Copyright by Senatus ©

Hello to everyone that is reading this guide! If you have played before, some parts of this guide might seem really basic, and you can skip those. But even for those that have played before, there might be some useful bits in the later parts. First things first for new people, Battledawn is a very strategic game, with a lot of elements to master and a lot to consider. It might seem daunting at first, but later on you’ll notice it’s extremely fun to try and outsmart the people you are playing against and you’ll love the teamwork.

Table of contents:

I. Complete Basics
II. Unit Upgrades
III. Mixed Chassis
IV. Damage
V. Ratios
VI. Nukes/Missiles/Dragons
VII. Experience
VIII. Jamming
IX. Spies
X. Spams
XI. Communication
XII. Leaving army unattended
XIII. Mines and how much they give
XIV. General tips and tricks

I. COMPLETE BASICS

So, as I said, I’ll start with the complete basics. If you are a new player, the tutorial that you first get when you start battledawn will teach you about the structures, and what they are used for. It also teaches you about the barracks, and how you can recruit units there. These are the real basics that everyone will have to use. Another part of the tutorial is the one where they explain about alliances. If you are a new player, it’s usually a good idea to join an existing alliance instead of creating one yourself.

The next part of the tutorial is about outposts. Most players will tell you it’s useless to do this part of the tutorial, because your outpost will get taken anyway. This is true, but the first world you join should only be for practice anyway, you shouldn’t expect to win it.

When you’re done with the tutorial, you will have 3 units, an outpost and some structures. It’s good that you have gotten to know how all these things work, but if you’re going to play an actual world, you should know that this is usually NOT a useful way to play.

If you’re a new person, that doesn’t know many people in the game yet, the first thing you should do is to try and meet people. The chat is usually a good place for it. If you make it known in the chat that you’re a new player that is active and willing to learn, chances are you might get taken into an alliance, which is a team. Once you’re in this alliance, you can get help from your alliance members, and they can teach you how to play. As it is hard for people to tell whether you are some random newb that will be gone again after a few minutes or that is actually interested in playing the game, don't be discouraged if people don't take you seriously at first. In fact, mentioning that you're reading this guide might help convince them to take you seriously as it shows you're trying to learn about the game as fast as possible.

Another important thing is that you start with 100 blue tokens. You should not use these tokens on the first world you play, they are very valuable and useful, so once you think you know how to play the game a bit and want to try and win a world, that’s when you should use them at the start. But I’ll get to that later.

If you have gotten into an alliance, well done! There is however also the chance that you won’t get into an alliance immediately. If that is the case, you’ll have to go solo for a bit. Most of the people that are now the top players on Battledawn started out just like you, they didn’t know people and they didn’t know how to play the game. They just started playing, and learned as they played. But your first priority should still be getting to know people and getting into an alliance.

For alliances, metal (or gold on fantasy) mines and oil (or lumber on fantasy) mills are very important. If you take a metal mine on the map, and claim it to be yours, the entire alliance that you are in will get +5 metal per tick. If you are in an alliance of 12, that’s a bonus of 60 metal per tick. Therefore, if you take some mines or wells, it will become much more tempting for alliances to take you in.


Left is a metal mine, right is an oil well.

If you are going to attack anything, you will need to build the level 3 metal mine, level 3 farm and level 3 oil well in your structures first. That’s just a rule of the game, you need to have these structures before you can attack. You’ll also need a barracks, because without it you can’t recruit any units. So now that you have the level 3 structures and the barracks, you should recruit some troops. You can then try using those units to take the mines and wells around you.

That’s the basics really. Try and take the mines and wells to get into an alliance, or talk in the chat and try to find an alliance there.

II. GAME MECHANICS/UNIT UPGRADES

For the full list of military unit types and upgrades, check http://wiki.battledawn.com/index.php/Mi ... Unit_Types

Once you’re in an alliance, you’ll most likely get more metal and oil income, because if anyone from the alliance takes a mine or well you will get a bonus as well. With this income, you can either decide to upgrade your structures so that you get a more steady income, or you can choose to go for stronger units so that you can take more mines and wells with it, which is good for the alliance.
The most basic units are infantry, with a concussive weapon and an armor upgrade. These are the ones you recruited in the tutorial, and they are the weakest units there are. If you want to have stronger units, you will need to upgrade your structures. More specifically, the structures on the row below your barracks. If you click on the first building underneath the barracks row, you will see that it’s called the “beam weapons workshop” (or piercing weapons workshop in fantasy). This upgrade allows you to recruit units with beam weapons, which are strong against vehicles. The next upgrade is the “explosive weapons workshop”, which gives you the ability to recruit units with explosive weapons, which are stronger against heavy units.

