Tau Ignore Upkeep Guide

Do you want to build a KV128 Stormsurge every 2 turns? Are you sick and tired of Utopia completely murdering your entire economy? Then look no further for I will teach you how to obliterate Utopia and flood the map with KV128 Stormsurges as fast as any other faction!

Introduction

As an ultimate unit lover, I got into this game to spam ultimate units and when I learned I couldn't do that with my favorite faction in Warhammer 40k because of Utopia, I went completely mad. I raged and raved like a crazy fiend, rattling the shackles and cages created by Utopia that entrap me so. And after months of crying and screaming like a raving lunatic, I finally did it! I finally broke free of the shackles and cages of Utopia and obliterated Utopia with my own two hands.

As a result of this incident, I have developed tunnel vision. If it does not pertain to obliterating Utopia and flooding the map with Stormsurges I don't know anything about it. I don't know how to play Tau in PvP, I don't know how to play Tau normally, I don't know what most of the Tau units do or what they're capable of. I don't know anything other than how to obliterate Utopia and I don't care to know. The thought of not only reviving Utopia, but to live with it again just to learn how to properly play Tau makes me really, really, really sick.

Which is why I will never be able to create a comprehensive Tau guide. So if you're looking to learn about Tau proper, look elsewhere. This guide is just a very short and simple guide that will teach you how to murder and butcher Utopia so we can all flood the game with KV128 Stormsurges.

This guide was made for standard pace. All the data and spreadsheets in this guide was gathered from standard pace games.

If you have any questions or comments, post here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/489630/discussions/0/4206994023677973022/

Utopia and why it tortures me so

The bottleneck for all economies in Gladius is population growth speed. Meaning neither building construction time nor cost of each building matters. The most optimal way of building your economy is making sure each building you build results in the most amount of gain to ensure we get the most out of each and every pop because population growth speed is the bottleneck of your economy.

So lets say each resource building increases your income by 6 and decreases it by 1 (upkeep) and 1% (pop loyalty). And each additional loyalty building increases your income by 6% and decreases it by 2 (upkeep) and 1% (pop loyalty). When is it better to build a resource building and when is it better to build a loyalty building?

To find the answer I modeled a regular faction economy into an equation
And made a spreadsheet using said equation, highlighting the most optimal ratio of resource building to loyalty building for the most optimal economic growth.

And I did the exact same thing with the Tau economy complete with Utopia.

Now if you compare the two spreadsheets, for the first ten resource/loyalty buildings Utopia makes the Tau economy superior. But after the first ten resource/loyalty buildings the Tau economy takes a complete nosedive.

At 20 buildings the Tau economy is a whopping 76.9% of a regular economy.
At 30 buildings the Tau economy is a whopping 64.3% of a regular economy.
At 40 buildings the Tau economy is a whopping 57.6% of a regular economy.

And it just gets worse and worse and worse.

And this is my own direct testing with 3 Tau cities.
Note: This was intentionally done on grass terrain while avoiding all outpost bonuses. In addition no Cadre Fireblades were used. So on volcanic terrain next to outpost bonuses alongside a few Cadre Fireblades should result in higher numbers.

Do you see the data? At turn 100, the Tau economy grown in the most optimal way possible can only afford 2 Ghostkeels and 4 Riptides! That is mega ultra pathetic.

And at turn 150 the best this build can do is 1 KV128 Stormsurge every 5 turns.

Just sad. Absolutely sad. And you see why Utopia tortures me so. Utopia completely annihilates the Tau economy to the point it cannot ever I mean EVER compete with other factions. With 21 resource buildings and 19 loyalty buildings the Tau economy is at 57.6% of a regular faction's economy. So at mid-game the Tau with 3 cities will be outnumbered 2:1 against all factions.

And we can see why. Because every building has a loyalty cost in addition to the population loyalty cost, you need more than double the loyalty buildings of other factions just to break even. And because loyalty buildings come with a hefty 2 energy upkeep, it forces double the number of energy buildings, which capsizes your loyalty even further, and the loyalty malus death spiral just gets worse and worse and worse, preventing you from ever enjoying the quadratic growth other factions' economies enjoy.

