How to get more supplies once FOBs run out?

Question

In Wargame: European Escalation, is there a way to get more supplies once your Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) run out? Can you build more?

Asked by Ric

Answer

No, you can't build more. The only thing you can do is to conquer bases from your enemy or capture their support vehicles.

You can do that by moving your units to the FOB or Supply Truck / Helicopter and clearing out enemy units around it. Or simply have more units there than your enemy.

Then the base are belong to you.

If you have support vehicles left in your command menu and your FOB runs out, bring them on the battlefield since they arrive fully loaded.

Answered by scorcher24

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Help identify Old Hovertank game

Question

I'm looking for info regarding an old hover tank /vehicular combat game that I played the demo of long ago.

It combined real-time strategy base-building with vehicular combat. The player took direct control of a tank, and assaulted a succession of enemy bases. After taking out the turrets and buildings in the enemy place, you could use your resources to build a new base, harvest resources to fund a new assault, repeat ad infinitum until there are no more bases on the map.

There were multiple weapon types, and though many of the enemy units were tanks, you could also run into infantry and aircraft on the enemy side. I believe it may have been possible to jump into allied tanks as well to switch what you were controlling.

I distinctly remember purchased buildings falling from the sky, thunking solidly into the ground prefabricated.

The game was full 3-d, with several tilesets, a desert oasis tileset, and a snowy conifer forest tileset at least.

The game came out for windows 98, and was definitely part of some demo, which offered only some of the levels and missions.

Bit of a long shot, perhaps, but I figure I may as well toss it out here.

Answer

This sounds somewhat like Uprising: Join or Die.

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Looking for RTS with 3 or 4 races, one red, one green

Question

I'm looking for the name of this game.

• I remember you could choose between some races, I think it was four but could have been three.

• The first race was kind a like a red race with little fat creatures that had diciples and where riding animals looking a little like themselves.

• Another race was green, and I remember they had like a mother unit instead of a builder that was wearing a giant scythe and as far as I remember had several eyes.

• You could build with workers or other units and you could upgrade units by cliking on them and choosing the upgrade.

Answer

Could the game you're looking for be War Wind? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Wind

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What game combined RPG and RTS between 2002 and 2006?

Question

Between 2002 and 2006 I played a PC game that combined features of both genres, RTS and RPG.
I can remember that you controlled a character, or a group of up to 3-5(?) character which could be equipped with items. Sometimes they walked through a city and talked to NPCs, merchants and quest givers. Those characters leveled up during some small battles and could equip something like runes.

Those runes determined the units you were able to use in the RTS part of the game, which took place on a whole different map in a traditional rts-style: You started with some buildings and workers and had to take one or more enemies down with the army you built up. When this map was won, you came back to the RPG part.

I think there were 3-4 races playable in the rts-part, something like Humans, Elves (with walking trees as ultimate units, something dwarf-like.

Answer

This sounds like one of the Spellforce games. There is Spellforce: The Order of Dawn and Spellforce 2: Shadow Wars. The runes part makes me think it was the first one, as you played a Runewarrior in that one. From the Wikipedia entry on the first game:

The Circle Mages needed vast armies that would be loyal and could be gathered quickly,This is when they had the idea of the runewarriors. The runewarriors were fighters and mages whose souls were trapped in stones their masters could summon them forth to do their will any deaths would be meaningless as they could be brought back even after death because they had the gift of immortality. With these stones the mages could form armies quickly and easily sending them forth in unhaltable tides they would serve their masters for eternity had it not been for the convocation.

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Can't remember name of space-strategy flash game

Question

The game i'm trying to find is an oldish flash game based on space strategy.

You start off facing against one or more enemies (all on the same unscrollable map) on a map populated with circles/planets. Each planet produces ships at some rate, you click-drag or select (can't remember) to send ships from one planet to another, i.e. attack/reinforce. Later in the game different types of planets are introduced, defense planets, mass-produce planets, etc. I believe you can upgrade your planets as well.

All in all its similar to Phage Wars in game play. If any of you can name/direct me to this game that would be great! I've been looking around for it but with the promiscuity of flash games my search has been in vain...

Edit: Due to several great replies that are multiplayer games, i should note that this game (as i remember it, is solely single player

Answer

Is it Star Baron?

Just reading and I remember playing this a while ago... This is what I used to play whilst being on hold on the phone (Other than Superuser!)

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Identifying a medieval strategy game

Question

There was a good medieval strategy game I used to play at my friends that I loved. I'm not sure when the game was released, but I played it around 2007. The graphics still seemed up to date at that time.

Some features of it I can remember:

• Attacking friendly factions would get you exocommunicated from the church.
• You could send troops via land or water.
• Possibly ship's battled at sea.
• You could join battles and fight there, and it was usually a head on collision between two armies.
• The ground gameplay was similar to Shogun...

