A Beginner’s Guide to Battle Nations

Overview

A quick guide for new players to get a good impression what Battle Nations is about.

Introduction

Hi, my name is TheVampire100 and this is my first guide. Please excuse my typos and grammar mistakes, my first language is not English and the reason why I have chosen English is because this guide targets a big audience.

In this guide I will explain some important basics that the game lacks to explain to the players.
There was once a more or less good tutorial but after players asked the developers to improve it, Z2 instead cut down every important information from the tutorial and made things worse instead of better.
So this guide targets all the people that don’t get what is going on.

First Steps

Since building stuff and recruiting units is explained in the tutorial this guide won’t cover that.
If there still is the wish there that I should add it, then I will explain it too.

After you completed the “tutorial” you should first sell the MG Bunker that you have built in the tutorial. I know what you think “Why should I sell my only defense building” but believe me, you don’t need this.

A key factor in Battle Nations are workers.
Workers are some kind of limited resource that you need for your buildings. Almost every building you have needs a certain amount of workers. For example barracks will use 1 worker. You get workers if you build new houses like shelters and camps. Different houses give you a different amount of workers. Also you can have only a certain amount of workers at the same time, a worker cap. This worker cap increases the higher your level is, so if you don’t have enough workers and cannot build new houses, level up and you should get more. If you look at the picture you will see three different numbers. The first value is the amount of workers that you currently use. If it says 7 workers that mean all your buildings use up to 7 workers. The second value shows you the number of workers that you currently have. In my example this means that you have 20 workers and use 7, so you still can use 13 more. The last number is your worker cap. If it is lower than the number of workers you own, you should consider to build more houses. Always try to keep your worker population at maximum, you will sooner or later get problems to handle all the buildings with your population cap.

So, the reason why you should delete your mg bunker is because it uses one worker that you could have used otherwise. There is also another reason why you don’t need it and that is training. A major part of the game is training your troops. Defensive buildings like the mg bunker take some of the precious SP that you need to level up your troops. And while the mg bunker take some Sp it is already maxed out, this means you just waste your SP. For more information about Sp, look at the section “Units and Stats”.

One of the most important features in the game is your base and everything about it.
Your outpost starts out very small so you have to build it up.
While you get some help with building the first buildings you get no other help and need to find everything out for yourself.

Let’s have a look at your base.

Right after the tutorial your base should look like this. Maybe the hospital is already build in your base but mine is currently still building.

So, you have some houses, a stone quarry, a hospital, a barrack and nothing more. First click on your stone quarry, there is a large green button at the top that says upgrade. Click on it and you will upgrade your stone quarry. The upgrade is pretty fast and does take only 3 seconds. After you finished the upgrading your stone quarry will now produce 20 stones per hour instead of 10, so this is a double in production! Upgrading buildings is a key factor in improving your base. If you let everything at level 1 you will have huge problems in the later game, so try to upgrade everything. You can upgrade almost everything, but keep in mind, upgrading will cost you gold and resources, so maybe it is more wise to wait a little with it if you are a little short on resources.
Different buildings give different bonuses for upgrades. Resource buildings will give you more resources per hour, houses will give you more gold and XP, shops will give you only more gold.

The higher your upgrade is, the longer it will take to get finished. Some buildings, like shops, cannot used when it is upgrading, other, like resource buildings, will still give you resources like normal. Keep that also in mind before you decide to upgrade something. Also you can upgrade only one building at the same time, so start with upgrades that take less time to upgrade as most buildings as possible at the same day.

You also need more room for new buildings. First you should sell all the trees that give you nothing but waste a lot of space. Next to the building button is a button for moving your buildings, click on it and then click on a tree. You can now drag it around and place it somewhere else, but we want to remove it, so click on the “$”-Symbol to sell it. This gives you also some wood, a nice side effect. Repeat this with every other tree besides the big one which you cannot remove. This is actually a place for a logging camp, look at “Resource buildings” for more information.

Even if you have sold all the nasty trees on your base you still lack enough place for future buildings. To fix this go in the buildings section and click on the expansion button at the bottom right corner. This allows you to expand your land for gold or nanopods. Use the expansion for gld. A golden rule should be, use never Nanopods to expand your land. If you lack the gold, wait until you generated enough.
Place your expansion on the south-east corner of your base where the iron field is. This is important for later uses.

Since after building your first land expansion you will be a little down on money, you need something better to generate gold as your houses. So let’s build a shop.
Shops are found under the Shop tab in the bottom left corner of your building menu.
For the start build a farm which is ready after 3 seconds. After the farm is finished, build cabbage which costs 2 gold but will also generate 8 gold. Now you understand the basics of producing goods. For more information on shops, check the section “Shops”

After you have finished all of the above steps your base should look like this.

This should be the layout of your base right after the tutorial and is a good start to improve yourself.

Resource Buildings

Stone is not the only resource in the game you will need soon other resource buildings. I will show you only the most important for the start, there are still more to discover but because this is a guide for new players you don’t need to know about them for the start.

Iron mines are the first most important building you want to get. Iron is your most important resource you need at the start and because of this you need the iron mine very soon. You unlock the mine at level 8 and should build one right away. After it is finished you should upgrade it as soon as possible to level 3. You need iron for almost everything at the start, for buildings, for units and for healing bills.
While you get some iron from your supply drop this is not enough to sustain all your costs.

Logging Camps are unlocked right after the iron mines, at level 9. They are, besides stone, your key resource for buildings and upgrades. After you have unlocked it, you should upgrade it to level 3 as soon as possible, if you can, try to reach 4.

At the late level of 14 you will unlock the oil pump. At this level you will already have a shortage of oil that you need very badly since you own some vehicles but have no oil production. Upgrade your oil pump, as with all resource buildings, to level 3 or 4 to get enough for your army.

At a certain point in the game you will not have enough room to keep all the resources you need to build and upgrade your buildings. Because of this you need more storage.

