first off, let me say that this section of the forum is very slow, unlike the off-topic discussion. LETS GET THIS PLACE MOVING, GUYS.

ok, let's talk about our game strats, not just short term, but what each of us try to achieve by the end of the game

for me, it's start out w/workers.
w1= build 3 houses then start collecting c
w2= collect c
w3= collect c or if there's food in his LOS right when he starts collect the food

scout scours nearby area in radar fashion, then scouts the map

w4-13=hunt & gather berries; build 2 food proc. centers on either side of town center.

w14=build carbon center, then work on c
w17-20= build houses each. then colonize behind enemy. build troop center
w21-24= work on ore
w25= build power cores throughout rest of round

MY playing style: t2 constant rushes from forward base until t3 when i send in air and hw from original base and troops and hw from forward base.
GOALS: try to always keep enemy 1 tl lower than me through constant rushing
PREFERRED CIV: wookies. they're awesome in my opinion. since i usually dont use mechs nemore, i drain out 50 troops from five connected troop centers and do constant rushes. i do the same, with air and hw, building 3 of each of those factories-- for EACH base. i ususally have TONS of c due to the 10% bonus for the wookies.

-against 1 medium cp opponent, it ALWAYS takes me 40-43 min to beat the opponent. how long does it take everyone else under standard resources and 200 pop?

I do not rush. I defend, defend, defend, until I am ready to hit the bad guy with a force so powerful that unless he has also done nothing but prepare massive defenses, he's dead meat. I have been known to be vulnerable to very quick T2 rushes, if the other guy gets there first, but he rarely does.

I make sure I have 10 workers each on Carbon and Food, and 1 of each non-shelter buiding type, plus make sure at least the food and animal centers are powered (hopefully the others as well). I also try to have at least 1 ore and 1 nova collector before clicking the "2" button.

As I am developing toward T2 in the CC, I use the spare food and carbon being collected to build about 10 troopers, to defend against early T2 rushes.

Note though that I only play against the computer, and have no idea what kind of strategy would work for me against other humans.

I have rushed prior to T4 exactly once, in a 2-on-2 game (me + comp vs comp + comp). I hit T3 really fast, right after the comp/Empire had hit T2 (my civ was really kicking butt economically). I built 5 fighters and sent them after the comp/Empire player, and started smacking his workers and troopers. Then I built 3 bombers, and sent them in and took him out. Forced him to resign way early.

BUT... while paying attention to that, I wasn't prepping my defenses the way I normally do. Luckily my computer ally was harassing the other guy and he wasn't able to come after me... I'd have been a sitting duck if he had.

I also found it rather boring. Once the comp/Empire was gone, the computer enemy was fighting a 2-on-1 battle. The game was basically over about an hour into it. That's not interesting to me. So, I think I will lay off rushes most of the time. I rather have a massive duke-out with several T4 armies.

I prefer the defend and build strategy. I assign my workers in the same fashion as Chessack. My Tech 1 finishes with a food processor, carbon processor, animal nursery, and power core.

At Tech 2, I build a troop center, spit out 10 troops, and upgrade them. I also build some medics to stand behind these troops. I send these troops to guard the laser turrets that I have set up at the obvious bottlenecks. Tech 2 finishes with a Jedi Temple, ore processor, green-stuff processor (I can never remember what that kryptonite is called), a war center, and a research center (if possible).

At Tech 3, I immediately spit out anit-air troops and AA turrets. I build a mech factory to spit out 2 anti-personnel mechs and 4 destroyer mechs. I build a fortress and churn out a couple of bounty hunters and special units. Then I'll build whatever else I seem to need at the time to get to Tech 4.

Early in Tech 4, I build heavy assault mechs, destroyer mechs, and lots of special units. At the same time, I'm beefing up my defense with more laser turrets, more AA turrets, more AA troops, and some shield generators.

Later in Tech 4, I build the Heavy Mech Factory and spit out 8-10 pummels. At the same time, I'm building up an army of fully upgraded mechs and special units.

End Game: I leave a scant minion behind to protect the base while I inch the rest forward towards the enemy base in one or two mass armies of death and destruction.

This strategy has worked so far when I play two computer opponents on Moderate difficulty, normal resources, RM game, I'm the Empire, they are anything else.