Answer

My first guess was castles 2, but medieval II total war seems closer - part of the total war series, of which shogun was the first, and from around the same timezone. Also EXCOMMUNICATION

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What's the name of this RTS?

Question

I remember playing this game a couple years ago - hoping someone else here has played it, and can identify it from my limited memories ;) Here's all I can remember:

• The backstory went something like this: a new planet was discovered by Earth, but other space-faring races also wanted the planet, which was supposed to be the last free planet. To solve the situation, they arranged some sort of contest where every race would send a small force to colonize and defeat the other races.
• The resources I think I can remember were oil, lumber, and iron.
• There was a lot of building of roads everywhere, and AI-driven trucks that would carry resources around (pretty buggy, IIRC)
• The game was free as a result of a lawsuit or something like that - can't remember the specifics

I hope this game hasn't disappeared from the Earth, as it was a bit of fun.

Thanks in advance for any help and again, sorry for my poor memory. :)

Answer

That game is called Enemy Nations. it's open source now

If I remember correctly, it played as if it had to be rushed to released - bugs, awfully jerky animations of 2d-sprites on a pseudo-3d-isometric-heightfield.

Interesting features, though, like having to supply fuel for all your vehicles.

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Zerg strategy against Void Rays in SC2

Question

Playing a lot of 3v3 lately and have been strictly Terran up until lately, swapping over to Zerg.

Zerg has been going great - I think it's a race that can only be as good as your ability to macro, which isn't a problem for me now that I've played for a while; problem I'm having with them is they seem to have nothing that will counter a reasonable fleet Void Rays.

Terran was fine if you had enough Marines, Vikings or Yamato power, Protoss is fine if you have pretty much any unit that can hit air that's not heavy (ie Carriers).

Hydralisks get wasted, you can't just hope to overpower them before they defeat you with Ultralisks because VRs slay them, can't use Neural Parasite because there're too many of them, Corruptors are plain useless, Mutas are too weak and have too little range which means you lose 20% of them just to get in range.

Am I missing something? A strategy along the lines of killing them before they get VRs or restricting their gas/teching isn't really viable in 3v3 unless your entire team is aggressive from the beginning - in which case you normally win anyway. This is a question for mid-late game.

Any suggestions would be awesome!

Answer

So, I'm going to assume you're talking about late game Void Rays instead of an early game VR Rush in PvZ.

Late game Void rays are tough, no question about it, however there are a number of strategies which provide effective counters.

Pound for pound Corruptors actually beat Void rays, however, the large mass of VR usually mean they have time to charge, at which point the tides will turn against you. Hydralisks fair much better (as they're not armored and don't give VR time to charge), however, they frequently run into positioning problems. Since VR can stack and Hydra have slow movespeed, you often see Hydralisks out of range and unable to attack while their closer brethren bite it. You can use Burrow to help here, but that's not always an option.

For late game Void rays (or really mass anything) there is always one place I go: Infestors' Fungal Growth. Now, sure VR have a nice 250 combined health+shields, and Infestors only do 36 Damage per 4 seconds (46.8 vs armored, which VR are), but anytime you see Mass anything, you should be thinking of that nice damage multiplier you get for hitting units close together... didn't I mention VR stack?

Frequently I'll engage a VR group with Hydra/Corruptor and as they start to stack I'll throw down the Fungal Growth. The added DPS is more than enough to turn the tides in my favor. What's more, if they catch me out of position, a Fungal Growth or two will lock them down while my Army gets ready. Remember Fungal is Range 9 and VR have range 6. In theory you can even Fungal them to death (if he stacks too tight).

Now, I'm not saying Infestors are THE counter to Void rays, or even the best counter, but when I see a fleet of stacking units... they are the first thing I think of...

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Bonus:

A lot of players struggle with early game Void rays. I think this is a reasonable opening for PvZ. To counter this, I usually drop a second Queen (if I scout it) or bring my Queens together to force them off (this is why spreading that creep between your nat and main is so important early on). I also regularly get an Evo chamber. I think it's worth it for early upgrades and +1 timings, and it's cheep (75min) incase I have to deal with Banshee/VR harassment.

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Is there easy way to use all digit buttons with left hand?

Question

Intro
I play RTS (starcraft 2 specifically) and now realize that I want to use more then 1..5 digits to bind my army / buildings / etc.

Problem
I cannot precisely hit 7..0 (neither ctrl+7..0 nor shift+7..0) keys without looking on the keyboard (my right hand controls the mouse of course)

Question
Do you know a way to easy hit 7,8,9,0 with left hand? Is there some mark that my hand could use (i.e. right ctrl) or something else?

edit
I don't want to buy any additional device. My question is all about behavior not environment. Plus you probably know that pro-gamers use normal keyboard and totally fine with it.
i.e. right now I realize that if I rotate keyboard clockwise a little then access to 7..0 becomes easier.

