http://users.bart.nl/~jamin Dark Reign Playing Guide The first few missions all seem laughably easy. For 30 quid, you think, this game should be a bit tougher. Just then, as if reading your mind, Dark Reign leaps up in a whirlwind of frenzy. It Doesn't Have To Be This Way To beat a grandmaster at chess, scientists had to use a blue computer the size of a Land Rover. We should feel rather fortunate then that our desktop computers are grey and nowhere near as large. Like most games in its genre, Dark Reign's thought processes are outlined in its programming. It has a whole checklist of actions and responses that cover almost every contingency. So, if you can get a peek at the script, you can predict the reaction and use it to your own ends. For instance, once we find out that the computer will always chase a moving scout, we can lure some unlucky Spider Bike into an ambush. Defence First The worst mistake you can make is to build a handful of units and immediately start an attack. Those who have tried this have already discovered how unforgiving a good defence can be. If you awoke one morning to find Alexander the Great outside your front door with an armada of Plasma Tanks at the ready, chances are good that he has three times as many of them as you can commit. Had he any less, you'd just laugh as you kicked his arse back to ancient Greece. Until you can equip enough forces to mount a full-scale attack, you're better off working on some kind of base defence. Have a guess at where the enemy is likely to attack the base, and build a turret there. Then place a group of troops behind it. The logic again comes from knowing a bit about Dark Reign's response algorithms. The computer will always attack the first enemy it sees. It follows, then, that if the turret is a bit more forward then the rest of the men, it will become the focus point for an enemy attack. But, 'Ack!' you may say. Won't they just overwhelm the turret and carry on? They would, if not for the infantry group we placed behind it. Whilst the enemy is busy pounding on our turret - our repairable turret - you can order the troops to attack the enemy. The enemy will be so busy fighting the turret, they won't fire back at all. When the base is adequately defended, you should start to think about how you're going to project your power to other parts of the map. Erecting turrets may not always be convenient if you need to defend an out of the way location such as a bridge or fresh water spring. We'll have to find other ways to minimise the damage an enemy can do to our defending forces. Formations Can Save Your Life In any kind of offensive or defensive line, we always want the units with the longer-ranged weapons at the back, and the units with the shorter-ranged weapons at the front. This gives all of the units the opportunity to fire their weapons at anything that wanders into range. If you have Bions, put them in a single file in front of Plasma Tanks. In turn, place the Plasma Tanks in single file in front of the Tachion Tanks. If you keep the front of this formation pointed towards the enemy, only a massive attack is going to move them from where they stand. Enemy units won't be able to squeeze more than one or two shots before they're cut down by the concentrated firepower. The Freedom guard can take this one step further by creating self-sustaining formations. Include Medics or Mechanics amongst the ranks. Repairing damage in the midst of battle boosts the longevity of your fighting forces. Plus, you'll never have to truck units off to a repair bay afterwards. If you need to position your formation elsewhere, you can move them with the formation Move command, which is frequently referred to as the F key. Your group will break up during movement, and regroup into more orderly ranks once they get to the destination. Like the Roman legions of old, you can push the enemy backward using the formation move to inch forwards a square at a time. Let's say that you have a wonderful attack formation - rows and rows of Skirmish Tanks backed up by Triple Rail Hover Tanks. The enemy approaches and you rub your hands in anticipation. Suddenly, your Hover Tanks break out of formation and charge the enemy! When the battle is finally over, you have half a skirmish tank left standing. What went wrong? Fiddling with the Orders Menu It's those AI scripts again. To release you from the tedium of micromanagement, Dark Reign enables you to modify the behaviour of your units. As you've already witnessed, however, a little intelligence can be very dangerous. A thinking soldier is an undisciplined soldier. If we're going to keep our formations steady, we need to knock the IQ levels off a few notches. The equivalent of Stand Ground in Dark Reign is low pursuit, low independence, and high tolerance. This is not the same as the built-in Guard command, which actually gives them some latitude to move. A tank can destroy a turret without harm to itself if it fires at maximum range, but that range is difficult to determine. If you set its independence to high, you don't have to worry about counting pixels. High Independence will guarantee that the tank will fire the instant something comes into range. One caveat: That 'something' might not always be the turret. Medium Independence is a useful setting for tanks and hovercraft with turret- mounted lasers. It's the only setting in which they'll carry out your movement orders and still fire at the enemy. The Scout and Harass pre-sets have a few quirks you should know about. You can expect to lose any units you assign to scout duty, as they always seem to dodge directly into Tachion Tanks. Your units on Harass will gleefully harass the nearest Neutron Accelerator, much to your displeasure and frustration. Furthermore, units follow these pre-sets individually and never as a group. Thus, a group of tanks set on Harass will scatter to the four winds. Don't bother looking for an Escort order, because there isn't one. There's no easy way to make a group of Sky Bikes escort your Hellfire artillery as they move from location to location. Formation move will get them there, but your bikes will still arrive hours before your artillery. Out of