20. Excessive specialization is self defeating.

Every strategy has a weakness and every unit can be counterred.  Utilizing only one path to victory may be efficient in short games, but it has the limitation of being inneffective when facing an adapting opponent and during longer games.  If that type of opponent is encountered and you are unable to adapt your strategy to his shifting methods, then you are condemned to defeat when your first attempt fails to acheive victory.  When at first you do not succeed, then persist with a variety of methods.

19. Point Defence < Walls + T1 bombers

Static defences are not weapons of victory, but merely a means of buying time in the event of an enemy attack.  Siege bots can always be used to attack, but a point defence building can not.  Hoarding any units in one’s base is the conceptual equivalent of building mobile point defence.  If one possesses an experimental in their base for defensive purposes without having multiple experimentals attacking their opponent; then it is a huge waste of potential.  Static defences are an inflexible and inefficient use of resources that buy time at best and go unused at worst. 

In terms of buying time, nothing significantly compares to walls.  For the price of a single tech two point defence, you could build 240 wall segments.  Build your wall segments in zig zaging lines to increase confusion.  While your enemy tries to navigate through or destroy your wall segments; you may move or build units to defend against the incoming attack.  Tech 1 bombers are cheap, impervious to fire from the majority of land units, move unrestricted to any part of the map, and deal more damage per second then a siege bot for the resource cost.

The essential advantage of tech 1 bombers and walls in combination, is that you will constantly whittle down your opponent’s attacking forces without losing assets yourself.

18. It is easier to defeat a one thousand-man army than it is to defeat a thousand one man armies.

A concentrated enemy is always cheaper to defeat than a dispersed enemy.  Dispersion will force priority selection.  Often less important priorities will be neglected entirely.  If any attack is neglected by the defender, then that attack will always succeed.  A defender with a limited defence capability will neglect all but the most important targets.  Balance your total dispersion with localized concentration and you will always have force superiority where it matters.

When attacked by a greater force, disperse your force.  Your enemy will either disperse his own force in an attempt to destroy your detachments or ignore your tactic entirely.  Only re-concentrate your forces where you can have force superiority over his detachments.  If your enemy does not disperse his force, then you must harrass his lesser defended assets to maintain his force’s moving from point to point in his own territory (rather than steam rolling through your assets).  Even attacking with singular units on alternating sides of his force may cause him to halt his advance (while he eliminates your forces one at a time).

17. Safety is Seductive.

Destroying your enemy’s weakest and/or outlying defences first will encourage him to concentrate future defences.  Ultimately forcing down the cost in effort of his destruction.

An enemy who seeks to destroy your weakest and/or outlying defences should be repaid in kind.  Avoid replacing destroyed defences and never build additional defences.  To conentrate your efforts on making your territory inpenetrable will only give you a false sense of security and force down the cost in effort to destroy you.  Even if the cost of resources is higher, you only prolong the innevitable end result of your tightly, well defended base being indescriminately destroyed by splash damage.  Aircraft, Artillery and Experimentals all deal huge volumes of damage to small areas.

16. A strong mind must be completely destroyed; a weak mind must simply be discouraged.

You can break a strong spine, but never a strong mind.  A player that accepts that he will be destroyed (whether it is true or not) will often quit rather than face destruction.  But a player that refuses to see his destruction as imminent (even when it is true) will often outlast a less committed opponent who is on the verge of victory.

A victory over the mind is more efficient victory than a victory over matter. A victory over mind is a fight you only fight once and minds are often weaker than spines.

For Example: Destroy your enemy’s outlying defences and surround him with as many radar blips as possible.  A single seige bot in his base may be enought to convince him that his fear of defeat is his reality – tricking him into surrendering to a hoard of tech 1 bots is cheaper then defeating him physically.

15. Energy is the most important resource.

1. Energy is unlimited.

2. Energy can be converted to mass.  (but not vice versa)

3. Mass extraction spots are limited in output and availability, while energy may be produced anywhere in any amount.

4. Mass extractors stop production when energy is deficient.  Energy never stops being produced.

14. M = E/40 (Mass equals Energy)

Mass fabricators convert energy to mass at a ratio of 40 to 1.  If you are wasting energy than you are wasting mass.  Wasting 4000 energy per second is the same as wasting 100 mass per second; and 100 mass per second could be used to build an (Experimental Monkey Lord) spider bot in five minutes and fifteen seconds.  Therefore, if you are wasting 4000 energy per second then you are actually wasting one spider bot every five and a quarter minutes.  If you are wasting resources, then you are forgoing the units those resources could have built and the damage they could have dealt.

13. The competitive victory is the most efficient victory.

If you win a battle with forces left over, it means that those remaining forces could have been allocated elsewhere.  If you catagorically destroy your opponent, then it is not a competition but a waste of your time.  Defeating your opponent with just enough forces to succeed is proof of efficiency.

