Be Excellent To Each Other

This is a bit of a haphazard FAQ/Guide at the moment because I’ve been adding things as they occur to me, not necessarily in a logical order – I’ll tidy it up as time goes by.

1) Splash damage.

Each foot soldier can only attack the same target once in a single turn, whether or not the target is on foot, in a tank, in a boat, whatever.

However, tanks and boats have a splash damage effect, (they cause damage to any target in tiles adjacent to where the attack is directly aimed), so you can target who you're trying to demob with shots aimed at adjacent tiles, and then fire directly at the target itself with the final shot, each and every shot does damage to the enemy due to the splash damage effect.

Splash damage works on a 3D model, so if the target is too far away on the vertical axis from the tile where the attack lands, reduced or zero damage will be caused.

(For example if a high wall is your adjacent tile attack, and a unit is at the base of the wall, a lot lower down, albeit still on an adjacent tile, no splash damage will occur.)

2) Saving attacks and movement.

You only get one extra attack per soldier per turn to your attack bar, but you can store up to four attacks in reserve, which is handy to know when you're trying to do what was outlined in Tip 1.

A single tank firing a single shot at a single target per turn is likely to be ineffective as the target can escape, jump into a vehicle, use health icons etc on their turns, but a single tank with four attacks stored, all being used in the same turn against the same target with adjacent tile splash damage, can wreak havoc.

The same basic “saving” principle holds true with movement, soldiers receive a 25% movement bonus each turn, up to a maximum of 100% stored movement, so if a soldier has 50% movement stored at the start of a turn and doesn’t move anywhere, at the start of the next turn he’ll have 75%, and the turn after the maximum 100%.

Therefore, not moving a unit in a turn isn’t necessarily a waste, and sometimes saving movement is a necessity.

Helicopters for example have a massive movement range and a powerful attack, but very poor defence, so if you need to get a heli from one side of the map to another to attack a target and it’ll take 75% movement to get there, moving in three 25% chunks would not only leave your heli out in the open and vulnerable to attack for those three turns, your opponent will most likely work out excactly what you’re trying to do in advance.

However, hiding the heli in a safe corner of the map, accruing movement each turn, and then moving to the attack zone in one 75% swoop will mean not exposing your heli to danger prior to the attack, and also make it far more difficult for your opponent to work out what it is you’re thinking of doing.

This principle holds true for all vehicles, and also for the higher ranked foot soldiers, less so for Privates and Corporals as their movement range is poor (although it’s still not a redundant tactic, even then).

3) Vehicle switching.

Soldiers in vehicles take damage, not the vehicles themselves, and jumping into a different vehicle (of any sort) immediately restores the soldier’s health to full.

Simple vehicle switching might mean just jumping a soldier out of a badly damaged tank, and jumping a wounded soldier into the tank – the soldier who jumps into the attack will get his health restored to full, and the soldier who jumps out of the tank will hopefully we able to use health icons or a promotion on his next turn. (Or at the very least is safe from imminent danger, away from the battlefield.)

More complex vehicle switching might mean vehicle “rotating” – say you have three badly damaged tanks, in a single turn you can get two of them back to full health.

Tank #1 – Soldier jumps out
Tank #2 – Soldier jumps into Tank #1, gets full health
Tank #3 – Soldier jumps into Tank #2, gets full health

Jumping from any vehicle into any other vehicle gives full health, so heli to tank, tank to boat, boat to heli etc – any combination whatsoever.

Also, when a foot soldier jumps into any vehicle, he is awarded full health too.

4) Route planning – very important!

You have to get your head around the fact that not only is Naked War a turn-based game, but also that each unit on the field obeys their orders for that turn in a sequential fashion.

Each unit can have up to seven individual commands per turn, so imagine that each of your turns is split into seven phases, as phase one starts all of your soldiers will attempt to complete the phase one order.

Once every unit has completed phase one, they then all move onto phase two, and so on.

The problems can start where you prevent one of your soldiers doing something 'cause you've blocked him with another.

Simple example, imagine you have a foot soldier standing ahead of a tank on a road, and you order the foot solder and the tank to move as far along the road as you can in phase one of your turn, and execute the turn.

Needless to say a foot soldier can't get anywhere near as far as a tank on a road in a single move, so he moves forward maybe four or five tiles.

The tank behind him, you've planned to move forward perhaps twenty spaces, and the turn-planner let you do that, but what actually happens is the tank gets stuck behind the foot soldier, because you've plotted exactly the same route for them both, the foot soldier runs out of movement points, and the tank behind him has nowhere to go, he won't run over your own soldier, and he won't attempt to find an alternate route to his destination.