Ships do not worry me since I do not use ships and my heavy assault mechs take them out easily enough. Air is useless against the mass of AA stuff I pump out. The computer wastes resources on AA stuff to kill air units that I never build. The Empire's strength is in it's mechs and that's what I use to run the computer into the ground.

Heheh...

Sounds like SirKai and I play very similar games, although I use air instad of mechs.

Hmm... I wonder what would happen if my 70 or 80 shielded, fully upgraded fighters and bombers went after his AA-guarded strike force. Something tells me it'd be a battle to remember....

Allot. I just like to defend with my attack force and then attack with my attack force. Usaully I don't need to build another strike force when I send in my first force.

I have only played against the computer so my strategy is entirely based on that. Against a human this probably wouldn't work as well.

First of all it doesn't matter how many opponents I'm playing, if I can't see any food right away I start to build farms. This seems silly but I don't have to use the farms right away and they're pretty cheap. They're also a lot quicker than Muja Fruit and not as dangerous as the big critters.

I put 1/3 of my guys into gathering food and 2/3 on getting carbon. I build a ton of workers. I also use the carbon guys to build shelters unless I'm playing TF. I keep it like this until I have enough to build an animal pen and a power core which I immediately do and then jump to tech-2. As soon as I do I throw some guys on ore and nova.

By this time usually I've spotted the enemy unless I'm on an island or something. I have an idea of where they are and where the choke points will be. I then send a couple of workers out to build turrets in those places. I place two turrets, one behind the other. Back at the base I build a troop center and send a couple troops out to garrison those turrets and keep an eye out for the upcoming rush that the computer always sends around the beginning of tech-3. Usually two turrets hold off the first assault.

As soon as I hit tech-3 I know where the computer hit before and where it will hit again. I get together a big group of workers and head to the choke point. Once there I build a fortress, three to five turrets, depending on how large an area I'm dealing with and maybe a couple of anti-air turrets. I build a power core and a shield generator right behind the fortress so it hits the maximum number of towers. I garrison all of my forces in these forward strong points and garrison all my fortress-built units inside the fortress. I've found that strong-points like this are nearly impossible for the computer to take. The worst I've ever lost is one of the towers. Being a creature of habit the computer will waste hundreds of troops in a futile effort to destroy it.

Whenever I detect another computer raid from a different direction I throw up another strong point like this one. If I'm particularly gutsy I have a team of workers wait in front of the shield and then dart over and build another strong point (fortress/power/shield/turrets) right against the enemy's wall. The fortress and guys inside it will blast enemy buildings and their hordes of troops forever while their wall actually works against them.

Once I'm secure from attack and I feel the computer is ripe for the taking I pick one of three offensive strategies. This post is getting long so I'll give the details on those in the next post.

In my opinion, the turret rush (building some turrets right near the enemy base) is such an assured game-winner that I have already stopped doing it. Since I like a challenge, I am practicing the defend and build strategy. To me, the rush (against the computer) is too easy a win to be any fun.

SirKai

I agree. I have not tried the turret rush, but I have air-rushed twice and creamed the computer before TL 4 even happened. That's not really any fun.

I will probably try a turret rush at some point just to see how it works, but SirKai is right... if you know that on Moderate level, strategy X always, automatically, will lead to a win... why do it? There's not really much challenge to that. It'd be like Pete Sampras playing against me in tennis. Sure, he'd crush me, but it wouldn't be much of a challenge for him.

I agree that the turret rush is a cheap shot. I pretty much use turrets only for defense and only in groups.

Here's my basic offensive strategy.

I don’t build ships, pummels, mounted troops, anti-air troops, or anti-air mobiles. If I’m playing TF or Empire once I build a fortress I stop building Troop Center units altogether. I build few grenade troops and only at the beginning when it’s all I have. The bulk of my units by the end are usually fully upgraded as I don't attack until I've either reached the unit limit or have started to run out of convenient resources. I strip all the garrisoned troops out of my defenses and when I'm attacking I'm basically a sitting duck.

The key to succeeding in an attack is organization. I put my units in groups. At first I started to confuse them, now I stick to a formula which is the same from game to game.

1 Infantry
Heavy/Repeater troops, Bounty Hunters. Dark Troopers and TF Droidekas go here too. I keep them in the spread-out configuration.

