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!
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!
Roughly three days remain before the final Conquest of the season. Are you prepared? Will your forces carry the day or be crushed by your opponents?
Conquest 101
Quick review for those who haven’t fought hard in a Conquest in the past:
Conquest is vastly different from the rest of the season. If you’ve only scratched the surface of these epic battles so far, it’s definitely worth it to dive in and fight for your guild. If you haven’t joined a guild, Conquest is one of many great reasons to do so. War is a team sport!
During the Conquest, guilds will compete for control of the 16 Ruins positioned around the map. Normally these can be explored by any player, but during Conquest they become positions that can be occupied. Guilds will plan which to attack and make large rallies to fight off the competition.
Guilds gain points for each second they occupy a Ruin, but they’ll also get a large chunk of bonus points every 30 minutes for the 90 minute duration of Conquest. After the first 30 minute period, the Ring of Ruin will open for conquest in the center of the map. This provides more points than each Ruin and is often a critical factor in determining the winner.
Points gained in Conquest are based on the rank of your guild, and each guild’s members will get a portion of those points equal to their contribution percentage, which is viewable on the “Share” screen in the guild menu. At the end of the season, 60% of all season rewards will be distributed to individual players according to their Conquest rank.
The Battle for Season 5
Now that we’re all caught up with each other, let’s break down where we’re at in season 5. SquareXII is firmly in the lead with their members occupying more than the top 30 spots on the leaderboard!
BTB isn’t going down without a fight though, and they’re not too far behind. EPx and GFX could still be players in the top ranks yet with some fireworks in this last Conquest.
Dome seriously dramatic action will need to happen to unseat XII from the Season 5 throne… but unexpected things happen in Conquest.
Conquest Tips
Let’s run down some quick tips and best practices for Conquest.
Even if this is the first time you’re going to join the fight, there’s more battles in the future. Season 6 is just around the corner. Give it all you’ve got this time to sharpen your tactics for bigger battles ahead!
All you seasoned veterans may find one or two things in here to improve your game… no captain knows everything!
Synergy, synergy, synergy…
War Synergy is everything in Conquest. Hunting Synergy does not count in PvP combat.
This is very important. This means your 9m power fire troop will be much less powerful than your 7m light troop with 40% War Synergy. Light and Dark are crucial in Conquest, and don’t mix them in your troops when possible.
No T1s
During normal gameplay, a lot of captains will mix in a few T1s with their troops to absorb any losses they may take. The lowest tier soldier dies first.
Don’t do this in Conquest. It lowers your troop power by a lot, but also your War Synergy. There are no light and dark T1s. If you are very short on high tier soldiers, use T6 light and dark. Make a pile of them the day before Conquest and mix them into your saved troops.
Follow the Leader
If everybody in the guild is doing their own thing, you won’t get very far. Designate rally leaders, then designate backup rally leaders. Listen to your rally leaders – argue about strategy before and after Conquest. Make sure you’ve got at least a few groups working on different goals at the same time, but coordinate them towards one greater goal.
At a last Conquest like this, most players will have at least three if not all four operational slots unlocked. That means you could potentially have your whole guild involved in four battles at once. Some of those troops will get locked up in Ruins scoring points though… be careful to not put all your power into holding ruins and not be able to fight back against attackers!
Defend the Rally Points!
A rally disbands when the rally leader’s fortress warps. This means that if you’re holding the Ring of Ruin solidly with only minutes to go, an enemy can make your rally disband by attacking the rally leader’s fortress.
Save some arrows for when those attackers come. Try to hide your rally leaders if you can. Iif the enemy knows who they are, make sure you can defend them!
In season 1, SXII created a signature strategy to hide their rally leaders!
Don’t forget you can support an ally’s fortress with your own troops! It takes an operational slot to do so and you won’t score any points for your guild from it, but if it saves an entire rally from disbanding it could be an amazing help.
For Elysium!
The battle is almost here. Good luck captains!
Of course Alex and Emma will be back to recap all the action next week. Get out there and give them something to talk about!
Miss the last conquest? Check out the recap below!
