The Basics

Author: zax77 and databases from around and Earth

This section will cover the following topics:

Building Types
Military Types
Attack Types
Technology
Net worth
Spy Operations

The Basics on Buildings

Enterprise - These raise your PCI (Per Capita Income), which generates more money for you every turn. The amount as well as the percentage of these that you have on your land determines how much your PCI is affected.The best ratio to build is 1:1 which means for every 1 Enterprise you build, you build 1 residential as well. This work greatly with Republic Casher.

Residential - These house population. The more residential you have, the more population your country can hold. You don't need these to have a population however, they simply increase the maximum capacity greatly. The more of these you have, the more population you will have. Population pays taxes, therefore, the more residential you have, the more money you make per turn.

Military Bases - These do not produce military units! Military bases lower the costs of military on your private market (Purchases menu) as well as lower the upkeep costs of your military. The effectiveness of military bases is based on the percentage of land that is covered with them.

Farms - These simply produce food for your country every turn. Other than empty acres (which only produce 0.4 food a turn each without bonuses), these buildings are the only building that produces food (5.3 food per farm, without any bonuses).

Industrial Complexes - These buildings produce military units for you every turn. The more you have, the more military you will produce every turn.

Research Labs - The more labs you have, the more tech you can research every turn. The percentage of labs on your land also slightly affects the amount of tech you can research per turn.

Oil Rigs - Same purpose with farm but it produces only oil barrels. You need barrels in order for your jets/tanks to attack.

Construction Sites - The more of these you have, the more buildings you can build per turn. For every 4 you build, you can build an extra building per turn.

Note: it takes one full turn to build one construction site.
 

Basics On Military Units

There are 4 different Military Units and each one has its strengths and weaknesses. I will give a brief description on each unit.

Note: Approx. costs are the usual costs on the public market after the market has settled.
 

Analysis from the table:

Using the information in the basics about military units, and the basics on attack types, we can easily compare the units.

Industrial Production for highest NW: Jets/Turrets

Highest Profit from Industrial Production: Jets/Turrets

Purchasing (for the best attack/defense power and best price): Troops/Tanks

Best Unit to use for attacks (for the best attack power and minimum loss in units): Jets

Conclusion: Jets and Turrets are the units to produce for best efficiency for an indy. You would only want to produce lots of troops near the end of a game to give yourself the best NW. But since the multies has surfaced, we tend to produce more troops at the early to protect ourselves from being botted.Otherwise when you play an indy, jets and turrets will be the two strongest offensive/defensive units to use. Only produce troops and tanks to a decent amount (compare with your allies) to protect yourself from GS/AB.

Basics on Attack Types

Here, I will discuss all attack types. I'll explain each one at a time. ALL attack types except declare war take up 2 turns (except for Tyranny which only takes 1 turn to attack), declare war doesn't take up any turns.

STANDARD STRIKE:

In this attack, you may send any military units that have at least 1 offensive power (jets, troops and tanks). Your opponent defends with all of his military units that have at least 1 defensive power (turrets, troops and tanks). There are some people that believe only certain units can block certain units in a standard attack and this is NOT true. The sum of the offensive power sent (modified by weapons tech, gov bonuses, etc.) is added up from all attacking units and the same with defense of your opponents' defending units. The highest wins (usually, sometimes you may lose if the numbers are close i think).

Standard strikes capture between 3% and 8% of your opponent's land, along with money, food, buildings, and technology. The percentage of land you receive depends on the size of your opponent (bigger opponents yield a higher pecentage of land), but successive attacks bring lower returns. After several attacks (usually 3 attacks) on the same person, you will get "diminishing returns". This simply means, the more you attack the same person, the less stuff you will steal from them on successful attacks (you can never grab less than 10 acres unless your opponent HAS less than 10 acres, in which case you will grab all that he has and he will die).

This is the normal attack used to landgrab opponents. Any offensive allies will "help" you when you make a standard strike.

PLANNED STRIKE:

This attack is similar to the standard strike except for a few things. You will get a +50% military strength bonus when attacking with this attack. Also, you get more stuff from the attack. There are unfortunately downsides to this attack. First of all, any units sent on a planned attack cannot defend, attack, be sold or be sent via foreign aid until 22 hours have passed. Also, your allies cant use units of yours that are on planned strikes, and you cant use their units that are on planned strikes. Because of these negative effects, planned assaults are usually made near the end of your turns, when you know you wont be attacking anymore. Also, only send jets on planned assaults, since they have no defensive power so you will not be more vulnerable to attacks after you make a planned attack. This can also be used to landgrab opponents. Diminished returns also apply to this attack.

DECLARE WAR:

You can only declare war on one person at a time and cant declare peace until 48 hours have passed. This has a few up sides to it though. First of all, you will gain a +10% military strength bonus in both attacking that opponent AND defending from that opponent (if you both declare war on each other, it basically negates the bonuses). Another thing that this is useful for is if you find a juicy landgrab target that is in GDI and out of your range. If you declare war on him, you can attack him, but remember, you cant declare war on more than one person at a time. You also should know that declaring war costs $10/acre for each turn you are at war (included in Alliance Expenses).

MISSILE ATTACK:

Just select one missile and fire away. Don't use these unless you are in a full out war or you want to die. You don't gain anything from them (well, maybe satisfaction...).