I know this might sound a bit crap, but it's the way the game is designed and it’s deliberate, because there's supposed to be an element of strategy and forethought about your turn, YOU have to keep track of what all your little dudes are doing at any given time, and if you put them into impossible situations, they'll simply stop wherever they get stuck and bin whatever other instructions they have for the rest of the phases of that turn.

(And it's not as bad as all that either, it’s only 100% firm blocks that cause this to happen, if for example you have two units, one going up and one going across, and they hit the "centre square" at the same time and block each other, then one unit will retry to make the move for the rest of that phase to see if the “block tile” becomes unblocked, it's only when you set up two or more soldiers to do a move that they fundamentally can't complete that they chuck the whole lot in the bin.)

There's no "dry run" option for your turn (again, by deisgn) - you plot in what you want everyone to do, and once you hit "send" that's it, so any mistakes you make remain as mistakes.

However, one big tip on this one, if you press and hold the spacebar then all of your soldiers' moves/attacks/etc for the entire turn will be showed on the map with numbered icons to show who's going to be doing what, and when.

That's a really good way to see if you have issued conflicting orders, if you're ever in any doubt, press and hold the spacebar – and get ready to go cross-eyed!

As you’re getting into the game you’ll most likely find you block yourself quite a lot, and even the most experienced players block occasionally – the knack is to understand why and how blocks occur, and then you can learn how to prevent them.

Watch your turns play back, and watch your opponent’s turns play back too, and it’ll quickly fall into place.

5) Using the "pause" command.

You can issue a pause command to any soldier for any of the seven phases in a turn, and that's exactly what it sounds like, your soldier just stays where he is for that phase of the turn.

One of the best ways to avoid unit blocking as outlined above is to use the pause command.

Let’s say for example that you need to get two soldiers onto the same tile to attack a target in a single turn, you’re going to have to use pause because two units can’t occupy the same tile at the same time.

Each phase of the turn would work like this:

Phase #1 – Soldier1 moves onto the tile, Soldier2 pauses.
Phase #2 – Soldier1 fires, Soldier 2 pauses.
Phase #3 – Soldier 1 moves away from tile, Soldier2 moves onto the tile.
Phase #4 – Soldier 2 fires.

Without using the pause commands for Soldier2, he’d try to move onto the same tile as Soldier1 at the same time, which would be impossible, hence Soldier2 would get to the tile adjacent to the tile where we want him to be, a block occurs, and Soldier2 then simply ditches every command for the rest of that turn.

Pausing has many other uses other than avoiding blocks, it allows you to work out the logistics of vehicle switching, and also to….

5) Grind down the defence bar.

The damage to health that a soldier takes from an attack is the attacking unit’s attack bar MINUS the defending units defence bar – whatever’s left (if anything) is how much damage the unit takes.

To illustrate the point, if a Private fires a shot at a Sgt Major, the Sgt Major takes zero damage (in actual fact a nominal 1% damage, but we’ll say zero for the purpose of this guide), this is because a Sgt Major’s defence bar is greater than a Private’s attack bar, hence the defence bar absorbs the entire attack.

The important part in all of this is that every single attack against a unit in a turn reduces its defence bar by 33%, whether or not it inflicts any actual damage.

Let’s say four Privates attack a Sgt Major in a single turn, attack one does zero damage, as explained above.

Attack two however, does a small amount of damage, because the Sgt Major’s defence bar is now only at 67% of where it started (100% minus 33%), and a Private’s attack bar is slightly greater than 67% of a Sgt Major’s defence bar.

Attack three (despite having exactly the same power as attacks one and two), does more damage again, because the Sgt Major’s defence bar is down to 45% of where it started. (a 33% reduction on 67% is 22%, hence 45% left.)

Attack four does yet more damage, because the Sgt Major’s defence bar is now just 30% of what it was at the start of the turn.

The basic rule of thumb that this leaves us with is to always use the weakest attacks against a target first to grind the defence bar down, and follow it up with the more powerful attacks in later phases of the turn. The greater the defence bar of the unit you’re attacking, the more important this is.

Boats have a pretty weak direct attack to start with, and their “adjacent tile” splash damage attack is pathetically weak – BUT – that adjacent tile attack will still remove 33% of any target’s defence bar.

Let’s say we’re trying to attack a Sgt Major and we have a boat with four attacks and a couple of Corporals lined up against him.

