| Era |
Important Armies |
Pros & Cons |
| Iron Age |
- 4-8 Ballistae + 0-4 Rogues - Good against enemy Ballistae and Archers
- 1-2 Legionnaires + 6-7 Rogues - Good against enemies without Ballistae
- 1-2 Mounted Warriors or Soldiers + 6-7 Rogues - Good against enemies with a mix of Ballistae + faster troops
|
- + Untransformed Rogues kick ass
- - Reliance on melee units means much damage taken at high attrition unless you work on your defense
- - Artillery have a hard time keeping up against heavies at higher attrition as much of their strength against them comes from the flat bonus which doesn't scale
|
| Early Middle Ages |
- 4-8 Catapults + 0-4 Rogues - Good against enemy Catapults
- 1-2 Armored Infantry + 6-7 Rogues - Good against enemies without Catapults
- 1-2 Heavy Cavalry or Mercenaries + 6-7 Rogues - Good against enemies with a mix of Catapults + faster troops
|
- + Untransformed Rogues kick ass
- + Weak-statted Mounted Archers aren't much of a threat to your more durable units
- - High movement Mounted Archers can occasionally pick off your less durable units
- - Reliance on melee units means much damage taken at high attrition unless you work on your defense
- - Artillery have a hard time keeping up against heavies at higher attrition as much of their strength against them comes from the flat bonus which doesn't scale
|
| High Middle Ages |
- 4-8 Trebuchets + 0-4 Rogues - Good against enemy Trebuchets and Crossbows
- 1-2 Heavy Infantry + 6-7 Rogues - Good against enemies without Trebuchets
- 1-2 Knights or Berserkers + 6-7 Rogues - Good against enemies with a mix of Trebuchets + faster troops
|
- + Untransformed Rogues kick ass
- + Strongest low-age artillery with crazy range and slightly higher relative attack compared to the defense of units of the age
- - Reliance on melee units means much damage taken at high attrition unless you work on your defense
- - Artillery have a hard time keeping up against heavies at higher attrition as much of their strength against them comes from the flat bonus which doesn't scale
|
| Late Middle Ages |
- 1-2 Heavy Knights or Great Sword Warriors + 6-7 Rogues - Good against enemies with a mix of Cannons + faster troops
- 1-2 Imperial Guards + 6-7 Rogues - Good against enemies without many Cannons
- 4-8 Cannons + 0-4 Rogues - Good against enemy Longbows
| - + Untransformed Rogues kick ass
- + Fast units are starting to get more durable
- - Combination of Dug In on enemy artillery and less range makes this among the weakest low-age artillery relatively. They also still have a hard time keeping up against heavies at higher attrition as much of their strength against them comes from the flat bonus which doesn't scale
- - Reliance on melee units means much damage taken at high attrition unless you work on your defense
|
| Colonial Age | - 1-2 Grenadiers + 6-7 Rogues - Good against enemies without too many Field Guns or Musketeers
- 1-2 Dragoons, Champions, or Rangers + 6-7 Rogues - Good against enemies with significant numbers of Field Guns or Musketeers
|
- + Untransformed Rogues kick ass
- + Grenadiers gained a range and no longer have to take retaliation
- - Combination of Dug In on enemy artillery and useful amounts of defense on Musketeers make this among the weakest low-age artillery relatively. They also still have a hard time keeping up against heavies at higher attrition as much of their strength against them comes from the flat bonus which doesn't scale
|
| Industrial Age |
- 1-2 Howitzers + 6-7 Rogues - Good against enemies without too many Riflemen or Breech Loaders
- 1-2 Jaeger Infantry + 6-7 Rogues - Good against enemies without too many Howitzers
- 4-6 Breech Loaders + 2-4 Rogues - Good against enemies with many Howitzers. May consider adding in a couple Riflemen/Howitzers/Jaeger Infantry if there's a couple things you need to kill off when they get close.
|
- + Every unit other than the Fast has range - lopsided attack bonuses can be taken advantage of
- + You can also get many ages of troops ahead here; Up to PME are available from getting ahead on the story. Note that you either need to be careful or be prepared to spend diamonds to revive them if you're going to use them. Choices you make on PME map will affect how many/what type of troops you can get. Make sure to do your research if you're planning to try for them.
