efurstie
Chieftain
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2014
- Messages
- 16
Red Death Strategy Guide
[Edited with more info on the factional updates]
I have not come upon a comprehensive Red Death strategy guide akin to those published for the standard Civilization game mode. There is a good reason for this – few people play Red Death. Even fewer play it often enough to frame out the general gameplay rules . Nonetheless, I’m going to provide my tips and tricks for how to play it successfully. I don't imagine that a lot of people will care, and most comments will be about what a waste of time it was for me to write this. That's fine. I hope it helps make those that do play Red Death more competitive.
First, why should you listen to me? Though I’ve been playing Civ since the first game when I was in grade school in 1992, I am not a top-tier player in the base game. I’m not the best Red Death player. However, I have played nearly 50 Red Death games thus far this year and have won two out of three of those games. Given that I only play games that have 5 or 6 human players, this win rate means that I’m more successful than most. My advice is not infallible, and I definitely would like to hear other people’s thoughts.
First, some general advice:
Early Game
Much like the base game, a good start sets the tone for everything in Red Death. You start with three units. It is imperative that you cover as much ground as possible and discover as many city ruins as possible with these three units. Because of this, all three should go in different directions. Yes, this may mean that your civilian is captured shortly after the start of the game. However, the goal is to win, not survive long enough to come in 4th. Take the risk. It rarely backfires anyway.
Further, to maximize the distance that you can cover, you should almost always embark all three units. Two exceptions: Wanderers may consider sending one unit inland, Cultists may consider vectoring one unit to already uncovered, nearby ruins.
Water movement is very powerful in Red Death – as you can cover ground far more quickly this way. Further, it affords your units protection from melee units, and, so long as your civilian ends it’s turn at least one tile removed from the coast, ensures that it cannot be captured. You should send your units in opposite directions up and down the coast. The idea is to cover as much land as possible. Land = ruins and barb camps; eventually, land = superior position for the end game
Landlocked starts within non-Wanderers is a challenge. Nonetheless, send all units in opposite directions. Maximize movement, planning river crossings and hill movements carefully to maximize sight lines.
Never combine your units into corps or armies in the early game, unless doing so prevents the death of one of the units. Two units always cover more ground and collect more gear than one strong unit.
I almost always take the movement promotions first. This has the benefit of covering ground more quickly to get more ruins, and also helps when the initial Safe Zone occasionally leaves your troops running for their lives.
Once you encounter other players in one direction, backtrack your units a bit and then start working inland between your two furthest embarked extents. The idea is to claim the far reaches of your embarked units and all of the interior land within, slowly accumulating all of the ruins within your zone of control. The larger zone you control, the better. An exception is if you can tell that you’re encountering a player that doesn’t know the embarking trick. Then just blast past them and start collecting on the far side of their slow-moving land-locked units.
Once you get yourself an area of control, mine barbarian camps within. Cleared the area of ruins and vector your troops toward barb camps. Use these to harvest experience, and also to collect nukes (extremely important) and helicopters (exceptional at clearing interior areas of ruins). I will very often spend the time to clear a barb camp for the experience and helicopter, even if it means taking a unit away from searching for ruins for a few turns.
Unit Management/Battles
Do not force engagements with other players. Every turn you spend fighting is a turn you’re not getting ruins or barb camps. Every unit you lose fighting is a unit that you don’t have to find ruins. An exception is the AIs, which are hapless. You can follow them around and harvest them for experience much like you’d do with barbarians.
An exception is when you have overwhelming force near a small scouting/harvesting party from another human. When you can remove a unit from your opponent, do it if it doesn’t trade getting yourself new units from ruins. If you know the scout is going to some picked-over area, let them go. You’re fine if your enemy is wasting their time wandering around in previously harvested areas. Early game engagements is a judgement call.
Once the available ruins are all taken in any given area, and/or when you are struggling to move all of your units within the turn timer, consolidate. By endgame, corps and armies are superior than single units. Exceptions include helicopters for establishing sight-lines for your range units and grabbing drops. If I have 8 helicopters, I’ll tend to make two armies and have two spares for reconnaissance. Because of this (and because of barbarian camps spawning near the edges), it is often advantageous to leave units to your rear to collect these supplies.
