Projectors have a much higher force output than any other tower in the game. Every of the 8 slots on an edge between two towers that is occupied by a shield force cannot be occupied by infantry. Hence, the more projectors you commit to a full capacity supply line, the fewer infantry/aircraft you can funnel through the supply line. This is not desirable because shield cannot do damage to towers. There are two exceptions to this rule: - If you route your supply line through the projectors, then the shield will be added to the forces traveling through the projector instead of being spawned as a separate force. This does not decrease the supply line capacity for non-shield units, but setting it up in such a way that your units gain shield but there also aren't so many projectors on the supply line that the units traveling through them cannot pick up the shield anymore (hence leading to shield getting spawned as a separate force) is a bit tricky. I usually don't bother with this because there is already enough micro-management as-is. - When you are defending and do not have many infantry/aircraft towers, then you can use the shield from projectors to pad your supply lines for more defensive volume overall. This also requires some careful adjustment in order to not commit too much shield to your supply lines (and the resulting supply lines are weak against towers, so it is difficult to regain lost ground), but can be worth it when you are getting attacked while still relatively small to significantly increase your defensive volume.
👍 Have you tried making Chopper Tank cycles to feed into a jet line when extra force is needed? It's a bit fiddly to set up and the 150 tower limit on range means that many groups in the cycle have moved a lot when 'triggering' a release of forces.
I don't really run any supply lines that need to be charged up first and can be discharged, which disqualifies chopper/tank cycles and shield charging cycles. It just didn't feel like it was worth the effort in the times I've tried it: The kind of wars where this kind of extra force would be helpful are typically also the wars where you need to sustain a good offensive volume for a very long time. Honestly, I mostly feel the same about jet supply lines - they take a long time to set up and it's difficult to change or set up other supply line layouts in the area where you source them. When new towers spawn around a choke point, they additionally become much less effective. A smart opponent will also easily counter a jet supply going through a choke point by defending the choke point with two regular supply lines. I still found the idea neat enough to mention it in this video, though. What I've found to be most effective for myself when actively playing is to have a blank canvas - no supply lines whatsoever - until someone attacks me. Then I quickly set up an optimal supply line layout to defend against the attack and then later proceed with an offensive. When all is done, I delete my supply lines again so that I can quickly set up an optimal layout for the next attack. The core idea here is that I've found it very difficult to predict an optimal supply line layout before an attack happens because the map will change in unpredictable ways until then, and by the time an attack occurs, the supply line layout may not be optimal anymore and could potentially be easily defeated. In general, I like to keep the general micromanagement as simple as possible as I grow because I'll already be plenty busy just dealing with capturing fresh territory, defending against bots and defending against the occasional player attack.
Thanks for the video! It's hard to find tutorials like this one 😅
could you please explain why sending lots of projectors would starve my infantry line?
Projectors have a much higher force output than any other tower in the game. Every of the 8 slots on an edge between two towers that is occupied by a shield force cannot be occupied by infantry. Hence, the more projectors you commit to a full capacity supply line, the fewer infantry/aircraft you can funnel through the supply line. This is not desirable because shield cannot do damage to towers.
There are two exceptions to this rule:
- If you route your supply line through the projectors, then the shield will be added to the forces traveling through the projector instead of being spawned as a separate force. This does not decrease the supply line capacity for non-shield units, but setting it up in such a way that your units gain shield but there also aren't so many projectors on the supply line that the units traveling through them cannot pick up the shield anymore (hence leading to shield getting spawned as a separate force) is a bit tricky. I usually don't bother with this because there is already enough micro-management as-is.
- When you are defending and do not have many infantry/aircraft towers, then you can use the shield from projectors to pad your supply lines for more defensive volume overall. This also requires some careful adjustment in order to not commit too much shield to your supply lines (and the resulting supply lines are weak against towers, so it is difficult to regain lost ground), but can be worth it when you are getting attacked while still relatively small to significantly increase your defensive volume.
Thanks for making this!
Thanks for making Kiomet open-source, I wouldn't have been able to figure out these mechanics without being able to read the code :)
Yes thanks
👍
Have you tried making Chopper Tank cycles to feed into a jet line when extra force is needed?
It's a bit fiddly to set up and the 150 tower limit on range means that many groups in the cycle have moved a lot when 'triggering' a release of forces.
I don't really run any supply lines that need to be charged up first and can be discharged, which disqualifies chopper/tank cycles and shield charging cycles. It just didn't feel like it was worth the effort in the times I've tried it: The kind of wars where this kind of extra force would be helpful are typically also the wars where you need to sustain a good offensive volume for a very long time.
Honestly, I mostly feel the same about jet supply lines - they take a long time to set up and it's difficult to change or set up other supply line layouts in the area where you source them. When new towers spawn around a choke point, they additionally become much less effective. A smart opponent will also easily counter a jet supply going through a choke point by defending the choke point with two regular supply lines. I still found the idea neat enough to mention it in this video, though.
What I've found to be most effective for myself when actively playing is to have a blank canvas - no supply lines whatsoever - until someone attacks me. Then I quickly set up an optimal supply line layout to defend against the attack and then later proceed with an offensive. When all is done, I delete my supply lines again so that I can quickly set up an optimal layout for the next attack. The core idea here is that I've found it very difficult to predict an optimal supply line layout before an attack happens because the map will change in unpredictable ways until then, and by the time an attack occurs, the supply line layout may not be optimal anymore and could potentially be easily defeated.
In general, I like to keep the general micromanagement as simple as possible as I grow because I'll already be plenty busy just dealing with capturing fresh territory, defending against bots and defending against the occasional player attack.
I was always wondering how to do this, i can finally stop getting destroyed
how do you delete supply lines
Shift+R
OMG OMG we was in the same game!!!
how are you able to see the supply line without needing to hover your mouse over the unit tower
Hold R