It’s that time again… the Spider Tanks Showcase has returned. This time we’re locked and loaded and are ready to unleash the proper fury of the Railgun!
Welcome back Pilots! This week we’re breaking down one of the most deadly weapons ever conceived by humanity. These mighty projectiles can bring a Tank down in one hit if fully charged and their destructive power is unmatched throughout the Earthen Cluster.
That’s right, today is all about the Railgun! The Railgun is a powerful long-range weapon powered by fusion-generated electromagnets. The immense momentum of these large projectiles can pierce the armor of any Tank, even dealing fatal blows to mint condition middleweights when fully charged.
The longer the Railgun is charged, the more damage it does. Unfortunately, you’ll be slowed down to a crawl while charging your electromagnets for firing… it takes a lot of energy to launch this heavy duty ordinance! A good Railgun Pilot has to know how long to charge, how to stay safe while charging, and above all else, how to make sure their superpowered hits land on enemy tanks.
Unleash the Power
When using a Railgun in the arena, positioning is more important than with most weapons. You need to make sure that you’re not going to be under threat while firing, but also that you have a clear shot on your opponents.
A clear shot isn’t just about range… often it’s just as much about angle. How you approach the enemy matters. If your vantage point effectively only has a small window to attack, your slow shots may not land a blow before the enemy escapes.
The slow travel of your projectiles is absolutely key to understand if you’re going to play Railgun. Many inexperienced Pilots will try to lead their quarries as they would with a Cannon or Crossbow. These projectiles move at nearly double the speed of a Railgun though… you’ll need to lead your target further or get closer.
Experiment with different charge levels on your shots. If you take 95% of your opponent’s health in one shot, that still means you’ll have to hit them with another shot to finish them off – no different than 50/50 on two shots. Sometimes this means you need to wind all the way up and try to finish them in one. Often it means that you’re going to have to go in close for a little double tap to finish them off. Plan ahead for these moments. Your goal isn’t to injure tanks… it’s to destroy them!
Plan ahead for that double tap and not even big tanks will be able to defend against you.
Run From the Rail!
It may seem easy to dodge Railgun shots since they move so slowly, but up against a good operator the Railgun can be very difficult to evade.
The Railgun is an extremely wide projectile. Its impact radius is much bigger than other weapons. While you can just barely juke to the side with a Cannon or Triple Threat, you’ll need to fully get out of the way or that rail will smash you.
While a Railgun is charging, you can see how much charge it has above the enemy tank. Wait until they fire before approaching them… it will take a moment for them to charge up another shot. Be wary of a railgun that’s fully charged and waiting. A patient Railgun is a deadly Railgun.
Try to hit them from range when possible and come in close only when they’ve just fired a shot. Avoid moving directly towards a charged rail… if you have no angular momentum you’re only making it easier for them to lead you. Zigzagging and spin moves are encouraged here. You want them to waste that shot.
Don’t walk right into the Railgun’s line of fire. You may as well just hand them a giftwrapped kill.
If you are heavily damaged by a Railgun, disengage immediately and go heal if possible. It may take them a while to charge up their shot, but they don’t need to fully charge if you’re already damaged. A clever Railgun Pilot will find a way to get in close for that quick kill or have the second shot on the way by the time you get hit with the first. If you’re low on health, they can hit you with their lowest charge level and still bring you down.
Last, if you’re playing in a heavy tank, don’t be afraid to get hit by a rail. If your tank is bigger than a Jet/Hurricane, chances are that a Railgun will have to hit you twice to bring you down. It takes a while to hit you twice. Use that to your advantage.
Railgun Tactics
A Railgun isn’t just a massively destructive Weapon – it’s also a powerful deterrent. A fully charged Railgun tucked around a corner is something even the bravest of Pilots won’t readily walk straight into. You may only fire ~15-20 shots in a regular match while playing a Railgun, but all those times that you’re charged and waiting to fire are also affecting your enemies and helping your team.
Use your Railgun to cement your team’s zone of control. Even if you don’t hit anyone, firing a Rail through the choke point on a map or a command point sends a clear message to your opponents about what is waiting for them.
On a fast body your Railgun’s zone of control can massively expand – once you master the sprint, shot, sprint, shot timing.
Railgun is a long-ranged powerhouse, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not useful up close too. When you’re point blank on the enemy, you remove the difficulty of hitting tanks with the slow-moving projectiles. You basically turn your tactical long-range warhead into a superpowered grenade. If you can penetrate back into enemy territory, you can absolutely wipe them out with just a few shots. Sometimes kamikazee tank is a good play.
