Army of ages(2011)

Army of Ages (Insane) Strategum

Actualizado 1 year ago por Goideneaglet

Army of Ages Insane Mode Strategum

Introduction

I just thought that for the purposes of promoting Army of Ages by enriching it with a somewhat academic atmosphere, I should write up a brief guide on this wonderful game.

I broke up this guide into three parts - the basics, speedy strategies, and slow running.

Part 1. The Basics

Found here are the general mechanics and the unit stats.

General mechanics

Be sure to set your time to 2x! It makes sense to measure runs by their real life time and not so much in-game time because the in-game time can be broken through the tutorial mode. In fact, there were some people a several years ago who were able to make a 0:00 in-game time by beating it completely on the tutorial mode. I found comments on the armor games forums that indicated just this -> https://armorgames.com/community/thread/7825177/army-of-ages-help?page=1
Make sure your water gatherers wells are set to the leftmost column on the bottom left of the game screen! Keep in mind that water gatherers are extremely important for collecting money.
Orders matter a lot! For example, the order in which upgrades you do, or the orders in which unit camps you build.
Note that you can only have up to a maximum of 30 units at a time. This is why if you have too many units that respawn quickly, your slow tanky units can lag behind in numbers!
If it helps, the first enemy turret does 50 damage per shot, and the second and third enemy turrets do 100 damage per shot.
If you are completely new to Army of Ages, then the in-game tutorial mode should help a lot in general. :)

(In context of attacking the alien base) I am not sure if it is possible to direct the enemy spitters to focus only your ground units and not your pterodactyls. If possible, then it would be extremely important for improving your running speed.

Unit base stats

Stone age - tier 1 units

Water reserves - Gatherer ($90): biological, light | attack = 2, attack speed = fast | health = 30 | unit speed = medium | spawn rate = 3 seconds

-Additional notes: ???

Infantry tent - Spear Hunter ($200): biological | attack = 15, attack speed = medium, attacks ground only | health = 65 | unit speed = medium | spawn rate = 3 seconds

-Additional notes: ???

Slingshot tent - Sling Hunter ($320): biological, light | attack = 4, +1 vs light units, attack speed = fast, attacks air and ground | health = 30 | unit speed = medium | spawn rate = 3 seconds

-Additional notes: ???

Boar farm - Boar Rider ($470): biological, heavy | attack = 13, +1 vs biological units, +1 against light units, attack speed = medium(?), attacks air and ground | health = 70 | unit speed = fast | spawn rate = 6 seconds

-Additional notes: ???

Stone age - tier 2 units

Small factory - Heavy Slingshot ($530): heavy, mechanical | attack = 14, +1 vs heavy units, attack speed = medium(?), attacks air and ground | health = 80 | unit speed = fast | spawn rate = 7 seconds

-Additional notes: ???

Big factory - Assault Machine ($540): heavy, mechanical | attack = 35, +3 vs biological, +3 vs light, attack speed = slow, attacks ground only | health = 220 | unit speed = slow | spawn rate = 8 seconds

-Additional notes: At least 65 exp gained for every death.

Pterodactyl nest - Pterodactyl ($330): flying, biological, light | attack = 25, +3 vs air units, +3 vs heavy units, attack speed = fast, attacks air only | health = 70 | unit speed = fast | spawn rate = 6 seconds

-Additional notes: When attacking the alien base, it will ignore all enemies (even in the air) because they only attack air units.

Drachus nest - Drachus ($640): flying, biological, heavy | attack = 22, +3 vs biological, +3 vs light, attack speed = medium, attacks air and ground | health = 120 | unit speed = slow | spawn rate = 10 seconds

-Additional notes: ???

Stone age - turrets

Log turret ($200): attack = 4, attack speed = medium | health = 1500

-Additional notes: ???

Bone turret ($400): attack = 6, attack speed = medium | health = 2500

-Additional notes: ???

