Sky Menace: Strategy Guide

TopHat's Sky Menace Guide

Preface
Sky Menace (SM) is a strategy that thrives on air power, speed and rushing. It prospers in either rich income zones or with cheap countries in high funded games. It's an expensive strategy all-around, but has no problem maintaing a steady income in accordance to the following.

What follows will cover basics and advanced tips, buying units, attacking neutrals flawlessly, the correct upgrades to purchase as well as the countries that are best for Sky Menace. (5k, 10k, 15k)

Basic Tips:
1) Use bombers to attack cities, with 1 land unit to capture. Preferably an infantry.
2) Air transports are buffed and much cheaper, use them wisely to transport land units.
3) Pick a country in a rich income zone (West Europe, USA, China) or pick a cheap country in a a high funded game. For ex: picking Ukraine: a cheap country, in a 10k game leaves you with tons of cash to expand quickly.
4)Use infantry and militia to defend cities. Use whichever one is more cost-effective in the given situation.
5) Bombers are also useful for defending, especially if you're stuck and need more defence.
6) Use stealths for surprise attacks or to break walls.
7) Don't buy too many stealths; they're expensive. Only buy them in large quantities if you have a very good income. They work best in world games.

Advanced Tips:
1) Expand to as many cities as possible, especially the ones with high income.
2) When expanding, don't be too focussed on getting the Whole Country bonus, expanding to every city in your path isn't good for Sky Menace.
3) Expand to mainly capitals. Sky Menace is about speed and rushing the enemy. Expand to mainly capitals and keep pressuring and isolating the enemy. Once you've established a base of land, then expand to the other cities to maximize your income.
4) Don't just make one big stack, make several little ones to cover more land, more extremities and more cities. Once you declare you want to cap your enemy, unite all your little stacks into one big stack to crush the enemy!
5) Walls are extremely important with Sky Menace. Since SM is a rushing strategy, this means your back frontiers are left weak.Therefore, you need to wall every single capital in your territory.
6) Walling your stacks is crucial. Why? Because SM isn't the best defensive strategy so you'll always want to move your stacks to different locations. Your enemy knows this, so if you don't wall your stack your enemy will simply wait a few movements and attack the city your stack was just in and capture that city, after your stack left for another city. So always wall your stacks to defend them, and the city they're in for the next turn.
7) The only time it's safe to not wall a stack is if your enemy can't reach it on that turn.
8) Your air transports are buffed on range, capacity and cost, use them to your advantage!
9) Use the "Recycle Air Transports" tactic. Which means don't attack cities with an air transport just yet. Drop the first batch of units, and pick up more! Watch out for range fails, so practice, practice, practice!
10) Finally, use "Transport Laterals". Move units with an air transport to another air transport, then to another air transport etc.... You can travel the whole world by doing this! This tactic is very useful for sending maximum amounts of units to given targets.

Expansion against militia neutrals:
1 bomber + 1 infantry beats 1 militia
2 bombers + 1 infantry beats 2 militias
2 bombers +1 infantry beats 3 militias
3 bombers + 1 infantry beats 4 militias
3 bombers + 1 or 2 infantry beats 5 militias
4 bombers + 1 infantry beats 6 militias
5 bombers + 1 infantry beats 7 militias
5 or 6 bombers + 1 infantry beats 8 militias

Expansion against infantry neutrals:
2 bombers + 1 infantry beats 1 infantry
3 bombers + 1 infantry beats 2 infantries
4 bombers + 1 infantry beats 3 infantries
5 bombers + 1 infantry beats 4 infantries
6 bombers + 1 infantry beats 5 infantries
7 bombers + 1 infantry beats 6 infantries
8 bombers + 1 infantry beats 7 infantries
9 bombers + 1 infantry beats 8 infantries

Sky Menace Styles

The Zerg Rush
The Zerg rush consists of attacking the neutral countries your enemy will, except with extreme force causing immediate casualties to your enemy. For ex: If you're Ukraine and your enemy is Germany. A typical German player expands to Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia etc. Attack those countries with absolute power and capture them instead of your enemy. In order to capture them, you'll have to send more attacking power than him. So send lots!