The Sgt Major’s defence bar will absorb all of a Corporal’s attack (hence no damage taken), and of course all of a boat’s direct attack or adjacent tile attack.

That said, a Corporal’s attack is quite a bit more powerful than a boat’s attack, so if we accept that the first couple of shots against the Sgt Major are going to do very little damage whoever we use, we may as well use the weakest attacks first because all attacks take 33% of the defence bar regardless, leaving the more powerful attacks to take a meaningful chunk off our target’s health.

Therefore our attacks for the turn (using the pause command for the Corporals) would go:

Phase #1 Boat attack adjacent tile
Phase #2 Boat attack adjacent tile
Phase #3 Boat attack adjacent tile
Phase #4 Boat direct attack
Phase #5 Corporal attack + Corporal attack

For the first three phases the Sgt Major will take pretty much zero damage, but those very weak adjacent tile boat attacks will nonetheless have reduced his defence bar to just 45% of where it started, leaving us to follow up with the more powerful, and damaging, attacks from our Corporals.

6) Don’t ignore promotions

The ranks go Private > Corporal > Sergeant > Sergeant Major.

Corporal is no great shakes (although definitely a boost above Private) but the top two ranks can be very useful, with tremendous defence and attack powers, plus a much increased movement range which can be massively useful.

Using a promotion icon ends the turn for that solider, but you can still do moves and attacks in the turn phases before using the promotion icon.

Sergeants and Sergeant Majors in particular can take a huge amount of punishment and dish out serious damage, so if you can get them, do so. (They also take far lower movement penalties to Privates and Corporals, so can travel further with the same amount of movement, which can turn a game right round.)

However, note that soldiers in a vehicle ALWAYS HAVE EXACTLY THE SAME ABILITIES - so a Private and a Sergeant Major in a tank will have the same attack, defence and movement.

Sergeants and certainly Sergeant Majors are generally better off on foot than they are in any vehicle, (unless you need the specific abilities of a vehicle), because they actually take an ability downgrade if they jump into a tank or a helicopter or whatever. (Note the lamentable defence stats for a boat or helicopter compared to a Sergeant or Sergeant Major.)

A tank is a great place for a Private to be, but not for a Sergeant Major.

7) Harvest those crates!

Crates yield the game’s goodies, shields, health packs and promotions – so they absolutely can’t be ignored.

What lengths you want to go to in the quest for crates is up to you, but generally speaking, if there are crates nearby that you can get to, collect them, unless you need the movement for something else and/or need to stay safe.

Soldiers in vehicles can’t collect crates, so you’re going to have to be on foot to collect them, as you play the game more you’ll learn how this can affect the dynamics of a game.

A player who chooses to keep his soldiers on foot, or ditches his vehicles a little way into a game might look like he’s putting himself at a big disadvantage, but he can be collecting crates and promotion icons whilst his opponent sticks to tanks and helis – and then, in the space of a few turns he can have a healthy crop of Sergeants and Sgt Majors, and all of a sudden the enemy’s Privates in tanks, with no icons in reserve, don’t look quite so powerful…..

Also note you can’t use any icons when in a vehicle either, so promotions, health boosts and shields and only be applied to foot soldiers.

8) Blocking.

Blocking is an integral part of the game, but it may be counter-intuitive to some players, however, you’re going to have to get the hang of it and see and exploit blocking opportunities to be successful. (And also, not put yourself in a position where you can easily be blocked.)

The fundamental concept behind blocking is that two units can’t occupy the same space at the same time, and units can’t pass through each other. (Helis can’t be blocked by ground units however, because they fly, and likewise helis can’t block ground units.)

Any ground unit can block any other ground unit, even demobbed soldiers can block any other ground unit, including a fully armed tank!

There’s no definitive description of a block, but in general terms it’s using one of your units to prevent an enemy unit carrying out a particular action.

Obvious blocks happen on maps like Spag Bol, since a large part of the map consists of raised walkways just one tile wide, therefore any unit positioned on one of these walkways can prevent any other unit from travelling any further than them along that walkway.

Behind Enemy Lines contains a couple of little coves, a foot soldier swimming in the sea at the entrance to one of these coves, where it’s just a single tile wide, can prevent an enemy boat from leaving the cove to launch attacks elsewhere on the map.

Some of the most effective (and frustrating!) blocks can occur on Castles, where a lone demobbed soldier stood in the entrance to the castle (which is just one tile wide) can prevent an army of enemy tanks from leaving the castle.