The solution? Ignoring upkeep!

So what's the solution to Utopia? How to break free from Utopia's shackles and cages? How to murder and butcher Utopia? The answer is... IGNORE UPKEEP.

Normally a unit's upkeep resource is identical to its purchase resource. For example, a XV88 Broadside Battlesuit requires 40 food, 40 ore, and has an upkeep of 4 food. So if you're at -100 food per turn, there's no way you can ever buy a XV88 Broadside Battlesuit on the account of being unable to amass 40 food.

But Tau can purchase resources with influence, and no unit or building has influence as an upkeep. Which means the Tau, even at -100 food per turn, can buy 40 food with influence and immediately buy a XV88 Broadside Battlesuit despite being so deep in negative food! Which means Tau can just ignore food, build up only Influence, and flood the map with XV88 Broadside Battlesuits forever and ever since your XV88 Broadsides don't have influence as an upkeep.

But this comes at a cost. When you're in negative food, your pop growth speed is halved, and since pop growth speed is the bottleneck of your economic growth, your economy growth speed is halved. So with your growth halved and Utopia murdering your growth even further, your economy will be at 34.7% strength compared to regular economies at 40 buildings.

But in exchange, with 46 influence per turn and 5 barracks, you can build a XV88 Broadside Battlesuit every 2 turns complete with support systems forever and ever even with 0 growth. I'd say that closes that 65.3% gap completely at that point in time since most factions can't afford to build a high tier unit every 2 turns until lategame. So when you're at 46 influence and 5 barracks, at that point in time you are ahead of other factions despite having a significantly weaker economy.

But Broadsides cannot win the game for you. Not even close. What you need are KV128 Stormsurges which use ore as upkeep. Imagine building a KV128 Stormsurge every 2 turns! So the question is, can you ignore ore upkeep? After months of trying, I found that the answer is yes!

If you ignore ore upkeep your energy is halved. If your energy is halved it's gonna be in the negative. If your energy is in the negative, your loyalty, influence, and crisis centers are halved. To achieve a KV128 Stormsurge complete with 3 Battlesuit Support Systems every 2 turns you need 196 influence per turn and 10 halved Crisis Centers. To get 196 influence per turn you need 60 halved influence buildings and 60 halved loyalty buildings. That's 130 pops. With your halved growth speed... it's never gonna happen.

But what if you don't ignore energy? Then you need 30 influence buildings, 27 loyalty buildings, and 24 halved energy buildings. That's 81 pops, still too much.

But then I realized, with such a high influence income, I can afford multiple Cadre Fireblades! Is it possible to get 100% of my loyalty from Cadre Fireblades? And the answer was... YES!

So from direct in-game testing, to achieve 196 influence per turn and build a KV128 Stormsurge every 2 turns, you only need

If you notice, the values in the table above are not exactly 196 but sometimes a little under. I'd say if you have to stall 1 turn of production every 40 turns, that's good enough. So 192 influence is good enough (stalls every 49 turns).

The numbers in the above table should be taken as an approximation rather than hard fact. When I gathered data for this table I kept energy income as close to 0 as possible when in reality there is no real difference between building an energy building or an influence building because an influence building is essentially the same as a halved energy building. 80 influence buys 40 energy so 1 influence building essentially gives 3 energy per turn which is the same as a halved energy building. So it makes no difference whether you build just enough energy buildings to have 0 energy income per turn or go over it by a decent amount.

Which means 1 Promethian Relay Pipe should decrease the number of buildings you need as much as a Jokero Encampment would which isn't the case in the above table.

Now if you're thinking that if you're on a Desert terrain it's better to get energy up to 40 a turn and get 116 influence per turn rather than get 196 influence a turn, you're partially right. While you're correct that this would reduce the total number of buildings you need by the most amount, you also need to take note that this would kill your ability to save up and buy Cadre Fireblades. You'll have 116 influence per turn after you get your 4-6 Cadre Fireblades out. Before then you'll have like 60-70 influence a turn. It's gonna take like 10 turns of no production to save up for one so while getting like 10-20 energy per turn is a great idea, going the full 40 per turn is not.

