Empire Earth Strategy Guide 

Hot keys:

CTR+1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 - Assigned Grouping. Simply pressing a # once will select the group you created. Double tapping a particular # will automatically snap to group leader location.

TAB - Selects an idol worker.

(SELECTED PRODUCTION BUILDING) + RIGHT CLICK - Creates a rally point for units to automatically move to after creation. Rally points may be placed on game resources and buildings. This is particularly useful.

CTR+RIGHT CLICK - Commands military units to move aggressively. With aggressive movement, a military unit will attack anything hostile. This includes all buildings (excluding walls) and player game units.

**TIP** Aggressive movement may be achieved by rally pointing a military building on a resource (e.g Wood). Good for rushing.

DOUBLE LEFT CLICK - Selects all available buildings/units available on your screen. Particularly useful to select a group of particular units scattered.

**TIP** While holding down shift and moving the screen to more units of the same type will add to group selection.

SHIFT + RIGHT CLICK/LEFT CLICK/TAB - Allows chain commands to be executed. This involves attacking a particular unit, movement, laying down building tiles, and group selection. When mass units are created, the game will only allow you to select a limited number of units in your group. By holding down shift while selecting additional units, you are able to add additional units to a group. A combination of hot keyed commands can be executed using shift.

**TIP** Holding down shift while selecting a production key will assign 5x of single production.

===================================Good Skill Habits=======================================

Balancing Resources and Production - The goal is to have a constant production while your civilization grows. By trying to be "reserved" on spending resources on an immediate military or stronger society is a loss. The only advantage to reserve of resource spending is when you may gain a tactical advantage in one criteria over another. Examples of reserved spending is when you are trying to epoch to another age, cut back on military production to improve society, or limit immediate gathering of a particular resource (e.g hunt) too gain a tactical advantage later. 

**TIP* Don't consume your animals all at once because animals can reproduce to allow more food to gather later.

Using Groups to Balance Production - Assigning buildings groups is a very effective way to manage production. Creating a group for your capital and first town center is a good way to balance the individual production of citizens on both buildings. As time goes on, you can add more town centers to your already assigned town center group by hold SHIFT as you select the new town center, and overwriting the already made town center group.

**TIP** If you are creating a particular unit of a multiple grouped production, be sure to make sure to select individual buildings at the bottom grouping bar to make sure units in que are close  to the same on each building. Having 4 units in que on the first building, 1 on the next, and none on the next two is a complete waste of potential production.

Exponential Growth - A good fundamental to keep in mind is that the higher society you have (e.g citizens), the faster you can gather resources. An excellent strategy that is incorporated throughout all game play is to have enough food production to keep a steady production of citizens that enable the ability to keep a constant production of military. HOWEVER, you must balance your society growth with military protection.

**TIP** This fundamental applies to all players. So, a skilled "rush" can render a player a significant decrease in production. Killing 6 citizens on a player who has 30 citizens is a 20% loss to their gather vs. a player loosing 20 citizens with a 200 citizen count loosing 10% of their gather.

Countering Tactics - We all know basic counters, Spear > Shock, Shock > Archer, Archer > Spear. However, game elements change these basic fundamentals. If a group of 10 Cavalry Archers is being attacked by 20 swords, a simple battle without player control would end with the swords absolute victorious. However, cavs move much faster than swords. If the player with cavs is to attack the swords and retreat before being attacked by a sword unit then simply attack again with distance between the swords, the cavs will easily prove victorious. There are multiple advantages of archery units that may not be quite obvious. The obvious, they are attacking from a range. An archer is capable to get off 3x attack rounds before they are confronted with attacks from an opponent. Projectiles can be shot over walls. This is useful for defending against attacks. Projectiles are capable of attacking a single point (unit). Useful for destroying building tiles or taking down powerful units one at a time. While a front group is retreating, units towards the back can continue to attack. These are all points of interests with a particular unit type, experiment around, and more shall be revealed.

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General Game Characteristics:

Shock Units - High amount of HP, standard infantry speed, standard attack, hit bonus against Citizens and Archers.

Spears Units - Low Amount of HP, standard infantry speed, high attack, hit bonus against Shock Units.

Archery Units - Low Amount of HP, slower speed, lower attack, hit bonus against spear units and citizens.

Cavalry Units - [Unit Type bonuses Apply] fast speed (standard amongst cav units),

Building HP - Buildings are easier to destroy as the game Epoch progresses.