Basic Multiplayer Strategies

This guide is mainly for (somewhat) new players, who want to play multiplayer without getting crushed completely by more experienced players. I will focus on common pitfalls and general hints for 1v1 with standard rules, without talking much about unit compositions, micro etc.

This guide is not supposed to tell the one and only way to do things in Tooth And Tail. It might not even be the best way in all cases.
It is simply meant to help you get started and to keep you on your feet for a while, so you can improve from there.

About this Guide

This guide assumes you know the controls of the game (if you don't, you should play the first chapter of the campaign or look at some other guide) and some basic vocabulary, like unit tiers etc.
If you're having trouble understanding anything, feel free to ask in the comments. I'll gladly answer there or, in case of frequent questions, include the answers in the guide / make a new one.

Unit Selection

Let's keep this short for now: if you just started playing this game (in multiplayer), I'd very much recommend choosing Squirrels, then fill up the rest of your deck with whatever you like.

Squirrels are nice generalists and not as vulnerable as many other units. I'm not saying every combination containing Squirrels is good, but it's good enough to get started. (I'm not saying decks without Squirrels are bad, either, but definitely harder to play.)

Early Game

I'll focus on safe play in this chapter - early aggression is not easy to pull off efficiently, so you better first learn to counter it. This will also help you discover weaknesses of your enemy.

Farm Up and Scout

First step: build a farm!

That means: you queue one, because you start with 0 food, and a farm costs 60 - but as soon as you got that, the farm will start building.

Second step: discover the world!

As soon as the farm is queued, leave your base and explore the map.
Most importantly:

• find your enemy's base
  
• know paths between them
  
• know possible expansions for you and your enemy

Here's a great ~5min video by Kerpa showing how to scout and how to react:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1780067273

Keep farming up!

Make sure to be back at your base in time to build the next farm, whenever you have no farm queued while being close to 60 food. Try never to have more than 60 food until you reach 8 farms!
Whoever builds farms faster will have the better economy, expand better, build a better army, and these advantages will most likely snowball throughout the game.

As soon as you found your enemy: count their farms!

Counting farms in the early game is the easiest way to find out whether the enemy is doing something sneaky. If they have less farms than you, they are either inexperienced, trying to fool you or trying to play super aggressively.

Be Wary / Survive!

Less enemy farms? - Investigate!

If the enemy has less farms than you at any moment: find out whether they spent their food on something different!

• Briefly look around in their territory, to see whether they built warrens or defensive structures.
  
• If they didn't: burrow back and see if they built a gristmill or a mole warren near your base.
  
• If they didn't do that either: continue scouting and check back at their base... they might rush a tier 2 unit.

In case of early structures: stay (slightly) ahead on economy!

If they placed a single warren close to their base, that's cool. The enemy basically gave up the economy race, but they likely won't have their army up soon enough to really hurt you. Just try to stay one farm ahead of them, to win in the long run, and then build a warren of your own (preferably Squirrel, something cheap and quick, nothing fancy). Preferably build it close to your base, where your pigs can protect it.
Your units will be ready a bit later than theirs, but they need to travel across the map and your pigs will also shoot at the enemy... in any case: if they are only one warren ahead, they cannot really hurt you, except with sneaky / well-timed attacks.

Oh, and if they built defenses: laugh and build more farms! Defensive structures won't attack you unless you attack the enemy, so you can comfortably increase your economic advantage.

Keep an eye on your new farms/warrens

The only way an enemy with an advantage of only one warren can really hurt you, is by sniping farms / structures under construction: They start with low HP, so even a single lizard might quickly destroy it, if it arrives at the right time.
In order to avoid that: make sure to check nearby high-grounds for enemies, as well as the likely path(s) from their base to yours.
If you only see their commander: watch them closely, because you can see if they rally their troops. (They might just wave their flag to fool you, but better be safe.)
If you see an enemy unit approaching that would likely kill a farm under construction: sell the farm just before it can be attacked. You get a full refund, they might catch a few shots from your pigs and defenders, might even get killed. You win this engagement.



