How to Win against Medium AI onwards

[SoulEater]

For context, I'm a veteran RTS player who can play quite decently, who recently got into Iron Harvest (got it from my friend on a 75% sale). All of that changed when my friend told me he got stomped by the medium AI for Iron Harvest.

At first, I was shocked as it took a lot to knock my friend out. Heck, he was the better player than me. Then I went in. I endured 7-8 battles, only won 1 by good chance and realization.

With that realization in mind, I set out to improve my winning strategy by thinking what I did right and finding for advice.

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General Guide to Start-Off (Annihilation Mode):
- This works for any faction (although some may do better).
- For reserves, get your basic hero / medic and a suitable weapon system (like a Heavy MG).
- To start, use your 3 units (2 basic soldier squads and 1 engineer squad) to capture resource nodes.
- Use your 1 engineer squad to open a weapons pack. More likely than that, that pack may turn the tide of battle. Regardless, you'll have another fighting squad on the battlefield.
- Train another engineer squad at your base and leave it there.
- Use the engineer to build a barracks.
- Use it to train your basic infantry or appropriate units.
- Then use that engineer to capture resource nodes, weapon packs etc.
- Try to get your 1st reserve out as soon as possible, so your weapon systems can be ready for your defensive line.
- Prevent the enemy from capturing your resource points.
- Focus on identifying bottlenecks / chokepoints that is defensive for you, but not in the direction the enemy is approaching.
- Then build your defensive line.
- Push your defensive lines forward. Remember, effective defensive units.
- When you're confident or see an opportunity, capture the enemy resource points
- Accumulate resources and upgrade your safe resource nodes.
- Upgrade your barracks when possible. Advance barracks / workshop has a cost reduction on units.

Here are my solid tips to win against Medium AI onwards:
- The essence of the strategy is to always build / find your advantage against your opponent and overwhelm them with it. At the same time, nullify / deny your opponent their advantage.
- If they have the advantage against you, move away and do not get caught in their advantage.
- Line of sight is very important here to determine what to do next as you're playing chess, to be a few moves ahead.
- Do not retreat unless you have to, as denying enemies positions for as long as possible makes them spend valuable time.
- Retreat rather than losing your units. Its never worth it to lose them, and its cheaper to reinforce them.
- Always, always identify bottlenecks / chokepoints and use them. Oppositely, do not get caught in a bottleneck or intersection.
- Always fight from one direction.
- Mobility is king here.
- You need cost effective units against the right units (Example: Machine gunners against infantry).
- Weapon systems like heavy MG, field cannons and mortars are very VERY useful. Do not discount them for their slow speed. They excel at holding positions and they are mobile vs bunkers (which are too expensive and not mobile). Btw, CHECK IF THEY DEPLOYED (XD).
- Elevation is actual important here. Higher elevation offers great protection, while lower elevation makes your units more vulnerable. This means that it is worthwhile to fight from hills facing downslope against your enemies.
- Slowly choke your opponents by attrition via stealing away / denying their resource nodes.
- Oppositely, if you have a lot of resources, you should spend them to get more troops.
- When you're ready, attack the enemy base using some effective infantry like flamethrowers, cannoners, machine gunners etc.
-Lastly, get some mechs but by then.. the battle should be won against the AI.

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Credits to UnderKingDuck from the IH discord server, some Steam threads I read and the good old "Art of War"..

Note: I'm pretty sure this advice is not so useful against players, but should work against the AI in skirmish. Not very relevant against campaign AI.

Note II: This guide is for players who want to improve. This guide is not exhaustive. Veteran experienced players will find this guide lacklustre.

Note III: The Art of War by Sun Tzu is very engaging read here.

[Blighted Wolf]

What you should add is that the first phase is always quite micro-management intense, especially on larger maps / maps with less obvious chokepoints it is very easy to unnecessarily lose a fight or even a unit because you got distracted elsewehere ... had to learn that the hard way.

Also, what I usually do is to try to kill off one of the enemies starter-combat-units at the beginning (gang up on him as soon as he splits his forces) and then take the weapon for myself - this often tips the balance in my favour for a while and gives me room to rotate hurt infantry units or capture ressource nodes without giving up my zones of denial.
Lastly, I'd say it is better to prioritize ressource crates over nodes during the first minutes and if you manage to kill an enemy combat-squad go for a second engineer and build the barracks with them, while the first captures the dropped weapons.

[Horden]

i can beat expert AI in Coh2 & 3, but in this game seems AI Have Damage Modifier against me

Medium Ai got Bonus Damage and i cant beat it

[SoulEater]

Originally posted by Horden:

i can beat expert AI in Coh2 & 3, but in this game seems AI Have Damage Modifier against me

Medium Ai got Bonus Damage and i cant beat it

I don't think its a damage modifier. It seems the AI gets more bonus resources.