Empires Player Guide

Table of contents:

These hints will help you on your way towards having a fun first game of Empires. Have fun, and see you on the battlefield!

In Empires, TEAMWORK IS KEY. Go in alone and you'll take out two or three guys, go in with your teammates and you'll take out an entire forward base.

General Vehicle Tips

• While shooting any tank cannon, hold down the handbrake (space bar by default). This reduces recoil, improves accuracy and prevents your tank from moving around during firing.
• When overheated, don't press any movement keys to cool down faster. With the exception of the Fission engine which only cools down whilst moving!
• Infantry are easily run over, but they can throw sticky grenades on you if you're not careful.
• Damage from biological weaponry occurs over time and first damages the armor plates. Don't let it get to your hull or you'll surely lose your tank!
• All treaded vehicles can rotate while standing still. Use this ability to expose your strong side towards the enemy.
• Honk your horn with H (by default) to attract the attention of your teammates. (Or do a wicked Dukes Of Hazzard-styled intro with the Northern Faction Light Tank!)

Making your vehicle

• As a general rule of thumb, if you're going to buy a jeep, just get an APC instead and park it somewhere safe and walk the rest of the distance. Your team will love you for the extra spawnpoint, and your commander won't get mad at you for wasting resources. Plus, if you die, you won't have lost your ride!
• Sometimes there are a lot of different weapons, armor, or engines you can choose to put on your vehicle. If you're not sure what type of tank you should make or how you should customize it, don't be afraid to ask your teammates for advice.
• You can recustomize your vehicle on a Repair Pad. Drive onto it and bring up the Vehicle Customisation Menu (V by default) and select your new loadout. You will pay the difference between the two loadouts and even get a refund if your new tank design is worth less than the old one. Armor repair levels will be set to 0 as a penalty.
• Until you get upgraded armor your tanks will be very weak. Until you get upgraded engines your tank will overheat very easily. Until you get more powerful weapons, your tank won't be able to deal a lot of damage. In other words, a single grenadier can destroy even the powerful heavy tank if that vehicle isn't upgraded, but a heavy tank with the best technology in the game can hold off an entire team! You can always wait until better research has been done (as shown in the top left corner of the HUD) before customizing your tank.

Vehicle Combat

Some vehicle combat pointers:

1. Do not waste your tank.
• Unlike in other games, vehicles are not free and do not respawn when lost. They cost resources that your team can not afford to lose. Attack, fall back and repair, repeat. The team that preserves their tanks and their resources is the team that wins.
• The Engineer is a good class to drive tanks with (especially with the repair upgrade skill) because of their ability to repair in the field quickly. Their Vehicle Cooling skill is also very handy to have when using weaponry with a high heat output.
• Grenadiers also make good tank drivers because of their Defusal skill, which allows driving over enemy mines without detonating them. Be warned however, if you get out of a tank whilst it is parked on mines they will explode, it is you that don't detonate mines, not your vehicle.
2. The right weapon for the right job.
• There are many weapons in Empires, each with a different use. However, as a rule of thumb, machine guns are good against infantry, cannons are good against tanks, and missiles are good against buildings and, to a lesser extent, tanks.
• Standard cannons aren't that strong against buildings. For example, several level 1 turrets are better and quicker dispatched by using infantry grenades / grenadier mortars instead of wasting tank shells. On the other hand, upgraded weapons like the High Explosive Cannon can destroy turrets very quickly.
• High Explosive Cannons and Nuclear missiles are very effective against infantry, and certain machine guns (High Explosive, Depleted Uranium and Bio Machinegun) can damage tanks as well as infantry.
3. Fight smart!
• Use your teammates and allied tanks. Two medium tanks are better than one heavy tank. Make sure to work as a team. If the enemy is focusing fire on a teammate and you still have full armor, try ramming the enemy tank to block his attack on your teammate. Also, make sure you both concentrate your fire on one target at a time, to eliminate it quickly.
• Keep an eye on your heat levels. If someone is far away from you and driving in circles while you just sit there spamming your weapons, he might just be baiting you. Once your heat levels reach the top of the bar, most engines will stall and you will be unable to fire your weapons, he'll swoop in for the kill. Different weapons cause more heat when firing than others, so make sure to take that into account aswell when selecting the loadout. Also, keep in mind that some weapons are specifically designed to overheat enemy vehicles.
• Wait until you have a good, clear shot before firing your weapons. You have to consider your tank's speed and the enemy tank's speed when firing. It is tricky, but keep practicing and you'll get the hang of it in no time.
• Pay attention to your surroundings. For example, if you're fighting in no-mans land where neither team has the advantage, don't be afraid to retreat and lure the enemy tank into following you. If you can lure him into the range of some turrets, start blasting him and try to ram him so he can't escape the turret range. This also gives you a longer distance to chase the damaged enemy tank before you run into his own turrets. This is just one example of how you can use your surroundings to your advantage, so pay attention to what's happening in the map!
• Watch out for mines. They cause a lot of damage to vehicles, and can often kill a non-upgraded tank with a single mine. For this reason, Grenadiers are a great tank driving class because you can choose the Defusal skill, which will let you drive over mines without setting them off. Make sure you don't get out of your tank over enemy mines, as it's you that stops them from exploding, not the vehicle!