Early expansions, sieges and contains

These can be mean... with an early expansion, the enemy might try to siege your base or contain you with defensive structures. Not all early expansions are an issue, though. Only if they are close to your base or in a position from which the enemy can seal off an important part of the map (= most expansions) from you. In any other case: laugh and proceed as usual, the enemy just wasted 60 food.
If they are in a position to siege or contain you, however, build units as quickly as possible and move them to the new base's position. Don't be afraid of selling a farm - your enemy just spent 60 food on an expansion that won't produce food without further investments. That means they should not be able to have a bigger army, either: take their new base down as soon as possible. If they are trying to build defensive structures or warrens there, focus them while they are under construction! If they already got some defensive structure(s) up: try and go to their main base and kill some pigs... building an expansion + other structures there likely means their main base is poorly defended.

Early moles
There are many guides on how to deal with moles, but most of them refer to the "old" moles. (Moles before Patch 1.4 required no warren.)
Current moles in multiplayer require a warren, priced like Squirrels or any other tier 1 unit. The difference is: their warrens are smaller, have less health (24 instead of 36), lose 2 HP for every Mole they produced, they can be built anywhere, and the first Mole of each warren spawns as soon as it is paid! The last two points make them a considerable threat in the early game, although they usually lose against any other t1 units - but you need to be very careful with your own structures, because Moles can destroy them in no time!

So instead of putting down defenses, you better get your own tier 1 units (any unit, except pigeon). Sell a farm under construction, if necessary, and build a warren as soon as possible. Keep it close to your pigs, but not on the side facing the mole warren... else the Mole(s) will destroy it before your units are up.

• With Squirrels or Lizards: dance with the moles! You are ranged, they are not. Ideally hit & retreat towards your pigs, which will help you kill the moles. If you can, destroy the warren - it is squishy and expensive.
  
• With Toads: they're generally not a good idea in the early game, but even they can defeat Moles, usually by forcing them to explode on the Mole warren (two Toads can instantly destroy a Mole warren, but it takes four to kill a single Mole).
  
• With Moles: Like with Squirrels or Lizards, they provide enough tankiness & damage to defend your Pigs, but they're even better at destroying the enemy Mole warren. The maths are simple: The warren is worth 60 Food and takes 4 hits, Moles are only worth 20 Food (+5, if you consider the warren damage), but they take 6 hits.

A single Mole can only kill a building farm or an injured Pig. Two Moles can kill a corner Pig. In all other cases it takes three or more Moles. You'll need additional units to defend against 3+ Moles. Five or six Moles might even destroy your Mill!

Beware: Even if your farm is already halfway finished, a Mole built next to it has a good chance of hitting the farm 2-3 times under construction (then killing the low health pig)! Against early Moles, counter-aggression usually is the best defense!

Build an Army

What is it Good for?

Don't build an army just for having it!
Build it either to crush your enemy, or to defend against your enemy.
If you can comfortably defend, but you see no chance to crush your enemy, yet: Farm up! Expand! Control the map!
If you can stay safe and economically ahead of your enemy, that's way more important than getting the biggest army ever seen.
If the enemy notices they cannot compete with your economy, they are forced to attack you somehow... and then you have the defenders' advantage on your side.*
As long as they don't manage to pull of something sneaky (sniping Gristmills or other high value targets) or just slowly causing you losses by quick attacks and retreats, you'll only get farther ahead. Eventually, your enemy will starve, be weak enough to get overrun, surrender or - most likely - desperately attack you, lose most of their army, and surrender afterwards.

*) To learn more about defender's advantage, have a look at PremiumBow's guide:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1588509504

Start with 1

Yes, rushing Snakes etc. can be viable, but you need a good estimate on the distance to your enemy, terrain advantages and so on to pull that off, successfully. Generally, it's very risky, so please start with tier 1 unless you feel really comfortable and probably don't need this guide, anyway. (It's okay... I'm not even hurt...)
You should usually have at least two or three tier 1 warrens and their units up before you go for a higher tier. It depends on the map, the aggressiveness of your opponent, possibly static defense to protect you while you tech up, but to get started: have at least two, the more the safer... except if the enemy can counter your tier 1 units!