Additional additional notes

Some of the upgrade rewards differ for each of the units. For example, in the future age, the fleet beacon's assault ships with maxed out health only adds 80 more health in total. This is nothing compared to the base health of the assault ship (1385 IIRC). Contrastingly, with some of the other units, a max health upgrade can double their base health for example.

Speaking of the future age, I thought it was not prudent to list the stats for any units outside of the stone age, because the fastest possible speedruns should likely stay within the stone age for a full game. It might be possible that the fastest possible strategy involves evolving to the medieval age (the medieval ballistae are very strong and you can pair any unit with them), but I doubt it as of now.

Making use of the base stats

Overall, it seems the boar farm is the most useful foundation for one's army. Its attack and health are slightly worse than the small siege (heavy slingshots), but its price is cheaper with its spawn rate slightly better. In early game, money can be a little bit scarce. Thus, it seems clear that the best first army camp to buy is a boar camp. With it being slightly cheaper than the small sieges also means that the upgrades themselves are cheaper too. The boar stats - therefore - allow us to make a decent number of upgrades in the beginning of the game.

Drachus seem like a complete waste because if you want to upgrade them then you will lose a lot of money that can not be refunded. The more expensive the camp is to buy, the more expensive the upgrades that come along with it. Drachus are very slow and do less damage than big factories and even pterodactyls, despite being more expensive than both of them. Big factory assault machines have more health anyway.

Pterodactyls are essential for the end of the speedrun because they can deal lots of damage to the base without any interference. One popular strategy is to use boars and large sieges to soak damage towards the enemy base while the pterodactyls do most of the base damage. The drawback of pterodactyls is they die easily if the spitters suddenly decide to aim at them.

I am not sure if it is possible to direct the enemy spitters to focus only your ground units and not your pterodactyls. If possible, then it would be extremely important for improving your running speed.

My experience tells me that the spears and the tier one sling men are way underpowered. They also spawn too fast, which is bad because it takes away opportunities for much stronger units to spawn.

In conclusion, the most useful army units for a speedrun are boars, small factories, large factories, and pterodactyls.

Part 2. Speedy strategies

I thought to compile a list of all the different speedrunning strategies that I know of! I also thought it would be interesting to tier it on a list from worst to best, and to explain the rationale behind their spots.

Strategy tier list

F tier: Tutorial Mode lolol

D tier: The Futurist Strategy

C tier: The Modern Strategy

B tier: The Medieval Strategy

A tier: The Bone Stone Strategy (the stone age strategy with bone turrets and large sieges)...or is there a proper name for this? :)

S tier: The Gold Stone Strategy (the stone age strategy with small sieges and no turret)...or whatever the name of my strategy should be lol

SS tier: ??? I have no idea

Just in case you don't know, F tier is the worst, SS tier is the best, and the tiers go in increasing order from worst to best!

F tier: Tutorial Mode

I think the tutorial makes all possible strategies much more slow! I could be wrong, but this is my educated hypothesis.

D tier: The Futurist Strategy

This strategy should average around 11 minutes in real-time or 20 minutes in-game time.

This is probably the slowest and least effective strategy for speedrunning, but it is also the strategy which serves as the foundation for all other strategies except for the one I put on the S tier.

The overarching theme here is to stay in the stone age and grind your way up until 45000 exp, and then to evolve to the future age afterwards. This is much more quick than evolving ages as soon as you can. Why? Because every evolution wipes out your entire army, which will slow down the process in grinding exp. Also, large siege units are practically the best exp grinders in the game as far as I can tell. Thus, it makes sense to keep churning out large sieges in continuum until ready to evolve to the future age.

From what I can figure, the best (fastest) strategy for grinding 45000 exp is to use large siege units but keep their health low. You want to upgrade their health maybe twice or thrice so that you don't get absolutely bombarded, but it helps if they break down more quickly. You get a lot of exp for every destroyed large siege unit.

