Ranged Swarm

[bisurge]

I just started playing and decided to try a tactic that always worked often in Starcraft. In this game, it always works!

First off, you'll have to be fighting either faction, but if you're Magic you'll have to fight Tech no mater what. Or else it simply won't work due to the Daemon rushes they constantly try to create.

Okay onto the tactic. Let me divide it into two sections.

Magic:
First, get gold. That's the only necessity. However, make one person get stone and one person get wood.
Second, put your rally point over gold, and keep making Initiatives. Remember, you're against Tech if you're Magic, and they won't Daemon rush you.
Third, when you have 750 gold and over 15 Initiatives, make 10 of them into Battlemages. Then prepare for an attack.
Keep making Battlemages, making sure at least 5 Initiatives are gathering gold, 1 Initiative gathering stone, and another 1 gathering wood.
If the attack does come, you should be able to ward it off. If it doesn't, then that's a good thing, as you won't have to make more Battlemages as reinforcements. But keep making them!
A few minutes into the game, create a Summoner Guild and a Library. The Library contains EXTREMELY useful upgrades for the Battlemages. Also, your beginning Summoner should not be used yet, so make that into a Drake Rider. Research the upgrades that give your Battlemages +500 EP and the one that gives them (I think) +50 EP and 1 Range. The 1 Range is invaluable.
Find the enemy base. This is VERY important. Once you have over 30 Battlemages if they attacked you, or 50 if they didn't (they might have machines already), go attack the enemy base. Your Drake Rider should have found the enemy base by the time you've gathered the army.
Even while your Battlemages are attacking, keep making Initiatives in case of a counterattack (if your attack fails). It shouldn't though, and your Battlemages can take down any Guard or Swordsman before it reaches them, and has a little less range than Archers. If they have machines, they should only have a few, so it's not that big of a problem. Here's the order of eliminating units:
1: all machine units IF they're attacking you
2: Swordsmen and Guards
3: Archers
4: FOOD. KILL THE FOOD AND THEY WILL DIE!
5: Watch Tower
6: Workers
7: other buildings

That should give you a victory, but in case it doesn't, you have more Battlemages guarding your base.

Tech:
First, get your Workers working! At least 3 Workers chopping wood, 6-8 workers getting gold, and 1 worker getting stone. You might want more on gold and wood though.
Second, make a Barracks. Then train as many Swordsmen as you can! Against Magic it's to hold out against the Daemon rush, against Tech it's for simply defending your base.
Third, if you're against Magic, then make another Barracks and a Blacksmith. You should have held off the Daemon rush with your Swordsmen. Against Tech, do the same, but wait a little bit if they did not attack.
Fourth, upgrade Piercing attacks, and start making Archers. AS MANY ARCHERS AS YOU CAN. Resource management is harder with this faction, however, as you can't make your Archers pay yourselves off as with Initiatives >> Battlemages.
Keep making archers until you have 30-50. This should be enough to attack their base. They might have some pretty advanced units but upgraded Archers can take down even Dragons/Machines if there are not too many. This should bring you a victory, but just in case it doesn't, keep making GUARDS. That's right, GUARDS. If you're going to lose, then finish off any flying units. If you're unable to, stop making Guards and start making Archers. Here's the order to kill units:
1: Dragons/other flying units --or-- machines IF they're attacking you
2: Drake Riders/Battlemages+ (any more advanced forms) --or-- Swordsmen and Guards
3: THE FRIGGEN GOLEM --or-- Archers and the Watch Tower
4: Initiatives --or-- food sources
5: energy sources --or-- workers
6: other buildings

That should bring you a win, but in case it doesn't, you have Guards protecting your base.

The point of this rush:
1. Unlike melee units, ranged units can attack in swarms considerably larger. Melee units can also do this, but they'll body block each other and it'll create a large puddle of blood for the attacking team, especially if the other team has Archers and Watch Towers.
2. They can take down flying units.
3. In this game, they have as much armor and HP as basic melee units, and that's what makes this work.
4. They do more damage than melee units.
5. They kill any melee unit in swarms before they're even touched.

You cannot be completely lacking of skill to do this tactic. I remember doing this in Starcraft, but it didn't work if I got Zergling rushed. The Hydralisks/Goliaths/Dragoons practically could rip through any base, unless of course they had tons of carriers or something. Usually it worked best with Goliaths or Hydralisks, as Dragoons have an extremely slow attack rate and they're hard to transport.