The upgrades after that are the ones that really make your units stronger though. The upgrade after the explosive weapons workshop is the “damage upgrade workshop”. This will give you the ability to recruit units with the damage upgrade. The upgrade after that, and the last one, is the “range upgrade workshop”.

This gives you the ability to have 3 different upgrades for your units. You can choose armor, damage or range. Every upgrade has its strengths and weaknesses. I’ll list them here, and I will assume we are going with infantry and not vehicles or heavy units.

A normal armor unit has 8 HP (hitpoints), 2 AP (attack points), and 1 range. It costs 100 metal.
A damage unit has 6 HP, 7 AP and 2 range. It costs 150 metal and 50 oil.
A range unit has 4 HP, 4 AP and 3 range. It costs 200 metal and 100 oil.

If you look at this, you will of course notice that the damage unit has the most attack points. This is true, however what you also need to consider is the range. The higher the range is, the earlier in the battles they get to shoot. Battles are divided up in rounds. The first round, only the units with the highest range get to shoot. So before a damage unit or armor unit attack, the range unit attacks because it has 3 range. The round after that, both the range and the damage unit attack. Then the round after that, all of them attack. Therefore, if you have enough range units and your opponent only has damage units, it might be possible that you kill all his damage units in the first round and your units don’t take any damage at all. Another important thing to know is that armor units always get attacked first, damage units get attacked after and range units get attacked last. So for example if you send 100 armor and 2 damage units into battle, your damage units will always be the last to die.



What most good players do however is send both armor and range into battle. The armor units always take the first hits, which is good because they have 8 HP for only 100 gold. This means you pay 100/8=12.5 gold per HP. If you would send only range into combat and they would take all the damage, you would be paying 200/4=50 gold per HP. (200 because range units cost 200 gold, 4 because they have 4 HP). If you send armor and range units into battle, your expensive range units will do most of the damage, while your cheap armor units take all the damage from your opponent.

This might all sound a bit complicated, but just think of it as the armor units being in the front and the range units being in the back. The front units protect the back units, while the back units try to do as much damage as possible to the opponent.

So, when you know this, you know most of the game mechanics. If you’re wondering how much attack and hitpoints vehicles and heavy units have, just multiply the infantry values by 2 for vehicles, and multiply them by 3 for heavy units. Some people like to go infantry, some like to go vehicles and some like to go heavies. They all have their advantages and disadvantages, what you should know is that infantry get a 33% bonus against vehicles, and vehicles get a 33% bonus against heavies. Heavies don’t get any bonus.

A concussive weapon does 100% to infantry, 50% to vehicles and 25% to heavies.
A beam weapon does 100% to vehicles, 50% to heavies and 25% to infantry.
An explosive weapon does 100% to heavies, 50% to infantry and 25% to vehicles.

Therefore, say you send 4 squads of concussive infantry, it will count as 4 concussive squads, but you can also use it as 2 beam squads or 1 explosive squad.

III. Mixed chassis

Lately, I have seen a lot of people going mixed chassis instead of single chassis. What I mean by mixed chassis is that they have both infantry and vehicles, or even infantry vehicles and tanks. This isn’t good for big battles, and let me explain why.

Players like me, and I think most of the players really, always make both anti-inf, anti-veh and anti-heavy units. So imagine me having 10 squads of anti inf, 10 squads of anti veh and 10 squads of anti heavy. All my units are infantry in this example. If you were to send 20 squads of infantry to me, you would have a much bigger chance to win than when you send 7 squads of infantry, 7 squads of vehicles and 7 squads of heavies. This is simply because if you would send only infantry, my anti vehicle and anti heavy squads wouldn’t do full damage. If you send a bit of all, all the troops I have can do full damage. Try it out in the battle simulator, it really makes a big difference.


This is a battle simulation of a person with mixed chassis against a person with single chassis, both having the same amount of anti inf/veh/heavy

IV. Damage

Many players use damage in their squads. While damage might be useful when you face people that have only armor, you’ll have a hard time fighting someone with range. If someone sends enough range, they can take out your damage without you doing ANY damage to them. Most people will always try to have rounds that last only 1 round, so that they take minimum losses. In battles like these, your damage will be just useless. Therefore, I think people shouldn’t make damage, but should go for a mix of range and armor. Damage might work initially when many people don’t have range yet, but in the long run and in the big battles it just fails.


Defender only used armor and damage, combined with not adding spy protection. As you can see, that didn't work out well

V. Ratios

You can always come up with your own ratios, but most people tend to go for 21-9 for inf, 11-4 for vehicles and 7-3 for heavies. 21/11/7 being range, 9/4/3 being armor. It’s been tested over and over again, these are the best ratios. Of course a small change won’t make that much of a difference, for example going 22/8 or 20/10 for inf or 10/5 for vehicles.