When to Tech Up

Teching Up (investing time and food into units of a higher tier) makes sense when:

1. you need them, because your enemy counters your current army (i.e. Toads VS Lizards, Skunks VS Squirrels, Chameleons...)
   
2. the enemy likely cannot kill you during their build time
   
3. they enable you to better hurt your enemy

1. pretty much forces you to tech up - but you might consider building defensive structures in order to tech up safely.
2. is a prerequisite for 3., whereas you might just have to take the risk in case 1.
3. is nice... but don't risk too much!

In any other case: why would you need to tech up?
Maybe because other units scale better. Most units require a tile to stand on in order to attack, so units of a higher tier can be more efficient. Anyway: Squirrels and Lizards usually scale quite well, unless they are countered (e.g. by units with splash damage). So, you mostly have to worry about counters.

Very Rough Counter Guide

Some units are very, very efficient against others. They are called counters.
The most important counters are:

• Toads wreck Lizards
  
• Skunks wreck Squirrels
  
• Chameleons wreck tier 1 units (at least in small numbers) and Skunks
  
• Flying units wreck units with no anti-air weapon (surprise!)
  
• Snakes wreck Pigs and any high HP target (if they can retreat or if the fight takes long)
  
• Pigeons counter Snake poke (any kind of slow/drizzling damage, really)
  
• Lizards wreck Snakes and Snipers (Balloons and Fox)
  
• Boar wrecks all tier 1 units (except Pigeons)
  
• Fox wrecks Falcons
  
• Ferrets wreck MGs

All of that is not because of armor types or anything (there are no armor types in Tooth And Tail), it's just because of... reasons. You'll find out. It's very logical, if you think about it. No time to explain, here. :P

Anyway, this list should be a good start for you to know when you've got a good chance against the enemy or when you should switch to other units urgently.

In most cases, people will play mixed armies, though, which are harder to counter - and so should you, unless you counter them.

Where to Build Warrens?

Depends...
First warrens (please let them be tier 1 warrens!) are usually placed just next to your farms. Better put at least the first two in a safe spot, so your pigs can help defending them. When you have a small army, you can put them in front of your pigs, too, so they tank a bit of damage in case of an attack.
Why? - Because in the early game, pig tankiness and damage is relatively important, and losing one of two warrens quickly causes you to run out of reinforcements. As soon as armies grow bigger, pig damage does not have such a big impact anymore, and losing a warren does no longer hurt so much. Warrens can take many more shots than any tier 1 unit (even more than any tier 2 or some tier 3 units), so the enemy might waste firepower on your warrens if you keep your units on top or behind these. Last but not least: If you lose some units, and the fight goes on, reinforcements will spawn just where you need them in 10... 9... 8...
Boom! - Defender's advantage!

Two important exceptions exist:

1. Warrens on high ground: If high ground is in squirrel range of your farms or other warrens, consider putting some warren(s) up there, so the enemy cannot profit from that territory advantage so easily or put the warrens in a safe spot (behind your farms). Building warrens at the foot of a hill that is easily accessible by your enemy is very dangerous, unless you have vision on the high ground - your warrens just might get destroyed before you even see the enemy.
   
2. The enemy has an army advantage: e.g. if they put down a warren first. In that case, keep your warrens safely behind or at least on the flanks of your Pigs. Otherwise the enemy might just use the superior army to destroy your warrens. If you lose one warren very early, the enemy might get reinforcements faster than you and eventually kill you (even if they lost more units at the start). Better rely on Pig tanking and pistols as a support for your army.

In case you go for an aggressive playstyle: place your warrens as close to the enemy as possible, of course. That way you can rush sooner and, if needed, retreat to the warrens and let them tank for you. That's riskier, but in case you see the enemy do something greedy: punish them quickly!

If the enemy is already approaching: preferably build your warrens behind your farms, or on the sides! That way they don't get attacked under construction, and they might even help you protect the flanks.

You generally don't want to lose your warrens, of course - if you cannot save them: sell them! (But keep in mind that also sells the units.)
Tier 2 and 3 warrens should generally be built in a safe place, maybe even hidden, because you don't want your enemy to know you are teching up. If they scout a tier 3 warren, the enemy will even know the exact type of unit you are building there, so they can prepare a counter. If they scouted it, consider selling the warren and quickly get tier 1 units instead. The enemy might even be doomed if they build Snakes against your Boar, but you quickly decided to get Lizards, instead.