So in a real game, the number of buildings you need should be lower than what is said in the above table in all cases hence why I say treat it as an approximation.

When gathering data, I evenly distributed the influence buildings between the Jokero and non-Jokero cities, and used the minimum number of tiles and shelters required.

I would not choose anything under 40 building count (16 + 12 + 12) because you're gonna have 12 buildings in the 2nd and 3rd cities by the time you have the ability to build large numbers of Cadre Fireblades. 16 instead of 18 for the 1st city because I like to have my 1st city keep its two Brachyuran'm Foundries online to build a large number of builder drones to heal my KV128 Stormsurges. And I wouldn't go anything above 52 building count as it takes too long.

So if you follow this guide, just having 3 cities with only 1-2 shelters each is enough to permanently build a KV128 Stormsurge every 2 turns. So if you don't like managing large cities well into the lategame, this build is perfect for you!

I go a maximum of 6 Cadre Fireblades. You need to stall production for 2 turns to gather enough ore and food to produce your 6th Cadre Fireblade while you need 3 turns for your 7th which is not worth it in my opinion. The 7-9 entries are just there to show you how it's not really worth it to go above 6.

It is important to note that 1 KV128 Stormsurge every 2 turns is the literal global maximum production speed because you are limited to purchasing only 40 ore per turn. So there is literally no way to build KV128 Stormsurges any faster than one every 2 turns or supplement their production with other units as every Tau unit requires ore.

In my best game so far with 1v1 Impossible, the earliest I reached 1 KV128 Stormsurge every 2 turns was turn 110. At that point I had all of my buildings produced, 3 Cadre Fireblades built and 2 more Cadre Fireblades queued up, and 5 KV128 Stormsurges and 13 Broadsides defending my cities. I'd say on average I achieve 1 Stormsurge every 2 turns around turn 130 with 7 Stormsurges and 12-15 Broadsides.

Early War Build Order part 1

City Placement
As you only need 7-8 tiles from each city, you have the luxury of placing the Tau cities at the literal corner of the map and as close together as possible. Use the above diagram to help you place your 1st city away enough from the edges for your two other future cities.

Outpost Priority
1. 1st city Ruins of Vaul
2. 3rd city Jokero Encampment (so if there's only 1 Jokero encampment, give it to your 3rd city instead of 1st.)
3. 1st city Jokero Encampment (you need 2 Jokero Encampments and no Ruins of Vaul for this to take effect)
4. 2nd city Promethium Relay Pipes
5. 1st city Promethium Relay Pipes

In my opinion, Snow Terrain is the best Terrain for this build followed closely by Desert Terrain. Volcanic Terrain is 3rd place as you do struggle with ore quite a bit, and Grass Terrain is the worst.

This build order prioritizes getting your first XV8 Crisis Battlesuit out as early as possible and maximizing your infantry production speed over everything else which is why the 2nd and 3rd cities are delayed in favor of earlier barracks. If you wish to prioritize getting your 2nd and 3rd cities up first then check the Tech Rush section.

This build order is ideal for players who want to war all game instead of hiding in a corner and rushing to endgame units. For example, players who want to 1v1 Ultra Hard AI on default settings (tiny map, medium settings for everything), players who want a free for all with lots of AI on a cramped map, etc. For players who want to play against impossible AI, see the Tech Rush section.

1st City - Grass, no outposts
1. Research
2. Influence
3. Ore
4. Barracks (turn off until XV8 Crisis Battlesuit is researched)
5. Barracks (turn off as needed to stay above 0 energy)
6. Builder Drone
7. Builder Drone (Queue together with 6)
8. Brachyuran'm Foundry
9. Barracks
10. Loyalty
11. Shelter
12. Energy
13. Barracks
14. Energy
15. Barracks
16. Energy
17. Shelter
18. Influence
19. Xar'vesa Crisis Centre (Turn off immediately)
20. Influence
21. Xar'vesa Crisis Centre (Turn off immediately)
24. Xar'vesa Crisis Centre (Turn off immediately)
23. Shan'ar'tol Stasis
22. 4 Influence
26. 2 Xar'vesa Crisis Centres
***Do not be underpopulated by more than 3 pops. If you are then build builder drones and Xar'vesa Crisis Centres to wait for pop to catch up. I like building a builder drones after step 12 to heal my units and clear tiles.