12. Anything worth doing, is worth doing the hard way.

If a task is not easilly accomplished and the objective is not worth the effort required, then it was never important.  When a task may only be accomplished through difficulty and the objective is worth such effort; only then can it be considered important.  Finding an easier method does not dimish its importance, but merely saves effort.  Effort that is better spent elsewhere, proves that an objective is not important.  Effort that can now be spent elsewhere, proves that an easier method has been discovered.

11. Total commitment is burning your bridges in both advance and retreat.

By preserving the ability to reverse a decision, the ability to accept a lesser outcome is also preserved.  By removing the capability to doubt, the way to progress is forced to become clear.  The only risk is unconditional defeat, but the reward is total victory.

10. The end justifies the means only when successful.

Handicapping one’s own capabilities by focusing on a singular strategy may lead to the downfall of lesser players, but veteran players will have bargained that handicap to obtain a “win” scenario.  Whether it be sacrificing ones own defence to press an attack on an opponent, spending vast quantities of economy on a hoard of highly effective units, using an army to force an opposing army to concentrate and nuking both, or any other seemingly hopeless activity; if it succeeds, then it was time and effort spent on a correct strategy.

9. Accept no excuses. Only the result is relevent.

There is only one reasonable excuse: “I was defeated.”.  As a statement of fact: your opponent used resources more effectively, allocated those resources more accurately, and coordinated military hardware more efficiently.  The only explaination for the result is that you were inneffective, inaccurate, and inefficient; but as a whole irresponsible.  Take steps to correct that behavior.  Seek the guidance of peers, superiors, and techincal references to improve your conduct accordingly. Self improvement is better than simple hope, for winning your next game.

8. Constant offense promotes self security.

If you constantly posture your forces around your opponent’s assets, then he will constantly seek refuge and concentrate his defences.  He will allocate his resources in static defences which are incapable of assaulting your means of resource production.  Without defending your assets, you will assure their safety.

7. Never surrender, never relent.

The difference between withdrawing and retreating is the intention to resume offensive activities at another point.  A commander that has been led to believe that he is defending will tend to forget to attack and will in turn be defeated.

6. The sweat of your brow belongs to you, but the DPS belongs to your enemy. Deliver it with extreme prejudice.

Economic activities are performed with the sole purpose of supporting production of military hardware.  Some economic activites increase the volume of resource production; while others increase production capacity; but the bulk is used to produce units and the means to deliver them to your opponents.

5. From each, their ability; to each, their utility.

The singular goal of your forces is victory.  Each unit has a specialization that produces “win”; but using those forces for any other task is a loss of potential.  Innefficient utilization of abilities negates production of “win” and may lead to such a defecit that “lose” is manufactured instead.

4. More and faster.

Large cost and powerful units are unable to simultaneously engage an equally costly force of many weaker units.  A large number of units are able to bypass concentrated defences, overwhelm smaller volume forces, and engage a huge number of targets simultaneously; but without the danger of concentrating your capacity to receive damage.  Simply having more weapons firing simultaneously creates a larger amount of damage per second, but without the danger of applying more than neccessary damage to a single target.

3. More is never enough.

For as long as the potential to increase exists, then that potential must be realized.  Arbitrary limits will only serve to create a maximum value of your forces, and simultaneously create a minimun value that your opponent needs to defeat you.  When any attribute reaches a maximum, then its process must be improved as to minimize the effect of that limitation.

2. Inefficient unit selection is charity to your opponent.

Producing forces that have an unfavorable cost to effect ratio is the equivalent to handicapping your economy, sabotaging your military, and aiding your oppenent; of which, all of which are counterproductive.  Encouraging or supporting others to engage in such activities is thought crime.  Some units will have high costs to produce, but they are only expensive when their expected effect does not justify their cost.

1. Firing nukes is losing, defending against nukes is winning.

Launching nuclear weapons is the economic equivalent of dropping thirty siege bots on a single spot; intercepting a nuclear warhead is the equivalent of destroying those thirty siege bots before they deal any damage, but at a third of the cost.  Having used the siege bots instead would have at least dealt damage.   An intercepted nuclear weapon can only ensure that the opponent spent a third of your nuke’s price to destroy it.

Never destroy an enemy nuclear missile launcher.  Allow your enemy the opportunity to try and overwhelm your missile defence and you can ensure an economic victory per missile. Intercept a nuke and destroy the equivalent of thirty siege bots for the price of ten siege bots.

Notice in the chart below that the price of a nuclear missile launcher is equivalent to 270 siege bots and that each nuke is equivalent to 30 siege bots. For the cost of five nukes you could have built 523 Siege Bots, ten nukes 775 Siege bots and twenty nukes 1279 Siege Bots.

Nuke cost is calculated in accordance with psalm 27. Fixed Costs and Variable Costs also apply to Supreme Commander