Oh, and mole warrens are a different story, too. They are bad at tanking shots, so build them in a safer place, if you are building moles at home. (You know you can also build them outside your territory, even during an atttack, do you? - Great for offensive play!) They are small, so you can also use them to fill gaps, in case building space is scarce.

Good (and Bad) Habits

Keep Scouting!

Be aware your enemy can sell stuff at any moment for its full price, including units (as long as it's not damaged). That means they can go from building two farms to building two warrens just after you scouted them. You have to check again and again, whether your last bit of information is still correct, or whether you'll have to prepare for a different threat - or maybe get a chance to take advantage of a temporary weakness.

Things to watch out for:

• Counters: Is your current unit composition good against theirs or their composition good against yours? In the first case, you can probably hurt them, in the latter: Change your units! Quick!
  
• Greed: When your opponent is getting a better economy, you might have a strong enough army to punish them - do it quickly, before it pays off!
  
• Teching up: When your opponent starts building tier 2 or tier 3 units - these are a big investment, take a while to finish. You might have a chance to hurt them before they get these units, get better units yourself or improve your own economy (because they likely won't be able to punish your greed while teching up).
  
• Turtling: Defensive players might have something to hide! If you are sure they don't: get a better economy while they cannot hurt you. If you cannot scout properly: they might tech up behind their defensive wall!
  
• Sneakiness: They might build expansions or mole warrens in unexpected places - these can be a threat to you, but you might have a good chance to hit something undefended, too.
  
• Attacks: Defend!, of course...
  
• Base race: Well, that's special. You know a player instantly loses if they have no Gristmills or Campfires left, right? That's why some players, if they have the weaker army, avoid a clash of armies and go for a base race, instead - especially when they have more (spread out) bases, Lizards or Moles (which are faster than most units at taking down bases) under their control. It's best to prepare for that case, either by taking bases in advance or leaving some defenders at home. If it's too late for that: Try to grab backup Gristmills as soon as you can (Gristmills build 1/3 faster than Campfires), make sure to keep at least one base, try to catch the enemy's army or destroy their bases faster - whatever seems easiest in the specific situation.
  
• Fake out: Whatever they started when you looked - they might have gone for something different right after that. Fake outs can really screw an opponent, but they also cost some time, so your enemy might be temporarily vulnerable.

Go and see the world, instead of hanging around in your base!

Keep an eye on the Mini-Map!

Like... always!

It helps you navigate across the map - some obstacles or small chokes might otherwise not be clearly visible, especially when there are trees and such in front. The mini-map gives you a very clear idea of which paths are walkable and which aren't.

Since your commander's vision is very limited, the mini-map helps you to see enemy movements.
Especially the commander is easy to spot, and it's probably the most important thing. Sure, the commander as such cannot harm you, but they cannot pull off mole cheese if you keep an eye on them, they cannot attack you while the commander is running somewhere far from your base, so generally: knowing where the commander is helps you to know whether you are (currently) safe.
And since you should be out scouting the enemy most of the time, the mini-map also helps you to know whether the enemy scouted your stuff... keep an eye on your sneaky expand, your backline moles, your tier 3 warren - and consider changing your plans if you saw the enemy commander scouting it.

Listen!

Some sounds may tell you what your eyes cannot see, for example:

• a Gristmill getting built (you know the sound)
  
• a finished Gristmill (you can occasionally hear the windmill wings)
  
• commander footsteps (especially on wooden surfaces or in water, you can hear the enemy commander very well)
  
• Wolf yelling, Owl puking, Ferret shots... some units you usually hear long before you see them
  
• a cabin being destroyed (sound of a structure being destroyed and you neither owned it nor destroyed it... what could that be, hmm?)
  
• a Campfire (fire crackling)

Only defend when you really have to!

aka "stop building MGs!"

Seriously, don't just build an MG or any kind of defensive structure because you want to feel safe - only build them if you know your enemy otherwise has the power to roll over you. An even army is not a threat! They need a way stronger army (or much better micro management) to attack into your base and win.

