(Any tips'n'tricks not written by me have their author's name on the end of it)

-During battles... MICRO! MICRO! MICRO! It's by far one of the best things you can pratice.
Good micromanagement proves that its not the amount or strength of your units, its how you use them. Such as simple things like moving out of AoE spells like Industrial Devastation and Sandstorm to cut losses. Also, moving wounded squads out from the front lines so you won't lose them. Having certain units target certain enemies, which as soon as you learn the correct counters becomes very helpful. The worst thing you can do is blindly drag box your whole army and move-attack in the middle of their forces.[I Am Hollywood]

-The "common knowledge" of the game is that Alin are rushers, while Vinci are boomers. I contend the opposite - that Vinci has a stronger early game, while Alin a stronger late game. It's worth noting that, dollar for dollar, Musketeers will completely destroy Desert Walkers. Also, the Vinci will bring CWM to the fight. CWM are countered by Afreets, which cost more and can be dealt with rather easily by Musketeers. Exacerbating this, Industrial Devastation is far, far more dangers than Summon Army, particularly early on. On the other hand, the Alin get intense upgrades, and by the end of the game their basic infantry are nigh-priceless.[Carloz]

-When you're on the defensive, you want to look for the "turning point" technologically. Once you get that, you should be able to press that advantage into a victory before the comp can deal with it. Most people think that the turning point is a master unit, but if you can afford to build a master unit you've already won in my book.[Carloz]

-For Vinci, it's Air Cruisers. Specifically, once you get 3, the enemy's basic infantry won't be able to brave the teeth you've got set up for them. 3 is kind of an arbitrary number, but that seems to be the point where you can kill three or four units in about second.[Carloz]

-For Alin, it's Glass Bolts. I cannot stress enough how important Glass Bolts is as an upgrade. As soon as you get it, you go from getting owned by Vinci infantry to owning them. It's a complete reversal.[Carloz]

- Weaknesses - Holding your cursour over the portrait (in the interface) of an enemy unit will tell you how best to counter it!

- Trample trample trample! - When in doubt, trample, trampling is almost always waaaaaay better than fighting normally.

- Keeping your kingdom - This part is really important, in your empire, there is no need to leave a few squads at each city, if your enemy attacks he will go all out, not send a few units to each base, so you need to find a mid-point from where you can reach all your cities quite easily, keeping your army together means it is very very strong, keeping it apart means you can hold off attacks until help arrives, but by the time help arrives, the original defenders will have been likely butchered and so useless to you.

- Dominances - These things are PRICELESS! Do you understand? PRICELESS! The ability to call in some pretty decent help is always welcome, to be able to heal a tonne a bunch of troops in an area is even better if you use a few really strong units. and of course, the ability to call a cease fire cannot be overestimated, say you are under attack at a city of yours which is undefended, your main army, you know is much bigger than the enemies, so you do the cease-fire, get to his army and follow them, pummel em so that he has no army once the cease fire is over. turning enemy troops to your side is also great, especially if your eney is someone like cuotl/vinci as most of their units are tough nuts.

-Fire elementals - Wow... so far from what we've found in a fair fight between an unupgraded juggernaut vs an unupgraded fire elemental the fire elemental will pwn! also good vs cuotl, you should have about 2 or 3 with your army at all times

-GLASS GOLEMS - massive damage, massive health, massive. get a few of these guys and round off all your excess timonium with upgrades and DW and you should be set to take on most thinks, the DW can wipe out infantry units while the golems can act as tank-hunters, they're also great for trample and with glass upgrades they will be unstoppable, just watch out for juggernauts however!

-Corruption:
For all those who haven't really figured it out yet, corruption makes every attack from a glass unit permanently reduce the enemies MAX health, and every new hit reduces their max health even more. So for instance, Vinci "Unit X" has 100 max health. A Glass golem hits "Unit X" once, "Unit X" has has taken 30 dmg, and had it's max health reduced by 10, so the unit is now at 70/90 health. The Glass golem attacks again, now "Unit X" is at 40/80 health. And so forth.[I Am Hollywood]

-With the alin, I would try building a military district and filling up your mining site first always, then set the scout to auto-explore, get a caravan going and explore with your starting units. so far i've found the best time to get a hero is a little after you've captured your first city and added 1 or 2 dstricts to it, and get a second mine just before you attack your first city.

