how do you have fun with this game

[R4-D10]

im 6 hours in and it mostly just feels like bashing my head against a wall trying to figure it out, before you ask, ive done all the tutorials, and now ive just been playing practice against the insane bot but i loose most of the time (i have managed to beat it a few times).

additionally, theres so many parts of this game that are just incredibly annoying such as worst of all: battlefield powers. whats the point of them? they just seem like an instantly win the round button early game and have cooldowns meaning they arent consistent and when one is used you cant properly gauge the effectiveness of your army.

another annoying thing: some of the upgrades for units, such as acid on crawlers (it doesnt dissappear over time and is just a permanent incredibly annoying thing that destroys all non-flying units (most of them), and another annoying module being life link on certain units which just increases their health to completely ridiculous (and most of all, annoying) amounts which so far ive only managed to counter with a scorpion when the ai used steel ball with that upgrade.

also: air units. theres like 4 of them which means i dont have many options if i want to use them and the giant air units (overlord i think) are incredibly cool but the main attack they have has way too much travel time and little splash damage to make up for it. also wasps: they are fun but are completely useless alone so you need 2+ squads of them to actually do something and they can just get shredded by splash damage or anything that destroys swarms.

ok weh sorry for rambling, point is, the game probably gets good after you learn it but right now it just feels like bashing my head into a wall and i have so many small annoyances with the game that add up to make it incredibly frustrating to play.

edit: made the wall of text slightly easier to read
(also, unrelated question but: whats up with fire badgers? it seems like you cant normally recruit them but you seem to be able to get them from pre-round unit cards only)

[Hailspork]

Fire badgers: There are special units that can only be recruited from cards. My favorite are the sabertooth tanks.

Wasps are definitely not useless. They do a lot of damage and can act as aerial chaff against units like marskmen and melting points.

Battlefield powers help give you extra agency, as well as ensuring that the game doesn't devolve into a simple meta. They definitely can help you win a round, but they're not sure things. It also means that if one player has the stronger battlefield but low HP, they can't rely on not giving their all each turn, since a nuke or such can quickly turn the tide. And yes, I will sometimes intentionally use them to make sure my opponent can't easily gauge the strength of his army, though that also means I can't either.

If you're having that much trouble against an Insane AI, maybe try an easier one? Or even try people. IIRC, Insane is equivalent to about 600 MMR.

[Arti_Sel]

You gotta accept that you are bad and currently learning the game. And that's ok, maybe eventually you will git gud.

[some guy]

i bought the game and then i played it in pvp queue without doing the tutorials. i learned 1 thing ever match. it was fun.

[Bad Robot]

best advice i can give you is in practice/survival mode try everything you can. I mean vary up your strategy, buy upgrades or units you haven't before and test out the base perks constantly....it's Practice after all.

comboz are the fun to this game, it's not just "crawlers go fast, crawler bite, crawlers win"....it's more like "spawn more crawlers to distract them!....no, wait a second...crawlers + speed + air support + nuke + Big Laugh"

[Bad Robot]

Originally posted by Six Biomes:

i bought the game and then i played it in pvp queue without doing the tutorials. i learned 1 thing ever match. it was fun.

~do like this guy~

[Avallach]

I think the game makes a lot more sense in multiplayer - where you're not just countering what's on the board, but trying to give your opponent problems to solve at the same time. You don't really get that sense of play when it's just you vs a mediocre algorithm.

In most games I'd say that of course multiplayer isn't for everyone, and it's not something I'm drawn to as much myself now. But Mechabellum makes it really easy, the matchmaking is good enough and there's enough people still learning the game that you'll mostly get to play people around your level (whatever level that is). Losing doesn't even feel that bad, and if something seems overpowered you can just use it yourself until you find opponents who counter it, and learn from them.

So yeah, I think that's the answer to how you have fun with this game - just jump into multiplayer, try things out, get to watch cool mech battles each turn and don't take it too hard when you lose.

[Kraehe]

I know these were just some examples of unit abilites you don´t like, but heres some info about the two:

Acid is only really strong against higher hp unit. Fast units and units that outrange the acid simply don´t care.

And lifelink, while cool sometimes and certainly powerful if used correctly, can be countered with one melting point.
Say the enemy has 2 stacks of sledges (8 units) lifelinked together. This means their healthpool is now all their health combined. But this also means, once that health is depleted they ALL die. And melting point damage ramps up indefinetly.

[ArcadeVault]

The last surviving units of your enemy are your weaknesses. Always respond to that.

This advice will help you for a long time.