The Firefox Advantage in Unification Wars

Not all browsers are created equal as evidenced from the results of the browser wars. However, for Unification Wars, the browser you use makes a big difference to your playing success. A survey of the browser reveals several options:

1. Internet Explorer
2. Mozilla Firefox
3. Opera
4. Apple Safari
5. Google Chrome

So what are we looking for in a browser to give us that added advantage? Firstly, we need the browser to be fast to operate. Secondly, it needs to have the option of opening multiple tabs. Finally, it needs to be able to auto-refresh web pages at specified time intervals. Matched against these criteria, all the above browsers are able to meet the first two requirements. However, the third requirement, auto refreshing of web pages, is only offered by Firefox, Opera and Chrome. However, Firefox requires you to install the ReloadEvery add-on, while this feature is standard on both Opera and Chrome. However, my own experience with Opera is that while it is fast, it suffers from some incompatibility issues with Unification Wars. When you click on events, the military events display always gets messed up and this happens on both the Linux (I use Ubuntu) and the Windows XP/Vista versions. Some of the critical messages such as reinforcements and battle results are missing.



So the choice is between Firefox and Chrome. Chrome has the advantage of speed although I do remember when Chrome was first launched, there were small problems like the back button triggering a page refresh along with unintended results, such as building ships again. However, I do know that these problems appear to be fixed since many players in Unification Wars play using Chrome with no problems. My choice of Firefox is mainly out of habit.

The key to using Firefox is ample use of tabs and the ReloadEvery add-on. I have the following tabs open whenever I am online for speed and convenience.

1. Fed members page with ReloadEvery set at 1 minute refresh rate. This gives me regular updates on the Fed's op status.
2. Military records filtering Federation members with ReloadEvery set at 5 seconds refresh rate. This keeps me up to date on hits on myself or on fed mates and reminds me to check whether I need to refresh my fleet or outpost.
3. Military fleet for quick access to current fleet status.
4. Military shipyard for quick access to rebuild. When out attacking, I also have several of the shipyard tabs open with values preset to build outers and main fleet. This speeds up response time to attacks.
5. While out of damage protection, I also have events set to military events with ReloadEvery set at 5 second refresh rate so that if I were hit, I would be able to judge whether there was a chance of a quick retaliation to score planets.
   

In more extreme cases, or if you have a large enough monitor and/or good eyesight, you could set up a dashboard style screen like this below.



In any war game, real or virtual, information is key. And this gives you information presented in a very timely manner that allows you to play the Unification Wars game to the fullest. Enjoy!
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Viral Missions and Rewards in Unification Wars

This is a simple Unification Wars reference for newly minted Virals or players intending to switch viral and will form the basis of future articles based around Viral missions.


Act 2
Mission 1
Objective: Research Cyril Class Ships
Reward: +5k Strafez Organism.

Mission 2
Objective: 200k Red Crystal
Reward: +100 to loyalty on all systems

Mission 3
Objective: 500k Rutile
Reward: 30 c.Cancer added to fleet

Mission 4
Objective: Research Ministers Training Facility
Reward: +100 to loyalty on all systems

Mission 5
Objective: 1m pr
Reward: an Orion system with 10k planets

Mission 6
Objective: 10m credits
Reward: 100k Red Crystal!

Mission 7
Objective: 200k in ship upkeep
Reward: 5k planets to innermost system

Mission 8
Objective: 10m credits
Reward: Nothing

Mission 9
Objective: 5m Terran Metal
Reward: 250k Terran Metals!

Mission 10
Objective: 50m Composite
Reward: 20k Strafez Organism

Mission 11
Objective: 5m Pr
Reward: 5k planets to innermost system

Mission 12
Objective: 2m White Crystal
Reward: 3 Planetary Core Capsules

Mission 13
Objective: 10b credits
Reward: 5 housing infrastructure levels

Mission 14
Objective: 6m pr
Reward: 1m credits

Mission 15
Objective: 50m food
Reward: +200 loyalty

Mission 16
Objective: 200k population
Reward: 1m consumer goods

Mission 17
Objective: 2b credits
Reward: 20 v.Borrelly

Mission 18
Objective: 1m in ship upkeep
Reward: 10k Rutile and Composite

Mission 19
Objective: 15m Pr
Reward: a Titan system with 10k planets and 10 d.Pike