Once you have civilian redundancy (say 3 of them) civilians should be set to sea and used to monitor the activities of the enemy. They can linger off the coast (with a 1 hex buffer) for 12 tunes before they die. Cycle as needed. They also are good for establishing sight lines for ranged units, or in serving as bait for hidden ranged units near chokepoints.
Rocket artillery is the most powerful unit in the game when used correctly. I nearly always take the “fire after movement” promotion first. All promotions that allow you to collect experience more quickly are preferred (second only to those promotions which allow you to collect gear more quickly). Tanks are barely useful, but as most units spend much of their time wounded, the bonus verse wounded units is typically my first promotion. I almost always form corps and armies ASAP with tanks, as single tanks are helpless and tank armies can be formidable.
Despite the annoying tendency of certain players to try to rush the turn timer, don’t worry about letting it wind down (unless you’re playing with pre-teens who are likely to get the host to kick you – in that case it’s more fun to just move quickly and listen to them whine about how unfair this game is and how the deck was stacked against them and so on. Enjoy life kids). Use the extra time to determine what your first several attacks are at the start of a turn. Make sure that the proper units are highlighted and, for ranged units, be ready for r-click immediately. Always prioritize killing units, rather than wounding multiples. If a high priority target is not immediately available for a ranged unit, consider waiting until all enemy moves have completed before moving and firing, or firing on units that entered the range during the turn. Don’t wander around and leave yourself moveless when you wish you could be shooting.
Nukes are to be used to: 1) save vulnerable units from annihilation. You cannot get those units back if they die 2) Cut off the advance of an enemy and buy yourself time to retreat/regroup 3) force opponents into a kill-zone by cutting off their retreat with the Red Death and fallout and, the always popular 4) Double-nuke to eradicate multiple units at a time.
Because of nukes, especially the double-nuke, it is critical that you not group your units together tightly (especially if your opponent has the ability to see the location of your units).
The most important thing you can do when it comes to battle is to have no ego. Don’t get retribution unless it is beneficial to you in the long run. Don’t get goaded, let other players weaken each other if possible. Be patient, especially if your gain advantages as the Red Death encroaches (Borderlords).
Faction Specific Notes
I haven’t played all of the factions since the upgrade, so I won’t comment much on the new gameplay nuances that come with them. I can tell you that my combined record on the Cultists, Borderlords, Pirates, and Wanderers is 19-3. For the other factions, I’m at or below .500 for win likelihood. That said, I do find them to be generally well-balanced, and there is no faction that is impossible to win with.
Pirates
The key strategy is to gather gear, and the Pirates are the best at gathering gear. Send you units everywhere. Send them to multiple continents or shorelines. Your opponents should be like “are you kidding me, more Pirates?” You should be struggling to move all units in the turn timer. Pirates must snowball, because they have no other skills. In the unlikely event of a water ending, Pirates will die more slowly. I have not played Pirates since the update. The treasure map seems kind of cheesy, but is an amusing way to get yourself extra stuff. No rush on that. It’s never worth it to overcommit resources to silly sideshow. Pirates are nearly invincible with fewer human players, or on non-pangea maps.
Wanderers
As the first promotion I take is the movement promotion, the Wanderers start with an inherent advantage for the collection of stuff. Gameplay is similar to Pirates, but without the aversion to the interior of continents. I have not played them since the update, but think that their ability to uncover previously explored territory would be useful for sighting for nukes and ranged attacks.
Borderlords
The early game is the same as any other faction, but thereafter, spread out across a long edge of the Red Death and patiently ride that wave toward the center. Grab the supply drops on the edge and avoid engagements until an end game when you cannot be beaten without a force twice your size. Faux supply drops make for good bait to lure unsuspecting opponents into your area, where you can harvest them for experience, or to discourage travel through choke points. More importantly, the faux supply drops make it so that players stop retrieving the real supply drops, and only you can tell the difference. Pepper the landscape with fake drops, putting them next to the real ones to discredit them, then grab your nukes and artillery at your leisure. If you can survive to the end game, you are extremely likely to win.
Borderlords’ Achilles heel, however, is the nuke. If you live on the edge and are nuked on the edge, your guys are in trouble.