- + Well matched unit abilities make Industrial an age where almost any fight is possible if you choose the right counter. Fun age to manual battle in.
- - Many of the units do not behave as well as you might hope in auto-battles making it an age of high losses for auto-battlers
|
| Progressive Era | - 1-6 Conscripts + 2-7 Rogues - Good against enemies without too many Snipers. Snipers will get to be slightly less of a problem as you get to higher boost though as they're reliant on a *large* flat bonus.
- 1-6 Armored Cars + 2-7 Rogues - Good against enemies without too many tanks. Will need to position your cars for the first round of battle usually.
- 1-6 Tanks + 2-7 Rogues - Particularly if you stack defense; Tanks have defense naturally higher than any unit in-age's attack so if you have defense boost ~twice as high as your attack boost you may be able to take advantage of that
|
- + 3 good options for general purpose units depending on what you're fighting and how your stats are built. If you engineer the fights so that after your last Rogues are turned, they're taking the first "real" hits you're in good shape.
- - An era of high losses (I want to say attrition, but that has other meaning in game now), there pretty much just isn't *clean* wins. Two wave battles can also be problematic because of this.
- - High defense on Tanks may make fights at high attrition impossible unless you've kept up on defense boost yourself so that they're not doing much damage to you either. MG Team from story + Rogues could patch this issue to some extent if you're careful.
|
| Modern Era |
- 1-6 Bazookas + 2-7 Rogues - Good against armies without too many artillery. Despite their bonus against artillery and Dug In, they are very very slow - they're best against armies that will come to them, turn the rogues, and then they can blow them up before the problems start. But they're *really* good against those armies. Paratroopers can also be an annoyance due to their ability to hide in trees combined with your slow movement.
- 1-8 Mechanized Infantry/Champions/Battle Tanks + 0-7 Rogues - Good against pretty much anything if you go into battle to position them right for the first turn. The heavy of the age has the same defense as it did in PE, so they've caught up some in their ability to handle them. May take heavy losses from ignored Bazookas on auto
- 4-8 Mechanized Artillery + 0-4 Rogues - Good against Bazookas and enemy artillery. Dreadful against Paratroopers. Mediocre against Battle Tanks and Mechanized Infantry.
- 8 Paratroopers (No Rogues. Period.) - Move first + hit first is a powerful combination that'll get stressed more in later ages. It can work here to some extent too. Main issue is their attack isn't that high - so they might not be able to 2-shot things reliably enough at high attrition - particularly Battle Tanks and Mechanized Infantry. Still something worth playing with some.
|
- + Every unit has its moments - even if most people hate to use paratroopers ;)
- - Can get bloody - not quite as much as PE but still lacks abilities at times to get clean wins and two wave battles may be a problem
|
| Postmodern Era |
- 1-2 MG Teams + 6-7 Rogues - Contact! means every Rogue turned (by anything other than an artillery) also gave you a free shot. Good against anything without too many artillery.
- 4-6 Rocket Artillery + 2-4 Rogues - Good at handling enemy artillery
- 1-6 Universal Tanks, IFVs, or Champions + 2-7 Rogues - can help with some of the problem setups that have too many artillery for your MG teams and not enough artillery to use your own artillery.
|
- + Contact! + Rogues are a powerful combination
- + Can get very advanced troops potentially - but the method is somewhat obscure (and I've never tried it yet).
- - Artillery have low attack making your top choice to deal with Artillery + X struggle a bit with some setups.
|
| Contemporary Era |
- 1-2 Anti-Aircraft Vehicles + 6-7 Rogues - Good against everything. Only caveat - some defenses you have to go in and hold back your AAV on.
- 1-3 Assault Tanks + 5-7 Rogues - Taking advantage of Reactive Armor this can be used on some very high attrition fights. They can't do more than 4 to you - so you don't need quite so much attack boost to make it a "fair" fight. Arctic Orangery crit can also help tilt things in your favor.
- 1-8 Champions + 0-7 Rogues - If you're a defense stacker Champions have higher stats than Assault Tanks and may take even less damage.
