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Help
Note: you are recommended to also see the FAQ
and the Forums - in particular the
Tips forum.
Overview
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Army of Earth is a team strategy game.
There may be between 2 and 6 teams and up to several hundred
players.
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The goal of the game is to defeat the
other teams by destroying their bases. They in turn will be trying to
destroy your base, so you must also defend and develop your own base. When
your team is defeated, all other teams score points, and you are
assigned to another team. The game ends when one team remains.
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It features drop-in/drop-out gameplay. You can join any
server or configure and host your own. Note that during the early stage of
Beta testing you will only be able to play in official servers hosted by
Fundictive.
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Your base is made up of a number of buildings of different
types. You are provided with a few buildings at the start of the
game and may subsequently build at any location. However, undefended buildings "out in
the open" are likely to be quickly destroyed by opposing teams.
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Buildings, players, explosions, damage, and HUD
objects in the game are all colored according to team color.
Players
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The player representation is shown in the accompanying
image.
On the left side you can see the turret.
The green band in the middle is the health indicator.
Here the player is at 100% health. At low health the band appears black.
Player health points is server configurable.
This player presently belongs to the Orange team, but was
originally on the Purple team, as indicated by the top part of the
avatar.
This player is named CodeMonkey and is presently ranked
93 out of all ranked players worldwide. |
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Buildings
The buildings presently available are listed here. The numbering
matches the image below. You can see similar information ingame when using the
Build dialog (click the "Build" button).
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Cannon - a defensive weapon
that fires projectiles at nearby enemy players.
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Laser - a defensive weapon that
destroys nearby enemy projectiles.
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Power Plant - provides power to other
buildings. Without power, buildings do not function. All buildings have a
moving component, so you can see which buildings are not powered. Note that
buildings also do not function when severely damaged.
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Repairer - repairs nearby
damaged buildings and players. Buildings are repaired as first priority.
Note that the Repairer can repair itself, as long as it is powered. Note
also that on some Servers, Repairers will not repair humans; this is a
server setting.
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Radar - provides radar coverage
for a fixed radius. To reveal the entire map you would need several radar
buildings. It is important to have at least one radar because you can click
on the radar display for convenient movement.
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Respawner - players always
respawn at the nearest functioning Respawner (for their team). If there is no Respawner,
the player will respawn at a random location on the map, and will also lose any
Credits - so it is important to always have at least one functioning Respawner.
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Mine - harvests metals from the
earth and provides Credits, which are distributed among your team. Generally
you should build
Mines on the golden patches of ground, which are richest in the important
metals. Note that Mining is a server setting, and may be disabled on any
particular server.
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Teleporter - teleports player to a random map
location. Enter the teleporter to be teleported.
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Summoner - calls a Bot to the Summoner location. Use
Summoners to promote an assault on an enemy base, or to support construction
of an outpost. Summoners are indestructible digital constructs and are
generally only visible to your team. They self-destruct after a period of
inactivity. Note that the Summoner is the only building that may be
constructed during War of Attrition.
The green band in the vertical center of each building is a
health indicator. When this is totally black, the building is destroyed. Note
that you may heal your team's buildings by shooting at them.
Buildings may be placed in any clear area. There is a global
limit (server-configurable) on the number of buildings that can be created. The
Build dialog shows this limit and the current global building tally. When the
building limit is reached, a War of Attrition is automatically invoked (see
below).

Controls
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Left mouse button - set a
movement destination for the location indicated by the crosshairs. A
vertical white cylinder marks the destination point.
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Right mouse button - fire a
projectile at
the location indicated by the crosshairs.
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Spacebar - stop moving.
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A/D - look left/right. You can also use the
left/right arrow keys. Alternatively, you can look left or right by moving
the crosshairs to the far left or right edge of the screen.
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C - toggle camera view. A "Sky Camera" is provided in
addition to the first-person camera.
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Enter - bring up an editbox for
sending text to all players. Press Enter again
to send the message.
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Shift - bring up an editbox for
sending text to your team only. Press Enter to
send the message.
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P - bring up an editbox for
sending text to one particular designated player. Press Enter to
send the message.
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Tab - switch to the next player list format. You can
display basic or detailed lists of all human players, or of just the players
on your team. You can also hide the player list completely.
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F5 - take a full screenshot.
