Halt! Not even ONE step backwards!

[Reactor]

Allright folks, here'z the situation.

Y'marshalled your forces to a location for regrouping, waiting for the slow units and stuff, when the opponent discovers it, and following the law of "the best defense is attack!", will group all his forces, and attack your united army. You're far away from your base, he is also far away from his base, so this is a TOTAL warfare. Whoever wins, may gain access to the opponent's base to wreak havoc.

Now, I wanna hear your opinion about such occassions. Y'cannot create a frontline, since the enemy is crawling your arse (so no line o'Sonic tanks, and stuff),and he also cannot create a frontline. What is the best choice in this case? Retreating to your base, trying to defend it,and maybe use the advantage of the base defensive structures, or stay where you are, not even ONE step backwards. Which is more useful?

[Mr_Hangman]

If my opponent is sending his whole army at my base, I think it would be quite dumb to go meet him in the middle of the map unless my force was significantly larger.  Your forces will be in a much better position to take out more units by arranging them intelligently on defence and waiting for your opponent to attack.

I don't mean to say you should just turtle in your base though, just that your kills/losses ratio is going to be better on defence.  There are a few problems with a defensive strategy though.  You need money, so you have to be controlling more of the map than your opponent.  Also, when people attack they tend to focus all their force on one point and push through.  Even if you have more units, more powerful units, if they are spread out or immobile they will lose.

Until I have a force big enough to guarantee destruction of the entire enemy base, I limit attacks to taking out small stratigic targets that aren't well defended enough, usually harvesters. 

If someone wants to attack me with all he's got, I might as well have that line of sonic tanks prepared to meet him.  A smart attacker would not run into that however.  If I'm the attacker, I want to pause my forces just outside the range of the other base's defence.  At this point the person in the base will be forced to wait, meanwhile not making money because the harvesters can't safely leave, or exit and fight outside the base.  Now it comes down to who was able to produce the most.

[Reactor]

Yes, I know exactly what are y'talkin' about. Retreating back to the base is good, since y'can combine your forces' firearms wit' the defensive structures' fire. However, your units can't shoot back while retreatin', so they'll constantly get "hurt", while the giant enemy force pursues you.

The defensive strategy - as you said - is only good for a while, until the opponent's force raises so big. The opponent has two-thousand tons of various tanks, light vehicles, and infantry, and try to harass you...for example, they pack ALL his forces, and attack your Harvesters. Even if y'manage to rescue them via Carryalls, the opponent will have superiority, and just checks out where do you put your Harvesters next time...so the giant force travels there, and there you go...your Harvesters are under heavy fusillade again.

So it seems y'have no choice but face the enemy...you pack all your forces, and confrontate the enemy near a spicefield. You're away from your base, and he is away from his base as well.

In this case, when standing face to face with the enemy's giant army, what is the best option? Quickly withdraw, knowing that the enemy will chase your forces, or stay where you are, not even ONE step backwards?

The wise player halts, and takes the fight. Even if he loses, and the enemy can divide its army, and then, crumble it up, y'have a good chance to destroy many of their vehicles, kill many infantryman, so the giant enemy force will be so badly weakened that he cannot risk further to attack your base, knowing that the base defense structures can destroy the remainings of his former giant army.

When following the "Halt! Not even ONE step backwards!" tactic, it's critical for you to try to build up a frontline from your units, which are a bit farther in the confusion. While the first half of your forces weaken and distract the enemy, you can (in most cases) form a line o'Sonic tanks, or Missile tanks, or Deviators, which is far better way to hold your position than just pack a group of your units, and send them in the carnage. :)

[Boba Fett]

Yup, I'm with you. I'd probably use the units that're aleady there to form a quick (since they're probably the fast ones) attack, probably even charge into the enemy force with them, while I'd force the slow ones that haven't yet arrived to retreat a bit to an easy place to defend (b/w 2 dune-stretches, etc) and form a good defence, even bringing up some missile tanks from the base. By the time the enemy's finished with the first bunch (yes, kamikaze, for the overall good of the tribe and whatever) and head down, they'll be in for it. And even if they get past that, there's always mother's defence turrets  ;D