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=== Building Styles ===
*''' Orc '''
** Builder placement when building is completed/canceled
**: When you are finished constructing or have canceled a structure as an orc type builder your builder will spawn in the bottom left corner of where the building was constructed. If the bottom left area is blocked, you will spawn to the closest possible location. You can not spawn in the area which in the structure was being built. If there is no valid location nearby for you to spawn in you will spawn ontop of the newly built structure.
*''' Human and Undead '''
** Builder placement when building is being constructed
**: If you construct a building on top of your current position, your builder will move to closest open space on the same layer to finish the building. If there is no valid location nearby for you to spawn in you will spawn ontop of the newly built structure.
=== Critters ===
* Making critters move*: There are three ways you can use to influence the movement of critters. The two useful ones is bubonicus' plague and using an eye of the ocean on the critter. Both of the methods will move the critter in the opposite direction of where you are standing. The third method is radioactives immolation which functions the same way as bubonicus' plague.
* Using critters as a nuke bridge
*: This is pretty hard to pull of and needs preparation. First you must move the critter into position. The position you want your critter to be is 2 walls range from the builder you want to nuke but not further than 5 walls range from where you are going to nuke from. When the critter is in the correct position you will need 2 minions to windwalk into your nuke spot and then nuke. Nuking is pretty hard since you need to be real fast so the critter doesn't move out of intended position as the first nuke hits [Q>Click Critter>Tab>Q>Click Critter]. I suggest you use bubonicus or sypherious to practice this because easy movement of critters. I also suggest you use an albatross as your critter of choice since it is flying. Here is a video of a successful [http://youtu.be/nvLs_obRsnc?t=473 albatross nuke].
* You can also use workers as a bridge. Limit your vision so the nuke bounces towards the builder and not on all the worker if you use workers. Use floating eye to limit your vision. Here is a video on [http://youtu.be/qm2QeLS62U0?t=741 how to do it] properly.
* Other functions:
** Using eye of the ocean on critters to scout. Useful with sypherious' eye ability.
** Blocking builders at mound
**: I've created an imgur album with the most useful jumps. The instructions are inside. There are more jumps but they are mostly inconvenient, don't be afraid to experiment yourself.
** Item jump
**: As a builder you can jump with items as the same time you gather lumber. This is not really useful at all, it is just fun to do. The only real useful thing you can do with it is taking the seed outside of euro base with a orc style builder. **: **: Here's how you do it:
**# Be a orc style builder with an item in your inventory.
**# Build a shelter inside the seed outside of eurobase
**# drop the item ontop of your builders hitbox
**# gather lumber with your builder whilst not moving away from the item
**:
**: You should now have jumped outside and can now pick up the item. Here is a [http://vimeo.com/135142940 video] of me doing the jump.
*''' Titan jumps '''
** Ankh jump
**: This type of jump is one of the easier jumps to pull of and requires an ankh and at least 2 minions/chickens depending on the base you want to jump, but the more you have the easier the jump will be. BurnShady has a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djAwxO5Uo_k video] where PLus performs an ankh jump in an in-house. As you can see in the video PLus blocks the possible spawning locations on the ramp with his minions, thus the only place left he can spawn is in the base.
* ''' Armor types '''
** Unarmored (Most workers)
** Light (none)
** Hero (Titans, and most titan hunters)
** Fortified (Buildings, some supportive builders and some titan hunters)
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* ''' Weapon types '''
** Normal (Builders)
** Piercing (Towers, and demonoligist and merc summons)
* '''Legitimate worker stacking'''
*: Alright with the illegitimate ways taken care of I'll explain what worker stacking is, how it works and how you can do it. Worker stacking is stacking multiple workers into one 1x1 area to decrease spots required to max out food gain, this is useful in the lategame where titan keeps nuking your base workers but you have seeds. The way it works is when a worker is returning its lumber the workers hitbox will dissapear so the game thinks there is an empty area for a worker to spawn in but in reality there isn't, if there is a 1x1 available between the workers and "open area" they will pop out of their stack. *:: *:: The way you do it is simple:** :# Have a shelter inside a seed with it's checkpoint targeted at a tree** :# Have the shelter mass-pump workers** :# Detonate the workers that escape the seed, some workers will spawn inside the seed and have it's hitbox's clipped with each other** :# Keep pumping workers and detonating escaped workers until you're satisfied with the stack.*:: *:: Here is a [http://vimeo.com/135235948 video] of me worker stacking, showing how the process works. I only managed to stack one worker since I wanted the video to be short. If you want more stacks just continue spawning and detonating workers.