2nd City - Energy city
1. Energy
2. Research
3. Ore
4. Influence
5. Shelter
6. Loyalty
7. 1 Energy
8. Shelter
9+. Energy

3rd City - Influence city
1. Research
2. Energy
3. Ore
4. Influence
5. Shelter
6. Loyalty
7. 1 Influence
8. Shelter
9+. Influence
***It's important that you follow the 2nd and 3rd city build orders exactly to avoid any stalls in XV88 Broadside Battlesuit production. If you deviate from this you will find that you have too much ore and not enough influence, or too much influence and not enough energy, etc.



Research
**1:Wisdom Shared
1:Fio'xar Arsenal
2:MV1 Gun Drones
2:Many Mouths
3:Builder Drones (Wisdom Shared)
3:Ta'aun Totem (Wisdom Shared)
4:XV8 Crisis Battlesuit
4:Brachyuran'm Foundry
5:Extra Infantry Armor
5:Xar'vesa Crisis Centre
6:XV25 Stealth Battlesuits
2:Tio'ur'm Pods
6:Seeker Missile
7:Equal Under the Sky
7:Vectored Retro-Thrusters
8:XV88 Broadside Battlesuits
8:Stimulant Injector
9:Anthrazod Foundations
9:Flechette Discharger (Filler tech. Does nothing. Other techs clutter up my menu)
10:In Diversity, Unity
**1:Shan'ar'tol Stasis
***3:A Shield For All
10:KV128 Stormsurge
10:Shield Generator
8:Blast Phasing
6:Brachyuran Assembles
4:Mor'tonium Accelerators
8:Hammer of Wrath
7:Blacksun Filter
5:Proselytise
1:Bonding Knife Ritual
**If you're on Snow Terrain or next to a Ruins of Vaul, skip Wisdom Shared and get Shan'ar'tol Stasis instead.
***Depending on the game, sometimes you're short of ore while swimming in influence. If that's the case then research A Shield for All after XV88 Broadside Battlesuits.

I like to keep my 2nd city building only energy because I have severe energy problems at the start, energy buildings are far more efficient than influence buildings while I'm at positive ore income, halved energy buildings are just as efficient as influence buildings so it doesn't really make a difference which one I build, and I can't really tell how much +energy I need to stay above 0 after my ore income hits negative. I do switch my 2nd city to influence if I feel like my energy income will exceed +20 per turn after ore income hits negative. See previous section on why it's not a good idea to get +40 energy per turn.

Before ore upkeep hits negative, acquire all tiles. 10 tiles in 1st city, 7 tiles in 2nd and 3rd cities. Less if you have favorable terrain. More if you have lots of rocks next to your cities.

Once you are at negative ore income, store all your ore by queuing up buildings and tile acquisitions and cancelling them as necessary. For example, after buying 40 ore, buy a building and queue up 2 tile acquisitions. Do this again. And after you buy your 3rd batch of ore, cancel all 4 tile acquisitions and buy 2 buildings.

Build some builder drones to heal your infantry. Don't bring them to the front. Have wounded infantry retreat because builder drones drop like flies.

Use Proselytise to fill up your city pops at the end

Once you research KV128 Stormsurges shutdown all 5 barracks, turn on all your Xar'vesa Crisis Centres, and start buying ore with your influence to pay for your KV128 Stormsurges. You shouldn't have to buy energy for a while as you should have stockpiled a lot of energy by this point from your 2nd city. You will no longer be producing anymore broadsides from here on out.

Changing from Broadsides to Stormsurges completely changes your gameplay. After about 4-5 Stormsurges you can no longer grow both your economy and your military at the same time. You have to choose either to stall Stormsurge production to produce Cadre Fireblades and buildings or stall them to produce Stormsurges.

