Human Strategy

Humans in Achron are characterized by a high power/cost ratio, decentralized base construction, and more adaptability in production. They are also highly building-oriented, generally requiring more production capacity than other factions, since all buildings build units serially (one at a time). Importers are used to generate Reserves, the Human special resource for producing units (each unit requires one with the exception of the Mech), and their teleportation and chronoportation abilities are tied to separate gate structures.

Common Opening

Humans have many different openings as of recent patches, allowing for a lot of different play-styles. Typically, your starting Resource Processors are used to harvest liquid crystal, and then you build an extra RP using one of your marines, while using a SOP and the other marine to scout. This combination is particularly good and can defeat the scouts of other factions, making it more time consuming for your opponent to scout you than simply taking the shortest route. After you reach the base and have spotted what configuration your opponent has RPs and what buildings they have opted for, you should echo the units out.

Once you have 50 LC, use the marine in your base to build an Armory, or you can save for 70 to build a Factory. This timing is important since otherwise your initial importer's reserves will be wasted as it reaches its maximum storage of three.

Once you've done this, keep trying to build RPs, building a unit every so often to avoid maximum storage on the importer. You should try to build LC first, getting to about 5-6 RPs on the LC crates. Do not worry about using multiple RPs on a crate; the mining out time will be faster but usually this is ok for the early stage of the game, as it'll take some time and there usually is a good expansion to move your RPs to later. Then, depending on your strategy, you'll want to build 3-4 RPs on Q-Plasma before considering expanding. (If you're being harassed, you can safely stick at a lower production rate of 5 LC RPs and about 2 QP RPs.)

If you start with the Armory option, you'll be opting for a more defensive play. Infantry are slow but effective for cost and a lot cheaper in the long term. They are also more dependent on reserves to reach a good number, so you'll likely need to build an extra importer or two early on. Do not consider this opening vs Vecgir unless confident since their Zayin Pulser unit will defeat infantry swarms using splash damage without taking any damage in return. This option is ok at playing defensively vs early Grekim pushes, since the infantry can take on the base class units well, especially when simbasing. This option is also pretty good vs human players since their early factory units aren't effective vs your infantry without numbers and a large enough swarm can render aggression useless.

If you start with the Factory option, you'll be opting for a more aggressive play. Each individual unit is more expensive than your standard infantry but relatively cheap compared to the units of other factions. CESO does not have early healing on vehicles, so any damage your units take will likely be permanent at early stages of the game unless you use echo tactics. Therefore, building these in small squads and using attention on what engagements you take and do not take is vital. This is very effective vs Vecgir since the Zayin Pulser is unable to damage Lancers making the Lancer unit deal free damage to them if they are spammed too heavily. The ATHC, although it will not defeat a Zayin Pulser in a straight up fight, is more survivable against it than an infantry unit, and can deal with Teth Pulsers that are trying to take out your Lancers, as well as detect rushes for early cloaking units. With micromanagement, this can also work pretty well vs certain types of Grekim play. Against humans, this is harder to pull off but because of your larger ATHC range, micromanagement can be used to pick off infantry at a distance.

After this opening, you'll want to start expansions and teching up.

Humans vs. Humans

When fighting other Human players, it's important to keep eyes out for their expansions while making sure to preserve your own. It's also important to keep an eye on army movement and compositions, as Humans primarily move directly from their bases to their targets, and are thus fairly easy to intercept. Whenever possible, kill their builder Marines while protecting your own.

Human opponents are particularly dependent on production warfare and teching risk-reward. Countering your opponent's units usually involves specifically building specific counter units and protecting the more vulnerable units while allowing tougher units to soak damage. Humans will unlikely get gate tech till much later in the game, so you do not need to worry necessarily about early teleport or chronoport attacks, although you should echo scout regularly to make sure that gates are not being produced. Humans also rarely build their cloaking unit due to its high price and weak damage output, so cloak detection is not important to consider.

Human strategies boil down to two main styles of play; factory-heavy play and macrofab-heavy play.