Cultists
Cultists were perhaps the most powerful before the patch, and now are even more powerful.
Cultists are all about movement optimization. You can see more ruins, so make choices based entirely on 1) what is the risk of someone else snatching that ruin before I get to it and 2) how many moves between each of my guys away is that ruin, and what virgin territory am I passing up to get that ruin? If played properly (and I’m 6-0 in Cultist games in 2020), you gain control over an enormous expanse of land, with sentries on hills overlooking all sides. Harvest barbarians in the middle.
The GDR is a fast moving ADDITIONAL starting unit. Don't focus too much on promotions for it early on - but use its rapid motion on land (like that of a tank) to snag even more gear. Keep it away from the front lines (and the extra sight makes that easy). Eventually, as you gain extraneous AT crews or especially extra civilians, promote it to allow healing and so on. If played properly (and it takes a bit of practice), Cultists are the easiest faction to win with.
Suggested nerf: GDR has 1 movement and 1 sight until you sacrifice something. In a snowballing game, the extra, fast, unit is OP.
Side perk of Cultists: self-sighting for ranged units.
Jocks
The most vanilla of factions pre-patch, when playing against Jocks steer clear of them in the early game. When playing with them, the only thing I do differently is that I always take on barbarian camps with one unit, whereas in the other factions I sometimes use two.
The tactical nuke is useful, though you can only stockpile one at a time. If you don't use it, you are wasting it. Early game, it wouldn't be unreasonable to nuke the first barb camp as you are moving toward it - the fallout clears quickly and the half dead barbs will die in one attack from a infantry. Remember that the tactical nuke is a good start for the double-nuke.
Otherwise, Jock gameplay is the same as any general gameplay.
Scientists
People always cite scientists as the worst, but if played properly (or against inexperienced players) they can be very powerful. A single, hill-fortified AT Crew can repulse waves of attackers. Scientists are also about discipline. Often, you should avoid attacking at all. Absorb experience from enemy’s attacks and make no moves – the 40 hp of healing per turn can undo most attack’s damage. Add into that the promotions and you can hold out forever.
The designers – perhaps realizing that people weren’t playing Scientists in this way – doubled-down on this turtling ability with the force-field after the patch. This skill greatly enhances this particular strategy. However, it also has added effects of making you impervious to nukes (I was double-nuked to no effect the last game I played – very satisfying!) and Red Death. Remember to deploy it on your units if you get caught on the edge of the Red Death during a water evacuation.
Also, feel free to nuke yourself if you have your shielding on and are surrounded by enemies. Furthermore, ranged units stationed in the Red Death are a real PIA to kill. This skill is especially useful in the end-game.
Preppers
Preppers actually play roughly like Scientists, only using promotions instead of inherent healing ability to recharge health. Otherwise, you play Preppers using the standard strategies. The booby traps are more of an annoyance than anything, but their MOST important feature is that they take the rest of the unit's movement points. Imagine being a machine gun, having a helicopter coming toward you to mop you up, only to have it hit a landmine and halt it's movement, given you the opportunity to whack it with your two shots while it sits there wounded and immobile. Laying a minefield ahead of advancing Red Death can have the impact of pinning your opponent in the Death, all while dying from a thousand papercuts.
Mutants
I’ve played these twice since patch (I mostly play “random” faction) and lost both games. I found it difficult to use their radiation spray ability effectively, and found that I was spending too much time trying to spread it to envelope an enemy and not enough time making smart moves.
In general, Mutants play using general rules. However, mutants have one benefit – they will never get caught and die in the Red Death. Not that it’s impossible, but because of the increased movement, it’s trivial to stay one step ahead of the death.
The only different strategy that I take as a Mutant than the other factions is to send an early Helicopter into prematurely evacuated Red Death regions. With the extra movement and low early game Red Death health impact (1/2 for Mutants), these guys are great at snatching up abandoned gear.
I’ve played both of the new factions once (and won both games).
Zombies
Zombies are the ultimate snowball. Despite how differently they play because of their lack of ranged units, deploy the same early game strategies. The lack of movement is a major impediment, and I will most often take movement promotions to try to overcome this, though +1 movement is not as good as the increased movement over hills and trees that normal units get. Also, as moving these guys slowly around is a major drag, I’ll consolidate units sooner than the other factions.
