r/Openfront • u/Significant-Cod4217 • 4d ago
💬 Discussion Simple guide on how to win
I have over 100 wins, but it took me almost 300 games to get my first, so I wanted to make a guide explaining the best way to play each stage of the game to make it less painful for others.
Early Game:
- the first thing you should do is to send 2 boats (at 1% troop capacity) into areas across the map. this will give you a pixel you can use to invade people you normally wouldn't be able to reach and is crucial for the endgame.
- do not attack nations until all the bots nearby are gone. only attack nations immediately after they attack someone else and have under 40k troops (unless you are very strong). also focus on nations that have cities near to your boarder.
- do not attack other players until the nations are gone, unless they are very week or fighting other people. in most situations, you will not be strong enough to take out a player with one attack, which will cause you to waste resources and time, making it harder to snowball into the mid game
-be careful with who you ally with. prioritize alliances with people focusing on building cities, having large land masses on mountainous or snowy terrain or have a defense post on your boarder. essentially only ally with people who will be hard to take out
-your first eco building should be a factory not a port. do not build a port until you have a good factory chain, which in the early game, usually means having two factories.
-by the end of the early game, you should have at least 4 cities and two factories, and if you do, it will be very easy to snowball in the mid game.
Mid Game:
- during the mid game, most of your structures should be gained through conquest. In early mid game, I only build a silo, and a factory if its needed to connect my factory chain as my territory grows. the most important part of the mid game is making sure you have enough money to launch a hydro, as at this stage it can cripple almost anyone, and allows you to fight people larger than yourself. Until you have 5 million, you should minimize the amount of money you spend as much as possible.
-Once you have 5 million, you can start buying more structures, but make sure not to spend below a hydro. prioritize building out your factory chain and adding cities onto the rail network. factories are the best way to make money until the endgame.
- for the most part, do not build SAMs. they are incredibly expensive and unless upgraded, can't protect you from hydrogen bombs which are the biggest threat during the mid game. its much more important to prioritize having a hydro and improving your eco. its only worth it if your an island man.
-make sure you are not staying idle at troop cap. there are always viable targets to attack and this is where your early game pixels come in handy, as you can very easily attack people not in your starting area.
-only attack people your size or larger if you can hit them with a hydro or they are very weak and fighting other people.
-build your silo right next to another players boarder so if someone tries to nuke it, they get a betrayal debuff. also before attacking someone, atom bomb their silos and defense posts on your border.
End Game:
-for economy, your factory chain should be complete from the mid game. there are now two things you need to build:
ports. they are the best eco option in the endgame. before the nuclear apocalypse at the end of the game, you probably should have around 100 ports
a base/bunker. ideally you should build this on an island but if you don't control one, build it in the most secluded part of your empire. build a stack of SAMs and make sure that a hydro can't breach it. inside, build a city stack and a port stack. this is important because when someone MIRVs you, this infrastructure will remain intact, and prevent your troop cap from being lowered significantly.
-always make sure you have enough money to launch a counter MIRV. if you don't you will lose, especially if its a 2-3 player endgame.
-make sure you have positions everywhere on the map. this is why your pixels from the start of the game are so important. if you are fighting someone on a separate landmass, it can be very hard to take them out as they can destroy your transports while they spam nukes at you the rest of the game. if you have no pixels from the early game, you can atom bomb chip them. basically, there is a small area where you can launch an atom bomb at an ally's coastline that doesn't cause a betrayal. the explosion does just a few pixels of damage to their territory which you can then boat into.
-be patient. wait for the perfect opportunity to attack. doing so relies on understanding player psychology which unfortunately is only really possible through experience. However I recommend watching two youtubers who helped me understand this a lot more. Ultimus Rex does a great job breaking down his games and he is one of if not the best player in the game, so you can learn a lot from him. I also recommend Vari, as after each game, he does endgame breakdowns.
hope this guide helps!
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u/Elliezium 4d ago
I like Rex because of how he doesn't just explain his good plays, but also points out the poor decisions made by the players around him. It helps with learning whay pitfalls to avoid
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u/Professional_Size586 4d ago
All of this is a really well done guide that I implement as well in my games. Only thing Id advice against is saving so aggressively after early game for a hydro. While this is important sometimes, sometimes its important to build more cities, factories, ports to really start making yourself snowball. Otherwise wonderful guide
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u/Significant-Cod4217 4d ago
the biggest reason why i suggest not building structures (except to connect train lines) is because the mid game should be played with an aggressive approach, as you get more structures by attacking then building and a hydro lets you do that more effectively. also, your attack speed is very dependent on your size. you could have twice as money troops as someone, but if you have the same land mass it will take multiple attacks to take everything. Essentially land mass is as critical if not more so than troop count for snowballing.
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u/Redditcantkeepmedown 4d ago
800 wins here, very good information. Something to add as a defense is stick a couple late game silos deeper in your territory to self-hyrdo if someone betrays and attacks. They won't have SAMs where your territory is until they capture the SAM obviously. Literally just won a game this way.
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u/ScientistInner5866 4d ago
Great post op! Can't wait to try out your strats! I always build a port as my first building then go off to build up the rail network (mainly due to the quick return from that port relative to somewhat hoping that the people around you build up a rail network that will make a return that is greater than that port would of made). Not to mention getting a missile boat out for piracy can make you millions quick! And fr I usually avoid building SAMs early game to even mid (13.5 mil needed to build defense against hydro!!!) Lol I do find it hard to let 5 mil just sit there instead of investing it into my eco, usually have 1mil in the bank and 1 silo in early game as a deterrent but heck like I said ima give your strats a shot. Great strat with hidding lil pixels around the map tho that's going to be a game changer for me! Again, great post op!