Emperor Strategy - No Nonsense, Real Strat Only

[Navaros]

This thread if for a meaninful, constructive, and useful discussion of Emperor Strategy. The rules for posting in this thread are as follows:

1. No incoherrent posts. If you can't speak English, ask someone who can to help you articulate your thoughts before you post in this thread. This is an English-language Forum, after all. Incoherrent posts in this thread will be deleted.

2. No nonsense posts. If your advice is useless, your post will be deleted. The intention of this thread is to have a high-quality discussion of Emperor Strategy and the only way to maintain that vision is for all non-helpful posts to be deleted.

3. Keep the discussion about Emperor Strategy and nothing else. Otherwise, your posts will be deleted.

Hopefully by following these rules and posting in this thread we can have a meaningful, useful, and deep discussion of Emperor Strategy.

I personally will help in overseeing that these rules are followed in conjunction with the Mods of this site.

Those are the rules, now onto the discussion.

If you have any questions at all about how to improve your Emperor gameplay, post them in this thread.

If you have meaningful strategies to share, post them in this thread.

[Timenn]

Addition to the rules:

Don't have endless conversations, like that you can beat a Assault Tank with a Laser Tank. Try such things on WOL

[IxianMace]

If you have any questions at all about how to improve your Emperor gameplay, post them in this thread.

To start off under that criteria:

There is a new rush that I can't seem to counter properly. (Btw Navaros I tried the previous strat you told me about with the Minos and it worked ;D).

The rush consisted of the following combination of units:

Buzzsaws

Harkonnen Light Infantry

Troopers

I was Harkonnen, and so was the player that rushed me. This was on Fishers Plain, and my base was situated on an adjacent rock plateau to the enemy base. I got rushed by a group of Buzzsaws, Light Infantry, and Troopers all at the same time, and it just seemed to walk right into my base. >:( I'd like to know how to counter this sort of rush with Harkonnen. The settings were: everything off, with starting money of 10k.

[Navaros]

I am not a good Hark player, ATR is my specialty, but I'll do my best to answer.

If you built without expecting him to attack really fast, or not knowing he was right beside you, and he got a Fac first and you didn't: that alone explains your death. When you start really close to your enemy and he builds a Fac first and you don't, you are dead if he knows how to play. End of story. *Any* good player will concur with this 100%.

However, I personally don't like being boxed in to having to build a Fac first and I think that if I forced myself to conform that would defeat the purpose of a STRATEGY game (there is no strat if you have *no* choice but to get one exact building - in this case the Fac - first, or die) so I quit under 3 when that happens to me in QM ;D

Aside from that, run over the infantry with whatever vehicles you had. Take the fire from everything until those Inf are all good and squashed.

[ethan]

the key thing there, is having your mino back up and take out troopers & light inf. then build a turret against the saws.

[IxianMace]

the key thing there, is having your mino back up and take out troopers & light inf. then build a turret against the saws.

Last time I checked, House Harkonnen didn't have a mino. ;D

If you built without expecting him to attack really fast, or not knowing he was right beside you, and he got a Fac first and you didn't: that alone explains your death. When you start really close to your enemy and he builds a Fac first and you don't, you are dead if he knows how to play. End of story. *Any* good player will concur with this 100%.

My BO was: Windtrap, Barracks, Fac, Refinery. I'd already scouted the ramps to his base and saw that he was preparing the rush, so I was building up a collection of saws myself. It must have been because he had infantry and troopers supporting his saws that he demolished my defence, however I did take some of his rush before he finally broke into my base. The fact that I had a wide ramp to the left (I started in the top corner of the map) also meant that my forces must have been stretched thin, and by the time I diverted all my forces to stopping his rush, the concentrated fire from his units killed my units faster than I could kill his I guess.

Aside from that, run over the infantry with whatever vehicles you had. Take the fire from everything until those Inf are all good and squashed.

It was kind of difficult running over his infantry, since his saws were blocking mine and his troopers were firing at my saws (which couldn't overrun them because they were being blocked). :(

[Marcel71]

hehe, it might have been me, rushing you ;)

Well, i'v seen a tactic from BossOfPig defending hark rush.

Mix aa and buzz. So don't have them as separate groups, but mix them. When u are being attacked, it is VERY close to your base. Keep pumping those buzz.

Select all your buzz and men, and repeatadly press, "T","T" (select all (selected) units on map) and then Ctrl+Shift and point the mouse somewhere inside the group which is attacking you. (NOT on a certain unit!!)

Keep it going like this and i think u will manage.

Because your newly made buzz from your fac will be faster at the place of the fight then his. Sometimes u need 2 buzz vs 1 to get overhand.

His newly arrived units will die very fast while u will build up a small army.

If u really think u need extra tactics and your partner is FAR away, so he can't help you, ask him to give u a ref. Then with your own harvs (in your own base) u put them in the middle of the fight. You attack with Ctrl+Shift his units as soon as the harv(s) are landed. His units will start attacking the harv and u attack his units.

With a bit of luck u save even your harv too. Those things are VERY hard to kill with only buzz and smipers ;)

Tell me if you think it helps...

[Navaros]

Ix,

Ultimately, if both players know what they are doing, then the Winner is determined by who can Micro better. If you had a similar number and mix of units to his, and he won due to better Micro, then he is the better man at Emperor. Which is not to say you are not good. Very few can say that they'll never be out-Microed. I certainly can't make that claim.