The issue with defensive structures is: once you built them, the enemy knows attacking you is a bad idea, but you spent some of your food - you paid for your enemy's safety, as well, because you lack the army to attack them. Any somewhat experienced opponent will laugh and build more farms, expand, build more farms, secure the map, build an army 3x as valuable as yours, laugh again... and eventually destroy you with sheer power.

So: obvious defensive play over a longer period of time is a truly bad idea.
Defenses are fine to protect you when you're otherwise vulnerable, but make sure to sell them as soon as they're no longer needed. You can buy nicer things if you scrap that old MG behind your farmed out first base (actually, if it's already farmed out, you should have sold that damn thing minutes ago).

For more information on the strengths and weaknesses of different play styles (and when you should switch them), see PremiumBow's Guide:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1586986260

Invest Like a Longcoat!

Make sure you don't float food!
Always build something - preferably what you currently need (see PremiumBow's Guide, above).
Just make sure your food does something: make more food, hurt the enemy or at least keep them from hurting you. Stockpiled food, however, does exactly nothing for you!

Even if you are saving for a bigger investment (e.g. tier 3 warren/unit for 180 food), it is best to keep building cheap warrens or defenses or farms, quickly sell as much as needed, then buy your tier 3, and continue.
Why?

• Fool the enemy! - Your enemy can more easily find out what's up if you are straight up saving food... if they are counting your farms and warrens, they can easily know you are banking food - they don't know whether you are going to sell the warrens you just built.
  
  
• Stay safe! - In case the enemy suddenly attacks, you will be ready to defend faster - those tier 1 warrens you just built as a filler might come in handy... you don't have to sell them, in case of an emergency. (You can still sell them after you defended and go for the tier 3 when your enemy retreats.)
  
  
• Buy 3, sell 2! Invest bigger! - You can overinvest in tier 1 warrens for fast reinforcements: three tier 1 warrens can quickly produce three tier 1 units (10s for the warrens + 10s for all three units), whereas a single tier 1 warren would require twice the time (10s + 3x 10s). If you then sell two of the three warrens, you keep those three units (because one warren is enough for them) and get back 120 food - just enough to build a bigger warren. Yay!

Timings

This section focuses on the question: When?
Timing is very important, because in many cases, you will have to react very soon in order to prevent the enemy from getting a serious advantage. If you get the timing right and destroy their game plan, you are very likely to be in a better spot afterwards.

One rule of thumb for anything you build (and intend to keep):
preferably build it right after your enemy scouted your base (and burrowed back home)!
That way you keep them clueless for as long as possible.

When do you attack?

Usually only in these cases:

• When you feel comfortable that your army outmatches the enemy's army + defender's advantage so much that you can trade well (i.e. they lose more value than you).
  
  
• When you absolutely have to, because else the enemy will have/get a serious advantage you cannot otherwise respond to (usually economy, map control or a tier 3 unit).
  
  
• When you want to decimate both armies, because your coming units fare better against low army counts - that's usually a Fox, which hits best when the battlefield is almost empty.
  
  
• When you want to distract from a devious plan, like a risky tier 3 or hidden expansion going up.

However, in the last case (and almost any other case), it's usually better to just fake attacks, poke and harrass your enemy. That means you position your army close to the opponents' base, ready to retreat at all times, because you know you would not trade well in a direct confrontation. Ideally, you have some units with long range and/or high-single target damage with you (usually Ferrets, Fox, Snakes), which you can command individually to hit and run, keeping the enemy busy. Running around with lizards can also work.

All of that is risky, and it keeps you from caring about your own stuff, so you should really mostly do it when you've already started some bigger project (t3 or greedy expansion), and you don't want your enemy to scout that.

When do you defend?

(mostly stolen from advice JetEriksen gave on Discord)

As said in the "Good/Bad Habits" section: putting down defenses without a specific reason will likely cost you the game, because your enemy then knows you cannot punish them for getting an economic advantage and/or late game units.

Here's a few scenarios in which it makes sense to build bullet hives, which are the most standard defensive structures, because they are quick to build (10s) and they help defending against most early units.