-For alin heroes themselves...

SAWU - glass scimitars is great at level 2/3 for mowing down infantry, plus he doesnt take damage for trampling with them. summon marids is pretty decent if you need anti-air fast. glass prison is amazing! a permanent prison for enemies! plus it can make a MAJOR difference in a battle when the enemy finds their juggernauts are covered in glass (plus that screeching noise is just darn scary and ear-splitting) glass spider is... just wow, trampling wipe out everything, infantry gone in one hit, major damage, brilliant. plus the timonium bonus is really great

DAMANHUR - (i think thats how you spell it) good good good, fast, flying, strong. getting the size increase spell is great, just make sure you cast any other spells you want to before using it as you cant cast spell in this form. fire elemental spell is great stuff, i never got to see it fully upgraded but, if you're going up against an infantry army, then this thing could crush the lot of em with minimal damage to itself. not to mention the ability can be upgraded to allow you to summon more elementals. after this, theres the summonable salamanders, perfect for taking out ground units, and once upgraded they're pretty darn deadly too. the fire blast spell is good, but watch out, it hits your own units as well

DAKHLA - the sand warden, his resource cap bonus is nice as you will almost always be getting an excess of timonium in your vaults. the free scorpian is great for doing some good ol' trampling of course. wind defence is great for when your soldiers are still melee, just cast it on the enemy and let your troops run into it, they'll stay in it because they have to fight and so get the ranged defence bonus. summon sand horrors can be deadly if used at the right moment, since they are tough to kill (unless they are attacking on their own, in which case the enemy can just focus fire) they can wreck havoc behind enemy lines while you fight from the front, they'll send enemy troops flying thus stopping them from shooting and doing a good deal of damage as well. personally i dont think this one is *absolutely* neccesary, if you have an excess of resources then go for it, it can certainly help, but it's not worth saving up all your resources for (you could spend it better on upgrades, more units, districts etc) his ultimate, dune devils is a great spell, if you already have a glass dragon then you should be getting it, otherwise wait till you do. simply running into an enemy army with Dakhla and casting the spell will greatly tilt the balance of power in your favour, but make sure you use it at the right moment, when all of the enemy armies are using the majority of their army. but instead, you should really aim to get the sandstorm ability upgraded as much as possible, that one ability can wipe out entire armies with the damage it does. just make sure you get a good number of units covered. sand storm is no longer that neccesary as it was in the first demo since it was... *slightly* overpowered :P

- Tip - i try and keep at least 2 scorpians in all my games with my army, 1 is not enough, the enemy can focus fire and butcher it, 2 is good because they can cover each other, any more and it just gets better and better (though i wouldnt go above 5, that costs too much usually)

- Research - at the start its usually best to get the economy line or the evocation line for the alin, the economy will give you an unlimited supply of income, the evocation will give you a handy little army for attack and defence

- Why train when you can get freebies? - once you get the military line upgraded, it can be more effeciant to produce sand circles rather than build desert walkers etc. so either do some quick calculations in your head or try to figure out how much time you got left (if little, better to go with the sand circles)

- desert archers - its best to get the desert walkers ranged attack upgrade asap, because otherwise only a few can actually fight at a time

- whirling blades - DONT turn this on near a vinci hero! the doge especially as his mega blaster will prolly wipe you out completely, and don't do it if there are trampling units nearby either

- flying crystal ball - the air elemental that comes out of the magic box that can transport units should be used often, maybe not so much in single-player, but n multi-player there's nothing like unloading a gigantic army from a pair of sparkly red orbs

JUGGERNAUTS - does what it says on the can, virtually invlunerable (watch out for golems!) amazing trample, amazing damage and firing while moving, if ever there was a unit to boom towards, this would be it (unless you're aiming for land leviathen of course)

Giacamo - One of the best heros in the game for a microer, his abilities also make him especialy good for someone who prefers the turtle style of play. His final ability can be used to turn the tides of battles or to easily hold out against an overwhelming force until help arrives because when you use it, while not being destructive, it gives an AoE that makes some of your troops invincible for a reasonable amount of time. His other abilities range from very useful, to not so much. THe first ability he gets is IMO his best, it gives a significant heal to allied troops in a decent sized area, his second ability, while not doing significant damage, does nock over and stun enemy troops for a short duration. His third ability is most useful against large units and buildings, as he summons several demolition clockwork men that are like slightly worse infested terran from Starcraft. His bonuses are for lovers of CWM (clock work men). He increases the effectiveness and lowers the price of clockwork units. He also gives one bonus research point per lvl. [ZalTorin]