2 Cavalry
The smaller mechs go here. This is fairly fluid. If I need two Infantry groups I’ll group the small mechs with the infantry as they don’t slow each other down too much then I’ll split the infantry into two general groups.
If I’m playing Wookies or Naboo I put the berserkers/champions here along with mounted troops. I use these as rapid melee forces but I’m careful not to attack with groups 3 or 4 if group 2 is engaged because of collateral damage. I send them to the other side of the battlefield and let them duke it out over there.

3 Artillery
Heavy Artillery, Grenade Troopers and Cannons go in this group. Depending on the situation I may throw a few laser troops in for protection or even group them with some air support. From time to time I’ve been known to put escorted bombers in here too but usually only when I’m reducing enemy buildings in an undefended area.

4 Heavy Assault Mechs
These are a class unto themselves. I try to send them in loaded, if that’s the case I group the infantry into group 1 or groups 1 and 2 before loading them. They will retain their group affiliation when dropped off if I make no other changes to the group. I build a lot of these, enough to hold all of my infantry plus about 20% extra to draw fire and go on individual killing sprees. I don’t send these in until I’m ready to finish an opponent because that’s essentially what they are good at.
It’s always kind of a pain to load these things as they always get in each others’ way. I generally leave them on the spread-out configuration and walk the troops over to them rather than vice versa.

5 Air Pool :tie:
Fighters and bombers. If I’m playing RA the speeders go here too. I keep these behind the lines in the radius of a shield generator. When I need to add air to another group I take it from this group. When I need quick assistance somewhere I send the whole Air Pool. If I suspect a large enemy air force, I’ll send all of group 5 in as cover for group 4 during or right before the assault and I won't build bombers in that game.

6 Air Transport
Both the transports and their escorting fighters. Sometimes I don’t have this group if I am not planning a major air assault. In such a case I use 6 for another group of assault mechs or another half of a two-pronged attack. Usually this group winds up ferrying a load of nomadic workers who mine distant resource sites toward the end of the game.

7 Jedi/Sith
Jedi/Sith knights and masters along with a few troops and air transports and escorts sufficient to carry them all. Once I develop Jedi Masters, I stop building Knights. They’re not worth their nova cost anymore. Jedi Masters are powerful but they’re not indestructible. You need to send a few regular troops along to take out the Bounty Hunters and you have to be willing to sacrifice them for the Jedi. Usually I keep the air transports close and when a Bounty Hunter comes by I quickly board the Jedi. The Hunters can’t shoot them while they’re in the ship and the escorts and guards quickly shoot the Hunters. I always put Jedi Masters on air transports because I figure they're too expensive to walk.
Generally when Groups 2 and 4 hit the enemy line I send group 3 up to knock out any enemy fortress in the way and then I send this group around the long way and drop off the Jedi Masters in the enemy’s rear area. Once back there I have them start converting buildings, especially towers, troop centers and, if I’m running short, Pre-fabs.

8 Repair/Medical
Idle workers and medics that follow my army around. I don’t always have this group, sometimes I use 8 for a special mission or something. If I’m playing TF of course there are no medics and if my resources are generally high I don’t need to repair broken mechs and such as I can just build new ones. It’s wasteful but quicker to just keep sending up replacements. If my resources are strained and especially if the whole map is short of resources, I start doing a lot of repairs. I set up group 8 in a forward area hopefully a secure one and I send damaged units back to that area. Every so often I check back and have the workers team up for repairs.

9 Reserved
Reserved for units on a special mission away from their army. The need for this comes up from time to time. Sometimes this is just a bunch of workers who are on carbon or something that I can call when needed.

When I actually commence the attack I do one of the following:

- A Heavy Assault Mech attack (group 4 loaded with group 1 and backed up by group 2 and 3 but with the mechs always in front). With the Empire this is truly a sight to behold. :atat:
I've never failed with this one. I may lose a mech or two but not much can stand up to an onslaught like that. Even the fortresses get reduced to rubble very quickly.

-An airborne attack. Group 4 is a diversionary force of more infantry, or maybe I throw a few HA Mechs in there but not a serious force. I attack with that then groups 1, 2, 3 loaded onto group 6 air transports get taken around the back and dropped off, escorted by group 5. This one is the least expensive, really as air transports are cheaper than HA mechs even if you have to have twice as many to get anywhere. I use this one when there are multiple islands. I don't build ships as this is a better way to get around anyhow. Again the key here is organization. The transports carrying artillery get dropped off last and furthest back. Scout a landing site right before you go, hate to find out there's a fortress there now.

