Tips for New Players

[Kamikaze28]

Welcome to the World of Wits!

During the beta the testers gathered early experience with Outwitters and now that the game is released, we wanted to share our collected knowledge with you!
This list was originally started by Onofre's Arm to help new beta testers get up to speed on strategy. It has since been extended by other beta testers (see below).
We hope you find these tips helpful and look forward to you climbing the ranks.
If at some point, you want to contribute, shoot me a PM or post in this thread.

General

• Complete the tutorial to learn the basics.
• You don't have to use all of your Wits on every turn. Saving up for a decisive strike can turn the tides in your favor.
• Count out your turn before you move to avoid being one Wit short.
• You get +1 Wit for every enemy unit you destroy directly. It is advantageous to harvest these bonus Wits first before moving on with your turn.
• Don't play too aggressively. Only launch an attack if you have the capabilities to take the counter-attack which will surely follow.
• All units have their purpose. Learn how to use them. Don't rely on a select few, balance is key.
  

Hexes

• Spawn Spaces don't work if there's a unit standing on it. Letting your enemy step on your Spawn Spaces can be devastating. It can help to let a newly spawned unit remain on the Spawn Space then move it next turn and immediately build another unit thus never letting your Spawn Space be open for occupation.
• You can win a game by destroying all units and blocking all Spawn Spaces.
• Spawn Spaces can only produce one unit per turn, so choose wisely.
• Wit Spaces are there to be controlled. Always conquer 1 or 2 Wit Spaces (depending on the map) on your first turn unless you want to rush your enemy. Every Wit Space you control will give you 1 additional Wit per turn.
• Once a Wit Space turned to your color it will remain this way and give you 1 Wit per turn until an enemy unit steps on it. There is no need to keep a unit on it to keep it controlled, but it is a good way to defend it.

Special Units

• Familiarize yourself with all Special Units to understand their role on the field. They are quite expensive and wasting one can easily spell your doom.
• Bombshell cannot transform and shoot in one turn; but he can un-shell, move and re-shell in one turn.
• Mobi can teleport allied units in 2v2 games. Although you should consider talking with your ally via chat first before moving a unit of his/hers.
• Mind the order in which your opponent spawned Thorns. Destroying a Thorn also destroys all Thorns spawned from it. You can save Wits by observing the replay carefully.
• Similarly, if you deploy Thorns then protect them accordingly to prevent your opponent from starting a chain reaction.
• To effectively deploy Special Units, you should save up enough Wits to buff them with a Medic, position them, build your defensive accordingly or prepare an offense. Just spawning them is very risky.

Unit Management

• Keep expensive units like Snipers and Heavies alive as long as possible by using a Medic.
• Keeping general track of your opponents movement and units will give you an idea of what is possible for them and what is waiting in the Fog of War for you. They have similar resources as you have.
• You cannot move or see through enemy units and vice versa. It can be handy to form walls with your units on specific maps to prevent your opponent from running or looking past your defenses.
• You can tap enemy units during your turn to see their attack range and movement range. This enables you to sneak units past your enemy or plan ambushes. Note that units can see across pits but not move over them.
• Your units can indeed move backwards. Taking a Soldier or Heavy back to heal it with a Medic might be advantageous to the alternative of building a new one and take 3 turns to move it across the map.
• Sacrificing a Runner to see what your opponent is setting up can be quite helpful to plan your defense.
• Don't underestimate the Medic. 1 Wit to buff a unit can really make a difference, especially with Runners and Snipers.
• Positioning a Medic next to a Spawn Space allows you to buff newly built units without having to move your Medic around all the time.

Miscellaneous

• You can watch the replay of a running game at any time to pick up your thoughts and strategies or learn about enemy units in the Fog of War.
• Learn from your losses by watching replays and keep at it. The Fog of War is removed in the replay of a finished game, so you can watch your opponent set up his strategy.
• Experiment and be creative to find your own style.
• Play a few Pass'n'Play games against yourself to familiarize yourself with mechanics like 'line of sight' and 'movement range' with barricades and pits. This can also help you understand the special units (Bombshell, Mobi, Scrambler).
• The starting army of your opponent is always mirror-inverted to your own. This allows you to anticipate what lies in the Fog of War to a certain extent.
• If you can not stop an attack from your opponent, you can force him to spend his Wits somewhere else to buy you some time to gather Wits or rearrange your units.
• Your base has 5 HP which are a manageable asset just like anything else. Letting someone pummel you with a Runner for a turn or two while you press a strategic advantage is often a good idea. Don't over-react to having your base lose points.
  

