Military Madness Tactical Guide to Virtual Warfare? The online instruction book within the game is nice. I don't think it teaches you these tactics though, just how to play. Terrain - Try to get on a higher terrain than the enemy. It really helps your defense, especially when you're on the 40% stuff. Note: only some types of land units can get on the 40% terrain. Air units don't get defense from terrain. Support - When you attack/are attacked by enemy, you'll see a little hex map. One shows offensive and one shows defensive help. If you are attacking, you want offensive help. If you're defending, defensive help. When you're attacking an enemy from position 1, you'll get an attacking advantage from positions 1 1 2, and 3. When you're attacking from position 6, you 2 3 get it from positions 4, 5, and 6. If you have a unit NME at 1, and 6, you have full surround advantage, and this 4 5 severely decreases their defense. The more units you 6 have around the enemy, the more offensive power you gain from your offensive help. The more enemies you have around your unit that is attacked, the worse your defense. Note: offensive help only occurs when the helping unit can attack the same enemy unit being attacked. In other words, if you're attacking a Hunter air unit, and you have a Polar trying to help, the Polar will help to decrease the Hunter's defense, but will not help offensively. Experience - Obviously, the more experience a unit has, the better it fights. More true for some units than others (Charlies seem to suck, no matter what. Atlas units are much more powerful w/ experience). Range - You want to stay out of the range of enemy fire. This is especially true for those enemies that fire from a distance, Atlantes (Atlases), Hadrian, Octopi (Octopuses), Hawkeye, and even Lynxes. If you want to know the range of a unit, friend or foe, just put the cursor over the unit and go to the info menu. Know the units well - Some units just are not made to fight against air, some land. Look at the unit information to see this, i.e. Eagles can attack land units well, but fight poorly against air units. Seekers fight air units well, but not land. Giant and Hunter units are good at both. Hawkeye can't attack land units. Polar can't attack air units. Lynxes and Atlantes (Atlases) can't attack immediate enemies. Etc... Other things... * Try to capture factories. In some stages, you're just not destined to get them (and the computer cheats to make sure you don't, {I think =8)}). * Try to keep the battleground near one of your factories. That way, any units that require replenishing can return to the factory. * Protect your home base from Kilroy and Charlies. * Some units do much better with offensive help. Some units gain lots of defense from little defensive help. You'll get the hang of it as you play more. * If an enemy is about to take over a factory, and you have Charlies, Kilroy, or Panthers inside, take them out (and sacrifice them). If an enemy doesn't come to receive the sacrifice, when it's your turn, take the factory right back! * Take advantage of your environment. Set up around certain types of terrain so that you have the advantage. (Eg. in the first stage, place two tanks right in front of the bridge. This way, when the enemy sits on the bridge, you have two units attacking one, and you have support help defensively and offensively.) Some personal tactics... I like to keep my units in a line like this... 1 This helps because the enemy can't surround your unit very well. 2 You also get defensive help from units next to you if they try to 3 all attack one unit. The units at the ends of the line (1 and 4) 4 are vulnerable though, so place stronger units at the ends. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Correct me if I'm rhong. Send corrections/additions to: rhong@uiuc.edu