Act 3
Mission 1
Objective: 5b credits
Reward: 500k White Crystal

Mission 2
Objective: 30,000,000 Pr
Reward: +200 to loyalty and 10b credits

Mission 3
Objective: 5b food
Reward: 500k Terran Metal

Mission 4
Objective: Attain empire level 10
Reward: 5 big time capsules

Mission 5
Objective: 50m composite
Reward: Nothing

Mission 6
Objective: 500m Red Crystal.
Reward: Nothing

Mission 7
Objective: Achieve 400k planets.
Reward: 50m food and 100m consumer goods

Mission 8
Objective: Attain 20m population
Reward: 2 commercial infrastructure levels

Mission 9
Objective: Attain 75m Pr
Reward: 25m composite

Mission 10
Objective: 200m in ship upkeep
Reward: 5 Regalos

Mission 11
Objective: 1b consumer goods
Reward: +500 to loyalty

Mission 12
Objective: 200m White Crystal
Reward: 50 t.Empereur ships

Mission 13
Objective: 10b credits
Reward: 100 v.Borrelly ships

Mission 14
Objective: 100m Pr
Reward: 200k Strafez Organism and 50k Terran Metal

Mission 15
Objective: Achieve 30m population
Reward: 20,000 planets to the innermost system

Mission 16
Objective: 400m in ship upkeep
Reward: 50b credits

Mission 17
Objective: 50b credits
Reward: 20 Bronze Dinero

Mission 18
Objective: 10b food
Reward: +200 to loyalty

Mission 19
Objective: 750m White Crystal.
Reward: Nothing


Act 4
Mission 1
Objective: Attain 600,000 planets
Reward: 50b credits and 500m consumer goods

Mission 2
Objective: 15b food
Reward: You lose 100k Strafez Organism

Mission 3
Objective: Research Spy Recon project
Reward: 10 Small Time Capsule

Mission 4
Objective: Attain 100m in commercial income
Reward: 100m Red Crystals

Mission 5
Objective
Have a total ship upkeep of 600,000,000
Reward: 100 v.Borrelly ships

Mission 6
Objective: 9b raw materials
Reward: Nothing

Mission 7
Objective: Nothing
Reward: 5 k.Wai-Li ships

Mission 8
Objective: Attain 500m Pr
Reward: 50m rutile and 150m white crystal

Mission 9
Objective: 90b credits
Reward: 3 big time capsules

Mission 10
Objective: 500m raw material
Reward: 400m food

Mission 11
Objective: 700m in ship upkeep
Reward: 50 v.Chiron ships and 10 Major Barrera

Mission 12
Objective: 25b food
Reward: -1200 loyalty in all systems (punishment to be precise)

Mission 13
Objective: 900m in ship upkeep
Reward: 500 p.Thor ships and 10 k.Wei-Li ships

Mission 14
Objective: 50b credits
Reward: Nothing

Mission 15
Objective: 1b Terran Metal
Reward: Nothing

Mission 16
Objective: 750m Rutile
Reward: 500m White Crystal
You receive +500,000,000 White Crystals!

Mission 17
Objective: 700m Strafez Organism
Reward: 20 Minor Afortunado

Mission 18
Objective: 25b food
Reward: +50 loyalty in all systems

Mission 19
Objective: 2b consumer goods
Reward: 100k planets to innermost system


Act 5
Mission 1
Objective: 10m in ship upkeep
Reward: 55k planets to innermost system

Mission 2
Objective: Attain 5b pr
Reward: 5m credits and 600m raw materials

Mission 3
Objective: 80b credits
Reward: 2m consumer goods

Mission 4
Objective: 10b credits
Reward: 13 Moccasin Orb

Mission 5
Objective: 7b Pr
Reward: +70 loyalty to all Systems

Mission 6
Objective
Have a PR of 9 Billion
Reward: 1b consumer goods and 1b food

Mission 7
Objective: 10m in ship upkeep
Reward: 50k planets to innermost system

Mission 8
Objective: 1b Terran Metal
Reward: 4 Kal-Zul ships

Mission 9
Objective: 100b credits
Reward: Kal-Zul ships

Mission 10
Objective: 25b credits
Reward: 3 housing infrastructure levels

This mission list was taken from a number of strategy guides available out there and may contain errors.
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Maximum Defence with Minimum Donation Points on Unification Wars

The empire building continues on your Unification Wars empire. So you have done your restarts, be it Collective or Marauder, and now armed with a fist full of artifacts, you have made the trades needed to get a handful of donation points. These are hard-earned points and you want to spend them wisely.

