Detailed strategies for ladder using Atreides.

[Guest Kazrael]

I'm writing these series of posts to enlighten the average player. Read em, and get good. Better ya'll get, more fun we'll all have, and hopefully I won't get called things like 'cheater' or 'f***ing rusher' anymore when I enter skirmish games. (Which I really like to do... since I enjoy games with 3+ people in them.) My ladder rank will probably suffer from this, since anyone who reads this will know exactly what I do, but I could care less. I just want any game I play to be a good game with a worthy opponent. Now, here we go...

I'll first begin with the basic goals you should have in your head as you begin the game.

This game, like any other RTS, getting and keeping a decent line of production is very important. To do that you need spice. But the game being the way it is, the harvesters need to leave your town, and thus, outside the protection of any base defenses you'd build. Therefore a defensive strategy doesn't work so well unlike games like AoK or Starcraft. It's better to go offense, and go offense early.

The key is to mass an army as fast as you can, and strike fast and hard at his harvesters or if he's weak enough, directly at his town before he does the same to you.

Or you can opt to hold a chokepoint outside on the desert, which he'd have to pass to get at your harvesters, from which you can launch your attack.

Building extra military buildings doesn't seem to significantly increase building speed, so you want to opt for a lot of types of buildings, and produce nonstop from them all.

Because of this limitation on production, making extra refinaries past your first two fully upgraded ones is pointless, as you will not be able to spend the credits fast enough even producing from all your buildings. (Of course, unless you managed to get guilders as one of your subs and can spend creds like nuts on niabs)

Using infantry is an absolute requirement, as you can't pull tanks out fast enough to use them as the main composition of your army.

I usually opt for a kinjal/sniper with mostly kinjal, and mongoose/sand bikes depending on the situation. (If he has something that can deal a lot of damage but has a slow reload time use sandbikes. Learned that the hard way playing against the ladder no 2 guy today.)

I'll explain the rest as I post my build order for a ladder game.

Moment the game starts, start a factory and click the upgrade tab and click the make an extra pad for the refinary. Then while that is upgrading, queque up five scouts, and then maybe about 10 snipers. You might want to start sending everything you have towards about the middle of the map. Especially since if you're Atreides you get a minotaur, which is extremely slow, and you can't expect it to arrive anywhere in the same amount of time your infantry would arrive at.

Move the scouts out as they're being created to all corners of the map. Knowing the terrain is half the game, as it'll let you know where the chokepoints are, where your opponent is collecting resources, and what kind of unit composition he has, and also allows you to look for crates which can really help a lot early in the game. This also means that killing your opponent's scouts is very important. Move your sand bike early, and find whatever scouts you can and kill them. If there is only one chokepoint into your side of the map you can prevent him from seeing anything you have on your side of the map if you go early enough and just camp out at the chokepoint.

As soon as the first pad upgrade is done, upgrade the barracks. This will take maybe a second. As soon as it's done press the upgrade again for the second pad, and click the infantry tab and queque up a ton of kinjal. You never want to stop production, so make sure you queque up as much as you need. When your factory is done, start pumping sand bikes and mongoose, queque them in the order you want them out of the factory and set the waypoint for both the barracks and the factory somewhere near his base.

By this time you should have a good idea of what he has, where he's collecting resources, and what kind of base defense he's making if any.

When you have about 10 kinjal, send em along with everything you've got to whereever you choose. Whether it be a chokepoint near his base (never near yours) or right at his harvesters. Hit him at the right time, you should be able to take down a harvester before he even has time to react. From this point on you'll have a steady stream of infantry and sand bikes/mongoose running towards your front line, and it also has the benefit of having a smaller chance of a worm strike compared to sending everything at once.

Build an extra windtrap, then start on your second refinery, and start the fight. Don't run into his base until you have a decent amount of mechanical units to back you up. Until then, harass his tanks and prevent him from collecting resources using hit and run tactics, or hold your ground and deny him the spice field if you have a stronger army at your front.