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F6 - take a screenshot of just the 3D scene; do not
include the GUI and 2D elements.
The most important screen button is "Build"
which allows you to build any building that you can afford. It is built as near
as possible to your present player location. You can also use the B key
to bring up or dismiss the Build dialog.
Screenshots
The screenshots taken with the F5 and F6 function keys are in
BMP format and are saved into a screenshots subdirectory of the Application Data directory where Army of Earth
is installed.
A console command is provided for opening this location; press
F3 to bring up the console, and type screenshots as the command. Press F3
again to hide the console.
When taking a screenshot, you'll see a pause and then hear a beep if the screenshot
was successfully taken.
HUD
The ingame HUD (Heads Up Display) comprises the following
elements. The numbering matches the image below.
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Menu buttons - Buttons: described below.
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Chat / announcements area - Chat messages and minor announcements show here.
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Points - Your current points in this game.
In ranked games, points affect your Rating and Rank. You may also see
"Session Points" shown below this, which is simply all the points you have
earned in the current play session (i.e. since you started up the game).
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Time remaining -
The time remaining in the game. Note that most games end naturally with a
victorious team before the time
limit runs out.
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Credits - Your
money, which you can use to purchase buildings, or transfer to other
players on your team.
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Performance indicator - Shows your framerate, the framerate of the server (sfps), and the ping to that server
(in ms).
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Team and player count - Shows how many teams remain, and how many players are present,
including Bots.
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Defeated teams - A tombstone symbol shows for each
team that has been defeated. The number on the tombstone shows the position
achieved. For example, in a 6-team game the first team defeated is numbered
"6".
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Score indicator - A
pie-chart showing the relative base strengths of the remaining teams. Base
strength is computed as the sum of credits spent on a teams remaining
buildings. The score indicator is sorted clockwise on base strength. Note that you can
hover the cursor over a team's slice to see the list of players on that
team.
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Power indicator - This shows your team's current power supply (the colored bar) and
demand (the white outline). When supply is insufficient (i.e. supply is less than
demand), the indicator will
flash and one or more team buildings will not be functional.
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Health indicator - Your player's health.
When your health reaches zero, you die and are queued for respawn.
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Shots remaining - Your ammunition supply auto-regenerates over time. It is best to
conserve your shots! Note that left-clicking to move also costs a shot.
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Music indicator - The status of the live radio feed. You may configure music in the options
dialog.
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Major announcements - Important announcements are
shown mid-screen; such as when a team is defeated.
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Radar - This shows
whenever you have at least one powered radar building. You can click
anywhere on the radar to set a movement destination. Note that human
teammates (as opposed to Bot teammates) blink on the radar indicator.
Please note that HUD elements such as the health indicator,
power indicator, Points value and Credits value are all colored according to
your current team color. Look at these elements if you are unsure which team you
are on.
The Player List shows below the Score Indicator. It is not shown
in this image. Press the Tab key to step through the different Player List
views.

The menu buttons at the top left of the screen are:
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Quit - Quit back to the lobby area.
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Minimize - Minimize the game to the taskbar. This also
disables audio.
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Settings - Access the settings (i.e. options).
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Help - Shows a single screen summarizing objectives and
controls, as well as a button linking to this help page. You can also access
this screen with the F1 function key.
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Change Team - Only visible with the "Free-Team" mode (see
below). During Intermission, this brings up a dialog allowing you to select the
team you wish to play on.
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Transfer - Use this to transfer credits to your
teammates. This can help your team win!
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Build - Build one of the buildings described earlier. The
build screen also displays an image of each building and summarizes its purpose
(when you hover over the corresponding button). You can also bring up the build
dialog by pressing the "b" key.
Economy
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Near the top right of the screen you can see how many Credits
you have. You can use these to purchase buildings (click the
"Build" button) or transfer to other players (click the "Transfer" button).
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Whenever a team is defeated, that team's credits are
distributed among the players on the remaining teams.
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You also receive credits periodically from your team's Mine
buildings.
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You will sometimes receive donations from Bots, if they have
Credits to spare.
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If you respawn and your team does not have a functioning Respawner
building, you will lose all your credits.
Damage
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Building and player health are indicated by a green band in
the vertical center of the building / player. Bright green indicates full
health; black indicates zero health.