- 8 Strike Teams or Attack Helicopters - Move first + hit first. Not usually overly impressive in this age, but can help in places. Note that Attack Helicopters only move first if the defense has no Strike Teams.
|
- + Contact! + Rogues are a powerful combination
- + Can get very advanced troops - not so obscure this time, but you should still do your research if you're planning on it - it's important to have as many unresearched techs as possible if you want to get far, and map decisions matter in some places.
- + Missile Artillery on defense is pretty safely ignorable to some extent due to "One Shot". AI also usually does not make good use of MIRV.
- + Flying is a powerful new ability even if it's not often important yet due to the issues with the in-age artillery.
|
| Tomorrow Era |
- 2-8 Combat Drones + 0-6 Rogues - Rogues absorb unavoidable hits in first round of combat. Combat drones blow *anything* up in 2 hits while ignoring artillery. For best results, fight manually - but you can auto a great number of fights with them as well. Their biggest issue is many Stealth Tanks as they'll take retaliation when hitting them.
- 1-8 Stealth Tanks + 0-7 Rogues - Good against most things - main problems are enemy Stealth Tanks and Ultra APs as you get up in attrition as they'll both get in some painful retaliation.
|
- + Combat Drones have *crazy* high attack. Easily can abuse them against most armies to hit significantly higher attrition than possible in other ages with similar boost.
- + Stealth Tanks are a generally useful Hiding unit
- - Defending armies with many Stealth Tanks are difficult to deal with. At low-medium attrition you can use Microwave Blasters. At medium-high attrition I recommend *carefully* using some OF story troops like Sub Cruisers or Hydroelectric Eels in combination with Rogues.
|
| Future Era |
- 1-8 Hover Tanks + 0-7 Rogues - Best you've got against pretty much anything. Other armies can be used against some things as minor improvements.
|
- + Hover Tanks do everything
- - Nothing handles 3+ Hover Tanks on defense acceptably at medium attrition. You have to start cherry-picking fights to change out tough fights instead looking for the easy ones. Not good if you're just trying to power through a specific sector!
- - 2 units are utterly useless (Satellite Spotters + Drone Swarms) and 1 autos poorly (Exoskeleton Soldier)
|
| Arctic Future |
- 1-8 Battle Fortresses + 0-7 Rogues. Reactive Armor 3 means your units are automatically pretty tanky taking 4 hits to die without any investment in defense. Can reach relatively high attrition even if it's not ideal for many things. Arctic Orangery can help with the mirror (We both do 3 damage to each other normally; but I can crit for 5 and save a shot!)
- 2-8 Plasma Artillery + 0-4 Rail Guns + 0-4 Battle Fortresses + 0-4 Rogues. So this looks rather like many armies but the concept is rather straight forward: Plasma Artillery deliver the beats and can fire every turn unlike Rail Guns from FE, but they can't do more than 3 damage to a Battle Fortress (so you may want some Rail Guns to help blow through that), and they can't shoot flying things (so you may want some Battle Fortresses for that - Rail Guns can help a little with that too - but only every other turn). And you may want to fill in some slots with Rogues to absorb some unavoidable hits.
- 4-8 Combat Drones or Dragon Drones + 0-4 Rogues - Takes advantage of many Plasma Artillery on defense. Combat Drones are easier to use, and *still* have enough attack to be relevant (and more than Dragon Drones on that note) But they can't crit and occasionally Dragon Drones' multi-hit ability is useful - especially if you fight manually.
- 8 Recon Raiders - Move first + hit first. As long as there's not too many Battle Fortresses on defense, you've got a good shot.
- 1-8 Hover Tanks + 0-7 Rogues - As long as there's not too many Plasma Artillery on defense; Dragon Drones are squishy, and stealth is reasonably effective against everything else.
|
- + Good all-round age with many useful army setups
- - Some strange units that have stats that hardly seem fitting for the age
- - Battle Fortresses on defense are going to be bloody
|
| Oceanic Future |
- 4-8 Turturrets + 0-4 ? + 0-4 Rogues - Similar to the Plasma Cannon arrangement in AF, this bumps up to be the most important army in OF due to the power of Mortar. In addition to the things that Plasma Artillery cannot hit, Turturrets cannot hit stealthed units. So ? may be C.R.A.B. Mechs to take out an eel or it may be Plasma Artillery if range is deemed important or it may be Sub Cruisers as a generally decent all-round unit from the age.
