How to Solo War Games Highest Difficulty

This tutorial specifically explains everything for a successful run on the highest difficulty. I will update the tutorial gradually.

Introduction

Greetings, Fleet Commander.

This guide will equip you with the general strategies and fleet-specific tactics successfully solo the War Games mode. The guide now covers the following fleets (☑️) and the rest will be updated gradually.

☑️ Strikecraft Fleet
☑️ Bomber Fleet
☑️ Renaissance Fleet
☑️ Remastered Fleet
☑️ Experimental Fleet
🔳 Incarnate Fleet
🔳 Platform Fleet


You are suggested to understand all the Artifact Effects from my guide.

Noted that since Upgrade 1.1, the difficulty of Wargames is greatly reduced for solo play. Every fleet can solo Difficulty 10 without using any special tricks.

General Strategies Part 1

The key strategies include:

• Take action once the objective emerges.
  
• Scatter bigger ships around to tank the swarms.
  
• Death Ball - Use Sphere Formation with strikecrafts and/or corvettes.
  
• your Resource Controller is your best friend.
  
• For objective spots being heavily defended, try luring the enemy away.
  
• One single cloaked ship is perfect for capturing a spot, especially if the enemies are lured away.
  
• Repair your damaged strikecrafts and corvettes frequently by docking them.
  
• Retire captured/redundant ships for extra RUs and pop cap.
  
• There is no need to build Support Frigates.

Take action once the objective emerges.

High-level War Games require the player to act quickly and complete objectives ASAP. By ASAP, I don’t mean rushing all your ships, fast or slow, to the spot. Doing so would scatter your ships everywhere, making them vulnerable to incoming enemies.

There are generally three objective categories. We can address them case-by-case.

The first one requires your carrier to move to a specific location, specifically, "Clear the inference" or "Move your carrier into the position to escort civilian vessels".

For the inference clearance mission, move your carrier to the objective spot ASAP. In the mean time, make sure your DPS ships can clear the location along the way. You may use Deathball to brutal-force it, long-range missiles to surgical-strike it, or simply lure the enemy away. Whatever you do, minimize your losses!

For the escort mission, there is no enemy defense on the civilian transport entrance point. So simply move your carrier there. Once reached, immediately move your carrier towards the exit point, so that it will roughly catch the pace with the civilian ships. In the mean time, you will need to draw the aggro from the enemies and kill them. Check the tips for tanking and damage dealing.

The second one requires you to capture/salvage several items. Specifically, "Capture the control nodes" has no enemies defending the item, whereas "Salvage the wreckage" has strong defense.

To capture the control nodes, immediately and simply send your capture-able ships on it in parallel. Note that for Incarnate fleets, since their capture-able ship is the Capture Corvette which is much more fragile than the Hiigaran's resource controller, you will need to make sure there are no enemies on the route to the item.

To salvage the wreckage, see the rest strategies for how to utilize Deathball, long-range strike, or luring-away to clear the defense.

The last one requires no specific ship type, just that you clear the enemies on the spot and stay there until 100% captured. For this, immediately send your military ships to it., you may reposition your carrier to an ideal position for the next objective.

Clear the spot and then capture it with military ships.

Scatter bigger ships around to tank the swarms.

Enemy strikecraft and corvette fleets will make a beeline to your fleet, mostly to the closest ship to them. To counter this and keep smaller ships alive, it's crucial to shield your strikecraft and corvettes by positioning your frigates on their route. You will need to pay attention to the incursion point and reposition your tanks accordingly.

Without the hero frigate, the railgun corvettes would have suffered heavy losses. Thanks to the mechanics of HW3 engine which makes the attackers stick to the first target until it is destroyed and (almost) totally ignored the DPS ship hiding behind.

The frigate absorbs most of the damage, and the railgun corvettes are safely deleting the enemies.

The carrier absorbs most of the damage, and the railgun corvettes are safely deleting the enemies.

The support frigates absorb most of the damage, and the railgun corvettes are safely deleting the enemies.

General Strategies Part 2

Death Ball - Use Sphere Formation with strikecrafts and/or corvettes.