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Construct Repairer buildings to repair your team's damaged buildings
and players. Note that the ability of Repairers to repair players is a
Server setting, and may be disabled.
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Note that buildings do not function when severely damaged.
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If you fire your weapon at a team member or team building,
it will heal rather than damage.
Team Defeat
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When the last building owned by your team is destroyed, your
team is defeated. All your team's Credits are reassigned to the other teams,
and all players score points; your team scores negative points. You are then randomly reassigned to
one of the remaining teams. Consequently, you remain active throughout the
entire game, and you can still score points by helping your new team to
defeat the remaining teams.
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The top part of each player's avatar shows his original
team color.
Teaming Modes
Several teaming modes are supported:
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Auto-Team - This is the standard teaming mode.
Players are teamed randomly, but with numeric balancing. New players are
generally assigned to either the smallest team, or to the weakest team if
all teams are the same size. However, players are never assigned to a team
that is in critical condition (i.e. very likely to be soon defeated).
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Free-Team - This mode gives players the option to change
to the team of their choice, during Intermission (the interval between games).
With Free-Teaming, players are only ever re-assigned when their team is
defeated. Free-Teaming allows participating players to determine the exact team
assignments. Use the "Change Team" button during Intermission.
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Co-op - This teaming mode places all human players onto
the same team. If the human team is defeated, all humans are assigned to a
different team. This mode is suitable for players who prefer co-operative play.
It is also suitable for new players who are not ready to play competitively
against experienced players.
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Co-op Extreme - This is a more challenging co-op team
mode, in which all the non-human teams are allied against the human team.
War of Attrition
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When no teams are defeated for a certain amount of time, the
game is considered to be in stalemate, and War of Attrition is declared.
This simply means that no further buildings may be created, with the
exception of the Summoner. This will tend
to quickly resolve the stalemate.
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War of Attrition is also declared if the building limit is
reached.
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War of Attrition deactivates when a team is
defeated.
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A countdown timer shows before War of Attrition commences.
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War of Attrition is server-configurable; it may be
customized or even disabled.
Points
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Your points are shown near the top left of the screen.
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You score points only when a team
(base) is destroyed. If
your team is defeated, you will be randomly reassigned to another team, so
you will always be active, and will always be motivated to fight for the
team you are playing on (because you still have the opportunity to score
points, by destroying the remaining teams).
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Players who started out on the undefeated team - the last team standing -
will consequently score the most points.
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Scoring is scaled to the number of players present, and to the skill levels of
the participating players (via Elo-based calculations).
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Human players affect scoring much more than Bots; your best
opportunity for ranking up is to play with many human players.
Rating and Rank
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Games can be ranked or unranked. This is a server setting.
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At the end of each ranked game,
Points are reported for each player and added to your
Rating value. Player ranks are recalculated once a day, based on your
current Rating.
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Points are reported for all players who participated in
a game; leaving a game early because it is not going well will only hurt
your Rating and Rank. It is always best to do your best and play the game to
completion. It is also considered unsportsmanlike to abandon a game without
good reason.
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Rank is displayed in several places: on the player lists, in text messaging, and in the 3D view when a
player is in view and nearby. Ratings are shown only on the
leaderboard.
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The lower the number, the better the Rank. Rank #1 is World
Rank Leader.
Music
How to Win
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Army of Earth is a team
strategy game. Teams that work together will usually defeat those that do
not. You will need to coordinate and communicate strategy and resources
among your team members.
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High Rank is only earned by winning many more games than you
lose. Therefore the best strategy is to listen to and
learn from players who outrank you. This will provide you with the best
opportunity to improve your own rank.
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Personal glory is reflected only by Rank, and Rank depends
purely on your team's performance.
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Team assignments are (generally) random. It is up to you to become a
good player and to lead your team to victory.
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During Beta we plan to add support for Clans.
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When the leading team is very large, smaller teams are
recommended to verbally ally against the strong team.
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Remember: Rank well, learn to lead,
and Army of Earth will find you.
Child Safety
The Army of Earth installer allows you to install the game with
some restrictions that you may find suitable for younger players:
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No ability to send or receive chat messages.
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Live Internet music is disabled.
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Links to the forums are removed.
Army of Earth is installed separately on separate Windows user
accounts. Hence, you can install the game for another player on a separate
Windows user account on the same computer.
Copyright © 2007-2008, Fundictive LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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