Factory-heavy play often revolves around getting Machinery as the primary tech early with a mix of ATHCs and Lancers to start, before transitioning to Tornades and Tanks when money supports it. Factories are cheaper than the Macrofab, meaning that more can be produced earlier and more can be spent on units earlier than tech. Tornades are heavily effective against most of CESO's ground-based units and have health, and are mostly vulnerable to frigates and tanks (also ATHCs but only when highly outnumbered). Each of its counter units have major weaknesses, making the Tornade a good option, but the Tornade is extremely expensive to support as a unit. The Tornade also counters the Twin MAR, one of the most devastating units in the CESO arsenal, and an important unit to be able to be dealt with. Tanks are primarily used as damage sinks to protect your more vulnerable ground units, as well as decent anti-air units to defeat most enemy air threats. With Ground Units, Tanks also can become a Heavy Tank, and although the primary stats aren't much of an upgrade for the cost, they are good in an emergency, and Heavy Tanks also gain nanite infect when specials are created later, allowing for devious play. Later, purchasing the Aerospace upgrade will give the Tornade more damage as well as Lancers, and unlock nukes for Heavy Cruisers making air superiority the ultimate goal of this setup. Even if playing factory-heavy, you should build at least a single Macrofab since it will provide MFBs for healing your damaged units, as well as some decent alternative options such as frigates and the Heavy Cruiser.

Macrofab-heavy play often revolves around quickly getting to the Macrofab. This is achieved by building some early units with your factory for defense purposes, and then getting a Mech when sufficient resources are available to construct it. Machinery is often skipped, as the primary goal is the early production of Twin MARs and Frigates. These units are highly powerful but more expensive. The Twin MAR requires the Ground Units upgrade so this is researched first. The Twin MAR is the strongest ground superiority unit and has no rival in the ground theater; dealing massive damage and also splash to decimate any clumps of weaker units. The Frigate also has a really high anti-air DPS, although it has very weak armour and needs protection. Together, these two units are pretty good vs enemy compositions, although more expensive to support. Once Machinery is researched, access to MFBs/Blackbird becomes available and these make your composition even tougher with healing. Chronoporting also becomes super useful with the Twin MAR since an unintercepted Twin MAR (air will be needed to deal with it effectively) will quickly demolish a base.

Once you have gate tech, make sure to use it as it is very hard to respond to defensively unless the opponent has gate tech. Teleportation will give your units large maneuverability advantage; especially infantry who otherwise have range problems. Slingshots are good for logistics, being cheap and movable, but teleporters are better for launching attacks into enemy territory. Chronoporters should be placed in a good location in your base since they can later be used for Temporal Soliton Shield deployment.

If a game between two players is very even, late game specials may come into play. TSS will allow incredible protection since only the Lancer, a relatively weak despite cheap unit, can break it. This makes it a somewhat good consideration if your opponent has been producing few Lancers as a primary means of defense or facilitating a devastating attack (such as a Heavy Cruiser with nuke). Remember however that TSS prevents teleportation and chronoportation. TSS is particularly good for applying on buildings since they cannot teleport or chronoport anyway. Bear in mind a chronoporter is required for producing TSS, and it takes a long time to apply TSS on a larger number of things without production of multiple chronoporters. Nukes should also be used to defeat any form of non-TSSed turtling that may occur in vital areas of enemy territory.

Humans vs. Vecgir

Vecgir use more costly but generally superior (in the sense of brute force, rather than efficiency) units to fight you with, and have far more teleportation and maneuverability options.

Vir-class units in general should not be worried about, as they are expensive for cost and more often utility units. The exception is a Shin Vir paired with some other units at a very early stage of the game, since it can place a proxy foundation in your base for a foundation rush. Virs do make great damage soaks later when they de-pilot from a vehicle, so when fighting larger numbers of Vecgir units, it can sometimes be a good idea to manually target bigger threats and leave the virs alone (although they should not be outright ignored). The Teth Vir is an exception, as it is more vulnerable, but extremely damaging vs air units, and your light air units (lancers and frigates) should avoid it in general unless outnumbering it, and even then be wary of the Vir's splash.