VI. Nukes/Missiles/Dragons

Many people use nukes/missiles/dragons, but few use them correctly. If you send a nuke at someone, 10% of their units get killed, and they all get damaged to 1 HP. If your opponents are at 1 HP, it will be much easier to attack them. However many people don’t dare to attack the same tick as their nuke, and attack one tick later. So for example if the nuke is ETA 6, they attack ETA 7. This way, your opponent regenerates 1 HP, and he has 1 more tick to get his units out of there. If you make your units hit the same tick as the nuke, your units won’t get damaged at all, despite what some people think. This also goes for defending troops. If you see a nuke coming for you, and it is at ETA 2, you should send away your units, then when the nuke is ETA 1 you turn them around again, and they get no damage. Units that land on an OP or colony the same tick as a nuke DON’T get damaged, it’s simple as that. Another thing about nukes is that if a nuke is ETA 1 and you send away your units, you will lose 10% of your units. They will also reduced to 1 HP, so be careful and make sure to let them regenerate their health first.

Something that has been added to nukes quite recently is the aspect of radiation. When a nuke hits an outpost, it will give the outpost 6-12 ticks of radiation, 3-6 ticks of radiation for a colony that has been hit. What radiation does it subtract 1 HP from all units on the outpost or colony per tick. Meaning if you have heavy armor units with 24 HP and you let them sit on the OP for 10 ticks, they will be down to 14 HP. When radiation wears off, the units on the outpost or colony start gainining HP again. Radiation will never kill a unit, when your unit reaches 1 HP it will stay at 1 HP.


The combination of having more armor than range, and having your army nuked. This is a perfectly executed attack with a nuke, minimum losses for the attackers.

VII. Experience

Something that has been added and that many people seem to not fully understand yet is exp. It might seem useless at first, but when your troops start winning battle after battle, it really adds up. I'll let you find out the specifics yourself, because knowing it all already would be boring, but I'll tell you the maximum added advantage you can get from exp for a range unit is +50% damage, +200% health and +2 range. For the added advantage you get for every level, please check the wiki here http://wiki.battledawn.com/index.php?ti ... Experience.



VIII.Jamming

When you are going to attack either a colony or a gate, you'll need to jam it so that your enemy can't gate in more troops last second. Something important to remember here, and in really EVERY attack, is to do it last second. Jam the colony or gate, send in your troops at the last seconds of the tick, that will give them 1 less tick to respond. What is important when jamming is to know that jams last 3-6 ticks. So if you want to be absolutely sure, you need to rejam every 3 ticks. So say you jammed tick 1081, it might only last until tick 1083. Therefore you should rejam it tick 1083, if you want to make sure they can't get in troops.

IX. Spies

Spies are a very important part of BD. You have one "master spy", that can fly around and plant agents. With these agents, you can do powerful spy actions that can cripple your enemy. However, there are some things that you must remember about using agents.
- You can only perform a lockdown on your own OP if it has 24 control ticks or more. On outposts that do not belong to you, you can attempt a lockdown as long as the outpost has not changed hands this tick (meaning it has 1 control tick).
- If you have an agent on an OP and it changes owner, your infiltration ticks get halved.
- If you have an agent on an OP or colony and someone else performs a succesful operation, the infiltration of your agent will be halved.
- If an outpost or colony gets hit by a nuke or dragon, all agents on said outpost or colony will die.


The result of getting your army spied. This guy lost 12 squads of heavies, the guy attacking lost only 1.5 squads of armor.

X. Spams

Although some people might tell you spams are overrated, spams can be extremely useful. A spam is defined as any squad that has a relatively small amount of units, for example 1 armor inf or 1 heavy. I know from experience that if you are busy fighting a war and units are scarce, spams can do a LOT of damage. The major advantage of sending out spams is that you opponent either has to send full squads to defend, or waste mana/energy by scanning them all. Now, if you send out only 1 armor inf spams and your enemy has their units at home, it will most likely be easy to defend for them. But if you notice your enemy getting a lot of units out to attack, it might be a good idea to send out a variety of spams. Not only 1 armor inf, but different units as well.

Another good way of using spam is if you are fighting a war, alliance versus alliance. If you can somehow manage to send out a lot of spams to their OPs and resource OPs, they will have to spend their mana or energy scanning them, and waste precious units on defending OPs that could otherwise be winning the war for them.

