Air Attack Strategy

Aerial Forces Attacking
 

Eventually I am a great pilot, as a aviation plans officer, in this section i would like to share my experiences about how to fight well by using airstrike units.

In E&A, there are only two kind of air forces you can have, Attack Drones and Apache.

At level 6 HQ, players can able to deploy Attack Drones (I called it Fly) into battlefields. Attack Drones are light, fast swarms that hunt and kill enemy defense structures. Weak vs anti-air defenses and enemy infantry; strong vs ground targets.

Apache appears at HQ12, which provide overwhelming airborne firepower that can win any battle; Weak vs Patriots and Domed Aerial Defenses; Strong vs ground targets. 

Both air force units have pro and con, so you’d better know their strengths and weaknesses before making conclusion to go either aerial force or ground force as your majority of squids strike.

(PRO) The most selling points of Attack Drones and Apaches are their great mobility, which can let them able to fly across the screen in rapid speed. Plus they are easy to lock on any ground targets; so you can assign Alpha, Bravo and Charlie group to attack several targeted objects individually.

Another great advantage is these air force units can ignore attacks from heavy fired ground defenders, such as Railgun, Metal Rain, Artillery and Guard Tower. Landmines are also under its immunity. On the side of base defenders, Spider Drone, Tank and MLRS will not attack airstrike attackers at all. 

(CON) However, They are not perfect units in some reasons which makes most players rather select ground forces instead of air. Air units were easily trapped by Stealth Tanks and EMP. Once they got trap then they will freeze at the air, any anti-aircraft defensive units which closer to them can destroy them with no resistance. 

Beside of Stealth Tank, other ground units like Domed Sentry Gun, Domed Aerial Defense, Patriot, Ion Cannon, Striker VI, Commandos, defensive Apache and Hunter MK.I, which has anti-air ability can also kill airstrike units in no time. In addition, I have recently found that the explosion of Shock Mine can even freeze them when they fly though the EMP burst where it released.

Air Strike Strategy:

Now you understand both pro and con with airstrike units. The essential elements to win any airstrike battle will depend on how much you can take from advantages and how much you stay away from dis-advantages. Therefore, targeting your right opponents has already been half way through your victories. For Example: When I search and scout my target bases, i will always concern all these following conditions before my planes attempt into any battlefield.

First, how many rally flags of stealth tank are there? Let say I see a HQ14 base has 2 troops and 2 spiders, that means two stealth tank rally flags are there because HQ14 suppose to have six rally flags in total. Or if I see a HQ13 base has no troops at all, then it means all five rally flags are stealth tanks, etc...

Don’t forget stealth tanks in this case are your natural enemies, so I will try to avoid them. In most cases, I will definitely fight the bases which have zero non anti-aircraft rally flags, like some players setup six groups of tank (12 tanks), or six groups of MLRS (6 MLRS), or these units mixed with some spiders. Without zero attacks from rally flag units, then I just keep focusing on destroy all anti-air defenders

However, there not many players will only setup one kind of rally flag units. So my second option will  lookup some bases, which have less rally flags of stealth tank on it. Let say If I have 14-16 Apaches on Tarmacs then I will consider to attack a base which has two rally flags of stealth tank. (6 stealth tanks) What about three rally flags of stealth tank? Maybe, depend on how much resources it contained because it takes some risks. More than three rally flags? Oh, No No, forget it! There is totally not a good idea to attack four to all stealth tanks bases except you are super lucky or you have any special skill to get rid of all those stealth tanks attacks. 

Attack Drones somehow have less restriction with stealth tanks because of their number of planes. Each stealth tank can only lock up several “Flies” at once, then the rest of “Flies” still able to move and attack stealth tanks to rescue their buddies. But they still have very high chance to get all frozen up by the large groups of stealth tanks.  

 

Second, how many command strike points present in this battle, which should take out how many anti-air defenders? (For how to collect and calculate command points please see Command Strikes section) As I said in above, non anti-aircraft defense buildings you don't have to worry about them since they don’t attack your air units. Therefore, use command strike weapons only against anti-aircraft buildings such as Patriots and Domed Sentry Guns or Aerial Defenses, and Ion Canon. (To verify which one is Ion Canon or Airmed Drone Hive please see Home Base Data section as well) 

Since you only have limited number of command strikes in each battle, so enemies base layout also is part of your concern. You need to plan ahead before you attack them. Remember, always look for chances to apply a single command strike into several air defenders at once. For example: use Orbital Strikes to burn down Ion Canon, Patriot(s) and any nearby Dome(s) which built within 2 tiles apart all together. Or use one to two A-10 strike(s) to bomb as many Patriot(s) with Dome(s) which built within 6 tiles diameter as possible. See example pictures in below...

