New player questions

hello and welcome to empiresmod.

i guess ...

its a bit map dependent, but in "classic mode" (most maps) the gaol is to eliminate the enemies command vehicle (aka CV) . in the other modes its reducing tickets to 0 and kill everyone.
modes are not very well distinquished, but if there is a CV on your side, the enemy has one aswell and its "classic empires".

this are the CVs, protect yours at all costs, if its dead, you lose.
left is Brenodi Empire (aka BE), right Northern Faction (aka NF)


the best way to archieve this is to secure map and refinery control.

its dependent on the map, which phase the game is in, and how many other players are on your team and what classes they play.

but in general, in the early game you need a lot of engineers to build up your bases and refineries. engis can build way faster than other classes, especially with the repair-upgrade class skill. also the name of the class is a bit misleading, its also the medic class and can heal and revive players.

once you have setup forward base and start to fight, riflemen dominate the battlefield, yet, since engineers can build walls, repair buildings, drop ammos, and most imporant revive other players, they still are extremely important. infact good engineers will turn the tides of battle as they shape the battlefield for their troops approch while keeping them alive and supply ammunition. you also will see grenadiers, they usually are experienced players using the mortar, a very powerful weapon once you can handle it.

this phase ends with the appearance of the first vehicles. since rifleman only has sticky-grenades to encounter tanks, and their range is rather limited to a few meters, grens get a lot more important as they also have an RPG (you can guide the rocket if you dont let go fire) and mines.

ofc its never wrong to start building your own tanks, but having said that, dont build tanks before your commander researched some upgraded armor. engine is nice aswell, but with a bit of heat management you can use their standard engine just fine, at least on the early vehicles like APC and Light Tank/AFV. also favor armor over weapons. one main weapon (2 on heavies) and at max one, really only one, "sidearm" are sufficient, survivability is very important. you should always have at least 2 plates/side on LTs/AFVs, 3plates/side on meds and 4 plates/side on heavies - and thats only so low with reactive armor which is the strongest but heaviest per plate, usually you can have a layer or even two more.

plain/standard armor means death and should only be used in very rare occasions and only when you know when and why by yourself.

tanks are mainly payed by the team resource pool (from refineries). but with every point you gain (for killing or building or whatever), you also get 20 resources as wages which get detucted first. dont mind about all that too much tho, as long as you team has over a few hundred resources (about 4-500+ * tank level; where tank level is light = 1, med = 2, heavy = 3) and a few refineries, dont be affraid to build vehicles, you need to learn to use them anyway, in the long run you only are of use if you are good in vehicles aswell.

unless you can assess the strengths and weaknesses of your and the enemys tanks, dont headlessly charge into the enemy, you will only die and waste the tanks you spent money on. losing a tank is not the end of the world so dont be overcautious either, but losing a lot is. always keep an eye on armor, if plates start to drop to 1, turn your tank, run away and search a place to repair. but ultimatively its an FPS, you inevitably die and you also inevitably lose tanks, happens to the best of us.

but i didnt answer what a good class for a new player is. its only easy to answer for the first couple of minutes -> engineer (if its enough players and you stay with them, take revive skill, if its only a few players or you want to go somewhere alone, take repair upgrade). after that it again is a question of how many players.
if its only a few players in total you will need to stay engi for the majority of the round and use tanks to attack and defend, no matter if you are new or not.
if there are more players (like ~15+ per side) and enough engis (about 1/3rd of the team excluding commander) id say play rifleman with health upgrade so you see where the enemies come from and get an idea of the maps.
once tanks show up switch to grenadier with armor detection skill so you get an idea of how much damage tanks take and how players handle their armor.
if your team can afford it build vehicles to get an idea how to use them. if there are many players, drive as gren and take armor detection skill to get an idea of your tanks damage against theirs. if its not many players or you lack engis, you have no real choice, play engi.

only over the course of a round, not persistant. but the customizability in empires is one of its key selling points. there are a multitude of skills to pick from (only 4 at once) and no preset tank designs. the commander will research (hopefully at least ) a lot of items to upgrade your tanks with all sorts of weapons, armors, and engines. also due to player based building placement maps never play the same twice.

cant help you with the last one sry (clanless), but just ask questions, dont be shy, the community usually is helpful if you ask specific questions. sadly there isnt enough time to explain the whole game with all its facets ingame.

also read over the manual. https://empiresmod.com/docs/ and start up a local server to try out things like commanding and research.
the only tip i can give you about commanding is keep an eye on what comms do. figure out who the good ones are and why they do things the way they do it.
on populated servers, stay away from commanding until you know your way around empires or there really is no one willing to take the "boomtank" (CV)

you dont learn commanding by losing because you are overwhelmed by all things you are supposed to do at once (you dont really, comm can be a quite chill job). if you enter the cv you need at least a bit of confidence in rating situations or youll panic and ultimatively lose due to that. the technicalities of commanding are easy, start a local server, a comm map, and youll be able to figure it out in 5-10minutes. the complicated part is doing it all under stress, you are responsible for in-time research, in-time building placement, relaying important informations to the team (maybe even give targets) and keeping the CV alive.

and ofc comm takes all the blame, even if it wasnt him to blame - the newer you are the more likely its perceived as your fault even if you did nothing wrong at all.

also concerning players, i guess "prime time" is east-coast usa prime time.