Sphere formation provides exceptional DPS bonus compared to all other formations because every unit can always face the enemy and keep firing. In other formations like delta, the unit would attack for one or two rounds, then turn around, attack again, which is not efficient.

Deathball can be either used to guard your carrier, turning the units into the carrier's mobile turrets, or assigned to attack enemies. For the latter, you can minimize casualties by attacking the enemy swarms that are already attacking your tank/resource controller/carrier.

Highly efficient Deathball.

Another even more deadly Deathball with mixed strikecrafts and corvettes, plus fire support from frigates.

Make full use of your resource controller.

For Hiigaran's resource controller, in addition to resourcing, it can tank, and also capture enemy frigates. Tanking is important especially for Strikecraft Fleet, which has a limited frigate population cap.

Resource controllers are decent tanks, the DPSs are salvaged from the swarms.

Capturing enemy ships can help yyyou capture the objective spot faster. in Stage 3, you will see quite a lot of spots, either resource fields or objective spots, that are defended by exactly 2 enemy frigates. They are the perfect targets to capture. In the stage to kill a Titan, all the data spires are defended by such paired frigates. Using controllers to capture them can not only save lots of time but also make some new friends.

Sort this out peacefully.

Sort this out peacefully.

For Incarnate's resource controller, it can repair.

For objective spots being heavily defended, try luring the enemy away or launching long-range surgical strike.

Send a squad of small ships to lure the enemy away, and leave the spot less defended or totally undefended. Though it needs time to get the sense on the aggro distance and direction...

Long-range surgical strike.

One single cloaked ship is perfect for capturing a spot, especially if the enemies are lured away.

If you struggle to capture a heavily defended spot (the objective requiring you to capture the data spire at Stage 2 Snow Map), you can try luring the enemies away and sending a cloaked bomber (if you are Hiigaran) or Assault Corvette (if you are Incarnate) with a passive stance to steal that spot.

Repair your damaged strikecrafts and corvettes frequently by docking them.

As a fleet commander, we need to take care of our pilots and minimize casualties!

Press F5 then F3, you will select all the damaged strikecrafts, then you can ask them to dock. To do the same for the damaged corvettes, simply use F4 then F3.

Retire captured/redundant ships for extra RUs and pop cap.

You may be waiting for a specific Artifacts to kickstart your production of a certain ships. That's not necessarily. Simply build them from now on, and either keep them or retire them later on when you have several artifacts already. Same goes for captured frigates.

There is no need to build Support Frigates.

Offense is the best defense. Why? Because in solo play, there are much fewer enemies than it is for coop play. Giving up Support Frigates can save extra frigate pop cap for military frigates.

Strikecraft Fleet

This fleet has three artifacts in the beginning, each unlocks a Pattern for Recon, Interceptor, and Fleet Bombers. Therefore, the strikecrafts of this fleet come with great superiority.

Suggested Build 1: Fast Response Fleet

• Composition: Full Recons/Interceptors (replace 30%-50% with Fleet Bombers for the last stage and 3-5 Tactical Bomber if applicable ) + Full Railgun Corvettes + Full Suppression Frigates
  
• Main DPS: All military ships.
  
• Tank: Suppression Frigate, Carrier, and Resource Controller.
  
• Preferred Artifacts:
  
  • Any strikecraft upgrade without losing too much HP or increasing too much damage taken.
    
  • 1x-3x Strikecraft Support System (+10 strikecraft population cap).
    
  • Railgun Corvette Siege Pattern (+150% Damage!!) and any of its upgrades.
    
  • Carrier Guardian Pattern (+1 Artifact Choice) and its upgrade increasing strikecraft/corvette pop cap.

Mobility	⭐⭐⭐
Anti-swarm	⭐⭐⭐
Anti-Capital Ships	⭐⭐
Ranged Fight	⭐
Tanking	⭐
Ease of Use	⭐⭐

Key Instruction

• In the first stage, use your carrier's first production boost to spam Recons and Interceptors until capped, and 15 railgun corvettes (resource will be depleted but it doesn't matter). Then, go for 5 support frigates.
  