BOOOOOOOM
A Railgun is terrifying when it 1-shots members of your team around you left and right. This is part of its power. While it may take some learning to be super effective with this weapon, you’ll be terrifying from the start! A weapon capable of bringing down a whole team in three shots makes your opponents question their strategy, giving you a chance to scoop up a win!
It may take some practice to get really great with a Railgun… but it’s worth it if you want to strike fear (and explosions) into your opponents!
That’s all from us today, but we’ll be back next week with yet another Spider Tanks Showcase!
A new battle begins… will this conflict lead you to glory or ruin?
Really that’s up to you. In this war, so much depends on how good of a start you get. While we’re all anxiously awaiting Elysium to open back up to Captains, let’s take a look at some of the best ways to get a great start when the servers open back up for Season 7!
The first week of a season is the absolute best time to get involved in Eternal Paradox and the fight for the ring. Eyeing that 900k+ pile of $ETIME that just got distributed to players at the end Season 6? The battle for the next set of rewards starts today!
Eternal Paradox is a team game. While you could play a whole season solo if you really wanted to, there are some things that you just can’t do on your own.
Conquest, Followers of Doom (pictured above), Guild Festival, Guild Arena… there are tons of activities in Eternal Paradox that are only for guilds… don’t be shy. Join a guild!
The sooner you get into a guild in a season the better. Every support that your guild provides decreases building or research time by 2% of the remaining total. That adds up! Even before 20+ guild member supports are possible with guild research, a -20% time to your buildings can make a HUGE difference when you’re starting out.
Guilds don’t just help you grow though. This is a war game, and there are Captains out there who want to take your stuff. Having a guild tag by your name will make them think twice about whether they want to start something that may be costly on both sides. Your guild mates can also stand by you and help defend when you need it.
While you’re clicking like mad in the first hours to get a solid foundation, don’t forget about rallies. Rallying with your guild to strike some early blows on the Black Sun Cult could give you a big advantage with extra experience and those huge “First Kill” bonuses. Get out there and get some loot from those cultists… the guild that fights together wins together.
Even at low levels a first kill can provide a high amount of resources.
First Order of Business
The tutorial prompts will walk you through the very first things you need to do to get started, but don’t stop there. You need to keep those timers ticking in the early days as much as possible. Don’t worry, once your timers on building, training and research get longer there will be time to slow down and take a breath.
Buildings
Keep that HQ going up in the first days. All your buildings are gated behind that, so make sure you leave yourself room to grow. Prioritize the Academy and one barracks early on… keep all your troops training, but push one barracks higher than the others to get you a concentrated power element to work with.
Note that the Harvester and resource gathering buildings give most of their increased resources at levels 6, 11, 16, 21 and 26. While it can be good to push up your Harvester early on for some extra resources, don’t get lost halfway between 6 and 11! The levels in between provide very little increased production, so consider them a stepping stone to level 6 or level 11.
Research
There are a lot of options to start with on research, but command and resources should be early focuses. Resource research makes all your fortress upgrades more affordable, therefore it’s less beneficial the later in the season you get it completed.
Command increases a wide array of factors, but most importantly it can help reduce your research and building time. Even a 3% decrease in building time can end up meaning hundreds of hours of construction saved over the course of a season… definitely worth prioritizing early on.
Try to save research into Mercenary and Soldier for day two and beyond. These are incredibly powerful boosts, but they won’t do much for you on the first day compared to getting command and resource head starts.
Soldiers
Like we said above, concentrate on one barracks first. That doesn’t mean you’ll neglect the others though… keep those timers running! Choose one to tier up faster than the others but keep every barracks training, even if it’s only training level 1s.
As your army gets to be more formidable and you start advancing a second group of soldiers, don’t be afraid to tier up rather than train. Tiering up a bunch of tier 2s to tier 3 soldiers saves you a massive amount of time in training. Don’t think of your low tier soldiers as waste or fodder… think of them as high tier soldiers who just haven’t finished their training yet!
Later on, you’ll inevitably be creating T1s to keep your high tier soldiers alive. This can wait for now. Don’t bother including T1s in your attacks to protect T3 or T4 soldiers. At this point in the season, your troop numbers are just too small to spare the power. Some of your highest tier soldiers will die along the way, but they’ll be replaced one hundred fold or more by the time first Conquest rolls around… there’s still time to build up your army!