Generally, most would either opt to get the pair of extractors so that they help generate more artifacts for you to trade for more donation points, or get paid status and swap to a paid account race such as Marauder (if you were doing Collective restarts), Guardian or Viral. Suppose you do not want to do that and what you really want is to get a strong system structure with a good main system and 9 darks protecting it.

First step you do is to restart as Collective. As Collective, you start off with a titan and you are able to make 7 dark systems for a total of 8 systems. That done, obtain paid status if you have not already done so, purchase the DNA Restructure I project and change to Marauder. At this point, it would be extremely useful to have well off friends or a wealthy lord as you will need some help to finish the missions to obtain the second dark systems. After the first dark system is obtained, you will receive a titan system. This needs to be destroyed immediately before proceeding further or you will risk not getting the second dark system. Once done, you are all set to move on. You may choose to remain a Marauder which is a fine race to play offering strong offensive capabilities as well as the fastest build rate in the game. Alternatively, you may purchase a second DNA Restructure I project and switch to whatever race you choose to be.

If you have the luxury of time, as Collective, it would be advisable to complete all the missions for the rewards and to level all the dark systems but not the titan system. Collectives have, in my opinion, the best artifact rewards of all the races and I think it would be a shame not to get them all. Why not level the titan, you may ask. The main reason is that both Collective and subsequently Marauder missions will give plenty of planets on the innermost system, namely your titan. If you have leveled the titan, you would not be able to get rid of the planets, you would have wasted all those turns and time getting the titan leveled in the first place, and it would also affect your efficiency in leveling your remaining systems if you choose to explore.

Total cost of this if you stay as Marauder:
DNA Restructure I (9.95 donation points) + 7 days paid account (2.98 donation points) = 12.93 donation points

If you choose to change to another race:
2 x DNA Restructure I (9.95 donation points x 2) + 7 days paid account (2.98 donation points) = 22.88 donation points

Note: This is a revised post from my original post in Tinker's Sojourn.
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Artifact Farming - Marauder Restarts Walkthrough for Unification Wars

On Unification Wars, other than Collective restarts for artifact farming, the other popular form of artifact farming is Marauder restarts. Marauder restarts are quick and easy and yield only big time capsules. Big time capsules are in popular demand as currency to trade for donation points as top empires need them to trigger off the Overmind project which is the ultimate project in the game.

This is a guide for how to get Marauder restarts done in the most efficient way possible. Before you begin, you need to ensure that you are on real time normal turns and have a lord or friends that will be willing to support you with tributes each time you restart. The major only hurdle to cross is that Marauder require you to have paid status as the big time capsules only show up in Act 3 which is only open to players who currently have paid status.

1. Restart as Marauder and assign all infrastructure levels on commerce.
2. Get your lord or friend to send you about 400b credits.
3. Skip act 1.
4. Research Class 3 Marauder Hull.
5. Purchase 155m food, 5m red crystal, 50m rutile and 75m strafez organism from the market. Do not be afraid to purchase from the black market if none is available.
6. Build 81600 units of e.rays.
7. Explore till you have 20k planets.
8. Assign all planets to commerce and check if you have 1 million income from commerce. Continue exploring until you attain 1 million in commerce income per turn. Note how fast this is achieved is purely dependent on how high your total infrastructure level is since all of it is assigned to commerce.
9. Stop at Act 3 Mission 6 when you receive 3 big time capsules.
10. Restart and repeat. Do note that artifacts cap at 255. You may go over 255 up to a maximum of 9999 but each time you restart, the total per artifact gets reduced down to 255.

Your total artifact haul for each restart is:

• 3 big time capsules
• 2 minor suerte

Note that if you proceed an additional 3 more missions, you can gain an additional 2 historia which could come in handy. The 3 mission requirements are low.

