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Original work done by Willis of LoK

Defense and Construction

Early defense is not always the thing to do, because in some situations you could be building a lot of defense, while your enemy is just making tanks, and then when he attacks he finds a way around your defenses while receiving very little damage, since you will not have the power to make tanks as well. you will not be able to defend yourself against his attack. Yet when needing to use artillery it is advisable to have a layered defense to keep enemy activity away from you. Still, first I am going to explain the concepts behind a T3 defense setup, then later I am going to explain the differences for doing a T1 setup, but depending on your research a T1 defense will turn into a T3 setup, so there is not that much to explain for T1, but anyway...

One of the most important things to know, its your building order, simply said, you have bunkers and emplacements, artillery, hardpoints and towers, walls, and fortresses. Commonly hardpoints and walls are never used, due to the fact of how easy it is to destroy them. Artillery makes for a horrible defense, it is easily destroyed so keep it behind your main defense, which commonly is bunkers and for later in the game are towers and emplacement

Two concepts to always remember when making defense,
(1)- is to make it strong enough to keep the enemy out.
(2)- is spaced out enough to allow you to travel though virtually at any location.
So first up is your bunkers, its best to use a combination of twin assault and lancers, but keep lancers behind twins because they are longer ranged and better to have those survive compared to the twin assaults. Since you always want tanks first, keep them near the defense in case of an early attack, as well to have a sensor in the area to monitor for enemy activity. After you make a simple setup of bunker defense, its best to add a little extra so if he were to attack and your tanks were not in the area, he is not so lucky to get past. But a nice rule of thumb is to count your tanks themselves as part of the defense, and if you feel that force will keep the enemy away, then your ok. Another thing to take caution in, never leave any weak spots in the defense, spots where the enemy could go though with the least amount of damage, these are commonly on the edges of the map, as well as large openings for your tanks to travel in.

After you are satisfied with your defense, feeling that it should keep your enemy away for the time being, its wise to put some decoy fortresses in front of your defense (if decoys area legal). Its also best to finish your tank production if you haven't already, I shouldn't need to explain why you should get the most tanks possible. After that, your ready for artillery, and when you start artillery its key that you continue making it for a period of time. With a good defense setup and tanks its hard to have too much artillery, but too much can put you at a power loss for when later in the game when you may need to spend it on upgraded tanks. But when your satisfied with the amount you have, just add onto your defense here and there, like if you were to research pulse emplacements add them in front or between your defense, if you were to research Scourge towers add those near the back since they are useful for longer ranged force.

To really give you an understanding of what sort of T3 defense materials are used, its Lancer Bunkers, Twin Assault Bunkers, Pulse and Gauss emplacements, Scourge Towers, Machine Gun bunkers (they are nice for when you don't want your regular defense to be shot at, they can take in a lot of damage, like decoying but NOT decoying), and fortresses, your common artillery are Hellstorms, ground shakers, ripple rockets, and later on ArchAngel. AA defense is basically the defense given in the beginning of the game, SAM AA, and Laser AA. But never worry about creating AA unless you see your enemy creating Vtols, and do keep in mind that only AA can shoot vtols and that AA can never shoot tanks or other units.

In the world of T1, you have machine gun type weapons, what you want to get are lancers so you can get lancer bunkers, and commonly you continue lancer research to get scourge towers. Other then that you will basically be going for items like Pulse and Gauss, Machine gun bunkers still are nice for taking in the damage, Fortresses are also a nice tool to have but can be timely to acquire. Mortars and Bombard Pits are your starting out Artillery, and if you want to do AA, be sure to keep researching, because the very beginning research unless you want to make a ton of AA, its not worth much at all. Unfortunately I cannot share any actual layouts for defense setups, because of concept by other LoK members.