Mercenaries
Choose a group of hunting mercenaries and work on them first. You want hunting synergy here with the barracks that you’ve decided to push upwards first. If that’s your fire barracks, choose four fire Mercenaries. If it’s tempest, choose storm Mercs… you get it.
These will likely be your primary hunting mercenaries for a few weeks if not the whole season, so choose wisely. If you can’t make a whole team with hunting synergy, consider getting creative. Zoe increases the synergy her troop can have in a battle, for instance. Bianca has a command skill that provides an extra flat bonus that can be used to make up for some missing synergy.
Don’t worry about your light and dark Mercenaries yet. It’ll be a while before you unlock barracks for those soldiers, so their war synergy does nothing for you at the start.
Other Tips and Best Practices
Use Up Your Stamina!
During the early days of a season you won’t have a very high maximum stamina. Don’t forget to use it frequently to hunt and do challenge stages. Running yourself dry on stamina is fine… missing out on a few hundred stamina because you were capped out could make you lose ground relative to other Captains.
You have to work your way up to higher level monsters, so make sure you keep pushing yourself and challenging the next tier.
Don’t push too hard though and lose all your soldiers early!
Don’t Forget About Shakram!
Shakram Legions are easy to overlook early on. You’re not getting a ton of use from T1 and T2 captives, and you don’t get experience from them.
They can, however, be your best source of resources in the beginning. Especially with the ‘First Kill’ bonuses, you can get set up with the supplies you need to never stop building if you keep putting pressure on the legion. You don’t need to push up too high, even low level Shakram legions provide a big boost to resources.
Explore!
Exploration points can be commonly neglected early on. You don’t need a bunch of Awakening Stones in the early game, but there’s more than just those in there! Jackpot chests can contain big bonuses like stamina, itemized resources or speedups. Even without jackpot chests, you’ll find speedups and XP potions in the ruins… no reason to waste those points by letting them cap out!
Don’t Be Shy… Get Out There and FIGHT!
Again, Eternal Paradox is a war game. Other Captains have stuff you want – maybe you just go take it?
PK points are probably the easiest thing to just ignore in the early game, but Captains who take a little while to scout out some opponents and launch an attack or two will be set up for success. More resources for you, less resources for the opponent… what’s not to love?
Good Fortune in the Battle!
Season 7 will launch at 5pm PT today, September 24th.
Are you ready for the coming battle? Get out there and fight for the future of Elysium!
Another great battle has concluded… yet another is just about to begin.
We saw tons of action in Season 5. The -30% building time buff certainly changed some strategies and accelerated the rise to power for the greatest Captains! Dark soldiers and Mercenaries were more powerful than ever, leading to some different lineups being used.
The Victorious
The 7-week battle for Elysium tests a Captain’s endurance and planning. While many Captains achieved great things this season, there are always those that rise to the pinnacle of power.
Total $ETIME in seasonal rewards: ~1.1038 million
Battle Power – 20% of Season Rewards
The following Captains dominated the rankings across all aspects of warfare. Their fortresses grew fast, and their forces overwhelmed their opponents with their raw power.
[BTB] HelloWorld
[XII] SydneySando
[DUB] DubstepRod
[F2P] Elof
[XII] NoodleBoy
Arena – 20% of Season Rewards
The following Captains didn’t have to hide behind their soldiers or walls. Their Mercenaries were powerful and their battle tactics sound. They repeatedly demolished their opponents to receive the most AVP throughout all 49 days of play.
[XII] Anti91
[XII] Firstblood
[XII] Bianca
[XII] FirstLove
[F2P] Elof
Conquest – 60% of Season Rewards
The true point of preparing is the battle itself. These Captains contributed more than any other players as they drove their guild toward victory. It should be noted that while we salute these individuals, all members of XII should be congratulated. They dominated the rankings and in the end held the top 32 places within their guild.
[XII] Bianca
[XII] beckoned
[XII] Alp_Er_Tunga
[XII] PasinduDE
[XII] DaniDC
Congratulations to the Only Triple Threat This Season!
Huge shoutout to [XII] Alp_Er_Tunga, who was the only Captain to reach top 10 rank in all three categories!!! (Battle Power: 6th, Arena: 7th, Conquest: 3rd)
Want to see how your score stacked up?