The depth of strategy that blocking adds to the game really can’t be underestimated, and anyone who plays the game for any amount of time will learn the hard way just how effective blocking can be in limiting or preventing an enemy’s attack.

Some players integrate blocking into their game more widely than others, and the complexity and creativity of blocks that can be achieved using multiple units is staggering.

You don’t have to be a blocking master to be successful at Naked War, but you do need to be able to block, respond to blocks, and see blocks coming.

9) Demobbed guys aren’t useless!

It can be very dispiriting seeing one or more of your soldiers getting demobbed early in a game, but it doesn’t have to mean game over, and in some instances, it can actually be of benefit.

Demobbed soldiers can’t attack and they don’t accrue attacks each turn, but they can collect and store shields, health icons and promotion icons (up to the maximum of four of each).

They can also block, can take and hold buildings, and have extraordinary movement range.

As such, a demobbed soldier can scour huge areas of the map for crates, quickly accumulating power-ups including the all-important promotions.

Due to their massive movement range demobbed soldiers can easily be positioned where they need to be when promoted back to Private, either to jump into a vehicle or to quickly rank-up on subsequent turns.

Also, demobbed soldiers make excellent blockers, and since they have “nothing to lose” (as a soldier can never be killed) the enemy can’t do anything about them, other than to find another route or abandon the planned attack.

In short, don’t despair at the sight of a couple of demobs!

10) Double heli attacks.

We already know that a unit can’t attack the same enemy twice in the same turn, or rather, a unit can’t directly target the same enemy twice in one turn.

Splash damage is one way of achieving multiple attacks from the same unit, and the double heli attack is another.

For this to work, you need a heli with all four attack points stored up, as each attack from a heli uses two attack points, and we’re going to need all four to perform a double attack.

Assuming you have all four attack points, send your heli off to the unfortunate recipient of the double attack, and for the first of the two attacks, target the tile one past the enemy, checking to see that the “strafe route” (denoted by attack stars on the ground) includes the enemy’s tile.

For the second attack, target the enemy unit directly.

Then when the turn is played out, for the first attack, you’ll see your heli strafe along the ground, right through the enemy, and finishing on the tile beyond, where we actually targeted. The enemy will take full heli damage from this attack.

For the second attack you’ll then see your heli fire again, with the attack finishing directly on the enemy unit, which is where this attack was aimed.

Et voila, death rains down from above!

There are a few restrictions on where you can use double heli attacks, the most obvious being that you need to be able to target the “one beyond” tile to get the first attack in. If there’s a big difference in elevation between the enemy’s tile and the “one beyond” tile, you won’t be able to target the “one beyond” tile.

However, you can move the heli between attacks to get a better position/angle on being able to find a valid “one beyond” tile to target, both attacks don’t have to come from the same position.

If you’re trying to defend against double heli attacks, you can try and position your units in such a fashion that your opponent won’t be able to find a “one beyond” tile to target, using the scenery, bridges, towers, sneaky corners, and so on.

11) The joy of turrets.

Turrets are a brutal addition to the Naked War armoury, and are capable of demobbing any unit, anywhere on the map, with a single shot.

To temper this awesome attack power a little, turrets require all four attack points to fire, have a very weak defence, and a unit won’t accrue movement at the start of each turn whilst he’s sat in one.

Turrets act as vehicles, (albeit ones which can’t move), so you can implement them in a vehicle-switching tactic the same as any other vehicle. (A heli with three attack points, for example, can fly to a turret, the soldier inside can jump into the turret at the end of his turn, and with the extra attack point awarded at the start of the next turn added to the three he already had, the turret will be ready to fire.)

An unoccupied turret can be destroyed by a single attack from any unit (even an adjacent tile boat attack), just the same as any other vehicle, so in many scenarios you’re better off destroying a turret before an enemy can reach it, rather than waiting until he’s actually comfortably sat inside, waiting to get medieval on your ass, turret-style.

It’s also possible to “turret switch”, that is to say, having two (or more!) soldiers close to a turret, and after the soldier in the turret fires, have him jump out, and then have another soldier immediately jump in, ready to fire the turret again at the start of the next turn.

There has been something of a debate regarding “fair play” when it comes to turrets, but in the final analysis there seems to be a general agreement that when two reasonably experienced players are pitted against each other, pretty much anything goes, and turrets can (and will) be used as fanatically as possible.

You have been warned!

12) Play Everyone games!

Yours truly was rather sceptical about the value and/or fun factor of Everyone games in his early Naked War days, but as time has gone by my perception of them has changed substantially.

