I guarantee that this tactic has the greatest AOE attack power at this time in CF, which means there is no way to face this kind of unit formation in front.

The race you'll need is:

Corrupt
Chaos
Elf (union)
Northern

======================

Stage 1:

Corrupt builds Neither Ancient
Chaos builds Chaos Citadel
Elf builds Dragon hawk Portal
Northern builds Azure Nest



Note:

In the end when Elf builds Dragon hawk Portal, Chaos will have enough money to upgrade Chaos Citadel to Greater Chaos Citadel.

What can you expect?

Basically you will notice this formation has 3 air units formation and only 1 ground unit, so opponent's who haven't prepared with sufficient anti-air will suffer.

Because elf has rushed to Dragon Hawk, this tactic also sufficiently counters enemy air.

There is another advantage I noticed recently, Chaos Champion's attack type is normal, and it is good to kill Troll, Blood thirster, Suumpnolk and Marksman (This one is weird. Effects seem good even though Sniper is light armor), so if your opponents don't build a good meat shield in front of their anti air units, you can massacre their units with Chaos Champion.

What if this doesn't work?

Option 1:
Corrupt buys a blast staff and passes it to Northern.

Option 2:
After Corrupt gets its first Shadow Drake, re-synchronize all units, wait for them to spawn, and then stike with Northern.

How does one re-synchronize all units?

1. reset Shadow Drake
2. 2 seconds later reset Chaos Champion
3. 2 seconds later reset Dragon hawk
4. 2 seconds later reset Azure Drake

The math that justifies the above is as follows:

Shadow Drake 400 => 15 + 400/20 = 35 (seconds)
Chaos Champion 350 => 15 + 350/20 = 32.5
Dragon hawk 310 => 15 + 310/20 = 30.5
Azure Drake 280 => 15+ 280/20 = 29

So it shows you just need to count down approximately 2 seconds for each units then you'll get your re-synchronization.

Re-synchronization is extremely useful before any sides use their strike. When you re-synchronize before you strike you get an overpowered push wave after you strike, and if you are lucky enough to have guessed the right timing on your re-synchronization before they use a strike, they'll find they wasted a strike and will have to use another one.

Being good at micro-management is really important in stages 1-2 because it allows you to re-synchronize well.
By stages 2-3, re-synchronization becomes less effective because there are too many units on the field.

What you can do sync trick?

Indeed, synchronizing is a part of the core strategy that everyone should know. Here I listed what units are good for doing sync.

350$:
Chaos Champion
(But this one seems only 1 from start to end game)
Red Dragon
Ballista

400$:
Shadow Drake
Ice Queen

These five units are core AOE damage output units, so you must sync them for best the battle result. (Uless you are facing frost luncher.)

======================

Stage 2:

Corrupt builds Shadow Ancient until there are totally 3 (so it means 2 more after the first one). And lastly, one more unit in this stage (I prefer Felhound for this one). This aims for 1350 wood.

Chaos

Now I have better route to build creeps.
Satyr x3 to form cage on the corner(don't upgrade), Red Dragon x2 and one last unit depending on how much you need for a SoD. If you are receiving very little pressure then try an Infernal, otherwise get a Red Dragon.

This one is better because you will already be prepared for opponent's specials, and at the same time I found that waiting for red dragon is just too long to wait. Waiting for a red dragon will slow down your income rate.

Elf builds Blood elf War Academy, if opponents have more land units, especially mass casters, build High elf Siege Factory x2, then more Dragon hawk Portal (don't build School of Wizardry unless there is a eraser).This aims for 1800 woods

Northern builds Crystal Palace x2, one last unit that depends on the situation. It's usually safe to get even a third Crystal Palace. This aims for 1350 woods

Note:

In the stage 2 opponents WILL be abusing specials, The key to survival is farming to weaken their usage of specials and still be able to aim for enough wood.

Here is a good guide:
farming guide by monk



Good farming ration usually goes about 1:3. It means like opponents built a Obelisk of light, and we need corrupted ent 125x1, 2 satyr 120 x2 to form a cage. It will most likely not be frost wolf. I'll wait for queen, This is just an illustration to show you what a cage looks like.

and what unit is still good to do farming in 1.12?

Any cheap units you can find !!