Check out the top 50 for arena and top 100 for Conquest and battle power below:
Season 6 is coming tomorrow, and it will be another epic battle.
In this season, players will finally have a chance to push their Mercenaries beyond their previous limits using the new Breakthrough system. By using additional Mercenary Fragments, players can squeeze even more out of their most elite Mercenaries.
Captains will also be seeing an all-new 5th operational slot this season when their HQ gets high enough!
Here comes Laila! This new water Mercenary specializes in debuffing opponents and buffing allies.
Any returning Captains will see a major welcome back gift this season! Players who played previously but not at the end of Season 5 may qualify for a 1000 Summoning stone bonus at the end of season 6. To get the bonus, players must meet all these conditions:
The account reached Head Office level 10 or higher at any point during Seasons 1-5
The account did not login between the periods of 6 July to 6 August UTC (approximately the last 3-4 weeks of Season 5)
The account reaches Head Office level 20 or higher during Season 6 before the end of the season.
If players meet all these conditions, they’ll receive 1000 Summoning Stones after the start of Season 7.
Make the returning Captains feel welcome! Every member of a guild will also get an extra 100 Summoning Stones for each qualifying returning player in their guild, up to a maximum of 20 (2000 Summoning Stones).
As in the past, expect some celebratory daily extras the first week of Season 6! Make sure you keep up on Discord throughout the first week for daily coupon codes for tons of free resources, Summoning Stones, speedups and more!
If you haven’t played Common Ground World yet, this week is a great opportunity to join the fun and dive into the awesome community. Each week, players from around the world compete for three days with a unique new set of meta rules. Build an efficiently functioning town that produces and sells the right goods faster than the competition and you’re destined for the leaderboard.
Here’s the standard leaderboard reward chart
In addition to the huge variety of in-game buildings and characters, players can also take advantage of owned NFT items for an extra strategic edge. By playing with NFTs, you can enjoy faster and more flexible play, enhancing your production and avoiding costly builds. The best part of NFT ownership is that you actually own your items, so you can always list them for sale on the secondary market any time you want!
Last Friday’s Town Hall
Join us for the next live CGW Town Hall with the team, Friday August 16th at 8am PT on the Gala Games Youtube channel. If you haven’t caught last Friday’s yet, watch the replay at the link below.
Town Halls take place every 2 weeks on Friday morning. They’re the perfect place to get all the latest updates and hear about exciting new opportunities coming to the game!
Chandelier Earrings
This week’s competition starts at 10am PT on Tuesday, August 6th and ends at 10am PT on Friday, August 9th.
Your goal is to Craft and Sell Chandelier Earrings, which will fetch a handsome Star Boost for this event only.
Trade Time: 20s, 1 Gasoline Biome: Desert S Edges: Desert N, Desert E, Desert S, Desert W
You’ll be surrounded by desert, so be sure to stay hydrated! 💦
To jump in the ongoing discussion and meet people from the team and community, be sure to join the Gala Games Discord server and check out the latest in the Common Ground World channels.
Build to Own, Build to Win
Common Ground World was created by the pioneers of social gaming, some of the same amazing builders who brought the world the beloved Farmville series. Don’t let the relaxing and adorable feel fool you. This game is a masterfully crafted strategic experience, enhanced by web3 ownership through GalaChain and regular global competitions.
You don’t need to download anything to start playing Common Ground World today. All you need is a free Gala Games account– The game opens right in your browser! So what are you waiting for? Start building with this awesome free game today!
The final blows have been dealt. The Ring has been conquered. The power of Elysium rests in the hands of SquareXII!
Alex: A riveting battle. I must have exploded four… maybe five Torstens!
Emma: Your bragging is minor indeed, pyroclastic one. I have defeated nine Torstens.
Alex: Oooho, I’m usually the spicy one Emma! Bwuahahahahaha!!!
Emma: This Conquest was indeed eventful. Many interesting gambits were tried. Only one was victorious.
Alex: Thank you for, once again, stating the obvious Emma! Now I believe we have some business to get to?
Opening Moments
Conquest begins with only the 16 ruins in play, and over half a dozen guilds were quick to get to work trying to get in place and start climbing the leaderboard.
Firmly controlling the eastern quadrant and several other ruins, SquareXII got a commanding lead early on.
Top 5 scores at first bonus (:30)
The Ring Enters Play
As The Ring of Ruin opened, it was still really anyone’s game. XII was holding a strong lead, but BTB, GFX and EPx weren’t too far behind to catch up. With the big points from the ruin starting, the battle was still far from over.