• Use deathball (Sphere formation) on your strikecrafts all the time.
  
• Leave Railgun Corvettes with your carrier in default formation, so that they work as Carrier's turrets.
  
• Always reposition your Carrier to an idea spot so that the Railgun Corvette can deal damage and is protected. Don't expose them to incoming swarms.
  
• For objectives not requiring your Carrier, such as rescuing Civilians, and Securing the area, you can finish them efficiently using your deathball strikecraft.
  
• For heavily defended objective spots, such as clearing the interface and capture the control module, make use of luring-away, tanking and passive cloak bomber methods.

Deadly damage from Railgun Corvette.

Suggested Build 2: Suppression Fleet

• Composition: Full Recons/Interceptors + Full Railgun Corvettes + Full Suppression Frigates (Heavy Suppression Frigate would be better if applicable).
  
• Main DPS: All military ships.
  
• Tank: Suppression Frigate, Carrier, and Resource Controller.
  
• Preferred Artifacts:
  
  • Suppression Frigates Area Denial Pattern.
    
  • 1x - 2x Frigate Support System (+5 frigate but -5 strikecraft and corvette pop caps).
    
  • Any strikecraft upgrade without losing too much HP or increasing too much damage taken.
    
  • Hiigaran Frigate Upgrade Refit (+15% Speed and HP for frigates, and -3 corvette pop caps).
    
  • Carrier Guardian Pattern (+1 Artifact choice) and its upgrade increasing strikecraft/corvette pop cap.

Mobility	⭐⭐
Anti-swarm	⭐⭐
Anti-Capital Ships	⭐⭐⭐
Ranged Fight	⭐⭐
Tanking	⭐⭐⭐
Ease of Use	⭐⭐⭐

Key Instruction

• Mostly the same as Fast Response Fleet's.
  
• Plus that you can take it slower and delete any enemies using Suppression Frigate (don't forget to use the skill), even for the heavily defended objectives.

Bomber Fleet

This fleet comes with the Hullbreaker Pattern (enhances anti-strikecraft/corvette ability) for Fleet Bombers and Bombardment Pattern (enhance long-range snipping ability) for Torpedo Frigates.

It has 10 frigate population cap by default, but has 0 for corvette.

Suggested Build 1: Surgical Strike Fleet

• Composition: Full Recons/Interceptors + Torpedo Frigates
  
• Main DPS: Torpedo Frigates.
  
• Tank: Resource Controller and Carrier.
  
• Preferred Artifacts:
  
  • Any Torpedo Frigate upgrade.
    
  • Any strikecraft upgrade without losing too much HP or increasing too much damage taken.
    
  • 1x-2x Frigate Support System (+5 frigate and -5 strikecraft/corvette population cap).
    
  • Carrier Guardian Pattern (+1 Artifact Choice) and none of its further upgrade.

Mobility	⭐
Anti-swarm	⭐⭐⭐
Anti-Capital Ships	⭐⭐⭐
Ranged Fight	⭐⭐⭐
Tanking	⭐
Ease of Use	⭐

Key Instruction

• In the first stage, use your carrier's first production boost to spam full Recons and Interceptors until capped, and 2 torpedo frigates.
  
• Use deathball (Sphere formation) on your strikecrafts all the time.
  
• Initialize a combat using your Torpedo Frigates from afar to get the advantage.
  
• Use your strikecrafts to support your Torpedo Frigates in case any enemies reach your Torpedo Frigates.

Delete enemies from afar!

Torpedo Frigate from Bomber Fleet comes with Bombardment Pattern, which greatly increases the damage, weapon range, vision range, and splash radius, and turns it into a fragile yet deadly surgical strike unit.

The vision of a Torpedo Frigates is almost the same as Recon is, meaning that they can effectively detect the enemy and engage from afar, and completely eliminating enemies before they can fight back.

The best scenario is that with 4-5 Torpedo frigates as a group, send them far away from your carrier and any potential incursion points, and use them to engage any idle or marching enemies . The latter will then fly towards the Torpedo frigates in beeline, and being hit and destroyed along the way.