The first storage you can build is the small warehouse at level 7. At this point you already need it. The tricky part about storages is, that they need the largest amount of workers from all buildings. A small warehouse needs 8 workers to run, so that’s the reason why you should not waste your workers on defensive buildings and an endless amount of shops. Build at least one warehouse at level 7, better would be two if you can afford this. With a resource cap of 1000 you should do fine for some time. If you didn’t build two warehouses at level 7, build a second one at level 8 or 9.

There is also a trick about storages to save workers. At level 18 you unlock the next better warehouse.
While it has the same amount of 8 workers it gives you a larger resource cap as the small warehouse and because of this it is wise to replace the old warehouses instead of building extra ones. This means that you build a normal warehouse and after it is finished you destroy a small one. With this method you gain a larger storage but keep the same amount of workers!

Shops

Of course resources are not the only important stuff you need, you also need gold and xp to level up. While you get some gold from your houses this will not be enough over on a long run, so you should build some shops.

Shops have their own tab in the bottom left corner of the building menu.

The first shop that you can build at the start is a farm which produces crops. Since the farm needs only 3 seconds to build you should build it right after the tutorial. Shops produce over a certain amount of time goods that will give you experience points and gold. They are your main source of money and experience.

Another important fact about shops and goods are currently desired goods. Every shop has a daily desires good which is marked with a blue arrow instead the normal green one. These goods generate more xp and gold than normally, so try to produce them first. Keep also in mind that you need to invest some gold first to produce goods. Sometimes you need to produce goods for missions, produce these first because the missions themselves give you a good xp bonus.

A common mistake from new players is to build more than one shop from the same type. While this seems to be a good idea to generate more gold and xp at the same time you should realize that extra shops will also take more workers that you could have used for more important stuff like new resource buildings. You don’t need more than one shop of the same type, so for example if you have a farm you don’t need another farm. Instead build a tool shop or a bakery.

Also remember this picture.

There exist different types of goods, farms produce for example agriculture. The bar under the population states, what your current workers “want”. Actually this is misleading, exactly it shows how many goods the workers can still take. Of the bar goes too much down the workers don’t need any more agriculture products and you will get only very little from produced goods of this type. So having a lot of shops from the same type can lead you to get less than you actually wanted because your workers are well fed. This bar goes up again after some time but every time you produce something it will go down again.

Military Buildings

To maintain your army you need more than resources and goods, you need to train and to heal them. There exist currently two types of healing buildings, hospitals and repair bays.

The hospital should have been built right after the tutorial. It can heal your infantry like soldiers, grenadiers and arsonists.
The repair bay is unlocked at level 5 and it heals all your vehicles like tanks and artillery.
When you unlock the repair bay you don’t need it at the current time because you don’t own any vehicles, you still should build it because you will soon get vehicles.
Healing costs you some amount of the resources that you have spent to build the damaged unit but it still is less than building a new unit, so first heal your old units before you create new.
Healing takes also some time, some units more, some units less, the better the unit the more time it takes to heal.

Like every other building you can upgrade these healing buildings. Upgrading them decreases the amount of resources that you need to heal the desired units. After the building has reached level 6 it will also decrease the time to heal units. Also higher levels give queue slots to put more units at the same time in the healing building. But keep in mind, while they are in the queue they are still healed after another and not at the same time.

Recruiting buildings are your source of units, the first one you can built are the barracks.
The barracks let you build infantry which means soldiers. At first you can only recruit troopers and grenadiers but if you level up you unlock new types of soldiers to recruit.

The barracks is an unique building because it has 15 levels instead of 10. Upgrading it will reduce the amount of time to recruit new soldiers, after it has reached level 10 it will also reduce the recruiting costs.

After you have reached level 10 you can build the vehicle factory which let you, like the name suggests, build vehicles. After you have unlocked it will be your main source of new units because vehicles are in the most cases superior to soldiers.
It works the same way as the barracks and has 15 levels instead of 10 and each upgrade reduces the building time.

There are also bonus types of recruiting buildings. These buildings let you recruit special factions that you would generally fight in the game.

The first one is the animal trainer at level 10 which let’s you recruit animals. Animals are at that time stronger than most of your soldiers but they will be outdated in the late game. Still you are encouraged to recruit some of them because they have strong attacks and can be very helpful for multiple levels. Animals will cost you teeth to recruit and heal which you can get when you defeat wild animals.

At level 14 you will unlock the raider training camp that let’s you build your own raiders. These aren’t that great but like the animals they are helpful at the point where you unlock them, so use them to increase your army. Raiders need skulls which you can get from enemy raiders.

There are a lot more to discover but they are revealed very late in the game and you don’t know about them currently.

Besides recruiting buildings there are also weapon facilities, that unlock new weapon types. These new weapon types are than unlocked as new units in your recruitment buildings.
While you don’t have to build them, they unlock some powerful units that you don’t want to miss. Weapon facilities are not upgradable and produce nothing, the only reason to build them is to be able to build certain units. If you sell the facilities you will lock again the units, so don’t do it.
There is one weapon facility that costs nanopods and the game gives you a mission that you should build it. I recommend not to build it because you will only unlock more nanopod units that are not even worth their price. This is the weapons factory.

Houses

Very early in the game you will realize that your workers are not enough anymore and you have to build new houses. Houses generate workers (instantly), gold and xp (over time).
The first houses you can build are shelters and camps.

They are built very fast but provide very little gold and workers and no xp at all.

You can also build the hovel, which is more costly but provides more workers, gold and even xp.

There are a LOT houses that will cost nanopods and you will at some point even get a mission that forces you to buy one called bunkhouse. Don’t do it, don’t buy ever a nanopod house. The best house without nanopods is better than most of the nanopods houses but it is unlocked at the max level. Still you don’t need any nanopod houses before, so never invest nanopods in them.

Always try to get the maximum out of your population, if you reach a new level, start building new houses first. This should always be the first step at a new level.

Decorations

Decorations are a special type of buildings that has no upgrades and need no workers.
Some of them have no use other than looking good on your base but some add a bonus to other building. Either a gold-bonus, a XP-bonus or a resources-bonus.
Use this to boost your shops, houses our mines.