In case you’re not familiar with the concept, when someone issues an Everyone challenge, (just enter the username “Everyone” when you issue the challenge), the game is then sent to the Naked War Player’s Site as a Community Game.

http://www.zee-3.com/nakedwar/community/everyone.php

Anyone who is a member of the opposing team can then pick that challenge up and play the first turn (in an Everyone game, the opponent always gets first move), they then send the turn off in the usual fashion, and the person who issued the challenge receives the turn in their inbox as usual.

When they reply to the turn however, instead of the turn being sent off to the person who originally picked the challenge up, the turn is instead sent back to the Naked War server where it waits to be picked up as a Community Turn (as per the link above) – so again, anyone who’s a member of the opposing team can pick the turn up and respond to it – and so on.

As such, there are two ways to take part in Everyone games.

You can issue an Everyone challenge yourself, and will then get to play a game against many different people from the opposing team, theoretically with every single turn being played by a different person.

On the other hand, you can pick up Community Games that have been sent to your team, as and when they’re available on the website. In this scenario you’ll most likely experience Back To The Future-esque “time jumps”, as games will usually progress several turns from you picking up one turn before picking up another turn (should you choose to do so).

The general rule of thumb is that Everyone challenges are a bit easier to win than a regular challenge against a single opponent, because the players who pick the turns up on the opposing team may vary widely in ability, won’t necessarily know what the person who played the last turn was trying to do, won’t necessarily be able to see a strategy through to completion if it’ll take a number of turns to execute, and so on.

This being the case, it would be unfair to penalise players who lose an Everyone game as a result of their turn, and as such, losing an Everyone game does NOT affect a player’s personal stats, on the other hand, winning an Everyone game does give your team a win.

In practical terms, this means that picking up an Everyone turn for your team is a “risk-free” scenario, there is, basically, nothing to lose.

All very well and good, but what’s point of Everyone games as opposed to normal games, what makes them so different?

Well, just try it yourself, issue an Everyone challenge, and if you’ve never issued one before, I guarantee you’ll get to play a game the likes of which you’ve never played against a single opponent.

Also, try picking up a few Everyone turns for your team, again, I guarantee you’ll be greeted with situations you’ve never seen in a regular game against a single opponent.

The basic difference between an Everyone game and a normal game is pretty straightforward, all the turns on one side are played by a variety of people, and all the turns on the other side are played by one person.

What you might not be expecting is just how fundamentally this changes the nature of the game, especially since a lot of Naked War players are used to playing the same opponents fairly regularly, and as such get used to a pretty standard opening game.

With an Everyone game, things can go off on a wild tangent from the first couple of turns onwards, especially if relative newcomers play a turn or two and don’t stick to the usual “best first moves”.

Then, should more experienced players pick up some of the following turns, they’re faced with situations they’d never usually find themselves dealing with in their own games, and have to apply their skills and knowledge to entirely alien scenarios.

This can create bizarre situations for the Everyone challenger, he can think he’s got a game nicely wrapped up when all of a sudden a couple of the opposing team’s heavy-hitters play a few turns, and produce stunning moves you’d never have thought possible.

Everyone games are also extremely useful for learning some of the games more arcane and obscure skills. (Which is arguably why the subject really belongs in this FAQ.)

Because an Everyone game puts players in situations they’d most likely never find themselves in whilst playing a straight one-on-one game, it demands that players (on both sides) think in new and imaginative ways to cope with what they’re presented with.

I’ve had Everyone games where I’ve been sure I’ve won, and then got a turn back from a skilled player that I couldn’t quite believe, especially when it comes to some of the cleverest blocks, or defensive techniques, or staggering counter-attacks.

Unused to seeing such turns, I’m forced to think up new ideas and responses, which I can then incorporate into my own “normal” game. (And of course, I can learn from the moves I’ve just been shown by my clever opponent.)

In short, Everyone games are a simple, stress-free way to enjoy the game and learn some advanced techniques without ever having to feel like you’re getting a distressing ass-kicking, especially if you’re picking up Everyone turns for your team, because as has already been mentioned, there’s nothing to lose if you pick up a game that’s going really badly, or if you play a bad move.

The flipside of this coin is that if you issue an Everyone challenge yourself, it’s highly unlikely that all the turns are going to be picked up by the opposing team’s best players, which means you should get an easier ride than you would with a one-on-one against an experience opponent – and get to see a load of new ideas in the process.