In a solo Wargames, for most of the time there are at most two incursion points, each of them can be managed by a group of 4~5 torpedo frigates. And your mobile strikecrafts can provide support in case any enemies sneak to the melee range of your fragile torpedo frigates.

A horde of enemy strikecrafts are deleted.

A newly spawned enemy swarms are deleted.

A newly spawned enemy swarms are easily deleted.

Shooting the ducks to capture the spot.

Suggested Build 2: Pac-man Fleet

• Composition: Mixed Recon/Interceptor/Bomber/Tactical Bomber + Assault Frigates or Suppression Frigates
  
• Main DPS: All strikecrafts, especially bombers.
  
• Tank: Frigates, Resource Controllers, and Carrier.
  
• Preferred Artifacts:
  
  • Recon Ranger Pattern and Interceptor Harrier Pattern which grant great Weapon Range, and any bomber upgrades.
    
  • 1x-2x Strikecraft Support System (+10 strikecraft population cap).
    
  • Any Assault or Suppression Frigate upgrades.
    
  • Carrier Guardian Pattern (+1 Artifact Choice) and none of its further upgrade.

Mobility	⭐⭐
Anti-swarm	⭐⭐
Anti-Capital Ships	⭐⭐⭐
Ranged Fight	⭐
Tanking	⭐⭐
Ease of Use	⭐⭐

Key Instruction

• Make use of the two Torpedo Frigates at the beginning, retire them for Assault/Suppression Frigates later.
  
• Interceptor Harrier Pattern and Ranger Recon Pattern are preferred due to enhancement on weapon range, thus they can server better for Pac-man.
  
• Use deathball (Sphere formation) on your strikecrafts all the time.
  
• Capture enemy frigates in close range, then retire them for extra RUs.

Eat'em up

As the name Pac-man suggested, this fleet aims at eliminating enemies in close range efficiently, using the mixed Bomber/Interceptor/Recon strikecraft. Meanwhile, the default 10 frigate pop cap is fair enough for tanking and healing frigates, thus need no expansion anymore.

If you happen to gain the access to Beam Assault Frigate or Heavy Suppression Frigate and those non-bomber upgrades for strikecraft, you may probably try this build instead of sticking to Torpedo frigates.

The bombers of Bomber Fleet originally have Hullbreaker Pattern which enhances Weapon Range and Damage, makes them efficient on anti-any ships. Note that early in the game, when your Recon and Interceptor are not well-enhanced by the artifacts, they are vulnerable to enemy swarms. Better engage enemies only when they outnumber the enemies.

Reconnaissance Fleet

This fleet have no starting artifacts bonus, which means, there is no specification for your ships. What you have are a full collection of Hiigaran ships to choose from, and 2000 extra RUs.

No matter what artifacts you acquired later, your fleet should always contain the mobile units for artifact retrieval and fast response, as well as tanking and healing ships.

The ONLY rule for this fleet, is to adopt a build based on your artifacts.

Say, if you have strong artifacts on your strikecrafts, you should adopt the Fast Response Fleet build. And if you have strong artifacts on your Torpedo Frigates, then you should go for Surgical Strike Fleet. And so far so forth. Don't stick to Build A while most of your artifacts are for Build B.

Experimental Fleet

This is an eye-pleasing fleet because all the military ships/platforms use laser and beam weapon. Comparing to regular projectile/missile-based weapon, laser can instantly hit the enemies, making it much more efficient. As a result, a group of Beam Fighters with Dominance Fighter Superiority Pattern is a extraordinary, if not the most, deadly mobile force in the Wargames.

Always make room for Building Capture Corvettes.

Same as other Incarnate fleets, the Capture Corvette is the only unit that has capture ability. Do not reduce your Corvette pop cap to <5, or you will have to ESC when a capture objective appears., and get ready to scuttle/retire some military corvette for them. Finally, remember to unlock the Capture Corvette in your early game, or you will have to waste time on it when you are caught by that objective.

Use your Resource Controller to repair.

Also, the Experimental Fleet owns two types of ships that can heal: the Resource Controller and the Support Frigate. If you can use the Resource Controller for this job, you can save 1-3 population caps for your military frigates, providing extra firepower.