Bonus decoration will have a limit how much of them you can put next to a single building.

Flowers are one of the first bonus decorations you have access to. They add 8% more gold to nearby houses and you can build up to two flowers. It does not matter what type of flower you use, for example you can put White Pansies and Blood-Red Roses together and get the 16% bonus, but if you use more than 2 flowers you will get no more.

Bonus decorations are divided in different types. Flowers are one type but you can mix different types for a bigger bonus. So for example if you have 2 flowers you can still use one bench to get a bonus of 26% instead of 16%.

To maximize the effect you should try to build your buildings around bonus decorations to get a lot of buildings at the same time in the effect radius.

A very useful decoration is the ancient remains that are hidden in the north-east of your outpost behind some trees. You need to expand your land to get it but it is worth it since it gives your mines a boost of 25% making it easier to produce resources.

Units and Stats

While you start out with several units in the game you have to build a lot more to get a really army.
There exist different types of units like infantry, animals and vehicles. Certain units are better against other units that you will face in battle, experimenting out is the key to find the best strategy against your enemies.

Units have a variety of stats which are sadly not explained in the game.

HP are the backbone of your units. They show how much health they have. If the HP of a units drops to zero the units is defeated.

Armor is a bonus amount of health on your units. Most armor has some resistance against certain attacks, so they receive less damage from some attacks. Attacks will first target the armor before they target the HP of a unit. There are also units that penetrates armor and so will deal full damage to the hp. If they hp drops to zero the unit will still die even if there is some armor left.

Bravery is a special stat that prevents units from suppression. Suppression is a status effect that decreases the offense of a unit and therefore will less often hit an enemy. Bravery decreases the chance to get suppression. Some units have 500 bravery and are because of this immune to suppression.

Dodge is a stat that increases the chance to dodge enemy attacks so the unit will not receive damage. Dodge is invisible to the player but the player can sometimes observe an increase in dodge when a unit leveled up.

Defense is another value that affects damage. If the defense value is high enough there is a chance for a block that reduces the amount of damage significantly. So targets with a high defense value will reduce the damage received more often as units with a low defense value.

Resistances are values that reduce the damage of certain damage types about some percent. The resistance shows how much of the damage will be dealed, for example if someone has 75% fire resistance it will receive only 75% of the damage dealt to it. Resistances that are higher than 100% are called weaknesses and these damage types will deal more damage to the unit. A common example for a weakness is the fire weakness that animals have.

Offense is the value how precise a unit shoots. The higher the offense is the more unlikely a dodge or a block can appear.

Power is the value that affects the amount of damage this unit deals. A higher power means stronger attacks.

In Battle Nations exists also 5 different types of damage. These damage types can be reduced or increased by resistances and weaknesses.

Crushing is mostly melee damage or damage from blunt weapons.

Piercing damage is the most common type of damage and resembles bullets.

Fire damage is a special form of damage that deals most of the time damage over time (but not always). Animals have a weakness against fire. Chemical weapons count also as fire damage.

Explosion is a strong damage type which most units don’t have a resistance against. Explosion damage resembles grenades and huge cannons like from artillery and tanks.

Cold Damage is currently the rarest damage type that exists, actually only one unit exists that use this damage type. Because of this it is very unlikely that you will face this damage. Cold damage is very powerful because there exist almost no units that have a resistance against it. In the future will probably more units that use this type, until then you don’ have to worry much about it.

A new damage type introduced with the Naval Patch. Depth charges can only target naval units and are very effective against submarines. Depth charges are sea mines and bombs.

Torpedos have been introduced with depth charges in the Naval update. They can only target naval units and are very effective against bigger ships like battleships. They resemble, well, torpedos. Currently only submarines can fire torpedos.

Also units have their own ranking system.
Skill points (sp) are distributed to units that have fight and won in a battle. Every unit in the battle receive sp. If a unit has gathered enough sp you can rank them up. Ranking costs resources and time and you can only rank one unit at the same time but after the ranking is finished the unit get better stats like more hp, offense, power and more. The amount of stats an unit gets differs from unit to unit. You can see sp like typical xp in a roleplaying game. Ranking units is very important and players should always seek to rank their units first before they try their luck against stronger enemies.
Ranks are most of the time from 1-6 but it exists also special units that exceed the limit of rank 6 and can rank up to rank 9. These units are most of the time stronger than normal units and can be obtained from boss strikes.

Barracks until level 30 – Part 1

It is very important to know which unit is useful in which situation, so in this section I will show you all units from the barracks up to level 30.

The Trooper is the basic unit of Battle Nations. It has no special abilities that will make him standing more out of other units. He is a cheap, quick building unit that you can never have enough of it. While his strength is not as high as other units he is very useful for occupations or spamming in battles. Also a good meat shield. They can unlock a new attack at rank 4 that let’s them attack twice in the same round but costs 10 nanopods to research. This attack is useful to deal more damage with a single trooper.

The Shock Trooper is the first purchasable premium unit and costs 4 nanopods. For a nanopod unit it is very cheap. Its healing costs are comparable to that of a normal Trooper, therefor it is a good sacrificial unit. It has a stronger attack than a normal trooper with its SMG but lower offense. It’s HP and Defense is also higher, making it tougher than a trooper. A Shock trooper can only attack from the front row. You get 2 very early in the game for free and you actually don’t need more than two because they are not used again in the late game. For new players they are a good and cheap front unit.

The Grenadier is also a very cheap unit, but unlike the trooper and shock trooper it will reside in the back rows. The grenadier can throw grenades over enemies, making him valuable to target strong units in the back row. His grenades deal (obviously) explosive damage and are good against armored units like tanks. You should build plenty of it since it costs almost nothing, has an indirect attack range and deals great damage compared to other early available units. Also he is quick to level up, making him even better. He can research three attacks for nanopods, the first is a flashbang that stuns a target, making it vulnerable to attacks. The second is an incendiary grenade that burns enemies and deals damage over time. Unlike the first two attacks it can also target air units, making it a valuable anti-air attack. The last attacks let’s the grenadier attack three times in the same round but also depletes all of his ammo, triggering the long cool down of 8 rounds to reload. This attack is very powerful but more like a one-shot attack to kill heavy armored targets.