Otherwise, you make a wall of zombies and slowly crawl your way across the board, chewing up everything and everyone along the way. Attack relentlessly; if you have the numbers, you’ll get even more numbers (and healing) when you kill a unit. Also, of note, Zombies can nuke.
In playing against zombies, retreat and ranged attack (despite their buff against ranged attacks). Try to string them along and isolate units, then make damn sure you have the firepower to kill them when you do engage, otherwise the battle flips against you immediately.
Due to their slow movement, nukes can be devastating against zombies.
Aliens
To me, the auto-heal is major. No stopping what you’re doing to recharge health. Recharge even when you fire is fantastic for ranged units.
The cloaking is secondary, but useful when your scouting parties discover a larger force. Remember that it only works when you’re more than one-hex away from the enemy. I tend to save this ability for emergencies. Though I didn’t need to do a water evacuation and landing in my Aliens game, I see it being very handy for that purpose. There’s nothing worse than having to land on a hostile coastline when your opponent has two turns to prepare for your arrival.
Another use for the cloaking - positioning vulnerable ranged units and then launching a surprise attack from two hexes away. Remember that this disengages the cloak.
Wrapping Up...
That’s my advice. Take it or leave it. I think that most experienced players have already arrived at most of these same conclusions. If there's disagreement, I'm happy to hear it. Some likely have other tricks that contain other valuable advice that I haven’t thought of. Much of my strategy revolves around the fact that half of the players play wrong, leaving a larger share of ruins and barb camps for me. If everyone deployed the same effective early game strategies, I'd not only win far fewer games, but I'd also have to re-think some of my decisions.
One final thing: whenever you play, the opponents will think you suck. Let them think it. And, sometimes (a third of the time in my case) they’ll think you suck, and then you’ll lose, and they might as well be right. It’s OK. It’s a silly game, who cares. That said, more often than not, they’ll tell you that you suck, then they’ll whine about how unlucky they are, then they’ll accuse you of cheating, then they’ll lose and yell at their moms for no good reason…and that’s fun too. Sorry Moms.
[Edited with more info on the factional updates]
I have not come upon a comprehensive Red Death strategy guide akin to those published for the standard Civilization game mode. There is a good reason for this – few people play Red Death. Even fewer play it often enough to frame out the general gameplay rules . Nonetheless, I’m going to provide my tips and tricks for how to play it successfully. I don't imagine that a lot of people will care, and most comments will be about what a waste of time it was for me to write this. That's fine. I hope it helps make those that do play Red Death more competitive.
First, why should you listen to me? Though I’ve been playing Civ since the first game when I was in grade school in 1992, I am not a top-tier player in the base game. I’m not the best Red Death player. However, I have played nearly 50 Red Death games thus far this year and have won two out of three of those games. Given that I only play games that have 5 or 6 human players, this win rate means that I’m more successful than most. My advice is not infallible, and I definitely would like to hear other people’s thoughts.
First, some general advice:
Early Game
Much like the base game, a good start sets the tone for everything in Red Death. You start with three units. It is imperative that you cover as much ground as possible and discover as many city ruins as possible with these three units. Because of this, all three should go in different directions. Yes, this may mean that your civilian is captured shortly after the start of the game. However, the goal is to win, not survive long enough to come in 4th. Take the risk. It rarely backfires anyway.
Further, to maximize the distance that you can cover, you should almost always embark all three units. Two exceptions: Wanderers may consider sending one unit inland, Cultists may consider vectoring one unit to already uncovered, nearby ruins.
Water movement is very powerful in Red Death – as you can cover ground far more quickly this way. Further, it affords your units protection from melee units, and, so long as your civilian ends it’s turn at least one tile removed from the coast, ensures that it cannot be captured. You should send your units in opposite directions up and down the coast. The idea is to cover as much land as possible. Land = ruins and barb camps; eventually, land = superior position for the end game
Landlocked starts within non-Wanderers is a challenge. Nonetheless, send all units in opposite directions. Maximize movement, planning river crossings and hill movements carefully to maximize sight lines.
