Basics

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Revision as of 19:24, 27 February 2006

Controls

Movement

Probably the most important aspect of Battalion is positioning your troops, or moving them around.

To begin moving a unit on a map, it must first be selected. To do this just click one of your units that haven't been used yet, you can typically find these units easily as available units have a tendency to hop around and look more colorful than units that have already been moved. After selecting a unit, a white shade in overlaid the map showing where the unit can move on that turn. From here simply select a square in this white shade to move a unit there. Once a unit is moved a circle of options pop up (Attack, Undo, Wait, Capture, Cloak, Uncloak), but only those applicable to the situation and unit will be displayed. These topis will be covered later in this guide.

Now there are a few factors that govern where a unit can move.

    1.  It's Movement Range
    2.  The Terrain
    3.  Position of Enemy Units

A unit's Movement Range is pretty straightforward. It is the number of Movement Units, which can be thought of as a Square of Grass, that a unit can move into.

Moving through or into a square of Terrain well cost, or requires, a certain number of Movement Units. Each different type of Terrain has a different amount of Movement Units required to move through them, depending on the type of unit used. For example, an Infantry unit can move into a forest and only use 1 Movement Unit, but a Tank uses 2 Movement Units and an AT Array uses 3! Also certian Terrains prevent Movement by certian units, the most recognizible example is that a Mountain allows ONLY Infantry units to move on or through them, meaning a Tank would need to find another route. Careful planning about ones surroundings is crucial to an effective turn of moving.

One's surroundings will typically include multiple Enemy units. An Enemy unit will prevent a unit from entering or passing through a Square. Now remember, your Enemy is bound by the same rule meaning, just as he/she can block your units, you can block his/her units.

Attacking

Now while moving units are critical, if they don't fight each other its kind of pointless.

Now when it comes to Attacking, they are a few tiny variables at play:

    1.  The Weapon of the Attacking unit
    2.  The Armour of the Defending unit
    3.  The units themselves

While there are many different units in the world of Battalion, most share Weapons. Different Weapons are more or less effective than other Weapons on different types of Armour. Machineguns and Vulcans are effective against Unarmoured, Air, and Sub units, but less effective against Armoured and Naval units. Cannons and Rockets are effective against Armoured and Naval, less effective against Unarmoured, and CAN NOT Attack Air or Sub units. And lastly the specialty weapons:Missiles are highly effective against Air, Torpedoes are highly effective against Naval units, and Bombs can only attack Ground and Naval units.

The types of Armour have different effects on the way a unit Defends against an Attack. All Infantry are considered to be Unarmoured, having defiencies against Vulcans, Machineguns, and Flame, while are not so affected by Cannons and Rockets. There are various classes of Armour in the Armoured classification (Truck, Light Tank, Heavy Tank, Annihilator) but all behave similiar, except for their relative effectiveness. They are not so effective against Cannon and Rockets, and Machineguns and Vulcans are less effective. Naval Armour can with stand most Vulcan, Machinegun, and Flame attacks, Cannons and Rockets can peirce these mighty hulls. Air Armour is broken up into High and Low. All Air units can not be touched by Cannon, Rockets, and Flame, only the High armour avoids the Machineguns. But both classes have staggering defiencies against Vulcans and Missiles.

And lastly, the units themselves have an additional modifier for their respective Weapons and Armour. Most are used to increase or decrease the effectiveness of thier respective Weapons and Armour. As a rule of thumb the more expensive the unit, the more effective their Weapons and Armour.

Capturing, Building, and Understanding Income

Besides the standard Terrain (Mountains, Forests, etc.), there are Buildings (Cities, Capitols, Factories, Ports, Airports) which provide bonuses outside of Terrain Defence.

All Buildings can be Owned by a player. At the start of a game, the Map Maker decides to "give" select Buildings to Players or he/she makes them Neutral and must be fought over by the Players. All Buildings owned by a Player give that Player a certain amount of Income and also serve as Repair Facilties.

For Neutral or Enemy Buildings, a Player can perform a Capture which, if successful, will switch a Building to the Player's color and Ownership. If the building was Owned by the Opponent, he/she will lose Income, Repair Facilities, and the ability to Build new units.

Factories, Ports, and Airports all have the ability to Build new units but can only build one type of unit. Factories can Build only Ground units, Ports can Build only Naval units, and Airports can Build only Air.

At the begining of every Turn, a Player recieves Income from all the Buildings he/she Owns. The most Income is generated by Capitals, but the main source of Income are the Cities that can be fought over. All Production Facilities generate a marginal amount of Income but, of course, have more important functions.

