A strategy guide from Happypuppy / Reprinted by Saboteur (Home)
The Eagle is interested in exactly one thing: air superiority. The Eagle does the minimum groundwork required in order to produce airplanes and defend his air production facilities. Everything else is just icing on the cake.
Eagles, in general, win huge once they perfect their technique. There are some serious drawbacks to putting 100+ air units into play. However on very large maps, Eagles dominate entirely. Even the most dedicated Porcupine or Octopus might want to switch to an Eagle strategy on 20 x 20 or larger maps.
The good points about Eagles come mainly in mobility and all that comes with it. Planes, even slow ones, are the fastest things on the map besides a few underpowered scout units. That means the Eagle player can respond to threats and project power more rapidly. A group of gunships in the right time and the right place can devastate an enemy column and prompt a bout of cursing from most opponents.
Next, with a small sacrifice force, planes can at least get a good view of an enemy base. While they will get chewed up by a good air defense ring, Level 2 fighters will live long enough in enemy airspace to at least get a look into an opponent's base. This is more than can be said for anything but the most overwhelming ground assault force trying to get in on a Porc.
Eagles also tend to get visuals on the whole map and identify enemy positions before anyone else. With their rabid focus on getting planes in the air, they normally will have scouted the whole map in about the time more ground-oriented players are getting their first air units up. And often by the time their slower opposition are managing to get airborne, the Eagle has enough fighters on patrol to maul opponents long before they can field enough high-level planes to even venture outside the confines of their own base's air-defense ring.
The bad points to Eagles are few, but serious. First, planes aren't as powerful as ground forces. While that is hard to say right after a group of 10 gunships have eaten half of your base, the right group of Level 2 Kbots would have done the job a lot quicker. Under most conditions, 10 Fidos will eat a base more rapidly than 10 gunships.
Powerful planes are produced less rapidly than ground forces, and in a nasty corollary, construction aircraft build things less rapidly. Since the really serious Eagle minimizes his number of ground forces, and in more extreme cases never builds ground forces at all, Eagles need to double up on construction aircraft in order to equal the building rates of their mud-bound brethren.
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Well, the answer is pretty much as simple as asking the question. Build planes. Build lots of planes. If you are really serious about being an Eagle among Eagles, don't ever build a ground vehicle at all. As a matter of a fact, it should annoy you quite a bit that your Commander doesn't have wings.
Eagles don't build just one airfield, they build at least three Level 2s and have them continuously cranking out new aircraft. In order to provide adequate base defense, the Eagle will have to build some ground defenses backed up with lots of patrolling planes on patrol. As an Eagle, you should maintain a force of about 100 air units.
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There are a few things to keep in mind when you are going to stick to the high road. First, you need to break eggs in order to win. Planes get chewed up on a regular basis. Make sure you don't neglect to put up at least one Level 2 aircraft plant for each type of plane you are going to be using on a regular basis. In most cases, that means one plant for fighters and another for gunships. You probably want to put up at least one more to produce construction aircraft or to augment your gunship and fighter production.
Make sure you assign multiple construction units to assist your air production facilities. This is covered in more detail later in the Production section.
The biggest plus to being an Eagle is the ability to take out one or more buildings in the enemy camp at will. In order to stop 50+ planes from at least getting some damage done means your opponent must become the most serious of Porcupines. A favorite tactic of serious Eagles is to take out an opponent's missile defense system and them immediately hit him with a couple of nuclear missiles.
As a cheap trick at the start of a game, Eagles can build a transport or two and go Commander hunting. This involves flying your transports around and trying to find an enemy Commander out and about without enough air cover. Pick up the enemy Commander and run your transport right next to some enemy defensive emplacement. When the transport dies, so does the enemy Commander, either depriving the enemy of a powerful unit or defeating the foul evil-doer altogether, depending on the game setting.
Also note that when you get to the levels of the preset missions that give you Level 2 aircraft plants, becoming an Eagle will in most cases assure a quick and painless win.
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