Suggested Build 1: Fast Response Fleet - Laser Version

• Composition: Full Beam Fighters + Full Plasma Corvettes + Suppression Frigate.
  
• Main DPS: Beam Fighters.
  
• Tank: Frigates and Carrier.
  
• Preferred Artifacts:
  
  • Dominance Fighter Superiority Pattern.
    
  • 1x-3x Strikecraft Support System (+10 strikecraft population cap).
    
  • Carrier Guardian Pattern (+1 Artifact Choice) and its upgrade increasing strikecraft/corvette pop cap.

Mobility	⭐⭐⭐
Anti-swarm	⭐⭐⭐
Anti-Capital Ships	⭐⭐⭐
Ranged Fight	⭐
Tanking	⭐⭐
Ease of Use	⭐⭐⭐

Key Instructions

• Mix Beam Fighters with Plasma Assault Corvettes in the Deathball formation.

Suggested Build 2: Surgical Strike Fleet - Laser Version

• Composition: Beam Fighters + Plasma Corvettes + Multi-beam Frigates.
  
• Main DPS: Multi-beam Frigates.
  
• Tank: Frigates and Carrier.
  
• Preferred Artifacts:
  
  • Multi-beam Frigate Fire Support Pattern (Grant 100%+ Weapon Range and also decent Damage)
    
  • Dominance Fighter Superiority Pattern.
    
  • 1x Frigate Support System (+5 Frigate population cap while -5 strikecraft/corvette pop cap).
    
  • Carrier Guardian Pattern (+1 Artifact Choice) and its upgrade increasing strikecraft/corvette pop cap.

Mobility	⭐⭐
Anti-swarm	⭐⭐⭐
Anti-Capital Ships	⭐⭐⭐
Ranged Fight	⭐⭐⭐
Tanking	⭐⭐
Ease of Use	⭐⭐

Key Instructions

• The Multi-beam Frigate is good at anti-anything, don't be fooled by its tooltip.
  
• Guide your Multi-beam Frigates well.

Suggested Build 3: Melee Laser Fleet

• Composition: Full Beam Fighters + Full Plasma Corvettes + Full Beam Assault or Heavy Suppression Frigate.
  
• Main DPS: Frigates and Strikecrafts.
  
• Tank: Frigates and Carrier.
  
• Preferred Artifacts:
  
  • Beam Assault Frigate Pattern or Heavy Suppression Frigate Pattern.
    
  • Assault Frigate Berserker Pattern or Suppression Frigate Area Denial Pattern.
    
  • 1x Frigate Support System (+5 Frigate population cap while -5 strikecraft/corvette pop cap).
    
  • Carrier Guardian Pattern (+1 Artifact Choice) and its upgrade increasing strikecraft/corvette pop cap.

Mobility	⭐⭐
Anti-swarm	⭐⭐⭐
Anti-Capital Ships	⭐⭐⭐
Ranged Fight	⭐⭐
Tanking	⭐⭐⭐
Ease of Use	⭐⭐

Key Instructions

• Go for either Beam Assault Frigate or (Heavy) Suppression Frigate if they appear early.

Incarnate Fleet

The Incarnate Fleet is similar to the Reconnaissance/Remastered Fleet, which has a broader selection of ships, 2 unused artifacts, and extra 2000 RUs in the beginning.

The Incarnate Fleet distinguish itself from the Hiigaran counterpart from several aspects. It is more "aggressive", literally. The artifacts of this fleet usually provide more DPS enhancement while sacrificing more survivability. And all the military ships are in the aggressive stance by default.

Incarnate Fleet owns the toughest strikecraft and corvette. The Superiority Pattern and Ambuscade Pattern would grant ~2K and ~3.5K HP to the Dominance Fighter (or Beam Fighter) and Assault Corvette (or Nova Assault Corvette), respectively. Owning both of these two artifacts could turn the game into a child's play.

Incarnate Fleet also owns many underwhelmed and underdeveloped units/artifacts. For example, the Plasma Corvette cannot share the Ambuscade Pattern from the Assault Corvette, the interesting Disruption Corvette / ECM Frigate / Railgun Transport feel like a waste to population cap, though they meant to bring extra strategic choices. Maybe they will be properly enhanced in future patches.

