A Guide To Getting Started In Unification Wars

Unification Wars is a free browser-based online game where you play the leader of an empire. To gain greater advantage, you may choose to pay to play. However, as a free account player, you can still play Unification Wars and go on to become a top empire. It is just a bit harder as a free account player. Your objective is to expand your economy, military and power by both diplomatic or military means to dominate the galaxy by triggering off the ultimate weapon.

To get to be the best in Unification Wars, you first need to know your basics and establish strong foundations for your empire. This strategy guide is a series of articles that focuses on the basics that are needed. What are the basics?

1. System structure
2. Economy
3. Ministers
4. Defence
5. Federations
6. Attacking
7. Artifacts

Before we go into all that, we need to figure out what race we want to play first. Unification Wars has 3 races that are available to all and 3 that are only available to paid account players. The free races are Terran (which everyone starts as), Aspha miner and the Collective and the paid account races are Viral106, Marauder and Guardians.

Terrans - Most people quickly move away this race once they got the hang of the game and a look at the top empires in power rating terms reveal a very low number of Terran players too. However, Terran can be fun to play as they have a range of both offensive and defensive ships that make for versatile fleet options. Coupled with good economic traits, they are an easy race to use and much more powerful than most people make out to be. Perfectly suitable for people who like an all-rounder race that is relatively easy to play.

Aspha miner - According to the game's description, Aspha miners are supposed to be defensive with strong defensive starbases. Ironically, nothing could be further from the truth. First of all, the starbases are weak and almost not worth the effort of building them. Secondly, having the least amount of systems possible means that defense is weakest among all the races. And finally, they boast of having arguably a pair of the finest offensive ships - G.Livid and A.Aragonite. Mining is also arguably one of the better ways of making money. The only snag is that you need to consume turns in order to make the money and you are dependent on the market to get credits. Best suited for players who just want to attack others for the sake of winning. Many non-paid account suiciders choose to be Aspha miners. Suiciders will be covered in another topic.

Collective - Collective has been panned by virtually everyone in the game as having totally useless ships for defense or attack. The situation has improved somewhat after the last ship update in late 2008 but it is generally regarded that collective ships are still mostly rubbish, especially when deprived of the best ship, r.monitor which is available to paid account players only. Even then, r.monitor is merely a super-sized hull ship with little bite in weaponry. However, there are some pluses to collectives. For example, strong food production as well as +200% population capacity to all systems make collectives very rich income-wise, regardless of whether they go into tax income or farming. They also have the most number of systems makeable and start off with a titan. This gives collectives a great system defence to make up for their weak ships. Mostly used as a stepping stone to another paid race or for artifact farming. More on both later.

All the paid races have clear advantages over the non-paid races.

Viral106 - This used to be one of the most favoured races in UC. A quick scan through the top ranked players would show a clear majority of Virals. Why? Because while Virals have no decent ships of their own to speak of, they may re-engineer three ships each from Terrans, Aspha Miners and Marauders. This created a monster of a fleet with the best ships of three different races and few chinks in the armour. However, after the last ship update in late 2008, the advantage has been evened out and Virals are no longer allowed to re-engineer dreadnaught and juggernaught class ships. A balanced race that is relatively easy to play. Once you picked the right ships to re-engineer.

Marauder - This is a strong balanced race play but starting out as Marauder is quite tough. The ships are expensive to build, though they are cheap to upkeep (you need to build them first!!). Starting Marauders often find themselves very strapped for cash in battle and the situation is only improved when they gain significant income (usually several million planets coupled with strong infrastructure above 200). A rich lord that supplies the starting Marauder with plenty of tributes would make things much easier. Marauders get strong system defence after including the two dark systems from missions and the fastest building ships in terms of turns in the game. These saved turns can be used on more attacks or on infrastructure or posting outpost reinforcements. A great race to play all the way to the top but the start is a struggle.

Guardian - According to the description in the manual, Guardians are strong defensively and have well balanced ships. This is also another race that has a tough start to it. Researching the two best ships in the fleet require 18000 turns. That will generally take you a week or two to get sorted although if you choose to go on normal turns and sacrifice a night's worth of sleep and a pair of eye bags the size of the moon, you could get it done within 2 days. However, the sacrifice is well worth it since that pair are arguably the most well balanced ships in the game to have in your fleet, especially k.Hun-Xe. The best part in my opinion about playing Guardian is that even after your paid account status expires, you get to continue using the two k.class ships. Unlike Marauder's d.Dominions and d.Fallen.

Note: This is a revised post from my original article in Tinker's Sojourn