The Unpredictable Rush
The Unpredictable Rush is self-explanatory in itself. Basically, it means rushing the enemy where he least expects it. For ex: Break his capital wall, with several stacks in various cities nearby. Your enemy will assume you're going to cap him next turn. But no, instead, attack his small cities, the total equivalent to that of his capital. He will have sent all his defence to his capital while you deteriorate his other cities. This is just one example, keep diversifying yourself with this tactic and make sure to be creative, innovative and as unpredictable as possible!

Cap Rush: Expand then Unite
The Cap Rush is simple: Expand, attack your enemy's capital with all your units and capture it on reinforcements. Which means, expand normally, break your enemy's capital wall 2 turns before reinforcements, (Meaning turns 3, 7, 11, 15, 19...) so that you can attack 1 turn before reinforcements. (4, 8, 12, 16, 20...) Meaning you will capture his capital on reinforcements for maximum damage. How can you perfect this? The trick is covering as much ground as possible and all extremities, isolating your opponent. It's also about your expansion. You need to have as many sources (cities) nearby to be able to send absolutely everything you've got at your enemy's capital. With what you've already read above in this guide, you have all the tools to perform this. Expand to as many cities as possible, maintain a good income, follow the criterias of the "Cap Rush" and you'll succeed.


Upgrades for Sky Menace
- Air Transport Capacity 1
- Air Transport Capacity 2
- General: Air Main Attack
- General: Movement Range
- Faster General 1
- Faster General 2
- Naval Transport Capacity
- Safer Transportation
- Air Stealth
- Lift The Fog 1
- Lift The Fog 2

15k countries for Sky Menace
- Ukraine
- Germany
- France
- South Korea
- All USA
- All China
- Mexico
- Turkey

10k countries for Sky Menace
- Ukraine
- Spain
- Sweden
- South Korea
- China North
- China Northeast
- USA: Midwest
- USA: Mountain
- USA: Northeast
- Russia: Volga
-Russia: Central
- Austria
- Poland
- Greece
- Belarus
- Serbia

5k countries for Sky Menace
- Austria
- Serbia
- Belarus
- North Korea
- Portugal
- Ireland
- Belgium

Note that for cities defended by 1-2 milita they should be captured by infantry.

2 infantry beat 1 milita
4 infantry beat 2 milita

Kirjutas Cthulhu, 18.03.2017 at 01:47

The Zerg Rush
The Zerg rush consists of attacking the neutral countries your enemy will, except with extreme force causing immediate casualties to your enemy. For ex: If you're Ukraine and your enemy is Germany. A typical German player expands to Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia etc. Attack those countries with absolute power and capture them instead of your enemy. In order to capture them, you'll have to send more attacking power than him. So send lots!

sounds like a proper suicidal ukraine to me!

also add that wfing is crucial for rushes (very much so with sm)

Kirjutas LukeTan, 26.03.2017 at 00:54

Note that for cities defended by 1-2 milita they should be captured by infantry.

2 infantry beat 1 milita
4 infantry beat 2 milita

Kirjutas Cthulhu, 18.03.2017 at 01:47

The Zerg Rush
The Zerg rush consists of attacking the neutral countries your enemy will, except with extreme force causing immediate casualties to your enemy. For ex: If you're Ukraine and your enemy is Germany. A typical German player expands to Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia etc. Attack those countries with absolute power and capture them instead of your enemy. In order to capture them, you'll have to send more attacking power than him. So send lots!

sounds like a proper suicidal ukraine to me!

also add that wfing is crucial for rushes (very much so with sm)

depends if you want to maximise troop numbers, 2 bomber 2/3 inf gets at most 1 or maybe 2 bombers killed.

Due to the -1 attack/-2 critical nerf on infantry, generally not recommended using them for attacks unless you need to maximize first turn expansion.
Depending on your game, it is sometimes advisable to take advantage of the stack bonus and bring a full transport. If you send three militia to wall the attacked city, the other three will generally save you a bomber. After 5 turns, you can expect to have an extra 4 or 5 bombers in your stack more than if you only attacked with a single militia.

Agreed Brian. Especially when developing land away from enemy harassment. No chance of expensive transports getting killed, and you don't need to wall on the turn you land. I try to develop land with as few bombers as possible.
-12 militia will take a city with 8 neutral militia. Use 2 transports and jump from city to city.
-18 militia will take a city with 8 neutral infantry. Use 3 transports. Cheapest way, for me, to develop India. Only need to buy a few militia each turn.