still but I got knowing ill need at some point. Just to unlock snipers I would of needed to spend more points than upgraded soldiers than have to tech them every mission in the wood workshop slowing you down more just not worth it. Untill venoms start comming durring waves witch should be soon snipers i'm going to say are meh. While with +2 shock tower range I don't think I will need snipers to counter them even.

[Evilsod]

The only frustrating part about Soldiers is that in the campaign they seem to deliberately put Iron somewhere further away in almost every map. I just lost the Narrow Pass level because my Rangers simply couldn't cut it for defence and I couldn't find Iron anywhere in time for the first surprisingly large horde wave.

[amordron]

Originally posted by Evilsod:

The only frustrating part about Soldiers is that in the campaign they seem to deliberately put Iron somewhere further away in almost every map. I just lost the Narrow Pass level because my Rangers simply couldn't cut it for defence and I couldn't find Iron anywhere in time for the first surprisingly large horde wave.

Get train transport for iron and stone makes it so you can get the soilder center on day 4 constantly witch is good than pick up stone later on without worry as don’t need it for anything else for a long time. The iron from the train alone is enough to clear most missions with only that.

[MagnusGrey]

Clearing campain on brutal. I like soliders, they are tough enough to tank some while clearing and good in the front towers for big fights.

[Evilsod]

Originally posted by amordron:

Get train transport for iron and stone makes it so you can get the soilder center on day 4 constantly witch is good than pick up stone later on without worry as don’t need it for anything else for a long time. The iron from the train alone is enough to clear most missions with only that.

Yeah I know... unfortunately thats 480 research points away. I haven't even bothered placing down a stone Quarry in recent missions, I'm hoping to make it through a mission and get a hero level for the big research numbers...

It does seem a tad ridiculous that I'm almost at 30% and it feels like I barely have any tech, yet the simple act of having certain ones would trivialise most missions.

[end_game_13]

Soldiers make that Reload relay happen.. if only you could set them int a skrimish formation so they wouldn't body block their own team mates when moving to the back line to heal.

rangers just taking a hard hit due to the over kill bug.. when twenty rangers all target the same single zombie.. might as well have them in stacks of four. will do the same damage

[amordron]

Originally posted by end_game_13:

Soldiers make that Reload relay happen.. if only you could set them int a skrimish formation so they wouldn't body block their own team mates when moving to the back line to heal.

rangers just taking a hard hit due to the over kill bug.. when twenty rangers all target the same single zombie.. might as well have them in stacks of four. will do the same damage

Overkill bug has already been fixed as per last patch.

[Vambran]

Archers can't a hit. One spitter can wipe out a army of 20+ archers if your not paying attention. a soldier can afk and shrug it off.

A typical Game for me is Archers spam till farms come online. Then Soldier Spam till map is cleared. Then Sniper Spam till all my towers are filled up for final wave.

[Crukih]

If the guide is old they would discourage soldiers as they used to be bad. Now they are fantastic. Great for clearing and sticking them in towers offsets their short range. You can do exceptionally well with just them. There’s lots of tech upgrades in campaign and the soldier only achievement was the easiest of the three. The heal so quickly that they can tank, kite for a bit, get healed and continue tanking.

[Nara]

Yep. Once they reach veterancy you come to appreciate how quickly your golden boys mop up infected and how tanky they are.

[Qiox]

Originally posted by Marcus:

Hi all, I been reading some guides and they sometimes discourage the use of soldiers due to their short range and making loud noise which attract more zombies. Few times I used them, I do feel they should have a small range increase. Do you find them useful or is it better to switch to snipers? Cheers all.

Gotta be careful with guides. Soldiers were buffed considerably a few months ago. They can now tank a lot of damage and regen their health very quickly. Much of the balance of the game was changed during early access. Guides written a while ago won't be accurate when evaluating the units.

On Brutal difficulty, a group 6 veteran soldiers can be put on Chase and you only have to check on them once in a while to make sure they don't spread out too much. They'll just keep chewing through the zombies.

[.]

I don't use soldier. It requires iron and I don't have iron transportation tech
I usually build a lot of archer early and i will just keep using them