Using Terrain to your advantage

Units

Infantry

While the world of Battalion only has two types of Infantry units, their usage in a game can affect the overal result of a map. They have two bonus above that of normal units:

    1)  Infantry can cross mountians, albeit at a slower rate than over normal terrain.
    2)  Infantry units can be loaded into Transports, ASW's, and Heavy Scorpions

AT Commando - Or Anti-Tank Commando, is the basic Infantry unit. The AT Commando has the ability to Capture, or take possession of Buildings (Cities, Factories, Ports, and Air Bases). The main weapon of an AT Commando is a machinegun that is quite capable against other infantry units and can moderately harm Low-Flying Aircraft. The secondary weapon is a bazooka that is able to damage any Armoured Vehicle, this attack does a decent amount of damage to units of the Light and Truck armour classes.

Naplam Commando - This unit is the cheapest unit in the game. Its attack, while weaker than the AT Commando, is capable of negating Terrain Defences, basically meaning that a Scorpion on a Capitol, with a Terrain Defence of 4, fairs just as well as one on a Road, with a Terrain Defence of 0.

Tanks

Their are six different tank units in Battalion. While this may sound intimidating, each tank has a specific use that distinguishes it from all of the others.

Scorpion - The Scorpion is the lightest and cheapest tank, and arguably the tank with the widest range of uses. It has the capability to move 6 squares over roads and grass, making it one of the fastest ground units in the game. Scorpions are best used in tandem with other scorpions, as three full health Scorpions usually can take out many much more expensive units.

Surface-To-Air Tank, or STAT - The STAT is a fast and specialized tank. While most tanks are armed with Cannons, the STAT is armed with a Vulcan. This high-speed machine gun is highly effective against Air and Infantry units, but wanes when attacking most Armoured foes, such as the Scorpion. The Armour of an STAT is less than that of a Scorpion, requiring a first strike method of attack for maximum effecteviness.

Heavy Scorpion - The Heavy Scorpion is the slower, more powerful, and more expensive counterpart to the Scorpion. Its armor gives it a greater defense, but it is still vulnerable to weaker units like Scoprions and AT Commandos if it is not situated on a high defense tile like a forest or a building. The Heavy Scorpion has the capability to transport one Infantry unit, making it useful in situations where heavily defended choke points are very close to an enemy's capitol.

Annhilator - The Annhilator is the one Premium Unit that is available to all players in Battalion. The Annhilator is the most expensive ground unit in the game, costing an enourmous $22,000 to produce. The Annhilator has extremely heavy armor, but it is still vulnerable if it is attacked in multiple directions on weakly defended tiles like roads, plains, and shores. Since the Annhilator moves very slowly, opponents usually have a chance to prepare for its arrival and build countering untis like Mortar Tanks and AT Arrays. While new players may be tempted to rush to building Annhilators becuase of its apparent strength, they should be warned that its immobility and huge price is not very cost effective when compared to, say, three Scorpion Tanks.

Hovertank - The Hovertank is a Premium-Only unit. It has the same stats as a regular Scorpion, but it gains the added ability to hover over water. This can make the Hovertank very valuable on maps where a small amount of water seperates a base from an important region to control. However, large distances over water should be not forged by Hovertanks due to their slow movement while hovering above water. The Hovertank moves very slowly over Forests and cannot move over mountains. The Hovertank is also qutie expensive, so it is advised that they should be used only in special circumstances.

Hovertanks have the interesting property of being the only units that can be unloaded on to water from a Carrier. Carriers can be used in tandem with Hovertanks to assault parts of islands with no shores, for example.

Shadow - The Shadow is another Premium-only unit. It has the special property of being able to cloak itself until its energy runs out. Activating the cloak on the Shadow costs 20 energy, and each turn that the cloak is on it loses 10 energy. When its energy reaches 0, it automatically uncloaks. When uncloaked, the Shadow gains energy back at a rate of 10 per turn. While cloaked, the Shadow is extremely deadly. Its firepower doubles, making it able to assassinate vulernable units like AT Arrays. The Shadow is a great unit to sneak behind enemy lines. In addition, the Shadow can also be used to block choke points when an enemy has only one unit that it can use to reveal the tank. The Shadow will also remain cloaked if it successfully destroys its target when attacking.

Indirect Units

The four Ground Indirect units (the only Naval Indirect Unit, the Frigate, will be covered in the Naval Section) have a unique method of Attack, by indirectly engaging the enemy, hence the term. While the uses of these units are boundless, there are a few conditions that must be met:

    1.  A unit must be within the range of the Indirect Unit, meaning an enemy
           must be close enough to be Attacked
    2.  The Indirect Unit's weapon must be able to Attack that class of
           unit, meaning that an Indirect Unit with a Cannon weapon, it
           CANNOT Attack an Air.
    3.  An Indirect Unit cannot Move AND Attack.  NOTE: 
           To Attack with an Indirect Unit, you must select it and then
           click it again and select Attack, which will only be available
           if there are units in range.