The Mortar Team is the second premium unit that you will unlock. You need to be level 6 to recruit it, you also need 6 nanopods. You get one for free at the start of the game and a second one after the mission in Marin. It is a very useful unit and your first artillery unit. Artillery units reside in the back rows and can shoot over enemies. The downside is, that it cannot target units in the front row when the mortar team sits in the first row, so it would be wise to place it in the back. It also does splash damage which means it targets one field and adjacent units will also suffer 25% of the damage dealt to the center. This makes the mortar team effective against groups of enemies. Also it uses explosive damage which makes it great against armored enemies like tanks. It has a long reloading time though, It acts as a stringer version of the grenadier except the cheaper repair time and the other grenade attacks. Since you can build an unlimited amount of grenadiers you don’t need more than the two free mortar teams, so don’t spend your nanopods on them.

The Dragoon is another premium unit. You will get one for free at the start of the game. It has a high suppressing ability, making it nice if you want suppression on enemies. It targets 3 units in front of him, so you need to place him wisely. To be honest, I don’t like the dragoon very much. While its attack damage is high at early levels, it’s fixed targeting range and the hefty cost of 10 nanopods make him not valuable enough. Also his primary attack has no stunning ability unlike other electro units that you unlock at later levels, so you shouldn’t spend nanopods on him.

The Arsonist is a cheap unit unlocked at level 6. It functions as a mix between a grenadier and a shock trooper and since it does not cost any nanopods it’s the cheap alternative to the shock trooper. While the shock trooper does a little more damage with his SMG, the Arsonist has also access to Molotov Cocktails that he can throw in the second row and deal damage over time. While the damage of the molotov cocktail is not high it can target flying units, making it very useful in boss strikes. A downside is, that it uses merits to recruit (but not to heal) that you can only get when you help friends. This means that you need a lot of friends to get a lot of Arsonists. I really recommend this unit over the shock trooper because it acts very similar and does not need nanopods.

The hunter is unlocked at level 7 and like his name suggests he is useful for animal hunts. He has a high crit-chance against both animals and soldiers which makes him valuable as a unit. Like a trooper he can research an attack that let’s him attack twice in the same round but this costs him his high crit-chance. On the other side, unlike the trooper, this attack does not cost nanopods but teeth that you can get from animals. This makes the hunter an excellent replace for the trooper if you don’t want to spend the 10 nanopods on the double shot. He can also research fire and poison arrows that are more effective against animals.
Be aware that the Hunter costs more iron and time to heal as a trooper.

The MG Gunner is your first mass attack unit that you unlock at level 8. He targets 3 units right in front of him and can also target 3 units in the second row if he is placed at the front and the units are not blocked by blocking units like tanks. This makes the Gunner an excellent unit against large enemy groups. Whenever you are outnumbered, try to use the gunner to make it even. His damage output is pretty low considered on a single target but he makes this up with the fact that he can target up to 6 enemies at once. 3 gunners placed at the front can easy deal with every enemy they face in early levels. I really recommend ranking him up since he is one of the best units in early levels. The downside is, he has only a small defense value and no dodge value at all, making him very vulnerable to attacks since he cannot dodge enemy attacks (which make sense, seeing he is a fixed turret). He can also research an attack that deals double the damage than before, but also using double the amount of ammo. This makes him stronger against single targets. He has a second attack that can target flying units, making him valuable against planes.

The Junior Officer is a powerful unit unlocked at level 10. It deals three powerful shots to a single target. Also it has high defense and dodge values, making it strong unit that will last long in a fight. Like the Arsonist it will costs you Merits, so make sure to help all your friends. I recommend to get a lot Officers since they are very valuable in fights. They can also research a single shot that does use less ammo and does not costs any nanopods.

Barracks until level 30 – Part 2

At level 11 you will unlock your first armored unit, the riot trooper. The riot trooper has a large shield that covers his body and protects him from incoming bullets. This means he receive less damage from piercing and crushing damage but will still take full damage from explosions and fire. Use him to protect your strong units from incoming attacks. While he has a large HP and armor pool he has a very weak attack, so keep in mind he is ONLY good for blocking. He can research a second attack to stun enemies but you are better off with the flashbang from the grenadier since this attack can also target units in the back row.

The wimp is maybe the most interesting unit in the entire game. When you unlock him at level 12 he starts as the weakest unit you can produce and since most players don’t know his true value they rather skip to build him. But the truth is, at rank 6 he becomes a really strong unit with 350 HP and attacks, that deal 200-300 damage to 3 enemies at once. This makes him even stronger than some of the tanks! He is very hard to train and his ranking costs are very high but he costs only gold to produce and heal and is finished in 5 minutes, so he is at rank 6 a cheap and very powerful unit. The downside is, you can only use 3 at once and from rank 1 to 5 he is too weak to fight on its own. I still recommend to train him, even if it’s a pain. You won’t regret it. Also, his two additional attacks don’t cost any nanopods, making him entirely free!

While unlocked at level 19 you get 2 for free much earlier. At that time the flame trooper may seem strong but considering you can build him at level19 he is not very powerful. Also he needs a weapon facility that costs nanopods. Also he himself costs nanopods, making him one of the most expensive units while at the same time a very weak unit. He is good against animals because of the fire damage, but that’s all, never buy one. Never.

This one goes in one category with the flame trooper. While it is not as bad as the flame trooper since it can target two entire rows, it needs the same weapons facility like the flame trooper and still will cost you nanopods. Don’t buy it, instead use the normal gunner.

The sharpshooter is an anti-infantry unit unlocked at level 16. At that time he is useful to defeat single powerful targets. He deals huge damage, has a high crit-chance against soldiers and a large range. The only problem is, that blocking units can deflect its shots, so it will be useless in later levels where everyone uses tanks in the front row to block attacks. Still a good early unit to defeat some raiders in the back.