1. You know your opponent is going to attack, their army is on the move and should arrive in ~15 seconds. In this case, prepare for the attack, smack up some bullet hives and prepare to defend. Once the fight is over, or if your opponent changes their mind, sell your bullet hives!
   
   
2. You have tech coming up, and you need to buy time for it.
   If you're building several tier 2 units or a tier 3, your opponent might respond by trying to end the game before you get them up. In this case, bullet hives are amazing to provide you the defense you need until your tech is up. Once your tier 2 or tier 3 is out, sell your bullet hives!
   
   
3. You're being rushed. MG is one of the fastest ways to respond to early aggression, so if your opponent is building mole warrens right outside your base, or if he is building early lizards/squirrels and you can shut down the early aggression with a well placed MG. That can be done.
   BUT AGAIN, remember to sell your MG when it outlived its use!

You can also use bullet hives in order to support an attack, rather than to defend your base:

1. You are poking with Snake/Ferret/Fox and you have a MG close to your opponents base to create a safe space for your poking unit to retreat into. This makes it harder for your opponent to answer your poking by making it harder to engage onto you.
   
   
2. You have map control. This means you have a majority of the resources on the map, and you can "wall in" your opponent with structures. This is often referred to as a 'contain'.

In these cases, you usually keep the defensive structures up as long as the poking or the contain work for you. However, in the following cases you better give up your current strategy and sell your defensive structures:

• if the enemy finds a good answer to your poking or is very likely to break your contain
  
• or you need to react to them getting a strong tech advantage / ahead in economy

That way you can still change your strategy, relocate defenses to a safer spot or answer the opponent's advantage with a tech switch of your own, without losing much/any food value - just make sure to do it quickly, because such changes leave you vulnerable for some time... maybe some MGs in a different spot can cover you in the meantime.

When do you expand?

Usually after all farmlands on your first Gristmill are being used, as soon as you can defend it. The exact timing differs a lot, depending on how far your enemy is away, what they built, whether cabins, terrain or defensive structures protect you etc.

Anyway, there's one important constant: 5 minutes.
Farms and Campfires will only yield food for 5 minutes (they start with 300 food each, of which one gets 'mined' every second), then they will fallow. Forever.

That means your first four Farms will fallow exactly 5 minutes into the game, the other farms on your starting Gristmill will do so soon afterwards. Try to have at least four farms up when that happens, else you easily run into supply issues - then you'll have to sell warrens in order to build new farms and reinforcements, and your enemy can easily take advantage of that (unless they are in a similar situation).

As soon as you ran out of active food sources, a 60s starvation timer starts - you lose if it hits 0.

Some timing calculations

The main issue about getting tier 2 and tier 3 units is usually not their food cost, but the time time they take to produce:

• Tier 1 warrens and units take 10s each.
  Warren + 3 units takes 40s.
  
• Tier 2 warrens and units take 20s each.
  Warren + 2 units takes 60s.
  
• Tier 3 warrens and units take 45s each.
  Warren + 1 unit takes 90s.

That's what makes a tier 3 really risky: the 2x 180 food investment will not grant any advantage for at least 100s. That is easily enough time for the enemy to build a bunch of tier 1 warrens, maybe even tier 2 (although that's usually very close) and attack with a superior force before the tier 3 unit is ready.

You will want tier 2 units as a reaction to an enemy tier 3 mostly for your own defense, e.g. Snakes against a Boar or Badger. Even if you scout the Badger warren when the warren just finished, you should have enough time to burrow back and get two Snakes per warren before the Badger reaches your base.

When you see the enemy just starting to build a tier 3 unit, you can alternatively invest 360 food to grab another Gristmill (20s), build five farms simultaneously (30s) and only then start increasing your army or building defenses, again: because at the time the enemy is at your doorstep, your new farms will almost have paid for themselves (60 food in 60s each) and your defender's advantage might be enough to hold... your vast economic advantage will likely win the game for you, if you survive the attack. (Your chances to hold in such a situation depend very much on the map and your available units / defensive structures.)

When a big fight ends with big losses and no clear winner, it is best to quickly sell higher tier warrens, because you want your army ready for the next clash as soon as possible.