1. Purchase an additional 100m strafez organism and 50b raw material at the start.
2. Build up additional e.rays to the required 60m pr level at Act 3 Mission 7.
3. Stop at Act 3 Mission 9 when you receive the 2 historia.

Note: This is a revised post from my original article in Tinker's Sojourn.
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Artifact Farming - Collective Restarts Walkthrough for Unification Wars

On Unification Wars, artifacts are very useful for several reasons. They provide you with protection from the effects of negative artifacts, they also can be used to attack other empires to the extent of putting them into vacation mode without turns for a period of time, and they can be used to give you more planets or more game turns. Artifacts are also valuable in that some artifacts, particularly big time capsules and regalos, can also be commonly traded with other players for donation points which can then be used to grant paid account status or purchase other paid projects to enhance your empire. Other than excavating for artifacts, which is very long and tedious, many players take a short cut known as artifact farming by doing multiple restarts within a period of time. As artifacts carry over empire restarts, they can be accumulated much more quickly than by excavation.

One of the most popular form of artifact farming is via collective restarts. This is a guide for how to get it done in the most efficient way possible. Before you begin, you need to ensure that you are on real time normal turns, have your infrastructure at above 25 levels and have a lord or friends that will be willing to support you with tributes each time you restart.

1. Restart as collective and assign 25 levels to agriculture and all remaining infrastructure levels on housing.
2. Get your lord or friend to send you about 4b credits.
   
3. Skip act 1.
4. Research mega projects, spying capability and spy recon.
5. Purchase 1.5m terran metal, 500k red crystal, 50k rutile and 50k composite from the market. Do not be afraid to purchase from the black market if none is available.
6. Build 1320 r.schooners and click build 5 times till you hit about 13m pr.
7. Explore till you have 65k planets. Act 2 Mission 9 requires you to hit 70k planets but you get 5k planets as a reward from Act 2 Mission 2.
   
8. Quickly finish all the missions till you hit Act 2 Mission 10 which requires you to have empire level 7.
9. Increase your population to 430k for non-paid players and 70k for paid players.
10. Click on Diplomacy > Vassal to reset your empire level which should be at empire level 7 unless you are hit while you are doing the missions.
11. Complete the mission.
12. Restart and repeat. Do note that artifacts cap at 255. You may go over 255 up to a maximum of 9999 but each time you restart, the total per artifact gets reduced down to 255.
    

Your total artifact haul for each restart is:

• 15 minor barreras
• 10 regalos
• 20 minor afortunado
• 50 organic base
• 50 assimilated base
  

To complete all this requires about 30 minutes and most of it is spent waiting for turns to generate. And you can do this several times a day. If you do not want to sit there to spend time waiting for turns, I would suggest you change to medium turns and after each restart, log off and come back in 2 hours and you should have enough turns to complete a restart. Do note that on medium turns, your pace of doing restarts will slow down considerably since you will require about 4 hours per restart, ie two full loads of turns at the medium turn rate.

Keep going on enough rounds, you will be on your way to being a rich empire in Unification Wars.

Note: This is a revised post from my original article in Tinker's Sojourn
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Unification Wars Guide - Defence

If you have been following this series on Unification Wars online game so far and trying it out in the game, congratulations! The boring bits are over and done with. Let's get to the more fun parts about fighting. There is no point winning planets if you do not keep them long enough to enjoy them. That is unless you want to be a suicider, in which case you don't keep any of it anyway.

To manage a strong and effective defence in Unification Wars, you need to understand what is involved. A successful defence in battle is determined by the following conditions:

• You, the defending empire, must lose less ship pr than the attacker. So there are two variables here - how much your defending fleet damages his fleet and how much the attacking fleet damages yours.
• The attacker must do more than 2% damage to the defending fleet or else, even if the defender loses more ship pr, the defender wins.
• To successfully defend, you must lose enough ships. Damage protection is achieved after you lose 8 DP tokens. You lose 1 token if your defending fleet loses >=2% and <5%>=5% of ship pr. So clearly it is not just about winning the battle.
  

What are the factors that affect your defence?