The ranger is a stronger version of the shock trooper unlocked at level 20. While he deals some good damage, he costs much more than a shock trooper or a arsonist who will deal similar damage on higher levels. Or instead of that, use an Officer.

The Saboteur is a nice premium unit that deals massive damage to a single target. His targeting rang is backstab, meaning he will target units in the last row first before he can reach the front row. This makes him useful against strong units in the back. He can take these units down in one turn, making him a very powerful unit in early units. He does however cost 65 nanopods and is actually replaceable with the guerilla who is unlocked at level 49 and costs only 5 nanopods more.

The hornet is unlocked at level 23 and needs the weapon facility “Rocket Factory” before you can build it. It is a random shooter, meaning he targets an area with multiple shots but all shots are randomly placed in the targeted area. He fires 4 powerful rockets in a 3×3 area but since you don’t know which fields are hit you should target groups of enemies. This unit is very powerful but risky at the same time since you never know which field you will hit. It costs you a lot of merits but is worth it, especially if you fight large enemy clusters.

The sniper is an upgrade from the sharpshooter, it has a higher crit-chance, deals more damage but will cost you also more resources. You wil unlock him at level 24. Before you can recruit him you need to build a SpecOps Facility which costs a lot of bars that you can get from occupying SpecOps from friends. The recruitment of a sniper himself costs bars as well, making him very expensive. unlike the sharbshooter he is more valuable in later levels since he has a 50% crit-chance against soldiers and can unlock at rank 5 a penetrating attack that can even shred tanks.

At level 27 you will unlock the bazooka squad. You will get one for free at the Marin quest. He is a very powerful unit that deals huge damage against vehicles, making him perfect against tanks and even planes. He does however cost 30 nanopods and you need the weapons factory that also costs nanopods, making him expensive. You will get a mission that tells you to build one, but you don’t need to if you want to save nanopods. Instead use the one you have for free, it is all you need.

The armadillo functions as an armored shock trooper, meaning he uses an SMG for weak but fast attacks. Since he has some armor he can take more damage as a shock trooper. He does, however, cost steel, an advanced resource that you get when you convert iron. This makes him really expensive and at that time not worth the effort.

The Marksman is the premium version of the sniper class, meaning he deals more damage but costs 60 nanopods. That’s all I need to say.

At level 30 you unlock the Commando, another premium unit. It costs 55 nanopods but you will get one for free from the Marin mission. It acts as a very strong version of the shock trooper with an additional researchable grenade launcher, making it useful against both infantry and vehicles. It will cost you steel to heal it, so if you don’t own a steel mill don’t try to lose it.

Vehicle Factory until level 30 – Part 1

Every unit in the Vehicle Factory until level 30. Vehicles are stronger than soldiers but require more resources, need more time to build and use oil to build and heal them.

The scouting Bike is the first vehicle you can build in the vehicle factory. It acts as a vehicle version of the shock trooper, meaning it will deal three fast and weak attacks to a single target. It has a much higher dodge chance than the shock trooper, making it hard to hit at a higher rank. Useful for starters but it has no resistances unlike later vehicles.

The Anit-Air Turret is an early vehicle that targets only flying units. While its damage is not very high it has a high crit-chance that get’s even higher the more it is ranked. A special thing about it is that it has 9 instead of the usual 6 ranks. You should get a few for boss strikes, even if they are expensive. You need them to take down flying units quickly. Besides boss strikes they will have no use and are outmatched by planes with AA abilities.

The dune rider is the first premium unit in the vehicle factory and is unlocked at level 11. It costs 18 nanopods and attacks in a x-shape. His explosive damage and it’s wide damage field make him good against groups of armored enemies. He can unlock another attack at rank 3 with a wider target area and more damage, making him even stronger. For an early unit it is very powerful but will be useless at later levels. buy only if you need a strong unit at the start.

The Aries is your very first real artillery (besides the mortar team that counts as infantry). Unlocked at level 12 and costing only gold, iron and merits you should mass produce it to replace the mortar team. they do similar damage but for the Aries you don’t need any nanopods, making him cheaper.

The sandbags are an ignorable target, meaning you can only use two of them and you will lose the fight when all other units besides the sandbags are destroyed. They are a very cheap blocking unit. Since they are just a bunch of sandbags they have no attack and are really only there to block incoming fire. They are immune to status effects. You should have a lot of these because they are easy to replace if one is destroyed. Also very good for SP training with friends.

The Mini Tank is your first available tank and while it lacks the high blocking values of other tanks it has still a great armor, high resistances, can deal a lot of damage to a single target and is very cheap. You will get one for free in a mission but should also build a lot of them after you have reached level 13. The mini tank is very cheap for a tank and you should have at least 5 to fill the entire first row. When you unlock it you will feel invincible since most attacks won’t even scratch the armor. Try to rank him up as soon as possible.

The Night Owl Recon is your very first vehicle. While it is unlocked at level 15 you will get one at an early mission even before you can build the vehicle factory, making it a powerful unit at that time. It deals a lot of damage to a single target with its machine gun and can also target air units. It is however weak armored compared to other vehicles, making it fragile to enemy attacks.

Unlocked at the same time as the recon the Humvee stands out because he uses a very unusual resource that you don’t see in your resource tab. This resource is called Z2 points and you get it from unlocking achievements. You need 99 points which is a lot of points but the Humvee is a more powerful version of the Recon. However it is very unlike to get it at that point and when you have earned the 99 points you actually don’t need the humvee anymore, making it a little bad in my opinion (but it’s still a powerful unit for its early level).

At level 20 you can build the light artillery if you have a gun foundry. The light artillery is stronger than an aries and a mortar team, making it a good replacement at that point. Build some to have a strong unit with splash damage.

The hailstorm is unlocked at level 21 and needs a rocket factory. It is very powerful because it fires 3 strong attacks at a target with a wide splash damage. This makes it a good alternative to the artillery if you lack the gun foundry. It needs however a long reloading time of 8 rounds after every shot.