-A combination of land attacks from groups 1-3 with no Heavy Assault mechs and an air attack in a different place from group 5 while group 6 drops off group 7 (Jedi) in a rear area. This one gets pretty hairy to keep going. Usually I do this one when there are insufficient resources to build a large number of heavy assault mechs. This is also better if you're trying to stop a monument from being built or something.

That's a pretty good strat, and handy from an organizational outlook too, although i can never get it together enough to have more than 5 groups - or if i have that many, it's because 2 of them are in another part of the map (for example - when i'm playing 2 med 'puters - i need something to prevent the evil 'puter from helping his evil ally, etc. - you get the idea). I also like a liberal sprinklying of anti-air in a few pockets. Maybe an aa-big weapon deally to throw in with the cannons, and a couple of aa troops to escort some of the other groups. Also the bombers (if i use them - which i'm doing less) tend to be on their own and the fighters are sooooo multi-purpose they have their own grouping.
Note: i'm kind of like chessack in that i like to defend HARD until i have a sizeable force. At the same time find an opponant's "main path" and guard it with assorted planes/speeders, etc. When i have the force, and i've taken out a hostile army with few casualties, then i go after that hostile fairly methodically - cannons and mechs for the aa-turets, planes for the guns, and pummels and cannons when both are too close together.
Oh yeah, and jedi's for opponants airbases and troop centers :)
Regards,

Artorius,

First off, I apologize if I have misunderstood your post in any way. Please let me know if anything I say is incorrect based on your strategies or experiences.

Your strategy seems to make use of all manner of units. The problem I see is that each civ has strengths and weaknesses. Since you have no AA units in your army, just some fighters, a swarm of rebel air units could quickly incinerate your air power and pick off your troops with reckless abandon.

Not building a bunch of troops or upgrading them until you get your Fortress? By the time you start producing special units, a Wookie troop and air rush will overrun your base. Heck, the Empire will just send Sith to turn some of your special units against you and use mechs to wipe you out since you have held off for more powerful units.

Diversity, in many games, is a good tactic but too much diversity thins your strong suit and builds on your weaknesses. I would personally much rather take the resources away from my weak points and pour them into my strong points.

i.e. Rebels should concentrate on their Jedi and Air, Empire should concentrate on mechs and heavy weapons. I believe that an army capitalizing on its strengths will usually outperform a more diversified army.

Just my opinion based on the fact that the computer tends to build fairly diversified armies and I stomp on them at medium level. I think I would have a much harder time defeating the same army at the same level if, for instance, the rebels bought more jedi/air and fewer bounty hunters (I never use Jedi)/heavy artillery.

SirKai

Originally posted by Lipid

Note: i'm kind of like chessack in that i like to defend HARD until i have a sizeable force. At the same time find an opponant's "main path" and guard it with assorted planes/speeders, etc. When i have the force, and i've taken out a hostile army with few casualties, then i go after that hostile fairly methodically

Yup... defending the "main path" of an attacker is crucial.

I have noticed, even on Moderate, that the computer does sometimes (not every game, in fact, not in most games, but sometimes) try to go around my main defenses and find a "back door." It's kicked my undercarriage across the map a few times, doing this -- since I'm not normally quite ready for such a thing from the computer. Perhaps it's more creative than we think.... ;)

SirKai,

That's not quite what I said, or at least not what I meant. I build lots of troops to defend before I get a fortress up. Once I build a fortress, however, I stop building Troop Center units, at least for the Empire and TF.

I probably am vulnerable to a swarm of rebel air units, however the computer never seems to hit me with this. As the rebels it does do air rushes but I have lots of air turrets at my strong points and near the center of my base. If they do get lucky and hit an undefended area I quickly build a turret there. The computer doesn't seem to be smart enough to bomb workers on resources, so I don't worry about that. Wookie rushes get slaughtered by the numerous turrets I build for defense in tech 2 and then the fortresses in tech 3.

'm actually quite vulnerable to a group of air transports that drop pummels or HA Mechs by my command center, but the computer doesn't do that either.

I'm sure all of these strategies would fail against a decent human opponent. They seem to work all right against the computer however. I win about 9/10 at Medium lately.

