4 - Units and RTS Production

Factors affecting RTS Production

Sigurd the First knew that you can't win a war without troops. He formed his army from a mixture of the six Civilized Races, and despite the empire falling into civil war, the races are still united, even in opposition. Each unit has a role to fill in the army, and each has three possible upgrades. Some upgrades are active, some are passive, and they all offer different possibilities to use them. Two units (Shaman and Zeppelin) come with free abilities (Healing and Ally Range Increase respectively) that are always on and do not have to be researched.Ground units are the backbone of the army, the only units capable of seizing building points. They come from one of two structures: the Battle Forge for the lighter units, and the War Factory for the heavier ones. With so many types, counters are not immediately obvious, so it's important to keep an eye on what units your opponent is making.Air units are uninhibited by terrain, and can unleash devastating strikes on distant points, however, they are relatively fragile and must be protected. Neglect creating air units of your own at your own risk. All air units are produced by the AerofactoryControl of the waterways is often important, as it can let you bypass troops and chokepoints, or engage in long-range assaults or support. The Transport is the only units which can transport heavy units quickly to islands or across bodies of water, and its abilities to cloak and clear mines aid to its power. The Ironclad is a powerful defense unit to protect your fleet from airborne threats. The Juggernaut has the longest range in the game, it can be a mobile factory for producing Imp Fighters, and it can unleash the devastating Imp Bunker Buster to lay waste to a base.Shamans and Warlocks can move over water, making them also supplemental naval units. Their abilities can greatly enhance your own naval fleets, and disrupt the enemies’.: The population of a land in strategy map. In battle, it turns slowly into Recruits at a rate depending on the number of Recruitment Citadels (RC) you hold.Some cards (Genocide) can reduce a territory's population (even to none). That is good for when attacking a territory with an larger army than the enemy has - or fighting in a area of low faction approval. Be warned though, that at some point a patch may come out that adds negative consequences for using Genocide cards. Other cards can boost the population - good for defending against a larger army than you have, or when fighting in a area with high faction approval.Population is a common pool resource, meaning the total amount of population will supply both your recruits and the enemy recruits. Once a population is gone, your resources are limited to what you have saved up, and what little you can get from capturing enemy-held construction sites.You do not need to capture all or even most of the bases to win a battle, when the enemy has no recruits and population is depleted the currently deployed forces will determine the outcome, if you defeat the enemy army and he has no recruits and no population, you win the battle regardless of how many bases he or you hold.: Recruits are the only resource in RTS battles. It is comes from the population of the territory on the strategy map. Recruits are used to produce units in real time battle, and are generated by special buildings called Recruitment Citadels.If a map's population is depleted, you will gain or lose ("defections") Recruits from your "bank account" depending on whether or not you have more or less Recruitment Citadels than your opponent.: These are special buildings that are built on octogonal Construction Sites. Holding more Recruitment Citadels will increase the rate that population is turned into new recruits for you, and increase your Support cap. You need at least one Recruitment Citadel to be able to spawn as a Dragon.: Is how much a population of a land supports you personally, and it affects how many units you can have out at a time. (Support is also commonly referred to as Supply by Starcraft players.) One of the prime factors to how much Support you have is faction approval, The other factor is the number of Recruitment Citadels held.: Depending on the choices you make onboard the, you will notice your faction approvals changing. It's in this section and not the strategy map because so far as I have noticed, faction approval has no effect in anything on the strategy map OR any auto resolve battles.On the other hand it has important effects on real time battle, where your Support will be greatly affected by faction Approval. The lower your approval is, the less Support you have. The less Support you have, the fewer units you can field at once, potentially preventing you from winning RTS battles due to never being able to have a force with minimal size required to beat the enemy army.Units are produced from the appropriate factory ( the Battle Forge for Light-class ground units, the War Factory for Medium and Heavy-class Ground units, the Aerofactory for Aerial units, and the Shipyard for Naval units). Units are built one at a time, but you can queue up multiple units (you can use the shift key to order 5 at once). Units have a certain cost in Recruits, which is deducted immediately upon order, and they use up a certain amount of Support towards your cap.Normally, producing units takes time and resources to build, but in some cases, you can battle on a territory where the Support cost of the Troops you brought in from the Strategy Map and Mercenaries exceeds the maximum you're allowed to field.In that case, any additional units you have brought in an invasion force are held in Reserve. Units held in Reserve do not cost recruits and have no production timer, they pop out instantly, they merely require the factory and available supply cap.For example, if you invade with 4 troopers more than your supply cap allows, upon building your Battle Forge and queuing 6 troopers in the production queue, 4 will pop out instantly because you had them in your Reserve. The other 2 will be produced normally in the factory.: during battle the top middle bar in the battle UI will show you a graphic comparing of how big the armies are proportional to each other. If your army size drops to under 10% of the total army size, you will automatically lose the match, so keep production up and keep your Troops as close to the Support limit as you can.