These tips are brought to you by:

• Alvendor
• ArtNJ
• Harti
• Josuecuervo
• Kamikaze28
• Mowmail
• Onofre's Arm
• QuantumApocalypse
• Temp22
• theFATangel
• TheQwertiest
• Wiesnhendl
  

Hail to the admin who made this thread sticky!

[knighthalo123]

wats wits? and can medics rez?

[Kamikaze28]

(07-05-2012 02:40 AM)knighthalo123 Wrote:  wats wits? and can medics rez?

Wits are your resource in Outwitters. You get 5 per turn no matter what, but there are Bonus Spaces on every map which will give you 1 additional Wit per turn each if you control it. But beware, your enemy can steal these Bonus Spaces from you!

Your question about Medics and their ability to resurrect requires a little more explanation about the death mechanic in Outwitters.
You are probably familiar with the concept that units whose HP (hit points) have been reduced to 0 remain on the field unless an enemy steps on them or you end your turn without resurrecting them (basically the Hero Academy model). This is not the case in Outwitters. Once your enemy reduces the HP of one of your units to 0, that unit explodes immediately and is gone.
Medics are only capable to heal friendly units to their maximum health +1. As an example: a Soldier has a maximum health of 3 (that's what he'll spawn with) - if a Medic heals a Soldier, that Soldier will then have 4 HP. Healing a Soldier with 4 HP is not possible.

[knighthalo123]

oh i see, maybe u could have a new team with rez

[phrenikos]

Thanks for this, interesting and useful tips.

[Kamikaze28]

I have added some tips (marked with New) to the list and would like to encourage you to participate in this thread or via PM. Don't be shy ;-)

[ArtNJ]

Hi all! I am not quite as good as some of the beta testers listed as contributors, but due to an artifact of my participation in the beta test I automatically started in Clever league, where I have started 23-1. So while I am no grandmaster, I plainly know something about noob stomping

I have two tips for you:

(1) In addition to "wits" -- your available action points and unit purchasing points -- there is a second resource that you spend in Outwitters. Lets call them "spawns" since they have no official name. On several maps, you only have one spawn site, and thus can only spawn one unit a turn, while on some maps you have two. Because spawns are limited, if you can get numerically ahead on units you can often stay numerically ahead on units, which with proper strategy and patience, can sometimes be converted into a decisive advantage. This is particularly true on maps with one spawn per side;

(2) In my 24 games, I have purchased super units 3 or 4 times. Conversely, I have won maybe 8 or 9 games purely because a new player purchased a super unit unwisely. They ARE powerful and can win you games, and many of the stronger players use them more often than I do, BUT my advice to you as you start your journey is this: buy super-units VERY cautiously at first. Think twice, then think again. The Bombshell is a particularly bad idea to buy for your first time in a League game, since if you dont understand exactly how it works you are going to waste wits. Test the Bombshell in either pass and play or a random game.

[Kamikaze28]

I added your first tip to the list and your name to the contributors. Your second tip was already on the list.

[ArtNJ]

New tips:

(1) if you capture a bonus wit square, you do NOT get a bonus wit at the start of the very next turn. Rather, the square becomes "controlled" and changes color at the start of your next turn, and you will get the bonus wit thereafter;

(2) Mobi, the Adorables special unit can [cannot??] teleport allied units;

(3) The Bombshell can do one and only transformation per turn, from mobile to armored artillery form, or vice versa, and cannot fire on the same turn that it transforms to armored artillery form.

I havent tested 2 yet but I was wondering about it!

[pookywb]

(07-08-2012 09:51 AM)ArtNJ Wrote:  (2) Mobi, the Adorables special unit can [cannot??] teleport allied units;

...

I havent tested 2 yet but I was wondering about it!

It would appear you can. The allied units have the swallow icon over them.