Formations



The effectiveness of an APC formation is dependent on many factors: the selection and placement of troops in its squads, the Heroes assigned to those squads, those Heroes' Skills, researched APC Technology, and equipped APC Parts. So it's best to first explore the fundamentals of formations, then later include additional complexities, such as Combat Skills, and APC Parts.

Formation Fundamentals
"In your APC formations... Your front row is all about surviving the battle; your second and third rows are all about making sure your opponent doesn't."

Front Row
In theory, in your APC formations you're trying to build a sufficient "meat shield" in your front row [first squad] to allow your 2nd and 3rd rows to range-attack your opponent to death. In your front row, defense [resistance] should be the focus. In the beginning you will have no Combat Skill. Assuming your opponent has no combat skills either, your front row needs to absorb all the damage delivered by your opponent... ...your front row has to stand there and take it.

Also, when attacking, you have the initiative - your first squad hits your opponent first. If you can deliver a crippling blow with that first hit, it may be a decisive factor in the overall battle. So although your front row must be able to survive the duration of the battle [high resistance], if it can, you want it to also deliver a decisive blow [high might].

Initially, you should start with Fighters in your front row. They have much better defensive stats than Shooters, and moderately better defensive stats than Vehicles. [Contrary to expectations, Vehicles do not defend better than Fighters, and they do not attack better than Shooters.]

Everyone gets at least one Combat Hero - the Zombie Exterminator - and there's a very goood reason why he can only be placed in your first row; it's where he's needed. By placing him in your first squad, and upgrading his Leadership Skill, your first row can accomodate more and more troops - your "meat shield" gets stronger. Even when you replace him with a better Hero, for all heroes at low-levels, the troop additions of the Leadership Skill are extremely important - you overwhelm your opponent by fielding more troop that he does.

Second and Third Rows
With a strong front row to defend your formation, your second and third rows can focus on attack and annihilation of your opponent. The "standard" arrangement is Vehicles in your second squad and Shooters in your third. Vehicles have better attack stats than Fighters, but are not as fragile as Shooters, so they make a good compromise in your second squad, where troops may also need to defend if your first row falls. In situations where you're very confident that your first row will survive your opponent's attacks, you can place Shooters in both your second and third squads - your formation will be more fragile when hit [lower overall resistance], but will attack better [higher overall might].

All-Vehicle Formation
A special-case formation is All-Vehicles - Vehicles in all three squads. By removing the slower Fighters and Shooters, an All-Vehicle formation is 75% faster initially, and even faster with upgrades and technology. An All-Vehicle formation will neither defend as well, nor attack as well as a troop-specialized formation, however, rather than marching for an hour, an All-Vehicle formation will get there in 35 minutes. You gain speed by sacrificing strength. All-vehicle formations also receive "Same Unit" bonuses to might and resistance, however, at 5% initially, those bonuses will not fully compensate for the lost advatages of a mixed unit, troop-specialized formation.

Adding Combat Skills
Now that we understand the basics of formations, we can add the complications of Hero's Combat Skills. For a Combat Hero, the first skill is generally a Leadership Skill; it's the Heroes second skill that is a Combat Skill. When unlocked, the Combat Skill effectively enables the Hero to act as another squad in the formation - a fourth squad. And when upgraded, the Combat Skill attack becomes more powerful than the original squad's attack. At higher levels, the Heros' attacks easily eclipse the attacks of the Hero's base squads.

Hero Classes
There are classes of Combat Heroes - Green, Blue, Purple, and Orange. Generally, Orange heroes are better than Purple heros, which are better than Blue heroes, which are better than Green. However, it's much more expensive to unlock and upgrade hero skills for higher quality heroes.

Purple and Orange heroes have multiple Combat Skills, and generally, each provides another attack. Purple class heroes generally possess two Combat Skills, while Orange class heroes possess three.

Troop Requirement
Some Combat Skills are only effective for a specific troop type. For example, Razor's Combat Skill is only effective when he is leading Vehicles, that is, to utilize his Combat Skills, the troops in his squad must be Vehicles.

Target Requirement
Some Combat Skills are only effective against specific targets. For example, Zombie Exterminator's Headshot skill is only effective when he is attacking zombies - the Headshot skill will never engage when attacking other players.

Range
Each Combat Skill has a Range statistic, expressed in rows. It specifies the maximum number of rows distant, at which a target may be hit. A Combat Skill is unable to hit any target more than   rows away. When counting range, you count both friendly rows and enemy row. So a range of 1 is the next row in front of the Hero's squad, regardless of it being friend or foe.

Ranges of Combat Skills must be considered when placing Heroes. For example, from your first row, a Hero with a Combat Skill range of 3 can hit any of your opponent's squads. However, in your third row, that same Hero can only hit your opponent's first row. A Hero with a Combat Skill range of 1, must be placed in the first row; all targets are out of range if he is placed in the second or third rows. Likewise, a Hero with a Combat Skill range of 2 is useless in the third row - none of your opponent's troops are in range. And a Hero with a Combat Skill range of 5 can hit any of your opponent's squads from any row of your own formation.

Comparing Combat Skills
Throughout the game, combat power is used to compare players, bases, zombies, troops, and APC formations. However, combat power is wholy unsuited for comparing APC formations. The combat power of any APC formation is simply the sum of the combat power of the three squads, where the combat power of each squad is the combat power of it's troop tier multiplied by the number of troops in the squad. The combat power of a formation gives no consideration to Heroes' skills, technology, or any other bonuses to might or resistance. At low levels, a Combat Skill may only improve an attack by 40%, but at high levels, some Combat Skills provide another 300% of a squad's attack power. So at higher and higher levels, combat power becomes less and less representative of the true capabilites of a formation.



We therefore chose to compare Combat Skills based on their Attack Power, rather than Combat Power. Attack Power captures the cumulative effect of all aspects of a Combat Skill on an opponent. It is expressed as a percentage, and when multiplied by a squad's Attack Power, can also be expressed as absolute power.

The [|Heroes Attack Power spreadsheet] allows an interactive comparison of Combat Skills. The spreadsheet currently compares only Relative Attack Power1,2 for Purple and Orange class Combat Heroes. [Blue and Green class heroes are not considered.] S1 Heroes will be added soon.

1 Relative, in that this Attack Power is higher than that Attack Power, but it's unknown how this Attack Power compares to an opponent's Defend Power.

2 A later version of the spreadsheet will allow Attack Power to be compared to Defend Power.