Never combine your units into corps or armies in the early game, unless doing so prevents the death of one of the units. Two units always cover more ground and collect more gear than one strong unit.
I almost always take the movement promotions first. This has the benefit of covering ground more quickly to get more ruins, and also helps when the initial Safe Zone occasionally leaves your troops running for their lives.
Once you encounter other players in one direction, backtrack your units a bit and then start working inland between your two furthest embarked extents. The idea is to claim the far reaches of your embarked units and all of the interior land within, slowly accumulating all of the ruins within your zone of control. The larger zone you control, the better. An exception is if you can tell that you’re encountering a player that doesn’t know the embarking trick. Then just blast past them and start collecting on the far side of their slow-moving land-locked units.
Once you get yourself an area of control, mine barbarian camps within. Cleared the area of ruins and vector your troops toward barb camps. Use these to harvest experience, and also to collect nukes (extremely important) and helicopters (exceptional at clearing interior areas of ruins). I will very often spend the time to clear a barb camp for the experience and helicopter, even if it means taking a unit away from searching for ruins for a few turns.
Unit Management/Battles
Do not force engagements with other players. Every turn you spend fighting is a turn you’re not getting ruins or barb camps. Every unit you lose fighting is a unit that you don’t have to find ruins. An exception is the AIs, which are hapless. You can follow them around and harvest them for experience much like you’d do with barbarians.
An exception is when you have overwhelming force near a small scouting/harvesting party from another human. When you can remove a unit from your opponent, do it if it doesn’t trade getting yourself new units from ruins. If you know the scout is going to some picked-over area, let them go. You’re fine if your enemy is wasting their time wandering around in previously harvested areas. Early game engagements is a judgement call.
Once the available ruins are all taken in any given area, and/or when you are struggling to move all of your units within the turn timer, consolidate. By endgame, corps and armies are superior than single units. Exceptions include helicopters for establishing sight-lines for your range units and grabbing drops. If I have 8 helicopters, I’ll tend to make two armies and have two spares for reconnaissance. Because of this (and because of barbarian camps spawning near the edges), it is often advantageous to leave units to your rear to collect these supplies.
Once you have civilian redundancy (say 3 of them) civilians should be set to sea and used to monitor the activities of the enemy. They can linger off the coast (with a 1 hex buffer) for 12 tunes before they die. Cycle as needed. They also are good for establishing sight lines for ranged units, or in serving as bait for hidden ranged units near chokepoints.
Rocket artillery is the most powerful unit in the game when used correctly. I nearly always take the “fire after movement” promotion first. All promotions that allow you to collect experience more quickly are preferred (second only to those promotions which allow you to collect gear more quickly). Tanks are barely useful, but as most units spend much of their time wounded, the bonus verse wounded units is typically my first promotion. I almost always form corps and armies ASAP with tanks, as single tanks are helpless and tank armies can be formidable.
Despite the annoying tendency of certain players to try to rush the turn timer, don’t worry about letting it wind down (unless you’re playing with pre-teens who are likely to get the host to kick you – in that case it’s more fun to just move quickly and listen to them whine about how unfair this game is and how the deck was stacked against them and so on. Enjoy life kids). Use the extra time to determine what your first several attacks are at the start of a turn. Make sure that the proper units are highlighted and, for ranged units, be ready for r-click immediately. Always prioritize killing units, rather than wounding multiples. If a high priority target is not immediately available for a ranged unit, consider waiting until all enemy moves have completed before moving and firing, or firing on units that entered the range during the turn. Don’t wander around and leave yourself moveless when you wish you could be shooting.
Nukes are to be used to: 1) save vulnerable units from annihilation. You cannot get those units back if they die 2) Cut off the advance of an enemy and buy yourself time to retreat/regroup 3) force opponents into a kill-zone by cutting off their retreat with the Red Death and fallout and, the always popular 4) Double-nuke to eradicate multiple units at a time.
Because of nukes, especially the double-nuke, it is critical that you not group your units together tightly (especially if your opponent has the ability to see the location of your units).
The most important thing you can do when it comes to battle is to have no ego. Don’t get retribution unless it is beneficial to you in the long run. Don’t get goaded, let other players weaken each other if possible. Be patient, especially if your gain advantages as the Red Death encroaches (Borderlords).