For example,Corrupt has Corrupted Ancient of Battle (125$), Chaos has lesser Demon Cage (120$), Northern has Snowy Rocks (115$).

Caging them will result in weak units surviving longer on the battle field. And don't forget the building cost is the production rate: 15+ buildingcosts/20, the lower the cost, the faster the production rate, therefore, this is an easy calculation between their special and how many weak units we need. The ratio is about 1 : 3, this means when they have 1 Obelisk of Light, Well of Pain, City of Magic, Death Pit,...etc. In this situation, sufficient farming will be 3 cheap caged units versus 1 special.

The two things you'll need to find a different way to deal with are Volcanoes and Forgotten Ones.

(Well, maybe Starfall Obelisk should be included as well, but since it is nerfed, I think most people will choose Amazon.)

When you face Volcanoes it's hard to sustain your cage, but fortunately most of your units are AIR units, so it won't be a good counter to your formation. Just stop producing those cheap units. BTW, if opponents try to mix Volcano with other specials, just try TOP LANE. Building cheap units without a cage on the top lane is the answer. It will waste and drain their power.

When you face Forgotten Ones it is also hard to sustain your cage, but fortunately Icy Tower from Northern is a good counter to mass Forgotten Ones (Corrupt Protector is also a good counter, but northern has less wood requirements). Building only 1 Icy Tower near your cage will make you free money. (Try RP that versus 5 AI one)

When you face Forgotten One it is also hard to sustain your cage, but fortunately Icy Tower from is a good counter to mass Forgotten One, build only 1 Icy Tower near your cage will make you free money. (Try RP that versus 5 AI one)

======================

Stage 3:

Corrupt builds Eye of Corruption

Then build 1 void keeper. After that it depends. I usually save for items. However, the alternative option is to build more Shadow Dragons and Wells of Pain. This is still a good option.

*Forgotten One in the end game stage doesn't seem good when there is a lots of AOE damage on the field.

Chaos builds Shine of Destruction

If you're finding that your opponent is overwhelming you with more meat shields then balance the situation with more Infernals. Otherwise, try more Red Dragons. And don't forget Magic Tower Ruin or Volcano!

Elf builds Shrine of Justice

The only good unit for Elf in the end game is still Dragon Hawk. I find, for the most part, that you can abuse this, but if you're finding that your opponent's long siege units are beating your Ice Queens, you should try more ballistas. And don't forget Obelisk of Light.

*City of Magic in any game stage is totally a waste of money, so don't build it!

Northern builds World Freezer

Afterward Build 1 Wandigoo. I usually prefer Ice Queens for the rest of the units. But If you're finding that the power of your air isn't sufficient, for instance if your opponents built too many Dragon Hawks and are forcing a tie with your air, then try to mass Azure Drakes. It will be the deciding factor. And don't forget Greater Frost Luncher.

Note:

Stage 3 is almost 15 minutes into the game. After this stage it's totally chaos. What you need to do is mass those AOE units similar to what you did in stages 1 and 2. The difference is you'll buy an orb, drum and bass, mass specials, change single lane tactic to both lane, etc. There's too much to be explained, but after the end of stage 3 there is nothing that can stop this formation because there is too much AOE damage in the front.

What forms AOE attack?

There are 4 main resources:

Spell Damages from Queen and Dragon hawk.
Splash Damages from AIR unit.
Long Range Siege.
World Freezer.

Maybe nobody noticed that this game was designed with higher armor values for high-end units. And what does armors value mean? It means your units are stronger than the HP values you see on your screen would suggest.

Unit takes damage = damage / (1+ Armor*6%)

SO

Unit maximum HP = Unit equal HP / (1+ Armor*6%)

Unit equal HP = Unit maximum HP * (1+ Armor*6%) (when armor > 0)

At the first glance, everyone will think to nerf a unit by reducing it's armor or picking a good damage type. In fact this is WRONG! There are other ways to totally ignore armor.

They are spell, splash, and cleaving damage (I don't know how the line damage from ballistas will act). Reducing armor to make huge damage is totally a waste of time!