You should always have 3 Cadre Fireblades either built or queued up by the time your KV128 Stormsurges start rolling out. The first 3 Cadre Fireblades are mega cheap when you have a positive ore income so get them built/queued up before your ore income takes a nosedive.

It only takes 98 influence per turn to produce a Stormsurge every 4 turns complete with battlesuit support systems, 58 if you have a large stockpile of energy, or 77 to produce a Stormsurge every 3 turns with a large stockpile of energy, so I recommend fully stopping your economic growth here to build 7-8 Stormsurges first before going back to growing your economy to 196 influence per turn.

When paying for Cadre Fireblades, save excess food via queuing up Fire Warriors.
1. Buy Cadre Fire Blade 1, Queue Fire Warrior 1
2. Buy Cadre Fireblade 2
3. Cancel Fire Warrior 1, buy Cadre Fireblade 3
4. Buy Cadre Fireblade 4, Queue Fire Warrior 2
5. Buy Cadre Fireblade 5
6. Cancel Fire Warrior 2, buy Cadre Fireblade 3
If you're building infantry at this time, then you're going to have to juggle the Fire Warriors by cancelling them, queuing up the infantry, and then queuing up the Fire Warrior behind it.

If it wasn't obvious already, to buy a KV128 Stormsurge with influence
1. Queue up a Ghostkeel
2. Next turn cancel the Ghostkeel and build a KV128 Stormsurge.

Early War Build Order part 2

The best battlesuit support systems on your KV128 Stormsurges are Stimulant Injector, Shield Generator, and Vectored Retro-Thrusters. The reason is because the defensive support systems virtually halve all damage inflicted on the Stormsurge while the offensive support systems do not give a noticeable difference in damage. It won't let the KV128 Stormsurge one shot what usually requires 2 shots to kill, nor will it allow the KV128 Stormsurge to 2 shot what usually requires 3 shots to kill. So there's no point in giving the Stormsurge +1 accuracy, so instead we give the KV128 Stormsurge increased movement because that actually makes a difference.

If you follow my build, this will be your army.

The above table is somewhat inaccurate because the data was gathered in an empty world and as a result I couldn't build any Cadre Fireblades until turn 120 because that's when they come out at level 6. Also because I prioritized buildings over units to give you an idea how many buildings total you'd have at every turn if you built them without pause.

In a real game I would stop at 12-15 Broadsides, just enough to fully surround my cities with Broadsides that are on top of city tiles. And then I would spend the remaining influence on Cadre Fireblades until Stormsurges are researched, which is usually 3. And then I would pause my building production go all in on Stormsurge production until I had 7. And then I would stall my Stormsurge production to get my economy up to 196 influence per turn. As a result, the table says you hit 196 influence per turn at turn 151 when in reality, because of the much earlier Cadre Fireblades, on average I achieve it at around turn 130.

I initially gathered data on a lot of other Terrains and outposts too but in the end, it was all the same. None of them affected my unit count so i haven't included it here. No matter what Terrain I had, no matter what outposts I had, my unit count was completely unfazed. The only thing that changes is how early I can hit 196 influence and how early I can switch to XV88 Broadsides and KV128 Stormsurges.

Snow and Ruins of Vaul determine how early you get to produce XV88 Broadside Battlesuits and KV128 Stormsurges. See the Tech Rush section for the timings. Also the total building count for the Tech Rush build should be a little higher than the above table as you build the 2 cities a little earlier

Jokero Encampments, Desert Terrain, and Promethian Relay Pipes determine what's the earliest turn you can have maximum Stormsurge production. In an 1v1 impossible game I had, while on desert terrain with 1 Jokero Encampment and 1 Promethian Relay Pipes, I hit the 1 KV128 Stormsurge every 2 turns production speed by turn 110 with only 5 Cadre Fireblades while also having built 5 KV128 Stormsurges and 13 XV88 Broadsides by then. So once again, the 151 turn in the above table is because the data was gathered in an empty world.