Nuclear Missile : Launching a nuclear attack requires that you have discovered a nuclear missile. While all countries have a chance of producing a weapon each turn, technology can help to assist in developing more of these weapons. Launching a nuclear weapon will destroy a portion of your opponent's land. The only defense against this weapon is the SDI system, a product of technological development.

Chemical Missile : Similar to the Nuclear assault in terms of missile development and SDI protection, the chemical weapon focuses primarily on an enemy's population. While it also destroys some buildings, chemical weapons kill off a portion of an opponent's civilian population, reducing tax revenues until that population is rebuilt. This is the most easily developed missile technology.

Cruise Missile : Launching Cruise Missiles at an opponent's military installations is an effective way of destroying military of all types. These missiles can help soften up an enemy before invasion.

GUERILLA ASSAULT: (GS)

In this special attack, you can ONLY attack with your troops and your opponent can only defend with his troops. This attack (if successful) kills civilians and steals food. I wouldnt suggest using these unless you are in desperate need of food and find someone with tons of food and few troops. They arent very useful in war, the loss of food does barely anything to your opponent and the loss of population wont hinder him too much unless he is a casher, but even so, it wont hurt as much as other attacks. Allies dont send help in these attacks. However, we usually use this attack during war.

BOMBING RUN: (BR)

In this special attack, you can ONLY attack with your jets and your opponent can only defend with his turrets. This attack (if successful) kills some civilians and some buildings (less civilians than a GA and less buildings than an AB). These attacks are powerful in times of war because the loss of buildings hurts more than the loss of civilians from a GA. Allies dont send help in these attacks.

ARTILLERY BARRAGE: (AB)

In this special attack, you can ONLY attack with your tanks and your opponent can only defend with his tanks. This attack (if successful) destroys only buildings, but more than a BR. These attacks are very powerful during times of war because such heavy losses of buildings can be devastating to any strategy/gov. The loss of production and the loss of cash and turns to build the buildings back is well worth it (this also makes less turns for your opponent to hit you back). I suggest using these in times of war as one of your main attacks. Allies dont send help in these attacks however.
 

Basic Info on Technology

Technology is a key to being successful in this game. Using technology effectively can mean reducing military costs, medical costs, as well as increasing per capita income, military volume, military success rates, nuclear success rates, and provide a nation of efficient spy attackers and defenders. There are four possible way to obtain technology.

The primary method is to use research labs the means of teching. The more research labs owned, is the more the research that can be preformed per turn.

The second common method is to buy technology from the public market, upon being sold. Research labs in this occurrence provide no aid to the amounts of technology bought. The third known method is to commit espionage against a target, and in return gathering technology. This is not advisable to act upon, unless one is in the process of eliminating a target country, and stealing technology would be of both a gainful benefit, and also a offensive benefit, for coming espionage weakness an opponent if successful.

The concluding, yet more unstable method of gaining technology is to simply attack successfully and obtain it through those means. This is not considered teching, but rather a reward for the achieved attack.

For more info on what each of the technology does, refer to the official Earth instruction page.

Military - Max = 87%. This reduces military upkeep costs and also reduces the costs on your private market (Purchases menu).

Medical - Max = 67%. This lowers how many military units you lose in battle.

Business - Max = 180%. This raises you income in terms of increasing your PCI.

Residential - Max = 180%. This raises the maximum population your country can hold. The more population, the more taxes paid, the more money you make.

Agriculture - Max = 225%. This affects how much food your farms and empty lands produce.

Warfare - Max = 5%. The percentage is your chance every turn of getting a missile.

Military Strategy - Max = 135%. This increases the gain in land/buildings/money/food that you get in landgrabs.

Weapons - Max = 150%. The more weapons tech you have, the stronger your military is and the more your readiness will recooperate every turn.

Industrial - Max = 140%. This affects your industrial production. Having more of this boosts how much military your industrial complexes produce every turn.

Spy - Max = 150%.  This affects the effectiveness of your spies.

SDI - Max = 90%. The percentage is the chance that an incoming missile will be destroyed and not affect you.

Basics on NetWorth

Your NW is mostly made up of military units.  You should have a knowledge of the NW of each military units.  Here they are:
 

Note: The detailed NW formula is on the Formula Page.

Basics on Spy Operations

Spy operation success is dependent upon the relative strength of your intelligence network as compared to your land area. Due to the fact that larger countries have more land and resources to maintain, a larger spy network is necessary to gain the same level of effectiveness. However, tiny countries will not be able to consistently use large spy networks to unreasonably destroy larger countries.

Spy effectiveness is based upon Spies Per Acre of Land (SPAL). It is calculated by dividing the total acres one has by the total amount of spies. This is compared to a targets SPAL, and the success rate is thereby calculated on who has a larger SPAL ratio. This does not, however, mean that the greater ratio will inevitably be successful each attack, but rather means it will greaten the percentage rate. Spy effectiveness tech is used in calculating ones SPAL. The total possible is a 150% tech increase which will greatly help in both spy offense and defense.

Spy attacks can be used very effectively, and are a necessary for success in clans. Using spy military or spy status will aid one in attacking and takes only one turn. Using stir rebellions is a good and productive way of destroying a given target, for it quickly kills civilians using one turn each time. For more info on the specifics of each spy operation, refer to the official Earth instruction page.

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