So, I combine these 3 kinds of effects to form the maximum AOE attack. Your unit number will increase with time, and most of the units without enough HP or magic resistance will be instantly killed in the later game stages. For now even several infernals still get killed in a second (1500 HP! and 7 armor = 42% equals HP = 630 is ignored!) , I think only legendary Hydra will be stronger than infernal, but it is not possible to use a meat shield protecting units behind it since there are AOE effects everywhere and 0 armor effects on them.

Focus on Damage

However, I didn't feel satisfied with only massive AOE. I also abused reduced armor effects and increasing both attack speed and damage at the same time.

reduce armor effects from:

Single target from Blood thirster
650 range Aura from Void Keeper
850 range AOE from Wandigoo
Whole map from Eye of Corruption

Increasing attack speed:
Felhound

Increasing attack damage:
525 range AOE from Chaos Champion

It is already overkill without AOE attack.

Strength and Weakness

Strength

This tactic has overkill power on units pushing, once it completed Nothing is capable to withstand this tactic.

This tactic also has better income growing rates since it doesn't use any specials before legendary buildings. Dealing with opponent's specials by farming will also make sure you have more units than they do.

Weakness

Lack of Healing power and too unit focused. This is not a good rush tactic.

AOE attacks grow with Time, and therefore it is not very strong at first. Focusing on units means that this tactic doesn't murder units with killer specials. Players must know HOW TO PLAY WITHOUT SPECIALS until the 1st legendary building for each race is built. This will be hard for newbies because farming and single lane strategies aren't popular in public games.

Tactics over tactics, this isn't ready for newbies.

======================

Change Log:

2008/11/23 first version is released.
2008/11/24 Upload a replay, 2 pics, 1 online video to show how it works. Added some basic concepts.
2008/12/01 Update briefly
2008/12/02 Update briefly
2008/12/03 Added another RP vs 5 bots
2008/12/13 Edited by OMS (OldManStrength)
2008/12/14 Update briefly

=======================

File comment:

1.12/14

Today I dueled FlorWarrior, this mode set as -mp4 -pr2, the tactic I used is:

Round 1 Zergling Tactic
Round 2 Massive AOE Tactic (This Guide)
Round 3 Trader Tactic - Northern Queen Top Lane Rush

The result is win, lose, lose. so I lost this duel. In the first sight you may think that who rushes specials win. However when I looked back how the game goes I found something interesting.

In round 1 my zergling tactic is really a standard form of rushing specials strategy, and it works extreme well when flowerrior didn't do farming. After then I found he was survived so I changed back to AOE tactic.

I found an interesting factor is when I used Volcano what he tried to counter was farming on the top lane.( in this guide I wrote,"Building cheap units without a cage on the top lane is the answer.") Comparing this to the round 3 it seems they are the same failures.

Caging units on the top lane must be wrong or it is so difficult to do so since units always go out at the right bottom of the building.

In round 2 it is more like I react too late. Every time he built a special building, I reacted like 2 or more minutes later. It made my high end units died really fast thus I can never push back even there is a sign I am still able to fight back.

In the instance when I saw the first MTR what I was thinking is to make everything on plan. If I remember what I usually did in the past I would build a lot of unit like the figure in the stage 2 section mass units even it is frost wolf.

Since cage failed a lot in that round, killer specials works even better than I thought. However, I think this replay shows how farming goes wrong.

- Don't do farming at the top lane when it is not necessary.

- React fast to killer specials, no matter it is on plan or not.

* Just right after I lost I thought it must be assassin or something I don't know makes my tactics fail, but in fact, it is still about farming right or wrong.

2. 11/23

This is one of my replays to show how this tactic work. Because Lordroc doesn't like me to post our replay (XD), so I try to find one who is still good, thanks for join tactic testing, hyb1g.

Round 1 Massive AOE Tactic (This Guide)
Round 2 Trader Tactic - Northern Queen Top Lane Rush
Round 3 Zergling Tactic

3. 12/03

Today I still tried to use only 4 races without rushing specials to beat 6 AI, but a funny thing happened. The undead bot on east crashed. Undead bot built nothing after its first unit. So this match actually became 4 v 5, so I accomplished what I never did before. This replay shows my principle that the unit is everything, which means even if your opponents rush specials (AI did so), they won't win before they get a unit advantage.

====

Another demonstration on youtube (1 minute and 49 seconds)

If you doubt that this tactic is unstoppable then take a look and see how even the Infernal dies super fast.

how are you farming in 1.12?

errr? why not?