- 4-8 Gliders + 0-4 Rogues - If there's many artillery on defense and you can't out-artillery them for some reason. There's finally a proper upgrade to the TE Combat Drone to get the AO crit back - its attack stat is not nearly so impressive compared to OF defenses though, and it loses a bit in attack range that might make it harder to hit the precise thing you want on the first turn.
- 1-2 Sub Cruisers + 6-7 Rogues - Can retaliate against anything but the artillery and Scimitars reliably - and Medusa can't move and are generally exposed at the start - mostly it only needs to avoid Turturrets
- 8 Hydroelectric Eels - There's many bushes on the OF battlefield to hide in. You can generally plan to hide your entire army and pick off the enemy; watch out for the few enemy anti-stealth units. Mostly a manual-battle strategy.
- 1-8 Hover Tanks + 0-7 Rogues - Stats are a little low, but Hides on Plains is still a very powerful ability to compensate - most anti-stealth units in age are highly limited. Defense may also still be relevant in combination with the stealth as its not that far behind the in-age Force Field unit. No Rogues is sometimes desirable to not catch splash damage from Turturrets transforming your rogues.
|
- + Solid answers for any army
- + Good Contact! unit
- + Powerful artillery with new Mortar ability
- + Decent Flying unit
- + Decent Hiding unit
- - Despite a very diverse slate of 10 units, most of them are just novelties and not all that useful
|
| Virtual Future |
- 4-8 Rocket Troops + 0-4 Rogues - Turturrets taken to the extreme against an age with weaker overall units. Works well against everything but Ninjas. Mortar is absolutely devastating. No flying unit in-age to fear.
- 8 Ninjas - Move first + hit first
- 1-8 Ronin Bots + 0-7 Rogues - Force Field can help augment your defense to make them continue to feel durable if you haven't completely ignored it. No amount of defense will make them feel good against any amount of Rocket Troops though.
|
- + Rocket Troops rock
- - Ninjas on defense are a pain
- - 2 units are pretty much useless
|
| Space Age Mars |
- 8 Sentinels - Move first + hit first + avoid any artillery. Great against lots of stuff. Your bread & butter army.
- 8 Rocket Troops - Mortar is still an awesome ability and Steel Wardens are so slow that VF Rocket Troops can win against a Max-Attrition 12000% boosted 8 Steel Warden Defense - even with no boost of their own to speak of! Also usable against small amounts of other ground troops. Tesla Walkers having the same initiative can mix in if you see a use for them in a fight.
- 2-4 Steel Wardens + 4-6 Rogues - Force Field can help strengthen any investment you've put into defense. Not bad all round units.
- 2-4 Sniperbots or Tesla Walkers + 4-6 Rogues - they're not bad units per se - but not really necessary either. Occasionally they might be a minor improvement over one of the other armies.
|
- + Great fighting age with reasonable answers for anything
- + Potential for super-high-attrition crazy setups either taking advantage of Flyers + AO Crit vs artillery or Rocket Troops vs slow things.
|
| Space Age Asteroid Belt |
- 4-6 Nail Storms + 2-4 Rogues - Pretty good against most things - can get bloody if there's many Nail Storms on defense - especially if one of them makes it to rubble.
- 8 Sentinels - Move first + hit first - Yup, still. Now without AO crit. For the toughest fights this is what I've had the best luck with.
- 2-6 B.E.L.T.s + 2-6 Rogues - can handle Nail Storms that make it to rubble better than most things - can't hit Hover Hammers though.
- 2 Hover Hammers + 6 Rogues - generally not as good as Sentinels - but you'll be winning a bunch of Hover Hammers from GE, GBG, Events, etc and against some of the B.E.L.T. heavy defenses these are usable to save you some Sentinels for when you need them.
- 8 Rocket Troops - can still handle 8 Shredders akin to SAM but struggles more with other stuff mixed in - mostly due to higher base stats.
|
- - No good answer for 8 Nail Storm defenses at medium-high attrition. Hoping for good damage rolls from SAM Sentinels and Keen Eye procs is generally your best bet. Manual battle is recommended so you can bail if you get bad rolls before they get a chance to destroy your Sentinels.
- - Most units are pretty useless
|
