Engineer Infantry - Combat Engineers - Bunker and Tech Noob

Axis & Allies RTS > Infantry > Engineers

ENGINEERS
Engineer Brigade

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AXIS and ALLIES RTS | ENGINEERS

The Engineer Infantry regiment in Axis and Allies RTS is often used incorrectly by newer players, or aka "noobs". This is a late game infantry regiment, and many games you can avoid having to make it at all. A non-combat regiment, if you have engineers engaged in battle usually something is going wrong. Such as airborne all over your base, or worse.

The staff here at axis-and-allies.com doesnt see much purpose in giving a detailed breakdown of the engineer regiment, but we'll touch on some important points before we move on. Most importantly, lets teach you how NOT to be an engineer noob. So, let's get started.

Engineers >
The Tech Noob | The Bunker Noob | Building AA | Repairs | Upgrades | In Conclusion

AXIS and ALLIES RTS | THE TECH NOOB

The Tech Noob

Experienced players have all at one time or another encountered the tech noob. Instead of spending their valuable early game resources on HQ's to improve their economy, they build their tech buildings and upgrades way too early. The engineer brigade is often seen in this noob build. Click on the image on the left to see just how many mistakes this poor noob has made...The tech noob is also a close cousin of the bunker noob (see below)

AXIS and ALLIES RTS | THE BUNKER NOOB

The Bunker Noob

Ahhh yes, the bunker noob. Still remember one of my first online games, busting out my engineer early and starting to work on those bunkers. Wasnt long before I started seeing chat messages, like "look guys he's building bunkers!" and "lmao!". Didnt take me long to figure out that wasnt the path to victory. Click on the image on the right to learn a little more about the bunker noob... Basically, DON'T BUILD BUNKERS!

Artillery Bunkers

Well there may be one small exception to the "DON'T BUILD BUNKERS!" rule, using the artillery bunker (late game only!) to help defend your corp hq from airborne attacks. Some players use this, while other don't, so we'll leave it to your discretion. For an example: [click here]

AXIS and ALLIES RTS | GAMING TIP

Make sure you have elapsed game time set to "ON" in your settings. This will display a clock in the upper right part of your screen. Very useful in knowing when the time is right for many game related tasks, which you will learn with experience. Air and airborne attacks are rare before the 25:00min mark, so it's not very often you will need to deploy engineers before then.

AXIS and ALLIES RTS | BUILDING ANTI AIR

If you are going to build AA, build ALOT!

Building AA

Probably the most legitimate purposes for the engineer regiment in A&A is to build anti-air. Keep in mind this is usually a mid-to-late game task, largely controlled by the situation on the battlefield. Early air defense can usually be achieved by entrenching 2-3 of your favorite regiments (not recon!) next to your corp hq, to protect against airborne drops. Some players also choose to move their corp hq alot to prevent it's location from being known, and subsequentially attacked.

More important than any upgrade you can do for your engineers, is the "Proximity Fuse" upgrade for your AA. Not available for all countries, but if it is, get it!

Chain Building and Aiming Your Anti-Air

Chain Commands

A series of commands, linked together like a chain. Chain commands are present in many RTS games, although often no mention of them is given in the manuals or tutorials. The basic idea is pretty simple. Hold down SHIFT or CTRL while issuing a series of orders, then move on to other things while those orders are being systematically carried out.

Chain Building AA

Below is a short video demonstrating using chain commands to build a series of anti aircraft bunkers. Chain commands can be very useful in many aspects of the A&A RTS, so lets take a look at our example to get a basic understanding of how it works. As the video begins an engineer is selected. To deploy the first AA bunker:


Step 1 With the engineer selected, use the keyboard	Step 2 Hit the "B" key for Build	Step 3 Hit the "A" key for Anti-Air	Step 4 Hold down the "Shift" Key	Step 5 Left Click (do not release) where you want it

	Step 6 While still holding down shift and left-click, rotate mouse to aim AA	Step 7 Now you can release the left click	Step 8 Now you can release the "Shift" Key

Very important to be holding down Shift when you release the LEFT-CLICK to place the next the bunker! If you fail to hold down shift during one of the orders in the chain command, the entire chain command will be deleted!

Repeat as necessary for as many bunkers as needed.

NOTE: Chain commands to build can only be issued to a single engineer regiment at a time, not to groups of more than one engineer regiment.

See it in action below!

VIDEO TUTORIAL

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AXIS and ALLIES RTS | ENGINEERS | REPAIRS

Repairs

One of the few times it is acceptable to deploy your engineers early is to save your corp hq, especially if you have been fortunate enough to draw Nimitz, as in the example to the left. However, this is the only building that is worth repairing in the early game. Compare the cost of an engineer brigade and 1 engineer and you can see it's not very cost effective to attempt repairing any other buildings in the early game.

TIP: If you are Nimitz, move your corp hq often to avoid this situation

AXIS and ALLIES RTS | ENGINEERS | UPGRADES

Upgrades

While there are many infantry based upgrades that will affect your engineers, that vary by country, since the engineer is a non-combat regiment we won't trouble ourselves with those. There is really only one engineer specific upgrade, available to all countries, that we need to be concerned with.

Construction Battalions

Construction Battalions

This upgrade improves the repair/build ability of your engineers. We would classify this upgrade as a non-essential, late-game (if at all) upgrade.

IN CONCLUSION | ENGINEERS

Don't want to be
an engineer noob?

Don't Build Bunkers
(one exception, see example)
Don't Build Engineers early
(one exception, see repairs)
If you build AA, build alot
(for example, click here)
Engineers are NOT for combat

That concludes the basics of engineer infantry. Like our story? Please Digg it! Have a correction, addition, question, or other? You can contribute to ur A&A wiki, post in the official forum thread..