Even it is not able to cage them totally, you still could hold them 10~40 seconds, 10 seconds hold in cage, plus maximum 30 seconds walking distance to opposite side castle, which means 1 unit building with only 120$ (1 unit per 21 seconds) will produce at least 0.5~2 units (10/21 ~ 40/21) on the field at the same time.

This is still FARMING as far as I know. 10 seconds holding also gives players a chance to build zergling-like creeps sea if there is no AOE type counter. However, zergling tactic is not as good as this AOE tactic, so I introduce this one to the others first.

(Zergling tactic is more likely a easy way for newbies, but it also has powerful effects ...XD)

bomp


upload a replay to demonstrate this tactic (or, these tactics? ).

Thanks for your posts kiraice they are interesting to consider.

Sure. But I also thanks everyone who would like to try my tactic and give me a lot of feed back.

well, its a good tactic. But in ur picture, we can see that oponents built up, and u were all down (all ur builders). If u are facing more reasonable people, u have a chance not to go all so well.

also, opponents may rush for specials. U are totaly focusing on units untill ur later phases. If opponents go for obelisk of light and similar EARLY (while u are still making units), u can find urself in a big trouble, though im not sure how that would work in 1.12

Sure, so you argued my opponents are too weak? well, if you think so I have no idea where I can find a opponent you will consider as "Good". (especially that really extreme one doesn't like me to post our replay...XD)

Since OvM, Monk, or any other guys from forum don't come to GGC often anymore, and a lot of my team members disappeared with no reason recently, of course you can consider there is no good player. However, that doesn't mean I am wrong, this 2 facts are different.



Sorry, how to rush special? even you "Rush" specials, it is still quite slow.

Think about 1 Obelisk of Light cost you 235$ and 420 wood without giving you 235 wood back. In defender side, my side, I spend 120 units building x3 and get additional 360 wood, and it works so well. Haven't you try this yet? =)

To contra both sides, attacker side spends 235$ and 420 wood equals to 655 values in total. My defender side spends 120x3 but gain wood 120x3 back which means I cost nothing to defend specials. Even I am focusing on legendary first, I am pretty sure I will survive before opponents are really able to mass specials. (However, I won moderate players in this way before legendary mostly.) The funny thing is every time after legendary buildings are out, the balance between us is broken, I always on advance situation no matter which player I face.

This is quite ridiculous in 1.11 when everyone was able to rush specials, a single OoL can determine the battle result. But in now CF 1.12 I found there is no way to rush specials, and who rushes specials will eventually lose. Try me on GGC, I can show you with 100% certainty.

(But I still wonder how to rush specials in 1.12, since it is also a good tactic like zergling and trader. Oh, and I forget to say this, I don't like specials.XD. So I am happily to see specials are weaken but still useful to end a game.)

there are ways to get pretty fast specials
like going Dhawk and then you got enough wood for a ool, also you can go corrupted siege for a fast special

I did that in today's morning. I built almost the same units in start, and build OoL, MTR, WoP in a series to check how many fighting power it is. It is not as good as you think. Since I versus bots to check how it works, it is almost the same power as my units only tactic, and is probably threatened by SOD on later game.

If I started to make it as a tactic thread, I will upload a replay to show it.

well, in ur farming picture, i think u wasted gold. You could build only the outside of the cage, and u'd save a lot of money.

Cage can be much smaller if I am willing to do so, but this is my style, I like this kind of cage.

BTW, farming is a waste of money or very useful based on units fighting result, if your unit formation is already being countered, no matter your opponents build specials or units only you will lose eventually. (so I am very surprised why bots lose 1on1 even I start a unit to let them counter. Actually I am not a pro on 1 race only 1on1, though.)

This time is the reversed situation, this tactic gives the best unit formation in the game as far as I know, so no matter my opponents rush specials or build more units I always have the way to counter them. If they do specials, it also means they spend $ and wood on them, their units doesn't become a counter to the units on my side, if they already lost their units fight, and their specials weaken by farming, how can they fight back? (and those little zergling also increase the power of my unit formation, not much, but still useful.)