Some of the other posts in this thread might help you from Marcel even though I really don't like him and there's some other things I could say but for the sake of *this* thread I won't. He is a lot better with Hark than I am. If some more good Hark players saw this thread and answered you that would be really good

And disregard what I said about getting a Fac first, that's with Pre On. If you don't specify all settings, we can only presume what you *didn't* mention was set to the QM default.

[IxianMace]

If you don't specify all settings, we can only presume what you *didn't* mention was set to the QM default.

You didn't see this? (See below)

This was on Fishers Plain, and my base was situated on an adjacent rock plateau to the enemy base. I'd like to know how to counter this sort of rush with Harkonnen. The settings were: everything off, with starting money of 10k.

[Devastator_Mech]

IxianMace, did you build any turrets? If you did, i don't think your foe would dare to walk right in your base. Building as many Buzzsaws as you can in the first place would be the best option to counter early rushes, and also have a couple of flame tanks or flamers as anti-infantries.

[ethan]

well, i guess i got mixed up with Nav being an *expert* at atr.

well, maybe you should build a barracks or factory then a turret (lev2).

[Navaros]

ethan what is that post above for? if your post has no point, why post it? what message are you trying to get across?

Sorry Ix I am going blind. I didn't notice you *did* state the setts. Maybe people should list all non-QM setts at the start of the post.

Good Emperor players are QM-minded so it's hard to think otherwise unless the other setts that were used are *drilled* into their heads.

EDIT: in retrospect, it is possilble that i may not be going blind, because my first response might have been before you edited the msg to include the setts

Double EDIT: Might as well add something useful in this post LOL

I forget to mention earlier, if someone does something to you that works - ape it! Ape his style in your other games! Share in the spoils of aping what works and discarding what does not! Wins will keep rolling on in.

[zamboe]

Two situations, playing as Atreides, what should you do against :

1. Inkvines and missile tanks combo.

2. Deviators and fremen snipers combo.

I know a few ways to succesfully counter that but i want to know nav's opinion.

[Devastator_Mech]

well, maybe you should build a barracks or factory then a turret (lev2).

Yes of course, its not worth letting a turret delaying your the construction of a factory(unless something is already knocking at your door, which the chance is very slim if you didn't delay anything in the first place)

[Devastator_Mech]

Two situations, playing as Atreides, what should you do against :

1. Inkvines and missile tanks combo.

2. Deviators and fremen snipers combo.

I know a few ways to succesfully counter that but i want to know nav's opinion.

I'll like to answer for him professionally.

1. It's virtually impossible to destroy a combo of inkvine and missile effectively with only atreidies unit without over-numbering it. When you use minotaurus, it'll be destroyed by the misile in 1 blast, and the only anti-tank infantry is Kindjal, which would useless since it'll need to deploy therefore an easy target for an inkvine.

2. A group of Sandbikes and mongoose should handle it easily if micromanaged well enough, the key is to dodge the deviator's shots by moving around.

If anthing is wrong, someone or nav, please correct me.

[Navaros]

Your posts are actually getting smarter Anna.

I don't feel like responding to Zamboe 'cause he's well, a backstabber, but anyhow Anna you are incorrect that Bikes and Mongooses will solve the problem because any Hark who is good enough to use Inkvines is also going to have Saws protecting them, which will massacre Bikes/Mongooses.

[Devastator_Mech]

A momgoose and sand bike combo are against Deviator and fremen sniper combo, and not against the harks. An equal amount mongooses should own Buzzsaws and Inkvines.

Harkonnen own Atreidies when fighting in small groups, especially when its vehicles.

[Navaros]

oops my bad, Anna you are right. i thought you were responding to the Inkvine/Missile tank Q with both parts of your post. You are correct with what you were saying.

I see now that "1." was for Q 1. and "2." was for Q 2.

EDIT: not sure that Mongooses will own Buzzsaws and Inkvines, I'd tend to disagree with that particular point, though I don't use Mongooses all that much...

[atrd3m0n]

Mongooses own inkvines and sandbikes too but there should always be mino back up (for example 5-8 sandbikes/4-6 mongoose/2 mino, from front to back). A few fremen can deal with the missile that comes forward when the mino is responding to the inkvine attack (2 take out missile 1 takes out missile when having 1 chevron. Fired from close range.).

[Devastator_Mech]

Its not efficient to send too much against a small enemy army, that could be a bait.

Navaros, if you don't use mongoose, your missing alot, and im sure 2 mongoose will own a Buzzsaw and Inkvine, as long as the buzzsaws doesn't out-number the mongoose, the mongoose will always claim victory.

[zamboe]

If you see an atreides not using mongos is because he's not very skilled. If you an atreides player using them most likely he/she is a good player.

[Devastator_Mech]

Yes generally, its like an Ordos player not using hit & run tactics.

[Navaros]

I use Mongooses and every unit, just not very much on the Mongooses. Their armor is too weak for them to be much use. Esp. since you can't build more than one type of vehicle at a time like in Dune 2. Building lots of Mongooses is wasted time in my opinion.

[Devastator_Mech]

Not at all in the 1st 10 mins of the game, also, they're the ONLY ground AA force Atreidies have available.

[Navaros]

yes i realize that and i agree it sucks that ATR does not have an AA trooper, that's really unfair for ATR. but that is not enough to make Mongooses worthwhile. They die way too easily, and their use is highly limited.