If you have to attack some bases which contain stealth tanks then don’t send in an entire squad at once. You should start send in couple tarmac aircraft at first to see any stealth tanks around. Once u got freeze then add another tarmac aircraft to attack these stealth tanks, got freeze again then add more aircraft to rescue....but remember, either fly in from their side or their back to attack these stealth tanks. Otherwise, your planes will be trapped together with all other aircraft that reached the EMP bursts.

For Apache players, I found a simple way that can max out all resources an enemy base contained. It works effectively in most higher levels there people usually have high demand in steel and tech for their upgrades. What I use is the greatest advantage from Apaches – Mobility.

First, I attack a base normally, apply strike forces in troops and command building, use command strikes to take out defenders, etc...Once HQ down then I use Alpha team (about 8 Apaches) to take out Steel, Supply, Tech and Oil stockpiles and factories barely in this sequence; and leave Bravo team (about 6 to 8 Apaches) attacks freely to clean up rest of the buildings. If time is short then I will have both teams work on resource buildings only. This way you might only get two starts but mostly you will get all resources from each battle.

BTW, I have tried using both air units as well. the reason why I picked Apaches instead of Attack Drones is because of two facts. 1) Once you level up your Apaches then you can use them in both offense and defense. 2) Retraining cost of Apaches are more cheaper than Attack Drones. If you can control them well then you can save them all without any losses from battles. However, there will be some losses in Attack Drones no matter how careful you use them. And they take tons of oil for retraining, which I found you may even spend more oil in retraining then you make from wars.

However, I do not suggest players use all Apaches as their Rally Flags defense. Why? That is because Apaches are weak to against Rangers, Strikers and Stealth Tanks from attacking. If you really want to use them then you had better pair with other defenders like commandos, Stealth Tanks or Spiders.      

Ground Attack Strategy

Ground Strike Strategies:
 

Similar to air strike strategy, select your attack targets carefully by scout their base beforehand with a fine-toothed comb. A pro ground attacker will most likely choose the bases which has less natural obstacles and has a clear view to attack. Any poor base layout which defenders and buildings built closely together also is a good pick as your target. Check if there any hidden rally flag behind trees. Use my Airmed Drone Hive vs Ion Cannon data sheet to identify the location of Ion Cannon because you need to destroy it immediately.

In general speaking, all ground forces attack strategy pretty much the same. You start out with command strikes first. Burn down Ion Cannon and Metal Rains with Orbital Strike(s), then use A-10 bomb(s) and hellfire missile(s) take out as many Artillery units as possible. I recommended to save three command points for Combat Stim or five command points for Medpack. Once troops deploy into battlefield and the opponent defensive units start attacking your troops, hit Combat Stim to boost their speed and damage ability to quickly destroy all enemy ground forces or to heal allied units on the battlefield. In this way you can save more troops from being destroyed and get more building destruction, in order to trade more command points for more command strike attacks to use.

If you unfortunately ran into a Domed Defense Alpha Configuration Aerial Defenses base ( I called it disco party), you do have some chance to survive if you have EMP on hand. Use it to shut down these domes attack, then click Combat Stim (If you still have command points left) to quickly destroy them.

Advance players usually don't break down troops in several teams, and control their path to destruct buildings. They will let them attack freely with command strikes to help clean out any impediment. There only one exception is CnC vehicle that you may want to drive it through the map to shut down defenders.  

   

I do not recommend players mix and match ground forces with air forces. Since there ground and air defenders you need to concern them all that takes too much work and energy in strategy. Plus your effort may not worthy because you split resources to develop, upgrade both ground and air units; while other players have developed couple high level ground troops then you might only have few kinds of average troops for your attacks. 

    

Remember, there are no fixed rules for victory, any way or style you fight to win a battle is definitely what you need in any strategy game. Always know what your limit is in each HQ level and try not to exceed that. As I said, you basically have an ability to win a base which has 10+ exp then yours. But since each player has different combination and level on their troops, you have never know what exp and hq enemies you can handle unless you do some experiments.

Observes how people (buddies and opponents) attacks is a great way to learn fighting skills. See how they use command strikes to apply into what defenders, where they start their troops deployment, and which method they use to move their squad forward. These information will be valuable as your reference before you find yourself best attacking style from achieving complete destruction victory.

If you have maximum upgraded your Weapon command and troops level, and applied all your command points into command strikes, plus strike forces on your troops with all attack strategies I mentioned in above and still have difficulty that keep loosing your battles. Then my final recommendation for you is choose the opponent bases which has equal or less Exp with HQ level than yours to attack. 

      Any suggestions or ideas that you think up which can improve this article then please e-mail me.