Since I focus on units, this is not a rush type tactic, the only down side is it works slow, about 20 minutes a game if you have equal skill opponents (99% win? well, please someone pro join my tactic test, thx), not as fast as 10 minutes a game if you abuse specials and you don't have equal skill opponents (but it only happens if their skills are worse than bots).





=============

2008.11.26 CF1.22 Rush Specials and Unit only.w3g

This replay shows a very simple thought, to win sure you can go either way, but I insist that unit only is better before 1st legendary building.

A bots test anyone can do it again and again to see what is going on. 1st round I rushed specials and end game result is 11:02. The 2nd round I used units only and end game in 11:42.

The most noticeable thing in round 1 is bots Chaos race built a MTR in that round. Should I do farming? If I don't , a single MTR will overkill my units in that situation. Also Bots Human race built a cannon tower at the moment which looks stupid.

In round 2 bots Elf race build a tower instead of CoM or OoL in that round when bots still had many RS left and bots Undead race also built a tower right after Elf. I have no idea why they did this.





==============

Why I prefer units only before 1st legendary buildings?

1. It is never easy to spam specials in start stage, but you are always able to spam cheap units to do farming weakening specials.

2. Units only in start stage doesn't mean you will win, but it ensures you won't lose, at least tie. If your opponents mass specials at first place, they always have less units then you have, when they found their specials doesn't work after you farming, it is too late, they lost the game.

3. In the middle stage when they found you build your 1st legendary building, the balance between 2 sides is broken. 1 food equals to 1500$ value in now CF. They have to spend that 1500$ much later on (since they have both no wood and gold), and in the same time they must deals with that you may probably mass specials and buy items. What they can do is:

Farming to accelerate wood gain?
It is hard to look both sides all the time.

Build more strong units?
there is no way to defend specials massing by this.

Who buys the items?
everyone is starting to idle for their legendary...no one will have gold to do so.

Any way, what can they do? I don't know yet, even myself don't have an answer yet. So I strongly recommend units only before 1st legendary building. =)

well, they can build 1 or 2 specials. If they see u started caging, they stop making them and focus on units. Having a special or 2 will get them some extra bounty (not much, but it is something ) and u also spent gold on building the cage. Eventualy, the money will go back and they probably will make their own legendary (if they have a unit one, if not they will have to build more units)

this isnt a certain tactic. U can always adapt

In early stage there is not much tax on incomes, so there is no "Turning Point" on incomes / bounty ratio. Even a 100$ unit only start to pay opponents when his incomes are more than 112.5 incomes (the calculating process). all players spend more get more incomes, no matter it is a unit or special. Therefore, units buildings have the highest income rate 2% in the CF, there is no way to max your incomes through rush specials in start stage!

Since specials income rates are only 1.1%, even you can kill all of the units on the field, it doesn't make your team richer, and I am sure no one can do that in early stage, especially when rush specials vs farming. This is regardless of you use only units or units plus specials to kill all opponents units. They have the same result but different incomes.

I know in most games when players are not a team, who rushes specials always gets the most bounties, in that moment he must feels very satisfied with the result. Doesn't specials make he rich? In fact, it makes he is the only rich one in his team. Besides, There is also trader action like players pass blast staff to the others also does the same job. This kind of accelerating incomes on one player costs your team incomes! Blast Staff costs 150$ first, same goes to rush specials. You cost both 0.9% incomes rates and wood which means potential on later stage.

Spend more gets more. Someone will argue that only massing cheap units doesn't work, but I argue rush specials also keeps their food on their hand. What they will choose probably legendary units. Are legendary units better than legendary buildings? In my opinion is, No, they aren't. There are too many situations a legendary unit worse than a legendary building.

*BTW, I also saw a lot of players bought a staff but built nothing at start, what are they thinking? crazy? This is totally wrong! XD

im not saying that u build up income from specials. If opponents buidl 1 special, it wont cost them much. 1 OoL costs 235 (without wood, considering he was countering untill then, he doesnt care about rushing, when he feels he did a good job countering, the player can build a special). Then, if u start caging, in ur case u cage with wolves, which require at least 2 buildings, 2 x 115 = 230, 5 gold less than the OoL. If opponent notices that, he wont make any more specials (except eventualy legendary). His OoL effect is reduced, but still, it will kill some wolves, meaning it will give u some bounty from the units it kills + it still gives some income.