One good build order could look something like this:

Water gatherers with maxed out running and respawn upgrades. I think it is best to turn on 2x speed after buying the water gatherer camp but before finishing their upgrades.
Bone turret with one damage upgrade (and later on, maybe two or three upgrades).
Large siege units with all maxed out upgrades except for health; just two or three health upgrades is good.
Drachus (dragon) nest with all maxed out upgrades, including health.

5 (if necessary). Boars and/or small siege units to save yourself. If your population becomes 30, you want to make sure that you are spawning more large siege units than anything else. For this, just pause the spawners for the boars or small siege units.

Once you get 45000 exp, evolve to the future age.
Fleet beacon camp and max out the upgrades for the assault ships. Additionally you can recruit maxed out F.A.B.S for best results. However, I would not use angelions nor space marines because their fast spawn rate will ruin the spawning of the assault ships. What about dynamos? Hmm, I find that they are a bit underpowered, I don't think they will hurt but I don't think they will make your win more fast.
Use a shockwave special if you have the exp.
When the assault ships attack the alien base, you can spam arrow specials to weaken the enemy forces.
Voila!

C tier: The Modem Strategy

This strategy should average around 8 minutes in real-time or 15 minutes in-game time.

It is the same as the futurist strategy, except that you want to evolve to the modern age. For this you only need 25000 exp instead of 45000, so it is a little bit faster. With that being said, it will take longer to do a lot of damage in the modern age as no other unit comes remotely close to as powerful as the futurist assault ships.

I believe the best strategy for dealing lots of damage in the modern age and winning quickly to buy all of the heavy units - so the hummers, tanks, choppers (helipads), and airplanes - and max out all their upgrades. I don't think you should use any of the light tier 1 units (marines, rocket marines, heavy marines); they walk too slow and they are more of a defensive unit in my mind. If needed, you can use water trucks for financial support.

At this time, I do not know what is the best order of upgrades for the modern units. I assume respawn upgrades should come first, followed by health, running, and attack? The respawn upgrade is the only one which takes immediate effect; the other upgrades take no effect until the next unit pops out.

B tier: The Medieval Strategy

First, let me preface by saying that I do not think a renaissance strategy is even possible because the riflemen do zero damage to the enemy turrets. It is a strange glitch :(

IIRC, the medieval strategy should average around 5 minutes in real-time or 9 minutes in-game time.

You start the same way as you would in the futurist strategy or the modern strategy, but you only wait for 5000 exp instead of 25000 exp or 45000 exp.

Once you get 5000 exp, evolve to the medieval age. Then, recruit:

Archers with maxed out upgrades (respawn/health -> then speed -> then damage)
Halberdiers with maxed out upgrades (respawn/health -> then speed -> then damage)
When attacking the alien base, you can spam arrow specials to weaken the enemy units

That's it! :) Maybe there is a better unit composition or a finesse, but this one is pretty reliable. I assume adding siege balloons in addition to the archers and halberdiers, or even pairing archers with knights or similar, can also work.

EDIT: In the medieval era, it is viable to recruit maxed out ballistas and maxed out trained eagles!

A tier: The Stone Bone Strategy

This strategy should average around 3 minutes in real-time or 6 minutes in-game time.

You start out the same way as you would in the futurist, modern, or medieval strategies, but with one major difference - you are not trying to grind exp but instead you are trying to win the game in the stone age.

It then follows that you need to make a several changes. For one thing, you are going to want large sieges to have maxed out health early on. Secondly, you do not want drachus but instead you want dactyls. Thirdly, you are going to want to make sure that you add some powerful offensive unit to your army composition, usually boars, but small sieges should also work.