When you are getting ready for an attack: build big things first, because they take longest to finish, and quick or proxy units (lizards and moles) last. That way you will have your whole army ready to strike (gloriously) at the same time, instead of single units drizzling in after you already lost the battle...

Important Differences from Singleplayer

Many stats have been tweaked slightly for Multiplayer, to make more strategies viable (harder counters, more aggressive play...).
Here is an overview over the most drastic changes you should know if you jump into Multiplayer after the Campaign:

• Toads: They don't deal any special damage on a single target, but only relatively low damage in an area. That means they are mostly useless against single/tanky units, but good against groups of t1. They are also ok at destroying structures due to their 4x critical damage.
  
• Moles: As mentioned above, Moles can still be built anywhere, and the first one will spawn sooner than other t1, but they are coming from a warren (or rather a crumbling pile of dirt), each individual Mole being a lot cheaper and weaker than the Moles in the Campaign.
  
• Skunks: Skunks got longer range, but less DPS. That makes Skunks rather worse at defending (because the gas does not kill fast enough to keep the opponent from destroying your assets), but potentially more useful at attacking: They can safely attack most units in a base without even taking damage, e.g. putting gas on units on warrens or between Pigs and forcing them out of their comfort zone. That practically negates an important aspect of defender's advantage.
  
• Snakes: Snakes also deal damage very slowly, but they can apply their poison within the blink of an eye. 1 DPS over 20s - half as fast, but eventually more deadly than in the Campaign. That makes them rather bad at defending against an all-in attack, but good at poking: Every tag of poison will deal 20 damage, that is killing any Pig, t1, and Falcon, unless they get healing. So you better get your Snakes to the opponent's base, try to poison their Pigs or any other units. Losing one Snake for one Pig is already worth it, and they can likely poison more than that before they die - unless the opponent also plays aggressively or uses defensive structures. Oh, did I mention Snakes in Multiplayer can only attack units!?
  
• Wolf Timing: Wolf can keep up to 360 Food buffed, i.e. 18 t1 units -OR- 6 t2 units -OR- 2 t3 units. However, if you carefully set up the groups, you can get even much more value for a brief moment, because the buff lasts longer on cheap units: e.g. first buff 12 t1, then 4 t2, then 2 t3, and they will all be operating at double speed for a very short moment. Sure, the first ones will lose their buff 2s later, but if you timed your attack well, your Badger might already be revved up by then, and the first units might be dead anyway, so they no longer need to be buffed.
  
• Vulnerable Expansions: Expansion Gristmills start with lower health: 50 HP max. when their construction finished, but it will slowly increase. They will gain +10 HP max. every 20s until they hit 150 (the initial Mill starts with and stays at 150 HP max., like before). This makes new expansions particularly vulnerable, and you might want to attack them as soon as possible, before they gain HP or get defenses up. Even just getting a few shots in before the construction finished might be worth it: Any damage you inflict during construction will stay for at least 3.5 minutes, because the natural regeneration rate of a Mill is 10 HP in 20s, so it will keep lagging behind its HP upgrades, making it an easier target once you decide to go in.
  
• Reveal Cloaked Stuff: Commanders can reveal cloaked Chameleons or Mines if they stand still for a moment. You will see a rising eye symbol and some sun rays, and all enemy units in a 3x3 area around the Commander will be uncloaked for a short time.

[Lord Haart]

Great guide, there.

[IntoTheThermosphere]

And that man is now a dev. Eel, you really don't get enough thanks from the community. We wouldn't be anywhere without you buddy. Keep on trucking!

[EELuminatus]

Start TnT > Multiplayer > Ranked > Press Space/A
... or go to the Discord and ask if anyone's ready to play!

Seriously though: I know the player base isn't huge, and sometimes it can take a while to find players. On the other hand, we've already had over 200 reported ranked matches today, so it's obviously not that hard to find an opponent.

[Daggfinnr]

new guide: How to find opponent

[buena]

Great! thanks for the help

[The Gentleman]

Great guide! Not sure why it doesn't have 5 stars + 20 positive comments already, because it's currently the best one to learn TnT multiplayer strategies (by far).

[Boom]

ertr ggg