Basics

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Revision as of 20:11, 17 February 2006

Controls

Movement

Attacking

Capturing, Building, and Understanding Income

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 capable against other infantry units and can moderately harm Low-Flying Aircraft. The secondary weapon is a bazooka that is able to damage any Ground Vehicles, 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 five 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.

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, regardless of whether they are premium members or not. 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 Unit that only Premium Members have the ability to produce. 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 Hovertakns 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 poitns 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 three 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 attacking the enemy without the enemy being capable of counter attacking, 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.

Terrain and Buildings