Beginners guide

Tips and tricks for beginners

Beginners guide

https://youtu.be/UOgCYqdgkCQ

This is a guide to help new players.

There are many ways to play this game, I am not claiming that this is the best, but it should help new players to improve their game.

I am going to split this guide between strategy (planning) and tactics (implementing). I will also add my unit compositions per map at the end with a few extra tips.

STRATEGY

Check the arms dealer after every Battle. Buy all base turrets. Heavy gunners and shield pips are also a good purchase.

Spend your war bucks on recruitment center first. In battle these can be used as emergency supply to give you extra cash at the beginning of a map if things go badly at the start.

Infantry armour is the next best upgrade, followed by the vehicle bay upgrades and then the arms dealer upgrades.

The water cooled turrets in the weapons depot  is also a really good upgrade that you can take as early as you want if you find yourself using the Base turret a lot.

Plan your route through the map before going into battles. If you can help it you don't want to run out of warpips or base turrets+heavy gunners.

Cutting a path straight to the final mission on a map (but not actually playing the final mission) is a good option. From there you can work backwards, taking the missions that give the best rewards or the missions that you have the best loadout for (see tactics section).

Keep watch of the enemy army strength, unless your feeling brave/confident play the final mission on an island before this reaches the maximum level (this is why the previous advice of cutting a path straight to the final mission is advised). You will have a hard time on the final map if this bar reaches the maximum level.

If you do want to play the remaining missions at full enemy army value for the extra war bucks then I advise using either a vehicle or a shield pip on every mission (along with support of course).

TACTICS

Deploy your troops in blobs, try not to deploy extra in drips and drabs. Wait until they all die before deploying another blob.

Don't upgrade veterancy bars until you can upgrade the full level in one go.

Depending on your loadout and map you will want to make different choices.

The 3 different choices are-
Increasing total pips
Leveling up veterancy
Leveling up cash boost

When using mercs you will want to focus on Leveling up veterancy first. You will need to compliment mercs with something to help delay the enemy until their veterancy is at max. The best 2 options are the shield pip, or using a combination of the small turret and sandbags.

When using warpips you will want to focus on increasing pip total first. Try increasing pip total until all of your money is spent before upgrading veterancy.

When using heavy gunner you will want to focus on upgrading veterancy first and then cash boost. As this unit has a timer on it, it is best combined with the Base turret. Only use the Base turret when it has 100% accuracy.

The tactician is good in combination with Pipsqueaks and shield pip.

Dogs are good against hero units, but are also good at thinning out large groups of the enemy and clearing mines (sorry pups).

Snipers are best used against gas pip and heroes if you don't have any dogs. Don't use sniper on missions where the enemy has buggy or jeep.

Vehicles are best used against the same type of enemy vehicle- tank vs tank etc

The LRV vehicle is a good all round vehicle to take on difficult missions that havnt got enemy jeeps/tanks.

The puma jeep is best used on howitzer missions.

The ramrod tank is a beast, make sure to save these for HVT missions or boss missions.

Smoke grenades are good when used with heavy gunners, but also you can aim them at enemy mines to set them off.

Gas grenades are even better at triggering enemy mines as they also damage infantry that move through them.

Drones are the best choice for clearing enemy mines, but their main use is against howitzers.

Health boost is best combined with heavy gunner and shield pip.

Oil derricks are very risky to use. I advise not using them at all and upgrade your cash boost button instead. They become less risky when combining with the upgrade modular pieces in the engineering corps branch on the upgrade screen.

Ic7 bulwark missiles are best used against enemy tanks.

Oil barrels are really helpful on island 2.

To sum up these are my preferred item compositions-

Warpips+tactician

Merc+shield+sniper+small turret+sandbags

Heavy gunner+base turret+merc+health boost+Shield

LRV+base turret+merc/warpips

Vs mines use drones/gas/smoke grenades

Vs hero unit use dogs

Vs tanks use ic7 bulwark missiles or ramrod

And finally 1 more advanced tip-

Don't be scared of using the emergency supply cash (red box that opens up when enemies get close to your base). Although this emergency supply deducts 1 of your pip supply, THIS IS ONLY TEMPORARY. You will get this pip back after a couple of minutes.

This game is in early access and so future changes may make parts of this guide irrelevant.

UNITS PER MISSION

first 3 closest to the start can be done with a warpips alone.

Next row can be done with warpips and tactician

3rd row you can use sandbag and turret combo (never place a turret without a sandbag or other cover in front of it), along with mercs and snipers

4th and 5th row requires a base turret and heavy gunner+shield pip.

Final mission on 1st island requires a mix of units and items. For best results use the Base turret, heavy gunner, shield pip, mercs and possibly a gas grenade or rockets.

SECOND ISLAND

1st row warpips alone will do

2nd row warpips, tactician and heavy gunner/sniper

3rd row base turret, sniper/HG and mercs/warpips

4th row if I remember correctly is the really small map. This one is very difficult and will be your biggest hurdle. After this mission it gets a bit easier as you start to unlock vehicles.

For this map you will need a base turret, mercs, warpips and an LRV. You can also take other items like the dumbfire rockets and gas grenades if you have them

5th row a vehicle, rockets/grenades/base turret and a tactician

Final mission is the next big hurdle. If you have 1 the take a pumpjack/derrick. Ic7 is the most important item for boss battles, the airstrike is good too.

THIRD ISLAND

1st row warpips, heavy gunner

2nd row warpips, tactician and an LRV

3rd row base turret, heavy gunner/vehicle and mercs

4th 5th and 6th row rockets/grenades/base turret, jeep/tank, heavy gunner and mercs with an oil barrel

Final mission same as the previous islands plus a blue rockets and a phalanx.

This is a basic setup that I have compiled from memory and you may need to vary the units slightly.

Also this is a 'minimum required' list for the maps, you can add in whatever you like to each Mission as long as you save enough for the later missions.

Please note that when the enemy strength bar reaches full that you will need a different unit composition. On the first island you will NEED a shield pip as well as the other mentioned units. On the second island you will NEED a shield pip AND and a vehicle along with the other mentioned units.

I recommend completing each island before the enemy strength bar fills up until you are more experienced. I know it feels like you are losing out on a lot of War bucks this way but by the end of the game you actually have an excess of War bucks if you complete every map and so skipping a few maps per island is OK.
Feel free to ask questions and check out my YouTube tutorial.

https://youtu.be/UOgCYqdgkCQ

[SgtGumbo]

hm well i didn't read it all but i just finished my play on the 2nd highest difficulty. the very first thing I upgraded was the weapons dealer inventory. that way I accumulated vehicles. I had oil derriks and heavy vehicles almost every battle. i also never really used machine gunnres. Thats whats brilliant about this game, theres so many ways to win. I did find that helicopters dominate the end game too much,

[BirbThePerturbed]

This is over-complicated brother. Just conserve your armor and save it for the later islands and pay attention to what the enemy has. If they have armor bring anti-armor, if they have air bring the SAMS. If you don't have access to these units then cry because of your poor planning skills. Use your battle buttons a lot as they are a buff you can do while you wait for your cash to supply and they also work great for defense or offense as they always grant an accuracy bonus. Also never and I repeat NEVER let the enemy strength bar reach max on any island (maybe the first but the others just don't). Honestly the game isn't that bad, just use your units wisely and conserve instead of spending super great units on easy stages. My best advice is always bring at least one armor unit in the 3rd island and some for the 2nd island's late stages. These units really trivialize any attempts to push and give you much needed time to get money and upgrade units. Have fun.

[godspeedthunder]

Plan on the enemy reinforcements bar where you want to make your final push. Conserve your cash ready for that window.