This is the second in a 4-part series where I discuss strategies for getting the most out of playing without paying in Transformers: Earth Wars:
In this part, I’ll talk about strategies on how to use your bots most effectively to win battles. Generally speaking, your teams are your primary means of gathering Energon and Alloy, so stronger bots and better teams means faster progress through the game.
Build Bots
Yeah, I know strictly speaking these are “buildings”, but since the Bases article is already super long, and this one quite short, I thought I’d stick it here.
What I want to say on this cannot be emphasised enough: buy build bots with your Cyber Coins if you don’t want to spend money on this game. You should be able to get at least 4 Build Bots using free Cyber Coins, out of a maximum of 5.
As a newbie, I made the mistake of reading a strategy guide that encouraged me to use Cyber Coins to buy Crystals to get more bots. TERRIBLE IDEA! Build Bots are way more important, because by the time you hit the higher levels, when upgrades take 2, 3, 4 days or more, a lack of Build Bots becomes a huge bottleneck and results in wasting a lot of resources when you hit the storage limits while waiting (either that, or don’t play). That, or you spend even more Cyber Coins to make builds finish faster.
Short of paying money and earning achievements, they become increasingly hard to get as the achievements dry up or get more difficult, making it all the more important to spend wisely. Buy Build Bots. Seriously.
Teams
Choosing teams is a matter of finding complimentary abilities. A good team should have a mix of classes. In regular battles, you don’t get to see your opponent’s base in advance, so you should be prepared for anything.
Alliance Wars are a different matter. Being able to see your enemy’s base layout means you can select a team that is deadly to that particular configuration. Everything’s clustered together? Bots with range attacks like EMP Bomb, Orbital Strike and Glass Gas Rockets. Lots of walls? Ironhide/Bludgeon’s wall-busting Rush In.
There are 5 classes, each with its own strengths and weaknesses.
- Warrior: a good mix of attack and defend – their “Rush” abilities also allow you to reposition them during battles to where they’re needed most. But then have to be right next to something to attack it, which makes teams of them vulnerable to “killbox” scenarios where they’re all bunched up together, and get taken out by Mortars or Shock Towers.
- Gunner: their ability to attack from a distance is vital for Laser Turrets, Shock Towers, and just generally keeping out of range of defenses. Their area-of-affect abilities are also great against buildings grouped closely together. However, they’ll lose when forced to fight hand-to-hand at close range, e.g. against a defender bot from an Outpost.
- Air: these bots allow you fly in and pick out individual defenses from afar, before your team even gets close. Useful for taking out Beam Lasers and Mortars. They’re vulnerable to attacks from Laser Turrets and Missile Launchers, but these usually aren’t enough to kill a bot entirely, just drain their energy.
- Healer: healers are exceptionally weak, but their ability to chase around a tank and keep them going for longer makes them quite valuable if you have space in your team. Always deploy behind other bots, to prevent them from being attacked first.
- Special: these bots are mostly just enhanced versions of other classes. E.g. Optimus Prime/Megatron is the perfect warrior, with a “rush” ability that affects the entire team, not just themselves. Bumblebee/Skrapnel is a Gunner with the ability to dodge attacks, etc.
At the minimum, I’d recommend having at least 1x Warrior, 1x Gunner and 1x Air. Who else you include in the rest of your team depends on what you have, how many bots your shuttle can carry, which bots you have and your own play style.
Another useful strategy is to put a low level bot with a powerful team, letting them take advantage of the increased XP, therefore helping them level up faster.
Finally, try to retire any bots that have reached their maximum level. While they might be at their maximum power, any XP attributed to them goes to waste. So try to level your bots evenly so that you can maintain strong teams even when you need to put one back on the bench, and not let any precious XP go to waste.
Abilities
There’s not really a whole lot to say about abilities as a whole. Most of it is already covered in other areas, particularly individual bot abilities above, defending against certain abilities using base design strategies, and how to get enough bling to upgrade them.
What you should do though, is to try and pair certain abilities. For example, glass gas abilities are fantastic when combined with other abilities, because they weaken structures significantly, softening them up for a follow-up attack. Likewise, EMP abilities used on Laser Turrets and Missile Launchers can provide essential cover for aerial attacks.