=== Titan Assets ===
* '''Chicken'''
*: A lot of players regard the chicken as a useless trophy of shame and believe it is harmless, but with the correct preparation and skill chickens can be used as an valueable asset to the titan. : List of useful functions for the chicken:
** scout
** passageway blocker
** wand of the wind user
** nuke rod user
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* '''Mind Games'''
*: Mind games are often not mentioned in Island Defense but I consider them to be a major part of the game and an asset to the titan. What I mean by mind games is as titan you do an action to trigger a response from the builders. Mind games can be used to make builders think you are doing one thing but in reality you are doing another thing.
* '''Vision'''
*: It's a valuable asset to the titan to know how to use vision properly, especially during the early game in order to find feed. There is multiple ways to gain vision as the titan, the most obvious one is pearl. Seacow has a good pearling [http://entgaming.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=104&t=10181 algorithm] to maximize his chances to find early feed. It is important to know when to use pearl, I recommend to always keep it on cooldown in the early game to scout as much as possible, but it still comes down to timings e.g. if you want to kill a golding magnataur, then it is wise to not use pearl on scouting as you will need it for the magnataur kill. Another trick to scout the map is chimera's. Chimera's are flying units available to the titan in the consumables shop. It has a pretty long cooldown so you can't use it all the time. Though each chimera can use items and have separate cooldowns so you can scout the map nicely with chimeras. : Here's how to do it:
** Have 1 chimera in the mounds inventory and 6 on the ground beside it.
** Use the mounds chimera and pick up the rest.
** Pick up the rest and repeat.
** Beware of towers/foodsources, as they will kill your chimera.
*: Note: this chimera trick doesn't work for 4.0 version of Island Defense. It still works in 3.0.9d if you happen to play a game of that version, e.g. in an in-house.
*: Other vision sources are wards, floating eyes, and the titans inherent scouting abilities. Floating eye is a necessity when sieging to prevent rewalling by threatening with nuke, also use it to scout bases you think the builders will base in. In games where there is a lot of seeders I like to buy a floating eye and go around nuking seeds without wasting mana on pearl.
** [5]all minions
** [6]miscellanious units(chimera, mini-minions, titan ability units)
*: If I need more minion control groups I move 5-6 control groups to 6-7 to free up control group 5 for the extra minions. Sometimes I have minions as singles in their control groups to maximize the scouting I do, I do this when there is no threat of a supportive builder killing my minion. When there is a supportive threat in the game I will have my minions in their control groups in pairs to avoid them dying.
*: This isn't the most effiecent way to have your control groups, it's just my preference. If you truly want to maximize your effiecency in control group usage I recommend BurnShady's control groups which can be found [http://entgaming.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=104&t=47282 here].
*: To improve your actual micro management skill there is not much I can help you with. *: Here's a few tips to help you practice and learn faster;:
** Always have every unit you own perform an action
** Try to move around your camera as much as possible to maximize your information intake
** Try to have a high action per minute count to increase reflexes and action speed
:
*''' Builder '''
*: Might not be so obvious that the builder needs good micro management skills, at least it's not as noticable as a titan with poor micro management. Having good micromanagement skills as builders includes setting up a fast lumberbase to maximize lumber gain, detonating workers when titan moves nearby, setting up a base fast, managing tower attacks, controlling worker block etc. To achieve these goals you will need good choice of control groups. I use and recommend these ones (Early game without base/ Late game with base):
** [5] Empty/Towers
** [0] Empty/Main builder
*: They enable you to easily worker block, re-wall, and focus fire when titan is sieging. It also allows you to move your camera around much easier in the early game (e.g. titan is attempting to kill you 5-wall full-deny lumberbase and you are afraid of titan TP mid while you are detonating it, spam 1>1>2>2 to move camera fast inbetween mid and your base to see if he is teleporting. Wait until titan is killing the last wall to kill your lumber base if he doesn't TP). Change your main builder hotkey to a more distant [0] when you have a base to prevent you from accidentally suiciding.
*: Use this [http://www.islanddefense.org/forum/index.php/topic,2947.0.html guide] from BurnShady to set up a lumber base and practice until you are fast as lightning.
*: Anyways micro-management is a skill you will have to practice yourself, use the tips I gave you in previously to improve.
** Watch replays of good titans playing to mimic and learn from them, I recommend the old ih replays found on the forums from 2 years ago.
** When sieging move a minion to tank some of the hits from the towers before your titan walks up to the base.
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*''' Builder '''
** Builders can remove the titans ability to "jump" into their base by "blink proofing" their base. This is done by removing all open 2x2 or larger spots in the base.