In summary, one good build order could look something like this:

Water gatherers with maxed out running and respawn upgrades. I think it is best to turn on 2x speed after buying the water gatherer camp but before finishing their upgrades.
One bone turret with just one damage upgrade. ALTERNATIVELY, one bone turret with one log turret behind it so that you can sell the turrets later without any financial loss. If you upgrade turrets and try to sell them, you will receive a financial loss because upgrade costs can not be reversed.
Boar camp with all maxed out upgrades (respawn/health -> then speed -> then damage)

-Throw one meteor to kill two purple spiders (I am unsure of the best location on the map)

Sell your turret(s)
Large siege units with all maxed out upgrades (respawn/health -> then speed -> then damage)

-Throw one meteor to kill two purple spiders (I am unsure of the best location on the map)

Dactyl camp with just a couple upgrades
Sell your water gatherers
Slowly finish the upgrades for your dactyl camp. In the meantime, you can throw meteors here and there, just be sure to kill two purple spiders with every meteor.

Voila!

S tier: The Gold Stone Strategy (or Gold Knuckle Strategy?)

This strategy should average under 3 minutes in real-time or around 5:20ish minutes in-game time.

The philosophy and approach behind this one strategy, differs from the rest. I build no turret at all so that the enemy spiders can help my boars tightly gather up in numbers before reaching the first enemy turret. I also recruit small sieges instead of large sieges, since my experience shows that it wins the game a little bit more quickly. They are less tanky but they have many benefits, such as their ranged attack and their speed.

I developed it by drawing inspiration from one video:

Then, by making a several educated improvements.

The main improvements are found in the order of upgrades. For example - rather than upgrading respawn and speed first, I decided that it was more important to prioritize health upgrades, at least with the boars and the small sieges. Health upgrades are extremely cheap and allow for great survivability.

Another improvement I made was in the timing that I shoot the meteors. I figured that by spacing out my meteor shots more evenly, both in the physical placement and in the timing, things are more efficient that way.

Furthermore, I was able to find a better time to build the dactyls and to sell the water gatherers.

Finally, I thought about building small sieges before boars, but it seems to make very little difference. If anything, starting with boars instead of small sieges seems ever so slightly superior.

A good build order could look something like this:

Buy Water gatherers and boars or small sieges as close to the same exact time as possible, with maxed out running and respawn upgrades for the water gatherers. I think it is best to turn on 2x speed after buying the water gatherer camp but before finishing their upgrades. Afterwards, upgrade the boar's respawn rate two times (so it shows a number 3), the boar's health four times (so it shows a number 5), the boar's running one time (so it shows a number 2), and then the boar's respawn rate two more times (so it shows a number 5).

ALTERNATIVELY, a better upgrade order and/or composition for the boars, may exist. I am not exactly sure.

Once the water gatherers make your money, max out the boar's health, then respawn, then running speed. Then, upgrade the damage just once or maybe twice (so it shows a two or a three).
Wait for 530 gold, then buy small siege units. I am absolutely sure of the best order of upgrades for the small siege units, but I like to upgrade respawn once, upgrade speed once, upgrade health three times, upgrade damage once, then rinse and repeat.

-Throw one meteor to kill two purple spiders (I am unsure of the best location on the map)

Finish the boar's damage upgrade.

-Throw one meteor to kill two purple spiders (I am unsure of the best location on the map)

Wait for 330 gold, then buy dactyls. Upgrade respawn/health/speed/attack just once each
Sell the water gatherers
Slowly finish the upgrades for your dactyl camp. In the meantime, you can throw meteors here and there, just be sure to kill two purple spiders with every meteor.

Voila!

With the tutorial skipped, the best in-game time I got with this strategy was - again - 5:14 minutes. I assume maybe the enemy turrets were glitched out that time so that they did not kill my units, because I remember I destroyed all three enemy turrets in less than 4 minutes in-game time. I actually remember feeling that this was insane.

SS Tier: ???

I am actively searching for ways to improve my speed to 5 minutes in-game time without using the tutorial. I never did better than 5:14 minutes in-game time, but I am sure someone will find a way in due time. If you are up for the challenge to find a new and better strategy, then good luck to you!