Whoops, almost forgot to compare the two factions for this tactic:

Bolded is what is good about them compared to the other one.

Battlemages --- Archers
Resource Management --- Resource Management
Cost --- Cost
Range --- Range
Damage --- Damage
Effectiveness in Swarms --- Effectiveness in Swarms
Availability --- Availability
General Effectiveness --- General Effectiveness
Pre-Creation Defensiveness* --- Pre-Creation Defensiveness*

*These are other units. With Magic, if you create an army of about 10 Daemons (500 gold), combined with your Golem and at least 5 Battlemages, is enough to hold out the Daemon rushes. Tech, however, simply just use Swordsmen.

You decide which one is better. Both have 4 pros. I like Battlemages better simply because their spells look friggen awesome. But Archers looks cool too, and I think they're more useful as you can beat either faction.

EDIT:
I did a few more times. It's extremely hard with Battlemages because of the time it takes to morph. I lost a couple of times just now trying this. But I owned with Archers. I think Swordsmen defense is a lot more safer than Daemon defense.

[bisurge]

I'm going to make an extension.

I found out that Battlemages are better in offense, but lacks defense and range. It's because of this range that the Battlemages do not fulfill the "ranged swarm's" ability properly.

However, if you were to have some defense; let's say an ally's; while you upgrade your Battlemages to the fullest, then they could own any archer. But the archers get a +10 attack bonus, making their damage 60-160, while the Battlemage's remains at a 100-180. Of course, Battlemages can ensure destruction at a higher rate, but you might want to bring some Soul Armor (or whatever they're called) because they're massive tanks. Also, Daemon Swarms need to be warded off in the beginning; it's not the Daemons that are hard to kill, it's the 5 Battlemages that constantly nuke your guys while the Daemons body block your units.

Also, when fighting Tech, they bring a lot of Archers. This will present a problem for your Battlemages; however, since the AI Archers attack the units closest to them if you bring some Soul Armor, then that should take care of them.

[SciFi Junkie]

Hmmm... I don't recall seeing a thread discussing different tactics and whatnot, but it would be a good idea.

You seem to developed a pretty good plan of action. It seems somewhat like my brother's early technique. He liked playing Tech, and simply built large numbers of Archers and let fly.

My Tactics (If anyone cares):

For both sides I like to stand back and build up my forces before doing much of anything. Then, when I outnumber the enemy ten to one and have researched all the advancements, I simply run them over. The AI simply doesn't have the brains to do anything but send in a few units at a time, which are easily dealt with after the first couple of attacks. Also, they rarely build any of the more powerful units. I can't remember whether I've ever faced Dragons, for example.

When attacking, I try to wipe out enemy units starting with the closest and meanest, then destroying Farms and Barracks for the Tech, and main building for the Magic (too much effort to kill every Energy Source). Save the Workers for last if it's the final blow, otherwise it might be a good idea to cripple their resource gathering ability.

For Tech in particular, I like to build up pretty much all the diferent units, though I always upgrade Swordsmen to Guards (I hate the look of the Swordsmen, don't ask me why) and usually have a lot more of the three Barracks units (Guards, Archers, and Horsemen) to the more advanced units. I like to use the Horsemen (and the Orthicopters) as scouts and to pick off stragglers and soften up the enemy prior to a big push. FOR ROHAN!    I try to make sure that I bring in an attack force as one group, rather than letting the Horsemen run ahead and whatnot. It is certainly worthwhile to make sure your Guards are in the lead instead of Archers, believe me.

For Magic, I favor building up a defensive force just to keep the bad guys off my back while I push ahead for Dragons. Then it's simply a matter of flaming everything that moves and a lot of stuff that doesn't.

[bisurge]

For Magic in the beginning it's not exactly easy building up defenses and waiting for Dragons.

Guards vs. Archers in swarms (up to 30) Archers would win. Not 1v1, but only in swarms.

The fun thing is hiding them all in trees near your base and then waiting for the enemy. Then they have to get past a wall of arrows before proceeding.

They should have a separate forums for this.

I would post a video that I made, but it's 16:36 and it's not an AVI.