Tech Rush Build

Against Impossible Difficulty AI, I noticed XV8 Crisis Suits and XV25 Stealth Battlesuits were largely useless because they're frail and don't deal enough damage. So I created this table

By "Tech Rush" I mean completely abandoning your military and spending 100% of your influence on Wisdom Shared. Even after researching XV88 Broadside Battlesuits I just continued to spam Wisdom Shared all the way to KV128 Stormsurge in the above table. In a real game I would stop at XV88 Broadside Battlesuits.

As you can see you can get XV88 Broadside Tech researched within an acceptable amount of time if you spam Wisdom Shared. So my suggestion is against Impossible AI is to just rush XV88 Broadside Battlesuits and spam only it until KV128 Stormsurge. Against Ultra-Hard AI the XV8 Crisis Battlesuits and XV25 Stealth Suits perform just fine.

I'd advise against building more than 1 research building in each city. When I built 2 on Grass, No Outpost, it only made me reach XV88 Broadsides 3 turns earlier at the cost of an entire Barracks. I'd rather have 3 Barracks up than 2 Barracks and a 2nd Research when I unlock XV88 Broadsides.

The tech rush build is basically the same as the above section's build order except you build 2 builder drones before any of your barracks and you build a research and influence building in all 3 cities before you build anything else

1st City
1. Research
2. Influence
3. Ore
4. Builder Drone
5. Builder Drone
6. Brachyuran'm Foundry
7. Shelter
8. Builder Drone (to clear tiles for my Broadsides in preparation for the AI siege)
9. Barracks
10. Barracks
11. Barracks
12. Loyalty
And from here on out it's the same as the previous build order. Energy is the next building.

2nd & 3rd Cities
1. Research
2. Influence
3. Energy
4. Ore
And from here on out it's the same as the previous build order.

Specifically against 1v1 Impossible AI on a tiny map, with this build, you have to have both very high wildlife density to delay the AI as much as possible and very high wire weed density to prevent the AI from fully surrounding and focus firing excessively on your Broadsides.

Infantry is really bad against Impossible AI because since you're so outnumbered and out teched you need tanky vehicles to hold the line and unload their firepower. Infantry can't do that because they're not as tanky and after a hit their damage output takes a massive nosedive requiring you to have a critical mass of infantry so you can cycle them around after they take a hit.

If you only have a handful of Broadsides the AI will kill a broadside every turn via excessive focus fire even while said Broadside is under a city tile, preventing you from amassing more broadsides while under siege so you really need very high wildlife density to get as many Broadsides as possible before making contact with the Impossible AI and very high wire weed density to prevent the AI from excessively focus firing on your Broadsides.

I make my 3 cities at a literal corner of the map in a perfect triangle and I acquire tiles in a way so that the entire perimeter of my 3 cities is not only a city tile, but also a completely straight line and then place a broadside on each and every one of them. 12-15 broadsides usually do the trick.

I then stall my economy to acquire about 7-8 Stormsurges a.s.a.p. and replace the frontline broadsides with them. Cycling the damaged Stormsurges out with freshly healed ones with 3 builder drones doing the healing is more than enough to defeat the entire Impossible AI stockpiled army. I've pretty much won the game at this point. The Impossible AI is literally incapable of penetrating my defenses at this point.

Afterwards I then focus solely on my economy to achieve 1 Stormsurge every 2 turns. After I achieve that I finally then go on the offensive while stalling my Stormsurge production a turn every 6 turns to continuously build builder drones and slowly grind my way to the AI cities (usually about 7 cities) and achieve victory. I think 8 builder drones is a good number to stop at.

Compared to other factions, in my personal experience, I have a much easier time against Ultra-Hard AI than other factions because the early crisis suit and stealth suit army does absolute wonders to the point I welcome an early war as Tau, but against Impossible AI, the crisis suit and stealth suit army fails me really, really badly forcing me to skip to Broadsides, and since I can't just tech rush ultimate units like other factions, I have a much, much harder time against Impossible AI with this build than other factions to the point I have to increase wire weed density to very high. My average win turn against 1v1 impossible as Admech is turn 120 where as with Tau its 160.

But I don't care. Tau is my favorite Warhammer 40k faction so I will play Tau even if Utopia makes me cry my eyes out every single day!