Some information which you could potentially use as avenues for exploration in a superior strategy would be the fact that you can use water gatherers to attack in addition to collect water (just by setting the well destination to the third column on the bottom left), or the fact that there is a lot of room for experimentation with the order of upgrades. In addition, there is apparently a glitch to make the enemy turrets stop shooting you; it has happened to me before but I am not really sure how to reproduce it. Apparently it requires that you have lots of units bunched together at once, and I assume it does not work every time. Furthermore, there are probably some minor improvements to be made concerning the meteor placements. Finally, there might be some way to glitch out of the pop-up message at the beginning that says "A strange lifeform has invaded your territory yadayadayada" and/or the part at the beginning where it auto-scrolls your map towards the alien base. At the time of this writing I have not been able to make use of any of this information, but I am sure some of it is useable!

Part 3. Slow running

I did not want to limit this guide to just the formulae for speedrunning, for two reasons:

Slow running can actually help speedrunners to understand the game better, and it may lead to future innovation for speedrunning strategies. For example, let's say I have slow ran many games, and on this run, by the time that I reach the renaissance age, I discover that I have more success with riflemen+spiders instead of riflemen+steamdogs. I could explore the stats and play around with the upgrades to see why that is, and eventually learn that health seems to be the ultimate principle behind my increased success. I can then apply this knowledge to a speedrun by focusing on high-health units and focusing on upgrading their health first before even their respawn rates or anything else.
Slow running reveals a lot of beauty about the game that speedrunning can not possibly capture. Maybe it is just my opinion, but the game is undeniably replay-able.

"The Slow Secret to Success"

I saw a video about the secrets to winning in insane mode ->

According to the video, the secret to success lies in monitoring the maximum population of 30. The videographer's overarching principle is basically "do not buy too many camps or else you oversaturate your 30 pop cap; just buy only 2 to 3 military camps for each age/era".

With all due respect (and I love the enthusiasm and the philosophically oriented analysis of this video), I don't think you have to limit yourself to just 2 or 3 military camps per era to beat insane mode in a slow-run. If you are defending your base, then there may be a time where you want to build 5 or even 6 army camps since your units can die pretty quickly. I think any slow strategy works at all as long as it eventually brings you to the future age, and with enough money to buy maxed out assault ships via the fleet beacon.

In my opinion, the secret behind easy victories is the fleet beacon

I think that what instead qualifies best as a secret to success in insane mode is that anything works at all as long as you can reach future age and buy the large assault beacon ships. Those alone can decimate all enemy units like its nothing. In fact, it is the only unit you need - an assault ship from the future age.

If anything, adding dynamos or angelions to your future army will probably just hold you back. I think I suppose it wouldn't hurt to add small ships (F.A.Bs) though.

Why are fleet beacons so good? Because of their stats.

Their attack is insane and just two or three assault ships can destroy the third turret in 5 seconds or something like that.

Their health is insane, even more so than those nasty looking evolved nightmares (the big flying aliens with the yellow color).

Their speed is actually great, despite of how big the unit is.

Their respawn time is not too bad, I mean it is slow but the other stats outweigh it. I am pretty sure their attack stats are more than double of any other units that exist in the game, but I could be wrong.

Conventional wisdom

Here are some additional tips I would like to share specifically for slow runs:

Stone age: Use any unit composition you want, all upgrades are important except for running. Just don't use boars/small sieges + small/large sieges/boars + dactyl or else you will beat the game too fast ;)). If you want a smooth and easy slow run, you can just pair slingshots with big sieges with dragons, or there are many other possibilities. I don't think it matters if you have 2 camps, 6 camps, or anything in-between.
Medieval age: Use any composition you want, all upgrades are important except for running. I love running eagles just for fun and eagles are my favorite animal.
Classical age: Use any composition you want, all upgrades are important except for running. Just be aware that the riflemen are glitched because they can not do damage to any turrets at all!!
Modern age: Use any composition you want, all upgrades are important except for running. Regular marines are good, I found that the best guarantee for safety was doing regular marines, rocket marines, heavy marines, and then any heavy unit like hummers or airplanes.
Future age: If you want to challenge yourself, just use any composition besides a duo fleet beacon and fab :) :)