Sand bikes serve two functions early on in the game. It can keep some nasty types of infantry from getting to yours, and second, it acts as a roadblock for harvesters or maybe a rogue tank or two from trying to squish your precious kinjal.

I've noticed people don't usually use these first level mech units too much because they see it as being too weak, but this is not true. Sand bikes make up for their weakness with their cost and building speed. They also are better then mongoose against units that do a massive amount of damage to one unit, and has a long reload time. Minotaurs are prime examples, as are missile tanks. Against such units it can act as a type of a cannon fodder while your own units do damage to these dangerous things. When your Minotaur arrives, remember that it is the key of your army. You have only one, be careful in how you use it. It can take out most units in just 1 salvo, but you have to take into consideration its reload time. It's excellent for taking out irksome targets like a flamethrower tank, or kobras or any type of infantry. When you see things like missile tanks running at your mino, run it back and move your kinjal and/or sand bikes to take care of the thing targetting it then move it back forward. This early battle is usually what decides the game. Win it, you'll win the game. As the game progresses start upgrading the extra pads on the second refinery, and do the subhouse buildings, upgrade your factory... all the while keeping up the pressure at his spice sites. As long as you're fighting in his base, you don't have to divert energy towards your own. Meanwhile whenever you have a break in between fighting his army you'll get free potshots at his harvesters, kill a few, hampering his production line and increasing your advantage until you're ready to take his base.

If you're no good at checking back regularly to queque up new units, just queque about a 100 in the order you want them out of the bulding, and you should do fine. Concentrate on the fight, and get good at micromanaging your units. I'm certain people will find better strategies then this as time passes and more people get better at the basics. It's been only 3 days since I started playing this game online, and already I've gotten quite a bit better then when I started, and I hope to get even better as time progresses. And remember, this *is* a rushing game. No one has to wait for you to get good and ready before they attack you. The way the game is set up it promotes fast and furious fights from the first moments of the game. Take the game for what it is, and instead of getting angry when you get "rushed" learn how to play the game the way it was meant to be played.

I'm planning on posting 3 posts over a few days. An Atreides/Harkenon strategy post, (I'm not going to post Ordos since I don't consider myself good enough at Ordos yet) And a skirmish guide, maybe a tip post later on with little helpful bits a few days later as I get more used to the game.

[Guest burnolot]

This is the best f***ing strategy on the whole web for Atreides that I've read since this game came out. I apreciate you sacrificing your ladder position to help fellow gamers such as my-self.

P.S. I'm just afraid someone might use your "rush" strategy on me!...

...thanks again

[Guest Gerrit+(Germany)]

Respect!

[Guest Bateman]

Thanks man! Excellent strategy!

[Guest Stuzack]

You should work for gaming magazines! Great strategy! worked for me loads and i rule at this game now!

[fedaykin_jatin]

lol this is for ladder. still prefer juz goin 1 on 1 with another person with long drawn out battles. i love those.

[Guest J0enuke]

Dude, you have pretty decent strategy. I totally agree with you on the sandbike. Often, people make the mistake of upgrading their factory early to get minos when that money could be used on sandbikes and kinjals. Let me just add a couple of extra strats. This should be done after the strat posted above.

While camping in a choke point, and have done your job in harrassing the harvesters. What the next step important step should be is to get the airforce early. build a hangar and pump 3-4 airdrones. Now these airdrones, have three purposes, One, it is to further destroy the carryalls, thus slowing down the economy. Second, protect against other airdrones from destroying Your economy. Third, to protect against, advance carryall drops into your base. Who knows, they could drop, apcs to devestators at the back of your base. So be very watchful.

If you have the money you could, upgrade hanger and pump out 2 advance carry all. Then use ur imagination with these versatile units. You could pick up harvestors while the airdrones kill it in the air. (Note: When the enemy has only one harvestor left, pick it up and don't destroy it, in that way, the enemy would not get a free harvestor). Or you could drop APCs and destroy the base from inside out. Or drop minos at the back of your base.

But all these things will NOT WORK IF YOU DON'T SURVIVE THE FIRST 5 Minutes with enough harvestors. Which the above post explains how to do.