First off, i know there is already a thread, but it's dead and empty, so a new thread will do.
This thing is not about any technical questions, i.e. "what factor does the AI get Resources", it's purely about gameplay advice and rough build orders.
This Guide is split into 4 rough sections:
1: General Gameplay Tips
2: General AI Information and Tips
3: Playing As ________ - Section
4 Playing with/against _______ - Section
Also as a disclaimer: I wrote this guide based on official info from the threads here, but mostly on personal experience. Therefore you may find that some of this guide doesn't apply to you, if so, feel free to add your advice in the comments, if it's good i might add it!
General Information:
I ried to find general rules for all situations and factions, but i experienced that the AI behaves wildly different depending on your settings and factions, but i could find a few general points:
- The strenght of the AIs assault is determined by current income rather then the best possible use of population, and to some degree the terrain of the map. In practice, this means the grade of the AIs unit scales with how much resources they can generate (for this reason AIs which can generate both Resources can become extremely aggressive, ill get to that)
- The AIs macro is good, but its unflexible, and all factions will follow their same template build order akin to their strengths.
- All AIs use their commander units and will try to upgrade them as early as possible - this can become a real backbreaker when you modify the resource gain rates, as some commander units are extremely potent because of their spellcasting just 1 or 2 minutes in.
- Some AIs work better then others, some only work in certain circumstances. If you change the game settings from "Annihilation" to "Assasination", the AIs opener will come considerably later, albeit considerably harder. Expect quirky things to happen when you turn up the pop cap, some factions (most notably Orks, SoB and Dark Eldar) can behave erratically or stop behaving at all
- AI pathfinding isn't nearly as bad as Vanilla, but that being said, it's not good either. This means that the AI will have difficultys on map with lots of cramped terrain or SCAR details, which mosly leads to the AI not building endgame units or getting stuck. This also means that the AI will not always follow the logical pathway, but rather funnel all its forces down a bottleneck, to a surprising degree of effect.
- The AI will always try and rush you, and once they start attacking they generally dont cease their attack until utterly broken or pushed back. you should note that the AI always goes straight on to your spawning position, no matter what.
-The AI will also try to build forward bases, especially when funneld into a choke point. Depending on the map size this can drastically increase the density of attacks whilst possibly reducing the time units spend travelling to almost zero, which can leave you in a bad spot, especially against swarm armies.
- While generally balanced, the Ai seems to choose quantity over quality, tending to produce mid tier units even during all-out Titan warfare. However, this can also drastically change depending on game settings.
- The AI loves spells, and will micro the hell out of its spellcasters, even favoring ability-rich endgame/relic units over more offensive ones, especially those with lots of spells or spawn ability.
- AIs do employ superweapons, but they rarely use them, and even then they stick to the less direct ones. They will however research all possible upgrades for structures as long as they are not restricted, meaning that you may be blocked from using superweapons until key structures are destroyed.
- I'm not entirely clear on the AIs exact conditions and building behavior, but the primary factor seems to be rate at which the AI gets resources and the maximum amount of relic resource, whilst the secondary factors are pop cap and map terrain, whilst the gamemode mainly seems to affect combat behavior. In practice this means that the amount of potential SP's an AI can cap also defines the rate and strength of its assault, which is self explanatory, but more importantly it defines what units it's going to build, given enough space and relic. An AI with 5 SP's wil rarely build expensive relic units, whilst an AI with 10-15+ will build relic units and titans frequently. The combat behaviour mainly stays the same, the AI will continually assault you with both commanders and units wehn playing annihilation, during assasination it will mostly hold back until maxed out before attacking you, but other than that the attack pattern stays the same.
Part 2: General Gameplay Tips
These tips and tricks are general and not faction related, albeit some factions may get more use out of them then others, and depending how much they suit your play style.
Depending on your faction, map size and layout, there are two basic build orders you should stick to. It's not necessary to follow them line-by-line, especially if you have a (human) ally with you.
Also: DONT FLOAT!
If you do, you're not doing something wrong, you're doing nothing, which is worse.
Eco-Start: This start may work better for players having trouble adjusting to high unit and upgrade costs or find themselves suffering from production block in midgame, and works better the more SP's you can safely get (i.e. on maps with a choke or an ally holding the front).
Start by building 3-4 tier 0 HQ infantry units and queue them to capture SP's, and if applicable, rush them to capture any chokes you can. Don't focus on getting relics and crits at this point, you got plenty of time until they you first require them. Immediately order your builder to construct two generators and your cheapest building you need to tech up and build another 4 builders, 2 of which will be used for base building, 2 will continuosly build LP's and one will construct generators. Build LP's in the same order as you capture points, but focus on chokes if you can until you have a stable income of around 120-160, then start researching the first Tier upgrade. Build a barracks and all generators you have left to build, tart to research upgrades and upgrade your LP's whilst waiting for the upgrade to finish, then pump out a few squads of Tier 1 infantry. Continously upgrade your LP's and generators (build Slag ones if possible) and Tier up as fast as you can. Build a second HQ and more generators, or you'll get blocked later. After that, its up to you wether to focus on Elite Units or building titans and other Ubers or going for a gamebreaker.