While it may not be clear from my post, I do specialize with the different strengths of the armies. When I'm playing Rebels I tend to rely on the Air Pool and build a larger air force in general. I will do the air assault more commonly too because their mechs are not the best. With the TF I rely on the Destroyer Droids and sometimes don't even build any Jedi. The Empire uses the ATATs of course. I still keep the groups under the same numbers so I can remember what they do.

I also agree with Chessack. Sometimes the computer does a tricky maneuver and comes around the back of your defenses. Really that's the one advantage the computer has, it can essentially be in multiple places at once where your attention has to be focused somewhere.

Don't beat yourself up too much about "only being able to win against the computer." The computer has been programmed by humans to use a particular strategy. Might be the same strategy almost all the time, regardless of civ -- and that might give it disadvantages in some ways, but as you note it has advantages in others. If you beat the computer 90% of the time, then you've got to be a fairly decent player. A little MP experience, and you'd probably be good at that too.

army:
-30 artillery
-full group of berserkers
-full group of repeater troopers
-30 AA-troops
-10 Fighters

defend, wait for the enemy to kamikaze his army on my defend, and then attack myself.

This is prolly a bad use of resources, however i find that a few more planes and fewer ground stuff (the artillary is all gold . . . ) can really wreak havoc with an attacking force. For some reason, i have not found the 'puter to be paranoid enough to send in enough AA with it's attacks (if it sends any - mind you, this is on hard setting), so it's quite easy to pick off his big scary artillary and stuff with planes. Even human foes don't send in enough AA's to counter a strong air defense. It sounds crazy, but i think that resources on defence are better placed in air (esp if you're playing wookies/naboo/rebels).
Oh yeah, and don't forget fu towers.
Regards


p.s. Chessack - yeah, the computer tends to find a back door, but they are not consistant at attacking it. They just send little "feints" to see if i'm paying attention - easily rockable forces that i don't usually have to think about.

I played a game last night that was going great. I was closing off every possible route to my base with walls and towers. I was sending my workers to the last back door, in the far rear, when I see an entire attack squad of fully upgraded troops attack the center of my base. I know they were fully upgraded because I had my 15 troops mostly upgraded and they got mowed down. I'll be darned if the computer didn't sneak its troops to the very back of my base without messing with my front defenses or side walls. Granted, that's the first time the computer has done that to me in something like 20 games but it sure surprised the hell out of me. Needless to say, I got cheesed like a bonehead.

The computer found a backdoor to my base, and slaughtered almost all my farmers and destroyed my command center b4 i was able to get the strike mechs and mech destroyers down...surprised me too, since they usually were going through my turret defense and getting slaughtered by my strike mechs and mech destroyers before they even got inside the base.

This has never happened to me. Were you guys at tech 4 or still at tech 3? I've had the computer beat me with a tech 3 rush but usually it was two allied computer players ganging up on me. Usually one-on-one I might get an invisible jedi or a single mounted trooper in the back way but what can they accomplish on their own?

It sounds like the best defense for something like that would be to keep your eyes open and ready to hit that alarm button to put your workers in the command center. That's what the computer does when I use this tactic.

The CC has lots of hit points and if you build a shield for it and an AA turret or two, you're set. Maybe I'll start to do this if it looks like I could get faked out.

you could build more than 1 command center. make 2 bases...

Originally posted by SirKai
I played a game last night that was going great. I was closing off every possible route to my base with walls and towers. I was sending my workers to the last back door, in the far rear, when I see an entire attack squad of fully upgraded troops attack the center of my base. I know they were fully upgraded because I had my 15 troops mostly upgraded and they got mowed down. I'll be darned if the computer didn't sneak its troops to the very back of my base without messing with my front defenses or side walls. Granted, that's the first time the computer has done that to me in something like 20 games but it sure surprised the hell out of me. Needless to say, I got cheesed like a bonehead.

Yeah, the computer can occasionally put on quite a show. Presumably it is a random algorithm with a small probability of occurrence. But when it does... the computer can really kick your undercarriage around.

i am newbie at the game and i dont play humans that much but wit the computer i find it gets boring after a while cus once u have a solid defence u realley won the game it just matters how long it takes to kill them i think. my strategy for winning is kill them before they kill u and try not to loset that many units :ewok:

So you're bored with the Defend and Destroy strategy? Try something new ... a water battle. Pick one of the scenarios that is more water than land, play against a good seafaring civ, and see what happens. Granted, I've never tried it, but it would sure be a change from the norm.