Sight, and Out of Mind? Since there is no CNN out here on the Togran home world, you can only see what's going on if you've got someone on the ground personally feeding you information. The Freedom Guard has it easier since their camouflaged Scouts can get a whole lot closer to the action and remain undetected. In contrast, the Imperium Recon Drones are visible targets for any fool with a plasma rifle. Line of sight is something altogether different. Units at a top of a hill can't shoot at troops charging them from the base. In sticky situations in which you can't fire at the enemy until they are right next to you, back up, and leave some space between you and the rim of the hill. Winning the Missions The denial of resources is a basic tenant of real time strategy games. In Dark Reign, you can win many games by finding ways to control the water supplies. Every load of water you can keep for yourself is a load of water the enemy can't use to replace units lost in battle. You'll eventually wear him down completely. Sometimes, however, the goal of a mission is not to just destroy everything on the map. If you're asked to accumulate a great deal of money, remember that you can sell your buildings to make up the cash. Or, if you're asked to rescue some doctor stuck in a bio-lab, you can send a Construction Rig underneath the barriers using a Phase Transport. Construct a second phasing facility upon the ashes of the bio-lab and whisk the doctor off to the landing platform in the bottom-right corner of the map. Serving Suggestions We've packed this section with a splattering of information about the units and buildings, both good and bad. Whether you're fighting with them or against them, these tips will come in handy. Turrets Turrets form the foundations of a good base defence. The smaller turrets can fire at both ground and air units. They don't have the greatest firing range, however, and many enemy vehicles can pick them off from a safe shooting distance. Earlier, we taught you to use a small turret to draw enemy fire away from your units. The heavier turrets last much longer, and hence make better cornerstones. The Neutron Accelerator fires a single burst that can destroy most units out right. A few rounds of fire from your supporting forces can destroy those that don't die immediately. The Rail Platform fires a stream of double rail gun ammo, but neither is invincible. As a commander, you can exploit a number of weaknesses. For starters, the large turrets can't fire at air units and are fair game for the fighter jocks. They also have trouble targeting enemy units at extreme range if those units are below or to either side of the turret. If you have any Tachion Tanks or Triple Rail Tanks in your inventory, you should take advantage of this weakness and blast away from this blind spot. Artillery Though they deliver the same payload, the Imperium SCARAB artillery is more versatile than the Freedom Guard Hellstorm variant. Since they use hover engines, you can position them out in open water where few opponents would look. Also, you can play turtle if they ever get into trouble. Both possess the ability to fire from almost three screens away, but they depend on spotter units to act as their eyes. If you come under bombardment your best course of action is to kill whomever it is that is radioing in the firing co- ordinates. TANKS Phase Tanks If you ever want to set up an ambush, these are the units with which to do it. Phase a row or two and leave them hidden. When the moment is right, un-phase them all and blast away. Re-phase to escape the return fire. Lather, rinse, and repeat. Skirmish Tanks Skirmish tanks do everything well. Their agility, combined with their anti-air and anti-ground capabilities, make them excellent units for base defence. When a strong anti-air or anti-ground presence is needed, skirmish tanks will deliver. Tank Hunters It's hard to get life insurance if you're a Tank Hunter driver. They are the natural predators of enemy tanks, but they have to get close - really close. That's why you should use them to deliver a nasty blow while the enemy is already engaged in a fight. In any other situation, on a level field, they suffer heavy casualties. Tachion Tanks and Triple Rail Tanks In a break with tradition, it is the FG Triple Rail Tank that has the superior anti-armour weaponry, and the Imperium Tachion Tank that has an edge against infantry. Clustering them at the rear of your other vehicles will let you make use of the immense distance over which they fire. At the same time, they'll remain safely out of Harm's way. Mechanics Yes, obviously a mechanic is not a tank, but they warrant a mention here anyway. Tanks backed up by mechanics can destroy whole columns of enemy units without suffering casualties. The computer never seems to use them as well as you, which is lucky as they lend much to a battle. INFANTRY General Troops Freedom guard mercenaries and infantry are powerful not just because you can cheaply deploy so many of them, but because you can stick them into all sorts of vehicles to get them to other places quickly. The Mercenary railgun has slightly longer range than the weapons of the Imperium infantry. Ironically, the best defence against Shredders is to bundle your men in large groups. If you have eight or more of them, the Shredder won't be able to kill more than one or two before being destroyed itself. Don't try this against Martyrs, though! Remember that the Imperium Bion can shoot at airborne units if necessary. Infiltrators To sneak into an enemy stronghold, you have to morph the Infiltrators into enemy troops. The ruse won't last long, so try to get in and out as quickly as you can. Drop them off near the base in a transport, and then enter the enemy buildings. Once inside a building, you can choose which technology you want to steal. Despite what the manual says, your infiltrators won't get exposed as spies if you make them exit voluntarily after you've stolen key technology. Of course, if the computer detects them inside a building and kicks them out, all bets are off. Return the successful infiltrators to your HQ building to add the enemy technology to your repertoire. The