Macro
Macro is how well you manage your economy and background processes.
This is called a Miner Split. We use this method to get our miners mining faster, rather than letting the Miners sit there doing nothing. This first split is the most important.
What to buy:
Map size can heavily influence what we build, research, and how aggressive we play. For the purposes of making this simple, this is what you should buy on certain sizes.
Small Maps: Archer Swordwrath ---> Swordwrath Miner
Medium Maps: Archer Miner ---> Swordwrath Miner
What to keep purchasing:
Keeping on with purchasing is a vital aspect, keeping gold low signifies that you can macro (to a certain extent). For example, you always want to keep spending money on Miners, Swordwrath, Archers, Speartons.
Here are some things to keep in mind:
- Always build miners until you have around 16 miners, 4 to pray, 12 to mine
- Always build enough army composition to prevent the enemy from being able to attack freely
- When it reaches mid game, think about building Speartons, Archers, and Merics rather than Swordwrath
When creating an army, here's what you want to keep in mind for mid game:
- Having more Archidon than Speartons is generally optimal, but not always
- Building a Meric when you have enough Mana, so long you have around 1-2 Speartons, and 5-7 Archidon
When it comes late game, never be afraid to build a lot of Giants ;) .
The best upgrades to get when you can:
Miner Hustle: This is in my opinion the most important upgrade. This Upgrade allows more safety for miners and allows you to get gold faster.
Shield Wall: This upgrade is also important when it comes to Speartons. The ability is very cost effective, and allows the Spearton to tank a lot more damage.
Fire Arrows: Also another cost effective upgrade, this allows more Armor Penetration as well as more poking power.
All Magikill Abilities: When you get a Magikill, it would be foolish not to get Poison Spray or Electric Wall. Magikill are very useless with only Fire Blast, and the utility you get from both the Magikill Upgrades is immense.
Passive Income: Yet another utility upgrade, this passive pays off more the quicker you get it, and at Passive Income III, it will pay off for itself very quickly.
Hotkeys
Hotkeys are very important as it allows you to do procedures quicker and allows you to focus more attention to what is needed, such as a battle and you need to micro it. I will be using pictures from this thread:
http://forums.stickpage.com/showthread.php?65981-TIPS-Compilation-of-standard-techniques-in-Stick-Empires!
This will look familiar, it is where you make your units. However, you might notice that there are numbers at the bottom right of those units. Those aren't just there to number how many units there are, they symbolize that it is a hotkey. If you press for example, 5, it will start making a Magikill given you have the right amount of Gold and Mana. This works the same for any Empire and number. For another example, if you press 1, you will start making a Miner if you have the right amount of Gold.
Another neat and practical trick is if you do Ctrl + # (Ctrl + Any Number) then you will select every single unit that is the unit you specified. Don't use the + though, that is just to make it easier to understand. For example, if you did Ctrl 3, you would select every single Archidon you have.
This will also look familiar any time you click on a unit. But those buttons also have a hotkey and a purpose:
G: This will make that unit(s) go to the garrison. This is fundamental for Archidon Kiting, but we will cover that later.
S: This will make that unit(s) stop whatever command they were given prior to you clicking S. I will admit this is not a hotkey that is used too often.
H: This will make that unit(s) hold their position. This is extremely helpful if you want to hold a position near an enemy, preventing your troops at running at them.
A: This will make that unit(s) move to where you clicked and attack any nearby enemies. This is very helpful if you want your troops to move somewhere while you do other things.
You may notice if you click those abilities, that they perform a specific action. Well, there is also hotkeys to perform that:
Q: This hotkey will activate the ability furthest to the Left.
W: This hotkey will activate the ability in the Middle.
E: This hotkey will activate the ability furthest to the Right.
How to keep units alive:
Whenever you see a unit that is low health, it is almost always recommended that you send the unit the garrison to heal up (G). However, don't sent the unit back if you know you can win the trade.
Micro
Micro is how you command specific actions to achieve the maximum potential of a unit.
This is G Kiting, the most important Micro tip in Stick Empires. It allows an Archidon to stay safe while still dealing damage.
You see how the Merics are in sync when they heal? Yeah, don't do that. If your Merics are synced, it doesn't matter how many Merics you have, you will heal equal to one. The Micro tip I'm going to tell you about is Meric Desyncing. To Meric Desync, select the Meric you wish to desync and move him around until your Meric has made the healing noise, then hold your Meric (H), and viola, your 2 Merics are performing 2x better!
Turtling
Turtling is when you sit back and play defensive, typically when you have the disadvantage. There are two types of turtling:
- Disadvantage Turtling
- Instant Turtling
Disadvantage Turtling is when the enemy gains a huge upper hand, and you simply can't go head to head with their army. Now, this can range anywhere from early to late game.
Instant Turtling is when you start off turtling right when the timer hits 00:01. I will be referencing this replay shown here:
4GiveMe vs Bothsole
To start, you should always stream miners until the enemy comes to attack. When they do attack, focus on getting out that Castle Archer. When an enemy shoots one of your miners with an arrow, send that miner back to reduce casualties.
After the Castle Archer has appeared, you will get a small frame of peace. However, if the enemy gets an Archidon and starts Castle Archer Dodging, then get an Archidon of your own to shut it down.
Continue to make miners until you have 8 mining and 6 praying, while still getting upgrades such as:
- Shield Wall
- Passive Income I, II, III
- Miner Hustle
- Miner Wall
Once you have all of your Miners you need, build a Spearton, once he pops out, place the Spearton in front of your first gold column.
Get two Merics afterwards to deflect damage from Archidon.
Delay your wall until you can see the enemy advancing towards you, then build it as close to your base as you can get it.
Once you have two Merics, desync them if they are attacking with Archidon(s).
If you need to, get another Spearton to tank more damage.
Get a Magikill and all of his abilities.
See if you are able to push the enemy back so you can mine your second gold column. If you are successful, take some of the miners from the statue praying and send them to mining.
Start making Giants and Shadowrath (2-3 will suffice at maximum) while researching Giant Growth I, II and Shinobi I, II.
Once you get all of those, start advancing towards to the enemy.
If you are doing Disadvantage Turtling, you can easily apply these concepts, except a lot more pressure will be on you. Try to get more than 1-2 Speartons for tanking.
Disclaimer: I am not the best Turtler, and this will surely be edited once I am more familiar with Turtling.
General Tips and Tricks
These are some Tips and Tricks that some of us use that you might not be doing.
- Capturing the Mid Tower is extremely important throughout the game. Not only does it give you Gold the near equivalent to 2 Miners, but it also allows you to see more things, and gives you map control.
- On Medium Maps, focus on Economy more than Army
- On Short Maps, focus on Army more than Economy
- Placing 1 unit near the top or bottom of the map will make the unit go invisible on the minimap
- Against a group of an enemy's units with a Magikill, poison spray just as they come into range of it.
- Use Electric Wall to force an enemy away from that area.
Some of the Guide is based on how to Order vs Order, and may not correlate well against other Empires, but I hope you all learned something from this. I might start editing this if I find some more content I should add. Hope you enjoy and good luck in ranked!