Early game Vecgir focuses around the Depot-only units mostly. Zayin Pulsers are a powerful anti-ground artillery unit with splash that is available almost straight away. Its armor isn't extremely strong, and the unit cannot fire at air, making the Lancer the best unit to deal with this annoyance early. Teth Pulsers are a quite weak anti-air unit and lose the splash of their predecessor, but have more armor and are able to skip-teleport, and if they are destroyed will drop the deadly Teth Vir. These should likely be gotten rid off, along with the vir, by your army primarily, to allow your Lancers to safely pick off Zayin Pulsers that are likely among the army. Zayin Terchers are the last depot-only unit, and they are more expensive than Zayin Pulsers, and deal less damage in general, but are capable at fighting both ground and air, deal splash, have more health, and can also cloak. However, if you have detection, these are not overly scary because the QP cost is more significant for this unit and the LC cost like requires cuts in RP development. However, make sure to have detection in critical areas at all times else these can be a nuisance.

Vecgir are able to manually upgrade skip-teleport on each unit. This is quite a likely occurrence, especially early game, since without skip teleport, engaging Vecgir units is a lot easier, but once it's upgraded, the Vecgir player is more able to fight on their terms. Take care since if this is done, attacks can appear to come from completely different directions. A good idea is to have units patrolling to stop this kind of ruse.

After this, Vecgir play usually transitions into two types. One is the Specials variant, and the other is the more standard mass teleport army.

The more common strategy is to get the Aerial Control Center to produce more advanced units. The units that'll likely be produced is the Teth Tercher, a strong air superiority unit that rivals your frigate but with a lot more survivability and the Shin Tercher, a powerful, expensive bomber with decent health and some survivability. Once that is done, Gate Tech will likely be researched early. This is because it gives all the Vecgir units free skip-teleport and they don't require manual upgrading. This will now make their army hypermobile and difficult to deal with directly as they will try to force engagements. You will need to constantly echo harass (try not committing unless the opponent is weak as the depot heal ability from nearby generally allow the Vecgir to win engagements on their home turf, especially if they follow with a chronoport later) the enemy base to prevent the Vecgir player from coming out on top, while leaving a solid defense at every expansion as the army can teleport to kill undefended patches with ease. Once the Vecgir has Chronoporting, it can potentially be lethal since it can follow any chronoport with a teleport, making the attack hit near the maximum of 3 minutes away, devestating any weakness in your defense.

The Specials rush usually focuses on not producing the ACC till later, and instead upgrading Halcyon class from the Annex. Once that is done, the Zayin Halcyon is produced while Specials is being researched. The Halcyon is given manually upgraded skip-teleport, and then moves towards your base. While near it, it'll teleport in, Comm Jam your structures and units, rendering them useless, and then skip away. This is a game ending maneuver if you have not quickly gotten a Macrofab and produced Frigates (the status clearing unit) or the MFB (bear in mind this requires Machinery as well). However, if you do stop it in time, this is a major setback for the Vecgir player, as an ACC is required for the Shin Halcyon that does the Nanite Infect, and it will likely not harm you too much since frigates are effective vs it, and he has also likely cut army production to facilitate this rush. Bear in mind that Halycons are very, very tough units, but do not deal a lot of damage comparatively, making them not very dangerous in combat against your superior numbers.

Care should be taken in keeping things defended and you should be pushing your advantage with your efficient units by keeping them alive. Vecgir's strength in dictating play is offset by the difficulty of play for their individual units to be directly effective. Avoid engaging the Vecgir army at base since their foundations and depot heal will grant really effective healing to their army. Vecgir has an easier time defending under their foundations, but foundations cost a lot to produce so do not worry about a large army if they've got a very large empty foundation pool, and instead press for an economic advantage; foundations can later be wiped with nukes.

Vecgir players rarely use skip-torpedos because of their cost and general ease of interception (although they do skip on route, they do not skip near their target, and therefore a large enough force can shoot them down), but be wary that when Weaponry is researched these can be launched anywhere from the ACC.

