Enamy Nation

(Walkthrough)

Bleary-eyed and battle-weary, yet your mind still spins together strands of strategy, hoping to weave a web from which your opponent will never escape. If you are still searching for more ways to entangle your adversary in Enemy Nations, read on.

Do you start to panic and take a long time looking around for that perfect landing site? Well, stop it! The AI will already have certain advantages and the longer you're a scrolling fool, the worse it's going to be. Besides, because of the game design there just may not be that perfect spot. The drop is random but sometimes arranged so that you are destined to fight over the same resource. Maps are generated so that you won't find all resources close together; just find a 'decent' spot, land, and get on with it mister!

So now you've landed, your ears perked for the dreaded "enemy approaching!" warning. Pray you have enough time for LFICS. LFICS? Yes, it's an acronym for Lumber, Food, Iron, Coal, Smelter - the suggested order of building structures. It can be remembered as Let's First Include Correct Structures or Loser Forgets Initial Construction Sequence. As you are doing LFICS, investigate the resources around you as if they are possible enemy locations, and keep a scout near major pools of resources.

Sorry to say, I can't provide any strategies that ensure a win, only those that enhance your chances of a win. While it may exist, I haven't found a strict formula for every game you play and the testers of this game when it was in beta haven't either. If you are up against a high level AI, expect to get attacked early. Build a military camp as early as possible and pump out some units to help protect you against this early strike. If the enemy starts to storm your colony, let the rocket ship take out a few units - it's a surprisingly powerful structure. You can always repair the damage and the spared units are available for continued defense and possible counterattack.

Being real-time, time is of the essence in Enemy Nations. You need to think of everything you do as having an opportunity cost. Think of it as "if you're reading this magazine, your opportunity cost is that you can't be playing Enemy Nations" (the next best thing you could be doing). Maximizing the time you have and balancing it between planning, maneuvering, and construction is tricky. Sometimes they're a pain to learn but pause to memorize short-cut keys - they are real time-savers. The 'x' key, for example, is great for sending units scurrying back home for protection and repair. Also, setup factories and camps to produce multiple units instead of single unit piecemeal production. When you have the technology, use the multiple windows capability to increase your awareness and save scrolling time. Build roads in large stretches at a time and build them early so your road network will start paying large dividends in efficiency.

Don't waste research time by forgetting to select new topics. Your scientists would just as soon party over their last achievement as keep bugging you for additional assignments. Research progression often times goes in steps from New to Improved to Advanced. You can expect improvements of 12.5%, 25%, and 50% respectively. Study hard!

Please sir, may I have another?
Redundancy is important to the recovery of your economy. Redundancy is important to the recovery of your economy - whoops! Did I say that twice? Try to make the resources available to build duplicate buildings so that should one of your, say, smelters turns to smoking ash, you'll still have another. The AI prefers to beat up on your power plants and refineries so try to have duplicates or assign extra protection to these structures. By the way, you can destroy those exhausted mines or aborted construction sites by clicking on the building and hitting the delete key. Be cautioned - do not destroy exhausted mines right away as you will destroy all resources stockpiled there. And no, the delete key will not work on enemy buildings. Sorry.

Each game is flavored by the use of various races. I enjoy playing as the Mendari, a race characterized by random ability levels each game. Characteristics are randomly generated and, although unlikely, can have really poor or really exceptional factors. Remember to use the Ekoda race, with its poor abilities, for a relatively exceptional player (you?). Hey, a win is impressive anytime but you'll have great bragging rights if you beat someone using the Ekodas - it's doubly humiliating!

Remember to take advantage of the terrain; try putting a spotter in front of a large area of trees in plain sight. Place several offensive units within the trees to destroy those units foolish enough to take the bait; in the words of Sun Tzu, "appear strong where you are weak and weak where you are strong." When planning, remember a moving unit is harder to hit and terrain affects unit speed and affects each unit-type differently. If they're not going to get chewed up in the process, have infantry nose-up to their targets, taking advantage of their attack bonus when adjacent. One trick you can try is to build a long stretch of road towards a known enemy location (but not all the way!). As it approaches, the AI can sometimes be lured down a predictable path (i.e., this road) and be brutally ambushed. Keep in mind that roads will be built from where you first begin the road outline - save time by starting closest to the construction vehicle.

There are a few things you should realize about the AI that make him a formidable foe. It is much more efficient in assigning commands to cranes; you need to be as fast as you can when doing the same. The AI gets better racial abilities with increasing difficulty - bonuses in production rate, research, etc. from the very beginning. Higher difficulty levels grant the AI a higher number of starting units as well. If you compete against the higher difficulty levels, then your trucks and cranes are prime targets and the AI is more aggressive.

I can't be there if I'm here!
So you realize you can't fully defend everything all the time - choices need to be made. The more mobile your units, the more flexibility you'll have in defending your turf. Don't get in the habit of using just one zoom level. Zoom out to get a better perspective of your position; you may spot weaknesses or find that commanding from this perspective is easier. You may have a great looking perimeter but if tanks can blitzkrieg through and eat up those juicy trucks and cranes in the center, you'll have wished you built a staggered line of defense and had some reserve units. Layer your defense (stagger); use buildings to force units around or into cross fires. Use military camps as fortifications.

An enemy attack begins and you know you've got the forces to repel him. Problem is, he's attacking the west side and your forces are mainly in the east. If you want to stall an attack, order a crane to repair a building under attack (it even protects the crane from attack unless the building is destroyed). Depending on the size of the attacking force, this may allow you to hold out until reinforcements arrive. Sensitive buildings that are next in line may also be protected in this manner. Units at rest get a bonus; therefore, when the enemy approaches, don't lasso' your units and send them off to intercept. Determine the enemy's path or what his objective might be and wait for them there.

Spotters are great for that early warning of an attack but if that's all you're using them for you're wasting their abilities. Send off a few brave units to scout for enemy units and buildings. They can help determine the location and composition of enemy forces and buildings and, therefore, enemy strength and state of technology. Armed with spotter information, you can also determine likely avenues of attack and identify lightly defended targets. Try sending a unit or two straight through an enemy city; you may be surprised at how far they get and their chaotic affect on your opponent. Set up one long waypoint for the units - you don't need to continually watch or control them as they recon and distract your enemy. Meanwhile, attack him with your main force; the early jump on him may pay off. Besides, this technique can make him paranoid, killing his appetite for launching his own offensives.

You've done well! You have a massive army that has pulverized the enemy into chicken-bits. You just destroyed that last building but... no victory message. Time to send out the search and destroy party for the missing building that must still be out there. On a huge map this can take quite a while. Why not save the game, reload, and select the enemy as your player so you see the location of the last building. Then go back to the other game and end it "officially." Congratulations commander!

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