Aggro-Start: This may work better for players who find themselves unable to keep with their oppenents late gamers or players who prefer to harass and besiege their enemy as early as possible, and tends to work better on smaller maps and factions with low unit cost or natural deepstrike abilities.
Open up by immediately dropping barracks as close to your enemy as you initial radius allows, and depending on wether your faction has good HQ Infantry (SM Scouts are particularly strong early on, as well as Conscripts due to the extreme reinforcement speed) or not, build 4-6 of them. Send two of them to capture points whilst sending the other two directly to your enemy base. Build 3 the fastest scout unit you have in the barracks (Skimmer bikes and the bikes of both Chaos and Loyalists excel for that, riders are efficient too) and send them to snipe any and all builders and capturing infantry you can find whilst building generators and basic tier 0 infantry squads. it doesn't matter if you lose them, it is in fact bound to happen, just dont lose them too early (try to at least kill the amount of resources you spent). As soon as you have a fair amount of units, harass your enemy some more, and once you feel you are getting occupied elsewhere or need the space in you pop cap, suicide them into where they can do the most damage (try to target generators, the AI clusters them up, and losing 6 of them at once hurts the AI bad) to economy. You should now be in a good spot to besiege your enemy, since you not only have map control, but you are also denying him resources. Note that this strategy is a bad idea on large maps and obsolete if the map has a choke you plan to use.
General Tips:
- Generators speed up production and research speed of adjacent buildings, Nuclear Generators even more, to a great degree.
- Don't mix your army to much. Focus on one form of damage and build a bulk of units producing that damage instead of trying to accomodate every option.
- Artillery is an extremely powerful defense and can break most units morale during a charge, and if placed correctly lasts until the end of the round. it#s an sound investment to build a few units.
- Swarm armies are vulnerable to high DPS output and generally sport weaker Ubers and Titans, whilst Tech Armies have extremely potent End Gamers whose shields can often take more punishment then a small army.
- Don't get power blocked - 6 generators can be enough, but usually aren't. Build another HQ building, but take the high cost into account.
- Flamers are not worth the money when you have access to heavy bolters, any variant of Melta weapons or other high DPS weapons. Heavy Flamers perform extremely bad when compared to chainguns.
- Turn on Add On: Auto Abilities in the Game Settings if you want your units to use some offensive abilities automatically. Rally, Med Kit and various speels and support abilites still need to be manually cast however.
- Cue your units commands to minimize the time you spent away from the battle.
- Do not leave your base defenseless, since enemy stealth units can cause horrific damage when undetected and your army is occupied, especially on large maps. A few turrets and a scanner turret will make this danger disappear and will also buy valuable time if attacked.
- Build AA. Seriously, do it. Almost half of my lost games ended in cancer because some air units sneaked past and sniped my eco to shit before i could react. Most air units tand no chance against two dedicated AAs, and you wont really need more.
- Be wary of your artillery, for its fire can be quite devastationg for you if you get caught in it.
- Engage enemy artillery whenever possible, just two or three units are enough to shred a wall of turrets in a matter of salvos.
- Some Factions are more suited to a certain style while others are more flexible. They are also factions better for new players or easier gameplay. This ranking is purely subjective, but its a general ranking.
1: Space Marines - tanky units which forgive a lot of screw ups and become ever-so potent with their upgrades to the point of terminators violently abusing entire tank battailons in a blink and are a pretty straightforward "A-move to Victory" deal, albeit a boring one, since you can potentially suicide an air unit to drop your army right in your enemys base to gg.
2: Chaos Marines - also very tanky, but tading some of that tankyness fore extra offense and more specialised branches.
3: IG and Tau - IG: Pretty straightforward RTS-Race, with tons of squishy infantry, the best tanks and artillery as well as the most powerful endgamers
Tau: Guerilla-style faction that employs lots of stealth and ranged superioty, has by far the best range and good infantry, but lacks heavy armor and has few good vehicles.
4: Adeptus Sororitas: Very mobile army that can potentially devastate any mid game faction, but effectively loses all power during Endgame (It's a work in progress though)
4.5 Necrons: THE Race if you want to turtle around until you steamroll anything and declare Egypt, but very vulnerable to rushing and fast manouevers, but almost indestructible after midgame. Sucks at rushing.
5: Inquisition Daemonhunters - Difficult faction that plays very different and has a brutal learning curve. Has powerful melee specialists and by far the most powerful endgame unit (gets free squad of Uber-terminators every minute or so, and without pop cap requirements) and spellcasters.
6: Tyranids/Chaos Daemons: Both are swarm armies which play horribly in my opinion, because at the moment they feel unbalanced and leave litte choice.
Tyranids can become nigh-uncountable and raise their health to perversely high amounts, whilst daemons can potentially block, slow, snare, poison, harm or instantly kill almost all units, leading to both having very little counter except dedicated tank races or in the case of Daemons the Inquisition.
7: Eldar/Dark Eldar: Very fragile units with good abilites and speed that can outmanouver anything, but they can't take any form of physical punishment. Can be one of the most potential races, but always felt like terminal stage cancer to me.
The other 2 Sections will follow later this week, since it takes to write this stuff.
) and commanders. Might be a little biased here, since i played SM and IG the most.