At level 21 you can build the gun truck if you have built a gun foundry. It is a very powerful one-shot unit. It deals massive damage to a single target, more than any other unit at that time, but needs to reload for 8 rounds. You will get one for free at a mission.

The name of the Heavy Recon (level 23) is misleading because it is not a stronger version of the recon but instead has it’s own attack pattern. It can either attack the entire column in front of it with a flame thrower or can target with it’s rocket thrower in a checker pattern, attacking almost the entire field. This makes it powerful against large enemy groups. Sadly it will cost you nanopods but is worth the investment for early levels.

Unlocked at level 22 the mortar truck is an armored and stronger alternative to the mortar team and the light artillery, making it a good replacement.

You need both the gun foundry AND the armor shop to build this powerful unit at level 27. The Puma acts similar to a tank but with a lot more dodge and defense instead of HP and armor.

Vehicle Factory until level 30 – Part 2

Needs the gun foundry and is unlocked at level 27. The tank killer is, like it’s name suggests, very effective against tanks. It fires 6 explosive shots, each dealing 40-60 damage, so making it to a total of 240-360 damage to a single unit. While it is very expensive costing both steel and the rare gears that you only get from occupying vehicle factories it is worth the price since it can destroy easily any unit it will face, even the strong premium tanks. It has however a long cool down of 7 rounds, making it another one-shot unit.

Stronger version of the light artillery unlocked at level 28 but costs nanopods. You don’t need it, don’t buy it.

The Firedrake acts as a vehicle version of the flame trooper but at the time it is unlocked it is not useful to the player anymore. Also costs nanopods, don’t buy.

At level 29 you unlock the light tank which is similar to the Puma. It has lower defense and dodge values but more hp and armor. You should get at least 5 and replace at that time your weaker mini tanks.

The medium tank is unlocked one level right after the light tank and as the name suggests it is stronger with more hp and more armor. It costs nanopods and is not worth its value because it can be replaced with stronger non-nanopods tanks at later levels.

The rocket truck is unlocked at level 30 and needs the rocket factory but is very useful against huge groups of enemies. It has the same attack pattern as the rocket attack from the heavy recon, deals the same damage but lacks the flame thrower as an alternative attack. The good thing is that it does not cost any nanopods and you should build some for mass attacks.

Dry docks

Battle Nations introduced Naval units with the 4.5 update and flipped the whole battle system with it. While ground battles work exactly the same as ever, sea battles work a little different. Sea units are divided in “ship” and represent all ships and units that are above the surface. “Sea units” on the other hand are diving units. Currently all naval attacks can hit all naval unit types but that might change in the future and that’s why I said it. Naval units have also the disadvantage that almost every unit cannot target ground units. Since most sea battles take place at the sea without a beach this is not that much of an disadvantage. All ships are unlocked around level 25 and their level is adapted to your own level when you first unlock them.

The gunboat is the first naval unit you obtain and that you can build. It acts as cheap and replacable unit for weaker enemies. It has no armor and only minor resistances against depth charge and torpedo damage. It won’t last long on the field but is good enough until you unlock the tougher units. It has also an attack that can target ground units so it’s good at beach fights.

The destroyer works as link between the small gunboat and the bigger battle ships. While it cannot target ground units like the gunboat, it has a huge advantage with the added armor and the stronger cannon attacks. It also has a depth charge attack to counter submarines. It has resistances against all damage types except torpedos but it has there only a minor weakness on the armor, damage on the hp are the same as ever.

The submarine is currently the only recruitable sea/sub unit and it costs nanopods. You get one however for free in a mission. Since the submarien has a torpedo attack it is very effective against battle ships. It also has a big resistance against explosive damage, making it durable against the cannons. It has however weaknesses against crushing and depth charges. With 55 nanopods this unit is cheap and good but don’t forget that you can use it only on sea battles and nothing else.

The buoy acts similiar to the portable wall but as naval unit. It has no attacks but is immune against all status effects and has big resistances. You can use it to protect weaker units in the back rows. Except that it is not very useful since it cannot attack and cannot protect against indirect attacks.

The first battleship you unlock. The battleship-R1 is stronger and more durable than any other ship that you can buy without paying with nanopods. It has some resistances but a big weakness against torpedos. It has two strong splash damage attacks. The R1 should be your most used front unit in sea battles.

The M10 i the big brother of the R1. It is even stronger and more durable as its smaller companion but costs also 55 nanopods. It has the same resistances and weakness as the R1 but on the plus side it has a relly big splash radius, hitting almost the entire field. If you want to spend nanopods on sea units, spend it here, you won’t regret it. Taking down a M10 is an almost impossible task for most enemies. Don’t forget to kill submarines first because of its weakness.

Nanopods

Because this is a huge topic for newer players and a big turn off for some people I will include this as well in my guide.
Nanopods are the premium currency for Battle Nations. You can use Nanopods to speed up timers, buy special buildings and recruit premium units.
You can also use them to heal 100 hp in a battle per nanopod.

The best use for nanopods is to build the precious nanopod units which can be very useful for newer players. These units are generally a better version of another unit. Since there exist always a counter unit in the game these units are not undefeatable, so don’t believe that you will rule the game if you use only nanopod units. The key is to find the perfect balance of units.

Special buildings can also be bought with nanopods. These units are advanced versions of normal buildings, for example you can build advanced mines which produce double the amount of resources than normal mines. Advanced healing buildings have cheaper healing costs and a shorter healing time. Currently there exists NO advanced recruitment building, so there will be no benefit from that.
But there exist some weapon facilities that you can buy for nanopods. These facilities unlock nanopod units so they are a very expensive investment and mostly not worth it.

There are some things you should never spend nanopods. Don’t ever speed up timers with nanopods even if it was part in the tutorial. Most of the time it is a waste of nanopods. Also friends can speed up your recruitments, your shops and your healings so there is no need to spend nanopods on that because you can reduce the time for free!
This does not work with upgrades and building stuff, you either have to wait or use nanopods while the latter one is still not recommended.