Answer

I have 6 and 7 remapped to F2 and F3 for my production buildings and main bases. If you have all your production on F2 you can just tab through them to select the different types.

Also, if you're Protoss you can just hit W to select all warp gates.

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How is 300 actions a minute possible?

Question

I was watching this video '300 actions a minute? Truly mastering StarCraft'

And I'm bewildered at how fast they are playing. How is this possible? I can't even think about my next move so fast, let alone be typing shortcut keys that fast.

Answer

It's a combination of the keyboard and mouse. I'm sure we've all used shortcuts on our keyboards and that's most likely what the gamers do - use shortcuts. If you think about the beginning stages of the game: you click on your hatchery or whatever, build a drone, you can use a keyboard shortcut to build the drone for you. Then you click on a drone, tell them all to go collect minerals and then you click on one drone and tell it to build a spawning pool (also a shortcut).

We probably all use ctrl+c , ctrl+v pretty quickly - the gamers have just, like McKay said, tuned their brains to all the shortcuts for Starcraft.

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What does it mean to have map control?

Question

I hear people talking a lot about having map control (mostly tzenes). What specifically does a good player consider map control? Is it simply having decent visibility of most of the map so that you know whenever your opponent is moving a force around the map? Or is it having expansions/fighting units around the map? How will I know when I have map control?

Answer

So map control is a very ephemeral concept, but at its core is the idea that you can control space (area) on the map and prevent things like: expansions, harassment, scouting.

Since map control is largely concerned with covering area, having map control usually means having units which are very fast and thus can respond quickly. Additionally, it often times means having good vision on most of the map. Its important to note, that Vision helps you maintain map control, but in and of itself it doesn't give you control. Control is the ability to respond quickly.

Consider the following scenario: You're a Terran player who went MMM. You have a large force and its sitting in the center of the map.

• How quickly can you respond to Reaper harass?
• If you see Nydus tunnels on opposite sides of the map, what can you do about it?
• What can you do about Overseers contaminating your buildings?
• What's you're response to a Void Prism? or Void Ray in the back of your base?

Now compare that player to a Terran player who went 1:1:1 and has a lot of Vikings. All of a sudden he can be everywhere very quickly. Reaper Harass? Vikings land in the front and back and you've got him. Overseer scouts? shut down. You control the map and what happens on it.

Map control is very powerful not only because you can scout but also because you can expand. If I'm starting up a new expansion away from my main, I have the choice of putting my army there, or in my main, or splitting it up. The first two options lead to suffering from harassment, the last one suffers from having poor response to a big push. However, if you have units which can quickly move around the map and shut down harassment, all of a sudden you are free to expand and out Macro your opponent. This is very much a dominate strategy in Broodwars.

Some units which help with map control are:

• Vikings
• Hellions
• Banshee
• Mutalisks
• Speedlings
• Phoenix
• Warpgate + Pylon

but this is by no means an exhaustive list.

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A number of people have said that vision connotes map control, or helps a slow force respond quickly.

While vision is nice, it is ultimately a scouting technique. If you have sufficient scouting it is still possible for an opponent to launch successful harassment if you don't have the units to respond.

Since map control is based around the Ability to Respond, having vision is largely beneficial, it reducing your response time. Additionally, being able to scout your opponents base also reduces response time. Neither of these things, in and of themselves, gives you control. The only determining factor is: can you respond?

In answer to this question I largely focused on what units gave map control instead of how to scout as scouting is largely a different question. This is not to understate its importance though.

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Online Playing for Age of Empires - Conquerors

Question

I am looking for a place to play AOE 2 TC online - something like Battle.NET.

I used to play in Game Zone, but I think this game is no longer supported.

Any ideas?

Answer

http://voobly.com supports AoE II. In fact, the Conquerors is the most played game there.

It is an attempt to replace Zone.com, the original service for playing AoE II and The Conquerors online.

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Can the Protoss Mothership Mass Recall Allies' units?

Question

If so, there's a wicked opportunity in 4v4 to mothership rush to an enemies base and recall 400 units into his base!!!

Answer

Yes it can. Here's an excerpt:

Mass Recall teleports a group of friendly Protoss units within a 6.5 radius of a targeted area directly to the Mothership's position. Such a teleportation can occur from across the map

It's a really useful ability, however the problem is you need a mothership to use it. Considering it's such a late game unit, it normally doesn't show up in a match, although it can be game changing if it does.

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In Starcraft 2 about how many Terran marines can a Protoss zealot take on?

