Hi,

I've been trying to work out the best way to build an army, given the same amount of resources. With all the countering cycles between different units, I was wondering :

If I build a squad with an equal amount of units of all kinds (lets say 2 of each), can an opponent build a squad with the same amount of resources that will easily defeat mine?

Thanks

Hey, so in talking terms of cost, a solid build i use alot is 3/3/4.

I know alot of people give me grief over my use of damage, but i would say my past experience with warrants some experimentation. Damage is really good in even fights and when you know your going to lose and you just want to dish out as much pain as possible. 9/10 vets will tell you that 3/0/7 is the only build you should ever use. I dont like this build and speak heavily against it. That build is used for players expecting be winning every battle through use of numbers, not build composition.

But dont take my word for it, because i know 10 people are all gona show up and say i dont know what im talking about.

u dnt no wht ur tlking about

No but seriously, the squad proposed above is cost efficient and deadly. I agree with you

I'll be the voice of 7/3 Range:armor. If you search the forums a bit you will see countless discussions on this topic (many of which I have posted on) so I will keep this answer short. You should not be fighting battles with equal amounts of units as no one really wins in that situation. The lose of units is simply too much and not worth it. Damage is only effective when the battles last at least 3 rounds (again something you should be avoiding and certainly not building for).

Now lets be realistic. In large scale wars how many battles actually only last 1-2 rounds?

With a spy attack or nuke sure. But he is asking as per cost. You should never expect the war to be sided in your favor. Always expect your enemy to be just as strong as you.

I am a user of the 30% armor and 70% range build (all same chassis), but I will say I am perfectly fine with people building the latter version as Seth suggested. There are MANY situations where I've been forced to fight a near even battle with the enemy I'm facing and when that happens, as it was stated, the damage units really do well to kick in and dish out the damage (assuming you still have the right amount of armor to protect them long enough). But everyone is basing this off of the tank/mechs/heavy units. The usual builds for the "pro build" as people refer to it, but I shall call it the 3-7 build should be as follows: (order is armor/damage/range)
infantry: 10/0/20
vehicles/cav: 5/0/10
tanks/mech/heavy: 3/0/7

And as a side note, judging from how the 1st poster was talking, I just want to give some more insight. You should only build one chassis type (infantry, vehicle or tanks) at a time and it should be the same as your team. Mixing chassis will only lead to more losses for your team as a whole in coordinated battles. SOMETIMES someone with a different chassis will end up saving you because they happen to have the chassis that your enemy wasn't well prepared for, but this isn't the case in most scenarios and it usually isn't so much that it saves you. Along with making only one chassis type, you should keep your squads to 1 anti chassis type. Don't mix your anti chassis in your squads (meaning don't put concussive, beam and explosive units in the same squad). They should be their own separate squads.

Truthfully though, your build is based on your style of play. If you are super active and your team is as well, you should be building the 3-7 build no doubt. With an active team, you should be outnumbering your enemies every time with good coordination. If you find you are usually less active and your team only has a few active (or if you are active, but your team is mostly only inactive or semi-actives) then you should probably go with Seth's build. Reason being that you'll most likely be forced to fight battles that will be very close to equal or with you at the disadvantage. You COULD save yourself and abandon your teammates in hopes of an opportunity arising that is in your favor, but often times, you find that you could "barely" win the upcoming battle if you take it, so you take a chance since "blah blah" is offline and about to get killed anyways. So might as well take the chances in one big battle.

I have tried cheating damage for range eras. The problem? That the main challenge in BD is fighting stronger players in the era. Higher tiered players will be able to outnumber your squads easily. As a solo world player, I often encounter this situation. The best deterrent is a strong range build. No matter what hits the troops, nukes, spy, etc; my range will always get a hit. Stronger players will spam your troops, see the BR and walk away. There is nothing more painful than 150 anti heavy veh range troops.
Another important concept, these equal battles that occur a couple times in the era. As an active player, I look for players who use damage, despite the possibility of them being stronger. I will sit, plant a few agents or nuke them and destroy their units with NO losses. This cannot be countered. The 1 tick between range of damage will create battles that offense has no losses.
Whenever I counter a player with damage, I make easy exp for my troops.
When I encounter a player with range, I make a friend.

That being said, I have tried the 3 3 4 build. Despite any statistics, the likelihood of ANYONE getting in an equal fight is nonexistent. Such battles are bad for both players and will result in mutual destruction. Overwhelming wins are the only viable options. Damage troops will also be hit before range, which means in these theoretical EQUAL fights, you would lose your troops before the range troops, thus dealing less damage than the ranged troops.