SirKai

Um, the intial defense strat works against the computer to a certain point.

Against a human opp. Just buys you time. Winning on the zone requires fast tech times and good rushes and rush counters.

T2 Tower rush: rairly works on a human. Since you can move your resource gathering away from towers or block the towers from coming closer with your towers.

T2 Trooper rush (trush): gimme a break.

T2 jedi rush: spendy, throw a few mounties in, can be worth it. Leaves you open for an attack, lots of nova.

T2 Mounty rush: very quick and dirty way to kick some booty, but leaves you vurnable to an attack since you spent a lot of nova.

T3 air rush followed by a pummel drop: assured win if opp doesn't know the counters.

T3 fast pummel drop. Goodbye CC. Game over.

T3 strik mech rush: upgrade your armor and lasers at war center, send in five SM, game over, workers dead.

General notes on early tactics:

Always have a diverse group of units. One or two types of a units in an army can be countered to easily.

Intelligence is critical, scout out your enemy as soon as your find your free food. See if they are going carbon, ore or nova, this will tell you what type of rush they are planning. After you have scouted your enemy (and killed their nerfs so they can't use them if you are mean like me) using waypoints and patrol, have your scout circle your base endlessly to watch for attacks. 80% of the time your opp will attack in a line from his/her base to yours. Two or three sentry posts hidden around trees can give you a nice early warning system.

Forward base building is crucial for sustained quick and sustained attacks.

Originally posted by _Xenocide_


Intelligence is critical, scout out your enemy as soon as your find your free food. See if they are going carbon, ore or nova, this will tell you what type of rush they are planning. After you have scouted your enemy (and killed their nerfs so they can't use them if you are mean like me) using waypoints and patrol, have your scout circle your base endlessly to watch for attacks. 80% of the time your opp will attack in a line from his/her base to yours. Two or three sentry posts hidden around trees can give you a nice early warning system.



Yup this tactic is an absolute must, and if you are playing a similarly skilled player it will make a huge amount of difference! Whenever you have a little spare time make sure you carry on scouting.

It looks like I fit into te defend and build option here, but I do it alittle differently.

W 1-3 build five prefabs/CC build 15 workers.
After Prefabs are done its carbon for me.

The first 5 or 6 workers are carbon. I build two power cores and get to work on a troop center, sea base and carbon proc fac. I use tralwers to get food. Early in the game they arentnas vulnarable. If no water, I build about five farms.

I usually bulld an animal pen next and find any banthas or nerfs in the area and slap them in there. This is usually tech 2 by now and I build a mech facility and jedi/sith temple. THen I crank out a few apprentices. I have also started collecting Nova and ore with about 5 workers each.

I also build a war center and get all the upgrades I can BEFORE T3.
Once i get to T3 I start building jedi knights, air units, heavy units, fortresses and ring my base with walls and turrest and AA turrets.

I have slowly been nuilding up my troop center units as well, of all kinds. I send out some scouting parties and see what I can see, checking up on the opponents prgress and targeting wrkers all the time. This wont kill him, but he has to spend resources on replacing them and his harvesting is down.

Once I reach T4, I start harvesting at double the pace if I can. I increase m workers and build another command center close to a resourc rich area and begin harvesting as fast as I can. I get all upgrades and begin to build a huge, one puch army that will knock out one opponent and keep another at bay for as long as I can. I find that if you upgrade your turrets and AA turrets as soon as you can they can pretty much knock most units out, esp if you throw one or two trropers into them.

by this time I have also sent out a few jedi masters to recon and convert enemy units and buildings. I love to convert enemy power cores and shild generators around mech factories and troop centers and have my own units come pouring out into their camp!!! That works very well. I know the enemy will destoy it all before long, but I dont care. the damage is done.

I launch my big army after my jedi are done or dead. They usually end up making about half way thru the base before they surrender.

Give it a shot and dont forget about how valuable a navy can be to back up your assualt. Cruisers have a wicked long range and destoy inland targets for you without themselves being hurt, esp if they are guarded by destroyers and firgates.

I hope to someday get a computer with a fast enough connection to go online, so far I have pnly used this on land and it works pretty well!

Fido

:dtrooper:

scout, scout, scout. and after you are done scouting set scout to patrol around your base to look for forward builders. Wish I had done that on more than 1 occasion.