Suggested Build 1: Fast Response Fleet - Laser Version (See Experimental Fleet)

Suggested Build 2: Surgical Strike Fleet - Laser Version (See Experimental Fleet)

Suggested Build 3: Fast Response Fleet - Hybrid Version

• Composition: Full Dominance Fighters + Nova Assault Corvettes (Replace 4-6 with Capture Corvette for capture objectives whenever needed).
  
• Main DPS: Strikecraft and Corvettes.
  
• Tank: Any larger ships.
  
• Preferred Artifacts:
  
  • Dominance Fighter Superiority Pattern.
    
  • Nova Assault Corvette Pattern.
    
  • Assault Corvette Ambuscade Pattern.
    
  • 1x-3x Strikecraft Support System.
    
  • Incarnate Corvette Boost.
    
  • Carrier Guardian Pattern (+1 Artifact Choice) and its upgrade increasing strikecraft/corvette pop cap.

Mobility	⭐⭐⭐
Anti-swarm	⭐⭐⭐
Anti-Capital Ships	⭐⭐⭐
Ranged Fight	⭐
Tanking	⭐
Ease of Use	⭐⭐⭐

Key Instructions

• The Nova Assault Corvette launches missiles like firing a machine gun, making it efficiently anti-captical ship.
  
• While the Dominance Fighters with Superiority Pattern are too just tough to die.

[CloudsInTheSky]

Is this game dead? There has been no activity since 2024.

[Sosseres]

I tried a slower and more boring strategy. Just capture frigates using resource collectors. Leave first level with 25+ frigates and then roll through the rest of the maps. Seems very good with strikecraft builds since you can build 3-4 support frigates and have no population for other frigates anyhow.

[PigMightFly]

@Ovid, for tactical bomber, they are 40% more expensive than normal bomber, though it can save the cloak upgrading fee (800 RU) and gain 25% speed bonus. I am not sure if it has damage bonus. This one is okay.

For other unit unlocking artifacts, I normally choose them when all the options are not I want. They don’t have “children”, won’t occupy your roster.

[PigMightFly]

@Ovid, beam assault frigate artifact is maybe one of the best artifact in the game, another one is battery torpedo frigate.

They are the because it saves money. By unlocking it you don’t need to pay for the researching fee and upgrading fee (about 1800 RU?). They are laser-version assault. And they share the artifacts bonus for assault frigate. Same for battery torpedo frigate.

[Ovid]

Question: what are your thoughts on unit-unlock artifacts? For example, I was wondering how Beam Assault Frigates would work out?

[PigMightFly]

Hi h45yang,

Interference is possible, I happened to finish one in the video in Section Strikecraft Fleet. It's the 2nd objective in the stage, followed by moving the control nodes. The enemy escalation level was 3 - 4, and I just strike them head-on without any tricks.

I agree with you that it could becomes impossible under escalation level 7, with too many frigates on it and several destroyers incoming..

[h45yang]

BTW @OP, you're amazing and give me hope.
I had given up, but you've inspired me by showing it's possible.

[h45yang]

Dataspire I found to be "easy" if you rush in, lead them away,
and cap with an single cloaked unit XD

Baiting defenders away is most easily done with long range missile frigs,
but I've not had much success on higher difficulties because of the enemy cheese,
and it's harder to sphere guard carrier kite with the missile frigates & their pathing

[h45yang]

I think interference is impossible to do solo,
as the kiting strategy allows you to survive & lead away, but builds up enemy destroyers,
but the mission itself requires you to stay still and must use your carrier to capture...

[PigMightFly]

For strikecraft/corvette fleets with limited frigates (like suppression frigates),
- Try maximizing the DPS from railgun corvette (with the skill) and bombers.
- Resource collectors is must-have.
- Your frigates with healer makes the first contact, followed by the swarms and resource collectors, finally the DPS.

I would mostly ignore the destroyers on my way to the spot. But if they happen to come with you to the spot, that means the run takes too much time...