XII secured The Ring early on after it opened, ready to fight off any resistance that came at them (even with that nasty -30% defense debuff!). No one was coming to contest it anytime soon though.
XII was able to not only sit in the ring safely, but also they held onto three or sometimes four other Ruins consistently. It’s no surprise they started to run away with it on the scoreboard.
BTB and GFX both almost evenly doubled their scores during this period, but EPx had far less luck putting points on the board this period and fell to 4th.
Top 5 scores at second bonus (1:00)
Final Push
GFX and BTB gained almost the same number of points through the third period, but the early lead kept a solid advantage for BTB ending them firmly in 2nd.
EPx fell behind in the second, but in the final period they nearly doubled their score leading to a solid finish. More importantly…
🫡
XII continued to occupy The Ring… and rack up the points. It wasn’t only The Ring though – they held two, three or even four ruins consistently throughout the match while also holding The Ring of Ruin. It was a fantastic performance and a well earned victory.
Congratulations to XII on both their victory and long reign over The Ring in this battle!
Final standings
A Battle to Remember!
Alex: Honestly I don’t know why no one attacked XII for so long in the RIng! If my Captain would’ve sent me in, I’d have bombs aplenty to take care of the job!
Emma: You are incorrect, pirate. Their defenses were strong, and their zone of control consistent on both the North and East side.
Alex: I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that I couldn’t raid that ring. I was ready and chomping at the bit!
Emma: Impetuousness is often the door to disaster.
Alex: Oh forget your stupid riddles. Act now, think later.
Emma: Luckily not all Captains are like you, pirate.
Alex: Alright, that does it you–
And that’s all the time we have today! Thanks Alex and Emma!
Don’t forget the season isn’t over yet! There’s still the final arena competition to wrap up in a few days. You all have a little less than three days to bulk up that battle power! It’s not over until it’s over!
We’ll see you again very soon to discuss the winners of Season 5 and the dawn of Season 6!
Today we are releasing a new build for The Walking Dead: Empires. For most players, you probably won’t notice any difference in your gameplay. On the tech side,however, this update is absolutely critical to future work we’re planning.
This build will add new tools to help us manipulate and adjust game code. Overall, it will speed up the process of implementing new features going forward.
The first major test of these new tools may be noticeable to some players. We’ll be adding the initial pieces of an all-new first time user experience. This will be an iterative process. Each step of this tutorial content will be added incrementally until the feature is complete.
Adjusted Event Schedule
As we said when we first released weekly events, we’re keeping a close eye on the data to make these are as fun and engaging for players as possible. This is what releasing a public development build is all about! We’re listening to your feedback and watching the data to continually refine and improve your experience while you survive.
First, the Survivor’s Trial XP event has been removed. We noticed that players weren’t engaging with this one as much as the others, so we’ve eliminated it entirely for right now.
Second, events will no longer last a full week. On Monday through Thursday each week, you’ll stock up those materials for the Deadland Scavenge event. Weekends will then alternate between events focused on crafting or wiping out walkers each week.
It’s our hope that these adjustments give the events a little more purpose, as you’ll be able to put the materials you gathered throughout the week to good use on the weekend!
As always, we’ll be watching the events closely and making adjustments as needed to improve.
Sasha Sale
Sasha will be the first direct purchase Hero available in August! Recruit Sasha to your empire on Friday, August 2nd at 7am PT.
Sasha was a hardened survivor, capable of fighting her way through incredible hardships. While she often carried the scars of the past, she never lost her ferocity or pragmatic instincts.
Starting this Friday, Sasha will be able to bring her abilities to your empire. Sasha was always there to fight for the people she cares about. Will your empire welcome her home?
This sale will run with a tiered pricing structure. As the supply of any rarity Uncommon or higher decreases, its price will incrementally increase.
Common Heroes will stay at one low price throughout the entire sale.
As usual, any Sasha purchased in this sale will fulfill directly to GalaChain and be usable in-game right away.
This sale will not be time-limited. All rarities will remain available until their supply is exhausted or until further notice.
Building Bigger
Thank you for playing the public development build of The Walking Dead: Empires! As we build more features and world, your feedback is indispensable for continually improving the game.
There’s definitely more coming for August, but this will get us started for now. Stay tuned for upcoming news, and don’t forget to grab Sasha in The Walking Dead: Empires store on Friday!