On top of that, in keeping with the noble nature of Naked War, it’s considered bad form for a good player to continually pounce on Everyone turns from the same game, especially against a newcomer. Speaking personally, if I’ve played an Everyone turn on a particular game I generally leave the reply on the site for a day before picking it up again, and other players apply similar sorts of standards.

So what are you waiting for?

Pick up an Everyone turn for your team, and maybe even issue an Everyone challenge as well!

http://www.zee-3.com/nakedwar/community/everyone.php

13) Think about your attacks

Yeah I know, like, duhhhhh.

But seriously, before you send your troops off into battle, have a think about what you’re trying to achieve, and what your opponent will be able to do in retaliation about what you’ve just done, or tried to do.

As ever, we’ll use a fairly “big” example to illustrate the wider principle.

There’s an enemy Sgt Major on the loose, he has doofers, you want the doofers, but you’re running low on active troops and you haven’t got firepower to waste, and you’re not exactly flush with movement either. In short, you need to get to where the bad guy is and take him out cleanly, because if you don’t, you’re going to be in a whole big world of hurt. (Also known as, “being on the blue team”.)

You have a Corporal hiding in trees, but he can attack the Sgt Major should he move out of cover, he has one shot. You’ve also got two damaged helis some distance away, one has two attack points, one has three attack points, so they can only launch one attack each this turn, and they don’t have enough movement to get out of the vicinity of the Sgt Major once they’ve fired.

You’ve also noticed that the enemy Sgt Major has collected quite a few crates over the course of the game, and he hasn’t used much in the way of shield or health bonuses up to now.

So what do you do this turn?

Well I’ll tell you what you don’t do, you absolutely do NOT attack the Sgt Major with the firepower available to you.

Why? Because he’ll survive, albeit with much reduced health, and when it’s his turn, he’ll punch both your damaged helis in the face with a very powerful attack, (well actually, he’ll shoot at them), taking them both out, and he’ll take a chunk out of your Corporal too, if he has the shots for it, then he’ll use a health power up, just for good measure – and you’ll be shafted.

The overall point here is, there’s no point launching futile attacks against a powerful enemy who can quickly counter-attack.

In the above scenario, the correct course of action would be to wait a turn.

Keep your helis out of danger, because next turn not only would one of the helis be able to launch a double-attack, (as it’d have all four attack points), they’d both hopefully have enough extra movement to escape the battle zone after they’d attacked (and thus out of the range of any other enemy attacks).

The thing is, a Corporal + heli + heli won’t take out a Sgt Major, (the attacks you’d have available to you immediately), a Corporal + heli + heli + heli WILL take out a Sgt Major, (which are the attacks you’d have available to you by waiting a turn).

Of course all good rules have exceptions, and this is no, ummmm, exception

There are situations where grinding down an enemy unit or units over a number of turns is a wholly valid tactic, particularly if you’re trying to force your opponent to use up his supply of shields and health icons when there aren’t many crates around to collect.

Similarly, if you’re very much on top of things in a game, slamming away at your opponent even when you know you won’t be getting a demob is a good demoralising tactic, and forces a defending opponent even more onto the defensive.

However, if you’re the guy who’s on the back foot, with limited units and firepower, looking to make a meaningful dent in your opponent’s resolve, then you need to make your attacks count.

If your opponent is in a strong position, and all you’re managing to do is take a third off a couple of his unit’s health bars per turn, you’ll look weak and vulnerable – save your attacks, and when you do manage to strike, make it count, get a demob, make your opponent think again about how dangerous you might still be.

The other phase of the game where meaningful attacks are particularly important is early on, it’s fairly easy to chuck units forward with gay abandon, a couple of shots from a tank or boat, a single attack from a heli, maybe a Private or Corporal chancing their arm, that sort of thing – but if you’re not getting demobs, chances are your opponent will simply bide his time, heal up, vehicle-switch or get into vehicles – and when the counter-attack comes, he’ll make it count.

(This is more true on some maps than others, certainly on maps where plenty of vehicles are easily accessible, you need to be making meaningful attacks from your first strike.)

In truth, this is an overall concept that a good amount of gameplay will make clearer than any amount of waffling in an FAQ can achieve. But do keep an eye out, if you’re launching attacks that ultimately don’t get you anywhere, watch how a good opponent will pounce on that and punish you.

On the other hand, if your opponent is launching ineffective attacks against you, note how if affords you excellent opportunities to retaliate, or simply heal up and store over attacks and movement to subsequent turns for when you do decide to respond.