 

To add on a couple things, here's the list of kinda mostly active clans. Full name in the end of the link.

• JFR https://forums.empiresmod.com/index.php?threads/jekotian-first-regiment-Ϟ.19412/
• KXIC https://forums.empiresmod.com/index.php?threads/kolntus-tenth-infantry-company.18577/
• BSP https://forums.empiresmod.com/index.php?threads/brenodian-secret-police.19643/

JFR might not accept you because of being too new to the game. BSP and KXIC share quite a few members, kinda feels like joining one is joining the other. If you want in on a clan KXIC is probably better bet. Those things said clans for the most part just scrim which can be a much more different, and aggressive, game then normal public empires. You can learn a lot simply playing public games, vets can be real jerks but if you ask questions and listen they tend to be very helpful when they can. If you want a taste of what a scrim can be kinda like there's a pug this saturday at 2 pm edt. Anyone can join in, but it's going to be loud with a lot of yelling at people not doing the right thing or doing the right thing. So you might want to hold off on that if you haven't played yet, there will be more pugs later on.

The other thing about commanding is that usually when someone on the mic is telling you something, what to research or where to drop a building, it's a very good idea to listen. Most of the time those players have have played empires for 1000 hours, like me, so know exactly what you should be doing. You're free to disagree of course, but like flasche said be prepared to be raged at. It's a small community but it's also a very loud one that can be really unfriendly to new players. The fact you ask for info though before even getting in game means you'll actually be a decent team player so players will be more forgiving if you do something wrong.

Just keep a positive attitude, empires can be kinda overwhelming to pick up sometimes but it'll get easy enough after a few games.

 

oh OP, you may have noticed how i never mentioned scout? its a rather useless class. it has its specifics, if you use it correctly its indeed helpful, but thats also incredibly situational. and none of the uses revolve around the scout rifle.
unless there are many players and no or only one other scout stay away from the temptation of the sniperrifle - both riflemen have weapons that kill way more reliable over distance.
also if you should ever be tempted to play scout-sniper, stay away from hide. its tempting maybe, but ultimatively a wasted skill, if you need to play sniper, at least dont be completely useless.

empires is an arcadey shooter, you dont hide in bushes and wait for an attack, you attack, you die, attack again and repeat until you win. if you dig in, you lose.

 

Main objective:
Map control, holding the areas with yellow dots on the minimap to earn money.

Best class:
Engineer, it's the jack of all trades and ultimately the most useful class at any skill level. Rifleman may feel more familiar but is mostly impotent in a Commander game. Grenadier is useful once you have a feel for the game. Scout is a niche class that has the least to offer you or your team, but you'll eventually figure it out.

Player growth:
In a single game you will get points for doing things like building, killing, reviving, working with your squad, or assisting kills. When you get 10 you get another skill slot, another at 20, and the last one at 50 I think. Skill slots are extremely useful and the most diverse part of your loadout. Each class gets some skill options specific to them. Good ones are repair or revive for engineer, defusal for grenadier, and enhanced senses for scout. Good all around ones are speed, health, and accuracy upgrade. On every new match your points reset, there's no cumulative unlocks other than your own experience.

Other players:
Generally the more people are playing the better environment it is to learn in. It's really useful to go into steam library->view->servers and set the filter to Empires like this. Then you can see when there's a decent game going and join. Also check out this to see peak hours (looks like around 35 peak players most days): http://steamcharts.com/app/17740

 

Someone hide all the skeletons!

Also, the wiki has been down for a long while but Gregarious got it up recently, so rejoice, there's even more information here about how to play than just the manual!
Also, steamcharts has a more accurate and up-to-date playercount, although it averages stuff out, so it seems more stable than it really is.

Edit: also, you can practice any weapons you want easily like this:
Start a new server
Open the dev console (~, left of number keys, after ticking on "developer console" in Options > Multiplayer)
Issue these commands:
sv_cheats 1
emp_sv_research_complete 1
emp_sv_debug_build_vehicles 1

Now you can just open the [V]ehicle menu and build a tank with any loadout, without building a vehicle factory. If you need more resources, there's emp_give_resources 1 1000

 

It should be emp_give_resources nf 1000 or emp_give_resources be 1000 according to the code. Running it with 1 should give you a message telling you to use either BE or NF