1. System defence
2. Minister
3. Outpost reinforcements
   
4. Fleet

System Defence
This is the main reason why most people go for the single main system and as many dark systems as they can squeeze in, ideally nine for the maximum defence using non-paid systems. while it is not clear precisely how the system defence bonus affects the outcome of the battle, it is clear that it is in effect and having a high system defence at your main makes you tougher to beat on your main system. You should have all your systems done before start gaining planets.

Minister
Two of the biggest variables affecting the outcome of any battle is the two ministers. I have done tests with different ministers attacking the same defending minister, same attacking minister vs different defending ministers and the outcome can vary by a huge margin. This will be the subject of an article at a later date. So to begin with, if you are defending, put an appropriate minister. When selecting a defending minister, it certainly does not mean that you must have a minister with all hull increasing and damage limitation traits to defend successfully. A look at the victory conditions and damage protection conditions clearly indicates that losing some ships (about 5-6%) won't hurt as long as you do not lose more than the invading fleet. Whatever minister traits you choose, it should complement the ships that you pick in your fleet. I have a balanced fleet that is flexible on the attack and defence, so I tend to use a balanced to slightly aggressive war minister with warmonger, aggressive, anticipation and foresight traits that strengthens the fleet overall and presents little weaknesses to exploit.

Outpost Reinforcements
The single biggest reason for joining a fed is for the outpost reinforcements that is given to you by your fed mates. You will also get outpost reinforcements from your lord and vassals. How does outpost reinforcements work?

• Outpost reinforcements only come to you when it is 25% of your pr or less. So if you are at 100m pr when you are attacked, you will only receive outpost stacks that are 25m or less. This is a rough indicator as I have noticed that outpost stacks above 25% by a little are also called. However, I am not sure where the absolute limit is. So I suggest a little lower than 25% is safer.
• When you get hit, the three stacks with the highest pr that meets the 25% requirement arrives from your fed mates to join the battle.
• After outpost reinforcements from your fed mates are resolved, the system checks if you qualify to receive reinforcements from your lord or vassal. From observation, the criteria for reinforcements from lord or vassal is the most recently built stack, regardless of pr.
  

So how do you use outpost to your maximum advantage?

1. Always be aware of how much outpost is available in your fed before you head out of dp and stay up to date by checking on the outpost status frequently, especially if another fed mate is out of damage protection at the same time or when you get hit.
2. Do not be overly conservative and stay at precisely 4 times above outpost stacks. A good rule of thumb is to be about 10%-25% above your lowest safety pr. So if you take the previous example, if fed outpost stacks are at 25m pr, your lowest safety pr is at 100m pr. You should stay at 110 to 125m pr to give allowance for taking damage when you attack and when you get hit a few times in rapid succession on your main system in an attempt to drive you below outpost level, ie. you get tagged by two or more players.
3. Learn to conserve your use of fed outpost and leave some for your fedmates after you are done. Just as you do not want to be waiting to go out of dp and find out that the previous guy had used up all the available outpost in the fed leaving you with none, do not do the same unto your fed mates.
4. Have your fed mates who are online post higher than the offline fed mates and refresh actively whenever you get hit. This way you preserve the outpost in your fed. Likewise, when you are online and there is a fed mate out of dp, do the same.
5. Use the toughest ships you can deploy on outpost but do not fall into the trap of posting only one ship type.
   

Fleet
There are several schools of thought on fleet make up in Unification Wars. I personally do not think there is a right or wrong answer here and I suggest that the best way to do this is to try for yourself and experiment. Every race is equiped with a range of ships with different characteristics. The first thing one must do is to download the ship list from the manual. Spend some time understanding and experimenting with various ships and do not be afraid to try out everything regardless of what anyone else tells you. There is no better guide than experience and you will learn even from the losses if you take the time to review the battle records and see what went wrong. A reasonably balanced fleet composition to have would be to have the top 3 ships with either high hull to pr ratio (greater than 2.5) or have a decent hull to pr ratio (1.75 to 2.4) and have long range (6 or better). The bottom three stacks should be reasonably strong attack ships with weapon to pr ratio greater than 20 and having the long range attribute so that they will flank without taking damage. Discussions about fleets and stacking will be discussed in later articles.

Armed with this basic knowledge, you will be able to do reasonably well in the game and have some success in defending. Have fun playing!

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