Nanopods are also used for unlocking new weapons and attacks dor your units. While not all attacks are unlocked with nanopods, most of them are. But also most of them are not worth it because the units will at some time at the game be outdatted and then you want use it anyway, so why spending nanopods on an attack that you will never use again? You have to decide for yourself, what units you will use very often and even in the later game. If you use a unit almost every battle it may be worth, if you use it rarely, decide not to buy the attack. This applies also to attacks that costs resources instead of nanopods. Why would you waste resources when you never use the attack?
I don’t will say what you should buy and what not, what attacks are good and which ones are not, this would be too much and different people prefer a different play style.

In battles nanopods can heal units at the cost of one turn. Most of the time this is not worth it. As long as you didn’t lose a unit you can retreat, loose nothing and begin the fight again. There might be some very hard fights where you have no other choice to use a nanopod but then again it just depends on your strategy, on how well you have trained your units and even a little luck.

Nanopods can either be bought with your Steam Wallet or earned.
The ways to earn nanopods are not easy but if you don’t want to spend money but still want some premium units you will have no other choice.

The easiest way to get nanopods nowadays are boss strikes. Boss strikes are special events that happens once a month. To engage in a boss strike you should be part of a guild. You don’t need to but it will be much easier for you to get the nanopods.
Boss strikes have 10 different prices, tier 1,2,5,6 and 8 are rare resources. Tier 3, 7 and 10 are limited units that you cannot get any other way as winning them in the boss strike. Tier 4 and 9 are 45 nanopods and 90 nanopods, so you can get up to 135 in one boss strike.
I will be honest with you, to get 135 is very hard and for a new player an impossible task. But getting 45 nanopods is not that hard if you find a good guild that will let you join.
Keep in mind, if you don’t contribute to the boss strike and try your best you will mostly get kicked because most guilds don’t want lazy people in their guild. Creating an own guild is also a very hard task because it is hard to find enough players and cost a huge amount of gold.

Another way of getting nanopods is engaging Player vs Player mode. You can do this every day and there exist four price tiers. Tier 1 and 2 are gold, Tier 3 is xp and tier 4 is a random price that might include nanopods. To be honest, the chance to get nanopods is very rare, the higher your level is the more nanopods you get but the chance also decreases. At max level the chance is only 2% and I never have won nanopods except the small amounts when I was at a low level.
But at max level you can win 100 nanopods if you are lucky enough.
To get tier 4 price you need 40 PvP points. You get 1 point from a loss and 4 points from a victory so it either takes you 40 losses or 10 victories. Since you still get at least one point from PvP there is no reason not to engage in it.
Battling your friends does not add to your pvp points though.
Units that have engaged in pvp are on a 2 hour cooldown rather then sended to your hospital. Keep that in mind if you don’t have enough units.

During halloween there is also another way to get nanopods. During halloween is a special infected event where you fight zombie-like enemies that drop black nanopods. You can convert these black nanopods to normal nanopods, 5 black ones give you one normal one.

Each month is also an invasion event, the 5 best guild get a huge amount of nanopods split evenly between the 20 best players in this guild. But actually as a new player there is NO chance to get this price, the only reason I mention it is for the completeness of this guide.

Z2 also reveals very often events where you can win some nanopods (mostly about 20-35 nanopods). These events lasts some weeks and include upgrading limited time buildings, producing certain goods or building different things. They are very costly in terms of gold and time and a lot of people agree that the invested time is not worth it. Still this is a chance for newer players to obtain some nanopods for free without much effort.

Also you get one nanopod for every level up and 5 for the tutorial, so you get 70 nanopods if you have reached the max level of 65.

Visiting other players

Since Battle Nations is a multiplayer game, interactions with other players are very important.
You can visit the outpost of another player where you have a couple of actions that you can take.
For example you can send this player a message. He will get a notification on his avatar the next time he is online (or in an instant if he is currently online).
You can also assist his buildings hich gives him and you a benefit. You can help every player 5 times every 22th hour (NOT after 24 hours as you might think), this does not accumulate, so you won’t have 10 assists after 44 hours.
You can help only active buildings, if the building is shut down there won’t be a helping icon over it.
Different building types affect the bonus you and your friend get.

Shops
You: Get a gold bonus based on the shop you assist.
Your firend: 30 minutes reduction on the current production.

Resource Buildings
You: 15 amount of the resource (30 on advanced resource building)
Your friend: 15 amount of the resource (30 on advanced resource building)

Military Building
You: Gold. On barracks a small chance for bars. On vehicle factory a small chance for gears.
Your friend: 15 minutes reduction on the current production.

Healing Buildings
You: Gold More on advanced building.
Your friend: 30 minutes reduction on the current healing process. If a unit has less than 30 minutes to heal and another unit is in the queue the rest of the time got applied to the next unit in the queue.

Besides that you have a 25% chance to get a merit for EVERY assist, so you should get around one merit per player you help. Merits are a rare resource you can use to produce some special units. Also you can use it to get a small boost on SP for 15 minutes, making them valuable for long training sessions.

You can also occupy and raid the player that you currently visit. To manage this however he needs the pirate flag raised.
Raiding and occupying gives you resources but nothing for your friend. On top of that, occupying a player can have a negative impact on your friend depending on where you occupy him, so think twice before you do it. On the other hand, raiding has no nagative impacts whatsoever, so feel free to do it.

If you want to attack another player you should first ask if it’s okay and if so, where it is okay. Not all players are open for that kind of interaction and may delete you from their friendlist. However most players shouldn’t have a problem with it as long as you ask them and don’t attack anything valuable.
I will now explain the differences of raids and occupations.

Raid

A raid is a fast attack on a small targeted area. The benefit is that you get in an instant new resources and your friend has no negative impact from it. You can only raid the same area every 4 hours, so no exploit in here. You get a small bonus from raiding a friend depending on the target. Raiding resource buildings gives you a small amount of that resource. Shops gives you gold, houses gives you also gold. Decorations can also be raided and give either gold or resources, in rare cases both. You can also raid the environment which gives small amounts of a resource that can be found there, for example mountains give you either stones or iron.
Some buildings you raid can give you a rare resource, vehicle factories give you a gear, special training facility (NOT the barracks) give you a bar.

Occupation

An occupation is the bigger version of a raid, the area you can target is much larger as of a raid and you get four times the amount of resources you would get from a raid. Your occupation stays in the place you’ve targeted for 48 hours or if your friend defeats the occupation. In this case you have to heal the units you used. You can also retreat your army earlier in the army tab on your outpost.
Occupations give you resources every fourth hour however you have to collect the resources for yourself and the timer resets after every collection. Also you don’t get your first bonus at the start of the occupation, giving your friend 4 hours to notice and defeat the occupation.
Occupying specific places might or might not have a negative effect on the building you occupy. This depends on the building type. Resource buildings produce slower and less resources for your friend. Military buildings take a lot more time to finish their next unit (however it does not affect the unit that is currently in production). Some shops also take more time to produce however most shops are unaffected from it.
Besides that you are free to occupy everything as long as your friend is okay with it. Decorations are really helpful for occupations since they have no negative affect and give a good amount of gold and/or resources. Helpful players always put big decoration clusters on their land which indicates that they are free for occupations.

There are a special kind of occupations, called “Sp farms”. A SP farm is a occupation on a empty or at least unsignificant place. Instead you use a lot of units that are easy to defeat and give a good amount of SP. Wimps are a good example. Wimps are on r6 a beast and give 200 SP but they have one weakness, they can only attack if they are in the front row. Putting Wimps in the second row and placing a barricade (like sandbags) in the first row makes them an easy target for any unit they encounter. Because of the high sp amount you get from them you can train your units faster as with usual traning. A lot of professional players use this trick to rank their units to the max level. If two players put sp farms on the land of the other player this is calles “sp trading”.
If you want to benefit from something like this, ask a friend if he can do it with you. Keep in mind that you still have to heal the units afterwards.

Guilds

At some pint in the game you will realize that doing everything alone won’t do any good anymore. At that point it’s a good idea to join a guild.

Guilds are a community of players that work togehter and help each other. A guild can have up to 100 players. Each guild starts with a guild leader who decides if the guild is open 8everyone that knows the guild can join) or closed (you can apply to the guild but the leader and other high ranked players decide if you can join).
A guild has it’s own level that decides how many members it supports. to increase a guild level the players has to spend a certain amount of gold. On higher levels the amount of gold you need to donate are very high, so keep in mind you could ruin yourself just from spending.

When you reach a new level in the guild you might get new bonuses however this does not apply to every single guild level, there exist quite a lot of levels where you don’t get a new bonus.
Bonuses can differ from more slots for new members to slots for new leaders as well as multiplicators for SP and XP.
The highest level to reach for a guild (at the moment) is level 80, you will have then place for 100 members, get +10% on SP and +25% on XP. This bonuses apply to every sources of SP and XP, including battles, shops, houses and missions.

So joining a guild is always a good reason, you get passive bonuses, you can chat with other players and most big guilds feature also an own web page or forum where they discuss strategies and share experiences.
Another reason to join a guild is the Boss Strike, a monthly event in Battle Nations. During BS you collect points for a price however if you are in a guild the points of every member is counted into the guild score and your chance to obtain a price is bigger. For example you have 3000 points, another guild member has 2000 points, the next price is unlocked at 5000 points. Both your points are counted together and you unlock the price. Everyone in the guild will now get the price, so collectionc points helps everyone in the guild.

If you are currently not in a guild you should consider to join any aviable for you. You can look in the guild section of the official Battle Nations forum to find the perfect guild for you.
However, don’t try to look for a guild that just offers high BS prices. If you are a new inexperienced player you won’t stand a chance to join these guilds. Such guild look for players that contribute a giant amount of points, sometimes going to 1 million points. So if you don’t have such a large amount, search a smaller guild.
A good start for new players would be a guild, that can beat tier 3. This is always a good start and you can help the guild to get better from that, being some day one of the guilds that reaches tier 10.

Where to go on from here

If you have read all of the above you should be ready for Battle Nations.
Thank you for bearing with me and my guide until the end, I know it is kind of hard to read but I thought it would be important to make one.

So, where to go on from here? if you have completed the first steps and understand the most important parts of the game you should look for new friends in the game. Search in the official forums for other players or engage in random pvp and add them after your fight to your friends list.
Battle Nations is most of the time a community game and as such you need a lot of good friends. Friends can help on your outpost, you can challenge them to fights and you can help each other to train.
Also you should look for a nice casual guild. As a new player higher guilds won’t accept you, luckily there are a lot of casual guilds that focus on new players that have just started playing. While these guilds may not reach the top price in boss strikes they have the potential to improve and they are a lot of fun if they are active.
Also, if you have joined a guild that has a lot of inactive guild members, don’t be ashamed if you leave them, it is for the better. You don’t have to force yourself in a dead guild just because you are new, there a lot of active alternatives. Just don’t give up and search for it.
What you shouldn’t do is to leave a guild because they have reached only a low tier. Since you are new you cannot await that you will be part of a guild that reaches tier 9. These guilds have high standards and want players that have at least some experience. Remember, you are new, you are inexperienced, you cannot await that everything works for you. In a guild you have to work with others together and help the whole guild, not just yourself.
A good guild can be very rewarding, not only provides it you an active community but also you get a permanent xp and sp bonus.
Don’t be shy to ask other players for help, there are no such things as stupid questions, only stupid answers.

You also should set yourself goals which is very important. Know what you want in the future and aim for it. For example if you have just unlocked a new unit you should set yourself a target to rank it before the next boss strike.

I hope this guide helped some of you and will lead you to a bright future in Battle Nations. This guide is far from completed and I will still add stuff and update it over the time.
If I have missed some important key features, please tell me so I can add it. I will also accept happily pictures and screenshots of features that I have missed.