Faction Specific Notes
I haven’t played all of the factions since the upgrade, so I won’t comment much on the new gameplay nuances that come with them. I can tell you that my combined record on the Cultists, Borderlords, Pirates, and Wanderers is 19-3. For the other factions, I’m at or below .500 for win likelihood. That said, I do find them to be generally well-balanced, and there is no faction that is impossible to win with.
Pirates
The key strategy is to gather gear, and the Pirates are the best at gathering gear. Send you units everywhere. Send them to multiple continents or shorelines. Your opponents should be like “are you kidding me, more Pirates?” You should be struggling to move all units in the turn timer. Pirates must snowball, because they have no other skills. In the unlikely event of a water ending, Pirates will die more slowly. I have not played Pirates since the update. The treasure map seems kind of cheesy, but is an amusing way to get yourself extra stuff. No rush on that. It’s never worth it to overcommit resources to silly sideshow. Pirates are nearly invincible with fewer human players, or on non-pangea maps.
Wanderers
As the first promotion I take is the movement promotion, the Wanderers start with an inherent advantage for the collection of stuff. Gameplay is similar to Pirates, but without the aversion to the interior of continents. I have not played them since the update, but think that their ability to uncover previously explored territory would be useful for sighting for nukes and ranged attacks.
Borderlords
The early game is the same as any other faction, but thereafter, spread out across a long edge of the Red Death and patiently ride that wave toward the center. Grab the supply drops on the edge and avoid engagements until an end game when you cannot be beaten without a force twice your size. Faux supply drops make for good bait to lure unsuspecting opponents into your area, where you can harvest them for experience, or to discourage travel through choke points. More importantly, the faux supply drops make it so that players stop retrieving the real supply drops, and only you can tell the difference. Pepper the landscape with fake drops, putting them next to the real ones to discredit them, then grab your nukes and artillery at your leisure. If you can survive to the end game, you are extremely likely to win.
Borderlords’ Achilles heel, however, is the nuke. If you live on the edge and are nuked on the edge, your guys are in trouble.
Cultists
Cultists were perhaps the most powerful before the patch, and now are even more powerful.
Cultists are all about movement optimization. You can see more ruins, so make choices based entirely on 1) what is the risk of someone else snatching that ruin before I get to it and 2) how many moves between each of my guys away is that ruin, and what virgin territory am I passing up to get that ruin? If played properly (and I’m 6-0 in Cultist games in 2020), you gain control over an enormous expanse of land, with sentries on hills overlooking all sides. Harvest barbarians in the middle.
The GDR is a fast moving ADDITIONAL starting unit. Don't focus too much on promotions for it early on - but use its rapid motion on land (like that of a tank) to snag even more gear. Keep it away from the front lines (and the extra sight makes that easy). Eventually, as you gain extraneous AT crews or especially extra civilians, promote it to allow healing and so on. If played properly (and it takes a bit of practice), Cultists are the easiest faction to win with.
Suggested nerf: GDR has 1 movement and 1 sight until you sacrifice something. In a snowballing game, the extra, fast, unit is OP.
Side perk of Cultists: self-sighting for ranged units.
Jocks
The most vanilla of factions pre-patch, when playing against Jocks steer clear of them in the early game. When playing with them, the only thing I do differently is that I always take on barbarian camps with one unit, whereas in the other factions I sometimes use two.
The tactical nuke is useful, though you can only stockpile one at a time. If you don't use it, you are wasting it. Early game, it wouldn't be unreasonable to nuke the first barb camp as you are moving toward it - the fallout clears quickly and the half dead barbs will die in one attack from a infantry. Remember that the tactical nuke is a good start for the double-nuke.
Otherwise, Jock gameplay is the same as any general gameplay.
Scientists
People always cite scientists as the worst, but if played properly (or against inexperienced players) they can be very powerful. A single, hill-fortified AT Crew can repulse waves of attackers. Scientists are also about discipline. Often, you should avoid attacking at all. Absorb experience from enemy’s attacks and make no moves – the 40 hp of healing per turn can undo most attack’s damage. Add into that the promotions and you can hold out forever.