The Doge - better called the hero assassin because of his Pain ray ability. The doge is the Vinci's Damage hero, capable of dealing massive amounts of damage to any unit or structure. Once fully upgraded, his Pain ray ability can oneshot most any hero execpt for lvl5s and afew lvl4s. His other three abilities are just as good. He has noxious cloud for dealing with infantry units and amassed infentry though it will not be nearly as effective aginst human players as they will most likly move ther troops out of the cloud. His anti-building is the seige laser, which can be used to reduce even most cities with just that abilities use. His super ability allows him to call an artillery strike from the Doge Hammer, this calls in three or so shells that deal a massive AoE capable of delivering damage nearly twice that of the dust storm ability belonging to Dakhla. THe doge gives bonuses to the troops built in the doge statue and to the steam fortress units except the land liviathen [ZalTorin]

Lenora - The Vinci flying hero, she gives you bonuses to your gold income, and has one of the most entertaining hero abilities avaible, the pirate ability alows her to take command of several enemy units at a time, turning tides of battles and allowing you to have fun doing it. her other abilities can also let you have fun as well. Like the Alim flyer, she has a booster that increases her movement speed, her attack, and her health, while also making her plane look freaking cool. She is one of the best units for air supremcy players due to her bonuses to Vinci air units and her third power. Airburst devesates kills most any air units and can be used to nuke air heros as well. He final ablity is a killer AoE and great for destroying towns, as it is a multi-bomb mine thing.[ZalTorin]

- Never under estimate the telescope upgrade for the research lab, a permintant line of sight drawn form the building in any direction, crossing the whole map can be very handy [ZalTorin]

-The doom cannon, should be a master unit due to its power, while it is expinsive, it can obliterate any city with a single shot, but the most effective in combination with the telescope as you wont need to risk any troops to draw a beed on your choosen target. [ZalTorin]

- As any face you got to control the air! as vinci use pirta flyers for air to air and upgrade the air crussier so they have the bombardment tactic. With 3 of those on air bombardment i capped a city in like 30 sec. And when they sommoned an air hero it only took 2 pirita flyers to bring him down. [Chicken1010]

- Using the Clockwork men to trample works pretty stinking well :P I mowed down a unit or two with just one, and he didn't lose a terrible ammount of health... They'd be good guards against AI when he sends a couple of infantry to take a camp. [JediJacenSolo]

- Leviathan - it can move and shoot so move and shoot. it can trample so move and shoot and trample. it can burrow so burrow, move, shoot and trample. it can repair itself so burrow, move, shoot, trample and repair. it can annihilate one target so burrow, move shoot, trample, repair and blast the sucker that gets too close

- Ultra-juggernauts, these are the vinci equivelent of the elder salamanders, in other words a few of them can make up for a lack of a titan unit on your side, the huge trample is nice of courseso grind their bones to make your bread

- Prototypes, play the game on easy a few times, keep the enemy cornered but not killed (use turrets to make a perimeter) and then explore the possibilities of the prototypes, heck you may even want to note them down somewhere (and the order in which they come) no doubt a lot of people would find that helpful. but you yourself could plan your research movement, plus knowing what stage the prototypes can make a major difference to your army power can help a lot

-Remember! The Cuotl ultimate race ability can move, this is great for stopping somone who has massed infantry and has them all crowded together, plus the fact that if they try to escape then you can move the ability and follow them!

- Use 4+ death spheres when the cuotl are facing the alin (best on Summer's Heat Map) to charge down in a line through enemy territory. Set their stance to patrol, and DO NOT select any target's, just move them down in a line in the main part of enemy territory. This massacres alin foot units. [Evolved]

-The Elder Glass Golem built from Dark Glass neutral sites has a passive ability called Tear Wounds. The description basically says that each consecutive attack by this unit does FIVE times the previous. So basically this super unit was built for taking out other
super units.[I Am Hollywood]

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[This message has been edited by Shala (edited 06-03-2006 @ 02:40 PM).]