Question

all of this is assuming that neither of the units has been upgraded and neither is being healed. Also assuming that all of the marines attack at once and it is a fight to the death.

Answer

So the problem with this equation is that Marine DPS increases proportional to the number of marines. However, Zealot DPS increases proportional to the surface area of the Marine "ball." So while 1 Zealot can take down 2-3 Marines, 200 Marines will crush 100 Zealots.

If you can find yourself a nice enough choke, you can probably handle 100 Zealots with 150 Marines.

So there is no good rule of thumb here for ratios of Zealots to Marines.

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What's the best strategy for conquering counties in Pocket Empires?

Question

I love playing Pocket Empires on my Android phone and I'm trying to conquer some neighboring counties.

I usually send my speed bumps (1 Paladin, 1 Hussar, 1 Militia) and then all my ranged units. But I'm wondering what would be the best strategy for conquering counties.

• Should I add other units like Trolls or Demons to soak more rounds of damage?
• How many siege weapons do I need and are the Battering rams of any use?
• How many Lizards or Black Widows should I send to do the bulk damage without loosing too many?

Any suggestions for a solid strategy are welcome!

Answer

Given that I have no empty counties in my neighborhood to test it on, I don't have the option to test it, but given my current experience with raiding/conquering Innumerable 10 Black Widows/Lizards, your best bet will be to calculate what you can handle.

This means you will have to spy the county to see what you're up against and then check whether your army would be capable of taking it down. This isn't as hard as it might sound and it's very easy to get so overpowered, that these numbers might not matter anymore.

But to start with this, we have to do some calculating (attribution goes to the Pocket Empires forum):

What you will need:

• 1 or 2 battle reports involving the units you want to use, and the monsters you want to conquer;
• The HP (health value) of the monster

So, let’s continue our example of the Black Widows and Bowmen.

Our goal is to find out: how many of our units can kill how many monsters?

In other words, if I am sending X amount of bowmen, how many black widows can I kill without having to worry about the bowmen getting hurt?

To make a useable simple calculator, you need to find out two things. The two things you need to find out then:

• How much attack each individual unit does (Attack per Unit);
• The HP of the monster.

This will get you how many of your units can kill how many monsters.

Okay. So open up your first report. Lets say we have 500 bowmen. You will notice that underneath the writing "Round X", it will say something like Bowmen, move: 15, attack: 5000.

Attack per Unit

So first we find out how much attack each individual unit does. To break it down real simple: we have 500 units, they did 5000 attack.

So total attack is: 5000 attack You have: 500 units Each unit does: 5000/500 = 10 attack each unit.

1v1?

Now that we know how much attack each unit has, lets find out how many units it will take to kill a single monster.

Now, from the forum, we know that one black widow has 60 HP. So if each bowman does 10 attack, then it will take:

10 attack per bowman

60 HP per black widow

= 0.1667 (this means that each bowman kills 0.1667 black widows)

Now you have a simple formula which calculates how many black widows your bowmen can kill! So if you have 12345 bowmen, you can kill:

12345 units * 0.1667 (this is the 1vs1 value)= 2057.9 black widows!

BUT this is only 2057.9 per round!

We have to calculate how many rounds you have before your main units (in this case bowmen) get hit!

Factor in rounds

I presume you understand the theory of positional warfare (aka speed bumps, kiting, etc).

Your battle report will be handy here. You can see how many rounds you have before the monsters start attacking your main unit. It’s usually around 3-6 depending on the speed of the monster, the range of your unit, and which mix of units you send to act as speed bumps.

But a strange thing starts happening when the monsters get too close to your units! Your units start getting their attack reduced by half! (this happens when the monster is 30m or less to your ranged units).

So basically multiply however many rounds of attack you’re getting in before your main unit gets hit: lets say for us (to keep things simple), in our pretend report, we deduce that we have 4 rounds BEFORE your bowmen gets hit (that is, your bowmen get hit on the 5th round).

That means your army of 12345 bowmen can kill : 2057.9 * 4 = 8231 black widows in a fight (raid or conquer).

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The beauty of using the simple method above, is that you don’t have to do too many calculations and take into account all the factors in the game which influences these things (these are listed below). All you need is just a few numbers. This is a nice, clean way to do things. but please note that if you upgrade something like your attack, you will need to re-calculate the "1vs1" attack.

This is because the calculation works on the basis that everything is still the same. Which means that the factors (see list below) have not changed.

All the factors that are already incorporated into the calculate above:

• Attack value of your unit (Please note that the value that is shown when you viewing them in command centre incorporates any research upgrades);
• Attack type (eg piercing) vs armor type [bonuses or penalties];
• Your attack experience + any attack potions (this can be found in your Lord profile page);
• The armour value of the monster;
• If your unit gets a +/- 75% for that type of monster;

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