Imperium can use Infiltrators as a poor man's Scout. After taking the form of an enemy trooper, try to weasel your way into the enemy's HQ. The entire map will be revealed; units, buildings, and all. While you're in the HQ, steal plans for a building or two. The plans to buildings also contain the blueprints to whatever units the building can create! Martyrs and Zombies It is plain silly to send a group of these together. They'll just wipe each other out unless you send them single file with sufficient gaps in between. Even with their great speed, they might not survive a long run over open plain. Sent over the hills where the enemy has limited line of site, however, they can deal severe damage to armour and totally obliterate concentrations of troops. Rapid Armoured Transports A R.A.T. will transport your troops and construction rigs across any terrain, even open water. Don't be fooled into thinking that the computer has any trouble seeing you, though, as it isn't fooled one bit by the camouflage. Scouts Morph your scouts into a bush or tree as soon as they pop out of the training centre. Unless it is completely preoccupied with an attack, the computer will get suspicious of moving tree trunks. If you're using scouts to explore unknown territory, you should think about using a stop and go technique to greatly reduce the chance of being spotted by enemy units. Move a few steps, stop to make sure no one is watching, then move a few more steps. It takes time, but you won't compromise your scout. Scouts who are on permanent lookout should seek the higher ground. The Imperium Shredders have a nasty tendency to wander over the lower ground. Coincidentally, you can set up a shredder patrol within your own base if you suspect scouts amongst your potted plants. Snipers Snipers can also morph into tree trunks, tiny pebbles and other objects. They can also kill enemy troops with a single shot, but morphed snipers have some trouble deciding when to shoot, even on high independence. You can use them to complement your Triple Rail Hover Tanks since the hulking beasts aren't known for their anti-infantry ability. AIR POWER Flak Jacks and Mobile Air Defence If you have Skirmish Tanks, you really have no need to use either of these for defending your units from airborne attack. Furthermore, if you're looking to protect your base, you should be using the more powerful building-based anti-air defences. Outriders The Outriders are the Skirmish Tanks of the sky. They can fire ten missiles, each a third more powerful than Skirmish Tank missiles, after which they have to return to base for a reload. Outriders have no anti-air capability to speak of. Sky Bikes Also known as the anti-doughnut brigade, they maul Imperium Sky Fortresses. The computer never seems to deploy them in large numbers though. If you're fighting against them, a group of Bions or Mobile Air Defence units will be all you need for adequate protection from the Sky Bikes. Recon Drone Drones are used as a spotter unit for artillery barrages. If you're being shelled, take them down. Sky Fortress The flying doughnut of death strikes fear into the hearts of mortal men. Their pulse cannons take a very long time to recharge, but it doesn't matter much if you have a group of ten or twenty casting loopy shadows over the land. One pulse destroys any ground-based unit. However, like the FG Outrider, the Sky Fortress has no natural defence against airborne attackers. SPECIALTY Phase Transport The phase transport is a very effective delivery mechanism for your spy network, especially when you use the CTRL-click combination to spit them out one by one. You can drop off a morphed scout next to a turret, then move into the enemy base and drop off some morphed infiltrators.The Phase Transport will scout out the terrain under which it travels. By setting a bunch of waypoints, you can criss- cross all over the map, revealing tiny bits of territory during each sweep. Of course, you can always just stick a bunch of tanks into one and pop them up on top of enemy artillery units and other mission critical vehicles. Phasing Freedom guard infantry units can hide underground like the phase tanks. Once you build a Phasing building, press I and any selected infantry will slip under the earth. They can hide underground when danger arrives, then pop up to take pot- shots at buildings and vehicles. Seismic Wave The generator unit won't fit in a transport. You have to drag it through miles of muck and sludge, where it is vulnerable to enemy attack. But when you do get it into position outside an enemy encampment, you can just about demolish the entire base with a single wave. You may also wish to use it as a defence against massive infantry waves. Temporal Gate The gate will provide instantaneous transport for up to three units. It's the easiest way to reach out and touch an enemy's artillery, or to get an Infiltrator somewhere without risking early detection. Contaminator Sometimes the enemy has a water spring or two that you can't easily deny to them. The contaminator was invented for just this occasion. Pop one over using a Phase Transport or Temporal Gate, press A, and click on the spring. Keyboard Shortcuts These keyboard shortcuts aren't listed in the manual, but they'll be useful for you to know. RMB Will pan the map as you move your mouse. ALT + LMB Select all the onscreen units of this type SHIFT + number Centres the map on the numbered group. SHIFT + LMB Add this unit to the current selection. ALT-SHIFT + LMB Add all onscreen units of this type to the selection. ALT-CTRL + LMB Select all units of this type on the map. CTRL + E Select everything on the map. ALT + E Select all onscreen units of the same type, even turrets. CTRL + LMB Makes units emerge from transports one at a time. CTRL + Numberpad These set a map view bookmark. SHIFT + Numberpad Switch to a map view bookmark. Numberpad 1 - 3 This will set the independence level. Numberpad 4 - 6 Sets the damage tolerance level. Numberpad 7 - 9 Sets the pursuit range level. Keypad Home Specifies the exit point for most buildings. Keypad End Specifies the queue-up area for repair bays and hospitals ALT + F2 Quick save. ALT + F3 Quick restore.