The designers – perhaps realizing that people weren’t playing Scientists in this way – doubled-down on this turtling ability with the force-field after the patch. This skill greatly enhances this particular strategy. However, it also has added effects of making you impervious to nukes (I was double-nuked to no effect the last game I played – very satisfying!) and Red Death. Remember to deploy it on your units if you get caught on the edge of the Red Death during a water evacuation.
Also, feel free to nuke yourself if you have your shielding on and are surrounded by enemies. Furthermore, ranged units stationed in the Red Death are a real PIA to kill. This skill is especially useful in the end-game.
Preppers
Preppers actually play roughly like Scientists, only using promotions instead of inherent healing ability to recharge health. Otherwise, you play Preppers using the standard strategies. The booby traps are more of an annoyance than anything, but their MOST important feature is that they take the rest of the unit's movement points. Imagine being a machine gun, having a helicopter coming toward you to mop you up, only to have it hit a landmine and halt it's movement, given you the opportunity to whack it with your two shots while it sits there wounded and immobile. Laying a minefield ahead of advancing Red Death can have the impact of pinning your opponent in the Death, all while dying from a thousand papercuts.
Mutants
I’ve played these twice since patch (I mostly play “random” faction) and lost both games. I found it difficult to use their radiation spray ability effectively, and found that I was spending too much time trying to spread it to envelope an enemy and not enough time making smart moves.
In general, Mutants play using general rules. However, mutants have one benefit – they will never get caught and die in the Red Death. Not that it’s impossible, but because of the increased movement, it’s trivial to stay one step ahead of the death.
The only different strategy that I take as a Mutant than the other factions is to send an early Helicopter into prematurely evacuated Red Death regions. With the extra movement and low early game Red Death health impact (1/2 for Mutants), these guys are great at snatching up abandoned gear.
I’ve played both of the new factions once (and won both games).
Zombies
Zombies are the ultimate snowball. Despite how differently they play because of their lack of ranged units, deploy the same early game strategies. The lack of movement is a major impediment, and I will most often take movement promotions to try to overcome this, though +1 movement is not as good as the increased movement over hills and trees that normal units get. Also, as moving these guys slowly around is a major drag, I’ll consolidate units sooner than the other factions.
Otherwise, you make a wall of zombies and slowly crawl your way across the board, chewing up everything and everyone along the way. Attack relentlessly; if you have the numbers, you’ll get even more numbers (and healing) when you kill a unit. Also, of note, Zombies can nuke.
In playing against zombies, retreat and ranged attack (despite their buff against ranged attacks). Try to string them along and isolate units, then make damn sure you have the firepower to kill them when you do engage, otherwise the battle flips against you immediately.
Due to their slow movement, nukes can be devastating against zombies.
Aliens
To me, the auto-heal is major. No stopping what you’re doing to recharge health. Recharge even when you fire is fantastic for ranged units.
The cloaking is secondary, but useful when your scouting parties discover a larger force. Remember that it only works when you’re more than one-hex away from the enemy. I tend to save this ability for emergencies. Though I didn’t need to do a water evacuation and landing in my Aliens game, I see it being very handy for that purpose. There’s nothing worse than having to land on a hostile coastline when your opponent has two turns to prepare for your arrival.
Another use for the cloaking - positioning vulnerable ranged units and then launching a surprise attack from two hexes away. Remember that this disengages the cloak.
Wrapping Up...
That’s my advice. Take it or leave it. I think that most experienced players have already arrived at most of these same conclusions. If there's disagreement, I'm happy to hear it. Some likely have other tricks that contain other valuable advice that I haven’t thought of. Much of my strategy revolves around the fact that half of the players play wrong, leaving a larger share of ruins and barb camps for me. If everyone deployed the same effective early game strategies, I'd not only win far fewer games, but I'd also have to re-think some of my decisions.
One final thing: whenever you play, the opponents will think you suck. Let them think it. And, sometimes (a third of the time in my case) they’ll think you suck, and then you’ll lose, and they might as well be right. It’s OK. It’s a silly game, who cares. That said, more often than not, they’ll tell you that you suck, then they’ll whine about how unlucky they are, then they’ll accuse you of cheating, then they’ll lose and yell at their moms for no good reason…and that’s fun too. Sorry Moms.
Last edited:
