Why your early game sux... and how you can change that.

The number one mistake I see in early game tactics is building fuel caches. Why are so many players doing this? There are so many reasons this is a horrible idea at the beginning of the game, where do we start?

Well for one, at the start of the game, you have very little resources. If you squander those little resource on fuel caches, you are starting the game outnumbered. The enemy spent their resources on men that are coming to kill you right now. Those fuel caches are extremely vulnerable, and need to be defended. Who will do that? All the men you forgot to build at the start? An early fuel cache is always a gamble. You are betting that you are going to have such a strong opening game you will easily be able to defeat all the early attackers, you are also simultaneously denying your own ability to do that by reducing your number of fighting units on the field. I argued recently about this with a friend. He assured me that fuel caches have no effect on manpower. I told him he is wrong. Why? Well, the real cost of that early fuel cache is not just 250 mp wasted building it, it is the cost of all the manpower lost by your team mates because they are fighting outnumbered. They are outnumbered because your cache did that. You are not helping them with a useful fighting unit, you maybe gave them a couple of fuel points at a time when they can not even use it. Because you lack men on the field you are not really helping anybody. The player that was holding the big map fuel cache just got flanked from your side, he lost 3 units, and is in retreat giving up the map cache. Put yourself in this guy's shoes, because a heavy machine gun could have easily held that flank, oh wait, you did not build one. Do you see how you may have been selfish in your early game spent looking for some magical source of fuel?

If you need proof of how foolish this tactic is, start a 1 vs 1 against an expert opponent. Now capture 4 points and put fuel caches on all of them. Build no fighting men, just do this with a starting pioneer or 2, and level up so you can get an early light or medium tank out. See how much extra fuel you get before the caches are destroyed. See if you can win this game with this starting tactic. Does it seem really difficult?
Now try this, restart this game by building 4 units with guns. Use them to capture territory and move them to where the enemy is and engage. I guarantee your odds of winning this game dramatically increased. All you have to do is stop dreaming about tanks and start killing the enemy from the start. If your only able to attack the enemy when you have a tank, what do you do for the first 10-15 minutes of each game? I suggest you learn to use ground troops during this time.

So it is simple, your early game sux because you did not build anything useful at the start, preferring instead to build something useful in the middle to later game. Under the assumption that you will survive that long.

Are you the guy that has the stat of 1-2 captures at the end of the game? That guy is a lazy jerk, and no one likes him. Obviously that may not be possible in a 1 vs 1, but having the 1-2 capture stat is a sure sign that your early game sux. The most important thing to do in the early game is capturing territory. Outside from a pioneer building an essential structure (not a cache), the most important thing your men can do is capture territory. Don't stop capturing until you encounter resistance. If you end a game with less then 5 captures, did you even show up to play the game? Resources come from territory held. What is the one thing more important then generating resources for battle? Denying your enemy resources. The best way to deny resources to the enemy is to hold the majority of the territory for yourself. Most of the players that find this game hard, are not understanding the importance of denying the enemy resources. They fail to confront the enemy, preferring to hide and wait until they have more forces to fight with. Do you see the problem with this thinking? If you fall back, to wait until you have more forces to confront the enemy, the territory you gave up is now giving the enemy more forces instead. It is not possible to give up territory, and still grow your forces at a rate faster than the enemy after doing this. You can't wait for a win, you have to go and fight for it. The best time to do this is at the beginning of the game. The first 5 minutes of battle is the most evenly matched the battle will be all game. If you are not taking advantage of this opportunity to kill as many green enemy as possible, you are missing out on possibly the best chance to gain advantage over your enemy that will likely be offered during the entirety of the game.

So you pretended like you knew what you were doing at the start and captured some points on the map. Now the enemy just sent a "blob" of 4 units at your two forward most infantry units. Hit retreat on those two units before they get slaughtered! Well if that is your best idea, that explains why your early game is so weak. Never, never, never retreat a mobile unit that has all it's men and/or health. This is the most absolute weakest thing you can do. Always put up some fight. Look to move your men to a nearby wall, building or hole, look for cover. Stall the "blob" and move nearby troops into a supporting position to help the fight. Throw a grenade to offset the difference, do anything other than retreat. Retreating is always your last resort. Almost anything you do to put a fighting effort to reduce the enemy numbers some before your retreat is a better move.