XI. Communication

Although the ingame chat is useful enough at times, if you are fighting a big war and need to keep track of multiple things that are happening, the ingame chat is probably not suited to your needs. It's a bit small, and you can't copy-paste and links, so if you for example need to send around a Battle Report, you'll have little use of the ingame chat.
That's why I, and most people I play with, have Skype. It's a very effective communication tool, you can send images and everything. This might not necessarily be a real Battledawn tip, but communication is a key factor in BD.

XII. Leaving army unattended

Very simply, DON'T do it. If you leave your army on an OP near a strong alliance that has even 1 nuke, there's a big chance it will get nuked. And even if it doesn't, it makes it very easy for them to gang up on it and attack it with a lot of people. So if you know you're going to be offline for a large amount of ticks, get your army somewhere safe. Preferably behind the frontlines, and preferably not too close to any dangerous players.

XIII. Mines and how much they give

This is about the mines you build yourself in the structures, not the ones you take on the map. Every time you upgrade your metal mine or oil well, it becomes more efficient. What this means is that when you have a metal mine level 1, it's efficiency will be 6%. So, if you have 500 workers, you would get 500*0.06 = 30 metal per tick. As you upgrade your mines, this efficiency increases. Metal mine level 2 gives 8%, level 3 gives 17%, level 4 gives 18% and level 5 gives 20%. So if you have 1000 workers and a level 5 mine, you can get 200 metal per tick from the metal mine alone.

The oil well works the same way, but the percentages are different. Level 1 gives 3%, level 2 gives 5%, level 3 gives 7%, level 4 gives 10% and level 5 gives 13%.

XIV. General tips and tricks
Overhead

Overhead is a game mechanic implemented to stop strong players from getting too strong. How it works is that for every 100 soldiers (100 inf, 50 veh or 33 tanks or any combination) your overhead goes up by 12%. Meaning that if you have 110 soldiers and want to recruit one armor inf unit, the cost will be 100 * 1.12 = 112 metal. If you have 200 soldiers and want to recruit an armor inf unit, it will be 100 *1.24 = 124 metal.

When you lose units, your overhead will decrease. Meaning if you have 360 soldiers but lose 200 soldiers in some battle, your overhead will go back to 12% because you are now at 160 soldiers.

Attack and move with short ETAs

Just in case ETAs mean nothing to you yet, in this case I am talking about the amount of ticks a certain attack or move will take. So if I were right next to your units and I were to attack them, it would be an ETA 3 attack (since 3 is the shortest ETA you can have for an attack). Similarly, if I were to do a very short move to a friendly location, it would at least be an ETA 2 move.

There are many good reasons to try and keep your attacks and moves short ETA, most importantly that it makes it a lot harder to trap you. If you are attack short ETA, you usually are able to see attacks on the outpost you attacked from coming, can see defense going to your target coming, and can decide whether you want to keep going or turn your units. If on the other hand you attack with an ETA of for example 6, then by the time you notice your target is being reinforced it might be the case that your origin outpost has also been taken and has been reinforced by your enemy as well.

The same goes for friendly moves, meaning moving from an outpost that your team owns to another outpost your team owns. If you move at ETA 2, your enemy will never be able to catch you since any attack will at least take 3 ticks. If you decide to move ETA 6, especially with a large part of your army, it might be very tempting for an enemy to take both your origin OP and your destination OP, forcing you to take a fight.

Sharing information with teammates

Especially when at war, but really at any time during an era, it is vital that your team is up to date on what units your enemies have and that they have any other information you might have that they are not able to see for themselves. A way to very easily share screenshots with your teammates is using Lightshot. Lightshot allows you to simply click printscreen on your keyboard, select the area you want screenshotted, and immediately upload it so you can share the screenshot with your teammates.


This turned out to be a longer guide than I expected. If you ever have any other questions, feel free to send me a PM or even better, apply for the adopt a newb center which can be found here viewtopic.php?f=171&t=1036. Of course you can also always message the admin ingame with any questions, or check the wiki http://wiki.battledawn.com/index.php?title=Main_Page.

it is indeed pretty, and very helpful.


shouldn't it be senatus'?

Good basics thanks for posting:D

Woah, a great and well formatted guide to answer a lot of those questions newbies ask. Thanks very much, will be referring to this thread a lot!

edit: stickied

Thanks

If there's anything you think I might add, please tell me.

make part two about war

Great guide will add it to the list of good guides

make a part 2 about war and strategies

Should mention printscreen websites like lightshot and gyazo too. I also agree that a brief section on how to war w/ tactics and strategy would be useful; otherwise, great job!

should explain more about Skype, why it's "better" than the in-game chat, as well as giving several Skype web-client chat services

(giving Milan more stuffs to do)