I hope this helped :D

Half true. You seem to be fighting worlds in which there aren't active damage build users. Of course a nuke and some well placed spies will even the odds. That's why the 3-7 build is considered better. When you make the odds in your favor, range is no doubt better. In an EVEN battle when there are no other circumstances, if you have the sufficient armor to protect your dmg units (why dmg builds usually do 5-5) then the dmg will dish out the damage, but usually at the cost of your army. But also usually for both sides.

I agree w/ you; and this is a fact. Damage is not USELESS by any stretch WHATSOEVER. (Sorry for grave digging but let me go on for a moment).
All the pros argue by saying that its best to kill off the enemy as soon as possible. Captain obv. by doing so they will limit there casualties. This is great but very rarely does this happen. As stated above the chances of the squads being equal in numbers are very VERY remote; not to mention the X factors (Nukes; Spies). But if we were to play by the rules (being that they were number-wise equal) then there are some things to go over.
Excluding all outside factors:
Player A has 999 INFANTRY CONCLUSIVE RANGE.
Player B has 999 INFANTRY CONCLUSIVE DAMAGE.
Many will say that; the damage will lose; this is 100% true under ANY CIRCUMSTANCE if you exclude the X factors and exclude defensive units; yes the range does enough damage to weaken; (this is assuming the damage survives to begin with) the damage units therefore the damage units do not do enough damage to wipe out the range by the second round.
& this is why raw range will ALWAYS beat raw damage. Again not including experience, nukes, spies, list goes on forever. But you tell me pro-builders, how many battles have you seen were there were absolutely NO defensive units?
Play around with battle simulator.

Player A has 10 INF CON RNG Player B has 10 INF CON DMG
Again player A will win. Let us add 4 INF CON DEF.

10R + 4D = player A 10DM + 4D = player B
Now what happened?
Draw. Let us do the same exact thing with vechs. mechs. infs. It does not matter at ALL!
Lets say the weapon that the chassis uses is 100% effective. BEAM does 100% damage to Vechs therefore BEAM VECHS do 100% to each other catch my drift?
Same with Mechs and explosives. It will always come out as an draw.
As long as there are a total of 14 units on both sides and they both have 4 defensive units and they both use weapon types to combat there own chassis types it will always be a draw.
4D + 10X [Chase type identical & weapon type identical] = Draw.
Damage is less however. Therefore you could make up the cost by doing lets pull a number out of my [Bad word here].
10R + 4D VS 10DMG + 8D.
This is literally ground breaking news; and for every person that sees this.. And tries this excluding X factors it has a 100% success rate.
As long as the damage is the SAME chase type and with that chase type identical weapon type to combat its chassis type it will ALWAYS beat range.
What I mean is..
Player A has 999 INF CON RNG and Player B has 999 INF CON DMG.
They BOTH have 999 INF CON DEF.
Player B has a MUCH cheaper army when overhead is included and will lose LESS UNITS and WIN.
BUT if Player A has 999 INF CON RNG and Player B has 999 INF CON DMG.
And they have 10 INF CON DEF.
Player A will cripple the damage before it has a chance to actually use its effectiveness.
Put into a mathematical formula.
C=Chase type [If mech is stated then its explosive; infantry conclusive;vech beam]
W=Weapon type
If they have the same environment (Very remote). X=Number of units.
10[DAMAGE](MECH/INF/VECH)+4[DEFENSE]
Mathematical formula:
Xcw + 4/10Xcw - 5 = DRAW
There you go formula is above anyone who feels to correct me please do I am literally just trying to aid you.
If you have 500 units take 40% of the number of units you have and subtract them by 5.
500 DMG + 200 - 5 = 500 DMG + 195 DEF
500 DMG + 195 DEF VS 500 RNG + 195 DEF
Draw. Anything higher than 195 defense will win.
This is under 3 conditions. All X factors are excluded. The weapon types and chassis types are EXACTLY the same and the odds are the same. What are your chances of this happening? Literally next to none.
D for Damage DF for defense and R for range.
D * X + DF * X will always beat R * X + DF * X.
X means the SAME exact thing in this equation whatever you multiple one to you have to multiple the other.
10 DMG + 10 DEF VS 10 RANGE + 10 DEF.
X * DMG + X DEF VS X R + X DEF.
The defense is a constant variable. The damage and range numbers are the same.
AS long as there aren't any outside factors involved; and you have the same chase type and the same weapon type and if this formula is involved were you have 300 defensive mechs (explosive for everything range damage and defense).
300 DEF MECHS 300 DMG MECHS VS 300 DEF MECHS 300 RNG MECHS.
The damage will always win if its numerical values are equivalent to the ranges values. Remember C= CHASE SAME W= WEAPON TYPE SAME
Damage side| Xcw + 4/10X
Range side| Xcw + 4/10X
Range will lose every single time.

Well, you did well in showing your writing skills, but you may have wanted to go to screenshots at some point This get's very number heavy and it becomes a mess to look at.