The Artly, well, it’s really the Artillery, but once again shortened to fit. The first and cheapest indirect unit you’ll ever use. It isn’t too fast, but it still travels on treads which gives it more movement flexibility than it’s bigger brother, the rocket.Indirect units are used differently than direct units. They can either move or shoot in one turn, not both. They can also only fire at a distance. As such, it is extremely important to block enemy access to your indirects since they simply can’t defend themselves once an enemy direct is attacking them. On the other hand, they won’t take any counter damage and are great to use to defend some other units.

Indeed, you can often afford a meatshield and an indirect unit when your opponent can afford a tank unit. Use to your advantage the fact that a cheap meatshield is something for which most players will sacrifice their costly tank units. Simply put, indirect units can deal incredible damage to most units and you’ll even scare away Md tanks with some intelligently positioned artillery.

As a final note, it is good to realize that the artillery unit is always useful. Despite having lower range than a rocket, you can afford 2 artillery and 3 infantry with the cost of a rocket. That’s more meatshielding, more capturing, and if you must, you’ll take down that rocket with one artillery while the other one is sacrificed. That, and the artillery has superior defense. They are quite valuable.

Always keep in mind, though, Artillery units are extremely weak. They can’t take a hit at all; Recon units deal considerable damage to them. They should never be deployed without support or at least decent terrain cover.

The greatness of the Artillery unit lies in it’s cheap cost and ease to deploy. A great unit to use in both defense and offense.