Mortar Tank - This is the basic artillery piece used in Battalion. It can Attack any unit that is 2 or 3 Squares away from it. It has a moderately strong Cannon, able to damage a Sorpion almost as much as an actual Scorpion. Its Armour is less than that of a Scorpion and is thusly held just off of the front lines to provide support for the main force.

Anti-Tank Array, or AT Array - This is pinticle of Ground Indirect units. It has a superior range than that of a Mortar Tank, reaching targets 3, 4, and even 5 Squares away. Its reach comes with powerful Rockets, which while doing great damage to Tanks and other armoured vehicles, is less proportionally less effective on Infantry units. But its Armour is its main weakness, being much less than that of a Mortar Tank and of the class Truck. Most any Attack by a reasonably strong unit is capable of almost crippling this unit, almost forcing a commander to withdraw the unit for repairs.

Anti-Air Array or AA Array - This unit is higly specialized and darn good at what it does. With the ability to Attack any unit 3, 4, or 5 squares away, while it does sound like the AT Array there's one small catch. The AA Array uses Missiles which tear any and all Air units to shreds. Its Attack is so devastating to Air units, under normal circumstances, an AA Array can destroy any and all Air units.

Longbow Artillery - This Premium unit has the best of both worlds, it can Attack, with its Cannon, any Ground or Naval unit and, with its Missiles, any Air unit. While this lovely little package can Attack any uni, at long range, the power of the Attack suffers.

Transport

The Transport is a unique unit, in that it is the only Ground unit that can carries Infantry units (Even though a Heavy Scorpion can carry one Infantry unit it is better catagorized as a Tank). It also has healing capabilities, able to heal all player Ground units directly adjacent to it in the horizontal and vertical directions (but not diagonally) by 10%. It continues to set its self apart by having no armaments really solely on its Armour for protection, which is equivalent to that of a Scorpion.

Naval

The seas of the Battalion world are frot with danger and powerful units. All Naval units must be built from a Port and can only move on Sea tiles ('Sea, Reefs, Shores, and Ports).

Carrier - This unit is the cheapest Naval units and comes equipped with no weapons. This unit is designed to ferry Ground units across the seas and can only unload when the Carrier is on a Shore tile AND there is an open, adjacent, Ground tile. NOTE: A unit can ONLY be placed on terrain in which it can actauly move on, i.e. a Scorpion can't be placed on top of a Mountain.

Sub - This unit can only attack other Naval units, but does have a strong attack and is a Direct-Fire unit. A special ability of the Sub is the ability to Cloak, using 20% Energy to Cloak and 10% Energy for each following turn. The Sub can be Un-Cloaked after it is moved in a similiar manner to how it was Cloaked. The Sub is also invulnerable to Cannon and Rocket attacks, meaning the Sub can only be attacked by Machinegun and Vulcan.

Destroyer - This unit is a Direct-Fire unit specializing in attacking Subs and Air units. It is a fast and light vessel, but should not sail into water carelessly. Even though it is designed to combat them, a Destroyer can be attacked and significantly injured by Subs and Air units.

Frigate - The king of the seas, a Frigate is a decidedly dangerous unit. With a Range of 2 to 6, its Cannons can fire off powerful barrages at units that an AT Array would not be able to Attack. But the Frigate, being only armed with Cannons, has no defense against a Sub, which could easily cripple a Frigate in a single Attack

Air

The Air units in Battalion are further broken down by Low and High qualifications. The Low units are the helicopters (ASW's amd Gunships) and can be Attacked' with Machineguns meaning that Infantry and Tanks can Attack the Low units. The High units are the airplanes (Interceptors and Nova Bombers) and can only be reached with Vulcan and Missile weapons.

ASW - This unit can transport one Infantry unit anywhere. Unlike the Transport, an ASW can fly over Mountains and other hazardous terrain. Like its Ground counterpart, it has no armaments and only weak Armour to protect it and its cargo.

Gunship - This unit is an attack helicopter capable of doing decent damage to Ground, Naval, and other Low Air units. It is armed with Rockets, which are used against various Ground and Naval units, doing moderate damage to Tanks. Its Machineguns are used against Infantry and Low Air units and is also quite effective against Subs.

Interceptor - This high flying jet has one of the largest movement ranges, but can only attack Air units. The Interceptor's powerful Missiles can annihilate any and all Air units. Problem is, though, the Missiles are the only weapons the Interceptor has, meaning it can not attack anything BUT Air units.

Nova Bomber - This high flying bomber delivering devastating payloads onto Ground and Naval units. The Nova Bomber's attack will typically destory any unit not on a Forest or terrain with a higher Terrain Defence.

Terrain and Buildings