If the game hits the late game, you will have a much easier time with your own specials play (TSS); the Vecgir's mobile counter to the TSS is the Shin Pulser, which is a very weak unit and forcing your opponent to build them is a big setback for them. TSS is particularly good at dealing with Slipgate repel that your opponent may use to disrupt attacks.

Humans vs. Grekim

Grekim have many different focus-types and generally the best strategy is to work out what the opponent is doing and counter that style, as well as making sure that there is always a solid defense since Grekim have an easier time making chronoportation attacks deadly.

Early game, it is difficult to expand vs the opponent since their basic units (Octo, Pharo and Sepi) are superior to your own infantry and almost on par with your basic factory units. The Octo is a really dangerous, high health melee unit that rips infantry apart, but because of its size, you can use simbasing to protect your units and make the Octo less of a threat. Careful using marines since they deal a tiny amount of splash that will hurt anything near the Octo including themselves! The Pharo is a damaging ranged unit that deals splash, and unlike the Octo does not need to worry about simbasing so much, but it has less health and should be easier to kill for that reason unless outnumbering you or you clump too much with your units. The Sepi is a ranged unit that does not deal much damage vs your ground units but is highly effective against air and will defeat Lancers easily. Take care of Sepis among the troops near the past since the Sepi can also morph relatively quickly into a Reaph, a structure that heals nearby Grekim units, making their compositions tougher.

The Grekim can also produced one advanced unit right off the bat, the Octopod. The Octopod is pretty strong vs your weaker units and pretty good against both ground and air, and early game is extremely strong but its low health means it falls easily without Reaph support. Some players especially like to rush this within the first minute by moving one of their starting RPs to mine Q-Plasma, taking a "pull", and then moving the RP to mine Liquid-Crystal. The Octopod is the weakest of the middle tier units available for Grekim but should not be underestimated, especially in numbers.

Once Grekim researches Advanced Structures from their Reaph, they will likely produce a Spyre. This will allow access to two further mid-tier units, the Sepipod and the Pharopod. The Sepipod is an air superiority unit that dominates the skies, is able to get rid of TSS, and can detected cloaked units. Avoid engaging this with your air units at all costs (although the frigate is ok), and use ground units to engage it since the Sepipod has poor anti-ground damage. The Pharopod is a bomber that can cloak for long periods of time, and is often rushed alongside chronoporting. Make sure to have SOPs or ATHCs (your early cloak detectors) dotted around your critical areas at all times to fend these off (later you can also use Tornades and Turrets).

Grekim players usually research chronoporting very quickly to take advantage of their superior time control. The Arcticus gives control of groups in advance, allowing for a Grekim player to pre-plan an attack and execute it using very minimal chronoenergy. Grekim players also do not require gates and can chronoport right inside your base, attacking them at vulnerable moments. You will need to pre-plan for these cases and be very wary of the strong attack capabilities of the Grekim.

Later in the game, the Grekim player may start their advanced triad and research ligo class. This will allow the construction of three powerful units; the Octoligo, Sepiligo and Pharoligo. The Octoligo is a ground unit that has a high splash damage, and is pretty good for defense. It has a problem with its lack of mobility and is therefore less commonly see. The Sepiligo is a very fast air superiority unit with no rival and will decimate air units with ease. The Pharoligo is a slow, long range aerial siege unit with splash primarily used to decimate ground formations. It also is capable of a chronofreeze attack. Ligo class units are extremely deadly, and expect to take many losses from them. You'll need an overwhelming advantage to defeat them. For this reason, try to avoid letting the game go to late game, especially since TSS will be almost completely useless (the Sepipod deals with it easily, clearing 2 at a time, and is also a good unit). If the game does go this long, consider nuking any clumps near the edge, and using teleportation attacks constantly since Grekim cannot teleport and this constrains their mobility.

Make sure to continually exploit the Grekim weakness of difficulty in expanding to try to attain victory. Grekim are very good at defense with Reaphs and domes as well as generally strong units so once these are setup it is extremely hard for you to punish expansions and thus you should try to stop these beforehand.